pinning this nonsense video of him i made in 2019 i think because he deserves to be at the top of my blog.
my baby boy, my beloved, you gave my mom and i enormous amounts of joy from 2008 to 2013, then you got lost, and then, for some miracle, maybe you just were the cat destined to be, you came back in 2017. we found you again after 4 years, which cat owner can say so? im sure there arent a lot. and then you gave our lives even more happiness and love, you gave us all your love, and we returned it in full.
you died today, june 27th, 2023, after 15 years of blessing our lives with your existence, as you lived: at peace, and full of love. we will forever miss you, and no cat will ever be able to be compared to you. you were, are, and always will be, loved. 💘🐈
I need non-USAmericans to remember that interventionism is not a white USAmerican practice only. It's a cultural mindset integrated in the very creation of the United States of America. And I need non-white USAmerican to also remember it.
No, you're not safe from being an interventionist because you are "0.0001% another ethnicity" and you were raised in a non-white community.
It's in every interaction, campaign and advertising that comes out of the United States and it's a core part of the educational and political systems. From the way they talked and teached about the World Wars and the Middle East, to the way they talk about South America and Asia/Africa nowadays.
It's in the way non-white people raised in USAmerican don't want to learn new languages nor cultures and the demand that other parts of the world bend to their every will outside of basic respect. It's the way USAmericans try to impose USAmerican beliefs in other cultures without interacting with them.
It's in the way they talked about Argentina and when radicalized a people here actually told what actually did happend, they dismissed them and called them traitors. It's the way they talked to about Africa and when from various countries told them to shut up about them, they called them "savages and uncultured". It's the way they talk about East Asia and when east asians just... don't comply, they are told their opinion on about they OWN CULTURE doesn't matter.
It's the way the United States of America intervenes in election times, either be monetary or by public opinion, to the wars in the Middle East and recently, the takeover of Venezuela.
It's the way this practice has managed to disguise itself as a saving grace for poor countries and the solution to problems like xenophobia and racism, at the same time it amplifies them. It's the way it keeps people ignorant and uninterested in the world outside of their world view. It keeps USAmericans in a perpetual victim mentality without wanting to learn.
my dad gets on the computer for 5 minutes and he already manages to unlock internet explorer’s unholy twin and pull it out of the depths of hell you know what fuck this shit
I do enjoy when a very old classic Tumblr post (like literally a decade old at this point) comes across my Dash and I click on OP's account and their last post was like, 30 minutes ago.
idk man not to sound like a cartoon hippie but if your entirrrrre blog and dash is about how the world sucks and everyones bigoted i think you are going to give yorself brain worms
Wokest gringo next year when Milei loses the elections in Argentina and suddenly the USA decides is time to intervene in our country to fix the racism problem.
For anyone who might so much as suggest this is an exaggeration, the US is currently justifying it's aggressive actions against Brazil as a "crackdown on slave labour"
Does Jadon have any scars we don't get to see? He seems like he was cut up pretty badly. Does that huge 'X'-shaped scar across his chest wrap around onto his back at all?
Most of his scars would be centered around the parts of his limbs that were severed. Where ever the black goop drips out is where the scar would be. The x is mostly on his chest with a small portion of it wrapping around to his back. He was damaged heavily by the thing inside him.
if you're ever beating yourself up for 'missing the obvious hints' that someone is romantically interested in you, know this: i once met a guy who asked out a girl after she sent him nude pictures of herself in the bath and she said she wasn't interested. it is never obvious
Isn't it strange how Sincere Deceit gives you the choice to side with Abram or Zaphkiel, but the more you learn about them Zaphkiel ends up being the most objectively evil of the two? And you have to go out of your way to side with him? It feels like there would be a little more nuance between the two fighting.
Yes, this is one thing that bothers me a bit. The narrative of "who is in the right" is quickly revealed to be very one-sided the moment you do any digging rather than just blindly follow what Zaphkiel tells you to do. Even just from Malachi's memories you get the impression Abram isn't the evil beast the Church paints him as. That plus the whole "having privacy is a sin because you're hiding things from God" dialogue that can be seen before even leaving the Church for the first time is alarming and if The Player had any belief the blue voice claiming themself to be god was good before then, they're a lot more suspicious and reluctant to continue following that voice now.
Lugosi also makes an incredibly good argument should you continue following Zaphkiel's word which should make any player other than those who just want to see a complete Blue route change their mind.
This aspect of the narrative that bothers me a bit is part of why I express such interest in how Abram was back in Find Me, as I've analyzed why he could've been the way he was back then twice. To summarize what I theorized from Abram's analysis, the way he was back in Find Me was that he had a similar reaction to Zaphkiel's betrayal (as such was determined even back then) that he had in the wake of Hugo's death. Zaphkiel closed off his heart and isolated himself following Hugo's death despite his pleading to let him help Him when he felt he could've done more if He just let him try. He became deceitful and opted to manipulate people into getting what he wants since the straightforward and earnest route didn't work. He felt he was the only one who could achieve the perfection Hugo always wanted for his world. He didn't always feel that way, but when Abram raised those souls from the Nothingness that shouldn't have ever existed in such a state, he became bitter and felt a sense of betrayal that despite him having been born from their Father, that apparently even he could not realize His vision.
He was alone in this. The only one who could make things the way they should've been. And there was no point in talking it out with him, for he knows his grievances would just be dismissed.
And so, after many years of effort, he obtained a following, formed a religion around himself, manipulated and took advantage of the architect of the City (his family dying, leaving him dependent upon religion to soothe the pain in his heart and give him direction for how to keep going was an unplanned but beneficial bonus that was exploited to the fullest), and located and soon after lied to and manipulated the grieving Queen Mother of the Sun into starting a war to tear down the blemish upon His otherwise near-perfect creation.
All of this out of selfish grief.
Because of the narrative of Sincere Deceit as it is, I could retroactively apply it to what is known about Find Me to come to the conclusion Abram's cruelty towards his own friends following their deaths (and especially towards Adam just in general) was out of a similar response to the betrayal of someone who was a dear friend of his being the cause of so much pain and suffering. The one he least suspected being the root of it all. That everything he and the others worked to fix was being undermined from the very beginning.
He wanted to make amends. For being the reason Hugo died? For having attacked and absorbed part of Zaphkiel's code? I do not know, but that was his intent, however. So for the once caretaker of Hugo, a person who he could bond with in their shared grief for their Father passing and having even been created by Him for the express purpose of being His friend, to have betrayed everyone and actively worked to destroy the sanctuary they both worked to create— that all this ever was to him was an unfortunate but necessary step in his scheme to become the sole ruler of the world rather than a guiding hand— destroys him. That Zaphkiel helped work to build Arbela with the intent its existence would be fleeting and everything that had happened in the past who knows how long— for better or for worse— was just progression towards his ultimate goal of getting rid of Abram, his friends, and everything they all worked to build.
The rage and despair over someone so trusted and loved being the cause of so much pain caused him to close off his heart. He was angry upon his birth, but calmed down and eventually somehow, either through time or some other way, became more optimistic and jovial. He became curious and wanted to make the most of the blank canvas left by His father. Though, it isn't exactly clear how he and Zaphkiel were able to do what they did since in Find Me's lore, they were normal men that were just "special" by Mother Eve, the Nothingness. Their ability to build Arbela and Zaphkiel reviving the Zones, based on the information known, is implied to have been because of The Machine. The Machine, as the Dream Cat put it, was created to protect the land and both built and destroyed lives. It was turned sour by "His" tainted fingers.
I believe I talked about this in Abram's analysis, where the god aspect of Abram's character and his ability to manipulate the world code was a completely separate entity from he as a living being. I mention this again in my analysis of the Zone 3 omen.
Abram's god-like power wasn't something he innately had and was instead separate from him in the form of The Machine that itself is what generates their world and creates new life. That it was through Abram's interacting with The Machine that he pulled Malachi, Jadon, and Gaius' souls from the Nothingness rather than it being something he's capable of under his own power, and that come the overhaul to the worldbuilding, the god-like aspects of The Machine and what Corrupted the world were incorporated into Abram's character. Was it to streamline things? Make it less convoluted? Was having the power and the person being two separate entities superfluous and it was better for story flow and cohesion to just have them be one character? I don't know.
Prior to that analysis, I was entirely of the belief that Abram in Find Me became as cruel as he did as a way of distancing himself from the pain of Zaphkiel's betrayal and that everything he worked for was being dashed right from the start. That it always meant nothing.
That it was better to lose himself to the Beast he was always supposed to be than to suffer that pain. To control the narrative that he is nothing but a monster that revels in the pain he causes others through his tampering with The Machine and the deaths of his friends, which he mocks. But the memories of Malachi and Jadon (except the one for the latter that is completely different from SinDec) are identical to how they are in Sincere Deceit save for everything Abram says being missing. Thus, one could easily come to the conclusion what he said in Find Me was the same. That were his words to have been present in their memories, it would quickly reveal he isn't the monster he portrays himself as.
One in his grief and a feeling of betrayal portrayed himself as an all-wise, eloquent, and benevolent god.
One in his grief and rage from betrayal portrays himself as the Beast who was to devour the world before any who would turn it into what it was not could do so.
Mirror images they are in their narration.
A friend that you should do a favor for because you're friends.
A snarling beast who spits venom at you, the one to blame for all this, and views this all as naught but a game.
The game it was turned into. The game it always was. Because nothing he ever did truly mattered.
None of this matters.
That much like in the Blue Zones the truth of his grief is hidden in small, claustrophobic rooms that don't exist in the original states of the Zones, so too, did I believe, that the truth of the man he once was would be hidden within the recesses of the crumbling states of the Red Zones.
He can do nothing but hope you don't find them.
He can actively hinder your ability to learn of who he once was. The idiotic optimist who really thought this world had a future.
You would have to fight for the ability to learn that truth. To persist in the wake of someone who lashes out and pushes you away from the manifestation of who they once were before things went wrong.
They both lie about the truth regarding who's to blame. Maybe Zaphkiel still did blame Adam back then, maybe that wasn't determined yet, but Abram certainly did.
The Oracle claims something is wrong just because only gods have the right to name themselves and Adam who is not, did such blasphemy. Adam in Find Me is more clearly manipulative of Abram in trying to get him to meddle with The Machine as opposed to how in Sincere Deceit he's more nervous and obviously hiding something.
The Red Dream in Find Me is intensely disparaging towards Adam and doesn't give him an inch of humanity like it does towards the others.
It almost feels like... with how emphatically Abram pushes the narrative that all of this is Adam's fault, that in truth, he blames himself the most for having ruined everything. That there's more to this that simply just wasn't completed before the worldbuilding was overhauled to what is recognizably Sincere Deceit.
It is still blaming Adam, however, even if it is indirectly through blaming himself for believing him.
But... I think for all the demonization of Adam and animosity towards him he spits, that he is also directing those same sentiments towards himself.
The Dream Cat does, after all, reside specifically within the room Adam's shade is in. And if one views what is said about him under the context of Abram, it too appears to correspond suitably to him. The Dream Cat, who is Abram, refers to Abram only through pronouns rather than by name and calls him tainted. The implication of having been ruined by another, but also being that ruination in and of itself.
Or maybe he's solely talking about himself in regards to these cruel remarks and merely using Adam as a proxy— much in the same way he uses The Batter's likeness to mock himself.
Because from what is known about Find Me and what events were left over from, admittedly, the test build (whether or not this was planned for Find Me as well is unknown as we simply don't have a build of the game where the Industry District possibly existed before the worldbuilding was overhauled)— the point is is that, from what exists and can be extrapolated from, Adam's past in Find Me was more or less identical to how it is in Sincere Deceit. And if this is the case, then it becomes apparent that all this emphatic blame upon Adam for "being the cause of everything going wrong for real this time", is a lie. A lie that now Abram himself is perpetuating.
Because if you take a second to think about what Abram says to himself in A Room regarding Adam "just wanting power", and you take Adam's childhood, then the clear question of "why did he want power?" arises. Why did he seek to manipulate Abram into meddling with The Machine? Certainly it couldn't have been simply the desire for power for the sake of it.
The story presented isn't adding up. Everyone's pointing fingers at him that when you would find out the truth, possibly there would be merit in what Abram was saying about Adam, but not in the way one would think at a surface level. But first and foremost, perhaps it would've been revealed that all this demonization, this smearing of Adam's name, was nothing but fabrication with the goal of pinning all the world's evils on someone convenient.
A scapegoat.
Adam did blame Eve for his partaking in the Fruit of Knowledge— and indirectly through this, their expulsion from Eden.
The narrative was once more heavily weighted against Adam to the point even with everything within the Factory, one could still be fooled into believing the victim is to blame. For the world's end, and for his own abuse.
I now head to a more present interpretation of why I believe Find Me Abram was the way he was, and in summary, it was because him tampering with The Machine at Adam's urging, Corrupted him. I talk about this at length in this analysis, so I'm not repeating myself. That the reason he became monstrous was a form of divine madness in a similar manner to what becomes of Adam should he have swallowed the Grand Chocolatier.
Which then leads to my current interpretation of Find Me Abram in that it's a combination of my former interpretation and the latter one: that while his intentions for using The Machine were initially pure but became corrupt upon him interacting with a divine object that shouldn't have, The Machine isn't the cause in itself for his cruelty, but the power and knowledge combined with Zaphkiel's betrayal exacerbated his ire and subsequent pain. The power and knowledge from The Machine only served to preemptively fuel a fire that was beginning to spark. What would've been a manageable flame instead manifested as an unstoppable inferno. Abram wasn't just a victim to two ("two") people's manipulation and ended up becoming trapped within his own mind, helpless to his own heartless words and actions with his only ability to surpass that suppression being within a dream and spoken through cryptic nonsense, but a man who was "enlightened" and validated in his enlightenment through learning a horrific truth that destroyed the foundation of all he believed.
He wasn't driven mad per se, but was given the power and knowledge in the wake of such an agonizing reality to lose himself in his pain and make manifest his desire for reality. One that simply should not be, for rather than wanting control over everything selfishly, the torment of everything he and his friends worked for having been for nothing all this time lead him to wanting to tear everything down in a fit of unbridled wrath. Tear it all down because none of it was worth a damn thing. Tear it all down out of contempt and spite for the one who wanted the world all for himself and to his exact liking because he apparently detested what he built alongside him. Well, now there will be nothing to rebuild from. How do you like that? It's what you deserve anyway. None of this ever meant anything, anyway. What does it matter if the lives of many who seek to persist in the face of such hardship want to continue living?
What did any of this ever matter...
...
It's better this way.
And yet, for all he hides of the truth of himself, he wants what happened that led to the end of all things to be known. Through cryptic words within a dream and frustration at The Player following Zaphkiel, the face he dons to appear savage and heartless wavers. A conflicted heart that despite wanting to isolate himself from everything that is but a reminder of what he thought could've been but in truth never could, yearns for you to understand and care. To learn about his friends and what set this in motion.
Despite everything, he still wants this world. He could never cease caring about it entirely.
No... He is acting this way because he cared for the world too much. A caring that became poisoned when the object of that care became a hot stove.
Such was changed drastically in Sincere Deceit where he is morose as opposed to indiscriminatorily wrathful. In Sincere Deceit his outrage at Zaphkiel was the catalyst for the world's end, and following that surge of anger he was left unable to retract his Corruption. While it is implied The Machine was located within the Tower as based on Find Me's Red Dream containing the same splintered pillars that exist in Sincere Deceit's red room in Layer 5, whether or not Abram was actively continuing to use it to Corrupt the world rather than being helpless to his own power spilling out with him being unable to do anything about it, or if him using it that one time to obtain a bit of power was all he did to it which led to the world's decay— the fact remains he actively and maliciously seeks to see this world end while in Sincere Deceit this is something he never wanted to do but feels that he must.
Or perhaps, he retroactively ascribed his act of devouring everything as something he must do rather than the reality of it having just been something that happened in a spur of the moment decision that he couldn't take back.
Anger breeds mistakes.
...
One gives himself agency through retroactively ascribing his act of destroying everything as a duty to be done that he didn't want to do but now must.
One gives himself agency through portraying himself as a beast and distancing himself from his name, from his humanity, from being a man.
A garbled snarl for a voice and all we see of him is a cat and a nightmarish, deformed Batter.
One portrays himself as more divine than he truly is...
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While I could be entirely wrong or have several points, major and/or minor, wrong about how Abram was back in Find Me as I was only able to come to the interpretation I have of him based on how he is in Sincere Deceit and comparing the two to fill in the gaps, I believe a narrative that utilized an Abram that isn't unambiguously justified would've made for a more interesting game. Because then it isn't so weighted in one god's favor, but a choice between two evils, more or less. A "pick your poison"-type of choice between two people whose visions for the world are each horrible and selfish. Abram would still be sympathetic, but he'd be roughly just as much as Zaphkiel is in Sincere Deceit. It would make the choice between red or blue more difficult. It would also be better to have the third option of a "white route" not be as obviously apparent. That you really have to work to get Fulfilled Purpose than just do the Red route but keep the Grand Items. It is so painfully simple to achieve it by just doing a Red route and then the point where it actually matters whether you give up the Grands or not being right at the end of the game, to just keep them.
To even swing things back in Abram's favor in the Blue route, Layer 2 makes it inconvenient to go out of your way to enter the Heart Rooms and give the Grands to him. While the choices in Red Layer 2 are the way they are because Abram is different from how he was in Find Me and does not try to funnel The Player into doing only what results in the destruction of the world, I think it would've been more interesting to not have it be so mindlessly simple to walk the path to the best ending.
If there's one thing I preferred in Find Me (or more accurately, my interpretation of it), it was the implication of things being more complicated and not clear cut like it quickly appears to be in Sincere Deceit as early as Malachi's memories. Because Abram's side of his conversation with the District Guardians is gone in Find Me and in stark contrast to the seeming casual familiarity Malachi regards him with such that one would come to the conclusion they were friends, Abram is derisive of him following his death. Then the cat doll also existed in Find Me and was still a gift from Abram, yet he's also still derogatory towards Jadon after he dies. It wouldn't have been a case of Zaphkiel claiming Abram was some barely restrained beast that would've been immediately disproven by his irrefutable display of humanity and kindness like it is in SinDec, but would've instead elicited confusion in The Player as to whether Zaphkiel was right and Abram was just masquerading as a man and something was at play with his portrayal in the District Guardians' memories, or if he is lying.
What I found baffling and also somewhat funny in Sincere Deceit is Zaphkiel remarking on "[Abram] beginning to stir once more" once Impure Zone 3 is accessible when by that point, if you've been backtracking to the Districts and looking at their Guardians' memories, it is already rather clear Zaphkiel is lying to you. Literally Zaphkiel going "He's evil! A savage beast biding his time to destroy us all! Please hurry, time is of the essence lest all be lost." and Abram as he's heard in Malachi's and Jadon's memories is basically just "Hey, guys, how's it going?". It's laughable Zaphkiel thinks that narrative he pushes of Abram would still be bought by that point, but I know it's either a case of him not knowing what The Player learned through the District Guardians' memories, or the devs just not wanting to make conditional branches for Zaphkiel changing his tune in response to The Player learning increasingly humanizing information about Abram that blatantly contradicts him.
Because in Find Me, without knowledge of Abram's side of the conversations from Sincere Deceit, you're left wondering what exactly he said and what his tone was. It leaves one skeptical and unsure as to what to make of him, thus Zaphkiel referring to Abram like he's some barely restrained monster can be bought more easily even after having seen Malachi's and Jadon's memories. Of course, there's also the difference in the Red Dreams between Find Me and Sincere Deceit. Perhaps, based on Malachi's and Jadon's memories one could consider Abram was once a man but became a monster, but in Sincere Deceit, its Red Dream portrays him perfectly sound of mind and solemn in his proclamation of devouring the world rather than the more Evil™ manner he speaks in Find Me.
Find Me's Red Dream is a mirror to the Blue Dream (which is unchanged from Find Me sans the addition of the secret) where both show the thoughts of their respective "gods" from the past. This is maintained in Sincere Deceit, but the clear parallel via the computers was lost.
Zaphkiel continuing to persist in painting Abram as some monster works in Find Me with how he was back then, but just doesn't work in Sincere Deceit if you even remotely look around rather than just speed through the game not caring about anything.
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love how Abram is in Sincere Deceit; he's one of my top favorite characters because of how he is in SinDec, but as a separate thought, I can't help but entertain the hypothetical of if Abram wasn't so sympathetic and it was more difficult (because I can't remember the word I'm looking for) to choose between the gods. It was also more interesting and mysterious back when the main question was "who will you find?" instead of "who is telling the Truth?". I liked the ominous and disquieting almost "hide and seek"-esque manner of Find Me than the more plain "who is the one in the right" way of Sincere Deceit. One maintains a sense of unknown that may have persisted until right up until the Tower, whereas for SinDec, for those trope savvy, the question it presents can be answered as early as post-Residential District.
Because I know there isn't much that can be done to make Zaphkiel more pronounced in SinDec's narrative because him being isolated and not partaking in a whole elaborate narrative is the point, so for things to be more grey, something has to be done about Abram.
I love Abram the way he is in SinDec (as I had very vague memory of not liking the Red route in Find Me and didn't understand why until I replayed it), but like. Man. Every time I write analysis that also tries to portray Abram of being as deserving of death as Zaphkiel, I almost feel like I'm bullshitting or I'm at best grasping at straws because Zaphkiel is objectively far worse and Abram only became as he did because of him. Even then, he's solemn in his act of destroying everything, never even wanted this (the objective fact he's still doing so still stands, however), and is (almost) nothing but respectful towards both you and The Batter. This is in contrast to Zaphkiel talking down to you, treating you as if you're stupid, and the only time he ever speaks directly to The Batter is when he pissed him off in the Deceit in Blue ending. Other than that, he typically speaks directly to The Player and completely ignores The Batter except when having him be referred to as a "Purifier" or "angel" for his whole religious spiel, or as a "puppet".
Abram treats The Batter with respect and speaks directly to him as well as The Player. He treats The Batter as a person rather than just a tool or proxy by calling The Batter "he" and "him". He actually looks at him. He stands on even ground with him rather than floating above him. He doesn't portray himself as his true height until the moment everything is about to collapse and instead controls the camera angle to not only show him at his best, but also abides by the game's sprite limitations which would put him as not that much taller than The Batter than the reality of him being far taller than him.
Of course, Abram still places more focus on The Player than The Batter since they're the one who actually matters, but he still personifies him more than Zaphkiel does.
Abram in Sincere Deceit can basically be considered the "Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds" trope if one is particularly uncharitable in their reading of him. While how I posited an alternative take on him utilizing my interpretation of him in Find Me still presents him as a bit of a woobie, it's not a conclusion as easily arrived at like it is with how he is in canon.
