#Meta Apes

[geoffleng]

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[dailymetanaito]

Day 261 🦭

[dandelionjack]

already seen people calling the marti subplot “unnecessary”. because ruby didn’t turn to the camera and proclaim Abuse And Harassment Are Bad apparently that makes her a moral failure. also seeing the argument “this is a childrens show so it’s inappropriate” okay miss Hays Code, you think a 12 year old will be corrupted or something if they notice a realistic scene of a politician exercising his absolute power to control and manipulate women in his entourage? even when it’s subtext, not stated outright? tfw got so woke you accidentally looped right back to being a conservative pearl-clutcher.

needless to say that even from a story perspective marti’s presence fleshes out what would have been quite a cartoonish villain (teehee wouldn’t it be cool to nuke the world!) into a genuine 3-dimensional representation of evil. the media literacy crisis is getting dire

[veveisveryuncool]

new copy ability: burnt out AP student kirby

[ambafaerie]

Noa and Mae Parallels

• Noa and Mae are young adults who are let outside the comforts of their home to prove themselves to their society. Noa with the Eagle clan and Mae with the underground humans.

• They were born in the planet of the apes. Where Noa has barely much knowledge of the past, especially human history whereas Mae was raised on stories of when humans used to rule over apes.

• Until they met each other, they only knew of the other’s species as either mute primitives animals or violent apes.

• They both work to save their respective people from Proximus, though where Noa frees his clan from him, Mae steals a device from Proximus’ domain that will help her people contact with other human settlements.

• The elders of their respective species try to tell them to accept the current reality of their situation, but both refuse. Mae rejects Trevathan’s insistence that the world now belongs to the apes and try to coexist with them. Their scene is followed by Dar telling Noa they are now part of Proximus’ kingdom and not anymore the Eagle clan, which Noa refuses to accept.

• They both kill someone of the same species. Noa killed Silva and Proximus out of self defense without really putting his hands on them. Mae choked Trevathan to death with her bare hands.

• Noa and Mae are wearing something blue when they meet again in the ending. Noa has a band of blue feathers on his arm while Mae has a blue poncho. They both also ride horses through a field.

• Noa and Mae reject the current state of the world and seek a radical change of the status quo. Mae wants to see humanity on top again, running back to the past, while Noa is open to coexistence between apes and humans, running towards the future.

[shorthaltsjester]

the mighty nein will always be that bitch (a party with a consistent (and coherent) moral stance, who even if they dismiss alternative perspectives take seriously what others have to say, and who are met with and accept the consequences of choices (good and bad) they decide upon with their eyes wide open)

[dabigothic]

໒꒰ྀིっ˕ -｡꒱ྀི১

sleepy rainy morning before work

[potakingdom]

This is probably obvious but I just comprehended on my third watch that Mae wasn't allowed inside the base. Presumably considered too contaminated to allow in. Like I'm hoping she was allowed in offscreen later but god can you imagine that

Literally. imagine that. Most likely weeks if not months on her own after her group was killed with no one to talk to until some random chimp and orangutan takes pity on you & adopts you into their group but you know it cant last so you shouldn't get attached but you do anyway because holy fuck. they're showing you,,,kindness??? feeding you talking to you keeping you warm rescuing you. Taking care of you. after all that time alone. For no reason. So you get attached to them anyway. Then one fucking dies saving you. Then the first human you meet after months on your own you have to fucking murder. Literally kill with your bare fucking hands. Then the last person you can call a friend on this planet you have to betray horrifically, and not just him but everyone he calls family. And you just have to walk away because it's for the greater good and youve already come this far and you cant let all those sacrifices (human & ape) be in vain. Then you go back to his camp and realize...woah...he survived. And he forgives you. And you walk away. Then ride to a human camp. And then you can't even go inside and talk to them and be with them to see if what you did all that for actually works. Her life fucking sucks

[timebones]

Love the dual imagery of the old woman. How she represents both the previous generations that dealt with Mad Jack the first time, and the current generation worrying what their future will be. Will the older version of me look on me kindly? Is that even the older version of me, does that person even survive? Or is it only the past, silently watching us walk into destruction?

The old woman appeared after the the circle was broken, yes, but also after Ruby became aware of her own mortality due to the Doctor’s slip of the tongue.

As a representation of the previous generations, the woman is distant and offputting. Not even the oldest folks in the pub are worried about Mad Jack anymore, and when Ruby tries to bring other people in, tries to let those now-dead generations speak, Ruby becomes the problem.

She’s left to embark on this (in retrospect) decades-long mission virtually alone, getting involved in politics, taking calls, holding coats, pulling every strategic lever available to her even if it means working for this terrible man. She has to, because she’s one of the few people who fully recognize the danger he poses.

And both the past and herself-from-the-future are watching.

[roxannepolice]

I think if Harold Saxon was pointing out post-politics, Roger ap Gwilliam is pointing out a desire for simple solution. The interview kinda nails it: there's inflation and inflation is a messy, complicated and above all boring issue that isn't caused either by rich people being greedy or poor people wanting handouts alone, but you know what - NUKES. Nukes are simple, nukes you understand!

And people gobble it up, without hypnosis.

[ittybittyremy]

imagine how dorian felt during that whole kerfuffle

Two days ago, his brother died and the Crown Keepers separated, all because of the Spider Queen.

A couple of hours ago, he and Orym reminisced about how Orym put a blade to his chest and told him not to put the crown on his head. Something that Dorian is clearly grateful for now. ("Otherwise, I wouldn't be here right now")

Now, he woke up to two of his friends fighting. Then, Laudna claims that the blade on Orym's back will corrupt him "just like it corrupted Otohan." He's still catching up on everything, but he knows that's the name of the person who killed Orym's husband and father. To put it simply, he just heard that Orym may become corrupt like his family's killer was because of a sword.

And here's the thing: He's seen a real cursed item before. He's felt the lure of one and has seen/experienced the consequences of holding onto one. His brother's death was one of those consequences 2 days ago! And now there's apparently another cursed item that's on his "very good friend's" back. The same "very good friend" who he just talked about the crown with. The same "very good friend" who put a blade to his chest so long ago.

Then later, it turns out that the item Laudna was so insistent on being cursed (to the point of injuring another party member [be it unintentional]) is actually not cursed.

Now he's listening to Laudna talk about how she wants to take the blade in energy while belittling Orym for taking it in hand. (Yes, I am aware that this is very simplified)

After all this, Dorian finally gives his opinion.

I think [Orym] should keep it. It's just a thing. I'm so tired of things having control over us. You two are friends. It was his to possess and you tried to steal it from him... It is just a thing. Its history doesn't shape us. Our actions do. [Laudna's] actions tell me that [she did] not have enough trust in [her] friends... What would it have mattered if [Otohon] cut him down with a handaxe or a stick from the street? It was not the thing that did the action. It was the person. It does not matter.

I believe that there are two routes to Dorian's mindset

Gilmore's Wisdom: When the Crown Keepers discuss the circlet with Gilmore, he says something very interesting. "The Spider Queen herself is dark, is evil, but the vestige is simply power, and it is whatever you make it into. Power simply is." (E1x03).

Orym's Threat: Orym confronted him when he saw that he could hold the circlet without issue. He put a sword to his chest and told him to put it down. Dorian did so, saying, "I care about you more than this" (E1x05).

Dorian's point is a combination of those two things. To put it simply, Dorian's point was that friends are more important than objects because objects are just things.

And before I see anyone else blabbering about how Dorian is a hypocrite because of how Cyrus died, Opal didn't kill him, and neither did the circlet itself. It was the Spider Queen that killed him.

During all this, he discovered that Orym, Fearne, Laudna, and Chetney had died due to the blade. He also discovered that Orym made a deal with Fearne's grandmother "to help [them] do the things that [they] have to do. Hopefully in the next episode, Dorian is able to fully process all that information

Side Note: In between those words, Dorian admits that he doesn't fully understand the situation ("You do not know what you speak." "I do not"). Apparently, this is a hot take, but I think that him being the outsider of the situation made him the most clear-headed of the group. He wasn't hurt by Ottahan like the rest of Bells Hells had been. So, he has the least biased view of the bunch (still biased but not as biased as the others).

Thank you for coming to my TedTalk!

[dandelionjack]

@shivorceeratom pointed something out in my tags which i just had to bring to light. “jack of all trades i was, mad jack they called me” — the full expression is ‘jack of all trades, master of none’. say the line folks: which could mean nothing!!

the master’s #1 narrative haunter agenda

[damnflirtyape]

Forgive me because I'm going to ramble, I've been thinking about parallels and character arcs that echo or mirror one another. And I've been thinking about some of the similarities between Mae in Kingdom and Caesar in War (and I might be completely wrong this is just my own interpretation lol).

They're not exactly mirrors of one another, but they certainly hold similarities. We see both characters dealing with the aftermath of a violent loss, see them battle with the trauma and anger and grief of those losses. They both withdraw from others around them emotionally and we then see their grief and fury explode from them in outbursts.

They're both plunged into dire hostage situations which require patience and strategic negotiation. And neither of them are in the right kind of mental space to navigate them. For Caesar, he's never encountered someone like the Colonel; this man cannot be reasoned with, cannot be intimidated, is as brutal with humans as he is with apes. Even if he could be reasoned with, Caesar is completely consumed by his rage and need for vengeance, he cannot and will not back down. And when the Colonel pushes him, taunting him about the death of his own son, he understandably lashes out.

With Mae, in her eyes negotiation isn't an option. Mae's been instilled with the belief that her mission is an integral key to potentially saving the human race and that nothing can come between that. We know so little about her and her past, but if a human is knowledgeable about technology and a government that disappeared 300 years ago, one can only suppose this has been deliberately taught to them. Like Caesar, Mae won't back down, because she knows Proximus cannot have the weapons inside the Vault and because her life hangs in the balance. She's the only one left alive to retrieve the decryption key and deliver it (her usefulness to Proximus arguably ends once she reveals a way to enter the Vault). She's also angry and scared and lashes out when he pushes her, reminding her how she's at his mercy.

Then the parallels of killing in desperation. Caesar arguably doesn't mean to kill Winter, he's blinded by his rage and doesn't seem to even realize he's choking the gorilla... And then he realizes how limp the other ape is, feels him slump lifeless in his arms and we see his horror. He hasn't fully realized how far gone he is yet, though his friends certainly see it. This is a harrowing scene. Unlike with Koba, there is no hesitance and thoughts of Winter do not haunt him after.

And then Mae's killing of Trevathan... this is a deliberate act but a purely desperate one. This is the moment Mae realizes how far she has to go in order to complete her mission. She doesn't want to kill this man, kill another human, I think it's likely (given her shock after she shoots Lightning later) that Mae has never killed anyone and hadn't thought she would ever need to. She's terrified, from the moment she's desperately trying to negotiate with him to the moment she shakily gets to her hands and knees in the sand next to his corpse.

Oh and about the parallels.... Caesar causing an explosion to destroy the military base and that explosion causing a devastating avalanche to tear down the mountain and almost wipe out his own apes.

And Mae causing an explosion to destroy the Vault and prevent human weapons from ending up in Proximus' hands... that also almost wipes out Noa and his clan?

And finally, the seeking of forgiveness. I genuinely think Mae felt guilt for doing what she did to the clan. I can see that as the only reason she would seek out the Eagle Clan's village, a sense of guilt and concern for their welfare. She should be well on her way to complete her mission, but she follows them. Her learned fear of apes has her hiding a gun behind her back, she's expecting Noa's anger. She's not expecting him to still be open to the idea that perhaps one day humans and apes could live side by side. She won't apologize, she still sees her actions as unavoidable, the 'right' thing. But she feels guilt, and the fact he seems to not hate her is far more than she expects.

And Caesar, oh Caesar. He's done so much, far far more than any one person should. And he almost lost himself completely, there were moments Maurice barely recognized his old friend. Caesar almost killed them all through his anger and grief, and he saved them all again. He doesn't need to ask for forgiveness, but Maurice offers it still, reassures him and lets him finally rest.

[deramin2]

It feels like people were wanting the trust exercises in Critical Role c3 E79 and E80 to be research-supported therapy from a licensed practitioner where they all work together to get a good grade in therapy, a thing that's normal to want and possible to achieve.

Not A HAG fucking with them per her nature feeding off juicy drama and cringe who wants to shake them around until all their secrets come out for her to watch and realize that they're so scared of failure they're locking into the sort of inaction that will actually make them fail. (I love Nana Mori. She was exactly the sort of fucked up punk rock street wise woman they needed.)

It's BORING if they just talk about all their problems. It's BORING if they just jump to trusting each other (when the exercise was started that they can't trust each other). It's BORING if they're like "actually that power that's been set in front of me could possibly have a bad effect so I'm just going to keep ignoring it. It's BORING to be safe. Go back to your coffee shop AUs if you want everything to be soft and safe. That's not the point of the source material.

The CR cast have REPEATEDLY said they have more fun pushing the big red button than playing it safe because you spend all of real life trying to avoid the consequences of risky decisions and it's FUN to get to explore what can go wrong.

Bell's Hells succeeded because they concluded they are in a moment were inaction and hesitation will get everyone killed and they just need to push all the big red buttons and take the risks because it's now or never. They need to check in enough to keep each other in line, but they also need to imagine a scenario where none of them are traitors. (Like they had to restrain FCG from murder-bot mode, but they risked getting to murder-bot mode because the benefit outweighed the personal risk.)

This party is not OSHA approved. They literally couldn't do the job if they were. People like Allura and Keyleth are relying on them to take monumentally stupid risks while holding on by their fingernails so that other people can be safe.

Fearne came to the conclusion that she wasn't taking the shard because she was afraid of Dark!Fearne. But her friends will pull her out of that if she drifts. She also wasn't taking it because she thought Ashton was supposed to have it and that didn't work out well. If she'd put her hoof down her friends would probably have accepted her decision even if they disagreed with it. (It's actually like normal and healthy to disagree with your friends choices and not yes-man them all the time.) But she decided with her own free will that she was just being scared and actually she did want to try. (But also if they hadn't gone through the shard hurting and rejecting Ashton, Fearne might have thought her taking damage meant she wasn't supposed to have it, not just part of the trial of absorbing it.)

There's no binary where pressuring your friends is always bad. Sometimes your friends pressure you into doing things they believe will benefit you that you're reluctant to do and then you do it and are like "no actually that was the right call and I needed that." Or you conclude "No actually that was bad and I wish I didn't listen." There's actually no way to know ahead of time. My relationship with one of my best friends of like 20 years consists heavily of us battling each other's depression by pressuring each other into things we don't want to do but need to and that's healthy for us. But also other people in our lives pressured us into things we didn't want to do and should not have done and it turned out bad. It turns out that life is made up of shades of grey and not hard and fast rules. There's no way of knowing if you're fucking up ahead of time.

Imogen admitted in the Truth or Die session that she was upset that Fearne didn't take the shard. She probably would not have told Fearne that in normal circumstances. And she was probably feeling that way because part of her was upset at herself for not giving into the Predothos powers. Admitting that to Fearne gave her the courage to talk about the possibility of doing that. Which like, could be a terrible idea. But also this is a D&D game with predetermined character class powers that grow as you level and there has to be an in-game justification for getting powers like Revelation in Flesh at 14th level. Like, either she leans into these powers or they're forced on her or she stops leveling and goes home. Leaning in is way more fun. Don't you want to see what batshit thing Matt has planned for that? That's FUN. Ignoring the dark powers is boring.

Like first and foremost this is A GAME that involves yes-anding and taking risks. It's about characters who have spent their entire lives burying and ignoring their problems and getting worse because of it. It isn't REAL for them to have one revelation and be like, "Whelp I'm fixed now and will fall into none of my old patterns and just bare my soul to everyone forever now." People aren't actually like that and if that's what they need to do to be measurably better for you you'll have a lifetime of disappointments. This is an adult story for adults about how adults really behave.

Anyway I can't wait for them to schlep all their baggage and new fucked up powers to the moon with them where they're make irresponsible decisions based on a martyr complex while their friends yell at them to stop being stupid and selfish and let them help. It's going to be a disaster but hopefully they snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (or defeat from the jaws of victory) and tell an entertaining story about the fuckups who tried to stop the next Calamity. Maybe they will and they get to be heroes. Maybe it comes at a terrible cost. Maybe they totally fuck it up and it's a Ring of Brass situation. But it'll be FUN.

[nest-being]

and thus another international lolita day occurs with me staying inside and doing nothing except for thinking very, very deeply about lolita lmao

[iridescentscarecrow]

by you talking about makima being an abusive mother i assume you're referring to eli's excellent post about CSM's association with motherhood. please do check it out if you haven't, it's been rotting away in my brain for a while and the Chainsaw Man as a birthing device is something i'll bring up in this response.

this is a really intriguing line of inquiry, and an interesting way to think of kishibe; so i'll attempt to assimilate my thoughts on how he's positioned in this answer. this will be quite long so do bear with me:

i've talked about how Family as a concept bleeds into part two from part one. in p1, makima forms for denji a Family, and in p2, denji is handed this motherhood over nayuta.

makima as the Mother is kept and collared by the state. and thinking of chainsaw man in terms of its reproductive power can be extended to its literal reproduction of the narrative. myth and memory form themselves through regurgitation, and the CSM cuts away this chain of reproduction when it eats entire concepts. when it makes people forget. there's an already apparent connection to the Womb (makima // nayuta // denji) but the selectivity in narrative-reproduction is why its central to makima and kishibe's conflict. the war against the mother who exerts control over the child.

because kishibe is the Masculine: he teaches makima and in turn makima entrusts denji and power to him,,, he narratively affirms denji's wondering if he's still able to feel, whether he shouldn't feel sadder at himeno's death by telling us, the audience, that the best devil hunters are those who "have a few screws loose." we're painted this image of denji as a feral incomprehensible Crazy thing, but this isn't true even at this phase of the story. he mourns pochita, he empathises with power's grief at losing meowy. [there's an intriguing line of thought where you compare denji with aki along this vein too, if you think about it].

and that's why the movie date with makima is actually the effective closing of this arc -- her telling denji that he does have a heart subverts kishibe's rhetoric, and what the story tells us denji is. this is makima in her role as mama, the mother, the love that she feels and recieves and creates. incidentally, the chaotic agent that kishibe envisions coincides with makima's idealisation of the chainsaw man, apart from the part where she's expressedly affectionate towards it. and who has she been raised by except these (masculine) institutions? who taught her how and what to want?

aside but "that's a lie." // he sees makima and recognises her machinations at one level but he's never really understood her or her need for love. she tells him that she wants to save people (and this may or may not be true) but he can't really parse that, can he? and kishibe also structures and contextualises so much of the story for us, just like what makima does: what i already said about denji's chaotic self, him narrating reze's past, etc. he's an independent source of information.

because yeah: kishibe is ruthless. and people often bring up kishibe's relationship with quanxi but i don't often see them balance her "ignorance is bliss" vs. kishibe's need to have a few screws loose. we know as the audience about how quanxi actively shuts herself off, but kishibe keeps talking about leaning into this devil hunter nature. and what i think is decipherable from this dynamic is that quanxi, or at least what kishibe sees her as, is kishibe's ideal. tbh she's actually a Symbol for various different ideals, her habitation and display of her sexuality alongside her Ignorance is denji's ultimate form! and kishibe trains denji... [aside but this is why cosmo being her gf is so interesting to me. something something woman who thinks ignorance is bliss x devil who embodies the Horrors of Knowing]

kishibe blindfolding himself after her death is him transposing that ignorance onto himself. he doesn't want to see a thing -- and that's where you see that dissonance. it's not that he's beyond caring, it's how blind he is in how he does this caring.

and kishibe strains against this, he wants to cut away his relationships as contrasted with makima (and even denji) wanting to form them. and this is why makima cutting off kishibe's last tie to quanxi is so interesting because you remember: quanxi didn't accept his deal.

you have kishibe pining after quanxi and yet she's not sexually available to him, so he further isolates himself. and the forming and breaking of relationships comes back here so vividly --

aki's and power's deaths form the CSM out of denji. it's crazy and unpredictable but it doesn't challenge makima, does it? // "attacks don't work against her."

and when all is said and done, denji tells him it's love. loove. denji's the one who explains makima to kishibe. they're sitting at the bench and denji's petting the dogs while nyako, the willingly domesticated animal, twirls itself around kishibe... and kishibe handles the cat with such affection. denji tells him it's love so what does he do except hand nayuta to him??

thank you for the ask, anon!