#incidentally when the human has expressions is also important

[peachjagiya]

You know what?

I did it.

Lets find out how much Tae didn't want to be there/was on his phone/was not involved, shall we?

Note 1: y'alls keep saying "Except for episode 1" but no, I'm not going to discount the bit that proves you wrong. You don't get to pick and choose what bits of his expended energy to consider when these episodes happened over 3 consecutive days.

Note 2: I have considered "not involved" to be any time he isn't with JK or Jimin or both.

Note 3: You can't measure "looks like he doesn't want to be there". It's subjective. So I have noted where his energy is dipped or doesn't match the other two.

Note 4: As we're in the business of assuming every word is accurate representation of feelings, I've included where Tae expresses joy and happiness that the trip is happening.

Note 5: These numbers are obviously simply what we saw on screen but that's what we have to go with. You can make logical assumptions but for the purpose of this, I have not.

Note 6: This is ridiculous and I fundamentally don't agree that any of them need to be on screen at all times to prove their interest to us. But asks like this really spurred me on:

The arrogance.

Anyway. Numbers:

Episode 1

🐻 After the intro where he has not yet been introduced, Tae is present in activity for all but 1m17s, just 2%, of the episode run time.

🐻 But those 1m17s are when Jimin is being filmed and we know Tae was in the restaurant with JK and in the pool with JK at those moments. So Tae is actually present in conversation or activity with either JK or Jimin or both for 100% of what the show presents as chronological events.

🐥 Incidentally, those Jimin moments were Jimin choosing to be on his own, first looking at the sea and then not being in the pool with JK and Tae.

🐥 Jimin also sleeps for 4m24s of screentime. In terms of not being involved, Jimin is uninvolved in conversation or activity with another member for 10% of the episode.

🐥 But it's important to remember Jimin was not well. We give him that allowance as a human being with bodily function that sometimes does not align with what is required for their work. Jimin was ill. If we assume he slept because he was not well, he actually only misses 1m17s through choice. That's just 2%.

🐰 JK was either showering or motorbiking any time he wasn't with one or both of the other two. He really pulls double duty these three episodes.

Episode 2

🐻 Taehyung is not involved in activity or conversation with another member for 14m9s or 20% of the episode.

🐻 That 20% comprises:

Being too stuffed to swim.

Going to bed early.

Being on a call at the cafe - organising his training workout for the next morning

While JK and Jimin were diving - he was unwell at this point; kinetic tape visible on his neck.

While JK and Jimin are snorkelling - unwell. See above.

While JK and Jimin are on the net drawing the shark

🐻 That seems a lot! But at 5m36s he first complains of neck pain, then at 26m17s the next morning he says he has a neck cramp.

🐻 So 7m9s or 10% are times when he is too hurt to be involved or is taking/making a call.

🐻 By choice ie; being too stuffed to swim, going to bed early and not laying on the net with them at first, he's not present for 7m or 10% of the screentime.

🐻 At the cafe, they all three look shattered. JK says he wants to sleep, as does Jimin. Tae is chilling in exactly the same manner as them. He also does a little skit as server when he's giving JK his drinks and then he's shown laughing - with JK - at something we don't see happen on screen.

🐻 He says a few things that suggest he's enjoying himself:

At 2m24s he says "It's so great travelling with you guys. Lets do this more often."

After snorkelling while they eat ramyeon, "This is great."

When he joins Jimin and JK on the net, "I love this."

🐻 You can hear Tae singing to himself over the headset as they ride to the boat. There's no numbers attached here, I just thought it was sweet.

🐻 What about "constantly on his phone" though...

At 42m21s he sends a message on his phone and puts it back in his pocket. He talks to Jimin as he does this.

At 42m30s he again sends a message on his phone and again puts it back in his pocket.

He makes a call in the cafe. He's talking to someone about when the workout finishes and that it's an indoor gym. This is probably the workout he booked for the morning.

At 55:49, he is shown on his phone while he's sitting out of snorkelling and then puts it aside and gets up to watch JK and Jimin snorkel.

Approximately 7s of phone time we see though we can guess more on the boat. But we don't see it so we won't assume.

Episode 3

🐻 This is his most detached episode. He spends 25% of it separately at times when the other two are together.

🐻 This includes:

He disappears from the BBQ restaurant for 1m34s. Jimin is also gone for this time. Discounted because all were not together. Any time when Tae is not the only one missing has been discounted.

Tae disappears briefly for 12s

Tae is unaccounted for while Jimin plays with cat and JK plays with dog for 2m11s. He does point the cat out to them but he could well have done it as he walked past.

In bed and then at gym for 5m32s

Napping at house for 6m31s. Jimin is also asleep for 2m16s. Subtracted Jimin's nap from Tae's time.

🐻 Phone time wise, he picks his phone up for 47s or 1% of episode time.

🐰 However JK uses his phone for 2m21s of the episode whilst in back of car. That's contrary to the TKK assertion that JK only used his phone in NYC and Sapporo, for the record. 👍

🐥 Jimin uses his phone as he's laying in the kitchen while JK cooks. He goes from sitting with it to laying on his back with it. Half of this he converses with JK while he's on phone, as Tae did at BBQ place.

🐻 At end of episode, he says he "felt like a kid again."

🐻 His energy does drop for the third episode. It's undeniable. But this guy wakes early and goes to work out - a planned early work out suggests it might have been important for some reason - and then the next time we see him, he's fighting sleep to the point where he drops off in the car.

🐥 Remember that Jimin fought sleep in episode 1 of Jeju and finally gave in for his little terrace nap. In the run up to him dozing, he was a little low energy too.

🐻 Of the seven activities they engaged in - swimming x 3, climbing, go karts, snorkelling, fishing - Tae didn't partake in two of them due to his neck. Jimin missed one. Jimin also doesn't climb as much as Tae and JK but he was not feeling his best either. JK took part in all.

🐻 All told, there is 16% of the whole show where Tae isn't involved. For a "guest", that seems a pretty big contribution.

Well. Do what you will with this information. You might think I'm biased so you're welcome to do your own analysis obviously. But you now know that I personally think you live in a house of lies, anonymous Tae haters.

[dharmafox]

Please talk about Mononoke's feminist themes! For the record, I already agree; I just love reading your meta commentaries. 💚

Oh, thank you! I also love writing them, and I'm happy when people ask. 🙂

Just a warning, this got very long...

The Role of Daoism

I think at the core of Mononoke's treatment of feminism is the idea that men and women are fundamentally the same, in that the true nature of both is made up of the united "masculine" and "feminine." This view comes from Daoist philosophy, which considers the interdependence of yin (the "feminine") and yang (the "masculine") to be the true nature of all things. The interaction of these complementary energies is the source of all growth and change. Since growth and change are essential to life, the unity of "masculine" and "feminine" is also. In Mononoke, this not only means the life of a society, but also the life within each individual.

The human society in Mononoke is distorted because of the separation it creates between yin and yang. Women are denied their internal "masculine" and assigned only the "feminine" energy of submission and acceptance, while men are driven away from their internal "feminine" and assigned only the "masculine" energy of assertion, aggression, and emotional detachment. The warped social structure in which men control and exploit women depends on this internal alienation of individuals from themselves, and thereby also their external alienation from each other.

These divided "masculine" and "feminine" roles are an unsustainable denial of nature. The confusion and suffering they cause create the mononoke: expressions of the energies humans struggle to suppress. The Bakeneko, the Zashiki Warashi, the Nopperabou are all expressions of the rage that women aren't "supposed" to feel on their own behalf. The Umi Bozu is an expression of the feminine aspect of Genkei that he isn't "supposed" to feel and has come to fear.

Exorcising the mononoke requires drawing out these aspects and reconnecting humans with their real, complete selves. It requires a rebalancing of the "masculine" and "feminine" that gives women back their power and men back their hearts.

Birth As Transformation for Women

An important symbol of this kind of transformation is birth. In western feminism, we're wary (for good reasons) of birth being used to represent feminine power, but it's a central concept in Daoism: The manifestation of all new phenomena depends on the interaction of yin and yang. In Mononoke, childbirth symbolizes the emergence of positive change for women. Giving birth transforms them from static, submissive objects into complete beings who are no longer convenient for men to exploit. Their desire to have their children is a defiance of men's control over them.

This is clear in "Zashiki Warashi," where women are the victims of forced abortions so they can continue to be exploited as prostitutes. Having their children would free these women from prostitution, which not only explicitly treats women like property, but does so in a way that directly reinforces men's power over and lack of empathy toward them.

Unlike the men who use them, these women's children do not embody the alienated "masculine" but the women's own "masculine": parts of themselves that represent their wills and their potential for new and better lives. Their connection with their children is their connection with their true selves, the interlinked yin and yang and the growth and change that emerge from them.

When this "masculine" and the life it would create with them are cut off, they become a mononoke: an expression of the women's grief and rage at the denial of their natures.

Incidentally, their role as symbols of the "masculine" could be why all of the Zashiki Warashi appear to be male.

It's kind of subtle though.

This co-operative "masculine" and "feminine" and their power to transform are a threat to the system that relies on women being solely "feminine," submissive and unchanging. Those who depend on that system are desperate to destroy them.

This also happens to Shino: She is used by a man who turns on her the moment she is carrying a child. Shino's child is a threat to this man's power and status, and quite possibly represents a threat to humanity's entire dualistic psychological and social structure.

Shino chooses to embrace her will, her capacity for assertiveness and self-defense, in the face of everyone who tells her she's being "irresponsible" and "selfish." Her "masculinity" protects her, her child, and the potential for change they symbolize.

The themes of prostitution and childbirth that are prominent in "Zashiki Warashi" begin all the way back in the first "Bakeneko" with the way the Sakai family treats Mao. They're not only willing to effectively sell her off to another family in exchange for having their debts covered, but they're selling her to a man who is impotent - who can never give her children. Even before realizing just how badly the women in this society need change, the Medicine Seller recognizes this situation as bad for Mao specifically: he remarks that it's unfortunate for her, with no reference to the man or his family.

The Medicine Seller knows that the denial of childbirth deprives Mao of something that is rightfully hers: her own potential for transformation and growth.

The Alienation of Masculine and Feminine Results in Stasis and Death

"Nopperabou"

Ochou's and Lady Ruri's stories don't use this childbirth metaphor (except perhaps by the absence of childbirth), but these stories also carry the themes of prostitution and death. Ochou is effectively prostituted by her mother, who submits her daughter to men's control in exchange for property. The man Ochou is married to sees women as objects to be purchased and used.

Because Ochou is burdened with a sense of moral obligation (the same form of manipulation used against all the women in "Zashiki Warashi") to fulfill her "feminine" role, she fights against the drive to embrace her own "masculine" - the Nopperabou. The unresolved conflict between her guilt and the need to accept her complete nature traps her in an endless cycle of suffering and death: she lashes out at her abusers but cannot fully integrate her power or escape her mother's manipulation.

This guy's a big help.

Without true unity with her "masculine," Ochou cannot change. Once she understands the root of her guilt, she's able to move past it, and she becomes complete again. Once she's reunified with it, her "masculine" energy serves her real needs - it gives her the strength to leave the cycle of suffering behind, setting her free instead of keeping her trapped. This change finally gives her the "new life" she sought.

The fact that the part of herself that Ochou lost as a child first appears as a duplicate of her shows that this "masculine" is not something separate from her "feminine." Like Genkei and Oyou in "Umi Bozu," Ochou and her "missing half" were together in the beginning, and were never meant to be the separate "male and female" that they appeared to be.

"Umi Bozu"

In "Umi Bozu," Genkei, like Ochou, has been split in two, this time by the rejection of his "feminine" self. He's struggled for years to move on and to reach enlightenment, but he can't let go of the memory of his sister. At the beginning of the arc, Genkei is clearly old and approaching death, but he's realized that he can no longer avoid his sister's memory.

The Medicine Seller equates Genkei's fear of Oyou with a fear of his own heart - perhaps even meaning that they are one and the same. When Genkei's fear is understood as the cause of the mononoke, he literally splits in two. His missing half takes the form of the mononoke, which, when the Medicine Seller exorcises it, becomes a feminine form that literally re-enters Genkei and transforms him. Through the reunification with his "feminine," Genkei dies but is "reborn."

Into a twink.

"Nue"

The "Nue" arc's main theme is stasis and death, and it again explores the use and exploitation of women, men's lack of empathy toward them, and the inescapable connection between them. This arc shows a man's violence toward a woman rebounding on him immediately: Nakarai kills Lady Ruri, finds himself covered in wounds, and dies. Killing her kills him as well.

It's quite funny. I mean horrible.

Muramachi and Robou also treat Lady Ruri as nothing more than a tool to get what they want. Their disregard for her life and humanity is so egregious that they rummage around her murdered body looking for the Todaiji they planned to marry her for, and they joke about having a "wedding ceremony" after they compete for its possession. The Medicine Seller, who usually (certainly not always) maintains calm in the face of humans' reprehensible actions, is openly shocked and angry at their behavior.

This guy's whole life is witnessing horrors. If he's looking at you like this, you've truly fucked up.

All three of these men have been trapped in endless stasis and death by their complete focus on their own desires. They see Lady Ruri as nothing more than a conduit for those desires, leaving them utterly disconnected from her humanity.

Their disconnection from her is accompanied by disconnection from themseves, to the point where they're unaware of their own deaths. As with Genkei, accepting those deaths is their only way of escaping them and being "reborn"; otherwise, like Ochou, they remain trapped in an unchanging cycle.

This arc, like the others, implies that all of the men and women in it are interdependent, with each of the female forms of the Nue appearing through the perceptions of each of the men. They appear separate, but neither could exist without the other.

Fear

Genkei's story not only shows stasis and death as a result of his alienation from his sister, but also explores the root cause of men's resistance to their "feminine": fear. The men in Mononoke depend on the isolation of their "masculine" identities for a sense of safety. The identity that Genkei has spent his life building up is defined by pushing away all emotion, all vulnerability - all in an effort to hide from his feelings for his sister. The longer he clings to this isolated self, the stronger his fear becomes.

Rejoining Oyou means becoming completely vulnerable, letting her and all the feelings she brings with her inside him. The Medicine Seller tells him that this will kill him, and in a sense it does: His old self is replaced by his "reborn" one.

Facing this fear and embracing the "weakness" of the "feminine" is a profound act of courage, one that makes Genkei stronger and freer. Accepting his "feminine" is his strength.

Unlike Genkei, Sakai and Moriya in "Bakeneko" #1 and #2 never develop this courage. They remain crippled by fear until it destroys them completely. As they continue to deny how much they've hurt women, they become more and more terrified - of women, their own "feminine," and the pain and anger they've poured into them. Their attempts to grasp at safety by rejecting and attacking women make them feel less and less safe as their own inescapable "feminine" and women's inescapable "masculine" demand acknowledgement, growing in power and anger until they become the Bakeneko.

In "Bakeneko" #2, Moriya is the embodiment of the link between misogyny and cowardice; he blatantly exhibits both. Setsuko's will, her "masculine," threatens him with the truth and with the fragility of his status, both in his relationship with her and in society. And Setsuko's "feminine," her more vulnerable emotions, terrify him as well. He can't face these combined aspects of her - and of his - true self, and he is left with abject terror, constantly seeking safety behind his misogyny.

In "Bakeneko" #1, Sakai remains terrified throughout the arc of having to confront his truth. Right up to the last he keeps denying it, and he sits frozen in fear when the Medicine Seller tells him he has to turn around and look at what he's done. Sakai can't face his complete nature, because the schism between the "masculine" and "feminine" in him is so deep that his "masculine" has become a monster and his "feminine" is filled with pain. Acknowledging his real "feminine" would mean feeling what he's done, and acknowledging his real "masculine" along with it would mean fully understanding the horror of what he's become.

Yeah, asshole.

Unfortunately for Moriya and Sakai, there's no escape from their fear except through the "feminine" - through letting go of their resistance and accepting their destruction. They must die, transform, and be reborn from the cosmic "yin."

This is true for everyone whose internal divisions have created mononoke. The only one who can remain unchanged by the death and rebirth of yin is the one for whom the "masculine" and "feminine" are already unified.

Kind of tickles honestly.

I could say more; I could talk about the Medicine Seller himself; I could talk about how he relates to women and the "feminine" and how much his own path depends on them, but I've said a lot of that before, and I think I've covered the bigger concepts as I see them. There can't be much doubt about Mononoke's feminist themes. Its message is not only that society's treatment of women has historically been grotesque and horrible but that it's a denial of nature, one for which there will always be a price to pay.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 152 thoughts

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Entirely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 9

Aqua Hoshigan Status: White??!???!?!?

WELL DAMN. OKAY. LET'S FUCKING GO I GUESS.

With the End Of The Play… miniarc? interlude? wrapping up, Oshi no Ko officially confirms we're in endgame territory and slams down on the gas to barrel full speed towards its conclusion. This chapter was definitely a mixed bag, but I didn't dislike it and I SURE CAN'T SAY IT WAS BORING AT LEAST………….. It reframes a lot of things that lead up to it - I suppose that makes 'recontextualization' the keywork for this chapter, then.

The return to the volume 1 interviews in this chapter were kind of a surprise LOL. Given that the anime trimmed all but Ai's, I kind of took that as an implicit confirmaton that they weren't really that important so it's a bit of a jumpscare to see Gotanda (& Aqua's) revisited here. That said, revisiting them here is more about clueing the viewer that we're caught up chronologically with those flashforwards and thus that everything from this point on is officially uncharted territory, so I still do think cutting them from episode 1 was the right call to make. I don't think it causes any plotholes or incongruities since these interviews are really kind of incidental in the grand scheme of things… also let's be real I don't think any of us are expecting the anime to get that far into the story, even if I would give my left leg to see the anime team work their magic on chapter 137………………………….

That said, it's pretty fucking rich for Gotanda to try and talk big about the movie not being fictional when we heard from the horse's mouth that Abiko and Yoriko just fucking made up the dynamics of one of the most central and pivotal relationships in it out of thin air lol. Not only that, but like…

15 Year Lie is a movie with a pretty clear narrative. This by itself is natrual and expected. Narrative is the shape in which the human brain most readily accepts information but to create a narrative about something is to fictionalise it. Even when it's a narrative about real events - because narratives are, themselves, fiction. They have cleanly defined beginnings and ends, arcs and the promise of neatly packaged payoff and catharsis that is impossible to achieve in reality. To create a narrative about Ai's life in any form, let alone in a movie made for mass general audience consumption, unavoidably necessitates reducing her to a fictional character to observe rather than a fellow human to understand.

Which is… you know, horrifying! Fucked up and ghoulish! It's exploition of Ai in death just as she was exploited in life and I really wish the Movie Arc had actually focused on that uncomfortable undercurrent. This was, after all, supposed to be a movie about Ai.

BUT ANYWAY, CAST SCREENING OF THE MOVIE… we get some detail about reactions to the content but even as characters are literally talking about the movie and Ruby's extremely important role in it they just conveniently avoid discussing the content of it. But surely with all those important scenes that were set up and with the public release of the movie and Kamiki's side of the story to tell, we'll get some more details, right??? [audible copium huff]

Akane's tearful reaction is interesting, though. They're specifically singled out as not being to do with the content of the movie and her expression is a bit ambiguous - you could read is as resigned or relieved just as easily. I think she has clearly recognized something about Aqua's revenge in the movie which prompts that reaction but who even knows what's going on with akane at this point lol. sure not akasaka.

The girls all ragging on Ruby's acting was also kind of… like, yeah, remember when Ruby not being a good enough actress to carry a whole movie was kind of a huge issue??? The fact that this is resolved by everyone saying "yeah it was bad but idk aqua made it good somehow" was kind of silly lol.

I do really like Melt stepping in to stick up for Ruby, though - because yeah, of course hearing that would probably bring up some bad memories for Melt…! I also like that he doesn't try to shallowly flatter her or butter her up - he's frank about where she still needs to improve but hones in on the part that really matters. He really is a good kid.

That said, him sticking up for Ruby and her glomming onto him and calling him 'Master' (ししょ/師匠, shishou, as in the master of a craft addressed by their disciple, in Japanese) does kind of highlight that the MLRB mentorship that got set up in 144… went nowhere??? We can assume by Ruby's response to him here that it happened offscreen but it really does feel like a total waste of time to have spent what was effectively an entire chapter on setting up a new character dynamic that just didn't happen. Like… really, in hindsight, what was even the point of that chapter other than to establish that Melt… was also here??? I guess we still have the final arc for that to resolve into something but.

It just kind of sucks because I think a MLRB friendship could be really fun! I think they have the potential for a good dynamic and there's some really interesting parallels between them both that are ripe for farming. At this point, it's probably way too late for us to expect anything to come of it, so I can only daydream……..

tho it is really funny to me that at this point, since 143, ruby has had more meaningful on panel interactions with melt than she has aqua. What Did They Mean By This.

Gotanda and Kaburagi's talk that followed also left me with pretty mixed feelings. As expansion on/closure for Kaburagi (and Gotanda to an extent), I think this was fine… there's just a few little details that bother me, I guess.

On the one hand, I really like Gotanda's frank admission that there's no way to know whether the movie really captured the 'real' Ai. This is another thing I've talked about over and over during the Movie Arc but nobody making this movie is really in a position to be making that call - the only person who really could is Ai and… well, she's not here anymore to advocate for herself. Seeing Gotanda acknowledge that does scratch some of what was left unitched by this thread but…

Eugh. I don't know. Something about this movie, which is about Ai's life, Ai's tragedy, Ai's final push to be shown to the world as she was and to potentially be accepted being made to be about Gotanda's regrets just feels kind of icky to me. Maybe it just feels especially bad because it feels like 15 Year Lie has become more about every other character involved than her. I'm sure people are sick of me complaining about it, but it really does feel like Ai as a figure of emotional importance to this story is getting increasingly downplayed and dismissed and…… just feels bad, I guess!!!!

Kaburagi's side of this conversation is a lot more engaging, at least. This does tragically represent the end of my Secret Villain Kaburagi Theory and I feel decidedly mixed on the story choosing to frame him so sympathetically… but on the other hand, I do like how this implication of guilt and sense of responsibility reframes basically all his prior actions in the manga. It seems to confirm that he clocked Aqua (and thus by extension, Ruby) as being Ai's child right from the start and explains why he was willing to go so far in pushing their careers along at little benefit to himself - it was out of atonement to Ai.

that panel of young kaburagi and baby ai having lunch together. fuck, man. the fact that she took the burger out of the wrapper like she does in viewpoint b………….. babygirl i loev u so muuuuchchchchchchhchchchchsjsjsskasklsndkdkd

and……………………….. now it's time for aqua's interview. Jesus Christ.

I like the recontextualization of Aqua's interview here and the way we see This Mysterious Interviewer gradually pick apart his responses. I especially got SUCH a thrill out of his 'I won't love anyone' schtick being called out as the bullshit it is - one of my first really meaty OnK metas was of Aqua's interview segment specifically and I zeroed in on this sentiment specifically as being a lie that Aqua was trying to project and seeing the text back that up makes me a very happy Claire

But more importantly though… what Aqua has to say after that makes me particularly excited.

First of all, let's get it out of the way: KAMIKI JUMPSCARE!!!!!!!!! It seems implicit that he was the one doing all the interviews which is very fucking funny considering his presence in the movie itself, but I'm not entirely sure it changes or adds much other than giving Aqua the opportunity to death note speech his ass.

What is fascinating to me about this talk is what it implies about Aqua. Every time we've seen his revenge play come up before this, the very strong implication is that Aqua intends to die at the end of it, either by Kamiki's hand or his own. But here, face to face with the man he's dedicated his entire life to ruining, Aqua doesn't just state his intent to get revenge but his intention to reclaim his future by doing so. We've gotten some pushes towards this since 150 but this is the clearest declaration of his intent to finally seize hold of this second chance and fucking live it that we've gotten out of Aqua… honestly, ever!

And accordingly, we see Aqua return to his white hoshigans here. I don't necessarily know if I want to call this slam dunk confirmed but this WAS really exciting to see given how it falls in line with my interpretation of "white hoshigan = hope = future" and "black hoshigan = despair = futurelessness". Everybody has been spending the last few chapters basically begging Aqua not to throw away his future and hurt the people he loves just to chase his revenge and it does seem like they're starting to get through to him.

Is this development kind of rushed? Honestly, yeah! I would've loved to see this explored more from properly inside Aqua's POV and it feels especially abrupt given how hard he got ignored all during the post-123 section of the Movie Arc. But at this point, it just feels so fucking good to see Aqua say out loud that he wants to have a future, that he wants to finally move forward and live that I can't bring myself to care. I just want him to finally be happy!!!

that said how fucking funny is it that the closest thing aqua has gotten to therapy in years is from his estranged father, a serial killer

break next week…!

[c0rpseductor]

random fic thots. and also fatphobia thots. and sexuality thots. Lots of topics

morningstar is just kind of about a lot of stuff that’s important to me bc it’s lestat appeal fic, and one of the things i’m planning to unpack in it is just a bunch of shit about fatphobia and desirability and eating disorders and so on and so forth

so pfeil has disordered eating habits that mostly revolve around restriction, but is still fat. he’s often on that ‘one meal a day just enough food to kinda shakily maintain basic functioning’ grind. it’s not entirely about his body image, but of course like, he’s aware he’s fat and is self-conscious about it, so it’s still relevant.

obviously this is why we need chubby chaser emet. in this narrative. emet likes fat guys. he specifically finds pfeil’s fatness attractive. it also majorly concerns him that pfeil is like…quietly and almost incidentally starving himself in the way a lot of people with eating disorders do when they’re not actively restricting. And he and pfeil just kind of naturally settle into a fairly low stakes D/s thing.

what i’m saying is i think “Please eat and don’t die” may end up getting tied up in their sexual dynamic, and between that and the general focus i feel like i’ve given to both the Idea Of Fatness and what characters are eating day to day, i’ve been kind of worried that if and when things head there readers are going to be like “what is this weird gross feeder shit all about!! Fatphobic! fetishizing! blocked and reported!”

it’s mostly a dumb concern, i think it’d help if i got some sleep lol, but like, idk. what i really want to write here is a story about a very traumatized guy coming to reclaim the idea of having a body and a sexuality and part of that is necessarily going to have to deal with the fact that he’s fat and does not eat in order to punish himself. and it like. just fucking frustrates me that i feel like if you try to touch on that in a sexual context At All then suddenly everything you do and say is suspect and fetishistic and weird and evil and fatphobic. even if you’re fat. Please make that make sense.

like. idk. food is such an important part of daily life bc without it you fucking die. eating together is a very basic human social activity. im very of the dungeon meshi mindset with this. food is a major arbiter of daily rhythms and social bonds and the way characters interact with it says a lot about them and their relationships to themselves and others and denying oneself pleasure related to eating is like. psychologically bad for you. sharing food with other people is a gesture of intimacy and affection and care. you don’t break bread with bitches you hate. Do you see where i’m going with this.

i’ve thought about just not including that dynamic bc of the way people view fat people having basically Any sexuality that acknowledges being fat as Weird Predatory Degen Fetish Shit unless you’re self-flagellating about your weight, but like. I don’t think i want to do that actually. i think maybe i am saying something important about inhabiting one’s own body and also about loving a person who is very ill.

idk. i feel silly making a long defensive post about stuff i haven’t even written yet. i think it’s more kind of like, i just wanna be able to kind of sift through my thoughts, and i wanna be able to express frustration about The Whole Thing. i think it’s kind of fucked up that i don’t feel at all nervous talking about wanting hot guys to put cigarettes out on me or hit me in the face or whatever bc that’s typical kink but the minute im like “i am fat and recovering from atypical anorexia and i would like a hot guy to think it’s hot that i’m fat and encourage me to eat because he thinks that’s hot and not care if i gained weight recovering” it’s the scariest thing in the world bc there is a significant number of people out there that think this is inherently dehumanizing of fat people. and will be offended. or just disgusted. im not even into weight gain i literally just want to be encouraged not to starve myself But Sexy. idk bro it’s fucking nuts that people take issue with this

[killshopdeluxe]

some thoughts on fandom

disclaimer: I’m not trying to beef with anyone I just wanted to share some of my own personal thoughts, which anyone is free to disagree with!

but I just saw this post and I find it interesting cuz while I think creators need to accept that—if their works gain a fandom, the fandom will do w/e they want with their works—I don’t personally agree that the creator’s wishes are meaningless… I think creators have a right to express their preferences and fans can then decide whether or not to respect them, with the latter being the kinder thing to do even if it’s not obligatory

I also think there should be a clear divide of etiquette between creators who publish a big and successful IP (like the example of Anne Rice) vs small independent creators putting out their works for free who just incidentally pull a lot of fans, w/o any real intent of franchsing/monetising their works, cuz the latter doesn’t really benefit or profit from having a fandom aha. But in both cases I just personally think creators have a right to express their boundaries… I’m not the hugest fan of the west’s entitled fandom culture where if you publish anything it’s not yours anymore and it’s unreasonable/oppressive of you to simply have comfort levels 🤔

Like an example I saw recently was an aroace creator not wanting people to ship their characters (sexually/romantically) cuz that’s not the intent of their work/their characters are important to their queer identity and I think that’s like. Super fair? Like they can’t really stop anyone from doing it anyway but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conform to their wishes; I don’t think it enforces censorship or w/e aha… Or like iirc the creator of that big danmei series MXTX, she doesn’t like when people reverse her couples? I think that’s fine like it’s her characters

With both examples I listed in the above paragraph, do I personally like those rules? Not really, I think they’re kinda boring aha (and I’m both aroace-spec + the type who has strong preferences regarding the dynamic of a coupling). But I just think it’s fine for them to express that and rather than being inconsiderate (imo) and going against their wishes when making fanworks, I’d just personally choose to invest in something else by a creator who wouldn’t mind what I want to do with their works

I just personally never really understood/related to the western sentiment of like, if you resonate with a piece of media it inspires you, then the creator doesn’t matter? I guess that sort of death of the author sentiment never sat right with me cuz everything was made by someone, a human being or a group of human beings… When I choose to support something I personally like to consider who my support will go to, since it’s not the fictional story/characters aha

If a creator has unreasonable or bigoted boundaries regarding their works—why would I want to be their fan? Why wouldn’t I just seek out something I’m proud to support? Maybe it’s cuz I create art and writing myself, but I can’t really separate the creator and their wishes and intentions from their works…

Anyway I didn’t really have a hot take/point with this post I just wanted to ramble a bit! Again all of the above are just my own personal thoughts and I’m not trying to argue with anyone or challenge people’s opinions, nor am I wanting people to change mine, though I’m open to hearing other people’s thoughts on this subject whether we agree or not ;w;/

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Kate Beaton's "Ducks"

It’s been more than a decade since I began thrilling to Kate Beaton’s spectacular, hilarious snark-history webcomic “Hark! A Vagrant,” pioneering work that mixed deceptively simple lines, superb facial expressions, and devastating historical humor:

https://memex.craphound.com/2012/03/23/hark-a-vagrant-the-book/

Beaton developed Hark! into a more explicit political allegory, managing the near-impossible trick of being trenchant and topical while still being explosively funny. Her second Hark! collection, Step Aside, Pops, remains essential reading, if only for her brilliant “straw feminists”:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/09/15/step-aside-pops-a-new-hark-a-vagrant-collection-that-delights-and-dazzles/

Beaton is nothing if not versatile. In 2015, she published The Princess and the Pony, a picture book that I read to my own daughter — and which inspired me to write my own first picture book, Poesy the Monster-Slayer:

https://memex.craphound.com/2015/08/07/the-princess-and-the-pony-from-kate-hark-a-vagrant-beaton/

Beaton, then, has a long history of crossing genres in her graphic novels, so the fact that she published a memoir in graphic novel form is no surprise. But that memoir, Ducks: Two Years In the Oil Sands, still marks a departure for her, trading explosive laughs for subtle, keen observations about labor, climate and gender:

https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/ducks/

In 2005, Beaton was a newly minted art-school grad facing a crushing load of student debt, a debt she would never be able to manage in the crumbling, post-boom economy of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Like so many Maritimers, she left the home that meant everything for her to travel to Alberta, where the tar sands oil boom promised unmatched riches for anyone willing to take them.

Beaton’s memoir describes the following four years, as she works her way into a series of oil industry jobs in isolated company towns where men outnumber women 50:1 and where whole communities marinate in a literally toxic brew of carcinogens, misogyny, economic desperation and environmental degradation.

The story that follows is — naturally — wrenching, but it is also subtle and ambivalent. Beaton finds camaraderie with — and empathy for — the people she works alongside, even amidst unimaginable, grinding workplace harassment that manifests in both obvious and glancing ways.

Early reviews of Ducks rightly praised it for this subtlety and ambivalence. This is a book that makes no easy characterizations, and while it has villains — a content warning, the book depicts multiple sexual assaults — it carefully apportions blame in the mix of individual failings and a brutal system.

This is as true for the environmental tale as it is for the labor story: the tar sands are the world’s filthiest oil, an energy source that is only viable when oil prices peak, because extracting and refining that oil is so energy-intensive. The slow, implacable, irreversible impact that burning Canadian oil has on our shared planet is diffuse and takes place over long timescales, making it hard to measure and attribute.

But the impact of the tar sands on the bodies and minds of the workers in the oil patch, on the First Nations whose land is stolen and despoiled in service to oil, and on the politics of Canada are far more immediate. Beaton paints all this in with the subtlest of brushstrokes, a thousand delicate cuts that leave the reader bleeding in sympathy by the time the tale is told.

Beaton’s memoir is a political and social triumph, a subtle knife that cuts at our carefully cultivated blind-spots about industry, labor, energy, gender, and the climate. But it’s also — and not incidentally — a narrative and artistic triumph.

In other words, Beaton’s not just telling an important story, she’s also telling a fantastically engrossing story — a page-turner, filled with human drama, delicious tension, likable and complex characters, all the elements of a first-rate tale.

Likewise, Beaton’s art is perfectly on point. Hark!’s secret weapon was always Beaton’s gift for drawing deceptively simple human faces whose facial expressions were indescribably, superbly perfect, conveying irreducible mixtures of emotion and sentiment. If anything, Ducks does this even better. I think you could remix this book so that it’s just a series of facial expressions and you’d still convey all the major emotional beats of the story.

Graphic memoirs have emerged as a potent and important genre in this century. And women have led that genre, starting with books like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home (2006):

https://cbldf.org/banned-challenged-comics/case-study-fun-home/

But also the increasingly autobiographical work of Lynda Barry, culminating in her 2008 One! Hundred! Demons!:

https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/one-hundred-demons/

(which should really be read alongside her masterwork on creativity, 2019’s Making Comics):

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/11/05/lynda-barrys-making-comics-is-one-of-the-best-most-practical-books-ever-written-about-creativity/

In 2014, we got Cece Bell’s wonderful El Deafo:

https://memex.craphound.com/2014/11/25/el-deafo-moving-fresh-ya-comic-book-memoir-about-growing-up-deaf/

Which was part of the lineage that includes the work of Lucy Knisley, especially later volumes like 2020’s Stepping Stones:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/09/enhanced-rock-weathering/#knisley

Along with Jen Wang’s 2019 Stargazing:

https://memex.craphound.com/2019/09/25/stargazing-jen-wangs-semi-autobiographical-graphic-novel-for-young-readers-is-a-complex-tale-of-identity-talent-and-loyalty/

2019 was actually a bumper-crop year for stupendous graphic memoirs by women, rounded out by Ebony Flowers’s Hot Comb:

https://drawnandquarterly.com/books/hot-comb/

And don’t forget 2017’s dazzling My Favorite Thing is Monsters, by Emil Ferris:

https://memex.craphound.com/2017/06/20/my-favorite-thing-is-monsters-a-haunting-diary-of-a-young-girl-as-a-dazzling-graphic-novel/

This rapidly expanding, enthralling canon is one of the most exciting literary trends of this century, and Ducks stands with the best of it.

[Image ID: The cover of the Drawn & Quarterly edition of Kate Beaton's 'Ducks.']

[painterontheblood]

The role of symbols

When the medical psychologist takes an interest in symbols, he is primarily concerned with "natural" symbols, as distinct from “cultural” symbols. The former are derived from the unconscious contents of the psyche, and they therefore represent an enormous number of variations on the essential archetypal images. In many cases they can still be traced back to their archaic roots i.e. to ideas and images that we meet in the most ancient records and in primitive societies. The cultural symbols, on the other hand, are those that have been used to express “eternal truths,” and that are still used in many religions. They have gone through many transformations and even a long process of more or less conscious development, and have thus become collective images accepted by civilized societies.

Such cultural symbols nevertheless retain much of their original numinosity or “spell." One is aware that they can evoke a deep emotional response in some individuals, and this psychic change makes them function in much the same way as prejudices. They are a factor with which the psychologist must reckon; it is folly to dismiss them because, in rational terms, they seem to be absurd or irrelevant. They are important constituents of our mental make-up and vital forces in the building up of human society; and they cannot be eradicated without serious loss. Where they arc repressed or neglected, their specific energy disappears into the unconscious with unaccountable consequences. The psychic energy that appears to have been lost in this way in fact serves to revive and intensify whatever is uppermost in the unconscious— tendencies, perhaps, that have hither to had no chance to express themselves or at least have not been allowed an uninhibited existence in our consciousness.

Such tendencies form an ever-present and potentially destructive “shadow” to our conscious mind. Even tendencies that might in some circumstances be able to exert a beneficial influence are transformed into demons when they are repressed. This is why many well meaning people are understandably afraid of the unconscious, and incidentally of psychology.

Our times have demonstrated what it means for the gates of the underworld to be opened. Things whose enormity nobody could have imagined in the idyllic harmlessness of the first decade of our century have happened and have turned our world upside down. Ever since, the world has remained in a state of schizophrenia. Not only has civilized Germany disgorged its terrible primitivity, but Russia is also ruled by it, and Africa has been set on fire. No wonder that the Western world feels uneasy.

Modern man does not understand how much his “rationalism" (which has destroyed his capacity to respond to numinous symbols and ideas) has put him at the mercy of the psychic “underworld." He has freed himself from “superstition" (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this break-up in world-wide disorientation and dissociation.

Anthropologists have often described what happens to a primitive society when its spiritual values are exposed to the impact of modern civilization. Its people lose the meaning of their lives, their social organization disintegrates, and they themselves morally decay. We are now in the same condition. But we have never really understood what we have lost, for our spiritual leaders unfortunately were more interested in protecting their institutions than in understanding the mystery that symbols present. In my opinion, faith does not exclude thought (which is man's strongest weapon), but unfortunately many believers seem to be so afraid of science (and incidentally of psychology' that they turn a blind eye to the numinous psychic powers that forever control man's fate. We have strip[1]ped all things of their mystery and numinosity; nothing is holy any longer.

In earlier ages, as instinctive concepts welled up in the mind of man, his conscious mind could no doubt integrate them into a coherent psychic pattern. But the “civilized" man is no longer able to do this. His “advanced" consciousness has deprived itself of the means by which the auxiliary contributions of the instincts and the unconscious can be assimilated. These organs of assimilation and integration were numinous symbols, held holy by common consent.

Today, for instance, we talk of “matter." We describe its physical properties. We conduct laboratory experiments to demonstrate some of its aspects. But the word “matter" remains a dry, inhuman, and purely intellectual concept, without any psychic significance for us. How different was the former image of matter the Great Mother that could encompass and express the profound emotional meaning of Mother Earth. In the same way, what was the spirit is now identified with intellect and thus ceases to be the Father of All. It has degenerated to the limited ego-thoughts of man; the immense emotional energy expressed in the image of “our Father” vanishes into the sand of an intellectual desert.

These two archetypal principles lie at the foundation of the contrasting systems of East and West. The masses and their leaders do not realize, however, that there is no substantial difference between calling the world principle male and a father (spirit), as the West does, or female and a mother (matter), as the Communists do. Essentially, we know as little of the one as of the other. In earlier times, these principles were worshiped in all sorts of rituals, which at least showed the psychic significance they held for man. But now they have become mere abstract concepts.

As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized. Man feels him[1]self isolated in the cosmos, because he is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional “unconscious identity” with natural phenomena. These have slowly lost their symbolic implications. Thunder is no longer the voice of an angry god, nor is lightning his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree is the life principle of a man, no snake the embodiment of wisdom, no mountain cave the home of a great demon. No voices now speak to man from stones, plants, and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it has gone the profound emotional energy that this symbolic connection supplied.

This enormous loss is compensated for by the symbols of our dreams. They bring up our original nature its instincts and peculiar thinking. Unfortunately, however, they express their contents in the language of nature, which is strange and incomprehensible to us. It therefore confronts us with the task of translating it into the rational words and concepts of modern speech, which has liberated itself from its primitive encumbrances notably from its mystical participation with the things it describes. Nowadays, when we talk of ghosts and other numinous figures, we are no longer conjuring them up. The power as well as the glory is drained out of such once-potent words. We have ceased to believe in magic formulas; not many taboos and similar restrictions are left; and our world seems to be disinfected of all such "superstitious” minima as “witches, warlocks, and worricows,” to say nothing of werewolves, vampires, bush souls, and all the other bizarre beings that populated the primeval forest.

To be more accurate, the surface of our world seems to be cleansed of all superstitious and irrational elements. Whether, however, the real inner human world (not our wish-fulfilling fiction about it) is also freed from primitivity is another question. Is the number 13 not still taboo for many people? Are there not still many individuals possessed by irrational prejudices, projections, and childish illusions? A realistic picture of the human mind reveals many such primitive traits and survivals, which are still playing their roles just as if nothing had happened during the last 500 years.

It is essential to appreciate this point. Modern man is in fact a curious mixture of characteristics acquired over the long ages of his mental development. This mixed-up being is the man and his symbols that we have to deal with, and we must scrutinize his mental products very carefully indeed. Skepticism and scientific conviction exist in him side by side with old-fashioned prejudices, outdated habits of thought and feeling, obstinate misinterpretations, and blind ignorance.

Such are the contemporary human beings who produce the symbols we psychologists investigate. In order to explain these symbols and their meaning, it is vital to learn whether their representations are related to purely personal experience, or whether they have been chosen by a dream for its particular purpose from a store of general conscious knowledge.

Take, for instance, a dream in which the number 13 occurs. The question is whether the dreamer himself habitually believes in the un[1]lucky quality of the number, or whether the dream merely alludes to people who still indulge in such superstitions. The answer makes a great difference to the interpretation. In the former case, you have to reckon with the fact that the individual is still under the spell of the unlucky 13, and therefore will feel most un[1]comfortable in Room 13 in a hotel or sitting at a table with 13 people. In the latter case, 13 may not mean any more than a discourteous or abusive remark. The “superstitious” dreamer still feels the “spell” of 13; the more “rational” dreamer has stripped 13 of its original emotional overtones

This argument illustrates the way in which archetypes appear in practical experience: They are, at the same time, both images and emotions. One can speak of an archetype only when these two aspects are simultaneous. When there is merely the image, then there is simply a word-picture of little consequence. But by being charged with emotion, the image gains numinosity (or psychic energy); it becomes dynamic, and consequences of some kind must flow from it.

I am aware that it is difficult to grasp this concept, because I am trying to use words to describe something whose very nature makes it incapable of precise definition. But since so many people have chosen to treat archetypes as if they were part of a mechanical system that can be learned by rote, it is essential to insist that they are not mere names, or even philosophical concepts. They are pieces of life itself- images that are integrally connected to the living individual by the bridge of the emotions. That is why it is impossible to give an arbitrary (or universal) interpretation of any archetype. It must be explained in the manner indicated by the whole life-situation of the particular individual to whom it relates.

Thus, in the case of a devout Christian, the symbol of the cross can be interpreted only in its Christian context — unless the dream pro[1]duces a very strong reason to look beyond it. Even then, the specific Christian meaning should be kept in mind. But one cannot say that, at all times and in all circumstances, the symbol of the cross has the same meaning. If that were so, it would be stripped of its numinosity, lose its vitality, and become a mere word.

Those who do not realize the special feeling tone of the archetype end with nothing more than a jumble of mythological concepts, which can be strung together to show that everything means anything — or nothing at all. All the corpses in the world are chemically identical, but living individuals are not. Archetypes come to life only when one patiently tries to discover why and in what fashion they are meaningful to a living individual.

The mere use of words is futile when you do not know what they stand for. This is particularly true in psychology, where we speak of archetypes such as the anima and animus, the wise man, the Great Mother, and so on. You can know all about the saints, sages, prophets, and other godly men, and all the great mothers of the world. But if they are mere images whose numinosity you have never experienced, it will be as if you were talking in a dream, for you will not know what you are talking about. The mere words you use will be empty and valueless. They gain life and meaning only when you try to take into account their numinosity — i.e. their relationship to the living individual. Only then do you begin to understand that their names mean very little, whereas the way they are related to you is all-important.

The symbol-producing function of our dreams is thus an attempt to bring the original mind of man into “advanced” or differentiated consciousness, where it has never been before and where, therefore, it has never been subjected to critical self-reflection. For, in ages long past, that original mind was the whole of man's personality. As he developed consciousness, so his conscious mind lost contact with some of that primitive psychic energy. And the conscious mind has never known that original mind; for it was discarded in the process of evolving the very differentiated consciousness that alone could be aware of it.

Yet it seems that what we call the unconscious has preserved primitive characteristics that formed part of the original mind. It is to these characteristics that the symbols of dreams constantly refer, as if the unconscious sought to bring back all the old things from which the mind freed itself as it evolved illusions, fantasies, archaic thought forms, fundamental instincts, and so on.

This is what explains the resistance, even fear, that people often experience in approaching unconscious matters. These relict contents are not merely neutral or indifferent. On the contrary, they are so highly charged that they are often more than merely uncomfortable. They can cause real fear. The more they are repressed, the more they spread through the whole personality in the form of a neurosis.

It is this psychic energy that gives them such vital importance. It is just as if a man who has lived through a period of unconsciousness should suddenly realize that there is a gap in his memory — that important events seem to have taken place that he cannot remember. In so far as he assumes that the psyche is an exclusively personal affair (and this is the usual assumption, he will try to retrieve the apparently lost infantile memories. But the gaps in his childhood memory are merely the symptoms of a much greater loss: the loss of the primitive psyche.

As the evolution of the embryonic body repeats its prehistory, so the mind also develops through a series of prehistoric stages. The main task of dreams is to bring back a sort of “recollection" of the prehistoric, as well as the infantile world, right down to the level of' the most primitive instincts. Such recollections can have a remarkably healing effect in certain cases, as Freud saw long ago. This observation confirms the view that an infantile memory gap (a so[1]called amnesia) represents a positive loss and its recovery can bring a positive increase in life and well-being.

Because a child is physically small and its conscious thoughts are scarce and simple, we do not realize the far-reaching complications of the infantile mind that are based on its original identity with the prehistoric psyche. That “original mind" is just as much present and still functioning in the child as the evolutionary stages of mankind are in its embryonic body. If the reader remembers what I said earlier about the remarkable dreams of the child who made a present of her dreams to her father, he will get a good idea of what I mean.

In infantile amnesia, one finds strange mythological fragments that also often appear in later psychoses. Images of this kind are highly numinous and therefore very important. If such recollections reappear in at! tilt life, they may in some cases cause profound psychological disturbance, while in other people they can produce miracles of healing or religious conversions. Often they bring back a piece of life missing for a long time, that gives purpose to and thus enriches human life.

The recollection of infantile memories and the reproduction of archetypal ways of psychic behavior can create a wider horizon and a greater extension of consciousness on condition that one succeeds in assimilating and integrating in the conscious mind the lost and regained contents. Since they are not neutral, their assimilation will modify the personality, just as they themselves will have to undergo certain alterations. In this part of what is called “the individuation process” (which Dr. M.-L. von Franz describes in a later section of this book), the interpretation of symbols plays an important practical role. For the symbols are natural attempts to reconcile and unite opposites within the psyche.

Naturally, just seeing and then brushing aside the symbols would have no such effect and would merely re-establish the old neurotic condition and destroy the attempt at a synthesis. But, unfortunately, those rare people who do not deny the very existence of the archetypes almost invariably treat them as mere words and forget their living reality. When their numinosity has thus (illegitimately) been banished, the process of limitless substitution begins in other words, one glides easily from archetype to archetype, with everything meaning everything. It is true enough that the forms of archetypes are to a considerable extent exchangeable. But their numinosity is and remains a fact, and represents the value of an archetypal event.

This emotional value must be kept in mind and allowed for throughout the whole intellectual process of dream interpretation. It is only too easy to lose this value, because thinking and feeling are so diametrically opposed that thinking almost automatically throws out feeling values and vice versa. Psychology is the only science that has to take the factor of value (i.e. feeling) into account, because it is the link between physical events and life. Psychology is often accused of not being scientific on this account; but its critics fail to understand the scientific and practical necessity of giving clue consideration to feeling.

--Carl Jung en "Man and his symbols"

[inner--islands]

Interview with Soda Lite (June 2019)

1. What are some recent inspirations?

The ooloi of Octavia Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, the music and technological wizardry of the Middle Ages, Debussy, ambient music worldwide, the Little Wattlebird & the Common Myna, agroecology, Liffey (my dog companion), clay, Çatalhöyük, kale, the soil biology in my backyard.

2. Your earliest release as Soda Lite was in 2015. When did you start recording music and how long have you been releasing it (under any moniker)?

I started recording music when I was a teenager in 2005. I used a headset mic, Windows Sound Recorder and Audacity. Music like Beaches and Canyons (Black Dice) inspired me to experiment, and I made all sorts of noisy, organic alien sounds under all kinds of names for years…

3. What were your initial aspirations when starting the Soda Lite project?

I realised my listening habits were changing, drifting into New Age realms and brighter, slower sounds. I wanted to reflect this in my own compositions. I was also becoming more and more entranced by plants, animals and my local environment, and thinking more about the role of music in shaping time and space. Since wild places are rare and distant for people living in cities, I wanted to create sounds that would allow them to experience (within the safety of their home or headphones) the slow, sweet temporal flux of that vibrant world beyond the cement highways, machinery, automation, cars and other alienating intensities of petro-capitalism.

4. There is a definite shift in mood and palette on your album In Eco from 2017 that has carried forward into your work over the last couple years. What is behind that artistic shift for you?

Any shift of mood or palette is mostly incidental, arising from shifts in my own life rhythms, in the places I’m visiting or living in, or what I’m listening to or thinking about. When I sit down to make music I don’t actively try to wander away from the work I have done previously. A timbre or a melody captures me, not the other way around. The conditions of light, of air temperature, of nearby plants, clouds of pollen and a thousand other micro-sensual elements all lead me to a sense of what gels within a song.

5. What are the factors you consider when choosing field recordings for one of your pieces?

Sometimes it’s about the mood evoked, and sometimes it’s about really wanting to respond to a place that I’ve bonded with. The field recording is almost always where I start. They was especially important for some of the pieces on ‘Reveries in terra lerpa,’ where I really wanted the instruments to sound as if they were woven into the acoustic ecology of the recorded environment. For Vale & Stone, the recordings act more like topsoil, a fertile ground from which to grow the different tones and harmonies which make up the album. These are some of the places you can hear on the new album: on ‘Nyth’ it’s Firth’s Campground in Lerderderg State Park (Victoria) On ‘Moonah,’ it’s the backyard in my new home on the first day we arrived. In ‘Lyra’s Horizon’ it’s a seagull colony on an abandoned human-built island called South Channel Fort, in Port Philip Bay (Naarm/Melbourne)

6. Do you feel like music is your main artistic medium?

Not anymore. It definitely used to be.

7. What do you investigate and express in other mediums that you feel like you can’t with music and vice versa?

Through my art practise, I’m able to engage more pragmatically with various social and ecological subjects. For example, looking at the shape of avian intelligence and individuality, or working directly with audiences to determine our shared environmental responsibilities. The music I make is more affective, more emotional. In both, I’m trying to give imaginative shape to new worlds of possibility and ways of life. They crossover a lot.

8. You moved to Lutruwita (Tasmania) recently. How has that shift been for you? It seems like it’s affording you more opportunities to work with the land.

It’s been amazing. Melbourne was a very big city and wracked with a hectic intensity which carried deep into peoples lives. The pace is much different here, and the natural world less ravaged. I was also doing full-time youth work in Melbourne and now I’m just part-time over here, which is much more sustainable. And yeah, I now have more physical and mental space to make experiments in food production, soil, animal care, etc. Food and energy sovereignty are extremely important to me, but it’s an immense project that will take decades to unravel. I’m pretty sure I will grow old and die here in lutruwita.

9. How do you use and engage with music in your daily life?

It’s woven into the fabric of everything I do. It’s rare that music isn’t playing in the background, or on my headphones. I’m listening to a lot of country music at the moment - from the Louvin Brothers to Loretta Lynn. Sounds of the Dawn is always a presence. 12th Isle mixes. Laraaji. Alice Coltrane. And a lot of medieval music…

10. Words of wisdom you like to recall in times of need?

‘Stay with the trouble’ – Donna Haraway 'Everything changes and nothing stands still’ - Heraclitus

Soda Lite has a new album, Vale & Stone, which is now available via Inner Islands on cassette and digital formats.

[drjamesjwoytash]

How Machine Learning Algorithms Might Improve Wound-Age Estimation

Multiple studies reiterate the importance of estimating the age of violently inflicted wounds, also called wound age estimation, in forensic science and reconstructing crime scenes. While very important in forensics, finding methods for accurately determining when someone received a wound/injury has been challenging until now.

However, a February 2023 article published in the academic journal Diagnostic discussed a specific type of machine learning that can help forensic scientists make more accurate conclusions about wound age.

This innovation begins with histology (study of cells and tissues) and pathology (study of diseases). After histologists prepare tissues for a crime scene investigation, they give them to pathologists who identify diseases, conditions, or whether an abnormality in tissue exists, explaining how someone might have died. Then forensic pathologists look at the age of a wound to determine the time of the injury. If there are other injuries, the order of the infliction of the injuries must be determined, especially if the case involves multiple offenders because sometimes law enforcement agencies charge offenders for crimes based on the severity of the injury.

Forensic pathologists must look at various factors in determining whether an injury occurred before or after the person died. Pathologists examine the tissue for hemorrhaging, granulation tissue formation, and inflammatory cells. The pathologist also evaluates the tissue for wound vitality reactions, determining whether the person was alive when they received the injury and how long they were alive before dying.

Biomarkers pathologists use with wound estimation are mRNA (messenger RNA) and proteins. A biomarker is a measurable part of the body, such as blood pressure.

In basic cell science, mRNA takes the instructions from the nucleus and delivers them to the cytoplasm, where tRNA (transfer RNA) provides instruction through amino acid sequencing (ATCG) for protein synthesis or DNA coding that creates long protein strands. In a nutshell, this process is basically how the nucleus gives the cells commands for functions to carry out in the body.

The paper published in the February 2023 Diagnostics issue attempts to show how multiple mRNA biomarkers combined with a stacking ensemble can offer pathologists more accurate predictions for wound estimation. Research has shown that relying on mRNA markers as opposed to proteins to estimate the time of an injury because the structure changes earlier than that of proteins. However, mRNA is less stable than a protein, so pathologists cannot use it by itself in making wound age estimations.

At the same time, researchers believe that machine learning models using stacking ensembles offer forensic pathologists a way to determine wound age using mRNA accurately. Ensemble machine learning methods rely on using multiple models to make predictions, and stacking is a type of ensemble machine learning that searches for the best combination of algorithms to develop the best performance.

This study looked at the potential for stacked ensemble machine learning to develop algorithms for nine mRNA expression characteristics. Researchers compared these different algorithms to see which stacking ensemble made the best prediction.

Researchers investigated skeletal muscle wounds in 56 Sprague-Dawley rats, an albino strain of rats kept at room temperature. Incidentally, skeletal muscle wounds are the most violent injury cases, which might be why researchers used this type in this study.

The research culminated in stacking ensemble models that showed promise for accurately predicting wound age estimation. However, the article's authors acknowledged that one of the study's limitations was that rats were the subject instead of humans. Simple animal models can generate working conclusions that might not occur with humans.

For researchers to conclusively say that stacking ensemble using mRNA can accurately predict wound age estimation, humans must be the trial subject. Even so, the study stated that stacking ensembles or mRNA biomarkers could solve wound age estimation when the injury occurred long before the person died.

[cannoli-reader]

Not much to disagree with, except I don’t understand the problem people have with Elayne’s lack of proximity to Rand.  Like, that’s her problem, from a Watsonian perspective.  It’s the main thing she wants and can’t have throughout her story. It’s the thing that generates her conflicts, that gives her character depth.  Otherwise, all Elayne faces are physical obstacles to overcome, rather than conflicts between different things she wants.  That’s the best kind of character conflict, because it helps you understand what’s really important to her and what she does when faced with a difficult choice.  In the story itself, Elayne does not avoid Rand, nor he her, in such a way as to raise questions about the sincerity of their feelings.  They are forced to do their own thing by their senses of duty. 

Elayne is the one of the trio who is the most like Rand and has the most in common with him.  They are both driven by duty, take more responsibility on themselves than they should, and are extremely self-sacrificing when it comes to putting duty before themselves.  They share a strong commitment to justice and responsible rule, and to the greater good, and for the most part, try to rule and lead according to abstract moral principles rather than pragmatic convenience or an institutional ideology. They are also prone to undervaluing their own competence or contributions in certain ways, and this contributes to their relationship difficulties, as each feels vulnerable to rejection and thus is hesitant to make their feelings clear to other. The story might be a lot different if someone had stepped in when they were parting in Tear and told Rand what Elayne told her friends the night before their first kiss and told Elayne about Rand’s various dreams of her and pointed out the degree to which each was willing to compromise their own desires for the good of the other. 

As for the oft-cited lack of face time meaning their relationship is somehow less, betraying the White Tower or attacking a Forsaken seem to me to be more significant gestures of affection than physical intimacy which has a self-gratifying aspect (self-gratifying enough that Birgitte has trouble walking, no less).

Min... yeah, no. While the books were still coming out, I could not understand all the people raving about how she was Rand’s tether to humanity and helping keep him sane. To me, she looked like the worst kind of enabler.  Rand was killing his own humanity, his capacity for laughter and tears, as a defense mechanism against the trauma he was suffering and in reaction to perceived enmity or his frustration with the rest of the world. What he needed a change of perspective and Min did nothing in that regard, except affirm his own perspective.  Actions that might make Rand think you were against him, brought Min down against you as well.  The only reason she accepted Cadsuane was her viewing, and that with a great deal of reluctance and only in the last extreme.  Otherwise, she tended to agree with him, such as when he blew up at Merana.  When he is confronted with the worst of his Aes Sedai abusers who are still captive Min wants to steer him away from taking revenge, not because it’s wrong or bad for Rand, but because she knows that afterward he will regret it. 

Min does not challenge Rand in any respect.  Unless she references or cites a viewing, Rand never listens to her when she disagrees with him.  Her behavior can be somewhat obnoxious, even if you allow some leeway for intimacy and don’t subscribe literally to the “not even incidental contact without written prior consent” standards of the more sanctimonious pseudo-feminist scolds out there.  Her pseudo-violent acts start to slide out of the category of acceptable roughhousing when she expresses a knowledge of how incapable he is of harming her or seeing harm done to her, and thus unlikely to be capable of reciprocating.  If the other part is not mentally or capable of responding in kind to physical interaction, it falls into more of a gray area akin to bullying and absolutely out of the zone of cute relationship stuff.  That sort of one-sidedness makes it different from, say, Perrin & Faile, or Bael & his partners, who are not everyone’s cup of tea. As a result, her hyperbole means her ability to express strong misgiving to Rand is muted.  When she is always mock-threatening him, he is much less impressed by her throwing a knife past his head to emphasize how little she likes the idea of him pursuing the last two renegade Asha’man.  

The worst thing about Min, is that for all her incompetence at anything outside of relationship stuff and her claim of expertise on Rand and his inner nature, is her insistence on her own involvement, regardless of how it exacerbates his issues.  She had no business coming along to meet Semirhage.  Absolutely anyone would have been a better fit for the non-channeling woman spot in his entourage, even stipulating they are going to play in good faith and not simply ward Nynaeve against detection and use her to fill the slot and take another female channeler.  He could have brought a high-ranking noblewoman to impress the Seanchan, or an actually competent fighter, like a Maiden.  Instead, he brought Min whose sole ability is to spoil pleasant surprises. That’s on Rand, showing how for all his authoritarian leanings, he lacks the will to force the right thing in other respects.  But Min claims to know him better than he knows himself and understand his vulnerabilities, so why does she insist on going into danger with him, where his first thought will be her safety and not whatever he hopes to accomplish?  Forget the immaturity and implicit bad faith of leveraging sex with one’s partner for things like this, using it to create a scenario so against Rand’s well-being and mental health is pretty close to abuse. 

And Min was there the last two times Rand was taken captive, and having someone bonded to him available was a big help to the rescue party!  Unlike nearly any other woman who has to send her man into danger, at least Min can be constantly aware of his survival and well-being (compare her to Nynaeve in the same book, and holy fuck, how are these two women supposed to be closer in age than to any of the other MCs), and because she has all the discretion and self-restraint of an addict, the fact of their being bonded is now an open secret among Rand’s entourage.  This means she can openly function as a source of information for Bashere’s reaction force, perhaps giving them warning if the meeting team is somehow unable to signal for help.  Min DGAF about anything but her own gratification vis a vis her proximity to Rand. 

I’ve come around to Min as a character in other respects, but regarding her relationship with Rand, I’ve got no use for her. 

As for Aviendha, when the series was ongoing, for all I preferred Elayne as a character in her own right, I preferred Aviendha as Rand’s relationship partner for the reasons given by the OP.  One of the things I really disliked about how it went down is the only depiction of them having a relationship with both of them aware of it, is Sanderson’s grotesque farce in aMoL.  

Ok, I’m going out myself as not being a fan of Rand’s women. At least, in the context of their relationships with him.

Elayne annoys me because the number of days she spends in Rands company can be counted on my fingers but she’s totally in love with him? On my chaotic reread I have a much better appreciation for her as a leader and monarch and do love her from that standpoint. I hope she finds herself a Thom or Bryne post-AMOL.

Min had such potential to be so cool. A free and independent woman with a cool, if slightly creepy, super power? Awesome! And then she goes and…gives Rand lap dances and reads books? I guess she keeps him grounded or something but she becomes so boring and useless! Good for her for getting a key role in the Seanchan Empire, where her talents might actually do some good.

Aviendha is the only one who started out as cool and never became uninteresting. Probably because her relationship with Rand had some actual tension, and because so much of it was more about her relationship with Elayne. So she’s cool, congrats for landing the Dragon Reborn, I guess. She’ll continue to be awesome post-AMOL.

But there is one thing about their relationships that I do like:

1. Love At First Sight:

2. Enemies To Lovers:

3. Friends to Lovers:

And that’s a pretty interesting structure.

Have at it with why I should like them more, and I promise to try to keep an open mind about it 📝

[zarla-s]

I was rereading some of the Handplates comics, and I was wondering: canonically speaking, did the player reset after sans’ boss fight? It seems like the player does a pacifist run after genocide, but doesn’t completing genocide make it impossible to have a true pacifist ending? I was just a little confused. Thanks!

They did indeed do the full murder run! The soulless ending in Handplates is interpreted in a more meta, symbolic way though.

You can think of the player still being “present” during the pacifist ending (the shadowZar hanging around Frisk and that Frisk’s SOUL is missing) as basically the equivalent of Radic showing up in the Pacifist ending with the pie. The player is there in a sense - Frisk is not. So, soulless. It’s not the most literal interpretation of the ending of course, but it does fall in line with my personal interpretation of it (that the person you sell your soul to at the end of the murder run is yourself, or rather, your completionist side that can’t let these characters go out of a twisted kind of love for them). Technically the game is over at that point so there literally shouldn’t be a player anymore, but the lines around the definition of “player” are deliberately blurry in Handplates for reasons that should become more apparent later.

For clarity's sake, the player timeline in Handplates goes like...

Pacifist run

True reset (everything is wiped - there's no evidence anywhere that this ever happened except the player's reaction to Sans asking if they're a good person and the player talking about what made them do a murder run when they decide to reset to find Gaster. Some dialogue with Flowey also alludes to it, unintentionally on Flowey’s part)

Murder run

Reset

A whole bunch of Neutral runs (essentially getting every possible ending, thus Sans’s new set of deja-vu memories)

Pacifist run

Reset to right before fighting Asgore

Finds Gaster (where we are currently)

Hopefully that makes things a bit clearer, haha. The difficult thing is that the Handplates story is told from the perspective of the characters in Undertale, and there are things going on outside the game that they have no way of ever knowing or really understanding. It's hard to get that across... but there'll be more about it later.

What about the computer? Things get a bit fiddly here. The timeline that the brothers saw (and Gaster subsequently recorded) was the murder run, since the first pacifist run essentially never happened by the game’s reckoning. Since the murder run basically destroyed all reality (as well as had lasting consequences beyond that ending), their vision wasn’t able to go past that point to see the human reset it again, so from their perspective the murder run was just where everything ended. This is why when they go check the computer later when the human starts their neutrals, the results of it haven’t changed! The data fed into the computer was from the murder run timeline, and since neither of them have been scraped for more data since Gaster existed, the data is out of date.

[index]

[lhazaar]

incidentally, because i have gained a lot of new followers recently again (hello?? thank you??? where are you coming from) and i know a lot of this is part of Fandom Tumblr, it's probably worth making explicit my ship discourse opinions lol

(readmore because this is long and necessarily involves talk about #csa and #sexual violence)

the reason this matters to me so much is twofold. one, i and people i personally know have been preyed on by people through fandom, specifically, and in ways that are hard to talk about without the context of fandom itself. two, i was a psych/writing student with a specific research interest in paraphilia, kink, and sociosexual behaviour; i used to work in a social psych lab specifically about sexual sciences

beyond that, i'm a furry lol

my understanding of this discourse is that three different things get wrapped into "pro/anti" discourse. the first is the existence of sexuality in media at all. the second is the existence of kink in media, including transformative media. the third is the existence of kink about taboo subjects, including children

i absolutely believe that depictions of sexual activity influence human cognition. this has been very well-studied from multiple angles and with many, many different agendas. some of those agendas are absolutely homophobic in origin, or part of ideological goals aimed at criminalization of sex work. reactionary pushback against sexuality in mass media is very often fuelled by far-right religious organizations who are not actually invested in protecting anything but their own power. however, these organizations target sexuality because their own ideology requires sexual control to maintain its power, and control of when and where it's culturally "acceptable" to be sexual is a component of that

i think that you should be extremely suspicious of people who equate this social movement with "people online being vocal about fiction being used as a grooming tool". fiction, including fandom, including transformative work, can absolutely be used for that purpose. it has been, on me and on people i know. sometimes the perpetrators were straight and sometimes they weren't. sexual abusers will use the tools at their disposal, and fictional depictions of sexual violence can absolutely be a component of this.

this doesn't mean that all "dark" topics are inherently suspicious. humans tell stories about all sorts of things. sometimes those things involve sexual violence or abuse. sometimes (often!) these things are written by people who have survived those events, and are writing about them in order to express something important about their experience, or to better understand the mindset of their aggressor. hell i have dungeons and dragons characters that are survivors of sexual violence in their backstory because it's a part of the character that i wanted to portray—this was still negotiated with the intended audience, even when that audience is just a couple of my friends, because i give a shit about how i portray that and how it's received

that is part of the media literacy you need to evaluate depictions of mature subject matter: who is the intended audience? what is the intended effect on the audience? what personal beliefs is the author bringing to the table, and what beliefs does the audience hold? where do those interact and what do they produce?

(ao3 is a good example of a place where this evaluation can't really happen, under their moderation policies and with the level of staffing that they have. i don't like what it does to the otw's reputation as a whole, because i think that the otw often does very important work for the legal rights of the audience. it sucks! i just don't spend time there and treat it like e621.)

i also don't think this is a new discussion and i'm leery of any attempt to attribute it to "puriteens". the furry community's been having this argument for as long as people have been making dildos lifecast from animals. (yes, that's real; yes, it's incredibly contentious and also grosses me the fuck out.) it's a discussion that is best navigated by people within kink communities, who have put thought into their own attraction and desire, and done the introspection necessary to understand impact vs. fantasy vs. acceptable risk.

finally, i think there's a really important aspect of this discussion that gets ignored. a lot more people are walking around with ocd than are walking around with genuine paraphilic disorders. intrusive thoughts, particularly in pure- or heavy-O manifestations of ocd, can be really difficult for people to distinguish from sexual fantasies. this isn't because the sufferer ~actually~ wants to do the thing, it's because their brain does not have the physical ability to stop thinking about the thing, and the cognitions that develop around that can be recursive and illogical. it's common for people with intrusive thoughts about child sexual abuse, for example, to fear that just looking at a child in public will "confirm" their attraction, or that the child will be directly harmed by them simply possessing the thought

ocd can absolutely destroy your life with these, and some of the early warning signs that you can spot involve fears of thought contamination, or the fear that you are Secretly A Bad Person in ways that may be unknown even to you. if that resonates with you, i want to encourage you to step back from this discourse, because people don't enter it with ocd in mind and that can be unintentionally very damaging. there is no such thing as thoughtcrime because your thoughts are not controllable, and a belief to the contrary is often deeply entrenched in people with ocd. this discourse isn't actually about thoughtcrime. it's about media literacy, authorial intent, and what tools abusive people will use in their pursuit of power and sexual control

[mylittlegemlins]

cute demencia/flug headcanon

Based on what Alan said in the Mexico comiccon years ago “I had a friend in elementary school… suddenly she would come and bite me and I would say, why are you biting me? And she said "well this is my way of expressing affection”

Demencia is partly based on this girl and in fact she she bites flug A LOT. What if this shows affection?

Like a cat that is just playing. Imagine Dementia admitting it with those same words. cute :3

I think that dementia actually holds back a lot when hitting flug, as if to play with him in an evil way but knowing that he is a human without powers and therefore does not want to hurt him too much, this girl is capable of eating whole people and break metal with just her bare hands, unless she has bricks under those gloves, if she wanted to really hit flug she would break his bones and bite his arm off, but no, she just told him scratches.

The only time she where she really broke a bone was in the beach city orientation video, and before she hit Flug , he had already told her that she wasn't capable of making a learning video, that she had never touched a book in her life and that she wouldn't make this video with her, if someone told me that I would also want to break a bone. I rewatched the same video several times and realized that technically she only broke his neck (and kicked his broken hand, ouch) but all the other fractures came after black hat crushed them, there was a small cut and pop* showed up with more casts, so it could have been black hat.

And going through other tests on satellite secrets, where in the kitchen they have the knives perfectly within the reach of demencia, they are not even in a little box so they don't get dirty, are there where even 505 can take them, so Flug doesn't have afraid that demencia will attack him with knives, but in the orientation videos dementia appears throwing forks at him.

So I imagine the scene of demencia seeing the knives and axes at his fingertips, but no, we are going to throw forks at the nerd.

I also have the little headcanon that demencia is forbidden to use pens or pencils because they are also stuck in flug because they are sharp. Can you drink beer but only use crayons? I don't think so, there is the explanation.

I think that black hat does not have the same level of care since, as we saw in the first episode, it has the power to destroy his bones and rejoin them in seconds, and the videos show that he hangs him until he passes out, so BH is not as delicate.

I dare say dem is also contained with his things, the mansion seems to have his things destroyed daily by Dem, buttt the plane collection is intact, because she knows which are important to flug for some reason.

During the videos the planes look in perfect condition, there doesn't seem to be a complex security system, nor does it seem like he's in a super secret room and everyone knows about his collection. And there are a couple of orientation videos where there are scale models and some planes from the collection to show off on the table, and demencia doesn't touch them, instead he scratches the walls, he hits it, he breaks a couple of hatbots, because those are repaired, but he doesn't touch the collection because deep down he respects what's important to his friend, except for the q&a video where the planes suddenly disappeared? She didn't break them, they just left during the song.

It seems that she also knows what things to break because hatbots and other machines are the ones that are mostly destroyed, because of the number of Hatbots it seems that they are made in a factory to sell them so that there are hundreds of them daily and so Demencia can break them knowing that there are many more instead of breaking something important like a new invention.

Incidentally, it would help to improve the Hatbots to make them more resistant or with new equipment every time they find their weak point. Let's face it, hat bots have always been useless in battle.

thanks for reading my weird headcanos, I think their relationship is still a dysfunctional mess but that's evil so I like it and somehow is cute.

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Star Trek and Antitheism

I keep finding myself having the same conversation with different people recently, so… hey now, hey now, this is what blogs are made of!

Original Series Star Trek stood out among other TV shows of its time for its on-screen diversity. The bridge crew of the USS Enterprise was unignorably multiracial. Also, in addition to using traditional science-fiction methods to explore issues of systemic oppression – aliens as allegory provides a safe distance from which to examine our own world – early Star Trek made important steps towards dismantling real-world discrimination, including having TV’s first interracial kiss. There are undeniably things to praise here in the diversity and inclusion department.

But in-universe, the diversity of humans in Star Trek just… doesn’t seem to matter. They’re humans. That’s it. Aside from Chekov's pride in being Russian, which is played for laughs, nobody in TOS has any investment in their heritage, besides belonging to a vague "human" culture.

(It’s worth noting that this “human” culture is unmistakably American secular Christianity. Despite Roddenberry’s well-known desire to present a future where humankind has “grown beyond” divisive things like religion, the show occasionally mentions God. I remember while watching as a kid, noticing the ship’s chapel in “Balance of Terror,” where character is seen kneeling in prayer – not a posture that I as a Jewish child had ever seen someone take before in real life, though I knew what it meant by virtue of growing up in a predominantly Christian nation.)

I don’t want to assume that I know what was going through Roddenberry’s head, but through Star Trek, he expressed that the ideal future was one where diversity is incidental. Where it doesn’t matter that people are different, because they’re not really different, and if someone mentions a difference, it’s a joke. I’ve heard through the internet grapevine that more recent Star Trek shows have delved somewhat into their characters’ cultural diversity, with characters reflecting on their home countries in Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks, and Picard. But in “classic Trek,” in Roddenberry’s future, there are no different cultures. There is only the “human race.”

And for all that I love Star Trek, that’s something I can’t be comfortable with.

Think about it for a moment. If, in the future, all cultures “just so happened” to have disappeared except for secular Christianity… doesn’t that imply a cultural genocide? What am I supposed to think about the idea that the “ideal future” is one in which people who act like me and think like me, my people, my family, don’t exist?

I understand why an atheist – like Roddenberry, and like many Star Trek fans – would see a future without religions as appealing. A lot of atheists, from many different cultures, had a negative experience with religion growing up and so came to the conclusion that religion is inherently negative, that it’s “wrong” to believe in a god, and that the world would be better off without religion altogether. I imagine that these people must be comforted by the daydream of a future in which all humans agree with them and think like them. This worldview logically follows from their experience.

Now, I don't have enough hubris to say I know for sure that G-d exists. There's a reason it's called "faith" and not "certainty," right? Believing in G-d works for me, as a part of the whole ethnoreligious package that is my experience with Judaism. I know that atheism works better for other people. It’s a good thing – a great thing – that everyone gets to believe what works for them. It’s what comes most naturally to humans – to have different opinions and experiences, to be varied.

The idea that there's one correct belief and that everyone will one day feel the same deeply troubles me. Atheism itself is a neutral thing, but antitheism – the belief that all religion is inherently bad and should not exist – is a harmful ideology. When an antitheist says, “Everyone should not believe in god,” they are using the rhetoric of proselytizers. It has the same impact as an evangelical Christian saying, “Everyone should believe in my god.” It is the same idea: “Everyone should be like me. You should give up your culture and adopt mine. Your way of life should not exist.”

Though the intent behind antitheism is often to “punch up” at the religion the speaker left and was hurt by, the impact of antitheism is the victimization of minority cultures, especially indigenous cultures. In my personal experience, I have been more enthusiastically targeted for conversion by self-proclaimed atheists than Christians. It’s all the same to me. Whatever belief system they’re advertising, they’re all saying that they think people like me shouldn’t exist anymore. Just like in Star Trek.

“Your culture/race/religion does not matter anymore” is not diversity. It is not inclusion. It’s, frankly, dangerous.

[questionablygourmet]

Will and Hannibal: participation and transformation

An anon prompted me recently to talk about why Will fell in love with Hannibal, and I’ll rarely turn down an opportunity to wax rhapsodic about certain themes in the show, so here we go!  

There’s a few key places where Will himself addresses the issue.  The first one I want to mention is in Contorno, where Will says of Hannibal to Chiyoh,

We afforded each other an experience we may not otherwise have had.

The direct context of this is that they’re talking about violence and influence, but it’s true far more broadly than that, as is referenced many times over the course of Hannibal and Will talking with each other and numerous other characters - their relationship with one another is a unique experience to both of them, being known and understood and accepted in a way they’ve not otherwise encountered.  

There’s a bit of commentary about this from Hugh that makes the rounds often enough that I’m not going to bother fishing up the direct quote, but to paraphrase, he says it’s like Will’s a chess master who’s never met another person in the world who plays chess, until he meets Hannibal.  It’s not just about Hannibal being very intelligent, as most of the characters on the show fit that description, but Hannibal being specifically equipped to operate on not just the same level as Will does, but the same wavelength.  To extend the metaphor, someone like, say, Alana doesn’t really play chess, but she’s an expert at Go.  People who play chess and people who play Go might have plenty to talk about and appreciate about each other, but they’re not playing the same game, so they can’t play together, at least not equally.  

This is something that we see starting to show itself even early in season 1 - Will’s initial standoffishness toward Hannibal rapidly dissipates as Hannibal shows that he’s not just another psychiatrist who wants to study Will, but someone who can understand and enjoy Will - his thoughts, his sense of humor, his company - as a whole human being and not just a “unique cocktail of personality disorders and neuroses” (thanks, Chilton).  Of course this gets rather tragically undermined throughout season 2, initially by the bombshell betrayal of Will’s trust, and later as Will sees a pattern in Hannibal’s patient history via Randall Tier and Margot Verger, but even through Will’s seething anger and distrust, the dynamic persists.  Even when they’re at odds, they speak the same language and connect to one another to an elevated degree.

(Incidentally, this is a really common - albeit not uniquely or exclusively - neurodivergent experience of deep love, be it romantic or otherwise.)

Continuing on that theme of both understanding and appreciation is a bit of a more esoteric discussion of different conceptualizations of love as represented in the show.  In Shiizakana, Will has a dream where he kills Hannibal via stag-powered squishing, and in the dream Hannibal says to him,

No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them.  By that love, we see potential in our beloved.  Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential.  Expressing that love, our beloved’s potential comes true.

This is a near-quote from Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankl, which you could say both Will and Hannibal have diegetically read, since Hannibal gets to quote it in another scene in the waking world - “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior” - or you could just say that Bryan Fuller has clearly read it and the characters don’t know they’re quoting something, but that distinction isn’t important here.  What is important here is that it’s coming from Will’s mind and it’s indicative of some of his attitudes about love - in a vacuum, one could perhaps argue that it’s just indicative of how he thinks Hannibal thinks about love, but then in Secondo, he says, with almost painful sincerity to Chiyoh,

I’ve never known myself as well as I know myself when I’m with him.

I think this is a really succinct and potent re-affirmation of that concept of love-as-actualization/transformation (self and other), which goes hand in glove with Will and Hannibal’s shared anxiety toward their love as a bringer of violent change to the self.  (Briefly, because s2-3 are positively brimming with relevant quotes, “Do you think you could change me, the way I’ve changed you?”  “If you don’t kill him, you’re afraid you’re going to become him.”  “We’re conjoined.  Curious if either of us can survive separation.” etc)

And I think the reciprocal aspect here is also very important: I don’t think Will would have fallen for Hannibal, or at least not nearly so deeply and inescapably, if Hannibal hadn’t also fallen for Will in a very similar manner (though the specifics of how it develops for each of them differ).  The mutuality of their otherwise-unique experience with one another is intrinsic to how special the relationship is, rather than incidental - to return to the chess metaphor, it’s not just that Hannibal understands the game of chess and can appreciate Will’s playing, but can and does play with him, which means he’s got his own pieces on the board and is responding to Will’s every move.  Or, because I can’t resist hammering on a parallel motif when I see one, he’s a participant, not an observer.  

[shihalyfie]

Comparing the original Best Partner character song series and the new one, and what that says about the 02 cast

So if you haven’t heard yet, a new series of 02 (it’s actually Kizuna) character songs dropped! Allegedly intended as a slightly delayed 20th anniversary project, the series is a callback to the original “Best Partner” character song album series that released during 02′s actual airing.

If you know anything about the original Best Partner series, it’s one that sets an insanely high bar, even for Digimon standards (and that’s saying something, given the deep associations this franchise has with music). The series of character songs before it, Adventure’s “Character Song + Mini Drama” series, has a…kind of questionable amount of relevance to each character; it’s not like they’re super amazingly out of character, but they don’t really tell you a lot about each character beyond some gloss details (this is probably best demonstrated in how Mimi’s song is blatantly just an AiM single disguised as a Mimi song). Best Partner, on the other hand, very intimately goes into each character’s head and their relationships with their respective partners, even putting in direct words what wasn’t stated explicitly in the series.

So does the new series live up to the high bar its predecessor sets? Answer: on top of some abnormal attention to detail on the covers, it is very obvious that the new series not only has a lot of the depth of the 02 characters in mind, but also is made in direct response to the original series itself. Moreover, putting the original Best Partner series and this one side by side reveals a lot about each of the 02 characters and what they got out of 02′s story, in a surprisingly neat summary.

Let’s go into how!

Since this is something that has a deep relationship with all of these characters in regards to the series, this particular meta would not have been possible without input from multiple people who know these characters better than I could ever hope to by myself. Thank you for all of your help.

A bit of historical context

The original Best Partner series consisted of a set of albums, one representing each pair of partners in 02. Notably, even though nowadays there’s a specific order of the Adventure/02 characters that’s used in modern media, not only does the original series not follow that ordering (as it hadn’t been set in stone at the time), it also leads with the original Adventure characters and not the 02 ones, which is pretty unusual for a series that’s ostensibly supposed to be for 02 (modern lineups will usually favor leading with whichever group the relevant product is branded with).

A lot of this probably makes more sense when you realize that the original Best Partner series was released during the first half of 02’s airing. The final album was released on August 23, 2000, four days before the fateful 02 episode 21 (yes, that means the third track on Ken and Wormmon’s album is actually a spoiler). So in other words, while the original Best Partner series accurately reflects the older Adventure group’s character development and what problems they were able to sufficiently overcome, the 02 group does not have anything about their character development from 02′s second half reflected in it at all.

That’s actually a really huge disparity, when you think about it, especially because a lot happened with the 02 group in that second half – that second half was where the emotional payoff and the results of everything that had been building up over that first half came together. So in comparison to the Adventure group, composed of people confidently talking about what they’ve decided for themselves from now on, you still have the 02 group drenched pretty deeply in insecurity. Watch 02 to the end and listen to those songs again, and you might even think “wait, this is supposed to represent these characters?” So, in essence, the new Best Partner series serves to address that gap, and what the 02 group gained and learned out of 02′s second half.

Best Partner (and its successor series for Tamers, Best Tamers) follows a uniform format: a solo song for the human partner, a solo song for the Digimon partner, and a duet between the two. (Given that, the original Best Partner series was really huge, at a whole 36 songs.) Recalling that, in the Adventure universe, a Digimon partner reflects the human’s inner self and psyche, it’s pretty extensive coverage: what the human has to say about themself, what place their Digimon partner is in relative to that, and what the nature of their relationship is due to that.

Let’s go into each pair of partners in detail!

Daisuke and V-mon

For those who love 02 and love Daisuke in particular, when you ask “what kind of character is Daisuke like?” or “what’s Daisuke’s best quality?”, you’re probably going to get answers like “forward-thinking” or “positive” or “good at uplifting others” – basically everything to do with how Daisuke is an encouraging presence who doesn’t give in easily and has a strong mentality of moving forward in the face of despair. Someone who appreciates and understands others’ best qualities, and loves them for everything they are. So when you look at his original Best Partner solo song, Goggle Boy…

But more than just saving the world I really don’t want to lose, you know

…Uh…

These goggles are my proof Given by a certain someone to me The precious thing he handed over It’s just like his Crest, you know Aren’t they cool?

…Well, that’s nowhere to be found.

This is the kind of song that might make you think “wait, this is supposed to be Daisuke’s representative song?!” (It’s possibly because of this that Daisuke’s song from The Bridge to Dreams, Tomorrow, generally tended to be far more favored among Daisuke fans, although it’s more relevant to 02 as a whole than it is to Daisuke in particular.) if you listen to Goggle Boy knowing about what Daisuke’s best qualities should be, this is almost a little frustrating, because this is the kind of thing he really shouldn’t be pigeonholed as – basically, begging for others’ approval and praise and focusing on idolizing others. Even his most insightful moments in this song come from his appreciation of something that came from someone else (Taichi), not from himself.

Well, the thing is, that was Daisuke’s character for most of the first half of 02. Of course, even in early episodes, there were many times where Daisuke’s potential for positivity and forward-thinkingness were starting to poke through, but most of the time he was rolling over trying to please others and chasing after his seniors. The real period of time he started to grow into his own about this was 02 episode 24 and its aftermath – when his time spent with his friends started to fill the void in his life and his need for validation, and the escalating situation, especially with Ken, led him to have a proper grasp of what was properly important and what needed to be done.

So when we get to his new solo, RUNNING MAN…

I’ll keep on running far ahead Let’s bring everyone along with me, today, too Really, always, thank you, Thank you so much Riding the wind, going past the sky Grasping your hands and flying I’m even starting to see beyond my dreams

Even in only one section, you can get an instant image of the Motomiya Daisuke we all know and love – someone who appreciates his friends’ role in his life, loves their company, and moves positively towards the future. Because, again, after the events of 02, and after being able to bond further with his friends and gaining his own strengths in leading everyone forward, he became able to more properly express his love for everything instead of constantly vying for others’ attention. Even the title reflects the change, from a “boy” who’s flashing the symbol of courage he got from someone else, to a “man” who’s positively running forward on his own merits.

(Interestingly, RUNNING MAN is composed by Ohta Michihiko, a legendary composer who’s made many of some of the most important songs in the franchise, and also composed many of the original Best Partner songs, including Goggle Boy. It’s interesting how RUNNING MAN is the one most like the original songs in atmosphere as a result – possibly representing how Daisuke is a simple-minded person who ostensibly doesn’t change drastically in disposition – yet has lyrical content that’s so starkly different.)

As a result, this is subtly reflected in the other two songs in each album as well – remember that V-mon is one of the partners who most “matches” his own partner in terms of disposition and mentality. So as Daisuke shifted his own priorities, V-mon did too; we go from Go Ahead! being about taking a stand and fighting, whereas Beyond the Future is about a similar forward-thinking mentality to Daisuke’s.

Likewise, the duets have different priorities as well; 2-TOP was composed of Daisuke and V-mon bickering for the most of it, and the most substantial point you could get about it was that despite their bickering, they made it work, whereas HEY-rasshai! has them almost entirely in sync (with one minor moment of deviance). It’s also interesting to see the topics covered in each; 2-TOP is about soccer, which ultimately is revealed to be a fairly incidental hobby for Daisuke, whereas HEY-rasshai! is about ramen making, which, while comical, also has a very strong tie to “Daisuke’s dream for the future, and his willingness to single-mindedly dedicate himself to something when it’s something he truly wants”. In other words, while Daisuke knew what he wanted since elementary school, it says a lot that he’s at a point where he and V-mon are now taking proactive steps to have that dream achieved, now that they’re able.

Ken and Wormmon

Like with his position in 02 itself, Ken’s is probably the easiest to see the contrast without trying too hard, but there’s still quite a lot to unpack!

When you think about it, in the modern era, it’s actually surprisingly hard to find stuff too relevant to Ken’s time as the Kaiser. The reason is, simply, that the series itself discourages this – Ken himself had an obvious aversion to dwelling too much on it, and the entire series itself has a strong theme of “moving on”. It’s not to say that the Kaiser doesn’t have a fanbase (I’m sorry if you’re reading this and find that I might be implying too hard that you don’t exist), but rather that there’s a franchise and fanart tendency to focus more on “Ken-chan” than “the Kaiser” these days, and old merch from the first half of the series will all too often get responses of “it’s really sad Ken-chan can’t be there…” Of course, 02 itself was also about accepting one’s mistakes, not pretending they never happened, so it’d be foolhardy to deny Ken’s dark history entirely, but it’s retroactively interesting to see such a prominent and persistent piece of merch like Ken and Wormmon’s original Best Partner album focus so largely on Ken’s time as the Kaiser when most of the franchise ended up trying to move on.

Starting with Ken’s solo songs, and his first one, ONLY ONE:

I’ve lived without showing my true feelings, wearing this mask

Well, this was easy to tell from the series itself, but the point driven home is that Ken didn’t want to expose his true self to others, putting on a front of “strength” and smashing his true feelings into the corner so that he could become more of the “perfect” person he thought he was supposed to be. There’s also another interesting line that one should pay attention to:

I polished the knife in my heart and put my belief in infinite power

Basically, putting up a defensive front to prevent anything from approaching his weaknesses.

Anyway, moving onto his new song, Never Ending:

If I want to be proud of tomorrow’s version of myself I wonder, what can I do? Never Give-up I’ll keep fighting, even doing someone else’s part No, I won’t be afraid anymore

First of all, the main theme of the song is about putting conscious thought into understanding how to stay true to himself – basically, understanding what it is he really wants to do and become, instead of putting on fronts and hiding it from others. Not only that, we see traces of what exactly he gained over the course of the second half of 02 – because so much of it involved constantly trying to blame himself for everything, this song is about what he came to learn in terms of proactively making it up and actively fighting forward. He’s working hard!

We also have this part:

The knife that’s pointed at someone, or at myself If it’s been let go of

Two things going on here: firstly, we have an explicit reference to the metaphorical “knife” Ken referred to putting up in ONLY ONE, talking about finally letting it go instead of bothering with this kind of front. He also points out that, in a sense, the knife was pointed at himself too, either in the sense of actually having hurt himself through this entire ideal, or in the sense that he constantly was trying to blame and punish himself for everything. None of that should be necessary anymore. Moreover, Never Ending contains a lot of references to “daily life” and the happiness that comes with the simplicity of just being alive – because that was indeed what Ken gained through his experiences, the ability to treasure living life in itself instead of aspiring to an impossible standard.

Another interesting thing about Never Ending is that it’s technically in a similar rock genre to ONLY ONE instead of being “soft”, like Ken’s personality is often thought to be. This was a surprise to a lot of people who commented on how surprisingly “cool” the song was, but this is actually completely in line with Ken arguably being one of the most openly assertive people in this group even after his reformation. Note that it’s very difficult to call this song purely angsty – it’s definitely positive and forward-thinking, and the chorus itself is partially in major key – but it has the vibe of someone who’s fully aware of everything that’s happened, is putting proper thought into it, and is pushing on despite everything. Remember, the intensity the Kaiser had originally came from somewhere; Ichijouji Ken is the same person, in the end.

In regards to Wormmon’s song, the contrast is also obvious: The Future You Dreamed of, the Future I Dreamed Of. is of course about Wormmon’s tormented feelings during the Kaiser’s abusive relationship with him, whereas can change it! is about its aftermath and how they made up (including copious references to the events of 02 episode 23). Even then, there’s a certain “forward-thinking” attitude that marks this song as being representative of being after 02’s events and not during – see the line “The mistake we made that day/is exactly the reason we’ll never let it happen again”, instead of the self-punishment and shame Stingmon expressed in 02 episode 26).

On top of that, the duet song Forever Adolescence also marks a subtle progression from the point they were at from True Strength – remembering that Best Partner 12 was released at a time when True Strength was actually a bit of a spoiler, while Ken and Wormmon obviously had made up by that point, the key line in it is still “everything truly begins from here”. So what, exactly, happened after that? According to Forever Adolescence, the decision made was to keep moving forward, and, moreover, to stay “the way they are”, especially with the nuance that it means it’s okay to not force oneself into the role of an adult and stay “young at heart”. This is really, really important in light of the events of Kizuna, the 02 group’s unusual role in it and its relevance to 02′s themes (more on this below), and how Spring 2003 referred to the pressure placed on Osamu as him being “forced to grow up too quickly” – in essence, Ken and Wormmon have firmly resolved to actively move away from that kind of pressure.

Miyako and Hawkmon

I’ve pointed out several times on this blog that the actual complex Miyako was going through in 02 was that she hated herself more than anyone else in the group would be willing to criticize her – and if you don’t believe me, it’s put in a pretty heavy-handed manner in her original song, Crash and Bingo!:

Fussing about it won’t get anything done But my selfishness and problems and panic keep coming out

…and even more viciously in her own and Hawkmon’s duet, Fly High:

I can’t do anything right, besides playing around with computers

or

Everyone would be still be fine if I weren’t there

If you thought it was subtle in the main series, it certainly isn’t here: Miyako considered herself good for absolutely nothing and unable to be accepted by others for being too useless – in these songs, despite Hawkmon’s attempts to uplift her, she criticizes her own messy tendencies and considers herself a burden. Best Partner is a positive series, so it still has the attitude of “we’ll try anyway”, but it’s clear that Miyako really didn’t have the highest opinion of herself at all. Hence, Fly High also shows off the worst of Hawkmon having to deal with the fallout – with Miyako flailing around in panic and considering herself good for nothing, he’s forced to carry her around.

But come Miyako’s new solo, From Spain with Love!, we see a huge contrast all over the place:

I, who have evolved into an adult make everyone do a double-take at me when I walk by!

Exhibit A: actual confidence in herself and ability to consider herself worth something;

If I can always, always be honest with myself Even if I don’t put together some program, even if I keep screwing up Ah, you understand me

Exhibit B: understanding that she’s worth something to others besides her utility abilities, and knowing that she has friends who’ll support her despite her flaws (which is very true);

When things are feeling hard, the first thing you should do is call me, okay? I’ll take the wings of love and purity, spread them, and get there as fast as I can Ah, I’ll open up any gate I need to

Exhibit C: indulging in her capacity for helping and supporting others;

Al mal tiempo, buena cara We laugh exactly when things are hard

Exhibit D: understanding the strength to get through hard times, instead of emotionally crumbling under the pressure.

Yep, that’s exactly what her character arc in 02 was about; 02 episode 31 was a huge turning point for her because, in the depths of her berating herself for her messiness and expecting Hikari to be secretly judging her the whole time, Hikari revealed that she was outright jealous of Miyako being able to speak her mind, and Miyako shortly after ended up showing her true capacity for reaching others who needed her help and supporting them, a role she ended up growing into for the rest of the series. Note that, other than the casual remark of confidence at the beginning, Miyako hasn’t necessarily become arrogant or anything – it’s just that, by focusing her energies into how much she loves everyone and turning her “nosiness” and “sticking herself into others’ business” tendencies into positive energy to help everyone, she gained more confidence in her ability to be loved and accepted by others.

This is reflected as well in her new duet with Hawkmon, where, instead of Hawkmon dragging her around everywhere, their differences and mismatched personalities are outright celebrated, and while Miyako still has awareness of her messy tendencies, she’s no longer letting it emotionally rip her apart and has confidence that Hawkmon can be by her side to help her through it. Perhaps reflecting that, Hawkmon himself goes from the over-the-top, dramatic, high-strung Knight of Love to the more calm and straightforward Gentle Tornado, perhaps because his own partner isn’t constantly bouncing off the walls recklessly nearly as much anymore.

Incidentally, it’s not like all of this is without nuance, either; even if Miyako’s become more of a confident person, she’s not all put-together. Considering that the entire song has her gushing about how she’d be willing to drop anything to go see her friends (which was pushed forward in Kizuna itself, what with her willingly taking the same request she’d refused to do earlier just because her friends were involved, and even inventing D-3 gate exploitation just to go see them), when you get to the end, and her gushing about her fun in Spain suddenly derails into reminiscing about the events of 02 episode 42, the implication is clear: for as much as she wants to be wholeheartedly enjoying this fun trip abroad for what it is, she can’t help but let her thoughts float back to memories and friends she cares about, and her bonus conversation with Hawkmon drives it in further that, ultimately, she dearly misses them too much.

Iori and Armadimon

Iori also went through some drastic changes in character over the course of 02, so when you look at My Conclusion, it’s basically Iori at his “worst” point of black-and-white morality:

Everyone, I will be speaking my conclusion Evil will not be tolerated Even evil in itself will be defeated by justice That will always be a certainty in the end

I mean, let’s even consider the fact that the song is called “My Conclusion” in the first place. Iori’s slamming this all down like this is the end-all of everything, and you can’t change his mind! He does briefly admit that there are certain things reason itself won’t change, but it’s more like he’s on the verge of having an out, because in the end, really…

Everyone, I will be speaking my conclusion Our enemies are beyond reason Again and again, to the very end They will certainly use cowardly means to come and attack us

Rationality. No feelings involved. Evil is evil, and justice is justice. No takebacks. Life exists by rules, and nothing else.

Message to the Future is possibly one of the most interesting songs in the original Best Partner collection, because it does actually provide hints about where Iori should be going in the future, and also has a lot of things that retroactively hit a lot harder from the meta perspective. The song fully fleshes out Iori’s feelings and concerns about how to grow up into a proper adult (which was hinted to be his real motivation as to why he was so strict with himself in 02), and that, most of all, what he wants is for his “feelings” to never change no matter what happens. Iori expresses concerns about how he might change as an adult to Armadimon, and Armadimon assures him that he’ll still be “Iori”, no matter what.

So, come the new character song collection, Iori’s new solo song is aptly titled “Things That Won’t Change” – because, in the end, despite everything that changed, his feelings did not. He says it himself: the important parts that he really wanted, the desire to do the right thing and to protect others, never changed a bit at all since “back then”. What did change, however, was his way of going about it.

Rather than what someone else has decided I’ve chosen my own future now

and again:

Rather than imitating someone else This is to shout out my own future

The emphasis on this being Iori’s own choice is important because Iori has finally decided not to live by strict rules imposed on him nor by imitating others (remember, part of the reason he kept doing what he did back in 02 was because he had such a strong belief “my father would have done this”). Others had been encouraging him to “make his own decisions” from the get-go – even Hida Chikara himself had told him that he was the one who needed to decide what to do in any moment in 02 episode 5 – and after dealing with a violation of his own morals in having to kill a Digimon in 02 episode 44, one episode later, in discussing with Takeru, Iori has to come to terms with the decision to continue fighting because “this is what I have decided myself”, because it’s not about whether he has an obligation to keep fighting for the sake of justice, but because he, himself, wants to protect others, and will do what it takes to do so. There’s no more of these strict rules of “because it must be this way” or the black-and-white morality that caused him to be so initially hostile towards Ken and Oikawa, but an understanding that these things need to be decided from the heart.

Moreover, unlike My Conclusion, Things That Won’t Change isn’t written like Iori’s turning in some school essay, but rather, more than half the song is in casual-form Japanese (which was associated with Iori when he became more emotional and wasn’t keeping himself in check anymore), and is more of a thoughtful reflection of his own feelings rather than trying to pass itself off as following rules because he must.

Thus, while the duet Choo Choo Tryin’ isn’t as heavy-handed as Message to the Future, Iori and Armadimon acknowledge that they need to be forward-thinking and keep going (generally tied to the message of 02 in itself), and Iori outright discusses the potential pitfalls of becoming too stiff. Furthermore, the song has copious rap portions, which seems rather unfitting for Iori on its face – until you realize that not only was Iori sometimes willing to indulge in more fun even back during 02 (just because he was strict with himself didn’t mean he was a complete killjoy), Iori’s also just a lot more flexible-minded in general, and has a penchant for wanting to do things right when he’s given a task. (His delivery of the rap in the song isn’t monotonous nor overly emotional, but has the nuance of someone who’s trying to recite all of it with caution.)

The part that’s particularly striking from the meta perspective is that Iori and Armadimon are no longer voiced by the same voice actress; Message to the Future was essentially Urawa Megumi talking to herself. So now, Iori has a new voice actor, and in many ways has become very different from Armadimon – but because Armadimon sounds a little like Iori, you could say he’s helping preserve the childish side of Iori that’s more important than ever to hold onto, especially since Iori himself worried about changing too much. And so, Iori’s still willing to indulge in a sort of “fun” song like this, and in the end, despite everything, you understand that they haven’t drifted apart at all in the slightest.

That’s not to say that Armadimon himself hasn’t changed either – in fact, he’s changed himself in response to how much Iori has. His original solo song had a lot of easygoingness to it, and some constant reminders for Iori to please, please chill – but his new one has a much stronger sense of resolve and forward-thinking attitude, reflecting that, while Iori himself technically had to learn to embrace more emotional uncertainty through the events of 02, it was also able to give him much stronger resolve that this was something he was doing because he was emotionally prepared for it, not out of some sense of moral obligation.

Takeru and Patamon

I’ve already covered Takeru’s original Best Partner song Focus and how it’s probably not about shipping as much as the fanbase tends to pin it as, but in any case, the operative part is here:

Before I knew it, I was watching over you Still standing at a skewed angle from behind The focus of your heart I wonder, is it on me, or… No, I can’t ask

Takeru couldn’t bring himself to ask sensitive questions or be straightforward about his emotions – which is basically what was Takeru’s lingering problem over Adventure and 02, that he kept swerving around or even lying about sensitive topics and holding everything inside, until one of his triggers was hit and everything exploded. Therefore, even when an important question about someone else comes up, he “can’t ask”. Moreover, for all Takeru is known as a lighthearted and kind person, Focus is a really turbulent song with a really harsh arrangement, and it’s a pretty accurate view of all the complicated and sometimes even negative emotions that Takeru was (badly) coping with over the course of 02.

This was the whole issue with Takeru and Iori’s Jogress arc in 02 episodes 34-36 – that Iori felt he couldn’t understand nor communicate well with Takeru, and had to eventually take matters into his own hands in order to properly understand his feelings. Takeru’s further interactions with Iori were significantly more straightforward for the rest of the series, and the experience also led to Takeru being able to more openly communicate with Ken as well, since the two had been on awkward speaking terms for most of the third quarter of the series.

So when we get to Step High Step…

You lament, you don’t have confidence in yourself I’m saying this to you as I’ve been watching you You’re amazing at all times

The song features Takeru being fairly straightforward about his feelings and opinions instead of just dodging it and going for an “everything’s okay” keeping-the-peace attitude, and not only that, he’s commenting on someone else, something that he probably would have refrained from in 02 for being intrusive. Of course, Takeru was always a nice person, but he wasn’t exactly straightforward about being nice back then – and yet here we are.

Since Focus is probably about his relationship with Patamon and how he kind of wasn’t exactly straightforward about his worries with him either (see 02 episode 34), it’s also interesting to compare Takeru and Patamon’s duet songs as well. Steppin’ out does portray a progression from Adventure in that they’ve accepted they can “do things over” again after things crash down (presumably referring to Angemon’s death and rebirth), but you’ll notice there isn’t much in the way of actual communciation between the two – something that’s not only present in Le Lien, but also portrays them as outright in-sync to the point of “telepathy”. We’re talking about a pair where the fanbase has historically had doubts about how similar they were back in 02 because of how “mismatched” they seemed!

Which, incidentally, they weren’t actually – you can see Patamon pretending he’s not about to cry in his original Best Partner song Don’t Stop Pata-Pata, much like how Takeru would cover up his own emotions, and gritting his teeth and resolving to fight harder. Meanwhile, while Ring of Smiles ostensibly continues to have Patamon be “sweet and cute”, it contains a lot of important nuances of “appreciating daily life with friends”, even if Patamon himself can’t quite find words for it – in other words, it’s actually some rather insightful and thoughtful sentiments from Patamon about the importance of being with and connecting with others, mirroring what Takeru himself learned in connecting with the others around him, especially Iori.

Hikari and Tailmon

Remember, Hikari has two lines (one in Adventure and one in 02) that basically summarize the main “issue” she was dealing with in both series: she was selfless to unhealthy levels, and would prioritize others’ welfare over herself to the point of self-destruction. So in her original solo Best Partner song, Gentle Rain, she puts it pretty explicitly:

I want to always be wearing nothing but smiles But I can’t be cheerful all of the time

or:

So that I can become a greater version of myself Please give me strength

All things considered, Gentle Rain is full of Hikari’s own insecurities, and her belief that she doesn’t have enough strength to do anything for herself. She makes references to being pulled to the Dark Ocean, mainly because – as she says – she doesn’t want to go there, but she doesn’t have enough strength or willpower to resist it. In fact, Best Partner 11 is full of a lot of angst; Gentle Rain is Hikari angsting about her own weakness and inability to do much for herself, Getting up is Tailmon angsting about her painful past and everything to do with it, and Shining Star is basically a plea for both of them to be able to do anything despite all the pain. It’s all pretty severely heavy content, despite the initial sparkly-looking sentiment of it all.

Considering the circumstances, it’s not really all that surprising. Hikari spent her time in Adventure and the first half of 02 very “emotionally isolated” from the others, to the point very few people could understand what she was thinking, and while she’d never hesitate to put herself out for other people, anything to do with herself, like getting pulled to the Dark Ocean, would result in resignation “it’s over” and “I can’t do anything about it”. Tailmon came from the background of being effectively raised by the abusive Vamdemon, so 02 was really only part of the earliest portion of her moving on with her life and being able to spend happier moments with Hikari. But, of course, the real turning point was 02 episode 31, when Miyako finally managed to break through to her and convince her to not accept the inevitability of things happening to herself, to accept help with the support of others, and to not take things happening to her as a sign she’s doomed.

So when we reach Hikari’s new solo song, Tomorrow’s Blue…

I want to chase after my dreams and hopes, it’s fine even if they’re incomplete I won’t lose, I won’t stop, I’ll do this to stay true to myself

The most striking thing about the song is that it features Hikari assertively talking about her own desires and feelings, when back in 02 she basically tried to kick them out of the picture for the sake of everyone else (and, really, even in Tailmon’s new solo song, Tender tale, she outright calls Hikari out for still prioritizing other people over herself). It’s not demeaning herself, it’s not resigning herself to anything, it may have a slight admission that she’s not super-confident about everything yet, but it’s still her looking forward and choosing to pursue what he wants. It’s a big deal!

And instead of the constant angst that permeated Best Partner 11, the new album is about Hikari and Tailmon talking about their feelings towards each other – something that neither of them really verbalized that well over either Adventure and 02 – and contextualizing their importance to each other over the course of their “story”. Hikari talks about Tailmon’s role of assertiveness in helping her break out of her shell, and Tailmon generally provides an extremely accurate description of Hikari in a nutshell – that she’s a bit mysterious, that she’s emotionally sensitive, that she’s cheerful and lifts others’ spirits. What’s more, Tailmon makes a reference to the same kind of “pain” and “losing things” she referred to in Getting up, but instead of angsting about it, she positively accepts it as something that may happen in the process of protecting others. (Oh, and it and the new duet A Tale of the Light also make reference to Hikari’s photography hobby in 02, contextualizing it as something Hikari did to chronicle their precious memories.)

So in summary, Hikari and Tailmon have both been able to accept 02′s philosophy of becoming forward-thinking, positive, and accepting the help of others in order to move forward. Not bad!

Conclusion and digression

Despite how these songs are almost polar opposite in portraying their before-and-after development of the 02 kids, nobody’s really argued that any of them are out of character! In the end, it’s a pretty succinct depiction of what these kids were dealing with and what they grew into by the end of the series. Seriously, I never, ever want to hear that these kids were underdeveloped nor that they didn’t go through any significant development over the course of 02 ever again. That’s just not true at all, and this simply happens to be one of the many illustrations of how.

Moreover, the songs themselves and the “conversations” that came with the new albums solidify firmly that the 02 group has extremely tight relations with their partners even at this time – with Daisuke actively consulting V-mon for help, Miyako, Takeru, and Hikari actively dragging their partners everywhere with them, Ken having Wormmon be his effective alarm clock, and Iori being so close with Armadimon that his Nagoya dialect is rubbing off on him. Daisuke, Miyako and Hikari have a huge point made that, regardless of the rather easygoing way they’re going at it, they’re very aware of what they want to do from this point out and are following it with gusto (and while it’s not stated in words, Iori carrying a huge textbook, presumably a law one, with note markers all over it drives the point home that this applies to him, too). It’s a really, really huge contrast to what was going on with the directionless Taichi, Yamato, and Sora effectively neglecting their own partners back in Kizuna – and further reinforces the reason the 02 group was in such an unusually favorable position during the movie.