#but I'm sure it will be a fascinating continuation of the established connection it all has with Ed's identity

[jeffsinnbythesea]

A post by @queerly-autistic got me thinking (thinking, thinking and drinking) about the main symbols representing the various personas Ed adopts in seasons 1 and 2. The way Ed yo-yos back and forth between rejecting and embracing things like the eponymous black beard, the leathers, etc. tells us a lot about Ed's relationship with his own identity at a given point in time, and more broadly, how his views on what people generally can and can't do, and who they can and can't be evolves over time, in fits and starts.

We get the sense early on that Ed's worldview is that people don't change and their path in life is more or less set. His mother tells him early on, "Well, it's not up to us, is it? It's up to God. He decides who gets what. We're just not those kind of people. We never will be." He learns about the Gentleman Pirate, a total oxymoron, and he's immediately fascinated. It knocks his socks off, it shakes his worldview, in which he is Blackbeard - just look at his black beard, and his leather getup, and his gun, etc.

Ed's very first act on the Revenge is to ditch those clothes and parade around in Stede's instead. The very next episode he's wearing Stede's clothes again but now he's Jeff The Accountant. However, each and every time he does this, he gets rebuffed. By Izzy, who tells him to knock it off, get real, and then by the French, who gas him up initially only to ridicule him in the end. Each time he resets back to his Blackbeard persona, back in the leathers, even though we know explicitly that he's totally over this routine. He wants to pack it all in, retire. And it isn't just because he's bored, though that is part of it. When he chooses the scariest story he can think of, he tells the Blackbeard origin story of killing his own dad. He knows Blackbeard isn't a Good Guy. But he already adores Stede - just ask Izzy. How could Stede like him, a murderer, a Bad Guy? But Stede says, actually I quite like you as you are, and you aren't a bad person. Ed feels seen and accepted in a way he probably never has in his life, or at least since becoming Blackbeard.

Calico Jack shows up as this interloper on the Revenge and Jack and Stede's characters clash so much that Ed figures, hey, this little adventure sure has been fun, but it turns out at the end of the day: "This is who I am, Stede. Can you see me now? You were always gonna realize what I am." That whole scene with the tub, and everything since, must have been a fluke. He thought he was being seen and accepted beyond the persona - the good and the bad all at once - but evidently not.

Fast forward to the Act of Grace. Unequivocally Ed makes this sacrifice for Stede, but outwardly at least, he takes everything in stride, especially compared to Stede. I'm not sure you can say that he shaves the beard for Stede.He says, "Now, it's time to accept our fate. Besides, kind of comforting, really, once you get your mind around it." He's folding socks, he's excited about soap! I think this is a man who is deeply relieved to be "forced" into doing the thing that he actually wants to do. Jumping forward, is that not what was going on with the whole end of s2e2 suicide-by-mutiny thing? The show has been telling us all season that Ed doesn't care about Being Blackbeard, he actively wants to stop being Blackbeard, but fundamentally doesn't believe there are alternatives, a belief reinforced because both times he dropped the Blackbeard persona for something else (haha, jokingly, but were they really?), it ended poorly.

Stede hasn't picked up on this and these factors come together and create this tragic scenario where Stede is mourning the end of the beard (the extremely obvious symbol for Blackbeard) because he thinks Ed has lost something integral to who he is, that he's in fact been ruined by Stede, while Ed comes to think that Stede is mourning the end of Blackbeard the myth, the legend, the celebrity, and perhaps he never wanted Edward at all, as pointed out by @queerly-autistic. I'm reminded of the Rita Hayworth quote that gets to that same feeling Ed probably has here: "Men go to bed with Gilda but wake up with me."

Ed goes back to the Revenge alone, heart shattered, but he doesn't immediately go "Well, Blackbeard's back! Business as usual!" Like Erin says, he escapes it briefly. He's got his hair down, he's wearing the robe, he's probably getting into a skincare routine. He says, "Actually, I do want to be called Edward from now on" and "Why are we even being pirates?" The scene with Izzy confronting him in the cabin after this is supposed to be horrible and uncomfortable to watch. It is violent and cutting and things spiral from this point through the end of s2e2. Ed has tried to shed or replace the Blackbeard persona numerous times over the season and each and every time he is rebuked by Izzy and his crew, by the rich jerks, and even by Stede. This final attempt to just be Ed rather than Blackbeard even comes with a threat on his life.

Backed into a corner, still in immense emotional pain from Stede's rejection, and having his deterministic worldview confirmed again and again, is it any wonder Ed reverts to this worst iteration of Blackbeard, the Kraken? Why would he try something different when all of his experiences thus far tell him that it's futile? If Ed feels that way in his middle age, who knows how many times over the course of his life he might have tried and failed, or more likely, saw others try and fail for a different life, a better life? He tells us in both seasons that they're pirates - most of them are dead. As her post says, the Kraken armour is about survival, physically and emotionally, and it's about despair. He can try again and again to break free but it always. Comes back. To this. The only real escape is death. S1e10 is the beginning of the spiral that has a, I'm not sure goal is the right word, but all these acts of violence and destruction against himself and others are leading to his death and he knows this.

Jumping to the end of Fun and Games, Ed sums up his worldview very succinctly, in that resigned tone: "Buttons, people don't change, not into birds or otherwise."

And then Buttons changes! Dramatically! Ed changes, clothing at least. I think this was a really interesting choice by the show - to indirectly convey how the crew is feeling towards Ed by targeting the thing most symbolic of Blackbeard-turned-Kraken now that the black beard isn't really an option to take out of the picture and his face is washed clean. As for the cat bell, well we don't have time to delve into that. I can't help but observe that once again this is "forced" against his will, but is it? Ed probably certainly wouldn't choose to wear the Contrition Era sack, if nothing else it looks itchy, but I don't think he's moaning about not having the leathers.When they let him out of the sack, he puts on Buttons old clothes, not his own.

S2 is one big identity crisis for Ed. The guy essentially died. There's no going back to Blackbeard. That persona was one he was miserably tired of, but now it's well and truly poisoned by its evolution into the Kraken. Not to mention the trauma he feels from it, trauma from decades of piracy, from the violence done to him and by him. With the leathers put aside for now, other vestiges of the Kraken era are dealt with. The Guilt/Gilt Room is transformed into a celebration for the crew, a sort of apology and an opportunity to show the crew and Ed reconcile. Ned Low comes back as the final nasty nail in the coffin that he resolves to leave it all behind. The leathers are dumped overboard and Ed says good riddance to them, and good riddance to Blackbeard, and good riddance to that life. Burdened with the old trauma, and now the fresh trauma of Ed and Stede almost getting killed by this lifestyle again, Ed sticks to his guns and commits to leaving. Yes, it is impulsive and a bit cowardly, but the motivations behind it make sense. He and Stede haven't graduated to Communication University yet and are still working out the kinks there.

A lot has been said about Ed later diving in to retrieve those leathers and going on a bit of a rampage against the navy dudes. "The music, the costume, he clearly regressed back into the Kraken!" "The show is saying that being Blackbeard and piracy is the only thing he's good at!" On the surface, it might seem like yet again the universe is confirming Ed's original deterministic worldview that people don't change, that he's chained to this life. I choose to interpret this differently. For one, there is extremely little airtime given to the Ed scenes between dumping the leathers and retrieving them and I think the storytelling would have benefited from more, obvs. Bear with me on this part, but I think this is where the show says, you know what? Symbols-schmymbols. The beard, the leathers, the name, none of those things are what make Blackbeard Blackbeard, or the Kraken the Kraken. As people, we are not the clothing we wear. We are our actions. Ed can put on the leathers or the sack or a tutu for all I care but his actions are what define who he is.

"If you were ever good at anything, go and do that." Ed doesn't take this to mean go back to the worst version of yourself that you hate, it means loving and protecting Stede and the crew. Going with the moral system established in the show's universe, killing bad people might saddle you with trauma but it doesn't make you a monster, particularly when it's in service of the ones you love. Stede's parting words to him were that he's a coward. He is choosing to not be a coward. And that means not running away from Stede, or away from the British, or off to China, or from himself anymore. You can't run away from yourself. Wherever You Go, There You Are, right?

Essentially, he goes from:

I can't change. Nobody can change.

to:

Maybe I can change...but only if Blackbeard dies and all his symbols are dumped overboard. But subtract Blackbeard from Ed, and what's even left? And who would care about that guy?

to:

I am Edward and Blackbeard and the Kraken and the sum of all my past selves, and they all did good things and they all did bad things. That doesn't mean that I'm not capable of loving others or myself, or that I'm not lovable. Sometimes the things you hate about yourself can be spun into something good - poison into positivity

What you end up with is a complex and even contradictory person, but a whole person. He can reclaim his clothes, he can sport a beard, albeit much shorter and salt and pepper-y, and he can reclaim, or at least he's now free to create a sense of self, secure in the knowledge that he isn't alone. There are people waiting for him, and they're not having second thoughts.

"They love you, Ed. Just be Ed."

[thankskenpenders]

The mystery of that random magenta-haired Sonic woman: solved?

For almost three years now, there's been a little mystery in the Sonic franchise: who the hell is this lady?

Well, it seems like fans have collectively pieced together the answer. And it's more interesting than I expected.

For those who don't keep up with Sonic lore minutia like I do, this is a screenshot from the very first episode of TailsTube, released on YouTube back in March 2022. When Sonic and Tails were explaining the basics of their Earth and the fact that humans and anthropomorphic animals coexist, Tails showed a slide of some human NPCs from Sonic Unleashed. But the slide also included this never-before-seen character design, drawn in a conspicuously different, more anime-influenced art style from the Pixar-esque Unleashed characters. So... where's she from?

At the time, it was assumed that she was probably from an upcoming project. She looks like she could be an explorer of some sort, so maybe she's just an NPC from Frontiers, I thought. And then she wasn't in Frontiers. Sonic Prime, maybe? Nope, no humans in Prime. Okay, well maybe the IDW comics are going to start incorporating humans, now that the "two worlds" thing has been undone and humans once again canonically exist on the same planet as Sonic and friends. Well, if she's gonna show up in the comics, it's been almost three years and we still haven't seen her. That'd be a hell of a lead time for comics, where production cycles are typically a matter of months, not years. Time continued to pass, and we still hadn't seen her. We just had Ian Flynn teasing us with a #KnowingSmile, assuring us that she existed for some reason, just one that he couldn't talk about yet.

Fast forward to late 2024, and she suddenly makes an appearance in the last place anyone would have expected: the third live action movie, via an electronic billboard in Shibuya.

At this point it almost felt like the lore team was trolling us. Is this just a scrapped character design that's become fodder for inside joke cameos or something? Surely all of this teasing couldn't have been for a throwaway character design on a billboard in the background of a movie.

But actually, this billboard gives us an important piece of information: her name! She's labeled here as "Professor Tori." This is important because it connects her to a previous release. In Shadow Generations, Gerald's journal is prefaced with a note from the person who recovered it, addressed to the GUN Commander. In the English version, it's simply signed "T," but in the Japanese version... it's signed "Tori"!

This gives us some actual info about Professor Tori. For one, she seems to work for GUN in their Archival and Requisitions Department. She's apparently also interested in learning about Gerald and Maria's lives, like their old friend Abe is.

Jump forward again to the New Year's episode of TailsTube, and this appears in the background.

Her full name is officially given as Professor Victoria, and she's a historian. So, that seems to confirm everything we've pieced together so far.

As far as things we can reasonably assume to be correct go, this is everything we know for certain about Victoria. She's a historian working for GUN. Cool! But that's not what really fascinates me about her. For that, we have to do a little more speculation based on conjecture.

See, Shadow Generations also establishes information about the Robotnik family tree. Gerald had two sons. One of them took after Gerald's love of technology and became an expert in the field of robotics, and would go on to be Eggman's father. The other son took after Gerald's love of archaeology. This man would go on to be Maria's father. But, as Maria mentions in Shadow Generations... she also happens to have a little sister we've never met before.

So now, the question is: is this Maria's sister, Victoria Robotnik?!

We can't be 100% certain right now, but honestly, until proven otherwise I'm assuming that Victoria is Maria's little sister, now all grown up and working for GUN. It all lines up too neatly. The conspicuous reveal that Maria has an unseen and unnamed little sister, in the same game that establishes her dad was a history guy and also that there's this new historian working for GUN who just so happens to be really interested in her life. And also their names both end in "-ria." Come on!! Putting her in the Robotnik family would also explain all these cryptic clues about her identity. If she was just some random GUN agent, why be so coy and make fans piece it together?

I guess the most odd part here would be, y'know, Victoria working for the organization that killed her sister and grandpa. But Sega's been pushing the idea that GUN is trying to do better for 20 years now, ever since they established that the GUN Commander was Maria's childhood friend on the ARK and had him make amends with Shadow. Hearing that Maria's sister had joined GUN to try and gain access to information about her family history and undo the elaborate coverup of the previous administration would make sense to me, personally. And lest we forget, this would also make Victoria Eggman's cousin, giving him a family member in GUN. And that's a pretty cool storytelling tool to have on hand!

So, that's where we're at now. We have no idea where Victoria will pop up next, whether it's a game or a comic or another TailsTube episode or something else entirely. But it seems like she's fairly important, even if this speculation about her being a Robotnik somehow ends up being wrong. (But I'm pretty damn sold on this theory, personally.) Either way, it's exciting to see the human cast get fleshed out in fun ways again. If we're gonna have humans in Sonic stories, I'd rather they have anime-style designs and interesting connections to the narrative, rather than just being generic humans for the sake of having humans. I'm looking forward to seeing whatever the lore team's been cooking up here.

[twistedlily]

Crackpot Theory: Five and Viktor are the Beginning and End to Everything

A friend told me months ago to write an essay after hearing my crackpot theory about this show that is my Joker, so here I am, doing just what I was told. (Yes, I know this won't come true. That's why it's a crackpot theory. I'm only writing this for fun and to get this idea out of my head before S4 drops tomorrow. Anyway!)

Disclaimer: I will be using Vanya and she/her pronouns to refer to the comics character, and to the show character in S1 and S2, and Viktor and he/him pronouns for S3. I am doing this for the sake of more easily understanding which seasons in the show I am referring to when I mention my points.

Anyway, without further ado...

I am putting too much faith in the show's writing here and am convinced that the show is hinting that Five and Vanya/Viktor are the key to everything.

Here is why:

In S1, we see quite clearly that Five meant something to Vanya. She tells Pogo in the first episode that "You know what's stupid? I used to leave the lights on for him. ... Every night I'd leave a little snack and make sure the lights were on." Following that, we also see Five return, looking exactly the way he did when he left, and one of the first things he does is make himself a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich, which is the very snack that Vanya would continually make for him when he was gone.

Later on in the episode, we see him get attacked by the Temps Commission, and after said attack, the place he goes to for safety is—Vanya’s apartment. There, we get to see her patching him up, get to see them talk and in turn have a better understanding of their particular dynamic. Vanya asks him why he’s at her apartment. He says, “I’ve decided you’re the only one I can trust.” She asks him why he’s opening up to her specifically, and at first, he says, “Because you’re ordinary.” Of course, those words sting with her, and it shows on her face. So he amends his statement shortly thereafter, with a “Because you’ll listen.” The show quickly establishes that Vanya found Five important in her life, and in turn, affirms that he finds her meaningful as well.

Unfortunately, as the first season continues, we don’t get Five and Vanya interacting together as much, if at all. The second episode features Vanya managing to briefly stop Five in his tracks after he declares she’s too young and he made a mistake in trusting her, saying she “hasn’t seen him in a long time” and that she “doesn’t want to lose [him] again.” But then he leaves her apartment, and he makes little to no effort to contact her for the rest of the first season until it becomes apparent that she is far more important to the end of the world than he initially believed.

However, we do see more of their intriguing bond in the moments we’re shown of their shared past and younger years, with how Vanya shaking her head gave him genuine pause before Five’s impulsive decision to leave and perform spatial jumps in defiance of Hargreeves. Additionally, her name was the first Five called after landing in the apocalypse, and as we are made aware in the first episode, he found her book and read it while away. In said book, she writes that he "was [her] sole confidante." He even writes in the book, and continues to do so upon returning to 2019.

(A little note on something I found fascinating that may be something, or may be nothing: when drunk, Five tells Diego that he’s “the Four frickin’ Horsemen.” Traditionally, the Four Horsemen signify the bringing of the Apocalypse to the world, hence the tale of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Now, in the show, if Five is the Four Horsemen, and Vanya is the Apocalypse... does that not mean they’re inextricably connected?

Again, this could mean something, or it could be me seeing things where things were not meant to be seen.)

I will also note that their bond in the show does not, in fact, come from the comics. The comics feature a Vanya who is emotionally linked to Diego, and the Five we see in the comics is far colder than the one in the show. He even tells Vanya outright at the end of the Apocalypse Suite arc that he “never liked [her].” So this shift in relationship dynamics does exist purely in the show, which I personally find works in its favour due to its character-driven nature.

Anyway, let us move onto S2 and how it too shows their bond, and we start off with Five insisting that Elliot search for sound waves as he tries to prevent a second apocalypse via the Cold War, given Vanya’s sound manipulation power. Does that explicitly show their bond at all? Granted, no, but what happens later on when Five manages to find Vanya does—he finds her in a cornfield and gives her a rather soft smile as he introduces himself as her brother. He then proceeds to inform her (over a cup of coffee) of what happened in S1, but notably pauses and swallows when she asks what caused the apocalypse. He then states, “Asteroid impact,” and omits her role entirely, because he cares enough to not want to hurt her, which exists in contrast to how he acts around every other member of their so-called family, i.e. constantly insulting them and threatening to harm them.

This is also seen in how Five firmly insists they "need to stick together," and how he would, most likely, blink into the car when Vanya plans to drive away from him if it were anyone else, but instead takes a breath and knocks on the window to get her attention. It may be because she’s a bomb that he doesn’t want to set off, but given his behaviour around her even in S1 before she’s revealed to have powers, we get to know that he is and always has been patient with her, and impatient with everyone else. He even mumbles to himself later on about how "she'll come around. I know she will."

Also noteworthy is how his old body self learns from Luther that Vanya is the reason for the apocalypse, and in response to this news, all he does is shrug and say, “Fair enough.” It is remarkable how the very thing that he obsessed over for decades upon decades in the apocalypse is set aside with a simple acknowledgement of its cause being his closest adopted sibling.

(Another thing that I find most intriguing is how in the comics, Five’s calculations to return to his timeline and escape the apocalypse are not, in fact, bungled when he finally attempts to jump again. He realises through Dolores that he “forgot to subtract the two from the one” and only fails in his goal when the Temps Aeternalis pulls him out of the time stream against his will. In contrast, the show has Five arguing with his old body self, and the apparent solution to his calculations is a misplaced decimal point—“It’s 0.57, not 5.7!” which may be me reading into it too much, again, but if not, then an argument can be made that Five and Vanya (Number Seven) are meant to work together and stay together, instead of being placed apart due to circumstances beyond their control.)

Moving onto S3, there is the same issue as present in S1 wherein Five and Viktor rarely get to talk to one another. The only instances of their relationship coming into play are when Five runs back to ensure Vanya/Viktor is okay when they’re being attacked by the Sparrows, the easy acceptance of Viktor changing his name and beginning to transition, and of course, the talk they have near the end of the season. The talk in which Five is caring and vulnerable enough in his lecturing about powerful people and ants to tell Viktor, “If you ever need anything, I’m always here for you. But lie to us again... Viktor, I’ll kill you myself.”

There is, too, the fact that they share a long look at the end of the season before walking off in different directions, yet again separated instead of going off together.

The trailer for S4 revealed that this time, Ben is the cause of the end of the world, and it seems the show is gearing up to explore the Jennifer Incident and Ben’s death in detail (which, alongside the Sparrow Academy, the comics have yet to touch upon fully). While I am aware this show emphasizes that this so-called family is stronger together than apart, and I don’t mean to undermine their marketing with this essay, I do find this message does not yet work unless every member of the Academy is willing to work together and stay connected. Obviously, this includes Five and Viktor especially, seeing as Five set out to save the world from the apocalypse at the beginning of the show, and Viktor was the cause then and continues to cause problems for everyone.

In conclusion, I (most likely falsely) believe that the show is pointing at a resolution for its “oh no the world is ending” plot that torments each season via the full reconciliation of Five and Vanya/Viktor’s bond and that ultimately, these two teaming up and properly communicating with each other will be the way to get to a timeline where the world doesn’t end for once and happy lives can be had for all.

If you’ve read all of this, I thank you for sitting through it. If you disagree with it, that's totally fair, and I welcome you to keep scrolling and ignore this post entirely.

[ananke-xiii]

The Identity of the Man in Yellow

These are just my speculations but you still have to have watched S3E10 of FROM to get all the references. So it's not exactly spoiler-y because S3 ended weeks ago, but if you haven't caught up with all the episodes it is, lol.

The first thing I want to say is that I havent't found anybody talking about the significance of the color yellow and it's a bit weird because it's such a glaring thing! I'd like to write about it because the use of colors in general but in American media is always very precise. I mean, yes, color studies and film studies go hand in hand but also I've always been fascinated by how American writers are very intentional with their choice of colors in their works (Poe and Melville with white, Hawthorne and red, Morrison and blue, Perkins Gilman and yellow but also Fitzgerald and yellow/gold etc).

If it wasn't clear enough before, it is now: one of FROM's undercurrent themes is race. This is why I'm baffled by people being confused as to who the monsters are. I mean, guys, please. An eerie town stuck in the fifties, isolated, in the middle of nowhere. Where there's a sign for a motel but no motel (which I take as an unwillingness to welcome foreigners but an interest in luring them in). Where all monsters are white (I have things to say about the Kimono Girl but I won't now) and blood is represented as being infectious and carrier of weird things&death.

I think it's safe to say that one of the meanings of the monsters is to represent the cultural anxities of white people around racial purity. Throw in the Civil War soldiers, the never spoken-about-but-it's-there Vietnam War and the fact that Boyd is black and his wife Abby is white and their son Ellis marries Fatima and that from their union SYMBOLICALLY (I have to highlight this word everytime) a monster is reborn... That the monsters want to BREAK Boyd... There's no escape, the monsters are all about race.

So what does this have to do with the Man in Yellow? (It's a long post)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I believe that the Man in Yellow is Jim's father.

No, not his actual father, rather the reincarnation of Jim's father. I don't know how to technically fit this into the reincarnation aspect, but, I believe, just like Tabitha and Jade are destined to go back to the town to save the children (and fail), the Man in Yellow is destined to go back to the town to continue the abuse (and succeed). Because the thing about the cycle of abuse is not only about victims who keep being sacrificed but also about abusers who keep doing the sacrifice. And since the sacrifice is all about parents and children... the Man in Yellow must be someone's father and my money's on Jim.

If you really think about it, it makes sense because monsters are connected with immortality but they were CLEARLY scammed by someone because, surprise!, they can very much die. Sure, they can be reborn the same as before (not reincarnated) but they need actual people there for them to come back. Which means that someone must send/attract/lure these people to the town.

It's not a coincidence that a lot of screen-time is given to Jasper, the ventriloquist dummy. To me the monsters are like the dummy so there must be a ventriloquist as well.

The facts are these:

in the pilot the little girl opens the window because the monster tells her that she's her grandma. It's established from day 1 that we need to watch out for grandparents or people claiming to be them;

the father of said child MUST die because he failed to protect his child (and wife). In hindsight THAT was a HUGE clue;

right before the Matthews met the tree (lol), Jim says how he wishes things were like they were before and recalls the day he and Tabitha met her parents. Tabitha says that she was terrified that they wouldn't like him. So the theme of fear is very much connected to that of the parents' parents since the very first scenes of the show;

for the love of all that is holy I cannot find this scene but I am SURE that, at one ONE point in season 2, Ethan asks Jim if they will ever see Thomas and his (Ethan's) grandfather again. By linking Thomas with his grandpa I think it's safe to assume that grandpa is dead just like Thomas is. Now it could be Tabitha's father but I think Ethan's talking about Jim's here;

in season 3 when Jim talks with Henry in the bar he mentions that his father was/is (I don't remember but, see above, I think grandpa is dead) an alcoholic. He says this because he recounts the night Julie was born because that night he went to a bar and decided to quit drinking because he didn't want to be like his father;

the link between the Stevens and the Matthews is Julie. Future!Julie saves Boyd by giving him the rope (even if she doesn't know that there's Boyd in that shaft) and Boyd saves Julie in return from whatever happened to her, Randall and Marielle in S2. In a similar fashion, future!Julie will try to save Jim, although she seems to be unsuccessful;

music: Boyd had to destroy the music-box to save Julie and the others and, in so doing, he destroyed his chance to uncover his past (well, this is my hypothesis tbh). On the other hand, music allows Tabitha and Jade to remember and, potentially, to save the children;

Boyd's father, thus Ellis's grandfather had Parkison's and Boyd thinks he has it too;

and now for the meatier part: Jim and the Man in Yellow scene in "Revelations" and Boyd and Smiley scene in "Pas de deux".

The scenes:

In "Pas de Deux" Boyd is faced with a dilemma: his son, Ellis, needs a blood transfusion because he's been wounded by Dale. However, Boyd had been "infected" by Martin ("infected" is such an ugly word but this is the general vibe that I get from the show and I think it's intentional albeit uncomfortable. Sometimes discomfort is important) and doesn't want to "pass it on" to his son. Kenny, Boyd's putative son, steps in and accepts to get whatever Boyd has in his blood "passed on to him" so that Boyd can be free and Ellis can be saved.

Boyd solves the dilemma by going out into the night, slit one of the monsters' throat and pass his blood on to the monster. In a surprising turn of events, the same monster, so-called Smiley, will turn out to be Boyd's SYMBOLICAL nephew. Smiley is what comes out from Fatima's pregnancy and Fatima is Ellis' wife. It's stated in the show multiple times that, before it was revelead that the pregnancy was real/unreal, Boyd would become a grandfather (I mean, of course, but like, mentioning it was meant to focus our attention to Boyd becoming a grandpa, not just an obvious, throwaway line like "oh you'll become a grandpa, you're old haha").

Therefore, when Boyd says to the monster "My blood is your blood now" he wasn't... wrong.

In "Revelations: Part Two" the Man in Yellow appears in the woods, by the RV where Jim and Julie are. He also slits Jim's throat and tells him that "knowledge comes with a cost". Since the previous scene had established that the "monsters" sacrificed their children (the "cost") to gain immortality, I think there's room to see the Man in Yellow as sacrificing his child (the "cost") making Jim the Man in Yellow's son.

My hypothesis is reinforced by all of the above facts but specifically about the scene with Boyd and Smiley in S2 because these two scenes are visually very, very similar. This would be good news because it could mean that Jim can "resurrect" just like Smiley did (hopefully in a different, less gory way).

There's also the element of Future!Julie linking both Boyd and Jim as father-figures to be saved.

Would this make Ethan closer to Ellis/Kenny in terms of narrative function? I don't know, Ethan baffles me because we know from day one that he's a super-key element to "solve" the story but the writers are rightfully doing their best to cover the answers they've disseminated throughout three seasons. So it's not easy to fully understand him but one thing is sure: he's connected to the Man in Yellow by the color yellow.

To sum up: Boyd and Man in Yellow are grandfathers of monsters. They represent the ancestors, if you will. This is the reason why the monsters are so obsessed with Boyd and want to break him. Boyd is the antagonist in the Man in Yellow's immutable, immortal story while he is the protagonist in our story.

Their sons are Ellis/Kenny (whom Boyd didn't want to sacrifice) and Jim (whom the Man in Yellow definitely wants to sacrifice). This also makes Jim and Smiley stand very closely to each other. Julie is Boyd's symbolical daughter and Jim's actual daughter. She managed to save the first at a cost (what happened to her in S2 started because of Boyd) but couldn't save Jim who, in turn, had to bear the weight of the cost of having helped Jade and Tabitha unearth their past.

The show is about reincarnation, generational trauma and children sacrifice. There's an element of "what goes around comes around" that must be stopped or this "cost" will keep be "passed on" from character to character and from parents to children. In other words, the story must be changed,

Mothers are shown to be the ones who are bent on breaking the cycle while fathers seem to keep repeating it because they haven't shared light on their trauma, yet. In this respect, Jim, if he ever makes it out alive, is/was actually closer to Boyd in breaking the cycle. For example, Jim clealry states that he doesn't want to be like his father, while Boyd is shown to believe that he also has Parkison's just like his father had (I insist on the "believe" part because Boyd refuses to be examined by Kristi and says that he "knows he has it" but I think he's being an unreliable narrator here). This makes me think that Boyd is convinced that he will end up just like his father, even if he says that the town won't break him. Perhaps he already feels broken inside. In "spirit" he's much more like the Man in Yellow than Jim is.

In all season finales Boyd is undergound which is a symbol of the unconscious and repressed trauma. A good indicator of whether he's gonna make it to the end alive or not will be to check S4 finale: if Boyd is still shown in an underground, dark place I don't think a happy ending is in for him. Ultra Sad Face.

You might have noticed that my first point (and the show's first introduction of the monsters) is about a grandmother. So how do grandmothers fit in all this?

There are also several grandmothers in the show: Tabitha's mother who we only hear on the phone (just like the Man in Yellow before his appearance); Elgin's grandmother who, I believe, was the person he was supposed to go see when he took that fateful bus; Tillie and her seven grandchildren (just like the number of the angkoohey kids) and, finally, Jim's mother, the piano teacher whose teachings proved to be THE key to solve the numbers' enigma. This brings me to my final point:

Jim's mentioning his mother in "Revelations" reveals that the Man in Yellow is his father (or, rather, his father's reincarnation). Why?

The facts are these II:

the last three scenes of "Revelations" are about remembrance, birth and death. Two parents remember their child, one "child" is born and the grandfather watches his "birth", Jim dies and his child watches him "dying";

the two parents were able to recognize their child because of Jim's mother's teachings;

Boyd watches the birth of his "nephew";

the Man in Yellow kills Jim while Julie watches.

There's a signifier vacuum around Jim in all these scenes: he's a father-figure for sure but right now he's a son, a child. His mother's child. And as one "child" is born... one "child" dies. And this child is Jim. Jim is a sacrificed child. This makes the Man in Yellow his father, because the sacrifice of the town is not about random kids: parents must kill their children. And so the Man in Yellow kills Jim. And so the father sacrifices his child.

In S3 of FROM we got a "I am your child" moment.

In S4 of FROM we'll get a "I am your father" moment.

[atamascolily]

The mirror crack'd from side to side; 'The curse is come upon me,' cried The Lady of Shalott. --Alfred Lord Tennyson

One thing that I appreciate about the ending of Rebellion is how reality literally splinters when Homura grabs Madokami's hands. It's such a visceral and compelling way to illustrate what is happening as everything that we took as "real" falls apart. This isn't quite what people mean by "breaking the fourth wall," but it's a similar effect, as it draws attention to an invisible barrier that we in the audience didn't even realize was there until it was broken. And of course it mirrors--pun 100% intended--the shattering of Homura's own soul gem moments earlier because any distinction between them no longer exists.

We often talk about a "mirrorverse" (thanks, Star Trek!) as a parallel universe where everything is reversed/inverted, but isn't that exactly what Homura has created here--a mirror universe?

And with the mirror come reflections. Lots of them. Everything is doubled, again and again.

It culminates with the tearing apart of Madoka from the Law of Cycles, complete with the sound of breaking glass.

What I hadn't quite realized before I watched this scene in slow motion is that as the glass continues to crack, it ends up forming a shape very similar to Homura's own soul gem--both have simultaneously broken and re-formed. (Note that even with all the "cracks", a series of nested diamonds--Homura's signature visual motif--are visible within it.) Only then do the "curses" come out and envelop everything...

...which leads to this fascinating series of everyone and their reflections being swallowed up.

I'm not quite sure how to interpret what happens next, but there's actually two parts: a crystalline structure that comes first, followed by the "curses" themselves.

Both end up covering the universe--but the "curses" end up forming a shield-like design while the mirror fragments/crystals remain in place.

Then, of course, Homura shatters her soul gem in her mouth, and it re-forms into Dark Orb (omg, I cannot write that with a straight face), which is basically the same thing that we already witnessed with a different set of symbols. At this point, the cracked glass imagery disappears, having fulfilled its purpose: the universe might be different now, a mirror version of what it once was, but it's no longer broken because it has been remade.

Breaking soul gems/glass is a major visual theme in Rebellion--Homura shatters her own soul gem with a bullet (doesn't take, because it was never real to begin with) and she and Madoka shattered the soul-gem shaped glass "bell jar" the Incubators have put her in--and here it reaches its apotheosis along with Homura, in a compact and striking sequence. On first watch, this scene feels like it comes out of nowhere, but on reflection (sorry not sorry), it's clear the entire movie was building towards this moment from the beginning.

I initially didn't read too much into the first key visual for Walpurgis no Kaiten because I assumed it was a placeholder from footage already on hand because they hadn't actually made the movie yet, but looking at it again in light of this discussion makes me reconsider my stance. This is not to say that I think this particular image will necessarily appear in the movie, but it does tie into the themes established in Rebellion of broken reality symbolized by a cracked mirror, and of Devil Homura reaching out to Madoka (hands again!) but being unable to connect because of a barrier between them, one that Homura no longer can control. However, my guess is that Walpurgis no Kaiten will express these same themes with unique and different imagery rather than completely re-hashing that of Rebellion.

That said, we're clearly not done with this theme entirely, because the second key visual has Homura facing off against a mirror version (mirrorverse?) of herself.

(in light of this discussion of cracked glass re-forming, that salamander head on the phone starts to make a lot more sense)

Furthermore, the trailer heavily features inverted/backwards writing, which also ties into Tarot symbolism and the concept of "reversed" cards--again emphasizing mirrors and mirror images. If Rebellion had echoes of Alice in Wonderland, it sure seems like Walpurgis no Kaiten is going for Through the Looking-Glass!

All the mirror/double imagery in Walpurgis no Kaiten didn't come out of nowhere--like so much of the movie, it appears to have been subtly foreshadowed in Rebellion, and is almost certainly a direct consequence of Homura's actions in this particular scene. All actions have consequences, and we'll find out what they are in the next movie.

tl;dr: It's all done with mirrors. :)

[lover-of-mine]

The thing I find fascinating is that the show runners are fully capable of writing engaging couples. Henren, Bathena & Madney – their relationships are beautiful. And then we have Buck and Eddie with their respective LIs. It’s almost as if they want the relationships to fail.

This season, they had every chance to set up Tommy as a suitable LI for Buck. But they didn’t? They didn’t even have to show a grand love confession or the likes, but at least some small gestures. Them holding hands in the hospital, Tommy dressing up for the bachelor party, being a little more sensitive when they ran into Eddie during that first date… Just a few simple things that would have made all the difference.

I feel like most of the love for Tommy comes from headcanons the fandom accepted as universal truths, while there isn’t much in canon to support it.

This isn’t meant to be hate on the character (though it probably will be taken that way by certain people), it’s just that I don’t think he is a good fit for Buck. He’s guarded and deflects with a dry sense of humor, when Buck needs a person to be vulnerable with. You know, someone who is so soft and sickeningly sweet with him. So far, I didn’t get much of the sorts from Tommy. But then again, we didn’t get to see a whole lot of the relationship actually playing out on screen, so who knows.

And the other thing that started to bother me is about the daddy issue thing. There is nothing wrong with showing (or alluding to) a couple having an active/kinky sex life. In general, I’m all in favor of it.

But looking back at season one, Buck used sex as an unhealthy coping mechanism to feel a connection to people. And he doesn’t have the best relationship with sex to begin with (Remember 7x05 and the talk with Eddie, where it hadn’t occurred to either of them that saying no is an option? Doesn’t sound healthy to me.) If they wanted to set Tommy apart, they should have put all their efforts into building an emotional connection between the two. I’m not saying that sex can’t be a part of it - not even that it can’t be kinky - but that the show should have put much more emphasis on the emotional aspect of it rather than the physical attraction.

Maybe it’s just wonky writing due to a shortened season but the relationship between the two isn’t half as good as it could have been.

No, but I made a post about this during the s6-7 hiatus, because it's not like the show doesn't know how to establish a love interest, bathena and madney work because all of them exist individually and Henren was introduced to us in a way where we would side with Karen, so even tho Karen only exists to be Hen's wife we care about her in a deeper way because Karen has never done anything wrong in her life. With Buck and Eddie all of the love interests are presented to us with something wrong with them. Shannon never had a fighting chance because she left and Eddie himself was never sure about her, Eddie was dating Ana and Marisol because he thought he had to, and I'm not even gonna go there with Kim. Abby breaks every possible protocol to call Buck, and she's never in it in the same way Buck is, Taylor tries to take advantage of Bobby's addiction for her personal gain and continues to take advantage of him to get ahead, Ali is never there, Natalia is too interested in Buck's death and Tommy is callous. There's a weird metaphor in there, but the basketball scene, the way Buck hits Tommy and ricochets back and Tommy doesn't even flinch. Buck needs someone who will bend. But the show didn't even try to establish an emotional connection between the two of them, everything comes back to the physical and with a character like Buck, who was shown using sex as a bad coping mechanism, to constantly make it seem like this new relationship isn't going beyond the sex is concerning. There were better ways to imply they are having sex. Even more considering the way the show had the opportunity to make it seem like they are building some sort of emotional connection and just chose not to. Every scene we had with the 2 of them could be rewritten adding the idea that they actually care about each other beyond the attraction, and that's a choice. To go the route they went is a choice. I'm still not over the way they had Tommy not dressing up and then Eddie suggesting matching outfits in the next scene. Like, it was that easy because they showed Eddie doing it. And I don't wanna compare, but with the constant triangle formation and the way they were showing Eddie as the person who understands Buck and Tommy as the dude Buck is fucking, we have nothing happening in our screen that makes it seem like Tommy is even a little fond of Buck and all I can think about is Buck standing in front of a hot air balloon with a huge bouquet of flowers for a woman who referred to him as a boytoy. Buck deserves someone who's gone for him and none of his canon love interests gave me that impression. And they make a very explicit choice to not make that implication. They could've been something, but right now they aren't. If you just watch the show you don't know why they are dating. They are just there. And coming from a show that wrote bathena, madney, and henren, and the way that Tommy being a firefighter gives him a fighting chance because it's real easy to make him exist outside of Buck, it's on purpose.

[themattress]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Continued from my last post.

I cleared Chapter 3 and recruited the Ashen Wolves from Abyss on all three save files.

- More interesting character insights! On the Black Eagles file, I am again reminded what a precious bundle of nerves and neurosis Bernadetta is, and I enjoy the emotional conflicts between Hubert and Ferdinand over how to best service Edelgard and between Caspar and Petra over the former's father killing the latter's. On the Blue Lions file, I am amused by Annette's clumsy antics and fascinated by the conflict between Dimitri and Felix plus the related conflict between Dedue and Felix. And on the Golden Deer file, the relationships Claude, Hilda, Lorenz and Marianne all have with one another are great, as is the emotional conflict between Ignatz and Raphael over (again) the former's parents causing the death of the latter's. And of course, the Ashen Wolves are all fantastic, being unique representatives of all four factions (Church, Empire, Kingdom and Alliance) while also being their own faction.

- Because Lord Lonato is Ashe's adoptive father, I was sadistic and brought Ashe in as my mission assist character on both the Black Eagles and Golden Deer files, meaning he had to help kill his father on all three playthroughs! But that brings me to an interesting point: since the Black Eagles version of White Clouds was written first, they thus established Lonato as a character first and then created Ashe as his adopted son afterward; they would do the same in connecting Annette, Mercedes, Sylvain and Felix to Gilbert, Jeritza, Miklan and Rodrigue respectfully. But Ashe is a unique case in that....there's really not much purpose to him after this event. When you consider that the rest of the Blue Lions are the tightly-knit group of Dimitri, Dedue, Felix, Sylvain and Ingird plus the bestie duo of Annette and Mercedes, Ashe feels glaringly out of place. I don't mind the kid, but he's kind of a throwaway character.

- Speaking of Lonato, I'm not entirely sure how sympathetic I find him. His gripes with Rhea, Catherine and the Church of Seiros are absolutely valid, and while some other characters give him grief for involving the commoners he reigns over they are clearly following him of their own free will so I can't share their view. But on the other hand, he will flat-out try to kill his own adopted son when he's only trying to talk him down and reason with him, and in the Golden Deer version Claude says he and his insurgency would have ravaged all the small villages of innocent people on their march to sack Garreg Mach. Perhaps he was being manipulated by the Western Church, but Lonato ultimately seemed to let his grief over his eldest son blind him to everything else and make him go about things the worst possible way.

- As much as I love the Golden Deer route, I'll admit that it has the weakest scene following the battle. In the Black Eagles route, Edelgard reveals more of her character and how self-aware she is about the paradoxical nature of her philosophy: no hesitation or backing down from those with unreasonable views of justice that causes them to do terrible things "for the greater good" while also acknowledging that she isn't really any better since this requires her to risk the lives of others and take morally dubious actions in the name of what she considers "the greater good". Dimitri in the Blue Lions route, meanwhile, anguishes over this very philosophy and desperately wishes to believe there is another way, one which avoids bloodshed. Him noting that the insurgents killed were "fathers and sons" particularly highlights his own personal trauma from the Tragedy of Duscur, while him being against slaughter in the name of an alleged just cause hints at the shame he feels over what his kingdom did to the Duscur people. Claude, meanwhile, just loredumps, and it's information that you could find out elsewhere (ex: the first Support between Claude and Lorenz already discusses Claude's heritage and situation in the Alliance). Hilda at least brightens the scene up when she comes in, showing that she's more shrewd and perceptive than she lets on.

- Ummm....

So yeah, with this horrifying theocratical insight, Rhea's getting even more interesting.

[headspace-hotel]

me: so, the character who is Tortured In The Science Facility--

hard scifi side of brain: yes, continue

me: its about the ambiguity of the distinction between his body and the equipment that is used to maintain it. the human body is separate from the surrounding world, but when there is machinery and technology intruding into the body, and when the various fluids and biological functions typically inside the body are being taken outside of it and processed by devices

aesthetic side of brain: YEAHHHH

hard scifi side of brain: sounds great. to what extent is the supportive medical technology distinct from the user's body? a fascinating topic for sure

me: so. what are our ideas.

aesthetic side of brain: so obviously he has a bunch of metal and shit in him like metal bolts and pins and exoskeleton looking pieces

me: yes

aesthetic side of brain: you know, so he looks like human flesh implanted onto a metal frame that kind of protrudes painfully through the human facade

me: awesome.

hard scifi side of brain: so i assume the metal stuff is like making his skeleton stronger and protecting his organs or something?

me: yeah I guess

hard scifi brain: so is it implanted inside him or is it visible on the surface somehow

aesthetic brain: its both, he has like rivets or something sticking out of him so it looks like he's been bolted together underneath

hard scifi brain: so the metal stuff is like sticking out of his skin?

aesthetic brain: yes and theres gnarly scarring like his body has tried to reject it but he's had to heal and re-form around it

me: okay this sounds great but let's go a little deeper into the whole ambiguity between the human body and technology thing

hard scifi brain: if he needs external support systems that suggests the implantations either damaged his bodily functions or that his organs can't keep up with the demands of his new body. so we have to figure out what is being supplemented technologically and why

aesthetic brain: you know what's sick? tubes

me: i'm listening

hard scifi brain: they could use a feeding tube but you've already established that this character cooks for himself, so, why

aesthetic brain: MORE TUBES

aesthetic brain: they plug into him like that one scene in the matrix where Neo is in the goo

hard scifi brain: they probably used mechanical ventilation sometimes but also, why

me: so did they give him a bunch of, like, HDMI ports or something

aesthetic brain: okay hear me out

aesthetic brain: you know those portholes they install in cows to study the cow's digestive system

me: i love where you're going with this

goblin brain: MORE HOLES GIVE THIS MAN MORE HOLES

me: as i was saying

aesthetic brain: RIGHT!!! anyway the tubes have green fluids in them probably

hard scifi brain: okay and what is the green fluid? and what does that do? what organ system is it connecting to? if its delivering a drug, why would they install a permanent cannula in him instead of give it by any normal way

aesthetic brain: its evil science fluid. it doesn't have to be green we can try other colors

me: okay there's some technology they have to heal injuries super fast, maybe it has something to do with that

hard scifi brain: but how does the evil science fluid actually get delivered to the part of the body its supposed to affect

aesthetic brain: does he collapse when they unplug him? that would be sick

aesthetic brain: i mean obviously they have him strapped to a scary table by default with super strong handcuffs and restraints and shit

aesthetic brain: and the room looks like an OR and there's like tubes going everywhere and wires and monitors attached to him so it's like aesthetically mirroring nerves and blood vessels and intestines etc so it looks like a body being opened up during surgery and everything is taken out and sprawling all over the room but its like technology and machines. ordinarily being in surgery with your organs taken out is transient, but he is trapped in this liminal state

hard scifi brain: but what are the tubes FOR

aesthetic brain: SYMBOLISM

Torn between the need to write hard scifi intimately grounded in reality, and the need to have the Aesthetic on point

[bthump]

It’s clear that Guts irrevocably loves Casca, and holds a deep intrinsic trust for her. This has been the case since their first meeting. During golden age Guts was Casca’s one ticket out of a life of pining and living for a man and dream who had never given her a second thought. With Guts she had experienced camaraderie and understanding, and each were mutually fascinated by the other, their loyalty and motivations and their ways of thinking because in each other were they only able to find someone who would stare back. Mutual recognition forged their relationship and so they loved each other. Ignoring that they loved each other, perhaps even love each other now makes Guts’ character development post-eclipse entirely void. There is no humanity in Guts without Casca. I don’t think arguing about this from a 30 year old manga is what Miura would want for his masterpiece like don’t y’all ever get tired of squinting your eyes and deliberately ignoring parts of your favorite story just to push an agenda?

I debated just ignoring this like I usually do lol but I already had a functional answer written up in response to someone else's ask, so I figured what the hell, I'll post it first and link you to it.

voila

So like, speaking of ignoring parts of your favourite story just to push an agenda, it's convenient that you've forgotten all those incredibly unromantic, often downright cold and cruel moments that aren’t very compatible with irrevocable love.

But also since I'm answering this anyway I might as well add: Not only are their feelings for each other never described in terms of love throughout the entire manga (despite some incorrect scanlations you may have seen), but Guts' feelings for Casca are being deliberately portrayed as ambiguous. There's a reason we cut away after Roderick asks who Casca is to Guts, and it's because we don't know. We're not meant to know, yet. Guts’ relationship with Casca is far from loving, and I would argue his feelings are much more complex and darker than love.

And I don’t think Guts has to be/have been in love with Casca for his character development to make sense lol. That development started with Puck, post-Eclipse, and it started with Griffith in the Golden Age. It has continued with a whole entourage of characters, and since he let himself get possessed and nearly killed Casca, then nearly assaulted her sans possession afterwards, before letting them join him, I think they’re just as if not more important to his character development. Protecting Casca is one facet of what drives his character right now, and he doesn’t have to be in love with her to want to do that - frankly I fully believe she could be replaced with any of the Hawks and he’d be doing the exact same thing right now (aside from the assault) because first and foremost, as detailed to us in chapter 130, described by Guts in chapter 94, and often shown in how he thinks of her in her commander role, she represents the Hawks to him.

Oh and lastly as a sidenote, I assume you’re calling Guts not freaking out when he woke up with her in chapter 13 “deep intrinsic trust,” but that was textually because she’s a woman rather than a man, not because of some magic spiritual connection he has with her specifically. It’s actually pretty homoerotically suggestive, especially considering he’s also cool with Griffith’s touch in the very next chapter.

And then there’s what Miura has to say on the subject in interviews, such as:

“The point I had to pay attention to was making sure the flow of the story wasn't completely severed with the Eclipse. That's why I spared Casca. If she had died and the serialization had continued for a long time, I feared the reason for revenge would become something of the past; and if Guts were to establish new relationships, then his incentive would waver. It may seem calculating and unpleasant, but it's because Casca's by his side that he can never forget the Eclipse.”

“I actually hadn't planned for Guts and Casca to get together, you know – it just occurred to me partway through that it'd be more dramatic that way.”

Neither of which suggests to me that he ever intended to write a straightforward romance. Casca is there for added drama and she’s there so Guts can’t forget the eclipse (underlining the Beast of Darkness’ suggestion that she’s precious because she’s the wound Griffith left, incidentally).

I've never said Guts doesn't have positive feelings for her, but so far their relationship hasn’t been an epic, or even a realistic and sweet, romance, and it doesn’t have to be for Guts’ character to make perfect sense.

[ben-talks-art]

Why I like Asa and Yoru

"Hypothetically…if one person in class…had to jump off a roof…and that person was to be chosen by a vote…I think they'd all vote for me. I'd vote for me too."

Chainsawman has probably my favorite cast of female characters in any action shounen manga. Something about the way this author writes women just really works for me.

I always hate in manga when a female character is just the male lead's friend, or the male lead's love interest, or the male lead's mom, or teacher, or secretary, or dog walker or whatever... Basically, they tend to either have no character or life outside of the male lead's world.

Something I really like about Chainsawman is that all the girls and women act like they could be the protagonist of their own stories. They all act like they have their own problems, their own goals, their own sh*t to deal with... They all feel like actual characters and not just things to be added to the male lead's story. If something happened to Denji and he were to die or something they each would still have a life to live and a story to tell.

So when I saw that part 2 of the manga would focus on a girl as the new protagonist, I got really excited!

(spoilers for Chainsawman)

And just as I imagined, it took me just one chapter to completely fall for Asa. I love this girl.

Just like all the other girls in the series, she feels like she has her own struggles to deal with. She hates devils and yet has to live in a world where everyone's biggest hero is a devil, both of her parents are dead and she has no friends which means she's always alone, and everywhere she goes she keeps attracting bad luck after bad luck, be it a devil trying to kill her, her classmates trying to kill her (in more than one ways), or the crazy girl inside her head threatening to kill her.

But what's really interesting is that, even though she deals with a lot (and it really is a lot, my God I feel sorry for her...) she is always true to her ideals.

Even though Asa has probably all the reason in the world to just be the most miserable person alive, she never stops being a nice person. Any time she's offered the option to help someone right in front of her she takes it, even if things don't work out in the end and she ends up getting really hurt as a result.

Something that I don't feel many people often realize is that being a selfish jerk is easy... Like, absurdly easy. There is nothing more tempting than just saying "My problems matter more than yours, so deal with it!"

Again, by all accounts, Asa should be the world's biggest supervillain because almost everyone and everything treats her like garbage... And yet, for some reason she still remains a good girl, never betraying her standards.

I'm not sure if it's because she knows how ugly it is to be a bad person and she refuses to be like them, or if the little love she received in life is enough to stop her from falling into temptation, but for whatever reason, she still continues to be one of the noblest heroes I've ever seen, even despite all the misery she faces every day.

But aside from being a noble and kind soul, Asa also has amazing chemistry with her internal roommate, Yoru.

I've always been a big fan of this trope, the two souls in one being, the devil in your ear, the demon that hides a secret power in the protagonist's body.

I liked it in Naruto with the fox, I liked it in Bleach with the inner hollow, and I also liked it in Soul Eater where they have people turn into weapons and have their souls literally connect, or in the Kane Chronicles where they have the protagonists be hosts for the Egyptian gods.

It's just a really fun idea with the concept of establishing a strong bond with another being and having them understand you on a deeper level than most people would. Having someone that knows your whole story, your secrets, your fears, your worries... It's kinda scary but at the same time fascinating because you have someone constantly looking at you and making you realize things about yourself you didn't even know about.

And that's exactly what Yoru is.

She's always pushing Asa to question and challenge her ideals. making her see who she truly is, and what she truly wants. It's like having a psychiatrist inside your head, constantly talking to you about who you are... And they do it in such a charming way.

Yoru keeps going back and forth between being this threatening creature holding Asa hostage to this complete dork who has no idea how the real world or how people work. It reminds me of Shen and Po how Asa goes from being scared of her to just being baffled by her.

These two have such good chemistry, probably the best one I've seen from this trope. I could watch them just talking to each other forever.

I love how Yoru keeps acting like she's so elegant, sophisticated, and gracious always making these exaggerated poses as if she was in a perfume commercial or modeling for a magazine... But when you hear her actually talking she kinda sounds like she's five years old, and you just have Asa looking at her antics and trying to process how to even react to her. It's just great mood backlash that really works.

I know it's weird to like a character so much when these two only had about 10 chapters of existence so far... But even from the little pieces I've seen from them I feel so many things clicking just right for me.

Great chemistry, great ideals, great personality... And I didn't even talk about how awesome their "war powers" are.

I completely adore this duo and I'm very happy with this new direction for Chainsawman!

Favorite character list>>

[vryptidart]

hi!! can u tell us more about mawlep and how they fit into the twc universe? they seem so interesting!

sure!

mawlep is a siren OC i've been writing about in the dark four door (st. valentine) fic series, following detective valentine munroe, who is romantically involved with mason. all the fics so far are under 2k, and written in chronological order.

if you'd like to just read through and discover then feel free to skip the readmore, and head to that link! otherwise some summary and ramblings will be tidied away underneath. spoilers beneath, obvs! but also some background lore

we have some limited information about merpeople in the wayhaven chronicles setting, and i have a deep fascination with the ocean and everything in it, and everything that could be in it, so i couldn't resist expanding a little on the idea. if we get more info about mermaids or sirens in the story, i guess this will end up more AU- i'll try to integrate stuff if possible/if i find it interesting in relation to characters like mawlep, but i'm also willing to just go nah ok this is my pre-book-whatever split fanon. so in general, feel free to assume the shit below is just what i'm makin up haha

mawlep uses it/they pronouns- most people will use 'it' for it because that's the given 'default' pronoun set for aquatic, generally oceanic, sea-dependant supernaturals. it's a semi-political decision made that represents that a lot of seafolk (mermaids, sirens, selkies, etc) choose to identify more with the aquatic life on the planet than humans. mawlep personally just doesn't give a shit so is fine with literally any pronouns. thus it’s never complained about being given the default, so those around it just continue to use it because any inquiries just get bored shrugs and ignoring. (so you can use 'they' if you're not personally comfortable using 'it'- as i know for some people it has dehumanising connotations)

(the doylist reason for this: i have a friend who uses it pronouns, and i wanted to get better and more comfortable with calling someone 'it' right around the time that i was coming up with mawlep)

how i’ve expanded on sirens: they’re capable of transformation between functionally three states: leg, fishbutt and chickendrumstick. on land they can have bird legs or humanoid legs, and in water, they’ll have a mermaid-like tail, and being immersed in water semi-compels that state (they can force themselves to have humanoid or avian legs, but it takes a LOT of training and magic intention). they have wings that aren’t capable of actual flight, but instead are used as swimming limbs (see cormorants, penguins, and any other diving bird!)

their songs really can enchant and lure people to their death! a number of seafolk supernaturals have forms of enchanting magics, and sirens make use of magical ‘aural hypnotics’ to make people interpret their appearance and voices as innately desirable. it doesn’t change their fundamental appearance, it just makes you think you’re into that. it’s connected to the same sort of magic used by selkies, making them desirable, compelling people to want to possess them, see every selkie wife tale lol, but sirensong is more deliberate and controlled (and thus easier to shut off by just silencing them).

they also speak a variation of echolian better suited for underwater communication- one of the canon facts we have about merfolk in twc is that they’re often deaf or hard of hearing (on land at least), so i imagine the language relies more on vibration, sign, possibly luminescence. 

storywise: 

valentine munroe is a serious but warm-hearted woman with strong deductive abilities with a dreadful softspot for a certain sexy vampire lad (its mason. i just realised how that applies to everyone of dudebravo. so yea its mason). she was left with significant chronic pain from the effects of murphy’s experimentation. at the time of mawlep coming into their lives, valentine is in an established relationship with mason, and it’s vaguely au from around the start point of book3. after a certain disaster at her apartment (coughbook3), the place was condemned and she got a nice little two-story place right on the wayhaven docks. sometimes a fishy smell if the wind turns, but it’s also much closer to haley’s bakery… 

mawlep belonged to a mermaid pod (nomadic seafolk social groups), and was the only siren- slightly unusual, not unheard of. however a leadership change lead to it being kicked out, and it’s lucky it wasn’t killed by the new leadership to make sure loose end were tied up (merfolk are NOT particularly carceral- i touch on this in the rabbit fic jetsam, yes i just reuse my background lore across most settings, there’s a hypothetical mawlep in just about all my twc settings lol). it proceeded to throw a tantrum, go to wayhaven, and try to eat someone- snagging mason. emotionally it was basically just like- wanting to eat a lot of icecream when you’re having a bad day. it doesn’t have much care, initially, for the lives and realities of those on land- that’s something it starts picking up as the series goes on.

and then mawlep just. lives alongside valentine and mason and the rest of wayhaven! it is a menace. it likes interrupting date night and calling valentine sweetheart- especially in front of mason. its also got a Lot More going on which im having so much fun sloooowly rolling out hehe

i’ve been introducing a few other characters- agent raidne, a merman working for the agency; kopa, a solo travelling selkie (who also previously appeared in the morag fic flotsam)- with varying degrees of detailing, and a few other background elements, like a leviathan that fell through from the echo world. i’m also playing with some ideas i have about the ‘detective’s special+ blood drawing supernaturals in’ thing we’re introduced to in book2, bc come on how could i not

there is something of an overarching story i’m working towards but it’s one that feels best developed through this series of short stories and ficlets, so i’m doubtful i’ll end up sitting down to write some big multichaptered piece. i think the closest to that is the connective tissue between lagan and derelict, and now between countercurrent and the next fic, which will show a bit more of kopa’s adventures in wayhaven (currently being worked on, will be for day 12 of interactivesummer! knockwood lol yes im answering this ask to procrastinate writing it lolololol)

and yes, all the merfics are named after flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict because i am a GIANT fucking nerd

[elizabethrobertajones]

Yeah, i'm trying not to speculate too much either, but I agree, I feel pretty certain that the Cas that healed Dean and later died was definitely our Cas. I think the differences in him people are pointing out are due to the ways the nephilim is subtly controlling him as you said. AU cas seems to be a very popular theory, but I just don't get it. Also, i don't know how AU Cas could manage to look like exactly like our Cas when Bobby said the AU angels are very different.

Hi! Yeah, the not wanting to speculate part makes this something I don’t want to particularly talk about because it’s almost all dead ends where we run into speculation. 

What I saw was in 12x19 a very competently executed episode with callbacks and symbolism and framing to suggest Cas was moderately-to-severe fucked up by the nephilim but with the end scene, in a very ambiguous way about his concern to the Winchesters or sense of free will being impacted - just that he had a new “right” to follow. In 12x23 he’s basically Cas except he’s having key Destiel conversations with Kelly (using “of course” to her is SUCH a tell I feel like I should get one of the compilation gifsets of it and slap a gif of that at the bottom :P) and saying he would die for the nephilim but also raise her son - totally contradictory but he was explaining his deepest heart and motivations at that point. THOSE were changed, Cas himself was not any different than a regular tuesday in how he felt and acted and treated Kelly and his duty, and then when Sam and Dean showed up, how he treated them. 

He WAS defensive of Jack to the point of knowing the rift was made by him, that Sam and Dean would flip and treat it as a bad thing. Objectively, “this baby tears holes in reality” is a horrifying statement, but Cas calmly says that of course Jack will close it and he has faith. They don’t and Crowley dies to close it, and Jack is never tested on if he would have done it or not despite what Cas thought. I suspect if this is his main horrifying new power we’ll get it tested again and find out how Jack feels about doing it but since I hate speculating, whether I think he’ll do that for good or bad is totally up in the air to me and I genuinely don’t have a stake in it because any which way will tell an interesting story and serve his purpose in the narrative on what they choose to do with it.

Cas also then could act normally and fight with Sam and Dean to protect Jack when Lucifer showed up at the front door, but I think when he charged into the rift, it was at that point purely to spite Lucifer (see also: endless Cas n Crowley parallels) and to see what was going on as Sam and Dean still hadn’t returned from the rift and it was still open and he had full freedom to be worried about them, so I don’t think he did that for Jack, the more I think about it, although if he WAS being controlled, a rage to kill his father would be thematically fascinating and I feel Jack did reject Lucifer in 12x19 already.

I also think Cas could in no way have been replaced the first time he went in the rift as we saw enough to him meeting Bobby and that was all Cas, and no way in HELL Bobby would let AU Castiel come near them (and he would not look like our Cas) and Bobby only didn’t shoot Cas immediately because he looked so harmlessly dorky. I get that him coming out the portal unharmed seemed suspicious at first but once we knew all the details and that Cas had been under Bobby’s watch the entire time I can’t see ANY room for AU Castiel to swoop in and take him, because Cas’s first trip in Bobby was there the whole time, and the second time in, Lucifer was a much bigger problem, and as I said I think he made Cas leave the portal because Lucifer urgently wanted to NOT be stuck in the AU and it was more fun to kill Cas in front of his friends. I think that was probably Cas’s angel blade and he walked Cas back to the portal, shoved him through, and then killed him. So again, total character continuity for Cas, and there’s no room for it to be anything else, and no implication in the story that put a MASSIVE neon sign on rat Crowley to swap Cas out.

They also showed a flashback of Cas filling with the power when he was talking to Kelly earlier in the episode, about Paradise, and spouting all these lines that go right back to season 5 and what Dean got told over and over about what the angels wanted and how they’d make paradise on earth, which goes hand in hand with the neon sign that Cas having faith is a bad thing because it confirms Jack’s vision of the future is equally as bad as the one Cas fought in season 5, and what he lost his original faith over, so even while showing Cas fully in control of his actions and feelings, his motivation and purpose were clearly derailed and we were shown Cas being overtaken with that power before he said all that so… I feel like it was a visual demonstration of the power going into him and Cas’s heart being borrowed to protect Jack’s paradise.

These are all things I see in the events that actually happened this season, and as I’ve been talking to Mittens today about not caring about speculating, I’m genuinely 100% content, Destiel went canon in that last shot of them together, I have nothing to ask, I’m sitting back and letting whatever happens in season 13 happen, and for me trying to outguess the plot is no fun. As a meta writer I’ve always most enjoyed playing with established canon and thinking deeper into what we already have to expose the truths and feelings underneath it, rather than treating it as a puzzle to explain what’s happening next - in that respect we have like 3 puzzle pieces from 2 different games, while with the whole canon we have a 8mil piece puzzle and every one of us analysing the show is only ever going to manage to put together a few thousand pieces in some random corner of it, and a few patches here and there elsewhere :P But at least I can build a hell of a lot more of the puzzle than I could trying to speculate because if I get one piece wrong, I’m attempting to build an entire puzzle connected to the wrong thing, and the next thing that happens in the show might take the one bit I was sure of and unhook it from the entire seemingly finished picture I tacked onto it without realising I had the wrong bit of sky from another puzzle :P