"Tell your favorite creators that you like their work, people usually enjoy things silently, but hate tends to be loud"
This is a phrase I just heard from Dnd shorts that captures perfectly why I often try to make the effort of commenting on posts and telling people that I enjoy their work and why
Even to small creators, I advice everyone to make the extra effort to tell them, I can guarantee it makes all the difference in the world, it's not cringy or obnoxious, it'll just brighten someone's day
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Charlie putting the padlock on the bridge for him and Tao was actually one of my favourite scenes of the season. The way this scene shows the importance of friendship and puts platonic relationships on the same level as romantic ones is so fucking refreshing to me. Taking such an inherently romantic action and just making it not romantic in the slightest but about Charlie's love for his best friend that is equally important to the love he has for his boyfriend is so beautiful and important to me.
Heartstopper obviously does put a huge focus on different queer romantic relationships but I absolutely adore the way the second season portrays queer friendships and doesn't make them seem less worth than the romantic ones.
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My thoughts on how the Milgram mv machine works based on the evidence we have:
(I know there’s been discussion about where exactly the interrogations take place, but wherever they are,) the prisoners are made to sit in a specific chair near the wall that houses the machine.
It’s ordinarily hidden, but the wall panels shift aside to reveal it when the mechanical sounds play in the dramas. As well as the walls moving, the chair transforms to restrain the prisoner and attach whatever it takes to access their brain. The fact that none of the more frightened prisoners try to run or break it makes it seem like they physically cannot. This is why Fuuta sounds so panicked, and why Amane is suddenly helpless in front of Es in their T1 vds.
(My mind conjures very classic sci-fi mad scientist machines with wires, pipes, lights, nodes, needles, etc, but I’d love to hear how other people visualize it.)
In some vds (maybe all? I’d need to check,) you can hear Es take some steps right before their iconic line -- it would make sense that for safety reasons, the power mechanism is placed across the room. Once again it could be anything, but the sound effect makes me think of one of those giant wall-mounted levers you have to pull down.
The voice dramas don’t really provide the type of crime details that an actual interrogation would reveal, and it’s odd that they’re placed before the extraction rather than after Es gets to see the new details. This leads me to believe the machine functions with priming. All Es needs to do is get them talking about their murder, so it’s on their mind.
The video produced is much like a (non-lucid) dream. Even if the prisoners figure out that this is how it works, they can’t control it just by thinking really hard about something else. The murders produce the strongest emotional affect, and that’s what it picks up on. If someone else used the machine, it would default to whatever gave them the strongest emotional reaction in the ~15 minutes beforehand, hence why Es’ video focuses on their daunting task ahead. (The Undercover theory is still a bit loose, though, given the private shots that Es wouldn't have known about). It’s why the videos are usually closely linked to the vd topics/beats. I also like to think that the reason their prisoner colors appear so much is because they’re looking at those colors on their uniform 24/7.
The bell rings to inform Es that it’s the optimal time to use the machine -- the prisoner has been thinking about things for long enough that the video will be about their crime, and if the conversation lasts much longer they’ll start thinking of other things. It’s at a different time for each prisoner because it’s based on the specific conversation. I guess Jackalope is listening in to the interrogation, timing it perfectly. (The only one that kind of messes with this theory is Yonah, because they just keep talking afterwards lol, but it could just show that the interrogation is still in Es’ control.)
Their “Sing your sins” is the final priming nudge to get them to think of their actions as a sin, revealing their guilt.
Once activated, the prisoner enters a sort of trance/sleeping state. It’s very much like REM sleep, with the machine forcibly activating neurons and recording the output. The prisoners have asked Es what they saw, meaning they don’t remember the mvs. I like to think the prisoners do experience the mv in real time, acting as the major version of themself that appears, but can’t remember it afterwards. It’s when you experience a dream, but as soon as you wake up you’re just left with fleeting emotions and memories right on the tip of your tongue.
The video plays immediately upon extraction -- whether on a huge projection or little screen depends on which room it’s in. It simultaneously saves the memory so that Es can rewatch it later (on those old TVs in the jailbreak mix). The machine downloads the song and video together, but requires special parts to retrieve them. The technology is pretty new and fragile, so if one is broken, there might be a delay between when Es can hear the extracted song and see it with the video. (That’s my justification for Kotoko’s delays -- after 9 prisoners the parts wear out, or maybe Mikoto himself overheats it with his complex situation.)
Based on the lack of conversation we get afterwards, I picture Es leaving before the prisoner wakes from the trance. The machine adjusts their brain back to normal before they awaken, restraints freed and able to return to the rest of the prison.
It’s very much like a dream, so it’s not harmful despite the amnesia/head injuries the prisoners have. It does, however, exhaust them. Brain activity alone takes a lot of energy, so forced brain activity with added emotional strain would cause them to feel pretty drained the rest of the day.
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I get sad thinking about how during ichigo and grimmjows fight in hm. Particularly the moment when he see sees orihime's terrified reaction to his mask. I think he considered her previous trauma with acid wire ofc, but how must he have felt when orihime looked at him like that? She was the girl who managed to make friends with everyone and empathized so deeply with even her enemies, let alone her closer friends. And she was looking at him, completely frozen with fear, and he hated being the source of it. It just makes my feelers hurt so bad for some reason :(
i think the great thing about this fight is that it lets you empathize with both ichigo and orihime without diminishing either of their feelings, which is just. good writing. i'd go so far as to say this fight is also superb because of how it manages to address many overarching themes at once: a) ichigo's human-hollow struggle that keeps rearing its head every now and then b) orihime's complicated relationship with violence c) grimmjow's twisted desire to feel validated by ichigo, who he sees as his own mirror d) ichigo & orihime's long-term struggle to cross the chasm that separates them and meet in the middle.
a lot of people focus on orihime's fear here, but the truth is, ichigo himself was afraid of his hollow and was NOT confident about his ability to control it. when he tells orihime not to be afraid without his mask on, he looks at her and smiles. with the mask, he doesn't even make eye contact. when he accidentally does make eye contact later on in the fight, it crushes him, and the beauty of this fight is that it's all carried out through body language. his heart sinks, and so does yours, if you're invested in the fight. ichigo's entire arc so far has been about mastering this side of himself that he's desperately afraid of losing to, and now the person he's protecting is afraid of him, too. he begins doubting himself: what if grimmjow is right? what if he really did just come here to fight?
if you look at orihime's side of things, she's not wrong either. orihime's entire arc was about self-doubt at this time. she was never really sure of her worth to others, so how could she be sure that ichigo, who's reiatsu is rougher and darker than usual (just like her dead brother) was fighting for her? she does eventually realize her effect on him with a little help from nel. but in the end, nel's testimony doesn't matter much either because orihime realizes she would love ichigo even if he wasn't fighting for her. she just doesn't want him to get hurt.
lucky for us, grimmjow isn't right and it's obvious that ichigo did indeed come to fight him—if only to protect everyone and take orihime back home. fighting is ichigo's means to an end. his reaction to orihime is our indicator of that. the great thing about this fight is what it tells us—that if ichigo was this affected by orihime's face, then it means he truly didn't come here just to fight. that nel's cheers did nothing to grab ichigo's attention, but orihime's first broken whisper did. that having orihime nearby reminds him of what he's fighting for, which is something that literally saves his human life when he's in vasto lorde form. he left his heart with her, just as she did with him before she left. if we began this journey with rangiku saying ichigo needs orihime, this arc shows us how. this fight shows us how. yes, orihime's fear caused him some pain, but none of us can deny how cocky he got when she cheered for him, either, so it goes both ways :D
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