Froggle

[cashewally-sarcastic]

So I made a record of all the ciphers from the @hyrule-kingdom-updates blog for anyone to reference!

Here you go:

Cipher Refence Doc

Tiny things: -for credit: if multiple people are credited it means either A) Both contributed or B) I couldn’t tell who solved it first -All

[aphel1on]

so so so much of genshin is about personhood. how it's defined, how it's developed, how an identity is constructed or maintained or shattered or discarded or reformed. so much of it specifically is about the tension between personhood and duty, how people cope, whether they're consumed by the mask, how they keep sight of the 'true' self or if a true self even exists. how all of these things impact their relationships with other people. the loneliness of being surrounded by people but not seen or known. contradictorily the terror of being known even as you long for it. what it costs to be known and whether that's worth it. the way that people are dehumanized by both positions of power and positions of powerlessness, as gods and tools and weapons and leaders and so on and so forth. the boundaries between self and other, how memory informs identity, whether the self can be transcended and what one stands to lose or gain by doing so, whether there is worth in one's individual and very temporary experience of the world. whether self-determination is possible and what it means for your personhood if it's not.

this is obviously not the only main theme in genshin, and it exists in conversation with other major themes. however looking at the narrative through this lens this helps us answer questions such as 'why do 5 out of 7 archons so far have some sort of deceased mirrorself' 'why did we have to stop antagonists from assimilating people into a gestalt-consciousness a minimum of 3 times' 'why is wanderer the real true main character of genshin impact' (struck from the record for personal bias) 'why do suicide and suicidal ideation come up so much' 'why does this sometimes deeply frustrating game still scratch my brain after 5 years' (that's themes babey!! that's all the things i like and go crazy for!!)

[sleepy-aletheas]

ok, to be completely normal for a second —yes, i know, impossible for me, specifically— but genshin (and hoyo's narrative weaving through their games in general) is steeped and build and filled with the dissection about humanity: what makes something human? what does it mean to be one? are created humans counting as some? are puppets? is sentience+intelligence the true qualifier for humanity? are memories the core of us? do they dictate someone's existence, their self, or their worth? where does humanity end, and some other being's start?

it's all about what does us make...well, just make. what are we made out of? what is our purpose? is there one at all? do we need one? are we enough in the face of greater powers? do we matter? does choice matter?...do we love bc it was designed so, or do we have a say in it?

genshin loves to put their characters through a couple dilemmas, from external to inner, public upholding to private obfuscation. the yearning to be known (the terror of not being good enough), the fixation on solving problems to ease life (to isolate oneself bc the world is for those who will thrive interacting with it, no those that enjoy it in passing), the hunger for justice and peace (the willing sacrifice of the self for a chance at protecting the weary of the present and future, and a nod to the ones lost to the past), the pressure of Being More (but still clinging desperately to oneself, bc there is no other you than you...). We have so many different characters, with different backstories and external troubles and friend group compositions and mentors and and and—

but they all can be boiled down to a few key character concepts, and they're dissected over and over and over again, each angle finding something else to contemplate, to love, to feel annoyed at. there are lessons baked into each playable and non-playable character that reflect human complexity back at us in a more digestible way. contradictions, lies, follies, mistakes, misunderstandings, misconceptions...it's all there, bc you can be human or god, you can be the source or be someone hearing it fifth hand, you could be the reincarnation, the next in line to follow a predestined path written in the stars, and still be you, still have a chance for the meaning of your journey to be something else than the bearer of fate before you. but you still don't know everything, you'll never know everything (timelines, motives, reasonings, sacrifices; that's something we have to learn to accept to never reaching their conclusions. it's okay.).

it's why memory plays such a huge part in everything — in death, in self, in perception, in the composition of the soul. how we're remembered, how we're perceived, how we perceive ourselves...the themes are theming so hard for years, and each new one is reexplaining it from a slightly different perspective...just like how the same types of characters show us a slightly different way of being human with a specific struggle, and how to deal with it.

so if the overarching theme is humanity, then the method it's being told by is personhood; the ones we meet, the ones we lose, the ones we read and experience about from the past...the ones we can hope to see again in the future.

and isn't that just the lead to the answer all that thematic ground work is building up to? the point, from start to finish: hope.

@catdownthestreet this word-salad is your fault, thanks <3

[cashewally-sarcastic]

☕️ puts a comically sized microphone in your general direction. Fantasy tropes? (Feel frer to take this any direction you want)

FANTASY TROPES I’m gonna give you 5 under the cut

1) Chosen one/chosen protag.

I don’t hate this because like…that’s how a lot of stories work. I DO hate said chosen protag being good at everything or “mysterious power they instantly get good at using”. Give me a struggling protag who’s internally panicking more, or if they have [special insert power here] I want to see them try it out as practice more. Traveling across [the continent]? Give me them doing shit in the woods or by a lake and not doing it well! They give themselves weird scratch or skin discoloration and might later have to say “oh yeah back when I first discovered [power] I was trying to figure out how it worked and haha I almost blew my hand up lmao”

2) Evil Kingdom with Evil Leader

This is like…kinda video game fantasy trope but probably elsewhere too. The dark kingdom with lava and rocks and miserable people etc etc etc is kinda boring. Give me a villain who’s from like…the opposite of that. I think that could lead to a weird little explorations. And remember! The monstrous (actual monsters or just monsters by what they do) do not think themselves monsters, they are the protagonist of their side :)

3) Mentor who dies (and this is a motivation for hero)

Again like this is mostly a video game trope but like…keep the mentor alive. Give another reason why they can’t accompany your hero(es). Maybe “dude I trained you but that was years ago my knees are killing me man I can’t”. I do think FE:E did a good job of keeping mentors alive for that games protagonists and honestly? Good example (yes this is a shameless plug for my favorite video game)

4) Elves being ancient beings of wisdom

I actually love elves being like “mystery people big wisdom live 1000 years” but I love when people take this trope and spin it. Give the elves autism. Have their long lives (or immortality in some cases) be fucked up in some way because it’s sooooo fun.

5) just a rant about fantasy god systems

I love a lot of them because of the ideas they have, but also I think people need to get weirder. Make weird gods. Don’t stick to gender binaries either those beings are GODS it gives you an excuse to be creative and different, that’s the best part. If they have kids or half-god kids don’t just give those kids “powers but a little less” make it funny. Or make it a gamble of what power this kid gets (if any!). Also worship of said gods always feel like they just….are trying to do “whatever the Greeks did” when there’s likely a lot more inspirations out there from other civilizations. Or! Make up something new! There’s actually so much to toy with people should mess with god/religious systems more.

[cashewally-sarcastic]

Insert the little cpffe emoji because i cannot find it anywhere + Bigfin squid!

^ squid in question

I…hm! It is squid. Long! Squiggly even. Happy it is in the ocean <3

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

i'm so fucking over it

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

they didnt listen, by the way. because of course they didnt. theyre hiding domo ai from the member list and forcing them into private and public servers. use

/ban user:1153984868804468756

to get rid of it.

if you're interested in the Colorful support post i made regarding this, its under the cut. i'm livid.

[katana-kitsune]

adding this to the list… 🫩 5. 5 bots you have to fucking ban from discord that they added without your permission. What the absolute fuck.

Discord bots you need to ban

1104973139257081909

1288638725869535283

1090660574196674713

1104973139257081909

1153984868804468756

[hobbular]

Friend of mine was submitting a job application and discovered that they REQUIRED a photo:

We’re trying to decide which of these is a better option:

or

[nowlander]

[exhuastedpigeon]

Sometimes the best fic you’ve ever written isn’t on ao3. It’s in 50 frenetic discord messages sent over a fifteen minute span where you and your friend yes and each other into a perfect story that will never actually be written.

[nyctoheart]

movies where someone hears an important message only once and retains all the details….

girl if that were me, we’d be fucked. I have to reread emails like 4 times.

[nyctoheart]

if it were me having to repeat my dead father’s instructions on destroying the death star:

[cyberphuck]

I was in a college psych class, and the teacher was doing some kind of exercise about memory, patterns, and retention. He began with, “for instance, if I asked you what number the first letter of your name is in the alphabet, you wouldn’t be able to tell me right aw–” “Ten,” I said. “What?” “J. J is ten,” I said again. He stared at me. “I happened to learn it while looking at the alphabet when I was five or six, and it just stayed in my brain,” I told him. Then we did an exercise on retention. “I’m going to tell you a story,” he said, “and then I’m going to send you out of the room for five minutes, and when you come back, you have to repeat as much of the story back to me as possible.” He told me a long and meandering story with no plot or structure, just a random series of events, place names, actions, etc. Then he sent me out of the room. I looked at the wall for a while. He called me back in five minutes later, stood me up in front of the class, and asked me to repeat “just as much of the story as you remember.” Apparently while I’d been gone he’d been telling the class about how eyewitness accounts aren’t reliable because people don’t remember things well after a certain period of time. So I told his story back to him– not verbatim, but certain phrases were exact– and watched the consternation in his face as I accidentally blew up his (valid! and extensively studied!) lesson about how bad people’s retention is. “It’s like a song,” I tried to explain to him, and the class. “Or a poem. Every part of the story has a little tag to remember it. I looked at the chalkboard while you were saying this part. My leg itched while you were saying that part. A chair squeaked during the next part. Then I just have to come back and go over all the sensations that I had while you were” “Sit down,” he said. I sat. Turns out I’m Autisms Georg adn should not have been counted

[underthehedge]

ADHD version: A friend asked, on a field trip, why I knew the scientific name for Caltha palustris, “Well, we did that [one week long] field ID course [three years previously] and we saw it in one of the bogs”.

This, I was informed, is very much not a normal reason to remember the scientific name of a plant for the rest of your life.

It took me five whole years to learn when my partner’s birthday is.

[firebirdeternal]

I can remember specific details about games I played over two decades ago that I have not played since.

I once forgot it was my birthday. On my birthday. And when my sister (Who lived several hours away) jumped out of hiding and yelled happy birthday, I looked around to see who she was talking to.

[clotpolesonly]

[anamericansinger]

send me ☕️ + [topic] and i’ll tell you my opinion on it!

[cumdumpstiel]

so cool how advanced the algorithm has become, it literally only takes like a decade or more of spying on all my internet activity and then it can expertly curate a selection of 15-20 youtube videos that i don't really want to watch, and then keep showing me those videos over and over again for a week so i can scroll past them again. the future is now

[dogpuppy]

[solarpunk-nightbird]

Do the kids these days know that the traditional payment for "having your friends help you move" is "order everyone pizza after"?

Feed your friends. Feed your loved ones. Feed the people who help you. Feed your neighbors. Feed your community.

Seriously though, with a lot of people, especially friends, you can shamelessly and blatantly trade pizza / food for help and labor <3

[weaver-z]

If you ever, and I mean EVER think that you fucked something up royally, remember that the organizers of the 1904 Olympic marathon:

- Had zero stations for water on the 26 mile (42 km) course

- Accidentally gave North American competitor Tom Hicks a cocktail made of egg whites, brandy, and actual fucking rat poison

- Had a guy come into the race late wearing a beret and cutoff slacks, sneak into an apple orchard during the race because no food had been given to him for 40 hours, eat rotten apples, projectile vomit onto the track, fall asleep for hours, and finish in fourth place OVERALL because most of the other runners collapsed of exhaustion or injuries

- Conducted the race on a dusty road, which caused so much dust to be kicked into the air that an American runner somehow inhaled enough to tear his STOMACH LINING open

- Accidentally released feral dogs onto the track

- Fucked the other competitors up SO BADLY that Tom Hicks—the guy who ate RAT POISON and was HALLUCINATING the entire run—came in first place

[stonelions]

he thinks he's being so smooth with his little face on my leg. i SEE you, villain

[fjordfolk]

ONLY bcos loves u. love u DESPITE ur dinner actually

[pangur-and-grim]

reading with my creatures

[pangur-and-grim]

[furryprovocateur]

i started reading this book and kept tilting my head at the comparisons the author was using so i started a running list of them

[furryprovocateur]

this author's use of imagery is so questionable

[furryprovocateur]

i actually went "what the fuck" and had to stop for like 5 minutes after this one

[furryprovocateur]

[furryprovocateur]

my life has not known peace since posting this

[fluxxdog]

Well there's your problem! The bibliography is supposed to be turned in with the work, not separate.

[bugwars]

girl it’s just a 3 day trip, you do not need to bring your terracotta warriors 🙄