Owl convo about…things

Preview:

I’m not sure how to manage the tone shift from “YOU”RE GOING TO DIE TOMORROW” to “Octopus melons, where melons = big breasts”.

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(Arbitrary starting point in the conversation)

…[That] explains that thing Milo said about the Alt-Right only winning when it was having fun.

Having fun is to operate on the moral level of combat
The risk is that you stop thinking and lost all strategy

All types of jokes reduce to various forms of mockery.
This is my great insight.

Something has to be the butt. And if joking about the absurdities of life, well, most absurdities are put in place by someone, somewhere
Anyway, worldviews have been on my mind
the old line “there are knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns” is often mocked, but there’s a great deal of truth to it

I don’t see the sense in mocking it.

People make plans based on what they know, and sometimes in preparation for the “known unknowns” that they don’t know

There are unknown knowns too, which is basically my field of expertise.

BUT, all worldviews are simplifications based on a small number of assumptions/principles
Even a perfect plan is unsound in the face of unknown unknowns, much the same way a philosophical idea is rendered invalid if a starting assumption is weak/incorrect

I’m imagining the plan looking like a web inside one of the parts of the Venn diagram of knowns and unknowns.
But I can’t figure out which part.
I imagine it covering 99% of the known knowns, 50% of the known unknowns, and if the planner is very wise just barely touching into the vast outside of unknown unknowns.

^Yes, very much
If a “perfect plan” is knowing all the chess moves, the unknown unknown is something like the board being revelaed as 3-D, or more peices appearing all of sudden

We don’t know much about Faerie, but we know it never hurts to mind your manners wherever you are, and where you are might reveal itself to be Faerie at any moment.
In which case, it really pays to mind your manners.

Excellent case study
In the face of any possible uncertainty, the correct assumption is that there are unknown unknowns that must be mitigated against

It reminds me of that video of the murders over snow removal in Pennsylvania that Blackpilled covered.

People intuitively realize this, which leads to analysis by paralysis, but they concentrate on the knowns/known unknowns, missing the soruce of the problem

We rely on God’s protection in these things a lot more than we realize.
Prayer before doing something is one of those things that just barely touches into that outside space.
I was thinking earlier about that chaotic evil motif of the world turning out to be entirely an illusion.
“Everything is a lie.”
“You’re a liar for believing.”
Tfw the Shadow gains enough power to assume its final form.

The shadow
The adversary
The ultimate unknown unknown

Hence all that Cthulhu shit lately.
Ah yes, we never talked about something important.
https://mobile.twitter.com/es_aion/status/1356249368601522177

I count 9 tentacles
That’s not right
We sure this is real?

Are you familiar with that story about the octopus that was observing the routes of aquarium personnel, unlocking its cage, eating the rare fish, then locking itself back in?

haha yes

And how they basically came from outer space on a meteor genetically?

I’m familiar with that theory.
It wouldn’t surprise me
Anything else on eath, sure
But cephalopods are plausibly aliens

Would you be interested in worshiping Jenova?
https://www.vgcats.com/comics/?strip_id=199
I started thinking about this in a joking way by saying that Ivy from Soul Caliber is an octopus melon because she’s wearing an octopus as lingerie.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/369/367/868.jpg
But I wasn’t joking because as Yahtzee pointed out, she’s a domineering sexy stand-in for your mom. A “devouring mother”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ereshkigal
Though i suppose an argument could be made for tiamat as well

Yeah, that’s exactly what I’m talking about.
That’s when I started thinking that sometimes the ineffable strangeness of the space octopus demons may be anthropomorphized in these type of female characters.
So here’s what I’m thinking about as these sort of all-powerful, apocalyptic, “who is she really working for” Goddess matron characters:

-Ivy (cartoon version for 5 year olds)
-The Major from Ghost in the Shell
-Rei from Evangelion
-Jenova from FF7
(Added as we talked)
-Ran from Texhnolyze
-Lain from Serial Experiments Lain
(Also probably Bayonetta but I haven’t played it. I guess her catsuit is her hair?)
(Maybe Slan from Berserk, she doesn’t really have a human backstory but I bet I could write one based on this archetype.)

It’s not a lot to go on, but there’s a lot of purples and blues and whites on the color palette, and they all have red eyes.
Well, Ivy doesn’t 100% fit.
And the Ghost in the Shell girl had blue eyes in the movie.

Shelob from Lord of the Rings seem to call to mind this archetype, though obviously in a very different way. Galadriel hints at it as well

I think the most interesting features are the confusing relationship with the Alchemist character (Aramaki in Stand-Alone Complex), and the apocalyptic element.
In the ending of the Ghost in the Shell movie, she becomes transhuman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3KSfWtjJLE
Oh shit, that reminds me that another character which loosely fits this mold is Ran from Texhnolyze.
Basically, it’s the female counterpart to Griffith carrying a behelit around. There’s this sense that, in the midst of floating to destiny on superhuman skills, she’s on some terrifying vision quest that’s going to come to a head at any moment.
And then something like the Akira ending happens.
The thing with the Alchemist is interesting because he’s trying to harness an irrational force of nature with his supercomputer-like brain.
Watching Aramaki pretending to be in charge and Kusanagi pretending to obey in Stand-Alone Complex is a lot more interesting now.
There’s this weird tension like they both get the joke and one of these days she’s going to walk away and become the internet or some shit. [Ed: this is a reference to Serial Experiments Lain]
But Aramaki is still going through the motions like it’s his fate to pretend his Game is working on this woman.

Interesting contrast with Hellsing’s Alucard, who genuinely has bound himself and will willingly serve until the end of time

Yeah, that’s a good comparison.
Gender-swap both characters.
If I understand Alchemists correctly, it’s both frustrating and exhilarating to be pulling out all the stops and doing everything that’s supposed to work, and still have no control.
Kind of like these black magicians with their elaborate systemizing and deals and contracts and, ultimately, being at the whim of being granted or not granted their power.

“But I did the ritual perfectly Great Mother! You said you like bold men!”
“I have a headache tonight.”
“WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME”

I have finally achieved total control!
The ILLUSION of total control
Leasing isn’t owning honey

But I paid the price you asked for!
It always worked before!

And I gave you waht you wanted for the duration of the contract.
It was all PERFECTLY fair

(Until she decides she’s not big on contracts anymore.)

“Force Majeure”

So what we’re talking about here is a character that exists on the border of unknown knowns and unknown unknowns.
If the former is the unconscious, then the latter is the existential dread of guessing at what death is really like.
Call it the fear of the unimaginable and, when the image of it appears without warning, the incomprehensible.
Along with the base understanding that, along the spectrum of possible conscious experiences, we can comprehend lower lows than we can comprehend higher highs.
That’s one of the lines that makes Hellraiser so genuinely scary (it really got under my skin).

Kirsty: Who are you?
Pinhead: Explorers, in the further regions of experience. Demons to some, angels to others.
“I thought I’d gone to the limits. I hadn’t. The Cenobites gave me an experience beyond limits… pain and pleasure, indivisible.”
“We have such sights to show you.”

Getting back to this anthropomorphized chaotic Goddess figure, here’s a quick list of features that come to mind:

-Transhumanism themes
-Seer-like insight (e.g. Ran)
-Heralds Cthulhu (or is Cthulhu, in the case of Jenova)
-Might survive the apocalypse, but you definitely won’t
-Works with the Alchemist until she doesn’t
-Color palette:
–Primary: white
–Secondary: either blue or purple
–Accents: Red
-Typical look is big breasts and mature with a hint of dominatrix, but often takes the form of a little girl in the truly apocalyptic parts (Ran, Lain, Rei, the end of Ghost in the Shell)

Physical depiction of nurturing mother until the apocalyptic shift

Then a creepy little shaman girl with unimaginable power and incomprehensible plans.
And the Alchemist is all like “This stopped being sexy.”

This apocalyspe 8/10, horrifying but needs more titties

Gendo to Cenobite lady: “To be honest right now what I want is to be reunited with my wife and have regular sex.”
“I’m okay with genociding all life on earth but there are limits to how much fun you can have with horror, you know?”

I’m a MODERATE extinctionist

“When I said I’d follow you to hell that was more of a metaphor.”

If i’d just focused on my watercolors none of this would have happened.

MANY SUCH CASES
I feel pretty good about this content. Wasn’t expecting it to be this articulated.

Today was good

I’m not sure how to manage the tone shift from “YOU”RE GOING TO DIE TOMORROW” to “Octopus melons, where melons = big breasts”.

Yin-Yang. Push-Pull. High tide-low tide.
Each thing evokes its opposite
Death-life
Chaos-calm
Devouring Mother-Nurturing Mother

I guess the tie-in is the octopus apocalypse.
Or the Octopocalypse, if you will.

October is apocalypse season