Three Goblin Art
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
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let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Andulka
Today's Document
Peter Solarz
$LAYYYTER
tannertan36
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we're not kids anymore.
trying on a metaphor
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Sweet Seals For You, Always
TVSTRANGERTHINGS
izzy's playlists!
Product Placement
DEAR READER
sheepfilms
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@exocolonistfeelings
After several false starts, one high holiday, and accidentally uninstalling PHP entirely through cpanel somehow, I am happy to say the IWATEX wiki (non-fandom-com version) is now live.
It doesn't have much going for it, but I am so very hungry and thus am going to cook dinner now instead.
...Y'know I wonder how I Missed the capitalistic "You have to work every day to have value" undertones that Tangent and her augmentation holds when I was first playing?
It goes right back to what I see as the central theme that you can't just decide to have a cultural post-everything blank slate: the Vertumna Group tried to flee Earth and its self-destructive systems, only to carry those same systems with them because they're part of the same culture.
And so you get every single one of the Strato children coming right back to Earth ideologies organically, not because capitalism is inevitable but because the adults still cling to capitalistic, hierarchical logics. You can see some of it in Nem, and some of it in Cal and Tammy's relationship, but most of all you see it in Marz and Tangent.
Marz
Early in the game, Marz gets the idea to game the kudos system, trading kudos around freely. Tammy sees something wrong with this - kudos are supposed to be doled out for labour and used at the store. This is Marz's first step towards recreating Earth capitalism, the greatest threat identified by the Vertumna Group.
But! Marz didn't get the idea simply because she's greedy or literally shameless. Kudos already operate on a capitalistic logic. They're like money because they are money, invented by people who grew up spending money. And so you get Marz able to afford more luxuries than the other kids, not because she works more, but because her family can get more kudos. She's not playing the system, she's recognizing its true nature.
The government allows this obvious inequality, because everyone gets food, kudos are just for luxuries - but "luxuries" includes everything from dessert to musical instruments to incredibly useful cybernetic devices like the Brain Trainer to accessibility tools like a fidget spinner. And, in the "election," Seeq demands a bribe in the form of kudos, which is completely incoherent unless kudos are already being used as money. It's the same shit from different assholes!
Tangent
Tangent lives in a constant, hellish cycle of always needing to work. She fixed her body's failings one time with a genetic sex change. But she wants to fix it again by removing the parts of her that aren't productive or rational. I think this is why she shaves her head despite not seeming proud of this choice or wanting to talk about it - her hair, even the feeling of it, reminds her of her humanity, her frailty.
She's desperate to prove to herself that she has a Good Brain because her mom had a Bad Brain and that killed her. And her only metric of a Good Brain happens to be, ultimately, productivity. Where did she learn that from? Probably her de facto mother Instance, one of the last defectors to Vertumna (and thus the most entrenched in capitalistic culture).
Unlike Marzipan, Tangent never has any ideological commitment to capitalism. And yet she internalizes some of its worst ideas, being the single most accomplished scientist in the colony and still hating herself, because she still needs to sleep, even for minutes.
A lot of Tangent's worst excesses seem to come from not being able to just sleep on it. Older Tangent discusses a plan to totally control human reproduction, being terrified that the colony will become inbred. This is projection - she thinks she has Bad Genes, and she can't sleep on that, so it gets bigger and bigger in her mind until she's willing to take extreme measures to "fix" the problem. This plan never comes to fruition, because what the fuck, literally nobody wants this. Eugenics is just one more terrible Earth idea that made its way through the wormhole.
In her best ending - where she doesn't work on the plague and does reconcile with her brother - she contributes her genetic material to the colony, implicitly rejecting that she has Bad Genes. This is the only ending in which she does so. At the same time, she becomes the colony's first psychiatrist, finding high-tech solutions for mental illness.
Because - as she knew even as a little girl - biology never has to have the last word on your life.
I had a whole write up about the nuclear family and the placement of children in it and how it connects to all this but I dont rememeber enough about the game to be able to adaqueatly do it. I should replay the game and get my citations heh…I swear Exocolonist used to have a log where you could see All the possible dialogues and endings and that was really useful for analysis….
Really like what you have written though and I think it could be argued that Instance’s role as a parent could be furthered explored in the sense of how children are consindeted property of their parents and what not but again. Need to reread
Honestly I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Gardners whole deal and the Peace Ending. Mostly cause the Peace Ending involves a tactic that’s just…really loaded for me. It’s very much less of a peace talk and more of a…coercion. The humans will die unless they submit and the only reason why they get a slightly better deal is cause Sym is there.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have an ending like that, I like that there’s no golden ending. But also I think it’s important to acknowledge that what the Gardeners did is an…actual colonization tactic. I know it’s weird to call it that cause the humans are colonizing Vertrumna but the Gardeners imposed strict rules (no reproduction, a halt in industry and so on) and as much as I understand why the made those demands (the industry one in particular) this does not exist in a vacuum where real colonizers didn’t make those same demands to their colonies (usually by force, Something we know the Gardeners Do due to the Epilogue talking about how they dispose of particularly rebellious humans)
Even though the demands were made more “reasonable” there still not great, it’s an “accept or die” situation. Which again is just…very loaded in meaning.
(I’m being unspecific since I’m most familiar with stuff from my home country and I’m a very private person, it’s an Asian country if you want some tiny specifics on the background here.)
I don’t think the game…necessarily intended this though, I obviously can’t read into the exact intent of the game. But I don’t think they necessarily meant for all that implication to be loaded into the Gardeners. Or atleast not in this way.
I don’t know, but that’s the main reason I cannot enjoy the peace ending that much…it is so reminiscent of Real World Colonization Tactics that it just immediately brings my mood down.
I suspect the repellent (I would say ecofascist) aspects of the Gardeners are intended, though the epilogue referring to as many as two whole territories being treated as a privilege paints a very bleak picture - I think that might not be intended.
Nocticulent, who embodies the “humans are a pest” ideology is one of the nastiest characters, being smug, condescending and bloodthirsty when he’s talking to you and not just trying to exterminate your kind.
If Sol decides to sympathize with the Gardeners, they wipe out all the Space Refugees, leaving only a glorified zoo of their broken descendants that Gardener!Sol feels a vague sympathy for before being distracted by a beetle-culling job. Only Tangent’s Cure is sadder.
Your two most dangerous peers are Tangent, who wants absolute control over the environment and her twin brother Dys, who completely buys into the Gardeners’ ideology and thinks humans are a menace. They’re good foils for each other. With the twins each being tied to an ending (Dys getting Gardener and Blow Everyone Up, Tangent getting Tangent’s Cure), they can each get their wish in the worst way possible. The best ending for both of them involves reconciling with each other. I think the peace ending is supposed to parallel that reconciliation…though Tangent and Dys are equals, whereas the Gardeners come to you as conquerors.
I think people like peace mainly because it’s an upgrade-by-default over the “normal” ending of a forever war against aliens who can make nature hate you. It’s strange that this is the default ending you have to jump through so many hoops to get anything better. (It’s to be expected if you’ve played Rebuild 3, with its infamously arcane method for reaching the only good ending). I think most people will get a forever war ending on their first playthrough, unless they’re using a guide. You’d think some humans and/or Gardeners would figure out a compromise a few decades in.
I suspect the somewhat pat nature of the peace ending comes from being short on time. There are certainly a lot of aspects of the game that cry out for expansion, and I hope to see such with mods or, fingers crossed, a sequel. I would have definitely liked to see at least some of the peace be playable. Failing that, seeing humans having more agency would be more satisfying.
#iwatex#yeah if you think about it ‘there’s a designated area these people can live in and if they leave they may be returned forcibly or killed’#along with not having real input in governance#especially considering the stratos are refugees#if your understanding if colonialism is that going to a place and living there is colonialist#then if you try to write an anti-colonial narrative you’ll end up writing an anti-immigrant one @theomenroom
You and this person hit the nail on the head for me in different ways thank you for existing I externalized these thoughts a Literal Year Ago and it’s been haunting me ever since cause I couldn’t put my exact finger on it. Thank you so much.
Always happy to read, and write, about Exocolonist - especially on a thematic level. Colonialism and the environment are central themes to the game, so it’s always nice to see critical analysis focusing on those, even with such good blorbos. (Tangent is my favourite in large part because she ties into these themes so well)
Thank you for making the initial post! It was very interesting. I like your blog as a whole!
Sorry for the late reply but thank you! I haven’t talked about this game in forever and I Doubt I will but it’s really nice seeing people discuss this in the Exocolonist fandom space always fun to see analysis. (Also I’m glad you like the blog I think my analysis is Much Better these days for what I usually talk about so its nice to know my old stuff is alright lol.)
Curious if you have an opinion On the Gardeners as this sort of- climate change wish fulfillment? I’m used to people either fantasizing of aliens as huge imposing conquerors who are Know Better and Are Better Than Us (to position humanity against) or Enlightened Folk who Know Better and Are better Than Us (to study humanity.) (Or maybe that’s just me reading too many tumblr comics about people thinking about that- )
And I think it’s interesting that Nocticulent and Sym seem to both play on that and mix it up a bit with the flaws in their worldviews when it comes to the both of them really? The archetypal perfect alien and the archetypal conqueror? I’m admittedly Inclined towards viewing the game in a pessimistic light since I’m just not really happy with how they handle the subject of colonialism and I haven’t touched the game in a while. But I find that idea of the Peace Ending, specifically as this wish fulfillment ending as people have called it, pretty interesting.
Gave this some thought, and I couldn’t really come up with anything novel about the Gardeners as wish fulfillment - I think we covered everything I can think of.
In regards to Sym and Nocticulent, there’s some dialogue if you encounter them in the swamps where Sym warns you that he and Nocticulent aren’t so much two separate creatures as two different hands of one creature - they can do different things, but really, neither of them is ever a renegade.
That’s quite unsettling on its own, and only gets more confusing in the event that the overseer absorbs Sym. Is that basically an act of self-mutilation from the Gardeners’ perspective? Did he get too individualized? How? And then he’s able to control Nocticulent and force a peaceful outcome. Does that mean he’s part of the “head” now?
The obvious human perspective is that Nocticulent is bad and Sym is good, but it’s interesting that Sym himself clearly doesn’t think that.
That’s really fascinating it kinda makes Sym-Nocticulent this binary good-evil from the perspective of the humans even though there unavoidable connected to each other. As if the Gardeners (as a collective) personified these two different perspectives towards humanity. (And it makes Sym’s aborbtion even more unsettling. As then it really does read as if Sym became too much of an individual due to his nature, and the Gardeners needed to “erase” his perspective so to speak)
...Y'know I wonder how I Missed the capitalistic "You have to work every day to have value" undertones that Tangent and her augmentation holds when I was first playing?
Honestly I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Gardners whole deal and the Peace Ending. Mostly cause the Peace Ending involves a tactic that’s just…really loaded for me. It’s very much less of a peace talk and more of a…coercion. The humans will die unless they submit and the only reason why they get a slightly better deal is cause Sym is there.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have an ending like that, I like that there’s no golden ending. But also I think it’s important to acknowledge that what the Gardeners did is an…actual colonization tactic. I know it’s weird to call it that cause the humans are colonizing Vertrumna but the Gardeners imposed strict rules (no reproduction, a halt in industry and so on) and as much as I understand why the made those demands (the industry one in particular) this does not exist in a vacuum where real colonizers didn’t make those same demands to their colonies (usually by force, Something we know the Gardeners Do due to the Epilogue talking about how they dispose of particularly rebellious humans)
Even though the demands were made more “reasonable” there still not great, it’s an “accept or die” situation. Which again is just…very loaded in meaning.
(I’m being unspecific since I’m most familiar with stuff from my home country and I’m a very private person, it’s an Asian country if you want some tiny specifics on the background here.)
I don’t think the game…necessarily intended this though, I obviously can’t read into the exact intent of the game. But I don’t think they necessarily meant for all that implication to be loaded into the Gardeners. Or atleast not in this way.
I don’t know, but that’s the main reason I cannot enjoy the peace ending that much…it is so reminiscent of Real World Colonization Tactics that it just immediately brings my mood down.
I suspect the repellent (I would say ecofascist) aspects of the Gardeners are intended, though the epilogue referring to as many as two whole territories being treated as a privilege paints a very bleak picture - I think that might not be intended.
Nocticulent, who embodies the “humans are a pest” ideology is one of the nastiest characters, being smug, condescending and bloodthirsty when he’s talking to you and not just trying to exterminate your kind.
If Sol decides to sympathize with the Gardeners, they wipe out all the Space Refugees, leaving only a glorified zoo of their broken descendants that Gardener!Sol feels a vague sympathy for before being distracted by a beetle-culling job. Only Tangent’s Cure is sadder.
Your two most dangerous peers are Tangent, who wants absolute control over the environment and her twin brother Dys, who completely buys into the Gardeners’ ideology and thinks humans are a menace. They’re good foils for each other. With the twins each being tied to an ending (Dys getting Gardener and Blow Everyone Up, Tangent getting Tangent’s Cure), they can each get their wish in the worst way possible. The best ending for both of them involves reconciling with each other. I think the peace ending is supposed to parallel that reconciliation…though Tangent and Dys are equals, whereas the Gardeners come to you as conquerors.
I think people like peace mainly because it’s an upgrade-by-default over the “normal” ending of a forever war against aliens who can make nature hate you. It’s strange that this is the default ending you have to jump through so many hoops to get anything better. (It’s to be expected if you’ve played Rebuild 3, with its infamously arcane method for reaching the only good ending). I think most people will get a forever war ending on their first playthrough, unless they’re using a guide. You’d think some humans and/or Gardeners would figure out a compromise a few decades in.
I suspect the somewhat pat nature of the peace ending comes from being short on time. There are certainly a lot of aspects of the game that cry out for expansion, and I hope to see such with mods or, fingers crossed, a sequel. I would have definitely liked to see at least some of the peace be playable. Failing that, seeing humans having more agency would be more satisfying.
#iwatex#yeah if you think about it ‘there’s a designated area these people can live in and if they leave they may be returned forcibly or killed’#along with not having real input in governance#especially considering the stratos are refugees#if your understanding if colonialism is that going to a place and living there is colonialist#then if you try to write an anti-colonial narrative you’ll end up writing an anti-immigrant one @theomenroom
You and this person hit the nail on the head for me in different ways thank you for existing I externalized these thoughts a Literal Year Ago and it’s been haunting me ever since cause I couldn’t put my exact finger on it. Thank you so much.
Always happy to read, and write, about Exocolonist - especially on a thematic level. Colonialism and the environment are central themes to the game, so it’s always nice to see critical analysis focusing on those, even with such good blorbos. (Tangent is my favourite in large part because she ties into these themes so well)
Thank you for making the initial post! It was very interesting. I like your blog as a whole!
Sorry for the late reply but thank you! I haven't talked about this game in forever and I Doubt I will but it's really nice seeing people discuss this in the Exocolonist fandom space always fun to see analysis. (Also I'm glad you like the blog I think my analysis is Much Better these days for what I usually talk about so its nice to know my old stuff is alright lol.)
Curious if you have an opinion On the Gardeners as this sort of- climate change wish fulfillment? I'm used to people either fantasizing of aliens as huge imposing conquerors who are Know Better and Are Better Than Us (to position humanity against) or Enlightened Folk who Know Better and Are better Than Us (to study humanity.) (Or maybe that's just me reading too many tumblr comics about people thinking about that- )
And I think it's interesting that Nocticulent and Sym seem to both play on that and mix it up a bit with the flaws in their worldviews when it comes to the both of them really? The archetypal perfect alien and the archetypal conqueror? I'm admittedly Inclined towards viewing the game in a pessimistic light since I'm just not really happy with how they handle the subject of colonialism and I haven't touched the game in a while. But I find that idea of the Peace Ending, specifically as this wish fulfillment ending as people have called it, pretty interesting.
Honestly I have a lot of mixed feelings about the Gardners whole deal and the Peace Ending. Mostly cause the Peace Ending involves a tactic that’s just…really loaded for me. It’s very much less of a peace talk and more of a…coercion. The humans will die unless they submit and the only reason why they get a slightly better deal is cause Sym is there.
I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have an ending like that, I like that there’s no golden ending. But also I think it’s important to acknowledge that what the Gardeners did is an…actual colonization tactic. I know it’s weird to call it that cause the humans are colonizing Vertrumna but the Gardeners imposed strict rules (no reproduction, a halt in industry and so on) and as much as I understand why the made those demands (the industry one in particular) this does not exist in a vacuum where real colonizers didn’t make those same demands to their colonies (usually by force, Something we know the Gardeners Do due to the Epilogue talking about how they dispose of particularly rebellious humans)
Even though the demands were made more “reasonable” there still not great, it’s an “accept or die” situation. Which again is just…very loaded in meaning.
(I’m being unspecific since I’m most familiar with stuff from my home country and I’m a very private person, it’s an Asian country if you want some tiny specifics on the background here.)
I don’t think the game…necessarily intended this though, I obviously can’t read into the exact intent of the game. But I don’t think they necessarily meant for all that implication to be loaded into the Gardeners. Or atleast not in this way.
I don’t know, but that’s the main reason I cannot enjoy the peace ending that much…it is so reminiscent of Real World Colonization Tactics that it just immediately brings my mood down.
I suspect the repellent (I would say ecofascist) aspects of the Gardeners are intended, though the epilogue referring to as many as two whole territories being treated as a privilege paints a very bleak picture - I think that might not be intended.
Nocticulent, who embodies the “humans are a pest” ideology is one of the nastiest characters, being smug, condescending and bloodthirsty when he’s talking to you and not just trying to exterminate your kind.
If Sol decides to sympathize with the Gardeners, they wipe out all the Space Refugees, leaving only a glorified zoo of their broken descendants that Gardener!Sol feels a vague sympathy for before being distracted by a beetle-culling job. Only Tangent’s Cure is sadder.
Your two most dangerous peers are Tangent, who wants absolute control over the environment and her twin brother Dys, who completely buys into the Gardeners’ ideology and thinks humans are a menace. They’re good foils for each other. With the twins each being tied to an ending (Dys getting Gardener and Blow Everyone Up, Tangent getting Tangent’s Cure), they can each get their wish in the worst way possible. The best ending for both of them involves reconciling with each other. I think the peace ending is supposed to parallel that reconciliation…though Tangent and Dys are equals, whereas the Gardeners come to you as conquerors.
I think people like peace mainly because it’s an upgrade-by-default over the “normal” ending of a forever war against aliens who can make nature hate you. It’s strange that this is the default ending you have to jump through so many hoops to get anything better. (It’s to be expected if you’ve played Rebuild 3, with its infamously arcane method for reaching the only good ending). I think most people will get a forever war ending on their first playthrough, unless they’re using a guide. You’d think some humans and/or Gardeners would figure out a compromise a few decades in.
I suspect the somewhat pat nature of the peace ending comes from being short on time. There are certainly a lot of aspects of the game that cry out for expansion, and I hope to see such with mods or, fingers crossed, a sequel. I would have definitely liked to see at least some of the peace be playable. Failing that, seeing humans having more agency would be more satisfying.
#iwatex#yeah if you think about it 'there's a designated area these people can live in and if they leave they may be returned forcibly or killed'#along with not having real input in governance#especially considering the stratos are refugees#if your understanding if colonialism is that going to a place and living there is colonialist#then if you try to write an anti-colonial narrative you'll end up writing an anti-immigrant one @theomenroom
You and this person hit the nail on the head for me in different ways thank you for existing I externalized these thoughts a Literal Year Ago and it's been haunting me ever since cause I couldn't put my exact finger on it. Thank you so much.
hi.
You should always strive to give your followers an extremely warped impression of your favorite media
Ideally they should be under the impression that it's about the lesbian trysts of two side-characters who barely interact and be unable to recognize the protagonist
Can we talk about this difference in opening text in the Life On Earth ending-
whats the point of being a teenage exocolonist without PROM!
bonus: all these fucking shoes i drew. look at them
It's been three seasons of heavy food rationing, getting more and more strict as the year drags on and the fields continue to struggle. You've been wasting away, you all have. What will you do? What can you do?
Ah, the indomitable Marzipan.
That's Governor Marzipan, to you.
Since I’m in a good mood, I’ll post a drawing <3
Not genshin though, sorry
For that past couple months I’ve been absolutely adoring I was a teenage exocolonist. I’m currently working on getting all the endings and I’ve been having the time of my life at every turn. I am on the verge of creating an entire au for it and I swear the moment I get all those endings it’ll be over
Minor spoilers?: I got the idea for this from Sol’s dream sequence. It reminded me a lot of Alice and wondered (and I love Alice in Wonderland) and ever since I’ve had the idea for this. It honestly came out a lot better then I expected and I’m really happy with it ^^
I deserve a mech suit. I deserve a symbiotic relationship with heavy machinery. I deserve to experience a perfect connection between flesh and metal
The fall of the Stratos…
“ You fought for this lot. “
no matter what they do, it always fails. no matter how many times or cycles, they can never save them. can never save him.
kom can’t be saved.
why do you keep trying?
Many much a time later, an updated list of my npc designs I fished shared a bit back! Right now it's sitting at a whopping 40 characters, with 11 of them having first and second game half designs (something that I only plan on doing for the younger npcs, and most of them are done already!). I've been struggling for a hot minute about how to go about describing each of these characters in a quick and easy manner but there's no casual way to do so. The first version has most of them named and described already and if anyone has questions about who or what role a specific one is meant to be my in box is open, but by and large all of the new ones added probably fall under the umbrella categories of "small child you can babysit, occasionally with a noted augment" or "wormhole orphan".
I had a whole thing about the spreadsheet that accompanies this that isn't ready for public sharing yet but tumblr decided to eat that paragraph, so theres that :T. Anyways if anyone else has need for a full landing roster for both ships + about 20 years of theoretical/possible-dependent-on-timeline post-game kids (not even counting any of Sol's), keep your eyes peeled for that niche monstrosity.
( @nordicbananas , since you asked me to ping you with any updates on this)
