#(So I Have Two Parallel Theories Regarding This Sequence)

[koushirouizumi]

×××HOLiC ◆ ~ HARUKA & B U T T E R F L Y O B I "Yuuko"(?) + B U T T E R F L Ys D R E A M

{Cap/Crop'd by Me} (Please ASK to Use)

[vertigala]

*Grabs you by the throat* Listen to me you TMAGP-loving freaks. Listen to me right now. RedCanary might be the host for this universe's Jonah Magnus.

This is under the assumption that TMAGP takes place in a parallel universe that may or may not have already had the fears in it prior to Jon releasing them at the end of TMA.

RedCanary goes to explore the Magnus Institute ruins. They become paranoid because the Eye is watching them. They pick up a wooden box with strange symbols carved into it. They go to put it back. Next we hear from them, they post an image of gouged out eyes with the caption "Canaries should stay above ground."

They found the tunnels, hence that caption. Then they found Jonah Magnus's body sitting down there, waiting for a new host.

In this universe, the Magnus Institute burned down in 1999. Maybe in this universe Gertrude went through with her original plan of burning the place to the ground after finding out Elias was actually Jonah in 1997. Either way, let's say Jonah's original body is down there, maybe with Elias's body and his eyes and all that, and with his plans foiled, he's just chilling down there waiting for an opportunity which RedCanary then gives him. This is my going theory due to the specificity of the caption "canaries should stay above ground" (referring to the tunnels, and also it being in third-person) and the fact that RedCanary themselves would be pretty unlikely to be able to post that picture of THEIR OWN EYES GOUGED OUT unless it was Magnus assuming their body and identity and being a freak about it.

But there's more.

Narratively speaking, it makes sense for the third voice in the computer to be Jonah Magnus, right? If Jon and Martin ended up in this universe as voices in a computer, the only other person sharing their fate would have to be Magnus, given how TMA ended. Recall, also, the boot-up sequence in the trailer of TMAGP.

[id: a screenshot of the text from the TMAGP teaser, which says “initializing J.01… OK/initializing M.01… OK/initializing J.02… OK”. end id.]

Jonathan, Martin, and Jonah, right? Unless Augustus is gonna be a new J name or this is just an unrelated easter egg but like. It's Jonah right?? Right??? And he's watching the O.I.R.A through the systems like a good little voyeur, and Colin knows it!

So now we possibly have TWO Jonah Magnuses in this universe!! That's absurd!! One from the TMAGP universe now loose and running around in RedCanary's body, and one from the TMA universe trapped in a computer. But if this is true...doesn't that mean there would be two Jons and Martins too?

And listen...I'm thinking about what Jonny and Alex said during that liveshow panel about this story's themes regarding "what makes a human." If we dare to hope that Jon and Martin (and Jonah, if it's his voice in the computer) are going to gain consciousness and once again become proper characters...then, are they going to simply stay in the computer? Or are they going to "manifest" physically? Are they going to UPLOAD themselves into THEIR OWN TMAGP UNIVERSE BODIES?

@doomatix and I have been going crazy over these theories and they were the one that initially considered RedCanary's new identity as Jonah Magnus. Are our facts wrong? Does any of this even make sense? We haven't seen anyone else posting about this particular theory. Someone help us we are rotting. And don't even get me started on how GWEN would fit into this--

[blush-and-books]

QUESTION how does darvey compare to ur other ships?? i feel like their shared body language and the way they convey HISTORY is so unique ahaha

this is actually a great question and i would absolutely love to know your own other ships vs darvey, bc darvey is so different from so many of my ships!!!

i will say that joyce x hopper from stranger things is probably the only ship i have that even comes close to having any similarities to donna and harvey because of that sense of shared history, partnership, and platonic support leading into romantic support. but for the rest of my ships, it's like so opposite.

one of my main ships that is one of my most tagged ships on my blog is Julie and Luke from the netflix series Julie and the Phantoms!!! this series devastatingly only got ONE SEASON but had a huge following on tumblr. compared to donna and harvey's nine seasons and canonical 13 years of buildup, that inherently makes the ships very different, because Julie and Luke do not become "canon" (although mutual romantic feelings are made pretty darn clear). Julie and Luke have history together in an offhanded way - Luke is a ghost, and when he was 17, he actually met a young Julie's mom before she had Julie, and then he died, got trapped in purgatory(?) for 25 yrs, and then was brought back into the world as a ghost where he met Julie (after her own mom had passed away). This has resulted in a LOT of theories regarding them being soulmates - their characters mirror each other so well to the point that the colors of their costuming is often matching or inverted to each others clothing. They both have an undying love for music, mommy issues, and they fit together like two peas in a pod. Literally there's only one season of buildup, and there are over 3,000 works of fanfiction for them on ao3. Julie and Luke truly couldn't be more different lmao, because a lot of the magic that comes from them is a sense of destiny, inevitability, and their instant ability to be vulnerable with each other. With Donna and Harvey, the romance comes from the steadfast partnership and daily choice they make every day to choose each other.

Another big ship of mine is Anne and Gilbert from Anne with an E (or the whole Anne of Green Gables book series lol, but them in the AWAE tv adaptation is so good)!! They have a good amount of buildup and a sense of choosing each other, but the stakes are nowhere near as high as they are in Suits. Gilbert is so down bad for Anne the whole time. He's so the perfect man that I have a framed photo of him in my home. The TV show introduces us to their plotlines and character arcs as parallel tracks as they are finding their way through life and eventually meeting at the same place, whereas Donna and Harvey are definitely just on their own crazy journeys until they crash into each other and are finally in a place to be together. However, a very silly parallel that Anne/Gilbert has with Donna/Harvey is there is a sequence of Person B running to Person A when they realize that they're meant to be together. And Person A is a redhead.

Other ships I have are like Nina and Fabian from House of Anubis, or Zuko and Katara from ATLA. Also Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett from P&P. I think a lot of my ships involve the man blatantly worshipping the ground that the woman walks on and constantly being complimentary and admiring of her; where we get only crumbs of that kind of dynamic with Donna and Harvey. Harvey definitely thinks, and has stated as such, that Donna is the most amazing woman he's ever met, but because Donna and Harvey are not thee main plotline of the show or even arguably the main relationship (when compared to Mike and Rachel), there's a lot less room for there to be blatant moments where Harvey is like "wow she's amazing!!!" because he's just not that guy.

please also let me know your thoughts on this and what ships you have!!! do we share any?

also, my response to your domestic!Darvey ask is still unfortunately in the works. i just want you to know i did not forget about it!!! <3333

[darklygophilia]

Ok, I need to explain some theories I have with regard to the parallelism we see between "Top Gun" (1986) and "Top Gun: Maverick".

Some of the parallelism is obvious, like the opening sequence of both films with 'Danger Zone' playing in the background, or the volleyball vs. beach football scenes, or the mirrored rivals-to-friends between Hangman/Rooster and Iceman/Maverick.

But, I also think that a lot of people have missed a lot of the more nuanced parallelism. There seems to be this majority consensus that Hangman is the Iceman parallel and Rooster is the Maverick parallel. And I get it! On the surface that seems to be the obvious parallel to draw. At first glance, but under further inspection this particular parallel does not hold any weight whatsoever.

Let me explain...

When I first saw "Top Gun: Maverick" I realized that I'd never seen the first "Top Gun" all the way through. I'd seen a couple scenes here and there on TV over the years. But never all the way through from beginning to end. Anyway. Recently I wanted to re-watch "Top Gun: Maverick" - I mean, it's amazing! - and decided I should finally watch the first film. So, I did. I watched them back-to-back...THREE times...in three days. And I made some realizations.

In "Top Gun" Goose is a lovable goof who adores his wife and son and has an amazing friendship with Maverick. Honestly, I can totally understand Maverick's loyalty to Goose (and by extension, Rooster) as well as how Goose's death effects him even three decades later. I'm also definitely with the group of people who believe that Iceman and Maverick are totally gay for each other. These two emotional connections that overlap from the first movie into the second movie are what make the sequel so great! Don't get me wrong, there are many things that make the sequel a good film: beautiful cinematography, perfect music, nostalgia hooks (like the opening sequence and football scenes), well written, realistic action scenes, but the emotional connection takes it to a next level good that makes it AMAZING!

But the parallels that I think a lot of people missed are more obvious when you watch both films back-to-back repeatedly like I did. (I may be a little obsessed with these parallels that I'm about to reveal to you because they change everything!)

In "Top Gun" Maverick is over-confident and, despite his sexually charged rivalry with Iceman, it takes literal tragedy to knock him down a peg. Maverick is a genius pilot who knows how to trust his instincts. "Don't think, just do." But, that genius is only hinted at in the first film. It takes 30+ years of flying to truly cultivate that genius. He's good, and he knows he's good. This is true for Iceman, too. But, Iceman is as good as he is, but still sticks to the rules. He's a by-the-book kind of guy. He'll take risks, but within reason. It makes sense that Iceman is a four star Admiral in "Top Gun: Maverick". To really get a promotion in the NAVY and climb the ladder like Iceman does, you have to be the best, but you also have to have a sense of humility, you have to be charismatic enough to be well liked, but you also can't be a trouble maker. Iceman would have to have a certain level of political savvy to get as high up the ladder as he did. Maverick is too much of a, well...Maverick to be promoted like that. Don't get me wrong. Maverick, like Iceman, is the best, but it's also clear that he frustrates the Admiralty to no end. His equals and his superiors have a begrudging respect for him, and his inferiors have a bit of awe and some jealousy towards him for his skills. I also think that the few times they did attempt to promote him he probably turned them down simply because he loves flying and the further up the ladder you get you stop flying, and he didn't want to give that up.

In "Top Gun" Iceman is the best, but he can also ice people out, hence his call signal. He's calm and cool under pressure. He also rarely let's Maverick get to him; in fact, it's mostly Iceman getting to Maverick. He'll take the occasional risk, but within reason. He's a by-the-book kind of guy. He's charismatic enough that the Admiralty like him which makes him promotable.

If you watch "Top Gun: Maverick" it's NOT Hangman who mirrors Iceman. It's Rooster.

Rooster who who is calm and cool (except for just a couple instances).

Rooster who freezes out Maverick for years.

Rooster who refuses to let Hangman get to him despite the goading.

Rooster who seems to be a by-the-book kind of guy (except for when he disobeys orders and saves Maverick).

In "Top Gun" and "Top Gun: Maverick" Hangman is NOT paralleling Iceman. He's paralleling Maverick!

Both Maverick and Hangman are over-confident.

Both regularly disobey orders (Hangman definitely gives those vibes).

Both are overly-charismatic. No matter how frustrating they both are, you can't help but love and respect them. But they're not promotable. They drive the Admiralty crazy.

Both seem to suffer a tragic loss that defines them. (There's that comment that Rooster makes about Hangman leading people to an early grave. I feel like Hangman had his own Goose that he lost that shaped him into the lone-wolf-type that we see).

Maverick leaves his wingman, Hollywood, to "shoot down" Viper, but is unsuccessful. So, when Maverick says in the sequel, "Leaving your wingman. Now that's a move I haven't seen in a while." He's comparing Hangman to himself and sounds a little amused, too.

In the sequel, during training, out of all of the younger pilots, Maverick says," Yep, you're good. I'll give you that." He only says that about Hangman!

Maverick is the reserve/spare that comes to Iceman's rescue at the end of the first film, just like Hangman is Dagger Spare and comes to Rooster and Maverick's rescue! (And he happily disobeys orders to do this!)

By the end of the first film, Maverick has two air-to-air kills (Iceman has one). Out of all the new pilots, Hangman is the only one who has an air-to-air kill, and he has two by the end of the sequel.

I also think their calls signs are a bit similar. Hangman could also be attributed to his daredevil nature, just like Maverick.

Yes, there is a sexually charged rivalry between Hangman and Rooster, just like there was between Maverick and Iceman, and because of this I feel like viewers feel like they have to draw parallels and make one of them the new Iceman and one of them the new Maverick. But, I also feel like a lot of people get it wrong. They put Hangman in the Iceman position of the relationship, but I strongly feel like Hangman is more of a Maverick.

That's right. I said it. Hangman is the new Maverick!

Now, I do think that the argument could be made that Hangman parallels both Maverick and Iceman. And you could make the argument that Rooster parallels some Maverick, some Iceman, and has a bit of Goose in him, too.

Anyway, this was probably a lot longer than it needed to be, but I felt like I needed to put this out into the universe.

P.S. Hangman is the shorter one compared to Rooster, just like Maverick is the short one compared to Iceman. Just Saying.

He wanted it comfortable I wanted that pain

[antique-forvalaka]

Okay I love your colour theory posts for Kinnporsche so much... Have you seen the Hidden Messages video on Be on Clouds YouTube channel? It really highlights the colouring used for each character, especially Kinn and red, and I think it would be really cool to look into in regards to the colour Theory side of things!

ooh what a lovely suggestion!

I do feel like I've seen the video before, but if that's the case i don't think i'd have mistaken gold as Kinn's colour instead lmao

So, initially i really didn't think the Hidden Messages video on Youtube would be worth doing a Colour theory on, since i thought a lot of it was really obvious, but upon my second watch i reconsidered.

I thought for the purposes of this analysis I'd try to stay a bit more true to the actual order the shots appear in, thus I'm starting with this one. It's the first shot we see, Kinn sitting in a dark room with a blue backlight. Please also pay attention to the Golden Lamp and candle, we'll see those again later.

These shots are just magnificient!!! They don't happen in direct sequence, this will not be the only time mirrored shots are 'interrupted' however. Obviously we have here both Kinn and Porsche in their respective colours, backlit with each other's. I wanna also call attention to their facial expressions as well, despite both having just as much dominion over the screen here Porsche seems less at ease than Kinn.

Just as the shots above, these one are in the same order as they appear in the video, yet are interrupted several times in the source material. The first shot here is dominantly only lit in red, whereas the later ones, when Kinn starts giving money to Porsche, his blue also enters the frame. I think it's very significant that Porsche burns the money. It's a callback (or uh foreshadowing in this case, as the video came out before the first episode) that Porsche isn't interested in money, in episode one he even refuses Kinn's numerous job offers and complains as being misunderstood as someone who can be bought.

As an aside, i did not change the aspect ratio of these at all, but as you can see some of the shots were made in a wider ratio than some of the others. Thus how much space these are allowed to take up on-screen is also significant!

A lot of these short scenes also play with mirrors and reflections, both Porsche and Kinn are often shown to mirror each other. Most visually appealing is this scene, in which Porsche turns in a slow circle and points his fingergun at this one-way mirror opposite him, as the camera turns to follow his hand. To reveal Kinn standing in such a way behind the mirror that it is unclear to an observer if he is just a reflection as well. He too is not actually holding a gun, just miming it. This scene is also lit more in Green than either blue or red, to underline the conflict. Both are still at odds, at opposite sides, though Kinn, positioned behind the one-way mirror reminiscient of Police interrogation is subtly implied to have more power here. There's also a bed on Porsche's side which gives the whole room a prison-like impression.

Again, both are (inverted) reflections of each other. They're in the same hallway and even the neon light in the background is mirrored. This could also play with the concept of being 'two halves of the same coin', which would fit in nicely with their later relationship. In any case, kudos to the director!

Here we have Porsche in a blue lit stairway, looking upwards yet descending into the depths, which are coincidentally lit in red as well! Possibly a metaphor for him joining the darker underbelly of Kinn's world. This is the point where we also start seeing more flashes of both Kinn and Porsche lit in blue, to parallel the constant flashes of both of them fighting in the red room. As an aside, the wall to Porsche's right is presumably the very same in front of which the striking portraits shown above were created.

The scenes of them fighting in the red room are now overlaid with these shots, of both of them in blue, though this time Porsche is backlit in orange (gold or red depending on your interpretation). Where before the focus was on the business relationship, the fighting and them being at odds, these shots instead show a more tender relationship. It may not be that obvious in these still frames but the second to last shot has Kinn foregoing the cigarette to instead caress the side of Porsche's face. This is also where my note on picture width and aspect ratio comes back into play. A lot of the dominantly blue shots, including Porsche's descent, are much less wide than most of the rest. Porsche is hemmed in, or his power is, and only in the last one of this sequence when it starts to rain and both hug (a picture i sadly couldn't include here) does the fram grow again!

Remember me saying to keep an eye on the lamp and cigarette? This is where those reappear. The postioning of both items relative to the camera suggests that this is actually the inverse shot of the very first one, which in combination with the second one here suggests that Kinn was always standing opposite Porsche, who was hidden behind the tapestry. Which btw, seems to be a very obvious allusion to Kinn's trust issues and reluctance to get close to his employees, as later implied by Pete in episode 2. It's a bit on the nose, especially as Porsche appears behind the burnt fabric presented as solution and core of the problem at once, but the visuals are too pretty to begrudge the simplicity too much. It's just sooooo nice to look at!!! The rest of this burning flag will also later be the very end of the video, as both men have dissappeared and the smoldering remains underline the series title!

Before that however we still have two more moments i want to highlight. One of which is this one. This seems to be the same room as the beginning, I've had to lighten it up a bit because it was really just that dark. Porsche is posing in front of the one way mirror again, almost in challenge. Later we have the reverse shot. Porsche has turned away from the mirror only for Kinn to appear behind him again, this time however none of them seem agressive and i think it's significant that Porsche may have his back turned but is still aware of Kinn behind him. A sign of trust or disrespect? Since this is in the later half i'd see it as the former.

Let's close this out with my two favourite shots.

These ones are the only two shots we get of this unknown bathroom, assumedly it is not one on the ma/fia family's property, but the tiling is in a reddish orange, which is evened out by the diffuse blue light from outside. This whole setting feels very intimate and the first shot, closer to the start of the video, still visualises some very obvious emotional distance. Porsche's side, or rather the side we directly see, in opposition to Kinn in the mirror also feels more real to the observer, more immediate. We start the series closer to Porsche's perspective as our viewpoint character.

Yet the last shot has Porsche join Kinn in his world instead, Porsche is the active one here, he not only left his own, seemingly more real, world but is also seeking bodily closeness. In this shot Kinn is also smiling, yet another difference to the first one!

Ah i gotta be honest, this one was a lot of fun! The visuals are incredibly striking, so thanks a lot for calling my attention to this again!!!!! I hope this analysis lived up to your expectations as well.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I just noticed i forgot my disclaimer this time, hahhah, so to make it short: All of this is subjective and was created with limited information re: character developement!

More of this here:

Major Players: Kinn

The Intersection of Kinn and Porsche / Green

Kinn’s Colour: A revision

Episode 2; Significant Scenes

Episode 3; Significant Scenes (+Tankhun)

Episode 4; Significant Scenes

Episode 5; Significant Scenes

[omgitsshrimp]

[SPOILERS from Manga!] Attack on Titan Theory: The baby was NOT PLANNED.

MAJOR SPOILER WARNING!! IF YOU’RE ANIME ONLY SKIP THIS POST! 

I thought I’d share my own theory on the whole situation with Eren and Historia. Keep in mind this is just my opinion/interpretation of everything so far. I just want to get my two cents in. 

I know suggesting that the baby isn’t planned sounds nuts, but hear me out. In Ch 130 we’re shown panels of Eren and Historia discussing the military’s plans for her, Eren telling her his plan, and Historia discussing a baby with Eren. 

In one panel, Historia is standing in front of the wooden fence, on the left side of the panel; then in a later panel she’s standing in front of the wooden fence on the right side of the panel. 

I don’t think this is by accident. This implies that Eren and Historia met up more than once, which opens up a strong possibility of them meeting up several times in the past. So when Historia asks Eren about having a baby, we don’t know if she said that in the same conversation as the earlier panels. It could have happened at a completely different time. We only have a close up of her face when she says it, and we dont see the whole convo, which means we don’t know the full context around her bringing up a baby to Eren.  

*Assuming they have met up several times, it begs the question, why does Eren even meet up with Historia? In my opinion, it’s because he has feelings for her, and they might be involved romantically.

 We know that the songs for AoT can allude to or foreshadow events in the story. I feel like Eren and Historia’s meet ups were alluded to in two songs (that I know of) in AoT OST, “Zero Eclipse” and “Yuugure no Tori” (ed3).

Zero Eclipse (only later part of the song is related to Eren):

“Make a promise that I cannot regret, As long as I can see you but in secret”

Yuugure no Tori:

“I’ll sing out with my girl, Go to the meeting place sing alone”

If the Baby was Planned, It Would Contradict Eren’s ideals/motivation

Another reason I don’t think the baby is planned is because if the point is to not produce kids just for a strategic purpose then why would Eren and Historia make a plan to do just that? (ie having a baby to put off Historia eating Zeke). Having the reason for making a child be reduced to convenience/serving your plan doesn’t sit right with me. It doesn’t align with Eren’s beliefs, in my opinion.

Assuming that Eren and Historia are romantically involved and have been physically intimate for some time, I think its fair to consider that this baby was conceived by chance (as well as love) rather than some sort of necessity brought on by a situation. I think upon hearing what the military was planning for Historia, Eren decided to make plans for another way that wouldn’t sacrifice her. I don’t think that involved making a child. I think the child came about by chance and the panel of Historia asking Eren about a baby was maybe part of a longer conversation where she was telling him that she was pregnant. I know I’m making a lot of assumptions, but I don’t think its impossible. 

I think from there, Eren and Historia came up with a plan to hide the pregnancy in order to protect Historia from being connected to Eren, since he knew he was going to start going against the military and wanted to protect Historia from any association with that. And also, kept it secret because if Zeke some how found out, it would compromise Zeke’s confidence in Eren and mess up Eren’s plans. Eren and Historia’s plan to keep the paternity a secret involved lying about the due date and using the Farmer as a cover. I suspect the farmer guy agreed because he really did feel guilty about bullying Historia as a child. The fact that he felt guilty enough to work there for years opens the possibility of him willing to go along with Eren and Historia’s plan, so he can make up for everything.

Paneling Choices

Now I want to talk about Isayama’s choices when it comes to the panels in ch 130, specifically in regards to the scene of Eren making his plans, Eren and Historia talking, and Eren and Zeke discussing Mikasa. How Isayama chose to order these panels seemed to me, very intentional and meticulous. 

In the previous panels in the same chapter we see Eren refusing to allow Historia to be sacrificed and we see him willing to go against humanity for her (and Paradis as a whole). Isayama decided to shows us the process of Eren deciding to carry out this plan through his interactions with Historia, as if to convey that she’s a big reason for why he’s doing all this. He’s emphasizing her importance in how Eren came to start this mission by positoning her front and center. This sequence ends with Eren telling Historia that she saved him, paralleling Mikasa in a big way.

Then, we go to a conversation between Zeke and Eren about the Ackerman bloodline. Zeke is clarifying to Eren that there is no ingrained behavior and that Mikasa does all these things for him because she loves him. And right after Zeke says that, there is a panel of Eren and Historia. I feel like Isayama gave us an explanation of Eren’s actions right here. A discussion about Mikasa’s affection and devotion juxtaposed with images of Eren and Historia right after we saw several panels of Eren doing exactly what Zeke described Mikasa does for Eren, in my opinion, was meant to indirectly allude to why Eren is doing this and how he feels about Historia. Isayama doesn’t want to give it away just yet, but is giving subtle breadcrumbs. Using Mikasa’s feelings to juxtapose probably threw people off too.    

It’s my opinion that Eren loves Historia. There’s other evidence that people have pointed out that I also agree with, but I won’t delve deep I’ll just mention them here:

 -Hanji noticing Eren smiling at Historia and defending her wellbeing, then asking Eren about it. Eren snaps at Hanji when she brings up Historia.

-Historia getting teary eyed when Eren defends her in the meeting. 

The only person Eren has been consistent with protecting this whole time has been Historia. His desire to protect her never wavered. He’s been talking about protecting her since the end of season 3. The only person we’ve seen Eren confide in (about his plans etc.) is Historia. She’s clearly significant to him.

What Eren Kruger Said to Grisha

Another reason I think Eren loves Historia and is romantically involved with her is because of what Eren Kruger said to Grisha. The Attack titan shifter can see future memories as well as past ones. Kruger told Grisha to “love someone in the walls, build a family. If you can’t do that, the same cycle will repeat itself. If you want to save Mikasa and Armin, carry out your mission to the end”. I think Kruger was also talking to Eren here, OR Isayama was alluding to what Eren will need to do in order to save everyone. In the anime, they added a line for Kruger, he says “someone in the future might see this [moment/memory of their conversation]”. I think it was added to establish that there may be a link between what Kruger said and what Eren is doing. Afterall, we know Eren saw this conversation. 

I think Eren did fall in love, with Historia, and is building a family (conceived a baby by chance), and something about the experience of love and impending fatherhood has played an important role in Eren carrying out this mission and ultimately saving Armin, Mikasa and Paradis, while also ending the cycle of hate.

In Ch 130, we see Eren saying that he has to do the rumbling in order for the cycle of hate to end. Similar to what Kruger said. Everything is happening exactly as Eren saw it, we saw that with that little boy Halil (or was it Ramzi?). The future memories were all correct, so if Kruger was speaking based on future memories then what he said about love, building a family, saving Armin and Mikasa, probably had truth to it.

 Eren’s Talk with Mikasa in Ch 123

A lot of people see this as an ErenxMikasa moment but since Eren and Zeke’s conversation in Ch 130, I don’t think that’s the case. In Ch 123, Eren asks Mikasa “what am I to you?”. Mikasa flusters and says “family”. I think Eren asked her this because he was suspecting that her Ackerman bloodline was influencing her decisions. This probably worried him because he didn’t want Mikasa to be a slave to her bloodline. Mikasa’s answer didn’t clarify anything for him. He was left ambivalent on the subject and that’s why he asked Zeke about the Ackerman bloodline. 

Mikasa says in Ch 123, that maybe if she gave a different answer things would have happened differently, but Zeke did give Eren a clear answer about how Mikasa felt. Eren knew how she felt and it didn’t change anything. Eren was concerned about the Ackerman bloodline influence because he wanted Mikasa to be free, not because he’s romantically interested in her.

I do realize I could be dead wrong. I know suggesting the baby wasn’t planned is a huge stretch but I just thought I’d put it out there. I just want it to be true so badly lol. Even if the baby is planned, I think there’s still some truth to some of the other things I pointed out. This was just a fun thing for me to do. I normally don’t write long theory posts, but I figured why not since it’s so close to the end and everyone is speculating. Why not join in?

I think that’s it. I hope I’m not missing anything. As for how I think the whole story will end? I think because Eren freed Ymir, titan powers might cease to exist. But I don’t know how that’ll affect the 13 year Ymir curse if that does happen. So I guess we’ll see. 

Feel free to share your thoughts. I’m not AntiMikasa or anything. Please be respectful! Thanks for reading!

[itsthenovelteafactor]

Fall of the House of Hargreeves

So I mentioned a while back in my Superhero Gothic meta that there were a number of parallels between the season one finale of The Umbrella Academy and the Edgar Allen Poe short story The Fall of the House of Usher and that I could probably write a whole meta on that if anyone was interested. Shout out and love to the anon who requested that I do that! 

It’s been a minute since I’ve done one of these long form metas, but I am very excited to get back to writing about two of my favorite things: gothic literature and chaotic superheroes. 

Part I: The Fall of the House of Usher

The Fall of the House of Usher (which I’ll call House of Usher for convenience for the rest of this meta) is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe first published in 1939. It is considered a classic gothic short story, and deals with themes of family, madness, inheritance, and isolation. 

Since it’s in the public domain, I’ll go ahead and link a pdf to the story here. If you aren’t interested in reading, though, or just want a refresher, the story follows an unnamed narrator going to visit his ill friend, a man named Roderick Usher in his isolated (and very spooky) family estate. Upon arrival, he discovers that Roderick’s sister, Madeline Usher, is also ill, and has a tendency to fall into dreamlike trances.

Over the course of the visit, Roderick confesses to the narrator that not only does he believe the house is alive, but that it is connected to the fate of the family which, at this point, only includes Roderick and Madeline. He later comes and tells the narrator that Madeline has died, and enlists his help in order to bury her in the family tomb beneath the house. They do so, but for the next couple of days Roderick is suspiciously...on edge. 

Then, one dark and stormy night, Roderick shows up in the narrator’s room incredibly worked up, and throws open the window, and starts low-key (read: high-key) having a breakdown. The narrator is unsure as to why until he hears ripping and tearing sounds coming from somewhere in the house. These ripping and tearing sounds are revealed to be Madeline whom Roderick and the narrator buried alive whose appearance scares Roderick to death, right before she collapses, also dead from the strain of tearing through the foundations of the house.

The narrator decides this would probably be a good time to leave and is very much right about that because as soon as he leaves, the house (which was already in pretty bad shape) splits in two and collapses into the lake surrounding it. The end.

Part II: Umbrella Academy as Gothic

So, there are probably a couple similarities between House of Usher and The Umbrella Academy season one that stand out right off the bat, but I’d like to start by taking a step back to talk about thematic parallels between the two works. If you’d like to read a very long winded explanation of why I consider The Umbrella Academy to be a modern gothic tale, I have a really long meta about it. 

If not, here’s a quick overview:

Gothic does not have a clearly defined set of requirements as a genre, but its purpose is to explore the contradictions and the failing edifices of convention in a way that is dramatic and often fantastic. 

Gothic fiction plays with reality, but usually in a way that is representative of the characters and story. 

It often situates itself during times of great change, as there is something haunting about the irreversible passage of time, particularly for those that struggle to acknowledge it and hide behind conventions that have grown increasingly irrelevant. 

Poe is considered one of the classic authors of gothic fiction (though the genre significantly predates him), and is decidedly one of the best well-known examples of it. 

The Umbrella Academy is a family drama about former child superheroes dealing with their trauma while trying to prevent an apocalypse that their every move seems to set further in motion. It explores the messy and complicated relationships between siblings who have been abused and pit against each other for years. And yeah, it’s fun with great music and talking gorillas and dance sequences, but the premise is kind of hard for me to read as anything other than gothic.

Part III: Parallels

Like House of Usher, the first season of Umbrella Academy takes place in a massive, largely empty mansion where siblings gather with disastrous consequences. Both works explore a family that is past their prime and disconnected from the present. They also both explore the psychological toll of isolation, the consequences of tyrannical family rules, and why it is a really bad idea to lock your unstable sister in a basement and just leave her there. 

Let’s start with some thematics parallels. Everyone in House of Usher is extremely isolated, and the absence of anything resembling the modern world amongst the house full of relics is part of the horror. All of the siblings in Umbrella Academy are defined by their isolation as well, physically (Luther, Five, and Ben), socially (Vanya, Diego, Klaus, and Allison), and emotionally (legit all of them). It is this isolation that drives the conflict of the story, feeding into every characters’ choices. 

In both House of Usher and Umbrella Academy, the main characters are trapped in this isolated state as a direct result of their familial legacy. In House of Usher, the titular house is a character itself, a manifestations of the obligations Madeline and Roderick hold as members of an aristocratic family that is so far divorced from wealth and status that it keeps them from ever fully moving on and rejoining the real world. In Umbrella Academy, the characters are similarly trapped by their familial legacy, this time in the form of the specter of their abusive father, and the roles he created for them. Like the Usher siblings, the Hargreeves have no way of maintaining the roles their family left out for them – they were never given the tools to function in the real world and it cripples them – but are trapped in them regardless. 

Part IV: The Woman* in White 

*As of the time I am writing this, nothing has been said regarding Vanya’s gender identity being written to match Elliot Page’s. I am using she/her pronouns for Vanya, as that is what has been used for the character thus far. 

Aside from thematic parallels, however, the most direct connection between the short story and series, and in fact the reason I was inspired to write this meta in the first place is the way both of the stories end: with a sister trapped beneath the house clawing her way out to face her brother(s and sister) and creating a disruption of the family legacy so great that the entire estate crumbles.

Madeline Usher is described at this point as wearing a white dress, strained with the injuries she sustained from physically breaking herself out of the basement tomb her brother buried her alive in. Vanya, of course, becomes at this moment the White Violin, and though she has not yet had the epic violin-music-so-powerful-it-changes-the-color-of-her-clothes scene, the principal still stands.

As characters, there are also a couple of noteworthy parallels between Vanya and Madeline. The narrator at one point describes “the illness of the lady Madeline had lone been beyond the help of her doctors. She seemed to care about nothing” (Poe, 27). The reader never knows what illness precisely is the cause of Madeline’s apparent madness, but we see the effects. It dulls her emotional responses to situations and leaves her withdrawn and powerless. Similarly, we learn over the course of the first season of The Umbrella Academy that the medication Reginald Hargreeves prescribed Vanya for her anxiety is actually a power suppressor for her abilities that has much the same effect – because they are strengthened by extreme emotion, the drugs numb Vanya’s emotional responses and deprive her of the ability to access her powers.

Additionally, the final scene of the story story shows Madeline escaping her tomb during a great storm and going to face her brother who put her there, the storm itself being a metaphor for her anguish that tears the house apart. Vanya’s connection to the destruction of the house is a bit more literal, but it is similarly a manifestation of her anguish and trauma. She sees flashbacks of her siblings being distant and rude to her in their childhoods and the anger she feels rips the foundation apart. 

It is not entirely clear in the short story why Roderick buries Madeline alive – there are a lot of theories: he genuinely believed she was dead, he wanted her out of the picture, he himself was succumbing to the madness of the house, etc – but the guilt he feels for doing so manifests as him hearing her scraping her way out for several days preceding her escape. The justification for Vanya’s imprisonment is more clear in text, but the series of flashbacks make it clear that it is not just the imprisonment that has driven her over the edge. It it guilt for her sister, anger at her abusive upbringing that is much more easily directed at her siblings than her father, the newfound emotions experienced by being off her medication for the first time since childhood, Leonard’s manipulations, etc. 

In both cases, amidst a spiral of emotions and experiences folding in on themselves, Vanya and Madeline experience a single, cold moment of clarity that drives them to escape, and it is that moment of clarity that breaks the shadow of the family legacy. They observe the situation as it stands and realize that it is completely unacceptable, and it is the realization that leads everything to crumble. Because gothic literature is focused on the complexities of maintaining that which is out of date, the realization that things must change can break the spell.

Part V: Conclusions 

As per usual, I have no great theories on why this is or what it means. One of the reasons I love gothic literature is that it is rife with meaning that can be more easily felt than deciphered. I welcome any and all interpretations, theories, (politely worded) disagreements, and comments. 

Thanks for taking the time to read; I have a lot of fun doing these. Enjoy spooky season, y’all. 💛

[huesofvioletandpurple]

#congrats on the testosterone Xander !!!!📢📢📢📢📢#SERIOUSLY THOUGH UUHHH#KIND OF??? I THINK??????#do go on though im Very interested — @millionmienshaomontage

I shall !! your tags made me laugh a lot. and I shall also use it as a jumping off point

I realise looking at this post now that it Really does looks like I'm proposing that Xander is Mai, which was not exactly what I meant but I do believe there are a lot of similarities between them narratively !! what I was gesturing at in the og post was their roles in David and Teruko's stories, as I am assuming that Xander is looking towards David (since the drawing comes from his MV) and Mai is looking towards Teruko (since it appears to be her dream)

let's start with the first image; the drawing is a coloured version of the frame in the Literature Girl Insane MV. David's love-hate relationship w/ Xander is something I think about a lot—their ideologies staunchly oppose each other, David's belief that the world will never change for the better fundamentally goes against Xander's efforts beliefs and talent as the ultimate rebel. but there's also a lot to suggest that David wants to believe in the optimism—after all, the frame in question is paired with the lyrics "if something is important it will break and disappear"

"For what reason does someone turn away from you, instead of walking by your side?" <- metaphorically I interpret this as, David believes Xander reached a truth that David has not. they cannot "walk by each other's side" so to speak because they do not hold the same beliefs in regards to human nature. Xander is going ahead without him and all David can do is watch. the "turn away from you" part of the caption intrigues me, because it implies a lot applied for either character. is Xander the one turning away, as a representation of his death, or perhaps David imagining a situation where Xander refuses to meet his eye after seeing his true* self? or is David turning away, refusing to confront his complicated feelings towards Xander, and by extension further refusing to see good in the world?

so that was the first thing I thought of. the second thing I thought of was, well, Mai Akasaki. you know. the character who is introduced by literally having her back to Teruko ? before turning back and smiling at her ?

taking all of the stuff I've discussed before and applying it to these two paints a picture of what their dynamic could've been— Teruko, famously, doesn't believe her circumstances or the world around her can change for the better. Mai, who is implied to be the "unnamed student" in the bonus episodes working together with Xander on a mission, believes the opposite. they do not walk by each other's side in regards to their idealology. Teruko looks at Mai with awe, who waits for her with a smile

and—hold on, let's visit that last point. here, Mai is explicity turning around to see Teruko. the caption that sparked my og post in the first place centres the idea of someone turning AWAY. Mai in this dream sequence is waiting for Teruko. Mai waits for Teruko, chases after Teruko. "some years ago, she was looking for someone named 'Teruko Tawaki'"

hm. interesting to note where these two diverge. interesting to note that it's in regards to the destination of their beliefs—whilst Xander and David turn away from each other, Mai walks back towards Teruko. Hm.

anyway ! I have juggled the theories of Mai being one of the cast members in my head, but I also really like thinking of the similarities she has with said cast. to end this, since I couldn't fit this anywhere else despite really wanting to, here's a tweet by the official drdt twitter account that I think abt nearly every day as the n.1 Xander-Mai parallels enjoyer

[ID: a tweet made on February 9, 2021 that reads "Since it's the day of release, I wanted to uncensor the thumbnail of ep6. Although that girl looks similar to Xander, they are not related. Is there some meaning to be found in their similar appearances? It seems like Teruko can't rid her life of yellow eyed redheads..." End ID]

[ID 1: a tweet made by the official Danganronpa Despair Time account captioned "(At the time produced a colored version but ended up not using it for anything, so let's post it now) / I think watching people's backs is interesting. For what reason does someone turn away from you, instead of walking by your side?" It is accompanied by a drawing of Xander Matthews against a white background, turning back to smile at the viewer. End ID]

[ID: a screenshot from episode 6, where Mai Akasaki stands on the pavement with her back to the viewer. End ID]

do you guys see what I'm putting down. are you seeing the links I am making. the dots I'm connecting. do you g

[randomidiocyncrazies]

hm. just finished ep 12 and i just gotta say.... i think, so far, the show had been irresponsible wrt trauma and abuse in some aspects, while being positive in other aspects. and with ep 12, i personally found the Sawaki subplot leaning more towards the irresponsible side

like... given the main theme of the show explores the grooming and abuse of minors (especially young girls), i find it a little distasteful that they have Ai say parallel!Sawaki is just “a monster created by her paranoia” when IRL abuse has hints or are otherwise obvious in retrospect, but ignored because the abuser is well-regarded. it’s frustrating to intentionally mislead the audience into thinking that someone is an abuser for a “heh heh gotcha!” twist that reinforces actual real life ideas about who is/is not an abuser (i.e. that person is well-respected so ofc they’re not an abuser, it’s all in your head, you’re just paranoid/reading into things too much etc). 

it also kinda sucks that part of the situation is framed as Ai’s problem that she’s ‘at fault’ for? like, her final confrontation with parellel!Sawaki is framed as her being jealous that a) her crush (eww) got together with her mom and b) her mom having a life outside of her interactions with Ai. She even says she’s “done with the me that craves attention” as if that’s the root of her suicidal ideation. the whole sequence is portrayed as her coming to terms with her mother being with her crush (again: ewwww) and giving them her blessing + getting rid of her jealousy (incidentally, the whole “daughter and mother fighting over the same man” is also pretty Freudian, just to reinforce that ep 11′s disturbing dynamic between child-and-father figure isn’t a one-off thing... but to be fair, ep 11 did make it fairly clear that it’s effin’ creepy)

(also.... i can’t believe str8 dudebros got it right that Ai was in love with Sawaki the whole time lmao. though thankfully it doesn’t seem like the “Ai actually hates Koito for being her competition” theory really panned out)

to throw in some mixed messaging, parallel!Sawaki (and Sawaki, since the show doesn’t really make a distinction between the two versions, and I think we’re meant to read them as basically the same figure in their impact on both Ais) is still portrayed in a sinister light—that creepy monologue about “the purity of young love” and goading Ai (and Koito) to take their own lives, plus the whole thing about how “my public face has got you fooled too”—Ai might’ve gotten closure, as evidenced by Koito being un-statued, but there’s still a lot of unclarity about what actually happened... which I wouldn’t be surprised if we never actually get to know, because the most important thing about these events is how Ai feels about it; she got emotional closure (even tho I sure didn’t lol), so there’s no real need to revisit what ‘actually’ happened. of course, i’d like to know what actually went down, but i’m resigned to it if the show never tells us

(also, in real life sometimes things just remain a mystery... nobody has access to someone else’s interiority, which works well for something about suicide—while you can speculate on the motive after the fact, you can’t really be 100% certain unless they leave a note, and even that note might not be 100% what was really going through their mind. HOWEVER, this is a show written by people, which means it’s not ‘real life’ but is something man-made—so whether they successfully pulled this off can be debated.)

maybe i’ll have different thoughts if/when i rewatch the episode, but for now... i want to be hopeful about the finale in june but i’m scared lol. i wonder how it will wrap all of this up, especially with the emphasis on parallel worlds. (i know that the parallel world gimmick is mostly so that Ai can address her suicidal ideation, but with how heavy-handed they were, it looks like it’ll play a large role? idk)

[moiraineswife]

What if.... what if Jasnah bonded to Ivory at a young age, and tried to tell people, and that's why everyone thought she had gone mad? Until she learned to. hide it? What if her character traits are linked somehow to Ivory being her only trusted confidante and maybe even mentor growing up, and his ideas, values, and even habits influenced her?

I think this is the most commonly accepted theory for Jasnah’s spren-bonding etc. People think she bonded Ivory, was seeing into Shadesmar, and it was these perceived hallucinations that caused her to be labelled mad by those around her. 

It’s a good theory! But I’m...Not 100% sure that it’s accurate/is not what I personally believe for Jasnah and Ivory. 

My biggest issue with this is the timing of everything. As of the prologue, six years earlier on the night of Gavilar’s death, Jasnah is clearly slipping into Shadesmar and clearly doesn’t understand why: 

Jasnah stared at that shadow—skin growing clammy, stomach clenched, the way she felt when she was about to vomit. Not again. She searched for another light source. A reason. Could she find a reason? No.

She sees her shadow pointing in the wrong direction and doesn’t know why. We know that this is a sign of her slipping into Shadesmar/her shadow being drawn to its alternative ‘sun’, but Jasnah can’t find a reason for this. 

If she had bonded Ivory as a child, she would know what was happening. And if she didn’t - why wouldn’t she just ask Ivory? We as readers at this point know Jasnah is a radiant. We know she’s an experienced radiant, who is familiar with Shadesmar. There would be no reason not to have her communicate with Ivory in this moment if she was familiar with him. 

Also, we know Soulcasting was the first of Jasnah’s two surges to make itself available to her. She is clearly unfamiliar with Transportation/Elsecalling by how long it takes her to return/her unfamiliarity with being fully IN Shadesmar. Elsecallers have the closest relationship with that realm, yet Jasnah is obviously distressed by it in this sequence. 

She’s also obviously unfamiliar with Inkspren/Ivory: 

Ahead of her, the dark figure stepped up onto the platform. He again slid his sword from his sheath.

[...]

Gritting her teeth, Jasnah heaved herself to her feet, beads streaming from her clothing. She would not kneel before this thing, whatever it was. 

[...]

She met the oil figure’s gaze. It regarded her for a moment, then raised two fingers to its forehead and bowed, as if in respect, a cloak flourishing out behind. Others had gathered beyond it, and they turned to each  other, exchanging hushed whispers.

This is obviously Ivory, the description of him matches. So does the description of the ‘others’. Jasnah notes that the other Inkspren disapproved of her bond with Ivory so much they would have preferred to kill her. 

Jasnah clearly doesn’t know who Ivory is at this moment. She clearly doesn’t even know WHAT he is. 

This encounter is clearly akin to Kaladin’s experiences with Syl in the slave wagon - being noticed/approached by her, but thinking her a windspren/not understanding. Or of Pattern showing up in Shallan’s drawings/as what she thinks of as hallucinations. 

Jasnah’s first accidental foray into Shadesmar very closely parallels Shallan’s first. Both of them nearly die/drown in the beads, but finally manage to Soulcast - the difference is that Shallan’s soulcasting appears in the physical world, while Jasnah’s is confined to Shadesmar. They both have experiences with their respective spren there, without understanding who or what they are. 

Jasnah is far too unfamiliar with Ivory in the prologue to have bonded him in childhood. 

She was around 11 or 12 when she was diagnosed with her ‘lunacy’, per Dalinar’s Oathbringer flashbacks. It’s possible that she was seeing into Shadesmar as a child, and that Ivory was watching her then, and that is what caused her to have her sanity doubted. But they didn’t form their bond then. At least not to a degree that Jasnah was aware of it/able to access surges. 

I, personally, think Jasnah’s episode of ‘lunacy’ had a cause other than Ivory/being radiant.

I do think that this is the occasion that caused her to “break” (most of the radiants have ‘broken’/have fractured spiritwebs, which makes the spren bond possible/at least easier). I think the trauma of her imprisonment is what damaged Jasnah’s spiritweb and allowed Ivory to bond with her in the future - but I think it’s FAR in the future. 

Still. Who knows. Time will tell! 

[curious-minx]

Bob’s Burgers Gave Me Brain Worms and the Simpsons go on a....sigh....Roman Holiday.

Fell victim to nostalgia. 

Cowering in my golly gee cherry sour romper 

People don’t understand the concept of me and I  only understand that the loop we’re living in is finite 

A gesture of lives being eroded by slick white supremacy and male mediocrity that makes up the vast largess of subversive comedy. TIDES ARE SHIFTING!  Get lost in the marsh, mucking and wallowing in my indifferent harrowing pale plaster. Sunday Night on Fox is a excavation sight where the mummified and resuscitated adult cartoons come out to play, let’s check in on two of Americas leading families.

//////////

White men are impersonating men of color  and minorities in virtually every single Western comedic vehicle. Overriding all rhyme and reason, a racial sickness gnawing away at mucous membrane. A racial insensitivity of constantly pointing out racial insensitivity. This is not my space. I should move on, but god dammit I just want a single adult animated cartoon devoid of low middlebrow minstrely and the abysmal state of the  Voice Acting Empire Vacuum (VAEV) . Racial mimicry is stenciled into the vast majority of animated sitcoms and all “alternative” comedy targeted exclusively at white college aged men and the world suffering alongside them. We as a nation are currently on a lethal joy ride, the guide a White Supremacist who happens to be the most beloved celebrity in America. The man/woman/trans/nonbinary figure is falling asleep in a bed made of face oils and ghoulish make-up kits you can trust the brandname Killian Cosmetics a Canadian spite factory (The Shout Factory refused to provide a comment). 

We’ve entered a Spider-Verse and are getting a dose of Soul for Christmas, but it is nowhere near enough! Adult Swim cannot revive Tucca and Bertie back fast enough. The only example of what could be good and right with an animated sitcom. Sure, there’s The Boondocks, which is returning at some point hopefully in the near future, but it’s still not enough. There is clearly a need for an animated sitcom created by someone that has not been aboard the Lolita Express, that is the bare minimum. Dan Harmon attends a board room meeting with a lifelike premise that wows the world, but he’s got great friends and runs in circles of comedic voices that should also be given a shot. 

Acting freely and organically face to face is going to be an uphill battle for years to come. Animation is difficult and the labor practices are vile and exploitative against the artists that make the silly apparitions break our hearts. I am a coddled millennial that wants ever so badly to shotgun the phrases “raised by a Gameboy, raised by ROMs, raised by reruns, raised by blowup mattresses floating inside guests bedrooms, raised by horny postmodernism, raised by otaku teardrops, raised by candy coated make believe economic theory,” and someone I avoid blacking out. 

Watching the recent offerings of BOB’s BURGERS and the simpsons I also stirred deep wells of black out desire. Yet I am not going to convince you of why the episode Worms of In-Rear-Ment was a subpar offering of some sort of essential viewing Golden Age of Television (I’m sorry tv critic brigade but actual human beings usually have no idea what I’m saying whenever I bring up the Golden Age of Television, but I will become one of you and devour the pop cultural rhetoric that best suits the occasion). At least the opening store gag for the episode was A Hedwig And the Angry Inch related pun, which is probably the highlight of the whole episode. In a recent list posted by Vulture: (https://www.vulture.com/news/100-sequences-that-shaped-animation/) and article I spent the entire day reading. That is where my level of cognition is at right now. Some of you may have coded your way to the next big American Way, others are already fluent in every language and are now stumbling through Navi, whereas I am transcribing and slobbering all over a fairly comprehensive of history of animation? These sort of self deprecating digs are so last Quarantine. 

There were no such moments to be found in “In-Rear-Men,” but it’s ridiculous to hold a farting rub your butts together kind of show to the same standards as something more refined like South Park (X_X I> I surrender).A bottle episode around butt worms is a rough premise and without any sort of B-narrative to speak, and this is coming from a show who can dedicate a whole side plot into meaningless charades with ease and charm in every episode. Linda’s as a whole  feels Flanderized or at least a far inferior flimsier version of Linda that we’re accustomed to in this episode. Primarily regarding Linda’s insecurities around motherhood which check out, but that she is concerned about the kids’ Cs and D saturated report card does not read as an authentically Linda moment. Then there’s also the unnerving factor of making the Belchers unabashed super spreaders besides Louise, which certainly reads, but Tina is usually a safety stickler and in this episode she is literally rendered useless for the entire episode. When did I suddenly tune over into an Oblongs rerun (spot the reference! Don’t make me sick)? Personally grossness for grossness sake is a major turn off and I’m too much of a prude to accept front row tickets to the filth symphony. This episode would not be complete without an imagination fueled  musical number with Linda and a symphony of rectal worms. Somewhere along the line the show’s use of musical numbers stopped feeling fresh and fun and more like a safety valve deployed to distract and assuage viewers from the broken seams. And where was Teddy?!  Is Teddy’s role going to be greatly reduced because of the distant recordings? Here’s hoping its only onwards from here and I don’t care if its upwards or downwards I just don’t want to focus too much on farts and shit, and that’s my scoop. 

TWO HAMSTERS THAT WERE HARMED IN THE MAKING OF THIS EPISODE OUT OF 5

——

The Simpsons’ “I, Carumbus” the second episode of season 32, strangely, also completely sidelines its daughter/sister character  completely disregarding Lisa, because, of course, this being (a)historical drag piece. This is also an episode where one of the remaining Monty Python members’ Micael Palin is relegated to nothing but exposition reading. Rome is burning. California is on fire. I’m just not feeling this. My nose is too delicate and these Simpsonian brutes want to plow and smack me in my nose with the Trump and the Roman emperor parallels and we’re just having a good time making slave jokes. The episode is still fairly watchable but surprisingly gross in its violence, which is to be expected with gladiatorial antics, but this is not fun violence done with rhythm or panache it’s mostly there to make sure you as a viewer still have a pulse and test that you are paying attention.  A joyless joke machine puttering along its own vibrant pastel cushy budgets that allow the visuals to allow for more ambitious episodes, but at least the Simpsons has the nerve the start and episode with the family out and about somewhere whereas the Belchers are rooted in place. Starting to see why other bigger paid corporate publications don’t bother themselves with this tired and worn down clunker of a series, but hey Carl has a new voice actor, Alex Desert, who also gets to be a slave version of Carl this season as well, oh fun. 

Skip. 

Trudging on. 

[springtrappd]

1: yeah, but setting aside like, real-world politics around gender and its expression, the series has long operated by "it's a robot, stop overthinking it" rules regarding gender (see: mangle, funtime foxy, spring bonnie, etc). also i didn't want anyone to derail the post with "well they're not TECHNICALLY men!!1!!1" </3

2: it is precisely the fact that he's a minor character that makes vanny's lack of respect so obvious; why is he given an expanded role and endlessly analysed, while vanessa/vanny are dismissed as fundamentally uninteresting by virtue of... being disinteresting? it's circuitous logic, and a thought trap we can see people fall into in real-time every time a topic like this comes up. it's also a take that collapses in on itself the minute you understand that sun/vanessa and moon/vanny are intended as parallels, as op does:

because it requires acknowledging that yes, these characters are incredibly similar. deeply so. vanessa and sun are both characterised as anxious and guilt-ridden, prone to getting agitated when things don't go their way; sun quotes vanny in his singular scene (saying "are you having fun yet?" if you wait a bit), vanny's room has both a moon-themed blanket and shares the same cursed cabinet present in the dca's room. sun and vanny both skip, moon shares the same glowing red eyes and nefarious intent; they're both theatrical and associated with the performing arts. moon performs the same finger-wiggling in his jumpscare that vanny does when she runs at you, for christ's sake -- they are, at the very least, partners in the trap they've found themselves in.

and it's absolutely true that the crumbs of vanessa's character are spread largely across optional content, but that's where the dca being a minor character with barely-comparable screentime comes in -- because it isn't as if people simply look at the dca's scene, go "wow, i love him!" and then move on. no, they spend hours obsessing over it, exploring the daycare, memorising the theme; they pour over environmental details and scattered implications, spinning webs of theories and headcanons and fanon so vast it dwarfs their presence in the game itself. they invent personality traits and conflicts and relationships perhaps only barely hinted upon in the text, dedicate thousands of words and brush strokes and hours to building what they love -- to building something that they can love.

but what makes him worthy? what makes the clutter of his room worthy of careful consideration, but the impersonal emptiness of vanny's just another room to look at? having a sick-ass design isn't the only thing here -- as op acknowledges, vanny kicks ass -- and it isn't game mechanics, because vanny and moon share the exact same fucking game mechanics. hell, vanny even has one unique to her: when stunned, she rockets forward instead. anyone who has played the game can tell you that vanny and moon are, over the course of the game, the exact same level of threatening -- that is to say, zero. yes, the daycare sequence is terrifying, but moon's presence outside of that is just as a jumpscare that fires if you fuck up the arbitrary timed event! you barely notice he's there if you're not looking. so why are people looking?

as always, this take can't exactly be divorced from the context of the wider fandom it's made for. when i say that "vanessa is either a sex object or matriarch", i mean that that is the two roles she is sorted into: she is either the salacious, cruel villain or the soft, good-natured caretaker -- and that duality is in and itself borne of misogyny, because those are the roles that women are sorted into, too. are you the cold-hearted bitch or the homely sweetheart? (notice how these are both defined by how they treat men?)

and here lies the crux of the matter: that people think of misogyny as an action, something that happens, not something that is. that misogyny is thinking women shouldn't vote and bragging about how many chicks you've harassed and whistling at girls on the street. but it isn't; it is the doubled rate of eating disorders in women vs men, it is the wage gap, the education gap, period blood staining the schoolgirl's seat, the doctor answering reports of pain with have you tried having children yet? or a careful nod and a mental health referral, it is every ao3 archive dominated by men with .2 seconds of screentime, it is the immense popularity of shounen and yaoi over shoujo and yuri, it is the centuries spent building our society on the foundation of women's suffering. and none of us can escape that legacy, and the ways that it impacts us. the ways that we think. the things that we build.

and maybe it isn't that deep, and yeah, people forcibly cutting her out of the story in favour of michael or sun or whoever is ultimately just fandom doing what fandom does. but there's a commonality here, between the characters held up in her place, and the ways in which she is put down; there's a trend in how these discussions are held, and in the language used about her. and maybe i'm just an sjw bitch reaching for conclusions that aren't there, and maybe there really is some other, justifiable difference between the worthy and damned, but i'd like you to consider this: why, of all characters, was vanny/vanessa the one sacrificed in the rush to release?

what made him worthy of saving?

oh boy I wonder why this masc character has a huge fanbase compared to a woman with the exact same deal that he's intended as a parallel for. I wonder why people obsess over and extend sympathy towards the man over the woman. I wonder why she's either commonly hated or objectified. I wonder why people are willing to obsessively analyse and elaborate upon what little content there is of these male characters while dismissing the woman with the exact same deal as inherently boring and unworthy of deeper thought. I fucking wonder why

[ageofgeek]

Guys...they did the impossible. I liked Rise of Skywalker! They ended it well, and there were a bunch of parts that I REALLY liked (and really only a few parts that I was "meh" about).

SPOILERS UNDER THE READ MORE!

So!  Let’s go through the main reveals/plot points and then I’ll go into more specifics. Rey is Palpatine’s granddaughter - I’ll be honest, I did NOT expect that. I think after TFA came out, I reblogged a gifset that included all of the Rey parentage theories, and I was like, “lol what? who the hell thinks that Rey is a Palpatine? wtf?” And now it’s canon?  Honestly, it’s the same kind of batshit reveal that I’d expect from Star Wars, so I’m kinda okay with it.

Kylo Ren’s redemption was...not as terrible as I thought it would be. As y’all know, I am very anti-Kylo and anti-R*ylo, so I thought I was going to Suffer in this movie. But I was surprised by how I felt about it - only mildly irritated instead of bursting with rage. I still think he doesn’t really have a personality other than 1) whiny 2) manipulative and 3) emo, but I did like the scene where he hallucinates Han and repeats his line from TFA (”I know what I have to do but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it”). That being said, it is still highly questionable to have Kylo’s redemption built on Leia’s death/sacrifice for her son (it reads a little too much like fridging a woman to save a male character), but I will excuse the filmmakers for that because they didn’t have much footage of Carrie Fisher to work with, so there wasn’t too much they could do if they wanted to commit to not digitally reconstructing her (which I am glad they did not do).

I digress (I’ll talk about Leia in the next paragraphs). I did like that Kylo just showed up to the final fight with Palpatine in like, a henley and slacks. It seemed like a very Skywalker thing to do, lol. Also, thank God that he died. Like, damn - I see all these Kylo stans being so upset at his death, and I’m just like?  His character purposefully paralleled Vader - a parallel which I think was weak, at best, but still, a parallel - and you thought that he wasn’t going to die?  Also, what would have happened if he had lived?  Oh right, he would’ve gone to prison for the rest of his life and not gotten married to Rey and have kids, lol, what universe are you living in? As it was, I think that they did his death well - like Vader, they had him sacrifice himself for somebody that he loved (although the bond between Rey and Kylo is, once again, much more questionable to me than the bond between Luke and Vader/Anakin). And like Vader, he turned back to the Light because of his family (Leia and Han). Thinking about the 2 other ways Ben’s character arc could’ve gone (1) he doesn’t turn back to the Light or 2) he turns back to the Light but doesn’t die), this was the only satisfying way to end his arc (at least in my opinion).

That being said, I REALLY could’ve done without that kiss. Like, really? You just had to force it into an unnecessary romance? You couldn’t have just had them hug or cradle each other, platonically? Both of the climactic emotional moments of the previous trilogies were completely non-romantic, and both focused on love of FAMILY - Luke cradling Anakin, his father, as he dies, and Obi-Wan being forced to “kill” Anakin, his brother. It would’ve been so much better if they had ended this one with Rey cradling Ben, her brother, as he died. But no, we can’t have nice things because heteronormativity exists. *sigh*

But, we’re moving on. I thought that they handled Leia’s character really respectfully - I think Carrie Fisher would’ve been proud. I’m still bitter and sad that we only got one scene in the entire sequel trilogy with Luke and Leia (the OG Skywalkers and you only had them in one fucking scene together? Goddammit), but that force ghost scene at the end with the two of them made me happy - it was a bittersweet happiness, but happiness all the same (also, since it is canon that force ghosts get to chill and rest and be happy in the afterlife, I am more than happy with that ending. It also makes me want to write a ton of fanfiction. Stay tuned for that). I also burst into tears when Leia died and Maz stood near her bedside and whispered, “Goodbye, Princess.” Wow, that did things to my heart!

Ian McDiarmid continues to be a goddamn delight to watch as Palpatine, and he was genuinely creepy and horrific in this movie. I still feel like bringing Palpatine back to life (albeit in zombified form) was a real slap in the face to the perfect ending of ROTJ (and it especially cheapens Anakin’s role as the Chosen One, which is really a slap in the face for me), but they did it as best they could. I think I would’ve preferred if Palpatine was in spirit form in this movie, trying to come back to life by using Rey as a conduit or a body? Something like that would’ve honored the end of ROTJ a bit more while also bringing him back as the big villain.

All in all, I liked TROS much more than I hated it, especially since I had pretty low expectations going in. I’ve talked about the big “reveals” and moments so far, but I really liked the little things in this movie! For example:

Rey, Finn, and Poe were a full-on OT3 trio in this movie, and I loved it! The mission to find the wayfinder in the desert? Adventures! Chase scenes! Exploring! Jokes! I loved it - it was definitely giving me “Tatooine in ROTJ” vibes. They all kind of wandered apart in the second half of the movie, but they came back together at the end for that hug!! Which made me cry buckets!! (Poe holding Rey’s hand as they both hug Finn??? Wow, OT3 goals, they are so in love)

Chewie and Lando were great!  Lando felt a little random in this movie (no explanation as to where he was? No mention of Han’s death?), but I always appreciate Billy Dee Williams, so I’m not complaining.

In that same vein, WEDGE CAMEO!!! They got Denis Lawson back, and right after I got back on my Wedge/Luke wagon! Damn, I wish we could’ve seen more of him (maybe there are some deleted scenes??? Listen, I neED MORE WEDGE IN MY LIFE).

And again in the same vein as cameos, um, that Jedi voice scene??? Listen, ok, hearing Hayden’s voice again was more than I ever thought we would get, I was sO EMOTIONAL, I heard him and almost immediately burst into tears. And they got Ewan and Liam Neeson and Samuel L. Jackson(!!!), and the voice actors for Ahsoka and Luminara and WOW I am super emotional, that was hands-down the best scene in the movie for me. I was so happy to hear all of them - the acknowledgement of the prequels and the rest of the Jedi, FINALLY, after 2 previous sequel movies that didn’t give a shit about them. FINALLY we got this. And you know what? I would’ve been even happier if they had shown their faces, but I will take it. I will fucking take it. (That being said: Oh, Disney Gods - please let Hayden return for flashbacks and/or hallucinations in the Obi-Wan series. Please. It’s all I want in life).

The confirmation that Leia trained as a Jedi and had a lightsaber - I almost full-on clapped in the theaters at that scene. And I loved the training sequence/flashback that they had with Luke and Leia - they actually showed them sparring and I loved it so much! It was amazing - why couldn’t they have included that earlier? (Cue me singing: “We could’ve had it allll!!!!!”).

Luke’s Force Ghost appearance really redeemed his character from the beating it got in TLJ. It was a short scene, but it felt so much more like the Luke Skywalker I know and love, and I’m glad that they gave Mark Hamill a chance to really play Luke again.

The end scene with the Resistance coming to help. It felt a little Endgame-ish to me (then again, that was arguably the best scene in Endgame), but we definitely came full circle from TLJ, where the Resistance was basically abandoned on Crait and nobody answered their distress call. In TROS, everybody answered their distress call.

I also like that C3PO had a bit more of a role! I really love R2 and C3PO, and I like that they kept to Lucas’ original vision of the two of them being the only ones to be in all 9 films. I also deeply appreciate R2 being with Leia when she died - that felt incredibly moving and appropriate, and also coming full circle from Leia’s first scene with R2 in ANH.

Finn being confirmed as Force-sensitive! Finally! Fucking 4 years since TFA and we finally got it - hallelujah.

I think that’s about it! Honestly, I’m just so high off of the endorphins of hearing Anakin and Obi-Wan and all of the Jedi again! That scene made the entire movie worth it for me.

But this is the end of the Skywalker Saga, and that makes me really sad. The one thing that I am really upset about with regards to this movie is that it literally ends the Skywalkers. At least if you end the original 6 movies with ROTJ, the implication is that Leia and/or Luke will continue the Skywalker lineage, and they will continue to be leaders and jedi and heroes - but when you add in the sequel trilogy...it just ends. Anakin’s grandson turns to the dark side and ends up (indirectly) killing Luke, Leia, and then himself. And THAT’S how the Skywalkers end? After the tragedy that was Anakin (and Padme’s) life, history just repeats itself and the family line ends? That’s...depressing. But I think that the sequel trilogy, in a way, is still very distant from the other 2 trilogies - in a way, it reminded me of a weird, high-budget delve into the EU that is technically canon, but doesn’t feel like it’s canon???

Either way, I’m happy to accept the sequel trilogy as pseudo-canon, but still apart from the original 6 movies. I’m glad that we got to see some, if not all, of the OT characters again. I wish we could’ve gotten more - out of the old and new characters - but what we got was okay, and I enjoyed the ride.

And now, I’m just going to go cry over the Skywalker family and read force ghost fanfiction :’)

[bi-dazai]

BSD Episode 27 Analysis

Hello! Natalya back with my second instalment of my episodical analyses of BSD. This week I’ll be looking at episode 27 from the lens of a more platonic soukoku than last week, which was about explicit romance coding in terms of double-entendre and visual imagery. You can find that post here. I would suggest reading it, because I may indulge myself in romantic soukoku in this post a bit, although it will only be a side-track.

A note before we begin, however – I’m writing this in a much more casual academic tone, and I’m not using lowercase and internet casual as I did in my previous post. This is because it helps me enunciate my points in a way that doesn’t make me look like a crazy person. I also made quite a few grammatical errors, typos, and strange sentences. This tends to happen when I write long-form internet casual. For the sake of clarity, you’ll have to put up with the tone I usually place in a more casual academic setting such as my university tutorials.

So as usual I’ll pick out a few moments to focus in on to explain an overall general subtext and underlying message etc in the episode. For this episode, I’ve picked the opening in which Chuuya kicks the gun out of Dazai’s hand, and the scene in which our two other Sheep members are introduced.

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This episode I’m going to focus on the way the episode expresses the burgeoning, newborn perceptions of Dazai on Chuuya and vice versa. I’m also going to be referring to moments that count as SPOILERS, so if you care about that then careful going forth, or perhaps wait until the Fifteen adaptation is finished before coming back to this post and reading it.

Also, for this episode I’ll be diving into my writing major and only partially into my film studies minor. I’ll have you know I pull out my textbooks and lecture notes every time I make an analytical post like this, haha!

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So let us begin with the opening moments of the episode. This episode, structurally, is where we finally start diving past the surface of the introduction and right into the story of Dazai and Chuuya. This is the proper introduction of their relationship. So this first fight sequence serves to demonstrate the tone with which we will begin.

So here we have some classic establishing character writing. Step 1: Introduce the base characteristics of your characters. Step 2: Introduce a problem. Step 3: Explore how they interact with the problem.

So here we witness not just Chuuya and Dazai’s unique takes on how to deal with this problem, we also have their own perceptions of each other’s actions to explore. Remember – this story is about the two of them as a pair, not just as individuals.

So here we have our problem – an armed soldier has just appeared and is clearly threatening violence. Chuuya reacts by taunting – “Oi, old man. Let’s save us both some time.” Dazai is surprised by Chuuya’s brazenness (see the expression animated in the first SC). Chuuya taunts the opponent a little more, edging and encouraging danger, clearly seeking a fight. Dazai approaches. Walking calmly past, he says to Chuuya without regard for the armed soldier, “…you could just trick him to get some information out of him.” Here we have the set-up of Dazai and Chuuya in a problem. Chuuya sees a problem as a threat and escalates to a physical altercation; Dazai sees a problem as an opportunity and prefers mental cunning.

As the scene continues on however, we begin to recognise a similarity in Dazai and Chuuya, and that is that they have little regard for the problem. They understand how powerful they are and their upper hands (Chuuya his ability and Dazai his intellect). Even when they talk to a grown adult man wielding a gun, they talk down to him. When he holds a barrel to their heads within deadly range, they aren’t fazed:

And, of course, in this exchange here both Dazai and Chuuya both are shown to be knowledgeable of underground groups, networks, and goingsons. Keep in mind Chuuya is the ‘King of the Sheep’ and acts pretty much as their leader and later becomes Executive before Dazai does. And Dazai is Mori’s protégé, frequently set up to be the next Boss of the mafia to the point that Mori is fearful that Dazai would have taken his seat sometime soon if he hadn’t broken him (further) with the death of Odasaku. Chuuya and Dazai, despite their differences, are the most dangerous people in the underground right now, they’re clever and powerful. Chuuya may be the ‘brawns’ in their physical fights, but off the battlefield anyone interacting with them is subjected to two intensely intellectual and cunning people who are deadest on a goal. This is also shown at the end of the episode with their conversation with Randou, somewhat in Episode 21 when Chuuya isn’t beating the shit out of the Guild.

In short – they are different, yet incredibly similar. They have different views on a situation, but given the same goal they will work towards it in differing ways with equal success. They are the perfect rivals, and the perfect counterbalances to each other’s personalities and ethos’s. In My Hero Academia, Bakugou’s desire for victory and Midoriya’s pure heart and established as traits which each one must learn from the other to become both better heroes and better people. In Bungou Stray Dogs, Chuuya and Dazai work with and against each other and transform each other into better people.

And so, that is where this moment comes in:

(Sidenote: Chuuya’s line here translates roughly as “It’s useless to shoot dead bodies.” Don’t ask how, but I know that because of Jojo’s.)

(ignore this repeat sc, tumblr editor is being fucky)

(Second sidenote: Look. Look how close they’re depicted in this shot.)

(Third sidenote: sorry for quality drop – Australian internet is special.)

So here we have our first instance of one half of Soukoku directly challenging and changing an aspect of the other half. Here, Chuuya notices how clearly sick Dazai is. Furthermore, if we refer to our second SC (where Dazai’s expression makes me want to cry), we can see parallels to a certain future (ongoing) mental health arc:

I bring this up because we later find out that the reason Akutagawa is so violently driven is that he was constantly demeaned and psychologically abused by his mentor – Dazai. Akutagawa becomes not an antagonist but another protagonist upon meeting Atsushi [insert shin soukoku summary here] and bettering himself. He makes a pact not to kill anyone and begins working together with Atsushi (he used to be a lone wolf – a stray dog). Atsushi also learns to be confident and put a foot down from Akutagawa. But the point here that we need to focus on, of course, is that Akutagawa is seen as utterly deranged, violent, and demonic in the first season, but later we realise that he is in fact capable of empathy but was extremely battered by his own mental abuse.

We also see this expression on Fitzgerald as he begins to lose control. It’s another tie-back to Akutagawa (and in a small part Atsushi, but I’ll leave that for later when I analyse that episode). And we see it in Shibusawa in Dead Apple. We see this expression and through the stylistic language of Bungou Stray Dogs we come to understand it as not the depiction of someone to be reviled but the depiction of someone who is struggling inside.

So here, when we see Dazai make that expression, we know that Dazai may be a seemingly totally apathetic, suicidal, amoral mafioso who just went utterly crazy while shooting a dead guy in the head, but we know it is because, currently, Dazai is extremely, extremely depressed.

In thinking of Akutagawa and understanding what we know of Dazai’s past with Mori, it is safe to assume that Mori has not once opposed nor done anything to help Dazai with his mental illness. Mori has, in fact, utilised Dazai’s mental illness as a tool and a strategy to keep Dazai close.

And then the light finally comes in, and Chuuya kicks the gun out of Dazai’s hands, Dazai gets scolded, and finally someone is forcing Dazai to question himself.

So let’s move onto the vice versa of this scene. I’d like to give partial credit for this next piece of analysis to user @bluelancelion who wrote up an excellent little piece on this scene [https://bluelancelion.tumblr.com/post/184330424612/okay-so-we-all-know-that-dazai-is-manipulating-the]. [this is where the spoilers start to come into play!] Please go read that before you move on with my post here, because I’m going to expand on some points, however I don’t want to summarise something that’s already perfectly written anyway so I’m leaving that one to some assigned reading!

Ok.

So as OP stated, this is the first scene in which Dazai doesn’t put up a play act to hide his own feelings. Let’s actually go backwards when analysing this scene:

DAZAI: “Lay off him already. He has the ability to choose for himself how to use his power. Even a kid could figure out that much.”

I’ve attached this because that’s a stark contrast to this:

Both in expression and in dialogue, Dazai is already different. And here we have Dazai for probably the first time in his life using his intellect to set up a ploy for someone else’s benefit and not just his own.

[ROMANTIC SOUKOKU SIDETRACK: Dazai has been shown to canonically be a selfish person, especially in his Port Mafia days. Expanding on my theory expressed in my episode 26 post in which I posited Dazai has feelings for Chuuya that he either understands or doesn’t just yet, this could be both out of his feelings for Chuuya urging him to do something to make Chuuya happy (We can also add to this by mentioning how he just lets the Sheep hostages go. Chuuya is only meant to be working with the Port Mafia temporarily – Mori may have his plans but these are a long time coming at this point. Chuuya is still attached to Sheep and releasing hostages gives him much more of an excuse to ditch the mafia totally), and/or his feelings urging him to do something to keep Chuuya to himself. This is especially interesting considering this little interchange (she’s looking at Dazai):

Yeah that’s either 1) double-entendre or just 2) straight up explicit romantic competition. It’s after this that Dazai stops going along playfully with them and starts straight up demeaning them and saying Chuuya can do what he wants without their input.

I’ll end my RSS (Romantic Soukoku Sidetrack) with a sneak into Chuuya’s side:

Make of that what you will.]

*another kinda pointless sidenote: chuuya’s sheep male friend refers to chuuya as ‘omae’ [derogatory when used towards a person who isn’t your subordinate (i.e. teacher to a student; boss to an assistant etc) which is pretty damn brazen considering Chuuya can snap him in two at a moment’s notice and that Chuuya is probably the only reason their gang is still even alive.

 Okay, Romantic Sidetrack done! Now back to our analysis. We’re moving on to our final scene of the episode. Before we get into the soukoku analysis, I just wanted to point out this little frame here:

For those who don’t know, the founder of the ADA is this cat. He wasn’t always a cat (I think?), but in Bungou Stray Dogs as we know it, he’s a cat. The cat has been seen frequently in scenes involving flashbacks to Dazai’s time in the mafia and often when Fukuzawa is trying (so hard) to feed cats. It’s also worth mentioning there’s a tradition of cats in Japanese literature, often about observing the world and realising things about yourself by observing it. If you want an anime example, go watch My Roommate Is A Cat. It functions in pretty much the same way. Anyway, here’s a fun aside in which Fukuzawa realises the cat is the ADA leader, “Come!”, and the ADA leader promptly rolls around the floor chasing feathers while going “nyan nyan nyan”: [picture not my own]

Okay where was I before I got sidetracked by a cat? Right. Soukoku.

We get a bit of Dazai gloating about getting rid of his romantic competition Sheep’s constant hold on Chuuya, before Randou asks Dazai to please shut the fuck up about the guy he literally met that week and please just send me to the execution room I don’t think I can take any more of this kid going on about Chuuya. (Understandable, have a nice day |　わかりました。良い一日を過ごしてください。)　

So we get a bit of Dazai’s explanation on why Randou is the culprit before we hear that all-too-familiar screech of Chuuya coming in hot. Let’s pause it there.

We’ve never, ever heard Chuuya yell like that without Corruption. Yet he does it now. This 1) ties Corruption in with our current mystery about Arahabaki (spoiler: Corruption is Chuuya allowing Arahabaki full reign over the god’s vessel (Chuuya)) and 2) makes us aware that the Chuuya we’re familiar with from our current knowledge of the anime (I use the anime because that’s what I’m analysing) is a little different from fifteen-year-old Chuuya. Okay, so keep that in mind, and we’ll keep going, fast forward a bit until this final bit after the credits:

[this shot: Chuuya has journeyed towards Randou. There is something tying Chuuya and Randou together that Dazai is not quite part of. Spoiler: Randou as we know is Rimbaud, who is a key factor in Chuuya’s development (hat) and the Arahabaki investigation.]

[this shot: First, we think back to Dazai, Akutagawa, Fitzgerald, Shibusawa. Those expressions are similar, but there’s something really wrong here. Let me tell you want it is. Mainly, visually the pupils of Chuuya’s eyes are inverted. But secondarily, we’ve already been visually warned just over ten minutes ago, first by this scene in which we cut to Chuuya while we talk of Arahabaki’s eyes (it does cut also to Dazai, but his expression is one of “I’m figuring out a mystery” and his eyes are obscured. This shot of Chuuya lingers on Chuuya’s eyes, pulling focus to them and the expression on his face.)

Secondly, Chuuya’s eyes are the colour of the sea that Randou talks about. And, of course, in this shot we see not only the sea but also the light of Chuuya’s ability plainly:

So there we have a burgeoning relationship between Chuuya and Randou, and a hint that we are going to be discussing Chuuya’s relationship with Arahabaki and with himself as its vessel.

And then we have this – Dazai did not know any of this. This is foreign to us – the Dazai we know has predicted almost everything. He even predicted Odasaku’s death. But here, he’s totally out of his depth. He’s dealing with gods now. He expected the main part of their investigation to end a few minutes ago when Chuuya explained how Randou staged the resurrection of the previous Boss. But now we, with Dazai, are being thrown headfirst into something clearly very much a Chuuya thing. And now we will see whether Dazai sticks or leaves with a plot involving an actual fucking god of destruction (we know what happens. He does).

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And so, to finalise: This episode set up relationships. It set us up to the fact that this story is going to be about relationships, and more specifically about these ones:

- Dazai and Chuuya

- Dazai and Sheep

- Chuuya and Sheep

- Chuuya and Randou

It directs the audience to consider events, framing, characters etc within the contexts of these relationships in order to appreciate the story properly.

And yeah it also sets up that Dazai is a bit of a jealous bitchy bisexual.

[red-applesith]

Did Rian save the Knights of Ren by changing one detail of the Force vision?

The Knights of Ren are one of the remaining mysteries of this new trilogy, one many look forward to discover in IX and love to speculate about.I remembered Rian addressing their absence in VIII during an interview he had given to the Empire Film Podcast but had never really given much thoughts about it until I tried to find a transcript of the conversation (unfortunately there is no full re-transcription of the 2 hours long podcast but a few articles picked up the relevant parts).Here is what Rian had to say about the Knights of Ren:

Rey’s force vision in The Force Awakens gave birth to a ton of speculation and the presence of the Knights of Ren around Kylo Ren made it one of the most dissected 30 seconds of cinema in recent years.

That’s why, reading those lines out loud, I squeezed my eyes and tried to picture the Throne Room with the Knights of Ren in lieu of the Praetorian guards, then the Force Vision with the Praetorian Guards in lieu of the Knights. Then the throne room again, then the Force vision...

That’s when the remark of Rian took a very specific meaning.

In Force Awakens J.J.Abrams gave Rey her first Force vision - upon discovering the legacy saber stashed away in Maz’s basement, our heroine glimpses what has been in the past and what is still to come - A premonition so upsetting Rey runs away, refusing the call to adventure, only to be forced into the arms of destiny (quite literally).

As a fandom we pretty much agreed from the start that the words spoken to Rey by Maz in the corridor were a clever bit of foreshadowing regarding Ben Solo’s redemption.

On the other hand there’s still much to discuss about the sequence in the rain because the presence of the Knights around Kylo Ren renders the timeline ambiguous. Is it the past? Is it the future? Did Kylo sense Rey and that’s why he was moving towards her? Who is the Clan leader?

Today I want to postulate that in TFA the sequence in the rain is actually Rey’s premonition of what is going to happen in the Throne Room.

To illustrate this theory, allow me first to draw parallels between how the two sequences play:

It works, right?

‘But!’ you’re going to say ‘there are many elements that are different between the two scenes, including most importantly the presence of the KOR’ which is why I’d like to delve into more details under the cut.

1. Visions in the Star Wars universe

“The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see the future is.”

– Yoda

If there’s one thing the Jedi and Anakin taught us is that Force visions are not documentaries. They are made of symbols that are meant to speak or inspire a truth to the beholder (not even ‘the’ truth)

In the case of Rey, her latent Force powers just awakened and she’s never experienced anything like this before so it’s no wonder her first reaction is to panic and flee. Keep in mind that she has no idea what she’s seeing and how to interpret it - except for the part about her childhood of course.

That part she knows all too well, but as it’s been established she’s not ready to accept the truth at the start of her journey, which is why in insight, perhaps Rey doesn’t flee because she’s scared of meeting and fighting the monster from the vision but because she’s trying to flee the truth inside herself.

And the truth is precisely what Rian needed Rey to confront to allow her character to grow in TLJ. That’s why I believe that Rian kept the vision as the blueprint for the Throne Room because it was a good scene but also decided that not all elements of the vision needed to be incorporated. The KoR are a minor detail in the scene after all. Rey’s turmoil is what really matters.

2. Codename "Clan Leader"

Before I delve more into the symbolism and metaphors of the Force vision, I’m going to discuss the codename “Clan leader”.

Because we focused a lot on the Knights in that scene before TLJ came out (and even after), it never occurred to me before I started to connect the dots that clan LEADER may have been the most obvious, in your face piece of information given about the identity of the guy killed by Kylo in that scene.

After all there are plenty of clans in the Star Wars universe - Mandalorian, Padawan, witches, etc...

In that respect, Clan leader could refer to almost anything, really.

Except that, as a fandom we were keen to observe that said Clan Leader was about to strike Rey, and that by killing him Kylo Ren was actually saving her.

Does that ring a bell? Because that’s literally the plot of the Throne Room - The Supreme Leader brags that he plans to kill Rey “with the cruelest stroke” only to be betrayed - and cut in half- by Kylo.  

Nuf’ said.

3. Metaphors and emotions

As mentioned previously, visions are not very good at giving out details of what is going to happen exactly. At best, they are filtered by the individual receiving them, at worst they’re bent to fit one’s personal fears and end up becoming self fulfilling prophecies of doom.

That’s where I think it’s interesting to postulate that if Rian did use the Force Vision as blueprint for the Throne Room, he chose to be pretty straightforward about it, which is why the only true difference is the absence of the Knights of Ren.

So, let’s examine further two key elements of the Force vision to see how ‘similar’ the seemingly differences actually are.

The backstabbing

Like established a few lines above, in TLJ Kylo betrays Snoke to save Rey. So is it a coincidence that we see him backstabbing the clan leader in the vision? You can argue a lot about Kylo, that he’s unhinged and unpredictable at times, but there’s something that TFA and TLJ established very well, it’s that he has a certain moral code. Although he’s scared shitless to see Luke appear on the battlefield, he still gets out of the comfort of his shuttle to face him one-on-one. When he fights Finn, he acts like a peacock but he only uses his lightsaber, never once trying dirty Force tricks.

So how are the chances that he would strike an opponent in the back? Probably nil to be honest.

But what else the act of backstabbing evokes automatically? Betrayal.

That’s the reason why I believe that the Vision is the visual representation of Kylo’s betrayal of Snoke.

The storm

The final element I want to draw attention to is the storm. Bodies are piled up on the ground, the rain is lashing down, tying the vision of Luke and artoo to the vision of Kylo Ren and the KoR. Rain in Star Wars always seems to bring a sense of heightened dramatic tension and that’s why Rey fights Luke under an identical stormy night sky.

Of course, it doesn’t rain aboard star ships. Although we have this lovely, almost intimate “fiery rain” all around Rey and Kylo.

But coming back to the vision, my proposition is that the storm is a visualization of the battle raging inside and outside the Supremacy. The Resistance fleet is being decimated by the First Order. There’s a sense of danger and urgency as Rey is standing in the middle of it all.

Conclusion

This meta is already getting longer than I wished so I’m going to wrap it up here. All I really wanted to say is that, whether Rian did or didn’t use Rey’s Force vision as the blueprint for his Throne Room, I’m glad he decided to spare the Knights and I hope we’ll finally see them in IX.

[nepenthean-sleep]

Respectfully, I don't think this is likely. The whole topic of "what makes her Gideon has been destroyed" was explored in HtN and further expanded upon and subverted in NtN with Kiriona. I don't think this idea will be further abstracted. Additionally, this seems a disconcerting ending for someone who was kept as an indentured servant for nearly two decades, then killed and trapped in a body that she herself literally refers to as "the Emperor's construct." TLT has set itself up to be a series with one of its central major themes to be one of bodily autonomy. To further imprison Gideon would not only be antithetical to her character arc, it would be narratively unsatisfying. "You can't lock up a planet anywhere" is true, I guess, but she'd be in the same boat as Kiriona: essentially locked in a body that isn't fully hers. I still haven't discounted the theory that Harrow will grow Gideon a new heart and resurrect her, with a scene for that being a parallel of the arm scene with Ianthe. (The comment in HtN about Harrow having a "knack for the aorta" might be one of those important throwaway lines, and is fueling this theory for me.)

I don't think the parallels between Alecto and Gideon/Kiriona are meant to imply that Gideon will become the Earth or take the place of Alecto as the Earth's spirit. I think the parallels are meant to exhibit a displaced eroticism between Gideon and Harrow that Harrow can more easily project onto more socially-acceptable Alecto instead. There's an excellent essay by gothicenjoyer/hurricanelolita about the use of displaced eroticism in GtN with Gideon and Cytherea-as-Dulcinea and Harrow, which I won't link here because tumblr hates links. But I firmly believe something similar is going on in regards to Harrow and Alecto and Gideon/Kiriona.

Lastly, the line about the "spirit always longs for the body if it's around" has shown to be a major tenant of the magic system in this series. Alecto's body is the planet, which still exists, and I can't see any soul but hers returning to it. Despite the dream sequences in NtN (which I believe are Alecto's memories but altered due to Harrow's presence, and perhaps another in-universe example of Harrow exhibiting symptoms of psychosis), the reaction Alecto/Nona had to residing in Harrow's body likely discounts the theory that Harrow is Alecto. So, with regards to this information, I don't think it's likely Harrow will become the soul of the Earth either.

I could be completely wrong about all of this, and I will admit your theory is very interesting. However, I feel this type of ending would be narratively unsatisfactory and would render the one of the few major themes of the series, one about the relationship between someone and their body in the wake of trauma (specifically the trauma of imperialism as made into a metaphor about sexual trauma and vice versa), totally moot.

This is how it ends:

Gideon is going to take Alecto’s place as the soul of the Earth, because Alecto is long-dead and you can’t go home again. This will not involve her being Gideon anymore, mind you - the soul of a planet isn’t anything like a human being, because it is so large and contains so many multitudes. It contains concepts, like love and hate and forgiveness and mercy. It contains concepts like the freedom of the winds to blow, the mercy of the rains to soak the earth, the forgiveness of spring after a long and devastating winter. All of these, we have seen, Gideon also contains - and so the Earth will be Gideon, after a fashion. Hell, I suspect that the new citizens of Earth might even *name* it Gideon.

Gideon will be big and bright, full of promise and purpose. She will love the people who walk upon her ground, who ply her waters, who till her soil and coax new life from bare dirt. She will be a wonderful place to live - a new paradise, even, if you’re from the dead and dying Houses or the desperately struggling exoplanets. And in all the ways that matter, she will be Gideon.

And in all the ways that don’t matter, she won’t be Gideon anymore. They’re little ways, ways that will only matter to a very few, who will likely tell themselves that this is a good ending, this is the best thing for her, she always wanted freedom and what’s freer than being an entire planet? You can’t lock up a planet anywhere. They will tell themselves not to stand at her grave and weep. She isn’t there; she’s everywhere.

But you can’t kiss a planet. You can’t hold a planet. You can feel the whisper of the breeze through your hair, but it will never be her breath ghosting across your skin. You can feel the touch of the water all around you as you wade into the sea, but it will never be her arms embracing you. You tell yourself that you have no right to her, never did - especially not after how you treated her, especially not after what she did for you and, eventually, did for everyone - but you can’t help it: you miss her. It’s Gideon, and she belongs to everyone - but you miss your Gideon. And she is gone. You will never see her again.

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