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kiraman · 3 months

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I. PROLOGUE The faraway nearby

Since first thing that morning everything was spoiling her mood, making her broody and angry. Everything. It annoyed her that she had overslept, squashed into a hard mattress on the floor; stiff and numb from the cold, even with a woolen blanket thrown over her. She had not slept at all last night, vexed by the sharp stench of an airless, stuffy cabin, the sea air dripping through the slats bloated with its own salt. The area below decks was deeply unpleasant. Dozens of men sleeping on rows of hammocks with the smallest amount of space between them – 14 to 16 inches of space allowed for each hammock. There was little ventilation at all and the whole place smelled rank, a combination of poorly washed clothes, old food, sour ale and sweat; she had laid under her thin sheets, wakeful and restless, and when dawn had broken blue and purple over the ocean, she had somehow dozed off; when next she had arisen, everyone was already awake, bustling about the ship, the air throbbing with their laughter.

Mizu was annoyed by the cold, congealed salt beef and dry biscuits she was served for breakfast by a man who tore away from his rum to toss the plate her way with a malevolent sneer which made her hand curl into a fist. She was annoyed by the sly looks of contempt thrown her way as she quickly wolfed down her meal over the deck, refusing to gift her attention to anyone around her, watching the spumes of the white-capped waves lashing the side of the ship as it slashed the seas, instead. She was annoyed. Cold. Stiff. Her muscles knotted against the strain of disuse. She ached for her sword, wishing, fiercely, that she could train, longing for the mountains and the cliffs, but here, where the eye met nothing but the endless skies and open horizon, she could only sit cross-legged on the deck and mediate the hours away, her mind frantic and furious even in complete and absolute silence, plagued by the same image over and over again: her blade in her hand, rippling in the air, tearing into warm flesh, offering death: the wind whipping against her cheek, muscles tensing; a sharp, shallow breath choking in her throat; exhaling. The killing sword making a hissing silver arc, slashing the air with its promise; her pulse pounding in her veins; she moves, suddenly, quiet, like the wind; like lightning flaming the sky. A man’s head topples off his shoulders and a fountain of blood sprays the earth. Red. Red and black with death. Relief. A void. Fragmentary ecstasy, something incomplete and then, a hunger for more, more, more. In her mind, she opens her eyes, and breathes. Afterwards, she sits small and submissive to the greater order; she is not yet done. Something more is needed. In her mind, her mouth fills with blood. She gasps.

She shut her eyes against the glare of the sun.

The horizon had already grown red, sunlight streaming in a narrow band above the waves. The warm, spring weather and cheerful, vibrant chatter filling the air around her, did not improve her mood. She still did not enjoy being here. She still glared and grunted at every glance and question thrown her way, as she had done since first her foot had set upon the ship. She did not speak their tongue and did not mean to entertain them with her otherness; her strangeness; they were to her, as strange and alien as she to them, and she did not wish for their company. When anger and discomfort had sat with her too long, the tropical heat thickening the air, heavy as water more fit for gills than lungs, Mizu made her way down to the lower decks and stood near the railing of the quarterdeck, stiff, motionless, her left hand unmoving and heavy at her side, the other one on the hilt of the dagger she now carried beneath layers of cloths, a dead thing, sleeping, yet always, half-alert, tensing; one eye peeled open, laying in wait, like a snare. Her fingers coiled around the silver pommel. Her mouth pinched. She leaned out over the ocean and breathed in the fresh salt air, filling her chest with it. The splash of seawater sprayed her cheeks. She sighed, and for a moment, forgot her anger.

❛ — oi, you there! do not lean out. About-turn and scram! ❜ A huge-bellied, broad-shouldered grotesquely tall man with a tangled gray beard and pockmarks on his cheeks strode over, and snapped something that made no sense to her, without taking the stick he was chewing, either from hunger or to kill time, from his mouth. Mizu, violently torn from her moment of peace, turned around slowly and icily gazed at him through her glasses, her face veiled in the shadows cast by the wide brim of her hat. ❛ — you deaf or somethin' you heel? Scram! back to your deck. ❜ he spat out his stick and rubbed his beard where the drying sweat irritated him. Mizu blinked. The first thing that came to her mind was that he stank. His skin was blotched and scratched from his broken nails, and there were stains all over the front of his pants. They stood there, under the heat of the sun for a moment, sweat beading at the back of her neck, slowly, and then, he spat again, like an overbloated frog chasing flies, she thought, like a pig, scuffing in the mud; he moved to grab at her, and in the blink of an eye, her hand shot out and caught him by the wrist, violently shoving him away. He blinked with the shock of it, evidently not expecting to be refused; he thinks me less than him; he thinks me beneath him, somehow; she realized, only with mild surprise that the sneer now summoned upon her lips did not betray. This pile of dung, thinks me inferior. Mizu stepped towards him forcefully, her eyes flashing like mirrors in the sun, and he immediately backed away, the narrow line of his mouth (chapped and bitten by the cruel winds) puffed out into a disdainful sneer that she suddenly craved to wipe right off his face with such fervor, it took every last bit of her willpower not to cut him open right then and there, her hand shaking with the effort of holding back. He hacked, saliva trickling from his clenched teeth and barked something at her again, feigning bravery, taking another step towards her once she halted her step to near motionlessness, eyes narrowed to slits, watching his every movement; he made to shove her towards the stairs leading to the other deck but Mizu did not badge under his shoving; he clawed at the front of her haori, but she whipped away and intercepted a blow that would have caught her by the throat, ferociously sank her nails into his wrist and held his shuddering arm at bay, and smashed her other fist into the man’s belly. He gasped, surprised and blinked, and she quickly shoved him away with a flick of her wrist, then kicked out viciously; he whirled, dumbfounded, and Mizu closed in on him, ready to grab at his throat, but the sudden sound of bells and metal beating on metal tore the air. Discordant. Piercing. His eyes went to the decks bellow, and he hissed something vicious between those yellowed, rotten teeth, and with a grunt, walked away and back to whatever hole he had crawled out of.

Mizu sneered disgustedly. Her blood was boiling, anger clawing at her veins, that hunger, that thirst left unsatiated, like barbed arrows tearing her open; a wound festering, like a fever deep inside of her. She hated him. She hated this ship; their stench and filthiness; their arrogance and detestable manners. More than that, she was shamed; shamed to share their blood; shamed that they, too, looked at her like she was no more than mud stuck to their heels: unclean; unwanted; strange.

Gritting her teeth, she turned around and stood near the railing, trying very hard not to let her rage explode into a fever that she would never be able to abate.

At dusk it had been feeding time again and the cooks began passing steaming cups of gruel and water which to Mizu, stank and seemed brackish. This was the first time she had actually bothered to come down to the kitchens for dinner, but her stomach ached and her mouth felt dry. She was still silently bristling, but at least the lining up for food and water had been unusually calm. Bowing her thanks, she gathered her cups and went to sit near the slats and beams that made up tiny windows at the side of the ship. She picked at her plate without much jest, feeling strange eyes boring into the back of her neck, but not turning around to meet them.

Then the apelike man —unshaven, filthy, stinking still, worse than he had that morning, dripping in sweat and with a fresh bruise upon his pockmarked cheek—chopped in violently, kicked at the table where she had sat, and took her ration right out of her hand while the others sat in stunned silence to see what would happen. The world around her seemed to ripple and come to a screeching halt. Molten darkness fell over her, piercing and violent, like invisible pinchers squeezing her throat.

Slowly, too slowly, like sand flowing through an hourglass, she pushed her chair back, then stood up and with languid, stiff movements removed her hat and glasses and neatly set them down where her meal had been. The air in the room seemed to thicken. Rain suddenly began to lash the windows, trickling down the glass and filling the room with its cries. A sudden gush of movement, and her hand was at his throat, choking the air right out of him; a sigh filled the room, gasps and flashes of lightning; a furious chill rushing through the world around her; harsh, muffled voices from somewhere far away and the sound of her steps as she landed blow after blow, moving like a serpent, noiselessly, lightly, disarming him with no more than a blow and a violent strike against his jaw which cracked under the heel of her palm. He reeled, howling with rage, and Mizu landed on her feet, perfectly controlled, face hard and cold, devoid of any flushes of effort.

He came at her blindly, slow, like a fish thrashing about on the banks of a dried up river, and she leapt, backing away, laughing; her voice dark and violent, came rushing like a river, flooding the cabin, and as he stood to limp away and in shame, she kicked out viciously, sending him tumbling onto the floors. Then, there were lights through the blackness that had draped itself over her like a burial shroud, and strange voices, calling her out of the depths of her rage.

Slowly, too slowly, she straightened her cape and carefully put on her glasses again, clearing her throat. She put the chair back at the table, and was about to gather her hat and leave the kitchens, when, in the corner, Mizu saw to her amazement that one of the men was offering the cup of gruel and the water that she had presumed lost. Blinking, she took it and thanked the man curtly. He nodded in understanding, and with a faint, parting shake of her head, Mizu walked away.

She did not see him again. She would not see him for quite some time.

Not until much later, after they had made port at Batavia and something darker had come calling her name, desperate, frantic, dogging her every footstep. She never looked behind her out of fear. Out of terror of what she would see following her in her own shadow...

#blue eye samurai #mizu blue eye samurai #bes mizu #u know what! its happening. im gonna write about her journey to london. look out for her adventures folks they r coming bc s2 is SO far #mizu #my child making friends (huh...) everywhere she goes #stay tuned for part 2. she's gonna meet a very Special Lady on this boat & that's a spoiler. Hideous Acts will be committed.#this doesn't end until you die.#my writing #my writing.#writing tag.

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unproduciblesmackdown · 10 months

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i think i've only seen a soma playthrough twice and the first time i didn't absorb it great lol but upon just some light brushing up (incl a short article that was one of the few results that cropped up when i was like "show me the images for 'soma's save feature featured fisting, right' (yeah basically)") it's like, it's always fun when you're just left with a lot of room to Interpret Themes and unsurprisingly at this juncture i'm lasering in on just, like, the matter of [the self vs the other] via this premise that basically people can just make a copy of their Psyche at any point (but needing to find a new & different Soma in which to upload it but like, largely setting that aside when In This Scenario the new bodies don't affect their minds / sense of self at all....except for when they sometimes do? or maybe not. the like glitchy monsters are just kind of WAU automatons, right. and the people are all able to act / communicate themselves as people, though they might be affected by like, existential crises over the goings on) wherein like....the protagonist can Split In Two* at a few points via the psyche copying/uploading, and then the game Follows the copy that will be continuing to advance the plot, and the version of the protagonist we Were following is now An Other even though it's like, that was The Self (at least insofar as that was our first person pov player character) up till just now. and the protagonist can Know like, yeah that's You right over there also. and yet iirc from like, yesterday's light research, in the first instance he at least gets the Option to kill that Other/Self who was, up till just then, the Self to us too, if that makes him feel better abt the existential crisis, or at least discomfort, enough to like, keep moving right along lol (speaking of. just the other day i was like "adagioly onomatopoeiaing the opening banjo strums of rainbow connection from the muppet movie soundtrack does so much for me" and then i learned it was the anniversary of its theatrical release. hell yes. also memorably once when like marinating for hours in a general malaise & failing to find the wherewital to get up i was like "haha oh wait. i'm playing the song 'movin right along' from the muppet movie in my head. okay" up & at em)

anyways the fisting article (which, i was wondering what thoughts it would have on that truly interesting facet of the game. mostly it posited that the uhh sphincteresque penetration of it all would be Typically considered to make cishet men anxious / threatened / vulnerable, and notes the protagonist (hypothetically a cishet man) is indeed trepidatious about it, while also arguing he markedly Doesn't really hesitate in shit that hurts or endangers others in the course of his shit (though ig that can also depend on the player? haven't really rewatched it recently enough to know how much his dialogue adds to [as a character though he's making it clearer he just wants to cut a swath through your shit asap]) and also questions whether the game thinks of (or, from their argument, knows of) the protag as pretty sphincteresque himself. and like yeah probably imo lol like thee ending being what it is, and as far as i know no like Multiple Endings like in amnesia series* stories usually, and thus more room to have a protagonist who talks to characters in the present and i think like, without the ability to choose what he says

anyways that the protagonist can Understand like, hey see that guy over there, that's literally also you rn, and yet he can [Not accept that] in one case such that he'll kill that Self for "his own" Self's comfort really, as the fisting article expressed, to continue believing he is Unique and the One True Self, the only Real [himself]. when, to be sure, the game Could have kept the first person pov on that version of him we'd Been up till then, and had that pov of the one killed. or maybe left behind in another instance, i don't remember all the "transfers"....catherine Explicitly explaining that only the copy/upload format is possible, Not Transfers, making sense what with like. her magic brain scans that can can wholly parse & store your Psyche data, whatever that'd be like, definitely not being meant to, say, Extract the person's Psyche from their living human body upon doing so. while the ending's drama comes from the game Now staying with the version of the protag who'd been our first person pov character prior to that "transfer," who is Again like "why am i still here" despite having the "it's not actually a transfer" explained, b/c This version Just So Happens to be the copy of the copy of the copy like simon(4) or (5) or whatever and ofc can't have been the one(s) already just left behind somewhere back there in the complex or he wouldn't have been able to be at that point in the first place. and then "killing" catherine b/c he's so pissed, i remember it as him hitting whatever device was her effective Soma, but the article i think suggested she just got too stressed in turn and that Output fried the device. while, of course, post credits shows us their "transferred" selves just fine chilling in the ark like whew glad all that's done with

anyways just getting around to the fact of how it's easy to land on catherine as the center of the game....and of course she's the one really Not having crises over [my god, copies of my Self] or others' selves or what all, having even less of a usual Soma than simon but rolling with it, and evidently having already fully absorbed her Self as a distinct version from her original Self, despite having the same links to her that make simon or anyone else who's been copied into whatever other Soma feel like he's continuously been Himself(tm), the one true Real Self he's always been....and like, naturally catherine being the one behind the entire project of [what if we copy/paste people's psyches into a big ol mmorpg server & shoot it into space so that Maybe something can happen with them / in a way they can continue to exist] so she's Been thinking of, you know, being separate from these Selves turned Others who you'll jettison into space beyond even the body of the earth. unless it's supposed to stay in orbit lol i do not remember the details....and ofc like plenty of other people are like wow that's Fucked Up or it's Not Us and like, the latter sure is true with with the [copying, not transferring] element, but also the former is more choose your own adventure (interpretation) when the game isn't about like, and the simulation Is fucked up, or there's any element of distress or dissonance to existing on the ark, though you can't really know that until the post credits scene confirms you're just hanging out for real....which, that article was also going in on the character who's on this quest to kill the WAU as like "the versions of us it makes isn't Real it's Corrupting" and like, arguably the WAU as just kind of, naturally, something capable of growing, and doing so, and the real problem seeming to come in with the [doing whatever for supposed safety but superceding/supplanting/displacing autonomy in doing so] like, people who did not agree to whatever was done re: their Somas or they would've remembered & been like yeah i'm hanging out as a robot now, or a goop guy, gunk [YES], etc. but separate from that obvious issue it's like, my guy, You're a copy made by the WAU now lol, you're your whole person that you are, with the thoughts & feelings to decide you wanna go on a quest to destroy it, and whatever capacity to pursue it....either way i think the game makes it clear enough the WAU is a Neutral force exercising no conscious discernment, it Is a body, or it's some body (once told me) anyways lol, though i guess i did just go "those Monsters that can chase you are just wau manifestations right" so that's getting kind of complex lol, but even that can be taken as, like, it Mimicking human's shapes & bipedality & other external characteristics, i guess, and just the way an overall theme can be [hmm where's that division between the soma and psyche, machine and ghost] the WAU has been expanding and making various forms of itself, and of humans, and that's also an element of the fisting that starts out as a fingering and can end with having to leave part of yourself in WAU's core if you have completed the choice to corrupt & destroy it, that Connection and Interfacing is required, with increasing [get it in there] required as well though there's no given clear in universe reason why (w/my theory here being: just the Themes of the increasing interaction / reducing Boundary)

where was i going with this. idk naturally there's people like "well you don't have to see the wau as evil or at least required to be destroyed" like yeah one can imagine the case for that, wherein again this one guy's hypothetically mad abt like oh it can't be Us it's making, like, brother in christ You are here as You are b/c of what wau did, if you don't think You're legitimate enough, how can you be dead set on pursuing any decision you make. but also the lack of autonomy wherein wau has (probably? again would have to rewatch) killed people to transfer them to a less fragile soma, but a) also maybe it's just acted when people were already dying / killed from other causes, and naturally there's the Everyone There Doomed To Die Fairly Imminently factor and b) that [wau's neutral / purely soma no psyche (or is it. etc)] aspect that is that classic mixup of wau just acting on its programming in a way unintended by its programmers re protecting life and c) i think WAU can sure be interpreted as a parallel counterpart to the ark project, where people agreed to the latter, & get to chill with simulated bodies in a simulated world, versus the WAU being that [body, world, realm of physical existence] which is funky & Not like a cool nice recreation of the usual world & is also at the bottom of the ocean, but it's sure trying to extend the existence of ppl's psyches by shoving them into whatever robots or slapping together parts or propping up their original body or what all, i don't remember that many of the characters encountered

Anyways Back To Catherine For Real. i'd forgotten this element completely, but that when catherine finds out her original self had been killed by crewmates (lol. amongst) for being set on carrying out the plan for the ark, Her Project, (i.e. launching it into space (risking that launch going incorrectly) vs keeping it on site at the bottom of the ocean here (theoretically less risky, according to at least the crewmate who killed her about her insisting on launching it anyways)) and catherine's copy / now alternate self comments on being like, a bit disappointed And surprised b/c like she says "i knew they didn't like me, but," like not thinking that dislike would lead to a semi accidental killing her (where apparently the guy who killed her may have been wearing the like powered diving suit w/the extra Strength to operate in the water pressure, like oh didn't mean to hit her That hard. in a different soma already) and seeing other ppl (not in universe) commenting on how it sure did seem to be culmination of like "the way others treated her" and how catherine always mentioned like, never having really had friends including as a crewmate here, being an Introvert....in fact, now i'm remembering that catherine doesn't even say "i knew they didn't like me, but" but rather something very close to "i know i'm not easy to like, but" like, aaaugh....like, as ever, a character or a Real Life Person sharing any particular info like "i'm [xyz]" Isn't Required for just trying to always not be ableist and to always treat other people as people even if they don't "just be normal" correctly enough, supposedly. rather than [what is "just being normal" is Correct & Good and you do Not need to undergo a continuous lifelong journey of in fact questioning this & navigating & learning how to communicate & interact & relate, you just need to fleetingly muster some superficial unhelpful Bonus efforts sometimes when you encounter the rare "exception" like someone who hands you their License To Autiste and you can let them keep their fidget cube and continue treating everyone you encounter ever organic aba style]....like, naturally in the game there's no twist where catherine turns out to be Evil or even antagonistic. she's like, patient, encouraging, friendly, helpful all throughout. she's also, ofc, simon's only guide (adding to the suspense of that [my god. my only guide was evil, and/or just my antagonist now anyways]) so he doesn't really get to pick someone he'd Like more. but that like, lifelong matter of why catherine doesn't Get to have had friends. that even as this professional associate she's treated differently, and worse, b/c you have to personally like someone & find them charming & je ne sais quoissy to Not be worse to them? it's fine to be shitty until catherine can, say, say "i've noticed you're being kind of shitty. it's probably b/c i'm autistic, officially, which i'm choosing to share with you & am now presenting my license about it, so maybe be cool about it" and then and only then go "oh ok" and Make The Exception rather than shifting your entire shitty Rule (they also would not actually really make the exception. "shoutout" too to the concept that, of course, it's actually Disrespectful to stop hating autistic ppl b/c you should treat them The Same as anyone else, and you're bringing that organic ABA all the time as part of your "just be normal" ethos life, so be sure to keep being an asshole to them & double empathy probleming putting all the depletion, extraction, punishment, losses, harms on them and all the rewards on yourself)

and like, catherine being killed b/c she was this Body who was going to take away the ark (her project / creation, which she was also just insisting on following what'd always been the plan for) wherein like, even if this guy didn't mean to kill her, he sure did after lashing out at her, same as happens w/simon in the end....and catherine also failing to be thee most "normal/default" version of a person as well by being a Woman, and probably not white either, and, of course, a nonwhite woman, also making her that much more vulnerable to being Out Of Line(tm) by just like, existing as a person & trying to do her shit, though misogyny, racism, orientalism or the like isn't explicitly invoked or especially implicitly hinted at that hard either, but it's like, how does this [scifi magical realism set in the not That distant future but material made in the way less distant past, i.e. all intents & purposes modern / current day of: in the 2010s] have Relevance beyond "would that be fucked up or what" type Invention that doesn't map on to our experiences at all....you don't Have to read into catherine twice being killed by a man who's lashing out b/c she's not delivering what he wants, but you sure don't Have to Not and be like "this is definitely No Misogyny world" like they're still being implicitly ableist b/c she's just not deemed Winsomely Likable enough, she's internalized that with that "i'm not easy to like" framing, why assume a premise of [misogyny is over] [racism is over] etc. whilest soma doesn't really proffer any scenario of like "oh if it weren't for our being able to perceive our designated Physical Differences in our human bodies, all that oppression would be over," that's not being explored even in the specific situation of its plot in the first place; people on the ark seem to have the simulation of the same bodies they originally did, ppl Can retain like, how they'd move, their voices, their sense of their bodies: elements of their physicality. and, you know, whether one even supposes there Is any meaningful body/mind division, though in soma it Is this premise like oh yeah we can digitize your psyche perfectly okay, such that your copy would experience no disruption in that Sense Of Selfness, which is what makes everything particularly like, whoah, and [wow this is just like soma] whenever something kind of invokes similar enough What Ifs but probably less engagingly lol....while also soma is flexible and spacious in letting you interpret shit, you Can defer from fisting wau to death, you don't have to be like "it's so true. thee horrors" abt the Copies Of Selves, who really just become Others to whatever now-other versions of that person, i.e. how catherine, who, as the person who wanted to scan copies of ppl's psyches & put them in a just chilling simulation server launched into space for the Chance of being copy/pasted elsewhere eventually and the chance for the participants to Exist in some form Now, and who did so, is never like, shocked or freaked out by the notion / reality of these copies' existence even though she didn't set out figuring any scans' uploads would end up on the ocean floor stations, she's not aghast & distressed in the end when after having uploaded her latest Self data to the ark & launched it, she's also Not on the ark and Still in the eventually / doomed ocean floor station, even if it's a bummer, b/c she has already just accepted That's How It Works....this [her] was not going to experience being Transferred, like she's Been saying, like she again tells simon while he's blowing up abt [why wasn't i transferred]....just clearly being an example of like, not everyone is like horrified and freaked out and like "that's fake &/or wrong" and you don't have to decide she's incorrect for being Like That, i.e. like, yep, this is the situation, i know there's the me who was killed and the me on the ark and the me here, and i know also we're also for intents and purposes separate people

all that is to say, like, yeah the Scifi What If specific [you can copy/paste your consciousness into a different soma] is there, but also you can be looking at it as just this like, pushing to thee limit of the Self(tm) and the Other(tm) insofar as imagining yourself, as the only Internality / Mind / Selfhood you have access to, as The One True Real Self and all Others as mere somas/bodies, whether you take that to as dehumanizing an extreme as you can or you just put some double standards on Others / treat them as lesser/less Real, or oh but just Sometimes, in Some Cases, which is fine and relevant to anything, rather than what's fine and relevant being to always be aware that everyone's Otherness is a matter of perspective, you're the Other to everyone else, everyone is just as The Self as everyone else, You Could Be That Other, that other Is [you] to themself, you are the "that could be you" to them....with soma, it can just be elevated to "that Other WAS you from 0.5 mmsec ago, and continues to be them, b/c they didn't experience any disruption in their existence, though now you're both in different situations of: different locations, different bodies, the awareness there's that Other Self over there now, possibly the difference of killing that self you were just copied from so you can go on feeling like the One Real Self"....but wherein like, that's just like, [What If: you Were able to wholly & accurately Know the self inside an Other? b/c it's you from 5 min ago] of like, scenarios like [what if you time traveled 5 min into the past] except wherein that case there's usually the efforts to Resolve(tm) the timeline of that One True Self one way or another, ultimately. or is there. obviously who's positing that soma is the only material to be About the "whoa lol. me as an other" concept made scifily literal or anything

anyways that like, it creates that situation wherein one Can point & go "literally literally me" but also simultaneously one Can go "that's Not literally me arrrgh" or "that's also Not literally me, matter of factly"....simon's wrangling with the Othering of his One True Self, but he can also Know, should he choose to shift to that perspective, that all the Others who aren't alternate copies of him are all Another True Selves, An Other True Self even, though ofc as per the nature of not having a collective consciousness, he Doesn't Know the accurate whole of their psyches b/c he was not ever [literally them], but he doesn't need to to know they're just as [a whole psyche in there] as his own have been. original catherine with her fellow original crewmates being othered enough by them for the dehumanization of treating her worse, her being isolated, that indeed her being killed doesn't feel separate from all that by her or by anyone else, just an escalated extreme final fatal manifestation of it, b/c nobody ever liked her in the first place and then she became a (psyche Piloting a) body getting in the way of what one guy with amplified strength at that moment wanted from the project she made to let others' psyches keep existing in some way, which was deemed valuable enough by that guy to want to commandeer it and keep it at the bottom of the ocean versus risk a launch, regardless of how you the player think of the idea

and thinking of the way you can like, effectively befriend that boxy underwater little propellered Regular Simple Robot Helper that follows you around at some point, that is, of course it can't talk to you, it's definitely Just(tm) this not-ever-a-version of a human robot for practical tasks (dyspeptical tasks, clerical tasks, hysterical tasks) and like, imagine Its interiority, get invested, try to protect it, humanize it regardless....whereas with actual humans, and their psyches in a microchip, you can kill them for not perfectly delivering whatever you wanted even when that's not what other humans ever exist to do. then simon loses the Company he still could've Gotten From catherine, [guy who killed original catherine] didn't succeed in keeping the ark unlaunched, b/c that's what you go and do....but really just thinking of that Thread that feels so extremely relevant of like, catherine copy being simon's only option sure and working With him on this mission until we stay with the edition of him who realizes it didn't lead to his escape onto the ark, i.e. always being in relation to him in a manner of a direct practical teamup & a [take it or leave it] sole option for that anyways....but that in her original, human-bodied life, she was always "oh only a little bit" dehumanized by everyone such that she is very much aware of the way that's defined & limited her life, never had friends, i know i'm difficult to like; until that dehumanization escalated to the extreme of trying to hit her to stop her from seeing her project through, and just happening to kill her, and the fact that this seems to no one just a coincidental whoopsie of a fate just entirely disconnected from the way others always saw her and treated her as this Other among others, while other [psyche/soma]s of others who are clearly not Your Self get to have friends and not be isolated and feel hard to like forever and end up killed by coworkers

tl;dr like love a text just inviting plenty of interpretations and lenses and perspectives, ofc gonna look at it like whoa it's anarchy in there (political cats sense) where are the borders where you are thee self above thee other....soma providing that thinnest boundary of like, yeah that mf over there? there but for the [being in a different body, in a different place, with 7 seconds of negligibly different life experience] go ye. but also the usual boundary of "that person is in a different body in a different place with a different whole life but you're [that] to them and they're just as much a person and a self and an other as you are" like catherine center of the game to me

(* just remembered i had these asterisks: sure enjoying how the premise of amnesia games effectively creates Alternate Selves b/w the protagonist's present self, with however much missing time, and past selves whose goings on are completely relevant to the in media res situation you're also tackling while obtaining pieces of that past to priovide further context/info, and how this premise manifests for different stories each time; you've even got oswald like physically divided into Two Selves in a:amfp, though iirc it's not like, psychically equivalent, kinda "regular oswald & nefarious destroy the world duplicitous oswald" lmao, classic....uhh and shoutout to penumbra being similar ish in that the protagonist's story isn't want's relevant, he's trying to find out what happened to his dad and more broadly the like underground pocket world he enters for those answers? iirc....but that soma shares that amnemonic premise of [intro] [suddenly like ???] [having to navigate your present mission & figure out the past & your Missing time] but like, thee respective Lores don't overlap really, soma obviously starts present day and takes an even more obvious leap into a future / completely different location, rather than amnesia games being set in the past with missing time of like, idk months? to even just days, uhh supposedly like [forever] in justine but that's like, i dunno sure lol, the peak mysterious / withheld protagonist really, on purpose. while naturally there's also the fact that, technically, this simon we are following at the start of the game did not actually forget anything, and that's a fun distinction despite that it otherwise initially seems like the same [amnesia] premise....and that he did kind of ""forget"" things in that original simon lived however much longer before dying, that his scan then ofc didn't retroactively include. so once again it's like, well, in amnesia ppl have likewise kind of rewound to a Past Self before the missing [crucial context to your in media res misadventure] time, w/daniel (and justine) even doing this On Purpose, though as is the nature of the amnesia series, everyone regains enough of that missing info about their goings on anyways, though you the player are Not in a story of like "wow they did Exactly the same thing again and ended up in the same place anyways" and Do get to kinda choose who they are / indeed end up with some Alternate Self, potentially, despite there being plenty of room wherein like, it's not precisely, granularly laid out Exactly Who They Are at any point anyways. only just now getting extra amnemonic lore that yes daniel got all fucked up on vitae rituals b/c that's just what happens! and people are fairly horny for it! always a possible interpretation that he was high on vitae (okay one proffered pronunciation of "curriculum vitae" (which i was like lord i feel like i've gone "what tf is that" about before but what tf is that. turns out it's what CV stands for as your specifically educational resumé) does say "vitae" would, in that case, rhyme with "nigh." other sources are listing like a million different combinations of a million different ways to pronounce each syllable. also they gotta say it a way in the game but i forget. daniel's VA apparently being some chemistry teacher? just like alchemy. not what the pope said to do, weird science, it's my creation....) anyways! the psyches diverge, the bodies don't, unless they do (oswald....uhh the guy in the bunker. lambert :( ) like catching up with The Self again, encountering extreme examples of Othering and Dehumanizing and [you are just like only a soma to me] with various means and ends of acting thusly to get xyz results

#uhh nominal tagging. i probably have nonzero soma posts...? maybe? lol #soma #amnesia #atdd #soma spoilers yeah but a) game's more than half a decade old at this point b) material that hinges on Surprising you the first time as like #thee sole worthwhile feature of its experience: probably not that good; i don't think soma's even dying to keep you from guessing any #''twists'' and if you Do it doesn't feel like you're like cheated of anything lol. though i'm sure the surprises are fun. the ending is sur #like yeah oh a fucked up surprise for the player too; but that's b/c the game of course Until Now followed the ''advancing'' simon copy #c) same as (b) but like spoilers don't really ruin things anyways imo. who is reading this in whole like ''damn i was Just gonna play this'#whereas idk now you know of it. also lbr who is reading this in whole period? probably some people lol. you do not have to ofc as a fact an #as a stance. i'm like; would i read someone's longass post abt something i don't already know abt / am not interested in? not often #d) if you Are like ''nooooo SOMA spoilers arrrgh i was Just abt to play it'' like damn my bad. i'm sorry. play it anyways it'll be fun #or e) watch a playthrough. i myself cannot Firsthand Game too much & this has generally been the case #long post ////#all this uncrucial and noncomprehensive but just taking 90k words & meandering tangents to say [hand over heart] catherine....#as is my mode of verbalizing anything really #i'll recommend the game easily enough; sure watched a full playthrough twice & may revisit for a thrice. or at least various clips lol #even got a safe mode (where you Can't Die so you can get through every part b/c thee story is the point anyways)

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