#and I wouldn’t say that that’s necessarily been heavily tied to his interest level

[daydreamerdrew]

The Incredible Hulk (1968) #246

[shihalyfie]

You talk a lot about how the Digimon are born from the kids own souls, would you be interested into describing how the digimon partners reflect their humans' personalities?

Oh man, I love this topic! (You’ll have to forgive me in that my desire to do justice for it is why it ended up taking me this long to answer it.)

The part about the Digimon literally being part of the kids’ souls comes directly from official (it’s been mentioned several times, not only in what I just linked). This was never stated outright in the original Adventure or 02, and it took until Kizuna to really shove the link between the partner and the human’s inner self in your face and make it a huge part of the actual story, but fans had been catching onto it long before that, and even without reading what the staff had said. Kizuna throws a bit of a nail in this because it’s said to be a bit lore-noncompliant, but considering how much of the background lore it still goes out of its way to adhere to, and the fact it still does match the fundamental concept of “human heart = Digimon partner” regardless of detailed minutiae, we can still apply and analyze this concept with no problem, especially since Adventure and 02 always walked the line between sci-fi and fantasy, and there is undoubtedly a spiritual element to them no matter how you look at it.

(My personal comfort zone in analyzing Adventure and 02 comes moreso from a human behavior and mentality perspective, which is also why my meta on this blog tends to focus more on the human drama aspects of Adventure and 02 and especially the latter’s story being so heavily about human relationships, but if you’re interested in said spiritual elements, I heavily recommend @analyzingadventure‘s very comprehensive meta on Adventure background lore and themes, which also covers similar territory in detail. We’re different people, so our takes on it probably differ in some respects, but that’s the beauty of having different perspectives, after all.)

In any case, back to your question. I think it would be best to break this down piece-by-piece with the Adventure and 02 kids in detail, so more is under the cut!

...Well, okay, before we continue, I do want to touch on something briefly, and it’s regarding the fact that “evolution” in this series is generally a metaphor for human growth. That counts for when everyone gets their evolutions, but it also counts as a metaphor overall -- after all, Adventure is about self-assertion and pushing oneself as far as possible (the major evolution gimmick being tied to Crests), whereas 02 is about cultivating differing aspects of yourself and applying it to how you form relationships with others (the major evolution gimmick being tied to Digimentals and ultimately Jogress). The human self is quite a flexible thing, and the Digimon themselves quite often change personalities as they evolve. (I touched on this briefly in my discussion of honorfiics and first-person pronouns earlier, but in Japanese, the Digimon will often even change personalities and speech patterns as they evolve.) This also leads to a few other potential observations (not really corroborated by official, just my personal view of it):

Speaking from a meta perspective, the fact that only the “front protagonists” end up getting the highest level forms is pretty obviously so they don’t have to spend toy budget on allocating it to everyone, but from an in-story perspective, Adventure episode 50 adds an implication that not reaching as high of a form may also have to do with how inherently attuned one is to combat (Jou says that he believes that Gomamon will never reach Ultimate because he doesn’t have the sort of strength Taichi and Yamato do, and it contributes to his conclusion that his skills are more meaningfully applied as a healer instead of as a fighter). Of course, none of the Adventure or 02 cast is necessarily the belligerent type that inherently likes fighting in itself, but of course certain ones are less emotionally drained or more attuned to it, so you might be able to see a rough pattern there. (Again, I’m not going to sugarcoat how this still has a lot of dismaying issues on the meta level, but the difference between “how much this sucks on a meta level” and “whether this at least tracks in-story” is a common theme on this blog.) In a franchise sense, Digimon were of course conceptualized as fighting monsters, but within the narrative of Adventure, it probably stands to reason that having a manifested part of your soul or inner self shouldn’t necessarily mean they have to be fighting things all of the time unless it’s necessary.

It’s very often been pointed out that the 02 cast is at a sort of “combat disadvantage” compared to their seniors (well, and Takeru and Hikari, anyway) because their highest forms require two people/Digimon to be in play, so their overall combat power is rather low. My impression is that this is by design (and it’s a subversion of the usual expectation of shounen anime sequels where the sequel will often power creep everything to make the new guard outdo the first). That the 02 team is inherently dependent on each other for support, and to a degree far more than their seniors, is rather baked into its narrative, and moreover, from an in-story perspective, the 02 group doesn’t seem like the type to really care about being outflanked by their seniors (on the contrary, they’d probably take that as more proof that their seniors are amazing). Moreover, the forms you see their Digimon in most of the time tend towards the smaller Baby-level forms instead of the Child-level ones, and while this is partially due to plot logistics about being in the real world (and, admittedly, kind of inconsistently applied), it gives you a much stronger impression of the 02 kids and their partners in general being people who aren’t that individually imposing or strong and get more mileage out of flexibility and variety (see: the Digimentals and the huge number of lower-level forms the kids have access to).

With this kind of metaphor, I caution against taking it too literally as a 1:1 thing (especially since official has been generally quiet about it and there isn’t much in the series text itself to corroborate this), but I do think there is certainly some kind of relevance that’s worth thinking about.

Many people, including the official notes I just linked, refer to there being some Digimon partners that are "like-minded” with their partner, and some that are “opposite” in personality. This is roughly true, but I find this to be a very simplified description of the concept; it’s more like all Digimon partners are a reflection of the less easily exposed part of their human partner (and, most pertinently, the part that would allow them to express themselves in ways they wouldn’t normally), it’s just that the kids with more straightforward or less extreme personalities don’t have as much to hide or cover up in the first place, and so their partners come off as more “like-minded”. Even Urawa Megumi, voice of Iori and Armadimon (arguably one of the pairs of partners that seem “opposing” in personality), stated that she didn’t personally feel like the two characters are all that different, since humans have different sides to them, and Armadimon is functionally an expression of the side of Iori that isn’t apparent.

Because the Adventure narrative has the Digimon partners be linked to human mentality, this leads to the side effect that you won’t have a Digimon partner who ever truly denies the human partner (barring external factors like Evil Ring-induced brainwashing), which is something producer Seki Hiromi was quite insistent about. That said, this is a very Adventure and 02-specific thing, since other series go more into different angles about how one would approach partnership when this factor is not in play; half of Tamers’s drama regarding partners comes from the fact they are not necessarily mentally linked all of the time, and need to find a way to build a relationship by bridging that gap, and so non-Adventure universe entries are more freely able to explore the concepts of a Digimon partner more consciously entering conflict with their human partner. Well, that’s the beauty of having a multi-entry franchise, after all.

Taichi and Agumon

Taichi and Agumon immediately jump to mind as the first among the “like-minded” pairs, especially since the series shows them so often in sync and chilling together. Taichi himself is a straightforward person, so it stands to reason that his straightforward personality would also lend to Agumon coming off as being rather much like him.

However, there is one slight difference between the two, and it’s that Agumon has a somewhat stronger sense of “easygoing chill” than Taichi does, right down to using the more polite boku first-person pronoun in contrast to Taichi’s more assertive ore. He also lacks Taichi’s penchant for mild insensitivity -- in fact, very unlike Taichi, he has an incredible amount of emotional insight (02 spends quite a bit of time in 02 episodes 32 and 46 to showing off Agumon as someone who makes up for all of his lack of intellectual understanding with emotional and borderline poetic insight). And, really, while Taichi is a bit surface-insensitive, and while he seems to be impulsive, he actually is a conscientious person and is trying his best in his own way, and he isn’t the kind of person who cares about societal things like seniority, and he demonstrates multiple times that he’s easygoing and chill, and so you can say that’s a part of Taichi as well. Remembering that a Digimon partner’s presence helps their own human partner grow, Agumon being so openly friendly helps Taichi maintain good relations with others without running afoul of them.

One of Agumon’s most famous traits is that he likes food, which is not actually something that was in the original Adventure or 02 all that much but has been somewhat exaggerated since. That said, back in Adventure, while it was established that all Digimon regularly need food in order to maintain their evolutions, Agumon would usually be the first to complain “I’m hungry,” and whenever they did get food, Agumon would be one of the most prominently enjoying it. Food is, after all, one of the simplest and most universal of pleasures, and there’s a lot of visual framing of Taichi chowing down just as ravenously as Agumon is -- so, honestly, he probably got it from him.

Taichi also speaks a bit about his pain of being separated from Agumon in the space between Adventure and 02, and he directly refers to Agumon as “the other me”. The word “partner” was not actually used very much in the original Adventure or 02, and Taichi is not able to fully elucidate the sentiment of Agumon’s connection to his own self, but he still understands this much and why the loss cuts him so deeply, and by the time we get to Kizuna, it’s presumably why he uses similar language in his thesis proposal to refer to him. (I already covered the circumstances of Agumon’s relationship to Taichi’s existential crisis in Kizuna and how it led to their separation earlier, so I will omit it here for the sake of avoiding redundancy.)

Yamato and Gabumon

This might surprise some people to hear, but I would also pin this as one of the more ostensibly “like-minded” pairs. Gabumon is shy on the surface, but turns out to be quite passionate -- he uses the same assertive ore as Yamato, in contrast to Agumon’s boku, and he demonstrates his capacity for passion and action in that he’s arguably one of the most assertive in the cast. Note his taking initiative against Yamato’s frostbite in Adventure episode 9, or declaring his intent to stay with Yamato even if it means going against the others in Adventure episode 44, or singlehandedly dragging Yamato out of the hole of darkness in Adventure episode 51.

And, of course, Yamato himself is someone who initially seems a little awkward or detached around everyone, but is actually very passionate, so that’s all the same. And because Gabumon himself is so open about communicating with the otherwise closed-in Yamato, Yamato is able to express himself better over the course of Adventure.

Funny thing about that “shyness”, too -- the idea of Gabumon being particularly shy isn’t present in 02 much at all (we don’t get to see him very much, so it’s hard to say whether it’s completely gone, but it’s at least gone enough for the duration of his appearances). Which is funny, considering: guess who else stopped being shy and became naturally outgoing in 02? Yeah, so, as much as you might hear people (even official!) claim that the Digimon are static while their partners change, that’s not completely true -- the Digimon themselves develop in personality in the same way their human partners do. It’s just more subtle and less drastic, since they’re representing an abstract single part of their personality rather than being an exact match.

Sora and Piyomon

Sora and Piyomon have an interesting relationship in that they’re the only one where their relationship started off on a note of conflict -- mainly in that Sora was very put off by Piyomon at first and even looked down condescendingly on her (well, only for the duration of a single episode). In fact, Sora’s own surface behavior is very different from the kind and caring Sora we know -- Sora dislikes associating with the clingy and affectionate Piyomon for being “mushy”, and even declares that she doesn’t want to “take responsibility” for lugging her around.

Of course, Sora’s character arc later revolves around the fact that she has abysmally bad self-awareness and doesn’t even realize that she has a compulsive sense of responsibility to others. So Sora is affectionate and loving -- she just puts up a front of trying to act a little above that (well, at least, during this part of the series) and doesn’t even see herself as someone capable of being like that (again, purely during this part of the series).

Piyomon is also interesting in that she has one of the most dramatic personality shifts even as early as Child to Adult, where she suddenly switches from the casual atashi to watashi (sometimes even kono watashi, which is super regal), and becomes incredibly dignified and regal even as Birdramon, and you can certainly see why Sora immediately started taking her seriously thereafter. It also begs a lot to think about, considering Sora’s very convoluted character and the many layers of herself that even she isn’t consciously aware of.

The way Piyomon helped Sora shift her own mentality is pretty directly handed to you on a plate in Adventure episode 26 -- because Piyomon played the role of Sora in the metaphor of Sora’s behavior towards Piyomon correlated to Toshiko’s behavior towards Sora, Sora was able to re-adjust her position relative to her family and consider her both someone capable of love, and someone who is loved.

Koushirou and Tentomon

Koushirou and Tentomon are another pair that initially seem like they’re opposing types, with Koushirou being constantly curious and Tentomon being comparatively simple-minded, but the first key to figuring out where the similarity is ends up being a bit deceptive -- Tentomon says in Adventure episode 5 that he’s not particularly interested in himself. And, certainly, Koushirou is interested in Tentomon, but he, too, is not interested in himself -- in fact, he considers himself to be a topic he’d rather avoid instead of looking into everything else.

As far as language goes, while Tentomon does also use the stereotypically easygoing Kansai dialect, he also specifically uses the polite form, mirroring Koushirou’s own perpetual use of polite language. But unlike Koushirou, who uses it to keep distance from others, Tentomon is in fact very sociable, and is even portrayed as a Digimon who’s conscientious of others and “takes care” of them. And because Tentomon is so openly friendly, he manages to coax Koushirou out of his shell and allow him to think about more complicated things related to his own position in the world that he’d been avoiding.

As Koushirou’s character arc proceeds, we learn that he’s polite not only out of distance but also because he really is a very kind person, and moreover that he does eventually want to open up to others. And the payoff for this eventually comes in 02...

...when he ends up becoming one of the most visible members of the older Adventure cast to appear in the series, checking in on the younger kids and developing into someone capable of organizing and managing people. Hmm, seems familiar.

Mimi and Palmon

This one’s an easy one. Mimi is possibly the most straightforward person in the original Adventure cast -- well, that’s the point of her Crest after all -- and so Palmon is almost exactly like her, being a cheerful type who loves being cute. Any contrast between them is only really apparent in the very early episodes of the series, and that’s not even a contrast in theory as much as it’s just something that might intrigue audiences at first when Mimi spent a lot of those episodes complaining, but that’s also mostly because she was heavily under stress, and otherwise Mimi has always been kind and cheerful and indulgent in being cute.

Perhaps the only real difference is that Palmon, being a plant, is more willing to get involved with dirt and other things that Mimi ostensibly would rather not, but as the series progresses, Mimi manages to gain a higher sense of tolerance and get past her initial sense of materialism (which is something she’d had the capacity for the whole time).

Jou and Gomamon

Of the Adventure pairs, this one is probably the one that seems like the biggest contrast on its face, with the overly high-strung and constantly stressed Jou, and the more playful and relaxed Gomamon.

In the end, Jou is someone who’s defined by his desire to support others, and even admits at the end of the series that he’s better suited for a support role than for fighting, and that there’s nothing wrong with that as long as he continues to channel his desire to help people in a way he’s most comfortable with. So, in the end, he’s not actually an inherently aggressive type. And, meanwhile, Gomamon is the kind who’s constantly looking out for Jou, to the point of knowing (such as in Adventure episode 7) when he’s about to do something phenomenally stupid and minding him so that nothing bad happens to him, and so, this is probably why they’re ultimately able to settle down and end the series eye-to-eye (or perhaps hand-to-hand).

And, again, recall that Digimon partners generally reflect a part that’s vital to their own human partner’s growth; considering that Jou is most certainly one of the more extreme personalities in this cast, you get the feeling that he probably needs someone this chill to keep his massive stress tendencies in check.

Takeru and Patamon

Takeru and Patamon are an interesting case largely due to the two of them being so present for a whole two series. In Adventure, both of them seem to be largely like-minded, being playful, innocent, and childish -- although Patamon is more open about expressing the childishness that Takeru keeps trying to cover up. Patamon being roughly on the same playing field (no pun intended) as Takeru means that Takeru has someone he’s willing to be open with and let himself loose a little (such as in Adventure episode 12), because for the first half of the series, he’s almost entirely in the presence of elders and stifling himself for the sake of being “well-behaved”, and it starts his long journey of being able to understand his position and his actual sense of emotions over the course of Adventure and 02.

Patamon also has a striking personality change upon evolving, becoming the regal and dignified Angemon, and, interestingly, his appearances have a very “knight templar” vibe where he takes a no-compromise stance against dark forces and states that he’ll condemn all of them to oblivion. This is a stance that’s unnervingly similar to Takeru’s own no-compromise stance against the darkness in 02, and it’s interesting in that Takeru himself had been advocating for pacifism in Adventure episode 12, but this incident traumatized him enough to start taking a position that more resembled Angemon’s.

As we go into 02, Takeru’s contrast with Patamon initially seems like an increased mismatch, since Patamon is still ostensibly childish and playful while Takeru is ostensibly more mature. But for one, Takeru’s character arc is about the fact that he’s still pretending he’s more in control of his emotions than he actually is, and in some way you can also glean that there’s a sort of naivete present in his character that he keeps covering up with confident smiles. Patamon, for his part, does actually seem to have adopted a bit of a mentor role to the other Digimon, and we also learn that he’s capable of deliberately trolling people instead of just being generically playful -- much like Takeru himself, who’s a bit evasive and not entirely honest.

We do actually see Patamon reach HolyAngemon in 02 episode 34, but it doesn’t work out well, and while this is partially for plot mechanic reasons, it also says a lot that the “knight templar” stance that both Takeru and HolyAngemon have, with the full depth of no-compromise, isn’t going anywhere, and in the end, something more effective is only possible when Shakkoumon appears in 02 episodes 36-37 -- that is, Takeru is only able to better move on with Iori’s support.

Hikari and Tailmon

Hikari is the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have a Digimon who “defaults” to Adult instead of Child or lower, and it means that Tailmon herself comes with a certain amount of maturity -- on top of having been become a bit hardened due to her experiences being isolated. This is an ostensible contrast to the more pure-hearted and innocent Hikari, but note that Hikari’s own will can be pretty assertive when it comes down to it. On top of that, as much as Tailmon is a bit standoffish, Hikari is also “emotionally isolated” -- she has trouble vocalizing her negative feelings, and it’s difficult for anyone in Adventure or the first half of 02 to truly connect with her internal thoughts. Recalling that the Digimon partner reflects a side of the human partner that’s less easily exposed and allows the human partner to grow in ways they wouldn’t before, Tailmon’s sheer presence gives Hikari a route to action in ways she probably wouldn’t have beforehand.

In 02, Hikari becomes a little more mischievous and playful, and Tailmon also becomes a bit more willing to indulge (she even switches first-person pronouns in sync with Hikari, going from the more polite watashi to the more casual atashi). Both of them are now more able to enjoy themselves more openly. That said, Tailmon still has a certain degree of stuffy personal pride (she snarks at everyone quite easily for fussing over snacks in 02 episode 3), and Hikari herself remains emotionally elusive and repressive at the start of this series.

Tailmon evolves temporarily to Angewomon in 02 episode 13, which is the first time anyone (in this case, Takeru) makes some degree of headway to reaching out to her and allowing her to open up a bit more, but it’s not until 02 episode 31 when Hikari is fully reached out to via Miyako, which marks the first appearance of Silphymon.

Daisuke and V-mon

Now here’s a very like-minded pair, even more so than Taichi and Agumon -- and, after all, Daisuke is simple-minded, so painfully simple-minded that he’s practically incapable of hiding anything, and so V-mon is almost exactly like him, down to using the same ore pronoun and being feisty and mischievous (a point is also made that he plays soccer with Daisuke, something that Agumon didn’t necessarily do with Taichi), and, heck, in a rare show of Digimon-Digimon crushes, has a crush on Tailmon in the exact same way Daisuke has on Hikari. (By the time we get to Kizuna and its higher animation budget, a lot of attention is paid to having even their body language mirror each other.)

There is only one real functional difference between the two in disposition, and it’s that V-mon is very straightforward, friendly, and kind, without being prone to getting angry or spiteful at anyone, and in the end, it’s indicative of the fact that Daisuke’s tendency to lash out defensively at everyone is just a front -- at his core, he’s friendly, supportive, and kind. Daisuke’s experiences and banter with V-mon contribute to him getting the sort of validation he needed without having to worry about being on edge or lash out defensively, and because of that, he was able to form a healthier and more supportive relationship with the rest of the group.

Miyako and Hawkmon

This one seems to be a contrast right off the bat -- Miyako is bubbly, over-the-top, and rather messy and lacking in restraint, whereas Hawkmon is formal, graceful, and polite. But Hawkmon’s most prominent trait is his absolute loyalty and devotion to Miyako -- he’s very often referred to by both official staff and fans as her “knight” -- and is constantly minding her to protect her and make sure she doesn’t go over her head (most prominently, 02 episode 18). And as far as Miyako’s relationship to others goes -- she’s also devotedly loyal to everyone she loves and is constantly going out of her way to help others, and her character arc in itself is about the fact she wants to do her best to reach out to people and help emotionally support them in the best way she can, and Hawkmon managing to channel that to its utmost extent to Miyako in turn (in a very “who watches the watchman?” sense) allows her to regain her bearings and have better control over herself in the aftermath of 02 episode 18.

On top of that, as the series proceeds, it turns out that Hawkmon also shares Miyako’s penchant for dramatic theatrics and being a bit over his head -- even if he seemingly has himself more together than Miyako does, he’s not completely above it all...

Miyako is also the franchise’s first example of a female character with a masculine Digimon partner, and while Miyako herself openly identifies with and indulges in all things hyper-feminine, she also has zero issue engaging in more masculine-associated things as they suit her -- most prominently her Digital World outfit, and the fact she often displays a rather aggressive go-getter and hot-blooded/in-your-face personality that would not be out of place on a male shounen hero in a more conventional show. (Although, as much as these have generally been on the thread of “less visible aspects”, it’s not like this was that less visible of an aspect of her to begin with...)

Iori and Armadimon

Iori and Armadimon hold the honor of being the only pair in the Tokyo Chosen Children to be voiced by the same voice actress (Urawa Megumi), driving the parallel down even further. And while their surface temperaments seem different, with Iori being rather uptight and strict on himself while Armadimon is laid-back, carefree, and even somewhat assertive, they’re not that different -- Armadimon is basically the curious, impressionable, somewhat childish spirit that Iori would be if he weren’t constantly holding himself back. (There’s a lot to be said about Submarimon going out of his way to take Iori for a ride in 02 episode 16 so that Iori can finally properly enjoy himself for once.)

Iori takes a lot of very stubborn, no-compromise positions over the course of 02, but Armadimon asking just the right kinds of questions allows him to “snap out of it” and be a little more receptive to considering alternatives, or at least taking into account more emotionally-oriented issues he’s dealing with. You can say that Armadimon (especially as Upamon) softening Iori up a bit -- since Iori will never be cold or unforgiving towards his partner, no matter what -- serves as a precursor to Iori starting to question the limitations of his black-and-white view of morality, which allows him to successfully break through to Takeru and fill out the rest of his character arc.

Ken and Wormmon

Considering how much of the plot revolved around this one, this one almost goes entirely without saying! During Ken’s stint as the Kaiser, Wormmon represents the heart that Ken’s not entirely willing to leave behind -- and, also, the affection that he’s still craving from his family. The Kaiser going practically out of his way to deny Wormmon yet paradoxically keeping him around is basically his attitude towards his own “weak” and naturally kindhearted self. Notably, recall that the principle of “a Digimon will never deny their partner” applies here -- Wormmon’s “betrayal” of the Kaiser isn’t really any kind of denial, since he was doing it mainly for Ken’s own sake, and, more symbolically, it’s Ken reaching his own limit and coming to realize that this path isn’t what he really wants.

Wormmon is unusually clingy to his own partner over the course of 02, and it’s vital to Ken needing to learn to love himself and also getting important validation that he needs, especially during the critical point in time during 02 episodes 23-30 when he’s still not sure how to approach the rest of the group -- Wormmon gives him someone to talk to honestly and openly, giving him a proper springboard to sort out his complicated feelings about the others and himself. You can say also that as Ken becomes more open and straightforward over the course of the latter half of 02, he, in turn, becomes much more shameless about showing affection and opening his own heart.

Wallace, Gumimon, and Chocomon

Bonus round!

While it’s hard to fully apply Hurricane Touchdown to this theory (by official admission, it wasn’t properly cross-referenced with the original Adventure/02 series lore, and trying to correlate all of the evolutions in this movie to something metaphorical will give you a headache), Wallace’s two partners still fit very neatly into this overall theory of Digimon partners as a part of the self. Wallace is a character with very sharp duality, trying to be a flirt who asserts himself as a vagrant who’s about to “become an adult”, yet still feels an obligation to keep calling his mom and is engaging in increasingly self-destructive behavior.

Most pertinently, Gumimon and Chocomon represent the two stances Wallace is torn between: wanting to “return to the past” (Chocomon) because he’s still hung up on having lost Chocomon and is convinced that he can make everything just like it was before, and “being able to productively move on” (Gumimon). For most of the early parts of the movie, Wallace is stuck on Chocomon’s mentality of fixating on the past, and Gumimon isn’t even remotely subtle when he draws an explicit parallel between the two (saying that Chocomon didn’t like the heat, followed by offering to give Wallace shade as a hat). But once the conflict escalates and Wallace realizes just how deep in denial Chocomon is, to the point of being destructive to himself and others, Wallace comes to embrace Gumimon’s stance of practicality and moving on. In the end, the ultimate conclusion is reached, and Wallace is forced to fully accept that latter stance when Chocomon dies, but the movie’s ending (and Kizuna) provide an extra option: allowing the past to come back, but in a new form and treading new territory instead of trying to make it “the way it was before”.

[meichenxi]

Dear ‘White guy speaks perfect X and shocks Y!’ language YouTubers: STOP

A rant about every single fucking video by Xiaomanyc and similar YouTubers all titled things like CLUELESS WHITE GUY/GIRL LEARNS [INSERT NON-WHITE LANGUAGE HERE] AND SHOCKS [INSERT PLACE].

Disclaimer: I am white British, and I am also very often a moron. I'm trying to inform myself more, and would like to learn. So let me know if there is anything I should change, anything I’ve got wrong or any terminology I can change. 

So this evening I opened YouTube to get some quality Hikaru no Go content, and saw yet another video recommended to me about Xiaomanyc called Clueless white guy orders in perfect Chinese, shocks patrons and staff!!!!

Really? Really. Ok, his Chinese certainly is good - but it isn't great. And it isn’t necessarily any better than people I've seen in the higher levels of a class at university who have spent some time in China. It's solidly intermediate. That's not an insult - that level of Chinese is hard to attain, and definitely worth celebrating!! Hell, I celebrate every new word I learn. But while it may be unusual, it doesn't forgive the clickbait type videos like 'White guy speaks perfect Chinese and wows [insert place]'. 

These kind of clickbait titles rest on a number of assumptions. Before I say any more, I just want to make a note about terminology. Note that ’majority’ and ‘minority’ are not necessarily helpful labels, because they imply both a) a higher number of speakers in a certain place, and b) socially prestigious in some way. Of course a language like standard Mandarin is not a minority in China, but it might be in Germany. Talking about ‘minority’ languages that have a large speaker base outside of the country, like Chinese, is also not the same as talking about languages that have been systematically surpressed by a colonising, dominant language in their original communities, like indigenous languages. In many communities, especially in colonial and post-colonial situations, the language spoken by the majority is not one of prestige at all. Or some languages may be prestigious and expected in oral contexts, but not written - and so on. I use these terms here as best I can, but don't expect them to work 100% of the time.

So let’s unpack these assumptions a little. 

1) That there is something inherently more ‘worthy’ in somebody who learns languages because they want to, rather than because they have to: and that, correspondingly, the people who want to are white (spoilers: much of Europe is multilingual, and white immigrants in majority white countries also exist, as well as discrimination against them e.g. Polish people in the UK), and that those who have to learn are not (spoilers: really? There are plenty of non-white monolinguals who are either happy being monolingual, don’t have access to learning, or don’t have to learn another language but are interested in it).

2) That everybody from a certain background automatically speaks all ‘those’ languages already, or that childhood multilingualism is a free pass - spoilers, it isn’t. Achieving high levels of fluency in multiple languages is hard, especially for languages with different writing systems, because no matter how perfect your upbringing, you’re still ultimately exposed to it maximum 50% of the time of monolingual speakers. Realistically, most people get far less exposure than 50% in any of their languages. Also, situations of multilingualism in many parts of the world are far more complex than home language / social language. You might speak one language with your father and his father, another with your mother and her family, another in the community, and another at school. Which one is your native language then? Monolinguals tell horror stories of ‘both cups half empty’ scenarios, but come on - how on earth do you expect a person to have the same size vocabulary in a language they hear only 25% of the time? Also, languages are spoken in different domains, to different people, in different social situations: just because someone hears Farsi at home doesn’t mean they can give a talk on the filing system at their local library. If something is outside of a multilingual person’s langauge domain, they might have to learn the vocabulary for it just like monolinguals. There’s no such thing as the ‘perfect bilingual’. 

3) That learning another language imperfectly for leisure is laudable, but learning one imperfectly for work or survival is not. If you’re a speaker of a minority language, learning another language is necessary, ‘just what you have to do’, and if you don’t do it ‘properly’, that’s because of your lack of intelligence / laziness etc. It’s cool for the seconday school student to speak a bit of bad Japanese, but not so cool for the Indian guy who runs her favourite restaurant in Tokyo. 

4) That majority speakers learning a minority language is somehow an act of surprising benevolence that should not go unrewarded. Languages are intrinsically tied up with identity - and access to them may not be a right, but a gift. Don’t assume that because you get a good reception with some speakers of one language that speakers of another will be grateful you’re learning their language, or that everyone will react the same. One of the reasons these videos are possible at all is that many Chinese speakers, in my experience, are incredibly welcoming and enthusiastic to non-natives learning Chinese. Some languages and linguistic groups have been so heavily persecuted that imagining such thing as an ‘apolitical’ language learner is a fundamental misunderstanding of the context in which the language is spoken, and essentially an impossibility when the act of speaking claims ownership to a group. Many people will not want you to learn their language, because it has been suppressed for hundreds of years - it’s theirs, not yours. We respect that. Whilst it’s great to learn a minority language, don’t do it for the YouTube likes - do it because you’re genuinely interested in the language, people, culture and history. We don’t deserve anything special for having done so. 

5) That speaking a ‘foreign’ (i.e. culturally impressive / prestigious) language is much more impressive and socially acceptable than speaking a heritage language, home language or indigenous language. There are harmful language policies all around the world that simultaneously encourage the learning of ‘educational’ languages like Spanish, and at the same time forbid the use of the child’s mother tongue in class. And many non-majority languages are not foreign at all - they were spoken here, wherever you are, before English or Spanish or Russian or, yes, standard Mandarin Chinese. Policies that encourage standardised testing in English from a very young age like the ‘No Child Left Behind’ policy in the US disproportionately affect indigenous communities that are trying to revitalise their language against overwhelming callousness and cruelty - they expect bilingual children to attain the same level of English as a monolingual in first grade, which in an immersion school, they obviously won’t (and shouldn’t - they’ll get enough exposure to English as they grow up to make it not matter later down the line). But if the schools want funding, their kids have to pass those tests. 

There’s more to cover - that’s just the tip of the iceberg. 

Some people’s response to these videos and why the titles are ‘wrong’ would be: does it matter that he's white? Shouldn't it just be 'second language learner speaks perfect Chinese'? This is the same sort of attitude as ‘I don’t see race’. I think it does matter that he is white - because communities of many languages around the world are so used to them having to learn a second language and colonial powers not bothering to learn theirs. You wouldn't get the same reactions in these videos if he were Asian American but grew up speaking / hearing no Chinese - because then it would be expected. You also wouldn't get the same reaction if he were an immigrant in a Chinese-speaking community from somewhere else in Asia.

It also implies that all white people = monolingual Americans with no interest in other cultures. While we all are complacent and complicit in failing to educate ourselves about the effects of historical and modern colonialism, titles like this perpetuate a very harmful stereotype - and I don't mean harmful as in 'poor Xiaomanyc', but harmful in that it suggests that this attitude is ok, it's part of 'being white', and therefore doesn't need to change. The reaction when someone doesn't engage with other cultures and isn't willing to learn about them shouldn't be 'lmao classic white guy'. That not only puts the subject in a group with other 'classic white guys', but puts a nice acceptable label on what really is privilege, a lack of curiosity, ignorance, and the opportunity (which most non-white people don't have) to have everything you learn in school and university be about you. If you're ignorant - ok. We are all about many things. But you don't have any excuse not to educate yourself. The 'foreigner experience' that white people get in places like China is not the same as immigrants in a predominantly monolingual, predominantly white English speaking area. As we can see in those kind of videos, white foreigners may be stared at, but ultimately enjoy huge privilege in many places around the world. It's not the same. 

It also ignores, well, essentially the whole of Europe outside the UK and Ireland and many other places around the globe, where multilingualism is incredibly common - and where the racial dichotomy commonly heard in America isn't quite appropriate, or an oversimplification of many complex ethnic/national/racial/religious/linguistic etc factors that all influence discrimination and privilege. Actually many 'white guys' in Europe and places all around the world speak four or five languages to get by - some in highly privileged upbringings and school systems, yes, but others because they have grown up in a border town, or because they are immigrants and want to give their children a better start than they did, or because they want to work abroad and send home money. Many, like people all around the world, don't get a chance to learn to read and write their first language or dialect, which is considered 'lesser' than the majority language (French, Russian, English etc); many people, like Gaelic speakers in Scotland or speakers of Basque in France, have faced historical persecution and have been denied opportunities for speaking their mother tongue. My mother was beaten and my grandparents denied jobs for being Gaelic speakers. They are white, and they have benefited from being white in lots of other ways - but their linguistic experience is light-years from Xiaomanyc's. 

It isn't 'white' to be surprised at a white person speaking another language - it's just ignorant. But the two ARE correlated, because who in modern America can afford to go through twenty one years and still be ignorant? People who have never had to learn a second language; people who have always had everybody adapt to THEIR linguistic needs, and not the other way around. People who have had all media, all books, centred around people who look like them and speak like them. And even in America, that's not just 'white' - that's specifically white (often middle class) English monolinguals.

I'm not saying everybody who doesn't speak a language should feel guilty for not learning one ( it's understandably not the priority for everyone - economic reasons, family, only so many hours in the day - there are plenty of reasons why language learning when you don’t have to is also not accessible to everyone).  But be aware of the double standards we have as a society towards other socially/racially/religiously disadvantaged groups versus white college grads. You can't demonise one whilst lauding the other. 

To all language YouTubers - do yourself a favour, and stop doing this. Your skills are impressive - that's enough. 

 tldr; clickbait titles like this rely on double standards and perpetuate harmful ideas - don't write them, and let your own language skills do the talking please.

[whetstonefires]

Hi Whetstonefire. I have a question about the comic where Nightwing cheats on Starfire with Barbara: What happens directly after that? Does Starfire find out that Nightwing cheated on her? And, if so, how does she react? I've read online that (according to Marv Wolfman) Starfire is the opposite of everything Batman taught Nightwing to be and that Batman taught Nightwing to be repressed and cold. What did Nightwing contribute (emotionally) to the relationship between him and Starfire? (Cont.)

(Cont.) From what I can tell, from online, Nightwing was adamant about standards of mercy and monogamy - how do you think, if Starfire were to be written as her own character and not written around Nightwing and his emotional needs, she would handle and react to that? (This bit is an FYI for other readers: this is just speculation, not hate. Sorry about that.) Sorry about the questions! Have a nice day! 

Okay there are so many separate questions packed in here! I may miss some of them lol and I do not want to put in the hours it would take to produce an orderly response to all this, so this post is going to be a mess.

Initial query and important point: the cheating story was out of continuity. Like, literally, not just by ‘being rejected by the fanbase,’ it was just this weird retcon oneshot that seems to have been some sort of fuck-you to Nightwing or his fans or something. So no, it had no in-setting fallout lol. It, in more ways than most comics, didn't exactly happen.

It was just this weird thing where Dick hooks up with Babs before giving her a wedding invitation, which is both out of character for him in general and out of step with where he was leading up to the wedding--he was desperate to get married so they could have some Normal Stable Adulthood Happiness; the choice to recharacterize him as a fuckboy who regards it as a loss of freedom isn’t congruent, on much more than the level of principle.

As far as how Kori would feel about it, if she had learned...that is very hard to say. Apart from how it would require her to reinterpret everything about where their relationship stood at that point, the data is very unclear, and I don’t even have all of it. Gonna back up to cover some of the rest of the ask, get some context here.

So this actually brings up two of my biggest gripes with Wolfman’s NTT--weird Kori characterization and the weirdly negative interpretation of Batman as parent that backwashed heavily into other titles and influenced the character for the worse, in ways we're very much still dealing with today. 😩

The latter is pretty self-explanatory, though Wolfman’s take that the main thing Bruce taught Dick was repression does shed light on some writing choices and make others funnier. But Kori. Oh my lands.

So, item one, I wouldn't say that Kori is overall opposite Bruce, or even of his philosophy? There are just some very major points of opposition. She isn’t emotionally buttoned-down like at all, especially about positive feelings, although considered realistically with all the bullshit they’ve piled into her backstory she absolutely leans on repression to cope and stay positive, which makes her a lot like Dick actually.

To an extent, she was clearly written around foiling Dick’s Batman-derived traits in the same way that Robin was written to foil Batman, bright and glad and aerial. A Flamebird to his Nightwing in theme if not in name.

You could do some interesting stuff with that, and the bildungsroman aspects of this period of Dick’s life, like he has two roads forward in terms of how he’s going to define ‘adulthood’--does it necessarily require becoming more like his mentor-father, for good and ill, or can he make Kori in part a destination, as it were, and create an adult self that is derived from who he has always been as well as the man he’s modeled himself after?

To an extent I think this even was one of the things going on in ntt but like. Only a little bit.

(Given how much like Bruce Babs is in most of the ways Kori isn’t, especially once she’s Oracle, you could make a case for her as love interest being like. Symbolic of his not being in a rebellious phase? That gets weird and oedipal really fast tho lol.)

Okay stepping down one meta level lol, the thing about answering the 'what would kori' question here is that her character is deeply bound up in her culture, about which we are told and shown a great many contradictory things. Any attempt to read her as an independent character has to tackle not only the gender stuff you allude to and these inconsistencies, but how much of the sheer mess of her is rooted in racism.

'Fantastic' racism, technically, because Tamaraneans aren't real, but the 'taming the savage' narrative that kept surfacing between them and the language used in reference to it is just. The existing racism of presumably the writers, placed in Dick's mouth, and it's super gross. I hate it so much.

(I had a faint hope when they cast her for live action it was with a deliberate intent to directly tackle and better that history, but lollllllll nah. At least they didn’t double down in it tho! Can you imagine, with a black actress, in this day and age....)

So to predict and comprehend Kori, you have to make a lot of calls about Tamaran as a civilization. I like to slightly privilege stuff established earlier if there's no good reason not to, so while much is made over time of her inappropriate rage and the violence she was raised to normalize, I think what she says in her first appearance is good to keep in mind: in her culture, kindness is for friends and cruelty is for enemies. She doesn't understand why the Titans seem to have this backwards.

Kori is not a merciless person. She’s very empathetic, as a rule. With people she loves, she is self-destructively forgiving. That's not a trait only Dick benefits from--her family keeps betraying her in new exciting ways, and she keeps letting them.

Her arc of growing away from that habit is however greatly crippled by centering Dick in the narrative and by the awful 'civilizing' overtones that keep coming into it. When she comes back after the 1986 breakup, still married to Karras, she brings with her a commitment to doing things the Earth way--to eschew lethal force as more than a compromise with her friends’ values, but as a deliberate choice.

This deserved a lot more space and time than it got, and the fact that it didn’t get it is only somewhat due to her being subordinated to Dick and to general writing fail; a lot of it’s just the team book problems of everything happening to everybody all at once.

I mean, Dick’s journey later on to deciding he loves her enough to date her even though she’s married and it’s technically against his principles was packed into this absolutely heinous issue where he was inspired by a woman refusing to separate from her husband who’d just threatened to kill her and their kid with a knife, until being stopped by Nightwing. Because he’s apologizing for what he did.

This is his inspiration for accepting Kori’s marital status! It’s supposed to be heartwarming, as far as I can tell! Not heavyhanded messaging that this is a self-destructive terrible choice in which Kori will inevitably harm him somehow! This issue is pro ‘consensual open relationships under certain circumstances’ and also ‘giving abusers another chance’ as expressions of love. Welcome to the 80s ig.

(Notable is that the wife in this issue was black and the husband and son both looked very white, so it’s probably her stepkid and she probably wouldn’t get to keep him if they separated; this is not even vaguely treated as a factor.)

Point is, everyone was getting too little space to actually go through the amount of development they were getting, and it was clumsily handled; it’s not just her.

In an overlapping period Gar processed his issues with his adoptive father with whom he constantly fought and their shared trauma over the rest of their family (the Doom Patrol) having died violently not long ago via a batshit several-issue storyline where Mento went crazy, created supermutants, and abusively mind-controlled them to attack the Titans. It is literally all like this.

Back to the infidelity thing, now. So much to unpack. So like I mentioned above, their first big breakup, while partially driven by Dick’s existing conflicted feelings about their different ideas about things like ‘killing in battle’ and ‘her identity and loyalties being tied up with her home planet,’ is explicitly over different takes on monogamy.

When Dick is breaking up with her, Kori makes it clear she thinks it’s totally reasonable to have both a husband and a love, since Karras also has someone he loves and they’re both fine with it, but the story doesn't really explain how nonmonogamy works on Tamaran, or even if it's practiced outside the context of political marriage. They do do a sort of...soulbond fusion dance...thing, as part of the ceremony, so marriage is definitely serious business. There are so many levels of cultural difference that get poor to no development.

But to return to the weird ooc retcon cheating story: because of this context, no matter what her personal norms are, Dick specifically casually sleeping with someone else would be something for Kori to be mad about, because of the hypocrisy.

Then there’s the Mirage Incident, which I haven’t read through properly and which was very poorly handled by the writers. Kori is upset about Dick having slept with someone impersonating her and there’s a general vibe of this being treated by Dick’s social circle as unfaithfulness even though he was in fact sexually violated by deceit; it famously sucks.

We still don’t learn a lot here about Kori’s ideas about monogamy, from what I have seen, because her focus is mostly on feeling like Dick doesn’t care about her enough or in the right way since he couldn’t tell the difference. Which is an understandable feeling, even if it’s not an appropriate reaction to have at him at this time.

What Nightwing contributed emotionally........hm. This is a mess, honestly; he was all over the map, and not just because of having Brother Blood in his head. I cannot speak definitively on this, it’s too inconsistent.

For most of their relationship, Kori was the more intensely invested one, the one to initiate and the one who was shown at length to be excited to come home at the end of the day to their shared apartment because her boyfriend was there to see and talk to. If we set aside his more egregious white male bullshit, Dick was pretty emotionally available most of the time, though? They were cute.

Since they split up a lot of ink has been spilled making him less into her in retrospect, but he was pretty invested--leaving her coincided with mental breakdowns both times, and it wasn’t even mostly because she was doing his emotional processing for him, because she wasn’t, although it’s fair to say he often fell into using the relationship as an emotional crutch. Kori was definitely doing the same thing though so...it wasn’t the most balanced relationship in fiction history, but apart from slight codependency and the racism, it was decent enough.

She gets more evenhanded development than most superhero love interests, honestly, because she was costarring in a team book. She had her own storylines. She had other friends.

Mostly both of them just needed some space to finish growing up and stop being retraumatized long enough to process some of the existing trauma better, and I think they could have gone on being good for each other for a long time.

[thevoidcannotbefilled]

Web!Martin.... Oh boy. Gonna shake the hornet’s nest with this one, but I’ve spent like three days on this editing and re-editing, and I’m finally satisfied with my kind of an essay at this point. 

So, here’s a deep dive as to why I think Web!Martin has merits. (Scroll to the bottom of my essay for my TLDR). 

Introduction

First, to get some stuff out of the way:

Do I think Martin is a sleeper agent? Do I think that he has been manipulating Jon this entire time or even in just season 5 for the games of the Web? Do I think he's a bunch of spiders in a Martin suit? Do I think he's regards the Mother as his Mother and accepts that he is her Son? Is Martn actively Webby? 

No. Absolutely not. None of the above. The Martin we know is the Martin we began with, just with a bunch of trauma and has gained the ability to set his boundaries.

I find the idea of sleeper agent Martin or something similar to be very counterintuitive to the overall narrative. Not only is TMA about choices, and to have Martin be a sleeper agent would be to deny all of Martin's choices this season in particular, but it doesn't really lead to much. At best it's a gotcha and a surprise at worst it's making literally every interaction between Jon and Martin, with Martin himself, and so on mean nothing for the sake of one twist and make it sad. It's not fun in long term, and so at the end of the day, I trust Jonny and Alex as writers more than that. (Plus we already did the "person is replaced" thing).

Does Martin being a manipulator actively mean that he is a Web avatar?

Short answer, no. 

Long answer, I made a post awhile back, and while it was for fandom things, I think it applies well here. What power you choose to align yourself with isn’t necessarily something you’d fully commit to. It is just, if you were an avatar and willing to hurt others for your own gain, what would you find yourself most aligned with.  What I mean by that, just because Martin lies and manipulates doesn’t mean that he is Web, however, manipulation is a tool does fit well with the Web, and if he were to choose to align himself to that, I think he could be Webby. However, he is not necessarily a Web avatar because he has no motivation to hurt people. 

That being said I do think Martin would be a good fit for the Web if he wanted to be, and I think there will be a point in the narrative that there is a potential that he could become one, even if he does not necessarily choose to be in the end. 

Let’s talk about it.

Evidence

I think the best way to describe Web!Martin on my end is this: if Martin had an inclination to be an avatar, he would be the Web because everything from his aesthetics to his skillsets line up with the Web, but he does not have any reason to be Webby and in fact, at the very least as of MAG169, should actively be against the Web’s goals. 

But that doesn’t mean his connection to the Web hasn’t been heavily foreshadowed or built up. Not all of these are of the same level, I admit that, so I’m just gonna bold the ones that are the most important.  These aren’t in any particular order. 

-For season 1 subtext, said he liked spiders In This First Appearance MAG22, in MAG38 Jon says that Martin gives them lectures on the importance of spiders for the environment, and MAG39, “it’s just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too.” 

-IN MAG79, his poem has a line in it that goes, “"the threads of people walking, living, loving" which is very Web-like. 

-During the Web statement he read in season 3, he said “that wasn’t so bad, actually!” (MAG110) when he finished after showing open disdain for the others he read. The only other statement he didn’t think was bad to read was the Lonely one (MAG108), a power he canonical has ties to. 

-The only person in the show so far of the main cast that has had direct contact with Annabelle Cane. The only other people that have had contact with her are her victims (Creature Feature, MAG110) or her people she used as tools (Web Development, MAG123). 

-Let himself be guided to put the tapes on top of the coffin when the tapes, which have shown a direct association with both the Web and the Eye. 

- Martin’s “lo-fi charm” and “retro-aesthetic” (various) versus Annabelle “She dressed like a vintage clothing store exploded on her” (MAG69)

-Uses lying and manipulation as his main tactic against people and is acknowledged that manipulation is a skillset of his. By Jonah mostly, but he was able to successfully manipulate both Peter and Jonah. 

-In MAG117, he said "I’m not afraid for me, though. Isn’t that weird? I mean, it’s not like I’m going to be safe, like my plan’s not dangerous, but it’s, it’s mine. This last couple of years, I’ve always been running, always hiding, caught in someone else’s trap, but, but now it’s my trap, and, well, I think it’ll work. I know, I know it’s not exactly intricate, but it felt good weaving my own little web." and he then added after it with "oh good lord is Martin becoming some sort of spider person', no, Jon, just an expression.” 

-Martin having a bad relationship with his mother versus Mother of Puppets.

-The Web and the Desolation actively dislike one another (MAG139), and fire is Martin’s most hated pain (MAG169). 

-Martin is the primary investigator in Recluse (MAG59), Arachnophobia (MAG16), and was the one to find and give the Cracked Foundation (MAG114) to Jon. All of which are Web statements. 

-The delivery of the table and the lighter were technically both given to Martin since he was the one who talked to Breekon and Hope. 

-Martin was the first one to mention the Web lighter in season 5 in MAG162. 

What Does This Mean

Now I will admit none of these things on their own mean Web!Martin. They’re something you might describe a Web!avatar yes, but not Martin on his own (like I said just because Martin can be a manipulator doesn’t mean he is a Web avatar).

In fact, with elements like Martin finding fire his least favorite pain, I adore the meta on Martin’s trauma about giving himself up for other people led to him disliking fire and the lack of care from his mother, also leading to that. It is an excellent metaphor that fits incredibly well with his character. That being said, these factors can coexist. Martin disliking fire can both be a metaphor for his own self-destruction for the sake of others and be hints toward Web!Martin. 

HOWEVER, that all being said, even if these moments on their own don’t mean Web!Martin proof, I find it a bit unreasonable to entirely dismiss all of this either. There are too many coincidences lining up with the Web to not be intentional. It could be a red herring of course, but if it is a red herring.....well, Jonny put a hella of a lot of effort into making the Web!Martin red herring considering how much of his little details align so well with the small and big details of the Web. 

But assuming that this info does align together in all its Webiness... does this mean Web!Martin? 

Again, at the moment, I don’t think Martin is actively Webby. 

At his heart, Martin wants to do two things: 1) Protect Jon and 2) Protect as many other innocents he can in the process. 

As ironic as it is: "I want to find out what's going on. I want to save Jon. I want everyone to be fine and, you know what? If we were all happy that wouldn't actually be the end of the world” and “I want them to be safe. I need him to be okay” are basically the sum of Martin’s motivations from here to now. Martin wants a happy ending. And he’ll use whatever tools he can to do that. 

So asking questions from dangerous people like Simon Fairchild? For the protection of the world from what he thought was from the Extinction.

Burning up statements and burning up the cabin? The Desolation would like that, if it wasn’t for the fact he does so to decrease the fear in the world. 

And manipulating others? Peter? Jonah? Both of these weren’t to cause fear. They were at their heart to help others. 

Using the tools that the powers use does not mean you’re of that power. Martin’s most effective tool is to manipulate others bc they underestimate him or they trust him to do what needs to be done. People tend to have a single view of him. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t have other tactics, but with both Peter and Elias, it’s clear he knows how to use others’ egos against them. 

Season 5 and Web!Martin

This ALL being said...... Season 5 is a lot about the nature of power (what to do with it and what it means to use it) and what you can do in inherently toxic systems. We just learned that killing its leaders does nothing when the system itself is built to actively hurt others. That smiting doesn’t actively make things better. The Web is actively doing something at the moment and possibly with the Distortion as well that will probably hurt Jon and Martin. 

But..... 

I’m worried about the possibility that the Web can promise a world with a happy ending like Martin always wanted and with no other options within the world, Martin chooses to let himself become a tool for the Web. Now to make this clear: Does Web!Martin give a happy ending or even a better world? No. Absolutely not. Can the Web possibly promise to give him the power to get a happy ending? Depends on if Martin will believe it.

If Web!Martin is a thing, it would be in doing so What He Thinks would be in both of their best interests and most importantly as his lowest point and final resort. That he stops believing that they have power to change the world on their own. When he believes he has no power left and all he can do to make the world better is to go to the one source that always seems to understand what’s going on. Because as of yet, he doesn’t have the motivations to be a Web avatar, but we’re slowly creeping into territory where he might think it is necessary to be one. 

(We already had best case scenario where the Web asks Martin to join him and Martin says no. He could say no again, of course, but I don’t know if the Web will be as understanding of his reluctance in time). 

For me, Web!Martin is on the same level of tragedy as Jon being the Archivist. Yes, there would be choices, but Martin would have been actively been manipulated by the Web just as much as Jon would be hurt by the Eye, even if it’s for entirely different reasons. He would be used as a tool in a greater game. Jon wants to be a good person. Martin wants to have a happy ending. We already know Jon’s desire to help the people around him has gotten him multiple marks. I can definitely see a world where Martin’s desire for a happy ending is used against him by the Web. 

I can see a world where Martin lies to Jon because he thinks that’s what’s best for the two of them. I can see a world where he doesn’t lie to Jon but still accepts the power of the Web anyway despite Jon not thinking it’s a good idea. I don’t think either HAVE happened yet. We aren’t at that point, but... 

Whatever the case, whatever plan the Web may have it highly involves one Mister Blackwood and his Archivist. And for the Web’s plans, Martin plays a key part of in it. 

Other Theories and How Web Martin Plays Into It

So, do I think that’s where the plot will end? With Web!Martin betraying Jon bc he thinks it will be best? Not really. I think a lot of the point will also be that while Martin fits the Web well, his inherent desire for a better world makes it so he’s not an avatar. It’s the same points I made before: aesthetically, Martin fits the Web well and could be a good avatar in association, but he doesn’t WANT to hurt innocents. And ultimately, no matter his potential goals, Martin loves and cares for the world and especially for Jon. There could be a mistake in there made by Martin, where the Web has his clutches in him, but I don’t see a world where that is his ultimate conclusion. 

I’ve also seen a theory where Martin uses Webby shenanigans to his advantage against Annabelle Cane. Where the manipulator becomes the manipulated and the tragedy is the sacrifice of himself for the sake of a happy ending he’ll never see. 

I’m interested in seeing if Jonah making Martin the backup Archivist goes anywhere, especially with the uncertain connection between the tapes, the Eye, the Web, and the Archivist. Does this have anything to do with why Martin felt like he had to listen to Jon? Does this have anything to do with how he slapped Jon out of a statement? Could both of these elements also have something to do with the Web? 

I’m also very intrigued on what Web Development was doing when they have something called a “story-spinner” and yet when the story-spinner was described it sounded almost exactly like an Archivist, but instead when you give a story, the spinner killed someone. Could the story-spinner have anything to do with the previous back-up Archivist? Could they just be entirely separate things? 

Who knows what it all means? I don’t. That’s why I’m not discounting anything, especially with something that has so much set-up and subtext as Web!Martin. Whether Web!Martin means full avatar or not isn’t clear to me, but I’m taking any and all potential red-tape moments and running with them. If it means being pulled by a red-herring, so be it, but I won’t dismiss anything until proven otherwise. As long as Martin wants to do good and have a happy ending, I don’t think the Web can fully get him at least not in the ways that count. But I won’t stop investigating the narrative on what these elements could lead up to. 

Conclusion 

This post was made in frustration. I admit that. There is a distaste for Web!Martin that has been approaching the fandom that I don’t entirely understand. I’m not saying you have to like it, heck I admit, I could be entirely wrong. I also agree it’s a bit annoying that every interaction that Martin and Jon have come up under scrutiny for Martin potentially being Webby by the fandom. That’s why I started this post as I did because I don’t find the narrative of “Martin Is The Evil Bad Guy Manipulating Jon From The Beginning” all that compelling and wanted to put that to rest early. 

I do, though, find it frustrating dismissing all elements of Web!Martin because of this. At the end of the day, I find there are too many elements in the text to entirely dismiss it and an outright rejection of Web!Martin can potentially lead to dissatisfaction with the narrative. I make this post as an explanation and exploration of my thoughts, and a way to show why so many fans like the Web!Martin theory. Take it or leave it, it’s fine, but I wanted to gather all my thoughts clearly in one place rather than in a bunch of snippy posts. I hope I’ve done that well enough. 

TLDR: Web!Martin for me is a potential, a threat, and a possibility, but not something I think is actively happening at the moment. Martin would make a good fit for an avatar if he wanted to be, but at the moment, has no motivation to do so. However, with the ever decreasing options to save the end of the world, I can see a situation where Web!Martin is a thing that he actively thinks could save it. 

That being said, Martin is inherently a character that wants to do GOOD in the world, and as long as that’s the case, even if that motivation is used against him, I don’t think he will be proven wrong that the world can be good and he has the power to make it so, or at the very least, I don’t think his journey will end on a dower note, even if it is a tragic one. The tragedy will be in the cost of saving the world or something similar, and whether or not Web!Martin is the case, I don’t think that will change. That being said, there are many potential theories on what could happen, and I don’t want to miss any of them, Web or not. This post has been made in somewhat defense as to why people like Web!Martin and continue to theorize about it, but also in reassurance that even if we do get Web!Martin that it doesn’t mean a destruction of Martin’s character.

[themoomoorn]

Jeralt Eisner Stinky

Related to my previous reblog, feel free to parouse as to why I agree that Jeralt is a bad dad, and the fact that the devs’ lack of a continuity checker made him look worse than the director likely intended him to.

Let’s count the ways:

- Went a very melodramatic 180 regarding Rhea when Byleth - who was resuscitated from friggin’ death - wasn’t behaving like a “normal baby.”  Now to be fair, Rhea was too mum for her own good and a baby that’s not very reactive to stimuli is very concerning in real life, but real life ties lose some of their weight due to Byleth’s wonky parentage and the reason for her lack of heartbeat.  Jeralt is also generally perturbed by Byleth not being “normal” for quite a while, which is pretty shitty of him anyway.  

- As a response to the above, it’s implied that he was the one who set the monastery on fire when absconding with Byleth in the night, a fire that was reported to have caused some serious damage and destroyed a lot of books.

- There’s also the fact that he was aware that Sitri herself suffered from a flat affect and struggled to emote more expressively at first, and he himself is pretty emotionally constipated.  It’d be more shocking if Byleth grew up suddenly acting like Alois. 

- He loved Sitri for basically being a cute little innocent nun, likely seeing her as ideal housewife material.  I know I’m using the term “housewife” in a damning fashion, but he loves her for some seriously basic, surface-level reasons.  Plus the whole “getting her to emote and smile more” bit?  Granted, Claude’s relationship with Byleth grows in a somewhat similar fashion, but Claude also easily adheres the least to 3H’s “avatar worship” and he doesn’t just become fond of Byleth due to her smiling and getting cuter because of that.  You can’t say the same of Jeralt and Sitri.

- While one can’t entirely damn someone for raising a child in the mercenary lifestyle due to the setting - We got a Lord and his sister being raised under similar circumstances - The sheer ignorance that Jeralt raised Byleth with is pretty damning if the gameplay/narrative element (Byleth being ignorant for the sake of player projection and exposition) is taken away.  It’s one thing to not necessarily be aware of the ins and outs of the major religion of an entire continent, but Byleth doesn’t even have much basic knowledge of Fodlan’s three countries, or any country outside of it, although most of Fodlan doesn’t either. There is also more damning text, including how Jeralt handled all of their job logistics and didn’t bother to put in any incentive to have Byleth possibly learn to inherit or learn the ins and outs of the company.  The quest where you get Jeralt’s old tactics primer also reveals that he didn’t bother to teach Byleth basic battle tactics either. 

- Where the heck was Byleth when Jeralt was in Sauin Village???  Not even Byleth herself remembers.  And while it’s heartwarming to see that Jeralt still cares for Leonie after reuniting with her (With people who bash Leonie for her fixation on him naturally ignoring this), he seems to put more effort in bonding with her than his own child.  She’s also the one who winds up inheriting his company, although that can also be attributed to Byleth being presumed dead when she does.

- He doesn’t really say much when it comes to Byleth’s “Ashen Demon” title, which is notably one of the very few things that genuinely upsets Byleth prior to her becoming more emotive.  And while it’s hinted that Byleth herself didn’t express interest in interacting with other people casually, Jeralt wasn’t exactly helping matters in that department either, exacerbating their isolation from others.  Heroes has the default Female Byleth note that she can’t tell a friend from an ally due to how she grew up.

- The man’s a raging alcoholic who performed some pretty stupid, deadly shit, including a trick that had a high chance of beheading Alois.  His treatment of Alois is also pretty deplorable, as is the fact that he has a slew of unpaid bar tabs that get shouldered by Alois and then forced onto Leonie.  

- Going back to meta and tying to how a lack of continuity checking affected 3H, Jeralt spent a lot of time fretting over Byleth being even remotely exposed to the church when there’s plenty of folks who, while aware of the faith, do not actively practice at all, pay lip service at best, or even show some disdain like the three Lords do.  Exploring lore also hampers the idea that the church is omnipotent and omnipresent: The Empire’s church branch was flat-out gutted for well over a century with practically no faith-based services available (this is a crux for Dorothea’s hatred of the faith and also cited with Mercedes’ history; she and her mother had to go to the Kingdom to find any kind of religious sanctuary after getting kicked out of House Bartels), the Alliance’s church branch has no political sway specifically because of how said Alliance is governed, and the Kingdom’s church branch has its own problems due to the zealotry, radicalism, differences in opinions of the faith, and eventual manipulation by the Agarthans that led it crossing blades with the Central branch.  

Plus, you know, Rhea never bothered to pursue Jeralt after he ran away.  And Alois’ contingent of knights appearing in Remire that fateful evening was pure happenstance, plus how Jeralt doesn’t even operate his company under a pseudonym or anything practical like that.  So with these in mind, it’s actually pretty reasonable to consider that Byleth can at least be somewhat unaware of the Seiros faith without Jeralt’s input.

- While it’s unrelated to Jeralt being Stinky, I find it irksome that a lot of folks will jump right on Jeralt hating Rhea and the church in wake of the man himself acknowledging that taking Byleth away from the monastery (or at least not giving them a stable place to grow up) was probably a huge mistake upon seeing them flourish as a teacher.  He also gets gutted for ultimately putting two and two together and realizing that the Empire may be involved with the group that’s been terrorizing the monastery during all of the 1180 school year, and tells off the Flame Emperor when they claim they’re not culpable for the Remire Massacre.  It’s hard to tell whether or not the man would side with Edelgard with enough persuasion or propaganda, or how he’d react to Byleth becoming one with Sothis and taking on their position as a major figure within the church for three out of four routes with some degree of fanfare and acceptance (which players naturally ignore to warp into Byleth being a shrieking harpy church-basher, or a church victim that El-chan or Claude has to ~save~ her from, naturally).  But it’s proof that people can’t really read - the guy wasn’t having the FE’s excuses, plain and simple.

- The above also ties to how Leonie is derailed in Crimson Flower, as she’s one of the few who unambiguously knows that the Fork Emperor is working with the same group that had Jeralt killed, in addition to all of the hell they caused therein.  Naturally, her excuse if recruited on Flower is - wait for it - Jeralt was pissy at Rhea for reasons Leonie never finds out about, but since Byleth-chan is siding with El-chan, it’s all well and good now.

- There’s also the profoundly depressing meta that if Byleth were allowed to be their own character, a continuity person was maybe in place, and Jeralt wasn’t a glorified plot device, then he had all the makings to be a great deconstruction of Greil from FE9.  The parallels are all there, but naturally they’re not put to good use, or blithely ignored outside of Supports.  This also ties to just how heavily players project onto Byleth, possibly even more so than Robin or Corrin.  Since they really project onto Byleth as Kusakihara and his goons intended, Jeralt is naturally tied to players’ real life father figures by osmosis, despite the fact that Jeralt himself definitely isn’t a good father figure. 

While having a consistent continuity checker wouldn’t be a fix-all to 3H’s problems (Kusakihara’s dismissive attitude towards having one and consistency in general is pretty damning in itself), it likely would’ve at least tightened the worldbuilding that the devs prided themselves on and offered some more consistency, even if the price is showing unpleasant truths such as Jeralt being stinky.

[jnlnyaface]

The Rise of Skywalker...Thoughts...

I finally bit the bullet and saw “The Rise of Skywalker” in theaters. I have some thoughts...

Spoilers Obviously!!!!!

My general review is that the whole time I was in the theater all I could think about was how much better it would’ve been if this movie and “The Last Jedi” were combined and divided in two. By that I mean, there were so many things in this movie that would’ve worked better if they were done in the 2nd movie and then built upon in this one. There were things in the 2nd movie that I thought would’ve worked great in this one. 

Have you ever taken a creative writing class and the teacher gives you a sentence to start a story and 2 mins to write. When your time is up you pass the paper back and continue the story the person in front of you wrote on their paper. And you keep going until everybody in your row has written a piece of each story. Do you remember reading that story and how one kid turned it into a fairytale and then the next into a horror show? And the last kid was left to try to put a bow on it and call it one cohesive story?That’s what this trilogy felt like. 

Here are some quick thoughts before we dive in:

1. Finn being force sensitive *chef’s kiss*

2. Poe-Finn-Rey relationship = actual gold

3. I can now understand why people ship Poe and Finn

4. Even though the story was all over the place the effects with Rey and the Emperor were creepy in a good way

5. Overall I wasn’t as disappointed as I thought I would be but there’s so much that could have been done to make it better.

More under the cut!

Ok guys! Here’s where we do the deep dive. I’m pretty much going to outline all the problems I had with the film, why and what I think they could have done to make it better.

1. The whole Rey Palpatine thing - even though I (and many other people) wasn’t the biggest fan of “The Last Jedi” (because it was just one long car chase where nothing really happened) I did like the idea that Rey didn’t come for a force sensitive family. 

I thought it would be cool if the stronger Kylo got on the dark side, Rey got equally as strong on the light side to keep balance in the force. (Like the force itself chose someone to keep balance, someone random) I didn’t like the way it was handled, him just saying it in an offhand way, but I thought it was a good choice. To backtrack and have her be Palpatine’s granddaughter was more than a little ridiculous and way too rushed. If they would’ve introduced this possibly in one of the last two movies that would’ve been fine. But a third movie plot twist? Why?

2. Finn - There are some topics in my life that I feel like I could literally write a college level dissertation on and the treatment of Finn is this trilogy is definitely one of them. Finn was teased so heavily before “The Force Awakens” and ended up being a misdirect for Rey being the real hero/chosen one. I was ok with that because Rey and Finn were so intent on being together. That meant, to me, that throughout the trilogy they would be with each other. They became each other’s family and they weren’t going to let the other go. Then TLJ happened and they were seperated for most of the movie. Why would you separate characters with such great chemistry? (They actually separated all three of the main trio in their own storylines. The problem with this? They never got a chance to be all together and build up their bond (as a trio) before they’re separated.) 

This would’ve been fine (ish) if Finn’s storyline wasn’t a side quest of epic proportions. He’s one of the MAIN CHARACTERS and he went to a planet to get a thing for reasons. WTF?! (I will concede he did have some ok character development but it didn’t happen until the very end of the movie) Then they hint that he’s force sensitive and do nothing with it. I’m with the group that believes he moved the rocks at the end of TLJ when he ran to Rey and that was the first hint of his force sensitivity. I was hoping he would be training with her by the time the 3rd movie started (it was a long shot but one can dream). It’s obviously more explicit in TROS but nothing comes of it. He doesn’t have some big moment where he uses his powers and saves someone. He doesn’t have some confusing moment where he’s wondering what’s happening to him. Nothing! He just senses some stuff and exists. 

He really doesn’t even add much to the plot of the movie itself. He’s once again benched but they give him busy work to make it seem like he’s actually contributing. John Boyega is an excellent actor and their underuse of him is criminal. 

3. The Knights of Ren - Soooooo..... What’s up guys? In the first movie they talk about Kylo and his Knights of Ren being amazing then in the second movie they are never mentioned. Now in TROS they are there lurking in the shadows and....doing nothing. They seemed like they would be these fierce badasses but they get beat while by Kylo while he pretty much has one hand tied behind his back. Wha...

4. Kylo and Rey - I have very many problems with Kylo and Rey. Like so so so many. My biggest one is the kiss. Not necessarily that it happened just that it made zero sense. Yes they had a connection throughout the trilogy but why would that have to translate to romance? Why is it that when a female hero tries to redeem a male villain (or anti-hero) it means she wants to smash? Rey should have been allowed to want to save Kylo/Ben without having to fall for him. I asked a question on here a while back (when I was still contemplating whether or not I wanted to go see the movie). 

I asked why people ship/started shipping Reylo. None of the answers I got gave me an “aha” type moment. You know that moment when you’re like “oh I get it now” (not that it changes your mind about the couple just that you understand why that person likes them so much). I didn’t get that at all for the answers I got. Some people said “because of their connection through the force” and I’m like ok...and? Why does that mean romance? 

I have never seen him as anything more that a homicidal villain. I always thought their connection was a way for the audience and Rey to get to know Kylo so he wouldn’t be some one dimensional villain. I never saw them in a romantic light. In my opinion that final kiss could’ve been a hug and it would’ve had the same effect. (Or he could’ve just died. I would’ve been fine with that too)

5. Kylo Redemption - My problem with his “redemption” arc is that he didn’t earn it. He literally started the movie taking out an entire battalion by himself to get the pyramid thing. In the first movie he ordered his troops to destroy a whole village of innocent people. After killing Snoke he didn’t disband the first order he just took over and reaffirmed his commitment to the dark side. He killed his father, tortured Rey and Poe and the only reason why he wanted to help Palpatine was to get the fleet he was offering. But then in the 3rd(?) act Leia dies, Rey almost kills him, he has a conversation with the ghost/memory of his dad and suddenly he wants to be a good person again? Kylo is dead and Ben is just back? 

The thing is (in my opinion) every great redemption story starts with the person admitting they were wrong and asking for forgiveness. Then putting in the work to earn that forgiveness. Or at least acknowledging they were wrong and dying for the greater good. But Kylo/Ben never acknowledge the mistakes he made, he never asked for forgiveness, he didn’t do anything the showed he should be redeemed. (But he didn’t shoot on Leia’s ship in TLJ and he and Rey fought together on Snoke’s ship) wow he did one not terrible thing and fought with Rey so he could take over the first order. I’m not seeing how that creates a redemption arc for him. 

I’m going to expand on this more in my next point but I think if he just fully embraced his villainy it would’ve been better. If he killed Palpatine and became the final boss I think that would’ve been more interesting than a last minute turn as a good guy then dying.  

6. Finnrey - When I said I was going to expand on that what I meant was: I’m going to tell you what I think should’ve happened in regards to FinnRey and how they should’ve been handled. In no other movie/book/tv show/short story/play will you see the main female actress and the main male actor not get together. It was so heavily hinted that Finn and Rey had/were going to have romantic feelings for each other (they were supposed to be our Han and Leia) and this was just forgotten about so abruptly. 

Even in the second movie, the first thing Finn thinks about is Rey when he wakes up. He wants to get the beacon as far away from the resistance’s ships as possible so when she gets back she won’t be in danger with the rest of the fleet. And Rey talking to Chewie before she goes onto the ship “tell him I said...” what did Chewie say? Who speaks wookie? This movie was such a great opportunity to expand on that relationship and what do we get? Nothing...again. They didn’t even have one full conversation. Ok but why though? Don’t even get me started on the whole quicksand incident. Why wouldn’t he be telling her he loved her? Why is that such an absurd possibility? This is what has been hinted at for 2 movies and now...? Sensing a theme when it comes to hints involving Finn? Yeah me too. 

There was a comment or article that I read somewhere that talked about Finn getting knocked out in the first movie during the final battle. This person said it was unfair because of the bait and switch in regards to the trailers teasing Finn vs Rey being the force sensitive in the movie. And I thought “wouldn’t it be cool if Finn and Rey fought Kylo together?”. I don’t just mean that one battle I mean throughout the whole trilogy. Wouldn’t it have been interesting if Kylo and Rey were connected because they were the equals in the dark and light sides of the force and if Rey and Finn were connected because they were a force dyad? That way if Kylo was going to be the ultimate final boss Finn and Rey could train/fight/work together to beat him once and for all. I thought that would be much more compelling. They didn’t even necessarily have to become a romantic pairing. 

I’m ok with subverting the, every series ends with a romance trope (even though it seems like the only time this trope is subverted is when a character of color is involved) but in this last movie Finn did little more than follow Rey around the galaxy and call her name when crap was going down. At least if you have force sensitive Finn, who has trained with and is connected to Rey he can actually help her instead of standing around staring the whole time. I, of course am a FinnRey shipper so I was disappointed when they didn’t get together but I’ve had plenty of other ships disappoint me in the past so this was nothing. I just wish they would have communicated for longer than two collective minutes in the 2.5 hour movie. They had such a great relationship/friendship. It was one of the best things about the first movie and it just evaporated in this movie with no real explanation.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

These were some of my thoughts about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. I didn’t write this to offend anyone so if I did I’m sorry. I just needed to get this off my chest. I really got into the Stars Wars fandom with TFA and it has been a rollercoaster ride ever since. I try to reserve judgement on a series until it is over, since middle movies can be kind of boring because they’re trying to move the plot forward. I like to wait until the story is done before I say whether or not I liked it and this well...I’m still not sure. 

[illegiblewords]

Recent Shadowbringers story has me speculating a bit on Convocation of the Fourteen relative to mythology and I think I got stuff.

Heads up this spoils like crazy.

IIRC it got confirmed that the Convocation members got Greek names, although I don’t remember if they were all named for the pantheon or not.

But since Hades gets referred to using abilities known as Titanomachy in particular I’m gonna lean hard toward YES.

Who is which god though? What’s even happening? I have a few ideas and in order to explore ‘em a bit will list the names and details that strike me as particularly important. A point of note though, Hades is not an Olympian within mythology. One of the original gods born of Rhea and Cronos yes, but he literally drew the short stick that said “congrats you get to live alone among the dead have fun”.

Zeus: Youngest of six siblings born to Rhea and Cronos. Drew lots with Poseidon and Hades, wound up getting dominion over the sky as king of the gods. Had loads and loads of sex. Strongly affiliated with lightning.

Hera: Hands down has the title of pissiest of the gods, which is fuckin’ saying something. This is like 98% because she’s the goddess of marriage, childbirth, women, family, and fidelity while being married to Zeus the fuckhead. Youngest daughter of the six siblings born to Rhea and Cronos. Associated with the peacock. Commonly transformed her husband’s lovers into animals and IIRC had some ties to storms but I might be misremembering. Also notable for having given birth to Ares with Zeus legitimately (who no one likes except Aphrodite) and Hephaestus alone. She threw Hephaestus down the side of a mountain because he came out ugly iirc.

Poseidon: God of the seas, water, storms, earthquakes, and horses. Middle son of the six siblings born to Rhea and Cronos, when he drew straws with Zeus and Hades he got dominion over the oceans.

Demeter: Goddess of the harvest, fertility, motherhood, agriculture, nature, and the seasons. Middle daughter of the six siblings born to Rhea and Cronos. Hades abducted and married her daughter Persephone and she got next level pissed about it, made the world cold and barren (winter) until Persephone was returned.

Athena: Born from Zeus and Metis, confirmed more powerful than Zeus. Metis had a prophecy where any child she bore would be more powerful than the father, so of course Zeus had to stick his dick in that. Later became filled with regret and fear when it turned out Metis was pregnant, turned her into a fly and ate her. Fast forward a bit and Metis gives birth to Athena inside of Zeus, and Athena explodes fully formed and adult complete with armor out of Zeus’ head. Athena has some duality with Ares as they’re both war gods and both technically born from Zeus. Athena is goddess of wisdom, handicraft (like weaving), and strategic warfare. Virgin goddess.

Apollo: God of the sun/light and the arts, also certain kinds of performance including music, poetry, philosophy. Notable in that his golden arrows were not nearly so painful as the silver ones favored by Artemis. Twins with Artemis. Also majorly known for being associated with both plague and healing as well as prophecy. Prophecy comes up in particular through the Oracle of Delphi. Notably the reason to Dionysus’ madness in some philosophy.

Artemis: Goddess of the hunt, twins with Apollo, uses silver arrows that hurt like a motherfucker compared to the golden ones her brother favors. A virgin goddess associated with the moon, wilderness, childbirth, protection, and plague. Worth noting she could be super super pissy and did in fact turn a man into a deer to be mauled to death and eaten by his own hounds because he accidentally caught her bathing.

Ares: God of war as in slaughter and bloodlust, also of violence and “manly virtues” as in his dick r big. Has weird sibling energy with Athena because they represent dramatically different aspects of war. Only loved by Aphrodite, literally no one else likes him.

Aphrodite: Goddess of love and beauty and fucking, top tier manipulator, also affiliated with pleasure, passion, fertility, and desire. Married to Hephaestus but not at all happy about it, has a pretty open affair with Ares. Sometimes she’s a daughter of Zeus but usually she was born from the universe’s castrated dick being thrown into the ocean and making a ton of sea foam which became her.

Hephaestus: Smith of the gods, master craftsman and god of the forge. Also associated with invention, fire, and volcanos. Didn’t really cheat on Aphrodite despite her cheating on him hard. Was rejected by his mother Hera for being too ugly and was literally crippled by her.

Hermes: Messenger of the gods, a trickster, god of travelers and athletes, guide to the dead, has fucking WILD cults dedicated to him to this day including fucktons of alchemists and just Hermeticism as a whole. In other words also the god of new age and magicK. Not magic, emphasis on the k because that’s what the modern magicians in their funny hats do when they’re feeling edgy.

Hestia: Eldest of six siblings born to Rhea and Cronos. Goddess of the hearth, being fire and the home. Has probably the least amount of drama out of all the gods ever, and while that isn’t necessarily saying a lot she seriously had no drama. Possibly relinquished her seat among the Olympians to Dionysus in some stories. Was notably a virgin and had a major following of priestesses in Rome consisting of the Vestal Virgins.

Dionysus: If there is a god of chaos and insanity besides Eris it is him. God of drunks and performance and opulence/excess/parties, notably has a philosophical contrast with Apollo as the madness to his reason. Top hedonist. Has a group of violently crazy women who worship him called the Bacchantes. Do not understate violently crazy bit they have torn people to shred with their bare hands.

Hades: We know this is Emet-Selch already and have more lore on how he visualizes souls/the Lifestream (interesting term given rivers of the dead in Greek myth, though not exclusive concept to Greek myth)/the Underworld. Eldest son of the six siblings born to Rhea and Cronos, though he is younger than Hestia.

Another point of note--there are, classically, TWELVE Olympian gods and then Hades. Why then one extra and how suspicious is that with our Convocation of 14?

Normally, like I mentioned Hestia is an original member who essentially gives her seat up for Dionysus. But she’s also a much quieter goddess within mythological stories, so while she could be included it’s also possible that another god or goddess is being used to reach fourteen.

First, I’m gonna go on a limb here and say I think Lahabrea is either Apollo or Ares, but leaning heavily toward Apollo. The orator thing fits, his role within being crazy good/productive in creating concepts makes some sense (I mentioned possibly Ares because he has an affinity for certain weapons too which makes me squint), and with how much the Ascians have referenced things being foretold or prophesized at least one of them is required to have ties with that ability. Additionally, Apollo being tied to plague when there the Terminus event going on and people are speculating that creation magics had something to do with the cause has me unbelievably suspicious.

I am also going to say that I think it’s possible Elidibus is Hermes. Emissary-->Messenger as well as having a pattern of being a trickster or liar makes a lot of sense. Also interesting in that one of his other functions is as psychopomp, or escort of the dead. I wouldn’t be shocked if he was the one responsible for raising new sundered Ascians.

I also think that if Lahabrea is Apollo, Igeyorhm might really be Artemis for that twin thing + their Ascian Prime misadventure. The impulsivity makes a bit of sense for her too, as does the fact that she fucked up the entire thirteenth shard while being tied to plague. If I thought Lahabrea was Hermes I’d have pitched Igeyorhm as Aphrodite purely because it’s myth canon they made a hermaphroditic child together one time, but I don’t think that makes as much sense.

I don’t think the game is putting as much emphasis on the three kings setup for Ascians with Zeus/Poseidon/Hades because Lahabrea and Elidibus don’t really fit into the roles of Zeus or Poseidon either of them. FFXIV associates lightning with judgment in a cool way but it gets stressed really hard that Elidibus is just supposed to be an Emissary and Lahabrea has other gods he fits with better. I honestly think the ones who remained unsundered just happened to be the ones who got missed rather than that particular trio.

On WoL, there are plenty of fans having fun speculating that WoL is Persephone in the name of shipping lol. It’s maaaaaaaaybe possible because she’s goddess of spring, renewal, rebirth, nature, and the underworld. And she also goes back and forth between spending time with Hades and spending time with her mother. So that whole MIA thing might work.

Halmarut being all about plants I’ll bet 100% is Demeter. No one else makes sense.

Nabriales if he does use lightning like I remember might be Zeus, which explains his attempted sleaziness a bit and his inferiority complex being one of the sundered. But I’m a bit doubtful because he seems like he has too big of an ego to have potentially been in charge of Amaurot at any point ever. His personality and eagerness to fight remind me more of Ares. Also no one likes him lol. Dionysus strikes me as most likely overall because it would explain him being pissed at being under Lahabrea as well as his whole attitude.

Mitron is Poseidon. Cannot be anyone else, he is all about oceans and fishes. Strongest case for Elidibus and Lahabrea not being tied to the other two kings--Mitron literally cannot be anyone but Poseidon.

Who is WoL though?

Currently my big guesses are Dionysus if Nabriales isn’t (as a foil to Lahabrea-Apollo), Zeus (mightiest of the gods, lightning of judgment and huge badass), Persephone (the creation and underworld thing is neat and who even knows), maaaaaaaaaaybe Hestia because of the primordial light/fire bit, being oldest, and just not being about the drama.

I know basically nothing about Altima besides her being there but would be more inclined to figure her for Athena than any other goddess purely because SE seems to be going with matching gender stuff and with a name like Altima I’m doubtful about other goddesses fitting better. Hera is the only one beside Athena who could maybe own that.

If anyone else has knowledge/notes on Ascians and can chime in on what seems fitting feel free!

[ihavenoside]

Tagged by: @saviour-in-disguise   Tagging: @chloemodelrt600 @neverwither @parisian-eagle @stayhuman-genevieve @flawsinourcxde (corwin?) @fraegi @boundinmybones @forensiicanalysis @mikhailthefixer  @strictauthority  @hakamorraf @kyojin-daelko  @replicantdeviancy @becameinhumxne  and anyone else who’d like!

—    BASICS.

▸     IS  YOUR  MUSE  TALL  /  SHORT  /  AVERAGE? Connor’s heights unknown but the general headcanon is that he’s 6ft0. so tall.

▸      ARE  THEY  OKAY  WITH  THEIR  HEIGHT ? Yes, he’s never been bothered but it and feels to be average height compared to other’s he’s been around. Aka Hank and Markus are taller.

▸      WHAT’S    THEIR    HAIR    LIKE? Short, brown, a little longer on top so he’s hair to kind of hangs over like it does.

▸     DO    THEY    SPEND    A    LOT    OF    TIME    ON    THEIR    HAIR     /    GROOMING?

Connor doesn’t sleep so he doesn’t have many reasons for his hair to be messed up. If it does, a little water and running his hands through his hair should fix it without much issue. so no.

▸      DOES  YOUR  MUSE  CARE  ABOUT  THEIR  APPEARANCE  /  WHAT  OTHERS  THINK ? He cares about his appearance and how he sees himself but he’s also not worn much outside of his Cyberlife attire. He didn’t seem very comfortable in his Jericho outfit and will probably continue to gravitate towards more business causal clothing because it’s all he’s ever known. If people don’t like it, he’s not to bothered by it.

Despite keeping his LED because it’s part of who he is, he’ll ditch the Cyberlife jacket or at least disable the identifiers on it until be can get/find something better. The only thing he really cares about when it comes to how others see him if they still see him as the Deviant Hunter. Which he knows some will and some might never see him as anything but that.

—    PREFERENCES.

▸     INDOORS  OR  OUTDOORS? He’ll want to be outdoors mostly because I feel like he’s spent most of his time indoors. In Cyberlike, in the DPD, in a building. He’s not had much of a chance to adventure out and he’ll want too to see and discover new things. 

▸     RAIN  OR  SUNSHINE? He likes the rain, it beings a sense of calm over the city. It’s often peaceful and storms are an interesting thing to watch. If he’s stuck outside in it, he’s waterproof so the rain doesn’t bother him.

▸     FOREST  OR  BEACH?   Both, each would give a new opportunity and experience considering he’s not stepped outside of the city.

▸     PRECIOUS  METALS  OR  GEMS? I think he would like gems simply because they vary a lot in colors, shape, and value.

▸     FLOWERS  OR  PERFUMES? Flowers would visually be more interesting to look at.

▸     PERSONALITY  OR  APPEARANCE? Personality means more than appearance but it’s also a trick question. Your appearance and personality can both make you look like a bad person but it doesn’t mean that's who they truly are. It's understanding why they are perceived that way, is where their true colors shine and Connor’s an example of that.

▸     BEING  ALONE  OR  BEING  IN  A  CROWD? I feel like Connors used to being alone or happiest in the company of at least one other person. If he’s in a crowd, I think he’s like to hang back and observe the conversation or event.

▸     ORDER  OR  ANARCHY? Order over anarchy. He’s programmed for order but with order sometimes comes with unfairness, which sometimes needs to give way to anarchy so order can be restored.

▸     PAINFUL  TRUTHS  OR  WHITE  LIES?   Painful truths, whether people like it or not, facts are facts to him and doesn’t necessarily have a filter to know when he should tell a white lie unless he starts picking up on it.

▸     SCIENCE  OR  MAGIC? Both. There is a science to everything, in which he can understand but magic is the art of despection, which can be very useful. 

▸      PEACE  OR  CONFLICT?   Peace is ideal, he’d rather avoid conflict if possible. 

▸     NIGHT  OR  DAY? Night. Again, it brings a calm over the city. Plus the city looks more interesting all lit up.

▸     DUSK  OR  DAWN?

Dawn, the same reason, most people are still asleep and most things are quite still. Plus the morning hues are nice to see.

▸     WARMTH    OR    COLD ?

Warmth. While the cold won’t bother him... generally. If he becomes cold or for some reason he can’t regulate his core temperature, he’ll become highly stressed and possibly prone to panic. He has a fear of the cold thanks to his AI almost freezing to death in the Zen garden after Cyberlife resumed control over his programming. While this was more mental, physical would feel worse because the cold would cause an instability in his systems, which could cause him to shake as it’s working harder to fix the instability, which is another form of losing control over himself and would just mess with his head. Please don’t let the boy be cold.

▸     MANY  ACQUAINTANCES  OR  A  FEW  CLOSE  FRIENDS? I think he’d have many acquaintances and would want to befriend all of them but he also knows not everyone’s going to like him so he’d appreciate those that consider him a friend. It’s a little weird because he’d want to be Gavin's friend but Gavins not likely to ever like him but if he finds out someone else considered him a friend, he’ll admire that more.

▸     READING    OR    PLAYING    A    GAME? Playing a game, it's a good distraction and because there is so much variety in them, he’d enjoy it a lot as well as be quiet good at them.

—    QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸      WHAT    ARE    SOME    OF    YOUR    MUSE’S    BAD    HABITS?

He’s reckless but often in a way that he freaks people out but he knows exactly what he’s doing. Like be able to run out into traffic and not die lol. which often leaves him confused to why people are upset.

He doesn’t know how to ask for help when he needs it because when he needed it, no one came so he’d basically learned he needs to handle things on his own and not rely too heavily on anyone.

It’s in his nature to ask a lot of questions, even if those questions should seem obvious or possibly inappropriate. 

▸      HAS  YOUR  MUSE  LOST  ANYONE  CLOSE  TO  THEM?  HOW  HAS  IT  AFFECTED   THEM?

No, he hasn’t but Connor’s a new unit and hasn’t had much time to form strong bonds with anyone but he has lost people, even if they where strangers. That has still affected him on a deeper level the more he reflects on it. Emma, the little girl from the hostage mission bothers him the most. A human life was lost and he failed to prevent it. He also sympathizes with Rupert and the Traci's because of him, they’re also dead and they didn’t deserve that. He regrets having to kill 10 army men during the revolution, 10 more people who won’t return home to their families and feels guilty over it despite everything but also doesn’t know how to properly handle the grief he feels.

▸      WHAT  ARE  SOME  FOND  MEMORIES  YOUR  MUSE  HAS?

Again, he’s a new unit so the list is short and simple. One would be the day he got to meet and pet Sumo, tied with that would be the day the DPD the officer he saved in the hostage mission pulled him aside and genuinely thank him for saving his life. Tied with that, is the day he learned Cyberlife hadn’t removed him from the expense account and bought a half a mill car because it was made in the year Hank was born.

▸     IS  IT  EASY  FOR  YOUR  MUSE  TO  KILL?

It’s hard to say because he was built to hunt his kind and programmed to handle weapons. so I want to say yes and he hates it? He never wants to take a life but in the heat of the moment, it’s to easy for him to pull the trigger and go for the killing blow.

▸      WHAT’S  IT  LIKE  WHEN  YOUR  MUSE  BREAKS  DOWN?

Connor hasn’t felt geniune loss to the degree that he’d want to break down and cry. Unfortunately, he deals with his grief, fear, anger and stress in the same way he’s seen other deviants and humans do, which is to isolate themselves and hide. He also has the added notion of being this state of the art machine but is showing to be no better than the deviants he was programmed to track down. So he feels like he should be in much better control of his emotions and he’s not. 

This leaves him in a high stressed state while he tries to understand and sort through his emotions which will either end in him getting kicked into a sleep mode, become so physically/mental drained that he’s no longer able to focus on what had previously been bothering him, which is basically the state before he’s kicked into a sleep mode or finds a way to distract himself and evade the emotion altogether because he doesn’t know how else to handle them. His life basically dependent on how well he could portray being a machine so Cyberlife wouldn’t suspect him of deviating when he wasn’t even sure if he was deviating himself. It’s a habit he’s also not broken since becoming a deviant. So for the most part he can hide his stress well.

▸      IS  YOUR  MUSE  CAPABLE  OF  TRUSTING  SOMEONE  WITH  THEIR  LIFE?

Yes. it’s more or less based on people not killing him when they had the chance too. This would consist of Hank, not shooting him at the bridge, Markus sparing his life twice and North considering shes capable of letting him deviate too. (this also applies to threads in which someone saves his life) 

▸      WHAT’S  YOUR  MUSE  LIKE  WHEN  THEY’RE  IN  LOVE?

No idea. He’s far too focused on working through his other emotions. He has no idea what love is because no one has remotely shown him love let alone genuine kindness. Hank in his case has more or less tolerated him up until the end of the game when Connor was willing to give up his mission so that Hank could live. Aside from that, the only time someone has shown him kindness was the officer pulling him aside and thanking him for saving his life. Connor’s so taken back by this, that he smiles and slightly nods at the thanks because he doesn’t know how else to respond.

[getoffthesoapbox]

[VKM Spec] Appraising VKM 16

I daresay, it’s not every day you get a chapter that delivers a satisfying meal to last two months within a mere three pages. It’s good to be right every now and then, and I must admit I haven’t been this delighted by a VKM story development since VKM 7-8. 

Oh, and there’s Zero and Yuuki stuff to discuss too, of course.

If you haven’t read the chapter, scanlations can be found in the usual places.

Obligatory disclaimer for my anti-fans: This post is “zeki criticism” and “anti ky” (though probably fairly light on the latter). Please blacklist those tags accordingly.

Disclaimer - The Surface Layer

As with my post for last chapter’s release, I want to address the surface-level read here just in case any readers who are part of the anti-Zeki-critic crowd managed to make it past my first disclaimer. I’m well aware that if you take this chapter in isolation and ignore the context of previous chapters it is a relatively tame and typical shoujo chapter about a couple preparing to have sex for the first time. As I said in my previous disclaimer, in my opinion this interpretation does not hold up under contextual scrutiny or a more rigorous analysis. For the purposes of my own review of the chapter, I will be dealing exclusively with the contextual aspects rather than the surface layer. That being said, please proceed further at your own risk. (I will be so glad when Zero and Yuuki finally split so that I don’t have to write these disclaimers anymore. Patience, patience.)

“The Prince” Makes His Debut

Oh, boy, did we get a metric shitton of new information in the span of three pages. I had to do my happy dance for this chapter because Hino’s starting to pull out all the stops on the Vampire King plotline. Many more new questions have cropped up than have been answered, but I do believe we can finally reliably decipher some answers at this point. Now this is what I call progress! 

One Mastermind or Many?

Before I get into the minutiae of what’s still up in the air and what isn’t, I want to tackle the biggest question this chapter emphasizes. It was a potential question last chapter, but it gets special attention this time around: Is the Vampire King organization tied to this new organization, headed by the Prince, or not? I’d like to break down the evidence for both arguments, and then I’ll declare where I stand currently:

Two Organizations, Two Masterminds: There certainly is compelling evidence for the idea of two (or even more than two) organizations. We know from earlier chapters there’s an anti-vampire organization, the Vampire King’s organization seems to focus specifically on acts of terror, and this Prince organization appears to have a focus on research. Added to this the idea that Yuuki and Zero both consider the two-organization approach as a possibility, and we have a compelling case here for two organizations that are operating at the same time. 

Multiple Organizations, Headed by One King: The other option, of course, is that the Vampire King is the mastermind behind everything. This is a separate issue from whether or not the Prince is the same person as the Vampire King (more on that in the next subsection). Even if the Prince’s organization is separate, the Vampire King could still be operating in the lone-wolf fashion I described in my previous post on VKM 15. He could be merely passing on tips to these various satellite groups, who then act on the tips. That’s why we have everything from disgruntled kamikaze vampires (VKM 13) to threats against human children (VKM 14) to attacks on noble vampires (VKM 12) to specified research on vampires (VKM 15). All of this activity ordinarily wouldn’t be the product of the same groups of people, as the targets are specifically different. Sometimes nobles are targeted, sometimes human children, sometimes both humans and vampires. It’s too scattershot to be a cohesive organization, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be guided by an unseen hand moving the pieces in chessmaster fashion one step at a time. 

At this time, I lean more toward Option 2 as to the truth behind all the activity. For one, this is a story--having too many terrorist groups is redundant and narratively cumbersome. For another, Zero doesn’t seem convinced about these groups being potentially separate when Yuuki brings up the idea (his expression indicates he thinks this is all connected, but he doesn’t necessarily want to share that thought with Yuuki). Additionally we still have the revelations from the mad scientist in VKM 15--he doesn’t know the goals or plans of the person he follows. We also don’t know if the person he referred to is the Prince he speaks to in VKM 16 or the Vampire King himself. On top of this, we can be reasonably certain Zero was a target for both the Prince’s group and the Vampire King’s; it’s suspect that two “separate” groups would be after the same person. So for now, until new information comes out, I’d say we have several satellite groups being operated from the shadows by the Vampire King.

The Vampire King vs. The Prince

This was the second highlight of the chapter for me (the first we’ll get to shortly). When I saw Hino did this, I wanted to dance in the streets. The potential here is enormous. I hope I can cover it all and not forget anything. We have a couple of options for the identities of the Vampire King and the Prince to play with here:

The Vampire King and the Prince are separate people: At this time, it is completely possible that the Vampire King and the Prince are separate people. (The Vampire King may be an empty throne situation where it’s just a name the real mastermind operates under.) There’s no indication in this scene that the Prince is or is not the Vampire King or that he is involved with the terrorist activity outside of this particular incident. He does have access to some significant resources, however, and does seem interested in using demolition tactics, like the Vampire King’s group. However, at this time this may just be because he’s using the Vampire King’s activities as a cover to hide his own group’s. If that’s the case, the Prince might be operating independently from the Vampire King, or perhaps he’s also an extension of the Vampire King and is just the leader of his own group. 

The Vampire King and the Prince are one person: This is where the options get juicy. If the Prince is the Vampire King, we have potentially narrowed the list of suspects dramatically. The title “Prince” slaughters half the candidates for the Vampire King--a prince must be a young man who is unmarried and not old. This eliminates Kaien, Isaya, and all the ladies. These figures might still be involved in the organization, but they can no longer be the mastermind if the Prince is the Vampire King. The title also leaves us with only a handful of suspects: Aidou, Takuma, Kain, Zero, Kaito, and an as-yet unknown hunter/human/pureblood/noble. That’s a pretty significant drop in suspects if this is true. I think we can safely say that Zero and Aidou are not the Prince, which means if the Prince is also the Vampire King, they’re excluded from the Vampire King pool as well (but this is only if the Prince is the same--if the Prince is different, he could still be receiving orders from a King who is any one of the other suspects). Also, it appears “Prince” is just a nickname the little girl has given the Prince--it’s not necessarily the title he holds when he’s among adults. Unfortunately the mad scientist doesn’t address him by a title (perhaps he doesn’t know it--it seems the Prince is attempting to keep his identity hidden from the mad scientist, but not the little girl). With the title being merely a nickname, it’s completely possible that the Prince is also the Vampire King. Added to this is the fact that he clearly has the resources for a vast demolition operation as well as an elaborate rescue scenario--this person is clearly well-situated in society. 

Right now I’m still leaning heavily toward the Prince being the Vampire King (or at least the defacto mastermind operating under the VKing’s banner). In my opinion, this chapter has really narrowed the field down to Takuma or an unknown character, but I’m not going to waste space here speculating on why I still feel Takuma’s the best narrative option (I’ll be doing a follow-up post here in a week or so to address Takuma). For the remainder of this post, I’ll operate under the assumption that we still have no idea who the Vampire King or the Prince are. 

I will say the one interesting thing about the Prince title is that if he truly is the mastermind behind the Vampire King activities, it’s very fitting that the person who is doing all this in “honor” of Kaname doesn’t himself take the Vampire King title for himself and instead operates as the King’s “first-in-line”--a prince, so to speak. Quite interesting. Even if the title isn’t literal (it could just be the little girl’s nickname for the Prince), it’s still quite fitting on a meta level. 

What We Now Know About The Prince’s Group

What this chapter does answer is a few questions about the Prince’s operations that we didn’t know in VKM 14-15. In VKM 15, I’d speculated that the mad scientist was running his own sideshow and had just been receiving tips from the Vampire King. It seems that’s not the case, and that he’s actually a part of the Prince’s organization, if only nominally. Obviously from his own testimony in VKM 15, he is not part of the Prince’s privy council and has no idea what the Prince is working toward (much less the Vampire King). He is therefore officially confirmed as a mook whose only use is his research abilities. 

Another thing we can confirm is that whatever was going on with what appeared to be the Kaname parent metal last chapter, it was not Kaname acting on his own (unless he’s acting with this group, which leads to a potentially sinister implication given the Vampire King’s hypothetical goal surrounding Zero). Whoever was in charge of that metal, we can confirm two things: the mad scientist didn’t know what it was, despite it being part of “his group” and it was under the control or direction at the very least of the Prince. Whether it was “leant” to the Prince or under his control remains to be seen. This does lead me to believe the metal might actually be a vampire hunter weapon or a pureblood ability rather than Kaname’s parent metal itself, unless the Vampire King has found a way to harness it for his own use. 

It’s also now clear that the Prince and his team are not interested in Zeki children--they are interested in Zero tissue. So the little girl’s smirk at the end of VKM 15 had nothing to do with Yuuki’s confession and everything to do with her knowledge that they’d obtained what they’d come for--the vial of Zero’s tissue. I’m pleased to see that there was a vial that was obtained, though how exactly I’m not sure. I’d say likely it was via the Kaname parent-metal-lookalike, since the Prince gives the vial to the mad scientist (who didn’t know about it) and the little girl comes in right after, which means it didn’t come from her either. Likely whoever or whatever was controlling the parent metal lookalike also grabbed the vial. So we know that either we’re working with a pureblood Prince or we’re working with someone who has the ability to manipulate that parent metal thing. 

What We Don’t Know About The Prince’s Group

Unfortunately, as with anything Hino, the more answers we get, the more questions arise. Let’s start with the little girl. Is she a human? Is she a vampire? Was she the one controlling the parent metal thing, or was that a separate person? Who is her father? Is the woman serving her a vampire or a human?

Who is the Prince? The little girl wants him to stay home with her--is he a family member, or is he a migrant they’ve picked up? Is he a homeless person or someone in hiding? (We know two potential suspects who fit this bill to a T--Kaito would be in hiding, and Takuma is so homeless he hangs out by the Kanacube all day.) The Prince is clearly of high enough standing to be admired by the little girl and served by her family, so he at the very least has to be a Level C vampire if they’re humans, and higher in rank if they’re vampires. I’m not sure Kaito fits the bill for this one, but he might if he’d rescued the little girl and was her savior. 

Who was controlling the Kaname parent metal thing? If it actually is Kaname assisting this Prince’s group, that means the Kaname-metal is in agreement with the Prince’s goals, which have something to do with Zero. If it’s someone manipulating the metal itself or the Kaname metal working with a person, the only real option for the Vampire King is Takuma. If it’s a pureblood ability, it could just be a pureblood assisting the Prince, or the Prince could be the pureblood assisting the Vampire King with his ability. If it’s a hunter weapon, we’re clearly dealing with Kaito or Kaien. Either way, we still have no answers about what on earth went down with the metal in VKM 14 or how that’s connected to this group or the Vampire King.

More Hints Toward The Zero Cure Or Zero Weapons

I must confess to feeling a bit of smug satisfaction that the only bit of tissue the Prince thought worthy of preserving was the fresh Zero sample. So much for their big ol’ “coverup” operation. I knew the line about Zero being the cornerstone of a new era was hogwash if this mad scientist was only interested in dissecting things for regular vampiric purposes. He’s Aidou’s rival, and the only way to properly rival someone is to have better research and “beat” them. Which means this scientist needs to find the cure before Aidou does. 

I’m now of the opinion that the theatrics the mad scientist showed off in VKM 15 were merely that--theatrics. He seems much more composed and grounded in VKM 16, even if he’s still a bit of a ham. 

I don’t see too many options for his actual research other than something Zero-related--it’s not like purebloods need their lives extended (so life extensions certainly aren’t what he’s working toward), and if he was trying to extend the lives of nobles or lower, he’d be using a pureblood’s blood. Even if he was taking the tactic of trying to turn all humans into vampires, purebloods would be better targets than a random hunter/vampire mix. So I’m of the opinion that he was mostly spouting nonsense at Zero and is actually after the Zero cure itself. The only problem with the cure bit is why he would need to take down vigilante vampires for his research if it’s just the cure. If the cure is his goal, then I would say he was lying about killing the vampires too--possibly that was all a set up to throw Zero off the scent in case things went down badly. (If that’s true, whoever this Vampire King mastermind is, he’s way way way better at chess than Kaname, lol.)

The other option I can see for the mad scientist’s research is that he’s trying to make a better weapon than what the forge offers, which seems rather counterproductive for a vampire to do to other vampires. However, that would explain why it’s necessary for him to harvest the organs of vampires--Kaname himself did his experiments that way (though he used his own tissue). But if Takuma is the mastermind here, this method would work as an alternative to Aidou’s cure and it would also solve the “Zero problem” in a way that neither Yuuki nor Kaname could argue with (in Takuma’s opinion). Takuma would have known that Kaname was interested in Zero as a weapon for sure (I’m still not entirely certain Takuma cottoned on to why Zero was special--only that Zero was special), and thus using Zero for weapons rather than Kaname would allow Takuma to sacrifice Zero and bring Kaname back without sacrificing Kaname’s goal/purpose. 

Ultimately, I don’t care if the Vampire King or the Prince or Takuma want Zero for a cure or to create a weapon to replace Kaname and rescue him from the forge while removing Zero as a “threat” to Kaname’s monopoly over Yuuki--the result narratively is the same: it’ll force Yuuki to have to step in and start making some hard choices, and it’ll give Zero some serious temptation and a dilemma to work through. 

But sadly, that’s all we have to work with today. Time to move on to the less interesting parts of the chapter.

Zero - Dilemma & Decision

Before I begin this slog, I just want to preface this with my relief that Zero’s bizarre descent into cutesy gabbiness and virginal blushing in VKM 15 was merely a fluke due to the dangerous situation and not a permanent shift in character for no reason. He’s back in good form this chapter, and is a welcome sight to see again. He’s still not quite where I want him to be narratively, but I feel we’ve made some significant steps in the right direction, and I’m optimistic that the next two chapters will start taking us toward a better destination. 

For now, I’m going to split Zero’s section into three parts, because they really do have to be dealt with separately. 

Maintaining The Status Quo

My greatest fear last chapter was that Zero would jump on Yuuki’s offer, especially given all the blushing and flustered emphasis Hino was putting on the scene. I rely heavily on Zero’s moral compass in this story, because as far as I can tell he (and Ai, thanks to him) is the only one who even has a moral compass. He’s already in the doghouse for VKM 13 and I was not okay with the idea of him taking advantage of what is clearly sheer stupidity on Yuuki’s part out of desperation. 

Therefore, I was quite pleased with how Hino handled the aftermath of Yuuki’s disastrous proposition. It’s scary how good my instincts are when it comes to this character though, haha. My spidey senses are always on point with him. ;)

Just to recap on my issues from the previous chapter for those who’ve forgotten or didn’t read the last post:

I posited that Zero was not acting tsundere with Yuuki here, but rather that he was wary she wouldn’t be able to deliver on her declaration.

I was concerned that Zero would give in to temptation and not act wisely in response to what is clearly stupidity on Yuuki’s part.

As expected, the first point played out almost to a T the way I’d theorized, and thanks to that the second was put on hold for a time. That being said, oh boy, there is a lot of subtext for Zero in this scene, and most of it is not looking promising for a hot night under the sheets any time soon. 

First up, Zero’s initial reaction to Yuuki’s declaration is expanded on a bit--clearly he was surprised and flustered by her implication. He’s also embarrassed, which would be cute outside of the context. Unfortunately, I think his embarrassment here is more about his own reaction and how he’s losing his cool about it rather than how happy he is. His expression when he talks about his surprise is wistful rather than joyful--he’s clearly wishing he could take her seriously. And then she blows it with her response by going along with his line and trivializing what she just said, which confirms for him his suspicions and ruins the moment for him. 

What follows is definitely dark. Zero’s expression changes from wistful to downright devastated. Seriously just behold these two expressions and tell me this is “joy”:

That expression on the right is mindboggling for a man who just received good news. He looks like someone killed his cat. You could argue that the expression on the left is serious due to the topic--they’re discussing the potential of the Prince and VKing’s organizations for being separate, but the expression on the right has nothing to do with anything serious; all Yuuki’s doing is scolding him about something that ultimately never mattered. 

What we see in this second half of the scene is evidence of what is really going on in Zero’s head after hearing Yuuki’s little declaration--he’s not at all happy with how things are going or how she’s reacted to her own words. We can see evidence of downright despondency and melancholy forming here--honestly, his expression on the right is very Kaname-esque. Meanwhile Yuuki’s cheerfully ignoring his distress and--worse--she even tries to pretend she doesn’t hear him when he attempts to address the issue. She cuts him off and tries to avoid him. 

What’s worse I think is that even though she’s the one who should be apologizing to him for throwing this out there on a whim and hurting his feelings for no reason, he’s the one who reaches out to her and reassures her that he knows she didn’t mean anything by it and that he knows she wasn’t serious. Just unpack that for a minute. This woman not seven chapters ago asked this man to “date” her officially and then not four chapters ago asked him to sleep with her, and yet he still doesn’t believe she intends to move their relationship forward. That’s the height of pathetic, tbh. He’s clearly lost all hope that they’ll ever move out of this stagnation and it doesn’t even cross his mind to even try to see if she’s serious; he just immediately writes her comment off and tries to keep her from avoiding him over it.

Yuuki’s response to this does seem to surprise him a bit and to ease a bit of his frustration with her. But it’s clear from his expressions following her request that he’s already given serious thought to this topic and already knows his own answer. And damnit, Hino, you just had to use the “closed eyes with a smile” thing to act like that’s his real smile of joy and like hell that variant of it is. Don’t think you’ve fooled this reader--I’m not fooled by either of Zero’s bullshit eyeclose smiles this chapter. I know my boy, and neither of those smiles are from the heart. They’re both reassurance smiles.

What I do find interesting in this scene is that it’s brought Zero’s vivid inner life back which I’d been concerned Hino had forgotten about in VKM 15. We can see that Zero’s still going through a lot of inner turmoil, and much of the VKM 9/10/12/13/14 themes return here. What’s ultimately frustrating is how resigned Zero seems to be to this status quo between him and Yuuki, and how little motivation he has to move it forward. Though hopefully the later scenes in this chapter are indications that he’s decided to move forward himself finally. 

A last note on this scene--I was quite happy to see Zero getting frustrated/angry with Yuuki here. All those filters he’s kept up for her all these years are starting to fail him in the aftermath of VKM 13, and he’s not going to be able to play the VKM 9 game anymore. I’m looking forward to the whole sham falling apart, hopefully soon. Then we can finally see the real Zero emerge and be himself again.

The Decision

Oh Graveyard Scene, How I Love Thee. Seriously, the graveyard scene is the best Zero scene yet in all of VKM. It doesn’t have a ridiculous appearance by fragment!Ichiru nor does it have Zero clinging to Ichiru’s grave like a puppy either--it’s a legitimate grave visit where a decision is clearly being made. And UGH! The staging! Is! Perfect! I cannot believe how well the subtext is conveyed via nontextual panels. But first, I’ll have to break down the two potential interpretations for this scene and then explain why I’m leaning toward one rather than the other.

So there are two possible directions Zero’s graveyard decision will go, and without VKM 17 and beyond there’s not enough evidence to say for certain. The two routes are as follows:

Route 1: Zero decides to give it a try - This route is more evident if you take the final scene of the chapter into consideration rather than from the graveyard scene itself. We can see Zero is brooding over something incredibly serious at the graveyard. When Maria comes upon him, she asks if he’s concerned about the Prince’s group. Zero’s answer tells us that, whatever he’s been thinking about, work isn’t the crux of the issue. The only other option at the moment is his relationship with Yuuki and her declaration. The only hint we get about what decision he’s come to regarding this is his vague “Is it okay?” line. “Is it okay?” can mean a whole host of things, but taken with the kiss at the end of the chapter, it could potentially mean that he’s asking Ichiru if it’s okay to finally take a step forward and try going for a real relationship with Yuuki by increasing their intimacy or he’s merely asking himself if it’s okay to finally take that step forward. In this scenario, the decision Zero has likely come to is that this is the last chance for Yuuki and him--if, after this, Yuuki can’t move forward, Zero will have to walk away. Thus his question here is likely to Ichiru and asking Ichiru if it’s okay for him to try this even if it will fail, thus making it impossible for Zero to fulfill Ichiru’s wish for him. This can be further supported by Zero’s reaction to Maria, where he is relieved that even if he fails with Yuuki, Maria’s still around to carry on Ichiru’s final wish to “live on and accomplish the goal.”

Route 2: Zero decides this is the end - Zero has a specific MO in the original series--when he’s about to make a drastic decision, he impulsively does something romantic to Yuuki. Usually the “drastic decision” involves potentially dying or leaving her in some way. We see this several times in the original series--when he’s going to confront Shizuka, he holds Yuuki’s hand and tells her she was the reason he was able to live on. When they part in Night 46, he kisses her and abandons her. In Night 87, he seduces her and kisses her only to send them back to status quo immediately after. I’ll get into Zero’s kiss at the end of VKM 16 more when I get to that section later on, but any time Zero suddenly attempts intimacy is a time to be suspicious as a reader, especially if there hasn’t been proper build up to it (which there was not in VKM 16′s last scene, which I’ll demonstrate in that section). On top of this little fact about Zero, we have the subtext lurking in the graveyard scene. It is a melancholy scene. The staging is melancholy, the shots are melancholy, the screentones are melancholy. Remember, this Zero (VKM’s Zero) already knows Ichiru exists inside him--there’s no real reason to be brooding at Ichiru’s grave when he has Ichiru’s fragment; this was already resolved back in Night 59. Yet Zero is clearly brooding here. Why would he be brooding when he’s contemplating moving his life forward with the woman he loves? That’s a really weird thing to brood about. Even if you were sad that Ichiru wouldn’t be there to celebrate your happiness with you, the sheer amount of weight and heaviness Hino gives to these panels doesn’t match with that being Zero’s only issue. I would suggest given all of this that the graveyard scene is actually Zero coming to a decision to end his relationship with Yuuki in some way, and that he’s silently asking Ichiru for forgiveness and permission to not fulfill Ichiru’s last wish. In this scenario, the “Is it okay?” line is about Zero asking Ichiru if it’s okay for him to not fulfill Ichiru’s wish, because he tried his hardest and it just isn’t working. 

Obviously, given how much I wrote above, I’m personally leaning toward Route #2 as the route Zero’s going to take coming up here in the future. I have a few reasons for that:

Maria asks Zero if he’s bothered about the Prince’s group, and the panel of Zero shades him in the melancholy screentone and he hesitates when agreeing that that “too” is something that bothers him. This could potentially be an indication that he knows something more about the Prince’s group--or is intending to do something more about the Prince’s group--than he’s letting Yuuki or anyone else know about. Potentially Zero’s about to do something life-threatening, like face the Prince entirely. Potentially Zero himself has received some kind of letter or invitation asking him to come alone. We have no idea how much time has passed between this scene and VKM 15′s events--enough time at least for results from the investigation to come back to Yuuki. 

Zero has a very bizarre reaction to Maria bringing up Ichiru’s last words (I don’t think she knows they’re Ichiru’s last words, it’s just that they’re eerily similar to what Ichiru said). Hino highlights his eye widening when Maria says this. Now, if he’s going to try to fulfill Ichiru’s wish a la Route #1 by moving forward with Yuuki, there’s no reason for him to have this kind of reaction to Maria--instead he’d just smile, like he does a panel later. But if he was intending not to fulfill Ichiru’s words, if he was intending to sacrifice himself or leave Yuuki because the relationship had failed, then Maria suddenly saying something reminiscent of Ichiru’s last words would shock Zero momentarily because it would be almost like a reproach--he’s running away from his duty. 

Zero seems comforted by Maria “taking on” the burden of Ichiru’s last wish, and his final line is wistful--why would he be wistful about the idea of someone carrying on his legacy if his plan was to knock Yuuki up per her request? His conversation with Maria seems to imply that he’s hoping Maria will carry on Ichiru’s legacy, and that Ichiru’s lucky he has someone who can (because presumably Zero isn’t going to be doing that for Ichiru or having someone carry on Zero’s legacy). 

What I see in this scene isn’t a man contemplating his potential for a happy future with the woman he loves. I see a man contemplating how his relationship has hit the end of the line and--whether due to throwing himself into work and potentially dying or merely using all of that as an excuse to end things with Yuuki--deciding that the relationship is never going to be anything more than it is and that it’s time to let it go. 

Now, obviously he doesn’t do anything like break up with Yuuki in this chapter, and I don’t think that’s his intention. We know from VKM 15 that he’s very concerned about her PTSD due to abandonment. Whatever he’s planning, he’s going to do it in a way that (he hopes) won’t trigger the PTSD. But I do believe the graveyard scene is him making a decision that they’ve reached the end of the line--and whether he’s going to at least try one last time or not, this is the end of this phase of their relationship. 

The Fissure

The final Zeki scene is rage-inducing, I swear. If I wasn’t still ticked at Zero about VKM 13, I’d be raging right now. As it is, I’m still pretty unhappy with the stunt Yuuki pulls on him in this scene, though I’m pleased with what I see coming from him.

Yuuki just cuts him and cuts him and cuts him without a care in the world in this scene. First, she jokes about how she’s “happy” that “someone” cares about his safety--digging up an issue that’s been lurking in the background since Zero’s reaction to Aidou’s concern for his wellbeing in VKM 12--that no one cares about Zero’s wellbeing. Then she compounds this by saying Maria cares about the things Zero cares about--meaning Yuuki doesn’t. Worse, she then freaking offers Maria to Zero! 

Zero rightfully gets pissed and makes it very clear that he thinks Yuuki’s attitude about this is insulting. I loved his retort to her--derisively asking if the reason she’s stayed by his side is only to say he should go find someone else. His frustration with their relationship and with being unvalued, unloved, and unwanted is really starting to show at last and it’s great to see. Even better is how he responds to Yuuki’s preposterous attempt at self-pity--he stonewalls her entirely and instead responds with a vague line about how his happiness has increased “tenfold.” Tenfold! What a ridiculous thing to say after your girlfriend has just told you to go date another girl! Worse, he’s not even looking at Yuuki when he says this, which is not how Zero operates when he’s being honest about his feelings (see VKM 1′s confession for the difference, and even in that one he was filtering for her). This is a classic move when you’re lying. It’s all clearly a load of bull, and Yuuki questions it. Zero then gives the second bullshit fake smile of the chapter and affirms he’s happy. 

So what the hell is going on here and how does it all fit in with my theory from the previous subsection that Zero intends to put an end to this? Well first of all, we have to keep in mind a few things Zero does in this scene which he hasn’t done since Night 89. First is that he stops putting up with Yuuki’s bullshit and starts mocking her. This is something he hasn’t done since they were equals and he wasn’t desperately waiting for her to deign to sleep with him. So something big has changed here, and it wasn’t Yuuki’s declaration because in the first scene of the chapter he was still playing the VKM 9 game. The change happens after the graveyard scene, not the first scene. 

Second, he questions her reason for staying by his side. This is another “what am I to you” question. He wants clarity on why she’s sticking to him if she just wants to throw him at other women. When Yuuki’s response is to descend into self-pity, he doesn’t indulge her anymore--instead he cuts her off and stops the pity fest. 

But still, his happiness line, even if it’s a lie, can be read as reassuring her of his love. But is it really? In light of the fact that it’s complete bollocks, I would say this line is less about Zero’s happiness and more about him closing up loose ends. This is the happiest he’ll ever be in his life--if he’s about to sacrifice himself in pursuit of the Vampire King, or if he’s intending to switch his focus to bringing Kaname back, or if he’s intending to find a way to end the Zeki relationship without activating Yuuki’s PTSD, then this is the best he can offer her without raising her suspicions. It’s not like a sudden love confession would be appropriate here; she might cotton on to whatever it is he’s about to do. He’s trying to communicate something to her here, but at the same time he’s not indulging her self-pity fests anymore--none of that implies he’s intending to move forward with her or stay with her permanently.

A boyfriend who wanted to move his relationship forward with his insecure girlfriend would have listened to her pity fest and reassured her that he wasn’t interested in anyone but her (which is clearly what she was hoping he’d do). But he doesn’t do any of that. If he’s not going to play the game with her anymore (the game they’ve played together for 70+ years), then something is over even if he’s not making it explicit yet. What that is, I don’t know. It could be anything at this point. I just know his reaction doesn’t seem at all positive for a Big Romantic Move, despite the kiss at the end (more on that in the final section). 

Yuuki - Deflection & Avoidance

I really don’t want to spend too much time on this person. She’s infuriating this chapter, and I’d rather dwell on the more positive things. Still, I’m grateful Hino confirmed for me that I’ve been correct in my interpretation of this character--she is a complete mess who needs to get herself sorted ASAP. It’s a relief to see Hino at least knows Yuuki’s a mess, but the real question is whether she knows how to fix the mess or not. Time will tell there.

As expected, the reason Yuuki was shocked about her declaration to Zero in VKM 15 wasn’t because she wanted to bear his children and wanted to move their relationship forward. She’s shocked by the realization that her declaration means she’ll have to be the one to bear his children, and she didn’t mean that at all. Worse, she tries to run away from owning the consequences of her request and basically forces Zero to placate her, which pisses me off to no end. 

Then she tries to cover for herself by paying some lip service to having a child with Zero being “special” and how she wants to consider it seriously, but we can tell by her reaction later in the chapter that this is complete hogwash. Honestly, I’ve never been so frustrated with a heroine in my life. She continually sinks lower than the low bar I set for her. It’s just not even amusing anymore. 

But we do have to address the final scene. Rather than giving serious thought to what she said about having a child with Zero, Yuuki’s first instinct is to shove Zero off on to some other girl. This shows quite clearly that she hasn’t given any serious thought to the situation at all. I mean honestly, Zero’s reaction is mild compared to what it should have been. One little snide comment is way nicer than Yuuki’s behavior deserves. She’s too busy pitying herself to see what he’s going through or to care about anything outside of her own insular wound-licking. 

Honestly, when she asked if Zero was really all right with her, I wanted to scream. The answer is clearly no. You are a shit girlfriend, a shit friend, and a shit person! Why Zero puts up with you I cannot remotely comprehend at this point, you offer literally nothing in the relationship and he does all the heavy lifting. For Pete’s sake. I really hope Hino moves Yuuki out of this pity party stage ASAP because the time for this is long over. Yuuki’s been feeling sorry for herself ever since Night 89 and at this point it’s not cute or understandable or precious at all. At some point you have to buck up and take control of your life no matter how many bad choices you’ve made or how many Twu Wubus you’ve lost. 

Well, the less said about this, the better. 

The Poem

I don’t have much to say about the poem, honestly, because there isn’t much context and I know Japanese poetry is tricky in general, so I’m not sure how reliable any of the translations are just due to the difficulty of poetic language in general. 

As far as I can tell, though, the poem is infuriating. It seems Yuuki’s under some bizarre assumption that she and Zero made a pact to lock their feelings for each other up and “entrust” them to the future, where they’ll “maybe” bloom into something. This is absolutely insane considering Zero’s trajectory throughout VKM and what he verbally says to Yuuki multiple times throughout the chapters. Yuuki has to be absolutely insane in order to believe that Zero ever agreed to lock up his feelings. VKM 5 is definitely not Zero locking up his feelings, nor are VKM 3 or 9 when he tries to talk to her about love. I have no idea how she got this idea into her head, but it’s frustrating as hell and I can’t wait to see it dispelled and the scales to fall from her eyes. 

The other infuriating thing about this is that Yuuki used Ai as an excuse not to move forward with Zero or address the problems between them. Given the state Ai’s in because of this, that was a shit move on Yuuki’s part. 

Ai - Burden & Forbearance

The Ai scene hurts me in so many ways that I wanted to throttle Yuuki when I read it. I’m so, so, so angry about what Yuuki has done to her daughter I don’t even have the words for it. Where do I even begin with this. 

This child, this precious bean, has suffered an unrequited love for over 50 years. An unrequited love that, by the way, her mother is completely aware of. This precious bean puts herself to sleep because she is tired after only 50 years of life. Talk about the archetype of the devouring mother--Yuuki has stolen her daughter’s whole future from her simply because she can’t figure her shit out with Zero. Ai cannot move on until Yuuki does. 

Worse, Yuuki’s sitting there next to her daughter who is clearly in pain to the point of putting herself to sleep to escape it and she has the nerve to ask Ai if it’s okay if she pretends Ai’s happy. The child is in pureblood stasis sleep which purebloods only do to stave off complete and utter misery. How the hell would you be able to think your precious daughter is happy in such a situation?!

Worse, worse, precious Ai wakes up and reassures her mother with a fatass lie. The child has to parent the mother. Being a Cancer zodiac sign, this makes me rage. 

On top of all this! Ai tells her mother that she’s happy but she’d be happier of her mother was happy too. Rather than telling Ai she’s happy, Yuuki just goes “oh, I see.” She doesn’t even reassure her daughter in return. Even if you want to argue that Yuuki’s spent 70 years boo hooing over her twu wubu being an ice cube, this is utterly ridiculous. Yuuki should at the very least be able to tell her daughter she’s happy. Instead, we have Ai lying to reassure her mother, and her mother not even trying to return the favor. 

The whole scene is infuriating, and that leads us into the last bit before hopefully VKM 17 will save us from all of this nonsense. 

Zeki - Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

Before the Ai scene, we get something interesting from Zero and Yuuki--both of them lie to each other about their happiness. Zero says he’s happy, and Yuuki says she is too. Their body language, however, and the paneling and screentones used for them are clear indications that neither of them is telling the truth. The lies have reached the end of the line and neither of them will be able to keep them going anymore.

What’s interesting here is that Yuuki can lie to Zero but not to Ai. She doesn’t reassure Ai that she’s happy--she is truthful with Ai. With Zero, however, she does lie. And likely she lies because she senses the truth--that he’s slipping from her and she’s losing her grip on him. With Ai she doesn’t need to worry about that--Ai belongs to her by blood and can’t leave her. But Zero can and is starting to show signs that he just might. 

So then we come at last to the big scene of the chapter--the kiss. I will say upfront that this is the best kiss we’ve had since Night 87. It’s a beautiful kiss, well-drawn, and the lead up to it is perfect. There are two possible interpretations for the kiss, and they align with the two routes I mentioned above in the Zero section. At this point, both are valid:

Route #1: Testing the waters - If Route #1 is the way Hino’s going with Zero, then this scene is fairly simple--Zero is testing the waters to see if Yuuki’s finally ready to try moving forward with him. 

Route #2: Saying farewell - If Route #2 is the way we’re going, Zero is seeing how much he can get out of his last kiss with Yuuki because he has nothing to lose anymore. He doesn’t have to worry about her VKM 5 rejections anymore. He’s back in a Night 46 position. 

My personal take on this scene is that Route #2 is the way we’re going, and the reason I say this is because, much like with Kaname and Yuuki in Night 89, the context for the kiss in VKM 16 isn’t conducive to a romantic moment. Hino breaks it up a bit with Yuuki’s flashback, but if you remove the flashback you get this order of events:

Yuuki tells Zero to go find someone else.

Zero asks her if that’s the reason why she’s stayed with him.

Yuuki asks if things are really all right with her.

Zero doesn’t respond and instead says he’s happier than ever.

Yuuki asks if he’s happy.

Zero lies and says he is.

Yuuki lies and says she is too.

Zero kisses Yuuki. 

That is the context that leads up to the kiss. These two characters both mutually lied to each other (and know they mutually lied to each other) right on the heels of Yuuki telling Zero to find someone else. In essence, the answer to “thinking seriously” about having children together is: “Nope, not happening.” That’s not exactly the best lead up to a kiss. 

So I personally would rather have the kiss be a farewell kiss than a trial kiss because a trial kiss indicates Zero’s desperate and is pushing things, which is antithetical to his reaction to Yuuki throughout the earlier parts of the chapter. 

A final, major problem I have with the kiss is this: If Yuuki’s been capable of kissing Zero all along, why the hell has she been holding out even basic intimacy like this from him? I’m not saying she should sleep with him, but she could have at least given him some form of physical affection throughout the 70 years, even if they both mutually agreed to stop before anything erotic began. This has to be addressed because now PTSD is no longer an excuse for her.

It’s interesting that all her excuses (and the excuses fans give for her behavior) are being stripped away by the narrative. Makes me more hopeful we’ll get a legitimate atonement arc in the future. 

What The Future Brings

All that’s left now is for what’s coming next. It really depends on what direction Hino’s going to go with Zero. Yuuki mentioned this chapter that he has work right after this, which means he’ll be heading out for “work” after having kissed her. I suspect what we’ll get (assuming we pick up right here in VKM 17) is Zero pursuing the VKing leads he has while Yuuki’s on cloud nine at home thinking about the kiss. 

My personal speculation right now is that one of two things is going to happen over the course of VKM 17-18:

Zero is going to leave Yuuki at the end of VKM 18 for some reason.

Zero is going to find out something serious at the end of VKM 18 that’s going to change his relationship with Yuuki regardless of his intentions in VKM 16.

I think this is the end of this “phase” of the Zeki relationship. We’re about to enter a new phase, and the end of Volume 4 seems a great place for it. If Hino follows the classic Zeki pattern, any time she gives us something “good,” it’s right before all hell breaks loose. And honestly, this time I’m quite ready for hell to break loose. It’s been a long time coming. 

Until next time!

[miannedomusings]

SINGULARITY: Bittersweet and Sexy

SINGULARITY EXPLORED: Masterpost | First Impressions | Lyrics 1 | Lyrics 2 | Bittersweet and Sexy

A/N:This is the longest of my Singularity posts but also probably the most interesting one.

I could ramble on and on about what I like about this song musically. Given that I don’t really “understand” music, it wouldn’t make sense to you, and it wouldn’t make sense to me, but by-golly would I ever run out breath trying to find the right words to describe the things that I like about this song. Now that being said, I do think this song is best when listened to with the video and the lyrics. It's a good song - I like its musical flavour - but I do think that the lyrics and video elevate it to something better than it is on its own.

So, foregoing the convoluted attempt I could make at describing this song as if I understand anything about music or music production on a technical level, I’m going to talk about this song and how its three parts (music, lyrics, and video) complement and contrast each other. Now, full disclosure, I’m going to be talking about this song in isolation and this isn’t going to be some heavily researched analysis where I reveal all the potential literary and cinematic allusions that are probably hidden in the lyrics and visuals. I’m talking about this song all on its lonesome! Just whatever this song made me think of up front... and there's a lot. In fact, that's one of the things that makes this such a strong video to me. I think that a full and interesting interpretation can be made for this song and video without having heard or seen anything else by this group or any of the stuff it maybe references.

One of the things that I really like about listening to music in a language that I don’t speak, is that I get to choose if and when I want to engage with the lyrics. For me, I care way more about the music than the lyrics. So not surprisingly, my first encounter (and the second and possibly the third) involved no lyrics at all. And I’m so glad I did that. I think that all three elements of this work together very well, but I also thing that what makes them such an interesting final product is that I wouldn’t necessarily predict this video based off of the music, and I definitely wouldn’t predict these lyrics, and yet they fit together very nicely. I think most people who have listened or watched this video would agree that this song pairs well with a bottle of wine and some mood lighting – by that of course I mean that it’s a fucking sexy song. Part of that comes from the pacing (this song takes its time), the low reverberating base, and V’s velvety voice. All of which create a very purposeful and intense momentum that carry you through the song until you jarringly reach the end and you’re forced to wake up out of the trance it lulled you into. And then of course there’s the jazz and R&B elements of the music, and a whole-lot-a smolder...

This song makes quite the impression. And if you watch almost any reaction video online you’ll see that just about everyone winds up in the same place:

(BRISxLIFE)

(RobertIDK)

But, given this first impression, the lyrics are really something surprising. The day after this song came out I read the lyrics separate from the music and video, and I was struck by how different they were on their own. It’s easy to interpret the music and video as being dark, the word “haunting” gets thrown around a lot for this trailer and I agree with that evaluation. But what first came off as dark and sultry, when the lyrics get added in, feels dark and destructive. Some noteworthy lines include “Have I lost myself/ Or have I gained you” and, “I dumped myself into the lake / I buried my voice for you… A thick ice has formed…There’s my face in it/ Please don’t say anything” – that’s some dark shit! ...Honestly the urge was there just to quote the whole thing…

Clearly this is a song about changing yourself for someone else. Given the choreography and how this song oozes sex (pardon the visual), I’m going to talk about this as if it’s specifically change for a romantic someone. It tells a story of someone who has buried parts of themselves in order to complement the other person better, but spring is coming, the ice is cracking, and their truth won’t be able to remain buried once the ice thaws. Having the lyrics in the back of my mind and watching the video again I remember being so confused by some of V’s acting. I couldn’t help but think – why is he smiling so much? Is he flirting with the camera right now? Lyrically, there is nothing to smile about. At best, one could say that when he says “Have I gained you” he’s expressing the positives of love, but even that – it’s a question, and the alternative is a bleak loss of self. 

And yet, in the video they pair a line like “My agonizing phantom pain is still the same” with a cheeky smirk and raised eye-brows.

And this brings us to where I think the different elements of the song really come together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. Because of course, if the masks he put on in order to be with this person are awful in every way, he wouldn't have done it. The lyrics, the seductive music, and the opening dance sequence of the video, tie all of the pain and torment with longing, needing, and wanting. That smirk when talking about phantom pain says there’s something delicious about it.

In the opening shot, you see V dancing with a coat wrack. At first there’s the obvious metaphor for his relationship with this lover being a fantasy; it’s not real, it’s hollow, there’s no substance to their love, etc. This is also mirrored in the sparse sets. Overall the video has a very minimalist feel to it, with lots of cold concrete and harsh neon lights. It's possible this is meant to show the emptiness of the dream he's living in, or how he's reduced himself for this lover...

This is especially interesting given that the busiest shots in the video, appear to be occurring in "spring" after the ice has melted and his buried self has returned. And maybe this was just an aesthetic choice, but given that spring means the death of his fantasy and this relationship, it's a nice touch that in the spring shots V's wearing all black as if in mourning.

I really love all the ways this video plays with the theme of falsehoods and fantasies. It's all over the place – the fake dance partner, the masks that surround V, the backwards roles of winter and spring, I think even the other dancers may be there to represent the different versions of himself. I mean, BTS has had their other comeback trailers feature only a single member, so why in a song called Singularity did they choose to call in the troops? There's a lot of ways to think about the title of this song. We've got the imagery that he is one with his lover (sharing an arm in the opening dance), but also that his relationship is just a fantasy and in reality it's only him. There's the idea of removing parts of yourself, but ultimately becoming your whole self again in the end. And also the inevitability that with the return of his "voice" he will certainly lose his lover and be alone. ...But back to that opening dance. So you see V being caressed by some disembodied arm, and then (maybe it takes more than one go through the video) you see that the arm that's caressing him is actually his own. This visual fits so with the idea that there is something fake about the love they have. And it's more than just a neat choreography gimmick, the idea hat it’s his own arm filling his partner’s sleeve also plays into the idea of phantom pain and losing himself to gain someone else. A piece of him has literally been replaced by them: he has lost his arm and gained theirs. But it's just an illusion (literally so for the viewer). The dissonance between his dream and his cruel reality is expressed really well in the video. When you watch the opening sequence there's clearly a lot of conflict – he accepts the touch of his lover but then pushes it away. The desire and want in his face and body language is exceptionally clear, but he keeps rejecting the loving arm.

He knows it’s not real, and he knows that it’s something artificial that he created and can’t possibly maintain. But the idea of it is so sweet.  The pain he’s created by removing pieces of himself to fit better with someone else are agonizing, yes, but also exactly what he wants. The contradictory nature of his feelings are all over this song. It's in the starting and stopping of the music, in the sections of fast-paced dance over a slow beat, the confusion that can be read in the lyrics, and throughout the visuals. As sweet as his fantasy is he can't remain in the dream any longer now that the ice is cracking... Independently, the music of this song sounds dark and seductive. The video carries on the sultry vibes, but adds a little more longing to the mix with the cold sets and the absence of a partner with any substance. The video certainly suggests that there is fantasy here, but maybe this song is more of an invitation for a partner to join him - I mean just look at the way he flirts with the camera! The lyrics on the other hand tell a dark story, where dark no longer means 'tall, dark, and handsome', but instead makes you want to turn on the lights and check over your shoulder. They're full of fear and desperation. It is only when the three components of the trailer come together that you get the full story. The lyrics ground the visuals and the music; they bring your attention to the cold concrete and the deep baseline. The visuals and the music dress up the pain in fantasy and desire.The way that this trailer ties everything together is what makes it my favourite BTS music video so far. There are plenty of videos that are visually stunning and that carry on interesting plot lines (here's looking at you Blood, Sweat, and Tears), but Singularity presents a cohesive and interesting final product that sticks with me much more. It's minimal, but striking, and all the little subtleties tell you there's more going on here than you first think.  

Since writing this, I’ve noticed some really cool ways the music ties into this narrative thanks to some of the things a music producer (Joey Nato) had to say about it. So I’m just going to tack those thoughts on here. Now because I’m referencing musicy things that I don’t know how to describe, I’ll link to moments in the m/v as I go.

The first thought is a simple one, it’s the sound used to make that lovely little plucked melody that interrupts the sparse chord and beat sequence. From what I’m told it’s a distorted harp sound, and as Joey describes it, they way they’ve distorted it transforms it from something elegant to something edgy. This fits in beautifully with the twisted fantasy the song is describing. Love should be lovely, but there’s something about this love that has an edge, that points to the reality beneath the mask. 

A more interesting element in the music are those fat chords that take up a lot of space in the track - the ones that sit at the bottom of the scene and spread outwards like fog rolling over a landscape. They make the song feel cozy. They envelop the space you’re in, and feel comfortable. But when they are then played with the wah-wah effect on them it feels like they’re coming in and out of focus (by wah-wah, I mean the way the sound wobbles). The fog that reminded me more of clouds and plushness now feels more like haze. This is an awesome way to express the comfort of the illusion that the protagonist experiences behind their mask, but also that it’s conflicting and it isn’t clear what’s real anymore. Something’s a little off. 

Another element used is the unpredictability of the music. While drifting along in our comfortable haze, the song introduces shocks. This is done with the sharp sound of the rim shots on the snare drum and the moments where the music is abruptly halted with the sharp jab of a chord that is followed by absolute silence. The jolt created by the chords is even more jarring thanks to how unpredictable the song is - you expect a nice soft wavy chord to cushion you on the next beat and instead you get a chord that strikes and then leaves you float alone in the void.

This is, I think, a big contributor to the unease that this song brings out. Overall, I think it’s easy to ignore the edge the song has, take it as a moody, but ultimately smooth and sensual song. But there is an edge. It’s in the distorted harps and the shocks of silence. It feels like they’ve captured those moments of doubt, when reality catches up with you, and you’re suddenly forced to question your choices. But then as soon as it comes, the moment passes and you are lulled by new chords again, like the voice in your head that smooths over the cracks and reassures you. 

Even the bass that comes in to follow the silence in the pre-chorus reminds me of the hasty reassurances we give ourselves, shaking our heads in the hopes that the nagging doubts will fall out, and listing all the reasons the lie is actually the right thing to do. What a cool way to express how we lie to ourselves! And the way that the song ends abruptly and doesn’t give us that final comforting reintroduction of music. Nice.

In my initial analysis of this song I certainly picked up on the dark moodiness of it, but it wasn’t until I considered the lyrics that the music took on a properly ominous edge. It’s really interesting now noticing these story telling details in the music too. 

SINGULARITY EXPLORED: Masterpost | First Impressions | Lyrics 1 | Lyrics 2 | Bittersweet and Sexy

MUSINGS MASTERLIST

[xheartpages]

@heartsaked​ asked: "ya know ya can stop giving me that suspicious look of yours. i'm telling ya the truth about your gift. there's nothing suspicious about it at all." he hates how he's already shrinking into himself at lucifer's gaze, but mammon supposes he can't necessarily blame lucifer either. with the amount of times that the second eldest of the brothers managed to get himself into some kind of trouble, lucifer was justified in thinking that something fishy was going on.

"i wasn't gonna be a complete cheapskate and not do somethin' nice for ya." cheeks are already dusted pink, arms crossed in front of his chest as he continues. did he really need to explain himself to him? not really. but the last thing he needed was for lucifer to be in a bad mood on his birthday. especially because of him.

the gift wasn't anything too elaborate, just a new pair of gloves and a tie. but upon closer inspection it was telling that the gift itself was on the pricey side. how mammon was able to afford it? he wasn't saying, but it was definitely not easy.

"i may cause ya a lot of headaches, but you're still my brother... so uhm... happy birthday. the rest of us have a special meal in place for ya." hopefully beelzebub didn't eat a majority of it already. "we thought we'd try to be a little less on your nerves today."

happy birthday lucifer! | june 6th

Maybe Lucifer shouldn’t of leveled his brother with such a suspicious look; it wasn’t as though Mammon was always plotting and messing up. But... he couldn’t help the fact that he always found himself tensing up whenever his younger brother approached him, especially when he approached him while he was still within his room.

He hummed slightly in response, letting Mammon’s words continue to wash over him as his eyes flickered down to the two gifts in question; thumb brushing over the fabric with interest. It definitely wasn’t something that he picked up at the last minute; he didn’t want to think about the possible costs. ( Or how Mammon was able to afford it. ) They were similar to ties and gloves that he already owned; the designs similar enough as though to ensure he would like it, but different enough so that it wouldn’t be a complete replica of things he already had.

.... Mammon had put in a fair amount of thought into the gift.

The curving of his lips was slow; Lucifer himself barely noticed when his neutral frown had shifted into something softer, something more... more happy. Truly, he wouldn’t of cared how expensive or inexpensive a gift was: if his brothers had even just scrambled up something that took them just a moment to think about and obtain he would of still heavily appreciated it.

Not like they ever needed to know that. Their motivation was already suspect even for things more important than his birthday.

“... Very well.” The elder brother shifted the gifts so the gloves were on top of the folded tie, small smile still playing on his lips as he turned to place them both down on the surface of his dresser; letting his touch linger for a moment before back away, turning back to the avatar of greed. “... Thank you, Mammon. I... Even if it was just your presence alone, it would of been enough for my birthday.”

The smile on his lips was small, soft, before he took a step towards his door, making his way out before they could linger on it. ( Not waiting for Mammon’s reaction to his rather... sappy choice of words. ) “Well? Come on-- I’d rather not keep everyone waiting.”

[shihalyfie]

The difference between the friend dynamics in the Adventure and 02 groups

This is a point I’ve reiterated in a lot of my 02-based metas, but there is a fairly distinct difference between the Adventure Chosen Children having a tight, deep bond and yet not quite being friends in “social life”, whereas the 02 group was a much tighter group on a social level. I always feel that I need to be really careful about saying this, because if I don’t word it carefully, it sounds like I’m trivializing the Adventure group’s bonds (plus, a lot of Adventure diehards will get very upset at you for suggesting this no matter how you put it), so I thought I should write something a bit more in-depth about it.

I think a lot of of this ultimately ties into what each series was about. The fact that Adventure was meant to be a series about “self-recognition of the individual” whereas 02 was about “relationships with others” has been pointed out by many a fan (and official staff too, while we’re at it), and it naturally lends to how the characters and the relationships between them will have a fundamental difference.

The idea that the Adventure group wouldn’t be the type to get together all that easily never really took that long after Adventure to set in. Of course, Our War Game! having this as a plot point also had a meta purpose (basically, limiting the number of people who could participate in the Diablomon battle), but it also has a very important point behind it: the Adventure kids’ social lives were never all that intertwined.

Again, this is something that sounds really awful to say without further qualification. What do you mean, the Adventure kids weren’t friends? Does that mean their entire adventure was for nothing? Did they go through all that only to forget about each other right after it?!

Well, no, that’s kind of exaggeration. I think to properly flesh out the nature of the issue, it’s important to define the differing ways you can be friends with someone. Imagine that you go on the best vacation in your life. You meet a handful of people there. You swap stories and get life-changing advice. You take commemorative photos after some really spectacular experiences. You swap numbers and social media contacts and then you go home. Are you going to keep in touch every so often with the people who gave you some very important advice, and maybe check on their important life events or organize a reunion sometime in the future? Very possibly! Does that mean everyone you met at that trip will now be regularly going out for lunch with you every week now?...Probably not, especially if you already have friends from school. That doesn’t mean you aren’t friends with the important people you met during that best life-changing vacation; it just means that they fill a very different niche in your life from the friends who don’t necessarily understand the life-changing vacation but have the free time to chat with you over lunch.

When the Adventure group found themselves pulled into the Digital World during summer camp, they had already come from very different social spheres. In short:

Taichi, Sora, and Koushirou were the only ones with a background of knowing each other beforehand, thanks to being in the soccer club;

Yamato went to the same school as the others but was a stranger to them, to the point people didn’t even realize Takeru was his brother at first;

Mimi had her own friend circle (see Adventure episode 29);

Jou was assigned as Mimi’s camp group leader but had no other prior relation to her, and Yamato didn’t even initially know his age;

Takeru wasn’t even supposed to be there since he didn’t go to their school and was only tagging along with Yamato;

Hikari was brought halfway into the adventure by virtue of being the eighth Chosen and Taichi’s sister.

Although six of the eight come from the same school, you can see that they’re basically “kids brought together by a certain circumstance” -- they’re not kids who would have normally come into each other’s purview had it not been for this. Which also means that as soon as their adventure ended and some years passed, the aspects of their real lives and social circles started kicking back in:

Taichi continued soccer;

Yamato formed a band (and presumably had a good relationship with his own bandmates);

Sora quit soccer for tennis;

Koushirou quit soccer for the computer club;

Mimi moved to the US;

Jou started attending a private school outside Odaiba;

Takeru and Hikari were never in their age group to begin with.

In the case of Taichi, Yamato, Sora, and Koushirou, it’s representative of how, although they originally had a shared interest in soccer, ultimately, they started to drift into their own specialties. Again, remember that Adventure was a series fundamentally about finding yourself and finding your own path, and all of these choices actually tie into their character arcs: Taichi is a straightforward person and a natural, charismatic leader, meaning soccer was good for him to begin with; Yamato learned to become more sociable and make friends at school; Sora started playing tennis as part of properly reconciling with her mother, and Koushirou decided to pursue a club relevant to his actual interests instead of one purely so that he could have minimal presence in it.

Mimi’s moving to the US is an interesting case because it’s likely because she’s often described (by both fans and official staff) as someone who is easily likeable and can get along with practically anyone. Considering that she’s constantly considerate of others and lacking in condescension or malice, it’s easy to see why; her infamous bouts of complaining were largely because she was under a lot of stress at the time of Adventure’s events (it’s even said that her cracking under pressure was meant to be representative of how an ordinary child her age would react to the situation), and otherwise she has no problems making friends -- hence why she was shown in Adventure episode 29 as already having friends in Taako and Mii-chan that she presumably hung out with prior to the events of the series. So in moving to the US, the point is made that Mimi could move to an entire other country and still hit it up with people there (and she does, given how she makes friends in Michael and the other American Chosen without issue). So thus, Mimi’s moving is also part of her own path -- becoming an effective “ambassador” between international Chosen as they start to pop up all over the globe.

As for Jou, his character arc has heavily to do with the fact that he’s always been on the “elite” academic track -- Japanese school entrance exams stretch back as far as high school, so the fight to get into medical school comes back as early as here, and since the events of Adventure helped Jou come to terms with why he wanted to be a doctor rather than just following his father’s wishes, it’s understandable that he would now be putting everything into that goal -- even if it means going to a different school outside Odaiba and committing himself to the prep school life. And, generally speaking, the other kids respect that too, given that the only time they tried to pull him from it was a time they were literally suffocating on the spot and needed Ikkakumon’s specific backup badly (02 episode 16).

And finally, Takeru and Hikari? The fact that they’re that much younger than the others in this group really is a big deal. When they’re on something “purpose-based” like an adventure, of course the others will have no problem keeping them around, and of course they’ll be happy to participate with these older kids. But if we’re talking about mundane, ordinary life -- there’s not a lot of evidence to suggest they really would prefer the company of kids so much older than them for conversations over lunch. This is especially because it’s hard to imagine they didn’t have other friends at school, too.

Not that they mind being around all these older kids when the time calls for it, but as far as socialization goes, they have their own lives to live. And that’s fine; again, Adventure was a narrative about kids coming to terms with themselves and what they wanted, and it’s not their fault for prioritizing those paths and forming their own social circles rather than insisting on being a specific eight-person group (no matter how much the fanbase wants to have the romantic image of them sticking together all the time no matter what).

Plus, it’s not like they all completely drifted apart and cut each other off!

Just because they’re not “daily life friends” doesn’t mean they’re not still important to each other. 02 episode 38 has Taichi, Sora, Jou, and Koushirou show up for Yamato’s concert -- it’s unlikely they were attending every single one of his concerts, but this was a very important one that was going to be broadcast on TV, so it’s only natural that even Jou (who, again, doesn’t go to school in Odaiba anymore) would still come to support him.

In fact, the fact they can come together when a situation like this happens even without necessarily meeting up every single day of their lives is probably a testament to how strong that bond is in itself. They don’t need to hang out once a day or week to maintain their friendship, and having other friends they’d rather hang out with throughout the day or invite to events doesn’t necessarily mean the other Adventure kids are less worthy friends to them. That experience in August 1999 was so impactful on all of them that they will never forget it, so even if they spent quite a long amount of time not interacting with each other, when a circumstance that necessitates them coming together does bring them together, they can hit it off like nothing happened. Think about how you might have an important friend that you may not chat with on a daily basis, but you talk to them once in a while and hit it off like you never had a break in the conversation. But because that strong bond is based on that one very specific experience that happened in one specific summer, it’s only natural that the majority of meetups over this are going to be based on something to do with that experience, like Digimon incidents; for ordinary things like “band concerts” or “club activities”, it’ll naturally be easier to stick around friends who have more similar social interests, like fellow band or club members.

On the other hand, this is very much not the case for the 02 group.

To understand why the 02 group has a fundamentally different dynamic, we need to dial back to a little before the actual “adventure” part of 02 started.

Right off the bat, we see:

Takeru moves to Odaiba from Sangenjaya, and specifically to the same building Miyako and Iori live in, meaning he’ll be walking to school with them every day;

02 episode 7 indicates that the Motomiya and Yagami families live in the same apartment complex, meaning Daisuke and Hikari are also likely to walk to school together;

Miyako and Iori are established as having already long hit it off with each other as neighbors;

Daisuke, Hikari, and Takeru end up in the same class (with Daisuke and Hikari having known each other already).

In other words: Even before anything to do with Digimon had been introduced (or re-introduced, technically) into their lives, the kids were already being thrown into each other’s social circles. You could technically argue that Daisuke wouldn’t have necessarily met Miyako and Iori if not for the Digimon incident coming into his life later in the episode, but Takeru being neighbors with them basically fills in all of the gaps here -- unlike with the Adventure kids where the adventure in August 1999 threw them together when they likely wouldn’t have been in the same social circle otherwise, the 02 kids are the social circle even independently of the Digimon incidents. In fact, due to being functionally neighbors, there are a lot of ways these kids’ social lives intersect, with Daisuke and Miyako being Taichi and Koushirou’s juniors, Miyako working for Yamato’s band, Yamato being classmates with Miyako’s sister Chizuru, and Jun and Miyako’s other sister Momoe being classmates.

Since, again, 02 was a series fundamentally structured on examining relationships, you can basically view Adventure being a series about “bringing some people together as they find self-assertion even when they’re from different social circles” while 02 follows that up with “so if they were in the same social circle, how would they deal with that?” -- especially since 02 makes it clear that certain kinds of emotional baggage associated with that can actually make it much more complicated.

A lot of 02′s first half is dedicated to the 02 kids doing completely mundane things that have very little relevance to the Digital World conflict -- watching TV in the computer room (remember: this was before they realized the “genius boy” being covered on the news was actually relevant to this), or having a picnic in the Digital World. Mimi even explicitly points out that this kind of thing wouldn’t have happened with the Adventure kids, but it’s not just because of the fact that Adventure involved a lot of running for their lives! It’s easy to dismiss a lot of what happens in these early episodes as “filler”, but a lot of this is dedicated to depicting how the 02 kids were constantly spending time with each other for reasons completely separated from Digimon incidents. This even includes completely ordinary things like soccer games -- Takeru, Hikari, Miyako, and Iori come to support Daisuke with an obvious motive of seeing him do well, so it’s apparent that they’ve come to enjoy hanging out with him beyond just obligation.

Part of this is because of the different nature of the Digimon conflict that they experienced. The Adventure kids had an experience that really was, functionally, “one” experience -- an extremely formative and important one, but one condensed one that they all experienced together. The nature of what the 02 territory war and conflict was, on the other hand, meant that what the conflict “was” to the 02 kids was of a completely different nature. This wasn’t summer vacation; this involved going back and forth between the fight and real life, to the point where Digimon fighting became integrated into “daily life” -- so of course you’d probably hope that the people you’re fighting with are also people you like to bond with on a social level. “Digimon life” and “social life” became synonymous to them.

And when it all comes down to it, it’s hard to pinpoint a “single experience” that the events of 02 embodied, or at least in the same way August 1999′s adventure was. As much as they were running for their lives, the Adventure kids have the luxury of looking at the events of their series as a formative singular time for them, one that they could even look at nostalgically, but for the 02 kids, it’s hard to condense everything into one singular experience (it’s easy for the audience to see it as one series, but for the kids themselves, it’s a very long chain of vaguely connected events). Actually, most of the year involved fighting with someone who ended up becoming their important friend and the other involved helping him deal with his trauma, so it’s not like everyone would be likely to have the most romantic image of this experience itself to “bond” over as much as they care more about the take-home they got out of it: each other.

One thing that 02 doesn’t really spotlight front and center with its starter cast of characters is that, unlike the Adventure kids, who either came with their own social circles prior to Adventure or eventually developed their own in the course of their lives, it’s heavily implied that the 02 kids actually had difficulty making other friends even on a social level, or at least were likely to be in a situation where the other 02 kids really were better company than their other options even for mundane situations. This is especially in the case of the newly introduced characters, who are, effectively, a bit socially “displaced” from others and likely to have struggles fitting in.

There are quite a few signs that Daisuke had serious difficulty making friends prior to the events of the series (with Hikari being the closest thing he had to one), and the fact that the 12-year-old Miyako is portrayed as constantly hanging out with the 9-year-old Iori, brought together by being neighbors, rather than people closer to their own ages stands out. Iori is particularly interesting in that, unlike with Takeru and Hikari, who were portrayed as kids likely to socialize better with those their own age, Iori’s unusual maturity for his age heavily implies that he would actually be out of place with his classroom peers (a very common phenomenon for some people in real life, too!). 02 episode 3 depicting him left alone in the classroom with only a teacher to watch him while his stubborn fixation on principles leaves him slow to finish his lunch says a lot -- his own behavior is liable to isolate him from others, and it’s thus not all that surprising he ended up bonding with some kids who are older than him and more accepting (and even treat him with proper respect, too).

Takeru and Hikari, too. There’s been a lot of arguments over whether the two of them would theoretically be closer to the Adventure kids or the 02 kids, but I would honestly say it’s technically both at once -- they have the same “not socially close, but intuitively understanding” relationship that the Adventure kids all have with each other, but hold the other 02 kids as part of their social circle and hang out with them in “daily life”. So in other words, they have the Adventure kids’ relationship with the other Adventure kids, and the 02 kids’ relationship with the 02 kids. This is presumably why Takeru and Hikari end up hitting it off so well at the start of 02 even though they didn’t interact all that intimately in Adventure; not only do they have that shared experience they intuitively understand, they also were able to start hanging out in day-to-day life and actually, well, socialize.

This applies to them in relation to the rest of the group as well. While neither of them were necessarily portrayed as having social problems, one common thread between the two is that they’re both very emotionally closed-in. Takeru’s response to negativity is to cover it up with smiles, until he can’t hide it anymore and bursts (which scares the hell out of Iori in 02 episode 19 and ultimately forms the basis of their Jogress arc), whereas Hikari has issues vocalizing whenever she’s hurt or in pain (said by herself in 02 episode 31, but with precedent from Adventure episode 48). That means that, even with potential social circles at school, it’s unlikely they necessarily would have had someone they could emotionally bond with deeply off the bat (especially since Takeru had just moved from Sangenjaya), and it’s likely why they kept gravitating towards each other (despite never truly talking about anything in-depth for most of the series) up until the Jogress arc.

In other words, while the Adventure kids’ adventure of self-actualization meant that their relationships to each other were mainly formed on simply understanding that they had a similar experience and empathizing, the 02 kids -- full of a group of somewhat socially maladjusted and out of place kids, plus two who had been on the prior adventure but were young enough to now still be carrying some deep-seated, unresolved emotional baggage -- were in a position where they arguably needed each others’ help to grow.

Jogress isn’t just an obligatory evolution gimmick; it’s something very important to 02 as a series and understanding what it wants to say about relationships. I think one thing that makes me very sad is how often its constant pigeonholing as a gimmick makes me hear people saying that Daisuke and Ken was the only plot-relevant one and the rest were forced “spares”, saying that something like Takeru-Hikari and Miyako-Iori would make more sense. But when the point of the series is about building your relationships from scratch and learning to grow together, I really don’t feel that a story about relationships that naturally existed already would have helped it nearly as much. It’s not like Daisuke and Ken was that likely of a friendship, either!

This is especially in the case of Takeru and Hikari, who certainly were vibing pretty well with each other, but were still very emotionally closed-in with a lot of emotional baggage until the more to-the-point Miyako and Iori were able to break through their shells. (02 episode 13 is so often considered a “Takeru and Hikari bonding” episode, but while it does do a lot to show off the depth of their relationship that hadn’t been depicted much besides them just hanging out all the time, it also does not solve Hikari’s core problem in nearly the same way Miyako gets to the bottom of it in episode 31.) This is also why Takeru and Hikari have such a different relationship with the 02 kids compared to theirs with the Adventure kids; while they were largely tagging along with the older kids and learning a bit about inner strength back during their summer adventure, the 02 group is the one who not only provided them with friendship on a more equal peer level, but also poked deeply into their emotional issues that they very much needed others to help them out of. These are friends who finally get them.

That Ken ultimately becomes yet another addition to this group of kids in need of friends finding support in each other should go without saying -- after all, it’s made abundantly clear he was very lonely and friendless until Daisuke and the others reached out to him -- but it ultimately culminates in them choosing to integrate this lonely boy from Tamachi into their social life. (Remember: Ken is the only of the six 02 kids to live in Tamachi and not Odaiba, but the last quarter of the series has them going out of their way to meet up.) The episode that establishes that everyone has truly made their peace with Ken and wants to unequivocally support him (with the most originally stubborn against it, Iori, graciously accepting him) is sealed off with a Christmas party. A completely ordinary Christmas party that has nothing to do with the Digimon incidents at hand, where they can play meaningless card games and celebrate the little things like Ken laughing, because it’s not just forgiving him or learning to work with him, but actively enjoying his presence and supporting him.

The Digimon Animation Chronicle profile for Ken in Diablomon Strikes Back refers to him as Daisuke’s “best friend” (親友). Usually, the word for “friends” within Adventure and 02 would be nakama (仲間); you may have heard this word from One Piece fans, but this is a word that roughly means “one of us” and has a stronger emphasis on being in a certain group, or being like-minded. Thus, “you’re a Chosen Child like us,” or, more pertinently, “you have the same goal as us and we’re in this together” (after all, it’s not like being a Chosen Child was ever an exclusive club or anything).

But in the case of Daisuke and Ken’s relationship, it’s not just about having happened to gain a deep bond over the course of 02, it’s that Daisuke now really does have a sense of emotional closeness to Ken that the two are considered best friends by default -- in any situation, despite him living all the way in Tamachi. Even though the franchise loves to put them in the category that “protagonists and rivals” usually get, where most others are ones who tend to have friction but understand each other in the end, Daisuke and Ken are unique in that they’re not like that at all. They have a very straightforward sense of emotionally confiding in each other, at worst maybe lightly bantering a bit, but they are friends before anything else, and that extends to the rest of the 02 group as well.

The aftermath

On its face, it sounds like the 02 kids are getting a pretty luxurious deal -- they got a fun adventure of emotional growth out of it, and they’re tight friends with each other at that! Well, that probably sounds great, but there’s a flip side to all of this.

Firstly, as I mentioned earlier, the Adventure kids’ adventure in 1999 was a lot more “romantic” than the 02 kids’ eight-month-long ordeal. Sure, a lot of it definitely was stressful, what with the running for their lives and the scary villains and the emotional conflict, but there was also the part about getting to meet Gennai and the other friendly Digimon around and getting to explore villages. They were on summer break, so they didn’t even really have to worry about school (especially once they realized time dilation was a thing); it’s basically the epitome of the romantic coming-of-age story. (Fun fact: Stand By Me is really culturally influential in Japan.)

02, on the other hand, was an eight-month-long ordeal of having to fight a territory war crammed into the after-hours of school, juggling fighting this war with keeping it from parents, in a fight that would retroactively turn out to be against what would later become a heavily traumatized and beloved friend, plus eventually watching him get subject to even worse trauma. Oh, and the series also ended on witnessing a bunch of deaths (or in other words, the worst New Year’s Eve ever). While it seemed like the kids had the luxury of enjoying the Digital World in ways the Adventure kids couldn’t at first, actually, they didn’t get to enjoy as much of it at all, since they never got to form any lasting relationships with anyone like Gennai or Elecmon. These kids were basically too busy trying to keep each others’ heads on straight to really be able to focus on that.

The comparative mess that the 02 kids went through, and the messes that they kind of are, means that they’re rather dependent on each other for emotional support. This is not inherently a bad thing, mind you; the fact that some people are more independent than others is a simple fact of life, and the 02 kids (whether it’s from naturally being a bit misfit or from the degree of their experiences) being the type who grow together with mutual support isn’t inherently anything bad. It does, however, mean that they’re likely to have some difficulties ahead coming out of 02 as “growing up” conspires to make it more and more difficult for them to stick together -- after all, how many people have actually been able to stick with their elementary school friends all the way into adulthood? This is especially because Japanese high schools admit students by examination, and rank by academic ability; it’s not particularly common for those from the same elementary/middle school to attend the same high school, even if they live close to each other, and it’s very unlikely that all of them will be sticking together in school by that point.

So, how did they fare?

Well, before we get into anything else, we should probably bring up one thing that seems like such a tiny little detail but is actually very important for this: Technology didn’t stagnate at 02′s D-Terminals, and by the time of Kizuna in 2010, smartphones and group chats existed! (Earlier than they did in real life, at that.) This is actually really important because of how much it does for that question of “how to keep in contact when circumstances like school keep you apart” -- especially when the Adventure group would certainly appreciate the method to keep in touch despite their lives largely getting increasingly separate. That, and even more so if other similar technological things like social media existed; there’s a lot of ways to keep in touch despite physical and circumstantial distance.

Of course, they’d been keeping in touch via email since 02, but a group chat is much lower pressure and actively encourages everyone to keep in touch; think about how useful group chats have been for connecting with your own longtime friends. It’s ambiguous whether the 02 group was privy to this particular chat from To Sora given that they were clearly on call for incidents like the Parrotmon one, but it’s also entirely possible that this is a room for The Ones Who Went on That One Adventure in August 1999, especially since they use the Crests as their icons, and the 02 group has their own (let’s be real, they totally would; think about how many Discord servers with overlapping people you might be in right now). This, combined with the fact that the Adventure and 02 groups seem to have formed a sort of recon squad for the increasing number of Digimon incidents in Tokyo, means that there are actually a lot more opportunities to stay involved with each other than ever before!

As it seems, the Adventure group does seem to be rather emotionally close to the point that Taichi is willing to reach out to Yamato simply to dump his emotional troubles about his future career prospects on him (despite them going to very different universities at this point). Yet, at the same time, there’s still a palpable sense of distance going on here, and a depiction of Taichi and Yamato having developed separate social lives and their own friend circles -- Taichi with Morikawa and Nemoto, and Yamato with Abe (their names come from the novel), who are also acquainted with each other enough to talk about career and worry about each other.

When Taichi and Yamato talk over beer, they don’t even have updates on the same people (Yamato has to update Taichi on Sora and Takeru’s status), and ultimately, Yamato comments on their drifting -- saying that it’s a potentially inevitable part of choosing one’s path. It’s not hard to see why he says this; it’s been a recurring theme for them since after the events of Adventure. Sora and Mimi haven’t been around for Digimon incidents lately because of their careers, and it’s highly likely Jou hasn’t either; Koushirou keeps in touch, but our only depictions have been in the range of business and Digimon incidents.

But for the 02 group? Absolutely not.

The Kizuna drama CD has a lot about what the 02 group was doing (and planning to do) during their little “vacation” in New York. In fact, there’s a lot to go on about here:

Daisuke and Takeru show up together even though Iori was allegedly said to be “first” approached, meaning the two of them were basically hanging out anyway.

Daisuke insists on going on a trip that’s about his own personal career with friends -- and not just any friends, but specifically the group of himself, Ken, Miyako, Iori, Takeru, and Hikari. He also wanted his seniors along, but they were too busy -- but it’s pointed out that the other 02 group members aren’t exactly full of free time either, meaning that these five have a special place of importance to Daisuke in his ramen career trip.

Even the Digimon are aware of what the other humans (the ones that aren’t even their partners!) have been up to lately.

Miyako and Hawkmon say that it’s only natural for them to show up when the group is getting together -- i.e. being with this specific company is a fact of life to her, to the point she invents D-3 gate exploitation to be with them.

The group keeps saying “it’s been a while” for periods of time in which it is made pretty obvious it’s actually not a lot of time at all. (Miyako had just left for Spain to the point her coming back elicits an “already?!” kind of reaction, yet that constitutes “a while”, and the most likely very short time between the trip planning and the movie is also apparently “a while”, and it’s very likely that Takeru’s “a while” in greeting Iori may well have not been that long, either.) It really makes you think about how often the people in this group must be meeting up to think that this constitutes “a while”...

Hikari is ready to fight people for denying her the chance to play with Miyako.

Beyond that, they’ve all apparently been regular enough presences in Daisuke’s life for completely offhand comments and actions to have major impacts on his career thoughts.

In the movie itself, Miyako refuses to take on the exact same request that she ultimately gladly participates in with the rest of the 02 group in New York -- presumably, because the fact her friends are there makes it all better.

As it turns out, despite everything -- despite everyone going in completely different directions with their careers, attending different schools (Iori’s still in high school while everyone else is in university!), the 02 group has been maintaining this attitude of going out of their way to hang out with each other, in a sort of “we do it together, or we don’t do it at all” sense. Of course, that’s not to say they’ve all stayed so socially maladjusted that they’ve become completely incapable of making any other friends at all, but there is a very clear, strong preference of them wanting to be in each other’s specific company to the point that they would do ridiculous things to make it work.

So, you might be asking: what’s the trade-off?

Yamato attributes the alienation between the Adventure group to “choosing one’s own path”. Inherently, this is not quite right (nor is the sentiment that “choices are bad” in general), especially considering that Daisuke, Iori, and Hikari already made their choices in path a long time ago, yet are still behaving like this. The question is actually more of priorities; notice that while the older Adventure characters are mainly portrayed in Kizuna as aggressively pursuing career prospects, the 02 characters, despite having their current educational statuses listed in their profiles, simply seem to have this as not an object.

Iori’s still in school uniform; he’s arguably cramming this all between school club obligations. Ken, Miyako, Takeru, and Hikari don’t have their current educational status involved at all, and even though Daisuke’s ramen trip is technically for his future career, he’s also happy to just “play around” about sightseeing (and, again, there’s also no reason he needed to bring his friends for this). Takeru’s working on his novel, but he hasn’t actually decided it’ll be his career yet. It’s not about whether they’ve made choices or not; it’s about the fact they’re going about this remarkably casually to the point where maintaining their relationship with their friends is more important than career. And this extends to the 02 epilogue as well; compared to their seniors’ more prominent history-making careers, the 02 group’s is more low-scale and community-oriented (the only exception being Sora, but even that ties into individual ambition more than anything else, considering that not succeeding her mother is already a pretty big deal in itself).

The take-home

Adventure and 02 are both very well-known for showcasing people with different personalities and goals in life, and celebrating their differences. I think, personally, the difference between the Adventure and 02 groups’ dynamics is also something that reflects on the different ways to live one’s life as well. This is especially something that most of us can probably understand well now that we’re adults looking back at this, especially in light of Kizuna.

There are some of us who really want to do large-scale things in this world, and will need that understanding of the self to get there but may struggle with maintaining consistent friendships on that turbulent path, and have to adapt by managing the different levels of their relationships and learning to get along with different people in different ways. There are some of us who gain happiness more from mutual support with the people around us even if it means not ostensibly achieving as “great” things, and feel most comfortable with a single consistent set of friends. Some of us are in between, or feel elements of both as we try to experiment with things in life (actually, I’m pretty sure that’s probably most of us to some degree).

Think about your own life and future prospects right now, and then think about the friends you may be in touch with, or haven’t been in touch with for a while, or the ones you talk to for different purposes or fulfill different niches in your life. We’re all trying to straddle this balance; there’s no one right way to live.

[pumpkinofthedale]

With the introduction of Moira, and the discussions and scandal a lot of people (especially those who want Reyes to be an in depth complex character with motivations besides being an evil wicked meaner all along) feel right now in the fandom, I’d like to take just a moment to add my two (or perhaps even five) cents to the conversation.

What we know:

1. The SEP program tampered with the DNA of participants, of which Gabriel Reyes was a pretty early test subject

2. A terrorist known as reaper has been active for decades

3. Blackwatch has been around for a long while, likely just as long as Overwatch (post crisis), and are known for their less than ethically clean tactics that are often needed to keep Overwatch afloat and pretty in the public eye

4. Gabriel Reyes recruited Dr Moira O.Deorain into blackwatch to advise him on matters of genetics that he had a prior interest in

5. Gabriel Reyes feels fear knowing that his body is smoking (and not just because he’s a damn beautiful human hoo boy)

6. Chu confirmed that Moira has a connection to Reaper’s genetics “How can I take this and make it better”; she has both lifesteal and teleportation powers, and he teleportation seems far more refined than reaper’s

 Under the cut because this shit got long

Reyes, soldier 24, first strike commander of overwatch had his powers manifest before Moira even entered the picture. He’s soldier 24 which implies that he was in an earlier batch of SEP subjects than Jack Morrison: soldier 76. As such his DNA enhancements were very likely less stable than Morrison’s. Super Soldiers were built to win what was essentially Armageddon, they weren’t necessarily built to last.

Now we must look at things like international patent laws and tightly held government kept secrets. All Super Soldiers belong to the United States government. They are essentially property. They are likely leased to Overwatch, but at the end of the day, their remains would not be allowed to rest on foreign soil. Their genes, their very DNA is highly classified. Very likely to the point where average doctors aren’t legally allowed to do more than put a simple bandage on, and no, I am not exaggerating.

 All Super Soldiers would be sterile. They would not be allowed to pass those highly classified government owned genes on. There is no way that the US government did not sterilize every single SEP subject in order to further keep a stranglehold on those highly classified government patented and owned genetics. 

Anyone who even wished to be able to work or operated on them medically would have to go through rigorous government screenings, and would likely not be able to perform many procedures especially if they were affiliated with a foreign government. Someone like dr zeigler would likely only be able to perform simple procedures that wouldn’t in any way affect or tamper with those genes, or be able to spread any information about them. It would be the sort of offense that would land her a cell in some sort of military facility used to house terrorists. It would be that big of a deal.

Now let’s take a moment to focus once more on how this would relate to Gabriel Reyes in ways that it might not for Jack Morrison. Gabriel Reyes, an earlier subject in the SEP program likely does have less stable genetics, things that are wrong with him. But when you’re fighting things like omnics, synthetic metal people, you’re a lot less likely to notice things like passively absorbing life force because he likely can’t from synthetic organisms despite in game mechanics. 

However, once you’re working on eliminating humans who are a threat, that passive life steal is a lot more noticeable as it leaves behind some sort of noticeably damaged “drained husk” corpse. So imagine you are Gabriel Reyes for a moment, a member of the British Parliament has ties to a major human trafficking ring but there is no definitive proof. You know that this person is evil, but that he is operating on a level where Overwatch and the law cannot reach him, so as a covert operation, you kill him. You leave behind a drained corpse of a politician that was perceived to be a good man by the public. When you do the same thing a few weeks later in Cambodia, you are labeled a terrorist. Overwatch doesn’t have to know that it’s you. No one can know that it was you. You can’t have this linked back to you and jeopardizing the good work you are doing for the world even though it might not seem like it from the outside.

You stop going on so many missions because your work is too noticeable. But your conditions are deteriorating, your organs might be failing... your body wasn’t built to last. Sometimes you almost think you might be falling apart. 

At this point, Gabriel Reyes would seek out professional help, likely from the brilliant Angela Zeigler. However Zeigler is an upstanding member of Overwatch who operates legally above the board, and because she cannot legally perform any sort of gene therapy or even give advice because she can’t even properly look at his DNA, she won’t. 

Enter Moira, a geneticist without any sort of ethical qualms about doing illegal tests in the name of science. Someone who very likely would have just gone to talon without overwatch funding. Gabriel Reyes recruits her before talon can. With Blackwatch resources, he can gain access to his classified files from the US government for Moira to analyze. 

He feels fear because he is falling apart genetically, his body literally turns to smoke at times. Moira isn’t injecting anything into him in the screenshot. In fact those look more like the sorts of things used to check vital signs and electrical signals within the body. Moira doesn’t seem shocked at all, this very likely is not an experiment but rather her monitoring his vital signs or inducing some sort of state to see just how far his body is going.

“To go beyond law and what’s forbidden by morality”, what if she suggested instead of just curing his condition, they weaponized it. His body sometimes begins to smoke? Make it so bullets, objects can pass through him. Give him mobility. Give him the strength he once had and control over some of what were once essentially handicaps. 

Reyes, a tactical genius who at this point knows how much of a threat talon is, knows that if Overwatch continues down its current path it will fail. Knows that talon at this point must have pawns the UN. Blackwatch has been compromised. Anything that could make him more ready to face them would be needed even if it went against dozens of international laws.

At this point Reyes must know that Overwatch is a sinking ship; talon is too pervasive. They can’t fight them like they should. They need someone on the inside, someone who knows what to do... What better way for him to infiltrate them than to blow up Overwatch. Sure, hundreds, will die. His best friends may die by his own hand.... But won’t it be worth it to make sure another omnic crisis is averted? Isn’t killing 1000 innocents better than letting millions, hundreds of millions, maybe even billions of humans and omnics die in another crisis? Even if he has to go beyond morality to do what needs to be done... that’s his job.

He knows that Moira may even have connections to talon as well. Very likely even dropping hints about going beyond laws and morality, about how his relationships with the Overwatch cast are failing. Things that talon could sink their teeth into. He would spoonfeed the narrative they wanted and get what he needed out of it.

Reaper isn’t inherently a product of Moira’s tests, her powers come directly from observing his genetic code. “How can I make this better when I apply it to myself”. Her powers are more refined. She controls her life steal and giving of health, her teleportation is her version of going wraith; completely intangible and undetectable. 

It makes sense that she says that he was searching for a way to circumvent “their rules”. Reyes’ entire body, his genetic code, is completely classified, strangled in legal red tape. Even if he were sick and dying, he wouldn’t be able to get help from someone outside the US government, and we all know how long it would take for them to actually do anything to help him or his condition. 

I still don’t know what happened during the explosion, but I sure as heck still believe Reaper is deep cover, waiting to destroy talon from within.

My friends, I too am on the Gabriel Reyes defense squad and I too felt fear that the good and beautiful devs at blizzard would do him dirty and pull an Anakin with him. But I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, and now that I know that the first comic centered around the omnic crisis that originally portrayed Reyes as a heavily shadowed man had been cancelled, I don’t think that that’s the route they’re going to go down.

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Goes Full-On Scooby-Doo with Episodes 162-168!

Welcome to the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! I'm Joseph Luster and I'll be your host this week as we continue ninja-running through all 220 episodes of the original Naruto anime adaptation. After last week's spicy blend of the conclusion to the Curry of Life arc and a handful of one-offs in episodes 155 - 161, it's time to get downright spooky with the Land of Birds arc in episodes 162-168.

  This time around we have a storyline that's almost beefy enough to take up the entire seven episode bundle. It's also one of the few times a filler story has focused on a baddie who isn't really connected to Orochimaru in anyway, but it still gives Naruto and his team the opportunity to evoke some of the emotions that run through the core of the show, reminding us that Sasuke is still out there somewhere. 

  Before Naruto can get to him, he's gonna have to solve a straight-up Scooby Doo mystery. Thus, without further ado… Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this Naruto filler arc… The Tale of the Phantom Samurai. 

*sprinkles magical dust all over the post*

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The Cursed Warrior opener felt like a more natural and interesting introduction to a mission, with Naruto getting the opportunity to feel a personal connection to it and pushing to take it on. Let's start off with a State of the Filler report: How are you feeling about the structure of the series at this point?

  Paul: The overall structure would be better without entire seasons' worth of filler, but to abuse the phrase that gives pro translators headaches, “it can't be helped.” The filler itself varies wildly in quality. Most of us found Raiga and Ranmaru and the Curry of Life insufferable, but I really enjoyed the Land of Birds, with its combination of low stakes, simple motives, a Scooby-Doo style mystery, and ninja actually acting like ninja.

  Jared: It is what it is. We are stuck in the filler mines, but one day we will free ourselves from them. I think overall it’d be better if the longer filler arcs didn’t feel so formulaic at this point, but I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon.

  Kara: With a couple of minimal gripes that don’t even really count as gripes, I really enjoyed this. It had ties back to our standard story and characterization but was content to be its own thing.

  Noelle: It’s still not good; I’d rather not have any filler overall. Still, they are trying, and it is worth noting some more effort. In terms of filler, it’s pretty okay.

  David: I think the structure of the series can be most cleanly explained by the whiplash between how the current opening sequence shows a highlight reel of all the coolest moments from the show so far, and the sinking feeling I get when the episode actually starts.

  Carolyn: Yeah, I can’t necessarily get behind entire seasons of filler, either. That being said, I do like that we’re getting away from the Sasuke drama just a little bit and seeing a little bit more humor again.

  Danni: I’m still very much dreading more seasons of pure filler, but this arc was actually... pretty good??? The Land of Birds arc stands pretty well on its own on account of not tying itself into the Sasuke plotline at all. It’s able to end on a satisfying conclusion without the caveat of “Well we didn’t come any closer to finding Sasuke.” On top of that it was a pretty interesting little side story in its own right, even if it did tip its hand a little too much with the twist. We also got a fun little absurd precursor to Food Wars which was justified entirely by seeing Naruto use Rasengan to make ramen.

  Kevin: I like that they’re at least trying out new stuff. It adds a bit more to the world (even if that information later becomes contradictory) and allows for new stories. Hoki became more of a standard ninja enemy eventually, but when he was first revealed, he was using trickery to mimic more famous jutsu, which I don’t think we’ve seen as a main villain’s gimmick thus far.

    We've encountered a few characters like Lady Toki in the past. The story of she and her brother Sagi—her unwavering need for revenge—adds another layer to the Sasuke parallels that drove Naruto to become invested in this mission in the first place. Did these characters work for you, and was the villain at the story’s core a suitable antagonist for a whopping six-episode arc?

  Paul: I wasn't deeply emotionally invested in Ladi Toki's storyline, but her motives were clear, and so were the motives of Hoki, the opposing protagonist and the leader of the Wandering Ninja. I think Hoki works for me because he doesn't have a super-villain's goals: he just wants to take over a small, defenseless country and seize power so his clan can stop being homeless. Hoki and company also behave like actual ninja, complete with deception, thievery, dirty tricks, and subterfuge, and that's some of my favorite stuff in Naruto.

  Jared: I think the character arc of Toki would have been better if it wasn’t so blatantly obvious what the twist was going to be. The villains could have been interesting with the idea of "here’s some folks that are just this mix of random jutsu." They’re unfortunately undercut from the start when they mention that while they steal their jutsu, it’s basically bad Genjutsu. So all the villains end up looking like jobbers. I mean, Kakashi literally tells one of the bigger ones that using the sharingan on him would have been a waste because of how much of a scrub this dude was.

  Kara: Any villain without an upline to Orochimaru is already several points ahead in my book. I get that he’s the show’s Big Bad, but it’s easier to suspend disbelief for a world where sometimes bad things just happen and not all of it feeds back into The Ultimate Evil. As others have mentioned, the Twelfth Nightery of the whole thing is pretty heavily broadcast from the get-go, which meant I was largely distracted by wondering when the other characters were going to catch up. Even so, the story of Toki’s need for revenge and Naruto’s ability to speak to that intelligently from another POV was still good. That doesn’t change.

  Noelle: Personally, I didn’t care too much for Toki, and the surprise was relatively predictable. It’s not up to the threat level of say, the Akatsuki or Orochimaru, but that’s fine—not everyone can be world-shattering cataclysmic villains. While not entirely engaging, it set out to do something and in that sense, I’ll say that it worked. 

  David: It absolutely didn’t have to be six whole episodes long, as evidenced by how much the plot drug its feet to get to the conclusion we all knew was coming in the first place. However, I did appreciate how Naruto himself actually seemed to be connected, at least thematically, to the story, which is the best part of the show proper and something most of the filler arcs forget to include.

  Carolyn: I do agree with the previous points that I wasn’t really invested in the characters and the twist was not at all surprising. That being said, I do actually like the idea of stealing jutsu. We watch Naruto and Rock Lee and friends work so hard. Even if it’s just some lame, not very good jutsu, I like seeing the other side.

  Danni: I found myself surprisingly satisfied by this arc’s cast of characters. None of them were really deeply characterized, but they were written well enough to justify the time devoted to them. It was like ninja Scooby-Doo with more political intrigue. And while I did see some of the twists coming, Moso being the real villain actually caught me pleasantly by surprise. 

  Kevin: In short: not really, but he could’ve been. There are several things that could’ve gotten me to like this arc more. A better twist would’ve been if Toki’s voice was always at least a bit feminine, rather than outright changing from a male voice to a female one when she is revealed. We also haven’t seen much in the way of political villains before, so Hoki being a corrupt advisor trying to gain power was actually more interesting than when his full intentions were revealed later. It wasn’t bad, it just had more interesting aspects that were ignored in favor of what ended up being a fairly standard “good guys fight single bad guy” fight.

    The Land of Birds arc hinted at horror in the beginning, but it basically ended up being a beat-for-beat Scooby-Doo saga. How did your expectations of this arc pan out, and is there a particular type of direction you wish they had taken instead?

  Paul: While the mystery wasn't extremely intricate—I knew as soon as they mentioned that Sagi had a twin sister that she had already disguised herself and taken her elder brother's place—the presentation sold me on this story arc. I liked how it kept creating scenarios that seemed spooky and supernatural, only to reveal them to be nothing more than smoke and mirrors. I prefer that to everyone having X-Men level mutant powers.

  Jared: If they didn’t keep beating home the point of Sagi and Toki being twins, it probably would’ve been better for the twist. I liked the idea of Naruto being grounded in the sense that ghosts are the one thing he just wants to nope out on. Maybe the arc as a whole would’ve been better if it leaned more into the supernatural element and have that be the big baddie.

  Kara: I actually think there’s a lot of merit to playing out Scooby-Doo stories in settings that already accept at least some degree of the supernatural. Like, we’ve got people who go to school to learn to turn into snakes and possess other people. It’s entertaining to see not only a subversion of that, but also where the “spooky” line is for characters whose entire lives are pretty darn weird already.

  Noelle: I live off horror, I want fully horror! But in all seriousness, having the ghosts not necessarily be truth is fine. That being said… I wouldn’t mind more horror, considering that we know spirits and souls do exist. 

  David: I honestly didn’t even consider that it wouldn’t technically be out of place in-universe for there to be a ghost. Now I wish that had actually happened.

  Carolyn: First off, I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one who saw a Scooby-Doo parallel here. I even wrote a meddling kids joke in my notes. This arc was ridiculous and I loved it. I’m a big horror nerd, too. But when I was little, Scooby-Doo was as close as I could get to ghosts and demons, so I’m here for it.

  Danni: Literally as soon as I saw it was about unmasking a ghost, I made a Scooby-Doo joke in our Slack channel, so that was exactly what I expected and honestly hoped for. We even got a talking dog at one point!

  Kevin: I direct you to my previous answer. For those that don’t want to scroll back up, the basic version is that the arc had a lot of promise in the beginning, with a character reveal that could’ve been foreshadowed more interestingly and a type of villain we haven’t really seen in the show before… and then decided to not develop any of the interesting aspects and instead go for filler that isn’t outright bad, but just didn’t live up to what it could’ve been.

      Naruto's afraid of spirits, but what about you? Are ghosts real? Regale us with your own spiritual encounters if you've had any!

  Paul: When I was younger, I dabbled in occultism: seances, automatic writing, Tarot cards, transcendental meditation, etc. I used to believe in ghosts and was at one point convinced that I had actually seen and interacted with a few, but that was just the prelude to a full-on psychotic episode brought on by a combination of not eating, not sleeping, and intense grieving over the death of a close friend. Not a fun time. TL;DR version: sometimes my mind plays tricks on me, and ghosts aren't real.

  Jared: I can’t say I’ve ever really had any experiences with ghosts, spirits, or what have you. So, I’m not going to sit here and say they aren’t real, but I just don’t know. Plus, I try not to mess around with things that are spooky in general, so ghosts, if you’re out there, we don’t have to cross paths if necessary.

  Kara: Oh, fine, I’ll pop the seal, I guess. I went to a very old college. Declared majors could use their student IDs to get into the main building for their major 24 hours a day, so I’d abuse the privilege to take my gaming group into the English building for game night. The college has about 75 ghost stories, with the English department’s concerning a student who threw herself out the window of the third-floor study lounge (now classrooms and offices) after an especially bad year. You know the kind of story—she’d allegedly haunt happy students with good grades because she resented them. One night we’re in a second floor classroom playing whatever it was we were playing at the time. Something cracked us up enough that all of us started laughing, and a few seconds later every door on the floor above us slammed one after the other in rapid succession. I’m sure there’s some sort of explanation for it (wind, other students playing a prank), but we started gaming elsewhere regardless. 

  Noelle: I’m a little conflicted, because I haven’t had any supernatural experiences myself, but considering that I’ve been raised on a mix of Shinto-Buddhist and Christian beliefs, I do somewhat believe that supernatural phenomena is out there. It’s just normal to me to think that maybe there is something beyond science, that something spiritual could actually exist (also denying it and denying that many people take comfort in the existence of the supernatural feels kind of like overstepping my boundaries). Even if I’ve never seen a ghost, it would be pretty cool to see one. 

  David: My grandfather has had a life-sized harlequin doll for as long as I can remember, and it has always creeped me out. It’s placed in his room in such a way that when I go up the stairs to my room, I am forced to see it every single time, even at night because he leaves the TV on when he sleeps. Last week it was about 3 in the morning and I was coming upstairs with a late night snack, and as soon as I got to the top of the stairs and looked at the doll the TV flashed a bright white and I couldn’t see the doll anymore, but the sound on the TV was still going. I’m sure there’s a real explanation for this but some part of me believes the doll turned off the TV so I couldn’t see it moving.

  Carolyn: Yes. They are real. Really-real real. I had one friend who was part of a Rocky Horror cast that just about everyone had a story about some weird encounter connected to him in some way. I didn’t believe it for a second, but one day I was showering and a wind-up baby doll I had as a kid started playing music. It had stringy yarn hair, which was the part that made me rethink my skepticism of everyone else’s stories. A yarn wig had spawned a kind of inside joke between him and I. That being said, I have a lot of reasons I personally believe that witchcraft/spiritualism/religion are a psychological means of coping with stress and trauma. But ghosts are totally real.

  Danni: Nah.

  Kevin: I’ve never encountered a ghost, and if pressed into picking a side, would probably say that they don’t exist. If definitive scientific evidence comes out though, I’ll switch sides in a heartbeat. 

    Enough about the supernatural, because this set of episodes ended with a mission starring Naruto and Choji, AKA The Hungry Boiz™ (feat. Sakura). Did this need the tired “Are you a bad enough dude to rescue my daughter?” setup, or would you have been perfectly happy with The Hungry Boiz™ Ramen Roundup Noodle Spectacular®? 

  Paul: Ayame being kidnapped felt like a superfluous detail, and the concluding fat-phobic joke (complete with piggy squealing sound effects) dampened my enjoyment of the episode. Naruto and Choji don't need a reason to get worked up over ramen, and a Ninja Chef cooking competition is compelling enough without adding an abduction subplot. Naruto and company using their combat techniques to knead noodles is more than enough for me.

  Jared: It absolutely didn’t need the setup of having to save Ayame. If you take that out and the weird fat shaming near the end and instead make this into basically a cooking reality show episode, it would’ve been great. Ninja Chef is a fun and dumb concept and you don’t need to make it so there’s a conflict in order to introduce them or give Naruto and company a reason to go after them. Just have the ramen place sponsor a cooking competition with the Ninja Chefs and split everyone into teams and have at it.

  Kara: I don’t need a reason for Naruto to suddenly become a food reaction anime, and “ninja ramen making” came at least 150 episodes later than I was expecting. Also you know this entire episode came about solely because someone was proud of the “ryo-nin” pun. I was all in until the very end so basically that didn’t exist and Team Nart won, the end.

  Noelle: Just stick to one plotline at a time, Naruto filler. I’d gladly watch a food cooking competition instead of oh no my random daughter is now the crux of an issue. 

  David: I had all but forgotten what the point of the whole competition was until the terrible ‘twist’ at the end, so overall it was entertaining and definitely didn’t need that bit of motivation.

  Carolyn: Ha! You keep hitting my notes on the head with a ginormous hammer. I was very happy to see ramen front and center again.

  Danni: This episode made me want to get ramen, and I can actually go get ramen for lunch as soon as I’m done here, so the episode has justified itself already in my opinion. 

  Kevin: This is the kind of insane setup that I honestly always forget I love about this show. Sure, the dramatic moments can be great and the combat can be downright spectacular, but seeing a team of ninjas use legendary and superhuman techniques to make ramen noodles is just fun. As for the setup itself, I can go either way. Just an in-shop “Naruto tries to help ramen guy make a new recipe” would’ve worked just as much as what the show actually ended up doing.

  (SIDE NOTE: As evidenced below, Danni did indeed go get ramen after this)

    And now it's highs and lows time! What was your favorite aspect of this set of episodes, and what was just the absolute paranormal pits? 

  Paul: My favorite element was how Hoki and the Wandering Ninja claimed to be stealing techniques from other clans, but really they were just using a combination of Genjutsu and sleight of hand to trick people into thinking they had replicated powerful Ninjutsu techniques. I really dug that every visually impressive move turned out to be a dime-store imitation. Honorable mention goes to Naruto hitting noodle dough with a Rasengan. My least favorite bit was “too fat / too skinny” gags at the end of Episode 168, and I wish there were a more elegant way to localize the “aku no recipe” joke as well.

  Jared: Naruto coming up with the idea to just use everyone’s jutsu to make noodles was pretty good. I found it very funny that they titled an episode “The Death of Naruto” in the midst of this filler and expected people to buy that. Low points would be just how easy it was to deduce the twist in Land of Birds and how they kind of ruined the last episode we watched with bad jokes at the end, which they’ve done quite a bit on these one-off episodes.

  Kara: High point was the ramen-making sequence itself, especially Naruto deliberately cheesing Sakura off to get her “cha” on for the dough-pounding. Low point was what came right after. Special honorable mention goes to the ED going from “smol ninja being happy” to “everyone’s a dog now.”

  Noelle: The ramen-making scenes! It’s just fun to see how ninjutsu can work in doing relatively mundane things. Bad side, some of this humor is very deliberately dated. Come on. 

  David: My high point was actually Tenten and Neji getting some much needed screentime, even if it’s in filler. They’re good characters and it reminded me of the Rock Lee spinoff show that I highly recommend if you’re fond of the side characters in Naruto. As seems common, my low point was the very end of the otherwise pretty amusing food episode.

  Carolyn: High point was definitely the Scooby Gang arc. Low point, I’m not sure anything necessarily stands out this time other than generally not being interested in many of the new characters. Also, I was very confused by the dog ED and some of those poses were … interesting. Actually, I take that back, the pig noises were my low point.

  Danni: My high point was most of the Land of Birds arc. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was surprisingly compelling as far as Naruto filler goes. The low point was the sudden cacophony of fat jokes and “women love to diet” jokes shoved into the ramen episode at the end. Ramen’s good, yo. Eat as much as you want. If you’ll excuse me I’m about to go have some now.

  Kevin: 

High - Naruto fighting in a straightjacket. One of the best ways to make fight scenes more interesting is to throw in some new variable for either side to deal with, be it terrain, a handicap or a new powerup or some kind. Seeing Naruto need to fight while essentially being unable to fight back or use jutsu was probably the most engaged I was throughout the majority of the arc.

Low - Chishima in the last act of the arc. He gets hit once or twice by shuriken (thrown by the ninja equivalent of Storm Troopers, given how many they threw at him), and he is so egregiously injured that he’s on a medical bed with IVs giving him blood. Why is he so hurt?! Give him a bandage and maybe some pain killers and he shouldn't be having any problems at all! And if he’s more seriously injured, show it as more than a shoulder cut!

COUNTERS: Bowls of Ramen: 121 bowls “I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 0 Shadow Clones Created: 26 + 2 uncountable scenes Total so far: Bowls of Ramen: 171 bowls, 9 cups “I'm Gonna be Hokage!”: 55 Shadow Clones Created: 661

And that’s it for this week! Remember that you’re always welcome to watch along with the Rewatch, especially if you’ve never seen the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

Here’s our upcoming schedule: - Next week, DANNI WILMOTH gets nautical in the Land of the Seas! - July 12th, JARED CLEMONS leads us to the Hidden Village of Star! - July 18th, JOSEPH LUSTER is back to continue the Star Guard mission!

  CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 155 - 161: Quickfire Curry

Epsiodes 148 - 154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas

Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!

Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

  Have anything to say about our thoughts on Episodes 162-168? Let us know in the comments! Don't forget, we're also accepting questions and comments for next week, so don't be shy and feel free to ask away!

-------

Joseph Luster is the Games and Web editor at Otaku USA Magazine. You can read his webcomic, BIG DUMB FIGHTING IDIOTS at subhumanzoids. Follow him on Twitter @Moldilox. 

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[angelofseeking]

just more rambling

about memories and how absolutely fucking angelkin i am lmao

Soo, I’m not saying I’m Raphael because I’ve literally never thought about him even for a second, or prayed to him or anything. (Which... I guess that would be kind of weird and like praying to myself? Maybe I was avoiding it subconsciously? I dunno.) But the more I read about him, the more I feel this really strong connection, if I’m being completely honest.

My search for otherkin stuff began shortly after I had a nightmare about a demon. Some signs were presented to me that led me to research Azazel, who was not a demon but a fallen archangel. I’ve heard many stories about the Watchers and the Nephilim and the Annunaki and so on, and... I can’t say that I necessarily place any stock in them, but for the first time I started to really sympathize with the Watchers. It’s definitely something I want to look into further.

I’ve pretty much ignored Christianity since leaving the Catholic Church, so I’m rather out of touch with it but I’m familiar enough with the context and archetypes and so on. My brief study of Kabbalah has brought me back to Judeo-Christian concepts. But I was searching for more information about archangels and found a painting of Raphael by Murillo and I was kinda struck by the resemblance? Which, like, this is an artist’s interpretation, but still it led me to research more about Raphael.

Raphael is the patron “saint” of healers, the blind, travelers, medicine, and music (among other things). He is only really mentioned in the Catholic Bible in the Book of Tobit, where he disguised himself as a human named Azarias, who claimed to be a traveler, cast out a demon in the desert, and healed a blind man. His counterpart Israfel in Islam is supposed to signal the end times with his trumpet and was also said to be “a beautiful angel who is a master of music, Israfil sings praises to God in a thousand different languages, the breath of which is used to inject life into hosts of angels who add to the songs themselves.”

And you know what else? He was the archangel who bound Azazel and cast him into darkness.

So, I’m thinking about all the other angels I’ve researched. Raziel stood out to me for the longest time, at first because I had an OC named Rasiel (pronounced the same way) and thought I had invented the name. I had a great liking for Raziel as a figure, but I never had the confidence to suggest he was myself. I thought maybe even Azazel was a possibility, because I sympathized with him a lot. Then I thought it was Azrael, because I have a morbid fascination with death and meditate on mortality and the liminal space of nonexistence a lot. But... It just didn’t feel right.

And this? Feels right. If God (Michael) tasked me to bind Azazel, would I feel guilty? Would I feel justified? Was I torn about the decision to follow orders? (I use these names/events more symbolically, as I believe that the truth is not able to be conveyed in a way that humans can understand.)

Because I feel like I still carry this regret. I feel like I understood why Azazel chose his actions. I feel like I loved Michael and Gabriel but that I felt as though I was living in their shadow. I feel like a coward for not joining Azazel when I wanted to. I am frustrated that I chose my love for my brothers over a cause that I believed in. I feel responsible. I feel responsible.

On a lighter note, I find it significant that Raphael is tied to music, and music is central to my practices. I rely heavily upon music to do any kind of spell/energy work. I believe resonance/vibration is extremely important. My mom told me I sang before I ever spoke my first words. Singing is often a spiritual experience for me, and this was nurtured throughout my childhood. When I make music, I perform best when I close my eyes and really put my heart into the sound. It’s kitschy to say, but that’s the only way I can explain why, like... bitch I might be Raphael.

The only time I am ever flirted with or hit on is when I’m at a karaoke bar. As time goes on, I feel I am becoming more asexual and aromantic. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the attention, but I think too much about obligation and I’m real bad at telling people “no thank you, but I’m flattered.” I’m just awkward.

It’s not just because it’s a place where people drink. And it’s probably very egotistical of me, but I think it’s because I have a nice voice? But the amount of people who get crushes on me after hearing me sing is evidence enough. I’m going to delete this later probably.

Anyway. Two boys hit on me. Usually when I get hit on at these places, I can brush it off because it’s folks I’m just not into. Tonight tho, they were actually cute. And I’m like “cool” but... Nooo? I really wanna be your friend but!! Dating is just too weird!!

But I have been thinking lately about how being angelkin has affirmed my sexuality. Being ace/aro is absolutely a normal human thing (like being non-binary) but it just makes so much sense now why I’m so... like, I really like the idea of sex, I just don’t want to actually do it? I think because it’s one thing to fantasize, but when I do it with other people I just feel embarrassed? It’s not even insecurity, I don’t think. It’s just such an awkward ritual and I don’t think I can enjoy it in the way I’m supposed to. But I guess I’m not fully ruling it out. I just feel like it’s not going to happen again.

when i do stop and think about being in a relationship again, i think about being with another angel. i think about how we communicated/connected through a kind of cosmic music or resonance or whatever. i don’t know what to call it and it’s not just “singing.” i realized i have memories of communicating this way, so that it wasn’t exactly having sex but rather the act of love itself allowed me to connect to another being on a subatomic level.

it’s honestly like the difference between animals mating and humans mating. animals mainly do it for reproduction or pleasure. humans are the ones who mix feelings into it, although not always. doesn’t make it better, just makes it a little more complex. well, i have done it with a decent number of a variety of humans in a variety of ways, but it just doesn’t do it for me. i think that’s why i kept “falling in love” with the people i had sex with. i was so desperate to connect deeply in the only way that i was familiar, the way i was able to do before, but it just left me feeling empty and unfulfilled. that’s how i realized that i was not going to get any fulfillment out of a relationship with a human. it places far too much expectation on them, and it’s completely unfair on my part to do so.

but conversely, i expect a lot from myself in relationships. (and in general) i have always had this frustratingly overwhelming need to help and protect people, and it’s led to fucked up dynamics in relationships. i transform myself to suit the needs of a romantic interest -- not uncommon, of course, especially for survivors of abuse. but in my case it’s also possible that i was coerced to believe that the only way to truly love/value someone is to be involved with them romantically. this is absolutely false.

i love. i love deeply. i see so much goodness and beauty in everything. there is bliss in sadness. the night is bright and full of stars. the trees in winter have a serene beauty. death brings us peace and completion, returns us to the earth. there is bravery in weakness and passion in sacrifice. i turn away from nothing and listen to every perspective.

i don’t believe that everyone is right. i believe that anyone is wrong if they believe only they are right. i can’t bring myself to avert my gaze from the horrors of existence, because... i want to know. i want to understand. if i don’t hear every perspective, how can i know who is wrong and who is right? how can i decide my own opinion?

it takes me a long time to make up my mind but i can never take any perspective at face value. and when i do settle on a position, i ride it into the goddamn ground. fuck cops. eat the rich.

also meant to mention: i don’t know what i would do if somehow i met an angelkin that i felt connected to in a potentially romantic way. i feel like it wouldn’t be any different from connecting with a human. the last person i developed intense feelings for was angelic in the way that they were androgynous and pretty but also felt very ancient and shared my passion for justice. it was better that they did not reciprocate my feelings, and it made me reflect a lot concerning my capacity to exist in a romantic relationship. i wanted more from them, likely because i thought it would make me happy. i let this desire blind me, and i hurt them more than i’ve ever hurt another human, and i’m too full of shame and regret to make the same mistakes.

it’s perfectly natural and human to realize that a romantic relationship is not for everyone, just like having kids or getting married or making any kind of life choice is not the only choice. i just feel like there’s this added layer of “i can’t connect with people romantically even though i care about them deeply.” it’s a poor analogy, but i always compare it to the relationship between a pet and their owner. you love them deeply and would absolutely make any sacrifice for them, and crave their love and company, but you’re... well, you’re two different species.

my body is human. i am not human. 

if i found someone exactly like me, there’s no telling whether they conceptualize it the way i do. are they really like me? if they were, the closest we might be able to get towards a remnant of that deep connection we had as angels, it would be something involved with music. ideally, we’d make music together.

that might’ve been why i thought i was in love with that “angelic” person. we spent a lot of time just cuddling and listening to music. it led to other stuff. i didn’t mind to other stuff, but i might’ve been fine without it.

in the words of miike snow “ooh, i wanna make up my mind / but i don’t know myself”