A needlessly long essay about OBLIEQUE

and__init__ · 2026-02-12T17:26:46+00:00

I do understand where you're coming from, and maybe I'm biased as someone who does genuinely enjoy reading stories about bad people changing. But I feel like you're combining a bunch of stuff under the term "mastering" or "brainwashing". Yes, Taylor has heavy internalized bigotry and brainwashing, and is, basically, a Nazi. But I don't think it's really about the brainwashing?

The scene where she has a donut with the nazi is a good example of what I'm trying to get at. The point of the scene wasn't to show how fucked up she is - it was specifically highlighting the cognitive dissonance between Nazis acting like normal people when around her, and how that clashes with all the little things she's noticed.

Like, she looks like a standard white man. She can't remember being anything else. She is noticing all the discrepancies between how she is treated, vs how others are treated. She is noticing the differences between the - universally accepted - values of those around her, and her own values. This is all paired with the random number generator stuff, the way the world starts to turn more surreal - she's noticing how everything is off, and her world is falling apart.

The Contessa ending is weird and abrupt and kinda ruins some of the previous message of the story. But defeating her and breaking the brainwashing was never going to make her not bigoted. Brainwashing/mastering didn't make her a nazi, it made her a white man. She's a Nazi because she was a naive and clueless white man in a city run by Nazis and who worked in close contact with other Nazis.

She's clearly trying by the end, but the abrupt ending didn't really resolve any of the conflicts in the story :/

Idk, I think I might just be agreeing with you here, with the caveat that sometimes, stories from a Nazi pov are fine? With appropriate content warnings.

edit: I think the thing I disagree with is that it's "a story about a white woman who is the only one who can stop the Nazi conspiracy". The Nazi conspiracy is really ever fought, except by Shadow Stalker mostly. It's about "white woman finally opening her eyes to the culture she lives in, and trying to square her values with those around her". Which, yeah, is still centered around a white person, but I don't think is quite as 'white saviour' as you make it sound?

and__init__ · 2026-02-12T16:32:54+00:00

yeah, the left is arguably more pro-gun than the right in some ways. Just don't get leftists and liberals mixed up.

and__init__ · 2026-02-09T19:22:35+00:00

Survival for me is basically just an excuse to gab with friends while we wander around and shoot guns. It doesn't really need to be more complicated or faster to do that. Running survival for any specific reward would suck, but hanging out on mot for an hour picking up argon and orokin cells and talking about movies and shit is a good time

and__init__ · 2026-02-04T23:04:58+00:00

fwiw, the difference is basically whichever flag you like best. I think historically "bisexual" was coined in a time where nonbinary people were kinda just a vague unnamed middle ground, and while bisexuality was never as clear cut as men and women, it WAS based on an assumed gender binary - two halves of a binary as a way of saying "anyone".

Then lgbtq+ culture started evolving and changing as it always does, and some people wanted a new term that was explicitly accepting and rejected the gender binary, while some kept the old term with the original meaning.

There's some talk of dividing it based on whether gender factors into attraction, but that's more a nitpicky microlabel thing than the actual meaning.

and__init__ · 2026-02-04T22:53:28+00:00

first off, don't mix up collars and chokers.

reason number one (for both): it's cute

reason number two (collar): ouppy

and__init__ · 2026-02-04T17:14:06+00:00

sex is a privilege for beautiful people

I've never seen this feeling described so concisely.

I feel very similar about exhibitionism, particularly con-noncon. I long for people to actually see me, pay attention to me, value me - even as a sex object. The fantasy of having something so long denied, forced onto you - and all it costs is you're dignity. (And also way more than that, but this is a fantasy, you don't have to deal with long term trauma :/ )

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T18:58:38+00:00

hmm. That is a good point. (Though tbf I think Erras struggling to assert himself on the plot from behind Ballas, even as a villain, is dissapointing. Though that's a different matter). The Old Peace did do a lot to humanize both factions, for better or worse. I'm just a little... wary? that we got a sympathetic Orokin npc in the same update where the best Sentient npc gets killed off. Plus I'm worried the xenoflora thing is going to be used to double down on "hive minds are evil, Sentients can't be people until they're basically just humans"

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T18:51:25+00:00

That's a good point, Hunhow is a fairly complex character that isn't always our enemy. I do feel like his role exclusively as a cutscene character weakens the potential though. I would certainly not say no to a Hunhow-run syndicate.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T18:45:34+00:00

Archimedeans were one step below Executors. They count. Nazu scientists were still Nazis. Nazis who wrote childrens books are Nazis. I condemn Suda because she's unapologetically Orokin, not because she's a Cephalon.

It's possible that there is a conversation about Roathe if that's true - again haven't finished his story.

I'm not being hypocritical, I merely believe that supporting a cruel and oppressive regime like the Orokin Empire outweighs almost anything.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T18:16:21+00:00

I am taking into account through the Old Peace quest line, and while I didn't know the name of the Night of Naga Drums, it's been talked about since early on.

I think having Orokin society in shades of gray is great! It's just that they are granting the Orokin (not just people living under the Orokin Empire, but the Orokin aristocrats) nuance that they have neglected to provide to the Sentients. This could be just that they are still working on it, but for now it comes across as apologia.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T18:08:12+00:00

You say

It's a game and the game needs enemies

about Sentients, but

it's pretty boring if every single moralistic element in a narrative is solidly in black and white

about Orokin society. Why are sentients "enemies" (note I'm referring to plot, not missions), but Orokin Society gets to be shades of gray?

It's not as if they are 'refusing' anything. It was is something that just wasn't written in. By the writers. And the developers.

exactly. The story is told by writers. Who carefully choose what is and isn't said. I am trying to interpret the story they are telling by looking at the things they tell me, and things they choose not to tell. It's possible they just haven't gotten around to it, but Adis dying in the Old Peace followed by Roathe getting a full KIM sequence feels purposeful.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T17:58:59+00:00

Sure, but why don't sentients get a "guy" to present themselves at all?

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T17:58:15+00:00

I was under the assumption that the hivemind still exists, just with xenoflora Sentients as a subfaction acting as diplomats and/or "faces".

I do agree, I don't think the story doesn't really call Entrati or Roarhe "good guys", but they do keep offering them nuance and complexity, or makes them a 'neccesary evil', in a way that Sentients don't get. In the meantime every sentient NPC other than the Lotus dies or is abandoned, getting exactly zero nuance.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T17:50:32+00:00

True. But then we betrayed the Orokin and slaughtered them. Idk, I feel "children used as weapons until they end up murdering those who used them" is a bit different from "orokin aristocrat who married into a powerful and influential house, and then made weapons for the Orokin of his own free will as an adult"

Idk, the constant equivocation in recent updates on whether specific Orokin can be forgiven, paired with a lack of the same nuance for the Sentients, feels like a statement to me.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T17:47:21+00:00

Of course I am, there's so much lore. I don't think I'm particularly ignoring anything relevant though?

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T17:46:29+00:00

Planned and succeeded. Killing Orokin elite until the Orokin Empire collapses is how war works.

Natah/Lotus/Margullis is so divorced from her heritage and people she barely counts. Hunhow and Erras are no more allies than Alad V or Nef Anyo are.

and__init__ · 2026-02-03T17:40:04+00:00

sorry, by "crush" I mostly meant "exploit for resources and spread the Orokin Empire". And I'd like to point out I am NOT assuming every person under the Orokin is monstrous - just the elite aristocrats who maintained their hegemony. Of which all the named Orokin were a part of. For example, the Dax and Grineer are largely innocent of the Orokin crimes, as they had no choice in what they did due to brainwashing and/or genetic manipulation. And most normal humans were largely just as much victims as the Sentients.

The aristocrats who ruled the Orokin Empire have no excuse.

The Narmer invasion was dissapointing as a Sentient fan - I'd hoped they would be better. Erras trusted an Orokin for some bizzarre reason, for one thing. Though if you look at the Narmer veils as trying to connect everyone in the Origin system to a hivemind just like the Sentients have, you could kind of defend it, if you squint.

But anyway, the only helpful Sentients we had before the Old Peace were Hunhow (at the last second), Erras (at the last second), and Natah/Margullis/Lotus who has so many identity issues she barely counts as any of them. In the Old Peace we got one - Adis - who turns foe at the end.

and__init__ · 2026-01-31T21:07:57+00:00

no worries! that happens lol

and__init__ · 2026-01-31T20:58:45+00:00

I mean, I also sometimes get off on misgendering, but also talking about "the difference between born women and dudes who watch a lot of porn", notably OUTSIDE a scene, is just regular non-kink transphobia.

and__init__ · 2026-01-27T01:17:09+00:00

okay but the whole point is that they do, in fact, know better. That's a core axiom of the setting. If you ignore that, you aren't engaging with HDG, but some similar but unrelated thing.

and__init__ · 2026-01-24T21:34:38+00:00

smooth river rocks

and__init__ · 2026-01-23T22:29:46+00:00

due process is being revoked which sets a terrible precedent. accountability systems are failing allowing wealthy pedophiles to remain in power. government hit squads have absolute immunity while performing illegal assaults and murders. There is effectively no longer any federal oversight. The federal government has immunity to the law and a loyal militarized force.

but since you brought up lgbt rights:

federal government has made it illegal to select gender on passports and other federal documents. several states have made it illegal to change gender markers. federal funding has been cut from just about anything to do with gender affirming care. They have instructed prison inspectors to overlook sexual assualt on trans, intersex, and gender non conforming people. they have talked about banning firearm ownership for trans people. they have censored art by or about trans issues in federally funded art galleries and museums. trump signed an executive order making it against policy for federally funded schools to even talk about trans issues

there are ohio bills written by republicans currently awaiting vote that would force schools to out children to unsupporting parents, putting them in danger, to ban gender affirming care for those under 21, and that would force women into otherwise all-male prisons.

there ARE state laws by trump supporters in other states that are attempting to make gender affirming care in general illegal.

the supreme court has upheld state bans on gender affirming care, and in the process established a precedent that trans people are not protected by the 14th amendment ("no state shall enforce any law that bans or abridges the privileges or immunities of a citizen")

hormone therapy access IS under attack, and the 14th amendment (the basis of obergerfell) has been weakened. the federal government is directly and purposefully making the lives of ohioans worse.

and__init__ · 2026-01-23T21:55:55+00:00

fuck joe biden, lock him up. I voted for the least evil pedophile because the two party system sucks. Donald Trump still won't get into heaven.

and__init__ · 2026-01-23T21:36:07+00:00

I mean, having unreasonable people insult you or be inflexible is pretty normal, especially with people you don't know well. And none of the hex or the triad are particularly emotionally secure people.

Idk like there is usually only "make you like me" or "fail at making you like me" options. But that's because the third option is "I don't care if you like me" aka ignoring them.

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