Howdy howdy my name is Victor (they/them) and I am finally stepping into the world of having a sideblog dedicated to an interest instead of shoving it all on main (which might still happen). I follow from @reanimationstation.
Please refrain from putting major storyline spoilers in my notes, I would much rather discover things for myself!
PLEASE TALK TO ME ABOUT EVOLUTION
I will also be posting about Light Fingers and Evolution since I've finished both so if you want to avoid that it'll be tagged #light fingers spoilers, #evolution spoilers!
Tags:
art- #unlucky art
text posts- #unlucky text
reblogs- #unlucky rb
Character Tags:
Dr. Tomas MĂĽller (they/it)- #fl: the bandaged thanatologist
Mel Gratz (he/him)- #fl: the bumbling byliner
The Furtive Orderly (it/they): #fl: the furtive orderly
The Raven (she/her): #fl: the bandaged raven (I tag her a little inconsistently though)
Please do not tag Tomas' face as #body horror, it's a healed injury, not something unnatural and meant for horror.
I will try my best to tag spoilers and such but Watch Out. I am only human after all. My activity will probably be sporadic due to school and health issues!
you need to understand that i have two sets of headcanons. there's the set of realistic headcanons based on my genuine reading of the show, and then there's me playing pretend with my dolls.
oh my goodness i never posted this, kicks this out of my drafts..... @little-red-notebook made a comment about Peter mistaking one of Sam's reflections for Sam and going up to kiss him before realising his mistake, and what an amazing thought.... I feel like his normal reflection would be pretty chill about it but the silent partner never made it to Dating, HE WOULD BE SO CONFUSED. Also he is the reflection entity least able to quickly correct this mistake. Sorry I'm just so entranced by having an Even More Sopping Wet Samuel
I've gotten a fair bit of tags on my naturalist arts about people remembering that they've left him in x y z location for months and well tis the season (well, a bit past the season) for this turkey meme
YIPPEE finished a commission for @verdigrius-splendidus of her lovely PC Leona and my thing Tomas being so cuties pie. She's so prettyyyy I love her your honor.
So, a bit of a lore primer for those who don't go here: natural law, in Fallen London, is writ by the powers-that-be and enforced via literal light, particularly sunlight. Unfortunately, "natural law" means things like "people suffer, die, and then suffer more after death" and "transing your species is Forbidden and Shameful under celestial law" and "some people will instantly die if touched by sunlight for no other reason than being an 'illegal' species," with the deep, dark Neath being one of the few places where these capital-L Laws hold less sway. There are many more injustices I could get into, but that would delve into the Deep Lore - all you need to know is that a number of people are aware of this, think this is incredibly fucked up, and want to extinguish the stars and cover the world in complete darkness as a way of preventing anyone from ever wielding that kind of absolute, arbitrary power over others ever again.
This movement is called the Liberation of Night - its people are called Liberationists. It's no secret that I hold a special spot in my heart for the Liberation, problematic aspects and all, to the point that if you asked me what my IRL political alignment is, I'm likely to say "Liberationist (of Night)" and only half mean it ironically.
Despite (or perhaps because of) this fondness for the Liberation, I enjoy it when people wrestle with the concept, when they really, genuinely engage with its messiness. This includes things like having characters who are, for one reason or another, opposed to the Liberation even if they are also of the mind that heavenly law is unjust. Or critique of how the Liberation goes about its means - that this movement, so fundamentally analogous to real-world anarchism in its opposition to hierarchy, is prey to hierarchy itself. (That would be the Calendar Council, ostensibly the leaders of the revolution - but its members include an ex-king-turned-luxury-hotel-owner who treats his staff horrendously and a literal nightmare woman who drives her acolytes to suicide.) Or that many Liberationists play into the worst stereotypes of the bomb-throwing anarchist. (I personally believe that nonviolence must be a central tenet of any meaningful anarchist movement - this article explains it better than I can. Obviously, there are times when violence is necessary for self-defense, but it should be seen as an absolute last resort.) Or simply thinking about what a world without light might be like - where reality is a joint creation, where all beings have a say in how their world works, from the forms they personally take to the flow of time and space - and what the inevitable birthing-pains of such a world would be like.
That kind of engagement, I respect a lot. What I don't respect is this particular kind of dismissive non-engagement from a vocal minority of the playerbase. People who won't engage with the concept beyond calling it "stupid" and claiming that every pro-Liberation player or character is a "psychopath." (Mandatory pause here to point out the ableism inherent to this language.) People who say that they "don't want politics in games." (Another mandatory pause here to point out that for many of us, our very existences are political, and it is both privilege and ignorance to demand that stories be "apolitical.") People who say that the Liberation is an obviously bad idea because people are inherently evil and need ironclad authority to keep them in line. (This idea is a construct that has been proven wrong time and time again - read Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built in Hell, or if you can handle current events, her discussion of anti-ICE movements in Minnesota and beyond. Certainly, people are messy, and I wouldn't be so charitable as to say that people are Inherently Good under all that mess. However, that the typical response to disaster is compassionate unity, not selfish chaos, does say that we, on the whole, are more than our worst selves.)
And to be quite clear, I'm also rather bothered when enthusiastic young leftists in the fandom (by which I mean players, not characters - it's fun when characters do this) treat the Liberation as the best thing since sliced mushroom loaf. As something that will save everyone and everything without fail, to which ends all means and losses are justified, under which the Calendar Council are our glorious leaders, after which everyone will live happily ever after, and anyone who questions it is either a heretic or has yet to see the unlight - as, essentially, the Rapture, but with darkness coming to save us all instead of Jesus. That way is a dangerous way. That way, applied to real-world leftist movements, leads to things like telling diabetics anxious about insulin supplies during civil war that they should be happy to die for the sake of Revolution. (This is a real thing I have witnessed. It's why I keep the fediverse community at arm's length, despite generally being in favor of fedi's core idea.) But the former issue is more common than this latter one - and thus, I am here writing a 6 AM post where I complain about people not engaging with fictional anarchism Rigorously enough.
Anyway, if you enjoy inversions of the usual "light good, darkness bad" trope and love dark and marvelous worlds that are also monstrously queer in wonderful ways, come join us! Especially if you're also interested in anarchism as a philosophy about building a world without hierarchy and coercion. I'd love to see what more people make out of this premise.
To those who enjoy the Youthful Naturalist, I offer Evolution by Nothing But Thieves for your consideration.
I wanna get it wrong, I wanna hesitate
Wanna shake a life, make it oscillate
The future you saw, or something more
It’s a step, it’s a kick, it’s a shot
Give it all you’ve got
And go through the evolution
As this is an ask I have received multiple times now, I shall release it WILD upon Flumbr, like a pack of ravenous beasts. If none of these apply, or more than one do? Perish, I suppose.
