#But also he was doing everything PURELY out of self-interest without ANY sad backstory to counter balance it
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The worst part about trying to figure out what Crocodile's deal is that because he's so fucking irredeemably evil in Alabasta... Like... Yeah he's just irredeemably evil. Like I love him but he did cause countless casualties, a ton of pain and suffering and literally attempted to blow up a million people
Like no amount of theoretical "trying to do it to save his son from the Government" or "trying to stop the Government from hurting anyone else" or just "doing it for the greater good" is going to make him any less of a mass murderer
But also Robin absolutely 100% helped with all of that shit simply because she wanted to read the Poneglyph for herself.
No amount of her intending to betray Crocodile from the begining and sabotaging his plans erases the fact that Robin also caused countless people to starve to death and die in the civil war. Her sabotages only succeeded out of sheer luck, and only spared the lives of the people at the final battle. She has the blood of countless innocents on her hands. Because she wanted to read history.
But her crimes were swept under the rug because she has a sad backstory and her sabotages worked out just at the nick of time by sheer dumb luck
So Croc??? Just??? Is there a chance??? At all???
But also he did literally intend to sell Buggy into slavery
Like, fuck Buggy, but jesus
What's also killing me is that we like. Don't know what Luffy thinks of Crocodile right now. Which really is like. The thing that will decide how we, as the readers, are supposed to feel about Crocodile. Luffy is our POV
Like we don't know what Luffy's opinion of Crocodile is after he helped save Luffy (and spared Ace once) during the Summit War. Like Luffy clearly fucking hated the man in Impel Down and the two interactions they had during the War weren't like positive (in the sense that Luffy himself didn't think of the interactions as particularly positive. Defending Whitebeard from being attacked once and then being like "wait what HIM?!" when Crocodile defended Ace. To be fair, in the midst of the chaos, there wasn't much time to spend on Pondering On Such Things because Ace needed to be saved, and Oda goes out of his way to not show us what's going on inside Luffy's head, because it's all meant to be out in the open anyways. Regardless, these weren't like "yay it's Crocodile! :)" moments for Luffy is what I mean)
But also Luffy was very grateful of Law for saving his life and was willing to put his trust into Law for their alliance- of course, they weren't explicitly enemies to begin with, rivals at most, but still. Luffy respects those who help him.
But also Luffy grew during the timeskip. Like he's not that clueless anymore (like he finally understands Hancock is in love with him etc), and similarly Luffy gets that Buggy is an absolute loser now. But also Buggy did also help save Luffy's life (even if it was by accident), and while IDK if Luffy is aware of that, I don't think that helped improve Luffy's impression of Buggy
So like. The fuck does Luffy think of Crocodile, at this moment? Even with the Cross Guild reveal, he didn't even really comment on Croc and just focused his energy on being confused about Buggy being "the leader" of CG. IDK it feels almost intentional or something, that we don't know what Luffy thinks?? Especially since we did get Zoro's opinion on Mihawk in the situation?? Or am I delulu??
(Sidenote. I'd love to know what Robin would have to say about Crocodile helping save Luffy's life. What Jinbei might think of the final words Crocodile left him with before blasting them out of Akainu's reach. But mainly just Robin's thoughts)
Like IDK my best guess would be that Luffy still hates Crocodile just the same but is like grossed out by technically owing him one??? In the classic
-kinda way, you know? And that he'd be just kinda confused about it?
Because I can't fucking imagine Luffy being like "oh we're cool now" with Crocodile, let alone "Yay Crocodile :) He saved my life!". But also like. Luffy does kind of owe Croc one. Kind of. And Luffy is usually very respectful of that kind of thing. Aaaaaaaa???
(Also does. Does Luffy even know it was Crocodile who yeeted him and Jinbei out of Akainu's reach to begin with. 'Cause he was unconcious. Knocked the fuck out. Does. Does Luffy even know. Did anybody tell him???)
I just.
There's the reasonable part of me that knows Crocodile is an irredeemable evil dickbag and everything he has ever said and done up to the most recent chapters support that. He is too far gone.
And then there's the absolutely delulu part that loves a tragic villian who gets a heartwrenching redemption that's looking for any fucking sign that could indicate Crocodile could maybe be one
#Moon posting#OP Meta#OP Spoilers#Sir Crocodile#Crocodad#Haunted by thoughts of one (1) evil middle aged man#IDK I was rereading Punk Hazard today while on the train and just. God there's like no difference between Alabasta Croc and Ceasar#I mean there is but no there isn't. Dude was doing essentially the same shit just this time with much more child abuse#And we all agree that Ceasar is scum of the earth and irredeemable.#But also he was doing everything PURELY out of self-interest without ANY sad backstory to counter balance it#I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK ANYMORE MAN I AM LOSING MY MARBLES#Kuma Flashback I Love You but I need to know what the fuck is happening with Crocodile so bad pleeeaaase#There's also like that note about Kuma saying he'd be wiling to make a deal with the devil just to protect his daughter#And If Crocodad Real. What a greater evolution of that but being wiling to BECOME the devil himself to protect your child#Also sorry about the Buggy slander but also not sorry. All that man is good for is being a punching bag for comedy as far as I'm concerned#He's very funny I'll give you that. And I'm looking forward to him and Shanks getting married
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OBEY ME! LESSON 46 DETAILED SUMMARY + THEORIES
This lesson’s got two locked chapters that I can’t unlock :’)
D takes them to the casino where they meet Mammon in the Lamp event outfit. When he laughs and tells them that they must have forgotten who he is if they think they can take the money MC ignores all of this to ask him wtf he’s wearing. Mammon blushes and tells them that they have no right to criticize what he’s wearing considering what they’re wearing. Then he says also Lucifer wtf happened to you!? He laughs and teases Lucifer about getting shrunk and how he could accidentally step on him and kill him rn or how Beel might eat him as a snack. I saw someone say that Mammon was a little shit who was also BabyTM and like Yess!??? I love when we get to see more of the asshole side of him specially when we already know how soft he is. Man’s an onion :’) Beel says he wouldn’t do that unless Lucifer hid inside a piece of cake and Beel swallowed him whole without realising. Lucifer, off screen: “You’d better realise I was there!” And Like??? That’s the point Lucifer wants to argue? Not the fact that he wouldn’t hide inside a cake? Mammon says whatever and that he’ll take Lucifer from them so he can have fun with his new toy anyway RIP to Mammon who dies after this lesson. “Mammon, Avatar of Greed, Appears”- gonna have Pokemon Battles from now on, I can’t believe this what this dating sim has evolved into :D Mammon uses wind to lift Lucifer up and bring him towards him. MC has a flashback to the previous night and commands Beel who transforms into a demon and whose body starts moving on its own, Beel then cancels out Mammon’s spell and uses a wind spell to send Mammon flying. Beel transforms back to his human form and is shocked by what happened. Solomon says MC did a good job commanding Beel though they weren’t able to draw out all his powers. They get the armour, which Beel thinks is too flashy but MC tells him it looks great which he is happy about. D tells them about a rumour of Satan attacking a town up north.
As they walk through the woods Lucifer talks about how much he’s gonna love beating the shit outta Mammon when he’s back to normal and waves MC off when they ask him to go easy on Mammon. Beel says that Lucifer used to be a lot nicer to Mammon in the celestial realm and how the two of them would team up to go argue with Raphael. Solomon asks if it was Diavolo who got Lucifer to change and what exactly Lucifer had to do to reach the status they now enjoy in the Devildom. Beel seems shocked at this and ask Lucifer if it’s true. He says he doesn’t remember. There’s growling & they’re suddenly surrounded by ghosts. Solomon: Oh yeah lol this is called the Black Phantom Forest. Everyone else: WHY the FUCK didn’t you say so before!? They run from the ghosts and set up camp beside a lake, MC & Beel talk. Beel says how they’ve all changed from their time in the Celestial Realm and he can’t remember when he stopped resisting the urge to constantly eat. But how somethings are still the same and how the brothers have always been together and how they always will be. He brings up the three things the butcher said to maintain a long relationship and how even though they may sometimes falter at the “respect each other” part when it comes down to it the brothers have all three things with each other (Not me sobbing like a baby. It’s the found family trope for me guys). Beel says how he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to fight Belphie if they meet him in the game and how he has so many people who he loves that he doesn’t know who to put first and that he knows many people would kill to have that kinda problem and that as both an angel and a demon he’s being lucky to have the people he loves. MC gets to hold his hand, lean on his shoulder or say nothing and guys I love Beel so much he’s just so pure god. Okay so theory part: I 100% believe (& it’s implied in canon and in the chats too) and the main reason Lucifer is so mean to Mammon now is because he’s scared if he doesn’t discipline him then Diavolo will and he’ll end up with another Lilith situation. That being said I NEED to know how Lucifer came across Mammon in the celestial realm and what he said to make Mammon so loyal to him. PLS om! Give me the boys backstory? I like to think Lucifer raised Mammon the same way Simeon is raising Luke and that’s why you can see some of Lucifer’s traits in Mammon whenever he becomes serious about something and why Mammon sometimes slips up and calls Lucifer “Dad” and why Lucifer becomes so happy about it. I also think the others would have been older than Mammon was when he first met Lucifer, when they eventually joined the family which is why they share far less traits with Lucifer and why (as far as we know) none of them have called Lucifer ‘dad”. If this is true it also brings up a real interesting dynamic between Satan and Mammon that would be useful when writing fics. You know a little deeply buried resentment and envy about Lucifer having been more of a father figure to Mammon than to the person who is technically his actual son, and since we know for a fact that right after arriving in the Devildom Lucifer starts going through an existential crisis and Mammon’s the one who steps up to look after the others I 100% believe Mammon’s the one who did most of the work in raising a newly created Satan and who taught him how to control his anger so well (cause lets be real it definitely couldn’t be any of the others) which also gives backstory to Satan’s “do you think Mammon’s actually the most decent of us” homescreen comment and more importantly adds spice to the relationship dynamic you can work with in fics.
When they wake up Beel is thankful that they didn’t get eaten. Solomon: not like you would have noticed with all the fun you had *wink wink* Lucifer: wtf Solomon:*WINK WINK* Me: bro they were just talking… they find out game time and real world time pass differently and come across a treasure chest in the middle of their path. Solomon: Lets open it! :D Lucifer: Expect that’s definitely a trap… Solomon: Exactly! Which is why we should open it! :D MC: Lets open it! :D Lucifer: Why is the entire human species so fucking stupid!? Why were you created without any self preservation!? Who approved this!? They find medicine, a warding bottle and cat ears. …They put Lucifer into the bottle and Lucifer’s really going through it in this huh. But opening the chest pulls up an inescapable battle with the final boss, and Satan pops up fully immersed in the villain role with an evil laugh and everything. Luci asks MC to use something from the chest and they use the cat ears and Lucifer’s disappointed when they actually work. But it only deals 222 damage to Satan’s 870k HP. Satan paralyses them all and steals bottled lucifer and calls Belphie to finish the others off. I can’t remember if I mentioned this before but how did the brothers know that Lucifer was gonna be mini before they even got home, it would’ve had to be quite a bit in advance for them to so perfectly set up everything… And you know Solomon was really determined to open that chest (I mean so was MC but the whole of season 1 was establishing that their curiosity was gonna get them killed) so…
MC tells Belphie they don’t want to fight him and Belphie says he doesn’t want to fight either but at the same time Satan agreed to give him mine lucifer for a whole day if he defeats them. Beel’s still reluctant and Belphie says Beel doesn’t have to worry cause Belphie isn’t the same small/weak person that Beel always had to protect (and holy shit I need more info on this too?). Beel eventually agrees and says that Belphie’s strong, he tells MC that they weren’t able to use his entire power against Mammon cause he was holding himself back unconsciously but that he was ready now. MC makes Beel do a bunch of wind attacks and they defeat Belphie who’s impressed. Beel says that the magic was actually MC doing it not him (even though he was the one that executed it). Belphie says he’ll join their party if MC promises him that he’ll be allowed to poke at mini luci. MC tells him there’s a damned line and he’ll have to wait his turn. Solomon wonders if MC should be going around giving the right to annoy lucifer to others but also he wants that right too. Even though Lucifer was kidnapped since he’s still in the bottle he’ll be protected so MC’s test is still ongoing. Odd that there was a bottle that would protect Lucifer should he get kidnapped in the chest that was a trap… look we all know Solomon is shady enough that he’s probably behind this right?
During dinner at a tavern the twins are sickeningly soft with each other and Solomon watches them with a smile. For the night the twins end up sharing a room with each other, with Mc and Solomon alone together. In the middle of the night MC wakes up to Solomon still up and looking sad. They ask him what’s up. He says despite how much they walked he still isn’t tired and that seeing the twins together made him lonely. Seeing how much they love and care and understand each other and how they were always together made him wish he had something similar but how when you didn’t age it was difficult to from lasting bonds like that in the human world. MC tells him that all of them care about him and he says he hopes so. Solomon: Lol just the two of us in a room in a game, wouldn’t it be crazy if we made out? MC can either kiss him or kinda stare awkwardly. If they choose the second he apologises for suddenly putting them on the spot and says he won’t try anything else. So this might be kinda an unpopular opinion and I’m genuinely really happy that the side characters are getting more screen time and development because I desperately needed that but I’m not really onboard the romancing option with them? I’m happy they’ve got their own cards now and I love the devilgram stories and romance options in them but I don’t think it makes sense in the context of the main storyline? Barbatos has almost no interaction with MC and though they haven’t shown it yet it’d be weird if he was suddenly into MC. Diavolo spent 2 whole seasons simping over Lucifer why is MC suddenly an option? Besides Diavolo always seems so lonely and I really want him and MC to be really good friends, I want Diavolo to have a friendship where there isn’t some condition that hangs over it like there is with his relationship with Barbatos and Lucifer. The same goes with Solomon. I just want him to have a good solid friendship where there isn’t expectations or power between them. He also initially only seems interested in MC for their power and as a way to train them and eventually genuinely softens up to them, Just the request to kiss seemed outta nowhere? I don’t know why but with Simeon he seems above crushes? I always imagine him seeing MC as another cute kid Lucifer picked up (despite MC being an adult) and having a sort of soft indulgent attitude towards them. I don’t know I think I just want MC to have some friends who aren’t trying to sleep with them.
Solomon is extremely chipper the next morning and Belphie grumpily makes a comment about him having fun and sdfjdvnsjdokd they just talked. Belphie uses his magic to teleport them to Satan’s castle and Beel asked why he couldn’t do that the previous night, Belphie says grumpily cause then Solomon would have missed out on the fun and Solomon agrees and THEY JUST TALKED!? Satan has managed to transform Lucifer into wolf Lucifer and is shaking his bottle hard enough to make Luci wanna puke while Lucifer asks him to stop. MC tells satan to stop and he tells them they won’t be able to defeat him cause they skipped right to the boss battle without taking the long route and levelling up. MC says they’re not gonna fight him cause this whole thing is fucking stupid. Satan says it’s not cause he’s having fun. MC gives him one of their free therapy sessions about how important the bonds between he and his brothers are and how they don’t care more about helping the brothers all get along than some stupid star. Beel comes out spitting facts, saying they all know that Satan actually cares about Lucifer and how that embarrasses him and how he needs to stop hiding it by lashing out. And how Lucifer needs to get his shit together and be honest with satan. That he needs to tell Satan that Lucifer knows he’s his own demon and a really good demon at that. Lucifer says FYI but I never said you weren’t your own great person and Satan blushes and says that unless he wants to look childish he has no option but to accept the olive branch. He tosses Luci to MC. Belphie complains about having stupid older brothers and Solomon says he’s disappointed in Satan and reveals himself as the true secret final boss and FUCK YEAH! I CALLED THAT SHIT! Kinda – I thought he might have just given them a heads up about Luci’s condition. On a different note, Satan needs serious therapy. They all do tbh.
Solomon congratulates MC on what they’ve done so far but says they still haven’t accessed Beel’s full potential and that he’ll give his ‘adorable apprentice’ one more shit at it. Solomon summons Asmo who complains about how long he was made to wait and how he nearly gave up and went to the spa and that no one likes a selfish man. Solomon tells Asmo that he can tell him all this after they get back to the real world and I genuinely want the backstory of how they met and just more about their relationship. At Solomon’s command Asmo uses charm and paralyses Beel and at MC’s Beel uses another wind attack. Asmo says he’s never seen beel do something of this calibre before and he seems more powerful, even more than he was in the celestial realm, Asmo yells at Solomon for just standing and seeming impressed instead of helping him. There’s a bright white light.
Back home with everything back to normal Beel, Lucifer and MC are hanging out by the pool. Lucifer is in an unexpectedly good mood and MC has earned a star, which glows slightly from its place on the symbol etched to the back of their hand. Inside Solomon is feeding the other brothers as punishment. Mammon is sobbing his heart out and Levi is out cold (possibly dead). Satan is given Levi’s remaining share of food and Asmo is in tears. Belphie had made a run for it the second they got home and is nowhere to be found. Solomon talks about how nice Lucifer actually is and how he really loves his brothers cause he just made Solomon make them dinner instead of punishing any of them…. Love that the canonical reason why none of these demons tell Solomon about his food and allow themselves to get tortured is cause they don’t wanna be rude and hurt his feelings. And he thought no one cared about him. If that isn’t love I dunno what is. Beel and MC take a walk while Lucifer sits by the pool and in his words basks in “their screams of agony” While blushing beel says he’s grateful for what happened and how that star is proof that they got closer. Mc can either thank him or say that the star belongs to him. I think they kiss after the second option? For the first Beel says MC’s the one who did the work of drawing out his power. Over the echoing screams from inside Beel asks if they feel like they forgot something and ndfjkfjkdjfefjkn THEY FORGOT DIAVOLO I’M!!!!???? poor baby
#my posts#my theories#obey me spoilers#obey me!#obey me#swd obey me#shall we date? obey me!#obey me shall we date
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Alright HtN final thoughts
Similarly to the last book, I’m overstimulated to all hell and back. Gideon is my favorite protagonist of all time, no question. The sheer endorphin rush I get reading her cracking jokes and being insufferable is just bonkers. I started this book with 2 spoilers, without which I might never have even started this book: 1) there was Gideon content in HtN, and 2) there was multiple Gideons content in HtN. On the first point, I’m more than satisfied; I’m currently buzzing with how ecstatic that was as a reading experience. On the second, Gideon 1.0 was a boring lump of dude lmao, the only interesting thing about him was his bodyswap poly relationship with Better Gideon’s mom, which, wow. What a 10,000 year old soap opera. So that was disappointing, but you know what, one Gideon is really enough.
The vast majority of this book was a miserable slog and it genuinely hurt to read to the point where I don’t know that I can recommend this experience to anyone who isn’t already a huge fan. Yeah, the payoff was massive and I was played like a perfect little fiddle, but I don’t approve of the tune. I think Muir could’ve cut out a good third of the book and at the very least 50% of the relentless torture she put Harrow through and it would have still been effective. I still have a bad taste in my mouth. I don’t have a problem with difficult or hurtful stories and I’m not trying to invoke any moralistic outrage here, but that wasn’t what I expected or frankly could have prepared for coming out of the (drastically tonally different) first book and I do believe it was excessive. It was blow after blow after blow to an isolated, terrified, pointedly disabled protagonist with no single moment of relief, comfort or connection until the fucking reveal and I don’t want it, thanks.
Okay that’s enough about that. Now the rest of it.
I really tried to care about the new characters, but no dice. God had his moments, but we haven’t really seen him do too much interesting shit. Ianthe was fucking excellent, though I really really didn’t want her to be. The rest were dead boring, I’m sorry. The blasphemous makeouts were their only redeeming moment. When we finally got some Palamedes and Cam, I could have cried. Wish we could have spent more time with them, but I have high hopes for the next book. Ortus, surprisingly, was awesome! I wish him a happy afterlife with his poetic legendary husband. Also he did nothing wrong and all that nonsense about finally fighting for what’s important yada yada was pure military propaganda, let the man write lengthy poetry about his ghost boyfriend in peace. Dulcinea was a fucking badass! So happy she got a chance to shine, and to say ‘nyah!’ Abigail was also fantastic. Well that whole section of the book had me swimming in endorphins so maybe it isn’t saying much, but I fucking loved them, I fucking loved how much Harrow cared about them, Harrow, who had been an emotionally depleted husk throughout most of the book, now showing the most heartrending vulnerability and care for this little found ghost family and practically rotating through them one by one to apologize in the most terrible, gutpunching way, and finally being told not everything in the whole fucking world is her goddamn fault. This is the only reason I was able to accept no Gideon reunion, not even a single word between them. I’ve been yearning for hundreds of pages for Harrow to find human connection and care, and I’m so happy these are the people she found it with.
Gideon. I’m like tearing up right now just thinking about this. After the endless tedium, suffering, emotional disconnect to the point where characters dying horribly seemed insignificant against the backdrop of unrelenting despair, to have that vibrant, wonderful, dumbass motherfucking voice back---it was beyond cathartic. I reread every single line multiple times and I still don’t think I’ve wrung em fully dry. It was amazing. The personality dripping off the page, the immediate chemistry with any character living or dead or dull as rock, the blatant, beautiful disrespect for the sombre self importance of the whole preceding narrative. It was my favorite character crashing into one of my least favorite books, and making it awesome. I think a lot of people try to write a Gideon, and most of the time the result is completely unbearable, and I’d posit there’s 2 reasons for this: 1) they tragically, mistakenly make their Gideon a man, and 2) they just aren’t funny. Of course an unfunny Gideon would be unbearable. Of course a funny but emotionally vacant Gideon would be dull. But this Gideon is a fucking delight with a real heartfelt gooshy selfless vulnerable yearning center, and every line I got to spend with her was a rush.
Harrow and Gideon. Oof. I’ve been going back and forth on whether I shipped them, whether I even could, whether it was the intention at all. But like, come on. This is clearly a love story. It’s a love story from start to finish, and it’s cool that it got me to doubt that so sincerely when it’s just this level of ride and die, jump into hell, carve out your brain, share a body and preserve its modesty against your every instinct and not even make any jokes about it, universe crossing, death defying, soul melding level of mushy ass romance. Harrow fucking kept Gideon’s shitty sunglasses wrapped in a love note. She did find&replace on her whole personality. She kissed Ianthe. I remember the first time I watched Revolutionary Girl Utena, where almost every other episode would begin with a lil fairytail backstory recap telling you about the little girl who saw a prince and was so enamored she decided to become a prince too. And you believe that narrative, because why wouldn’t you? It’s a stylized repetitive fairytale at the start of a show. Why would it lie? And then you find out, at the very end, that it wasn’t the cool manly prince who precipitated all of this, but baby Utena witnessing another young girl in pain, and deciding then and there that she was going to grow up and help her. And she does, even if she can’t remember why.
This was that level of paradigm shift for me. Harrow and her pile of letters and rules and her obsession and her nauseating work ethic, what was she doing?? Saving the world? Fixing a broken timeline? Trying to unlock unlimited power, bring back the corpse in the locked tomb, serve her god and emperor? Nope! She was just trying to keep her big beautiful dumbass girlfriend a little bit alive.
Yeah. It’s a fucking love story.
Random thoughts: I liked Harrow’s grudge against food and the word ‘pommel’. I liked the diminishing ages Mercy inflicted upon her. I liked the first/second person shenanigans, tho really, there’s no way that was Gideon’s voice, first of all, there was way too much anatomical knowledge there. (Gideon’s secretly a time traveling bone doctor, calling it now). I liked the fanfic AUs, and very sad we didn’t get a fake dating one or like a nice “there was only one bed”. Not gonna mention soulmate AUs cuz that’s just canon.
That was a ride. Coulda done without some parts of it, but don’t regret it one bit. Let’s see what kinda nonsense the next one brings!
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as i no longer sleep (apparently), let’s do this awesome thing @yodas-yo-yo tagged me on!! thank you!!
Rules: Tag 9 people who you want to know better/catch up with and then answer these questions.
3 SHIPS
i’m going with not necessarily my all-time favorite ships but the ones i’ve been reading like crazy lately
stiles and derek, as i’m sure we’re all well aware. those’re my boys. the dynamic they have just cannot be beat; it’s all shades of gray and built rather than plopped down without foundation. derek, who has been betrayed and abandoned and is neglected at every turn by every other character in this universe, and stiles, who - importantly - doesn’t have pity for him but pragmatism: ‘you’re a useful dude, and so i am going to use you regardless of how everyone else would just like to write you off.’ it’s not an immediate, ‘ah, you’re perfect for each other,’ moment, it’s kind of a, ‘shit, dude, that is not a guy you should use because he’s suffered that too many times already and this is bad.’ but only through that does it become less about using derek and more about relying on each other, trusting each other’s judgments, and being the first call rather than the last. i’m so emotionally tied to it because it’s freaking earned and no one is... pure. stiles’ motives aren’t pure, derek’s actions aren’t pure, no one is a one-dimensional hero who can abide by a concept as infantile as good vs evil, they’re more real because of it and i’m more attached to them because of it.
okay, weirdly, lately..... clark and lex (and after i was just talking about one-dimensional good vs evil characters, lol), preferably with the smallville backstory of once being besties. it’s just like the best of the best when it comes to tropes that do it for me. they’re baked in and, unless it’s an au, unavoidable. epic pining, best friends turned enemies turned lovers (or some variation thereof), a betrayed character (love when that’s lex and it’s post-belle reve), a morally gray manipulative genius who if they are depicted as not having ulterior motives is considered WILDLY out of character, a fucking canonical son made from both their dna, parallel universes in canon, not to mention there’s sex pollen in canon as well with red kryptonite in the mix. (there’s nothing better than fics where clark is dosed so he’ll finally kill lex luthor only to fuck him practically down to his soul instead.) i never even finished smallville and while i was always a fan of the ship, it was sort of more of a ‘ships in the night’ kind of ship, like: oh yeah, i know you *waves as you cross my dash* and nothing more. then i read (and read and re-read and read some more) reconcilable differences and.... there is not enough fic for them out there, friends. there just isn’t, and i’m sad.
merlin and arthur from bbc merlin. again, i really like what’s often baked into this pairing: a scenario that comes up with some regularity is a betrayed or banished!merlin and arthur realizing too late what merlin means to him and having to go after him and prove himself. i live for that shit, okay? i live for the character who seemingly has everything realizing they have nothing without this other person (especially if said person is often mistreated or sidelined in canon - thank you, fix-it fanon!!!!). i never was big into merlin fanfic UNTIL ao3 came up with the ‘exclude’ part of the search function. i don’t want modern merlin pretty much ever and somehow that fandom is about 50% modern aus???? so i never read fic for it because it was so hard to find what i was looking for. literally the day i saw the exclude option, i started reading merthur fanfic. i wish there were more percival/merlin fics (i am SO FUCKING INTO size difference lately and i do noooot have a pair that i LOVE that has that, some that i casually read like jaskier/geralt but none that i can’t live without yet and i NEED IT), especially ones featuring a jealous arthur that endgames into merthur but that’s, er, a bit specific? haha, and i have less than zero desire to write for either this fandom or the one above it sadly.
LAST SONG I LISTENED TO
clairo - sofia, i love how hard my radio station is fangirling over clairo, she has such a nostalgia-inducing sound for me.
CURRENTLY WATCHING
okay, well, i actually just finished the shows i was watching: prodigal son, which was like a less avant garde, less horny, less gay, less people-eating version of hannibal. instead of a guy who was too unstable to qualify to be an actual fbi agent and who has a loose relationship with reality and mental health, and maybe also a darker side, and a cannibal who definitely does, both of whom badly want to bang each other, it’s a serial killer father who has a darker side and a guy who was fired from the fbi for being too unstable, who maybe has one of his own, in addition to a loose relationship with reality and mental health. i mostly enjoyed it. i really liked the actors, the morbid and understated humor was hilarious (seriously, some of those one liners, both the delivery by the actors and the offhandedness inherent to them were just perfection), but.... they fridged the love interest (very VERY predictably) and they’re clearly shoving together the only unattached (”normal”) vagina and penis on the show because HETERONORMATIVITY!!!!! (i expect more of you, greg berlanti, tsk.) i’m hoping for more edrisa in the future because she is a fucking GEM (and it’s just SO NICE to see lane on my screen again!!!!), more jessica who might have the best sense of self and humor in the whole dang show, more michael sheen (because i just love the man in anything and everything), and about that finale (even though i saw it coming WELL in advance) i’ll just say: AINSLEY, MY GIRLLLLLLLL!!!!
the other i finished was the crown, season four. this show never really wows me tbh. i watch it mostly for a) the performances and b) my mom and dad, who love it immensely and love to talk about it with me. if not for them i could easily zone out for an entire episode without even realizing it, with all the quietness and sweeping landscape shots, there’s just nothing grabby in there for me. it’s very uppercrust british, y’know? haha. where a comment about your lilac drapes is really a dig about how you’re bringing down the entire commonwealth, which i love to read but watching? it doesn’t really pull me in. the high point of this season for me was gillian anderson’s portrayal of margaret thatcher, just the way she would contort her face was amazing to me, and the episode with fagan because hey, i totally knew about that already (which never happens, lol) and i love that actor from preacher and it was just really well-written and acted. but, overall, pretty much i spent the whole season wanting a violent and bloody and embarrassing death to befall charles, that entitled and cruel little piss-ant, while knowing it wasn’t going to happen. it’s one of those shows i watch where i’m glad i watched it, but i won’t remember any details about it in a week’s time.
and as for what i soon will be currently watching: i’m starting the great tomorrow!
okay, tagging: @livthelion, @ohlookagaydraco, @grimmypuff, @clotpolesonly, @midnightisquiet, @urban-barbarian, @callunavulgari, @hrast-ika and @i-sveikata!!
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blood and wine rewrite au basic layout
i already posted something like this before but i cant find the post so im just rewriting all of this from the top of my head
everyone’s repurposed roles:
geralt - he’s still a witcher. he’s geralt of rivia. obviously. i don’t have time or interest to think about how to rewrite the entire witcher 3 game to be lore-friendly, but i assume there would be less triss and more dandelion involved in it. for this let’s just take him as geralt having done everything in tw3 but with the personality of geralt from the books because geralt from the games doesn’t have much of a strong personality good for writing or thinking about.
regis - a bitch. nah jk. he’s same regis but just what he was like 100 years ago when he got his head cut off. he’s less spiralling-into-doom than he was then, and is less desperate and hopeless overall, but is slowly getting there once again. he doesn’t remember anything about learning from his mistakes and becoming a good person, because this regis didn’t get any of that. to this regis, it’s like no time has passed at all since he died, and he’s ready to start partying again without any thought of the consequences. he’s moved to toussaint because everyone’s already tipsy there and the north is plagued by war so it’s not a really great source to be drinking from (like if there was a sewage leak near the vineyard you sourced your wine from). he doesn’t remember anything about maturing up or about becoming a surgeon or about the hansa, so that sucks.
dettlaff - not a fucking maniac. actually a character geralt will likely spend a good amount of time talking to. total character overhaul because he does not have a personality in the actual DLC. he arrived in toussaint because he had heard that regis had returned and wanted to fix things wih him, he had previously left him.
syanna - not a fucking dumbass, yet still naive in her own way due to being blinded with the promise of power. in this, she is planning to stage a coup on the duchy (because she is the older sister, so it IS her right by law) and she supports regis’ slow dive again into uncontrollable insanity because it helps her prop up rumors that her sister’s reign is ineffective against real threats and is cursed. but this alliance does not go as she planned...
orianna - in this, she is the owner of a gladiatorial school (instead of an orphanage), and is still like in canon a wealthy and influential individual of beauclair, yet reclusive from human society. she is regis’ best friend and goads him on, because she never fixed her own issues with alcoholism and now is elated to have him back and forgetting that they had disagreements which drove them apart in the first place. they’re best friends (NO romance) and it’s just good to see how insanely different orianna and geralt are because they’ve both been regis’ close friends at different points in time.
the purpose of this:
fix regis’ relationships with the vampires. he slowly drove all of his good friends away by going off the deep end and many are likely wondering whatever happened to him. but books regis would never consider partying like that again, so we bring the party regis back and then slowly de-escalate him into normal books regis again, and we finally get closure with him and his old friends.
cool dramatic stereotypical vampire shit. i’m talking about a final battle or conversation in a giant dark castle with large open windows and billowing drapery.
regis’s hairstyle
give syanna actual agency as a character and give her motivations that extend beyond pure revenge (although they are related to revenge) and make her more unique so she is not just a ripoff of renfri.
demonstrate anna henrietta and geralt’s relationship as it was in the books. he was genuinely intimidated by her and i interpret him as being jealous of her relationship with dandelion, so he in practice was quite withdrawn around her as she was her overemotional and embellished self
give dettlaff an actual character, holy shit. i hate how sorely underdeveloped he is in the game. i understand why because it’s not meant to be writing, it’s meant to be a video game, but come on. i hate having the vampire with the cool character design be the ultimate villain of the whole narrative. in this, he’s someone geralt can talk to and sees himself in. he’s emotionally mature and doesn’t mix with the other vampires. since we already know what regis is like, we don’t have to sit through dettlaff making excuses for him and trying to describe what his character is like. we also get a better view of regis’ past through dettlaff’s lense.
give orianna an actual character, holy shit. i hate how they didn’t even try with her and just used her as a “surprise, she is quite evil!” gimmick. have her actually have a larder for blood that is lore-friendly yet still jumps out at the audience as morally wrong. give her more personality and development.
examine regis’ backstory without actually getting into every single year of those 4 centuries. we can examine how it started good, turned bad, went worse... there’s a lot of loss involved and i think this would be nice to process it.
roughly what happens (under cut because if i ever do write this fic out, this is spoilers, literally the synopsis of the whole thing):
anna henrietta sends envoys to geralt. they establish that the duchess has no conflict with geralt and that her conflict was with dandelion, only. she has requested his help because he effectively dealt with many monsters while he was in beauclair and established a trustworthy reputation (also, he’s famous, and toussaintoirs are superficial). instead of the beast of beauclair killing particular victims, it’s the countryside which has been plagued by vicious attacks of the devil knows what.
geralt arrives and examines the scenes of the attacks. the sincere majority of the victims are alive, so he speaks to them. they remember nothing, but woke up with their village fucking absolutely trashed and with vomit everywhere. they all have wounds on their necks. geralt thinks he knows what’s up, but is reluctant to deal with it because of his memories of regis, who he misses
damien de la tour is assigned to geralt as a sort of backup. they argue and geralt manages to get him to stay put in beauclair while he rides to a village they believe will be attacked next. it’s not even a full moon so the vampires don’t even come out in their bat form (disappointing) but instead just mesmerize their way in in humanoid form. dettlaff sneaks up on geralt who is (ahem) staking out the situation, and is like hey dont kill regis hes not evil hes just misguided!! and geralt is like REGIS? EMIEL REGIS? THTS WHO’S LEADING THEM? i ..... i know him.... and dettlaff’s like what the fuck how... then they get caught and regis is like oh hey dettlaff who’s this guy and geralt feels very left out :( and also sad bc regis doesnt remember shit and geralt even lists the hansa members by name and regis is still like O_O ok yeah im just going to hypnotize you to get lost ok goodbye! but dettlaff prevents him from doing this and they both get thrown out of the party.
after the party geralt is a mess and is like wtf so hes back and what... how... huh... and dettlaff doesnt know how he returned or why he returned either but they compare geralt’s knowledge of how regis died with dettlaff’s knowledge of how regeneration works and they figure out that regis just regenerated from his past body and that’s why he doesn’t have any of his memories from when he turned good.
then they eavesdrop a little more and find out that syanna has been talking to regis and making deals with him (its... not really like she thinks, regis really hasnt been doing anything he doesnt want to. shes just like “hey can you attack this village here” and regis is like yeah i was gonna host a party there tomorrow night ...) so they are like who the fuck is this woman and track her down to her base of operations, and then they find out that THEY got followed by damien de la tour, who identifies her as sylvia anna. geralt is a little miffed on behalf of dandelion that damien seems to be so close to anna henrietta but i digress.
geralt reports his findings to the duchess but does NOT mention regis because the duchess knows who regis is. then we get the same vampire talk from canon b&w where the duchess and damien are sorely misinformed on every single thing ever.
geralt is defeated and has no idea on how to fix this and hes looking hard into a mirror by candlelight and then decides to go to bed so he turns around and regis is right behind him like hey. cue ‘holy shit what the fuck’ moment and freaking out. regis explains himself and says that he doesnt remember him but the fact that he gave so many specifics weirded him out and he kind of wants to know more out of curiosity. also he wants to talk to dettlaff but feels too bad about how he argued with him like 3 centuries ago that he cant just ask him directly.
so they talk and geralt is all :(( and regis is like ok well. i kinda want to get these memories back because they sound pretty significant and also im pretty miserable. but also im not going to stop partying bc its the only thing that makes me feel alive rn. so long!
geralt and dettlaff talk to orianna and she dislikes them both but still talks to them and then regis materializes and also begins bothering them and its quite civil but this scene just serves to demonstrate how annoying they are as friends lol
there’s scenes where you can either save damien / syanna from being unalived by the vampires’ / regis’ hand, only if you let syanna die will the duchess be mad and accuse you of being heartless like dandelion is and then geralt and the duchess actually get into an argument bc of that comment but geralt ofc loses bc hes scared of her lol
no matter what you get regis his memories back but your decisions to either continue helping him or not is what makes him change or not. even after he gets his memories back (or because he gets his memories back?) he decides to raze beauclair bc hes just so fucking miserable and geralt has to talk him down, if you are harsh and not understanding and shame him etc then he doesnt change, if you condemn his actions but still offer your support then he does.
if you offer your support > geralt talks about the hansa like For Ever and regis then adds in everything and yay regis is back to normal. theres like a wholesome montage of geralt being like “just TRY to sew up a wound i promise you you will be good at it” and regis does and hes splendid at it. regis and dettlaff finally make up and are bros once again. we help orianna with her issues and she realizes stuff but is still going to have a drink once in a while. if syanna is alive she doesnt hate on any of this but just decides to make up with the duchess and then become captain of the guard (damien gets fired for being a dumbass).
if you do not offer your support > regis goes to cry in a delapidated creepy old castle and you have an epic fight (geralt is backed up by dettlaff) and he turns into a bat and geralt almost dies, they manage to decapitate regis again and put him in the ground and set a timer for 50 years
if you redeem regis then there’s an ending scene where the duchess is like “oh regis i didnt know you were in town” and hes just like <:) ahaha... yeah...
cue crying about milva/cahir/angouleme For Ever. maybe link this with the fic where geralt and regis bring them all back as ghosts/real ppl and then they have to deal with those consequences
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what more can you do?
WOO! this week’s episode was sad and weird and badly paced and startlingly, unevenly mature in true titans fashion. i loved it (with reservations)! let’s talk about it in excruciating detail:
SPOILERS ahead.
1. i can’t say that i’m awfully thrilled about the show following up on a character’s literal suicide attempt by... not addressing said suicide attempt at all. maybe it’s the awkward way an entire episode’s worth of flashback was shoehorned in between the end of 2.07--where dick literally talked jason off the ledge while in the throes of a psychotic break of his own--and the beginning of this one, but it’s honestly not just bad storytelling, but irresponsible storytelling.
1.5. in a general sense, tho, the tableau at the beginning of the episode is so egregiously unfair--so shockingly, plainly one-sided, with a slump shouldered dick facing the world, only kory on his side, that it’s quite apparent that it’s the lowest these heroes can go. and i do think their individual reactions to dick’s confession provide an interesting insight into their characters. hank and dawn have been operating alone for so long, each a reminder of their traumas and losses and very human frailty to the other, without even the resources that dick and the batman enjoy. it’s been them v the world for so goddamn long; is it any wonder that they were looking for the first excuse to bail out of there, to not Deal with the idea that what they were doing to deal with their traumas and guilt was clearly not working, and dick was--and has been always--so willing to be the scapegoat? hank punching dick was utterly unwarranted--but i can accept that as part of the unaddressed emotional outbursts arising out of years of accumulated head injuries from both college football and vigilantism. (this isn’t to excuse what he did but to contextualise it within hank’s history and personality.) their instinct when facing ugly truths is to retreat to what they think is familiar and what they need--except, as hank realises later in the episode, that’s exactly what’s fucking them up further.
rose is understandably upset at being lied to about her brother’s death and the titans being complicit in the same--but i’m curious that her reaction was to merely leave and not try and fight them. maybe after being defeated by dick while sparring and nearly being killed by rachel she was sensible enough to realise that she couldn’t take them on all at once? i don’t know--she’s curiously been a bit of a cipher this season. jason leaving with her made sense tho--unburdened of the weight of being the team’s scapegoat, understandably miffed at dick for keeping a secret that nearly cost him his life and left him with a great deal of trauma, just Angry at the world in general, he gravitates towards rose, the only other outsider/rebel who tried to reach out to him when everybody else shunned him or looked at him like an impostor. i think the decision was more impulsive than anything--they still look confused and uncertain in the taxi as they leave the tower behind. but--i don’t know. theirs is the storyline that i’m the most perplexed about. we just don’t have a lot of information about either of them, rose especially.
(a part of me still thinks she’s slade’s mole in the tower. but why would she leave if she is? to keep up appearances bc to react in any other way to the news of her brother’s death would be suspicious? maybe she left because her job is done and the titans were splitting up? maybe she was part of the long game to seduce jason over to slade’s side--seeking revenge for dick swaying jericho over to the titans’? am i going to stop asking myself questions in this post? am i ever going to write a review that’s not just stream-of-consciousness nonsense? only time will tell.)
DONNA. oh, donna. her decision to leave seems to me a logical continuation of her s2 arc that i’d talked about in a previous review--paranoid, insecure, retraumatised, and taking out her frustrations on jason and dick. it’s also very interesting to me that she complained to rachel about dick treating them like “soldiers” and only told them things that he deemed that they “need[ed] to know.” it was because of jillian and whatever mysterious business that themyscira was conducting in sf that she and garth and slade ever landed up in that airport at all; even worse, jillian deemed it was something that donna didn’t need to know until it was too late. donna lost so much in that fiasco--the man she loved, her friends, several members of her amazon family, and her sense of purpose, her belief in her strength and her destiny and her faith that other people trusted her as a warrior and as a leader. she’s projecting all that pain onto dick--who again, doesn’t deserve all this shit but takes it anyway because of his own issues.
1.8. and, like. as much as jericho’s death became the Traumatic Event that overshadowed almost everything else in dick’s life for the last five years and helps explain a lot of his hang-ups right from s1, it just doesn’t have the same significance for the others. don’t get me wrong--i’m sure hank, donna and dawn are devastated and guilty about the part that they had to play in manipulating jericho and his eventual death. but their issues with each other, with the titans tower and with their past run deeper and in different directions, and i think all of that came into play when they each decided to go their separate ways.
1.95. idek what the fuck is going on with rachel. i felt every ounce of dick’s heartbreak and devastation when she got up to leave with donna. for all that she saved dick in the first episode of this season, she still hasn’t reached the point where she’s willing to unburden her emotions and issues on him. it must be frustrating and sad for her to realise just how much dick didn’t trust her either. but there’s something else going on as well: maybe she’s realised she has no real control over her re-emerging powers, and, carrying on with the fatalistic attitude she had at the end of 2.05, she wants to spare the titans the chaos and darkness that she carries around with her. (she’s used to running away at this point, after all.) she goes with donna bc donna knows her the least: it would therefore be easy to fool her and escape.
2. more faddei! and kory backstory! \o/
it’s curious that they never once bring up trigon, because s1 gave the impression that she’d come to earth with a specific mission to seek his portal out and destroy it before he could, y’know, Fuck The Universe Up. faddei makes it sound like kory just went on this fun little sabbatical before taking up royal duties, which kiiinda undercuts a lot of what was cool about her s1 arc. i realise you aren’t entirely happy with your freshman season, titans, and s2 looks like it might be a soft reboot, but you don’t have to mutilate it like this!
but seriously. the stakes just got upped exponentially for kory, and it would be really interesting to see where she goes from here. apart from a promise to rachel, she doesn’t really owe the rest of the titans anything--not that i think she views relationships in such transactional terms, of course. on the other hand, abandoning her responsibilities on tamaran has led to its takeover by an unfit leader and the deaths of several of her family and friends. the choice shouldn’t be a choice at all. she should go back home. and yet--she waited too long, and the choice has been taken away from her. faddei is dead, both of their ships are destroyed, and she is stuck on earth, grieving and frustrated and furious. kory is usually very clear headed about exactly where she stands emotionally, but after such a big event, she must be feeling so much pain, guilt, sorrow, anger, even resentment. it’s so easy to look at kory’s level-headedness and open, empathetic personality and use her to prop up other characters, but i hope that this isn’t always the case, and that she’ll be allowed to really work through these emotions while somebody else looks out for her.
2.35. (the little snippets of faddei and kory just enjoying the shit out of the Little Things that humanity has to offer is just... it filled me with so much warmth. i wouldn’t mind an entire episode of them just chilling and exploring and annoying each other with badly-applied out-of-context pop culture references)
2.5. blackfire! i don’t know much about comics!blackfire beyond “she was starfire’s sister, Evil, and possibly sold her sister into slavery??? yikes” so i’m just going purely off what the show has revealed about her so far. it was honestly disconcerting to see so many references to her possible disability (?) and to see both that and the efforts to accommodate her spoken about in... i want to say mocking way? i don’t know. i just saw a murder mystery/thriller movie today where the serial killer was revealed to have been both disabled from birth and mentally ill, and maybe i’m just feeling extra sensitive to the truly disturbing and pervasive trope of having disabled characters be Evil--and tying their Evil to their disability.
2.8. anyhow, blackfire appears to have accumulated a fair bit of power in the time that kory’s been gone: not only can she remotely possess other tamaraneans but she can blow up their ships too. (and didn’t faddei say that she had goons on the ground, looking for starfire?)
2.9. it’s a Lot to deal with this late in the season. maybe kory will leave for tamaran to deal with blackfire once and for all at the end of the season. and if titans ends up cancelled, wouldn’t that be a bittersweet ending.
(wherein ‘bittersweet’ translates to ‘devastating’ ofc)
3. oh where do i even start with dick
his worst fears came true. after his confession, not only did his old friends up and leave, but so did rachel and jason, which he found more heartbreaking than anything else. utterly consumed by guilt and convinced more than ever before of his culpability, he actively seeks out ways to self-flagellate, first by going to adeline to apologise, then by banishing himself, then by making sure he is punished (tho i have my doubts on that last one; will elaborate a little later). after watching him have an extended psychotic break and dash into not one but two suicide missions, watching dick grayson do this to himself feels like watching an extended feature on human suffering. it’s not fun, or pretty, and i can feel it reaching its nadir so that dick can bounce back up again, but i hope it happens soon.
(dick’s natural tendency to internalise guilt and responsibility into a hard little diamond core at his centre and his long training with batman with all the emphasis on secrets and subterfuge with a healthy underpinning of paranoia ironically means that he does so much goddamn emotional labour for this team. he’s the glue that keeps them together, that gives them purpose. he’s trying so hard to do good by everybody that he isn’t really able to achieve it with any of them, which leads to another self-flagellating spiral and him determining to try harder and the cycle just keeps going on. only kory seems to have ever broken this cycle, because she’s never demanded anything of him, nor he of her. it’s really sad to think how bereft dick feels right now, and more than that, how it’s stopping him from being there for the people who really do need him and trust him, like gar and rachel.)
3.25. adeline makes a very good point about how merely apologising doesn’t mean you’re owed forgiveness, and that seeking it out after all these years is a self-serving exercise in itself. but i can see dick taking it hard, especially after discovering that she’s letting slade--the man who actually killed her son--recuperate at her home. (and let’s be clear: however good her intentions, she participated in lying to her child about the truth of what his father actually does. wow, jericho was really just fucked over by pretty much every one he loved, wasn’t he?)
but i am glad to see dick isn’t so far gone that he takes the blame for jericho’s death in front of slade. he’s very aware that slade has permanently broken the team and very aware of the threat slade poses if they ever try to get back together again, but he’s not going to completely surrender every last shred of his self-worth and dignity to this man, and that was refreshing to see.
3.5. so he banishes himself to the farthest place he can think of with nothing more than the shirt on his back and a single duffel bag. it’s so over-the-top yet so... dick grayson.
3.8. BUT WAIT! ~PLOT TWIST~
ok so here’s what’s happening, all right? strap in:
a) jericho is one hundred percent inside slade. i have no doubts about this. adeline knows this too. it’s why she was so even-keeled while talking to dick, why she confidently said that jericho loved dick, and why she said “they” might be willing to forgive him. i’m thinking when slade crawled back home, jericho took advantage of his father’s momentary weakness to tell what was happening to his mother.
b) jericho tried to communicate to dick. i saw something somewhere which said that slade had gestured something very specific in asl while conversing with dick? i’m willing to believe that was intentional.
c) when dick was turning to leave and slade called him one last time and gave his “banishment sentence” jericho likely jumped bodies from slade to dick
d) so why did dick get himself arrested at the airport?
- dick was going through, as others have speculated, a dissociative episode. given how he’s exhibited signs of mental illness throughout this season this isn’t that far out of the realm of possibility, but it’s a weak and redundant narrative bridge and wasn’t shot in a way that suggested that it was a mental break. so i’m ruling this out.
- jericho took over. maybe he felt that this was the only way he could force dick to stay in sf. maybe some of his father’s anger/resentment leeched into him and he wanted to dick to experience some actual punishment instead of scarpering again. maybe he was overwhelmed by dick’s own self-flagellating tendencies and chose the shortest route to maximum pain. maybe it’s a combination of all three.
- dick finally got his brain into gear and realised at the last minute that jericho had possessed slade and was trying to tell him something. why he then proceeded to get himself arrested instead of running out of the airport is a mystery.
personally, i’m leaning towards the ‘jericho possessed dick’ possibility.
4. gar is such a sweetheart and i am so glad that he took centrestage this episode, even though, like always, it was to support another character and ended up with him crying and begging for help from an unresponsive dick. *sighs*
4.5. much like dick himself, he’s trying to do good by everybody, only to end up badly misjudging a situation, and all alone.
5. oof. this has gone on for far too long and i am Tired. more thoughts to come later, because right now my brain is as disorganised as... as disorganised as a titans episode. hah! self-burn!!!
#titans#titans spoilers#dick grayson#koriand'r#garfield logan#hank hall#dawn granger#donna troy#rachel roth#slade wilson#meta#aaaah this is 2.6k+ words long I'M SORRY
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The Role of “Hate” in Pluto
I have just finished Pluto and one of the things I found the most interesting about it is how it explores the concept of “hate”.
The ending is very clear in its condemnation of it:
However, more than this, what I find fascinating is how the story arrives to this point and what this conclusion means. As a matter of fact hate and other negative emotions like sadness, anger and grief are all portrayed as very human emotions which are very common and difficult to avoid. So, this meta will try to explore this idea further.
Pluto is a retelling of one of Osamu Tezuka’s stories which is called The Greatest Robot on Earth.
Because of this, I think that a good way to go at it when analysing it is to ask ourselves what the greatest robot on Earth should be like.
This is professor Tenma’s answer:
As a scientist Tenma wants to recreate human nature through an AI. Humans hate, feel sadness and lie, so a perfect robot should be able to do these things as well.
Let’s underline that this idea which is fully expressed by Tenma is prepared throughout the narration in several ways far before Tenma makes it explicit.
For example, Brau 1589 states that no malfunction has been found in his AI. This is because him killing a person does not make him less perfect, but actually better than other robots because it makes him closer to a human. This is once again clarified by Tenma when he visits the robot:
Similarly, Atom says something interesting here:
On a less darker note, the narrative offers several examples of minor human weaknesses robots are not supposed to share:
In a conversation he has with Gesicht, Hoffman states jokingly how a robot who skips work could be considered progress. This is perfectly coherent with the ideals embodied by professor Tenma’s character.
This idea might seem to endorse a pretty negative perspective of human nature. This is certainly partially true given Tenma’s cynism and his status as a person who has escaped from society and so who avoids interactions with other human beings as much as possible.
However, when it comes to Tenma, I think that what he thinks about hate and human imperfection is something a little more complex than that:
Tenma created Atom to somehow “resurrect” his son who died in a car accident. However, he soon realized that Atom was not Tobio. First of all he does not mature like human children do:
Secondly he doesn’t share Tobio’s feelings and imperfection. He can try to imitate them, but when it comes to a feeling as complex as the one of hate he doesn’t know what to reply to Tenma.
So, for Tenma the negative traits which made Tobio human are the ones he misses the most and Atom lacking them is why he decides to sell him and to leave him behind.
This is to highlight how Tenma’s vision of the world is not simply one driven by scientific curiousity and a sense of nihilism. Those two are aspects definately present in him and they make up a great part of his personality, but they are rooted in Tobio’s death and in Tenma’s inability to overcome grief:
This is made clear by Tenma’s reaction to Atom’s death and to his willingness not to respect any moral or scientific bounds in order to have him back:
Here Tenma is doing something very similar to what he did when Tobio died. He chooses to do what he can to bring his son back even if he knows that he might be giving birth to a demon.
This is important when we consider Gesicht’s story and his role.
Gesicht, like Tenma, is a father who lost a son in a horrible way. His reaction to this loss was pure anger and hate for the child’s killer. The hate was so strong that motivated him to kill a human being despite this going against the robotic laws. It is obvious that if one takes out the fantascientific setting the situation is already one with which we can empathize. Gesicht is portrayed as a very moral person. This is no surprise since he was programmed to be a robot cop. However, when a great injustice hurt him personally he gave in to revenge and broke the law. This is the core of Gesicht’s character and his struggle.
This is important for at least two reasons.
1) The first one is that Gesicht killing the man out of hate is relevant when it comes to his and Mr Haas’s subplot:
Mr Haas’s wife suggests that Gesicht (being him a robot) could not have killed Haas’s brother motivated by such a negative feeling as hate. She argues that what happened must have happened out of necessity while Gesicht was trying to fulfill his duty.
The idea that robots not having emotions can be considered something which makes them better than humans is touched on several times. Here is an example:
A judge whose judgment is not clouded by emotions can be considered better than one who can become irrational due to feelings.
In short, it seems logical to think that Mr Haas’s anger towards Gesicht would be misplaced if the robot killed without hate and justified if the robot killed with hate.
However, this is not how things play out in the end.
As a matter of fact it is specifically the fact that both Haas and Gesicht acted moved by hate that lets them understand each other:
Finally, it is the fact that Gesicht still chose to protect both Mr Haas and his family despite what had occurred between them what finally motivates Mr Haas to change idea about him and hopefully robots in general:
In other words, it is not the fact that Gesicht is unable to feel hate which makes him better than Mr Haas, but the fact that he was able to overcome it. This is what gets through to Mr Haas and inspires him to be better. After all, if Gesicht was simply a person without emotions it would be difficult for Mr Haas to relate to him and it would be easy for him to keep hating the robot as someone inhuman. However, the fact that the two of them are flawed in a very similar way, but that Gesicht still chose to abide to some sort of moral code (like his duty as a policeman) is the proof that Mr Haas has the chance to do the same.
The way things were sorted out between them makes sense also considering Mr Haas’s backstory. As a matter of fact his and his brother’s hate for robots was born by the fact that they were considered better workers than humans and that this led to the brothers’ father being fired. What is more a robot’s too strict application of the law is what led to the man’s death:
The robot was technically right since the brothers’ father had stolen, but at the same time all he stole was a ball to give his children some joy.
In other words, arguments about how robots are better than humans and superior to them are bound not to have the right effect on someone like Mr Haas since his hate is born partially by this exact idea. However, seeing how similar to him Gesicht was managed to obtain some results.
2) The second reason is this:
Throughout the story this scene seems to be a part of an extremely dark memory Gesicht is trying to suppress. He is literally haunted by this scene and it keeps coming to his mind when he sees robots’ bodies among other things. In short, everything leads the reader to think that what happened between Gesicht and the man asking money out of him is something negative.
However, when we are finally revealed the context of the scene this is what we discover:
Gesicht’s memory was not an unhappy one, but on the contrary it was him remembering the day he became a father. In other words it is the day Gesicht learnt parental love.
At the same time this scene is at the origin of Gesicht’s hate and violent action. As a matter of fact one can not choose to only have positive emotions. If one feels he is bound to deal with both the good and the bad of it:
All in all the story if full of love being used to fuel hate and of hate overcome by love.
This becomes apparent in the character of Sahad aka Pluto:
This abstract sign is identified by Atom as a negative feeling and when we meet Pluto for the first time he has been realizing works of abstract art:
This picture might seem chilling at first sight especially if the reader realizes that the robot who has drawn it is Pluto. Uran herself is led to Pluto because she can feel his immense pain and she wants to help him.
However, as Sahad spends more time with Uran in a somehow positive environment he starts to remember what he was originally created for aka his father original wish:
And so what seemed like an abstract mirror of a pained subconscious becomes a wonderful field of flowers able to move Uran to tears.
After all, the whole conflict is born by a huge dream being destroyed by war and by a man losing his children and his wife.
What Abra/Goji wants is revenge and it is meaningful that he tries to obtain it through three cyborgs (counting Goji himself) who were originally created to turn the desert into a field of flowers.
The example of Bora is self-explanatory:
He was supposed to be a robot who could save the planet, but he has been turned into a weapon which could destroy humanity instead.
In short, negative feelings are a part of being humans and they are strongly intertwined with positive ones. These two points come together in Atom’s “resurrection”. This part of the plot is also linked to Gesicht’s arc and his role as a father.
Atom is able to wake up thanks to Gesicht “hate” and Epsilon’s “sadness”:
After his awakening he is said to be able to feel hate and this is proven true during his battle against Pluto:
This in itself is important and can be used to make some considerations:
Here Brau claims that Atom has matured to which Atom’s reply is that he can not grow since he is a robot.
This is interesting because the fact that Atom can not grow is one of the reasons why Tenma realized that he was never going to be like Tobio. The other one was Atom’s inability to feel hate. These were the two main reasons why Tenma considered Atom a failure.
However, after his awakening Atom has learnt what hate is and he is said to have matured. What Brau noticed was probably something more similar to a change happened in the inside rather than one happened on the outside.
In other words Atom has grown not because he has matured physically, but because he has now a better understanding of human emotions among which hate.
This is no different than a child growing up and having to learn the complexity of the world and to make sense of their negative feelings.
After all, given Tenma’s description of the perfect AI here:
It is difficult not to think of it as a child aka as a being who has in front of themselves all the possibilities and who will grow to become only one of those possibilities.
In a sense this is very similar to what was said in Monster:
Children can become anything and the parents have a great role in influencing their future developments.
This becomes obvious through Gesicht and Atom’s relationship.
As a matter of fact what Atom learnt from Gesicht is not only what hate is, but also this:
He learnt how to overcome it and that humanity is not just hate, but also hope:
This is why the manga ends with a wish and a prayer which are actions born out of hope:
Let’s also underline how the bomb formula Atom writes down after he wakes up is not just something born out of a new found hatred for the world, but it is probably something he learnt thanks to Epsilon who realized that the Earth was in danger just before dying:
Let us also underline how “sorrow” (aka what Atom learnt from Epsilon) plays a part in the ending just as much as “hate” does. As a matter of fact once Atom overcomes his hatred he starts crying and so does Pluto and the two comment how strange that feeling is. It is also interesting how Epsilon’s death, just like Gesicht’s one is linked to a child. As a matter of fact the two robots both survived a fight against Pluto and gave up the chance to kill him only to then die trying to protect a child.
This is linked to the last point of the analysis i.e. to how Atom surviving is representative of the importance of protecting children and in this way the future itself.
After all, throughout the narrative Atom is paralleled to Gesicht’s child, so it is meaningful that in the end he survives thanks to Gesicht’s sacrifice. At the same time he is the one inheriting Gesicht’s legacy like a child who is taught by a parent. Even if the parent messed up he has still the chance to teach the child to be better. So, Atom is able to put into practice what Gesicht learnt and is able to connect with Pluto.
In conclusion, to answer the question which started this analysis I would say that the Greatest Robot on Earth is not the strongest or the one who exhibits somehow better qualities than humans, but it is a robot who is human and who at the same time is able to learn from humans (like the robots developing emotions by imitating human behaviours), but also to teach humans to be better:
This is evident also in how Brau develops. Brau has always been an AI very similar to humans since he managed to develop hate, but after his meeting with Atom he starts to understand something else. He calls it “a heart” and he is able to feel it both in a person as noble as Atom and in a person as despicable as the President. The fact that in the end he chooses to kill Doctor Roosevelt instead of the President underlines a choice the character makes. Despite how much imperfect humans are Brau still chooses them over an AI who is incredibly advanced and intelligent, but lacks a “heart”.
#naoki urasawa's pluto#naoki urasawa's pluto meta#pluto meta#my meta#gesicht#pluto#tetsuwan atom#uran#professor tenma#umataro tenma#epsilon#naoki urasawa
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"That’s because she’s a toddler that stomps her foot and throws a tantrum when she doesn’t get what she wants or the attention she feels entitled to for doing absolutely nothing meaningful with her life." Hahahahahaha, Abby talking about herself again. This miserable woman has some serious psychological issues if she can't recognize that what she is describing is her own pathetic attitude and existence. It really is woeful behavior, Abby. For the love of god, stop and employ some introspection.
I’m always amazed at her complete lack of introspection and her inability to understand who is doing the feet stomping and attention-demanding but I’m more floored that the tinhat enablers can’t see it. The endless narcissism memes and quotes posted without an iota of irony by Leka, Cassie, and Flowers are frankly baffling. How can they not see it?
I suppose Mia could be a stomping toddler princess-we would have no way of knowing because we hardly ever hear her speak and we certainly do not get to hear her thoughts and feelings about life. The only time we get any access to anything that might resemble a thought or feeling is when a friend reblogs s social media post from her private IG. It’s super rare and we have never seen anything resembling a “toddler princess”. To get from a smiling photo of Darren and Mia on the red carpet to “she is stomping her feet and making demands” one must believe a long, fabricated backstory created purely to fulfill Abby’s fantasy-a fantasy that is rooted in deep-green jealousy rather than anything real.
Mia is well-liked by her friends, her bar staff, and Darren’s friends, coworkers, and peers. We know this because they post it on social media. People write really nice -and often very specific-comments about what they like about Mia or what she brings to their lives. Abby, on the other hand, spends her days raging over Darren maybe might possibly could ogle men on the Hollywood set and that would be someone’s fault-ok it would be Ricky’s fault. She’s angry about Darren’s new home-shocker, she doesn’t like it. She’s pissed that D-Criss News reports Darren’s life like it happens aka she doesn’t scrub her blog of all mentions of Mia and/or Photoshop her out of pictures like DACN does. The only one demanding respect is Miss Abs who was quite angry after being called out and argued “I am the one who constantly tries to explain his actions and constantly tries to assert my opinion”
There is only one person stomping her feet and making demands and her name starts with “Abby”.
“I was just saying to a good friend, with SK, my patience has expired. And that’s how I feel about everything involving d and this tragedy. At least if he was working there would be a distraction. It’s May. We’ve gotten one night about d. One. The rest have been overshadowed and that includes his 3 awards.
And if my patience has run out, imagine how d&c feel. I just wish I knew how we got here. It’s my worst nightmare times a thousand, maybe a million. And I’m disgusted with everyone surrounding him. And angry. Very very angry.
Please may he win. If he wins, this will just be a difficult bump on a long road to the finish line and victory. Please, please, please. This can’t be his life. Because he’s not living”.(X)
“...your one sentence resonates, “fans of d who want him straight see M as the only one who makes him straight…”. That’s not a me problem. That’s a them problem. That’s pathetic. Essentially, what you are saying, and truly what I believe so we agree, they support m because they realize without her d would be allowed to be his queer self in love with another man. And that truth petrifies them.
And this fandom, in which I am a loud voice, points out every damn flaw and they hate it because they know they can’t erase it. So they counter by praising that worthless, vile, malicious, greedy woman. And bullying us. And creating blogs to hate us.
And yes a side effect, m gets same increased praise because of it. And that’s a negative. But we also make her life hell but continuing to publish facts. And we scare the fuck out if her fans. And I have no intention of stopping. Because the truth always comes out in the end. M will lose. Maybe not today or even next year. But in time. And I will take pride in knowing I was a massive thorn in her side and played a part in her demise.
D is going to win. And I will see it happen.
Love this gem of demands
You know what I miss?
D having projects that I was excited about and looking forward to. The ONLY one he has upcoming that i am remotely happy about is M/idway, and that makes me sad in many ways as that is the direction his career should be going and instead it has stalled.
Instead, this entire year was things I do not care about and I am not interested in.
SK? No thank you, not only do many (not all) use him mercilessly, but everything they touch, whether professional or personal, is the PBB show. And while I appreciate his loyalty, i really do, and I understand he is an owner, he has grown so far beyond them, this should not have been a primary focus of the entire first half of the year.
R/oyalites? That one is hard no for me. first we have the Jumping Jackass as executive producer. Need i say more? Of course I will. It is also in a format i found wholly uninteresting and is being written by 2 people that i don’t believe have grown beyond their college years. In addition, i think it will be used as a vehicle to promote ass kissers, but that remains to be seen.
TB? Nope, have not even watched it in its entirety more than once. A commercial for a food chain i don’t like and that supports Donnie as the ONLY acting he has done until just recently seems like an utter joke. I recognize it was well done, but not when it is the only thing. Commercials and ads should be supplementing his acting career, not be his entire career.
EF? I should be excited, i have a ticket. But to see who? 6 weeks from Saturday and not even D is confirmed as performing. And even if it is an amazing line up, RR and PBB have their fingerprints all over it and pull focus. (future Abby LOVED Elsie this year)
I WAS excited about CG music, but what happened there? They started a fan club, promised an EP and nothing. Instead C/huck has released his own album and included at least one song that was supposed to be on the CG EP.
Fine, there is CIM, that was fun, but fleeting. So i guess I was happy about this. Wonder what happened to the video?
I think this is the thing that makes me almost more angry than anything. Fine, they forced him to marry that woman, and that breaks my heart and is near impossible to watch. I hate every second of it. But not only do I have to watch that shit show nearly everyday as their life may as well be a reality show, there isn’t even the work to use as a distraction.
I assume and hope there is a plan and this is temporary. I do.He deserves so much better than what has happened in 2019.
Sorry, in a glum mood and this is what happened.
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New thread same TWD thoughts:
So I know I said all that stuff about Daryl and Michonne being my favorite characters on the walking dead, and also all that other stuff about good riddance to dead rapists, including among others Shane, but clearly you should ignore everything I say because I’ve spent the last couple days writing a convoluted Shane-centric backstory for a potential Rick/Daryl fic, and almost nothing about Daryl. Not too much about Rick either! Mostly just Shane, and Shane’s intense and lifelong obsession with Rick, and how that manifested over the years and really shaped him as a person.
Like .......do I want to be spending this much time thinking about Shane? Thinking about how much he loves Rick, and hates himself for loving Rick, and hates Rick both for being the object of his love and for being wonderfully unburdened by the knowledge of Shane’s love, and hates every girl Rick ever crushes on but also wants to fuck all of them before Rick can - you know. A thorny thicket of self-loathing and deeply ingrained homophobia and violent misogyny and angry possessiveness. Do I want to be circling that drain? Noooo..... but also, clearly, yes.
Also I found this article where Norman Reedus explains that Daryl is “prison gay” and it’s so problematic but it’s also all I can think about. I mean that turn of phrase is really unfortunate and I can’t get behind it at all, but when he elaborates and says that it’s like he’s attracted to men but he’d never admit it (& he’d STAB you if you called him out on it?????? Norman! He would not! He would just yell a bunch of mean things and then stalk off to go cry and smoke a cigarette by himself! And then he’d come back and threaten to stab you if you said anything but he wouldn’t actually follow through with it! Obviously!) is pretty much exactly how he comes across, and also a decent chunk of what I find compelling about the character.
What was I saying before about how I was shocked and appalled at how much time I was spending writing about Shane? I have no self-awareness. Obviously I’m obsessed with any character struggling with intense internalized homophobia. I see a character with tender gay feelings reject their tender gay feelings violently, I go “time to Process Some Shit here!!!!! :DDD” and it’s just over for me.
Jon Bernthal (& Andrew Lincoln) reeeeeeally sold me on Shane’s extreme, obsessive, physical love for Rick, mostly expressed by having sex with Lori, and later, when Rick came back and she didn’t want to anymore, by sexually assaulting Lori, and by holding Rick’s face in his big hands and staring into his eyes, their foreheads almost touching, both of their faces red with emotion, Rick’s hands gripping Shane’s shoulders, as “their son” (uh, symbolically) Carl flickers between life and death in the next room over. Shane is so terrible but he loves Rick so much! I feel bad about how obsessed I am with him.
Anyway back to characters that aren’t rapists, I kind of want to write a Daryl who isn’t ......the thing he said. A Daryl who isn’t dealing with internalized homophobia of quite such a violent variety. Let’s try a Daryl who knows the world he grew up in and knows how to keep his mouth shut and how not to get caught by his brother, or anyone who might tell his brother, or anyone who might try to, uh, stab him.... anyway, a Daryl who is smart, and keeps his own counsel, and isn’t looking to change the culture, or live openly, because living openly isn’t smart or safe, but he knows who he is and he’s not ashamed.
Tbh I’m also open to a Daryl who would threaten to stab you. Tbqh I am probably going to spend more time writing about that than a healthier Daryl who doesn’t hate himself for being queer. Listen. I have Things to process. I want Daryl to be all fully-realized but I want to grow in the process, I guess. I want hard won emotional truth. Without too much conversation, because that seems out of character. My entire way of talking and writing is out of character for this. I’ll just have to be wordy and verbose and melodramatic in talking around it and about it because i don’t know another way.
Daryl is such a “Beth asks him what made him decide there were still good people in the world and he just glances over at her. She asks him again and he gives her a more pointed look. She asks him a third time and he turns to her with this searching look on his face, this look of disbelief, like he can’t believe she doesn’t already know, and is she asking out of vanity? no, maybe not - but how can she not understand? is he gonna have to say it? he doesn’t have the words for it. And they just look at each other for some long, intense seconds, until she says Oh. And then I think there’s zombies” type of character.
Like I would not write a scene like that, it’s got too much internal monologue, but how do you convey all that without just explaining it? That literally happened exactly like that in the show and it was ...intense! I felt so uncomfortable! Esp since there was So Much Tension between Beth and Daryl in that story arc. You could read it as platonic. You could. I cling to that pretty desperately. Beth mentioned her dead older brother and I was like “thank heavens! A piece of driftwood to carry us thru the flood! She thinks of him as an older brother!” and clung to that for dear life. But it was also Pure Unadulterated Unspoken Romantic Tension. Like, if I was still an impressionable young girl, I would have watched it and had some Very Interesting Dreams About Daryl And Beth that night. I know who I was.
I remember when I was nine years old and I watched the first X-Men movie and wow, we really did open with that scene of Wolverine cage-fighting for extra cash, and he’s all muscular and sad and being exploited for his body and then Rogue is there and she’s sad and alone and touch-starved but cannot bear to be touched and people literally die if they do touch her and she insinuates herself into Wolverine’s truck and into his life and he begins, grudgingly, to care for her in this deep way where he recognizes their shared pain and her vulnerability that is also in some ways his - uh, I had a lot of Very Interesting Dreams about the two of them, you better believe, and I also started writing a “novel” (I was always writing “novels” as a kid, that were mostly just “cool ideas for stories that could exist and if they did I would love to read them” - same as now) that was basically just “what if Rogue and her superpowers but not in the X-Men universe” and I had the most intense crush on Wolverine for years and years. If I’m being honest I still do. Formative!!!
So anyway, that stuff makes me pretty uncomfortable now but I try to remember that it’s like fan service for teenagers I guess???? Idk, is it? Or is it conditioning them to accept the love of an adult as fine and normal and healthy and desirable? Idk but they never crossed the line into having Beth try to kiss Daryl so I didn’t have to rage-quit the show.
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Arc V Anniversary Day 20
Day 20. Favorite antagonists
Zarc is still my favorite antagonist in Arc V. I liked his backstory when Leo first revealed it. I thought that it was an interesting concept to have what was basically an Entertainment Duelist turned evil to be the big villain of the series. It offered an interesting parallel to Yuya's own journey and it also made me think of it as a commentary on using violence for the shake of it in entertainment. Despite this, I initially thought that Zarc was going to be just another typical overpowered final Yu-Gi-Oh! villain. Overpowered villains aren't necessarily bad. It is an easy way to increase the tension. Plus, with all of the buildup they had for Zarc throughout the series, they needed to establish just how big of a threat he was by defeating all of the remaining characters.
However, my opinion instantly changed the moment Crow asked Zarc if he was that afraid of losing. That put Zarc's motivation, action and deck in a whole new light for me. It provided an in-universe justification for Zarc's overpowered cards and tied into his backstory. Zarc wanted to keep winning until there was no one left. That was his main reason for merging with his dragons for the first time around. After being defeated by Ray and split apart, of course he'd be afraid of losing again. Even his deck was more defensive than expected. His monsters were clearly powerful too, but he always had effects and combos that prevented destruction and drastically limit the amount of damage he would take. It also helped that Zarc was slowly but surely becoming more emotional with each match, so seeing his anger upon Crow making this comment was pretty fitting. Crow saw through Zarc's anger and power and realized it was a cover for his own fear of losing.
I especially love that Zarc wasn't just an evil version of Yuya. He was more like a dark mirror to what Yuya could have, and almost did, become. I always thought it was rather telling that all of the remaining Lancers were set on saving Yuya from Zarc, but there wasn't any mention of people in the original world trying to save Zarc. Granted, we learned about Zarc's downfall from Leo who thought that Zarc was always a monster, so he might not have been aware of anyone trying to save him, but it would make much more sense if no one tried to do so. If Zarc had any friends besides his dragons in the original world, then I don't think he would have fallen so hard in the first place, He would have been able to find some guidance or reassurance from his friends instead of lashing out at the world. But Yuya did have a lot of friends. He was able to connect with a lot of different people throughout the four dimensions and as a result, they wanted to save Yuya. It made the battle against Zarc more emotional because they weren't focused on just saving the world, but there was a much stronger emphasis on reaching out to Yuya because they all cared about him.
Zarc is what Yuya could have become without the emotional support of his family and friends to help guide and reassure him. Zarc was too focused on appealing to the audience's demands for violent duels that he threw away his true dream and his real self as a result. Zarc didn't have the courage to keep dueling in his own way because he gave into the demand of other people around him. His anger combined with the anger he felt from his dragons led to Zarc's downfall and the destruction of the original world. Because Yuya had his parents to lay the foundation for his ideals and his friends to provide emotional support, Yuya had a much stronger grip on his ideals. He struggled throughout the series to understand what kind of dueling he wanted to do and questioned if he was capable enough to reach out to people with his dueling, but he didn't abandon those ideals in spite of all of the hardships he dealt with throughout the series. Yuya's reaction to defeating Duel Chaser 227 perfectly shows the difference between him and Zarc. Yuya knew right away that he didn't want to duel like this and was upset even with the crowd cheering for him.. Zarc, on the other hand, threw away his ideals because he was too consumed by the audience cheering him on.
I also really liked how they handled Zarc's redemption. Zarc's true dream was to make everyone, even his monsters, smile with his dueling and it was so fitting. Yuya is the embodiment of Zarc's pure desire to make people smile, so the idea that Zarc was at one point a good person made perfect sense. Yuya and Reira crying upon remembering Zarc's true dream was pretty emotional and it made Zarc more sympathetic than I thought he could be. Even Zarc's evil heart was sad upon realizing just how far away he was from his dream. I think it also helps that Zarc doesn't get a proper second chance. He doesn't magically get his own body like I was expecting when the last arc first started. Zarc is able to learn what he couldn't before as Yuya, but that doesn't instantly undo all of the damage he originally caused or give him a completely fresh start at life. Yuya is both himself and Zarc at the same time, so it’s not quite like giving Zarc a complete do over. It made me appreciate Zarc's redemption more by not underplaying that he still effectively destroyed the original world. Zarc is just such a terrific and interesting villain. He's easily my favorite Arc V villain, as well as my favorite villain in the franchise.
I also think that Leo is a really interesting villain. For most of Arc V, I just wrote him off as a power hungry villain. I'm not sure why I was so set on that image for Leo, but I didn't really think much of him. He was an effective type of villain who was hiding in the shadows. Even with minimal appearances prior to the Fusion arc, Leo was still the leader of Academia, as well as being Reiji's father, so he still had a strong presence within the series. Leo's backstory really changed my opinion on his character. After years of waiting, his motivation was far more personal than I could have expected. Instead of being a power hungry dictator, Leo was ultimately a father grieving for his lost child. Learning about the original world also explained why Leo had no problem with turning children into soldiers or destroying an entire dimension. He didn't think any of these dimensions or people were real, so hurting them wouldn't really matter, especially when he wanted to bring back the original world as well. It made Leo into a more complex and arguably sympathetic villain than I thought he would be.
However, I really appreciate that the show didn't downplay how terrible his actions were either. While wanting to get Ray back was an understandable desire, he still hurt countless people in order to do so. Reiji called Leo out multiple times on causing so much destruction and being a bigger threat to the four dimensions than Zarc was. It was also Leo's actions that allowed for the Dragon Boys to meet and eventually merge back into Zarc after all. If Leo didn’t start the dimensional war to revive Ray, Zarc wouldn't have reformed, or at the very least I don't think it would have happened as quickly as it did. His motivation was entirely selfish too. Instead of trying to honor Ray's sacrifice and continue to live with his new family, Leo wanted to bring Ray back to satisfy his guilt and grief. Leo was so narrowly focused on reviving Ray that no one else mattered to him. Not Reiji, Himika or anyone else in the four dimensions because they didn’t matter to him as much as Ray did.
Despite Reiji pointing out how much damage he was causing, I don't think Leo fully realized this until Zarc nearly destroyed all four dimensions. Seeing that his actions almost caused such destruction again made Leo reflect more on his behavior and actions. He realized that he did hurt countless people, that the Bracelet girls did have their own lives before he kidnapped them and that he didn't deserve forgiveness. As much as I would have loved Ray to yell at Leo for everything he did upon her revival, I'm glad that went with this route instead. I think having any kind of interaction with Ray, even a negative one, would have still been seen as a reward for Leo's terrible actions. He still would have gotten a reunion with his daughter and potentially been able to deal with his grief a bit more easily because of having one more moment with her. Instead, Leo doesn't really get anything after everything he did. Plus, I think it makes his realization much more meaningful knowing that he came to it through his own self-reflection. Even though Leo is with everyone at the end of the series, I don't think he's forgiven or redeemed. Neither the series or the characters gave me the impression that everyone was okay with Leo. He realized he did a lot of terrible and unforgivable things and did what he could to help out during the last arc, but that isn't the same thing as being forgiven or redeemed. I don't think Leo would want to live with his family again, but I think he was ready to start dealing with his grief for Ray in a healthier manner after coming to that realization. Leo was just such a surprising villain for me. I already thought he was interesting after watching Arc V the first time, but I just grew to appreciate how complex and interesting his motivation made him upon rewatching the series. He just stands out a lot more than I thought he would when he was first introduced and he's definitely one of the more interesting villains in the franchise for me.
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Thanks, LOL! I do want to write one eventually. I want to see what kind of things are in the Re:Mind DLC, though. KH3 had the Subject X stuff which seems to be nothing but a tweaked version of Isa’s original backstory. Maybe the DLC will have something similar for other unused plot lines, like with Xehanort.
“I have nothing to give you to eat but myself!” Then, the hare threw himself into the fire.
Sakra, still disguised as a Brahman, was astonished and deeply moved. He caused the fire to go instantly cold so that the hare was not burned, and then revealed his true form to the selfless little hare. “Dear hare,” he said, “Your virtue will be remembered through the ages.” And then Sakra painted the wise hare’s likeness on the pale face of the Moon for all to see.
Sakra returned to his home on Mount Meru, and the four friends lived long and happily in their beautiful forest. And to this day, those who look up at the Moon can see the image of the selfless hare.
Writing these posts has been a big inspiration. Just as a follow-up to the last question, if I was in charge of the Subject X plot, I would change the girl Lea and Isa were trying to rescue into Kairi, not Skuld. And I would make her story fit their backstory better. Saïx’s Mystery Gear is Moon Rabbit. It’s the story of a rabbit that was so virtuous and good, he was willing to sacrifice himself. I think Isa must have had a very pure heart, like Kairi and Ventus. It’s probably why Axel felt so comfortable with Roxas and Xion.
Kairi looked up at him then. “Aren’t you…a bad guy?”
“I’m not,” Axel replied, completely serious. “But not really a good guy, either.”
“This doggy likes you, though,” she pointed out. Axel dropped his gaze, and indeed, Pluto was right there with his tail whipping back and forth.
“Just because dogs like someone doesn’t mean they’re a good person, y’know. Got it memorized?”
On the other hand, Axel didn’t feel the need to think of himself as a “good” person. Dogs liked him and he liked to help stray puppies as a kid. But he has changed. And if there was one thing that prevented Axel from considering himself a “good” person, it was the idea of self-sacrifice.
“This is right,” Xion said firmly. “It’s better this way.”
Axel hated that argument. Nothing was better any which way. All it came down to was what you wanted to do and what you didn’t. He’d learned that lesson back when he had a heart.
“So it’s better for you to disappear?” he protested. Because she would—they both knew it. No more Xion.
That might be why Axel’s sense of right and wrong became so screwed up. How could he be expected to do the “right” thing if that meant letting his best friend disappear? Of course, in the Moon Rabbit story, the hare survived because of his great virtue. But Lea wouldn’t know this. I highly doubt Axel was concerned with finding the girl that he and Isa were trying to rescue as humans. It’s far more likely that he resented that girl for causing them to wind up in their miserable situation. He probably wished they never tried to help her. No good deed goes unpunished, as they say.
Day 75 ~Inseparable~
Roxas and Xion went on a mission together like Axel suggested. Roxas met Aladdin’s friend Genie during his mission. When Genie attempted to magically repair the damage from the sandstorm, Roxas informed him that Aladdin had said he wanted to rebuild the town without relying on magic. Genie respected his friend’s resolve and decided against using his powers. Roxas reflected on the idea of a friend’s resolve.
Day 75 is about best friends picking up the slack for each other. Roxas was willing to do Xion’s share of the work so she wouldn’t get destroyed.
“The dirty work doesn’t bother me,” Axel went on. “You just make for the top.”
There was nothing false in that, and he looked Saïx in the eye as he said it. Saïx stared hard back at him.
But what if the work that needed to be done was dirty work? After all, the experiments were to amplify the darkness of the heart. And as his best friend, what if Lea was willing to do the dirty work that Isa was unwilling to do?
“Al said he wouldn’t rely on magic, right? I want to fix it for him, but you gotta respect your friend’s wishes.”
“Your friend’s… wishes…” So, even if you mean for something to be for your friend’s sake, their wishes are still more important?
Lea cared more about his friend than about doing what was right. Isa would sacrifice his life for the sake of morality, but Lea would sacrifice his morality for the sake of his friend’s life.
“That Genie person seemed very worried about that Al person. And then he said that you have to respect your friend’s wishes.” Xion bit her ice cream, swinging her feet.
Axel leaned his head to one side. “Your friend’s wishes, huh…” It feels like I have heard that before, a long time ago, when I was human.
He’d do whatever it took to save his friend, even if he had to go against his wishes. Then the situation became reversed. Saïx was trying to urge Axel to do the wrong thing and Axel went against his wishes. Axel was willing to get his hands dirty, and it’s interesting how often it involved Kairi and her various alter egos. He was willing to take out Naminé when she was in his way. In KH2, his arc involved trying to bring back Roxas, but he had to kidnap Kairi in order to do so. And he almost sacrificed Xion for Roxas. It’d be interesting if young Kairi was involved in Lea’s past in a similar way. She was supposed to be involved with Xehanort’s experiments, after all. That’s how she wound up on Destiny Islands.
Day 353 ~Resolve~
Roxas asked Saïx if he could take Xigbar’s spot, but Saïx chided Roxas, asking if he was powerless without Axel. Roxas saw Xion and Axel off with a sense of unease.
What if Isa was actually ordered to turn Kairi into a Heartless or something? The experiments were to amplify the darkness of the heart. What better way than ordering someone to harm an innocent little girl? And as his best friend, what if Lea was willing to do the dirty work that Isa was unwilling to do? Kairi was the stray puppy they originally were trying to rescue.
“…You’re sure this is for the best?”
Saïx finally turned his face to Axel at those words. “For you to say such a thing out loud…,” he said.
Such a thing—he must mean the uncertainty I’m holding inside my chest.
Saïx left his perch by the wall and came closer. “Which one is more dear to you? Roxas or the puppet?”
Axel looked away. “Dear” to him? What would he know about that as a Nobody?
But Lea had to make a choice of who was more important to him, just like he had to do with Roxas and Xion. And in both cases, Kairi came up short.
But just because we have no hearts doesn’t mean we feel nothing, thought Axel. We just know that we’re…incomplete somehow. When we were told that what we each lack is a heart, it made perfect sense. Because we definitely lack something.
Maybe this one choice to throw away his morality is what set the tone for Axel’s life as a Nobody. He became emotionally dead and nihilistic. A piece of him died after he made the choice to harm young Kairi, who he originally wanted to set free. This is what Isa didn’t want to happen to him.
“He worries too much. Thinks he has to help Sora do everything…” Axel grimaced in irritation.
“But, Axel, aren’t you the one worrying about Riku and Sora?” Naminé giggled softly.
“Me, worry? You think I need to be worried about those two?” He stretched backward and rocked the chair back and forth, like a restless child. Naminé returned to her sketchbook.
In KH2 Axel’s worrying was also associated with disappearing and doing the right thing. He could relate to Riku being overprotective of Sora.
“Say, Naminé… Are you still going to try to meet Kairi?” Her head snapped up at the unexpected question. Across from her, Axel met her gaze, grave and earnest.
“I have to help her,” she said with a sad smile.
He scowled. “Is that really the best thing?”
“The best thing…?” Naminé set her crayons down on the table, her gaze dropping as she thought for a moment, and then she smiled at him again. “It’s the right thing.”
In response, Axel only leaned back and rocked in the chair again. She took up her crayons. No one could know what was right or wrong. The picture she was drawing depicted herself and Riku and Axel, too, smiling brightly.
Then he immediately brought up Naminé meeting Kairi. He hated the fact that she said disappearing was the right thing to do. Just like with Xion. I think it must have reminded him of Isa.
“And traitors are eliminated. That’s what the rules say!” Larxene chirped from beside him.
She wasn’t wrong. Under their laws, a member who defied the Organization would not be suffered to live.
Axel was a good person, but the organization warped him.
Axel followed his own rules. And Xion had said herself that if Axel hadn’t acted as he did, she wouldn’t have come back. Roxas was still convinced there was another way to bring her home, but maybe that was the only choice back then.
“If you have a dream, don’t just wait. Act. One of life’s little rules. Got it memorized?”
He lived by his own rules. But he never had anybody on his side.
“I don’t get it. Riku and I both want the same thing—we both want to help Naminé. How come we’re fighting? I mean, we’ve argued about stuff since forever, but…”
We’ve fought a million times and made up a million times… Because we were best friends, weren’t we?
“Could be ’cos ya care what happens to each other,” Goofy said, trying to help.
I think one reason Axel empathized so much with Sora was because he was forced to oppose his best friend even though they both wanted the same thing. He hated Naminé for this and was willing to kill her at first. But when he met Xion, he recognized how screwed up he was for thinking like that.
“Namine, you and I have the same goal.”
“It’s the same, but–not the same. But, there’s no time for explanations now. I’m sorry, Axel.”
He said he and Naminé had the same goal, but they didn’t. She thought Roxas was better off returning to Sora. After Roxas disappeared, Axel was willing to take Naminé back to the organization, so he wouldn’t be branded a traitor. Then she decided to go back to Kairi.
“Everything is back to normal. Of course this is for the best, isn’t it?”
The reason I’m unable to answer Saïx is probably because I depend on him, thought Axel.
“Xemnas has also been irritated at the recent changes in plan. Everything has to go back to normal, for the sake of our goal too… Lea.”
Axel originally had a shared goal with Saïx, but he had to oppose him when he realized he was no longer the same person he remembered.
“Don’t you understand, Axel? I can’t keep existing like this!”
“Yes, you can! There’s gotta be a way!”
Xion shoved him with the Keyblade, then leaped back to adjust her stance. “No, there isn’t. And I don’t want to be a puppet for the Organization. I won’t let Roxas be their tool, either.”
“Well then, we’ve got the same agenda!” Axel closed in on her again and surrounded her in a wall of flame.
He tried to help Xion, which is what Isa would have wanted. But then she disappeared. No matter what, he had nobody on his side.
“Well, I got something out of it, too. I learned that you don’t always have to bend the rules to reach your goals.”
“Indeed.” Minnie nodded with a smile.
Terra had been prepared to slip into darkness to complete his mission, but maybe there was a means of doing so without giving himself over to shadow. He embraced that sliver of hope.
Eventually, he decided to do the right thing, even if he had to give up what he wanted. He didn’t choose his best friend if it meant harming an innocent person. He stood up for Kairi and chose her over Roxas or Saïx. Because even after he kidnapped her, she wanted to help him. She had a pure heart. He thought he’d just disappear alone. But that choice allowed him to be reborn with a heart. Sora defeated Xemnas. Lea was able to become friends with Kairi for real.
Luxord: Perhaps he was ready for it. Perhaps he put his existence on the line and won what he'd been longing for.
Xigbar: Wait a minute. How would that even be possible? We don't exist, remember? What you're saying goes against the laws of nature.
Luxord: Then perhaps he bet his NON-existence. Either way, he came out a winner. Oh, Axel. A grifter to the end.
Doing the right thing would also allow him to get what he wanted, which was to see his best friends again. He would learn that the little girl he turned into a Heartless was actually a Princess of Heart. She didn’t disappear. She went to Destiny Islands and lived a happy life with Sora and Riku. Lea is able to spiritually heal for what he did in the past after being forgiven by Kairi. He’d conquer the darkness inside of himself, finally. I would be more than happy for Kairi to be the female of Lea and Isa’s trio. She’d be like a little sister. She actually fits into the story. Skuld? Nah.
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The Mountain Goats - In League With Dragons (Review)
In League With Dragons, The Mountain Goats
MERGE RECORDS, 2019
In League with Dragons is the 17th studio album by indie/folk/rock staples The Mountain Goats, and as such is the result of nearly 3 decades of development. The group’s founder, songwriter, and only consistent member John Darnielle has evidently made huge advancements since his early days yelping into a broken cassette recorder, and album opener Done Bleeding serves as an unexpectedly emotional reflection on this.
The song’s opening bars serve as a symbol for where In League with Dragons’ priorities lie, starting with a subtle bass guitar riff reminiscent of the beginning to 2002’s Tallahassee before introducing drums, an uncharacteristically proggy piano line together with rhythmic guitar backing, and finally Darnielle’s vocals. This slow build, introducing instruments one by one, feels like a statement – In League with Dragons is a rock album. The traditional Mountain Goats formula has served the band well since 1991, with countless (even Darnielle admits to having no idea how many hundreds of songs he’s written) tracks following the same recipe – a frantic, percussive acoustic guitar providing texture and rhythm while Darnielle sings. While his oeuvre has definitely expanded in recent years – 2015’s Beat the Champ containing a near 3-minute atmospheric piano solo, and 2017’s Goths being written and recorded entirely without guitars – In League with Dragons feels like a refinement. While the group’s two most recent LPs have been perfectly solid, this release seems to have a far more cohesive view of what it wants to be.
This clarity is represented by Younger, the album’s second song. The real star of this piece is surprisingly drummer Jon Wurster, whose percussion here sounds more influenced by John Bonham than by any of his contemporaries. The song is based around a repetitive, simple guitar riff, while various instruments and a choral backing provide just enough variety and texture to keep the track from becoming too slow-moving. While the song’s 6+ minute runtime could definitely benefit from some cutting down, it’s a nice enough track, and the saxophone solo at the climax is cathartic and gloriously indulgent. Its main fault is also the main drawback of the album as a whole, however – the production is incredibly bland. It feels silly to criticise the production of a Mountain Goats record, given that the first decade of the band’s existence sounded like a lethargic cat being run over by a vacuum cleaner, but the album is so glossy and so immaculately recorded that it’s hard to believe that it’s being played by real people. Everything is so clean, so sterile, that it sounds less like a smart, experienced wordsmith telling you stories from his life and imagination with his trusty acoustic guitar and more like something that plays on the radio in a supermarket. This isn’t to say that I just want the group to do what they’ve always done – far from it, the new style they show on this album is exciting and interesting, and I want to hear it done with real passion and enthusiasm. While the songwriting is as strong as ever, if not stronger, it’s hard to mask the fact that Younger, together with a few notable other tracks on the record, sounds like toothless radio rock.
The third track, Passaic 1975, feels like a much more traditional Mountain Goats piece – Darnielle laments the pathetic nature of ‘rock star’ life, describing an unnamed stadium-filling frontman unashamedly telling the crowds and cameras that “I want everyone to get high”, and eventually succumbing to the inevitable consequences of his vices. He begins to forget lyrics and pass out on stage, and his once daring and exciting lifestyle rings out hollow and pathetic. Darnielle begins the song in seeming admiration of its subject and ends it in a state of vague pity. Were it not for the guitars, the track could easily be an outtake from Goths - as it stands, it’s an enjoyable song with a creative vocal style and a trademark Darnielle chorus that’s funny, ironic, catchy, and slightly sad.
After Passaic 1975 comes Clemency for the Wizard King, one of the album’s absolute highlights. Everything about this song is just strange. The main rhythm is unremarkable enough, and supported only by some similarly ordinary arpeggiated guitar chords. The vocals, however, are an extraordinarily tight duet between Darnielle and Matt Douglas that manages to be faltering and nervy, yet still authoritative and downright sinister. The lyrics give the listener just enough information to get a basic image – a group of people coming before some authority and demanding the release of their leader. Everything else is filled in by the listener’s imagination, and the song works excellently as a piece of standalone fantasy fiction – the fact it manages to do this while still being a straightforward and catchy rock song is commendable, and the fact it does this in under 3 minutes (not counting repetition, the song only has 15 lines) should cement Darnielle’s place as a legend. The vocals are strange, creepy, and unique, and the lyrics just cryptic enough to be evocative.
The next track, Possum By Night, is equally creative. Again, Darnielle manages to do something that no one else could – a piano led, melodramatic belter sung from the point of view of a possum, that manages to be not only excellent but remains completely straight-faced. It sounds like an elaborate joke, and in the hands of any other songwriter, it would be. What separates Darnielle, however, is a complete seeming lack of self awareness, that allows him to completely surrender to whatever he’s singing about – be it suicidal heroin addicts having paranoid, delirious visions of salvation, or a possum cult leader warning his brothers to “try not to get stuck in the intake vent”. While Darnielle has never been one to shy away from serious, heavy, extremely personal topics, the fact that he can give as much credibility to a song about rodent cults as he can to a song about his violently abusive stepfather and tragic childhood is a testament to his ability as a storyteller. The vocal performance is so dripping with raw feeling that all silliness immediately fades. Why the hell is he singing about this? I don’t know. But the important thing is that no one else is, and his writing and voice are so on point, so deft at describing this series of events, that you can’t help but get caught up in it.
The title track is another simple one – a breather, if you will. The sunny melody and hopeful tone have a dark subtext, as the protagonist (presumably the figure on the album cover) waits patiently for his accomplice to annihilate all the faceless evil in his way. “It’s so hard to get revenge, the human element drags you down”. The song’s hero comes across somewhat sociopathic, not so much establishing himself as a virtuous figure as he is frustrated by his own empathy and humanity making mass slaughter hard to stoumach. As a result, he befriends a dragon (as you do), and is now unburdened by conscience. The song manages to keep this darkness purely lyrical, however, with the cheerful, jaunty acoustic melody and Nashville pedal steel making the track into an unholy hybrid of Neil Young and Rush. “It’s so hard to be yourself, when you’ve already seen the inside” – even legendary heroes have to sleep at night.
The second side of the album remains fairly consistent – Doc Gooden is yet another Mountain Goats song about a miserable ex-celebrity that justifies itself with its sheer bitterness (“When my name was everywhere, none of you were there”) , Going Invisible 2 is a slow, organ led, dramatic vocal track not unlike the aforementioned Possum By Night, and Waylon Jennings Live! is another perfectly enjoyable country-esque song that uses a few neat tricks including a slightly dissonant, atonal Moog synthesiser to create an effective earworm of an instrumental bridge. Cadaver Sniffing Dog feels a lot like Younger – a decent track that’s a little too long and repetitive for its own good, but the real highlights of side 2 are the closing two tracks.
An Antidote for Strychnine is pure atmosphere, and the slow build is one of the best instrumentals the Mountain Goats have ever put out. The central character’s identity and backstory are unclear, the only thing that’s absolutely true is that he really needs to find a cure for rat poison (while seemingly crushingly aware that no such thing exists). The track starts with a despondent, slightly slurred vocal over a slow, noir keyboard, before steadily building into a full Dark Side of the Moon groove, layered with funky synth organ and guitar. That Floyd comparison isn’t for nothing, by the way – this track really sounds like Dark Side once it gets going. Frustratingly, the song fails to ever reach a genuinely cathartic climax, and once the build has reached its critical point, it just ramps down and ends. It’s still an excellent song, but there’s a permeating feeling that it could have been so much better had the group just committed to it a little more.
The album closes with Sicilian Crest, an absolutely unashamed air-punching anthem. In it, Darnielle subtly and intelligently analyses the appeal of fascism in the 21st Century, through the lens of fantasy. As with many of his songs, he tells the story through pure rhetoric, abstract phrases and images that sound important without actually specifically meaning anything. The true genius of this track, however, is that in this case he’s directly using the lack of meaning to make his point. “Look to the West, look to the man bearing the Sicilian Crest” – combined with the triumphant musical backdrop, he paints this figure as a hero without actually saying who he is or what he believes. The actual identity of the man bearing the Sicilian Crest is completely irrelevant – he’s a symbol, a convenient solution to the dire times described in the verses. The entire song is propaganda for some unspecific figure, and the gloriously cheesy melody has an air of brutal cynicism. It’s saccharine, it’s not the truth, even inside the fiction. Annoyingly, Sicilian Crest also suffers from the same affliction (heh) as An Antidote for Strychnine, in that it feels like it’s building to a cathartic climax that it never delivers. The final chorus is delivered exactly the same as the first, except there’s a “woo!” at the end. While this is a minor flaw, and doesn’t detract from the song as a piece of writing, it can become frustrating on repeated listens.
In conclusion, In League with Dragons is a hugely creative, memorable and colourful record. The flaws that it has don’t seem to matter much, the Mountain Goats have never been about making hugely dynamic, musically ambitious songs (most of the group’s early material can be recreated using only D, A, Em and G chords) as much as they’re about telling a story that affects you in a medium that inspires you. Despite that, the album is far from flawless, and some moments could do with being seriously refined. The main thing holding this album back from greatness, however, is the aforementioned production. No matter how many times I listen to this record, it still sounds boring. There’s a fine line between polish and castration, and especially on Younger and Cadaver Sniffing Dog that line is blurred too heavily to ignore. All in all, In League with Dragons is absolutely worth your time, and is a very possible contender for my album of the year, but it’s best enjoyed as no more than a piece of thoroughly creative and entertaining rock music.
8/10
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HS Epi: Meat p20 reaction
[S] John: Open Wallet?
I'm guessing we're through with Calliope and Roxy's perspective for now.
Instinctively I'd say we'll switch to Karkat and Dave now, and see Dave get knocked out.
But I'm actually not sure if the fact that Rose fell asleep has anything to do with Jade falling unconscious.
With Rose, it could have been due to her migraines and being generally low on energy.
It would be interesting that Jade is undergoing this because of her (severed) ties to the Green Sun, which has now become the Black Hole.
It's a special occurence, in any case. Because the dreambubbles are gone, and even if they weren't, I'm not sure that they still dreamt there after the victory.
John's dreams about the Black Hole might have been due to him accumulating memories of doomed Johns.
---
"Jade gasps awake, and begins to spiral.
Her body vibrates, sending waves of space distortion out in all directions."
She awakens! ... Unless it's Reload Jade. :P We've had a "Jade and switch" before in this story, remember?
And I'm guessing she instinctively calls on her aspect in her duress.
"But there’s nothing to absorb those distortions—no space, no nothing. She’s floating in a void of pure, overwhelming light."
Yup, the new dimension replacing the Furthest Ring.
"She feels it even before she feels the pain from the wound in her chest. The vast emptiness surrounding her. The absolute abyss once known as the Furthest Ring."
This is Reload Jade! Or, alternatively, post-victory Jade woke up in her double's body. Doesn't seem like a Space thing, but it might be a god tier thing.
Perhaps it's post-victory Jade's consciousness, but even if she were to awake again on Earth C, Reload Jade would continue to function as a separate entity.
Maybe it's due to the nature of their existence outside of canon that they can "connect" with selves inside canon that exist "at the same time" as them, as if they were dream self bodies.
"For a moment, she has the feeling that she’s recalling something. Images and sounds in her head that resemble memories. But the memories aren’t hers, exactly. They seem to be someone else’s."
Oooh! Fancy, it seems the connection doesn't work as I expected!
It's like her two disjoint selves are connected by the tiniest sliver.
Maybe it's how it all started out for Dirk with some of his shards, like Brain Ghost Dirk.
Is it perhaps due to her Witch of Space powers? Something about making connections through the vastness of Space, which used to be represented in her as serving as a portal.
It's sad to think that none of the others, Dave and Rose, can experience this. Unless we learn that, somehow, making the connection counts as a free resurrection, independent of the god tier judgment.
But I doubt that.
"The memories are slipping away, anyway. Quickly, they dissolve, and soon they’re completely out of her mind’s reach, like she’s waking from a dream."
This Jade, at least, isn't far enough on her god tier rung yet.
Maybe every god tier has the potential for making the connection, and in case different timelines would run side by side for long enough, two selves could start to grow into the same ultimate self separately, thus becoming one consciousness in multiple bodies.
Like Sollux.
"That black hole.
She looks away from it. Quickly, reflexively, the way you turn away from a light source that’s too bright."
It's like it's antigonal to her aspect, even though it came from a Spacey thing.
"The hole causes the same kind of discomfort to behold. It’s so dark it hurts. Yet it calls her."
Oh, so it's still in tune with her aspect.
... This is such a wrong moment to be reminded of John considering to poop on his desk, but: "And yet, the clean polished surface... It beckons."
Could it be a remnant of Alternate Calliope beckoning her, though?
"It’s pure... negative potential. The absence of a future. The thing skewering her through right now is the space between breaths, between atoms. She tries to remove it but has trouble getting a grip on it. It fails to behave like a solid piece of matter, remains lodged within her stubbornly. It hurts, but she won’t finish dying. Not just yet."
It's like she's frozen in her death throes by the thing. And perhaps, if it truly is meant to be a quantum vacuum, it's how she's able to "wield" it, as a Space player.
Maybe it's even the reason she's now connected with her Earth C self - maturing god tiers absorb other selves' memories after their death, but since she keeps making new ones...
In the Goblins web comic, a character made an elemental weapon from oblivion itself. I'm kind of reminded of the shard here, now.
"Her memories crease as she moves, filling her mind with the knowledge of the last few hours. She’s sixteen, she thinks, trying to orient herself. And she just fought Lord English after being plucked out of a doomed timeline. At least, if you can even call what she did fighting. But what was that dream? It was significant, she’s knows that much. Dave and Karkat? Why did they jump into her mind as a unit? Earth C. What’s Earth C?"
Nice, so she CAN still recall some things if she exercises herself.
That's going to prove useful for relaying messages between John and Earth C, perhaps.
"Two different understandings of her world knit into each other as easily as she takes her next breath."
... Well, that's one way for Lonely Jade (as the fans nicknamed her) to at least get a bit of repayment for the three years without her friends on the ship, getting depressed. If this works the other way around as well, I mean.
"Urgency bleeds off her neural receptors, melts right out of her fingertips. She lets herself float, unmoored, carried along an ebb tide in space that only she can perceive."
Strange, how it seems she's getting the handle on this so quickly!
Although, if Reload Jade is taking the place of a dreamself in this analogy, if we recall Dream Jade didn't let her confusing or missing memories stop her from achieving anything. :P
"She wonders if anyone else survived. She wants to see John."
... Yeah, she's probably going to have a separate adventure, at least for a little while, with the way this is worded.
"She didn’t notice the moment she turned her gaze back toward the black hole. But now she couldn’t look away if she tried. In slow, hazy spirals, it beckons her. The longer she stares at it, the deeper she peers into the folds of infinite atrophy
Spirals, like the space sign. I don't think she's really meant to look into that, it seems to be hypnotic. And Space thing or not, that kind of Void is better left to other aspects.
", and the louder it gets. Loud?"
... Don't tell me she can still hear Vriska screaming.
I also hope it isn't a higher, ascended form of the Horrorterrors, thank you very much.
"She only now notices there is sound emanating from it, but not the kind physical ears can detect. The hole has a voice—one that becomes material the more the expanding black sphere dominates her senses."
... I don't like the motivations of a Black Hole, not even if it contains the consciousness of Alternate Calliope.
Plus, she by nature of being a cherub unfamiliar with human emotions, would have a very different sense of morality.
"She hears the voice fill up the dark space between her ribs. It’s calling to her from the center of the death of everything."
The Void is looking back. I tell you, listening to that beckoning call and going near it can't end well.
It's like it's this thing from a horror movie, hypnotizing people to walk (or float) to their deaths.
"She kicks off her ruby red slippers, and drifts ever closer."
... Please don't have these slippers be the sole remnant of her later, for John (or Terezi) to find...
Because then, I don't want to think about the implication behind John finding his Dad's wallet floating around.
"come."
EEEeeeessh. So it really is Alternate Calliope.
And, uh, I hope she isn't taking over the narration as well, what with how this isn't a dialog line but more of a sound effect.
So, is she calling to everyone now, her persona reduced to being a starved, raving celestial object? D:
"What the fuck?
Forget I said that."
See! It WAS a narrative line, and it came from Dirk himself. Eesh, so he felt the reverberations of the call all the way there.
And he doesn't know everything about what's happening, much as he likes to tell himself otherwise.
"She considers asking who is speaking, but her mouth stays shut, powerless against the forces transfixing her."
I was going to ask where Alternate Calliope learned to hypnotize people, but she's a literal giant black-on-white spiral now.
"Jade has no way of knowing who this voice belongs to. She has no context for understanding the true nature of this being, what role she has played in bringing about the end, and how long she has been waiting for this. She has no idea. But I do."
... Are we to be getting an alternate backstory for Alternate Calliope now? A more sinister one.
With how Dirk was phrasing this, it seems to imply her intentions aren't benign, I mean.
Unless Jade is to bring her a final piece of salvation from her current state, but how even.
"The dead cherub is making her move."
... She's been playing the REALLY long game, hasn't she?
I guess the more out-there fan theories, of a second boss behind Lord English, like what (Tavros) alluded to, are being proven correctly.
... I kind of feel like when we learned Dirk and Roxy were actually living in the future during [S] Enter.
Homestuck keeps surprising by proving out-there theories correct, even after the end.
"We should get the fuck out of here. Let’s see what Dave’s up to, okay?"
Pffff, Dirk is schedaddling. I'm guessing when we're John again, it might not be entirely his idea, since the situation is upsetting him as well.
So, Alternate Calliope seems to have deviated from the path of the benefactor, that green-blooded cherubs normally follow.
I mean, continuing to exist and consume everything after Lord English was taken care of - it doesn't seem like she's planning anything nice.
Well now. This was another thing I didn't see coming. Good for you, Homestuck, keep up that level of zany, unexpected yet explainable developments, I missed it!
#homestuck#upd8#reaction#spoiler alert#homestuck epilogues#homestuck liveblog#jade harley#alternate calliope#dirk strider
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Chihayafuru 41-49
This whole manga is so bi. Alright you know the drill if you want to read my first reactions to the chapters I read today check under the cut. It will be 90% bad jokes and 10% impromptu meta.
41
Oh, this is a twist. Do Chihaya and Shinobu both have Arata fixations? (Also I’m taking this as evidence that Shinobu is also Bi af. Anyway my impression of this chapter is I think a common theme of this manga is people not seeing their opponents as human and therefore getting crushed by the expectations.
42
Beautiful, this reminds of the team in Haikyuu that argued over small points with the refs and messed with Nekoma to get every advantage they could. Sorry, even while reading Josei I’m still a shonen head.
Well that confidence disappeared quickly. This seems to be a recurring thing with Chihaya I wonder if it’s possibly a character flaw.
43
GO GET HER TAICHI! Also Chihaya is like, really childish if her first response to losing a match she thought she was going to win was to hole herself away in a closet. Could that be another character flaw. It’s interesting how Chihaya and Taichi contrast each other, Taichi almost thinks too much and overthinks everything to the point where it’s a flaw and his emotions are almost always suppressed. Chihaya is pure emotion to the point where she doesn’t always act logically.
I’m a little sad Taichi has to use Arata rather than himself to comfort Chihaya in the closet.
Oh, okay so. I don’t think she came out because she understood Taichi was trying to comfort her, but she did come out for Taichi in her own Chihaya way because she wanted to see him as an opponent for next year.
But even that acknowledgement was enough to spur on Taichi’s feelings.Pretty much any kind of acknowledgement is good enough for Taichi, huh.
This here, this is just cute.
So I see Chihaya is working on her character flaw that she tends to take the others around her for granted. As what lost her the match was her own tunnel visioning even though it helped her in the short run gain an advantage.
Just as I said, it’s a character flaw how childish and inconsiderate she can be when she tunnel visions about something. It’s interesting how Arata and Chihaya kind of share that flaw, Arata being especially withdrawn and Taichi is like the only one of the trio with normal-ish social skills and observation skills, but he can’t express himself as good as either of them.
44
Oh I’m sure that’s why you’re saying that, Taichi. Also, Ayase really does have very little social experience but then again she did lose her two biggest friends when she was young and didn’t open up to anybody else for awhile.
Kana and I are in the same boat here. Oh, it’s an Arata chapter from here on out. I’m not sure what a Meijin or a Queen is is that when you’re the best at card games like no one ever was?
45
All of the girls snatched Taichi up, but i can’t blame them.
Don’t be a mooch, Chihaya.
What is this, actual self awareness on Chihaya’s part?
Oh nope it’s a survival instinct.
46
OHHHHH ARE WE GETTING SHINOBU BACKSTORY.
I love her even more now.
It seems like she absent mindedly fixates the same way Chihaya does, and just likes the sport of Karuta itself and seems to anthropomorphize the cards and the poems a little bit. The “she cuts it like a sword” thing just sounds like shonen nonsense to me though. I wonder if her eating ice cream is stress eating, or just something she did absent mindedly without noticing.
47
Yes we get it mangaka they’re both foils and girlfriends.
I told you both of them anthropomorphize the cards, which is an interesting character trait because both Chihaya and Shinobu are unempathic or at least tend to be inconsiderate to other people’s feelings.
Awe I like this resolution for her character even though her rematch failed and everything seemed pointless a moment ago. She seems to be the exact opposite of Chihaya whose motivated by her inborn desire and internal motivators, whereas she’s motivated by the people around her. (Notice Chihaya is more motivated by the image of Arata rather than Arata himself who she only barely talks to because she has the internal image of him.)
Two interesting character beats. Taichi focuses way too much on Chihaya and wants to comfort her the moment she’s down always, but he’s self aware of this. Somebody else has to tell Chihaya she has to watch the matches besides the one she’s personally interested in.
48
So there’s that recurring theme that the champions who tend to be really intuitive in Karuta are just, completely socially lacking as people and have little self awareness.
Interestingly put, basically Karuta is so intuitive to the both of them that they really couldn’t explain how they do it to other people. Teaching is something that requires understanding of what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and most importantly communication skills with others, which is a different skill set than just having the ability to do. Especially since their opponents were a teacher and somebody with a lot of supporters and a supportive teacher.
49
Awe I’m glad Taichi and Arata are talking. Their friendship is really important to each of them too.
Yes please Taichi. Get closer to seeing Arata as a human being.
And I’ve run out of scantalated chapters so apparently I’ve got to go watch the anime now. So I’ll resume this when we get to 85.
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odd numbers for the dr ask game :)
hhhh oh no help okay ily froot
SPOILERS FOR DANGANRONPA IN GENERAL LOL
1. Favorite Game
Super Danganronpa 2, no question... I would die for that game. Best characters and best story, no question. AND THE PLOT TWISTS??? amazin
3. Favorite Antagonistic Character
I’m not exactly, 100% sure what this means. Mastermind characters (Izuru, Junko, Mukuro, etc) or the Foils (Togami, Komaeda, and Kokichi)? In any case, I love Junko the most out of any mastermind character ever (Tsumugi is... Probably my least favorite sorry to her fans) and Komaeda will probably always be one of the best written characters in the Danganronpa franchise who offered so much more to the obnoxious foil along with the BEST trial of Danganronpa: (2-5).
5. Best Girl?
Unfair question, okay? I love (almost) all the girls! My favorite of all time is Ruruka Andou, though followed closely by Sonia Nevermind, Mikan Tsumiki, and Ryoko Otonashi
7. Favorite Class Trial from All of the Games?
2-5. That trial is SUCH a journey and I loved every second of it. Except for the fact that it just gives people a reason to cry that Chiaki was too pure and didn’t deserve to die.
9. Least Favorite Class Trial?
Hmm... I’m gonna say 3-3. If ONLY for the fact that there was such a missed opportunity with two killers in one trial and that Kiyo could have had to stay with the rest of the students freely despite committing murder! Otherwise, it was just kind of weird and the motive was absolutely bizarre.
11. Favorite Cast?
DR2 has my favorites but also my least favorites. I love Sonia, Mikan, Peko, Mahiru, Gundham, Twogami, Fuyuhiko, Komaeda... But I hate Chiaki, Hiyoko, and Teruteru. Overall though, has my favorite characters of any of the games (or other media)
13. What’s your opinion on the Danganronpa 3 anime?
Oooh boy. Okay so Despair Side was a literal, actual train wreck. From advertising the “prequel” of DR2 and then having the anime be fanservicey, random nonsense which retconned both how the class became despairs and that Chiaki was a person before being an AI to having many episodes which were not even focused on the DR2 cast but instead perfect human Chiaki and how sad it was that she got killed :((( Also Twilight Case got just... Ruined because they made Sato be the “true villain” while Natsumi isn’t to blame at all which wasn’t the case in 2-2 and made the whole thing just... Stupid. It also made Chisa, someone with a lot of potential, a Mary-Sue teacher who was obnoxious to watch and everyone loved her for no reason (just like Chiaki).
Future Side was stupid but much more enjoyable in my opinion because at least the characters acted like themselves. The only thing I consider canon about this entire anime series (including Despair side) is the new characters introduced. I love you Ruruka.
15. Your absolute OTP?
I would be dead without Sondam. Ruruka/Izayoi is also great though
17. Do you have an OT3? Which one?
Not really, but if I did, it would probably be Fujisaki x Oowada x Ishimaru because I like both Fujisaki x Oowada and Oowada x Ishimaru though Fujisaki x Ishimaru isn’t really... anything to me...
19. Who do you think is an underrated character?
DEFINITELY Ruruka. All I hear about her is that she’s a bitch and the worst. I really disagree and think people give her way too much crap because they think Seiko is just a precious girl who did nothing wrong (though I do like Seiko, don’t get me wrong).
21. Favorite voice actor?
Oh my gosh, no question, honestly! Natalie Hoover, English voice of Sonia. She is the SWEETEST person! My old friend (hate them now lol) got her to sing me happy birthday in Sonia’s voice for my birthday! I couldn’t believe it but she was just amazing.
23. Favorite Mascot?
Haha, that’s such an unfair question! Monokuma, no question. He’s just the best and he’s a staple of Danganronpa. The others don’t have a chance besides maybe Monomi!
25. Least Favorite Mascot?
All the Monokubs. Period. I hated every scene with them and just wanted them to shut up. Sorry but I just couldn’t stand them! Monodam and Monotaro were the least hateable though but they were all kind of a package deal.
27. Least Favorite Execution?
Mikan’s. Forgettable, stupid, and she wasn’t even herself when she died.
29. Which character should have survived in your opinion?
Ruruka because she just lost everything and had so much room to grow and become more self-reliant and atone for her mistakes. Also because it made the whole Class 76 arc kind of pointless? They did the same thing with Ishimaru and I believe he should have survived as well.
31. Is there a character you think who shouldn’t have survived but did?
That’s... Kind of an awful question LOL but I don’t think any V3 characters should have survived because it honestly skewed the message. I’m happy that Maki is alive, of course, but everything in the last trial was kind of just ignored.
33. Character with the best clothing?
Hmm... Probably Chiaki, honestly. The backpack and the hoodie are super cute. She has one of the best designs in the game but she just doesn’t have enough depth for me to enjoy her character.
35. A character who should’ve got more character development?
Just one? Let me list out a few LOL. Mikan, Sonia, Mahiru, Saionji, Kaede, Tenko, Miu, Kirumi, Hoshi. Characters who needed to get character development at all: Chiaki, Chisa.
37. Favorite Minor Character?
Would Ryoko count? Ryoko. If not, I rather like Taehime Uozumi and she’s pretty minor LOL
39. Smartest Murder Plan?
Mikan’s original Ibuki murder. Unfortunate that Saionji happened to walk in.
41. Person you’ve never expected to become a culprit but they became? (Doesn’t include Chiaki)
To be honest, I didn’t think Celes would become a blackened because she was just so... Obvious? Like, when you talk to Celes, she just kind of has a typical murderess look to her AND she was the one who designed a bunch of safety rules.
43. Describe Monaca Towa in 3 words!
Dorky manipulative follower
45. Unpopular Opinion?
Chiaki is an underdeveloped character and was literally made in the image of Kodaka’s perfect woman so that fanboys could have a perfect waifu to jerk off to.
47. A headcanon you have about a character?
Mikan and the Imposter are really really good friends and Mikan learns to hang out with nicer people and forgive herself and get better.
49. Favorite Mini-Game?
Panic-Talk Action! Good stuff
51. Character you thought you were gonna dislike but loved in the end?
Sonia Nevermind. Her introduction is tasteless and gross (because of Teruteru) so when I met her, I thought she was just going to be an idiot who got into situations that made me cringe. I really didn’t even like her until around Chapter 3-4.
53. Favorite Game End?
Danganronpa 1 because of how much mystery there was surrounding the outside world and whether anything Junko said was true and I didn’t know how they were going to survive out there or what they’d do!
55. Favorite love hotel scene?
Kirumi’s gave her more depth and Kaito’s was just so Kaito that I enjoyed it a lot. So they’re tied imo.
57. Character who should’ve lived longer?
Kaede. No question. She had so much potential and she seemed like such a strong interesting person with so much chemistry with the other characters. Also I like Komaru but I was hoping this female protagonist would have much less fanservice...
59. Favorite moment?
The end of trial 2-2. Peko and Fuyuhiko finally being able to come to an understanding of what they thing of each other and Fuyuhiko finally being able to get through to Peko that he loves her as a person, not as his “servant” was actually heart-breaking and hands-down my favorite moment of the series.
“I never wanted a tool! I just wanted you! Only you!”
61. Character who looks like the love child of ???
Uh... I’ll just go with the thoughts I had when everyone thought the v3 crew were the kids of the other survivors.
Shuichi - Makoto and Kyoko, Kirumi - Peko and Fuyuhiko, Kaede - Sonia and Gundham, Gonta - Nekomaru and Akane, Angie - Aoi and Hagakure (?), Kaito - Mikan and Twogami, Iruma - Togami and Fukawa
63. Describe Kyoko Kirigiri in 3 words!
Intelligent soft-spoken detective
65. Who did you never expect to die but they died?
Saionji. I didn’t like her so I thought she would live forever. Chiaki as well because she’s the sweet angel but I was happy they had the guts to kill her off.
67. Which character would you never want to meet in real life?
Just one??? Junko for OBVIOUS REASONS such as I don’t want her to exist in real life at all.
69. Choose one character which you would take with you on a trip.
It’s between Sonia and Mikan... Sonia deserves to see all around the world in an environment that isn’t constrained so she can enjoy it. And Mikan deserves to go on a trip with friends and be happy :)
71. Character you can relate to?
Ruruka, which is probably why I like her so much. Ruruka has a lot of paranoia and is pretty distant from people but craves love and attention which sounds a lot like me. She also shares my birthday! November 20th!
73. Character who deserved better?
Mikan. Horrible, awful backstory and desperation to not be neglected is heartbreaking enough but then people go and see 2-3 and think she’s a lunatic when ANY CHARACTER would have acted the exact same way. They just didn’t see them do it so Mikan’s the crazy one.
75. Describe Gonta Gokuhara in 3 words!
Pure but easily-manipulated
77. What do you think of the fandom?
There’s three sides I see: Really sweet and kind who have discussions but not arguments about characters and plot points, people who would defend their favorite character and opinions violently even when the other person is being civilized and not trying to start anything, and the ones who just want fanservice of the sexy big-boobed women. And I only like the foremost option.
79. Which character has the cutest design?
Chiaki. The best design in all of Danganronpa imo. The second would probably be Chihiro.
81. Could you be the Ultimate Lucky Student?
I’m pretty lucky but honestly? My boyfriend blows me out of the park in terms of luck so I’d say probably not. He could be though.
83. Least Favorite Chapter?
EVERY SINGLE 3RD CHAPTER. Killed off Celes in 1-3, my favorite character in DR1. Killed off Mikan in 2-3, one of my favorites of all time. Killed off Tenko in 3-3, my favorite girl (along with Maki and Kaede) in V3. They’re also very poorly written. Celes’s acting is atrocious, Fuyuhiko’s death was replaced with Saionji so her murder weapon wasn’t even talked about in the trial, and Kiyo so obviously killed Tenko it wasn’t even funny.
85. Could you be a Dangan Protag? Why?
I mean... I think anyone could be. Kodaka even says he tries to write the protag as though they could be anyone else (though I think he does a bad job there). I think I would be super scared and paranoid so I don’t know how great of one I would be but... Yeah.
87. Describe Peko Pekoyama in 3 words!
Lovestruck loyal awesome
89. Least favorite Danganronpa 3 character?
Chisa. I despise Chisa so much I couldn’t even tell you. She has a great design but she’s basically an older Chiaki without the video games. Perfect motherly woman with the biggest boobs and skinniest waist who excels at all she does and gets tortured through no fault of her own because she was just trying to save others aw :( Characteristics? Loves Munakata and is a motherly figure who everyone loves and can do no wrong unless she’s brainwashed to.
91. What do you think of Monokuma?
A fantastic mascot and really funny character himself! Cold-blooded but also hilarious.
93. Did you like the Monokubs?
No. Next question.
95. What do you think of Gundham Tanaka?
He was a great character! He was funny and charming and didn’t get super repetitive. I also think his past and the reasons for why he acts the way he does is spectacular but then again EVERY backstory in DR2 is fantastic.
97. Overrated ship which is your NOTP?
Chiaki x anyone (mainly Hajime or Mikan). I just... Don’t like Chiaki and seeing her with characters I consider actually good is... Bleh to me.
99. Your absolute NOTP?
Ruruka x Seiko. I hate that ship so much.
Mikan x Saionji. Don’t ship people with their abusers please...
Celes x Hifumi. She lied about being raped to get him to kill someone. Let’s not like this ship.
Mahiru x Saionji. Because I’m tired of Mahiru HAVING to be around Saionji and not being allowed to be her own character.
Mikan x Ibuki. Sexualizing Mikan? That’s ship material!
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Devilman: Crybaby - review
I have to tell you in advance, that I have never written a review on any anime, so be gentle with criticism.
Devilmen: Crybaby, the fresh and crispy Netflix anime took 200 minutes of my life, but I would never swap it for anything. I managed to finish it yesterday midnight and I'm still in catharsis, in a completely different state of mind than I usually am after experiencing art.
In medias res, I will talk about the flaws I have discovered in the series, because there are way less of these, than positive features.
1. The foreshadowing in the first episode was a bit too obvious, especially for the eyes of a person who was brought up in a Christian family and has detailed knowledge about the Bible. I think it is only a minor mistake, and if we take the framed structure of the anime into consideration, it comes out beautifully in the end, and makes it a very well thought out, in a way lyrical story.
2. In my opinion the usage of the name "Satan" was not the best option. The original name of Satan in the Bible is Lucifer, which means "bringer of light". This name would have given Ryo's character an additional dimension, and I'm a bit sad that the writer (Go Nagai) did not exploit this opportunity.
3. The most frequently mentioned flaw of the series is the somewhat dumb implementation of the change in posessed characters' appearance and personality. But if we consider the character design and the entire aesthetic of by the anime, the harsh changes in appearances can be overlooked. Furthermore it was a crucial to understand the complex nature of people possessed by demons who have previously been completely pure. It helps the viewer comprehend the message that we all are "devilman" with flaws and evil features besides having a human heart that is capable of producing an entire range of different emotions.
4. The last thing I'd like to mention is that some initial questions of the anime, most of them emerging in the first episode were left without a proper answer. Why do people need a certain drug to get possessed by demons, and what is that drug? How did Ryo know about the existence of Amon, and his exceptional powers if he lost all his knowledge about who he was before (leader of demons)? If any of you can come up with an answer or explanation, I'd be more than happy, maybe it was just me who didn't notice some minor details.
Now let's move on to the positive features of the anime, which basically includes EVERYTHING, but I might be a little biased.
1. Story: I loved the framed structure of the story, which produced a bit of confusement in the beginning, but the last episode made everything clear so beautifully. The first half of the anime can be characterised by the adjectives gore, dirty, perverted, sexual, hypnotic, funny and extremely modern. The scenes incorporated today's nightlife and club culture, the sexualizing of everything, the sexual perversion of people in modern society of high living standards, even fashion and music were completely on point. The story gradually transverted from this extremely dirty and materialistic phase to a divine and supernatural aspect. The gore still remained (fortunately) but it became more serious, and actually making the viewers' heart ache. It might just be me, but animes in which EVERYONE dies is my kinda thing, so I was happy that not even the purest, most innocent characters received mercy.
I really appriciated that despite my Christian education I was still surprised by certain turns of the story. The counter attack of God's divine army, the unfolding of Ryo's evil plan and so on. The ending was very emotional, and it close the circle of the events with the destruction of the globe perfectly.
2. Characters: Character development is definitely the biggest strength of the anime. Not only the three protagonists (Akira, Ryo, Miki) went through great changes and development, but minor characters (Miko, Mayuta, Wamu) as well.
For me Akira represents human nature the best. He goes into great depths through the story (e.g.: raping and fighting Silene) and exploits the full potential of his demon powers, but still manages to keep his human heart, and this duality shows great emotional strength. This is where the title gets its meaning: a devil that is capable of crying, which is an ultimate way of expressing emotions. Even if there is no practical difference between demons and "Devilman" (it is just an artificial name given to Akira by Ryo), the self-identification is determining. It is a beautiful allegory to human nature, which is never black and white but the mixture of good and evil, and the only thing that counts is how we look at ourselves, how we define ourselves. Declearing that one is a "bad person" deprives him the will to act right.
Ryo and Satan cannot be identified as completely the same person in my opinion. Ryo have lost his memories about being a fallen angel, and was conveinced he was a human until the "relevation" he found in the Bible, that made him discover his past. His subconscious though, led him to fulfill his eventual purpose, but certain signs throughout the story showed that he was doubting himself (especially when it was concerning the life of Akira). In his Satan "form" there was no doubt written on his face. He was 100% sure in his goal and was ready to deploy all the means necessary to achieve it. The greatest surprise in my view was the fact that even Satan was able to change in a way. This is a feature of most anime that no character is purely good or evil. (This is the reason why I prefer anime to Hollywood shit.) In the closing scene he cried, which was a bit predictable and "too perfect", but it was essential to understand his struggle. It proved him that love exists, and that "He cried too", thus it was sort of an enlightment for him, in the exact moment when the annihilation of the world began.
One of the most interesting supporting Characters was Mayuta or Kukun. He was the only openly gay character in the series, and his sorrow after the death of his love was extremely moving, it made the show even more colorful. It was visible that his sadness fed the demon inside him, thus is it a good allegory for depression or other mental illnesses. He experienced the worst traumas in the anime (being revealed in front of the whole world meanwhile a massacre) and maybe because of his lack of emotional intelligence, he couldn't process these events completely. He was easily manipulated, weak and a coward. It might sound like I hated him because of these traits, but that's not the case. He was not able to achieve as much as Akira did, but he had a far worse backstory as well, which made him the ultimate "sadboy", and that is exactly why he appaeled to me.
3. Art: Straght up perfect. In the first few minutes I had to adapt to the character design, since I was used to a more elaborated, "classical" design. It is very avantgarde if I can say that, there is a bit of everything in it from constructivism to pop art. It is also a great mixture of ancient and ultra-modern, since the Biblical nature of the story placed into modern times requires that as well. My favourite thing about the art was the naturalism it represented. The raw sexual and gore scenes, that had an extremely strong impact on my senses were to live for. I don't easily become shocked of horroristic scenes, but the episode in which Taro ate his mom while his dad watching them, crying and hesitating whether to kill him or not had me straight up SHAKING.
4. References: There were no direct references in the anime, but the nature of the story and certain scenes have very much resembled those of Neon Genesis Evangelion. Both series are based on Biblical symbols and are centered around the theme of creation, genesis. In my opinion Devilman: Crybaby does a better job in that regard, with less waisting of time on fucking tsunderes and annoying complaining (yeah, I'm talking about Shinji).
5. Music: No words are needed, I've already mentioned that it's exceptional and really sets the mood.
Now to the closing remarks. I know my review is not perfectly structured, since thoughts are still circling in my head like crazy, but I tried my best. Sadly I do not have the capacity to write about a dozen of more detailes such as Miki and Miko's beautiful relationship or the historical and social dimension of the story (which is actually the most interesting thing so idk why I skipped it, I might write another review on just this later). All in all I loved the anime despite its flaws, tbh I love it even more because of them. I highly recommend it to everyone, since it's extremely thought provoking. I warn you, around episode 9-10 you'll be like a Crybaby.
Peace
#devilman: crybaby#devilman spoilers#devilman ryo#devilman satan#review#akira x ryo#netflix#go nagai#anime#gore anime#opinion#series#tv show
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