#in the way steve is wags alt

[kiwibirdlafayette]

(this is so dumb, but your newest art reminded me of this convo. love to hear more about mianite pete if you’ve got more lore bits btw!!)

LMIUDUYDEGFB OMG YES canon now. this is canon it was foreshadowing all along I cannot believe this it is not dumb at all m8 im CACKLING

as for lore tidbits 👀 i gotchu i needed an excuse to infodump hehee

Pete began life as a sentient humanoid slime entity, think like cSlimecicle in DSMP where he just kind of learned from observing the champions around him and he gets pretty damn good at a lot of things

When the peeps go to Ruxomar in S2, Pete sort of emerges from the ground and is found by Mianite, who is impressed with his knowledge of stuff from survival to mechanics/tech, and grants him with a similar power to what FyreUK got from Athar, making him a funky little wizard

so he's sort of a mianitee as well bc from what ive learned from the cPete enjoyers is that he values fairness and rules, or basically the facets of order

His skin is like a combination of human and slime, so hes not like perpetually slimy but he's very bouncy (think like perma jump boost)

I like the idea of all wizards in Mianite drawing their magic from the essence of something out of nature (Firez has magma, KillerTom shadows, Brute maybe the sunlight, Wag is plasma/star matter), so in Pete's case, its the swamp biome, like mushrooms, swampland foliage, etc. Fits bc swamp is overworld, which is Mia's domain

Part of his abilities include the ability to procure slimeballs without his wizard powers, good for redstoners bc boom instant sticky piston

he mostly uses his wizard powers for tech related builds moreso then big structures which is how him and Gaines get along so well

his house is filled with a bunch of little slime cubes, whom are all his helpers (mayhaps the Jerrys jordan saw in mianite S1?)

It feels like it would make the most sense for this Pete and the Pete in VH to exist as separate versions of the character (also because I already like the VHPete backstory and design I made a month or so ago) and that could be even funnier if there was a X33n variant in the S1 Mianite universe as well with another name (as its supposed to be Gaines as the X33n in VH) and he technically befriends two multiversal versions of the same guy because I could see him and Gaines gettin along if they hung out. I could also see him being friends with Rupert, who seemed like he was the weapons/tech expert on Capsize's crew, Pete could find some cool way of reinventing somethin im willin to bet

And kind of on the flip side off my tags in the original post, another interpretation of his character could be to put him exclusively in Aitheaca as Wag and Steve's alt in that universe with the same sort of backstory (where Mianite still gave him his powers, but he'd be closer to William and Merina) and powers, but instead of being a more passive figure who's just here to do his own thing and be a god at stuff, is like a Gaines figure to Mianite helping the cause against Ianite and Flash- idk, nothing's really set it stone of course

But yee that's what I've got so far!

[syndianites]

I've always wondered what the criteria for being an 'alt' in mianite was.

Like, assuming it was a thought-out thing and not just a fun gimmick of being in an alternate reality, how is it determined who your alt is?

There's a few ways you can look at it:

They are literally you in a different universe- like literally exactly who you are but put in a different situation

They are someone who fills the same *role* as you, being more a metaphorical alternate

They are who, essentially, took your place in the world. It was either you existed OR they existed, not both

They are just the mirror of yourself, so to speak. Someone very similar to you and having the same core features, but having different... aspects? Like, if you were loyal and brave, but generally rather shy, your alternate would /also/ be loyal and brave, but could be easy and outgoing.

The reason I tend to ponder this a lot with Mianite as a series is because it very much feels like it could go any way, /except/ the person being a literal you from a different universe.

And I know that may be an unpopular look at it, but if you compare our most popular alt- Mot, to Tom, aside from the name and being partially mob-fied, what do they have in common as people? Their backgrounds are very different (which is to be expected), their personalities are very different, their choices and decisions can often conflict with each other, and so on and so forth.

In my head, someone literally being a different 'you' would either entail them having the same exact name (both having been "Tom" or "Mot" at some point) or looking nigh identical (though the Tom/Mot example is a little harder considering their different mob afflictions).

I suppose what I'm trying to say, is that when I think of a "traditional" alternative self, I think of the exact same person who was just put in a different situation. Like if Tom, for example, had been put in a situation where his family had all died and he got infected, etc etc. But even when in different situations you find that people tend to look the same, or has similar personality traits, or even have a similar way of thinking. Of course, we don't get to see a lot of alt interactions because Mot, for the majority of the time we see him, is the only "known" alt (since we didn't know Steve was supposed to be a Wag alt).

So how would I, personally, define alts in the Mianite universe? Honestly, I'm not sure. For a while I went on the idea that it was someone who was in "your role" in this other universe. Mot and Tom are both champions of Dianite, Spark and Jordan are both important devotees to Ianite, etc etc, but can we use that to explain Jeriah and Alyssa, or even Wag and Steve?

I think I sit right between the "role" aspect of alts and the "mirror" aspect. They almost beg the same question, "what is this person's defining traits," but in different ways. Tom and Mot are both heavily loyal, Tom to his friends and even the previous Dianite, who he stuck with even when he was THE bad guy, and Mot to Alyssa and Dianite. Spark and Jordan are both very devoted and- crafty? I don't know what word I'd use, but Spark created a whole town, Jordan had the Jerry's tree, how Jordan was very invested in any study he came across and how Spark was very invested in spreading the word of Ianite, etc. From what snippets we get, Sonja and Alyssa are both playful at heart and kind, though we don't get to see too much about Alyssa. I'd make a stab at what Jeriah is like but we basically never see him. Wag and Steve are both rather straightforward and not afraid to cause damage to get what they want done- and also have the same taste in women (lol).

You could argue that this is because they fill the same "roles" as each other, but you could also argue that it's because the characters share the same "base traits." It's like the chicken and the egg argument- does the role require the traits, or do the traits lead to the role? If two people are alts of each other, who came first? Who is the "original," discounting the fact that we enter the world of Mianite through Tiem Reester and are biased into believing they are the originals.

The people who throw this most into question are the gods themselves. They literally fill the same roles, have the same names, have very similar characteristics, and are basically the poster-children to the "traditional" idea of alternate versions of yourself. But if you stripped away everything- the godhood, the names, the aspects of life they embody- what do they have in common? The gods present that "what-if" scenario that happens when you look into alternate realities far better than the "human" people we see. Are both Dianite's stubborn and confident? Are both Mianite's self-assured and believe themselves to always be in the right? Are both Ianite's dedicated to walking the line between aspects, trying to keep a grip on the happenings of their universe and the fluctuations of the Void?

Mianite, as a series, gives us /so many things/ to think about but never a solid resolution to these ideas because it was never meant to. It was a story made up on the fly, a bridge being built as we walked along it. And I think that's why it sticks in my mind so much compared to other series that broach similar ideas. There are so many open-ended questions that /we/ get to solve, to debate, to consider, that it just sticks with you because it is so, so hard to leave something "unfinished."

Anyway, rant over, please go back to your regularly scheduled activities

[licantropa]

I don’t take Martha and Capsize to be alts. Personally, I think that’s a boring way to go about their characters.

To be fair, I also think the same about Steve and Wag canonically being alts.

In general the topic of what makes someone an alt is a bit headache inducing. They aren’t the complete opposites but also they’re a reflection of you but also they aren’t you in the way that it matters to be you but also their biggest strength is your biggest flaw but also…you know what I mean?

Maybe I just don’t get it.

[politicaltheatre]

Alternative Reality

Here we are, ten days in. This hasn’t exactly been a revolutionary ten days by any measure. In many ways, it’s been quite the opposite, with the new administration doing exactly what we expected them to do and thousands of Americans joining in protest not to destroy our Constitution but to protect it.

With a series of reactionary and regressive executive orders announced with bold claims and bald-faced lies, President Trump has not so much declared war on the rights of more than half of the men, women, and children he is supposed to represent as declared victory over them, a victory over both the rights and the people. Trump’s defensive surrogates, usually Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, advisor Kellyanne Conway, and the ever excitable Press Secretary Sean Spicer, have spent most of their ten days trying to spin lies into political gold. They failed, of course, but only if you think about it.

If you think about it, of course, these are not members of Trump’s actual inner circle. They are presented to us that way, being his three principle defenders and attack dogs facing the media, but their collective job is to take things said and done by Trump and those whispering in his ear and sell it, to make people accept it. To achieve this, they have to seem important, the few trusted to handle the message and the press.

That, however, would just be another lie, just like the lie told about Trump’s inauguration speech. It was written not by Trump but by “senior advisors” Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who, along with son-in-law and scourge of rent-regulated tenants Jared Kushner, make up the actual inner circle (at least two of them, by the way, are registered to vote in two states, Kushner in the Trump-referenced states of New York and New Jersey, because, you know, voter fraud).

Trump does not send them out to spin hate and lies on the hated Sunday morning shows. That’s work for the help. Priebus, Conway, and Spicer are well paid help, and flattered to think that they matter, but they are disposable.

Trump may go through a lot of them. At the rate he’s going, he’ll burn them out before the end of the year. While Priebus has had practice bullshitting his way through talk shows on behalf of the party, Conway, who clearly has a temper, is on the inside for the first time and her threats have gone from veiled to blunt to vicious. Spicer looked like he was ready to go postal day one.

Conway’s hilariously failed attempt to slip “alternative facts” past NBC’s Chuck Todd may have spawned a thousand memes, but like Spicer’s crazed, meme-inducing non-press conference that she was trying to spin, it was actually a perfect example of the new normal, a right wing regime spinning anything and everything, trying to change the definition of a fact in an attempt to remove accountability from anything and everything they do.

It was a pleasure watching Todd and his counterparts on CBS and ABC’s Sunday shows reject Conway’s attempts to widen if not destroy the definition of a fact. All that was missing was Dikembe Mutumbo wagging his finger. Even Fox News’ Chris Wallace got in on the fun that morning, flat out refusing to dismiss the evidence of his own eyes when Priebus tried to inflate Trump’s inauguration numbers. No no no, Reince. No.

What Conway, Priebus, and poor, out of his depth Spicer have been trying to exploit is the ever expanding world of options, specifically those coming through social media. We no longer have to accept an official story coming from a few, well-connected sources, which is good, but as with any technological change we no longer have any standards. We’re in a period of chaos, in which what will be accepted is being pushed to its limits. Those who may profit will, and those who must make up the difference between the old standards and whatever may be the new are learning that they must only after the fact.

And this change is a fact. All we have to do is try to remember what standards used to be, or that they even existed. As in any industry, the shock of this change is in no small part the fault of those long-entrenched media outlets that allowed themselves to get too cozy with those in power for so long. For decades, success in journalism was allowed to be equated with access. There was a way of doing things and it hadn’t changed. Working for a big paper or a big network was considered success in itself. The time it took to do things hadn’t changed. The budgets hadn’t changed. Many journalists, among them the best and worst, were left on the outside looking in. No more.

That world is gone, not because of Donald Trump’s first ten days or the ongoing attempts by his people to reduce the standards of journalism to a single, compliant “Yes”, but because the attention of the country and the world are finally and firmly on Trump and his allies in Russia Washington and on Wall Street. The details, for those opposing Trump as much as for those supporting him, have now become unimportant. Trump’s (or should we say Steve Bannon’s?) intentions are clear and out in the open for all to see. And why not? They won, didn’t they?

Bannon, who helped rebrand white supremacists as the “Alt Right”, has been emboldened by Trump’s election, and who could blame him? He’s been writing Trump’s speeches and had his hand in most if not all of the language in Trump’s week of executive orders and press releases. Trump has effectively anointed him Deputy President, a man with more power than either Vice President Mike Pence or Chief of Staff Priebus, who, despite joining Bannon on the National Security Council, seems to have had his duties reduced to defending the latest Trump or Bannon gaffe on Sunday morning news shows.

Bannon’s rise explains both the viciousness and the exclusions from Trump’s travel ban. That the order banning Muslims was neither enforceable nor included countries with wealthy potential donors isn’t a surprise. It, like most of the executive orders this past week, was about shock value. It, like the order to build a wall that Mexico will never pay for, was about delivering racist, misogynist scapegoating dressed up as firm, rational policy positions. Justification, not governance, is the point. Not having to be accountable to others is the goal.

Bannon isn’t just playing for domestic audiences, either. It was obviously no accident that radical right wing politicians convened in Koblenz the day after Trump’s inauguration. They, too, dress in business suits and speak in terms of firm, rational, responsible policy, but their appeals are no different than their Nazi and Fascist forebears: fear outsiders, isolate yourselves from others, take pride in your European heritage, let the weak fend for themselves, and, oh yes, punish dissent.

Bannon’s demand that the press “keep its mouth shut” echoed that, which, not surprisingly, was then echoed by Trump (“You’re the puppet!”) and those who, like Bannon, want to spread the myth that the media failed not because it did not ask the right questions of those who were in power but because they ignored the righteous anger of those who were not.

No, the anger on display is truly Bannon’s, and Trump’s, and that of anyone in the right wing. For them, this is war. Everything is war. Everything always is war. In this mindset, lies are weapons, a means to an end. The intensity and aggression of their denials and demands is not merely for show; yes, there is a great deal of performance in it, but they know they are lying and resent having to defend the lies. To defend a lie is to to be made to be accountable to others, which truly offends them.

The good news, for us, is the reaction these reactionary moves have already inspired. The protests of the past two weekends threaten to become a regular thing, if not in intensity then in practice. The volatility Bannon (and Trump) surely hoped would splinter resistance seems to be having the opposite effect. Businesses that appear to support or even profit from Trump’s actions are facing a backlash; companies that vocally reject those actions are being embraced. People who previously might have ignored each other are now standing shoulder to shoulder. The president of Mexico, Enrique Peña Nieto, defied Trump’s demand that his country pay for an offensive, racist wall has become an international hero. Hell, he’s a hero in the United States (seriously, make that vow from Trump the punchline it deserves to be). 

The Dutch are stepping up on behalf of the international right to birth control. The Germans, French, and others in Europe loudly condemned Trump’s thinly veiled scapegoating of Muslims. Oh, and congressional Democrats seem to be showing some backbone, certainly more than their Republican counterparts.

The key in the coming days, weeks, and years, even more than protesting what Trump, Bannon, Conway, and the rest do, is to make them have to defend their lies. As long as they can hold onto the lie that they are telling the truth, they will continue to act as though they have no resistance. They clearly do. That's a fact, and the fact of it needs to be fought for just as hard as anything.

- Daniel Ward