Sleepy Dumbass

Teehee irl size. Some extra context for what's relevant in this post specifically:

For those who don't know shit about disney fairies, fairies are born from a baby's first laugh. Neverland is a semi-sentient thing that travels and decides which laughs it wants and when. I'm taking it loose with what's canon and what isn't, because this isn't Peter Pan, fairies with talents is just a concept that for some reason I always love to come back to, and the books got a lot closer to what I loved about it than the movies did.

Whether it's handled well in the source material or not is another story, but an "incomplete fairy" is what they call one whose baby's first laugh was broken for some reason, and it's essentially an offensive term for fairies with any kind of disabilities. I use it because it resonates with my experience with developmental disability and want to be clear that there is not actually anything "incomplete" about either of them, it's just baseline prejudice (as I would very personally and emotionally like them to hear from Mother Dove). The Home Tree is a big friendly community, but it follows unspoken rules that can be harsh when broken. The way these two are treated for that is pretty close to how Prilla was in "Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg", except there's no grand, Neverland-saving feat they'll perform to earn everybody's special affections, they just have to do the best they can with what they're given. Jonathan will take more of the brunt of it, while Dio will mask over his instincts and blend in where he chooses.

Having two talents isn't just unheard of, it's not really possible, so fairies who can't accept what they don't understand will try to force Jonathan into a category that they do. As for why he does, it's because he practiced Hamon as a human— this ability bled over into his new life in a slightly more magical but not especially more functional way. More details I'd hope to explain more organically later. You can probably tell but I have uh. A tism. Thanks for coming to my TED talk!!

And yes, if any single soul noticed, I wrote Jojo's stupid book title in leaf lettering. Ridiculous thing that it is. "On Kyto the Dragon".

And the first post about them, for good measure!

“M’Lord, pray tell, how exactly did you manage to tangle your hair into such a mess? And…”

You leaned forward on the small stool you were seated on, the wood creaking in protest as you shifted your weight. You buried your nose in wisps of Messmer’s damp red hair, the curls tickling the swell of your round cheeks as you took a deep breath. 

“I can smell smoke clinging to your red locks.”

A soft noise stirred in the back of Messmer’s throat, a hum of agreement as he offered no further response. Your ears rung as the sound of dripping water hit the tiled floor below your feet, a small puddle pooling just beneath the porcelain tub from Messmer’s arm hanging over the edge. You watched small water droplets race down his pale complexion, gathering at his fingertips and dripping from the jagged edges of his sharp nails. The light fixture dangling above your head gave you ample amount of light as you threaded your fingers through Messmer’s hair, eyebrows pinched in concentration as you thought about how you were going to start detangling the unkempt locks. You think there’s dried blood matting his hair when you start to wet the wild curls and the water turns red. You try and pay it no mind, as you start to scrub Messmer’s hair with the bar of soap clutched in your hands, lathering his scalp in a floral scent that was much more pleasant to your nose. 

Despite you tugging and pulling on his hair, Messmer didn’t offer any complaint as you continued to scrub the dirt and horrible stench from his red locks. In fact, he started to like the feeling of your nails scratching at his scalp as you worked meticulously, your firm touch making his head slowly roll back until the nape of his neck was resting against the rim of the tub. He stared up at you with his lone golden eye, your blotchy image fading in and out of focus as you continued to work. You felt the curious flicker of a forked tongue brush against your ear as one of Messmer’s snakes decided to use your shoulders as its perch, watching the movements of your fingers with thin, slitted eyes. You noticed the other snake also staring at you from the edge of the tub, the black wings on its serpentine body trembling in delight when you rubbed the tip of your finger against its scaly, scarlet nose. 

“You seem displeased” Messmer quietly murmured in a husky tone. 

You hummed softly as you shook your head, massaging your fingers through his hair as cool, red scales brushed against your warm cheeks. 

“I am not displeased. I am just concentrating.”

You cringed a little when you had to tug your fingers through a tough knot and you almost ripped an entire chunk of his hair out in the process. You really had to dig your fingers into his wavy hair to even have a chance of getting to his scalp. But it was worth it in the end when you grabbed the pitcher beside the tub, filled it with water and rinsed the soap suds from his hair. The way your fingers now effortlessly slid through his locks without catching in any tangles brought you an alarming amount of satisfaction. A smile touched your lips when you were finally finished. 

“Done!” you chirped, your voice echoing around the tiled walls. 

You placed the pitcher down as you stood from your seat, your aching knees singing with relief when you stretched your limbs. The snake perched on your shoulders was surprisingly heavy today, content to simply rest on you even as you started to move around the tub. You went to step away for a moment but was surprised when you felt something grab your arm and halt your movements. You looked back at Messmer, blinking owlishly in surprise as his long fingers curled around your wrist, nails intimately pressing into your plump flesh and leaving behind crescent shaped marks. You stared at his face as his parched lips parted around your name. 

“Join me.”

It seemed like more of a question than a statement. An open invitation for you to accept or decline. Both snakes were now staring expectantly at you as you turned the thought over in your head. With a smile you took a step back towards the tub, Messmer’s firm grip on your wrist now loose as you nodded. The back of your thick thighs hit the edge as you leaned against the tub, your smile still playing on your plush lips as the steam stemming from the hot water invited you to come closer. 

MOHG -

★ Mohg is someone who wants someone as devoted to him as he is to them. Someone he can lean on, someone that can appreciate all the blood he sheds. He wishes for a consort that is reliable. It can make him flustered to know just the lengths someone would go for him.

"Impress me, show me that you won't break from a little bloodshed."

★ I feel like Mohg also needs alot of affirmation, whether it be physical or verbal. He spent so long shunned, disliked, removed from society... A mere sweet word or kiss can make him swoon.

"My dearest.... You... You flatter me far too much." He would murmur, a clawed hand finding it's way to cup your cheek, deliberate.... Gentle. Even if you couldn’t see it, he was practically flushed in the face.

★ He would like someone to enjoy the carnage of blood with him. To him, there's nothing more enchanting than the sight of his partner drenched in blood.

"You are... absolutely breath-taking covered in blood, dearest." He would hum, letting a padded finger swipe a splotch of blood from your cheek.

RANNI -

★ Ranni isn't very picky. She's attracted to curious people, more often than not. The art of knowledge is something that has surrounded her, well, her entire life. Answering questions, whether small or complex, always makes her crack a small smile. Though, it may just be the curious sparkle in your eye that does it...

"Huh? How exactly does Carian sorcery work? Well... It seems like I'll just have to show thee."

★ Ranni, also likes someone devoted. I mean, she loves a little errand runner, for sure... But to have someone pay attention, do small acts of services to make her life just a bit easier... it makes her heart (figuratively) beat faster.

"Dearest consort... You know just the way to my heart. I adore thee." She would cup your face, hands cold as she takes a book from your palm, after all... Ranni has always enjoyed a good book.

★ Ranni would like someone who's interested in sorcery. Whether committing to using that magic, or storing the knowledge away to bettter conversate with her, she truly appreciates it.

"Huh... So you do listen to my ramblings. How sweet, love." She hummed, brushing one of her hands through your hair.

MORGOTT -

★ Hes a big loverboy at heart. He wants someone who will share that sentiment. Cheesy things like dancing in the throne room of Leyndell, watching the stars at night, reading books together in the comfort of eachother's presence...

"Dance with me, won't you..? It's the perfect night, don't you think?"

★ Morgott likes words of affirmation as well! From the shunning grounds, to his own resentment over his curse... A bit of soft words can go a long way for him. Whether it be complimenting him, or a simple "I love you", it all makes him fall in love with you more.

"You are a god wrapped in warm flesh, what else could possibly explain how absolutely wonderful you are." He would hum, taking a compliment given from you to heart. His hand cupped yours, bringing it up so he could kiss the back of your hand.

★ Morgott would like someone who could care for him! Even if its a small morning kiss, or rubbing the pain out of his muscles. The feeling of being cared for, it is something that he desires greatly.

"Ah... You needn't trouble yourself with my pains, it is... foolish." His words died down on his tongue, shushed by the feeling of a hand working into his sore shoulder, your soft chin resting on the junction of his shoulder and his neck. This was... Nice. He could get used to this.

THE LIST

Godrick - A 2/10. Would most likely graft the child,,, Kidding!! I don't think he foresees himself with a child, if he does it's to raise another child under the Godfrey heritage.

Radahn - 7/10, if he's not infested with Scarlet Rot. He cared alot about his child! He would raise them will morals and etiquette, would most likely encourage them to be a warrior. He loves you and his child oh so very much.

Morgott - 8/10, he ADORES his family. Since he married you, he's been so much happier and less alone. He would love that child to death, teach your child, care for them, even go out of his way to raise them to one day, just like him, care for the erdtree.

Mohg - 6.5/10, now, I adore Mohg, but blood is not the safest thing to have around a child. He loves your child, of course he does. Raises them to be a good future ruler of the Dynasty!! Extra points for being whipped for you beyond belief.

Rykard- 5/10. Human Rykard is a decent man, he cares for his family of course!!! But, his job as praetor is his main focus, not that you and your child aren't present in his mind, of course you are ! he loves the family you two have built together, but if work calls, he is there.

Malenia - 4.5/10, It isn't that she's a bad parent. She's just afraid to be too close, or hurt them by accident with the Scarlet Rot. +.5 for her absolute adoration of both you and your child. She's happy to have been able to start a family, even if her fear holds her back sometimes.

Ranni 7.5/10, She's excited to carry on her lineage, especially with the person she loves. She'd one hundred percent care for your child, even have her mischievous personality rub off onto said child. WILL have Blaidd and Iji very involved in your child's life.

Godwyn 8/10, He is a caring man, definitely so happy to have a family with the most important person in the entirety of the Lands Between. He puts most of his time into caring for your child, less time into patrolling for fighting dragons. He 100% flaunts his happy family. Fortissax loves your child aswell.

Messmer 6.5/10, He is so fascinated with your child. Hes such a caring father, and cries a little over how happy he is to have such a wonderful family. Messmer has always wanted love, and now he has it. In the form of a gorgeous child and a wonderful spouse.

Miquella - 6/10, He is excited. All this time, spent planning, breaking free from his curse, and becoming an ideal empyrean... He finally has something stable, safe. A child he cares for so much, and a consort he holds close to his heart. If perfection does exists, he believes it started when a family of his own was made.

Melina - 7/10, She LOVES your child. The third butterfly sibling, she uses her heat to keep you both warm. Melina holds you and your child close to her heart, it's what keeps the embers of her soul burning bright. For once, family doesn't seem like a confusing, irritating tree, but something worth cherishing.

In Horses, players control Anselmo. He is a young man working on a farm for two weeks who discovers early on that the horses on the farm are actually person who have been captured and forced to wear horse masks. They are, according to the farmer, mostly people caught having sex in the woods of his property and throughout the game Anselmo (and therefore the player) will not only tend to regular farm tasks but also the discipline of these horses. This involves a variety of situations. In some cases, the farmer flogs the horses and asks you to clean their wounds. After one horses is found fornicating with another, in what's perhaps the game's mode defining scene of violence, Anselmo must hold the offending horse's legs open while the farmer castrates him. Afterwards, the player must quickly stitch the wound. Later, this horse refuses to work in the field and while you can try offering carrots to help them move, you are eventually forced to strike them with a club. this is not every day. some days you wake up, set wood on a stump and chop some logs for the fire. maybe you prepare some food for the dog. functionally, which is to say in the act of play, Horses is a sort of first-person adventure game mixed with a farm sim. click item, click on thing to use itself with. sometimes this is normal, in other moments this mundane user experience is used to enact violence on the horses. Beyond these acts that the player participates in, there's a variety of sexual violences that are implied. A sick female horse is tended to by a doctor who eventually takes her into a shed where he seems to rape her to death. this is not a kind game but the violence is at lest deployed with some kind of purpose. as players gain familiarity with the routine on the farm, learning the layout and how to do tasks, they similarly acclimate to the presence of extreme violence. some critics, like megan farokhmanesh at Wired, have questioned if this violence (particularly the gendered sexual violence) is worth having. others have adopted a different approach; this is a game that invites comparison to a work like Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom and so the comparison goes "Well, there was worse in that movie" or perhaps even "there's worse stuff in many films" and so this violence, while not glossed over, is placed into a wider art context. many mediums have works more gratuitous that Horses! and the presentation of the violence, while gross, is not as explicit. where you fall on the spectrum here is a personal decision. farokhmanesh is correct to say that much of Horses violence is deployed casually and perhaps without care. on the other hand, that casual nature is arguably the point. this is a story about slavery and sex and denigration. it is about the ways in which powerful people turn their enemies into something other than human beings. does it all work? I'm unsure. the violence is neither explicit enough to truly shock and the content so broadly metaphorical that Horses message about authoritarian powers and how they cow us into accepting their grosses decisions is perhaps so wide reaching that it lacks a certain bite. regardless, this is a game which has been banned from many store fronts that contain games which often render up scenes of violence that are more detailed, more graphically raw than anything that exists in Horses. is it good? bad? that might not matter considering what else you can find on Steam with a cursory glance. and yet, the conversation about the game is revealing. many people who are not of the right wing have found ways to decide that yes this game is somehow EXCEPTIONAL to all the other violent stories our medium has and contrived many ways to justify aligning with storefronts in their decision making. and this, I think is maybe more interesting that Horses itself as the game is a rather flat work.

One scene at the center of the discussion is one that Santa Ragione themselves calls attention to in explaining why they think Steam initially turned down the game. A few days into the story, after we've had time to be around the horses and understand the situation, a businessman and his daughter arrive at the farm. the horses are stood before the pair, auction-like, and the daugther chooses one to ride. the player guides the horse (holding it by the reins) around a corral as the daughter rides upon its back. in the original version of the game, the daughter was supposedly a child. this has been changed in the final release where she is an adult. but (i think correctly) Santa Ragione identified this scene as one that drew the ire of Valve. even now, as a scene that doesn't exist it seems to be used by some folks to justify Horses removal from the store. through a game of telephone, the story has spread that this is a game of pornography and perhaps even one with an underage character in a scene. this is not the truth but it has led some folks, even some who previously rallied to defend "problematic" games during their struggles with payment processors like Visa, which led to a decision at the time to delist NSFW content. in that case, itchio was out of line but here? well, maybe Valve's in the right! Or so the thinking goes. and yet, I think this scene is perhaps the most important in the entire game insofar as what is happening in the text. The daughter terlls Anselmo that she KNOWS these horses are people. this is not merely some avant-garde absurdist twist; it is textual that the horses are human beings. they are slaves. she knows this. her father knows it. the priest that visits the farm knows. but it's okay. you see, these people are degenerates! and maybe even if they don't don't deserve this treatment, they have dangerous ideas. we're never told why those ideas are but it doesn't matter. they are different, they are "others" and because of that... because of the implied deviancy... it is okay for them to be mistreated. likewise, although games are art... because Horses has become to some folks an example of some kind of degenerate art... we shouldn't worry about the storefront bans. "I hope you get to live your entire live as a human being!" the daughter says. It is chilling, a threat without even meaning it to be one. For the moment, Anselmo is a "human being" in the eyes of the farmer but there is a suggestion that this could change. For whatever reason, he could become something else. Not a human being. And therefore subject to the same violence as all the other horses. for many of us, this is threat we live with. to be trans in america is to constantly skirt the line between "human being" and something else, for instance. many people in my life still see my humanity but there's always the threat that could stop. that the propaganda will take hold and I will not get to live my life as a human being. so it goes to people of color, people with mental health issues. and more. you are not always assured of your status as a human being. and in a less drastic example of this arbitrariness... you are not always assured that the thing you create, the art you make will be seen as art. for many people, Horses is not art. and the discussions about its worthiness have, in some ways, the same tone as the discussions about the worthiness of someone's status as "human being." and it is in this that I think Horses has proved interesting. more so than anything that happens inside the game.

A curious blip in this conversation was the re-emergence of a voice whose weight in game's related discussions had certainly waned over the last decade: Ian Bogost. Known best for making Cow Clicker and embodying the kind of presence one might expect from someone wrapped in the warm cloak of academia, Bogost popped his head up first to debate market factors surrounding Horses ban before falling back to one of his tried and true lines of inquiry. that the game was, unlike games he made and he liked, not a serious work. "Q-Up and Candy Crush, say, are more serious works of game than Horses (which seems fine and even innocuous!) or whatever embarrassing anime RPG trash is on Steam or Nintendo EShop," he said, referencing the clever competitive coin-flipping game Many of us rolled our eyes but I am going to talk about it briefly because in relation to Horses I do think Bogost's bait is worth taking for what it reveals about the situation surrounding the game. First, I'm gonna do a very briefly history lesson. In the 2010s, there was a growing emergence of alt games and particularly queer games that heralded the growth of alternate critics.

I was one of them so I feel qualified to talk about this but we're talking writers like Lana Polanksy, Stephen Beirne, and in more mainstreams spaces this is where someone like Austin Walker emerges as well. It was a varied coalition of writers who had a holistic and emotionally-driven approach to their criticism. games as experiences synthesized by players living in a context similarly made by people living in their own circumstances. In response to this, Bogost and some other tenured sorts start to write op-ed pieces extolling the power of games systems. Games, to people like Bogost and New York University Game Center's Frank Lantz, are only valuable for the systems they contain and the results of those systems. They embark in their writings to dismiss "childish make-believe, imaginary dragons, badly written dialogue." They stress games as *processes* and the only valuable narratives that emerge come from the collision of these processes. you don't need characters, you need mechanisms. note that in the context of the 2010s what Bogost was doing and to some extent Lantz was doing was slipping briefly out of comfortable tenured spaces to essentially deride games made by marginalized creators and criticism made by women, blacks, and queers. we pushed back because why the hell wouldn't we? This leads to what some people call "The Debate That Never Took Place" wherein many of those young alt-writers formulate writing in opposition to what's being written ultimately by comfortable white men with good jobs. Not all this writing exists but it is where terms like "ludocentrism" and "ludofundamentalism" are coined. Ways of describing a mode of thinking, born primarily from academia, which the opposition bloc finds too narrow to describe what games are doing and, importantly, why audiences enjoy them. All this fades away as a gaming is eaten by things like Roblox completely rebuilds the landscape but Bogost seems to have held onto that position and I think it's interesting to consider and talk about re: Horses because something we failed to grapple with at the time of The Debate That Never Happened" was how ludocentrism is a chiefly neoliberal idea. one which easily aligns with censorship. It's not a big leap to go from "games are only systems" to "markets will fix all of society's problems." We all understood this maybe but didn't quite attack for the foolishness it is. Because this urge, this impulse ironically aligns Bogost (a neoliberal professor) with forces of censorship and to some extent fascism. funny how that works. Time and time again over the years when formalists talk about their derision towards games stories, this comes hand in hand with what is frankly a kind of racism. this is particularly true with Bogost, who often slips into orientalist jabs.

Bogost cannot help, for instance, tossing a jab at JRPGs often and I think it's important to identify that for what it is. Bogost doesn't simply believe that only certain kinds of games are games; he also believes that only certain kinds of developers can make those games. there are people and there are fuckin' horses, y 'know? developers are people like him or Lantz. They are men, they are white, and they are American. This makes them better designers, smart people, and therefore The Only Real Designers. Atlantic writers and such. (the difference here BTW is that Lantz at least makes good games.) understanding his opposition to Horses becomes an easier task viewed in this light. He's not still simply opposed to story in games; he fundamentally believes on some innate level that the artists at Santa Ragione are not worth the default kind of respect that he gives to certain peers and implicitly deserved to have their game banned.

They made the wrong kind of game! is it even a game? This emotional garbage? Couldn't this have been a spreadsheet? Perhaps it could have but I think that playing Horses also reveals the ways in which that could have hobbled the story. You could totally make a suitable fascistic exercise in Excel but this does remove you from certain pressures that make Horses effective. proximity to the violence being done, proximity to potential danger that the farmer might enact on Anselmo. sound, music, movement. the theater of it all, that mix of sickening shock and comedy. breath in your ears. the undeniable complicity of holding someone down as they are tortured. holding the button, waiting for your accomplice to bring the sheers close. close enough to cut it's coming soon just hold the button don't let him squirm at least make it clean. that's not easily turned into an abstract system. to hold a button in order to hold a prisoner down creates a more active and unambiguous participation in Horses' violence which serves the text. and so in discounting these things —for instance, our multi-day bonding time with Linda the Horse (a character in a story!) shifting as we are forced to assist in violence against her—Bogost's neoliberalism sees him easily align with storefronts over artists. he aligns himself with capital over labor. and he deploys formalist language to the same end as he always has: to police creatives who are not "like him." he doesn't resent the market forces that led to Horses lack of support because he mostly agrees with it. This is a key factor to discuss with Horses because there's a lot of people out there who are not devilishly right wing that are nevertheless finding ways to contort themselves into positions that defend this game's banning from storefronts. the people who railed against itchio's payment processors missteps a while back seem fine with Valve axing Horses because it at one point contained something they maybe thought was icky which doesn't even exist in the text anymore. a former games writer defends to the death the decision simply because stores have the right (they're not doing anything illegal maaaan!) to remove whatever they want from shelves. a university professor aligns because this is happening not to people like him but people he doesn't respect. these are not villainous or "bad" people but they all reached the same bad conclusion and suddenly, this game about fascism and complicity is interesting not for the violence or sexual content but because it provided a case study for how a range of people—nominally online young progressives, academics, others—will find ways to say "oh, well it's okay this time." when it comes to censorship.