#This song is so lore-relevant I can't even-

[crumpet-doodles]

Dear anyone who sees this: get your ass ready because I actually have enough motivation to make a SHORT ANIMATIC WOOOOO!!!

[koimethehorizon]

Fionna and Cake theory: Simon the Artist

Nothing like a good old creative panic attack.

Fionna and Cake good. Haven’t been excited about a show like this in a long time, though it being a part of Adventure Time does help quite a bit. I was holding on to some cautious optimism for the show when it was announced as yet another big IP series covering the multiverse (still waiting to groan at THAT scene where Prismo has to explain to us about there being infinite universes), but as usual, Adventure Time’s crew continues to surprise me with its creativity, humor, and thematic resonance.

The most striking part about Fionna and Cake so far is just how deliberately the show wants us to differentiate it from the original Adventure Time.

We’re getting shots where Simon pops an artery from his arm, a theme song that explicitly talks about suicidal ideation, discussions of rent and financial problems, and curses no longer disguised with AT’s usual dialogue. Adventure Time has always had violence, thematic density, and juvenile rating pushers, but they were always reserved at small points. Meanwhile, these are factors that are just casually shown and discussed in Fionna and Cake every 3 minutes or so. This is not an all-ages miniseries, it’s for young adults. (hint: this will be relevant later)

Let’s get right into it. This is much less a speculative lore theory and more on what thematic direction the story may be going.

Before we do, let’s get this out of the way first. This theory assumes that the current Fionna and Cake world is all a part of Simon’s head and not merely a separate multiverse, which… I’m certain is fact for the following reasons.

The immediately obvious piece is that Fionna and Cake was always the Ice King’s fanfiction. Now if you’re versed in AT’s continuity you’re probably going to be asking about the red light in Fionna and Cake + Fionna and… I’ve no answer for it unfortunately. It’ll probably be relevant later in the series and possibly age this post like milk but for now, we’re not here to focus on the how, but the why.

Second is that the intro and the ending of Ep 2 literally show Fionna’s world spilling right out of Simon’s head like an animated world out of a frozen brain. If that isn’t clear enough-

Didn't realize this until writing, but these glasses are just plastic made to look like Betty's

There’s no other explanation for this other than that this world is artificial or influenced by Simon in some sense. Fionna even specifies that the statue went under renovation 12 years ago, but nobody seems to know who it is. Considering how Finn looks in the episode, it’s likely that it’s been that long since Betty’s sacrifice in the finale.

With that out of the way, here it goes.

The reason Fionna and Cake exist in the first place is because the creators found Natasha Allegri’s genderswap designs charming and wanted an in-universe reason to use them the Ice King wanted to create trashy, wish fulfillment through art. It was a phase.

Definitely changed that image for publishing.

Simon can argue if they’re good or bad but it’s undeniably his art. It’s not just a portfolio he left behind in a closet, it’s an experience that was shared with a larger audience.

And even if wasn’t liked at first, the citizens of Ooo seemed to have come around to it. And some of them love it!

Whether Simon likes it or not, he has a fan base that is so endeared to the story he made all those years ago that they demand he makes more. Why let a good story, loved by many, go to rest when you still have some life and creativity left in you?

Can't move on in more ways than one.

Except, the problem is that Simon isn’t Ice King anymore. He’s aged out of it.

His real passion is history, he's an adult who who finds passion in the mundane and antiques from the past. And frankly, there isn’t much room for wish-fulfillment and fantasy anymore. Simon has responsibilities. He has a job and a daughter in a world that is moving faster than he can process.

And where Ice King wrote about looking for love, Simon has already had it.

And lost it. His mind isn’t focused on the rosiness of finding new love, it’s grieving the one he already thought was the one.

Wasn't he supposed to be good with kids?

Despite his new life experiences, all his peers seem to want from him is to make more of what they’re familiar with.

A story made from wants and wishes that he doesn’t even have anymore.

A story that was literally made by someone else at a different time. It’s a fiction he cannot connect to anymore, art that he’s embarrassed by. Yet also jealous of. Because at one point, the body Simon used to be in understood what exactly was missing from his life and could express that easily.

Seeing it again is like experiencing a retrospection of a cringey loser you don’t want to imagine having ever been. It’s not you anymore, and you don’t want to be reminded of that.

Because despite him having a new creative passion, no one seems to care about that. All they want is Fionna and Cake. And what is more lonely than other people misunderstanding what you’re trying to express?

If I failed to make it clear somehow, my theory is that: Simon’s relationship with Fionna and Cake is a metaphor for creators growing out of their art. And this new Fionna and Cake world is still comfort art born out of Simon’s current desires and perceptions.

The snippet subtitles this “child holding a phone”. I guess I’m wrong. Essay over.

Episode 1 and 2 both have direct parallels with each other. They’re both about a protagonist who are feeling displaced from their world, living a phase of losing a significant other, leaving a thankless job, wearing a mask of stability in front of the people they care for, seeking a guru at the heart of the forest, and concluding that they no longer belong in their current world.

But more importantly, Fionna and Cake (the characters, the world, and the show) are no longer for an all-ages crowd. Fionna and Cake now feature young adults, curses, gore, alcohol, partial nudity, financial issues, morning routines, mid-life crisis, and overt suicidal ideation. These are the feelings that Simon relates to and possibly desires to express through art. Thus, his story and our new miniseries have warped that way.

Am I overthinking this? No. How dare you assume that.

Is equating the unconscious writings of his dementia-ridden self to Simon as his younger self seem a bit odd? ….Kinda. Again, it’s not the how but the why that matters in this case. I'm NOT crazy, I have proof that there is some acknowledgment of this directly in the show.

Rewatch the bar scene and apply this reading of the episode to what Simon says there:

“Your old stuff, Fionna and Cake, honest to glob my man, is an inspiration to me.”

“My old stuff, I don’t really want to talk about my old stuff…”

“Why not? You should be proud! You wrote an entire extended universe in a fugue state if you think about it.”

"Simon cringes"

If you have ever shared art with a group of people in the past, you’ve had this conversation.

Not likely, not possibly, no perhapses. You HAVE.

And Fionna and Cake being an epilogue to a massive award-winning, near-decade-spanning, cultural sensation 5 years after it ended, might result in its creators feeling very retrospective about what audiences want from them now.

And how difficult it’s going to be to tell new experiences and tones from what’s come before. Also, come on. “Extended Universe?” That doesn’t sound like Fionna and Cake. That sounds a lot like something else.

Again, seems bad with this kid.

One of the more profound shots in the main trailer for the show features the inconspicuously Finn-like kid crouching at her Fionna and Cake book in Simon’s trash. I believe this character is going to have a major role in two ways. Convincing Simon to be proud of what he’s accomplished and/or embracing that Simon wants to move away from his original work in order to create something new, or perhaps more likely, reinvent Fionna and Cake into what Simon relates to now.

We’ll just have to see what Simon thinks of his new Fionna next week.

PS. Talking as a fan now, WHAT IS UP WITH THE 1000+ TREEHOUSE IN THE INTRO?!!! ARE WE REVISITING THIS TIMELINE AGAIN?

SOMEONE TELL ME NOW!!!

[thewickedbohemian]

Thoughts on the High Potential season finale which had everything from Criminal Minds and Elsbeth parallels to more Ozester than usual to a whole lotta lore getting dumped

big milestone for Ava

not helping Elliott

Morgan catastrophizing like my mom would

police gala huh and Karadec being as reticent as Kaya was in Elsbeth S1 (hmm parallels)

"Daph" huh

of course Oz caused chaos

shit just got Criminal-Minds-y

hello Adam Kantor hello dude who plays Nick on Grimm

getting a flashback to CSI and Mac's three arc with the missing piece

how many games is this going to be

diabetes, now this reminds me of Criminal Minds even more

cute converse

very Cassandra of her

isn't there an easier way to find him

rescued the guy seven minutes in so where do we go from here

more games, this dude sounds like a Batman villain

and more casual gayness, gotta love it

surprise at the diner (and I'm not talking cute waitress)

cherchez la femme

Morgan, just trust people (though part of me's still on my guard too)

wow, Ava's good at this art shit (like we didn't already know)

that's big of her

Oz seems oddly concerned

surprise phone call

two dates to the gala

round 2 of the game

please tell me this isn't a threat against her babies

so that's the Oz connection

the b-team out in the field and cute, needle drop, real cute

potential suspect

why do I have a feeling this is going to blow up in Morgan's face

go Selena standing up for Morgan

kidnap victim #2

Morgan finds a secret message

so that's the clue in the dolls

I'm getting anxious just thinking about that

cue infodump about the history of jacks

why do I feel like this guy might be trying to play with Morgan specifically as some kind of surrogate

another cute outfit (love that floral jacket)

not surprised HPI runs in the family

more casual boundary-breaking, daddy-daughter hitting the mall

Gio, really not the time

hi again agent dude

looks like the cricket updated his digs

the plot thickens

and now we gotta go save Oz

ooh other girls looking glam (though Soto's off-the-shoulder keeps making me want to adjust it)

Morgan in Elsbeth pink (would have worn a bigger necklace but I love the earrings)

there's the dancing we were promised (but what's "their song", I can't hear it)

Karadec, this guy's a Riddler not a Joker

there's her other date

and Daphne being a nerd has the epiphany

Karadec not letting them ruin their dresses

and day and detective saved

I feel like that quote about grief being love persevering is relevant here

oh hello cute kid

Karadec asking the important question and accepting a non-answer

unsub no longer un

surprise vacation but be realistic kids

and there's Nick

now it's hit close to home

and he's the unsub...ok nvm he isn't

but if the unsub isn't David (who could have been using her as a surrogate for his sister he played games with) why is he specifically targeting Morgan other than just probably having some HPI himself

and another cliffhanger and now I see why this show needed to go on

[synthient]

I listened to the audio drama they're adapting into Space Eurovision, so you don't have to!

Bang-Bang-a-Boom: it's a 2002 Big Finish audio drama. It's a riff on Boom Bang a Bang, the song that won Eurovision for England in 1969 (if I'm being so fr. it's a little mid). And it's the originator of the "Intergalactic Song Contest" concept.

Yep. I bit the bullet, dropped 5 bucks, and dedicated 2 and half hours of my sunday evening to the cause 👍

If you're just tuning in, my personal cause (windmill tilt?) is the Eurovision Hypothesis: the idea that 1) Rogue is the Master, and 2) he's about to reveal it live onstage at Space Eurovison.

But if you're not a true believer in Rogue Eurovision Champion 2025, feel free to still benefit from my notes. Again, this thing is 2.5 hours long, and the current tardiswiki page just drops a couple Lore Points without doing a real recap.

But before I get into the plot, let's address a relevant out-of-universe detail:

The Transphobia Wrinkle

So, maybe it's for the best that I didn't realize this until after I finsished listening, because it let me approach this audio drama with more of an open mind. But it turns out that the original audio is by Gareth Roberts and Clayton Hickman. Roberts is the writer of Shakespeare Code etc, and the guy who, in the last few years, has gone full transphobia pipeline. It's a very textbook version of the pipeline: made a transmisogynistic tweet in 2019, got kicked out of a doctor who short story collection when the other writers protested, and proceeded to make it his entire personality and do a career pivot to right wing grifting (apparently he's now published an anti-trans book. Of course he's written a book).

Now, before I learned this, I'd already been theorizing that Juno Dawson is the writer on the upcoming Eurovision episode. I have reasons that tie in with my grand theory of Dungeon Master Eurovision Spectacular: RTD's no-spoilers insta comment on her debut was "shocks with Juno!" She made a BBC podcast (which you should listen to!) about the Doctor accidentally causing reality to get rewritten by an eldritch force from the beyond the universe, which also features a pair of alien exes with a lot in common with the Doctor and Master. She's mentioned writing Doctor Who fanfiction as a kid, which ties in with the meta-fandom aspects of the original Rogue episode.

But tbh? We don't really need all this circumstantial evidence to assume that Dawson wrote the episode. We know there are 4 guest writer episodes in the upcoming season, we can already link a couple of the guest writers to specific episodes (McTighe wrote the Ruby one, Angel-Walfall wrote the deep sea diving one), and we can pretty much process-of-elimination at this point that the Eurovision one is Dawson's.

If I'm correct - if the transmisogyny guy's audio drama is getting adapted for the screen, but by a trans woman - then I'm frankly not sure yet how I feel about that. I assume the production team is approaching that choice as a sort of reclamation slash middle finger. I also don't necessarily love that this guy's concepts are still being platformed, and that they'll presumably still have to credit him for it. But a lot will ultimately depend on how Dawson herself is approaching this adaptation process. (Was adapting this specific audio her idea?)

At this point, we don't know how much of the original is going to make it to the screen beyond the general premise. All this baggage might point to the likelyhood of a fairly loose adaptation.

But let's take a look at the original storyline anyway - if nothing else, it'll provide interesting context for any divergences.

And I do still have my little theories 📝

The Plot Summary

[Spoilers throughout for the audio drama from 2002. I don't think all or most of these specific beats will make it verbatim into the episode, but I can't promise that]

Our basic premise isn't just Space Eurovision. it's Murder Mystery! At The Space Eurovison.

Space Eurovision is being hosted on a space station that's a loose parody of Deep Space Nine. They're recently down a captain, but just as the newly hired captain arrives for duty, someone explodes his shuttle. The 7th Doctor and Mel stumble across the crime scene just in time to accidentally steal the murdered captain's identity.

Now people at Space Eurovision are getting picked off one by one, so the Doctor has to solve the mystery, while also playing the role of Star Trek Captain.

Our main suplots:

There's political intrigue going on between the contestants from Soviet Russia Planet and Psychic Hivemind Planet (whose language is so weird that they can only speak through a human interpreter). Their planets have been at war. There's a peace conference happening simultaneously with Eurovision. Is one of them trying to frame the other? (Spoiler: The Translator Did It. His name is Loozely because he translates......loosely.)

Did Soviet Russia Contestant spray the Doctor with a love potion? (yeah) (also, as pointed out by tardiswiki, her name is an anagram for vagina. Of course it's an anagram for vagina.)

Is something off with the stereotypical Star Trek Doctor and Star Trek Scientist? (yeah - she never went to med school and he's an alcoholic)

Is the nice mousegirl mediator from Mousegirl Pacifist Planet suspicious? (kinda, but only because she's secretly hosting the peace talks inside the Eurovision contestants' brains or something.) Did Mel just accidentally murder her with blunt force head trauma? (almost, but no)

Mel has befriended a himboish male pop star. Is he suspicious? (No, but the evil translator tricked him into swallowing a bomb)

Conclusion: the Doctor does his locked room deduction scene and reveals that Evil Translator is to blame. The theme song starts to play, but Mel stops it with a record scratch and points out that was too easy. The Doctor realizes there's still a bomb onboard, and it's in Himbo Pop Star's stomach.

The fake-doctor successfully removes it even though she never went to med school, while the Doctor goes onstage in Himbo's place. He wins it all with some sort of offscreen (off...audio?) spoon performance. The other characters realize that as a final twist, the Doctor isn't the real captain?! The Doctor goes "haha yeah :p" and fucks off in the tardis

My Notes

- First off, I doubt the Star Trek parody element is making it into the adaptation. It's already a little tacked on in the audio, and Deep Space Nine just isn't that culturally relevant at the moment.

(If the setting is still a space station, though...what do we think the odds are that it's Satellite 5?)

One one thing that does seem relevant to this run, however, is the fake Star Trek doctor. She lied because she wanted to live out her fantasy of being a Star Trek character. She killed a bunch of people with medical malpractice.

In other words, she cosplayed them to death. Deeply Rogue-coded! She's also a Doctor mirror. He's stolen an identity too; he just happens to be a little more competent at his Star Trek Captain cosplay.

- Aside from Star Trek, there are a couple references to Holmes and Watson (Mel: "You know what finally happened to Sherlock Holmes? Watson bashed him in the head with his own violin!") I feel like this one's actually more likely to get a shoutout. Maybe it's a stretch, but I have been comparing my little Rogue theories to TJLC this whole time

- The male pop star character reminded me a lot of Ricky September. His name also happens to be Nicky Newman. Coincidence?

I feel like either, RTD already stealth-adapted this character for Dot and Bubble (in which case we're probably not seeing another version of him in the Eurovision ep). Or...is there some small chance we're getting another Mundy/Belinda situation?

- There's a gag in the audio that Earth's national anthem is I Will Survive. The Rogue novelization actually makes almost the same joke, but about Can't Get You Out Of My Head. Coincidence??

- Will the episode still be doing the feuding planets storyline? tbh, I'm not sure Doctor Who should actually be touching any of the real Eurovision geopolitics. However...there is that clip of Skaro in the trailer. Hard to picture the Daleks sending a representative to Eurovision, but maybe that's exactly what would make it a good joke

- A significant plot point in the audio is that no one can understand what the Hivemind Planet contestant is saying until the end, when someone invents a special translation device.

RTD2 has been putting a lot of emphasis on the tardis's perception filter and auto translation. So I suspect that either this element will get cut, or it could be used as an opportunity for the tardis to meddle with the investigation.

- The record scratch: this also seems relevant to our current, 4th wall break heavy storyline.

Even if we don't get a literal record scratch, I think there's a high chance of a "record scratch moment" where we suddenly realize that the Doctor's solution is too easy, and the story can't just end there.

What if it turns out it was "too easy" because the whole murder mystery was staged for the Doctor's benefit?

That's what I think Rogue, or the Dungeon Master, already did in his intro episode: give the Doctor a murder mystery + Bridgton romance. So why not use Eurovision as an excuse to engage in two of the Doctor and Master's shared hobbies: murder mysteries (as either the detective or the murderer), and being a diva?

There's actually one other possibility for the staged murder mystery twist: the Tardis could have done it. That's one of my other big theories - that she staged Sutehk, the Ruby's mom mystery, and more.

But not only does this kind of, small-scale interpersonal murder not really seem like her style (compared to the Sutehk thing). But I think the Eurovision episode- which seems to be set right before the season 2 finale, btw - would be a good moment for a fakeout reveal. If the Master staged this mystery, does that mean he's staged the entire story??

But nope - all the big stuff was the Tardis. She's probably where Rogue got the idea for the murder mystery dates in the first place.

After all: giving the Doctor a story and letting him roleplay its hero seems to be the only way to get through to him, right?

Fin

Anyway! You can take or leave the Rogue stuff and the Doctor being trapped in a story (though I for one am dying on both those hills). But now that we know the basic framework that this adaptation is starting from, we can see what Dawson and RTD will choose to keep, add, or discard.

And surely they've gotta give the Doctor (or the Master...?) a full-fledged Eurovision-winning performance, right?

[werothegreat]

More cards have been revealed! Let's talk about them!

Now this seems a neat Chip 'n' Dale payoff. Kinda similar to Snow White - Well Wisher, except already the chipmunks have better shift targets, and the one Dale mills you to give you targets. If you're playing Amber/Sapphire, you can potentially get multiple cards back in a turn.

She ain't bad! I like that you get use out of her the turn you play her (unlike Bernard). Will be very useful with high-lore questers or characters with important abilities, like Disguised Peddler.

This seems nutty. Rafiki has multiple playable shift targets, including a 1-drop. All I can imagine is shifting this in then singing Friend Like Me. Notably this is thus far the most expensive (inkwise) Amethyst character to be printed.

Amethyst gets its own version of Maui's Fish Hook. That's a really powerful effect it hands out, but being uninkable and costing 4 (essentially meaning you have to pay 6 the first time you use this) makes me think this will probably not see any actual play.

Card draw is always nice. We'll have to see how pervasive Pirates are in the new meta for the first ability to be relevant. The main drawback I see here is having 1 strength means he dies to Sisu and Brawl.

I've been waiting for this! A character that enters play exerted! 4 strength means he can't be Brawl'd or Medusa'd, and 6 willpower means he'll usually survive at least one challenge. I'd love to run him in an Emerald/Steel or Emerald/Amber deck to hide him behind bodyguards, maybe Amber for preference because you could cheat him out earlier.

Holy hell. A 2/2 2 lore with evasive for 2 is insane stats. Granted, you can only really play her in a Pirate deck, but I think Wendy alone makes a Pirate deck worth it.

So. If he survives to quest, you can get out Lucky Dime on turn 5. I mean, Sapphire is the ramp color, so there are builds that could do that anyway, but this does so without sacrificing tempo. I think he'll see play, and he might make other expensive items see more play, like Eye of the Fates. Even just getting to reuse Pawpsicles is pretty sweet.

Okay an inkable 3/2 1 lore 1 drop is kind of insane. There are multiple support characters at 1 and 2 ink. Hell you could run him as a 1 drop into Chicha, and do all your ramping and drawing shenanigans. This will see play.

Forgot this song existed. The main effect is a bit too kindred-niche (unless Inventors as a kind actually come together as a deck), but I would love to see more actions that ink themselves after play.

I see they've reprinted that one Jafar. Mr. Smee floodborn incoming?

[yuseirra]

I've been thinking about this too much and I need to get over it

but apparently, If Amenouzume's been mentioned, then her husband MUST have some relevance to this story. Those two gods seem like major deities, their story must be a very well-known tale among Japanese people and those two gods seem to recur a lot in many different forms of media. They stick together and come as a set.

If they gave out the idea that Ai is a "reincarnation" of a star and an idol who excels with the dances chosen by the god of entertainment earlier in the series, and the god Amenouzume was mentioned, she would have to do with that god. There is no other god we need to look into. She is the reincarnation of that particular god...

And when that god has been mentioned, and we have a shrine that was built to celebrate her and her husband having gotten together as she was working for Amaterasu(with Ruby having directly stated that she IS her,) making an appearance in the story as a site that actually has an effect, with the wishes having been made at that shrine having come true but in twisted ways,

then a character that has to do with Amenouzume's husband also must need to make an appearance. and we have it!!! We have him!! Ai has a boyfriend who she got together with and stated that she wanted to "live forever" with! she favored him that much- it seems like Amenouzume was the same way with her husband, who everyone else except her was scared of and was thought of as a monster. She saw him through and was the only one who understood him, which makes them a pretty devoted pair.

That particular god who is the husband of Amenouzume is responsible for directing people's futures!!! Those two gods fell in love at first sight as she seduced him(so she's the Fatale) in that lore

and he's the god of light.

There is no need to even consider what Kamiki stands for in this story the moment we follow all this-

and it is said that Amenouzume's husband Sarutahiko meets his demise by drowning in water, that's exactly what's happened,

So I believe this series has been following that myth, it doesn't seem too much of a stretch to say so...

Sarutahiko is supposed to be really kind though!!! Those two gods are a very loving couple the more I look into it, that's why they seem to appear as a pair when they're depicted in many forms of media. So you get why we get songs like Fatal and Mephisto where there's someone who goes "I can't live without you", "I can give my life, anything if you come back alive" "My dearest Fatale" right, that's the god crying out for his deceased lover. This wasn't supposed to happen, if you follow the myths, he's the one who should have passed instead of her if one of them has to die.

I just don't see... this guy having attempted to harm his partner in any way. There is no proof and moreover, there is no point in writing a character based on that god like that, (why would they do that???) rather, I see this as a side-effect of his powers having been twisted as they became unstable. He kept failing to direct people into goodness, and safe futures the way it was supposed to be because he got too crushed. His powers became flawed, leading him to become the opposite of what he should have been because he got mistreated, I think that's what's been going on, and he just lost all hope after Ai died as a butterfly effect of that. I guess that's how he became so desperate to get her back.

And since the guy became a walking disaster at this point, I guess he needed to be taken down.

I don't see the point of making Kamiki a villain, what point would that even make? And they gave him a name that suggests he's the god of light while also having Ai say she really really did care for that guy and apparently, he seems to feel just about the same way. The reason the writers decided to inflict so much pain on this character is probably to create a reason for him to break enough for him to grow insane; and what sealed it, in my opinion, was Ai's death; He was enduring all that somehow but he couldn't accept Ai having passed because she had his kids, that's something that'd push someone to the brink (he did go immensely far, what he did isn't right, but; I think what he wanted to do was to bring her back and he couldn't think of anything else after that point.)

I keep having all sorts of thoughts, but in the end, I always come to the same conclusion: Ah... yeah, that guy must really be the incarnation of Sarutahiko.

Otherwise, he just doesn’t make sense at all. What would this character even be? There’s no real reason to introduce that god’s shrine, have him talk about wishes, mention eyes, or anything like that... And Sarutahiko was known to be deeply devoted to his wife—he lost her and went on a rampage.

Since the myth itself isn’t all that detailed, the more I think about it, the only thing that could truly drive that god mad or be his greatest weakness is his wife, Ame-no-Uzume. There’s really nothing else that'd move him. But on the other hand, when it comes to his wife, I feel like he’d be incredibly vulnerable.

Ame-no-Uzume herself is a goddess who knows how to sway people—she’s persuasive enough to even convince the highest gods to act. And these two deities were almost always worshiped together, looking like they had a really close relationship. If it were something about his wife, I feel like he’d definitely take action.

Plus, Sarutahiko is an immensely powerful god—he governs over the future, after all.

Cleaning up a mess related to him would have required someone on the level of Amaterasu. That’s why the story unfolded this way.

If Kamiki were to be the real evil behind this all, the story shouldn't have done things this way.

Instead, the story should have wrapped things up neatly—everything should have been fully revealed and clarified, giving proper justification for what the protagonists have been doing, resolving conflicts, and bringing closure.

But now that the story is finished and I’ve gone over everything, the conclusion I’ve come to is this:

A divine couple of the Japanese entertainment industry—essentially, the most fated and symbolic couple of the field—was rejected even in their very existence. The wife, a goddess, was killed because she became pregnant with the child of her husband, the god. Since the god of light, who was supposed to protect the industry, lost his wife in such a way, he completely lost his mind, abandoned his duty, and started roaming around trying to reclaim the light (love) that contained fragments of his wife, just so he could see her again. And that’s why he ended up being vanquished.

If this is the real narrative, then it’s a pretty powerful one. The existence of this divine couple should have been a given, they were meant to be, yet even that wasn’t accepted by the people because idols supposedly can't have lovers—so they were forcibly torn apart. And as a result, people ended up destroying and breaking the very gods who were meant to love and protect them.

But I'm not sure if the authors intended to display this either; they leave it on a vague, unfinished note and it's me trying to wrap my head and trying to find a meaning to it all... Whatever story and point they make, it's really up to the artists themselves to convey it well, this could be one way to interpret it and it's the only way that makes sense to me, so I keep coming back to it.

[windypuddle]

Hello! Do you know if there Is there a Milgram lore guide? I got into the music and I vaguely understand they're all in super jail but I see all this stuff recently about a recently released MV and I understand nothing. Thank u for ur consideration 🙇‍♂️

i dunno about a specific lore guide but i can give you a rundown!

Milgram is a prison built to punish those have taken a life, but their actions are not punishable by law/deal with a controversial societal topic. Each prisoner represents some different situation, often in pairs that foil each other (for example, prisoner 03 Fuuta's crime has to do with cyberbullying, while 04 Muu's has to do with regular bullying).

Milgram operates under a 3 trial system, and each trial, each prisoner will be interrogated (a voice drama featuring the prisoner and Es), a music video will be "extracted" from their memories, and then the audience (us) will vote whether to forgive them or not (also translated as innocent/guilty verdicts) (but you can only vote if you have twitter or LINE). I've assembled a playlist here of all the introduction videos, voice drama translations, and music videos in order (plus cover songs; theyre not strictly canon but give a fun insight on the character)

The number 1 thing to watch if you're confused would be this video. Jackalope is a funny little rabbit in charge of the prison, and only Es (the warden, also the audience stand-in) can hear him talk.

then there's Undercover, which was the first music video, and an introduction to all the characters. they all have a little line about them, and theres a lot of ominous shots of them in silhouette beating up Es, and some shots of what looks like each prisoner's life outside of milgram.

Undercover is especially relevant because the recent video that came out, Undercover: Route: Your Curtain Call, is a reprise of this, but... some things are different. I'll put this under a read-more for spoilers.

So. Haruka, Shidou, and Mahiru are missing.

some background: after trial 1 was concluded, Kotoko, whose whole story is about vigilante justice, attacked the prisoners who were voted guilty (except Amane, because attacking a 12-year old might be a step too far, especially since with what we learned in Deep Cover, Kotoko had a friend around Amane's age, or at least on the younger side. Maybe Amane reminds her of Lucky. Hmmm...). This confirmed that even though the prisoners can't attack Es, they can attack each other. Kotoko was pretty evenly matched by John, but she severely injured Mahiru and messed up Fuuta's right eye before being stopped by Kazui. Shidou, a doctor, told us in trial 2 that Mahiru's injuries were serious, and she could die if he wasn't around to treat them.

Someone, however, doesn't like Shidou. The religious group that Amane was raised in frowns upon medical treatment, believing that illness or injury is a trial from God and one should rely on faith to get through that. She views modern medicine, and indeed any help at all, to be in violation of this and therefore against the natural order of her religion. (She may have even been punished for violating this exact thing, as we see in her music videos. So she's very serious about this.) Therefore, she has a grudge against Shidou for being a doctor. Lots of current theories are that she is responsible for Shidou's disappearance/death in some way. That would also explain Mahiru's absence, because without Shidou there to treat her, she may have succumbed to her injuries. (It's also possible she killed herself, because she views us voting her guilty as Milgram rejecting her reason for living, her love. And she says she can't live without love.)

Haruka is a separate deal entirely. Sometime between trials 1 and 2, Haruka and Muu became close friends, relying on each other emotionally to a degree that is... let's say unusual. I'm not the expert on them. In his trial 2 interrogation, Haruka was angry at Es, but couldn't attack them directly; so, to disrupt the order of Milgram, he threatened to kill himself if Muu was voted guilty.

...yeah.

Ultimately, we don't know precisely what happened to them, and we won't know until the third trial begins. But it doesn't look good.

[angryplebianart]

To bother you with questions and statements:

What's your favourite Gorillaz phase and why?

As a 2doc shiper do you prefer fluffy, some canon stuff ignoring, fix-it fics, or the ones that dive into their complexity, toxic codepency ect?

Favourite music genre?

Have a lovely day :))

Thank you for bothering me with questions and statements!! I saw your other ask way back when too, but ig I forgot about it until now, dw I'll answer that one too lol

Op from the future here: sorry this is a long one 💀

1. I really don't know. I love all of them in their own special way. Phase 1 is of course iconic. I love the art style, the lore is great, the music is amazing, the videos are so good. I just love phase one all around, but overall I tend to think about it less than some others.

Phase 2 is great but pretty vague sometimes, and I don't know, I just don't have all that much attachment to it. We did get Rise of the Ogre for phase 2 though, and it's amazing 🤩 Demon days is wonderful and I love other specific things from phase 2, but it's not on my mind a lot. Phase one and two are also the peak of the MTV era of Gorillaz so I love that.

Phase 3 is SO GOOD, and I think it's gotta be my fave but I feel like it's a basic bitch answer to say so. There's so much depth to Murdoc in phase 3, signs of his underlying guilt about the El Mañana incident and his mistreatment of 2D, his madness being obvious on pirate radio, the book of MAN (even though that was never made canon), etc. We don't really get a closer look at Murdoc's trauma, per se, but we can really see some of the consequences of that trauma come out a few times. He's at his worst on plastic beach and I think that was a fantastic direction to go with him for phase 3. Murdoc is my favorite, if you hadn't noticed already, lol, and we get a better look at him sometimes on plastic beach. The art is fantastic, the music is fantastic, we got two guys in a love hate relationship stuck on an island together, we got Cyborg, we got the Stylo car chase, we got the FANTASTIC Syrian orchestral sessions, Russ went mad and we got some lore on him, Noodle was shown being even more badass, 2D got eaten by a whale 😀 (not sure if that's actually canon anymore because I've heard some people say that it's not, but it was talked about in a recent art book, and referenced in lost chord, which I also love, so it most likely is lmfao) I just wish we could have actually seen them all reunite, and I wish there wasn't so much permanently lost media for phase 3. So yes, that's my favorite, ig, judging by how much I wrote about it.

Phase 4 is pretty good, although I don't froth at the mouth over Humanz. We got some iconic songs and unforgettable videos out of it, and although it's overused, we also got "da baff" from it so phase 4 is alright in my book. We also got the hilarious mocap interviews, EDIT because I didn't even think about it while I was writing this the first time, but Humanz is really relevant rn for obvious reasons that I feel very strongly about, and it's a great album to listen to and relisten to in light of current events.

Phase 5 is GREAT! What can I say? As a 2doc shipper phase 5 is some of the tastiest stuff ever. I might read into it a little due to my biases from shipping 2doc, but 2D gets lots of depth and complexity in this phase. His conflict over Murdoc being gone being obvious in the lyrics that obviously allude to him is scrumptious. Phase 5 is actually what turned me to the Dark Side✨ (shipping 2doc) so I'm very fond of this phase for my 2doc roots. The Now Now is so good, and I SO WISH that we had more videos/content for this phase. I wish they could have utilized Ace more because I LOVE ACE. Kisses for him and for prison Murdoc who's p5 cg model I love. I hate that Noodle and Russ are so absent, but that's a constant from here on out really (and also in p4). I love the references to previous phases that we got in this phase too.

Phase 6 is mega confusing. I still can't wrap my head around what went on in p6. Maybe I just haven't looked into it enough. Maybe it makes sense to everyone else, but ehh I dunno. The portals were a strange addition and I'm glad they didn't stick around in p7. Song Machine is great and I love that it meant that they went back to their experimental roots more than they had for a few albums. I wish we could get a Song Machine season 2 but sadly Jamie and Damon have said that's probably not ever happening. I love the videos and the meshing of the characters and the real artists in the studio working on music together. The machine bitez videos are some of my favorite Gorillaz things ever as well. It's so amazing to hear Noodle and Russ in those especially. WE NEED MORE OF THEM. ESPECIALLY RUSS.

Phase 7 holds a special place in my heart and soul. Lots of people aren't too fond of it for obvious reasons, but I really like p7 because it's where I joined the fandom. My younger sister went to one of their concerts with a friend of hers who was a fan and she came back raving about Gorillaz. She showed me the Silent Running video and it started the ball rolling very fast. I can understand why long-time fans aren't too happy with p7 but I'm just glad to have been there for it lol. I actually really like the lore for this phase! The whole Cracker Island album is really good too, imo. Very good phase 😄

Sorry. This is so long already. I really had to put all my thoughts down lmfao

2. I'm not really sure about this one either lol. My tastes in 2doc fic are so specific and I can't really put my finger on what makes it work for me. A little bit of all I think. Everything's got its time and place. The first fic that I read for 2doc that I actually enjoyed was a pretty well known one called The Answer. It's got a little of all this as it's canon divergent, so, ig canon ignoring sometimes, sorta fluffy sometimes, highlights their toxicity and co dependency, and fixes stuff in the end, so it's everything I want in a 2doc fic! Also it really dives into Murdoc so I really enjoyed that. If it's your thing I highly recommend it if you haven't already read it lol

3. Favorite genre of music?? I listen to all sorts of things. From video game music, to Broadway, to rock, to emo, to pop, to fan music, to dubstep, to hiphop, to orchestral, to piano, to alternative, to etc I've got a little bit of everything and I listen to all of it lol. I've got so many genres from a handful of different decades, and I don't think I could pick a favorite if I had to lmao

Thanks again for the ask and I'm so sorry to assault your eyes with all these words 😭 have a lovely day too!!

[sarasade]

Since I've been complaining about YouTube criticism a lot lately here is some positivity for a change: Here are some of my fave TDP YouTube videos. These creators would probably appreciate getting more eyeballs on their work. (listed from newest to oldest):

The Genius of the Dragon Prince

by wordswith dragons

A GREAT analysis of the the over all themes of TDP with an unique and well thought out perspective.

Viren’s Dream Analyzed: Claudia Witnessed Viren Seal Kapp’Ar - The Dragon Prince Theory

by Angeles Lunamoth

a really fun & cute theory channel. I'm not a lore person so I don't know if the theories are correct per se but speculation is fun anyway. (Also it's funny to me that this person didn't know what Twin Peaks is. Like yeah it's not the most relevant thing to reference.)

The Dragon Prince Is an Amazing Mess.

by XeroLmao

Don't let the title fool you it's mostly a very positive and humorous video. This is the most genuinely funny long-form TDP commentary video I've seen so far.

The Music of The Dragon Prince - Season 1 (themes & analysis) &

The Dragon Prince Music Analysis - S2 and S3

by Spelonberry

As someone who doesn't get music at all I didn't expect to like these videos this much! It's rare to see someone analyse a non-musical show's OST in such detail. it made me appreciate TDP's music even more. I can't believe I didn't notice that the Mirror theme/Aaravos' theme sounded so diffenrent because it's the only song in the OST that has piano in it.

The Dragon Prince: Why Fans Love Aaravos But Hate Viren

by Cartoon Junkies

the title made me giggle :)

How The Dragon Prince Captures the Spirit of ATLA

by Mother's Basement

A great video essay about the themes of grief and death in TDP. Once again a very unique perspective to analyse the show from. It's just so satisfying when someone puts together a really good argument, you know? I'm kind of tired of the ATLA comparisons after hearing them for over 5 years though. TDP itself really leans into them so what can you do.

----

I love VogJam too but he's VERY critical so his channel might not be for everyone. I'll gladly listen to any negative crit as long as the person doing it is funny and he's pretty damn hilarious. I don't mind hearing harsh critique of TDP at all like people do make good points.

[foxes-that-run]

The thing is...the manipulate jerk that Jake is, he was in her life for way more time than people think. No one understands how much Jake impacted her and broke her. Yeah that can happen in one month too but she literally resents him in a way that makes me think that it wasn't just one or two months. Feel like there's a chance they kept seeing eachother for few more months or like just hooking up. I mean I've read The Moviestar and Me so I wouldn't put it past him to keep coming back to a 21 year old Taylor. He has a pattern

Jake is a POS, Taylor said it was “a kind of bad that gets so overpowering you can't even write about it," Manuscript sings of trauma, and after dating younger boys. I know the WANGBT swiftie-lore is they were on/off, but it was in 2010. Her team said it ended December 2010. To Vanity Fair she said in 2013 "since 2010 I have dated exactly two people.” That is Harry and Conor, so she said she didn't date Jake in 2011.

He also just doesn't sound like someone with who 'the armor falls', 'a worthwhile fight', or the 'golden age of something good and right':

The Guardian: [Hide away and find your peace of mind / With some indie record that's much cooler than mine.] "That was the most important line of the song," Swift says. "It was a relationship where I felt very critiqued and subpar. He'd listen to this music that nobody had heard of … but as soon as anyone else liked these bands, he'd drop them. I felt that was a strange way to be a music fan. And I couldn't understand why he would never say anything nice about the songs I wrote or the music I made."

And finally to USA Today: "WANEGBT is a definitive portrait of how I felt when I finally stopped caring what my ex thought of me. He made me feel like I wasn't as good or as relevant as these hipster bands he listened to. So I made a song that I knew would absolutely drive him crazy when he heard it on the radio. Not only would it hopefully be played a lot, so that he'd have to hear it, but it's the opposite of the kind of music that he was trying to make me feel inferior to.

So maybe State of Grace is about some blue eyed fire sign we never knew about... Conor Kennedy is a Leo (fire sign) with brown eyes... or maybe that detail was changed, or its a line she liked from an earlier song. Lots of swifties think its about Jake and that's all cool, but I don't think much of Red is about Jake apart from ATW. ... and I don't' think Taylor does either because:

In October 2013 she spoke with Vulture, “I heard from the guy that most of Red is about,” Swift said. “He was like, ‘I just listened to the album, and that was a really bittersweet experience for me. It was like going through a photo album.’ That was nice. Nicer than, like, the ranting, crazy e-mails I got from this one dude."

"Most of Red" is about someone who listens to her music, unlike Jake who didn't listen to her music, did rant at her and she so much wanted him to hear WANGBT that she made it an earworm. And:

On 28 December 2015, when the Out of the Woods Music Video was about to be released she went on a liking spree about it which included this post, linking the muse of State of Grace with Out of the Woods:

(Thank you @cntfightmydemonsthyknowhowtoswim who had all of that in her fabulous Red post.)

[silverloreley]

Thoughts about Descendants: Rise of Red

I saw Rise of Red.

It was a mess and, as I expected, it blew up the lore of the whole franchise, so I'm going to consider it an AU of sorts from now on, or out of the original canon because there is no way to make everything work together.

Besides, it feels very rushed, especially the ending, it comes far too soon, and even if it's basically certain there will be a sequel or two, it still doesn't work on so many levels.

That said, it was a funny nice little thing, the songs are catchy (Red and Life is Sweeter are pretty great) and if it was for a different franchise it'd be nice and fine.

But it isn't. This is set in Descendants's world and that's where a good bit of the issues arise.

This is going to be long.

First of all, we already had enough problems with timelines as it was, but we kind of solved the issue with different theories (merged universes, different developments due to segregation, they were different but the unification brought a super quick collective development... it all depends on what line of thinking you prefer) the only one that never worked in the first place was that everyone was the same age and went to school together, Heroes and Villains. It simply doesn't add up, most of the Villains are supposed to be much older and most certainly didn't live along Heroes peacefully. But RoR went exactly there?!

And I see the appeal of it all, sure, but Maleficent should at least be older than Aurora by the simple grace of having been the one to curse baby Aurora at her christening so Maleficent being the same age as Cinderella, and Aurora by proxy since Chad and Audrey are the same age too we can assume Aurora and Ella are around the same age, makes no damn sense. Hades is a similar issue, but that one can be solved, let's say he was too bored in the Underworld (or was trying to escape punishment for his coup and was depowered by Zeus) and decided to take a younger appearance and mingle with mortals (ahem, with Maleficent in particular, I do love the pair, okay?), Greek gods did that in the myths, I can accept that.

On the same line, Aladdin and Jasmine being there puts them in a spot that is just too strange. Unless their whole plot already happened and the Sultan agreed to ship them both to school before they got married? Idk, some things can be fixed, some not, Aladdin and Jasmine probably can. The "call us jaladdin" can't, I draw the line here.

What can't be fixed in the slightest is Cinderella's story. I mean, I have seen many movies that set Cinderella's story in modern times, they're fine, for the most part, but in this case, a huge bit of the original plot just disappears, and it's the search Charming has to do to find a girl he met at the ball and only there through a single glass shoe that a Fairy Godmother made for her. Charming knows Ella already here, he doesn't have to look all over the kingdom to find the girl with glass shoes?! And since we're told the glass shoes are important for Ella and Charming when the gift the new shoes to Chloe, you can't tell me they aren't relevant.

AND Fairy Godmother, here Fay, being the same age too, if not younger, and unable to correctly do magic is a bit I have beef with too, FG was supposed to be friends with Ella's mother, but she's too young here! And clearly unable to perform magic as she should. Let's use the "fairies grow slower" explanation here, so Fay is much older than she looks, it's fine, we can even use the same for Maleficent too, just for the bit. I have no idea why would either of them go to Merlin's school for teenagers if they are not so, but let's just say it's because no one can teach them as well as Merlin can and let's call it a day. The problem Fay isn't able to correctly perform spells is a huge issue also because we're explicitly told in Descendants she had a "motherly smile" when she helped Cinderella and FG didn't correct that, she even got upset when Maleficent talked about hamsters and eggplants instead of mice and pumpkins when the carriage was discussed so it's pretty much established that FG was the one to help Ella, it couldn't have been anyone else.

Let's talk about the great absentees while we're at it, shall we? Aka, the makers of Auradon, Belle and Adam. Where are they? Is Adam cursed at this point and Belle doesn't go to school? Like in Beastly (great book btw, not so much the movie tho...)? I mean, everyone else is missing too, if we want to get technical, but the problem is that Merlin school's existence undermines a good chunk of Auradon's lore as we know it.

(After I started writing this post I came across the very disturbing info they almost put Beast in the plot of RoR, as a jock kid who could switch between beast and boy basically at will, which is not how a curse that leaves a boy traumatized for life to the point he decides to ban magic as soon as he becomes king should work, so his presence would have been much worse than his absence. In fact, I think it's for the better he didn't appear at all)

We speculated and we were sort of told by the extra books that the reason Auradon united and the Isle was created was because of a "Villain takeover" for which a rebellion was necessary (exact words we find in the guide), so there was a war and all, do we have to assume everything happened after the ones we saw in RoR left school? Since we have added the info Wonderland didn't want to join Auradon, hence the seal of the Rabbit Hole, what side did Bridget stand on during the war? Did she already have the authority to call the shots? When did it all happen?! How do you go from going all to school together to rise up in arms?

On a similar note, as funny as it can be the idea a coup can't start from a school so Ben is very relaxed when told, I've been informed by people who know this kind of stuff that a coup can, indeed begin from any place, as long as there are enough important people/resources where it all starts. As we know, Chad was considered second-in-line after Ben (he says so in D2), although I guess this changed in the years after the first 3 movies (possibly because Chloe was deemed more fit to rule?), so the Charming family is important enough that the Queen of Hearts seizing Auradon Prep with her whole army can be considered a successful coup, even more so in absence of the actual High King and Queen from the country. If we add many royals and their kids were there, as well as Fairy Godmother and Uma (yes, Uma became very important for Auradon, you can't change my mind), it is, most definitely a very real coup.

One thing I saw around is that it's likely Red and Chloe solved nothing or made things worse for Bridget and I sort of agree only in part. People tend to underestimate how much traumatic events can affect people, especially people as sweet as Bridget seemed to be, even more so when she didn't have any friends but Ella (by her own admission) and Ella was too busy with her own happiness to help her friend who got hurt, so yes, that single prank could have changed her completely. Also, I believe, after she went dark, the Queen of Hearts killed Ulyana.

I suppose we're going to find out what did Red and Chloe messed up for real in the next movie, I tend to think that either Red realizes she doesn't like bubbly Bridget as a mom that much because she's too kind and it makes her a rather bad queen, not a dictator but not capable of making the right decisions either OR something else vital in the franchise was blown up, like Ulyana being still alive (yes I totally stand that the Queen of Heart killed her, but if she didn't it means there's a problem on the loose).

Another thing is the freezing spell in the cookbook. Some say that its existence should have blocked Ulyana's plot all the same and Chloe and Red's intervention actually changed nothing, but I disagree.

Assuming it would have worked all the same on Ulyana in the original timeline, we could suppose that she didn't open the book inside Merlin's study, but simply the gang took the book and left before Merlin could arrive, so one of the others (Maleficent, Morgie and Hades all had magic) could have unfreezed her, then she could have found someone clueless to open the book for her (Ella in exchange for a chance to attend the ball, so Ulyana was her actual-but-evil-FG? a random extra who the gang brought specifically for the goal? Bridget herself, naive as she was, they left the book there and she opened it sealing her own fate?), so the prank would have happened, the main change was that R&C activated the security system much earlier and kept the gang in the room longer, so Merlin got around to catch them and give them detention this time around, that part works.

Now, this is all I have for now, but I may add another post and reply to the comments to this one, so go wild!

[chaotic-goodsir]

The Searcher in The Shadows Part 3 Spoilers

I loved this whole episode. It was full of so much lore for the Blazing World and some huge character moments for all the main four. The writing, acting and singing were all fantastic and I had so much fun listening. But also, much like the great astronomer/lovesick nerd, John Herschel:

I have questions.

Which is good, because the pulp genre is supposed to leave you excited for more of the story and this has definitely succeeded.

Some thoughts in no particular order:

1) This is probably not relevant to anything, but where did Kal get all those boats? Were they former Blazing World ships similar to the Antikythera but corrupted by the fog, or did he make bargains with human captains other than AJ to commandeer their ships? It would be very cool if he had a fleet of stolen ghost ships from all throughout time.

2) So, Margaret was 'The Great Enchantress', but what exactly does that mean? Was she evil? Did she work for her father? Who were the names she mentioned when she got back to the Nautilus? Was Itzal really pulling the strings of the whole evil fog curse thing all along, was it Kal (now we've learned a bit more, I feel like he's fitting into more of a shady advisor/vizier sort of role than just another victim of the fog...), or could it even have been Margaret weilding power over her father before she lost her powers/memories?

3) Ahem. Look. You can't put the phrase 'old friend' in a song about two people on opposing sides of a cosmic war having some kind of history and expect me to be normal about it. And don't think I missed Kal saying 'Dak' either. What went on between these two? 🤔 Much to consider.

4) (In which I finally shut up about Kal)John overcoming his fear of his father's disapproval and now Margaret standing up to Itzal, in the same episode? Ooh, the parallels. I feel like this theme is going to build up to something/relate to more lore about The Great Enchantress, although I'm not sure what exactly. I'm excited to see what John ends up doing after the dramatic character shift in 'Before the Island'.

5) Okay, the ending hurt. But this is pulp musicals, based on the genre famous for giving characters dramatic death scenes and then bringing them back. So I don't think we've seen the last of Samuel, and I don't just mean in the sense that he'll live on through the notebook. Is he dead? Sure, but is that really the end? I don't think so. ☀️ Nothing can stop the sun! ☀️ (I'm in denial...)

But on that note: Samuel's whole arc about being the one writing everything down, the eyes through which the listener sees the story? Being the character who started it all and documents it all? I had the feeling throughout this and the previous episodes that Samuel was fading into the background of the story a bit, but this ending really said 'he was never a part of the same narrative as everyone else, because he's the goddamn NARRATOR.' and then made him the one to decide the fate of all the other characters. That was amazing writing, and even if he doesn't come back at all (though I still think he might), I'll be satisfied with that ending, however sad it was.

[dusty-pistol]

I WANTED TO DO A LYRIC ANALYSIS THING!!!

For this song right here since I featured it in my recent post about my selfship. So yeah selfship lore under the cut!!!

So the first half of the song ain't very relevant to the lore, but I'll include a lil symbolism for it cuz why not.

[Verse 1]

"Hey, little girl, you look so nice in that pretty red dress with those pretty black eyes."

"Hello, Mr. Wolf, oh, what a surprise to find you here so deep in the night."

"My dear little girl, what's the rush? How about supper, just the two of us?"

"Oh, Mr. Wolf, you want me to stay, but I fear we'll regret it one day."

Obviously, the wolf seems intimidatin, and it comes off as he wants to eat her, but the girl doesn't seem scared of him. Just like the story of little red ridin hood. I suppose you could connect that to Cal and my sona.

He's in a position of power, and he could've very easily had my sona hunted down or even killed when it entered his timeline, but my sona wasn't scared of him. Instead, they became intrigued by each other. The lyrics, "Oh, Mr. Wolf, you want me to stay, but I fear we'll regret it one day." Fits my sona's train of thought perfectly in this instance. It KNOWS it'll regret ever meetin Cal despite how much it came to love him.

[Chorus 1]

"I have the thing you love, but the need in me is way too much."

Refers to how they both have somethin the other wants. My sona wants Callum's love and attention, while Callum wants the information he knows is bein held back from him. It's not all they want from each other, of course, but those are their main goals.

The second half refers to how my sona NEEDS to keep that information private, and it's the complete opposite for Callum. He feels like he NEEDS to know what bein kept from him. It's overwhelmin the two.

"If I open wide, one of us may get lost inside."

Refers to how if my sona opens up and reveals the truth, it knows that Cal will get obsessed with preventin his fate and instead try treatin my sona like some future tellin robot. Gettin lost in his paranoia all over again before his timeline will inevitably collapse when the day of the speech comes and he doesn't press the button.

"Me or you, one of us is going to need to die."

The "die" thing is more of an exaggeration in this instance. But refers to how both of them basically need to end up dead to one another. My sona needs to leave Cal before the speech, which Cal takes as a betrayal. And while my sona knows Cal won't die for a good long while yet, it needs to forget about him as if he were dead.

[Verse 2]

"My dear little girl, just a bite, and you will be consumed with delight."

The whole "just a bite" thing refers to Cal basically pleadin for my sona to tell him the truth. Tryna find ways to get it to confess and makin promises he can't keep to entice it.

"Oh, Mr. Wolf, my hunger is real, but they say there's more to love than a meal."

Obviously, my sona can't tell the truth. The "hunger" thing represents the desire to give Cal the information he wants, but it's not fallin for the lies.

"The old and upright, what do they know? I'm all appetite. You'll help me to grow."

In this instance, the "old and upright" refers to the rules my sona has to follow in order to keep everythin workin. He's basically tryna cast those aside and convince my sona that it doesn't need to abide my those rules, even though he has no idea what he's talkin about. Plus, my sona physically cannot break those rules, it goes against its programmin.

As for the second half, it's Cal talkin about how if my sona were to just tell him what he needs to know, it'd help keep him safe and in power. A common theme.

"Oh my love, I want you too, but my desire may prove your doom."

Obviously from my sonas perspective, it wants what Callum wants, but if that desire were to be fulfilled, everythin would have been for naught.

[Chorus 2]

"You have the thing I love, but the need in me is way too much."

"If I open wide, one of us may get lost inside."

"Me or you, one of us is going to need to die."

Refer to the first chorus notes

[Bridge]

"If I taste you, will we know if love kills or makes you whole?"

Again, not to be taken literally as it's a metaphor. The "taste you" thing means like my sona givin in and tellin the truth. It's questionin whether tellin Callum his fate to avoid it would be as detrimental as it fears or if nothin will happen and it can continue to see Cal for as long as he lives.

"Tears you open, takes you home?"

Will that tear it apart? Or will it get to finally have a happy endin with someone it cares about? (Spoilers, it's the first one. Denial is a river in Egypt you duMBASS DEER YOU KNOW HOW THIS ENDS QUIT GETTIN YOUR HOPES UP)

[Chorus 3]

"You have the thing I love, but the fear in me is way too much."

Now, despite the rest of the lyrics havin the same meanin, this one changed. It's my sona directly admittin that it's scared. It's scared and confused and lost. It doesn't know what to do. If it tells Callum his fate, he'll avoid it and inevitably destroy that timeline. But if it keeps quiet, Callum will wipe his memory and go through with his fate, but at least that timeline will stay alive. It knows the right thing to do, one life for a million others, but it's still scared to lose Callum.

"If I open wide, one of us may get lost inside."

"Me or you, one of us is going to need to die."

And I'm not doin the outro since it's just a repetition. But yeah!! I hope this helped to give a better insight in my selfship lore teehee. Fun fact onea my friends literally CRIED over the short story I wrote about my selfship a while ago. I was baffled cuz like this is the kinda stuff that makes ME sad so why're YOU cryin?? They said it was cuz the symbolism that nothin lasts forever, but idk

[accirax]

Disventure Camp All Stars Power Ranking (Round 6)

And, we're back! I'm so glad that the leaking issue didn't wind up making the team have to delay their episode releases, both for their sake and ours. I've been highly anticipating this teaser release, and look forward to cracking into the next round of Power Rankings.

In case you didn't see my last power ranking for Episode 5, the Power Ranking Format is essentially a way of ranking how well each player is doing in the game. So, in essence, this is a long form way of predicting who I think will be eliminated from the competition in the next episode. There will be spoilers for last week's episode (obviously) and its power ranking, so make sure to read that first if you don't want to be spoiled on how I ranked our last boot. If you want more clarification on the rules, that first post will help you out as well. Furthermore, I'm going to be spoiling the preview for next episode, so if you want to go in TOTALLY blind, save this for later. Let's go!

Recap - Connor's Elimination

Current Point Total: 9 acquired/14 possible

'Cause now we have lore! >:D

Well, turns out that my assessment that the Season 2 cast was safe turned out to not be true. At least Connor was my second lowest positioned of the S2 characters, and my bad vibes about the Yellow Tribe were on point... Yeah, that's some copium right there. Seems this whole predicting business might be harder than I thought. Genuinely, though, I'm glad that Connor was at least in the better half of the contestants ranked (barely).

While I'm a little disappointed that Connor didn't make it farther this time around-- I think his placement was nearly identical to how he did in S2-- he wasn't particularly one of my favorite characters, so the loss didn't hurt me that deeply. Instead, he was an understandable sacrifice in terms of making the villains out to be more of a threat, much like what I theorized for Grett. Lesson learned that sometimes the most obvious boot from a tribe simply will be the boot.

Trailer Analysis

Looking back on the last power ranking, I feel like I could have done a lot better if I'd been paying more attention to what we were shown in the preview beyond the song snippet. So, combined with the fact that I'm just really excited to figure out what's going on next episode, I decided that this time around I'd take a closer look. I've never been a fan of analyzing a trailer so closely that you basically spoil the entire story before it happens, but, I don't think that'll happen here...? Depending on how accurate I am, maybe this section will suddenly disappear next time. Who knows.

So, a compilation of relevant things that I think will happen next episode:

Connor and Trevor will have a conversation. While I doubt that this will have anything to do with the elimination order, it is interesting. I'm guessing that Connor will give Trevor some sort of advice regarding his feelings for Derek? Or, even if it can't be counted as advice (given the L he took with Riya), Connor could at least relate. I don't think this is foretelling that Connor will reenter the competition now, though.

Somebody set up a trap to catch a squirrel. My guess is Tom, as a continuation to the drama between Gabby and the others over killing and eating animals. (Aiden confirms in Episode 5 that catching the chicken was "Tom's trap.") However, it could also be something related to Jensen and/or Trevor and Derek, if they started trying to kill the forest animals again.

Yul will take more orders from Emily to make Grett happy. This means that this is an ongoing plotline.

Tess and Ally will reunite at some point. Interesting.

Tom and Jake are definitely going to fight. Given that Tom looks surprised in one screenshot and regretful in the other, I think he's going to realize how much his relationship with Aiden has been hurting Jake.

The challenge will be contestants pushing balls of yarn(?) down towards other teams' arches, trying to score a goal, while other members of the teams try to block them. All teams appear to have arches and people pushing balls. This is definitely another challenge taken from Survivor, I think possibly Gabon...? I'm pretty sure that, in real life, they had to stop doing this challenge because it injured people too much, but that's the beauty of animation!

At least Yul and Aiden will be knocked down, which could be a good thing or a bad thing. Does that mean they gave it their all to stop a ball, or that the ball trampled their attempts to stop it...? Focusing on the second screenshot, though, the Cyan team is stopping yellow and magenta balls at the same time. Assuming the contestants have any say in where they aim, I wonder if the Yellow (Grett) and Magenta (Ashley, possibly Fiore?) teams will align to target Cyan because they have five members. That could be an in-universe reason to keep the teams even with a Cyan elimination, despite Cyan being pretty physically fit.

"Sure, princess. Whatever floats your boat~!"

Given Fiore's placement in both of these screenshots, it seems like one image must happen right before the other, so Fiore is probably addressing Jake. She sounds really confident and mocking... for some reason? Not saying that's out of character for Fiore, but did something happen to make that confidence warranted as opposed to her anger at being on the bottom? Here are my two guesses: 1) Fiore, Ashley, and Ally have made a girls' alliance, so Fiore is dismissive towards Jake because she knows he's on the bottom. 2) More likely, this might have something to do with Tom and Jake's fight. Jake ran in to urgently tell Fiore something, which could be about a development in Tom and Jake's relationship. Fiore doesn't care, so she gets sassy. I'm honestly kind of confused by this, but we'll see what happens.

Those are all of the scenes from the trailer that I thought were important/I was actually able to get something of value out of. Onto the main event: the actual Power Ranking!

Power Ranking

#1: Jake

Other than... being a S1 character, I guess? There really isn't anything that makes me think that Jake would be headed home this week. He's entrenched in drama, he seems to have the numbers on his tribe, and I don't even think that Magenta is going to tribal. To me, it's so clear cut that I don't have much to say. If he does go home, I'll be very surprised.

#2: Alec

Woah, check out that jump! From 12th to 2nd. Adventure Camp Dan wishes he could've had that when moving to Disventure Camp.

Now that Alec has survived one Yellow vote-- which turned out to be Connor-- I think he's pretty safe. The idea of Riya, Yul, and Grett suddenly now turning around and all working together to eliminate their leader feels laughable, given how dysfunctional the three of them are. Like, could Alec really lose that much social capital in the span of one episode, in a challenge he'll presumably be good at...? I'm kind of anticipating a merge at 12 (Episode 7), so I'm hoping this would confirm that Alec makes the merge.

#3: Ashley

Speaking of making the merge, I honestly think that Ashley will be there. After exploring some more of DC's behind the scenes content (the charity livestream they held 4 months ago and Silly Billy's S1 cast interviews), I've come to learn that the DC cast really likes Ashley... for some reason.

Look, it's not like I hate the gal! I just don't see her as the standout, heroic and hilarious character that a bunch of the voice actors seem to. Because I held this opinion, I was unaware of the possibility that Ashley was brought back because she was some huge fan favorite that everyone wanted to see done to justice. If that's the case, I have a hard time seeing the DC writers eliminating her as a premerger again.

I don't think Magenta is going to tribal, and I think that Fiore or Ally would be more natural boots than Ashley would be anyways. Congrats on ranking this high even though you're currently being hunted for sport, S1 girl. I still don't think you're going to win overall, but you'll probably make it through the day.

#4: Yul

Another big jump! Yul's new position is aided by two major factors. The first is that he's one of only two S2 boys left in the game, after James, Hunter, and Connor were eliminated (side note: I did NOT notice that the game only started with three boys from S1. I wonder what level of safety that grants them. Why did they bring back every S1 girl except Lill. That's so many.)

The second is that the plotline between him and Emily is clearly continuing to have relevance. Perhaps I'm relying too much on the rule of threes, but it would be strange, in my opinion, to have Yul lean on Emily for assistance more than once, but still only twice. Perhaps Emily's character was largely designed to assist a major Yul plotline, after all.

He also doesn't seem to have suffered too greatly from that stage light falling on his foot last episode, which bodes well for his odds. Unfortunately, it seems like the viewing public is going to be subjected to Yul for a little while longer (/lh).

#5: Aiden

Woohoo, the other surviving S2 boy. I honestly wanted to put him higher, but the fact that I'm really feeling like Cyan is headed for tribal couldn't let me justify higher than 5th place.

And, there are genuine reasons why I think he could go home now. If that conversation between Tom and Jake ends in them reconciling, the writers might not want Aiden around anymore to continue being a barrier between them. (And, now that the music episode has passed, they don't need to keep him around for his pipes, either ;).) It's been long enough now since Lake's elimination that I don't think Aiden's elimination would feel super weird. He's had a bit of a chance to play for himself, so if his fate now becomes to hang out in a cool hotel with his boyfriend and bestie for a couple of weeks, it wouldn't seem so bad.

...But I still think Aiden isn't going home, dammit! Knowing DC, I doubt Tom and Jake would make up so early unless one of them was going home, not Aiden. They love the drama. Tom and Jake's relationship is more likely to get worse before it gets better. Not to mention, I still find the "James returns" theory very compelling. Although the Cyan girls have plenty of reasons to eliminate Aiden, I still don't really think they would.

#6: Ally

Is it just me, or would Ally's elimination feel... really random right now? Like, how would it happen, and what narrative point would it serve? The show has very deliberately shown Ally bonding with each and every member of her team. She's had multiple one-on-one conversations with Ashley cementing their friendship, she grew closer to Jake by relating to him through song, and was always the one to defend Fiore from Hunter's attacks. All three of them have reasons to like her and want to work with her, so why would they let her go?

However, Ally doesn't cement a higher placement because I do think there are ways that they could swing her elimination. It's possible that the writers only established relationships between Ashley, Jake, and Ally so that there'll be high stakes and tension between which teammate Ashley and Jake will pair with if Magenta does go to another vote. For Ally to go home, they would have to choose to side with Fiore, but that's not totally unreasonable given how they voted last time.

The fact that Ally and Tess seem to reunite in this episode is also troubling. We have the dangling plot thread from last episode that Ally is worried that she and Hunter won't be able to spend that much time apart (which she believes is good for them) before they have to reexamine their relationship. If that fear turns out to be true, I could see that giving Ally an opportunity to quickly get some advice and closure from Tess would allow her to head to the Losers' Motel with a plan of how to handle Hunter in the future.

I still don't think that Ally or Magenta has anything to fear with tribal, though.

#7: Tess

A definite downgrade from last week, but still not that terrible. A lot of Tess' new placement is that, as I keep reiterating, I think Cyan is very likely to go to tribal, so it's hard to justify putting anyone on Cyan too high.

Having the opportunity to reconnect with Ally is also potentially bad for Tess, although probably less problematic for Tess than for Ally. If the writers were like, "well, Tess got one conversation with Hunter and one with Ally, now she's out!", that would be kind of silly, imo. But, still, that chat will eliminate the sort of "immunity" from getting booted that I gave Tess previously.

It's also not like there's no reason for the Cyans to take out Tess here. The swing vote is usually a fairly protected position, as both alliances should be looking to her for aid. But, if neither side finds her trustworthy enough, they could unite to take her out. I can definitely see a potential character arc of Tess' indecision taking her out from the game. If she can truly never make up her mind about whether to trust Ellie or not, everyone could unite to take out their unreliable teammate and save their own asses.

However, from a narrative perspective, this would further postpone the conflict between Ellie and Aiden, which could be kind of anticlimactic. It would also throw away Tess' character over a trait that wasn't even particularly pronounced in her original appearance. Then again, we saw what the writers did to Hunter, so we can't be too sure that Tess isn't headed in a similar direction.

#8: Grett

Much like Alec, I'm a bit less worried about Grett in this episode after we had the Yellow elimination last episode. She's also picking up points from (presumably) being involved in the ongoing Yul and Emily plotline, which could give her some plot armor moving forward.

If Yellow is headed to a vote, I don't really see why Alec and Riya would choose to eliminate Grett over Yul. Riya really dislikes Yul, he's still possibly injured, and Alec has a history of working with Grett, even if it ended on kind of bad terms.

Why put her so far below Yul, then? Well, first of all, Grett is a meta-threatened S1 girl, while Yul is a meta-protected S2 boy. Secondly, I do still think that Yul will probably be the cause of Grett's elimination at some point down the line, even if it's not this episode. Perhaps I should make an overall theory post talking about some of my thoughts on potential endings someday. And, third, I actually did think of one reason why Alec and Riya would choose to keep Yul over Grett... kind of. If Emily wanted to keep Yul in the show for whatever reasons, she could use the earpiece to instruct Yul on clever, strategic things to say that could also convince Alec and Riya that he turned over a new leaf. Basically, it's possible that Emily could girlboss her way into keeping Yul in the game, rather than Yul staying in due to his own merits.

There are other S1 girls (and others) that I believe to be in a spicier position now than Grett, though, so she lands at #8.

#9: Fiore

With Fiore, we enter the realm of players that I seriously believe could be in danger of elimination this episode. Yes, despite my claims that I think Fiore could be the winner, I do think that, if Magenta goes to tribal this episode, Fiore would be the boot. I just don't think Magenta really is going to tribal; ha ha!

It's really that whole, "whatever you say, princess~" that has me worried for Fiore. I'm concerned that, after getting a taste of power with the Hunter boot going her way, Fiore has become overconfident in thinking that Ally is definitely the next boot and that she will make the merge, whenever it is. (Basically, Fiore would think that Ally's presence gives her enough of a buffer that she thinks the merge is essentially secured.) If she goes back to demeaning Jake and Ashley, they could easily choose to turn on her and protect their newfound friendships with Ally instead. Fiore's status as a S1 girl isn't helping that read.

Again, I feel like all of the current Magenta team members are probably going to make the merge at this point, so Fiore should be safe. However, as (in my opinion) the most likely Magenta boot, Fiore winds up at #9 in case of emergency.

#10: Gabby

Thinking back on it, other than being a S1 girl, my reasoning behind Gabby's elimination wasn't that strong.

Or, maybe it was, before Ellie absorbed even more of the villainous energy last episode with her comments about torturing Jake. With comments like that, it becomes even harder to believe that Tom and Aiden would choose to target Gabby instead of Ellie. The farther Gabby makes it into All Stars, the less of an excuse there is for her to be eliminated with very little focus beforehand.

Still, I think Cyan is in trouble, blah blah blah. If some sort of twist does occur that gives Ellie individual immunity amidst her team-- and I don't think that would be a totem, as Ellie using a totem on herself and inadvertently sending Gabby home would basically require her to make her totem publicly known before the vote-- then they could target Gabby instead.

It is harder to predict DC than Survivor because DC has more of a penchant for pulling random shit out of nowhere, like that vote in S1 where Gabby just straight up obliterated Ashley. I wonder if that relationship will reemerge later in All Stars... Gabby would probably need to be around for it to happen, so, clearly, she should stay in.

#11: Tom

When I was drafting out my initial thoughts for this list, I originally put Tom really high. Like, top 3 high. But, the more I thought about it, the more I started to feel like Tom could be on the chopping block this episode.

For starters, the love triangle. I said last episode that, because Tom is the central leg between Jake and Aiden, he wouldn't be at risk of elimination. Well... I take those words back, sort of.

Let's look at it this way: if you eliminated any one of Jake, Aiden, or Tom, what would happen? If you eliminate Jake, Aiden and Tom are left. That's pretty boring, because then they could just be friends without any particularly strong (or at least personally motivated) opposition. If you eliminate Aiden, Jake and Tom are left. That's definitely better, because Jake and Tom could simply continue the will-they-won't-they plotline on their own, but you'd still lose Aiden as an obstacle without Jake having any hand in it.

If you eliminate Tom, Jake and Aiden are left. In my opinion, this is by far the spiciest option. Jake would probably be super mad at Aiden for not doing enough to protect Tom from getting voted out, leading to Aiden being justifiably angry that Jake has been so aggressive towards him despite Aiden not wanting Tom to go home, either. I think that having Tom's two "love interests" left to fight each other without him actually being there is the most interesting way in which one corner of the triangle could be eliminated.

But that's all about why Tom "should" be eliminated; what about why he would get eliminated? There are a couple of possibilities here, too. First of all, that argument between Jake and Tom in the preview, which ended with Tom pretty clearly being remorseful about what he did. If Tom gets super demoralized about screwing things up with Jake, it could cause him to be seen as a liability. Or, in an extreme case, Tom could feel so guilty about his and Aiden's kiss that he would ask the girls to target him instead of Aiden.

Alternatively (or even additionally), we also saw that squirrel trap in the trailer, which I said could be hinting at further conflict between Tom and Gabby over the team's diet. If Gabby got really fed up with Tom's carnivore side, she could ask Ellie if they could target Tom instead of Aiden, which Ellie might agree to.

Despite all this, I can also totally understand why the writers would want to keep Tom around. After his kiss with Aiden, his visibility and importance seem higher than ever. If James does return to the competition later, having him chat with Tom would be... interesting, even given James not caring that his boyfriend was stage-kissing another man. And, Tom potentially has a winner plot set up, given that the writers found it important enough to tell us what Tom would do with the prize. With Cyan likely going to tribal, however, the possibility of a surprise Tom boot felt more viable than ever. I'm not putting him in last place, but if Tom does wind up going home, I'm gonna feel pretty smart.

#12: Riya

Much like Fiore, Riya is here as my safety net for who I think would go home if Yellow does wind up going to tribal instead of Cyan. However, I feel like a third Yellow tribal is, on the whole, more likely than a third Magenta tribal, so Riya gets kicked all the way down here.

Without Connor as a shield, Riya is in a much worse position. Yul already dislikes Riya in general, but that only increased after she caused the light to fall on him, and would only increase more if he ever learns that Riya was the one to fire that stray vote at him. Grett would probably work with Yul, which is already 50% of the votes against her.

Alec is definitely Riya's best lifeline, and it could work out in her favor. After all, if Alec continues working with Grett and Yul, if they go to tribal again, the couple would most likely vote him out. However, I think it's really a question of how much longer Alec thinks he has before the merge.

Here's my logic: if Alec thinks there's still a long time until the merge, then, yes, it would be better to work with Riya to have a chance to eliminate Grett or Yul. That's because, the more team challenges there are, the greater opportunity Yellow has to lose again, and the greater possibility that Grett and Yul vote him out.

However, if Alec thinks that the merge is soon, it's better to vote out Riya. If Alec and Riya managed to eliminate, let's say, Yul, then Alec is essentially losing two members of his villains alliance-- one due to Yul's elimination, and one due to Grett presumably withdrawing. Alec has already burned her once before.

That would cause the villains alliance to go into the merge with a maximum of only four members: Alec, Riya, Fiore, and Ellie. The other teams have already been primed to believe that the villains are a huge threat, and with such small numbers, they would be very easily eradicated. Even beyond others, Fiore and Ellie might also be mad at Alec for him dragging them onto his sinking ship of a plan, and try to desert as well. My point is, sticking with Riya could go really badly for Alec.

So, combining that doomsday scenario with me at least thinking that the merge probably will be soon, and the fact that Alec choosing to side with Riya would only put them at a 50:50, NOT a majority, and I can totally see why Alec would choose to vote for Riya.

And, that's not even taking into account Riya's poor behavior! The Yellow Team did lose the singing challenge due to Riya's influence, and they suffered during the diving challenge due to her fear of the depths, too. She's a challenge liability. She was also shown hogging the shower, and is now sunbathing during camp life, proving that she's not a team player. She has way too much confidence in her "power position," as she put it last episode, for where her game actually is. If it's not Cyan that goes to tribal, I can totally see the threads coming together to lead to a Riya elimination.

#13: Ellie

It's just simple math for me at this point. I think that Cyan is almost certainly going to tribal next episode + I think Ellie is by far the most likely boot for Cyan's next tribal = I think Ellie is really, really likely to be the next boot. She's even a S1 girl.

My argument is pretty much the exact same things I said last episode, except now they're even worse. The screenshots from the challenge now make me think that Cyan will go to tribal next episode, as opposed to my confusion about why Cyan would lose a music challenge. We also saw that Ellie has begun to prioritize suffering over strategy, which both increases the odds that people like Tess would want to take her out and decreases the odds that she'd be able to pull off an intellectual move to save herself.

I'll honestly be pretty surprised if Ellie doesn't go home next episode... but, hey, I was surprised by Connor's boot last episode, too! If Ellie does manage to survive another episode, I wonder if I'll have to start reconsidering putting her so close to the bottom. Part of it would depend on how she survives, of course.

The only way to know for sure is to actually watch the episode myself, so, see y'all on Thursday! Thanks for reading!

[yuseirra]

I thought about it, and the way Mephisto could be about Aqua would be that he's expressing his feelings towards Sarina. But even that doesn't work because the song has lyrics of "I want to become you". So.. No matter how I take of it, It really isn't about Aqua.

That song IS indeed Kamiki's. That has certainly been confirmed. It's not Aqua expressing his longing towards Ai, it's Kamiki talking about his "love"(may it be twisted or not)in regards to Ai(and if we do bring mythology into this, Ai really is supposed to be his other half. They function together to restore balance of the world, share shrines, are worshiped together and are very much in love. Without her, he can't be himself. That seems to be how those two gods, amenouzume and sarutahiko, are supposed to be.)

He must be a favorite of the author's or for the artists involved, his lore at least, if he has TWO whole songs dedicated to him revolving around his feelings towards Ai, but what would be the point of having an insane psycho's mind being THAT emphasized?

That's sort of...another meta reason I believe this can't be all. When you dive into what those songs are speaking of, what it's implying isn't so simple. There are some really vague ideas going around that imply of wishes and divinity and have some fantasy elements to it, I kinda do think those shouldn't be there if it's not relevant in the first place.

I really hope they tackle that!♥♥ it's what I look forward to still

[xxangeldustanalogx]

29 alternate ways a sub who can't/can't always communicate verbally might display sexual/kink desire

1. awkward, dubiously efficient but earnest, or vague attempts at being direct/initiating scenes or sometimes even initiating social interaction at all

2. talking about kink stuff with the intention of escalating (often will have a different tone than them explaining their kinks because they know they need to explain what they like at some point to be able to play which would probably sound more anxious/stressed, whereas if they start talking about kink offhandedly, maybe they can even be flirtatious sometimes. but the vibe is closer to 'bringing up a topic for funsies' not 'conveying information about this topic because information must be conveyed')

3. vague, repetitive statements, usually trying to communicate an overarching idea (telling you 'you're cool' 'i like you' 'you're nice' 'you're fun' or things like that but not being able to really express further but the overall message is 'i have positive feelings towards you of some kind' they just have a hard time speaking)

4. nonverbal communication like growling, biting, scratching, head butting, licking, nuzzling, obviously this was written by a dogboy but there are probably non furry examples too

5. relevant posting online in a place they could reasonably think you might see it (especially if they then tell you about the post, indirectly lead you to it, or send it directly/tag you)

6. sending really obvious anons

7. reblogging things that are relevant to things you've talked about, inside jokes, things that they think you would notice and understand

8. flirting via other social media/tumblr methods

9. researching things and telling you about what they found/implementing that knowledge

10. drawing/painting/writing/ any art or expressive outlet depicting what they want, or a metaphor for what they want, or how they feel about you, or anything in service of adding to the dynamic lore

11. taking nudes/making porn/fetish art of any kind/asking if you want to see the content, ***especially*** if they're trying to appeal to your interests

12. metaphors and euphemisms, verbal/written/visual/etc. this can often also sound overly complicated or overly simplistic. the point is to listen to the psychological feeling.

13. dressing in specific ways (esp if it's in a style/aesthetically they know you are particularly into, but could also include just trying to dress 'nicer' to display effort, or things like wearing dirty clothes if you're into salirophilia )

14. grooming themself, sometimes in ways that might not be what they would normally do, but in the ways they know you prefer/need (can look different; like if you have a musk kink they might intentionally not shower before seeing you, or making sure to shower and clean their space if you're averse to mess. could also include cutting/styling their hair with your preferences in mind, same for body hair/facial hair, nails, whatever)

15. using scents you like, colors you like, themes, IPs, characters, words, references, aesthetics, generally displaying interest in learning about you as a person and then displaying that they have remembered that knowledge, or are trying to

16. prioritizing your wants over theirs (sometimes, and in a strong/loving way not like a manipulative way)

17. playing specific movies/videos/shows/songs/etc around them, sending them relevant posts/memes/articles

18. doing things to themself around you that are on theme for your dynamic (if you have a heavily ABDL focused dynamic maybe they dip up unprompted and dress super baby and just so happen to be adorable in your sightline. if you have a dynamic with a lot of sadomasochism maybe they do autosadistic shit around you. it's like a mating display.)

19. talking/writing/etc about a ship that they relate your dynamic to

20. writing about their desires and sharing that information with you, including out of scene/character

21. learning about your special interests on their own

22. acts of service but in a bit more focused way (like, acts of service that are specifically a demonstration that they know/are trying to know and anticipate your needs

23. acts of service with the intention of reducing your stress so that kink would actually be like a fun thing and not a hassle

24. finding out what things they do that turn you on and then doing those things a lot and trying to do those things in ways that are even hotter to you

25. researching conditions/allergies/idiosyncrasies/anything new to them on their own you have so that they can be responsive in the most effective way for you

26. making a point to learn new skills, emotional/sexual/practical/whimsical/whatever, to make you feel as good as they can and be most helpful to you

27. jokes!!! haha jkjk......unless? but no...

28. environmental storytelling (you get home and they happen to be drunk and dressed all cute and oh weird their toy bag and duct tape is all laid out?? how convenient :0 )

29. maybe sometimes they actually do just express desire verbally, but in a way that is comfortable to them. maybe they can't, or can't always, say really explicit things out loud, not out of bratiness or defiance. but they can use gentler language, and *you* understand what they mean because you know them. so it is effective communication