#and i know its true he has said it. multiple times. directly to me as well so like

[the-kipsabian]

after everything, i think, if i may toot my own horn here for a sec, my favorite part of 2022 was being able to humble kip tho

[rebo-chan]

I know it doesn't need saying that Reborn is a good teacher, the series points that out to us multiple times really coming to a full realization through Bermuda who connected that these kids growth was related to Reborn. It's really hard to summarize just how true that is to the series, because there are so many little moments and big moments alike. He's both stood as a background character, letting these kids grow of their own accord and make their own decisions, and also a main character directly stepping forward and helping them when they need it. Truly and wholeheartedly, he loves those kids and does put effort into them and learning who they are as people and what helps them best. The Vongola Kids and Reborn are a special pair and though Reborn isn't Vongola, that hasn't stopped him from going affectionate. He truly loves those kids. I wanted to list a few moments that are like important to me with those kids, excluding Tsuna for length purposes but also because the series is its own case study of Tsuna and Reborn's relationship. (Maybe another post someday tho!)

Starting in no particular order, with Lambo, the thing about Lambo and Reborn's relationship is that its mostly antagonistic in that gag sort of way. See though, Reborn is always the first person to remind Tsuna of who Lambo is. To remind him that IS his Guardian and he should be taken seriously. He is the one to remind Tsuna during Future Arc that Lambo was trying to hold it together and not complain too much even though he misses Nana and the one who tells Ryohei how to 'activate' Lambo's hidden potential by mentioning Nana. Something especially important for me as well is that scene in Shimon where Reborn goes "I shouldn't have brought him here." and Lambo has that whole I'M the one who wants to come with you all. There's a frame where Reborn has the most smug little smile, as if he predicted this outcome all along. And idk yall, he's!! he's watching these kids!!

For Gokudera, he doesn't mentor him personally at any point in the series but he does always choose mentors for him that really highlight the areas he needs to improve in. Shamal for his self-preservation, Bianchi with his feelings of worth, Fon for his impatience and reckless behavior. Something especially important to me about their relationship is that Reborn and Gokudera in daily life got each others backs LOL. They raid longchamp's house together and Reborn does like to tease Gokudera and prank him as much as he likes to do it with Tsuna. Something about Gokudera gets Reborn going, gets that mean streak of his forward. That's just his funny guy.With that being said, he does!! care about him!! In future arc, he often goes around checking on everyone to make sure things are going okay. To be a little more serious with it, I think it's really enjoyable that Reborn happens to pick people to be his tutors that Gokudera personally has beef with or would agitate Gokudera. I think in a way he knows that Gokudera grows best when he's challenged, and being with people he respects (Tsuna, Reborn) doesn't serve him as much as making him acknowledge outright where his weakpoints are.

SO YAMAMOTO, RIGHT. YAMAMOTO IS ACTUALLY JUST REBORNS FAVORITE IF YOU NOTICE. ITS NOT EVEN FUNNY. THIS IS HIS FAVORITE CHILD. TSUNA WHO?? The way he just jumps off of Tsuna's shoulder to get onto Yamamotos.. cmon.. at least hide..tsuna adores you.. (There's even a scene in Daily Life where Yamamoto is like petting Reborn and Reborn is just looking at him with a "c:" and Tsuna GRUMBLES TO HIMSELF ABOUT HOW IF IT WAS TSUNA TOUCHING HIM HE WOULD HAVE ALREADY BEATEN HIM UP) Sort of going off from how Gokudera is also lowkey always being pranked by Reborn, Yamamoto isn't and my friends and I kinda realized Reborn.. likes the idiots. He's a fan of the dumbasses. He's so nice to Yamamoto and Ryohei, while making clowns of the smart ones or bullying the 'annoying' ones. OKAY, but really. Reborn's recruited most of the Vongola kids into the family, Yamamoto being his pride and joy when it comes to that. He has that really funny moment in Varia arc where hes all 'Aren't I amazing for being the one to find Yamamoto? ^-^" He also is in charge of training Yamamoto for a little bit of Future arc too, and he establishes to the audience that Yamamoto is a natural born hitman. I think it's also fun that during their training too, he motivates Yamamoto by telling him that if he can complete his training and keep his carefree smile (someday I'll have to do a post about Reborn and his relationship with the Mafia as a whole bc ahh!!) he'll tell him his secret. He sort of activates this kind of like hidden competitiveness IN Yamamoto by doing that and ensures he brings it up throughout the training and gives little hints of 'Before I was a baby - Ah, I shouldn't have said that." It's a little bit of lighthearted taunting too. Or when Yamamoto is knocked down, he tells him that he's doing good, and Yamamoto's like "Yeah right, I bet you're not even trying." Also, a little small interaction that might even go unnoticed is when Yamamoto is attacked during Shimon and Tsuna gets that phone call. The whole time Reborn is quietly questioning "What's wrong? Did something happen to Yamamoto?" "What's his condition?" and then he tells Tsuna he'll head in first (Which honestly I believe is more of a Tsuna/Reborn thing than Yamamoto/Reborn thing, he probably wanted to spare him having to see whatever condition Yam was in but its fair enough to note. He also is the one that goes and investigates the locker room where Yam was attacked to get things started. He's sweet on the guy.

(FYI? WHY DO MY YAMAMOTO SECTIONS ALWAYS END UP THE LARGEST?? ITS NOT ON PURPOSE OR FAVORING IT JUST HAPPENS THIS WAY.) In terms of Ryohei, there's this sort of mutual respect thing going on. Don't get me wrong, he thinks the guy is a dumbass khjnkhj but he is always more than happy to play along as 'Master PaoPao' and he put thought into who would be good for Ryohei as a mentor. He chooses someone like Colonello (a dumb himbo just like him-) to train him and there's an undeniable pride in him in Future Arc when he sees TYL Ryohei where he tells him that he's really matured over the years. I believe Ryohei was also somebody that Reborn personally wanted to recruit into the Vongola family, seeing his potential from the beginning.

Hibari.. Oh, Hibari. Reborn knows exactly how to play Hibari, that's the Vongola's secret weapon. He gets Dino to train him, someone who can keep up with the exponential growth and the need for the training to be battling bc otherwise how else are you gonna prank this gremlin into getting stronger for the team. And that fucking um promise that Hibari will get an opportunity to battle him? Never happens, he just fucking lies to Hibari. By the time it may be plausible, Hibari is more focused on his real rivals, the other Vongola Guardians and the boss. ('This team is full of people who I really want to bite to death' 'Someday even the sky will be beaten to death' 'Mukuro's my prey') But I don't think the relationship between Hibari and Reborn is inherently Reborn manipulating our battle freak. Similar to Ryohei and Reborn, there's a quiet respect. There's that scene in Future arc, where Reborn goes 'I missed you, Hibari<3" and TYL hibari just smiles at him and goes, 'Same here, baby' like those two are!! pals!! In general, I think Hibari is a good example of Reborn's adaptability with these kids as it takes a certain kind of energy to ..deal with Hibari.

Chrome!! There's not a lot of Chrome and Reborn scenes, but the ones there are really sweet. He does check up on her pretty often when she's sick during Future arc as well as while she's training with Bianchi. The really important scene between them is the one that happens during Rainbow arc where he understands that her issues regarding Mukuro being free. You see something really fun about Reborn is that he's pretty good with guiding someone to their answer rather than answering it for them. In this moment, and the moment that catches Bermuda's attention, is the fact that all he had asked her was what she wanted to be to in relation to Mukuro. This helped her steady herself and allowed her to enter the battle, which ultimately protected them against Vindice. And that's so special to me, because it was the final push for Chrome to wrap up her arc about her conviction and her resolution of her own accord and it came from our delightful tutor. I think Chrome is our example of Reborn's job being to make Tsuna into Vongola Tenth results in more than just focusing on Tsuna. (The others too of course are examples of this!) ALSO DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE VISITED HER IN THE HOSPITAL TO HELP HER AND ALSO ASKED HER TO BE HIS REPRESENTATIVE AFTER HE HEARD HOW SHE RESPONDED? UGHHH. Reborn..Chrome...

LAST BUT NOT LEAST, Mukuro! So Mukuro's relationship with Reborn is lowkey interesting to me sdkjhn. First of all, its implied that Mukuro knows about all the arco stuff in Kokuyo arc. As he calls Reborn an arcobaleno like it's a slur OTL. He also has his reservations about the way Mukuro comes to gain his powers, again Kokuyo when he called him a monster. During Varia arc, Reborn tells Tsuna that he should never forget what Mukuro had done to them previously. A sentiment he seemed to soften over, as TYL Mukuro aided in ending the war on Milefiore. By Shimon, they have a pretty funny interaction where Reborn catches Mukuro as an owl and then promptly kicks him after Mukuro was rude to him dhjkn. It all ends up becoming a thing where Reborn can understand where Mukuro comes from when it comes to his odd cold actions regarding Chrome. In a way, understanding that he too was trying to help Chrome. And I will never ever forget that moment where at the end of Kokuyo, WHERE REBORN SPOTS MUKURO HAVING POSSESSED SOMEONE AND COMMENTING THAT HE MUST BE LONELY AND IF HE WANTS TO PLAY AGAIN THEY'LL DO SO ANYTIME. yall.... mukuro do it. just admit that you're vongola........ Mukuro never makes his loneliness obvious, but with his upbringing it makes sense.. the way he never uses his teammates even though he acts like they're just his tools..god..Reborn sees through him and so do we..

HJEKDHN Not much of an analysis this time as just me listing my favorite moments between Reborn and the other Vongola kids.. Another long one.. I Need to make shorter posts yall.. BUT.. in the mean time!! if you guys have any favorite scenes with Reborn that I didn't bring up please let me know !! i love our lil mascot

[castrotophic]

you know i kept seeing everybody's posts about hannibal baby trapping will with abigail but omg i did not see it until now... trou normand is genuinely insane... hannibal literally said ?? we are her fathers now????? and will was like yeah so true guess i have to lie directly to jacks face and be an accomplice to murder for you guys!! anyway the parallels between lawrence wells and will are driving me crazy rn as well bc like. wells' only act as a father was to destroy his son... and now will is a 'father'... and hes going to do everything he can not to destroy his daughter... im throwing up im insane... trou normand also made me hate jack crawford with such a fiery passion its actually insane. like, first of all he needs to take will off of duty because he is soooo obviously unstable and has literally told jack and hannibal multiple times and hannibal is like 'will you need to stop doing this to yourself' and alana bloom tells him again and so he goes to jack and is like 'hey im unstable and insane' and jack is like '🤨willllll do u need to tell me something bbg🤨🤨🤨' like GIRL he JUST DID please take him off duty... also the way he questioned abigail about nick boyle was sooooo not cool. like yeah i know she actually did everything he thinks she did lmao but i do NOT appreciate how mean he was when he actually has no real evidence that shes done anything. also shes literally my babygirl daughter and i love her and support all her murdering. anyway last takeaway from this episode is that i know hannibal is an insane psychopathic serial killer but ??

this scene??? lost my mind. lost my entire mind. hes literally her dad now. yes he does know what monsters are he literally IS a monster but like. this just makes me feel like he loves her. i have no idea if he does but ohhhh boy it sure seems like it. overall im totally rooting for hannibal+will+abigail to go have a little murder family and i know they wont but man a girl can dream

[nateconnolly]

I made a Patreon lol.

Here's the free sample post:

THE CREATION MYTH OF KILL 6 BILLION DEMONS

INTRODUCTION

I love fantasy religions. I love it when fictional humans try to understand worlds like Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere and Tolkein’s Middle Earth through a religious lens—especially because in those books and in many others, the fantasy religions are somewhat true, and somewhat false. It’s really fun to look at a fictional universe through the eyes of a character who might not see things objectively. Religion usually plays a role in that. But, if I’m being honest, a lot of fantasy religions are just Christianity wearing a fun hat. Don’t get me wrong, I am fascinated by Chrisitianity, and I really enjoy a lot of fantasy versions of Christianity. But it’s a great special treat when a fantasy story goes the extra mile and portrays another concept of the divine. That’s one of many reasons that I love the webcomic Kill 6 Billion Demons. The webcomic’s fictional religion Atru has parallels to Taoism, Gnosticism, Advaita Vedanta, theothanatology, Biblical divine nomenclature, the list goes on. I just threw a lot of big scary words at you, but I promise, this is a beginner level essay. I’ll break everything down into bite-sized pieces. I just wanted to list out some of K6BD’s religious influences to show that they are complicated, and diverse.

This is specifically a essay about the creation narratives. K6BD is an amazing comic—later on, it tackles questions about time, free will, and optimistic nihilism, but I won’t dig into that stuff here. Those things would require their own essays. Here, I’m going to try to explain how the seven-part world came to be. More specifically, I’ll examine the stories that White Chain, Cio, Michael, and the old devil’s tale tell us; then I’ll look at fictional holy texts found in the Concordance.

I’ll also compare and contrast with a lot of real world religion and philosophy. I want to be clear that the creator Abaddon and I have never spoken. I don’t know where he got most of his inspiration. I’m not revealing any information that wasn’t already available, I’m just compiling it and offering my own thoughts. Unless I specifically quote Abaddon, assume that I’m not even talking about his inspirations. I’m drawing parallels because it’s fun, even though it probably won’t give us new insight into how the text was created.

I promise I’m not trying to convert you! I genuinely don’t want to make other people believe the religion that I believe—or any religion at all. I’m just trying to show you how understanding some real world religious and philosophical concepts can deepen your appreciation of K6BD. Obviously, there will be tons of spoilers, so go read the webcomic if you haven’t already. It’s absolutely genius.

Lastly, I want to say I will discuss suicide and murder.

Ok, let’s get started.

PART ONE: THE FIRST AND GREATEST DIVISION

Let There Be No Genesis

White Chain begins the history of the universe with the words, “Let there be no Genesis,” closely echoing the in-universe fictional Psalm I. “For indeed, there was [no Genesis]. God has always existed and has never existed.” As White Chain tells her story, we are shown the god YISUN. This figure is sometimes described with it/its or she/her pronouns, but for the sake of simplicity, I’m going to follow the example of the fictional Psalm I, and use he/him. I might call him “YISUN” or “God” with a capital G depending on the context.

YISUN was eternal, and the “undisputed master of the entire omniverse.” He predates everything else, and without him, nothing would exist.

YISUN has at least twelve bodies, probably more. Some are smiling, some look mad; some resemble insects or animals; most hold weapons; and all are different colors. The central white body has four arms. Abaddon has said that YISUN’s appearance is directly inspired by the Hindu god Vishvarupa.  Hindu gods are frequently depicted with multiple body parts, an artistic tradition that Doris Srinivasan calls “the multiplicity convention.” She explains some of the religious and artistic reasons that many Indian gods have multiple body parts in her book “Many Heads, Arms, and Eyes: Origin, Meaning, and Form of Multiplicity in Indian Art.” The tradition of Hinduism is long, and diverse, so the multiple limbs in one text can mean something very different from the multiple limbs elsewhere. Srinivasan closely examines a vast expanse of Indian history, and I don’t have time to present all her ideas. I would like to specifically focus on the interpretation that multiple limbs represent the manifestations of a singular godhead.

Srinivasan writes that “Multiple versions of a myth are facilitated by the idea that there exists multiple aspects or manifestations of a godhead.” Think of the difference between Greek and Hindu goddesses. Bruno Snell suggests “that these four women signalize the four aspects of all womanhood,” but Srinivasan qualifies his interpretation. The Olympian women “are not multiple forms of [one] Divine Woman, as is the case in Hinduism.” Artemis and Athena are different people who are both women, plural. Parvati, Sati, and Uma together are Woman, singular. Zeus, Demeter, and Poseidon are gods, plural. Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna are God, singular. That’s not how all Hindus see things, but it is one Hindu perspective that I find especially comparable to K6BD.

Similarly, the multiple bodies are only manifestations of a single God: YISUN. All of his bodies are a single person. In Hinduism, the plurality of the divine can be seen as empowering and liberating. Multiple body parts signify that the god is a well-rounded entity. But Abaddon makes it look like a curse. He turns the artistic convention around. Using the same symbolism and metaphysics, he tells a radically different story. As White Chain says, “Being was only circular.” “YISUN had no equal… It was a wretched life, without meaning or perception. Imagine infinite stories to tell… and nobody to tell them to.” Perfection is lonely. At this point, YISUN is the only thing that exists, and that can’t be fun. All those arms and heads cannot satisfy YISUN’s need for companionship. It’s fascinating to me that when White Chain says YISUN had no one to whom it could tell its stories, Abaddon chose to illustrate multiple heads right next to each other. Even if those heads told each other stories, the speaker and the listener would still be the same person. Dissatisfaction with isolation is why YISUN created the world.

Although not all Hindus follow the school of Advaita Vedanta, in this case, I think it will be helpful to compare and contrast with Advaita. As Ram Shanker Misra writes in “The Integral Advaitism of Sri Aurobindo,” “Brahman [ is] perfect, absolute, infinite, need[s] nothing, [and] desir[es] nothing…” Brahman is full of all perfections. And to say that Brahman has some purpose in creating the world will mean that [Brahman] wants to attain through the process of creation something which it has not. And that is impossible.”

But that’s exactly why YISUN created this world. He wants to gain something that he does not have: companionship.The universe is God’s escape from himself. There was no Genesis, but there was “the first and greatest division: division of self”: “God committed holy suicide.”

2. The Divine Suicide

White Chain’s story is similar to Friedrich Nietzsche’s famous claim that “God is dead,” but Nietzsche did not mean God was a real entity that had literally died. He meant that intellectually, it was impossible to continue believing in God, and that all intellectual achievements founded on belief in Him had to be abandoned. Nietzsche’s claim is a famous example of a philosophical school of thought called death of God theology, also called “theothanatology,” which means “the study of God’s death” in Greek.

“Death” can mean a lot of different things in this context. Sometimes it’s metaphorical, sometimes it’s literal, and usually, it’s a very confusing mixture of both.

Nietzsche proposed the death of God as a social claim about humans. He’s talking about what we can believe, what we should do, and what we need to accept. God never really existed, but as religion loses followers and influence, even the idea of God has begun to “die” because it no longer has power over the real world.

“Death” can also mean God exists, but in a way radically different from what people usually mean when they say “God.” The Rabbi and philosopher Richard L. Rubenstein thought God exists as a “ground of being,” but not as a supernatural entity that made a covenant with Abraham. Rubenstein proposed the death of God as an intellectual change in what humans think the word “God” means.

And, finally, “death” can just literally mean “death.” The Protestant theologian Thomas J.J. Altizer wrote “we shall understand the death of God as an historical event: God has died in our time, in

our history, in our existence.” This isn’t a social claim about humans—it’s a metaphysical claim about God.

Death of God theologians usually mean more than one thing when they say God is dead. Nietzsche wasn’t just trying to convince Christians to become atheists; he was also trying to convince many atheists that they disbelieved in God in the wrong way. Altizer had radical thoughts about what human beings are able to believe.

White Chain means that God is dead in the literal sense. She is proposing a metaphysical belief that God, as a historical figure, chose to actually kill himself. White Chain is not rejecting or critiquing religion—she’s asserting that her religion, in which God has died, is fact.

You can see slight parallels to Nietzsche, Rubenstein, Altizer, Hegel, Zizek, and Blake in White Chain’s version of the fictional religion Atru. But there is no better comparison than the king of sad philosophers Philipp Mainlander.

Mainlander was an atheist—but not in the sense that people usually mean when they say “atheist.” Mainlander believed that there was a God at some time, but that time is now over. There isn’t a God anymore. Mainlander is pretty unique among death of God theologians because he explicitly describes God’s death as a suicide. Whittaker explains that Mainlander thought “[a]ll things have their origin in what may be called… the ‘will’ of the absolute being… to annihilate itself.” Essentially, the cause of the universe is God’s suicidal desires.

God was a “real unity,” but his death caused a “collective unity”—that’s the universe where we live now. God had been a total and undivided One, but now the universe is made of distinct parts. God cut himself apart into the pieces of the universe. God created the world by becoming it, and he became the world by dying.

Mainlander said “the knowledge that life is worthless is the flower of all human knowledge.” He thought suicide was desirable, and ultimately, he put his money where his mouth was. The biggest difference between Mainlander and White Chain is that she doesn’t seem to think ordinary people such as herself should follow God’s suicidal example. Even beyond the views of a specific character, the story of Kill 6 Billion Demons reads as an affirmation of life’s beauty and value.

But the webcomic clearly argues that making a better world is a bloody project. So it should come as no surprise that making the world itself involved bloodshed. First and foremost, the blood of God. What’s so interesting to me is that both White Chain and Mainlander equate God’s suicide to the creation of the world. Our life comes from God’s death. Creation and destruction aren’t opposites—they’re different ways of looking at the same process. At the end of Book 2, Allison destroys Mottom’s evil tree and a lot of her palace—but this destruction is also part of the creation of a more just and free world.

So, what did God’s destruction create? What came after YISUN?

3. The Duality of Un and Yis

The destruction of the total unity creates duality. I know that’s a little confusing because YISUN had many faces, but remember that behind all of those faces was one God, and only one. Not anymore. “From division was birthed duality. White Un, Lord of empty and still places, master of all that is not. Black Yis, infinite mother of the rampant flame. Master of all that is''

I cannot avoid comparing the White and Black gods to the Yin and Yang—a spinning black and white symbol usually associated with the religion Taoism. Yin and Yang represent a cosmic duality. Yin is associated with femininity, darkness, passivity, and even numbers, among other things. Yang is associated with masculinity, light, activity, and odd numbers, among other things. Mainstream Taoist philosophy asserts that the universe can be understood through duality. So, why are these pairs important? And why do things get paired together in the first place?

As is written in the foundational Taoist text the Tao Te Ching, “Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.” What’s so interesting about the pairs is they “create,” “support,” “define,” and “depend on” each other. Black can’t exist without white, and white cannot exist without black.

As the Encyclopedia of Philosophy puts it, “...yinyang is emblematic of valuational equality rooted in the unified, dynamic, and harmonized structure of the cosmos. As such, it has served as a heuristic mechanism for formulating a coherent view of the world…” Essentially, neither of these opposites are “dominant” or “truer.” Choosing one side won’t help you understand the universe because the universe is their partnership. Their equality gives “structure to the cosmos.” That structure is order, not chaos, but it is differentiated. There are two different things: Yin and Yang. They contradict each other, but at the same time, they make the universe. Yin and Yang are a productive paradox.

I’d like to return to the notion that “being and non-being create each other.” At this stage of creation in K6BD, UN and YIS could not exist without each other. Their very existence is the fact that they are not a unity. If there was only one of them, then there wouldn’t have been a division—and they are nothing more than the product of division. Just like how being and non-being create each other, the Master of All That Is and the Master of All That Is Not create each other. YISUN was characterized by his totality—he was the total sum of the omniverse, there was nothing else. After the division, Un and Yis experience otherness. The first otherness in the omniverse. It’s difficult for them to find balance—in fact, they immediately went to war for seven years. At the end of their seven-year war, Un and Yis made love for seven days.

I want to be very clear that this is not a depiction of actual Taoism. Yin and Yang are not gods with faces and minds. Notably, the Tao Te Ching asserts that yin and yang are “older than God.” so make of that what you will. But I think Taoism is thematically relevant to this era. Two opposites have to come into balance with each other. The whole universe is a duality of interconnected forces.

K6BD repeatedly emphasizes the need for community. As Allison says at the end of King of Swords, “I couldn’t have done this without any of you… We make mistakes. We learn from each other. We all still have so much to learn. Once I saw that as a weakness, now I’m certain it’s not. Someone who lives still thinking like that… struggling to do everything themselves… I can’t help but think how alone they must be.”

YISUN had to do everything all by himself, and we saw that Allison was right—isolation was a struggle, even for God. But the struggle is over, and in its place is duality. Partnership. The first community.

These are the first four parts of a fourteen-part critical essay. You can read the rest here.

Bibliography is on the free Patreon post.

[little-elf-wanders]

I just realised how bad Effie and Solas are going to interact.

Like, they will straight up not agree, and this time it isn't even because I just don't like him - because there's potential for him to further explain what he meant with his plans and for me to change my mind if it makes sense, however, so far all we have to go off of doesn't paint him in a good light. No matter what romanticists say to defend him. We don't have the facts. Specifically for a Rook. It paints him very much as destroying the world. Multiple characters have reacted like that's what he's doing, the biggest example being Varric himself when he outright says it in the comic. So those of us who aren't reading into every little comment he made takes it for what he said it as. Which hasn't been much. And it's pretty alarming of a concept without absolute assurances. I don't take his 'lol trust me' message well, because I don't trust him.

But what I know for a fact is Effie's Mournwatch beliefs directly conflict with Solas's. And it'll be interesting to see if that has any weight in game.

They both care about spirits, that's about the biggest connection they have. The issue is they both have differing views on how that care takes place.

Solas, of course, created the Veil, but he hasn't been around to properly see what it does with spirits in this world. We see a reaction to mages binding a demon like it's the first time he's seen it. He's reactive and horrified - one Mortalitisi he even killed somewhere else, though I believe it was because of an idol they were using and for making a wisp stir their tea. Fair play to him with idol tampering and knowing abuse of a spirit.

He's seeing spirits be twisted against their nature and it is his fault. The mages doing the binding are people who don't have the same understanding of how spirits operate, though, so you can't under any circumstance blame them for thinking they're doing what was taught to them is alright. You cannot kill those mages in blind anger for not knowing what you know.

When confronting the mages, he tells them he's not helping them. Tell me why the fuck it's an ego brush he prefers about being smarter and not 'He's right, there's something about this you don't know!'

The rifts are opening everywhere spitting out demons, and they are terrified, they are hunted by rogue Templars in a mage/templar war that left a lot of angry outliers, and his only thought to them not knowing other than doing what Circles taught them is they deserve death? If they knew better sure, but very clearly they did not.

I'm showing this because Solas is extremely knowledgeable and could have chosen to teach that spirits are different from demons and that pulling one from the fade and binding it just warps it against its nature, then shown them how it went back to being a spirit. I'm aware this was his friend, so some aggression and reactiveness is understandable. But tell me why there wasn't an option to talk him down? Or to have the option to give him a way to see that some people don't understand? It was simply 'let him murder these people for which he'll love you, or disagree and he'll hate it.' And I'm not sympathetic to that at all, I would have respected him more if we got given literally any other reaction besides murder them for his approval. The mages were scared and upset, that isn't a reason to murder them. Were they wrong? YES. Obviously. But it could have been something so much fucking more. Lavellan knows this. Or she should.

Now back to Effie. We know this about Solas, she does not. The thing is, the Mournwatch seems to respect the dead. And spirits. Maybe not all of them hold those views like a certain Mortalitisi but I'm going into this believing Effie certainly does, and I suspect Emmrich does too given Manfred. She believes when someone dies a spirit is shunted from the fade. If this is true? Effie will be furious at Solas for creating the Veil without a shred of thought for it just to use the spirits as an excuse to break it. He cares more about the spirits than people. His own people are just the exception but you can't threaten what he has and only accept some. I'm curious how this might play out, if it does at all.

His biggest aim was to lock away the gods, but it completely disrupted how Thedas now operates, including how it grew - and how some countries have zero information to work with because they fear the unknown. While some respect it, like Nevarra and Rivain. Even Avvar hold a huge respect for spirits. Effie see's it as part of the ecosystem, now - which might be a wrong thought to have but those spirits are now part of that and have been for long enough there will be a significant issue or problem if it's suddenly removed. And that's entirely Solas's doing. Maybe I'm wrong to believe there'll be an issue, a magic fix it seems anticlimactic when they've built up his whole scheme to be apocalyptic.

So, if he gets mad at how the Mournwatch find the spirits suitable bodies and handle the supernatural issues from said spirits going berserk, she's fully going to tell him he's the reason why they need to find them bodies in the first place and he doesn't get to judge or break it because it's hard to stomach. They do this so they DON'T turn into demons.

And that maybe there's some other way to fix it that doesn't involve shady ass schemes and with-holding vital information that could change how systems do teach these subjects. But I don't know. She loves spirits more than people, she appears apathetic to people but she doesn't want them to bloody explode or be ripped apart.

[onelinemanytimes]

The “Protagonist” of Underverse 0.7 (Part 1)

Now, this is an interesting one. This is also a hot take, potentially, and maybe a bad choice of words- “protagonist” typically suggests a main character and Underverse is a series where a true one main character is hard to pin down. I’d say Protagonist is definitely the wrong word actually, thinking about it- but I’m not sure how else to phrase this…

Maybe it’d make more sense to call them the battle perspective. That is, the person you’re meant to be rooting for in this battle, and the person who’s side is followed closest throughout the conflict once it gets rolling.

Let’s talk about why in the WORLD I would think the character in this role is FRESH, and not Ink. 

LET ME ALSO MAKE IT CLEAR NOW. I’m not about to suggest Fresh is the next main big character in Underverse or that he’s going to be saving the day or anything of the sort. If anything, I think now, he’s basically going to disappear until maybe the very end to show up in a final shot of some kind exactly the same as he was. (I would love to be proven wrong about that but I doubt it.)

I’m talking exclusively about the second half of Underverse 0.7 Part 1 that takes place in the Antivoid/Doodlesphere, specifically the conflict that happens in the doodlesphere. So just the parts Fresh is there for. Everyone clear on that? Yeah? Alrighty.

So, how could I possibly think FRESH is the main perspective on this battle and not Ink!?? Ink is present for all the conflicts much more directly as the focus, is the one who has a character arc in the episode, and has been super important for basically the entirety of underverse what with his connection to X Gaster and everything else. Ink’s TOTALLY main character material while Fresh is super background!! Surely this is me actually being out of my mind right?

Maybe. But hear me out, because I’ve got some interesting evidence for this.

Point 1: How Fresh arrives

Fresh shows up to the scene as one part of a duo with someone who is undoubtedly a main character, Cross. This still signs him up as a sidekick more than anything, on its own, but there’s more to this than that. Specifically; The Gift. AKA, Fresh’s Payment for the favor he did Ink, something Cross doesn’t know about, but has been used in promotion and as a symbol of this episode for a while now.

That Gift has so little to do with Cross that he didn’t even get told what it was in vague terms by Core, all Core said was “Don’t worry about it, just go,” even though Core could have answered that Cross was going with Fresh of all people because ink gave him a promise, or a gift, or a favor, or something of the like.

Cross is also kicked off into what we find out to be Aftertale within the first few minutes of showing up- I think it’s safe to say that for this episode, Cross is not a focal point for the part of the video I’m focusing on here.

There’s also what Ink is doing when they show up. Besides, y’know, being thrown around like a wet sock by Error.

He’s holding the gift and looking for Fresh.

He’s PROTECTING that gift very very hard. To the point of when error was throwing him around, his focus was on making sure he did not lose that gift, even despite losing his vials in a blast soon after this. Ink didn’t remember what it was initially! But when he realized that was singularly his focus; Get this gift to Fresh.

Error is obviously an antagonist here who is preventing Ink from delivering that gift to Fresh. Also not consistently present- definitely showing up multiple times, but not there the entire time. You love to see him throwing a fit about the lack of spotlight only to hilariously still be losing the spotlight to, of all people, Fresh.

We can tell that everything here is centered around Fresh and ceases to function without him here, but there’s a much more compelling reason why I think Fresh is meant to be the focus here and the lens through which we view these battles.

Point 2: The Vials

These are Ink’s Vials! Yes, I can hear the confusion starting again. These Vials, however, are what keyed me into the fact that Fresh is the one we’re watching, not Ink. If this graphic hadn’t existed then I wouldn’t have realized it myself- but they work in a very peculiar way in this fight/chase sequence.

Fresh, currently, has all the vials. He’s playing a game of keep-away with Ink, skateboarding away with them to keep them out of his hands, meanwhile Ink is trying to attack him to get them back, and drink them.

This graphic is pretty unnecessary if it was solid. You can know the colours of the vials if you look at inks design, so it’s purpose isn’t apparent until a few moments later, when Fresh tosses out the Green and the Yellow, which are then caught by Ink…

Who drinks them. Regular Ink behavior- but now we see what the vials are there for! Ink drinking them emptied them, marking them as no longer a piece in play, completely greyed out.

…That doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?

Ink is trying to get the vials back from Fresh. If the visual was trying to keep track of how many Ink had gotten back, then all of them should be unavailable until Ink has them. Especially given at this point, Ink is being actively taunted about a variety of things I’ll dig into more in other posts- but that needless to say are encouraging him to magically pursue Fresh. 

Perhaps they’re simply keeping track of how much material is in each vial..? But that would also be odd, wouldn’t it? Why would Ink need to keep track of which vials are full or empty? His magic isn’t tied to the colours he has access to, and the vials don’t change when magic is used by Ink, just when they’re drunk. Not to mention, Ink doesn’t have those vials yet- Fresh has them.

And you know who would profit from keeping track of their volume, and which ones have been consumed? Fresh would. It's VERY important that Fresh keeps track of which ones Ink’s drunk, for reasons that are made clear later. HE is the one that is making that visual matter- and it’s tied to HIS goal, not Ink’s. We’re seeing his side of this battle, the side where he has to know which vials are empty for the last part of this battle.

When the vials are no longer a checklist. They’re a timer.

These Vials, in the latter half of their fight, become a timer that goes down at a steady rate over the next few minutes. This timer is very very obviously for Fresh specifically, marking how much time he has to be in control of ink’s body. Anything he wants to do, he has to do it before he runs out of the material now in those vials- making this graphic undeniably one that applies to Fresh specifically, not Ink.

Why does this matter? What’s the point of knowing who’s perspective we have on this battle when we’re watching from the third person anyways? Well, for one it’s cool as heck to see this and ponder it, but for two; it’s so that the shift to Fresh!Ink isn’t that strange or jarring. Having Fresh take over the main character and perspective of the battle would be odd, and would mean forcing your main character to take a back seat. It’d mean Fresh was actively uprooting something planned and prepared before and causing a disruption.

That’s no good! But that problem goes away if Fresh was always the focus. No need to shift perspectives, no need to see how Ink feels while being possessed, none of that. Fresh is the one who’s in the spotlight- and this is further accentuated by how he acts while possessing Ink. He’s not talking to Error, that’s for sure, and he’s at best kind of talking to Ink, maybe.

That’s not actually it though. No, he’s talking to us, full on PSA mode, turned towards the camera and giving a guide on how he plans to win as he proceeds to. The spotlight on him makes overwhelming sense, with that- and it’s EXACTLY the kind of thing he would want, maybe even fitting payment that he decided to take for himself when Ink’s gift was so sub par.

He wants us to pay attention to him. He wants to be seen, to be remembered, to be adored and to exist without question. Because that’s what it means to be a character. That’s how you continue to be there, how you keep from fading away into irrelevancy- how you end up getting replaced, and written out of your own life.

And he is terrified of being replaced. He would do anything to keep himself important enough for us to care about.

Maybe the gift was the funniest thing in the multiverse after all. An opportunity for Fresh- ridiculous, overshadowed, often misunderstood and ignored Fresh- to temporarily take the biggest spotlight possible from one of the main characters of the series, asserting himself in legendary, radical fashion as an essential part of this otherwise very serious high stakes story that cannot be overlooked or replaced. Because you have to admit, THAT is hilarious.

[astroboyanalysis]

7. The Greatest Robot on Earth

oh boy here we go

As a warning, this liveblog may take me multiple days (or like, a week, I literally don't know) to get all the reblogs on. The way you will know I am truly done is 1. I will say so on that reblog above the readmore and 2. I will post the next story. Won't do that until I'm done with this one, obviously.

Let's get started.

(I begin the first panel and am immediately affronted with what I must acknowledge is racism) ah

I am not the best person to speak on this. I am also likely not the first (although a quick google search has not revealed essays to me) to see this and recognize its heavy anti-arab racism and caricature. Because I am not the best person to speak on this, aside from pointing out that I do in fact recognize this and asking that you as the reader of this blog also recognize this, there is not much I am planning to discuss on it. I can't imagine there's much that hasn't already been said. It was wrong to portray a person or culture this way then, and it's wrong now. That's all I'll say for now.

Glad he has such a convenient visual for us. Also, I'm so fond of these robot designs. I love Pluto but boy are these silly and fun.

This sounds both normal to want and achievable as a goal, yeah

This is one of those just actually horrific moments, lmao. The gore of it all. The fact that his horns seem made to simply pass current through whatever touches them, or to arc electricity almost, is just wild. If I'm understanding the visual correctly and its meant to bring forward arcs of electricity like a taser, but at such a large scale, I'm fairly certain it would simply melt one of these robots if it didn't blow them up.

I'm glad we've moved past this visual.

I am somewhat curious if it was meant to be received as funny at the time. It must have been, right...?

Atom's characterization in the original manga is so starkly different to how its developed over time (and especially with multiple authors at this point). He's so ready to fight and doesn't stop to think at all - I'm so fond of the (cough, 2003, cough) idealistic and pacifistic Atom who only fights when there is no choice we've come to love now. The parallels between his appearance (childlike) and his views on the world (naive) are clear and the way that clashes with the events in the world around him and pushes him into these really difficult situations is just so much more compelling to me, idk. I really do love the "I don't want to fight you, I want to help you, I want to be your friend" (and actually meaning it) approach.

Some of what I really love about Astro Boy is that Atom's idealism has truth to it, but it puts him in conflict with others. The truth is somewhere in the idea that everyone has a right to exist, that everyone has value, that robots and humans can coexist - But just because it's true doesn't mean it's uncontroversial, and his existence being in opposition to others interests is what pushes him to make hard decisions. He's being shown again and again these conflicts that arise when humans make robots with bad intentions, when humans mistreat robots, when they try to live together, etc. etc., but his childlike and naive approach to the world LETS him keep hope that the better future he believes in will come to pass. His permanent youth is paralleled by his permanent optimism and the fact that he simply won't become jaded - or at least, not for long.

Gosh I can't wait to get to 2003 again.

I could talk about how the antidote to apathy and becoming overwhelmed with the horrors of the world is in what kids bring to the table forever. But it's all there, isn't it?

Anyway "I'll teach you to make a fool of me" while being inches away from certain death is very funny. "You think that's funny? I'm about to be hilarious"

Can't argue with that!

I love when Ochanomizu gets to have a moment like this.

This moment directly parallels something Atom said earlier, actually:

Anyway. "If it was only about strength" is a very important quote here and I'll probably come back to it at the end of the story. He really sums it all up right at the beginning though. What a good father figure. Although he does say ""only"" 100,000 horsepower which seems silly.

Uran what the hell lmao. He's clearly upset why are you egging him on like that.

Ok I do love how angry and ashamed he is here. The Atom we see in this comic specifically seems to base a lot of his value on his ability to win a fight through brute strength, which is kind of interesting. It's also interesting when we see this sort of character be so submissive to authority - It indicates there's a heirarchy beyond strength that they do have to acknowledge (social capital, respect of elders, something in there), yet they value strength so highly maybe because it's the heirarchy they can control, somewhat. And yet here he's been told he's not allowed to get stronger to win.

(Guy that likes bugs) I'm getting some real bugs vibes from North #2's design

He's shaped like a praying mantis to me, sort of. I'm about to say the same thing when we see Gesicht as well, but he looks more like a fly.

The idea of this being impersonal is very strange to me, but also very compelling. I will ignore how much I love Pluto's approach to this manga because I'm not commenting on differences here, and I'm just going to talk about it as its own characterization. Like a normal person.

Why would Pluto have any amount of hatred towards the robots he's meant to destroy? They're more alike him than the one commanding him to kill them. There's a kind of tragedy in this, I suppose - although he's not particularly against hurting them, either. But the fact he feels a need to tell them it's not personal is interesting.

Uran also having the same idea of Atom's value that he himself does, but having very little care for Ochanomizu's wisdom on the matter (while Atom dejectedly accepts it as fact) puts them in conflict here - She expects more of him than he's showing - Why is he bowing down now? But Atom also values his own niceties, his deference to power, and his acceptance of the authority of the one who, in a way, owns him.

We do see that Ochanomizu tells Atom he's free in the first comic, yet Atom continues to treat Professor Ochanomizu as if he created him, and values his authority above all else. As of yet, we haven't seen him directly disagree with Professor Ochanomizu or his authority, and he does act basically the way any owned robot (or a child born to a parent) would (seems to stick around Ochanomizu, listens to what he says and obeys, etc.), just with far more freedoms and independence.

Basically, in this first iteration, their relationship is very difficult for me to parse out. He's certainly paternal, he's certainly a guiding figure, and he certainly has authority over Atom that Atom does not question, but Atom is given a full family unit outside of the Professor, and the Professor is not his creator.

We have not (yet) seen a reason for Atom to understand that Ochanomizu's authority is earned, like, for example, him disobeying and then finding that Ochanomizu was right all along. This iteration of Atom lacks the tendency of children to push boundaries or to think independently, it seems.

her pajamas are just so cute

CONFIRMED they're pants in this iteration and not a permanent part of his body.

Great question, Uran! It'd be awesome if we had any introduction to you or your creation before reading this comic so that this would strike us in any way at all. But alas, that is not the order of the omnibus.

Still, she has a good point as far as we're concerned. Why didn't he do that? Why aren't there a bunch of Atoms flying around all the time? I'm curious if the manga itself will actually answer this.

Pluto himself is so deeply interesting to me. He does smile while he fights the robots he's been ordered to fight, and while he kills them, and yet he seems to value robots in general on a basic level. He made it clear it was not a personal issue and was because he was ordered to, but it's still interesting to me that he doesn't seem to care one way or the other about violence. He doesn't like it enough to enact it when he hasn't been ordered to.

Ochanomizu has the authority to Forbid Atom from fighting. It's clear Atom is choosing not to, at Ochanomizu's request, so taking a hostage to force him into it also indicates to me that it's a choice to obey that can be overriden if Atom wills it (and that, without this motivation, he simply doesn't, or prefers to defer to Ochanomizu out of respect, obligation, or otherwise).

"Baby sister" is so cute considering that she never was a baby

His kindness.... What made him like that. I do love him so much

I do love that Atom's mercy plays a major role here. I think it's interesting that Pluto asks in the first place.

"That's what I was designed to do" is an answer that isn't immediately rebuffed by Atom with anything about freedom to choose your path or anything. He seems to mostly stay quiet on what other robots do in their positions, from what we've seen, and doesn't particularly care to help anyone liberate themselves if they don't already want it in the first place.

Can any Astro Boy scholars let me know what the original text says in Japanese and what the meaning of the word used is? Tomboy just seems so strange here and I'm curious how faithful the translation is to the original text. I'm not even sure how to go about finding a copy of the story in Japanese, frankly, because it's so old.

But why....? His father doesn't even seem to have his own take on this or care that it's dangerous, it's all about the fact that Ochanomizu told him to.

He's just very flylike to me

Again. horrific.

Okay I don't have anything to say but Cobalt's really cute in this panel. Anyway I'll continue this in a reblog because I've run out of images!

[corallapis]

[spoilers for the dark path]

re: koschei's standing with the time lords prior to & during the dark path: he's definitely not a renegade yet!

“Yes… That’s something I’ve been meaning to ask: they allow you to wander around like this?” “Do I detect a hint of jealousy, Doctor?” Koschei shrugged. “They’ve never said anything untoward to me.”

of course, they are secretly keeping tabs on him through ailla, but as far as he's aware, he's still in good stead with them. ailla describes him multiple times as a “scholar” and gives it as his reason for travelling — presumably this is what he's considered as back home, too.

ailla has heard koschei been called “two-faced,” and explains she's been made to spy on him bc there are worries he's unstable:

The Doctor looked surprised. “What? You mean he doesn’t know you’re one of us?” “I was instructed not to tell him. I was placed on Earth to wait for Koschei. I was to make occasional reports on Koschei’s activities. There was some doubt over his stability, but everything I’ve seen shows him to be the most level-headed man I know. Or at least, he was.” The Doctor’s face was a mask of horror. “What was I supposed to do? Tell all and get hauled up in front of a tribunal? Stay on Earth with its food riots and constant wars? It seemed sensible enough at the time.”

koschei is surprised when all this is revealed, not only over ailla's betrayal, but what this means about how the time lords view him:

“What’s happened?” Koschei repeated in a murmur, knowing the Doctor would hear him nonetheless. “My people mistrust me; [...]”

he only describes himself as a renegade (by saying “you are a renegade from our people too” to the doctor) after ailla has been exposed, things have gone off the rails, and it's clear there's no turning back if his plan succeeds. he removes a part of his tardis that allows remote control from the time lords, which clearly indicates that he wasn't on the run before this point:

Koschei then opened an inspection panel on the console, and physically tore out a chunk of crystal which had delicate circuits embedded in it. “Just so they don’t get any ideas about dragging me home.” He dropped the crystal to the floor, and smashed it with his heel. “I will go back when I’m ready, and not before.”

anyway, the lines that got me thinking about this were these, which occur after the aforementioned going off the rails:

“Koschei’s trying to incorporate the Darkheart into his TARDIS, to give him the ability to directly alter Time. We have to destroy the whole complex.” “That’s what we were se— That’s what we think we came here for in the first place.” The Doctor clasped his hands and looked rather smug. “I rather thought so…”

i took that “we were se—” as sent, as in the time lords have sent them to destroy the darkheart. it's possible that koschei was a cia agent (though if that were the case, why the subterfuge with ailla, why the description as a scholar?) or otherwise working for the time lords, but there isn't much to indicate this in the rest of the book. from everything else, it seems that koschei and ailla encounter a temporal distortion and their tardis is drawn off-course, and so they investigate, just like the doctor & co. koschei and ailla certainly don't know what the darkheart is until they start snooping. there is the possibility that the time lords have sent them to deal with this temporal distortion without informing them, by overriding koschei's tardis, as happens to the doctor in colony in space. perhaps koschei suspects this and had had a conversation about it with ailla, who secretly knows that's indeed true (hence the dialogue above)? that's the most sensible conclusion i've come to, though i'm still a bit baffled, as if that's the case it's blink-and-you-miss-it in the text. if anyone has any other theories, i'd be glad to hear them.

[true-blue-sonic]

What does Silver's naivety mean exactly? He's always described with this word but everyone seems to interpret it differently

The Cambridge dictionary definition of naive is:

too willing to believe that someone is telling the truth, that people's intentions in general are good, or that life is simple and fair. People are often naive because they are young and/or have not had much experience of life.

There's a lot to unpack here, not helped by the fact that Silver's naivete, in my opinion, is definitely not present in all games. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that '06 is the only game that has him as truly naive. I'll put the respective games under headers to make it a bit more readable.

Sonic 06

Let's start with '06. Silver immediately trusts Mephiles when he appears with an alleged simple solution to the problem Silver has been inside of his whole life. He furthermore takes at face value that Mephiles tells the truth and has good intentions, or at the very least does not question those intentions until far later into the game ("Mephiles... Tell me. Who is the Iblis Trigger? Why does he want to destroy the world?"; before the Train Terminal and second boss fight with Sonic). A lot of convincing (starting with Amy showing her unwavering faith in Sonic and Shadow later bluntly intercepting when the seeds of doubt were already planted in Silver's mind) is necessary to make him see the truth of Mephiles' deception. However, I do not think Silver believes life is simple and fair: he expresses frustration in '06 about the endless battle against Iblis he has been fighting for so long:

Blaze: Looks like we stopped it for now. Silver: But, it'll just rise up from its ashes again. [Hits a brick wall with his fist in frustration.] What's the point of all this? It'll never end. Blaze: Calm down, Silver. Silver: [disappointed] Then tell me what we should do. How can we completely destroy Iblis?

So yeah; he is frustrated and angry and does not know what to do anymore. A general conclusion I can draw from '06 is that he is naive there, because he immediately trusts Mephiles has good intentions and provides information with as goal to defeat Iblis forever. Silver does not question Mephiles' motives until much farther into the game.

Sonic Rivals

After that, we get Rivals... and Silver is not naive here, I would say. He is willing to give "Eggman" the benefit of the doubt at the start of his story, expressing a desire to "talk to him" first before taking to brawling multiple times. However, when more and more evidence begins stacking up, he becomes convinced of the idea that "Eggman" is actually a disguised Eggman Nega, and he is right! Furthermore noteworthy is that he figured this out all by himself, through reasoning there is something wrong about "Eggman's" speech and mannerisms, the fact he possesses the camera, and the fact "Eggman" mentions the "present and future". It shows multiple things: Silver is shrewd enough to have a keen awareness of the usual way Eggman Nega behaves, can further compare that to how other people act, can reason that it's highly unlikely Eggman just got his hands on a camera from the future out of nowhere when Eggman Nega is so protective of it, listens well enough to what is being said to notice tiny details and slip-ups, and can draw logical and correct conclusions based on all that information together. It means Silver is not at all dumb or unobservant. And thus, I would say he is not naive here! He doesn't trust "Eggman" as far as he can throw him, but also waits with his accusations before there is so much evidence it is impossible that what he suspects isn't true.

Sonic Rivals 2

And that shrewdness continues in Rivals 2! Eggman Nega directly says: "Ah, Silver, very perceptive! Nothing gets by you, I see." when Silver immediately calls him out when he shows up as "Eggman" again. Thus, he does not fall for the same trick twice! Interesting to note is that Eggman Nega did deny knowing anything about himself when disguised as "Eggman" in Rivals 1; is it possible he knew Silver would not believe him if he tried that again?

However, I would say Silver is somewhat more naive in Rivals 2 than in 1 because of a simple fact: he just figures Espio will know he is telling the truth because he is telling the truth.

Silver: Agh! Where did Eggman Nega take off to? Espio: Silver... What is this about saving our world? Silver: If you want to save your world, we have to hide the Chao in a safe place. Espio: You want me to believe that? Silver: Yes, why? Espio: Unbelievable as it may seem... For some reason, I trust you.

When Espio asks if Silver just wants him to believe that, Silver answers in affirmative while being completely earnest. There is absolutely no consideration of the fact Espio has no reason to believe him and might not believe him at all because Silver currently is basically kidnapping Chao left and right. He even tells Espio straight to his face that he is kidnapping Chao earlier in the game:

Silver: Hey, Espio! Where did you go? Espio: Silver! I know you're responsible for the disappearing Chao. Silver: That's right! To save our worlds. Espio: But that doesn't make sense. Why?

Eggman Nega interrupts before Silver can explain, but also here Silv comes steamrolling through with his honesty like a sledgehammer to the knees. So here Silver's naivete shows itself in an 'opposite' way compared to how it showed in '06, I would say: instead of taking other people at face value, he believes everyone takes him at face value because what he is telling is true. That can furthermore mean he thinks life is 'simple'; nicely black-and-white, where good people like him who want to save the world do not lie and deceive and thus immediately are believed by other good people. It just does not seem to occur to him that people do not automatically believe him, haha! He furthermore gets angry when people express scepticism about his world-saving attempts:

Knuckles: So Silver, what do you want with the Chao, anyway? Silver: I have to save your world or mine will be destroyed, too! Knuckles: What? And you think the Chao can help? You're crazy. Silver: I'll show you how crazy I am. Knuckles: Oh yeah? Bring it on!

I feel it definitely relates to the above-discussed, based on Silver's trusting attitude, but his reactions to not being believed are another story.

Sonic Colours, Sonic Generations and Sonic Forces

In Colours DS, Silver shows a bit more of a sassy side to him, mocking Eggman's ride as inaccurate and boasting to Blaze about his powers. He notices Orbot and Cubot appeared when he and Blaze neared a specific ride, which gives Blaze the incentive to urge Sonic to check it out. There is no indication of naivete as described above here. Silver doesn't have too big a role in Generations next, but he expresses clear distrust for when Sonic suddenly pops up while Silver is hanging out in the void. He asks if Sonic is an imposter/fake sent for the Emerald, and battles with him until Sonic has defeated him, thus proving he is real. Again: not a trace of naivete. I would even go so far as to say him not trusting Sonic immediately is the opposite of naivete.

And the same kind of goes for Forces, really. Silver is on top of things in the Resistance: he is helping with developing plans, he shoots Infinite's taunting down immediately, he is just generally very grounded and desiring to make things right for the world. For this game I truly cannot think of an example that shows him as a naive person. He definitely believes that they can make things better and turn the tide of the war, but not in an overly trusting, 'life is simple and fair' kind of way. At most, his brushing off of the 'strange readings' (Classic Sonic and Tails) in the Mystic Jungle as just another Eggman robot could perhaps show something like that? But I feel like that is quite the stretch and also not unbelievable for him to figure that is the case, considering the entire world is overran by robots at that moment.

Team Sonic Racing

(I nearly forgot about this game, woops.) This one is a bit of a doozy; I think the English Trash Talk Scene which I so detest was meant to give a sense of naivete to Silver... except it just directly contradicts the fact he trash talks everyone in the game itself. And also in this game he is shrewd otherwise: he immediately predicts there will be trouble in his very introduction, he alerts everyone the moment he sees Eggman and Dodon Pa talk (and is furthermore believed immediately by his friends), he asks Omochao's help to keep an eye on the tracks to sate his worries, and confronts Eggman directly about what he and Dodon Pa were discussing. Eggman is as transparant as can be about having hired Zavok in his denial, but Silver might not have been around when that was said (he was not in that cutscene) and thus he very well might have reached that conclusion by himself. So also here: zero taking-things-at-face-value. He does not believe Eggman in the slightest, and all his suspicions and bad feelings that he attempts to tackle and get to the bottom of throughout the game are proven correct.

Overall conclusion

So based on the above info from games and assuming I have not missed something, the only games wherein Silver has shown true signs of naivete are '06 and traces in Rivals 2. In the other games he is far more sceptical and distrustful. Rivals 1 furthermore shows him as quite shrewd and able to put various pieces of information together to see if it aligns with what he thinks is happening. So... I think the conclusion I can get from here is that Silver actually is naive no more, haha! It at least has not been shown in any recent game, with only '06 running on it. The fact that bios still extensively bring it up might relate to the fact Silver's backstory is still heavily tied to '06, which I talked about in an earlier post as well. I do think it is safe to say Silver has a very straightforward mindset: he believes others trust him because he is saying the truth in Rivals 2, the moment Sonic beats him in Generations is the moment he believes that Sonic is the real deal, and so on. So I think that is for me the best way I can describe Silver's naivete: it makes him extremely straightforward and gives him somewhat of a black-and-white mindset wherein people automatically trust him because he is speaking the truth (which is not how the real world works). But he is too perceptive, shrewd, and seemingly good at piecing together clues to be dumb or idiotic, that much is certain.

I feel like I got off-topic somewhat, but I hope I answered your question well!🍀

[roobylavender]

i was thinking about a post you made, not sure just how old it is, about how you find the symbolism and discrepancy of bruce wayne and batman’s darkness dull nowadays. ive seen people say bruce has become more batman than he is bruce, because most of bruce died with jason and thus he has none of bruce left to spare with his other kids. which i think is pretty true nowadays but also very sad. how come he has never fought to be truly better for his kids? surely he wouldve still cared enough to make an effort. theres no way the guy who is so overly critical and ashamed of himself wouldnt realize how much hes hurt these kids. he knows how to fight, its all hes ever done. it took so much violence to be this gentle etc etc. why couldnt he have put up a fight just one more time, for this? plus, by framing it this way, you inherently make the batman identity an almost sort of dark cloud, nearly evil force? cause it just brings negativity and toxicity to everyone around him. and plus like. why does being batman have to be Such a bad thing, yknow? batmans a good guy. batman loves people, he loves the children of gotham and he cares for the livelihood of people. its like you said (i believe it was you, i think) that batman is just an extension of himself and his morals and belief in humanity. batman cant exist without the person that bruce is, a person who should be good.

but yeah putting this here because your posts give me brainworms <3

this is why books like batman: ego seriously bother me lol.. creativity wise it's a great concept but it doesn't do much to honor the integrity of the actual character. which i think is a running theme in dc editorial in general. you have a lot of creators (geobard jawnes) who individually would like to see certain things and then use that desire to project it onto whoever they're writing or whoever they hope to write for and it's like. on a storytelling level that's not practical lmao! sometimes the things you want to see are not suited to the character you want to see them expressed by. is it interesting for a masked identity to be distinct of a civilian one almost to the point of the masked identity taking on its own consciousness? absolutely. does it make sense to say that's how it works for bruce? probably not. and that desire to separate the two identities coupled with the fact that dc's storytelling structure since the early 00s has increasingly moved towards servicing universe wide events every other year that subsequently stagnate the scope of storytelling and civilian minutiae within individual runs.. well. the effect is that you have a bruce whose civilian life is less likely to be explored bc it's not only deemed uninteresting and unimportant to editorial but also bc it's directly antithetical to the stasis editorial wants to keep bruce in. bruce never has to grow up or evolve if he always views his civilian life as an afterthought he's constantly running away from. it's convenient for him to be always be buried in a new lede and for the plot of his books to exclusively revolve around the next mystery or villain. if the pages don't have the room for him to care then why should he have to care at all? that's why i feel like conversations about his portrayal as an abuser really need to center on editorial decisions more. he wasn't born this way. he was deliberately taken in this direction by multiple editorial staff who were more interested in portraying him as an abuser than not

[serafiel-jacobs]

The calm before the storm (Fanfic)

New chapter from my main series 🩷

January 16th 18XX

The lesson went as usual and Pinocchio was happy that there was nothing wrong with Gemini, still, he still felt awful, and despite being told multiple times that it wasn’t his fault he blamed himself.

Being the bastard he is Dorian played with his feelings of insecurity, staying a little too close to him, disguising his true motives as words of encouragement, he liked playing with his prey sometimes, and he needed to relax, things had been way too tense for him, that’s why he was taking his break in the first place, he had gotten sloppy, he knows, he was sure that he was about to get caught, he had to get rid of anyone that he deemed suspicious, he had to kill them, and Dorian wouldn’t give that Ergo to that Demon, that was for himself and himself only, he would torture their souls as long as he lived.

Although he dotted on the attention that idiot Sybil gave him he had no choice but to get rid of her, and her brother, and he made sure that her family had a few mysterious accidents; Dorian couldn’t trust anyone anymore, only himself, he ended up killing his servant Victor and his housekeeper Ms. Leaf. His mansion is completely empty, only him, he fired all his other workers, so no one must know, and no one must find that cursed painting that holds his terrible secret.

Blackmailing Alan Campbell is tedious but he is an alchemist, the more he gets out of him, the better, that’s how he has gathered even more information and skills about Ergo.

Dorian Gray took every opportunity to lean closer to Pinocchio, even directly grabbing his hand to paint alongside him, he could feel that the boy was tense, and that just made it even more fun for him. At the end of their time together, he made a signal to Pinocchio to remind him of their special plans for tomorrow.

Pinocchio left with his father, showing him the painting he did, and he smiled knowing that his father liked it, they were thinking of getting him art supplies once they were back home. For now, the rest of their time together here they decided that today was good to finally shop for gifts for everyone back home, it’s always hard for Pinocchio to choose gifts, there is so much stuff he would love to give them, he loves his family so much.

As they left and were finishing up with their shopping and making their way back, Pinocchio felt something, something he hadn’t felt in a long time, he grabbed Gemini’s cage and turned its light on, reveling a Golden Dimensional butterfly, it flapped its and Pinocchio followed it, taking them to an empty alley, he grabbed his dagger and proceeded to stab the butterfly, he felt a little bad but each time they were down they would leave something important behind, and this was no exception as the golden butterfly left a Quartz behind, Pinocchio took it and kept it his pocket.

“Son, don’t run off by yourself like that”

“Sorry I just had to catch it”

Pinocchio thought that his father would be confused but instead, his father said that it was odd to see a dimensional butterfly in there, right, how could he have forgotten, his father made Gemini of course he knows what they are.

Wait why does he feel like he is forgetting something? Butterfly… Butterfly…

“Sophia!” Pinocchio shouted, shoot, he forgot to tell his father about Sophia’s visit, and it was only two days from now, “Sophia is supposed to come here and see me in two days!”

“What? Son why didn’t you say anything before?!”

“I forgot…”

Geppetto put his palm to his face, there was no problem with Sophia seeing his son, but a little heads-up would have been nice.

He hopes that maybe he can also talk with her, Sophia was dear to him, he had known her since she was just a child and she cared deeply for her, maybe they can finally have a heart-to-heart conversation, but it was possible Sophia doesn’t want to speak with him, and he wouldn’t blame her, she has gone through a lot, and he knows firsthand how hard it is to be reminded of the past, specially since everything is still so recent, only a year has passed yet it probably felt like an eternity to her.

“It’s fine don’t worry, just be more careful next time”

They continued walking and Geppetto started to have a lot of thoughts in his mind now that he was reminded of Sophia.

“Son, what do you think about Sophia?”

“She is a great friend! She has always been there for me, and she is so nice and her powers are so cool, she kept me safe out there”

So he still doesn’t know, Geppetto lets out a sigh, he is starting to regret that he hasn’t taught him anything about romantic love, Sophia surely will ask Pinocchio for some time alone while they are here and he wonders how that love confession is going to go; but maybe he has no right to judge, when he confessed his love to his late wife he ended up fumbling his words so much, at least he was smart enough to choose a nice scenery, the lake they were in reflected the moon perfectly…

Sometimes Geppetto wonders if he should tell Pinocchio about her, and tell him more about Carlo, talking about them can be painful but remembering the good times is always precious. Well, maybe when they get back home he will, for now, it’s best to enjoy the present with this vacation.

“Geppetto, Pinocchio nice to see both of you here,” Alexander said, having bumped into them.

“Alexander, nice to see you again” It was, it’s nice to talk with him outside of work.

“Today was tough, right? Maybe we shouldn’t be working at our age anymore?” Alexander teased but considering how tired he has been getting lately Geppetto is starting to think that’s true.

“Well, we aren't too far from the age of retirement, unfortunately, we are pretty close”

“Geppetto, don’t remind me how old I am please”

“How old are you?” Pinocchio asked innocently.

Alexander laughed, “Looks like you haven’t taught him that it’s rude to ask that”

“It’s rude to ask a Lady that, we aren’t ladies,” Geppetto said.

“Is that why mother says she is 25 when others ask her?” Pinocchio looked confused, even more when Alexander and his father laughed.

“Son, she is 64 but don’t tell her I told you that” Well, his son has the right to know her age, and Geppetto knows that she will never say her age out loud.

“Okay,” Pinocchio says innocently, already planning to tell her as soon as he sees her again, he thinks it’s funny when his mother gets angry at silly things like that, and he has never seen her angry at his father, it’s going to be fun to see that.

“Pinocchio me and your old man are already 60” How the years have passed, “Although your father does look a few years older right?”

“It’s because I had kids and you didn’t”

“You are just proving my point even more, kids drain the years out of you”

“What?!” Pinocchio started crying, and Alexander started to apologize, saying how it was all just a joke.

“My boy is sensitive Alexander don’t scare him like that” Geppetto grabbed Pinocchio into a playful hug.

“I’m not… that sensitive, I’m pretty strong,” Pinocchio said while still having a few tears in his eyes.

After a little more time spent talking, Alexander waved them goodbye and they arrived at the Hotel to rest again, as the day became night, Pinocchio was getting ready for bed, and he started to look from the window, knowing what Mr. Gray had told him, this painting was going to be special, it’s going to be the perfect gift for his father.

Pinocchio couldn’t wait to make up tomorrow and make his father proud of him.

[shootingstars-or-airplanes]

Alright it's time for a rant! Let's talk about canon vs. fanon. This is gonna be a long one folks, so buckle up!

I see a lot of people complaining about fan interpretations of characters in art or fan works or even headcanons not lining up with the canon depictions of the characters and this always sort of bugs me a bit. I think we need to reframe how we approach the idea of canon vs. fanon.

I want to start off by saying I'm a writer. I have a degree in creative writing and have had at least one publication at the time of posting. I know what it's like to pour your heart and soul into a project and into creating these characters and the world they live in. So I can somewhat see where people are coming from when they talk about the importance of sticking to the author's vision. The author put a lot of love into that character and their interpretation is, of course, paramount. But I don't think that this necessarily means that contrary fanon interpretations can't exist.

I'd like to draw a comparison to mythology, if I may. Ancient mythology is one of my special interests and I took multiple classes on different mythologies during my time in undergrad. The professor for those classes was amazing and one thing that he said that will always stick with me is something he'd teach on the first day of any of his mythology classes: "Myth is multiform".

Ok so what does "myth is multiform" mean? Well in simple terms it means that when it comes to mythology, there is no one "correct" telling of the story. Mythology at its root was an oral tradition. It didn't have an author. These stories were built and shaped by the dozens or hundreds of people who told them. And with each telling, the new storyteller would add a little bit of their own unique flair to the story. They might change a detail they never liked or couldn't remember correctly or they might add in details where there weren't any the first time they heard it. And as this keeps happening, the story changes a lot between people and cities and villages and even time. So if you hear one story where Aphrodite's hair was blonde and another where it was red, which detail is correct? Both. Because myth is multiform. The story is changed and affected by those who interact with it.

This can even be seen in modern interpretations of classic myth. The way we tell the stories now is drastically different from how they were told back then. For example, a lot of people who are really into Greek mythology see Athena as somewhat of a feminist icon. A lot of modern depictions of her show her as a strong and independent woman. But the Athena of ancient Greece, while strong, was a model goddess for upholding the patriarchal system of society at the time. She was known for following laws and customs to the letter, including and sometimes especially misogynistic ones. To put it bluntly, she was not a girl's girl.

But today we emphasize the parts of her that feel strong and empowering. We see the goddess of justice and war who fights for herself and stands up for what she believes is right. So which Athena is real? I mean, one is directly from the time period, so that one must be the true one, right? Wrong. They are both the real Athena. Because myth is multiform.

"Yeah, ok," you say, "but modern media isn't mythology. It's not an oral tradition. It has authors and we can identify exactly what the original story was." And that's true. But once a story exists, once it is shared with others, it becomes more than itself. Even on the most basic level, an author isn't capable of conveying literally every detail and meaning they had in mind while creating it into the actual piece. Some things--many things, really--are left to interpretation. That's why we have high school literature teachers asking why you think the curtains are blue in some random scene of a book.

And every person is going to bring their own prior knowledge and life experiences to that story which will impact how they interpret it. So as soon as one person has heard your story, there are already two versions of the story in existence--the one you wrote and the one they read. The words on the page might be the same but all the little gaps are filled in differently depending on the person. There are things an author can do to steer their audience in the direction they want them to interpret things in, but your reader/listener/viewer is never going to get 100% of the meaning you put into it.

All this to say, when a story reaches fandom, it essentially becomes myth. All the slightly different little versions of these worlds and characters are floating around in people's heads and as they talk to one another about it and share their ideas and interpretations, those versions grow and evolve beyond the original work.

Fanon versions of characters don't come out of nowhere; they're slowly molded and shaped by the community surrounding them using the basis of the source material and then combining collective experiences and attitudes of fans. They grow with the community, just as a myth grows with its culture.

So my point here isn't to say that all interpretations of a character are equally true to source and should be treated as such, but rather to say that characters evolve when touched by the hearts of people who love them and enjoy their stories and while the canon character is valid and beloved in their stagnancy, fanon versions can exist at the same time without threatening the canon character's status.

Just because an interpretation of a character that you see a lot might be wildly different from the character's existence in canon, that doesn't inherently make it bad. It shows the impact of human experience and community on art and the two characters can coexist separately without one needing to wipe the other out.

[indoor-outdoor-tgirl]

Seeing this for the Multiple times today and it's been bugging me.

Just to get the first one out of the way, “institutional transmisogyny doesn’t exist”, is a phrase I have a difficulty believing anyone has uttered within the trans community in earnest. Like who has said this? I need names. This is, as far as I'm concerned, a straw tboy.

There is much more to say about the second thing.

“transmascs have zero benefits of the patriarchy”, again like… I don't know if I've seen someone say that 1:1. But it's closer to a statement I have seen is "transmascs don't benefit from patriarchy" which is much more defensible.

Cause while zero benefits might not be true, if we're talking net benefits they do not. By most proxy metrics I can find trans men/mascs not only have it worse than their cis male counterparts, but also worse off than the cis female category (by proxy metrics I mean things like SA rates, Suicide rates, and wage gap). And I really have not seen any substantiated arguments to the contrary, only rhetorical arguments.

And it's not even about passing or whatever, patriarchal society simply does not value trans men, it would prefer that they never transition. Contrary to some naive assertions, sexism would not actually prefer women to be men, but prefers AFAB and AMAB people to fulfill their respective social roles and duties within patriarchy and within the patriarchal family unit, something that both trans femme and trans masc people transgress against. It goes without saying, cis men are rewarded disproportionately for fulfilling their social role, but it's not really true that trans men receive the same rewards, because the system does not actually respect their identity as a man. And this is outside of whether or not they "pass". Patriarchy is incapable of truly accepting any trans person because it is an intrinsically natalist system.

This follows from the way trans men/mascs are targeted by the anti-trans (TERF, gender critical, fascist, etc.) movement, it intends to """"correct confused girls"""" yet again trying to control the biology of people it views as women. WRT to the movement against us, as much as it paints us trans women/femmes as monsters to destroy, it paints trans men/mascs as objects to regain control of.

In interpersonal contexts some trans men can pass for cis (just like some of us can pass as cis women), but saying they have "cis male priviledge" is a bit silly given things like the wage gap between trans and cis men. I get the sense that the speed and consistency of masculine transition is often exaggerated, as someone who is transitioning along with my partner (he/they) (starting HRT within a month of each other) I certainly have my gender correctly assumed significantly more often than he does (dispite the fact that he has had surgery and I have not). Not to mention how "passing" gets complicated with institutions that know intimate details about you (ex. workplaces, governments, housing, medical institutions) where it doesn't actually matter if you look like a man and are a man, if they know that you were """once a woman""", this can play into how those institutions treat you in practice.

Like going back to:

"transmascs have zero benefits of the patriarchy".

Is the following true?:

"Patriarchy accepts and respects the identities of trans men/mascs as men"

Cause like… I don't think that any transness follows the rules of patriarchy. Trans liberation is not compatible with capitalist patriarchy, not for trans women, not for trans femmes, not for enbies, not for trans mascs, and not for trans men. That's not even getting into the issues that intersex people face. It is a system that does not see us as valid people for its purposes. Not to say any of us are incapable of temporarily benefiting from it in small ways, or wielding those systems against each other, but on the whole it is a system that directly aims to harm us all.

I believe trans men are men, but my belief does not have an effect on the transphobic patriarchal system that we move through. Being able to engage with that fact (that our beliefs do not alter the system's beliefs) is important for actually understanding trans issues.

PS: to the addition.

This logic always drives me up the wall. Like swapping the genders: Is asserting that trans-misogyny is a social force that effects all trans women and femmes asserting that trans women never pass? Does the idea imply that trans women don't only face misogyny in some way transphobic? Are passing trans women TME? (the answers are: No, No, and No) While I don't think passing has much to do with my problems here, it is enough to say that some trans people have passing privilege, some do not, but either way, this does not actually exempt them from transphobia in a true sense.

[penultimate-step]

JJK S2 Livewatch: Eps 1-4

I started watching jjk s2 recently. it's pretty interesting. I didn't really like S1 or the movie, and don't know anything about the manga, so my expectations were pretty low, but I was pleasantly surprised.

this arc is a flashback to gojo's school days, taking place far before the main series proper. It also focuses on Geto, the villain from the first movie, pre-villainous turn. Most of my thoughts on this arc relate to the nature of flashbacks. It's inherent to these kind of arcs that we already know how things end up, and it's up to the writing to make us care within those constraints.

This arc does that in two ways. The first of these is by conspicuously demonstrating differences between the status quo and how things are in the main story, making the audience question ho w we're going to get from point A to point B. The call-forwards towards the future were very blatant, but in a good way, that solidly emphasized the differences rather than making me feel talked down to by the narrative. Gojo confidently proclaiming "we're the strongest," to directly contrast his "I'm the strongest" from S1 instantly contextualizes the relationship between Gojo and Geto, and with the added context from the movie, does retroactively make main timeline Gojo feel like a much lonelier, isolated, character. This is following from a scene where the two compare philosophies and show that they have the opposite moral views that they did in the movie - all these elements are bright flashing signals to us know that this arc is going to have it's main characters undergo drastic changes.

The second way the arc works is by having a limited threat. The mission this time is to deliver a young girl, Riko, to be sacrificed to Tengen. In opposition: multiple groups that want to stop this, by killing her. Thus, the threat is self-contained - win or lose, Riko will be dead by arc's end. Unlike the rest of the cast, who we know survive to the movie, the opposite is true of Riko, so her ultimate fate is a source of legitimate tension. Due to her fated death, this tension can be maintained even in the presence of gojo, who in S1 has been something of an "I win" button for the cast.

Speaking of: the fight scenes in this arc. Okay so I know this is a very subjective, personal hot take. literally nobody I've talked to about this has agreed with me. But I didn't like most of the fights in S1! I thought they were overanimated, too much style and flashy camera tricks over substance. But either the show changed or I've changed, because I didn't feel that way about these fights at all. Though part of that, I think, is because the series leaned into it more. At first, because the fights were more limited in scope - for the first 2.5 eps, none of the fights even try to have tension. Its Gojo! We know how these are going to turn out! fights become more humorous excursions and excuses for the characters to play around and do their thing. some battles are skimmed, theres even a moment where a seemingly dramatic cliffhanger is just resolved instantly offscreen because, come on did anybody think there was a real chance of loss here? It's really funny, and ironically the show taking itself less seriously allowed me to be more invested than I would have been otherwise. This buy-in is then paid off in the finale, where the contrast in tone emphasized the real stakes suddenly appearing.

Which leads to thoughts on the villain and the dramatic finale. The way Toji was built up was fun. Cutting to him every so often to remind the audience he exists, showing him doing seemingly everyday innocuous activities that nonetheless make him feel intimidating. The ramen restaurant scene is probably my favorite of these; Toji is casually eating a meal, betting on races, and talking on the phone, but the way he casually disregards all those around him while the anime plays scare chords.

That said. His appearances, while distinct, aren't fully a tonal whiplash. because the main plot is still that Riko is going to die, has been raised as sacrifice by the good guys and her only worth to anybody is dead. So even as the main plot has the main characters goofing off, the melancholy thought of death is just around the corner.

All these separate emotional beats come together and culminate in the big shock scene at the end of ep 3. Geto reveals that he and Gojo had decided from the start to save Riko's life, something that I didn't see coming but in retrospect should have. This ties back to the earlier threads about their protagonists' morality, and Riko's fated ending. She has a monologue and flashback as hopeful music plays, hinting that things might end differently...before Toji kills her. Brutal scene, seriously, but I can't help but appreciate how this is the capstone of how the show makes Toji grab the tone of every scene he's in to his own pace. the shock value of the music and camera suddenly just abruptly cutting out when he's arrived...very well put together.

The fights too, both with Gojo right before and with Geto directly after, are also amazing. just really well paced, choreographed, etc, flashy and bombastic but with none of the unneeded flourishes of S1. Just extremely well done and very impressive.

Technically there's a third serious fight after all this, when Gojo returns. but honestly that fight is so one sided that it's more a denouement than any real battle. The imagery in that one is kinda crazy though. Delicate piano music plays and nature shots flick by as the sun shines down on Gojo, giving him a kind of divine appearance. He floats and rises above Toji, metaphorically rising to a higher level of existence than him. This is also where he says his famous line that I've seen everywhere on the internet, which I now finally have context for. Apparently it's a Buddha quote?

This might be making a pretty far reach but by showing Gojo in a divine light at the same time as we have an arc about the supposed divinity of Tengen makes me think JJK is intentionally paralleling them - showing these two fulcrums of the jujutsu world, both reaching to a "divine" level, but that divinity is inherently inhuman - Tengen needs to absorb Riko or he'll lose his capacity for thought. meanwhile when Gojo achieves his mastery of limitless he briefly loses all control of his emotions - he spends the whole final fight jumping between emotionless serenity and manic rushes. In JJK, to be a god, one cannot be human.

Anyway. Overall I really liked this arc. my expectations were low going in but after this I am much more enthusiastic about the rest of the season.

[weallpartyatybcpatricksfuneral]

Also Patrick was like. Awake for all this. He was heavily drugged by the time of young volcanos but he could very clearly see that his friends were eating his organs (and they were definitely eating more than just like a kidney because the shots of the food paralleled with multiple surgery scars on Patrick's body imply that many more organs were taken out.)

I believe the one shot of Pete vomiting blood + the snake (along with some shots of the young volcanos video) imply that he also figures it out but?? Andy and Joe NEVER realize it and it's not even known if Pete even knows what happened at that dinner. Patrick probably knows some as he was awake to see what was happening but too drugged to comprehend it (by the time of the young volcanos video he is very out of it and giddy, so he's been drugged for a while).

This definitely ties in with the brainwashing Patrick goes through where he becomes hostile to music itself . He's had to cannibalize not only part of his physical self but also his metaphorical self.

- physically Patrick has eaten part of his own body that was forcibly removed from him. Like this wasn't skin or anything THESE WERE HIS INTERNAL ORGANS that were being eaten. And Patrick wasn't even put under anything for the operation either: he's wide awake as the women dissect him in The Phoenix mv. There's also some really fucked up ties to the last supper (which adds to the messiah like imagery that surrounds all of the guys but Patrick specifically) as the four of them literally consume the body and blood (I think it's also implied that the wine they drink is blood? Not entirely sure but it is possible). Patrick has part of him consumed by not only himself by but others-- others that he absolutely loves.

-metaphorically a part of him was torn out violently and then consumed by himself in the form of music. Patrick is the frontman! The lead singer + rhythm guitarist! He is VERY tied to music not just in fall out boy but also in his solo stuff. Which is why HE is chosen to become the brainwashing victim instead of Pete or Andy or Joe. Music is very very important to who Patrick is as a person, and that part of him is VIOLENTLY removed in an invasive procedure (paralleling the physical invasive procedure of the dissection in the Phoenix). Both the Alone Together and Rat A Tat mv show how painful the brainwashing process is for Patrick. It's implied he's being violently shocked (the electrodes on his head) while being forced to listen to music, which creates a sort of response that associates music to violence and pain and anger (in a sort of Pavlov's dogs type of experiment). Here Patrick is forced to "cannibalize" his music (whether it was his music or not that he was conditioned with, it's music all the same it's quite literally part of his body) and become something evil for the benefit of others.

What you said about the intimacy of it all-- carrying a part of the person you love inside of you in the most literal, evil sense-- is totally correct and I feel like it has something to do with the toxic relationship imagery that is spread throughout Fall Out Boys music (but VERY specifically in Where Did The Party Go and Miss Missing You).

- both of these songs address a relationship. A very toxic one at that-- WDTPG directly draws parallels between a person and a pack of cigarettes. They're beautiful (in a twisted sense) from afar, but it's only after you start to get involved that true colors are shown and you start ingesting poison. Specifically this parallel to cigarettes makes me think of the feast in Young Volcanos and how Patrick has to watch the people most important to him (whether you choose to view it romantically as in Pete or strictly platonic is up to you. The idea is the same at its core). Patrick has to watch this sort of twisted up beauty-- beauty being in the form of a holy supper, twisted in the sense they are literally consuming his body and blood-- and he eventually has to ingest his own poison himself. Patrick is both ends of the toxic relationship that he has with himself: he is the person that is toxic and dangerous and who you shouldn't get near because he will hurt yoy (as evidenced by him killing Joe and Pete in the two songs I specified) while also being the person dragged into a toxic relationship that slowly poisons him from the inside out.

-

[feriowind]

i wrote up a whooole feral luffy AU bit on twitter last night so am posting it here too (slightly cleaned up) hahaha

Feral luffy AU where the basis is that Luffy is the one who, somehow, set sail the day the celestial dragons arrived and had his boat shot down. 

 He's considerably further out to sea when this happens, and when he falls into the water, he's swept away by a strange ocean current. He winds up on a deserted island surrounded by the same strange currents and it keeps him stranded. 

 Ace and Sabo are devastated by the loss of Luffy, as is Garp, Makino, Dadan and the bandits, and later on Dragon and Shanks when they find out, attempts are made to locate Luffy's body but they never find him, the assumption that he sank too far out into the ocean due to his devil fruit. Ace & Sabo grow up significantly less cheerful without Luffy's presence, but their bond to one another is as strong as ever.

 Sabo fakes his death after begging Garp for help, anything to throw off his family from ever finding him again. Garp agrees because his hatred of certain nobility has grown significantly after Luffy's "death", and he can't stand the thought of losing another grandson.

 Luffy meanwhile, adapts as best he can. Surviving in this new jungle is painful, but doable despite the constant near brushes with death. The true hardship is how lonely he is without his brothers. Luffy has always thrived in the company of others, and without any he struggles, but again, Luffy adapts. 

 He manages to befriend some of the animals in the jungle, and accidentally discovers conqueror's haki when he nearly loses his hat to a predator, his one link to something beyond this island.

 The animals can't replace his brothers, but they ward off the loneliness. Throughout this time, Luffy makes multiple attempts to sail off the island with handmade rafts. Craftsmanship has never been his strong suit however, so they crumble instantly in the harsh currents.

 Perhaps due to luck, the currents always wash him back ashore instead of allowing him to sink and drown. Luffy's speech also slowly degrades over time. As much as he loves talking to his animal friends, the inability to hear someone else speak causes his words to slur and distort

 Ace and Sabo still hold true to their promise to set sail at age 17, but decide that they want to sail together instead of separating. When they finally set sail, they decide to take their time getting to the Grandline, exploring more of the East Blue at a leisurely pace.

After roughly a week of sailing, they get caught in a freak storm and are swept away by a giant wave where they too end up caught in the same strange current that stole Luffy all those years ago. The two wind up unconscious on Luffy's island, where Luffy finds them on the beach.

Luffy doesn't recognize them however, only that wow! For the first time since he arrived, there are other humans on the island with him that are alive! It's an exciting occurrence, and Luffy drags their bodies to the jungle where the tide won't reach.

When poking and prodding don't wake the two, Luffy sets off to gather food for his guests. He still remembers how tired and hungry he was when he first washed ashore, and figures they'd feel the same. As Luffy comes back, Ace wakes up in a panic.

Luffy rushes Ace in excitement and babbles. It's nearly incomprehensible to Ace however, especially in his panicked just-woken hazy-brained state. All Ace wants is to know where Sabo is and where this place is, and pushes Luffy away.

That's when Ace notices Sabo is lying just a few feet away asleep. The tension leaves him immediately and he's able to actually pay attention to the stranger trying to talk to him. 

Luffy is young and shorter than what he would have been had he been able to grow up on Dawn Island. His hair is long, wild and tangled, and he's dressed in furs and leathers. As Ace is studying him, he asks if he's the one who saved him and Sabo. 

For a moment Luffy stares silent, mind untangling the words until they make sense, and then he nods exuberantly. He tries to explain that he found them unconscious on the beach along with their boat, but Ace can barely decipher Luffy's speech. It sounds like someone speaking with a heavy accent at lightning speed.

But it’s then Ace notices the faint scar under Luffy's eye, and the strawhat hanging off his back. That in combination with Luffy's excited movements and speech sets off confusing alarms in his head.

Luffy's dead, Ace knows this, but he forces this strange kid to calm down and asks for his name. Again it takes a moment for Luffy to understand, and he replies. There's that same strange lilt to his words, but it's clear. Monkey D. Luffy! and it's said with a wide, proud grin.

Ace's world tilts then. Luffy? MONKEY D. LUFFY? His brain feels like its shorting out, refusing to register this new bit of information. He thinks he chokes a reply of some kind, but his mind feels blank. Luffy only laughs, not noticing Ace's shock.

In broken speech he asks for Ace's name too, but Ace doesn't hear his question, can only stare at Luffy's face. It can't be Luffy, he thinks. Because if it is... IF IT IS... They're only roughly a week's sail from Dawn Island. Just 7 days.

Is this boy trying to tell Ace that Luffy, in these past 7 years, was only a 7 days boat ride away? And they simply didn't look hard enough? He was here all alone while Ace and Sabo moved on? Ace's heart feels like it's constricting as his vision tunnels in on Luffy.

Luffy's finally noticed that this stranger is looking pale and ill, and pats him in worry. Is he sick? Does he need food? Are you okay, he asks. Ace grabs Luffy's arm then and stares at him with a strange expression. Luffy, it's me, he says, voice shaking. Ace.

Luffy's brows furrow in confusion and he tilts his head. Ace repeats himself, voice growing stronger. I'm Ace! he exclaims, and waits (prays) to see the light of recognition in Luffy's eyes.

Luffy mouths Ace's words silently to himself with frown. Ace? ...ACE! Luffy suddenly leaps towards Ace, landing directly on his chest and crushing him against a tree. He's directly on him and he's got Ace's head clasped roughly between his hands as he stares at his face intently

Ace? Luffy asks out loud, and starts repeating it over and over as he studies Ace's face. Luffy's grip is stronger than expected but Ace manages to give a jerky nod. The piercing stare breaks and Luffy's eyes water. ACE! he cries out in joy and it's the only word he can say.

Luffy wildly paws at Ace's face, then shoulders and arms, as if trying to make sure he's really there, and he's laughing and crying all at once. He then suddenly turns to Sabo on the ground and starts patting his body. He looks up at Ace with a hopeful smile and asks, Sabo?

Ace chokes back a sob because oh. OH. It's really Luffy! He was here this whole time and they never knew! Why hadn't they just looked HARDER? Luffy meanwhile crows in joy and triumph that BOTH his brothers are here with him. 

Ace gets down next to Sabo and starts violently shaking him. Wake up WAKE UP, how can he be SLEEPING when the greatest thing they thought they had lost was BACK. Sabo groans awake and is greeted by the pained teary face of Ace and an equally teary, but grinning stranger

 the shock of the scene jolts Sabo upright and he asks what's wrong? What happened? Ace just points to the boy beside him. It's Luffy, he says through clenched teeth, as if he were trying his best to stave off a breakdown. Huh? Sabo replies, what about Luffy?

 it's LUFFY, Ace grits out again, and this time Luffy chimes in with a cheery, Sabo! and leans in close to his face. Sabo is still confused and Ace nearly snarls in frustration. Luffy's ALIVE, Ace growls, and Luffy laughs. Sabo stares at Luffy and understanding slowly dawns.

 Luffy? he asks in disbelief, and Luffy nods excitedly before crowding in Sabo's face even more. Sabo! Luffy says with a smile and starts repeating his name like he had done with Ace earlier. Sabo, Luffy's been here this whole time, Ace says in a pained whisper.

 This whole time? And the same realization that Ace had grows in Sabo. Luffy, you've been here, all alone...? And we were so close? Sabo's body moves and wraps Luffy's body in a bone crushing hug. Luffy, I- we didn't know! Sabo stammers but it sounds like a terrible excuse.

 Guilt is devouring both Ace and Sabo but Luffy is only smiling. He's overjoyed that his brothers are here, and with their help he can definitely get off this island now! Things do work out!

 We have to go back to Dawn Island, Sabo says suddenly. We need to take Luffy home and we- we gotta tell Gramps! And Dadan and Makino! Luffy's okay! He's okay! And it's like a dam breaks and Sabo is the first one to break down into a full-body sob.

 Luffy gives a cry of dismay and does his best to comfort Sabo. Ace gives in and wraps both Luffy and Sabo in a hug. Both older brothers are whispering apologies to Luffy responds with just wrapping his arms several times around them both in one of his infamous rubbery hugs.

 like luffy had tried to explain earlier, the brothers' ship is beached on the coast and, surprisingly, only suffering a few minor scuffs. their departure is fairly swift, only waiting for the ideal weather after gathering some supplies and luffy's scant belongings

 Perhaps one or two of Luffy's animal friends joins them, but regardless, with the help of a 3 man crew, a sturdy ship, and an actual navigator, Luffy finally escapes the island, and the 3 brothers head home.

 Now all Ace and Sabo have to worry about is helping Luffy readjust to human civilization........