#qilin spoilers

[teartra]

Still on my Sound the Gong brainrot

[ninadove]

Nepotism? In my French government? It’s more likely than you think

sorry I’m still not over it

[suzena]

Complete Dead Apple Explanation

Or: “The Ultimate Guide to Dead Apple”.

Warning: this is a long post! I’m not kidding, I worked on this for three months. There is a TL;DR at the end but it will only briefly cover the most important points.

I see posts about Dead Apple not being understood far too often and so I’m introducing: this explanation! I do want to preface this by saying that I can completely understand that this movie can be confusing. Or, as Fyodor said it:

But, as someone who has seen it many times, I’m here to shed some light on it! Hopefully after this post it’ll all make a bit more sense, and you’ll at least have different questions.

If you haven’t watched the movie yet and are wondering when to watch it, the story officially takes place between season two and three, though you’ll be able to watch season three with no issues if you haven’t watched the movie. Please do note that this post will contain light spoilers for the plot after season two, so don’t read it if you haven’t at least finished catching up to the anime.

I’ll try not to summarize the movie, but instead explain it. That means that this post does not replace the movie, but instead tries to elaborate upon it and tries to place it in the larger plot. Most of the early movie is therefore ignored, but please do not hesitate to ask if you have extra questions, comments, different interpretations or you want me to go into more detail about something. I may not know everything, but I’m always down to talk about this movie!

Alright, with all of that out of the way…

The Dragon Head Conflict

We’ll start at the beginning, which is to say, we’ll start at the prologue, which can be found as a permanent event in Mayoi (and also as a part of the Dead Apple manga). This is not technically needed to understand most of the movie, but it does give some context that will make it a little easier, since this is where it all starts. 

The Dragon Head Conflict, sometimes also translated as the Ryuuzu Conflict, is (as the movie states) the largest conflict in the history of Yokohama’s underworld. It took place six years ago, and originally was about five hundred billion yen an ability user left behind after they died, which various organizations were very interested in. It lasted for a total of 88 days, and involved conflict between eight different underworld organizations, including among others the Port Mafia, Gelhart Security Service/GSS (from Fifteen) and Takasekai (also from Fifteen).

Now as you can imagine, the government isn’t super stoked that gangs are shooting each other up all night and leaving corpses everywhere, to the point where the sidewalk is torn up from the bullet holes. To try to combat this, they thought that they could best fight fire with fire, and let a strong ability user from outside Yokohama settle this conflict all at once.

This new ability user, known as the “White Qilin”, unfortunately doesn’t really care about ending the conflict and kills other strong ability users left and right just for the fun of it, contrary to what the government had hoped he would do. Whether they are uninvolved parties or Port Mafia executives, it doesn’t matter to this guy. The White Qilin also ends up taking the money the conflict was originally about, but that doesn’t stop his murder spree. In this way, the White Qilin gains control over the entire conflict pretty fast, making him the main target to eliminate in order to put a stop to the killings.

Dazai approaches this problem similarly as to how he did during the conflict of Stormbringer, with a group of ability users to overpower the lone individual, but gets his plan twisted on him and gets kidnapped instead. Naturally, he predicted this outcome, leaving a hint for Chuuya where he left a transmitter for a tracking device so that Chuuya could come rescue him. 

This is then the first scene of the movie, where Dazai and Chuuya confront and defeat the White Qilin using Corruption, and the whole Dragon Head Conflict ends since the White Qilin is finally gone and all the money burned. This battle is so iconic in the underground circles that it gains them the name “Double Black”, or “Soukoku”.

A few small notes on the Dragon Head Conflict before we move on.

As can also be seen in the first scene of the movie, this is where Oda adopts all five of those kids you see during the Dark Age, which was also already stated in the Dark Age itself. 

“I heard all about it, Odasaku. You’re raising five kids, huh? And not only that, they’re orphans from the Dragon’s Head Conflict.” ―Dazai, Dark Age

Also, ever wondered why the Port Mafia is the only major criminal organization in Yokohama? There actually used to be five in total but four of them completely perished during the Dragon Head Conflict. Another reason why Dazai & Chuuya ending the conflict is so impressive, since because of that the Port Mafia is the only one to even survive it at all.

Shibusawho?

As you’ve probably guessed by now, the “White Qilin”, also named “the Collector” in Dead Apple itself, are both different names for our main antagonist: Shibusawa Tatsuhiko. The government had good reason to believe Shibusawa would be able to stand against the entire Yokohama underground and come out on top: his ability.

Shibusawa’s ability, Draconia, creates a fog around him, which separates other ability users from their own ability and makes non-ability users disappear as long as the fog persists. When surrounded by this fog, ability users are confronted with this version of their ability that is split from themselves. If an ability user is to die within this fog, their ability will be added to Draconia’s collection room.

There is decent evidence that it takes a while before the fog activates, so the effect isn’t immediate. This can be seen with Chuuya, who makes very short contact with the fog before he lifts up the building that he shoves in the Dragon’s mouth, but it’s seen even more clearly with Atsushi and Kyouka at the start of the movie. They spend a small while running around Yokohama wondering why everyone is gone before they’re finally confronted with their abilities.

To some extent the separated abilities represent the inner conflict in an ability user. This can of course be clearly found in Atsushi and his shaky connection to the tiger, or in Kyouka who has Demon Snow which is the last remnant of her parents but also murdered them in front of her. But the clearest example of this in the movie is actually Kunikida, since there is a visible change between him and his ability.

The notebook of Kunikida’s ability does not read its usual “理想” (ideals), but instead now says “妥協” (compromise). For Kunikida, a person so tied to his ideals, this version of his ability is an “abomination” (his words, not mine), and thus a source of inner conflict, since it represents a side of Kunikida that he carries within him.

“A copy of himself that didn’t follow ideals but made compromises was an abomination to Kunikida.”―Dead Apple (light novel)

If ability users manage to defeat their abilities in a physical fight, and then also accept these parts of themselves for what they represent, they will regain their ability. For example, Atsushi does not immediately regain his ability after defeating the tiger because he does not completely accept that the tiger represents that he has killed a person. For Atsushi, a person who connects his entire reason of living to saving other people, this is nearly irreconcilable. The only reason he probably is able to get over it in the end is that the person he killed was actively torturing and trying to kill him, so Atsushi had to kill to survive.

Shibusawa, then, is dead. Chronologically, his murder is the earliest you see of him. Fyodor has told Shibusawa that Atsushi contains something that “guides the envy of all ability users”, so Shibusawa, who feels like he is missing something, seeks to take this by any means. This doesn’t work out too hot for him, and Atsushi kills him.

Now a fun thing happens. Since Shibusawa is the center of the fog at all times, so to speak, and he’s the keeper of the abilities that die in his fog, his ability is separated from himself and lives on, nearly indistinguishable from his original body. Only one downside to this: he completely loses his memories.

I can only assume the government steps in at this point to take this strong ability user in his vulnerable state, and then have him solve the Dragon Head Conflict not long after. He most likely also survived Chuuya’s Corruption by being an ability, and having ability crystals in his collection to fall back on and recover, as he also does in Dead Apple. However, all of that is just pure speculation.

After the Dragon Head Conflict, Shibusawa spends some years abroad, casually killing thousands of ability users for the same reason as during the Dragon Head Conflict: just playing around and trying to fill that hole of something that is missing inside of him. The Japanese government mostly does a spectacular and spectacularly unethical job of cleaning up after him, since they learned nothing from the Dragon Head Conflict and still think that they can control him to protect Japan should it ever be invaded by foreign ability users.

Eventually, when the timing is right, Shibusawa gets invited back to Japan by Dazai. At the same time he is told by Fyodor (can you see the manipulation happening on both sides?) that Dazai’s ability is the ultimate ability that will finally complete him, and so Shibusawa eagerly comes to Yokohama. 

From here on out, as far as Shibusawa is concerned, it’s just a matter of covering the entire city in fog, killing Dazai and then taking his ability. Since Dazai cancels the fog itself with his ability, Shibusawa does need to kill him first, since the fog will work just fine on a corpse. Unfortunately, Shibusawa, however smart he is, is not in control of the plot in this movie. That control is left entirely to the combination of Dazai and Fyodor.

Intermezzo: Singularity Crash Course

Let’s do a lightning quick crash course on singularities before continuing, because you’re going to need that to understand what is happening in the next part. While Stormbringer was released after Dead Apple, I’m still going to be leaning heavily on and paraphrasing the information provided in that novel since it gives a really nice overview.

Abilities are bound to rules, just like everything else. No organisms other than humans, such as plants or monkeys, can possess an ability. Each human can only have a single ability, and when they die the ability disappears with them. Finally, there is a limit to the strength of any such ability.

But what if you wanted to go beyond that limit? What if you wanted to play with the natural laws of this world? What if you wanted to get really silly with it? Well, in that case, you can try your best at creating a singularity.

Singularities are defined as “the interaction of multiple abilities that develops into a higher-level phenomenon different from the original abilities”. This mostly exhibits itself in a massive release of energy, but rarely there are semi-stable versions of them. Singularities aren’t bound to conventional rules, and can be much more powerful for that exact reason.

As for creating singularities, there are two defined ways. The most reliable method is to have two contradicting abilities clash with each other. This leads to fun mental exercises, think “unstoppable force meets immovable object”, or, two ability users who can both see a few seconds into the future fighting to the death (sound familiar?). As a second method, an ability can also contradict itself, essentially causing the same result, but it’s a lot more finicky.

“Dead Apple”

The latter part of the movie revolves around exactly the creation of such a singularity, as all planned out by Fyodor, and accurately anticipated by Dazai. Let’s lay out all the layers of this.

Shibusawa is after Dazai’s ability. Meanwhile, Dazai is trying to stop the fog to save Yokohama. As for Fyodor, we’ll get to him in a second.

Dazai “teams up” with Fyodor and betrays Shibusawa to put a stop to the fog. The idea of this is that Fyodor combines two abilities from Shibusawa’s collection, which Dazai can’t do himself without canceling them: the ability to pull abilities in a surrounding area close, and the ability to merge abilities together. When these two are merged, together they create an ability that will absorb Shibusawa’s entire collection, and then Dazai only has to touch this ability to effectively get rid of Shibusawa’s power source.

There is a specific reason why it has to happen like this, and Dazai just touching Shibusawa isn’t quite enough. Let’s mentally walk through the process if Dazai were to touch Shibusawa. The fog disappears for a bit (and Shibusawa with it, most likely), but Shibusawa now knows Dazai’s intentions. Fyodor will take Shibusawa’s side and now Dazai is at a large disadvantage. Ultimately, it doesn’t even solve the problem. We know from the Dragon Head Conflict that just destroying Shibusawa’s body is most likely not enough, and he will be able to resummon the fog (and his body) with time and energy. The problem needs to be cut off at the root, the ability crystals.

Unfortunately, Fyodor didn’t really team up with Dazai, instead choosing to team up with Shibusawa in order to get rid of Dazai. This is then where Shibusawa gets to kill Dazai, and discovers that wait, Dazai’s ability may not be what he’s seeking after all. However, the abilities are already merged, and Dazai’s ability joins them. This combines “the ability to merge” with “the ability to nullify”, which don’t exactly mix well. Does Dazai’s ability become part of the other ability? Does his ability nullify the merging ability before that can happen? It’s already part of it, but at the same time the merging can never happen. It’s contradictory, and thus a singularity is born.

Fyodor, meanwhile, hasn’t quite had his fill of betrayal yet, and decides to remind Shibusawa of what he is by killing him, reminding Shibusawa of his earlier death by Atsushi’s paw. All of this, killing Dazai and using his ability to create a singularity, having that power from the singularity then go into Shibusawa to create the Dragon, all of that was part of Fyodor’s plan. Shibusawa is only able to cover an entire city with fog because of the large amount of ability crystals he has collected, and so with enough power (like from a singularity) he can cover the entire world in this fog. Up until this point, neither Fyodor nor Shibusawa have seen a single ability user survive the fog, and thus it is the perfect method for getting rid of all ability users in the world, which does seem to be Fyodor’s end goal.

However, Chuuya swoops in and defeats the Dragon. Dazai was well prepared and had the antidote to the poison he was killed with hidden in his mouth, so he is alive and well again. That means that Dazai has his ability back and it cancels out the singularity space they both are in. It doesn’t completely get rid of the Dragon however, as some energy still lingers around the tower. 

Fyodor is still on the scene, and uses a part of the merging crystal that he saved which was used earlier to create the singularity to merge Shibusawa with the singularity, giving Shibusawa a very anime transformation into his final form.

At this point, as a result of Shibusawa’s transformation, the fog turns red. If this red fog then covers the entire planet as Fyodor is hoping, and you were to watch it from space, it would look just like a poisonous red apple. The name of the movie therefore refers to this plan of using Shibusawa to rid the world of ability users.

This idea of poisonous apples in this movie comes from two different sources. From Fyodor’s side, it is referring to the apple Eve ate in the Bible, the original sin. For Fyodor, there is poetic irony in this: the world will end with the same sin as it began with. The crime is the punishment. On Dazai’s side, it refers to Snow White, who bit the poison apple and died (temporarily). He already talks about this to Oda when he is sixteen, vaguely implying he knew all of this was coming as soon as he met Shibusawa during the Dragon Head Conflict. Since Fyodor was already around at that time and also had a hand in enabling Shibusawa originally, this may indeed be planned out this far in advance, but it’s always hard to tell with these guys.

Then the kids take over the fight for the rest of the movie, and Atsushi, Akutagawa and Kyouka work together to defeat Shibusawa’s final form in the form of a long, epic final fight. Shibusawa is finally defeated and it all ends happily ever after. 

The End.

Byakko VS The Dragon

…Or is it? You thought we covered the entire basic layer of the movie, so we’re done now, right? Think again! This is only where things start to become really interesting. Please note that this section will take some ideas that were already pointed out by other people, and build on those.

When looking at lore relevance of characters, Atsushi may not immediately spring to mind as one of the most important ones. Sure, he’s the protagonist of the main manga, but in comparison to the mystery surrounding Dazai or Fyodor he fades a little into the background.

Even in this post, an explanation about a movie that’s basically about Atsushi, I’m able to explain the basics of the movie without mentioning him much at all. And yet, the movie’s core conflict is not between Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor, but between Shibusawa and Atsushi.

While there isn’t a lot of information given about Shibusawa’s and Atsushi’s connection, what we do get is very interesting. Shibusawa is consistently referred to as a Dragon during Dead Apple, and while subtitles usually translate everything as “tiger”, Atsushi’s tiger is actually referred to as “Byakko” half of the time. 

Now what is the difference between any good ol’ normal tiger and the Byakko, I hear you ask. The Byakko is much more than an ordinary tiger, since it is part of the 四神 (shijin/ shishin), the Four Guardians of the Four Compass Directions, which the Dragon is also a part of. What you essentially need to know from this is that the Byakko belongs to the same group of creatures as the Dragon, and that this solidifies Shibusawa’s status as Atsushi’s foil in this movie.

It also allows us to make a direct comparison between Shibusawa and Atsushi. The thing is, I have been lying to you a little bit. So far, I’ve been calling the Dragon a singularity. The truth is, it may not be. I know, I know, if it’s not a singularity, then what was that whole Dragon thing about?

Fyodor actually specifically tells us that the Dragon isn’t a singularity, but instead it’s “the true form of the chaos born from abilities”. (Note here that the Dead Apple light novel talks about Fyodor as if he is “reciting some Oracle”. Did Fyodor get this information from someone else?) Is this related to why Fyodor wants abilities gone from this world? Is there another layer to abilities and other creatures that BSD hasn’t even touched upon (think Lovecraft)? It’s hard to say at this point. All we can say is that the Dragon gets referred to as something else, and… that the Dragon is similar to the Byakko.

The tiger ability we see that got separated from Atsushi in the movie actually doesn’t follow the rules the other abilities do. It has a clearly defined face, and the red gem is not on its forehead. The gem found on the ability tiger is also red, which is in line with the other extracted abilities we see, but what gets extracted from Atsushi by Shibusawa is this blue cube. The weirdness continues in the flashback we see of Atsushi being tortured by Shibusawa. 

We see Atsushi’s ability leave him, but then in a flash of self protection instinct, he partially transforms into the tiger, claws and all, while the blue gem is outside of his body. Earlier in the movie it is shown that if an ability is extracted from an ability user, they no longer have access to the powers of that ability. Then how is Atsushi able to use his tiger abilities here? 

Granted, there is a bit of conflicting information within the movie about this, since during the final fight with Shibusawa this blue cube is once again extracted from Atsushi, but now he does lose his tiger powers. Could he resummon the tiger while not in possession of the cube if the situation is dire enough? Is this just a psychological thing because Atsushi is aware of it this time? Who can say. At any rate, this blue cube is connected deeply with Atsushi, but the clues given imply that it may not be the Byakko itself.

“That’s not an ability! That is me!”―Atsushi, reaching out to the blue cube in Dead Apple

To be honest, the movie does very little in explaining anything around Atsushi, instead raising more questions than answers. For that exact reason, the rest of this section will mostly be speculation about one possible angle on Atsushi’s ability that personally makes sense to me, but of course this is only one potential theory.

I do also want to add here that Atsushi personally goes through an arc in this movie from seeing the tiger as something separate to something that is intrinsically part of him. This can also be a reason for this final exclamation of “that’s me!” when he reaches out to the blue cube, but it doesn’t explain everything, which is why we explore an alternate possibility here.

My take on it is that the Byakko and this blue gem that get extracted from Atsushi are not the same thing. With the side note here being that they are probably deeply connected, but not the same regardless. 

My reasoning for this is that everything Atsushi-related you see in Dead Apple makes a little more sense when you consider the Byakko and the blue cube as two separate entities. The Byakko’s gem is red, the cube is blue. The Byakko is framed as something separate from Atsushi, while he claims the cube is not an ability but he himself. Atsushi had access to the Byakko while the blue cube was outside of him. Shibusawa even makes a point of mentioning that the orphanage director, who correctly thought Atsushi was the tiger, had the wrong idea about Atsushi’s ability. The Byakko is definitely Atsushi’s ability, but this blue cube is… something else. 

And yet, the tiger is also deeply connected to whatever this blue gem is. Currently, one theory that makes sense to me is that the tiger is an ability that can be passed on, just like Demon Snow, that has the specific task of protecting the power of this blue gem. So, a two in one deal. Atsushi also gets referred to as “the one holding the Byakko ability” by Ivan, which would be in line with the Byakko being an ability that can be passed on as needed. Shibusawa makes a similar statement, calling Atsushi “the one clad in the Byakko”. Atsushi also has issues controlling his ability before joining the ADA, just like Kyouka and Tsujimura, who both also inherited their abilities. I would love to further speculate on this, but there is so little information on anything relating to this, so anything further would be completely baseless.

However, there is one more different clue given to us by the movie. Namely, what this comparison to the Dragon means for Atsushi as the one holding the Byakko.

Almost in the same breath as Shibusawa is recounting Fyodor’s words about the Dragon being the chaos of all abilities, the holder of the Byakko also gets its own description about its true form: the one opposing all abilities.

This relates to what the blue cube may really be. What Atsushi does to Shibusawa in his final moments is what I essentially believe to be this blue cube’s true power: it completely unravels an ability. The blue power eats up everything supernatural about Shibusawa until only his natural skull is left.

If you think this sounds familiar, it kind of does! I cannot ignore the similarity to Dazai here, though I do have to point out that Dazai can only cancel out an ability, and this blue cube power seems to… completely erase the ability itself, leaving no trace of it. The similarity to Dazai is further found the moment Dazai dies and his ability leaves his body. At first, his ability is white and vaguely similar to the blue cube before deciding that nope, this is just barely not it.

I have a hard time connecting this to anything larger simply because the series does not give a lot of clues on this subject. How did abilities come to be? How is the Book related to that, since it is not an ability or borne from an ability? And how does Atsushi factor into this? 

Shibusawa has been led to Atsushi since he believed Atsushi would grant him something special, something he had been looking for all this time. “That which every ability user desires.” 

This is actually a familiar story! This is not the first time Fyodor has led someone to Atsushi with the premise that he would be able to lead them to what they were seeking. The first two seasons of the anime follow that specific idea, of Fitzgerald wanting Atsushi so he can lead him to the Book.

The tiger as the guide to the Book is something emphasized again and again. While in English it gets translated as “guide”, the original manga panel said “道標（タイガービートル）”, or, “guidepost (pronounced: tiger beetle, in English)”. While this is partially just a funny pun, it also once again points to the tiger specifically as a guide.

It did leave me to wonder about the absence of a certain scene in the series. Fyodor has been sending other people to Atsushi for the entire length of the series, but has never interacted with Atsushi himself. For someone who claims to be looking for the Book, and knows that Atsushi is somehow the guide to the Book, isn’t that a bit weird? Is there a reason Fyodor won’t interact with Atsushi himself? Fyodor knew about Atsushi way before he joined the ADA, so it’s not like Dazai is particularly standing in the way here.

Regardless, this factor that makes Atsushi so special may very well be this blue cube. How does the power to completely undo abilities lead to the Book? Who knows. We simply do not know enough about the Book or the origin of abilities to say more about this. Maybe the true power of the blue cube is something else entirely.

What does all of this mean? Where will it all lead? Only the future (Asagiri) can tell.

The Unexplained and Weird

Welcome to the section I’d fondly refer to as “a collection of things I have no explanation for”. There is plenty of that in this movie, but I do want to touch upon them since not being explainable as of currently does not necessarily mean that they aren’t important in the future. Also, not having an explanation for these things is driving me insane and I need to share in my suffering. Let’s go! :)

Let’s get the big thing out of the way first.

Mukurotoride, my friend, my enemy. For those unaware, Mukurotoride is the name of the large black tower that Shibusawa, Dazai and Fyodor were chilling in for most of the movie. The name gets translated as “Skull Fortress”, but the kanji used gives the name more of a “Dead Man’s Castle” feeling, since it refers to a person long since dead more than a skull. My problem with this tower is as follows: it doesn’t make any sense. Whatsoever.

Why is it there? Fifteen establishes it’s there seven years before the current timeline, so a year before Shibusawa dies. I would’ve accepted it if the tower was a weird side effect of Shibusawa dying or something, but the current facts point towards this tower not having anything to do with Shibusawa at all. It’s also very decayed. How long has it been there? Who put it there? Is it relevant that it’s right next to Suribachi? Or in the Yokohama foreign settlement? (Side note: foreign settlements have not been a thing since 1899. What’s up with Yokohama having a foreign settlement?) No one seems to know anything about this tower, not even in the Japanese community. And then in-universe, everyone also seems okay with this wildly out-of-place tower that looks like it’s made out of human bones being there in the middle of the city? It’s giving me Sky Casino vibes.

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, we can talk about Fyodor’s ability.

I want to start this part by explaining my personal stance on the current Fyodor theories, since it influences how I talk about what is shown of his ability in Dead Apple. There are a bunch of theories about Fyodor having an insta-kill ability that only works on non-ability users. Personally, I don’t subscribe to this theory, and I have multiple reasons for this.

First, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Fyodor’s ability being used. At the end of Cannibalism a cop dies as soon as he touches Fyodor. In the manga abilities don’t have a special shine effect, but in the anime they do. However, in the anime there was no ability-shine here.

A stronger argument, perhaps, is that this happens right in front of Dazai, and Dazai immediately afterwards says he has no clue what Fyodor’s ability could be. He could be lying, of course, but since this is a common enemy he shares with Fitzgerald, who is the one asking him about Fyodor’s ability, I don’t see any reason for him to do so here. The whole murder reads a little bit like Fyodor just putting on a show for Dazai.

Finally, from a narrative viewpoint, killing with a touch is a little… useless? Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure it’s convenient, I guess, when you’re a terrorist who seeks to exterminate part of the global population. But there are many ways to kill a person, and Fyodor has shown time after time that he doesn’t need to rely on an ability to murder people.

The strongest argument for the insta-kill ability in my opinion is Fyodor himself saying “this is my true ability” before killing that kid who was enslaved by Ace. However, this may also be part of something else that is going on with Fyodor, in a way that is perhaps very similar to Atsushi.

Alright. Whether you agree with that or not is up to you. To get back to the movie, there are a few interesting clues provided about Fyodor’s ability.

The first is of course Fyodor’s iconic line when his ability shows up on screen: “Crime and Punishment are close friends.” Everything he says after that point is already referring to Shibusawa again, so this is the only clue he himself is willing to offer up. If we consider that the abilities that get split from their users represent inner conflict, all he is saying here is that he apparently has no inner conflict. Does he know something else about the world? Does he just know who he is? Honestly, I don’t think we’ll get anywhere talking about Fyodor’s mental state.

Then there is the “I am Crime”, spoken by Fyodor holding the skull, and “I am Punishment”, spoken by his ability holding the apple. This one is slightly more straightforward. The ability user being the crime, and the ability the punishment. I’m not 100% sure if this is actually referring to Fyodor himself, or if it’s just about Shibusawa again. The skull (Shibusawa, an ability user) being the crime, and then the apple (covering the world with fog through Shibusawa’s ability, thus punishing ability users) being the punishment makes sense when viewed like this, but it could be that Fyodor is somehow also referring to himself during these lines.

Okay, if Fyodor is apparently not willing to open up, we can gather some more info just from what we can see instead of what we’re told. Most of what this part covers is taken from these excellent posts, but I’ll summarize it here for the sake of completion. Fyodor’s ability looks different compared to most other abilities. Most of the abilities shown in the movie have a blank face without any features, and have their gem on their forehead. The exception to that first part, interestingly enough, is Elise, Mori’s ability. This is most likely because she has physical form as an ability to begin with. Which then raises the question: does Fyodor’s ability also have a physical form outside of the fog? His ability looks identical, so that would imply some sort of clone ability. Next to this, Fyodor’s epithet is “The Conjurer”, which would be in line with him being able to create another copy of himself. (Though I should add here that the Japanese seems to just refer to him as “魔神”, which can be any type of evil spirit. However, if I’m not mistaken, the “Conjurer” should be from the official translation, but let me know if I’m mistaken on that.)

Finally, there is the position of the gem on Fyodor’s ability. Nearly all other abilities have their gem on their forehead, but for some reason Fyodor’s ability has his on his hand. The only other ability that has its gem not on its forehead is… the Byakko. I don’t have an explanation for this one, but the weirdness should be pointed out, since it’s another way in which Fyodor’s ability deviates from the others.

Next to the above, there are two other weird details I want to quickly touch upon.

First, the knives in the apples in the dish in Mukuroride, as well as the apples with a knife in them in general, as they are the theme of this movie. I believe this to be of a more metaphorical touch, so we won’t read too much into it, but it does have physical consequences that tie back to the title as well.

This exact shot is used four times throughout the movie, but with a varying amount of knives stuck in the apples. It starts with one, then two, then three. The room starts with just Dazai, then Shibusawa enters, then Fyodor. With each of them showing up, another knife appears in an apple. This is then a metaphor for these three being the instigators behind the Dead Apple incident. These knives in the apples can also be seen as their calling cards, as they were left both at the bar and at the scene of the crime where that agent was killed who was supposed to meet with Kunikida and Tanizaki. 

In a later scene, it cuts again to this frame, but a knife and the skull has disappeared. These both get taken by Fyodor. The knife is used eventually to kill Shibusawa, but Shibusawa also took one of these knives to kill Dazai with. Either way, these knives that have been in these apples are used to murder, once again corroborating the connection between death and apples.

And finally, the relevance of the moon. 

There are a few impressive shots of the moon in Dead Apple, where the moon is shown to be enormous, to the point where even the light novel points out how extraordinarily large it is. The novel also points out that the blue cube crystal holds a similarity to the moonlight. Just symbolism to show that it’s connected to Atsushi, or something more? The other side of the page in the main series will also only be written on the night… of the next full moon.

The Point of It All

I hear a lot of “Dead Apple doesn’t matter to the plot, just watch it for the Soukoku scenes and move on”. And while I do agree that it’s not mandatory viewing to understand the storyline that corresponds with season three onwards, I do think there is more to Dead Apple than most people give it credit for.

I always like to ask myself after reading a book or watching a movie: “Okay, so what was the point of that? What was I meant to take away from this?”

For example, in essence Stormbringer is a case study on singularities. Likewise, BEAST is a study into the limits of the Book, and all other side stories similarly have a message, however big or small.

So what does Dead Apple establish? Why bother?

I hope by now you agree that Dead Apple seems to be the introduction to explaining more as to what is so special about Atsushi. This seems to go deeper into chapter 28/29 of the manga, or season 2 episode 8 of the anime, where Atsushi also has some weird things going on with the tiger. What this exactly is, or where this seems to be going is unclear for now, but the Dead Apple definitely emphasizes Atsushi’s importance as well as the concept that there can be something more than just abilities.

In-universe, there are also reasons for this conflict to happen.

Most likely both Dazai and Fyodor knew the end result long before the conflict ever started. It’s their reunion in a way, so I suppose they are both seeing how the other’s condition is at the moment. They may even have gathered some intel somehow? It’s almost like collecting metadata, they won’t have a direct conversation about important things, but they try to collect information just by seeing how the other acts, to see if the other lies within prediction.

Aside from that, on Dazai’s side, except for foiling Fyodor’s plan and keeping Yokohama safe, the Shin Soukoku dynamic also gets strengthened, something Dazai is actively working on. On Fyodor’s side, next to giving the whole “eliminating all ability users” a good honest shot, he also gets to collect a lot of intel on the opposing side. For example, Fyodor in Dead Apple gets to see Corruption up close, which may potentially be relevant.

Finally, from a storytelling perspective, it sets up a lot for the third season, especially in character interactions and relationships, e.g. Atsushi & Akutagawa, Dazai & Chuuya, Kyouka, Fukuzawa & Mori. It should be noted that some characters literally have been intentionally regressed to make the ending make more impact. Whether that was a good decision or not is not why I’m here. You should just know that it’s intentional. You could chalk it up to Atsushi losing his ability impacting him and his behavior a lot, if you wanted to justify it somehow. The Order of the Clock Tower also gets its first anime appearance, showing Agatha Christie on screen, who will most likely play a more important role later on. Likewise, Dead Apple is the introduction to Fyodor as a villain, where you get to see him for more than just a few flashes.

Trivia and Fun Details

I suppose this section is skippable. But who doesn’t love trivia? This is by no means an exhaustive list of everything included in this movie, but rather an overview of what I personally caught, understood and thought relevant to include.

The “Dragon Head” in the Dragon Head Conflict refers to a Qilin, which are said to have similar heads to dragons. Since the conflict centered around the White Qilin, this is where that name comes from.

At some point Akutagawa and Kyouka use a mafia code to refer to a passageway. The code “0505” refers back to Atsushi’s birthday.

The symbol ᛟ found on the outfits of the Mukurotoride squad refers to inheritage, since Shibusawa inherited his own ability. More information about that here.

Dazai at some point meows at Fyodor. This is a very sassy way of telling Fyodor that he will personally eradicate all of Fyodor’s rats in Yokohama, including Fyodor himself. (The light novel calls it a “tedious” meow. Lmao.)

The music from Dead Apple seems to be recycled in season three of the anime. I’m guessing to save on budget?

Atsushi’s door that he eventually opens to unlock his hidden memories has its own music motif that shows up every time he thinks about Shibusawa, the fog or his memories associated with killing him. Try to pay attention to this, it’s really cool.

The motif of the door is also a tune that sounds a lot like the track named Dead Apple, further showing Atsushi’s relevance in his movie.

The lyrics of the soundtrack tell their own story. When the Dead Apple plot first takes off and Dazai is at bar Lupin, a song called My Prince plays telling of Snow White who is sleeping and waiting for her prince. However, it seems to be a spin on the classic, where indeed Snow White chose to knowingly bite the apple knowing it was poisoned, in much the same way as Dazai knew he was going to be poisoned in Dead Apple. Le Cheval Noir tells of how bored the singer is, and how nothing is special to them anymore. This plays during the scene where Dazai talks to Shibusawa, showing Shibusawa’s apathy towards everything. Mein Prinz, the song that plays as Dazai gets backstabbed, is nearly exactly the same song as My Prince, but now more dramatic and in German. This is a clue that Dazai saw this coming from before the Dead Apple conflict even started, and it’s now up to Chuuya again to save him. Overall, Dazai is leaning into the Snow White aesthetic hard in Dead Apple.

And finally, a list of everything the light novel insists refers to the theme of poisonous red apples: the red apples with the knives in them, apple suicide, the merged abilities producing a red sphere, the singularity that results from that in all its forms and the planet covered in red fog. If it’s red and spherical, you can just assume it should represent a deathly apple.

TD;DR

Recapped extremely briefly:

The Dragon Head Conflict introduces Shibusawa as a villain who was kept by the government but went off the rails. Shibusawa’s ability is a fog that splits ability users from their abilities. If ability users die, Shibusawa obtains their ability. Shibusawa died and inherited his own ability, also causing him to lose his memory. Therefore he wants to obtain Dazai's ability in order to gain what he feels he lacks. Dazai betrays Shibusawa together with Fyodor by combining abilities. However, Shibusawa kills Dazai first, adding Dazai's ability to the merged abilities creating a singularity. Fyodor kills Shibusawa, causing him to regain his memory of being previously killed by Atsushi. A dragon is created and defeated, and Fyodor's plan is revealed to be the covering of the entire planet in Shibusawa's fog, killing all ability users. This plan is foiled, but Atsushi is shown to have potentially another power next to his ability (the tiger). This power is possibly the ability to completely unravel abilities, and may be what makes Atsushi the guide to the Book. Mukurotoride is completely left unexplained in the movie, but there are clues given about Fyodor's ability that point away from an insta-kill ability, and more towards a clone type ability.

[z-nightshade]

Possible Devil Fruit Ideas

I currently have a list of possible Devil Fruit ideas for Cass from my fic An Oracle's Odyssey. Not all of them are completely fleshed out yet and are still subject to tweaking and me figuring out the details, I'd just like to know your opinions on them. Feel free to ask if you have any questions. (If you see an N/A, it just means I haven't figured that part out yet)

Fruit 1

Kibo Kibo no Mi (Scale Scale Fruit)

Type: Paramecia

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to increase or decrease the scale of something exponentially. This can be physical (size, amount/# of things, ect) or metaphorical (force, strength, speed, ect). Only works on the user and objects, not other people

Awakening: N/A

Pros

Would allow Cass to increase the their physical stats for as long as they have the energy to hold their fruit powers

Giant Cass

Pocket sized Cass

Enables Cass’s hoarding tendencies

Cass can be that one meme where one person pulls out an absurd amount of weapons

I can give Cass a giant war hammer and a giant battle ax which I would have to forgo with any other fruit because they’re too big to carry around

The one I can be the most creative with

Fruit 2

Oto Oto no Mi (Sound Sound Fruit)

Type: Logia

Abilities: The ability to become, generate and manipulate sound waves. Grants user control over all sound they create

Awakening: Grants user control over all sound waves

Pros

Ties thematically with Cass’s connection to sound

Ties back to Apollo/the sun god because sound and music (this does include Nika as well bc drums)

Allows Cass to become intangible

Sonic screeches

Sonic vibrations could be used to replicate Whitebeard’s fruit

Very difficult to block sound based attacks (probably the most outright deadly if used properly)

Could use sound waves to break things apart on a molecular level

I actually know what I want the awakening to be

Voice mimicry

Fruit 3

Type: Mythical Zoan

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to turn into the goddess Artemis and tap into her abilities and domains

Nature: Nature is inclined to help & listen to the user

Hunting: Increased physical abilities & aim as well as other hunting abilities

The Moon: Moon beams

Half Form: N/A

Full Form: N/A

Awakening: N/A

Pros

Mood goddess first mate and sun god captain

Ties into nature and the Voice of All Things

Artemis is the twin of Apollo, the greek sun god

Artemis is the goddess of archery and Cass uses ranged weapons

Fruit 4

Hito Hito no Mi Model Hecate (Human Human Fruit Model Hecate)

Type: Mythical Zoan

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to turn into the goddess Hecate and tap into her abilities and domains

Magic/Witchcraft: The ability to practice Greek witchcraft (spells, potions, herbs, runes)

The Night: Nightvision, possible minor control over darkness

Ghosts/Necromancy: Abilities to see and talk to the spirits of the dead

Crossroads: N/A

Half Form: N/A

Full Form: N/A

Awakening: N/A

Pros

One of the most thematically tied to Cass (Greek Mythology, crossroads and decisions, death)

Hecate is also tied to the moon even if she isn't the mood goddess like Artemis

One of Hecate’s symbols is the torch, tying into their connection with Ace

Strong ties to the underworld and death, with Hecate being one of the few deities who can easily travel between realms

Was a titan who helped the gods when over throwing the titans (relevant but the reason is a spoiler)

Called the three headed goddess represent the maiden, the mother and the crone but also the past, present and future

Witch Cass (requires prep work and Cass to make their own spells and magic system)

Fruit 5

Shika Shika no Mi Model Qilin (Deer Deer Fruit Model Qilin)

Type: Mythical Zoan

Abilities: Grants the user the ability to turn into a Qilin and use it’s abilities

Fire breathing

Prophecy

Flight

Shapeshifting

Half Form: The horns & scales of a Qilin, also hovees & horse like legs and tail

Full Form: Fully transforms into a Qilin (“a deer's body, ox's tail, most frequently cloven hooves, a dragon's head, and scales, sometimes with flames emanating from the body.” description from worldhistory.org)

Awakening: N/A

Pros

Ties most closely into Cass’s Oracle shtick as Qilin’s are associated with prophecy, insight and wisdom like Oracles

I actually have ideas regarding the transformations that would take place

A Qilin’s birth is tied to the birth or death of a sage (Cass dying and being reborn)

Qilins are also known to transport souls

The most distinct transformation of all the Zoan ideas and also the most fun

The chimera esque appearance of a Qilin (important and thematically tied but the reason is a spoiler)

Luffy is based on Sun Wukong who also hails from Chinese mythology like the Qilins

As of right now, any of these fruits are possibilities. Cass never getting a Devil Fruit is also an option. I’d love to hear your opinions. Some other miscellaneous notes, I’m a bit on the fence on the idea of Cass being a Zoan. They’re already an Oracle which is a mythological classification on its own. That’s not to say they can’t be both but it’s something I think about. Also, awakenings. If I were to give them a Devil Fruit, I’d want to have them awaken it before the story finishes so I’d love to hear any ideas you have for it

[karanseraph]

I saw it, too

I got to see Transformers One for the first time today.

had always wanted to see it, but I just didn't have the budget, at all, right now for going out to movies. But, someone offered to take me, so I went to see it with them. So, I am grateful for that. I also did really like the movie.

A lot had been spoiled (I allowed myself to be exposed to the spoilers) but it was good to really see how it was all connected together and to see the visuals all on the big screen.

Now, I feel like, for me, I have to talk myself out of thinking: "This is the new default; so don't bother writing fanfic for any other continuities." I am the type of person who can get prone to bad thoughts like that. But, no, it's fine to write for older continuities. It's great to make up and write a fan-continuity even! I just need to remind myself of this truth.

The other day I read someone's fic on AO3 and their notes indicated they had not even the source material but they were writing G1-ish Transformers characters based on what they had learned from other fanfic, and actually, I really liked that fic, including the parts that did match canon and parts the author had clearly introduced through their own world-building.

So, reminding myself and anyone else who needs the reminder that it's always OK to write for an older fandom or continuity and it's also great to world-build your own continuity or alternate-universe. And, yes, it's also completely OK to write fanfic for the newest thing that came out and to enjoy the new thing.

I just don't want the new thing to make me less excited about continuing older ongoing projects.

Your energon can be blue or pink or rainbow-opalescent, or whatever color you like. Maybe you don't even play up the energon and bots drink oil. That's fine, too.

Make as many Primes as you like and give them whatever names you want. Alpha Trion can be a qilin or a lion or a hovercraft or a car. Doesn't especially matter. You can have a Vectra Prime in the panthon; Vector would probably say there's a universe where it always was so and one where they transitioned. Sentinel, Zeta, Sentinel-Zeta...it's Transformers, there's a way to make it work.

Use whichever origin story you like for the main characters. Make one of them older or younger than another. It's fine.

Ship them or don't.

Iacon can be on the surface, under the surface, beneath a dome, include a dome, have tall spires, have hanging spires, or all of the above, somehow.

You aren't somehow "doing Quintessons wrong". Use any version(s) or create your own.

Also your other fan arts - photos, drawing, crafts, videos - can be what you want.

[ninadove]

*Sighs in the actual French élite is rotten to the core and cartoonishly undemocratic and people are actually rioting against it like in Revolution as we speak*

Yeah

Look, I get that Miraculous Ladybug is a show for kids, but no matter how hard I try, I just can't turn off my suspension of disbelief about the whole mayor thing. André Bourgeois gets away with straight up war crimes like twice a month? And when he steps down his daughter calls dibs and decides it's coup d'état time. And everyone else in bloody FRANCE is initially cool with the teenage daughter of their previous mayor being in charge despite being the country where they invented a very special knife to put a stop to that kind of nepo baby bullshit. And then when actual democratic elections happen the new mayor is like "Hello, Paris, by the power invested in me 5 minutes ago I've decided that we're switching to a green and lowkey communist vibe"

[shushbang]

(Major spoiler)

Lightning-swift maniac Zhang Jiuri sacrificing his life such that our feeble, pure-hearted plebeian he shot at earlier, Wu Xie, lives on for a chance to reunite with a lifesaving wonder-boy loner hatred-filled yet wistful Jiuri himself wants to meet again is like an ingenious, more realistic and less disturbing take on a romantic Ming dynasty short story about an accidentally tardy ex-scholar who kills himself so that he can travel at ghost speed to meet a scholar friend waiting for him at a faraway, chrysanthemum-decorated reception.

Wu Xie does have a super trait, qilin blood, but his earnestness is of course the true superpower that comes to his rescue at most critical moments, at least in this instalment. For those of us who value hard work and grounded, altruistic concern, the experience of witnessing an iteration of clichéd "Right makes might" and commoner hero tropes given a raw heart through a nerd thinking and feeling his way among figures as good as towering immortals is rather moving, is it not?

[deathandnonexistentialdread]

Spoilers for: The Dead Apple Prologue

This entire exchange is pure comedy. I'm actually upset that this wasn't animated. It's like:

Sibusawa: The Pale Qilin(which is me) is very mysterious and dangerous.

Oda: Yes, the Pale Killing is truly dangerous.

Sibusawa:

Sibusawa: It's Qilin not Killing

Oda: My mistake.

Like the crack energy is off the charts.

Smol Chuuya and Dazai!! Chuuya's hat!!!

I mean... he isn't wrong

[ninadove]

My friend are you at all familiar with French President Emmanuel Macron

Gotta love how everyone is screaming about Chloé seizing power Just Like That, except for my fellow Frenchies who are all just shrugging and commenting “yeah that tracks” in the notes

[syaal]

Celestial ramble(Spoilers for Blood of Tyrants)

When I saw the tidbit about Celestial("Divine Wind") eggs being stolen from Japan during the mongol invasions - when in actual history the conquest was mainly thwarted by typhoons called "Divine Wind" by the Japanese - I thought it was a nice bit of actual history crossed with fiction, although since the Japanese named the kamikaze attacks after it I was almost in a bout of colonized-nationalist paranoia(i figuratively break out in hives whenever westerners put "kamikaze" in cool stuff) just for a second

But also, I'm a bit confused bc the Yellow Emperor is supposed to be a Celestial, but he is a mythical god-emperor that dates like four millennia ago(or two millennia ago, according to the books where he supposedly helped found the Han dynasty) so he might be of a primordial breed that later split into several lines, one of them being Celestials? The actual Yellow Emperor might or might not have had Divine Wind, and was originally named Tien-Lung and after millennia, seeing that similar-looking breed that has cool powers one might go "ooh the mythical breed does exist" like how the Ming dynasty saw giraffes as qilin(麒麟)

Then again we only have one person's dialogue for "Celestials are from Japan," or not even that - just that the last Celestial egg was stolen from Japan, and living Celestials were all killed.

So two possibilities:

One, Celestials originated from Japan, the Yuan dynasty stole an egg and killed the rest. The description of the Yellow Emperor in the records had some similarities to Celestials, but they aren't actually related. Imperials are probably some dominant-gene mutant?

Two, Celestials of East Asia all shared the same ancestral breed, but since China took "Celestials only in royal lines where we want it" very seriously they killed the Japanese lot - which is bit unbelievable considering their near-worship of Celestials, but since the Yuan dynasty was Mongolian it might be possible that their attitude differed from the Han people or the Manchus(in this theory, Yongxing refusing Lien's egg to be sent to Mongolia gains even more context??).

Or there might be a different explanation but I don't have any ideas for now

[yellowelectroslime]

S2EP4 spoilers?

(when eldest brother told zeqi to get the baby qilin)

look at him. he isn't running he's just sitting there patiently. that's because he TRUSTS her.

his eyes are dilated and he's showing ZERO hostility he just let her pick him up its making me cry

and when the ground started to shake he wasn't scared at all he was just quietly sitting in her arms

this is because HE TRUSTS HER WITH HIS SAFETY

THE BABY QILIN COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT THE GROUND SHAKING LOOK AT HIM HES SO CUTE

[lunanoc]

PART II: KING MU OF ZHOU AND THE QUEEN MOTHER OF THE WEST

(to see previous disclaimers and context here’s part I of this madness)

blanket spoiler warning for the books once again

fair warning, some of the bold connect-the-dots crack theories are going to start creeping in here, but more meta here we gooo

continuing where we left off with the various versions of the story of king shang of lu dmbj gives us, the wang family powerpoint lesson, besides giving us the third account of those, also introduces new key players, both one we know but did not know of their potential connection to king shang of lu, and a new one that offers an entirely new perspective on this subplot of dmbj lore: king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west

what the wang powerpoint and the subsequent discussions between li cu and members of the wang family tell us about king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west is not only interesting in itself, but also ties closely into both king shang’s and iron mask’s story, as well as the overall dmbj lore. i try not to go too far in trying to see possible connections with later books, notably here queen mother’s ghost banquet, because i don’t have the full context for those, so i won’t go into too much detail on what’s essentially a tenuous crack theory. however, for the record, the queen mother of the west as she’s described in sand sea part III could potentially tie into what we learn about the zhang family’s origins at the tail end of queen mother’s ghost banquet, namely that the zhang family are descended from a group of people millennia old (think xia dynasty or older, which makes sense given they were likely also the ones who built the original heavenly palace and the bronze gate in the shang dynasty c. 1600 BC, but that’s a tangent for another time) who ventured beneath the kunlun mountains, ate from the qilin fruit tree (aka the equivalent of the queen mother of the west of chinese myth’s peach tree), and rather than immediately turning into monsters like many who tried did, were special enough for some reason that they gained longevity instead at the cost of eventually, after maybe initially millenia, then progressively centuries, turning into monsters. some of those people then eventually ventured out from beneath the mountains into the vast world, later to form what would be known as the zhang family. but that’s all i’ll say on that

but back to king mu and the queen of the west

to start off, i feel it’s important to be aware that king mu of zhou isn’t a fictional character created by npss, rather he’s a real historical figure who actually existed and was an emperor of the western zhou dynasty (1046-770 BC) while it was at its peak (he himself probably reigned somewhere between 976 and 918 BC). as it happens, his connection to the queen mother of the west also isn’t something created by npss. references to the queen mother of the west go very far back (think shang dynasty mentioned earlier) and she’s one of the more prominent mythological figures in chinese tradition, who among other descriptors, is said to possess the secret of immortality in her garden of magical peaches that grant longevity in the kunlun mountains. either the queen of the west herself or her peaches make several appearances in chinese literature, maybe more famously for a western audience in journey to the west where sun wukong eats some of them and is punished for it

even the story of king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west meeting is a retelling of another piece of fiction called the tale of king mu, son of heaven, dating back to at earliest the warring states period (since the original copy of it was found in a tomb dating back to the tail end of it). like in sand sea’s rendition of his story, historically king mu of zhou did travel a lot because he enjoyed making territorial conquests, to the extent that king mu of zhou is the one who ultimately expanded china’s territory both east and west beyond the central plains. in the fictional story of the tale of king mu, son of heaven however, king mu of zhou specifically seeks out the queen mother of the west in the kunlun mountains to gain her secret of immortality, and while she ultimately invites him to her jade pool for a banquet where they exchange gifts, she doesn’t give him one of her peaches

in the wang family’s version of this story, it’s explained to li cu that king mu of zhou didn’t care much for politics and preferred running around china as he pleased, ultimately seeking out the queen mother of the west for her famed elixir of immortality. where this version of the story diverges from the myth is that they supposedly ended up falling in love (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 133, King Mu of Zhou)

king mu of zhou sought out the queen mother of the west because there had been legends even during king mu’s time of her having had this elixir of immortality for a very long time, which tells us at the very least that according to this story, the queen mother he met with was likely the queen mother of legend, or the one chinese mythology equates with a deity to some extent. she’s even further described as having dominion over all the kingdoms of the west, and that her great kingdom spanned from the kunlun mountains to even the qaidam basin, which is where tamutuo is located. i feel this tells us that the queen of the west of tamutuo and the queen mother of the west from king mu’s legend are one and the same. the fact she’s even referred to as “young” despite the breadth of her legacy reinforces the idea that there might be something unnatural about her

you could argue that maybe “queen mother of the west” was an inherited title, and that her kingdom of tamutuo was a matriarchal society that had had many queen mothers, but the fact is there’s no real supporting evidence of that any more than there is of the opposite despite the arguments put forward, so really, you could argue in favor of both. i like to think she was the queen mother of legend, if only because it creates, thanks to the inclusion of the kunlun mountains in her territory, a strong connection in some capacity with the first people cursed with intolerable longevity mentioned in queen mother’s banquet, but once again, take with a grain of salt

slight tangent, i will say however while i’m on this topic that i strongly feel that the zhang family are meant to be depicted as one more of many human corruption motifs that are rampant in dmbj. this is something for another meta, but i would argue that beneath the tomb raiding and the conspiracies, the core theme of dmbj is that “humans are more terrible than monsters”, and so the narrative provides ample examples of human corruption causing others far more misery than any tomb creature ever could. as per their origins talked about in queen mother’s ghost banquet, it’s possible that alongside their knowledge of whatever secrets of the universe they’re privy to, and their subsequent need for control over china’s destiny through the ages, the ancestors of the zhang family had initially ventured out from under the mountains to seek a cure for the side effects of their terrible curse, and gradually discovered that the bronze and jade of the meteorites could potentially provide that. maybe the queen mother of the west was one of their descendants, and perhaps one of the rare people who stand to succeed in that quest (that we know of at least considering she’s presumably still alive in some capacity down there along with chen wenjin and other members of the xisha expedition). just food for thought, but anyone who’s read that far feel free to give your thoughts on queen’s banquet related ideas!

the wang in charge of instructing li cu admits in the course of his tale that they had to make some assumptions (so this means you have to consider this bit to be a little handwavy admittedly) about what exactly the nature of the relationship between king mu of zhou and the queen mother of the west was, and settles on them having fallen in love despite king mu having “invaded” her kingdom and he did  invade it, because we conveniently have a single reference to this man outside of sand sea in book 5, when wu xie and xiaoge find murals in the ruins around wu sanxing’s abandoned camp that depict king mu’s invasion of tamutuo that was clearly hostile and was met with responding hostility (Book 5, Ch. 25-26, The Third Night: Relief / The Third Night: Déjà-vu)

it doesn’t mean that these narratives are mutually exclusive and can’t both be true, and that after having been defeated, either party asked for a truce that led to something else, but it does already suggest there might be more to this story than what we’re told of it. this idea somewhat confirms itself, again hinging on believing that the wang’s narrative is one close enough to the truth to be reliable, when li cu calls the romance spin on king mu’s and the queen mother’s story into question (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 145, The Truth of the World). li cu suggests that the poem she supposedly gifted king mu (which i’ll get into in a little bit), as well as maybe the queen mother of the west herself and her secret of immortality, are all concepts fashioned and embellished by king mu of zhou to facilitate his grand plan which i’ll touch on later, all because he saw “the truth of this world” in the queen mother of the west’s kingdom, and sought not to reveal it to the world, but to conceal it, and build an entire nebulous plan with it at its core

i don’t feel like the queen of the west herself is a fabrication considering both the multiple references to her interspersed throughout various dmbj books, as well as tangible proof of her existence re: tamutuo, but the idea that king mu of zhou might have been the author of the tale of king mu, son of heaven and the subsequent romance plot derived from it in dmbj universe is something i can believe so long as you assume he believed it was one more component in his masterplan. i’m hesitant to call dmbj magical realism because magical realism is very much a western genre of literature and people would do well to remember that western constructs aren’t universally applicable, but dmbj does use a number of structural and thematic elements that magical realism also uses, and this subplot is no exception. contrary to what some might think, npss actually does a significant amount of research when he writes these books, and a lot of the supernatural or fictional tomb elements aren’t so much explained through handwavy science as they are derived from well-documented real historical events or figures, much like magical realism is heavily grounded in reality despite slightly deviating from it in believable ways. dmbj is deeply informed by chinese culture and history, more so than just using it as the backdrop to a fantasy adventure story: they’re integral parts of the plot, which i think is part of what makes dmbj so difficult to navigate without extensive knowledge of that backdrop (which i by the way don’t pretend to have either, my own knowledge is very much surface level all things considered)

in light of this, as far as the queen mother of the west goes, considering the relatively reliable outside account of a hostile invasion we get from the ruins of tamutuo itself, and then li cu’s own take on king mu’s and the queen mother’s relationship, while the romance spin isn’t necessarily entirely false, it does leave a lot of question marks as to what exactly king mu saw in the queen of the west’s kingdom. that he was given the gift of longevity is highly likely given he’s still alive centuries later, along with other key elements of the wang family’s story i’ll get to in a bit. however, the uncertainty in the nature of their relationship does potentially make the queen of the west’s motivations for offering king mu longevity if not just as uncertain, then potentially a little more sinister, since while she might have offered out of love, if we assume all her experimentations weren’t geared at gaining immortality for herself, but rather curbing the side effects of it, then her gift was very much a poisoned one as she knew full well what would happen to him if he used it. for all we know, king mu might have, on defeating the queen mother’s kingdom, inflicted the “truth of the world” and the curse of longevity on himself, and none of it was never a gift at all, but the consequences of his own actions. but all of this is just speculation in the end as there’s no solid evidence pointing in any one direction. in any case, the only potential insight we get into the queen mother of the west’s thoughts come from maybe the vaguest source yet, a poem she supposedly composed for king mu that she gifted him when they parted, and that merebear translates as follows:

White clouds in the sky, the hills emerge. The road is far away, between mountains and rivers. The child who is not dead, can still come back.

knowing how many layers of meaning can be crammed into classical chinese poetry, i had to go find the original text and investigate further, so let me also provide that:

白云在天，山陵自出。 道里悠远，山川间之。 将子无死，尚能复来。

full disclaimer before i continue, poetry and its nuances are notoriously difficult to translate in any language, and i’m not at all claiming to be proficient enough at the chinese language without outside resources to help me to ever claim to be an expert, but while merebear’s translation isn’t technically incorrect, it has a few possible double meanings missing and some word choices i’m not quite sure i understand, but this is only my own humble contribution (with some creative license in the english rendition) that anyone with better knowledge than mine is welcome to correct or add on to as this isn’t so much an attempt at retranslating as it is pointing out a few possible added implications:

白云在天，山陵自出。

the white clouds are in the sky/the heavens, the lofty mountains/the great tombs emerge of their own accord. 山陵 can also be used, and has been in chinese literature, to refer to tombs of people of significant importance as usually big tombs tend to form burial mounds, hence why it can also refer to ‘hills’

道里悠远，山川间之。

the way forth is distant, it winds amid the mountains and rivers ‘mountains and rivers’, mountains especially, are commonly associated with the chinese concept of immortals called 仙 xian that even has the radical for mountain in it, in part due to their reclusive nature. i would link the interesting study i have on that but it’s unfortunately not in english, though feel free to ask for it anyway if anyone is interested

将子无死，尚能复来。

one who leads does not die, he may yet return 将子 in this context technically means ‘general’ and 将 can even refer to the chief piece in chinese chess which you know. keeping that in my book of crazy convenient zhang parallels re: the qipan zhang

make of this what you will, but if nothing else, it does suggest a bit more explicitly that the double meanings are indeed referring to immortality and potentially tombs, though what nature of tomb is the real question in that case

we then go on to learn from the wang powerpoint presentation that king mu never returned to visit the queen of the west once he returned home, but that contrary to how things may seem, despite having being recorded as having died at the age of 105, king mu in fact did not died, meaning at some point after he’d taken the queen of the west’s immortality elixir, he faked his own death and disappeared somewhere. both the wang instructor and wang xiaoyuan (the girl who peeks at li cu out the window) confirm that according to the third and  final account of king shang of lu’s story, king mu wasn’t dead at the time of those events, as he worked together with king shang and iron mask to find the jade burial armor (Sand Sea Part III, Ch. 134, Deception)

this means he was spectacularly old by this point considering the warring states period starts at earliest in 476 BC. and king mu supposedly died around 918 BC. you do the math, but he was very very old. and to be honest this also somewhat feeds into the idea that the longevity curse (because it very much is a curse) used to last much longer before the side effects started to pop up, because if we’re to believe the wang family’s version of these events, then king mu was clearly still sane and not (or at least not entirely) a monster if he was still actively enacting the things he had planned

and so king mu, now long-lived because he took whatever immortality elixir the queen mother of the west gave him, had to face the consequences of that choice, yet rather than seek her out to find a way to quell the side effects of longevity (which he could have done and would have just ended up in the meteorite with her, although if he didn’t go to her, it gives a bit more weight to the idea that their story wasn’t necessarily a romance and/or that ulterior motives were involved), he went his own way to find something to save himself from turning into a monster, and eventually settled on finding a jade burial armor, which according to the wang family also came from the queen mother of the west’s kingdom. besides implying it’s likely that the jade armor is in fact made from the meteorite jade, it’s just one more thing to add to the long list of things tied to the heart of dmbj’s lore that end up having some form of association with the queen mother of the west. fun tidbit regarding this that’s not entirely relevant to anything (but it just adds more fuel to the crack theory), there’s an inscription on the belt of the green-eyed fox corpse where the qilin blood clot that wu xie accidentally swallows in book 1, and that merebear translates as “ruler of yinxi”, that reads as follows (Book 1, Ch. 21, Green-Eyed Fox Corpse):

阴西宝帝 or yinxi baodi

once again, take this with a grain of salt because this is an inscription that wu xie sees while he’s presumably under the influence of the green-eyed fox’s illusion, and instantly recognizes it as “a spell to ward off evil spirits”, so it might not mean anything, but if you had to find some kind of sense in it, while the characters together don’t really mean much of anything, separately they can mean:

阴 yin

opposite of 阳 yang, one of the two opposing energies in taoism and representative of many things, but namely of the feminine

西 xi

the west as cardinal direction

宝 bao

treasure, precious

帝 di

supreme being, often used in the titles and names of emperors such as huangdi (the yellow emperor) or qin shi huangdi (the first emperor of china). fun fact, wu xie during sand sea is often referred to as 邪帝 or emperor xie by the chinese fanbase in reference to how powerful he was during that time

i’m not saying this is meant to translate into a reference to the queen mother of the west because the association of characters is a bit strange, but again. food for thought (and a lot of creative license)

the wang powerpoint then goes on to explain that king mu’s objective, once he’d secured the jade armor, was to ensure both that he would be able to come back to the world fully rid of the side effects of immortality, and be able to do so safely, secure in the knowledge that the legacy of his findings would remain intact for him to find again. and so to do that, he essentially makes certain that chinese tradition incorporates the necessity of entombing people with a number of valuable things, and supposedly instigates this during the spring and autumn period (which is the period that precedes the warring states period and is generally considered to be one of extensive intellectual prosperity, confucius was a contemporary of that time for example) by, as the wang instructor implies, at least partially pushing to prominence things like the classic of rites (or lijing) that among other things promotes rich burials. while li cu calls into question the idea that king mu’s plan solely aimed at disseminating information for the sake of keeping his own acquired knowledge in circulation, since king mu’s further objective was also to use grave robbing to spread whatever information best served concealing “the truth of the world”, it’s clear that his plan was meticulously thought-out

the wang instructor himself admits this, though he quickly adds that king mu’s plan, crafty as it was if desperate, failed to take into account the possibility that he’d one day meet his match in the person of wang zanghai, who essentially hijacked his plan for his own purposes. i feel this seems to imply that things were going pretty smoothly for king mu of zhou until then, which would then call into question the first two versions of king shang of lu’s story if we assume king mu was the original wearer of the jade armor, albeit more recently than those stories presented it, but this is also where i start veering into big wild assumptions and crack theory territory. i won’t be get into the box with the baby or the particulars of the feud between the zhang family and wang zanghai/the wang family because while it’s tied to this, it also branches off into something else that’s probably a whole other meta and this is long enough as it is

it’s also worth noting that king mu of zhou, as well as instigating his masterplan, not only hid an elaborate map leading to the queen mother of the west’s kingdom only perceivable if you soak the stone slab it’s on “with a certain liquid” (which if you remember what happens in both book 8 in siguniang when wu xie and xiao hua gut a pig, and in tibetan sea flower where it’s wu xie who bleeds his special blood to reveal the secrets inside the bronze gate in tibet, gives you a hint at what the nature of that liquid might be), but wrote the details of his plan down on what’s called the yellow lu silkbook, not to be confused with the silkbook that wu xie pulls from “king shang of lu”’s coffin in book 1. merebear speculates it might be the silkbook that the photocopy jin wantang brings to him to kickstart the entire plot belongs to, and in my opinion that’s a good guess. it might also be one of the many silkbooks the lao jiumen pulled out of siguniang during the greatest joint tomb robbery in the 1960s. who knows really

all i can say about this particular part of the wang’s powerpoint lesson and the connection it shares with the multiple versions of the story of king shang of lu is that assuming the wang family’s version is both the most complete and the most accurate, then “king shang of lu” has a direct connection not only to king mu of zhou, but to the entirety of dmbj’s overarching plot. and while knowing who’s who at the end of the day doesn’t amount to much when much of dmbj’s story deals with the present day cast bearing the brunt of the consequences of their elders’ and older generations’ choices, i want to go further and say that this story potentially further cements connections and solidifies dmbj lore rather than complicate it

(wild conclusions tbc in part III of this madness)

[gale-gentlepenguin]

Gale Reviews: ML Season 5: Action

-As expected its gonna be a bit preachy.

(Spoilers below)

-Okay adrien riding the scooter with Marinette is cute... but good gravy my boy doing everything to avoid allegations.

-Adrien teaching Marinette mandarin is cute... until you remember his pronunciation is s***

-Nino is very serious with this

-(So glad this is in english on youtube and I can playback at a faster speed.)

-I knew this going in but good gravy it is soooooooo preachy. It reminds me of Captain planet

-Ah yes, Adrien and Kagami as NFTs selling products... I really hate Gabriel

-So the ship sunk? I guess plastic > Liberty

-Mylene fainting at all the mention of plastic is funny (and currently the only thing I find amusing about this episode)

-Of course he is in the ominous black building. Also all of this could have been solved with a google search

-Nino, I love your goofy plans but your disguises are as trash as the plastic you are trying to fight for some reason

-This episode feels like it was written by Mylene

-So at least the show is consistent on how dumb adults are written in this

-You know what, I know the plastic guy is gonna be the bad guy, but he actually took a meeting to hear out a bunch of kids. He even acknowledges their points but explains why he aint changing his business model. Say what you will but I gotta respect the straightforwardness.

-I cant really hate the guy right now, like he reminds me of the KFC guy if he had a fetish for plastic.

-No surprise that the mayor was of no help, surprised that Chloé didnt need to tell him with how they tried to make him seem good.

-Gabriel is dismissive, why was he redeemed again?

-So Nadia giving the first legit explanation on why she cant help. Glad they actually show one true to life response

-Oh look cameos

-Oh they hacked the broadcast, at least Nadia wont get in trouble... but I am pretty sure thats SUPER ILLEGAL

-Yep more preaching... plastic bad. at least it had some adrinette flirting in there

-Yea if this actually worked IRL, the environmentalist protestors wouldnt be a thing. But it is accurate in one way, Politicians and CEO's hate Bad publicity

-Gabriel and Andre lying through their teeth.

-Gabriel just wanted to akumatize him

-HE LOOKS LIKE A CHARACTER FROM CANDYLAND

-The bee is the power of action... i preferred subjugation

-He just stunned him THEN turned him into plastic. That just seems excessive

-I think that was the first time outside of Qilin that the cops actually TRIED to stop the akuma.

-But just like in real life the cops will never arrest a rich ceo.

-Gabriel really said "Sorry bitch, cant play today"

-Adrien your pronounciation is bad, but its still cute

-It sounds like they are saying 'No shit'. I am counting it. FINALLY LETTING ADRIEN CURSE

-Adrien you simp i love it

-Just leave Gorilla be, he is just cleaning the car. He is happy

-King of Plastic makes me laugh

-That was the lamest dance party to interrupt

-Yea this is pretty standard

-Oh he made the engine overload, smart

-Burying him in plastic because irony, classic

-And he learned that Plastic isnt always so fantastic

-If I had a nickle for every rich guy that was corrupt that this show redeemed...

___________________________________________________________

I watched this episode at 1.5x speed because if I didnt, this would have been a SLOG to get through

3/10

Its not the worst ML episode but I just HATE preachy episodes. If I wanted this kind of content, Id watch captain planet. Like yes it is important to recycle and reduce use of plastics... but this episode made me want to actually go downstairs and get a plastic water bottle for a drink just because of how annoyed I was.

The action in this wasnt bad and I actually found the King of Plastic funny until they redeemed him.

I think I rate it lower than it actually is because of personal preferences but it is just annoying

[mattapparentlystumbltourneys]

Giraffe Girumble - Preliminary C

Propaganda below (May contain spoilers!...probably):

Chirinmon propaganda:

So they're a Qilin (or Kirin since it's from a Japanese franchise) but you did say Qilin are allowed. Tyilinmon (Chirinmon's japanese name) are holy beast digimon and are said to be peaceful and deeply compassionate, but will still fight those who they deem evil and kill senselessly.

Box-Art Giraffe was not given propaganda. :|

[velvetwastaken]

Hi!! for the ask meme: would you ever write abt keqing touching (gently ofc) ganyu's horns? lol. and if i can ask one more, would you ever write ganyu in her full qilin form? (embracing the horsegirl energy asgfhgsjksl)

Funny you should ask, because I have WIPs that have BOTH of those things as part of the story. It's not the main focus or anything but they're in there and maybe even play a not unimportant role in the narrative? I'll be honest, both those WIPs are no where near finished, but it's all in the outline (I should say "outline"), I swear.

So I guess the answer is yes, definitely, to both questions.

And since it's Saturday morning, and I'm ripping CDs while waiting for the art store to open so I can go spend money I don't have, I'll share what the WIPs are about under the cut.

The first one is one I've shared an excerpt of before. The fabled Scifi Ganqing fic. There's going to be a part where Ganyu is injured, splitting her horn/head. Because of how horns are, they don't heal like a flesh wound. Basically, the damage to her horn is permanent. Keqing in the fic is an engineer, and she makes a band for Ganyu's horn for protection and to help with healing/sabilization. It's going to be one of the moments when Ganyu starts warming up to Keqing in earnest (because they have NOT been playing well together up until this point in classic Ganqing fashion, of course lol). Keqing is going to be allowed to very carefully help Ganyu put the band on the first time. A real privileged and honour, LOL

The second one is less well developed (so far) but it's more of a supernatural/fantasy setting with all the fun things that come with that like magic, and demons, and most importantly, werewolves. My plan for the story is basically Keqing gets turned unexpectedly after being mauled by a pack of renegade werewolves. She miraculously survives, but now has to live with her new reality. Ganyu works for an organization that tries to keep the super/para normal elements of the world in check. She's assigned to Keqing case to help her acclimatize to her new condition and status in society (spoiler: people don't like weres much). Everyone, including Keqing, thinks Ganyu is part demon or something similar because of her horns. Ganyu lets them think that, because they kind of give her plenty of space/respect and it's easier than explaining she actually a rare wereqilin! LMAO! Okay now that I write it out is sound so hokey, but I don't care, I will write it one day, and if I'm the only one that loves it, so be it.

Anyway. Thanks for the ask, ridl, as always!

I have so many WIPs i want to write/start/finish. I wish I was faster at writing T-T

[lotusflowerbreakingthesurface]

[𝐏𝐗 𝐅𝐢𝐜 𝐑𝐞𝐜 𝟗𝟔] 麒麟劫 𝐛𝐲 西湖水漫长白山

✧ 𝐓𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐞: Qilin Tribulation

✧ 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩: Zhang Qiling/Wu Xie

✧ 𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐞: PingXie Only

✧ 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: T

✧ 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬: Complete

✧ 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞: Chinese

✧ 𝐋𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐭𝐡: One-shot

✧ 𝐓𝐚𝐠𝐬: AU Setting—Immortal Cultivation, Fantasy/Mythology, Qilin God Master Ping × Rookie Fox Demon Disciple Xie

✧ 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭’𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐜: Third Person POV

✧ 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐜:

“So when Wu Xie asked him why he accepted him as his disciple, Qilin God Lord only said two words: fate.”

✧ 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐨𝐧:

It's pretty short, so I can't reveal the story too much or it would be spoilers. Another sweet and cute fic 🥞 Thanks for the meal!

✧ 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝: Weibo