#also it's inspired by the ending of Canto V‚ and we all know that Canto gets me ... I'm tearing up just thinking about it

[throughpatchesofviolet]

Good morning ~!! It's a new day, so let's try and make the best of it ~

[youthofpandas]

Call Her Ishmael (or: a trans reading of one of my favorite Limbus characters)

Hi, I have been thinking about writing something like this since Canto V first released and today I finally felt inspired to actually make this... A compilation of the parts of Ishmael's story that lead me to reading her as trans <3 and why I think that understanding her character though that lens works so well

We begin with a woman stuck in the mundane. No plans for the future, no dreams of a life beyond the one she is currently living in, and that life is one she has long grown tired of. And she decides she would rather quit living that life, even if it would kill her. Everyone told her not to do this, but she wanted (needed) to do something new with her life.

She finds Ahab here, when she is at this low where she is unsure of where to go from here now that she has cast her old life away. She looks at Ahab and sees a woman with goals, determination, serious plans for the future she is willing to commit to. And she wants to be just like that woman. She wants to be a woman who will choose what her destiny is, choose what life she has.

"I hoped to be like her one day. To be someone who will face the destiny of her own choosing. To have something I could give it my all with conviction and without a moment of hesitation."

And when she gets on that boat and starts this new chapter in her life, well. There she meets Queequeg, and is asked for her name...

Queequeg asking her name, something that surprises Ishmael, and complimenting her hair is a defining moment in Ishmael's life and in their relationship. And not only is it the first conversation they have, it is the also last thing Queequeg asks of her. To hear Ishmael's name one more time is something that will bring not only herself comfort, but she knows will stabilize Ishmael as well in this moment. That it will bring her back to when they had first met, to the fond memories of a good friend who had asked for her name. Ishmael's name, her identity, the one she forged on that boat even through great difficulty is what shaped her into being herself... That is how their relationship begins and ends...

There is also a recurring theme of being reborn, of happiness being found in another life that is kinder to them both. Ishmael dreams of a life where they can break out of their cocoons. She wants to bury her past and had no dreams of the future before joining the Pequod, before meeting Queequeg and finding someone she wants a future with. Through Queequeg, through the woman who thinks her hair is the brilliant color of sunset and asked for her name, Ishmael is capable of imagining a destiny of her own choosing just like she had wanted when she met Ahab. (She isn't able to chase after it, not yet, because of Ahab's influence over the Pequod, but she for the first time can at least dream of a future where she is happy)

When tragedy strikes, she is left as, in her mind, the sole survivor of the crew, she has lost Queequeg, lost Ahab, lost her chance at finding happiness and purpose. It's then that she takes Queequeg's rope (the thing that kept her alive! Queequeg throughout their time knowing each other is always there to save her and help her keep on living) and makes it into a headband, attaches cute bows to it, a bit of femininity that is intrinsically attached to the woman who helped save her. She grows out her hair, her beautiful sunset colored hair, and it is so heart warming. For a long time I assumed that her not cutting her hair was done out of mourning, out of an unwillingness to move on from the life she had on that ship, but instead it was because Queequeg had loved her and she had loved her friend in kind.

In conclusion I love Ishmael very much and I like to rotate her around. Everything from her metaphors of being stuck in a cocoon and wanting to break free, her envy of Ahab's ability to find purpose so easily, her relationship with Queequeg that helped inspire her to dream for more to dream of a future where she is happy,, it is all very good and to me reading her as trans strengthens the themes of her story. I've watched the final part of the Canto V dungeon several times over when my friends arrive at that part of the story, and the Call Me Ishmael line always makes me start tearing up.

Ishmael starts as an unhappy office worker with no future and it is a life she cannot continue living, she meets an older woman who has the drive and passion to chase after her goals and wants to be like her when she is older, she has a life defining moment where another woman asks for her name and wants to be good friends with her, that woman will save her in so many ways and she will love that woman so deeply for how she helped influence her life, she sees herself trapped in a cocoon and wants to break free, she dreams of her and that woman will persevere, how they will live out the rest of their days, countless mirror worlds of happiness spent at each other's side. She starts the game proper with her hair grown long, ribbons attached to a rope that helped save her that represents the woman who had saved her before. She ends her chapter finding a new adventure to go on, one will she get to explore the world she lives in, she has found a compass in Dante who will help her chart her path forward.

Also I know we all make jokes about how inconsistent the art is when it comes to her chest but like... Come on look at the difference here.... I'm correct about this. But I mostly wanted to make this post to point out that her narrative arc is also trans and it goes so much deeper than just art inconsistencies.

Okay that's all I can think of now, thank you for reading, I hope you all also love her <3

[offshore-brinicle]

Yi Sang a butterfly with how a flap of his Wings caused like 700 events

You heard of The Butterfly Effect, now get ready for The Crow Effect

...Speaking of butterflies, because that made me laugh and I like having opportunities to ramble because when left to my own devices my head is all over the place, I've been wanting to talk about Rim for a while. So it's been brought up for a while he's based on another irl author (who was also a literary critic) Kim Kirim, the wiki has a pretty concise summary of his history having also being abducted and dissapearing during the Korean War, but it's also missing some details in how he relates to the real Yi Sang which might indicate his role in Limbus.

The wiki skips out on mentioning that in real life, Kim Kirim and the real Yi Sang were very close friends much like Park Tae-Won (Gubo) and Gim Yujeong (Dongbaek) though it doesn't seem like there is as much of a personal connection between Rim and Limbus!Yi Sang from what we saw in the play and their very brief interaction in Canto V.

(and for the record irl Dongrang and Yi Sang seem to have had no specific relationship beyond belonging to the same organization, their dynamic and specific friendship was only added to the Limbus characters for narrative purposes which I find hilarious)

Either way, it is thanks to Kim Kirim that a lot of things about Yi Sang are known to the public, from one of the most popular stories about how he decided his penname to a lot of details about his death, having even written a memoir after his passing, I did some quick digging through Korean internet and found out some very interesting things about it, first this more formalized article which talks more about Kirim's education which tells us some about his ideals as a writer, though since I do not know Korean I can only offer the automatic translated version.

(original link: Kim Ki-rim, a poet who dreamed of a new literary revolution | Read in Gwanghwamun Walk Walk Feel (kyobostory.co.kr))

Then we go unto his actual thoughts about Yi Sang, also mentioned at the end of this article but go much more in-depth in the following one (which sadly has a pretty broken translation but hopefully it's comprehensive enough through context clues)

(original article link: Seven letters to the poet he admired the most (brunch.co.kr)))

And then we get onto this very interesting interpretation of The Sea and The Butterfly as also being inspired by grief over Yi Sang's death

Seeing this reality it makes an odd contrast with how cold and indifferent Rim is portrayed as in Limbus, both in the play flashbacks and his Canto V appearance, but if the writers are working with the interpretation of The Sea and The Butterfly as being symbolic of Yi Sang's death it also raises a lot of questions about Demian's group, since Demian is also reminiscent of the snake from The Little Prince which is also representative of death but I might have to make a full post about that. If I remember to

Either way thanks for giving me excuses to remember to share information

[readerbookclub]

The Book Club’s January List

Guess who’s back with a new book list? This month’s theme was inspired by a suggestion that we read hopeful books for the new year. After looking for such books I found that hopeful stories rarely exist without an element of tragedy or struggle, hence the theme Bittersweet. The books on this list are quite varied, some more bitter and others more sweet. Nonetheless, all of them seem very interesting. Let’s get to it!

This first book was recommended to me by the same person who inspired this month’s theme. It also happens to be the first non-fiction book on these lists! It’s an autobiography by someone whose unique life has shown her the importance of education:

1. Educated, by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her "head-for-the-hills bag". In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father's junkyard. Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent. Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home. Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it. 

2. The Travelling Cat Chronicles, by Hiro Arikawa and translated by Philip Gabriel

Nana the cat is on a road trip. He is not sure where he's going or why, but it means that he gets to sit in the front seat of a silver van with his beloved owner, Satoru. Side by side, they cruise around Japan through the changing seasons, visiting Satoru's old friends. He meets Yoshimine, the brusque and unsentimental farmer for whom cats are just ratters; Sugi and Chikako, the warm-hearted couple who run a pet-friendly B&B; and Kosuke, the mournful husband whose cat-loving wife has just left him. There's even a very special dog who forces Nana to reassess his disdain for the canine species. But what is the purpose of this road trip? And why is everyone so interested in Nana? Nana does not know and Satoru won't say. But when Nana finally works it out, his small heart will break... 

3. A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman and translated by Henning Koch

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove’s mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents’ association to their very foundations.

For the next two books, I interpreted Bittersweet in a slightly different way. These books are about finding beauty in an otherwise horrible situation. Because sometimes, perspective can make all the difference:

4. The Enchanted, by Rene Denfeld

This is an enchanted place. Others don't see it, but I do. The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison, viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits. Fearful and reclusive, he senses what others cannot. Though bars confine him every minute of every day, he marries magical visions of golden horses running beneath the prison, heat flowing like molten metal from their backs, with the devastating violence of prison life. Two outsiders venture here: a fallen priest, and the Lady, an investigator who searches for buried information from prisoners' pasts that can save those soon-to-be-executed. Digging into the background of a killer named York, she uncovers wrenching truths that challenge familiar notions of victim and criminal, innocence and guilt, honour and corruption-ultimately revealing shocking secrets of her own.

5. Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honour of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerised the international guests with her singing.

It is a perfect evening – until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers.

That’s it for this month! Please vote for your favorite here. 

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[catceleste]

ok so this is what i want to keep with the canto bright casino mission:

rose 

talking about consequences of war that happen outside of space battles, space monks and this one particular family

problems i want to fix:

there isn’t enough payoff from this plot that adds to the overall story

what an obvious avenue to get into finn’s past aaaaand it just didn’t

doesn’t forward finn and poe

lacks any buildup for this finn v phasma face off it tried to have

my plans break away from the movie when they get to canto bight but at some point before rose and finn are on the supremacy ship we need just one scene with phasma to establish that talk about finn is going around the storm troopers. just a short, hey someone’s checking in with phasma and she’s punishing a storm trooper for talking about the one who defected and joined the rebellion or something scene. something quick to establish this, i mean, certainly there are others questioning like finn was, right? remember when finn ran over to another storm trooper to help and he was sad like obviously friendships form....

alright so they’ve arrived on canto bight. rose says her important things about war profiteering and the evils that fund the excess of this place, like selling weapons or kidnapping and selling armies. and instead of finn being like “hmm never thought of it that way, rose” he talks about how one of those very things happened to him. it’s something he wonders about. who is family was. who his friends’ families were. how the first order does this. stuff like that. 

i need to see the sequence again to decide on details of this but for now i’ll say when they’re on their mission we get some kind of info reveal about how some of the storm troopers are kidnapped and brainwashed as children. could happen in the casino itself, maybe benicio del toro imparts this info in one of his speeches on how the twisted corrupt world works. maybe this triggers a memory or it just triggers a reaction of “wow this so evil, fuck the first order, i’m all in on taking them down”

now all the while poe is checking in more urgently with them on their mission and perhaps even more than he was in the movie, he’s very urgent and giving directions that are perhaps in the best interest of the mission but not their safety....just something to indicate poe is still on his single-minded, consequences be damned bullshit.  and rose isn’t happy about it. there was tension between her and poe earlier and he’s pulling this bullshit again and doesn’t want to lose more people to it. 

so now rose and finn are on the supremacy, all the stuff where they almost make it but get caught happens and now they’re facing execution. phasma taunts him for being a traitor, but now finn comes back with the information he learned. “fuck you you’re cowards for doing this evil thing i learned about” only his speech is better than that and inspiring, he’s going down committed to the cause. phasma gives the chop order but uh oh, no laser axes are coming down. the storm troopers hesitate. because it’s finn! and some were already questioning the first order like finn was in the last movie but now they’ve also learned this terrible information that finn revealed. the hesitation is enough to give bb8 the chance to stop it all together. 

then all the ship breaking apart stuff happens and the finn v phasma fight happens only now there’s some more damn meaning behind it. finn wins, time to escape with rose, but uh oh they turn and are facing a dozen or so storm troopers. but! some of those storm troopers take off their helmets. they look meaningfully at finn. 

cut to the part where finn and rose show up in the salt cave but they’ve also got some storm trooper defectors with them now. and to an incredibly dwindling resistance, this is great! now we’ve got some significant benefit from their mission. and we better cap off finn’s arc of deserting vs joining by having him not only committed to the cause but he’s inspired others to join. nice. 

now. to end poe’s character arc in this movie, the saving of finn needs to go to him. that’s his lesson to learn -- even when you’re close to completing an objective, you have to think of the consequences and sacrifices and know when to stop. he can’t lose finn for this. finn and rose bring poe back to the hideout and rose delivers the that's how we're gonna win, not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love line to poe later. 

so. that’s what i want. fixes my problems and it wouldn’t really need much extra screen time. heck, cut the green milk bit and it’d all even out. 

[saviourfinn]

The few great things in TLJ

So, as we all know, this movie is a train wreck on multiple levels. However, I’d like to think about the good as well as the bad, so here are the few things I love in this stupid ass movie (under the cut cause big spoilers) :

- Finnpoe moments ! When BB-8 tells Poe that Finn has awoken (and that he’s almost naked huhu), Poe literally leaps out of his X-Wing and runs to Finn, ecstatic. And when the pilot hangar blows up and Poe is projected backwards, Finn runs to him and holds him, asking him if he’s okay. And just, all of their interactions are great.

- Finnrey reunion!!!!! It was so sweet and beautiful. First of all, they kept worrying about each other when they were apart, and when they finally reunite! We see Rey stare at Finn with relief and happiness, we see Finn stare at Rey in the same way, Finn runs toward her and they hug! A big, long, full body hug.

- Finnrey highlight 1 : Finn didn’t try to use the escape pod to “escape and join Rey” as some people said. While Rey was on Ach-To, she had a tracker connected to another tracker that was on the Resistance’s ship that allowed her to know where the Resistance was, in case she wanted to come back to them. So when the First Order was attacking the Resistance’s ship, Finn was worried that Rey would come back to the tracker’s location and get blown up by the FO along with the ship. So he took the tracker and tried to leave with it to protect Rey.

- Finnrey highlight 2 : Rey trying to establish communication with the Resistance because she wants to know how Finn is doing.

- Finnrey highlight 3 : Rey going off to do something stupid and suicidal, and emotionally telling Chewie “If you see Finn before I do, tell him that I...” and then Chewie completes the end of the sentence in Wookie and she says “Yeah, that.” So we can assume that it was something along the lines of I love You.

- Leia saving her own life like a boss ass bitch. The woman got flung out in the middle of space without a spacesuit, and even though she was dying, she used the Force to float throughout space until she reached the ship and they were able to take her back in. I love that we finally saw her use the Force. I doubt that even Luke could have pulled this one off.

- Luke being his emo, dramatic AF self. He was also a victim a character assassination in this movie, but the emo-dramatic-but-im-still-a-little-playful attitude was still there.

- Luke and Leia talking, and Luke kissing her on the forehead.

- Finn and Rose wrecking havoc among the bourgeoisie at Canto Bight and inspiring little kids to rise up against their oppressors

- Rose meeting Finn and acting like a fangirl who just met her idol lol. He said “May the Force be with you” and she said “Wow” like she just witnessed Jesus coming back aodkjzifjzijiedjf

- After coming back from the infiltration mission, Finn wearing the jacket of the FO’s uniform open over his low v cut shirt, like DAMN! So hot.