#meta // rea

[futurefind]

//Do you ever think about "Reamom" Master au. That is, au where Rea is 1. ~30 y.o Chaldea staff (cryptid to mage society proper, the Heart of chaldea thats done so much work to work on the entire staffs bonds, unity, and morale, even per-apocalypse. ft unofficially adopting mash and olga and those two having a strong bond) 2. long since eliminated from Master candidacy bc her circuitry is 'allergic' to Rayshifting and then 3. intentionally becomes/stays the (primary/acting) Master anyway because Ritsuka Fujimaru is a gd KID and god help her they're not being turned into Atlas if she can help it.

Do you ever think about how, while the heart of FGO stays the same— Rea's a perfect fit for canon Guda barring only her sparkles and their canon interest in mecha— it just... utterly flips the framing of its themes? From a shonen-esque coming of age story where growing up means taking on the world and being responsible for your impact on it, in the most extreme and horrific way possible... into a story about parenthood/caretaking, and an unwillingness to surrender any responsibility, even to those who can and/or should share in it, because it's not just your job to be Responsible, but to protect as many people as you can from that responsibility?

On how much no matter hard you can try to protect the ones you love, even- especially- children, you can't shield them from The Horrors that are intrinsic to life In A World? That taking it as a personal responsibility, as a personal failing, can and Will break you unless you learn to finally surrender and share the burden of Responsibility?

That there's no preparing for a life that leads into an empty nest, no matter how long you keep your kids in arm reach where it's safe, because it's rooted in everyone dying on you? That a career you love and home you cherished and children you adore can't save you from when the only thing that's left is a graveyard of even more dreams than bodies.

[pink-of-hair]

🌂 the last post on this blog literally works on us btw

🌂 we have defense mechanisms to someone doing it to fuck with us in a hostile setting (that are roughly equivalent to suddenly punching them in the face) but that aside if we get swappy too much (especially if we haven't swapped too often recently) we can get close to or across the line into that state.

🌂 if anyone wants to do it on purpose in a fun way

🌂 we're all ears

[projectjasper]

so, in the midst of me constantly thinking about and analysing phum, i didn't write that much meta on peem or really think about his reasoning too much. for a long while, i dismissed his slightly erratic behaviour as a response to phumpeem's initial meeting and how their relationship has been set up because of it, but this episode solidified the fact that that's not it.

instead, for whatever reason, peem is insecure.

the most damning piece of evidence for this, i think, does not involve phum at all (and that is exactly the reason why it's such good evidence). though the majority of this post will still be about phumpeem lmao.

so, when peem claims that there is nothing going on between him and phum, kluen says that means he still has a chance, which gives us this confused face:

nothing in the world could produce this reaction in these circumstances, aside from insecurity. kluen isn't phum. he and peem don't have any bizarre backstory together, and he is very direct about his romantic pursuit. he explicitly said he came to the camp to hit on peem in front of all his friends and he reiterated the sentiment by saying what he did in this scene. the only kind of person who would need a clarification, when things are laid out that clearly is a person who is insecure and therefore has a hard time being sure about the fact that someone likes them and/or is actively trying to hit on them.

now, onto the star of the show: phumpeem! what do we know about peem's pov of their relationship at this point? 1) he has fully admitted that he likes phum, to the point of literally calling himself out on even trying to deny it. 2) he is happy about the fact that he likes phum. we are leagues away from the possibility that he has any issues with phum or the fact that he has a crush on him, which we have so much proof of, whether it be him actively enjoying the fact that phum is trying to get his attention, him looking at phum as if he hung the moon and calling him prince charming, him literally giggling and kicking his feet at that memory the next day, him instantly forgiving phum because he genuinely trusts him and thinks he is a good person, even if he makes mistakes sometimes, or any of the other clear signs that he is enjoying what's going on between them, both in the moment and in retrospective.

and now, let's take a look at all the moments from today's episode through the lens of peem's insecurity in himself and security in his feelings / phum:

him acting a little weird and distant after hugging phum the whole night, very reminiscent of the way he acted the day after their first kiss. both times after moments when peem made the first move.

him acting genuinely confused about phum's behaviour towards kluen, despite getting a fairly clear confirmation that phum is jealous when he literally bribed a child to get peem away from kluen. this is definitely not a "what a weirdo" face, this is a "wait, what's going on here?" face. he does not get it.

him claiming there is nothing going on between phum and him, despite clearly wanting that something and being in the depths of the talking stage, which is definitely a real relationship stage to him, as that was how he described chain and toey to q.

him looking a little heartbroken, when phum says he wants to call off the deal, as if that would actually mean that they stop spending time together.

him confirming that that is indeed his fear, when he literally looks terrified at the prospect and fully asks to continue being phum's "slave".

him not being able to admit why he kept the flowers

or making up a lie about not having finished the painting, even though he definitely has, because he literally said so to his aunt.

and him answering a question with a question, needing to hear the fact that phum likes him directly first, before he confesses back. which, in all this context, just doesn't read as stubbornness.

all of this makes sense, if you consider the fact that peem is insecure and is afraid of reading into other people, when what he's trying to glean is their opinion of him specifically.

one big thing that he constantly repeats (this moment is far from the only time he says that in this episode alone) is asking phum to tell him what he thinks directly. mind you, unlike phum, who is just constantly deeply confused about everyone and can't take implications for shit, peem is actually absolutely incredible at understanding what other people's feelings are, even when they don't tell him directly, as long as the feelings in question aren't about peem.

he also manages those small bursts of confidence, like kissing phum first or reaching out to him, but they are not long-lasting and are often followed by bursts of denial and shyness, which is extremely common for someone who is insecure but also impressively brave.

and here is your key to pre-relationship phumpeem and the reason why we are on episode 10 and they are still not dating. insecure x insecure can be hard at times. they both need the other to outright state their feelings, and that is just not easy for either of them. but they are getting there. together 🫶

[allyriadayne]

could you talk more about the daynes post robert's rebellion?

SURE

first of, this is mostly my hcs, speculations and a mix of things i must have read back when there was the height of asoiaf meta in 2013 because there is almost nothing about the daynes post robert's rebellion. so bear with me.

just to set the scene, the members of house dayne left after the mess of the rebellion were the unnamed older brother of ashara and arthur, the lord and father of edric; allyria the youngest sister that i headcanon to be much younger than her older siblings seeing as she is betrothed to beric dondarrion who is was in his twenties per agot so i don't think the marriage would've occurred if allyria was in her middle thirties or forties if she was closer to ashara and arthur; edric, twelve years old, beric's loyal squire; and gerold aka darkstar head of high hermitage, also in his twenties? around arianne's age.

(c) Eddie Mendoza for the cover of A Song of Ice and Fire 2025 Calendar

under the cut because i'm crazy

i don't know if the books are ever going to make clear what happened at the toj-starfall zone but we can be sure only that ned went from one to the other with lyanna's bones and supposedly baby jon to return dawn to the daynes. ashara had a baby of father unknown and shortly after ned was there she took her own life, body never found. i go back and forward in thinking if ashara's brother lord dayne was there with her when ned went or if he was one of the dornish commanders defending the targs. in any case, his presence was completely zero during this time so i think he was too injured for a time or too sickly in general to do something to reestablish the dayne name in dorne after arthur being an important part in elia's disgrace and indirectly, her murder.

because yeah after arthur and ashara's death and going by the books there is zero mention of them, even in the chapters set in dorne or others about dornish characters make no mention of them. and it's strange considering that when you read awoiaf and f&b, the daynes are The knights of dorne. queen nymeria marries a dayne, sends a starfall king to the wall, meria martell commands a dayne to burn oldtown, arguably one of the most powerful cities of the time, out of all the sons of daeron ii and myriah martell, maekar marries a dayne, the only dornish lady. it could be nothing OR something but i think it does mean something. we see there's no daynes in oberyn's party in kl or speculation in general about the new sword of the morning beyond remembering dear old arthur. they've fallen completely into obscurity. the house was reduced to a young girl and its child lord.

edric's dad dies before agot (he doesn't seem to afflicted by his death when he meets arya if he were less than a year dead, inheriting the lordship at such a young age would've been dramatic to him), i would say just after becoming a page to beric dondarrion at 7 yo and i headcanon the marriage between beric and allyria was brokered at this time too. this was part of a fic i was writing like 500 years ago but i think lord dayne must have known he would not live too long, not to see edric grow so he must have looked for someone to prepare and take care of allyria and edric after he died. betrothing allyria to a marcher lord is......strange. if a dornish person would have to be married to someone it would go like this 1) not from the reach 2) not from the marches in that order, there is too much bad blood. the daynes have a longstanding tradition of killing oakhearts so marrying allyria to the heir of blackhaven and giving him his only heir, lord dayne entrusted a complete stranger with the future of his house.

beric would've been in charge of teaching young edric just about everything. he would be living in the stormlands for almost half his live, learning from a his maester and how to govern a stormlands' castle. meanwhile, allyria in a few years probably around agot time would be ready to marry beric when she reached her majority. she would've been the defacto ruler of starfall in edric's name when lord dayne dies, i think the idea was to swap when edric gained his spurs: he would return to starfall after a successful run as a tourney knight, probably gaining some recognition from whatever beric was tasked with at the capital (rip king) and then accompany allyria to be married to his knight master. andddd fin.

the thing is. allyria being so young during the rebellion, lord dayne absence for whatever reason and then dying, let the younger members with no connections in the wider dorne political context. it is said young children go to the water gardens and it's fun yeah but it's def a starting point for politics for many lords. it's close to the martells and it's an opportunity to make friends with future rulers, /everyone/ is going. the daynes didn't have this. allyria was probably very young when the rebellion happened (i think no older than 5) and for obvious reasons she was not sent to the water gardens; as for ned, i think lord dayne could not secure an invitation, this or he died too early to even try. if allyria had gone, she would've been for sure one of arianne's companions, she has both the breeding and the standing, but NOT and it's crucial, the reputation. see what arianne has to say in affc about gerold's standing:

"He is highborn enough to make a worthy consort, she thought. Father would question my good sense, but our children would be as beautiful as dragonlords."

it's must be passé to associate with the daynes at this point. think of the conningtons losing all standing when joncon lost the battle and was exiled.

in any case, allyria, more than edric, grew in obscurity. as of the books she's betrothed to a marcher lord nobody knows if he's alive or dead, has a missing nephew and it's in charge of one of the most ancient first men houses of westeros. sad! at least ned is having more fun. which leads me to darkstar. i see his thirst to prove himself, his notoriety as a cruel knight as another way to separate himself from what the main branch has fallen into. he is in his twenties so he was probably affected by the same dark cloud as the others.

"If I led a quarter of a million men to death, would they call me Gerold the Great? I shall remain Darkstar, I think. At least it is mine own."

he wants to have what arthur had, but not be the sword of the morning, he wants something that it's his own, as he says. he may want the sword and the fame like arthur, but not to be associated with another's bad luck so to speak. it's very telling that he's called one of "the most dangerous man in dorne" and what is the sword of the morning if not this? he's a dark mirror of the daynes pre rebellion, just like allyria would've been a renown beauty just like ashara is she wasn't cloistered. something something gerold and allyria as mirrors of what could've happened to ashara and arthur if they hadn't the protection of the monarchy.

i once read gerold is meant to have young ned's plot after germ scrapped the five year time skip and i think this is half true. i do think there is something to be done about dawn the sword and i think gerold is going to steal it and do something with it, something ned can't do because he's /still/ in the riverlands. i don't know what but i think it ties nicely with the theme of deconstructing the noble knight archetype. arthur is only great because he knew how to kill.

writing this i had a breakdown about the parallels between arthur and gerold

to finish this rambling i want to say my hopes for house dayne in what is left of asoiaf is 1) ned alive 2) gerold steals dawn 3) and like. something. honestly i will take anything at this point about allyria. DOES SHE EVEN KNOW? my poor girl and 4) if germ wants to clear the toj situation then it's fine.

thanks for asking and to anyone reaching this point lol. this is mostly general but if you want to talk about anything specific just message me! k thx muah!

[oshiawaseni]

Trails of Love Hori's been paving down in the build up for the series' ending

Part I: The Shape of an Eternal Bond

Romantic Love. Falling in love. When we break it down, what really is it, but a deep emotional connection formed with someone, an overpowering instinct that screams at you to protect that person, and the vulnerability you allow yourself to succumb to when your logical 'self-preserving' mind and it's hurt-proof walls is completely overrun by your heart's most based need to be close with them, the object of your affection.

And who shows these feelings for each other the most in BNHA? Bakudeku, right? Of course it's them.

It's something so obvious and yet this somehow feels overlooked by almost everyone in the fandom: I’ve never actually seen Izuku feeling happy or excited about his relationship with Ochaco, nor elated about getting to spend more time with her. But Izuku and Kacchan? The feelings they both have of longing to be closer to the other and every single action they took for that, chaotically and passionately smashes the "stable pleasantness" of IzuOcha right out of the park.

Izuku views getting to speak 'normally(?)' with Kacchan as a miracle on the exact same level of importance as being mentored by the greatest hero of their generation (and his U.A. room looks like what it looks like). This scene gave the cutest 'Work life: check. Love life: check' vibe.

Is it really all that surprising that BKDK have had plenty of development in this area while IzuOcha has had almost none? In fact, as BkDk became closer, the "expected end game" pair has gone in the opposite direction. And why does this not strike odd to "bkdk canon" doubters or the fans that ship IzuOcha? It really is no coincidence how many moments we’ve accrued about this mutual feeling and attraction that exists only between Izuku and Katsuki.

I want to be closer to you. I can't imagine life without you. vs Why are you so confused when I show you I care about you, too?

It's so simple - but maybe it being so simple is why this is not something we really stop and take a minute to think about specifically. About how this 'obvious' concept of two people desiring to become closer is one often shared between lovers and those who are falling in love.

And how that fits with bkdk because this longing for deeper connection has existed between them almost since the beginning... and we haven't been talking enough about it.

I want you to think about the true feelings and meaning lying behind these moments that have inspired the writings of many fic and meta:

Izuku's desperation and suffering at Kacchan being taken away...

the hurt and loneliness that pools within Katsuki's heart from his fear of being left behind (and alone) by Izuku...

the regret they both felt in not using their own hand to reach out and connect to each other (believing their hand 'wouldn't be enough') and putting those feelings aside to prioritise their boy's rescue and safety...

the distress Katsuki felt in facing his biggest fear of all - losing Izuku for good - forcing him to become a true hero, for his sake...

and the total overwhelming despair Izuku felt in realising he didn't make it in time and he had lost his hero.

This is it, this cover was Hori locking them in. Holding his Kacchan so precious, placing his hand gently over his heart, trying to somehow connect to it. The appearance of an enraged and protective alpha ready to strike down the monster who did this to his mate. This is the vision Hori wanted to draw for bkdk and it cemented the deep romantic love and bond that's been growing between them, rewarding those of us who have picked up on their trails of love and causing meltdowns baked in confusion for the rest.

They've had many scenes like these throughout MHA. Scratch a little at their surface and what lies underneath every single one of them is the pining desire Izuku and Katsuki both share of wanting to be together. The need for the other to be by their side and within reach.

And they don’t share this feeling with anybody else.

It’s always been this way exclusively for them and I think this aspect of their relationship was established by Hori to tell us they will stay feeling this way forever.

If Izuku is right and he takes back everything and the course of their future gets put on track again, then maybe the idea of them holding onto each other and never letting go isn’t all that far from reality.

After they graduate, I can't imagine these two not choosing each other every single time, until the very end of their days: becoming a hero wonder duo, moving in together, living their best domestic life complete with their adorable husbands banter (but repackaged into something so much more loving and soft which befits them), nurturing their relationship... letting themselves fall deeper in love...

It's so easy to imagine this all happening, simply because of their desperate need for closeness to one another in the manga.

They can’t imagine their life without the other.

Their love is a multi-threaded story that's been told to us over, and over, and over again. Through Izuku and Katsuki's every action and by the mouths of others (which I'll be covering in my next post).

I honestly believe that since the beginning, Hori has been carefully leaving trails of their passion for each other, simply to say this: While this series may be coming to a close, Izuku and Katsuki’s bond, that brings them only closer and binds them tightly together, will transcend the very last of their inked pages and never end. ❤️

Part Two -> Intro & Compress

[l00rem]

Gibeon & Amethio are related, but they are not father and son.

So, ep45 had me applying my clown makeup as I was a firm Gibeon is related to Amethio denier and that has uh clearly been proven true by that final scene… but I still don’t think they’re father and son like most people seem to be saying. First, let’s start with Gibeon’s physical condition.

It seems clear by his position in the reveal that he suffers with functioning properly, this is further demonstrated with Hamber’s ‘Gibeon is awake’ comment. Considering he’s at least over 100, this is probably him abusing his mortality coming to bite him in the ass or some injury he sustained when Lucius kicked him out of the Rakua gc. And while pokemon never acknowledges topics like sex for obvious reasons, I doubt the writers would ignore the fact that Gibeon is clearly not in any condition to be breeding (dude only holds like 3 min meetings before going back to bed, he could never last that long in a physical activity such as that)

Now, this brings me to another theory i’ve been seeing: Amethio is some sort of clone/ artificial human being. I can see why some people think this, but i don’t think it’s going to happen. I just think it goes against the themes horizons has been setting up about generations (ex: ep34 where Hamber and Diana both pass things down to Liko and Amethio) i think it would be weird to have all this stuff about ancestry and then just throw in ‘oh and amethio’s not human btw’. It’s also just a really dark existential topic for pokemon, i know they can go dark and have done artificial creation before but that’s always been strictly for pokemon at least to my knowledge. I think people who believe in clone theory are getting too caught up in their Amethio and Hunter from ToH comparisons- ofc your free to theorise what you want but I just don’t see this happening.

To give some more solid proof that Amethio isn’t Gibeon’s son, let’s look at Liko’s ancestry.

As we can see, hair does seem to matter when it comes to being directly descended from someone. All three have the same hair pattern, even if we can’t see the brighter blue for Lucca��s. Compare this to Lucius’s hair:

It’s been made very clear that Liko is a descendant of his somehow, but this isn’t as direct as a great grandfather because then Diana could’ve literally just asked her mom who the man in the photo was to learn they’re related. Lucius resembles them somewhat but there are very clear differences.

Likewise, this seems to be the case with Gibeon and Amethio’s hair differences. They have the same colour scheme of white and black, but the way the two colours are separated are completely different. Just as Lucius and Liko’s family both have that sticky outy bit of their hair, Amethio and Gibeon both share that little white antenna although Gibeon’s is positioned differently.

So here’s my proposition: Amethio is related to Gibeon the same way Liko is related to Lucius.

Perhaps then Amethio is some distant relative to Gibeon who he located at some point- likely he didn’t have any family and so when Gibeon pulls up with his ‘oh hey we’re related’ spiel Amethio jumps at the chance for any form of connection. It’s not clear how much Amethio knows regarding Gibeon (he didn’t even know why he wanted the pendant after all) but perhaps Gibeon uses his condition as a further way of manipulating Amethio: not only does Amethio work for explorers to get Gibeon’s approval but also to find whatever he needs to not die so he won’t lose his last chance at family?

I also believe this is supported by all the Amethio-Liko parallels the show has been building up. It’s likely that Amethio’s backstory could be a dark mirror of Liko’s where the Explorers are to him what RVT is to Liko. Although, Amethio’s situation takes the ‘found family’ part more literally and instead of experiencing happiness he gets moulded into a child soldier…. yaaaay…

So then why does Gibeon actually need Amethio? Aside from the obvious meta reason, it’s likely Gibeon speculated someone with his blood could function as a Lucius detector (the pendant only stopped being dormant after amethio came into close contact) and this is also one of the reasons Amethio gets booted off the mission as he’d already performed his purpose of confirming the pendant was related to Lucius. Perhaps there’s something about Amethio’s ancestry which doesn’t apply to Gibeon that’s important? Or maybe Gibeon just put an easily exploitable child to good use.

Either way, there really isn’t a happy explanation for Amethio’s circumstances. Poor guy :(

I’ll potentially be eating my own words in a few months when we learn more about Gibeon and Amethio’s relationship but hey it never hurts to theorise. Hopefully we learn more stuff soon and that Amethio doesn’t get locked into off screen jail for another 11 weeks 💀💀

[theweeklydiscourse]

Baghra was always a terrible mentor and we were gaslit into thinking she wasn’t.

I was scanning Ruin and rising to find a few passages for a Darkling meta I was in the process of writing and I happened upon a very interesting conversation between Baghra and Alina. In this conversation, they discuss merzost and its potential consequences as Baghra scolds Alina for seeking the firebird. Baghra’s argument is both contradictory and unhelpful, serving only as a condemnation of Alina’s efforts to defeat the Darkling. There is no wisdom in this exchange, only judgement from an old woman who has no idea what she’s talking about.

So let’s break it down.

Alina confesses that she dabbled in merzost and Baghra responds in her usual ominous and vague manner, grabbing Alina’s wrists for dramatic effect. She warns Alina that merzost can only cause misery, citing the creation of the fold as an example and seems to imply that Alina might journey down a similar path. Baghra gestures towards the inherently corruptive nature of merzost and expresses concern for Alina’s potential. Interestingly, it was exactly her use of merzost that allowed Alina to thwart Aleksander at the end of Siege and Storm. Alina also contradicts herself: “I didn’t do it myself” but “I used the connection between us, (…) to control the Darkling’s power.” she creates a disconnect between herself and the use of merzost as a way of softening the blow. She claims that the merzost was involuntary, but at the same time uses words that signal her activity as opposed to the passivity she initially professed.

This is a small example of Alina’s tendency to claim helplessness and deny her agency. Truthfully, she did use the merzost to save her friends and try to kill Aleksander, a sacrificial act to defeat the big bad. It almost worked, it was effective at warding him off for a time while they regrouped and recovered from the ambush.

Now THIS is what really set me off. Alina argues that she may not have a choice in wether or not she uses merzost to defeat Aleksander and honestly? She’s right. At this point, the narrative has told us that negotiation is not an option, Aleksander is on the war path and the consequences of not fighting him could cost thousands of lives. All of this is presumed to be true and yet, Baghra still takes up this aggravating “holier than thou” attitude towards the pursuit of the firebird.

Baghra: Wow Alina… you’re going to sacrifice the life of this INNOCENT animal for the sake of your own power? This poor innocent bird? I can’t believe you would be so cruel.

Alina: People are dying Baghra.

Baghra’s framing is so manipulative. She’s straight up accusing Alina of being a power hungry villain who would gladly sacrifice an “ancient life” for HER own power. Bitch, since when has this been where we draw the line? Baghra acts as if killing the firebird for the sake of an amplifier is a testament to Alina’s greed but Alina HAS NO OTHER CHOICE. She clutches her pearls at the notion of Alina killing an old bird to save the country as if she hasn’t ranted at length about how dangerous Aleksander is. Baghra has spoken of Aleksander as the apocalypse personified, and yet when presented with the most viable option of defeating him she cries: “but think of that poor ancient life!”?

In the same exchange, she completely dismisses Alina’s peaceful resolution of being merciful to the stag and mocks her for suggesting such a childish idea. But notice how she suggests no other alternative? If she’s so passionate about protecting this ancient creature, why not propose a plan to defeat Aleksander that doesn’t require killing the final amplifier? Instead she scolds Alina for her greed and derides her for doing what is necessary to save the country. Alina tell her that no one is strong enough to stand against an army of shadow soldiers and Baghra STILL dismisses her efforts to do the right thing.

It is here that Alina acknowledges her intentions to seek power and uses sound reasoning to do so. She is the only person strong enough to stand against Aleksander and NEEDS the amplifiers to win. “Abomination against abomination” but I don’t see you offering any alternatives Baghra. If this hag cared so much about preventing an all out magical war maybe she should’ve been proactive during the centuries where she witness Aleksander’s rise to power.

Baghra’s “warnings” are complete nonsense and devoid of reason. It is her reacting to Grisha power with disgust and expressing contempt towards Alina for giving a damn about the country’s welfare. But what do we expect from Baghra? She’s always been more concerned with preserving decorum and her own moral purity than taking a stand against injustice. She does not offer sage advice, only condescending and vague bullshit that validates her self righteous martyr complex.

[lunanoc]

so probably against what should have been my better judgment, i went ahead and actually wrote “meta”, except it’s only borderline meta because it ends up veering off into crack theory territory and is also insanely long, but i figure since it’s now too long to be posted as a discord liveblog like it was supposed to be, i might as well just. post it here (in several parts because no one wants a 10k post lbr)

disclaimer: i like to be transparent about where i’m coming from, so just know that i have not finished reading all the books yet. currently i’m practically through everything, books and extras included, up until and including sand sea part III, so anything i talk about relating to that is my own reading experience. i’ll sometimes reference later books i’ve either read snippets of, or talked about with people who have (and verified the information as best as i could), but because i lack full context for those, any mentions of those elements are automatically grain of salt and relegated to crack theory. for everything i have read that i can grab quotes for, i’ll be providing clear references to the specific chapters of the books they’re from

also, blanket spoiler warning for the books

but that being said, let me actually get into this thing:

king shang of lu, the iron-masked gentleman, king mu of zhou, the queen mother of the west, how they’re connected, who they might be, and what that could mean for the larger dmbj narrative

PART I: KING SHANG OF LU AND THE IRON-MASKED GENTLEMAN

writing this shaved years off of me, the rabbit-holing was insane, and there’s still no clear answers in the end but welcome to the ride i guess

starting off here, the problem with these two characters is that we have conflicting information about them from three different sources that all give a different version of the same story, all of which are various degrees of dubious for different reasons. and you could say ok but really, who cares i do apparently about these two because in the larger plot they don’t really amount to much in the end

BUT

given both the things we learn by the end of sand sea (and elements that pop up in later installments) about all the various parties involved in what’s essentially a subplot, and the fact npss goes into so much detail with such a deliberate throwback to something all the way back in the first book, i don’t think the fact that the various versions of the story of king shang of lu sometimes blatantly contradicting themselves is a mistake, but is rather proof of deliberate obfuscation of the truth. npss tends to like revisiting sometimes seemingly anecdotal or trivial things from previous books to connect them with a subsequent revelation, or open the door to a different interpretation of them, so that he’d do it here isn’t all that surprising to me

the three versions of the story of “the emperor” (or the ruler of the state of lu), king shang of lu, and the iron-masked gentleman we get are, in order of appearance:

version 1 from a silkbook found in the purple jade box in “king shang of lu”’s coffin (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

version 2 from xiaoge himself who gives an opposing account to the previous one that he supposedly read from a warring states period silkbook he found in a song dynasty tomb (Book 1, Ch. 26-27, Purple Jade Box / Lies)

version 3 from the powerpoint lesson given by the wang family to li cu (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, 133, 134, Lesson / King Mu of Zhou / Deception)

the first two accounts are both from book 1 and immediately follow each other, but neither of them quite fit with the last one, or at least it would seem so. you could argue this is simply because book 1 was when npss was still trying to figure things out both with his plot and characters, so the final account given by the wang family is a retcon, and while that’s always possible, like i mentioned, npss likes to connect things and tends to either incorporate these kinds of seemingly obscure and irrelevant details for a reason, or simply retroactively fleshes them out to revisit them at a later date and shed a new light on the bigger picture. so it’s more the fact we just don’t know which things he implements deliberately from the start and which ones he ties back to retroactively, but in the end seeing as the result is the same it doesn’t matter much. what does matter is that he does it pretty consistently, so it’s safe to assume he’s also doing it with this particular story (side tangent, but i like to think that npss has shown he’s a big fan of something called chekov’s gun and no i won’t elaborate on that or else i’ll be here for hours but google that if you’re interested it’s fun)

so tldr; i basically just want to argue that by intentionally bringing back this story with obvious divergences, it might be a way to shed light on something else that informs king shang of lu’s story while placing it as a puzzle piece in the bigger picture of dmbj lore

but let’s break down those three different accounts of the story of king shang of lu

the first account

i’m going to tldr; most of these for the sake of clarity, but i’ll be referencing the various chapters all these bits are taken from if you want to verify any of it

technically the first real account of king shang of lu’s story we get is what’s written on the stone slab in the hall with all of the coffins in the seven star palace that says that he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld” (Book 1, Ch. 10, Shadow), but i’m not counting that as a full-blown version of the story because it’s not dwelt on all that much and mostly serves as a preamble for pangzi to later posit to wu xie that it’s a bunch of bs and was probably just an exaggeration meant to mythologize king shang of lu given that the tomb itself is a weird anachronistic mix of western zhou and warring states architecture (which is an important argument but maybe not for the reasons you’d think)

so i consider the first fleshed-out version of king shang of lu’s story we get to be the one wu xie reads off of the silkbook he and wu sanxing pull from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, and is one that very quickly gets debunked within book 1 itself multiple times, so while it may seem easy enough to write off, it’s not so much what it says that’s interesting, but rather why it exists in the first place

this version of the story essentially relates the life and deeds of king shang of lu, recorded on what’s supposed to be a warring states period silkbook pulled from the man’s own coffin. it talks about how he inherited his title from his father and was a lowly grave robber lord who was cruel and greedy, and how one day he gained from a snake demon/spirit in a tomb he excavated “two treasures” in a “purple and gold box” (this will be important later) which are never explicitated, although wu xie speculates one of those treasures to be the ghost seal as its acquisition is directly mentioned in the text. the snake comes to king shang of lu in a dream and promises to make him a high-ranking official and teach him how to use the treasures in the box if he spares its soul (he doesn’t). and so king shang of lu becomes a military officer under the command of the “emperor” of the state of lu. in his later years, however, he starts to get old and sick, and so the “emperor” demotes him back into being a lowly grave robber, and he starts to fear death, so king shang of lu goes to his military advisor, the “iron-masked gentleman” or 铁面先生 tiemian xiansheng, in search of a solution. the iron-masked gentleman then tells him that something called jade burial armor, a treasure from ancient times, exists, and that it can keep someone young forever. so king shang hunts and hunts and scours tomb after tomb until eventually he finds a western zhou dynasty tomb which will later become the seven star palace where he discovers a corpse wearing the famed jade buriam armor. iron mask takes the corpse out of the armor, subdues the blood zombie it turns into, and then helps king shang of lu fake his death in front of the “emperor” so he can be buried in the tomb he built for himself on top of the western zhou tomb he’d found (Book 1, Ch. 26, Purple Jade Box)

however

this version is quickly debunked twice in pretty quick succession, and then a third time a bit later, still in book 1, but before i get to that, a few extra little details i want to point out:

to be fair literally no one (who doesn’t speak chinese and is reading the original text anyway) would be able to guess either from the translation or merebear’s footnotes that “iron-masked scholar/gentleman” or 铁面先生 is not in fact necessarily meant to be taken literally. it’s partly an idiom. 铁面 tiemian is an expression that can mean “someone who is upright in character”, in other words someone with a positive reputation. so this man isn’t necessarily implied to have worn a mask at all (i think he did, but that’s also for later)

the purple and gold box that’s mentioned in this version of the story is the one wu xie finds in the hands of the corpse of the green-eyed fox (who’s also wearing the belt that has the qilin blood clot wu xie accidentally swallows can you believe, which is also another detail for later) that’s accompanied by a key in the corpse of a woman next to it (Book 1, Ch. 22, The Eightfold Treasure Box)

the second account

before we get into the first version of the story more, let’s briefly take a look at the second one. the first version of the story is first debunked by the second version of the story which is told in abridged format by xiaoge pretty much right after wu xie finishes reading the silkbook. he says that the silkbook’s account is incorrect because the person in the jade armor isn’t king shang of lu, but iron mask who faked his own death in order to escape the systematic execution king shang of lu enacted on all the people who knew about and/or helped build his tomb. he then snuck into the seven star palace and disposed of king shang of lu’s body before taking the jade armor for himself

xiaoge explains that he found this story in a song dynasty tomb he’d robbed a few years ago that contained a complete silkbook that turned out to be iron-masked gentleman’s memoirs (Book 1, Ch. 27, Lies). and you’d be inclined to believe this version of the story over the first one because it’s xiaoge telling it, and xiaoge usually isn’t one for intentional deception unless it serves a purpose, even less so if it’s verbal deception (literally the only time i can think of him openly lying rather than lying by omission is when he disguises himself as professor zhang). except even this version is called into question multiple times. the first time is by wu xie himself, who while choosing not to confront xiaoge about it, senses that xiaoge seems uneasy when wu xie presses him on the point that if it’s true that two people were pulled out of the jade armor in that tomb, then why is there no second blood corpse. xiaoge answers that he doesn’t know because iron masks’s memoirs only mention it briefly, and that maybe king shang of lu was pulled out early enough that he didn’t turn into a blood zombie. technically there’s the mummified body they find in the sacrificial ding cauldron next to the coffin with the monster at the entrance to the seven star palace whose head is cut off that could fit that description (Book 1, Ch. 9, Ancient Tomb), but in any case xiaoge according to wu xie looks like he’s lying. the second time this version is refuted is by wu sanxing, but i’ll get to that when i get back to the first account and how it also gets debunked

arguments against the second account 

i already mentioned xiaoge isn’t typically someone who’s into overt deception as a course of action unless it’s strictly necessary (and even then). it’s always possible he was either acting on a compulsion from the heavenly gift or under some order from chen pi ah si (since he was working for him at the time, even if i doubt this to be completely honest) or even something else, so it’s mostly my own assumption that he’s not actively deceiving them by fabricating a story, because xiaoge’s deception usually relies on omission rather than a concentrated effort at producing an elaborate lie. so really, the only fact we can be certain of is that he has an “uneasy look in his eyes” when he talks about the lack of another blood corpse, and that wu xie gets the impression he’s lying, which is a sentiment wu sanxing apparently shares because they look at each other in that moment and silently agree. whether this means xiaoge was *actually* lying, or that wu sanxing was taking advantage of xiaoge’s unease to further his own deception (re: arguments against the first account i’m getting to in a bit) is really up in the air

however

i’d like to think if xiaoge was lying and there was nothing more to it than that, he wouldn’t make it so apparent that that was the case given he only ever really projects visible upset or discomfort at anything when it’s related to his memories or lack thereof, and only much later in the story does that start to extend to allowing himself moments of vulnerability, or just his own brand of open concern for wu xie and pangzi. but this is all happening in book 1 where wu xie, as perceptive as he is about people, doesn’t know xiaoge yet, and so doesn’t know his tells. therefore that he can tell xiaoge is visibly emoting when it’s xiaoge is noteworthy in itself. also, given that book 1 takes place at a time when xiaoge’s memory was still very much lacking and fragmented, and he was likely still working for chen pi ah si partly to search for his memories, i wouldn’t be surprised if his unease was visible because the confrontation of both the first and second versions of the story started triggering his memory in some capacity, or it might have even triggered the heavenly gift senses into letting him know that there was something of importance in these stories since the particular episode of it he’s going through at the time gets a bit fast-forwarded from the seven star palace onward seeing as not too long afterwards xiaoge goes into the gate at the end of book 3

something else that’s worth mentioning is the logic behind these memoirs of iron mask even existing. why it would be in a song dynasty tomb is up for debate and probably irrelevant (although it does to be fair align with king mu’s motives of perpetuating grave robbing for deliberate dissemination of information), but mostly i question how he could have written his memoirs if he faked his death and slipped into the jade armor himself shortly after, unless he waited a significant amount of time before doing so and lived his life in hiding, which is also possible given there’s nothing more we know about him. but more food for thought

arguments against the first account

let’s go back to the first account from the silkbook for a bit and take a look at the other two times besides xiaoge’s second account where this version is debunked:

the second debunking comes from wu sanxing as he and wu xie are waiting around in jinan while panzi is in the hospital, and wu sanxing comes back outraged bc when he tried to have the silkbook they brought back from “king shang of lu”’s coffin, he was apparently told it was a forgery because the gold in it was too pure to have dated back to the warring states period, and so was necessarily more recent, though how recent is never specified (Book 1, Ch. 29, Purple-and-Gold Box). he then suggests to wu xie that he thinks it’s xiaoge who snuck into the tomb ahead of them, and with his skills successfully planted a dupe to trick them. i’ll get back to this eventually, but again, while it’s not impossible, it feels unlikely to me that xiaoge would extend so much effort in deception unless it served a clear purpose he agreed with, which is why i’m not convinced he would have blindly been following orders from someone like chen pi ah ai. and xiaoge would likely not have gone to the trouble of making a fake silkbook either, so the idea would have to have come from chen pi ah si, which then brings into question what motive chen pi ah si would have had to go to such lengths to deceive wu sanxing. again, really the only time we ever see or hear of xiaoge making an effort at deliberate deception is when he disguises himself as professor zhang, and while we never get an explanation for the reasons behind that, that’s more likely to have stemmed from feeling like he had to conceal his identity rather than wanting to deceive if that makes sense. in any case, i don’t know what tangible reason xiaoge would have had to deceive wu sanxing and his team with a fake silkbook even if he’d been acting on chen pi ah si’s orders, because would chen pi ah si have had a reason to go to the effort of creating a fake silkbook to deceive wu sanxing with details so specific that you quite literally have to have been in that tomb before to know them?  

the third debunking of the silkbook version is ironically a reverse uno from xiaoge directed at wu sanxing when he, wu xie, and pangzi are stuck in wang zanghai’s tomb in xisha (Book 1, Ch. 63, Chain). xiaoge’s just recovered a massive amount of his memories related to the first xisha expedition, and very bluntly tells wu xie that not only is the silkbook from the seven star palace a fake, it was wu sanxing who planted it there. to which wu xie obviously responds with “wtf no you did”. to which xiaoge then replies completely deadpan as he does with “no, it was your sanshu, he and da kui dug a hole under the tree to do it, probably why da kui had to be silenced”. which leaves wu xie very torn about what and who to believe. and mind you this is also a little before they find the inscription on the wall from “xie lianhuan” accusing wu sanxing of murdering him. honestly it’s possible xiaoge is telling the truth if you consider that wu sanxing might have planted a fake if he knew ahead of time what the silkbook contained, what the seven star palace was, and basically faked his own way through the entire thing

it wouldn’t necessarily surprise me because he does sound very pretends to be shocked in the delivery of many of his remarks (but again, how much of that can you attribute to this being book 1), and while he did bring wu xie along because he was trying to ease him into the game with the wangs, it’s possible he was prudent enough that he would have made wu xie’s first tomb experience take place in a somewhat controlled environment. which doesn’t mean he’d necessarily been there before, just that as entrenched in the wang shit as he is, i wouldn’t be surprised if he’d known even vaguely what the seven star palace represented and what could be found in there. he did know about the snake cypress and about the stone used to subdue it, and while that doesn’t necessarily mean anything seeing as wu sanxing is a highly experienced tomb robber, it’s worth noting that the only times we’ve ever seen those trees is in the seven star palace and in the snake mine in gutongjing. in other words, always somewhere connected to longevity and The Secret and all the parties involved in that power struggle

but then again, we don’t really know how much wu sanxing knew about the wangs and the zhangs etc, so it’s all very up to interpretation. if he did in fact plant the fake silkbook though, it might have served the purpose of making sure there was something to string wu xie along to push him towards xisha and the conspiracy, but the copper fish ended up serving that purpose in the end. nothing really elaborates on this silkbook again, so we don’t know why xiaoge would speculate that wu sanxing was the perpetrator, unless it was because he’d just recovered his memories of xisha (but even then xiaoge doesn’t accuse people so firmly based on impression alone) or he literally saw wu sanxing do it

regardless of who did it, the bottom line is that it’s safe to say the silkbook was probably fake and was placed there intentionally, both because as wu sanxing points out, it is suspicious that wu xie would conveniently only be able to understand what happened to be key portions of the silkbook relating parts of king shang of lu’s life, and because it mentions the purple and gold box in it, which when opened, wu xie discovers contains the first snake-eyebrowed copper fish

to me this actually pushes suspicion more heavily onto two parties in particular: wu sanxing and the wang family. because to be able to forge a silkbook that would specifically contain passages tailored to wu xie’s knowledge of old chinese and not run the risk of him either knowing more or less than speculated, you would have to have extensive knowledge on wu xie as a person on a personal level. and to be fair, this idea hinges a lot on the silkbook being put into that coffin for wu xie specifically ti find, so i’m working on assumptions again, but if this were the case, then only wu sanxing and the wangs qualify to fill that role, and in some ways the wangs even more so because this kind of covert manipulation is very much the way they do things. xiaoge would not have known wu xie to that extent in book 1, if at all, and while wang zanghai himself is a tempting possibility, he was obviously in the seven star palace long before any of this took place, so it can’t be him. in fact, the only thing that ties wang zanghai to any of this at all is the purple and gold box containing the copper fish, since whether or not the box had originally been there and he simply emptied it of its contents or brought it in from outside, he’s the one who placed the copper fish in it

as to why if it was wu sanxing who planted the fake silkbook he would shift the blame onto xiaoge, my theory on that would be that xiaoge was another convenient means of stringing wu xie along into the xisha expedition mystery by virtue of him being zhang qiling and therefore both highly mysterious and suspicious, as well as personally involved. part of me wonders if part of the reason wu sanxing went to chen pi ah si to hire xiaoge specifically because he was added insurance that he would have the means to trigger wu xie’s curiosity, and provide a first clue to lead him into the It conspiracy. wu sanxing did use the picture of the expedition team to explicitly tie xiaoge into it along with the copper fish story, so there’s that to consider

the third account

which finally brings me to the final version of the king shang of lu story, which is the one given to li cu during the wang family powerpoint lesson. this particular version also overlaps with the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west, but i’ll get to in another part of this meta. so this version of the story is mostly ironically both the version that most blatantly contradicts the first two, while also being the version most accurate to the tiny introduction we get to king shang of lu at the entrance of the seven star palace that says he was “born with a ghost seal and could borrow ghost soldiers from the underworld”. the only real issue with that this third version has it’s told by the wang family to li cu, so just by virtue of it coming from obvious wang propaganda, it’s immediately suspicious by nature

going back to speculations about who planted the fake silkbook version of king shang of lu’s story in the seven star palace, it then also raises the question of, if the wangs were the ones who did it, what motive they would have had not only to do so, but to tell the story in that particular way, only to then tell a completely different one to someone they consider a candidate to join them. in my opinion, the only thing that makes this third version hold water is that given how it’s explained to li cu, and how wang xiaoyuan (the girl who passes by the window during the lesson) has the same version of it, the wang family believes this version is true, and by virtue of that, it gains a little more credibility, bc suspicious as they are and twisted by their own biases their version of history may be, the wang family is nonetheless well-informed for the most part. not to mention because the narrative has the wang family consistently mirror the zhang family and the way they function so perfectly it’s almost eerie, it stands to reason that the wang family also dabble in historical revisionism when they can, so putting out a fake version of history onto a fabricated silkbook seems up their alley

i’ll get into king mu of zhou separately because that’s a whole other can of worms, but this final version of king shang of lu’s story begins between the “emperor” of the state of lu and his advisor, the owner of a fox mask “with ancient patterns that often appeared on bronze ware” (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 132, Lesson). the “emperor” asks his advisor “around 1000 BC” (fyi the original says 一千年上下 which amounts to “around 1000 years” but it’s more of an approximation and can technically encompass the warring states period too) as a hypothetical whether or not it’s possible “to prevent people from dying”, to which the advisor answers that he himself doesn’t know how, but he does know where to find something that can “beneath the loess inside the mountains”. he then goes on to tell the tale of king mu of zhou to the “emperor”, and of how he was given an elixir of immortality by the queen mother of the west that he likely hid inside of his tomb centuries ago

it very quickly becomes apparent to the reader that this story is an obvious ploy by the owner of the fox mask, who in sensing that the “emperor”, while tempted, is reluctant to cast all appearance of morality aside to deploy his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s grave, calls a “strange man” to the court who’s “believed to be a descendent of the zhou emperor” (that is to say king mu of zhou) “who was able to communicate with the underworld”. the ruler of the state of lu thus gives this “strange man” a jade seal and seals him in an iron coffin deep in a well for 49 days, saying that if he can come back up from it with the ghost seal in hand after having successfully spoken to king mu of zhou, then it would be proof of king mu granting him permission to rob his tomb and take the immortality elixir from it. and so this “strange man” does, in fact, come back, not only with the ghost seal in hand, but with an imperial edict written by king mu of zhou himself that granted him the title of king shang (殇 shang meaning to die young or at war) as well as all the contents of his tomb

the ruler of the state of lu then uses this to make several leaps in logic to justify being in the right if he deploys his troops to rob king mu of zhou’s tomb, because if this “strange man” can communicate with the underworld and was given a title relating to dead people, then surely that means that this strange “king shang” is likely dead himself, and that king mu of zhou chose him as his heir after he’d died. it’s a very convenient out for the ruler of the state of lu to say that he’s only helping an esteemed deceased elder to recover his birthright if he makes him a general and lends him troops to go find king mu of zhou’s tomb (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

it’s also quickly obvious to the reader that the owner of the fox mask and this newly minted king shang of lu are in fact working together, given it was the former who referred the latter to the state of lu’s court in the first place, which is something i’ll come back to in another part of this meta. from here, under the ruler of the state of lu’s orders, king shang and the owner of the fox mask, together with more grave robbers who also wore fox masks (as according to the wang family, foxes would live in graveyards and grave robber’s tunnels at the time, and so grave robbers associated their imagery with the profession), began their search for king mu of zhou’s tomb and the immortality elixir it supposedly contained. while this version of the story of king shang of lu more or less ends here, you could assume the rest of it might follow along the same lines of the first two versions, and maybe it does. you’d then assume that the person king shang and the owner of the fox mask (who’s by then inferred to be iron mask from the previous two versions) find in the western zhou tomb is king mu of zhou, who they then divest of the jade burial armor to take for themselves

however, one very important detail in this version compromises this assumption: king mu of zhou isn’t actually dead, and he thus gave king shang the edict personally (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception). what this means is that the ruler of the state of lu was duped presumably not by two, but three people, all of whom were working together to find the jade burial armor for who appears to be king mu of zhou. in other words, where the other two versions of the story have two key players, this final version suddenly introduces a third one, and that changes things. how much it does is what i’ll be getting into in the next part on king mu of zhou more specifically

(tbc in part II and part III of this madness)

[pitchlag]

Rvb19 thoughts in no particular order

Yeah so. I still think s13 is The capping point for me and all that comes after is hypothetical/simulations or whatever.

First of all. No, you fucking don't get to separate Grif and Simmons.

Having the groups act hostile towards each other (or just the Reds against Caboose again) right after Chorus was a a big enough of a crime already. But those two are a package deal.

So what the fuck even happened in the SoC fight? Why would they let Tucker just walk out in the aftermath? I guess Carolina booked it to go after him bc why else would she leave Wash alone again, after he was supposedly injured?? Also Doc dying, wow rude. Donut and his VA are free to enjoy their break but where' was heeeeeeee where'd he goooooo he was barely mentioned at aaaalllllllll >:(

Sarge's death speech was surprisingly long and clear even though his lungs were probably pierced, cauterized or no.

On one hand I have a hard time seeing Sarge dying peacefully in a bed instead of in battle but he didn't have to stay at that doorway after they got back. He didn't have to die there. I'm glad he went back for Caboose though cuz that is one his boys (even if he's a dirty Blue).

Grif and Simmons talking about him at his grave was pretty good scene and so was the campfire reminiscing one but again, Sarge didn't have to die and I refuse a world where Grif and Simmons would go their separate ways like that. No wonder Gus and Geoff were shocked to find out this was the last season.

I got so excited the second I recognized Tex's knuckle crack ;o;

So close to a proper Tex and Caro combo, though I do get that they wouldn't work well together because of their history and different fighting styles :( Still, even if AI boosted, Tucker shouldn't be anywhere near good enough to go against both.

Also they got Kathleen back for Tex, John Erler for North and Samantha Ireland for CT??? Couldn't have seen that coming. Also Miles was aight doing Elijah Wood's voice but I guess a lot of it was helped by the voice mods.

Beta may have been "a failure" and Sigma is a bitch but his speech at her felt really off. She was still a major part of Alpha and the memories of Allison were the reason the rest of the pieces came to be in the first place. The Meta collective tried to catch her both in cases of the og Tex and Epsi-Tex, so Sigma full on rejecting her and the rest not reacting at all was really weird.

"This time, I'm not based on his memories, I'm based on theirs. And I always kicked their asses." A nice change of pace re: Beta as Alpha's/Allison's "failure". ....

Chex has embedded itself deep into my brain, so of course I Felt Things seeing them interact one last time fr fr. Tex finally got to go out with some agency of her own, yet we've come a full circle, they're back together again as Leonard and Allison. At least one good ending. Easily the best part of the movie.

Security working from home extremely funny, but the bit went on for too long and video calls w/ technical issues bc haha relatable feels like an overdone trope already

Felix being included as a part of the Meta was kinda weird? He never really interacted with the armor or the AI to warrant it I think.

Niner and Sheila :)

No Junior :(

So uh. Tucker got no closure re:Epsilon's death and just kinda. Walks it off after the possession is over? After Wash and Memory!Doc had that talk about the things an AI in your head does to you??

Speaking of Wash:

I know he's always been linked to memory and I actually like how they handled his brain damage in the Shisno Paradox, but I just have a very different image of how he feels about the PFL folks in the aftermath. To me Carolina always seemed more like the type to feel regret over how things went with PFL; she was kind of in a leadership position, had her tragic relationship with York and she felt taking down the Director was her duty.

Wash did arguably have a lot more positive ties to others than she did during the Project, but he was ready to burn it all down while in Recovery duty. I always thought he would have a lot harder time moving past his own trauma of getting left behind to get back to the good memories. Regrets about Doc I can kinda understand since they had time to work together while at Chorus after Wash's villain arc was over, but again, the man carries a grudge like it's a badge of honor. He didn't exactly get closure with his former teammates, aside from collecting the AI from their dead bodies after he'd been left alone following the fall of the MoI and after South shot him in the back. It's interesting how differently Shisno trilogy and S19 handled how Wash and Carolina feel about the whole thing, but I'm glad they stick together regardless. I love their relationship so much.

Wash staying silent when the recovery unit is broken..... Ngl I'm kinda obsessed with how he and Epsilon never got closure

I still don't have interest in checking out Zero....

Woulda been a lot better if they just let Trocadero do the music :( As predicted, the movie OST lacked the personality the series OST was built on and somehow including one track from them felt a bit of an insult. A reminder of what could've been. Also I didn't like the "oohh this part is super loud because movie" bits

Tragically obvious how rushed the production was and how they had a lot less people and resources to work with

If Shisno was a mixed bag of some high highs and a lot of lows, this was relatively steadily ok. Some dips, at least one peak. Not nearly as good as what precedes it but. ok. I can take it as one possibility

Sigh. The funky space marines are finally free. (I'm not, these fuckers seem to continue to fail evacuating my brain)

[rubylize]

Powers

Summary: You have Powers and finally told Barry.

Pairing: Barry Allen x reader

Word count: 1,059

Warning: none

Not edited, but I will edit it later.

“I have powers.” The words came out of my mouth like air blowing randomly during the day. I had to do it. It was time that I told him. “What?” He asked, turning off the tv and turning all his attention on me. I looked down to my hands not wanting the attention. “Barry-“ Before I continued I took a quick glance at his face. It was full of confusion and concern. Before looking down again, I could see his mouth open and close.

I felt him move closer to me. “I’ve had them for a while but I don’t use them. Sometimes I can’t even control them! You know it’s just so frustrating. I’m sorry I kept it from you. You can break up with me if you want. You probably don’t wanna date a metahum-“

My voice was quiet, fast yet slow. Barry interrupted me by grabbing my face gently. “Don’t say that. You don’t know how I feel about you,” he told me softly. “So how do you feel?” Those words came out hesitant. I didn’t know if I was ready to know what he felt. My eyes roamed the living room, avoiding his eyes. “Look at me.”

It took everything in me to look at him but I did. “I don’t care if you’re a meta human Y/n.” His beautiful green eyes were looking at me. “Being a metahuman doesn’t make me love you any less.”

Barry and I talked things out. He was very supportive. He didn’t care that I was a metahuman. I appreciated him for that. He was always there for me when I needed him.

“We should go to StarLabs.”

My eyes widened. “StarLabs? Why?” I was confused as to why he wanted me to go there because Dr.Wells killed his mom. “You’ll see.”

We went to StarLabs. “Barry, what are you doing here?” Iris said a little harsh, noticing me. “It’s time to tell her.” I gave Barry a confused look, while he just smiled. “Tell me what?” I asked skeptically.

“So this is your lover?” I heard behind me. I turned around to see Harrison Wells. In the flesh. My mouth fell open. “Harrison Wells?” I gasped, even more confused now. “Can we have the room?” Barry said. When they left he sat me down. “Uh Y/n I- I’ve been wanting to tell you something,” he explained while scratching the back of his head. I gave him a look to continue.

“I’m the Flash.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

“Look I know. I’m sorry. I didn’t tell you sooner. It’s just.. you knowing, isn’t safe. Believe me when I say that telling you has always been on my mind.” I nodded cautiously at his words, listening intently. “Caitlyn can do tests on you and we can work on your powers, so you can control them.”

“Barry, forget that. I’m still processing that Dr.Wells is alive and your okay with it!” I threw my hands in the air. “That’s not Harrison Wells. He’s from Earth 2.”

“Huh?” All his words were scrambled.

“He’s from another Earth.” My hands rubbed my face, still slightly confused. “Okay..” I am still immensely confused.

“Are you mad?”

“About what?” I asked.

“That I didn’t tell you?” He replied, as if it were a question.

I tilted my head to the side. “No? Should I be mad?” He quickly shook his head, yet let out a sigh of relief. I cleared my throat and he looked at me confused. “Sooo about my powers. Something I didn’t mention is..” I looked at him, seeing that he was listening intently. I quickly grabbed his hand and sped us in circles a few times.

He looked at me in amazement and let out a laugh of excitement. “You have the Flash’s powers!” I nodded. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not. It was hard for me to control. “That’s so awesome!”

Caitlyn did tests on me and confirmed that I was a speedster. The whole entire time during those tests I stared at Barry, I was still worried for some reason. He stood by my side the whole entire time. When Caitlyn was done he led me to the hall in StarLabs. “Why are you still worrying?” He asked me. “I don’t know.” I replied truthfully. “Y/n I like the way you look at me, but with warmth, love, and reassurance. Not with worry.” I smiled at him, feeling my heart warm. “I’m sorry. But I think I’m just scared, Barry. This is a very large step I’m taking,” I told him, while looking at the ground. “Hey,” he said softly, catching my attention. I looked back up, “I’m gonna be there through all of it. Everything you go through, I go through, okay? We’re a team.” He chuckled, “We’re the flash.”

“Like literally,” he said jokingly. I laughed at his sillines, he pulled me into him while smiling widely. “I love you Y/n. Everything you go through-“

“I go through,” I said at the same time. He nodded at me. He slowly leaned in to latch his lips onto mine. I gratefully kissed back. My arms rested on his shoulders while I caressed the back of his neck hairs, his hands were around my waist pulling me close. I felt like I was floating. I think I finally knew what a leaf felt like, slowly roaming through the sky with the wind.

Once we parted, “I love you,” I told him, since he didn’t really let me say it back. He pecked my lips once more and told me we could start training now. I agreed and learned a few things but it took some time. It was honestly scary, but with Barry by my side was easy. He helped me and so did Cisco and Caitlyn. Joe had been psyched knowing that I was a speedster, he was worried as well though.

Team Flash saw me grow. They supported, trained with me, and took care of me. They were my team. Barry was by my side. He was my rock, my anchor, he was the person that kept me going. I loved every part of Barry and he loved every part of me. Working with him is such an honor. Being speedsters brought us even closer than we were.

[futurefind]

//The horrifying realization that, esp early on, Rea had every reason to procrastinate getting her injuries from Bulga healed and thus minimize scarring because that way she can, literally, try and hide her (direct) scars from TWS by burying them underneath other ones :')

Something something and how Rea tries to 'handle' her ghosts by burying them under the bodies of others'—whether it's the ghosts of others' struggles and trying to help them, or more of her own but ones she's far more comfortable with :')

(And also smth smth how Rea's extensive scarring from repeated and regular experimentation means she only accepts magical healing from others (barring like, her hands, neck, and fingers?) and handles All of the first aid 'management' or w/e firsthand and thus Literally handles all of her worst wounds by herself so help her god)

[swordsandarms]

I sometimes wonder why certain sections of the fandom reas those.Like noone in the series is some sort of an innocent pure baby, so I don't get why Dany is get treated as some sort of the most evill character ever...The series is a dark one ane should accept no character is innocent

1. This is probably the most rational post I've about why Daenerys is so hated by fans of female characters in particular. Female power is something only to be wistful about for any others, particularly in the way she gets to have it. And it's not even like to get and keep her power is an easy journey, or is god forbid lacking in difficult concessions. Particularly, there can't be multiple kinds of women's positions of power, they need to have cat fights for crumbs, and ought to do that as per male validation.

2. For the male characters fans it's more obvious and I shouldn't have to look for a meta - how dare a girl be more powerful than them and be a threat to men always being on top.

The sexist GOT show had male leadership leaning on both of these principles. They made a mockery of a female led group of characters of note they brought together to surround Daenerys, gave them cheesy "woman power" quotes, had them make out for a minute of the two they were of one party so they can have some use for male gratification amirite, then "put them in their place" by killing them one by one.

Then they airdrop show!Sansa in, has her hilariously employing the perfidy of various men who laugh at the idea of them females wanting power ahead of male relatives (flashback to the melodramatic framing of same character being portrayed as bitter over a male relative being declared to instead - WANTING AND DENIED is where women's idea of power should reside for 7.9 seasons out of 8).

A cringe fest of how supposedly a merely being some guy with almost nothing to your name prevails over time and effort gains in your own name as a woman, contradictory to the point of the actual FAegon in the books, made to face the cold fact his aunt is the self made Dragon Queen and he is nothing, going to her as a beggar (like watching that Barbie movie part where Ken learns about the patriarchy and confidently shows up at the hospital asking to be made a doctor - except only one was meant as a parody). Then the woman has... hysteria.... because a boy doesn't like her. The end.

So it's really not about how "dark" Dany is. If she is ruthless, she has the audacity to do what men do instead of knowing her womanly place. If she is lenient, she proves she is a bad leader than any other for being a weak woman (Point 2). If there is to be a female lead, she will be a manic pixie girl of a feudal's Lord PATRIARCHAL HEART who will be condescending to other women in public and affable to men, dropping 'smartly' whispered hints in secluded corners that will make them SEE HER ❤️❤️❤️ and reward her!! She's different ❤️❤️❤️ (Point 1).

[pixiestickie]

Ok this is kind of a weird ask but that new scene in the manga where Jamil seems to be jealous of Azul lives in my head rent free and I love assigning songs to my favs- does Jamil fit the vocaloid song "God-ish" to you? Reading the lyrics kinda reminded me of him.

I really enjoy reading your character/ship analysis and wanted to know what were your thoughts on this and if you would assign any other song to Jamil(⁠´⁠；⁠ω⁠；⁠｀⁠)

HII !! ok so ill have to start with a confession: I don’t listen to music (at least not as much as the avarage teen i am an anomaly) so i dont usually happen to associate songs to characters

ive nevr heard of that song BUT i checked it out and its a BOP. i reas the lyrics in the wiki and i do think it fits !! one could also make it about kalim as well. jealousy is a big part of jamil’s character, so i think this song bangs and fits him. i hope i didnt get this part wrong but i also saw some parts about dancing and jamil loves dancing so that makes it even more jamil core

as an animator i can definitel envision an animation about jamil to this song :))

btw so so glad you enjoy my endless rambles and analysis 😭😭😭 im shy about them but hearing people enjoying them really motivates me . so tjank you sm it means a lot to me i will rxplode

ANYWAY because of the fact that i dont listen to music that much (even if i do have 1 playlist), i dont have songs that fit jamil off the top of my head. i have “bitter choco decoration” which fits him WORD BY WORD but its such a meta song… if that even makes sense 😭 i can also think of is first love / late spring (YES IM GIVING YOU A MITSKI SONG LEAVE ME ALONE) about jamil and kalim’s dynamic

another one i used to have in mind was “aishite aishite aishite”, but like, a very specific translation. people have translated and interpreted it in many different ways to the point i associate one translation to jamil and another to azul 😭

[arthurs-notes]

Linguistic Identity: Existential Crisis of Polylingual People

I remmener the day I've written my first article for the syg.ma project. It was a rainy day, I was sad and to overcome this blue mood I've pushed myself towards writing. I would like to share my work with you. I think that I gonna continue to share my texts like that with you guys, just let me know what do you think about it.

In nowadays reality linguistic questions appear more seldom than usual. I observed that my Instagram feed was submerged with different posts concerning linguistic identity. The era of globalization, mass migration, provoked by the War in Ukraine, economic crisis all these factors increase drastically the level of migration, according to the EU’s migration poll. [1] 

Subsequently, I was touched by this trend. I have a lot of friends from different countries and some of them use several language codes in their daily life. The least numerous group of my friends is polylingual. One week ago, we discussed what we think about the sociolinguistic point of the actual conflict. The situation is particularly interesting: the most frequently recalled question was “who am I and what is my mother tongue?”. On one hand, the answer is simple “a mother tongue is the language that you use in your everyday life” or “a mother tongue is a language that you use to think”. But what should you conceive if a person uses several languages to think and to communicate if this very person lives in two, three, or even four different linguistic realities? Who is he/she/they? 

To answer this tricky eternal question, I will enlighten several concepts that I consider to be abstract and they need several levels of determination to be analyzed. Firstly, I am going to talk about linguistic identity itself and how it affects our lives, then, I would like to be precise about what is it like to be a polylingual person, after we are going to look at how migration changes the context of existence and the perception of reality. Finally, we are going to clash all these three parts of your cognition in the conflict of identity crises, we will see how the pluralism of assimilation could change each static universals into always changeable substance.

2. Linguistic identity

When I heard the expression of “Linguistic identity” for the first time I was really surprised. Primo, this term comprises ‘identity”, something that we have already heard about. Putting it simply, that’s the way we see the world, our relation to life, and the way to live it. Second, the linguistic part pushes us to suppose that it specifies the given concept by adding the image of language. However, this is not as simple as it could seem. 

First of all, we need to understand that “identity” in language learning research is not a concept but a construct that is way more complex than an object because it takes part in social interaction, not only in perceiving reality. The language constructs a meta-person’s relationships across time, and space and changes the vision of a person’s identity and its vision of the future. The identity, at the same time, influences the language of a meta-person, by modifying lexical preferences, grammar, and syntax. They are linked and cannot exist one without another. [2]

To imagine this in a better way, try to draw a picture in your mind where the identity sphere has a language part inside and the language one has an identity part inside. Depending on a starting point of analysis, we can consider “identity” or “language” as a nucleus or a periphery, or form and content 

This language duality was firstly described in “Cours de Linguistique Généralé” by Ferdinand de Saussure. Using the introspective approach, we can observe that “identity” and “language” do possess the nucleus and periphery sides. [3]

People generally tend to associate themselves with one or more social groups to perceive reality, and the way it works, and to make decisions. [4] The question of language identity was always crucial not only for linguists but also for politicians as a really strong construct that can form some sort of ideology based on different levels of culture, where the language itself makes a part. Depending on your language, your vocabulary in some spheres will differ drastically from others. For instance, In Japanese-speaking reality, there would be more words to describe senses, tastes, and colors. The reason for that is hidden in Japanese education, where the empiric and observational approaches are deeply integrated into the school system. [5] 

The most cited example is the word umami which means a taste that describes as savory and is characterized by broths and cooked meats. Even if we could imagine this concept, several languages do not possess such a word for umami, which leads people to loan this word in their languages. That was a strict nucleus, the heart of a language, something that describes the reality of the world where a meta-person lives. As for the periphery, a language, forms to some extent, your vocabulary. If a language is fusional, or a language that uses a single morpheme to form new grammatical or semantic features, it is possible, that your language would be more open to new cultural codes, and terms and assimilate them in a faster way, comparing it with the analytic one.

As for the nucleus of the identity part, it helps you to choose the linguistic reality. If you consider yourself French, you could speak French, so you don’t have a dissonance in your world’s perception, you acquire the inherent logic of the language, e.g. tenses, word structure, phonetics, etc. The periphery part links to the culture. I have already mentioned that language is a part of a culture. It goes with the history of people speaking this language. We cannot forget about songs, movies, books, ideologies, and other important parts consisting of the cultural iceberg.

One identity differs from another, and by choosing one of them, several individuals could even change some physical features such as mimics, facial expressions, and furthermore. These two parts create the Linguistic identity, a strong social construct that leads people, it can be used as a manipulation instrument or even a weapon. Hence, I have explained the reality of a monolingual person which is a rare phenomenon in the world. Taking into consideration the fact, that the vast majority of people live in multiple linguistic realities, we should turn to bilingual people or even polylingual ones.

3. Who is a polylingual

The definition of this term was always problematic through the ages. Several specialists in different domains gave so many descriptions of this term that is it impossible to pick one that is suitable for each situation. I consider that we need to determine the limits of this notion before speaking about polylingual people. [6]

The vast majority of definitions differ depending on the “donor” of language. Here, I am talking about the person who transmits the language to the child. Even the motivation of the word “mother tongue” means that, in general, a child takes the language from its mother, and less frequently, from its father. Taking into the consideration increasing level of immigration and globalization, the situation, where each parent represents different language communities has become usual. This reality pushes language specialists to consider this fact, so the number of definitions concerning the ability to speak multiple languages is always increasing. [6]

In the aim to understand all the complexity of terminology in this field, I propose you imagine that there are several families: Family A, Family B, and Family C. We are going to study their cases, and after that, I propose you talk about the definition itself. 

For each situation, we can enumerate external and internal factors that could be named as context. The external context is the language environment of the majority of the population placed in a given territory, while external ones are mostly conventional and depend on the parents. I have omitted several factors such as language status, like the situation with the Tatar language in Russia, to shorten my essay, which is slightly becoming a novel. Here, we are going to imagine the situation by putting it through some level of generalization. The way people perceive a language is way too complex to put into several words. 

For instance, In Family A, parent 1 speaks French, while parent 2 speaks English, both of them are living in France, where the official language is French. Taking into consideration the internal factor, parent 1 and parent 2 can decide which strategy should they choose to communicate with. their child. There are three possibilities. 

The French domination. Both parents speak French, but parent 2 does not speak English and a child would not be able to learn it, in the condition of both of them do not speak English. In the opposite situation, the child would be able to analyze the language, decorticate it, subconsciously, and learn English. 

The English domination. Both parents speak English to the child, parent 1 does not speak French and the child would not be able to learn it with the same conditions. 

The bilingual environment. Both parents use two languages in their communication, mixing them, or switching them with the child. The final result would give a certain level of fluency. 

As for external factors, you remember, that all of them are living in France, so the child would be exposed, sooner or later to the French language outside of its household. In the case of French domination, the child would be a monolingual person, because she was not exposed to several language systems. In the case of English domination, the child would become a monolingual person too, however, its situation will be different. As the child lives in France, sooner or later, he would be exposed to French, and he would learn it at school with his friends and relatives. Furthermore, everything depends on a symbiosis of external and internal factors, we do not know if a child is going to pass more time with his parents or with his friends at school. In general, children tend to distance themselves from their parents, from the age of 10, and then, progressively, they would gain their fluency till the beginning of puberty. 

And finally, the most interesting case, the bilingual domination, where a child would speak both French and English, hens, without a strict distinction between the two of them. However, with the age, the child would use more French in his life. If we imagine that it would use the same strategy as a child, raised in an English-dominated environment, it would be more fluent in French as well. 

The situation with Family A shows us that a person cannot physically know two languages at the same level, because we cannot control their usage. One of them is going to be dominant. 

If we switch the language in Family B, of Parent 1 into Russian, and would keep the language of Parent 2 as French by default, for example, there would be the same situation, however with little differences, as the language itself is far more distant from French on the level of structure, grammar, lexis, morphology, etc. The more the difference is significant, the more the situation changes. 

To illustrate this, imagine child B is risen in a Russian-dominated environment, where Parent 1 and Parent 2 tend to speak Russian only, supposing that Parent 2 is fluent in Russian and possesses a C2 level certificate. In that case, while in Family A, English would not influence the French language of Child A on the level of pronunciation, because there is a native reference (a slite difference could be remarked on the level of prosody), in Family B, Russian would influence several lexical and their semantic structures because of a big number of loan words and expressions. For example, let us look at the expressions that are semantically close in both languages. They mean “Speak of the Devil”:

• “Вспомнишь Солнце — Вот и лучик/Vspomnish solntse vot i luchik”. 

• «En parlant du loup».

These two expressions can mix and several parts of them could be mutated. In this situation, the child C could transform these sentences into:

• «Вспомнишь волка вот и он/Vspomnish volka vot I on», transposition and interference;

• «Кстати о волке/Kstati o volkie», a literate translation from French.;

• «En voyant une lueur», literate translation from French. 

This situation changes with the begging of the academic experience. Child B would use more French expressions and would probably loan them in Russian. 

In the French-dominated situation, there will not be any drastic differences from Family A. To be fair, according to my personal experience, I could tell, that several Russian expressions were loaned into my French language vocabulary. 

In the bilingual situation, the level of modifications and linguistic experimentations in a child’s B brain is constantly growing with age till the end of puberty. The further situation depends on the symbiosis of factors that would help child B choose a dominant language. 

Since the Economic crisis of 2008, there is another interesting tendency that could be illustrated by Family C. In this case, we use the same parameters as for Family A, P1 speaks French and P2 speaks English, one parameter that is changed is the external factor. Family C lives in Germany. In this case, child C enters into the three-dimensional linguistic reality, where the result would not be the same as for Families A and B. [1]

As was already told, there could be three possible scenarios, based on conventional relations between the P1 and P2 in Family C. In this situation, the external factor gives three additional scenarios: German dominated environment, Bilingual dominated environment with French and German, and three lingual-dominated environments. So, just to be precise and to better understand the situation, Family C could be: 

• French-speaking;

• English speaking;

• Bilingual (Fr-En); 

• German-speaking; 

• Bilingual (Fr-De);

• Three lingual (Fr-En-De).

In all of the cases mentioned, child C would speak German, because of the German-speaking environment, especially with age, however, we need to take into consideration multiple varieties of socioeconomic factors such as the city’s population, its region, municipality area, scholar establishment, etc. 

These factors are too numerous to illustrate each situation, however, it gives a perfect example of the complexity of the studying subject. As we have already seen, in several situations, a child could become a bilingual person and even in this, it would not be able to speak languages at the same level. Even if the difference is not drastically evident, one of the languages, one of the language would be dominant. [7]

The next important question, a bilingual person is complex and constructed, living in two linguistic dimensions, and different cultures, and sometimes, the child is exposed to more than two cultures. This tendency created a dilemma in the determination of a bilingual person. 

I will not bother you with some further examples on this topic, but, an individual has an identity, the essence that is closely connected with his language and culture. Not all bilinguals in the world become bilinguals from the very beginning. They could be born into a monolingual family and then change their country of residence. In that case, they would not be able to stay nontransitional and they would become a bilingual person, taking into consideration the age of the person. 

This occurs because a child will be integrated into the society of the majority’s language. His friends, teachers, neighbors everybody speaks another language. However, what should we call a person that starts to speak another language after puberty starts? The teenager’s new language would become its mother tongue in the condition it would acquire it by the age of 14-15 years old, till the end of the puberty period, because the way of perceiving the world will change. [8]

There are too many questions and particularities that are used to understand bilinguals. I must inform you that I need to use the generalizing approach to facilitate the comprehension of this interesting and never dying subject. 

So, who Is polylingual? I gave you examples of people speaking two or three languages, and society calls them bilingual and trilingual people, however, there is a more general way to call this — multilingual or polylingual, or just polyglots. 

According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of the term multilingual is the following: “speaking or using several different languages”. It is considered that it is more than one language. It is important to understand that in Europe the fact to speak several languages is no longer surprising. It highly depends on the economic center of the country and in rural areas, it is not considered a norm. If we are talking about enormous, large business centers such as Paris, Rome, Milano, London, Berlin, etc, globalization, international trade, and cultural openness has created an advantageous situation for the people living there.

In general, the vast majority of Europeans, more than half of its total population claim to speak several languages, hence, in practice their level is not homogeneous. Some individuals can write, some of them read, and third ones can read, write and understand several languages but they use only one of them. 

It is understandable, taking into consideration the level of information we need to deal with in our life. People need to filter this information, and multiple languages' knowledge ability does not help it. Thanks to our brain, a fantastic machine that decides to optimize our way of thinking to economize power, it redirects the placement of these languages from the active area to the passive one. 

Some children were able to acquire two languages natively from an early age, and they are called simultaneous bilinguals. 

Knowing the constantly increasing number of terms describing bilingualism, I am going to use the term polylingual in my article. My choice is motivated by the will to call a situation of people that are the subject of my work. When I say a polylingual person, I mean a meta-person that was born in a multicultural context and speaks more than one language, from a very young age, on a daily bases. So this meta-person is living in a two-dimensional world. 

When I say a multicultural context, I mean a meta-family, speaking two languages, and at least one of them is not the language of the majority living on the given territory. 

We have discussed the linguistic identity of a person that comprises the cultural iceberg and world perception globally. In the case of polylingual people, they see the world divided by two, three, or more linguistic realities. 

So, as you can see, multilingualism is a highly complex subject that is studied by multiple domains, however, because of its complexity, we can not consider a single situation suitable for all multilingual people. The generalization is necessary in that case. 

4. Migration and linguistic identity

This ability could be seen as advantageous for polylingual as they are opened to new ways of seeing the world. Hence, we are speaking about the situation where they are living on a given territory and when a person leaves the territory, all the factors change. 

I propose you talk about people that moved in their post-puberty age for humanitarian, economic, or political reasons. 

In this situation, polylingual people enter a new linguistic reality. In general, bilingual and polylingual people tend to choose a country of one of their Level 1 languages e.g. if person A speaks both French and English, he or she lived in the USA, this person A could choose several French-speaking countries. The cultural descendants of one of the relatives help to determine the final choice. Let us suppose that this person’s mother was born in France or has a French heritage. In this case, person A would choose France for the settlement. [9]

We can also think that the assimilation process would be easier in this condition because the mother of person A transmitted not only the language but the French culture. That is true but to some extent. We do not know the exact amount of culture transmitted to the child if it could be possibly measured, and we do not know what were the conventional principles of his or her education, so I propose to you imagine that this person was raised in some kind of a mix of French and English culture. I am going to describe his or her life briefly, to analyze it better. 

Paul Lapain is 32 years old, he was born in the city of New York, New York state in the mid-nineties, he lived with his French mother Monique et his American dad Peter in a small apartment in the Bronx where he went to a simple school and lived a simple double-culture life. At home, they used to speak both French and English. French was a lingua franca in their family, because Monique was a little bit ashamed of her accent, even if her husband, Peter, tried to persuade her that her pronunciation was good. They used English to talk about concepts that are purely American and related to the administrative sphere of life, migration lexis, etc. 

Paul watched movies both in French and in English. Monique tried to choose the newest cartoons that were available, however, in the majority of cases, she preferred those she watched when she was little. She read books by French authors to Paul, so he could conserve her part of the culture. Do not think that Monique was open to different cultures, no, she was not as progressive as it might seem, she was not a cosmopolite and even if she lived in the USA she dreamed to move back to France. 

When Paul graduated from school, Monique proposed to him to apply to a French university, because it was free and the higher education system is considered to be one of the most performant in the world. He did not hesitate for a lot of time and, after being accepted, he moved to France. 

The first two weeks were full of joy and new experiences for Paul. He rediscovered the country of his mother. However, after these two weeks passed, he started to realize that he imagined things to be in another way. He tried to make some French friends, but the way they spoke was a bit different from that of his mother. There were more closed and distant. Small talks were not his strong part too. His new acquaintance from the university was choosing topics he was not so performant in, such as cuisine, and medieval culture.

Time passed. One year later, he made a great friendships with some of his university mates, he find an internship and everything seemed to be perfect for him, but, unfortunately, he felt lonely, and was not understanding much. New jokes, memes, and song artists, there was too much information to digest, and everything he learned differed from his mother’s perspective. 

Do you see the problem? Exactly, Paul moved to France, bringing the culture of his mother’s youth, of the France of the 1980s. His brain is shocked by the number of changes and he started to feel the cultural choice. These two visions of the same country co-exist in his brain creating a dichotomy in the world’s perception. 

His education plays a big role too, but the fact of being conserved in some kind of a time capsule perturbates him. In this very particular case we can see, that even if a language identity was already formed, we cannot say it was a universals, something that is not changeable. Arriving in France, he was forced by the will of integration into society to learn some new cultural and linguistic codes. This forms a new linguistic identity. 

It could seem evident that in this case, we are talking about a new linguistics identity, what if it is not new, but a changeable one? 

This kind of identity is a social construct that is considered externally as a stable, consistent thing, comprising a lot of different branches of our life. Even Paul considers himself as a strict point, a substance that is not changed. We could agree with his point of view, but there is a thing, he does not analyzes his status, he prefers to confront a conflict and to stay with what he already has. 

We observe him, as a human being, and we see that he uses terms, and definitions, he tried to understand who he is and what or whom he would like to become. But who is he? Is he American? Is he French? Maybe both? 

On one hand, there is a simple answer to that. He has an American passport, so he is American. But he speaks French, his mother is French and he decided to move to France. So who is he? What is that being American or being French? 

According to Napoleon Bonaparte’s law on immigration, being French means speaking French, sharing the Republic’s values, and being catholic. This concept has changed with time, and Catholicism was replaced by laïcité or secularism, to put it simply. But is it enough to be conformed to these three simple rules to become, or to be French? 

This principle was and is today debatable. The jus soli and jus sanguinis are the main points of all political discussions on TV, on the radio, and in the newspapers. France is a multicultural country with a long history of immigration and this social construct of being French is also changing to something more open and inclusive. 

It was the administrative part, something that we could place into the brackets, something that is describable. But what about Paul? Does he need a passport to be considered French? Can he become French? And what is it “becoming French”? 

In his had there are two worlds, two perspectives to understand and to make decisions, he tries to choose the variant that he considers to be more “right”, and “socially acceptable”. He lives in a society, where everyone speaks French and thinks French. I would like to emphasize this part. Everybody thinks French. It means that a language is a code that we use to give labels to things of non-linguistic reality. So, people who speak several languages can understand the world in different ways. That is the dilemma. He is both American and French, but too American to be called French, and too French to be called American. 

He is called like this by society, by his friends and family, and, as you have certainly remarked, they use adjectives. I adore this part of the discourse because adjectives are subjective, they describe things that we see, based on our experience, taste, and mother tongue. 

For instance, think of a noise. There are a lot of cars, and business people walking, they speak loudly, and everything is loud. That’s it! They speak loudly. That is how an English speaker would say it. But would a French say it like this? No, a French would say “ce bruit il est trop fort”, “le bruit est fort”. In the French language, a noise could be strong and not loud. But we see the same thing, we understand the same thing. Is it so the same? We code it differently and you can see the difference in the world’s perception.

The substantives “American” and “French” could be easily transformed into adjectives, if we transpose them into another grammatical class, they will be still the same words with the same characteristics, but the semantics would change. They are not objective anymore. They passed from the static substance to the non-static one. 

Now we can choose the level of Frenchness that we would like or Americanness. So, these two non-constant characteristics need to be applied, to see, if could they be changeable or not, helping our poor Paul to find his identity. To do that, let us do the permutation. 

• Paul is (American) and he is (French).

• Paul is X and he is X.

You can put every adjective that you would like to, starting with good, bad, nice, sportive, and beautiful, try it by yourself. The more you permutate the X, the more you feel the subjectiveness of these terms. for example:

• Paul is (good) and he is (nice). 

To what extent is Paul good? Is he the best person that you have ever met? Or on the planet. Or he is better than your friend, or your teacher. We do not know. We need a certain point to compare it with the actual Paul at this moment in time. I emphasize this moment because he could become better or worst, or something could become better than Paul or visa-versa. Some concepts could go away from the discourse, and we need to fix all the parameters to make a decision.

Then, change your adjectives to American and French. Do you feel the difference? The same questions. To what extent is Paul American? Is he more American than his friend? What are the criteria to determine the level of Americanness? And so forth. 

The subjectiveness opens Paul to the reality that everything is changeable, everything is moving in time and space, because, new subjects create new terms and new characteristics. They enter the world of perception and their Americanness or Frenchness can be compared with him, or with others. 

Being American or French is an essence, something determined, something objective but the way of living your life to become one is existence, something that you live not only in society but with yourself too, with your thoughts, feelings, and fears. One sort of action will make you more American, and others do not. 

If we return to Paul, at this time and space, he lives with the vision of an American who would like to become French, to connect himself to his mother’s culture. He lives in another country by himself and all alone, so he searches for a social group to be associated with. We remember that his mother is conservative this reflects in her vision of the world, where everything is predetermined. Monique gave to Paul Aristotle’s vision of things — static and predetermined. You are American, or you are French. 

Paul thinks that his essence precedes existence which is the source of the internal conflict. He has a real existential crisis, everything that he loved and cared about so much is falling apart and he does not know what to grab to be saved. But this is a part of assimilation that is also a complex subject that I will cover in the next article. 

Paul’s identity is based on his linguistic identity which comprises culture, history, stereotypes, and a whole world of vision. The problem of polylingual people is that they cannot find their way in the world, because they always have two roads, three, and sometimes even more. Language is not always just a bunch of grammar structures, it is the logic, the way a group of people decided to understand the world we live in. Two identities, two problems, two sufferings. In this case, I could only propose Paul remember Spinoza’s and Simone Weil’s advice: suffering is important to save your dignity.

“Too American to be called French and too French to be called American.”

References

1. « Statistics on Migration to Europe ». European Commission — European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/statistics-migration-europe_en. Consulté le 20 octobre 2022.

2. Norton, Bonny. Identity and language learning: extending the conversation. Second Edition, Multilingual Matters, 2013.

3. Saussure, Ferdinand de. Cours de linguistique générale. Payot, 1995.

4. Firth, Alan, et Johannes Wagner. « On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research ». The Modern Language Journal, vol. 81, no3, septembre 1997, p. 285 300. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997.tb05480.x.

5. Sugimoto, Yoshio, éditeur. The Cambridge companion to modern Japanese culture. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

6. Romanowski, Piotr, et Małgorzata Jedynak, éditeurs. Current Research in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Springer International Publishing, 2018. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92396-3.

7. Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Rev. and Extended ed, Verso, 1991.

8. Taeschner, Traute. The Sun Is Feminine: A Study on Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children. Springer, 1983.

9. Peirce, Bonny Norton. « Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning ». TESOL Quarterly, vol. 29, no 1, 1995, p. 9. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.2307/3587803.

[the-chaos-axolotl]

Confession time:

Before I had made of even considered rea knight's existence, I shipped meta knight and zeroker

[madraleen]

Attack on Titan - Season 4 Part 1 (eps 1-16) A commentary turned into a TED talk (but what else is new)

(full manga spoilers. ending spoilers. all the spoilers.)

-ah. the mappa era.

-the "good eldians" line of the marley eldians never fails to give me goosebumps

-well hello there reiner, as dashing as ever

-i love how aot can make me so emotionally confused

-"i suppose there aren't any titans with wings" HAHAHA about that...

-zeke pretty much says, "it's not the paradis' titans we should be afraid of, IT'S LEVI!"

-oh hello eren's back watching reiner and the kids. that's where he infiltrated, fort slava, while the corps is back at marley and jean's buying newspapers, cool

-hello hobo eren, i didn't like you looking like that in the manga and the anime changes nothing. shave.

-how unfortunate for eren that he met falco first. it's hard not to sympathize with falco, you know?

-hobo eren: "i just don't want to go home. i don't think i can face my family anymore." i mean, he ain't lying

-listening eren and basically-tanjiro converse confuses me on a meta level, heh

-i mean, eren's not LYING to tanj-er, falco, he IS sending the letter to his family and he DOES tell them that he's there (and some other things).

-things happen so fast in the anime. in the manga it felt like forever until we got to see eren again

-the declaration of war ep is so good with the music and the VAs that i'm laughing with joy

-DUDE THE REINER AND EREN CONVERSATION, THE VAS ARE SUPERB.

-THE SLOW-MO TRANSFORMATION OF EREN, DUDE I LOVE THE DECLARATION OF WAR EP WHAT! mappa, let's talk

-what eren did to liberio was god awful but tybur and magath weren't much better, intentionally letting everyone be turned into martyrs. eren said "i'll kill you all" and magath and tybur went "yes please"

-it's SO cool that they show the titans form, bc it pairs so well with the fact that ymir creates them

-there is no plausible way other than telepathy that mikasa could have possibly heard eren's "ima da, mikasa" but goddamn that moment is amazing. maybe she read his lips.

-HOLD THE PRESSES MY MAN LEVI HAS COME

-armin how so pretty

-GALLIARD THE NUTCRACKER

-that soundtrack tho

-i'm like. i know. i've read the manga. and yet i'm looking at eren and mikasa like "OHMIGOSH THEY'RE SO BIG THEY'RE SO GROWN OMIGOSH LITTLE BABIES"

-the slow pace of armin offering his hand and eren taking it, perfection

-dude the music and the voice acting, THE TENSION, it's so good, mappa let's talk

-armin is so. i just want to pat his lil head

-oh wait so. when eren kissed historia's hand he knew about the rumbling, but not how it would be possible to do it? and it clicked when he heard hange's recount of yelena's spiel, he confirmed his suspicions re: the royal blood?

-i don't know if i'm imagining it, but i think armin and mikasa sound intentionally younger in the three-years-ago stuff to differentiate them from the present day, which is cute because they never actually sounded that young in-universe

-the VA does an excellent job with zeke. the animation is excellent. i just really detest zeke. i don't know why my wrath is so focused on him.

-EREN DON'T YOU TOUCH HANJI DON'T YELL AT THEM DID YOU NOT LEARN ANYTHING FROM THE MANGA

-is it? is it a two-round fight? it sort of is, eren's a two-round fight.

-enjoying that wine fellas are ya

-eren @ the gang: "because you're important to me. more important than anyone. so i want you to live long lives." i cry

-I UNDERSTAND IT'S THE SUNSET AND EVERYONE'S RED BUT MIKASA AND EREN ARE HAVING A LOOK YOU KNOW?! this moment was suss even in the manga

-yeah, this is definitely working well in anime form. i don't know if it's because i already know the story, so i'm not lost between juggling scenes, or because of the faster pace of the anime, but it feels good.

-back up a sec tho 'cause i'm still on this. gang, eren laughed when sasha died, but did you not see his face, the man was having a breakdown (they might actually not have seen his face).

so there's two reasons he might have laughed. a) sasha's last word being the trigger word bc of its absurdity and how sasha-like it is, he broke down. he's just lost one of the people most important to him bc of a plan FOR his friends where he doesn't know IF his friends will survive it in the first place. this confirms death is a possibility.

b) it's something he's seen during the hand kiss, it connected dots, it confirms he's on the right path, and he reacts as such.

i personally do not ascribe to the latter. eren isn't receiving random memories, he's receiving curated memories chosen by paths!eren via grisha's past memories. paths!eren isn't stupid. why would he send himself a memory of a most painful event that could waver his resolve? arguably it's sasha's death that makes it personal, that puts the seed in the gang's mind that they might have to kill eren. but paths!eren cares about sasha as much as every eren; why the heck would he send that memory back? why would he undermine the "do the rumbling, exterminate titans" cause? why not take his "i didn't even know if my precious friends would survive" at face value?

also. eren knows glimpses of the future and through them he decides to make his friends heroes. he's not omniscient until he reaches the paths (and what he can process of being omniscient in the paths is arguable, and it's also arguable if he IS omniscient), and he does show surprise when something that he doesn't expect occurs, like with ymir in the paths. he also showed emotion when sasha died. so why question it? for eren, too, sasha's death is a breaking point, not only because it's his friend that dies because of his actions, but because he didn't know, which means any of his friends might be next, a sacrifice to his greater cause.

-THANKS FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK, NOW BACK TO THE ANIME!

-okay, around ten months ago eren "began to act on his own." whatever that means. i'm trying to figure out how long he was missing for - the general consensus seems to be he was in marley for 1-2 months, so a few months at most.

-you know what i love? you could ask a number of people their favorite aot character, and they'll all have different answers, and to every answer you can say 'oh yes, ofc it's eren/levi/mikasa/armin/hange/etc, why wouldn't they be, they're awesome' BC EVERYONE IS SO WELL-CRAFTED FFS

-funny how they think eren is being manipulated by zeke when it's zeke being manipulated by eren.

-oh man the niccolo-gabi confrontation is so good

-so killing zackley was part of zeke and yelena's plan

-the gabi-eren parallels get more interesting the more you get into them. they start similarly, with the same rage and tenacity, but eren is the result of the escalating violence, cruelty and injustice, whereas gabi is the product of a concentrated effort to bring the kids out of the forest so to speak.

-I AM NOT READY FOR THE EREN-MIKASA-ARMIN RESTAURANT SCENE! i'll never be ready for that scene.

-they're really taking their time with the pauses and silences, good good good

-in retrospect everything is so on point. like armin asking eren, "what did you really come here to say?" bc this conversation wasn't about eren hating mikasa and armin at all and armin got that.

-i can't stress this enough- ZEKE'S STORY IS SO GOOD! i just detest him.

-i was screaming so hard when eren agreed to the euthanasia plan in the manga. i had such a breakdown. but in hindsight, at least in the anime, he doesn't say "yes i agree with the euthanasia plan." every single thing he says is true to what he actually does, except that zeke thinks he agrees with him bc of the context.

-isn't it funny how it's jean of all people being like "but if eren isn't crazy, he must have a good reason to hurt armin and mikasa"

-whose are these high-pitched screams when yelena kills griez, there are only the boys in there and mikasa, and mikasa ain't gonna be screaming!

-to this day armin's reaction to yelena's plan creeps me out. "i'm moved." the general consensus seems to be he was crying out of relief that eren didn't betray them bc he was certain that eren wouldn't agree to euthanasia and it confirms to him that he does know eren after all, then played it up to make yelena trust them. i'll take it. he's a good lil snake, armin is <3

-ah a pity, the panel of galliard about to eat eren is more majestic. but i don't care, this has been an excellent season. and yeah, that's another thing eren didn't know, and he didn't know pieck would pull all of this - he isn't omniscient.

-DON'T DO THAT, I'M WEAK FOR LOOSE HAIR EREN HE LOOKS SO VULNERABLE argh i hate aot, i love it so unbelievably much