#ALSO the chronological events don't really match up at all
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sorry that last part was SO obviously a dream sequence! the only thing that would've made it more obvious if someone played a dreamy harp sound when they cut back to ted.
#god the lighting on the plane when they cut back to ted and at beard's 'wedding' was almost the same#ALSO the chronological events don't really match up at all#sam playing in the nigerian team is fucking wonderful BUT i don't see how the timeline matches up#considering a) the nigerian team was already selected b) akufo bought the selection out for the entire season (presumably)#so is this supposedly an entire year later? if so why hasnt anyone aged#and why wasn't ted at his best friend's wedding? (moving back doesnt mean ted cant visit once in a while)#the way they cut the episode allows the viewer to fill in the blanks#which is the way it should be honestly! this way WE decide what happened after ted got home to kansas#ted lasso spoilers#ted lasso season 3#ted lasso finale
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In-Depth Character Analysis On All The DR Characters Because What, Are You Gonna Try And Stop Me? Who Are You, My Mom? Yeah, I Didn't Think So- Part 5: Junko Enoshima
Oh boy, this is gonna be a big one. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised at all if this turns out to be the longest analysis in this entire series of ~100 characters. Why did I not save her for last. Why is this part 5. Why do I do this to myself-
Jokes aside, I am so so so excited to make this; Junko has become the face of this franchise for a reason, and the depth of her character and role in the series as a whole is massive. I won't be surprised if this takes over a month to complete. In fact, just for fun, let's track it. I'm starting the analysis on 7/5/24. When will we finish? Nobody knows!
(Final edit Crane here. It has been more than 5 months. Christ.)
This analysis uses only official material for the sake of analyzing the character, primarily sourcing official English localizations. It'll be um, lengthy, to say the least, so if you aren't that interested, just keep scrolling. Also, if there's even one canon installation of Danganronpa that you haven't played/watched/read yet (THH, DR0, SDR2, UDG, DR3, and/or V3) don't read this; the ripple effect of Junko in every corner of the franchise will be discussed and thus, there will be spoilers aplenty.
Also, a disclaimer that though I try to remain as objective as possible with these analyses, it will be at its core, an interpretation. Not everything will match up with how you interpret it, and that's okay! I don't claim to be perfect, and this isn't an infallible source of canon, only my interpretation of the source. Let's get into it!
Foreword
Real quick, before we get too far in: readers of my previous analyses know that I normally try to move in chronological order of release and events in-game to keep the analyses easier to follow. Due to the nature of Junko's characterization and the fact that she's present throughout the entire series, that isn't really possible here, as to talk about any one aspect of her, I may need to pull from multiple installations. I'll be sure to cite where I'm pulling from and provide evidence where necessary, but it definitely won't be perfectly in order by release or timeline. So hopefully it won't be too messy. Also, characters very closely tied to Junko, like Monokuma, Ryoko, Mukuro, etc. will be analyzed separately at a later date, so those sections may end up feeling incomplete as a result. For the sake of releasing this before 2025, I need to cut corners a little bit and focus primarily on how these relationships affect Junko, and not the other way around.
Part 1- Monokuma
In order to understand Junko, you must first have a basic understanding of Monokuma, mascot of the Danganronpa series and self-declared Headmaster of Hope's Peak Academy. Monokuma introduces himself to the cast as their superior and oversees the killing games, providing motives and passing judgement on the class trials, all while reveling in the Despair of the students. There are multiple iterations of Monokuma, but most of them exist in order to carry out the killing games without issue.
Like Junko, Monokuma remained a staple of the franchise, appearing in every official installment, whether he was being actively piloted by Junko or not. As we see in DR3: Despair Arc, she personally designed him to become the face of her movement of Despair, and thus, he was used to carry out her will at every turn.
1.1- Trigger Happy Havoc
In the first DR game, Monokuma was just a robot piloted by Junko. His mannerisms were a character invented by her to appear as the psychopathic Headmaster, but regardless, her true nature of Despair is directly infused into the character as she acts him out. Through him, she's able to reveal hidden information about each of her classmates and torment them personally, all without them knowing she was once a dear friend to them. As a robot, though, he came with drawbacks- Junko couldn't pilot him and watch the cameras at the same time, and once the charade of his all-seeing Headmaster was seen through by Kyoko, he lost most of his power. Thus, Monokuma's existence was designed to deceive, and could only function through deception. He created the illusion that hope was outside, that escape was solely on his terms, and that the class had no unification- all according to Junko's design.
1.2- Goodbye Despair
When the sequel game arrived, Monokuma was once again a character being played by Junko. Unlike last time, however, the two had blended together, becoming one and the same. This Monokuma was a Despair Virus, created with Chihiro's Alter Ego technology, and implanted into the Neo World Program with the intent of continuing the real Junko's plans for the spread of Despair. This version of Monokuma is extremely similar to the previous in terms of its personality and beliefs, but appears much more powerful within the artificially generated world, now able to apparently power-up, bleed, and transform plushies into duplicates without logical explanation.
Rather than targeting certain themes in an attempt to teach Despair, this Monokuma created directly-targeted motives, attempting to use class 77's personal connections to a whole other level and banking on the fact they were friends, rather than try to cover it up. He also acts as if they're his dear friends and like they're on the same side, directly inverse to his apparent attitude towards class 78. This is intentional, though as to why, we'll get into much later.
1.3- Ultra Despair Girls
Rather than being present as a character, Monokuma exists solely as mascot in this game, as thousands of Monokumas are programmed and piloted to slaughter the majority of adults in Towa City. He exists solely as a tool used by the Warriors of Hope.
In chapter 4 of the game, you get the reveal that all the physical Monokumas that exist were built and sold in Towa Group's factories, and later, that Monaca Towa was directly responsible. This exists to demonstrate how Junko was able to financially and physically afford the amount of power and technology she accrued in her crusade for Despair. More on this later.
1.4- Danganronpa 3- Future Arc
Near the end of the first episode, Monokuma seemingly appears on a monitor in the meeting room of Future Foundation's HQ, announcing his survival and a return of the killing games, starting with the Future Foundation higher-ups. At the beginning of the following episode, an act is put on between this version of the character and "Miaya Gekkogahara", as they fake an argument where Monokuma alters her avatar Usami into Monomi, making it appear as though he's again being piloted by a real person from some remote location.
As the season comes to a close, though, we learn that it was the chairman who set up the killing game, and that Monokuma's appearance, along with the video that would play during every nap, were falsified recordings, aided in part by Monaca Towa pretending to be Miaya. Thus, his likeness was used for a cheap recreation in an attempt to manipulate one person and kill nearly everyone else in charge of the Future Foundation, all set in motion by Junko's own brainwashing videos.
1.5- Killing Harmony
This is the only version of Monokuma that Junko herself doesn't have a hand in recreating, and is the only time he exists solely as a robot personality of his own accord. Created by Team Danganronpa, he's a physical conception of the fictional character Monokuma in-universe, and thus, is a character in his own right. Birthed by a Motherkuma machine for the mastermind's benefit, Monokuma acts once again as Headmaster, but a significant amount of soul is noticably absent from the presentation. This is in part due to the amount of focus on the Monokubs, using their unique characteristics for comic gags with the cast in the way Monokuma used to in the previous games, and his appearance feels like more of a checkbox than an actual return of Monokuma. Simply put, without Junko's influence, Monokuma's character becomes more flat, and starts to fade into the background in a convoluted mess of references and callbacks. All of which is done on purpose- Monokuma is a facet of Junko, and without Junko, Monokuma becomes empty.
Part 2- Character Design
Junko Enoshima is designed as a gyaru, a subgenre of fashion known for its more 'rebellious' style. She's dressed in a modified uniform, with a black jacket with her sleeves rolled up and unbuttoned, allowing her cleavage and bra to show, with a black-and-white tie, a red bow, and a red plaid miniskirt. She also has Monokuma pins holding up her ponytails- one with the white half, and one with the black half. Asymmetricality and the use of exclusively black, white, and red all align her with Monokuma, an asymmetrical black-and-white bear with a red eye. She has styled blonde hair and blue eyes, and has the title of SHSL Gyaru, or Ultimate Fashionista.
2.1- What's A Gyaru?
Gyaru as a fashion style first originated in the 1970s, emerging from Japanese women's nonconformist desire to embrace their own sexuality and rebel against societal standards of the traditional housewife. As time passed and more women latched onto the trend, it became a major point of discussion, initially shaming these women for being too racy or delinquent, before shifting to an increase in streetwear fashion and being recognized as its own genre of fashion, evolving with new subgenres as time continued to pass. It went from a wholly shameful style to an expensive, trendy one as expressly gyaru clothes started to be made and sold in stores. The increase in popularity also led to discussions of placing laws against child prostitution, as younger girls were getting into the expensive fashion and started finding alternative ways to afford this showy clothing.
There are many, many subgenres of gyaru known, but Junko Enoshima is specifically referred to as a kogal or kogyaru, a high-school gyaru. Her school uniform is modified into a showy jacket and miniskirt with big bows, she wears knee-high boots, and her hair is blonde, implied to be dyed based off of the common hair-dying of kogals. In DR 0, we also see her with red hair and eyes as opposed to the blonde and blue, suggesting that red may be her natural hair and eye color. Kogal culture has a lot of stereotypes around it regarding the extracurricular activities of the girls who subscribe to it, but the general idea around it is for the girls that participate in it to break social norms and claim their sexuality for themselves to get what they want, all within a consumerist guise. This type of mentality matches Junko extremely well, as a character bent on breaking the world for her own pleasures by advertising herself as Despair.
Part 3- The Mastermind Reveal (THH)
We don't actually meet Junko Enoshima until the final showdown in THH, though we are well-acquainted with the idea of her before then, as not only do we meet an imposter-Junko in the first chapter, but her magazines are specifically shown to us in the intro of the game, and are scattered throughout the school(laundry room). There are also little hints as to her identity as mastermind sprinkled into the game.
"Whenever I spot a cute girl, I have a tendency to stare. I can't help it- I just gaze with intensity. The other day, I rode my bike to the train station... I was in the bathroom, just looking at myself in the mirror..." -Monokuma Theatre, THH
Despite these hints, the characters don't know who the mastermind is yet, only being able to reason at her motivations for the killing game and why it came to be based off of what clues Monokuma leaves out for them, like how the main track that plays when interacting with Monokuma is called '100 Mile Junk Food Dash'.
"But first, I have a question for you... Who are you? What do you want from us?" "Well, if you really must know... Despair. That's all." -Kyoko Kirigiri & Monokuma, THH
"And for those of us who represent hope to kill each other and sink into Despair... The mastermind wants the world to see that, to try and prove that Despair is better than hope." -Kyoko Kirigiri, THH
We know that whoever this mastermind piloting Monokuma is, they're someone that's engineering this entire killing game expressly to spread Despair. With the knowledge that the killing game is being televised, that Despair isn't just for the students, but is being put on display for the entire world to see. Manufacturing and televising such a sadistic game using public figureheads under governmental protection is a behavior akin to terrorism (Despairism?) and is an act that, by itself, seems nigh impossible for some high-school student to be capable of. Yet, we know it is a high-schooler- Monokuma insists that the only people involved in the killing game are the 16 students of their class.
Through the investigations of chapters 5 and 6, it becomes increasingly more apparent that whoever this SHSL Despair is, Junko has some level of involvement. For example, more observant players will recognize Mukuro's corpse almost immediately as 'Junko's' from chapter 1, as her bright red nails and the same high-heeled, red-laced boots are clearly visible. And while this doesn't immediately incriminate Junko herself, it does at least call into question the identity of the dead SHSL Despair, as the body being Mukuro's isn't ever really contested(save for a 'dumb Hiro' gag insisting it's Kyoko while standing next to Kyoko).
"And don't forget about the Fenrir tattoo. There's absolutely no mistake... Our victim in this case is, without a doubt, Mukuro Ikusaba...!" -Kyoko Kirigiri, THH
Throughout the final investigation, the player's job is to solve 'all the mysteries of the school', AKA their erased memories and the identity of the mastermind. This investigation intentionally doesn't talk about Junko, voiding her involvement to the point that her own face is scrubbed from the evidence. The hints given by Monokuma picture Junko's face covered up in every photo, and the recordings of the students agreeing to live in the school is cut off before it can cycle over to her. It's not her presence that matters, it's the lack of presence, because we haven't actually met her yet, juxtaposed to the repeated mentions of Mukuro, a girl who'd been a part of the group since the very beginning without anyone realizing.
When we do realize this, it comes with the realization that Mukuro's and 'Junko's' body were one and the same, and with Kyoko's old pocketbook revealing that "Despair walks among us, and so we survive... There's a second 'Despair'", we can come to the conclusion that the reason the mastermind was able to pull this off was because there was actually more than one, working in sync, and thus, the reason both bodies were one was because they were the SHSL Despair together.
Part 4- The Despair Sisters: Mutual Abuse (CW: Incest)
Despite the fact Junko was the brains behind the operation, there was never really a time where she was working alone towards Despair. She was actually one of two Ultimate Despair- as she called them, the Despair Sisters. Her twin sister, Mukuro Ikusaba, was Ultimate Despair as well, and assisted her every step of the way.
In her first appearance, we don't actually get to know anything about her, as she spends her time with the class pretending to be Junko. As such, any and all information gathered on Mukuro is given by someone else- official school records state her title and physical attributes, and Junko tells us her role as Ultimate Despair and goes on about her flaws.
"She had what I call the 'three atrocities'- atrociously rank, atrociously filthy, atrociously repulsive. It was atrociously clear just how out of touch she was with the rest of society." -Junko Enoshima, THH
"The older sister, tough and proud, that was Mukuro. The younger sister, smart and cute, that was... Hyaaaahaha! Me! Junko fucking Enoshima! And together, we were the Despair Sisters! AKA, the Ultimate Despair!" -Junko Enoshima, THH
Mukuro reappears as herself in DR 0 and DR3's Despair Arc, as well as the official AU novel DR IF. In these, we get more insight into her feelings, and see her display an overt attraction to her sister at multiple instances.
"Consumed by ecstasy, even Ikusaba-san's breath became ragged. 'Only I am able to understand her. That's why she needs me. She still hasn't realized that but, maybe she's only pretending not to realize. Ufu, that's because she's so shy. Ufufufu.' Seeing this intoxicated Ikusaba-san continue to talk like that repelled me. I knew that she definitely didn't have normal feelings for Junko Enoshima". -"Mukuro Ikusaba" & Ryoko Otonashi, DR 0
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This is pretty obviously incestuous in nature. She blushes at her sister's attempts to kill her with an ice pick, has an internal dialogue about how much said attention affects her, and 'goes into ecstasy' talking about her sister's madness. It's intentionally uncomfortable because it's intentionally incestuous*. I've seen arguments for Mukuro's behaviors being out of character and only there for fanservice in the anime, but this behavior being found in DR 0 first pretty clearly contradicts that. I've also seen an argument for Mukuro's behavior being an act meant to make Junko feel Despair and not having any legitimacy. The crux of the argument comes from the assertion in DR IF that Mukuro is able to numb her emotions in battle, so therefore, she could also mimic such an attraction when around her sister. This argument quickly falls apart as well, considering that a) she has both internal and external dialogue directly referencing her attraction where Junko can't actually hear her, and b) going numb in the heat of battle is not at all the same thing as faking sexual desire outright.
*(Mukuro being incestuous is immediately relevant to the way the Despair Sisters interact with each other, and understanding that I'm talking about their relationship under the lens that she is will hopefully prevent questions about why I'm talking about them as I am throughout the analysis, particularly when she pops up in other sections here and there later. Please do not go into the replies or reblogs and explain to me why I'm wrong; you are not going to change my mind. Believe it or not, I don't like Despaircest either, but that doesn't mean Mukuro's behavior in canon is some accident to be shrugged off. These are meant to be OBJECTIVE analyses. I'm going to look at what the games and novels and anime are presenting, whether I actually like all the points or not.)
Junko Enoshima yearns for Despair. Despair is her reason for being, and everything she does, she does with the intent of eventually bringing Despair upon herself. That pain of Despair is the strongest feeling in the world to her. And the way she treats Mukuro directly stems from that desire. Despair stems from grief, and what brings more grief then the people you love most despising you? Mukuro is her twin sister, who stands by her no matter what. Junko even tests this, having her kill an entire class of students to prove her strength and loyalty in manga series Killer Killer(though, admittedly, Killer Killer hasn't been confirmed as canon to my knowledge, it still aligns with what we know for both characters without altering anything about their characterization).
Mukuro is capable- very capable, and definitely has the ability to betray her, or even kill her if she wanted to. So at every turn, she treats Mukuro like garbage, actively trying to kill her with an ice pick when they first reunite and talking down to her at every opportunity. She describes her sister as fat, flat-chested, ugly, stupid, a pervert, any insult she can think of. She critiques her murders, chastising her when she kills the guards in Despair Arc while looking for Izuru for not doing a clean enough kill. But despite all this, Mukuro never strays from Junko's side. She continues to fawn over her, not just taking all the abuse, but displaying an attraction to her Despairing nature, and refuses to leave her side, the exact opposite reaction of what Junko wants to see from her.
"'Yes, she really is ridiculous…to the point of Despair, she's the lowest, worst sister ever but…that's why I can't leave her alone. That's why I have to help her. After all, I'm the only one who can understand her.'" -Mukuro Ikusaba, DR 0
This kind of loyalty isn't Despair-inducing at all; that dedication is exactly what she predicted from her obsession. What Junko actually wanted from her, we get a brief taste of when she speaks in the final trial of THH- "Because naturally, she turned out to be the letdown of the family. Leaving me behind to run off and join some band of mercenaries... Such a disappointment." The Despair of abandonment, of betrayal, was what she wanted. But Mukuro is too loyal for her own good. That's just annoying.
Mukuro is emotionally abusive, or would be if her sister were anyone but Junko, lusting after her own blood sister in a way that's considered taboo and perverse. This lust develops from an obsessive need to stay loyal to her sister, while Junko verbally abuses her right back, talking down to her and keeping her under her heel, mocking her at all available opportunities and treating her in a way that would make anyone else feel like shit. Not so for Mukuro, the person who's been next to her since birth and has stood by her side through all her Despair. They abuse each other, but there's an unspoken bond that allows for their relationship to function regardless, albeit in a twisted way. They're sisters, equally matched, and together, they become two halves of a whole terrorist. Despair is toxic for anybody, and Junko's own affliction leads Mukuro's obsessiveness to chain herself to Junko's side. They're twins who were born together, after all, and who else could even begin to understand Junko's Despair?
4.1- Despaircest & Anime (CW: Still Incest)
We've seen the relationship that Mukuro and Junko have with each other, both as it was alluded to in earlier depictions and how they interact with each other immediately in the anime. And, despite the fact that it wasn't directly shown to us before said anime, there were hints of the intention of a one-sided incest in DR 0, as well as repeated examples of Junko treating her sister poorly on a surface level and how much she actually valued her within THH and DR IF. Going into the anime, this would be the first time we'd actually see Junko and Mukuro interacting directly with each other as themselves. This could have been the time where we get to see just how twisted their relationship actually is, getting to see how, and maybe even why, they began treating each other in this way. We could've gotten more of a glimpse into their backstory, when they separated, and the inherently self-destructive cycle they pull each other into. Here's what we got instead:
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Rather than actually explore the real depth of their fucked up relationship, the anime elects to play it up for the sake of fanservice. This is admittedly an ongoing problem in most of DR3, as it throws most of its female characters into very compromising positions and focuses in on their bodies when they're being brutalized in one way or another and not doing the same for the men, but that only makes this lack of tact worse. There's no interest in actually addressing this darker plot point beyond the most basic surface level because to go any deeper would make it more difficult to get your rocks off to it. It's a shame to create such a conceptually fascinating relationship that would've made for a fantastic way to develop Mukuro as a villain more and Junko as a human more, and just use it for cheap servicy gags. I feel like it isn't an unreasonable statement to say that this was lazy. Danganronpa is supposed to be a series that explores dark topics and uses them to create tragedy and develop its characters. In the face of that, this was cheap.
Hell, this very scene says it itself: they're using Despair to create a fucked up pleasure for the viewer! The incest being played up for fanservice instead of acknowledging Mukuro as a character is, from a meta perspective, Despair-inducing. To the writers and to Mukuro, Mukuro doesn't matter outside of Junko. Her suffering is pleasurable to the audience in a way that's outside of social acceptability, in the way she needed to be used for so long just to exist. BUT WE ALREADY KNEW THAT. We didn't need to boil Mukuro down to an extension of Junko; Mukuro already did that to herself. Maybe this is just me complaining because it's not what I wanted to see from this plotline; I'm not ashamed to admit that. I think being able to acknowledge your biases as a consumer is important when critically looking at a piece of media. But I stand by my assertion that the presentation of this point is sloppy and surface-level, and should've been handled with more tact.
Part 5- The Murder of Mukuro Ikusaba
Junko treats her sister like trash, but despite this, we know that she does respect her. In fact, she has to consider Mukuro as an equal, because if she didn't, she wouldn't hold her as equal parts Despair as herself. Yet, when she reveals herself at the end of THH, she affirms that they were equals- both the Despair Sisters, who worked together("We were the Ultimate Despair, ya know?"), and in the same breath, describes her atrocities and mocks her memory as a disappointment. She sees Mukuro as not just a person, but a legitimate danger and a harbringer of Despair that's worth recognizing. Thus, as a sister, it causes her Despair to prevent anyone else from seeing that and paints Mukuro as just another victim of hers("She was nothing more than a bit player, an extra unworthy of lines."). Playing up her betrayal of Mukuro and her supposed disdain for her sister strips her of her agency as Ultimate Despair to their classmates, without letting them see her true self either. She becomes just another faceless victim, and Junko holds the memory of the true Mukuro Ikusaba, merciless killer and all, wholly to herself.
In the au light novel DR IF, Makoto remembers Mukuro, and inadvertently saves her from this fate. This leads the rest of the LN to focus on Mukuro and her relationship with Junko from her perspective as she copes with the reality that her sister betrayed her. It differentiates herself from Despair, and from her POV, we learn how she thought Junko felt vs how she actually did. Junko lives her life hopelessly- she's too smart for her own good, and can predict the moves of society and of the people around her. Mukuro believed she was the only one who fully understood Junko, so she acted perfectly in accordance with her plans, never once rebelling or going against her. She tries to convince herself to crave her sister's Despair so she would feel Despair from that desire, so she can remain close to her. But that wasn't the Despair Junko wanted. All along, what Junko wanted was for Mukuro to betray her because of her love for her. Without Mukuro, her plans would fall apart. She wouldn't be able to break into Hope's Peak as she did, nor would she be able to protect herself when attacked. Mukuro was what allowed her to gather as much power as she did over Hope's Peak, infiltrating and gathering blackmail, kidnapping chairmen, and so on. Mukuro was the brawn to Junko's brain. So the one thing that could destroy her plans, and bring her a Despair greater than any other, would be if her other half abandoned her. In DR IF, she learns this as Junko finally tells her that she loves her to her face. She breaks Mukuro's chains, and sets her free from her Despair to heal without her by rejecting her help, in a roundabout, Junko-esque way. In canon, though, Mukuro doesn't get to have that realization. She doesn't have the emotional intelligence to put those pieces together herself, and tired of waiting, tired of hoping, Junko gives herself an alternate Despair- the Despair of killing her own sister in cold blood.
The identity and death of Mukuro exist to keep the identity of the mastermind shrouded in mystery. Within THH, she's someone who's important from a narrative perspective- not as a person, but as an entity- designed to facilitate the reveal of the real Junko. Her murder is thus a murder of both her literally, and the murder of her personhood, as Mukuro is the one character that never gets to introduce herself. Junko makes it so, and wipes the memories of the class so that Mukuro Ikusaba will no longer exist outside of herself.
We're introduced to Mukuro not as Mukuro, but as Junko, wearing a wig and costume to appear as similar to her well-known sister as possible, and acting out her sister's fashion diva personality as convincingly as possible. It's tropey and typical of a fashionista- she cares about her looks a little too much during a killing game, acts like she's above the killing game and wants out of it, and explains away any imperfections as 'oh you haven't heard of photoshop before?'
There's no reason not to trust her at that point because no one thinks they've met her before. In DR IF, Makoto is able to recognize her through the outfit and charade, but that's only with his memories intact. Those memories have been thoroughly covered up by Junko in reality, and so the Mukuro Ikusaba she knows dies invisibly, betrayed and unrecognized as her classmates and friends mourn her killer instead. Junko gives her sister the worst Despair of all- being truly forgotten. After this, no one would remember who she was ever again, locked away in the mind of the person who'd never show her affection.
Not only that, Junko killing Mukuro and emphasizing how little she cared about that decision served to make the survivors hate her- her old friends now despised even looking at her, and brought her more Despair.
"Which is precisely why I killed her- to meet everyone's expectations." "That... can't be your only reason, can it?" "Well no, of course not. I also did it to avoid becoming bored." -Junko Enoshima & Makoto Naegi, THH
Despite that, being the one to kill Mukuro brings her a Despair like no other, with her describing it as "super super super super super Despair. No, more than that... Super super super super super super super super super super super super super super super Despair... It just feels... so... good..."
Junko did love her sister, and made everyone else she loved believe otherwise so she could feed off the Despair from their hatred.
Part 6- Ultimate Despair and Junko Enoshima
"The Ultimate Despair... A group of people who caused the Tragedy one year ago... Those same people put together this killing game and began broadcasting it around the entire world. The most desperately awful group of people ever... *That* is the mastermind's true identity." -Makoto Naegi, THH
Make no mistake- despite what the surface level of the series would have you believe, Junko Enoshima isn't the Ultimate Despair. There is no the Ultimate Despair because Despair isn't confined to any one person. Rather, Junko Enoshima is afflicted with Ultimate Despair. Despair, by nature, is grief. It's a pain inflicted by the death of hope, whether that be through the loss of a dream, a person, or whatever else. You grieve that loss, and it takes the form of Despair. Ultimate Despair takes that grief and amplifies it, destroying any sense of self and replacing it with the desire for more Despair. This is the type of Despair that Junko Enoshima feels, and thus, uses her own talents to embody it and spread it. It's a bold claim to make, I realize, that she isn't the SHSL Despair she defines herself as, but it's the basis this entire analysis leads to, and as the evidence over the course of the series develops her character more and more, it goes from some theoretical musing to legitimate design, all the way through to the end of V3. Though she immerses herself within Ultimate Despair, she herself is not Despair incarnate like she'd have you believe.
As we see her in THH, Junko is repeatedly hammered in as 'one of two' by the narrative. It's not just Junko that's formed Ultimate Despair; it's also Mukuro, and they're not referred to as 'Ultimate Despair and her sister', they're 'the Despair Sisters'. For all her charisma she displays, she alone isn't responsible for the Tragedy. Everyone is capable of feeling Despair. It's that foothold Despair has within her that creates an 'Ultimate Despair'. And while yes, Junko was definitely the most afflicted with Ultimate Despair, she didn't get as far as she did just by being horny for grief. She has a title, a real one, and it's not SHSL Gyaru. That was her cover, something she could use thanks to her real talent. Her real talent was only ever known by a select few, and to know what that is, you have to dive into the (criminally underrated, may I add) 2-volume novel set, Danganronpa 0.
Part 7- Ryoko Otonashi (DR 0)
(Little disclaimer here: Before I actually talk about the novel, I did want to quickly assert that DR 0 is both a mainline release to the Danganronpa series and 100% canon. Written and released by series creator Kazutaka Kodaka himself in 2011, it was written specifically to fill out Junko's character more. As such, everything contained within them are unquestionably canon to the world and its characters, something critically important to understand when talking about how it pertains to Junko Enoshima. I think just about anyone who's read DR 0 before knows all this already, but for the sake of anyone reading this who hasn't, I wanted to assert that.)
Ryoko Otonashi is the protagonist of DR 0, and is introduced to us as an audience in a 1st-person perspective. While she isn't the only character we follow in this series, she's the only one to speak to the reader straight-up, introducing herself and reacting immediately to the people and events in front of her. This is for good reason, as Ryoko is suffering from some form of amnesia. Not only does she not remember anything about her childhood or her identity, she also forgets things as they're happening. She can't even remember her name, and is only able to recall it by reading the cover of her notebook- 'Ryoko Otonashi's Memory Notebook,' where she's writing down everything in front of her as it happens so she can try to remember later.
Most of the story is told through Ryoko's perspective as she tries to avoid being caught up in some massive conspiracy within the school- all without actually remembering the conspiracy she's avoiding. Junko Enoshima is the one responsible for this, directing her from place to place and slowly forcing her to confront the conspiracy as she starts to figure out who she is and how she fits into it all. She insists over and over again that it has nothing to do with her, that she's innocent and has never met any of these people before and desperately tries to believe it- her memory is gone, therefore she could not be responsible.
But she is responsible, because she's not Ryoko Otonashi. Her real name is Junko Enoshima, and she's the SHSL Analyst, a girl with such a strong logical capacity that given enough information, she can perfectly understand and predict anything. This could be the actions and personality of a person, or it could be upcoming trends in fashion; whatever it may be, Junko is capable of perfectly analyzing and understanding what will happen in any given situation, long before the world does. And that type of intelligence has rotted away her mind.
Simply put, the human brain requires stimulation. Boredom is her opponent, and in a world where she can fully understand and predict anything at any time, Junko has nothing to stimulate her, and almost nothing can bring her any joy, because she fully anticipates it. Everything is normal, predictable, boring- it's left her with a case of intense anhedonia. Therefore, the only way she could find any happiness is in a world where that talent is stripped away from her. As Ryoko Otonashi, a girl with no memory, she can remember nothing and therefore predict nothing. Analysis requires data, and a blank slate offers none. Even her name is in reference to this, as 'Otonashii' translates to English as 'no sound' or 'quiet'. Only without memory can Junko's mind be silent and let her be genuinely happy.
Ryoko Otonashi is essentially a personality created by Junko as a test, not just for the people around her, but also for herself. Throughout the novel, Mukuro and Yasuke interact with her with opposing goals- Mukuro pushes her into the fray of Despair she's created, while Yasuke tries his best to keep her eyes and ears covered. Ryoko is in a unique position between the two- she's starting to remember and understand herself again, but is terrified of what she'll find, and wants to hold onto her peace with Yasuke. The ongoing question of the novel, which only reveals itself on a reread, isn't within Ryoko's identity itself. It asks the question of whether or not Junko could have been saved from Despair. And the answer, sadly, is no. Remembering anything for too long makes her forget her happiness, and she falls back into Despair, killing Ryoko Otonashi, the epitome of her peace, with her own hands.
Mukuro and Yasuke act as opposing forces within the novel, as both feel a loyalty to Junko that makes them act in what they believe to be her benefit, and both fail. Mukuro drags her kicking and screaming back into the depths of Despair to bring back the madness she sees Junko as, while Yasuke wipes her mind of everything that made her Junko to remove what plagued her. For Junko, balance isn't an option, and the people within her orbit fall victim to that same mentality.
7.1- Personality Disorders In Danganronpa
I'm not a psychologist, nor do I have any sort of split personality(DID, OSDD, etc). So my knowledge on the subject isn't that great, and everything said within this section should be taken with a grain of salt. But, to the best that I can tell, Ryoko's existence as an alter is sort of... mixed up. Other characters in the DR series (Toko & Genocider) make it pretty clear that Kodaka doesn't really have a fantastic understanding of people with DID outside of how they're stereotyped in the horror genre. And that background knowledge, combined with the presentation of Ryoko in DR 0, makes me think she was likely intended to be an alter, but as one that Junko had almost absolute control over, as at multiple instances, she was able to knock Ryoko out at will, and fully killed her once she'd outlived her usefulness for the experiment. There are parallels to Jekyll and Hyde in that aspect, though of course Jekyll was aware of also being Hyde- an alternate version of yourself created to rid yourself of everything about yourself that you despise is very reminiscent of Jekyll's motivations, down to the permanent erasure of the "good" side by the very end. It's also worth noting that Jekyll and Hyde weren't intended as an example of DID, but rather, an exploration of how every person is multifaceted with good and bad parts, even if modern day interpretations often read it as another example of the evil DID trope from 1960 and beyond(thanks a lot, Psycho).
There are several interactions between Ryoko and Junko that support them being two personalities within the same body rather than just a case of memory erasure. For example, when Ryoko is nearly killed by one of the SHSL Octuplets, Junko emerges just to make sure she isn’t killed, citing it as a minor nuisance.
“‘Upupu, I wonder if I was a bit too harsh.’ The voice said, it sounded close. ‘... But it can’t be helped. It’d just be embarrassing if you died here. After all, you’re the protagonist in this scene for once!’” -Junko Enoshima, DR 0
When Ryoko wakes up in the underground bunker of the Reserve Course cult forming, she comes across a captured member of the Steering Committee. And because she genuinely doesn't know who he is or where she is, he ends up giving her classified information that Junko needed, and the second he reveals it, she's immediately able to knock Ryoko back out and take over once again, having used the Ryoko personality as a front specifically to gain information.
“'The old school building… Kamukura Izuru’s there.' 'P-Please wait..' I ended the conversation prematurely with an interruption. Quickly, I wrote in ‘Otonashi Ryouko’s Memory Notebook’. .... But then… Huh? I suddenly felt an attack of dizziness, I struggled to stay upright. What’s happening?" -Steering Committee Member & Ryoko Otonashi, DR 0
"'Oy, did you hear me?' I didn’t. The beating in my ears was only growing louder, it completely drowned out all other sound, I couldn’t hear anything anymore. I shouldn’t be able to hear anything anymore, and yet I could hear a single, eerie laugh. '...Upupu.'" -Steering Committee Member & Ryoko Otonashi & Junko Enoshima, DR 0
Ryoko's memory of Yasuke is also contingent on whether or not Junko wants her to recognize him, suggesting that to some degree, her memory issues aren't just forcefully induced, but rather, are a conscious choice on Junko's part for Ryoko, as once Junko's plan is in place, she suddenly can't recognize him and is then forced to kill him in self-defense.
"'Are you…talking to me?' He looked exhausted. A face of someone who lost everything. The face of someone who lost all his thoughts, all his senses, and all his emotions. '…You don’t remember me?'" -Ryoko Otonashi & Yasuke Matsuda, DR 0
It's pretty unclear whether this was an intended conclusion from Ryoko's and Junko's behavior in DR 0, or if these are just remnants of Kodaka not knowing how personality disorders work and simply having Junko be so powerful that she can purposefully create, manipulate, and kill personalities at will, but I think looking at it from a more psychological viewpoint like this certainly puts Junko's actions as a manipulator into more perspective. The intention behind Ryoko suggests that Junko's manipulative abilities extended even into her own psyche, almost to a supernatural degree. Do actual systems in the real world function like this? No, but thanks to Toko/Genocider, we know that the representation of DID isn't gonna be good in this series.
If we wanted to put this into a more realistic lens, we could come to the conclusion that Junko's apparent control over Ryoko and the discrepancies behind her existence is a result of Junko having Munchausen Syndrome. Also called factitious disorder, Munchausen is a subconscious psychological condition in which the patient fakes symptoms of other kinds of conditions, whether mental or physical, without realizing they're mimicking the symptoms. Under this lens, we could say Ryoko was a factitious alter that Junko created after Yasuke wiped her memory, hence why she could have control over her over the course of the novel. This was almost definitely not the intended explanation, but it's the conclusion I came to. So there.
Part 8- Relationships
Due to just how many corners of the franchise Junko's present in, there's no convenient place to dump all the relationship analyses like I normally do. Ergo, I'll be breaking part 8 up, and will talk about the different core relationships Junko forms when they're most relevant.
8.1- Yasuke Matsuda
Yasuke Matsuda is the SHSL Neurologist, and a childhood friend of Junko's introduced in DR 0. Because he's the boy she's in love with, he remains the only tangible thing Ryoko can remember outside of her procedural memory, and is treating her memory loss. He's also the one primarily responsible for wiping her mind and assisting the school in the coverup of the student council massacre that Junko was responsible for, though he takes no pleasure in it.
"The silence continued for a while until Matsuda sighed and muttered, 'You should worry.' His voice was low and depressing. 'What if you’ll always be like this......'" -Yasuke Matsuda, DR 0
Despite his tsundere behaviors towards Ryoko whenever the two are face-to-face, he's very much in love with her, and spends the novel trying to look out for what he believes is in her best interests by methodically attempting to remove the Despair from her mind and covering up the Tragedy she's already set into motion. Throughout the novel, he works in cahoots with the Hope's Peak Academy Steering Committee to find more information about the Incident. He does this specifically to defend Ryoko and keep people from interrogating her further, and to hopefully extricate her from the whole situation permanently.
"'I said shut the fuck up.' Matsuda easily quieted the men by saying that and then he continued in a soft voice. 'People might call her an idiot, but she doesn’t even bother to stick up for herself, thinking she can’t do it. So I don’t think I’d be able to forgive myself if I don’t do it for her.'" -Yasuke Matsuda, DR 0
Though we never see it directly, we realize with the help of Kyoko that he's also the one taking the bodies of the Steering Committee and SHSL Octuplets after Mukuro kills them and disposing of them, in the hopes they won't be discovered and Junko will eventually be absolved of both suspicion and Despair.
“Finally she looked at me. ..... ‘The dead body, the body that was dead. There was a post-death body here before!’ ‘Huh?’ ..... ‘There’s not mistake, I know there was definitely a corpse here before!’” -Ryoko Otonashi & Mukuro Ikusaba, DR 0
“Matsuda-kun’s voice was definitely coming from beneath me. There’s no mistaking he was under the bed. ‘But... what would require so much concentration to be under the bed?’ ‘This situation.’ Somehow, Matsuda-kun’s way of putting it could allure to several different meanings.” -Yasuke Matsuda & Ryoko Otonashi, DR 0
"I stood next to the girl, crouched down and peeked under the bed. At the back I could see a large opening, .... 'It’s not a terribly impressive hidden room… a storage room at best.' '…A storage room?' 'For hiding dead bodies.'” -Ryoko Otonashi & Kyoko Kirigiri, DR 0
But despite his best efforts, Junko's talents of analysis were just too great, and she'd already come up with a plan to send her back into Despair before he ever touched her mind. With the help of Mukuro and the growing underground Reserve Course cult of Despair, Ryoko is forced to face Despair after Despair, and is hunted for her involvement in the student council massacre. Junko confronts him and taunts him for his failure, leaving him to wallow.
"'I get it, you feel sorry for her… even so, you’re troubled. You’re incredibly troubled. That’s what it seems like after what I’ve been hearing…'” -Junko Enoshima, DR 0
“'You know, in this scenario, only you can make the choice, Matsuda-kun. So think carefully, worry about it, and choose the choice you think it best. Hope or despair… the choices are so diverse and yet, surprisingly, intricately connected. Anyway, have a good think about it…'" -Junko Enoshima, DR 0
In one final attempt to see if he can salvage her, he approaches Ryoko outside of his lab, pretending as if he's Izuru Kamukura, and questions her. She doesn't recognize him, and he, too, falls into Despair, finally accepting that despite his feelings, he was a pawn to Junko's game, and tries to kill her, sending Ryoko towards Despair as she realizes who she's speaking to and can't convince him she loves him anymore. Defending herself, she ends up stabbing him, sending herself spiraling as she becomes her lover's killer, and Junko reemerges from her mind, killing her off in front of him and forcing him to die in Despair.
He dies believing Junko never actually loved him. He becomes thoroughly convinced that she was pretending, and that Ryoko was nothing more than a part of the game to send him into Despair. And that perception of Junko combined with her causing his death brings Junko an indescribable Despair. The man she loved died by her hands, hating her existence. Truly, this was Despair!
"'I was right, wasn't I? About you remembering? That's why you can't remember me? You remembered that I wasn’t a particularly important person to you…so that's why you can't remember?' Kamukura then revealed his eyes, their glint was tainted with deadly hatred. '…You're such a bitch.'" -Yasuke Matsuda, DR 0
"'There's no way this would have nothing to do with me…' There was a hint of sadness laid somewhere in that murmuring voice. 'After all…you were the most important person to me of all…' Those were her true feelings. Yasuke Matsuda was an especially important existence for Junko Enoshima." -Junko Enoshima, DR 0
She loved Yasuke intensely. She cared about him moreso than anyone else, save Mukuro. And yet, despite how attached he was to her, Yasuke couldn't realize in his own Despair that there'd be no reason for someone like Junko to bother dragging herself through so much mental torment and manipulation at his expense if she wouldn't get a magnificent Despair out of it. Yes, she causes Despair for others, but she doesn't throw herself directly into the fray unless she gets something out of it. Despite loving her, he never actually understood her. That truth, too, would bring her Despair.
Part 9- How Junko Shaped the Game
Turning back towards THH, Junko's reveal shakes the class. Most of them believed that finding the mastermind and forcing them to show their face would end the game. But that's not the case for Junko Enoshima. She's not through with them yet, and takes the opportunity to rub everything they've lost in their faces.
"Puhuhuhu... Did you really think the story would end once we reached the climax of the case? Wrong! There's still plenty more to go!" -Monokuma, THH
Throughout all of THH, Junko's plan is hinged on Despair, and thus, she takes her class, which had become close friends and confidants over the past two years of their lives, and attacks what would bring them the worst Despairs possible for each. Her talents as SHSL Analyst allowed her to analyze her own classmates and tear at what would've made their 16-to-20 year old selves when they first met snap. And each one of the motives she used was designed specifically for that, something she makes sure to cite when taunting them ("Did you notice that each motive I presented you had a specific theme to it?")
The first motive's theme was 'human connections', and everything surrounding the first chapter reflects this. Sayaka's motive wasn't just about her career. It was about the family she'd found and not letting down the people who loved her. And on a meta perspective, the first chapter was also about relationships, specifically that between Sayaka and Makoto and how that relationship's end motivated Makoto to eventually become SHSL Hope, and to a lesser degree, starting the development of the critical relationship between Hina and Sakura.
The second motive's theme was 'the past', something the 2nd chapter very much reflects. The secrets that Junko uses against the class are extremely personal to each of their histories, and can be used to twist each of them to head towards Despair, whether that be through their own hand or their own poor judgements of the people around them from their lack of memories. Mondo's secret isn't just tragic; Junko purposefully warps it in his letter to affirm his own belief that Daiya's death was murder and not just an accident, and because no one knows its contents, it sends him into a spiral. The same can be said for Chihiro, whose secret implies that their gender presentation is a lie, forcing them into a conformatory decision that leads to tragedy. Her classmates' memories of the past are presented in a warped way to suit Junko's needs. Toko's secret of having DID and a serial killer alter, Genocider Syo, is also revealed and used to develop her more as a character when she's the one most afraid of opening up to the class.
The third motive's theme is 'greed', using the promise of wealth to lure Celeste to murder. Even if you could argue other characters within the class could have fallen victim to the first two motives, this one is undoubtedly meant to target the Yasuhiros on Junko's part, as realistically, no one else in their class has any reason to even consider killing for money by itself, especially not when there's already been two class trials. The Yasuhiros are the only ones who consider themselves to be in any level of financial need. This theme is also meta-reflected by the possessive nature Kiyondo and Hifumi both develop over Alter Ego. Because neither of them can keep themselves away from them, they became easily manipulated, and it became harder for the rest of the class to obtain information and watch out for each other, forming a tunnel vision towards Alter Ego in their minds. This contrasts Celeste and Hiro greatly as well- Celeste is consumed by her own greed, while Hiro doesn't even consider killing for the money, opting instead to try and look out for the class and develop him as a survivor. Hiro's the one that looks out for Taka and calls out Hifumi on his obsession; Hiro's lured into Celeste's trap by promise of a way to save everyone, while Celeste rejects her class in favor of fighting for a selfish dream she didn't even need.
The 4th motive is that of 'betrayal', and this one is where the cracks in Junko's plan finally reveal themselves. Each and every trial before this one ended in tears and Despair, and a sense of hopelessness that wasn't alleviated until they were given new distractions. Sakura's betrayal is meant to mirror Junko's own betrayal of her classmates, and when half the class instantly turns on her, things go exactly as Junko plans. Sakura swears to destroy Junko by any means necessary, and takes her own life in an attempt to take the fun from Junko. With Monokuma's meddling, Hina is instead pushed into attempting a murder-suicide, one she's caught for by Kyoko and Makoto. But once the truth comes out, Sakura and Hina aren't condemned. Those that attacked her end up defending her. Sakura doesn't betray her class; Sakura betrays Junko, and it puts her on the path to failure. Junko even admits to this, though indirectly: "Once I revealed Sakura's betrayal, that led to everything that came afterwards..." Note this is the only time where she doesn't expressly explain to the survivors why her motive was successful, because in this instance, it wasn't. It also fills out Hina as a character and uses her arc of an attempted self-destruction to contrast Junko, as Hina let herself be forgiven by her classmates, something Junko could never let herself do.
Part 10- Self-Destruction (Junko vs Sakura)
Despite the fact that Makoto is the character christened as SHSL Hope at the end of THH, there are a lot more parallels between Junko's self-destructive nature and Sakura's self-sacrifice that often go unnoticed, and these parallels are quintessential to the overarching narrative of THH and why Junko functioned as its villain.
Both Sakura and Junko do the things they do because they love the people around them. Both Sakura and Junko find themselves to fall short of who they'd rather be. Both Sakura and Junko kill themselves. But their goals are fundamentally, diametrically opposed.
Sakura Ogami, as a martial artist, is a woman of honor and principles. She believes in the inherent worth of the people around her because of this, and strives to become the strongest person alive not because it's a desire of her own, but because that's the destination the people who loved her had in mind for her(her father, Kenshiro, etc). And therefore, she's someone who fundamentally wishes to act in the best interests of the people she loves, even when it's at her own detriment.
Junko Enoshima, as a hyperintelligent analyst, is able to predict anything. And because she can predict anything, she can enjoy nothing, because she always knows what will happen before it gets there. Ergo, the only way she can enjoy herself is via the only thing that can make her feel- Despair. Grief and pain still feel like something in a world where she can't be pleasantly surprised by anything. She despises herself for it, and so in order to feel, she decimates anything that brings her joy. Joy is boring; joy is nothing; joy is just part of the default setting because she still sees it coming. And therefore, she's someone who fundamentally acts in the worst interests of those she loves, for the sake of her own detriment.
When Sakura kills herself, and Hina is filled with Despair, Junko wants to revel in the Despair this brings everyone else. Sakura killed herself for people that weren't giving her the time of day, and the one person who gave a crap tried to kill you all! Isn't it so tragic, so Despair-inducing, don't you just want to break down and crumble?! And then they don't. Instead, after hearing the truth of Sakura's actions, the entire rest of the class is uplifted and united by her honor. Even Byakuya is feeling hopeful now! What the actual fuck is happening?! Is this how they'll feel when I die, too? Will my death bring no Despair?
8.2- Class 78-B
We never get to actually see any of her classmates interacting directly with her in their school days, or in any way that was positive. Outside of THH's and SDR2's final trials, we as an audience don't get to see them interact as friends. So we have to draw these conclusions from what little context we were given within her dialogue in these few rare moments in THH and the mentions of her class in DR 0.
"There was a tap inside [Junko's] skull, like someone pressed a switch and slowly her entire brain lit up with a notion. Several faces appeared. Of course, they were faces she knew… they were the faces of her Hope’s Peak Academy classmates." -DR 0
Without any doubt, Junko loved her classmates. They were people she considered in high regard and had unwittingly fallen for their unique charms. While Junko had come to Hope's Peak with the intention of causing Despair, she'd accidentally found people that made her happy. When entering the school, she intended to use the people around her to damage the school of Hope's reputation, but inadvertently became attached: "Once your school life here began, I thought about you constantly. It's only natural that I would... fall in love." This made for a fantastic happy accident for Junko, as finding something beloved made for a much more fantastic Despair for her later.
"Remembering the faces of the people who would bring her such despair, she felt something that was similar to a person in love, and she danced to the rhythm of Despair. 'This is it! This is a fantastic despair!'" -Junko Enoshima, DR 0
We can also reasonably assume Junko was someone her classmates had considered dear to them in turn, as she not only knew how to motivate their past selves into murder, but also their deepest secrets and fears, and was able to attack their relationships when they themselves couldn't even remember them. Could you handwave that level of connection with her SHSL Analyst talent? Actually, no, because as stated previously, analysis requires data. And the only way she could gather enough data to understand them at a depth that let her plan her killing game to perfection was by getting to know them firsthand.
There's also a strange implication within Junko's explanation of how she put the killing game together that I think gets often overlooked. When she prepares to infodump to the remaining survivors, she says this:
"So since I love you guys so much, I'll tell you all about it! All about the idea we came up with as the Ultimate Despair- our plan to bring Despair to all mankind!"
It's an interesting choice of pronoun, to say the least. "We." It implies that the group she's referring to when she speaks is herself and the people she's speaking to at this moment in time. Could she just be switching gears and talking about Mukuro, and later, the RoD, Kamakura, the WoH, etc? Yeah, absolutely. But none of these characters had even been mentioned, whereas she was just speaking on her love for her classmates in the dialogue prior and continues to talk about her classmates after.
In listening to Junko's explanation of how she put the killing game together, it made me come to a pretty disturbing realization. One of the biggest things about Junko is how she's always able to seemingly pull together everything to form this killing game almost entirely by herself. Later installments to the series include some level of explanations- Towa Group becoming a financial and robotic sponsor, a SHSL Mechanic that could've made the executions, etc- but her success within the killing game hinges fully on her knowing how to best bring her classmates to Despair. And she's not just an analyst; Junko is a master manipulator. Throughout her entire explanation of how she created the killing game, she never says she threw them into the killing game against their will. Instead, she very deliberately calls attention to her classmates' choice in the matter, over and over again. They chose to enter the shelter, they chose to lock the doors and cover the windows, they chose to be there with the SHSL Despair, though they didn't know who they were with at the time. Makoto is the one to assert that they did so because they believed in the hope of survivng, and giving the world a fresh start. But it's not just their year's worth of fun school classes missing from their memories. There's also a year of hopelessness within the school erased, too. Combine this with a few well-placed lines from Junko.
"You see, by taking away your memories, I gave you hope."
"You absorbed all that Despair, but then you forgot it all."
"Despair is contagious, you know. It's almost like... a natural phenomenon."
"Once you'd finished building your little shelter, it was time for me and Mukuro to get to work. And thus began the killing game!"
If Junko is making the claim that she was able to give them hope by removing their memories, that meant none of them had any to begin with. She emphasizes how much Despair her classmates absorbed, and even Kyoko herself states that it's impossible for all this to have been put together by just the Despair Sisters. If an additional year of hopelessness waiting around within the school were also erased, and Junko is intentionally avoiding saying she started the killing game herself, is it beyond reason to suggest that at least some of the 78th class had fallen to Despair in that timeframe? Look at the survivors that are left- Byakuya, Toko, Syo, Hina, Hiro. All characters that Do Not Like each other by this point. Most of the meaningful connections between the classmates have been murdered. Their past is scrubbed away. They've basically all betrayed each other at least once by now, and have been pushed to the brink of Despair. If you got a collection of THH characters most likely to fall to Despair, it'd be this group.
Junko even takes a point to emphasize just how Despair-inducing the truth can become, targeting Kyoko directly with this. As Kyoko comes to the realization the Junko purposefully designed the game with the possibility of being caught, she revels in Kyoko's Despair. She taunts her with the fact that their solving the mystery only made things worse. She is purposefully trying to drive the rest of her surviving classmates into SHSL Despair alongside her. She's manipulated the game and her classmates to get what she wants- the people she loves slaughtered, the survivors joining her in Despair, the world reborn by her hands. She quite likely manipulated her classmates into plotting each other's deaths not only inside the game, but in preparation for it as well.
Out of all her classmates, there was only really one you could argue wasn't perfectly analyzed and manipulated. One stood out among the rest as the unknown variable- a concept otherwise foreign to Junko- that was able to act as a wrench in her plans. And this, too, could cause her Despair.
8.3- Makoto Naegi (Hope vs Despair)
Makoto Naegi's SHSL Luck, AKA SHSL Hope, is the one who takes down Junko Enoshima's SHSL Despair. But why and how was this possible, and what does that mean for the relationship that he and Junko had prior to the game? If I wanted to fully delve into their relationship specifically, I'd need to really tear into Makoto's character, and I don't really have the time for that today(again, still hoping to get this out before 2025), so we'll just do the best we can based off the scenes they've had together and what we know about Junko to put the pieces together thematically.
Makoto is an average guy in just about every sense of the word. He likes average things, he looks plain, he's chosen randomly by lottery instead of earning his place in the school, he doesn't have any noticeable traits or beliefs- at least, not at first.
"But you know, if I had any one kind of strong point, so to speak, I'd say I'm a little more gung-ho than other people." -Makoto Naegi, THH prologue
By his own admission, he has a grand total of two character traits- abnormal normalcy, and enthusiasm. He's optimistic, and that's kind of it. By all intents and purposes, he's the SHSL Joe Schmoe, and that should make him another blank canvas on the wall of pawns Junko can knock over whenever she gets a little bored. And yet, SHSL Joe Schmoe is the one directly responsible for Junko's failure, and the one person who, by her own admission, she cannot predict. So why and how exactly is that?
I recall reading a story about a coding competition, where coders were meant to design an AI for a gambling competition. One entry proceeded to make an AI that would go all in every single time it was its turn, and the simplicity of it was so intimidating that it broke every other AI that was in the competition. That mentality is the exact strategy Makoto unintentionally employs. He doesn't have any strong sense of self or moral complexities; he's a dude that exists, and he throws everything he is into everything he does. He's an optimist to the highest possible sense. He leaves his door unlocked even after 4 murder cases and a break-in. He refuses to fathom anything but the best possible outcome, and so he's able to combat Junko's total Despair with pure hope. Makoto's head is so completely simple and empty that it acts as the exact opposite to Junko's highly intelligent, analytical mind. When she tries to force-feed him Despair in the final trial, he hits her with the power of 'nuh-uh,' and it works. It's that emptiness that fascinates Junko, and makes him and his random chance luck unpredictable to her.
Part 11- "Defeating" Despair
When Junko loses, it's not just because she failed to convince the others of Despair, or that Makoto's hope was just naturally the stronger conviction of the two. Rather, Junko's loss can be attributed to her own conscious choice to lose. Even if we're looking solely at THH, this is the case. And the source is found in a single line.
If her conviction to win in this moment was absolute to the point where only one person had to vote for Despair, she just had to include herself in the votes. After all, she is one of the 16 students participating, and by all accounts, she should receive a vote for this trial. But she casually refuses, instead leaving it in the hands of the survivors to make the final call. And that in and of itself is indicative of Junko's desires. When faced with a situation she can easily control, she leaves it to fate to decide, allowing that glimmer of unpredictability to take over and surprise her. She'll always believe in the Despair she's dedicated herself to; it doesn't actually matter who wins here. What matters is that she feels Despair. Either Makoto succeeds in convincing his classmates of hope and kills her, ruining all her plans, or he fails, and she exterminates the one unpredictable person in her life and locks herself out of that rush of adrenaline for the rest of her life. Either ending would fill her with Despair, and in that sense, there is no way for her to lose. She won the killing game, whether the survivors realized it or not, because she succeeded in destroying herself. She built herself a Saw trap, and her loved ones set it off.
Part 12- Execution Analysis
Junko is the only character to walk willingly into her execution, even being the one to hit the red button to start up the punishment rather than having Monokuma do it. You can first attribute this to her no longer being in the control room to pilot Monokuma to do so, which is true, but it's also representative of her desire for self-inflicted Despair. Her eyes are swirling with Despair and she goes on about how good it feels, how everyone should die in such Despair, how this punishment is 'extra special', because it's one she brought on herself. After methodically destroying the most important relationships of her life one by one, she'd now be killed by her friends in a series of recycled contraptions in an 'Ultimate Punishment'.
As she goes through each step of the execution, we see her bearing a wide grin, flying through the machinery that'd killed every one of her executed friends over and over again. She hits every baseball, handles the Cage of Death with ease, calmly survives the firetruck, and bobs her head with the excavator. She doesn't struggle, not once, and this is because in prolonging her Despair, her SHSL Analyst talent is keeping her alive. She's watched every one of these executions, and thus, knows how to survive them all. It's not just a retrospect of every prior execution as a callback for the audience; it means something. With a punishment meant to bring the character's worst ironic death via their most hated parts of themselves, then of course Junko's analytic abilities are keeping her alive through everyone else's Despair.
The execution ends with the return of the After-School Lesson, and this is the one that finally kills her, because it's the only one in which she doesn't know how it ends. Makoto's execution was tampered with by Alter Ego, so there's no way to know if she'll actually die or not. Junko can't know if it still works or not. Junko doesn't know whether she'll live or die, and that's what makes it so exciting. She's driven to the edge of death and left to sit there for a moment too long, long enough for the Despair to be replaced with disappointment- only to kill her right when her Despair abandons her. She stops smiling, looks up at the press, and dies abruptly. In her final moments, she is denied her Despair. Makoto did win, after all.
Part 13- Answering the 'How' (SDR2)
One of the biggest 'what-the-fuck's people tend to have after walking out of their first playthrough or watchthrough of THH is the How of the entire game. The first game is good and all, but it leaves Junko's skills and how she set up and pulled the killing game together pretty vague. This is intentional, as in the first game, she exists as a kind of force of nature, representing Despair as an inherent part of life in the same way Makoto represents hope. But after Spike Chunsoft commissioned a sequel, and Kodaka set to work on DR 0, the question of 'how' had to be answered as the series was expanded upon. This started with the introduction of Yasuke Matsuda's memory erasure technology and the reveal of Junko's SHSL Analyst status in DR 0, but continued to expand well beyond that.
In SDR2, we're introduced to an entirely new cast of characters, all with new and less conventional talents in comparison to the first cast. Whereas THH had plenty of more mentally-oriented talents like programming, writing, and hall monitor to balance out their more eclectic ones, the SDR2 cast is almost entirely physical or social talents like a yakuza, animal breeder, and mechanic. These talents also put them into more social or powerful positions than the 78th class on an overall skill, as you find yourself full of people that could command full armies and people proficient with making weaponry or fighting and potentially killing the people around them. This differentiates the casts, and automatically makes them more threatening in the ways they could attack each other in a killing game. This also makes them Junko's perfect weapons.
8.4- Remnants of Despair
Class 77 is revealed by the end of SDR2 to be the Remnants of Despair, pawns swayed over to SHSL Despair by unknown means. Makoto refers to this conversion as 'brainwashing', though whether this is him literally knowing they were brainwashed or making an inference and later being proven right is unclear. Regardless, the RoD are part of the SHSL Despair movement, and exist to explain a lot of how Junko was able to not only set up the killing game mechanically, but continue to end the world and send it into ongoing war after the initial Incident.
This is something especially apparent with the remaining surviving cast, as they're the most immediately powerful amongst the cast for Junko to use. Sonia and Fuyuhiko are both in direct command of massive amounts of people, with Sonia being the heiress to an entire country and Fuyuhiko being the leader of the largest mafia in Japan. Kazuichi as the SHSL Mechanic explains how and why so many elaborate executions were able to be designed ahead of time for the killing game, and Akane is a wicked fast athlete who's already accustomed to tragedies and will eat anything. On top of all this, there's Hajime, a human experiment worked on by those in league with the values of hope, and that was forcefully imbued with every talent that's ever been documented, including Junko's.
This sums up everything that made the RoD useful, but doesn't explain how any sort of meaningful connection was established between them and Junko. That's because on the overall, there isn't one. With two notable exceptions, the SDR2 class is largely unimportant to Junko emotionally speaking. They're useful, and that's about it. They weren't in the same class; they didn't interact at school or bond in any important way. She just dragged them down with the bare minimum brainwashing video because of their usefulness.
We also know Junko didn't care because of just how differently she speaks to and treats class 77 as opposed to the characters that we know she does love. The series painstakingly makes sure you know that Junko tears up everything she loves- Mukuro, Yasuke, class 78. She gores through them because hurting the ones she loves hurts her right back, and gives her an excellent Despair. But with class 77? Beyond the initial conversion, she doesn't really touch them. She doesn't need to waste her time with people who are virtually strangers. Their pain just is Despair; it's not her Despair. It's good for a laugh, but not much else, so she lets them run rampant on their own.
On an overall scale, Junko didn't give a fuck about these people. They existed solely as tools to her, and she interacted with them as little as possible. Unlike with her classmates, whom she loved, she did the absolute bare minimum required to get them to feel Despair by showing them a video and letting them do their own thing. The RoD were Remnants and not full-fledged SHSL Despair because their Despair was artificial. It was inauthentic, and so they could never ascend to true Despair in the way characters like Mukuro, Junko, or Monaca can.
8.5- Mikan Tsumiki (The Relevance of Junkan)
When we're first introduced to the concept of Junkan, it's portrayed as a one-sided infatuation from Mikan's perspective. She tells her classmates about the one person who forgave her existence and loved her anyway, with the choice of language emphasizing her beloved's need for Despair and asking for forgiveness for hoping suggesting that this beloved is Junko.
"Ahhh, this feeling of freedom where you no longer care about anything! My beloved and I are the only ones within that thin veil, and I'm just looking out through it..." -Mikan Tsumuki, SDR2
Whether intended at the time of SDR2's release or not, this line of dialogue ended up foreshadowing Mikan's heightened importance in comparison with the rest of her class to Junko as an RoD. When everyone else were just tools, remnants formed by brainwashing, Mikan is ultimately differentiated as special, not necessarily craving Despair but happily parroting it for the sake of a twisted love.
"It's like nothing matters! I could just die, that's how little it matters! Who cares about hope or despair! It's love, only love!" -Mikan Tsumiki, SDR2
This 'beloved' being Junko is proved true when AI Junko emerges in the final trial and reveals that class 77 are also the RoD. At this point, though, there's almost no evidence that Junko feels anything back for Mikan besides a vague sense of usefulness shared with the rest of her classmates, as she mimes seeing them as friends because of their actions as Remnants of Despair.
Something that's important to remember, however, is that Junko's need for Despair drives her to destroy everything she loves. We've seen this multiple times, over and over again with Mukuro, Yasuke, and her classmates before now. The reason we know she didn't care about class 77 is because there are no such personal attacks to tear them apart and make them despise her specifically- their pain brings her no Despair. There's no evidence of a personal attachment. Once DR3 comes into focus, though, that changes for one RoD in particular- one Mikan Tsumiki.
DR3 made the decision to bring Chiaki back as a human character, and made her the central figure for class 77's bond. Junko dragging out Chiaki's suffering and forcing her classmates to watch became the titular event that drove the rest of class 77 to Despair. But there was no personal attachment to this act, because she'd only just met Chiaki, and there was no dynamic to speak of between the two of them besides maybe a vague sense of interest based off of their single interaction.
So, if there's no established rivalry or connection to Chiaki, why does Junko single her out and kill her specifically? Easy; Junko doesn't. She sets up the maze, sure, but she is not and never was the one targeting Chiaki specifically. That was Mikan, and the show makes sure the audience sees this more than once.
When Mikan and Junko meet, it's because of a chance interaction. Mikan runs into Mukuro by mistake when going to check on Ryota, and is captured. In this sense, she's literally presented as a gift to Junko. Junko learns she's a nurse, and decides she'll let her hang around while she works on the brainwashing video.
In their next scene together, Junko is having Mikan massage her leg, listening as Mikan presents her classmates and friends to Junko. She's the one who tells Junko of how close her class has become, and how Chiaki is the central figure behind their bond. It's where we get this from Junko:
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Though you might not immediately know it, it's swiftly revealed to us that Mikan is now in love with Junko via this and Ryota's mention that something appears 'off' with Mikan. From Ryota's discovery of the prototype video that was used on the Reserve Course students being immediately followed by Mikan's appearance and saying he souldn't have watched the video, it's easy to fall into the assumption that Mikan's fall is purely because of the brainwashing. But that's not necessarily true. Mikan having seen the video prototype is very different from being brainwashed entirely, and considering Junko herself says that the video is insufficient and that she can't brainwash people like Ryota can, there's an inference to be made that while the prototype video may have helped, it didn't rob Mikan of her free will in the way Chiaki's death did for everyone else. Ryota didn't fall into Despair from the video by itself, and neither did Chisa Yukizome. We also know from her FTEs in SDR2 that even before falling to Despair, Mikan was already a little fucked up, as her idea of a good time includes telling you all the ways in which you could die and begging people to treat her like garbage just for a taste of acknowledgement.
We also see what motivated her to nurse not only herself, but others as well- not empathy, but power and control.
"Sick people and injured people... are weaker than me. .... But if I know the proper way to treat them, that means my words are absolute. Which means... They'll need me. They'll depend on me completely." -Mikan Tsumiki, SDR2
Again, all this can be found in her FTEs, in a situation in which she's mentally reverted to the way she was entering the school, before she and Junko were so much as in the same city. By this line of information, it's just as believable that her falling in love with Junko was because Junko and her video actually connected with Mikan, taking Mikan's craving for attention via mistreatment and using it to her advantage. It's also worth noting that the anime makes a point to use 'spiral eyes' to demonstrate when a character has been brainwashed. This is something used with Chisa, with the characters in the Future Arc, and when the RoD are shown Chiaki's murder. But Mikan does not have these spiral eyes in the scene where she nearly assaults Ryota. She's horny, and it's extremely disconcerting, but her eyes are still her own, suggesting that the video didn't take a hold on her the way it did for the Reserve Course students.
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Mikan is also one of the most similar characters to Junko in that she craves pain. Not emotional Despair in the way that Junko does, but physical pain, not only from Junko, but from just about anyone. Pain means attention, and that's something she needs more than anything. By this metric, she and Junko are actually quite similar, needing the worst from the people they love, and this makes for a formula that can create an incredibly abusive relationship. Junko can do literally anything to Mikan, and she'll lap it up like a dog. Mikan makes for a perfect punching bag, and suddenly, their relationship is intentionally paralleling the way Junko treats her sister. She kicks her around, calls her a disgusting horny piglet, and Mikan thanks her for it. It becomes a challenge of seeing how far she can push Mikan before she snaps and attacks her back, just like how she tries and fails to do with Mukuro. Simply put, there's no reason for her to treat Mikan in this way if she doesn't care about her as a person, romantic or otherwise.
This connection Junko forms with Mikan also serves to answer that earlier question: why did she bother with a class full of people she's never met? It's because of Mikan. Mikan is the one to present class 77 to her, and with the context that she goes on to set up a murder maze specially for Chiaki, and specifically says that Mikan has 'made a compelling case', that means Mikan was asking her to make them SHSL Despair. And not only does she do so, she does so in a way that forces Mikan to be the one to lead them into the trap. She brings her classmates to the bunker, she separates Chiaki from the group, she's responsible for sending her loved ones to Despair. This isn't a plot that's personal to Junko; it's a plot that's personal to Mikan, and Junko helping drive Mikan's loved ones into Despair saddles Mikan with a Despairing guilt tied to Junko.
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Driving class 77 to become RoD is an act of love for Mikan- a twisted, abusive love, but a love nonetheless, and one that's in line with the way she drives her own class to Despair and makes herself the crux. Should her classmates realize what's happened, they'll know that Mikan brought them here. The rest of class 77 are Remnants, but Mikan is a SHSL Despair like Mukuro, valued like Mukuro, and her being the one to regain her memories and turn on all her friends once more, betray them once more, is a remnant of Junko's love.
8.6- Izuru Kamukura
When Junko first approaches Kamukura, she does so with the intention of offing him then and there. He's the artificial SHSL Hope, lab-grown by Hope's Peak Academy, and represents everything their research stands for. To kill him would be to kill their work, and that's what she walks in with the intention of doing.
Naturally, she fails, as Izuru's been imbued with every talent known to man. This wasn't outside to realm of possibility for Junko, though. There were several different ways to kill the SHSL Hope invented by Hope's Peak. Whether or not she killed him literally or metaphorically wasn't the point.
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Izuru Kamukura exists as an empty symbol. He's filled with talent and nothing to use it on. Because his existence is an artificial one, he has no passion with which his talents were born, and no drive to use them. If anything, he's not the SHSL Hope, he's the SHSL Talent, but regardless, his creators have labeled him their SHSL Hope so that he can become their puppet-symbol. So to kill the SHSL Hope the trustees have created, all Junko really has to do is get her hands on the puppet first.
The actual convincing of him isn't really what matters to Junko. Similar to the trustees, she also sees Kamukura as a symbol, albeit one to be knocked down instead of bolstering up, so she uses him like a token symbol, too. All she has to do is pique his interest, just enough to get him to follow her, and her job is done. She talks on about her love of Despair, how grief and pain are something that actually makes you feel, and because he's had his emotion removed, that unknown variable is enough to get him to watch, just in case.
Despite his having every known talent, Kamukura is tricked. He's framed by Junko as being responsible for the murders of the student council. And in addition, he sees the power of Despair, as adrenaline from the final survivor pushes him to attack Kamukura even when it should've been physically impossible. When moved by that animalistic need to survive, he manages to cut Kamukura's face even after getting his own sawed in half. Thus the SHSL "Hope" is introduced to the world as creating Despair, and his job is complete.
Junko doesn't really bother with Kamukura after this framing. She lets him hang around, but when he decides to leave, she doesn't make any sort of fuss or try to attack him anymore, because she doesn't really care about him. He was only as important to her as his title was to the school, and once that title was tarnished, any connection between them she pretended to have was dropped. The next time these characters meet, it will no longer be the real Despairing Junko tainting some artificial husk of a person, filled with talent and emptied of heart, but rather, an artificial Despair combatting a survivor's true identity.
Part 14- The Brainwashing
Okay, let's talk about this. Was the brainwashing a good move for the story? Was it actually planned from sdr2? Or was it something half-assed at the last second because Kodaka didn't think that far ahead? Well, imo, it was almost definitely intended from their conception, and is very reflective of Junko's own motivations and goals.
From as early as DR 0, brainwashing tactics are evident within Junko's work. When Ryoko meets the reseve course's underground cult, she finds them watching a single video of mutual killing over and over again, with a fixation on its contents that's unnatural.
"[The cultists] didn‘t even bother to glance at me. Their eyes were still plastered to the monitors in front of them. .... Every monitor was a pitch black, none had a single image projecting on it.
'It‘ll… start again soon… so…' the monobear heads sitting in front of me said in monotone." -DR 0
Brainwashing is again brought up within SDR2, as not only is Hajime expressly a human experiment due to alteration of the brain specifically, but the entire class is referred to by Makoto as 'brainwashed'. At this point in the series, there's no reason for him to actually know this short of Kamukura possibly telling him they were brainwashed, so we can reasonably assume this statement is rooted in Makoto's inability to understand Despair and seeing anyone's craving of it as a mental disease that can be cured(not an unreasonable conclusion to reach, considering the Everything About Junko he was led to witness). Ergo, it's not beyond reason to assume that brainwashing was well within the bounds of possibility for the characters even at that time.
While the idea of brainwashing the class into Despair appears to rob the class of their moral complexities that came from being RoD, the view we as an audience are given by Makoto, Kyoko, and Byakuya within SDR2 is only ever that the RoD were victims of Despair. The survivors are already established as more reliable narrators than AI Junko thanks to the first game, so there's no reason not to trust that what they say is likely true. In addition, Junko never actually directly states that they did it of their own free will, just that they were on the same side and tries to get them not to listen to Makoto, her already-established opposite.
The idea of class 77 being brainwashed went from theory to canon in DR3, and while the method of their brainwashing is controversial(the line 'cutting through their free will like swiss cheese' from the dub is pretty aggravating), it still lines up with Junko's pre-established goals and motivations. She goes to Hope's Peak to tear down Hope and replace it with Despair, and after being shown a class full of Hope united by their love for the same person, she exploits it and is able to use their love against them to create Despair as an outsider. She's introduced to the class, uses them, and then lets them all go do their own Despairing thing because she doesn't actually care what they do. What matters most is her own Despair, and tearing hope to pieces. So her interaction with class 77 remains minimal, a mere experiment for Despair in the same way Hajime was an experiment for hope, and then keeps going about her business, calling on them presumably only if she needs something like the execution contraptions.
14.1- The Despair Videos & Knowing the Difference
There's not just 1 Despair video. Over the course of the anime, we're introduced to three, and each one has different levels of effect on those who watch it. Knowing the difference between these three videos is quintessential when talking about the brainwashing and how each character to watch a video is affected, as well as understanding different characters' roles in the narrative as they pertain to the videos. So let's establish the differences between these 3 videos and their effectiveness before we move forward.
14.1.1- The Student Council Massacre
The first Despair video, aka "the prototype", aka the Mutual Killing Video, is the one created using the footage of the student council's beta mutual killing game. This is the one made solely by Junko's attempted mimicry of Mitarai's animation talents, taking security footage of the mutual killing and sharing it with the Reserve Course and Mikan as a test run. And while it does have some level of effect on them, inspiring 'the parade' and having a hand in Mikan falling for Junko, it doesn't work nearly well enough to actually rewire their brains for Despair or strip them of their hope in the way that Junko would like. Even in the context of a parade, it's still very much a protest in the hopes of change. There's still the demands of a refund, of being let into the main course. Even when shown the Despair of the truth, there is still hope that things can be changed or fixed. And that's not what Junko wants. The only character that we've seen to watch this video to end with the aforementioned 'spiral eye' telltale of true brainwashing is Chisa, who we know was also being actively lobotomized by Mukuro during a repeated viewing to force it to work. This instruction came from some manual Mukuro was left with, presumably written by either Junko or Ryota.
While this video is what starts the parade, what eventually pushes the parade to violence isn't Junko. It's the inaction of Hope's Peak Academy and refusal to acknowledge their mistakes. Instead of coming clean, they bury everything wrong they've done even further and have their security beat the shit out of anyone that tries to find answers for themselves, doing so in the name of 'protecting them' from information. They keep the wrongdoings of their 'real' students under wraps at the expense of their underlings, fully buying into a talent-based hierarchy they created. Those without special talents are sources of finance- nothing more, nothing less. And when that overwhelming majority questions that, and finds evidence that HPA doesn't care, of course they'll retaliate. The video itself isn't a brainwasher, but when combined with the very real negative effects of the classism which the Reserve Course students find themselves hurt by, it makes its influence that much stronger.
14.1.2- Human Chiaki's Death
The second Despair video is Chiaki's execution, and is a live recording shown to her classmates. As far as we've ever seen, this is the only instance in which this is ever shown. This live recording is enough to send class 77 into Despair properly, spiral eyes and all, but there's an underlying implication that the primary reason for this is because of how important Chiaki specifically was to them. Throughout the season, and especially in this episode, Chiaki is established as the glue that holds the class together. Despite not being an extremely sociable person, she connected to her class with her love of games, and her earnest love of it endeared her to them, and their love of her did vice versa. The footage locked them each into place, unable to look away, and once they were at their lowest, at the very end of the video, Junko swoops in to dub them all Remnants and decides for them that they will now cause Despair for her. And because she says this when the live footage has brought them to their lowest, they each fall into this trap, at least to some extent. Whether or not they truly belive in what they're doing, they do it, because that feeling of Despair is their last connection to Chiaki left.
But, similarly to the prototype, it's still ultimately insufficient. Granted, it's much more effective than the prototype, but it isn't a full mindwipe, either. We know this because when we meet Nagito Komaeda in UDG as the Servant, he's still himself. He still has some level of self-control, able to speak and act as an individual even when following the orders of Monaca or the other WoH. He says himself that he despises Junko more than anyone else in the world, and follows through with Despair with the faith that it'll inspire a newer hope to conquer it. He says something similar in that moment of brainwashing as well.
"Nanami is our hope. Look what she did to her. What Despair... What a horrific sight! This is... This is the Despair we must overcome? Ah, Nanami... You understand, right? At this moment, you are becoming a stepping stone to hope!" -Nagito Komaeda, DR3
You could possibly attribute this to Nagito's luck cycle and history with tragedy just making him have a higher resistance to the brainwashing, and honestly, there's no strong way to contradict that, since Nagito and Mikan are the only ones we ever see in Despair outside of a montage, but narratively, I doubt they'd make a point to show one of the RoD hating Junko if it weren't to make the point that they had agency. Nagito was just the fan favorite, so of course it was gonna be him. You saw the fanservice in UDG.
14.1.3- Mitarai's Animation
The third and true Despair video is the inversed Monokuma Theatre, which is used to mentally hack its viewer and drive them into such a strong state of Despair that they kill themselves right then and there. This is objectively the strongest of the Despair videos, and the most effective, with the only character it doesn't immediately convince to kill themselves being the Future Foundation chairman Kazuo Tengan. This is mostly for plot reasons, but I'll address this specific exception to the rule later on and why this was the case.
The Monokuma Theatre video is mass-emailed to the Reserve Course students after they destroy the shiny new building their parents were tricked into paying for. The video hacks their minds when in an already vulnerable state, and each and every one of them jumps out of the building and kills themselves. Just as quickly as they take some control and uproot the system that hurt them so, they fall victim to the games of another who never cared for them in the first place. The purpose of the video was to create a horde of faceless victims to spurn others into action, and it worked like a charm, spiraling the world into a state of Despair. The RoD used their influence to ensure a smooth transition into this state of worldwide chaos as well, having significantly more social power and reach to spur more and more people into the fray.
The Monokuma Theatre video is also what makes the members of the Future Foundation kill themselves in the Future Arc, hacking their minds and then dropping a knife with which to stab themselves with. It works on every character that watches it- Chisa, Gozu, Seiko, Ruruka, and Makoto. Each of these characters are in various mental states when they watch it, yet all of them fall to it, without exception. It doesn't matter who you are or what you believe in. If there's even one thing you regret in your life, the video can and will work on you. It just does. And by that logic, it's the only real 'brainwashing' video, because it can work on anyone who watches it. The one character who seems to withstand it is the one who builds an entire killing game using said video just to force its creator to action, and doesn't even seem so much as affected by it. Really, it calls into question whether or not he was even affected by it.
14.1.4- The Flashback Light (Bonus Brainwashing!)
The Flashback Lights are used solely in V3, and are invented by the mysterious Team DR to reprogram the memories of their victims to play along in their scripted killing game. We see this work on both Kaede and Shuichi, as well as see the aftereffects it has on the rest of the class.
We learn while investigating that Tsumugi is the one responsible for creating the Flashback Lights, and that she's been the mastermind who knew what was happening the entire time. However, this initially opens up a plot hole in that Tsumugi has also been shown the Flashback Lights multiple times. There are 3 viable explanations for this. The first one is that she just closed her eyes, which is extremely boring and kind of a copout. The second is that she didn't know she was the mastermind until near the end, and Kaede's murder plot failing was a ruse by Team DR for the story, but that makes that entire reveal lose a lot of its impact. The third explanation, therefore, makes the most logical and narrative sense, and actually doubles as a reason why Tengan would be the only one to withstand the Monokuma Theatre in DR3: Tsumugi wears glasses.
Yeah, I know, that sounds silly, but let's actually break it down. In NDRV3, two characters are shown to wear glasses, and only two- Tsumugi Shirogane, and Gonta Gokuhara. Gonta, however, has two unique traits that are relevant here. One, he has 20/0.625 vision(strong enough to see the near microscopic Monokuma cameras), and two, he wants nothing more than to appear as a gentleman. I don't think it's a stretch to say he's wearing empty frames to appear more gentlemanly, especially considering they're paired with a full suit.
Tsumugi is the mastermind, and the one who has the most insight into what's happening in the game. She's the one who knew the difference between her actual self and the character Tsumugi that she played(it's implied in the dating sim that Tsumugi isn't her real name), despite having seen the Flashback Lights with the class several times. So isn't it entirely possible that having glasses to reflect the light of those Flashbacks was what let her pass for being affected as well? And, if that's the case, then it would also explain why Tengan, who wears glasses, would be resistant to the effects of the animated video, as everyone else who we know watched the animated version before their death didn't wear glasses. The faceless Reserve Course students don't have glasses, and neither do any of the five characters in Future Arc to watch it. It's completely ridiculous, and simultaneously totally plausible, for the idea of glasses reflecting off light and lessening the effects of such a video to be the explanation for why the videos or lights exclusively didn't work on these masterminds.
8.7- Ryota Mitarai
Junko's connection to Ryota is objectively the weakest part of her story, and admittedly a major part of why the brainwashing of class-77 falls under such scrutiny. Whereas every other part of Junko's plan is pretty well-established within her characterization, the connections she makes having actual sense to their conception and development, and just general consistency within the narrative, her meeting Ryota is not only a stroke of random luck on her part, but emphasized as one, and this just does not make sense for a character within said narrative to have never once been characterized as having any level of luck or fortune prior. This is especially glaring in a world that has established luck mechanics via characters like Makoto, Nagito, and Celeste. Junko just isn't a character meant to have luck like this, and never has any sort of moments or accomplishments stemming from luck before or after this outright.
When Junko and Ryota meet, it's because they walk past each other going in and out of the infirmary, and Junko, for no visible reason, decides to start talking to him right then and there. She starts squealing and hugging him, jumping up and down, and says this upon Mukuro's asking why: "I don't know, but... this is what I'm telling myself: This is yet another... fateful encounter!"
There's no rationale to this. There just isn't. It's not her SHSL Analyst talent having picked up on him over time, or her recognizing him via someone else, or anything of the sort. It's totally unjustified random chance for the convenience of the plot, and that's what makes this introduction so weak.
Really, the issue of Ryota's involvement falls more in their introduction than his actual function in the anime. Considering his characterization and the connections Ryota had prior to this, it would've made infinitely more sense if Junko had met Mikan first while in the infirmary, and buttered her up enough for Mikan to introduce the two of them. Knowing Mikan, it wouldn't have taken much, and would've made more sense for Ryota to be so willing to share a part of his life's work while still incomplete if he was introduced to Junko by someone he already trusted. Regardless, that's not what happened, but I say this mostly because I want to affirm that with Junko and Ryota's connection, it's the introduction that doesn't make sense, not what follows.
That said, once the awkwardness of how they meet is out of the way, what follows is fairly reasonable. She asks about his talent, purposefully mocks his interests to trick him into showing off, and then takes advantage of what she learns about him, which just so happens to be brainwashing techniques that she'd already be somewhat familiar with thanks to Yasuke.
Once they're acquainted, Junko uses her knowledge of the school and what she's stolen from the kidnapped trustees to set up Ryota underground where she can keep him under control, and so he can't mistakenly squeal about what she's setting up. She uses his passion against him to bastardize it into what she needs and manipulates him into walking into his own cell by doing so. It's not her most genius move of all time, and it's not a difficult one to understand either, but it's one that works.
What matters most to understand, though, is that she doesn't seem to develop any sort of affection for him in the way that she did for Mikan. When he finally uncovers what she's doing, Junko gives him a simple sales pitch, and threatens him indirectly with Mikan's friends.
By now, she knows damn well that he's met a grand total of two of his classmates, one of which just tried to sexually assault him mere moments prior, so this doesn't seem like the most effective tactic she could've used. But Ryota is a sensitive person. A victim of bullying growing up, the whole point of his brainwashing animations was to make people more empathetic subliminally. So to force him to help her, Junko is able to target this empathy by targeting Mikan over Ryota himself. Her abuse of Mikan is painful for Ryota to look at, and he wrongfully puts all the blame for the way Mikan acts solely on Junko because he doesn't know any better. And Junko lets him, because it's convenient for her to manipulate.
"As you have inferred, the mutual killing video you watched is the reason Tsumiki ended up this way. However, in order to reach my objective, this is insufficient. My lack of brainwashing ability is the cause." -Junko Enoshima, DR3
As we know, Junko is an unreliable narrator. She can and has lied to people's faces for the sake of manipulating them, telling half-truths and intentionally warping the truth to shift her victims' perspective in a way that she wants. We never see Mikan's fall, only cutting from her first meeting Junko to her already being in love with her, and as we've established, not only was Mikan already pretty fucked up prior to meeting Junko, but she doesn't exhibit the symptoms of a complete brainwashing at this point. She still has her mental faculties about her. So logically, that means she's doing the same here. Yes, Mikan watched the prototype video, and yes, it was insufficient. Hence why we as an audience can understand with our meta-context that Mikan still has her mental faculties intact. Ryota, on the other hand, doesn't have that benefit, so when Junko says this, the implication is that Junko took the meek, shy, kind version of Mikan that Ryota knew and twisted her into an evil, hypnotized slave of Junko's. It's an intentionally warped perception of the truth that Junko uses to her advantage, to the point where she flat-out says she can't brainwash at this point and brainwashing is still commonly attributed as the sole reason for Mikan's behavior in this scene.
Ryota cares about the few friends he does have, taking Mikan's and the SHSL Imposter's requests to take care of himself by resting and going to the infirmary even when he doesn't want to to ease their worries. So of course, when faced with the idea that he could prevent Mikan's loved ones from getting hurt, even though he doesn't know the vast majority of them, he caves regardless. It doesn't have to affect him. The people around him are important enough for this threat to work anyways. They're not his precious classmates, but they are the Imposter's; they are Mikan's. And Ryota is a very weak man. So he complies.
Later, when he escapes, she hunts him down to thank him for his help, and then allows him to run away, letting him believe that he's the reason why class 77 were the ones to be brainwashed.
"The video I had you help me with. The complete version of that. I'll have your whole class watch it now!"
The 'video' that Junko has them watch is a live recording of Chiaki's death maze. Meanwhile, the Despair video that the Reserve Course goes on to watch after the riots, and that Chisa Yukizome is subjected to, are different videos entirely, forcefully reprogramming them and removing their hope outright. Since Ryota's an animator, we can ascertain he's responsible for the one the Reserve Course watches, with an animated Monokuma. In other words, Junko does not, in fact, have his class watch the video he helped her make. She's lying to him to send him further into Despair.
"Imagine it... Because of you, all your classmates will fall into a deep, deep Despair. They'll become people who think of nothing but plunging this world into Despair, the Super High-School Level Despairs!"
It's a bold-faced lie, and one that Ryota has no knowledge with which to contradict it. Because he's a coward, and because Junko's already messed with his head so much, he runs and hides rather than face what he's done. She even leaves him with parting words of responsibility, twisting what happened with sarcasm so he'll always blame himself for her actions.
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Ryota is by no means a perfect victim, but that doesn't change the fact that he is one. He was manipulated, and when he found out he was manipulated, he was threatened, albeit indirectly. But Junko was always planning to send Hope's Peak and the world into Despair. His video made it easier for her, but he is not and never was responsible for her actions. And by making him carry the guilt of her choices, she leaves him in a state of pathetic, guilty Despair akin to a genuine 'thank you' from her.
Part 15- AI Junko
AI Junko(or Kaijunko, as I like to refer to her as) appears as the reincarnation of Junko, created by Chihiro's AI technology and forming a Despair virus to infect the Neo World Program. She doesn't allow the Hope Restoration Program to follow through, instead taking Usami's teacher role and manipulating the world to be a Despair Restoration Program. The motives she uses are extremely personal and targeted, hyperfocusing in on specific members of the class each time to ensure a murder happens the way she needs it to.
Something that's important to remember, though, is that Kaijunko IS NOT Junko. She's an artificial recreation of the real Junko intended to continue programming Despair into the world after she'd inevitably passed. And as such, she isn't a 1:1 replica, and there are key differences between the two in the same way Alter Ego is different from Chihiro and Observer Chiaki is different from the human Chiaki.
The reason Junko fell into SHSL Despair was because her intellect combined with human need for stimuli left her with such a deep depression and boredom that pain and suffering were the only ways to make her feel alive. But as an AI program, Kaijunko isn't burdened by that same need. She's programmed to have the same goal of spreading Despair, but she doesn't have a personal, insatiable need for Despair in the way that Junko did. And this leads her to have a different endgoal for the final trial than what the real Junko might have chosen.
Kaijunko observes and learns from Izuru Kamukura and the RoD, as well as the Towa City residents, in the same way Alter Ego learned from class 78. The brainwashing video forcefully reprogrammed them, yes, but ultimately, they still loved each other as friends and classmates, even if Chiaki wasn't there with them, and it's that dedication to each other that Kaijunko learns about. It's why those connections are the ones tested within the SDR2 killing game; Kaijunko, who actually came into contact with the RoD personally and was toted around by Kamukura, would know what to use to create a killing game that would leave the most desperate group of survivors at the end to follow through on Junko's plans to reconstruct them all into her.
However, because Kaijunko isn't constricted to the same need to destroy herself, she can afford to bend the plan around impulsively in the way Junko herself had in the past, but in a way that'd align with the original Junko's goals to harm others around her without needing to harm herself anymore. Thus, in the final trial, she doesn't push those desperate survivors to want to escape. Instead, she uses her knowledge gathered to make them want to stay in the world Makoto provided to them, where none of them have to face the consequences of the RoD's actions, Kaijunko included.
One of the ongoing themes across the board for SDR2 is how artificial everything about it is. The island is artificial. Chiaki is artificial. Hajime is an artificial hope. The RoD are artificial Despairs. Similarly, Kaijunko is an artificial Junko. She goes through those same motions as the original Junko, but she is not, cannot be Junko. She can only mimic, never be, and so she tries to escape altogether by resetting the game to a state where the RoD live an escapist dream, and she's locked in the game with 'her' classmates forever. But despite this, because she's mimicked Despair, she's become part of it, and Hajime and the others do the one thing Junko can't ever succeed in doing: they choose themselves, and she disappears without a chance of hope, just like Ryoko before her. Hajime and class 77 forge a new future, and Kaijunko dies trapped in the shadows of the past.
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8.6.1- Hajime Hinata
If the battle between Makoto and Junko in THH is a battle of ideologies- hope and Despair- then the battle between Hajime and Junko is a battle of wills. This is the battle between self-love and self-hatred, and both Hajime and Junko are faced with their opposite, only to reject it in favor of what they want for themselves most.
Hajime's main character arc is one of self-discovery. When we meet him, he's been stripped of everything that's made him himself, having a gap in his memory that has his identity within it. This is a direct parallel to Ryoko Otonashi's lack of memory, having no identity or memories of the past with which to identify herself. She has only the words others tell her. But in the case of Hajime, it's revealed that the supposed gap is virtually nonexistent. He has no special talent or ability that differentiates him from the rest. He's a blank slate- empty, one might say. And this is quite similar to Ryoko. In a similar way, Izuru and Junko are both burdened by the weight of their talents. In the case of Izuru, he was operated on to remove all emotions and thoughts to be a symbol for Hope's Peak, while Junko's Analyst talent left her burdened with the inability to enjoy anything.
There are also similarities to Izuru and Ryoko, having both had their minds operated on to remove all memories of their true identity and become someone new, while Hajime and Junko both feel a heavy burden of who they are and feel as if that makes it impossible for them to enjoy their lives as they are. This parallel is exactly why Hajime's choice to live, and choosing to live in the face of retreating into the NWP, is so impactful, especially when faced with the shadow of Junko Enoshima.
Junko never chose herself. She never could choose herself, and when given the opportunity to, she rejected it entirely, too addicted to the cycle of self-destruction she'd created for herself. She felt as though Despair was the only answer for her, so she could never stop searching for it, even from beyond the grave. That not just she should feel it, but everyone should. Everyone needed to know the way she felt. And she used anything and anyone at her disposal to make sure the world burned, because she wanted to feel, and what was the point of such a world pretending not to feel Despair anyways?
Hajime chose himself. It wasn't for anyone but himself. When looking in the face of what he'd turned himself into for hope, he was able to come to the conclusion inverse to what Junko did- that he didn't need to change for the sake of anyone else. It didn't matter that he wasn't SHSL like the people he admired, so long as he lived for himself. Meanwhile, when Junko reverted back to herself, it was like dragging herself back into a cage, being burdened by the same kind of talent that Hajime never needed. A talent she never asked for was the source of her undoing, while Hajime's lack thereof almost killed him in the pursuit of one.
The dichotomy of the talented vs the talentless is one that can be felt extremely strongly between dr0, sdr2, and dr3, but especially when in regards to the divide between these two characters, as it again circles back to the damage the hierarchy they find themselves in creates. Junko is a heralded SHSL Analyst and Gyaru, dubbed by Japan as superior and handed the influence that makes it so much easier for her to poke holes in the system until it collapses. Even when all the evidence is placed on her, she's the SHSL Analyst, and can convince HPA to keep quiet for her. They cover up her crimes, and when they can't anymore, she's part of the 'chosen' that receive protection from the government while the Reserve Course and their families are never mentioned again. Hajime has nothing, is considered nothing, is even beaten and told to 'take to the leash and collar already' to keep him complacent. His choice to become Kamukura is weighted by the pressures of the system he's trapped within, holding him not only to his desire to be considered important, but to be equal, not to mention the debt he's placed in just for the right to participate in said hierarchy. Those treated like nothing are downtrodden to accept the system and uphold it, and those with power can do whatever they want and the system will protect them.
In a lot of ways, Hajime and Junko are more similar to each other than any other two characters in the franchise, all the way down to the sacrifice of the ones they closest around them sending them on their final path- Junko with Mukuro, and Hajime with Nagito. And in mirroring this, Nagito eventually returns, while Mukuro never can.
Mukuro and Junko are twins, and work to attain the same goal, but they're still very different people. Junko is absolutely fucked up, and Mukuro follows her out of a twisted need to be by her side, even when it leads to her eventual death. Hajime and Nagito are repeatedly called out as similar, both needing the other to get through the trials and survive and being forced to come to an understanding, but still retaining their individuality and separate beliefs. When Mukuro dies, it's directly because of her loyalty to Junko, even at the cost of herself, and Junko's betraying her resulted in both their deaths. Nagito died because of his loyalty to hope, even at the cost of himself, and Hajime's trust in him was what allowed him to survive and eventually bring Nagito back. Where Mukuro was metaphorically absorbed into Junko and forgotten, Nagito's individuality was what became critical to Hajime.
15.1- Shirokuma & Kurokuma
This part will remain brief. Shirokuma and Kurokuma are the AIs found in an all-white and all-black bear in UDG, each positioned on one side of the Towa City genocide and perpetuating the war by manipulating the Towa siblings.
Shirokuma is the 'good' one, and is positioned with the adult survivors. He's the one responsible for creating the underground safe house, and is Haiji's right-hand. Even when making it appear as though he wants peace first and foremost, he goes on to pilot Big Bang Monokuma and stands with Haiji, playing him and Komaru to escalate things.
Kurokuma is the 'bad' one, and is the one who gave Monaca the plan to create a Successor in the first place. He's a chatterbox that's an advisor to the WoH, presumably left behind by Junko or created by Monaca, and pushes the kids into their murder games by standing with Monaca.
Near the end of the game, Kurokuma reveals that Shirokuma is his little brother, and later in the epilogue, we learn that they were actually not distinct AIs, but rather, the same AI Junko as in SDR2 that was working both sides to destroy Towa City. Them taking the form of siblings mirrors that Junko herself was a twin, and isn't truly complete if she doesn't have her sibling still present.
Part 16- Big Sis Junko (UDG)
Following SDR2, UDG returned a master-manipulator Junko to the scene via the Warriors of Hope. Though AI Junko is present and perpetuating the war through her manipulation of the Towas, Junko herself is all but gone, survived only through the kids' memory of her, and what they have to say is extremely telling to the capability Junko really had to push people further towards her Despair.
Her role as 'Big Sis Junko' came when she prevented them from killing themselves, though how she knew to be there at the right time is unknown. We can assume she'd been keeping eyes on Monaca already and, through her Analyst talent, figured out when the right time to be to show up.
From there, they became the Warriors of Hope, not missed by their parents that hated them or worried for by the world, and Junko was free to mold them however she liked. She did this by teaching them to lash out at the people responsible for their suffering- not just their parents and abusers, but any and all adults. She was a teenage girl who'd taken pity on them, as far as most of them saw, and so they trusted her as the first and only person besides each other to show them kindness. They became ideological, lumping all adults within the same box of 'demon' because they were given no other comparison, and they did it for Junko.
"As far as I remember, the first adult we defeated was a random person we didn't even know. .... From there, we leveled ourselves up by killing Demons. Big Sis Junko was so pleased..." -Nagisa Shingetsu, UDG chapter 4
They came to rely on her as their one true savior, and even those of them who knew they were being manipulated didn't care, if only it meant they weren't the ones being beaten anymore.
"At least, at the time I thought it was a miracle. But later I learned it was inevitable. She came into my life just to take advantage of me." -Monaca Towa, UDG chapter 5
"'You guys... were completely deceived by Junko Enoshima.' 'And what's wrong with that? Did I not tell you that we are her possessions? We would rather her take advantage of us than horrible adults.' 'Sounds like it's too late.' 'Say what you like. Big Sis Junko... gave us hope. That's the truth.'" -Toko Fukawa & Nagisa Shingetsu, UDG chapter 4
And when she died, she was martyred, a victim of the cowards who'd believe in the adults and Hope's Peak. By dying, she completed her manipulation of them, ensuring in her absence, they would only remember the kindness she offered them. Anyone who said otherwise must be a demon.
"No matter how much you hate us, no matter how much we're shunned, we're definitely not wrong. That's the real truth, because Big Sis Junko said so. .... Those adults who took her away from us and said that she was the bad one! They're the filthy ones; they're the ugly ones, the disgusting ones!!!" -Jataro Kemuri, UDG chapter 2
This manipulation and creation of the WoH stemmed from a practical source, as we learn in the game. By Monaca's own admission, Junko only ever cared about getting access to Towa City tech for her Monokumas and for spreading Despair wide-scale. Having highly talented and abused kids to carry out her will when she was gone was just a very welcome bonus; having the youth primed to continue spreading Despair when she was gone would create a legacy, and her ghost would continue to haunt those with hope for at least another generation. Enter Monaca Towa.
8.8- Monaca Towa & the WoH (CW: Mentions of Incest & Pedophilia)
Monaca is differentiated from the rest of the Warriors of Hope almost immediately as being more aware of what the fuck is going on than her friends. She's the L'il Ultimate/SESL Homeroom that loves hearing everyone else talk about their thoughts and feelings, she's the one who invented the Captives game, and she has swastikas in her eyes, because Nazi symbolism was the only way we could convey she's a dictator I guess. As the game goes on, we see that her relationship with Junko is different from the rest of the class- a bit more substantial. She has much more knowledge of Junko's desire for Despair and knows the real reason Junko sought them out in the first place. She uses her friends' idolization of her to trick them into helping her make a new generation Junko to carry her memory. She also has a hidden bedroom full of photos of Junko, and one in particular stands out among the rest.
Junko and Monaca, all by themselves, posing for a photo. None of the other WoH are present for this photo. It's also worth noting that Monaca's in her WoH outfit, even though in every other flashback or cutaway to the past before Junko's death, they were all in their Hope's Peak Elementary uniforms. If it weren't already obvious, these two were spending more time together than with the rest of the WoH. This is primarily because of the explanation we've already been given- Junko needed tech, Monaca was the one that had it. Of course extra work was gonna be put into her, and if she felt special in comparison, she'd become more like Junko.
Both Monaca and Junko are a younger sister, and their older siblings are established as pretty creepy in their own ways. Mukuro is incestuous and lusts after Junko whenever they're together, or even just when thinking about her. Haiji, meanwhile, is a pedophile, mentioning he likes girls younger, "as young as I can get 'em." I don't have to explain why the knowledge he has an extremely younger half-sister he expressly doesn't think counts as family is a bloodcurdling realization given this information. While they seem to have very different levels of connection with their siblings, this is a pretty distinct commonality to give both masterminds, especially when one is meant to immediately succeed the other. Both girls are also considered the "genius" of their families, while their older siblings use more brute strength.
Monaca is a character built upon the mimicry of Junko. We know this because we pay attention to the game, but also because if we look at the concept art and beta forms of the Successor, we can see without question that creating a "New Junko" was always going to be a major part of UDG, as not one, but two unused Successor characters were considered before Monaca eventually became who she is today as the mastermind and true Successor.
Monaca throughout UDG undergoes a similar behavior to Junko in the way that she treats the WoH, but it's in a way the fundamentally misunderstands why Junko acts the way she does. Monaca is a child, and idolizes Junko, but that doesn't mean she actually understands her, even if she got much closer than her friends.
Monaca manipulates and discards the other WoH one by one, making herself the center of their movement and letting them believe they have control over what they're doing. She motivates them with a Paradise that'll never exist, similar to how Junko motivated the reserve course to stand up against Hope's Peak, and they take over Towa City. Whenever a WoH disappears, she decides whether or not they're mourned, but it appears as though she doesn't care and never did. She quickly forgets Masaru's name, barely bothers with Jataro, and later in her backstory monologue, proudly claims that when Junko met them, she was planning to let her only friends all kill themselves as a prank and not jump herself. She takes all the steps possible to Not Care about these people, similar to how Junko seemed not to care about the people she loved.
If Monaca spent enough time around Junko to observe and pick up this pattern, it likely means she also saw how little Junko actually cared for herself and her friends. This would explain why she starts acting as though she doesn't care at all for her only friends in the world and discarding them, wanting to emulate Junko, her idol. It also means she knew Junko didn't care about her, but her talents, and just didn't care because it was Junko. Again, this is a mentality not just held by her within the WoH, but because she was given a peek behind the curtain, she filled in the blanks in her head and let herself continue to be manipulated by Kurokuma, all in the hopes that Junko could return and manipulate her again. She needed a Successor, someone to fill that sisterly void again. And in that desperate desire, she inadvertently set herself up to someday become the SESL Despair.
Nagito's intervention is directly stated as the reason why she ends up abandoning this role as SESL Despair and fucking off to space as SESL Apathy instead, shrugging it off as 'not wanting to end up like he did'. This appears to be a deviation from what was originally intended for her, as not only was this wrapped up in a singular episode of an anime not actually about her, but the teaser images for a UDG 2 in UDG's credits ultimately ended up unused, and V3 totes a teaser of a canceled UDG 2.
Part 17- Junko's Apocalyptic Crash Course
"Right now, Hope’s Peak Academy is set up in a pyramid sort of idea that a third world country would use; it’s only really there to concentrate it’s effort on the 'super high school levels', for their benefit, and then below them are the reserve students from the preparatory school. .... The teachers here don’t really think any of the reserve students really belong here." -Yasuke Matsuda, DR 0
As we've seen repeatedly throughout the previous games and DR 0, Junko's strengths don't come from sheer force of will. She didn't take some perfect world of hope and twist it into a world of Despair by flipping some ideological switch. She's charismatic, but still human. Junko's strength comes from her ability to analyze, her high intelligence, and her charisma combining to create a master manipulator. Using the skills and people at her disposal, she was able to amass a cult following, and inspire the downfall of a society that was already flawed by attacking the weak points that were already present. Ergo, Junko's SHSL Analyst talent led her to not only infiltrate the school, but also to find the flaws within it and the lies it covered up by taking advantage of the Kamukura project wearing the school thin.
She may have been the face of the Despair movement, but she wasn't a singularity. She had a small group of people she trusted with a certain amount of information, and who had skills that would become beneficial to her. Mukuro is the obvious right-hand, as previously discussed, and perhaps the only one she legitimately believed to be an equal, but there was also Yasuke, Izuru, Ryota, Mikan, and Monaca, all of whom she attached herself too and all of whom had an extremely useful talent or title that was immediately beneficial to her cause. These people were able to directly carry out her desired acts of Despair and work alongside her, reporting back to her to ensure things were running smoothly. These were people who were needed directly as they were, and who were most useful when they believed she genuinely took interest in them, whether she actually had or not.
In a world already so flawed, with thinly veiled atrocities already taking place by people who believe in a caste system of talent, earning a downtrodden majority's trust is as simple as taking the blindfold off. Manipulating the people she'd attached herself to let her reveal key information at her leisure and drive the school and its inhabitants to Despair without them noticing or knowing to take action until it was too late to stop it. Something manmade, that turned into a disease and spread across the world, infesting it with the Tragedy and burning the oh-so-predictable world to the ground, all while standing as the eye of the storm- that was the power of the SHSL Despair that Junko worshipped, and she became its spokesperson, sending the world into a spiral.
Part 18- Junko's Legacy (Death of the Human, Birth of the God)
Everyone that loves Junko, misunderstands Junko. This is a fact that we see more than once. Mukuro obsesses, not loves. Yasuke romanticizes a childhood he can never return to. Monaca idolizes her. Mikan overtly sexualizes her. Her classmates know nothing of her self-destructive nature. Junko knew this and Despaired every time. But this fundamental misunderstanding of who Junko is didn't just exist in the game. In real life, Junko Enoshima became an iconic villain, the teenage girl that burned the world, the Ultimate Despair. She was insanely popular, and still is. And the more popular a character gets, the more susceptible they become to misinterpretations, fanon, oversimplification, etc.
In becoming such a well-known figure, Junko Enoshima the person got lost in translation. There was now Junko Enoshima, the mascot, the figurehead. This isn't a phenomenon exclusive to Junko, of course, but as the titular villain of the series until this point, how could the series continue without her? To this very day, people can't agree on who Junko was or who she actually cared about or if she ever even cared for anyone at all. And when NDRV3 was made, it took advantage of this to tell its own story, utilizing Junko Enoshima specifically to demonstrate flanderization of characters within its lore.
Junko Enoshima is not a real person. She's a fictional character. All her motivations, her thoughts and feelings, are fabricated stories and vague implications from the writing of real people. And in V3, that 'real person' is Tsumugi Shirogane, one of many cogs in the machine of Team Danganronpa, who dresses up as Junko and uses her face to become 'Junko Enoshima the 53rd'. Junko has been used and reused over and over and over, to the point where the original vision has been muddied beyond belief. What she was at the beginning, way back in THH, no longer exists. She's now a silly mascot, a familiar face that fans can point at and dress as and draw fanart of, and a face that Team DR can profit off of. Tsumugi's portrayal is laughably inaccurate to the original Junko. It's a costume, nothing more, and the dialogue she gives when 'in-character' is simplistic and insignificant. All its weight comes not from the meaning, but from the reference for reference's sake.
Junko's appearance in V3, like many other moving parts of V3, reference real-world fandom culture. It's appealing to both the in-universe fandom and the real one, bringing back character sprites and voice actors and poking fun at its own ridiculousness because none of it is real, none of it ever was. It was because Junko was fiction that she could do everything she ever did. Her Despair has meaning, but that doesn't mean she felt the feelings we're told she did, because she never existed to feel them. And that's the thing that lets her forever remain an enigma; she is Danganronpa's villain, and to become immortalized in Despair, she deconstructed into nothing but the word Despair, a fate that is in and of itself Despairful.
8.9- Tsumugi Shirogane
Tsumugi Shirogane is the mastermind of V3, and believes wholeheartedly in Junko Enoshima as the true villain of Danganronpa. Tsumugi is built as the fandom insert of DR, being immersed in fandom culture in every conceivable way- winking at the camera, making references to other fandoms, the love and joy of making cosplay- but also the less palatable parts of major fandoms, like her purist views of cosplay, her usage of incest as both a serious plot point and as a gag, and even does blackface when cosplaying as the dark-skinned DR characters of dr1 and 2. She's also the in-universe producer of the season. Therefore, Tsumugi also represents content creators, and how even the creator themselves can lose the plot of the character in their attempts to create what they perceive to be a compelling story.
As Tsumugi is explaining her story and why she tied it back into the Hope's Peak era, she pretty openly admits that a) she sees it as a perfect reproduction and b) a necessary writing choice in order to make it interesting. Both are false, as not only is V3's continuity in a separate world from the Hope's Peak era, but her presentation of Junko and the voice lines aren't displayed the same way Junko had acted in previous installations.
"'So... you're just a freak pretending to be Junko Enoshima, huh!?' 'No, a perfect reproduction! Perfect reproductions are exactly the same as the original.'" -Maki Harukawa & Tsumugi Shirogane, V3
She presents Junko as a singularity, the Ultimate Despair, and brazenly parades her face around as the immortal and ever-present true Despair. She's the 53rd Despair simply because her influence wouldn't allow her to fade away. She's become Despair-incarnate, but in making new games, Team DR has forgotten why Junko caused Despair in the first place. She didn't do it just to do it; she threw the world into Despair because it made her feel human to feel Despair. And yet when Tsumugi explains Junko the 53rd's plans, it's nothing but a big show, and that's exactly what a surface-level Junko looks like to the masses- a high-school girl that ended the world for fun.
Junko's games had meaning. Even when she didn't feel particularly connected to a person, like the RoD, she still brought them into Despair for a purpose. She was an analyst, and did the things she did with intention and with care. Attention to detail and careful manipulation with the face of a charismatic gyaru was her forte. But Tsumugi's so-called "perfect reproduction" is a story full of plot holes and contradictions, all caused by some need to deify Junko. In other words, as they refused to let Danganronpa go, they lost the plot, and Junko's humanity went with it in a desire to continue using her image when writing new stories. In becoming a god of Despair, her origins as a human were forgotten.
Part 19- Despair Into Tomorrow (Why We Care)
Junko Enoshima is an enigma. She is Despair incarnate, a pillar of the Danganronpa world created by her own hands, hellbent on burning herself to the ground. She's a character of poetic irony, unknown to all as anything but Despair. She was born with a perfect mind, and in trying to feel human, feel pain, feel Despair, she became permanently deified by all that she loved and all that she met, whether that was as a savior who killed a cruel world or a demon that detested hope.
At every turn, Junko's actiona are filled with malice, and yet so often that malice is directed at herself. Living in a peaceful world pains her because it leaves her bored. Anhedonia is a cruel mistress, and those who claimed to love her could never once comprehend it, because they couldn't feel the way she felt. The only thing she had that connected her in any human way to others or to herself was grief, and her entire story becomes one of self-sabotage. Despite that, though, she's not the only character burdened by anhedonia, and her self-destructive nature outstretching to the people and world around her is designed as a story of caution.
In each and every installation of Danganronpa, Junko and the other masterminds inspired by her fail because of their key difference in connections. When Makoto appeals to his classmates, they're reminded of their own desires to live and their love for each other- Hina's memory of Sakura, Syo's love of Byakuya, Kyoko's and Byakuya's love of Makoto himself. The same can be said of when Hajime chooses himself, to fight for himself, and is inspired to do so by Chiaki. Every other survivor has someone that inspired them to live for themself- Peko, Nakomaru, Gundham, the people around them. When Komaru is saved by Toko, it's because she took the time to connect with her and with Syo, and that love saved her from destruction. When Munakata gave up hunting Makoto, it was because of his love for Chisa. And when Shuichi declared he wouldn't vote, it was so that Maki and Keebo wouldn't be forced into sacrifice of a system that would hurt them over and over again.
Junko had connections. Junko had people she loved. Junko had another half. But she burned them one by one, until there was nothing left but her, and then she burned that too. She's a villain even to herself, and she knows it. She feels Despair upon Despair and even then can't regret it, because she wouldn't let anything else touch her heart besides it. It's an inherently self-fulfilling prophecy to only feel Despair, because in order for that Despair to exist, she must have felt love first. But she doesn't acknowledge her love and her vulnerabilities because she believes those fall under her 'factory settings'. Comfort is boring; safety is boring, and boredom was her enemy, an enemy second only to herself.
Junko's actions stem from a deeply embedded self-hatred. She was too smart and too comfortable, and so her boredom became everything she was. She believed the lie she told herself, that pain and grief and Despair was the only answer. Don't be like Junko. Don't believe the lies you tell yourself. Even in an unjust world, you can try to make things better without making them worse. Feel your Despair and let it go. It is okay to let it go. You are still human, no matter what image the people around you have, and to be seen, you must first be vulnerable.
Afterword
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST IT'S BEEN OVER 5 MONTHS. I made jokes and gags about 'getting this out before 2025' but I didn't think that would actually end up as my deadline. Holy fuck.
Junko's analysis is by far the beefiest I've done so far, and very well could remain the biggest one in this entire series of analyses (I think Kyoko, Makoto, and mayyybe Chiaki or Hajime might get close, but otherwise? Those are def gonna be the big 5 though) But hey, that's what being the mastermind of the franchise gets you. In retrospect, Junko probably should've been the grand finale, not part 5/17 of this series' part 1, but whatever. I'll save that grand finale for Kyoko instead
This will probably be the most controversial analysis I put out, alongside the eventual Mukuro one. I know people are, uh, divided on their relationship, but I did my best to stay objective and look at it from an unbiased viewpoint for what they offer narratively and its effectiveness. And I hope people are able to see that. Just in case, though, I'm gonna have anons off for a bit until whatever circulation this post gets dies down lol
Honestly, my perception of Junko has changed so much over the course of these past several months. It's not like I didn't like her before, but she's morphed into one of my favorite villains in all of media after this. This girl just cannot fucking die, no matter how much she wants to, and I think there's something so deeply compelling about a villain that wants nothing more than to self-destruct and burn the world with them, especially if you've fallen into a depressive state like the one she's in before
Good news, though! The next analysis set is Hifumi's, which means it won't take nearly as long as this whopper of a tumblr post! I'm actually very eager to deconstruct him, so hopefully we can go back to the summer days where I was able to crank out an analysis after 2 weeks. Please, god, can we go back to the summer days where I cranked out an analysis after 2 weeks
Catch ya later! :P
#danganronpa spoilers#cw incest#enoshima junko#danganronpa enoshima#ai junko#mukuro ikusaba#makoto naegi#hajime hinata#izuru kamukura#ryoko otonashi#yasuke matsuda#mikan tsumiki#ryota mitarai#matsushima#junkan#DR character analysis#media analysis#danganronpa#character analysis#monaca towa#warriors of hope#tsumugi shirogane#character study#monokuma#thh#dr 0#sdr2#udg#dr3 anime#ndrv3
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Li Lun, a villain I feel for (Pt. 1/4)
Li Lun was the only character of FoF who stole my heart. From the very beginning it was obvious that Li Lun supposed to be a scapegoat of the narrative. The final plot twist was supposed to be a cherry on the top of the final battle, so GJM needed to bring LL there no matter what. LL's fate is in his very name: 离仑 (lí lún). The character 离 means “to be separated”, “to stay apart”; “to keep distance”; “to be alone”, “to break up”, “to become in opposition”; “to turn away” and also “to break into pairs”. The character 仑 is used only in the name of the mountain Kunlun (昆仑), which is, as we know, a cradle of demons and a gate to the Great Wilderness. All of these meanings match Li Lun perfectly: he is deeply tied to his demonic homeland, yet is separated from the man who used to be his soulmate and opposites him now in loneliness.
Li Lun also was the only character whose story was shown to us not as a strange flashback after the main events happened (as it was with any other story-within-a-story in this drama) but was fed to us with small portions (as it should actually have been worked out for each of side stories). It was, firstly, the main reason I was emotionally involved in Li Lun’s story – I genuinely tried to guess what happened between LL and the main hero in the past, it caught my attention. And secondly – reshuffling the pieces of LL’s backstory and spreading them across the narrative were the only ways to conjure the illusion that LL’s part of the plot works at all.
"Zhao Yuanzhou, do you still remember your old friend? Whom of your new friends should I kill first?"
When we see Li Lun for the first time in ep 3, he seems like a real villain of the story: he is in chains, looks insanely hot and hotly insane. We find out very quickly that he is absolutely obsessed with his former friend, the main hero, and wants to take revenge on him so badly as if the main hero killed the whole LL’s family and ate LL’s cutie puppy for breakfast. In the first part of the story he looks really intimidating: it is scary when your enemy could literary be anyone around you because Li Lun can possess any body. (And later we find out that there is absolutely no villain in this story, because LL is a Byronic hero and Big Bad in Mask is just a piece of furniture, because no one of the mains remembers of him and gives a single flying heck about him for the most of the story.)
But to look through their story soberly, let me recap it for you in the chronological order.
Once upon a time, something like 30 000+ years ago, two demons were born in Great Wilderness, a sophora tree spirit and a white ape spirit. They were equals in their powers, were friends for many millennias and finally became Great Demons. Hundreds of years ago they anonymously saved the Great Wilderness from destruction and swore to protect their homeland at any cost.
You all know what a hairpin means in Chinese dramas , don't you? 🌚
LL works his magic to make ZYZ happy. Although they had different mindsets, they genuinely care for each other: the main hero (ZYZ) tried to show his rigid wooden friend things he never even thought about, and LL, in return, tried to learn from ZYZ and to make him happy, too.
LL wanted to silent a kid with magic, but ZYZ taught him that no magic needed to chase someone's megrim away. The kid's as well as LL's. ZYZ loved humans and their world and LL was irritated by them and cautious about them, so ZYZ was teaching him how to treat humans right.
They exchanged gifts, a rattle drum and an umbrella. And it was so important for both LL and ZYZ that each turned mate’s gift into a spiritual weapon.
But they exchanged even more valuable gifts, too: ZYZ gifted LL his unique magic ability – Truth Eye, the ability to see the true essence of everything. Not having it anymore, he could rely now only on his heart to see LL’s heart, so giving it away was the brightest expression of his trust and love for LL. And LL gifted him a root of sophora – a part of his true body, which was… pretty much the same expression of love and trust.
ZYZ gifts LL his Truth Eye. But one day, 8 years ago, when they both were on a date in the mortal world, they accidently found a dungeon where their fellow demons were kept captive and tortured by humans. Li Lun, who swore to protect his homeland and its habitants and was prejudiced against humans, went to berserk rage and killed not only those who tortured demons, but also everyone in a building where this dungeon was located.
He also set free all the demons in the dungeon, included Ao Ying, the demoness who can change her appearance and will serve him later.
Trying to stop LL from killing even more people, ZYZ accidently mortally wounded LL with the power of Everburning Wood he just got. It was unintentional but fatal anyway.
For his crimes LL was immediately caught and sealed in the place of his birth (a dark and lifeless cave). Although the seal could stop him from dying, it took his freedom away for eternity, which was very painful for a creature who cultivated really hard to get ability to move (he is a tree, after all). ZYZ was somewhat upset with it. OK, being upset because of your former friend’s loss of freedom is a good thing, but what happened between the sealing of LL and the current events of the drama?
So, you were friends for literally millenias, you were very close, maybe in BL way, so close, that each of you literally gave a part of his body to other. One of you flew into a rage (fairly speaking, he had a reason to be enraged) and killed people in the heat of passion. And you accidently killed him trying to stop him. Is he a criminal? Yes, obviously. Should you be surprised by your mate’s behavior and not think of it as of something typical for him? Yes, otherwise why were you still friends for so many thousands of years? Would you try to persuade him or to bring him back into his sanity? Yeah, I think. Would you feel guilt because of unintentional killing him off? Yes, of course. But ZYZ didn’t do and feel any of that.
OK, maybe he is too righteous and any unjustified deed put his relationship with a sinner to its and. Oh, no? He eagerly forgives a spy who works for Big Bad in Mask, he forgives a man who hurt him badly and intentionally sent him into diabolic rage which could lead to numerous victims. He even understands and is nice to other demons who kill people. (And, as I remember, in ep 1 ZYZ killed by himself one of demon hunter’s bureau warriors in order to intimidate ZYC. I watched it only once, so I’m not sure if I didn’t notice some trick there, but still). He only despises LL. Also, he didn’t give a flying heck about who tortured all these demons and why (spoiler: it was Big Bad in Mask, and everything would be much easier, if ZYZ cared about it). And later, he regrets that he unintentionally killed his friend and a family of his current boyfriend, but he never regretted he killed Li Lun.
In the beginning of the drama ZYZ obviously despises him and calls him "a scumbag who has to stay in shadows", although LL has to stay in shadows partly because of a mortal wound caused by ZYZ, and can't be counted as scumbag because all the wrongs he did were caused by desire to protect people of his own kind and not because he liked human sufferings or such evil stuff. LL obviously tries to speak to ZYZ and to find out what happened between them (and honestly, I still want to get this answer, too), and ZYZ, for reason unknown, has absolutely no desire to talk about their problems with LL.
It all feels strange. And not fair to LL. Here is Part 2 Here is Part 3 Here is Part 4
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What do you think Jake and Spider's relationship will be like in A3?
This is such a simple question but I am about to go full tinfoil hat mode with the answer so strap in and get ready for the ride y'all. I put a summary at the very end if you don't feel like reading the whole thing.
okay okay okay so do you guys remember all those news articles that came out before Avatar 2 that described Spider as "Jake and Neytiri's adopted human son" ? And then Avatar 2 actually came out and it clearly wasn't true? I mean, Jake leaves Spider for dead with the RDA and Neytiri threatens to kill him, they're the furthest thing from adoptive parents!
After I saw the movie, I kept wondering how in the world the articles got it so wrong. So at some point I was rereading them and I discovered something...
All of the articles that describe Spider as the Sully's adopted son go back to one source: a quote from Jon Landau. Landau was the producer of the Avatar movies who recently passed away sadly. (May he rest in peace). As the producer, he was regarded as a trustworthy source to give information on Avatar 2. Here's an excerpt from one of the articles:
“Jake took him in but Neytiri always saw him as one of the people who destroyed her home and killed her father,” producer Jon Landau tells Empire of Spider, in The Batman issue. “So you have all these dynamics playing out.”
The late Jon Landau himself said, "Jake took him in." But despite what he said, we can clearly see in Avatar 2 that Spider is not "taken in" by Jake, since Jake had no qualms about leaving Spider behind with the RDA when every time the other children were in danger, he stopped at nothing to rescue them.
So my question is, why would Landau say Jake took Spider in when Jake clearly did not? It wouldn't make any sense for him to lie about this, and it's unlikely that he got such an important detail wrong since he worked so closely with James Cameron on producing the movie. Why did he say that?
No one really knows for sure, but here's what I think:
Landau was inadvertently spoiling Avatar 3 for us.
Avatar 2 and 3 were shot at the same time. When movies are being made, they don't shoot the scenes in chronological order, so one day they might do a scene from the middle of A2, and then one from the end of A3, and then one from the beginning of A2, and so on and so forth. This means that the actual timeline that everything happens in is completely jumbled up, and it's up to the editing team to reorder everything into a coherent plotline later.
I believe the reason Landau's statement doesn't match up with what actually happened in Avatar 2 is because he was mistakenly referring to what will happen in Avatar 3. With how complicated it is to film two movies at once, it's possible Landau got the timeline mixed up. So when he was interviewed and asked about Spider's relation to Jake and Neytiri, he said the first thing he remembered- it was just from the wrong movie.
So to finally answer your question about Jake and Spider's relationship in A3: Jake is going to take Spider in. I don't know if it will be a formal adoption like Kiri or more of a foster child situation, but either way, Jake will be responsible for Spider's wellbeing and care for him (and presumably not leave him for dead if the RDA catches him again 😭).
At the end of the Avatar 2, Jake embraced Spider and said "a son for a son" through narration, which I believe is the moment Jake decided to take in Spider and we will see how Jake moves forward as Spider's new guardian in Avatar 3.
There is also a scene in the leaked script that describes Neytiri hugging Jake and their children after a traumatic event, and though it's hard to read, it looks like it says that Spider was left out of the hug until Jake pulls him into it. There is also another leaked script scene where it appears that Neytiri suggests killing Spider and Jake is horrified. Another thing to note is that both of these scenes take place after Jake knows Quaritch is alive, so presumably Jake knows Spider saved Quaritch and is still treating him well despite it. I expect there will be some hurt and anger over it, but considering that Jake did much much worse to his loved ones in Avatar 1, it makes sense that he would eventually forgive Spider.
The leaked script scenes both sound like they go along with the idea that Jake has "taken in" Spider, and they also line up with the other half of Landau's quote, where he says Neytiri still sees Spider as one of the enemy and this creates interesting dynamics. Even though Jake has decided to take Spider in, it looks like Neytiri isn't on the same page, since she excluded him from the hug and suggested killing him. We all know how much Jake and Neytiri love each other, so it must be very difficult for Jake to take in Spider while knowing that Neytiri still sees him as a "demon." Jake is probably going to struggle a lot with balancing being a good husband to Neytiri and being a good guardian to Spider.
And Spider will also probably struggle with this new relationship to Jake too. Jack Champion, Spider's actor, answered some questions about his character in an interview:
Q: In the end, Jake truly embraced Spider as a son. He even said, “A son for a son.” Is that everything Spider has ever wanted?
A: A hundred percent. But I will say that at that moment, he doesn’t feel like he got everything he wanted. Because now, his kinda-sorta dad, Quaritch, also accepts him. So does he really want the Sully family, or does he want his actual father? So there’s some cool inner turmoil that I don’t even know the answer to yet, and it’s up for debate.
According to Jack Champion, Spider one hundred percent always wanted to be embraced by the Sully family, but after forming a relationship with Quaritch, a part of him also wants to be with his father and he struggles with inner turmoil over it. Since Spider was an orphan for 16 years, it's understandable that he won't adjust into the family just like that.
So to summarize: based on the evidence, Jake is going to take Spider in, probably less like an adopted father and more like a guardian/ward situation. Even though they both want this, it's going to be difficult and create a lot of conflict. Jake will be torn between his care for Spider and his love for Neytiri, who still sees Spider as a demon, and Spider is torn between wanting to be part of the Sully family and wanting to have a relationship with his father, Quaritch, in spite of the evil he's caused.
#cyren myadd theorizes#avatar jake sully#jake sully#spider socorro#avatar spider#neytiri#neytiri sully
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hi batsplat this is marquezian.. as our resident casey scholar i was wondering if you have casey race recs !!
boy do I ever have recs! here's a (hopefully) fairly comprehensive list, drawing from more or less all the stages of his grand prix career and featuring races notable for a bunch of different reasons
casey is quite defensive of the 'boring' racing of the alien era (in particular the 2010-12 years)... but it is a shame his time in motogp overlapped so heavily with the 800cc era, which did lead to some tough watches for fans of 'overtakes' and 'close racing' and 'unpredictability'. so a lot of these race picks aren't necessarily reflective of how casey racked up the majority of his wins, plus presumably don't always match up with what his own picks would be. but well, whatever! I threw in a few of the ones I know casey likes
warning: the race descriptions generally spoil the results of the races. since this list is pretty long, I've put an asterisk next to the races I'd particularly recommend, and double asterisk next to my personal faves
my tldr spoiler-free top five faves list is catalunya 2007, donington park 2007, laguna seca 2008, sachsenring 2010, and laguna seca 2011. my five next-off most notable/fun races are assen 2004, turkey 2006, qatar 2007, phillip island 2009 and silverstone 2011
and here's the actual list, in chronological order:
sachsenring 2003: first podium in grand prix racing! big disclaimer: the recordings of the 2003 125cc races you can find on the videopass are poor quality and don't feature any commentary, so not the easiest to watch. this race is also not great to follow on the colour front: the three main protagonists are *squints at notes* casey (yellow bike, number 27), perugini (mostly black and white but with a few greenish highlights, 7) and de angelis (mostly green, 15). but well it's a really tight fight that goes until the last corner, good fun... casey's talked about how nervous the track made him so he wasn't racing his opponents hard enough at the end. which is kinda sweet and revealing
brazil 2003: another tight battle, this time with jorge (green/red, 48) and de angelis, another time he doesn't QUITE make it. jorge's first ever victory! y'know the one where he overtakes everyone on the outside and starts the whole x-fuera thing
valencia 2003: first win! 125cc/moto3 racing being reliably good fun is a time-honoured tradition and it can even make that middling karting track exciting to watch. it's a good fight - quite helpfully, casey's nicely visible yellow bike contrasts well with the blue bike (hector barbera, number 80) and the red bike (sic, 58) (at some point steve jenker, 17, shows up on a black and white bike). that being said... the bloody video on the motogp website cuts off around two and a half laps to the end, which is a shame because those laps were (apparently) filled with drama. very close finish, not helped by the spark plug of casey's bike breaking RIGHT before the end, which is a very casey thing to happen to him. he thought he was screwed but ended up being saved by barbera running wide trying to overtake him in the last corner. here's a cute lil feature with casey discussing the race that you can probably just watch instead of the race. also ofc him saying how good it felt to beat the spanish at their home circuit (clip here), king of spite
^look at him in evil gross luminous yellow
**assen 2004: I'll admit, this race is one of my faves in large part because of the terrorism jorge does on casey on the last lap, which casey was NOT happy about. (in a funny coincidence, the same event features jorge's future teammate doing some last lap terrorism on gibernau that gibernau is also decidedly not thrilled about.) featured in the autobiography - he really wasn't a fan of jorge at the time - and when he's being sulky in the interview they have in the post-race broadcast. but another great fight and, with my apologies to casey, the last lap is fantastic. excitingly includes commentary!!
jerez 2006: casey's first motogp race! you don't reallyyyy see enough of him on the broadcast for it to be completely worth it, but it's still a proper good ride. he starts in fifteenth, makes a great start and then gets a lil lucky at the first corner when toni elias attempts to murder barrels into valentino and opens up a gap for casey. gets all the way up to fourth and finishes sixth!! also ofc a starring performance by dani at the front of the race
qatar 2006: second race of the season. after the first race, casey had been ill with a bad fever, plus there'd been a fuck up with the flights that meant he only got to the lusail circuit ten minutes before the first session. he topped the first practise session and qualified on pole, even though he was still recovering from illness and was massively sleep-deprived. his first battle with valentino, eventually drops a few places but still <3 also features some fun vale/nicky hayden battles
*turkey 2006: the third race of the season (look he front-loaded his good races that year) and my girl's first premier class podium!! but... bit of a heartbreaker as he did come VERY very very close to winning. also he said apparently he was pleased with his podium but when he got to parc fermé his team was acting disappointed he didn't win :( still a fantastic race, the highlight of casey's troubled rookie campaign. (casey was fast from the get-go in the premier class, but was dealing with major tyre issues that the team around him didn't do a good job at helping him with. by the end of the season, he ended up acquiring a somewhat unfair reputation for being a crasher, with the lovely nickname 'rolling stoner'. still, for young talent it's generally the peaks that matter most and you could really see his ability shine through here)
*qatar 2007: obviously of Great Narrative Significance, casey's first race with ducati and when he announced his arrival at the top of the sport by getting his first premier class win. good solid fun casey/vale fight, though it does feature the classic 'ducati blasts past everyone down that very long lusail straight' syndrome. people were kinda mean about that - which in turn made casey very irritable, arguing that if your bike is a nightmare to ride everywhere else then it's an accomplishment to be close enough to blast past down the straight. unfortunately I do agree a lil bit with the naysayers in terms of the actual racing, but still a pretty good fight
^the last year it was a day race
**catalunya 2007: probably my personal favourite? (of the ones casey won, anyway.) just something about a great battle at that track - obviously valentino had about a million, but this was really the only race-long one that he lost. important in the context of the 2007 title campaign - even though it was only a ten-point swing - because it showed casey wasn't just about horsepower dominance. fantastic riding from both of them
**donington park 2007: my fave of his wet weather performances because he actually has to work his way through the field. he started fifth but was outside of the top ten early on after an uncharacteristically poor start. fun race with plenty of good shake-ups of the order
(he sealed the title in motegi and won his home race for the first time that year, but since he finished sixth in the former and won the latter by a few lightyears, they don't make the cut)
*qatar 2008: more fun than qatar 2007!! imo!! obviously it's also jorge's first race and he's on pole and dani's a bit injured and those two have their whole thing™️ going on... and vale has just switched tyre suppliers and is trying to prove he's not washed and casey is starting his title defence... so a big significant race for all four of them, and unlike many races in that era has a fair few twists and turns and almost all of them actually get to fight each other a bit. okay eventually it settles down and gets dull but until then it's fun (and there's also some very late excitement involving dovi/vale)
**laguna seca 2008: I feel a wee bit bad for including this one and casey would throw something at me, but well it obviously belongs on here. ignoring casey's complaints for a minute about vale's aggression, it really is a fantastic battle - and vale only goes as far as he does because casey's so good! (also unsure whether casey would appreciate this line of reasoning.) probably the one everyone's most likely to have already watched, and for good reason since it slaps. sorry casey
estoril 2009: only for sentimental reasons, after the first few laps it gets boring fast. still, it's casey's first race back after the mystery illness-induced break, he immediately has a cute lil battle with vale (which he wins, slay) and... okay then it's basically a procession but it's also nice and sweet when it's over and he's on the podium and he's shown everyone he's still got it. maybe skip like. 20 laps
**phillip island 2009: casey's first win in only his second race back!!! warning that it's a little light on actual overtaking but it's still tense and close most of the way through and casey's so great to watch on this circuit. (he's literally too good at it for most of his races there to be all that interesting, this is probably the best one.) plus it's another one included partly for sentimental reasons. here's my pitch:
sepang 2009: so he's been slandered for months, he's been written off, ducati have been fucking him over, he comes back and immediately gets a podium finish and wins the next race... what does he do after that? win again obviously! another neat little wet performance (partly helped by vale having a bit of a shocker off the line lmao, though he seals the title that day with a p3 finish)
valencia 2009: if you want to see the pole sitter crash on the warm up lap and dani almost miss the start in confusion
**sachsenring 2010: vale's first race back after the broken leg. usually that's the time when everyone would pretend to be nice to each other... but all three of vale, jorge and casey had gone to efforts during vale's absence to make things worse <3 anyway cracking race including a good fun spite-fuelled battle between casey and vale for the last podium spot, one of their better scraps with a dramatic ending - after which both of them are charmingly bitchy about each other to the media (see below). shame it was basically their last notable battle in the dry (I didn't include either jerez 2011 or le mans 2012 on this list because I wouldn't really recommend them as good casey races, but they do more or less conclude casey and vale's on-track story. and the latter is also the last podium they share, plus it's the race right after casey announced his retirement. fave presser moment)
^😭😭😭😭😭 you guys are AWFUL oh my god. people always talk about laguna 2008 but the vibes got way more rancid post-2009 when their actual on-track rivalry was basically over
motegi 2010: this one's kinda marginal on whether it qualifies for this list. casey was really proud of this win and felt his 2010 wins were particularly impressive given how much he had to override a bike that was objectively shit by this point.... BUT in practise once he shakes off dovi, it's quite a dominant win and the real fun is watching valentino experiment with whether he can make jorge lorenzo the first person ever to die of rage alone while riding a motorcycle
*silverstone 2011: one of the truly great wet weather performances. this is a personal taste thing - I don't mind dominance as much in the wet because it's just cool sometimes seeing somebody drop a masterclass on the field in those conditions. but obviously not necessarily the most exciting victory fight once he hits the front after like. a lap. still, good battles going on behind him
^a fan of british tracks, not a fan of the british
*sachsenring 2011: great three-way battle with jorge and dani, with the lead exchanged several times - also plenty of other good battles down the order. not one casey emerges victorious from, but definitely one of the best races that season
**laguna seca 2011: okay look corkscrew this corkscrew that but there's an argument to be made that casey makes a pass in this that's better than anything marc and vale can DREAM of. well no I won't go that far - but it's still an incredible overtake, insane thing to do at a blind corner, and casey just looks fantastic riding on that circuit. in his autobiography he says something along the lines of 'oh it looked scary on tv but I knew I'd make it'. which. okay casey!! not gonna say more than that, one of those where you'll know it when you see it. one of the best races of his career and also a key race in that year's title fight
phillip island 2011: marginal inclusion, but it's sweet he sealed the title on his 26th birthday by winning his home race (even though he mainly sealed it there because jorge lost half a finger and couldn't start the race). conditions got treacherous when the rain showed up but well casey stayed on the bike, just about
*jerez 2012: casey's first and last win at jerez! this is the one that casey called his greatest career win at the time and... sure, fair enough, especially given he had a weirdly bad record at the track. he didn't enjoy the experience much because of his arm pump issues, which makes the performance all the more impressive. fun first few laps in particular, after that it's maybe a bit more tension than actual action. still a proper good race
estoril 2012: another win he's very proud of... another one that's maybe even more skewed towards tension than actual action, but still an unmistakably impressive performance given jorge's strong record there and casey's physical issues. that and jerez completed his set as they'd been the races he hadn't won yet, which made him feel more certain of his choice to retire
phillip island 2012: listen it's his last win and it sealed the title (for jorge), so was at least somewhat exciting. but also according to his autobiography, casey deliberately rode slower for a bit before expanding the gap again just to keep his focus up, which I think gives you a sense of how easy he found winning there
^his penultimate race and sixth consecutive victory at phillip island. he also finished on the podium in his last ever race at valencia
#race rec tag#marquezian#casey stoner#motogp#//#brr brr#'resident casey scholar' 🥺🥺 that's so nice#one day i'm gonna write my long email to dorna with increasingly insane complaints about my issues with the videopass#like 'yes the mugello 2004 race is on youtube but on the videopass you've only got the second part' or 'where's the sepang 2014 presser'#or indeed 'the valencia 125cc 2003 replay is incomplete and also since you clearly DID commentary why not upload it with that'#can't really bitch too much because it's a fantastic resource i'd kill to have in certain other sports but still#batsplat responds#heretic tag
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Man 2023 was such a crazy year for AmaTsuka... I'm going to make a vague attempt at tabbing through Cataclysmic events in chronological order
February really kicked off the beginning of the year. First ominously seeing this header Tsukasa and feeling like, no... no... What's this? [brain shriveling up] call girl... phone sex... [REACQUIRES LIQUID] wait, Eros and Anteros?? [camera lens focusing] heart... necklace?
Matching? heart? necklace? hearts weighed on a scale? [crying]
[the event itself starts happening] [we see Amane's design in full and have to process he's some sort of corseted whore] Excuse me-!! Excuse me, sensei-!!!!! What does it mean! Help me!!
We get further information about how these demon brothers are extracting love from people and turning it into jewelry. (Ominously we receive no explanation on what their particular pieces of heart jewelry mean... LIKELY different in nature from the other hearts around them, but in what way? Not like we'll ever find out I guess.)
Like some sick doujin set-up, they're doing a competition where the loser must do what the other says at the end of this.
Deplorable... Reprehensible images. The vibes of this game they are playing with one another... The voting feels rigged anyways, because Amane's more capable of presenting himself appealingly, working everyone over.
This sucks I don't want to see what happens next I want to go home. [it persists.] I'm watching Nene-chan be TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF, WHY IS THAT HAPPENING. [it persists] fgwait why is Tsukasa eating chocolates where did he get those. [it persists] FEEEEEEED ? CHOCOLATE? OMINOUS ALLUDING TO WHAT WILL HAPPEN LATER? WHY!!!! but why am I in some sort of doujin. It's happening that way and I can't stop it...
As always, the twins get along better than you could ever predict. "For now" feed him chocolates. Ok
⬆ while trying to learn to cope from this, we are randomly blasted with this ⬇
End of February, this is revealed to us to be the inner sleeve of V19... DEVASTATION REIGNS, THIS IS THE SCARIEST IMAGE EVER... A Hanako with severe cock presence. Tsukasa's fair maiden quality ever emphasized by being surrounded by luxurious sakura petals, a special variety even... Fancy and cultivated. Tsukasa-chan...
Of course this is really stimulating when thinking about canon, this is our biggest look into the atmosphere of the deepest sanctum of Hanako's boundary. Perhaps Tsukasa was here suspended, sleeping beauty style... [horny]
Early March, getting this shikishi. It's more of a personal journey here, but getting an AU where the twins are simply... normal boys, alive, together, visibly, is a lot. Bandage boy Amane even...? Aesthetically, that one-?? Uough... Such a radiant Nene-chan here too... Thank you sensei. I'm grateful this time, not mad at you.
Advertising for V19, naturally we get to see scenes within it. I appreciate getting to see scenes again in color, at different angles etc. This image amuses me, it's like there are pheromones in the air. hot haze of red and purple... paralytic agents. Amane is dissociating and half-hard, as we like him to be.
Extra shikishi because of a G-Fantasy anniversary!
Of all AUs to return, never would've guessed this particular one would, from a set of icons/headers from 2022... That idol Tsukasa was already intriguing, but it's cool to see him in full. There's, a mysterious quality to his outfit, seeing it all, it's almost like the 'hakama' part is connected to his top, so. Are you just in a dress, Tsukasa..? I can't help but think you are...
This Amane meanwhile makes me laugh, WOOO he's here to stan, adorning purple in honor of Tsukasa's color. Tsukasa here has the big mic, he's our main singer. It's like a world where the twins figured out a hobby to pursue together, they can be obsessed with each other in this way, and blow off steam dancing whoreishly. Well congrats. Also I loev you yashiro. you look like. a cake topper. come to our dressing room after the show ok.
it's whimsical for asecond. but then sensei is out for blood. because
this happens. like dropping a big anvil on hundreds of mice. (the innocent fujoshi.)
this image convinces me sensei is evil and wants to hurt the girlies reading this manga. they're not holding back. i saw a deluge of tweets saying things like, Why does this look like a BL / the main characters? these are the main characters? / I can't read the chapter, the illustration won't let me / Why is it AmaTsuka
Everyone felt like they had a group hallucination. Why is it AmaTsuka... (It's always been AmaTsuka) (but still) Why is it this degree of it. Don't understand the deflowering vibes from this. Princess and knight. the torn butterfly wings and the flowers. the like evocative feminine orchids and the obscene wet feeling fruits. Tsukasa's sleeves being flower petals as well, he is the delicate feminine flower here. Hands pulling you close. "Searching for a reason to stand by your side." Why did you say that? Why did you do that? I feel like crying as I type this.
This is basically the most devastating event for the entire year and it happened so early, we spend the rest of the year still looking back and feeling faint. It's hard to be this valid, you all really cannot fathom, what it really means to be 'canon'... It's a pain I carry. Searching for a reasonnnnnnnnnn.....
Late March / beginning of April, and we are about to embark on our 6-month kitty cat crucible. AmaTsuka is going to become a genuine INTERSPECIES narrative, something I would've guessed blasphemous actually. But I suppose not... in this world, Tsukasa can be a child laborer/animal handler at a circus, and Amane can be his precious black kitten. With a little bell.
Amane runs off with Tsukasa, saving his life... They escape together, and are together still, 50 years later. How romantic. We're at the start, and it's already painful and glorious. Senseiiii!!
You know who is holding that cat tail. We have fun here, we take turns being the kitty. Tsukasa has a matching collar now, after all. :3
INTERLUDE for the April update, where we get Ch 101. ALIVE BOYS. CLOCK BOYS!! FIRST YEAR MIDDLE SCHOOL BOYS. OMEN!!!!!!
Serenading, beautiful Tsukasa... singing Over the Rainbow... This loving glance.
It's amazing to get a glimpse into their past, before the rope-burn and injury times. The prelude... Set in such a grim space as this area accessing the clock's inner workings. Captivatingly isolated, enclosed, kinda scary and dank... And we're brushing up against Amane's problem, how he won't say what he wants, won't make a decision. You need to make a decision, Amane...
Back. To the ryokan. Something something, there's a difficult to convey joke in Tsukasa's space, referencing sabi-neko (tortie cats (female cats?)) and also making a pun on 'service'. I get it I get it, Tsukasa is Amane's slave, you don't have to keep telling me...
Everyone gets along surprisingly well.
(This was an amazing year for TsuNene too, of course....)
I say all that but we do get revealed, during this cafe event, that. I guess Hanako is predatory and out here definitely seeming like he wants the guests to eat food to make them tastier and then get eaten. And Nene is also has insatiable lust to consume a human, which is like, upsetting, when you consider Tsukasa is a secret harbored human here. I guess Hanako has no issues with conspiring with his hot co-workers about how delectable humans are, while his 'twin brother' (not really?) (fetish RP?) is locked up in the closet or something. And I guess he does that all day and humps Tsukasa later like mmm my precious little dartyy secret boy.
Bonus thing, there was this insidious meta happening as I watched fujoshi repeatedly visiting the cafes and trying to eat as much scattered sushi and Tsukasa's Milk as possible. while the narrative is about entrapping people and fattening them up for slaughter. IG it felt kind of ghoulish that they couldn't resist the bait of the location and presentation of the meals.
August. Who are they lol? Some more fetish outfits... Amane and his collars, and Tsukasa looking like some little hentai mask girlie. The vibe is like, Amane is a cool super villain, and Tsukasa is there to go kyaaaa ❤
There's some stupid mokke promotional image that informs us these boys have ? horsie tails? so they are like, unicorns? We're having fun with animalish boys lately, I suppose... Thank you sensei (???) I can think about these unicorn boys and a fair maiden now.
Later in August, V20's inner sleeve images. Simply satisfying to see, thank you... back against back...
AND DELIGHTFULLY we get Amane-kun and Tsukasa-kun sillytimes too. AMANE BEING JEALOUS!! SHITTY!!! If you spend too much time working on a school festival, your older brother is going to feel abandoned and lonelyyy...
Starting September a little diabolically. Kitty in lap... This serene expression on Tsukasa... The fujoshi were troubled once more, that it could Be Like This.
Petting you, scritching your chin, going to pick the cattail fluffs out of your fur... Intimate moments like these must happen all the time. Sighhh...
Advertising V20 later in September. These images are so-- the genders. Amane looks like he is going to beat Tsukasa with that wrench. Scary guy. Tsukasa, a natural vixen, as usual. The framing of him before the big clock... Artful.
Bonus lil sad guy in late September... A look into the Amane that misses Tsukasa when he went missing. XU !!! I like to think he was truly helpless without Tsukasa there, pining for him.
Fsr between everything, TsuNene is getting buck wild and ramping up, until you get Tsukasa kissing Nene... She gets smallified in the manga and I'm suddenly like wtf canon moments of oniiloli for TsunNene. And Monster Nursery comes back so it really hammers in. IT'S JUST A VERY INTERESTING YEAR PSYCHOLOGICALLY. And VERY fun if you're me, shipping all 3 of them. Woooooo (ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:・゚✧
Anyways November has our last couple major beats...
Tsukasa asserting that Amane won't come if he called, never has, alludes to so much. Why were you calling? For what, how long, what convinced you Amane would never? The idea of a Tsukasa that would plead to be saved or helped in any manner is dizzying. Beyond that — does Tsukasa not believe he has implicit value, not something Amane covets...?
(Meanwhile, I have to love that he confides this to Nene, and encourages her to get them out of this situation. Tsukasa had to make his way out of his own entrapment[?] in the past, and he believes Nene can too. They're similar, aren't they? Hehe.)
The pacing of the fall, Tsukasa catching Nene, then the ambiguous line, as if he mouthed Amane's name to himself...
And he shows up, like your hero, I guess.
'何?' ⬅ ??? ??? ?? Atrocious. Could that truly be your response? With that expression? Moody, hands in pockets, acting cool... You do all that and then you throw Tsukasa's handcuffed arms over your neck. Saving your two captive princesses... It's absurd out here. The fujoshi are dying for a reason.... You get sick of inhaling the toxic fumes of twincest miasma.
I suppose to make me less angry at them, AidaIro present a final birthday offering.
Naughtyyy shrimpt stealing boy... I can't believe it. Amane! You would steal the shrimps your mom is slaving away at, and hand them to your brother. He's going for more! Tsukasa is innocent and he of course must appreciatively eat your pilfered shrimp... But goodness.
Iet's simple, it's cute, it's a lovely illustration with lovely colors, it depicts another moment from canon we haven't seen (right before photos?) Silly and cute and says a lot about their relationship still! I feel like Tsukasa is often passive like a sweet kitten while Amane is a naughty boy. Wah!
A truly devastating glorious year, I feel so valid, I feel like I'm stuck on my throne, which is also a torture device, I'm strapped to it, there's a horrendous machine stuffing grapes in my mouth, I'm being laughed at, I'm crying. That's what it is like to ship AmaTsuka right now I suppose. HanaNeneTsuka thrums in the background all the while, ominous and foreboding. We get closer and closer to the end goal of all 3....
I'm looking forward to 2024. よろしくお願いします.
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𝐌𝐲 𝐔𝐧𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐧 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟒
**SPOILERS AHEAD, don't be that dick that complains about spoilers when there's a clear warning, and it's been 2 whole days since the event**
All these opinions are my own, and some may not be popular, and most will be controversial in essence. Probably. Maybe I'm just not used to people agreeing with me?
I was so excited for this PLE, and the fact that it was held in Scotland. I'm not Scottish, but I do live in Northern England, which is the closest I've ever been to a WWE PLE.
On the run-up to CATC, these were my predictions:
Cody Rhodes d. AJ Styles Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill d. Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn and Shayna Baszler & Zoe Stark Sami Zayn d. Chad Gable Bayley d. Piper Niven Drew McIntyre d. Damien Priest
We'll go chronologically...
Cody Rhodes vs AJ Styles - "I Quit" Match
I'm a realist when it comes to things like this, so I knew that AJ wasn't going to win the championship. However, that doesn't deter from the fact that I wanted him to win so badly.
If you follow me or know me, you'll know my stance on Cody Rhodes... I hate him. I used to really like him, but as soon as he won the 2024 Royal Rumble, he became really tedious to me. Sure, he's a good athlete. But you have to be to make it in WWE. I truly don't understand the hype he got in Scotland, or the hype he gets in general. His "reign" is embarrassing, and so weak coming off the back of Roman Reigns' title run. I don't like the way he holds the belt, I don't like how arrogant he is. And I especially don't like the saviour complex and the "good guy" image he tries so hard to protect and project, when he was quite happy to see his fanbase verbally brutalise another (that's not even mentioning the race-themed insults...)
Anyway, the press event on the Friday solidified how annoying he is to me. The crowd surf? So unneccessary. It was like you could sense the raging hard-on he was getting from the fan's reactions to him being in their presence. There's a way to appreciate support without being a dick.
I enjoyed seeing AJ beat the crap out of Cody, despite the fact I knew that he wasn't going to win. And I actually agree with the fact he didn't win; as much as I love AJ, that title needs to be taken from Cody by someone who's a lot bigger than him. After all, the reason why Cody's win over Roman at WMXL worked was because of the long-form storytelling and the feud that slowly built between them. That, and it was time for Roman to move on to bigger and better things than Cody bloody Rhodes. Believe that.
Also yes I fucking screamed when Solo made his appearence, and then the boys, I'm--
Bianca Belair & Jade Cargill vs. Shayna Baszler & Zoe Stark vs. Alba Fyre & Isla Dawn - Triple Threat Tag Team Match
I have a fair amount of followers/people I'm following who love Jade and Bianca. I understand it. And I 1000% agree with anyone who says Bianca is a phenomenal athlete and has brought a lot for the WWE. I can see Jade's potential, though I'm not entirely sure she's ready to handle anything more than a Tag Team Championship just yet.
I know a lot of people disagree with the outcome of this match, and I can't say that I fully understand why it panned out the way it did. I can only guess that it was the necessity to have at least one Scottish opponent win during a PLE in Scotland.
Bianca and Jade not winning this match is a positive for them, in my opinion. It gives Jade a chance to perhaps develop her presence as a solo performer and athlete, now that Bianca has helped with her exposure to the masses. I'm interested in where they plan to take the two of them as characters and how they evolve in the future... potential enemies? Can't say for certain just yet, but their reaction to the loss was significant and will mean more than we realise as of right now.
That being said, I have the utmost respect for Alba for getting through this, considering what she's had to deal with recently. Losing your mum in such a tragic way is devestating, and I commend her for her strength and ability.
I like Alba and Isla a lot, and I'm hoping that we see more of them in the future now that they have the championship. They deserve a bit of a push.
However, I have to say that I really wanted Shayna and Zoe to win this one. They're a badass tag team, and the crowd's chant of "Shayna scares me" had me rollinggggg!
Sami Zayn vs. Chad Gable
I don't have that much to say about this match. If they chose to take the title from Sami, it would just be weird. To me, anyways.
What I do find wholesome about this whole story is Otis and Maxine. How they're under the manipulative guise of a heel, and Sami sees right through it. Sami harbours no ill feelings towards Chad's subjects, and shows compassion to Otis in particular. Otis' development and personal growth is showing, and I'm so excited for what they're going to do with him in the future.
In regards to the match itself, I don't think anyone can say it was a bad match, or a boring one for that matter. People often forget just how incredible of a wrestler and athlete Sami Zayn is, and mostly remember him as the "Ucey" guy. And whilst I love comedic Sami, I adore the version of Sami we have currently. The hard-hitter, the no-bullshit fiery warrior. Gah!
All in all, in terms of the actual wrestling, this was my favourite match of the night. It was the most entertaining and most satisfying as a viewer.
Bayley vs. Piper Niven
Oh Piper...
I love both of these women to pieces, and it must have been so cool for Bayley to go out there on her birthday and have people acknowledge that.
I always enjoy Piper and Bayley when they're in the ring, together and separately. I still maintain that Bayley and Iyo's match at WMXL was the best of the whole weekend. Bayley's transformation over the last 5 years has been nothing short of entertaining and I love seeing her flourish with the championship.
Piper Niven has one of the strongest willpowers I've ever seen, and it shows in the way she conducts herself in the ring. I would have liked to see either of these win the match, however, I wouldn't have necessarily agreed if Piper did win.
Personally, I think Bayley needs to keep the title a little longer before it's taken from her, and Piper needs to be put in big matches like these for a little longer until she takes a title like that. Like I said with Cody vs. Roman, it's about the build up that makes a win credible, or satisfying.
Chelsea is growing on me, too. She's incredibly funny and talented, and I wish they pushed her a bit more. She's got a huge personality and has the potential to be a lot bigger of a star.
Drew McIntyre vs. Damien Priest
Where's the *sigh* button?
I recently started reading Drew's autobiography so watching Drew have such incredible moments over the weekend only 30 minutes from his hometown hit me a little harder than it should have. And yes, I did tear up at the simple prospect of Drew winning.... Imagine if he did?
Drew is up there in my top 5 favourite wrestlers of all time, and Damien is in The Judgement Day, which is my second favourite faction (after The Bloodline ofc), so deciding who I wanted to win was a very difficult decision. I was positive that they were going to give Drew this win, purely with it being in Scotland, and that the build up has been weighty enough for it to pay off in a win. But the fact that Hunter has chosen to take the other path... makes me nervous for what he does have up his sleeve for Drew.
I was disappointed that CM Punk decided to pop in and fuck everything up (again), but after a while I started to think about it a bit more... It wouldn't have actually made sense for Drew to win this match. And I'll tell you why.
Unless I'm mistaken, the Heavyweight Champion will go on to face Gunther at Summerslam, right? Why would Drew be needing to face Gunther? Surely the only person that it would make sense for Drew to be fighting right now is Punk! Damien has found himself in a situation where he's not involved in the feud between Drew and Punk; he isn't involved in any of that. So Damien vs. Gunther makes more sense, and it allows that space for a Drew McIntyre vs. CM Punk match at Summerslam, or any other PLE.
Not only that, but Damien needs to keep a championship, otherwise Mami has a completely broken faction to return to. Between Finn and Damien's tension, and Dom's predicaments with Liv, a titleless faction is not something they need at the moment.
So, yes, I'm sad for Drew that he didn't get to have his moment in his home country, but it absolutely makes more sense for Damien to win and for the tension between Punk and Drew to intensify... Once again... long-form storytelling always pays off in the end. I'm confident Drew will get a title in the future, and keep it. He really deserves that. And I can only hope that Hunter sees that.
Hunter may not always make the best decisions, or what may seem like it at the time, but he's been in the game (hehe) long enough... I have faith in him that he knows what he's doing and he's got some good stuff lined up for us.
#wwe#wwe clash at the castle#clash at the castle#drew mcintyre#damien priest#cm punk#piper niven#sami zayn#chad gable#maxine dupri#otis#cody rhodes#aj styles#chelsea green#bayley#shayna baszler#zoe stark#alba fyre#isla dawn#bianca belair#jade cargill#triple h#roman reigns#the bloodline#the judgement day#solo sikoa#finn balor#rhea ripley#liv morgan#dominik mysterio
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I haven't seen anyone say this and I don't know if I am the first to say this, but I feel like the great war is actually about the heartbreaks and difficulties Tay and KK had to go through within the 4 years presidential term of Trump, and its written in chronological order. Also the most important part of this song is Kaylor survived the great war, they are still together after these 4 years.
First of all, the length of the great war aka ww1 is 4 years, which matched with the length of time when Trump is the president. And also it would not be the first time Tay wrote about 2016 election. In Call it what you want, we got All the jokers dressin' up as kings, which could been seen as a dig towards Trump. InMiss Americana and Heartbreak Prince, we got Running through rose thorns, I saw the scoreboard And ran for my life / My team is losing, battered and bruising I see the high fives between the bad guys. Scoreboard could been seen as the result of election, and bad guys definitely including Trump.
Then there are some lyrics matched perfectly with some events in those 4 years.
My knuckles were bruised like violets
Sucker punching walls, cursed you as I sleep-talked
here is Taylor cursing as Trump won the election
Spineless in my tomb of silence
Tore your banners down, took the battle underground
but she couldn't speak up about politics back then, which according to Miss Americana this totally made her sad. And she had to took the relationship with KK underground(love black out theory), because KK is linked with the Kushner which is linked with Trump. If their relationship got found out by general public, there would be some huge impact on the Kushner and the American politics.
All that bloodshed, crimson clover
Uh-huh, sweet dream was over
the 2014-2016 very high profile and sweet kaylor bff era was over, they had to go through the war
You drew up some good faith treaties
I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone
KK made a deal with joshua and had a lavender marriage, while Tay could only use Joe as a beard & disguise and suffered from the pain of watching the one you love married to another person (cue cruel summer)
And maybe it's the past that's talkin'
Screamin' from the crypt
Tellin' me to punish you for things you never did
So I justified it
this is so similar to the situation described in afterglow that they could be talking about the same thing:
i put you in jail for something you didn't do
and I know you have a very interesting theory that afterglow could be about Tay apologize to Karlie for her reaction to the suprise october wedding stunt in new york, which just fit in the timeline here perfectly.
It turned into something bigger
Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I'd been betrayed
this part is about master heist and the rumor that KK was feeding Scooter with Tay's secrects
Your finger on my hair pin triggers
Soldier down on that icy ground
Tay almost came out in the Lover era and KK was kinda a part of it, also after master heist KK still fought for Tay
Looked up at me with honor and truth
Broken and blue, so I called off the troops
Tay realized that KK never actually betrayed her and was hurt by her accusation, so she stopped asking her friend to like posts about KK's alleged betrayal
That was the night I nearly lost you
I really thought I lost you
Kaylor probablly broke up because of these things, but NEARLY and THOUGHT indicates that they got back together
And we will never go back
To that bloodshed, crimson clover
Uh-huh, the worst was over
I vowed I would always be yours
'Cause we survived the Great War
As Trump ended his presidency term at 2021.1.20, the Kaylor great war officially ended, and they have passed their worst time, they survived.
Also the other filler lyrics just totally matched with the theme, and now I think it is yet another evidence that Kaylor are still together to this day.
two quick sidenotes to clarify my perspective: i don’t think taylor ever really lost karlie (hence the words “nearly” and “thought” i lost you), and about my old afterglow post, i could have worded it better because often people have read it and don’t understand that i firmly believe that taylor and karlie both agreed to the wedding thing and knew about it in advance. i just saw it as a moment where the haze might have been thicker than usual.
okay so with that, i wanted to say that i very much agree with what you are laying out here! this is close to how i see things. i wanted to add links to some stuff i’ve written that i feel is related… here’s a post where i tried to bring together a bunch of similar lyrics that includes the effects of the 2016 election and here is a more lighthearted post i made in regards to me thinking maroon is about election night with a fun little ylm tie in at the end
i also think it’s worth pointing out that evermore (the song) was described by taylor herself as being written around her feelings regarding the election. i know that many see it as being about the failed lover era coming out and i totally get that and that was my first impression as well, but i do think it’s interesting that in the context of kaylor, the election interpretation as backed by taylor makes a ton of sense. also when you think about when evermore was written and released, right as / right around the time that biden won the 2020 election in november, we can see the “feeling so peculiar that this pain wouldn’t be for evermore” as reflective of them worrying that perhaps they might be in for 4 more years of trump, and the relief that came with the election result. **which is so specifically important to their story** and evermore will never not make me cry. i get so emotional 😭
anyway in conclusion, the great war is definitely, for me and for you, covering the trump administration years. i also think it’s worth pointing out what we have seen since. they may have still kept to themselves since biden took office but, might we all agree there has been a form of happiness, when you think about the ways their relationship has grown since? this is how i see things.
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Hi, I have another ask about stuff in TCAK series!
I'm so fascinated by all the bits and pieces that you drop about Con's past and Gotham in general. We of course have all the reddit stories in part one, like all the times people thought Con was dead, but there's a whole bunch of things that are referenced but not fully explained. Off the top of my head: however Con ended up with Caleb (something about ending up trapped in a demon worshippers basement?); posing as a kidnapping victim; a bunch of things listed at the very beginning of TCAK Meets the Second Robin. How do you come up with all of those and how do you keep it all straight? And, selfishly I want to know, are we going to get backstories or will they remain mysteries?
Also this section from TCAK Meets Matches Malone which was so evocative that I am dying to know how you came up with it.
This wasn’t an uncommon experience for Gothamites. It was rarely openly acknowledged, never actually discussed, but everyone had the experience. The way that the world would seem to unmoor itself and slip an inch or two to the side as you stood there, looking down an alleyway that you knew had never been there before, the shadows in it deeper and darker than they should be. Or listened to the intermingled thrumming warbles of pigeons and calling of crows and hearing the shapes of words behind the noise. Or looking at graffiti and seeing the hints of riddles that hadn’t been asked yet beneath the chaos. Strange shapes that’d lurk on rooftops that weren’t Bats. Voices from sewer grates, faded and green-stained copper plaques on the sides of buildings that’d never been there before and would never be there again. Looking through a gap between buildings and for an instant seeing a skyline you’d never seen before. Gotham was filled with the unexplained. It was built from mysteries.
Thank you!!
Alright, let's take this in sections!
Part I: Untold Stories
I really need to figure out a way to rewrite the opening to TCAK Meets Robin because enough people've been confused that I was obviously unclear.
Basically, everything mentioned (Chained in some demon-worshiper's basement, standing on top of Wayne Tower, getting held at lasergun-point, the ice-covered skyscraper, the reality-rending) are all future events (laid out in more or less chronological order) that will be happening down the line. All points in the future where Conrad's going to be going "How the FUCK did this become my life? ...Oh right, when I found out that Boss was Robin."
When I was half-way through Reddit Posts, I decided that yes, I was absolutely going to try and make a huge thing of this, and sat down to at least try and sketch out a plot-arc to follow. Which is where all the future events came from. And so far, I've managed to stick to it pretty well. The plot-beats have just managed to expand on me despite my best efforts. :)
Plot beat 2: Some-asshole w/ magical artifact attacks Red Hood's shit. Conrad beats down. Matches should be there, why not (Con thinks Matches = Batman?) *good place to have Con "die" onscreen
Basically, anything that shows up as a passing reference or Noodle Incident is something I have a fuller version of in my head, the details just aren't important at the time. A number of things will probably only stay references just because showing them onscreen would really harsh the vibe (the details of Bianca's Joker-Gas bombing and the aftermath, the shelter fire Conrad survived at 17) but I keep them in mind in case there ever does come a good point to include them and to guide how I portray Conrad.
Don't know if how Conrad and Caleb officially met will ever get a place to slide in, but in summery: In the wake of the shelter fire, Conrad was back to living on the streets, not doing the best with his situational awareness, and gets kidnapped by the same assholes who'd grabbed Caleb and buddies from their abandoned building squat. They figured Conrad and Caleb looked enough alike that they could be rented out as "brothers", so they got put together. Once Conrad pulled himself back together (figuring this was just a week or two at most since he'd watched a bunch of his friends burn to death, so he's not at his best), he goes all Conrad at the situation which ends with whatever building they were being kept in aflame, a bunch blood everywhere, a bunch of kids back on the street, and a fully adopted little cousin to take care of.
The "Posing as a kidnap victim" was actually a whole side-digression I'd written out, but it was almost a mini-story of its own only without a point or real resolution, just 'and here's another way my parents fucking sucked but also taught me how to be utterly terrifying', so I wound up cutting it out and just left the side reference and the dream of that persona taking over his life and kicking him out. It might come up again later, or I might sit down with it and work it into an actual Side Story, but not currently.
Part II: Creepy Gotham:
I -love- urban horror/suburban creepy shit. I blame 1990s tabletop RPGs, but I keep the vibes fed with a steady diet of "Creepy /AskReddit Compilations". That specific section you quoted, however? I'll admit, I was pretty much channeling the vibe and writing style of "Unknown Armies", an utterly -fantastic- tabletop RPG that is just one of my favorite things and I find hard to describe without descending into an hour-long ramble.
Basically, a modern world with a secret occult underground of very disturbed people. Everything happens for a reason, but fuck if you're likely to ever know what that reason is. The stuff I wrote back in the day for online forums in the Unknown Armies style merged with the Gotham spooky atmosphere, the occult horror element of DCU that's gotten more prevalent since Constantine and friends became central elements, and particular future plot-points I wanted to seed hints of so you get the urge to throttle me when you re-read that section a year from now.
#The Crime Alley Kid#Batman#DCU#Fanfic#Writing about writing#Ask me for my book-length explanation of Unknown Army's cosmology and game mechanics and how much fun they are to play with#Rotating the Statosphere like a blorbo
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Hii! A friendly suggestion that you don't need to write all fics that people requested... and no need to really "chronological order"... you can write whatever you're most comfortable with in whatever sequence... because I realized that you haven't publish a fic for a long time... and I'm worried it's because you loose motivation to write a certain topic... and you're not willing to skip that fic and write for other fic (the fic requested later than the one you're currently dealing)... and ended up the endless queuing makes you loose your motivation to write, because you feel guilty to "skip" a certain request... Because even I'm overwhelmed when opening your coming soon list lol... it's okay to start fresh... just a suggestion tho! From your fan!
Oh ciao! 💚🤍❤️ (Oh hello!)
Thanks for your words... I'll admit that I've let requests pile up, but that's not because I don't feel like writing certain topics... it's more of an organization issue
You know, med school is amazing, but the exam session hit me like a train hehe (but all my exams are going well for now)... and I've also struggled with some family issues
I'm still struggling to find a balance... and I was also convinced that my fics needed to be of a certain length to be appreciated (no one ever told me such a thing, but I was convinced that they needed to be long... don't ask me why)
BUT... I'll try to write what I feel like writing AND I'll finish the match-up event, without caring about the word count... I just need to find a balance between this blog and my life! ^_^
Thanks for your concern, it's truly appreciated 🥹❤️
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Olay so apparentl the hisden strife event had lore drops? And lettwrs hidden around Mondstatd! And a huge one was super hidden from kaeua???🌵
Ok! Yeah that's a thing! It's kinda sad cause it was, like, the first time they gave us hints about Kaeya's family. Now it's a bit obvious in terms of lore bu there were some interesting things.
(I wasn't there either, I just know about this by researching it.)
So, the main part is this:
The objects in the box are all pretty old. One particular sheet of paper stands out. A piece of it has been burned away, and the remaining parts show signs of hacing been rescued from that same flame. Every line on this sheet of paper has a matching one right under it. From the handwriting, it looks liike a child wrote on this first before an adult stepped in, held their hand, and taught them how to do it a second time. The writing are as follows: “Remember always that it was the Alberich Clan, who did not have royal blood, who stepped in as regents when the strength of the one-eyed king Irmin failed” “Though we could not restore Khaenri'ah to life, we of the Alberich Clan should leave lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers.” If you flip the paper over, there are other words there. You reckon these must be annotations of some sort. “I saved this one memento from the fire ‘Father’ made while he wasn’t paying attention. This was in violation of our principles. Our clan’s affairs should never be recorded. For me, this sheet of paper cannot serve as any form of identification, and will not give me pasage anywhere. Now that I look at it, his handwriting was as grieving as a smoking ash pile. There is no way that I can write something like that, living in Mondstadt as I am.” Moving the paper aside, you can see a cloth bag underneath it that conatins an eyepatch of significant age. A sticker is attached to the side, and the text on it reads: “Hah! to think that all that play-acting as a one-eyed pirate would eventually end with one actual wounded eye. I have never blamed Diluc for that. I suppose I must have been asking for it, telling him the truth the day my adoptive father died without expecting conflict to emerge somehow. He seems to believe that I really was blinded, though that’s not the case. Well, I’ve fooled him for a while, haven’t I? Might as well keep going.” Two letters lie beneath the bag, all of which have “D” as their sender. The letters are in great condition, and there is a time written on the back. This is most likely the time these letters were received. You can tell that the words have been written in a strong but elegant hand. A small paper bag lies next to these two letters. It contains nothing but a few seashells. They have lost most of their luster. It is unclear how much time has passed since they were picked up.
It's interesting because it gives us ideas on the Alberich's policies which, hindsight after 3.5, really make sense for the Abyss Order.
“Though we could not restore Khaenri'ah to life, we of the Alberich Clan should leave lives as those who blaze like fire, rather than those who wallow in the embers.” Meaning they do not wallow in the past but burn themselves just for the sake of revenge against the gods!
Also the reason I don't buy Kaeya not knowing about the abyss since... he clearly was not spared the worst details. But that's another story.
Also we learn that they burn any comunication which is... interesting.
I will link all the letters here if anyone's interested. Compiled by the lovely @transxiao on Tumblr. The rest is mostly either Diluc lore or Ragbros and I'd advise you to read this if you have free time on your hands!
#textpost#kaeya alberich#alberich clan#ahhhh yes the days when this was the only Alberich lore what a time!
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I'm glad to see you answer (and no pressure at all, this particular fic has been so precious to me, I'd already made the playlist asdfjsk) You're too kind omg, I thank you for writing it in the first place, and this is just a token of my appreciation <3
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3VXYoJIvkgV2Fu4CZwrhaB?si=859c50fe23b74936
(just a warning lol idk how my taste in music differs from you, so you might not like it in which case i apologise before hand 😭 I tried to mostly pick songs that fit the feels/plot overall, some songs (nearly half to 2/3rd LOL) is kinda from Sergio POV? I hope it comes across that way atleast, and a few instrumentals that again I *hope* fit the general mood, I tried (key word - try) arranging in order of the events that happen in the fic but you can also listen on shuffle! I also apologise for how long it got, please listen to it only if you have the time/energy lol (it's also got a few nods to hc's from some of your other fics but it is primarily based on the hermanos in rain fic)
PS I understood your struggle to choose a title, I literally titled it "rain" in the beginning XD I ended up going with one of the other options to match the cover pic, hope you don't mind! I love the actual title of the fic too, it just looked too long on spotify 😅
Firstly, sorry for how very looonnngggg it took me to answer! @ everyone, this an amazing hermanos-themed playlist that perfectly captures every beat of I'd rather be dry (but at least I'm alive). Thank you so much for taking the time to make this and for sharing it with me (as you know, I 100% RACED to listen to it as soon as you shared it with me). No really, thank you so much for always being there to support my hermanos fics! I really appreciate it and means a lot to me!
My music taste is also all over the place LMAO and I always have the toughest time thinking of songs that match the "vibe" of whatever it is I'm looking for, so I'm super impressed at how you picked out such a wide-range list that manages to capture every scene and mood I was going for :D The fact that it's chronological too blows my mind! I'll definitely be listening to it a lot while rereading that story ;) And all the instrumentals you picked were so beautiful and exactly what I enjoy listening to too!
Remembrance - This sets the mood so well, not just for a moody intro but also Sergio's mindset in general (+ his life with Andres), like this is something I can hear from show canon!
He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother - Perfect title and perfect lyrics for our brotp, made for the hermanos! Also love how it coincides with Sergio literally having to carry Andres in the next scene lol
Carry You - Same thoughts apply here! Thematically perfect; also something that feels like a track the show would play over a montage
West - Sleeping At Last song!! haha I've used their songs to set the mood so much whenever I'm writing for hermanos or berlermo, and the song you picked here (both instrumental and lyrics) fits the story so well, especially the "we'll be just fine" being repeated
Blue Ridge Mountains - Another beautifully themed brotherly song! Can definitely see this playing through the scene of Sergio trudging through the rain, or of him and Andres "contemplating" in the motel together during the storm
Repeat Until Death - The lyrics :'D really perfectly captures Sergio's feelings about Andres' (impending) death; this one's so sad omg but so fitting
The Emotion - the vibes! I can hear this suiting Sergio's flashback to the day on the beach (and events in Hermanito!) and Andres comforting him in the present
Recuerdos - Another beautiful instrumental that captures the same mood as #7!
It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday - this one reminds me of Sergio telling Andres his fears out loud in the motel :') also fits his mindset regarding Andres (and their father) in general
Across the Sea - el mitad del oceano reference!? haha either way, another bittersweet instrumental that suits the melancholic mood
Song for a Stormy Night - literally captures that entire picture of Sergio listening to the storm while Andres sleeps XD the lyrics somehow took all of Sergio's words out of his mouth
The Golden Age - I'm also a woodkid fan and I remember hearing this song the first time and going 'hmm hermanos' asdfasdf You came to the same conclusion, love that!
Stay Alive - Another one that really captures the narrative's mood, especially from Sergio's pov!
Brother - this gives me strong "Hermanito" vibes! And to me, this feels like a rare one from Andres' pov
Jacob and the Stone - Another great instrumental that fits the tragisweet mood in the motel!
I Don't Want to Lose You - This playlist digs through Sergio's emotions like an onion, and this one really suits his confession about never wanting to lose his brother :') Even the lyrics perfectly fit the hermanos (like the part of past loves at the piano!). I know the singer wrote this with a couple in mind lol but out of context, this is a song for the #hermanos
Same as above!
Carry You Through - we're 18 songs in and you still manage to find a song with lyrics that matches Sergio's angst so well that I'm just impressed XD "we couldn't be closer but still out of reach" AHHH
In Case You Don't Live Forever - Another PERFECTLY matched hermanos song, especially taking in the events from the "Hermanito" timeline; exactly what was going through Sergio's head towards the end of Rain too
Isaac - And we're getting to the end of the storm ;) OHH another rare one from Andres' pov that perfectly captures how he felt about seeing Sergio panic through Rain. And yes, always insane about Sergio is the Isaac to Andres' Ishmael
You'll Be Alright - a comforting one that feels like it's from Andres when he's comforting Sergio!
Yellow - Ah, coldplay, Alex Pina's favorite band XD not an lcdp playlist without them! This really fits the mood at the end, after the climax, and I like to think of it from Andres' pov as he's reminiscing about little Sergio
Save You - Immediately made think of Sergio's , "This time, I'm protecting you" :') and the overall last scene of the fic; it's what all his fears have been boiling down to, and the lyrics about searching for an answer/trying to understand --> that's so El Profesor!!
We're Gonna Be Okay - perfectly paints the mood of Andres hugging Sergio in the living room, telling him it's going to be okay after that hell of a day they had :'D
Si, Te Quiero Mucho (Hermanito) - LOSING MY MIND THAT THERE IS A REAL SONG NAMED THIS!????? wonder if it's a lcdp reference lol anyway, definitely Andres' final thoughts about Sergio both in the canon timeline and the end of Rain; literally the perfect thing to close out the playlist with and what I can hear playing over the "credits" of Rain. Mood and lyrics match so well (Andres' pretentious ass asdfadsf) and the culmination of what he feels about Sergio + inevitably leaving him behind
Thanks again for sharing this with me! A lot of wonderful new songs here I didn't know about and so many great hermanos-themed tracks too :D This was such a sweet gift and I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart!
And loved the title you chose too ;) PLEASE, I of all people know the pain of trying to choose a good title!
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spoilers for jjk....
I think the problem I've been having with the current arc of jjk (the manga) is that they're doing it like a reverse heist movie and I think it really works against the story.
All of the characters have been doing all of this preparation off screen and when they use the fruits of all of their planning it just kind of feels like it's been pulled out of thin air as a plot convenience?
The explanations feel like they've had a decent amount of thought put into them but i feel like it really diffuses the tension having them after whatever they're explaining has occurred.
just saying "oh yuji can use reverse cursed techniques now so he can fight tougher enemies without dying," like... that's cool and all but i feel like it would be more satisfying if we were shown that first and then watched things unfold in unexpected ways in the battle. The way it is now is Yuji shows up, we learn he has a new power, they fight for a while. Theeeeen we go back and learn how he got this power, but it's still in the talking heads format where everyone is sitting around explaining their plan as if this is a heist movie... but we're already watching the heist. We're like, 3 hours into the heist. Like, it's not a trump card that really turns the tides (or at least hasn't yet). I feel like if you're trying to reveal "this character has grown while you weren't looking" it's really more effectively used for emphasis rather than exposition?
A more satisfying flow to me would be something like:
showing all of the characters preparing for this big battle. there are lots of little moving parts to this plan, hence why I likened it to a heist movie. (this would be all of those little flashbacks peppered throughout the recent chapters, but frontloaded either before they send gojo to fight sukuna or after gojo dies. probably after gojo dies for the most dramatic tension)
they go into battle. everyone is at their marks. it's not enough. (this is essentially what's already happening)
if things don't happen as they should, *then* they can explain the contingencies, but because you already know the basic plan, you can begin to put together how this changes things, or it could set you up to be more surprised by an unexpected turn of events.
I think that's why I had more fun with the comedy "battle" between Takaba and Kenjaku. Like, the realization that he's sort of met his match and is enjoying the fight is unexpected and later it's revealed that they had planned it (which in itself is kind of novel because it's also an unexpected pairing from a reader's standpoint). It's probably my favorite sequence in the recent chapters.
Anyways, I'm just complaining because it feels like this arc has gone on for so long and we keep stopping to explain power levels and healing your brain so you can keep using your domain and blah blah blah we picked these three guys to nullify this one thing that sukuna does and taught yuji rct off screen in a week or however long its been and we've made so many contingency plans PLEASE JUST GET ON WITH IT... Honestly though, I've been so checked out of jjk since the shibuya arc ended. I've mostly been reading it on the side because there's usually a new chapter up when I got to check for the new Chainsaw Man lol...
edit: I wrote all of that mainly to say I really don't get why people are enamored with telling a story out of order. it's cool for a surprise every now and then or if it is thematically relevant, but a lot of times it feels like they're just doing it for the sake of doing it. Or like in this case, it feels like it's supposed to be *another* reveal. What is this, like the 4th or 5th time? It's no longer interesting at this point. (it wasn't even well used to begin with.) There's nothing wrong with things being in chronological order!! En media res is probably the most misused rhetorical device IT DRIVES ME CRAZY!!! STOP IT. STOP. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA
#anyways ignore me#please don't yell at me about my bad opinions about shounen manga#i realize i'm not the target demographic#i did finally decide to go watch season 2 of jjk#i wonder if mappa will be able to fix the awful pacing in these later chapters....#i'm so tired of this manga#but i keep clicking because what if it gets better again#but tbh i kinda just hate the direction that the story went in#it feels to me that the mangaka suddenly realized the plot he had planned would take 10 more years to draw so he just jumped to the end#like it feels rushed but also so excruciatingly drawn out at the same time....#also i just really hate tournament arcs
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Squidbillies #49: "Reunited, And It feels No Good" | July 20, 2009 - 12:00AM | S04E09
The Cuylers have a dang old family reunion, and guess what? Extended family actually shows up to it. They are significantly wealthier than the Dougal County Cuylers, what with owning a modern car with DVD players and refrigerated air.
This is the family of Durwood Cuyler, who stands upright like a man, shoving most of his tentacles into a pair of shoes. He’s a yuppy, an outdated term that I don’t feel like updating. He is also a family man; he married a blonde human woman with a Karen hairdo, a recently outdated term that is actually too modern for me to be using about a show from 2009. They also have two kids who never speak because they are glued to their devices. I think we can all agree on one thing: Durwood simply gave up.
The episode is basically about the two Cuyler clans clashing, slightly. Early hints at the fact that they could use some of Durwood’s money. His wife is steadfast against them even associating with Early’s family altogether. Early reveals his investment plan: a plushie from that Cheyenne Cinnamon “movie” that Burger King is showing, which according to my tepid googling hasn’t actually happened yet. I’m referring to the "Big Uber Network Sampling", an event where, if I recall correctly, a bunch of Adult Swim pilots that were available on a Burger King website. I think the idea was the pilots were pitted against each other in various matches, and the winner got to, as it turns out, continue being a rejected pilot. Cheyenne Cinnamon was one of those pilots. We see a little more footage of that playing in the headrest screens of Durwood’s family Durango.
Durwood is so horrified by the treatment of Rusty (who has lockjaw from running barefoot through animal feces), that when Rusty shows Durwood his art project (which is just a glitter drawing urging Durwood to help him get the fuck away from Early’s abuse), Durwood decides to take rusty off Early’s hands for “a couple days”. As they speed away, Durwood tells Rusty he’s never going back there again, and that they’re going to set up a cot in the garage. Early is ecstatic to be rid of Rusty, but when he’s reminded that his government checks will stop coming he becomes incensed. TO BE CONTINUED.
A common response I have to Squidbillies is that I’ll watch it for a few minutes and think “hey, I think I like this show, actually”, but then I'm ready for it to end and it’s not even half over yet. That’s sorta where I was with this one. Lucky for me, it’s technically not over. This is a bonafide two-parter. When it originally aired they played both episodes back-to-back, but as far as I can tell they were always considered two separate episodes. I will be considering them two separate write-ups. Okay!
EPHEMERA CORNER
Robot Chicken Star Wars Episode II DVD (July 21, 2009)
I'm stubbornly sticking to my stated mission of making you aware of every DVD release from Adult Swim in a rough chronological order compared to the Adult Swim television timeline. As such, I wind up spotlighting releases that I have nothing to say about, and no significant feelings felt for. This one has 90 minutes of extra features, which I'm pretty sure is longer than the special itself. I also believe this is the extended cut of the special (or at the very least the DVD includes the extended cut), which I think aired on TV too. I forget. I don't like thinking about this show, or the intellectual property known as Star Wars. Thanks.
MAIL BAG
Kon komes through with a fact I did not allow myself to learn:
The God guy on the Squidbillies episode was voiced by the very guy who played Jesus on the Rising Son, and also starred in many Superdeluxe-brand FARK sketches that you and me really love and both are huge fans of
YES! Thank you Kon. Point of fact- the IMDB page for this episode doesn't credit who played God, but does list Sean Watkins on the cast list. But they linked to the wrong Sean Watkins, which left me scratching my head. I looked like a fool
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OMG. Okay. I think these are great points, and honestly the one thing making me want to try to argue against it is the fact that I really don't want it to be Kristi because I am so not ready to let go of her yet LMAO she's very dear to me so bear with me through my delusions.
First, additional supporting evidence. The person tending to Julie's wounds in the trailer seems to be Marielle (long brown hair with blonde front strands). This is Marielle's only scene in the trailer, and it's blink and you miss it, so it could mean that all of Marielle's other scenes are too spoilery to show.
We also get a glimpse of this picture at the funeral. It's basically microscopic but if we are to assume it's a picture of the deceased, the hair color and length match Kristi's, or at least don't rule her out. Also it would make sense for Marielle to be carrying a picture of her.
The funeral sitting arrangements also make sense with it being Kristi, since that's Kenny and Boyd closest to her, and Ethan is obviously fond of her since she was the one to treat his leg when they first arrived at the town. Marielle's absence can easily be explained by her being too broken to attend.
Now, the points I could make against. First of all, we get this shot of the body where some fabric underneath the brown sack is visible. It looks like yellow knit fabric, pink knit fabric, and some other white fabric. Kristi isn't wearing clothes matching these colors and fabrics, while Sara is. We also see similar fabrics being used as a pillow for Julie in the scene I mentioned earlier with Marielle.
Second, the order of events. We can see Jade and Boyd returning from somewhere, rolling the dead body into town, and Jade is wearing multiple layers of his own clothes in that scene, which is a less than ideal winter outfit. However, the outfit that he's wearing while Kristi is presumably alive (since the red beanie person is in the scene) seems like a more proper winter outfit, which makes me think that chronologically the red beanie person scene happens after the person in the cart has died. But, this is where the bear trap scene can happen (I'm 100% sure the bear trap victim is Kristi after reading your post. Like Jade, Jim, and Kenny, she also seems to have geared up for the trip because she changed her white shoes for brown boots, though. If she dies in this outfit, would they change her shoes back?).
So, taking into account the previous teaser that was released a few months ago, my guess is that the order of events is:
Boyd, Jade and Dead Person go somewhere -> Dead Person is tortured in front of Boyd -> Dead Person dies and is brought back into town -> Funeral for Dead Person -> Jim, Kenny, Jade and Kristi go on a trip somewhere else together, dressed in more winter-y gear
The ambush in town also has to be before the trip if we follow this logic, because Jade is wearing his "normal" clothes there. Also, I'm counting these 4 characters as going on the trip together because the pairings are unlikely on their own (it would make more sense to imagine that Jade and Jim tagged along with Kristi and Kenny, and then the pairings got mixed up) and because Jim and Kenny walk past a skull similar to the one the guy in Jade's vision is drinking from, so it looks like they're all in the same place).
My conclusion: I'm kind of at a loss honestly because some of the "evidence" seems contradictory. I have my own post on why I think the dead body is Sara but if it was Sara then I couldn't explain why Kenny looks so broken or what's happening with the red beanie. If it's Kristi I can't explain the timeline and costume changes or the yellow, white and pink fabrics. Probably worth noting that there were scenes in the S2 trailer that hinted at a plotline that ultimately never happened in S2 so it's not impossible that there's stuff in here that won't actually be in the episodes. Sorry for the long reply, I hope at least some of it is interesting 🙏
Kristi is DEFINITELY the dead body seen in the From season 3 trailer
1. She is seen wearing white legwarmers with jeans, and those same legs are seen getting caught in a bear trap
2. The dead body HAS THE BEAR TRAP WOUND (hard to see in these ss, it goes by fast but clearly lines up)
3. In the promo photos, she’s seen wearing a red beanie, but in the trailer Jade is talking to someone wearing it that isn’t fully pictured, and then later he’s wearing it
4. Kenny is clearly mourning (the flowers on the counter, his outburst at the radio) it would make sense he’s emotional at losing Kristi and isn’t able to show it in a healthy way because of Marielle
I think this makes the most sense plot wise, and would force Marielle to step up and maybe take on Julie as a nurse trainee. I’m DYING to know other people’s thoughts though I couldn’t find anyone else mentioning these points let me know what yall think :3
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The case of Jennifer Scott
Something that has haunted me since I finished the Black Flag game and novel all those years ago is: What the fuck happened between Edward meeting Jenny and the events of AC: Forsaken?
Chronologically, AC: Forsaken came first, and then the Black Flag game and novel. We have Haytham's perspective, we are introduced to Jenny as someone who's upset that their father wouldn't train her as an assassin and, ostensibly, Edward and Tessa just want to marry off. Haytham is a bit of an unreliable narrator, because the adults try not to argue in front of him, so we don't know if getting rid of Jenny is what Edward really wanted, but the idea that she doesn't belong in the household is pretty well-established at this point.
Decades down the line, after Reginald Birch kills their father and Haytham saves his sister, Jenny says in her own words that that was the case:
"I hated him. All his talk of freedom—spiritual and intellectual freedom—didn’t extend to me, his own daughter. There was no weapons training for me, remember? No ‘Think differently’ for Jenny. There was just ‘Be a good girl and get married to Reginald Birch."
Then Black Flag the video game releases a year later in October 2013, and Black Flag the novel releases in December 2013 two months later. It's already been well-established that Edward was a flawed father to Jenny.
The Black Flag video game ends with this girl having the guts to travel across the fucking ocean all alone to meet a father she's never met. She's the milestone. She's Edward's commitment to a new life and fostering a child's view of the world.
Let's look at the Black Flag novel. This man addresses his first-person life story (the novel's narrative framing) to Jenny. Like Haytham does with Ratohnhaké:ton, he tells her his background, and is even honest with how was cast out by his own mother when he came back to Wales. Oliver Bowden wrote out Edward's adoration and willingness to stick with his daughter knowing full well of the eventual gap in their relationship.
Meta-wise, we know the writers probably wanted to make Edward as flawed as possible, and also tragedy is like candy to Ube Softee.
In-universe, what the fuck happened between the events of Black Flag and Forsaken to make Edward neglect Jenny?
Maybe while he was trying to rebuild his life, he couldn't spend as much time with her as he wanted. And when Tessa came into the picture, and then Haytham, well. Even if you still love your kids equally, the way you treat them is different. Jenny was probably neglected.
I'm not dissecting this in the context of Edward-drinks-respect-women-juice or whether or not you can call him a feminist, because I think those are really broad terms for someone who's lived in at least three different worlds with different rules all before he's 40. That deserves its own post.
But it seems wild to me that Edward -- someone who married a woman who matched his energy and stood up to drunken assholes to help other people; someone who in his own words respected Mary Read more than anything; someone who took counsel from Anne Bonny and trusted her to be his quartermaster -- wouldn't train his ballsy daughter to be an Assassin, and instead groom his son to be one instead. Where did that double-standard come from?
Did he want to protect his child from that world? Maybe he changed his mind by the time Haytham came along, but it was too late for Jenny.
It could go back to how he neglected Caroline too. He left to seek his fortune, out of selfish personal glory but also because she'd given up her inheritance to live a humble life he was ashamed to put her into. And because she eventually left him because all he could do was dream about it. He left his parents -- and in a sense, his wife -- to chase his dreams. Maybe that pattern repeated with his daughter. Once he started building a new life in England, with a new woman, there just wasn't space to consider training her anymore.
I think he decided on a certain life for her -- married, with a good reputation in high society -- and dismissed her when she wanted to become an Assassin, because he'd lived that life and didn't want it for her. Even though...that's incredibly myopic of him. Did he really think that the girl who, as a kid who'd just lost her mother, crossed a pirate-infested ocean to be with him would want to be a housewife? She said herself to Haytham:
"I once told you that our lives were mapped out for us, remember? ...I was born to serve men, and serve men is what I have done."
And did he really, truly just want her out of his life when she got older? Or was forcing marriage on her a way to ensure she lived in comfort, the way he wanted for Caroline?
And here's the part where we could comment on misogyny -- maybe he felt that he had to protect the women in his family, and couldn't wrap his head around the fact that she could decide for herself. Mary Read and Anne Bonny were pirates he met and befriended. Caroline and Jenny are his family, under his charge.
I think it's a combination of selfish and selfless reasons, of course, but I wish I could have seen what happened while Jenny grew up.
#the kenway saga is like mdzs#you get just enough story to know everything sucked and everyone is morally gray and their relationships will never be “right” again#and then everything else is crumbs with no details#so you have no clue if some things are true or some things aren't#and you're not sure if people's intentions are what they say they are#i'm sure Edward loved her very much but that doesn't mean that made him a good father#it's such a disappointment after all the growth he went through in black flag#and jenny's story is so neglected#it just sounds like she lived a hard life and died unhappy#when she was such a bright and brave kid#assassin's creed 3#assassin's creed#assassin's creed black flag#ac black flag#edward kenway#haytham kenway#jennifer scott#mary read#anne bonny#ac forsaken#caroline scott#ac3#ac#haytham#edward#tears falling like peridots#black flag#assassin's creed forsaken#cw misogyny mention
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