Also Separating The Art From The Artist Is So Easy Here Because Gnf Is Honestly One Of The Most Boring

Starry Eyed Duckling (2023) [3 min] by Britney Luc | Canada

This post from a couple months ago that I think mirrors my thoughts on this pretty well

Post title: We*digoon is Purposeful in his Silence

and a little extra

Post title: YouTuber We*digoon Dismisses Others Religious Based Trauma as ‘Overreaction’ (before mentioning his own traumatic religious experience)

Written by @elsodex and illustrated by me!

So, this took root 1 day to write, me 100 hours to draw and you 10 seconds to read (spend a little longer plz?)

Really proud of this one! I wanted to practice action and experiment with different coloring styles and I thank root so much for being patient as I tried out different things. Root, I loved going back and forth with you over the pages at every stage. I adore how you captured both Talanah's and Aloy's voices as they casually converse while fighting an angry Thunderjaw. Hope you enjoyed the Sunhawk teasing her Thrush!!

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 wish I saw more art that's reminiscent of what was in the book. The awe inspiring vistas of abandoned war machines being dismantled in a field, bleak urban decay, the shambling hordes of those ensnared by the Neurocasters... it's a shame that the famous thing about this book now is that it's the source material for a movie that is the exact opposite in tone...

Banshee :(

spin this wheel

you're now this mythical creature, congrats!

not all male mcyts but somehow always a male mcyt

Girls don't want more Marvel movies, girls want an updated Dinotopia reboot

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.

I'm honestly surprised that even a small part of gnf apologists are finally opening their fucking eyes but the ones who still turn a blind eye and act like its just drama of the week piss me the fuck off.

Because even if he meant literally anything he said in that stream and he really was just a wittle innocent baby who just didn't know🥺 it was a misunderstanding🥺 Have you SEEN Caiti's stream when she was talking about this?

Caiti can't find joy in doing content anymore. There's multiple times where the mere attempt at recalling those memories make her burst into tears. It was soul crushing to watch and see just how much his gross fucking actions have affected and damaged her life.

How is George the victim here? How is Caiti at fault here? And fuck it, even if she was, how does that make anything okay?? "You got drunk and therefore deserve having severe trauma." Hello???

https://www.twitch.tv/caitibugzz/v/2085999722?sr=a&t=4s

watch this. I don't care if you already agree with me if you haven't seen Caiti talking about what happened in her own words please do it now.

I can't fanthom the thought process of anyone who thinks George is innocent here because it doesn't matter if it was intentional or not (it clearly fucking was. she got molested. this is sexual assault. treat it like an actual crime that severely harms people instead of a buzzword.)

Because no matter how you try to spin it in favor of him it doesn't make up for the severe damage it has done to her. If you somehow still try to defend George Davidson's actions then I seriously want you to think about why because there's some insane self reflecting to be done here.