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lunarcloak · 5 months ago

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Blue Lock Chapter 266: Visual Storytelling

I did a similar post for Chapter 262 and people seemed to like it, and the poll I put up for a 266 interest check was overwhelmingly positive. So I'm back here!

Let's go.

Kaiser Impact. Magnus-- yes, but at this point it looks like he's taking a shot in the dark. His eyes are completely white, it's in perfect contrast to the last times where his eyes go completely black, with white pupils.

He's truly evolved, in the full sense of the word. The fact that the lines are thicker, darker, usually used for weight of movement-- as you can see in the shot panel-- are also being used for the face. It signifies weighted emotion, like he's really in a do or die moment right now. This means so much to him, and the fact that the face is DARKER than the actual shot itself means it's less about the technicality and more about the evolution it took him to get here.

AND HERE IS THE MAGNUS. This is where it's about the technicality. You cannot see Kaiser's face anymore-- it's not as important in this frame. Here, your eyes are drawn to the impact of his shot. In fact, at first glance, you could quite literally miss the ball speeding past Rin. Why? Because after that impact frame, the ball is no longer in Kaiser's control. He can only control it until the point where he shoots.

Secondly, I draw your attention to the rose petals. We've already established that it is his aura, but not how they are, again, concentrated at the impact point. Not the ball. This is partly to emphasise the speed of movement itself, and partly to reinforce the previous point. And tertiary notes are of course, the expressions on Rin and Charles' face being of pure shock. They cannot react, not with the speed of this particular shot. Only Lorenzo has been able to stop it, anyway.

He did in fact, make the air also his ally, but this is also the beginnings of the vine motif that follows the ball for the rest of this chapter. Notice how the air is curling around the ball, not in a streamline motion, but in the pattern of what will be vines later. It's already telling you that, while the ball spin is no longer in Kaiser's control, he's already done it. He's given it the impact of his shot. It's going to move exactly as he wants it to. (after this is Ness willing the ball to bend, which doesn't have any particular visual significance, but the boy deserves all the love <3)

And here the vines are fully obvious. That ball is bending exactly as Kaiser willed it to. But this is the moment of truth for him-- he's not Michael Kaiser, the NG11 prodigy, as he's watching the ball. He's Michael, the little boy who had a worn out football, and a dream. (I will remind you here that the last chapter's final panel ended with him referring to the ball/himself as a "piece of shit" again-- as he continues to refer as such in this chapter. It's signifying how he's ripping himself back down to the bare, barren life of a small child with a will to get away from the terrible hand dealt to him.)

The petals are still there, of course. No roses without thorns, no vines without roses.

I'm very intrigued by the silhouette behind the ball here. I'm not able to place exactly what it is, but it looks exactly like a woman's silhouette. His mother, perhaps? I will admit I do not fully understand why that is there, it must be linked somehow, but if anyone has any ideas they'd like to add here then please feel free to do so!

That's why the last row of panels transitions into small Kaiser from the back of current Kaiser.

This sequence isn't just to remind you of the beginnings of Michael Kaiser. But it's symbolic in that, look at the actual sequence of events. He kicks the ball at the wall, but it rebounds and hurts him instead. He gets angry, and he kicks it away again. But he takes a moment. And then he runs back to get the ball, and hugs it.

In the end, the ball will always be everything. He will miss, and he will get mad when he misses. But he will always-- ALWAYS-- pause. And think. And then, in the end, he goes back to the ball. Because the ball is his everything.

If you compare this to the sequence of this match's events for Kaiser, you will realise that it is a direct parallel. Albeit on a bigger scale-- the higher you are, the harder you fall. But that's the point. The fact that in the end he's going back to his roots. The beginnings of Michael Kaiser.

The next panel is, of course, his disgusting father. It's not really supposed to signify much by itself, but moreso leads up to the next panel. We already knew his father is abusive, but what we didn't know was the root of his dream and his ambition.

Note how here the moon is full. The moon is used as a symbol for a lot of things in fiction, but here I interpret it as the peak of his ambition, partly because it reminded me of a football the first time I saw it. The heights of his dream. To reach it, would be to reach the moon.

Also note how he once again refers to the ball/himself as "piece of trash" here.

Ugh. UGH. THE THINGS I WANT TO SAY ABOUT THIS PART. But I shall refrain. This is a visual storytelling analysis, not a character analysis.

His eyes are bright. Brightest we've ever seen them, actually. Because he's looking up at the moon, reaching out to it, reaching out to his dream. He's envisioning a world where he can get exactly what he wants and be happy. (Money, food, humanity, and the core of it all, love.)

The text "I want to be loved" is placed in a similarly 'dreamy' dialogue box. The kind that's used in shoujo backgrounds for the sake of "imagination". Very interestingly, it's placed directly on top of the path of the ball towards the goal. Even more interestingly, the vines aren't there at the beginning of this page's trajectory. They only start once we return to present time. Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

The flashbacks starts, and ends with the ball's trajectory. The vines, however, are solely for the present.

Also, remember how he's reaching out upwards in this panel? Yeah. Keep that in mind. You'll know why in two pages.

The goal page itself is not particularly filled with visual storytelling. Points which are mentioned there are already spread throughout this chapter: vines coating the ball as it finally lands in the goal. But I want to ask you to note that, the side of the page is dedicated to people who are watching Kaiser. Rooting for Kaiser. I doubt that is the kind of "love" he needs, but it's telling that part of the celebration of the goal comes from the numerous fans watching him around the world, waiting for him to show them Michael Kaiser the prodigal striker.

Ah yes, the Kaisagi panel (I'm kidding). No, while this feels like total Kaisagi bait, it's also just... symbolic of their rivalry in general. Isagi has always looked up to Kaiser's football prowess. He's always known that Kaiser is incredible at what he does. He's marvelling at the fact that after everything, after all those failures, he pulled himself back up and scored an absolutely stunning goal. Note the colour of his eyes vs the dialogue. When they're entirely white-- evolution dependent- it's the fact that Kaiser scored a goal Isagi didn't. It's the incredible technicality of it (As someone who understands the physics behind it, yes, it is magnificient. Magnus-ificient? Heh.)

On the super star dialogue, however, it's just Isagi and his black hole gaze. The football player who has never shit on those above him, only ever looked up to them. Admired them, used them as role models for his own growth. He's calling Kaiser a superstar, because he is, but it's inspiring. He's frustrated, but he's also in awe. Those are the eyes of when he's just found someone new to understand and integrate into himself to become better. Of someone who's just found a new ideal to look up to.

Mmm. The vines and rose petals wrapping around Isagi, though? That is EXTREMELY Interesting. there's a lot of ways to interpret it. The fact that at that moment everyone was watching Kaiser's shot, under his control. Or maybe the fact that Kiyora passed to Kaiser and not to Isagi. Or maybe the fact that, in the end, the Emperor is always the emperor, and sliding the throne out from underneath him is simply not possible. It's the one shot Isagi can never actually copy, because Kaiser Impact has always been, well, Kaiser's. And so is the Magnus version. It's the one thing that Isagi will always, always stay below Kaiser on.

Kaiser's screaming, his eyes are still white. But they still have the pupil outline. It's his moment of pure evolution. He's achieved something he hadn't achieved previously. He's done something incredible. He's taken back his dignity and his power, reclaimed his identity as a star striker.

And, finally, of course. We have to talk about this panel. NO vines. ONLY petals. He's not restricted by the thorns clasping onto him anymore, there's only the blue rose petals of the impossible feat. As @/bachibachis had pointed out on one of the chapter reblogs after it dropped. He's pulling his shirt down. To showcase his tattoo, yes. But it's the meaning BEHIND the tattoo. A blue rose. Impossible. But it's exactly what he's always aimed for, to achieve the impossible. This panel also showcases the crown on his hand, for similarly significant reasons.

His eyes are blank. Entirely. Now it's not about the evolution, but the emotion. The last time we saw them was when he was in a fit of anger at Isagi's goal. Now it's catharsis. At his achievement, at the goal, at the fact that he's living upto the tattoo on his neck, the name, everything he's built up for himself.

His hand is reaching upwards, to the sky. For the far away dream of money, food, humanity and love. He's achieved two of the three already. But now he's reclaiming his humanity. Maybe some day down the line, he'll reclaim his love too. Any of you yelling about Ness-- I get it, I do, but you have to understand that Kaiser doesn't see it that way. He's never seen it that way. It's complicated. We will simply have to wait and see.

As for the rest of this panel, well, it's framed as though there's quite literally light shining down from the heavens for this man. Kaiser has always had a lot of religious symbolism, and I'm not particularly qualified to talk about them just yet. But this ties in to all of that, and more. It's about the fact that stars really did align for all of this to happen here, now. The fact that this happened in the NEL, and not the World Cup. The fact that Kiyora passed to him, and not Isagi. The fact that he finally had Luck on his side, and it worked out. The fact that Rin and Charles weren't able to stop it, despite being star players themselves.

The stars aligned, the light shone down from the heavens, as the fallen Emperor rises up once again, reclaiming the throne that was always his. He screams up at the very heavens that had forsaken him, years ago, as they finally let him have the moment of increduilty he's wished to impose on the world. To achieve the impossible, is to be Michael Kaiser.

What a stunning, stunning chapter. Thank you, Yusuke Nomura. Thank you, Muneyuki Kaneshiro.

And thank you, for reading my take on this.

#blue lock #lune thinks #bllk #michael kaiser #blue lock chapter 266 #blue lock ch266 #bllk ch266 #isagi yoichi #yoichi isagi #uhh. yeah.#this chapter was such an absolutely gorgeous one #ive never screamed at a chapter but i came damn close with this one

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os-eclipses-tamen-son-yuri · 8 months ago

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A thing I really enjoy about RGU is how when producing the anime the crew was aware of the budget and limits that often come with TV shows at that time and created their own cinematographic language based on them.

The roses, the frames, the transformation sequences... Not only were they able to use them smartly but also make them reinforce the core themes of the show; that of repetition, circularity, a repeated movement, a revolution.

I personally greatly appreciate when narrative media is -meta- not in a direct way but in its semiotics. Utena creates this language based on repetition and is constantly seen subverting it, adding new "rules".

Episode 33 is cinematographicaly one of the episodes I find most interesting because they literally put the turning point of the story (I personally think of this episode as a turning point because we see Utena finally with her "prince"; except that, instead of the happy "ending" one would expect in traditional stories, it is here where everything comes into place and the grim reality is made perfectly aware. Were Utena a traditional princess story, episode 33 would mark a happy conclusion. Instead it is only the beggining of what lies inside the box and once opened it cannot be closed again) in an episode that is all about repetition. A recap.

Also, for as much as many people gloss over the Black Rose Arc I very much think it crucial to establish all of RGU's symbols. Because Utena doesn't tell us things, it wants us to learn them by noticing the patterns, by seeing the repetitions and where they are being broken, so that we ask ourselves why. The elevator sequence is one of such cases where we learn more of the characterization of these characters by seeing how they act inside of it. It's even a basic screenplay exercise: "how would your characters act trapped inside an elevator".

Mikage itself is a shadow, not just of himself but of Utena as well, an omen forever frozen in time.

Because that's another theme, shadows. And how in a way they are echoes, simplified and distorted repetitions of oneself.

And while shadows are cast in contrast, projections are cast forward. While one is a memory of something, projections are the reproduced illusion of it.

Utena works with parallels and repetitions and understanding their semantics and syntax allows us, the viewers, even subconsciously to feel their weight.

#just wanted to leave some of my thoughts out there althought these are clearly unorganized and probably on closer revision wont make sense #regarding shadows and projections we can also talk about the construction of self and how that ties to the theme of growing up and maturing #like I sair rgu has this whole narrative language that in closer inspection is just so brilliant #rgu #utena #meta #utena meta #revolutionary girl utena #analysis

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keymetaphor · 1 year ago

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It is time for me to post what I lovingly call my

“Overly Complicated Mechanism” Theory.

I originally wrote it right after Cat, but Amane trying to commit homicide again reminded me of its existence, and then I forgot about it until now. Anyway…

In short, my theory is this: Milgram’s preventative measures for violence against the Guard could be bypassed if the prisoners used an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine.

With Kazui’s first interrogation, it was heavily implied that the way Milgram actually stops prisoners from attacking the Guard involves a mental block, similar to hypnosis. This means the “invisible barrier” is very likely a result of their muscles locking up from brain signals that force them to stop before they hit the Guard.

The main piece of evidence for this comes from Kazui’s first interrogation, where he tested the limits of the Guard’s, uh… guard. Kazui’s attempt to restrain Es ended with his body suddenly losing strength, as if he himself became opposed to the idea of restraining them.

With Milgram’s themes of reinforced and rejected thoughts, I believe the most plausible explanation is a type of mental block instated in the prisoners’ psyches that prevents them from completing actions with the intent to harm or restrain the Guard. (Of course, it’s possible there really is just a magical barrier, but given the results of Kazui’s little experiment and Milgram’s emphasis on altering thought patterns, I think it’s unlikely.) My most pressing question about this is whether the mental block prevents a prisoner from carrying out any action with harmful intent toward the Guard, or if it only stops direct actions.

For example, say Muu wants to hit Es on the head with a rubber mallet. To accomplish this, she comes up with a design for a convoluted mechanism that effectively removes her from the act of wielding the hammer itself. For the sake of consistency, we’ll say the sequence of events is as follows:

Someone tips over a cup. The cup hits a rubber ball, which rolls down a ramp and hits a series of books set up like dominoes, which all fall one after the other. (I don’t have time to do a full illustration right now, but here’s something I sketched out really quick as a visual reference.)

The last book falls off a table onto the pedal of a trash can, which opens the lid and sends a tennis ball flying. The ball knocks over a metal water bottle, which releases the string held in place beneath it.

The string is tied to the rubber mallet, suspending it in midair above a doorframe. Releasing the string also releases the mallet, dropping it directly onto Es, who is (hopefully) standing underneath the doorframe.

There’s enough steps in the sequence to remove Muu as the one dropping the hammer. However, she would still be acting with the intent to harm the Guard. So, would she be unable to complete the action due to the mental block? If the answer is yes, as I theorize, then this obstacle can be bypassed with another workaround: telling someone else to do it for her.

If she tells Haruka that activating the mechanism will release confetti, and she obscures the mechanism enough that he will be unable to discern the actual purpose, (e.g., covering it with a curtain,) then Haruka would be able to activate it because he is acting without ill intent. Since he is fully convinced that the mechanism will release a shower of confetti, he can activate the chain reaction where Muu would be stopped by the mental block.

This leads to another possible obstacle, though. Would the mental block prevent Muu from building the mechanism in the first place? Since she is making it with the intention to cause harm to the guard, would she be unable to create it? It all depends on just how deep the mental block runs.

Based on what we’ve witnessed so far, I’m guessing that the mental block doesn’t extend quite that far. As seen with Fuuta, Kotoko, and Kazui, (and now Amane as well,) the prisoners are still capable of acting with the intention to harm Es; the mental block just stops them from completing the action. In other words, they can try to punch Es, but they’ll be forced to stop right before hitting them. Similarly, Kazui’s attempt to restrain Es was possible at first, but he quickly lost the strength to do so.

It is likely that Muu would be able to build the mechanism in the first place, but attempting to activate it in order to hit Es would result in either her suddenly losing the strength to do so, or another “invisible wall” where her muscles lock up right before she can tip the cup over.

If Muu lies to Haruka about its true purpose, however, Haruka will be able to activate the mechanism in her stead, and the hammer will successfully hit its mark, provided Es is standing in the right place.

So here’s how they could kill Es with a banana peel…

#milgram #es milgram #listen. i really like digging into the details of how plot mechanics work.#figuring out the rules of a vague convenient power is one of my favorite hobbies.#yes i wrote all this just to end with that punchline.#milgram theory

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faramirsonofgondor · 3 months ago

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Some Thoughts on Crosshair (TBB)

**Buckle up because this is probably the longest post I’ve ever made because I lost the plot halfway through. Like this started out analytical and then just went sideways. (I spent hours writing this instead of doing my homework)

I think part of what makes Crosshair’s character so compelling in Season 1 & 2 of TBB is that his storyline is incredibly unique to himself.

Like throughout TCW & TBB we see that the clones are in this constant struggle of having to follow orders vs. choosing to do what they think is right. While every time this dilemma comes up, it happens in slightly different ways and has different consequences each time, the premise is mostly the same. The clones rebel against their orders, to do what the general audience views as “the right thing”. In certain cases, it may be more nuanced, such as Slick killing other clones as an act of revolution against the people he views as their oppressors (the Jedi & the Republic), or such as Fives attempting to assassinate the Chancellor.

It’s one of the main tropes of TCW - the clones were conditioned to be subservient , but the orders are questionable or immoral, and in the end the clone rebels. They made a distinct point of having Dogma, whose name is directly tied to obedience of authority, be the one to kill Krell when Rex couldn��t. Even the whole Cut & Suu situation was an act rebellion in itself. Time and time again, TCW shows the clones rebelling in various ways, whether it be desertion and quaint domesticity, or attempting to assassinate the head political figure of your governing body.

Then in the last season of TCW and TBB, we see the clones rebellion being set up in a more distinctive pattern - the clones learn about the chips, the clones remove their chips, and then immediately after the clones either (1) die, (2) decide to retire or go on the run (3) organize and fight against the empire, or some combination of those three.

Enter Crosshair, who is quite literally one of the only clones (the only clone?) who doesn’t follow the pattern. Every single clone we’ve seen who is aware of the chips/has their chip removed, and even some of the ones who don’t in TBB, chose to fight against the Empire. It reinforces to the audience that this is the Right Choice to make. They’re shoving it in our faces, saying “Hey! See!! This is the right thing to do!!! This is what any one would do in this situation!! Any good person would rebel!!! Because it’s the right thing to do!!!” But Crosshair is the exception. Somewhere between 1x08 and 1x14, his chip is removed. And unlike every other clone who has been in his position, he chooses to stay, to follow orders (somewhat), and to turn his back on everyone who rebels.

This creates a fascinating arc and an incredibly unique mindset for Crosshair, because it goes against everything we’ve seen about the clones and their morals. No matter side of the rebellion that they’re on, the clones have all placed a tremendous emphasis on loyalty and brotherhood when it comes down to decision making and their morals. A significant amount of clones that TBB or Rex & his rebellion squad encounter allow themselves to be reasoned with, subconsciously placing their loyalty and sense of brotherhood above following their orders, such as Howzer in s1 and Wolffe in s3. But not Crosshair.

This causes the audience to question why? Why would Crosshair choose the Empire? Why would he choose to go against the rebellion? Why would he choose to give up part of his freedom, part of his ability to make choices, just to side with the Empire? Why would he believe that this is the right thing to do?

And while it is somewhat established that part of his reasoning is that he feels like he was betrayed by TBB and that Empire is making the world better (or whatever propaganda they were spewing), I think it goes a lot deeper than that.

In 1x01, we see Echo upset by the revelation that the Republic has now become the Galactic Empire, to which Crosshair says “Republic, Empire, what’s the difference?” I think it’s a very subtle allusion to how little freedom the clones had in their lives, and how much the Republic had already fallen. While Crosshair asks the question in a very bored/deadpan drawl (as he does most things), it does seem to be a genuine question. What is the difference between? I know most people would probably interpret that scene as him implying that it doesn’t matter whether they fight for the Empire or the Republic, because it’s all the same to him and they’re just supposed to follow orders.

But just how different is the Empire from the Republic, really? From a general point of view, the main difference in how they operate is that the Chancellor - now Emperor, has more permanent power and influence. He’s legally(?) allowed to make more decisions without approval from the Senate. But he was already doing that throughout the war. He was already gaining more and more power. He was already in complete control of the Republic and he held extreme influence over the entire Jedi Order. This was all in his persona as Palpatine as well, not as Darth Sidious. Sure he orchestrated behind the scenes as a Sith, played both sides of the war, yada yada, made convoluted plans to cause chaos and distrust within the order, groomed children to be evil, and all that other stuff. But like also, from a general pov, he literally controlled the order. Like whenever the order was like “we don’t think this a good idea” or “we shouldn’t do it this way” or “this goes against our code”, he straight up was just like “well I’m Chancellor of the Republic. You have to do what I say. And I say you have to do it.” Like the Jedi, who are “peacekeepers” were literally forced into being warmongers. The Jedi don’t want a Zillo Beast running around, the Chancellor makes it his pet and then lets it run around. Anakin wants to lead his men on Umbara, the Chancellor calls him back. The Jedi want to know more about Fives death, the Chancellor gets them to back off. Anakin thinks they should take Dooku in alive, the Chancellor convinces him to kill Dooku. The Jedi want the Chancellor to give up his emergency powers, the Chancellor kills all of them. Jedi say no, Chancellor says yes. The Chancellor was controlling everything long before he even uttered the words “Galactic Empire”. The only thing that changed was that he was no longer trying to hide it. The Senate no longer had the illusion of democracy, and then and their people could see the freedom they once had shrinking as they days passed.

But the clones never lived under the assumption that they would be permitted freedom - not really. Sure, maybe they were allowed to make some choices, they could change their haircut, paint their armor, and have downtime if they were lucky. But even then, they lived under the idea that they were there to serve the Republic as soldiers. They were there to follow orders and nothing else. And while, like I stated before, they did rebel against their orders at times in TCW, they were never actively trying to dismantle the system they rebelled against (except maybe Fives, who immediately tried to kill the Chancellor once he realized what was going on). They were aware that they didn’t have much control, and they were resigned to that fact for the most part. So really, what did it matter if the Republic became an Empire instead?

Well, Tech responds by saying that a big difference for him between the Republic and the Empire was the genocide of the Jedi. Despite the fact that they were labeled as traitors, the entire batch (sans Crosshair) is uneasy with idea that they had all committed mass genocide against the same people they served beside. This is important because it demonstrates that they aren’t upset by their own lack of freedom within this Empire, but rather the actions of the Empire itself. They don’t view the Empire as evil because of the system it creates, but rather because of what the Empire has done.

Then the episode continues, and TBB are ordered to kill innocent civilians. This just further reinforces the idea that the Empire is evil - or at the very least, wrong. The rest of season unfolds similarly, with Empire doing evil stuff and TBB fighting against it, and Crosshair siding with the Empire the whole time. Now, this brings me back to my earlier statement that Crosshairs motivations are deeper than just the chip and the betrayal he feels by TBB. It’s clear in episode 1, and in other episodes, that Crosshair is struggling against the chip. The clear headache and confusion he has about why he’s following orders is a huge tell. Then, after Bracca (likely when his chip was removed), we see that he’s not as trigger happy against “traitors” and that he himself can now disobey orders. But Crosshair stays with the Empire. He can’t be reasoned with. In fact, Crosshair is the one trying to persuade TBB to join the Empire. He abducts Hunter, hatches his plot, kills a bunch of imperials, nearly gets himself killed, and even saves the child he was beefing with. But TBB don’t want to be apart of the Empire, and Crosshair does. Unlike the other clones in his position, Crosshair doesn’t put brotherhood first.

Crosshair constantly talks about how he’s doing something great by being apart of the Empire and spouts propaganda all day long, but I don’t think he really believes it. I don’t think it’s necessarily about loyalty, or even about following orders. All of the other clones, even the rest of TBB, viewed themselves as soldiers/assets of the Republic. For a lot of them, this meant fighting and possibly dying beside their brothers, and beside their Jedis. But I think Crosshair didn’t really see himself as soldier, but rather as a weapon.

TBB is a specialized task force that doesn’t get along with most clones, and they don’t have a Jedi or general, they just have each other. They get sent on a mission, they complete it successfully, then they go to Kamino where they’re isolated and ostracized. While it’s clear they can form bonds with other clones (Cody, Rex, etc.) and even some Jedi (Anakin, Depa?), they don’t so very often, and they likely don’t see those clones very often. So, for the most part, they have to rely on each other. But Crosshair is more isolated than the rest of them, because as the sniper, he kind of has to be. They all rely on him to have their backs, and so he has to be more cautious, more alert, and more observant. The rest of the batch can fall short at times, Hunter can lose a fight, Wrecker can be too loud or accidentally set off an explosion, Tech can mess up or take too long, Echo can trigger something he didn’t intend to, but Crosshair? Crosshair never misses, because he can’t afford to. He doesn’t have the luxury of making mistakes, not like the rest of them do. And when they do mess up, he has to be prepared to fix it. Because all their lives depend on it. And sure, the rest of the batch has the ability to think quickly and creatively and come up with solutions for any mistakes they make, but Crosshair has the ability to take down enemies long before anyone else sees them coming. He can pick them off one by one from afar, whereas the rest of the batch wouldn’t be able to do so. Hunter, Tech, and Echo would likely have to resort to hand-to-hand combat. Tech and Echo would also likely be able to find some sort of way to electronically take them down, but it would still take time and effort. Wrecker would be able to detonate explosives, launch grenades, and would likely take down a larger number of enemies in hand-to-hand combat, but he’s also a bigger target and has to be careful about when and how he rigs his explosives. But Crosshair can kill them quickly and efficiently without fail, and so that’s what he does.

I think that deep down his role has an incredibly large impact on his sense of self and it dehumanizes him in a way that the others’ roles don’t. Because as I said earlier, the rest of them are soldiers, but Crosshair sees himself as a weapon. Hunter is a leader, and a tracker, and a fighter. He uses his body to fight and track and uses his mind to give orders. Tech is a genius, and a pilot, and a fighter. He uses his mind primarily and he uses it impressively but he’s capable of using his body when he needs to. Wrecker is a bomb technician, a hulk, and a lover. He uses his mind when he rigging his explosives, and he uses his body to fight and to be overly affectionate with everyone he cares about. Echo is a tactician, an ARC, and a survivor. He uses his mind to plan and uses his body to fight and he’s able to keep alive against all odds. Crosshair is an enigma experiment, a good soldier shot, and a brother loner. Sure he has to use his mind to calculate the angles of shots and whatnot, and he can use his body to see a target, align his scope and pull the trigger, but really how’s that any different than a machine. Droids do all that too. The only difference is that Crosshair is really fucking great at it, and droids aren’t. And sure, Crosshair can think, and he can eat, and he can sleep, and he can feel, but what’s so important about all of that anyways? That’s not what he was made for. That’s not what he’s needed for. He may need to eat and think and sleep at times, but those were more inconvenient than they were anything else. Droids don’t need food, or sleep, or the ability to do anything other than be a weapon. But Crosshair did need those, despite how much better of a weapon he was. So sure, Crosshair was technically a living breathing person soldier. But deep down he knew that if there was some way for Kaminoans to get rid of those needs, to rid him of them, they would. So really, the only differences between him and any other weapon was that he was a lot fucking better than the other weapons, and that he had a few more needs, every weapon needs regular upkeep anyways.

That’s why he stays. Because weapons don’t need brothers, they need handlers. Because weapons don’t need family, they need targets. Because weapons don’t need love, they need war. Because weapons don’t need belonging or loyalty, they need purpose, they need use. That’s all he needs. That’s all he knows. That’s why he stays.

That’s why the batch’s reasoning, their appeal to brotherhood and loyalty, and love, and morals, doesn’t work. That’s not who what he is. That’s not what he’s made for. That’s not why he saved them and that’s not why he lets go and that’s not why he lies to Empire (yes it is). And that’s not why, despite everything, he can’t look away watches them leave him again and wonders if it hurt them this much to watch him stay if they watched at all. That’s not why, as the rotations pass and nobody comes and his hunger and thirst become more apparent, and his body starts to weaken, he briefly wishes he went with them. That’s not why at all. He just misses them food and water and sleep, he just wants them the ache in bones to leave, he just needs them some rest and a target and purpose, really that’s all he needs. Because he’s a weapon. That’s all he’s ever been he was a brother and a person. That’s all he’s ever supposed to be. That’s why, when Cody begins asking questions, he reminds him that they’re soldiers, that they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. But Cody doesn’t seem to get it, or maybe he gets it too much, because then he tells Crosshair that they’re different from droids, that they make their own choices, and that they have to live with their choices since when did he get to live with anything. And maybe Crosshair is the one who doesn’t get it, but he doesn’t need to, because he’s a weapon and weapons don’t need to think good soldiers follow orders. Except, maybe being a weapon isn’t enough anymore. Crosshair was a good weapon, a great weapon, and yet he was shipped off to some nowhere ice planet for no reason weapons don’t need reasons. Then came Mayday. Crosshair tried to keep him at arms length weapons don’t need friends, but then Crosshair steps on the mine weapons can’t make mistakes and Mayday saves him despite the risk Crosshair can’t need saving that’s not how snipers operate. And then they find the cargo. And then Mayday gets injured. And then Crosshair saves him and carries him all way back. And then Nolan lets him die. And then Crosshair - Crosshair was angry weapons don’t feel, and for a moment he let himself feel everything. And then he was reprimanded, and being given orders, and he should follow them. It was what he was made for. But he didn’t. He wanted answers, wanted to know what he did wrong, wanted to know why he was being discarded again, wanted to know why Hunter and Echo and Tech and Wrecker and Howzer and Cody and hundreds of other clones seemed to see something he couldn’t, wanted to know why Mayday had to die when he was a good soldier good soldiers follow orders, and he wanted to know his purpose. But weapons don’t need to think, and Crosshair was a weapon. So he did as all weapons do, and he fired. And Nolan never saw it coming. And it’s not until he’s being experimented on, surrounded by hundreds of other clones in the same position as him, that Crosshair realizes he’s not a weapon he never was.

This is why his arc is compelling, so fascinating, and so significant. When the other clones struggle with following orders and their loyalty to the Republic/Empire, it’s because they’re struggling between what they’ve been conditioned to think/supposed to do and what they care about/think is right. But Crosshair’s struggle comes from the war between his obedience and his individualism. This is why it takes him so long to leave, because his individualism is part of the reason he’s so obedient in the first place. Because he thinks differently, he views himself differently, he has a different world view, and a different kind of logic. The other clones leave/disobey when they realize that Republic/Empire is doing more harm than good but to Crosshair it doesn’t matter what happens so long as he obeys and does his job. Which, again, is why the batch’s actions and pleas for him to leave the Empire don’t appeal to him. In their minds, they’re doing what’s right by helping people and trying to stop the Empire from hurting and killing others. In Crosshair’s mind, he’s doing what’s right by fulfilling his purpose and doing whatever the Empire asks of him. I just find it highly unlikely that the reason Crosshair stayed with the Empire was because he felt betrayed and left behind by Hunter and the batch or because he wanted some sort of revenge. Getting left behind would have likely be upsetting and make him angry, but I don’t think it’s the main motivation for Crosshairs actions in S1. He stated in TCW that he would’ve left Echo behind as well, which might’ve just been to rile up Rex, but then in S2 he tells Mayday he’s not going to carry any deadweight. While he does end up carrying Mayday, I think that Crosshair’s words imply that he can understand why he was left behind, even if it is upsetting. I think most of Crosshair’s anger isn’t because they left him behind, but because they left the Empire at all. Because despite what Crosshair says about Hunter not being to loyal and never giving him a chance, Crosshair didn’t want to go with them, he wanted them to come back. Crosshair had multiple opportunities to leave before the S1 finale, and he had the opportunity to leave in the finale as well, but he turned them down because he didn’t want to get out.

This all really makes me wish we had gotten episodes about the batch when they were younger. I want to know more about how they grew up and what their training looked like and their first missions.

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nothorses · 9 months ago

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Hey this is vaguely related to the conversations you were having and I hope you’re ok with me dropping it in your asks. But when I came out as FTM I felt like I was forced to try and fit into this patriarchal idea of cis manhood by others. Like I couldn’t just be a person with a wide array of interests and desires if I wanted to be a man. Even by like, trans allies and other trans people.

I often see even other trans men using toxic masculinity but trying to be “positive” about it like “you aren’t a man unless you are comfortable in femininity or engage in politics this way” or even “do [blank] for these other marginalized communities” boiled down to “repent for being a gender traitor” IMO.

I feel like this sort of thing is tied to this like “binary vs non-binary” in a tangible way. I’m just not sure and I could be wrong and I’m curious about your thoughts. It’s been on my mind for weeks, these kinds of patterns in trans spaces and discussions and I personally have no conjunctive answer.

I think I understand what you're getting at, and I have definitely noticed this kind of thing in my own experiences and relationship to gender. I identified as nonbinary for as long as I did because I legitimately felt pressured to; I was surrounded by people who felt, and implied, and stressed, that masculinity and manhood were bad things & it was somehow morally superior to be nonbinary instead. I was afraid of being, or being seen as, aggressive and dangerous and morally reprehensible, and identifying as nonbinary felt like the Better Thing To Do.

This isn't, like, unique; Baeddels openly believed that this was the better way to go, and/or that nonbinary people were just Secret Trans Men pretending to be "non-men" in order to "avoid accountability":

Which kind of reinforces the myth that Being Nonbinary Is Morally Superior in and of itself: "trans men are just pretending to be nonbinary because it would make them Better People, but we all know that they can't really be nonbinary" is not actually challenging this assumption that being further from manhood would be morally superior. though denying the fact that nonbinary people can exist at all is still incredibly, disgustingly exorsexist.

this line of thinking didn't just come from this one specific strain of radical transfeminism. radfem ideology as a whole is, imo, more like a pink coat of paint on regular-ass cisheteropatriarchy. I think the ways in which radtransfeminism understand trans men and nonbinary people are incredibly indicative of this; trans womanhood has been sort of half-unpacked, but there are still so many deep anxieties around trans men and (some) nonbinary folks "betraying womanhood" and "infiltrating women's spaces", "mutilating" our bodies, etc.

I mean, it's internalized transphobia. my grandma wants to call me "grey" instead of "greyson" for the same reason that my trans ally lesbian peer wants to use "they/them" pronouns for me instead of "he/him": it obfuscates my connection to manhood, and in many ways, my defiance of the gender binary they're comfortable with. it makes my gender identity sort of "uncertain", and positions me a little closer to womanhood. it's more comfortable for them.

when I did identify as nonbinary and use "they/them", I was consistently misgendered as "female". again, I was being nudged back toward womanhood and the identity that was more palatable for others (including some trans people!). I was being nudged back towards the gender binary.

there is clearly also a trend here of nudging nonbinary people back into the binary in the "other" direction: again, the above example of Baeddels insisting that nonbinary people who were AFAB are "actually" trans men. Truscum often believe the same of dysphoric nonbinary people. Baeddels tended to believe that nonbinary people who were AMAB were "actually" trans women in denial, too. Exorsexism is a hell of a drug.

But yeah, I think you're right; I think the common thread between all branches of transphobia is a desire to protect the gender binary, and I think that necessarily problematizes any idea of a socio-politically "binary" trans person.

It's important to understand how exorsexism is unique beyond that, too; there are still differences between the experiences of trans people who do identify exclusively as one "binary" gender, and trans people who don't. I just think the categories are less perfect and binary (lol) than folks tend to think of them.

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fallingtowers · 2 years ago

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the way buffy the vampire slayer uses guns is really interesting. it's very consistent, and might be divided into three different "tiers" depending on the wielder's role in the story, each of which signifies certain traits:

unnamed background characters, usually police officers, who carry guns as a matter of course. in and of itself i don't think this means much -- it's not much deeper than "cops have guns in the show because cops have guns in real life" -- but because of the way btvs depicts the police, we might call this part and parcel of a symbolic set which marks a character as a "civilian," unaware of the supernatural world and not equipped to deal with it. guns can't kill vampires, so the gun here ironically becomes a symbol of powerlessness.

antagonists. here, the gun signifies callousness, cynicism, and a disregard for life. we see this for example in cain ("phases"), the german commandos ("homecoming"), and patrice ("what's my line"). an interesting case is coach marin ("go fish"), who as far as i can remember never fires his gun but who possesses the traits associated with this tier regardless. note also that characters in this tier are almost universally driven by a desire for money, so that the gun here is also associated with selfishness and greed.

(mostly) major, (mostly) sympathetic characters. here, the gun signifies desperation and psychological anguish on the part of the wielder. the wielder is cracking under some great pressure, and the gun symbolizes a desperate and misguided attempt to reassert control. the standout example here is riley, who does this twice -- once in "goodbye, iowa" and again in "the yoko factor" -- but we might also mention james in "i only have eyes for you" and spike in "fool for love." note also that warren falls into this category, rather than tier 2 (hence why i specified "mostly sympathetic") -- his shooting buffy is a crime of passion, not a dispassionate, cynical act, and crucially he only resorts to using the gun after buffy has bested him at every turn for almost a full season: a last-ditch attempt to regain control. the gun again comes to symbolize helplessness, but here has an added layer in that its use will actively make one's situation worse. james and warren both pulled the trigger, and see where that got them. riley and spike didn't, so they were spared by the narrative.

again and again, we see the show go out of its way to avoid its characters using guns except in these very specific cases. buffy's projectile weapon of choice is a crossbow; the initiative rank-and-file almost exclusively use taser guns. even faith, after her heel turn, doesn't use guns, because her motives don't align with those of tier 2; instead, she uses a bow.

as an aside, it would be inaccurate to say that buffy never uses a gun -- in "i only have eyes for you," when james possesses her, she confronts angel at gunpoint. similarly, willow gets her hands on a gun in "the killer in me." these two cases share an interesting similarity -- in both examples, the character is being compelled to act uncharacteristically by forces outside her control, thus reinforcing the gun as a symbol of powerlessness.

(it's also worth noting that there's a pattern where the gun is associated with specifically gendered violence. the characters in tier 3 are almost universally male, and they almost universally shoot or threaten to shoot women. buffy and willow break the mold, but both of their cases are echoes of earlier events where a man shot a woman. something something phallic imagery.)

this all speaks to a very measured and clear-sighted moral stance. in the world of btvs, guns are bad. at best, if you use one, you are a clueless idiot way out of your depth; at worst, you're going to die badly. or, in buffy's own words (from "flooded"):

#buffyposting #buffy the vampire slayer

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ewingstan · 11 months ago

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So there's a few ways we've seen the public hostility to capes be framed.

There's complaint 1, the general "all parahumans are more trouble than they're worth," which has been something that's at least been brewing since Worm (a lot of Cauldron and the PRT's activities being focused on tamping down on this perception). A fairly common trope in superhero media. You see it everything from the X-Men to the Civil War comic event. Hell, its popular enough that the last two comics I've read (Chainsaw Man and Clown Corps), which are pretty much as different as you can be while still being in the same vague genre and medium, both had "Villains try to get everyone to fear superpeople indiscrimantly" plots.

But then there's the more specific complaint 2: "cape heroes aren't justifying their presence because they directly cause violence without lowering the amount of crime and violence overall." Now, Capricorn is obviously framing it in these terms because he's trying to appeal to the police he's talking to; he knows that's a complaint made about cops and he wants to make them feel like they're on the same side fighting the same battles (and in turn kinda claiming that both capes and cops are "against" a public who criticizes them). But I'd also say that the text itself wants us to consider complaint 2. Worm basically endorses it; a lot of the book reinforces the claim that capes/cops are integral to how a system gives rise to villains/criminals and largely fails to deal with such problems in a useful manner.

The question is whether Ward is best interpreted as making the opposite claim, endorsing Tristan's argument against complaint 2. Its certainly sympathetic to the frustrations of the "don't tell us we didn't make a difference when you weren't there to see" crowd—it almost has to be, given our narrator. But whereas in some parts I read Ward as saying "yeah its frustrating, but they're right, you aren't making a real difference and are part of the problem" other times it does portray Breakthrough making real changes for the better that couldn't have been accomplished other ways by fighting ontologically evil enemies (see: Teacher).

Again, kinda hard to do a story from this POV and completely avoid that. Disco Elyisum probably does the best job of it and I've still seen people argue that it doesn't avoid it entirely (still unsure where I land on that). Zdarsky's Daredevil (man I need to catch up on that) tries to avoid it in a way that doesn't really cohere; largely because it tries to be anti-prison while still framing characters like Spider-Man as paragons. Though in that at least it kinda works with Matt Murdock's whole pattern of righteous violence followed by intense doubt and guilt followed by newly directed righteous violence. I guess I'll have to keep reading to see how things ultimately land.

#leo reads ward #ward 10.5 #wardblr #parahumans #wildbow #sorry for the daredevil tangent that comic's just kinda fun to poke at #reminds me of ave wiseman's critique of how the two knives out movies show changing public attitudes towards the justice system #leo says

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romchat · 1 year ago

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My Journey to You Ep. 23 visuals: Ravens only belong to winter

Say what you will about this show's writing for the lead characters (particularly Gong Ziyu and Shangguan Qian), but you can't deny MJTY's writing when it comes to its minor characters. I came to care for so many of them with just a few scenes, and I think a lot of that is due to the show's visual storytelling, which is used to reinforce its themes in an almost brutally efficient way.

Nowhere is this truer than with Hanya Si and the show's use of shadow and light to communicate his story.

The death and violent secrecy surrounding Wufeng have been etched so permanently on Hanya's soul that he can't escape its darkness. He no longer sees himself as a man, but as something less than:

"[Ravens] know there are hunters and traps in the dark forest, but they can never fly to the light. They've been eating dirty mice and rotten meat since they were born. Even their screams are fearful and ferocious. They can only live in the dark and beneath the sunset."

This is communicated over and over again with how the show physically positions Hanya either against or away from light for most of his scenes. Whether at the Wufeng headquarters or in the Gong residence, he is placed in the shadows--even as other characters stand in or move toward light.

Interestingly, he's really the only assassin we're officially introduced to who is shot like that. For example, check out the scene below where he, Hanya Qi, and two of the wangs meet. Even though the overall scene is dark, Hanya Si is the darkest as he's positioned furthest away from the overhead light. And in the final showdown at the Gong residence, the other assassins fight during the day (which Hanya Si has never been portrayed as doing until his final scene). Unlike the others who revel in killing their targets in broad daylight, Hanya has become so consumed by his sins that he doesn't believe he's worthy of existing anywhere but the darkness.

(Side Note: I found it telling that the last Wufeng attack that killed Gong Shangjue's mother and brother also happened during the day rather than at nighttime. There's a startling brazenness to Wufeng's violence.)

The exception to this pattern, of course, is when Hanya is shot with either Yun Weishan or Yun Que. Those moments with his protégés are the only times he embraces his own humanity and dares to step out of his self-imposed prison to provide care in whatever misplaced way he can. It's only in those scenes that his face becomes awash in direct light.

So when Hanya decides to help Weishan fight Ziyi, it's fitting that the show commemorates this character-defining moment by drenching the entire screen in sunlight.

I absolutely love this shot with the lens flare. The show rarely uses this camera effect in its outdoor cinematography so you can feel the foreignness Hanya must have felt walking into the early morning light to face his destiny. The blown-out sky is wondrous and almost overwhelming in its brightness.

And it also seals his fate because we know ravens can never fly to the light; they can only live in the dark.

The mirroring of Weishan and Hanya’s first sunset and last sunrise together nearly took me out. Director Edward Guo clearly likes reusing certain compositional elements to establish his characters, and with Hanya's scenes that repetition not only lends itself to a feeling of tragic inevitability but also freeing closure.

"I watched the sunset so many times with you. This time, I can finally watch the sunrise with you."

What a perfect way to send off this character.

#my journey to you #云之羽 #cdrama #meta #omid #hanya si #yun wei shan #esther yu #Love a lens flare

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tanadrin · 1 year ago

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So besides "all religion is a pathetic cope" what exactly is the point of all your recent posting?

Religion isn't a pathetic cope! Religion is fundamentally hard-wired into who we are. This is something both Dan McClellan and David Bokovoy talk about quite cogently: we are evolved to detect agents in the world around us, that agency-detection mechanism errs on the side of false positives rather than false negatives (bc false negatives tended to get eaten), and that plus other cognitive systems like our relentless pattern-matching ability and our capacity for theory of mind produce some quite complex intuitions about the world, out of which a sense of the supernatural almost inevitably falls.

Dan McClellan in his interviews on Mormon Stories in particular talks about the cognitive science side of religious studies, and the experiments done to try to get at the underlying intuitions, and he points out that in these experiments it becomes pretty evident that both atheism and the more philosophically complex forms of religion most readers of this post are probably accustomed to are the result of highly reflective attitudes toward the world; the intuitive sense of supernatural agency tends to ascribe very humanlike qualities to supernatural agents--I am reminded of some of the stuff @transgenderer has posted about the Mbuti and the Ainu and their beliefs in a parallel "spirit world" that is very much like our own, where the spirits live lives very similar to the ones we do.

When you add in the ways that religion taps into other important human social functions--collective mythmaking, social organization, the creation of networks of trust and reinforcement of particular identities--it becomes clear that religion is something which fulfills what are for many people important psychological needs, and that (in some form) we will always have something like religion with us. Now, "religion" itself is kind of a tricky category--in religious studies it is apparently accepted as a truism that "religion" is just "anything we call a religion," because it lumps together what are often some quite heterogeneous phenomena, and the original formation of the category was in discourse by mostly-Protestant Europeans trying to understand the cultures and traditions of the rest of the world mostly with reference to (again, mostly Protestant) Christianity. So as long as we're aware that this is a very loose category, and everything above has to be taken mutatis mutandis so far as it applies to individual members of the category, we can talk carefully about religion in general terms.

Dan McClellan, David Bokovoy, and the guy who originated the application of cognitive theory to the study of religion are all religious. So clearly they don't see religion as cope, or as this perspective as one that necessarily implies religion is cope.

What would be pathetic is someone who cannot tolerate the existence of an outside view of religion, either because it causes them to doubt truth claims of that religion in ways that make them uncomfortable (because the truth of that religion is deeply integrated into their personal sense of identity), or because they can only read differing viewpoints as a hostile attack, and who then sends aggressive anons to strangers on the internet as a result. That would in fact be the kind of thing that only someone with really profound insecurities that they are unloading on other people does, because they don't have the strength to deal with those insecurities themselves.

#i didn't even say organized religion is a cope #i did say it fucking sucks #but that's a moral judgement

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hello-nichya-here · 6 days ago

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Is cannibalism morally wrong?

Before anything, let me just say: Please don't eat people.

Now, the answer to that question is "Usually, yes - according to MOST people's ideal of what morality even is today."

Obviously any sane person today will tell you that eating human flesh after killing or mutilating someone is bad, but while the cannibalism would be a form of/motivation for the violence and definitely be used as proof of "This person needs to be locked up forever or sentenced to death" in any trial, you'd be surprised to hear that not every country would consider it, by itself, a crime.

In my country, Brazil, cannibalism is not illegal, though there are laws about what one can or cannot do with a corpse that very much do not include "use it for a snack." But there is one obvious loophole: there are indigenous tribes in the amazon that no one is allowed to contact, and some of them practice cannibalism in one way or another.

Even countries in which cannibalism is a crime often give the "criminals" a pass if it was a case of "We were desperated and stranded with no food and there were dead bodies around." And once again, if instead of just eating the flesh of people that died naturally, they had KILLED these people to then eat them, no mercy would be granted. "Desperate times, desperate measures" only goes so far.

Most human beings fully see "human" as a separate category from anything else in nature. That's why experiments on animals are commonplace, but the very words "experiments on humans" have a really fucked up connotation. Why NO ONE has a problem with plants being eaten and most people are okay with eating animals.

And even then, it's no coincidence that animals are still seen more as "living things" than plants, even if we know both are alive. Animals move around, have what we can easily tell are body parts (head, limbs, eyes, mouth, etc) and clearly experience not only pain but fear, sadness, joy, and emotional attachment to other animals, to humans, to objects, etc. They are more simmilar to us, and can interact with us, so we still see killing them as taking a life, which we don't really think of when we do something like picking a flower, even if the result is the same.

Even for someone who eats meat without any guilt, the rule is still clear: if it's human (or "human enough") then it isn't food, and to break that rule means that something is VERY wrong with you. That's why we have mythical creatures like vampires - they look human, but they're secretly some strange kind of Other, a monster, a threat, and the proof of it is that their survival depends on drinking human blood.

And back to laws about how to handle dead bodies for a second, because there's a noticeable pattern in most societies: they either preserve the bodies or get rid of them in a ceremonial way. Mumification, funeral pyre, burial - anything to reinforce "That's a person." That's why people do things like dive after someone dies at sea to bring the body to the family, or why even atheists who believe there's no such thing as souls and that when people die they truly are gone will still visit the graves of their loved ones, or keep their ashes.

We see dead bodies as what's left of an individual, not something that needs to be disposed of before it rots, so most people are disturbed by things like mass graves or cannibalism because we see it as disrespect or straight up violence - which is why in those cases of "forced to eat dead bodies" the people in these situations tend to struggle to accept taking that route, often feel a ton of guilt, and avoid eating their own relatives and friends if possible.

But notice I said MOST people are disturbed by cannibalism? Well, time for to use my own country as exemple again because for many indigenous tribes here, cannibalism WAS the ceremonial way to handle the body. They weren't just "meat", they were a shell where the soul of that person was trapped in, so to eat them would not only free their spirit, but also make it "live on" with the tribe. That's why they were HORRIFIED by things like christian funerals - they saw it as cursing someone to be buried "alive", trapped in a rotting body.

And even in the tribes that did things like eat their enemies, it wasn't out of sadism or disrespect - quite the contrary. They believed that by eating them, they were gaining their strength and becoming part of their tribe. They even had their own form of "cannibalism taboo" because of it, since they saw eating a member of their own tribe(s) as an abomination because they'd be "stealing the strength" of one of their own.

These tribes only ever stopped these rites both because they were forced and, for the obvious "cannibalism can literally kill you depending on the state the body you ate was in."

Even christianity is not completely aversed to the idea that, by eating human flesh, a part of that human lives on in whoever ate them. The same church that had missionaries trying to make the natives stop eating their dead has a whole ritual of metaphorical cannibalism, with the followers of Christ eating his "body" (bread) and drinking his "blood" (wine).

The myths, and especially the fictional stories, about vampires have also toyed with that idea, mainly with regards to the connection between sex and the violence commited by the monster. Hence vampires luring their prey, their bites sometimes being referred as a "kiss", and them turning their victims (usually by making the human drink vampire blood before being killed).

Most people today by be completely aversed to cannibalism actually happening, but it's not hard at all to find romanticized versions of it that basically cannibalism in all but name.

And, believe it or not, there are cases in which people do defend real cannibals. The infamous german case of Armin Meiwess killing and eating a man, with the victims consent (and "sharing the meal" with them before the actua death) was so completely outside any kind of normal circumstance that people still debate whether or not he should have gone to prison at all - especially because he allowed the victim to go back home when he regreted agreeing to it, but the man came back of his own free will, and there's video evidence of it all.

(Before anybody asks, yes, I still say Armin Meiwess being arrested was the right call, but I can understand the legal nightmare and the sheer "what in the hell?" factor of it all. Again, please don't eat people)

There's also a more "ethical" (if it was indeed real) case of a dutch TV show in the two hosts had small pieces of their flesh surgically removed, had them fried and ate "each other". Even if it wasn't fake, they haven't commited a crime or harmed anybody in any way since they were willing participants AND not mutilated or killed - yet there was still outrage, once again, purely on the sense of "Humans don't eat humans" being a societal rule that doesn't get to be broken that easily without push-back.

So there you have it. Cannibalism is morally wrong both for logical, ethical reasons (aka the human suffering in most of the cases) AND purely emotional ones (aka humans prefer the species to be seen as more than just walking meat that hasn't gotten to the butcher's shop yet). For the third time: please don't eat people.

#asks #cannibalism #death #funeral rites

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5and3nevermind · 2 months ago

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I was watching DDEUNDDEUN and I was in shock when I realized that Jimin was such a shy person with people and in places he is not used to. And even more shock that Yoon is such a talkative person and seems not to be intimidated in new places. Consuming only the boys' content is not this perception that they gave me, I would never imagine that they would be this way away from the other members. And the biggest shock was really realizing that yoonmin seem to be close to each other, since I always saw them as the duo Tom and Jerry and nothing else. Who would have thought… Did watching this show change your perception of the two of them in any way?

Anon, this is such a good question!

I agree that there are certain misconceptions about the guys based not only on content but on the fandom itself repeating these tropes over and over again while ignoring other information. Yes, Yoongi and Jimin sometimes have a Tom and Jerry dynamic, but there are also so many examples of them being kind, caring, supportive, and protective of each other.

In terms of Ddeun Ddeun and whether my perception changed, the answer is yes and no.

No because:

The show reinforced some things that I already believed. For instance, I already believed they were very close. Prior to Ddeun Ddeun I thought it was significant that Jimin was so concerned about Yoongi when he had his shoulder surgery (being the first to call him after the surgery, watching him do his shoulder rehab, calling him on the phone from award shows and lives so that he wouldn’t be left out, etc.) To me, these aren’t things people do unless they are very close. Another example was when they mentioned during the show that they’d get dinner together (just the two of them) afterwards. Again, this was not a surprise. They’ve mentioned hanging out together outside of work many times over the years. (For instance, going out for sushi in 2015, going out for fried chicken in 2015, Jimin seeing Yoongi playing with his parents’ dog Holly in 2016, staying up all night talking in 2016, becoming “drinking buddies” prior to Festa 2017, etc, etc.) My point is, there were some things that happened during the show that weren’t new; they were a continuation of patterns we’d seen for a long time.

On the other hand…

Yes because:

Jimin was so shy and it was clear that Yoongi wanted to comfort him. He spoke up when Jimin was quiet or hesitant, corrected one of the hosts when he misidentified the type of dance Jimin had studied, rubbed Jimin’s back in a reassuring way, etc. I think Yoongi has always been protective of Jimin, but the difference here was that it was so open and honest. Their body language was certainly noteworthy! Lots of patting each other on the hand or leg, hands on shoulders, leaning into one another, etc. While we have many affectionate moments scattered over the years, this was the most we’d ever seen in a single piece of content. And that surprised me. In fact, I thought their dynamic was so open and affectionate that I’d rank the show as the single most important piece of yoonmin content that we have.

This moment also said a lot:

This wasn’t a typical friendly “Love ya!” This seemed like something really sweet and was prompted by the hosts noticing how comfortable Jimin seemed with Yoongi. So, that was a big deal to me too.

Long story, short (too late!), I think how we perceive Ddeun Ddeun is partly dependent on how long we’ve been in the fandom and how invested we’d been in yoonmin prior to the show. They are a very subtle pair, so I think sometimes their special dynamic flies under the radar.

#ask #ddeun ddeun #2023 #face era #d day era

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imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese · 2 months ago

Text

Destinytober24: Day 10 - Dream

Darkness, chitin, blood, death, tea.

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

Eris Morn's two human eyes are sightless as she crouches, huddled among human bones picked clean by jagged teeth in chitinous mouths.

Her ghost, Brya, is gone. Her beloved friends, dead. She is alone. Her wish, granted. She now knows the way out, but cannot see.

Why would the dragon she murdered provide her with anything less than this?

"Don't look back," Brya had said just before she died. How fitting, now, that Eris cannot look anywhere at all.

She chews, near-mindlessly, on a piece of chitin. The flavour no longer processes as taste. It provides information along with the barest sustenance. Her saliva softens it only slightly. It is several days old, harder than a Thrall's chitin but more supple than a Knight's. An Acolyte. It was not born on the Moon. The keratin is suffused with bitter ichor from the Sea of Screams. It came here from the Ascendent plane.

Eris is no longer among the swiftest Hunters. Darkness is her world now. She is Lightless. She is small. She is vulnerable.

A scuttling sound down the hallway reaches her. She stops chewing and clutches a sharp stone in one hand, a knife in the other, turning her head so that her ears can see.

The sound comes again. A scuttling. Eris scuttles too, like the Hive she smells like.

She snarls in silence. Her hunger makes her sharp, like the stone in her hand.

Eris listens as she shifts her weight to the side. She smells. The damp air in the tunnel is cool and thick with moisture. Eris hears the fungal bodies squishing under the feet of that which she is now hunting.

She is close. The scraping of chitin on stone is unmistakable. She can tell by its gait: Acolyte.

It smells her and recognizes her as Hive. It utters a faint questioning trill, identifying itself.

Eris is on it in an instant. It moves to avoid her in what is now a predictable pattern. She crushes its clavicle with her stone and attempts to drive her knife between its outer plates into its neck.

Her angle is off. The knife glances and the Acolyte hisses in rage as it feels Eris' not-Hive body against it.

It tries to bite her, but she is too quick, pivoting, twisting her body to throw it over her hip onto the ground. Her stone smashes down on its knee, crushing through chitin, hobbling it.

Its claws swipe where her head was moments before. It swipes at her again and its claws glance against the chitin reinforcements on her pauldrons, protecting her throat.

Eris scuttles. She is on top of it now, sliding her knife along the chitin, using the blade to find the places where the plates intersect and then twisting.

The Acolyte screams. Its voice echoes through the tunnels but there is no answer. The Hive do not rush to the defence of their weaker members. Eris is teaching this Acolyte a lesson in Sword Logic. It is failing to prove its right to exist.

The Acolyte bites down on her forearm. Its teeth sink into the reinforcements around her gauntlets. Eris uses this to her advantage. She now knows exactly where its throat is.

Its clawed hands rake helplessly against her armoured sides as she pulls her knife out from between the plates in its torso and uses the blade in a whittling motion, working it into the small crevice between its head and its neck. Wrenching. Forcing the blade deeper, and then deeper still.

The Acolyte is still weakly pawing at her when, slick with blood, Eris finally saws away enough at the tissue beneath the chitin to sever its head from its body.

With one last shiver, the Acolyte seizes up. Its worm extrudes out onto the ground from the trunk of its neck with a wet smack. That smack is just enough directional information for Eris to to bring down the stone in her hand with brutal accuracy.

The worm's soft body splatters. Its juices mingle with the blood-slicked surfaces around her, on her, and Eris - once one of the Vanguard's best Hunters: swift, clever, elegant, precise - begins to tear apart the Hive corpse she is straddled on top of with her hands and her blade and her stone, seeking soft pulsating innards to chew on with an animalistic frenzy to sate her rabid hunger.

Rancid ichor slides down her throat, her gag reflex to the vile substance long since repressed out of desperate need. She is no longer repulsed by it. She draws strength from the rawness of her kill.

As the sharpness of her hunger subsides, Eris begins to consume her victim more mindfully. This deep in the Hellmouth, she does not know when she will get another straggler. And going closer to the surface, closer to the way out, the Hive are in too greater numbers for her to find one alone.

Clever Ahamkara. What use is knowing the way out, when she cannot see to avoid the horde and leave? She is trapped and must plan for survival. Escape is no longer even a dream.

She is here now. This is her existence. She hides in shadow, blind, hunting the weak. It has been decades. Her universe has shrunk to this: kill, eat, hunt, survive. The Sword Logic she so loathes, which has killed everything she loves, is her way of life now. This is who she is. She might as well be Hive. There is no meaningful distinction.

Eris will need this kill to last. She begins to butcher the corpse with methodical precision, setting aside the parts she will dry, thinking about what order she will consume it in to ensure this sustenance will last as long as possible.

Her hands find the head she removed. Her fingertips trace across the Acolyte's perfect and unblemished eyes.

They are wet with tears.

How? This is wrong. The Hive do not cry.

Eris pulls her hand away and she is not pulling it away from the decapitated head on the ground near her knees. It is her own face she is touching. Her own three Hive eyes. She has indeed fully become Hive.

Eris Morn sits bolt upright in bed, breathing heavily, drenched in sweat. Beside her, the Drifter, startled awake, already has a Stasis grenade in one hand, his other hand reaching for the hand cannon he always keeps loaded under his pillow.

They stare at each other for a few moments, each one individually frozen in fear.

The Drifter's ghost materialises in front of them. Its kit-bashed and poorly welded shell opens and slowly spins as it examines them both. It emits its single tone and then flies off through the doorway into the rest of the Derelict.

The Stasis grenade dissipates unused. The Drifter releases the gun and stretches out a hand to Eris.

"Hey," he says in a hoarse whisper.

Eris turns to him and nods. Her senses slowly acclimatising to her surroundings. Her cognition catching up with her body's awareness of where she is. What she is. The glow from her three Hive eyes is the only light in the room.

She laces the fingers of one trembling hand, human fingers, into the fingers of the Drifter's outstretched and also trembling hand. They sit quietly like this for some time with this small contact of skin on skin, hand in hand, allowing their current reality to suffuse into them and gradually feel more real. Their breathing slows.

After a while the Drifter shifts and sits up in bed next to Eris. When he does so, she leans against him, drawing strength from his presence. The weight of him, the solidity, the sensation of his skin against her own. Her own skin, human, not the chitin of the Hive.

"Want some tea?" he asks gently, his voice rumbling through his body against her ear where it is pressed against him.

"Hmmm…" Eris says, her voice equally hoarse. "What time is it?"

"No fuckin' clue, but I have a hard time imagining you ever thinkin' there's such a thing as a bad time for tea."

"I suppose not."

When they walk into the galley, they find that the Drifter's ghost has already started the kettle and it has just begun to boil.

Link to the entire month's worth of prompts on Ao3, posted daily.

#destinytober24 #destinytober #destinytober 2024 #destiny 2 #eris morn #the drifter #drifteris #drifter/eris #the drifter/eris morn #nightmare #eris in the hellmouth #ao3 #fanfiction #writing #dream #imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese #cs member writing

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