#he's kinda dancing around it

[normaltothemax]

"I can't." Sorry, but he's going to be unavailable. "I, uh...I started seeing someone. I'll be meeting with them then."

[vessel-token]

pinterest i am BAWLING

[longelk]

SIR JAMES

[tommygotwrittenoff]

hen winning the buddie betting pool is the easy choice, but bobby winning is the right choice. hr red flags aside, it would allow for a parallel to 2x01. buck could ask, "you okay with this?" "well, i did technically hire him to be your partner. i don't have any doubts you two will be great life partners as well."

[volosdarling]

IT'S A CLEFAIRY MOON TONIGHT

I GUESS WE COULD DANCE TOO . . . ♪ ༘⋆

[redpiperfox]

any ideas currently swirling around in your head?

(HIII RED HRU)

Dear God, you have no idea.

[silverwhittlingknife]

antigone. jean anouilh.

quotations from antigone: a tragedy by jean anouilh. translated by lewis galantière.

comic panels in order are from: battle for the cowl 3 (x3), batman annual 25, batman and robin 5, batman and robin 6, battle for the cowl 3, batman 416, battle for the cowl 3, battle for the cowl 2, batman annual 25, batman and robin 6, under the red hood, battle for the cowl 3 (x2), batman 427, lost days 5.

[thinkin-bout-milgram]

Cat: Initial Thoughts

Venus here, sorry if this is shakier than usual! I have a lot less thoughts on this MV for one reason or another, so it’ll probably be faster and possibly less detailed, but I want to get my opinions into the world anyways.

Let’s just get to it!

T/W: suicide, substance abuse, homophobia

Kazui didn’t cheat on his wife.

As always, I’m using @onigiriico​’s super fast translation of the audio drama, so thanks so much!

In said audio drama, Es says Kazui was unfaithful. However, he says that “it didn’t even turn into infidelity.” Obviously, that implies that it could have been or that it got close, but he doesn’t say it’s actually infidelity, and in most senses, I’m willing to believe him.

At 2:20, Kazui has just recently had the apple sneak up on him again. He seems distressed, saying he “can’t be normal,” and then takes off his ring and says, cigarette in hand, “let’s take a breather.” His wife looks quite distressed. 

My best guess is that this is Kazui asking for a break. Now, obviously, it’s not the most faithful thing to be super tempted in cheating to the point of asking for a break. Still, it does mean that he did stop himself before he violated an active relationship where it seemed like nothing was wrong, so that’s a plus.

I’m not sure if it was just straight-up temptation or if he might have had an emotional affair with someone. Emotional affair would make some sense to me (more on that in a sec), but I have no idea who it would be with. I’m honestly hoping the interview questions might help us out there to an extent.

The person Kazui didn’t-quite-cheat with is someone who stands out from the other people Kazui meets.

This is largely based upon my interpretation of 1:08, shortly after the wedding sequence.

There are a ton of apples, but most of them are red. In fact, we only see one green apple. That green apple is the one that follows Kazui throughout the rest of this MV, and it’s the one that keeps sneaking up on him in the half MV. Because it’s the one he eventually bites, I think there’s plenty of reason to believe that this is the person he has relations with outside of his marriage.

I want to focus on the fact that it is green, because that obviously makes it stand out. I don’t think that this is just to make it more identifiable; I think there’s a point being made here.

Kazui IS gay?

Yeah, uh... I wasn’t sold on this one at first, when I first watched half, but as I think I’ve said before, the longer we go on, the more I think it’s true. Like, yeah, it does seem like there’s more to it than just Kazui having relations outside of his marriage.

The entire MV, he’s talking about the charade. He’s clearly living the life that a guy is “supposed” to lead; eventually, you get married to a woman and go down the journey of life together. Still, the fact that, even at the altar, he calls it “loving affection minus love” seems to imply that he feels, at least in retrospect, like the love was never present. He didn’t fall out of love with his wife, it simply wasn’t ever there. He married her out of obligation.

Through in the suspect interview questions about his childhood friend who he went fishing with or whatever and lines from Kazui’s POV saying stuff like “I can’t be normal,” and... I think Kazui is kinda just a closeted gay man?

I say “just” here, and I mean that literally. If you trust his audio drama, he says that he wants his “sin” to be found out, but even so, Es hasn’t found it yet. To me, my best theory is that he just has internalized homophobia and his big “sin” is the fact that he’s gay. I honestly kinda hate this explanation though, just because that is nowhere NEAR a crime on the level of the other prisoners, so please let me know if you disagree/if I’m missing something here.

Kazui has developed some unhealthy coping mechanisms.

I don’t remember if we’ve heard why Kazui smokes before. I know that Shidou says that he does it because he wants to be unhealthy, and Mikoto presumably does because he thinks it makes him seem cool or something. I don’t remember learning anything similar about Kazui.

Still, with the moments at which he pulls out a cigarette or a drink in this MV, I definitely feel like he’s using substances to dull the pain of... I don’t know, life? His constant lying and the self hatred that goes along with it, probably. 

Obviously, he went to the bar in the half MV, but this time, the devs are definitely trying to draw attention to it. There’s a line in the song that’s literally just “oh wow I’m drunk,” and that line is important enough that it shows up as background text at other points in the MV. 

I don’t really know what this means for Kazui character interpretation, but it’s something to consider. For whatever it’s worth, it does make me believe the self-pitying “act” a little bit more; if he didn’t actually pity himself/feel upset that he has to lie all the time, I don’t know what he’s drinking so much for.

Kazui’s wife committed suicide because... ???

This is one of the big places where I’m kinda stumped. Kazui says that she died because he told her the truth. If I’m right and his crime is being gay... I don’t get it? 

I know that divorce is pretty taboo in Japan, so my best shot at it would be that, in being honest with everything, Kazui asks for a divorce because he knows that he can’t ever love her. If that would mean that she’s dead socially or something, that COULD be a potential reason she would commit suicide? I don’t love that explanation, but it’s all that I have right now.

Other Things I Want To Mention But Don’t Have Full Thoughts On:

- In the first MV, Kazui bites the apple. In the second one, he bites the dove. There’s probably some connection here, but I honestly have no idea what it could be.

- “Love, it’s tacky, this two way deceit.” What two-way deceit is Kazui talking about? Like, I get him calling himself the perpetrator and her the victim if he’s saying she’s a victim of his lies. Still, if that’s the case, why would the deceit be two-way? 

- Copzui canon? I saw that undercover cop theory and mostly disregarded it as “probably too out there to be true,” but honestly, it seems basically confirmed at this point. The only struggle I have is what to do with the information. I don’t think that knowing he’s a cop really changes anything about how I read his character or the situation? Other than possibly suggesting that yes, he cares very much about social laws/rules and making sure society stays “correct.”

- What do I make of Kazui asking for an innocent verdict along with the premise of “I can protect the other prisoners”? I don’t really like him bargaining with his strength for a verdict--especially after Kotoko trial 1, I don’t trust bartered verdicts--but on the other hand, it’s true that it’d be nice to have him on defense for whatever the devs might spring on us between trials 2 and 3. 

Anyways...

CURRENT VOTE: INNOCENT

I was actually pretty shocked when I opened the votes and saw a slight guilty majority. To me, the big thing is that... well, I don’t really know why I’d vote him guilty. He’s useful to us, he doesn’t seem like he’s done all that much wrong. I can’t really come up with a genuine reason that I’d want to give him a guilty verdict at this point, so it’s innocent for me.

(Plus, if I’m not sure, I always lean towards a 50/50 so it’s more possible to change the verdict later. So, while he’s guilty-leaning, I’m DEFINITELY voting innocent.)

[petruchio]

i think i might be moving on from my crush. i have a better one i think

[hauntingblue]

Them doing a photo lineup of the mugis for the battle and when it's Robin's turn she just turns and does a blue eyed stare at the camera 😭😭

Look at her 😭😭

[windcarvedlyre]

People generally call dr2's third murder weak relative to the others and I generally agree- all 3 characters that died in it were a bit shafted, they could've given Tsumiki a non-despair reason to snap on Saionji, etc- but imo it was still great in the bigger picture of dr2's plot, ominously hinting at the final twist. It's been like a decade so I can't remember how I felt experiencing it blind, but Tsumiki becoming like that just from remembering a still-unknown past is unnerving as hell.

It's doing it a disservice to lump it in with other chapter 3s in terms of writing imo. It's more memorable to me than dr2 ch4; I feel like Tanaka and Nidai's mutually-agreed sacrifice should be really compelling but the writing didn't quite nail it emotionally for me? I mostly find that trial memorable for Komaeda's behaviour.

Thoughts?

[sqlmn]

Ananza is the wind deity, though she's not the first with that honor. Originally the elder gods selected a man as their wind deity but after he witnessed Oh and Fulj being punished he requested to relinquish his role. Basically asking them for a mortal death rather than immortality. They obliged since the deities exist to help humans and a miserable deity won't do the job properly so no need to keep a deity bound to a task they don't want to do.

So Ananza was selected as a replacement. Fulj has no recollection of the first wind deity and Ananza has already been told by the fire deities that it wasn't Fulj's fault but she was the final straw for the former wind deity. So, Ananza doesn't hold any dislike towards Fulj and actually really likes listening to her talk. Ananza loves to dance and wander around her city so when Fulj stops by to visit, she listens to Fulj's adventures while they roam the city.

Because there are two fire deities and one can stay in their city while the other wanders and because Fulj no longer has a city to be focused on, the three like to visit the other cities to check in. Ohime and Ohiwe really like to visit Ananza while Fulj prefers to visit Ymber. While Ananza likes Ohiwe, Ohime, and Fulj, she really isn't fond of the ice deity or Ymber. She doesn't like to scramble for topics and ice/Ymber don't start conversations enough so it's a bother to Ananza to try forcing friendliness. She loves light hearted stories though and Fulj and the fire deities excel at that type of story.

(Ohime and Ohiwe sometimes call her Nana and on that note it's lore in the tags time)

[good-beanswrites]

A Shidou + Dance drabble for anon, thank you for the request! It still has genuine headcanons/characterization, but I definitely went a slightly sillier route (kinda channeling minigram vibes at points...)

“I am not doing that.”

Shidou was always very polite, very calm in the face of any high-energy circumstances, whether it was a medical emergency or a raving party. The situation wasn’t quite either of those, but still he maintained his composure as the prisoners beckoned him forward. 

Yuno had cleared away some of the common room tables so she could teach Haruka a dance she’d seen online. His performance had attracted Muu, and their giggles had tempted Mahiru, whose dedication in her wheelchair involved Mikoto, whose teasing had recruited Fuuta, whose yelling had dragged in Kazui, and their spectacle had created an audience of the others. 

“Aw, it’s easy,” Yuno was telling him, “just a few simple moves. I’m not asking you to pirouette or anything.”

Through his polite smile, he internally cursed Kazui for joining in; now he couldn’t use the excuse that he was too old for such nonsense.

Not that dancing itself was the issue. Shidou prided himself in being very good at the art: he knew several steps and moves, and had never been known to pinch his partner’s toes. He and his wife had received much praise for their dancing at their wedding. Before his work kept him out through the nights, she had talked him into a few midnight waltzes in their kitchen. He’d help his daughter twirl when she was feeling like a ballerina, and would sway with his son to the same music. 

But this amalgamation of hand gestures and hip swaying wasn’t quite the same to him.

He opened his mouth to decline, but a small stare in the corner gave him pause. Amane was watching the scene with feigned disinterest. She watched Shidou for his answer. All week he’d been encouraging her to involve herself with others more, telling her of all the benefits to her mental health. If he wanted even the slightest chance of her taking him seriously, he only had one choice. 

“I… will do my best.”

“Great!”

Before he had a moment to second guess the decision, Yuno grabbed his arms and yanked him into the circle. His eyes flashed around the group, quickly calculating the moves in order to follow along. Swing your arms this way, wag your finger that way, raise both hands, turn your body around, and so on. It was fairly repetitive. He had it down in no time. 

Or so he thought. Mikoto snickered at him.

“What?”

“You look stiffer than a board. You’re supposed to loosen up, man.”

“I am loose,” he said, his limbs perfectly rigid as he moved them with the music.

Mikoto did the little turn, putting a bunch of extra movement into it. It was uplifting to see him enjoying himself. Ever since he’d left the smoking group, Shidou had been worried about his state of mind. “Not even close. You’re doing even worse than Fuuta, somehow.”

“Hey!”

 Mahiru swung her arms to the music. “I think he’s doing very well!”

Yuno was dancing circles around them -- literally and figuratively -- and she seemed to agree with Mikoto.

“Come on, you can relax here! Warden isn’t even around.” She swung her hips in fluid motions. “Let me see some rhythm!”

Shidou joined them for claps in sync with the beat, which he thought demonstrated his rhythm perfectly fine, but she kept prodding. 

Finally, he set his jaw. He wasn’t the type of man to get embarrassed. He could care less for appearances. Even if he was that type of person, he’d have reason to agree -- Kazui was completely showing him up. 

Though his movements were certainly ridiculous and clumsy compared to the others’, he tried to shift his shoulders and legs in similar motions. It earned him some celebration and some laughs from the others. He bent his knees, trying to put his whole body into the silly steps. 

He followed Yuno’s example, letting out a chuckle as he danced more ridiculously than he believed he ever had.

The song picked up, and Shidou turned triumphantly to where Amane sat in the corner. This would be a big step, showing her he was willing to put himself out there for the group. Maybe it would even convince her to come and join the dancers, now that she saw --

Her chair was empty. She had left.

[torunarigha]

-

[c0rpsedemon]

ok fr last one but there's actually a bootleg of my school's anastasia and i'm linking it bc you all NEED to understand that my infatuation with this one girl's voice which started when i was in the 6th grade and still hasn't really worn off isn't based on nothing

[tariah23]

Oh………….. 😵‍💫…