Ah Yes, Me And My Alter Egos

Ah yes, me and my alter egos

Me tomorrow morning, reading all the think pieces from angry gamers screaming how gay people shouldn’t exist in their game where a lesbian teenager is the embodiment of hope

It would seem that Basic Glitches by Eleventyseven turns three years old today. I stumbled upon this album in January 2020 and it was sort of life-changing? Put words to things I had been feeling for years but couldn't explain. Fear The Fire and Letterman Jacket in particular meant a lot to me at the time and I still love them. Thank you Matt Langston for making music that made me feel less alone in a time of isolation.

In honor of the occasion, some of my favorite lyrical bits:

"We got the alchemy to turn tiny problems to trauma"

"We caught you summoning a savior hell-bent on destruction

A whole fist of itchy trigger fingers next to the button"

-Killing My Vibe

"I was birthed headfirst

Into shame, into flame like a

Curse burning my wonder into waste for you

You know I ran away just like I do

And all that lingers are these

Teenage blood pact promises we made

They sink like fangs into me when I think of you

I threw away the best parts of me for you"

"Had a dream that you watched me die

You lit the cigarette that burned me alive"

-Fear The Fire

(Although honestly the entirety of Fear The Fire could go here)

"I wander 'round the house at night

Too scared to sleep 'cause I

Can't shake this dream I'm havin' lately

That we bleed out before the medics show

Float up to find the gates are closed

You turn away and say you blame me"

-Letterman Jacket

IMO one of the most oversimplified parts of bioshock discussion i've seen online is the difference between suchong and tenenbaum re: treatment of the little sisters. yeah suchong hates children and tenenbaum eventually redeems herself, but i wish more people talked about them within the context of the cycle of violence as a whole.

suchong and tenenbaum came of age during the second world war. both were victimized by the axis powers, losing their entire families. both were spared only by a combination of blind luck and their own wits, and both survived by collaborating with the enemy and experimenting on their own people. the cycle of violence is the literal structure of their lives. it's how they learned the world.

tenenbaum is only able to change because she understands her own place within this cycle. the little girls force her to see that you're not free from it simply by no longer being the one that's being hurt. it occurs to her after seeing jack's actions that there might be a chance at a life outside the language of violence. the effort of helping jack fills the chasm that abandoning your whole worldview might leave you with. it gives her a something to do with her own pain.

suchong cannot come to grips with this possibility, even when tenenbaum writes him a letter begging him to, because to acknowledge an alternative way of existence would require acknowledging the depths to which he has been hurt. in order to survive the war years he forms a theory of mankind that moving to rapture does not disprove at all: everyone is only in it for themselves. cruelty is the engine the world runs on, and you, in order to make it, must strike first, establish dominance, and become the mask. if the world is not "just like that", if everyone is not in on some kind of con, then what happened during the war was cruel, and abnormal, and there was no reason why.

the children freak both of them out because kids can tell when you're hiding something, even if they don't know the nature of what that something is. brigid eventually allows herself to crack before the innocent gaze of the children, but to suchong it's unbearable. it's a reminder of his own history of being trapped and powerless. as scientists, they do a lot of looking, but the girls look back.

Post rank 8 be like-

Heres some silly Persona 5 Drawings (I finished the game and i think its really cool!)

also i know Joker’s glasses are fake but in my heart they’re real

Hope you enjoy, and have an AWESOME day!!