#is this incoherent enough for you?

[your-royal-momoness]

Zuko, hungover: please tell me I’m imagining that I claimed I was the king of all the turtleducks

Sokka: I would, but then I’d be lying to the King of All Turtleducks

[uhbasicallyjustmilex]

miles kane saying “you cunt”

[thecottagecorebisexuals]

Marikata power couple ending where Catarina inherits the duchy. She's married to Maria (they legalized gay marriage in Sorcier because too many nobles wanted to make Catarina happy). Catarina isn't good at doing paperwork and logistics but Maria is so she takes care of that while Catarina helps her manage the duchy as she can. Catarina takes care of anything that requires interacting with (charming) people. Which is a lot.

Since old man Luigi isn't planning to retire (or die) soon, they have plenty of time to prepare.

"Where's keith in this scenario?" You might ask. Well, he married Geordo and now he resides in the palace as prince consort...

[akimojo]

people love to use ffxiii’s messy development as a reason to completely shit on the game but honestly the fact they managed to sneak in so many little details in the gameplay in a way that reflects the characters and story despite all the miscommunication between the dev sections is just impressive to me

[rude-harmonixer]

I was originally going to write on Twitter but character limits are too much of a bother so here I am. This will probably be very messy but I'm dealing with media that probably 10 people are familiar with, so... Whatever!

I've recently found this site: https://nervetower.neocities.org/analysis.html

It has a bunch of translations and essays on the game Baroque, originally released on the Sega Saturn.

This specific bit of info has made me OBSESSED with thinking about the game.

Sure the game was literally written in burst of inspiration by drawing tarot cards because the writers had a deadline and writer's block at the same time, and the protagonist being canonically trans was only in a draft for the prequel material, but the game is surprisingly consistent with its themes and the symbolism can still be read through a trans lens.

And because it's not confirmed and ambiguous, the protagonist can be read through multiple gender povs.

But like, why is this such a big deal? Well, Baroque and its prequel material just so happens to have one of the most incredible anti-bigotry narratives I've ever seen in a game. Specifically anti-ableism and anti-eugenics, among probably some questioning of organized religion and how corporations use it to further alienate the public into a cycle of oppression towards marginalized people. etc.

The protagonist is mass produced and manipulated by the Archangel to "purify" whatever he deems should be "purified", using guilt (the Christians/Catholics favorite thing) to do so as the protagonist is made to not remember anything besides their immense guilt over something.

For the game to progress the protag must regain their memories and find out they're a copy of who knows how many other copies, a human made into a product basically, made to feel special because they won't be distorted by their desperate delusions to escape a world destroyed by corporate greed like all the rest and have the power to "purify" things, when in reality they're just emotionally and genetically manipulated into being that.

A perfect pawn.

Now where is the trans symbolism? Well, aside from how little bodily autonomy the protagonist has, here's where things really get interesting:

In Baroque, God is presented as a woman. Before the Great Heat (aka apocalypse), God's Sense Spheres (her omnipresence, transferring data like the world is a body) assured that no great distortion would come to the reality humanity lived in, God would feel pain and know there was a wound to heal. Then the Archangel, who's really just some scientist, started fucking with the population's mental health on purpose because he wanted to kill God and create his own perfect little world. That's the short summary anyway.

At one point, with a lot of brainwashing using God's screams of pain, he created the Order of Malkuth to help him. But later the members woke up from the brainwashing and organized a desperate attempt to stop the Archangel: they would fuse Koriel number 12 (presented as a boy) with God so she could communicate in data that humans could understand. What they didn't expect however is that Koriel 12 had their own problems, and with Archangel interrupting the fusion, those problems were very amplified.

Koriel 12's guilt over being alive and God's suffering made shit hit the fan for good with the Great Heat.

And that's how the protagonist becomes mute and receives the power of God and anim- I mean, "purification".

The game begins and despite Koriel and God being now two parts of the same being, the Archangel tells Koriel to go to the bottom of the Nerve Tower, where the "Mad God" is basically imprisoned, and "purify" her with a rifle (with ammo made from the embodiment of her pain hormones).

The Archangel is literally making Koriel kill a part of themselves that's already literally buried deep into a mind tower that goes down instead of up but still has the image of a tower instead of a hole. He's basically forcing Koriel to bury the closet with them inside it because the closet isn't enough apparently.

Koriel also can't speak for themselves anymore but their thoughts can be read by the Horned Woman, which she just says out loud without explaining anything and unless you're thinking about it you won't even recognize those are "your" thoughts being spoken by another person.

Jumping ahead, when Koriel gets to the bottom of the tower, you can either do what the Archangel tells you or can just walk towards God and unite with her.

When you do this after some dying and finding out, you'll receive the true ending, in which it is made clear that while it is in a state at which it's harming everyone, the "distortion" is actually the natural way of the world, everyone needs to cope at least a little to survive, the Archangel's eugenicist campaign was the greater problem here, not the people "distorted" into representations of their suffering and coping mechanisms by his actions.

This is primarily focused on ableism and particularly the stigma around mental health.

With a trans reading, it forms a bridge so it can also just mean bigotry in general too.

Why? Well, since the 70s or something, trans people basically have to be diagnosed with a disorder to be granted legal access to transition, that's even truer for Japan, which literally puts it on paper as a disorder. And overall, transphobia and ableism go very hand in hand.

This game is now the closest I've come across to finding a game that's secretly about trans people too like The Matrix.

And this has greatly developed the brain worms 👍

[smallest-moon]

what if vash was a god, a benevolent god loved by many, who worked hard everyday to listen and attend to everyone's prayers and kept spreading himself thinner and thinner but it was okay as long as his people were safe right?

then something horrible inevitably happens and no matter what vash attempts to do, he cannot fix this! the people turn against him, where was their god? wasn't he supposed to protect them? why couldn't he save them?

useless, useless, u s e l e s s

he falls from divinity but he's not a common man, he is something else... something lower, something despicable. destruction and devastation followed him like a shadow no matter where he went and despite all this he never lost his kindness and heart

he falls from divinity but he's not a common man, he is something else... he is more human than humans could ever be

what if wolfwood was dangerous and deranged... his early life being of pain and misery, the only thing he clings on to is the orphanage. the place he was raised and helped raise many like him. he does not believe in gods because if they truly exist then why do they suffer so much? how many more children are going to turn out like him? bitter, cold and resentful

he is always kind to the children there, he never ever let's them see his true self they already suffered enough.. he wouldn't hesitate to burn the world to the ground but he'd sooner set himself on fire if it meant he would keep the children from harm

so it is no surprise that when calamity strikes and the orphanage gets razed to the ground, that in wolfwood's final living moments his grief, pain and rage that burn hot in his heart don't allow him to cross into the afterlife and he turns into a vengeful ghost

he is weak but quickly grows strong. he chases the transgressors like a vengeful god, for if the gods themselves do not destroy their pathetic scummy existence, do not make them pay the consequences for their actions then wolfwood would take care of it himself... it doesn't take long for people to grow fearful of The punisher

what if a too-much-of-a-human divine being met with a former human whose heart stopped beating turning him into something cruel? what if the faithless man that kept praying to protect what he loved despite not believing in gods met a broken god crushed by guilt and love who was trying to attone for his own sins with one act of kindness at a time?

[suncaptor]

we got to talk more about how disabling "picky eating" (sensory issues / arfid) is. like I can be in totally normal situations surrounded by food and not eat for days just because I can only eat a small like. less than 1 percent of food out there.

[corfisers]

i really need to finish this one day

[kenobihater]

the fact that sco's watching blake through the window when blake's standing in the yard in the very spot where sco watches him get stabbed to death. sco is unable to reach him in the yard (unable to help). all he can do is watch

[kyrup]

hoping it doesn't come to this but i'm mentally preparing myself for the ending where the stoats have to choose between allowing the Blue to keep existing or getting rid of it so that the First Stoats situation can never happen again. but. getting rid of the Blue gets rid of the only thing keeping Tula and Ava alive(?). BUT. keeping it around threatens the balance of the entire forest. possibly the world??

[coquelicoq]

you guys would not believe the multitudes i contain. on the one hand i found myself thinking today "pachelbel's canon fucks. like, severely." on the other hand my 17yo cousin thinks i am "really cool" (he doesn't know about my pachelbel's canon opinions). i tried to go up the down escalator at the airport and didn't realize for SEVERAL steps, then tripped on my suitcase at the bottom and exclaimed "LORD ALMIGHTY!" in the middle of a large crowd of people who had watched this happen. a guy at the airport today saw me writing a crossword and came over to talk to my mom about it because apparently he had been on a flight with us a few days ago and saw me doing the same thing (he asked her if i was "coding". on graph paper, bro??). i wore a long, full-skirted floral dress to a wedding and did a little photo shoot of me manspreading and looking disaffected under a neon sign reading "let's party" and my entire family is obsessed with it. i brought a card and a pen to the wedding and made all of my relatives (including the bride lol) sign it for my grandmother who was unable to attend, but i was also super rude to my mom and had to apologize a few hours later after i had calmed down. a baby puked on me and it made my day. my sister said i have "really good taste in music" (she also doesn't know about my pachelbel's canon opinions) but also i am apparently the person who introduced her to janelle monáe, so point to me. the 17yo who thinks i'm cool seemed reluctant to stop talking to me at the wedding because he was afraid we would not see each other again to which i should have been like "dude do we not have telephones? and the internet?? and are we not both members of this family that gets together every few years???" but instead i was like "i know your address! i'll send you a card!" (he wants to be a dentist so i'm now congratulating myself for having saved every "i got my teeth cleaned!" sticker i was ever given as a child, because now i can send them to him and give him all of my very important anthropomorphized tooth clip art opinions.) walt whitman whomst.

[itspileofgoodthings]

Porfiry telling Raskolnikov that at least he was honest and in one bound took the furthest leap to put his theory to the test of actual action——

[spoonyruncible]

So, I finally tried The Flavor. It was genuinely bizarre, because there is a taste but it's not really anything that's meaningful. It is like drinking "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

Which, actually, brings me to my conclusion of why it is like this. It's genuinely kind of interesting. There are no real disparate elements between the two beverages, nothing that would expressly taste bad if mixed. But, also, cranberry and cucumber aren't really good together, or bad, just weird. Then there's the makeup of it all. Salt, sugar, and alcohol. I genuinely think that when these things combine in this way they actually do sort of short out your brain and get NULL as a response. Because you do taste something, it's just nothing.

My primary reaction to it was that it was heavy. Not the way cream or oil is heavy, but the way a small weight in your mouth would be heavy. My brain prioritized the mass of The Flavor before it could work out what it tasted like.

Like I said, this is "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" of drinks. There is nothing wrong with the actual composition of the beverage, but it is incoherent nonsense the second it has to stand up to actual review.

[technicalknockout]

Pov you’re stuck in the subconcious and there’s a Big Reveal happening without you

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Hello!

I stumbled upon your blog when searching for anything about Hiron Ennes’ book Leech and ur blog is so nice! I love Leech so so much and am hoping to find folks to talk about it with because I’ve been obsessed with it since I read it over year ago. I hope this isn’t too weird of an ask but it’s just such an excellent book!

hello and welcome, and thanks for your kind words!! it's delightful to find another LEECH enthusiast in the wild--what a deeply fucked up weird little book that has my whole heart!

i was actually shuffling books around last weekend to make space for what i'll read this year (i'm in a temporary living situation, so most of my library is in storage), and i decided to leave LEECH unboxed so i can reread it this fall. i'm obsessed with the POV and the voice and i'm VERY looking forward to a tear-it-apart reread now that i know some of what is going on. what a neat book!!

[suncaptor]

people sanctimoniously trying to explain US politics looking down or spreading vitriol towards anti-Biden people like you're not going to convince people upset about a genocide during an election year of a sitting president that they're just too stupid or evil to partake in harm reduction the way you want them to and advocate for the president arming Israel actively lmao.