#asphie rambles

[asphodellle]

its all this "hummer isn't real" "hummer is a personification of the leviathan" but how are we so sure arronax is? im so sure that she is just as "fake" as hummer is let me state my case

we know hummer isn't "real" because nobody other than wifies acknowledges him. he never joins the game, has death messages, or talks to anyone other than wifies. he also is the one who shows wifies the way to see levi. now consider arronax: she never appears on screen, only through narrated dialogue coming out of jukeboxes, and her server that explains all of the leviathan (which is supposedly the no.1 spot to know about the leviathan) is not initially on top of wifies search results, no, hummer introduced wifies to arronax's research. when hummer is such a perplexing mysterious figure due to his beliefs about levi, i find it hard to assume that arronax (his foil) is a perfectly normal woman who wifies could just talk to, normally

the central conflict in this story is the conflict between faith and reason. reason dictates that the leviathan has a singular, logical, and definitive reason to exist, while faith hopes that the leviathan can surpass its own shackles of game glitches and code in order to be seen; a true supernatural entity can appear by way of faith (is what the argument of fate suggests). this is reflected in the character of hummer and arronax, where hummer is the representation of faith, while arronax is reason.

personally, both arronax and hummer seem like distant, godlike figures that represent their respective approach to understanding the world. perhaps in the second installment, we can learn more about arronax and why she stopped believing in levi, and decided that her scientific conclusions were correct

bonus side tangent: the difference between "levi" and "the leviathan" in the video is so cool, and highlights the differences in ideology so well. levi is the name given by hummer to humanise it, to turn something that may not exist into something corporeal, with wants and motives. something that he can worship.

the leviathan on the other hand, is a collection of interesting phenomena, recorded and analysed by thousands. this name strips it down to its bare essentials and prioritises the accesibility and useability of the name (if that makes sense) not even considering that the leviathan is something that can have its own desires. how could it? this is merely a game built on code.

uggghhhhhhh this video was so good

[asphodellle]

guys do you know/care about abyss smp?

i spent the last 2 days genuinely going crazy making an abyss!dumb design. bro this guy is so cooked i love it, the labyrinth episode was so much fun,, its insane. loved his storytelling and scripting skills, his episodes are always so well structured and entertaining!

most content i see about him (and most of the other abyss smpers) seems to be from bliss tho, with storms. i think the duo is okay but ofc i don't know why exactly its so hyped up but i still feel residual aura emanating when they come together from whatever they did in bliss.

also speaking of stormz, wow i love his videos too. one standout thing that i noticed was that he uses a lot of utdr songs but often remixes them, even sometimes mixing utdr songs with his own battle theme, for example. i wonder if he is the one who djs these songs together or it he takes other people's remixes, or if he comissions his remixes? its very interesting!

the storytelling is on point and i love how good the 3 mcs are at weaving their povs together!

[asphodellle]

SFAWTDE PART 2???

im liveblogging sfawtde part 2 now. spoilers for all of sfawtde and bits of kiy.

im gonna cry they dont know eac h other at all yet they care and love for one another so much. bru slimeknight is beautiful

fellas get yourselves someone who would dig netherite with no tools for you at all, who would do everything is their power to make sure you are safe

get yourselves someone who would remind you how you are special, have worth, and should remember who you are in spite of the insane circumstances that are conspiring to end you

wait why is horace altman in one of the books - okay so were referncing gravity falls too? i think this prolly has sth significant abt it

DERLORD!!!!! my bbg

ohhh we're doing the arg aspect now!! i think the guy who wrote the book is ianius's brother? okay prolly not i need to revisit the lore of the arg tbf

OMG DERLORD NAMEDROPPED IT HOLLy SHIT

hly shit

okay so derlord - poor derlord how long has bro been staring at the screen- lots of things were just confirmed in really quick succession

kiy is real and is out to get them

kiy gave derlord infinite knowledge of all that ever was is and will be, which his brain was not equipped to handle - the only thing he doesn't know is the nature of the world he's in, and the king ig

ohhhhhh no i see his doom spelled out for him. if it hurts too much for derlord to come into the real world, then he's essentially trapped in the sfawtde world. if the title of the video means anything, derlord and avery are going to try to destroy the world, therefore destroying the only place where derlord can exist semi normally. this shit is tragic the thing that brought them together is the thing that will rip them apart.

WHAT

WDYM "THATS THE END OF AVERY"S FOOTAGE NO YOU CANT DO THIS TO ME" avery darling are you alright??????????

avery

google drives to the rescue

oh so there was a pattern to it. its so cool that through derlord's pov we can see the intended solutions, its nice that all of these actually had puzzles that are solvable. so much work went into this series, its so detailed

yo tf? bro is skipping gates!! why does kiy care so much about smarts like bro life isnt all about your puzzle solving capabilities

o_o churchworld

omg thats an amazing puzzle!! the solution mot being related to the pillar buttons is kinda unfair tho (pillar world)

FAAAAHHHH FLUXARATA IN THE FUCKING WILD also was the book written in parkour? wifies has so much love for the medium and it shows in the passion and detail in the production of this video. its genuinely beautiful to see. lowk is this library a metaphor for his (or the) mind?

OH derlord what ahppened why'd you kill him? i guess thats the quickest way to get him to stop seeing whatever he was seeing

oh shit the kiy wants to inhabit the body of avery and take over the wrold ig?? the terminology used by the kiy "how fearful it must be to be in a realm which you do not belong" also suggests that the church is worshipping him, which is interesting.

get youself someone who would defy the gods to keep you safe bruh slimeknight stay winning no matte the horrors

"i am beyond strength" i think sth is being set up here with the juxtaposition of strength and smarts. strenght yes meaning strong but also more importantly meaning strength of will, like what avery and derlord consistently show, vs smarts which is something the kiy and derlord consistently show. the kiy's traps and puzzles are all made for a smart person to solve, which makes derlord the prime suspect as to who the kiy might want more. yet, it is avery's body he wants to inhabit.

that was tuff

OMG DERLORD CAN YOU NOT LITERALLY AVERY"S LIFE IS IN DANGER. SMH THIS GUY OVER HERE NOT A SMIDGE OF CHARACTER GROWTH

holy shit its the mclive carcosa. okay

gateception

OH. are avery and derlord not the first? well ofc their not this village is living proof we knew this since part 1. ianius and his brother wtf was his name??? abel yeah yeah wasnt abel the one who was supposed to be the body of kiy? that must have failed seeing as the king wants avery now. that means that the king can be denied his body, but will go on to bother others. we know that avery and derlord wouldnt let that slide.

"how nice" HAUNTING

nooo derlord dont do it. hes gonna sacrifice himself for avery isnt he. because he thinks he's already unclean. no. no. derlord im going to cry. you dont have to do this. at least talk to avery first. wait thats prolly going to happen in a moment when the kiy tries summoning him to become his vessel

oh his name is derek. idk i was hcing more along the lines of alexander but that works too ig popular hc

hhis music going too hard for me to be sobbing like this

avery plese stop this guy from doing this. its just so sad. the original kiy collection of stort stories were inherently romantic in nature derek shouldnt be punished for making the heroic choices here. robert chambers would be sad

what im assuming is the yellow sign looks like a modified trifecta

OH ITS THE EYEBALL FROM ERASURE!!! IS THAT A PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF THE KIY

man sfawtde is such a peice of art. the sets made are just beautiful

wifies you cannot be serious. this is not the time for a fucking unstable reference. derlord canonically made an unstable reference as he died. are you serious.

i wonder if the death that derlord experienced is physical or more like a mind wipe. ig we will see in a moment

okay so i watched all of that scene with avery

THIS GUY. DEREK YOU COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL. IM SO SURE THAT THERE WAS A WAY FOR YOU TO BE YAOIFUL AND HAPPY WITH AVERY IF YOU JUST KEPT HIM THERE YOU CAN JUST GIVE ME FALSE HOPE LIKE THAT DO YOU WANNA DIE DEREK??? PROLLY YOU DO

ITS GIVING FEAR OF A LIFE WITH CHRONIC DISABILITY IS WHAT ITS GIVING (idk the proper terminology but what im saying is that derlords head hurting etc seems like a metaphor for chronic pain and derlord is afraid to live a life where he is disabled and not able to do most of the things he was able to do before so he'd rather be sacrificed for a good cause rather than live out the rest of his days)

avery come back you can be his caretaker

im gonna cry

im crying now. they were so human. even derlord, at the very end when he was part god, he was still so human, unsure and afraid but like a human he cared so much about the rest everybody else like avery and the rest of humanity. and avery likewise. this is why this story works so well was a cosmic horror. 2 humans so painfully like us, encounter a being that they cannot comprehend, and they try to cope in any way and try to do something about it using what they have: the meager scraps of knowledge they can use and the unwavering determination to help people that humanity is so well known for. this story is much a love letter to humanity. its not as romantic as the original kiy seems (i havent read it but have watched multiple videos about it) but it feels more in line with what real people might do. its so painfully in love with itself, if that makes sense. its genuinely beautiful

[asphodellle]

huh? i just got the pink friend dialogue. she warns not to let cats know that you have protein on you]and says that someone she knows had a whole hunting pack of cats that would bite and maul anyone with protein.

assuming that this person was gaster and the cats are friend, this means that gaster uses friend as a sort of "hitman" for people with protein. this dialogue only triggers if you got bit by friend and have the egg, so its not out of the realm of possibility that protein means egg, right?

this idea gains more credence once you remember that in the deltarune acheivements to complete a chapter without issue requires you to not complete the chapter with an egg. since gaster is the one writing the acheivement, this means he considers eggs an issue. perhaps (and here is where my theory starts) friend may start hunting the fun gang if they have all 5 eggs?

i wonder why protein is such an issue. eggs and the forgotten man tie squarely to kris and their childhood issues. (stroke of genius) maybe the reason why gaster doesn't like the eggs and forgotten man is because they help kris (and the soul, us) remember their past and the cryptic events surrounding dess' dissapearance, which may be linked to game mechanic shenanigans etc.

[asphodellle]

i find it so strange that one of my biggest and most enjoyed hobbies are listening to video essays. like, how strange is it that as a form of entertainment i listen to unverfied news of today paired with the opinions of someone who is undoubtedly not a professional, while doing some unrelated activity and paying like 50% attention to the video, unsure of whether the thing is actually worth my time and attention or whether its trying to secretly spoonfeed me misinformation and doomerisms. and i even feel smart for doing so!