#who was interested in trying to rebuild society

[circular-8]

You know, it always bugs me when a show loses the actor of their main character (for whatever reason) the show casts a brand new person as a brand new main character and then acts like the audience should be interested in the show focusing on this new character instead of stories involving the characters that have been in the show for years.

Anyway, shout out to The Walking Dead for not doing that.

[slavonicrhapsody]

honestly i think the most that can be assumed from hornsent wearing the caterpillar mask is that hes okay with the jarring process, since it has such heavy connections to bonny village+the gaols, plus i think itd make an interesting parallel to marika where you have these two traumatized characters who lost everything to horrific acts of violence whod them go on to condone OTHER horrific acts of violence just because it happened to The Other Guy (hornsent losing his family to the crusade, being okay with jarring shamans cuz its an important ritual of his people and he desperately struggles to retain any last connection he can to them; marika losing her family to jarring, sending messmer to crusade against the hornsent without caring about his methods just so shed have her vengeance)

theres even something to be drawn about marika from how hornsents quest ends ("if miquellas redemption would quell the desire for revenge i feel, then i dont think i want him to redeem anything after all" <-poorly summarized dialogue lmao) wherein, combined with the shaman village lore, we can draw the parallel that marika didnt *want* her thirst for vengeance slaked, because much like how killing messmer didnt bring back any of hornsents people, becoming a god was equally disatisfying for marika. in much the same way marika tramples over corpses to become a god, hornsent metaphorically walks over messmers corpse to try and take his place as crusader, this time against the people of the erdtree.

it also paints messmer in a REALLY interesting light. hornsent is so consumed by revenge he doesnt focus on anything else beyond a nostalgic reminiscence. miquellas goal, as told to him, is to give the hornsent a chance at peace and to rebuild, and hornsent would rather sacrifice that to feed his own flames of vengeance. similarly we can assume marika never told messmer the location of bonny village or the gaols because theyre untouched by the crusade, despite definitely knowing where they are, and the gaols indicate that even after bonny village stopped sending jars, they remained in use by utilizing prisoners (potentially even prisoners of war+deserting soldiers) for at least SOME time before we find them. indicating that also, to marika, it was the death that was important. the fear, and the killing, and the slaughter. messmer by contrast sets up a clinic for the jarred shamans, is capable of being convinced against crusading and burning certain areas such as salza arguing in favor of sparing rauh, and has a library dedicated to the people hes genociding that stores information about their culture and anatomy (judging by the models he has hanging in the storeroom).

messmer, who places himself symbolically between the hornsent and marika to spare her the shame of being the face of the crusade, committing atrocities out of sympathy and love for his mother, vs hornsent who desires to commit atrocities out of an overwhelming need for revenge, vs marika who DID commit atrocities for revenge and desired them to never stop even if it meant losing the things she cared about (despite initially showering messmer with blessings and affection and special physiks, eventually she stopped saying anything at all about the war without grace or honor, and only miquellas prying reveals it all again, including the son she loved and left behind)

like UGHHHH i LOVEEE when characters have foils and you can use the patchwork of lore to help fill in the blanks about everyone theyre connected to

oh Hornsent and Marika are ABSOLUTELY meant to be parallels… both are on revenge quests where their goal is to keep killing and killing until every single person related to their enemy is dead. Marika has Messmer burn the Hornsent cities to the ground in vengeance for her murdered village, but most of these people were civilians, farmers… familes and their children who had probably never even seen a jar — their only crime was to be part of the same society.

Hornsent, though he despises Marika and Messmer for burning his family to death, does exactly the same thing that she did: he vows to kill Marika and ALL her kin, and he goes after us even if we helped him simply because we are one of Marika’s chosen. It doesn’t matter that we gave him scorpion stew and that I’m sure deep down he wants to like us, we were always marked for death in his eyes just because of who we are.

This is exactly the purpose of the caterpillar mask… feeling any guilt or regret about his actions would get in the way of Hornsent’s sworn mission. Hornsent having this mask implies that he had some knowledge of what the potentates did and sought out their attire for their violent rituals as a touchstone for his own violent quest. A lot of people act as if the jarring process was something the entire hornsent population explicitly believed in and supported, and it’s true that the practice is basically built into the society’s entire prison system, but the ritual slaughter and jar worship are implied to be esoteric practices carried out only by specific groups of people… I highly doubt this is a practice that every Hornsent knows of intimately and enthusiastically supports. And we know some did explicitly oppose the jar rituals; the greater potentate who wrote the cookbooks we find was disgusted by the practices of his village. So Hornsent finding and wearing the potentate mask is like him knowingly embracing the darkest, most violent parts of his society in order to use them against their enemies.

Messmer’s position in this story really is interesting because with Hornsent’s quest, he’s set up to be like his “final boss,” the guy who cruelly slaughtered his people and called them savages. But when we actually get to Messmer, he’s so much more subdued then we’d have thought, like an apathetic shell of his former self… he doesn’t even verbally acknowledge Hornsent’s presence, like he means nothing to him. The war against the Hornsent was never Messmer’s war, it was Marika’s. Messmer carried out this violence in vengeance for his mother and her village, but when Marika stops speaking to him altogether, the war starts to feel more and more like pointless violence, like he’s just going through the motions.

I won’t go so far as to say that Messmer had much sympathy for the Hornsent he was murdering; the specimen storehouse was more of a project said to be created by his fire knights who were uncomfortable about letting an entire society’s knowledge go up in flames (but chose to burn it anyway). but he absolutely has a different attitude than his mother… he feels more like her tool… used up and discarded

and lol no worries

[mettywiththenotes]

I know the general conclusion people are coming to is "wow so nothing has changed the civilians haven't changed their minds nothing has changed in society" but. how many chapters has it been since the end of the war. actually a better question would be how many days/weeks has it been since the end of the war. because idk man things aren't going to change as quickly as that

You have to factor in how no one outside of Izuku, Shouto and Ochako knew about them wanting to save the villains. When the footage of the final war is inevitably shared around, the first thought probably isn't "wow they saved those bad guys" but likely just the fact that they stopped them from doing more damage meaning they can put them in jail or whatever

Even when you put that aside, society is unlikely to change in a short space of time anyway because there was the general idea that the heroes winning meant bringing things back to how they were. And bringing things back to how they were means a society that favors the good quirks and good victims over the people who are ignored and those who slip through the cracks. If they get that back, then of course things aren't going to change immediately

And in the end, they did get it back. The villains have been stopped. The heroes prevailed. Society is rebuilding as fast as possible like nothing happened. But we've been shown that the idea "things are going back to normal" is usually accompanied by the implication it may seem like that but really things will change in an inevitable way

The saviour squad as a whole (Izuku, Shouto, Ochako, Hawks) all have the potential to speak up about their experiences, prove the world/country wrong about their surface-level view of villains. Shouto and Ochako could relay their thoughts, what their intentions were, what their conclusions are now. Izuku could choose to tell everyone what he saw in Tomura, the crying child. More than that, he could do some introspection, think over his time with Tomura (USJ, mall scene, war arc and so on) and talk about his thoughts too. Hawks being one of the first of the heroes who tried and failed to save his villain is an interesting parallel to Izuku, and also shows that he could have a personal account on this too

With all this in consideration, I believe that it's not going to be a random relaying of these experiences in bits and pieces over the remaining chapters, but rather a single united action together - like their own televised interview or something. It's not like Hawks wouldn't have the power to organize it, the HC literally has the authority to put what they want in the media. Though whether that happens or not remains to be seen

But the point I'm trying to make is that this is going to take time. The whole of society isn't just going to wake up and realize the error of their ways after all of that. There has to be a beginning, a starting line, to the conclusion that maybe villains deserve something better

I say that this is going to take time, while knowing that we have only 3 chapters of the story left... and while it frustrates a lot of people, it's looking to me like this is going to be an open ending. I imagine the very last chapter will show the starting line of change. Personally I'm okay with that, I think it would be compelling. Depending on how it is set out, I don't think it would be a bad ending

Idk how exactly to end this post but... it just seems like people think that all hope is lost because the civilians didn't all collectively wake up the day after the war and change their minds, and I don't think it works that way. It will take time. I believe Hori may give the story an open ending so we are shown the starting line and in the end it will be up to us how things change specifically

[dazed-and-confused23]

Act Naturally 3

Summary: It's been a couple of days since Lucy and Cooper married, and the vault doctor is confused when he finds out that they've not consummated it yet.

Pairings: Pre-War Cooper Howard x Lucy Maclean

Warnings. None really? Smut with be on the next/final part.

Masterlist

It's been a couple of days since their marriage, and Cooper finds life in the vault... dull, to say the least. There isn't much way of entertainment, and his new job as Althetic Coach was pretty useless, leaving the ex-actor bored most days. Not that Lucy is boring, but the young woman had more duties in the vault than he did, leaving Cooper alone much of the day.

No, Lucy was an amazing, intelligent young woman who Cooper was getting to know little by little. She was raised to be a go-getter, with a can-do attitude, but he could see that there was more to just that. Lucy was kind and thoughtful in a way that few people truly were. Cooper didn't love her, but he could see himself falling for the young vault dweller.

A week passes by, and he's back in their shared home, mindlessly watching a rerun of some old-world cartoon when there is a knock on the door. He pushes himself up and answers the sliding door to find a middle-aged man on the other side with a white lab coat over his vault suit.

"Hello, Mr. Howard. I don't think we've had the pleasure of meeting yet. I'm Dr. Gallows," He introduces himself and shakes Cooper's hand when offered.

"Cooper, good to meet you," the ex-actor, "What do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

The doctor clears his throat and shoots Cooper a small grin, "Well, usually a new bride has already come to see me after the consummation of the marriage, but Lucy has yet to stop by, so I wanted to do a house call to make sure everything was good to go."

Cooper blinks at the doctor, and the casual way he brings up his sex life. Lucy hadn't made a move to try and sleep with him, and Coop had been fine with allowing her to set the pace. What did it matter if they hadn't fucked yet?

"Okay... and?"

The doctor lets out an awkward chuckle, "Well. Part of the Vault mission is to rebuild human society, but we can't do that if we don't have kids, right Mr. Howard? So I'd like for Lucy to come see me in the next couple of days, that should give the two of you please of time."

Cooper wants to protest, to immediately shut this innane bull crap down, but he stops himself. The vaults were a tight nit group, and he doubted that just he would be in trouble if he decided to deck their doctor in the face. Lucy would be part of this, too.

So, instead, the man sighs and grands the doctor a look little more friendly than a glare, "I'll see what I can do, Doc."

"Ah, splendid then! I'll see you in a couple of days!"

Cooper sneers as the other man be-pops away like nothing had happened and shuts the door quickly. He would have to talk to Lucy about this when she got home.

It's near the evening by the time his wife gets home, and Cooper welcomes Lucy with a smile and open arms, which she gratefully falls into. He holds her close and presses a quick kiss to the top of her head, "Long day, baby?"

Lucy sighs dramatically and leans back so that she can look at him, "You have no idea. Dad had me sit in on all his meetings, and then I had class to teach. No one even paid attention."

Cooper chuckles a bit and leads Lucy over to the couch, where she sits down beside him. He keeps her close, one arm curled around her back as she tells him about her day, which sounds far more interesting than anything he did today.

They are having a light dinner when Cooper brings up his visitor from earlier in the day, "Dr. Gallows came by today."

He pauses when Lucy’s face erupts in , and the fork she holds falls to the plate. He cocks a brow at her and sits back, sitting his own utensils down to give his wife his full attention. Cooper sees her swallow harshly and avoid his gaze.

"What - uhm. What did he want?"

Cooper licks his lips, fingers itching for a cigarette to occupy his hands with, and says as easy as pie, "Wondering why we haven't "consummated our marriage" yet."

Lucy's shoulders draw up to around her ears, and she slaps her hands over her face, "I'm so sorry. He wasn't being pushy, was he?"

Cooper huffed and stood from his seat, "Well, he made it quite clear that he wasn't too thrilled that we've kept him waiting. I'm not a fan of these vault rules, Darlin', so we'll make him wait as long as you want him to."

He gathers the dishes and sets them in the sink for later, and then turns back around to see his wife still slumped over the table. He frowns and mosies over, one hand dropping to her shoulder and squeezing lightly, "We'll follow your lead."

Lucy reaches up a hand and curls it around his own, her fingers squeezing hard before she lifts her head and peeks up at him through her dark bangs. Cooper thinks she looks beautiful like this.

"I want to," she begins and elaborates when he lifts a brow, her voice wavering with nerves, "to have sex with you. I was just too scared to ask."

The ex-actor scoffs and stands behind her, his other hand coming up to land on her shoulder and massage the tense muscles there. She sags under him, and Cooper bends down to press a kiss to the crown of her head. He didn't want her to feel scared or nervous around him, not when he was her husband.

"You can talk to me about anything, Sweetheart," Cooper assures his wife quietly, "I'm always in your corner, no matter what, okay?"

Lucy nods, and when she looks at him again, he catches the way her pupils blow wide and watches her red tongue sneak out to wet her lips. Arousal pools in his stomach, and his hands tighten around her shoulders.

"Can we have sex, now?"

Cooper swallows harshly and searches her gaze for any time that says Lucy might not want any of this but only sees growing excitement. He smiles at her, a slow smirk that speaks for how much he absolutely wants to have sex. He lets her go and rounds the chair, then angles her chin up to look at him with his knuckle.

"Go get ready for me then, baby."

[mimble-sparklepudding]

Springtime Symbolism OC Questions.

A little list of OC questions based on Spring Symbolism in North West European Heraldry. Obviously many of these things have different symbolic meanings in different cultures and have had different associations at different points in history - this list is intended more for diversion than serious historical analysis.

Green Leaves and Blossoms - The Promise of Renewal.

Does your OC hold onto hope for a better future? For themselves? For those they love? Or for their society?

Has your OC ever made a conscious decision to make a fresh start? Or have they even reinvented themselves completely? What did they hope to leave behind? Was it truly possible to do so?

Is your OC skilled in repairing or rebuilding what is broken or worn? Or would they sooner dispose of something and replace it with something new and (perhaps) better?

Does your OC find their moods affected by the seasons? Do they struggle more during colder and darker months? Or do they find unique pleasure in each season?

What would social or cultural renewal mean to your OC? A return to a previous golden age of freedom, tradition or peace? Or a fresh beginning for society into something new and enhanced?

Eggs and Lambs - Birth and Fertility.

Does your OC know much about the circumstances of their birth? (or creation, as the case may be) Who was present? Was it planned or expected? Was their arrival celebrated? Or resented?

Does your OC have an affinity for plants and gardens? Have they ever played an active role in harvesting crops or foraging for roots or mushrooms? Or is the actual production of the food they eat quite alien to their everyday life?

If your OC has ever given birth, was this a positive or a traumatic experience for them? If they have not or could not do so, then how much use would they be during a birth? Would they be confident in assisting? Or would they prefer to be far away from the process?

Was your OC considered to be a cute baby? Are there any pictures or keepsakes from this time in their life? If they were never a baby then what sense do they make of the helplessness and dependence of tiny babies?

Does your OC plan to have children? Or plan to have more children if they already have a child? If not, then is this because they dislike children? Or because they consider themselves unsuited to the task of parenting? Or for another reason?

Flowers and Sunshine - New Love and Romance

Would your OC be delighted to receive flowers from a partner or admirer? Or would they be slightly nonplussed - or even offended?

What would your OC consider a romantic gift or gesture if they were planning such a thing for someone? If they aren't romantically inclined themselves, then what advice would they give another person?

What would your OC wear to meet a new or prospective lover in the Springtime? If they are not interested in romance themselves, then what would they advise a friend or sibling to wear to match the season?

Does your OC's wardrobe change as the weather gets lighter and warmer? Does this impact how others see them? And is garnering certain reactions entirely intentional? If not from the wider public, then perhaps from a lover or partner?

Does your OC ever get crushes on other people? Or did they do so in their younger days? Do they remember these fondly? Or does recalling such things make them cringe?

Cleaning and Washing - Starting Anew

What old habits or negative behavioural patterns has your OC left behind? Was this something they found easy? Or did it take time and/or help from others?

Does your OC have any Springtime rituals? Either personal (spring cleaning or shopping for a new outfit for example) or traditional to their culture or society (a ritual dance or cleansing).

Does your OC need their partner or friends to hold them accountable when they are trying to make a positive change? Or do they prefer to quietly resolve to make a change and not involve anyone else in the process?

Has your OC ever burned or otherwise destroyed something that reminded them of unhappy times or experiences in their past? Was this part of an arranged event? Or something they did spontaneously or in anger?

What is a habit or behaviour that your OC wishes to modify or adopt in the future? What has held them back from making this change in the past?

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 19 Thoughts: Bad Scientist

Another really strong episode, and one with a lot to get into. Probably the densest episode yet in terms of historical context, lore content, and mystery clues. So a lot to get into and no point in any more preamble.

Spoilers for episode 19 below the cut.

Sam and Celia's chat is somewhat interesting. She's now looking into alchemy. It looks like she's looking into the exact stuff Sam was, because she's also looking into the Magnus Institute now. Darrien 2 did a world hop and the Magnus Institute scooped him up so that lead makes sense to follow. Although it's curious that she hadn't done that yet. She's continuing to push Sam to keep up that research too. Celia is pretty much always trying to pull people's strings like that. It being such a consistent character trait does bring into question how sincere any of her actions really are with the rest of the office.

Before I get into the incident proper, this is going to be a bit of a weird one. There is a lot of historical context and alchemic terminology in this one. As such I'll be quoting the show more than usual to explain and explaining who people are, what they're doing, why it's relevant, etc. Like I said, it's very dense. There are also a couple of points of interesting grammar to mention as well which would be missed without the transcripts.

The incident's format is a letter from Robert Hook to Robert Boyle who are both Fellows of the Royal Society. Which is a lot of context off the bat. So, Robert Hook was a 17th century polymath who's most well know these days for his work in microscopy with a microscope of his own design, and for his work in helping rebuild London after the Great Fire (which we'll get to). He also did a lot of work on gravity and planetary rotations which ended up being quite foundational to Newton's law of universal gravitation. He wasn't, however, an alchemist. Boyle on the other hand very much was. Widely regarded as the first modern chemist and he's most famous for The Sceptical Chymist, a work that would be hard to overstate the importance of for the field. Hook, Boyle, and Newton all overlapped a lot in a lot of ways outside of these things too, especially in fields like optics and colour theory.

They were all also Fellows of the Royal Society at this stage too. Which to give it its full name is The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. It's general goal is to promote science, offer support to scientists, and helping shape policy. It was only founded in 1660 and so hasn't been around for a very long time at the time of this incident. The Royal Society is also what's being referred to with the numerous mentions of "Good Science". In short, it's about using science for the public good and to aid in further the endeavours of other scientists to that end. So the Royal Society is probably not up to anything nefarious here. Despite the fact that Newton ends up becoming its president later in life.

Another big thing mentioned here and repeated throughout is the "Protocol". Capital P in the transcripts. So, yes, they said the thing. It's not the first time it's come up but both times it's come up it has been standalone. I don't know if I mentioned it in last time but I have a feeling that the "Magnus Protocol" isn't really a thing. There is just the Protocol and it was used against the Magnus Institute. For its full title to be the "Magnus Protocol" it'd likely have to be named after Albertus Magnus, who is a noted alchemist himself, but I think it's more likely that the Magnus Institute is named after him than the Protocol itself. The most interesting detail we get about it though is that whatever the Protocol is it was enacted against London to burn out a plague. Which would mean in this setting the Great Fire of London was deliberately set to combat the Great Plague of London.

So now we're at Newton himself. The gravity guy. But also the laws of motion guy, the calculus guy, the optics guy, and a lot of other guys guy. Of note here is that Newton was a very noted alchemist and theologian. Both fields were large parts of his full body of works. I think Newton is well known enough that I don't need to get into that though. Besides it's not the first time I've talked about him. As a quick reminder of that though Newton was Warden and Master of the Royal Mint. At the time he served in those roles the Royal Mint had moved out of the Tower of London to Royal Mint Court. Which is where the OIAR is currently located.

Okay for our first quote we have this:

It was only through the Protocol that we were spared from that Dread emission and I fear that such an act is once again required

The capitalisation there is how it appears in the transcript. Protocol we've talked about but "Dread emission" is very interesting. The capital implies that it's the name of something. Which I would wager is either one of, or the whole of, forces Lena mentioned that need to be kept in check.

Then we get to Newton's work proper with this:

he had finally perfected the work of Wilhelm Homberg to produce what he termed the Arbor Philosophorum Perfecta.

Which is very interesting for a number of reasons. Arbor Philosophorum, the Philosopher's Tree, or Diana's tree is a real thing. It's a dendritic amalgam of silver and mercury. Basically meaning it's a metal who's crystalline structure grows to resemble a tree. Wilhelm Homberg is German natural philosopher that wrote a fairly simple recipe for this process and while it's not known if Newton ever attempted it we do know he had a recipe for this. Although it's actually George Starkey's recipe which is a gold mercury amalgam instead. What's more important is that Diana's tree was thought to be a precursor to the philosopher's stone itself. So Newton has basically perfected something of similar nature to it. With some fairly fucked up results, as we'll see.

Out next quote is Latin:

de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali ne comedas in quocumque enim die comederis ex eo morte morieris

Which is Genesis 2:17, and in English (NET) it reads:

but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will surely die.

Because, as noted, Newton was a theologian too. People probably think of him as a rational scientist atheist type but back then there wasn't as much conflict between the two. He was a devout, if not exactly orthodox, Christian.

Christian or not he's playing God a little. We get to see what the fruit of his labours are and it's not looking like good science at all.

such a creature must by all natural law lack that essential and ephemeral anima that is required for such awful knowledge I tell you here Robert, it saw me and it knew me.

So this is an interesting thing to say. Anima in this context isn't the Jungian syzygy but something more akin to "spirit". The anima has a lot of overlap with the tria prima. Which I've spoken about a fair bit before but is an alchemical concept that sulfur, mercury, and salt embody three fundamental principals, but also defined human personality. Mercury is spirit and is related to concepts like morality, imagination, but most importantly for us higher reasoning. A lot of emphasis is placed on the dog's knowledge and Diana's tree, the catalyst for this transformation, is a silver mercury amalgam. So it looks like Newton found a way impart spirit onto something.

There is also this:

I propose that we enact the Protocol but limit it only to his laboratory, destroying his research and correspondence

Fun fact: the dog Newton is experimenting on is likely Diamond. Diamond has a lot of stories about him. The most important one is that he burned about 20 years worth of Newton's manuscripts.

And that's that. Quite a lot to break down as I said. But we're not quite done.

Sam talks to Alice about the computers listening to them. Which isn't the first time he's had that thought but it's nice to see him bringing it up. Alice is very Alice about it but Sam is at least trying to figure things out.

Lena and Gwen have a Lena and Gwen conversation about Lena sending Gwen to her probable doom. But Starkwall is mention again. Nothing too interesting to say on it though.

We finally get more of Colin. It's been too long. He obviously know's Freddy is listening in at this stage but what I want to focus on is the last two sentences here:

No, what I need is to not be seen. He sees too much already. Doing mummy and daddy Stasi proud, I’m sure. Not that anyone cares as long as it all balances, right? Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad…

So as I was just talking about the tria prima, here it is again. Sulfur is the soul which is emotions and desires. Which lines up fairly well with how Colin describes what too much of it would do. But this whole thing seems to tie into Lena's talk about balancing forces. Which makes a great deal of sense as the alchemical symbols for the tria prima, along with the philosopher's stone, all appear in the OIAR's logo. How Newton ties into that remains to be seen but there is a very large link there. The mention of the Stasi is also sort of interesting here. For those that don't know the Stasi are the East German secret police. Germany has come up a few times before with Freddy having German source code, Klaus being a German, and most relevant to this in the ARG the largest body of text was a usenet group about people leaving East Germany. Which then ties back into Colin as one of its member hacked the OIAR, and also seemed to be helping out jmj.

Okay, all done. Now it's time for more of the same but nerdier and unhinged.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet and Terminology Sheet

DPHW Theory: 1137 is very reasonable. Just a Weird thing that was very weird and had a little bit of mental manipulation to it which looks to be Helplessness' purview. It's also more weight on my idea that 1 is the floor with 0 being the ceiling and counting as 10. There was nothing in the supernatural element of this one that had any strong resonance with Death or Pain as concepts or themes. If 0 was the floor I'd expect to see it for this one.

CAT# Theory: CAT13 is a great a CAT#. It's exactly the sort of thing I was talking about in the essay on why it's not Person/Place/Object. The supernatural "person" here is either Newton performing the magic, or the dog that's the subject of the magic. The object is the crystal that induces the transformation. Which is a virtually identical setup to the tattoo incidents but those aren't CAT13. They're CAT3, CAT23, and CAT1. It's continuing that trend of data that you can explain in isolation but becomes incongruous when taken as a whole.

Anyone that's read most of these rambles will have heard me mention the notion of CAT# being related to the tria prima. It's something I talked about when the first couple of eps came out. Colin mentioning sulfur and mercury is a fairly overt reference to it, and Diana's tree is a silver mercury amalgam. In relation to CAT# it's always been something that felt right. What tria prima describes and how CAT# works would go hand in hand for this sort of thing. Now, I'd be a hypocrite if I clung to the idea just because it felt good. So I quickly discarded it because episodes didn't line up will with it pretty early on but it might warrant a fresh look. I might have been right but with too little data to see the pattern.

The way Colin talks about it also ties in with another idea I've floated that CAT# is about the domains of either three entities, a triple deity, three purviews multiple entities share, or that each combination is an entity that's a portion of a whole. Lena's comment about the OIAR balancing forces would obviously tie into that notion too.

R# Theory: Rank BC is about what I expected on this one. It's not something you'd think happened but it's at least backed up by a historical account of someone well known. So more weight behind it than a letter about a mass hysteria event, but still in the realms of "yeah, nah".

Header talk: Transformation (canine) -/- growth (Crystalline) is bonkers. Transformation (Canine) you would think is a Transformation that is somehow canine in nature. Transformation (Eyes) isn't just your eyes. So, if this is correctly filed, dogs have their own subsection that encompasses all of transformations that occur to dogs. Any transformation, regardless of what it does, so long as it transforms a dog would be Transformation (Canine)? Growth is fine. It grew root-like things/Diana's tree is grown. So it makes sense. Although I'm not sure it's the most compelling crosslink when it was doing the whole "know the nature of you" thing. Crystalline on the other hand is madness. Sure, Diana's tree is a crystal but it's formatted like the subsection of a crosslink. Or a sub-crosslink, I suppose. Which hasn't been implied to be possible thus far and if it is possible why don't they all include it? Surely this helps with the problem in specificity that was mentioned in the very first episode? This one feels the most like a misfile so far. No format again either.

[artbyblastweave]

So one thing that irks me about discussions of the NCR is the idea that "they're flawed because they're trying to be America again. And Being Too Much America is what caused the War" without differentiating between the vast buildup of Nuclear Weapons and Geopolitical tensions, versus, like, being a republic and having a large-scale central state.

What's your thoughts?

I think the NCR circa New Vegas is textually intended to be repeating the USA's downward spiral. They're in the process of recreating the core dynamics of pre-war America- overconsumption of resources driving imperialist expansion, capture of the government by moneyed interests, and a prolonged conflict with a peer power that's suffering under similar expand-or-die pressures- but they're constrained from a one-to-one recreation mainly by the fact that they're working with a post-apocalyptic resource base, with the scraps left over from the last people who went down this path. Peanuts compared to the Sino-American war, but likely as close to that situation as the post-war-world is logistically capable of producing.

You see bits of this from the NCR perspective all throughout the game. There Stands the Grass is propelled by projections of incipient famine in the NCR due to rapid population growth, and you see the beginnings of this in Flags of Our Foul-Ups- O'Hanaran was sent to the Army by his family to lessen their food burden. Chief Hanlon's very first line is about how the NCR is overtaxing most sources of freshwater within the core territory, and he recounts how tiny groups of settlers backed by NCR logistics were able to take and hold a well in Baja against scores of locals; IIRC there's a cut event at Camp Golf itself where you'd see NCR rangers doing the same thing to Mojave locals encroaching on their water supply. The White Wash demonstrates that the NCR's sharecropping setup in outer Vegas operates at the expense of the locals, who can only get the water they need to support their own crops via subterfuge. If you assume that Heck Gunderson's underhanded Brahmin-farming empire in Beyond the Beef is supposed to parallel the real-world problems with the sustainability of beef farming, you start to get a sense of where all of that water is going and what structural problems (Heck Gunderson) might be in the way of allocating those resources more sustainably. There are likely more examples of this storm on the horizon that I'm forgetting.

As a result of all this, there's a level on which I think introducing the Tunnelers in Lonesome Road as a dangling White-Walker style Looming Apocalyptic Reset Option hanging over the west coast was gratuitous, not because it's Avallone grinding his axe with the idea of society rebuilding, but because it's simply redundant with the political situation already depicted in the base game- If you want the NCR to have collapsed by a future installment, just establish that they weren't able to put the brakes on in time and devolved into a completely dysfunctional oligarchy that collapsed under its own weight!

(Now, as a final note, one thing preventing me from fully committing to this take is that we honestly don't have a fantastic sense of what day-to-day life looks like for the average citizen in the NCR heartland, which I feel is kind of important. Because if the textual situation is supposed to be that the resource crisis is due to misallocation due to interests capturing the government, I like that a lot better than if the situation is genuinely intended to be that there are Just Too Many Goddarn People, because that's like. Lazy and Malthusian and leads to the usual ugly conclusions pretty quickly. More and more it's looking like the upcoming Fallout TV show is leaning into the recent decline of the NCR as a plot point, so, uh, fingers crossed they stick the landing when it comes to fleshing that out?)

[txttletale]

Not a worm reader, but I am curious in which ways it understands trauma better than most media?

the core premise of worm is that it's set in a world where superpowers come from trauma--and they're also pretty explicitly deployed as a metaphor for that trauma. and this means that all the cape genre stuff also gets deployed around trauma--when every character builds up a persona and aesthetic and presentation around their power, they're also building themselves up around their trauma. trauma is a very life-defining thing that you have to build or rebuild yourself up around--it feels like this enormous, all-powerful force that affects everything you do. and turning trauma into literal superpowers takes that totalizing emotional experience and expresses it in a really visceral and powerful way.

every major character in worm, protagonist or antagonist, is explicitly a trauma survivor. and they're really written like that. some of them are nasty and violent, some of them are hypervigilant, some of them have control issues--but the fact that it's a whole cast of survivors allows for a really nuanced and genuine light to be shed on how trauma can affect people without either coming across as demonizing or something made under the pressure of being Good Representation. every character has coping methods, most of them bad, most of them represented again in some outsized character-defining way by their power--which is the way it feels to have coping mechanisms, it feels like you have to go around playing your Copingsona all the time, it feels like you start to feel the line blur between coping mechanisms and your 'real self' (worm plays into this a lot, it's deeply thematically concerned with identity)

and worm is often deconstructing capeshit, that's another of its primary concerns, but it also uses this to talk about trauma too. one of the central points of worm that gets hammered home again and again is that like, superheroism/supervillainy is a coping mechanism. it's not healthy to put on a costume and go outside and shoot lasers at other human beings. it's retraumatizing for everyone involved and leads mostly to downward spirals and escalation and disasters. and superheroism/villainy-as-an-unhealthy-coping mechanism is a very very compelling and interesting exploration of that in a way that most capeshit deconstruction just isn't. because again, right, it reflects these huge magnified feelings of self-blame or self-villainization or black-and-white thinking that trauma survivors often fall into. like the superhero neurotically trying to do 'good' when they cannot negotiate for themselves what 'good' is or the villain who feels rejected and ostracized by society while their attempts to reach out only ever make things worse--those are very compelling character types for exploring the theme of trauma.

so. yeah. worm, for all its flaws, is a masterclass in character work and in actually using a genre and its deconstruction for something. it tears down the superhero genre and rebuilds it as a vehicle to talk about how trauma affects people and the ways they try to cope with it and it does it really well.

[loveandscience]

Earthspark Tarantulas rebuilding his holoform projector and succeeding in creating a human avatar that he integrates into human society. Even manages to land a job in his preferred field, with some false paperwork.

Becomes known as Jeff at the Lab, who doesn't particularly like to be touched. "No, really, I tried to tap him on the back once, just in a friendly greeting, and he flinched away! Don't bother trying. He gets pretty angry."

Of course, one day, even if it's years away, someone will develop a crush on him. Perhaps one of those crushes will be from someone who Tarantulas also likes, or values as a fellow scientist. RomCom shenanigans ensue. Does Tarantulas go the route of denying himself and shutting it down? Does he build a body that can actually be touched?

What happens when Romantic Interest learns the truth? While I, for one, might be pleased to find out the man I just started dating was in fact a giant robot spider, I'm aware this is not a universal reaction. Does he make the mistake of keeping the charade going for too long while in a new relationship? Does he do the smart thing and confess beforehand, so Romantic Interest enters the relationship knowing what they're getting into?

What I'm saying is, there are so many possibilities for a Tarantulas RomCom from this. I want a Tarantulas RomCom.

[sepublic]

In addition to copying Belos‘ tactics, I also find it interesting how Kikimora uses the sleeping nettles that Luz once weaponized against her. There’s of course the obvious karmic revenge, but as Luz outright says, Kikimora has no ideas of her own and is copying others’, hitching a ride on the coat tails of stronger people she latches onto. Most of her danger this episode comes not from Kiki’s own magic, but from Roka, who was built by Alador and given to her by Odalia!!! I think that’s just an interesting detail, that Kikimora has little strength of her own and is always hiding behind and using others to get by, such as her dragon Princess, Belos, and now Boscha.

Also it’s kinda freaky that Kikimora plans to rule for generations... Like yeah this is clearly not a very impressive stint as it is, but she does plan to expand from here and basically fill in the isles in the absence of others. Again, using a larger ‘threat’ (the Collector) as an enemy to justify control, militarization, that sort of thing.

And there’s something very messed up about that, that Kikimora is trying to raise society under her thumb as part of this reset, and is grooming Boscha to be her puppet emperor, as a twisted reversal of her and Belos’ dynamic that probably gives her both frustration but also vengeful catharsis. Kiki is basically planning to become a divine matriarch of sorts, working from a small group of survivors and assimilating others to rebuild the same isles and same empire but under her control.

And she’s controlling it since childhood, so it remind me of how Belos makes the Grimwalkers young so he can insert himself as a formative influence, compared to the rest of the isles where many were adults who were skeptical; So Kikimora copies his cues with the Grimwalkers and avoids the skeptical adults by targeting the vulnerable and susceptible children, who are the only ones left thanks to the Collector! Again, a common threat she can use.

Kiki isn’t just grooming Boscha, she plans to groom the entire population as it starts back from scratch, and posing herself as one of them as she does so, which is all sorts of messed up. No wonder she doesn’t want the adults freed with the Collector’s defeat! Kikimora sees the adults as basically competitors so by keeping them out of the equation, she wins by default! And that’s a lot of pressure for Boscha, already struggling to lead a school and knowing she’s gonna eventually step up in charge of all survivors and their future generations. Damn this episode really explored the best and worst of what adults can offer to kids...

[mllemaenad]

Do you have any takes on the NCR? I'm relatively new to Fallout, but most of what I know about it is either from the tv show or from your Fallout 4 posting from a few years back, neither of which gives me much of a look at what the NCR was like when it was still around and not blown up. And you generally have good takes on video game factions.

Oh – thank you! I don't know if I'll be able to maintain that reputation, but we'll see. :)

I also don't know what you've started playing or intend to play, so I'll try to keep my spoilers at least a little vague so I don't spoil anything particularly cool for you.

My feelings about the NCR are complicated. You see, they look a lot like us. To be more specific, they look a lot like 20th century Americans. I'm not American and the 20th century was a while ago now – but there's still a lot that's familiar and comfortable. Like watching an older film: some of the slang is a bit weird, and the phones are wrong, but you could have a sensible conversation with these people, you know?

Because of the whole "alternate history" thing, the pre-war world can feel a bit distant. I think the TV series contains the longest stint we've ever had there, although I guess that depends a bit on how long a person takes to slog through Operation Anchorage. You mostly pick up bits of history from old holotapes and terminals. The stories are interesting: sometimes funny and sometimes tragic. But they are very much from another world. A world with a much stronger commitment to poodle skirts and Bing Crosby than we have.

But the NCR? If you play all the games, you live through their rise and fall. I have walked my clueless Vault Dweller into the tiny village of Shady Sands, and been very pleased to find some people who don't want to kill me. I've played the tourist in Fallout 2, walking through the actual modern capital city of the New California Republic – a standout area in a game largely full of shanty towns (there's Vault City but ... Vault City is not a fun place).

And there's genuinely a lot here to celebrate. They are the survivors of a Vault-Tec experiment specifically designed to test how a lot of diverse and contentious groups could live together. I'm not saying there's no bigotry in the NCR, because there is, but it's not built into their ideology the way it is in some other factions. There's a Super Mutant serving among the NCR Rangers in Fallout 2, and a ghoul town was among the republic's founding members. They explicitly state that they welcome mutant immigrants.

They're coaxing agriculture back into the wasteland even in the original Fallout, and they later expand into industry. They've got trade and education (there's apparently a university in the LA Boneyard, a thing I am sad that we never got to see), and they've outlawed slavery. In a lot of ways the rise of the NCR is a testament to human resilience in the face of incredible adversity.

But. Of course there's a but.

They are trying to rebuild on old world principles. There is a reason they look a lot like 20th century Americans. And they have not solved old world problems. As early as Fallout 2 there's evidence of the use of really dodgy expansionist tactics, and by New Vegas you're holding your breath as you watch them. Their army is simultaneously uncomfortably large and stretched too thin. Their economy is in trouble, and too much wealth is concentrating in too few hands. And they're pushy in a way you'd really prefer a democracy not to be. They have innocent blood on their hands.

They remain the good karma choice compared to Caesar's Legion, sure, but "crucifixion, rampant misogyny and mass slavery" are really low hurdles to get over. Their choices are ... troubling.

So there's a lot to critique, too, but in a way that mostly makes me sad. It makes you ask – is this inevitable? Is every society destined to deteriorate like this? Fallout's core thesis is "war never changes", so I think to some extent the answer is yes. At least – there's no perfect system or hopeful beginning that guarantees things won't go wrong. You have to watch all the time, or you end up back at the mushroom cloud.

If I have a critique of the TV series as it stands, it's that the destruction of the NCR by Vault-Tec in a fit of pique is an excellent way to mourn the good in the NCR (the sight of a hole where Shady Sands used to be hurts, just as worrying about the fate of characters I loved who lived in NCR territory hurts), but it does little to explore the problems of a democracy setting itself up as a newborn empire.

With that said, I expect that criticism is unfair as the series had a lot of legwork to do, explaining the world to any newcomers and ... I mean, there's a time and a place for delving into 23rd century politics and that probably isn't it.

I expect that they'll deal with this more in later seasons, particularly as we are headed toward New Vegas, heart of the "guys, are we sure this is a good idea?" NCR question.

[justanotherhh]

something about stolas i find very interesting in the story is that while ofc he and blitzø are on uneven ground privilege-wise, stolas' privilege was never "useful" to him (as it often isn't to people who want to live authentically) and he'll probably become much happier at some point down the line when he's built something else out of the rubble, but first of all everything has to disintegrate. first of all everything has to be gone so he can rebuild himself, the abusive marriage, then the beautiful mansion now practically emptied and silent and everything remaining adorned in dust-covers, then presumably his standing in polite society, then... maybe his powers? his relationship with via, which has been rocky for a long time?

it's quite sad to watch, because he was never happy, but trying to leave a stable life behind in order to be free is painful in ways one may not have been prepared for (his relationship with via, the slow emptiness of the house, the upcoming reaction from Society hinted at in the trailer), and currently that story is at a place of loss after loss after loss, so no wonder he desperately needs blitzø to be the stable point in all of this, in his mind he's kind of doing all of this in order to be with him on the other side of it -- which isn't ofc quite fair because then blitzø takes on a symbolic role in stolas' personal development, nor is it quite accurate ofc; stolas wants to be with blitzø because he wants to be with blitzø and he wants to have a better life for himself and he wants to be a better, more aware person

but yeah, blitzø doesn't really clock all of this (and stolas has not said it all in so many words, nor is it probably something he'd process quite so logically while in the middle of it, so how can blitzø hope to know if stolas doesn't quite know either), and it's clashing horribly with all of his hurts and issues, so at this point in the story stolas is prepared to have... maybe nothing when all of this is done

which perhaps is good for him, because then he knows why he's doing it (to have a different life), and then he can try to make it work between him and blitzø (while blitzø simultaneously works on his stuff, so he can enter into things on his side with a healthier attitude too)

(but first. the sads. the miscommunication. good stuff)

(and first: the visual representation of all the decaying of stolas' old life via the dust-covered chandelier they played under as kids, while blitzø screams at him and their relationship falls to pieces)

[justafriend-ql]

"i'm good for nothing" - kanghan's self-fulfilling prophecy

oftentimes, "rich asshole" characters are humanized in stories by revealing that they're breaking down and acting out due to the intense pressure their family's put on them to be the best in all ways. but in dangerous romance, kanghan is humanized in the opposite way - by showing that his carelessness and cruelty have stemmed from his father telling him not to try, not to apply himself, not to be the best. he says his father has never expected anything from him, and that itself is an expectation, in a way. it tells kang that he's "good for nothing," and over time, kang has come to believe that label, enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy in which kang behaves like the careless, self-indulgent jerk his father expects him to be.

"labeling theory" is a sociological concept that can help us understand kang's behavior. originally, labeling theory was applied to people who are labeled "criminals," with the idea that once society attaches a stigmatizing label to someone, they become trapped by it. for example, once someone is labelled a criminal, they are cut off from many opportunities that could help them change their status (e.g., jobs, housing) and thus find themselves stuck engaging in more criminal activities to survive. over time, they come to accept the label of "criminal" and incorporate it into their own self-identity.

applying labeling theory to kang, you can see how his father's comments about how pursuing ambitious goals doesn't "suit" kang have affected his own self-concept. his father - who is a successful, ambitious man himself - keeps telling him that he's not good enough to achieve anything meaningful, so why should he bother trying? instead, kang comes to believe he is a "good for nothing" and acts in accordance with that label by not studying, picking on other kids at school, and running the other way at the first glimpse of responsibility.

kanghan is trapped in a self-fulfilling prophecy (also called "interpersonal expectancy effect"), defined as "the phenomenon whereby a person's or a group's expectation for the behavior of another person or group serves actually to bring about the prophesied or expected behavior." he has ambitions (e.g., running for student council, playing soccer), but his father doesn't recognize them. when he catches kang playing fifa, he doesn't even seem to know that kang likes soccer. he doesn't really know his son, just the apathetic version of him he has created in his head.

we don't know exactly why kang's father treats him the way he does. kang tells sailom that he started not to expect anything of kang after his mother's death, perhaps seeing him as "too fragile" to undertake difficult work after this traumatic event. but coddling and lack of expectations can be just as painful as pressure and too many expectations. kang wants so badly for his father to look at him, to acknowledge him, to believe in him... but he just doesn't.

what's interesting is that since meeting sailom, kang is actively resisting the self-fulfilling prophecy his father has forced upon him. sailom takes kang's ambition to do well on his exams seriously and encourages him when he does well. he helps kang build new expectations for himself and see capabilities he never thought he had before - all because he has been trained to see himself as talentless, and thus, not to try in the first place.

sailom can help kang rebuild a sense of self-efficacy (an individual's confidence in their ability to exert control over their motivation, behavior, and social environment), because he, in contrast to kang, is told by his brother, teachers, and friends that he is smart, talented, and destined for a bright future despite his veritable financial challenges. with sailom's support, hopefully kang will continue to break out of his self-fulfilling prophecy.

not for his father. not for his grandma. not for sailom. for himself.

[mindfang-srevenge]

Homestuck Trolls and Which TMA Entity They're Most Aligned With: A List By Static, with the STRONG NOTATION that this is not a diss track, just a general summation of thoughts

Karkat— Extinction. He's the mutation that heralds the end of the world. He's the mutation that dooms the world. His existence inspires the fear of the end of society, and the question of how that society could rebuild.

Vriska— Web. A gimme. Spider8itch is gonna spider8itch. She's literally got manipulation powers that-- if she would use them correctly-- would constantly invoke the fear that her friends had no free will, and were just following her orders.

Aradia— End. She takes on the job of reaper for the entire universe, there's no way her very presence doesn't inspire at least the knowledge or vibes of death in her friends. She's the ferrywoman of this universe, and more than that, she's an archaeologist. She takes an active interest in the dead and the gone. This girl's unnerving, and I adore her for it.

Sollux— Desolation. A man who's had everything taken from him, and taken from him again, and taken from him again. First with Aradia's death at his hands, then when he's killed trying to get his friends into the game, then when he gets incinerated by Jack, then when he's blinded by Eridan, then when he gives it all up to propel the ship across the yard, then when he-- you get the point. Sollux continually inspires, rather than the fear of death, the fear of total and utter loss. It's probably something to do with the Doom aspect, y'know.

Terezi— Eye. She who knows all, she who 'sees' all. She's adept enough at this job to be able to trace both the past and the future, to understand exactly where things went wrong even if she doesn't have the power to fix it herself. Good at predicting outcomes. All of these are eye traits.

Gamzee— Stranger, both because of the circus aesthetic and because of the fear of the 'other' that he inspires. He walks like their friend, he looks like their friend, he even kind of sounds like their friend-- but is it really him? Are they supposed to trust him, especially after what he did? There's something wrong here, there's something wrong about him, and he's a Stranger aboard their ship.

Eridan— Slaughter. He's constantly fulfilling the trait of 'mindless violence', after all, whether he's killing landdwellers or shooting angels or even killing his friends. He shoots first and asks questions later. He's actively thinking about genocide at almost all times. This man is a menace.

Nepeta— Hunt, which feels a little obvious. She's the stalking purredator. She's constantly RP'ing as a creature that would like no better than to play a lovely little game of cat and mouse. If she got more screentime and/or things to fight, I'm sure we could see many more examples of this in-text.

Equius— Lonely. Nobody really seems to like this man? I mean, for obvious reasons- he's kind of a creep-- but he lurks on the edges of the friend group, moreso even than Gamzee or Eridan. If he didn't live immediately next door to Vriska I'm not sure anyone but Nepeta would know him. He probably speaks to his robots more than any other troll, and he doesn't seem to particularly want to speak to anyone but Nepeta? Every conversation is so stilted, so formal, almost as if he doesn't know how to talk to people even if he did want to.

Feferi— Vast. Look, as a seadweller, she's a little more connected to the depths than most-- but she also can't leave the depths, forcing Eridan to do her hunting for her. Her lifespan is implied to be near-endless, judging from )(IC's. She's trapped on all sides by endlessness.

Tavros— Buried. Much in the way that Feferi is trapped by an expanse both around her and within her, Tavros is trapped on the ground despite his wishes. He's buried at the back of his friend group, the butt of the jokes. He's also figuratively buried by his self-doubt, which feeds into his role as Page. I feel . . . incredibly bad for this man.

Kanaya— Corruption. It's the Fear most associated with the bringing of new life, which both as a jadeblood and the protector of the Mothergrub Egg, she's deeply in tune with. Her lusus is also a winged bug-thing (mothergrub, shut up). Kanaya herself is a parasite on the other trolls, because she's a rainbow drinker.

[twothpaste]

thinking about how the hell porky managed to get a few hundred people to go along with being timetravel-relocated to a post-apocalyptic island, and why they just go about their daily lives as if nothing's horrifying or strange about that. writing it off as "he ran every single person through the mind control goo in the nice person hot springs" feels too easy to me, and less interesting, and kinda less meaningful too. i like considering all the forms of coercion that might've gone into it...

i think some of the ordinary civilians porky brought to populate the islands were brain-gooped, but others didn't necessarily have to be. they may be wholly in their right minds, just deeply misled about their displaced predicament. porky's probably got all kinds of stories he spins for them. kidnapping people who were traveling to a new place anyways, and convincing them they've arrived at their destination. coaxing people with promises of lucrative new careers or cheap real estate. some scientists might've been bribed with his wacky sci-fi technology, and promises they'd get to work on revolutionary futuristic projects. in dcmc's case, he scavenged a shitty indie band that couldn't find success, and promised them fame and fortune. etc. porky probably particularly targeted people who were down on their luck (and people who might not be missed...). those who're grateful for their newfound circumstances find little reason to question or protest.

i also imagine some pigmasks were more "brainwashed" than others. like? some of 'em were freaked out and/or rebellious when porky had them time warped to nowhere, and had to be dunked into the "hot springs" to be re-conditioned into serviceable soldiers. but others were easier to control via force, manipulation, and lies - no mind control goo necessary. and some (though perhaps a small few) were content to follow his orders without any coercion, for reasons of their own. happy just to feel important & powerful, and to push others around, unperturbed by the void of any coherent ideology or purpose.

i've got a hc that porky's most trusted soldiers & scientists were told a load of propaganda that goes like this: this really is the future, and humans really did destroy the world. porky's trying to rebuild society from the ground up, and he needs your help. all his efforts on nowhere are secretly a last-ditch effort to save humanity from itself. he pulled only the bravest and noblest souls from the timeline to help him with this task, so really, it's an honorable duty he's bestowed upon you. but y'gotta keep it a secret - if the riff-raff find out, it'll be anarchy in the streets 🫢

there's probably this awkward mish-mash where some folks can clearly remember their families & former lives, and wholly believe they'll return to them one day. or even that their loved ones remain alive and well, that they're still in the same time period, just halfway across the globe. while others have mysterious amnesia, or fabricated memories of serving master porky all their lives. everyone's got different levels of conditioning going on, different reasons for playing along, and different struggles in unlearning it later.

[libbee]

What does it mean to transform?

'Total destruction is the only possible condition for total rebirth' - Barbara Pijan's website

Transformation does not only mean to change the negative parts/habits/traits/qualities of your past. It does not mean to changing the negative things but keeping the positive things like the social connections you used to have, the interests and activities you used to have or the ideologies you lived about. You cannot keep some parts of your past while changing the other parts.

Transformation means to change everything, negative or positive. The positive things do not exist in a vacuum, they are tied to the negative things of your life. So it does not make sense to change the negative things but keep the positive as it is because ultimately you will regress to the negative parts again. In the following diagram, the old you had certain positive and negative qualities, that was your personality. Since it is the old you, you were probably unaware and unconscious of these qualities.

There is the new you (I) which has changed the negative qualities but keeps the positive qualities of the old life. While new you (II) changes both the negative and positive qualities of the old life. The difference in new you (I) and (II) is that the new you (II) is total transformation of your old self, there is little possibility that you will regress to the old negative patterns, behaviours or beliefs.

Changing the positive qualities of the past can be much more difficult than changing the negative ones. The positive qualities are shaped by society, culture, language and of course destiny. So changing the positive qualities which did not pose any harm in the past will be quite difficult, it's like rebuilding yourself from scratch, usually going against the socially dominant behaviours, especially since your families, friends, external identities are pretty much the same as they were before.

What does it mean to change?

I will clarify that by 'change' I do not mean something substantial. I mean to become aware, conscious and intentional about the intentions, motives, thought processes and emotions that drive your behaviour and speech. For example, if you were behaving like a pathological narcissist in your past, the changed version of you will be someone who is aware of their tendencies and patterns, has learned to live by ethics, and learns to use the combination of words that are least violative or behaves in a way that you are aware of your motivations and still try to do it in a decent way.

How to transform completely then?

I don't know. I am figuring out my own personality, but I will give a hint: "To get distant from the things that you used to be close to in the past".