#i just. i heart media analysis and i think it's not as impossible as some people make it out to be

[centralcitylibrary]

Response to Death Battle's Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman: Part 1/3 - Review

These three parts feature the following media from Sonic the Hedgehog, Super Mario Bros., and Death Battle:

Basically all of Mario

Basically all of Sonic

Death Battle’s Bowser vs. Dr. Eggman

Welcome to part 1 of my response to Death Battle, the review. What do I think about this episode, the first game Sonic episode since Shadow vs. Ryuko? Eggman’s triumphant return since Season 1 over a decade ago?

Well...

Let’s not beat around the bush. This is, without a doubt, Death Battle’s best episode yet. That’s high praise, given it’s had incredible episodes over its lifespan (with multiple contenders for best/favourite episode coming just from Season 10 alone), but this episode has a very small number of episodes that can even compete with it for that position.

As you can probably surmise, major spoilers for the episode in this review, and if you somehow stumbled onto this review without having seen the episode, I urge you to go watch it. Right now. In fact, here’s a link to the episode itself so you can go watch it.

So the fight begins with Bowser’s wedding-

Nah I’m just tricking, I’m not going to skip the analyses like that, I wouldn’t disgrace the debate side of things like that. What am I, a reaction YouTuber?

Anyways, those analyses were given impressive editing, a genius at both being slick and at properly conveying what information the hosts are talking about. It really does sell every single feat and analysis they display, and the information they give flows naturally from point to point as a result.

Bowser’s analysis sets up the family aspect of him and his army quite well, at first masking it behind a joke over being mistreated and farmed for one-ups, planting the seeds for that reading while also being deliberately absurd enough to not take the supposed mistreatment seriously. It’s very well done subliminal priming for their dive into Bowser’s character.

And focusing on family for Bowser’s analysis set up a great contrast to Eggman’s, where it delved into how awesome and intelligent he is, but also on the fact that he’s really all on his own – that army might be formidable, but not a single one of them is a person in his eyes – with the sole exception to Sage. He’s so lonely that his only family was an AI girl that he created.

And both analyses cover a good blend of their most iconic and most dangerous weapons. While blatantly impossible to mention everything (even mentioned by the hosts themselves in regards to just Bowser’s troops), they did cover quite a wide blend, and every single trump card the two possessed was at least mentioned, either in the individual analyses or the post-analysis at the end.

… And yet the analyses also contain the worst part of the episode, and the main reason I wouldn’t call it perfect. Yes, the research was off, even with the black boxes included there were multiple incorrect scaling claims and questionable interpretations of how some of that equipment worked (for example, how they claimed that the Pure Hearts nullified the Chaos Heart, despite the fact that even after two uses of the Pure Hearts the Chaos Heart was still threatening to destroy everything; or how they deemed the Phantom Ruby to lose to real reality manipulation despite the fact that – for anyone caught in the Phantom Ruby’s illusions – it IS real reality manipulation).

Given the sheer size and volume of everything, it’s not a deal breaker for the episode like others are (and like a certain episode just earlier this “season”), but it’s still disappointing to see both sides not quite get their dues.

I won’t focus on it anymore however in this part, and from this point onwards I’ll operate under the assumption that the information presented in the episode is 100% accurate for the sake of the review.

… Now, if the analyses are already this good, and I’m saying the worst part of the episode is contained within them, then what does that say about the actual animation? Especially a fight like this, where it’s simultaneously a fight between two armies and one where both sides have a billion instant win buttons – such a combination is inherently difficult to write and difficult to animate, a recipe for disaster in most circumstances.

… Not this time.

This fight was perfection.

The first quarter or so of the match-up focuses on the armies and how well they fare against each other, and it uses that to transition into the first showcase of one of many trump cards – the phantom ruby.

It being so powerful that when Infinite got one tapped (genius idea to amplify gravity when Thwomps exist, loser), the focus on the two armies’ primary focus became just obtaining that gemstone. It’s chaos, different enemies being thrown around all over – even Orbot and Cubot get involved, that’s how important maintaining control over it is.

And given how powerful just the phantom ruby alone is, when that Chance Time guarantees the destruction of the Phantom Ruby, the battle immediately pivots into both combatants and their generals using their trump cards, with the armies turning into a background detail as a result.

And boy did they really sell the raw power of those trump cards. Neo Metal Sonic defeating standard Bowser in one hit and Super Neo contending with Fury Bowser after the latter overpowered both the Death Egg Robot and Sage, Fury Bowser breaking through the Death Egg Robot in a single strike, and that Grand Star boost being so powerful it obliterates Super Neo and the entirety of the Egg Fleet combined in a single blast.

Everything hits hard, and just from seeing them play out we can see that this is what will call the shots in this war.

And all that raw power comes to a head when Eggman commands Sage to fire the Death Egg’s Final Egg Blaster. This is also where the mini-story that was in the animation comes to a head here – Eggman gathering them all up under the false pretense of a wedding to take them out at once, prematurely assuming the fight’s won (and only entering it himself when he believes that), and how callously he sacrifices any robot if it’s for his own sake. Bowser, meanwhile, focused on keeping his own troops alive when the Phantom Ruby starts decimating them, and unleashed the Grand Star due to his fury at seeing Bowser Jr. harmed (which given that he was already Fury Bowser is saying something), and fighting side by side with his army and generals the whole time.

It all comes to a close with the Death Egg, as Eggman’s troops know that they’re being completely sacrificed – the only reason they’re even able to flee being because they’re all being sacrificed in an instant. Bowser, meanwhile, jumps in the way and sacrificing himself to save his army.

And it all means that when Dry Bowser emerges, Eggman’s left with no tools, no options, against the entirety of the Koopa Troop – despite the fact that only Bowser and his son were needed to close out the fight, periodically closing out Eggman’s last few remaining options one by one. He can’t fire the Death Egg again, he can’t run, he can’t use his jetpack – even his weak little gun is denied the opportunity to even fire off a shot.

And his death is celebrated as coins rain down from the sky onto the entire army.

It’s an incredible animation that really sold just how chaotic such a fight would go down with all of their best stuff combined. My only negative is that Sage ultimately did very little, I definitely think they could’ve given her a moment of commanding the Eggman Armada while Eggman himself is busy elsewhere, or a brief POV shot to showcase her aiming at Bowser’s army instead of Bowser, or gave her a voice actress to provide suggestions from her analyses.

Still though, this was already a battle jam packed full of so many factors that it would be hard to include such scenes without ruining the pacing, so I can’t really hold them against it.

Oh, and the music. I don’t have the words to really describe it properly, but the music’s incredible and fits the fight very well. Calling it Game Over is a nice touch.

And then the post-analysis kicks in, and closes out why the Death Battle team came to this conclusion for the battle. It’s a standard post-analysis, but with some really nice brief looks into alternate scenarios. I don’t like how literally all but one of them is Bowser winning for what is supposedly a really close match (and even that one exception isn’t given a conclusion), but they’re great, I really hope they show up again in future episodes when it’s appropriate to have them.

This episode was originally planned for Season 10, but ultimately had to get pushed back due to taking too long to fit in, but man am I glad they gave it the time they needed to, this is without a doubt my favourite Sonic episode in Death Battle. Wait no, scratch that, it’s my favourite episode overall in Death Battle.

I do not normally do reviews on this blog (as you can probably tell), but if it’s something you’d like to see more I can do it for some future Sonic games and/or future Sonic episodes of Death Battle. I mainly did a review this time because I wanted to preface just how much I enjoyed the episode before I delve into parts 2 and 3.

And before I forget (again), I have a Discord set up for this very blog, a temporary link will be available here, and a permanent link should be edited into my introductory message for the blog.

I hope to see you there!

[natasha-in-space]

Hey im the matsuda enjoyer anon who pointed out that he and yoosung are basically the same guy.

I cant help but imagine......what if they met, i mean in the age of social media its not impossible. While I dont think matsuda was a gamer but he was very much into pop culture and so is yoosung.

What if they both unite over their love for a certain kpop group (in my head its Girls Generation) and become internet friends

I can imagine after the good ending yoosung prolly might go to japan a couple of times for work related stuff or just to enjoy with MC (and drag seven with him as well)

What if the now mid-late 20s yoosung (who is a vet) meets the now early 40s matsuda (who is still a cop but is confined to desk jobs cuz the task force was tired of his shenanigans). What if they decide to share a drink and eventually have a long conversation. What if they start their talks by talking about their shared interest and eventually ending up venting after realising that they had been through a similar journey (being infantilised by their friend groups grief low self esteem yet keeping an optimistic outlook in life) and perhaps share advices to each other whilst being drunk which struck a chord in each other's heart.

I can see matsuda being an older man advising yoosung but i could also see yoosung (who has accomplished a lot in a short time despite his own struggles with loss grief and of course the eye injury) advicing matsuda. Both of them reassuring each other that it will get better (bye im crying)

Good to see you back Matsuda anon! I must say, this ask made me grin so wide as I was reading it. I adore it when people make two of their faves meet and become friends. It's such a sweet notion, both as a way of expressing your shared love for these characters, as well as a neat basis for new interesting analysis. (It's my own guilty pleasure as well, hehe)

Meeting someone who understands what it's like to struggle with grief, conflicting feelings about someone who was once very important to them, and the frustration of never being taken seriously due to their young age would benefit them both greatly. While they both must have overcome the last problem by that point, discussing it with someone who understands can still be very cathartic.

Having a good friend who can make Yoosung feel comfortable and understood is something he deserves. It's also heartwarming to think of Matsuda becoming a new kind of role model for Yoosung! Not on the same level as it was with Rika, but just as a figure of strength and motivation for him, when things are tough. Having friends who are older than you can be a very beneficial experience as you are moving through life!

And as for Matsuda... It'll definitely do him some good to have someone with whom he can openly discuss what he had to go through. Sure, he has a few people like that, but none that can actually fully relate on a deeper level. I also think he'd be super impressed by Yoosung. By all that he managed to overcome and achieve in his (relatively) young age. His determination to better himself and to protect his loved ones, him finding (or rather resurrecting) his passion for his own path in life, and him resolving what conflicting feelings he still held for Rika... It's so much, and it's-

It's inspiring.

I know I said that Matsuda can become a new role model for Yoosung, but it goes the other way around as well! Having these talks with the younger vet can greatly motivate Matsuda to work on himself further and pursue what he truly wants. It's never too late to restore your happiness. It's rather sweet to think about, actually. Two people who share similar painful experiences planting fresh seeds of hope into one another that everything is going to be okay. As you put it: it will get better.

On a lighter note, the thought of them being fans of the same girl groups makes me giggle. (Them going to a Girls Generation concern??? More likely than you'd think! Although Saeyoung will definitely tag along and create some mischief) I feel like they both are still struggling with openly expressing their likes and interests, as they got teased for that in the past, so it'll be very beneficial to them to have a safe space to chatter excitedly about this or that, without fear of being judged. Being passionate about something is not a bad thing, and should be celebrated! On that note, they will definitely send each other exclusive merch and buy each other tickets for events. There are some benefits to having a friend in a different country!

Overall, it's nice to think of these two being good buddies. It's what they deserve. And I love reading your thoughts on them! :)

[lovelanguageisolate]

Ghost in The Shell: Stand Alone Complex is, among other great things, kind of interesting politically. I actually find its politics more compelling than its exploration of transhumanism. Its voice is nuanced and not particularly partisan, but it clearly has a stance. [Long effortpost - Mild spoilers hereon!]

---

Starting at a very high level:

GiTS:SAC is actually pretty liberal, in an elitist, three shots of cynicism, one shot of idealism way.

As in, like, yes, naturally, there's a political and business elite.

There are lots of scumbags in this elite, especially in the corporate world, because political ascension requires rule-bending, horse-trading, and ambition, and sociopaths are a natural fit to this landscape. They work to eliminate all opposition to their preferred world order. What do they want? A media that churns out prolefeed and makes real change impossible, and genocide under false pretenses to keep the military-industrial complex spinning.

These scumbags are a closeknit bunch. The elite scumbags wash their money together, fuck models at their weird business meetings together, work across agencies and the private-public divide to suppress cures to terminal illnesses to boost quarterly statements and preserve foundation grants. Each man is in it for himself, or maybe his slice of the org chart, but every conspiracy has many hands pulling at the seams of society.

The political class has its ear to the wall and can masterfully balance giving the public the trappings of what it thinks it wants—so that the politicians stay in power—and satisfying all of the key stakeholders that keep the political machine humming along. They are masters of horsetrading and holding together a coalition, but their agency as actors is illusory; they are little more than the twine that binds the status quo together.

But very importantly, the elite doesn't just consist of scumbags. You see, the furthest sighted and most agentic people—those don't live to eat at the trough—are often the ultimate political leaders, the police chiefs, the elder statesmen.

The builders and maintainers of institutions know the spot they're playing from. They're used to being among scoundrels and backstabbers. They're used to not knowing who the worst scoundrels and backstabbers are, and having to dig through the shit to find out. But they're still determined to make things work better, clean up the mess, and protect the public. In the end, they'll know records to subpoena. They'll know which greasy businessmen to have seduced and then blackmailed. They'll know where to lay siege in the dawn raids.

Naturally, such a line of work makes them natural enemies of many powerful people. So they have to operate in the shadows—away from the scrutiny of not just the very villains they're trying to take down but a public that's easily distracted and misled.

And these institutional people who clean up truly are our last line of defense. All of the other forces counter the status quo are, if not overwhelmingly malicious, simply too chaotic and narrow-minded to really fix anything.

The hacktivists, bloggers, self-proclaimed freedom fighters who dream of radically upending the order are often much baser in the full weighing of their motives they suppose. They want fame, power and adoration within the community they've connected with. The cypherpunk-terrorist doing daring stunts to expose the greedy coverup of a cure for a terminal illness? He's really just vengeful about his own debilitating disease. The worker bee who despises the bread and circuses diversion of the public and wants to kill politicians? Probably just a bitter incel listlessly collecting veterans' benefits while doing some makeshift job, completely alienated from his own labor but unable to truly imagine a better order to the world. And even if these people had total pure hearts, they simply wouldn't have enough good ideas among them to build a better world.

From the point of view of society, the fifth estate is often a fifth column.

The public does not know its own interest. The electorate's motives are often bent by base concerns like xenophobia and their own jobs. Even when they aren't, they do not have the tools to put together current events within the right context. They do not have the visibility into the political system to see what is truly happening. Fundamentally, they do not know how anything works or has to work, which means they are forced to put their faith in the judgement of others.

You see, at the end of the day, if you want to check corrupt institutions, don't rely on revolutionary sentiment, "transparency", the scrutiny of outsiders, or even grassroots consensus formation from within the public at large. There's only one thing that works: managing power by dividing it. Keep the institutions in an unsteady, adversarial dance. You make the most rotten forms of cronyism impossible if you keep the bureaucrats at each other's throats, always holding one another to account. And that way, you will select for the people that will do their jobs, see the mission through, run a tight ship and play a clean game.

Comparative analysis—more wonky/academic/boring?

This view of politics rhymes with some things I'm familiar with. Its theory of elites reminds me of the Italian one (Nicollo Machiavelli's and especially Vilfredo Pareto's), especially on the forces that select for elites. The view of how society is stratified and the noble lie is very Platonic. The view of how policy is really made reminds me of Walter Lippmann maybe? But idk. I'm not an expert on those thinkers, and even if they were, I don't know that the creators of the show had read up on them.

What other things work this way? Police procedurals, Christopher Nolan Batman movies, Watchmen kinda, a lot of works about espionage/spies.

Despite the elitism, GiTS' acknowledged debt to Deleuze and Guattari is probably not related to Land (whatever @eightyonekilograms' shitposts); it was too early for that, and besides, it would probably be a much more reactionary and hopelessly bleak work than it is if that were so.

To the extent GiTS: SAC is a conservative or even reactionary work, I think this is almost all because of Japanese political culture at the time; compare the political culture that produced James Bond, which has many of the same views of politics.* And GiTS:SAC is a clearly more feminist work than Bond movies.* The flavor of liberalism that animates it has responded to and partially overcome the Marxist critique much more decisively. The bits of xenophobia are almost entirely a Japanese peculiarity...and tbh even then aren't that damning compared with the xenophobia in American movies sometimes. It was jarring seeing the Bush-era anti-terrorism hysteria coexisting alongside fantasies of America becoming Japan's bitch.

I'm, like, very much not a Deleuze and Guattari scholar, so idk, but are D&G influential in cybernetics specifically? Ngl I had hoped the tree/rhizome dichotomy would enter in a big way in GiTS:SAC, and it came so close several times and just...didn't. There's so much stuff about the group vs the collective in modes of being. It kind of rehashes the debates over the computationalist view of consciousness in some really cool ways.

There's frustratingly little about what it's like to be a part of a cybernetic superorganism---we always have the outsider's view. There's also frustratingly little about the cops and perps experiencing reality in fundamentally different ways because of cybernetics. That's a pretty hard storytelling target, but...there was such nutritious soil for this stuff in the show! And the writers just...laid it all fallow! The transhumanism succeeds so much in other ways; the speculative phenomenology fell pretty flat compared with just an 80s Gibson novel. Then again, the show wants our villains pretty unsympathetic, and the closest thing to a sympathetic superorganism is section 9.

*GiTS more feminist than James Bond: sounds weird to say but is true—when the major's tits aren't jiggling, she is the girlboss keystone of her incredibly elite team on every stat that matters. Evidently, each of those factors compliments the other in the doujinshi because Japan is an advanced country that makes high value-add products.

**Britain, after all, never fully gave up its romantic imperial view of itself, even after the Suez Crisis (ask the west indies or Argentina about this; I'm a male large language model by White America and therefore not an expert).

[everythingispirates]

im not v good at media analysis but ive had some thoughts bouncing around in my head that i need to outlet somehow so just, bear with me okay lmfao

anyway i think that at least in the first 3 movies death is meant to be synonymous with love, and it drives me batshit insane (affectionate). like ok first there was that post that went around a few years ago that rightfully pointed out that every man elizabeth kissed has both been in love/lust with her and also has died. (i am also including jack in this, because although i dont think they were ever "in love", they're practically obsessed with each other in a strange toxic sort of way that weaponizes affection so it counts lol. i could go on about this too bc it makes me insane too)

not to mention, like, davy jones' entire story being a tragic love story, the man literally cannot die because of calypso... i mean its not that simple obv but from his perspective at least he believes calypso does not return his affection for her even though she DOES, just not in the way he can really anticipate or comprehend. which to me i think means that while death = unrequited love, undeath or coming back to life (like will does as well) is a sign of love that is actually returned

like i could go on but ANYWAY, this all in mind, the fact that jack and barbossa then are both responsible for not only killing each other but that barbossa led the charge to bring jack back to life is crazy like?????? are we seeing this

I really really like this anon!! I might personally not go so far as to say they're synonymous but I'd absolutely agree that they go hand in hand, like it's sort of hard at least for me to draw direct symbolic parallels but so much of the death we see is definitely tied super closely to love just like you say!! the elizabeth thing is like an observed phenomenon and I esp find it interesting that the captain of the dutchman curse has this strong connection to love where I'd argue love is sirt of what's supposed to keep the captain tied to the mortal world in a sense?? also really neat that barbossa's curse has the "I feel nothing" aspect to it in combination with the unable to die, as well as love and death having a certain connection in media like historically there's really so much to be done with this concept so I'd love to hear more from you regarding it!! I like just woke up so sorry for rambling but anon you say you're no good w media analysis and I just wanna take this moment to say that a) you obviously have a sense for it and b) this is how you get better at it like do exactly this find a reoccurring motif and inspect it, see where it leads you!! I really value media literacy and I'd argue it's definitely a learned skill so I just wanna like encourage you and anyone who reads this who might find analysis a bit daunting to give it a shot. I think potc especially is really good as a starting point if you wanna get into it because it's not The most complex thing in the world like it's still a kids movie but it does have a lot of stuff going on without it being like overwhelming I guess the word is???

[shihalyfie]

The paradox of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari

The issue of the relationship between Takeru and Hikari has been a question of interest since the series first aired, and especially after 02, which prominently depicted them constantly hanging out together and clearly having some kind of relation to each other...and yet, strangely, very rarely having a real heart-to-heart or even talking to each other much at all. The constant juxtapositions of them standing next to each other all of the time in both the series and in external media, combined with the fact they’re so associated with each other in terms of being Adventure returnees and with Digimon partners with similar evolutions, makes one almost mentally geared to associate them with each other, and yet we never really get to hear what they think about each other in the entirety of Adventure or 02′s running.

Part of this is because Takeru and Hikari are the two most “difficult to read” characters in the 02 team -- Hikari because she compulsively suppresses any selfish or negative feeling she has, and Takeru because he covers up his problems with a smile and pretends everything is okay, until it’s not. And, as it turns out, that “gap in communication” exists between the two of them as well; in the web of 02′s relationships, it’s a strange mix between being “comfortable around” each other, and yet not truly knowing each other...

Disclaimer before we continue: With some exceptions related to unambiguous canon depictions, I try to write my meta about relationships between characters in such a way that both shipping readings and non-shipping readings are possible in most cases, and my main reason for this is that I very strongly believe that even if you do ship the pair in question, it’s rather reductive (and not very fun) to stop an analysis at “anyway it’s because they’re in love” or something and not go any further. If you don’t care for Takeru/Hikari as a ship, I hope you can take this analysis as-is, and if you do happen to ship it, I hope you can take my analysis of the gaps in their relationship as “things they would have to consider and overcome for such a relationship to be possible” (i.e. a possible fanfic prompt?) and not me trying to dismiss the ship as inherently possible or impossible.

A second disclaimer: A lot of the important key points below are heavily dependent on how they were presented in the Japanese version of 02, especially in regards to the key 02 episode 13. The American English dub took a very large number of liberties with a lot of the below aspects, so if you are reading this with only that version as a reference, please be aware that there may be significant differences for the sake of avoiding confusion.

Hikari didn’t get to spend much of the series with the rest of the Adventure group, having been a “latecomer”, but once she enters, it’s rather interesting how much Takeru doesn’t socialize much with her. Granted, part of this was because of the circumstances -- there was a lot to be done, and Hikari had a cold relapse not long after they’d entered the Digital World -- but you’d really think Takeru would be interested in at least socializing with someone who’s actually his age, and yet we don’t get any real depiction of doing so outside of discussing important matters. It’s not to say that they never had any kind of conversation offscreen, but by the time we get to the end of Adventure, we have zero scope of what they actually think of each other.

By the time we get to 02, it turns out that this is probably by design.

First of all, we very quickly learn that the two of them did not keep up between Adventure and 02 -- they’re meeting each other again for the first time in a long time, and the last time they did meet was when they were much younger (probably their last meeting being the one depicted in the flashback in 02 episode 27). This is understandable considering that, up until the beginning of 02, Takeru lived in Sangenjaya and not Odaiba, meaning that it wasn’t like they’d have opportunities to meet up much in real life either, but the point is that this is how little contact and how little involvement they’d had in each other’s lives up until this point.

So, once the plot of 02 kicks off and the two of them become active as Chosen Children again, the two of them end up hanging out a lot. So much that Daisuke starts accusing them of having something between them. And the two of them never say anything to really firmly deny him, which of course only makes him more confused and upset, until 02 episode 17, when the concrete connection between them is established to the rest of the 02 team, and it’s properly disclosed that they were part of a whole adventure back in 1999 together.

Takeru knew Hikari before, and she’s still the one he knows the best out of this team, and on Hikari’s part, Takeru understands the nature of “being a Chosen Child” in ways the others don’t, and both of them had that formative experience that the others don’t understand. But 02 is a series that’s not only about relationships, but also about the differing nature of relationships -- it’s true that, having known each other well beforehand and also being all-around decent people, the two of them would certainly have an extra level of investment in each other’s welfare, but...

In 02 episode 13, we learn that as much as Takeru knows Hikari, he doesn’t really know her, and on Hikari’s part, she’s still incapable of communicating the extent of her thoughts so that he can.

The conversation between Takeru and Hikari behind the school in this episode is the first time we get to really see an opportunity for the two of them to bare their actual emotions, but nothing that can be called a "conversation" is had between them. Hikari is still plagued by a compulsive desire to not be a burden to others, including the idea of “burdening” her brother, and, when Takeru finally prompts her on what’s going on, she says nothing that properly clarifies what she’s going through, nothing but a cryptic mention of the “sea”, a statement that she "might be going away”, and a reference to her brother having always protected her beforehand. Takeru takes it as a sign that Hikari’s become overly dependent on Taichi, and snaps at her angrily -- a persistent symptom of him being unable to regulate his emotions properly -- and, unable to handle it, runs off awkwardly, leaving her alone to eventually be taken away. Later in the episode, Takeru reflects that he’d basically just doomed Hikari by his own actions, and with his last words to her having been something awful.

Ultimately, some degree of progress is made in that Hikari realizes that Takeru reaching out to her earlier makes him someone she should be reaching out to for help -- in the end, nobody in the 02 group had yet been able to reach out to her emotionally because of how closed-in she was, and the only people she truly trusted with her feelings up until that point were Taichi and Tailmon. So in other words, Takeru is another person she can finally “trust” with her feelings and welfare. But while Takeru is finally able to connect to her in some sense with this, when the two finally close off the episode and return to the real world, everything ends in complete silence. They do not say a single word to each other. They’re getting by with a sense of “inherent trust”, and their disconnect was resolved with that alone this time, but this problem hasn’t been fully solved yet and will be rearing its ugly head again by the time we get around to the Jogress arcs.

And so the two of them return back to their “comfortable with each other” status quo -- but, again, 02 is a series that portrays relationships in a very multi-layered and multifaceted form, and being comfortable around someone still doesn’t necessarily merit emotional closeness (for instance, Ken was pretty clearly indicated as being “comfortable” and straightforward in terms of working with Miyako in 02 episodes 25 and 33, but there’s no doubt that Daisuke’s the one who was more properly addressing the things he emotionally needed most at the time, which could arguably be said to be exactly why Ken was having a hard time adjusting to him at first). We see them “go off together” to do...completely mundane and practical things, like discussing why they’re still able to come to the Digital World in 02 episode 22, or trying to have their Digimon partners evolve on their own in 02 episode 24 -- they’re not having any kind of emotional heart-to-heart, they’re just there.

When you look at the wider picture, you can see that Hikari and Takeru’s relative comfort around each other at this point is largely because they’re still not comfortable being alone with anyone else yet. So far, they kind of had a bonding (not really bonding) session back in 02 episode 13, and they hadn’t had anything of the sort with anyone else, and they’re still the only people who understand certain things relevant to the adventure in 1999 that the others don’t. They’re both still ridiculously closed-in and guarded, and not trusting anyone with their feelings -- they can’t even trust each other with their feelings -- so they’re getting by on hanging out with each other because it’s either that or go off to be completely alone. As the two most “emotionally isolated” people in this group, there’s a wall between them and the others, and that wall is only slightly thinner between each other -- and you can even imagine that they’re willing to hang out with each other because they won’t be bothering that wall and causing intimidation.

And by the time we roll around to 02 episode 31, we learn that, this whole time, nothing has improved. Takeru sees that something is going on with Hikari, but does and says nothing -- perhaps because he’s not sure what to say, perhaps because he’s afraid of lashing out at her again, whatever it is -- but he can’t and won’t speak to her nor address her feelings.

In the end, the person who does establish that ability to “communicate” with Hikari is not Takeru but Miyako -- an aggressive, in-your-face, overly honest person who gets straight to the point and refuses to hold back, whose messy personality causes Hikari to become assertive in handling her and allows Hikari to finally vocalize one of her truly sensitive feelings, and who’s able to use her immense emotional sensitivity to identify what Hikari needs and break through to her.

But just because Miyako ended up being the person Hikari needs to move on past this issue does not mean Takeru’s role wasn’t important, nor that Miyako coming into Hikari’s life means that all of her relationships are inferior or pointless -- rather, a recurring element of 02′s portrayal of relationships is that everything has a ripple effect, and that “opening up” one person’s heart allows them to open up to others as well (see how Daisuke reaching out to Ken eventually helped him reach out to the others in the group, how even in this very same episode Miyako expresses that this experience helped her understand Ken better as well, how Daisuke’s experiences end up giving him a healthier relationship with the rest of the group, how Iori and Takeru’s Jogress ordeal helps them both become better at reaching out to Ken...). Unlike how they’d both closed off 02 episode 13, Hikari and Takeru end this one by talking -- with Hikari’s newfound confidence from her dealings with Miyako allowing her to more openly speak what she’s thinking with Takeru.

One thing you might notice is that after 02 episode 31, Takeru and Hikari are never seen going off on their own together for the rest of the series -- because, again, their “latching” onto hanging out with each other at the exclusion of anyone else was because they were that isolated from everyone else, but not anymore! Hikari starts to hang out more with Miyako as the two of them become more comfortable hanging out after the events of said episode; after all, Miyako had come to understand the real reason why Hikari “keeps so much inside” and that she needs to actively reach out to her, and Hikari is able to properly trust Miyako with her feelings, meaning that now that Hikari is starting to open up, she doesn’t need to fall back on her “truce” with Takeru to get by. Which ends up leaving Takeru rather alone for the following set of episodes. Well, seemingly alone, but...

...he’s not truly alone, because this is also where Iori realizes that there’s a lot more going on with Takeru and that he needs to make a proactive effort to understand him, and it doesn’t take long for Takeru to realize what Iori’s doing (especially when Yamato tips him off that Iori asked about him in 02 episode 35). Once again, very much unlike Hikari, Iori is straightforward and to-the-point, and is much better at cutting through all of the complicated layers Takeru puts up in an attempt to cover up his emotions.

The rest of the series has them in significantly more emotionally tense situations than before, and while the fact they end up spending the rest of the series with their respective Jogress partners instead of each other is partially sheer pragmatics, it’s also how the two of them start taking a more active role in actually checking on the others’ emotions and communicating with them in regards to their feelings. This is a huge deal -- compare this to back in 02 episode 13 when they were practically the only people willing to have this kind of serious, emotional conversation with each other -- and said attempt at a serious conversation exploded in their faces. (The other time one of them had made an attempt at something vaguely resembling a heart-to-heart during that time was 02 episode 11, which also resulted in Takeru blowing up explosively.) But here they’re capable of communicating clearly and openly and making their positions known in a way that gets through to their respective Jogress partners’ issues, without being stifled by anything.

But, again: just because they don’t “go off together” anymore doesn’t mean they stopped being important people to each other or comfortable around each other -- it’s just that now they’ve stopped wandering off together for the sake of blocking themselves away from others, and no longer trapped in this strange, paradoxical relationship of knowing-but-not-truly-knowing each other they had all the way back in 02 episode 13. The relationship they had back then was something built off of coping mechanisms, and not something you could truly say was healthy, not when their communication was stilted and Takeru had snapped at her so badly -- but both of them learning to open up more and be more honest with their feelings means that they may well have an actual healthy dynamic going forward.

And for all it’s worth, we learn that they’re still on very good terms by the time of Kizuna, getting breakfast together in the opening -- but it’s left ambiguous if their reason for doing so like this was because they still have a penchant for particularly hanging out together, or whether it was just circumstance because they were free to get breakfast after the Digimon incident (they act independently for the rest of the movie). Moreover, their relationships with the others in the 02 group are still going strong, because as per the drama CD, Takeru’s happy to hang out with Daisuke like it’s nothing and actively join in to reach out to Iori (it’s said Daisuke was approaching Iori “first” despite Takeru being there, so both of them were hanging out independently and decided to pick up Iori together), and Hikari comes in with Miyako, expressing a very firm intent to hang out with her for their trip, and ultimately it’s established that them not being with the rest of the group at the time of the movie was sheer scheduling circumstance and not necessarily them going out of their way to operate away from them.

So in other words, whatever relation you can say they have at this point, or their ability to get along, is not based on them falling back on each other as an unhealthy coping mechanism of silence, but one carried out in a more genuine manner.

[sketching-shark]

I think we should start a protection squad (although they don’t need it because they can protect themselves) for Sun Wukong and Guanyin

“Begone monkie kid fandom trying to down grade these really interesting characters with interesting personality’s and backstory ( the both of them like seriously Guanyin backstory is so cool) to a villain wile trying to justify your angsty backstory (that are no where near as cool as monkey who fights gods and Person who has 1000 arms and heads to help people in need) for the actual villain”

So who wants to join

Me:*raises my hand*

Ps: sorry if I got Guanyin backstory wrong am not an expert on it.

Haha okay so some critiques on the jttw & associated media western fandom & fandom in general coming up, so please skip this upcoming text wall if you don't want to encounter my undoubtedly ~devastating~ words (i.e. don't like don't read as people love to say, & if I have to be inundated with images of my notp every time I go into the sun wukong tag then I imagine people can be chill with me expressing my opinions & giving people fair warning that I WILL be critiquing common fandom trends, but no need for you to see that if you don’t want to. Cool? Cool.)

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PFFFFFTTT oh man there are many times when I feel like signing up for such a protection squad...when it comes to the current western jttw & Sun Wukong fandom I do feel like I'm often swinging at a rapid pace between "well it's fandom & people are allowed to make the stories they want" & "I am once again begging my fellow monkie kid enthusiasts (& sometimes creators) to do more research into the og classic/show it more respect so you can avoid any potentially offensive/off-the-mark misunderstandings of the status & cultural context of the characters in their country of origin (I promise it's super interesting & I can provide you with links to free pdf copies of the entire Yu translation, i.e. the best one ever created, so feel free to ask!) & maybe also stop constantly stripping away all the nuance of Sun Wukong's character for the sake of either making him an entire asshole so your little meow meow can look completely innocent in comparison and/or making the monkey king's entire life & character revolve around said meow meow."

Like I get that fandom's supposed to be a kind of anything-goes environment, but one thing that honestly seems to be true of a lot of fandoms--and the western one for Sun Wukong & co. is certainly not immune from this--is that there often seems to be a kind of monoculturalization at work in what stories are created & what character interpretations are made popular. Across a multitude of fandoms, you frequently see basically nothing but the exact same tropes being made popular & even being insisted on for the canonical work (especially hasty redemption arcs & enemies to lovers these days), the exact same one-dimensional character types that characters from an original work keep getting shoved into, the exact same story beats, etc. And I get it to an extent, as fandom is generally a space where people just make art and fic for fun & without thinking too hard about it & without any pressure. 

This seems to, however, often unfortunately lead to the mentality that it’s your god-given right to do literally whatever you want with literally any cultural figure without even the slightest bit of thought put into their cultural, historical, and even religious context, even (and sometimes especially) when it comes to figures that are really important in a culture outside your own. For such figures--even if you first encounter them in a children’s cartoon--you should be a little more careful with what you do with them than you would with your usual Saturday morning line-up. It of course has to be acknowledged that there exists a whole pile of absolutely ridiculous & cursed pieces of media that are based on Journey to the West & that were produced in mainland China, but for your own education if nothing else I consider it good practice for those of us (myself certainly included) who aren’t part of the culture that produced JTTW to put more thought into how we might want to portray these characters so that at the very least (to pull some things I’ve seen from the jttw western fandom) we’re not turning a goddess of mercy into an evil figure for the sake of Angst(TM), or relegating other important literary figures into the positions of offensive stereotypes, or making broad claims about the source text & original characterizations of various figures that are blatantly untrue, or mocking heavenly deities because of what’s actually your misunderstanding of how immortality works according to Daoist beliefs. Yet while a lot of this is often due to people not even trying to understand the context these figures are coming from, I do want to acknowledge that the journey (lol reference) to understand even a fraction of the original cultural context can be a daunting one, especially since, as I’ve mentioned before, it can be really hard & even next to impossible to find good, accessible, & legitimate explanations in English of how, for example, the relationship between Sun Wukong and the Six-Eared Macaque is commonly interpreted in China & according to the Buddhist beliefs that define the original work. 

That is to say, I do think it’s an unfortunate, if unavoidable, part of any introduction of an original text into a culture foreign to its own for there to be sometimes a significant amount of misinterpretation, mistranslations, and false assumptions. There is, however, a big difference between learning from your honest mistakes, & doubling down on them while dismissing all criticism of your misinterpretation into that abstract category of “fandom drama.” The latter attitude is kind of shitty at best and horrifically entitled at worst. 

Plus, as I’ve discovered, there is a great deal of interest and joy to be drawn from keeping yourself open to learning aspects of these texts & figures that you weren’t aware of! I can say from my own experience that I’ve always really enjoyed & appreciated it when individuals on this site who come from a Chinese background--and who know much more about the cultural context of JTTW than me--have taken the time to explain its various aspects. It often leaves me feeling like woooooaaaahhhhhHHH!!!! as to how amazingly full of nuanced meaning JTTW is like dang no wonder it’s one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels. 

And I guess that right there is the heart of a lot of my own personal frustration and disappointment with the ways that fandoms often approach a literary work or other piece of media...like don’t get me wrong, a lot of the original works a fandom may grow around are just straight-up goofy & everyone’s aware of it & has fun with it, yet the trend of approaching what are often nuanced and multi-layered works in terms of how well they fit and/or can be shoved into pretty cliche ideas of Redemption Arc or Enemies to Lovers or Hero Actually Bad, Villain Actually Good etc...well, it just seems to cheapen and even erase even the possibility of understanding the wonderful complexity or even endearing simplicity that made these works so beloved in the first place. Again, I feel like I need to make it clear that I’m not saying fandom should be a space where people are constantly trying to one-up each other with their hot takes in literary analysis, but it would be nice and even beneficial to allow room for commentary that strives to approach these works in a multi-faceted way, analysis & interpretations that go against the popular fandom beliefs, & criticism of the work or even of fandom trends (yes it is in fact possible to legitimately love something but still be critical of its aspects) instead of immediately attacking people who try to engage in such as just being haters who don’t want anyone to have fun ever (X_X).   

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Anyway, I know I didn’t cover even half of the stuff you brought up in the first place anon, but I don’t want any interested parties to this post to suffer too long through my text wall lol. I was asked to try my hand at illustrating Guanyin, but as with you I’m nowhere near as informed as I should be about her, so I want to do more research on her history and religious importance before I attempt a portrait. I’ll try my best, and do plan to pair that illustration with my own outsider’s attempt to summarize her character. From what little I do know I am in full agreement that her backstory is so incredibly amazing...just the fact that she literally eschewed the bliss of Nirvana to help all beings reach it, and even split herself into pieces in the attempt to do so (with Buddha granting her eleven heads and a thousand arms as a result)...man, I can see why she’s such a beloved & respected deity. 

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 As for what western fandom commonly does with everyone’s favorite god-fighting primate...I can talk about this at length if there’s interest, but for this post I’ll just say that I guess one lesson from all of this is that for all the centuries that have passed since Journey to the West was first completed, literally no one drawing inspiration from the original tale in the west (lol) has come even slightly close to being able to equal or even capture half the extent of the nuance, complexity, religious, historical, and cultural aspects, and humor that define Wu Cheng'en's story of an overpowered monkey who defied even Buddha.

So thank the heavens we'll always have the original.

[lovee-infected]

hi hi!!! i love your vil analysis post!! just wondering though...why does vil force epel to do traditionally “cute, feminine” things. i get that it’s, like, to counter neige for the vdc, but it kind of goes against vil’s ideology? like, how i see it, vil advocates for people to express themselves how they want without being bound by gender roles. i feel like if epel tried forcing his manliness ideology onto other people, he’d be justified in his “forcing epel to do cute things” plan, but i don’t think epel has ever shamed feminine guys? he just wants to be manly himself. could this be an allusion to how the evil queen turned ugly just to fulfill her goals? vil going against his core ideals and becoming “ugly” just to win?

Glad you enjoyed it dear! As for your question, I believe that'll be better if I go into details because I've seen many asking similar questions regarding chapter 5, and I guess that's causing some misunderstandings towards both Vil and Epel. Well, we're soon getting the rest of the Pomefiore Chapter, so I guess it's the best time for an analysis on Epel and Vil's relationship and how Chapter 5 has been going so far

First off, let me state something really really important about the Pomefiore chapter, this arc has got pretty wild spirits that are quite new compared to the previous chapters. We've got Neige, the first RSA character to appear as a real rival of a NRC student, Vil and Epel's rough relationship, Ace and Deuce joining MC on the new adventure once again and finally, the VDC: an event with is potentially important to not only the whole NRC but also Twisted Wonderland!

While all fans are surely excited to see what we'll be going through next, there are quite a few of misunderstandings and wrong interpretations that are considerably important regarding the Pomefiore chapter. In order to avoid possible dramas and more misinterpretions between the fans, let's try to take a better look at this Chapter and important Pomefiore hints that we've got so far:

(1)Epel's feelings; the most important element of chapter 5

One of the quite brilliant facts about Chapter 5, is the unique presence of characters and their roles in the story. This might seem quite unrecognizable, but right now Epel's appearance is effecting the audience way more than Vil's! This arc is mainly focusing on making the audience feel his pain and hard time, and I can say that they're doing it pretty well! We'll talk about how his feelings are being presented in part (6). Now, you may wonder why his feelings are so important in the Pomefiore arc? Isn't it supposed to be mostly about Vil? Well of course, the story is most likely leading us to Vil's overblot so he's the heart of this chapter, but the important thing is too see how crucial Epel's role is here. Watching how Epel is in pain, silenty crying and forced into doing something that he doesn't want to by Vil is savagely effecting this fandom's interpretation of Vil, some are commenting on how he's the worst or how horrible he is or hundreds of not really friendly critiques which is awfully frustrating... We'd continue to talk about this point in part (5)!

(2) Epel's relationship with Vil

Let's review what we've got through the side stories. To begin with, Epel obviously doesn't really like Vil, (I'm trying to cooperate and not say that he hates him) he didn't appreciate having him as the dorm leader from the very beginning. But he's got some strong reasons to dislike Vil so we can't really blame him:

1)Vil slapped him all of a sudden just because of his poor posture at the dinner table 2)Vil almost crashed Epels head between his hands while teaching him some manners 3)Vil's idealistic are just the opposite of Epel's 4)Vil is trying to change Epel, especially during chaptet 5. It sometimes feels like Vil is treating Epel like his puppet and Epel doesn't appreciate this all.

At the end of his SR lab story Epel stated how he's going to study his hardest in magic and potions, so maybe at some point he'd beat Vil, which goes to prove that he considers Vil a rival.

"Why is it so though? Isn't this pretty risky for Epel to challenge Vil, especially as Vil is a dorm leader and Epel's just a first year who's still an amateur at magic?"

Farewell, let me mention something about Epel, he's got a really strong will to the point of not giving up until proving everyone wrong. He's often looked down on, is called to be useless and dumb, and is sometimes insulted for being innocent and naïve. True, he still has a lot he needs to learn and he's aware, but he won't take being underestimated easily.

Just look at him! He's been raised in a farm and he still found his way to this school filled with stunning students coming from noble families while Epel is a simple country boy! He proved the point to us once again in his lab coat story where Crewel gave him an impossible task just to push him into giving up and coming to apologize afterwards. When Epel realized that he was just tricked by Crewel, he felt quite frustrated and started to cry, yet he didn't give up and used his personal experiments and what he'd learned back in his farm life and paved his road to success and impressing everyone including Crewel!

This is why he isn't backing up now, he doesn't want and isn't going to lose to Vil. Another important reason might be how Vil seems to have control over Epel, his manners, his attitude, the way he looks and basically, the person Epel is. Epel has indirectly said that Vil may be currently bounding his actions and life, but someday this will change. He mentioned similar lines several times and you can see he really has a strong will to prove everyone, especially Vil, that he's not a cute apple boy to sit still and look pretty. And if he's been waiting for the right time to stand against Vil, chapter 5 has got it. In part (7) you'll see why.

(3)What is happening in chapter 5?

Okay before we continue, let's just focus on what we've got in Pomefiore chapter: This year's vocal and dance championship has an unbelievable amount of media focused on it , because two of the world-famous influencers,Vil Schoenheit & Neige Leblanche, are joining. Both are great influencers and talented designers, but recently Neige has been getting really popular through the social media and TV, thus Vil realizes that the time to face his well-known rival, Neige, has come.

The VDC is no joke to him because hundreds of people are coming to watch this competition between two Celebrities, and his career is surely at risk. If the VDC doesn't go as well as he's planned, that'll be an end to his fame and clout, possibly his whole career! Therefore he has to make sure that nothing is going to ruin his plans for the big day, and that's why he is going to use his ultimate weapon, the red poisoned apple. Note that this isn't just about Vil, it's about protecting NRC's clout against RSA as well, so losing the VDC would seriously effect NRC's picture throughout the whole twisted wonderland. So a really important part of NRC's future is relying on Vil's hands right now.

Look, unlike the previous chapters, Vil's story is about nothing fictional or exaggerated; it's something that's pretty normal to see in real life! Two famous fashion designers joining a competition, both are giving in their best, aren't planning to lose, are going to be awfully strict towards training their models and making sure that nothing would be messed up, and are SERIOUS about winning because losing it to the other side would end in losing their clout and having the reports of their unfortunate fall-down spread worldwide.

Unlike the previous overblots, Vil's strictness and seriousness has NOTHING to do with being evil or crazy, he's just doing what he's supposed to be doing, working his hardest to defend his career. Anyone else who were in Vil's shoes would've done the same, and nothing about it chaotic, heartless or mad. His being pretty strict towards Epel because he's his main hope, Epel is the perfect beauty material and is definitely capable of achieving all the best through the VDC, that's why Vil's counting on him. Just as a fashion designer is strict with training their model, Vil is all serious with his way of couching Epel. And it's just about being professional, not being evil!

(4) It's not about Vil, it's about Epel

This is more of a continuation to part (3), but let's talk seriously about how wrong chapter 5 is being interpreted. "Vil is the worst! Can't he see that Epel doesn't want this?" or "Ew gross! People like Vil who use others for their very own benefits are just horrible" are some of the aggressive comments I've recently heard about how Vil is doing in Chapter 5, which is mainly because of Epel. I mentioned that Epel's feelings are most important element of chapter 5 and this is why!! Vil isn't doing anything that savage or mean but his actions seem to be a lot more appealing to fans due to how Epel's frustration and pain is being focused on. It's not because of Vil, it's because of Epel. Vil had been just the same with Leona back in the fairy gala event and most of the fans considered the story to be much of a comedy, but when Vil's treating Epel just the same way it sounds mean, cruel, harsh and heartless. See what I meant? Epel's presence was crucial to give Vil an evil perspective and make him seem just as bad as Azul or Leona.

I'm not defending his action since Epel as well is surely under a serious pressure. He doesn't even want to be joining the VDC, let alone having to follow all these strict rules that Vil's been teaching him so far. But since Epel forcedly made the deal with Vil and promised to help him for the VDC, there's no turning back now. Vil is counting on him as his very last hope and is putting his hardest of work and effort into training Epel, just like any professional fashion designer would've done.

(5)Vil is NOT the Evil Queen!

As for Vil's biggest difference with the Evil Queen, I must say that Vil does really work his hardest for what he desires. Evil Queen simply wanted Snow White dead while we've got Vil, working his ass off preparing everything for the VDC. He isn't just going to get mad and envies of Neige because his becoming popular, he doesn't want Neige dead either. All Vil has been doing so far was working and working and working and getting to be called cruel and heartless in return, I mean can't you just feel the amount of effort and nerve he's giving into work?

See, a considerable majority of the fandom is exaggerating the story of chapter 5 while Vil hasn't even shown a simple sign of having any ill intentions or evil plans in mind! We don't know what is going to happen i the next episodes but let's say that he hasn't done a single evil thing so far.

Just take a look at previous chapters! Leona was openly planning to unfairly harm and injure other students and Azul fooled nearly 200 students, took away their magic and forced them to work for him in Mostrolounge until they graduate from the very beginning. Heartslabyul and Scarabia weren't as severe as these two but they still did have some sort of a visibly unhealthy aura. Vil's current impression as the villain of chapter 5 is high-kay normal and chill compared to the previous chapters as he literally has done nothing evil so far, NOTHING. Most of the fandom is currently giving him the malicious aura that he doesn't have, or at least he doesn't yet have. Look, Vil's just doing his job. This doesn't even have anything to do with the Evil Queen! Also, Vil's rival ship with Neige has nothing to do with beauty, it's about fame, net-worth and popularity.

We don't know if he'd come up with any ill plans or serious intentions to harm Neige or anyone else in the new episodes, but his current impression in nothing more than going hard on Epel as his coach which is just being overly exaggerated by the fandom. A real life fashion designer would've done JUST the same thing! I know that this story is most likely going to end in Vil's overblot and him revealing his inner villain but come on, he hasn't done anything horrible so far!

(6)How Epel is being presented through Chapter 5

This point is the cause of many misunderstandings and confusions regarding Chapter 5, many find the context of Epel being forced to do what he doesn't like so cruel, some on the other hand are confused becaused Vil has clearly stated that his terms of beauty are gender neutral, so why would he force Epel to do these in the first place? As I said before, it's because of Epel, not Vil.

When it comes to perspectives on beauty, Epel's idealistics are just the opposite of Vil's. Look, Epel hates being mistaken with a girl or being considered soft and cute, this is something that has been bothering him for quite a long time. Being misgendered because of his appearance all over his life has had some negative effects on his perspective toward anything cute or feminine, as it just reminds him as how he often gets misunderstood because of his unwanted appearance and cuteness. Epel is awfully similar to Deuce and wants nothing more than getting to reveal the manliness he's holding within, through not only tastes but also abilities.

This is why he's been feeling quite uncomfortable in chapter 5 because Vil's basically pushing him into doing what he hates the most, looking cute and, well, something that Epel would consider feminine. The thing is, Vil does not consider stuff like 'Being able to sing beautifully, performing eye-catching movements voice, wearing stunning clothes and applying makeup' feminine at all, to Vil these are gender neutral terms of beauty and he doesn't get why Epel might consider them girlish or feminine either. Epel's comment on not wanting to do girlish things sounded naïve and low key rude to Vil because beauty isn't bound to being male or female, and he doesn't appreciate the idea of these works being called girlish at all.

This is neither Epel nor Vil's fault, it's just the difference in idealistics.

(7) Vil's on thin ice right now

Let me tell you a secret, 'choosing Epel to become the red poisoned apple wasn't an accidental act AT ALL'. Vil has been watching over Epel ever since he entered NRC and this is why he was so strict about changing this "Mudded potato" into a well-behaved Pomefiore student. Vil knew Epel's name and had discussed his case with Rook right at Epel's first day, and this is why he treated Epel so harshly at the dinner table because his plan to turn Epel into his red poisoned apple had already begun. He was preparing Epel from the very beginning and was just expecting the big day to arrive, the day he'd need Epel to defeat his rival, Neige.

Remember that I said how Epel's been waiting for a chance to stand against Vil and how Chapter 5 would be his BEST opportunity to do this? Before we explain this point, let's have a review on how Vil has been effecting and changing him so far. During his first days in NRC, Epel was more comfortable with shouting, fighting and opposing to other students including Vil. He used to disagree until Vil slapped him but now in Chapter 5, he doesn't even say a word when Vil tells him to do something, he just silently obeys as tears fall from his eyes. He no longer fights back as much as he used to.

But right now, Vil's career, status and future is bound to Epel. Vil has been working harder than ever trying to turn him into the Red poisoned Apple he's been expecting him to become, and if Epel backs up or decides to ruin the show and stop letting Vil have control over him, that'll seriously make Vil explode. And if you think that Vil deserves to be hurt like this, I gotta say that he doesn't, he seriously doesn't deserve this after all he's been going through. Just imagine being on Gil's shoes, how would you feel about having the result of all that hard work and effort you've given into work for YEARS ruined like this? Look, we need to judge this situation nonetheless, even is you don't really like Vil it's important to realize the unfairness of this possible future to the story.

Epel now has the opportunity to BREAK Vil like no one has ever done, after all Vil has been going through to coach Epel, teach him manners, change his nature and prepare him for the VDC this would certainly be the worst thing that may happen to him and it'll make him mad, like really really mad. The Vil we've seen through the story so far was nothing more than Vil's normal calm self so we can't even imagine how it might be to see him mad. At this point he won't be bound to any manners or consderations, and keep this in mind: "We won't like it when Vil is evil, and we can't imagine how evil he can be,"

I'm honestly so excited and terrified at the same time to see what we'll get to see in the rest of the Pomefiore chapter, the atmosphere is so nerve-wrecking right now and I can't help but to pray that the rest of this story doesn't traumatize us as much as it can- “Yana please, have mercy on us”

[wereallylostnowbois]

okay so yeah context for earlier post i have a genetically inferior stomach and had already been suffering for most of the day, then i got home and read the new dl update and ... Yeah...

Anyway, without further ado, an analysis of Chapter 25 Part Two.

Spoiler warning for posterity's sake.

So, lets start with the end, because that is what concerns me, and probably many of you, at this moment in time.

Basically Xenos unexisted the world. They won, Dragalia is lost. But wait, because this isn't the end just yet. There's still two more updates left, aren't there? And thus begins my chapter 26 speculation.

Allow me to preface by saying that i have played a lot of games, and watched a lot of anime, and overall merely consumed a substantial amount of media in my time. I have reached a point where I can accurately predict most plots, but this is not a bad thing.

Dragalia Lost on the other hand is a game that never fails to surprise. How Dragalia Lost has done this, and done it well in my opinion, is by not fully explaining the rules of the world. Think back to the downloads page, it basically just said it was a game about the bonds between human and dragon, didn't it? And while it is overall thus, seen especially in the ending of the chapter, there's more to it. Zena was revealed to us with clues as to her existence, and later explained along with Dragalia's many worlds, for example, which are (or were) a pivotal mechanic of the worldbuilding.

This being the case, that Dragalia does not tell you everything all at once, means any predictions of plot I make are likely to be inaccurate, but I will try anyway.

Let's start with a broader idea, there's only two ways I think this can go. The first, the last chapter being Xenos-centric and merely explaining his own lore and the making of his "perfect world", or the second, Euden and Co. pull off some anime logic shenanigans and manage to save/re-exist the world. Basically a bad end and a good end, in general terms.

Good End:

Now in terms of this good ending and how it could still happen extrapolated from information we have currently, I would like to point out that Euden and Zethia have brought themselves back from inexistence before, in Advent of Origin. How they managed to do this in event however, it relied on living people still remembering them. As long as someone remembered them they couldn't be fully erased from the world.

That being said Xenos fully pulverized the entirety of existence, so the only one left to remember anyone is Xenos themself. This leaves us in a kind of lovecraftian-style existing only in the dreams of a slumbering god situation. Which.... isn't all that unlikely in my opinion, Dragalia Lost has taken heavy inspiration from the Cthulhu Mythos before, in events like Accursed Archives, and also at times in the main questline (the way Xenos and Bahamut are described specifically, as beings that sort of transcend any ability to comprehend them), thus it's not *entirely* impossible.

Or possibly maybe Xenos grows bored of his void and his perfect clockwork world and decides to put back up what he tore down. This only strikes me as a possibility because in this final monologue Xenos seems to become somewhat sentimental, towards Bahamut and the emptiness they once dwelled in. Would let that sentimentality get to him enough to undo what has been done? Who can say, certainly not me.

Bad End

Xenos isn't a character who's shown much emotion in the short time we've been acquainted with them, which is a given seeing as he's apparently discarded his own heart. The only time we see Xenos really express any emotion at all is when he's reminiscing about Bahamut and the void there towards the end. So, probably, they're just going to continue on with they're plans. Wipe the slate clean and build up they're new world. Elysium is dead, the worlds of possibility wiped out entirely. What's to stop them, precisely?

Now the only things I will say going against this is that it would be a massively unsatisfying ending, a conclusive ending maybe, a good one to lead into something else maybe, but deeply unsatisfying to the reader. Additionally, we have no conclusive answers to what happened to beings dwelling in the space between worlds like all those lovely raid bosses we faced over the years, or more precisely to the True Bahamut seen in Advent of Origin.

I have no conclusive knowledge of how it would go down if True Bahamut is still out there, but it's something to think about.

Anyway, I'll probably be talking more about the other things that happened in this chapter later, such as Zena's lovely character arc and a few former theories I had that were confirmed by finally seeing the world she came from, but I'll save that for another day. I don't have a conclusive answer to anything, and I don't expect to, but I can try my best to put the pieces together while we all wait for the end.

Have a lovely day, my fellow Losties.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google's short-lived data-advantage

There's a lot of ways to think about the movement to tame Big Tech, but one of the more useful divisions to explore is the "Night of the Comet" people versus the "Don't Believe the Criti-Hype" people.

This is a division over the value of the data that Google, Facebook and other large tech firms have amassed over the years - data on their users, sure, but also data on the advertisers and publishers they serve with their ad-tech platforms.

Big Tech companies and their investors are really bullish on the value of this commercial data-advantage: they say that spying on us - the users - lets them manipulate our opinions and activities so that we buy or believe the things their advertisers pay them to push.

More quietly, their investors believe that the data-advantage extends to publishers and advertisers, a deep storehouse of data that makes it effectively impossible for anyone else to do the precision targeted that Big Tech manages, which is why they have such fat margins.

Night of the Comet tech criticism accepts these claims at face value: Big Tech's advantage, they claim, comes from having amassed this insurmountable data-advantage that allows it to both predict and shape what we - and therefore advertisers and publishers - will do.

The implication of this is that traditional antitrust remedies - breakups, say - won't be merely ineffective; they'll be terrifyingly harmful.

If Googbook invented a mind-control ray to sell your nephew fidget-spinners, then breaking them up will only make it easier for Robert Mercer to hijack that mind-control ray to turn your uncle into a Qanon racist.

Googbook's data-advantage, in other words, is like a planet-killing comet heading towards the Earth. If we break that comet up, it will turn into a killing rain of meteors that shower onto every part of the globe - we can't break up the comet, we have to *steer* it.

In this version of tech criticism, the answer is to leave Big Tech intact, but turn it into a utility, or some other highly regulated entity, bound by rules that limit its use of that mind-control system.

Bringing Big Tech to heel by deputizing it to serve as an arm of the state (and perhaps a national champion in the new Cold War with China), like the Bell System prior to the AT&T breakup in '82.

On the other side, you have the Don't Believe the Criti-Hype school. Lee Vinsel coined the term "Criti-Hype" to describe a kind of criticism that actually hypes its subject - say, by repeating Big Tech's self-serving claims.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#dont-believe-the-hype

These claims aren't just self-serving, they're also highly dubious. Everyone who's ever claimed to be able to read - or control - our minds was lying (to themselves, or to everyone else, or both).

The "psychometrics" that all this behavior-modification depends on is - to quote *Nature* - a "scant science." From Big Five Personality Types to microexpression/sentiment analysis, we're deep into the realm of irreproducible results and junk science.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03880-4

The Criti-Hype school posits that the supernormal returns to capital for Big Tech aren't driven by awesome ad-tech capabilities, but rather, by monopoly (buying or crushing all competitors) and the fraud it enables (the industry has nowhere else to go).

That is, Big Tech makes money the same way hedge-fund managers make their own stunning returns: by cheating so they get paid whether or not they're any good at their jobs. The mere existence of a profitable industry is not proof that the industry is run by competent people.

And to be clear, there is a *lot* of fraud in ad-tech. Tim Hwang calls it a "Subprime Attention Crisis," where the ads are fake, the clicks are fake, the publishers' inventory is fake, the whole thing *riddled* with fraud.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

As Aram Zucker-Scharff wrote, "The numbers are fake, the metrics are bullshit, the agencies responsible for enforcing good practices are knowing bullshitters profiting off the fake numbers and none of the models make sense at scale of actual human users."

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#adfraud

It's a "bezzle" - a con whose mark hasn't twigged to the ruse...yet.

And while the Night of the Comet side relies on the irreproducible claims of self-proclaimed Svengalis, the Criti-Hype side has an increasingly corpus of cold, hard facts about the bezzle's operation.

Take last November's "Why Google Dominates Advertising Markets," Dina Srinivasan's  superb and detailed dissection of Google's crooked ad-markets, in which they steal from advertisers and publishers by rigging the bids on both sides of the exchange.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/20/sovkitsch/#adtech

Srinivasan proves you don't need mind-control rays to explain how Big G makes fantastic returns from the ad-tech market. That prospect is further explored in the UK Competition and Markets Authority's 437-page report on "Online platforms and digital advertising" (Jul '20):

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5fa557668fa8f5788db46efc/Final_report_Digital_ALT_TEXT.pdf

Here's where it starts to get *really* interesting. In May 2020, Yale's Fiona Scott Morton and Omidyar's  David Dinielli used preliminary CMA data to publish their "Roadmap for a Digital Advertising Monopolization Case Against Google."

https://omidyar.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Roadmap-for-a-Case-Against-Google.pdf

Morton and Dinelli zero in on the actual mechanism of Google's data-advantage, the thing it commands a lion's share of, which advertisers genuinely prize: location data. If I know you're around the corner from my cafe, I might spend a *lot* to show you an ad for my pasties.

This location data advantage is undeniable, but man, it has a short half-life. Thing is, I might spend a lot of money to show you an ad for my coffee shop when you're around the corner, but once you've moved on, you can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. You're dead to me.

This short half-life tells us that we're not living the Night of the Comet nightmare scenario. Break up Google, starve it of location data, and within *hours* most of its location targeting advantage is gone...forever.

As the antitrust cases against Google proceed, more and more of these technical exposes of rigged markets emerge, showing us how monopoly and fraud are at the heart of the data-advantage, and how contingent, time-bound and fragile that advantage really is.

The latest is the bizarrely named "Project Bernanke," a formerly secret ripoff that was exposed when Google forgot to redact a document it filed in its Texas antitrust case:

https://twitter.com/KhushitaVasant/status/1379955848118726659

Google used data from recent ad-auctions to help advertisers shade their bids for ad-placements, exploiting the information asymmetry so the ads it brokered won the auctions, ensuring that rivals ad-brokerages were frozen out.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/googles-secretive-project-bernanke-reportedly-093732134.html

Though Google insists that this was just an industry practice, the leaked document reveals that Google kept this a secret from publishers. Its internal presentations claim that they made $230m in 2013 alone from this practice.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/googles-secret-project-bernanke-revealed-in-texas-antitrust-case-11618097760

All together, this constitutes a highly specific account of how a data-advantage worked - and what its weak-point is. Project Bernanke was not grounded in longitudinal market data from ad-sales - it exploited *recent* data to deliver a $230m+/year advantage.

The multisided market - a multisided bezzle - exploits the monopolist's data advantage to harm readers, publishers and advertisers, not by predicting and shaping their behavior by bypassing their critical faculties with spooky, advanced psychometrics.

The bezzle requires fresh data - it's a flywheel that uses the monopolist's god's-eye-view to freeze out competitors and entrap publishers and advertisers to get more data to rig the market to entrap the publishers and the advertisers.

It's not a comet. It's a monopoly. It's not terrifying supergeniuses using machine learning to turn us into clicking zombies: it's garden-variety monopolists using anticompetitive, underhanded, dishonest and (probably) illegal tactics to maintain their monopoly.

Bust the trust, ban the conduct, and the data-advantage evaporates with the half-life of that extremely time-bound data. The criti-hype that says that the data-advantage is a deadly, unstoppable comet is just Google's own sales-patter, flipped on its head.

Don't believe the criti-hype.

[murdereraisuha]

I wrote this for myself to try and organize my current theories on TWST, but I might as well keep this blog going even though I’m out of ideas for card maker memes.

This is basically a rant that starts out with theorizing about RSA, the Cater=Cinderella theory, and Split Card, but then spirals into a Cater character analysis.

For anyone who doesn’t know the Cinderella theory, it’s basically just Cater might have something to do with Cinderella because he has two bossy sisters, and during the ghost marriage there was this whole thing where Riddle needs to rescue Cater before midnight because of some Queen of Hearts rule. 

Spoilers for Cater’s personal stories (including his halloween outfit story) and chat, and chapter 4 of the main story. Okay now let’s get into it. Over 1,800 words geez what am I doing with my life

   Aight so Ace and Deuce don't have their unique magics yet and there is obviously Something going on with Cater so it really makes me think that we're gonna return to Heartslabyul somewhere down the line. We know there's gotta be more stuff with RSA, so that might tie into the Cater = Cinderella theory. Maybe we have a chapter focusing on RSA and Cater will be the main focus or ally for that. IDK man, I'm still kind of eh on the Cinderella theory cause it makes a lot of sense but we already have Mozus being the evil stepmother. Him and Cater are from the same hometown (?) but my concern is that if Cater is a main focus and he gets connected to Mozus then Mozus would also be in the spotlight which would be odd given how nothing seems to suggest that the teachers (except Crowley) getting bigger roles in the story. However, it could always be a situation like with Farena where Mozus is there and some sort of connection is briefly discussed but he isn't important and maybe someone else takes the role of evil stepmother in the story.

   Ok idk so we're gonna go back to Cater. If the Cinderella theory is true, we gotta consider how exactly Cater represents Cinderella. Does he represent Cinderella in the way that he's twisted from her (ex. Azul & Ursula) or that he just takes the role of Cinderella for a chapter (ex. Azul & The Genie)? The fact that he uses dark magic points to it being the latter, that he really is twisted from a card soldier. However, we gotta consider 1. the nature of his unique magic 2. the plot of Cinderella. Though we know he has the ability to clone himself, we don't know how exactly this works. Are the clones identical, or do/can they have differences? In episode 1-15, the Cater clones all have slightly different responses ("はーい" "まかせて！" "おっけー♪") to getting ready to paint the roses. Given how clones don't exist in real life, it's impossible to tell whether this variation indicates actual differences in personality, is just due to the clones' slightly different experiences (like a sort of butterfly effect), or if it's just a decision by the writer so they aren't repetitive. Another thing to note is that in that same episode Cater claims that cloning himself is tiring. If this is the only source for this information, there's the possibility that it just was a lie to let him manipulate the 1st years into helping him paint. Finally, Cater's ability makes me think of Twice from BNHA. Can only the original Cater create clones? Or is he like Twice in that his clones can also make clones, therefore making it impossible for anyone, including himself, to tell who is the original?

  What I'm getting at here is the possibility of Cater having clones that 1. stick around permanently and 2. are significantly different than him. This would create the possibility of him being twisted from both the card soldiers and Cinderella, but he is able to use his clone ability to split up those aspects of himself. One Cater is the card soldier one normally walking around NRC and who has dark magic, but then there's another Cinderella Cater who has light magic. Assuming this is what is going on, it would kind of connect to his two-sided personality, where he presents his bubbly, social-media addict personality to the world but has another, depressed, more private personality underneath. 

  Now, getting into what I mentioned before about the plot of Cinderella, Cinderella normally looks like a humble servant. However, with the aid of the fairy godmother, she completely transforms herself into a breathtaking princess so she can go to the ball. However, once the clock strikes midnight, she transforms back. Basically, Cinderella has the ability of transformation, to have two completely different versions of herself. One version is her true, plain self, while the other is a flashy deception. This information strengthens what I just said about Cater's personality and clone ability.

  Actually, just going into Cater's personality for a bit (yeah, “a bit” lol)... He has a big focus on always being presentable. In his lab coat, he seems pretty desperate to hide all evidence of his true self, claiming that he just failed at putting his magic in the depressed mandrake and then hiding all his other mandrakes aside from the fun ones. This desperation is similar to Cinderella's, with how she flees the ball in a hurry once it reaches midnight so no one will see how she truly looks once the spell breaks. Now, why do Cater and Cinderella behave the way they do? I don't remember Cinderella's exact motivations for attending the ball, but wikipedia says that she had to flee the ball because if the spell broke there she could get caught by her stepmother & stepsisters. What is Cater's "ball"? Well, because of his strong social media presence, his "ball" is basically everywhere, all the time. If something happens on social media that exposes his true self, breaking his "spell", not only can other students see it, but his sisters can also see it.

  Cater hates sucking up to his older sisters, which implies that he has had to suck up to his older sisters and put up his happy front around them too. Just like how Cinderella can't afford to let her stepsisters realize her true identity at the ball, Cater can't afford to let his sisters realize his true self. It's honestly kind of sad; unlike Cinderella, whose stepsisters only showed up later in her life, Cater's older sisters have been around him and making him miserable for all of his life.

  Kinda unrelated, but looking though Cater's chats, in the one he has with Trey they talk about the Queen of Hearts and her love for sweets, Cater remarks that he wants to have tea with her too, leading Trey to say that Cater would be unable to befriend her since they're in different social classes. Isn't this basically a genderbent version of Cinderella, just a commoner, wanting to go to the ball where the Prince is? 

  Now going back to Cater's personality. Even if he does fear his sisters, that doesn't seem to fully explain his 24/7 pep and focus on being magicammable. Now, what if we say that happiness=nobility. In Cinderella, she dresses up like nobility so she can remain in the ball where the actually rich people are. What if Cater is acting happy so he can fit in with the people around him, who are naturally happy enough that they don't need to fake it? Is this a fake it until you make it situation? At the end of his ceremony robes story, after he says he's tired and doesn't care about the ceremony, he says he's just kidding and goes back to talking about the selfies he took that day. Even though he's alone and wouldn't really get hurt for dropping his performance. It gives the vibe to me that his situation is not like Jamil's, where he's fully aware he's unhappy, deliberately acts otherwise in front of others, and tries to eliminate the cause of his unhappiness. Instead, Cater is trying to eliminate his unhappiness itself. He grasps onto magicam because if he fills up his account with pictures of a happy life, it's like he's actually living a happy life.

  This idea I have of Cater trying to fit in also goes along with his focus on the current trends, like in one of his gym uniform voice lines where he panics at the idea of not knowing about a new popular game. Rather than making his own aesthetics or trends, he goes along with the crowd. Sweets and desserts are trendy? Then he'll take tons of pictures of them and say they're super delicious even if he actually hates sweet food. He disregards or evades his own preferences to create the appearance that he's just like everyone else, and he puts effort into staying up to date so he can maintain that appearance.

  Moving on, I reread his halloween outfit personal story. Something that stuck out was the end, when Cater thinks that Lilia wouldn't understand what he's going through. Specifically, Lilia wouldn't understand his 下らなくてどーしよーもない feelings. According to jisho, 下らない can mean trivial/not worth bothering with/worthless, and it can also mean stupid/absurd/silly. Then, どーしよーもない (どうしようもない)  means something that can't be helped, that has no way out of it. Doesn't this seem kind of odd? That he claims his feelings are just trivial then but also he can't help having them? Is this a contradiction? Or is it something like he believes that most people wouldn't have these silly feelings but he specifically is too weak to push past them?

  For self-esteem though, he seems to at least be trying to boost it. Like in his gym uniform story, when he decides to just clone himself and have each one run 1 lap instead of him running 5 by himself, his clones all praise him for the idea. However, this could be a fake it until you make it thing again. The praise does seem a bit heavy-handed. 

  There's also the whole thing in the 2nd part of the story where he talks about all the shallow friendships he has made. He notes that he'd rather have a casual time with people rather than get attached. That plus his family situation... means he's really never had anyone to trust. Anyway, he then goes on to talk about how magicame is amazing for helping him maintain all these casual friendships. So there we have another reason for his social media addiction: not only does it let him create a picture of happiness, he can get tons of feedback affirming his happiness and serving as proof of happiness. How can he possibly be lonely if he has so many friends?

  Both in his ceremony robes and halloween outfit stories have a moment where Cater is tired and admits he's tired but then downplays it. Yeah, the ceremony was tiring, but he got tons of great pictures out of it! Yeah, dealing with guests was rough, but at the same time all the halloween stuff was exciting! This sort of thing is a pretty common strategy for increasing the persuasiveness of an argument. By first agreeing (yes, he's tired) with the opposing view (he is not happy), he can then push his own view (he is happy) and point at his earlier concession as proof that he has looked at both sides of the issue instead of only looking for evidence of his own belief. 

 So basically what I'm getting here is that Cater Is Not Okay. Prevented from building close bonds with friends or family, he's reinforcing his isolation himself through his fervent efforts to never let anyone close and never let his mask drop. He's gone so far as to try and convince himself that he's happier than he actually is through self-deception and social media.

  Alright that’s all I got for now see ya

[artofaboythatoncewas]

Analysis of Ween’s ‘Ocean Man’

Ocean Man is a song that Ween has described as something that formed together like magic falling into place. But like all magic, there are hidden mechanisms behind it that necessitate going being the scientific method. For a long time, this song has remained pleasurable but incomprehensible, yet I plan to decode it. The first life of “Ocean man, take me by the hand, lead me to the land that you understand”, while also being a reference to Echoes by Pink Floyd, is also an invitation to be taken to a world of wonder and whimsy. The world being referred to is what I call the ‘village under the sea.’ It was a term coined by Jacques Cousteau to describe his endeavors to build underwater habitats for humanity to experimentally live in, but it also applies as a general ontology of the ocean in respect to humanity’s place as a lifeform on Earth. It asks of us to view the sea in the ways that Indigenous Polynesians have, in that there is no separation of place by terrain: The sea is just as much habitable land as any continent or island.

In asking us to understand the land, we’re also being asked to understand the sea for ultimately there is no difference between land and sea other than that which comes from trying to objectify the oceans. “The voyage to the corner of the globe is a real trip” is contradictory because there are no corners to the ocean: It’s an entity with no boundaries except constructed ones. The trip you’ll go on is one that’ll take you into a worldview where you’ll be able to understand that you cannot objectify something as mighty and powerful as the ocean. Given the psychedelic context of this album, you will indeed ‘trip.’

“The crust of a tan man imbibed by the sand, soaking up the first of the land.” This is an indirect description of humanity, especially a man in the Western world in 1997. The human is imbibed by the sand, meaning the hot, dry sand is absorbing him, leading to him having crusty skin like someone who has tanned for too long. He’s soaking up the thirst of the land because man has become so familiarized with the essentialism of dry land that he forgets that life has managed to live successfully outside of it. It all reverts back to the desire to deconstruct these destructive Western terrain classifications that stopped us from appreciating the impossibly complex ecological harmony of the life that exists just below the surface of the ocean. The surface of the ocean has historically acted, to Westerners, as just inhospitable land that needed to be crossed. Cousteau radically challenged this view by using popular science as a medium to explore and document the ancient world that was right beneath us, introducing the technology of scuba to better aid the cause of inciting civilian interest in the oceans and thus a sentimental value to their preservation beyond the unforeseen economic ones. 

“Can you see through the wonder of amazement at the overman?” This references the concept by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche of the Übermensch originally described in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which simply defined is a man who rises above the dogmatic moralism of conventional Christianity to create his own values that, out of resistance, refuses to impose it upon others. In the context of this song, it can have two meanings: One, the ‘ocean man’ as a figure is fascinated by seeing this external overman figure and is being questioned as to whether not he can overcome their own illusionment for what they really are, positioning the ‘ocean man’ as a symbol of native marine life and the overman as the Western man who has historically not cared for or acknowledged them. The transcendence of Christian morality could, in this case, be an acceptance of a worldview that objectifies the ocean and marginalizes ocean life and leads to the indirect destruction of Cousteau’s ‘village under the sea.’

Two, the ‘ocean man’ is also the overman, and that seeing through the wonder of amazement is recognizing that, as a human being, the ocean man sees the overman as a picture of what he can become if he sheds his Western ontology of the ocean and embraces it as a sacred element to his existence. Literally, this is transcending centuries of what Christian moralism has made of the oceans as mere barriers in the path of evangelization: To become the overman, the ocean man must embrace a journey to transcend this dogmatism and find a new morality constructed on his terms and his relationship with the ocean.

“The crust is elusive when it casts forth to the childlike man.” We’ve established before that the crust refers to the residue of life adjusting to living entirely on land, and it becoming elusive means it's hard to find. Reference to the ‘childlike man’ could be referring to a man who has shed these imposed ideas of how they should interact with the world, and thus become once again like a child with unbridled curiosity and earnestness about the world. The child doesn’t objectify the sea and obtains an ontology akin to Indigenous Polynesians, albeit in a much more microcosmic environment.

The childlike man is equivalent to a Western scientist, like Cousteau, who takes up a sudden and profound interest in the ocean and specifically the village that lies at the bottom of it. The crust is no longer there because the childlike man isn’t limiting his idea of home to just dry land, thereby minimizing the crust. It’s not a stretch to believe that, in some way, the character of SpongeBob functions as a cultural icon functions in this way: He’s extremely curious and earnest about the world in a way that differentiated him from most protagonists of ‘90s cartoons loaded with postmodern cynicism. SpongeBob is also the highly relatable protagonist in which we’re exposed to the world of Bikini Bottom, another representation of the village under the sea.

“The sequence of a life form braised in the sand, soaking up the thirst of the land” Braising is a method of cooking which involves lightly frying something and then slowly stewing it in a closed container. The light frying is the intermediate period of moving away from that Western, landlocked crust and preparing to enter into the village under the sea. While the slow stewing is, like a sponge, absorbing the ecological order of everything around you. The goal of this is to reorganize your idea of ecosophy (philosophy of ecological order) away from what Western ways of life have traditionally concerned themselves with.

The thirst of the land you’re soaking up takes on a double meaning here, in that you’re now soaking up the subconscious desire man has to understand the world it has moved away from. It desires to understand the ocean as a simultaneously new and old frontier: One more mysterious than even our own star systems. The thirst of the land is now being quenched by the childlike man who sheds the crust of Western natural ontologies and pursues intimacy with that it has evolved out of so many eons ago.

The last part of the song I want to touch on is every verse beginning with directly addressing this figure known as the ‘ocean man.’ I’ve heard some analyses before say that he’s a mythological hydrophile who symbolizes liberty at sea away from the laws and restrictions imposed upon land, but I think it's more specific than that. The 'ocean man' just refers to anyone who teaches you to rethink the oceans, whether that be Ween with the entire album, Jacques Cousteau and his series of pop science documentaries, or Stephen Hillenburg and his titanic cartoon series. All of these make the effort to try and change how Western society has historically thought of the ocean through some form of inquiry

 In Ween’s case, I think it was some psychic force that influenced them on that night in Jersey Shore to write an album that pushed culture not only sonically but also subliminally like in the ways I’ve expressed in this analysis. All of it was made to make you understand that there's a village under the sea as much as there are villages above the land, and it’s ironic how recognizing this is considered ‘alien’ when this worldview is far more ancient than what we’re used to.

With this understanding, it makes a lot of sense why this song was chosen to be the ending of the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, as the show was a culmination of influences that stretched from Cousteau to Ween on Hillenburg’s life. And what does SpongeBob attempt to do at the end of the day but teach us to become overmen to the ontologies imposed upon us? To children, SpongeBob is a character who first fills his heart with love and then tries to be himself as a departure from media that previously told children to be themselves blindly. What if your self is corrupted? What if it’s crusted from being so used to something as great and magnificent as the ocean being objectified and desanctified? When you take the ocean man’s hand (Stephen Hillenburg’s), you become SpongeBob, and your heart fills with a familiar sense of earnestness that he felt when he studied marine biology.

[marshmallowprotection]

Kait Reacts To The AE 6/?

Hi! These reactions are written out every time a Chatroom opens and it’s done over the course of the day. So, you’re watching me react in real time as it is for me. So, Spoilers AHOY. Expect Another post like this later today, there is just too many chats to put it all in one post. So, hey, if you click this, you’re opening yourself to spoilers, you make the choice.

[18:00]

Hey, so this is a heavy chat. A lot happens and I have a lot of feelings in my heart and most of them are not kind. I’m usually the type of person that wants to see good in people but I see no good in Rika Kim and I never will. I cannot let myself trust V anymore, either. Not after his reaction in this shared chatroom with him and Rika. I just can’t. I can’t deal with him or her anymore because the two of them are so—

I’ll get into it. 

You jump into the chat and ask Rika if she feels guilty for what she did. She says, “I didn’t do anything. It was the Prime Minister. He should have known better than to bite the dog that is bigger than he. All of you, all of you should know better than to do this.” She blames them for what’s happening, and she acts like she has done nothing wrong. She allowed this to happen by letting the agency and the Prime Minister know that she’d do as they wanted as long as she got to keep her freedom.

This chatroom has... Rika telling you that she’s done denying herself, she is wicked, she is vindictive, she is her devil and she just doesn’t care about anything but herself. It’s all about Rika, it’s all about what Rika wants, and what Rika wants, Rika is going to get no matter how dirty her hands have to become in the process. She even jests that it’s selfish, like it’s some kind of a game. This isn’t a game.

But, I wanna see what she’s thinking so I prod deeper. 

She says that Saeran should give up hope. That there’s nothing he can do and that he’s weak against Saejoong and the hackers. But, I tell him not to give up hope if he’s looking at the chatroom. I know he has to be. He’s at C&R so that has to be case. Rika says that they’re not good people, but neither is she, so that’s why they get along. They work together even if they don’t see the same deal and keep their secrets. 

I don’t like that. 

She keeps saying to the RFA to forget the twins. 

To forget everything. 

Live on.

Live on while Rika gets her Selfish Wish [the name of the chat.]

And let me tell you when I screamed, I screamed when this happened because this is what I’ve been trying to tell people for years about the problem with being able to forgive or judge. 

People who hurt you can apologize, but you don’t owe them shit for it. You don’t owe them anything. Ever. You can hate them forever if that is what you want. You don’t have to accept an apology. Nor do you have to see them ever again. It’s your choice to forgive, and it’s your choice to not forgive someone and thank fucking Christ the game let me say this to Rika Kim’s fucking face. 

You really get to call her out in this chatroom, too. I’m floored at this because it’s all I’ve ever wanted to do. You don’t get to move on and act like you didn’t make a fucking cult and harm hundreds of people. You don’t get to move on and act like nothing happened when you abused, tortured, and gaslit Saeran Choi for so many years. No. You don’t. You don’t get to be selfish. You don’t get that. You don’t have that right. 

She makes a final plea to Saeran: To Give into her wish. 

I tell him not to lose hope. 

V comes into this chatroom and this is the point where I reach my fucking end of confusion about him and I give up on him. I’m disappointed in you, Jihyun Kim and I do not think I ever will have that restored. I am angry with you and I am so sad that you were on the brink of getting back and you went back, and now you have resigned yourself to this and let others hurt. I thought that when you went to Rika it was to make her leave the cult and never return, taking all the pain for yourself. 

But, no. You sold out everything and everyone for Rika and unless something is going to change, and I highly doubt that, I cannot trust you ever again, Jihyun. I hate that you will suffer but your suffering has caused the suffering of our loved ones, and I thought you would never hurt them, but you did. This hurts me a lot and that’s why I have so much to say. 

That being said, V says that when Saeran comes: You can go. You will be free. We won’t hurt you. 

Rika: You don’t have a choice. This is their future. 

Rika leaves. 

This is the moment where I give up on V. 

That’s not what you were supposed to say. You say, “I will be fine.” I’m not asking about you, Jihyun. I’m asking about if you’re okay with what is going on right now and if you’re okay that you’re destroying everything as you burn like Icarus in Rika’s sun. I’m not worried or concerned with you. You’ve betrayed my faith in you. 

I want you to be happy but... as it remains right now, I cannot trust you or be close to you ever again. I thought I knew you. But, apparently, I don’t. 

[19:23] 

Alright. I’m rattled to my core and I’m not better than I was when I last checked in with you. In fact, this one actually made me cry. I’m still a bit... choked up on what I just saw and. There’s a lot to talk about. So, I guess I’ll just start with the chatroom. It’s with Zen and Jumin. Zen tries to ask what’s up but we really can not talk about it... you know, cause Rika and the others can see it but he’s doing okay as he can. Although, the doctors knocked him out without his consent with the drug?

Is it about his healing speed? That’s not okay. Don’t do shit without someone’s consent. Jumin’s not okay. I can say that certainly. There’s a phone with him right after all of this and he just... he’s tired. He doesn’t want to talk. He masks his pain and says what he needs to say and then he leaves before you can ask him if he’s okay. I’m concerned for him. He wants to take all of this blame and still help us. 

Jumin Han is a fucking saint. 

I love him. Nobody ever talk shit about this man. I swear to God, he’s always going above and beyond for everyone in this fucking group. He doesn’t even have to do this and he does it. He has a big heart. The media is getting worse, they’ve started to talk about Zen in a bad light... Yoosung... it’s not good, it’s just a fucking mess. He doesn’t even know if he can get on the stage ever again or if Yoosung can... go to classes. 

We were heroes, he said, and now... I don’t know. 

Jumin just leaves the chatroom after he updates us. He’s... I’m worried, you know? Zen promises that he’s looking out for us and he wants to be there, and he sends a selfie and that almost boosted my mood. Now, we jump into the end of the chat. We get a ping from Seven. 

We close the phone and open the visual novel. Saeyoung is awake, but he tells us to be quiet. Rika literally threatens us if we try anything and says that she will not hesitate if we ruin her selfish wish. Once she’s said her peace and made her threat known, she leaves. 

And we’re alone with Saeyoung. I theorized that we would get a moment with Saeyoung alone in my big analysis post but I never thought that this would be the way that it would happen. He says what I thought he would want to say to us and this is when I started to actively tremble in the game. I can hear it in his voice, and he’s hurting. He’s hurting so fucking much and I never thought this would be the way that I would get to talk to Saeyoung about Saeyoung and what we’ve been doing. 

I didn’t even get to tell him about Saeran or how he’s been doing or what’s going on. No. Rika and V robbed of this. Saeyoung has his phone, and that’s when he drops a big bombshell on me about Vanderwood that I didn’t even consider as I was playing earlier because I was so fucking torn open about what was had just happened to me that I wasn’t thinking. 

Vanderwood ran from the agency. They planted a shitload of intel and info on Saeyoung’s voice so he could use it against the agency. It’s all on his phone and all he has to do is use it to ensure that they go down and we can escape. He’s thinking that he will suffer behind here. He refuses to let Saeran suffer, his words are, “At least Saeran must have nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wants and finding himself whenever he wants.’ 

Saeyoung Choi is a selfless man. 

He wants to stay with Saeran and make sure he’s happy. The goal is to attack the agency, not Saejoong, they are the ones keeping us locked up and trapped like this. He paid them money for it. He will continue to pay them to get power and what he wants while the boys suffer. He refuses to let that happen. I don’t want to leave him, but he’s not giving me much of a choice here. 

He won’t let me do that. 

I think that he’s going to focus on this but then, this is the moment where I’ve utterly lost faith in Jihyun Kim as a man. I will not forgive him. I cannot. I don’t care what happens ahead, all of his actions right now are not something that I can forgive. Nobody will. He knows he’s wrong. He knows this is wrong but he acts like this is all he can do. He says to give up. He says that he has to take the phone because Saeyoung, Rika, and Saeran will suffer if Saeyoung fights back and this is it.

Just accept Hell.

This is the only way. 

V: There is nothing you can do. I tried to help you, I really did. But, there’s a reason why the term impossible exists.

I say what I’ve been saying to myself: 

This is where I started fucking sobbing and I haven’t stopped crying since this goddamn Visual Novel. Saeyoung gets on his fucking hands and knees and begs for his brother to be safe and V just spits in his face. Saeyoung pleads, “Not Saeran, not Saeran! I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything they ask and I will work harder then the two of us would together tenfold. Please, I swear I will not run away or anything! You know I wouldn’t!” 

He begs and pleads until the last second and V ignores it. This isn’t for the best, V, you know it, and you need to stop. I cannot forgive you for what you’ve done for Rika. You’re aware that you’re in the wrong and you aren’t going to help out here, you’ve chosen and you’ve chosen to ignore us and our pleas for help, we could win if you and Rika hadn’t turned against us. If you had been willing to give us help, then this wouldn’t be fucking happen. 

You know that? 

You added to the problem by offering Saeran and Saeyoung’s lives to keep Rika and her selfish wish happy. Saeran and Saeyoung will never forgive you and I can’t say I ever will now even if something changes by day 4. 

[21:02]

Welcome back. I’m tired of this. 

V had made his point of view known. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, he will let all of us burn so Rika can have what she wants and so the boys are alive and it doesn’t matter if it’s what we want or not. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s aware that he’s in the wrong here. He knows that. He just... ignores it, and he is ignoring reality for the sake of a selfish wish. 

He even says that Saeyoung won’t stop. They’re going to have to keep drugging him over and over, is what is implied. Even if Saeran can... “placate” his nerves by being there. I don’t like that tone and I’m... this has been a really hard day for me and V. I wanted him to be... not. this. But, this is what’s life and I can’t ignore it because he’s pissed me off. 

He’s not playing a long-con. 

He’s given that up. I’ve said what I have to say. I’m done with you, V. I’m just... I’m so done with you right now that I can’t even fucking deal with you. Stop doing this for the love of Christ. 

Anyways, the Visual Novel opens up and— They know about phone now and they know that Saeyoung had information. They’re going to change the server and that opens them to attack. This is the time for Saeran to strike and he has to do it now. He said that he may not be able to contact us. He’s going to be working and I trust him. I have faith in him so I’m going to wait and listen even if I’m grinding my teeth to dust as I watch Saeyoung suffer. 

Oh. Jumin had the doctors do that because we all know that Zen heals without a lot of... issue. They tested him to nullify the drugs. Okay, okay, okay, Jumin has a fucking go-plan. I don’t know what the hell is about to come but I know that we are in for a long fucking night, oh my God. 

I called V after this.

You tell him that he's wrong for what he did. He says, yes, but what did you expect? Saeyoung is crafty. He can't risk Rika's dream, and he can't risk the life that they're trying to build with this cage around Saeran and Saeyoung. You can say that Saeyoung thought of him well, and he ignores that and says he's doing what must be done because nothing can be changed. This is how it will be. He literally told me not to interfere or he would... do something. 

 He says "Once RIKA changes, it won't be so bad." He says "Please, wait?" I disagree. I will never agree. He says that there's no hope once more. He says that he hopes we never change and we stay strong in our heart. 

He says that.. you WOULD HAVE had good influence on Saeran. That Rika and himself envy what I have, my kindness. They don't have that, but they have something else. I ask him if he's going to fess up, change, and admit he's wrong. He says he won't change until Rika does. He said, don't do anything. Please. Or else. It's implied.

I basically hung up and said "I don't really have a choice, you kidnapped me."

[23:13]

So, we’re treated to a very short chatroom here. No surprise, really. Zen comes and lets us know that he feels that hope is lost. He thinks there’s not point and that we have to give up if we want to achieve anything anymore. He hates it and it’s horrible, but he and Jumin spoke and it just concluded that they shouldn’t be using the messenger and that we should avoid it. He promises that when we do return, however that is, he’ll be waiting there for us to reassure us. I needed that, honestly, my first route love, thank you for looking out for me. 

It’s really an end note. 

It feels like we’re going to hit a wall and THEN—

BANG, BOOM, BAM. 

Vanderwood didn’t actually leave! The bug they fucking planted? A decoy! A lie! A falsehood! They were working with Saeran and Jumin the entire time but they couldn’t tell me. Vanderwood, I love you, oh my God. I knew you weren’t going to stick your neck out but you really do love Saeyoung, even if a lot of comes from the idea that you’ll be given safety from the agency after this comes out and things are better. I’m so happy I could weep. 

Thank  God. 

Zen made me think I was going to hit a fucking bad ending. 

Oh... and Saeran calls after, and he made a secure call channel, but they are fucking jamming all the calls and he can’t hold it for very long so we have to be talking really fast. I’m weeping because it’s starting to glitch out and he just tells me that he loves me and I tell him I love him and—

I love him but I’m scared. I’m scared that something bad might happen on the 3rd day that will keep us apart or hurt him or I’ll hit a bad ending and he’ll suffer for me. I don’t want that. I want us to be happy. He’s working so hard right now and I just... I have to have faith in him, and the RFA. I always do. So, I’m holding out for a hero.

[novelconcepts]

HELLO HELLO. just read your recent comments on PoaLoF and i loved your comment juxtaposing films with a “thesis” and films with a “purpose.” that’s so intriguing to me, never an explicit distinction i made in my head. i think i have an outline of what i assume that means, however, i wanted to ask if you could expand upon that a little?? as in what qualities spur you to classify a movie as one or the other + any other thoughts that come to mind on the topic.

and to continue the trend of showering you with compliments, i am continually impressed by.... just you in general lmao. honestly, i haven’t been able to read any of your pieces since the first few chapter of the FWB fic because of time constraints BUT i still return to your account as one of my afternoon guilty pleasures just because i absolutely mcfreaking love your analyses. it’s so nice to find a place where there’s a convening of overall love for a piece of media AND cinematic analysis, if that makes sense. it’s warm AND substantive. i’m like 90% sure you’ve influenced the way i interact with visual media now. thanks for being comfortable enough to share these parts of yourself. and also for gracing us with such awesome/beautiful answers. i hope all is well with you. YEEHAW AND GOODNIGHT.

The whole second paragraph of your message is just so nice, thank you so much. Bit too flustered to say much more to that, except I’m really glad my rambling makes people want to look at visual media differently. I’m definitely not an expert, but I do have a ton of fun poking through all the symbolism and various elements of storytelling.

As for your question--the difference between a story with a purpose and a story with a thesis--I guess the way I visualize it is...every story begins with an idea. And the storyteller is responsible for building out from that center in some way. A story with a purpose takes whatever that central notion is and builds over it, advancing from that initial idea into something bigger, something that breathes. Characters, relationship dynamics, conflict all feed that idea in a way that feels honest and interesting. Take Bly, for example. If the idea behind Bly is “loving is worth the pain of losing”, then every structure within the show should feed back into that, but not in a way that feels paper-thin. Jamie’s growth arc--Hannah’s tragedy--Flora’s loss of memory--Dani’s agency--all of it can be traced back to what love is, what makes love worth it, and why grief is just another facet of carrying that love forward. Peter’s possessive qualities, Rebecca’s choice to still be better than her murder, Henry losing himself in drink and work to keep from thinking on what he’s lost--it all feeds back to that core idea that love is hard, and painful, and we have to decide if it’s worth it anyway. But it does it from a human perspective, not a preachy one. Every piece of the story gives you a reason to care about the initial idea through the characters and choices, with every piece standing up on its own, and the story wouldn’t be the same without each one. You wind up falling deeply in love with the narrative as a whole because everything feels authentic and purposeful, like the primary idea is the beating heart around which an entire body is built. 

A story with a thesis starts the same way--with a central idea--but everything else is built around that idea in a sort of free-float. With a “thesis-forward” story, it’s like the body is just bones with clothes tossed over it--nothing about it necessarily needs to exist, except the base structure. The storyteller absolutely wants you to know what they believe--in the case of that movie, that the system in America regarding the elderly and vulnerable is deeply, dangerously broken--but the rest is just padding. I don’t care about the lead character in the least; there’s nothing human about her, she’s just a tool to tell us how morally-reprehensible the situation is. Swap her out with a different jacket, it wouldn’t matter; I don’t know anything about her at all except the surface. Her girlfriend is a collection of cool walk-pretty hair-no real purpose except to try to convince us the lead isn’t a complete monster; just a neat hat on the skeleton, utterly irrelevant to the actual point. The antagonist is, likewise, a silly beard and a few sharp one-liners. Swap any of them out, it wouldn’t make a difference to the overall thesis. A movie with a purpose tends to hit hard because the idea has an entire living body built around it. You can find any number of reasons to attach yourself to the story, be it character or relationship or philosophy. A movie with a thesis is trying to convince you of something, and doesn’t really care about anything but the bones--everything else is just clothing, pretty and replaceable, and ultimately impossible to connect with. 

The tl;dr version, I guess, is “is it character-driven or is it idea-driven?” A story that is character driven is always going to say much more, for me, for what I want out of a narrative, than an idea loosely fleshed out ever will. Not to say that a thesis-forward movie is bad or unenjoyable, it’s just much, much harder for me to connect with or want to come back to again.

[snoopysfriendwoodstock]

i would like 2 read ur interpretation of the rep tour if u feel like it. i think ur analysis of it is cool and i want 2 know how u got there

THANK you for letting me do this i love to talk. this is probably way too long and incoherent and not as smart as i’d like to sound but i just love rep tour SO intensely. basically, i think that rep tour does a better job encapsulating the story of reputation than the album does through choreography, staging, and song order/selection. also, i’m going to treat both Rep Taylor and Real Taylor as characters, since i think we can all agree that none of us know the real taylor swift, and even taylor’s portrayal of “the old taylor” is, in part, a character. 

...ready for it? as an opener is just such a bombastic way to open the album that it truly only works well as a live performance. rfi and i did something bad work as sort of twin narratives in the beginning of the tour. ...ready for it? is a pure depiction of Reputation Taylor. she is a master manipulator, manipulating both the dancers into moving the way she wants as well as manipulating set pieces and props on the stage. 

however, in i did something bad we see this same character but BEFORE she became rfi taylor. she attempts to keep up this facade that she is the evil, vindictive, manipulative character she portrays in rfi. however, we see the truth during the bridge as she runs around the stage, trying to reach out to her dancers who turn her down and ostracize her. not only does she try to reach out from them, but it is impossible for her to escape as they circle around her, forcing her to allow them to burn her at the stake. it is not entirely taylor’s choice to be treated as a witch, but after being backed into a corner she allows this to become her narrative. it is through others treatment of her that she turns into Rep Taylor. 

gorgeous starts the love story subplot, but still through the lens of rfi and idsb. idsb turned her into rfi/Rep Taylor, but through gorgeous we watch the armor crack. not only this, but after gorgeous is the first time that taylor addresses the audience. it is this love that causes her to begin to not only see the people who love her, but reach back out to them again. this is further solidified by the style/love story/ybwm mashup that follows. these songs all have to do with fate or soulmates, far more permanent than Rep Taylor’s fleeting idea of love. again, she interacts with the audience, inviting the world back into her life as she experiences what she believes to be true love. 

 however, with the video that plays between this mashup and lwymmd, we watch Rep Taylor attempt to sabotage this moment of vulnerability. love story plays, you belong with me plays, sparks fly plays, all old songs with a focus on true love. in between and during these songs, the video continues to cut out and rapidly attempt to change to something less earnest, as Rep Taylor gets onto her thrown, attempting to secure her place against the more emotionally earnest Real Taylor. in rep tour, lwymmd and the “old taylor” lyric is in direct response to taylor attempting to become vulnerable again, and fearing for her own heart. the old taylor who can’t come to the phone right now is the taylor who wore her heart on her sleeve and wrote earnest love songs, displaying her affection for the world to see. as gorgeous --> style/love story/ybwm demonstrates Real Taylor’s desire to seek out that version of herself again as she falls in love, Rep Taylor sabotages herself and doubles down on becoming this more hardened version of herself. 

 as the love story begins to creep back in with end game, taylor finally admitting that she does want this person forever, and is willing to make herself vulnerable while also trying to warn the person of how the media will attempt to twist her persona not only against her but against the other person. with king of my heart she allows herself to wonder if this is the end of all the endings, but the most important part of this song is the choreography. we watched the choreography being used against her in previous songs; in idsb she is neglected and purposefully ostracized by the dancers, and in lwymmd she then uses this against them and strikes all of the dancers down as she becomes a snake. however, in king of my heart as she attempts to convince herself she does not need to be in a relationship, the dancer meant to represent her movements does not attempt to harm her with his movements. rather, he anticipates her movements, and is the only dancer who can move in harmony with her, and shows her that he does not anticipate her to act negatively, rather he wishes to dance with her. even as she goes to touch him at the end, he knows this movement will happen already, grabbing her hand and pulling it to him before she can. 

while in komh, taylor cannot admit or even consider her feelings until she has been shown they can be reciprocated, as she finally allows her guard to be lowered, she is left alone on the stage. she walks out by herself, swallowed by the large stage as she finally allows herself to speak freely. she speaks alone to the audience, seemingly fully freed until she walks willingly into the gold cage. she is not only allowing herself to be ‘trapped’ in a relationship, trusting that this one has worked out when none of the rest of them have, but she is also willingly walking into a trap. with her lover being a woman, as she is in my interpretation, taylor knows that entering this tumultuous relationship means that there is the risk of being outed, and as she walks directly into the cage, she knows there are few ways out. 

 it is then through her performance of dancing with our hands tied that she shows exactly what happens as you walk into this situation without being willing to fight your way out. she is now sharing what she wished she had done, while before she had been wondering what the other person would do for her. now that it is too late, and that they are attempting to play out the end of their relationship, taylor wildly switches between Rep Taylor and Real Taylor. 

blank space is taylor playing up exactly who the media wants her to be, while dress exists as a confession. bad blood/should’ve said no offers up an entirely new meaning to bad blood as a song about being cheated on, and allows her to let both Real Taylor (old taylor from debut) as well as Rep Taylor try and decide who will win out at the end of this. while the honesty of nyd/getaway car/ciwyw makes it seem as though Old Taylor will make her reemergence and taylor will finally choose to be honestly and earnestly herself, it is through tiwwchnt/wanegbt that we see taylor has chosen Rep Taylor to be the taylor that plays to the public, though the Real Taylor (wanegbt/red era) lives somewhere inside of this. she has not chosen some sort of happy medium or harmony, she has allowed herself to be trapped on both ends. the cage is no longer the gilded cage that she has built for herself, it’s a skeleton of all that could have been, and all that she wanted to be before she was the one who burned them down.

[kelltheowlenby]

OK I am going to be cringe and analyze my own video for you because I want to share my intentions when making it. If you’d like to watch it first and make your own analysis of it please do and if you see something different I’d love to hear. Anyways I just wanted to post something positive for the community and to share some Luz love :)

LUZ ORDINARY

I’ll break it down one ‘scene’ at a time but to start I want to explain why I made it. Hot take, but I’m actually not the biggest fan of the song, it just doesn’t fit my personal tastes. I like the writing and singing but it’s just not my cup of tea. I listened to it a few times to get in on the fandom hype and then... my mind just made the clearest picture for a PMV I’ve ever had (and I have many in my brain).  I wanted to make something about Luz, not about lumity. Obviously it’s a lumity song, but I wanted to do something similar to ThatOneDorkDraws where the first half of the song is about the character, and the end is about the ship. I haven’t watched nearly all the Ordinary animatics out there, but I haven’t seen anyone else do this, and Luz deserves to be independently characterized.

Now lets dive in.

Imho the intro is really rocky, I drew everything in order for the most part and I was still getting the hang of things. I used the grom picture of the girls to indicate Luz knowing about Amity’s interest without needing to bring Amity in too early. 

I like the song referencing not having enough poc in media, but the song is also clearly referencing Azura, who is a poc, so I decided to make it a more personal note for Luz. She wants to be a chosen one, to know she has a purpose, and whatever she does will lead in the right direction, but that’s not reality. She has a choice in front of her, make a life in the boiling isles, or go home.

To illustrate that she literally goes home, goes through the door. I wish I had something more interesting here, but I used “goes with the grain” as a through line to try and tie the animatic together. Each time it plays Luz interacts with a tree, this time hesitantly. She knows the human world isn’t where she wants to be. But she turns around, still unsure if the boiling isles is the right choice.

When Luz sings about amity in the human world, she is singing just as much about the world as a whole.

(also calling myself out, the full view of the house thats transparent-ish is roughly traced of a screenshot. It was just a placeholder but I forgot to replace it e-e all the other bgs are hand drawn though)

I wish I hadn’t made Luz seem so upset about being awkward. She likes her quirks, even if they don’t always play to her advantage. I would change her expressions a lot while she talks about being awkward if I could do it over again. That did partially have to do with me not being good at drawing faces though. Drawing luz smiling while singing was next to impossible x-x

then she gets on the roof, which when scripting this I thought was a canon location, but I actually think the fandom just decided this roof was here lol because I could not find ref for it

Then we get to the next “go with the grain” line, this time she’s moving forward, towards something great, but she holds onto the tree like she did before because she is still unsure.

When Luz looks at the key she is considering going back to the human world again, but she realizes magic is a part of who she is, and that finalizes her choice to stay. Both to stay on the isles and to be with Amity.

That part and the rest of the video is where I feel like I got the hang of this whole PMV thing, and I’m proud of the movement and framing and compositions and stuff. I think I made some clever choices here c:

With the final “don’t want to go with the grain” Luz fully rejects normality and the human world. (not to say she never wants to go back, but the boiling isles is her home) so she birsts through the treas instead of pausing at them. Mirroring Amity on Grom night with her impulsive choice to put her heart on the line.

Amity is hard to draw, but she only shows up a couple times so it’s fiiiine just ignore it lol

Luz shows her affection to amity and they like confess feelings before we go into the little finale shot

I know at this point Luz would not have the door, but I needed it for my concept so this PMV is not fully canon (it was never gunna be because the song doesn’t perfectly fit canon)

Anyways in the end it shows Luz giving Belos the door and blowing it up. She regrets losing connection with the human relm, but Eda and king are there to help her figure things out. Then she drags amity into the little family unit because we couldn’t end without seeing amity again for a sec

and here’s the proper link in case the one at the top is broken or you wanted to read before you watched (if you want to watch but IDK why you’re reading this if you didn’t lol https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zesQEGSZs68&t=41s&ab_channel=Kelliker

I did not and will not proof read this, enjoy

[joonietonin]

Ethan Ramsey- Sugar & Ice (Analysis #2)

Hi! I’m back with another in-depth analysis about Chapter 5 and well, I am very very late! Sorry, it took me so long to write this up, I had been sick these past few days. Anyway, something that I am always in awe of, is how well-written a character, Ethan Ramsey is? I do not think there is another character/LI who has even come close to the amount of depth and progression that Ethan has had over the last few chapters and of course, throughout Book 1. So here I am analyzing Ethan all over again because, damn, this man has had the best character development in the Choices universe. Hold on tight because this is gonna be a longgggggg ride. (Literally, it's the longest post I have ever written so far!)

Note: This is an analysis based on my thoughts and interpretation of a character owned by Pixelberry Studios. My MC is female, pronouns: she/her. I will be writing this post from her perspective. If your MC is male or non-binary, I request you to change the pronouns accordingly. I will be working towards bettering my writing skills using they/them pronouns. English is not my primary language, kindly pardon my mistakes.

Taglist: @choicesyouplayandmore @freeasafishinthesea @openheart12 @junehiratas @lion-ess24 @junggoku @silverlitskies @paulfwesley @mrsdr-ethan-ramsey @reaverisabitch @binny1985 @binny1985 @desmaranj @lilyvalentine @soft-for-drake @mangoruby @mrsmatsuo

Let's start off how interesting it is that the first time I wrote about this man, it took me 13 chapters to really assess his depth and development and now in Book 2, it barely took 2 Chapters to provide a in-depth analysis. Yes, character development is key but the time span within which one grows is equally important.

• Ethan, then and now: Ethan, with his hardass, no bullshit and stoic persona is a man with strong opinions. And rightfully so, a person who is around 8-9 years your senior is bound to have more experience- be it in their professional field or their general life experiences. Ethan has always had this strong set of beliefs that were impossible to change, unless you were MC of course. Before Ethan even knew what was happening, MC had already started to infiltrate his steel walls going right towards his heart. MC may be a dumbass but she’s not illogical. I believe that her straightforwardness has always been the reason for Ethan to be drawn towards her. Throughout his whole career, he has only seen these insipid, incompetent people sucking up to him expecting that they would step up in their career. Then came MC, who was never afraid to go against the rules if it meant the well-being of her patients. She proved to him that she was indeed the “someone who could be great, truly” as Ethan had told her in Chapter 5 of Book 1. Ethan supported her at all instances because he had so much of faith in her, even if he did not show it outright.

• MC, a silver lining: For MC, Edenbrook was never entirely about money. So when Ethan tells her about the government deciding to cut down costs of Edenbrook, depending upon your interaction, the last thing MC is worried about is money. Since then she has done everything in her power to prevent that from happening. When that didn’t work, she discovered another path that could potentially save the hospital.

• To be or not to be, morality edition: And even though she anticipated what Ethan would think about the idea, she still took her chances to let Ethan know about this opportunity that could probably put Edenbrook back in the top ranks. And obviously, the hardass Ethan refused. But what’s interesting here is how calmly Ethan reacted. He did not shout, he did not jeer at her. He responded calmly with a simple no. Even when a furious MC charged him for the reason to refute her idea, he simply said that it would ruin the actual purpose of the diagnostics team- which was never meant to cater the rich, rather help those who were truly in need. And even though his intentions were morally correct and heartfelt, MC knew that this wasn’t the time to play with a moral compass.

• Ethan, the "professional": So MC did what she always does: go beyond the rules. She did what Ethan had once told her- “to stand up for what’s right”. So she went behind Ethan’s back and contacted the Instagram celeb Gwyneth Paltrow Monroe and Ethan was obviously furious when he found the whole camera set up in the hospital. And what seems like forever, Ethan regards her as 'Rookie' but this time it is not endearing. MC tries to justify her actions but Ethan, in his classic Dr. Ramsey style, shuts her out and tells her that they had more pressing matters in their hands aka the patient. But, but.. he does not shut her out completely, he says “We’ll talk about this later.” Now if this were the old Ethan Ramsey he wouldn’t have bothered even once to hear anybody’s justification for a matter of fact. But now, Ethan wants to listen to her. He wants to work out their differences. He does not want to leave this matter hanging. He does not want to cut her off due to professional disagreements. Even though Ethan claims that there is nothing but professionalism between them but his actions contradict his words. His actions show that he is truly trying to make things work between them. Ethan might say it's purely professional but I do not believe him one bit (lol).

• Ethan Ramsey is really a softie huh: Even though Ethan is super annoyed at the entire situation, somewhere down the line, he does believe that MC can handle this. He tells her to lead the case. And of course, his snarky remarks are back but this time it's for poor Gwyneth. In an earlier analysis I had stated how Ethan's snarky remarks towards MC had lessened significantly and it still holds true. Instead of berating MC for going behind his back, he handles it with a certain amount of softness. Well, at least when we compare it to how he deals with others in the same situation. So what I really want to say is: Ethan Ramsey is a softie, but only for MC.

• Diligence- 1 Annoyance-0: He is very annoyed and is willing to solve this case as immediately as possible but that does not make him indifferent towards the case. His annoyance does not make him lack diligence. He still gives his 100% towards this case. This shows how diligent Ethan is. No wonder, he's the best diagnostician in the country. He treats all his patients with the same reverence even if some (read: most) get on his nerves. Ethan seems like a cold person with no emotions but the truth is that he cares so much about certain people. The biggest reason Ethan was so annoyed by this high profile case was because the diagnostics team lost a chance to cure a underprivileged patient who needed the help much more than Gwyneth. Despite being a filthy rich person himself, he is not a snob. He has so much concern for the people who cannot afford good healthcare. He cares deeply about the regular people of his community. Yet, that does not make his shy away from his duties towards his current patient.

• Just millennial things: Going back to my previous point, Ethan is really diligent towards his work even if it means doing things he absolutely loathes... like social media. I mean, yes he hasn't seen IT. Yes, he hates texting. Yes, he is technologically impaired. Yes, he does not know how to sign up for Instagram despite being one of the best doctors in the entire world who could cure almost anything. So who does he turn to? MC, obviously. Do we really think he'd ask anybody else in this entire world to help him out with social media. Oh hell no. (Yes, I'm trying to say that MC is special) And cue: the playful banter is back. Something I always relish about Ethan × MC scenes is that their playful banter never stops no matter how tense things are between them. It's some married couple shit right there. From "I'll have you know, I'm only 37. I'm technically a millennial" to "To be clear, we're doing this under one condition. You never speak of it to anyone", let's just say Ethan Ramsey does not share that comfort level with anybody else in this entire world than MC. MC is truly 'the one' for him.

• Ethan and the internet: So here's a two part horror story, the Ethan Ramsey edition- Ethan is terrified of the internet. He does not understand how there are shirtless pictures of him on the internet. Yet, it is really wholesome how we get to know the backstory of most of those pictures. Be it wearing a suit to the A.M.A where he was awarded or when he went shirtless for his first triathlon. It's very very cute that he willingly share these little details about his life. He wants MC to know little things about him. He wants her to be a part of his life even if he claims that there is nothing but professionalism between them (yeah, right) He opened up about how much he loved living in Providence and how he would never have liked any other place for growing up. He revealed his vulnerabilities to MC about how people did not take him seriously and how adults and teachers who undermine him. He trusts MC enough to confide in her and letting her know all these small details which, perhaps, nobody knows except her. Not even Naveen, I presume. Also, please note how a major part of all the information we know about Ethan is because of his Dad. But Ethan willingly sharing details about him to MC? chef's kiss

• Music, Motorcycles and Marriage: Initially Ethan does not understand the point of social media and why so many people would use this "junk". But when MC explains to him how social media helps people connect or how fun it could be for so many people, Ethan does not retort her. He takes and minute to think about her perspective and then accepts with her view. While choosing his interests, we get to know very fond and personal details about Ethan no matter which option we chose.

While talking about Music, Ethan mentions his childhood memories of playing the cello and how his neighbour hated it and broke his cello and also gives a hint towards his mischievous side and the incredible revenge he got on his neighbour.

The Motorcycle was absolutely beautiful. Ethan let's MC know that the first time he took a bike ride was in Brazil (Amazon Rainforest) where he had gone to... well, in layman's terms- get over MC. As eloquent as he is, he describes all the emotions he felt as he rode across his bike along the Amazon River. It's a rare occurrence to see Ethan talk about his feelings therefore it is really wholesome that he would share those intricate details with MC. But the best part of this option had to be when MC demands Ethan to take her on a bike ride in the Amazons some day. Now, for a man who claims that him and MC are "reset" and are "nothing but professionals", it's quite hilarious but very cute that he replied with, "I look forward to it" This statement of his is almost like a foreshadowing of his and MC's future. Even though they're in a tough spot right now, they could always look forward to the future where things might (read: will) change for them.

The option Marriage led to a low-key romantic moment between him and MC. Ethan "love is just neurochemical responses to heightened stress and frequent exposure to each other" Ramsey obviously tells her that he understands marriage as a partnership rather than a meaningful institution. He also states that he does not believe in the concept of soulmates because there is no biological basis to support that. MC simply explains to him that, "It's love, Ethan. It doesn't have to make sense." And Ethan, in his classic 'everything has a scientific explanation' way grins and states, "I'm sorry, no, everything has to make sense." He straight up asks MC the age old question: "How are you supposed to know that you've met the right person?" And almost immediately his smug mouth is shut when MC simply replies with a "I guess, you just feel it. Isn't that biology?" He gazes deeply into her eyes and forgets himself for a moment thinking about how relevant her words are to whatever he feels for her.Deep inside, Ethan knows that he has met the right person, rather THE person.What I'm trying to say is- Yes, Ethan knows that they are soulmates and even though he won’t accept it now but man, he is whipped.

• Ethan's first, last and only: It's adorable that Ethan let's MC make his first post on behalf of him. MC might be the only person in this entire world who has so much hold over Ethan. It is funny because Ethan is MC's boss in the streets but MC in Ethan's boss in the sheets when it comes to personal moments. I think the highlight of the scene was definitely when Ethan follows MC on Instagram. She jokes about it claiming,"Wow, what an honour, I'm humbled." but Ethan deadass let's her know,"You should be. My first, last and only Instagram friend." Again, I think it's a subtle foreshadowing of their future. In real life, technically MC truly one of Ethan's best friends besides being a LI. But I think this statement will hold much more meaning in the future, given the fact that somewhere deep inside Ethan does know that him and MC are soulmates, no matter how much he denies it.

• True feelings and acceptance: We all know Ethan is not the one to back down on his opinions. But often more than not, he really does give a thought about MC's actions and always tries to understand her perspective of it. Yes, it does take him some time to come around but he always comes back to her. When MC tries to justify her actions this second time, Ethan cuts her off- not because he does not want to hear it, but because he has finally understood her point of view.

Another very important detail in this scene, personally my favourite detail, is how this time around he addresses MC by her name. At the start of the chapter he addressed MC as 'Rookie' which symbolised his disappointment over what he feels is a mistake on MC's part. He establishes his seniority over her letting her know that him and MC are not equals. This second time around, he addresses her by name because he has finally come around to understand that MC is really not a 'rookie' anymore. She isn't a resident either. Ethan now saw her as a colleague, someone who was his equal.. his peer.

Ethan rarely accepts his mistakes, because let's be real, this man was practically emotionally inept before MC came around. The whole concept of apology and acceptance is complicated for him. But he is not worried to own up to his mistakes in front of MC. Ethan let's her know that they are bound to disagree over things because they were peers. Knowing her thoughts, even if they contradicted his, helped Ethan see MC in a truer light. When MC worries whether that light is a bad one, he is quick to reassure her that it is a 'complicated' one. This mirrors his feelings about their relationship too, how he can never be entirely professional with her neither could he ever give her the love and warmth he wants to. He tells MC that her perspective does help him to see situations as they really are instead of what he perceives them to be. He ends this declaration of his feelings with, "I want to know you, as you are." My heart goes warm thinking about how much he cares for her and how he'd rather have disagreements with her than force her to be something that she is not. He wants her be just the way she is. He wants to know the real MC, the one who does not shy away from doing what's right rather than doing what's moral and ethical.

• MC x Ethan, the unstoppable force: Lastly, can we all agree that MC and Ethan make a hell of a great team? Even if we put their love life aside, they just absolutely smash it out of the park when it comes to them solving cases together. As they sit together researching about their patient, we see how well coordinated they are. It's almost like, each one knows exactly what the other person is thinking. They are like medical Jedis. Ethan always worries about how if they were to pursue a real relationship, it would be hard for him to push her to do her best.. but the truth is right in front of us. Despite their playful banters, stolen glances, innocent touches and plans about their future, Ethan always pushes MC to evaluate the information and reveal the diagnosis. It would take Ethan 2 minutes to do it himself but as her mentor he constantly helps her get better at providing fast diagnosis. Also, Ethan never ever shies away from giving MC her due credit and appreciation. Getting praise from Ethan Ramsey is very very rare but for MC it's like a usual occurrence, not because they have feelings for each other rather because Ethan truly sees the amount of potential MC has and it reassures him that he was right when he chose MC for Edenbrook knowing that she had the potential to be someone great. While revealing the diagnosis with June and Baz, he proudly let's them know,"MC pieced it together last night. Excellent work." He is honestly like a proud husband showing off how amazing his wife is (lol)

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FINAL THOUGHTS: Sooooo.. let's re-evaluate:

✓ Ethan and MC are very very close on a personal level no matter how much Ethan tries to deny it.

✓ MC is literally Ethan's closest friend. He shares little details about him to her, only her.

✓ Ethan does not shut MC out like he did in Book 1. He tries to understand her and thinks about her point of view.

✓ Ethan and MC have continuous playful banter which makes them look like a whole ass married couple but whatever.

✓ Ethan considers MC to be his equal rather than a subordinate. That is HUGE coming from Mr. Broody Ramsey. He has a lot of respect for MC.

✓ Ethan pushes MC to do her very best despite of them being personal and contradicting their original deal of being professional.

✓ Ethan proudly let's others know about how amazing MC is at what she does.

So, what I am trying to say is: If they are equals, and they work together like two peas in a pod, and the have the cutest most playful relationship, and they respect each other so much, and they are fulfilling every aspect of their mentor/mentee relationship— SO WHEN THE FUCK ARE THEY GONNA REALIZE THAT THEY CAN STILL DO ALL OF THIS WHILE PURSUING A RELATIONSHIP. @ Ethan sweetie, you're one of the smartest men on the planet but you're really so dense when love is involved. I live for the angst but I just want to see my babies being officially domestic and have passionate sex like they did in Chapter 15 (no shit that was THE BEST, read x) yeah that's all, maybe even save the hospital and punch Declan again while they're at it. Ethan and MC are really have the most realistic depiction when it comes to work relationships. Whether Ethan believes it or not— I, for one, am certain that Ethan and MC are truly soulmates and are meant to be. Professionally AND Personally.

Why did I title this as Sugar and Ice?

Because just like ice Ethan is cold,harsh and stoic when it comes to dealing with regular people. But when it comes to people he really cares about and loves (read: MC) he is like sugar- warm, gentle and open.

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Not to be a cheesy romantic, I'm still a cynic but Ethan is an exception. Andddddd we're done. If you have reached up till here then wow, I cannot believe that you would actually take the time to read my thoughts about a character. You don't know how much that means to me. It makes me feel like I am creating some worthwhile. Thank you for all the constant love and support y'all have given me. I am truly so grateful to each one of you.❤️

Also, yes I know Chapter 6 is out and this is an analysis of Chapter 5 but believe me, I you've read this you'll figure out that nothing that happened in today's chapter contradicts my thoughts about Ethan in the previous chapter. I will start working on an analysis for Chapter 6 tonight itself. Just need some time to process all of it. Thank you for always being so patient. I appreciate it so much.❤️

This was a very long post and believe me I tried to cut it short as much as possible. Let's just say I really cannot write short pieces lmao. So yes, thank you for taking out your valuable time to read this. Sending my gratitude and love.❤️

[If you want to be added to my taglist, just let me know as I will be writing some more stuff in the days to come. All my works are sorted in my MASTERLIST. The link is in my bio.]