#and parallel as in they both believe they were created for a purpose
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Undead Unluck ch.204 thoughts
[Lord Forgive Me But It's Time to Go Back to The Old Me]
(Contents: Parallels - Nico/Feng/Ichico, Character development - Feng, Power system development/speculation - Souls, Character speculation - Sun/Luna)
Well! I guess we didn't need to worry about Nico staying a non-Negator after all, now did we? So much for keeping Nico "Unforgettable-free" eh, Ichico? Still, I feel better knowing that my prediction that they'd trigger it on purpose was correct, even if the exact method was a bit off
As usual, Tozuka continues to impress me with his ability to compose iconic panels. Nico's face when he absorbed all of the memories from Acopalypse is simply Unforgettable, particularly since it so immediately reverted him to his classic L100 appearance. What's really fun about that is that it's probably not that his body just suddenly remembered all of the stress and sleepless nights of Unforgettable, but rather it's the logical extreme of Artifact-based memory influx. We've seen characters develop headaches and nosebleeds from it before, most notably from Fuuko digging through an huge box full of Artifacts, so for Nico to absorb presumably ALL of Apocalypse's stored memories (stated to be the most of any Artifact), it makes sense that even the capillaries under his eyes would all burst at once from the pressure
The question now is whether or not this is a permanent change. I imagine not, since his previously haggard appearance was indicative of his suffering, the haunting knowledge that his most sacred memories would soon fade and be permanently replaced with the most wretched. L100 Nico had the opportunity to create new pleasant memories but actively rejected the possibility out of fear of losing the old, while in this world Nico is going to be able to embrace the support of others as he won't have lost Ichico this time. Honestly, no wonder Tozuka waited to introduce Mico to this world; he wanted to make sure Nico would be able to make room for her in his heart rather than keeping her at a distance
I wonder if that's another reason Tozuka chose Feng for this fight; not only is Feng's current focus on making himself unforgettable to future generations, but he's also a good parallel to Nico's role as a father. Both L100 Nico and Feng prevented themselves from properly forming attachments with their children, and L101 has given both of them the chance to make right on that. Shen explicitly acknowledges that he loves Feng as his father, and Feng even calls Shen his son, so while Feng may not be the best or even a good role model for fatherhood, he does make a compelling argument for parental redemption. If Nico really does have complete knowledge of the previous Loops now, the significance of this change won't be lost on him, and he'll be certain to make sure Mico can grow up happy and loved
Speaking of, Ichico's final speech in this chapter remind me a lot of Nico's in L100. She tells Nico that she knows he can save her because he's the first person she's ever loved, while as Nico was dying in L100, Ichico asked if he thought Mico could handle saving Fuuko's life and he replied "she's our daughter. She doesn't make mistakes." Both of them have absolute faith in their loved ones to pull through when the chips are down, and both of them hold each other in extremely high regard. These two really have such strong chemistry, I'm excited to see the sorts of interactions they have now that the cat's out of the bag
Now that I think of it, Nico's refusal to let Mico into his heart was pretty ironic since Ichico explicitly wanted to make sure that Nico wouldn't ever feel alone. Just like Leila asked Rip and Latla to find love in each other, Ichico wanted Nico to fill the void she left with Mico, and just like them, he couldn't let go of the past and move on. Leila and Ichico were also both in poor health and believed that since their lives were short they held less value, and instead sought to leave as much of an impact as possible in the time that they had, even if it was just to make the people closest to them happy
Looking at Ichico in that light, we can see another fun parallel to Feng! Feng's Unfade made him believe that he had all the time in the world and that he didn't need to leave anything behind because he'd always be there, while Ichico's Unsleep made her believe she had no time and had to leave as much behind as she could. Both of them, however, had adverse effects on their families, as Feng believed his children to exist for him to become stronger and Ichico believed her child to be an adequate replacement for herself, when in reality Feng should have focused on raising someone to surpass him and Ichico should have focused on preserving her life to be present for her family. Heck, Unforgettable manifested in Nico both times specifically because he saw Ichico's last moments and thought something to the effect of "I don't want her to die, I want to remember her." Doomed by the narrative, indeed!
Man, I'm so glad Tozuka used Feng here, I had no idea there was so much connective tissue between all these folks! I bet we still would have gotten something cool if it were Tella, but damn this is such juicy stuff!! I hope Tozuka keeps throwing all of his toys together in fun combos that get me to think this deeply in the other Master Rule fights too
Feng's inclusion here also continues to demonstrate how far he's developed, forcing him to put his money where his mouth is and sacrifice himself for someone else for a change. He was a bit incredulous at first that Ichico was suggesting he should die, which is pretty hypocritical coming from the guy who just last chapter said "you should sacrifice your wife to get stronger, it'll be cool." Once he realized that dying would help him understand souls better and that Nico could save him AND bring him back to life, Feng was all for it, and may well come to understand that being with people provides more opportunities for growth than treating them as expendable ever could
I am very interested in seeing how his death will improve his understanding of souls, though. The damage he took from Luna's soul blast as well as the damage he dealt to Sun (who Language stated has a physical body) with his knock-off Kamehameha both prove that souls can directly interact with the physical plane, something that Ghost previously stated couldn't be done. This may be a matter of interpretation, though, as Ghost also stated that Andy only couldn't move his limbs after having those parts of his soul cut off because he believed he could move his body using his soul. Ghost's interpretation was that souls couldn't touch physical matter and vice versa, so only a physical attack coated in soul could harm him by ensuring it didn't matter which form he was in
Luna's attack seems to be pure soul, so by that logic, she shouldn't have been able to deal damage to Feng's body, and yet she did. Is Luna's interpretation that a soul attack damages the soul and reflects its state on the body? Probably not, then one wouldn't be able to detach their soul for attacks in the first place, as that would cause the body to change shape (see Mahito's Idle Transfiguration in JJK). Does Luna interpret souls as having different properties at different concentrations? Is she coating her soul around the air to create physical pressure when launching her attack? Or is it something entirely different? Whatever it turns out to be, I think it will have pretty drastic implications for how battles are fought going forward
Finally, I want to touch on an interesting line from Language. She referred to Luna and Sun as "the Pinnacle of the Spiritual and the Pinnacle the Physical" respectively, and given Luna's hazy silver appearance, it does track that she is literally made of soul, but then does that mean Luna doesn't have a physical body at all? And in fact, if Luna is only a soul, then how did she exist prior to UMA Soul's creation? Is Soul really the Rule that allows souls to exist, or the Rule that allows other souls, existences like Luna, to be?
And if Luna is a soul without a body, then...is Sun a body without a soul? Can soul-based attacks work on Sun, or does the Union need to focus solely on physical attacks? Or, does defeating Sun require that Luna be defeated simultaneously, just like Ghost, because Luna is Sun's soul?
I know I say it all the time, but Tozuka really is following Oda's footsteps incredibly well. They're both so good at sprinkling in hints that make me ask questions rather than just spoonfeeding me answers, so while I desperately want the answers, the time I get to spend chewing them over and looking for them myself makes the questions stick with me and leave that much more of an impact. I sincerely hope that other mangaka are taking notes, cus I want to see so much more of this in Jump's future!
Until next time, let's enjoy life!
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When scara said 'no, PLEASE not the gnosis anything but that' I was ahsksldlskdkrkrlflxnxjsjsl *bites my own arm*
i know LMFAO I’m like NOT my scrungly grungly poor little meow MEOW who tried to kill me (and successfully killed my barbs twice) and was calling me a worm TWO seconds ago???? leave him alone?? 😭
#but seriously. i loooove where they’re taking his character.#I thought there was a little parallel between him and nahida but nahida took a different route than him#and when she was taking the gnosis she could see her old self in him that was the vibe I was getting?#and parallel as in they both believe they were created for a purpose#but nahida was passive and withdrawn and chose to just observe while he actively took charge and tried to find reason and meaning#and both roads led to a standstill where they both realise they can’t achieve that specific thing they’ve been chasing#ie that scene w nahida where traveller goes to their consciousness and scara has just reached that scene when the gnosis was taken from him#so it’s interesting 👁. also the way he was chasing after the electro gnosis … raiden’s gnosis … which is his heart 😵💫#it’s just so interesting#spoilers
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yippee! apologies if my takes are horrendously bad
my personal take on the matter is that i definitely think the dark worlds can work as a metaphor for escapism without undermining the darkners' personhood. it can be more than one thing, yknow? the darkners are important, their lives matter. and the lightners do go to the dark world as an escape from the problems they face in their own life. but that's not the darkners' whole PURPOSE, yknow? i mean. according to the laws of the universe of deltarune yes darkners' "purpose" is to serve the lightners but like it's not their whole purpose in the STORY.
it's sort of like how, in UNDERTALE, LOVE represents how distant you've become, how easy it is for you to hurt people. but it also literally gives you the power to destroy the world.
i think the biggest reason i believe escapism is at least a part of deltarune's narrative is queen.
queen's whole speech in both of her fights is about how she intends to provide escapism for the lightners (so that they will worship her but also so that they will he happy). she wants to turn the whole world into a dark world, so that everyone can live in bliss and not have to worry about the woes of the light world. she mentions "Staring, Tapping, To Receive Joy. Staring, Tapping, To Avoid Pain." which is like pretty much the definition of escapism
she wants to help Noelle with the problems she faces in the light world ("Noelle. Who Will Be There To Help Her? Her Strange And Sad Searches" and "My One Idea To Help Noelle, Failed") by just... shoving it away for a blissful fantasy world ("Wake? No, She Has Already Awakened Too Much. Let Her Close Her Eyes And Sleep Away, Into A Darker, Darker Dream.")
...i forgot the rest of what i wanted to say!
well first off, thank you for your ask! I'm going to get extremely in depth in my answer, so bear with me here. sorry it took several weeks to write this. the escapism reading of deltarune is pretty deeply entrenched in fandom, and to refute it, I felt it required a full-length essay to completely explain my viewpoint.
yes, "the lightners desire escapism" does not automatically translate to that being the darkners' actual narrative purpose. escapism can be a theme without dehumanizing those who are used in order to escape - in fact, I've read a number of stories that use someone's desire to escape to HIGHLIGHT how they're hurting others in pursuit of that. I believe that toby fox is definitely capable of telling a story about kids having a valid desire to escape, and about them grappling with having inadvertently created a world of real, living people as a result.
(I'll reiterate again that this is not the story arc that generally shows up in fanon. the common consensus is that the game will end in an omori-esque "growing out of" the dark worlds. it's why I have a huge dislike of the fanon escapism reading, given that the darkners are shown as people whose lack of agency parallels kris' own. it would feel cheap if the resolution to that plot was that the darkners were actually never meant to be agents in their own fates. but this is a digression.)
the reason why i DON'T believe that this is a story that toby fox is telling is because of the way the world, themes, and characters are written. put simply, it just doesn't come across as congruent with the story being told.
deltarune's main themes are agency, fate, identity, and control. this is a conflict that shows up in nearly every major character, is baked into the worldbuilding, and is the central struggle involving us, the player. the protagonist of deltarune is literally possessed by us against their will. the darkners are objects that have no choice but to serve and be discarded. over and over again, there is emphasis on roles that characters play - and crucially, roles that are imposed on them.
what would escapism mean, in this thematic context? in real life, escapism can represent any number of things, but in a story, a major narrative theme generally has to dovetail with other major narrative themes in the work. I would argue that escapism in deltarune would likely mean going to a place where characters are able to choose for themselves what roles they embody, or even to discard the notion of roles altogether. a fantasy of control is the only way to escape a reality where you have no agency. and honestly, it's hard to imagine that something could count as an escapist fantasy if you don't even get to choose whether or not you participate in it.
let's talk about kris.
I see a lot of discussions around kris that say that kris goes into the dark worlds to escape. the dark worlds are posited as kris' fantasy of heroism. it's a world where they can seem heroic and cool, a world where they can have friends. this theory makes a decent amount of sense on the surface level, but only until you consider that kris is being controlled in order to go into the dark worlds. and it is not a control that they appear to welcome.
if those worlds represent kris' fantasy, then why don't they get to choose what happens in those fantasies? why are they being controlled by an external force, one that they actively push back against? if it's really an escape, then why does everything about this world reflect their lack of agency? if they really think this world is just a pure fantasy, then why do they care if spamton falls when his strings are cut?
because they're being deliberately obscured to the player, it is hard to say how kris actually feels about many subjects... but I do seriously doubt that they view the dark worlds as an escape. they don't act in a way that is consistent with that. they resist their lack of agency, and what little we do see of their reactions to darkner characters doesn't suggest that they view those characters as part of a disposable fantasy, either. they seem to have complicated feelings on ralsei. and of course, one of their biggest emotional reactions in the game is to the spamton fight. I would argue that that suggests they have empathy for spamton, which is a hard emotional reaction to have if you believe he's just part of a fantasy. not impossible, mind you, but it seems unlikely that kris believes that all this is simply fantasy.
also, considering that snowgrave both actively discredits the idea that the dark worlds are mere fantasy and is actively traumatic for kris... I seriously doubt they'd open another dark world in chapter 3 on a snowgrave run if their motive was purely to escape. on that route, they've seen the damage we can cause in a dark world. they know that berdly has sustained lasting damage due to our actions, assuming he's not outright dead. why would they want to try and "escape" to a place like that again now that they know what can happen?
the only answer is that they have a motive that isn't escapist.
now, as for ralsei... what part does he have to play in all this?
ralsei does play a lot to the fun, fantastical elements of the dark worlds. he delivers the prophecy that kickstarts the adventure. he flatters both kris and susie endlessly when they act appropriately heroic. he welcomes them into the castle and even makes nice rooms for them. he initially seems tailor-made to enable a fantastical experience where no real issues can ever complicate anything, and where the pain of reality can successfully be hidden from. but there's a lot of complications to the idea that he might represent an escapist fantasy.
the first, and what honestly seems the most important to me, is that he doesn't encourage kris and susie to remain in the dark worlds. he is welcoming and kind, but once the adventure is over, he prompts them to return to the light world. he wants them to deal with their more "real" problems like homework. that doesn't feel like he is trying to facilitate escapism in them. a real fantasy would encourage you to stay in it, wouldn't it?
and while ralsei is definitely invested in making sure the lightners are happy, there are always cracks that show. he isn't able to make kris ignore what happened in the spamton fight. he isn't able to convince susie to be peaceful and kind. and in his very essence, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas. very importantly, he represents a number of uncomfortable ideas to kris.
this probably ain't your first fandom rodeo, so I'm not going to explain all the different ways that ralsei interacts with kris' personal issues. there's plenty of posts on it out there. what i will point out is, once again, it feels odd that a character who seems tailor made to bring up kris' most uncomfortable associations with their lack of agency and their outsider status in their own family would be part of a fantasy of escapism to them. you'd think that they'd prefer something that didn't have an inbuilt hierarchy, a prophecy that denied them autonomy, or especially a person that reminded them how little they fit into hometown.
that doesn't mean kris doesn't care about him at all - it seems very likely that they do. what I mean to say here is that he just seems ill-suited to an escapism reading, both behaviorally and on a conceptual level. it doesn't seem like that's at all part of his servitude towards the lightners.
of course, there is another non-lightner entity that ralsei seems diegetically engineered to serve. but I'll discuss that later.
now as for susie...
yes, susie definitely views the dark worlds as more fun than the light world. and why wouldn't she? the light world sucks for her, and she doesn't seem very aware of the fact that the dark world can also suck. you could definitely make the argument that she views the dark worlds as a fantastical escape from reality... were it not for the fact that she treats her darkner friends with just as much importance as she does kris and noelle.
can someone treat components of an escapist fantasy as real and important? of course. but given deltarune's themes of agency and control, as well as the fact that darkners exist in servitude to the lightners, I feel like you'd have to make escapism tie into forcing others into a lack of agency if you wanted the theme to feel coherent with the rest of the work. this would require susie to be limiting the agency of the darkners around her. and obviously, she doesn't do that. her presence around them might be inherently limiting, just by simple virtue of being a lightner, but she isn't aware of it, and clearly is uncomfortable with the idea of limiting anyone's agency. she encourages ralsei to make choices. and she supports lancer in basically anything he wants to do. her treatment of lancer is integral to chapter 1's narrative, and it seems like that treatment of ralsei is integral to the ongoing narrative as well!
her preference for the dark world feels very rooted in her engagement with it as its own reality. rather than trying to avoid her real-life problems by engaging in a pretense, she seems to simply want to spend time with her friends in a place that isn't cruel to her. she isn't ignoring any of the dark world's problems in service of that, either. she notices when things don't line up. if she thought of it as a fantasy, wouldn't she be inclined to ignore issues that impede the fantasy?
and critically - like kris, she does not intentionally choose her imposed role in the prophecy at first. she steps into the role of bad guy to resist it, but that role is limiting too, and she eventually acquiesces to being a hero. it's never something she's completely on board with, though. she actively pushes back the limitations that the role places on her. I find this important to reiterate when we are discussing the notion of the characters viewing the dark worlds as fantasy.
noelle has a complicated relationship to the dark worlds. susie tells her that it's a dream to make her accept the strange reality she finds herself in, which works well on her. she continues to think of it as a strange dream throughout the chapter. (though, like the others, it is not a 'dream' she entered of her own volition!)
it is also a markedly unpleasant 'dream' at times. she has her agency restricted, is kidnapped, has to evade a controlling monarch, and is even tied up in a weird evangelion cross thing on the hand of a giant robot. it's not purely fun. noelle does like scary things, and while it might be healthy for her to have an experience where she stands up to a controlling adult figure... again, the circumstances make it difficult for me to assume that this is a fantasy she would choose for herself. not impossible, mind you, but it's not the first reading of the situation that comes to mind.
and while she does say she wishes she could dream like this every day in the normal route, that does happen specifically because she was talking to the girl she likes. it makes sense she'd find that pleasant. I don't think that necessarily equates to her finding the dark worlds escapist.
and importantly, this isn't the sentiment that she expresses in every route.
again, there's a lot of analysis on snowgrave, so I won't bother regurgitating it much here. but it's nightmarish for both kris and noelle, and very likely fatal for berdly. noelle needs to believe that the event is a dream, for her own psychological safety, but one of the most important parts of snowgrave...
...is that its events, and the world it took place in, are very, very real.
noelle wants to have the strength to face her problems, both in the regular route and in the snowgrave route. rather than escaping from them, she views the "dream" as a chance to practice dealing with her day-to-day issues. it's just that in the regular route she finds that strength authentically, and in the snowgrave route, that desire is manipulated and pushed until she is forced to kill berdly. she doesn't interpret snowgrave as an escape gone wrong. she views it as a dream that became a nightmare. and those are two extremely different things.
but i haven't even gotten to the biggest thing that undermines the concept that the dark worlds are a metaphor for escapism! which is: this fucking guy is dead wrong about everything.
so full disclaimer - I really love berdly. I think he's slept on a lot in the fandom because he's annoying and weird. which is fair, I suppose, but I think ignoring him hinders a lot of people's understanding of deltarune's overall narrative. because berdly often illustrates a lot of concepts in the game, but his narrative framing as a joke (usually...) prevents the player from taking it completely seriously. he has things to say and ideas to show off, it's just that he's often very loud and kind of dumb in his expression of them. which is kind of the point!
ralsei brings up the idea that the darkners are meant to serve the lightners very seriously in chapter one. by extension, and by way of the literal mechanics involved in a dark world's creation, we can infer that this logic is probably something that also applies to the dark worlds themselves. they are allegedly worlds and characters that only are supposed to fulfill a dream of the lightners. but due to narrative framing and deltarune's themes, we know that that's not the full truth. however dark worlds and darkners are created, they deserve to have their own agency. they can't just exist to fulfill a higher being's wishes.
you know who else undermines that view of the dark worlds? berdly! berdly does!!!!
because berdly is the only lightner in the game so far who does take the dark worlds to be an escapist adventure! he wants to turn cyber world into smartopia. he views this as a chance to be a cool hero. he believes he's going to get the girl, he's going to shape this world to his own liking, and maybe also he's going to get queen to acknowledge him or something so he stops being a forgettable little bluebird. and not only does none of this happen, his steadfast belief that it will happen is continually a joke within the narrative!!
berdly's wishes for uncomplicated escapist fantasy are flat-out denied by the dark worlds themselves. as a lightner, those worlds should be serving him. he should have the power to do whatever he wants within the bounds of an escapist fantasy. these npcs should be singing his praises!
but he doesn't have the power. and this world doesn't sing his praise. because it just isn't an escapist fantasy. he isn't right to view it that way. his wishes for heroism are always going to be thwarted.
so now that I've gotten all that out of the way, let's swing back over to the subject of your original ask. queen.
because, like berdly, queen's entire character arc is about how she's completely wrong about what the lightners actually want.
queen would in fact like nothing more to place the lightners into an escapist fantasy. she believes that that's the best way to serve them and make them happy forever. as a darkner, queen has very much internalized the idea that a lack of control is what actually makes people happy. since darkners have no choice in their destinies and are supposed to be happy in it, and since she personally finds her role as a darkner fulfilling, she believes that that's true of all people everywhere. if you want to make people happy, you just have to remove that pesky personal agency!
so she spends the story trying to force the lightners and particularly noelle into situations where she controls them in order to make them ostensibly happier. she does genuinely believe that this is the right thing to do, but as she finds out eventually, she's just wrong. noelle doesn't want that. queen believes that escapism is why the lightners use the internet... but that's totally wrong too.
while there are other searches mixed in, noelle is trying to use the internet to find her sister. instead of trying to hide from whatever happened, noelle wants to figure it out. queen's thesis about noelle and the lightners is proven wrong even before she personally encounters noelle in the dark world. it's just that queen doesn't realize it due to her limited perspective.
the concept of escapism being brought up with both queen and berdly is not there to say that the dark world is escapist. rather, it's there to say that it isn't. despite the dark worlds being a fantastical place, they are extremely real. to view them as a means of escape is foolhardy at best. you cannot act as though you are above consequences within them.
themes and ideas exist within the story for a sake of an audience. so let's get into the final character I need to discuss here. hopefully this will tie my thesis of deltarune together neatly.
that character is of course us. the player.
when creating a piece of fiction, an astute author will often identify and anticipate an audience's reactions to certain things in their work, and write things in such a way that they elicit the desired reactions. in essence, a writer is directing the "character" of the audience. how we feel and how we are anticipated to react to things is an integral part of nearly every fiction.
that effect is far more overt when dealing with metanarrative fiction that diegetically involves the audience. since the fiction is saying a lot of things about the general 'you,' the audience in aggregate, your reactions to certain things in the story have to be finely cued and anticipated by the author, so that the author can thus commentate on the reactions that you have to the story. the "character" you are assumed to inhabit is posited by the author to have certain traits.
to explain what I mean in plainer terms, I'll use the player of undertale's no mercy route as an example. because undertale is commenting on the way rpgs generally work. the player's behaviors in no mercy are attributed by characters in the story to be the result of us acting like a typical gamer. we kill the characters in the game because we want exp. and more than that, it's because we want to see everything the game has to offer. the role we inhabit in this role-playing game is that of a completionist. you could say that that's assumed to be our "character" in no mercy.
deltarune also posits that certain things are true of its audience. by being written to evoke certain cultural ideas, rpg tropes, and references to undertale, it guarantees that its audience will probably have certain traits, and spends a large amount of its conceptual focus commenting on those traits. one of those traits is nostalgia, which is probably an idea that I'll expound upon in a further essay because it's quite integral to my reading of deltarune. but the main one I mean to discuss here, and why I went off on this tangent about how audiences are dealt with in metafiction, is that we are posited as someone who believes in the logic of certain narratives.
deltarune's writing evokes a lot of portal fantasy narratives. alice in wonderland, narnia, pretty much every story where it's revealed at the end to be all a dream... the story of deltarune superficially resembles a lot of those. this, I think, is responsible for the popularity of the escapism theory. because those stories are often at their end about a child learning to put away fantasy and grow up, people tend to believe that deltarune must be about the same thing. but I truly don't think that deltarune is trying to do anything with that aspect of portal fantasy narratives, at least not directly. its main characters aren't involved in that exact type of coming-of-age arc.
instead, deltarune is very concerned with what happens to characters in fantasy, and specifically fantasy rpgs. if your world is deemed to not matter because it's a dream, what does that mean for you, who has no choice but to live in it? if you are an npc whose role has been predetermined for you via script, then can you ever decide for yourself what you want? what if you want to matter? what if you want to be your own person?
as the major controlling force of deltarune, we are initially cued to believe that deltarune is like a dream. it superficially fulfills so much of what we want from undertale fanon. hometown seems like it's a perfect idyllic town, at least until you start noticing the obvious cracks. and remember what I said about ralsei earlier? he is so reminiscent of asriel, and extremely eager to help us. it's not a stretch to say that making us specifically view deltarune as dreamlike and idyllic is probably part of his purpose in the game.
I would not say that we are posited as escapist. but the idea of escapism as brought up with queen and berdly is meant to strike at the heart of a much deeper idea that deltarune is trying to deconstruct. because if we view deltarune as a dream, escapist or otherwise, then we are inclined to write the internal realities of the characters inside off. the dark world can disappear without it mattering. we can control kris without it mattering. if it's all a dream, what does it matter? why should we care to let its characters go free? aren't we supposed to be in control?
if deltarune is an rpg... what is the significance of us interacting with it?
#deltarune#deltarune analysis#BIG big thanks to tvlandofficiall for being my sounding board and providing the flavor images for this essay#this one gets into some big overarching analysis of deltarunes construction and what it deconstructs. hope u enjoy
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Sydney Adamu; Donna's antithesis
THE BIG PARALLEL: THE QUEEN OF THE KITCHEN
Donna's introduction to the audience is in her kitchen, where she is the leader, the center of the action; all orders come from her, and the dynamic in the family is created primarily by her. She has assigned (indirectly or so) the roles of all the family members that keep the family working in the way it does. She is the queen, the leader—a role she was given by nature.
And what is Sydney's job in the kitchen? The CDC, even when she was a sous, she was already taking the responsibilities of the CDC. She is their queen, their leader in their kitchen—a role she was given by choice.
The writers had given Sydney every opportunity to be Donna so they could show us how much of Donna she is not. Here are my favorite examples of it.
Donna brings guilt, and Sydney brings grace.
Donna created her daughter's nickname after a mistake she made as a kid (probably when Nat was nervous and afraid to fail her), messing up a recipe.
Sydney gave grace to Tina when she messed up the recipe for the mashed potatoes. Sydney could have used that opportunity to get back at Tina for making her look bad in front of Carmy and all the other stuff. Sydney decided to be the bigger person; God, Sydney was not trying to make Tina own or like her. She just decided that is not what she is. She acknowledged that Tina was trying something new and wanted to be available in case Tina needed help. Sydney gave Tina clear expectations, recognized the task's difficulty, and offered help. Later, she was graceful when a mistake was made, and gave positive reinforcement when the job was well done. We learned then that Tinas was terribly afraid of being displaced or not good enough. Sydney is giving Tina all the things Donna should have given Nat.
Another exmaple of this is when Richie and Sydney are shopping for caulk. She just buys the right one; she doesn't rub it in his face or call him stupid or careless. In all their conversation, Sydney tried to understand more, not put more fire into the pile. Richie recognizes that, and I think this is when he starts to respect her, even a little.
Donna brings chaos, Sydney brings order.
Both women have the role of being the center (heart) of the kitchen. Only Donna can touch the food in her kitchen, while Sydney delegates the kitchen tasks to the restaurant employees.
Donna gives the absence of self, and Sydney brings purpose.
To please their mother, try to win her love, or just survive the household dynamics, the Berzatto siblings had to adopt behaviors/personalities that were not natural to them. Mickey was at least 18 when his father left; he took the provider position by helping her mom run the restaurant. He also took care of his siblings. He was his ultimate ally in helping the family feel like a family, particularly by always being capable of "dialing a room" to make everyone feel entertained, appreciated, have fun, and be a family. For all these reasons, he was Donna's favorite, and the other two siblings were neglected because of it. Neither Nat of Carmy felt really like she was there for them; she probably didn't encourage Carmy to draw or Nat in anything. Nat and Carmy grew up believing their talents/nature were useless because they didn't please their mom. Neither of them recognizes the things they are good at outside the kitchen: Nat diminishes her husband's compliments on her hard work, and Carmy ignores compliments on his drawings.
Sydney, on the other hand, can encourage Marcus to follow his passion for baking. She supports Tina in her culinary journey to the point of her becoming the third person in charge. She asked Nat to be the project manager because, in the few interactions she had with her, she perceived (or it was intuition) Nat's attention to detail, caring nature, and responsibility. In the climax of the second season, she trusts Richie to do the calling of the orders when she has no reason to believe he can, and he solidifies his purpose. Sydney "nurtured" everybody's natural talents and trusted them to walk independently. That is what a good parent or leader does. It is such a brilliant subtext. Important to note she doesn't do that with Carmy, because Carmy is her equal, her partner-to-be.
Other ones:
There is also to mention the fact that Sydney was a professional driver, and Donna tried to crash a car in her own house. Talking about metaphors.
Also, Sydney doesn't indulge in any of the toxic behaviors that the Berzattos learned from Donna, neither Carmy nor Richie's bullshit nor the rest of the staff. Little by little, she fought fire with water, and she won, maybe because she is more like a river than a drop. She had a purpose on her own, an identity, a past that she kept to herself, and a desire to move forward. People started to respect her the more they relied on her and the more she didn't give in to the toxic traits that were ruling them before. They saw the good and followed it.
Sydney may not rely on toxic dynamics to lead her kitchen, but she will not let others take advantage of her. She did not pick on Carmy's slack last season for him but despite him. She doesn't believe that is what she is supposed to do, not only as her employee but friend and possible romantic interest. She calls the bad behaviors/tendencies by it's name. And communicates she won't have it, while also saying she belives in him.
I think most of the audience (besides the ones in this fandom) really doesn't understand how extraordinary Sydney is. If she wasn't as well-written as she is, with defects and fears, people would think that she is the "saint woman/magic woman" archetype, making everything previously broken work in her presence. I also think it is because she is a woman, and women are expected to bring magic and be fixers and helpers. There is also the fact that she is a black woman, and everything that comes with that, but I cannot comment on that, so I am not going to. Just saying she is one of the most amazing role models I have seen, decorated with the price of also being one of the most complex female characters on screen. She is not perfect as a person and has not reached her whole potential, and she wants it. I respect and admire her so much. Even when Carmy seems to have a longer path of healing ahead, I want Sydney to win the most, not just heal. I want to know more about her, her intimate desires, and why is her heart broken. Long gone are the days when women lived on screen to make everybody around them better and happier. All the things she is extraordinary for, the ones I talked about, are not just reasons why Carmy had admired her or fallen for her. She is, for me, a champion preparing for live-defining battles. We know who she is, and we get to discover what else she could be, to grow in her self-confidence, her purpose, and what brings pleasure to her soul. She is considered now the show's co-protagonist.
And I hope in s3 we are in for a journey. She made all the difference. Thank you for reading.
#sydcarmy#sydney adamu#sydney adamu meta#the bear meta#the bear#carmy berzatto#natalie berzatto#donna berzatto#tina the bear#marcus the bear#richie jerimovich#Sydeny adamu is my champion
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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about Gideon’s blood and the Tomb. I’ve got two points here that dovetail somewhat…
Let’s review some key events. I realize these probably seem a bit all over the place, but I do believe they come together. I’ve tried to put these in roughly chronological order.
John attempts to consume the soul of the Earth, and then creates a physical body for Alecto: “I ripped half my ribs from my body and made you from the dirt, my blood, my vomit, my bone.”
Ten thousand years later, Gideon and Harrow duke it out. The initial recollection of the fight says that “Harrow had scratched until she’d had half of Gideon’s face beneath her fingernails.” The more candid HtN version has Gideon telling us, “You clawed my face so bad that my blood ran down your hands; my face was under your fucking fingernails.”
Harrow opens the Tomb with Gideon’s (read: John’s) blood on her hands.
Harrow sees Alecto, falls in love with her, and decides to live.
At some point while in the Tomb, Harrow apparently kisses Alecto: “She hadn’t come on purpose; the scrap of black-eyed meat had asked for it—the chain of a kiss: the ice that burnt the flesh of the mouth that had stuck to the mouth that was frozen.”
At Canaan House, Ianthe ascends and tells the others that step six of the process is to “consume the flesh. Not the whole thing, a drop of blood will do to ground you.”
Harrow’s letter tells her she owes Ianthe “the favour of the chain”, which extends “into the House, but NOT into the Tomb.” The agreement takes precedence over any oaths sworn to others, including John, except for the Holy Corpse.
Harrow kisses Ianthe to inspect her jaw and re-swears the oath.
Harrow’s Nova AU has her retrieving the chain of Samael from the Anastasian. This is considered a sin severe enough that the Reverend Father whips her, but she is allowed to keep the chain. Denied the role of Reverend Daughter, Harrow tells Ortus that she is “the unfulfilled vow and the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull.”
Alecto kisses Harrow, bites her, and recognizes her by her blood - the blood of Anastasia’s line. Alecto tells Harrow that she is very sorry about Samael, and she vows the favour she had promised to Anastasia to Harrow.
We see over and over this theme of consuming another life, whether body or soul: we get two sides of this coin when we compare Gideon’s “All I ever wanted you to do was eat me” to John’s statement that “it’s the human instinct, to take.” Consuming the flesh is, per Ianthe, one of the steps to taking in a cavalier’s soul and becoming a Lyctor, directly paralleling John consuming the Earth, both physically when he eats dirt and spiritually when he takes in her soul. Thus far, though, we don’t know how or if Harrow consumed Gideon’s flesh in the interim between chapters 36 and 37 of GtN.
But here’s what I’ve been wondering: assuming Ianthe is correct (and telling the truth) about the steps to becoming a Lyctor, to what extent does the order and timing actually matter? I think there’s a distinct possibility that Harrow had consumed Gideon’s flesh years before they even came to Canaan House.
Because Harrow had Gideon’s face under her fingernails. And Harrow bites her nails.
HtN, chapter four:
You held your left hand up before your face, before the light, the even white light with its hot tungsten filaments. The thumbnail was whole and even. Too even? Were you wont to chew your fingernails still, that unattractive tic of your girlhood?
And again in chapter twenty-one:
She took off her gloves, and with the edges of her fingernails - bitten to the quick, and never much help - she started to prise open one wrinkled corner.
If the steps do not have to be completed strictly in order, Harrow may very well have already checked off step six if she were biting her nails with Gideon’s flesh and blood still clinging to them.
The other thing going on here is that we get these repeated connections between chains and favours and kisses. I don’t feel like we have quite all the pieces yet to draw any definitive conclusions, but it seems that the favour of the chain may have something to do with the Reverend Family’s vow to protect the Tomb. Particularly, Harrow describing herself, sans Reverend Daughter title, as “the unfulfilled vow” as she wields the chain of Samael lends itself to this interpretation. I also find it very interesting that this unfulfilled vow is paired with “the bloody teeth of the unkissed skull” given that upon waking, Alecto kisses Harrow, bites her, and draws blood which then allows her to recognize Harrow as one of Anastasia’s descendants.
Before that kiss, though, there was another. Alecto describes being called back by Harrow’s kiss, presumably when she broke into the Tomb as a child. I have to wonder if blood was playing a role here too. Alecto says that Harrow’s flesh stuck on her frozen lips, that the ice burned her. If this kiss also drew blood, it could be that the blood of Anastasia’s line was the key to calling her back. However, there may have been someone else’s blood on Alecto’s lips that day. If Harrow had been biting her nails, which she’d earlier used to claw Gideon’s face, she very well may have had Gideon’s blood in her mouth as well. As John’s daughter, her blood was able to open the Tomb. Was it able to call Alecto as well? Could “the chain of a kiss” be referring to Harrow transferring John’s blood between Gideon and Alecto?
Overall, it seems like we’re circling something akin to a blood oath or living blood ward. The thalergetic nature of blood certainly aligns with the symbolism of life and light that we see connected to the Earth and Alecto, in contrast to the thanergy that John cultivates. Alecto’s physical form is derived from John’s blood, and his power is derived from her soul. If indeed a kiss and a few drops of John’s blood, shepherded into the Tomb by Gideon and Harrow, are enough to call Alecto, I cannot even imagine the pyrotechnics show that we’re in for now that he’s had a run-in with the business end of her sword.
#i've had the nail biting = step six thing percolating since pre-nona days#but the chain of a kiss part didn't hit me until the other day#at which point i quite literally froze in my tracks to process#i can't really blame harrow though. breaking into an apocalypse-initiating tomb would be a real nail-biter#(sorry i just think puns are funny automatically)#i do think there's a good chance they were already partway to lyctorhood by the time they got to the First#pre-lyctors. if you will.#nona the ninth spoilers#ntn#harrowhark nonagesimus#john gaius#gideon nav#alecto#alecto the ninth#the locked tomb#tlt#tlt meta
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The reason why the toh fandom can have such wildly diverging interpretations of the Wittebane story is because the show did not do its job. How old was Philip when Caleb left? Did Caleb truly believe in witch hunting or was he just playing along to what the town expected? Did Caleb ever tell Philip anything? Did he ever talk to his brother and try to change his mind? How long was Philip searching for Caleb? How did he get cursed? How exactly did the knife fight start? Did Philip kill Caleb accidentally or on purpose? Did he kill him only because he married a witch or because he left him? Or both?
The fact is, we don't have definitive answers to any of these. We only have educated guesses based on portraits barely glimpsed in the show that lack any context, Masha's barebones version of events, and Belos' self-justifications. Casual fans shouldn't have to be knee-deep in fandom just to get the main villain's backstory, especially when said story is the literal basis of the whole plot.
Plus, if you're going to spend the final half of your last season barely exploring the villain's origins, only to completely ignore it in the series finale, then you've written a bad ending.
Update: This is getting some notes so I'm including additional thoughts to the original post. The rest will be under the read more:
Just to add onto this because some folks argue that we don’t need his backstory because we already have the essentials or it’s not really important to the plot. The thing is though is that Belos’ story launches the entire plot of the show, his character and motivation are the direct result of actions that happened centuries before the main characters were born. It needs to be depicted and not largely inferred.
His story is important to creating a more fleshed out character and can strengthen the themes of the show (the rivalry between Eda and Lilith and Luz struggling to fit in at home are parallels to Belos). Instead the show gives little kernels of his story and character that make him more interesting than just Evil Emperor (the fact that the brothers became witch hunters to fit in, the fact that Belos worst memories are of killing Caleb and making grimwalkers are never touched on again). The first (and last) time we see Caleb in a full scene is in For the Future and it has huge implications for the dynamic between the two brothers. But again, nothing is done with it. It seemed like the show was building up that Belos’ lies and self-justifications would lead to his undoing but it doesn’t. So him dying with his ideology and self-delusions intact feels empty.
The worst part of how the Wittebane story is handled is that since it’s largely inferred and you have to be pretty involved in fandom to have a more nuanced take of it, a casual fan can easily just accept other characters’ views on the matter. Masha says “looks like little bro was jealous of big bro” and it undercuts the story of the Wittebanes (to say nothing of the tonal whiplash). The Titan dismisses Belos as only caring for himself and to be the hero, which while technically true, misses a lot of context and makes it easy to dismiss Belos as a whole as simply being evil and crazy instead of a more layered villain. And it can’t be argued that these are just the characters’ perspectives and we shouldn’t take it at face value because there’s nothing really in the show to pushback against that.
Now, yes, it is fun to imagine how the Wittebane story played out and in hindsight, it’s probably better that the show didn’t depict the entire story because they probably would have botched it. But the point remains that the handling of this storyline was a mess (and don’t give me the cancellation excuse, the show learned early on about this and wrote all of 2B with it in mind). The Wittebane story and Belos as a whole showcase why setup and payoff matter. You show the villain feels guilt about their worst deeds? What’s the payoff to that? The villain was originally an outsider who tried to fit in and conformed to a town’s toxic ideologies? What’s the payoff? The villain continually lies to himself and commits atrocities to justify his actions? What’s the payoff?
If you’re going to raise interesting and thought-provoking questions then don’t give the audience a simplistic answer.
#toh critical#toh criticism#the owl house#emperor belos#philip wittebane#caleb wittebane#I don't want to hear any nonsense about belos not “deserving” a proper ending#if you spend two episodes adding new information and context#then that needs to pay off for the audience somehow#long post#post update
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@notstinglesstoo replied to your post “The thing is, and I haven't gotten a chance to...”:
I saw someone not long ago say cr has always felt like a product to them vs D20 feeling organic and I protected my peace but I did want to ask them if they were brain dead
Oh man I wanted to address this at length because I feel this. My posts have been centered, again, specifically on published journalists picking Daggerheart aprt critically and applauding themselves for doing so despite it being within a couple of hours of its release and therefore any analysis is necessarily going to be based on at best, a skim, when they just as frequently will claim D20 seasons/Kollok are flawless works of genius based on only a partial read, but man D20's got a fandom problem too. (and all of the following comes with the caveat of "I really enjoy D20, and Dropout, and while we're at it WBN and NADDPod which both are half D20 Intrepid Heroes cast, and think Brennan is a particularly brilliant GM, and also it's obvious that the D20 and CR casts are on great terms, and wish the fandom for D20 were more welcoming and enjoyable because I feel it wasn't like this when I first started watching, as a CR fan, in late 2019 and has since curdled into something really weird and bad.")
The first point is the obvious one: technically speaking these are both products. These are performers doing an art form; it is also a portion of how they make their money with which they can buy goods and services. Believing that art is inauthentic when the artist gets paid and acknowledges that is a thing that happens is a fucking libertarian position at best. Like cool, you think only people who are independently wealthy by other means can make art, because it's not real labor, my kid could paint that, etc etc.
The second point is also pretty obvious. I have pushed back pretty hard on the "uwu CR is just watching friends! it's like we're in their living room" mentality among the fandom, which has decreased, thankfully, but like...it did in fact start organically as a private home game, and they decided, when invited, to make it A Show For An Audience. D20 was created on purpose as a show for an audience. This doesn't make it bad or fake - reread the previous paragraph - but in terms of "this is an group of people who really played D&D in this world together even before the cameras were rolling," Critical Role literally is that, and D20 is not.
I think beyond that...my biggest issues with the D20 fandom are first, the level of discourse is abominable. The tag is almost always just shrieking praise and the most surface-level readings possible. I keep bringing up the "Capitalism is the BBEG" mug but it genuinely sums up so much of how I feel; people who want their existing beliefs fed to them as surface-level no-nuance takes. I mean capitalism is fucking terrible but I do not need every work I watch to have a character turn to the camera and say "capitalism is bad" to enjoy myself, and indeed it makes it harder due to the lack of subtlety and grace. For all D20 fans complain about how unhealthily parasocial CR fans can be (and some can be), I find that a lot of the most unhealthily parasocial "how dare they BETRAY my TRUST by having a ship I don't like or not speaking up about every single societal ill" ex-CR fans move over to D20 and then pull the exact same shit; it simply doesn't get called out. Every time D20 fans are like "we don't want to become the CR fandom" it's like "your toxic positivity and unhealthy parasocial behavior exceeds the HEIGHT of what I've seen in CR; the main difference is that CR started in 2015 when D&D was still shaking off the raging bigot dudebros and so in the early days it acquired more of those fans, whereas by the time D20 came around the landscape of who played D&D and watched Actual Play had shifted wildly, and you need to judge September 2018 D20 fans in parallel to September 2018 CR fans, not September 2015 CR fans."
I also feel, and I alluded to this in the post about journalism, and other people have said this better than I have, but the pedestal people have put D20 on does feel like a single...not even misstep, but just, difficult choice that doesn't capitulate to the loudest fans will bring a good chunk of that fandom crashing to the ground. And that includes the journalists. For all the fans of CR can still be obsessed with the cast to an unhealthy degree? The cast and company have put up pretty strong boundaries and have not budged. D20 hasn't, and I think the second they do - and I think it will be for their benefit as a company and a channel - a big chunk of their most vitriolic CR-hating portion of the fandom will viciously turn on them.
#notstinglesstoo#nonrebloggable bc god it's hell week for me i know i've been shooting off opinions bc that is how i blow off steam#but like. i can't have this break containment i got shit to do
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Is there any love in heaven?
I’ve been thinking about writing about this for a while, because it’s a major point in the characters of both Aziraphale and Crowley – although this is mostly about Crowley because it relates to something else I'm writing. It’s also all my opinion, I totally understand why other people have a different opinion and a different reading of things that happen in GO, so please don’t be offended by any of this. I'm prepared for the fact that I might be totally wrong, and that's okay too.
Anyway, is it possible that Crowley feels horribly about his fall because he has been torn from the grace and love of heaven and the Almighty? Well, anything’s possible. But also…
What love?
Look at these angels.
Are you seriously suggesting to me that they in any way feel loved? They haven’t got the first clue about love. They don’t feel it. They don’t experience it. They don’t know what it is. The Almighty does not love them.
Angels in GO were created to be servants of the Almighty. They are there to do her will and make sure the Great Plan is carried out. They aren’t her children. She isn’t coddling them like a parent or even loving them as equals or friends. She treats them as servants, or at best as members of her political party.
How do we know they don’t understand love?
We know from season two that the angels have no idea how human romantic love works. Aziraphale has to explain the concept as “what humans do” and Michael et al clearly have no context for this piece of information. They don’t even understand that “miracles don’t work like that” (even Crowley doesn’t appear to know this interestingly). Later on Crowley is able to trick Muriel, and then by extension Michael and Uriel, into believing human love works in a certain way (“you can only tell if people are in love by waiting a few days because humans are weird and that’s how it works”). So it’s fairly obvious that there is no concept of romantic love in heaven.
So this is all very well, but of course, the Almighty wouldn’t have romantic love for the angels, so it could be plausible they wouldn’t understand that but would still understand other types of love. Except…
The archangels, and even Muriel, see nothing wrong with depriving Job and Sitis of their children. They literally don’t understand the bonds of any sort of love that might exist between two beings.
Aziraphale understands because he has been on earth and has seen first-hand the way in which humans form bonds of love. He knows of the love between two humans and between a parent and child. When he tries to explain this to the archangels all he can come up with is “I think they quite like the old ones”. If there was some parallel to be drawn between any sort of love the Almighty might bestow on the angels then he would absolutely have used that to help explain what Job was going to feel at the loss of his children, but he doesn’t, because the parallel doesn’t exist – the angels know nothing of love.
But Aziraphale recognises love when he feels it in Tadfield?
Sure. He’s been on earth a long time. He knows what love is and as a being of goodness it seems he can sense very strong good emotions. He loves things himself in many different ways (books, food, Crowley, humans) and recognises that what he feels for them is love in different forms. He’s learnt what love is through being on earth.
Also just because the Almighty isn’t bestowing her love on her angels doesn’t mean that she made them without the capacity for love. (Even Gabriel clearly has the capacity to love.) It’s possible she wanted them to worship her, or at least be obedient to her, and that in the early days this obedience was not intended to be the obedience of fear, but the obedience of gratitude and perhaps respect or obligation.
In fact the word that would best describe this would be devotion. The angels were supposed to be devoted to the Almighty and to her Great Plan. They were supposed to be devoted to their purpose, unquestioning and obedient. Devotion is not the same as love, especially when it only goes one way, and of course when a relationship only goes one way the relationship either fades away entirely or becomes twisted over time.
Could this be a new thing?
Is it possible that when they were first created the Almighty did love her angelic creations? Well possibly. I’m sure she was pleased with them. I’m sure at first they were delightful to her. None of this is the same as suffusing them with her love.
When Aziraphale and angel-who becomes-Crowley meet in S2E1 we see them both as they were before the fall happened. Do either of them seem like they are basking in the love of an Almighty being? Not to me they don’t. Aziraphale is his usual lovely self, but he’s already nervous and knows that you can get into trouble, even in this pre-earth era. Crowley appears to have been completely absorbed by his star building project and barely paying attention to the Almighty or what she’s doing. Again, they are servants who have been given orders, or members of a political party who are out working in their constituencies, following the general party line, but mostly just getting on with their jobs. Aziraphale also knows they risk getting fired or punished if they invoke displeasure in their superiors – he’s not a being who is confident in the protection and safety of some divine love.
Also if the angels had once had the love of the Almighty and then lost it you’d think they might mention it at some point? Certainly Aziraphale might mention or hint or act in some way like that had happened. But he doesn’t, because it very likely hasn’t. Also when he thinks he’s fallen after lying to Gabriel about Job’s children if he had some sense of love from the Almighty he would know in this moment that he had not lost that love and that he was not fallen. And note here that he says, “I’m a fallen angel!” because he thinks he’s already fallen. He’s not expecting the fall to happen when Crowley arrives, nor when he actually steps into hell itself, he thinks it’s already a done deal and that it happened the moment he lied. There’s no way he wouldn’t know that falling involved losing the love and grace of the Almighty if it did in fact involve that – it would be a point widely advertised and feared in heaven, it would be something used to keep the angels in line. But it isn’t, because it doesn’t happen. There’s no love to lose.
What does this mean for Crowley’s fall?
Well for a start it means he isn’t carrying around some hang up over having been divinely loved and then having this ripped away from him. At most he is feeling rejected by his employer or his political party leader, which I’m not saying isn’t something that would cause him to be hurt or upset, but it’s certainly less significant than losing something that equates to the human concept of motherly or divine love.
Also to me for all that Crowley says, “I didn’t mean to fall” and “all I did was ask questions,” he clearly chose to do so – he chose to keep asking, even knowing the consequences. He picked a side in the war and must have at least in part known what picking that side meant. He knew he wasn’t siding with the Almighty and he did so of his own free will. Choice is a major theme in Good Omens – Crowley made a choice between two sides and picked the one that he saw as the better option at the time (not the perfect option, he doesn’t much like hell either, but I think he liked that they weren’t pretending to be something they’re not). He repeatedly makes it clear throughout the series that he does not regret this choice. He doesn’t want to go back. He thinks heavens rules and actions are ridiculous. Yes he’d love to get the chance to ask the Almighty a few questions, but only because he wants to know what the fuck they were thinking with this whole ridiculous plan.
When he “prays” to the Almighty it’s not really praying, it’s not a sign of faith, he’s just lamenting at a person he knows exists that he thinks is doing stupid things. He’s basically putting in a complaint to head office, though he knows the CEO isn’t actually going to be replying. He never asks her for anything, he simply asks questions, gives his opinion and makes suggestions. “Show me a Great Plan” – there’s nothing great about this plan, what are you playing at? Show me a better one. “You said you were going to be testing them, but you shouldn’t test them to destruction” – I remember you said you were going to do this, but it completely sucks, it’s rubbish, you’re doing the wrong thing yet again in my opinion.
What Crowley regrets and hates is that any of them were forced to choose sides in the first place. We see this most clearly after he thinks he’s lost Aziraphale in the bookshop fire. He knows where Aziraphale has gone – to heaven – the one place he can’t follow, and it’s then that he laments, “I didn’t mean to fall.” Except he did mean to (he’s an unreliable narrator about the whole thing). What this is is the point at which he regrets falling because he realises that the choice he made so long ago has now separated him forever from the one being he actually cares about. Crowley’s default reaction when something goes wrong is to say he didn’t mean it to happen. It’s ironic that a demon who thinks everyone should get a choice denies his own informed choices at every turn, but then Crowley also believes in second chances for everyone. (Look how many chances he gives Aziraphale, then there’s Elspeth and even Job’s children, who, Jemimah excepted, are self-centred brats – they all deserve a second chance at life according to Crowley). He didn’t get one himself and I think that’s what he’s really upset about. I picked my side but there shouldn’t be sides at all and I shouldn’t have fallen because I should have been given another chance.
Any other points?
Yes, a completely contradictory one that goes back to the idea of the withdrawal of love being a new thing where all angels once were loved and this has been withdrawn from them all. I’ve given this some extra consideration partly because whilst there definitely doesn’t seem to be a concept of the fall being traumatic in the original book it’s not totally beyond the realms of possibility that Neil might be retrofitting the story and might play that angle a little in the last series and I wanted to think about how that might go. Since there doesn’t seem to be any love in heaven now I can’t imagine any scenario where this isn’t an all or nothing loss of love.
I’m just going restate right here that for the reasons I mentioned earlier I’m dubious about it ever becoming a thing – pre-fall Aziraphale and Crowley do not seem to be basking in heavenly love, but for the sake of this argument let’s imagine for a second that they are. Let’s imagine the Almighty created the angels and surrounded them with her divine love and grace.
Maybe after the war in heaven the Almighty is so hurt by the rebellion of some of her angels (because nothing can hurt you like the slight of someone you love deeply) that she withdraws her love entirely from all of them. Maybe that’s why the archangels are so bitter and twisted – they were the most loved, they have lost the most. Perhaps all angels are all living under this shadow of having been loved once upon a time but having had that love withdrawn. Maybe that’s why the angels stick so rigidly to the party line – perhaps in a way they are all traumatised. If we can just be good enough, if we can be perfect enough, if we can get the plan exactly right, maybe we will earn back the love of the Almighty.
If that’s the scenario then that’s the greatest tragedy of them all.
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"Holiness Hoodoo: Rediscovering Ancestral Roots Without Jesus"
The term "Holiness Hoodoo" may leave some people puzzled, so allow me to clarify its meaning. In my view, Holiness Hoodoo represents a return to the traditional practices of my ancestral lineage, a way to decipher who I am and what my purpose entails. Many of our forebears were devout Christians, and this undeniable fact forms the backdrop of my spiritual journey. Despite the complex relationship that many Black Americans have with the Bible due to the scars of slavery, it's essential to remember that it wasn't the Bible itself that caused harm, but the people wielding it as a tool of oppression.
As I delved deeper into the realms of ancestral magic, I began to notice striking parallels with church practices. To some, I seemed too "churchy" for hoodoo, and to others, too "hoodoo" for the church—there appeared to be no middle ground. However, I've come to understand that my connection to my ancestors is the cornerstone of my spiritual practice. I've realized that perhaps the reason some individuals struggle to communicate with their spirits is that they try to venerate them through African traditions, tarot, or other methods their ancestors might not recognize.
The Bible, as a potent tool in hoodoo, is not revered because we live by its teachings but because it contains powerful scriptures. My mother, for instance, believed in Jesus, yet she was a practitioner of hoodoo—a tongue-speaking, spirit-conjuring woman. Her approach, which I now embrace, is what I refer to as "Holiness Hoodoo."
So, what does Holiness Hoodoo look like for me?
1. Setting the Atmosphere:
I play inspirational or gospel music that resonates with my specific needs, allowing it to fill my home as I clean, pray, or perform spiritual work. Gospel music serves as a direct conduit to my ancestral spirits, and sometimes, when I hear a song I haven't listened to in a while, an ancestor's presence is assured.
2. Keeping a Bible on the Altar:
While I don't read the Bible frequently, I keep it open to the Psalms as an offering to my spirits. The Bible also serves as a powerful tool of protection, and specific verses and pages can function as talismans and petitions.
3. Baptisms:
Baptism, in my lineage, is a ritual practice to wash ourselves of sins and start anew. It's not just for babies; it can also cleanse generational curses and traumas passed down from parents.
4. Shouting:
Listening to gospel music, I engage in the practice of shouting, a form of ecstatic dance that connects me with my spirits. This practice fills me with light and often results in downloads of ancestral wisdom.
5. Laying of Hands:
I perform the laying of hands, a practice I'll discuss in more detail in the future. It's distinct from Reiki and is a significant part of my spiritual tradition.
6. Fasting:
Fasting is a part of my spiritual practice, serving as a means of both elevating my spiritual consciousness and cleansing my body. I firmly believe that one's health plays a pivotal role in their spiritual journey.
Holiness Hoodoo is about preserving the traditions of our ancestors and finding connections with them. It doesn't rely on dogma or strict religious doctrine; instead, it is a pathway to tap into the wisdom and spirituality that has been passed down through generations. In this practice, there is no room for being "too churchy" or "too hoodoo"—it's about embracing the rich tapestry of our heritage and harnessing it for a profound and authentic spiritual experience.
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#hoodoo#medium#ancestor veneration#witch#rootwork#black women#conjure#prophet#tutnese#luxury#traditional hoodoo#holiness
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A while back, I mentioned I was going to do a Rook post because he’s incredibly sus haha. Not gonna lie, I almost forgot about it ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡ @voidlesslove, this one is for you! Thanks for reminding me because I think the results I found CHANGE EVERYTHING!!
Rook is a…strange boy, to say the least. As Epel describes him, the more you know about him, the more mysterious he is. However, Rook is incredibly honest and true to himself. He genuinely believes in the beauty in the world. It’s fitting he’s part of the ‘light magic trio’ that includes Kalim and Silver.
I am certain that there is a purposeful parallel between Rook and CROWLEY. Sounds weird, but Rook is one of the many keys to getting a glimpse of Crowley’s true personality. I’d say it’s to the point that Rook and Crowley are two sides of the same coin. I went through so many chats, vignettes, main story, and events to gather info for this, so I’d like to think that there is a connection 😭
Let’s start off the with basics. Rook, Crowley. Both names are a reference to the birds from the Corvid family: Rooks and Crows. Funnily enough, Crows tend to be solitary compared to the sociable Rooks. How fitting. The TWST wiki mentions how Rook could also be a reference to the chess piece, which resembles a castle. The wiki also mentions that Rook’s name being from the Corvid family might also be a reference to the Evil Queen’s pet crow.
It’s likely the reason why both of them make avian references. In Rook’s flight lessons, he often expresses the desire to fly and to be free, but interestingly enough, Book 5 has him make a lot of egg and chick references.
It’s more obvious in the JP text, but Crowley makes many, MANY egg and chick references. He views the students as eggs with unhatched potential- which makes him somewhat of a father figure, as he wishes to raise them.
In Book 5, Rook goes off on a tangent on how he views the others as unhatched chicks with potential- and how they each have an “egg tooth” that is unique to them. Since he’s also serving as a mentor figure to us, it makes sense that he sees us as baby birds or eggs. Coincidence?? I THINK NOT.
This may be a throwaway line, but I think it’s still another similarity. “With masks, we are free.” To Rook, Crowley is probably the one with the most freedom. From the way he flys, uses magic, and hides behind a mask, Crowley is free while everyone else is caged. (Credit to Ekala on YouTube for this Glorious Masquerade translation)
Side note, I’m a huge fan of the ‘Rook is a bird beastman’ theory, because no regular human could hear heartbeats or see far away things in detail without a binocular. But it makes me wonder- if Crowley was a bird FAE- and the Fae already have heightened senses- would he have Rook’s level of perception?? Kind of creepy to think about haha…
I believe that their similar references and themes set up Rook to be a character that has a greater understanding of Crowley than we ever could. However, there’s a catch- While Rook is honest and true, Crowley putting up an act, a facade. Or to be more specific, an enemy hiding in plain sight. Rook says many things that actually allude to this, and it’s very fascinating. If Crowley were to be revealed to be a traitor or a villain, Rook will be the character that will immediately understand Crowley’s motives- or even warn the others before the truth is revealed.
Book 6 is the most obvious hint. Rook mentions how hiding doesn’t signify weakness or cowardice. It’s just another strategic move to create bigger damage- by striking the enemy down when their guard is down.
And what has Crowley been doing this whole time? In the beginning, he seemed very reliable and mysterious. But over time, he pushes more work into MC, covering up Overblots, and generally makes himself look like a blubbering fool.
Yet the mystery is still there. He hides himself behind Yuu and just makes himself seem incompetent to the point that no student or player feels like they could rely on him. But Crowley is waiting for the right time to strike- he’s been Headmage for NRC for at least 100 years, and who knows how old he actually is. He’s successful and powerful for a reason. And in another post I made, Crowley is a “clever hawk who hides his talons.”
Another clue was how Rook says “many beasts and BIRDS use vocal mimicry to lure their prey.” Very…specific, don’t you think? Again, another tactic. Crowley actually has a surprising vocal range depending on his emotions. Compare the voice in the prologue to Crowley sobbing or being overly flamboyant and frustrated. My man has RANGE, and definitely uses it to his advantage to make himself appear weaker.
This hint was far more subtle, but sometimes that really intrigues me. When an Special Lesson is triggered when Rook is in an Alchemy lesson, he may say that “I feel as though I’m the quarry.” Aka Crowley’s prey. Rook definitely prides himself on being a hunter, how no prey can escape him, how he openly wants Leona to bite into his windpipe (this boy need help-). But no matter how threatening his prey is, Aka Malleus, Leona, the Tweels, Rook never feels like he’s the one being hunted. In fact, the more dangerous and defiant they are, the more he wants to chase them (he says this in a Ghost Marriage card line).
But the one character that Rook feels like he’s prey to is…Crowley? Hm. Interesting
This last hint was a blink-and-you-miss-it one, but it’s SO INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT, and cements the idea that Rook understands Crowley to a t.
A true enemy will never look over you…it is he who hovers in your periphery with a smile that you must be wary of.
In EVERY SINGLE ANIMATION, Crowley is always smiling. In the opening movie, in the anniversaries, he’s never interacting with any character, yet still has a smile on his face.
Many people in the fandom think Crowley is a deadbeat, lazy, coward, weaklings, etc. And you know what? It’s true to an extent, because that’s exactly what Crowley wants us to believe. And the more everyone believes it, the more he smiles.
(Aka my dramatic ass has to end with a dramatic ass line haha. But seriously, my mind is BLOWN AWAY from all this information, and I genuinely believe that these two parallel each other. But what do y’all think?? I was going to mention somewhere that Rook transferred from Savannaclaw, thus needing a private ritual, but I didn’t think it was too relevant 🤔 I could toss in a theory that Rook collects so much information to relay to Crowley, but he’s much too honest to do something like that? I’m not sure if Rook and Crowley have a LITERAL connection to each other, but there’s certainly something symbolic.)
#appreciate the meme I made for this post abxhdbbs#twst dire Crowley#dire Crowley#twst Crowley#twst Headmage#twst rook hunt#twst rook#rook hunt#twst theory#twst#twisted wonderland#KallistoPost
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Talking about Saiki and SA here a bit, btw, just a warning~
Thinking about how you said Saiki was a victim of SA and you’re literally so right. I feel like people sometimes just blow right past the fact that Kusuke is like that with his brother, but I think it can add a lot to interpretations of his character. But even if it only goes as far as what is shown in canon — which I almost doubt — it still remains the fact that Kusuke is doing all of that knowing fully well that his brother can hear him. It’s literally sexual harassment.
People point it out more often with Teruhashi and her brother (back to the reasons you said, people think it’s more serious if it happens to women). But the things he does, that’s all sexual harassment. And yet when Kusuke does similar things, it’s often brushed aside. Just,,, a bit crazy to me.
(And that’s not even mentioning when people completely disregard this part of Teruhashi’s story and act like she’s one-dimensional,,, but that’s another story)
But all this to say you’re literally so right. Anyways love you mwah =^•w•^=
THANK YOU SO MUCH. I NEEDD PEOPLE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THIS MORE.
(heed the sa warning + abuse and incest warning before opening, i talk a LOT here.. im mostly just reiterating what happens directly in the manga though.. ALSO EXTREMELY LONG POST WARNING..)
I always viewed kokomi and makoto + kusuo and kusuke as like.. paralleling each other ? not sure if thats the right word, but IMMEDIATELY when i saw both of these dynamics i made the connection.. i guess since it was so clear to me, i assumed that it was so obvious and on purpose that everyone else knew too, but so many people just.. ignore it..
i think most people that read/watch saiki k have recognized the fact that most main characters are meant to parallel or relate to saiki in at least some way, (if anyone who doesnt know what im talking about is reading this, im sure at least someone on here has done a better breakdown on that, i just.. dont know where to find that..) but this particular connection is one i dont see often and i genuinely believe that its almost entirely because of the whole "sexual assault/harassment isnt as serious when it happens to men as when it happens to women" thing.. most of the fandom acknowledge that what makoto does is awful and kokomi is a victim, so why is it different when its kusuke and kusuo ??
its EXACTLY the same.. what we see on screen with the saikis is WORSE, actually.. and what WE see from these two relationships isnt the full extent of what the two victims experience off screen, and i strongly believe that its heavily implied that both kokomi and kusuo have been through much worse with their brothers than whats shown..
we have no idea what kusuke couldve done BEFORE moving away and creating the telepathy canceler (and dont say that he couldnt have done anything cuz they were kids, cocsa [child on child sa] is still a thing and still valid, ESPECIALLY since they were both kid geniuses and kusuke definitely KNEW better.. but yea, kusuo implies that hes been like that for a long time, way before we ever saw them, sooo..) and its highly likely that whatever happened that we didnt see, before or after the move, was WORSE than what he does ON screen (i honestly dont want to think about what a guy with an incestual obsession with his brother does with cameras everywhere in his brothers home..) and what we see him do is already insane..
literally using his brother to get off, manipulating him and forcing him to play the games that give him sexual pleasure.. actually, speaking of, ive seen some people say that what kusuke does isnt really incest because the only reason he uses kusuo is because hes a masochist and kusuo is the only person that can overpower him.. this is a total misfire LOL, his upbringing alongside kusuo and his relationship with him is the REASON that hes a masochist, the ENTIRE REASON why thats what he gets off to.. its not just CONVENIENT that kusuo is there to get him off, he SPECIFICALLY seeks kusuo out and forces him to do things that give him sexual pleasure.. he believes that kusuo is the only person in the world that can ever give him sexual pleasure, what about that doesnt sound incestuous?
and one of the worst parts of it is, kusuo BARELY acknowledges how weird it is.. in fact, he's COMPLACENT in a lot of the games, obedient even, being bribed into them the same way he does with simple things like bringing kuniharu to work.. this is the biggest reason why i believe the off-screen stuff is probably worse, because kusuo is obviously conditioned to think that letting your brother get off to you is just.. fine.. we hardly see him try to get away from this situation beyond simply calling him gross.. theres one moment during the cat tank situation where kusuke tries to get him to grab the limiter off of his crotch specifically so that he can see him in that position and kusuo looks terrified and cant do it, BUT its unclear whether the expression of fear was entirely his concentration because he didnt wanna break the limiter or because he didnt want to let his brother get off to that, and i think its mostly the former ? idk, i dont remember this part that well but im preeeetty sure..
he does acknowledge that MAKOTOS behavior is bad when he sees it, but he never thinks its a big enough deal that he needs to help her or anything, (except for maybe the okinawa situation) which i know is probably just for the sake of not letting the gag manga get too serious, BUT it can also be explained pretty easily by this whole thing.. the way kokomi is treated is literally the same way kusuo lives his life, even down to their incestuous brother being possessive to the point of berating their potential love interests.. (which in this case happened to be each other, kusuo and kokomi..)
so yeah, kusuo just. doesnt really know how bad it actually is ? or maybe he does, but doesnt acknowledge it because he doesnt WANT to.. him barely acknowledging it and being complacent is part of why some people dont really get that its sa and incest, but his complacency obviously plays a big part in how its effected him too, like thats purposeful.. like i said, hes been CONDITIONED not to acknowledge it..
to me, it looks like a classic situation in which kusuo doesn't acknowledge his trauma because he knows that if he did, it would change his outlook on his life, his family, and his childhood FOREVER. he would never be willing to tell anyone or ask for help on his own accord, and accepting that there was anything wrong in the first place means, to him, dealing with that issue by himself for the rest of his life.
why would he ever admit that anything was wrong if nothing would change either way? the only thing that WOULD change is HIM, and why would he want that? isnt it better to be blissfully unaware than to knowingly suffer in silence?
plus, he genuinely does love his brother and knows in the back of his mind that kusukes feelings toward him comes from their unhealthy upbringing and relationship and its more complex than just "hes an evil guy blah blah.." because he isnt really evil and kusuo KNOWS that.. actually, he might be the only person in the world who COULD understand..
so yeahhhh.. kokomi and kusuo are both CANONICALLY victims of sexual harassment.. (and incestual abuse at that..) and, by my interpretation, implied victims of sa as well !! (im not really sure where the line can be when it comes to this sometimes, like when your brother sniffs your bedsheets and rubs himself on them or gets off to you right in front of your face or tries to get you to grab something positioned over his crotch so he can see you in.. THAT position.. but i already said that its pretty likely that both brothers have gone farther than that off-screen..)
anywayyyy.. this is so important to me and i wish people would talk and write about it more instead of pretending it never happened and mischaracterizing every one of these characters, especially for the sake of a ship like i was talking about in my other post.. it sucks that people so often just cast kusuos canon issues aside..
#i really wish this was talked about more..#i referenced a really old draft to write this that i never posted because i couldnt figure out the phrasing#so thank you for giving me the opportunity to finally talk about this in detail lol#saiki k#tdlosk#the disastrous life of saiki k.#saiki kusuo#saiki kusuke#teruhashi kokomi#teruhashi makoto#sa tw#incest tw#abuse tw#meows post#meownalysis
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on the ‘accidental’ buddie
I have to laugh at these 911 writers trying to play coy, giving interviews saying things like “well we didn’t really intend to play into [Eddie’s strong reaction towards Buck’s death/parallels to the well/etc]” because, like, as someone who’s worked on audiovisual that’s not how the production of a tv show works??
What I mean by that is that his episode, and particularly that last call, was filled with a lot of deliberate choices.
And I mean choices. Choices were made.
Because someone decided that both Buck and Eddie would be wearing red harnesses for this event. See how Chim isn’t harnessed? Even when he thought he’d be the one going up? That is a choice someone made in the costume department. To have Buck and Eddie tied together by a red string [of fate].
That take of Eddie being the one to secure Buck’s harness to the line that would eventually save his life? A CHOICE. And I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Not only was it in the script (hell, maybe it wasn’t, heavens know things change from the page to filming), but someone in the photography team chose to frame a close-up to it, to take it (and believe me with how expensive those rain effects must have been, they were not doing just ‘any take’ lightly). And- and!! Someone from post-production chose to edit it in. Chose to have it there.
Eddie and Buck getting hit by the same lighting rod? A CHOICE. And the show runners can shrug all they want and say it only made sense because Eddie was manning the controls but who put him there? When you are writing, you are not leaving things to chance. You are creating a coherent narrative. Things don’t just ‘happen’.
And sure, yes, I will bite and say Ryan’s performance knocked it out of the park and maybe wasn’t like that on the script. He gave it his all because he knows his character. To say it just ‘happened’ is to undermine his capacity as an actor to make choices both in voice and physical that tell the audience something. Acting is about being hyperaware of those things.
You wanna know what is intentional, though? The way that scene is edited. THINK ABOUT IT. We see the lightning hit. We see Buck fall. We see the team’s shocked reaction to it. We’ve even seen Buck’s hanging body at this point. And yet, the camera stays on what? On Eddie. On Eddie getting up. On Eddie not seeing. On Eddie ready to get back to usual. And we get that close up —remember what I said about them not wasting on useless takes due to budget?— WELL we get to Eddie and we see his face, we see his reaction. And we go back to Buck. And we’ve already seen it! WE know! But Eddie doesn’t. Up until that moment, it doesn’t hit. And it’s then, it’s when it hits Eddie, that the music picks up and the story keeps moving.
And let me ask you: why? Television is an audiovisual medium. You use image, sound, and dialogue to create the story. It’s multi-lingual. It’s not just what’s in the script. It’s how you film it, it’s how you edit it, it’s which directions you give the actors and what you choose to use once it’s only you in the editing room with tons of footage. This story they are telling it’s a very very deliberate choice that involves a lot of people (costume, actors, cameras, editors, sound, marketing).
So when we see Eddie try to pull Buck back up, screaming, before he switches to letting him down? That’s a choice made in several steps along the way, red string and all, for it to get to your screen. When we see Eddie push Bobby out of the way to get to Buck, when we see Bobby pull him back, when we see Eddie looking back twice at Buck’s unconscious body and wipe his face before he gets into the ambulance? Choices, choices, choices, so many choices made by several people who had a ton of options, takes, versions, and chose to go with this one.
So, I’m sorry, but I cannot, for the life of me, take the writers/showrunners seriously when they say things like “well, I don’t think we really leaned into that on purpose”. JESUS CHRIST. Either stop playing coy or admit you suck at your job and don’t understand the process and that you are underestimating everyone working on this project!
And, just to be clear, I do not think that’s the case. I believe they are trying to play coy to keep people guessing their intentions. It’s just frustrating because I don’t think they realize that to anyone with a minimum background in audiovisual storytelling... they are just making themselves look bad at their job (when they probably aren’t!).
(WHERE IS THEIR PR DEPARTMENT?!)
#buddie#911 fox#eddie diaz#evan buck buckley#sofia's nonsense#sorry i've been thinking about this rant ALL DAY since i read the interviews#as a film major this BOTHERS ME#911 spoilers
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I'm not a fan of bridging Genshin and Honkai, but the authors seem to be doing it anyway, so... blame Hoyo for this post.
tl;dr of Honkai lore
At the core of Honkai's cosmogony are two concepts. The Imaginary Tree — a tree of branching parallel universes, each twig of which is a timeline and each leaf a world. And The Sea of Quanta — a boundless place of entropy and chaos from which the Imaginary tree spawned.
Order and chaos, basically. They exist in constant conflict, the tree tries to consume the sea of quanta and the sea tries to flood and dissolve the tree.
When a world fails to persist it can "fall" from the tree into the sea of quanta, becoming an unstable fragmented version of itself called a bubble universe. A shadow of a proper world. Such a universe is eventually dissolved in the sea.
Bubbles universes can also be artificially created or spawned from someone's memories. Either way they are unstable. If I recall correctly, Genshin was confirmed to be a bubble universe in a Honkai 3rd easter egg.
Ether Anchors
There's a technology allowing to extend a bubble universe's lifespan, is called an Ether Anchor. An Ether Anchor holds together fragments of a bubble universe that follow a fixed set of laws.
It seems to be more of a place/space anomaly than an object (“a topological formation that exists between the dimensional manifolds”), if I understood Durandal's and Roland's lore correctly, but also can take the form of an object, if honkai wiki is to be believed.
(I think space anomalies are anchor points, not the anchor itself? the places where it sews fragments of reality together. I'm still figuring this part out)
Quotes from Durandal VN summary:
At the core of the Ether Anchor, space from different dimensions were cluttered together like vines
"There, he witnessed the endless possibilities of another ancient world. "
Tartaglia's character story 4
Readjusted her body composition with the Ether Anchor to turn herself into a weapon.
I think there was a guy in Genshin who constantly talks about turning himself into a weapon. I can't quite remember his name though...
Synchronized themselves with the Ether Anchor, becoming the “Son of God” itself.
"The purpose of this line in the ritual scripture is to forsake the self and sink into the abyss, and in the abyss, to welcome rebirth as a holy infant."
Narcissenkreuz Ordo note
Another property of the Ether Anchor is that it allows bubble universes to interact with one another.
Or maybe not exactly different bubble universes but rather fragments of the same bubble universe (or, since we are in a multiverse, these could be the same thing)?
"Unborn life, unfulfilled wishes,
Tragic dreams at the edge of the universal darkness that could never come true."
Festering Desire description
Ok, this is getting too long and no one reads long posts. Maybe I'll continue in a separate post later. There are still the topics of the Abyss (and why it's not The Sea of Quanta), Descenders, whether the anchors need to be sustained in some way, Tsaritsa's goals, why does everyone who has seen the Abyss speaks of ultimate injustice, Alice and Hexenzirkel in general, what is Irminsul exactly, and, of course, Childe, why Childe's promise of a battle at the edge of the universe is more important than it might seem, what are world cycles, and why Childe's part of 4.2 story sucked so much (I now have a Lore Explanation. or maybe a copium overdose. probably both).
For now I'm calling it though. Whatever Khaenri'ahns messed up, it had to do something with Teyvat's Aether Anchor.
#I have connected the dots#genshin x honkai#hsr#genshin lore tumour#genshin impact#childe#tartaglia#if abyss be thy name I pledge to you my loyalty#honkai#genshin tinfoil#khaenri'ah#narcissenkreuz conspiracy#narcissenkreuz#okay I actually started to digthe concept of bridging two universes while writing that post#it's a fun version of multiverse#Durandal's story also speaks of the possibility of reconnecting a bubble universe with the imaginary tree#also one can contain the Ether Anchor in themselves#becoming a god of the current universe and rewriting the rules of the world#does it ring a bell?#meanwhile childe is still an uther doul reference#all of the above#also maybe gnoses are anchor points#the power I represent cares not for new crobuzon
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Hi,
Hope you are doing well. Thank you for the response on Azula.
One of the things that I have seen on TSR, which you have also re-blogged was about Katara watching her culture being wiped out because of the raids. It actually makes her a victim of genocide, just like Aang, because she is in essence the last Southern Waterbender, till Hama shows up in Book 3.
I get the feeling that Sokka, who wants a logical explanation for everything, did not understand that.
Do you think there should have an episode where he gets to understand how important waterbending is to Katara, similar in concept to the episode "Sokka's Master"? Or an episode where he learns to deal with the grief of his mother's death?
I would like your thoughts on this.
I sat on this ask for a bit thinking about it because I think you hit on something about the way the show portrays Katara's relationship with her cultural heritage in general that kinda bugs me. Waterbending is a big part of that heritage and is tied to spirituality in the atla universe. Sokka's dismissal of Katara's bending in the first episode as "freaky magic water" is related to the dichotomy the show sets up to characterize both Sokka and Katara and to introduce us to the atla world. Katara, who represents hope and the magic of this world, Sokka who represents logic and cynicism. There's also a gendering of values here. Sokka believes in logic and physical skills like hunting which are commonly associated with men, while Katara is linked to the spiritual through her bending, water being a common symbol for the feminine. Even waterbending itself is based on Tai Chi, a more feminine martial art (which makes it kind of funny that the North forbids female waterbenders from learning it.)
The show has Katara call out Sokka's misogyny on a shallow level, but a lot of the fandom exaggerates Sokka learning not to be so sexist, which isn't so much an arc as it is something that the show occasional calls out when it wants to. Sokka learns to respect Suki because he loves her, but he still makes sexist jokes and never becomes an advocate for women or anything like that. Even his learning about the spiritual side of water tribe culture happens through Yue and not his actual waterbending sister.
It is unfortunate that a lot of Katara's associations with waterbending as a part of her cultural heritage are negative. If I were to make a parallel to Sokka learning from Piandao, the obvious choice is Hama as someone Katara learns a lot from, but that learning is associated with trauma. Even Katara learning how to heal was traumatic and resulted in her getting burnt, and whenever she uses her healing it's in a dire situation. This is also a good counterpoint to those who say it's a good thing that Katara in LoK gave up fighting because she associated it with trauma. The moments when Katara uses her healing are not less traumatic.
Do you know what would have been interesting? More acknowledgment of the importance of waterbending both for spiritual purposes and practical ones. Remember when Katara tried to catch a fish with her waterbending in episode one? That seems like something that a community that relies so much on fishing should be more aware of, doesn't it? Why is hunting and fishing seen as something only men do, if that ability exists?
Give me also Katara learning how to create vast ice structures after visiting the north and bringing that knowledge back to her village. Imagine what they could accomplish with Katara's bending and Sokka's engineering knowledge combined.
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26. freebie question, a good while back (before the party split) you mentioned that a possibly interesting ship would be Imogen/FCG. Obviously canon has not gone that direction, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on Imogen and FCG's relationship :D
It is interesting because Imogen hasn't interacted with FCG a ton. I think that friendship sort of fizzled out once FCG started believing in their personhood and particularly after they began building a relationship with the Changebringer. Imogen was not terribly supportive of that (possibly jealous, or possibly just not sure how to engage with it) and so there really hasn't been much.
They are really interesting as parallels, actually, though actually pretty much everyone in the party except for Orym and Chetney fit in this to some degree. Like Imogen (and Fearne), FCG was given particular powers by a megalomaniacal entity, for the purpose of furthering those goals. I think Predathos grants somewhat more agency to loyal Ruidusborn than Aeor entrusted FCG with, though that is to be seen, but there's something very tragic, in my mind, from Imogen's perspective, about how FCG was the tool of a destroyed empire, and so while he still carries those scars and consequences, he actually does have the freedom to be his own person. FCG has to manage a serious chronic condition, essentially, but they don't have missions, and unless some of the wilder theories are right (and they could be, though I have my doubts) the ones who did this to them are long dead. Is this her future? Will she be left with dreams and telepathy even if they defeat Predathos? Will they be the upsides (controllable sorcery powers) or the downsides (nightmares, uncontrollable sorcery powers)? Why did FCG get to just sleep through the hard part and she has to fight her way out?
It really is a fascinating thing about the party: Fearne and FCG were designed to be who they are (though Fearne's upbringing at least was her own). Ashton was partially created in a cult ritual (though it remains unclear if they were the intended recipient or merely the one it happened to stick to). I don't think Imogen was planned a la Fearne, but I do wonder if Predathos or the Weave Mind did specifically target Liliana to ensure her daughter would also be Ruidusborn. While the nature of Laudna's sorcery abilities hasn't come up (and, to be fair, a lot of sorcery abilities in D&D are just like "well that happened to your baby, idk what to tell you") she was used by Delilah for that as well. So much of this party shares this with Imogen and FCG but I think they are the most extreme examples (Fearne is mostly unaffected physically/mentally though obviously learning of her origins is unsettling and upsetting, and Ashton and Laudna's situations mostly hurt them and not as often others, though Laudna's is increasingly a crapshoot) and I think as this became apparent and as they both grew more comfortable with who they were they sort of lost that connection.
They do still share a lot of powers though and I'd love to see them talk again - Laura and Sam always play off each other well, and those earlier interactions where they both tried to read each other's thoughts, or coordinate probing Ashton or Ollie's mind, or the first casting of Shared Dream were all delightful - but they have drifted apart since.
#answered#ultimate-queen-of-fandoms2#critical role#character ask meme#maintagging this one because of the meta and because I don't think there's anything particularly salty or spicy in it#sorcery as congenital conditions...can we explore this. like not directly physically that could get iffy real quick but just like#the idea that some number of babies are just born with this. can we test for it in utero#(i think the people who dislike the ashari methods of not having ruidusborn are oddly conservative for this reason specifically)#(but i digress)#i've also talked a lot about how so many BH friendships remind me of like. some notable non-lasting friendships in my life#which is also a separate discussion#imogen temult#fcg
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"Sure. So for Geto it's mostly that I don't like villains with a bigoted ideology and he's too incompetent to even fall in the "love to hate" category. Really, the worst thing a villain can be is incompetent and Geto in Vol 0 is barely better than your average disney villain. Doesn't help that he never gets pushback on his ideals. Gojo tells him in Premature Death that killing people is bad, but that's it. He spouts his bullshit about how genocide is totally necessary and Yuuta stands there like "idk you might be right, but you want to kill people I care about and that's the real crime here". Nobody really engages with his ideology except Yuki I guess, but that was before he became an antagonist. I could forgive that to a degree if he was at least a real threat, but he isn't. You don't get any of that with Geto, he's not even fun to hate because he barely provides any pushback. He's a bad villain and I dislike him as a person as well. His descent into embracing the superiority of sorcerers and resolving to kill all non-sorcerers was well written, but I don't feel for him at all. Good riddance to the guy, I'm glad he's now dead both in body and mind."
I was so sad, when reading this, what do you think?
When previously asked about JJK Antagonists I didn't mention Geto even though... he is my favorite.
It should also be said that, in terms of scary movies, I love a good creature feature or a deluge into the supernatural but, the scariest movies to me? Will always be the ones with human villains because they're far more plausible.
That summation of Geto is that person's opinion so I, personally, am unmoved by it. I've seen so many piss poor interpretations of Gojo and Geto's characterizations that it's honestly just best to let the story play out so people can retroactively come to some sort of understanding. Moreover, I think there are a lot of people who struggle to concede that, between Gojo and Geto, there was always love. Without that, you can't understand his spiral, you can't acknowledge the humanity of the villain. Moreover, to not understand Geto is to not understand Gojo. And.. since JJK seems to very much be a circular parallel between SatoSugu and ItaFushi, if you can't understand them you miss the whole story.
I'd be curious what villain doesn't have a bigoted and/or radical ideology, especially in shonen? They're meant to be horrible and hard to empathize with. Unless that person's tolerance for villainy is Oikawa from Haikyuu? Most stories hinge on the main character espousing a piece of whatever makes villains.. villains. RE: Yuji being a cursed vessel, Denji being a devil, Tanjiro's proximity to demons, Eren being a titan, Kaneki being a ghoul... I'd argue Naruto and Nine Tails but literally haven't seen the show at all to confidently compare.
Even so, let's get into Geto.
Gorgeous, gorgeous boy. So earnest, so upright... so forged to break.
I recently went on a tirade about SatoSugu which I won't rehash here because... then I'll feel inclined to add more and no one wants to see an adult woman cry today.
As a character, Geto attempts to be incredibly principled. Design wise, he is stylized with features that liken him to Buddha which I think he individually plays into as well to give himself some sort of identity. From his long hanging lobes signifying wisdom and compassion capable of hearing the cries of the suffering, to his gentle chastising of Gojo's flippancy. He believes that the strong should protect the weak while also keeping the strong in check. But... how would a jujutsu outsider come to such a noble ideal?
We know next to nothing about Geto's parents except that they were not sorcerers and, based on his affectionate ability to recognize family beyond blood ties, I think it'd be fair to make some assumptions about what typically informs a characters predilection for the found family trope. 👀
His cursed technique, I think, creates an impetus for purpose. I don't know how he figured out he could do curse manipulation. But we know he swallows the curse, the likes of which is compared to a rag that had been used to mop up vomit, in order to subjugate it. This process, this martyrdom of ingesting the negative run off of mankind has to have a reason to justify his suffering. Because, as the only person we see with this technique, it must feel like a burden only he knows. Moreover, with a special class technique, it's not like he's given much of a choice. But if it helps people, if it has meaning, purpose... he can endure.
We've seen the perfect storm of events that, don't necessarily challenge his pre-existing ideals, but... force him to question whether the ends justify the means. We can call each of these events a moral injury and I don't think it's a stretch to say that there is a link between staunch morality and radicalism which I'm going to bastardize as saying a person may have their ideals on a righteous pedestal. Believing that if I do "A" and "B" then "C" is sure to follow and it allows them purpose and reason. But life is seldom free of other stimuli. I'm not going to go into great depth about examples of this but suffice it to say, this break in Geto's belief system caused an internal chasm we see immediately.
When Gojo asks him if he should kill the believers that applauded Riko's death, Geto said "no, there'd be no reason" which I believe is sufficient for Gojo since he readily leans on Geto as a moral compass. But Geto keeps rationalizing further, likely to curb his own impulse to kill those gathered ignorantly in celebration. OP talks about no pushback on his ideals but the truth of the matter is the biggest pushback for Geto is internal.
When he decided to slaughter that village, he didn't leave a margin of error to come back from. He had to keep moving forward, keep pushing to achieve this impossible world because to not would mean that the atrocities he committed were done in vain and we know, from his characterization, that he would not be able to accept that. Gojo speaks of Geto not starting a war he can't win during JJK0 which is empirically incorrect. When they parted ways in high school, Geto relented that with Gojo's power, his vision could come into fruition. They both knew he didn't have the means to achieve this but he didn't have anything else to stand on. So he hurled himself further and further from his previous path of righteousness and further from himself. He'd committed too great a sin to not give it meaning. To question it now would shatter him completely.
So much of what makes Geto compelling is the fact that he is inherently characterized as a good person, forthright and gentle. He'd have been a great teacher. In fact, the events that transpired between Gojo and Geto are why Gojo is a teacher in the first place. I believe he tried to be a great father figure to Nanako and Mimiko (again, let's forget the murder for a minute) because he pointedly did not raise them in the ways or traditions of jujutsu society. He protected them as best he could even though they still didn't survive their teenage years because they were ignorant about binding vows with sorcerers! Crazy when you think about it. Even what he thought to be a kindness to them cost them fatally.
Things happened to him, likely intentionally, to create this departure from reality and the jujutsu world. He was forged to break because he lacked the flexibility and nonchalance to not be overly concerned for others. He wasn't a diabolical genius, he was overly compassionate and at a complete and total loss when terrible things continually happened to good people who were already sacrificing so much. Riko Amanai was resigned to give up her short life to guarantee the future of Japan. Haibara was a ray of sunshine who, with the means to do so, wanted to help people. The twins were simply cursed to see things the other villagers couldn't, a burdensome reality that damned them to a life he was finding no meaning in, himself. His weakness perhaps lay in a weakness of character? but I wouldn't even say that, honestly. He's like placid water hiding a violent undercurrent deep below the surface.
The gap between who he was and who he died as should be jarring. It should be a demonstration of the grisly reality of jujutsu society. Where classes of 2-3 children are regularly pressed to fight beyond their means against horrors only they know. The sacrifices of the few to protect the many regardless of their virtue. That's the point. He was a casualty of a system that would always lead him toward a moral crisis.
#neon asks#anon asks#manga with me#manga with me jjk#geto babygirled SO hard#jjk#jujutsu kaisen#geto suguru#suguru geto#anime#manga#jjk meta#jjk character analysis#character analysis#jjk geto
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