practical, involved, suffering

she/her 23 | reverse 1999 sideblog (main that I practically never use: @rainy-autumn-afternoons ) | twitter: infernaImercy

[hakyusiku]

[nick--knack]

accidentally typed "trench kiss" instead of "french kiss". anyone wanna hold hands and kiss in a muddy hole full of rats as bullets and grenades and artillerary shells fly over our heads?

[c1metz01]

♾️⚖️

[salmonpiffy]

Getting cozy

[visceral-realism]

collab version leaks

uwaaaaagh she's so pretty....................

[visceral-realism]

as someone who hasn’t read 3.7 what are the chances rhiannon will be relevant in 4.0 series? the limited characters tend to be very self-contained—which was why i was underwhelmed by how little anjo nala was utilized with how her character story ended— and i really hope she can make a connection with squad xii, especially marsha

I'll be surprised if she won't be utilised in any way in 4.x; not only did she have criminally little screentime in chapter 13 which brought forth much of the controversy around her implementation and thus may be something BP wants to amend, but she also might have relevance to the plot due to the circumstances of her introduction to the story, as well as her themes. (Personally I'm curious if the conflict in her character story will be replicated in some quality on a larger scale to make a point about the Foundation, or if the story was written that way for the sake of thematic cohesion with 3.x...)

However, for now, I doubt that there are many interactions between her and XII to come, she's more likely to stay by Vertin's side in my opinion. (Unfortunately I cannot explain why I think so without spoilers.) But who knows, anything can happen. I'd also like to see her interact with Marsha!

[visceral-realism]

dear anon who sent me an ask about Creius: I will try to reply in detail in the following days, but I am very busy with a presentation at the moment; I just wanted to let you know I haven't forgotten about it.

@

[croissantwaffle6]

my stomach hurts like Crazyyy !!!!;YUEEOOWWW

[visceral-realism]

While Marsha's choice to repurpose the idea of "chivalry" for her role as a medic primarily represents how WWI led to the birth of many humanitarian organisations, and also the disillusionment from violence that drove many to support such causes instead, it's also nice to look at in context of her saintlike image. There are plenty of royal and military saints from medieval times, memorialised in legends, yet such canonisations waned over time; among modern saints, one is much more likely to find people who had dedicated their lives to humanitarian ends.

[visceral-realism]

Lorentz Butterfly's manipulation tactic of pushing people to the edge by giving them just enough information to limit their choices and ensure predictable behaviours, is literally the same thing as what the Manus and the Foundation do, the only difference is that she's doing this solely for her own amusement and ego rather than to preserve and entrench her power, and is not in a position to enforce such practices systematically either. I like that this aspect of a constantly recurring dynamic has been essentially magnified in one character.

Power, authority, discipline, oppression and exploitation, and the individual's relation to the systems they're subject to, are prominent themes in the 3.x series, I'd argue perhaps just as important as those of loss and denial, grief, and the importance of empathy in the face of man-made horrors. (Which is why I personally don't agree with those who say that 2.6 shouldn't have been a main story chapter—sure, it had fewer lore drops than some other stories, but I find that it was incredibly important to the narrative, to set the stage for 3.x.) In several ways, 3.x can be also considered the spiritual successor of chapter 3 and 4.

[visceral-realism]

you could kick a puppy on screen (as a conventionally attractive man) and a surprisingly large percentage of the r1999 fandom would call you "morally complex" or "morally grey" but when it comes to women...let's just say there's some inconsistency

3.7 spoilers below

It has not escaped me either how quite a few have been acting like Constantine was the only one responsible for the exploitation and abuse Ms. Stranger was subjected to, as if Creius wasn't the one trafficking her and psychologically abusing her to the point she's blocked out his face from her memories, literally replacing him with an inhuman monster...? (Then there's also what he did to Merel...) Both of them are awful, so why is the man given a pass lmao

[visceral-realism]

I'd say it was 3.3 that intensified these tendencies; there are many things to praise about that chapter, but I personally cannot fully agree with the popular notion that the story wasn't at all redeeming Igor (or even Ptolemy for that matter). He was cloaked in such pathos that it ended up sidelining his (textually present) hypocrisy somewhat, as evidenced by the way quite a lot of people talk about him. To be fair, I don't think this was entirely intentional, but rather an interaction between the spirit of chapter 12, and numerous other factors; more of an issue with presentation and a consequence of the restrictions inherent to the game due to its gacha model than a problem on a deeper, conceptual level. All in all, it's hardly the end of the world.

(The treatment of—or rather lack thereof—the fact he raised orphans into child soldiers, is a different story. I'm not even sure if the writers have sincerely considered the power dynamics involved in this at all; there are bits that suggest so, but it doesn't seem like they're intent on discussing it in-depth. A bit ironic, honestly.)

Naturally, I am not claiming that these tendencies originate from chapter 12—it would be rather short-sighted to say so—but merely that the narratives the fandom has derived from it have intensified certain, most definitely pre-existing tendencies present in the community. They have certainly always been there, because the majority of female characters who have become victims to this line of thinking—that anyone who is not an inactive, "perfect" victim, nor evil in an entertaining way (like Arcana, not Constantine), has committed a transgression that is unforgiveable by the virtue of unconventionality rather than anything else—were released before him.

tl;dr I don't think this fanbase is free from misogyny, in spite of the game being known to be women-oriented.

[visceral-realism]

you could kick a puppy on screen (as a conventionally attractive man) and a surprisingly large percentage of the r1999 fandom would call you "morally complex" or "morally grey" but when it comes to women...let's just say there's some inconsistency

3.7 spoilers below

It has not escaped me either how quite a few have been acting like Constantine was the only one responsible for the exploitation and abuse Ms. Stranger was subjected to, as if Creius wasn't the one trafficking her and psychologically abusing her to the point she's blocked out his face from her memories, literally replacing him with an inhuman monster...? (Then there's also what he did to Merel...) Both of them are awful, so why is the man given a pass lmao

[churieq]

𝓜𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓻 𝓸𝓯 𝓗𝓸𝓻𝓻𝓸𝓻𝓼

[tricheska]

ฅ₍^-⩊ •マⳊ

[sadscruffy]

[visceral-realism]

i am absolutely overthinking this but

the way arcanists work in r1999 necessiates that they are not monophyletic, but simply in possession of a set of genes following the rules of recessive mendelian inheritance which confers them arcanum competence—that's how you get weaker mixed arcanists, and mythical creatures, such as rusalki, melusines, or gargoyles.

at which clade did arcanum-competence appear first?

like...imagine you're a microbiologist working with a cell culture and get unexpected results...how do you rule out that you merely happened to discover like...arcane E.coli?

[visceral-realism]

turns out the game did in fact touch on this

[distressed-tea]

cut cg from chapter 3