#something something about recognition

[ourladyofsxrrows]

[starsonablackboard]

it's fascinating to me that every member of the party pre- and during loops treats siffrin with some flavour of alienation. like, bear with me. this post is going to sound like im here to give a hot take that the party are Bad Friends, Actually, but i promise you that's not what i mean. you're with me? okay. let's go.

isa idolises him (in the having a crush on someone type of way).

mira views them almost as a book character (the whole "the aura! the mystique!" conversation).

odile calls them a child to their face multiple times.

bonnie is... well, bonnie. kid is coping how they manage.

in the very beginning of the journey we have isa and mira, who, out of all five, are the most familiar to eachother. they're from the same country, they both actively follow the change religion, they both occupy (or occupied, in isa's case) well-respected positions in society, they're very close in age and i would assume socioeconomic statuses. they share a lot personality wise, too. they're both anxious about not being enough, about not changing enough, they're both open and emotional and affectionate, they even both like romance novels! they are very in eachother's comfort zones. they are very understandable to eachother.

then there's odile. she is as different as it gets – she's ka buan (and well half vaugardian but nobody knows that), she's old, she has different religios beliefs and different history with body craft, she's confident, self-secure, reserved, sarcastic and at times cold and makes it very apparent that she's not into openly displayed affection. but also, she is actively choosing to be seen this way. she is comfortable with being perceived like this.

and then, there's siffrin. a mysterious traveler with mysterious past that doesn't like to be touched and never talks about his feelings. where are they from? what he believes? what did he do prior? why did they join them? noone knows. situation kinda similar to odile's, but kicker is, we know siffrin does not want to be seen this way.

mira, being a somewhat sheltered not very experienced young adult (she's from dormont with population less than a regular highschool class, and has been living in the house for some past years) with more familiarity with books than with real world obviously views them more as a cool character than a person. and i can't blame her! siffrin doesn't help her view them any differently either.

isa i assume catches feeling almost immideately (the whole journey takes less than a year, sif is second to last to join and we know that isa's crush has been going for months) and it's universally hard to not idolise and idealise the person you're having a crush on, so even tho isa is more experienced than mira, i imagine he fails to see siffrin as a whole person too.

odile out of all of them grinds my own personal gears the most. i love you, old wise lady, but oh god. the amount of times she refers to the party and in particular siffrin as kids or children is sure something. and the thing with kids is that you generally don't view them as equals, so, no "seeing siffrin as a person that he is" there either.

that's general dynamics. now to what interactions we actually see in game:

odile mocks siffrin for being forgetful. every time siffrin forgets a word, everyone reacts as if they don't remember that vaugardian isn't siffrin's native language. both isa and mira behave patronisingly towards them (jokingly, but still). the whole party spends some time comparing siffrin to a wild animal in the dictionary conversation, mira saying "what a perfect analogy" with stars in her eyes. one time siffrin desides to open up and tell them about stars, they mock him. when he kills that sadness more violently than usual, they all look at him as if he murdered a baby (i still don't really get why btw. they've been fighting side to side for months). the whole ghost event. ohhh ghost event my beloved.

all of these, for me, point to a very deep yet unacknowledged disconnect between siffrin and the rest of the party. the not-understanding. the unfamiliarity. the alienation. siffrin is other even in their own little ragtag bunch of misfits.

now AM I SAYING that means that the party is bad actually?? no!!! for every interaction i named there's multiple others with them being supportive and warm to sif. also, siffrin, famously, is very bad at telling when something bothers them, so noone whould even know if they were doing anything that upset him. and, on top of everything else, i think it's very natural for a party of very different people traveling in a lot of hurry and discomfort and plain mortal danger for months to develop a bond where "i would die for you, my siblings in arms, but i also will poke fun at your religion when it starts to sound too impossible for my worldview. what do you mean stars are there in the daytime too? don't be silly". i actually really appreciate their friendships being imperfect, because it's so much more interesting and thought provoking this way. like, I've been thinking about this for weeks.

and also, this specific type of imperfection plays into the core themes of siffrin's character. to be welcomed, adored, loved, even, but not understood. not recognised. not known. and to not even try to explain untill the world is literally ending.

[allyriadayne]

Hook, line and sinker: Larys and Alicent // Larys and Aegon

[deoidesign]

For my birthday... read my webcomic! It's literally free! (Unless you want books. Those are not free)

It's beautiful, it's gentle, it's funny, they're canonically t4t and gay... And it's about time traveling vampires solving supernatural mysteries!

I've spent thousands of hours writing and drawing it, and it's really good! I'm not biased!

It's on hiatus right now and coming back in 2 months, so it's the perfect time to get caught up

[to-rise-above-monsters]

just saw a bertholdt hoover hate blog made in the year of our lord 2025. what are we doing. you wanted to start the new year with having beef with a character that has been dead and gone for almost a decade.

[too-many-rooks]

Reminds me of someone.

Istvan Toth + respecting Henry during 'The Storm'

(+making these I had a little moment of realisation because. Does Istvan even know Henry's fucking name? He and Erik usually refer to him in relation to Radzig, but I can't remember if they ever actually call him Henry?

[momentomori24]

Something something about the way Eva could only ever see herself as a victim even in situations where she wasn't, whereas Grace never allowed herself to be a victim even in situations where she was. Something about the way Eva plays the role of "the bullied" and "nerd" whereas Grace plays the role of "the bully" and "mean girl". Something about how Grace proudly flaunts her name and talent, demanding those around her to not forget it when Eva shamefully tries to hide her true title in any way she can, even when it comes to the detriment of herself and others. Something about Eva being a liar and someone clings to calmness and composure where Grace remains ever explosive and defensive yet utterly honest to a fault. Someone about how Eva clings to the idea of having no agency and how Grace fights for agency and keeps it tight within her stubborn grip. Something about how Eva aligned herself and submitted to the whims and wills of a man in a position of power over her, whereas Grace chose to punch him down in unrelenting defiance and reject his ideals all together from the start. Something about that subservience getting Eva killed, and something about that defiance allowing Grace to survive.

[toastytrusty]

hickey wanting nothing more than to be seen and recognized yet going the entire voyage pretending to be someone he wasn't. even the status he tries to procure through the naval command hierarchy and then in his mutiny is still Not His. and in the end when he knows everyone around him is about to die he finally admits to not being who he says he is because he Needs Them To Know. he needs to be seen and recognized in his true self so that he can finally personally claim everything he has done here as his. something about his want vs need being a want to persuade and convince vs a need to be seen and recognized. he creates a fabrication of his identity to better sell himself to the people around him and get them to like admire respect him whatever it is, to make the voyage easier and bolster his ego. but that's so contrary to the whole reason he went on the voyage, which was to prove himself and gain some self respect in a world that he feels has mistreated him. but he didn't even go on the voyage as himself, and abandoned his past self and the mistreatment he faced when he made the decision to pretend to be someone else. he put ease and whatever illusion he held about a career navy man being more respectable than some rando on his first voyage over authenticity and genuine self betterment. he's so terribly self destructive and weak willed and insecure and draws the worst out of himself by being too afraid to ever be true to himself

[almondpiglet]

draw… what makes you happy… guhh… draw what makes… urk… you happy… draw what…

[someone-else-entirely]

Okay I just reblogged a post about Carol Holiday and now I am having Thoughts (definitely thoughts that have been articulated by other people, but even so):

-When Noelle made the paper snowflakes, Carol brought them to her home (despite Noelle wanting her to bring them to work). -It's repeatedly emphasized that Carol keeps important things at home, so Carol clearly considered her daughter's creations to be important. She CARES about her daughter... -...But then she encased the snowflakes in metal, and made Noelle cry. -By trying so hard to hold onto the snowflakes forever - preventing them from ever getting torn up or damaged - she only ended up negating their original purpose and fundamentally warping their very nature, to the point where the sight became a source of distress. -This is 100% definitely going to come back in a BIG way re: Dess.

[charleemoon]

daddy will in the sense of hannibal craving punishment from a father who never knew his darkness, to feel retribution for the ways in which he was born and daddy hannibal in the sense of will being spoiled and coddled by a man who never provided more than necessary, who looked not at him but through him. do you guys understand

[otherbug]

i think near would fit in the library of babel

[yvotyrants]

im sorry, i paid no attention to this scene but even i got the signficance of brushing your teeth with a water bottle while staring at an addict huffing on the street

[plaguedoctormemes]

I always thought plague doctors were cool but I’d say what really tipped me over and began my hyperfixation was ラットが死んだ / Ratto ga Shinda “The Rat Died” by P.I.N.A. But specifically the version sung by SymaG (one of my favorite singers, period), the revised version which i linked below.

It’s a fantastic japanese vocaloid song based on The Plague by Albert Camus, with an equally banger music video after the lyrics were revised. I listened to the original first (which it’s kind of fucking mind-boggling how I first heard the original version and saw this music video over a decade ago…)

It started off as a small interest and then a full-blown hyperfixation in 2018 which lead to this blog in the same year (or january of 2019, i forget). It’s also hitting me just now that this blog is over five years old…

What got you into your plague doctor interest?

[isolasea]

im a facilities coordinator at a big tech company and when i tell you the sales people i work with the most are obsessed with severance. it's become the office watch along. "it's just like us! it's just like our office! this reminds me of our company lol!" and everyone laughs because what else can you do. last week i was shoving new desks around the floor and one of them goes "can we move our desks so they're like on severence?"

and i'm almost baffled at first. "you want your desks to be a looping panopticon of watching each other all the time?"

and he smiles and goes "well yeah!"

and you know i kinda want to let them. why not. we work for [a top 5 richest company in the world], we're aware that regardless of desk arrangement we're already there. why not have some fun in the pit. why not play pretend with your work friends.

[pagesofkenna]

this chapter made me so emo about Keiichi. I still don't really get what his deal is but for him to start out as a bully and a petty rival, and then this??

boy loves his hometown so much that he literally has no greater ambition than to live and die in it. meanwhile his brother has his sights on the NHL; Rou is aiming for the Olympics. is it heartwarming that Keiichi treasures his home so much that he can't see anything beyond it, or sad that he has hundreds of photos of the same factory smokestack that he's already planning to die staring at??

I don't know. but Noda could have easily made Keiichi the hotshot rival who thinks he deserves the best in the world, but instead he made Keiichi a big fish dreaming only of his small pond.

(from Dogsred ch. 28)