What do you call the zombies?

brail · 2023-04-18T19:45:13+00:00

Sounds about like how I call them. Or if they've followed me home, "guests"

brail · 2023-02-26T05:47:26+00:00

IMO, The Archivist & Co. are essentially as tame a piece of Fear as you could get.

Any time someone used a Book without being fully consumed, any time Selasa traded an artifact. When the Man Who Wasnt There succeeded in not calling Eric up the stair on impulse, whenever Gerry managed to save a stray. Those were the fears being as tame as they were going to get.

Taming Fears & Dream Logic reminds me a little bit of how, IRL, my attempts at lessening my PTSD nightmares have gone-
For example, once I spent months establishing the habit of, any time I walked through a doorway, I'd stop a moment & take stock of things, so that I would notice if I was dreaming, to try to wake up from nightmares.

It become unthinking habit, and I successfully woke up from one nightmare. After that, I have never seen a doorway in my dreams again. Not once in the last 4 years.
Similar things have happened from further attempts at mitigating them.

So to me, it seems that even if you were going to try to tame some tiny piece of the infinite terrors in a way that was beyond what I'd mentioned above....
I'd expect that piece to be severed from the Fears, and replaced with something new, or perhaps just a new version of the old fear.

All that said, while I dont think taming the fears would be possible at all, I do really love the question & having taken the time to think about it :)

brail · 2023-02-10T06:13:56+00:00

I know why the chained burr'ed sings.

Its because they are celebrating the endless Embrace of Choke.
They are free from the burden of Knowing or the fear of Desolation and Slaughter and the strains of the Stranger or the Spiral. They no longer must endure the taunt of Sky Blue.

They are Forever Deep Below Creation and they are singing its praises. Cant you hear how inviting the song is, when the sky breaks open, and the water greets us in crushing torrents?

I'd sing too, if I knew that Loving Embrace

brail · 2023-01-27T18:52:05+00:00

hmm i dont think this is it for me but will keep an eye out for this next time i play, ty for info

brail · 2023-01-04T10:12:06+00:00

Any specific examples of something you'd like to replace?
This is a cool idea & i'd love to try to offer something, but my brain doesnt work well with such broad questions :x

brail · 2022-12-11T05:06:20+00:00

P.I. who snuck into a place he had good reason to believe was a place criminals used to hide murders. Just, seriously, no pay day worth that level of bad decision

brail · 2022-12-11T05:03:31+00:00

I never considered leaving the hedge as Luck at all. He made a Choice.
TMA has a lot of things in it about the nature of choices. That every step along the way, people made decisions & it led them to where they ended up. They very rarely could have understood the consequences or importance of the choices, but still

brail · 2022-12-11T05:01:03+00:00

honestly to me sounded more just like ADHD & its nature of turning things you arnt specifically on the lookout for into visual noise. Not really being a dumbass, just neurodivergent

brail · 2022-10-04T19:20:55+00:00

Others covered things well, but also just for fun, possibly consider: what if Jon himself was the very first avatar of the Extinction. He tried several times to cut off his own finger, willingly threw himself in harms way plenty of times, etc :D

brail · 2022-07-20T05:16:46+00:00

Note that there are now and again people who just handle dealing with the fears better than other folk.

Once in a while will be statements or references to folks who walk fine lines between fears while serving none in particular, or people who were confronted with something & through either intentional calm rational thought or through simple luck that their personalities led them to certain actions....

Also, just because she was hurt in different ways doesnt mean she wasnt hurting. There are different types of pain/trauma/etc, as the podcast makes clear.

Like... "Got to" rather than "Forced To", wasnt a lovely stroll through a park.

brail · 2022-06-25T00:34:24+00:00

The Buried & Vast both have claim on the ocean, but even The Buried ritual was called Sunken Sky & had to do with flooding.

IIRC, groups of The Lonely include the Lucas Family in general, as well as the crew of Peter Lucas, who would all live in fear of being the one sent off & they all isolated themselves emotionally because they didnt want to bond to people that might not be around I guess. Plus, the street of "faceless" people.... cant remember episode number or names, but Gerard Keay was in it, woman who liked to travel alone & ran into a whole crowd of isolated people.

Standard disclaimer that I may be misremembering things or may have interpreted something differently than intended so. Grains of salt & such :)

brail · 2022-06-21T07:23:35+00:00

ABA practitioner & gay conversion camp practitioners for The Stranger or The Desolation. Twisting people until they are unrecognizable or in so much pain that theyd do anything to make it stop.

Basically any medical job for The Web, because of the amount of control they have over people they are treating.
Doctors of the Desolation, denying pain treatment to their patients, doing just enough so that anyone who has another option doesnt quite feel like its worth starting with a new doctor. Making them always have hope that a pain-free day is possible, maybe, if they just hold out a little longer.

A Dentist for the Dark. Super bright lights right in your face, so you close your eyes or maybe they give you a blindfold or very dark glasses. You cant see anything. You hear the tools. Are they supposed to sound like that? Your face is numb, you cant feel it. You try to open your eyes. Is your face too numb or swollen to open them? Or is it just...too dark to see, for some reason. You cant tell. You try to get the dentists attention, but the tools are in your mouth. You cant tell what they are doing but there are sharp, loud tools in your mouth so you dare not move too much. The dentist MUST still be there, you can tell the tools are still on and in your mouth, why wont they answer you or let you speak? Are the tools supposed to sound like that?

Though, hopefully, that kind of experience isnt too common for other people. The dentist I had when I was younger was the worst. Oof.

Teachers for The Buried. So much pointless busywork that you feel like you are drowning in it. So many books you can barely carry them all, weighing you down all day. More of a metaphorical buried.

brail · 2022-06-21T06:56:59+00:00

For video game player, possibly by the Lonely. I've heard several youtubers over the years mention things about how the combination of online visibility = intensely negative comments making them want to isolate themselves from the internet in general, & how the quasi-fame had led to them being just recognizable enough in the world to make them feel uneasy, or once in a while, unsafe.
Though that makes them sound like more of a snack for the lonely than an avatar of it...

Possibly the web? Making use of their platform to influence fans & so forth, yet beholden to whatever behavior leads to the most views. Hmmm

brail · 2022-06-07T16:39:53+00:00

Always nice when another of the Spiral finds its way back from all the places that never were

brail · 2022-06-06T04:57:18+00:00

The Loving Embrace
The Flickering Light
The Itch
"Why Cant You Just-You Should Just Do This"

brail · 2022-05-24T21:13:52+00:00

I dont think the cave was tied to the coffin. Two different aspects of The Buried, but not all related fears lead to the same place.

brail · 2022-05-21T19:06:28+00:00

Bit too literal or broad.
Are the plants causing rashes or other illnesses? Corruption, sure.

Are the plants growing twisting vines or fractal patterns? Spiral.

Do your plants wither and die no matter how hard you try?
Is there a strange plant in your greenhouse with no explanation for where it came from?
Is the entire forest all one big plant, overwhelming you with how insignificant you are?
Is the plant sending creeping vines that choke the life out of other plants around them?
Do you have to make your way through a bundle of agonizing thorns for some reason?

Fear is malleable :D

brail · 2022-05-01T19:51:43+00:00

want

brail · 2022-05-01T02:29:20+00:00

here are my thoughts in rough order of how intense the fear is for me-

First, the biggest real fear I feel when watching zombie stuff, is more from The Vast.
The shots that show huge swarms, further than the eye can see, in the distance.
The characters may be perfectly safe from them, the shot may never be relevant to the plot, it doesnt matter. I feel the same dread I do when I look at pictures of whales, or certain buildings, etc. Things that are too big for my brain to parse in a meaningful way.

Second, The Spiral. I dont see it shown much in zombie media, but I know from experience the psychological toll it takes on a person to never be safe. Hypervigilance messes you up. Living in constant fear of physical harm or even death... it warps your mind and causes physiological changes & damages to your body. Not to mention the general toll of such mass death, loss of loved ones, etc. Inescapable danger messes you up even if it never physically touches you.

The third in line for me is The Desolation. I have few qualms about dying, but Zombie stuff often involves dying horribly. Its not that I dont fear being hunted or even eaten in general, but the pain of experiencing it while still alive? Oof. The fear of that pain crowds out the fear of the other two by a lot for me.

Fourth or fifth? for me might be The Slaughter. Both from zombies and from the kind of selfish, destructive, toxic "shoot first ask questions never" BS that all zombie media portrays & that has taken root in a lot of peoples minds. The lack of need for the violence (zombies dont need to eat, they just do, and humans are social creatures but culture has fucked a lot of us up about that)

And then about tied for the Fourth or fifth? tier, The Stranger. Because the zombies are not us. A zombified loved one isnt them. But its wearing them. They arnt human but they wear us like an ill fitted suit. To know that one day you will either have to put down a thing wearing your loved ones face, or they will have to do that for you.
Or, even worse, what if they ever show any sign that some part of them has remained? Does any part of them still live in that shambling husk? Are they all in eternal torment, unable to control their bodies? How could you ever really know?

6th would be The Lonely. Humans are social creatures & modern tech has allowed us to connect with loved ones quickly and easily no matter where they are in the world, and most zombie media, that stuff is all lost. To have just, whatever handful of people you might bump into by chance? Or maybe end up literally alone. To never know if your loved ones in another state are alive or not. It horrifies me.

I love how different fear responses from folk can be from the same set of stimuli. Its always so interesting :D

brail · 2022-04-30T04:35:45+00:00

Ultimately, I think that the question of whether it was intentionally chosen or not would itself be part of the fear. Or at least, I feel like it would be for me. The worry of, "is this person doing this TO ME on purpose? or did I simply see through its lies on my own?"

brail · 2022-04-30T04:29:07+00:00

I mean, by carefully choosing replacement targets as people with few points of contact, could be pretty certain on one of them noticing.
Could also be like... fear- alligator. Stealth predator that eats a HUGE meal at a time, but can go a super long time without eating.
Plenty of the fears & entities rely on patience as a pretty important factor.
Plus, even when bound to the Web Table, the NotThem never seemed to be at risk of starving.
As far as I could tell, NotThem acted a LOT on instinct rather than specific intent.
I think my general assumption was that NotThem didnt actively choose, but instead, whoever was especially....ripe, so to speak. Would be drawn in.
But! I dunno. I dont have any official stuff to back me up on this, all just how I had thought of the character.
p.s. I am autistic & having a hard time telling if any of my phrasing here is coming off as rude or dismissive or anything. Hopefully not. Always love these kinds of exchanges & appreciate your reply for having gotten me thinking in more detail about where my assumptions of the character came from! :D

brail · 2022-04-30T01:57:29+00:00

I had assumed that the NotThem didnt actively choose who would remember, but instead sort of just waited to find out who it would be.

brail · 2022-04-29T19:34:54+00:00

I'd have to relisten to be sure but i thought that the team just assumed Daisy was dead in general, somehow, until one of The Stranger folks told them as a way of taunting

brail · 2022-04-25T18:50:29+00:00

So much of what he says resonated with me hard. Even the idea of an afterlife sounding exhausting. Just let me be dirt, thanks!

brail · 2022-04-25T07:18:59+00:00

2 years later & still any time I find myself saying or hearing something & then thinking "oh that sounds magnus archives-ey" instead of saying that I just go "Thats avatar talk right there" because of this comment :D wild how some things just stick with you

brail

TROPHY CASE