Not All Male Mcyts But Somehow Always A Male Mcyt

People are already making morbius-tier shitposts for the Minecraft movie and its awesome

after seeing the godawful trailer, I did a reread of the Electric State and i cannot physically understand how the russo brothers did not "see potential" in the story

i'll admit, i underappreciated the writing on my first read! going over it again there is so much richness to the character building and the dread of the atmosphere. There's a vibe that I can only describe as desiccated americana and i love it. The world is rotten and dying, and there is really nothing left to do but go on for going on's sake.

anyway i'm doing a very large essay on Stålenhag's whole body of work, but the Electric State holds a special place in my heart as the first of his books I discovered and the most resonant to me, so i just had to share my thoughts right after the reread.

This is less about the artwork, which i could talk about for ages, and more just a general overview of the story themes specifically!

(Moderate general spoilers? i don't go into much detail, and it's not a story overly reliant on its plot twists anyway)

The hopelessness of The Electric State is rather unique among Simon Stålenhag's works - his other books, set in Sweden, are much more fondly nostalgic, though they of course offer strange horrors of their own - but of a much more physical, immediate level.

The Electric State is different. It takes place in an alternate 90s US even more drowned in consumerism and blind greed than our own. A civilization that is crumbling, not from nuclear war or global crises or meteors, but by its own hand, by capitalism driving itself into the ground. The perfect pleasure machine, the neurocaster headset, leaves people twitching, comatose creatures whose minds lie in vast Silicon Valley servers as their bodies are left to starve.

Michelle does not have the privilege of escapism. She is one of the few left to wander a silent world, an apocalypse without people to see it. She is privy to the horror of watching the inevitable trajectory of a world falling to its death, and feels only recognition that it's probably better this way.

Michelle is never sad about the end of America. She doesn't ever reminisce about how good things used to be, or how we should have "appreciated it while we had it." But she certainly does reminisce.

She has the memory of her foster parents, who derided the government "coddling neurine addicts" like Michelle's mother. She has the memory of her grandfather coughing himself to death in their tiny apartment, irradiated from his lifetime of underpaid work assembling gigantic war drones. She has the memory of her mother overdosing on a drug the government hooked her on during her service in the military. She has the memory of her first and only love, a love which the world hated, how it kept her alive in her foster home of Soest City, and how it was ripped from her by the pastor.

Unlike Stalenhag's other stories, there is no element of nostalgia or quiet undertone of hope. Only disgust for what came before, and quiet fear for what comes next.

The horror of the Convergence, the eldritch machine god hivemind, is not even very relevant to the story - if anything, it's a side plot. When Michelle faces actual danger, it's never from giant robot gods in the mist; it's from cops and hotel clerks, from doomsdayers hoarding guns and a FBI agent hunting her down. She lives in fear of other people, of people who say they want to protect her.

But when she sees the gigantic silent machines wandering through the mists of Oregon, she isn't afraid. It's almost peaceful. The Convergence is beyond understanding. It grew out of the servers where millions of minds seeking oblivion from the world went to escape, and they converged into something unknowably vast who wanders the world in a hundred million thoughtless bodies. It's otherworldly. It does not fear, it does not dream, it does not hope, it does not hate. Maybe that's better.

I was scared. But I also felt something else when that thing stepped out of the mist in front of our car. I can't think of a better word than awe. Like when you suddenly become aware that you've walked into the wrong part of the woods and come face-to-face with a gigantic wild animal. Beyond the grotesque, there was also something else - something majestic.

And in its wake, the citizens of Point Linden, hundreds of people linked together, their neurocasters connected to the oily god in the mist, floated across the ground in front of the car, and they looked almost happy. Calm and peaceful, they moved past the car and formed a single group again behind us, and soon disappeared into the mist again.

i've been secretly saving my favorite versions of this meme to my inspirational quotes collection

Imagine washing up on Dinotopia and getting a talk saying "unfortunately, you can't escape this island! You'll never go home or see your loved ones ever again" & then while you're crying they say "I'm sorry, you'll just have to live on the island of dinosaur communism for the rest of your life" and you look up through your bleary eyes and go. Wait what

Most likely. Dude gave thousands of bucks to him and his pals.

Y'all think scott voted for trump again?

Ok so this post was meant to be for a specific bright fan (so im not trying to call out all bright fans or all bright fictives/systems) , but since they have me blocked me since its upload and since they have made it clear that they don't actually care about the victims of bright, I'm making this post anyway.

So, one bright fan on here has decided to make a callout post not only villainizing DJKaktus, but also @daisybellejpeg, you know just the person that is helping make shaw who is a VICTIM OF ADMINBRIGHT S*XUAL AB*SE AND HAS BEEN TRUAMATIZED BY HIS CREATIONS. They claim that Daisybelle is anti-DID/systems and also trying commit Jewish eraser. So since I am very pissed off at the moment, I'm just wanted clear up stuff about that this and leave a little note to people like this fan (also sorry daisy if I put any words in your mouth or act "white knightly", I just feel some else saying something show that their isn't personal bias) :

So for starters, DAISYBELLE IS NOT ANTI-DID/SYSTEMS. They have mentioned multiple times that they acknowledge that they bright systems/fictives are a special situation.

Plus, Daisy in general is always going to be slightly antagonistic towards bright, them being a direct victim of Adminbright, but so far Daisy (imo) has done a good job being clam about handling people who still hold on to bright (at least better than I have). The only thing they have stated that will not tolerate is people giving shit to them about how they create shaw, as its become a healing tool for them.

Now the Bright fan that made that post had decided to include two screenshots "proving" that Daisy is anti-DID/system and a Jewish yet completely left out context points.

For the first one, they completely left out the beginning part of conversations and completely doesn't point how the person daisy is responding to has no idea what they are talking about and the fact that person ten starts to act in a sort a jerkish explaining after daisy saying the initial description.

This, to me, feels very patronizing thing to say especially, and so no surprise Daisy proceeds to go off on them about being patronized. For some reason, though, bright fan tried to twist this into daisy erasing the Jewish rep. This, however, is not only not what they said, as all Daisy said was "you deadass don’t know this since we haven’t even decided on a race", (although I should mention daisy is pushing for shaw to be Mexican American), but even if Shaw isn't Jewish, its probably because they don't want any more connections to bright outside of the number, not because they want erase Jewish people.

As for the second screenshots, while I will admit that daisy was a bit harsh to the user (as they were system stating people to stop using bright and they did make a joke about the way worded on twitter), Daisy, as mentioned before sees Shaw a healing device and people telling others to stop using it doesn't really do anything change. Plus Daisy ends up explaining their point of view in the comments.

Now their is technically one more set of screenshots that try to prove that Daisy does not understand how DID works, but as I mentioned in the beginning, they have said they aren't a expert on DID and that it is a complex situation. At most they have urged people they use the interfaces on sites block tags that causes problems.

That is about all for me laying out the facts, however one more note for the bright fan that made that callout post and for people like the bright fan: can you fucking not villainize the victims of the Duckman. Like, its one thing to go after Kaktus, but its whole another to go after a victim of Bright, one that has a entire fucking document showing the trauma they endured and still haven't fully healed from it, thus clearly having a continued negative stigmatism. Not only does this make you all look like complete dickheads completely inconsiderate about the victims of adminbright, but also paints of bright fans and system/fictives in a negative light along with you. You could of block the shaw tag. You could have used the interface to ignore all the people that cause your mental state problems. Hell, you could of found or make a character that served as a transition from bright, like Dr. Myriad. But instead you decided to attack a already hurt person and doubling down on usage of the character.

Also, P.S., if that origional poster isn't a fictive/system and was simply using other peoples mental disorders as a way to villainize Daisy, then they can go fuck themselves.

learned about the electric state movie. is this how Minecraft fans felt when that trailer released

My guilty pleasure right now is watching luxury hotel reviews and I found this british guy who keeps accidentally clipping into the backrooms.

He's unintentionally making the best liminal horror content on youtube

Simon's name doesn't even show up in the trailer 😭

It's so over...

Sigh. Is nothing sacred.

Tales from the Loop was amazing but this is the kind of thing that I don't think lends itself to a film adaptation. Especially not with Crisp Rat, especially especially not one with Crisp Rat directed by the Russos. Tonal change from the book is inevitable I fear.

Slugsign is a language of many uses