#nea d. campbell

[lovesitcomsandgaystuffs]

what do y'all know about doomed siblings

[poppystheories]

About the song.

Why is it "my key" and "my Timcanpy" but it's "Allen's music"?

The lullaby is one of the ongoing mysteries in DGM, with its origins yet unknown. It's used to control the White Ark, which is supposedly the same Ark the Noah have been using for 7,000 years, but...

Well, Nea is very explicitly referred to as the musician. We know he could control the Ark, and even had a hidden room in the Ark the Earl never knew about. Had the room always been there, or did Nea add it? Was it always this particular song that had to be played to control the Ark, or before Nea, was the Ark controlled another way?

I think before Nea and Mana, the controls had to be different, if the song is specifically Allen's.

In the anime, Nea says:

Hoshino could have just had Nea say "my key, my Timcanpy, my music score", but every version makes it seem that Nea considers the song to be Allen's, not his or Mana's.

Did Nea write the song for Allen? Did Allen teach them the song? Why use it to control the Ark? With recent details in mind, I'm very curious about this...

[cinammonelles]

Regardless of what his relationship was with the twins, this whole arc made me realise how truly painful the whole ordeal had been for Cross.

He's known them since they were kids. And then Nea died in a horribly awful way and left a message that merely said "Find and protect Allen", and Mana lost his mind and memories and morphed into someone who was barely a shell of himself and Cross had to witness his downward spiral till he drew his last breath.

It must've been so deja vu for Cross. We don't know for sure if he was there when Nea and Mana were on the run from the previous gen of Noahs but Cross was Nea's ally. And at the very least he definitely knows how they struggled.

And then Nea died and Mana kept running alone. With Nea's last words reverberating in his head that was otherwise empty of most of the other memories they shared. Cross at the very least had Tim. Even though he served as an painful reminder of the relationship he shared with the twins(and Nea in particular).

But Mana was alone till he met Allen(the dog). And then even Allen died and he couldn't even mourn him. It somehow led to him befriending Red, the real "Allen", which again, ultimately resulted in....

And Cross had to witness all of that. He had to witness all of that and continue like nothing happened while also raising Allen and making sure he didn't find out any of it.

Its just so irrevocably sad

(Translation creds to Kougeki scans)

[candy-crackpot]

saw this meme format and I had to

[justacynicalromantic]

When you look at something precious🥺❤️

[poupeesdecirque]

Same but different.

Monthly Nea featuring Mana as Nea alone is .... tragic.

[frankencanon]

[haine-kleine]

[ray-nick-sen]

Sketches with Nea and Mana :3

[ttherubi]

Let's get a taste of my fake family!

[fantasyview]

Thoughts on Nea D Campbell

[poppystheories]

The Lala and Gozul Containment Post:

This was admittedly the part I was looking forward to the least in my reread. Not because of anything bad, but because, well, there's a lot of foreshadowing here and lot of conclusions you can draw and a lot of them make me deeply unhappy.

Upon actually rereading, I came to several realizations that actually made me more optimistic about Allen's future haha

But lets take it from the top.

Starting off with an incredible chapter cover: Kanda and Allen, back to back, the cross inbetween them. Yes, it gives me Pillar vibes too. We're gonna ignore that for the moment because I don't have a clue how to interpret that. It could mean anything. Or nothing.

Lala and Gozul in front. The composition here definitely highlights all the Lala and Allen parallels we're going to cover below, but Gozul parallels both Allen and Kanda a bit, so he's in the middle.

Lala is very, very Allen-coded. The lie is she is a child abandoned by humans, found and kept by a malfunctioning ancient being.

The reality is Lala is not a real child, she was not abandoned by any parents, and she is created by Innocence. Likewise, Allen was also not a "real" abandoned child, but someone remade by Innocence.

Her left eye and left arm are also, well, fucked up.

She even fights the same way Allen did earlier this same arc, by using her strength to tear apart the crumbling city and throw it at her enemy:

But Gozul is also kinda Allen coded, right? In terms of role, as a disfigured human raised by malfunctioning ancient being. Gozul feels responsible for destroying Lala himself, because he loves her and doesn't want anyone else to do it if it has to happen. It's not hard to think as this as the probable end of Allen's story with the Earl.

It is also a parallel with Kanda and Alma, and how both Kanda and Alma felt like they had to be the ones to destroy each other. Someday, Alma will die in this same place.

But there's another person we're missing in this story.

Nea.

If Mana has to die, Nea wants to be the one to do it. If the original Allen was going to be erased, Nea wanted to be the one to do it. If the current Allen, all that's left of Nea's friend, has to disappear, Nea wants to be the one to do it.

The wish to "stay together forever" comes up repeatedly between various pairs of characters throughout the story, but especially Allen/Nea and Mana/Earl. It also comes up between Kanda and Alma. They all just want to be together with their loved ones until the end. This desire is without a doubt Hoshino's idea of "love".

Allen clearly sees himself in both Lala and Gozul and their ongoing tragedy. He can relate to them both, and he got to stay with Mana until what he thought was the very end, as Mana gradually slipped away.

He understands how they both were desperate for acceptance, abused by everyone they'd ever met before. How Lala was getting angrier and angrier at the world's rejection of her, just like he was as Red. How Gozul clung to the first hint kindness, just like he clung to Mana and Allen the dog.

Gozul and Lala "saved" each other and lived their lives together. Alma and Kanda got to be together, at the very end. They found their own peace together.

Notably, one of each pair did not destroy the other. Gozul did not take out Lala's heart, like he said he wanted to. Kanda thought he'd killed Alma, but it wasn't true, and in the end Alma asked Kanda to not destroy him with Innocence, but to let the Akuma-transformation kill him. Kanda agreed, and Alma crumbled to dust.

The "one destroys the other out of love" is not the conclusion reached here.

But, Allen is both sides of his own equation here. He's got a lot in common with Lala and Gozul. He's got a lot in common with Kanda and Alma. He's both Nea's Lala and Mana's Gozul.

There's also a big emphasis on Lala's heart. And this cover, with Allen placing a hand over his own heart. Later on, we'll see a very similar cover with Krory.

Yeahhhhhhh. Time will tell how that ties in to everything. Let's just keep it in mind going forward.

Lala gets reset after they retrieve her heart from the Akuma and attempt to restore her. The parallel with Mana, after being devastated by Red's Innocence, is obvious. He's no longer "Mana"—Nea already lost his chance to destroy "Mana" himself.

But this also parallels Allen becoming "Allen", no longer remembering Nea or the previous Junior, just a living puppet of the Innocence. Much like Lala was broken by the Akuma before Gozul could break her himself, the friend Nea was going to erase was erased by Apocryphos long before Nea even woke up again.

To Nea, both the Earl and Allen are broken dolls.

But, that's now how the story ends. Despite it seeming hopeless, Lala does remember who she is, in the end. Because Gozul didn't break her, at some point over the three days Allen patiently let her sing, Lala remembered herself.

The idea of managing to keep a promise at the end, despite having lost oneself, is very important here!

We haven't seen what Mana was like before he "died"; Allen's retelling of it is bleak. But I'm not so sure that's accurate. Maybe Mana regained awareness at some point of the time they spent together, maybe there's more to the story Allen doesn't know. Or maybe Mana will regain awareness, will remember who he really is, and the Earl will peacefully surrender his "heart", like Lala did, after fulfilling a promise.

As for "Allen"...

Allen is Nea's Lala, but "Allen" is Mana's Gozul. If "Allen" remembers being Allen, restores himself like Lala did, what of current "Allen"? And what will it cost? If Allen surrenders to Nea, Nea will kill someone they both love.

Kanda says that to save something, something else must be sacrificed, but what's actually established in this arc is: destroying what you love with your hands isn't the answer. Nea is wrong.

[cinammonelles]

Okay but the parallels between nea dying in mana's arms and then mana dying with allen(nea's host) in his arms

[dgrayman-heartofgold]

[justacynicalromantic]

🥲

🥲

[poupeesdecirque]

This year I was somehow blessed with plenty of christmas themed ideas and they all wanted to be drawn, all at once.

First my idea was just one for Allen because of his birthday. Then i thought something to honor my little fic 'Silent night' from last year and then ... Noah shenanigans while making a gingerbread hous.... tent.

The last one was the most fun of them all.