(edit | also since this is my pinned, sorry if I like a bunch of your stuff! I wanna reblog it but adhd brain says I need to do it all at once, especially for blogs other then my main!)
hi I made a h*lf life and hlv*ai blog and of y'all are into that it's @resonance-casgayde
and pls if y'all are into those come talk to me it's a HUGE hyperfixation. also if y'all see this bc I liked something of your for that blog I will reblog it eventually but ape adhd brain says only do it all at once
I might as well link my other blogs for a pin too bc I need one of those oops
art @ryansprobablyartblog
f*allout @ring-me-in-the-fallout
h*lf life/hlv*ai @resonance-casgayde
and I have a wip for another one that who knows if I’ll finish
(also using * so they hopefully don’t appear in the tags or I will cry)
Thus the return of the bear rug Arthur returns. A redraw of my 2025 attempt.
Now I know I said there would be another version, but if this gets like 500 notes. I will do it.
Imagine if Nidus or Nidus Prime could do this. Anyway, if Eleanor can take over a hive then…well. In my brain, where all the illness lives, I feel like a nidus proto would have a decent grasp on this ability. Hive livin’ and all.
Listen. Listen. I just.. I broke. I resisted, I TRULY did I promise. But it had to be done. And if there's a chance to make a rugged man with a beard in a game with men with only SCRUFF. I will take it. Anyway enjoy Stan prime protoframe. (Yes I know I didn't spell it right.)
The way I conceptualize my Drifter, and what haunts them to their core, is like. The Drifter is alone in the Void, and an entire world is born out of their isolation and trauma. It's based on The Tales of Duviri, which was written as a tool to help the children on the Zariman with emotional regulation while within the Void. The Drifter's Duviri is a reflection and extension of themselves, a shield to protect them from further catastrophic trauma, which becomes a prison when it is no longer sufficient, as they grow into adulthood. The prison of a coping skill becoming maladaptive rather than adaptive.
Thrax and the courtiers and the rest of Duviri reflect this process. The Drifter creates these people to externalize their own suffering, people to feel that suffering in the Drifter's stead. They are both extensions/reflections of the Drifter and people who now live twilight half-lives in their own right.
No. I can't quite believe it. What kind of benevolent creator would consign me to this?
Work, like life, it never ends... it is merely... endured.
Torture would be better than this. But then I guess this is torture.
Eternity. Well, I can't say I like it.
Well, at least this place will fall into the Void one day.
If the Void truly preserves consciousness, then there is no hope of an end.
It's how a story can be therapeutic, but within the Void, the story comes to life and makes people. It is no longer just the Drifter's pain, it becomes other people who have suffered because of the Drifter.
Drifter: I'm just looking for a way out of here.
Bombastine: A way out? When all of us are obliged to stay?
The Drifter didn't mean to do this, and it is not a moral failing that it happened. In one of the KIM chats with Arthur, he rightfully pushes back if they blame themselves too much for all that occurred, pointing out that the Drifter was a scared child. They had no way of knowing the true scope of what was happening, and would not have been able to stop creation from erupting from an isolated, traumatized child within the Void. It takes a long, long time, and help from others (Lotus, Teshin), before the Drifter is able to recognize what Duviri really is.
In the same KIM chat with Arthur, the Drifter can explain why they keep going back to Duviri, and one of the answers is:
Because I feel like I have a duty to those people there. They... they exist because of me.
Instead of being a dialogue option, I wish this was dialogue that the player couldn't avoid. Because:
It's in keeping with how the Drifter and the Operator are characterized without player input.
It shifts perspective away from victimhood and towards responsibility. Out of absorption with singular pain and into acknowledgement that we are not solipsistic beings unto ourselves, that we have an impact on the world and are capable of causing harm, even if it is unavoidable and not intended. That this is a critical thing to be aware of when we have power or advantage in a situation.
And that is how Drifter/Operator are characterized. They have been brutalized by others, by their circumstances, but they take that and shape that into duty towards other people when they have the power to do something about it.
That is the point of 1999. That the Drifter is more or less a fledgling demigod, and recognizes that it means they have to give a shit even more than the average person. They didn't cause the mess that is 1999's loop, but they have to care, because someone has to. Because they have the power to do something about it. Because they want to care, because feeling otherwise is death without dying.
Oh, to be a Drifter! No ties. No responsibilities. Nobody to take care of.
But Duviri is a different mess entirely, because that is pain that they caused to proxies that now exist within strange half-lives because of them. The Drifter didn't mean to, and couldn't have prevented it, but you are able to acknowledge Drifter's responsibility all the same.
You have a shadow. It is that which you wish you were not, but are.
The Drifter tends to Duviri during its spirals because that is the echo of the Drifter's pain resounding over and over again, shaping the existence of people who were created to carry it - the act of creation as a consequence inflicted upon what you create.
For my Drifter, this haunts them and drives everything that they do.
Koral puts it best:
I feel I owe the sweet, little citizens of the world a great debt of compassion.
And my favorite quote from My Favorite Critically Acclaimed Television Show "Severance," for flavor:
Aight so this has just been sitting in my folders collecting dust. Have a slightly peeled Quincy, because HC says some parts of their protoframe shell or whatever are removable (before there's an itchy feeling or some shit)
People are welcome to use or build off the concept
