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rey-jake-therapist · 2 days

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Warning: this post contains spoilers from the comics The Sandman. I don't know why I bother because these books were written 30 years ago and Google will tell you how it ends in a second, but oh, well, I feel like being nice today.

So many people call Morpheus' death a suicide... And argue that the show should change it, that it should be framed more as an unavoidable sacrifice... Or even "better", changed so it becomes a happy ending.

And good news people! I won't argue with you on that. I'm just posting because I'm wondering: can it be really called a *suicide*? Is it even a death?

Okay, I hear you growl from here. Yeah, I know. Morpheus pretty much dies, he takes his sister's hand and disappears, yada yada. It is a death. Sort of. But then, the Endless are just not... They're not people. They can never die like we die, because they are concepts that wil keep existing as long as there will be living beings who will believe in the existence of these concepts.

So when I see the ending of The Sandman denounced as some sort of glorification of suicide as "the only way out" I humbly wonder if it's not a bit of simplification of what the story has to say, you know? And before my post is taken as a judgement over Sandman fans who feel this way: it's NOT. I actually understand this point of view for the reason that I used to feel that way too. I was terribly tempted by suicide when I was younger, and like an old bad habit it keeps coming back and forth when I'm at lowest; for this reason TKO made me uncomfortable first, and my guts also told me that the show had to, not necessarily change the ending, but at least make Morpheus' death look less like a suicide.

But then I re-read TKO, and I read meta. Doing both made me realize that by sympathizing with Morpheus as if he was a human being, I had forgotten something ESSENTIAL about him: he's not human. And he's not only Morpheus: he's Dream of the Endless before being Morpheus. Morpheus is a persona, more than a person. Therefore I think that his "death" is interpreted wayyyyy to literally by the fandom. Just like the fact that he's "replaced" by Daniel is often interpreted as something negative that implies that Morpheus was not good enough, while I'm convinced it was not at all the intent that Neil Gaiman had in mind.

There's something very important that Dream says at some point: it's that one has to change or die. Morpheus couldn't change, so from his point of view, he had to die. But as I said earlier, Dream as a concept can't die! Of course, he could have chosen like Destruction to abandon his functions, but it's a decision that Morpheus should have taken, and we know he was too binded by the rules and responsibilities to take this decisions. He would have never done that because it was against his nature. Which meant, Dream had to change of persona. Morpheus would die, but Dream would change. And what better to serve humanity, than a being who was as much a human as he was a dream?

We tend to consider Daniel as an entity totally separated from Morpheus, but 1) Daniel was conceived in the Dreaming, making him a part of Morpheus (it's not to be cruel that Morpheus told Lyta her baby was a part of the Dreaming, and that in consequence he would come to take him. He was just stating a fact: everything created in the Dreaming belongs to the Dreaming/him). 2) when Daniel becomes Dream, he doesn't just get a job: all that Morpheus used to be, his family, his memories.... He gets them too.

In conclusion, for me, interpreting Morpheus' death as a suicide is too literal. I think that it's rather a very poetic story that translates the changes that we must all go through at some point in our life, even if it's painful. We, like Dream, must sometimes change our point of view on life, otherwise we will miss what's really important. Sometimes, the change is so big and scary it can feel like a death; the death of what we used to be, the death of childhood, the death of our youth, etc... But it's only a feeling, because like Dream, what we go through is necessary a transformation. We, too, must change.... Or die.

I said in a previous thread that contrary to what is often believed, Morpheus trading his place with Daniel is not a 180° change for Dream: he's the result of a change that started occurring a long time ago. His hair is white because his point of view is new, untainted. He's Dream of the Endless starting anew, but with Morpheus' experience to guide him.

Maybe it's why Morpheus is turned into a star after his death? Is he a guiding star for Daniel!Dream?

Sorry of there's a lot of typos, I may come back to it later for edits but I don't have time now.... I just wanted to say at the end that in my humble opinion, the comics don't spread a bad message that should be changed for the show, because "just kill yourself if you're unhappy" has never been the message of The Sandman. I think however it should be made less confusing than it is for the average viewer, especially since Morpheus!Dream often looks more like a cute blue eyed teenager than like an ethereal immortal being. It's hard to forget he's not "just some lil' guy", so of course his upcoming death will be even harder to stomach...

#The sandman #The sandman meta #The sandman Daniel #dream of the endless #The sandman bookclub #Is it suicide or transformation?#Or a bit of both #Change or die #The kindly ones #The sandman comics #The sandman Netflix #Tom sturridge #Neil Gaiman #Tw suicide

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codenamesazanka · 2 days

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being a hopeless spinaraki, but also not just spinaraki, because this applies to all of the League and Villains in general—

Is it possible to dig deeper into Shigaraki's "If Spinner is still alive" and its meaning/implications and like. cry over it?

If Spinner is still alive = We went into fight knowing we might not make it out alive. (Heroes get total victory. The Villains don't count as part of that.)

If Spinner is still alive = AFO gave him those extra quirks and I, while possessed, wasn't able to stop it. Maybe I wouldn't have stopped it, because Spinner chose it. It might have been the quirks which killed him.

If Spinner is still alive = But it's also entirely possible Heroes could've killed him. Spinner is just a weakling with a useless quirk and some swords, but still, maybe he's dead because Heroes killed him. Heroes killed Twice. Heroes have repeatedly tried to kill me; cannot save me from this death. Toga went into battle thinking it was life or death. Heroes kill, and we Villains all know this.

If Spinner is still alive = I wanted him to see my horizon, because he was looking forward to it. I wanted to be a Hero for the League. Now, I can't do that anymore. Because of that, tell him this, for me.

If Spinner is still alive = Maybe he lived. Out of everyone in the league, Spinner lives because he's weak, he's ignorable. He was only following me. He didn't have a death wish, his power is something Heroes could manage. He wouldn't be considered too dangerous to live.

If Spinner is still alive = Because I know that he might not be. Because I don't trust Heroes have to saved any of us, whether from AFO machinations, or from ourselves, or from the ravages of battle.

'If' implies uncertainty. There's significant meaning in that - that Shigaraki knows Heroes there's a good chance cannot/would not/did not want to save them. And the fact that it's Spinner who gets an 'if' - Spinner, weakest one in the League. How hard is it to stop Spinner? Even with the extra quirks. Maybe especially with the extra quirks - he'd be disoriented, unintelligible, clearly not doing well. He was assigned the task of invading a hospital and retrieving Kurogiri with 15,000 rioters, the relatively least dangerous task out of all other Villains. That's basically zero trust in Heroes to have stopped Spinner in a way that didn't kill him, to have helped him from his melting brain.

Like, Shigaraki has seen the aftermath of his own 'saving'. Deku might have had some intention to save him, but not enough to actually succeed preventing his death. If that was ever the goal. Maybe all that mattered was just ghost of The Crying Child.

If any of the League lives, it's luck. It's mercy.

One might argue, it's because rhe League was so dangerous, and they made the choices that got themselves killed.

But meta-wise, we had that whole Ending arc about Heroes Don't Kill or whatever; we kept getting hit over the head with 'Heroes Save People'; the narrative dangled in front of us 'Heroes Will Save The League'. During the war, background Heroes made gestures of pulling captured Villains away from fire, of capturing them alive.

Then again, Twice was killed and that's probably the escape clause - if the League became dangerous enough, saving them can stop being the goal, despite the narrative supposedly having made it its goal.

Heroes fought the Villains and Shigaraki knew was there was no guarantee Heroes would save them or keep them alive. Despite being Heroes. Because they're Villains, they're unforgivable, they got too broken, they don't get that promise of being saved. Never had - not from abusive homes, not from societal apathy, not from the cruelty of conformity, not from their 'one bad day'; never will.

It reminds me of when Toga sought out Ochako. Twice was killed, and Toga desperately wanted to know, if she ever needed it, if it came down to it, Heroes would save her. Heroes would treat her like a person who deserves being saved, because she's a human being and should be afforded at least that. The League already knew Heroes would not save them. But Toga kept hope. She wanted to believe that Heroes wouldn't put her down like a mad dog. She was disappointed. She gave up hope. Ochako rekindled that hope, but just Ochako. And then the narrative seemed to have refused Toga getting saved anyways.

(Unless, of course, being saved is only about the heart being saved. Then yeah, I guess they can just die.)

#nalslastworkingbraincell #Shouto is the only one who went into battle with a specific and actionable plan of capturing Touya alive #and also as other people have pointed out #all the 'unsaved' Villains with the exception of AFO gets to live #Overhaul; Compress; Geten; Muscular; MLA #being saved by Heroes is lethal #weird contrast #I know it could all be a fake out #but why fake it out like this if the goal is to celebrate Heroes for saving people and being Heroes

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arc-angel-o · 10 months

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Maybe this is denial but I think good omens 2 is more aspec than s1

meta and spoilers ahead

1) basically confirmation that angels and demons don't experience romantic love ("humans are weird and that's how it works" "yeah we know"). I get why not everyone would like this, that it might sound to them too similar to the notion that "romantic love makes us human" but I'm also religious so i love the idea of angels being as aromantic as they are nonbinary.

2) that kiss. Reminded me of me before I realized I was arospec. I'm not the first person to offer this interpretation, so I won't get too much into the character analysis side of it, but I really don't think this kiss negates an aro/spec interpretation of Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship.

A) it's totally possible that Nina and Maggie misinterpreted Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship as allo which confused Crowley about what he feels (which I don't hold against them, it'd be a misunderstanding, this fandom is so annoying)

B) a lot of us have kissed or been kissed before realizing our identities

C) asexuality and aromanticism are a spectrum

3) correct me if I'm wrong, don't Gabriel and Beelzebub never kiss onscreen? God, what a win for aspec ineffable bureaucracy shippers (me)

4) the "we're real people" conversation from Maggie and Nina. A lot of aro people have had those same frustrations about others expecting a specific relationship out of them

5) fucking every line from Gabriel this season is so asexual omg I feel so validated in avoiding fics where he's allo lol

I'm probably missing something please lmk

The more I write about this the more confident I am. Ever since ineffable bureaucracy became canon, I've been running my mouth a lot more, saying "if ineffable bureaucracy can happen, anything can!"

After season 1, before season 2, my stance on aspec Good Omens was "I love it with all my heart, and seeing all these aspec fans makes me so happy, and I'm so glad Neil Gaiman has been kind to our interpretation, but it's not canon and I don't think we should put all our eggs in one basket"

After watching and rewatching season 2, I've changed my mind, it's so much more aspec, probably intentionally, I'm putting all my eggs in the aziracrow basket.

#good omens 2 #good omens 2 spoilers #ineffable bureaucracy #ineffable idiots #ineffable partners #ineffable spouses #gabriel good omens #archangel fucking gabriel #nina good omens #maggie good omens #aspec headcanons #good omens meta #good omens theory #aziracrow #good omens angels #actually this is not good enough to be meta but that was my intention

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spacedace · 6 months

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Bit from a new dpxdc fic rattling around in my head I'm calling the Meddling Kids AU.

This snippet is so far removed from the context of the larger fic that I can't even imagine what yall are gonna think it's even about, which means it's perfect to throw out as a writing prompt for anyone that's interested haha

---

Well.

Good news: Jon had something that very publicly proved he couldn't be Superboy.

Bad news: his proof came in the form of getting his nose broken in front of the entire school cafeteria.

Weird news: tiny, waifish Danielle Masters - of all people - was the one who managed to actually break his nose when he'd stepped in to try to pull her off of Trip Hemmings.

She wasn't Kryptonian. Not unless Trip and his cronies were also secretly Kryptonians this whole time. She'd fucked them all up almost single-handedly when they'd tried to pull their usual shit with Fredrick Kern and she stepped in. But they were the ones that had started the whole messy fight when Trip decided to sucker punch the petite girl hard enough that the loud, ugly crunch of her broken nose had been heard even over the noise of the cafeteria, shoving her back into the cafeteria table and sending Fredrick's food flying.

She'd gotten slammed a couple more times during the scuffle, but she had given far more than she'd gotten and by the time Jon and Damian and managed to make their way through the crowd of students that had rapidly swarmed the scene of the fight, Trip's two goons were laying on the ground, conscious but groaning in pain and decidedly taken out of the fight.

Jon had surged forward through the crush of the gathered students towards where Danielle and Trip were. The latter sprawled across the table with Danielle on top of him, bleeding and bruised and feral looking with her bared teeth and wild eyes as she wailed down punch after punch on Trip's face. The fight was well and truly over at that point, Danielle clearly the victor, and teachers were on their way. Without even thinking about it Jon had reached out and touched her arm, intending to pull her off the little shit she was rightly wailing on before she could get in even more trouble for being involved with a fight.

It hadn’t been the wisest course of action. Danielle had been so keyed up she hadn't even realized it was him or absorbed anything he'd said, and assuming it was someone looking to hurt her turned one of her swings onto him. He'd had the spit second thought of how he was going to avoid the hit without looking like he had powers when her fist had collided with his face at a speed he hadn’t expected and sent him sprawling to the ground. It wasn't until he felt something hot dripping down his face that he realized she'd actually broken his nose and the pain flooded in.

So.

Danielle Masters was strong enough to break his nose. And still hadn’t managed to hurt anyone else - including fragile, normal humans - past some bad bruised and busted noses. She'd likely hit him as hard as she had out of blind reaction and not true intention to do real harm.

That was a thing.

A weird thing with some big implications.

D had checked, and Danielle Masters wasn't registered as a meta. Which didn't mean she wasn't one or that there was even anything nefarious going on. The uber-rich elite tended to cover things like that up, fine with meta rights and metas running around so long as it wasn't one of their own.

But it was still something.

She was strong enough to break Jon's nose. The number of entities in the world able to do that wasn't a very long list. The fact that a random girl at his school was capable of that was...not necessarily anything to be worried about. But the thing was that Danielle Masters was already someone he and D had been keeping an eye on as being...a little bit beyond the normal kind of weird. And that wasn't even getting into her dad's shady business or the potential connection between her and the weird spike in suicides.

“Here,” He blinked, pulled out of his thoughts at once to find the girl taking up all of them had shifted in her chair over to him to hold out an actual handkerchief to him. “Sorry about…” She motioned with her other hand towards his bloody face, wincing a little as she did. “You didn’t deserve that.”

He took the offered piece of fabric - oddly formal and old fashioned for anyone, let alone a girl like Danielle Masters - as the peace offering it was and offered her an awkward smile. “It was my fault for coming at you from behind,” He said, trying not to be too amused by the fact that they both sounded muffled and ridiculous with their busted noses. “I should have known better after you got jumped like that.”

Danielle shrugged, shifting back into the uncomfortable chairs they’d been parked in outside the dean’s office. The teachers on site were going over the situation with him as they had seen it, and from what Jon could hear were reviewing the CCTV footage from the cafeteria cameras. Trip’s family wasn’t prestigious or wealthy enough for the faculty to put aside their ethics and take his side, so their honest thoughts about the bully getting what he deserved - however annoying it was that they were going to have to deal with it all - shared freely from the perceived privacy of the office. Elle would still get punished for going as far as she did, but at least it wouldn’t be as bad as it could be for her.

“Assholes will be assholes.” She said, toying with the tie of her uniform. She’d ripped it off just as the fight had started, in a brief moment between kicking Trip back into his goons and them recovering enough to jump at her again. She had wrapped it around the knuckles of her dominant hand in a fast loop, giving her a little more protection before she then drove her padded fist right into the gut of Jordan Stone. She had followed it up by grabbing Jordan’s own tie and using it to get enough leverage on him to send him flying into Erin Dorner.

It was the kind of quick-thinking adjustment that Jon associated with D. Removing a potential liability, making it an advantage, latching on to any and all weakness in the opposition and using it against them. He wasn’t an expert in hand-to-hand combat the way Damian was - he could hold his own and knew how to fight with his fists as well as his powers, but there was a big difference between his skill and D’s - but he knew enough to be able to tell that Danielle wasn’t formerly trained. She was fast and quick and clever, but everything she did spoke of scrabbling street fighting brawls and learning from painful experience.

Something else to add to the seemingly endless list of things that were weird about Danielle Masters.

Because why would the daughter of one of the richest men in the country know how to scrap like a street fighter? Most rich kids didn’t really know how to fight at all, or if they did it was self-defense lessons taught by the best martial artists in the world. Maybe it was because of her meta powers? A fear of it getting out if she was taught to fight and ended up destroying a training dummy right with a single hit? But then how did she know to fight at all?

He teased Damian for going all Bernard Dowd on him for the oversized corkboard with all the notes and pictures and red thread, but Jon got it. Every new insight into the enigma that was Danielle Masters only ever led to a thousand more questions. A mystery only ever made murkier the more was known, instead of less.

—

Danielle - Elle, she’d told him to call her, a little fierce, even as her eyes were sad - hadn’t been afraid during the fight with Trip and his cronies.

Or if she had, her heart rate had never indicated it. It had risen during the fight sure, but it had been the steady quickening of a body exercising. No jackrabbit quickness, just an even increase in rate to account for her quick movements and hard hits. She hadn’t even really broken a sweat. She’d been steady the entire time, from the first sucker punch she’d taken to the face to the last she’d thrown herself at Jon.

She was scared now.

Dr. Penelope Spektor stood over the girl, usual bright, smiling face set in an unreadable mask as she stared down at Elle. Beneath the lighting of the waiting room outside the Dean’s office in her smart red suit and her glasses pushed up atop her head to rest against her bright red hair she looked almost like the devil. Jon wasn’t sure why that thought came to him. The school counselor had only ever been kind to him during the few times they’d spoken about his scholarship at Gotham Academy and his options for colleges. Maybe it was the intensity of her green eyes, the way they almost seemed to glow as they bore into Elle.

Maybe it was the way that Elle’s heartbeat had ticked up and started hammering in her chest the moment Dr. Spektor’s sharp heels were heard clicking down the hall towards them. The way she shrunk into herself as the woman moved to stand before her, above her, not saying a word. The way Elle looked like she wanted to fling herself from the chair and run as far and fast away from the woman as she could.

“I didn’t start-“ Elle’s voice was reedy, unsteady with fear and anxiety.

“Silence.”

Jon felt cold.

Elle snapped her mouth shut with a painful, jarring clack. Fast enough and hard enough to be painful. He thought he could hear one of her back molars crack from the force. He definitely heard her heart rate pick up even faster in her chest. So quick he was afraid it might just give out on her entirely. He saw the faint tremble of her hands as she wrapped them around herself, fingers digging into the fabric of her blazer with a kind of desperate hold as she clung to her own arms.

“I’ve called to inform your father of this incident.” There was a slithering, dark disgust in the words. A viciousness lacing through her icy tone. “Three days suspension. You will be spending that time with me.”

Elle looked like she might be sick at that, face draining of all color a the judgement the counselor had just given. She didn’t try to speak, to respond, just gave a stiff nod and bowed her head. Her eyes were wide as she stared down at the floor, too much white exposed. Blood dripped down from her nose again, the thundering of her pulse breaking through the clotting and making bright red drip down her face.

Dr. Spektor’s gaze slid over to where Jon sat, frozen in place by the strange scene before him. In a blink her face smoothed out, back into the pleasant, welcoming smile she always wore whenever speaking to a student. “Oh my, Mr. Kent I had heard you got injured while trying to break that horrible ruckus up earlier.” She tisked lightly, and Elle flinched a little at the sound. “I’m so sorry about that, Danielle has a bad habit of getting into trouble and I hate to see that she’s gotten you involved in her mess this time.”

Jon, for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, felt oddly at ease at her words. As strange as the feeling of being frozen in place that had overtaken him as he watched the tense scene between the school counselor and Elle. A slow, honey-thick feeling of calm, laced through with understanding and acceptance.

“It’s okay.” He said, throat feeling tight around the words. It wasn’t alright, he wanted to get to his feet, to put himself between Elle and Spektor. Wanted to drag the girl away somewhere safe and try and make her feel better, try and figure out just what was going on and why she was so afraid of the red-headed woman.

It was alright, though. He could feel it, settling into his chest, relaxing his shoulders, soothing away the tense anxiety. It was a little odd, but he just didn’t have the context of it all probably. Nothing to worry about, nothing to think about.

Elle was still hunched over, shoulder’s tight, eyes now squeazed tight. Her grip on her arms like a vice, squeezing with enough force she had to be bruising beneath the layers of her school uniform. Her heart rate a roaring drum in her chest, heart slamming painfully against the cage of her ribs, afraid, terrified.

“The fight wasn’t her fault Dr. Spektor.” He said, the words feeling like burning tar against his tongue, even though he knew the truth of them. “Trip and the other two attacked her first when she was trying to get them to leave the person they were bullying alone. She was just defending herself.”

Dr. Spektor’s lips twitched, just a little. Her expression held on her normal warm smile but something curled at the edges of her smile, the corners of her bright green eyes. Dark and deep, sharp as shattered glass and viciously, sickeningly pleased. She pulled her glasses off her head and set them back in place on her nose and the glimpse of that hungry thing beneath was gone.

Never there at all. A trick of the light. Too much time seeing the worst of humanity as Superboy and mistakenly thinking he saw it in the pleasant, kind face of the school’s counselor. Nothing to worry about at all. It was fine. He felt fine about all of it.

Elle was crying now.

He felt sick.

“Well, that is good to know.” Dr. Spektor said, voice honey sweet and lulling. “But I would hate for Danielle to fall into those old, nasty habits of hers. Better to make sure she understands that violence is never the answer.” She stepped over to him, leaning over to settle concerned eyes upon him and a gentle hand on his shoulder, surprisingly cool even through the weight of his blazer and the layers beneath. “Again I am so sorry you got hurt, Mr. Kent. I do hope Danielle can make it up to you later. She could use a good influence like you in her life.”

The sick feeling in his gut grew worse, even as his body was flooded with a sense of blissful contentment and unquestioning understanding of the situation. The vague idea that had been bubbling in him since the start of the school year to reach out to the girl in question solidified into a determined certainty that he would do just that the first chance he got. A flame flourishing at the gentle encouragement of a fan.

Just behind the school counselor Elle was terrified out of her mind.

Elle was just a little upset that she got in trouble, she’d be fine.

Dr. Spektor was treating Elle with a barely contained cruelty, venomous and wrathful.

Dr. Spektor was treating Elle normally, disappointed that she resorted to violence.

It was all wrong.

It was all perfectly fine.

The counselor stood up straight, gave him one last pat on the shoulder and a smile before turning towards the door of the Dean’s office. Her smile slipped for just a moment, face back in that disdainful blankness as she plucked invisible lint from her suit jacket. Not even looking at Elle as she gave a short, “Go to the car. Wait there. No detours. No calls. Speak to no one.”

Elle lurched into motion, getting to her feet with a mechanical kind of stiffness. She didn’t run down the hall but her awkward, robotic gate was nearly at that speed as she almost threw herself down the hall towards the side entrance where the staff parking lot was.

Dr. Spektor’s smile returned. Professional. Polite. The person everyone in school knew they could reach out to and trust if there was anything wrong, if they needed help. Guiding the students with a gentle hand, bolstering the faculty with her bright positivity. She knocked on the door and entered upon invitation with her familiar cheer.

Something was deeply, truly wrong with everything going on here.

Everything was perfectly normal.

D found him ten minutes later, dry heaving in the boys’ bathroom.

He couldn’t remember why he was there.

Everything was fine.

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bird-inacage · 9 months

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Only Friends: What Led to Ray's Explosive Tirade (Playing 'The Bad Guy')

I have to admit that this was not how I expected this scene to play out. I was just as flabbergasted as everyone else at first. However I think there's one clear thing that Ray's outburst reminded me off: no matter whether you reveal the truth or keep it to yourself - either way, you are the bad guy.

I'm NOT the Villain

As Boston very derisively claims, if Ray reveals the truth of the affair, he'll be the one unleashing the damage. A similar parallel to what Boston did last episode (with very different intentions may I add, but damage is damage nonetheless).

Mew is incredibly important to Ray. If we talk simply outside of Ray's love for him, Ray wants to treat him well, repay him for his kindness and support over the years. Therefore, once Ray was in possession of this information, he felt very strongly that Mew needed to know. He knew telling Mew was the right thing to do. He does genuinely care about Mew as a person.

Does he warn Mew and ruin his present happiness (which is based on a lie)? Or does he hold his tongue and potentially watch his friend get hurt from other mistreatments by Top further down the line?

Ray doesn't want to hurt Mew in any way. He doesn't want to be the bringer of bad news. Why should it have to fall to him to reveal this awful act of betrayal to someone he cares for so much? And when Mew supposedly doesn't react in the way he expects to this information, Ray goes ballistic with frustration, concern and anger. Why is he the bad guy for trying to help his friend, when Top can seemingly get away with it, and be in everyone's good graces even when he's completely undeserving? Why can no one else see Top's true colours?

I'm NOT the Worst

Something else that occurred to me throughout this episode, is how often Ray's friends belittle and overlook him. And it's so routine they hardly even notice.

Boston has never tried to hide his snide little back-handed comments at Ray. Since their fight at Sand's, he's become even more callous when throwing quips in plain sight. Namcheum makes an observation about all of them being partnered up, and it's only after a few beats that April points out Ray is still single. It's as if they forgot he was even there. Namcheum doesn't tend to pick up on any of the animosity or tension within this group. She's generally not the most tactful or best at reading people.

Then when Ray speaks to Mew in the bathroom, Mew immediately assumes Ray's been taking drugs. Ray looks clearly stunned by this. Yes, he's always coined as the 'drunk' but that's not his one and only personality trait. That's not all he does and is as a person.

It dawns on Ray that even his closest friends seem to always assume the very worst of him. He had a bad feeling about Top from the offset but no one cared or listened. Rather, Ray never gets given the benefit of the doubt, when he's not committed anything as problematic as the heinous crimes amongst their group. Particularly when compared to Top, someone who gets all the praise and adoration when Ray knows he's a certified piece of shit, is desperately unfair. And most of all Top gets the respect of the best friend he loves.

I think what really sent the situation hurtling south was Ray watching everyone play happy families, when he knows there is a web of dishonesty and resentment lurking beneath. It's all a farce. And Ray couldn't stomach it for another moment longer. He had enough.

Become the Very Thing You Loathe

In Episode 4, Ray displays a classic example of self-loathing and self punishment when he goads Sand to scold him. In doing so, it's as if he's deriving some warped form of satisfaction in owning these criticisms. Because he's told these things so often, he starts to believe it, so why not own it too? I actually mentioned this in my Episode 1 meta (regarding Ray's self-actualisation of becoming a burden). Sometimes embracing the very thing you hate being know for, at least validates the presence of that criticism. 'If people keep calling me an asshole, then fine, I'll become an asshole. At least then being called an asshole makes sense.'

So Ray brought it on himself to air out everyone's dirty laundry. 'Fuck it, if you really all think I'm the worst, then fine, I'll do what needs to be done, I'll be the worst. You all happy now?'

Even though Ray adopts the persona forced onto him, he's not happy about it at all. He wants to be identified with more substance, with more credit, as more than just what everyone claims him to be.

#only friends #only friends the series #ofts #only friends meta #ray x sand #sand x ray #ray pakorn #firstkhao #khaofirst #khaotung thanawat #first kanaphan #poor ray breaking my heart #this boy's characterisation has so many layers im quaking #me during episode: (shrieking) NOOO RAY DON'T PLEASE #can sand please whisk ray away so they can be happy away from this toxic wasteland of drama and clownery?

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raayllum · 10 months

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Punishment VS Acceptance: The Silvergrove and Callum

5x01, 5x04, and 5x08 were probably my favourite episodes for Rayla and Callum’s dynamic this season, for obvious reasons, and rewatching the bulk of the season next day after (and for a nice meta segue) I wanted to tackle the downright beautiful parallels between 3x03 and 5x01 (and a little bit of 4x03).

So let’s get into it.

As we all know, Rayla returns home in 3x03, and gets a... more brutal welcoming than she was expecting, partially due to her own perceived crimes, and due to the Silvergrove’s associative prejudices/inclinations.

It is extremely important to note that (at this time at least) Rayla is banished for something she didn’t even do: “But you didn’t run away from anything. They just don’t know what happened.” And although initially dejected, she remains hopeful and ‘confident’ that Ethari wouldn’t have done the spell.

Ethari, however, temporarily chooses his grief and village over his daughter, and shuts her out... in a way, framing wise, that’s not too dissimilar from Callum’s initial cold reaction in 4x01.

Which makes sense, as both Ethari (and later Amaya) state is quite similar:

Then, of course, while pursuing the exact opposite of abandoning her family, and trying to figure out what happened to them, Rayla is caught emerging from Viren’s old sealed off chambers in 5x01 and accordingly arrested. What I found particularly interesting is that in spite of being fully able to, Rayla doesn’t actually say a single word during her pseudo trial, Callum and Opeli doing all the talking for her (on both ends).

She knew stealing the key wasn’t the right thing to do, but felt unable (or unwilling) to share the burden of the coins with Callum, probably because she hasn’t been able to rely on anyone in a long time (two years alone did not help) and that it’s always been something she’s struggled with. Runaan and Callum’s complicated personal history likely didn’t help either.

And just like the Silvergrove, Opeli is arresting her on the basis of association:

and unlike the Silvergrove, on account of crimes she actually committed.

And I think there’s a lot of reasons Rayla doesn’t speak up in this scene - shame, the way she’s never been particularly good at advocating for herself, the general emotional difficulties present - but I think the main reason is that she left Callum an explanation in Through The Moon about why she left and he was still (understandably) angry with her, but more than that is that the Silvergrove flat out did not care about her intentions, and she knows it.

E: I told Runaan you were too good hearted for the work of an assassin, so I know you did not betray them out of malice.

Why would this time be any different, especially when as stated, she’s done all the things she’s being accused of?

But Callum isn’t the Silvergrove, so of course he’s different.

Where they stripped her of her home and literal identity, labelling her a Ghost, he reaffirms that her name - “She’s not ‘the elf’ - she’s Rayla” and that he knows exactly who she is. Where the Silvergrove robbed her of a chance to explain herself...

Callum says that she doesn’t need to even when it’s being demanded of her. Whereas before her intentions didn’t matter, they’re all that count here, enough that he is willing to disregard literally everything else (including his own complicated feelings about said murder bow).

C: I know this. [To love is simply to know this:] The tides are true as the ocean is deep. O: What does that mean, Prince Callum? C: It means I trust her. Unconditionally. Let her go. Now.

He doesn’t know ‘what happened’ as far as her intentions and motivations, only the worst presentation of her behaviour. But he refuses to punish her for doing something alone, for not asking for help, for keeping a secret. Instead he’s warm and compassionate and vouches for her, and if anything takes a certain amount of self-imposed responsibility on his own shoulders of realizing that if Rayla didn’t feel like she could come to him with something, he needs to be doing something different.

All while also reaffirming his faith in her - that it’s nothing that would hurt him, that she wants to tell him, that she will tell him one day, that she will be ready, and that he hopes she knows she can trust him.

Because he loves her.

#rayllum #tdp meta #tdp #the dragon prince #tdp spoilers #3x03 #s3 #arc 1 #arc 2 #multi #5x01 #s5 spoilers #parallels #analysis series #analysis #yes i teared up writing the ending mIND UR BUSINESS #back on my immediate post-s3 'callum is the first person in her life to love her Unconditionally' bullshit i think

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kradogsrats · 3 months

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Schrödinger's King in the Bird Box

Time for a return to the single topic that most torments me in this entire franchise canon: is Harrow in the goddamn bird or not?

Except not really. I'm not going to go over the evidence again. I've done it before. Almost everyone has done it before. It has only gotten stronger. At the absolute minimum, an attempt was made to put Harrow in the bird. That's not really disputable. I admit it. It's over.

This is actually the second time that I've struggled with narrative cognitive dissonance regarding a real core factor of this show (like not "what's the deal with Archdragon reproduction," but something that is clearly supposed to be thought about with the intent that it will eventually make sense), and eventually managed to rotate it so hard in my mind that the way I wanted to see it slipped out of my grasp and I saw it the way it's actually intended. Ironically, I think I may have been thinking about the Ocean arcanum at the time.

Anyway, what previously always bothered me about this question was mainly two things:

It would have a devastating impact on Ezran's character development if Harrow reappeared during s1-s3, but the timeskip and arc of s4-s5 made it so it would also be deeply weird for him to reappear before the show ends.

If Harrow is in Pip's body, both Viren and Pip's subsequent behavior, as well as how Pip is treated by the narrative on a meta level, make absolutely no fucking sense.

But... if Viren doesn't know whether the spell was successful or not? If we are meant to not know whether the spell was successful or not, because it's not going to get resolved in the show itself?

If we accept that the earliest point with any chance of the hooks for this plot being set is late s7—because yes, Aaron Ehasz would do an exact beat-for-beat repeat of Zuko and his mom—that both puts Ezran far enough in his growth for it not to be threatened by the "real" king returning, and keeps Harrow out of the loop for long enough that it doesn't really make sense for him to do anything but step down from the throne in favor of Ezran, anyway. As for Viren and Pip's behavior, if the show isn't going to advance that plot much further during its runtime, there's no reason for us to be constantly reminded of it. The setup has been made, and they can just let it stew because it's not actually relevant.

That being said, Viren's behavior actually does make a lot of sense if "is Harrow in the goddamn bird or not" is a question that is also tormenting him. To that end, I'll be doing some digging here on the nature and context of the body-switching spell, Pip/Harrow's behavior post-swap, and what the hell is going on in the Harrow section of Viren's dark magic dream.

The Spell is Made Up (Unlike All Those Real Spells)

First of all, I think there's been some long-term incorrect assumptions made about the body-switching spell. It's not a known spell: this is Claudia and Viren essentially flying by the seat of their pants... but we rarely stop to think about how that contextualizes the rest of the discussion around it.

The initial plan is to find the assassins and ambush them before nightfall. As Soren points out and Viren himself confirms: if they fail, the assassins will be unstoppable under the full moon and Harrow is as good as dead. Claudia decides to put her mind to that problem, so naturally she stops to flirt with Callum in the library and gets the inspiration for the spell from something he says.

(Fun fact: none of that happens in the novelization. Zero amount.)

She brings the idea to Viren, and they develop the spell from there. It's not really clear if Claudia actually knows whether something like that would be possible, but Viren does know that transferring the essence of a person can be done—he's got a nice little coin collection that proves it.

As for the snake, there's no way Viren "acquired" a two-headed soulfang serpent because he has a book somewhere on how to use a rare, malformed specimen of a dangerous Xadian creature to switch people between bodies. He probably thought "that's weird, but could be useful," or maybe whoever sold it to him just had a great sales pitch. A non-trivial amount of success at dark magic is in having access to rarer and more powerful reagents than your competition.

Anyway, what this means is that Viren has absolutely no idea what success looks like for this spell, particularly when using it on subjects of different species. When he describes it to Harrow, he is 110% talking out of his ass. He sounds like he knows exactly what the spell will do and how, and I think a lot of us kind of fell for that. He needs to sound confident, because if he admitted that he doesn't know if it will even work, with a possible failure condition of "snake eats your soul," well... a) Harrow rightfully wouldn't go for it, and b) he'd look incompetent, which is the worst thing ever.

When he goes to Harrow's room, he casts the spell... but did it work? I think that whatever it did, it did it in a way that Viren can't tell whether it worked or not. Maybe both Harrow and Pip passed out. Maybe Viren just didn't want to hang around for the aftermath—in the novelization, when he exits the room and runs into Callum, his eyes are still black from spellcasting.

Activities of Dr. Pip Harrow, Ph.D.

Probably the thing that has always bothered me the most about the entire Harrow-Pip theory is that yes, literally everything in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the assassination points to that being exactly what happened... and then the narrative lens of the show completely drops the rope. Pip doesn't even appear in the novelization until Viren's pre-coronation scene, which is funny given his looming presence over half the scenes with Harrow in the show.

Pip appears exactly twice after the assassination—once in s1 and once in s2—otherwise he goes completely ignored. He's not in the background of Viren's office, or the throne room, or Harrow's bedroom. No one ever mentions him ever again. Ezran never mentions him again, in the show or in any supplementary materials. You'd think the boy who can talk to animals might have some interest in his dead dad's beloved pet... but who knows, maybe Pip has always been an asshole and Ezran's actually like "thank goodness I never have to speak to that dude again."

Anyway, in all of Pip's appearances, he behaves like... a bird. A trained bird—Harrow can rely on him not just fucking off—but he doesn't demonstrate human-like intelligence the way Bait does. That being said, Bait is essentially a main-cast character (at least as much as, say, Corvus... maybe even Soren) while Pip is a plot device, and even then it takes until well into the first arc for Bait to show the kind of complex reasoning and initiative that separates him from an unusually smart dog. Pip's human is also a stressed-out king, rather than a rambunctious ten-year-old, so he's probably a bit more sedate overall. I would personally bet, given the way the show has progressed with regard to Xadian creatures, that Pip is as intelligent as Bait.

The point of that is: even if Harrow's consciousness is occupying Pip's body, he's not really doing anything with it. He's pissy, sure:

But is that Harrow's pissy-ness or Pip's? Even if Pip is only as intelligent as a trainable bird, that's plenty intelligent enough for both grieving/confusion that their human is gone and holding a grudge against obvious assholes. Viren cages him, but is that because he flipped out and got bite-y? And was it Harrow flipping out, or Pip? Or is he caged just because Viren's of the general attitude that animals belong in cages? Those who fail tests of love... We just don't know.

A lot of us also, to circle back to assumptions about the spell, have tended to think of a body swap between Harrow and Pip resulting in Harrow flailing his arms around wildly and screeching... but again, we know literally nothing about this spell, nor do we actually know anything about Harrow's behavior after Viren leaves his room. Maybe his body sat catatonic on the bed until Runaan came in and shot him. Maybe Pip, being intelligent, was able to maintain the facade—once everyone's in the heat of battle, it would be hard to notice even significant deviations from normal behavior. Even if "Harrow" appeared to fight only halfheartedly, or give up entirely... well, he hasn't been the same since he lost Sarai. Maybe the spell only partially worked, and only half of his soul is inside Pip, with minimal or no influence over the bird body's behavior.

Viren does appear to take some precautions in case Harrow is alive inside Pip. The cage, for one... but he also has nearly all subsequent important conversations outside of his office. Like I said earlier, Pip's cage isn't rendered in the background of any scene, but since he escapes from Viren's office I'm assuming that's where he's been. Even if Pip was just out of frame in every scene in Viren's office post-assassination through end of s2, the only things he's seen are... Viren eating butterflies, and the conversation between Viren and Claudia about the mirror and her side mission to bring the egg back at all costs. He doesn't know about Soren's instructions to murder the boys. He knows about the mirror and Viren's obsession with it (which he could have known before), but he doesn't know about Aaravos. He may know that Viren stole his seal but only if Viren was stupid enough to stamp the letters with it in front of him (which... look, he could be). The only things he's really learned are that a) his sons are alive, and b) Viren lied to him and the egg is alive.

Now, realistically, if we were meant to hang on to the is-Harrow-in-the-bird plot thread because it's going to be significant within the scope of the show... I'd be expecting to see at least one cut to Pip glowering at some point during all these machinations. If it weren't for the mirror and Aaravos, I'd expect Viren to be yelling all his monologuing at Pip, too. But the show does none of that. Instead, the next time we see Pip, we see him peace-ing out of the show for at minimum the next three seasons, and possibly the remaining two, as well. If Harrow's in there... why? Did he go to find Callum and Ezran himself? It's not actually clear that he knows Ezran can understand animals, so it would be reasonable for him to think Viren is his only chance at ever not being a bird again. Maybe he thinks that chance is gone with Viren's arrest and would rather not spend the rest of his life in a cage. Maybe he really isn't in control of the body.

Back to Viren, though: since Pip refuses to demonstrate any behavior that could be taken as distinctly Harrow's, Viren actually has no idea at any point whether Harrow's in there or not. He doesn't know if Harrow lived. He doesn't know if he succeeded or failed. It's a constant reminder that he's almost, but not quite, in control. Almost, but not quite, good enough to achieve what he wants.

It probably drives him absolutely insane.

Did You Think You Were Somehow Getting Out of This Without Me Mentioning Kpp'Ar?

Just kidding, it's finally time to talk about Viren's dream. We've gone two entire seasons and a two-year timeskip without any mention of Harrow or Pip (though those maniacs dropped the fucking snake basket on us as an incidental but obvious prop early in s4), and then suddenly we get punched in the face by Viren's subconscious.

First, though, I do actually need to point something out in the scene with Kpp'Ar. Bear with me, I promise this is relevant.

Viren sealed Kpp'Ar's soul in a coin 12-ish years ago, and the coin has been sitting collecting dust in his secret dungeon for... some amount of that time. Now he opens the door and finds Kpp'Ar standing there, free—and I will note that I don't believe Viren actually knows how to free people from the coins, or whether it can even be done. His reaction is surprise, followed by suspicion and wariness:

When he encounters Harrow—dead—his reaction is horrified shock, which is fair since the last time he entered the room that way there was no surprise body chilling out waiting for him in it:

Then, when Harrow speaks to him, suddenly alive and unharmed, he drops straight into relief:

Some of this is undoubtedly due to the differences between Viren's relationship with Kpp'Ar and his relationship with Harrow. With Kpp'Ar, after that initial moment of confusion, he's absolutely determined to not show a single hint of ignorance or weakness—this is a trick, or a test, and a passing grade in "light verbal sparring with the mentor you're pretty sure you remember betraying" is a thing that is both normal to want and possible to achieve. For Harrow, who he wants so desperately to call him brother, who he walked into this very room ready to die for, before everything went horribly awry—he not only immediately and willingly goes to his knees, he literally prostrates himself.

... I'll give everyone a moment to get all the innuendo and suggestiveness out of their systems, because that's not the point. This time.

What is the point is that Viren's reaction to Harrow isn't disbelief, but relief. Hope. Kpp'Ar is supposed to be in a coin, and Viren immediately questions how he got out. Harrow is supposed to be dead but Viren doesn't give a second thought to how he's not. Fortunately, Harrow helpfully explains:

Fun fact: back in s1, we don't actually see Viren actually taking action against the assassins. We don't even see evidence that he re-entered the room at all—it's only Soren and Claudia who participate in Runaan's capture.

I haven't actually touched a lot on the complex shit going on for Viren, emotionally, throughout all of this—I mentioned it's was probably driving Viren insane over the course of the first two seasons, but let me elaborate. If Viren successfully switched Harrow and Pip, that means Harrow survived... but he expressed his feelings on the proposal in no uncertain terms, and there's a good chance he will literally never forgive Viren. I don't think Viren thought far enough ahead to consider how to get Harrow into a human body again, but I do think he's dragging his feet on it a little because if he can work things to his advantage—unite the Pentarchy against Xadia and follow through on the war Harrow was avoiding—he'll prove to Harrow that he was right all along. Any chance of that flies out the window with Pip at the end of s2.

If the body-switching spell failed, it means Viren essentially killed Harrow himself. That's the reality I think he grows more and more resigned to over the course of s1 and s2, when Pip remains unresponsive. He had no choice but to take the best chance at saving someone he loved—but this time, instead of saving Harrow, he murdered him.

In the dream, Harrow has not only survived, but credits Viren with his survival. He doesn't just dismiss Viren's show of remorse, but makes his own apology to Viren. He calls Viren brother. After an impossibly long nightmare, everything is okay. All is forgiven. Maybe there was nothing to forgive, in the first place. Maybe Viren was right all along.

Then it all turns sinister with the callback to the coin incantation, and we have a sharp return to reality:

The cinematography here treats Pip a lot more like how I would expect him to be treated in s1/s2 if we were meant to know he was actually Harrow. There's focus actually on him, instead of just other characters' reaction to him. He "speaks"—as I noted in another post—in raspy sounds very unlike his songbird chirps from s1. This is absolutely Harrow as Viren actually left him—even if he's not dead, he's in a warped prison of dark magic, a perverse mockery of himself.

Oh wait.

Harrow-who-is-both-human-and-alive was never an option, and what we've got now is mirror images of Harrow-the-dead-human and Harrow-the-live-bird, and they're going to do to Viren what he did to them.

Now, it's not that none of this makes sense if Viren knows for sure that Harrow is in the bird... but it makes a lot less sense and has less emotional resonance. If Viren knows Harrow survived as Pip, he'd be more likely to question Harrow's human form than his survival—the way he does with Kpp'Ar. He might be more guarded, expecting hostility—which, I will note, is what he gets when Pip enters the scene. Instead, because until now he believed that he actually killed Harrow in his attempt to save him, he's so relieved to see Harrow alive that for that one moment he loses all pride and is ready to beg for forgiveness at Harrow's feet.

Since legitimately none of this makes sense if Viren didn't at least attempt to put Harrow in the bird, we're left with Harrow maybe or maybe not alive, Viren having maybe or maybe not been the one to actually kill him (gonna be a fun one with the Runaan context), and a plotline that is definitely not going to be resolved in the remaining two seasons of the show. I'd be kind of surprised if they even did any more setup for it (like Callum/Ezran finding out it's a possibility, or even a hint drop like Runaan being all "it was fucking weird, he just sat there" or something) outside of future supplemental media.

Conclusion

Either Harrow is alive and in the bird, with the future intent being to do a spinoff story The Search-style, or we're in for a huge bummer of a "actually, it was Viren all along who killed Harrow, therefore Runaan is a good guy and we can all be one happy family" pile of absolute bullshit. Yes, they said Harrow's dead. Harrow's body is dead, we knew that all along. There's a note in the artbook that Viren was actually going to rip the shroud off at Harrow's funeral in order to publicly prove it's his body, because that is an extremely normal thing to do.

The show just treats it extremely weirdly because, even as the only person with any chance of knowing, Viren is in the same uncertain boat as the rest of us. (Actually more uncertain than the rest of us, since he's not genre-aware.) Also it's another chance to torment Viren emotionally, and they'd never pass that up.

Thanks for coming to my absolutely ridiculous TED Talk on this topic, I hope this screenshot now does as much psychic damage to you as it does to me:

#the dragon prince #viren #harrow #pip #for once i was wrong... but now i'm right #oh my god this is so long i'm so sorry

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dropthedemiurge · 1 month

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Second part of my translation comments (and half meta) for Gray Shelter [Episode 5], you can find the first post here!

"You gave the choice/decision to me, didn't you? (reference to the earlier scene)" "So your decision is to give me some money and tell me to get out of your sight?"

꺼져 is quite a rude word, like 'get the hell away from me', Yoondae is clearly pissed rephrasing/interpreting Soohyuk's intentions, he's using informal tone too

"Because I live like this? Because I idle/fool around here and there without doing anything, not able to get myself together (cannot get a grip on myself and my life)? Because you still see me as a child?!" "Yes. That's why I'm confused. Because it doesn't matter who is by your side (anyone will do), right?" "And (what's the problem)? You can be by my side. Why is everything so complicated for you? Just... (in softest pleading voice) ...Watch me. I will live like all the other people. Then it'll all be good (it's solved), no? You can watch over me while being by my side. Mmhm? Don't care about the situation, once again I'm telling you, just look only right at me."

I actually really like the usage of 'focus on me' in all the sentences because the translator keeps the leitmotif and it works in all contexts, the entire conversation was translated nicely. Even "- What's the most difficult thing about me and this situation for you? - That I'm your home (the place you return to now)."

I just gave you more literal translation... idk, for fun xD Maybe you'll catch more nuances that I tried to put in here. It's just devastating. Soohyuk sees and feels that Yoondae is clinging to him like to a lifeline, and he doesn't want to be one, he's got enough of people burdening him, his life is hard enough.

He tried to think simply like Yoondae and just live in the moment, give in to his impulses as well, but he just can't. He's sinking on his own and he can't chain himself to another person because even if he's a safe place for Yoondae, he won't be able to save him in this situation, it means they'll both drown. Yoondae has to find his own ground to stand on, he has to get a grip and find a new home on his own so he won't circle his entire life and attention on Soohyuk. Only then it'll work.

"If I find another home, can I call you? You won't avoid me then?"

They don't kiss here – they can't. It won't work. But such short distance is a promise, it's a possible future happy ending hanging between them both like a life vest and a heavy rock.

I'm not sure he means it as 'we get together again'. More like

"If we meet again, will we become okay?"

Like, they agreed it won't work out now, they need some time, and Yoondae now will be holding onto that hope that Soohyuk might accept him and his feelings once Yoondae finds his own home, his own meaning in life. But he's still afraid it won't happen, that's why he needs to hear some affirmation. Will things between them become alright (and the fact that he doesn't really say 'better' or 'good', he uses 괜찮다 - fine, alright, okay and asks if they will be able to even reach that). Which means they both know their relationship is less than 'okay' now.

And in a very Gray Shelter melancholic satisfying-unsatisfying way, Soohyuk only replies: "It'd at least be better than now."

That's the only thing Yoondae is left with. This, and a daring request to pretend he didn't steal that goodbye kiss.

And we're getting a time skip which starts on a sound of a ringing telephone. ("If I find another home, can I call you? ) And surprisingly, it doesn't seem that Yoondae is the one calling this time, as he wanted to. It seems like Yoondae accepted the call but he wasn't holding it or answering, yet Soohyuk called him and invited him for a dinner and is waiting for the answer. Now, the decision is up to Yoondae.

There is a calendar on the wall but I honestly didn't track if there were any other calendars in the show so we can tell how long was the time skip.

"Alright. I'll be waiting."

To be honest, in the ending I wished they showed at least one scene of Yoongdae coming home in a work-like uniform or doing something to indicate he started sorting his life out before that call came through. Because even though the ending is hopeful – they lived separately for some time, Yoondae has his own place, Soohyuk is reaching out to spend time with him now and they both agreed their next meeting will be more hopeful – but will it be enough? Was the problem actually solved?

We all should think that yes, but I wish the ending supported it a little bit more confidently. After such a rollercoaster of emotions and complicated situation, I want to see them heading towards the truly happy ending Т_т (give me the second season!)

In any case, the acting is great and the melancholic atmosphere for a BL was so unusual, I loved the edgy dialogues and emotionally raw writing. For such a short story, Gray Shelter certainly will go under many people's radar but it still touched my soul.

And, well, now I understand the title. Soohyuk is a shelter, he shouldn't be a home. Shelter is a place they seek temporarily comfort in when they have nowhere else to go. And it's not a bright happy couple place, and it's not an abusive family house either, gray is neither black nor white. It's something in between, and it's up to Soohyuk and Yoondae to try and build an actual equal bond, have a place to return to and person to eat dinner with.

#gray shelter #gray current #gray shelter comments #dropthemeta #korean bl #kbl #soohyuk x yoondae #kdrama #bl series #dropthemeta kbl

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linkspooky · 9 months

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"Ultimate Strength... and the Solitude it Brings!!"

So this is a thoughts for chapter 233, and also a meta on the whole Gojo and Sukuna fight in general as we're nearing the end. My biggest question here is what exactly does this fight mean for Gojo's character? Why is he fighting and how does that compare to Sukuna?

Before the fight even begins on the eve of Gojo's unboxing we're given a reminder of the loneliness that is at the core of its character. That his central motivation is to raise strong companions so they'll be able to live out the springtime of their youths. That they won't be left alone the way that he was, and the way that also Geto was before he fell from grace.

It seems like Gojo's takeaway here was "I need to intervene earlier" otherwise another Geto will happen. Which is why he his next action in the manga is to find Megumi and recruit him, with the warning that if he's not strong enough he'll be left behind. Because this is Gojo logic we're working here strength = good.

If he raises strong enough companions he'll finally have equals. If he raises students who are strong enough, they won't fall to the corruption of the Jujutsu World.

He doesn't want children to be left alone the way he was left alone as a child, and the way Geto was. However, he also rather condescendingly thinks that the only people who could possibly be on his level are those who are physically strong. There we see Gojo's good intentions mix with how ingrained he is into the society that he was raised in.

The foundation of Jujutsu Society is might = right.

I'm going to borrow a quote from another manga to explain it. Don't read it because the author is a criminals but Makoto Shishio espouses views that are pretty similiar to all of Jujutsu Society as a whole (and yes even Gojo).

Saitro: Kill evil quickly. Shishio: Kill evil quickly? Am I evil? What is evil? In my eyes weakness is evil, raw power is justice.

We actually see this theme repeated over and over again "the ugliness of the weak" or how wekaness itself is considered a crime.

Ironically these two characters who decry the ugliness of the weak then go on to be mass murderers... so you know. Look in the mirrors, guys. People who are victims are often condescendingly spoken down to, lambasted while they're in pain, told they are wrong.

Then you have characters like Toji who while being horrible people are almost fetishiticallly praised just by the virtue that they are strong. Like yes, Toji abandoned his son, solid him, then gambled away all the money he got from selling him, and then killed a high school girl by shooting him in the back of the head but... he was so strong.

Maki becoming more like Toji is apparently a good thing, because you know... he was just so strong. Toji is a pathetic manchild and a loser but because he fits Jujutsu Society's ideal of raw strength so well he ends up being held up regardless as some kind of gold standard.

Which kind of just goes to show how twisted the ideals of Jujutsu Society are. "Weakness is evil, and raw power is justice."

No one embodies this viewpoint more though than Sukuna. In his brief fight against Yuji he almost quotes another Makoto Shishio quote word for word.

Makoto Shishio: "The weak's reason for being is to be food for the strong. Those who are even too weak to be food have no right to exist and the strongest of the strong are at the top of the food chain. The Meiji government is weaker than I am and has no right to be in control of this country. Power belongs to the strong, it belongs to me alone. Taking over this country is my right by natural law. If you're strong you live and if you're weak you die."

Sukuna even says something similiar early on that it's ridiculous that Gojo isn't in charge of the entire sorcery world because of his position as the strongest.

Sukuna just like Gojo before entering the fight receives another reminder of just how alone he is as an individual in his fight against Yorozu, which is where the quote about the loneliness of the strongest emerges from. Yorozu's fight ends with a flashback of Yorozu in the heian era recognizing how alone Sukuna was while the rest of his crowd was worshipping him and despreately wanting to be by his side.

Whereas, before entering the fight Shoko reflects on how Gojo would never allow her to be by his side even though she's been right next to him for years.

The parallel is pretty clear here, these are two people who stand alone at the top of the food chain. They are the extreme version of "right of the individual" or "right of the strong." To borrow from another manga Tokyo Ghoul this time on how to define right of the strong.

"Every disadvantage in the world is from a lack of competence..." or translated in other version's a lack of individual competence. It's the extreme form of individualism that both Gojo and Sukuna represent, if you're tramepled upon, violated, abused, it's your fault for being weak and letting it happening. If you were simply strong enough you could have prevented it from happening.

Gojo and Sukuna both see the world in that black and white logic, however, Gojo has the added burden of his duty as a sorcerer of protecting non-sorcerers that he took on from Geto. Gojo can't kill without meaning or just use his power to stomp over others because Geto drilled it in his head at his weakest moment post Riko's death and awakening that it's important for sorcerers to have meaning to their actions.

In every other way though Gojo is a believer of right of the strong. IT's what he preaches and practices. Hence why his problem solving method is just to win the big fight all alone. Every conflict in the world and every problem to be solved is just a matter of being strong enough in Gojo's eyes.

Which is why I wonder if that explains Gojo's attitude towards this fight with Sukuna. Megumi's life is on the line, the chips are down on the table, but Gojo just seems to treat this like it's a champion prize fight.

Gojo's attitude is notably different from when he was fighting in the beginning of the Shibuya Incident Arc.

Gojo's angry that Jogo and the cursed family are trying to gang up on him and win using strategy rather because none of them are individually strong enough to beat him on their own. He's vicious and brutal the entire fight because it's almost like they've insulted him by trying to challenge him.

Whereas with Sukuna despite the fact that the emotional stakes are way, way higher. Despite the fact one of Gojo's students is in danger and he may even have to kill said student, Gojo just jokes around the entire time and seems to be enjoying himself. It seems like this would be the fight for Gojo to get lose his mind and get unhinged but no.

Yuji and Gojo are both characters who admit they might have to kill Megumi in order to resolve this situation, but look at the differences in their reactions.

Yuji's horrified, and to be fair in Yuji's defense even if Yuji is forced to kill Megumi in order to "save" him. Yuji was the previous host of Sukuna and he was one hundred percent willing to get killed by Yuta or Gojo if he ever went out of control again.

However, Gojo's response to the fact that Megumi got possessed is... let's say less serious.

"I can totally beat up Megumi."

Now, in Gojo's case in comparison to Yuji. Yuji is just a child of Megumi's age and he was also in Megumi's position of being taken over by Sukuna before this and was willing to risk his life on that. Gojo is in a position of power over Megumi. He was obligated to protect Megumi, and now having failed in that obligation isn't really making any attempt to save him.

Now, do I think Gojo is actually trying to kill Megumi?

I'm hovering towards no at the moment. His line here indicates that he thinks there may be a way to revive Megumi after he kills Sukuna once.

However, I think the author wants us to quesiton whether or not GOjo's priorities are really in the right here. After all the other characters are questioning if he's actually trying to help Megumi. Megumi's already been on the receiving end of the unlimited void because of Gojo using his body as a punching bag.

Rather, I think the takeaway here is that Sukuna is bringing out the worst in Gojo because Sukuna represents Gojo at his worst and most toxic. Gojo totally believes in that individual right of the strong.

He thinks that it's the way the world works, everything comes down to how individually strong you are. If you want to fix something? Well just raise a buch of strong children into strong adults and that'll solve everything.

This fight is everything that appeals to Gojo's black and white world view, because he can fix this whole situation with a heavy weight prize fight match between him and Sukuna. Which is where we get to the line this chapter that I used as the banner image.

Why is Gojo fighting here?

Is it because he wants to save Megumi? Is it because he needs to save all of his students and Tokyo as a whole from Kenjaku?

Or is he just fighting for personal satisfaction to be secure in his position as the strongest?

The situation we're in right now reminds me so much of his lines towards Amanai shortly after he awakaned as the strongest. He should be angry for Megumi's sake but...

At the moment the only thing that seems to matter is his fight against Sukuna and the satisfaction from winning.

I guess that's just what happens when you're a main character in a Shonen Manga.

#jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen #jjk 233 #jjk 233 spoilers #jjjk 233 #gojo satoru #satoru gojo #ryomen sukuna #sukuna ryomen #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jjk spoilers #jujutsu kaisen meta #jujutsu kaisen manga

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patcaps · 5 months

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you can read my other thoughts on the finale here so i’m not gonna just say all the same things again but

the ending was always gonna be divisive with people loving it or hating it, liking it but wishing some things were a bit different. it’s the ending of a beloved show and nobody is ever gonna agree on what the right ending would be. it sucks to have folks outright rejecting it but it also sucks to see people like “you are wrong for having any criticisms whatsoever” like, i’m all for being able to discuss aspects of media and what we liked and didn’t like. it’s not always a bad faith interpretation, or cynicism, or being poor at understanding the writing and intention. and i love meta and analysis that doesn’t completely pick apart something and refuse it any grace or leniency. i think sometimes we’re way too hard on stuff that is ultimately heartfelt and from a place of love and joy, and unraveling them dampens the magic.

anyway. that aside. i love this show so much. there are things i’d have done differently, pacing choices that made it fall flat in places, but it’s not my show and these guys know their characters and love them as much as we do. and the ghosts and mike and alison never stopped being family - which is, ultimately, the biggest thing that matters. not the house, not where they are, but how they’ve helped each other for the better. alison and mike spent their entire lives making sure the ghosts were never forgotten, always went back to catch up. they got to enjoy all the fun and love of visiting family without the stress of living under each other’s feet 24/7 - and relationships with family often improve tenfold with that breathing space.

the show ended where it started with the plans to turn it into a hotel, but this time instead of the ghosts panicking and being like “drive her out, kill her” they loved alison enough to take all of that change on, safe in the knowledge that alison would never ever just abandon them. that’s such a neat way of showing how they’ve all helped each other. like, robin’s seen that house and the houses and land before it change so much but he felt so good about this change, literally said he felt christmassy finally, because they could do this. for her. for their friend, their family member, their alison.

they existed before alison and they’ll exist after her, but in the meantime they get to enjoy being her family and also know they’ve given them a more stable, secure, less stressful living arrangement that works for them all. they aren’t fully dependent on alison anymore and alison was no longer fearful of leaving and losing them because she knew they’d still be her family no matter what. i’ve seen some people interpret this as “they’re saying having a baby meant her found family weren’t important anymore, they have to go be a traditional family alone” and that was my kneejerk response too, but then i sat with it. and actually, alison goes from being a (presumed) orphan with no family besides mike and his side, to having all of that plus the ghosts, people who love her and always welcome her back to visit whenever she wants. how lovely for her to have her very own family she can go and see, who did such a kind thing for her, however bittersweet a decision it was initially.

and yeah, it’s true that the ghosts have less of alison there to take care of things like personalised entertainment, but that’s the whole point of them leaving - alison wasn’t in a position where she could worry about entertaining them all the time whilst also being with her husband and raising a newborn. it wasn’t fair to keep asking her to run around after a houseful of ghosts when looking after yourself and a small child is hard enough. she could have stayed and ended up resenting them, getting frustrated and angry the way they did with mike’s mum, potentially souring that relationship with the ghosts. instead she moved out and gets to go back and see them and love and enjoy them fully without that responsibility 24/7. i’m sure she took them new things, gifts, let them watch tv and read books, i bet they had requests for whenever she visited which she was more than happy to supply. and i bet they always had new anecdotes and things to catch her up on.

the more time i have, the more i warm to it all. it’s easy to say “they should have stayed together at the house” but this show is about being human, about life and death, how existence is both cruel and kind and beautiful and unexpected and it changes you and you change it. they did stay together, just not under the same roof. home is more than just button house, more than just a dream because dreams change as we go, and belonging is about more than just a destination. alison found home and belonging in the ghosts, and they found it in her too. the rest is just bricks and mortar.

#bbc ghosts spoilers #bbc ghosts #quill to paper #ghosts meta

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the-cat-and-the-birdie · 6 months

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'You're reading too much into ATSV.'

[aka meta analysis is good for the soul]

I often get told on this blog that I'm reading too much into plots or scenes or things in general.

And honestly, fair point. I do the most.

And as a writer, I will say that I do it out of pure respect.

[actual photo of me reading the script and going for my 'reading too hard at ATSV notebook']

Movies take years to write.

People spend months of their lives genuinely toiling over these characters, often times creating more work than what can ever be reasonably used. Months of revisions and scraping work.

For weeks, about a dozen people probably went to sleep dreaming or thinking up what Hobie would wear, what Gwen would say, what emotional cues Jess will have.

A lot of people dedicated years of their lives and creative labor into that story.

To me, it isn't at all bizarre to take an hour out of my day to sit and consider the story they spend a lot of time trying to tell.

Compared to the labor they have given me, multiple 40+ hour work weeks for years - an hour or two is literally nothing lol

It's literally the least I can do.

As a writer, I feel like its only right to sit back and look deeper into a story.

To analyze the writer's intentions, or examine their storytelling tactics and abilities.

We are taught to consume media so quickly and rapidly that to offer time to critically analyze a piece of work is considered bizarre, too much work, or pointless.

As if there's nothing to read into. Or as if speculation and meta analysis is helpful to no one.

If someone spends five hours drawing fanart that is accepted. If someone spends two hours writing fanfic, this is expectable behavior.

But I spend the same amount of time to look deeper into the work of the writers, and often times I'm met with surprise or treated as if I'm overly uptight.

It's like snickering at a person who asked there was deeper meaning behind a painting. While standing in an art gallery.

When streaming shows drop all in one day, it becomes about the Easter eggs and watching it as fast as possible as not to be spoiled.

Then at the end of it, you wash your hands of it and wait for the next big release.

People spend years, decades of their writing career trying to write realistic characters with layered motives. Or stories with complex themes.

Comic Book and Screenwriters included.

I myself try very very hard to do so - to provide foreshadowing, and emotional insight into the characters, their motives, their faults.

If I heard someone say that the piece is not worth looking that far into, all the work I've done as a writer gets overlooked.

Writers cannot grow if people are consuming their media without caring enough to look critically at it as the work of a storyteller.

So yes, I'm looking too far into it. Cause writers can write that far into it. And that deserves to be examined, acknowledged, and praised.

To assume less is too assume lesser of the writers who put everything into the media you enjoy.

This year of all years, we should be appreciating the work Screenwriters put in.

I guess what I'm trying to say is - I'm not being an asshole (well, not trying to be).

I'm looking at writers as vital parts of a movies production. Because they are.

We look deeply at the art style, or the animation, or the music. Writers are not shadow figures. They're people with careers. And them and their work deserve to be spoken about and acknowledged as a work of effort just the same as CGI artists or editors, or directors.

I implore you - Read more into it.

If you're a writer yourself, doubly so.

Read FAR into it. Build your analyzation skills, come to your own conclusions. Break the story down every which way and look at the characters from every angle.

It's fun, it's free, it makes the characters so much more real.

So many people on this website hope to one day become published writers. One thing they do to help you achieve that in college, is by racing things like scripts, and looking critically.

Meta analysis is good for you as much as it is the writers.

If you don't think you're cut out for it, or would have nothing to add, still try. Not for the brownie points, but to feel closer to the characters and the story.

If you've seen ATSV (or any Fandom media) and haven't ever really sat and thought about it - everyone's moral stances, why they want what they want, why they've made the mistakes they've had, where you stand on it all - I highly recommend it.

You might come away with some surprising conclusions about characters or even yourself.

Think about your favorite characters, and what might happen to them in the next movie.

There's really nothing wrong with reading that far into it.

Fifteen minutes of thinking, or an hour of writing is nothing compared to the months of work that went into this absolute masterpiece.

Trust me, the first time you catch some shit that makes you go

ITS LIKE A HIGH I TELL YOU.

Touch grass? Nah bro, touch your local library card. Go there right now. Take out this book.

There's gonna be a discussion tomorrow in class.

If you read this far heyhello I think you're rad as hell.

Here's a Hobie for the road because he's a great companion.

Bye.

#overthink. do it. you have my permission #spiderman #atsv #spider man #marvel #across the spiderverse #atsv analysis #writing #fic writing #fandom meta #meta analysis #fanfic writing

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icedragonlizard · 7 days

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What if Kirby characters could drive cars?

Let's just assume gijinka versions of them because otherwise most don't even have the proper anatomy to drive, LOL.

Anyways, here are my thoughts on the matter:

-Kirby is a funny case because he's shown decent motoring skills such as piloting a Robobot Armor, but he's also a literal child. So therefore, no license for him.

-Susie would be the most skilled driver in the cast, I feel. But she'd also be unhinged in the way she drives. She'd make all sorts of crazy "advanced" maneuvers that would terrify someone in her passenger seat. Basically, she has such high confidence of her driving capabilities that she's arrogant on the road. You'd think that this would lead to her easily getting into accidents, but she does have good enough reflexes and reaction time to dodge a lot of potential accidents. Not at all to say she's untouchable... she'd absolutely get into accidents on occasion, but she often gets away with her overconfidence by reacting quick enough to escape many dangerous moments. Still would be nerve wracking to be in the passenger seat with her though.

-Magolor would be good at driving as well. Probably even the second most skilled driver in the cast, but he'd get into accidents a lot more often than Susie would. Him canonically crashing the Lor Starcutter more than once makes me believe this. He'd also speed in a lot of instances where he thinks he can get away with it. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if he'd be mischievous enough to sometimes honk his horn with the sole intent of pissing other drivers off because he thinks it's funny.

-Marx should not be allowed to have a license. The reasons are fairly self explanatory. He'd instigate chaos in traffic and cause accidents on purpose. He'd be an absolute menace on the road. Don't let this shitfaced lunatic drive a car. I love this jester but I would not under any circumstances trust him to drive. Well, maybe I wouldn't trust a lot of others in the cast to drive, but especially Marx.

-Daroach would probably be decent at driving, but you know damn well that if you see him driving then he 100% stole the car he's using. Although I think it'd be funny if car theft is something he did pretty often. Like every time he finds a new favorite car, he then just takes it and drives off with it.

-Taranza is a strange case. His six hands would make him seem like he'd be stellar at driving, but I also imagine he's someone that's just not great at using tech appliances. Give him enough training and I think he'd be good at driving, but overall he'd be the least skilled driver out of the Wave 3 triad because the other two are just much better with tech.

Funny scenario: Taranza is in the passenger seat with either Susie or Magolor driving, and he gets nervous of their arrogant driving mentalities, despite him being less skilled than them in driving.

-I'm not sure if King Dedede would stand out as a driver. I guess he'd be alright at it? Not great but not awful. Although I imagine he'd probably just let waddle dees drive for him.

-Reminder that Meta Knight himself does not pilot the Halberd, it's his crewmates. I think they'd be better drivers than him, LOL. I think he himself might be alright in terms of driving capability, but would also notably suffer from road rage because of how easily combative he is.

-Speaking of road rage, I actually see many in the cast suffering from it. Meta Knight, Dedede, Susie, Zan and maybe Magolor would all be road ragers sometimes. I think the biggest road ragers, however, would be Flamberge and Dark Meta Knight... those two would lowkey fall under the "get out and fight the other driver" levels of road rage. I guess Meta Knight might occasionally do that too, but not as vehemently as those two.

-Would the animal friends bother driving, even in gijinka forms? I imagine ChuChu and Pitch are kids so no for them. Not sure about Nago because he seems lazy. Rick... sure, probably, albeit not often. The idea of gijinka-ified Coo and Kine piloting aerial and aquatic vehicles respectively sounds cool, but I'm not sure how likely they'd actually do that lol. Kine seems pretty air headed for that.

-Gooey driving would be the funniest thing ever. It'd obviously go very poorly but I think it'd be entertaining to watch just to see what happens. LMAO.

-Depending on if you headcanon Bandana Waddle Dee as either a child or an adult, I think he'd be a serviceable driver if the latter. But in my case, he's a kid. So no license for him.

That's... practically all my notable thoughts for this matter. What do you think?

#kirby #susie haltmann #susie kirby #magolor #marx #marx kirby #daroach #taranza #king dedede #meta knight #dark meta knight #the mage sisters #rick kine and coo #gooey #gooey kirby #bandana waddle dee

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coralcatsea · 8 months

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Can't all of that usuk things be seen as brotherly love or someone who is important in your life but not in a romantic view? Not hating, honest just thinking

Your ask is about this post, right?

So looking at my examples, you can interpret it that way with some if you want, but with others...not so much.

I hope you actually want to hear me out, because this might get a bit long. Apologies in advance. 😅

-I can't imagine how awkward it'd be to view them as sıblıngs considering some of the suggestive things they do in canon. Personally, I think it'd be pretty weird to grab/tug on a sıblıng's apron when there's nothing underneath and say it "matches them well".

-If someone talks about your sıblıng being good looking, I don't think most people would get flustered enough to start sweating and trying to play it cool. I feel like the sıblıng equivalent would involve something more like eye-rolling.

-For the cake one, sure, you could interpret it as them being goofy in-universe, but from a meta perspective, putting an item that is so heavily associated with you on top of the cake seems to me like putting the wedding figures at the top. It comes off as intentional fan service, which Hima often likes to include.

-For Valentine's Day, the scene with Alfred and Arthur is paired narratively right alongside the shippy GerIta stuff. Additionally, there is a note that says this:

"In Europe, it's traditional for lovers to give gifts to each other."

"In America, giving gifts is also mainly done between lovers."

It does indeed mention male to female, but only to give cultural trivia about the difference between Europe and America. The important part is the emphasis on lovers, and we all know Hetalia doesn't shy away from same-sex shippy moments – as evidenced by Germany proposing to Italy in the very same strip. Speaking of proposals, one dynamic that closely parallels Arthur/Alfred is that of Antonio/Lovino, and Antonio tried proposing to Lovino in the manga.

I digress.

-Sıblıngs typically don't suggest ideas like dressing in sexy outfits and swaying their hips provocatively. Which reminds me, I forgot to include a similar scene in my post where Alfred intentionally has Arthur wear a Robin costume that shows off his legs. Yes, intentionally.

"Also, didn't you notice your costume is from the movie and mine is from the comic?"

Of course Alfred would notice. There's no way a big Batman fan like him would've chosen Arthur's costume carelessly, but instead of answering why Arthur has the skimpy version of Robin's costume when it doesn't even match his, Alfred instantly deflects. He then proceeds to tell Arthur to stop crouching and show – ...something. Based on what Arthur is covering, the logical assumption is that Alfred is telling Arthur to show off his legs.

-"Are you fighting like an old married couple again?" Self-explanatory. If they were sıblıngs he could just say, "Are you having a sibling squabble again?"

-Cardverse is a canon AU by Hima, and Alfred and Arthur are the King and Queen. Magical Strike is also a canon AU, in which Alfred has a fαthεr who is the company president. No other fαmiliαl relations are given. Arthur is a salaryman who simply works for the company.

-There's the scene where Arthur is dying that plays on the "near-death love confession" trope.

-Other characters comment on their relationship...

Again, if it was brοthεrly they could just call it a brοthεrly quarrel. It comes off to me more as teasing friends who could potentially have romantic feelings for each other.

-Tony sees it, too, teasingly commenting "Love me bubu. Kiss me bubu," in reaction to Arthur and Alfred's conversation. He doesn't normally say things like that, either.

-Terms like "big brοthεr" in Hetalia shouldn't automatically be taken literally. They are used in a more Japanese sense (e.g. calling a somewhat older person who isn't related to you "big brοthεr" out of respect). France calls himself "big brοthεr" to literally everyone and even Norway refers to Denmark as "brοthεr".

-Regardless of how you interpret their usage of "big brοthεr", Arthur decides against being called that right away, Alfred himself rejects the idea of it during the Revolution, and Arthur later claims their relationship is "not like that" and fumbles for a way to describe it, mainly considering himself as more of a former mentor or boss.

So I believe that after the Revolution, it's most accurate to consider them as coworkers or friends (who may or may not be attracted to each other).

_____

At the end of the day, you can interpret it however you want. But with how often USUK fans are given a hard time for liking this ship, I wanted to point out that we're not pulling this stuff out of nowhere. It's hinted at and given shippy fan service moments just like several other ships.

I only really disagree with people constantly insisting they MUST be fαmily. Romance vs fαmiliαl are NOT the only two options. I would honestly like to see more non-shippers just let them be friends. Just because I ship it doesn't mean others have to, and just because some perceive it in a fαmiliαl way doesn't mean everyone else must view it like that, either.

And to those who do decide to hop aboard our ship, welcome! We have lots of variety to offer and are always glad for more people to have fun chatting about ideas with.

#ukus #usukus #usuk #answered asks #hws #Hetalia #aph #Hetalia manga #hws england #hws america #aph england #aph america

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thatswhatsushesaid · 6 months

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strangely enough I'm partway through the novel and so far I've felt way more like jgy is supposed to be Bad And Evil than I ever did watching the show? like in cql you get to know him before all that bad stuff happens and you see him as a tragic character who didn't really have another choice, but in the book it just seems like he's set up as a villain from the beginning. maybe I'll change my mind when I finish the book?

oh no, see, i do think that was rather intentional in the novel! i can't remember who wrote the particular piece of meta i'm thinking about (was it you @labyrynth?) but if i recall the post correctly, it explores how key information about jgy is revealed to the viewer and the reader in both versions of the canon. because you're absolutely right that in cql, we meet jgy as meng yao much earlier in the story, and he is presented to us in such a way as to engender a lot of sympathy and compassion. and then bam!! we find out all of the terrible awful no good very bad details about him via the empathy flashback episode.

in contrast, in the novel, once wwx and lwj begin to suspect that jgy is the one behind nmj's murder, we don't actually know much of anything about jgy beyond his role within the lanling jin, his close friendship with lxc, and his status as a war hero. there are lots of hints scattered throughout the text that indicate just what type of person jgy is once he comes into his own power (e.g., the watchtowers, the decade and a half of peace and safety that his tenure as xiandu ushers in), but these textual observations are blink-and-you'll-miss-them subtle, and i caught most of them on my second re-read. we aren't really hit with the motherlode of painful heartbreak about jgy's life and backstory until the guanyin temple confrontation is nearing its end, and it isn't until jgy is actually dead and sealed in the coffin with nmj's fierce corpse that we find out he was the one who gave jin ling fairy. and it isn't until the extras that we also find out that jgy rooted out political corruption within the jin sect to such an extent that no jin sect officials would ever have considered accepting bribes while he was sect leader.

the tl;dr version is that cql is intentionally set up to (on first viewing, anyway) say to the viewer, "you thought you knew who jgy was, but you were wrong to trust him." in contrast, the question that mdzs asks the reader at the very end of the novel is, imo, "you thought you knew who jgy was--but did you?" and, rather like lan xichen, who is left to wonder about the truth for the rest of his life, this question will never be answered.

#asks answered #mdzs meta #jin guangyao #he did crimes??? good for him 😌

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fireflysummers · 10 months

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Final Thoughts on GO S2

I'm probably gonna pull back on discussing S2, at least publicly, after this. I did actually like a lot of the season, but it's triggering some of my religious trauma and also the fandom is already stressing me out. So here, let's have some final thoughts.

First and foremost: I am not a Gaiman simp. I've read a decent amount of his work: comics, short stories, essays, and novels. Aside from Good Omens, I've liked Coraline and The Graveyard Book the best by far, whereas American Gods just. Did Not Connect with me, even though it's should have, given the stuff I tend to enjoy.

However. Regardless of whether I like a given work (or even like how he adapted it, a la parts of The Sandman TV series), he is a veteran writer who has proven that he does, actually, know how to write a story with consistent characters.

Beyond that, I do actually believe that he's trying to do right by Pratchett, and loves and respects the story and characters they created together. He's generally shown up as an ally to a variety of social causes, and directly and respectfully responds to fans on Tumblr. While no saint, I feel that there is cause to give the benefit of the doubt that things will resolve satisfyingly in S3, and that there is Intention about some of the things in S2.

This, of course, does not absolve it of being "bad," but even here I think we need to articulate better the different types of "bad" that people are reacting to. There seems to roughly be three camps here: 1) People who thought it was "bad" because of how it ended, with the breakup and a lot of unresolved plot threads; 2) People who thought it was "bad" because it struggled on a technical level with its set, lighting, directorial choices, editing, etc; 3) People who thought it was "bad" because they felt the characterization was significantly off and that the internal logic of the series had been violated.

With regards to Point One, the only solution is to Wait and See. Judgement should be reserved until the story is properly finished--easier said than done, especially considering the current media landscape, and the number of series or franchises that fail to live up to their promises.

Point Two isn't something I understand well enough to contribute meaningfully, except that I suspect the pandemic affected this aspect the most and am willing to give it a bit more mercy. That aside, I for the most part I don't find it bad so much as not as good as S1. Except for the parts with epilepsy warnings, surely there could've been a better way to do that.

Point Three... that's the stumbling block for me, and I find it interesting that most of the folks who struggle with this point in particular are long time fans of the book.

I trust that instinct.

There are two different directions to go from here. The first is the assumption that these problems are a result of ego, carelessness, or lack of skill from the showrunners/writers/director. It's cynical but not unjustified. The second is the belief that the breaks in lore or characterization were intentional, building towards a much grander conspiracy. Of course, even in this case I don't think it forgives the lack of signposting that would indicate that this is a choice rather than an accident. It just makes it feel clumsy and poorly constructed, a major risk on a show that hasn't had its third season confirmed.*

However, regardless, it still feels salvageable. I've enjoyed reading a lot of meta on all this, and I've pulled some things from others (particularly That Theory by @ariaste), but I don't really want to put forth a single, defined theory myself. Instead, here's some questions I've got, why those questions are important (to me, at least). Actual theorizing comes after, and anybody who snidely mentions Sherlock in the comments or tags is going to get auto-blocked. Like seriously, I'm aware that some stuff is a stretch, but it's fun??? To theorize????? And I'm here for me and my peace of mind rather than trying to argue a point.

*I have some suspicions here, particularly with Gaiman stating that the decision from Amazon would come much faster than The Sandman's second season (which was four months). I don't know enough though to say if that's actually significant.

Questions

Who the fuck is telling this story?

This is the most important piece, in my opinion. There's this assumption when reading books (or research papers, newspapers, etc...) that the narrator who is writing the words is a non-presence, Neutral and objective. That's not the case, and an important part of literature critique is figuring out who the narrator is, and what their goals are. Oftentimes, the narrator and the author are the same person, but with Pratchett's work, particularly on Good Omens and Discworld, the Narrator was its own unique character.

This is why people struggle adapting Discworld to live action--that medium requires a Reason for having a Narrator, and especially in the age of method acting that's often considered immersion-breaking. Good Omens worked so well because they not only kept the Narrator, but they made Her God.

This added some really interesting new dimensions, such as the scene where Crowley speaks to God about his fall and the destruction of humanity. He doesn't receive an answer, but we're watching from God's perspective, so we as the audience know that She's listening.

Another advantage of making God the Narrator is that it justifies all the goofy little asides we get into the lives of minor characters (i.e. Leslie the Mailman), without losing focus. It helps the world feel like it’s full of people, rather than characters and plot contrivances, and the theme that individual people and their choices are important. The Narrator is such a central character of Good Omens that without it, the story struggles to stay focused.

It also highlights a key difference in the writing styles of the two authors. Pratchett’s work tends to introduce four or five totally unique plot threads that feel completely disjointed until the last act (if not even later), when it turns into a Chekhov’s Firing Squad. Plot twists around secret identities and backstabbing and schemes are relatively rare, as the omniscient Narrator doesn’t lie about the intentions of people or their actions.

Gaiman’s writing is typically not like that, to my knowledge. He buries characters in misdirection and hints, and you never know the true identity or motives until all the chips are down. It’s a perfectly valid way to approach storytelling, but it makes it jarring to see it in S2. The lack of a Narrator is a huge reason why S2 doesn’t feel like Good Omens to some folks.

My gut feeling is that the decision to shift from the original Narrator was highly intentional. It helps to obscure the thoughts and intentions of people, and it also muddles the insights that we’re supposed to take away. (I would have loved hearing God monologue about what’s going on in Jim’s head. I think it’d do a lot to make him seem less.... obnoxiously stupid.)

More than that, it brings up a reasonable potential plot point of: Where did God go? Why isn’t She present in the story? Even in her early appearance in the Job flashback, she doesn’t sound like the narrator for last season. After the first part of her speech (which Gabriel later quotes), her tone turns casual and condescending, which might line up with her being a bit of an asshole, it doesn’t line up with the whole “dealer of a mysterious card game who is always smiling”).

Also, I don’t think it’s safe to assume that nobody is telling the story either. Just because they’re not making their presence known doesn’t mean they aren’t there, and in a story like Good Omens, that’s concerning.

Wait, where's Satan?

Another person I saw while scrolling the tags pointed out that Satan is nowhere to be seen this season. He's really only mentioned in reference to a bet God made in Job, but then Crowley is the one on the ground causing mischief. There's no Hail Satan among demons (like Hastur and Ligur did at the start of S1).

That's might be because the writers didn't want us to think it was important (a la Hastur), but that feels off. Given that Satan speaks directly through the radio to Crowley in S1, complimenting him on his work, it's safe to say that he was at least aware of and involved in the goings-on in Hell. The fact that he wasn't even an worry for Beelzebub in abandoning their post? Feels weird.

(Also if you know where that post is, I'll happy credit + link)

What is Maggie?

Look, I love cute lesbians in love as much as the next queer, but I don't like Maggie. I don’t think she’s a person. Contextually, she’s a plot device, but I agree with That Essay that she might be an actual Plot Device.

Her characterization is simple and relatively shallow—a bit of an airhead, ray of sunshine that’s supposed to remind you of Aziraphale. When she describes her past to Nina, it’s almost robotic (also, her story implies it was Mr. Fell who first rented to her ancestor, not Mr. Fell’s great-grandfather like Nina implied). Her emotions are over-dramatic and seem to be turned on and off at random (scenes with her crying to Aziraphale about her woes had my “manipulator” senses going off for some reason).

When asked about a song, she not only IDs the song, its singer, and its year, but how and on what it was distributed. (Honestly thought this would’ve been something interesting, because she’s been pretty ditzy so far, it’d be interesting if she had like... an insane memory for music history.) And then she’s the one that sets Aziraphale on his little investigation by giving him the transformed records, while also planting the seed about her love troubles with Nina. Later, her advice to Crowley is... not awful, but feels insincere and a bit too forward, given her own self-proclaimed lack of relationship experience.

I don’t know what she is (a demon, hastur with amnesia in disguise, a literal plot device inserted by the current storyteller, etc...), but there’s something not right with her.

(Also the joke of “who listens to records anymore, it’s so old fashioned” just doesn’t land, lots of people buy records, and I’m saying this as somebody who has worked at a record store before.)

What's going on with Aziraphale?

There’s something Off about Aziraphale, and it’s not his choices at the end of the season. That makes total sense if you read him as somebody with severe religious trauma getting dragged back into the abusive system because other people need him and he’s been promised the ability to change things.

But I do think something is happening to his memory. Nearly all the flashbacks are from Aziraphale’s point of view and retelling, which means that they’re less reliable than God’s version of events in the previous season. Many of them don’t make logistical sense (post-church scene in 1941), depict Crowley as meaner or more sinister than we know he is, or frame events... weirdly. The scene with him trying food for the first time feels Really Bad, especially when the series has previously established that he’s a) prim and proper and b) his interest in food is one of the beautiful things that connect him to humanity, not some kind of gluttonous sin. Also he turns down alcohol.

Their meet-cute at the start of the universe also doesn’t line up with their reactions to each other in Eden, or the fact that knowing each other Before has never come up or been hinted at anywhere ever. I don’t know what’s causing this to happen, only that Aziraphale repeatedly looks pensive when coming out of flashbacks, and Crowley is never there afterwards to corroborate said memories.

His actions also seem pretty inconsistent with what we know of him—i.e. I refuse to believe he would ever mistreat his books, even if they’re just old encyclopedias. Also, he feels a bit too...forceful in trying to get Nina and Maggie to fall in love? I mean, he didn’t exert that much direct influence on even Warlock, when he was actively hoping that the boy would turn out angelic rather than neutral.

I don’t think this removes his agency in that last decision, so much as explains how he was in such a vulnerable place at all. He still needs to apologize and fix things, because he messed up, and even if he hadn’t he still seriously hurt Crowley.

What's going on with Crowley?

There’s something Off about Crowley. The most obvious thing, of course, is his memories. At multiple points in the present day, characters state that they remember him or have met him before, only to be met with confusion. This is especially concerning given that he has a nigh photographic memory for faces (something mentioned in the book when he immediately IDs Mary Loquacious, 11 years after a 30 second conversation).

Overall, he seems to be better known by other supernatural entities this season, in ways that often tie him back to his angelic identity (i.e. saying they fought together in the war, Aziraphale stating he knew the angel he used to be, etc...). This doesn’t feel right, because S1 we see that Hell is largely apathetic towards his schemes, and definitely does not defer to him at any point in any capacity.

Then there’s the issue of his power level. It’s always been speculated that Crowley was a powerful angel prior to falling, when he mentions in S1 his involvement with star making, his seemingly unique ability to freeze time, and creating a pocket universe for Adam before the confrontation with Satan. He also has a tendency of breathing life into inanimate objects, like his plants or car. He also has the regular demonic skillset: miracles that can adjust physical appearance; the ability to change inanimate objects (like paintball guns into real guns); the ability to manifest clothing and similar items; and summon hellfire to his fingertips. This, plus the way he monologues to God with a degree of familiarity rather than reverence seems to indicate that he was Somebody Powerful and Important Before.

But in S2, his skills are significantly expanded upon. The miracle he and Aziraphale summon sets off alarms in heaven and hell, and it’s powerful enough to mask Gabriel from the Archangels. He summons a miniature sun to rain fire on Job, which is way bigger and flashier than anything we’ve seen him summon in S1. (If he needs fire, he alters the course of a dropping bomb, without creating one himself.)

Yet he’s able to cloak his presence so well he goes wholly unnoticed in heaven, or in front of heavenly agents on earth (i.e. the Job flashback). Muriel can’t clock him as a demon, or even as another supernatural being, despite their auras usually being pretty significant, such Aziraphale immediately sensing the archangels when they arrive. He’s able to interfere with files that Muriel claimed required clearance (although I feel like that might just be a snark about Obeying Without Thinking? I would really need a Narrator to know.)

I might be misremembering, but I don’t think we’ve seen angels or demons transmogrify living beings before either. In the book, Crowley brings Aziraphale’s dove back to life after the failed magic show, and occasionally sinks ducks, but he doesn’t alter them? Not even Adam demonstrates that skill in S1. But he has no trouble turning Job’s children into lizards, however temporarily. Boy that would’ve been convenient during the flood. Or when the guard stopped then from getting to the air strip.

I don’t have any real issues with his characterization in the present day parts of S2, but there’s something weird happening with Crowley.

Where's all the people?

I really like a lot of the new characters, but how were there only like, 2.5 new humans named in the present day? Flashbacks don’t count bc the humans are all dead and can’t affect the story.

As much as I like Nina, she and Maggie don’t drive the story beyond being an occasional and awkwardly inserted plot contrivance? Both are actively robbed of their agency at several points, forced into situations that they could not have avoided or escaped. I’m not really sure what growth they’re expected to experience other than deciding not to date each other after everything. I literally can’t tell you anything about Nina other than that she remembers her regular’s orders, runs a coffee shop, and has a textbook abusive partner we never see. The only meaningful interactions they have are between those two, or in conversation with Aziraphale and Crowley.

Compare that to S1, where Anathema gets hit by Aziraphale and Crowley, but her primary relationships are with Newt, Adam, and Agnes Nutter (I think that counts as a relationship). We know that she’s got a wealthy family back in Puerto Rico, and that she was literally raised to save the world, and that she isn’t happy under all that pressure. Newt on the other hand is connected to not just Anathema, but Shadwell and Madame Tracy. He never even directly interacts with Aziraphale and Crowley. We know about his hobbies, his struggle to hold down a job, and his almost supernatural ability to destroy any electronics he touches. I don’t necessarily like how their relationship came together, but they were both very, very well fleshed out characters with unique backstories and goals. They weren’t just... waiting around to give Aziraphale and Crowley a new questline.

And while there’s no requirement to include a large cast of human characters that are exerting influence over the story, the lack of it is another aspect that makes this season feel not like Good Omens.

Also, it's just. Really weird to me that the events of S1 aren't really referenced at all? Like, Adam isn't mentioned, nor is Warlock. I don't expect them to keep track of the humans they met on the airfield for 20 minutes, but none of it is ever specifically referenced as far as I can tell, beyond Crowley threatening Gabriel. Like, I get that it's been a few years, but the pair caused a big enough disturbance that you'd expect some kind of ripples in their supernatural communities.

Promised by the Narrative (Obvious Chekhov's guns that I will be legitimately upset over if they do not go off)

A sincere apology from Aziraphale to Crowley that doesn't come with the expectation that Crowley will come back to him, but because he deserves an apology, even if the choices Aziraphale made were done with good intentions. Aziraphale does not expect forgiveness, and is shocked when Crowley grants it without hesitation.

A clear declaration of love from Aziraphale, which can't be rationalized away by either of them.

An "I'm Sorry" dance between Aziraphale and Crowley, but with greater sincerity and gravity. The most important piece is that they end up dancing together, which signifies a mutual apology and dedication to come together.

Since kissing is on the table, I expect an actual joyful, mutual kiss between these two assholes.

A shared cottage in South Downs.

Predictions/Theories (just some fun thoughts I've had)

When Adam declared that Satan was not his father, he didn't make himself not the antichrist, but accidentally crowned his human dad the King of Hell. Nobody knows this, because Adam doesn't have a good measure for "normal" supernatural situations, and Mr. Young because he's so "normal" that he explains away all the magical bullshit that's started going down.

When Adam declared that Satan was not his father, he erased Satan altogether. However, this left a vacuum in both power and reality. The defection of both Gabriel and Beelzebub only widens that crack. In an attempt to Fix things, reality is warping the story. Crowley has become leagues more powerful between S1 and S2, as the narrative is trying to force him into the role of his previous boss. Aziraphale is unknowingly being pulled into a similar version on the Other Side, perhaps to replace Gabriel or perhaps to replace God herself, who has been fairly absent in all this. The alterations to their memories or past have come about to keep the narrative running smoothly.

When the Metatron asks Nina whether anybody has ever asked for death, he was actually referring to Death, the sole remaining rider of the apocalypse.

If Maggie is indeed a Plot Device, it would be a fascinating exploration of Free Will to see her become aware of this (cue existential crisis), and then fall in love with Nina on her own terms, rather than because she was written that way.

Hastur will be back. Somehow.

The reason why S2 focuses so much on the supernatural characters is because S3 will be about how the events in S1 have changed the political landscape of heaven and hell. Angels are questioning their roles, demons are yearning for something more. It's scaring upper administration, and then the two most reliable folks in employment run away to alpha centauri. Recruiting Aziraphale and getting him back in line prevents him from becoming a martyr, control the range of his influence. The series reasserts its theme of choice and agency by highlighting that Aziraphale and Crowley aren't that special, they've just had the chance to live and grow, and that the others have free will too, if they want it.

The reason why they wanted to separate Aziraphale and Crowley, is not to get Aziraphale on his own, but to get Crowley on his own. He literally stopped time and made a pocket universe in front of Satan last season. He's powerful and dangerous and somebody wants to see that reigned in.

Wishlist (stuff I desperately want to see)

Crowley getting an audience with God and an opportunity to ask his questions, only to refuse to do so because he's found his own Answers and he no longer needs hers

Aziraphale and Crowley growing more into their book incarnations. Aziraphale becomes confident in his sense of morality, which he developed the hard way through millennia on earth besides humanity. He slowly learns what it means to be loved, unconditionally, but also is better at asserting and maintaining his boundaries. Crowley, still anxious and unwinding, works through his fear of abandonment, providing him opportunities to be kind and gentle and nurturing--all traits that he's aggressively hid since being a demon.

Hand holding. I know that Gaiman was referring to Ineffable Bureaucracy, but I still feel like we'd benefit from meaningful hand holding, especially since that got cut from the adaptation of the book.

Shifted focus away from the supernatural shenanigans, and back onto the humans that actually drive the story.

Cameos from S1 characters (if not a more substantial appearance).

The Four Other Riders of the Apocalypse.

Cursed Thoughts (why I shouldn't be allowed a social platform)

Ineffable Bureaucracy turns up in season 3 because Beelzebub got Gabriel pregnant somehow.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #good omens season 2 #good omens s2 #good omens meta #good omens 2 spoilers #good omens 2 theory #good omens 2 analysis #long post #text

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magicalgirlsirin · 4 months

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hi rly enjoyed ur post on elysian realm! ik ur a new fan (i am too) but i heard that before retcon, elysia was a lot more morally gray. would you happen to know how exactly?? im rly curious bc i think it would be a severe improvement obviously. we deserve complex women who do wrongs

So when I say retcon in relation to the elyrealm arc it's less so "things they changed because of the story evolving and wanting to expand previously established events" and more "things they straight up forgot about in service of making Elysia a herrscher". It's not like hi3 is a stranger to retcons though?

For example, Durandal being the "original" Kiana is a retcon. The fact that our Kiana was a clone remained the same, but it's clear from older story stuff (iirc it's Everlasting Memory/Theresa's chronicle set?; second eruption manga doesn't focus on the Kiana part) that Durandal wasn't originally there. Otto refers to Kiana as K-423, and that Theresa needs to retrieve her, which implies that Theresa knows it's not Siegfried and Cecilia's kid, but her distress remains the same. The later game retcon by Thus Spoke Apocalypse is that OG!Kiana and Siegfried were going to go retrieve K-423, but OG!Kiana ended up injured and so Siegfried only left with K-423. And if you're confused then so am I because the details don't really super line up with the presentation, but it's like, fine, because at the end of the day the current writing intention and trajectory is for Durandal and Kiana to be sisters, and to both be Siegfried's daughters.

Anyways, for Elysia, a lot of her retcons occur in a very rapid pace from the first realm chapter set to Elysium Everlasting. Like I mentioned in my last post, the herrscher reveal is nonsense just going off of basic information like the fact she received MANTIS surgery like all the other Flame Chasers. However, there are other plot threads that are completely dropped for the sake of making Elysia a very special good girl who you should love because she's so nice and never did anything bad.

[About Betrayal 1 - Chapter 2]

[About Betrayal 2 - Chapter 2]

Elysia the traitor plot is something I was, well not hopeful for (a friend had already warned me that the game wouldn't do anything interesting with it] but I still ended up mulling it over a lot because it was such an interesting hinge piece for her initial presentation.

What stands out to me is the phrasing. Kevin says she never endangered humanity even if she was a traitor. Kevin says that Elysia made a decision. This implies agency, like Elysia was actively choosing to do something dangerous for the sake of the Flame Chasers. However, if Elysia was a herrscher from the beginning, then none of this makes sense. She doesn't choose to be a herrscher if she was one from the beginning, so why even make it seem like her betrayal was her choice at all?

[Traitor - Chapter 1]

It doesn't stop there though. Mobius' active disdain implies that whatever choice Elysia made, it was enough to make Mobius of all people consider her a lost cause. Mobius, who body mods and injects honkai energy into anyone with a pulse (hyperbole) to try and make humanity last just the slightest bit longer.

[Traitor - Chapter 1]

Mobius wants us to doubt Elysia's intentions. If you go through all their shared information, you'll find that the worst Elysia really does is just... coerce Mobi to wear pink dresses, and while that is obnoxious, it wouldn't warrant utter contempt for Elysia as a person.

There's actually a lot of stray text that implies there's something wrong about Elysia's existence, which I guess in generous terms could be interpreted as setup for the herrscher reveal? But it just feels like it's just there to add to the mystery that won't go anywhere.

[The Blind Spot - Recollection]

This right here nags at me. Deeply so. Elysia isn't so much a character as much as she is just a concept, the idea of a story that could be told. Not even in the canon-compliant weird endgame hook meta-textual breakout in Transcending Finality about the power of stories... Although, there's a way to introduce it here and tie it to Elysia to give some semblance of connectivity.

I went this long without actually giving my thoughts on how to make Elysia's writing good though. Disclaimer for clarity sake I know not everyone will agree with the changes I want to make and I'm also not claiming to be a more skilled writer than anyone in the hi3 team, they're all people with enough talent to be employed by the company.

That out of the way.

This isn't so much about making Elysia morally grey as much as it is about giving her an emotional core, because right now she's pretty hollow. Rather than a pristine girl who never did anything wrong, I'd rather cast her as a romantic, tragic heroine who would move heaven and fate just to seem noble.

Elysia was born human. Maybe she loved stories, and how they transported her to far off places, far far far away from the tiny town she was growing up in. When she was old enough, she traveled the world. Honkai descends. Because she was a globe trotter she ended up connected to many people, and was given the chance to join the MOTH organization. She gets MANTIS surgery. As the number of soon-to-be Flame Chasers grow, discussion begins about if the strength of the soldiers is enough.

'Maybe, if I had power comparable to a herrscher, we could fight with less casualties.'

She doesn't say this out loud, of course. It's a dangerous thought, a line that shouldn't be crossed. But she's curious. She breaks into Mobius' lab [Miss Pink Spy - Pristine Memory] to find the information she wants. Mobius figures out her intentions and warns Elysia off. It's not even in consideration, so keep whatever plan you have in mind off the table before you do something irreversible.

Mobius thought that Elysia gave up on the plan after the seventh erruption. The haunted look behind Kevin's eyes, the sadness creasing Elysia's face, all of it makes it seem like a simple consideration forgotten by the sands of time.

Elysia doesn't have a discipline. She told Dr. Mei it wasn't needed since her combat performance was well above standard margins anyways. (She is on par with Kevin in strength, after all.) At least, we all thought she didn't. A deal is made with Aponia.

Aponia, Aponia, apostle of fate, I offer you my 'humanity' to become a 'story'.

Elysia cannot receive any more disciplines. The target has to be "human". Elysia as a story, unchanging, pristine, capable of remaining as she is without blemish, can reach out and become a herrscher while remaining herself. She's desperate. She wants to help. She reaches into the deep, the start of the universe, and gathers the power. She names it Origin, since it's something she found at the source.

She's a herrscher.

Herrschers are an enemy of humanity.

Kevin runs her through with Shamash.

Elysia is still herself though, talking like she would as usual.

-Oh Kevin, I wanted to know if your tears would freeze, but I was hoping it wouldn't be like this. They're so warm, though. Thank you for crying for me.

-I see no herrscher here, just... the flame chaser, bearing the signet of ego.

The Elysian Realm keeps a secret. Aponia keeps it, the fact that Elysia gave up her humanity. The final banquet? A polite way to refer to Elysia's own demise.

It's sad, isn't it? That strength she wanted to give fell right through her fingers. Her own undoing, the desperate plan of a foolish girl who wanted to be a hero, but only ending up as a villain to oppose. It's so much more meaningful, then, that Elysia's gift, the power of sapience, is kept on to the next cycle of humanity. Held again, the power of ego, of humans, to someone with a kind heart to move beyond the past she's trapped in. Thank you, Raiden Mei, for carrying on the ideals of the thirteen trailblazers, the moths who chase the flame.

so anyways yeah i think elysia couldve been interesting whos to say

#dazzling nova #honkai impact 3rd #raiden mei #kevin kaslana #hi3 elysia #elysian realm #bianka ataegina #kiana kaslana

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