#but when i come back i'll be making a little post about themes and motifs

[queer-ragnelle]

Hi! I really want to read the vulgate cycle but I have a hard time staying focused when reading it. Are there any sections of the vulgate that are not as important to the understanding or able to skip? Thank you so much for making all these stories accessible and thanks for your reply :))

Hello my friend! This is a great question and one I get a lot. The Vulgate Cycle is long and daunting, but I can help you navigate it!

Firstly, here is the full Vulgate Cycle PDF collection for everyone to read. Secondly, I'll summarize what you can do, and elaborate below a cut.

TL;DR

If reading a PDF, use CTRL+F to find your favorite character's name/stories.

If reading a physical copy, utilize the index (located at the very end of the Post Vulgate) to find them.

Discover chapters of interest from the summary page (also located at the very end of the Post Vulgate).

Skip The History of the Holy Grail and begin with The Story of Merlin or Lancelot I.

Now, let's break down the ways you can navigate the Vulgate Cycle step by step.

CTRL+F

This option will certainly be less effective if your favorite character is a prominent one such as Lancelot or Gawain as they appear a million times. However, if you want to learn more about someone else, say, the Lady of the Lake, you can search her up and find every instance of her appearance. Like so.

Index

In the very back of the final book of the Post Vulgate, there's an Index listing every named character [Ex: Gawain], location [Ex: Orkney Isles], entity [Ex: Holy Spirit], animal [Ex: Gringalet the horse], and language [Ex: Hebrew] mentioned in the entirety of the Vulgate Cycle. There you'll find a list of which book/chapter/page they appear in. Here are all the mentions of Gawain's horse in The Book of Merlin.

Chapter Summaries

Each book of the Vulgate Cycle has a Table of Contents with the chapter numbers and long, descriptive titles. That alone may give you an indication of what you want to read. However, at the back of the Post Vulgate, right before the Index, there's a list of every chapter in the Vulgate Cycle with a summary of events. That will give you more detail and may help you decide if you want to read in full.

Skip

If it sucks, hit da bricks. The beauty of the Vulgate Cycle is that you don't need The History of the Grail or The Book of Merlin to understand what comes later. I enjoy them because History gives a ton of background to the religious themes the Grail Quest will eventually explore and sets up all the motifs way in advance and Merlin has the Orkney Bros as well as Yvain and Sagramore as kids which is fun. But the fact is you can begin with Lancelot I and you won't be lost. Lancelot I was written first, Merlin is a prequel, so it's optional, and the motifs of the Grail Quest are going to be heavy handed when you get there anyway without the added stuff from History. That's hundreds of pages you can skip if you want to! Norris J. Lacy, the head editor, and his translation team did a phenomenal job with footnotes throughout, so if a character off-handedly refers back to something, you can rely on them to leave a little note at the bottom for you to refresh your memory with. It'll even give you a chapter/page number if you want to refer back yourself. Here's a footnote referring to Agravaine's unnamed amie [his ladylove] who helped wing woman her sister to romance Gawain. That was 4 chapters prior to this moment.

So there are plenty of ways to navigate the Vulgate Cycle and make it more digestible. That being said, it's translated so beautifully by Lacy and his team, that it reads like a modern novel. I have no doubt that once you get started, you'll become invested, and find it much easier to work through than you first thought. It's long-winded and character dense but it's fun. I do hope you're able to read it and understand why I love it so much! Thanks for this ask and I hope this helps. Have a great day!

[verysium]

what do you read in your spare time? you’re one of the most eloquent users i know, id love to hear how you find the media you consume and what your favorites are

omg ei 😊 welcome back to the inbox! thank you for your sweet words although i'm probably not qualified enough to be considered the full definition of eloquent. i am going to preface this post by saying that i definitely don't read as much as i should, so this list is not going to be comprehensive whatsoever. the last time i even visited an in-person library was like half a decade ago, and since then my spare time has been nonexistent lmao. anyways, here are some of my favorite/most recent reads as listed by author:

POETRY

richard siken: i think siken is already well-known both in the literary world and in whatever booktok deems is popular culture. if you don't already know him though, he is best known for his poetry collection crush, which delves into themes of obsession, gay love, and violent eroticism. i actually read this chapbook unknowingly. as in i was hounding sketchy pdf download sites at 3 AM and saw a man with bloodied lips on the cover and decided to read it. he basically became my summer fever dream after that. the way he juxtaposes images is seamless, smoother than water. only richard siken can talk about violence without making it sound violent. i also enjoyed his other poetry collection war of the foxes, especially "portrait of fryderyk in shifting light." i think light is a common motif throughout most of his poems, and he manipulates it effortlessly. the most recent piece i read from him is "piano lesson." i have nothing left to say that he didn't already say, so i would just recommend reading it for yourself. he is the og big brain when it comes to word play.

ocean vuong: he's unforgettable, and i mean that literally because nobody forgets a person named ocean. time is a mother was exactly what the name suggests: an exploration of grief, loss, and the rewind of time after his mother's death. some of the poems are almost cinematic in quality. "künstlerroman" is my favorite because it feels exactly like watching a video tape in reverse. i think his most famous work is "someday i'll love ocean vuong." it was the first piece i ever read from him, and to this day, it remains my comfort poem.

silas denver melvin: i only recently discovered him through his chapbook grit. i think he's also on tumblr @/sweatermuppet. he writes a lot on the trans experience, and his work gives me a mix of southern gothic and country vibes. would definitely read his other publications if i had the time.

chen chen: one thing about chen chen is that he always comes to devour. my favorite works from him are "self-portrait as so much potential" and "song of the anti-sisyphus." you have to put on your thinking cap for some of his poems, but once you grasp the meaning, everything makes sense all at once.

franny choi: "disaster means without a star" was the entire inspiration behind my first rin fic. i relate to her more personally in regards to the diaspora experience, but her collections are worth reading in general because of the sheer quality.

pages matam: his poem "piñata" was what got me into slam poetry. his work mostly consists of political commentary which i feel is particularly relevant in today's social climate. "on learning america's english" also resonates with people who have encountered the entire losing/learning immigrant tongues experience.

laura lamb brown-lavolie: i've only read one spoken word poem from her, and tbh i only needed to read one. "on this the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the titanic, we reconsider the buoyancy of the human heart" is my two-headed calf poem. one day i will get this tattooed.

brendan constantine: once again, this was the result of me being chronically online coupled with the boredom of an august heat wave. i found "the opposites game" through TED. honestly, i was a bit unsure about it at first, but it's a cute little poem that makes you really delve into the intricacies of craft.

TEEN POETRY & PROSE

yasmeen khan: she could mouth her words onto every square inch of my body, and i would still be coming back for more. ingraining them into flesh is not enough. "movie stars" is by far my favorite work from her. she writes about femininity and womanhood so profoundly. it's tragic, but really i wouldn't have it end any other way.

kaya dierks: her writing is basically middle-of-nowhere small town stoner teenage life but personified. "crushed" is my favorite piece from her. the soundtrack for this work was definitely by ethel cain, and you cannot convince me otherwise.

FICTION

madeline miller: i was first introduced to her when i read the song of achilles. let's just say that book had me nonverbal for the greater half of three months. it was my metaphorical hatchet. i buried it once, and i never want to dig it up again. i read circe a few years later. the first time was during the blue hour at an airport, right between one red-eye flight and another transfer. i don't even remember that experience because i was heavily sleep-deprived. i read it again recently for a literature course, this time for academic analysis. overall, i enjoy the the heroine-centric narrative. typically, i'm a bit wary of novels with heavy feminist themes because they either project their agenda too strongly or they run the risk of misrepresentation. circe doesn't exactly have that problem. it was more about empowerment and less about exercising power over others.

charlotte brontë: as a historical figure, brontë was questionable, but jane eyre most certainly was not. that book rewired my brain, and that is saying something because i have never read any classic by choice. and it is so important to me that jane was the ugliest, plainest girl you could ever imagine. also cus i unironically enjoy angst, and this book was full of dramatic misunderstandings.

yoko ogawa: i love japanese literature, so there is no reason not to include this one here. "a peddler of tears" is one of my favorite short stories. i did not expect the ending at all, but it was welcome. something about violence, body gore, and dismemberment being framed as romantic and semi-erotic just gets to me. sign me the hell up. hotel iris is a hit-or-miss with some people. either you like the fact that art makes you uncomfortable or you shut it down completely. for me, i was alright with exploring some of its darker themes, but read at your own discretion.

NONFICTION

ross gay: he lives up to his name both in optimism and in carefree joy. probably one of my favorite creative nonfiction authors simply based off the accessibility of his writing style. easy to read and understand but still hits you with the full force of a semi-truck. i would recommend his book inciting joy. it's a collection of essays that delve into grief, but since this is ross gay, he makes it seem like a quintessential part of life.

paul kalanithi: sixteen-year-old me was mind blown by him cus before that doctors were shrewish old men with bald spots and sterile coats, not poetic surgeons who dissected the anatomy of word and recited t.s. eliot in the most heart-wrenching way possible. he is everything i want to become in both life and death. when breath becomes air literally does take your breath away.

[wjbs-bonkle-au]

Lynn’s Bionicle Media Looking-At Thing Part 4.5: I Take Back Everything I Said About How City Of Legends Would Probably Have Been The Best Bionicle Game

Ok so this will be. An interesting one. Also my previous City of Legends post is here, go check it out, I reference it a couple of times.

Right so before I begin, I just want to say that I replayed the 2003 version of City of Legends, and it is still fun. I also, for professionalism(?) purposes, played the first 2004 version (there's two), and it's basically the same as the one I'll be playing in this post, which makes my life a lot easier. Anyway, on with the video and also the rant about how much I dislike this version.

Alright so first off; the movement feels. More awkward? I guess? Like you can't turn instantly; you have to go through an awkward turning animation every time. Also the little score popups are gone, which sucks.

There is proper combat this time; while you could throw kanoka in the 2003 build, this one also has melee, and it is. Kinda bad? Like you have an awkward, clumsily-animated punch, but also a fairly satisfying ground-pound that defeats enemies in an AoE radius but has weird timing, and a roll that also does damage. Also the Kanoka is really satisfying.

There's only one map this time around, which appears to be an expanded version of the "Ta-Wahi" map from the 2003 build (the aesthetic, theme and one of the floor textures are the same). It has a bunch of neat details (a big cargo lift thing going up and down and circling bird-like creatures that I didn't see moving until I recorded this, so when I noclipped up on my first run-through I assumed they flew backwards relative to how they actually fly, like I thought their tails were like manta ray flaps or antennae or something)

Unlike the 2003 build, enemies spawn constantly without the player having to spawn them manually from a menu.

Instead of jerboas, this time they're presumably meant to be Morbuzakh (this won't be the last time the Morbuzakh will come up in this series), and their designs and animations are simple but effective! They die in one hit and deal. "Damage". But not really, like you flash red when you get hit, but there's no health metre and you can't die. However, they swarm and stun you when you hit, so if this did have a proper health system, it would probably be painful.

Left stick moves the character (more on him later) and right stick moves the camera. Clicking in the left stick does nothing, and clicking in the right stick switches to a weird first-person view that doesn't aim where you're moving, but instead it has to be manually angled. Pain. In terms of actual controls, triangle throws a disk, circle is melee, X is jump and square is roll.

The D-pad does nothing. Start pauses the game, as you'd expect, but select does something interesting; it pauses the game and puts you into noclip. You can fly around with the left stick and aim the camera with the right stick, as you'd expect; the left shoulder button allows you to speed up. Triangle unpauses the game, allowing you to both control the character and move the camera, and right trigger teleports you to the camera's current position.

Finally, let's talk about the character you play as, because. It's Matau, but with an interesting design.

The whole design is very. Chunky in a way I like, and I love the Metru armour motif being stylised into thick X-shapes, and the Aero Slicers being reduced down to a pair of beetle-like elytra so they can be part of his design without being too big. However, I don't like how small his brainstalk is.

And then there's this game's interpretation of the Mahiki, which. I genuinely love (except for the weird beak-mouth).

Like, the "jaw" with "teeth" would make this work really well as, like, a shapeshifted Makuta version of the Mahiki, or maybe an earlier version of the Olisi before Karzahni started modifying it. Also it kinda gives me Miru vibes, and the roundel "headphones" being adapted into proper earpieces is really cool. My only point against it is that it loses the actual Mahiki's retrofuturistic (maybe even slightly Art Deco?) aesthetic in favour of 2000s neoretrofuturistic sleekness, but I can't really complain because I love that era of sci-fi aesthetics. I wish I could see what the other five masks would have looked like, but alas.

Anyway uhhhh yeah. This wasn't worth it, and might end up invalidating my upcoming post about the Xbox demo (depending on how different that might be, and also if I can even find an Xbox emulator). Oh well!

[hollowtones]

i can't find the vods for the rest of your endwalker playthrough (if you even did stream the rest) so i was wondering, what were your opinions on 6.0? (also what were your reactions to That urianger scene)

I think I only did like one or two streams of it. It ran kinda bad when I streamed it, people didn't want to watch it, and I wasn't getting much out of streaming it compared to just playing it on my own time. That and I think I had a really severe depressive episode at the time (for unrelated reasons).

IDK if anyone's still trying to avoid spoilers but I'll throw it under a read-more.

It's been a while since I last played so my memory's kind of spotty. I liked it, though. It felt like a satisfying conclusion to what they've been getting at since 2.0 MSQ, and a nice little dialogue on despair and exhaustion and depression and hope, and finding ways to carry on and keep living and keep loving and keep trying. I feel like that's when the game's overall writing and theming tends to be at its strongest (yes I liked the Dark Knight questlines haha).

I remember having mixed feelings about how they pulled off the Garlemald segment & the "Alphinaud and Alisaie's shit head dad" plotline but I don't remember enough of the specifics to really elaborate on that.

Alisaie has lesbian college admirers and I thought that was funny.

I came out of 5.5 MSQ expecting White Woman Jumpscare Hydaelyn to be a little trite but I ended up really liking Venat. I felt kinda whatever about Emet-Selch coming back, but I didn't hate what they did with him I guess, and his earless-Viera boy toy was fun. Fandaniel felt like The Joker but he still felt like a fine first-act villain. The way they write him (& Meteion) in the later chunk of the game felt more interesting to me, & felt like a fun play on "Shadowbringers"-era Emet-Selch's whole "AMAUROT, BABY! GREATEST CITY IN DA WORLD, BABY! SLIMES ALL OVER DA STREET, BABY!" nostalgia. It was funny when he was The Joker, though.

Final area was thematically and visually really interesting. I'm excited we got more stuff related to Omega & I'm glad we got more "btw the dragons are aliens" stuff. I've seen a lot of people forget about that, for whatever reason. That one area right by the end that was completely desolate, with no people & no indication of who lived there, was a really good setpiece. The Namazu canonically suffer in all possible dimensions and all possible worlds and you cannot help but laugh out loud.

I kind of rolled my eyes at Zenos coming back. "By the way he's a Reaper now" felt like it amounted to nothing, but admittedly I never did the Reaper questline or the post-6.0 stuff. Getting to punch him in the face at the end was fun.

Music was good, I liked the way they played with different motifs & I really like how that comes to a head in the final boss fight.

I was expecting moon rabbits to be grating and insufferable but I liked them. I fucking love that none of this planet's moons are normal. Why are they both orbital prison-ships. I love it.

Zodiark's design owned and Hydaelyn's design was okay. Very Yoshitaka Amano design, which makes sense given how he did that one boxart for "A Realm Reborn" & she looks a lot like she does there, but I kinda wish she got to look more monstrous and weird. She kept talking up becoming a monster to do what she felt was right!!! I wish that had informed her design a little more.

Hamburgers exist & I do like that the animators got to livingly render G'raha Tia going to town on one like those weird clips of anime girls where it looks like they've never eaten in their lives.

I don't remember what you mean by "the Urianger scene". LOL

You didn't ask, but the crafting/gathering questlines were a lot of fun. I feel like they (& the guildleves) added some fun extra context to everything going on while I was going through the MSQ.

I liked it overall. I don't think it's the highest point of the game's writing, but I had a good time and felt very satisfied by the time it came to a close.

[bi-harrymort]

Hi!

A few words about me and this blog.

[but before we go any further... even though this is a blog dedicated to Voldemort and Harrymort, I don't support Rowling or her views; hate and bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated here.]

I've been a fan of the Harry Potter series since I was a kid, but I've never interacted with the fandom actively - I never created any fanart, posts, fanfics etc., I only consumed and shared them. So, this is my first attempt at sharing my own theories and any other weird little thoughts I may have on the subject.

Even though I am open to different interpretations and opinions, I know that many may not share this view and may not want to follow me because of it (righfully so), so I'm going to write some of my hot (or maybe not so hot) takes that are my primary headcanons and/or interpratations of the text.

I'm not a fan of the movies. I think the changes made in them distort the characters, the plot and the overall story.

I don't believe Voldemort is insane and/or badly written. I may write a charcter analysis based on the books one day when I'll have the time and energy... and if anyone will be interested in reading it, of course.

At the same time I don't think that HP and its characters (including Voldemort) are great and with no faults. I love the concept of the series and the world created, but I will also be the first to critique it and point out its faults.

Lord Voldemort is Lord Voldemort. Confusing, I know. What I mean by that is that I don't like differentiating between Voldemort (the insane bad one) and Tom Riddle (the brilliant good one). Recently, I started to become disconnected from the trend in the fandom of treating Tom Riddle and Voldemort as separate entities. At the same time, I'm not gonna go around telling people to stop characterizing them, or thinking about them, in whatever way they like! It's just something that I became sensitive to and don't subscribe to anymore. 

Harrymort is the only pairing I am single-minded about. Any other ship (that doesn't involve Harry or Voldemort) I'm very neutral about.

I am a fan of female Harry, but only because of one particular fic - the Historical Importance of Runic War Warding in the British Isles by samvelg. It's my all-time favourite fanfic, and I have as much, if not more, headcanons and thoughts about this particular HP AU rather than the original HP. (At the same time, I am aware why genderbending is disliked by fandoms, and I do agree that many genderbent stories are not great. Many of them erase the lgbt+ represantation, which is what I am not at all about.)

I don't have a set gender identity headcanon for Harrymort (trans, cis, female, male, nonbinary... they are all very much appreciated).

However, my preferred sexuality headcanon for both Harry and Voldemort is either bisexual, pansexual or asexual.

I am firmly a bi-racial/having Indian ancestry Harry headcanon fan.

Recently I started falling in love with Arabic and Korean, and a headcanon of bi-racial/having some sort of other ancestry Voldemort has began to cristalize in my mind (kind of an another mirror with bi-racial Indian Harry headcanon). I've had this thought after reading this one post about how Harry is changed in fics but Voldemort stays always the same when it comes to ethnicity/race.

I have plenty of different AU ideas about this pairing (many modelled more as an AU of the Historical Importance AU) and would like to realise them at some point, but I'd like for my first posted work to be an original idea.

The reason I'm creating this account now is because Tomarrymort stories are some of the best I've ever read. No matter how much time passes, I always come back to them. I am a slow-burn hoe (slow burns and long fics are like… 90% of my fanfic consumption), and I appreciate the vast variety of themes and motifs that these stories are capable of getting into.

On a final note, I'd like to make a disclosure.

Any opinions I have are simply that - opinions. I don't think that they are the best or the most accurate or that they should be imposed on other people. Everyone has a right to like whatever they want to like, and to think whatever they want to think, as long as that does not evolve into attacking actual human beings.

It's fiction. It's fun. I appreciate people with different opinions so long as we stay mature and respectful to each other about exchanging them.

[zero-ek]

Route If - A day in life of a DiVA

New AZKi album let's gooo!

It's been just under four years since her latest full length album (not counting Futurity Step), which strangely feels like forever ago and just the other day at the same time. And my gosh the amount of things that have happened since: the end of INNK's music and AZKi's transfer to Hololive, reuniting with Suisei, her boom with Geoguesser and signing to a label, just to mention a few.

Looking at this blog i apparently never really discuss the pieces of music of the artists i like (despite my motto being my love of girls that sing), but while we absolutely haven't been short of AZKi releases since Re:Creating World, i feel like an album release is such a special occasion that i should at least attempt to talk about what i got out of it, to celebrate the achievement, if anything.

Probably my single favorite thing about this album is that it's AZKi's first concept album! Kinda, sorta... you see, i'm not 100% sure that it was intentional, but as the title of this post implies, the tracks are arranged in such a way to evoke the image of a daily routine, and the thoughts and emotions that each period of the day represent. I'll get into it as we go along but the reason i'm not super sure about this being like a strong concept in the album is that while the arrangement and the feel of each track does give off that vibe, their lyrical content is a lot more varied than a proper concept album would be, so while i'm kinda sure it is what she was going for, i'm not completely betting on it.

Lazy - waking up

No AZKi it's a workday you can't go back to sleep

First of all, i absolutely love this for an album starter, the way it begins with just her voice and the little synth hits not only sells the vibe of "your brain booting up in the morning", but it also serves as a sweet introduction to AZKi's "Temperature of the Voice" motif that this album and the subsequent Live have been leaning on, we start with just her voice (kinda), and that alone sets the mood for the remaining of the track.

Love this one verse in particular:

"As winter alone makes the temperature of my voice visible I wonder if it disappears in the spring, summer or autumn? Surely it's stil here, tangible, and dancing As if saying 'I'm here, i'm right here' From directly within my heart."

I seriously cannot recommend enough that you add this track to your morning routine, especially if it involves going outside for like getting breakfast or just taking a walk, the soft instrumentals make for a perfect match to the tender sunlight of the early morning, while AZKi's voice both puts you at ease with its texture and gets you ready for the day with the honestly very catchy rap-esque flow, and finally, the lyrics, which describe a variety of scenes taking place in the winter morning, painting a picture of a very lively world, even with all the coldness in the air.

Probably what i love the most about this one is that while it's very much in AZKi ReD territory, it's not a format that she's ever done before (the closest i can think is 'Time Capsule'), i'm not one to compare songs, but this seriously reminds me of 'fake news' by Nagase Yuka, with how it describes the world around you in this catchy, but laid back and not overly melodic rap-ish singing, over this very chill beat. Put it short, it's not a song that gets you paying attention to it as much as it gets you to look at everything around you.

+1 vote for more AZKi and Akki in the future

Entropy - opening credits

Look i know we're going off "theme" already but this is seriously the best way i can explain how it feels when this song comes up right after Lazy, like, literally the first thing that came to my mind was the opening scene of Madoka Magica Rebellion, where like you get this whole montage of Madoka getting ready to go to school and then "Colorful" begins playing once she sets off.

Though, to be fair, this song very much still aludes to a morning setting, specifically, going out in the morning to face the day, which is why i had that thought in the first place:

"I tightly hold this clear blue sky As today is yet another sunny day"

Surprisingly, my favorite thing about this song is not even that it was made by Wataru Sena (though i do 100% love that, my gosh have you heard that snare?), but that under the cheery singing and uplifiting instrumentals, this song is actually pretty melancholic (......just like "Real Melancholy", which is also by Wataru Sena... huh). The song is about this "feeling" that she can't put a name to, but it's the idea of being someone's light, and to keep looking up to the big blue sky even though she herself is burdened by her own sorrow and pain to carry.

"If i can shine light upon someone If i can lead someone to salvation I feel like even i could make a single miracle happen" "My singing melts away and becomes itself the morning Embracing sadness itself, i turn somewhat feverish And the sky remains warm and beautiful"

This feeling that she says she can't explain, i strongly believe that it should be called 'Life'.

So for a crash course, entropy is basically the idea of thermal equilibrium from the laws of thermodynamics taken up a notch, that is, in a closed system, there's only a limited amount of energy that can be used, and everything that happens inside this system uses up that energy, turning it from usable to unusable. The more unusable energy there is, the more the entropy increases, until it reaches its highest point, that is, there's no more usable energy left in the system, which means it reached its state of equilibrium.

In a macroscopical level, it sort of goes into the idea that once something in the everything in the universe has been formed, it can only decay, a plant withers, mountains erode, stars burn up, galaxies run out of gas, etc, etc.

Life, though, always seeks to make more of itself, to keep its lineage going, even if yeah, it is futile in the grand scheme of things. Life is one of the, if not the only thing in this universe that doesn't just stay in place, waiting for its existence to burn out, but is always seeking to persist one way or another, "it'll find a way", and the song goes on to say exactly that:

"If a flower is only to wither once it blooms Then by planting its seeds it shall live on Doesn't that mean 'fate' never meant anything to begin with? So bloom with pride, and smile as you're scattered away."

Just as there is meaning to life persisting in the face of the cold and uncaring universe, there is meaning to keeping your head up and being kind in the face of the struggles of the world, because it is exactly our sorrows that drive us to keep on going and do better.

My Strategy! - the challenges of the day

information war!

Something i find really clever about this song is how it's about this philosophy of self discipline and being proactive about your tasks, but not in a particularly positive way, but rather how it's a very "unhuman" way to go about things. And with that in mind, the instrumentals and main melody line being very Wafuu makes you wonder what exactly she could be refering to... hmmm."

I really like the little bridge with the beat change, not only because it sounds kinda cool, but also because i think it has the best verse of the song:

"The aim of self reflection is to keep the laziness of daily life in check Such a drastic kaizen doesn't allow aimlessness or personal involvement. This system of perfection goes... against levelheaded thinking. 'Hey, hey', the unexpected goes, 'hey, hey', clogging up the mind"

("Kaizen" is a japanese philosophy of continuous self improvement, it's often left untranslated)

This song is very much about the self perpetuating duality of trying to conform to uptight standards, and how it makes intrusive thoughts all the more alluring, which characterizes the "information war" she mentions. Though while i have some ideas, i'm not really sure what exactly she refers to when she says "can i go even further with you?" in the chorus.

Also i wanna highlight this line in the first pre-chorus:

"Once i get dizzy from being too restless, i'll just sing me a song."

Hmmm....

Operation Z - the crushing routine

Ok i can't be the only one who listened to this one and immediately went "this is a Tokino Sora song", like, this is straight out of Futurity Step and it seriously surprised me that it wasn't one of the returning composers from that album.

I'm a bit conflicted about this song, because on one hand the lyrics are really interesting if you know AZKi, and also very relevant if you're in that same spot. But at the same time, the song itself doesn't do it for me, i don't know if it's because it comes right after another "cutesy" song with a similar theme, but this really isn't a song i see myself going out of my way to listen. Maybe it'll grow on me in time but i don't know i just don't feel it right now.

Which sucks because like i said, the lyrics are actually pretty interesting to get into with this one, like, some seriously stinging verses hidden under the cutesy upbeat vibe, for example, the first pre chorus:

"I'm taken by euphoria, and it doubles back on me With this rate of consumption, the faster my life goes The quicker its end comes for me. I can't breathe, and my voice won't come out anymore."

Or the first bridge:

"To those who can't find it in you to persevere any longer 'Just leave it to someone', 'it's alright to quit' Take up a bargain on this big sale of words of comfort. Saying 'take it easy' is the default Believing that 'will conquers' marks the post mortem phase Working hard is just worthless pay? I'm half body, half spirit."

To me, this one is a "corporate drone" anthem, highlighting just how much this high-movement, high-stress life absolutely sucks, not being able to fully appreciate the small moments of bliss because everything is just going by so fast. There is some hope in the last leg of the song, but it actually surprised me just how pessimistic this one is.

I'm not sure what to make of the title, but my best guess is that it would be a name for this system that creates zombies out of people, seeing how they're alive, but not living. It's actually frightening that this is actually a real thing that happens.

I don't think it'll ever happen but i would love to hear a remix of this, i really feel like this one has banger potetial given a new arrangement.

Chaotic inner world - rejecting conformity

Died 2021 - Born 2024. Welcome back, AZKi BLaCK

And this is what i mean when i say Operation Z has banger potential, because the lyrics in this one follow right after the themes of the previous two tracks, and just absolutely knocks it out of the park with it, like goddang this song feels good to hear.

It sort of reminds me of "Rotated • Repeated" with how you're taken along by the piano to this very unusual and uneven intro, with the sudden stops throwing you off balance, and right when you feel like you get the hang of it, it cuts off to go into the verse.

And also, i love how encompassing the drums are on this one, they have that drier character that you usually find in metal songs, so the kick really punches right though directly on your face, while the cymbals overload your ears with how their sizzle sort of blends into the underlying synth line. The instrumentals complement the lyrics perfectly with this one and i love it.

Speaking of lyrics, for how intense this song is, the lyrics are actually pretty positive, but what's cool about them is that both the lines themselves and AZKi's BLaCK voice have this kind of smug feel to them, so it sort of gives off a vibe of "you know all the stuff that the previous two songs were about? Yeah i say f*** that."

This one line is particularly interesting to me:

"What meaning is there to get drunk on temperature? Beyond purity lies a dark, dark oath."

I'm not super sure on this, but i feel like this references the previous two songs directly, and i guess the whole motif of focusing on her voice. Like, the previous two songs were pretty happy sounding, but turned out to be pretty serious, something you don't get to if all you're listening to is her voice as a musical instrument, which goes on to apply to AZKi's music, or even just music as a whole.

"Will i reach you if it's through my voice? Will my voice reach farther and farther? Can you believe me? Will you believe me? I want you to believe. All this time i've been singing my truth, that i know for sure that you'll accept."

I also really love how the chorus goes right against that bridge in Operation Z about shallow niceties:

"Inner world, it's branches may be infinte, but i still want to come across you at the end of times. Though expectations are high, there it'll be made even. So what do you say of a dream that offers a sharp gratitude? Inner world, again and again, the lies will lose, and real feelings will win. So i see right through those pretty falsehoods, and indulge myself in this chaotic dream."

Going by what was said in My Strategy!, i'm assuming that the "chaotic dream" refers to the true intentions and desires that she has deep within that she's supposed to ignore in order to conform to the system of perfection, the chaotic and colorful self that's at odds with the grey and uniform world she rejects.

Dunno where this fits in the day though, i 100% lost the plot already...

Akenai Yoru ga Atta Nara - nightfall

This has to be up there as the most AZKi of AZKi songs, like i can't explain it well but i feel like this one is the most upfront she has been with the "i have a lot to deal with but i'll sing as long as i can make someone happy" theme that so many of her songs have.

Peep the duality between the first verse and the chorus:

"Ahh, this night doesn't seem to belong to me With only the stars twinkling up high to illuminate. I could never become as beautiful as them But tonight still, i sing to keep myself going" If the night were to be neverending I'd want to simply melt away and disappear If there was a night that was neverending Then i wouldn't have to become a shining star I wouldn't need to become a shining star."

Very interestingly, not only does the crux of this song goes back to "End Roll wa Owaranai" and "canopus", but even instrumentally they're very similar, like seriously, try putting the three of them next to each other in a playlist, it's actually crazy how well they flow together.

Also in the same vein as the aforementioned songs, i need to praise the rhythm section on this one, the drums are super crisp with beautiful sounding hits, and i love the slap bass during the little instrumental break at the middle.

There's this stinging slice of realism with this song, where she seems to accept that she can't be perfect, she can't be the brightest star in the sky, and that life will just go on like that.

"I've always had trouble with words, and the only thing i've gotten better at is sighing."

But the one thing that she holds on to amidst all that is singing, despite her realizations, she also knows that singing is a part of her, that she pretty much needs it to live, as she said so herself once and says again in the very last line of the song. Though she wants her voice to reach other people, and she wants to shine even if not as the brightest, the one person who needs to be satisfied the most by her music is herself.

"Every time i'm hurt, i'm made aware that i'm of a different kind But still i will sing with all my heart."

I really love the bridge of this song, where she describes something that is "hopeful, ephemeral, optimistic, but surely beautiful", which following songs like "Inochi", she is 100% talking about herself here and i for one couldn't agree more.

Shine bright, Canopus.

Étranger - evening

This one is my favorite, like it gave me goosebumps the first time i heard it, AZKi's voice just goes so perfectly with strings, and the song itself has this very pretty atmosphere that really got to me, the way it feels so gallant and magical reminds me of "petal dance" from the previous album, i certainly wouldn't mind hearing more of this in the future.

The lyrics on this one are possibly the most interesting, since while i do think there's a mainline interpretation, they feel vague enough that they can be taken multiple ways, which gives the song different flavors depending of which way you look. The crux of is the idea of longing for someone you can't meet, but it's not super clear how you relate to this person, so it can be someone who died, someone you know who is far away, or even someone you don't know who you look up to.

The first pre-chorus in particular caught my eye:

"With no words, and no way to get hurt You're as an étranger, my beloved."

For one it seems to call back to the previous song, where there's both mentions of not having a way with words, and having realizations upon getting hurt. But it also reminds me of "afterglow" and how in that song you can take the "your memories of me fade away" theme as both someone being so out of your life that they feel like a stranger, and also as someone who has reached their second death, as they say, from being forgotten after their passing.

The second pre-chorus, too:

"Before i knew it, the stars spread out throughout the sky. It's a panorama that waits for you, and only you. Fluttering beyond the clouds The image of it is so comforting."

I can see this as someone who's risen to the stars in both senses of the phrase, and i can't settle for a single interpretation.

In and of itself, it's interesting that the song keeps unclear what the relationship between the two concerned people is, which the first line of the chorus captures well.

"Even though you're here next to me, your being couldn't be further away"

It's impossible to truly know someone, be that someone you're closely related to, or just someone who feels close by some means or another (like an idol, for example). Conversely, we carry the people close to us that died near to our hearts, even though they're not here anymore. Each and any of these points of view are completely valid, and it's really cool to me how the song manages to encompass all of them.

Gogo 8ji no Chorus Song - night

This song will not leave my head and i love that.

This is the reddest AZKi ReD has been since "Intersection", like this is undoubtedly the most "basking in the night city lights" out of all the "basking in the night city lights" songs she has (which dang there's actually quite a handful of those).

While i do love the synth instrumentation in the rest of the song, i wish the song had more of what we got in the very beginning, like, her singing with the pitched down harmony to give the impression of a chorus, together with the hand claps and drums have this really, i don't know how to put it, "raw music" (?) vibe that really gets you listening, and when the little piano accents come, it's just straight up magical and i need to hear more of it.

Thematically, this song i think seems to be the continuation of "Akenai Yoru..." and the idea of the value that there is to sing, i mean the driving point of this one is "it doesn't even have to mean anything, just the act of singing itself is worth something", which is where the main scat line comes from. I particularly like how Akenai Yoru had the line of "I've always had trouble with words, and the only thing i've gotten better at is sighing.", while the first pre chorus and chorus of this one go:

"While there's a lot i want to talk to you about But rather than words, i'll use these overflowing feelings of mine..." "So resound, my symphony Through this melody we both felt I don't need words or even common sense, see? As long as i can sing with you."

Then the second verse has this very heartwarming callback to Entropy:

"C'mon, look around at what permeates this night Each and every single one of those glimmers Has the kind thought of 'let's be someone's light' Which binds them together."

The glimmers here obviously refers to the night lights, but i also interpret them as the stars themselves, and how in the previous two songs they could be seen as people like AZKi herself, who shine through the night for the sake of others. If we think of either the lit nightscape of the city, or the light of the stars themselves, it gives off the idea that the glimmers, united in their desire to illuminate, are never really alone, and i think that's very sweet.

Now if you'll excuse me, i'll be singing "la-li-lat-tas-sta-li-la, fal-li-lat-tas-stel-lo-li-hee" for the remainder of the year

Yoru no Rinkaku - bedtime

This song hurts.

The one way i can most effectively describe how this one feels is being completely out of energy, and completely alone, with only your thoughts to torment you. This song to me is about being exhausted, not just physically, but of everything, of living, of pushing forwards, of trying to be better. It's like the crash from all the tracks so far, where she's left to deal with the toll of all the things she's done and went through, and it's painfully overwhelming. I think the second verse conveys this the best:

"This unneeded heart grew so heavy that it can't be moved. Yet it comes to meet me as deep into the night. I again pretend not to see the yesterday i couldn't shake off, as it presses against me. I'm sorry i'm like this."

Despite being in pain in the way she is, it doesn't stop her from showing her "small and useless" kindness, but she then says that she pretends to be an adult and spew lies so that she doesn't forget that, and that hurts her as well. In the second pre chorus, she says:

"I haven't given up, and that's why it hurts I haven't given up, and that's why i hate it"

The main thing i got from this song is a feeling of helplessness out of feeling left alone in the dark, it doesn't seem to me like she knows here how to break free from this pain, or what she's supposed to do to overcome it, so she just laughs it away until, like the first line of the chorus says, she gets tired of it. And i think this is further displayed by the way she sings here, i mean AZKi is notorious for how she can convey emotion through her singing. But with this song, she sings very flat and reserved, like, there's no power behind her voice like there was in Akenai Yoru or Étranger, which gives this air of resignation to the song that really gets to me, in a "what can i even do?" sort of way.

One thing i find interesting is that the song evokes this feeling of isolation, with lines like "it's so nice not seeing anything up in the sky" or "I break/hide myself without anyone knowing", but at the same time, the song still seems to be directed at someone, with the first pre chorus saying that "it's so easy for you to not keep your promises no matter how hard you try", or the second pre chorus, "My front bangs that i grew out because you praised them, did i come to like them?". This being a song about the self, i wonder if she's talking in third person or if you could read these as actually being directed at someone, it's been bugging me and i'm not really sure.

I've been having a hard time putting thoughts to words for this one because to me this is really a song that you have to sit with and wholly pay attention to, like, it's meant to be felt just as much as it's meant to be listened to, and i've been noticing that i actually have a pretty tough time describing how things feel for me. So this is only like 50% of what i got out of the song, and even then i think this one in particular has a lot more to get into the more you listen to it.

map in the cup - the next day

I already loved this song when i heard it on her birthday live, but man, listening to it after all the other tracks, and the last one in particular, makes it even more meaningful and heartwarming than it already was.

I love how this one sort of comes full circle back to Lazy, in how it describes these rather mundane events in such a way that they feel special and filled with love and life. Also i don't know if it's just me, but when i first heard the title "map in the cup", it reminded me of tasseography (yeah i had to google this one), like just the idea that the random patterns forming on a tea cup can hold so much meaning over someone's life and future, i don't think that's where the song was going but it's been on my mind all this time.

The song's spirit of finding joy in the small things hits extra hard after how the last one feels like being crushed by the weight of the world, a particular detail of this one is that with each verse being set at a different time of day, it conveys the idea of taking things one step at a time, and unlike "Operation Z", where she was so busy, physically and mentally, that she barely even had time to eat, this one serves to show how it makes for a much more fulfilling day when you can take things slow, not to laze around, but to do the things you want to do, at the pace you're most comfortable with, which you see with how the main chorus ends each time with a drive to do something after being soothed by each drink:

"[...] I slowly drink it all up, and i'm off to face this day." "If i turn the pages of nature, will a new season greet me each time? I'm off to find that out with you." "[...] In comfort, my dreams greet me, and i'm off to face tomorrow"

Also, i love this part from the last chorus, which is set during nighttime

"It warms my heart, and as i look up at the starry sky I feel like i can fly anywere In my own secret trip through the universe's endless possibilities."

Coming right after how the last song's first line was about an empty sky and what that entails, it's safe to say i much more prefer this one.

Personal suggestion, but try putting this one right after "Weekend Milk" by HACHI on your playlist, i assure you listening to it after work on a friday night heals your very soul

Inochi (2024 ver.) - end credits

In hindsight, it's actually genius that this song was the lead single for the album, not only because it's Inochi and that alone has its weight, but listening to it after all the other tracks puts so much of this song, and this version in particular, in a new perspective.

I say that this one is the end credits because not only i think map in the cup already wraps up all the themes of the album, but because with credit songs they're usually those themes in a more lyrical packaging, in order to really drive the point home, and i think this song, in the context of the album, serves that very purpose, like i don't feel like it continues the themes so much as it just talks about them, hence end credits.

The line "a life according to your mood" hits particularly hard here, since what i would say is the common throughline between all the songs so far is different aspects of life and how you choose or is made to position yourself in relation to that. This is a song that is directed not to a "you" within the lyrics, but directly to the listener, and in this context, i feel like this song is just as much about your life than it is of hers, like, it's AZKi encouraging you to think about how the song and this album applies to yourself and your experiences.

And so we get another perspective on the change from this to the original version, thinking back to Entropy and the idea of persisting, of being someone's light even when things are rough, While this version still doesn't deny that things end and that's just how it is, it doesn't do so with the tone of melancholy that the original does, "just the fact that you're smiling right now makes it worth it", as this version goes on to say.

You may not be the brightest star in the sky, you may not be free of the hardships and pain that all of us are saddled with, and you may still be part of this society that makes zombies out of people, but if through your efforts for your kindness to persevere through it all, you were able to shine some light on someone else's situation, then even if all that's left for you is to wither away, your blossoming was not at all meaningless.

That is the feeling of life.

... So uh, yeah, those are some of my thoughts on Route If, not all of them because otherwise i would be yapping here forever, but the ones i could most coherently put into writing. I'm finishing this up around a month after the album came out and i'm still over the moon with having this and the live concert within a week of each other so my mind is a big mess of AZKi related thoughts right now.

Speaking of the concert, i decided to make another one of those big compilation posts for the concerts on this second half of the year, so there will be a big post for that one too, it's just not gonna be out for a while.

Apart from tracks 3 and 4 not being my cup of tea instrumentally, i'm very satisfied with the album coming after Re:Creating World, though yeah, i would've loved to hear more AZKi BLaCK, i feel like she's really in her element in regards to her singing on this one, like she really honed down what makes her voice so compelling and is really capitalizing on it, and it has me very excited to see what directions she might be taking in the future.

AZKichi Big Love ❤

[broken-clover]

oh? Don't like Tamers? It ain't my favorite either but usually people like it, any particular reason? Or is it like me with 02, just a general dislike you can't place?

Huh, amazed to realize I haven't actually aired my grievances with it on here before. Peculiar.

So this is absolutely going to turn into a long post, apologies in advance, but the ultimate thesis of fundamental issues I have with Tamers is that it sets out to be a dark deconstruction of a 'Mons series but does very little that's interesting or compelling with it.

(Full disclosure, most of what I have seen of Tamer is the dub version. I have seen a few portions of it in its original Japanese, but not all of it. Due to that, it is entirely possible that some of my issues with the season are better addressed there- however, I have also been told that Tamers was the most faithful dub done thusfar with very little changes made)

I'll try to format into bullets for the sake of cleanliness

-First and foremost, one of the main differentiating factors in Tamers compared to prior seasons is supposedly that Digimon do die when defeated as opposed to being reborn. That's supposed to be a lot of what makes this season 'dark' but I can't help but find it flawed. Characters dying was already pretty important to the first two seasons, even when it came to the Digimon themselves- heck, Wizardmon by himself was one of the most impactful losses in the series overall, and he was never reborn due to having died in the human world. It's hard to feel like this is such an abrupt change to the status quo when it was present in the first season. Not to the same severity, sure, but it feels like far less of a brazen change.

-(Even without straight-up permadeath, the other seasons were still able to have plenty of threats and terrible fates! Even if they would come back later, characters dying was still something treated with weight and sorrow instead of being brushed off. I know it's heavily opinionated, but just having 'and then a character dies' as the end-all be-all bad end starts to feel dull and uninteresting after long enough. I feel like a similar example to this is with the dub version of Yu-Gi-Oh! Shadow Realm jokes aside, it at least offered something a little different as opposed to the more liberal use of killing in the source material. Limitation breeds creativity.)

-In general, I'm just not a huge fan of Konaka's style. That's much more of a personal thing than an actual issue. I think he tends to rely more on atmosphere and dark motifs rather than substance. It feels sort of like his style is an actual example of the mentality that 'Evangelion and Madoka Magica are just edgy deconstructions for the sake of being edgy' that is still alive today, despite the fact that both examples use that deconstruction to say something and make a point.

-(I feel that his work tends to lack a similar sense of substance in Tamers. It's also very hard to not bring up his increasing fixation on conspiracy theories and rallying against 'political correctness' and 'cancel culture' over the last decade or so. While I know those don't overtly tie into Tamers, in hindsight it's easy to see some of those themes in a slighter sense, and in general it just sours a lot of his work in hindsight)

-Explicitly making the first two seasons fictional in-universe made little sense to me. While I don't have an issue with that fundamentally, it's that it completely borks up the timeline when Ryo gets introduced later and how any of that is supposed to work just never gets explained or clarified

-Actually yeah on that note lemme skip ahead and talk about Ryo. I know sixth ranger-types that get added later are common to this series but in my opinion he's easily one of the worst implemented. He might've been neat as a cameo, but he instead ends up being a main character for the last leg of the series. He's a canon foreigner from the Wonderswan games, which only so many people would have been familiar with, but neither his presence in Tamers nor the plot of the Wonderswan titles are given much explanation to get newcomers up to speed on who he is or what his relevance is. He's just kinda here

-He also doesn't really do much to make up for his late introduction and lack of explanation. Really it mostly feels like his main role is to be good at everything, especially in regard to being the one guy that's better at the card game than Rika. While I know a lot of her character development was about learning humility, a lot of that had already been done by the time he showed up, and it feels like an underhanded way of making her appear weaker.

-The cards. I think it could've been a half-decent series gimmick, I mean Xros Wars did something similar and kept it consistent, but that consistency was lacking in Tamers and led it to feel half-baked. The cards served a purpose in a few instances, mostly for evolution, but the modification aspect feels poorly integrated and isn't really used much in the latter half of the season

-The Digital World isn't majorly developed in the story. Which sucks, because I really liked the approach they took to it! It was distinctly different from the Adventure series', being more alien and unsettling. We get information on how it was formed, but I felt it lacked a lot of punch given that we see so little of it.

-The whole arc with the Devas just kinda...stops. We get 90% of the way through and follow them into the Digital World to confront their master (or at least one of them) and then the fight just gets cut off. If we were just gonna be able to have a peaceful resolution and collaboration with Zhuqiaomon anyway why did we go to the trouble of building him up as an antagonist and slaughtering several of his minions. Are none of the Devas especially bothered that several of their underlings just died? Are we going to analyze any implications of their deaths instead of just brushing them off?

-I do love Calumon, I thought his antics were cute, but fundamentally his main purpose was to be a plot trinket.

-Kazu and Kenta were mostly useless to the plot and didn't have much character development, there wasn't much bonding between them and their partners, MarineAngemon was pretty overpowered and it's not explained why a side character is the only one to have a Mega-level as their default partner.

-There are twice as many secondary characters as main characters and almost none of them get much character development. Many times while watching I would think to myself 'why are you even here'

-I think Jeri's arc was interesting in theory, but implemented a little oddly. I felt like her main purpose in the series was to have bad things happen to her and there was a point partway through the D-Reaper arc where it started to feel excessive. I don't understand the point of psychologically tormenting a 10/12 year old for several episodes straight to the point where they try to kill themselves on-screen. She was simultaneously very important to the final arc of the series but does very little of her own volition aside from being a prisoner in need to rescue.

And don't get me wrong, there are things I think the season does very well! I liked Impmon's arc, I like the smaller primary cast allowing for more interpersonal moments and a closer bond between tamers and partners, while also giving the 'Mons themselves a lot more fleshed out personalities compared to the past two seasons (in particular both Rika and Renamon were highlights in term of character development by themselves and with each other), I like the heavier use of computer motifs, and I'm not wholly opposed to the darker tone it tried to go for.

But I think a decent amount of my dislike comes from the sheer amount of praise this season gets. I'd be fine accepting it as a flawed yet ambitious offering that offers plenty of its own original flair, but I constantly see people call it the 'best season by far' pretty much entirely because of its darker themes. I feel it tends to get overhyped for its 'grittiness' despite not implementing it all that well or feeling like it does much meaningful with that darker tone aside from using it for shock value. To me Tamers symbolizes a lot of the internet's tendency to go 'darker = more adult = inherently better than something more 'childish'' so that tends to sour my view of it quite a bit. I just wish its flaws were looked at more often, because I feel fans tend to be a lot more critical of the other seasons and Tamers doesn't get that kind of scrutiny

[stick-named-figure]

quick post on the music in episode 22: parkour.

i have work i need to be doing but i can't stop thinking about the music here. it's not a complete analysis, there's a call that's repeated but i'm not sure why and i need to find out.

so first of all, i look like this right now. remember i don't care whether an artistic choice was an accident or a non-choice. no just blue curtains in this house.

anyway. this episode does REALLY well with music. scott buckley did a great job on the score. i'll give buckley a handshake and a trophy any day of the week.

use the video as needed, because i'm going to be providing timestamps.

the start of the music is really nice. i'm not sure what quality it is but it sounds a lot like the older minecraft music. the quiet marimba just hits different.

anyway. green is the first one to notice that something's wrong. green's very observant, but that observation also seems to be directly connected to purple. the running melody that appears at 0:44 is on a clarinet, the instrument that's directly tied to green. it comes to a peak as red tries to jump over the piglin and moves into a string section's part, though i can't tell whether it's a violin section or a viola. might just be a "string section" sound.

i don't have much to say about that part (musically. i have plenty of autism i need to get out about how the stick figures handle themselves in this entire video, but that's going to be 30 minutes worth of reading time stuff), because the real reason i wanted to write this post is the part where king is revealed.

at 1:48, purple walks towards king as a much slower ascending violin section plays. it slows as king is revealed fully. there's a cute little reference at 2:06 to "in the hall of the mountain king" by edvard grieg as king has purple show off the minecraft maps with king's plan on them. obviously the crown and everything tells us what king is, but the musical nod is nice too.

anyway the post is about that melody at 1:48. it only plays fully once, it's a four bar melody. every other time it plays it's cut short or modified. the next time we hear it is at 2:45, as orange decides to jump off the platform. the music as orange runs through the looping section goes hard btw.

after that, there's more musical build up as the screen reveals what the place the stick figures are in actually looks like. that reveal makes me go wild. really good. also king's reveal. that goes crazy.

also the dead silence as it's shown king's been drawing little pictures for AT LEAST 4 minutes straight is so fucking funny. purple is bored out of their fucking mind watching this old guy draw for 4 minutes.

the imperial march rhythm at 5:08 is nice too. king later uses "forceHold" on green. that's not an actual command. it's just a reference to star wars.

the real exciting part is when purple tries to take off at 5:30, where that melody comes back again, and is again cut short as green tackles purple back down. it's cut short at the same point as when orange decided to jump off the platform, but this time there's a response, a descending violin section. ascension and descension are very important melodic types for purple, and i'll talk about that later when i can spare the time to finish my essay on episode 29.

the fourth time we hear it is at 5:50, when purple tries to take off and nearly escapes. the start is a bit muddled, but it's only 3 bars, an incomplete resolution for the melody we've been presented.

this melody is purple's. it's not their motif (that's in episode 29), and it's not king's, because king only gets the one usage of the melody. it plays fully when purple believes they've succeeded in the tasks that king has given them.

it's cut short when orange is the first one to escape the platform. it's cut short when green grabs them, and it's cut short again when green stops them.

it's a very good usage of theme. i really hope that motifs keep showing up in the ost because i love tearing them apart. yes i was into undertale.

[umbracirrus]

HEHEHE A, K, Q, AND S for the ask game please!!

Thank you!!! 😊

A: How did you come up with the title to [insert fic]?

I think that I'll answer this for my two posted fics about Elyse hehe.

The Perfect Storm - the plot in very simple terms is 'poor Elyse aand Balgruuf keep having all sorts of stuff getting stirred up, and they are going to come out of it in one of two ways: worn down and ruined, or stronger than ever having withstood the storm'. In hindsight that would've been an awesome description with a little tweaking of the wording.

Seeking the Sun - I liked the weather motif which I have established with The Perfect Storm, and had not long been listening to the Fire Emblem Three Houses soundtrack. The main theme started playing, and the lyrics 'I look to you like a red rose seeking the sun no matter where it goes' kind of just stuck with me. It also fits quite nicely with the general plot, in that Elyse has just moved to Skyrim to find a new happiness in her life after the losses of her parents.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

Ohhh that is absolutely the post-Oblivion main quest story which I have kind of on the backburner that I started writing a few months back based around one of my Heroes of Kvatch, Aelia.

In short, she and Martin fall for each other, they promise to get married once the Oblivion crisis is over, and then he goes and sacrifices himself. She's overcome with grief, refuses to leave Cloud Haven Temple... then makes an unfortunate discovery that Martin wouldn't have been the last of the Septim line, because she was pregnant with his child. And that leads to a long, spiralling path into the madness which results in her ending up as Sheogorath.

Q: Do you have any discarded scenes/storylines/projects?

Hmmm, I do have a storyline which I'm not certain if I have discarded yet, but had been toying around with the idea of...

An arranged marriage between the Thieves Guild guildmaster Dragonborn, and Hemming Black-Briar, which comes about as a form of... insurance to keep the guild firmly in Maven's hands once the guild starts trying to distance itself from her manipulations. It gets forced into place by Hemming hiring people to sabotage the guild, and then placing the idea into Maven's head so that he could 'have' the Dragonborn, though the Dragonborn was actually in a relationship with one of Brynjolf or Karliah when it comes to pass.

I did have a plot point written down in the first outlines for The Perfect Storm which has since been discarded in favour of something else, and funnily enough, it also has to do with Riften. Elyse and Balgruuf were originally going to get married in secret at the Temple of Mara if anything to give Elyse greater securities that could only really be afforded to Jarls and their families, as well as to give her some breathing room from everything going on... but it ended up very badly timed, as Ulfric just so happened to be visiting Riften on official Stormcloak business with Jarl Laila. I've since remembered that Season Unending was a Thing, and Riften is now in Imperial hands in the fic so I scrapped that idea in favour of another.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

I certainly have a few. There was only one bed is definitely one of them, as is pretend relationships that become real ones. As is enemies to lovers, there's all sorts of flavours to that! I mean, Elyse's parents theoretically are an enemies to lovers couple, in that Ingja perceived Edwyn as an enemy, her being a resident of Winterhold and him being a member of the College and her blaming him and the College for Winterhold falling apart.

I also love some AUs, specifically ones which have just a slight twist to what is typical. For example, a few weeks back in September/October, I was very into the concept of 'what if Balgruuf was a vampire' AU. Still not finished that. Maybe for next halloween... I also like the thought of 'what if they weren't Dragonborn/didn't find out that they were Dragonborn' AUs for my Dragonborn characters.

[gamejoypod]

Top 5 pieces of boss music?

Alright, here come the 5 most predictable answers to anyone who knows anything about me; in no particular order. I'll link to the music in the titles of each.

*These are subject to change anytime effective immediately after posting, these are just the top 5 at top-of-mind and I fully reserve the right to forget some of my favorites

**Spoilers under the cut for: Dark Souls III, NieR Replicant, FF7R **

Soul Of Cinder - Dark Souls III

I've rambled before at length (here) why I love the reprise of Gwyn's theme at the end of the DS series. It's such a great bookend, you fight backward through time against all the chosen undead and bearers of the curse before you, all the way back to the one who threw the entire cosmology of this world off its axis.

Song of The Ancients / Fate - NieR Replicant 1.22...

I'm such a sucker for a piece or motif that grows and shifts over the course of a game, as it gains more context and meaning. The power behind the twins' duet in this version makes the following scenes heartbreaking. I get misty eyed every time.

Abyssal Star - Monster Hunter World: Iceborne

Namielle's theme is the musical equivalent of capturing an entire sea storm in 360° 8K from the deck of an old 3 mast ship. Every choice in arrangement, scoring and gesture sells the idea of wind, rain, waves, electricity, lightning, and unfathomably deep sea waters perfectly. Namielle's designers and composers completely snapped when they made this Elder Dragon.

Contact With You - Armored Core 6

I talked a lot about this one in this post. Learning to play AC6 properly against Balteus this track in my ear changed me. Sublime. Listen for the single major chord near the end.

One Winged Angel - SPECIFICALLY from FF7 Remake

Ok, the thing is; I never played FF7 growing up, so I don't have nostalgia goggles for One Winged Angel. I've just heard it time and time again through cultural osmosis and when it pops up in other media. It's a certified banger of a boss theme.

BUT

The thing that shook me about the FF7R version how the the game spends its entire runtime teasing you with little bits and pieces of OWA, drip feeding you with snippets of music it knows you know is an omen of something very very bad coming. And then! ....It sounds off? You finally face off against Sephiroth and his theme is rearranged, remixed. Parts are shuffled around and cut short, but it still sounds great. Great, but wrong. It never even does the BUM! BUM! BUM! BUM! thing.

UNTIL! Sephiroth catches Cloud at swordpoint and it becomes extremely clear he was toying with you up until now and THEN OWA starts over, playing in full, in order, in glorious remastered terror. It condensed the 23 years of fear I should have felt towards Sephiroth and blasted it into my brain over the course of 15-20 minutes. I'll never forget how cold it made my blood run when the REAL theme started.

[dominoe]

yall........ look at her......

[ameliterature]

TODD TIME TRAVELLER THEORY/HC

I was eventually gonna make this into an angst fic but I JUST NEED TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT (I also have a different plot device so this wont spoil it)

OKAY SO, at the very start of Todd's stay in his room like--

Todd synced his watch/clock together at THIS MOMENT, where Neil's father first ruined Neil's entire school year, removing his School Annual membership.

Still fixing it when he's invited to the study group as well

Then literally the next shot is the clock chiming (time/clock motif)

The central theme also of the movie is Making use of what little time you have left on earth with something that means a lot to you

Don't waste your time not doing something that'll make you truly alive.

They further emphasize this with classes reminding them of "DUE DATES, TOMORROW, THIS IS DUE BY THE END OF THE SEMESTER" further reminding us of "how little time" they have but they have so much to do.

(no image available cuz tumblr said i cant have more photos lmao)

(LONG POST SORRY, keep reading)

Keating of course connects Death and Time together. You'll never know what your life truly was until you come to die. (The Dead Poets' opening poem; "When I came to die, discover I have not lived")

So while Todd was having his gay panic TM, he says he needs to study History... HMMM WHY?? DO YOU NEED IT FOR TIMETRAVEL???? /hj

But homeboy's next scene is him doing this 'promotional dps ad, obligatory motto of the movie, cliche commercial writing of Seize the Day'. BUT HOHOHOH LOOK, a watch, it's also clear in the audio; the watch Ticking faster and faster as he writes the words "Seize the Day". So yeah, I once thought this was cheesy, but like-- He literally HAS to SEIZE THE DAY or else--

I know this is a continuity error but:

This could imply Todd either:

tried to join them but chickened out so he studies alone

or this is a paradox todd and there are 2 twos in the same timeline cuz he was time travellig LMAOOOO

Ok so, ALSO TODD is the Time Keeper for the DPS meetings, JUST SAYING

Todd has got a lot of... time in his hands hahaha OK ANYWAY

if you also read/saw the full verision of todd's POEM

Our boy uses the words for time a lot. "Yesterday, tomorrow, a new day, future" and the title of his poem is probably "And Still We Sleep" and he read this AFTER Neil's play, when he was out of time :( he slept on his chance laksjdlkasjdlks

EVEN HIS IMPROV POEM IS TIME RELATED

We're on TODD'S TIMELINE because we're given his birthday. It happens at the mid point of the movie and most likely the mid point of the semester. Also helps cuz he's gonna remember this year A LOT.

Also ok before neil's final shot we get a shot (hehe) of Mr. Perry and his watch, very sus, but like, we're also focusing on the last TIME Mr. Perry had a son-- oof

ALSO, TODD LOOKS AT THE CLOCK BEFORE HE HAS TO SIGN THE DOCUMENT

And ok, anyway the movie ENDS with Todd's face too. the END of the movie, end of that experience for US.

We're asked to remember Todd like remembering our time, remember moments when we did or didn't do something interesting with our time.

But also.... like... if Todd could do it over, he'd go back to the time he first fixed his watch so he could get to know Neil all over again...

Or imagine him in an endless loop of trying to save Neil, every iteration he loses him somehow or ruins something if Neil is alive; in order for things to truly be in order, he had to stop messing with TIME.

This post is getting too long, I'll make another TimeTraveller!Todd post again later, I need to eat lmaooo

(part 2 in reblogs)

[cappymightwrite]

Jon Snow, Manfred & The Byronic Hero: Part 2

Previous Posts: PART 1

Hopefully Part 1 served as a good introduction on the topic and characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as how Jon Snow in particular is likely an iteration of this figure. But now we come to the real meat of this meta series — a closer look at Byron's dramatic poem Manfred (1816–1817), and more importantly, its titular character in comparison to Jon Snow. I was originally going to do an analysis and comparison of two key episodes in Manfred and A Storm of Swords, Jon VI, but have since decided to give that its own post... that's right kids, there will be a part 3!

(Detail from Lord Byron, Thomas Phillips, 1813)

So... why Manfred? Why not Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, or The Corsair, or Don Juan, or any other work by Lord Byron? Well, I'll tell you why, my sweet summer children. It's because of THIS:

Manfred/Manfryds and Byrons in ASOIAF, by order of first appearance and publication:

Ser Manfred Swann (ASOS, Jaime VIII)

Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Manfred Lothston (The Sworn Sword)

Manfryd o' the Black Hood (AFFC, Brienne I)

Manfryd Yew (AFFC, Jaime V)

Ser Byron the Beautiful (AFFC, Alayne II, TWOW, Alayne I)

Ser Byron Swann (ADWD, Tyrion III)

Manfryd Merlyn of Kite (ADWD, Victarion I)

Manfryd Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool (The Princess and the Queen, TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (Fire and Blood)

Like... what the hell, George?

I find this very interesting, very interesting indeed! *cough* intentional, very intentional *cough* And I have to thank @agentrouka-blog for reminding me of the existence of these Manfreds/Manfryds, and thus pointing me in this particular direction. This evidence is, for me, my smoking gun, it's why I feel justified in exploring this specific work. In my opinion, it really strongly confirms that GRRM is aware of Manfred, he is aware of its author — as a literary name, it is pretty much exclusively connected to Byron, it's like Hamlet to Shakespeare, or Heathcliff to Emily Brontë. In fact, GRRM likes it enough to use this name several times in fact, its frequency of use aided by a slight variation on its spelling.

So, as we can see, there are a striking number of Manfred/Manfryds (9!!) featured in the ASOIAF universe, whereas Byron (2) is used a bit more sparingly — perhaps because the latter, if more liberally used, would become far more recognisable as an overt literary reference? Interestingly, though, we can see a direct link between the two names as both bear the surname Swann: Ser Manfred Swann and Ser Byron Swann (note the exact spelling of Manfred here, as opposed to Manfryd). Ser Byron was alive during the Dance of Dragons and died trying to kill the dragon Syrax, whereas Ser Manfred was alive during Aegon V's reign and had a young Ser Barristan as his squire. So, in terms of ancestry, Byron came before Manfred, which makes sense since Lord Byron created the character of Manfred; he is his authorial/literary progenitor, if you will.

But why Swann, though? Is there any significance to that surname? Well, I did a little bit of digging and turned up something very interesting, at least in my opinion. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818), in its sixth stanza, the poet addresses the city of Venice... the “tempest-cleaving Swan” in the eighth line is clearly meant to be his friend and contemporary, Lord Byron, that city’s most famous expatriate:

That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee;

(st. 6, l. 8-12)

Ah ha! But let's not forget that the Swanns are also a house from the stormlands — stormlander Swanns vs. "tempest-cleaving Swan." It seems a nice little homage, doesn't it? You could also argue that the battling swans of House Swann's sigil are a possible reference to Byron's fondness for boxing (he apparently received "pugilistic tuition" at a club in Bond Street, London). But to make the references to Byron too overt would ruin the subtly, so it isn't necessary, in my opinion, for the Swanns to be completely steeped in Byronisms.

All in all, it would be very neat of GRRM if the reasoning behind Byron and Manfred Swann is because of this reference to Lord Byron by Shelley. How these names and the characters that bear them might further reference Byron and Manfred is a possible discussion for another day! It's all just very interesting, very noteworthy, and highlights how careful GRRM is at choosing the names of his characters, even very minor, seemingly insignificant ones.

(Illustration of Villa Diodati from Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron, Edward Finden, 1833)

Now onto the actual poem, and the ways in which Jon Snow could being referencing/paralleling Manfred. First things first, a bit of biographical context. Take my hand, and let's travel back in time, way back when, to 1816, the year in which Lord Byron left England forever, his reputation in tatters due to the collapse of his marriage and the rumours of an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh (plus he was hugely in debt). No doubt, most of us are familiar with the story, but in 1816 Byron travelled to Switzerland, to a villa on Lake Geneva, where he met the Shelleys and suggested that they all pass the time by writing ghost stories.

The most famous story produced by them was, of course, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) — which may have served as the partial inspiration behind Qyburn and Robert Strong! Byron himself did begin a story but soon gave it up (yesss, we love an unproductive king); it was completed, however, by his personal physician, John William Polidori, and eventually published, under Byron's name, as The Vampyre (1819). But Byron didn't completely abandon the ghost story project, as later that summer, after a visit by the Gothic novelist M. G. Lewis, he wrote his "supernatural" tragedy, Manfred (1817).*

*I've seen it dated as 1816-17, but the crucial thing to rememeber, in terms of Byron's own biography, is that unlike The Bride of Abydos, he wrote it after his departure from England... this theme of exile will come up later.

Manfred is what is called a "closet drama", so is structured much like a play, with acts and scenes, though it wouldn't have actually been intended to be performed on stage. Indeed, Lord Byron first described Manfred to his publisher as "a kind of poem in dialogue... but of a very wild—metaphysical—and inexplicable kind": "Almost all the persons—but two or three—are Spirits... the hero [is] a kind of magician who is tormented by a species of remorse—the cause of which is left half unexplained—he wanders about invoking these spirits—which appear to him—& are of no use—he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil principle in propria persona [i.e. in person]—to evocate a ghost—which appears—& gives him an ambiguous & disagreeable answer..."*

*As in Part 1, more academic references will be listed in a bibliography at the end of this post.

To sum up the narrative for you, Manfred is a nobleman living in the Bernese Alps, "tormented by a species of remorse", which is never fully explained, but is clearly connected to the death of his beloved Astarte. Through his mastery of poetic language and spell-casting, he is able to summon seven "spirits", from whom he seeks the gift of forgetfulness, but this plea cannot be granted — he cannot escape from his past. He is also prevented from escaping his mysterious guilt by taking his own life, but in the end, Manfred does die, thus defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. He therefore stands outside of societal expectations, a Romantic rebel who succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative powers he faces, ultimately choosing death over submission to the powerful spirits.

According to Lara Assaad, the character of Manfred is the "Byronic hero par excellence", as he shares its typical characteristics found in Byron's other work (as discussed in Part 1), "yet pushed to the extreme." As noted above, there is a defiance to Manfred's character, which is arguable also found in Jon. Certainly though, in all of Byron's works, the Byronic Hero appears as "a negative Romantic protagonist" to a certain extent, a being who is "filled with guilt, despair, and cosmic and social alienation," observes James B. Twitchell. I'll come back to those characteristics presently.

As noted by Assaad, "Byron scholars seem to agree on this definition of the Byronic Hero, however they focus mainly, if not exclusively, on the dynamics of guilt and remorse." Indeed, it is only in more recent years that the incest motif, as well as the influence of Byron's own biography, have been more widely discussed. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the Byronic Hero is his complex psychology. Although trauma theory only really started to flourish during the 1990s, thus providing deeper insight into the symptoms that follow a traumatic experience, it nevertheless seems, at least to Assaad, that "Byron was familiar with it well before it was first discussed by professionals and diagnosed." As we know, GRRM began writing his series, A Song of Ice and Fire, during the 1990s, and character trauma and its effects feature heavily in his work, most notably in the case of Theon Greyjoy, but also in the memory editing of Sansa Stark in terms of the infamous "Unkiss".*

*The editing, or supressing, of memories is not exclusive to Sansa, however. E.g @agentrouka-blog has theorised a possible memory edit with regards to Tyrion and his first wife Tysha.

But if we return back to that original quote, in which GRRM makes the comparison between Jon and the Byronic Hero, his following statement is also very interesting:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

As noted by @princess-in-a-tower, there is a close correspondence between Jon and Theon, with each acting as the other's foil in many respects. In fact, Theon does sort of tick off a few of the Byronic qualities I discussed last time, most notably standing apart from society, that "society" being the Starks in Winterfell, due to him essentially being a hostage. Later on, we see him develop a sense of deep misery as well due to his horrific treatment at the hands of Ramsey Snow. Like Theon, his narrative foil, Jon is also a character deeply informed by trauma (being raised a bastard), but the way they ultimately process and express that specific displacement trauma differs profoundly — Theon expresses it outwardly through his sacking of Winterfell, whereas Jon turns his trauma notably inwards.*

*Obviously, I'm not a medical professional — I'm more looking at this from a literary angle, but the articles I've read for this post do include reference to real medical definitions etc.

Previously, I observed how being "deeply jaded" and having "misery in his heart" were key characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as Jon Snow — this trauma theory is a continuation of that. Indeed, to bring it back to Manfred, Assaad goes as far as stating that the poem's titular hero "suffers from what is now widely recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)." I am purposely holding off on discussing what the origin of that trauma is, in relation to Manfred specifically, because, well... it needs a bit of forewarning before I get into it fully. Instead, let's look at the emotions it exacerabates or gives rise to, as detailed by Twitchell, and how they might be evident in Jon and his feelings regarding his bastard status.

(Jonny Lee Miller as Byron in the two part BBC series Byron, 2003)

Guilt

Does Jon suffer guilt due to him being a bastard and secretly wanting to "steal" his siblings' birthright? I'd say a strong yes:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. – ASOS, Jon XII

But I think Jon's sense of guilt also extends to the high expectations he sets for himself, his "moral superiority" in the face of his bastard status, as discussed in Part 1. He feels guilt pulling him in two different directions, in regards to Ygritte: guilt for loving her, for breaking his vows, and potentially risking a bastard, but also guilt for leaving her, for abandoning her, and potentially leaving her unprotected:

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good? – ASOS, Jon III Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the smell of her hair, the warmth of her body... and the look on her face as she slit the old man's throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when he'd left Jon's mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night's Watch. – ASOS, Jon VI "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but..." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her..."I wasn't strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with them, watch, I must not balk, I..." His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool. – ASOS, Jon VI

This guilt surrounding leaving the women/girls he cares about unprotected also extends to Arya. Yet it was his need to prove himself as something more than just a bastard, by joining the Watch, which initially prevents him from acting, and which also makes him feel guilt for being a hyprocrite:

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. – ADWD, Jon VI

I think there is a lack of reconciliation between Jon and his bastard status, between what being a bastard implies in their society: lustful, deceitful, treacherous, more "worldly" etc. Deep down, subconsciously, Jon really rebels against it. You can see that rebellion more clearly in his memories as a younger child, less inhibited:

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken. – ASOS, Jon XII

But Jon knows this truth about himself, he knows that he has "always wanted it", and that causes him so much guilt because he can't allow himself to be selfish in that regard, because to do so would confirm for him his worst fears... that he truly is a bastard in nature as well as birth — treacherous, covetous, dishonourable.

Despair

As he grows up, learning to curb his emotional outbursts from AGOT, Jon appears more and more stoic upon the surface. But beneath that, buried in his subconscious in the form of dreams, you have this undyling feeling of despair, this trauma connected to his bastard status, his partially unknown heritage:

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. – AGOT, Jon III

These recurring dreams, sometimes explicitly involving his unknown mother, sometimes not, represent a clear gap, a gaping blank in Jon's personal history and his perception of his identity:

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." [...]

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. – AGOT, Jon IV

"That always scares me", he says quite tellingly. From this key passage, in particular, we can see that Jon feels a deep rooted despair at essentially being unclaimed, unwanted... being without a solid (Stark) identity around which to draw strength and mould himself. He's afraid of being a lone wolf, because as we all know, "the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," (AGOT, Arya II).

This dream points him in the direction of the crypts — "somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to" — which actually does have the answers he seeks because that is where Lyanna Stark is buried. Yet Jon is "afraid of what might be waiting for [him]", and wants to "scream" with dispair because of the darkness. So, this need for a confirmed identity is a double edged sword, which will no doubt be further complicated when his true parentage is revealed.

Elsewhere, Jon's dreams continue to have this despairing quality to them, often involving Winterfell, the Starks, and especially Ned, which is very interesting on a psychological level:

The grey walls of Winterfell might still haunt his dreams, but Castle Black was his life now, and his brothers were Sam and Grenn and Halder and Pyp and the other cast-outs who wore the black of the Night's Watch. – AGOT, Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy. – AGOT, Jon VII

But it is never "only a dream", is it?

And when at last he did sleep, he dreamt, and that was even worse. In the dream, the corpse he fought had blue eyes, black hands, and his father's face, but he dared not tell Mormont that. – AGOT, Jon VIII

Even Jon's conscious daydreams in AGOT revolve around his dispairing search for a solid identity:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII

A lot of these early dreams occur in A Game of Thrones, probably in response to his removal from Winterfell... his self exile. But later on in the series Jon continues to have dreams that tie him to the Starks and to Winterfell, ominous and sometimes despairing too. There's honestly too many instances to list, but if you want to understand the root of Jon's existential despair... it's in his dreams.

Cosmic Alienation

Cosmic alienation, now that's an interesting one in regards to Jon, since he definitely hasn't reached this state... yet. Life and his belief in the divine (the old gods) still hold meaning for him, but then he gets murdered by his black brothers. In the show, the writers hint at some cosmic alienation through Jon stating that he saw "nothing" whilst dead, but then they take it no further and generally do a piss poor job of post-res Jon. This characteristic of Manfred coming to the fore in Jon depends on what happens in The Winds of Winter, but I don't think it is at all that far fetched to assume that Jon will return to his body with a darker, altered perception of things.

Social Alienation

In Part 1, I discussed how Jon, like Byron's heroes, could be read as a "a rebel who stands apart from society and societal expectations." On a more psychological level, we can see how this Otherness, stemming from his bastard status, deeply affects Jon and his perception of himself and the world:

Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look. "Don't you usually eat at table with your brothers?"

"Most times," Jon answered in a flat voice. "But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the royal family to seat a bastard among them." – AGOT, Jon I

In his very first chapter, we see him quite literally alienated from the rest of his siblings, made to sit apart from them, an apparent necessity he seems fairly resigned to. Also in Part 1, I gave examples of instances in which Jon is mockingly called "Lord Snow," as well as a "rebel", "turncloak", "half-wildling", all of which serve to alienate him from the rest of the brothers of the Night's Watch.

Stannis gave a curt nod. "Your father was a man of honor. He was no friend to me, but I saw his worth. Your brother was a rebel and a traitor who meant to steal half my kingdom, but no man can question his courage. What of you?" – ASOS, Jon XI

The above interaction may seem on the surface to be about one thing — whether or not Jon will be of help to Stannis, offer him loyalty etc. — but tagged onto the end we have quite a poignant question: "what of you?" What are you, essentially. Who are you? The truth of his parentage may, in part, solve these questions... but it may also serve to alienate Jon from his perception of himself further. Ultimately, who exactly he is — what he believes in, who and what he fights for, etc. — will be solely his decision to make going forward.

So, the Byronic Hero, certainly in Manfred's case, but also in later iterations, is arguably traumatised by his own past. But regardless as to whether his trauma is related to a mysterious past, a secret sin, an unnamed crime, or incest, aka "secret knowledge", what is clear in Assaad's interpretation, is that the Byronic Hero is "living with the traumatic consequences of his own past and so suffers from PTSD." But why is Manfred traumatised, what is the specific cause of this trauma, or how might it reveal something deeper about Jon's own trauma? Now, here we come to the unavoidable... I'm going to start talking about Byronic incest and the pre-canon crush/kiss theory, and how it potentially parallels certain aspects of Manfred.

I should preface this by stating that I don't think Jon is suppressing trauma because he committed intentional incest with Sansa, but I do think (or at least somewhat theorise that) Byronic incest does come into play regarding his intense feelings of guilt and existential despair.

But still, stop reading now if are opposed to discussions of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory and the literary incest motif as a whole!

(Detail from The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Édouard Fournier, 1889)

Hey there to the depraved! If you aren't already familiar with the theory, here are some previous discussions/metas on the subject:

Full Blown Meta:

A Hidden and Forbidden Love by @princess-in-a-tower

Ask Answers (Long):

Jonsa as a more positive mirror to Jaime and Cersei? by @princess-in-a-tower, with additional comment by @jonsameta

Discussing the theory by @jonsameta

Evidence for pre-canon Jonsa? by @agentrouka-blog

Kissing in the godswood? by @agentrouka-blog

Why don't we read about Jon's reaction to Sansa and Tyrion? by @agentrouka-blog

More on Jon's supposed non-reaction by @agentrouka-blog, with additional comment made by @sherlokiness

A Jonsa "Unkiss"? by @fedonciadale

A hidden memory? by @fedonciadale

Sansa's misremembering by @fedonciadale

Descriptive parallels between A Song for Lya and Jonsa by @butterflies-dragons

Ask Answers (Short) & Briefer Mentions:

Jealous Jon by @princess-in-a-tower

Your new boyfriend looks like a girl by @butterflies-dragons

Like in Part 1, I've tried to cite as much as I could find, but as always, if anyone feels like I've missed someone important or that they should be included in the above list, please just drop me a line!

Now, it's a controversial theory, and not everyone's cup of tea — I think that's worth acknowledging! I myself am not wholly married to it, I'd be fine if it wasn't the case, but that being said, I can't in good faith ignore it when considering Lord Byron and the Byronic Hero. The incest is, unfortunately, very hard to ignore, both in his work and in his personal life. It's pretty hard to ignore in Manfred, for that matter, which is why I've held off talking about it... until now!

All aboard the Manfred incest train *choo choo* !!

First stop, Act II, scene one. Oh, wait, an annoucement from your conductor... apologies everyone, I purposely neglected to mention quite a key detail. Remember "Astarte! [Manfred's] beloved!", (II, iv, 136)? Yeah... it's heavily implied that Astarte is in fact Manfred's half-sister. *shoots finger guns* Classic Byron! *facepalms*

Oh, and that's not all! Let's consider the context surrounding the writing of this work for a moment, shall we? Unlike The Bride of Abydos (1813),* Manfred was written notably after the fallout of his incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, composed whilst in a self-imposed exile. *spits out drink* Woah, woah there cowboy... what in tarnation?! EXILE?!

*As referenced in Part 1, @rose-of-red-lake has written an excellent meta on the influence of Lord Byron's work (and personal life) on Jonsa, paying special attention to the half-siblings turned cousins in The Bride of Abydos.

Although, as noted by rose-of-red-lake, The Bride of Abydos bears strong parallels to the potential romance of Jon and Sansa, as well as Byron’s own angst regarding his relationship with Augusta Leigh, the context surrounding Manfred seems... dare I say it, even more autobiographical. Because like Byron himself, Manfred wanders around the Bernese Alps, solitary and guilt ridden, in a state of exile heavily evocative of Byron's own — as I mentioned earlier, the beginnings of Manfred occured whilst Byron was staying at a villa on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland... the Bernese Alps are located in western Switzerland. In light of this, I think it's very understandable that some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. But what has that got to do with Jon?

Look, I don't know how else to put this:

Byron self-exiles in 1816, first to Switzerland, to Lake Geneva, where it is unseasonably cold and stormy — his departure from England is due to the collaspe of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, unquestionably as a result of the rumours surrounding his incestuous affair with his half-sister.

Displaced nobleman Manfred wanders the Bernese Alps, in a kind of moral exile, where "the wind / Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows / Began to glitter with the climbing moon" (III, iii, 46-48), traversing "on snows, where never human foot / Of common mortal trod" (II, iii, 4-5), surrounded by a "glassy ocean of the mountain ice" (II, iii, 7). He feels extreme, but unexplained guilt surrounding the death of his "beloved" Astarte, who is heavily implied to also be his half-sister.

In A Game of Thrones, Jon Snow chooses to join the Night's Watch, with the reminder that "once you have taken the black, there is no turning back" (AGOT, Jon VI). By taking the black, Jon arguably exiles himself from the rest of the Starks, from Winterfell, to a place that "looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice" (AGOT, Jon III). But we aren't given any indication that he does this due to incestuous feelings regarding a "radiant" half-sister, akin to Byron/Manfred, are we? And it's not like we have several Manfreds/Manfryds AND Byrons namedropped within the text, is it? Oh wait... we do. *grabs GRRM in a chokehold*

What the hell, George?!

(Lord Byron on His Deathbed, Joseph Denis Odevaere, c. 1826)

But lets get back on track here and take a closer look at that section of Manfred I mentioned at the beginning — Act II, scene one, aka the part where all the incest and supressed trauma really JUMPS out.

So, early in Act II, in the chamois hunter's abode (a chamois is a type of goat?), according Assaad's analysis, Manfred is "hyper-aroused by a cup of wine." The wine is offered in an attempt to calm Manfred; however, to the chamois hunter's great dismay, it instead agitates him and makes him utter words which are "strange" (II, i, 35). Rather than wine, Manfred sees "blood on the brim" (II, i, 25). His sudden agitation and erratic behaviour confound the chamois hunter, who observes that Manfred is losing his mind: "thy senses wander from thee" (II, i, 27). Assaad's analysis of this scene, which she believes "is the most revelatory in the entire play" discloses "a bitter truth: Manfred's traumatic past informs his present life."

We might compare this with Jon, in particular, how his dreams reveal certain bitter truths to do with his past, now subconsciously informing his present. I've already looked a bit at his crypt dream from AGOT, Jon IV, but we see a sort of recurrence of this dream again in ASOS, Jon VIII. The imagery of being in a crypt, somewhere underground, buried, in the dark, a place of ghosts and spirits, is extremely evocative. Indeed, to go back to Byron's own description of Manfred, the setting of a crypt is extremely suggestive of certain bitter truths "left half unexplained", of secrets buried... and we know that's true because the secret of Jon's parentage is hidden down there, in the form of Lyanna Stark.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark... – ASOS, Jon VIII

I don't think it's outlandish to state that, unquestionably, Jon's bastard identity is a source of ongoing pain for him. I talked about the theme of despair in Jon's characterisation and it is very evident in the above, and it stems from this "bitter truth" of not being a trueborn Stark, of not being "welcome", or having a true place. The emotions/mindset this trauma, concerning his birth and identity, evokes in Jon is arguably what brings him, on first glance, so closely in line with the Byronic Hero:

Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed / The crypts were growing darker = A mysterious past / secret sin(s)

You are no Stark / I am no Stark = Deeply jaded

There is no place for you here / I am not welcome there / This is not my place = standing apart from society and societal expectations / social alienation

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell / He walked deeper into the darkness = Moody / misery in his heart

He fell to his knees / Forgive me = Guilt

He walked deeper into the darkness / Please, Father, help me / He fell to his knees = Despair

These aren't all the Byronic characteristics I've addressed in relation to Jon, but it is a substantial percentage of them, all encapsulated, in one way or another, within this singular dream passage. As far as what is fairly explicit in the text, being a bastard is Jon's "bitter truth", it is the "traumatic past inform[ing] his present life." But what is Manfred's "bitter truth", what past trauma is informing his present? And can it reveal a bit more about another layer to Jon's trauma? Because there is a key distinction — Manfred's trauma, his PTSD, stems from a specific event, notably triggered by the (imagined) "blood on the brim" of his wine, whereas for Jon, we have no singular event, we have no momentus experience, we just have this "truth."

As mentioned previously, Assaad has recognised the character of Manfred as displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Assaad's article, she remarks that "an experience is denoted as traumatic if it completely overwhelms the individual, rendering him or her helpless," and this is quite evident in the interaction between Manfred and the chamois hunter. Sharon Stanley, an educator and clinical psychotherapist, writes that "the word trauma has been used to describe a variety of aversive, overwhelming experiences with long-term, destructive effects on individuals and communities."

So, if trauma is related to an experience, or experiences, is it still accurate to say that Jon experiences trauma, connected to being a bastard? Because there is seemingly no singular or defining root experience, or event that it stems from, it just is… it is a compellation of several moments, revealed to the reader through Jon’s memories and/or dreams. What is being "left half unexplained” here?

Assaad makes reference to the American Psychiatric Association's definition of PTSD, in which it observes that for an individual to be diagnosed with PTSD, they have to suffer from one or more intrustion symptoms, one or more avoidance symptoms, two or more negative alterations, and two or more hyperarousal symptoms. The dreams Jon has certainly suggest something, but it seems like a stretch to say that, like Manfred, he is suffering from PTSD, right? We and Jon are very much aware that he is "no Stark", at least not in the sense that he is Ned's trueborn son, this isn’t something Jon is actively suppressing. By comparison, it is incontrovertible that Manfred committed something in the past, which he deeply wishes to forget and disassociate from:

Man. I say ’tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love, And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be. C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half—maddening sin

(II, i, 28-35)

However, we cannot be sure what this traumatic point of origin is, though we know that it is related to something he has done to his beloved Astarte, which subsequently led to her death. Many critics have suggested that his sin is that of incest, and as I noted earlier, that Manfred as a whole is more than just a bit autobiographical and/or confessional in nature. Manfred's incestuous sin therefore re-enacts Byron's incest with his half-sister Augusta. But regardless of the true cause, Manfred is traumatised by his past and cannot overcome it. Is there something in Jon’s past, that may have subconsciously, or consciously, influenced his departure to the Wall — his self exile — which he cannot overcome, and which is closely tied to the issue of and pain he feels due to being a bastard, not just the illegitimacy, but also the negative characteristics it assigns? Is there an event, or experience, we can pinpoint as the origin of Jon’s trauma and potential PTSD?

To circle back to Jonsa, there is some, not unfounded, debate amongst us concerning the validity of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory. I've always found it an interesting theory, but until now, I haven't really given it too much thought. In light of the Byron connection, however, as well as the textual analysis I have for Part 3, I think this scenario, as detailed by agentrouka-blog, seems more and more likely. And I don't say that lightly, I really don't. It is a somewhat uncomfortable speculation to make, even if the interaction was more innocent rather than explicit (this is the side I firmly fall down on), however, it’s ambiguity does potentially parallel Byron’s Manfred and Astarte. This post would be even longer if I included my side-by-side text comparisons, so you may have to trust me for the moment that there are some very striking similarities between Act II, scene I of Manfred, and Jon's milk of the poppy induced dream in ASOS, Jon VI, as well as the actual buildup to that vision.

But, that sounds frankly terrible doesn't it? And it doesn't bode well for his future relationship with Sansa, does it? And what does it mean if Jon is suffering from PTSD due to an incestuous encounter with Sansa? What does that mean for Sansa, Sansa who is doggedly abused and mistreated by men within the present narrative? This is awful, why would GRRM root their romance in something traumatic? Oh I hear you, and these are questions I needed to ask myself whilst compiling this. But you see... now bear with me here... it isn't the actual encounter itself that was traumatic, for either Jon or Sansa, and that is reflected in both their POVs, because, though they think about each other sparingly (explicitly at least), it is never done so negatively. No, the potential PTSD Jon suffers from this experience isn't connected to Sansa, to whatever occured between them. Rather, I believe, it's connected to either the fear, or the reality, that Ned, his assumed father, saw and/or caught him (either Sansa had left at this point, or didn't fully grasp the issue), and this fear, this guilt, this sense of despair, is made evident in this passage:

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red. – ASOS, Jon VI

That's the traumatic experience, I believe, not the kiss — yep, I strongly suspect there was a kiss. Moreover, Jon's recurring assertion, throughout the series, that he "will not father a bastard" is tied to this in some way, it’s tied to Ned, it’s tied to some sense of guilt and shame. It’s not tied to Sansa. But we'll look at this passage, what it means, what it parallels, and what directly precedes it, in comparison to Manfred, a lot more closely next time.

I'll leave you with a slight teaser though — the parallel that made me really sit up and take notice:

C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly. Man. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?

(II, i, 21-26)

Note this imagery!!!

Maester Aemon poured it full. "Drink this."

Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not to retch it back up. – ASOS, Jon VI

In both instances, a drink is offered, with "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled". In Manfred's case, this is an explicit trigger for him, whereas for Jon? Well, it bit more hidden, a bit more buried, but this moment is, to my mind, the catalyst, because its imagery strongly evokes the colours of the weirwood tree — "blood" red and "chalky" white — you know, the "huge white weirwood" he later on envisions.

*spits out drink*

Maybe the magnitude of this parallel isn't completely evident as of yet, but it will be... or at least I hope it will be, so stay tuned for Part 3!

(Starting to run out of Byron pics so... I dunno, here's Rupert Everret, from The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron, 2009)

In Conclusion

To summarise, why is the Manfred connection so monumental to me? Why do I find the pre-canon kiss theory, specifically the scenario detailed by agentrouka-blog, now very hard to dismiss? Because:

The nine (!) Manfreds/Manfryds included within the text, as well as the two Byrons, one of which, the first mentioned in fact, first appears in Sansa's POV. But crucicially the direct link made by GRRM between Byron Swann and Manfred Swann.

The strength of the similarities that can be observed between Jon and the Byronic Hero, but also notably to Byron's Manfred, the "Byronic hero par excellence", according to Assaad. Especially the recurring emotions of guilt and despair, the latter exemplified perhaps most clearly in Jon's dreams.

The prominent theme of self-exile to escape something, something that perhaps cannot be openly stated, present in Manfred, Byron's own life, and Jon's narrative.

Those pesky half-sisters: Augusta, Astarte, and Sansa.

The PTSD symptoms clearly present in Manfred, but left "half unexplained", and seemingly not explained at all in Jon's POV — I'll dig more into this in Part 3.

The "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled" — more on that in Part 3, I hope you guys like in depth imagery analysis!

Obviously, this is all still just speculation on my part, and it's speculation in connection to a theory that is understandably controversial. I'd be happy to dismiss it... if it weren't for the above. So, I suppose I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, however you look at it, it's more trauma in an already traumatic series... which is *sighs* not what you want for the characters you care strongly about. But on the other hand, that literary connection to Manfred (and by extension to actual Lord Byron), the way it's lining up, plus that comparison GRRM himself made between Jon and the Byronic Hero... that's all very compelling and interesting to me as a reader, as a former English literature student. So, I don't want it to be true because... incest hell. But then, I also want it to be true because then it makes me feel smart for guessing correctly.

But anyway, we're going to be descending into incest hell in Part 3, so... we'll just have to grapple with that when we come to it. I hope, if you stuck with it till the incesty end, that you enjoyed this post!

Stay tuned ;)

Bibliography of Academic Sources:

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edn (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013); online edition at www.dsm5.org

Assaad, Lara, "'My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep': The Byronic Hero’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", The Byron Journal 47, no. 2 (2019): 153–163.

Byron, George Gordon Noel, Byron’s Letters and Journals. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 12 vols. London: Murray, 1973–82.

Holland, Tom, "Undead Byron", in Byromania: Portraits of the Artist in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Culture, ed. by Frances Wilson (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).

MacDonald, D. L. "Narcissism and Demonality in Byron’s 'Manfred'", Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 25, no. 2 (1992): 25–38.

Stanley, Sharon, Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma: Lifting the Burdens of the Past (London: Routledge, 2016)

Twitchell, James B., The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981).

[flufffysocks]

let's talk about andi mack's worldbuilding

sorry this took forever to make! i've been pretty busy with school stuff and i kind of lost my inspiration for a bit, but i ultimately really enjoyed writing it! i wish i could've included more pics (tumblr has a max of 10 per post), and it kinda turned from less of a mini analysis to more of an extremely long rant... but i hope it's still a fun read!

i've been rewatching the show over the past few weeks (thanks again to @disneymack for the link!), and i’ve been noticing a lot that i never did the first time around. this is really the first time i’ve watched the show from start to finish since it aired, and it honestly feels so different this time - probably a combination of the fact that i’m not as focused on plot and can appreciate the show as a whole, and also that the fandom is much, much smaller now, so there’s a lot less noise. so the way i’m consuming this show feels super different than it did the first time, but the show itself doesn’t - it’s just as warm and comforting to me as it was the first time around, if not more so.

i think a lot of that can be attributed to andi mack’s “worldbuilding”. i’m not quite sure that this is the right word in this context, to be honest, because i mostly see it used in reference to fantasy and sci-fi universes, but it just sort of feels right to me for andi mack, because you can really tell how much love and care went into constructing this universe. for clarity, worldbuilding is “the process of creating an imaginary world” in its simplest sense. there’s two main types: hard worldbuilding, which involves inventing entire universes, languages, people, cultures, places, foods, etc. from scratch (think “lord of the rings” or “dune”), and soft worldbuilding, in which the creators don’t explicitly state or explain much about the fictional universe, but rather let it’s nature reveal itself as the story progresses (think studio ghibli films). andi mack to me falls in the soft worldbuilding category. even though it takes place in a realistic fiction universe, there’s a lot of aspects to it that are inexplicably novel in really subtle ways.

so watching the show now, i’ve noticed that the worldbuilding comes primarily from two things - setting and props, and oftentimes the both of them in tandem (because a big part of setting in filmmaking does depend on the props placed in it!).

one of the most obvious examples is the spoon. it really is a sort of quintessential, tropic setting in that it's the main gang's "spot", which automatically gives it a warm and homey feel to it. and its set design only amplifies this:

the choice to make it a very traditional 50s-style diner creates a very nostalgic, retro feel to it, which is something that's really consistent throughout the show, as you'll see. from the round stools at the bar, to the booths, to the staff uniforms, this is very obvious. the thing that i found especially interesting about it though is the choice of color. the typical 50s diner is outfitted with metallic surfaces and red accented furnishings, but the spoon is very distinctly not this.

instead, it's dressed in vibrant teal and orange, giving it a very fresh and modern take on a classic look. so it still maintains that feeling of being funky and retro, but that doesn't retract from the fact that the show is set distinctly in modern times.

of course, this could just be a one-off quirky set piece, but this idea of modernizing and novelizing "retro" things is a really common motif throughout the show. take red rooster records. i mean, it's a record shop - need i say more? it's obviously a very prominent store in shadyside, at least for the main characters, but there's no apparent reason why it is (until season 2 when bowie starts working there, and jonah starts performing there). a lot of the time, though, it functions solely as a record shop. vinyl obviously isn't the most practical or convenient way of listening to music, but it's had its resurgence in pop culture even in the real world, mostly due to its aesthetic value, so it's safe to say that it serves the same purpose in the andi mack universe.

the fringe seems to be nostalgic of a different era, specifically the Y2K/early 2000s period (because it's meant to be bex's territory and symbolic of who she used to be, and its later transformation into cloud 10 is representative of her character arc, but that's beside the point). to be honest, exactly what this store was supposed to be always confused me. it was kind of a combination party store/clothing store/makeup store/beauty parlor? i think that's sort of the point of it though, it's supposed to feel very grunge-y and chaotic (within the confines of a relatively mellow-toned show, of course), and it's supposed to act as a sort of treasure chest of little curios that both make the place interesting and allow the characters to interact with it.

and, of course, there's andi shack. this is really the cherry on top of all of andi mack's sets, just because it's so distinctly andi. it serves such amazing narrative purpose for her (ex. the storyline where cece and ham were going to move - i really loved this because it highlights its place in the andi mack universe so well, and i'm a sucker for the paper cranes shot + i'm still salty that sadie's cranes didn't make it into the finale) and it's the perfect reflection of andi's character development because of how dynamic it is (the crafts and art supplies can get moved around or switched out, and there's always new creations visible).

going back to the nostalgia motif though, the "shack" aspect of it always struck me as very treehouse-like. personally, whenever i think of treehouses, there's this very golden sheen of childhood about it, if that makes sense. i've always seen treehouses in media as a sort of shelter for characters' youthful innocence and idealistic memories. for example, the episode "up a tree" from good luck charlie, the episode "treehouse" from modern family, and "to all the boys 2" all use a treehouse setting as a device to explore the character's desire to hold onto their perfect image of their childhood (side note: this exact theme is actually explored in andi mack in the episode "perfect day 2.0"!). andi shack is no exception to this, but it harnesses this childhood idealism in the same way that it captures the nostalgia of the 50s in the spoon, or the early 2000s in the fringe. it's not some image of a distant past being reflected through that setting; it's very present, and very alive, because it reflects andi as she is in the given moment.

some honorable mentions of more one-off settings include the ferris wheel (from "the snorpion"), the alley art gallery (from "a walker to remember"), SAVA, the color factory (from "it's a dilemna"), and my personal favorite, the cake shop (from "that syncing feeling").

[every time i watch this episode i want to eat those cakes so bad]

these settings have less of a distinctly nostalgic feel (especially the color factory, which is a very late 2010s, instagram era setting), but they all definitely have an aura of perfection about them. andi mack is all about bright, colorful visuals, and these settings really play to that, making the andi mack universe seem really fun and inviting, and frankly very instagrammable (literally so, when it comes to the color factory!).

props, on the other hand, are probably a much less obvious tool of worldbuilding. they definitely take up less space in the frame and are generally not as noticeable (i'm sure i'll have missed a bunch that will be great examples, but i'm kind of coming up with all of this off the top of my head), but they really tie everything together.

for example, bex's box, bex's polaroid, and the old tv at the mack apartment (the tv is usually only visible in the periphery of some shots, so you might not catch it at first glance) all complement that very retro aesthetic established through the settings (especially the polaroid and the tv, because there's really no good reason that the characters would otherwise be using these).

besides this, andi's artistic nature provides the perfect excuse for plenty of colorful, crafty props to amplify the visuals and the tone. obviously, as i discussed before, andi shack is the best example of this because it's filled with interesting props. but you also see bits of andi's (and other people's) crafts popping up throughout the show (ex. the tape on the fridge in the mack apartment, andi's and libby's headbands in "the new girls", walker's shoes, andi's phone case, and of course, the bracelet). not only does doing this really solidify this talent as an essential tenet of andi's character, but it also just makes the entirety of shadyside feel like an extension of andi shack. the whole town is a canvas for her crafts (or art, depending on how you want to look at it. i say it's both), and it immensely adds to shadyside's idealism. because who wouldn't want to live in a world made of andi mack's creations?

and, while it's not exactly a prop, the characters' wardrobe is undoubtedly a major influence on the show's worldbuilding. true to it's nature as a disney channel show, all of the characters are always dressed in exceptionally curated outfits of whatever the current trends are, making the show that much more visually appealing. i won't elaborate too much on this, because i could honestly write a whole other analysis on andi mack's fashion (my favorites are andi's and bex's outfits! and kudos to the costume designer(s) for creating such wonderful and in-character wardrobes!). but, i think it's a really really important aspect of how the show's universe is perceived, so it had to be touched upon.

[^ some of my favorite outfits from the show! i am so obsessed with andi's jacket in the finale, and i aspire to be at bex's level of being a leather jacket bisexual]

and lastly, phones. this is a bit of an interesting case (pun intended), because the way they're used fluctuates a bit throughout the show, but i definitely noticed that at least in the first season terri minsky tried to avoid using them altogether. these efforts at distancing from modern tech really grounds the show in it's idealist, nostalgia-heavy roots, so even when the characters start using their phones more later in the show, they don't alter the viewer's impression of the andi mack universe very much.

so, what does all of this have to do with worldbuilding? in andi mack's case, because it's set in a realistic universe and not a fantasy one, a lot of what sets it apart from the real world comes down to tone. because, as much as this world is based on our own, it really does feel separate from it, like an alternate reality that's just slightly more perfect than ours, which makes all the difference. it's the idealism in color and composition in andi mack's settings that makes it so unmistakably andi mack. even the weather is always sunny and perfect (which is incredibly ironic because the town is called shadyside - yes, i am very proud of that observation).

the andi mack universe resides somewhere in this perfect medium that makes it feel like a small town in the middle of nowhere (almost like hill valley in 1955 from "back to the future"), but at the same time like an enclave within a big city (because of its proximity to so many modern, unique, and honestly very classy looking establishments). it is, essentially, an unattainable dream land that tricks you into believing it is attainable because it's just real enough.

all this to say, andi mack does an amazing job of creating of polished, perfect world for its characters. this is pretty common among disney channel and nickelodeon shows, but because most other shows tend to be filmed in a studio with three-wall sets, andi mack is really set apart from them in that it automatically feels more real and tangible. it has its quintessential recurring locations, but it has far more of them (most disney/nick shows usually only have 3-4 recurring settings), and it has a lot more one-off locations. it's also a lot more considerate when it comes to its props, so rather than the show just looking garish and aggressively trendy, it has a distinctive style that's actually appropriate to the characters and the story. overall this creates the effect of expanding the universe, making shadyside feel like it really is a part of a wider world, rather than an artificial bubble. it's idealism is, first and foremost, grounded in reality, and that provides a basis for its brilliant, creative, and relatable storytelling.

tl;dr: andi mack's sets and props give it a very retro and nostalgic tone which makes its whole universe seem super perfect and i want to live there so bad!!

[rpg-elf-girl]

Shadows House

I have a lot of thoughts surrounding this particular show, both good & bad.

Allow me to give a quick summary for anyone who hasn't seen/read it!

Shadows House is about 'a faceless family of nobles who all live within this giant manor, the Shadows House.

When a Shadow comes of age they receive a 'Living Doll' to both serve as their face and to clean the soot they emit from their bodies.

The most important rule of the living dolls is "don't fret over trivial matters"

A task which is difficult for the ever curious doll Emiliko.

Watch this tale unfold as Emiliko & her mistress Kate navigate this ever mysterious Manor together.'

For a fan of slow burn thrillers, horror, slice of life, supernatural & mystery series' this has been an absolute blast!

It's not quite the combination of genres you'd expect from a show, but it works really well here!

In fact I was so into the anime that this is actually the first show where I broke down and read the manga!

Unfortunately there's no official English release, but at least there are some people translating the series!

As much as I'd like to go on about the manga, this post is meant to be more so about the anime so I'll (try to) leave it at that.

Though i feel obligated to warn anime onlys I'll likely refer the manga a lot in a spoiler section latter in this post I'll try to be vague but I can't guarantee anything. For anyone worried about that I'll lable it do you can read on until then.

Everything from the animation to the music was amazing & completely fit the mood of the story! I remember a couple scenes where I actually teared up because of this!

The Ending theme is an absolute banger! I've listened to that on repeat ever since I first heard it! And the Opening is also great! It's cool for it to be an instrumental, stuff like that is pretty rare! I also heard the song in the op as a motif in the music throughout the show! It really sets the right mood in each scene it's in! It's amazing for getting into each episode!

In terms of adaptation almost everything from the beginning to the end of the Debut arc was done amazingly well!

Even with the stuff they cut it still holds true to the spirit of its source.

The main important part that was cut is something that could easily be introduced latter if they decide to go for a second season, so I'm not too mad about that.

However! Everything after the debut is a bit of a different story.

There was a lot I liked about the last couple episodes but there were some parts that were immersion breaking for me.

I've been being vague up until this point l, but I'm planning on going into spoiler territory for both the anime and manga after this. So I'll make a quick spoiler free summary of my thoughts before moving onto that.

I really really loved this show but in my opinion the last 3 episodes were the weakest of them all. They went anime only for the ending. I don't mind that on it's own, but it was rushed and the writing was sloppy at times.

Now I'm not telling you to not watch the show! Most of It's really really good, and I can still see people enjoying the parts I'm talking about if they want to give the anime a try. Overall I've fallen in love with this series and I could never recommend it enough.

If what I'm saying is giving you bad vibes the manga is available and doesn't have the issues I've mentioned. You can look for a translation online, it didn't take me long to find one so don't worry too much about that.

Also! if you're an anime only who's finished the series and want to know where to pick up the Manga I'd recommend at least skiming through the beginning. I know it might not be what you're looking for but there were a bunch of small scenes that either got cut or were merged for adaptation purposes that I think are super cute & give more context to different aspects of the setting. However! Pay close attention during the "night watchers part" something important got cut .

~~~Now for spoilers!!!!~~~

I don't want to make it sound like I'm some manga purist who hates the very thought of the slightest change from the source. I'm anime only for a lot of different shows and I've always despised it when that type of manga reader reared it's ugly head.

While I'll admit some changes did bother me I won't make a fuss about the smaller stuff.

With that said!

I hinted earlier in this post that I didn't have a big problem with Robe-same being cut. That was because without them there it does make for a more complete story if they only get one season to work with.

If there is another season they can easily be introduced latter on. Like maybe Emiliko & Shaun can meet them when the Debutant class reunion is going on before they talk on the roof (or right after that) I actually think that would be the perfect time to introduce them (other than the time they were supposed to appear, but I digress)

Louise teaming up & being friendly with Kate can be explained with some dialogue changes at the first Debutant Class Reunion. Louise can say she was just trying to show off or that she just wanted to get back at Edward and that she isn't interested in helping Kate with her problems. Things can then go on as they did in the manga.

Kates being reckless & telling everything to John can be explained by her being extremely panicked when Emiliko went missing, as long as there are some lines of dialogue adressing this it's fine. Though I do wish she tried to keep some stuff a secret but couldn't because Shaun tries to interfer because he's still brainwashed, or something along those lines. It felt a bit weird after she just told Emiliko to keep that stuff between them. Still that could be explained by how panicked she was.

There are other things, but I don't want to drag the post on too long. Most of the issues can be fixed with little changes here & there.

I never had a problem with the idea of them going in an anime only direction. I just want to have a good time with the show.

Unfortunately I can't 100% vouche for the direction the show went in. There were elements that I can't excuse, even viewing it as it's own entity instead of an adaptation.

My main complaint with it is how they handled the brainwashing of Ricky & Lou. They didn't say a word when the Debutants were talking badly about Edward & even went along with a plan to go against him. It makes absolutely no sense!

Shaun freaked out when John only suggested that he didn't have to be loyal to the house. These guys were flat out rebelling against an adult! It felt like Ricky & Lou didn't have a purpose & were just there to be there.

The whole point of the coffee is to influence shadows against doing stuff like this. It makes the coffee seem pointless and the adults seem dumb for relying on it to control the kids.

I haven't even brought up the fact that both of their brainwashings were broken by something as simple as a few kind words. It straight up contradicts the rules established by both the Anime and Manga.

This becomes very apparent when you consider all the trouble John & Kate went through to free Shaun & Emiliko.

This was my biggest complaint, but I have some other issues as well.

The next big one is how they handled Edward.

1. Why on earth would he even consider kidnapping Emiliko when he had complete control of the childrens wing? Before this point he was depicted as being a lot more crafty than this. He could easily have Kate monitored or something.

2. Why didn't he use his powers to stop them like what he did to Maryrose & Rosemary when they fought back being taken to the adults wing? He's already shown off his power at this point, why not?

3. Why did he reveal his soot powers at all!? Especially while using his face in front of the kids! The whole unification thing is one of the biggest secrets of the house for good reason! There's no way he wouldn't get in huge trouble for exposing it to children!

Here are some other related questions.

Why didn't Kate, Emiliko, & John react to Edward using soot powers? They shouldn't know about unification yet so why didn't they act shocked, or say anything about it?

Is Edward being banished even an option in the Shadows House? Wouldn't the third floor lords just dispose of him rather than risk letting him leave?

How did John even get a veiled dolls outfit? Louise had to use her powers to get Kate one & she left a long time ago.

I can't think of much else at the moment, but I think you get my point.

Please don't take this as me saying that I hate the show because of these episodes. Even if I consider them the weakest of the series I still found a lot of parts to be very enjoyable!

Like I thought it was adorable When Edward was attempting to interrogate Emiliko & she kept being her sunshine self pretending to eat & falling asleep.

Barbara getting to tell off Edward for breaking the rules was great!

I loved seeing Shaun hatch the plan to get Kate into the adults wing to save Emiliko.

Seeing John (attempt to) sneak around the adults wing had me rolling!

The ending scene of Shaun, Ricky, & Lou singing gave me the chills.

(Though I wonder how they'd handle Shaun & Emiliko being brainwashed again since they already used the scenes where they're freed)

Kate & Emilico being propelled by John back to the children's wing was absolutely amazing! I found Shaun & Ricky running over to catch them to be super sweet! (Not to mention the way that scene was animated was absolutely gorgeous!)

Getting hints to what was supposed to come after the debut was nice, at least the groundwork is there in case this gets a season 2!

To (try to) wrap this all up while there were a lot of things I loved and disliked about this show I still had a really fun time watching it!

I kinda hope there's a season two just to see if they can tidy up the mess that the last few episodes created.

Regardless of whether that happens or not I came out of this with a series I absolutely adore.

Heck I could make a whole other post about the manga. (Hopefully one that's less ranty)

Anyway! I won't take any more of your time.

I hope you all have a wonderful day/night! And I hope to see you in my next post!

(Sorry if this one was a bit of a mess!)