#yes this is a super long post

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

#writeblr #warm up #this is longer than i wanted i really considered removing that part about myself and what i went thru #but i think it really fucking bothers me that EVERY time i talk about being an artist #ppl assume i just like. had the skill and ability to drop everything and pay for grad school. #like sir i grew up poor. my house wasn't a safe space. i gave up a FREE RIDE TO LAW SCHOOL. for THIS. bc i chose it. #was it fucking hard? was i choosing the hard thing?? yes. #but we need to stop seeing artists as lazy layabouts that can ''afford'' to just ''sit around and create'' #when MANY - if not MOST - of us are NOT like that. we have to work our fucking ASSES off. hard work. long and hard work #part of valuing artists is recognizing the amount we sacrifice to make our art. bc it doesn't just #like HAPPEN to us. also btw it rarely has anything to do with true talent. #speaking as someone with a chronic condition i hate when ppl are like u have it easy. like actively as i'm writing this my hands r #ACTIVELY hurting me. i haven't been posting bc my left hand was curled in a claw for the last week #this isn't fucking luck. after a certain point it's not even TALENT. it's dedication & sacrifice. #''u get to flounce around and do nothing with ur life'' is a narrative that is a direct result of capitalism #imagine if we said that about literally any other profession. #''oh so u give up 10 yrs of ur life to be a doctor? u sacrifice having a social life and u get SUPER in debt? #u need to work countless hours and it will often be thankless? well i wish i was that lucky'' #we should be applying that logic to landlords ONLY #''oh ur mom and dad gave u the money to buy a house? and all u did was paint it white and rent it? huh.''

[wasyago]

the brainrot won

#GUY S i know i haven't posted anything in a while and thats because im working on a big cool project that i really want to finish without- #distractions. but uh. as you can see. ive been distracted 😔. still working on it tho!!!! and im very happy with it turns out its just- #super time and energy consuming so ive tried to limit my intake of other media to not make myself want to draw other stuff #i also haven't read the last two (two already?????) chapters of RnS and im very sad about it and i want to read it but you know that if i- #read it ill want to make fanart and then ill never finish my project :( #SO. sorrey for the lack of art itll be coming when im free to draw!!!!!!! #but also. yes ive watched new life because i dont want to go insane with nothing but this project on my mind and umm. had to take a little- #break to do a couple designs for fun... and to switch it up a bit because for real im going insane i think #ALSO. friend got me into zelda botw and i haven't played a whole lot yet (because project) but ive tried to take some inspiration for- #designs from there. at least for joel and scott. everyone else not so much... #WELL ANYWAYS this is getting long. i should really stop rambling in the tags and just make separate posts for all this but i dont want to #umm. tags. #new life smp #smallishbeans #mythical sausage #geminitay #pearlescentmoon #smajor1995 #inthelittlewood #my art #sketch

[nouverx]

The thing I love the most about Alastor is that we can't truly know what to think of him, if he is being truly manipulative or if there's a genuine undertone behind any of his words, and that allows people to interpret him differently from one person to another. Like "oh he's being so sweet and supportive", to "no actually he's just saying what people want to hear because he's an evil manipulator". Maybe some fans are being too trustful, just like Charlie, and falling into his lies. BUT maybe there's a true genuine undertone to everything he says, maybe he can be a sweetie behind his evil mask. And maybe he'll turn out redeemable. Or not at all. Who knows?

His character could go in two completely different directions in the next seasons and we have no way of telling how he'll turn out. It's still fully open because he showed he can be awful and evil and manipulative, but since there's been very few hints here and there that he could get attached to the hotel, that means he could be sweet despite all that. The mystery and uncertainty is keeping us thinking and hoping and I LOVE that. He's such a unique and amazingly written character.

On a personal note, I think the two different directions his character could take should coexist. Yes, he's going to be a main villain in the future seasons and betray Charlie and the hotel, yes he's an evil manipulator, BUT he could also get attached to them and show redeemable qualities at the same time. For me it would make the heartbreak even greater and his character even more satisfying.

#text #hazbin hotel #alastor #hazbin alastor #this man is rotating in my brain non stop I needed to get it out of my system #either way I cant wait to see him challenge Charlie's idea of redemption #by being either SUPER hard to redeem or completely impossible to redeem #cant wait for the anguish the pain and the heartbreak he will bring in future seasons ❤ #YES I KNOW I havent posted in so long i'm sorry depression and artblock had me on a chokehold #I'll be back with more art I just needed to let out my thoughts about HH

[good-chimes]

Proposing:

Grand Unified Scarian Theory

a single, overarching Scarian romance arc across the whole Hermitcraft and Life series as well as a primer for anyone curious about the early seasons.

We start with NEIGHBOR MEET CUTE in early Season 6:

Season 6 begins in a peaceful pirate bay. SCAR, an established hermit just beginning his third season, is happily making pirate caves. Into this tranquil scene comes GRIAN.

Grian, fresh-faced and new to Hermitcraft, picks a sea-themed base location right next to Scar’s pirate caves. He gets himself set up and starts his base. Even someone like Grian can get newcomer nerves, and he spends the first few weeks desperately trying to act like a normal person instead of the horrible gremlin he really is.

(Some hermits are taken in by this. Doc and Xisuma give him pity diamonds, something that—after getting to know Grian—they noticeably never do again.)

The only person exempt from Grian’s just-a-little-birthday-boy act is Mumbo, whom Grian already knows, clearly has a puppy-crush on, and pursues relentlessly.

Grian and Scar don’t interact much at first. Grian sees Scar for the first time while passing by his base. Scar instantly falls in one of his own caves and dies.

Grian panics.

Grian: I DIDN’T DO IT!

Scar, intrigued by his new neighbor, makes some overtures of interest:

1. Scar leaves a fully enchanted trident at Grian’s base as a welcome present. This is a generous gift for the cute neighbor you have a crush on and frankly the most normal thing either of them do in the entire years-long relationship.

Grian goes ‘huh!’ at the trident, never finds out who sent it, and immediately forgets the whole thing.

2. Scar entertains Grian’s traveling-salesman pitch and buys his overpriced armor boxes.

Multiple jokes about the size of Scar’s wallet. Grian clearly pleased by the transaction.

3. Scar makes Grian a complementary in-joke build (Spongebob’s house by Squidward’s house).

This delights Grian immeasurably for five minutes until he turns back to his prank war with Mumbo.

(Poor Mumbo. Clearly immensely fond of Grian but not sure he wants to be in a relationship with a lit stick of dynamite. This is very understandable.)

By this point Scar obviously kind of clocks that Grian is insane about Mumbo. This isn’t much of a leap. The entire SERVER is aware that Grian is horribly in love with Mumbo.

Ah. That’s okay. Scar backs off a bit. He recognizes when he’s not really in with a chance.

Maybe this thing he has with Grian is just going to be a friendship, and that’s okay! Having a crush is fun even if you’re not going to do anything about it. Scar is going to build some shops about it and be normal.

Both of them are going to be very normal.

FLIRTING (First Stages) – mid-Season 6

Both of them immediately forget to be normal.

Grian has started a detective agency and has no mysteries to solve. Scar instantly invents a cookie-based mystery supervillain called the Jangler and leaves Grian a series of tantalizing cookie-based puzzles for enrichment in his enclosure.

Grian has invented a game where you kill people with rockets. Scar volunteers to get murdered. Both of them are delighted.

Scar and Cub’s business empire is incidentally crushing Grian’s startup venture. There is no reason for this to be so flirtatiously charged.

At this point all the hermits move to a new village because of the Minecraft update. Grian starts a who-can-build-the-tallest-house war with Mumbo and Iskall. Scar notices and starts doing the same from the other side of the village.

It quickly gets so wild that Mumbo taps out (Mumbo does not do well with intensity, would rather just not, thankyouverymuch), and it's only Grian, Iskall and Scar.

Scar builds a wild giant plant eating his rocketship, and then a castle in the sky, and an enormous version of himself firing a canon at Grian's house. This is the first time you can really see Grian trying to hold in shrieks when he flies back in to see what Scar has done while he's gone.

Grian’s interest has been caught. He’s gone from barely seeing Scar to checking on him regularly. What’s our good friend Scar up to? What’s Scar done? What is Scar going to do next?

FLIRTING (How To Catch Your Crush’s Interest By Building A Secret Government Facility) – late Season 6

What Scar does next is put on a snazzy military uniform, team up with Doc to steal the time machine Grian invented last week, then, in the most effort someone has EVER gone to to get Grian's attention, spend weeks on end building a fully-functional 'Area 77' military base and containment facility to stop him getting it back.

Turns out this works beyond Scar’s wildest dreams.

Grian INSTANTLY obsessed with breaking into Scar’s base and retrieving his time machine.

Grian persuades Ren into forming a hippie camp with him next to the base and spends weeks entirely fixated on Scar. Meanwhile Scar, who is starting to really understand how to get and keep Grian's attention, builds more and fancier infrastructure to keep Grian out. This is also where Grian really starts looking at Scar's art—the insane cliffs Scar has build around his new hangers—and awkwardly not quite managing words, because it would be very embarrassing to just outright say the word beautiful, and Grian’s a very normal and non-embarrassing person.

In the climax of the season, Grian-the-hippie breaks into General Scar’s base.

Nobody can say that Scar making himself a top brass general and Grian making himself an anti-establishment flower power hippie does not end up with plausibly-deniable not-making-out Grian-provoking-Scar-into-holding-him-against-a-wall.

but.

BUT.

This is Hermitcraft. It’s temporary. Scar and Grian both know it was a bit. A bit they both got super into, sure! But a bit. Not weird at all.

(“Sure, mate, not weird at all,” Mumbo says, after all of this is over. “Then why are you making it SOUND weird Mumbo you’re the WORST”)*

(“Sooo....” Cub says, and Scar says, “I know. I know!”)*

*not canon but you can't tell me it didn't happen off screen

FLIRTING (But What About…) – early Season 7

Okay, so that was weird, but Grian is definitely still in love with Mumbo. The Mumbo pursuit is going great and Mumbo definitely doesn’t look nervous whenever Grian turns up with a new idea. Grian is going to get Mumbo to fall in love with him and they will marry in the spring and have a dozen beautiful children redstone contraptions.

Grian attempts to make it more official with Mumbo. Surely they have been flirting long enough, they are ready for the next stage! This is in no way a reaction to Scar becoming a weird wizard in a way very unsettling to Grian and building the kind of wild organic tangled forest build that Grian is fascinated by but can't even begin to comprehend.

Everything is very under control in Grian's life. He's now official boyfriends with Mumbo. They live together and have a messaging system and everything.

Mumbo announces he’s moving out.

It’s-not-you-it’s-me

You’re… you’re moving out? Grian says, in the smallest possible voice.

We’ll still have the messaging system, Mumbo says, unconvincingly.

FINE, Grian says, I’m moving out TOO.

Mumbo moves out.

Grian deals with this in the healthiest possible way. He invents a mayorship and attempts to give it to Mumbo.

Grian is Mumbo’s self-appointed campaign manager so Mumbo has to be round him ALL THE TIME, it’s for the CAMPAIGN, Mumbo.

Mumbo, a man who doesn’t deal well with pressure or responsibility, is maybe not the ideal choice for mayor, something that has escaped Grian entirely.

Mumbo builds a robot and attempts to palm off all responsibility for decision-making onto it. Grian immediately calls it their son.

Grian puts his moustache all over the server.

NO other hermits support them for mayor (except Scar, from a lost bet, who Grian has continued to have intensely weird flirtations with while all this is happening)

Things reach a fever pitch. Election day arrives. Mumbo doesn’t want this actually but try telling Grian that. The entire MumboGrian edifice that Grian has obsessively and wildly build has reached an unsustainable pitch and finally comes tumbling down around them.

Mumbo votes Scar for mayor.

Grian votes Scar for mayor.

Mumbo disappears for several weeks to do some nice soothing redstone and calm down.

FLIRTING (Civil War) – late Season 7

Everything has calmed down now. Scar is mayor. Mumbo is...somewhere. Grian is going to work on his base normally.

Grian has a new project. He wants to build in the new nether biomes. He builds a huge and echoing and obsessively inverse version of his huge and echoing and obsessively symmetrical mansion base. It's very impressive. It's totally hollow. There's... no one else here.

Grian decides that okay, he is going to bring PEOPLE here.

He invites Mumbo, because he hasn't seen him in weeks. He invites Bdubs, because Grian above all loves genius. And he invites Scar. Because of course. Everything major Grian does now, Scar is an of course.

Bdubs shows up! Generously builds Grian's entire mansion interior. Mumbo shows up. Builds a tiny upside down disco shack.

Scar does not show up.

Scar is being mayor! Scar is a very busy and important man! Scar has spent the last few weeks obsessively replacing every single goddamn mycelium block in the shopping district with beautifully tailored grass and making trees whose flowers are diamonds. He's also got his own megabase going on. For once Scar has so much to do it's even enough for Scar's ambitions, which have never been small.

He does not come when Grian calls.

Grian is Not Happy.

This is the point where Grian starts a steadily more unhinged campaign of leaving Scar invitations. He makes little tailor's dummies of himself and delivers them to Scar's house. He sets up a tea party of three grians in a secret space under Scar's mayoral throne. He hangs himself in effigy on the tip of Scar's megadrill build. Normal behavior.

And then when Scar still doesn't notice, he puts a tiny bit of mycelium back on one of the streets of the shopping district.

This starts… THE MYCELIUM WARS

Scar attempts to contain the growing mycelium patch with warning tape.

Grian spreads more mushroom spores.

Scar brings in his allies to help contain the growing mushroom patches.

Grian digs out an underground rebel HQ, recruits several rebels, and declares himself Motherspore.

Mayor Scar stares into a camera and uses his most velvety baritone to proclaim he will hunt down Grian and the mycelium resistance and bring them to justice.

Grian sets loose mushroom-spreading sheep.

Mayor Scar obsessively searches for his base.

Grian and Impulse build several decoy bases and trap them.

Mayor Scar employs Mumbo to strip-mine every block of the shopping district with redstone tunnel-borers.

Eventually Deputy Mayor Bdubs, having his own thing with rebel Etho, tricks all of the resistance into ender-pearling into jail.

Scar gets to threaten to pour lava on an imprisoned Grian for ten minutes straight and they’re both enjoying this so much.

Grian: Scar! SCAR! Scar Scar Scar no Scar no Scar no listen Scar

Scar: Yes?

Grian: …Let’s take this somewhere else.

They ‘take this’ to Scar’s beautifully-appointed mayoral office. Grian sits on the arm of his chair (I don’t know what to tell you, this is on-screen canon).

Grian: So I know how to end the war.

Grian: We have to play minigames and make personal bets.

Grian: And Scar, Scar, if you lose…

Scar: Yes?

Grian: … you have to help build my base.

Entire room: [stunned silence]

Etho: Is this what it was about the whole time, Grian?

So! That happened. And the thing is, they could both mentally pass off the area 77 general/hippie stuff as Just A Fun Bit That Got Very Intense.

They can't do this with the mayor/motherspore stuff. They are basically making out on Scar’s chair. The resistance have noticed. The mayoral staff have noticed. EVERYONE has noticed.

Scar is into it. Scar is going along with it. Scar knows he’d had a crush for a long time, and he isn't scared of swimming with a huge wave, never mind where it's going to break. Scar has always embraced the rush. With Grian, you never know what’s going to happen next.

Grian has always loved being around Scar because there’s so much going on that you don’t have to think. Grian doesn’t have to think until everything’s calmed down. It's not until now that he stops and realizes… could this be… something.

(Maybe it already is.)

And then, by whatever eldritch mechanic you personally favor:

3rd life begins.

HEAD-OVER-HEELS – Third Life

In the tiny claustrophobic stripped-bare world of Third Life, Grian makes a choice. Grian thinks, for once very, very clearly: what if it wasn't a bit? What if it was real. What if Grian took every explosive piece of who he was and handed it over to someone he's—okay, he'll admit it—someone he's been obsessed with for a long time. What if that heady sparkle he's been seeing in the corner of his vision is true. What happens if you grab it with both hands?

Scar—surprised, bemused, amazed but wrong-footed—almost doesn't know what to DO with this.

Scar is so used to Grian layering all his obsession behind a thick layer of irony and drama and second-guessing and schemes. ‘Sure we can make out but only if I'm trailing mushroom spores and you're wearing that sash.’ ‘I'm only here because Mumbo's not around.’ ‘It’s not a thing.’ ‘It's not real.’

But it is real.

And, for once, Scar hears a tiny alarm go off in his brain. Scar knows Grian better than anyone else does, by now, and even he doesn't know where this ends. Grian is a force of nature and Scar has never been his unfiltered target. But Grian's throwing himself into this, throwing himself at Scar. And Scar always says 'yes.' 'Yes, and.' 'Yes, let's'. Scar never wants less of Grian. Scar has always taken what he can get.

But with that warning bell, Scar does try to keep that slight layer of dramatic distance, even in this new world where you can die and not come back, even if they don't know if they'll get out of this alive. Scar doesn't fully buy into Grian's second-in-command-devotion, he forces a space for Grian to still be the Grian he knows, some kind of safety vent (‘here's a bee on a lead’). And it could be a lot of reasons, but part of it is…Grian's head-over-heels, for once, and Scar has the unfamiliar feeling of needing to be the one to look where they're going.

Because where they're going is: the last two, all their friends dead, not knowing if there's any way to survive but knowing their friends haven't come back, and at that point Scar takes off the very last of his brakes and the very last of his reservations and says:

For everything you've done for me you can kill me.

(I want this. I want it to be you.)

This breaks Grian absolutely and completely.

And not broken in the fun way! Grian is too far in. Grian let go of Mumbo, who was safe because Mumbo never let it get too far, and he took a risk on Scar, and now Grian is discovering that he didn’t even know what risk meant. Grian is in emotional pain he never suspected existed. Grian has let himself put all his gambling chips on someone who wasn't SAFE and he has lost.

Grian has LOST SCAR and he has LOST HIMSELF and he has FOUND OUT HE CAN BE HURT and he is never going to be the fucking same again.

Scar is in the pond with Grian’s sword at his unresisting neck. And Scar is going to die, and Scar (damn him damn him) has turned it into: he's going to die for Grian. Now Grian is hurting, he's complicit, it turns out grief is an inevitable part of love and beauty, this is all it's taken for Grian's worldview to fall apart in pieces he can't pick up, and Grian has no defenses against pain so there's obviously no way to cope except to beat Scar to death in a cactus ring and jump off a cliff.

AFTERMATH – Season 8

They wake up in Hermitcraft.

They wake up in Hermitcraft! Scar is delighted to find out they just reincarnate, after all that!

Sure, they've all got some lingering trauma but Scar has never let that stop him from doing anything. Scar thought that whole thing went well! He just about dares to think...romantic...? Maybe...?

Grian is Normal to him.

Grian is so fucking normal. it's like. s6 normal.

Scar is. kind of. confused.

Grian is NOT acting like someone he had a romantic death match with.

(Grian is falling apart, but if there's one thing Grian has proved in his building it’s that he’s SO. fucking. good. at facades.)

(Don't go round the back.)

Neither of them are ready for the death game to repeat.

DIVORCE (Traumatic) – Last Life, Season 8

Second death game. Grian deals with his trauma super well by isolating Scar, stealing all his friends, tricking a life out of him, dropping his horse in lava, forcing him into an extortion death loop, then abandoning him and—just as a bonus—murdering Mumbo as well.

This time it’s Scar who comes back falling apart.

A theory that seems plausible: Scar’s old friend Cub picks him up, puts him back together, gets him on his feet. What we do know is that Cub moves in next to Boatem, where Scar is still living with Grian, and incidentally builds an enormous dripstone megabiome that is coincidentally very hostile and might murder you upon landing if you're someone who flies a lot, or happens to be a bird.

There’s a hole with an endless dark void between Scar and Grian’s Boatem bases. They built it together. It’s around this time they both keep repeatedly falling in it.

DIVORCE (But When It Was Good It Was So Good) – Season 8, Double Life

Then the moon gets big. Gets close. Gravity breaks down and that should be the end, should be a way out of this terrible spiral they're in, surely they're better without each other—

Grian turns up at Scar's base and says: Scar. Build us an escape pod.

—and Scar does.

They go out together. Both of them can feel the pull back into each other’s orbit but they’ll die if they acknowledge it. At the end of it all, the void, the protective suits, the unbearable gravity of falling into space together, of holding each other until another uncertain end. They're nowhere but they're in it together.

Is this a good time for another death game? Of course. How much worse can it get.

Double Life, and this time Scar keeps his distance. My soulmate is this allay! My soulmate is my cat! I don’t need a soulmate. Oh—it’s Grian? This whole time? Hahaha. How funny.

Grian: Soo… do you want to base together?

Scar: Do we have to?

Grian: It…might be nice…?

Scar is wary.

He has been burned.

But the pull is still there. The pull is always there. You can’t forget Grian, but you can blunt the edge of him on your skin. Scar is here to take care of these cat-pandas. Grian can do what he likes.

Cheated of Scar’s full attention, Grian tries to tempt BigB into a pale imitation of the Scarian folie à deux (BigB is a genuinely nice man who does not deserve this).

The rest of the server turn red, one by one. Grian and Scar are the last greens. BigB is audibly nervous when Grian proposes a red-green alliance, even though BigB is the red, he has the power. But Grian can’t escape the rest of the server, and the red hunt begins.

Grian and Scar, hunted—trapped at the top of flaming towers, jumping from heights, chased down like foxes at bay, crammed into boltholes with their hands over each other’s mouths, Grian shrieks and laughs and falls back on Scar and Scar catches him and they’re both as alive and elated as they’ve ever been. Scar dies once to Ren and BigB’s zombies and Grian murders both BigB and Ren in revenge (BigB was right to be nervous). Grian has another unhinged murder plan underway when he dies for the last time.

This whole time, Grian was hit in the face by remembering that when it's good, it's so good.

Scar isn’t surprised. Scar has known that forever.

Back in Hermitcraft, its not magically fixed. They’re not innocent any more. But every time Grian looks at Scar he remembers: when it’s good, it’s so good.

And Scar never forgot.

DIVORCE (We’re In Love And We’re Not Done Yet) – Season 9, Limited Life

By now we're into Season 9. They’re still alive. They always live, they always start again, and the other one is just there. Being, infuriatingly and magnetically, them.

Grian is thoroughly annoyed by Scar’s new allegiance to King Ren, but he keeps coming back to Scarland anyway. Scar, I made you an obstacle course. Scar, stand here and get squashed by this anvil. Scar if you don’t do something I’m going to start a resistance.

Grian pretends King Ren doesn’t exist and he has more important things to do, and pretends this so hard that he incidentally invents a mad science robot pulls them all through into the Empires dimension.

Scar, assuming Grian is doing his own thing, shacks up with Jimmy.

It takes Grian three weeks to notice and be shriekingly outraged.

Scar we’re doing a project. Scar you can’t spend all your time with Jimmy! Join my cult. Get in my shrinking machine. I made you an enchanted netherite bow. I need your allegiance. (Another real quote).

Scar teases Grian for weeks then instantly abandons Jimmy when the choice comes down to him or Grian.

Fourth death game—they’re used to this, now. Nothing too intense. Nothing too weird. Grian can’t help murdering Scar.

At this point, Scar is starting to read it as: I love you.

And that’s how we get to the current Scarian dynamic we know and love of you're the worst and I'm the worst and we've divorced a few time but we still like each other so fucking much.

It's been years. They've killed each other every possible way. These two characters are in love and they're not done yet.

#scarian #grian #goodtimeswithscar #hermitshipping #yes canon IS a grand romantic arc #to be super clear: i don't think any of this was cc intention #but we can have a little narrative framing fun #as a treat #i think nearly all of this is true to canon except some timing vagueness and the dialogue in parentheses #thank you to the hivemind for theory help #long post #glossywrites

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

tfw you realise you’re in love with your best friend and it’s the 1930s

Happy Lunar New Year! 

#Fanart #animation #2d animation #tintin #Adventures of Tintin #gif #gifset #lunar new year #chinese new year #chang #snowy #milou #tinchang #is this cliche? #is the animation super basic? #yes but i like the colours #call of the songbird #this is an everlasting sparkler #it's cinematically convenient #long post

[egophiliac]

(it probably wasn't actually Idia's fault)

(or was it)

some quick initial reactions to celebrate Diasomnia Day One! it felt like a bit of a short intro, but oh, what a tasting menu of things to come.

#art #long post #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #twisted wonderland episode 7 spoilers #twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers #it's been thirty seconds and already #lilia is sending himself to a farm upstate where he'll have lots of rabbits to chase #malleus does a whole flashback to his most embarrassing childhood memory #ponytail lilia CONFIRMED we have a CONFIRMED SIGHTING everybody #idia does a surprisingly good crowley impression. this is not important to the plot but it's important to me personally. #also silver is probably a cursed prince or something WHO CARES look at these COOL ACORNS #the mental image of silver and lilia having that little heart-to-heart about the ring #while sebek is five feet away sorting laundry #absolutely incredible #meanwhile yuu continues to just have no survival instinct whatsoever #if a horned man approaches you at midnight and goes 'wouldn't it be nice if we never had to say goodbye to anyone ever?' DO NOT SAY YES #also if he starts bragging to you about his sorcerer ancestress DO NOT be like 'yeah but...did she maybe kind of suck' #'was she just super unlikeable personally speaking' #we are so lucky that for some reason malleus is really into all of our weird bullshit #okay shutting up now i promise #i just have so much to say and so few tags to do it in

[cobaltfluff]

bilingual struggles

(sorry this is super long)

#sk8 the infinity #art tag #long post #langa's doing his best his brain cells are working as hard as they can #this happens to me all the time #worst is when you forget one word in 2/3 languages #but you forget another word in a different 2/3 languages #i hope the image isnt blurry #they are HUGE sizes tho #in the preview they're super blurry #tumblr why #actually i also have a video version i used for the bird site #bc it's so picky about image dimensions yanno #here i can just shove in the longest post and tumblr will be like yes ok sir this is a struggle but we'll do it for you

[lnkedmyheart]

This one is in response to @fizzytastic asking

"I would LOVE to know what you mean regarding the light novels."

Dazai in the light novels has been down BAD since the day he met Chuuya.

I know the whole "must be because I love you" can be viewed as a joke but my man actually "whispered with a look of regret" at being shot down.

He also proceeded to cheat during the game by tampering with the machine to ensure Chuuya would lose the bet and become his dog. He was also stated as being in awe of Chuuya's fighting ability, repeatedly refering to him as "incredible". Dazai also flat out admits to wanting to try out living because "Chuuya convinced" him.

He is even described as having forgotten how to breathe watching Chuuya fight.

Moving on to the events of Stormbringer, Dazai spends too long exposing his obsession with Chuuya, telling the big bad that he spends all his "days and nights thinking about ways to annoy Chuuya".

He further proceeds to insist that Chuuya is human because of how strongly he hates Chuuya and due to a specific word it can be viewed as him saying Chuuya would hate him less if he wasnt human as was stated in the stage play of the same.

Furthermore at the end of Stormbringer he offers to come up with a new plan to give Chuuya an out if he needs one when he has to use corruption as a last resort. And he fully intends on coming up with a new plan within 2 minutes.

In general Dazai does a lot of staring at Chuuya throughout the light novels. On a lighter note Dazai jokes about wanting Chuuya as his personal maid at one point and demands that Chuuya let Dazai look inside his head and know everything there is to know about him.

But then we move onto the dragon head conflict as mentioned in Dead Apple where after making light of an executive's death and getting punched in the face by Chuuya, Dazai is so shaken up by Chuuya implying he's inhuman, he actually pulls strings to try and bring the conflict to an end. He also stops corruption by touching his cheek and pulls Chuuya's head into his lap while he is unconscious after his fight with Shibusawa. The following is from the manga.

Now everyone knows about the whole Snow White and Prince reference but in the light novel its clarified that Chuuya's ability was not affected by the fog and Dazai knew this but he still forces his head down. Even more telling is that Dazai cradles Chuuya's face for no real reason because Corruption had already been nullified when Chuuya made skin to skin contact when punching him in the face.

And of course that was how their expressions are drawn in the manga panel

Then we move to the present day and you have Dazai saying this to Sigma about Chuuya

But then his comment about Gide has him claim the exact same behaviour is romantic in his messed up troll brain

Basically Dazai has a history of staring at Chuuya in awe since 15, "jokingly" confessed at 15 and then got somewhat upset about the rejection, cheated to be able to keep Chuuya as his, repeatedly makes remarks that imply he is vaguely obsessed with him at 16, tends to let Chuuya rest his head in his lap post corruption, has nullified him twice that we have seen by touching his cheek (as per the movie and once as per the ln). Is actively affected by how Chuuya views him (which was shocking to me).

Aside from that he has also talked about Chuuya to the ADA off screen because Yosano knew about Chuuya and his ability (though this could just be a random update about the membera of the mafia to watch out for during meetings) and I heard he talked about Chuuya to Oda in The Day I Picked Up Dazai ln.

This is not counting any of the seriously insane amount of wan content because I dont view it as canon or atleast entirely canon but there Dazai admits to keeping 27 journals detailing things about Chuuya and its an exaggeration of the canon fact that Dazai prides himself in being a Chuuya Nakahara Encyclopedia. It also plays with how close they both actually are with several character refering to them as besties, Chuuya being forced to admit he doesnt actually hate Dazai.

(Oh and this is not even considering just how much Dazai touches Chuuya, like in the manga there is a part where Dazai keeps tugging at Chuuya's hair and refusing to let go while complaining about how much he doesnt want to touch him. Just let go dude...)

So yea, I would not be surprised if Dazai has his vows prepared by the time the last pre defection ln drops. Ofcourse this is mostly a lighthearted joke about Dazai being down bad but in all seriousness, Dazai genuinely cared about and still cares about Chuuya and its made extremely obvious throughout the novels. Its actually worth noting that it was actually Chuuya who seemed to be more vitriolic towards him until the end of Stormbringer where Dazai actually gives Chuuya a choice and shows open concern for Chuuya's needs. Hell Dazai was also the one insisting on Chuuya's autonomy, while he keeps insisting Chuuya is his dog, he hates the idea of people using him like a tool, its why he always gives Chuuya a choice. Chuuya always actively chooses to go rescue Dazai in Dazai's plans of getting kidnapped. Chuuya can always go, "nah, I dont wanna use corruption" but he doesnt because he knows since the events of stormbringer that Dazai will always give him a choice even if corruption seems like a last resort.

Chuuya has good reason for trusting Dazai. Its cause Dazai has in fact proven to him that he can trust him. Its why he went in to fight a dragon despite being told Dazai was possibly already dead.

(And yea I know the current arc would have people go "lol he tried to drown Chuuya, he clearly doesnt care" and you know what? That's so dumb. Dazai tried to drown Chuuya, yes. But we dont actually know what is happening with this arc rn and what he is doing or if Chuuya is in any way involved in whatever he is doing. Dazai said all those things and there was no need for him to say that but the fact that he even remembered several moments they shared, yea no, he was clearly affected by it. Maybe I am wrong and Asagiri decided to yeet out all of Dazai's characterization we saw with his behaviour towards Chuuya in 2 entire novels of his past but IDK I think I'm gonna wait till this arc ends and everything unfolds before making a conclusion about how Dazai is such an asshole he tried to drown his partner.)

Seriously, vows are like the least they could do at this point.

#soukoku #ah my ramblings #i just really really love the light novels #i am mostly joking about the romance of it all #mostly #but Dazai cares about Chuuya and idk I think this is such an important aspect of Dazai's character #like even if you dont lile the ship its really not fair to ignore how much Dazai genuinely cared for Chuuya #not because it supports the ship but because it shows that Dazai despite his claims of being a monster was ridiculously human #he saw this boy he was fasicnated by and he said- I need to keep him as my friend #and proceeded to do it in the most unsocialized troll brained clown way #i love this boy so much #someone hug him please #dont get me wrong I dont think dazai and chuuya's relationship was super healthy but it wasnt as toxic as people make it seem either #yes Dazai desperately needed Oda and Ango but Chuuya was also and is still an important part of his life #long post #i am not going back to chexk for writing errors. I'm sleepy.

[phoenixcatch7]

The Wayne doll house

Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.

The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.

It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.

There was nothing there when he went back.

-

The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.

The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.

So civilian it was.

Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.

"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."

"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.

"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."

Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.

"I think.... I would be best for that."

The team stared.

"Batsy?"

Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.

"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."

"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."

"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."

Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.

"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."

Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."

"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"

"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."

For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.

"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."

"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"

"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.

Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.

"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."

-

"Alien?"

"No."

"Reanimated corpse?"

"No."

"Uh... Demon?"

"Hm. No."

"You're not just a meta human, are you?"

"No."

"Vampire?"

"No."

"Robot??"

"No."

"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"

"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.

"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."

"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."

Flash groaned again.

-

Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!

'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.

So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.

With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.

"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."

The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.

He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.

The click of the door jerked his head up.

Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.

Flash screamed.

Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing

#batman #Possessed doll au #bruce wayne #justice league #cryptid batman #Cryptid batfam #Didn't fit in there but I wanted to include that every bat member has a mask that covers their mouth #They've all got nutcracker jaws #I don't know the technical name but you know the ones where only a block moves for the mouth and the cheeks don't? #Super creepy on a life size thing I'd imagine #So if their mouth guard or mask gets ruined guess who's having nightmares that night! #Normally cryptid batfam go to great lengths to Look Inhuman and these guys still do it's just easier to not get joints jammed if you cover #Them up. Doesn't mean they haven't pavloved the whole criminal underground into terror at the sound of wooden clacking #They can turn ALL their joints 360 and it terrifies the average goon when you try to sneak behind a bat and it just swivels around to lock #With you. They grapple by shooting their hands out (so they can't lose their grapples) and it doesn't look nice. Yes they use it to #High five from across rooftops or grab things. Punch people in the face from the rafters. (pie the joker) #Their outfits look painted on (they mostly are). Ears swivel. They each have gliding wings installed in their backs after a scare with ivy #Clark was too polite to ask about the rattling and hissing noises he made until one day he was scouting with xray vision glanced over #And nearly screamed XD #long post #long tags

[5up3r-50n5]

Miguel:Let me tell you how this is gonna work! You're gonna-

Hobie:You ain't gonna tell me shit

Miguel:Listen!

Hobie:Suck my dick

Miguel:SHUT UP! Listen to me!

Hobie:Suck my dick yo' fuck man

Miguel:LISTEN!

Hobie:Suck my dick

Miguel:YOU'LL BE HERE ON MONDAY-

Hobie:You'll be here sucking my dick

Miguel:LISTEN!

The other (Gwen, Miles, Pavitr and Peni) :*Watching them with popcorn and sodas*

Peter B.:*Covering his daughter ears with a horrified face*

Ham:I wish those things happened in my universe

Noir:*tearing up* Just like home

#hobie brown #miguel o hara #pavitr prabhakar #miles morales #gwen stacy #peter b. parker #mayday parker #the fruity four #The problematic 4 #Hobie hater Miguel #it's a canon event #A funny one #This is not so family friendly #I heard this audio after a long time and said YES! and wrote it down #Probably the only post of the day #It's 7 am #I'm super tired #Peter ha dato cover Mayday ears with horror #spidernoir #spider noir #peter parker #peni parker #sp//dr #spider ham #spiderham #peter porker #I added them at the last minute bc why not #across the spiderverse #into the spider verse #incorrect spiderverse

[marcmorrigan]

@fenglianweek day 6: memories/growing up

the best thing thats ever been mine

#tgcf #xie lian #feng xin #fenglian #fenglianweek24 #my art #full color #I SPENT SOOO LONG ON THIS ONE... like not long for me. fast for me! but compared to the other ones ive done for flw. long. #this has been a few weeks of work and im very happy with how it turned out! tried to be thoughtful about how i approached the colors #and i think it really paid off! theres SO MANY COLORS in the pants im so proud of all the fabric in this... #that white fabric has so. many colors. it makes me super happy #also some of the fallen petals make hearts. btw >:o) #idk if they translate well but feng xin has top surgery scars!!! theyre both trans but xie lian is a cultivator so. he just uses magic #i KNOW when he first learned transformation magic he like BOOKED IT to feng xin to show him like 'LOOK. FLAT!!!' #and little teenxin was like 'ummm 😳 yeah. flat' #ANYWAY!!! idk if they actually look like teens here... hopefully yes. xie lian does to me at least??? #or at least he looks different from how i draw him as an 800smthng year old lol. but still like himself i think!!! i hope... #whatever. point is. do you remember we were sitting there by the water. you put your arm around me for the first time. you made a rebel of #the tags cut me off there. thats a good thing. IF YOU KNOW. YOU KNOW. #did you guys know i have headcanons about the type of tswift fans mu qing and xie lian would be. well now you know. I Have Thoughts #OKAY THATS ENOUGH TAGS I NEED TO ACTUALLY POST THIS. ILY MUAH TTYL

[i-will-always-love-the-jedi]

Me when projecting on my faves: 👍

I won’t change my mind, they are all little neurodivergent gremlins in my head and I love them

…

#inspired by something I had on my feed some time ago I think it was critical role fanart #anyway the three coolest losers ever y’all #i love them so much #it’s been what three years? #leave me alone already firebrands #(pls dont this is my only source of serotonin and dopamine) #Help what am I doing with my life #anyway stellan is a little acoustic elzar is the a list of adhd type one symptoms and avar is both because I say so #ive been gone for so long and this is what I post #im actually working on super cool angsty firebrand stuff #also shortest firebrand Elzar again #and yes I know the outfits kinda suck I got tired midway through #the high republic #stellan gios #avar kriss #elzar mann #star wars the high republic

[emrrys]

"𝘐 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦𝘭𝘵... 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘰𝘦𝘴𝘯'𝘵. 𝘐𝘵 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘨𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘦𝘳... 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘪𝘵."

click for better quality ❄️

#ninjago #lego ninjago #ninjago fanart #ninjago zane #zane julien #zane ninjago #ice emperor #the ice emperor #ns11 #my art #ginger's art #um hi long time no post ive been dying super sick lol #anyway i wish ninjago did more with the ice emperor bc so much potential was thereeeeee -rattles cage bars- #yes thats the wc scourge quote what are you gonna do about it

[itsdefinitely]

Definitely, can you pretty please go into depth about the MC outfits because I would LOVE to hear that /gen

WOOHOO!! YIPPEE!! DANCING AROUND MY LITTLE CORNER FULL OF RED TAPE AND MADNESS!!

gonna start in no particular order

TINKY COSTUME my beloved and beloathed (the colors fucked me up). to be honest most of it is pretty obvious. the maze design on the sleeves and the box on the shirt is meant to represent the bastard's box, but i imagine that box glowing in the game. for important plot or something. i just want the box to glow. the pants are pretty much directly because i wanted to give the MC boots (i didn't draw shoes because hell if i was gonna design six good looking pairs of shoes) and they fit in with the pattern on the sleeves + the overall steampunk-ish vibe tinky has. the outfit itself wasn't really steampunky or yellow, but these outfits were made to compliment the lord, so rather than two engineers, it's like a mad scientist and his loyal lab rat. so something that would be easy to move around in

and now is a good a time as any to mention this. all of the outfits were made with the CoTSC designing them in mind, which is why they look all different, because i feel like the church has different views on how each lord wants to be treated. like they're pretty sure nibbly is good with things being more modern, but wiggly and pokey would be more "traditional" i guess. the church is just convinced some of them need to be held to the same standard they were given decades ago

anyway. blinky. the whole thing with the blindfold is that the CoTSC thinks you're not meant to look at blinky. blinky actually doesn't care whether you look at him or not, but there's this air of "you're not supposed to do this" when the MC tries to take the blindfold off. the eye button-thing was very fun for me to think about because i saw this button a while ago that was the pupil as the button, and i've been trying to incorporate it into something ever since. the pants are more of a stylistic choice than anything, so interpret it how you will

nibbly's costume was actually so fun for me to draw. i wanted it to look like something out of a fucked-up twisted willy wonka. the base for the top is really similar to tinky's but that's fine because they probably all steal something from the others. tinky's costume steals the specific yellow from blinky's costume, who steals the midsection part from pokey's costume, who steals the whole robe thing from wiggly's costume. also there's no cape or flowy thing for nibbly's costume because if the MC failed i don't think the CoTSC would want nibbly mad at them for having to chew extra fabric. also you need to be able to run without tripping over yourself if you try to escape him :]

pokey's costume was also really fun. obviously the grey, blue, and the cracks (it's also supoosed to be lightning!) are from his canon design, but the glasses are because i wanted something on the MC's face like the mask. it couldn't be another mask because pokey would get offended by that i think, and sunglasses are in the superstar/thespian ballpark. this costume also has the most stars on it (they go all the way around the hem of the robe) because of pokey's connection to space

finally, wiggly's costume. this is the one i think i have the most to talk about. first and foremost: there's a full black outfit under the robe. the fingerless gloves and pants are actually one jumpsuit, like president howard's suit in black friday. the collar thing is connected to the cape, which is split into six parts to be kind of like wiggly's tentacles. the fluffy collar is meant to be like the doll's fur. the whole thing is meant to keep the MC insulated, because i imagine the temperature drops whenever a lord is around, and especially when THE lord in black shows up. all of the sniggles (+ blinky) have fur, so they've probably had to adapt to the cold. now that i'm thinking about it, the CoTSC aren't that antagonistic in the costume design process. they cater to both the lords and the MC's needs, or whatever they think those needs are. like i said before, wiggly's costume is meant to be more "traditional", like the robes they wear. this costume is similar to what they'd put you in before sacrificing you

thanks for coming to my braindump

#also the full internet name made me do a double take. like. i thought i was in trouble for a second. i genuinely read it in my mom's voice #definite's ted talks #definitely an ask #the lords in black #t'noy karaxis #nibblenephim #blinklotep #pokotho #wiggog y'wrath #there's probably something i thought about while drawing but forgot to mention but whateverrrrrr it'll come back to me eventually #does this feel super pretentious to type out? yes #do i have to be neurodivergent about it or i'll die? also yes #long post

[anotherhumaninthisworld]

How many times did robespierre get an assassination attempts?

Because I remember his sister Charlotte robespierre says in her memoir maybe? That he had multiple assassination attempts not only Cécile-Aimée Renault who tried her luck.

And who is Cécile Renault and what is her story?

Charlotte speaks of attempts on her brother’s life in chapter four of her memoirs:

Since Maximilien Robespierre perished, a victim of counterrevolutionaries, his enemies’ rage has emerged in calumnies, lies, and furious diatribes against him; but before his death, independent of those means which have always suited them, they had another which was no less worthy of them: the dagger. A great number of assassination attempts were made on him. History has spoken of Cécile Renault and of Ladmiral, but it has said nothing of the many other assassins who came to my unhappy brother’s house in the intention of cutting his throat. We were one day gathered at M. Duplay’s house, when a man came and asked to speak to Maximilien Robespierre. My brother went to him and prayed him to say what he wished. That man replied that he could only speak to him in private; he was then shown into a neighboring room where my brother followed him. Some moments later we heard a violent movement. Right away we suspected the unknown man; we entered the room where he was with Maximilien, and we saw that he had seized my brother around the neck, that he had pushed him against the wall, and that he was strangling him!... the assassin was built like Hercules, and had an easy advantage over Maximilien, who was weak bodily and of a delicate complexion. We cried out piercingly; the assassin then let go his victim and took flight; entirely occupied as we were with succoring my brother, we did not think of cutting off his escape. Another time, two men came likewise to M. Duplay’s house to speak to my brother, who had gone out; we told them that he was absent. They insisted on seeing him. There was something suspicious in their countenances, in their miens, and even in their words; everything about them announced their malevolent designs; they were questioned on the object of their visit, and they cut themselves off, which succeeded in confirming our idea that those two men were nothing but criminals, who wanted to assassinate Maximilien. They said that they absolutely needed to speak to him, and that they would return. They did return, in effect, the next day at dinnertime when we were at the table; they did not enter together; perhaps they had made M. Duplay’s house a meeting-place to execute their crime. The first to arrive seemed embarrassed; he asked to speak to Robespierre in private; we replied that their vile plans had been discovered. At these words, he became troubled, mumbled a few words, and retired in all haste. Only a few minutes passed before his companion of the previous evening arrived. He was not given the same to speak; he was told that his accomplice had preceded him by an instant, that there was nothing more for him to do than to join him, and that their attempt had failed. No more was needed to destroy him; one might have called him a man struck by lightning; he fled as if being pursued. These two events, and many others as well, gave Robespierre the certainty that a gang of assassins had been organized to make attempts on his life.

Lucile Desmoulins also mentions an assassination attempt in a diary entry written December 12 1793, when recounting the events surrounding the Insurrection of August 10th four months earlier — ”On August 8, I returned from the countryside. Already the spirits were strongly aroused, someone had wanted to assassinate Robespierre.” While it’s tempting to assume this is one of the attempts Charlotte is describing above, this sounds unlikely to be true considering she hadn’t arrived in Paris by August 8 1792, yet claims to have been an eyewitness. I think it’s also a bit strange how, aside from the testimonies of the two women, we appear to have no other source for/mention of these three assassination attempts. Especially when we know the Cécile Renault one stirred up so many emotions…

As for her story, as told by Histoire du tribunal révolutionnaire de Paris (1880) by Henri Wallon, she lived on rue de la Lanterne (today Rue de la Cité) in Paris with her father and brothers. Acquaintances would later describe her as ”young, lively and nice, [someone who took] pleasure in conversation and loved finery,” and that her reserved father had a constant concern for  his daughter. On May 23 1794, at nine o’clock in the evening, Renault presented herself at the Duplay house on Rue de la Saint-Honoré, roughly two kilometers away from her home, and asked to see Robespierre, claiming to have been out looking for him for six hours. When Éléonore Duplay, who had received Renault at the door, told her Robespierre wasn’t home, Renault got surprised and responded ”that he is a public official and therefore should respond to all those who came to his house.” This got her arrested (it is unclear to me whether Éléonore was the one who called for it or not) and sent to the Committee of General Security. On her way there, the three men escorting her reported that ”[Renault] told us that during the l’ancien régime, when one presented oneself at the king’s, one could enter straight away. We asked her whether she would rather have a king, she responded that she would shed all her blood in order to have one and that these were her opinions and that we were tyrants.”

Once arrived at the CGS, Renault was interrogated:

What is your name, age, profession and recidence?

My name is Aimée-Cécile Renault, I’m twenty years old, I live with my father, paper merchant, on rue de la Lanterne, close to rue des Marmousets, in the Cité section.

Where were you arrested and by whom?

I was arrested at Robespierre’s house by men I didn’t know.

What was your motive for going home to representative of the people Robespierre?

To talk to him.

What did you plan to talk to him about.

That depended on whether I found him or not.

Had anyone ordered you to go talk to him?

No.

Did you have anything to present him with?

That’s none of your business.

Do you know citizen Robespierre?

No, that’s why I asked to get to know him.

What was it that determined you to get to know him?

To see if he was OK with me (s’il me convenait).

I ask you to clearly explain what you mean by these words: ”to see if he was OK with me.”

I have nothing to respond. Don’t interrogate me more.

When you presented yourself at citizen Robespierre’s house, did you not express anger over the fact he wasn’t there?

Yes.

Do you know of rue de l’Estrapade?

No, I don’t know of it and I’ve never been there.

Do you know someone named Catherine Théos [sic]?

No.

Do you know an individual by the name of Dom Gerle?

No.

Have you ever heard Dom Gerle or Catherine Théos [sic] speak?

I have never heard anyone speak.

Did you tell the citizens who came to arrest you at citizen Robespierre’s house that if needed, you would spill all your blood in order to have a king?

Yes, I said that.

Do you stand by it?

Yes.

What were the motives which determined and still determine you to desire a tyrant?

I desire a king, because I would prefer that over fifty thousand tyrats, and I only went to Robespierre’s house to see what a tyrant looks like.

When the CPG searched Renault, two small knives were found on her. It was also discovered that, before going to visit Robespierre, she had left a package to one citizen Payen. The package was opened before Renault, and was shown to contain a full set of women's clothing. The interrogation then continued as follows:

What were your intention in providing yourself with these various items?

Fully expecting to go to the place where I would surely be taken, I would be happy to have linen for my use.

What place are you talking about?

About prison, to from there be sent to the guillotine.

What usage were you planning to make of the two knives that were found on you?

Nothing, I wasn’t planning to harm anybody.

Signed: Voulland, Dubarran, Amar, David, Moïse Bayle, Vadier, Élie Lacoste, Lavicomterie, Jagot, Louis du Bas-Rhin. As for her, she refused to sign.

After this interrogation, Renault was sent from the Committee of General Security to the Conciergerie prison. The following day, May 24, she was interrogated by the president of the Revolutionary Tribunal, René-François Dumas:

What is your name, age, profession and recidence?

My name is Aimée-Cécile Renault, I’m twenty years old, I live with my father, paper merchant, on rue de la Lanterne, close to rue des Marmousets, section de la Cité. I have three brothers, one of which, a 32 year old, lives in the same house, and the other two have left, one with the battalions sent to the department of Eure, the other with the first requisition.

Do you have any particular liasions or associations?

No.

Who are the people who visit your father’s house with the most frequency?

Nobody.

What are your opinions on the Republic and the government?

I want a king, because I’d prefer the power to be in the hands of a single person rather than of forty or fifty thousand tyrants.

How can you suppose that the power of the people, exercised through itself,  its representatives or its mandataires to be tyrannical?

I don’t want to share my opinions.

Were your opinions inspired by anyone?

No, and I have no accountability.

Have your manifested your opinions in front of anyone?

No.

Have you in the revolution experienced any loss or been forced into any sacrifice that has been able to serve as a pretext for your opinions?

No, I want a king, I don’t have any other motives.

Do you have the hopes of bringing back a king?

Yes, and it doesn’t matter to me which one.

How do you imagiene the royalty could be reestablished?

Through the success of the armed coalition powers.

Do you have any reports or intelligence that put you in a position to base your hopes on the allied powers on something?

No.

Did you intend to contribute to the re-establishment of royalty?

Yes.

How did you intend to contribute?

I would have contributed with financial assistance and by all means that would have been in my power; I would also have contributed, depending on the circumstances, to destroying the government and those who exercise its power.

Have you made any attempt to carry out your plan?

No.

Have you written any anonymous letter against the government, or know anyone who has done so? 

No.

Have you presented yourself at the house of any representative of the people?

I presented myself yesterday at Robespierre’s house, around nine o’clock in the evening.

What was your plan in going to Robespierre’s house.

To talk to him in person.

What did you want to talk to Robespierre about?

I don’t want to give any response or explanation regarding this question.

Do you realize that your answers lead one to believe you had the intention of committing a crime, and that you must explain your intentions?

She does not want to explain further, and adds that she intended to ask him for instructions on the situation and the strengthening of the Republic.

Do you realize that your declarations and obstinacy to not want to explain yourself cannot be reconciled with such a plan, which is why I’m again asking you to explain yourself?

She persists in not wanting to answer.

Did anyone propose to you the plan of going home to Robespierre and did you tell anyone about it?

No.

Did you go to Robespierre’s house several times during day?

No.

When you went to Robespierre, did you have with you knives, and of which sort?

I had in my pocket two folding knives, one in tortoiseshell and the other in ivory, both trimmed in silver: the one made of ivory was given to me by my brother in 89, having found it at Prés-Saint-Gervais. The other was given to me by my grandmother three or four years ago. It was loaded with rust; I cleaned it and tried to remove the rust by scraping the blade with another knife, eight or nine days ago. I rarely use it.

Do you regularly carry two knives?

I carry the tortoiseshell one regularly, the ivory one showed up in my pocket, I didn’t know it was there.

When you went home to Robespierre, did you have the intention of using these knives to kill him?

No; that, moreover, we can judge as we please.

When you yesterday left your father’s house, did you tell anyone?

No.

When you left your house, did you carry with you a package containing clothes, and for what purpose had you brought this package?

I had taken this package containing clothes and linen, because I anticipated that by going to Robespierre I would get arrested.

End of the interrogation.

Renault’s house was searched the night between the 23 and the 24. Suspect things found included two paintings “bearing the effigy of the tyrant and his wife” hidden in a cupboard, ”several papers bearing the signs of feudalism” and two national guard rifles belonging to the father and son. Under the bed in Renault’s room was found a banner on which was crown surrounded by fleur-de-lis printed in large size. In her father’s room was also discovered the following letter to his son:

Paris, January 3, Year II of the Republic. I’ve seen the letter from your good mother, through which you show that the citizens of the province where you find yourself desire that the former king not be condemned to death. As of now, one can’t tell you anything, because nothing is over yet, but I think that, for the sake of the good and calm of the Republic, it would be desired if he was not executed. Renault. To M. Renault, corporal at the depot of the Théâtre-Français battalion, garrisoned in Berlemont.

The father was interrogated on the spot and revealed he had three brothers, two sisters, three sons and one daughter ”who left his house on 4 prairial around six in the evening and who he didn’t know the location of.” Soon, both he, his sister and his youngest son were arrested and seals placed on their belongings. Arrest warrants were also issued against the two oldest sons of the family, but with both away in the armies they escaped the fate of their relatives.

The Renaults’ neighbours were interrogated in order to find out more about them. One femme Papin, who made sure to underline she was not close to Cècile, had the following to say regarding her disappearance:

Citizen Renault, instructed of his daughter’s absence, appeared desolute, and went to his place to check if his daughter hadn’t taken anything with her. He came back saying that the trouble which agitated him robbed him of the ability to see if she had taken anything. Renault then closed his boutique and went to his place. [Femme Papin] went home as well, after having checked, by going home to citoyenne Gentilhomme, citoyenne Bouchot and others, that [Cécile] was not in the neigbourhood. She went to bed, and sometime after having fallen asleep, she was woken up by the son Renault who asked her to look after their cat. She accepted this without thinking about any consequences, without suspecting that in this moment, Renault was being put under arrest. The next day, femme Papin’s oldest daughter learned from citoyenne Besençon, baker, of the arrest of father and son Renault, and it was also said that fille Renault, having learned of the arrest of her brother and father, had fled the house to save herself from the same fate. Six o’clock in the morning, she found herself at the house of citoyenne Julles, talking with her about this arrest, when citoyenne Prévôt entered and told them that fille Renault had been arrested as well, and this while having wanted to kill Robespierre.

Femme Papin’s fifteen year old daughter also came forward, explaining that, on May 23:

Leaving her work and passing by Renault’s boutique, fille Renault knocked on the window, invited her in, and gave her the task of handing over 16 sols to citoyenne Julles. Then she chatted with her for about a quarter of an hour after which she went up to her place. Then she came back down and went out, saying she would not come back. Renault’s brother, not seeing his sister return, was worried to the point that he fell ill.

A girl who had come over to the Renault house to buy a pen declared that Cécile had told her that she had just bought a piece of muslin worth 25 livres from a dressmaker by the name of Sonnet, something which the latter’s wife confirmed to be true. The Renault’s maid declared that she had a bundle of Indian fabrics to redo a taffeta dress for Cécile, and Barbe-Françoise-Antonine Cruel, femme Martin, a different seamstress, reported that Renault had ordered a muslin dress made for her in secret, urging her to get it done as quick as possible since she had to attend the wedding of one of her cousins and because she could get guillotined before it. To that, femme Martin had responded that ”when one does no harm, one should fear nothing.” The revelation Renault possessed several expensive garments, along with information she had had contacts with a young man by the name of Admirat, believed to possibly be related to the Henri Admirat who had made an attempt on Collot d’Herbois’ life a mere day before Renault’s visit to Robespierre, were the main topics for the third interrogation with Renault, held on May 25:

What does your father give you in order to provide for your maintenance?

My dad provides for me, but he only gives me 15 sols per week for personal expenses. 

Is it your father or you yourself who buys your clothes? Does he give you a lot and does it vary between different seasons?

He gives me that which satisfies me, and he was the one who bought them. 

Do you consider that, holding the trust of your father and being the one who keeps the house running, it seems surprising that it was your father who bought your clothes; and that in general, these kinds of purchases are a thing of the past for women?

She persists in her former response.

Did you, a little while ago, buy different outfits, and do you in this moment have different clothes at the seamstresses?

I bought six ells of muslin, 25 livres per ell, from Sonnet, a haberdasher, living opposite my dad, and I owe him the price. I gave an Italian taffeta dress to citoyenne Dematin, seamstress, living on l’Île de la Fraternité, I believe in a street near the barracks, opposite or nearby an apothecary, and whose name I do not know, to make a sheath out of it for me. I also gave her a muslin sheath, and the six ells of muslin already mentioned, with the exception of the portion which was taken from it to make the garnish, by citoyenne Gentilhomme, linen worker, living with my father. I gave a pierrot de taffetas to lengthen my petticoat to my friend citoyenne Petit, living in Marché-Neuf, with a locksmith, on the fourth floor. My dad doesn’t want me to see her often, observing that she since about a year has been married to a chariot adjutant whose name I don’t know.

Do you understand that one cannot be convinced that, receiving only fifteen sols per week from your father, and this according to your own admission, he would provide you with such a big and beautiful wardrobe?

She persists in declaring that it was her father who bought her the various effects, except for the muslin, and adds that she owes citoyenne Petit, from Marché-Neuf, around forty livres.

Can you explain how, having only 15 sols per week to provide for your particular expenses, you intended to pay the six ells of muslin which you just declared to have purchased on credit, without your father's knowledge. Isn’t it obvious that you could not pay the price of this muslin without some other special resources?

The confidence the merchant, or better yet his wife, had in me, determined them to make this supply on credit and have me pay it off when I could, in ten or twenty years. I intended to ask my dad for fifty livres when I found the opportunity and give it to them.

Do you remember that in the interrogation held yesterday you declared that you would provide money to those who would help you in your counter-revolutionary projects to re-establish the monarchy in France?

I remember saying that.

How can you reconcile this offer of relief with the shortage in which you declare yourself to be?

I acknowledge the shortage in which I find myself, but I would have sold my belongings to provide for the expenses of the armies allied against the Republic.

How long has it been since you went to confession?

I have no accountability for this. Moreover, churches and priests were suppressed a long time ago.

Who was your confessor when the priests exercised their functions?

I have never been to confession.

Have you been to the house of any priest after they stopped holding office, and has any priest frequented your father’s house?

No.

Have you, since the supression, been at the house of the priest of la Magdeleine?

No, because I knew he was a firm patriot, and that he didn’t share my opinions.

Have you sometimes gone to the curé of Saint-Landry, or had any relations with him?

No, I don’t know him, I only know his name.

Do you know citizen Admirat, aged 16 or 17, who sometimes came to see the son of widow Joyanvad, marchande épicière, rue de la Lanterne, at the corner of rue des Marmouzets?

I’ve seen him five to six times only, but I have never spoken to him. I’ve seen him at my father’s house, which is next to that of citoyenne Joyanval.

Have you been to café Payen?

I have not gone into the café, but I left my package to citizen Payen and asked him where Robespierre lived. He sent me to the guardhouse of the firefighters, who gave me the adress.

Were you not surprised one wouldn’t give you Robespierre’s adress, and did you tell them you were going to see a man who today was a lot and tomorrow would be no more?

I might have, I don’t remember. But speaking to the fireman, I told him: ”Robespierre is somewhere.” The fireman having answered that he was president of the Committee of Public Safety, I replied ”So a king then?”

Have you considered that the various admissions made by you in the previous interrogations, together with those recorded in this one, announce that your visit to Robespierre had any other aim than that of discussing only government affairs?

She persists in her previous responses in this regard.

Are you on the point of marrying?

No.

When did you become a royalist?

I have always been one.

I ask you again what it was that determined you to go home to Robespierre was and what your plan was.

She persists in her previous responses, and adds that she would not say more about this; that moreover, it is up to us to guess the rest. (6 prairial, 6 o’clock in the morning)

Soon, Renault did however start having a guilty conscience over having denied her faith, and seven o’clock in the evening the very same day she gave the names of the two late priests that had been in charge of her communion to a judge of the tribunal. When asked if she since then had performed any religious act and who the persons who had made her do that were, Renault simply responded that that was a secret and she had nothing more to say.

During the trial of public prosecutor Fouquier-Tinville one year later, the registrar Wolff claimed that Renault was stripped of her own clothes, covered in rags and threatened during her interrogation:

To force her to make the confession that they wanted to extract from her, she was applied to a type of questioning so ridiculous that it should have made the justice system blush. As the taste of this young girl, who was quite pretty, was to be well dressed, she was stripped of her clothes and covered with dirty and disgusting rags, and in this state she was taken up to the council chamber where she underwent a new interrogation and where the same demands and the same threats were made against her; to which she replied the same way she had already done, adding jeers and mockery against the judges who had the pettiness to use such a ridiculous type of question against her. She was threatened with taking her father and her entire family with her if she did not confess to this alleged assassination.

As Renault was being interrogated, the city section where her family lived also carried out an investigation against them, and through it, even more compromising details came floating up to the surface. It was reported that the family, after the overthrow of the monarchy, had had the words ”the nation, the law and the king” on a cartridge box (giberne), words which they at first refused to delete, though they would eventually do so with the ”king” part. Renault’s father, speaking of the murder of Lepeletier in January 1793, was said to have had stated ”Well! One also wants the death of the king, that will cost them dearly,” while his son had openly lamanted the king’s and queen’s imprisonment in the Temple while serving as guard there. His statement had been reported to the rest of the guard unit, but he had ignored it, simply saying that he thought what he thought.

Renault’s three arrested family members — father, brother and aunt — were all interrogated on May 28:

Antoine Renault, 62 years old.

Do you know who the people are that your children frequent and have relations with?

I only know of indifferent relations to neighbors or relatives. A sister of mine, a former nun, called sister gray, came to my house and conferred with my daughter, without me remarking anything in particular between them. Said sister is very attached to religion.

Learning that we were writing down this part of his response, he wanted to cut it out.

Does your daughter have any fanatical prejudices and any passions typical for her age?

I haven’t noticed in my daughter any religious affections, she appears rather indifferent when it comes to this subject. There exists no clue she has any passions, on the contrary, she is watched over and never leaves the house alone, except for when she rarely goes to the market. When she goes out, I always accompany her. I add here that my daughter is very attached to her aunt.

How do you provide maintenance for your daughter?

I myself buy what is necessary for her.

Where were you the fourth (23rd) this month?

I stopped working (j’ai descendu la garde) at two a’clock, I had dinner at my place with my son and daughter. Five o’clock, being on the point of going to bed, my son and daughter engaged me to go out to relax. I did so, carrying with me 25 livres that he owed to a laundress. I returned home at eight o'clock in the evening, where I found my son and the fille Pepin (Papin), both in anguish, and the former troubled because my daughter, who had been gone since six o’clock, had not returned. They told me that before leaving, she had told them to wait for her, that she would return, without saying where she was going. I had as my plan to go see if my daughter was at her aunt’s house, so I left my house, but fearing to meet her on the way, I went inside and went to bed, as did my son, and we got arrested in the night. I don’t know what has become of my daughter since this moment.

He is asked about the small pieces of furniture (petits meubles) that his daughter owned.

I know of scissors, a bad knife with an ivory handle, which was given to her by her brother; another knife with a scale handle, from my dead sister. She does not usually carry them and often has neither.

Do you know what your daughter’s opinion is on the revolution?

She is a good patriot, she loves the republic very much.

Does your daughter miss the tyrant and has she shown that she desires to see a king reestablished in France?

No.

Have you yourself, in your house, sought to inspire your children with dispositions contrary to the Republic and the current government?

No. 

One shows him the letter dated January 3 1793 written by him to his son, the two portraits of the king and the queen found, the two small knives, scissors and a case that he recognizes as belonging to his daughter.

He responds to questions asked regarding the denounciations of which he has been the object. He has never heard his daughter talk about Robespierre or her plan.

Does your daughter know how to read and write?

No, moreover, my daughter has so little inclination towards fanaticism that she has never taken what is called first communion, and has never approached a priest to make what is called confession.

The same day, Antoine-Jacques Renault, 31 years old.

Did you know that the paintings were being kept in a cupboard?

Yes.

Have you served as guard at the Temple? 

Yes, two times.

He denies the conversation attributed to him by a denouncer. He is asked again if priests came to his house and if they declaimed against the Republic?

No.

Do you know Admirat? 

No.

When your sister went out, why were you so worried?

As my sister usually doesn’t go out, I was worried over not seeing her again.

Do you observe that the situation in which you find yourself does not indicate simple concern, but deep affection to dreadful events?

He persists in his answer.

Do you know that your sister planned to assassinate members of the Committee of Public Safety, and were you involved in the plot?

No.

The same day Edme-Jeanne Renault, 60 years, former nun, rue de Babylone, 698. 

Do you often go home to your brother, Antoine Renault?

I go there at least once every décade.

Which priests do you know?

I haven’t seen one in two years. 

Have you had any particular conversations with fille Renault?

I view her as my niece, without particularities.

Do you know someone named Admirat, and do you know that he was known to your niece?

No.

Did you know about your niece’s plan? Were you an accomplice? Do you know who inspired it? Did conversations hostile to the republic take place in your house?

No.

The same day her three relatives were heard, Renault was her too picked in by Dumas for a fourth interrogation:

Eight days before your arrest, did you not strongly press a seamstress to carry out work that you had given her?

Yes, and these works were garments.

Did you say to this worker that you were in a hurry for these clothes, and that you didn't know what could happen, and that you could get guillotined in eight days?

I may have said that.

How is it that eight days before your arrest, you could foresee that you could get guillotined?

I have no idea.

Did your family know that you were preparing for first communions?

Never.

How did you know that Blondeau, priest of Saint-Denis-du-Pas, died last Pentecost?

It is only too true that the good priest is dead, I do not want to say from whom I learned of his death.

Do you want to declare that it was he who suggest to you the plan that you attempted to carry out?

Nobody did.

Do you often see your aunt, the former nun?

About every fortnight, and not as often as I would have desired.

She doesn’t want to make more declarations.

She declares that she doesn’t know how to sign.

Signed only F. Girard.

Renault was not perceived as some ”lone madwoman” by the authorities. Instead, they viewed her alleged assassination attempt as part of a bigger conspiracy, connected first and foremost to Henri Admirat’s attempt on Collot d’Herbois life one day earlier. Admirat and Renault were in their turn believed to be accomplices of Baron de Batz, a royalist and former member of the National Assembly, who had since turned against the revolution and was currently in hiding. According to letter written by the Committee of General Security to the public prosecutor exactly a month before Renault’s visit to Robespierre, de Batz had tried to rescue the royal family from the Temple by pretending to serve a guard there, tried to rally a mob to save the king on the day of his execution, held an Austrian committee directed by Marie-Antoinette, tried to bribe the authorities, and had contacts with both William Pitt, the Vendée, Toulon, Lyon, Marseille and the émigrés, all with the goal ”to assassinate the national representation, the object of his constant rage.” The letter ended by declaring de Batz was officially outlawed and any means were allowed when it came to capturing him.

In the weeks following Renault’s arrest, she would be joined by more people would said to belong to this alleged conspiracy, among them de Batz’ mistress, lodger and secretary, a domestic and seamstress, a former marquis and his son, a banker, a confident of Fabre d’Églantine and Hérault de Séchelles, parisian prisoners de Batz was believed to have influenced, and even several men currently employed in revolutionary administrations believed to benefit the enemy. On June 14, the Convention unanimously decided to immediately send the total of 40 accused before the Revolutionary Tribunal, following a report on the conspiracy read by the Committee of General Security’s Élie Lacoste (the total number would however have been bumped up to 54 once the trial began). The main objective of the conspiracy had according to Lacoste been ”the abduction of Capet's widow, the dissolution of the National Convention, and finally counter-revolution.”

The trial started on June 17 and lasted only for a few hours (I’ve unfortunately not discovered the minutes for it). All of the 54 accused, with the exception of Admirat, denied having been involved in any assassination plan. That was however not enough to stop the tribunal to sentence every single one of them to death. They were executed at four o’clock the very same day, all dressed in red shirts, which the penal code of 1791 had proclaimed all condemned murderers were to wear.

Though Robespierre never so much as saw Renault or Henri Admirat, the assassination attempts are still often seen as a contributing factor to a decline of his mental health in the last months of his life. Already on May 25, he was the author of the following CPS decree, rather panicky in tone, asking Saint-Just, who was currently away with the armies, to return to Paris:

Dear collegue,  Liberty is exposed to new dangers; the factions arise with a character more alarming than ever. The lines to get butter are more numerous and more turbulent than ever when they have the least pretexts, an insurrection in the prisons which was to break out yesterday and the intrigues which manifested themselves in the time of Hébert are combined with assassination attemps on several occasions against members of the Committee of Public Safety; the remnants of the factions, or rather the factions still alive, are redoubled in audacity and perfidy. There is fear of an aristocratic uprising, fatal to liberty. The greatest peril that threatens it is in Paris. The Committee needs to bring together the lights and energy of all its members. Calculate whether the army of the North, which you have powerfully contributed to putting on the path to victory, can do without your presence for a few days. We will replace you, until you return, with a patriotic representative.  The members composing the Committee of Public Safety. Robespierre, Prieur, Carnot, Billaud-Varennes, Barère. 

The next day, May 26, after Barère in the name of the CPS had read a report to the Convention regarding the assassination attemps (calling Renault ”a royalist as fanatical as the most inveterate of couriers”) and using them as a weapon against the English, Robespierre mounted the roatroom and held a fiery speech — ”calumnies, treasons, fires, poisonings, atheism, corruption, famine, assassinations, have all lavished their crimes; there still remains assassination, and then assassination, and then again assassination.” He appeared at the Jacobins the following day but after that he didn’t speak in public again until June 8, the day of the Festival of the Supreme Being. The Convention deputy Joachim Vilate claimed in the pamphlet Causes secrètes de la révolution du 9 au 10 thermidor (1794) that Robespierre during the last months of his life ”spoke only of assassination, again assassination, always assassination. He was frightened his own shadow would assassinate him. One month before his overthrow I had only set foot in his house and was given worried and threatening looks.”

The assassination attemps are also commonly seen as a contributing factor to the creation of to the Law of 22 Prairial, passed by the Convention on June 10, which Renault and the other accused were also judged under.

#cécile renault #robespierre #frev #french revolution #long post #ask #”i wasn’t gonna harm him but i think he’s a tyrant and i want to see the government overthrown.” #girl what kind of strategy is THAT??? #either go all in ”yes i was gonna stab him and i’m proud of it.” #or just go ”oh no i had no evil intentions whatsoever i just always carry knives on me. i ❤️ max!!! #also ”oh no my daughter/sister who never leaves the house alone has left it alone without telling me where and i’m super worried” #”well best just go to sleep and hope she shows up eventually” #like WHO reasons like that????

[thefirstknife]

The Witness and the Unveiling

I've been processing the new cutscene for days now and had a lot of good conversations with other people. A lot of people are interested in figuring out what this cutscene means for the lore book Unveiling, which is also my big interest. I'll talk about the lore book itself and how it related to the cutscene and what that possibly means for our understanding of the setting.

A LOT of the text will be super speculative, very long, often abstract and ultimately not conclusive. I'll drop absolutely everything I can think of to discuss about this to try and gather every possible question and possible answers in one place. But the truth is that we don't know the answers to these questions and maybe we never will.

What is the Unveiling lore book?

First things first. The Unveiling is a lore book that we started uncovering at the end of Shadowkeep. Shadowkeep campaign ends with us acquiring a strange artifact: an orb that we recover from the Lunar Pyramid, in front of the statue of a veiled figure. As soon as we touch it, we are transported into the Black Garden and the cutscene with our clone plays.

After this cutscene, we return to the Moon and we give the orb we collected to Eris. At the time of Shadowkeep's original release, Eris worked on the orb for weeks to come, revealing 1 lore tab per week. Every page of this lore book is narrated by an unknown entity who told us about the time before the universe existed and then about the creation of the universe. It also told us about the Gardener and the Winnower, their struggle, their philosophies, what we (Guardians) mean to them and ultimately what might be coming in the future. It's one of the fundamental texts for Destiny.

Is the Unveiling now retconned with the new cutscene?

This is a question that gets both asked and claimed a lot. The answer is no. First and foremost, if we're talking about a hard retcon (Bungie saying that this lore book is no longer considered canon or Bungie simply ignoring to mention it ever again), that is literally impossible. Unveiling is the culmination of a non-vaulted campaign that's considered a big part of the Light and Darkness saga and it will never be removed from canon. This text is not only the ending of a campaign, it is referenced in-game; characters have canonically read it and commented on it, most notably in Witch Queen Collector's Edition and it's directly referenced in the lore book Inspiral from the newest raid which I'll touch on later. But the point is, if they wanted to quickly push Unveiling under the rug, they wouldn't have told us "hey remember Unveiling?" with the Lightfall's raid lore.

If people are talking about a retcon in the sense of "we believed that certain things from this text are true, but now new information is challenging that, does that mean that the original text is being retroactively changed or rendered pointless?" The answer is also no, though with a big caveat. (super long post under)

The thing is that the Unveiling was never 100% proven true. We have always known this. We've received this text from a Darkness artifact and the narrator of it is very clearly both biased and unreliable. The Unveiling is not telling us objective truth, it's telling us a biased interpretation of something that may or may not be truth. There is probably some truth to the Unveiling, which I'll get into a bit later, but it is largely a propaganda piece, meant to sway us to the side of the Darkness and reject the Traveler (Gardener). It uses a familiar and casual language to make it more relatable while it talks about how the Gardener made a fundamental mistake by wanting to introduce complexity and unpredictability to life.

So if new information comes out and says "Unveiling was all a lie or wrong or simply a myth with little connection to reality" it would be perfectly in line with what we know about Unveiling right now. I expected that at some point we should learn directly if Unveiling was just a biased tale filled about something incomprehensible that may never be fully true. The new cutscene does nothing to Unveiling outside of simply giving it a new context and a new way to interpret it. This is not new for the Destiny setting which is actually filled with unreliable narrators, characters who lie and characters who are wrong. As a matter of fact, that's what any setting should be like if it strives for realistic storytelling.

The fact that the Unveiling is directly referenced in the newest lore from the newest raid means that Bungie didn't magically forget about this lore book. They literally basically added two extra pages of it with Root of Nightmares. But we never knew the true meaning of the Unveiling so any new information that confirms or denies certain parts of it makes full sense in the story.

Unveiling and the Witness cutscene

So, what are the issues and contention between these two things? Well, there's a lot. A lot of little details from the Witness cutscene are now putting a lot of original interpretations of Unveiling into question. Did we blindly believe in this origin of the universe myth that the Unveiling told? Is it a complete fabrication? Is there at least a kernel of truth to it? Who wrote the Unveiling?

The biggest divergence comes from the fact that Unveiling claims there are incomprehensible entities that created the universe called Gardener and Winnower; the Gardener becoming the Traveler and the Winnower being completely unknown. The cutscene explicitly calls the Traveler "Gardener" but it's revealed that was a name given to it by the Witness' species when they stumbled upon it on their planet, covered in dirt. How can this be the entity that created the universe?

When the Witness was officially introduced at the end of the Witch Queen, the immediate assumption of many was that the Witness was the Winnower. This is now categorically untrue, at least on some level (will get to it eventually later); the Witness is not an entity that fought the Gardener in the allegorical garden that predates the existence of the universe. So does the Winnower still exist as that entity that fought in the garden?

Let's summarise the Unveiling piece by piece first. First page is an introduction with a lot of grand claims about the nature of existence. It immediately makes it clear that the narrator is selling us a worldview:

But imagine the abomination of a world where nothing can end and no choice can be preferred to any other. Imagine the things that would suffer and never die. Imagine the lies that would flourish without context or corrective. Imagine a world without me.

Pages two, three, four and five claim to detail a time from before the universe existed presented in an allegorical tale about a Gardener and Winnower that live in a garden and play a game. The allegorical language is not subtextual, it's very much explicitly told that this is an allegory.

Once upon a time,* a gardener and a winnower lived** together in a garden.*** * It was once before a time, because time had not yet begun. ** We did not live. We existed as principles of ontological dynamics that emerged from mathematical structures, as bodiless and inevitable as the primes. *** It was the field of possibility that prefigured existence.

The story goes: before the universe existed, Gardener and Winnower played a game of life. They were able to configure the game board with starting set pieces and then let it play out and see what comes out of it. The end of the game was always the same; the same pattern would always win and the game's ending would always be predictable. This bothered the Gardener who wanted complexity and freedom. It didn't bother the Winnower; the Winnower prefered the clean and clear cut outcome that always follows the same principles and always leads to the same conclusion.

Page six is an interjection with a philosophical question about the nature of a specific protein. The page explains it to us and asks if this protein is an agent of Darkness or the Light. This is not entirely relevant to the topic at hand, but it's important for the understanding of how Unveiling is trying to exert its bias onto the reader by presenting some sort of a gotcha. It wants us to come to the conclusions that benefits the narrator.

After that, page seven resumes the origin story of the universe. They fought together in the garden about their differences and about the Gardener's decision to make a new rule for the game. Their fight was so fundamental that it led to the creation of the universe. The chapter title is "T=0" which means "time equals zero" and is a part of understanding how the universe was made out of nothing.

The garden had given birth to creation, the rules were in place, and there would never be a second chance. We played in the cosmos now. We played for everything.

Page eight returns to trying to sway us to its side by telling us that the concept of predation is what made all of life possible and that it is the narrator who is responsible for our existence.

It was the first defector—the first predator. It changed everything. Now the oozeballs needed sensors to watch for danger, and brains to integrate those senses and generate plans of survival, and swift neurons and muscles to enact that plan. This was the Cambrian Explosion, the great birth of complex life on your world. I caused it. I, the defector, the destroyer, the one who takes.

It's selling us a worldview again. It wants us to believe that the reason we have everything we do is because of the sword logic; everyone fighting for the right to exist. When everyone fights, everyone has to evolve to defend and survive, therefore the reason we've evolved is because we had to fight. This is a huge contrast with how the Gardener works. The Gardener jumpstarts and uplifts species by gardening, terraforming, evolving them without the need to struggle. The Gardener also doesn't pick and choose when it comes to terraforming; everyone is equally important and you don't have to justify or prove your right to exist. An ant's value is the same as a human's. To the narrator, that simply cannot be. If the ant can't prove the right to exist by being stronger, then it should not exist. This always showed bias and the way this ideology works on the misinterpretation of the "survival of the fittest" phrase; survival of the fittest isn't "survival of the strong" it's "survival of those who are best adapted to their environment."

Page nine is very important and is one of the things that makes Unveiling possibly true in some aspects. Namely, this page called Patternfall, is about the Vex. The narrator describes the Vex and how they existed in the allegorical garden from which they escaped into the universe with the Big Bang. Before the battle between Gardener and Winnower, the Vex, this pattern, always won the game. The Vex were the winning outcome of every game played, the source of Gardener's frustration and Winnower's elation.

Given that we know that the Vex are real and that they have a... tenuous relationship with time, this part of the story feels correct. It would make sense that the Vex predate time itself, which would explain why they are able to navigate it and manipulate it as easily as we manipulate any other force; the Vex already existed when all of time was a singularity before the Big Bang, this is known to them. Not only that, but the Vex can't understand paracausality, which was added to the game as a new rule, a rule they've never seen before. The description of the Vex in this chapter is also on point so it's has to be correct or close to correct.

They propagated in the saline meltwater of comets orbiting the first stars. That broth of chemicals became their substrate, and they learned to catalyze impossible chemistry with quantum tricks. Then, they rained from the sky into the steaming seas of fallow worlds, and there they built their first housings from geometry and silica.

We know that they are linked to first stars because of Clovis Bray's expedition to 2082 Volantis, an impossibly old star dating back to the beginning of the universe that the Vex have kept artificially alive ever since by refuelling it.

In all their transformations, they retained that kernel of ultimate self-sufficiency that had made them victors in the flower game. But they are not incontrovertibly destined to rule this cosmos. They were made before Light and Darkness, but the rules are different now, and even this pattern must adapt.

Patternfall also makes a note about the Vex that are alligned with Darkness: Sol Divisive of the Black Garden.

They are not all mine, not in the way that admirers such as my man Oryx are mine: utterly devoted to the practice of my principle. But some of them have, nonetheless, found their way home.

This specific page tells us that at least in some way, some sections of the Unveiling must be telling an objective truth, or at least be as close to the truth as possible. Barring any new reveals about the Vex, this seems to fit with what we know about them so it must be correct. The Vex are the way they are because they predate the universe and their existence in the universe right now is the only remnant of a time before time. They used to be the final shape, always, until paracausality was introduced and now they must fight with the rest of us to reclaim their position. This means that the allegorical garden where the Gardener and Winnower lived and fought must be in some way real. Remember, we are talking about a time from before the universe. The word "real" is a very loose description of that place, but the Vex must've come from there and possibly have a memory of being there so it there must be a "there" before the Big Bang. Mind boggling stuff going on. (As an aside, the Vex HAVE to be the core of The Final Shape expansion. They gotta. Also note that there is a weird metaphysical space on the other side of the portal)

Speaking of aspects that have to be true or at least reflect truth; there is the Tree of Silver Wings. This is mentioned throughout Unveiling as a tree that existed in the garden that was toppled when the Gardener and Winnower fought. The Tree is clearly real because we've seen iterations of it several times now. A completely new Tree was grown in the cradle on Io and now we can also see the Tree in Root of Nightmares, growing at the cradle on the Witness' Pyramid. The seeds of the Tree are also real; Osiris had one and so did Calus and we've seen both. How does the allegorical Tree from an allegorical garden from before the universe existed relate to the real Trees in a very real universe is completely unknown.

Page ten is a lot more attempts to convince us that the narrator is the correct choice to follow and that its philosophy is the winning one and that we should abandon the Gardener and join them. The narrator also tells us that we don't have rush with our answer because it is coming over to meet us anyway. This was the end of Shadowkeep so it was quite an ominous message. The Shadowkeep year ended with the arrival of the Black Fleet to our system and then was further expanded in Beyond Light where we gained a more direct contact with them and their gifts of stasis.

The final page, eleven, is Eris' message to us about hope and resistance to the allure of Darkness. Mind you that she's not talking about using aspects of Darkness as tools, but more about the philosophy of it as it's presented in Unveiling; you can use the Darkness without entertaining the Darkness and the philosophy of the extreme version of the sword logic.

Okay, so what's the issue between this and the Witness cutscene? Well, before the reveal of the Witness in general, we believed that the narrator of the Unveiling, the Winnower, is the big bad. The entity that is the origin of Darkness, the entity that made the Black Fleet, the entity that controls our enemies. This was never confirmed, but it was a reasonable conclusion to Unveiling, until further notice. Now we know that some parts of this aren't true. The Witness is the big bad and the Pyramids are just the remains of its species' technology. And while the Witness does fulfil some of the roles of the Winnower, we now know that the Witness is not the origin of Darkness so it cannot be the Winnower that's spoken of in Unveiling, not the Winnower that existed before the universe.

The Witch Queen and some hints here and there before that (mostly in the Presage mission where Savathun more or less explicitly told us that the Darkness is not the same as the entity that we're fighting against) introduced the Witness directly without any metaphors or vague language. We finally saw this being, in full glory, as it emerged, moved and spoke. From then until now, we've tried to understand the Witness but we really knew nothing substantial.

A lot of conversations were about the nature of the Witness and the Winnower, the narrator of Unveiling. Were they the same thing? Or are they separate entities? Is the Winnower even real or is it literally just a metaphor for a philosophy, an idea, that the Witness represents? There's always people who will immediately clamor about "retcons" but once again, the Unveiling was never an objective truth. We made assumptions about the Unveiling and its narrator, but none of those assumptions were ever confirmed in any way. This is also reflected in-game with characters discussing the meaning of the Unveiling in many different ways. Unveiling being unreliable and unclear was intended. The Witness existing does not contradict or remove Unveiling's significance. It just recontextualises and already unreliable text that was never objective to begin with.

And it continues to do so. The Witness cutscene first and foremost shows us the Traveler, curiously covered in dirt and depicted almost as if it's rising from the ground. The Witness' people are described as discovering it and naming it "Gardener." It then uplifted them, terraformed their world and gave them a golden age which is familiar to us.

But wait. If the Gardener is from a time before the universe, how is it now suddenly a dirt covered orb on a random planet? This is where the Unveiling being interpreted literally becomes a problem. If the Gardener (and Winnower) aren't from a time before the Big Bang and that whole allegory of a garden that existed before the universe is a lie, then what is the Unveiling and who wrote it and for what purpose?

I've seen a lot of good discussions on it that I'd like to highlight here. This post discusses things in a similar way to what I'm writing here, for example. Just a little while ago, I reblogged this interpretation of it which I really like which differs from this. There's been a lot of various similar theories in which the Witness has simply created this idea of the Winnower and the associated philosophy after it went through an existential crisis of catastrophic proportions; the Unveiling is simply entirely a lie, an attempt to make people believe the winnowing philosophy.

It's a good question to ask what of the story of the Vex and the Gardener if Unveiling is fully a lie. A really important note here is that we've known from other sources that the Traveler is the Gardener. Both from other characters, most notably in Lightfall from Osiris, but also from the Traveler itself and the Unveiling. So if Unveiling is bullshit, what about the Vex and the Gardener? Why did the Gardener even appear on the random planet from the dirt?

My theory is that Unveiling is partially correct. Something incomprehensible WAS happening before the universe existed; it involved forces that would end up becoming the Light and Darkness, the Gardener, the Vex and probably the Veil. This period of time is so abstract and unfathomable that we cannot physically understand it through anything but allegory. Some believe that the Veil now fulfils the role of the Winnower which is possible, but I'm not sure how likely; we will need even more information on the Veil to make that judgement call. Either way, Unveiling's myth about the origins of everything could still hold true in some regard. If that's true, we know that the Gardener made the new rule for the game (paracausality), caused the Big Bang and inserted itself into the new game (aka into the universe). The Gardener thus became the Traveler which it has refered to as being its body.

It feels like lead and neutronium and electroweak matter fashioned into a moon-sized ball that you must carry as you move.

The time before the universe wasn't physical, but the universe is. This body, the Traveler, had to have been made and it's possible that it was made on the Witness' planet. Perhaps that was one of the first planets in existence, a place where the Gardener forged its body and emerged into the existence as a physical being capable of terraforming. The Light is the domain of the physical so it makes sense that the Gardener has to utilise this physicality to be able to do its thing.

The Darkness is psychic; it's emotion, consciousness, the mind. It doesn't have to be physical. Perhaps the Winnower IS real, but it's simply a metaphysical idea that exists in the universe, but cannot be seen. It can influence others; everyone who ponders on the nature of existence runs the risk of being exposed to the idea of winnowing. It's inevitable. Every conscious being can be influenced by Darkness and it's many possibilities; some perfectly neutral or even good and some bad.

And the Witness' people went highly in-depth in their research of the Gardener and then later the Veil. If they were looking for answers to meaning and purpose, they would've likely come close to understanding the origin of the universe. Perhaps from the Gardener (who was there, before the Big Bang) or perhaps by exploring the Veil (which is, as of now, still fairly unknown as an entity) or maybe even the combination of their investigation into both of those. There's some credence to this in particular, given the memory from Ahsa in week 3, mainly this part:

Two halves of a whole... long divided. A... schism between them. Reunited. [exhales in joy] A glimpse beyond... to the beginning...

This most certainly refers to the Traveler and the Veil being reunited and connected as the Witness' people attempted the connection for the first time. And it offered them "a glimpse beyond to the beginning." Beginning of what if not the universe? The connection was never fully realised and the two were never fully reunited. But they were in Lightfall and in Lightfall, this created a portal to an incomprehensible realm into which nobody but the Witness can enter (for now). This realm acts as if it exists somewhere outside of normal spacetime, somewhere beyond, and it resembles... well, a garden world, like a garden from the allegory of existence before the universe.

If the Witness' people saw how the universe began as explored in the Unveiling, they would've absolutely come to the conclusion that everything is meaningless and that the Gardener did something that led to untold suffering, basically on a whim to seek more complex, but ultimately pointless life. Instead of this perfectly ordered garden world where every outcome is known and there is no deviation from the rules, we received a universe that is seemingly random, chaotic and meaningless. At least that would be the interpretation of it in their mind.

The Gardener could've just let things play out infinitely in the game with the same outcome, with the same pattern, but it didn't. It made the universe instead, filled with infinite mysteries and infinite possibilities and you will never know which one of those possibilities are "correct" and which choices are better than others. You will never know where to go and who to follow and what to do and there is no inherent value to any specific choice you make. Countless species will live and die "without meaning and purpose."

This was terrfying to the Witness' people, possibly exactly because they've seen how things were before. Before the Gardener's actions, everyone would have a specific purpose to fulfil in service of reaching the final shape which is always the same. Now, there is no goal, nothing to work towards, nothing to specific to strive for. So they decided to follow the philosophy of an entity that fought the Gardener and take up its job; to winnow in search for the final shape. To reshape reality, reset existence, "free" the Gardener from its own creation.

In that way, Unveiling is still very much true and it's the same as ever; it's a subjective interpretation of the origins of the universe told in a biased nature by a being that learned to despise the chaos of existence and would want to return to the way things were before.

So who wrote the Unveiling then? Again, many theories. Since the Witness' reveal in WQ, a lot of people speculated that the Witness wrote it and that the Witness is same as the Winnower. That could be true now, in a way; the Witness took up the mantle of the Winnower so it might as well be it. The Unveiling is written with a tone and voice that differs from how we know the Witness, but now we also know that the Witness is a being of billions; perhaps there is a voice in there who writes text and who speaks that way. It could also be just a ruse; the Witness is a manipulator who lies constantly. It could've written this text in this way to deliberately confuse, manipulate and coerce us; the Unveiling "tone" is fake and it was also fake when it spoke to Oryx.

Another option is that Unveiling was still written by the entity we know as the Winnower. If the Winnower is the origin of Darkness, coming from the garden from before the universe, then it is metaphysical; it's in the mind and consciousness. It doesn't need a body or to be fully physical. It can influence and talk and BE simply by being the origin of consciousness. Every conscious being can access the Winnower. The Winnower is every idea that leads to predation and killing and death. It's every thought and dream and memory and pain. It could've touched the Witness' people and pushed them to adopt its philosophy when they went too far with their research and especially when they connected to the Veil. It could've tried doing the same to us, when we connected to the Darkness artifact in a Pyramid at the end of Shadowkeep.

There is also the angle that the tale from Unveiling is literally entirely untrue. There was nothing before the universe existed. The description of the Vex was the Witness' attempt to understand how they function, or a piece of truth added to make the rest of the text seem correct to those that read it. The myth of the garden and the two entities fighting could be an attempt to give meaning to how everything started, giving a reason to pursue the Traveler and feel justified doing it.

The main point here is that we don't know and we might never know given the incredibly allegorical and mythologised way that Unveiling is talking about something that is incredibly hard to conceptualise in the first place. An interesting bit to add here is the concept of egregore:

Egregore (also spelled egregor; from French égrégore, from Ancient Greek ἐγρήγορος, egrēgoros 'wakeful') is an esoteric concept representing a non-physical entity that arises from the collective thoughts of a distinct group of people.

It's not an accident that egregore in Destiny is a physical manifestation of psychic connections that links points of Darkness together. It comes from this originally; basically if enough people think about the same thing or believe in the same thing, they will create an "egregore" = their thought or belief will spawn a non-physical entity associated with that thought or belief. In that sense, the Witness' people may have created the Winnower when they all united in thinking about how the universe is meaningless without a Winnower. The Winnower is an egregore created by the Witness' people and the belief in this egregore manifests physically as the egregore fungus which infests and links everyone who believes in the Winnower. Perhaps, even, if the Winnower is that egregore, something created by the first beings that ventured that far into metaphysics and then it retroactively became tied to the universe. Once the Winnower was created, the Witness' people tried explaining where it fits into the universe, constructing an origin myth around it. Perhaps they weren't aware that they manifested the Winnower, and believed that they simply discovered it and that the origin myth they constructed was them learning some bigger truth.

There are issues and questions with any of these explanations and they all go into super abstract possibilities and options. If the garden before the universe is entirely a myth, then what of the Gardener and the Vex and the Tree of Silver Wings? If there's truth to how the universe began, what about the Witness being simply a species that got uplifted and went mad with horrors of knowledge? Was the Winnower real in the garden before time or is it merely something conjured from the minds of a people who wanted purpose and meaning?

Furthermore, what about Inspiral, the raid lore book whose last two pages are very reminiscent of the Unveiling, reference it and function almost like extra two pages for it? Inspiral is particularly strange because each page starts with a description of a being that left its memories in the book. First of the final two pages, Meaning, describes its narrator as:

A dream of a metaphor made starkly, an allegory discussed in study of ontology, in Darkness not unkind. It leaves behind a warped, barely-real data fragment to mark its passing.

And the second, Winnowing:

A dream of a friendly conversation with someone impossible to see, cloaked in shadows. It leaves behind an impossible data fragment to mark its passing.

Neither of these descriptions fit the Witness. The Witness is not a metaphor or an allegory, nor is it "barely-real." It is also not "impossible to see" nor does it leave behind "impossible data." The Witness is very much real, though clearly ascended into a state of being beyond our comprehension, but we can very much hear it and see it. The cutscene very clearly explains that the Witness began as just another species and achieved a higher existence; it's not some weird mystical energy that originated before the universe began. Most of all, the Witness is neither kind nor friendly.

The only metaphor and allegory is the garden from before the universe and the Gardener and the Winnower that fought in it. The Gardener manifested as the Traveler, but the Winnower is unknown to us. These two pages read, again, almost exactly the same as Unveiling and they bear no resemblance to the Witness, neither in tone nor in the description of their narrator(s). Obviously, it could be lies and manipulations on purpose which is something to keep in mind in general.

But the page Meaning very clearly makes a distinction between two entities:

There is a voice that echoes across the Darkness, and it asks this question: what is the purpose of it all? And there is another voice that calls back and says: listen, I will tell you a purpose. I will tell you of a Final Shape.

After seeing the cutscene, the first sentence could obviously refer to the Witness' people. They sought purpose and meaning. The second specifies that something answered, something else, when they dug deep into the Veil. Did that something exist on its own, predating the Witness, or did the Witness create it, like an egregore? Either way, the Witness inquired and something returned the call OR the text is referring to a generalised idea of anyone exploring the Darkness, asking that question and then getting a reply from the Winnower, which is a creation of the Witness.

On the other hand, there's the issue of the Darkness being a much more complex phenomenon than we've previously believed. If the Winnower is the origin of Darkness, then would it not represent ALL of Darkness? As of right now, both Unveiling and Inspiral pages that we might be able to attribute to the Winnower are distinctly focused only on the sword logic aspect which fits more with the Witness. The Witness and its pawns have extermined species that also used the Darkness, in different ways. Would the Winnower not acknowledge the entirety of Darkness? This issue can be better solved if we insist that the Witness is what invented or manifested the Winnower and its ideology. Darkness is more than winnowing, that's for sure, but the Witness and its manifestation of the Winnower are focused only on winnowing.

Some more concrete answers may lay in our understanding of the Veil. We're beginning to gather more information about this entity and the cutscene itself shed some light on it as well. The Veil was connected to the Traveler, always, even before the Witness' people found it. It was not near the Traveler, but instead somewhere far away where the Witness' people had to fly to in order to bring it back. Some already believe that the Veil is the Winnower or a product of it; that the Winnower and the Gardener were these abstract entities in the garden before the universe and then became the Veil and the Traveler post-Big Bang, but still connected.

The truth is that this is a highly complicated concept to think about, explore and explain. The Unveiling could be one being's attempt to explain how the universe began and it could be true or it could be false. Nothing in the cutscene explicitly tells us either way, nor does it render the Unveiling useless (and it also doesn't render it a word of god).

The science and philosophy about the origin of the universe are unknown in real life and will probably remain unknown in Destiny. To expect a fictional story to accurately and unambiguously tell us how the universe began is to expect A LOT. The only ones that could truly maybe tell us are the Traveler (Gardener) and the Veil. The question is, would we be able to withstand knowing something like that. Many who peered into the Veil have lost their minds and the Traveler does not speak of things like that because divulging such information would inevitably put someone on a set path. To know everything is to lose choice. You know exactly where to go, how, when and why, as well as what will happen when you get there. The Gardener wants us to make our own fate and it wants the universe to not lead into any specific outcome.

This is some of the most bizarre and wild high concept scifi stuff we've ever had in Destiny. I don't expect us to solve it so quickly after major new information has been revealed and there's still a lot more to find out. This is a really exceptionally long dive into some of the theories and options. A lot of people don't like this type of unreliable philosophical conundrums and would much rather just prefer to be told the facts. And I don't think we'll ever know facts about these topics in a way that would make them easy to digest. Unveiling might one day be fully explained in a way that will allow us to construct the true history of the universe and its origins, but it might also not be. Perhaps it will remain a perpetual mystery to force to wonder about these concepts.

I'd personally prefer a little bit of mystery to remain; for both us and the Witness to forever wonder what was the meaning of it all, what was our purpose, have we chosen it "correctly" and what our choices could've led to if we've done things differently.

#destiny 2 #destiny 2 spoilers #season of the deep #season of the deep spoilers #witness #unveiling #lore vibing #long post #i did say this cutscene made me insane #and then also it brought up questions about the unveiling and unveiling makes me super insane #long rambling post be upon ye #i really enjoy reading thoughts on this so if anyone would interpret something differently or has better evidence feel free to share #also btw don't feel bad if this is all super confusing #i believe the story around it very much intended to give us a headache and require like 4 degrees in philosophy #i myself am also confused by a lot of the points raised by this whole thing #being confused is not a inherently a bad thing. we are moved to learn by confusion #it pushes us to want to explore and understand #i love this incomprehensible eldritch scifi shit that makes me question existence and reality #no wonder people go insane when they start unraveling the knowledge about the universe