#I have a lot more thoughts about this but considering my theme analysis is reaching 5k words I think I can save it for later | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

lucabyte · 3 months ago

Note

i'm so curious about your character gender reads now tho 👀👀

(You enter the kitchen and see me, eating shredded cheese out of the fridge by the handful)

(I turn around to face you.)

Hi. Do you want me to sell you on amab NB Siffrin? I'm going to try and sell you on amab NB Siffrin. And maybe even a little bit of tranfem siffrin and/or loop. as a treat. just for you.

So, (I put the cheese back in the fridge.)

This read of mine comes from a number of things, a lot of them to do with the game's themes, and to do with Siffrin being a narrative foil to the other characters. And Vaugarde as a whole.

(READMORE WARNING: THIS IS LIKE 6K WORDS LONG. YOU ALL SHOULD KNOW BY NOW I DON'T MAKE POSTS WITHOUT UNCONSCIOUNABLE AMOUNTS OF EVIDENCE AND EXPLANATION. IF ANYTHING I'M BEING RESTRAINED HERE. THUMBS UP.)

(Pre-readmore note: this is in response to me having given an analysis of how I personally percieve Sifloop in relation to asexuality and shipping. Which you can look at here. (x))

It is however, not what my like, no-holds-barred no-rules just-for-me headcanon for Siffrin would be. (which is intersex 'head empty no thoughts' siffrin, for the record). This is instead my close-reading-of-the-text-and-themes interpretation of Siffrin. This is why I'm gonna be saying Read and not Headcanon, to distinguish the two. (Anything I consider a little bit too much of a stretch vis a vis interpretive hard reads I will call a headcanon. But those are for the last bit of this post.)

Unlike *gestures at mass media* All That… ISAT is already packed to the gills with queer rep, to the point where I feel no need to grasp at straws and make overextended reaches into obviously unintended subtext. Like with, y'know, most media. Since here, the subtext isn't unintended. Like this isn't a Transfem Metal Sonic or Aroace Ash Ketchum situation where I know none of the evidence is on purpose and I'm just having fun making a conspiracy theory pinboard out of it. This is like… There's intentionality there. And I want to engage with it on its level, see what the text itself suggests. It's my personal preferred method of expressing deep respect to a text. (Not that it has to be anyone else's, obviously. This is just my way of showing I love a work.)

So yeah, I am, in general, very interested in hearing hard-fought arguments when it comes to interpreting texts. I'm glad ISAT has a lot to pick at here, and so, I will. (and since not a lot of texts ever have anywhere near this kind of depth in this arena, i don't wanna squander it… i'll try and keep my own biases as in check as i can, and already have done by hashing quite a bit of this interpretation out with two people of very different gender identities to mine. To put it mildly, binary-aligned or transfem I am very squarely Not.)

(Now that the cheese bag has been removed from the equation, I drop this framing device, sit you down at the table and begin to dredge up evidence from below it.)

Okay, so. What are my like… Core reasonings here? I think I can split it into three categories. Broadly, with an amount of overlap, so bear with me…

SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.

SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.

SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.

Okay so up top I'm going to split my argument for Siffrin's gender identity Present and Future here. This means, for now, I'm arguing for AMAB NB Siffrin alone. The transfem stuff is for later (and more for loop, in my mind, too).

I have a few direct observations of the text here that set things up. Here are the things in-game that make me assume that Siffrin, as of the start of the game, has not yet undergone any radical change to their identity in their life. Not on purpose, at least. These are ordered in a messy but logical flow, so uh, try and keep up. I'll synthesise at the end. I Prommy.

SIFFRIN AS A FOIL AND CONTRAST TO MIRABELLE, ISABEAU AND THE CHANGE RELIGION AS A WHOLE.

CHANGE & THE UNIVERSE: PERCEIVED OPPOSITES

When interacting with most objects in the Changing Room in the house, they express a genuine curiosity toward body craft. It seems they are legitimately unfamiliar with it on a deeper level than having simply heard of it.

Despite this curiosity (explicitly stating they've previously wondered about it), they dismiss it as too much work early on in the game. These points combined seem to suggest to me that they have never previously sought out any kind of real change to their appearance or identity. Either for gender reasons, or other body dysmorphia reasons. (Which, despite the dismissal, they do refer to their body as a 'meat prison', which is not particularly positive) However...

This changes in Act 3. In acts 3 and 4 they flatly state: "You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now." While still never spoken aloud, their declining mental state corrosponds with a worn-down, almost nihilistic reckoning with the feelings they masked with the 'meat prison' joke in act 2.

[Image: Interactions with the change craft textbook in acts 2 and 3/4.]

In talking to Mirabelle, they are very self assured that one can stay the same/be comfortable with their born identity. They also seem a little unsettled by the change religion's flippancy in general, which makes sense, as they have been clinging to the famliar (even when painful) to cope with other traumas. (More on this later, section 2)

The Universe Faith appears to heavily disincentivise Wanting for oneself and other expressions of Free Will due to safeguarding against Wish craft. This seems to have impacted Siffrin's mental state majorly, even if they do not recognise it. The followers of the faith are (if Siffrin is to be believed) incentivised to 'go with the flow' and take paths of least resistance, and those that DO make big decisions will tend to justify things as being The Universe's Will. (See: The King's entire Modus Operandi, and the way Loop (and Siffrin) do the same rote actions, constructing worldviews (the play analogy, the Universe's Will) and justify that as what the Universe Would Want (despite a total lack of evidence to prove as such)) As such, it seems as if a follower of this faith as neurotic as Siffrin would be unlikely to act upon any Wants to Change Themselves without a lot of turmoil and backwards-justification. (Of note, Loop's forcible change coinciding with a dropping of pronoun. But that is again for later, section 3) As of the start of the game, they do not appear to have broached this kind of turmoil directly.

[Image: Act 5 interaction with the star journal, emphasis on it being a cautionary tale against reckless usage of wish craft, instilled so deeply to be a children's bedtime story]

Siffrin, in act 5, grows frustrated with both The Universe and The Change God, feeling abandoned by the former. They struggle with simultaneously anthropomorphising the Universe as a cruel onlooker, while also seemingly acknowledging them as a cold, almost scientific fact of nature. This would heavily imply that the 'blame' put upon the Universe by Siffrin in these moments is known to them, at least a little, to be potentially meaningless. It seems that somewhere in Siffrin's belief system is something, be it the core or merely a creeping worry, that the Universe is not a thinking, feeling, thing. And thus that their invocations of "The Universe's Will" are merely rationalisations of random chance and consequence. This is in DIRECT contrast to the Change God, proven to be an emotive sapient entity, who merely refuses to offer a helping hand. (Similar sentiments are, too, spoken by the Change God itself.)

[Images: Interacting with the window in the observatory in act 5, text from the change god meeting]

So. These are the bulk of my observations when it comes to how Siffrin is positioned in contrast to the Change Belief. It would seem to be that Siffrin, inkeeping with their role as an outsider, is a complete fish out of water in Vaugarde's change-centric world. This makes sense! It makes them a compelling foil to the Vaugardians in our cast, and allows the Vaugardians to challenge Siffrin's worldviews merely by existing. It also, more importantly, makes Siffrin an interesting lens through which to inspect our two most Change-driven characters. Mirabelle and Isabeau.

MIRABELLE.

Mirabelle and Siffrin's differing faiths are put on display the most frequently. Interactions like the circle key and the party's disbelief of Siffrin's facts about the stars make this clear. These interactions other Siffrin from the group further, and are another avenue through which Siffrin can ignore their own needs, not communicating with the party and allowing them to dismiss things he deems important.

Obviously, the friendquest is primarily about Mirabelle's struggle with her aromanticism and asexuality. But there's an implicit undercurrent of gender there too. Mirabelle has never made a big change, not like Isabeau. She has never 'changed completely', by her words. And Siffrin distinctly finds this an odd thing to be worried by. Whatever culture he carries has no pressure to explore these avenues, it seems. Siffrin is able to help her by sharing their honest opinions, that he's never felt the need to change these things, and he's happy (allegedly). Why should she?

[Image: Mirabelle's friendquest text] Siffrin is not thinking particularly hard when he first does the friendquests, they are just being themselves. By positioning Siffrin as this unchanged yet confident object, they are in the perfect position to help Mirabelle by being in her almost exact position, both sexuality and transgender status (albeit, with the caveats of potential alloromanticism, and a they pronoun), that they become her ideal foil. (And in fact, the subtle differences between their positions in canon add to this, showing a display of Perceived Genuine Truth, rather than simple in-group camaraderie)

Whereas…

ISABEAU.

When Mal du pays speaks as Isabeau, it says the following;

"I don't want to know someone who won't even try to change, who luxuriates in things staying the exact same like you do."

I don't want to know someone - Shame of being known, that's Isabeau's insecurity. Reflected back at Siffrin, who has become the worst thing imaginable to each of their friends, in Siffrin's own mind. He absorbs their insecurities like a sponge and incorporates them into himself. Empathy turned ill.

Who luxuriates in things staying the exact same - Now THAT'S interesting. This is not Isabeau's insecurity, it's Siffrin's own. But also, it appears as if, Siffrin, whom to Mirabelle was unflappable in that not changing was alright, has internalised some of her worry. That it is MDP's Isabeau saying this, though, shows this is about Personal Change, perhaps even Specifically Gender and Self Image, rather than Mirabelle's spiritual side.

Isabeau and his distinct change in personality and gender, to become someone who he actually likes… Diametric to Siffrin, who has been stagnant for a long time, presumably as far as they can remember. It would seem to imply they have no recourse against this argument. Siffin becomes, in his mind, the opposite to Isabeau, a man he deeply admires the bravery of when told the story of his Change. These are Siffrin's words against themselves, that they consider themselves to have never even 'tried' whatever it is they think Change to be.

So. These are my main points vis a vis: Siffrin as a foil. This reading would posit that Siffrin's He/They status is, well, almost accidental? Which I would imagine befitting of them. They are, at the start of the game, still the mysterious rogue who never elaborates upon anything. They aren't going to be correcting a they/them from a teammate who is likely far more cautious about assumptions.

Notably, Mirabelle excludes Siffrin from the label "man" in the bathroom monologues… But as does Siffrin when in the prologue poem room. Though one needs remember, Siffrin only expresses these thoughts internally.

[Image: Bathroom conversation featuring Isabeau identified as the party's singular man]

[Image: Prologue!Siffrin expressing that they are not a man in very certain terms.]

While I do wonder what Mirabelle's knowledge (or lack thereof, potentially! Did Siffrin actually divulge this to her, once? Or is she making assumptions again?) is here, this is pretty clear evidence that Siffrin doesn't see themselves As A Man. (that, and Adrienne's word of god "fella" comments). I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this… but.

The thesis here is, that Siffrin may want to explore their gender further; doesn't feel connected to Masculinity, and yet, keeps that He pronoun around? Well, the Universe does not, in Siffrin's mind, really allow for personal wants and desires. If their friends start they/themming them, then cool. They like it, but never requested it, so it's the Universe's will. But, asking? Making decisions and requests and rocking the boat? That seems to scare Siffrin a lot. It seems to scare them so much it causes a lot of, if not all of, the conflict in the game. I feel like it's a fair deduction that this aversion to humour their own desires pervades a lot of their existence.

Plus, I think there's meat there. By only allowing Siffrin to reckon with any potential desires to change only after growing closer with the family, you get to explore things like "How does Mirabelle feel that even the person who said she didn't have to change is changing." and the slightly less potentially harrowing (OR MORE, IF YOU WANT IT TO BE? IDK. I'M NOT YOUR BOSS.) "Isa's continued changing allows Siffrin a space to explore it, maybe even just by proxy, or maybe by joining them."

But mostly, this section is about how Siffrin not having Changed Yet makes them delightfully strong narratively; allowing them to relate to Mirabelle, and get cold feet when comparing themselves to Isabeau. I love this as a narrative strengthener. It's very rare in media that we get to explore a nonbinary character's thoughts and insecurities on whether or not they're "doing enough" to be nonbinary. Even less so Aligned nonbinary people. And reading that alignment and insecurity through the lens of a nonbinary person not fully disconnected from their assigned gender at birth? It's a very compelling exploration of a very common and raw and yet underdiscussed feeling, much like the rest of ISAT. I think this is an extremely potent element should it be read this way, and is only strengthened when taking Siffrin's other themes into account.

Speaking of which.

2. SIFFRIN'S HABITS OF CLINGING TO 'KNOWN QUANTITIES', SCAPEGOATS, AND THEMES OF RACIAL IDENTITY INTERSECTING WITH GENDER IDENTITY.

HOLDING ON TO WHAT YOU KNOW. (OR KNOW THAT YOU DO NOT.)

I explained above many of my thoughts on the Universe Faith, and trying to keep these two sections separate was difficult, but needed to be done for the sake of clarity. But this section and the above are deeply intertwined.

Siffrin… Holds on to the things they know. They do not know much. But man do they fucking hold. And yet, paradoxically, they are also avoidant about it.

It is made clear in the text, to the point where I really don't feel the need to rehash it here, that Siffrin's disconnection from their homeland is incredibly painful, but that they consider that culture utterly and irreplaceably important to them. They cannot face it, it is too painful. They cannot let it go, it is too important.

Knowing what we know of the Island's irl inspirations (though, word of god, the exact location is not supposed to matter, one can infer it from the text (and I did! within reasonable proximity!)), Siffrin is of an indigenous peoples of some description, more than likely. And at the very least, Siffrin carries with them inherent biases and ignorances that show that Vaugarde's conceptions of things don't quite mesh with their own. Bowing to the Vaugardian way of things could very easily be seen as assimilation, in this way.*

And identity? Gender? Presentation? Role? All of that has a cultural element. There's no telling what specifics Siffrin has lost in that arena, and that's the problem. Neither do they. How paralysing, the feeling, to know that should you change yourself you risk unknowingly erasing another piece of home? I wouldn't blame them for locking it off. Keeping their old clothes, keeping what little they can remember of themselves… It doesn't seem to me a conducive or safe mental space to get experimental.

And the Universe makes for a perfect scapegoat. As referenced in the section above, a lot can be justified should you call it "The Universe's Will", because who's there to call you on it? Hardly anyone. Your divine right to Freeze A Place In Time; Your Deserved Punishment for Wanting to be Loved: All of it the Universe-- If you want it to be. And thusly, if the Universe wanted you to be a certain way, wouldn't you already be? Wouldn't it make you so? (Wouldn't it take away your body, that which makes you human? If that is what it thought of you?) So best to put it out of your mind. Wouldn't want to accidentally wish anything.

But as the game itself puts it, personified by The King, you cannot stay mired like this forever. As Loop themselves puts it, they can "get so fixated, sometimes." At some point they need to allow themselves to grow in whatever direction they need, because in the end, they need to live their life. They don't need to abandon their country, their culture, but they can't let it restrain them either.

(* MASSIVE CAVEAT: im white as fuck boyyy. i cant say shit. im like technically Of The Land im like 90% pictish or something ridiculous like that so my particular line has never moved anywhere but. this is notttt something i have input or insight on. this is all gleaned from reading and listening to indiginous perspectives from wherever they may be. i am simply trying to infer from what the game gives us without inserting my own feelings on the matter.)

3. SIFFRIN, LOOP, DE-PERSONING, DEHUMANISING, APATHY AND SURVIVAL.

Alright, here's some less heady and purely-thematic points to round things out. And where we'll also address the fucked up star being in the room; Loop.

My last couple of reading points are the most potentially-transfem to me. Or at least the ones that really hammer home, to me, a seeming lack of want to be masculine-aligned.

ANOTHER NOTE ON THE 'NOT A GUY' THING.

Obviously, there is the aforementioned "Not a man/not that you're a boy" thing. This is rather straightforward, but also still pretty ambiguous. You can be masc-aligned and still Not A Guy. But it does seem to be of note that being a guy very much does not seem to be a goal of Siffrin's. I would posit this in direct contrast to… Isabeau.

But not Isabeau's masculinity. I would instead hold it up against Isa's femininity.

ISAT, as a text, has its characters have genuinely different levels of security in their gender identity, and Isabeau, despite still having insecurities, seems super chill on the gender angle specifically! Their internal strife comes not from their 'not feeling like a man enough' or 'hating being a woman', but instead from their self perception as a friendless nerd! Something that seems to be only tangentially related to Isa's gender, really?

The big dumb bruiser thing is certainly aided by being a dude, but Isa still seems completely comfortable referring to themselves with feminine language, calling himself a "mother hen" (prologue) and having "the heart of a fair maiden" (cookie snack time). (However, they also take being excluded from Mira's girly book club as a surprised compliment, implying they weren't expected to be excluded, and find it affirming.) And even further so, Isa states they want to continue changing further and exploring their identity more, being rather blatant that they might lean back into femininity (and more importantly, let themselves be outwardly smart again), since they're starting to feel hurt by everyone assuming they ARE genuinely stupid.

[Image: Prologue Isa calling himself a mother hen]

And man, this is such a breath of fresh air vis a vis representation. I don't think I really need to explain that. A character who's gender identity is driven by chasing euphoria, even if it started out by trying to drive out misery. Isabeau's character is so damn good. But this essay isn't about him, so get back in the crate, boy.

... So here we have Isa, who is genuinely comfortable reclaiming things about their birth gender, and Mirabelle who loves her traditionally feminine traits to the point where she feels a little guilty that she isn't rejecting them to foster change. And then we have Siffrin… who seems to reject masculine language…? Hrm… (… And then we have The King. A Masculine Title. Someone who Siffrin increasingly sees themselves in and deeply, deeply dislikes this.)

APATHY AND SURVIVAL

It should be clear by now that I see Siffrin's core character as being driven by avoidance and survival. This seems to lead to a lot of apathy, brushing off emotions that are too intense or events and occurences that are too painful. (See: just absolutely everything with Bonnie)

It's all Siffrin really seems to be able to do to Survive. They've travelled, seemingly alone, for what would be around a decade by what the game says about the island's disappearance. They've lived alone on the road as a traveller in a country that so openly welcomes strangers that THE KING and his whole motives can happen. Siffrin is avoidant and refuses to acknowledge problems or strive for help and comfort.

So. That line about the dress. Let's unpack the line(s) about the dress.

THE DRESS LINE, AND THE WAY IT CHANGES BETWEEN PROLOGUE, ACT 2, AND ACT 3.

Good god where to start with this. Full disclosure, the first draft here was way more vague in how I approached this line because I remembered it (and another line, I'll get to it.) way more tame, but going and getting the screenshots..... Siffrin. Buddy. We gotta unpack this.

In act 2, we have "You haven't worn a dress in forever!". This is a neutral, if seemingly a little joyous statement. All we really glean from this is the information that Siffrin at some point, wore 'a' dress. No real inferences there. (Maybe you could say that the singular as opposed to plural makes it more likely that they borrowed/only owned One Dress rather than owned several? But that's a massive stretch...)

Then, act 3/4 shuffles this off into a more general "You wonder if you'll ever wear different clothes again." Which is a more despairing and distant statement. Considering Siffrin seems to travel with only the items they can carry, and owns sleep clothes... It's unclear how many changes of clothing they have. The party seems to consider the cloak a pretty permanent fixture, anyhow. But this line doesn't really say much aside from 'oh god i'm losing myself to the time loop malaise'

NOW THE PROLOGUE. Prologue Sif, buddy, pal, Loop, if I'm allowed to call you that....

Thousands of loops in. We are wistful for specifically dresses. You've forgotten almost everything. You dream about someday seeing the sun again. To be anywhere but here. You want to wear a dress again.

I. Kind of do not know what to do here but point at it. Like I said, my first draft had me half-remembering the progression of this line and as such I was far more vague on what I thought it could imply. Instead this is just straight up yearning.

To, try and segue back to what I had initially written, we'll pick up here...

Siffrin expresses a want to wear other clothes, explore changing their body... But instead, they wear a ratty old form-covering cloak that keeps them warm and safe and is a last reminder of home. They are shapeless, formless, hiding their face under the brim of a wide hat. They do not voice their desire to wear a dress aloud. They once again, keep a desire to themselves, because they do not allow themselves to want publicly. Apathy is safer. Apathy and quiet means you do not risk retribution or hurt.

While I do not think the above is exclusively a transfeminine feeling, it really, really reads like one when taken part and parcel with assuming Siffrin has denied themselves prior exploration.

... And here I have to break my first draft again. I was being, once again, restrained in my reading when writing this. Because I had convinced myself I had maybe straight up imagined one of the lines I was basing my reads on, because I couldn't find it. Because it was a line that read so strikingly desolate to me that my brain had slotted it in during Act Five, meaning when I went looking for it neither me nor my friends could find it.

It's in acts 3 and 4. It's a line I already brought up.

"You're thinking about crafting your body. You seem to have all the time in the world now."

good fucking christ. sorry to break the academic tone but Jimminy Fucking Willikers, Siffrin. What's with that bit. The resignation and despair and guilty comfort we know the timeloop brings them, bleeding into the gender.

This. *taps my finger harshly on my desk* THIS, this feels transfem. this feels so wildly transfem to me. The knowledge that they've never changed before this line lends. The admission that they've been holding back because it's 'too much work'. I spent a lot of time during the game relating Siffrin not to myself but to my friends.

If I'm honest, really, truly, I'm not all too often in Siffrin's shoes. I'm the stable one, of my group. I'm the rock people ground themselves on. And I see so much hesitance, all the time. Denial of joy because what if it's taken away, again? Or futilely out of reach? It hurts more to try, and to fail, than to never try at all.

I wanted to shake Siffrin by the shoulders this whole game. Grit teeth beg them to accept help because for fuck's sake people are clearly offering it get it through your skull--

*coughs* Ah. Ahem. Right. The uh, academic tone.

Right. What I mean to say is, this read as transfem to me because of the way it relates to real-world experiences of denial. And this combo of the Dress line, and the progression of the Meat Prison line, the constant evidence of never having strived for what they want, and that insistance that you're not a man, seem to dislike being percieved as a man, but not being able to shed the outward signifiers?

Individually, yes, these points can be read in different ways. The total opposite ways, even, I'm sure! But as a gestalt it feels really, really transfem. Even if yeah, sure Vaugarde is a magical setting where being transgender is accepted, and this hesitance, specifically, around gender, might not 'make sense' in 'the lore'...

Diegesis isn't everything. Sometimes something that reflects a real-world feeling is important, even if it doesn't 'mesh' with 'the lore' of the world.

TANGENT: DIEGESIS AND READING INTO NON-REAL-WORLD-SETTINGS.

This is a Watsonian vs Doylist spectre that's been haunting this whole argument. In-universe (Watsonian), Vaugarde has seemingly no discrimination between genders, sexualities, and a lackadaisical approach to most things in the arena. Reading our own patriarchal/heterosexual/amanonormative/perisexist society unto it does not make sense, not in this context.

In the real world, however (Doylist), ISAT is a text made in our prejudiced society. A text that is distinctly flavoured by those bigotries which it is kicking back against. Because of this, it is not the whole story to simply read the text while discarding our real-world-informed inferences. Isabeau is a big example of this. While perfectly accepted in Vaugarde, he is very obviously a revolutionary character in our real-world space! He has so much to say, specifically BECAUSE things about him that are not readily accepted here, are accepted there! Same with Mira's struggles, and yes, Siffrin's too.

ISAT was written with the knowledge of how it would play against our real world in mind, we know this, clearly, from many an interview. This is most present in how it engages with asexuality and aromanticism (and immigrant identity), but make no mistake, it influences the Whole Text.

Ergo, just because I view certain writing choices here in the context of Our Real World Perspectives On Gender and not Vaugarde's In-Universe Perspectives, it does not make them an invalid read. They are simply a Doylist read.

There's been an admittedly loosey-goosey lack of delineation here between things I'm reading with either lens, because for the most part all of these points have been a vague synthesis of both that I can't quite decouple. Unprofessional, I know, but I'll admit to not having written my thoughts down like this in a good long while. Usually I just hash this out verbally over discord voice to a small number of weirdo literature and classics student friends who are willing to humour me. I'm an arts student too, but animation hardly required I actually write an essay to a literature degree's standard. Lol.

DE-PERSONING. AND LOOP. OH JESUS . LOOP .

Siffrin de-persons themselves a lot. I say de-person rather than dehumanise because, well, there's a subtle difference there. Siffrin doesn't see themselves as vermin or an animal or an object, but they do seem to see themselves as lesser, not requiring the respect they grant others. They aren't, you know, a 'real person'.

People get to have things like thoughts and wants and identities. Siffrin is, at best, Just Siffrin. They have what they have and they don't ask for more and they don't (CAN'T) feel too strongly on what they do have!

When Loop at first offers their pronouns they offer the Royal 'We'. This is at least a little bit, a joke. A nudge toward their true identity, a potential dig at themselves for becoming so understanding of The King. Mostly though, a joke on the first thing…. and a sign that they do not see themselves as a separate entity to the Siffrin stood before them.

When Siffrin rejects this, they settle for they/them. Loop drops the he/him, presumably partially to cover their tracks, but… They just showed their hand with the 'Royal We', and if you wanted to go even further with this, there's no way for us to know whether Loop is treating this pronoun as singular or not. They presumably are, but it is still a potentially plural pronoun.

Loop… Clearly does not see themselves as a person. It's, I would say, a completely reasonable assumption that the form they have taken reflects implicit feelings toward themselves as less than a person, an actor, a monster, a tool, a means to an end. They are rendered inhuman by The Universe, frivolous distractions removed. No mouth, inventory and clothes confiscated, nothing between the legs. Formed roughly in the shape of a person to allow them to do their only job: Help.

Loop's body does not make logical sense, given their continued ability to sleep, dream and their continued habit of deep breaths to self-soothe. It would seem to me, it was made in the image it was, with only the tools it needed to Help Siffrin. Why obfuscate their identity? Because giving the game away too early would likely make them lose hope. Why so deeply, thoroughly star themed? An instant signal, that even if a stranger, they are an ally. They are home.

[Image: Loop saying that they take naps and dream, and evidence of Loop habitually attempting to breathe in the twohats lose-to-loop ending]

And they… Degender themselves. No longer with any bodily signifiers of masculinity, and cruelly disallowed the ability to hide themselves beneath fabric, they are null. The spoiler Q&A (paratext, as it were) states that:

Q. Is Loop: 1. Actually comfortable with both he and they, but only gave the one pronoun to emphasize the distance? 2. Only using they/them because a large life event led to a shift in identity/ how they’d like to be perceived? or 3. time lops stole he from they they :( A. Mostly that first one. But all three of those reasons have a bit of truth to them.

While the 'mostly the first one' comment does imply that Loop would not baulk at being he/him'd (similar to how Siffrin does not), the other reasons, especially the second, having 'a bit of truth' does lend credence to this reading. That Loop's self-perception has shifted, and what I posit, is that this shift is in tandem with a disconnection with humanity. Due, presumably, to the dehumanising experience of the timeloop.

Loop has no biology to speak of, and yet they remain blind in one eye. I take this as an implication that they considered this so core to themselves, to who they could remember being, that it stayed. Even if they had forgotten their own face, trapped in a part of the house with no mirrors, they knew they couldn't see. They kept this, and yet seemingly they, or The Universe, or both of them in tandem, discarded all else.

This isn't like…. Healthy behaviour. That is for certain. But it is interesting that Siffrin and Loop seem to hold on to their masculinity by a thread, and that Loop, when actually given the excuse to make a choice, chooses the Neutral Option. Siffrin might de-person themselves, but Loop, Loop is absolutely dehumanising themselves. From Loop's own mouth (or lack thereof) do they call themselves a Corpse. That's… pretty damn bad.

TANGENT 2: POTENTIAL IMPLICATIONS OF THE JAPANESE TRANSLATION.

Did somebody say 'distance'? Yeah turns out that has some more potential evidence. In the form of First Person Pronouns. See, English, with its third person only pronouns relies on others to gender you. Japanese, you get to gender yourself. And Siffrin specifically has an interesting discrepancy in the way he refers to himself.

(DISCLAIMER: I . DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT JAPANESE. THIS IS SECOND-HAND KNOWLEDGE. SOURCED FROM THIS TUMBLR POST AND OTHER QUICK SKIMS OF WIKIPEDIA)

Loop and Siffrin use the same, very neutral "mostly male but could go either way" pronoun of 僕 boku. Safe, soft friendly pronoun. Used by people on the younger side of adulthood, not so impolite that you can't use it in a formal setting. Such a neutral all-rounder that female singers in japan tend to use boku in their songs to relate to the audience with quiet confidence.

And in their internal monologue? Siffrin uses a completely different pronoun. In his head, for himself, he uses 自分 jibun. Now, this may be an artefact of the monologue's english second-person "You", since jibun can also be used to mean a very neutral "self". A "myself/herself/himself" type 'self'. But when used as a first person pronoun, it has a connotation of being… distant, introspective. Which is… a fascinating implication, if that was the intent.

But I don't know anything about japanese so ! If I'm off the mark, discard this!

LOOP, PART 2: MAYBE NOT A GREAT STATE TO BE IN.

While Siffrin I can comfortably argue that they can like, keep their current gender presentation, whatever you may perceive it to be, once the game is over, Loop, I cannot.

Siffrin's potential issues with their identity are ones that honestly feel like they would best be explored with gentle refinement and searching. They don't need to violently seperate themselves from what they are now, far from it, in fact. They need to learn to grow comfortable in their own skin, and with the people they love. To become open and trusting, with an open mind to where it may lead.

Loop has already lost this battle. They don't get to refine anymore, just pick up the pieces. While I don't necessarily think radical change is Good for Loop, I think they may Need It. For them, resting will probably become stagnation (see: napping all day under the tree, resigned, really, to the idea they're stuck there forever.), they need a shake-up in order to re-find their feet. Even if they end up right back where they started, they still need to do the actual painful process of soul-searching first.

Problem is, they're still rather avoidant. So it basically becomes a question of getting them into a situation where this exploration is forced upon them. At which point, that's a whole new plotline. This becomes fanfiction. Hence, why while I think Transfem-Egg Loop is a Valid Read when extrapolated from Siffrin… I must concede any actual adventures into them acting upon that as headcanon territory. I just do not know how you would get them there without making a whole new Thing, at which point it stops being Just A Read of the text haha. It doesn't help that Loop and Siffrin (grudgekeepers supreme) both have reason to spite the Change God after who was phone.

As for whether this egg-read reflects directly back on to Siffrin? Maybe! They are the same person. But I think that, especially with Vaugarde's lax views, and their actual differences (Loop's general worse mania // Siffrin's incentive to stay a reminder to themselves and Loop of their country) means they could easily go two different routes, along the road to becoming their own distinct individuals. (And in all honesty, growing into their differences is probably the more healthy option in the long run if you're keeping Loop around? But again, we are going so far into the future here this is no longer a read. And I am not here to dispense baseless headcanons without massive disclaimer, so…)

Tl;Dr:

Siffrin's Survival-Apathy and hesitance to change feels really thematic to their being 'what's left' of their homeland

They seem unsettled by the flippancy of the Change Religion at times, clinging to the familiar to cope with the trauma of displacement.

Mal du pays speaks of them that they have not 'tried' to change, showing an insecurity there, even outside of the literal stagnance of the loops.

They are self assured to Mira that one does not have to change, in a very genuinely personal impulsive statement.

They and others exclude themselves from being "A Man", but Siffrin keeps desires to explore their expression to themselves.

The Universe belief, seemingly in Siffrin's view of it, disincentivises Free Will and Wants very heavily. It is not hard to assume they extend this to all elements of their life.

They have self-admittedly never pursued tangible change, likely due to this aversion to choice. Despite this, they express interest in changing, seeming nonplussed with their body, and house at least some desire for more traditionally feminine expression.

Oh Good God. Loop Sure Does Not Treat Themselves Like A Person. Why Does That Come With A Pronoun Change? What Does That Mean?

But most of all:

It makes them such a fascinating foil and lens to Change and characters who believe in it! It makes them eerily similar to The King! It opens up such fascinating debate between characters like themselves and Mirabelle, Isabeau and Loop, on whether or not they want to change in future, or if it truly is okay to never radically change yourself! What genuinely fertile ground for dialogues. And man if I'm not heavily drawn towards dialogues.

(End of essay! Congratulations for making it the whole way! 🎉 I hope this nightmarish deep dive helps with understanding some of the ways I've been writing Siffrin and Loop too. Since while I've not ever focused on the gender side of it (and probably won't in comic form) this does pervade my view of the two, since it would be impossible for it to Not. As you can see, I do think it is pretty relevant to both their themes.)

(Now for some bonus material)

ADDENDUMS:

PERSONAL BIAS NOTE:

Not included in this analysis since this is more a Pet Theme of my own (usually kept quarantined to the realms of my OCs), but something else I see in Siffrin is a reflection of the Dude Issue(tm) of patriarchal irl society disincentivisng Dudes(tm) from ever fucking introspecting ever.

I'm curious about nonbinary/trans characters who have no idea they’re nonbinary/trans because they’ve been disincentivised from thinking/doubting their identity due to societal power structures or simply tradition. I dig around the themes of “a lot of guys are trapped in a societal prison without ever knowing and it makes them miserable but they can’t escape because they don’t even see the cage” like, a lot, in my personal work. It intrigues me. So bleh, cards on the table there. That mode of interacting with nb/trans characters is one I'm inclined to.

This kinda goes hand in hand with the watsonian vs doylist situation i took an aside to mention. But it is so far along the doylist side that I didn't want to include it, since it is a little too assumptive of the text for my comfort. I don't think the game necessarily has much commentary on this specific Societal Bind. But if it does, then hey, there's my thoughts on it.

STRAY SIDE NOTES AND HEADCANONS ABOUT OTHER CHARACTERS (AS A TREAT FOR GETTING THIS FAR):

MID-GAME OBSERVATION ABOUT BONNIE AND ODILE THAT I NEVER WENT BACK TO VERIFY:

I got the impression that Bonnie heavily favours they/them pronouns for Siffrin, and Odile he/him, as a bit of presumed character voice. I don't know that I am right, literally at all, in that observation, because it very well could've been confirmation bias.

BUT! It did give me the impression that one of the things Bonnie was idolising about Siffrin was a degree of "wow!! older person with my gender!! wow!!", which is just like, cute. I like it even if I don't have any solid evidence.

ODILE, WHAT'S HER DEAL?:

Oh she stays just as mysterious as she intends to be, huh? Even with her comments in the Changing Room alluding to knowing things about underground changing operations, you can't draw much of a conclusion about her. I appreciate verily that she's word-of-god unlabelled and also poly. That shit's great. Woman who has stopped drawing lines or caring what she's up against. Nice characterisation flavour I think.

Anyway, I do think that transfem Odile is a really, really nice take. I have no evidence in either direction for her in either direction, and her being a woman of any description makes her relationship with her absent mother something interesting to chew on, but the idea that she pursued womanhood intentionally lends an interesting texture. I've not much to say, but it's a thread to pull on. Makes you wonder what other female role models she had in her life instead. Anyway she's mysterious as fuck I can't extrapolate Jack nor Squat. Shrug! I'm also made curious by the idea of her potentially moving away from womanhood as she feels the weight of her history lifted. This goes either way, really. Diagnosis: mysterious.

HEADCANON NOTE: INTERSEX SIFFRIN

I don't have any in-text support for this so this entire thing is an unbased headcanon to me. but i DO like it because 1. fun and 2. potential for more thematic exploration

haha gotcha its fuckin themes again. its always themes with me.

But yeah. Not much to say here besides drawing a parallel (that I believe I've seen drawn elsewhere in the fandom already?) between ISAT's comments on how a society that values change would view Aroace identities, and how Mira feels about not wanting to change with the real world experiences of Intersex people having alteration and conformity forced upon them, saying the Change Belief would likely be just as bad for them as it is for aroace people.

So, adding it to Siffrin's situation further drags them into the opposition-to-change foil role. Which like I said, think has a lot to explore.

HEADCANON NOTE: A POTENTIAL METHOD FOR GETTING LOOP OUT OF THEIR GOD DAMNED COMFORT ZONE

I think utilising Loop's contrarianism is an effective and funny way to get them to explore their gender. I personally think running with them trying to hide their identity from the party is a hilarious way to do it. Having them try to position themselves in direct opposition to Siffrin to "throw the party off their trail" (not that i think they really need to?), going full feminine-revealing-clothing because it's NOT what a Siffrin would do and accidentally growing accustomed to it. Funny to me. Especially when the party eventually do find out who they are and go . "????? what was the girl stuff about ??? is that something you wanna do now ???".

[Isabeau] "Ohhhh it was a bit! Haha you really are Sif, still a jokester!" [Loop] "HAHA YEAH . JOKES. LOVE THOSE. LOVE TO MAKE JOKES!" [Isabeau] "Yep! Anyway. Tell me if you need anything!"

Bonus bonus:

[Siffrin] "Okay, so, if you're a girl. Does this reflect on like… me?" [Loop] "No doubles. Get your own gender, parasite~!"

#oh my god this is like 6k words what happened. well you can't say my claims are unsubstantiated i guess.#lucabytetalks #fuck dude i sure do !!!!#i have to assume a lot of other people picked up on exactly what i did too but i dont read other peoples meta very often so !!#i am simply shaking hands with anyone else who came to this conclusion. hi. sometimes its just fun to construct a small essay i guess #i have like no goal putting this out here other than like. For The Sport of Writing Out Media Analysis. so if it makes anything click #in peoples minds or actually sells them on this reading then that's just a bonus i suppose #in stars and time #isat analysis #isat meta #isat siffrin #isat loop #isat spoilers #2hats spoilers #lucabytewrites #welp. no idea what else to tag this. be free and into the wild my gigantic ass post.#is some of this redundant? probably! but cmon man its a tumblr essay i can't format it perfectly. sometimes points get repeated #anyway this post is lagging out my tumblr drafts now i have to post it oh god oh christ i hope nothing goes wrong #edit: i forgot i made the lucabytewrites tag a while back for purrgatorio this can go in there too

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biocrafthero · 10 months ago

Text

An analysis of WKTD and HWBM in relation to psychology, Christianity, and oppression.

Spoilers for almost all of We Know The Devil and parts of Heaven Will Be Mine (only stuff from when you play as Saturn tho that’s the only character I’ve played as so far)

This post is very much off the cuff so it is quite messy but I really needed to put my thoughts into words, I guess. Hopefully it makes sense, and sorry if there’s any errors!

vvv Analysis under the cut because this post is LONG vvv

Okay because when WKTD said “the devil is the shadow of man cast from the light of god” and when HWBM said that the Existential Threat was just a byproduct of the shadow of humanity cast from gravity (via humanity’s Culture) its like the enemy that humans want to fight is just themselves. The concept of the “shadow self” (also called the id, but I’ll be using shadow instead) in psychology refers to the parts of oneself that does not fully fit in with what society expects of them (Super-ego) and sometimes separately from the true self (Ego), typically leading to rejection of those aspects and self-conflict.

Now, please note that I haven’t 100%’d HWBM but I have 100%’d WKTD, and in that game the true ending results in the main trio all becoming devils and embracing those sides of themselves they’ve been running from for the entire game. The thing I quoted earlier is an actual line from the game said by god, the line following it being “the meaning of this phrase is that there is no devil.” Only through self-acceptance and helping each other alongside ourselves do we really reach the true ending to these stores.

While WKTD leans more towards individuals, HWBM puts more emphasis on the idea of the collective shadow; the story still focuses on individuals, yes, but is very much about the conflict between a humanity that is tearing itself apart over the things that don’t fit the collective image. The main conflicts of the story focuses a lot on that general unrest, and was initially the Existential Threat, but after that dissipated humanity still saw its own shadow, this time in itself. An email you can find in the game even says that “In abandoning Existential Threats to address the threats of our home, it will inevitably result in us turning to conflict between humans one more. And in turn, the Existential Threat will thrive.” The Existential Threat literally feeds on unrest and trauma, manifesting as paranoia and leading humanity to fight it, only for them to find that they were just fighting their own literal shadow.

It’s also important to note that HWBM briefly mentions that the Existential Threat is tangentially related to “their cousins on Earth, and even those are so weak kids with radios can take them out”. This, while it can easily be seen as a nod to WKTD for those who played it, the fact that the reference is super blatant (along with the mention of the Scout programs, likely referring to groups like the Summer Scouts from WKTD) leads me to believe that these two stories exist in roughly the same universe (or at least their worlds do, maybe not the characters present in the stories themselves existing at the same time*). This is for a very specific reason, and it has to do with the themes both of these games are tackling, regarding acceptance of the self, both on an individual and societal level, symbolized by the apple.

Both games reference the apple when talking about the idea of becoming something new, sometimes even beyond humanity. It’s about the embracing of the shadow and all the parts of yourself, seeing yourself as a whole being and accepting all of it. The joy and contentment brought upon yourself by finally letting go of all that repression and division, even if the world around you is going to perceive those parts as scary or ugly. Bad endings in these games are brought about by rejection of the self, which makes sense considering all the themes around queerness and transcending one’s humanity, so obviously and fittingly the true endings focus on healing oneself by accepting all of their aspects as part of the greater whole.

The apple in these stories, especially noticeable in its original thematic incarnation in WKTD, is in reference to the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden from the Bible. Man was forbidden from eating the fruit, but Eve (VERY important to note that the dev studio is named Worst Girls Games btw) is tempted by the serpent (was not originally the devil, but came to be in the New Testament) to eat the fruit, which they do and become aware of themselves. God banishes them from the garden for breaking this rule he set out for them, also punishing the snake in the process due to how it tempted Adam and Eve. This incident is referred to as the “original sin.”

What is interesting about this part of the Bible though is what God says at the end of Genesis 3, right before the banishment actually occurs: “And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’” The specific wording of “become like one of us” in the context of the apple metaphors from the games from Worst Girls Games is super intriguing to me, mostly due to how the idea of becoming something new is super common throughout these stories—becoming the devil in WKTD, and becoming one’s Ship-Self in HWBM.

There’s also the framing of the serpent in these stories, as well. The serpent in modern Christianity is almost always depicted as the devil, tempting humanity away from God throughout almost the entire scripture. In the book of Revelation, the devil is said to have gone to direct war against God and fighting against his angels; “Then war broke out in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fight back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.” These verses can easily be seen in parallel to WKTD, with how the devil forms are said to be unstable and her world more fickle than god’s, and how in HWBM the Ship-Selves are delicately maintained by the Lunar Gravity Well.

But here’s the thing: the framing of the devil in these stories puts it in the position of being correct, with humanity making the right choice to follow it. This may sound strange, almost like villain behavior, until you remember these games deal with themes regarding repression of the self under an oppressive society, which is why these societies tend to be characterized by Evangelical conservative Christianity. Under this lens, alongside the themes of queerness and transcending humanity (rising to the throne of god, in a way), everything begins to click into place. The idea of being forced to live a certain way by a society that hates parts of your very being is killing our main characters, and they want a way out. The personification of the Collective Unconscious (ex: the devil) gives them this out—even if it’s less concrete and stable than the known world (the light), the unknown world (the darkness) is what truly gives our characters the freedom they desire.

They cannot do this alone, however, as we see in the Bible further into the book of Revelation, when the devil is aided by a beast from the sea and a beast from the earth, all three of them holding one another up and emphasizing one another’s’ powers and authorities. This, of course, most likely is reflected in the games in the main trios we play as. While I am still unsure about specifics, I trust you guys enough to understand what I’m getting at here, even if my speculations are likely flimsy at best. Either way, the idea gets across—the true endings for the games can only be obtained if everyone supports one another properly.

The scripture states that the devil does not have long on earth to do what he wishes (“… [The devil] is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”), but that doesn’t stop him from trying at all. When it comes to the games, in WKTD the main trio stay in the cabin only for the night (player choices start at 7pm and the final one is at 1am, 2am onward being the ending you got, so choices go on for 6-7 in-universe hours), and in HWBM they have eight days to get back to earth before humanity declares them to be a threat. In both stories, our protagonists are all under strict time limits to do what they can in order to get the outcome they desire. As it’s said in WKTD, “the devil only ever gets one chance.”

Even though in the Bible the devil is ultimately defeated, in these games it’s the opposite. This is less about the theology they draw from and more having to do with undoing oppressive power structures through solidarity and community support while doing what you can to avoid infighting. Systems of hate and oppression are easily undone, which is why they put in so much work to scare you away from even trying to undo it and make you fall in line; resistance scares oppressors. Of course, resisting is not an easy task, but that’s just part of the work—they don’t call it a fight for no reason, after all.

Accepting all aspects of yourself and embracing that is the first small, yet very important step, to rejecting oppressive systems as a whole, and when society as a whole accepts what the system rejects, that system will inevitably fall, freeing those who are under it. Even though the world that comes after may be more uncertain and unstable that the last one, we still have each other to rely on and a foundation to build something greater and healthier than before.

So, roughly and basically…

Super-ego = God = Culture

Ego = Humanity (consistent throughout both games)

Projection = Light = Gravity

Resistance = Radio = Ship-Self

Shadow (personified by Collective Unconscious) = The Devil = Existential Threat

Acceptance (of the Shadow) = Apple (consistent throughout both games), characterized by devil possession forms and Ship-Selves (Ship-Selves are dual natured like that, I think)

… Or something like that. I dunno, I’m not a psychologist.

Once again, I have seen all of WKTD, so I can say these things concretely about that story. However, I have not seen all of HWBM, so it more so feels like I’m making guesses as to what happens in that one, so just bear with me. I’ll be super hype if I’m correct in my theory/analysis.

*On this note, it is very amusing to me to imagine the WKTD trio as space mech pilots. The idea of the main cast of HWBM having to deal with devil possessions is also very fun :3

Sources for information + screenshots I’m referencing

Wikipedia: Shadow (psychology) (links throughout the article lead to other things I’ve mentioned like the Collective Unconscious)

Bible Gateway: Genesis 3, Revelation 12, Revelation 13 (New International Version)

(from WKTD) (not my screenshot, stole this from my friend) (hi Ash <3) (platonic)

(I don’t have a screenshot of the line that comes afterwards or the line talking about the metaphorical apple in the epilogue of the true ending but I know they’re there. I have it in my brain. I’m too lazy to get a picture of it just trust me I know what I’m talking about trust)

(from HWBM) (screenshots taken by me)

(I don’t have absolutely everything either just work with me here sorry)

#rambles #hwbm #wktd #analysis #sorry guys I had a category 10 autism event and needed to get this out of my system #we know the devil #heaven will be mine

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thelunarfairy · 1 year ago

Note

Holaaa, First of all I want to tell you that I really like your account and your analysis💖Your points of view are very accurate and you give me my daily dose of hananene, so thank you 🫶

Now let's get to my question, it is not new that AidaIro makes "jokes" about Hanako harassing Nene, however this usually reaches strange limits, let's say, that Hanako tells Kou that he has touched Nene's breasts (clearly a lie) wanting to see up her skirt in a final comic of the Guardians of the Clock arc, hinting at her a lot, in another final mini comic he imagines what it would be like Nene if the water won't affect her (She would clearly be naked and he knows it) I even once saw a user of this app talking about how there is a fairly old mini panel drawn with a pencil in which Hanako wants to imitate a scene with Nene from the romantic movie Ghost (a scene that ends in something sexual) and the most famous imagen:

Clearly if you see this scene without having some context you are going to think badly, everyone thinks badly, the link I am leaving you is an analysis in which it is mentioned that eating and sex go hand in hand in the manga.

https://www.tumblr.com/theevilthatismokke/698270204867788800/the-myth-of-sumire-and-hakubo-jshk-chapter-94-and

And so we could continue talking about the many times that Hanako makes advances to Nene, to which I asked myself this, is Hanako sexually attracted to Nene? Maybe my question makes you uncomfortable, so if so, don't answer it :), even I feel bad and uncomfortable asking you this, I would just like to know your point of view, I also analyze these characters.

Many greetings from Mexico ☺️

Aww I'm the one who thanks you for your kindness, I'm very happy that you're enjoying my posts >.<

This answer was a little long, so I'm going to put fewer images to avoid making it twice as long, I'm going to rely on your memory on this one haha

Finally someone asked about this, and I'm immensely happy because it's a subject I've wanted to address for a long time. It turns out that I never really went into depth about it because I didn't know if people would feel uncomfortable.

JSHK has very strong and heavy themes, so I try to be cautious when talking about some things, even if I have theories about the topic. But to be honest, I'm thinking about talking to people about it.

Some of these themes are important to the main plot, and their analysis has a very important outcome for us to draw some conclusions about the characters' behavior, but anyway, returning to your question, let's talk about two of these themes, and one of the most controversial.

Hanako died at age thirteen, but he maintained his consciousness and physical presence for over fifty years. People still debate his mental age today, some say he has a mental age equivalent to the age he died, others say he already thinks like an adult.

Hanako has a duality, he will never be just "one" thing always, he is not just a good boy, but he is also not just a bad boy, I can spend hours exemplifying this, but that is not my intention, making it clear that this applies to most of the characters, so since we're talking about his mental age, this applies too.

He acts like a child, not like Tsukasa, but you still see him playing with toys or playing with other people, Hanako likes to have fun. He also has some childish thoughts about some things and does wrong things like a child. Tsuchigomori is sometimes seen teaching him things, as if he were responsible, like when the boy wanted to sell Tsuchigomori's objects without permission to buy a hat, the teacher teaches him that this is wrong and he understands.

We can clearly see that there is a very childish side to him, but at the same time he also has a more adult side. Let's consider him to be a side younger than an adult properly speaking. Hanako was thirteen years old so he was in puberty, about to leave pre-adolescence and enter adolescence. In fact, sexual desires are common and very latent at this age.

But, we are already talking about two topics, I will separate them so that we can better understand the connection that sex has with hunger.

Let's start by talking about sex.

Hanako clearly has strong and very latent sexual desires, this was made very clear from the beginning, what happens is that the "comic" side of the series leaves this as a situation that is supposed to be "funny" as if it were just a joke. It is common in works to see perverted characters being used as comic relief, but this does not apply to JSHK.

Hanako does indeed have latent desires, the way he acts, the way he behaves and the way he looks at Yashiro is almost always with a lot of desire. Just look at many panels of the manga, the way Hanako looks at Yashiro with desire, as if he was always about to kiss her, the way he is always touching, hugging, putting his arms around her, it's because there is a desire he tries to control.

The face he made when she was touching him

I talk more about his desire in this post here

Make no mistake, Hanako has actually touched her breasts a few times, I talk about that in this post here

Hanako doesn't just feel desire for Yashiro, he has a sexual desire that is natural to him, that is, this desire didn't start because of her. He always walks around or finds some suggestive items.

Erotic books (whether with girls in bikinis or magazines teaching what to do at "the right time" such as the magazine that teaches how to reach your girlfriend's G-spot)

Books teaching how to win someone over (like the one he used to help make Yashiro's wish come true) the book was very worn out, which means he read it very often. This indicates that he was wanting to learn to do it with someone (conquer someone).

The Kokeshi doll.

Let me tell you about this doll. There are some meanings behind it, such as the fact that it is used as an amulet to guarantee the protection of children, but at the same time the doll is also associated with sex and the sexual desire of boys, due to its shape.

On some Japanese sites I found it being linked to use for boys' sexual "relief", if you know what I mean. Not only does Hanako have a kokeshi doll, but he also thinks it's "Sexy." Again, people associated this moment where he says this as comic relief, but the signs are there.

See other examples

So, let's move on to the sexual desire he feels for Yashiro.

When Hanako was a child, he said that Yashiro was his type, that is, he had been attracted to her since that age (even though he was so young). When Nene met him again when he was older, the first thing Hanako did when they formed a bond was flirt with her, and he flirts very often.

His flirtations are different from those we usually see in other works. He always uses touch when he does, and Nene has noticed this to the point of claiming that he sexually harasses her. Do you see that Yashiro herself noticed this? At first Hanako had no criteria, he actually didn't care about touching her or imagining her naked, trying to look under her skirt or watching her take a shower (despite her turning into a fish).

And he didn't care because it was purely physical, he actually felt a strong sexual desire for her, even though she wasn't the only one. Yes, Hanako has also touched Aoi-chan, and even talked about the size of her breasts.

Then, Hanako falls in love with Nene and his way of acting subtly changes. We saw how he was reluctant to go after Yashiro when she went to take a shower with Sumire because he was afraid Yashiro would be mad at him. Do you think he would do this before? Hanako now has feelings for her, so he starts holding back.

Holding back is something that represents Hanako well.

And we see this all the time, the confirmation that he holds so much back came precisely in the chapter on the mokkes of the dead. Hanako doesn't have his normal consciousness, he's letting himself be carried away by his desire, in this case for sweets, but did you notice that he recognized Yashiro's voice when she called him? And the way he "attacks" her is different from the way he attacks Kou. We clearly see the sexual connotation here, Hanako's desire for Yashiro, and he pursues her until the end.

The way he "attacks" Yashiro

the way he attacks Kou

see his eyes of desire in this last panel

In this chapter we see that just by "relaxing" a little, he already tried to fulfill one of his own desires. Hanako already had several opportunities to kiss Yashiro but he was always holding back, he couldn't hold back any longer during their reunion because he hadn't seen her for a long time, because she risked her own life to see him, she saved him from Teru and She still confessed that she loved him. He couldn't hold back any longer and kissed her.

So, I've been thinking about this whole situation and whether Hanako would start putting pressure on Yashiro if they started dating. If Nene is his girlfriend, he'll be able to tease her, right? I was wondering if this possibility could happen and I started to think so after what happened between Hakubo and Sumire.

So, after an intense kiss between the two, would we see Hanako trying to touch Yashiro? Or even succeeding? Nene is not difficult to convince, and she must know that when she wanted to have a boyfriend, sex would be part of the relationship, the question is, how long could Hanako stay before he started wanting to consummate with her?

This is where I start to talk about the second theme, "hunger".

You sent me the link to a post (very good indeed) talking about the relationship between eating and sex, which are directly linked to JSHK, and it actually makes perfect sense. Aidairo made it very clear that this duality exists and the constant use of this metaphor.

That's because sex and hunger have one thing in common, desire

Everything in JSHK is about desire. Make wishes, fulfill wishes, always wishes.

Hunger and Sex are represented by the desire to obtain, to consume, to obtain something at will. Or are you going to tell me that you don't feel pleasure when you can eat delicious food when you're starving?

Eating is a word that actually has a sexual representation not only in JSHK but also throughout the world. I'll give you a personal example here.

In the country where I live (Brazil) the word "eating" is almost a synonym for sex, depending on the context in which you use it. If you say that you desire or want to "eat" someone, the person listening to you will SURELY understand that you are going to have sexual relations with the other person and that you will be the one who will be on top (active). So, if you come here haha, don't use that term because people will interpret it as being about sex.

I want to eat someone is the same thing that I want to have sex with someone. It's a very popular term even though a lot of people hate it (especially women).

I imagine that in other places in the world the word "eating" could be related to sex too, not just here in Brazil.

So back to JSHK, let's talk about hunger. We know that cannibalism is present in the work too, in addition to the extra arts in which the characters are represented as food or something like that.

We see Hakubo and Sumire's relationship, and we have to admit that the moment Hakubo went to "destroy" Sumire, he ate her. It was very obvious and very clear that it was a sex scene.

Obviously not in the most common way, but remember that Aidairo literally uses eating to represent sex itself. This is the most explicit example we have in the work (for now).

So let's move on to another topic, the way supernaturals relate to humans is different, of course it's different. Supernaturals like to devour humans and the way they deal with feelings is different but at the same time similar to that of humans.

Hakubo was a supernatural, he was born that way, and he reflected what was part of his nature. He did it the way he liked, he could have destroyed Sumire in any other way, but he chose to eat her, to consume her.

Do you know who is also a supernatural?

Hanako

Even though he was a human and understands better how relationships between humans work and that he can actually fall in love, he is still a supernatural.

Hanako is also hungry, and the whole time he is next to a kannagi girl, and he said that kannagis are delicious for supernaturals.

Hanako feels desire for Yashiro, he is a supernatural, she is a human with that title, with the blood that supernaturals desire. So, Hanako wants to eat Yashiro?

What if in the end Hanako has to "consume" Yashiro in the same way as Hakubo and Sumire? It's a possibility.

He has to stop himself from doing that. Which brings me to another point that people don't really like to think about

Hanako's relationship with Tsukasa.

Have you ever stopped to think? Tsukasa is Hanako's yorishiro, and if Nene doesn't remove Tsukasa's seal, will Hanako have to "eat" Tsukasa too?

Tsukasa seems to be looking forward to it.

What kind of relationship did these two have?

I won't delve into that now, let's get back to Nene and Hanako.

Their relationship is troubled, not only because he is supernatural and she is human, but also because of the way this relationship develops. There is a supernatural side to dealing with "love" and "desire" that we don't know about, but which is dangerous.

Hanako desires Yashiro in human form (sexual) and also in supernatural form (hunger), he wants her in the same way that Hakubo desired Sumire. Hakubo was supplying both, wasn't he?

It could be the same thing with Yashiro, it will depend on Hanako and how much he can control himself, which side of him will speak louder? the human side or the supernatural side?

This is the question he fears so much, he is afraid of his supernatural side, and the proof of this is the desire he has to remain sealed because he can control himself.

Hanako's human side wants to touch every part of Yashiro's body, wants to take her as a wife, wants to give and feel the purest pleasure with her, but the supernatural side actually wants to consume her, wants to devour her.

Which of these sides will be able to win in the end?

It's like I said, everything always begins and ends with a wish.

Hahaha the answer was longer than it should have been, sorry, but I loved finally being able to talk about it. There are a lot of things I think about these topics, but I'm still thinking about whether I'm going to talk about it or not, I need to know if the public is okay with it.

A big hug to Mexico from Brazil \o/

I hope you liked it, thanks for the ask! ♡

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darksideofthemamon · 8 months ago

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God in Hellblazer vs Lucifer comics

I have a lot of thoughts on the angel characters from Hellblazer/Sandman/Lucifer (basically the DC/Vertigo comics era). I've had them for a long time but I guess I'm only getting to writing about it now. I have a whole essay to write about Remiel from Sandman, but for now, this should do as a warm up.

Though Hellblazer and Sandman are supposed to be in the same universe, it gets really messy with different writers and storylines going in different directions, more so when you include Sandman's spin-offs, like the Lucifer comics and its sequels.

I think one of the most glaring differences is their portrayal of God. God seems... so much nicer in the Lucifer comics (both the Mike Carey (2000) and Holly Black (2016) runs).

And I think a lot of this is caused by the themes of each story.

Hellblazer has some really strong political themes going on, so much that I can't possibly analyze them all. What I do know is that gods/angels/etc in the story tend to represent people in power and privilege. So for example, look at what John says to the archangel Gabriel in the bottom right panel: "You're the ones that make the frigging rules for us, and you don't even understand us!"

In effect, God, as well as the heavenly hosts, tend to be portrayed as jerks.

The Lucifer comics take a different approach. The story's themes tend to gear more towards family, identity, and free will. The protagonist is a really headstrong guy who wants to be free of his omniscient, omnipotent, dad. In his words (upper right panel): "This face is mine. This scar-- is mine. You may not have them. Not without my permission."

Because of the "messed up family" angle, God tends to come off as more well-meaning, but flawed.

Reading the comics together and considering them in the same universe can get jarring when God is so patient with Lucifer, but so damn harsh towards The First of the Fallen and Gabriel.

(and yes I know the Lucifer spin-offs aren't or are dubiously canon, but for this analysis, just consider them canon)

When Lucifer rebels and causes a whole war, God gives him a domain to rule over in order to give His son what he wants: to be away from Him. (top panels)

But when First of the Fallen and Gabriel even step a toe out of line? They get cast out of Heaven in painful, soul-crushing ways. (bottom panels)

And I guess it just ends up coming off as if God has some pretty massive favoritism towards Lucifer?? XD Like wow the Morningstar gets so much leeway, but FOTF and Gabriel get tossed out so fast??

In the end though, it doesn't bother me. I think the dynamic can even enhance the story in fascinating ways.

The story where these 2 portrayals get reconciled is through Gabriel's character in the Lucifer (2016) run by Holly Black.

Gabriel in this run shares a backstory with his Hellblazer self, and though the specific events leading to his Fall were only briefly touched upon, his treatment and relationship with his Father retains those themes of free will and identity, while also portraying God as harsh and tyrannical.

When a God that turned evil tries to take away his free will, Gabriel cries "Get out of my head! I was beyond your mercy before. Now I am beyond your reach."

God tossed him out so mercilessly the first time, so why does He get to control him now?

Gabriel in Hellblazer is a proud snob who views things through a very self-righteous black-and-white lens. It's revealed however, that his Father's strict rules and harsh punishments have left him anxious, guilty, and afraid (especially following an eye-opening interaction with John Constantine).

When he opens up about his problems to Julie (actually a succubus named Ellie) in Hellblazer, she says: "Look at you. What did he do to make you feel so scared and guilty?"

When it's revealed in Lucifer (2016) that Gabriel killed God, Lucifer says: "Our Father turned His back on you. And you were so angry. You've been angry for so long."

The Lucifer (2016) comic manages to show God through the lighter lens while also acknowledging his harsh treatment of Gabriel.

And we see this in Gabriel's character. In Hellblazer he's nervously looking over his own shoulder, in Lucifer (2016) he's proudly passion's fool.

And while we're talking about Gabriel, his self-actualization arc is one of the main reasons I love Holly Black's run despite its flaws!

I love how they continued his story from Hellblazer. There's a story about a guy living under his strict father's thumb who fell from grace when he was cast out, then got back up with the help of family and friends who support him. It says something that by the end of the story, he no longer works for Heaven but instead for Hell, serving under Mazikeen who acknowledged him at his lowest. He also gains his wings and heart back-- the former from Lucifer and the latter from Raphael, his brothers.

That's all I have to say XD. This was just supposed to be an observation but I ended up talking about Gabriel lol

#vertigo angels #sandman comics #lucifer comics #hellblazer #lucifer morningstar #first of the fallen #gabriel #analysis #just my thoughts

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foreststarflaime · 5 months ago

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So continuing the analysis of Genesis (and the rest of ff7 consequently) through a Homeric lens from this post because I cannot get it out of my head

I was doing research on the Iliad and was reminded of the huge influence the theme of choice has on the narrative—

“If I remaining here besiege the city of the Trojans, my homecoming is lost, but my glory (kleos) will be imperishable—but if going homeward I reach my own fatherland, good glory is lost for me, there will be life for me for long, and death’s end will not reach me swiftly.”

-Achilles, Iliad 9.412-16, my own translation

Achilles has the choice between becoming a hero and living a quiet but happy life in the Iliad. Not all homeric heroes have to make this specific choice, but I think considering other themes as well that Genesis is definitely an Achilles figure.

The realization that started me down a spiraling path that prompted me to post this was that I think Genesis was also operating under the assumption that he was an Achilles figure, and therefore that he (and the other SOLDIERs for that matter) had this same choice. He thinks that he chose to leave Banora, therefore forsaking a quiet normal life, to become a hero; and he did, but it’s also a lot more complicated than that, especially from his perspective.

When he finds out about his origins in Project G, and especially when he finds out he’s dying, he feels the true weight of his choice in that dilemma for the first time. He has no way out now, he’s locked into the path of glory and death, and he doesn’t even really feel he got the fame he should have with it. Sephiroth definitely got the fame, but you don’t see him degrading (he’s definitely got his own stuff going on, but I don’t think Genesis was really thinking about that).

But I think what hurts him even more than that is that he sees Project G being one of the foundations of SOLDIER and then he sees himself returning to SOLDIER years later, and he sees the threads of fate binding him to this doomed path, with Shinra pulling the strings of his entire life, and he sees that he never really had a choice, and that’s why it hurts him so deeply (one of the many reasons, at least).

Also (and I mentioned this a little before) I think something prompting his jealousy is that he projects this choice theme over Sephiroth, when really Seph never had the choice, not even the illusion of it like Genesis had. He even says to Glen and to Genesis later on in Nibelheim that he would chose the normal life over undying glory, but by then it’s too late for an understanding; too many lines have already been crossed and they’re all trapped in the loom of fate.

The real tragedy of all this is that they didn’t have a choice, none of them did. They should have. Genesis should have been able to choose, like Achilles, but he wasn’t. There may have been some stuff with Achilles’ choice ‘fulfilling the will of Zeus’ or whatnot but I honestly don’t remember at the moment, and that would make the connection better anyways with Shinra being the Zeus in this situation.

Also, as a random sidenote, I love how the homeric hero side of Genesis lines up so perfectly with the biblical apple symbolism here—the themes of choice are aligning!

Anyways yeah I don’t know if I actually said anything with this or if I was just yelling into the void, I zoned out and lost my train of thought many times while writing this. Hope you enjoyed if you read all this I’ll definitely probably do it again because I am very bad at focusing on the work I’m actually supposed to be doing lol byeeee

#still so behind on my thesis #all my notes turn into this instead #iliad fantasy 7 #final fantasy 7 #classics #the iliad #genesis rhapsodos #analysis #ff7 #crisis core reunion #ffvii #sephiroth #tragedy #and yeah I know the classics definition of tragedy is not the same as the modern one but I’m using the modern sense here #star essays #star rambles

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brosetv · 8 months ago

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Oh my god this CHATGPT generated "Article" about James Somerton

(I have bold italic'd the parts that made me react...either with a giggle or with confusion)

James Somerton engages audiences of all ages with his infectious YouTube content including commentary videos on books, comics, and films. Recently, he made a disturbing social post that stirred the web.

James Somerton is a renowned YouTuber known for his intelligent video dissertations on literature.

Through engaging storytelling and rigorous analysis, he illuminates the diversity and depth of LGBT narratives, asking viewers to join him in exploring these rich literary landscapes.

James’ enthusiasm for his subject is evident as he eloquently explains the value of representation, identity, and acceptance in literature.

Through his platform, James Somerton educates, entertains, and inspires audiences to embrace the intricacies and beauty of the LGBTQ narrative.

However, due to controversies, he posted a suicide note on his Twitter, leaving his audience in awe, raising speculations and skepticism regarding his death and the discovered suicide note.

James Somerton Audience Of Various Age Groups.

His death news is considered to be a rumor as reliable sources haven’t confirmed the news yet, we are opt to consider him alive before jumping into conclusions.

The renowned YouTuber James Somerton, is born on December 22, 1988.

He is in his mid-thirties, having reached this age after being born in 1988. So he is approximately 35 years old.

He’s been around for a while, growing up with the internet’s expansion and experiencing the rise of services like YouTube.

Despite his age, he injects young vitality into his videos, engaging with audiences of all ages.

He has enough expertise to impart advice and insights, but he maintains a vibrant energy that makes his work fresh and entertaining.James Somerton is known for creating video essays. (Source: Tiger Media Network)

His age does not define him; his enthusiasm for generating content that connects with people distinguishes him.

Whether analyzing the most recent trends, sharing personal tales, or delving into thought-provoking themes, the YouTuber’s honesty makes him relatable to his viewers.

In a world where age might be overrated, James reminds us that what you bring to the table is more important than your age.

And for him, that means a lot of innovation, humor, and a genuine connection with his audience.

So, despite his age, he continues to engage and inspire people worldwide via his entertaining YouTube channel.

James Somerton Wikipedia: Who Was He?

James Somerton is a well-known Canadian YouTuber who created video essays that examine media via a queer lens.

He delves deeply into issues such as films, television series, and the LGBTQ+ community, sharing his take on numerous themes.

James isn’t hesitant to discuss challenging or taboo matters, such as social unrest.

James’ YouTube channel has over 240,000 subscribers with a rising following base.

His content is not restricted to serious subjects, however. However, in December 2023, James encountered some difficulties.

Despite his tribulations, his work provoked discussion and fostered understanding among his audience.James Somerton had a background in education from Carleton University. (Source: X)

He also went into pop culture phenomena such as Harry Potter and Marvel comics, providing his observations and analysis.

Accusations of plagiarism appeared related to his video writings, prompting strong condemnation from his internet followers.

This outcry ignited a heated debate regarding creativity and ethical content creation.

Despite this setback, James remains significant in the YouTube community and is known for his thought-provoking work and distinct viewpoint.

While the scandal had generated a commotion, it did not reduce his effect or influence as a content creator.

He is also committed to promoting diversity through his videos. This commitment cemented his position as a significant voice in the YouTube community.

James continued to captivate his audience with his natural voice and insightful commentary on various topics.

#not putting link here because content mills don't need the clicks #but you can see i included a screenshot of my source at the top #chatgpt #ai #james somerton #“news”?#literary!?!?!?#why is his AGE a huge talking point with this AI?

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homuraakumaakemi · 2 years ago

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Personal reasons both on and offline have led me to be less active. However, someone’s analysis on Kuroe (please don’t find/go after them) reminds me of what they had said when the anime’s ending was new and fresh. Most people, myself included, were rather bitter, you see, so we didn’t want to see people just…act in a way that we felt was callous and cold to her. I in particular got super attached to Kuroe. This girl is a lot like Homura, and also a lot like me. However, to call her just Iroha’s Homura is reductive and doesn’t do her justice. Kuroe is her own character with her own wants and desires. Even if some of us thought she was (the first) Kuro, or then Homura’s long-lost sister before canon said otherwise, the point is we love HER. We want HER to be happy. Rest under the Read More. Content warnings for discussions of death and suicide, as well as spoilers for the last four episodes of the anime of Magia Record:

Some people think Kuroe becoming a Witch in her despair was thematically appropriate. That the theme in Anireco is moving on from the past so you can look towards the future. That the way Kuroe became a Witch fits in perfectly with the franchise.

I disagree. I was bitter then, and I’m still bitter now.

I feel Kuroe should NOT have become a Witch, especially in the way she did. Yes, lots of Magical Girls become Witches when their feelings of hopelessness and despair reach a fever pitch, but Kuroe’s case felt especially cruel. It pretty much is framed like a suicide, where Kuroe desperately tries to escape from the Labyrinth, then doubles down on the idea that NO ONE can help her. That she is BEYOND any hope of happiness. That she just wants her pain and suffering to end. To say nothing of how her Witch was put down by Iroha, literally framed like putting a rabid dog out of its misery. And then, her death was used to help galvanize Iroha. It really feels like they made this amazing, relatable character…just so Iroha could get to where the story needed her to be, given she also loses Ui, Touka, and Nemu for good in this continuity.

Am I just angry at them not giving my favorite character a happy ending? Hell yes, I am! But people who are better wordsmiths than me have written about how the writing that led to this is not great. How it arguably feels more fitting for Magical Girl Site or Raising Project than it does Madoka Magica, and considering the kind of shit that IS in the original anime and Rebellion, is saying a LOT. Which is a shame, because what we had before this was SO GOOD. And then, the last few episodes happened. And this is the SECOND TIME this has happened to me in series I like!

Although, if there is a silver lining, someone in the game staff seems to have agreed with me. In the game, Kuroe is alive, well, and thriving! She’s in a position to where she’s starting to let Iroha in, and we even get details and context to Kuroe’s backstory, which is amazing.

I can take her never meeting Homura and becoming the big sister Homura never had, finding something in bonding with each other that they haven’t found in many other places. Obviously, I’d love it, and the fandom has both of them meet characters I feel wouldn’t truly understand them.

However, at the end of the day, I want my favorite character to be happy. And in the game, she is headed that way. Two amazing units, being able to actually bond a bit with Iroha, some of the best storytelling the game has offered yet (I’m biased towards any Kuro, and especially Kuroe), and lots and lots of lore and things you can get by implication.

Characters can be interesting AND happy. They can be allowed to heal without compromising what makes them resonate so dearly with all of us.

“This is the face of a girl we want to protect and ensure never makes the same mistakes we did.”

#kuroe #magia record #magia record spoilers #just ranting #being kuroe is suffering #kuroe deserves the world #cw death #cw suicide #vent

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greatqueenanna · 1 year ago

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Hey, sorry about that Anon that sent you hate about the "Hans is a sociopath" thing, that's not a cool look for the Hans/Helsa fandom and not at all acceptable (and kinda accidentally reinforces the take they hate--that sociopath is just a label assigned to villains arbitrarily). I do want to talk about this though, because your post did make me uncomfortable even though it was well-researched and thought out.

tw: abuse mentions

Personally, I am hesitant to assign that label to Hans because he is a villain/antagonist (that's literally his role in Frozen, I say that as a Hans stan who believes he could be more in the future) and 1) sociopathy is a real behavioral disorder that the narrative will misuse to continue to justify why Hans deserves to be a punching bag, and 2) a lot of the 'sociopathic' behaviors he displays are also behaviors displayed by abuse/neglect victims, and additional content supports that he was abused. "Hans is a sociopath" and "Hans was abused" are equally canon takes that the narrative does not treat respectfully. Which take people "prefer" likely depends on whether and HOW they relate to Hans (or Anna/Elsa).

Jen Lee herself has also said that Hans is a product of being 'raised without love' so in full context, there is uncomfortable territory of "if Hans is a sociopath... does that mean he deserved to be abused and unloved?". Narrative seems to support this as we continually see gag takes of him being hit or purposefully excluded in ways that other villains aren't. I very disagree that Jen Lee "likes" that Hans is a sociopath or is "excited" about it. It reads heavily like justification to keep him Disney's punching bag to me.

I think people need to learn to better articulate what makes them upset/uncomfortable about some takes, instead of jumping to becoming abusive themselves. You can step back, take a breath, analyze and THEN respond in a healthy constructive way, guys. And if you can't, then don't engage at all, it is not worth hurting yourself AND someone else.

I understand your concerns here. This is one of the reasons I reached out to my friend, BG (who is actually diagnosed with ASPD, the DSM-5 name for sociopathy), to ask for his opinion before actually writing my analysis of Hans' character and sociopathy. The comments here and here are from him and are not my own opinions or thoughts. BG is also a psychologist, who works with others who have ASPD. He's knowledgeable on this subject, from personal experience and the experience of others. I also want to say that I myself have worked in Special Education for 6 years, and I am neurodivergent - thus, I want to reassure you that I am not coming at this subject completely new.

I also understand where you're coming from in terms of using the diagnosis as a way to 'misuse to continue to justify why Hans deserves to be a punching bag.' As soon as the label is used, most people become repulsed - including Hans fans. BG and I also both agree that Jennifer Lee obviously romanticized the label when she was writing Hans. She saw it as a way to make Hans more 'interesting' than the usual Disney villains, rather than respecting it as an actual diagnosis. That is what BG meant when he said that Jennifer Lee loves the label - that she finds it cool and takes pride that she was able to include the behavioral elements and have it relate to the overall themes.

You are also correct that Hans is both an abuse victim and a sociopath. Sociopathy is typically the result of abuse, after all, thus it makes sense that he is both. Jennifer Lee also makes this very clear, in the quote you also mentioned. Thus, I do not believe that it was her intention to say that sociopaths deserve to be treated poorly - she just chose to use it as a way to make Hans 'more interesting'. Which is also very problematic, just in a very different way.

However, I'm not trying to be obtuse here - I do realize that Hans was only even considered to be written as a sociopath because he was a villain. Sociopathic behaviors are always associated with villainy, after all. Most of society has an overall lack of understanding from both sides, empaths, and sociopaths. BG explained it well here -

Empaths always make us out to be villains or funny anti-heroes because they can’t fathom our behaviors being used for good. It’s a reality we face, especially in this day and age when feelings and being empathetic dominate the social world. There is no easy way to showcase a sociopath being a hero within empath standards.

I agree that Hans is treated differently. However, I wrote here what the reason for that is, and its not because he is a sociopath (since most casual fans do not even know this aspect of Hans' personality), its because of the realistic implications and emotions of his character, which we still have to acknowledge -

I think the reason for this treatment is because of the uniqueness of Hans’ overall character. Not only was he a twist villain, but he was a romantic interest for Anna - making him a little too realistic for many people. Yes, characters like Frollo and Gaston also share the qualities of men trying to take advantage of women, and Mother Gothel does indeed show signs of a realistic abusive parent. But they’re shown since the beginning that they are villainous, which helps the audience know to emotionally disconnect from them. This is the same for most villains. Hans was shown to be desirable and then changed, which is what realistically happens when people are trapped in abusive relationships. We form attachments to these types of people and it’s hard to just disconnect. It’s difficult to just place him as a 'deliciously fun’ Disney villain with the others when he hits too close to home. This is why we see less of a fun side to him, and why we are often just shown him being a punching bag. Hans didn’t just betray Anna, he betrayed the audience as well.

Hans is overall a very difficult and nuanced character to discuss, not only because of the villainization of ASPD and the lack of acknowledgment of his abuse, but also because of real-life abuse victims who have dealt with people who acted like Hans (with or without ASPD). Thus, it creates this strange limbo with him because both sides are valid here. People who display toxic behaviors (again, with or without ASPD) deserve to have their stories validated, but the people they abused also have the right to be validated as well, and even more so because they didn't do anything wrong to deserve the toxic treatment in the first place. It's a very difficult subject no matter how you choose to approach it.

With all this being said, I understand that it is a very nuanced topic that can be uncomfortable, however, ignoring a canon aspect of Hans' personality and not acknowledging it is just as problematic as treating it as a villainous trait. It shows that we are not willing to actually discuss it, and would rather ignore it because it's easier to.

#long post #greatqueenanna/responses #hans #prince hans

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vaderatemydog · 2 years ago

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I just feel like writing and venting a bit. Whoever reads it, gets a quick reflection of my brain at night as things have been building up for awhile. I’ll ask a question, but at the end of the day what matters? You can argue that the day is over and tomorrow will be redundant, a different but likely similar flavor; life goes on… Or you can argue that life has a very distinct purpose and actions, thoughts, words spoken, and prayers played a role in what transpired throughout the entirety of the day. So many people get into this momentum where they are feeding on progression in some area of their life and that is what brings them through life. Whether they are growing in many areas of their lives or whether they have plateaued and are bit stagnant, there needs to be an ultimate destination. It’s the central objective for success. “Being busy” or “Having a family/relationship” Isn’t the destination. That’s why there are broken families and an out of control divorce rate. There are people rushing through life, rushing through relationships, rushing to family life, rushing to college, rushing to a career but as they reach these checkpoints in life, they are fun, new, and exciting, but then the air becomes stale, people spiral back into their weirdness and discontent. You’re probably wondering to yourself, maybe speculating that I was going to bring up religion.. Yes I will, religion is a checkpoint, not the destination. Religion is a horrible word for one that I resent and detest. It’s just used by ignorant and unbelieving people. Ever “religion” has a very real spiritual background that is full of truth. Regardless of your personal religion that you’ve either grown up in or have chosen to follow, you’re likely left with questions unanswered. I would argue that you take a handful of the common religions and do a breakdown analysis of each of them. If you’re requiring some closure in leaving a specific religion or in need of some reasoning behind the religions, do the analysis. Even if you’re already participating in a religion, don’t expect that it has all the answers because none of them do. In fact they always have a hidden agenda and they always have missing destinations. I consider paganism, wicca, satanism, Catholism, Buddhism, Islam some of the more popular ones. They all have their own unique themes and guiding light. And they all have some truth. But if they aren’t instructing you about your destination, then they aren’t leading you in the best direction in your life. We need to consciously be guarded from the world, yet focused on our destination. There are tons of distractions and tons of misinformation out there. When we take all of the religions and bodies of education we are surrounded by, there are tons of false profits and bad teachers, shallow priests, teachers, and poor guides that will attempt to lead you and direct your attention. Question it all.

The best things in this life fade and the comfort we have can be stripped at any time. Be prepared to know who you are, present yourself to the world, guard yourself from evil, and surround yourself with what is right. I hyper focused on a lot of the “right things” but they hijacked my projection; they set me off on a hidden goose track. Find that center where you can align yourself with goodness and love and get as many careers and enjoyment through life, but don’t forget that you have a destination and that your life matters here on earth so treat others with respect, love your enemy, allow your soul to be sculpted, shifted, and melted to the highest degree, find the error in religion. Keep rocking!

#religion #God #satanism #wicca #witchcraft #buddhism #catholism

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years ago

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Penny’s Final Word

Cinder might have had the final word of the volume and that is a meta for another time. Still, there is another character who got to have another important final word:

Penny: Let me choose this one thing.

Penny’s arc has always been about self-actualization and escaping objectification.

She was created to be a weapon and everything was decided for her by basically... everyone:

Both enemies and loved ones alike ended up choosing for her multiple times, so it is fitting that Penny herself is the one who has the last word about herself. She makes the final choice that decides how her life should end and what her legacy should be.

At the same time, Penny’s final choice and sacrifice perfectly tie together all the major themes explored in the Atlas arc.

This analysis will try to explore her arc and to show how it is central to everything the Atlas volumes wanted to convey.

PENNY AND HER FAIRIES

What makes a person a person and not something else?

This is a key question in Penny’s story and it can’t be answered without addressing who her Blue Fairy is.

Is it Fria?

Or Ambrosius?

The answer is neither and both. These two characters are definately references to the Blue Fairy, but they are not the ones who make Penny feel human. The one who does is ironically a red fairy:

You saw my soul Through the nuts and bolts You're the friend I can trust Helped me see I'm not just a machine

It is Ruby’s aknowledgement of Penny’s personhood that makes Penny feel alive.

So, what about Fria and Ambrosius? What is their role?

Fria chooses Penny as the next Winter Maiden. This is a powerful moment thematically because it is an aknowledgement of Penny’s humanity. She has always been a real girl, a Maiden at Heart, hence she can be given the powers and protect them.

Ambrosius removes Penny’s robotic parts and makes the “real” Penny come to the surface:

Ambrosius: Okay, but if I take the robot parts out of her, that would leave...

Blake: Penny. The girl who's always been there underneath it.

Penny’s new body is human because Penny has always been human and has always wanted to feel human.

In short, these two moments are moments of recognition of Penny’s humanity. She becomes a human both in soul (Fria) and body (Ambrosius). In particular, she has always had a human soul and this is why it can be tied to the power of the Maiden. When it comes to her body, she aquires a human one because her new appearance is nothing, but a mirror of her soul.

Still, even if these two moments are both meaningful, they are also moments where Penny receives something passively. They are aknowledgements of Penny’s humanity yes, but Penny wants more. She wants personhood aka to live as her own person.

To truly become a person one must be able to make their own choices. And interestingly, Penny’s free will is linked to both moments with her two blue fairies.

Ambrosius’s magic does not simply give Penny a human body, but it gives her back her freedom. Not only that, but it makes it impossible hacking her ever again.

Fria’s interaction with Penny is more complicated.

First of all, Fria does not impose the power on Penny, but asks her to make a choice:

Fria: Penny. Are you the one?

Penny: I…

And Penny does so in a sense, but it is gray. Penny is given no time to think about this choice, differently from both Winter and Pyrrha. It is something imposed on her by the events:

Penny: But taking the Maiden power was the only way to stop--

Moreover, it is something she very clearly does not want:

Penny: I was the protector of Mantle, but now, I am much more than that, and I wish I was not.

In short, Penny’s interaction with Fria is a recognition of her humanity, but also a duty imposed on her by external occurrences.

It is not what Penny herself wants. To truly be human, instead, Penny should make her own choices and be given the chance to pursue what she wants.

Still, what does she truly wishes for?

PENNY AND HER JIMINY CRICKETS

Penny’s wish is made obvious since her first appearance:

Penny: "You called me 'friend'! Am I really your friend?"

Ruby: "Uuuum... Y-Yeah, sure! Why not?"

My wish came true That day that you appeared And called me friend

She wants friends to the point that Ruby’s awkward aknowledgement of their friendship is enough to make Penny completely loyal to the other girl.

At the same time, there are many Jimini Crickets that go in the way of Penny’s wish for friendship:

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much; he just worries a lot.

(...)

Penny: I... was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn't my father...

Both Ironwood’s high expectations and Pietro’s overprotectiveness make so that she is not free to enjoy her own life as she wants.

She arrives to the point that she comes up with a plan to stay at Beacon with her new friends:

Penny: Ruby, there's something I've been wanting to talk to you about. I want to stay at Beacon.

Ruby: Penny, they'll never let you do that.

Penny: I know, but I have a plan.

However, we never discover what this plan is:

This does not happen by chance and Penny’s plan is not a dropped plot-point. It is symbolic of how her agency is completely negated. She is objectified to the point that her story is interrupted before she can take any action. It is a meta-way to comment her character and her major struggle.

Penny’s first death is more than a murder. It is a way to refuse Penny’s personhood and agency:

Ruby: And Penny… was killed… just to make a statement.

She is used as a symbol of Atlas’s shady research. Penny’s own self is forgotten in the chaos that follows.

The same thing happens in Atlas as well:

Ruby: I don't think Robyn was their target. Salem's goal has always been to divide us. I think Penny was exactly where they wanted her, just like at the Vytal Festival.

This time she is not framed as a victim, but as a perpetrator and used as the symbol of an authoritarian regime.

Her enemies’ objectification of Penny is made clear in many ways:

Cinder: I have come too far to be stopped by some toy!

Cinder: You’re just a tool to be used!

Salem: Although he remains in captivity, it seems that he has worked with Ironwood to gain some control over the puppet masquerading as the Winter Maiden.

And Watts’s virus is just the culmination of it. It is the embodyment of the Jiminy Cricket trying to overwrite what Penny wants.

At the same time, though, Penny’s enemies are not the only ones who try to control her:

Pietro: I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.

Penny: But dad… I am trying to.

Penny’s loved ones have tried to protect her all along. However, this wish of protection ends up going in the way of what she really wants:

I've been combat-ready since The day dad made me Now I'll fight for something more Might sound wholesome, But strangely I've got friends Fighting for

What Penny wants is to fight together and for her friends. She does not want her life to be considered less than others’. Still, she does not even want it to be put before others’:

Cinder: I don’t serve anyone. And you wouldn’t either, if you weren't built that way.

Penny: That is not…I choose to fight for people who care about me.

In short, it is as Maria says:

Maria: Don’t you think Penny has had enough people telling her what to do?

PENNY AND BEING A REAL GIRL

At its root, Penny’s struggle has always been this:

Penny: I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do and the things I want to do. Is that normal?

She wants to reconcile her duty and her personal wishes.

It is her duty to accept the power of the Maiden and to protect it.

It is her wish to live with her friends and to protect them.

These two things end up coming into conflict multiple times:

Penny: And after the launch, I’ll return to help you all with the evacuation.

Pietro: About that, Penny. When Amity goes up, I think you should be on it with Maria and I.

Penny: But they need me here. Right?

Ruby: Well, if you stay far out of Salem’s reach, then she can’t open the vault. She can’t get to the relic. So...

Weiss: Maybe it is for the best?

Until the finale where Penny makes a specific choice:

Weiss: Penny, no!

If Penny were to act as the perfect Maiden, she would have just gone to Vacuo with the staff. In this way she could have protected both the relic and the power. Even if Cinder had ended up killing all her friends, Salem would have still lost.

However, Penny decides not to act as a Maiden, but as a friend:

Penny: You wouldn’t know anything about friends.

Even the reason why Cinder manages to mortally wound her is because Penny is worried about Jaune and Weiss and gets distracted for a second:

However, it is specifically in the moment of her death that Penny is able to make a choice to reconcile both who she is and what she has to do.

She chooses to protect the power:

Penny: She can’t get the staff..and the power.

And to save a friend:

Penny: I thought of you. And here we are.

Winter would have died without the Maiden powers and the same can be said about the people stranded in Vacuo. Penny saves all by choosing to be the one in control of her death.

Her choice is extremely powerful thematically and it ties together all the themes explored in these last two volumes.

1) It is a choice about trust:

Penny: Trust me.

Winter: Thank you for trusting me with this.

Penny asks to be trusted and chooses to trust as well. After all, this is what friendship is all about:

Attached but not By strings

It is a choice that uses the motif of “the part of you” in two different ways.

2) Becoming a part of someone else can be seen as a reference to the process of grieving, which is one of the themes explored in this volume:

Grieving means to come to terms with your loss, to accept your feelings for the people who are gone and also their contradictions:

Robyn: Clover was a lot of things. You respected him, but I gotta tell ya, I think you’re the better Huntsman.

Vine: Then perhaps Clover was wrong too.

The lost ones will be missed regardless:

Harriet: Don't you dare! Clover was... He was...

Vine: ...Important to you.

Still, once you manage to finally grieve, you’ll realize the other person has become a part of you:

It does not matter if Qrow’s semblance has evolved, if it is a part of Clover’s power having stayed attached to the pin, both or if it is Clover looking out for them.

What’s important is that Clover will keep on living inside Qrow because Qrow will never forget him or what Clover has taught him:

Clover: You shouldn't do that, you know.

Qrow: Don't worry, I-I gave that up.

Clover: I meant deflect a compliment. Those kids wouldn't be where they are without you. You've had more of an effect on them than you realize.

Qrow should love himself. Only in this way he can stop being a self-fulfilling curse. Only in this way he can start looking at his own life with hope and wish for good luck.

Similarly, Penny won’t be forgotten and her legacy will live through Winter:

Penny: She's… gone.

Winter: No. She's a part of you now.

Penny: I won’t be gone, I’ll be part of you.

3) Penny becomes a part of Winter because Winter is finally able to do this:

Winter: But yes Penny, we must still acknowledge our personal feelings, wrestle with them. It ensures us that we're on the right path. It's what makes us human.

Winter is the one who taught Penny this, but it is obvious that through volume 7 and 8 she has avoided to face her feelings for both her family and Ironwood. By the end of volume 8, however, she is finally able to accept her emotions. She can finally follow her heart. Penny becoming “a part of her” is symbolic of this. As a matter of fact their dynamic has always been about Winter acting as “the mind” and Penny being “the heart”.

Symbolically they integrate because they both are becoming their own person even if in different ways.

Winter becomes her own person because she rejects this mentality:

Winter: Penny. The general is making hard choices so we don't have to.

Penny becomes her own person because she is finally in control of herself and her destiny. Moreover, she is able to do for Winter what Ruby has done for her:

Winter: No, Penny, you were always the real Maiden at heart. I was just a machine. Just… following orders.

Penny: You’re my friend.

She affirms Winter’s personhood and in this way she affirms her own as well.

In other words, this version of Pinocchio does not end with the protagonist being transformed into a real boy by the Blue Fairy, but with Penny transforming Winter in the Blue Fairy:

So “becoming fully human” in RWBY means to do this:

Qrow: This last great creation would be given the power to both create and destroy. It would be given the gift of knowledge, so that it could learn about itself and the world around it. And most importantly, it would be given the power to choose, to have free will to take everything it had learned and decide which path to follow - the path of light or the path of darkness. And that is how Humanity came to be.

It is about gaining knowledge, like Penny does about feelings and relationships, loving life and accepting death. Finally, it is about making a choice, even if it is painful.

This is because being human is not always simple. It can be hard:

But I found that humanity It came with sacrifice

Having a human soul means you have a duty to do the right thing out of your own free will, like Fria’s gift showed.

Having a human body means you can experience the warmth of a hug:

But it also means you can be mortally wounded:

This is Ambrosius’s teaching.

Still, it was worth it all for Penny because she got the chance to meet friends and to feel alive:

An answered prayer A chance to Share the world To be a girl Who fin'lly felt alive

This is why her second death can be juxtaposed to her first one. Both times she was killed by Cinder. However, the first time she was used as a pawn in Cinder’s plan. This time instead she is not letting herself be controlled and she negates Cinder what she really wants out of her own free will.

In conclusion, there is this phrase by Jean-Paul Sartre:

Freedom is what you do with what's been done to you.

And I think it sums up Penny’s story perfectly.

Penny does not choose to be born a robot or to be used as a weapon. She is objectified in multiple ways...

Still, she manages to make something amazing out of herself.

#rwby #rwby vol8 #penny polendina #rwby meta #rwby spoilers #my meta #qrow branwen #even if only a little

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allisoooon · 3 years ago

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I absolutely love your character insights and analysis! Have you ever tried to analyse the writing on Klaus' bedroom walls? I feel like entire essays could probably be written about it...

Thank you! Annoyingly, The Making of The Umbrella Academy has two things about Klaus’ room: 1) jack, and 2) shit. Great details on Allison, Luther, and Five’s rooms, Vanya’s and Diego’s apartments, and a few good shots of the mausoleum of all places, but whoever put the guide together didn’t care very much about Klaus or Ben. So. Gotta use my own eyes and brain here.

I would love to know whether the writers did the writing on that wall, or if it was entirely a set design thing, because that would make a difference in how much stock I put in it. Most of it seems to be the same handwriting, though, if at various levels of stressed. And he does that thing kids who learned cursive do where sometimes you start writing in cursive without realizing it, and when you realize it, you switch back to print.

But since it is filmed and on the show, it is canon, so I’ll look at it like canon. Looking at this post, if I was writing all that stuff for the show, I’d be thinking of a few different things:

1. Shit Klaus wrote because he was high.

2. Shit Klaus wrote because he was an artsy, gothy teen.

3. Shit Klaus wrote because he thought it was funny.

4. Shit Klaus wrote as legitimate self-expression.

You can have some really weird thoughts when you’re high that seem deep to you at the time but make no sense to someone who isn’t high, and I think that’s a lot of what’s on his walls. My teens were definitely an experimental stage for writing supposedly avant-garde things, and I think there’s some of that, too. And then there’s stuff like “One day I aspire to illegally land a plane in Mexico. A night in jail, Mexican jail, is character-building.” I think he just thought that was funny. Then there’s gonna be a lot of crap that covers more than one category.

Regarding actual self-expression, I’m thinking that’s part of the repeated themes and statements he makes. I’ll talk about those.

Uncomfortable tactile sensations.

1. “Where the fire burns so do I feel the pain electrify me.”

2. “My skin crawls with the seething visions of the night.”

3. “Feel the pain electrify me.”

My mind went to drug withdrawal, but there’s something more sinister I’ll discuss below. 1 and 3 are written separately, and repeats can be considered significant. Some of this could also be a response to the forced tattoo, though tattooing doesn’t feel so much like burning or electricity to me as being cut into with a penknife. Look under the category of Reginald’s rule for perhaps a more significant theory.

Darkness.

4. “It makes me feel like dark + small.”

5. “Even in the darkest caves there is a light!”

6. “Well I settled on ‘lamplight’ (the first sight, in which I learned to see divinity looking out the bedroom window).”

We know the dark is/was a PTSD trigger for him (he does fall asleep in the dark in season two, and peoples’ triggers changing is very normal). I think 4 is evocative of the mausoleum. 5 is written more than once.

Connections with people, or lack thereof.

7. “To keep at hand whatever it was the mountains meant and maybe that was love and maybe it was longing.”

8. “Sorry… I tried to wake up for you but sleep took me again…”

9. “Cheats, you lose!”

10. “And why didn’t I ever actually love the others?”

11. “I am [illegible] a lone and lonely sight.”

12. “There was a time when the need for love was nothing more [than] a sigh, a long look at a red light. And now, love is locked in [cut off]…is an old acquaintance.”

Two of these are written more than once that I can see: 8 and 9. 9 is written all over the place. 8 makes me wonder if it was written about an early attempt to get sober. Overall, the impression I’m getting of Klaus’ childhood emotional state is that he was very lonely and felt unloved, but also seemed to have difficulty reaching out as well. 8 and 10 get me thinking about depersonalization and derealization, forms of dissociation that happen commonly when someone is traumatized. Like the world around him doesn’t feel real, and neither does he.

Lack of identity.

13. “Faceless and nameless.”

14. “How do I know who I am?”

15. “How do you know who I am?”

14 is written twice. This makes it meaningful. I know I’ve read Rob Sheehan talk about how Klaus has no idea who he really is, so it’s not surprising. Also ties in with my thoughts about depersonalization above, but a very chilling possibility is that he’s writing about/to ghosts. Especially 15. I think 15 was a question he asked to the ghosts.

Deeply worrying indications of his feelings about his life under Reginald’s rule.

16. “Where the fire burns so do I feel the pain electrify me. You cannot kill the willing to die.”

17. “Feel the pain electrify me.”

18. “Obey, obey, obey, oh can you obey.”

19. “Fast as I can run.”

20. “Do not feed the animals.”

21. “Off with his head.”

22. “Feast on famine.”

You Look Like Death wasn’t out yet when this set was made, but it revealed Reginald used to electrocute Klaus without anesthesia. I don’t want to call it ECT because ECT is not and has never been “run uncontrolled electric currents through patient’s body at increasing levels to see what happens while they beg you to stop.” It is done for very stubborn cases of depression under general anesthesia with all kinds of monitoring and precautions. There was nothing therapeutic about what Hargreeves did for experimentation. So that’s what 16 and 17 make me think of, and presumably, Gerard could have told Steve Blackman some of what was in it. I know he told Robert Sheehan some of it. In context, 20 strongly makes me think Klaus felt like he was being treated like an animal. Obviously up to interpretation. 20 and 22 are both hunger-themed. Was starvation part of these kids’ punishments sometimes?

Truth.

23. “See no truth, speak no truth, hear no truth.”

24. “What is the truth of everything.”

I’m thinking about him growing old enough to question what he’s been told. 23 seems like exactly what a teen goth would write as soon as they knew about Gandhi’s monkey figurines.

Numbness or disturbed emotional state.

25. “You cannot kill the willing to die.”

26. “It makes me feel like dark + small.”

27. “What must I do to feel anything? Vacuum the void of space. Space dust all clean. Beast creatures mythical and real must be ground to dust to start anew.”

28. “Forge my soul in the fire.”

29. “The choices I’ve made could be my own self-understanding. I could balance this.”

30. “I became a frozen, forgotten frame of mind.”

31. “Time is passing quickly. There is much to enjoy and all the things I said I’d do…I can feel the guilt. How much will time will it take?”

32. “I never say he suffered!”

33. “Consume everything then consume yourself with me. Destroy everything I love. What is the essence of the forest? Why must I go?”

25 is an unsurprising thought, given what this kid is going through. Same with 27 and 30. The dissociative aspects of psychological trauma can cause some really disturbing numbness (you feel uncomfortably numb, hahaHAHAhaha…get it). 28 is written all over the place and seems almost surprisingly optimistic for Klaus. I would looooove to know what 29 means, if it might be part of his early attitude toward his addiction. 31 is crossed out, which motivated me to read it properly. I’d love to know why it’s crossed out. It’s crossed out in a different color, suggesting it was done at a later time and not part of some design. What are the things he said he’d do and why does he feel guilty about them? 32 is written twice. The last question in 33 makes me think he’s writing down something a ghost is saying. Overall, I’d kill to get a child psychologist’s opinion on this stuff, but to me a lot of it seems consistent with what I’ve read about PTSD.

Vaguely nihilistic sentiment.

34. “Wants, desires, nothing else matters.”

35. “Consume everything then consume yourself.”

36. “The day we die.”

37. “Don’t worry about the present and live in the past.”

38. “Yes years gone by without a word, but now in ink that’s soon to smudge.”

35 may be about his drug use. 36 is written more than once, including by a sticker of an eyeball. Five would have gone nuts if he’d noticed it.

Overall, I think we’re looking at a kid who had a lot of depth beneath the clownish attitude his siblings knew him for. Not all of this is dark, doom-and-gloom stuff. Some of it is humorous, some of it darkly humorous, some of it surprisingly optimistic, some of it’s just deep and the rest is inscrutable. What I love about this is that it acknowledges that abused children are still entire people. Adults like to wrap them up in pretty, innocent little packages and imagine they just shiver and hide under the bed all the time. Klaus wasn’t that kind of cliché. He was a kid who had a lot of people fooled into thinking he was shallow and carefree, but wrote cares all over his walls. Some sentences I can’t fully read keep popping up with the word “love.” I do try not to over-woobify my faves, but goddammit Klaus. He keeps insisting on breaking my heart.

You know what I realize, looking at this? I get why he and Ben were close as kids. Ben is also deep, a literature nerd, and seems like someone who could look at these walls and get what’s going on. Prior to Klaus’ drug use, they could have had some deep conversations the others may not believe happened with Klaus. I’m not saying Klaus is a great intellectual, but I can see where he and Ben could get on a similar wavelength.

A nice touch is that the stuff written in the most childish handwriting is the most faded. Quote #7 looks like it was written first years before, then rewritten when he was older.

Something right by his bed is like he woke up, took a black crayon, rubbed a black area on the wall, and scratched off a whole “message” that may just be him scribbling to let off steam. The only legible word is “NO.” Positioned directly under it on the desk is a jar of crayons. Though the more I look at it, the more I think it looks like charcoal?

There’s also “THIS IS THE DOOR” written twice in the biggest letters in the room. I’d love to know what that means.

In addition to all the writing, we get Klaus’ personal sense of style. Mostly, there’s a darkly witchy feel to it. Lots of candles, some slightly macabre imagery. A tiny electric keyboard, camera, and camcorder indicate he might have had artistic hobbies, or at least tried them out before getting bored with them. Cast iron teapot (a very good way to make tea), a sitting area by a record player with some dark boho décor. Records. CDs. Incense. Very small old television. Beaded curtains.

OF COURSE he has more than one hookah—one by his coffee table, one by his dresser.

Photos by Aidan Gallagher

Cutesy stickers. Some are of ghosts and skulls; a number are of aliens and UFOs. A hot plate with what looks like a Turkish coffee setup (you know, those tiny tiny cups of incredibly strong delicious coffee that’s almost like dark chocolate). Childhood crayon drawings. Leather-bound journal. Psychedelic imagery. Probably a Pink Floyd fan. I wonder if the fairy lights that frame his headboard come down around the desk for a reason—late night art? Coffee? Using that hot plate for something else?

Something that might be a tentacle monster made out of pipe cleaners attached to a bedpost.

It also looks to me like there’s no writing on the walls that were part of Vanya’s room. So maybe Klaus didn’t write/draw on his walls past a certain age, or wanted to leave that part of his space unscribbled-on. He would have been 17+ at this time and might have wanted that area to be a more grown-up space.

#klaus hargreeves #the umbrella academy #tua #ben hargreeves #ask answered #what a great ask #klaus has a really interesting room #and two hookahs #tua meta

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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

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@sage-striaton replied to your post:

Idk how people can say Frontier has characters that lack depth. Imo it’s a very psychological season. The whole adventure thing is aimed to making them grown in their behaviours and feelings, it’s a big metaphor of their development

I’m sorry for hijacking your response to my post to segue this into another rant of mine, but I want to emphasize that one of my goals with this blog (if I can be said to have any) is that I really, really, really want people to re-examine whether they actually believe in the rhetoric that’s been dominating this fanbase for two decades, or whether there’s more to it. This is especially in regards to the fact that we’re talking a series deliberately written in such a way that it’ll change meaning and nuance as you get older, so it can “grow up” with you in a sense, and yet it seems like -- especially in regards to Adventure through Frontier, due to their position as the oldest series that the majority of the fanbase was elementary or preteen age during -- people are still regurgitating the same rehashed twenty-year-old ideas like they’re undeniable law. It’s one thing if they’re saying it because the series didn’t sit well with them the first time and they don’t want to watch it again, but we’re reaching a recurring problem where it’s sort of “brainwashing” even people who don’t actually believe it but feel compelled to go along with it, or wouldn’t feel that way if it weren’t for peer pressure. Obviously, there are dissenting opinions, and ones that are even very loud about that, but that pressure remains.

The mainstream opinion in the fanbase is that Adventure is untouchable and impervious to any criticism, 02 is its inferior sequel with half-baked characters, Tamers is an auteur work that’s the “deepest” of the original tetralogy due to being dark, and Frontier is devoid of much substance at all. Even those who don’t really believe in this will still be pressured to go alongside it, those who like 02 or Frontier will be pressured to consider it a “guilty pleasure”, and it’s only very recently when certain events revealed that the idea of 02 actually having quite its own fervent and passionate fanbase that likes it on its own merits became properly recognized. (I have actually noticed a huge uptick in 02 fans, especially casual ones, being more shameless in talking about liking it in the last two years; you’re still going to get the obnoxious person “reminding” you how bad it apparently is if you bring it up, but it’s not nearly as prevalent as it used to be.) I’m not talking about whether something is a “good” or “bad” series -- that concept doesn’t really exist to me as much as whether it’s “to one’s tastes” or not, and I think one of the joys of this franchise is that it has things that cater to people with vastly different preferences -- as much as a lot of potential for analysis and intimate thought about these very fascinating series. Even if 02 and Frontier were as shallow or half-baked as they were accused of, I wouldn’t think it’d be shameful to like them for one’s own reasons anyway, but what frustrates me is that I just don’t think that’s true in the first place!!

Not helping is that there’s still a refusal among the fanbase to admit that there were substantial differences in American English dubbing (especially in regards to Adventure and 02), which I don’t mean as a bad thing in the sense that some people prefer to stick only with that dub and consider that version what they want to work with, but in the sense that the treatment of them as “the same thing” has been horribly detrimental when two people, one coming from that dub and one coming from the Japanese version (or a dub more closely based on it), will end up often having an argument doomed to go nowhere because they were never talking about the same thing to begin with. Recently, a friend admitted to me that although they’d switched to the Japanese version a long time ago, they still couldn’t get the image of Daisuke and Takeru having an inherently hostile relationship (they don’t) out of their head due to the influence of that dub, and although they consciously knew better -- at least enough to admit this to me -- it wasn’t helped by the fact that the fanbase itself continues to reinforce this image because of how normalized it is to treat the dub version and the Japanese version as “virtually the same” and for Western fanbase discourse to assume you should be projecting those takes into the Japanese version. If you’re hanging out in English-speaking circles but are working from the Japanese version or a dub directly based off of it, you do actually have to filter out a lot of takes you’re hearing because they won’t actually apply to the version you’re watching, but not a lot of people realize this.

All four of Adventure through Frontier share tons of key staff, especially Seki, known for her focus on wanting the kids in the audience to be able to empathize with and relate to the characters on screen. All four share some of the best character work I’ve seen not only in this franchise, but also in kids’ media in general, and I also stress that a lot of this has a ton of nuance that isn’t always apparent unless you read between the lines. I do understand that a lot of this probably went over our heads as kids, and I won’t say that the choice to execute it this way should be impervious to criticism, but nevertheless, I think it’s important to call attention to the fact it is there, and much of it becomes recognizable once you see it that way; for instance, so much of "it's contradictory character writing!" comes from the fact that the series tries to represent humans in their inconsistent, messy ways, and while it'll feel "messy" from a writing trope perspective, when you think about it as "since this person has this mentality, does it make sense to approach this with this mindset?", suddenly it becomes very consistent. The supposedly “shallow” 02 and Frontier characters will act in ways that match existing psychological profiles meant for actual humans to terrifying degrees, in ways that you might actually recognize even better once you’ve hit adulthood and start intimately understanding things like depression or anxiety in ways you might not have before. Shockingly, “having heart, important themes, and kindness towards the human condition” are completely valid reasons to uplift a creative work in ways distinct from technical writing or cerebrality or how many tropes they subvert or whatever.

On the flip side, people praise Adventure and Tamers for being the naturally “superior” works with better writing, but when it comes to talking about why the writing is supposedly better, a good chunk of the reasons stated don’t actually explain anything substantial, or go back to actually being passive-aggressive dunks on the other series in some form -- it’s because 02 and Frontier’s character writing sucks that badly, or because Adventure had the “best plot” (which may be true if by “best” you mean “easiest to understand”, but that doesn’t mean much to someone who might not be very happy about how its story progression is just a boss rush), or because Tamers is the “deepest” when by “deep” they actually mean “cerebral, dark, and unsubtle about it” without any further meaning (as if Adventure and 02 were idealistic series that never went into anything nuanced and not, say, the fact they went very viciously deep into societal issues between parents and children, psychological horror, and intimate takes on the human condition). I’m personally saying this as someone who does think Adventure and Tamers have a lot to praise in terms of their approaches to realism and the unique aspects each bring to the table, and I feel that people like this are doing them more of a disservice by not bothering to uplift them for any reason that isn’t actually just inherently condescending. I mean, even taking this outside of the original tetralogy for a bit, when I was plugging Appmon earlier, there’s a reason I focused more on its theme and character writing and the use of “dark” writing to convey its sheer range, rather than trying to boil it down to a shallow “it looks cheery but gets really messed up later!”, which is unfortunately an argument I’ve been seeing about it lately.

In the end, when I write my meta, I write it "making a case" for my point of view, and I welcome others to disagree, but if you disagree, I really hope it'll be because you personally disagree, and not because the entire fanbase has been saying otherwise for twenty years and I sound like a radical. I’m not saying that everyone’s consensus takes are completely unfounded, but frankly speaking, this fanbase has some really bad takes, and in the past few years I’ve found it freeing to not only “say what you feel without worrying what others think”, but actually go out of my way to outright try and purge all the preconceived notions and pick only the ones I agree with because I actually agree with them. I encourage you to do it too! And if you do, you might find things about something you like that you didn’t realize before.

#digimon #shiha's ask box #sage-striaton #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon tamers #digimon frontier #shihameta

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gsketchy03 · 7 months ago

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Hey I know this is way late, but I came across your analysis in my study of this score! I'm currently a university student, studying music and this semester I've been taking a class on film and TV music analysis and since the full score for this game was made publicly available by the composers, (and we'd be looking at a cue from it later in the course) I took it upon myself to do some studying/analysis of this score. (also because I love this game lol) I've been looking a lot into themes in my study of this score, so your analysis has been super helpful. I haven't done nearly as much as I hope to eventually, but I have found some stuff that you might find interesting.

Mainly that I think this theme is actually intended mostly to represent the empire, not Cal. Or if it is intended to relate to Cal specifically, perhaps his dark side and struggles there? Regardless, in the score, the theme first appears under the heading "Imperial theme" (heading is page 113 in the score if you want to pull it up, theme starts on the following page in the horns) I saw the comparisons you and @foxykatie425 drew to Cal's theme, and while I do commend your work and it makes me wonder if a connection was in some way intended, I think the theme is far more similar to the B section of John Williams' Imperial Theme. The A, then Gb bit especially. If you listen to the section that immediately follows the main gesture of the theme, it really sounds like the imperial theme. (sorry I'm not super good at explaining this in words. when I talked to my professor about this, I played sections on the piano to illustrate my point, but I can't really do that here. If my writing is too difficult to decipher, let me know and I'll try to be more specific) Additionally, this theme is very closely associated with the empire. As you've noted, it appears in Dark Times, Above the Clouds, and Nova Garon. However, I'd argue that it could just as easily ,if not more, be applied to the empire than Cal. In Dark Times, Cal is being taken through coruscant, past the Imperial palace. In Above the Clouds, the empire is fighting on the observatory as well. Nova Garon is an imperial base. The theme also appears in the tracks Garrison, containing music played during imperial encounters on Koboh, and Mogu in the Mist, containing music played in the imperial outpost we find on Koboh. i detect hints of the theme during Imperial-related bits on Jedha, too (Listen like super closely to Trident) . All this to say, I think because Gordy Haab and Stephen Barton aren't super allowed to use John Williams' actual music in their scores, I think they made a new, derivative form of the Imperial theme. However, I think there may still be something to the connections you've pointed out to Cal's theme. I was hoping to get to speak to the composers on this subject, but unfortunately they were to busy to meet.

On a completely different note, I think Koboh itself has a theme! I found it in A Frontier Welcome (1:32 in bass clarinet, harps and cello), Where the Nekkos Roam (1:38, clarinets), and Rambler's reach (beginning flute, but basically everywhere). These are just a couple instances, it's in pretty much every cue on Koboh though. There's even a cool version of it at 1:40 of rambler's reach played on horn and banjo(? that part isn't in the score for some reason) that is like a western version of the theme that represents Rambler's reach as a community. I haven't spent enough time with the score and game to ensure that's the right connection, but I'm pretty confident.

Anyway, just thought I'd give you my thoughts on this! I absolutely love this game and the score is fantastic. At this point I'm considering a career in film/tv/video game score analysis because of how much I enjoy this lol

Feel free to reach out with any questions, I know I didn't do a great job explaining the connections to the imperial theme. After my finals, I'd be happy to do a full analysis comparing those themes!

I think I might have gotten something wrong in my Jedi Survivor score post. Maybe someone who didn't fail music theory in high school (aka me) and understands minor or inverted keys more could help.

I'm trying to figure out if this melody is musically related to Cal's theme in any way, shape, or form.

I originally thought it was a minor or inverted variation of a part of Cal's theme and now I'm second-guessing myself. It's a theme that's heard throughout the game and it's definitely at least a secondary darker theme for Cal cause it almost always plays in relation to him but I can't tell if it actually is a minor or inverted variation. Maybe even a darker extension of it or something? During the track Above the Clouds that theme and Cal's almost consistently switch back and forth which made me think it was Dagan's theme for a bit but it's definitely not. It's also not Bode's, this is Bode's theme, also heard here.

Was I right about it being some sort of musical variation of Cal's theme or is it something completely different?

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stellocchia · 4 years ago

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Okay, holy crap did we get an interesting stream yesterday! Time for an analysis of it!

So, there is a lot of confusion surrounding the stream and, more importantly, c!Wilbur himself. So I wanted to try and interpret this whole thing at the best of my abilities for my own sanity.

Before that though there are a few things we have to keep in mind:

For something to be manipulation there needs to be intent on the side of the manipulator, which can be quite hard to establish in some cases

A lot of c!Wilbur’s confusing thoughts and constantly fluctuating opinions come from a general lack of knowledge, his own faulty worldview and his incredible overestimation of his own impact in the world, which I’ll talk about more later, more so then what actually would appear to be an intentionally manipulative behaviour

One more thing to point out is that Wilbur sees his life as a spectacle. To him reaching his “desired conclusion” the first time was a victory and he seems to have started on a sort of scripted “redemption arc”, and I mean scripted within the narrative not meta wise, (in which he’s trying to drag Tommy into as well) after he had his self-proclaimed “villain arc” in Pogtopia, however this view is faulty at best...

We also have to keep in mind that c!Wilbur is truly a relict from the past at this point. He places an incredible amount of value on “factions” and “leadership” and has a very black and white world view, but things have changed a lot since he was around and they’re much more complicated then that now which leaves him with a complete lack of understanding for the world around him and possibly with no tools to correct that lack of understanding

And for last, let’s keep in mind that Wilbur is an INCREDIBLY UNRELIABLE narrator. We cannot trust everything that comes out of his mouth so let’s not take everything blindly as fact

Also, while all I’ve just said is true Tommy is still 100% entitled to not trust him at all and to not be sympathetic towards him, even without considering this stream (and trust me: I’ll get to that one) because their history together is not great. Keep in mind that they were basically alone during Pogtopia and that Wilbur always sorta grouped himself and Tommy together (as in Wilbur considered BOTH of them to be “the bad guys” and BOTH of them to be bad for the server and better off dead) and he was always extremely manipulative in the ways that he used to try and get Tommy to believe his world view as well (and he seemed to adopt a similar behaviour in the stream, but I’ll get to that one later). Sadly that also means that Tommy isn’t a reliable narrator at all for what concerns Wilbur...

Okay, now with all the introduction out of the way the proper analisys will be under the cut! Be advised that it’ll treat some very heavy topics (like abuse, manipulation etc) so, you know, keep that in mind.

The stream I’ll be using for this one is: Meet the latest resurrected gentleman of L'manburg, though I may take some things from: Wilbur Is Revived.

The stream starts with Tommy and Wilbur meating up on the glass covering the L’Manburg crater. Right after we have a bit of banter with Wilbur openly mocking Ghostbur, ignoring Tommy’s discomfort at the subject, like always. I wanna say it right now that the dismissal of whatever Tommy is feeling and whatever he says that does not align with Wilbur’s idea of Tommy is not something new. It’s a behaviour Wilbur developed all throughout the Pogtopia times. He may look like he listens to Tommy a bit more during this stream, but he never takes into account anything he says and constantly dismisses anything he feels, so we know that’s not true. Of course, Wilbur is not the only person who exibited this behaviour (Tommy often gets dismissed when he speaks and if re-watching exile taught me anything is that Dream was also very keen on dismissing all of his emotions).

Also one of the first things Wilbur asks about is his Chekhov's gun, which Tommy moves on from quickly without answering (propably because it got destroyed by Dream while Tommy had it).

“Hey pu- Hey! Put Friend down!” “Wh-why? He’s gonna come with us!” “I don’t want you... no he could die!” “And? It’s a sheep Tommy, who cares about-” “Calm down man! I know- I know that you have the power of eternity over him, but just put him down!” “No! I’m just saying: who cares about a sheep man? It’s just a sheep. Just come...” “Oh I fucking...” “What?! It’s just a sheep my man!”

Once again dismissal of Tommy’s emotions, but also an introduction to the theme of attachments that seems like will be important once again. This time the conflict that’s introduced surrounding attachments is not about their intrinsic value (like it was in season 2) but it seems to be that of attachments vs ideals. In this case what we’re presented with is seemingly a detachment from Wilbur (though we can’t say if it’s volountary, like in Dream’s case, or just an effect of his depression yet).

“Tommy... I’m sorry” “Wait what are you- are you gonna kill me?” “No no sorry” “You’re gonna wack me?” “Ignore the Lore Sword, I’m- I don’t- I’m not good at this man. I need to make some apologies. I told you I needed to have a think and I don’t think an apology would ever sum up... uh... what I did here. I mean look at this mess!” *looking at the crater of L’Manburg* “You did this! Well, not all of it, you did a little bit” “Yeah... I didn’t do the glass. But like I think- I think that I do need to, I need to apologize to some people! You know, I’m gonna- I’m gonna make amends!”

Okay, there are a lot of things to unpack here:

1) Tommy’s immediate reaction to Wilbur apparently softening up while holding a sword is to expect to be hit, probably because of residual trauma from exile where Dream would act in a similar manner

2) Wilbur seems to recognise that he needs to apologize to people, but he doesn’t actually seem to regret anything or doesn’t understand WHAT he needs to apologize for (which is the reason why he only apologizes to people he hasn’t hurt, didn’t know or doesn’t particularly care about). He doesn’t apologize to Tommy for example, his “I’m sorry” at the beginning isn’t directed at Tommy as much as it’s a general statement (this could have something to do with him lumping himself and Tommy together as the bad guys of course). Also, remember that idea about Wilbur seeing his life as a show? Well, he did the villain arc so the only 2 possible ways to go after that are a repeat or a redemtion arc... this is him starting in on the second, while not actually believing in it

3) We already see Wilbur giving himself more importance then he actually did have. Tommy explains that he’s only resposible for a small part of the crater, but Wilbur doesn’t know that Techno, Phil and Dream did exactly what he did but bigger later on and assumes that all of it was done by him (probably making him think that he’s had a decidedly bigger impact then he actually did)

“Well I’m in my forties now Tommy, I counted the years man... how old are you now? You must be what, like, 20? 30?” (Wilbur does not seem to be aware of the time dilatation that occurs in Limbo)

It’s also interesting that Wilbur asks Tommy of all people to give him a tour. I mean, the two were close before and Tommy is the only one who stayed by his side through everything, but Tommy already expressed multiple times a dislike for Wilbur even directly stating to his face in the revival stream that Wilbur should have stayed dead. My best guess is that what brought him to ask Tommy specifically despite that was a mix of being still in a similar mindset to Pogtopia where it was the two of them vs everyone else, Wilbur’s paranoia not having disappeared meaning he doesn’t trust anyone else and a sort of dependency Wilbur has developed on Tommy to avoid loneliness.

“No no! Will, you didn’t get a grave. This is just what you left behind” (destruction and a betrayal of trust are the only remains of who Wilbur used to be it seems)

“Here’s the thing Tommy: I know I was bad and I know I can- I know I can redeem myself but you know there’s- there’s a little bit of fun in being bad, you know, I mean, we’ve spoken about this” (callback to “let’s be the bad guys” and further confirmation that Wilbur isn’t truly interested in redemption as he still sees himself in the role of the villain)

The first person that Wilbur apologizes to is Skeppy who fits the category of “person he more or less knew, but never actually wronged”, meaning that one is a useless apology (and Wilbur seems to recognize that when he asks Skeppy to say one thing he did to him). (Also rip Friend Skeppy doesn’t deserve rights anymore).

“He was Ghostbur’s man! And I wish you’d stop disrespecting him” (technically about Friend but more broadly about Ghostbur as well)

“You see I’ve always seen myself as a bit of an iconoclast so I don’t think I’ll be getting involved in the whoel deity section” (Wilbur is canonically an atheist)

The second person Wilbur apologizes to is Jack Manifold, which is also when Wilbur starts excluding Tommy any time there is someone else there as well. Jack honestly fits in the category of people “Wilbur knew but didn’t really care about”, which is why his apology ends up being quite generic and not very accurate to the historical happenings. He apologized for leaving him behind when he got exiled but, once again, that never actually happened. Jack stayed back of his own volition there. He apologized for not granting Manifold Land independence, which would have been up to Dream. He apologizes for leading him into war which he simply never did, because Jack joined after. All this apologies are what Jack wants to hear, but none of them are true to what happened.

Either way, Tommy brings Wilbur to the roof of the hotel and they have quite the important conversation there. Tommy tries to tell Wilbur about when he decided to go see Dream for the last time, but Wilbur entirely dismisses him.

“I know you’ve had your little strife man” “But I died!” “But I don’t- I don’t care” (full dismissal)

They then end up talking about exile (Wilbur specifically is the one to bring it up).

“Tommy, I’ll tell you what, if I was there and it wasn’t that stupid shell of a ghost instead of me I would have struck down Dream right where he stood. We would have disemboweled him. We would have disemboweled him” “You would have killed Dream?” “Together” “Well Tubbo is the one who sent me off... You would have killed Dream?” “Tommy- Tommy! I wasn’t blind, I saw what he was doing to you Tommy... I saw. I saw what he was doing to Tubbo” “I don’t like thinking about it” “I saw what he did to me”

So talks about Tommy’s exile are always something... Tommy still shows clear hesitance in blaming Dream even after all this time and even more hesitance at the idea of someone killing Dream at the time (probably because he still subconciously bleieves that he was his only friend back then).

Then there is Wilbur who has admitted to know about Dream’s abuse of Tommy and his manipulation of Tubbo and himself (though to which extent for any of these is unclear) and he seems of the idea that: 1) if he was alive he would have been allowed to go with Tommy, which he wouldn’t have and 2) that if he was there they’d have killed Dream. Though he changes his narrative on the second point right after it’s intersting that he thinks he would have been allowed with Tommy because if he was as aware of the situation as he seems to think he is he’d know that Dream “exiled” Tommy specifically to have him alone and vulnerable where he could mold him as he pleased. It wasn’t a political stance like their previous exile, it was a glorified kidnapping.

“After seeing Ghostbur interact with Dream I realized that, no, Dream is not the enemy, Dream is not the enemy” “He-” “This world was not supposed to be inhabited by people of this caliber. Dream is the hero! Dream needs to be let out of here. Dream’s not in prison because he’s a horrible person, Dream’s in there because he dared to try and stop you all. He dared to try and stop you all from gaining all this power because the minute I was gone there was a vacuum, there was opening and everyone just slicked to get in there and Dream was the only one who stood up to them and told them not to. Dream is the one that held my seat for me”

Again, a few things to unpack here:

1) Wilbur somehow fails to see the contraddiction in his own reasoning. “I know Dream abused you, but he is not being imprison because he is a bad person, he was only doing what is necessary” was what his speach boiled down to which is just bullshit plain and simple. But why does Wilbur get to this conclusion? Well because he has faulty information at best to fill in the blanks from the time he was dead and he has a very simplistic worldview where everything must fit neatly into a small little narrative and where people are either “villains” or “heroes” and since Wilbur thinks of himself as a villain and thinks he corrupted anything he came in contact with it makes sense that he would see Dream, someone who opposed everything and everyone previously associated with Wilbur, as the “hero”.

2) We have Wilbur, once again, giving himself more importance then he did have. Wilbur didn’t leave a power vacuum, L’Manburg was rebuilt pretty quickly and all Wilbur left behind was a bit more trauma and, even then, people have done worse since. Wilbur was, in fact, pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Once his story was over people moved on one way or the other and Wilbur simply cannot accept that because he sees himself as a protagonist, but he simply wasn’t around for a long time.

(Also I really wanna punch him in the face for this one because f*ck him for calling Tommy’s abuser a “hero” to his face, that’s a HUGE d*ck move)

“If Dream died instead of me, I would be in there right now” (again, fundamental misunderstanding of why Dream’s in prison in the first place)

“I didn’t actually really care about L’Manburg, I just cared about, you know, sticking it to the man. Actually I cared about L’Manburg for the sole reason that I could use it to stick it to the man! You ever sticked it to the man Tommy?” “That’s not true” “L’Manburg was a tool, it was a great tool, it worked! You know? It divided so many people man”

Listen, we can debate all day wether Wilbur actually cared about L’Manburg beyond seeing as a tool to achieve his ends or not, but that’s not really important. The important thing to take away from this is that Tommy, Tubbo, Niki, Fundy, Eret and Quackity believed in L’Manburg. They believed in it enough to fight for it. Others as well. So whatever the answer to “did Wilbur care?” is, their experiences are not invalidated because of it. The other thing is that the whole conversation about L’Manburg fully establishes the theme of ideals vs attachment that may be explored more in the future.

“I’m sorry for a lot of things but, Tommy that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna try again” (and here it is. Wilbur shows Tommy the most awful side of him that hasn’t changed all the while pretending to be a completely new man in front of others so they won’t believe Tommy if he tells them. This one is full on manipulation)

“I did care about L’Manburg. I did, I did, but if L’Manburg- a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet, L’Manburg would have still been as loved by me if it was called Bim Bum and it was in the middle of the desert” (once again reiterating that it wasn’t about material attchment, but more so about the purpouse of L’Manburg)

“Stick it to the man Tommy! High five” “No! You just said that you loved 'The Man'” (Tommy pointing out the contraddioctions in Wilbur’s reasoning)

“It was like we were a family, you can’t just say that!” “We were a family Tommy. We were. And you know what I guess you just didn’t- I guess you just didn’t have the balls to follow along with me. When I pressed the button you were always against it-” “You blew up our fucking home!” “We’re leaving it behind Tommy, it’s in the past. We’re friends now, we’re friends”

So, two things here: Wilbur seems to resent Tommy partially for not enabling his destructive tendencies seeing Tommy opposing him destroying L’Manburg as him leaving Wilbur behind. And also Wilbur is, once again, dismissing Tommy’s rightful anger, this time in a way that is very reminiscent of Dream (reinforcing the idea of them being “friends” despite having done something that hurt Tommy a lot).

“You’re following me for quite a while for someone who doesn’t care” “*deep sigh* Where are we going next?” (while Tommy is aware that being with Wilbur is not good for him he also seems to not want to leave him either)

“You know I often give him a lot of shit and pretend I don’t like him, because he has a peculiar relationship with Tubbo, but he is a very good man and I stuck up for him because I see potential in him, alright?” “Yeah? What is he, a strong fighter?” “Yeah, well he is- he is a very strong fighter, he stuck by my side, he visited me in exile, he is a good man and he’s helped me”

It’s interesting to see how their opinions diverge. To Wilbur “strenght” is physical strenght and strong ideals. He respects Tommy to a degree because Tommy is not afraid to stand up for what he believes in for example. For Tommy “strenght” is compassion and loyalty. Tommy considers Ranboo strong because he has the strenght to remain kind in a world like theirs where kindness usually doesn’t take you far. And this is the main reason why Wilbur and Ranboo clash, why they are narrative foils: because Ranboo is extremely well loved and secured himself a relatively peaceful life by going against everything that Wilbur believes in. Ranboo is respected and loved where someone like Dream who, to Wilbur, embodies the ideal of strenght is widely hated and he doesn’t understand why because he’s missing so much information.

Third and final person Wilbur apologizes to is Ranboo who falls into the category of “Wilbur didn’t know him”, meaning the apology is, once again, just performative so that Wilbur can move along his perceived “redemtion arc”. During the whole chat with Ranboo Wilbur, once again, mostly pushes Tommy’s presence to the side in favour of the new person, though Ranboo does actually notice Tommy’s constant worry and tension and reassures him multiple times that everything’s fine.

“Everyone I seem to meet seems to have this deep intrinsic feeling of disgust towards me” (no one actually does, this is just Wilbur’s self deprecation talking. Like, Tommy is the only one who has expressed anger towards him so far and he’s still sticking to Wilbur and trying to talk to him)

“Tommy is very suspicious of me because of who I WAS” (this is, once again, manipulation. Trivializing Tommy’s fear and suspicions in front of others while reinforcing them when they’re alone is a way to isolate him from an eventual support system)

“It was big, it was big effects though right? I mean... let’s be honest here” (Wilbur once again overestimating his impact. He did have a lasting effect on people, but nowhere near as he seems to think)

“Tommy I don’t know who you’re tryng to protect here, me or Ranboo” “Ranboo” (yes yes, Allium Duo moment, but also Wilbur seems sort of jealous of the relationship Ranboo and Tommy have and how obvious it is where Tommy’s loyalty lies now)

“You get into people’s heads Wilbur, alright? You’re like a little caterpillar, you go in through their ear, then you hatch a butterfly, before you know it your brain is all colors and flying...” (Tommy lacking proper terminology to describe Wilbur’s manipulation, but still doing a wonderful job at it)

Wilbur spends quite a while interrogating Ranboo on his beliefs and getting progressively more confused about why people (and Tommy especially as he specifies later) love him so much as Ranboo explains his “pick people not sides” philosophy. He seems particularly annoyed by Ranboo soley defining Dream as “bad”, possibly because in the world view he crafted for himself everyone is so extremely divided and he can’t imagine the existence of someone who tries to actively defy that by trying to side with everyone who hasn’t directly harmed his loved ones or himself. At first Wilbur thinks Ranboo must have some ulterior motive for being kind to everyone and is even more shocked at finding out that that’s not the case.

“There’s been more wars while I’ve been dead then when I was alive Ranboo, that’s- that’s a-” “There’s actually been only one and ever since you died and Dream’s been put in prison the server’s actually been peaceful” “So you’re saying that you don’t like me? In the same way you don’t like Dream you’re against me then?” “I- no! No no no, I don’t not like you Wilbur, I don’t like the person that you were. I’m willing- I’m willing to like you now, if you’ve changed”

And here we have Ranboo standing against Wilbur quite directly. Wilbur seems convinced that, because Ranboo doesn’t dislike most people he stands for nothing which, admittedly, Ranboo is quite hypocritical and weak willed, but he is showing the sort of strenght Tommy admires him for here. Ranboo dislikes who Wilbur used to be because he hurt his family, but he is willing to give him a second chance, which is more then even Wilbur ever did for himself. Also, to be fair, once Dream was locked up the server did become more peaceful and there were less wars. Ranboo was right when pointing that one out and the fact that Wilbur doesn’t seem to know it points to his lack of knowledge that he doesn’t seem willing to fix.

It’s also interesting that Wilbur seems to conclude all this meetings in a hurry by asking Tommy to go on with the tour and basically pulling him along... even if it’s pretty clear by now that Tommy isn’t really needed there. Wilbur remembers how to navigate the server without Tommy thanks to Ghostbur’s memories and he ignores Tommy’s presence whenever someone else is near. The only reason why he is pulling him along is because he can and because he uses him to vent and say all the things he lies to others about... so much for his “no lying” oath...

“He’s a follower Tommy! You’re not a follower man! You stand up for yourself, you fight for what you believe in” (reiteration of Wilbur’s idea of strenght which alsoseems connected to worth for him. For him being a “follower” is inherently negative)

“Tommy he felt like the polar opposite of me” (in case we needed more reasons to consider them foils)

Wilbur and Tommy have a fight right after because Tommy’s upset at Wilbur being an ass to Ranboo and completely ignoring him and about his presence just in general. Wilbur is the one insisting for the fight to be physical in a scene that mirrors the Pogtopia pit scene quite a lot while Tommy would have been contented (and would have actually preferred) with Wilbur admitting to his faults. But so far Wilbur hasn’t apologized for his more grave faults even once and he has yet to apologize to Tommy for anything at all and I honestly doubt he intends to at the moment or that he even feel remorseful for anything... they fight and Tommy wins and takes Wilbur’s sword to avoid a repeat of the situation.

“Look at me. No matter what happens, no matter what goes down, today, tomorrow, next week, the week after, the week after next, the fact that I’m alive means that anything that happens along this line I’ve won. I’ve already won. I won when I pressed that button. You can spar me however many times you want for your own personal victories, but, in the grand scheme of things, I’ve already won. And I think, from your silence, you know that”

This brings us back to Wilbur seeing his life as a show and himself as both the protagonist of the story and the villain. The button scene was the ending of his story and he managed to complete it with what he considers his own victory. Of course it’s also a way to put down Tommy in a similar way to how the “you’re never gonna be president” speach worked. Tommy didn’t want to spar with Wilbur in the first place, but he did win. Tommy didn’t want to be president either because, despite Wilbur being convinced that he has his same idea of power, Tommy is quite content to live a simple life with none of the responsabilities that come from having power. In both cases though, Wilbur takes the chance to use the aspiration of the image of Tommy he’s painted in his mind against the real one, by saying thet it’ll be impossible for him to accomplish what he thinks he wants. Doesn’t work anymore though, Tommy immediately called him out on his bullshit even if he was ignored again. Also what’s with Wilbur and constantly asking Tommy to look at him? Is he afraid to disappear if Tommy’s not looking or something?

“You just stick with me man, stick with me. Stick with the winning side. Stick with the side that stands for something, stick with the side that believes in something” (it’s also interesting to note that Wilbur seems to constantly see his life as a conflict adn, right now, he appears to think that it’s him and Tommy vs the world, similarly to how Dream started thinking in prison)

“I thought he had infinite canon lives” (Wilbur seems to have held at least some of Ghostburs naivete it seems)

“Honestly I wasn’t expecting you to have your shit together like this man, I thought you just came on to kill me” (once again Wilbur thinking he’s the center of the world apparently)

“Thank you for that [killing him] by the way. No no seriously, thank you for that! Because if you hadn’t done that I’d ended up living- I would have been exiled with Tommyinnit and then I would have gotten angry at Dream because Dream can’t go around hurting Tommy like that. I would’ve been angry at Dream. I would have tried to fight Dream, which now I see would’ve been a silly move because Dream’s my hero! Dream’s amazing! So I would’ve ended up fighting Dream and then I would’ve been the one in prison and not Dream”

I was kinda surprised that he said all of this to Phil, but I guess he may remember Phil siding with Dream for Doomsday perhaps, so he thinks he can get understanding on all the Dream stuff. He also prefaced this by bringing up something that Phil still feels immensely guilty about meaning he was more prone to listen. Also, again he seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what exile was about or why Dream is in prison in the first place but, aside from that, his opinion on Dream just seems to genuinely fluctuate between despising him for hurting Tommy and considering him a hero because he brought him back to life and because he covers the role of the misunderstood underdog who’s trying to do what’s right in the version of the story that he created in his mind.

“Well yes, but I wouldn’t have stood for Dream’s shit while Tubbo, well Tubbo did stand for it” (see what I mean? Fluctuating opinions. Pretty sure not even he himself is entirely sure of what he feels or think in this regard)

“Oh, Will?” “Yeah?” “I forgot to mention by the way. I, at one point, griefed George’s house with Ranboo and that caused to a chian of events that lead- that- that was kind of why I got exiled more so...” “Okay and Ranboo managed to not get exiled with you?” “Oh no, it was just me” “That’s pretty uh-” “But I stood up for Ranboo. I made sure he didn’t because he was so new and he was, you know, he was-” “Ah, so you got thrown under the bus. Did he not stand up for you? Did he not offer to go with you?” “No he did stand up for me but to, like, to an extent because he didn’t wanna get exiled and that’s fair” “okay... I’m Sure I’ll Get On With Him!”

Wilbur’s obvious distaste for Ranboo shining through again. Also he was pocking in the right direction, but, sadly, Tommy is not the right person to ask this questions to because he fully believes that he deserved what happened to him still, so he won’t be able to explain that the reson why Ranboo wasn’t exiled was because Dream didn’t care about him and the exile was just about gettng him alone. I don’t think anyone aside from Dream has clocked that in quite yet as a matter of fact. Also this conversation has just proven further to Wilbur that Ranboo is the pushover he though he was after all.

After that Wilbur explains to Phil that the reason he lied was because he didn’t want to let him down. He also tries to convince Phil that he doesn’t lie anymore and that he didn’t lie much in the first place, only to address Tommy and go:

“Old Wilbur did a lot of lying Tommy, old Wilbur did a lot of lying”

“Wait did you say there was a counselor on this server that we could talk to?” (Tommy yet again being the only f*cker in the server that genuinely wants to go to therapy)

Also Phil trusts people way too easily. He just confronted Wilbur about lying in his letters for a long time only to turn around and immediately trust him that he is a changed man, even after Wilbur said straight to his face that Dream is his hero. Like... he is supposed to have lived a long ass time, how did he stay this naive?

Will also mentions that he has plans and intends to have both Phil and Tommy in on them as soon as they’re ready. He also proceeds to make it sound like the only reason why Tommy is upset with him and doesn’t trust him is because he was a bit mean to Ranboo which is him, once again, trivializing Tommy’s fears in front of others so that they are less likely to take him seriously in the future. He then asks for a bed and shower which Phil provides. One other thing to note is that Wilbur seems extremely reluctant any time that it comes to going underground, probably due to trauma from living in a ravine in Pogtopia.

“Do you trust me? Do you believe that I’m turning a new leaf Tommy?” (this is not the first time this stream that Wilbur seems to seek out Tommy’s approval and it’s interesting that he doesn’t seem to do it with anyone else)

Once again Wilbur interrupts the visit in a hurry as soon as Tommy tries to explain his side of the story to Phil telling Tommy repedly to go with him. This really seems to be a pattern since it happened every single time, and I’m guessing that the reason is that, once he has given his pieace, leaving Tommy to speak may be detrimental to the manipulation in the long run.

“Be nice Tommy, okay? Be nice” “Phil, you murdered him” (Lmao)

“Tommy you’re missing the sunrise! You’re missing the sunrise” (for the sun as a symbol enthusiasts)

The two of them then have a very weird argument about stone that it’s literally just textbook manipulation in action right there. At first Wilbur asks for stone then, after Tommy complains a bit, he concedes and switches to cobblestone just to then comment on the fact that stone looks better, but he’s graciously letting Tommy having a say in it. He then expresses that his request is for Tommy to get “all the stone” but making sure that he doesn’t believe that Tommy will be able to do that. Multiple times in fact. He then tells him to get it with Phil because Phil would be able to do so, unlike him. And all of this is just to split up from him in a way that’ll have Tommy still be too busy to explain to anyone about Wilbur.

“He’s a good kid, he’s a good kid. I’ll be back on the saddle soon... I mean it’s only a matter of times I’ve done it once I’ll do it again” (I do think that Wilbur does care for Tommy a bit, I’m fairly sure about that, but their relationship really sin’t healthy. Also we’re back with Wilbur immediately assuming the role of “protagonist” in his “story” once more)

“Why does everyone like that Ranboo guy? I don’t understand...” (once again, incapacity to understand someone who is so diametrically opposed to him)

“I’m done apologizing” (he didn’t even start. Not in a way that mattered and not to the people who needed it most)

“I don’t know how I was revived” (Wilbur canonically does not know about the revive book)

Wilbur’s stream ends with him checking out Quackity’s book and Wilbur making a whole speach confirming that his idea of power is tied to physical strenght and feeling self assured in the fact that he was “right all along”. Tommy’s stream however was not over yet.

“I don’t want to try and save the server, I don’t have that in me”

“We need to get the stone... and then we need to stop Will and he hopefully won’t destroy the server” (Tommy being dragged back in the role of the hero kicking and screaming)

“When we did L’Manburg I was a strong guy, a character that could go around and now it feels different. I feel thinner. I feel... don’t have a choice. I don’t have a choice” (once more he lacks the proper words to describe trauma, but he still does a great job of it. He also feels once again like this role was put on him and he has no choice but to oblige)

Tommy later talks about how he won't let anyone put him "through that shit" (manipulation) but that he’ll still get the stone because it would be nice to have Wiilbur be impressed with him. Which is just a great way to let us know that Wilbur's tactic has indeed worked.

And this is pretty much it!

#tommyinnit #wilbur soot #ranboo #dream smp #tw manipulation #tw abuse mention #character analysis #relationship analysis #long post #my post #pretty sure that this is the longest post I've ever written...#the whole thing was just so utterly confusing #this did clear up my thought though so that's nice!#also shoutout to wilbur dying inside at tommy's tinder joke and visibly having to force himself to stay in character for it

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