#Babylon’s gate

[satanicspeaks]

Babylon’s Gate spoilers

Im loving how much Holden is uncomfortable with Clarissa being on the ship. The series to me gives beautiful insight into atonement and the human rights about punishment of death vs prison. Amos doesn’t have a morality in the way that others do, notably lacks empathy due to whatever reason (imma do a post about that later). So for Amos forgiveness isn’t required. If someone steps out of line and becomes a threat then they are handled. He bonded with Clarissa and feels the need to protect/care in the way one would for another comrade.

Alex is iffy but trusts the people he’s with enough that if a situation arises he knows they’ll be able to handle it. But he’s also social conflict avoidant, his tactic is to placate and avoid issues, often using humour and accent to diffuse. As Naomi points out, he isn’t comfortable with Clarissa, but when the decision was made to not kill her he chose to stand by Naomi’s decision and now if Naomi is okay with it then he will try to be too.

Naomi has the obvious reason of being okay with it. She can see Clarissa has changed, knows that her own son has done so so much worse and feels the guilt of the things she did even when they weren’t an active choice. I don’t think she forgave Clarissa, but she did see the importance in giving Clarissa a chance to change/heal/atone. For her it’s more than just Clarissa’s own change, but hope for herself and her son.

But Holden. Ah Holden beloved, ever the angry and uncomfortable on everyone’s behalf. It kind of reminds me of an ally for LGBTQIA+ or disability things being upset on my behalf. Such an ally is uncomfortable because for them the morality is much more rigid than my own, there’s the urge to be hateful and aggressive to those that might just be ignorant or with some effort could actually change. Bringing this back to prison vs. death punishment, Holden leans towards death when someone has done things that are on the negative extreme of his morals. His threshold for ‘someone can change’ is much lower and it’s also biased as fuck. If he knows the person and feels like he actually knows the person, has that connection, then that threshold gets higher.

Of course from the readers perspective we can see how Clarissa has changed. We see her interactions with Amos and see how much she knows she did awful shit. She knows she’s the walking equivalent to a wolf in sheep’s skin, constantly underestimated and then feared when people recognise her.

The diversity of morality on the Rosci is beautiful. I’m so excited to see how Bobbie fits into it all for this book (the Rosci!!! Gets an actual gunner!! Fuck that was so cool when she got to be in the gunners chair. Story wise I see why she isn’t kept because it’s a god mod that would need to be constantly knee-capped else risk readers being like ‘well then why didn’t they just do this cause they have Bobbie’)

[amateurarthistorian]

details of the Ishtar Gate, c. 575 BCE, Babylon, present day Iraq

housed in Pergamon Museum, Berlin

[thesorceresstemple]

Ishtar Gate of Babylon. Istanbul Archaeology Museum, Turkey

[pluckingstarsoffmoontrees]

Well, I expected Seishirou to win, but not by that much of a margin, and Fei Wang in second place was also a surprise considering I’ve never heard anyone speak of him positively.

[houseofclamp]

[pinkrosealice]

CLAMP's legacy as originally starting from doujinshi circles is really fascinating and makes a lot of sense when you understand that a lot of their manga are just straight up loose adaptations or spiritual reinterpretations of some of the most iconic pieces of 20th century japanese fiction, especially literature.

In many ways a lot of their storytelling is best described as "derivative" but I don't really like using that word because it has such a negative connotation. I think CLAMP's genius is actually their ability to iterate on the themes and ideas and character types and other inspirations that they derive from, especially in their ability to translate those elements to a visual/aesthetic format and to add themes of queerness into those stories or highlight the already present elements of queerness.

Like Tokyo Babylon is inspired by Teito Monogatari (and also Peacock King but that in of itself is a subject for a whole other post). And it's not just limited to the quick one-off comedic reference to Yasunori Katō that we see in the beginning of the manga. The title itself is a reference to the first manga adaptation of the Teito Monogatari. And that title choice for the adaptation was itself probably a combination of a deliberate reference to the Book of Revelation which was culturally relevant in Japan at the time for reasons I'll explain in a little bit, as well as the fact that the author of Teito Monogatari based Katō in part on Aleister Crowley. But Teito Monogatari and Tokyo Babylon are fundamentally stories about the exact same subject matter, that is the City of Tokyo itself.

X aka X/1999 is pretty self evidently a loose adaptation of the Digital Devil Story novels, the ones that would go on to be adapted loosely into the Megami Tensei video games. An apocalyptic battle for the fate of the entire world fought in Tokyo between two ideologically opposed groups of super powered beings, one of which is literally called The 7 Angels. There is a magic sword associated with the death of a female loved one, there are references to a whole bunch of religious and occult concepts from both the east and west, and one of the key locations for the plot is an elite private high school. X and DDS/ Megaten are both quintessential examples of media born from the Japanese Occult Boom. Bad Japanese translations of the prophecies of Nostradamus in the '70s that inspired the Book would become mixed with the social and economic chaos that was the Japanese asset price bubble and other late stage capitalist nonsense and then the financial collapse in the '90s is why you have in both Tokyo Babylon (and by extension the manga adaptation of Teito Monogatari) and X this weird obsession for the Book of Revelation in a ostensibly non-Christian cultural zeitgeist. Tokyo was both "Babylon" as in Rome or any sort of other hypothetical city / civilization that represented decadence and degeneration, and it was Tel Megiddo in the sense that it was the place where the end of days and the battle heralding the Apocalypse would commence.

And then Gate 7 is literally just one of dozens upon dozens of fanfic/ rip-off / adaptations of / works inspired by Makai Tensho which came out in the '60s and sort of is kind of the cultural grandfather of novels like Digital Devil Story, Teito Monogatari and the Onmyoji series. It's the modern source of basically every piece of Japanese pop culture that treats the notable historic figures of the Warring States Era as more than just badass warriors but literal demigods, sorcerers and super powered beings. Mirage of Blaze(which also has some pretty clear inspirations from Tokyo Babylon and it sort of exists in a trifecta with TB and Yami no Matsuei in their relation to the Onmyoji novels by Baku Yumemakura but again, that is the subject for another post), Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara, pretty much all of the Fate series but especially the original Stay Night and especially especially Redline/ GudaGuda and Samurai Remnant, and a whole bunch of fighting games and Ninja OVA'S are all examples of Makai Tensho's influence.

[landofanimes]

CLAMP EXHIBITION (2024)

Merchadise: Arcana Card collection, 50 cards (3 per pack)

Features 17 out of 23 titles in the exhibition!

RG Veda / Man of Many Faces / Tokyo Babylon / Duklyon: Clamp School Defenders / X/1999 / CLAMP School Detectives / Magic Knight Rayearth / Miyuki-chan in Wonderland / Wish / Cardcaptor Sakura / Clover / Angelic Layer / Chobits / xxxHolic / Tsubasa RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE- / Kobato. / Gate 7

[quark-nova]

Exact same vibes

[wgm-beautiful-world]

ISHTAR GATE - IRAQ

[wineredsea]

rip minthara she would have loved lady gaga

[obsoletegleam]

Smash Hits (UK) 1996

Issue 446, 3rd January - 16th January 1996 Issue 447, 17th January - 30th January 1996 Issue 448, 31st January - 13th February 1996 Issue 449, 14th February - 27th February 1996 Issue 450, 28th February - 12th March 1996 Issue 451, 13th March -26th March 1996 Issue 452, 27th March - 9th April 1996 Issue 453, 10th April -23rd April 1996 Issue 454, 24th April - 7th May 1996 Issue 455, 8th May - 21st May 1996 Issue 456, 22nd May - 4th June 1996 Issue 457, 5th June - 18th June 1996 Issue 458, 19th June - 2nd July 1996 Issue 459, 3rd July -16th July 1996 Issue 460, 17th July - 30th July 1996 Issue 461, 31st July - 13th August 1996 Issue 462, 14th August - 27th August 1996Issue 463, 28th August - 10th September 1996 Issue 464, 11th September - 24th September 1996 Issue 465, 25th September - 8th October 1996 Issue 466, 9th October - 22nd October 1996 Issue 467, 23rd October - 5th November 1996 Issue 468, 6th November - 19th November 1996 Issue 469, 20th November - 3rd December 1996 Issue 470, 4th December - 17th December 1996 Issue 471, 18th December - 31st December 1996

At Smash Hits Remembered

[satanicspeaks]

Witnessing Anderson Dawes elaborately lie about Holden to all OPA representatives is beautiful as it is hilarious

[dadaonice]

The Ishtar Gate in the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

[derekscorner]

They gave me the Gate of Babylon! (lite) They have no idea what power trip they've just sent me on.

[pluckingstarsoffmoontrees]

So, for those not in the know, there’s a unified CLAMP discord with channels for all their works, even really obscure ones from the eighties, and all adaptations of their works.

If you’re a fan of CLAMP, I really encourage you to join this, and the link below is set on No Ending and No Limit Usage so you can share it as many times as you want.

[houseofclamp]