you are required to accept that there is a vast conspiracy at all levels of power that has worked for hundreds of years to make you, and everyone you have ever known, more racist. you are required to accept that it has been extremely effective, it worked, you are racist.
you are required to become less racist.
when you are told that you are being racist, you are required to understand that as being offered assistance in resisting this vast conspiracy. say thank you.
you are required to cope with feeling guilty about being racist. your shame is only important to you, its only value is that it motivates you to be less racist.
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ID: A screenshot of tags left on the tumblr post. They read "#it's actually kind of a reverse Chekhov's Gun #Chekhov's Gun says "If there is setup there must be payoff" #Asimov's Tail says "if there is payoff there must be setup" #and I think the tail is also important #a tail is not something you'd expect to see on a character unless explicitly pointed out #someone stepping on the tail not only reveals its existence but also tells us things about it #eg it's floor length sensitive and the character either can't or won't keep it out of the way of foot traffic #the upshot seems to be "acclimatise your audience to things they don't understand before you use them" #you don't need to explain how a gun on the mantelpiece works in the same way you need to explain how your protagonist's tail does" End ID.
So my beta reader for the Big Fics is an astrophysicist, right. Who is currently also writing a hard sci-fi novel about the exploration of Phobos (more power to them, I cannot with the physics required for that, best I can do is soft sci-fi/fantasy and that reminds me I should finish that story).
Anyway I was bitching about how hard it is to come up with feasible planets in Star Wars because sometimes you need a new planet from scratch and sometimes you need to know more about a planet than the 'has jungles, is probably a moon technically' than Wookieepedia will give you, and they're like 'oh yeah I can do something about that'.
So they've written (in Matlab but they swear it will run as a .exe as well and I may be conscripted to embed it as a web tool at some point) a star system generator.
You input what you know about the planet (ecosystem, population, sun colour, does it have liquid water, does it have a moon or moons, is it a moon or moons, temperature averages, atmosphere, you get me) and it will give you the... everything else about the star system, in obedience to real-universe physics. And if you input nothing you get a randomly generated star system.
And I’m like oh I know people who will be into this with a vengeance, and they're not on Tumblr, so this is me seeing who exactly would be keen on, and I cannot stress this enough, a real-physics comprehensive star system generator.
It's still in the debugging phase (last error fixed: every planet wants to have a population of exactly 5000 regardless of other factors, turned out to be a missing equals sign somewhere), but I'm psyched for this and trying to gauge interest for how high a priority 'make this an accessible web tool' needs to be.
CLOUDWARD, HO! lore/reference doc for fanworks, PART 1
FINALLY compiled all of this into a postable format!! I am breaking it up into THREE separate posts because it is a LOT and I hope it is as readable and searchable as possible!!
PART 1 will include a TIMELINE that follows the passage of time within the canon of the 20 episodes of gameplay as well as all of my stuff about GATH.
TIMELINE OF EVENTS THAT TAKE PLACE IN REAL TIME DURING THE CANONICAL 20 EPISODES OF THE SHOW. This can also give us some loose geographical/travel time guidelines!
We begin at Gotch Manor with Longspot and Codswallop assigning repo-man missions to the seven Gotch sons. With Maxwell heading to Pilby, Dawderdale reports that she can get him there aboard the Zephyr "by tomorrow night."
We arrive in Gulch Canyon, pick up Olethra and then Pappy, and depart for Scrapsylvania all in the same day. (It's a "two hour drive by motor carriage" from Olethra's family home in the sticks to the proper skyport in Gulch Canyon.)
How long does it take to round up Van and Monty? a couple days? ish?
From the departure from Bellenuit to arriving at the South Pole, the Zephyr is in flight for ~12 hours.
The Effulgent Biangle will reappear in the skies above Eisengeist within about 4 days of their departure from Bellenuit; with the South Pole antics in between, we're cutting it close to get there in time.
Now we're in Zood!! We arrive in Zood on the 15th of Amravi (autumn).
Day 1 in Zood ends with the discovery of Haunch's murder in "late afternoon," and the departure from Tabira in pursuit of the Temple of Ramansu.
We come upon the Legio Rex in the wee hours of the morning circa 2 or 3 am.
The Massive Ramansu Lore Drop carries us through the night, and we are departing with Torse and looking at Zern above us in the pre-dawn/sunrise hours.
By the light of day, we're now flying over the Swirling Sea, searching for pirates. We find them, and have an hour or two of wacky pirate antics putting plans together.
Most of the rest of this day is spent flying to the ectic line, putting the stupid Monty Has To Pee plan in motion, and then getting into a big fight with Fehujar.
We take a long rest as we fly through the night to the Ectic Research Station.
Spending relatively little time at the station, we IMMEDIATELY take to the skies again to beeline to Oda to get a submersible. This is where things start to get muddy--it's unclear how much travel we're eliding over for the sake of story. But it doesn't feel like this takes very long, all things considered.
By the time Olethra and Monty are tracking Mordecestershire into the woods, it's later in the afternoon, and the sun is beginning to set (remember--it's autumn! we probably get long dusk hours).
The submersible engineered by Rufus Radish will hopefully be ready by "the end of the following day;" Monty sleeps the night at Mordecestershire's nasty old apartment in order to augment his Tracker's Quarry bonus.
When the submersible is ready, we immediately head out to Katur, take it down into the darkness, and end up engaging with the Eyeless Hand and defeating Mordecestershire. We bring the submersible back to the Zephyr and take off again, at which point we long rest to recover from the rough as fuck combat while we head to the mountains.
The Zephyr proceeds to spend "the better part of 2 or 3 days" looking for the Mount Charuk Observatory, at which point it is found by Comfrey, and the crews of the two Zephyrs reunite and merge.
After this point we're so deep in Plot Relevant Stuff that we stop getting concrete markers of the passage of time, I think. We have Zephyr shenanigans, get whisked to Zern, have Zern shenanigans, then yeet ourselves back to Zumhara, and within a day in Zumhara we've found The Engine and are bracing ourselves for a showdown when Straka appears. Extremely loosey goosey action film/DnD timeline stuff haha. But I felt like none of this was bad info to have kept track of!! so there it is.
GATH!: GEOGRAPHY, POLITICS, ASSORTED OTHER LORE.
The CONFEDERATED IMPERIAL REPUBLIC is a political power that controls seven of Gath's twenty-seven continents. They're a menacing imperial force, but not the sum total of what's going on. They don't, for example, have any jurisdiction in Bellenuit. (APII)
EISENGEIST seems to be a prominent seat of power for the CIR. Eisengeist has a queen, and in addition to the monarchy seems to have some sort of parliamentary or ministry/cabinet system, such that Mordecestershire is "The Queen's Minister of Deranged Science." He is also 'lord exchequer' of the CIR as a whole. The canonical demonym is "Eisengeistian," which I hate because it's a mouthful, and also because Eisengeist as a name is obviously derivative of German ("iron wind"!), and I feel like I want it to be "Eisengeister." But they did put it right there on the character art chyron, so. (Brennan also says "Bellenuitian," which is a little smoother but not my fave either.) The canonical currency of the CIR is "imperial marks," although at one point Longspot also uses the word "penny," but that's probably just Brennan slipping into common turns of phrase as he plays 8 million NPCs rapid-fire
UTMANY is mentioned more that once in the context of the CIR. This is fuzzy to me; in episode 2, Mordecestershire demands the Zephyr be "remanded to Utmany and the Gotch Family Manor at your nearest convenience," i.e. the Manor is in Utmany, which means Utmany is in Eisengeist, as a smaller sub-location/municipality, maybe? But in episode 3, a Murph history check reveals from Brennan that other Gotch brothers were traveling to "other locations" in the CIR--"A lot of them were in Utmany, some of them were in Gastonet." So either MacLeod had a lot of properties just right around the corner from the Manor, or maybe the Manor is kind of near the border, or idk. Utmany! (I still think this is a pun on "utmost." Not the utmost, just a good utmany.)
Likewise, GASTONET. Comes up more than once, seems to be part of the CIR. The Legio Rex originated in the continent of Gastonet pre-CIR (ep4). The name 'Gastonet' likely originates in the same root as the 'Gastonic' church, a major political power in the time period that Dames Diamante and Zaporano originated from (ep12), and all these factors combined together are saying to me that basically Gastonet is Gathie Italy the same way Eisengeist is Gathie Germany, and the Gastonic church is maybe kinda like the Holy Roman Empire.
PENWEIR is mentioned both in the context of the "Merry Lads of Penweir" (aka gathie robin hood) in ep 12 and in reference to Van and the Chapman ancestry stretching back (ep13 and maybe at least one other time idr). This, combined with how the language that the Gathie player characters are all canonically speaking is referred to as WEIRIAN (APIV), has me locking in Penweir as the Gathie England.
THE UPLANDS are referred to by Siobhan multiple times (but not anyone else, ever, afaik) as like, islands/landmasses floating in the sky? I feel like we NEVER explore this with any depth lmao. I don't know if that makes them one of the 27 continents proper, or maybe technically part of Penweir. But anyway the Rusty Nut is there. The Nut was Van's mum's establishment before Van took over, so it's in the family.
I believe Bellenuit is in the country/continent/etc. of NIX. (or NYX?)
Place names that sound like "HAWK" are mentioned A Lot. Ep 3 gives us "Hawkland" and "Hawksmouth" (or hawksmith?), spoken separately from one another; when Marya talks about the formation of Scrapsylvania, she mentions 'Hawk' as one of the warring countries that led to its existence. Then in episode 9's Fehujar lore drop, Brennan puts their origins in vanished biangle'd explorers from Houck, which he says with a vowel sound more like "How" with a k on it. I don't know if all the Hawk stuff is Houck. Hawk and Houck could be two different places entirely that just have incidentally very similar names. Or, it could be players reading something off a piece of paper vs Brennan having made all the lore up in his head.
At any rate, Hawk or Hawkland is an area mentioned as being between Eisengeist and Nix, which I can only assume means the other Scrapsylvanian origin country, LUIN (or LEWIN--the captions can't agree), is also nearby. PILBY is to the south, and the KABILIAN ISLES lie to the west (ep3).
The largest/most prominent island in the Kabilian Isles seems to be GRAND KABILIA, maybe sort of analogous to the 'big island' of Hawaii.
SCRAPSYLVANIA, and possibly also the Kabilians, are located within the CONCENTRIC SEA (ep1). On a planet with 27 whole-ass continents, I have to imagine there is comparatively less surface area covered by sea/ocean than on our irl planet earth.
NEW FRUMBIA is mentioned as the current-day location of where Zaporano and Diamante hail from, but they're from far enough back in history that it was effectively Old Frumbia at that point lol. "Old Frumbia" was split into a lot of looser, smaller kingdoms under the Gastonic church, and their queen, Aracamani, would've been a vassal queen in that context.
OTHER GATH MISCELLANY:
The Great Subterranean Congress taking place in Bellenuit. "Subterranean" implies to me that this is specifically a Nix/Bellenuit thing, but idk how much influence they have over everyone/everywhere else politically, if Monty is putting forth his Widow's Breath environmental concerns to this congress specifically. Maybe the 'subterranean' just refers to the fact that this is where they're meeting.
WIDOW'S BREATH is a form of industrial fuel that seems to have been pioneered by the Ministry of Deranged Science, as a revolutionary more "stable and sustainable" alternative to coal/steam-based power (ep2). The Queen's Smog is a toxic pollutant byproduct of the usage of Widow's Breath; those who have grown up deep in the heart of the CIR can become so overexposed to Queen's Smog that their lungs develop in such a way to render them incapable of breathing "normal"/unpolluted air, like the Brutes in Mordecestershire's service. (In his partnership with the Queen of Zern, it appears maybe Mordecestershire was extending the implementation of Widow's Breath to Zern, while she and the Corrodi Primarch were extending him the technology of the canisters of aerosolized blood(??) that were visibly augmenting his body in his first encounter with the Wind Riders.)
BELLENUIT'S security forces descended upon the Mordecestershire v Wind Rider encounter in blimps and uniforms of a "sensual" black velvet. let's not forget about this. Meanwhile, Mordecestershire set upon the party with an "Imperial Murgatroid Class Destroyer" ship + smaller 2- to 3-person ornithopter crafts referred to as "wasps."
In episode 14, Sylvio references a LaMontgommery novel by just the name/word "Duhindri"--based on the typical format of Monty's book titles, this sounds like it's also some place name a la Oh No Plateau etc.
The players clearly have a panorama-style map of Gath's continents that they're using for a point of reference to plan their travels in episode 3, but unlike the more granular Zoodian city panoramas we never get to see this with any detail, which drove me crazyyy. But if you wanna dig into that in ep 3 you can.
Besides the first 3 episodes, the only other real touchstones for Gathie lore/culture we're given are in episode 12, where Brennan gives us a big lore dump about more ancient/archaic Gathie history as it relates to things that vanished through the Effulgent Biangle, back before the barrier of Zumhadi was affecting interplanar transit and things as large as cities could still make their way from Gath to Zood. This is a good lore dump section to check (shortly after Diamante and Zaporano are introduced) if you want this kind of detail!
In episode 3, when the party arrives at the south pole research station, a record has been left playing a "holiday" tune, which Brennan sings very much in the idiom of a Christmas carol. The players (Murph I think) ask about how recently that holiday transpired, to try to track it against Comfrey's last known appearance, and those timelines exactly line up as "about 2 or 3 months ago." If we choose to interpret Gath as DIRECTLY analogous to Earth in this regard, and the big "winter holiday" was 2 or 3 months ago, this MAYBE puts the canonical action of the season at around late-late winter or very early spring in Gath. As a pisces, the idea that Cloudward Ho is taking place during pisces season might render me fully insufferable, sorry
Our level of audio technology seems to be radio transmissions and vinyl records/phonographs; as far as video, we get the prologue-y film newsreel in episode 1, which is described as black and white and 'extremely analog,' looking visually like a silent film but just also including sound. This seems kind of like a stretch just to make this work as a narrative device, haha, but either way, wacky steampunk technology, idk. Nicer, more detailed photography is still such that photographs have to be 'sat for' for several minutes due to the long exposure times required for cameras (ep4, the first time Ludmila's portrait comes up), which makes more sense to me.
(next in part 2: zood, zern, and my 1 single paragraph about shahar!)
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six seven itself has no actual meaning and originates from a clip of a viral song on tiktok, so hamlet's way of pretending to be "mad" could be repeating something widespread but meaningless, like how he quotes song lyrics and idioms (2.2, 430-432; 3.2, 306-310; 3.2 371-372)
hamlet often uses nonsensical, surreal humor, usually ones that appeal to the youth and confuse the older generation, to cope with his despair (2.2, 190-199; 5.1, 204-207)
he puts on the antic disposition partly to confuse claudius and gertrude, which this absolutely would
i don't think hamlet would ever have gen alpha humor, which is the point. he's changed to the point of being unrecognizable in his madness (2.2, 4-1; 316-321)
polonius would try to find meaning in it and come to an entirely incorrect conclusion
arguments against:
hamlet may not have tiktok or even know of this meme in the first place, because he's said to be a stable and well-liked individual prior to the play (4.7, 18-20)
it's actually rosencrantz and guildenstern who would keep saying six seven until hamlet decides to kill them
#yeah he would 100 percent say this to polonius and polonius thinks he understands#because he read an article online about Gen Z slang#but what hamlet said was actually somehow a veiled metaphor about his mother and uncle#hamlet#shakespeare <- your tags inspired me @currentlycryingaboutlancelot
Sometimes people think they're dealing with a Torment Nexus but what they actually have is a Jumanji. And sometimes people think something's a Jumanji but oops it's a Torment Nexus.
So a Torment Nexus is something that is either a metaphor for a larger societal problem (e.g. The Platform, The Long Walk) or a social issue/trend taken to an exaggerated extreme (e.g. The Purge), with a lot of shades of grey in between (e.g. Squid Game). If it isn't about a larger societal issue/trend/structure it isn't a Torment Nexus.
A Jumanji can be dangerous and high-stakes (to the characters), but it doesn't need to have a metaphor or lesson, it can easily just be a "Would this be fucked up or what?" situation (e.g. a lotta Goosebumps stories). If there IS a lesson/metaphor, it will be on a smaller scale like psychological issues (e.g. Magnus Archives), family/relationship issues (e.g. Zathura), or about a specific topic (e.g. Magic School Bus). Large-scale social issues may be present (after all, Everything Is Political), but they take a definite backseat.
Now. A Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory is a trap based around morality and vices. These can be cultural, religious, or bonkers bullshit like "children shouldn't chew gum." There is generally not discussion or criticism of this morality system. Regardless of the morality system used, if it's not a trap, it's not a Chocolate Factory.
[image description: A GIF of Sam Reich on the Game Changer set, triumphantly striking a pose then kicking. Three unimpressed contestants look on. Confetti falls. End description]
For a little New Year's Day treat, and to keep myself motivated, here's a snippet of the Rowdyheart fic I'm working on.
In Letters Deeply Worn
Torse knows that he ought to feel gratitude as he stands in the small crew quarters of the Zephyr Mark I. Or, more accurately, he knows that he wants to feel gratitude, but such emotions come to him with difficulty, even with this golden and worthy heart. It is not the fault of the heart, nor it's esteemed creator. The fault lies within him, within his very being. He is nothing but rage, nothing but an unsheathed blade primed to cut indiscriminately through sheet metal and cords, flesh and veins. The Queen and the Corrodi stole his ability to feel more with their war and destruction of Zern, and he intends to tear them limb from hideous limb for it and every other heinous act they have committed. But that is a distant dream, even at the side of these courageous adventurers from the Zephyr. He doubts there will ever come a day he sees the downfall of the rulers of Zern; that is like a remote and insurmountable mountain, and all that comes after, whatever valley may be beyond, is so unthinkably far that he has barely dreamed of what it may contain, has rarely contemplated the shape his life could take there. The few times he has let his mind drift that far ahead, and been faced with the possibility of learning without a doubt that he is the last... well, is it any wonder he cannot imagine a world in which he feels anything other than rage?
But here, in the small crew quarters of the Zephyr Mark I, with the escapement of his golden heart ticking steadily and calmly and utterly unlike the accelerated and unreliable pace of his iron heart, Torse can act with the tact and restraint he needs to save Zern, his rage smothered and his very being reforged into a tool that can do more than slash and stab at any threat, real or imagined. The golden heart allows him to gently touch the lid of the flat-topped sea chest which Maxwell Gotch has allocated to him and say, "Thank you. This is more than I need, however. My belongings are so minimal as to nearly be non-existent," here he pauses to indicate the black leather bag in which he keeps his iron heart, before continuing, "I do not intend to ever store it."
Maxwell's fists clench, before loosening. He does this often, Torse has observed. "You do not have much now, but that may change — or not — as you wish. We don't know precisely where our travels in search of MacLeod will take us, and if we'll pick up more crew along the way. It's better to ensure everyone has the provisions they need from the beginning. Besides, there are few chairs on board, and I understand that you do not need a bed or hammock like us Gathians, but a dedicated place to sit and rest is reasonable, yes?" Maxwell looks at him with searching, blue eyes. Torse nods absently. Maxwell's eyes are framed by dark lashes, and the aesthetics are striking. "This is purely practical."
That Torse can accept. The crew quarters are cramped, but constructed with the meticulous attention to detail he has come to expect from Comfrey MacLeod, and obviously maintained with great care in the many years since then. The bunks vary in degrees of tidiness from extreme (the hammock nearest the door which Torse would think unused if it weren't for the paperback tucked securely into the bedding) to non-existent (the top bunk of a set of two bunk beds which have been pushed together to create one large bed, and which clothes and hair brushes and other items are strewn about rumpled bedding). Altogether it creates a sense of hominess. He will feel quite safe winding his heart here, which makes graditude spring forth quite easily. "Thank you, Maxwell Gotch."
"You're most welcome." Maxwell clears his throat, another action Torse has observed him performing often. "This is my bunk, by the way." He gestures at the bottom bunk, which is neatly made but has the bloody and torn clothing Maxwell had been wearing when they met hung over the top rail of the footboard. "In case you need anything. Anyone on the crew would help you, of course. But as the grandson of the financier of the Zephyr, this ship and any crew that serve on it are my responsibility." Torse is once again arrested by those blue eyes and the steadfast sincerity within them. "That's why I exploded at you earlier. This ship is very important to me, and a remark against it, is like — like someone spitting in my eye. I got angry, and I won't apologize for that, but I will apologize if I made you feel like you have to watch your words around me. Around us. You don't."
I got angry, and I won't apologize for that. Hmm. He can understand the first part, understands it in his deepest circuitry, but the second part is so foreign he would wonder if the magic of the translation crystal were failing somehow. His rage is a shame so deeply felt that it circles back into being rage. It makes him a liability, both in the opportunities to control him it gives the Queen of Zern and, more damningly, in the reckless ways it makes him lash out at all around him. Does Maxwell not feel the same? It is something to dwell on later, Torse decides, but for now he can address Maxwell's apology.
"My words are often brash. Others find them off-putting. It is good to know I will not have to suppress this part of myself for the sake of the crew, because even if I wanted to, it would prove difficult."
"Quite. I am glad we understand each other," Maxwell says, but something seems to still be weighing on his mind, as his eyebrows remain pinched together. That is a tell, Torse has learned, for most flesh and blood people. He thinks he also sees Maxwell touch one of his teeth with his tongue, but is unsure what this means. Hunger, perhaps? Maxwell has mentioned food often since they had boarded the Zephyr Mark I. Torse should not extend this interaction longer than need be, to allow his new crew member to eat. He best ensure he has all he needs and release Maxwell, and by his calculation all he needs is to ensure that the trunk will hold his weight. Torse sits. It groans just a little, but holds. Maxwell nods, satisfied, and asks, "Is there anything else you need?"
He hesitates for a moment, and then decides that there is one thing that would make winding his heart more comfortable. Perhaps it is imprudent to ask for more, but there is much in the bearing of Maxwell Gotch that he would trust. And, perhaps, seek to earn the friendship of. Besides, he had asked. "Would you keep me company while I wind my heart?"
"Yes, of course!" He sits on his own bunk, and Torse can tell even from this sitting position that it is no wonder the man pushed two bunks together, as he suspects Maxwell is taller than the bunks are long. "Is there anything I should do?"
"No, the company is more than enough." He opens his ribs for the third time that day and carefully extracts his heart, being sure not to dislodge any of the wires. He finds the spot where the built-in winding key is, and begins to turn. "It has been a long time since anyone has kept me company while I wound my heart. Onion St Clair and Sylvio Dufresne would on occasion while we three sailed aboard the Zephyr Mark II. And before that..." Torse trails off as he picks his way through the carcass strewn minefield of memory. "There were still several hundred Aganti Zerni when I was first built, and there were many to sit with while I wound my heart. Those were not kind years, but the cammaradery was robust." His heart, which had been well wound to begin with, clicks as the internal spring winds as tightly as it can. "One of the first things my parent, Curiot, told me when I first gained consciousness was never to turn down a safe place to wind my heart. She was the last Aganti Zerni to keep me company during winding. And I, her." He carefully returns the heart to its place in his chest and shuts his ribs. "After the Straka destroyed her, I spent months searching for another of my kind, before eventually becoming trapped and unable to wind my heart. That was how Comfrey found me."
Maxwell's fists are once more clenched, and Torse knows that confiding in Maxwell was the right choice, as he recognizes the emotion in Maxwell's compulsive actions at last: rage. It has been building inside Torse as well, a heat rising in his mechanisms as his heart switches to a faster speed in preparation for a battle that will not materialize. He burns, but knowing Maxwell shares his rage is an unhoped for coolant.
Maxwell exhales angrily, and forcibly unclenches his hands. "My grandfather would say something similar before he died. 'Maxwell,'" he raises a finger in the air and puts on an aged and eccentric voice. "'Never pass up a toilet or a cup of coffee, you never know when you'll be offered one next.' Then he'd always wink and say the toilet was especially important after the cup of coffee," he chuckles, a genuine sound, despite the edge of sadness. "He was a wise man. Your parent sounds like she was wise, too."
"Yes," Torse says, and vents steam through his face plate to release some of the heat that has built with the rage. He longs for more, to reach this state of grief that Maxwell has where he can talk of his loved ones with adoration and humour wrapped up in the loss. All he has is rage, and that is not enough to live on. But he has to pretend, else he fears this golden heart will become irregular and unreliable too, and he will lose his second chance. He needs to believe that more interactions like this are possible in the future. "It is good to share her memory with another."
"My grandfather's as well. And it was nice to sit with you while you wound your heart. It would be an honour to do so again. And Torse," Maxwell's eyes filled with rage is an image that Torse will stew over in the wee hours of the night while his new crew sleep soundly. "We're going to kill that fucking crow."
"Kill that fucking crow." Torse, and Torse's rage, are pleased by these words. "Yes, good," he says, and emites the growl with his stepper motors (which MacCloud told him are analogous to a human vocal chords) that to the Aganti Zerni means pleasure or happiness. Much like a smile.
The emotion is echoed by Maxwell. Torse has seen many smiles since leaving Zern, and each is a little different every time, but says much about the person. Comfrey Macleod's was wild and frequent, Sylvio Dufresne's was sly and had a tendency to linger even when the occasion didn't seem to call for it, and Onion St Clay's was reserved but sincere. Maxwell's is like none he has ever seen; it is a baring of teeth more than a smile. Does it always look so? Or would Maxwell's smile be softer within another context? Torse wants to know.
Not to put on my filmbro meta analysis hat on here but watching the knives out trilogy shows how front and centre right wing radicalism has become in the last 6 years. In every movie, there is one character who is the chronically online right wing man, but he seems to increase in importance each time.
In knives out, Jacob is the character defined by his right wing views. However, he is a child, he experiences pushback on his views from his family (even if it's somewhat performative) and is often the butt of the joke. He isn't shown directly influencing anyone, he is only seen engaging in petty online fights in niche spaces. Although the film acknowledges that his views are bad, and they are reflecting in the world around him (with the looming threat throughout around Marta's family being deported in a conservative world hostile to immigrants) they are not the key themes of the Thrombleys or the movie, more commenting on the ingenuity of the rich which applies to all of the Thrombleys, whether they took the left or right leaning side of the argument around immigration in that scene.
In Glass Onion, we find the character reflecting right wing radicalism is no longer a young boy who is dismissed, but a man who has a sizeable following online. Duke (I personally feel and might not be the intention of the story) is what Jacob could become when he has grown up, unchecked in his beliefs and resentment towards women (who were the primary people in his family pushing against his right wing radicalism) with money and a platform to spread these ideas that were once fringe into the mainstream. He utilises this money and influence from Miles to push this agenda, but we do not see the fallout that comes from that. Duke is also the butt of the joke for quite a few scenes he's in, he's seen by Blanc to be overcompensating for everything with his gun to not wearing masks, and even his friends, equally out of touch rich weirdos comment on his behaviour. Right wing radicalism in glass onion has been brought into the mainstream and is being invested in by the rich, however it is still seen as a joke by others. It's still something to make fun of without consequence, and the impact of this new acceptance of right wing influencers dominating so much of the political space online has not been fully felt yet as it is a phenomena only just beginning to become a dangerous problem.
Finally, in wake up dead man, we feel the fallout of right wing radicalism in local communities and regular people swept up in a craze that had been introduced into the mainstream by the rich who had control over the media they consumed whether they liked it or not. Right wing radicalism in wake up dead man is not a character, or the butt of a joke, but a fully fledged, pervasive, deadly problem that is the centre of the story. These ideas of the world being against them, the "woke agenda" was peddled by both Jacob and Duke in the previous movies, but here we see the effect this has when radicalism isn't just accepted, it's the norm. They go to Wicks' sermons expecting this rhetoric, they expect it to be received well when they repeat it elsewhere like Cy, who believed the only way in politics was that fear mongering ragebait of right wing radicalism that Jacob was doing in comment sections in the first movie. It wasn't a joke anymore, it was the norm. Vulnerable people, who otherwise would have trusted their support system, modern medicine or the rights their ancestors fought for, now believed this was the only path. Because that was right wing radicalism is: scaring people into listening to you because any alternative is simply not viable anymore.
And that's how Wicks trapped his audience, based on the acceptance of those radical scare tactics peddled by Duke, which was indulging a child's personal ignorance enhanced by his own privilege. The knives out series is a really great way of showing how right wing radicalism has changed our political climate frighteningly fast over the past few years. I want everyone here to know it wasn't like this 6, 3 or even 1 years ago. That it's changed and can be changed again. Who was the young boy online for too long mocked by his family instead of having a support system to help him out of the radical right pipeline, turning into a bitter influencer repeating all the things he read as a child in Reddit and 4chan posts with the money behind him as his scare tactics work immensely well in the rich's favour, eventually becoming a borderline cult leader, manipulating and destroying the lives of those who follow him, and crushing everyone who dares disagree. Because his way is the only way to win, right?
Thanks for reading guys, I just had so many thoughts on the changing portrayal of the radical right in the knives out series I could write a whole paper. Forgive my yapping 🙏🙏
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Hey so Max, Marya and Olethra's cloudward ho endings are actually so important to me.
Yeah, Maxwell, the kid who grew up being told dreams weren't for him, who hides himself and his passion under layers of restrictions and niceties, has now killed his dad with it killed the posion in the family and can look up at the sky, surrounded by friends and say "Where are we going next?"
Yeah, Marya, who spent so long angry and hurting and vengeful, discovered Ludmila, the person she loved waited years for her, only for Ludmila to be tricked into becoming her own devourer. Hurt creating hurt creating hurt, and Marya, in her last moments, is there, is finally there to save her, and is saved in turn, because there is so much more life to live now that the hurt is over.
Yeah, Olethra "the kid" Macleod, who longed for adventure and the sky, only to find it and find danger with it, to understand, finally, why her parents had lived grounded. So many people hurt and get hurt and Olethra, protected still in her mech, is able to see the mistakes that have hurt people in the past and learn from them, to make new decisions, to choose to save the future, and in doing so proves her matureness, her adventuring spirit, and can finally shed the protection given to her, can finally grow into herself.
They all say you can hurt, and you can dream and you can fly, and you will live and live and live, there is always adventure, waiting for you around the corner, so choose it, and choose to never give up and choose the future, because it's there for and it wants to choose you too.
I've been thinking about Maxwell traveling through time to give himself pants, and I've come to the conclusion that the Gotch Seven Son Curse is that they can time travel.
Max's time travel works so differently from every other time traveling we've seen, in that it doesn't seem to be through a Biangle. Like, correct me if I'm wrong, but this graying and still suited Maxwell appears in a portal thirty feet in the air, leans out, throws some pants at himself, makes a quip, and then leans back into the portal and closes it? That's no Biangle. Biangles are big, and surrounded by dangerous stormy energy, and difficult to predict, and meant to be one way, and you can't just easily lean through one to throw pants at yourself, at least not without getting half your body burned!
How and why did the Gotch Seventh Son Curse start? How does the Gotch Seventh Son Curse function? Will this be disproven completely if we get a second season? No idea. But I know that Cadswitch could time travel, and so can Maxwell.
AU (hopefully) where time isn't fixed, and instead more like Back to the Future, and Maxwell and the rest of the Wind Riders are about to leave to create a world where Torse maybe won't exist.
'"Torse, if this works, and I think it will, then the Corrodi will never come to power. At least, not through Ludmila. Zern will never be at risk."
"A world I would never have been able to dream of before. It will be a kinder world, I think."
"Yes. A world that perhaps will never shape an Aganti Zernai rebel."'
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
I also do love Brennan “Unsubtle” Lee Mulligan’s commentary this season.
What if just across the way from your land of plenty lied a land of smog and pollution. What if it was that way because of the choices your forefathers made. What if your excess and bounty was build upon the industrialization and destruction of your neighbor.
What if you could choose to stop the machine at any time? To share that burden instead of treating it as a natural externality? Knowing that it would make life harder for you, but Also Knowing that you COULD put in the work yourself to remake some of that life. Even if it takes a hundred years to get back to that point you have to learn to do it, no short-cuts this time. You didn’t know, but now you do.
once again thinking about "the lottery" by shirley jackson.
imagine there was a man in the story who went around giving speeches about the importance of the lottery as a tradition. He said the casualties were unfortunate, but also an inevitable price of freedom. Imagine he treated those who sought to end the senseless cycle of violence with condescension and derision, calling them idiotic, naïve, and diseased.
yet when that man was selected for the lottery and stoned to death, everyone mourned him and said how unfair it was that a bright young family man should die so soon. And when people pointed out that this man was killed by a system he adamantly defended and worked to perpetuate, they lost their jobs and were shunned from the community as insensitive and monstrous.
Imagine. Hypothetically. For no particular reason.
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cloudward, ho! has really driven home to me that steampunk is good when people remember the punk part of it. because it’s written by brennan there are anticapitalist and anti-establishment themes. the characters are almost all old and/or disabled. olethra being trans is never brought up except to aggressively support her. the characters with generational wealth either own a pub or fund whimsical adventures. everyone cares deeply about each other.
i've been watching a bunch of old interviews lately and gerard over and over again has said
1) the end of the black parade tour narratively always made the most sense as an end to the band itself
2) they over-toured and over-indulged in the theatrics and characterization of the black parade in a way that became borderline dissociative for them (you'll hear them talk a lot about sort of losing themself in all of that, especially in the darkness of the whole concept) and
3) that conventional weapons was a rebellion against themselves in that regard, resisting the urge to go high-concept and instead just make a straight ahead rock album; in turn, danger days was another rebellion against that impulse because it bored them to death. danger days became a middle ground between their theatrical, character-driven impulses & desire to just fucking make and play great live music; it's obviously got a concept and they came up with the killjoys, but didn't actually represent them on stage
and i just think this is all so interesting in light of the LLTBP tour and its A/B stage format. it feels like they've found the perfect solution for making my chem sustainable and doing everything they want with this. at both boston and tampa gerard essentially said "i was enjoying the A stage but actively looking forward to B tonight". it all amounts to They're too weird to just do a normal rock concert, and too rock and roll to JUST do their conceptual brutalist stage play. also as @ambulancelivedebut just posted - it's all about the balance, not just of their artistic instincts, but of fame itself- "A is about the worst parts of being famous and B is the best parts".
i think the plot of A is still loosey-goosey-er than theorists would like to think- gerard is a lot better at going "wouldn't it be cool if x" than he is at explaining what that means and why it's happening lol - but i think the most clear statement of the entire show is the violence of them being wrestled into the parade marcher uniform. it's been almost 20 years since that tour and still, that's how the band is crystalized in the minds of like a million people. by putting the jacket back on only to be repeatedly stabbed to death and eventually blowing themself up in it, then going right on to the B stage - they're forcibly dragging this past idea of my chemical romance into the present. they're not some dead thing. they're the fucking here and now baby. and no way do i think they can walk away from it again now that they've found this balance
