#but there's still a WORLD of difference between that and the parallels he's created and DOESN'T use

[incomingalbatross]

For a book which makes it explicitly clear that the author has no idea what the Eucharist actually is, Dracula has some really strong Eucharistic themes.

It's like "Dracula, a damned creature, who may look alive but is actually dead, has this endless need inside him which he attempts to satisfy by draining the literal and spiritual life from those around him through the consumption of their blood—but, since he is in fact dead, their life can have no effect on his nature and he ultimately remains empty of life no matter how he tries to fill the void" (GEE, it's almost like he's spiritually dead and trying to consume mortal life as a substitute for the Divine Life from which he has cut himself off!! It's almost like how receiving the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin doesn't help you and is in fact another mortal sin, because you are too cut off from the Life of Christ to receive Him!)

And you get to Lucy and it's like "the blood of those who love her, given to her in love, is a medium which conveys not only life-sustaining strength but also a literal portion of their strength and their love for her into Lucy's body and soul" (GEE. WHERE HAVE I HEARD OF THAT CONCEPT)

And then Van Helsing starts running around committing an unbelievable amount of casual Eucharistic sacrilege with, apparently, the best intentions in the world! And it's just. Stoker. You are so close. And apparently you have no idea.

[danlous]

"Armand is Alice and Daniel's wife/s and kids aren't real" has become a popular fan theory (even Luke Brandon Field said he liked it!) but i'd be surprised if it was right. I think it's definitely possible that Devil's Minion will be adapted in the show (though probably not exactly like in the books), but i personally think this whole imaginary family thing would be a poor way to handle the storyline for a variety of reasons. I think a twist like that would probably come across convoluted and (as Daniel might say) like something from a telenovela.

We see children's toys in Daniel's house and he's public figure who many people know with an autobiography and everything. Creating decades worth of false memories for Daniel and somehow also maintaining that imaginary life story for decades wouldn't be enough, Armand or whoever did it would also realistically have to have an absurd level of control over the physical world, public records and many other people's minds to sustain an illusion like that. I also frankly think it would be difficult to avoid having some sexist and biphobic undertones to the idea that Daniel's relationships with women were unreal and meaningless and only his relationship with a man matters.

However, the most important reason why i think Daniel's wives and children should be real is that they make him a richer, more nuanced character and are actually central to understanding him and his motives. He has lived a full and complex life that has been influenced and to some extent defined by his encounters with vampires, but those vampires still weren't his whole life. I think it's more interesting to see Daniel's human life and his relationship with Armand and Louis as something connected and overlapping that both affect each other. We actually learn quite a lot about Daniel from what he says about his partners and children.

This scene - as well as how Alice in general is discussed - reminded many people of how Daniel in the books talks about Armand, such as this famous passage:

Parallels between Daniel's relationships with Alice and Armand in the books are obvious but i think they're just that, parallels. Both the sweet little scene where Daniel is talking about Alice's eyebrows and the book scene where he's talking about loving Armand not despite but because he's a monster reflect in different ways who Daniel is as a person; he feels drawn to unconventional and strange and sees beauty where others might not. He ended up in this situation with vampires too because he wanted to interview people who're rejected by the society.

If Daniel already had some sort of relationship with Armand in the past it makes sense that it would be associated with Alice in his mind. There may be an overlap between the timelines of those relationships. A memory of Armand rises when Daniel is reminded of Alice rejecting his marriage proposal, in the books Armand rejected his wish to be turn him into a vampire, which would've been something akin to marriage. I think Alice being real is much more compelling for Armand's character too, with Armand expressing surprising understanding and sympathy toward Daniel's wife rather than just speaking about his own experience through an imaginary woman.

Completely putting aside Devil's Minion and is it a thing in the show or not, i think Daniel's family is particularly important to Louis' and Daniel's relationship. Something that hasn't technically been explicitly said but to me seems obvious is that Louis and Daniel strongly relate to each other as fathers. Many scenes where we see Louis and Daniel show vulnerability in front of each other have something to do with their partners and children. In 1.02 as one of the earliest examples of this Louis replicates the dessert Daniel had with Alice, trying to connect with him and his humanity through it, Daniel shares personal memory and they eat together in companionable silence.

I would argue that Claudia, her memory, and Louis' relationship with her is the heart of the story in these first two seasons. Claudia entering the story in 1.04 marks the shift in the interview and Daniel's approach; he becomes both more combative and more emotionally invested. He has a strong reaction to reading Claudia's diaries, and it's not difficult for any parent to guess that he's also imagining her own daughters in similar circumstances to Claudia.

I think this conversation at the end of the episode (alongside Louis' speech to Daniel in San Francisco and them remembering it in 2.05) is the most important scene between Louis and Daniel. They share the understanding what it feels like to have children and love them so much you don't even have words for it, but still fail them. It's not a coincidence that in the original interview in San Francisco what leads to Louis attacking Daniel is Louis telling the story of Claudia leaving alone and Louis going back to Lestat, and Daniel acting dismissively and clearly not understanding why this is so painful memory to Louis. Daniel was young, stupid and high - and he didn't have children yet. Daniel now wouldn't act like that when hearing this story, and he doesn't in 1.06 when hearing it again. And notably when Louis says that he would now agree to turn Daniel, Daniel says he doesn't want it anymore and specifically mentions his daughters as one of the reasons. Having to watch your children die before you is the most horrifying thing in the world. It's something Louis had to go through and Daniel wishes he never has to, even if vampirism still intrigues him.

Daniel realizes quickly that it all comes down to Louis' feelings of guilt and shame about failing Claudia and his inability to protect her, because he has similar feelings about his own daughters. Louis' story unravels in s1 finale because Daniel recognizes that Louis' more palatable narrative around what happened with Claudia isn't fully true. Daniel carefully read through Claudia's diaries and tried to learn to understand her, and he positions himself as someone who's trying to defend her integrity and reveal the injustice that was done to her. This is again about Daniel's own children as much as it's about Claudia. He knows that he's a bad father, his daughters don't talk to him anymore and it's implied that he neglected them when focusing on other things that interested him more. When Daniel defends Claudia he's on some level trying to rectify his own mistakes and when he calls Louis out he's also voicing his own self-loathing.

Eric Bogosian remarked that the scene in 2.01 where Louis cries and thanks for Daniel for helping him to remember that Claudia could dream is another shift in their dynamic. Daniel looks at Louis with genuine concern, and after that he tones down his usual sarcasm and jabs significantly. Daniel, again, can sympathize with how important this is for Louis. There's a new sincerity and empathy in their interactions. Sometimes the audience forgets that this story is ultimately about Claudia, but Daniel hasn't forgotten it since he first realized it. They're trying to understand together what happened to Louis' child and everything that led to it. I think if Daniel wasn't a father he would've acted differently, and Louis wouldn't have trusted him in the same way either and been able to share his and Claudia's story. I think this shared sorrow, love and guilt they feel as fathers is one of the most crucial parts of their connection.

[blusocket]

I've seen some people express some confusion about what Fortnight is about, why it opens the album, what's happening in the video, etc, so here's my attempt at an analysis. For the most part I'll be referring to the characters in the video with the names of the people playing them (Taylor and Post) but at times I'm going to be making direct reference to the events of Taylor's personal life and referring to the muses by their names (Joe and Matty) for the sake of clarity and simplicity.

The song itself uses the suburbia conceit as an extended metaphor for the beginning of her relationship with Matty (he's the neighbor she runs away to Florida with, Joe is the cheating husband.) For more eloquent and detailed thoughts on the narrative of the song you can check out Jaime @cages-boxes-hunters-foxes's post here.

The video is really dense, and I'm not 100% confident in every aspect of my interpretation, but I feel pretty sure that it's making extensive use of visual metaphor in order to tell roughly the same story as the song, just in a different setting. To start, Taylor wakes up chained to a bed in a white dress.

To me this suggests that she's been driven mad by being left at the altar, and is now trapped, surveilled and controlled, in a type of asylum. This represents the end of her relationship with Joe--waiting for a marriage that never came, feeling trapped, mentally unwell etc.

She then takes 'forget him' pills which reveal Post's tattoos on her face when she looks in the mirror.

This represents Matty (the "miracle move-on drug") and shows that he made a mark on her while she was still in the asylum--that is, still in her relationship with Joe. Additionally, in the wide shot where we see the mirror, its size and shape are very reminiscent of a one-way mirror, often seen in interrogation rooms and psychological experiments, further reinforcing the idea that Taylor is imprisoned here.

She then is able to go to the typewriter room and do her work, creating art about how she's feeling, shown by her repeatedly typing "I love you, it's ruining my life" on the typewriter. She's still in pain and feeling trapped. While there, she encounters Post and they create art together, which creates beauty and color in her life. The blue and gold obviously reference her writing about Joe, but the fact that her work is gold and Post's is blue may be a deliberate choice to draw parallels between Matty and Joe, as she does on numerous songs throughout TTPD.

The next scene, where Taylor's hair is down and she and Post are wearing the same black coat and pants, takes place inside her head (symbolized by the shape of the papers they're laying on.) She is dreaming about them being free and creating art together, represented by the papers surrounding them and book she's holding, which has the word "us" written on the cover. She's writing their story before it's begun.

She then reaches for his hand in her fantasy, accepting and asking for this relationship

Then we see that she's being studied and experimented on--the results of the lie detector test read "I love you, it's ruining my life." Her pain is an object of fascination.

Interestingly, Post is part of the group experimenting on her, but when the experiments begin to cause her pain, he liberates her.

This inspires Taylor to destroy the place where she's been trapped, which we see through her opening the filing cabinets that cover the walls and destroying the mirror. I also find the shot of her standing still while papers burn around her interesting and significant; I interpret this as Taylor destroying her own work about Joe. By choosing to leave, she is metaphorically burning--rejecting--the story she wrote about them.

Finally, Taylor and Post enter the dangerous outside world together; the rain echoes the lyric "I chose this cyclone with you" on the album's title track. While I do feel the meaning of Post being in the phone booth is somewhat ambiguous, the framing and the accompanying lyric--"I've been calling ya but you won't pick up" suggest that he's attempting to communicate with her but can't reach her. They are free of her prison, but still separated.

Then, he hangs up the phone and reaches for her hand, and she takes it. The final shot of the video is a close up on their linked hands, presenting us with a cautiously optimistic ending--they are lost and vulnerable in the middle of a storm, but they have each other.

I feel this is a somewhat less sinister, for lack of a better word, portrayal of the start of Matty and Taylor's relationship than is suggested elsewhere on the record, though I believe Post's character being part of the group experimenting on her is significant and the editing creates some ambiguity about exactly when and why she decides to break free. But I hope this clarifies how the video sets up the beginning of this story, the fallout of which is then chronicled over the course of the rest of TTPD.

[mr-jack-letterman]

HELLO HI

God I love the Submas fandom, all of you are so nice <3

In any case, I have a silly Au for y'all to munch on.

Allow me to introduce you all to Covalent Twins :]

Covalent

Adjective

- Relating to or denoting chemical bonds formed by the sharing of electrons between atoms.

Or in this case, the sharing of Emmet between 2 Ingos from different timelines NSNDNNDDD.

This Au is essentially the answer to the question: "doesn't being sent to the distant past inherently mean you are also now long dead in the future you just left?"

The answer is yes and no btw

The explanation for this involves a lot of time nonsense that I'm very bad at explaining but the Tldr is basically this:

When Ingo gets sent to the past, this creates a connection between the past and the future. This makes time get all fucky and split into two separate timelines (Timeline A and Timeline B)

Timeline A:

Time in this timeline runs parallel to the future as long as Ingo stays within it (essentially, if Ingo stays in the past for 2 years, then 2 years pass in the present).

Due to this connection, Akari (aka Dawn) gets sent to this timeline (But not Timeline B) and the game events of PLA play out (+ a lot more Ingo bonding because uncle Ingo supremacy)

Akari manages to get her and Ingo sent back home with the power of Arceus, causing both timelines to merge back together again into one cohesive line with only the events of Timeline B being remembered by history.

Ingo and Emmet get their happy ending.

This Ingo got sent to Hisui when he was 29, stayed there for 2 years, and went home when he was 31.

And Timeline B:

This timeline was created as a cannon fodder timeline so Akari and Ingo can keep doing time shenanigans in Timeline A without disturbing the space time continuum even more.

This timeline is therefore not connected to the future the same way Timeline A is.

The Ingo of this timeline (Nicknamed "War" or "Warden" for simplicity.) lives through the PLA game events but with Rei taking the place of Akari.

War doesn't bond with him the same way Ingo does with Akari because Rei isn't a faller.

The events of the game are the exact same (minus the Arc phone, Rei taking the place of Akari, and catching Arceus).

Despite Rei calming the nobles and catching Palkia and Dialga, he is still not the chosen hero. Warden is unable to go home or regain his memories.

Warden lives in Hisui and serves as a warden for the Pearl Clan for a total of 7 years before dying alongside his partner pokemon, Gliscor (nicknamed Nimbasa), while protecting Lady Sneasler from a Zoroark attack at the age of 36.

Warden drifts as a ghost for many years, with only Nimbasa the Gliscor as company. He watches his friends grow old, and eventually die. They pass on to the afterlife, but Warden stays on earth, wandering the Alabaster Icelands and Mount Coronet, searching for people from a life he can't remember even in death.

Warden watches as Hisui changes into Sinnoh. Jubilife Village becomes Jubilife City. Pokemon species die out and new ones are born.

As the world slowly becomes more and more familiar, the great Sinnohs, Palkia and Dialga, take pity on the lost warden, and decide together to lead him home.

It may take 150 years, and many miles of travel, but Warden is pulled by an unknown force towards the Unova region. Though he is unable to touch anything or speak to anyone, it's all so painfully familiar.

He is pulled towards Nimbasa city, (ah! That's where he got the name from!) and eventually to an apartment.

There, he is greeted by a young girl, barely 17. A man in black, who looks exactly like him, give or take a few years and a few scars.

And a smiling man in white. The man he has been searching for for over 150 years...

And they're staring at him, truly staring at him, not through him.

Why is the man in white crying?

*evil laughter.mp3*

So yeah! The twins have an older brother now :D

I mean he's dead and also Ingo just 5 years older and from a different timeline but still!!!

If you've made it this far I believe you deserve a gold star ⭐ and also some art for your troubles.

So here's War and Nimbasa ↓

And some fluffy interaction between War and Emmet as a bandaid.

If you guys have any questions regarding how this Au works, or are interested in seeing more of it, don't hesitate to shoot me an ask :D

I hope I enjoyed reading about my silly Au, even if it was a bit long lol.

*fades back into the void of Submas fics.*

[kanansdume]

What's crazy and really shows off how impeccably awful this show managed to be is how DIFFERENT Anakin feels between the Kenobi show and the Ahsoka show, despite the fact that he's being played by the same actor probably within a year of each other if that.

And it's so clearly not the fault of the performer, Hayden Christensen is doing the absolute MOST to give an authentic and familiar performance of Anakin in the Ahsoka show and on a STRICTLY acting standpoint, I think he succeeds. People have pointed out that the Anakin that Hayden is playing in the flashbacks, despite being in the TCW costumes, does not at all feel like TCW Anakin. There's nothing suave or charming about him. When he tries to joke and Ahsoka pushes back against it, he immediately gets defensive, which is perhaps one of the most in-characters thing about the entire performance. And obviously his performance as Sith Anakin is pure perfection.

But it's not just the performance that creates a character. It's the way other people discuss the character, it's the way that character impacts the world around them, it's what we as the audience are allowed to see of them.

In the Obi-Wan show, Anakin at his best is still a whiny little asshole. In the flashback scene, he's arrogant, he's overconfident, he's a little bit of a bully, he's stubborn, and he's a sore loser. It's left a little ambiguous as to whether this scene was a true flashback or something Else, but the dialogue of the scene and who is currently "winning" the match clearly are intended to parallel what's going on in the actual plot between Obi-Wan and Anakin. Which means you can just as easily interpret this as saying that the whiny little asshole you remember from the prequels is still the person behind that mask. Yes, he's got a vocoder changing his voice into something more menacing, his expressions hidden behind an emotionless mask, but that whiny teenager is still calling the shots here. That's precisely what motivates him. Even if it's intended as a more legitimate flashback, that's supposed to be Anakin at his BEST and he's... whiny. He's arrogant. You can say he can grow out of it at this point and that's clearly what Obi-Wan believes in the moment, but the best he's got is... still this.

And he never grew out of it, he never left that arrogance and entitlement behind. He decided to let it define him instead. He might've had promise if he'd chosen to outgrow his more negative traits, but he didn't. He just stayed forever in the mindset of that annoying little 19 year old asshole.

And at his worst, Anakin's a literal unhinged MONSTER. He's casually walking by and murdering innocents just to get Obi-Wan's attention, he's stabbing Reva just because he can, he's ripping open ships, he's burning Obi-Wan alive out of vengeance. His face when that mask comes off has a manic GLEE as he talks about having "killed" himself just to try to manipulate Obi-Wan and the way he screams Obi-Wan's name at the end is so intensely disturbing. So many people saw that moment as Anakin having this moment of mindfulness, but I didn't see or hear a single sane moment in the entire scene. The whole thing is off-kilter and it feels pretty intentionally off-kilter, both in the writing and the acting and directing. Anakin's made his choice. This is it.

In the Kenobi show, Anakin might've once had promise. But he also had immense potential for monstrous evil, that was ALSO there as well. And whatever promise used to be there is now squandered in favor of the arrogance and cruelty and entitlement, which means that it's not worth Obi-Wan's time and effort and energy continuing to wonder what if about it. Because, quite honestly, it doesn't MATTER. Obi-Wan isn't fighting for Anakin anymore by the end. He's not fighting to destroy Anakin, but he's not fighting to save him, either. And the whole point of his relationships with Luke and Leia is that he has to learn to care about them for who THEY are rather than because he cared about their biological parents. He has to see them for who they've become and allow them to grow without worrying about how much like Anakin or Padme they might end up being. They're not Anakin and Padme, they're Luke and Leia, and his relationship with them is ultimately better for letting go of seeing them as anything other than who they actually are.

The people who were in charge of the Kenobi show clearly understood that in order for Obi-Wan to stand on his own as a main character of his own story, they needed to clearly differentiate him from Anakin and FREE him from Anakin. Yes, Obi-Wan is built to be Anakin's narrative foil and has been since day 1. Yes, Obi-Wan's story is very tied up in Anakin's. But this was OBI-WAN'S story and just for this one moment, they could let Obi-Wan be more than just someone who revolves around Anakin. He's his own person who makes his own connections and relationships that have nothing to do with Anakin and he only truly starts to feel like himself again when he walks away from Anakin and leaves him behind and accepts that Anakin has chosen to be someone that Obi-Wan cannot change. No one writing the Kenobi show wanted Obi-Wan to be more IMPORTANT to the narrative than Anakin, but they were able to allow Anakin to take a back seat so that Obi-Wan could actually grow and develop into his own character.

The same cannot be said for the Ahsoka show.

In the Ahsoka show, Anakin is portrayed IMMENSELY positively. At his best, Anakin is a wise powerful sage watching over someone he cares about and pushing her to be better. At his worst, he's... pushing her a little? They MENTION he's intense, and we see visions of him as a Sith, sure, but if that was Anakin at all, then it leaves you with the impression that he only pushed Ahsoka because he cared about her and she needed it and he was ultimately right to do so anyway. Was it tough? I guess, but nothing that would ultimately truly hurt her at all. Anakin's worst sins aren't touched on at all. Anakin is constantly remembered as someone who was GOOD without really acknowledging that while he might've been good at times, he wasn't always. Even when Ahsoka remembers him as a good master, he was still someone who believed in fascism and had massacred an entire village down to the last child. That person Ahsoka remembers was still a bad person and this show desperately wants you to forget that any of that is true about him.

And via proxies like Sabine and Ahsoka herself, this show DEFENDS Anakin's choices across the board. It's not even just that he was a good master, but that he ultimately did the RIGHT THING by choosing Padme over the galaxy because he did it out of "love," turning the genocide of the Jedi into something that was caused by their OWN failures instead of Anakin's failures.

There's zero recognition that Anakin was, ultimately, a failure. He was a failure as a Jedi, a failure as a master, a failure as a husband and a father, and a failure just as a generally good person. Anakin was a bad person who did bad things. Maybe he wasn't always, maybe he had his moments, fine, but overall? What's the legacy he leaves? What are people going to truly remember him for most? Despite his choice to save Luke in his last moments, his impact upon the galaxy is still a net negative.

And Ahsoka can have good memories of him and still recognize that Anakin's impact upon the galaxy was a bad one. She can choose to focus on the good memories she has without pretending like he was in actuality a good master who did nothing wrong. It's not like those two things can't co-exist and that is, in essence, exactly what Obi-Wan has to do. It's why he can say honestly and genuinely tell Leia at the end of the show that her father was "passionate, fearless, and forthright" even though just a day or so ago he'd accepted that Anakin himself had chosen to be an evil person now. He can remember Anakin as the friend he'd cared for AND recognize that the person Anakin is now is not that person anymore. Anakin NOW is evil, Anakin NOW doesn't deserve Obi-Wan's time or focus or grief, Anakin NOW needs to just be let go of. They aren't two separate people, obviously, but people do grow and change, and Obi-Wan once loved Anakin, but the boy Obi-Wan loved is gone because Anakin has chosen not to be that kind of person anymore. He's not kind, he's not compassionate, he's not merciful, or thoughtful or any of the good qualities he used to have. The Kenobi show forces both Obi-Wan and the audience to recognize that no matter how good someone might once have been, it's important to recognize when they're not acting like that person anymore and it's better to let them go and walk away.

And the reason Ahsoka can't do that is because the writers can't. The people in charge of writing Anakin in this show see him so differently than the people who wrote Kenobi. The the writers of the Ahsoka show, Anakin is "the greatest of all of the Jedi," not even just for raw power reasons, but because he understood what love was all about and felt it so deeply. So instead of that love twisting him and being in so many ways his greatest flaw, it turned into his greatest strength, something the Jedi just didn't understand. They're coming at Anakin from a WILDLY opposite direction here and so the way he gets depicted and spoken about comes across so unnervingly different.

You CAN see it as Ahsoka just... viewing Anakin differently. Obi-Wan knew Anakin as a child and was a Jedi Master before the betrayal, so he is more capable of viewing Anakin as the whole of what he was and letting him go. Whereas Ahsoka was a lot younger, she barely got any training before the betrayal, so her perspective on him is intensely skewed by this. She can't truly conceive of Anakin as both the good master she remembers AND the nightmare monster she knows he became, so she just... picks one. She chooses to see him as a good master and that's it. Nothing else he ever did matters. She never has to think about the genocide, the murders, the enslavement, the betrayals. He was a good master, and that's the end of the story. This is the best way she can learn to cope with this particular trauma is to just... ignore it and decide it didn't happen and so her version of Anakin is the ONLY version of Anakin.

But the narrative itself sort-of presents this as the honest truth of Anakin rather than just Ahsoka's perspective on the matter. It's not that Ahsoka just can't cope any other way, it's that this is, legitimately, who Anakin was. Anakin WAS a good master and the fact that he abandoned Ahsoka to die and tried to kill her and genocided her people and desecrated her home apparently doesn't change that at all. Because he did all of it for love. And the fact that Anakin was the "greatest of all the Jedi" because of this means that Ahsoka gets exalted even more so because of that.

But Obi-Wan doesn't need that. He doesn't need to be exalted as better than everyone else, he doesn't need to be made important by manipulating the narrative. He already IS important and the people writing his story know that. He's not important because he's better than Anakin, he's important just because he is. He's baked into this story and can't be removed from it without completely undoing it and telling a totally new story. Obi-Wan and Ahsoka are, in some ways, total opposites. Obi-Wan is a massively important character to the narrative who's never been the main character of his own story before the Kenobi show, while Ahsoka spent a long time as the main character of her story but has never and will never be that important to the narrative. She can be added to it and give some extra dimension to it, but she can be pretty easily removed from it, too.

And their relationships to Anakin in their respective shows seem to reflect the way the writers feel about those facts and their understanding of the characters themselves.

[statisticalcats2]

All the multi-verse chaos in NWH pulls Superior Iron Man!Tony into the MCU verse. He's wandering around, seeing murals of himself, figures out pretty quickly he's ended up in some parallel universe, is about to investigate more, when he's found by Spider-Man. He knows the Spider-Man in his own universe, knows he's Peter Parker, because he's Tony Stark and he knows everything, but there's not really any connection between them.

But this Spider-Man, this Peter, sees SIM!Tony and immediately pulls his mask off, revealing the most adoring, worshipful face SIM!Tony has ever seen, matched in tone by the sweetest voice softly calling in hopeful disbelief, "Mr. Stark? Tony?" And SIM!Tony has to stick around this guy for at least a little while now, this living example of the reverence he deserves.

So he sticks with Peter, who defends him from a suspicious Doctor Strange, and he stays with him as he actively goes against the wizard and sets off on some redemption quest for the gaggle of villains from other universes that have also ended up here. And he also gets to work on the side learning about his counterpart from this universe. It's already clear this world's Tony is dead and SIM!Tony is disappointed to learn it was some foolish sacrifice for the masses he should have ruled if he had been smarter.

But as he gets access to Tony's old systems and finds archives and archives documenting his private work and thoughts, SIM!Tony starts seeing a different picture. It had already been obvious that Peter adored this Tony but now SIM!Tony could see that Tony was obsessed with Peter in return. And he learns about Thanos and the Snap and the time travel plot and the Blip, and maybe this Tony never got around to reaching as high as he should have, but he's still Tony Stark, and SIM!Tony knows his mind, and it's clear to him that everything, everything, was for Peter. Not the trillions of other people and sapient lifeforms that had been Snapped. Only Peter. Tony wouldn't have done it at all if Peter hadn't been lost to him.

And Tony can make all the moral platitudes he wants, but no version of Tony Stark is stupid enough to think there would be any way to do what he did with absolutely no risk to the timeline or the present day. SIM!Tony knows that and he also knows Tony was still willing to risk it all just to get Peter back.

And now SIM!Tony's feeling an even stronger urge to stick around in this universe, with Peter, and see for himself what's so special about this boy that this world's Tony was willing to do, create, and destroy anything and everything for. Yeah, he's abandoning his own world, but this world's Tony clearly would have done the same thing. Peter must really be worth it.

[myymi]

i want to talk about the paradox prism for a minute because it's really interesting to me

[everything below is purely speculation / headcanon - please don't mistake it for canon. beware of spoilers for sonic prime part 3]

similar to the master/chaos emeralds, the paradox prism has a level a sentience. not anywhere close to the same level as the emeralds, but there's still something there

the chaos emeralds tend to set up a line of dominos to cause a future event (ex; sonic taking tails under his wing and learning to become more responsible from it)

the paradox prism doesn't do anything close to that, but it does share something with the master emerald; it holds memories

the prism was able to create more versions of the people it saw based on the emotions it saw them project (tails, knuckles, amy, rouge, and eggman)

the different shards / shatterspaces are made up from other major events. whether from this timeline or another is different for each shatterspace

new yoke was created from the group's frustration with sonic + an ending where eggman's almost won (i believe this could be pulled from the events of forces, considering the enforcers)

i think the reason new yoke is the only shatterspace to have a version of eggman is because it's the only one that makes sense to have one

it's pretty well known by now that eggman will need a helping hand if he wants any chance at taking over the world

the only thing better than an evil genius is five evil geniuses, right?

the new yoke group are, as i said, everyone's frustration

nine is frustrated with his past. reminiscing about his tormentors brings him more anger than pain, and living in solitude definitely does not help

rebel and knux are frustrated by the loss of their home (and the egg council in general). having watched their home be destroyed was more heartbreaking than anything at first, it eventually grew to an anger that spurred them on to fix it

rusty is frustrated with those who disobey/fight against the council, but her anger eventually ends up directed towards the council for the way they used her.

i could go more in depth about the new yoke group, but this post is gonna be long enough as is wefoefwof

the shard being red could simply be because that's the color that represents anger, but i'd like to think that-going back to forces-it was a bit influenced by the phantom ruby/infinite as well

no place is formed by the underlying sadness + a devastating event that permanently changed the world (chaos' rampage)

im not connecting no place to chaos because of the fact it's flooded, im connecting it because of the way the stories parallelled

chaos' rampage begun when pachacamac attempted to steal and harness the power of the chaos emeralds for his own gain

dread seeks out the 'devil's ligthouse' solely to prove he is a legend, nearly killing his original crew trying to do so

both protagonists of these stories are selfish and caused destruction for their own gain

dread's, well, dread comes from his failure of proving himself to be the most feared pirate to ever live.

him failing to collect the shard caused him to believe that he truly wasn't a good pirate, leaving him to spiral into a life of cowardice.

the rest of the pirates' dread comes from their longing to be actual pirates.

because of his failure and cowardice, dread now leads a peaceful crew. they don't do any 'pirating', which leaves much to be desired

they enjoy the parties and all, but their true fun comes from being pirates, which dread deprives them of

boscage maze comes from the protectiveness surging between everyone + a world where harmony between enemies is possible to achieve (possibly comes from a timeline where eggman simply doesnt exist, leaving mobius to grow peacefully)

boscage is the shatterspace with the most life. it's full of all kinds of plants because nobody there is destroying it (intentionally, anyways)

thorn rose is protective over birdie and the green. she does what she can to protect both, even if it means hurting people she once called friends

keeping the jungle and birdie safe is her #1 priority, and nothing will ever change that (that's not to say something else can't join them in being her priority)

the scavengers are protective over their belongings and, no matter how strangely they show it, each other

gnarly was nervous when sonic touched his house, immediately turning aggressive to make sure he wouldn't damage it

instead of hiding the berry, prim showed it to the others for a chance they could all share it

instead of running off on his own, mangey let the scavengers follow him as he sniffed out the berry (+ him fetching the one that fell off the treetops, showing it off to the group)

hangry allows mangey to crawl around him, which we can assume means it happens a lot off screen as well

they stick together and cover each other's backs, no matter how hard the fight gets

while we don't know what this shatterspace was before it turned into the grim, it's pretty safe to assume that it was apocalyptic

who or whatever used to live here is long gone. the only thing standing are the purple crystal things.

my guess is it's a timeline where eggman won. he won, and the world died out because he ruined the ecosystem from building so many machines.

while purple is usually associated with royalty or mystery, it's also associated with power, ambition, peace, and independence

whatever happened to the world before the grim, it's very probable that it was out of high ambition with a need for more power. eventually, the world found its peace and is now independent

ghost hill is the blueprint. the time before sonic & co. make their mark on the world. a blank canvas.

maybe a timeline where they don't get a chance to make their mark on the world

yellow is a very light, energetic color. the feeling of happiness at the chance to create something new and fun.

ghost hill and the grim don't have much in terms of characters and design, but i think the colors of their respective shards give us plenty of information about them

the paradox prism is nothing like the chaos emeralds, but is also just like them at the same time. it's powered by pure chaos with no sort of indication on how it was created or why it has the powers it does

i wonder if eggman knew what the prism was exactly or if he only knew that it was powerful

did he know breaking it would cause the world to shatter? did he know how may memories it holds? how many lifetimes it's lived?

i also wonder if the prism knew sonic would shatter it, and that it was already preparing the shatterspaces; hence why it glows brighter

maybe it understood that sonic is a hands-on learner. maybe it knew he needed to experience the lessons first hand, needed them to-quite literally-slap him in the face

maybe it knew they all had their own flaws that they needed to be aware of. maybe it lived through the timeline where sonic never shattered the prism.

maybe the prism planned to be shattered by someone so it could share its memories. maybe there was some sort of pull that told sonic it needed to be shattered.

[estherax]

Generating plasm and stacking matchboxes: how to build a better future through collective consciousness.

Alternatively - Steban and Ulixes were building Tatlin's Tower so I have to talk about the symbolism or I will explode!!

While completing the communist vision quest you get an opportunity to build a model of "The Tower of History", depicted on the last page of "A Brief Look at Infra-Materialism": a leaning tower wrapped in a dramatic helix. The scale model you make is a mirror image of Tatlin's Tower - a design for a grand monumental building to the Third International: the government organization advocating for world communism.

The main idea of the monument was to produce a new type of structure, uniting a purely creative form with a utilitarian form. Meaning it would function as an office building while also serving as a symbol of cultural significance. And let me tell you, this bad boy can fit so much symbolism in it.

Tatlin was commissioned to develop a design in 1919, after the 1917 February Revolution - a parallel to Disco Elysium's Insulinde we're witnessing post-Antecentennial Revolution.

Tatlin's work was inspired by high revolutionary goals, which are evident in the visual direction of the tower as well, expressing the ideological strive for achieving something that has never been done before, overcoming the odds. The structure "oscillates like a steel snake, constrained and organized by the one general movement of all the parts, to raise itself above the earth. The form wants to overcome the material and the force of gravity..."

The tower has meaning packed even in the materials. For example, the glass structures (marked A, B, C on the architectural rendering) were meant to serve legislative, executive and informative initiatives while rotating around their axes at different speeds. The material signified the purity of initiatives, their liberation from material constraints and their ideal qualities.

But here's the best part. The spirals.

"The spiral is the movement of liberated humanity. The spiral is the ideal expression of liberation: with its base set in the earth, it flees from the ground and becomes a symbol of the suspension of all (...) earthy interests." They are "the most elastic and rapid lines which the world knows" that represent movement and aspiration, continuing the themes of progress and freedom, but they also refer to something else.

In the process of building the matchbox model Rhetoric points out: "It's almost exactly as Nilsen's sketch imagined, a physical manifestation of the dialectical spiral of history."

The shape of the tower is a representation of dialectical development of history, first visualized as a spiral by G. W. F. Hegel. He pictured transformational change as "both linear and circular in order to be short-term responsive, i.e. possibly negating itself, and long-term strategic, i.e. a process of development."

Hegel's dialectics would later be reinterpreted through the prism of materialism by Marx and Engels to create dialectical materialism - the basis for historical materialism.

"Still, this idea, as formulated by Marx and Engels on the basis of Hegels’ philosophy, is far more comprehensive and far richer in content than the current idea of evolution is. A development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher basis, (...) a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; (...) the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws - these are some of the features of dialectics as a doctrine of development that is richer than the conventional one."

The tower embodies progress in materialist understanding of history while also indicating the connection to ideological plasm, a manifestation of "the proletariat's embrace of historical materialism", necessary to create a better future.

According to Nilsen, the proletariat of a revolutionary state can generate enough plasm to create extra-physical architecture that "disregards the laws of 'bourgeois physics' and instead relies on the revolutionary faith of the people for structural integrity."

This function of plasm implies that The Tower of History can be created only under revolutionary circumstances - without a sufficient amount of plasm even the matchbox model didn't stay up. The exact same sentiment is expressed about Tatlin's Tower: "We maintain that only the full power of the multimillion strong proletarian consciousness could bring into the world the idea of this monument and its forms. The monument must be realized by the muscles of this power, because we have an ideal, living and classical expression the pure and creative form of the international union of the workers of the whole world."

Nilsen called it "the highest expression of Communist principles, a society whose literal foundation is the faith of its people."

Tatlin's Tower was a symbol of faith in the revolutionary future, the global triumph of Marxist socialism. A monument "made of iron, glass and revolution."

It was never built in real life, and neither was The Tower of History in the world of Elysium.

But you can try to see if there's enough plasm between the three of you. And the matchbox tower stays up for a long moment, quivering with an improbable energy. You believe it can say up - and it does.

So you have to believe; whether it's for collective action or generating ideological plasm. Then, together, maybe you'll be able to build as much as 0.0002% of communism.

[dr-futbol-blog]

Our hero, Major John Sheppard is stationed at McMurdo base in Antarctica at the start of the series. We learn that he likes it there. Sheppard himself tells Teyla in Sateda (S03E04): "Well, that [having no social skills] is why I enjoyed flying choppers in the most remote part of my world before all this craziness."

This is what John Sheppard tells us but we learn that what he tells us is not always the truth and certainly not the whole truth.

The alien AI that created a hallucination from Sheppard's own subconscious in Remnants (S05E15) poses him the question: "You're either someone with a death wish or someone running away from something. So tell me: what are you running away from?" Running away to the most remote part of his world, running away to another galaxy.

In fact, he has both been banished to and self-isolated in the most remote part of his world ("You torture yourself every day, John.") due to his "black mark" acquired in Afghanistan. We are never explicitly told what this black mark was, only that it bothered Gen. O'Neill and was something that Dr. Weir could live with. We are left wondering.

While we are shown something of what happened in Afghanistan during the episode Phantoms (S03E09), through the hallucinations from Sheppard's past of him failing to save Capt. Charlie Holland, it isn't until toward the end of the series that we find out what happened through the mirror of a parallel reality in Vegas (S05E19), where alt!Rodney tells us "You were a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan but were dishonourably discharged for disobeying orders and trying to rescue a field medic trapped behind enemy lines. You were shot down – obviously survived, but unfortunately the crash killed four American soldiers along with eight civilians. You avoided jail time; the record was sealed for various political reasons."

The field medic in the Vegas-verse, one where "infinite variations of our own known reality where alternate versions of you and I play out events", is female; this revealed in a mumbled 'ur' (I didn't even catch it on first viewing even though I knew about the gender swap in advance; it might just as well have been "knew 'em") in alt!Rodney's line: "That field medic – the one you defied orders to go back and try and rescue. You knew her personally. You were... involved."

This was one of the differences between the two realities, perhaps even the most defining one of them, the point of divergence.

Vegas Sheppard dies to the tune of Johnny Cash's Solitary Man because that's what he was, a recluse (and note that the importance of Johnny Cash was underlined in the episode by Sheppard taking nothing but his poster, the same Johnny Cash poster that our Sheppard had in his quarters for all of the five years, with him once he walked away from his job; it carries weight):

I know it's been done havin' one girl who loved me Right or wrong, weak or strong Don't know that I will, but until I can find me The girl who'll stay and won't play games behind me I'll be what I am

But our Sheppard is not a Solitary Man (he has self-confessedly found something of a family in Pegasus). He's the Man in Black (in fact, he is dressed in black throughout the series even in situations where other fatigues would have made more sense; it is only in the very last episode that we see him in lighter colours):

I'd love to wear a rainbow every day And tell the world that everything's okay But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back 'Til things are brighter, I'm the man in black

We know the background. When the series begun, DADT was still in full effect, the franchise had a long-standing co-operation with the USAF, Prop 8 was still several years into the future. The non-normative sexual orientation of an All-American Action Hero was never going to be main-text. Even heterosexual romance between characters was mostly eschewed by the franchise. But damn if the subtext doesn't lay it out thick for us.

There are so many obvious parallels and comparisons in the show that I need to write them down somewhere, and while this is a day late and a dollar short, this fandom could do with some meta. So this marks the beginning of my journey through Stargate Atlantis with an eye on its bisexual protagonist.

[shuttershocky]

So, what's the deal with Alice Kuonji? Saw she's some special sort of witch?

Alice comes from a line of witches (the Meinster Witches) who inherited Yumina's magecraft and are directly descended from her. Yumina was the first Magician, born on the night BC turned to AD (which is unrelated to Jesus she's a completely different person coincidentally born at the same time lol).

Alice's powers defy the normal rules of modern magecraft in the Type-Moon universe, where spells are often just shortcuts to effects you can achieve through normal means.

For example, you can make someone sick without using any supernatural means, you just got to sneeze on them. With magecraft, you can make a bolt fired from your hands that makes people sick if they get hit. That's considered "normal."

Magicians like Yumina, Zelretch, or Aoko are capable of True Magic, or spells that defy reality, such as Aoko manipulating time by burning it or Zelretch being able to move through parallel worlds.

In the past, spells that we would consider True Magic were fairly commonplace, as the "rules" that bound the world weren't quite solid yet. This is why you have Servants pulling out a lot of bullshit if they happen to be older. In the modern era defined by science and our knowledge of how the world works however, you can't get away with a lot.

Alice's powers blur the line between magecraft and True Magic. Her powers resemble that of a witch you would find in a fairy tale, rather than a modern mage you could find anywhere in Type-Moon. She can create powerful and intelligent constructs called Ploys inspired by English fairytales (also sometimes inspired by Alice in Wonderland, Alice's namesake) that go from being able to consume a train station full of enemies in an instant, to being a giant that can crush all enemies in Alice's way.

Three of Alice's ploys stand tall above the rest. The Great Three are impossibly powerful ploys that act more Magic than Magecraft. One of these, the Flat Snark, was able to bring an entire dead theme park to life, controlling its statues, furniture, buildings, etc to fight with, bending reality itself to make the whole battlefield its weapons while making itself inaccessible to most attacks, as its real body replaced the Moon in the sky.

For Witches like Alice, they are not allowed to fall in love, because the more they love the father of their child (still gotta continue the line of witches), the worse their fortune would be. Alice's mother was the sort that defied tradition; she truly loved the Kuonji man that gave her Alice, and tried to give Alice as happy a family life as she could manage despite dooming herself to an offscreen fate.

One of Alice's mother's ploys is a blue bird called Robin with a cockney accent that still hangs around Alice to this day. While Robin is a little stupid and quite powerless, he's a very loyal ploy and knows his job is to be a constant (and irritating) reminder of Alice's mother's love.

Alice is also a very skilled mage, enough to be Aoko's teacher in magecraft despite them being the same age. That's why Aoko lives in her mansion despite Aoko's family only being in the outskirts of Misaki — they are master and apprentice, despite being completely different as mages and acting more like peers to each other.

[phantomrens]

now that i am getting near the end of maruki’s palace and therefore my first playthrough of persona 5 royal i wanted to make a bit of a longer post gathering my thoughts, more specifically about the phantom thieves vs maruki because i think there’s an interesting parallel between them that has honestly made it one of my favourite parts of the game.

first off, i think the phantom thieves resonate a lot because at the end of the day they are just teenagers who have experienced some sort of trauma or abuse.

ryuji’s father was an abusive alcoholic and he lost out on his dream because of kamoshida.

ann’s parents were constantly moving around and she was groomed by one of her own teachers, as well as her watching her best friend try to kill herself because of it.

yusuke was used for years by his own parental figure to make art he could steal for money and is now left on his own with no experience.

makoto’s father died and she is left with her sister and an immense pressure to succeed in their footsteps.

futaba watched her own mother die and it effected her so badly she convinced herself it was her own fault for YEARS and locked herself away.

haru was also groomed by her own father into an arranged marriage she wanted no part of.

akechi (including him simply for the sake of talking about maruki later on) had a deadbeat dad who he wanted approval from and was passed between fosters for years.

sumi watched her own sister die and it traumatised her so badly that she pretended to be her so kasumi wouldn’t be dead.

morgana is a bit of a weird one because he couldn’t remember where he came from and thought he was human for so long only to find out he was created for the purpose of helping the phantom thieves, but he accepts his fate.

and ren obviously was a victim of false accusations of assault that landed him in shibuya with a criminal record.

obviously some of those are more extreme than others but they all share one thing: having an adult who has hurt or abused them in some way, or put pressure on them to succeed. this is what drives them to start/join the phantom thieves because they don’t want other people to suffer the same way they have and it’s a way to get back at their own trauma. they don’t want to change what happened to them, they want to make sure it doesn’t happen again and i think that is the fundamental difference between the phantom thieves and maruki. it’s a way of healing their own trauma for them.

maruki on the other hand wants to create a reality where abuse and trauma never happened and it just doesn’t exist. which on the surface level seems like a good idea, but digging deeper you realise there are so many issues with that, morally and ethically. yes i often wish i wasn’t traumatised and my friends weren’t hurting and want to take away their pain. but for better or for worse that trauma has shaped us and we wouldn’t be the same people without it. learning to cope and learning to heal is an important part of life and having a world where nothing ever goes wrong is so one dimensional and lifeless and strips people away of their individuality.

ren sees all his friends living in this reality and on the surface level it seems like they are happy and it’s what they truly wanted and wished for, but it almost seems too perfect and the happiness is fake.

ryuji is part of the track team again and is working towards his scholarship.

ann is spending time with shiho and is happy with her best friend.

yusuke is still with madarame and he is thriving with his art.

makoto’s father is alive and she is living as a family with him and sae.

futaba’s mother is alive and her, wakaba and sojiro are living as a family.

haru’s father is alive and is actually treating her with love and respect.

morgana is human because he thinks that that is what he was supposed to be.

they all snap out of it and realise that this reality is fake and not what they really wanted because it undoes so much of what has gotten them to that point together. maruki altering reality in such a way that people who were dead are now alive in his reality does such a disservice to the work that the phantom thieves in these situations had done to get over the trauma of their deaths themselves (especially in futaba’s case) and being able to grow and move on after mourning these deaths.

and to an extent i understand what maruki is trying to do. creating an ideal reality where no person suffers seems like a good idea. but as soon as ren enters that reality everything feels off. his friends are not themselves and everything is too ideal. taking away all the bad things in the world does more harm than good and creates a world that is devoid of any depth. i don’t want to hurt, and i don’t want my friends to hurt, but the journey to healing from your struggles on your own is much more satisfying than having someone completely strip away the opportunity to do that. everyone has their own traumas and struggles and should be able to take their own power back, not have someone take away that opportunity entirely. altering reality in such a way is not stripping people of their trauma, its fundamentally changing them as a person instead. maruki does this and thinks its healing his own trauma, but the difference is he is hurting people in the process (maybe without him even realising) rather than making sure abusers don’t abuse again.

sorry this post was incredibly long but i do think the addition of maruki’s palace in royal is such a clever way to put into perspective what the phantom thieves are doing themselves because it makes you question for a moment if what they are doing is really justified, but when you look at maruki and what he is doing you realise the phantom thieves are in it for the right reasons.

[pockethep]

Okay…now that I’ve calmed down…

This chapter was undeniably one of my favorites in the manga. It also feels like one of those moments where part 1 and 2 really run in parallel.

Just a few of my rambles on this chapter...

Happiness and Makima

As much as I hate him Barem is easily one of the most interesting characters in part 2.

Barem has an intense loyalty, and honestly somewhat of an obsession, with Makima and by extension her legacy. Even after Makima's death and being freed from her control, Barem continues with her goal of using Chainsawman to defeat the Death Devil. When Nayuta tried to use her control devil abilities on him, he resisted and admitted that his heart still belongs to Makima.

It's because of this that he's "honoring" her will and following the same guidelines Makima did. (She wrote the rulebook on torturing Denji) He's destroying Denji's happiness. He is taking EVERYTHING from Denji.

(Heck if you wanna go a step forward, he's taking that peace sign)

Of course we know that Makima's true goal was to create a better world so that she could stand equal with others and form relationships. Making an ideal world was her attempt to realize her own dream.

Barem doesn't understand Makima and his devotion is a misunderstanding about her beliefs, which is a great foil to Denji.

Throughout part 1, Denji was devoted to Makima despite not knowing her true goals until the end. Barem is devoted to Makima because he's deluded himself into believing that he understood her and did so enough to be able to follow through with what he thinks she wants.

Nayuta and Makima

Although I'm praying this is a fakeout or a body double or just some kind of ruse to get Denji to snap there are a lot of interesting differences between the Makima and Nayuta eating scenes.

When Denji eats Makima there is an entire dedicated set up. He chops ingredients and makes a home cooked meal, taking care to set up his dishes and table.

He actively takes time to savor the meal. He doesn't scarf down the food, the waits...lets the flavor sink into him...and continues eating relatively peacefully despite what's really going on. It was something deeply personal and he ate in an empty house.

But with Nayuta...

It's rushed, messy, and ugly. There's none of the previous tranquility. It tracks, Denji was in the safety of his home. But in Chapter 170 he's at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant. A buffet style restaurant thats filled with people while being antagonized by Barem (He even goes as far to say "Good Boy" to Denji) and having just come off of what happened in 168 and 169.

And this is all without him even knowing what he's eating.

Everyone in chainsaw man is hungry. They are starving for way more than they could ever stomach, and not always in the literal sense. They are hungry for revenge, money, comfort, love, whatever the opposite of being alone is to them, or whatever else. It is because of this yearning and hunger that so many of the characters end up exploited or worse.

If that head truly is Nayuta...now Denji is way past the point of no return.

There are very few stories currently running that can even begin to make me feel what Fujimoto can. He is a wonderful writer even if I wanna burn his pen sometimes.

[suffersinfandom]

So there’s a lot of debate over who’s responsible for Ed’s turn to the Kraken (or, as I like to call it, “the Krakening”), and I think that’s partly because no one person can be blamed. Ed is a deeply hurt and traumatized individual thanks to his life pre-canon, and that hurt can be attributed to a lot of things -- his father, Hornigold, the society he grew up in, the culture of piracy, toxic masculinity.

But there are three key events that we actually see happen between the dock and Ed pushing Lucius overboard, and these three events in combination are the lead-up to the Krakening:

Event one: Stede running away. Stede doesn’t show up at the dock and Ed, convinced that he’s unlovable and of course Stede wouldn’t come for him, accepts abandonment and heartbreak.

Event two: Izzy. “I should’ve let the English kill you.” “This, whatever it is that you’ve become, is a fate worse than death.” “This! This is Blackbeard, not some namby pamby in a silk gown pining for his boyfriend!” “I serve Blackbeard, not Edward. Edward better watch his fucking step.”

Event three: the crew’s chanting. After Izzy leaves, Ed faintly hears the crew laughing and asking for another song. This is the last time we see Ed before he pushes Lucius overboard.

Okay.

After Stede panics and runs and Ed returns to the Revenge alone, he cries and eats marmalade in a blanket fort. He’s heartbroken and sad, not smearing on the eyeliner and hitting the rhino horn. Lucius gets through to Ed with “maybe life just begins again,” Ed sings his little song in front of the crew, and then he starts cleaning up. 

I’ve seen this scene in S1 compared to the scene in S2 where Ed is tidying his cabin up on the day he’s decided to die. While we should absolutely read these scenes as parallels, I think it’s a mistake to say that they’re the same thing -- that is, scenes of Ed cleaning his depression mess, cheered up by what he thinks is his impending death. 

In fact, I think that the S2 scene is sadder when we have these two contrasting Eds. Ed in S1 is newly hopeful. He’s still sad, but he has a community that cares about him and the hope that he can be different. He doesn’t have to be the dread pirate Blackbeard; he can just be Ed in the space that Stede created, even if Stede himself is gone. Ed doesn’t have the same dark energy in S1 that he has in S2 after he has firmly rejected hope for change and anything beyond Blackbeard. S1 is life beginning again; S2 is life coming to an end. 

See above: S1 Ed (bright-eyed, a little manic, open, hopeful that life can begin again)

See below: S2 Ed (dull-eyed, very manic, vaguely menacing, only hope is death)

So event one -- Stede leaving -- isn’t responsible for the Krakening. We can’t know what might have happened if Izzy had, say, been tossed overboard in a mutiny, but it wouldn’t have been the season two we got. In my opinion, every indication points to Ed recovering in the company of the crew. 

Next we have the confrontation with Izzy. This, I think, is the real turn. 

Izzy is cruel here. He hates Ed being soft so much that he tells Ed he’d be better off dead. His wording is an implication that Ed is alive at Izzy’s pleasure (“I should have let the English kill you”) as well as a warning that Izzy’s loyalty to Blackbeard does not extend to Edward. 

I don’t think that Ed interprets Izzy as a direct threat, but Izzy is -- as always -- acting as a manifestation of toxic masculinity. This scene is the world saying that Ed can’t be soft and gentle if he wants to survive. He can’t mourn lost love. He doesn’t have the luxury of healing in a community.

Ed, still raw and sad, is being reminded that he’s not allowed to be just Ed. Just Ed has been told his entire life that he’s not meant for fine things, and whenever he reaches for a fine thing -- friendship, love, community -- he’s told that pirates don’t have friends, he’s unlovable, and he’d better watch his fucking step. Just Ed wasn’t enough for Stede, so how can he be enough for anyone else? For the crew? For Izzy and everyone else in a world that seems to want Blackbeard?

After event two, Ed is on the precipice. He’s unbalanced and uncertain. He isn’t sure that life can begin again after all. And then he hears the crew.

Offscreen and far away, the crew asks “Eddie” for another song. We know that there’s no maliciousness in that because the crew likes the Ed they’ve seen, but Ed is vulnerable. He doesn’t hear friends; he’s not used to having friends. He’s used to Jack and Izzy, who both betrayed him. He’s used to the people on the party boat who pretended to like him and then turned on him. If Ed isn’t valuable, lovable, or even worth liking, then why would the crew genuinely want him to come back? They must be mocking him. 

Lucius gave Ed hope that he could have fine things. Izzy yanked that hope away and, in this moment of doubt, Ed can only hear further confirmation that he was wrong to want better than the violence of Blackbeard.

It’s not a coincidence that the first things Ed purges are his red silk and Lucius. The silk is now a warning against reaching for fine things, and Lucius is the one who encouraged him to be soft and vulnerable in front of the crew -- something that he thinks the crew rejected. Ed moves to protect himself by abandoning all hope for things that he has been told aren’t for people like him.

In conclusion: a lot of things contributed to the Krakening and the main villain here, as it often is in this show, is toxic masculinity and patriarchy.

[seventeenlovesthree]

@digimon02countdown Day 2 - JOGRESS/DNA-DIGIVOLUTION

It doesn't fit the prompt 100%, but the themes of relationships, bonding and compatibility are just so important to me and the potential it has for partnership evolutions will never not intrigue me. So while I was browsing through Digimon Adventure 02 to catch my favourite scenes, I noticed a very important parallel. Initially, I had just wanted to create a collage showing off the meaning of Jogress for Daiken in particular - because their bond, the development of their closeness and mutual trust, willingness to save and protect each other... All of that is very dear to my heart. And then I realized - the inherent parallel between Ken with Daisuke and Hikari with Takeru:

Both Hikari and Ken have a connection to the world of darkness, they have been drawn to it at several points in their lives - and still have to deal with the aftermath one way or another. They're haunted by it, with Hikari being stuck at the dark ocean to help repopulate the world and Ken being kidnapped by Oikawa to have his dark seed scanned and distributed to other children... And Takeru and Daisuke are 200% ride or die committed to save them respectively, supported by their own armor-evolved partner to ride on and the partner of the one they want to save, guiding and helping (and being comfy with them) as much as possible.

Takeru's connection to Hikari is what makes him get access to the other world - and Daisuke's persistence is what makes him succeed in reaching Ken.

While, at this point in time, Hikari is not able to detach herself from darkness, she knows that she's not alone and that she's got a trusted friend by her side...

... And Ken also learns that, despite everything he has done, he's being supported on his path to redemption every step of the way. Especially by the friend who simply forgot that he used to call him by his last name just a few hours ago and who will reassure him with one of the most beautiful speeches of the entire series.

Long story short - Daiken and Takari are such a wonderful display of having a support system to trust in. I wish the kids' headcanons of multiple different Jogress combinations had become true, so we may have Jogress evolution between Hikari and Takeru as well, since they are portrayed to be just as compatible as Ken and Daisuke.

[cursedvibes]

Curious, what’s your opinion on all the theories that Yuuji will become less human and “turn into Sukuna”? Whether it’ll be for just a moment or like as his endgame-

I will mainly base my response on this theory because that's the most popular version of it I've seen around.

Basically, I do agree that Yuuji is getting a bit lost in his hate for Sukuna and loses sight of Megumi in favour of his desire to kill Sukuna no matter what. I honestly also welcome the change somewhat and for Sukuna to influence him. It would be boring if Sukuna is the only one who changes during this fight. It would be nice for Yuuji to have a similar reflective moment as him at some point. Questioning what he's doing, what he's fighting for and how far he's willing to go and then basing the way he kills/defeats Sukuna on it. The fight with Mahito changed him too and made him discover and accept a new side of himself. While Mahito made him adapt the cog mentality, Sukuna might be the one to push him to be more selfish again. Ideally, he would eventually find the middle point between these two extremes.

However, that doesn't mean he will ever be exactly like Sukuna or turn into him. No matter what, they are different people with different experiences that shaped them since their conception (even before their birth). When Yuuji admitted him and Mahito are the same, he didn't suddenly start torturing people for fun, he just recognized how he engages with the world and his role in it. Yuuji will potentially become more ruthless and lost in the heat of the battle now, but I don't see him ever delighting in bloodshed the way Sukuna does. People forget that no matter the parallels and vessel shenanigans, Yuuji is still his own person. That's what kept him from just being another submerged vessel of Sukuna. That's what makes Sukuna lose control over his soul right now. He doesn't entirely recognizes it himself yet, but he does have unique qualities that are the reason he's so exceptionally irritating to Sukuna. Also, Jin is a much more literal Ryomen Sukuna and he acts very different from him. Because even if jujutsu might see them as the same being and even though they used to share a body (just like Yuuji and Sukuna), their experiences and background shaped them into very different people. Mind you I'm a big supporter of fucked up Jin, but he would be still unhinged in a different way than Sukuna. Normal but seeming just a bit uncanny. Not a rabid mass murderer.

I also think that even if Yuuji gives into his darkest thoughts, him becoming a Sukuna 2.0 is very much not the intention if he goes completely crazy. He was designed by Kenjaku to eventually develop the skills he has now (minus the soul punching potentially, but that's not certain) and to unlock his full potential, he would have to become more selfish and hateful. Facing Mahito and Sukuna helped in that regard and pushed him further. Kenjaku wouldn't want him to turn into another Sukuna though because in that case...well, Sukuna is already there. I think that is part of why they specifically chose Jin to create Yuuji with and didn't somehow try to convince Sukuna to do it or mix his blood in there or whatever. It's also why unlike Sukuna, Yuuji didn't grow up in isolation and ostracisation from society, being told from the moment he's born that he's cursed. He grew up without even knowing anything about jujutsu, contrary to Sukuna who was thrown right in the midst of it from the beginning. I think that's deliberate. Kenjaku could've seen to it that Yuuji turned away from society and gave into violent/destructive impulses much earlier, but they didn't. Seems more like they wanted to build a strong foundation, the possibility to foster ideals and build genuine connections before challenging them and seeing how Yuuji would react to it, potentially being fired up even more by it and pushed to evolve further. There would be no use to repeat what created Sukuna exactly the same way because then you'll get the same result. Kenjaku wants something that will surprise them and this is the only way I see that happening.

To address the claims the person posting the theory made directly:

I don't think this change happened after his awakening, I think it happened after Choso's death and even then Yuuji is not as blinded by hate yet as the person makes him out to be. Yuuji didn't call out further to Megumi in Yuuta's domain because for one there wasn't that much time and it was also pretty clear that Megumi either couldn't hear him or wouldn't be pushed that easily to fight back against Sukuna. That's why his Black Flashes were so important. They weaken Sukuna's power over Megumi (as you can also see by Sukuna's changed domain) and would give him more freedom. Plus, this must shake up Megumi too. Yuuji's gonna make him listen if there's no other option. The Black Flashes aren't there to kill Sukuna without concern for anyone else, they're the only chance they have to get Megumi out of there or at least give him back control (he only has to take it). Yuuji didn't call out to him or specifically think of him (at least it wasn't vocalised for the reader), but that doesn't mean he forgot about Megumi. We've generally heard very little of Yuuji's thoughts during this fight and it was still clear Megumi was his aim in all this.

In my opinion, Yuuji only really dips into selfish and reckless hate when he's clawing at Sukuna's chest to tear his heart out (which wouldn't immediately kill Sukuna btw as Yuuji knows very well). It's where we see him completely livid. Still, previously, he very much shows concern for his comrades. He does get angry when Sukuna shows up after Choso dies, but it's more a gritting of teeth to steal himself, he's not raging like when he claws at Sukuna's chest. Plus, Todo showing up and telling him the others are probably okay is what gives him the strength to give it his all again and jump full force back into the fight. That took some convincing and believing in Todo's words, he wasn't gonna do that to begin with or his mindset when seeing Todo and hearing about the others would've been different. Todo wouldn't have needed to say anything at all then and Yuuji wouldn't have been so relieved to hear his reassurance. Choso's death making him question his cog mentality by ripping something important away from him, but also showing him Choso thinks his life has value is what set off his hate, but he doesn't immediately fall into it. Chapter 260 and 261 are the first real glimpses we see of it.

I think Todo being here is very important for that reason. He might not particularly care about Megumi, but he cares about Yuuji and his mental health. He wouldn't let Yuuji turn into a hate-driven monster, much less become a second Sukuna. He has helped Yuuji find himself before and I can see him being a grounding and supportive presence in this fight once again.

Now as mentioned in the beginning, I do agree with the points that Yuuji is becoming more selfish with his hate towards Sukuna and he could easily be consumed by it. Sukuna is slowly changing him in his attempt to fight against him. I like that development and am looking forward to it. We've seen Sukuna has succeeded in breaking Yuuta's ideals, but I don't see Yuuji being quite at that stage yet. Yuuji always had a viscousness to him, he was never a perfect little schoolboy with a halo over him, in that case I don't think Sukuna would've had such trouble with him. He was determined to kill Sukuna by any means necessary before Shinjuku, but he also very much always had Megumi at the back of his mind, being pretty much one of the few besides Hana or Higuruma who showed outright concern. That's slipping, but he just got there. Choso was the real turning point, not Yuuji's awakening.

And I just completely disagree with the last two tweets. Yuuji and Sukuna aren't the exact same, that would honestly be quite pointless and not a very thrilling message or ending. You made a boy give up on his ideals and be driven by pure hate or adapt Sukuna's mindset. Wow, groundbreaking. We just saw that happen with Yuuta. He doesn't have this genuine hate for Sukuna Yuuji has, but we see through him that breaking a young sorcerer's ideals and good intentions is possible. We don't need that message repeated with Yuuji. If anything, this might be a good reminder for Yuuji for who he might turn into if he's not careful. Yuuji becoming exactly like Sukuna, down to his title would be such a weird thing to end on. What's that supposed to tell us. There will always be a Sukuna? How profound. There will always be that one strongest monster in the world? Yuuta is literally trying to achieve that right now and you can see what a weak philosophy it is and unsustainable at that. Yuuji becomes the strongest sorcerer in history...yay?

Yuuji is neither mentally, physically and especially not spiritually Sukuna and he's not supposed to be.

[bestworstcase]

Took a look at the image organizer you linked the other day, and MY OH MY is there so much to unpack there. While I think I understand most of it, there's still some stuff I'm unclear about. What are those quotations from? What's Jaune doing here (and I think I remember you mentioning him as the Oz stand-in for the Ever After)? What about those scattered extra panels in the Jaune column, like Bumbleby-Adam and the maple leaf? What're the entire bottom three rows doing, what is the truth, and who is the "she" who knows it? I really need to do a rewatch...

By all means, go as overboard as you want to (or not), I just love hearing what you have to say.

the quotations are all heraclitus (there’s a link to the fragments at the bottom – the Bn tag on each quote is the fragment number) – heraclitus being a pre-socratic philosopher who had a significant influence on plato, and rwby being a story that draws heavily from plato (see also: atlas/atlantis). the philosophical ideas articulated in v9 regarding balance and creation/destruction get at concepts like flux (everything rests by changing; equilibrium is a state of constant motion and transformation, like a top which stays upright only while it spins) and strife (not conflict, but the push-and-pull between opposite forces, like the tension on a string which creates music).

i get very exited about this because it is the basis for rwby’s destruction-is-not-bad thesis; true equilibrium cannot be found without destruction because creation must have its counterweight. conflict is antithetical to balance specifically because it is a rejection of strife—it’s, to continue the metaphors, creation smashing the top because it doesn’t like that destruction causes it to spin instead of standing perfectly upright, or destruction cutting the string to free itself from destruction.

the OP specifically is about my thesis that rwby’s narrative is fractal—reflected aspects of the ozlem story repeating over and over again as this shattered fairytale strives to get it right this time. jaune (like cinder, like ruby) is a mirror held up to salem—the girl in the tower refracted in the “lovable idiot stuck in the tree”—but he’s a funhouse mirror. he’s a salem without her faith in humanity; a salem who is fundamentally cynical (he cheats his way into beacon, he wanted to be the hero to prove himself worthy to his family, he is ultimately corrupted by his rejection of change—which twists him into a reflection of ozpin instead) and thus repeatedly puts himself in the tower. and the point of him with respect to the fractal narrative is that being Good and Kind did not save him from his cynicism, and that the essential difference between salem and ozma is that she truly believes in her cause (that the gods are unjust and humanity must live free) whereas his commitment is hollow and borne of fear.

(likewise cinder is a salem whose tower is her faith, because what cinder believes in is the innate cruelty and injustice of the world and her destiny to be crushed beneath it, and she is in want of something true to believe instead; and ruby is… more or less literally who salem was when she was young)

jaune is also specifically paralleled with cinder in this regard – his time in the ever after mirrors her exile after haven, and both reflect salem’s isolation after the moonfall; he gives into despair and stagnates (like oz), cinder angrily drags herself out of the pit and keeps clawing her way forward (like salem).

(yang and blake killing adam are just there because i didn’t have a better place to note the echoed framing when cinder kills rhodes – different camera angle, but there is a striking visual comparison drawn here. the narrative does not smile on rhodes)

and then the last three rows are my unhinged mumbling about salem having met the blacksmith before in picture form. Ma’am Why Is Your Illustration Of The Human Soul A Blacksmith. What Do You Know.

like the thing is. heraclitus again: fire is arche. it is the beginning. the transformations of fire, first into sea, and of the sea half becomes earth, half whirlwind. from the outside, the tree is earth and air (the holes in the ground, the leaves on the wind) – on the inside, it’s an ethereal cosmic ‘river’ of souls flowing to their next life; and in the center, it is a forge. and this rhymes also with ‘for it is death to souls to become water, and death to water to become earth, but water comes from earth, and from water, souls’ – like

???

before she’s drowned in the fountain, salem is engulfed in dark’s flame – the flame he once used to restore jabber to life. and then she drowns and returns, with aura, now immortal. salem leaps into the pool of grimm seeking change and is transformed – the faunus in the myth she quotes immerse themselves in magical waters and are transformed. and then we have this recurring motif of a character (or symbol thereof) engulfed by flame, trees, katabasis, drownings, spiritual or physical rebirth. and salem waving the blacksmith under our noses since 2014. maple leaf carved into the frame of her family portrait – maple leafs shed by the tree – the maple leaf guiding jaune to pyrrha’s statue. it’s very

it sure is pointing in a direction!