#Like yeah I know it has thematic importance and all

[so-am-smyme9540]

More MH art!

Y'all seem to be liking this so here's more ig (if you want more serious/high quality art send me an ask and Ill probably do it)

Close ups under the cut

[dallonwrites]

the first chapter of lover boy is really intense on an emotional level because So Many Things happen in quick succession it's like beau barely gets a chance to breathe and process it. meanwhile RR opening chapter is just felix and dorothy arguing in a laundromat.

[marklikely]

the results of that "is fanfic a book" poll have shown me one thing and its that this site never graduated past that absolutely insufferable phase in 2013 where everyone acted like every book is the single most sacred thing on earth

[lucabyte]

obligatory ramble about postcanon loop ask

also your art is amazing

Hiiiiiiiii :D thank you :)!!

and thank you for the excuse to post the. just absolute wall of text that i truncated down to form the tags of that post. (i did,,, hit the tag limit. i forgot tumblr had one of those...) so let me just paste that and tidy it up a bit...

I am putting this under a readmore because it's a bit long. but:

This is like. The General Context for all* of my postcanon doodles? (Except AUs obviously) Like this is the base idea I've been drawing them all in. So, feel free to backread with this in mind. I've basically had this 'postcanon' timeline set in my brain since finishing the game...

My general thoughts are that I like the idea of Loop (even if through dubiously ethical means) being able to slowly reintegrate with the party as a whole new person, because they are, in fact, their own person.

It's a muddle of thematic threads im pulling on and "wouldn't it be fucked up if", but. (at its core, it's powered by the fact that like, while narratively isat's theme of 'the only person who can truly take the first step to help you is yourself'. (wrt: loop helping the party help siffrin in act 5) which i LOVE AND IS GREAT NARRATIVELY…. would be super fucked up irl to learn that your friend 'learned as a lesson' while you stood by kinda uselessly. I know i'd be upset about it. but thats mostly background here. doesn't really come up. at least not until loop has to explain who they are and the party realises they had to fall back on literally themselves again for help, but i digress,)

The real core concept is: Occam's razor. It is like, inherently, a buckwild thing to accuse a person of being somehow a clone or copy of your friend. Even if they start vaguely alluding to a backstory it's far more likely they were some other person before all that. (I still think Odile has that theory in the back pocket but she's rational enough to know it's a really long shot without a solid explanation. and i think Loop deep down knows this, and would, if cornered into confessing, turn the situation around to go J'ACCUSE and make HER explain it instead. Ever longer dodging being direct with their emotions...)

And the party are nice! And if someone has changed and wants to keep stuff secret it's kind of not their business? (Though it's hard not to speculate… see: the main joke of the doodles) And they seem important to Siffrin so they just try to accept them abrasive quirks and all. And eventually the question of their prior identity just fades away since, well, they're Loop. Their friend Loop.

but yeah. personal headcanon is that a few months/weeks after picking up and getting aquainted with Nille** (since that was presumably the IMMEDIATE TASK postgame), Loop reappears (either after a literal period of nonexistance, or just spending a few months wandering the french countryside alone being attacked by wild dogs). Since Siffrin has had a while to be therapised by the party they're doing mostly okay, but Loop showing up and still being agitated/aggressive pulls them both into a bit of a backslide behaviourally and puts the party on the back foot again.

Hooowever, I do think that due to no longer being literally stewing in the worst pressure cooker of all time together, the two do mostly actually sort themselves out with productive conversation. (Via a cycle of: genuinely distressing argument -> weeeird lovebombing -> ok we're good -> repeat, that gets less intense over time)

Thus, allowing the party to just. Integrate loop as a new person. They and Siffrin shuffle into different ecological niches (Loop taking over stuff Siffrin is now too squeamish for, etc (see: hunting, mostly)), and while it's not exactly what Loop wanted they generally get that beggars can't be choosers and it's a pretty good deal. And the rest of the party does straight up just like them as a friend, especially when Loop quits trying to actively antagonise them after a few weeks of being around them, since they just can't keep up being mean to people they like forever.

As for how I think the truth eventually drags itself out. This is where I invoke The Isabeau Torment Nexus™. So its gonna get shippy here for a bit hold on.

Which is, I think giving them time before Loop reappears long enough that Siffrin and Iseabeau actually manage to become established, Isabeau has to be the one to nudge the pair of them and go. "Hey. You know we're in Vaugarde right. I'm okay with polyamory if we all communicate." Before Loop and Siffrin actually even acknowledge that whatever the fuck they have going on kinda looks a lot like a relationship of some kind. (or have already been agonising about that via fighting and arguing, depending) (Obviously this comes after Isa "Emotionally intelligent enough to keep a lid on the jealousy" Beau has managed to use that big brain of his to Not just go Scream somewhere on the daily because oh godddd they keep talking like theyre suicide-baiting each other jesus chriiist. is it overstepping his boundaries to bring that up?? god)

This, taking a bunch of the tension out of Loop and Isabeau's relationship (Since I imagine Loop is a. being weird for the obvious reasons and b. feeling kinda guilty about 'getting in the way of' Siffrin and Iseabeau), allows them to actually get close in a normal friend way. (I think an interesting turning point could be Isabeau actually taking Loop's side in an argument vs Siffrin, which would absolutely break Loop's brain. Especially if it's an argument that matters. Like what do you mean he isn't just going to play favourites. What?)

Then Isabeau, just actually open minded and charmed by Loop (and maybe even somewhat at Siffrin's suggestion?) tries to close the final open side on the polyamory triangle here and that's the final straw for Loop on "This lie by omission is too unethical to keep up, this is just actually sick and wrong. I can't do this while he doesn't know who I am." Though. Obviously it probably goes. Very poorly with emotions high like that. And the added element of several months of deceit. Getting dark here for a second but that dagger is going MISSING and so are THEY for a hot minute.

Then yaaay everything works out in the end 👍 yippieee!! all it took was maybe a lot of harrowed recontextualisation of all the weird shit your new friend said and did when it turns out they're your old friend. It's fine.

But yeah. this is basically the context all of my postcanon doodles have existed within? And those exist to give other people something to chew on. So this does too.

I suppose TL;DR: Imagine if sloopis almost fucking happens before isabeau knows who loop is. can you fucking imagine. can you imagine having to navigate that. nightmare.

*Yes this includes the implied cannibalism comic. Uhh. Comes part and parcel with headcanoning that Loop went way off the deep end similar to A5 Sif But Maybe Worse before giving in. Add weepy half-asleep confessions to murder wherever you see fit in your mind palace. 👍👍👍

**Re: Nille footnote. I don't have anywhere to put this besides here! I have some thoughts on Loop and Nille having an odd dynamic. I don't imagine Nille to be super gung-ho on trusting a bunch of adults (even if they are majority around her age) given their implied backstory. It's probably a big shock to the system, especially since Bambouche is a good couple hundred Kilometers up north from Dormont and these guys don't seem to have trains. She would've been unfrozen and without Bonnie for some time....

Which is to say: I think she's suspicious of them. I think she may be looking for excuses to distance herself, keep Bonnie safe. SO.... A new guy showing up? And antagonising the party? What do they know that I don't...? I should find out.

And since... Loop didn't ever know Nille, they have no ammunition or real reason to be cruel. Plus, if they're trying to stay on Bonnie's good side (SINCE... if Bonnie thought Loop was cringe they may as well kill themselves. In their mind.) they SUPER have no reason to antagonise Nille.

Mostly, they might be able to open up to each other easier than they can the rest of the party?

I feel like this resolves with Loop feeling compelled to apologise for what they and Siffrin let happen to Bonnie, though... Hmm... Depends on how you interpret Nille that they'd be glad nobody else had been told about that yet, or furious it had been secret this long. I lean toward the former.

[gittetj]

You've mentioned that you hc Reigen as ace, can you elaborate?

I agree w/ that but can't sort my thoughts out well enough to make a coherent analysis ;w;

Yeah, that's the vibe he gives me. No concrete "evidence" and I don't care all that much about the sexual orientations of fictional characters, but I guess for me, the headcanon comes down to three things:

1) Reigen is super disinterested in other people being attracted to each other. I feel like there are several small examples of this, but first one that comes to mind is that case with the esper who can astral project and uses it to stalk his neighbor. When they discover this, Reigen has such a non-reaction. I've seen a lot of people bring up these panels

which, yeah, but when they find the culprit, Reigen also doesn't express much of an opinion. It's just "it's a stalker, stalking is bad and illegal, this is a job for the police." No more introspection from him, he immediately moves on, it doesn't interest him. Mob is the one doing all the reacting.

2) Reigen never resorts to flirting despite how he's known for bullshitting his way through anything else to complete a job. Like, no matter how horny Studio Bones is for the guy, they can't change this. He could deliberately capitalize on the fact that a considerable amount of his income comes from massaging middle-aged ladies who find him attractive, but he doesn't. It's accidental. It does not even seem like something Reigen thinks about.

3) Reigen's a self-conscious person, yet doesn't act like it bothers him that he's seemingly never been in a relationship before. He explicitly has a crisis over being lonely in the confession arc, but it's about friends and connections and doing something meaningful with his life. Romantic relationships don't factor into it, even though it easily could, considering it has great thematic relevance for Mob who spends the entire story being in love. Not that you can't fall in love with someone if you're ace, this goes a little bit into aro territory I guess, but either way.. it just gives me that vibe. The indifference. I mean, even in chapter 99 when Mob point-blank asks Reigen for advice about Tsubomi, Reigen first asks Serizawa, then looks it up on his phone, exactly like he would with any other topic he doesn't know jack shit about.

Also, at the end of the scene, he muses about what's important in a relationship, and his conclusions just.. don't sound like he's talking about romance? To me?

I don't know, that entire scene gives me flashbacks to being younger and not yet knowing what asexuality (or aromanticism) is and having to navigate conversations like that without giving away that you fundamentally can't relate to this thing everyone else is so preoccupied with.

Them's my takes, I don't have much else to say about it.

[gavagecunctation]

upd8 re8ction

so it is tavvy i knew it. im surprised yiffy managed to get 8way seeing as like last we saw her she was 8eing yelled at 8y harvris 8ut it checks. i love tavvy and yiffys duo. we 8oth know we weren't meant to 8e 8orn.

(P.S. I left you guys some trail mix. Don’t pick the raisins out; they’re healthy.)

he's so silly. 8rother of all time. or uncle i guess

love his fuckass rich 8uoy sigil or wax seal or wh8tever

(sorry for the num8er of 8s this upd8 is really fucking me up for reasons you'll see on like the next panel)

cool panel love the composition love the everything. harry and vris look so silly. their heads are 8igger than jades. rose you're so 8ad at your jo8

harry stop 8eing a pussy. L.

this is the first time im actually enjoying the idea of tavvrissy 8eing kismeses and not just a guy and the 8oy she 8osses around

VRISSY: And neither is that Arrog8nt Hivewrecking 8ITCH!

HEY DON'T CALL ME THAT

this panel. just gorgeous. and 8lso heart8reaking for me. 8ye dad and fuck you to the anonymous shooter.

oh so N8W you do your jo8 . another 8anger panel. the choice to make rose shadowed/grey against harvris' regular colors is interesting to me. she's re8lly lost all her light huh

shed a single (8rave 8oy) tear. rip dad

was talking in the hs8c discord a8out whether this would 8e heroic or not. someone 8rought up that it could 8e just 8ecause of jades homewrecking which yeah i 8elieve. also the w8y she was trying to manipul8 the narrative could 8e seen as just. sad day for me i wanted candy jade and ult dirk to talk theyre 8oth so thematically simil8r

the sweat is interesting. does she know jade is dead? pro8a8ly. does she regret it?

may8e. most likely not

another 8anger as usual i love hs8cs artstyle

this shot is pretty interesting to me. is that the 8ell tower where dirk died? why is it glowing white? is cave the point under it too or is the 8attermaid using it as a vessel for the 8eam? lots of thoughts

yiffy and tavvy are not dead that's all i know for sure. they would not die they're too important

i really thought the flash would end act 1 8ut this is cool as fuck too

W8?????

these fucking pages loaded l8 for me oh my god. hs union you rascals

gavageCunctation [GC] began negging adamantGriftress [AG] 801 MINUTES AGO.

ayyyy its a deltrit8n. delta detritus hey did you know detritus means trash 8ecause for the longest time i didnt and now i feel stupid

801 minutes = 13 something hours. that's many imo 8ut you do you hs8c

this guy's really interesting. i think the delta kids (petition to call them that) are going to 8e 8ased on 2020s internet tropes. gc seems to 8e 8ased on a tum8lr user of some sort.

GC: if i'm being honest we cooked hard with this GC: haha... tag that shit i'm fussing... GC: AA (that's oomf)

my proof for the a8ove st8ment 8ut also this reads like a millenial desper8ly trying to speak like a gen z/alpha kid (which i guess it is). i cant tell whether "i'm fussing" is aave or not

i'm curious though how did they get vrissys handle?

gavageCunctation's [GC'S] computer exploded.

L + r8io

gc defo has a crush on vrissy which is funny as fuck to me. go girl 8r8k up with your technically uncle gc is right there!!! you can do 8etter!!!

aa seems interesting i get the feeling they're pro8a8ly in contact with ultrose or at least that sort of rose-rezi stand in of the session due to how it seems like they have some sort of seer a8ilities

GC: um anyway she's like an oracle... GC: except she's not an oracle. GC: she's some other shit...

you guys get what i mean? oh aa could 8e like jade too as in they could 8e awake on prospit and thats why they know all this stuff

GC: yet i still stay up to my buccal mass

a sea species so this is one of roses delta kids neat

ok done for now 8ye

[astaroth1357]

We Need To Talk About Nightbringer (the Person, Not the Game)

I'm still scratching my head over what Nightbringer's goal is here... How is MC involved? Why send them back in time? And, of course, who are they??

SPOILERS Up to Lesson 12 Below Cut

The Fuck is the Goal Here??

Sending the MC back just to form pacts makes no goddamn sense. If the MC acquiring pacts was the real aim, then that mission was already accomplished in the present-day. There's something more here.

Why send MC back to RIGHT NOW? What about making pacts AT THIS TIME is desirable to Nightbringer? Is the end game even having the pacts at all...?

I posit that Nightbringer wants war, specifically, another war between angels and demons. The imagery of scales brings to mind the fragile balance of peace that Diavolo was mentioning between the realms before. RAD isn't built yet, his goal to improve relations is still in its infancy, and the times are so tumultuous that MC risks an all out fight starting just being there. So if Nightbringer wants to make things come to blows, then this is the PERFECT time to send them to.

However...

What is this "path to happiness" all about? What does Nightbringer think will make the MC most happy...? And what about THEIR happiness is linked to his? Is he assuming that in a war of the three realms, MC would side with the demons and thus if demons win then MC will be glad? That doesn't really track with the MC as presented in game... They're generally shown as a peacemaker or bridge builder. I don't think a war would make them happy at all!

Ultimately, I don't think we can answer this question in any way that makes sense until we have a better idea of WHO Nightbringer is so....

Who is Nightbringer??

It's Barbs

This goes for any version of Barbs: past, present, future, or even an alternate self I guess. This only makes sense because we're dealing with a demon who does time travel and there's only one demon we know who fits this bill but... why?

I can't imagine any reason why Barbatos would betray Diavolo, at least the one we know. This guy is so loyal to his lord that he's the ONLY character who won't completely kowtow to MC's whims even in the OG game. His true loyalty was always to Diavolo. Not the realm, not demons, DIAVOLO. And if Diavolo seeks peace, then why on earth would Barbs want to cause a war?? Is he more bitter about things than we thought...?

If it's a different version of Barbs, then I guess this goes out the window, but even then what's an alternate Barbs care about this world specifically? What would he hope to gain? MC? Why?? The means are all here, but I just can't figure out the motive, so...

It's Not Barbs, but Connected to Barbs

You know. I've been thinking a lot about this and I've been considering how, thematically, it could be appropriate for Diavolo not to be the only one with a progenitor/parental figure out of commission. We can assume that Daddy Devil must of had an attendant like Barbatos to aid him like Dia has Barbs so...

What if Nightbringer is the old King's previous attendant? And what's more, what if they aren't Barbs but related to Barbs? Like a sibling or parent? It's important to note that Barbs' time capabilities are not INTERNAL to him. It's his room of doorways to other timelines. Presumably, anybody with sufficient knowledge could inherit that room and just take over the role of the Devildom's time lord.

I know it goes against all of our previous notions to think that Barbatos was, at some point, just an everyday demon and not some primordial, OG force of nature but none of that was canon anyway. Something to think about.

It's Michael

I know people keep offering up this one, but I'm really not buying it... Yeah, Michael has always been this looming, shady figure over the OM universe and he's canonically and non-canonically done some eyebrow raising shit, but what's the motive here? Plus, Nightbringer's thematic ties to, well, night really feel more demon than angel... The Celestial Realm is always sunny, the Devildom is always dark. I think it's just a stretch...

Michael wanting another war could be interesting, especially since we've seen far more of angels being actively antagonistic to demons than the other way around, but I don't think that makes him Nightbringer. At most, he could end up being a shadow ally in his plot to bring everything to a head once again.

It's Solomon

In truth, even I don't think Nightbringer is the Solomon we're talking to. But I still think it's suspicious that all of this plays out so perfectly for our present-day Solo-pal... Personally, I take anything this guy tells us directly with a grain of salt since we know he'll lie openly, so here are the facts we're working with:

We are interacting with our present day Solomon (or at least one with knowledge of who we are and our timeline's events).

Solomon is the only one in this current space who knows of our full history in the OG timeline.

This Solomon put himself not only in the position of being the ONLY ONE who knows us that we can interact with, but happily isolated us from the brothers and made himself our main point of contact.

And last (and perhaps most importantly) HE'S STILL TRYING TO MAKE PACTS. He approaches Lucifer about it and successfully makes a pact with Asmo centuries before he's supposed to! If my guy is really from the present, that's like, Changing the Course of History 101! What the hell???

Let me present to you a theory. He is not present-day Solomon, sent back to help MC. He is past-Solomon, caught up to MC's identity through Barbs' time powers and just playing the part of our modern-day buddy. If he's from the past, he doesn't have to worry about changing the present timeline like we do because that ain't even him we've been speaking to. It feels like he has this bet going with Nightbringer... they have some kind of wager and MC is key to it. They're the one who'll tip the scales and Solomon is trying to get us to stay on his side.

It's Not Solomon, but Connected to Solomon

There's something off about Solomon that everybody, LITERALLY everybody, makes comments on: how he doesn't seem human anymore.

The OM timeline introduced the idea that a person can become something else, no matter what they started out as. The brothers were angels, but they fell, so they became demons. Simeon violated angel rules, so he was made into a human. The idea of corruption related to Solomon has always stuck in the back of my mind... The guy has over 70 pacts, he's lived for several centuries at least, and there's just something NOT RIGHT about him...

When Solomon and Nightbringer are speaking to each other, this line stuck out to me.

I find this comment so damn weird. If Nightbringer is a demon and has always been a demon, why would Solomon feel the need to lampshade this? He's pointing it out as if it's meant to get under Nightbringer's skin... Why state the obvious?

What if Nightbringer wasn’t always a demon?

Nightbringer refers to and brings up his demonness as much as Solomon brings up his humanness. That, to me, reeks of insecurity. They may not just be fighting on the lines between demons and humanity, but fighting each other/themselves to prove who's side they're actually on.

What if Nightbringer is a fully-corrupted Solomon? Either a Solomon in the future who's fucking around with the past or a Solomon in this timeline/dimension that's trying to use MC to cause destruction for his world??

..... Okay, I do know this is a bit of a reach. As much as I would love to blame the sorcerer, Nightbringer still seems like a being who's just... been around a while. Far too long to start fucking up shit now. It's possible that if he is from the future and just hopping through time, there's nothing stopping him from going back however far he wants to, but then you could get into the "You are your own grandfather" paradox and the next thing you know we're in another installment of Kingdom Hearts where time is our worst enemy.

HOWEVER, the idea of corruption DOES bring me to my wildest theory yet.

What if Nightbringer wants MC to become a demon...?

Think about it.

It could explain why Solomon is trying so hard to make MC remember and side with their humanity.

It could explain why Nightbringer sent them there under the guise of demon to start with.

It could be why he wants them to make their pacts again. He's trying to seduce them into fully embracing the demonic world through their connection with the brothers.

Humans die, right? Why not be a demon and not have to worry about it?

Throw away the Ring of Light.

Stay by your demons' sides.

Embrace the darkness.

Join the damned.

And when that big'ol battle that he wants happens, he'll have the most powerful sorcerer/sorceress, fully demonized, fighting for his side against God himself.

..... Or that's my spec script anyway. Probably too out there, but man would it be fun...

[kanansdume]

I've recently been watching these very interesting Star Wars video essays on YouTube (yeah I know, a rare breed) and it brings up these comments Lucas has made about how he views Star Wars as almost like a silent film in terms of how important the visuals are to him in comparison to the dialogue. But this essay also points out how important Lucas finds all of the "rhyming" moments in his trilogies and the way he utilizes them to remind you of something else for emotional or thematic reasons. And there's so many of them, both in visuals and in dialogue, and it's interesting to consider how important this is to him, the repetition for a purpose as well as the storytelling through visuals above everything else and then to look at Star Wars since the Prequels came out and realize how little has really been able to match up to those ideals since then.

The ONLY thing that's come out since the Prequels that I think really hits these two things the same way is, in fact, Andor. One of the things I noticed about the way people discussed Andor as it was airing in a way I haven't really seen for any of the other shows or films was the visual SYMBOLOGY. So many times I saw people noticing the Imperial cog everywhere, from the aerial shot of Narkina 5 as the prisoners escape to the architecture of Mon Mothma's house. There were people picking up on the use of items in Luthen's shop that are familiar from other things to give this idea that Luthen is from another time, he's attempting to preserve this world he lost, that if you're not looking closely enough you won't notice what he's really saying or doing with this shop. The color choices for the different locations and people got analyzed because the people involved spoke about how they intentionally utilized color to SEND A MESSAGE about the characters and the world. We know that the people who made the costumes and sets really worked hard to treat Star Wars almost like a period drama and study the history of the franchise as if it were a real place so that the things they came up with felt like they belonged in this world everyone knows so well even if it's completely new. And of course there were all of the myriad references to things from Rogue One, the constant repetition of "climb", the sunset on the beach, etc.

Nearly EVERY SHOT in this show was created with so much intention behind it in order to say something meaningful about the characters, the world, this specific story they're in, and the overall saga of Star Wars itself. It's insane how much greater impact this show was able to achieve through the incredibly careful usage of visual symbols and thematic repetitions, much like Lucas did before them. It feels like they didn't just study the history of the galaxy far far away, but they studied the history of STAR WARS and what Lucas was trying to do and say with this story. They peeled back his onion a bit more and were able to create something that really has that same visual feel even when it's not created for a child audience. It also is experimenting with its narrative style through its structure and through Cassian's character being allowed to be somewhat more reactive than proactive, and while that didn't work for everyone, it does feel like it's following in Lucas's footsteps of experimentation through Star Wars. Push the boundaries of what Star Wars is and can be and what you can say with it.

But this only works because they peeled the onion back enough to TRULY understand all of the messages Lucas was sending with it. They got the heart of Star Wars and despite its lack of space wizards, despite the lack of most major characters in the Saga, this was a show that honestly got the message more than just about anything else Star Wars has put out since the Prequels. The choices between selflessness and selfishness, the themes about how you always HAVE to make a choice even when it feels like you don't have any (sometimes ESPECIALLY when it feels like you don't have any), and how important it is to make sure to choose the path of compassion above everything else. The themes of connection to others, the symbiotic circle and the impact even the smallest person can have on world around them, it's RIGHT THERE and it's CENTRAL to Andor's storyline.

So yes, it experiments a little with narrative structure, but it's possibly the most Star Wars thing to exist Revenge of the Sith because it honestly truly GETS what Star Wars was about, both in its themes and in its filmmaking. A lot of people said that Andor didn't feel like Star Wars to them, usually because of the lack of space wizards and the fact that it's not a story aimed at children. But to me, Andor is EXACTLY what Star Wars is and has always been. They're stretching the boundaries of what Star Wars can be, but it's saying the exact same things Star Wars has always said, it's just saying it slightly differently. This doesn't feel like fanfiction to me, not really. Unlike things like the Mandoverse or the books, Andor isn't just taking some of the toys out of the sandbox and going to play with them somewhere else. Andor is IN that sandbox. It's building a slightly different sandcastle, but it's still within the sandbox, using the same sand that Lucas did.

[anthurak]

Okay so I mentioned this as part of a bigger post a few years back, but I thought it would be worth bringing it up again.

Thus far, each of the three Maidens we've been introduced to not only each have a connection to one of Team RWBY, but all share a very SPECIFIC narrative link:

Obviously Winter is Weiss's older sister and Raven is Yang's mother, but they have ALSO served as important foils and even ideological antagonists. Raven of course ended up being the main antagonist to Yang in Volume 5, even if their actually 'fight' was a verbal one. And while Weiss and Winter never came into direct conflict, we nonetheless see them (particularly Winter) struggle with how much they seem to be on ever-more opposite sides in Volumes 7 and 8.

It's also clear that for both Winter and Raven, a MAJOR part of their character growth coming out of that conflict was to essentially follow the example of Weiss and Yang respectively.

And of course, it's pretty clear that the same is/will-be true of Cinder and Ruby. Cinder is the great ideological opposite of Ruby; the girl determined to be optimistic and see the best in people pitted against a girl who has spent her whole life knowing nothing but the absolute worst of people.

So if this trend continues, we should be seeing a Summer Maiden with the same thematic link to Blake. And I think it's pretty clear that we've already got a perfect candidate:

Ilia.

It's actually fascinating just how perfectly Ilia's character arc in relation to Blake parallels Winter's arc to Weiss and Raven's arc to Yang. Just like them, Ilia was only a major personal and ideological antagonist to Blake, and now sees Blake as a role model.

So yeah, I'd say seeing Ilia Amitola becoming the Summer Maiden sooner or later is pretty likely. Not to mention it seems rather natural that we'd see a faunus maiden at some point.

[inbarfink]

On the one hand I understand why it’s incredibly thematically important that Fionna realizes that it’s bad for Simon to turn back into Ice King purely through understanding how miserable he was and that his identity as Simon has value - and just totally avoids the fact Ice King used to do some Fucked Up Shit.

Like, you know, you don't wanna end up with the lesson accidentally coming across us 'Simon's mental health is important because if he falls back into a self-sacrificial spiral for the sake of Fionna and Cake he'll be a Bad Person who hurts others'. Simon's happiness having value to himself is what matters in this narrative.

…. But also it is kinda funny that Fionna went through the entire adventure never actually explicitly finding out that Ice King used to be a serial kidnapper. 

I mean, she saw the Candy Queen kidnap someone and she did probably hear Simon say it was the Madness of the Crown projected into her… so maybe she could’ve put two and two together, but we never have any indication that she did and she had Other More Important Things on her mind after that adventure, so…

I want to imagine Finn and Fionna finally meeting and Fionna reminiscing about her adventure with Simon like “yeah, but then I realized that making Simon go back to being Ice King for our sake is Bad because that would mean losing all of himself and he was so sad back then…”

And Finn would be like “Yeah, I totes get it! No one here wants our Simon to start snatching Princesses again”

“…”

“Oh, what, he didn’t tell you? Yeah, Ice King used to kidnap Princesses all the time, tried to force them into marrying and all that junk. That was his Thing for, like, years.”

“.........................SIMON WHAT THE FUCK!!”

[canmom]

booksbooksbooks - "yeah ok uh. you're worthless! how about that!"

I read Tell Me I'm Worthless by Alison Rumfitt! I have previously talked about Brainwyrms on here, her second novel; this is her first, and honestly they are such similar books (thematically, structurally, stylistically - it's possible even that they are in a shared continuity) that a second comment almost feels redundant - but then it turned out I had a lot to say when I got into it. Spoilers below, though I think most of the effect of this book is how it's told rather than what happens.

(Also: the recent bookcrit posts will sometime soon be making their way to canmom.art for easier reading - I've rather dragged my feet on that but Soon(TM).)

So this is a haunted house book that's about fascism. You know it's about fascism before the book even begins, since it says as much in the content warning. More specifically it's about British fascism, personified in an evil house called Albion at the edge of Brighton that corrupts all around it, drawing people in and bringing out the fascist mindset in them.

It would be reasonable to fear this might end up as a polemic loosely packaged as a novel - even if an absolutely on-point and warranted polemic. You can absolutely see how characters fit into the 'argument': a white trans woman who has not fully escaped her racist upbringing on the one hand, her Jewish-Pakistani girlfriend* who runs into the arms of the TERF movement on the other, their blonde cis third wheel who is the first to be fully corrupted by the House. A plot hinging on conflicting accusations of rape; the house itself being established through a series of eugenicist murders. And on top of that, in between parts you get some quotes from, variously: Félix Guattari's Everybody Wants to be a Fascist, Isabel Fall's Helicopter Story, Umberto Eco's Ur-Fascism, a Stewart Lee skit, and William Blake's A Little Boy Lost (primarily for the 'Albion' pull I think).

*actually a deep closeted trans guy, wouldn't ya know it

I think it would be easy to find this directness kind of annoying, but what makes it work for me is largely its style. Rumfitt has a hell of an ability to set a mood and environment, to convey the all-too-real bitterness and pain of its characters in circumstances I recognise. It is a story more than willing to veer into delirious fever-dream streams of consciousness or to spend a few pages quoting some fetishist imageboard rant at length. But more important is the genuine and raw anger of the author that seems to run through it: when the narration slips into addressing the reader, it feels like the intensity of feeling can't be contained in fictional devices anymore. The word 'sharp' is surely a cliché, but this is the kind of book to leave you looking up and going 'phew' between chapters. It works because it is able to make you feel the bleakness that its narrative demands.

(Possibly a relevant comparison at this point would be Sálo, but something to develop another time.)

At the same time, it's a book that is so blatantly About Stuff that it's almost impossible to read it simply as a novel. It has a certain degree of mystery structure (what happened in the House? what became of Hannah? who raped who?) and escalating waves of intensity to pull you along, it's got setups and payoffs and callbacks as the ideas raised early in the story bloom again in the final blast of words, but it's not really something you can simply take as a haunted-house story. Some of the biggest horror scenes would be kind of completely ridiculous without the metaphor-drenched context.

We can describe the main beats, all the same.

the bit where I summarise the plot

Alice and Ila are two survivors of an ill-fated expedition into an abandoned house. Alice (trans girl) is haunted by something which manifests in the form of a stain on the wall, and when she covers it by a picture of a racist singer from the 80s who she once admired, his phantom (it's presumably Morrissey, but they book doesn't ever name him). she gets by through shooting sissy hypnosis videos for clients who have her say all sorts of dubious racist shit. Ila (cis) has been welcomed as a token brown woman for the TERF movement, getting interviewed on the radio and invited to conferences. Both of them remember being raped and multilated by the other during the visit to the House - more on that anon. The third member of the party, Hannah, entered with them but never left the House.

Alice's closest thing to friends are a hetero couple of hard partiers; the guy Jon is into knifeplay and it's clearly not something his partner is all on board with. She tries to hook up with a girl but the Morrissey-haunting scares her away, providing some setup for the concepts of haunting this book will use. Ila, meanwhile, is almost raped by another TERF after recounting her story at a conference; the woman in question preemptively DARVOs her on social media so she won't tell. Some other cis(?) girl who Ila had deliriously called a tranny during sex (thanks House!) seconds it. Throughout all this, Ila has been frequently messaging Alice asking to talk again.

The narrative jumps around; we gradually learn more about the circumstances of their previous trip into the House (named Albion by its first two inhabitants), and its history: built by a gay guy in a period that would get you arrested and named Albion by his 15-year-old lover, then the site of a series of eugenicist murders (with explicit allusion to Bluebeard); in modern times, the random suicides it inflicts on the people in the buildings around it, etc. It's a real bad House

So, Hannah (cis, straight) had been feeling third-wheeled by the couple Alice and Ila. We get some flashbacks as Hannah: that time Alice and Ila had sex on the beach and Hannah totally heard it all, that time Hannah hooked up with a black guy and Alice and Ila were kind of assholes to him... When they enter the house together, Hannah becomes separated and drawn to the red room at the heart of the house. When Alice and Ila enter, Hannah is fully claimed by the House and physically transformed into a human swastika, and the narrative splits in two as both Alice and Ila enact brutal rapes on each other; in one version, Alice cuts 'ARBEIT MACHT FREI' into Ila's belly, in the other, Ila cuts a symbolic vagina into Alice's scalp. The two of them leave the House with these injuries, and the narrative pointedly refuses to tell us that one is the real course of events, or that something else happened.

Ila contacts Alice and convinces her to return to the House to put an end to it. They try to have sex and they're not feeling it; then they have nasty politicised sex, which gives the book its title:

“Call me it, please,�� she says. “Call you what?” “You know. You know you want to, as well.” She hesitates for a moment. But Alice is right. She does want to. “You fucking tranny,” Ila moans. “God. Fuck. Please.” The pleasure is nearly unbearable for Alice. “Do it again. Tell me what you think of me, what you really think of me. Tell me I’m nothing. Tell me I’m worthless.” “You,” Ila grabs Alice’s hair, “are a fucking worthless tranny.”

Finally the two go into the House and we enter a kind of fever dream of an alternative fascist-ruled timeline in the green and pleasant lands where Mosley plays on the radio, Alice never transitions and marries Hannah and kills herself, Ila is deported to unknown quarters, and then in a parallel vision they both embrace while respectively self-disembowelling and bleaching -

then, finally we get a version where they escape alive and burn the House, only for its curse to continue to affect the next building to be built there, which gives rise to a bomber who bombs the Pride parade where Alice and Harry (formerly Ila) are walking together. But they hold each other in the ashes. t4t end.

You get all that?

I'm leaving out various dream sequences, flashbacks, and meditations on the state of things, like the factory or the, 'shitty transvestite pigs', which could honestly be said to be more important than the narrative itself.

fascism then

So for a book that is so much about fascism, what does it actually have to say on the subject? The facet of fascism examined here is mostly of the online-radicalisation or unspoken-sentiment type, the thing you tell yourself is a joke until you stop telling yourself that. The characters are carrying intrusive patterns of thought, taking different but similar forms for each. The House, or the ideology, feeds on their interpersonal resentments and drives them towards self-destructive cruelty.

In the narration that is (at least at times) their train of thought, they ask themselves why they stay in the House, or get drawn back. The closest thing to an answer comes, in Hannah's point of view, shortly before the dual rape scene:

Alice tried to kick open the door, but it wouldn’t move, however hard she kicked. It felt like there was nothing on the other side of the door – that it wasn’t a door at all, but the border to the world, and the inside of this room was the entire world. If you were to open the door you would find… what? The world outside is dark and unknowable. In the room you are safe. You are subject to violence, abuse, mistreatment, hurt, pain, all of the above, but you are safe from what is outside the room and that is what matters, inside the room is the pain you know, outside the room is the pain you do not know, it’s not a hard choice to make in the end, to sit here ‘neath the burning sun of her body, (...)

But more than that, fascism is some kind of permanent infestation. The House itself is at once England (as the name Albion suggests) and the persistent, seemingly eternal infestation of fascist ideology, which are pretty much one and the same - a country so racist that it will vote to kill its own immune system right before a global pandemic, a country so racist that the very ground stinks, a country so racist that your seemingly left-liberal parents have a map of the British Empire hanging on their wall (excerpted from the middle of a run-on-sentence too long to reproduce here).

So Alice and Ila confront their dalliance with fascism by returning to the House, and in a sense purge themselves through this catabasis; but fascism is not destroyed when the House is ruined, or burned down, or replaced with flats, and keeps growing back to consume more lives.

Mostly the thing the book seems to have to say about fascism is it's fucking everywhere and it's terrifying, a sentiment that is hard to disagree with. But it also has a fair bit to say in depicting its dynamics in the modern world.

What of this dual rape scene then? There is a scornful paragraph at one point about how the social-justice rules of engagement totally fail, mockingly describing how you could plug the two characters into an intersectionality calculator to determine who has narrative authority here, ending with this remark:

So, there’s just two girls leaving a house and maybe you don’t have to take a side, maybe you can empathise with them both and hope they get the therapy and help they need and can learn to forgive one another. No. You can’t do that. Are you a fucking idiot? Are you that fucking stupid that you genuinely think you can do that and that something like that is possible?

At the same time as presenting this situation of absolute ambiguity, the book doesn't seem shy about acknowledging there are straight up bad actors, whether Jon or the older TERF; recurring more than once is the idea of the moves a rapist might make to silence a victim or witness. All sorts of lines: "I'm too important to the movement, think of what would happen", or blatant lies, "it's the only way [the unconscious person] can get off".

All of this, frankly, accords with my experience of the world; these are all things that happen. If it revels a little in setting up these little ironies in its account of the TERF movement (elsewhere we see Ila making up stories to post on a forum that is obviously Mumsnet), it is also painfully cognisant of the ugly dynamics of accusations. Elsewhere this very website gets a shoutout! In an Alice POV chapter:

When I was about fifteen, I used the website Tumblr. It still exists, as far as I know. It was a strange place, and it’s hard to even describe how the culture of it felt when you were part of it: at times welcoming and at times unbearably tense. It was the first time I really read about what being trans was, and it was also where I was sent endless anonymous messages telling me to kill myself. People would often accuse others of things, baselessly, and those accusations would stick to them however much they tried to shake them away. One of my Tumblr mutuals was accused of being a paedophile and a Nazi. We hadn’t really talked much at all – she’d re-blogged my selfies a few times, and I hadn’t thought much about that until people started to accuse her. I began to wonder what her intentions had been when she shared a fifteen-year-old’s selfies. She denied these accusations, of course. Anyone would. She claimed that the people accusing her of being a paedophile and a Nazi were TERFS – and the problem was that some of them were. Or had, at least, started to share TERF rhetoric onto their blogs. Which made sense… they had just been exploited by an older trans woman, and suddenly these other older women were telling them, oh, come join us. There’s a pattern to this, and we don’t have to accept it as normal. I didn’t understand it at the time, I was just angry, angry and confused, but I get it now, with Ila spooning me. I understand why she is the way she is. I hope she understands why I am like I am, too. (...dialogue about the House happens...) I stopped using Tumblr shortly after that whole affair, and after having other people creep on me too – most notably a nineteen-year-old fat rights activist who seemed obsessed with my hair. I turned to 4chan and other forums in that vein, where, even if there were Nazis and paedophiles, at least they were generally honest about being those things, even as they remained anonymous. It felt better to know that I was talking to someone who liked to masturbate over little boys than to talk to someone and find that out about them later.

I was a bit older than the fictional Alice when I arrived on here, and I've never had the sense to leave lmao, but this accords well enough with my experience - notably, I strongly recall how a certain opposed accusation of rape/abuse (with knifeplay involved!) torpedoed the simplistic 'believe accusations' worldview I had held onto up to that point. The girls involved became a cause célèbre for two rival factions in the trans scene at the time, with who you believed largely depending on who your friends were, each rallying to defend theirs and cast the others as apologists. Ironically, both those groups would later fall apart.

Whatever parallels I might draw to touchy real life history, we can certainly see here some of the devices this book likes to use: a long personal illustrative anecdote of some messy shit, seguing into a moment of narration and a remark that connects it to the present, and helps sketch its characters as the extrusion of much-larger social forces. It is not easy to adequately capture complexity without getting completely lost in mush, and I think this book manages solidly. (I am tempted to draw certain parallels to works like Psycho Nymph Exile which address similar dynamics, but that would be way more than I want to get into right now).

It is strange reading this book, in many ways. I have only been in Bright a few times, but once was indeed for a Trans Pride, and I remember sitting on the beach described in the book (I went home before anyone started fucking). I may not have shown up to some anti-TERF demo, but I know well the 'tuneless chants' that Ila derides in her early POV chapter. So many trans books are American, and here is one that is furiously British, and that certainly strikes a chord.

With everything so caught up in magic and metaphor, what can we pull out of our own immersion in this book's wash of terrible images? Simply to love each other defiantly, in the spirit of the old songs? I recall talking with @thesiltverses on how horror and dystopian fiction undermines itself by presenting a relief at the end, and I am inclined to agree. There is no relief here, no 'this is what we need to do to counter the rise of fascism'; it is a story that ends only in a tragic moment of defiance, tinged with that little cynical detail, after a fascist bombs a Pride parade:

He goes to her, on his hands and knees, rubble and blood and bodies all around them. The police, the ambulance, the news crews. They are coming. Photographers are taking pictures of them, and they will put these pictures on the front pages of newspapers, and the picture will be with them forever, they won’t ever escape it, two trans people covered in blood and embracing amidst the carnage. The photographer who gets the image wins a prize for it. They don’t know that yet. They only know this: Harry crawls towards Alice with the last of his strength, his arms outstretched and reaching. The rain will come. When it does it will be bloody. The future will be red-tinted and unknowable, but they will be together. Come to me now, mouths Alice. Hold me.

I feel like this is the tone of a lot of recent tranny-adjacent fiction: we cannot stop them coming, but we will live furiously all the same: a story about the possibility of a pocket of change, that two people so thoroughly corrupted by the House could move past it. Is that all we can hope for? If we can win more, it's probably not for a horror novel to say so.

I know I know at least one person who has known Alison Rumfitt, the UK trans scene being what it is. I'm glad her book is resonating with people, if it is only those who show up at queer bookshops (shoutout to Category Is books where I got my physical copy). We are certainly experiencing a moment for grimdark fiction, and while that suits my tastes rather more than the 'cosy', I distrust any self-congratulation about being soooo transgressive and nasty compared to those pathetic wimpy steven universe gays. This, however, is something quite different: it's nasty because it's simply extremely pointed and the subject kind of demands it.

A couple of weeks ago I was discussing with some people at the film festival about how you'd do a film adaptation of this book. Having now read it, I'm scratching my head - it seems rather unfilmable, because so much of what it's saying is caught up in internal monologues and devices of narration that would hardly translate to the screen. But hey, you know what, if someone tries, I want to see.

[gffa]

Dick sneaks out to chase down a case about missing girls that Batman and Robin have been working on, ending up solving the case and freeing the girls by himself, while Alfred frets with worry about how Dick's putting himself in danger and throwing away his youth on this crusade and how he puts so much on his young shoulders. And now I'm thinking about just how many times I've seen Alfred step in and steer Bruce towards a gentler demeanor when dealing with Dick's determination to go down this path's crusade. How often we talk about Bruce could not have stopped him from it, that Robin was a leash on the kid, rather than putting Dick in harm's way for his own need to fight criminals--but the same is true of Alfred. He watches that kid, he worries about him, he's afraid that Dick is throwing away the years of his youth on this fight and if he'll regret, he never relaxes because he knows Dick's two seconds away from sneaking out to go fight people grown adults who are legitimately trying to kill him. But Alfred also sees the same thing Bruce does--that they're not going to stop someone that determined. And Alfred sees even further than Bruce does sometimes, in that Dick's desperate to prove to Bruce that he can be trusted to do this job, to justify the trust Bruce has placed in him, and that Bruce needs to gentle himself with the kid, even when he's terrified that Dick could have gotten himself hurt. Yeah, Dick put himself in danger without Batman there to watch over him, but he did it for the same reason that Bruce started this path, too. That Bruce didn't put that spark of angry need for justice in that kid, Dick came by that all on his own, the night his parents were murdered, and neither Bruce nor Alfred were pulling him into something that he didn't want, they were instead giving him shape and form to channel that need. Alfred has never liked this choice of theirs, to dress up in costumes and go punch criminals in the face, but he doesn't stand by out of passivity, but instead because he recognizes that Dick was going to do something and this was the best he could do to help shape the kid into something that would survive it. Including stepping in to help him behind Bruce's back or straight up saying, "Yeah, I helped him and you are going to be gentle with him, because that kid is desperately trying to prove himself to you and you're the only stability he has and you of all people should know what he's feeling about needing to help people." Alfred can't force either of them into a life that he would prefer for them, he can only help provide guard rails on the roads they've chosen, but what a difference that has made for them both. I love Bruce and Dick's relationship, I love it because the question of, "Where do you take a character who fights crime because of the trauma of his lost parents?" has a fascinating answer in, "You have him--step by painful step--grow into being a parent himself, learning to open himself up to being gentle with people he loves and fears losing, to learn to trust those he loves even though they might die." and, when Dick's own losses are mirrored in Bruce's, driving the parallels home even further, it's so important for Bruce to learn to be a father to this kid, as his own father figure nudges him back onto the right path. Alfred is such an important part of that character arc for both of these characters, he is part of the thematic bridge of parents and children that runs through the Batman family of stories, and his role of guiding Bruce into being a better father--to heal from the loss of Thomas and Martha Wayne who should have been there to guide him--by telling him, in the most British gentleman way possible, to look the fuck around and see what's going through that kid.

[ketterdamskaelishprince]

lenore and the yellow wallpaper (a ramble)

so this is all one entire big and large ramble session from me, so ignore if you want because this has no actual point, and i also haven't touched the yellow wallpaper since i handed it in with my coursework so i'm bound to get things wrong. this is no high-brow analysis, this is just be rambling. i've finally gotten the courage as well to go on the big scary tumblr and speak so be nice please :)

anyways, now we have that out of the way– i bring you my observation.

so i've been rereading nevermore (because i am deep in the trenches of my hyperfixation on it right now and have firmly planted myself there) and i noticed something in episode 21 that i remember noticing the first time.

just for a recap, episode 21 is when they're facing the dementophobia trial, and lenore has gotten herself sucked into a hallucination. through this, we (presumably along with her) are shown parts of her past, and the fallout of her brother dying. in a long scene, we basically see the attic which lenore is forced to 'rest' in.

sorry if this is like an obvious tell, but my little rat brain was vibrating out of my seat to say this.

well, first off, let me just give you a little summary of the yellow wallpaper. we have this nameless woman (who's married) who's also our narrator, her husband: john who's a doctor and we also have john's sister: jennie. jennie isn't too important in the summary but she exists and stuff and there's loads of journals out there probably that could tell you super interesting things about her role in the story.

anyways, i digress. the narrator has been diagnosed with slight nervous tendencies and is given the rest cure therapy as treatment. she ends up slowly going insane in the attic (?) which doubles as a nursery, and there's this fugly yellow wallpaper, which the narrator comments to be basically like a crime to art and to colour in general. anyways, the more she stares at this wallpaper and the longer she stays in the attic, she starts to see a woman behind the wallpaper– and the short story ends with her ripping the wallpaper off and freeing the woman but then also, the story ends essentially with her throwing herself out of the window of the attic and yeah, suicide. there's like allusions to the woman behind the wallpaper and her being one at the end, but WE AREN'T FOCUSSING ON THAT, i've rambled enough.

anyways, how does this all link to nevermore?

THIS PANEL RIGHT HERE.

idk, the act of ripping off the wallpaper just distinctly reminded me of the yellow wallpaper, and i have no idea if the creators drew inspo from the yellow wallpaper for this or if it was one of poe's works (i'm not heavily versed in all of his works, but i have a collection of his stuff i should probably sift through and read). but yeah, thought it was cute.

i know thematically they probably vary, but there is something to be said that both of them are in a situation where society wants so badly to silence them and punishes their defiance with the diagnosis 'madness'.

i dunno, just a nice little thought. there's also the whole rest cure therapy too, and the fact that they're both in the attics of their homes– and i presume lenore is in a secluded countryside place here like the narrator of the yellow wallpaper is. so, you know– other connections!

also, as a side note–

this bad boy right here? ether? well some ether smells sweet, so i thought maybe (as a very dumb end to this ramble) that maybe, lenore associates the sweet smelling scent of what she used to be knocked out with to the sweet scent of flowers– i have no idea if that's why she hates flowers but i thought that was a fun little mention. food for thought, you know?

anyways, if you disagree that is totally ok, i truly don't know what i'm talking about half the time, but this has been bouncing on my tiny brain for the past few days and i decided i needed to let it out before i start plaguing the people i know in real life with my obsession. and also, friends, feel free to correct me if i'm disgustingly wrong on anything– i love to learn <3

and... yeah, that's all folks. gonna go rot now :)

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

A big thing of importance when attempting to predict or understand a plot point or character in a work of fiction is that you really have to approach it from what the story itself is trying to tell you.

Yeah, yeah, I know, but you really do need your starting point to be "what is the intention of this story? What is it trying to say?" Every story will have thematic elements that are core to its premise, and a lot of things will make sense more if you actively view them through this lens. You can't cast aside the intent of the story before you take the time to understand what the story is trying to do in the first place.

For instance, BSD has a knack for not killing off its characters, despite the violence of the world in which this story takes place. But BSD at its core is about survival and life, and particularly seeking a way to live even if your purpose and meaning and future are uncertain. It was created for people who need stories to live. This is why it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense for them to kill off a bunch of characters, as that would conflict with the kind of story BSD is. I do not expect character death in this series, because unless there are some very specific circumstances (ie. Bram), it just wouldn't fit. Any death just isn't going to hold.

Dead Boy Detectives is extremely obvious in its theming - The good you do comes back around and will allow you to heal in turn. If you continue to be cruel to others, then you will only succeed in perpetuating that cycle, and become the toxic one in turn. This is the core of Crystal, Niko and Esther's story arcs in particular: the character who changes over the story, the character who exemplifies the themes, and the character who acts as the warning.

Themes are the connecting threads that help you understand why choices are made. It also really helps when trying to narrow down to a general idea of where something is going.

For one, the To the Moon/Sigcorp series is about things like memories, regrets, legacies, grief, and final moments before death. Due to this consistent theming, it really didn't come as a surprise to learn the major secret that one of the characters was hiding... or the kind of ending it's leading up to.

As another example, Persona 5 is about a lot of things: rebellion, anger against injustice, the failure of adults to protect the youth, etc., but more than anything I think, P5 is about building a support system after trauma; a support system which is a necessary crutch for people to get their feet back under them and learn how to heal so that they can find themselves and a way forwards again. But a support system doesn't just come to you - you have to trust in people, and let them help you. This is seen in all the characters' arcs, but is taken to extremes with both Futaba and Akechi. Futaba could not start to heal without choosing to allow people to help her. She stagnated in her own guilt and grief due to her isolation, and her decision to open herself up is made literal by a locked door in her heart that could only be opened if she chose to let them in. And, as a result, this running theme is how I knew, even during the worst of the traitor arc, that Akechi was going to end up complicated, yes, but also sympathetic. P5 is not subtle. We are told and shown again and again that this character had no one in his life to rely on, and was cast aside by society. But unfortunately, Akechi rebuffs any attempts to offer him help. As a result, he becomes more and more single-minded, strays further from what he truly seems to believe, and ultimately spirals into self-destruction.

Now we can start asking other questions, like "Was the story successful in what it tried to tell us? Did any of the themes conflict? Were thematically relevant threads left hanging?"

Going back to BSD, this is still a major issue I have with the prison arc. Objectively, the characters were in-character, and the logic holds (for BSD anyways lol). But thematically, it was unsatisfying - the intense setup of this arc made the audience expect much more in the way of story themes than was actually delivered.

This, to me, is where you get into "was the story good" without getting caught in the "well, I didn't like it/agree with it so it was bad".

And then there's where you come into it! Your initial reading of the themes of the story are also going to be shaped by your amount of practice in critical analysis, and also by your personal experiences and interpretations. This is where we get into things like "do I agree with what the story is trying to say" and "oh this was a missed opportunity to add in this little detail" or "objectively it was good, but it didn't really do it for me" or even "objectively it was bad, but something about it still makes me want to chew plaster". It's awesome and part of the joy of being in a community for these things. It's both limiting and lonely to see a story from only one perspective.

[raayllum]

This post from @imminent-danger-came got me thinking about the sun in TDP, well, and let's look into it

First things first:

The Sun in TDP is, currently, set in the most opposition to dark magic. Some of this is because the other primals are relatively unexplored (Earth), are thematically adjacent to dark magic (Moon because of death/deception, Star for obvious reasons, Ocean more recently) or exist on a meta level but not an in-universe one, i.e. Sky magic is set in opposition to dark / star magic through Callum ("my breath for freedom") but we don't know enough about Skywing culture / seen enough Skywing elves to know anything beyond him.

Meanwhile, the absence of the Sun is often seen as synonymous with dark magic

and/or is used to purify / hide and reveal dark magic within the text.

There is a reason, after all, that Karim believes if he can heal Sol Regem's eyes — if he can get rid of the dark magic — that it will let Sol Regem "convince [his people] that the sun will shine again." That Karim thinks "the sun will never shine again for me" is related solely to the physical affects of dark magic, and none of the emotions Sol Regem has felt ("I lost my hope long before I lost my sight").

We see this dichotomy of light being more good and nighttime/darkness being more bad even in S1, as Harrow and Viren hope to find the Moonshadow elves ("in the light of the day") before they become unstoppable / death incarnate at night and at the Cursed Caldera, in which Ellis asserts that come nightfall, "the nightmare is about to begin".

However, as you can probably already tell, this relationship of Sun vs dark magic as oppositional forces is already more than muddled just as the dichotomy of light = good and dark = bad in the show is, too.

We see this prominently with the repeated combination of corrupted Sun magic not only in the hearts of cinder spell that Viren used the relic and sun staff to create, but also in Claudia's continual wielding of the corrupted sun staff

and in Karim's employment of Kim'Dael. Karim just implied that humans allowed evil (dark magic) to flourish because they were weak ("You are lesser beings") just as Sol Regem believed, and it seems Pharos is thinking along the same lines here: isn't Kim'Dael "evil" because she uses dark magic too?

Because she's a Moon dark magic, and the opposite of the Sun and purity and light in every way he can think of, even when Pharos — a Sunfire priest who believes in Karim — has been corrupted and infected, too. And yeah some of this is to point out Karim being hypocritical and losing his way and inevitably things, such as him having the Sun Seed, are not going to go according to plan.

But I do want to take it one step further and say that the Sun — seeing a new day — is not necessarily void of dark or Star magic-y connotations, after all.

Whether it's the importance of the Sun's first light, spoken by mages who are either unknowingly (and likely to be) pawns of Aaravos

or that doing dark magic and playing into Aaravos' hands would've secured Viren seeing a new day.

Although dark magic is, seemingly, more associated with night because, well, darkness, obviously...

It's not just that the Great Orb was corrupted, but that Lux Aurea itself fell, giving way to corrupted creatures, infected by another combination of Sun and Dark magic

It's that dark magic, I think, grows and festers and consumes everything until light and dark — day and night — are synonymous with each other, until they become a singular thing like Aaravos. That there's no escaping it. There's no "choice".

Or at least, that's what it wants you to think.

[emblemcest]

The thematic link between cannibalism and incest in The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

Something I've been thinking about is. The huge emphasis on cannibalism in the marketing of The Coffin of Andy and Leyley. And the way people talk about it: like, 'of course these siblings aren't normal, they literally ate their neighbour!'

And I think it has some very interesting parallels with the incest that happens later on.

Because. All things considered? The cannibalism in act 1 is sincerely one of the least fucked up things these characters do, morality-wise.

They didn't murder the guy. In fact, they had nothing whatsoever to do with his death: if they hadn't been there at all, it would've all turned out exactly the same way, and you can't even accuse them of inaction, because a) it all happened so quickly and unexpectedly, and b) it's not like calling for help would have done anything anyway. In material terms, they did no harm at all to the guy.

On the other hand, they were literally starving to death. Ashley sincerely wasn't sure they'd even last a few days more the way they were going. What they did to the guy wasn't for fun, or revenge, or even a lack of concern for him as a person, but survival. It was an emergency!! In a lot of ways, it could be seen as comparable to self-defence.

So is cannibalism so strongly associated with the game, and with the horror genre in general? The taboo.

Regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the level of harm done, cannibalism is a no-go. It's a line that must not ever be crossed. Even if we can understand and sympathise with the people involved - even in cases of literal life and death - there is a wrongness to it that we can't easily move past. In an increasingly secular world, it's one of the few really spiritual crimes that still resonates as much as ever.

And, yeah, sure, you can talk about the health risks of ingesting brain matter, or the practical issues with not making cannibalism a crime, but those aren't the reasons we shy away from it. It's instinctive; philosophical. Cannibalism is simply wrong.

Much in the same way we react to incest.

Again: this is not claiming that incest is always totally okay, just like the point of this post isn't to be all 'yay, cannibalism!' There are practical reasons to disallow it, and there are potential health issues here, too (albeit for the children rather than the subjects).

But that's not why we wince at incest. Even if everything was okay - a consensual relationship between two twins of the same sex where nobody else would ever see - it would still elicit strong reactions. Incest is simply unnatural - simply wrong.

The incest in TCOAAL isn't quite so straightforwardly defensible as the cannibalism. The relationship itself is unhealthy, and adding sex to the mix is very unlikely to make it less so, as well as the fact that sex is literally the exact place where 'consent issues' tend to get REALLY important.

But also... the relationship was already unhealthy. The two were already isolated and excessively dependant on one another, and most importantly, they had already enabled one another into cold-blooded murder. It's sorta... hard to get much worse than that.

By contrast, the incest vision itself? Seems entirely consensual. Pleasurable, even. The two are uncharacteristically happy, once Andrew gets over his moral anguish (or, rather, until he gets distracted away from it). And the 'Not Sane' route portrays them as closer and happier and kinder than any other.

It doesn't matter. Even if the results are entirely positive - like with getting food into the mouths of two starving people - it's still wrong. By its very nature. It's 'disgusting.'

I know I'm not the first person to comment on the willingness of some antis to whole-heartedly accept murder and cannibalism in fiction but then draw the line at incest. But I think this comparison of taboos illustrates a really big thematic link between the cannibalism and incest specifically, and in doing so, just one way that the incest really is important to the themes of the work, rather than just gratuitous shock shlock.

...in fact, if you wanted to really stretch the metaphor... You could ask: 'are things good or bad inherently, or due to the surrounding context?' Which, honestly, is a pretty good question about our titular two characters themselves. Are Andy and/or Leyley inherently bad people? Should we judge them based on the circumstances of their upbringing or the world in which they find themselves? Or does none of that matter, and they would have turned out this sort of way regardless?