#random analysis

[harbingers-lullaby]

Shinra and Dog Symbology Analysis

I was listening to this song and I couldn't help but think of Zack's story throughout Crisis Core/Reunion, and ponder on the dog symbolism and it's connection to Shinra.

Shinra represents the familiar yet oppressive force in human society, so having it represented by dogs is brilliant in my opinion. It shows how something can be so beloved and integral to our history can become twisted in the wrong hands.

Case in point, Shira's mascot Stamp.

"On one of the loading screens for Remake it states "A sweet little canine character beloved by the citizens of Midgar. A regular fixture in cartoons and movies, his face is on every corner of the city either in toy or poster form. Originally used as propaganda material during wartime". - ff7 remake wiki

Shinra twists the common association of a dog to manipulate the population feeling for their own objective. For Context, Dogs are usually depicted to symbolize guidance, protection, loyalty, alertness, and love. So seeing Stamp people will tend to automatically assume these positive traits, not including his catchy theme song that gets stuck in your head reinforcing these themes.

Ironically Stamp also shows Shinra's true nature. Negative symbolism for dogs represents Envy, Fury, War, Greed, Pitiless, Bragging, Folly. With lesser known symbolism such as Reckless & Manipulative.

This is even shown more throughout the FF7: Re-Trilogy, for those within Shinra or those who have history with the company.

In-games Examples

-Zack characteristics and nickname of Puppy.

-Genesis calling Tseng a Shinra lapdog.

-Barrett antagonizing Cloud about his loyalty to Shinra , in which he says 'or is he is a loyal little doggy.

-Rufus Pet Dark Star ("A military canine serving as Rufus's personal guard dog. A one-off breed specially enhanced by Shinra's R&D Division, it follows its master's orders without hesitation, and will die to protect him" - FF7 Remake Ultimania)

-The Guard Dogs used or experimented by Shinra.

-The Angeal copy that saves Aerith and dies giving her last letter to Zack.

-etc

Symbolic Examples

-Each of the department heads for Shinra beside Reeve, represents an aspect of the dog's negative symbolism

(Reeves cat symbolism through Cait Sith sets him apart from the rest, and why he joins cloud and co in defying his colleagues).

President Shinra - Greed

Heidegger - Fury/Bragging

Palmer - Folly/Reckless

Scarlett -Pitiless

Hojo - Manipulation

Rufus/Larzard (being sons of the President) - Envy

However the one thing that unites them all is their use or love of War (physical or mental).

[druvjelly]

One thing people forget about part 6 is just the corporation between the users and the stands. Outside of the main gang, previous characters. Sons of Dio, and Gwess (maybe Johngali A). Every enemy stand user had their stand chosen by Pucci himself. Leading to this unnatural bond between some of them. Like Westwood and Plant Waves, he was unaware of his stand.

Imagine if Fugo got Manhood. It wouldn’t work because what would it represent? It doesn’t represent his anger that can not differentiate between friend, foe, and himself. How does the ability to rewind time represent his anger? So yeah, while some battles were nice to watch (like Flaccid Pancake).

[starbuck]

“…to me” is one of the most powerful disclaimers we have on here… is this character analysis accurate? debatable. but it’s real… to me.

[zvezdacito]

I think it's really cool how these two cards are kind of bookends to the tsumsitter series ↓

^ Heartslabyul all raising wands together. While for Diasomnia only Malleus takes the lead as the three just watch over him with some distance.

All members of HSB are equally shined on by the sun, while the lighting on Mal makes him alone shine while separating him from the others who literally do become his followers of the night.

Very fitting for their respective group dynamics and extremely cool artistic symbolism, and one of the reasons why I see these two as the best in the housewarden tsumsitter lineup🔥🔥🔥 this really was our twisted wonderland as they say or something

[random-dragon-exe]

Maybe it's just me, but I find it so sweet how we see Cosmo be so loving and caring towards Peri.

Look, I don't remember that much from the OG show, but from my memory, we always see Wanda in that motherly role, so seeing Cosmo act as the equally caring father is just really adorable to see.

I mean sure, they're slightly embarrassing him, but it's cute and a refreshing take on Cosmo in this show.

You know, compared to the OG show where this happens:

Also, I love how Cosmo was the one to instigate the fight and went into protective father mode.

IDK, I just think it's so adorable to see that despite not being the brightest, he has a sweet heart and is a family man.

[dreamsy990]

you know i used to think it was weird how sora and roxas have such different personalities for supposedly being 'the same person' but after playing a few games i sort of realized that they do have similar personalities, because roxas acts how sora does when he's under extreme stress.

compare roxas to sora in, say, kh1. that's where a lot of peoples idea of sora's personality comes from. sora is generally very upbeat and optimistic in that game. not very similar to roxas, right?

but let's switch the game and talk about a game where sora is ABSOLUTELY GOING THROUGH IT. chain of memories.

sora's resting state is melancholy in com. he only ever cheers up in short bursts, usually when he's joking around with friends. just like roxas.

he's quick to anger, and tends to lash out at the organization members. best example of this is when larxene makes him 'remember' namine, and he swings at her repeatedly, even after she's gone. he only stops when jiminy is able to snap him out of it.

you know what scene that resembles?

sora, while a bit more on the angry side and less sad, continues to act like this in kh2 when he's in stressful situations. (he also has a tendancy to insult people which, while it's not very related to the point, is very funny and sora saying 'gonna cry?' to xigbar is great.) i cant comment any further than that about kh2 off the top of my head.

so, roxas acts like sora does when he's stressed, right? but why is roxas always acting like that? to which i say, he isnt!

he only ever acts like that when he's also in fucked up and stressful situations, which happens to be a CONSTANT in his life. but when he's hanging out with axel and xion, a decidedly NOT stressful situation, he's a lot more like sora. he's teasing his friends and insulting his coworkers and joking around and acting like a normal kid. not really important, but unless i misremembered some sora lines which is VERY possible, both roxas and sora respond to friendly insults with "oh thanks!" a lot. just a funny little detail that felt relevant.

the biggest differences between roxas and sora boil down to environment and... i dont know how to put it besides volume? roxas is very quiet and tends to keep most of his thoughts to himself, while sora is very loud and expressive in comparison.

there is one other huge difference i noticed, which is less character based and more story. sora wanted to get off destiny islands and explore with his friends, but roxas just wanted routine. sora wants adventure, and roxas wants things to stay the same, for days where he gets off work and eats ice cream with his friends to last forever, to keep having conversations about nothing and watching the sunset. roxas wants normalcy, sora wants excitement. it's just interesting seeing their contrast.

not sure if this is very well said or anything i just wanted to talk about my boys

[aroaceleovaldez]

I was reading a post about CoTG and I realized: Rick has seemingly started to write every character pairing with the exact same dynamic, and he's not good at writing that dynamic and it doesn't make sense for 90% of the characters he writes it for.

It's that very specific dynamic of one half of the pair who is almost aggressive to the other party - "teasing" them constantly/insulting them, affectionately punching/judo flipping/maiming/etc, seemingly almost always exasperated with the other - and said other party usually just accepts this treatment or blanketly views it fondly, and may generally be framed as more incompetent than their partner and a little bit of a doormat (particularly relating to being insulted/teased/etc by their partner).

We start seeing this dynamic in HoO with Percy and Annabeth, as a sort of semi-inconsistent twist on their rivals-to-friends-to-lovers dynamic from the first series. Then the dynamic pattern develops further with Leo and Calypso. Then Magnus and Alex. Then Nico and Will, particularly in TSATS. And now in CoTG, it's Percy and Annabeth again but even more in this direction.

I know people have talked about Nico and Will's relationship over the series rapidly being shoehorned into Percabeth Two™, and it's extremely apparent in TSATS that Rick's doing it on purpose (including directly quoting Percabeth scenes but minorly tweaking them to be Solangelo). But recognizing it as an overarching trend in Rick's later books honestly reminds me a lot of how Rick started trying to apply the "Percy Formula" so-to-speak to nearly every protagonist in HoO (and then try to replicate similar character archetypes with Magnus and Apollo's narrations - moreso Magnus in being jaded and sarcastic, very much trying to be first series Percy. He only sounds unique because Rick failed at making him Percy 2. Apollo is more akin to later-series Percy characterization of being goofy and incompetent. Apollo [and Zeus] even got retconned to give Apollo a more similar backstory to Percy's). Rick seems to have decided that he thinks the audience wants this specific dynamic but 10 times over, except he's not good at writing it the first time because it's a bastardization of the time he did a different thing okay.

And Rick also seems aware of that too! Because he retconned Calypso and Leo at the end of TOA, probably because he realized how absolutely awful it was reading when they were written with that dynamic of Calypso just functionally hating Leo and constantly being aggressive towards him! The only time Rick's actually made the dynamic even semi-successful was with Magnus and Alex, because it actually fits within their characters, their dynamics with each other, and their environment. Alex beheading Magnus on the regular works out fine because there are no repercussions to that in Valhalla, Magnus will be fine, so it does genuinely come off as humorous. And Alex has been effectively established to be abrasive at times but have her genuine feelings shine through regularly, and that meshes well with Magnus' jaded-and-aloof-but-quietly-very-empathetic character. And Magnus has been established to, yes, not be great at combat, particularly compared to Alex. They are the only time that flavor of dynamic in that form was effective and cohesive.

Percabeth is no longer rivals-to-friends-to-lovers badasses on equal levels with shaky pasts who finally found some form of permanence with one another. Now it's super smart doting and affectionately aggressive girlfriend and her silly goofy 50%-of-the-time incompetent boyfriend who she judo flips/pushes off cliffs/etc - but affectionately~! Solangelo is trying to riff off of the early series "Poseidon & Athena are enemies" dynamic that Percabeth had but with Apollo & Hades being "opposites" but learning to accept each other, except it ends up with Will just coming off as a huge asshole and Nico being retconned to a complete doormat about it - when prior to that those characterizations would be completely contrary to their established characters (even just from TOA!). Calypso in HoO gets retconned from her PJO characterization to being snooty and aggressive, and Leo's false persona gets merged into his just normal personality except he just also becomes a doormat but more goofy than Nico with occasional haha-dark/depression-humor! Which Nico also got. Which was also a bastardized Percy trait that got redistributed.

It's exhausting. Rick write more than one relationship dynamic you can do it I promise

[saffron-reblogs]

Shinobu here is speaking theoretically, her tone and wording are put in a manner of sarcasm, mocking the thought of a pacifistic demon.

I admire how her anger is portrayed in such a manner that's truly unsettling.

She's naturally angered at the despicable nature of demons, so that stirred together with her initial hatred towards the second upper rank, would be enough to fuel a fire.

She's trying too hard to imitate Kanae, going as far as superficially adopting her ideals, pretending to have faith in them. In reality, she definitely believes that demons are unredeemable, foul and vicious.

At least until she met nezuko.

[magefeathers]

everyone else: haha The Summoning sexy

me: The Summoning's "raise me up again" is in direct contrast to Drag Me Under's "drag me under again" and shows an immense amount of growth between the two points in the narrative, for him to go from singing "drag me [...] deep into your love" to "take me past the edge / I want to see the other side" shows that he no longer wishes to drown and wallow in the toxicity of this situation and now wants to move past it and see what lies beyond and in this essay I will-

[omegamoo]

i’m rewatching scott’s double life for the first time in two years. and his first episode is The aromantic experience. everyone around you is asking if you’ve found your soulmate and you point to your best friend and say “well yeah we’re soulmates now” and they say “HA! FAKE SOULMATES!!!” and then “well i just can’t WAIT until you find your REAL soulmate, i’m having SO MUCH FUN with mine!” it’s like when someone walks up to you and tells you that someday someone will change your mind. and you watch everyone around you get happy and comfortable and settle down with one other person in a tight-knit way that you don’t understand and they’re in shock and disbelief and they stare at you weird when you point to your best friend and tell people that you live together

[salemoleander]

Double Life is so funny to reflect on

bc at the time it was (given 3L -> LL game mechanics and how each game evolved from the last) clearly intended to help with balancing; assigning random pairs to try to alleviate the skill disparity of his friends. And then we get to see Grian real-time speedrun the 5 Stages of Creator's Grief as he realizes that RNG has somehow striated everyone by skill level

But in retrospect, as a piece of narrative, it is one of the most compelling and enduring seasons to engage with. It resulted in pairs that betrayed deep and fascinating character traits. Without a mechanic literally forcing them together we never would've gotten a season of only pairs; a season where Impulse & Bdubs married via clock, where Cleo & Martyn had so many solo discussions, where Joel & Etho burned together in the end. Their similarities, RNG be damned, were precisely the thing that made the season so fucking good.

[fabuloustrash05]

2012 Leo didn’t have friends

Truly think about it, did Leo actually have friends that he could call his own? Yes, he’s close with April, gets along with Casey, and respects Slash along with many other characters, but does he actually have a true friend(s)? Someone he can banter with and have a true connection and mutual bond with. And no, his dad does not count.

Compare Leo’s social life to his brothers:

Mikey has Ice Cream Kitty, Leatherhead, Mondo Gecko, Renet, Napoleon, and Sal Commander.

Donnie has April, Fugitoid, Metalhead, Dr Cluckingsworth, and Timothy.

Raph has Casey, Slash, Mona Lisa, Chompy and I’ll even count the rooftop pigeons.

Who does Leo got as friends? His sister and her witch girlfriend. That seems about it for him.

Leo when hanging out with Karai & Shinigami:

Joking aside, I feel Leo not really having his own friends really shows a lot regarding his character and how the roll of being leader and later on Sensai has effected his social life. Not to mention how the fandom can easily identify who each of the other Turtles best friends are, but for Leo we usually draw a blank.

Yes, Leo does have people close to him, I never will disregard his relationship with his brothers or April and Casey, but overall he never got that true special friendship connection that the others got in the series.

The closest we ever got to him having that genuine friendship was Chloe, the little girl he had a tea party with in season 2, and (maybe) Usagi later in season 5. But again, these were short lived dynamics we never get to see again.

[estcaligo]

Some thoughts about room temperature at NRC Dorms (Diasomnia specifically)

First things first - yes, there's magic and fairies who control the temperature of NRC (as mentioned during the Fairy Gala event). But still, I want to talk about the Diasomnia rooms, because they look cold.

Let's start with Sebek's room (who else's)

His room makes me particularly worried, especially since we know he's sensitive to cold.

The walls are cold stone, and the floor seems to be either stone or tile - definitely not warm and cozy.

The carpet looks rather thin, and the space between the wardrobe and the bed is bare. I really hope Sebek wears slippers!!

There doesn't seem to be a carpet under the desk, but since it's located close to the larger carpet, maybe Sebek keeps his feet on that? or I still hope he wears slippers....

The headboard of the bed? I hope it's not leather - it's far from the warmest material for a bed.

The ceiling is quite high, which is not ideal for keeping warmth in the room.

I also hope the window glass isn't thin, otherwise it would let in cold drafts (if there are any in Diasomnia dorm realm??)

And about the training bench in his room? Sure, it's there because Sebek trains a lot, but maybe it's also a way to warm up in such a cold room....

At least one thing warms his heart - Waka-sama's portrait.

Now, Silver's room

The same cold stone walls and floor. Silver doesn't seem to mind the cold as much though - due to his training, of course.

The carpet in his room is small and thin and there's no carpet under the desk. But does he even mind? How much time does he actually spend at the desk studying anyway?...

The wardrobe is farther from the bed compared to Sebek's room. And I can imagine Silver walking to it barefoot, absolutely unfazed (I need to know more about Silver's dressing routine, how often does he fall asleep while getting dressed, etc...)

His bed is placed right against the wall with no extra layers for insulation. Which is cold!!!

And of course, there's the open window. I was already concerned about Sebek's glass thickness, but Silver's window is just wide open omg.

Clearly, Silver is very resilient to the cold. Good for him?... They also say you sleep better in a cool room, so it only adds to his sleepiness?...

Now to Lilia's room

Same walls, same floor. The carpet here feels purely decorative - it's so small and there's no carpet under the desk. However, I imagine Lilia's legs rarely touch the floor anyway (that's how I picture him sitting while on his PC )

The wardrobe is the farthest from the bed in this room, but again, he probably just floats to reach it.

The window is closed here. I was going to comment on how inconvenient it is to have sunlight hitting your face while using a computer/any gadget with screen, but let's be real, there are probably no sunny days in the Diasomnia realm, so it doesn't matter.

There's is also chandelier in Lilia's room (though I assume all 3rd years' rooms are the same?). The chandelier has lots of candles, but they likely emit light through magic rather than heat.

Another detail - Lilia's pillow is quite small. He probably rarely uses it, sleeping in the most bizarre positions (like hanging upside down bat-style).

And to Malleus' room

It has the same cold walls and flooring as the others but feels much more empty and lonely. Most likely, of course, it was intentional to reflect Malleus' character, but still.

The nightstand is empty - not even a book or a personal item.

On the desk, there are only two items: a figurine (which is a nod to Sleeping Beauty) and a three-candle candlestick. The number three might be symbolic, but it also just looks good, so who knows.

Like Lilia's room, Malleus' room also has a chandelier. Is it significant to fae culture? But most likely just for the Maleficent aesthetic.

The only "warm" elements in the room are the tapestry/flags - cherished gifts from a certain important person in his life.

It feels unnecessary to comment on the space between his wardrobe or the lack of a carpet under his desk since Malleus likely doesn't bother with changing clothes manually or sitting at his desk to study anyway.

His bed has two big pillows and one small - likely the one Malleus mentioned using to support his horns while sleeping. (No spoilers, but the 2024 Halloween event gave us some info about how Malleus sleeps lol)

Also, they are obviously provided with the bedsheets by the dorm, but I assume it's allowed to bring your own. We see Lilia getting creative, Malleus clearly has some royal-quality sheets, and Sebek's are the cutest - baby green, but quite plain (so nothing can distract him from being the perfect guard for Waka-sama). And I assume Silver doesn't care at all, and just uses the basic dorm sheets. Feel free to add your thoughts.

[bixels]

The more I think about it, the more I question Arcane S2's politics and themes, which were so foundational to S1. Like, a tiny example [SPOILERS AHEAD]:

Singed wins. He gets exactly what he wants in the end. All his "efforts" are rewarded. What does that say about people who share his ideology of eugenics? He is the source of nearly every horrible thing and conflict that happened (Shimmer, the factory deaths, Jinx, Vander as Warwick, the corruption of Viktor), and he gets a happier ending than any other character. Not even a 'he got what he wanted but he has become completely unrecognizable/monstrous to his daughter' tag at the end. You can say they're setting him up and need to open his daughter to future shows, but the way you end a character's story says something about what you think about that character. What does it say when the eugenicist war criminal gets the happy ending he doesn't deserve?

[chamomillehoney]

this has probably been said before but you know what kills me about aftg

you have renee right. her whole backstory revolves around being a "reborn", and her two names (besides their religious roots) literally mean "dedicated to the festivity of birth" and "reborn", plus the sheer fact that she goes by the middle one shows how she chooses her "second life" over who she was etc etc

and then you have just. "andrew"

[random-dragon-exe]

Okay now, I'm wondering if Peri's baby wand was transformed into his current wand.

I mean I know that the current one is supposed to merely resemble it as a reference, but I kinda like the idea that Peri transformed it into the current one himself to reflect his growth and personality.

You know the idea of holding onto a childhood item because of its sentimental value?

I imagine Peri held onto it because it reminded him of his childhood and his time with Timmy; it was his way of keeping a piece of him with him.

Besides, if Jorgen can change his wand from a peace sign to a regular star-shaped wand for later:

Then I don't see why Peri could transform his wand too.

Maybe the regular wands we see are like the standard look, but fairies could alter/transform their wands as they please if they want to. (But most if not all, fairies choose the standard look).