#Ask 142

[asktaskforce141]

Hey, what's everyone's favorite songs?

I'm gonna let the boys answer this individually yeah? 😂

- 141's resident Ghost 💀

- your friendly neighborhood Scotsman 🧼

- Keegan "The P is Silent" Russ 😎

- best sniper, (und still married man) König 🇦🇹

- "father of the year", Captain Price 🫡

[ask-crescent-crescendo]

Ohh- well I hope you have a good night !

Crescendo ask) Hey hows the party going for you ? I thought I'd come join too !

[the-magpie-archives]

I gotta be honest if some random guy approached me in the street and asked me to tell him my paranormal trauma I'd literally just tell him? Like he wouldn't have to compel me I'd like to share. Free therapy for me, free story for him! Not my problem if it feeds an otherworldly overlord.

[badlydrawnkankri]

Boop!

[sugar-grigri]

Hey! Have you noticed the visual parallels between the gun fiend and Chainsaw man in this latest (152th) chapter?

The parallel between Aki and Denji in the last chapter

No, I hadn't noticed, and I like that others have because I might have an explanation for this parallel.

Fujimoto likes parallels, but this time he does it the other way round. Let me explain: for me, and according to my interpretation, he had already made an explicit reference to chapters 78/79 in this chapter:

Chapter 142 exploited Denji's relationship with others, but also with being a CSM, just as Fumiko's speech only reinforces the fact that even when she places herself as a victim, she reinforces Denji's position as a martyr.

Even when Fumiko argues that she saw CSM as a child, the chapter proves her wrong, whether through her unsuccessful manipulation techniques, her many contradictions, but above all her behaviour is typical, allowing Denji to deny the pain he suffered by killing his brother.

I won't go into it again ((if you want to know more, the link is above)) the only thing you need to remember here is that Fujimoto still intends to exploit Aki's death, albeit in a subtle, poetic way in part 2.

In chapter 152, Denji suffers because he has decided to; his suffering is his own, he demands it and even sees it as a means of experiencing pleasure. What's more, this chapter follows on from chapters 150/151 in Denji's claim to his own identity: I WANT to be CSM, and no one is going to stop me. The negative consequences are mine because I've decided to.

Whereas during his confrontation with Aki, Denji's identity was stolen by his "fans" (a theme dealt with in chapter 142), who positioned themselves as the only suffering parties (ignoring Denji's), and it was the frightened, bruised men and women who decided that CSM had to save them, had to act and kill.

So chapter 152 is more than an awakening, it's Denji who takes back the right to suffer if he has decided to do so. Before, it was always the others who decided, but instead of taking the plunge and saying: I'll never let myself suffer again, this time the martyr doesn't want his suffering to be taken away from him.

Because if we take away Denji's suffering, he won't turn into a CSM anymore

If that's taken away, his memories of Power and Aki are fragmented

These last two sentences are actually linked, because Denji has learnt to love just as much as he has learnt to suffer through Aki and Power. Aki's curse is to have been possessed by his sworn enemy, the Gun Devil, who reclaims his rights over the man who tried to resist him: to be there to make Aki's family suffer, always, even the second time around.

As the curse repeats itself, Aki's mind is stuck in his childhood, when it hadn't yet been broken, so he's blindly enjoying himself. Because, paradoxical though it may sound, it was when Aki realised the cruelty of this world, the loss of loved ones, that he tried to protect his family - the greatest act of love. Suffering is an awareness.

Aki had gambled on his suffering before, wasting his years of life with almost no ties. And when he began to change his perception of wanting to do something for his family, those wasted years didn't leave him enough time to protect his second family.

While he was escaping the suffering of his first family, he didn't even realise that he was causing the second to suffer. Fate was simply amused.

It is just as much for Power, a bestial being by nature who has already learnt about the suffering of losing loved ones with Meowy's kidnapping, Aki's anguish possessed at the door, bringing a birthday cake to Denji as an act of kindness, before realising that she would rather die than let Denji die. Suffering is also what brings destinies together and intertwines them.

Power and Aki are symbols of the same thing: when suffering began to be reflected in others, materialising in the fear of losing a loved one, fate turned against them.

So what Denji is doing is a narrative attempt to free himself from his fate, if he starts to fear more for Nayuta than for himself, if he stops being CSM for her, then the passage of suffering turned against oneself, there will always be someone to catch the ball. So Denji ends the cycle.

Denji will see no-one but his pain, Pochita, he will ignore even the flames that tore him away from his animal family, he will push back to Nayuta. It's a retreat into his own identity in the final chapter, a futile attempt to escape from a pain even worse than the pain of being cut in two, the pain of seeing another part of himself ripped away: a loved one.

Now we've pretty much understood the parallel. But don't forget the beginning of this post, Denji is doing exactly what Aki is doing.

Chapter 152 is the hero's attempt to regain control of his destiny, as if suddenly aware of the suffering inherent in the work, wanting to reverse it, to turn it into pleasure.

But he will not escape his fate. Denji may laugh, but only fate will have the last laugh.

[jtl-fics]

Hii

I'm glad your wrist is better!

I'd like to ask for some TBD if there's still some parts left, Aaron learning parenting tips from Andrew's absolutely-not-friends-he's-just-there-for-the-free-food was very wholesome

Thank youu : )

9/25/24 WIP Wednesday (Closed) | TBD AU

“I’d miss them too much,” Smith shakes his head as they make the world’s slowest right turn into the airline parking. Smith had been planning on getting his car parked at a cheaper place and then the three of them would bus in but Andrew had reminded him that the team paid for flights and parking, might as well get the good stuff. The only way he’d even managed to win the argument was that Smith’d be able to go home to see his kids earlier if he didn’t have to bus back.

“Family trip next time.” Andrew says as Smith pulls into a spot.

Smith laughs, “Maybe when they’re all a bit older, Austin’s a young adult town. Matty, Jackson and I went all over it when we were in college on our away games. I had my first drink there.”

[blackbatcass]

me whenever i start yapping about wally west to my audience of like the 3 other people on here who have read flash comics

[shittyjakeenglish]

egadds... jake english has succumbed to woke pronouns....

Day 142

HANDS UP THIS IS A ROBBERY

[a-mag-a-day]

I like the ambiguity of "he's all eyes." Obviously there's an interpretation people tend to favor in fanart, because it's, you know, visual, but did she just mean he's watching her really intensely? Does he have the usual complement of eyes but enormous? Is he, indeed, covered in eyes? Is he nothing but a giant pair of eyeballs but she can somehow recognize it as him because dreams are like that? Who knows? He's all eyes.

He's all eyes, it's that simple

[akookminsupporter]

Why do people think JK's going to live in the itaewon house? Rich people build buildings for all kinds of reasons, so he might not even be planning to live there himself

Or maybe he will and that's why he's building something so big. I imagine many people think he will live there because the flat where he lives or lived before he enlisted is not his.

Both assumptions are possible, anon.

[hellishradio]

🦴 I’ve always had a headcanon that alastor had a southern accent that shows when his mic breaks

"A southern accent! Unfortunately I don't have that, but good guess my friend!"

mod : i love accents <33 i have a similar headcanon where he does let some accents slip but instead of southern, it's french. i always imagined his mother speaking creole french with him sometimes when he was young and it just stuck with him. now sometimes he even slips out a few words like "non" and "oui". love the hc, nonnie!!

🦴 — you send hcs and we react!ㅤ| check out the event! | 100f event

[gingerpeachtea]

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game 🪲 (if you give me the opportunity i am gonna make you write haha)

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

“I look…” “Adorable,” Satine finished for him. She leaned over and kissed his cheek; he wished she had enough lipstick left to leave a mark. She picked up a hairbrush from the vanity and began to slowly run it through his hair. Christian relaxed into the gentle touch, head leaning slightly back as his eyes fell closed.

TY FOR MAKING ME WRITE <3

(writers truth & dare ask game!!)

[ifindus]

now that you are almost done with your studies, where do you wanna work?👀 do you think you will take more studies in the future?🧐

I really want a permanent job in a museum 💖 that would be the dream. But I'm not opposed to working as a field archaeologist or other related jobs in the meantime - I'll probably have to anyway 😅 I'm very done with studying right now, so I'm just trying to get any job at the moment - thinking about maybe start taking commissions... 🤔

[grapefaygodude69]

Would you wrestle karkat or tavros

TC: i WoUlDn'T wAnNa MoThErFuCkInG fIgHt mY bRoS :o(

day 142

[perfectlove-ryan]

Ryan, will you be the skibidi to my toilet?

"If these are gonna be your pick up lines, leave my inbox and never come back."

[sugar-grigri]

with you mentioning you might've changed your mind more to a hypothethicsl scenario of nayuta can become another makima/the boundary between the two isn't as strong, do you mean that in her narrative function or in the essence of what the control devil is and her goals? Or is it more on the lines of how the control devil adapts as it grows up as it was mentioned here before? I hope it makes sense, this being a part of csm I find fascinating and would love to see more of your thought abt it

Transgressing your nature

I started to change my stance on Nayuta as part 2 progressed and I saw the various fan positions on her. In fact, the more I thought about Fujimoto's writing, the more I thought that saying Nayuta ≠ Makima was what you wanted as a reader but not really what the author wrote

The clues I found to this were simply the fact that Fujimoto stubbornly refused to give us what we wanted (notably through the fact that Denji doesn't evolve as quickly as we'd like), the fact that he has no trouble killing off characters we'd be extremely attached to in a very traumatic way but also in the fact that Fujimoto can also write unexpected outcomes to problems: the loving response Denji offered Makima

I don't think Part 2 is really a narrative break with Part 1; whereas I used to think it was two works in one, more and more I get the impression that Fujimoto intends to flesh out characters who don't appear in the same form as in Part 1.

Whether it's by shaping the story of the weapons more precisely, referring to characters who haven't yet appeared like Reze, or by developing Nayuta

Makima is one of the cornerstones of Chainsaw Man, and on top of that, the Knights of the Apocalypse have to be enigmatic.

Placing the former antagonist in the position of the hero's little sister is a Trojan horse, a way of making us believe that we now know the control demon, that we've seen most of its facets and that she's an undeniable ally.

But above all, no longer a threat

The story insists on this with the moments of pure brotherly love set up by Denji and Nayuta who protect each other, but the story also insists that the control demon is an entity to be protected when the little sister becomes the object of a dilemma, or rather blackmail by the public hunters.

This is where I started to have doubts, at what point did the control demon go from persecutor to something so vulnerable?

What Fujimoto does is deconstruct our foundations: CSM's identity, the most solid foundation of the whole manga, is questioned, Denji is no longer the only protagonist, his normal life isn't what he's been dreaming of, but above all Part 2 deconstructs itself

Barem seems to be one of the antagonists when I think he's the one who seems to have the clearest view of what's going on, I repeat he's naturally pierced Denji several times in the last few chapters and I think saying that Nayuta is a witch is no exception

I think that the control demon is taking advantage of the fact that she's a little girl to control her too, and that the level of danger between Makima and Nayuta is the same because they're the same entity, she's no longer instrumentalised and doesn't have universal objectives like Makima did with her desire to eradicate humanity's fears but personal objectives as a little girl.

I'm not saying that Nayuta is an antagonist or that she's dangerous for Denji, but she should be read like the rest of the characters in part 2, i.e. as a complex character.

Fujimoto continues to question his own antagonist: is it enough for the control demon to be immersed in a healthy environment for it not to be a threat?

It's a reflection that extends beyond the character of Nayuta, as it leads to questions about Yoru, the war demon who shares his brain with a teenager paralysed by grief and his relationship with others.

It also raises questions about Fami, whose goal of saving humanity is not one of empathy or affection, but of something primal: simply eating what she likes.

Are demons trapped in their functions? Or are they endowed with humanity? Can the knights of the apocalypse fight against their own nature, which is to set it in motion?

Is it not by falsely wanting to protect humanity that the demon of death is acting, as a reminder of their true mission as big sisters?

Is humanity a healthy environment for demons?

Or at least a logical environment for them? Demons are meant to sow fear, not fight humanity's fears.

Death, the most primal fear of all, is there to remind them of their essence.

The demon of death creates the feeling of fear in its own sisters, because it is thanks to this emotion that they find their origin.

By marking a continuity between Makima and Nayuta, this forces us to question the nature of the Knights of the Apocalypse, as well as the demons? Can they fight against their very reason for existing? It forces these same demons to question themselves. By fighting to wipe out humanity, aren't the three sisters setting the apocalypse in motion?

The first to symbolise this crossing of limits by eliminating their fears and loving a human is none other than Pochita.

Love is an anomaly for demons, just as it is an act of rebellion. Death, by depriving us of our flesh and blood and by being the most primal and universal fear, is opposed to this transgression of nature.