amount of information perpetually too low

aktiss dernuk, she/it trans girl-bug-thing (also there's kirito in my gender long story). in my 20s, downright vampiric, polyglot, homestuck. i read books and manga and light novels and detect eggs in them. conlanger, spec evo enthusiast, theological hoarder(/keterist), too many hours in stellaris. ask me what a nareg is (if you dare)

[approximateknowledge]

beater syndrome or: "why people misunderstand vriska and kirito for the same reason"

so a little while ago i made a random shitpost that ended me up with this image

^cursed entity

and it's come back to haunt me with ungogly revelations which i will now share because i have to it feels important

context: originally i was just gonna make a post about kirito, explaining how people misunderstand the character and *why* (and why it's completely understandable); but then i realised there was a real pattern here and the subconscious connection that led to the above cursed image suddenly made sense in my mind

so here it is:

the reason kirito gets mischaracterised so often has entirely to do with the combination of:

a) most people only having watched the aincrad arc (<;keyword watched),

and

b) the fact the anime gives a twisted image of the characters due to the fact the internal dialogues from the light novel get cut out completely

the end result of this is that when most people talk about "kirito", they're actually talking about "the beater", and those are crucially *not the same*!

the "beater" is a *role*, and a very specific one at that; it's what happens when you try to "own up" to accusations and unreasonable expectations (internal or external) to such an extent you're always playing the same self-destructive part, and because it's fundamentally a defense mechanism you just get stuck in it until things change drastically enough it finally feels safe to stop playing that horrible role and try to remember who you really are, after everything's over

that's what's happening here; when people say a character is "a kirito" they're actually referring to the beater, and the reason those characters suck ass is because they unironically use what's actually a coping mechanism in a horrible situation for a character's actual personality; of course it sucks! because they're doing it wrong!

it's about trying to convince yourself being a loner destructive scapegoat is "cool" despite always having a nagging insecurity it might just not be, but given the circumstances you're in too deep and so the sunk cost fallacy compels you to keep going

it's not *actually* cool; if anything it's depressing

now i think it's becoming obvious how all of this applies to vriska as well, but there's one crucial difference: the death game never actually *ends* for vriska serket; even now in post-canon she's arguably the *only* character who seems to still be playing sgrub, or maybe she never even stopped flarping

except for one version of her. for (vriska) the game did finally end. and they're the same

the beater dies when the game ends, and we see it happen to both of them

(also they're both transfem i didn't know how to fit that in but they are and that's a fact)

[approximateknowledge]

screw it this is gonna be my pinned post from now on

[nyenye0701]

adjustment period

[memecucker]

concept: instead of “time traveller from the past is unimpressed by the present” it’s “time traveller from the past loves things we don’t like about modern society” like they think pollution is badass or something

[kragehund-again]

medieval peasant upon hearing the number of species that go extinct every day: fuck yeah, damn those beafts to hell

[porcelain-dollbones]

mammals whenever they encounter any sort of problem: hold on let me secrete a useful fluid

[hagiomoto]

Today's Haus of Declin strip is so good

[hagiomoto]

[approximateknowledge]

oh i see

[miraclemaya]

dress up is one of the most important pillars of gameplay that is often ignored by game developers to disasterous results

[approximateknowledge]

also i finally figured out what ward's current worldbuilding kept reminding me of, especially places like the fallen and the settlements in the cornerworlds like the one lord of loss controls;

fire punch

the post-apocalyptic scattered symbolism-heavy tribalistic paranoia of it all, combined with the hyperspecific powers wielded by a minority of the survivors

the fallen are behemdolg, is what im saying

rain is from fucking behemdolg

[approximateknowledge]

victoria is still a really good choice for a protagonist

she's so different from taylor in almost everything except one thing: the stubborn conviction that things could be better if people just got their shit together and communicated and worked together

i wonder what victoria's eventual fall will look like

[approximateknowledge]

... wanted to check something about chris (parahumans) and accidentally giga-spoiled myself i think

oops

[approximateknowledge]

ough

[approximateknowledge]

lmao

[approximateknowledge]

come to team Breakthrough!

we have:

-body horror supergirl

-eldritch transgender doll girl

-little miss infinite privacy violations

-damsel of blowing you the fuck up

-acquired conjoined bender twins

-ben 10 as directed by david cronenberg

-ex-mormon struggler

[biancawilkson]

[lady-of-vitreous-sight]

Which is worth more: The real thing, or an identical impostor?

The real thing, of course. Reality is not so kind.

They're indistinguishable, and therefore worth the same.

The impostor, of course. To be what you are by choice is of the highest value.

Voting ended on2h

[humanzyz]

Interlude 1 part 2

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[humanzyz]

Interlude 1

Previous Part

Next Part