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thejakeformerlyknownasprince · 1 year

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Errors, “Errors,” and Sci Fi

@strawberry-crocodile

tvtropes calls stuff like the wolf example "science matches on" which I think is a pretty fair shake

This. This is what’s got me thinking so much about errors. There’s a certain danger, here. A certain way that this particular effect — delicious dramatic irony — tempts the mind when reading old stories, even true ones.

What do you know about R.M.S. Titanic? I ask my class every year, and the first hand rises. “It was unsinkable,” the student inevitably says, and everyone is nodding, “or so they thought.” I write the word UNSINKABLE on the board, underneath my crude drawing of a ship with four smokestacks. It will be crossed out before the end of the hour, but not for the reason they expect.

“I find no evidence,” Walter Lord, preeminent biographer of the ship’s survivors, wrote, “that Titanic was ever advertised as unsinkable. This detail seems to have entered the collective mind so as to create a more perfect irony.” Indeed, historians’ examinations of White Star Line documents show the shipbuilders themselves worried it would be so large as to risk collision; they stocked several more lifeboats than 1910s regulations required.

The War to End All Wars (deep breath, satisfied exhale), also known as World War ONE. Chuckle. Shake of the head. What if I told you that this phrase, used primarily in American newspapers after the fact, wasn’t meant to be literal? Nowadays we’d say The Mother of All Wars, or One Hell of a Fucking War, but we wouldn’t mean literal motherhood, literal intercourse. What if I said the armistice and the Lost Generation and the Roaring 20s were all braced for another outbreak of European conflict, and yet we still failed to prevent it?

Did you know they were so confident in the safety of the S.S. Challenger that they put a civilian schoolteacher onboard? I do, because I’ve heard that one repeated many times. Only, see, it’s got the cause and effect reversed. Challenger launched on a day the shuttle’s engineers knew to be dangerously cold, because the first civilian in space was on board. And NASA knew its shuttle project would be cancelled entirely, if they couldn’t get that civilian’s much-delayed entry into space in the next two weeks. So they launched on a cold day, and killed her instead.

These are all what cognitive science calls Hindsight Bias on the personal level, what sociology calls Presentism on the cultural level. Social psychology’s a little of both, is primarily interested in why you’re sitting on your couch in a Colonize Mars shirt watching PBS and chuckling at the fools who believed in El Dorado. It wants to know why the mind flees straight from “marijuana will kill you” to “marijuana will cure cancer” without so much as a pause on the middle ground of its real benefits and drawbacks, its real (mild) risks and rewards.

And they can paralyze the sci-fi writer, if you think too much about them. Jetsons is futurist one decade, retro the next. “There are no bathrooms on the Enterprise,” the creators of Serenity say smugly, as if Gene Roddenberry should’ve simply known that decades later it’d be acceptable to show a man peeing in full view of the camera, nothing but the curve of the actor’s hand to protect his modesty. “No sound in space,” the Fandom Menace says, “No explosions in space,” and “A space station can’t collapse in zero-G.” Only then NASA burns a paper napkin outside of atmosphere, transmits music using only the ghost of nearby planets’ gravities, and logs onto Reddit long enough to point out the Death Star would implode in its own gravity field. And now we’re the ones pointing, the ones laughing, at those earlier point-and-laughers. Self-satisfied, smug in superiority. As if we did the work to find out ourselves, instead of just happening to be born a little later than George Lucas.

#errors #continuity #sci fi #presentism #star wars #titanic #world war i #science marches on #history #started a new post because i got waaaaaay off topic here #if you think the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (1993) should've had feathers #you're a lot more ignorant about paleontology than the people you're trying to criticize #science was not handed down to us in its perfect complete form circa 1943 #stop for a second before you call out someone else's reptilian denonychus #someone else's oxygenated moon #and ask: am i better read #or am i just more recently born?

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jingyuan-doodles · 8 months

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hallo, I saw you asking for suggestions on what to draw for Jing Yuan and I suggest that you draw Jing Yuan and the hcq gossiping lol

this got way out of hand

#jing yuan #daily jing yuan #honkai star rail #jing yuan honkai star rail #baiheng #baiheng honkai star rail #yingxing honkai star rail #yingxing #dan feng #dan feng honkai star rail #jingliu #jingliu honkai star rail #high cloud quintet #pls tell me if u cant read idk why i insisted writing the text #instead of just literally typing it out lol #but i was too far gone to change #asks

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stealingpotatoes · 5 months

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star wars au: everything is the same but anakin plays supermassive black hole during the mustafar fight

your mind holy shit

#the greatest thing to come out of yoda reading twilight #i added a slightly green filter to add to the twilight vibe #star wars #revenge of the sith #thanks for the ask!#also i tried removing the background music but it removed all the sfx so i have really awkward audio of the fight w no music or sabers #misc tag

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felikatze · 3 months

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Do you wish you could easily look up information on ISAT, yet the wiki is lacking in it?

Well let me tell you the good news, my friend... YOU can fix that! all you need to do is sign up to wiki.gg (which doesn't even require an email address!) and you can get editing! Add information that the wiki editors have overlooked!! correct spelling mistakes!! write guides for obscure achievements!!

"But I'm afraid to make a mistake!"

Don't worry! If you have questions, simply head to #the-wiki-channel on the official isat discord server, and there'll be plenty of people to help you out!

"But I don't know how wiki editing works!"

in that case, check out isatwiki's very own style guide! It gives you the run down on formatting, page layouts, syntax, and citing! If you still feel unprepared, check out a completed page and copy its formatting! Completed pages are few and far between at the moment, though. Ahaha.

"I don't want to mess up on a public page!"

In that case, our dear pal the style guide is here to help! Check out the last section on Sandbox pages! A very own page, just for you to mess around with! Additionally, you can cut your teeth on making an user page for yourself! Put anything on there (that complies with TOS, of course) and have fun!!! Check out other people's user pages too, if you want!!

"But I don't know what to do!"

Then check out our To Do list! All the wiki's main projects, all compiled in one place! And if something you want to do isn't on the to do list... do it anyway. If there's info you want on there that isn't, the more the merrier, right?

on my hands and knees. please. pretty please. we're a small wiki we have low standards. i will take literally anything over nothing at all. you can make the most barebones unformatted page ever and i personally will pretty it up for you. i merely ask that you cite. like at all. and if you dont cite you can put this cute little {{source}} banner up top so other people will know the info isn't cited.

you should get into wiki editing it's a very fun hobby. you might even pick up basic coding along the way and learn what it's like to cry over css.

#feli speaks #in stars and time #pwease. there's like four of us #you may ask. ok who are you that you want people to add to the wiki. easy. wiki admin #very recent admin but before that. skills page? i made that. stat boxes? i made those. gallery pages? i made those too #toooo be fair most stuff carried over from the sasasap page i did very little for character pages and game pages #but. if you used the wiki you have read things i have written. i guarantee you.

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bonefall · 3 months

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Clear Sky is a Monster.

Of all the characters in Warrior Cats, I think Clear Sky was the most heavily mishandled.

At every turn, the narrative begs you to sympathize with him, to "understand" the "misunderstood." To this end, his brother Gray Wing is used to "keep faith" in his inherent goodness, his abused son, Thunder, is forced to go back to him over and over, and his second dead wife is completely lobotomized in death to absolve him of all sin.

Because of this, of all this set-up for the "redemption" arc they're trying to tell in the last three books, DOTC is Clear Sky's story. Everything primarily exists to benefit and serve his arc. Thunder and Gray Wing might have POVs, but HE is the character who truly drives the plot. So in order to HAVE conflict for that back half, two evil foreign cats, Slash and One Eye, are summoned to act as contrast.

Their narrative purpose is to display "true evil" to make Clear Sky look less bad in comparison. Unfortunately, Clear Sky is the most malignant, deadly character who has ever blighted Warrior Cats.

The "pure evil" examples they summon aren't effective contrasts because they're flat. Clear Sky is what real abusers look like.

His rhetoric is what it sounds like when a cult leader is trying to keep control over a group. He lies when it benefits him, justifies his actions with his tragic backstory to assuage his guilt and manipulate others, and violently lashes out when his feelings are hurt before blaming his victim for making him angry.

He only made "some mistakes" in that SOME of his actions were accidents-- the vast majority of them were malicious, self-absorbed, intentional choices to punish, hurt, and kill others.

I've spoken about Bumble. I've tallied his body count next to Tigerstar. I've talked about how his infant son's death was his fault in sequel books, and called attention to the infected wound face shoving scene that no one talks about. I can't fit every detail into a single post-- because he's so rancid that I would practically be posting entire books.

So what I want to do here is tackle the heart of Clear Sky. Everything he does, everything he's motivated by, is absolute and utter control over other people. He leverages his "trauma" to evoke empathy from his targets to make them easier to manipulate. He's a dirty liar. He breaks down to physical violence when all other tactics stop working.

He's one of the most severe and realistic abusers I've ever read about outside of very adult literature-- and when I read the reasons why he's attracted to Star Flower, my stomach immediately lurched.

The Killing of Misty

Starvation Rhetoric and the Memory of Fluttering Bird

Aside; a question

Hunger as a punishment; he doesn't care about starvation

Exoneration arc

Predation: Star Flower is a replacement for his son.

I think that index is an evocative content warning. But to say it again; this post contains child and domestic abuse, physical assault, public humiliation, incestuous grooming implications, and a lot of murder.

I need to start with the death of Misty. I see a few people saying that Clear Sky killed her for "being on his land" or trespassing, but this is actually a misstatement that I feel is important to correct.

Misty and her children were on their own land. It was her house. Clear Sky killed her to take it.

This is one of the most important details to remember about Clear Sky, that this is the consistent end point of his obsessive need for power and control. By harassment, by violence, or by death, he will brutalize anyone who does not give him what he wants, or who makes him feel bad, and find some way to justify it.

This territory expansion was for no logical reason. There was plenty of food and plenty of land. Any aggression that's happening on this territory is in response to how he's been stealing land and mauling people.

When it's found out she was fighting to defend her children, Clear Sky's immediate response is to slaughter them too.

Petal doesn't have milk either. It wasn't about the logistics. He wanted to kill the kids, because looking at them made him feel bad, and she just managed to stop him.

Starvation Rhetoric and the Image of Fluttering Bird

It is often said that Clear Sky is doing this because he's "traumatized" from how his little sister, Fluttering Bird, starved to death in the mountains. That the emotion came from wanting to feed people. That's incorrect. It wasn't about food. Fluttering Bird's death, and all the "starvation" he's faced, are used as manipulation tactics to guilt, influence, and control other characters, particularly when he might meet resistance or be held accountable for something.

It was always, ALWAYS, about control.

He does not care about actually helping people; "Starvation Rhetoric" through Fluttering Bird is an image he can invoke to justify the actions that are as bloody and cruel as the one this post starts off with. Either in his own mind, or in the minds of the cats he's manipulating.

He does this to Falling Feather, before slicing her face open in anger when she doesn't buy it. He does it to Rainswept Flower, before he strangles her to death. And he does it in the chapter just before Misty's murder, both to his Clan and then to Thunder,

Clear Sky climbed up in front of an entire crowd and gave a grand speech about hunger and "adjusting" the borders around territory he plans to conquer. When he gets to "forgiveness" he feigns pain to make his point because he is performing. If the sentiment is not a total lie, then at bare minimum, he is intentionally playing this up for the crowd.

He is rallying the Clan to support his violence against the cats whose land he wants to steal, and selling it with his life's hardships.

The audience is clearly well-trained, because several cats recognize the cue, particularly Frost who is praised for loudly comforting him. This signals "loyalty" because showing your sympathy towards his "suffering" is how this type of emotional manipulation works. It creates a persecuted, righteous in-group.

He's also apparently used this tactic before, since this entire crowd knows what "I Would Never Forgive Myself " means.

He's made sycophants out of his followers. Like a cult leader.

His abused son, however, hasn't been fully indoctrinated yet. Seeing Thunder uncomfortable with the idea of expanding the borders for no reason, Clear Sky calls him over for a personal propaganda session.

Clear Sky begins the exchange by calling this a "duty" and a "great honor." Immediately framing what he plans to do as righteous.

He puts on the act when Thunder shows resistance, dramatically pausing to let the guilt trip sink in.

"Thunder waited, realizing that he said the wrong thing."

And then Clear Sky launches into infantilizing Thunder, talking down to him like a child who's too inexperienced to see the "signs of starvation," acting like he's being "patient" in "explaining" it.

And then we get it. "I know what starvation looks like (so stop trusting your own eyes) because I have been through more than you (so shut up and do what I tell you), and I'm being a HERO for what I'm about to do (so opposing me would make you a bad person)."

Thanks to these crocodile tears, looking "moved," the act works. The victim is immediately wracked by guilt because the abuser seems genuinely emotional.

He even lovebombs him over the corpse of Misty in the next chapter, making Thunder feel threatened.

Thunder doesn't have the words to describe what is happening to him, but he knows that this sudden snap to praise isn't natural. That something is very wrong.

A Question.

Before I move on to show that this IS an act, and that he is lying about how important avoiding starvation is to him, I will ask a question. Please think about it, because I promise I mean it genuinely;

Why does it matter if Clear Sky actually believes this or not?

The victims are just as dead either way, yes? Thunder is just as abused and guilt tripped. The entire Clan has been driven towards violence while coddling and cooing at their Supreme Leader. Clear Sky is slowly annexing the entire forest. If you have ever accepted that he had "good intentions" as an excuse for the harm he did, or that abuse and murder was what he imagined was "the right thing," or that his trauma justifies the way he leverages his own pain to make cats do what he wants... why do you think that?

Why does that make it morally better, as the narrative concludes? Would you accept the same for every other WC villain or antagonist? Tigerstar? Slash? Tom the Wifebeater? Brokenstar? Rainflower?

How could you tell the difference, if you couldn't read their actual thoughts on the page? ...are there any other "good intentions" you've accepted, somewhere else?

Don't share that answer with me. It's a question for you. Sit with it.

Hunger as a punishment; he doesn't care about starvation.

...but, regardless, Clear Sky is not deluded about starvation. It's a justification for his obsessive need for control, and always has been. There was no shortage before stealing Misty's land and kits, he is fully aware that there's more prey than they can eat.

He punishes Falling Feather with hunger and harassment for thought crime, by briefly thinking of leaving. But first, he invokes Fluttering Bird at her like he did before, flying into a screeching fit of rage when she doesn't buy it,

"I'm sorry I hurt you... BUT" is THE wifebeater phrase. THE stereotypical line of a domestic abuser. "I'm sorry I hit you... but it's your fault for making me so angry."

She went through the same exact starvation he did, calls out that he's just framing his greed as being for the collective benefit of his subjects, and is assaulted for that.

When we're in his head, we see his REAL concerns are not about hunger. He invoked Fluttering Bird to try and make her shut up and bow down to him; what he's focused on is her "gossiping" and "whining" about the open wound he left on her face. He's still furious at Fircone and Nettle for how Thunder QUESTIONED him. So he will "strengthen their commitment."

When "starvation" DOES enter his thoughts, it is to assuage his own guilt and JUSTIFY what he already did. What he already WANTS to do. It's post-hoc.

He had to suppress his own guilt at how his greed and ambition made these children into orphans, completely unable to admit that he's ever been wrong or has a change to make, so he invokes the starvation rhetoric at himself to excuse it. So he feels less bad.

Everything, EVERYTHING, in this confrontation is about his pleasure at being able to torment his subordinates. To continue the abuse when the initial confrontation is over. If it isn't pride in his power and control over them, it's plain sadism.

He invokes starvation in front of the crowd, again, after being pleasured at the guilt in her eyes, hoping that everyone sees her writhing with shame and embarrassment. Fear wasn't at the root of why he assaulted Falling Feather; rage was, and now he feels better that he got to humiliate the person who offended him.

Starvation Rhetoric is a manipulation tactic.

It goes RIGHT BACK to his twisted idea of "loyalty." Obedience.

A cat who's actually, primarily concerned about starvation wouldn't encourage other cats to steal her food if they feel like it. He wouldn't be using it as a weapon to retaliate against her because she hurt his feelings.

This is paired with the fact he restricts and monitors the diet of his cats. They eat when he allows it, and only what he gives them, in spite of there being piles of dead animals rotting, going to waste.

We then find he personally doles out food from these piles, plucking carcasses off them and flinging them at his cats, one by one. Probably so he can watch how grateful they are to him and make sure they stay a little hungry-- and definitely because it means he can control WHO gets to eat at all.

If Clear Sky chucked a mouse at Falling Feather and someone took it? She would have gone hungry. For not groveling to him. Like when he decides to starve her brother; a hostage who he promised to feed and care for.

He's a dishonest snake. He lied about abandoning baby Thunder, calling it a "test of strength," he lied about Bumble's death, he lied about keeping Jackdaw's Cry fed.

And he lied about starvation to Thunder, because he was just making up an excuse to steal more land.

He wasn't "seeing the signs" of starvation when he moved to "adjust" his borders. Even FURTHER into this so-called "delusional slip" into tyranny, he's freely admitting that it takes months for a person to starve when it benefits his sadistic need to punish undeserving cats.

"Dumb moor cats, always expecting more than they DESERVE."

Not need. DESERVE. It's not a delusion about starvation and it never was. STARVATION is how he CONTROLS SkyClan, and once again he's angry that his pleasure has been sullied.

The massacre at Fourtrees was started over Jackdaw's Cry catching a bat after being starved, on land that Clear Sky has decided RIGHT NOW that he also owns, because it mades him think about being disobeyed.

The bat is forgotten as Clear Sky pivots into a tantrum, wanting to make his family HURT for being 'disloyal' and 'ungrateful.' For leaving him. He LIKES seeing people grovel, cower, and beg, getting PLEASURE from watching how he can hurt and command other cats, and if you don't give him what he wants he will kill you.

Which, make no mistake, is what the "First Battle" actually is. Clear Sky attempting to murder those who don't worship him or swear their undying fealty to him and his twisted dictatorship. Particularly his own son, the most prominent victim of his emotional abuse.

It's not about the bat. It was never even about food or starvation. It's about retaliation for any perceived lack of control.

Once again he breaks out starvation rhetoric to try and manipulate someone, and when Rainswept Flower doesn't buy it just like Falling Feather didn't, he murders her in another fit of entitled rage.

Exoneration arc.

At the end of this battle that was entirely his own fault, we're introduced to the hollowed-out ghost of Storm. She has been flushed of all personality, so that she can be the perfect narrative mouthpiece.

She accepts yet another Fluttering Bird Invocation in spite of how we saw it's not sincere. He was lying the entire time and using starvation rhetoric as a manipulation tactic to get control over his victims.

And that's it.

That's the consequence. Storm's a little mad at him until he says "Buttering Flird" and she swoons.

He doesn't have to be ""afraid"" anymore because the cats just invented an afterlife to believe in. He keeps all of his power and influence and gets off scot-free, because "guilt" (which we SAW him repressing anyway) is supposed to be the best consequence for murder, abuse, and tyranny.

The husk of Storm even materializes again at the end of book 5 to say it outright; he "never drove anyone away." Not even after Book 4 where it's also his fault One Eye took over his Clan for 5 minutes. It was just destiny.

His "redemption arc" is just an exoneration arc. The narrative doesn't think he really did anything wrong.

EVERYTHING about Clear Sky has ALWAYS been about making grabs at power, but since the narrative didn't see a problem with him extorting his personal tragedy and the death of a child, his own sister, he continues doing it. As if these behaviors are normal personality 'traits'.

Even when that sister COMES OUT OF HEAVEN TO YELL AT HIM DIRECTLY,

He finds a way to COMPLETELY miss the point, so he can interpret her words in a bizarrely specific way that will conveniently end with him being the supreme dictator of the entire forest. Just like he ALWAYS does.

It's the entire 5th book. Clear Sky trying to convince everyone, including himself, that it's Fluttering Bird who wants him to grab at power, NOT himself and his own ambition, that THIS time, he promises, for realsies, it's actually about keeping everyone safe.

But just like ALWAYS, because he does not change, when this tried and true tactic manages to work on Thunder, during ANOTHER exchange where he's dramatically pausing and using the cold shoulder to make his pitiable act land harder,

He lapses right back into bullying his child, creating situations where Thunder will have difficulty or be put in pain, so that he can have an excuse to mock and belittle him.

And this all comes to a head when Clear Sky takes romantic interest in Star Flower, his abused son's previous romantic interest.

Predation: Star Flower is a replacement for his son.

Direct parallels are drawn between Thunder and Star Flower. Star Flower contrasts her loyalty to her father to Thunder's "disloyalty" to his own, in an appeal to Clear Sky.

Clear Sky brushes it off for now, citing that he cannot accept her because of who her father was.

But then, Thunder makes the connection between himself and her, because he knows what it is like to be a victim of parental abuse and correctly clocks that they have this in common,

On his vouch, Clear Sky accepts her into the group. She starts trying to offer himself to him; hunting twice as hard as the others, self-imposing harsh conditions like taking a wet sleeping spot. In their second interaction, Clear Sky begins to take interest in her.

Thunder himself points out that Star Flower is seeking an abusive tyrant to replace her own father, which reads like he's deflecting the stress of how his father is abusing him to deny a connection he already made. As if Thunder sees so much of himself in Star Flower that it makes him (rightly) feel sick that his father is romantically invested in her;

Thunder then goes on to follow his own advice and form his own Clan, because Clear Sky IS like One Eye... while Star Flower remains here. At Clear Sky's side. Because she feels like this is what she "deserves," that she "understands" him, truly believing that her crime (warning her father that Clear Sky brought an ambush in case he lost the 1 on 1 death match he requested, which he did) are on the same level as his abuse and murders.

Clear Sky is attracted to Star Flower because, in his own words;

She is young.

She will not betray him.

She won't question him,

and she obeys him.

We've seen what "betrayal" is to Clear Sky-- not taking his excuses or his beatings. To "disobey" is betrayal. To "question" is disobedience.

These are ALL things he's tried to drill into Thunder. We saw him happily exploit their difference in age to tell him he can't have an opinion. He constructed humiliating games in retaliation for ever being questioned. He tried to murder Thunder and his friends for their "betrayal." Even now, being disobeyed causes explosive reactions.

He was previously grooming the things he now identifies as attractive in a young woman into his child.

If your body becomes too useless to serve him, like Frost and Jagged Peak, you're thrown out. If you don't unquestioningly follow his bloody commands, like Falling Feather or Thunder, you're subjected to abuse and public humiliation. If you're in his way, like Misty or Rainswept Flower were, you die.

If you meet all of his expectations...

You will be in a horrific position where you will never have agency over your own life ever again. Every move, every word, will have to be carefully crafted so that he feels like you're "loyal" to him by the arbitrary standard he feels that day. Never step out of line, never doubt his decisions, never live for anyone except him and the children you will give him, not even for a moment, because then you will not be "worthy" of his grace.

Star Flower would be in serious danger if this series wasn't written by abuse apologists. They accidentally wrote a perfect reflection of how child abuse victims often find themselves in unsafe and toxic romantic relationships with large age gaps which mirror what they went through as kids; but this team doesn't clock it, playing this relationship as wholesome and genuine.

He finally has someone who ""understands"" him. Because they think the character they wrote is misunderstood.

but reality is plain to see.

Clear Sky is a monster. The most realistic monster in all of WC-- far, far closer to real life predators and domestic abusers than the "born evil" rogues like Slash and One Eye. The Erins seem to believe that what separates Clear Sky from One Eye is "fundamental" good and "fundamental" evil, when the truth is that they'd be separated by very, very little.

If they had realistic motivations, they would be exactly like the character their existence is meant to excuse.

Slash and One Eye HAD to be kept flat and one-dimensional. If the book was more earnest, the only difference between Clear Sky and One Eye would have been that One Eye is stronger. So strong that Clear Sky needed to manipulate the other groups into helping him.

While anyone can change, not everyone will, and Clear Sky has no reason to. He sees no consequences. He has everything he wants; power, a pretty and obedient young mate, and unchecked authority over a brainwashed forest cult. There is always a victim on a leash, a naive enabler, or a bunch of desperate and gullible marks somewhere in his proximity to bully into doing his dirtywork

Whether his "intentions" were sincere or not (evidence points towards not) at its root it was always about control. Power is something he perpetually keeps, and continues to violently use.

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codacheetah · 27 days

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Hey, so, the dagger conversation, right?

You know the one. You loop with tears 20+ times, Loop goes "haha tears so annoying right!" and then you pester Loop about being able to kill yourself with your dagger until. They get possessed.

Yeah, so, uh. Loop getting possessed. Why is that? What takes hold of them in this moment, and why is it now that Loop defying Siffrin is met with such severe pushback?

I think Siffrin accidentally bound Loop with a wish, in which they were forced to give Siffrin "permission" to use the dagger in order to fulfill the wish's conditions. (Explanation under cut.)

So. Wishes. What do we know about them? Well, we know that Wish Craft requires a combination of ritual and intent to perform. You must have a strong desire, and for this desire to reach the Universe, you have to perform some kind of action that opens the line of communication. We... don't know, fully, what rituals exist, but we do know that a significant part of Wish Craft rituals is repetition of certain numbers, one of which being three.

Now let's consider the dagger conversation. Loop asks Siffrin if they're annoyed yet, having to find a Tear every time they want to loop, before saying there's no faster way. You then have the option of agreeing, or mentioning your dagger. If you keep pushing, Loop gets angry and tells Siffrin that they don't want him to use the dagger. Something important to note about the following text choices is that, up until the third time you insist on using your dagger, you have the option to back out.

And then the third time. Loop gets angry at Siffrin for pushing the issue, and Siffrin replies "And who are you to tell me what to do?!" Loop tries to say something, before...

Loop gets possessed. Siffrin repeats his intent to do something (in this case, use his dagger to kill himself) three times, and Loop, on the third instance, suddenly loses the ability to defy Siffrin on the matter.

Recall the "SAY ITS NAME" sequence with the King. Siffrin and the King attempt to say the Island's name, violating whatever wish has its hold on the Island, and suffer physical injuries (to the point of death!) for doing this. Loop tries to rebuke Siffrin, and they experience sudden pain. And then... they loop. We know, because of the twohats fight, that Loop has the capability to loop independently of Siffrin. I believe that's what happened here, as well. They then are possessed, giving Siffrin "permission" to use the dagger, before looping once more.

It's just. I really don't know how to explain what happened to Loop without attributing it to Wish Craft.

Universe stuff indeed.

There is, of course, the question of "hey if Wish Craft can just Do That then isn't it likely that you could just force people to do whatever you want?!"

Well. I don't think that's likely. Remember Loop's role. They're here to help Siffrin. It's part of their own wish. And what constitutes helping Siffrin? Guiding them to keys, pointing out dead ends, giving you tutorials.

We know that combined wishes can have incredible levels of power. See: the timeloops.

It of course goes without saying that I sincerely doubt Siffrin would ever purposefully force Loop into this position, even at their worst. It's just not something he would do. We know Siffrin uses Wish Craft somewhat liberally and unconsciously, even within the loops, making a wish for strength/power/speed at the Change God statue, sharpening the KeyKnife. However, Wish Craft is... deeply caked in the general concept of "unintended consequences." I wouldn't put "violently taking over your mind and body" above the Universe.

TLDR; Siffrin holds the desire of "let me use my dagger" and accidentally Crafts it into a wish through the use of ritual (repetition 3 times). Loop is subject to "help" Siffrin, and through defying this role, they violate the conditions of Siffrin's wish. In response to Loop looping back to avoid physical injury/death, the Universe commands Loop's vessel to force the wish's conditions to be fulfilled in the most "direct" way possible.

#isat #in stars and time #isat spoilers #isat theory #cw suicide #...just in case i know some ppl dont like reading abt the dagger #i've been. ill abt the dagger convo. for months now #ive held this theory for the past few months but never got around to making a post on it. on account of the nervousness #(and laziness)#surely not the first person to have this theory but i wanted to be the guy to post it.#i need other people to have my worms over this event. i feel like people #brush over how fucking insane the dagger acquisition itself is.#like. HELLO? LOOP GOT FUCKING POSSESSED???#HELLO??????#three is an incredibly important number in isat. even the damn ellipses and exclamation points are consistently always in threes #i don't think it's a coincidence that siffrin has to ask three times. that's my shitty tldr

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vic-does-battlecats · 2 months

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Minor spoilers for the already revealed chapters of the next A Starless Clan book Wind

#a starless clan #a starless clan spoilers #wind spoilers #asc spoilers #warrior cats spoilers #warriors #warrior cats #tigerheart #tigerheartstar #tigerstar 2 #tigerstar #Squirrelflight #squirrelstar #frostpaw #Nightheart #I’ve been wanting to draw this ever since the chapters were revealed and what better time than like two days til the book comes out #i actually think tigerheartstar is an interesting character in this arc he genuinely thinks he’s doing the right thing and he does honestly #want to help. he just does it by trying to crack dad jokes to lighten the mood while trying to run a group that doesn’t want him there #i also think it’s funny that he’s consistently just chill with taking in cats thrown out of their clans. ESPECIALLY from RiverClan #don’t get me wrong he’s super weird in omen of the stars and avos and I think in his super edition (I haven’t read it in a while)#but he’s also a good dad. he’s such a perplexing character I can’t help but find him interesting. at least he DOES stuff yknow #I’ll eat my words if he does turn out to be completely evil or something. but I’ll hate if he does his behavior really isn’t like Tigerstar #-the first. this guy isn’t out here trying to seize power #but ENOUGH ABOUT HIM!! Nightheart asking squirrelstar if frostpaw could come to thunderclan with him was so sweet #i wish she’d accepted I don’t want them to split up I’m worried the writers will forget the entire last book and they won’t be close again

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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 10 months

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Lights out! Poppy: Ahh I had such a refreshing na- Why is Sally glowing?

LMFAO YEAH. pretty much how it goes...

#this was the First meme to pop into my mind upon reading this ask #also heyyyyy finally Seriously drew poppy - damage and all!#to that one person who wanted to see her! here she is!!!#but ohhhh man oh man have i been having Popstar feelings pertaining to this au...#sally being completely inaccessible #like at least frank can go see eddie and sit with him if he wants. hold his Unconscious Hand.#but poppy can't go anywhere near her shining star....#also sally becoming something poppy should be terrified of but. but poppy being unable to be afraid #like. nightlight!sally being the One Thing poppy can't muster up any fear of #scribble salad #wh lights out au #rambles from the bog #the PINING poppy experiences in this au... yeah #ough and them in act two???? yall-#the lesbianisms.... the Tenderness.... the Understanding....#without poppy i can say confidently that sally would Not make it to act three or four #oh god now im thinking about act two and im making myself sad OKAY POST OVER THANK YOU BYE

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c00kieguy · 1 month

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hai :3c (regarding your long distance argenti post; i got lazy at the end sorry huhu)

imagine, one day, he doesn't reply all of a sudden.

imagine one day, late in the evening, you're waiting for argenti's usual goodnight message—either in the form of honeyed, poetic words that could be translated into ballad or the sound of his smooth-as-velvet voice that you could listen to for hours on end.

imagine, falling into uneasy sleep as you can no longer force your eyes open trying to stay awake awaiting your lover's fleeting words reserved for you and only you.

imagine waking up in the morning, immediately turning on your phone in hopes that argenti was perhaps too occupied to send you a message (or, messages) last night—in the past, he has, so hopefully this was one of those cases.

imagine, after a very long day with zero replies from your one and only, there was still radio silence on his end, your messages growing ever more frantic.

a day grows into two, then three, then four, then five.

and then five days becomes two weeks.

at this point, you may as well be growing grey hairs from all the stress you've accumulated worrying about what the hell happened to your boyfriend. he's warned you about the possibility of not being able to contact you for periods at a time due to "certain circumstances"... whatever they were.

but there was also a slim chance of the other possibility of him embarking danger on his journeys out across the stars. you know him—he can be overdramatic, corny.

and reckless.

you perish the mere thought as the doorbell rings; once, then twice.

you slowly cross your abode to the entrance, confused. you aren't expecting anybody today, nor did you order anything. thinking none of it, hoping for a well-rounded distraction you twist the knob open only to be met with a bushel of familiar bright red hair and the scent of roses.

motionless you stare, slack-jawed and silent as you take him in.

you now see that his red hair is ever so unkempt, mussy and tangled; his fragrance of roses shrouded by the odour of blood that stains some of his and dirty scuffed armour. a million questions race through your head among the lines of 'what was so urgent to warrant him not cleaning up when he arrived at your doorstep', or 'where the fuck has he been'.

you almost don't notice him take your hand in his—so gentle, so unlike a knight who has faced countless battles—as he bows down to give yours a tender kiss, you almost wish it was on your lips instead. almost.

it's unfair, really, even with his unkempt appearance you rarely see if ever—he still looks so handsome. he glances up at you with his sparkling eyes, still bowing, answering your unsaid question with an apologetic look.

"my sincerest apologies. my phone had been swallowed by a sting."

("where's my jumping hug you usually bestow me whenever i visit, my dear?" he almost pouts, as if unaware of his uncouth appearance.

"you have bug guts and blood on you."

"but i missed you. :("

"go take a shower, argenti."

you gave him plenty of cuddles and kisses once he and his armour were all cleaned up, and even considered purchasing a backup phone for him in case his new one got swallowed. again.)

ANON THIS WAS SO???!?! I LOVE YOU

ofc his phone got swallowed by a sting. I'd like to imagine he doesn't actually have any important things on his device for this very reason. Every single picture he takes, every important document or any other kind of information he wants saved, he just sends it to you lol. You have a separate folder called 'Argenti's Stuff' (right next to the folder with all the selfies he sends you) (there're like 500+ pictures in it at this point)

"Next time you lose it I'll cuff the damn thing to your wrist."

Ohh and taking care of him afterwards too. I bet he's exhausted from his….endeavors. Imagine running him a bath and helping him wash off all the gunk from his hair >> I got a little carried away hehe, holding him 🤲

Taking in a deep breath you steel yourself against the gruesome state of his hair. Beautiful red locks, once so soft and lush, now matted and sticking to his neck in wet patches. As if that wasn't foul enough, you were sure the tiny clumps of flesh scattered on his hair were just that, flesh. Not to mention the small remnants of the sting's carapace sprinkled on top of everything.

You shake your head and continue, undeterred by the sight in front of you.

Argenti sighs as soon as the warm water hits his head. The heat from the water running down his back like a cozy stream envelops him and alleviates his fatigue as he sinks further into the tub. Holding the shower head with one hand you use the other to carefully work on cleaning up the mess in his hair.

The knight melts into your soft touch, your fingers feel like magic the way they easily untangle his messy hair. The grime and gunk that covered his hair form a bloody river that runs into the drain as they slowly get washed away.

Once you were certain that everything from his hair was cleared out, you move onto the shampoo. Argenti grumbles as you apply a generous amount of the cold gel to his head, clearly disgruntled at the stark contrast in temperate. You disregard his silent complains and start massaging his scalp with both hands, rubbing the foam around his head and adding more shampoo when needed. You swore your bottle felt half as empty by the time you were done.

Rinsing out his hair was a harder task that you thought. Just the sheer volume of it was enough to hold so much soap, you had to spend a considerable amount of time just to wash it all off.

You repeat the whole process just in case, after all, it's hard to tell if there's any blood left when the hair in question is also red…

By the time you're done he's fast asleep and he looks so impossibly cute that way. Just seeing Argenti so visibly relaxed and dozing off made you feel sleepy as well. So you carry him back to the bed and fall asleep next to him <3

(yea I also got lazy at the end lol. it just be like that..)

#honkai star rail #hsr argenti #argenti x reader #x reader #hsr x reader #I've read this like THREE TIMES #genuinely anon wtf #just coming in here and dropping a banger and leaving?!?!!#blood and guts covered Argenti....#consider me a dead man #ask #anon #I'm gonna be thinking about this for the next few weeks....#c00kie.writes #hsr

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