My spouse and I were talking last night and the jeans problem came up so I want to talk about it with tumblr here.
The jeans problem was the favorite lecture one of my philosophy professors in college gave about the history of jeans and how it ties into capitalism/mainstream culture absorbing and monetizing any counterculture it encounters. So prior to the 1950s jeans were mostly an item of work-wear that you wore on the job as a farmer or factory worker or miner because they were cheap, durable, and hard-wearing. If you were off the job you'd wear what we'd call now dress pants or slacks. This changes in the 1950s when youth culture start wearing jeans as regular clothing, again because they're cheap, durable, and hard-wearing. But then jeans get absorbed by the culture and we start getting designer jeans, acid-washed jeans, pre-ripped jeans, and now we got people shelling out hundreds of dollars for "povertycore" aesthetic. And now jeans aren't even cheap, durable, and hard-wearing.
This came up because my spouse was talking about thrifting and spooky things (two of her favorite things) and how there was this trend of buying a landscape painting from a thrift store which was probably going to end up in a garbage dump and painting a sheet ghost on it to make it art millennials would like. But now you can go to Michael's or Home Goods or wherever and just buy a landscape painting with a sheet ghost on it, mass-manufactured by a corporation. The counter-culture once again being monetized and absorbed by the culture. It's the jeans problem again.
"We're gonna achieve immortality by turning ourselves into machines" buddy I want you to find yourself a 15 year old laptop and try to run a 10 year old piece of software on it please. Connect to the internet, if you can, and attempt to log into any of your online accounts
jonathan sims, the shakespearean tragedy of a man that you are.
jonathan "paranoid" sims is paranoid in the same way that hamlet's a procrastinator and othello's jealous and macbeth's ambitious.
crucially, none of those characters possess even an ounce of the trait they're most commonly associated with. hamlet doesn't procrastinate, if anything everything falls apart the moment he acts without verifying the facts. and from then on, his problems stem from an impulsive tunnel vision driving him forward. othello isn't jealous, the correlation between othello and jealousy comes from iago's famous line of "beware jealousy, it is the green eyed monster." othello's fatal flaw is distrust and insecurity. macbeth doesn't have many personal ambitions, he's just very susceptible to peer pressure.
and jonathan archivist sims isn't paranoid. he wasn't paranoid for even a second of the podcast. if anything, he's naive for a large chunk of it. but since he works at Gaslighting Central, everyone around him is telling him that he's being paranoid when he worries about getting brutally murdered at the workplace; the thing that happened to his predecessor, all of her assistants, and the vast majority of his friends.
elias's "don't be so dramatic jon" and notSasha's "let's have no more of this paranoia" have become as defining for jon as iago's "green eyed monster" line became for othello.
listeners react to jonathan sims the very same way people tend to react to shakespeare's classic protagonists and I lose it ever time
honestly fandom has ruined me because now any time i'm in the desert and i see two vast and trunkless legs of stone or a half-sunk shattered visage i'm like "omg just like in Ozymandias" and its like come on girl not every half-sunk shattered visage is Ozymandias
A lot of people make this mistake actually! ‘Skeleton’ can refer to any individual member of the family Zombie that has shed its fleshy exoskeleton. It’s just an unlife cycle stage, but because of its distinct appearance we refer to it by a separate common name (similar to how a ‘black panther’ is just a colour variant of leopards and jaguars, not a separate species).
The term “zombie” is both a technical term, referring to a family, and a common name, referring to a genus.
The family Zombie is a broad, overarching group that includes the genus that many people call zombie (Ghoulus, not to be confused with Ghouli, the unrelated genus of the Ghala family which also includes bogeymen and some ghosts*) as well as the Mummy genus (Pyrima), the spore-zombie genus (Fungan) and a few others.
The colloquial term “Zombie” is the common term for the genus Ghoulus, which is in the family Zombie and includes Ghoulus romero (the walking zombie), Ghoulus snydera (the running zombie), and Ghoulus smithi (the vampiric zombie, also called the legendary zombie).
Interestingly, there are several things called “zombies” that are neither Ghoulus nor Zombie, including the dancing zombie (Jacksoni thrillera), which is more closely related to (although not currently actually in the same family as) clowns.
*Note: the ghosts in the Ghala family are not true ghosts. True ghosts are in the order Spectere, which is entirely unrelated to Ghouli, Ghoulus, Pyrima, and Fungan. Ghala “ghosts” are given the common name ghost because of their superficial similarity to true ghosts.
Important note: sometimes you’ll see people claiming that zombies are domesticated! They are not! Some zombies can be tamed (like Ghoulus romero), but zombies are wild animals and might hurt you if you approach them! Leave them alone and don’t feed them!
the closest to a domesticated ghost we have is the house ghost, Phantome domus (sometimes classified as a distinct subspecies Phantome domus domesticus).
P. domus is interesting because it’s like housecats – they are technically domesticated (scans have shown that the fight-or-flight response, like in domesticated animals, is weaker in P. domus than in related species like P. majestica, the manor ghost, or P. more, the cemetary ghost), but evidence suggests that it’s a naturalistic co-evolution rather than an intentional domestication process like with sheep or dogs.
If a house ghost takes up residence in your home, they are completely safe unless treated in an inhumane way. There is a stereotype of house ghosts that they are dangerous or volatile, but this is usually due to confusion with other species, especially the common poltergeist (Sellaruptor vulgaris) or vengeance spirit (Phantome odium).
huge fan of when the popular classic lit is just as good as everyone says it is. Like I've been reading through a collection of Edgar Allan poe short stories and poems and the only popular one I didn't like was the fall of the house of usher. And I just re-read the Raven today(it's been at least a few years since i first read it) and wow, you can see why it's so popular. The rhythm and rhyme scheme are so strong it's crazy
In other news, i finally made it to the poem section of that book and I'm very excited
Obligatory disclaimers: Spoilers for the TMA finale, obviously. Ethics is wishy-washy & I have a limited understanding of it ... no guarantees of complete accuracy (this is an Exploration I am attempting to Learn)
Why? Because I keep seeing people compare this situation to the trolley problem and i Do Not Think it is. Like yes kinda similar but also not really because of the sheer number of variables and the existence of a multiverse.
Long post under the cut
To recount the scenario our lovely lil band of characters have found themselves in during the eyepocalypse:
The Choices:
Do nothing: Survive, adapt, let the world run its course.
Minimize suffering: Jon takes his place in the pupil of the eye and begins reshuffling, trying to make people's hells a little less terrible by
End it quickly: Jon takes his place in the pupil of the eye and begins reshuffling, bringing about the death of the world in the shortest time possible
Spread the Fears: Destroy the Panopticon and Jonah Magnus, allowing the Fears to escape to an indeterminate (presumably thousands, as that's what's stated) number of realities
Important Details:
The Fears, in these other worlds, will be on the outskirts, as they were in this world before the Ritual
We're not actually sure how many other worlds will be infected
There is no guarantee that the Fears will ascend in the infected worlds, this is based on the actions of the people in those worlds
We do not know if the Fears are unique to this world
Now onto...
Cast, Viewpoints, and Representative Ethical Philosophies:
I think all our characters are operating from a consequentialist framework though with mixtures of egoism and deontology mixed in
Jon is our utilitarian and seeks to minimize suffering by keeping the Fears contained to this world ("But the point is, we have a chance to stop all that. We don’t have to post the letter. We can keep them contained, and even eventually destroy them.") and shortening the length of time that people are kept in suffering. ("We need to admit that ending it quickly might be a kindness. The truth is any choice we make is going to lead to an atrocity of one sort or another. At least this way we know the suffering ends.")
Basira, I would argue, is our most deontological character. She does care about the broader consequences, but ultimately, her decisions are based on a set of principles on 'right' and 'wrong.' ("No, I’m not just gonna stand here, and watch you try to justify murdering humanity... It’s not an option. End of discussion.")
Georgie seem to be operating under a sort of two-level consequentialist standpoint. She's very open to exploring all of their options and examining the consequences of every possible action ("We still have to discuss it. Let’s try to lay this out properly.") But her decisions are still dictated by some level of "right" and "wrong" ("John, you’re talking about killing the whole world...") despite her exercising a level of critical moral reasoning when deciding between other options ("It’s better than the certainty that they’ll destroy this one!")
Melanie is a very egoistic character, insofar as we're considering this universe an "individual." She cares more for the consequences of this world than the potential consequences to all others. ("Sure, it’s not great, but it’s, it’s not like those other realities won’t have bad stuff happening already." & "My point is that we can’t take responsibility for the hypothetical actions of hypothetical people in all these other universes. Fundamentally, the Fears travelling to these other places isn’t a death sentence. And even if the worst happens they might just find themselves in exactly the same situation as us, deciding whether to pass it all along again.")
Martin is a very egoistic character, both in the universal sense AND in the individual sense. He aligns very closely with Melanie in the cosmic reasoning, and he cares very very deeply about the outcome for himself and Jon, which is very self-interested in the Grand Scheme Of Things. ("No, John, I’m sorry, but if one world still matters in an infinite spread of dimensions then one person does too." and "I’d rather live the rest of
my life lying awake wondering if I made the right choice, over lying awake listening to the screams of everyone on Earth being tortured!")
Who's the most right in this scenario? Idk, depends on your personal moral philosophy, as is literally the Whole Point.
However...
Sort-of a Considerations Section & More of Op-Ed Section
From Anya Villette's experience (and the existence of TMAGP, though the characters do not have the benefit of knowing about it) it seems like we're operating in a Level III, many-worlds interpretation multiverse, based on Max Tegmark's taxonomy (conventions of fiction also point to this, though, once again, our characters do not have the benefit of knowing that they're in a work of fiction). Given that, it stands to reason that:
The Fears are not unique to this universe. Operating on the assumption of this type of multiverse, here have been enough branches off this general timeline since the Fears' birth that there are hundreds of thousands of universes where the Fears already exist. In fact, there are probably many universes of this scenario right here (one where Jon successfully ends the world and contains the fears, one where he never runs off on his own in the first place and the original plan succeeds, one where everything is exactly the same except he's wearing a different jumper the entire time, etc. etc.)
The Fears are inevitable for every universe, given everything previously stated.
Every time the Fears enter a new universe, it creates a new branch, and therefore there are now two universes (one where they exist, one where they never entered). This aspect is a bit of a mindfuck to try to explain, but again this sort of stems from the idea that every event with multiple outcomes leads to different branches of the universe. So, no matter what, there are an equal number of universes where the Fears do and do not exist (or something. infinity is a tricky concept and this seems firmly on the "uncountable" side of infinity)
Which is to say...
It ultimately doesn't change anything at all no matter what our characters do, because all the different outcomes of their decisions are all equally likely and also happening Right Now in a parallel universe, and nothing they do can alter the balance of the multiverse.
And I think, given the overall themes of this show, of being trapped in a bad/immoral system that is far larger than yourself, or your actions being insignificant in the face of cosmic horrors beyond your understanding, of nothing you do will change anything (but this story still matters. these choices, these lives still matter), this is a very very fitting conclusion to come to.
If you made it to the end of this, I hope y'all enjoyed and I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts. I had an absolute blast with this rabbit hole and would happily continue to dissect it with others.
Some people think ill of Doctor Seward because of today's entry. He is tempted to do something monstrous to satisfy his curiosity, and for a brief time attempts to justify it...like, we might learn a lot! But of course, he doesn't actually do it. And I think that shows his character as an ultimately good man.
They say the true test of a person's morals is what we do when no one is watching. The only ones who would ever have known what he was doing were those who trusted and respected him as a doctor. They would never have questioned his course of action. No one else would ever need to know--unless, of course, there was a great breakthrough of a discovery. But then, only like-minded peers would ever really get to study his methods.
And temptation is like that. That's what makes it temptation. Your brain tries to rationalize what you really want to do, and it can be super hard to say no, that's wrong, we're not doing that.
But that's what Seward does. He thinks about it, kinda justifies it, and still doesn't do it. Because it's wrong. And I think that is a great way for Bram Stoker to show us just what kind of man he is: flawed, but ultimately choosing good.
I don't remember who originally posted this idea (feel free to tag if you know who it was) but here's my excessively detailed take on this au:
(Part 1/5)
Jonathan Sims likes his job, but it can drive him a little crazy some days. It's so easy to get lost in the Magnus Institute's long, winding corridors. Time seems irrelevant when the clocks don't tick in proper sync with one another no matter how many times he tries to fix them, and on the days he works late, he always feels a little dazed and confused by the end. Elias Bouchard, the Head of the Institute, has an unsettling way of smiling at you as if you're in on a secret, without ever revealing what it is that you're supposed to know. What's even more unsettling is his laugh. Jon has only heard it once, but he thinks if he ever hears it again he might lose his balance and fall over from pure disorientation.
The promotion to Head Researcher comes without warning. Not only is he switching departments from the Archives, but Jon also hears rumors that the previous Head Researcher died on the job. On top of all that, Elias throws an extra research assistant at him at the last minute, and the two do not get off on the right foot. Martin Blackwood should be in the Library, not in the top Research team. Jon is glad he is at least allowed to recruit Sasha and Tim.
Much of Jon's job consists of traveling about, interviewing people related to the cases which the Institute is currently researching. Sasha does much of the online research, while Martin hunts down books and other materials, and Tim usually deals with filing any artifacts they encounter during field work.
When they begin researching the Prentiss case, things start going downhill. Jane Prentiss was once an ordinary woman, a collector of vintage toys. Sasha finds her accounts on various auction sites, all left inactive for months now. Jon interviews her former friends and coworkers, and Tim confiscates a peculiar tube of lipstick that stretches the wearer's mouth into an uncanny ear-to-ear grin which remains even after the lipstick is removed.
When Martin goes to investigate the site of a statement, he ends up trapped in his flat by a woman who looks half-flesh and half-plastic, with an army of vintage dolls and figurines which tap on his doors and windows night and day. When he finally escapes and warns the others, Jon begrudgingly reveals that he has, in fact, transformed the back corner of his office into a makeshift sleeping quarters for his own occasional use. He offers this to Martin, since Jon is "out in the field most of the time anyway."
When Prentiss attacks the Institute, thousands of broken and disfigured dolls are found crawling through the walls, bending and popping their plastic joints to get through cracks they never should have been able to reach. Thankfully, Sasha has already been visited by a strange man called Michael, whose dull voice always echoes slightly as if he's speaking from far away, and around whom there is always a trace of cold fog which makes Sasha want to pull away from him whenever he draws near. Michael's visit may have endangered her life, but at least it taught her a valuable lesson: melt the dolls before they get you.
So when the Research Department is under siege by evil dolls, the head team is already prepared with blowtorches and lots of canisters of flammable gas. Regardless, a horde of giggling Barbies and Kens manages to chase Sasha into Artifact Storage, where she stumbles across a strangely intrancing coffin. The key is right there in the padlock. Sasha is no fool, but something beyond the wooden lid seems to be calling to her. She calls out to ask who it is, and the lid suddenly bursts open. She is dragged into the coffin, her scream quickly muffled in its depths.
She is announced missing after the incident, and it will take almost two more years before her friends accept that she will not be found. The tunnels below the Institute are discovered, along with Gertrude's body.
Soon, Jon is driving himself mad with paranoia. It doesn't help that he's spending more and more time at the Institute, which tends to make his rational train of thought teeter on the edge of the rails. Tim catches him with a partially encrypted notebook full of wild conspiracy theories about each of his coworkers, each more horrifying and nonsensical than the last. Martin struggles to keep the peace between them.
Finally, Jon discovers the recording of Sahsa being taken into the coffin. He decides to dive into the coffin himself to see if he can rescue her. Martin and Tim go looking for him and instead find Michael, who prevents them from helping the Researcher by enveloping them both in an endless fog which separates them from the world. For weeks, they wander the emptiness, the dread of loneliness threatening to overtake them, but they finally make it out of the fog again. Meanwhile, Jon gets fished out of the Buried by one Jurgen Leitner, whom he interrogates briefly before Elias promptly murders him with a pipe.
While framed for murder and on the run, Jon encounters Jude Perry of the Slaughter (who takes a decent sized chunk out of his right hand), Mike Crew of the Dark (who temporarily blinds him), and Detective Daisy Tonner (who takes a strange sort of delight in slowly twisting his neck until it cracks --- or at least until her partner Basira interrupts).
They try to confront Elias, of course, to make him confess to murder. What they get instead is the unfortunate news that all of them are trapped in incomprehensible, twisting, loophole-filled, fine-print contracts with the Spiral which they cannot break. Elias himself keeps them in check by scrambling their brains whenever they get a little too rebellious for his taste.
The team, now including Basira, Daisy, and Melanie, are now set with the task of preventing the Enelopment --- a grand ritual of the Buried which it's current avatar, Nikola Orsinov, is preparing. Jon gets kidnapped by Nikola and her Miners, who want to "squeeze you out completely, and then fill you up again with lovely earth this time! Won't that just be wonderful?" Jon does not think it sounds wonderful.
He is rescued by Helen, the new avatar of the Forsaken who has replaced Michael. Evidently Michael's patron didn't like how much he had grown to care about the Research team's life and success, and so it consumed him entirely and selected a new avatar from its lonely mists.
As Jon stumbles through more and more horrific adventures, he begins to realize that he is changing. Daisy, Tim, and Melanie accuse him of being a liar. Jon doesn't mean to lie, but whenever someone asks him a direct question, things just... come out of his mouth, unbidden. It's not that he can't tell the truth, but it takes a very conscious effort now.
He tries to avoid getting in those situations by answering questions before they're asked. He can explain things perfectly well if nobody requests him to; it's only when he is questioned that the almost-uncotrollable torrent of half-truths, misguiding allusions, and blatant fabrications spills out. But it takes a lot of work to try and figure out what people need and want to know before they do, and Jon isn't always good at guessing.
Elias tells him it's all a part of his alignment with the Spiral. Jon catches sight of himself in the reflection of a store window, and he realizes for the first time that there are no reflective surfaces in the Institute. He sees why; his reflection is gradually beginning to change and distort.
The Envelopment arrives, and Tim blows it all to hell with a set of explosives which were touched by the Vast. They cause a huge, ear-peirecing wave of arcane energy to roll through the entire cave system in which Nikola has prepared the ritual. The Vast energy from the explosives vaporizes everything it touches, reducing it all to weightlessly suspended particles in the now empty air all around. Tim is completely vaporized along with the Miners. Basira escapes with her life. Daisy is MIA, assumed dead.
Jon, by all rights, should be dead alongside Tim. But his body is discovered, comatose, and he wakes up six months later to find that he is no longer entirely solid, but rather a shifting, fluid being, capable of distending himself into impossible shapes and proportions. He attempts to hide this, but it is more exhausting than one might think to contain his body in a strictly human-shaped configuration at all times. Melanie and Basira are not very understanding of his frustrations.
Martin is distant. Not isolated, per se, but distant. Ever since Peter Lukas took over the Institute in Elias's stead and appointed him as his personal assistant, Martin has been whisked away to various mysterious outings practically 24/7. More often than not, Jon glimpses him only once a month in passing with no updates on where he's been or what he's been doing.
While he's working on his own, Jon has formed a few more conspiracy theories. (It's been harder and harder lately to stop his brain from spinning complex and self-contradicting explanations for anything at the drop of a hat.)
First off, Melanie was bitten by a ghost in India. It was a ghost of some kind of animal, or so it seems from the fang that has broken off and lodged in her leg, driving her closer to the Hunt the longer it festers there. Jon attempts to disorient and hypnotize her into docility while he and Basira remove the fang. He comes out of it with a new scar for the collection, but at least Melanie is alright.
Next order of business: One of the caves that the Envelopment took place in was covered in spiderwebs. If Jon has an ounce of trustworthy instinct left, he believes Daisy is caught in the Web.
With no one bothering to stop him, Jon visits Jared Hopworth of the Corruption in order to aquire a single worm to burrow into his flesh. Even if he becomes completely entranced, he hopes that the worm will still itch to escape the Spider, and the feeling of it will drag him out of whatever hypnosis he falls into.
He is right about Daisy -- he finds her in the Web. But he's wrong about the worm. After what feels like months, Martin gets back from his most recent trip and starts opening every door and window in the Institute. Finally, he gets to a door that wasn't there before. To him, the space beyond looks like a swirling void of everything and nothing. But Jon spots the door opening near him, and he feels in his bones that he knows exactly where it leads, even if anyone else would go insane trying to navigate it. He drags Daisy through with him.
While Martin is absolutely swamped with all the built-up management work he has to catch up on after being gone for so long, Basira gets a tip from the incarcerated Elias about an End ritual that is taking place in Ny-Alesund. She and Jon travel North, only to discover once they arrive that there is no such thing as an End ritual. Manuela Dominguez of the End explains smugly that death gets everyone without ever needing to manifest itself. Furious at being led on a wild goose chase, they return.
Jon returns to an intervention. The others have discovered his recent "eating habits", which involve planting indescribable and distressing hallucinations in people's minds. He promises to stop and instead limit himself to feeding off of the confusion and terror of the people he interviews during research cases.
When he discovers that there is a way to quit the Institute, Martin is the first person he seeks out to tell. But Martin is still distant; he has absorbed bits and pieces of Simon's habit of making light of things which used to matter very greatly to him. He doesn't find it worth it to cut the tongue out of his throat --- render himself incapable of speaking lies and thus serve his tie to the Spiral --- when he's so certain he's onto something with Peter.
Melanie is more than willing to do it, though. Georgie helps her learn sign language.
Martin's time as Assistant to Peter Lukas culminates in Peter revealing that Jonah Magnus once constructed what was intended to be the "Gateway to Madness" in the center of the spiraling tunnels under the Institute, and that it has never been properly demolished. From there, he guesses, someone who is both Spiral-aligned and Vast-aligned could easily travel anywhere through space (and possibly even time) instantaneously. He takes Martin to the center of the tunnels to find it.
At the same time, Trevor Herbert and Julia Montork of the Flesh attack the Institute to seek revenge on Jon for tricking him when he was in America. Daisy gives in to the urge to go full Flesh Monster and messily eviscerate Julia, with Basira promising to find and kill her afterward.
Elias, in prison, decides that now is a perfect time to mosey over to the Gateway. He simply materializes a new door and walks through it.
He meets Martin and Peter, and Martin realizes that Peter's plan would have him opening the Gate, utilizing its power, and becoming the new Distortion, replacing Elias. He refuses to do so, and Peter gets angry and casts him into the void.
Jon follows soon after, managing to open a door into what appears to be an empty sky in all directions. He jumps. He has to free fall for quite some time, enduring amused quips and commentary by Peter, who can move freely through the void at any speed he wishes. Jon figures out how to use his Researcher powers -- that is, power of ✨️lying✨️ -- to persuade reality to shit for him. First he uses it to Unmake Peter, then he uses it to shorten space and time, allowing him to catch up with Martin as they both freefall.
Jon reaches out. Martin reaches out. They are just barely out of touch. Finally, Jon calls out above the rush of wind, and Martin hears him. Their hands join, and Jon corridor's them the hell out of there.
The two of them hide out in Daisy's old safehouse in Scotland. For a few beautiful weeks, nothing goes horribly wrong. Then, everything goes horribly wrong.
Basira has been sending Jon tape recordings of past interviews conducted by the Research Department so he can feed on their residual confusion and fear. The last tape starts out simply enough:
"Interview with Hazel Rudder, regarding a fire at her current residence."
But then the voice warps and distorts into something else -- a familiar laugh.
"Hello, Jon. Apologies for the deception, but I wanted to make sure you started listening, so I thought it best not to announce myself."
Jon is compelled to listen, and when Elias's voice asks a question, he is compelled to answer aloud with a lie. In this way, Elias gets him to deny the existence of the sane, rational world that exists outside of the Dread Powers' absolute control. And, just like when he altered reality to find Martin in the Vast, Jon's voice convinces reality to shift, opening the door for all of the Fears.
Once they're as ready as they can be for it, Jon and Martin's next step is to set off across the apocalyptic hellscape to find the Gate That Is Not A Gate and kill SnNbV₩ HVu○£ Who No Longer Needs A Name.
aaaaaand that's as far as I'm going because s5 gets way too complex at the end for me to try and fearswap it all in a way that makes some semblance of sense ToT
eating drywall thinking about sf/dawtde so came here to yap
Spoilers for searching for/destroying a world that doesn't exist!
I've been thinking about how Avery and derlord act so differently in this series, particularly in dawtde where we see a lot more of Avery. I think it comes down to genre awareness.
Derlord 100% knows he's in a horror series. He picks up on it from almost the beginning, from the footsteps in the cave, and he's smart enough and has enough genre awareness to hide his knowledge of how much he knows-the second trap in sfawtde, only typing out and not sending messages in chat, the false trail in dawtde. Not only is derlord just incredibly smart, but he also understands that he's in a horror series, and, by dawtde at least, that its a *cosmic* horror series.
In contrast, Avery...does not. I can't decide whether avery knows he's in a horror series or not, but he definitely doesn't have as much genre awareness as derlord. From my perspective, either he thinks he's in a mystery and picks up on some of the horror aspects later, or he understands he's in a horror series but since his priority is finding derlord it translates into a mystery.
Actually thats another thing-derlord and very have completely different priorities. Derlord is motivated primarily by curiosity, particularly in sfawtde. In dawtde there's more to it because derlord wants to save the world, but we dont see a lot of his internal monologue so it's hard to know his exact motivations. In contrast, avery is purely motivated by his desire to find and save derlord. I think a combination of that fact and also the fact that derlord is an actual genius lead to avery making a lot of genre mistakes or mistakes that derlord didnt make-daring the entity to show itself, begging for a sign not knowing who could be listening, following the trail without knowing if it was actually derlord's( tbf, the audience made this mistake too. At least I did, and it seemed obvious in hindsight considering what we know abt derlord) Either avery doesn't know he's in a horror series or he's choosing to ignore it in favor of focusing on saving derlord.
Actually, writing it out, im settling on the latter. Here are multiple moments he's scared out of his mind, I dont think he could completely miss all the horror, but i do think his focus was on finding derlord
not only are most people completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in the americas, most people are completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in europe. never mind occitan, they don't know about basque! it's wild! bleak! existentially horrifying!!!
the last few centuries of french history involved, amongst other things, a concerted effort to establish "french" as a legitimate country and cultural identity, and crucially as a language, which sounds like an absurd statement if you know nothing about the languages of france. french is a language, yes; it exists and existed in the late eighteenth century. but it was limited primarily to the north of france and was certainly not spoken or even understood across the country. other languages within france were banned and french was enforced following the french revolution and even to this day other languages indigenous to france have very little legal protection and are not recognised as official languages.
that's just one country in europe. one. and many people straight up have no idea about any of this!
did you know france has celtic languages? breton is the only celtic language spoken outside of the british isles. did you know france has germanic languages? alsatian, for example, is spoken in the east of france, unsurprisingly in alsace. it's not even the only french germanic language. did you know france has a number of languages and dialects known as langues d'oïl closely related to french? norman and picard, for example, are spoken in the north of france. did you know that france has gallo-romance languages? franco-provençal (which has a number of dialects) is spoken in the east of france, as well as parts of switzerland and italy. did you know that france has a language most closely related to catalan, the langues d'oc? occitan is spoken in the south of france and has a rich literary history. did you know france is home to basque, or rather euskara, a language isolate which predates indo-european languages? romani dialects! corsican! so much more than just french! there are even extinct jewish dialects of occitan! extinct langues d'oïl like angevin! so much linguistic diversity and all anyone talks about is french.
