#ids301

[nicoliasd]

Clockwork Assassins

The game Dishonored series is a world full of hierarchy, industrial clockwork/steampunk, pandemics, and dark magic. In the games you will notice many enemies with “cybernetic enhancements”. From masks that focus your vision to giant legs that make you about 2 stories tall. The second game shows a new enemy that is more robotic with very uncanny humanoid design. Tall clockwork soldiers that have “eyes” that see from the front and behind. They also have whalebone and whale blood (main power source and resource) infused in their metal parts. The more robotic part of these machines would be their program to eliminate any intruders and guard their respected areas. You’ll see many other cybernetics and machinery in this series if you ever feel the need to do some research.

[theoriesofaharp]

Await Further Instructions

The film Await Further Instructions is the story of a family attempting to deal with a quarantine-like scenario where their only connection to the outside world is through a series of cryptic messages on their television. Await Further Instructions is best described as a cybernetic system, with the components of each member of the family, the television, and whatever is controlling the television. Feedback is provided to the family via the television, with the actions of the family acting as feedback for the being controlling the television. The goal of this system is not entirely clear, but (spoiler warning) it seems the goal of this system is to assimilate humans into their system, or create a vessel for the entity behind the invasion.

[theoriesofaharp]

Today We Talk About Gaud

Do I have the courage to tag @biggest-gaudiest-patronuses in this post? No, but it’s happening now. Gaud God speed fellow humans. Gaud is a monster. If you do not know about Gaud, they have a tumblr account so feel free to check them out.Anyway, to Mary Douglas. Gaud transgresses many boundaries here, including, but likely not limited to: socially acceptable versus not socially acceptable, human versus pink eldritch goo, and making people comfortable versus making people uncomfortable. Gaud is the self proclaimed “Patron Saint of Shitposts”, and often makes posts that toe the line between socially acceptable and socially unacceptable through multiple methods.

This post, for example, takes a relatable concept and adds something that is... uncomfortable. Tie in something that can be taken as oddly sexual, in this case the tag “like a slutty little chipmunk”, and you have a monstrous post.

Gaud is also obviously a human controlled account, but never shows themselves to be human, unless in a monstrous way. More often than not, Gaud is portrayed as pink goo which is molded into other forms. They’re somehow able to maintain a physical form akin to human (see picture), while still being liquid enough to be able to pass through a straw. Similarly, in their posts they always claim to be an eldritch creature, at least to my knowledge.

Here’s the picture, it’s probably better that it’s just a link and not an image.

Despite their love of making people uncomfortable, Gaud also seems to give a lot of users a level of comfort. At the bottom of nearly every post, one can spot trigger warning tags, so people can filter out the things that trigger them or just do not want to see. Gaud is also very clearly a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community, which helps many users feel more comfortable with being themselves. This isn’t to say that Gaud doesn’t try to make people uncomfortable constantly, but one can find certain personal freedom when interacting with their posts.

[theoriesofaharp]

The Ayuwoki

The Ayuwoki is a creepypasta based off of a modified Michael Jackson doll, who’s name is based off the phrase “Annie are you okay”. In this game rendition, the Ayuwoki is hunting down the player’s character after being summoned from a child-murdering ritual, or at least that is my understanding of it. The Ayuwoki is particularly interesting to me because it hits upon a couple of the major theories we’ve talked about in class. Certainly both the automaton and the in game renditions are repressions of Michael Jackson, so it falls into the uncanny; while the Ayuwoki also crosses the boundaries between human and animal. Between its renditions, it is both a monster and a automaton.

[nicoliasd]

Monster to the Colossi

I’ve recently finished a game called Shadow of Colossus. Where you travel (or trespass) on a sacred land and hunt these massive creatures to get further towards your own goal. Before even finishing the game I already came to the conclusion that the player is more of a monstrous figure than the actual monsters. Reasons being; you trespass into unknown territory, go into the colossus’s home and kill them for your own selfish goal. Other than three player as the monstrous it’s a very beautiful game.

[theoriesofaharp]

SCP-3626 and Chain Emails

Nearly everyone has gotten a chain email or interacted in a chain post these days, but SCP-3626 takes it to a whole new level. SCP-3626 transports the reader to a pocket dimension, where they will experience hallucinations of traumatic events they have experienced with increasing intensity. The reader will be trapped in this pocket dimension if they do not keep reading the document on top of sending it to someone else via email (maybe).  While this post could be taken in the direction of the uncanny yet again, I instead want to look at SCP-3626 as a cybernetic system. The components of SCP-3626 include: the reader, the entity SCP-3626, and the document of SCP-3626. 3626 and its document are given feedback from the reader who either sends it and edits the document or chooses not to, the reader is given feedback in the form of hallucinations, forgetting what had just happened to them, or an on-screen message. The goal of the system is to test the inhabitants of Earth, set by the Ministry of Extra-Planar Sociological Research.

[theoriesofaharp]

IMSCARED

It’s a horror game. But why is it so creepy?

IMSCARED and other horror games like it play with the boundary between being a game and being a virus. IMSCARED at certain points will close the game completely, changing as soon as you open it up again, and even opens a Youtube video while you’re playing. Most games give you a sense of control, since whatever happens in the game tends to stay in the game. Games like IMSCARED remove this safety. You’re never sure what the game is going to do, both inside its .exe and outside it, or when.

Other games, like Doki Doki Liturature Club, create and edit files on your computer. Other games I’ve seen change your desktop, or emulate you’re desktop so you’re never sure if you’ve left the game or not, or if the game has finished playing. I suppose this also toys with the boundary between reality and fiction.

[theoriesofaharp]

Dr. Bright

Dr. Bright just recently left an administrative position on the SCP Wiki, so here’s a post dedicated to his on-going character.

Not sure if anyone’s read The Broken Masquerade, but Dr. Bright has a particularly dark story where he and is captured team and tortured and killed. Dr. Bright, of course, has his amulet that drops his soul into any body that it touches, so they tortured him by placing him in his friends’ bodies after killing his previous bodies.

So that’s dark.

But! It does make for a short and sweet cybernetic system. The components being Dr. Bright, his amulet, and every other living body in the room. The communication and feedback are provided when the amulet touches another body, which turns his previous body into a vegtable, and drops his soul into the new body. The goal of this system? I’m not sure what the goal of the SCP is, but Bright uses it to stay alive.