Speaking of weird things in the season already, I'm back with the obsession with names of things in the seasonal activity.
So in Riven's Lair, you get randomly assigned "missions" that change with each run. I believe there's five of them as I've played a lot of Riven's Lair so far and only got these five to rotate. Maybe there will be more in weeks to come!
Anyway, if you look in the top left corner when you start the activity, it will tell you the name of the mission you're on. The names that I've seen so far are:
Polysemy
Apophasis
Synchysis
Enthymeme
Tautology
Long post under:
These aren't random words! They're all related to language and rhetoric, which makes sense with the Ahamkara theme as Ahamkara are very dependent on the way language is used around them.
Polysemy is when words or symbols are capable of having multiple meanings. Apophasis is when you speak about something by denying it or mentioning it by saying it's not required to be mentioned (def check examples on wikipedia if this is confusing). Synchysis is also a way of speaking in a way that deliberately messes up the order of words to confuse or surprise the person you're speaking to. Enthymeme is a type of an argument where you construct a sentence which tells some sort of a fact by omitting the way you came to that conclusion because the fact should be obvious on its own (again, check wiki for examples, it will be easier to understand). And tautology has a meaning in both language and logic; in language, a tautology is a statement that repeats something, adding redundant information and in logic, a tautology is a logical formula in which a sentence is constructed in a way that every interpretation of the sentence is true.
I doubt these words were chosen randomly and there might be more or perhaps more will cycle in during weeks to come. But even with just this, there's a pattern. I'm not sure which meaning of tautology is being used here; possibly the language one because it fits the rest, but the logic interpretation could also be possible.
The first week's mission was also specifically Polysemy:
I assume next weeks we'll probably do other specific ones in some order, which would also mean there should be at least 2 more. I'm wondering if there's some sort of a reason why these specific words were chosen. Obviously they all relate to forms of speaking and language which is the primary way that Ahamkara use to affect reality; speaking in specific terminology and using particular phrases and language forms is important to them and when speaking to them.
But given the involvement of the Vex, it also reminded me of the lore book Aspect in which every chapter is named after grammatical, linguistic and logic terms. Aspect is also specifically related to the Black Garden and Sol Divisive. Not only that, but Aspect deals with, among other things, the fate of the Ishtar scientists and their copies in the Vex Network, and primarily uses Chioma as their main viewpoint, and the whole situation with Neomuna and Veil Logs has returned my interest in this lore book.
I feel like it isn't a coincidence that we've spent essentially the entire year reacquainting ourselves with Chioma and Maya and Ishtar as a whole only to bring back Sol Divisive and the Black Garden back in the final season in this way. As the Veil Logs told us, one of Maya's copies interfered with one of the logs, sending signals, and Chioma, at the end of her life, contacted the Vex presumably to be consumed by the network so she could possibly reunite with one of the copies of Maya in there.
This brought me also to the mysterious signal from Scatter Signal lore tab in which Osiris tracks down some sort of a signal that seems to be talking about the Vex, but spoken in a strange way. So I began thinking that this signal might be coming from Chioma, consumed by the Vex, from the Vex Network, reaching out to the man who's been studying her, living in Neomuna and researching the Veil for months. Specifically, the final Veil Log mentioned a few similar words and phrases being repeated. Specifically, when Osiris mentions that Chioma was researching "the entaglement of Light and Dark" and when Nimbus and Osiris discuss "parallel connections and parallel energy fields;" then in the Scatter Signal message there's mention of how, presumably, the Vex are trying to "move from parallel to entanglement." The Veil Log also talks about how the Witness can communicate through our Ghosts and how that connection might be going both ways; Scatter Signal also mentions "bridging communion with a Voice."
Copies of Chioma and the other scientists (with the help of Praedyth) once tried to use the Black Garden to send a message out of the Vex Network, detailed in Aspect. We don't know if they succeeded (at least in our current timeline). The Black Garden has been a big focus in Lightfall almost out of nowhere in such an immensely world-changing way (with the explanation of the Black Heart), and it will still be important this season with the exotic mission. It's a very pleasing loop of the story; everything started with the Black Garden in D1 and everything just before TFS might end with it. I'm also incredibly intrigued by the fact that the returning weapons from Undying (a season about the Sol Divisive and the Black Garden) have returned with a new perk called nano-munitions: very Neomuna-sounding name. Perhaps certain Ishtar scientists are influencing the Vex or extending a helping hand to us.
The questions that remain: how does this tie back to the Ahamkara? Why are the Vex interested in the Ahamkara? What do the Ahamkara have to do with the Black Garden? What's with all the strange language terminology that deals with double meanings and ways to confuse? Is it just regular Ahamkara shenanigans to trick us? To trick the Vex? Maybe both?
The point is, I don't think this is as simple as Riven just being sad that all the Ahamkara are dead and wanting to secure her clutch. Nothing is ever simple with the Ahamkara and nothing is ever simple with the Vex; and now we're dealing with both. And somewhere in all of this, there is also a concerning involvement of the Black Garden that connects to both of these elements. At the end of it all, there's us, who rely on this specific combination of elements to get through the portal, pursue the Witness and save the universe.
Spreading the brain worms to the rest of y'all to think about. If you spot any other mission names, feel free to share, though I think that if they happen, they might happen in the coming weeks. Also as I mentioned before, I know there's been leaks and lore tabs unlocking early on Ishtar: I've not seen any leaks or cutscenes and have not read any lore tabs that aren't explicitly visible in-game so if there's a really simple answer in that leaked material, I don't know about it and don't want to know about it so please don't spoil to me or to others!
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Bramblestar being really proud that he came up with Spiderbite as a dishonor title, up until he realizes just how into it Spider is. It gets on his nerves to the point he also takes his dishonor title away early, this time everyone supports it
Bramblestar: "It is time to forgive the sins of the past, and I think Spiderleg has proven his devotion to the clan, so I will grant him his name back, any objections?"
Spiderleg: "Well I-"
Bramblestar: "ANY OTHER OBJECTIONS"
Bramblestar was SPEEDRUNNING through undoing their Dishonor Titles. Not a single one of them worked. Stupidhead was wheezing. Spiderbite liked it too much. Shredbloom, EXACTLY as Squirrelflight predicted, just felt even more ostracized.
Complete and total backfire. In general, Dishonor Titles for Dark Forest Trainees didn't work because they didn't actually address the underlying problems that drove these cats towards training there. The "true believers" in Tigerstar's agenda died fighting for it-- most of these cats survived BECAUSE they turned tail.
But by the time Bramblestar was backpeddaling, the damage was done. Blossomfall fled to join The Kin in BB!AVoS, along with several other cats who found the cult's message of true family and unity appealing.
Like mice into open jaws.
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How does Raxis's orientation, gender, and skin color matter? And why does yours matter?
Why does me being a queer woman matter when a cishet white man accuses me of being queerphobic and misogynist?
Assuming you're the anon Ezra keeps getting who is complaining about us pointing out his age (since I got this right after I reblogged one of those), you probably read his blog right? Considering Raxis claims to be such a great progressive ally and co-opts all that progressive language, I'd think people who follow him would understand why this is so important?
Okay, I'll be very clear, cut because this got long, I'm not repeating it ad nauseum after this post.
His gender, sexual orientation, and race wouldn't matter if he hadn't made it matter. Raxis is not only a bully, he's a bully who constantly appropriates the language of social justice. My very first direct interaction with him was literally me calling his ass out for using the murder of Roe v. Wade as a bludgeon to win a fandom argument. Which happened, like, right the fuck after that decision came down and most women in America were fucking traumatized from literally having our rights stripped from us. And I wish our relationship ended at that "apology" but he hasn't changed and he keeps doing it.
He is the one who consistently accuses me (and other women) of being misogynistic and having internalized misogyny. He is the one who consistently accuses me (and other queer folk) of being queerphobic. He is the one who accuses BWIIDT (who is mixed race) for being out of line for thinking Cap (another white man!) has written racist elements into his fic (unintentionally or not). He consistently uses our oppression as a justification for why it should be okay for him to bully us.
If you are going to use our identities as part of your justification for harassing us, then we have every right to point out that these are identities that we hold and you don't. We have every right to point out that the opinions of a cishet white man about misogyny, queerphobia, racism, etc. do not matter as much as ours because you have never fucking experienced it like we have.
The role of allies is to amplify voices in spaces where we are not respected (e.g. with other cishet white men), not to lecture marginalized people for being "bad queers" or "bad women" from your throne of privilege.
It's especially fucking slimy because he pretends to be super progressive live and in concert, but when he slinks back to his buddies he laughs at us for being upset about being misgendered:
(Yes because you repeatedly misgendered me for months and only started correcting yourself and your anons when I called your shit out. You are literally "the misgendering type" but it's cute how you tried to act like I was being unreasonable for wanting the basic human respect of being referred to by my proper pronouns)
Accuses us of trying to hide behind "identity politics" when we're talking about the fucking oppression we face:
(Always a great sign when a cishet white man accuses queer women of "trying to use identity politics as a shield" when they're talking about their own fucking oppression. An even better sign when a cishet white man brags about "out identity-politicking" queer women when they're telling you to stop fucking throwing their oppression back in their faces. Whining about "identity politics" whenever marginalized groups try to voice anything is frankly such an alt right dogwhistle in itself at this point and I genuinely hope he's just not aware of it.)
Bullies queer women on his side who disagree with him and try to say basically exactly what I'm saying right now. That straight men can't appropriate the language we use to describe our oppression:
(usernames censored for the privacy of those being harassed and those not participating in harassment. This conversation has so much fucking more btw holy shit.)
Accuses me, specifically, of being "desperate to be a victim". I'll remind you I quite literally tried to give him grace despite him consistently using my oppression as a bludgeon to win stupid fucking fandom arguments and harass people (see also, the link above about me calling him out for the Roe v. Wade thing):
(Yes, Raxis, I fucking loved pouring my heart out about how my dad would kick me out for being queer and how I've faced sexual harassment. Tee hee. I'm having soooooo much fun "being a victim". I don't 'argue', I tell you, because your horrible treatment of people and my feelings about it are not up for debate.)
And engages in racist behavior like calling being black a "multiplier" to deflect from criticism and mocking a WoC when she posts about how racism upsets her.
(Yes Raxis, WoC tend to get "big mad" and "suffer" when they encounter racism, you ghoul. Before you ask, the blacked out part just wasn't relevant to the conversation.)
And this is just the stuff I got out of a quick keyword search because I don't want to expend that much energy on this. God only knows what else is buried in there.
This tells me you aren't actually an ally. You're an "ally" when it's convenient for you or when you think it'll make you look good, but your allyship is conditional, and the second you're "crossed" by someone you claim to champion you throw their trauma back in their faces. Not even your supposed friends are safe from it, so what chance did we have of not getting harassed by you?
"But there's queer women in the Edelgard fandom who like him!" Okay? So he can't be engaging in harmful shit just because he has a queer friend? When has "I have a [blank] friend" EVER been an actual good faith defense against criticism? News flash, we're not a monolith, and just because some women and queer folk might like you or even agree with you doesn't mean you get to tell me how I should respond to my own fucking oppression. It is not your place to accuse me, a fucking queer woman, of having "internalized misogyny" or "internalized homophobia" every time I say something you don't personally like.
Frankly, from what I've seen of their server, it's less "queer women like him" and more like "queer women are too afraid to say anything against him" because whenever they try he cries to his pro-genocide mod buddy (THAT is a whole fucking story) who threatens to ban them.
And I'm not going to add these screenshots because I feel icky airing her personal business like that so explicitly, but I do have them. The woman involved in the censored screenshots above posted, in the server, about how unsafe she felt because she'd been threatened and silenced by cishet men for trying to talk about queerphobia. She left the server entirely after that.
And let's not forget what started this: he's thirty five years old and in many cases he's pulling this shit on people who are significantly younger than him. Exceeding a decade his junior in some cases. I point that out primarily for the power dynamic inherent to that. Not only is he privileged on the basis of race, gender, and orientation, he's fully developed and he knows what he's doing. He has the privilege of age and experience.
Fuck dude, he started going after some folks on Tumblr when they were still like? 18? 19? Not children, but fucking close.
I'll be very explicit because I know he's going to take this and try to accuse me of ageism, because that's what he always does when he gets called out for appropriating the language of social justice: you are a fucking adult. You have been an adult the entire time you have been in this fandom. As an adult, it's your job to be a fucking adult in these situations. Not to verbally abuse and harass inexperienced teens and early 20 somethings because they don't agree with your video game opinions. You are a grown ass 35 year old man man who thinks he's cool because he can "beat up", "cow", and "bitch slap" teenagers and early 20 somethings who are still developing, figuring themselves out, and learning how to express themselves in an articulate manner. Many of whom are already dealing with varying levels of actual trauma based on their upbringings (abusive, hateful, uncaring, or just generally unpleasant environments) or how they've been treated because of their identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, mental health, disability, sometimes multiple all at once) or both. That is why I keep bringing up your age.
It is quite possibly the single most embarrassing thing I have seen someone in fandom brag about. Not even just because you did it, Raxis, but because you're proud of it and you genuinely think it makes you look cool. It's embarrassing. You're embarrassing yourself.
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