#ALSO as i mention in the post

[themanofax]

What Makes Someone a Joestar?

So I’ve been diving headfirst into Stone Ocean recently; I finished the second batch a while ago, and just finished re-reading the manga.  I’m feeling Very Normal about the whole thing, and so I wanted to take some time to write about what I think is the most heartbreakingly beautiful part of the story, as well as how it embodies what makes JoJo different from so many other series out there.

It should go without saying that Stone Ocean is meant to be a culmination of all the previous parts.  The “main story” of JoJo can be traced from Part 1 through Part 3, before concluding with Part 6.  Strictly speaking, the main universe is “about” the Joestars and their conflicts with the Brandos; Parts 2, 4 and 5, while amazing, are more meant to flesh out the universe and characters in preparation for the conclusion of this overarching storyline.  (I should mention that Part 4 is by far my favorite and this isn’t meant to be criticizing these parts, lol)

So, obviously, with Part 6 being the last Part in the main universe, Araki had a tall task ahead of him.  How would he decide to end this story - this war that started 131 years ago, when an unfortunate carriage driver careened off a cliff and set Fate into motion?  Who would be the one to deal the final blow, to be the instrument of justice that set right all the wrongs that DIO had wrought?

Most mangaka would’ve said “the main character”.  Others, slightly less conventional ones, would’ve said “all the characters together - or maybe, Jotaro, since he was the one who killed DIO in Part 3.  Or maybe, Pucci wins, and the storyline ends with tragedy.”

All valid answers.  But Araki chose differently.

Araki decided that the hero of Part 6 would be a scared little boy.  A boy who was emboldened by the main character’s sacrifice.  A boy who became so much braver, so much cleverer, so much more determined than he ever could’ve dreamed he could be.  

Emporio Alniño is the last character anyone could’ve expected to be the sole survivor of Part 6.  I can only imagine how confused, scared and hopeless weekly readers must’ve felt - “Jolyne and Jotaro are dead!  Emporio is the only one left?  And now we need to wait a week for next chapter?  How are we gonna get out of this?”

But Emporio rose to the occasion.  Screaming, crying as he watched his friend, the older sister he never had, torn apart by an unstoppable god, he found the courage to win.  And, in one of the saddest, most heartrending moments in JoJo, the Part ends as he watches look-alikes of his friends meeting for the first time, knowing that they don’t recognize him and that he is the only being in the entire universe that knows this pain.  A truly amazing ending, which ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT DESERVE THE BAD REPUTATION IT HAS IN THE FANDOM-

Anyway.  What does this have to do with the title of the post?  

Well.  It all ties back to that insanely daring, one-of-a-kind decision that Araki made.  

What does that decision say about JoJo as a whole?  (Or at least, about the main universe.)  It’s a decision that centers around the climax of six parts, of 16 real-world years of storytelling - surely it has some bearing on what the story up to this point has meant.

Well, let’s look at Jolyne.  The protagonist of Part 6, the daughter of invincible shonen badass Jotaro Kujo.  Throughout the part, she displays the ferocity, tenacity, and cleverness that we’ve come to expect from the Joestar bloodline; skinning guards alive to escape their grasps, lighting herself on fire to best one of the sons of DIO, printing out an image in binary to overcome a Stand that messes with one’s memory.  All incredibly impressive... but those traits are not what end up saving the day.

Instead, the trait that Jolyne possesses - that all the Joestars possess - that ends up saving the entire universe... is kindness.  

Jolyne’s selfless, senseless kindness - which inspired her to risk her life to save a little boy she had just met, to defend him as they escaped from prison and fought to revive her father, that inspired her to stand up to a time-bending demon just to buy a few seconds for him to escape.  It is that kindness that allows Emporio to live, that drives him to avenge the main cast and free humanity from an eternity of sleeping slave-dom.  

And that, right there, is what I think makes JoJo so different from so many other shonen.  In any other shonen, Jolyne would’ve overcome Pucci by being the strongest, or the fastest, or the smartest.  And to be sure, those qualities are great!  Every Joestar has those qualities to some degree, and they certainly couldn’t have overcome the obstacles they do in their Parts without them.  But when the cards are down and it’s the main JoJo vs the main villain, what ends up saving the day every time?  

The allies that the JoJos have made.  The no-lifes, the thugs, the villains and nobodies, that the JoJos, through their impossible kindness, were able to redeem.  

And that’s what I think makes a Joestar.  Their ability to bring out the best in others.  Okuyasu was just a street punk mindlessly following his brother’s orders; but when faced with Josuke’s mercy and casual compassion, he was able to become one of Morioh’s staunchest defenders.  Bucciarati was a mafioso who had completely given up hope of bringing about change, who wasn’t above torturing and psychologically manipulating a teenage boy who he didn’t even know for sure was a murderer.  But when faced with Giorno’s golden dream, he woke up from his fate as a sleeping slave, and was able to bring about a better tomorrow for all of Italy.

I could go on.  But hopefully you get the point by now - and maybe you can apply this to your own favorite characters in the series.  In the main universe, the Joestar legacy is one of compassion.  Being the strongest or the smartest means nothing if you don’t have allies on your side; and JoJo as a whole goes to great, pain-staking lengths to show that we, as a species, excel when we are together.  That it is the human connection between us that allows us to overcome gods of time, or immortal vampires, or any other manner of boogeymen and monsters that constantly threaten our future.  And I just think... that’s so refreshing.  

So many shonen make a big deal of their MCs being “special”.  Because they were born with a special power, or because they can beat up the opponent enough that it brings about change.  And, to be clear, the “power of friendship” is a shonen trope for a reason; JoJo isn’t the first series to have this kind of message in a long shot.  But I just... feel like JoJo does it so well.  It never feels cheap, or contrived; and I think that’s because, rather than just being used as a plot device to allow our heroes to beat villains that they logically shouldn’t be able to, JoJo threads that message into its very core.  Not a single moment goes by without the series reminding you of this fundamental truth; and as I described above, it all culminates in the ultimate act of kindness resulting in the ultimate victory.

JoJo is a weird series.  It’s about overly masculine men making strange, sexual poses at each other.  It’s about ghosts punching each other until they explode.  It’s dumb, it’s cheesy, and sometimes it straight up doesn’t make sense.

But at the end of the day, it is a story that posits that humanity can overcome the impossible.  And the vehicle through which they deliver that message - the JoJos, a name synonymous with shonen manga, with badassery and masculinity - are special... because they help others be who they were meant to be.

I think there’s something unspeakably beautiful about that.

[butchlinkle]

really helpful technique ^ once you know how to divide by halves and thirds it makes drawing evenly spaced things in perspective waaay easier:

[keithbutgay]

hi!

um

yeah

notes goal post

because i really need motivation

(i stole some of these but shhhhh)

if this post gets 50 notes i'll drink water right now

100 i'll go to bed at midnight for the rest of the week

200 i'll actually do my laundry

500 i'll take a shower every day for the rest of the week

1,000 i'll brush my teeth every night for a full week

2,000 i'll stop binding for an unhealthy amount of time for a full week

3,000 i'll start actually wearing my ankle braces consistently

4,000 i'll eat breakfast every day for the rest of the week

5,000 i'll stop binding while sleeping

6,000 i'll stop wearing earrings i'm allergic to for a full week

7,000 i'll start doing makeup again

8,000 i'll stop eating chocolate for the rest of the week

9,000 i'll make my autodale masks

10,000 i'll touch grass every day for the rest of the month

11,000 i'll water my plants twice a week for the rest of the month

12,000 i'll put on my lotion when i need to for a full week

13,000 i'll eat at least two meals every day for the rest of the week

14,000 i'll finish my water bottle every day for a full week

15,000 i'll write more for forest files

18,000 i'll clean out my backpack

19,000 i'll take my vitamins every day for the rest of the week

20,000 i'll finish my stained glass project

21,000 i'll go to bed before midnight for the rest of the week

22,000 i'll do my summer reading

23,000 i'll move the knife out of my room

24,000 i'll eat three meals every day for three days

25,000 i'll stop purposefully triggering myself for a full week

50,000 i'll try my best to stay clean for two full weeks

i'll probably add more goals if this somehow get past 5k, but there it is for now :)

spam allowed

tagging allowed

ummm the deadline is halloween

*thumbs up*

go for it

[dendrochronologies]

maya angelou saying the funniest thing anyone has ever said about editing, which i can never let myself forget EVER AGAIN [x]

[gibbearish]

kids who werent raised christian being like "lol baptising children is whack if they tried to do that to me i would start doing things to make it look like i was possessed" no you would not. you would bask in the pride and approval coming from the adults around you and you would quietly wait your turn because you were told from birth that sinning sends you to hell and baptism is The Promise that youre dedicating your life to jesus that youve had hyped up for years and watched other people be fawned over as they cry happy tears about it and you do NOT want to fuck up your One Big True Promise To Love Jesus Forever So You Don't Get Tortured For Eternity when you are literally 8 years old. im begging yall to remember its a thousand times easier to see the church's bullshit for what it is when you're not actively in the church. eight year old you is not thinking about trying to fight back against an oppressive religious group indoctrinating children because You Are The Children Being Indoctrinated. stop acting like you would've magically known better if it were you.

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

[vmkhoneyy]

“People are inherently terrible” no!!! Have you ever seen a child wait for their friend while they tie their shoelaces? Have you ever known someone who would bring hurt squirrels and rabbits and mice to the nearest vet just so it doesn’t suffer? Have you seen someone grieve? Have you ever read something that hit your heart like a freight train? Have you looked at the stars and felt an unexplainable joy? Have you ever baked bread? Have you shared a meal with a friend? Have you not seen it? All the love? All the good? I know it’s hard to see sometimes, I know there’s pain everywhere. But look, there’s a child helping another up after a hard fall. Look, there’s someone giving their umbrella to a stranger. Look, there’s someone admiring the spring flowers. Look, there’s good, there’s good, there’s good. Look!!!!

[setaflow]

Gay pride happens in June and gay wrath happens whenever hbomberguy drops a 3+ hour video essay about a specific topic

[rystiel]

i keep seeing people say the doctor shouldn’t have feelings for rogue because he’s married to river…? river song… who has also married multiple people… one of the most polyamorous characters in the show…?

[ebysse]

run, severus, run! (x7)

[captainjonnitkessler]

Do you guys notice how when Shawn Fain, president of the United Auto Workers union, started planning a general strike, he did it by a) targeting his messaging towards unions with the ability to safely and effectively strike in large numbers, b) laid out a clear, actionable plan for those unions to follow (setting contracts to all expire at the same time, since many unions cannot strike while under contract), c) is using union contracts to set clear, actionable demands that can be met in order to gauge success and provide an end goal, and d) started organizing FOUR YEARS before the proposed strike date to give people the chance to plan accordingly, because it takes a really freaking long time to get tens of millions of people organized?

You notice how he didn't do it by slapping a message on Twitter saying 'hey nobody go to work on Monday, that'll really show 'em'?

[machinerot]

[sleepy-grav3]

Amity Park hates the Justice League but loves Red Hood and sometimes other heroes

A/n: I got this random idea so here it is. Oh, and this is good reveal AU ok?

-------

Due to the Justice League mocking them and ignoring their villain problems that were also publicly interdimensional problems, everyone hates the JL. It got worst with the GIW coming in, who blatantly went against the meta-laws (which included aliens, demons and so much more that weren't human from the beginning). They started to think the Justice League supported them.

In the Infinite Realms, however, there's a revenant that many adored and others respected. He did not hold back against criminals. Criminals that would rape, kill, traffic, sell drugs, and more to people. He especially didn't like when they brought kids into this. He'd avenge people the way they should've been: by promising that their abuser/killer/whatever wouldn't be able to do it again. And in the place they lived in, the only way for that to be possible was by major injury, heavy social outcasting, and/or death. Most prefer the 3rd.

And after how long the Amitians dealt with the attacks which eventually came to a slow once or twice a week type thing, they started opening their minds to the idea of coexistence. Well, further than they had. So when people started to cross over and start making their small haunts in their side of the veil, the Amitian's began to become aware of the popular hero Red Hood. He was part of the undead community, which was trustworthy in everyone's books.

So Amity Park started making merch. Most of it was for Team Phantom, but there was plenty for Red Hood as well. There were other heroes on the side, like for Superboy 1 (who they renamed to Supernova due to their hatred for Superman for 2 reasons, the obvious and that he rejected a mirror-born), and Raven (the half demon).

And with this coexistence, Team Phantom had noticed the positive feedback about killing in the name of vengeance. So they went on the offensive, and after a good year of that, the GIW lost funding for producing no results and just taking up resources. The acts were still there, but nobody enacted them in Amity, and nobody actually knew or believed them outside of the haunted city.

Then the Justice League find out about the hero group there due to tracking merchandise after they started to sell outside of the city. Superman was the guy everyone liked, so he was sent over. He immediately got thrown out and was now questioning who the heck Supernova was and when he rejected him.

Flash? Outcast. Everyone ignored and walked away from him. they had the police, who never did anything or even had to anymore, kick him out.

Green Lanter? Oh the poor guy. He had his ring taken away and thrown out of the city somehow. It took hours to find it.

Wonder Woman, they had to be ok with her. Not at first, but once Phantom had a talk with her and people learned that they were cousins through Clockwork (Kronos) and Pandora, they were ok. ish. Tolerated was the best word and she got the info back to the league.

The batfamily took a trip there, dragging Red Hood along somehow. And right when Red Hood was noticed, a crowd began to form as everyone practically worshipped him. There were many victims he had avenged and an Ancient (Lady Gotham) came and gave him the gifts she couldn't without scaring the guy.

At one point, the poor guy even cried.

[rubysparx]

Honestly I don't think I'm qualified to make this post, I just don't know if I can make coherent enough words man. But the thoughts are in there and I will try to articulate them. This is probably going to be mostly images though. anyway yeah KABRU POST.

A couple nights ago (at approximately 2:30am, lasting a little over half an hour) I had a bit of a moment about Kabru. That, too, was mostly images- most of what you see in this more concise post were presented then as well. I think my main points of the "moment" were about Kabru's trauma + self hatred, his autism and/or general otherness, and also a little labru if you'd like..

I think something easy to start with is I wanna point out Kabru's constant back and forth and conflicting opinions of demihumans and how, I believe, thats a reflection of how he goes back and forth on what he believes his purpose of living is- and the general worth of his own life. I've said it before and i've just kinda shown it in images; Kabru is "i think im a monster and it disgusts me" where Laios is "I know im a human and it disgusts me" (i could go more into the latter on another post)

the above are both from the world bible, with the left being from the section on kobolds and the right being from the section on Kuro specifically. Utaya was very near to the desert where most of the kobold population is, this is likely why Kabru is able to speak Kuro's language- he grew up around demihumans. (chapter 48 cover, kobold chapter in the world bible) I won't try to speak for how his mother or the rest of utaya felt about the kobolds but I can say that Kabru was very much othered as a child, as was his mother, purely for the way her son's (kabru) eyes looked.

I feel like its fair enough to say that both kabru and the kobolds were othered, and possibly for similar reasons (villager's seeing them as nonhuman, as monsters) and the fact that Kabru learned their language probably didn't help his case. I think his perception of kobolds (and all demihumans, subsequently himself, as he probably still views himself as nonhuman or not human enough.. deep down) was damaged by the Utaya incident. at 2:30am when I first started this ramble my main comment was that "had the utaya incident not happened kabru would have little reason to feel ashamed for his connection to monsters. and may have ended up similar to laios in that he couldve had otherkin swag" which is just a sort of silly way of saying Kabru could've learned to love the thought that he is possibly nonhuman or at least not hated himself so much for it.

in the original ramble I said, and quote, "he has been STALKING laios. laios is his hyperfixation to learn how he can ever be loved. he keeps going back and forth so harshly on wether or not he wants to kill Laios and he clearly sees his survival from utaya not as an unfortunate trauma [*] but as a necessary, deserved fate. a punishment for his mother's witchy sins, and for his sin of being non-human. to atone for it all, to apologize for being alive, he tries to better the lives of all humanity. He was set on his way to dethrone the governor of the island . do you understand? im going insane" *i also said somethings about the way he processes other people's traumas and not his own. He's able to understand and even help some people, but he struggles to process his own issues and see himself as worthy of love and life.

^some examples of Kabru being understanding of or helping others who have suffered greatly. I think its also worth mentioning that with Rin (called "Lynn" in that translation) he says "I wish there was a way to get her out of this" though he's insisted and pushed for himself to go into a dungeon;

In chapter 94, Mithrun says "The desire I had left wasn't revenge. All I wanted.. was for it to finish devouring me." and I don't feel like it's a stretch to say Kabru was in a similar situation. Mithrun sought out the demon with no plan on how to kill something like that because deep down he wanted it to end his (Mithrun's) own life, to finish the trauma it caused and kill him. I think Kabru went into the dungeon in part with the hopes that it'd kill him. That the same thing that destroyed Utaya and caused him so much trauma would just.. finish him.

I just think Kabru is a beautifully complex character, I have a lotta thoughts on him and I don't see nearly as many analysis posts for him than I do Laios (despite labru being such a popular ship)

there is no tldr for this post idk how to summarize it. do what you will with this collection of images. have fun. go crazy

fun fact the woman in the bottom left corner is his mother, she is labeled here as "witch"

[dieselocelot]

monsieur maison's big day. you get both because im indecisive (x)

[soosoosoup]

rewatched treasure planet