#...i really am incredibly obvious am i not

[the-squeege]

I’ve been a huge fan of Glass Scientists for… what’s it been like… 7 years? Something like that.. anyway I’m super happy to see it getting more recognition AND EVEN GETTING PUBLISHED??? I got volume 2 the other day and in reading the after words about Jasper I figured I HAD to draw him and talk about why he is SO important to me and why I’m so thankful he exists the way he does. There’s so much else I could say about this series and how much I adore it and how important it is to me but for here I’m just gonna focus on Jasper and why he is so incredibly important to me.

also please go read the glass scientists if you haven’t already it’s SO GOOD

It’s.. not something I talk a lot about but to anybody who pays attention to me on here, it’s probably pretty obvious that I’m trans. Or maybe not. My best friends didn’t know for like 2 years until I made a joke about taking my t shots lol.

When I first started reading glass scientists I didn’t know I was trans. And ultimately this isn’t really a story of how I found out, to be completely blunt it kinda just happened and I’m like yeah, I’m way more comfortable this way, this is just who I am.

After coming to terms with being trans, I found a lot of comfort in many of the characters in Glass Scientists. Over the years something really resonated with me more and more about Jasper.. I always appreciated how yeah, he’s a guy and he’s also soft! And sweet! And I know how much of a walking talking trans man stereotype I am but it felt so nice to see a male character acting and feeling the way I do, bad posture and all.

A few years later and the pages where Jasper talks about being trans drop and HOOH BOY

Everything in these few pages just felt so real and personal to me. Like I had lived this experience of coming out before, as it’s something I and many other trans folk have had to do over and over again. The way Jasper talks about his journey, the way Rachel sees him and the way that the story just continues on with Jasper just.. being who he is. Especially in a world with almost no transmasc representation in media???? This was MONUMENTAL for me. I didn’t really know it was possible to be so seen and so understood in a piece of media.

The real kicker was Rachel’s line about how Jasper must have been so uncomfortable. As someone who’s been lucky enough to have a lot of support, and a loving partner who has been nothing short of incredibly kind and patient and understanding, that line just. I dunno it makes me tear up a little (a lot) every time I read it. That understanding and acknowledgment in those few little words means the world to me.

I wanted to write this out and be a lil vulnerable here after reading how Sage was worried about their portrayal of Jasper. Idk if they’d ever see this, but I wanted to get it out there that as a trans man myself, Jasper is perfect. I’m so thankful that Jasper exists in the story as he does, and that so much love and care went into portraying him. I get the same feeling reading that scene with Rachel and Jasper as I’ve had being comforted by friends and family. It’s so personal and touching. Thank you for writing Jasper the way he is <3

[rooniper]

The inevitable Ralph Lore Masterpost

Here it comes. After my second re-read and a week of talking about this fictional cringefail tragic girl dad to anyone who would listen, here it finally is, because I felt a need to write all of this down for future reference and also because I am very close to exploding at any given second of the day.

Also: do keep in mind some of this is my personal speculation/theories/ramblings and probably not canon, but I did try to stick to just the book as much as possible. This is not a coherent essay. Really, it’s a word vomit because I can’t stop thinking about the funny Phone Man. I still probably missed some things, feel free to chime in in the replies, might make a Part 2 unpacking some of the lore/non-Ralph related bits in the future who knows.

Anyways, in no particular order (AND OBVIOUSLY; SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT):

Pre-Freddy’s Era Details I Couldn’t Fit Anywhere Else (Or: Upbringing, College and some Coppelia’s Mom Speculation)

There’s not much info about Ralph’s childhood from what I could gather, except two things: he was bullied in school to the point where he had to hide in a locked bathroom stall to get away from his classmates, and his father was a major a-hole who had extremely high expectations for him and also used to scare him out of wanting to play hide-and-seek with him which. Goddamn. The quote “all your life you’ve gotten used to not pushing buttons” really, really doesn’t help the horrible parents allegations. So yeah the man has daddy issues, jot that down.

Expanding on the previous point: a lot of his parenting of Coppelia seems to be directly influenced by his own upbringing. The paragraph-long tangent about how he’s purposefully awful at hide-and-seek because he never wants Pel to feel as scared as he did is an obvious example, but he also brings her gifts from work pretty much constantly (and sidenote: he thinks of taking things from his job that he never breaks the rules at to bring to her all the goddamn time, while being actively hunted by murderous animatronics. That’s so goddamn wholesome I’m sorry even when he’s scared out of his mind he’s constantly thinking of her). He never puts her down the way it’s implied he was put down as a child, he seems really supportive of her hobbies by the way he talks about her reading. I have more to say about his parenting skills, but the fact that he’s terrified of becoming like his own father/parents seems to be a giant part of them.

He’s a college dropout who majored in psychology, aiming to specialize in child psychology, which makes so much sense but also I find incredibly ironic considering he later exhibits very VERY obvious signs of what’s probably PTSD and doesn’t clock it at all. But that is also going to be its separate point, put a pin in that.

It’s not just implied, but pretty explicitly stated by Ralph himself that he’s a massive overachiever. He was probably pretty academically successful in college, considering he mentions it was a surprise to most people that he’d drop out to get into security work. It’s pretty strongly implied this was mostly because he was pressured into succeeding by his parents. My man has that helicopter parents burnout syndrome, and escaped it by going into a job where he could still interact with kids like he wanted to as a psychologist but actually be happy, and that means a lot to me actually.

(Very important sidenote, because I don’t know where else to put this: the fact that his real dream job is to make children’s toys is just so real to me, especially as someone who’s also experienced academic burnout. It makes so much sense for him to want to do something with his hands where he can create something tangible after being pushed into being traditionally ‘successful’ in academia by his environment. Also put a pin in this as well because I have another point to make about the whole toymaker thing)

He seems to be at least low-contact with his family, which is understandable from what we know about his father - I’d say it’s likely he even cut contact completely after dropping out of college. The fact that he never mentions his parents as a possibility when he talks about babysitting options, or the fact that he doesn’t even consider them taking care of Coppelia when he is literally about to die seems pretty telling to me. I mean, alternatively, they could both be dead, depending on how old Ralph is, but since Coppelia’s only eleven that seems a bit unlikely.

Coppelia’s mom is a mystery. There is exactly one mention of her in this entire book and it doesn’t come from Ralph, but from Pel, so we know she does in fact exist but that’s about it. When Ralph talks about parenting Coppelia he never mentions her mom, even as far back as when Coppelia was one year old. They probably divorced when Coppelia was really young, and Ralph likely has full custody, since he never mentions Coppelia going to her mother’s for the weekend or anything like that. And that’s all we know.

Freddy’s and Related Tidbits (Or: I Stuffed Everything Related to his Relationship to Fazbear Entertainment in this Section)

He’s worked at Freddy’s for at least eleven years, because he mentions Coppelia being a month old when he already had the job and recorded his first training tape. If FNAF 1 indeed takes place in 1993, that means he was already working at Freddy’s by 1982 and likely earlier. Which, side-tangent, would imply that either Fredbear’s Family Diner was removed enough from Fazbear Entertainment by then for him not to know anything beyond the vague existence about the bite of ‘83, or that FNAF 1 takes place after 1993. But at this point the timeline is confusing enough that who knows.

He’s never moved up to management despite being there for more than a decade, also doesn’t appear to know Henry or William (especially if you believe the whole Dave-is-probably-William theory).

He was employee of the month 22 times. He also likely competed against his murderer ex-boss in disguise for the longest employee of the month award streak which is the best goddamn thing I’ve ever heard.

He’s written some of the rules at Freddy’s. Because of course he has.

He leaves passive-agressive notes to the dayshift guard and also thinks about shoving a ballpoint pen in the cleaning staff’s faces. And also talks about reporting people for slacking off. What I’m trying to say that he’s probably not the most popular of people with the rest of the staff, and doesn’t appear to realize why that could possibly be. Worst enemy of folks who don’t want to take their shitty minimum wage job extremely seriously.

On a related note, he takes his job so seriously oh my god. He does like twenty other jobs each night while the animatronics are trying to kill him. He’s probably the only person still doing reports. Management is very much implied to never read them. He writes them anyway. The fact that he was genuinely called ‘the Phone Guy’ and also was in training videos is also amazing (and also pushes the Trans Phone Guy agenda for anyone who considers Kim from the FNAF movie to be a stand-in for him).

This is specifically night-shift related: While it’s true that his survival instincts are absolutely shot, he is, when pushed, demonstrated to be capable of extreme violence against animatronics, which actually good for him. He kicks Bonnie’s head off. He beats Chica to death with a mop. He shoots Foxy with a watergun and also throws a lightbulb at him. This is not particularly important to anything but it’s extremely important to me.

Anyways, he’s really, really loyal to this company. Like, too loyal. Like, he was very much responsible and instrumental in shutting down rumors and speculation among staff after the bite of ‘87 and likely after the MCI as well too loyal. He’s management’s mouthpiece for their dirty work and that makes me feel a certain way because it’s so obvious he cares a lot about this shitty kids’ restaurant, enough that he’d defend it at all cost even when there’s so much evidence against it. This will come up again when I talk about him gaslighting himself.

This is mostly me speculating on the previous point, but I’m pretty certain a lot of his defending of the company is also a coping mechanism that he uses to grapple with the trauma brought to him by the fact that he’s spent a huge chunk of his life working for a conglomerate that’s gotten people killed. He genuinely insinuates Jeremy was responsible for getting chomped, because he must’ve done something wrong, the animatronics would never attack anyone without reason (right?). When he talks about how the media blew children going missing out of proportion, it seems less like he believes it and more like he doesn’t want to believe it - especially considering he’s only brought Coppelia to Freddy’s once in her life. He never lets her near it. He shuts her down immediately when she talks about working at it. Which, at least to me, demonstrates that on a subconscious level, he knows what he’s saying isn’t true. It’s just easier to say it than face the facts.

And lastly, he’s so clearly and passionately loyal to the Fazbear’s franchize. This fucker genuinely loves working here and is sad to go, even though management treats him like shit. We already knew that, but still, dear god those people could not care less if he lived or died and he STILL takes his night guard duties so goddamn seriously. He’s so clearly really invested in it, he talks about what a magical place Freddy’s used to be for kids, he talks about how much the job means to him, all the while it’s actively trying to kill him, he defends it to the point that it’s actively ridiculous, and in multiple endings he still gets blackmailed, disappeared or worse by the people he’s defending. And- I don’t know. It just makes me really sad. Again, I do believe his over-the-top enthusiasm for his job is probably him compensating for the fact that he doesn’t want to face the incredibly traumatic stuff happening to him, especially because as the week goes on, he gets less and less enthusiastic with every night, and just- Yeah. Fazbear Entertainment doesn’t deserve him.

Characterization, Diction and Things Like That (Or: Everything Else)

Let’s get the more positive stuff in this section out of the way first: we already knew this from the phone calls, but the way this man talks just sends me. “Time to make the donuts” when walking into a shift my favorite of his Phone-Guy-isms, but also unironically saying “oh boy!” and “what rotten luck!” right when you’re about to die is equally important to me.

Kind of related but not really: this man truly is a dad through and through because MY GOD the amount of bad puns and/or stupid references he makes is criminal. The fact that they get him actually killed in some of the endings because he keeps laughing at his own terrible jokes is also great. My favorite examples include thinking “my, what large ears you have” immediately before Foxy mauls him, the Irony Curtain, the how many night watchmen does it take to change a lightbulb, and so on. The fact that he also finds all of this absolutely hilarious means so much to me. Ralph truly is a cringefail girl dad, RIP to him he would’ve loved those awful shirts with puns that were popular with dads going to Disneyland in the 2000s.

Not gonna lie, and I’m not sure if this is just me reading too much into it, but he also reads as at least slightly neurodivergent to me. And I am ready to die on that hill. He doesn’t really seem to be the best at social interaction or with figuring people out, from the way he talks about not being able to tell if his coworkers are only laughing at his jokes to be polite or not and how he doesn’t seem to understand why they would be upset with him shoving minimal errors in their faces. He notices a single hat out of place in one of the Party Rooms and immediately goes to correct it. He makes a point about how much he hates messes and the whole “you need order, you crave order in your life” quote resonated so deeply with me that it’s uncanny. He’s a “stickler for rules”. The fact that he worked at one place for eleven plus years also makes me think he’s probably not the best with change. I could go on. I don’t know, I wouldn’t be able to tell you why, but I just can’t see him as fully neurotypical.

He’s also just a really curious dude, to the point of his curiosity overriding his survival instincts. Which is a horror protagonist trope if I’ve ever seen one. The scene where he lifts up a strange robot cupcake he just found directly to his face with zero hesitation is just. Yeah.

He loves Foxy, which we already knew, but also the fact that he explicitly states that he’s still scared of him and Pirate Cove by association makes me kinda sad. Also, related point, he’s a self-proclaimed fan of pirate stories, so I’m pretty sure that’s where Coppelia gets her taste in books from, but that’s besides the point.

In general, he just really loves the animatronics, too? Like he waves at them after his shift. Like I already mentioned, he talks about how much they mean to him, and how much he loves the fact that they brought joy to kids. It’s kinda sweet.

The most questionable thing about him is the way he. Uh. Talks about guns/cops in a way that kind of makes me remember he was raised in Utah around the 1960s. There are a few specific passages that make me extremely concerned about what his opinion on the second amendment is. But that is luckily left unspoken so I’ll be moving along.

The job stresses him out so much he consumes a packet of raw poptarts because he’s so hungry by the end of it. Which, while iconic, is also very deeply concerning. Which brings me to my biggest point

My god this man has Trauma. So much Trauma. He represses so much. The entirety of the beginning of Night 3 is just him describing that he forgets details about his shifts as soon as he leaves them. He gaslights himself constantly that nothing bad is happening (after Night 1, for example, he calls the entire shift the night before a bad dream and convinces himself he’s just “misinterpreting” events, which is goddamn concerning), but he’s also actively wasting away despite telling himself he’s not (my man looks into the mirror and his only and first comment is that he looks terrible). Not to mention the dissociation. He spaces out when he comes home on two seperate occassions, and loses and entire hour each time without realizing it. God I hope in the endings where he survives he eventually gets therapy.

Coppelia and Life Outside of Work (Or: This Section is Concerningly Short)

This man loves his daughter so goddamn much. So, so much.

No but seriously the interactions between him and Coppelia are so pure and well written and they were my favorite part of the book, somehow, even though I wasn’t originally sold on the concept. The “with what?” “excellent point, I’ve got nothing” kills me still. The scene where Coppelia curls up next to him after he comes home from his shift makes me want to sob. He makes her pancakes and they banter and she test limits but it’s obvious she also loves her dad, and that is- AAAAAA

Back to my bullshit, though: Ralph does kinda read as the type of parent who’d spoil a kid rotten if given the opportunity to do so. At some point Coppelia directly says that he “gets her everything she wants”, and- yeah. This is similar to the point I made previously about him bringing her gifts all the time. She does seem like a good kid, though. He’s just a girl dad to the extent that he’d probably wear a shirt with girl dad written on it, you know?

He’s also really protective of her. And worries. A lot. Not just when he calls home or rushes home to check on her, but also when he talks about being a security guard at her school and whenever he forbids her from ever ever going near Freddy’s. Say what you will about him defending a company to a possibly unethical extent, but he’s not about to endanger his daugher over it, and I respect that.

The only concering thing about him and Coppelia is the fact that Coppelia apparently drew herself stabbing him when she was little. Which is. Well. Not ideal. The fact that he finds this completely normal is very in character, though.

On Coppelia by herself, though: the fact that she ‘tinkers with stuff in the basement’ concerns me. I wouldn’t at all be surprised if after the canon ending, she ends up to be a technician at Freddy’s at some point. Also, the fact that she’s a gamer warms my heart.

Now, on other outside-work activities: I love the implication that my man not only bowls and always pays for dinner, but that he bowls and pays for dinner while dining with his serial killer ex-boss. God, that’s awesome, I love that so much.

Tying back to a point I made previously and also to a point I saw some people make that I really, really resonated with: there are actually a lot of parallels between Henry/William and Ralph, especially concering parenting. I don’t think the fact that his dream to be a toymaker is accidental, either, or the fact that he goes out of his way to point out that he wants to make toys that aren’t at all mechanical. Because even though he’s also a dad trying to make his kid happy with his creations, unlike William and/or Henry, he doesn’t want to make anything bigger than himself, or anything innovative; just wants to make simple things and make a kid’s day better. I don’t know man keeps me up at night, you know?

And, because this is only important to me: he owns a Kit-Cat Clock. This is somehow the most fitting thing I could’ve read about his taste in home decor.

And because I don’t know how else to end this: that’s a wrap! Was this book perfect? Hell no. The Bronwen plotline makes my brain hurt. But was it incredibly fun? Oh hell yes. And now I have a reference point for any future writings I do where Ralph is an active character, so that’s a major bonus. I have many thoughts but not enough time to put all of them down so I’m stopping here, major thanks to @graceandtheidiotsquad for pushing me over the edge and making me actually finish this with a reply lmao. And that’s all! Phone Man please get out of my head now before I go insane.

[daughterofhecata]

I'm not entirely sure if we know each other well enough to send you this, and i hope you know that I'm saying this with love: i saw your 'when did he get hot' tag on that Christian Bale post, and like, he got older and that's why he's hot to you now ;)

...thanks for calling me out, fuck you too 😘 (also said with love xD)

[egophiliac]

I always though Mal's mom was meant to be like "Eleanor" but they stuck an M at the start honestly, Sobbing Emoji. But "Maleanor" also makes me feel less insane since in that scene where she's just handed egg Malleus to Lilia and went to battle, it sounds more like Lilia is saying "Maleanor" than "Meleanor" (Japanese accent pending). Mayhaps they went more with what it sounded like the characters were saying :0 (we don't talk about Doodle Suit to Paint The Roses)

the transliteration of her name is Marenoa (マレノア), which is what all the voice lines are saying! all the Draconias' names start with マレ (Malleus' grandma is Maleficia/マレフィシア) as a nod to Maleficent. :D it's almost certainly a take on Eleanor, which is Erenoa (エレノア), but her name is written in English at a couple points, and I was pretty surprised to see it was Mel instead of Mal!

and, like, that's fine, it wouldn't be first Twst romanization that's tripped me up (like Keito for Cater, I know that's something to do with the loanword specific to playing cards(?) but it's just not how my brain wants to read it). but now Eng has given us Maleanor! and someone else said it was spelled inconsistently between Maleanor and Maeleanor??????? so WHO KNOWS it's a SPELLING FREE-FOR-ALL

I AM torn on which I want to use, because Mel just sounds so cute to me (and is what I'm used to now), but...the Mal consistency is kinda too good to pass up. alas, alas, truly these are the most difficult conundrums of our times. 😔

[sneez]

victor kain chronic pain nation rise up (credit to @transdankovsky for this idea :-D)

/ id: two digital drawings. the first image shows victor kain and daniil dankovsky sitting together; daniil is taking victor’s pulse. inside a speech bubble above victor’s head is a screenshot of a question from the duolingo russian course, in which the sentence ‘я – хороший пациент, у меня всегда всë болит’ is translated as ‘i am a good patient, i always have pain everywhere’. the second image shows daniil looking politely horrified. end id. /

[a-sketchy]

ohhhhhhhhh “sea of thy soul” = personal unconscious, “sea of souls” = collective unconscious. hey guys did you know that persona is kinda jungian

[neversetyoufree]

in the last ep of the anime, i noticed that it cut out to the ending directly before vanitas could actually take noes hand, and i wondered if that was referencing what noe said about vanitas at the beginning.

Oh that's such a good catch! You're absolutely right anon, and I think we can take your idea even further than that.

I've talked about this in a previous post, but VnC's running refrain of Noé reaching for Vanitas's hand is really symbolic. Noé has saved Vanitas from literally falling multiple times, but their entire relationship is also one big metaphorical outstretched hand. Vanitas is "falling" down toward his inevitable doom as he self destructs via his revenge, and Noé is grasping out desperately as he tries to catch him and save him from that fate.

"That day when I didn't grab your hand" (which I assume, along with killing him, is what you mean by "what Noé said about Vanitas") might refer to a future event in which Noé will literally fail to catch Vanitas. But more importantly, it's a reference to the larger truth. By Noé's definition of salvation—in terms of preventing his death, Noé is going to fail to save Vanitas. No amount of reaching out can prevent his ultimate fall.

Within this metaphor, then, the scene on the rooftop after the amusement park can be summed up simply. It's the scene where Vanitas finally lets himself reach for Noé's offered hand.

I mean this in three ways.

The first way is the literal way. The scene ends with Vanitas reaching up to take Noé's hand and be helped to his feet. And despite the sheer frequency of Noé reaching out for or trying to catch Vanitas, this is only the second time we see Vanitas actually reach up and take Noé's hand to be helped of his own accord. The only other time is in the catacombs, right before he decides to tell Noé about Doctor Moreau for the first time.

In the catacombs, Vanitas taking Noé's hand works as a symbolic gesture of trust and an acceptance of Noé's help with the Moreau case. Noé has been forcing his help on Vanitas up until this point, staying up late by the door just to follow him out, but taking his hand is the moment that Vani starts to willingly bring him into the fold. The literal is never just literal with these guys.

The second way comes when Vanitas tells Noé that he's "given up on making him do what he wants." As I said, Noé has spent the entire manga reaching out and trying to save Vanitas from his "fall." One major facet of that is his recurring refusal to let Vanitas isolate himself. He makes a willful declaration of staying by his side when Vanitas tries to dismiss him in the bell tower, and when Vanitas tries to cut Noé out of his life by the blade of a knife, Noé comes back with "I will never set you free." Vanitas wants, or at least claims he wants, Noé to leave him the hell alone, but Noé says no every time.

"Giving up on making Noé do what he wants," then, means that Vanitas has finally let himself accept that he wants Noé by his side. There's no more pretending he doesn't want his help or his presence. No more trying to shove Noé away every time he's upset. At least in this moment (though we'll have to see if he holds himself to it), Vanitas has admitted that he wants Noé and Noé's supportiveness in his life.

Mochijun even uses a flashback panel to be sure we know exactly what Vanitas means here. It's that important.

Giving up on trying to push Noé away is one very significant way in which Vanitas has accepted the metaphorical outstretched hand. He's admitting he wants Noé, and Noé's presence means the presence of love and help. It means the end of self-isolation as a maladaptive coping technique. Of course he's going to reach up and accept Noé's literal offer to help him to his feet in the same scene that he finally tells Noé he'll stop trying to get rid of him.

The third way is, of course, when Vanitas says that he wants Noé to be the one to kill him.

Now, this is not how Noé wanted Vanitas to interpret his outstretched hand. Unlike his loved ones, Noé does not see killing and being killed as a way to show love or to save someone. His offer of salvation is meant to be an offer to save Vanitas from his self-destruction. But Vanitas does not want to be saved that way. And given that the manga begins with the statement that Noé will kill him someday, we know that Vanitas cannot be saved by Noé's definition.

However, Vanitas does not share Noé's definition of salvation. I don't know if Vanitas himself could even put words to his personal idea of salvation. But we know from multiple examples that it can sometimes include the gift of a kind death to prevent a worse life. That's the kind of salvation he offers when he returns a curse bearer's True Name despite knowing that it will kill them.

I have a lot of thoughts about the kind of salvation Vanitas could find in Noé, but for the purposes of this scene, this idea of a preferable death is a big one. Vanitas would rather die than lose his humanity, and this is an extremely vulnerable thing for him. Saying that he wants Noé to kill him is, in his own way, accepting Noé's unspoken offer of salvation. He's saying "I want you to be the one to save me in the one way that I can accept."

Vanitas cannot envision a life for himself, and thanks to the way Luna's Mark is rewriting him, it's likely that a long life as his human self would be impossible even if he weren't suicidal. But though it's still not healthy behavior, his request for death is, in his own terms, taking up the hand that Noé has extended. It's a grasp for salvation by a man that cannot admit that he wants to be saved.

And that brings me back to your original point, anon. Because Vanitas reaches up for Noé's hand, and that is incredibly important, but in both the anime and the manga, we do not get to see him take it. The meaning of this depends on what definition of salvation you analyze the scene through.

By Noé's definition, we know that Vanitas cannot and will not be saved. As he says in the beginning, Noé is going to kill him someday. There will be a day when he will fail to grab his hand, and Vanitas will finally fall to the gravity of his doom. So in that way, it makes sense that even in the most optimistic of scenes, we have to cut away before Vanitas can actually take Noé's hand. He might be letting himself reach for it now, and that's a good thing, but Noé is never actually going to be able to pull him up. To show us otherwise in a scene so full of symbolism and foreshadowing would be a lie.

However, as I keep saying, Noé's definition of salvation isn't the only one at play. As much as Vanitas's death will not be prevented, the fact remains that he is still finally letting himself reach for salvation in some form. So perhaps we can cut away as soon as he starts to reach not because he'll never be saved, but because the thing that matters in this scene is the reaching itself. Noé has become a supportive constant in Vanitas's life. He's just reaffirmed that he won't change, that he'll continue to support Vanitas from beside him.

We don't need to see Noé take Vanitas's hand once he starts reaching because that is a foregone conclusion. It's Vanitas's decision to reach that needs the emphasis of being the final shot, because that's the heart of the moment.

In the manga, Vanitas reaches up, and we cut to the sunlit sky. This whole scene, in addition to the running thread of reaching hands and salvation, has an overarching symbol in the end of the rain. Vanitas and Noé's horrible fight was in the storm, the rain patters to its end as they make up, and the sun breaks through the clouds as they reaffirm their pledges to one another and Noé re-offers Vanitas his hand. It's simple but effective pathetic fallacy.

So to that end, Vanitas reaches up to take Noé's offer to help him stand (reaches up to take some version of his promise of salvation), and we cut to the sunlit sky. Noé has brought the sunlight back as he offers his hand to Vanitas. Joy and light and hope return as Noé's love for and desire to save Vanitas are reestablished. Then Vanitas reaches toward that light, and we cut to the sunbeams to make sure you know just what he's reaching toward.

This works well for the end of a story arc! The weather symbol has been a constant throughout the whole amusement park arc, so of course the chapter that marks its end has to be capped off with an image of the clouds breaking. It's a closing note that pulls together Vanitas's reaching for salvation, the weather symbolism, and 55.5's general tone of relief.

Meanwhile, the anime switches things so that we see the sunbeams first, and then Vanitas reaching for Noé's hand is the final shot of the whole entire show. And for once, I actually really like this little change! The manga's order of images works well as a resolution for its chapter and its story arc, but the anime's version works really well as a possible end for the story overall.

The VnC anime may or may not ever get another season, so for the foreseeable future, Vanitas reaching for Noé's hand is the end of the show. This gives that shot a lot of emphasis. In fact, it kind of makes it the meaning of the whole thing.

Noé spends the whole anime reaching out and trying to offer a hand of salvation to Vanitas, and the final shot of the whole thing is Vanitas letting himself reach up to take it. We don't end on the shot of their clasping hands, but the shot of the reaching, because Vanitas's decision to accept some form of salvation is the thing the whole show has been building towards. It's the decision to reach up that makes the whole story.

So though they go about it in very slightly different ways, the manga and the anime are still both making meaning out of the simple act of Vanitas reaching. That's the core of the whole thing.

And overall, though I've framed "we cut away because Noé won't actually be able to stop his fall/grab his hand" and "we cut away because the decision to reach is the important part" as two opposing interpretations, I actually think their co-existence is key. Vnc's whole story is a conflict between Noé and Vanitas's definitions of salvation. The tension of their relationship isn't "will Noé find a way to save Vanitas from death?" (He won't). The tension is "will Noé find some other way to save Vanitas before his death?" and "will he be able to recognize that alternate salvation as salvation if/once Vanitas claims it?"

VnC is a story about a doomed man who might in some way be saved. Chapter 55.5 cuts away before we see Vanitas actually take Noé's hand because he is doomed to fall someday and not reach that hand when it matters most, but also because the thing that matters in this scene is that he decides to reach up at all. Vanitas is going to die, so any hope and optimism in his story must make peace with the doom of him. His healing from his trauma and accepting love and help happens while he is hurtling rapidly toward his ending. That's the beauty and the tension of Vanoé's relationship (and the beauty and tension of VnC as a whole).

So to answer your question anon, yes. We cut away before Vanitas reaches Noé's hand because, as we're told in the beginning, he will not ultimately reach Noé's salvation. But at the same time, the whole point of the rooftop scene is that Vanitas does want to accept some kind of salvation, and he just might manage do it. It all depends on how he can be saved.

[kaurwreck]

oh, i figured out aya's skill.

[reasonsforhope]

Crowdsourcing a question

Okay totally personal post here because, now that search engines suck, my research is failing me. So I'm crowdsourcing my question about the residential care work industry!

Hoping at least some of my followers have experience in/with the industry and some intel on this:

Actual question: How common is it for jobs in residential care work (residential centers, btw, not home care) to actually have two people on the night shift? vs. just saying they always have two people on the night shift in interviews and their official policies, and actually it's not true?

Because my current job was, it turns out, apparently totally lying about "you'll never be on shift alone with clients" at orientation (when it comes to the night shift, anyway). Which, holy fucking safety issues, Batman!

Suffice to say this was a very fun thing to find out like three days before my first regular shift

So, I'm thinking realllll hard about switching companies, and I'm trying to figure out if I could expect to actually have a coworker at a different company, or if it's like an open secret in the field that actually, basically all the night shifts end up being solo shifts, because the industry is so chronically understaffed or w/e

[bunnihearted]

🌙☁️🌌

[skyburger]

i love reading things set in countries that i'm knowledgeable and/or have been to because i can point out really minor errors in fanfiction. i think the average american does not know that in england (and apparently some of asia! which i only just found out) there are switches on power outlets so you can just turn it off instead of unplugging it. like 9 times out of 10 that won't come up but on the off chance it does i'm like ohoho. this clown has never been to england...! my favorite part though is watching americans (specifically americans because i swear to god people who speak english as a second language and/or are from any other country have some idea of what it's like to have an accent / personally know people who have accents? idk) try to write british accents like it is REALLY funny. i literally only lived their for five years and i never picked up a full accent myself (certain words and tones i did but they're mostly gone after living in the states again for a few years) but between living there and having a ridiculous amount of family there & visiting them often (like once a year if im lucky) i like KNOW what british accents sound like. i think some americans genuinely dont even know theres more than one or two english accents i think some people think there's like posh english and chav english and nothing else. maybe scottish accent gets thrown in there if they remember the uk is not in fact just england. i would bet real money they've never heard a welsh accent. anyway my point is it's really funny watching people who don't know as much as i do write this stuff. like i see it and i understand how doctors read this and go Oh that is so medically inaccurate. i get them now. anyway i dont remember what my point here was but please know if you are attempting to write a british accent. reddit and youtube are your best friends if you don't have a british friend you can ask and also rest assured even if you do ONE google search. it will not be the worst attempt ive seen guaranteed

[alexturne]

@BBC Radio 6 Music:

“It looks partly like some sort of 70s Spanish TV drama” @steve_lamacq speaks to the @arcticmonkeys about the visual direction of their new album, The Car 🚗 Listen to the full interview at 6pm tomorrow on @BBCSounds

[lilydvoratrelundar]

dc is doing a little mini relaunch after the current crossover finishes and honestly thank god because literally only two of their current ongoings interest me but there's a bunch of fun looking stuff happening in november that i might actually look at. and also it's starting series for several guys who should have had ongoings this whole time like the fucking JUSTICE LEAGUE

[arodrwho]

christ alive what an episode though

[redaynia]

Couldn't sleep last night cause I dreamt that I sent a work email to an English person referring to Lancashire as "Wankashire" and became half convinced it was real

[jvzebel-x]

"Who you are when you’re angry is still you. It doesn’t have to be all of you, but it’s a piece of you all the same. If you deny that, you might as well deny your whole maldito self and be done with it."

x. "Nocturna", Maya Motayne

"Know that the voice in your head telling you that you are not worthy, that this task is too great for you to comprehend, may in fact be all the proof you need to know that you are worthy."

x. "Oculta", Maya Motayne