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superlativesamsara · 1 year

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Hey who wants to hear me ramble about deific title bullshit? No? Dont click through the readmore then.

Alright now that we've weeded out those nerds time to ramble about Flow and Fate and why they're both BULLSHIT

Aight.

So, Fate is the Aspect of the Negative of Choice, but what the FUCK does that mean?

Simple, really! Fate is about Predestination, Fixed Paths, and Progression. A god/dess of Fate's main gimmick is that, to greater or lesser extent depending on title, they can see the next step(s) that will need to be taken to bring about their desired outcome, almost like a cooking recipe. And much like a cooking recipe, a lot of the times various bits of context for why you're doing this action will be left out because the writer assumed it would be obvious when you got to that step.

So, for example, a Champion Demigod of Fate whose Goal is "Survive this fight", will typically see the next 1-3 actions they MUST take to bring about the quickest and simplest ending of the fight that results in their survival (and usually at least one of those steps is gonna be "run the fuck away" for the vast majority of fights because that's the quickest and most direct way to end a fight in your survival). On the other hand, if their Goal is "Protect [whatever]", they'll be constantly led along in a sequence of exactly what steps will lead to them being in the way of the next attempt to damage whatever they're protecting, though not necessarily in a way that's pleasant for them, if protecting the thing is more expedient by allowing themself to be hurt.

To explain it a bit differently, Fate will always show you the most direct path, but by no means is this guaranteed to be the *best* path. There are ways, thought tricks to resolve better paths, but there's generally a trade-off, in that the more specific of an outcome you want, the less steps you get to see in advance.

Now, to contrast this, we have Flow, the Positive Aspect of Momentum, which probably sounds weird but it's a bit hard to explain in fewer words.

Flow is all about constant change and buildup. Flow is Motion, yours and that of everything around you. If you're at all familiar with Water Style supernatural martial arts, you probably understand what I'm getting at: once you begin, it's critical that you keep the ball rolling, and the longer the metaphor ball is rolling, the more your actions will be amplified, if that makes sense.

To better illustrate this, the signature ability of Flow is a passive effect colloquially called "It Just Don't Stop", which resets all your cooldowns whenever you use another ability (or for some of the more potent powers, just shaves a big chunk off of the cooldown).

All Gods/Demigods/Heroes/etc of Flow will possess this ability, and they'll also possess an intuitive grasp of how everything moves around them. One would best compare this ability to a somewhat juiced up spidey sense, a semi-precognitive preternatural awareness of Things about to come into Motion.

Now the main downside to Flow, is that all their abilities are reset back to their absolute weakest the minute their metaphorical combo ends and they fail to chain in another action of some kind. If the ball stops rolling, it takes a bit of effort to get it moving again, and once again I must emphasize that all of the abilities of a Flow user are tied to their metaphorical momentum.

Where Fate all but lives for punching out of their weight class, Flow can't get away with that because it *will* grind their Momentum to a halt if they can't take them out in one go, and even if they do it'll still severely penalize their Momentum all the same because it'll expend a lot of that built up energy.

To put frame it a little different, on a maze with multiple valid paths but only one exit, Fate will tell you outright "this is the shortest path, follow it", where Flow will actively want to take the longest possible path, because that path will bring them the highest Momentum buildup along the way.

#feeling loopy (ic)#classpect bullshit #rose's ramblings #analysis: Fate #analysis: Flow

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charmwasjess · 7 months

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Strap in for the Soresu form III Obi-Wan lightsaber post. This is gonna be a sad one, girlies. We’re getting into Obi-Wan’s Fucking Trauma.

Qui-Gon’s death changed literally everything about Obi-Wan’s life, right down to the lightsaber form. Still a Padawan himself, he had to watch as an extinct monster from his nightmares* utterly took apart the form he’d learned since he was a child, and then, to complete the destruction, slaughtered the teacher who’d taught him the form and raised him. The devastation of Qui-Gon’s actual death had to be the last in a cascading series of horrors that started with the gut-sinking realization that Qui-Gon was losing. And if all of that weren’t enough, Obi-Wan also loses his own lightsaber in the same duel, a psychological blow to his personhood which we don’t have to guess at the significance of. Obi-Wan tells us the cost of it himself in AotC: this weapon is your life.

The Duel of the Fates on a sheer physical level is a devastating thing to consider. It’s a grueling, full out running battle, the likes of which we don’t see elsewhere in the saga. The beauty (and pounding musical score) of the fight distracts from the sheer brutality of it. Maul is physically attacking them at every turn; he manages to kick Qui-Gon hard enough to knock all 6’3 of him off his feet; he dumps Obi-Wan into a fall that seems to be several stories high. We don’t see Obi-Wan get back up off the floor with Qui-Gon’s body at the end of the duel, and I’d be surprised if he was physically able to even stand again so after the adrenaline faded and the soreness and exhaustion took over. He just been whirled in a lightsaber blender.

I can’t imagine how hard it was for him to pick up a lightsaber again after the trauma of that battle - much less, a new, unfamiliar one, not the kyber crystal that had been his since he was a child. The new canon’s emphasis on the spiritual relationship between a Jedi and their crystal makes this detail even more excruciating. The Ataru form itself must have felt broken and unusable. How can you put your trust in a form once you watched it be broken so ruthlessly?

And this is where Obi-Wan is so endlessly beautiful as a character. He goes through this horrifying experience of violent unmaking, and instead of avoiding lightsabers as an understandable trauma response, or picking up an overwhelming power and dominance form like V, he remakes himself into a master of Soresu: a form of simple, complete defense. He doesn’t attempt to become a weapon of attack like Maul did to disintegrate Ataru; he makes himself invincible, untouchable, with a perfect defense. Soresu works the pieces that fell apart for the Jedi in the Duel of the Fates to an advantage. It is a form of ultimate endurance, of playing out your opponent and staying up in a fight until the attacker is exhausted or angry. It preserves and it lasts. It is philosophical. It is considered. It lacks the showy flash of Makashi or Ataru and returns to the basics, even working in some of that battlefield meditation that Qui-Gon so believed in. And in that simple economy, it’s gorgeous and effective.

I have to wonder: is Soresu, on some level, a form of kinetic self-soothing for a person who faced an incredibly traumatic battle at a young age? Does Obi-Wan use it that way?

All of this is perfectly in keeping with the themes of the character. Obi-Wan’s story remains about life, about hope, about survival. The word he uses to describe the Jedi to Luke in the OT is important to me. “Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice.” Guardians. And what better lightsaber approach for a person who sees his role as one of protection than a form whose signature move is called “The Circle of Shelter?”

*Maul, of course, is a tragedy in his own right, but that’s a different post.

#star wars analysis #lightsaber nerd stuff #lightsaber forms #qui gon jinn #obi wan kenobi #disaster lineage #the clone wars #duel of the fates #the phantom menace #soresu #darth maul #star wars meta

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adrift-in-thyme · 7 days

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Can I hear your thoughts on this panel?

I feel that Hyrule looking at Legend as Four says that is important somehow... What do you think?

Hmmm

Well one thing I’ve noticed in the last couple of updates is Hyrule and Legend have been around each other A LOT

Practically ever since Hyrule finished healing Twilight and helping Four they’ve been hanging around each other. In close proximity too. Which, given that Legend usually only stands close to the people he trusts (principally Sky) is a big deal.

If Dawn pt. 5 is any indication, it seems that Hyrule is mostly initiating this lol

But Legend is letting him

Excuse me while I fangirl over the downfall duo for a moment. ALDNDLSDJSLDNSL THE BROTHERS EVER

Ahem ok let’s continue

Now, I’m overdue for a LU reread so correct me if I’m wrong BUT I seem to recall that they’ve never stayed this close to each other before. Could just be that they take comfort in one another’s presence. Seeing the panel you shared, though, I’m gonna say it’s more than that.

Idk if they’ve figured out their place in the timeline yet (I’m assuming not due to how everyone acted in Timeline Talk pt. 1). That doesn’t mean, however, that they haven’t begun to guess. Jojo has hinted at many interactions that the Links have had offscreen. Plus, Legend and Hyrule met up before they ran into the others. They’ve had time to get to know each other. I guarantee they’ve got suspicions about their places in time.

Which leads me to believe Hyrule is afraid of losing Legend. He must have figured out that Legend was a hero sometime before his journey began. Meaning, somewhere along the way he perished and the darkness he struggled so hard against spread over Hyrule anew. With Twilight just having escaped death (plus the cryptic comments he continues to make regarding Time’s fate), I’m sure untimely demises are on Hyrule’s mind.

I don’t think he knows Legend’s fate (unless there’s something in his games that hints toward the previous hero’s fate). But I believe he wants to. I can’t be the only one who sees the striking similarities between Legend and Time. He likely came to the realization that a guy like Legend will most likely die a wanderer or a warrior (doesn’t mean he did. I don’t like to think he did. One blorbo with a tragic end is enough XD But still). And being a hero and Legend’s friend he’s wondering if maybe, just maybe he can change that.

If it’s possible to know a future occurrence, it could be possible to transform it, right?

All image credits to @linkeduniverse

#also the ability or inability to change a person’s fate #seems to be a theme in lu #wild has to deal with the fate of his kingdom #twi is trying to save time from his regrets #trin answers #lovely littlelightfish #asks #linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu hyrule #lu legend #lu update spoilers #lu analysis

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typellblog · 3 months

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Illyasviel von Einzbern: The Hole at the Center of Fate/Stay Night

Emiya Shirou is the beating heart of Fate/Stay Night. Every character radiates outwards from Shirou, shapes and is shaped by him. He fights against foils like Archer and Kirei while growing alongside the three main heroines in each route.

There's really only one character who precedes Shirou in influence, who shapes him near-completely but cannot himself be shaped.

Emiya Kiritsugu is already dead, after all.

It's his legacy that drives the novel - but something oft-undiscussed is that Shirou only has half of it. He inherits his father’s justice, and the one that inherits his ruthlessness is Illya. Thus, Illya’s relationship to Shirou is dictated from the start.

She is everything his father left behind, the first gatekeeper of the moonlit world of death and magecraft that Shirou now finds himself in. In this role she transcends routes, appearing at the end of the third day to deliver a near-lethal attack just as the story branches off.

She seems intent to deliver Kiritsugu’s baggage to Shirou, to make him reckon with the past that he himself never experienced; the truth that a hero can only help those he sides with while many others are left alone in the cold.

In this way her very existence is a far more fundamental challenge to Shirou’s ideals than that of any other character - and yet this challenge is met only indirectly. Much of the information regarding her true identity and relationship to Shirou is elided until the end of HF.

She functions similarly to Sakura, a character who totally changes the reader’s perception of the first two routes in retrospect. The reveals about Illya force us to reevaluate how positive her ending in the Fate route really is.

In the narrative of Heaven’s Feel, both Illya and Sakura are considered ‘doomed’ - able to be saved only by Shirou sacrificing his own life to Archer’s arm.

It’s the crux of their characterisation, in the same way that Saber’s pursuit of the Holy Grail leads her into timeless and uncountable doomed battles. In a route based around that character, you would expect fixing it to be the main thrust of the plot.

And so just as the Fate route is focused on Shirou clashing with Saber over her lack of regard for her safety, and Heaven’s Feel is focused on accepting even the ‘impure’ parts of Sakura, there is no route focused on showing Illya that she needn't give up on having a normal life.

Instead all of her scenes in Heaven’s Feel are about accepting that she cannot have one.

This is the hole in the center of FSN that I’m talking about. Its absence is felt keenly throughout the novel, because Illya has another role besides a specter of Shirou's past. She embodies the prize and object of the Holy Grail War itself - the very same wish-granting device.

Many of the characters in this story are not fighting for the Grail specifically, but nonetheless their strong personalities and desires cause them to clash with one another, in a process Kirei sees as comparable to everyday life.

Their wishes, both in the form of the dead’s regrets and victor’s will, enter the neutral, empty Grail in order to produce a miracle. The only one not allowed a will of their own is the vessel of the Grail, who, in absorbing these desires, must completely erase their humanity.

Illya is not intended to have a reason to pursue the Grail, nor any life beyond obtaining it. The war is premised on the sacrifice of the Servants, yes, but nonetheless they enter as contestants. Illya, like Justeaze before her, enters the ritual only as a sacrifice.

And yet an outside element is introduced. Illya being part-human, the product of an actual family rather than just a clone allows for her to have personal motivations. She holds on to her resentment of Kiritsugu, despite knowing that it’s pointless, because it’s all she has left.

A parallel can be made to the Grail itself. Supposedly a pure wish-granting device, it becomes corrupted through the influence of Angra Mainyu, one small, perverse wish colouring the whole thing black.

The desired salvation of the Einzberns, their thousand-year project relies on being able to reproduce the miracle, to understand every component part of their attempts in order to draw ever closer to the Third Magic, but Illya is a random factor, born to a human parent.

She’s also their greatest creation since Justeaze. Miracles, after all, exist because they are not understood.

The corruption of the Grail with the darkest desires of the world is just the inevitable result of any wish - the price of becoming a human instead of existing as a machine. Live long enough and anyone would turn into Zouken, higher goals suborned by a base desire to escape pain.

Like Illya the Grail is a failed project, a tool that can only provide salvation of a limited nature & only fulfill its purpose incompletely, proof positive that true perfection does not exist in the world of Fate/Stay Night.

In Illya’s case the bug in her programming comes fundamentally from a desire for family, for someone to be close to her. Despite her dysfunctional initial approaches she’s perfectly capable of living normally alongside Shirou.

The issue, then, is the Grail War itself.

Her two sides, two different origins, come into conflict here, and her role as the Holy Grail consistently wins. Not because she desires it in any real sense, but because she doesn’t believe that she can do anything else.

Consider how the Fate route ends with Saber and Shirou trying to live without regrets, accepting both the negative and positive aspects of the past without dwelling on that which cannot be changed.

Consider how Illya in the Fate route doesn’t say a single thing about her condition, refuses to burden others with that knowledge, accepting the fact of her death and instead choosing to live in the moment.

Consider how the Unlimited Blade Works route is about Shirou trying to live without regrets, accepting that he will not always succeed, that his self-sacrificing nature will hurt him, but nonetheless his pursuit of that goal is worthwhile.

Consider how Illya’s death is used to illustrate this, how she cannot be saved regardless of whether Shirou makes the choice to intervene or not, how his sorrow is used as proof of his brokenness and his ability to move forward regardless is used as proof of his strength.

Consider why the Heaven's Feel route is named after the ritual that materializes the soul, why this is identified with salvation and rebirth by the Einzberns. I would argue that the Third Magic is a metaphor for the process Shirou undergoes throughout the novel.

He evolves from a machine into a human, gaining his own desires and the will to live. And just as Heaven’s Feel, the ritual, requires a sacrifice: Justeaze’s blood forms the foundation, so too does Heaven’s Feel, the route: Illya spends her own life to fully realize Shirou’s.

In moving past Kiritsugu’s legacy, he moves past his belief that his life is worth less than others. He wants to live, wants to let Illya save him, wants to let her sacrifice herself for him. In moving past Kiritsugu’s legacy, he moves past Illya.

I don’t blame him. I just want to emphasize how significant to this novel the existence of suffering is, how important the figure of someone who cannot be saved, how necessary a single person’s sacrifice. And how this falls on Illya in every route.

In the latter parts of the Fate route she quickly disappears from story relevance. Her functions as a Grail offer a convenient excuse to have her sleeping for much of the day, as it does for Kirei’s kidnapping of her, stringing her up as a sacrifice to open the gate.

In UBW we have Gilgamesh brutally ripping out her heart. He values her purely for her core, which holds the Grail, tossing aside the rest of her body.

If her role as the Grail is what drives her doom, though, she is at least partially able to overcome this at the end of Heaven’s Feel.

For a brief moment, Illya escapes the bonds of fate by uniting her deeply personal wish with the impersonal functions of the Grail.

She also dies. She fucking dies, okay? I’m so tired of talking about this as though it’s supposed to be a good thing, as though we’re just supposed to accept it as the best possible option.

It works precisely because we know there is another, because we know for a fucking fact that an Illya route could have existed, that her salvation is possible not just from a meta perspective but directly implied in-universe.

Illya’s power is to grant wishes, but she is incapable of giving voice to her own. She needs someone there by her side to tell her that it’s okay to want to live, and yet- Shirou is so fucking broken that he needs her to do that for him instead.

Illya could have lived, but she doesn’t, and in not doing so she carries half the weight of this story’s tragedy on her back.

In a way this is an excuse for the lack of an Illya route. I really do think its blatant absence adds something to Fate/Stay Night, really sells the tragedy of HF, becomes even more beautiful precisely because of its unattainability.

It’s a comment on how the artistic process, materializing your soul on paper if you will, is an inherently restrictive one, rife with failure and things left on the chopping board.

But it does not, not for a second, mean that we should accept the lack of an Illya route. It doesn’t mean the desire for it is a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that its addition would make Fate/Stay Night worse.

It would, however, become a different game at that point, and here I want to pay respect to the one that has lived alongside me for twenty years.

Thanks for reading, and happy anniversary to my favourite story of all time.

#illya #fate/stay night #fsn analysis

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aroaceleovaldez · 8 months

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once again thinking about the worldbuilding in the riordanverse of "names are power" / "belief is power."

The Tri were only able to become immortal through convincing enough people to worship them that it became true. Monsters and immortals only exist through continued belief, and if enough people believe that they're dead or gone then it becomes true, like Pan. Their varied forms exist and manifest as they're believed in and called upon. Names call attention and epithets summon aspects. They're acknowledgement. Belief. Putting a name to a concept creates it as an individual.

And that's so fascinating when you start applying it to demigods. How much of their abilities are based on belief in themselves, in expectations of each other, in their parents' expectations of them? We've seen mortal figures who became immortal in some form or another because they were remembered. Even the lares - ancestral house gods, who persist because they're remembered. They have a legacy.

At what point does a demigod achieve that status? Rumors and whispers about them so persistent that they slowly become true. "I heard that Jason Grace is the son of two gods, does that make him a god?" "I heard Percy Jackson defeated a titan single-handedly. That he can create hurricanes without breaking a sweat. That he can control blood." After awhile, after enough rumors, does it become impossible to tell where they end and the legends begin? Isn't that what being a demigod is; half-legend?

#pjo #riordanverse #analysis #i went a little prose-y there at the end but i am THINKING THOUGHTS #imagine being a demigod and knowing your EXISTENCE is slowing becoming warped because of others' perceptions of you!#Jason living on a pedestal his entire life and worrying so much that one day he's going to bleed ichor and his fate will be sealed #Percy recognizing that his powers are growing beyond his previous limits in ways that don't seem natural. don't seem right.#and he realizes what's happening and just has to hope the whispering quiets down and the rumors are forgotten so he can live a normal life #also the potential for demigod existential horror #becoming aware that You as a concept is slowly shifting. twisting. to match the perception others have of you #how TERRIFYING is that? like obviously it'd probably only go to an extent for most demigods cause half-mortal #but their powers? etc? SCARY #Percy being aware that his powers are becoming warped and trying to dissuade gossip about himself so it returns to normal #Nico who the more he's welcomed into the camps the more he finds himself being essentially declawed #his rough edges slowly worn away. his powers weakening and becoming less frightening. is it worth it?#and how difficult must that inherently make it for him to allow himself to be known?#and again. shaking Jason petrified that CJ is going to accidentally believe him into immortality. his worst nightmare.

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super-who-locked-me-in-here · 11 months

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There's so much to be said about the line "They know" in Mizumono. It has so many different meanings. "They" is so many people.

Will is saying "Jack knows you're the Chesapeake Ripper".

Will is saying "Kade Prurnell and the FBI know we're all breaking the law."

Will is saying "Alana knows about you, about us."

But when you say the word "they", you talk about others. It's someone else. It's exclusive of the speaker. And isn't that the kicker? They all knew something. They all had goals.

Jack's goal was to kill and/or apprehend Hannibal.

The FBI's goal was to take in Jack and Will.

Alana's goal was to protect Will and herself.

But Will says "They know" because he isn't included in any of this knowledge. He doesn't have a clear goal. He doesn't know what he wants. Not until it's too late.

Did you notice in Mizumono that when Will gets out of the cab at Hannibal's house, he gets out sort of slow and unsure, but still relatively calm, until he sees Alana laying on the front walk? Then he hurries. Then he seems alert. Then he gets out his gun. It's a quick change. He's panicking because these people who are alive and with him are hurt.

Then boom, another quick change, because Abigail, who was thought dead and separated from him, is not hurt, she's here, and suddenly so is Hannibal, and the regret is replaced with panic. How did this happen? How is Abigail alive? Why didn't they leave? Why aren't they safe and far from here?

And you know why?

It's because Hannibal and Abigail, they know. They know (or at the very least Hannibal did) that Will betrayed them. They know that Will was supposed to be with them. And they know that it can not be that way, not now.

And Will, the double agent, the loyal soldier and the lovesick fool, he was blind. He did not know. He couldn't have.

#what a strange twist of fate that will and hannibal are both other #but even their otherness is not always the same #hannibal #hannibal analysis #hannibal meta #mizumono

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shinbine · 8 months

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So, my girlfriend discovered that the names of the Nightsister “Mothers”, are different spellings of the Fates in Mythology. This is fitting since the Fates are quite literally “weaving” everyone’s fates and are in control of their paths, similar to Nightsister Magic.

But there’s more.

The witches (the fates) are the ones to pull Sabine away, entrapping her with magic and pulling her away. Away from Shin.

As sabine turns her head, it’s easy to think she’s looking at Baylan, perhaps frustrated with their agreement becoming more shaky—but look at the bottom. Her eye-line is directly aimed, lined up with Shin. In the last frame, what are they separated by?

The fates.

We also see that Shin looks at Sabine, around the same time that Morgan does… almost as if she’s trying to be protective of her? And where else do we see this?

Both on the ship on the descent down, and when Shin first brings her on the ship. It’s almost like she’s getting between Sabine and Morgan… Morgan is a Nightsister as well. She’s very close to the fates that are pulling them apart, which is quite literally referencing classic mythology. Shin seems to be protecting Sabine from Morgan, and Shin has stated on multiple occasions that she seems to have a distaste for Nightsisters (with her lines like “more witches?”)

Shin and Sabine have been torn apart by fate here, literally. It goes with every mythological story, and reminds me of classic tarot cards. In my opinion, Sabine and Shin represent the lovers—quite literally torn apart by fate.

The Fates, in the form of the Nightsister Mothers, have torn the lovers apart with magick (similar to the threads of fate that are woven in mythology). Shin and Sabine fit the “lovers” type a little too well. Especially with how concerned Shin has looked in the past… it’s like she knew. It’s like she’s aware of their uneasy fate, and she’s doing whatever she can to prevent it.

Sabine and Shin are the modern Star Wars equivalent of the lovers, and they’re beginning to realize it themselves.

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posletsvet · 8 months

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I had another one of those thoughts that are bordering on slightly delusional.

Chances are it's already been pointed out by someone before me, but. How come Geto's body reacting to Gojo calling out to him was 'a first' for Kenjaku? Did they only ever choose those who happened to have no loved ones that would want their person back? But we have Itadori's parents, and they deeply loved each other and didn't stop loving till the very end. Is the bond between Satoru and Suguru really so strong as to surpass the one between a happily married couple? And then it sort of struck me that perhaps it's the first time Kenjaku so openly and directly violates their host body's will.

I like to entertain the thought that Kenjaku is not at all detached from human connections and emotion. While they are capable of seperating their conscious from the experience that comes along with the body they're inhabiting, this experience is still an intrinsic part of that body. All romanticization aside, one's personality is dictated by one's physiology. Our feelings are something biological, a network of interconnected structures and chemical levels within our bodies. Who we are is engraved upon our hearts, in a literal sense. To quote Kenjaku themself, 'The body is the soul, and the soul the body'. If it were otherwise, they probably wouldn't be able to mimic various people's personalities so accurately and convincingly as to fool their closest friends and family.

So maybe Kenjaku does feel their host's lingering emotions and is to some degree influenced by its impulses. Maybe while in Kaori's body they did feel the love that remained in her for Jin, did feel the body's budding affection towards a child it gave birth to, did have some maternal instinct. But knowing full well those feelings are but a product of their current body, I imagine they have a far better grasp on them, too, and treat them as tools at their disposal, just sometimes indulging in what the body tells them to do. In Kaori's case, I think they could afford to go with the flow more. They felt the body's urges and responded by acting upon them -- because why not? They're an epitome of 'mess around and find out'.

With them taking over Geto's body, it's different. They're no longer eminence grise operating from the shadows, they've entered the game they'd been orchestrating for so long. Now they're truly proactive, and no longer being under disguise they're more themself than ever, too. And it directly contradicts with the person Geto is (or was). We do not yet know what Kenjaku's true intentions are, but it's unlikely they align with what Geto would want to put his mind to.

And Geto never wanted to do any harm to Gojo. In those ten years, never once did he make a move directly against him. Meanwhile it's an inherent part of Kenjaku's plans. So when it comes to it, Geto's very nature, those tiny glimpses of him still lingering somewhere within his body, cries out against it.

Caring for people around him was Geto's defining trait, and his body still carries those attachments, that love. Responding to Gojo is an instinct his flesh still remembers. Trying to protect him is engraved upon Geto's muscle memory. Kenjaku's actions are essentially at odds with all that, so that puts the body and the soul in discord -- and they clash eventually, getting out a reaction from otherwise dormant and inanimate flesh. No wonder Kenjaku calls that poetic.

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veerbles · 2 months

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every single thing said about kaz is just like, patently false to the point of irony. dirtyhands about a man whose hands are literally spotless because they're never uncovered. without morals or conscience, would do anything for money when it is repeatedly implied he's passed over business opportunities if they involved slavery or indentures. doesn't say goodbye, just lets go about a man who has made it a point to never let anything go. doesn't need a reason when he is proven to never act without a reason, and in all actuality usually has at least two. and this is without mentioning bastard of the barrel about probably one of the only barrel kids to have at least started out with a "normal", happy nuclear family...

and it just makes me think: kaz is deliberately written not to be better than people say he is, but just bad in different ways. he is not good or virtuous or compassionate; the point of having people say things that are not true about him isn't to make a point of his completely different nature.

so the point of it can only be to emphasize how nobody really knows him. to draw attention to his absolute isolation. and maybe to give more credit to how much his 'armour', which is supposed to protect him by keeping everyone away, really only serves to keep him away from everyone else.

#kaz brekker #six of crows #kaz brekker character analysis is living in my mind rent free this week #and not to make this post about kanej - but this whole narrative choice also emphasizes how inej is the only one he (somewhat) lets in #better terrible truths than kind lies etc etc etc #also this is why I am fundamentally against the idea that kaz only opposes indentures because of inej #and why I am also against the idea that kaz aspires to go honest/above board and rule ketterdam at some point #kaz is against indentures but he Will lie and cheat and blackmail his way to working against it.#kaz won't hurt children but his definition of what is OKAY to do with children is dubious to say the least.#kaz has done many things arguably benefitting other barrel rats - but he will be vehemently against 'cleaning up' the barrel #because he's genuinely too fucked up to wish someone a safe childhood in some mercher's house instead of fighting for their own fate #he's MORALLY GRAY. he is MY morally gray little barrel rat and you can pry him from my cold dead hands :)

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murcielagatito · 3 months

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they mean the world to me

#entertwined together influencing eachothers fates #the horrors oh the horrors #the agonies the despair #maria pushing her further and further to the edge #gloria doing everything she possibly can to make sure daya doesn end up in deeper shit yet failing in the end #i could talk about them all day.....#dayanara diaz #gloria mendoza #maria ruiz #ruizdoza #oitnb #orange is the new black #mi arte #art #artists on tumblr #analysis

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everythingisconfetti · 6 months

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what is the best love song ever written and why is it Fair by The Amazing Devil?

#i could write essays on the interplay between prose and mundanity that's chatacteristic of so many tad songs #but i do think fair is the most perfectly executed. it's grounded poetry and it's beautiful #like #'this life that we've created inundated with the fated thought of you'#gets me every goddamn time #'i was born to press my head between your shoulder blades at night when light is fading'#the IMAGERY! the TENDERNESS #and then let's through a 'that's what she said' joke in there too #the intricacy of weaving humour and intimacy and hope and everything that makes up a relationship into one song #yeah. yeah #the amazing devil #tad #joey batey #madeleine hyland #music #music analysis #shut up ellie

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autismmydearwatson · 4 months

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THAT WAS DUNE???? THAT WAS JUST A QUIRKED UP WHITE BOY DOING SO MANY DRUGS HE BECOMES JESUS

#I finished Dune can you tell #So it's a pretty good analysis of ecology and colonization and white savior complexes #Except I like that Paul literally can't run from his destiny as a white savior. No matter what he tries to do to stop the Holy War #the loyalty of his followers ALONE is what will cause it!#He can do the most ordinary things a 18 year old boy is capable of with some added psychics and it will be sanctified #because of the Bene Gesserit manipulating the indigenous population into seeing Godhood in everything their perceived messiah does!#When he says “I didn't even draw my knife but it will be said of this day that I slew twenty Sardaukar by my own hand”#“I cannot do the simplest thing without its becoming a legend. They will mark how I parted from Chani #how I greet Stilgar-- every move I make this day. Live or die it is a legend. I must not die.#Then it will only be legend and nothing to stop the jihad.“#And “I have seen a friend become a worshipper”#goddddd hes trying so hard to escape his fate but his cult are so loyal to him his fate will come no matter what he does #dune

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nolongerapileofashprobably · 10 months

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Zelda actively fought against Ganon for a century and used the minimal energy she had to watch over Link

Like that girl is so dedicated and her unwavering faith in Link is just so so precious

#I am a pro botw/totk Zelda Fan #I can and will combat all hate through thorough canonical analysis #I’ll never seek out the hate though lol I’ll only ever address things if they’re brought to me #anyway I’m back from holiday so everyone be ready for the Zelda analysis since ao3 is down #to think I only needed to finish two scenes for the next chapter of dates cruelty #fate said not today #zelink #botw zelink #loz botw #botw #link botw #the legend of zelda #botw link #zelda botw #zelink botw #the legend of zelda breath of the wild

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rebornrosess · 1 year

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going to be terrifyingly sincere about greg for a moment here sorry but the dynamics between greg, logan & ewan are so fascinating to me and even if they can’t explicitly explore it anymore due to obvious reasons, this one short sequence from the funeral is soo catered to me specifically. even in death, logan overshadows ewan in greg’s eyes. and yet greg didn’t need to tell ewan that he gave a good speech. he could’ve given him the cold shoulder after he cost him his deal with roman. but he doesn’t. and either greg is in too deep that he doesn’t realize what ewan said about logan closing men’s hearts and feeding the dark, hard, mean, hard-relenting flame in them (that melts their wax wings in the end) was most likely pointedly directed at him (thus proving his point)—or maybe greg did a little bit. he still goes to mencken at the wake but he still tells his grandpa he did a good job. it was a good hard take that he gave.

i think of this a lot but something that truly sets him apart from everyone else is that HE’S at the intersection of the brothers’ decade old feud over family, betrayal, ambition, integrity, and greed—central themes of the show but also, crucially, to his arc over the last few seasons. he has that dual connection to the past that the others don’t. a past that has stayed nebulous for so long until ewan’s eulogy. in previous seasons, we’ve gotten some really interesting scenes with him in which ewan sees the danger of power and ambition for greg because he’s seen it in logan, but it would have been so interesting to explore it more between greg and logan too (like in 2x08 when greg tells logan ewan is cutting him out of the will. i like you greg). i do think that ewan’s point about logan and masculinity and meagerness in his eulogy is particularly relevant though. maybe ewan was saying “men” in the way old history books use “man” as the default, but the performance of masculinity at ATN is one best embodied by tom, which trickles down to greg, but is evidently shown in roman too. and he fed a certain kind of meagerness in men. perhaps he had to. because he had a meagerness about him. (and maybe i do about me too. i don’t know. i try. i try.) i selfishly wish greg and logan could have had more than just one scene together this season (even though logan attempting to emasculate greg by pointing out his lack of a traditionally masculine father figure as a final interaction is very funny). i don’t think my threshold for second-hand embarrassment could have survived an on-camera take of greg trying to explain the whole rummaging situation from ep.1 to logan but logan being oddly chill about it is. interesting???????? what greg wants, greg must have.

but before s4 at least, logan’s awareness of greg’s connection to ewan, his estranged brother, has informed their interactions and it’s always fascinated me because logan doesn’t quite treat greg like his own kid but he’s still a kid that he’s trying to win over by being “uncle fun” rather than “grandpa grumps.” logan last saw his mother at age 4 and greg has been on his own for some time now too. marianne made her first appearance since the PILOT in the before last episode of the fourth season. i’ve found his interactions with ewan reaaally interesting because the brothers didn’t come from wealth and, when compared to the siblings, greg didn’t either. the hirsch’s financial situation is never fully delved into but i’ve always found it a bit peculiar given greg’s inheritance is like. 250 mil he’s sleeping in a youth hostel and a chapel in s1 and tells his mom while on his flip phone that shiv took his last $20. at the beginning of s3 he’s helping his mom get a new credit card because she maxed out the last one. i feel like ewan did the celebrity parents thing where they don’t spoil their kids so they learn real world skills or something, which iirc is something logan regrets not doing. yet ewan also seems to regret his use of his wealth, which he voices in his eulogy when he states maybe he has a meagerness about himself too, but he tries, and is disappointed in men who do not try harder (and the camera pans to the siblings. ouch.) i sometimes wonder if ewan hadn’t withheld his wealth, would his daughter and grandson have become so desperate that they turned to his brother? or would they have turned out like the siblings too if they had enjoyed wealth since birth? are the throes of capitalism inevitable? marianne is the sibs’ first cousin but they never really acknowledge that. if anyone has thoughts on her absence and/or exclusion from the family tree, i’d love to hear them.

anyways. i could 100% be overanalyzing this but i do love how much information succession packs into each of their shots. greg will forever be seeking approval from both sides of a broken brotherhood and will never receive it from either. you beautiful ichabod crane fuck you. what greg wants, greg must have. i don’t want to see you hurt. one big happy family. “greg?” he’s an addendum of miscellaneous matters in pencil with a question mark.

#is this anything #i finally finished this draft that has been sitting in my drafts for weeks #sorry for being sincere about greg but it will happen again #i can make him interesting #he's a mishapen egg. not a full roy but not spared from fate either #greg hirsch #succession #media analysis #maya.txt

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typellblog · 9 months

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The limits of ‘I can fix her’ mindset; or, Why Emiya Shirou is the protagonist

Here's a kinda improptu analysis post created because I wanted to complain about a meme, but I can hopefully use that as a jumping-off point to talk about some interesting parts of FSN as a whole.

Here’s the meme in question. The phrases chosen in each case do bear some superficial similarity to the events of each route, so I won’t fault anyone for just sharing it for the funny, but if you think about it for 5 seconds the whole thing collapses.

For starters, why are the routes backwards? If anything, Saber’s route establishes a dynamic of Shirou trying to ‘fix’ heroines, which is then subverted in UBW (note the parallel date scenes).

But I don’t think ‘fix’ is the correct term in the first place. I would say the shared theme of all FSN’s routes is that Shirou gains self-worth through his attempts to save each girl.

We can see this in the Fate route, where Shirou ends up proud of himself for having loved Saber. He is grateful for the emptiness in his heart that allows him to so easily devote himself to other people, because he wants to devote himself to her.

The hole inside of him is filled by a real, actual person, rather than simply a vague ideal from Kiritsugu. It’s something that he can be happy about, rather than something he bears out of self-castigation and to escape from his past.

Much has been made of their mutual recognition of their own flaws in each other – the way they really do attempt to fix each other - but it should be noted that this is not ultimately successful. Saber is, in some sense, saved in the basement scene, but not from the path of kingship. Shirou can’t give her a life as an ordinary girl because he recognises that the thing about her he finds the most beautiful is that very self-sacrificial and uncompromising nature.

They recognise their own flaws in each other, but, just as importantly, they realise their own virtues in each other. Saber sees in Shirou the way she was when she had just pulled the sword out of the stone. Shirou sees in Saber the end of a life pursuing the same unreachable dream – and finds it dazzling.

The implication of Last Episode is that Shirou never stops trying to be a hero, never settles down to a normal life, never gives up on his dream – because his dream is embodied in Artoria herself. She disappears, at the end of the Fate route, but her effect on him remains forever.

I cannot possibly call this a healthy relationship. They did not fix each other, they just realised they were broken in exactly the right ways to slot together.

Saber is a sword, and she perfectly slides into Shirou, her sheath. You could argue they suit each other the best of all three pairs.

But this site is already full of Saberheads, and honestly that part of the meme is the least inaccurate, so let me get into the juicier bit.

Now, Rin tries to fix Shirou in Unlimited Blade Works, she absolutely does. She takes a very proactive approach to it – but what are the results? Shirou still commits to his path of becoming a hero of justice. He says he’ll repeat Archer’s actions despite knowing the result. He says he won’t regret it, and perhaps not, but the habit of self-sacrifice hasn’t disappeared. What he gains from Rin is, again, a sense of self-worth to go along with it.

One of the best scenes in UBW takes place right after Illya’s death. Rin questions what the fuck is wrong with Shirou, jumping in to try and save her like that. Did Kiritsugu do something to him when he was rescued from the fire? Why is his brain so broken?

Shirou has been wondering about a similar thing himself. He’s always had a vague sense of uncertainty about his ideals of heroism. It’s why Archer’s presence bugs him so much, why he can’t provide a convincing counterargument to anything the man says.

But Rin here, seriously worried about him, has provided the answer. It’s because the people who care about him would be sad if he was hurt. His life actually has some value.

And recognising that, he says, ‘Sorry, Tohsaka,” and continues down the same path.

Tohsaka Rin is always a struggle to talk about, because you can quite easily see her as either a victim of patriarchy with severe emotional repression issues, or a Strong Independent Woman who can handle most problems on her own.

Both can be true, of course, but I’d argue that if you look at the VN as a whole (specifically Heaven’s Feel), the latter is deliberately shown to be a façade she has been putting on for so long that she’s forgotten how to take it off. It’s why Sakura at times finds her so unsympathetic and why it’s so vitally important for her to try and sympathise anyway. They both suffered terribly as a result of Tokiomi’s decisions – Sakura perhaps more so, but Rin still had her entire family taken from her as a young child.

But in any case, reading UBW in this light makes it clear that she really does need Shirou, perhaps as much as he needs her. When he describes her as the kind of person who always gets back up and gets even with her enemies, that’s what gives her the motivation to do precisely that.

To her, Shirou is a strange and intriguing person, capable of sticking with tasks that he knows are impossible. She admires that quality, and we notice her developing it herself throughout UBW as she follows Shirou’s example to continue fighting as a Master despite losing her Servant.

Rin and Shirou end up having significant mutual influence on each other, without changing the core of who they are as characters. Nowhere is this better demonstrated than the end of UBW, where they are faced by simultaneous dilemmas. Rin chooses to try and save Shinji from the Grail, despite knowing her chances of success are very low, while Shirou chooses to stand his ground and not fling himself into the abyss with Gil.

In this way, Rin displays in part Shirou’s self-sacrificing nature and pursuit of impossible odds, while Shirou must avoid throwing his life away at the first opportunity and choose to live for the sake of potentially reuniting with Rin and his other family.

Archer is the one that bails them out in the end, the best and worst of them both.

Shirou and Rin’s dynamic is an interplay between selflessness and selfishness. They leave a drop of each in the other like Yin and Yang, the twin swords Kanshou and Bakuya.

You could argue that they balance each other out the best of all three pairs.

And finally, some brief commentary on Sakura. She’s put first in this stupid meme, treated as the most obvious and easy to understand of the heroines, ascribed the least agency with regards her relationship with Shirou. She was broken, and then he fixed her. The end.

The thing is, this interpretation isn’t entirely wrong. Sakura is a very passive character (we see what it looks like when she finally takes action in HF. It isn’t pretty and she knows this.)

Shirou is driven by Sakura, his actions all revolve around protecting Sakura, but what does Sakura herself actually do?

I would posit that this is a coward’s question. Sakura doesn’t need to do any more than she already does in order to spur Shirou to protect her. Heaven’s Feel is about Shirou realising what Sakura has already been doing for him, what Sakura already means to him, the implications of what Sakura has been dealing with this whole time. We’ve had two whole routes to get used to her and now the rug’s come from under us!

I think you can critique Sakura’s lack of agency in her own route, but what I want to point out is that she nonetheless has the greatest impact on Shirou of any of the heroines.

Because, and this is really the worst oversight in that whole meme, Shirou gets fixed in HF far more substantially than the prior two routes. Gaining self-worth through saving others, remember? FSN is a cumulative experience, we learn more about Emiya Shirou with each route, and this is the one that we learn his ideal has been a lot simpler than he thought this whole time. He simply wants to protect the people close to him.

His love for Sakura and, importantly, her love for him, is what gives him the desire to live. He realises that his life has value because she cares about him, and if he wants to save her, he needs to save himself too.

Fate/Stay Night is the story of Shirou, a sword, learning to become a human. You could argue that Sakura helps him accomplish this the best out of all three pairs.

Now, considering Illya’s role in this . . . will have to wait for another time. Augh. You just wait, I've been laying the groundwork here.

#fate/stay night #emiya shirou #fsn analysis

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familyagrestefanblog · 2 years

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About Jeanne d’Arc and her own Chaton...

(Edit: Yes, I know Thomas Astruc said on Twitter that it's not him.

1. That doesn't mean I need to take the post down, and 2. After "Wishmaker" aired there was a massive Fans reaction regarding Adriens dream picture where theories ran so wild that members of the crew deadass on Twitter claimed that basically NOTHING of it had any particular meaning, which we know by now isn't the case and it was kinda a ridiculous statement in the first place concerning how well DONE that image was. It's damage control when Fan reactions get way too heated and will way too quickly. Doesn't mean people weren't initially right.

Gilles de Rais and the negative fan reactions to him from the Fandom are definitely worthy of damage control. Doesn't mean that my theory post about Jeanne's Black Cat not having been the hero her memories claim he is is invalidated. It just means there is a 50% chance the "it's not him" was damage control and I was spot on. And even if not, than that's that.)

How much of an asshole am I when I tell you guys that "Grimalkin" - as in Jeanne d'Arcs Black Cat Dark Grimalkin -

is a term that in the century these two lives in (1400-1500) was at its high of being used in relation to cats, the devil and witches/witchcraft.

Witchcraft that, if I may remind you, the real Jeanne directly accused Gilles (her Black Cat) of when she showed up in "Ephemeral" for a few seconds and seemingly attacked Adrien directly because he's the Black Cat miraculous holder:

She saw him and said "Gilles", hence why we know it's Gilles de Rais.

Gilles de Rais, who in real life was accused and trialed for (allegedly, its history is complicated) one of the worst and most disgusting serial killings of children in history

(subtle reference is subtle)

AND for witchcraft.

Witchcraft, which we today understand as alchemy and that's what Gilles de Rais is said to have practiced back then: Alchemy.

Alchemy, which in 4x01 "Truth" our very own Gabriel Agreste practiced to repair the peacock miraculous.

And Alchemy/Witchcraft Gilles apparently practiced so frequently and on such massive scales that Jeanne in "Ephemeral" may have been angry as HELL, but she sure wasn't too surprised that the world around her suddenly completely changed and fell into bizarre chaos

Also, literally the first thing Jeanne does is blame Gilles, her black cat, of having done this by practicing witchcraft and then gets super pissed at him

I thiiiiiiiiink the Memory Jeanne in "Reunion" - who is only the spirit manifestation of Jeannes memories as a Ladybug miraculous holder and not the real person Jeanne d'Arc - might be an unreliable narrator regarding certain aspects of her living history she wasn't comfortable with in the first place.

I have the feeling the love story here was in actuality a bit more complicated than memory Jeanne let us know or maybe isnt quite aware of either for some reason.

Idk, might just be me though. Or, yknow, the word DARK in his name

#ml spoilers #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #ml reunion #ml jeanne d'arc #Ml Gilles de Rais #Ml Scarlet Fate #Ml Dark Grimalkin #ml history #ml theory #ml analysis

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