#so i have to save it to read later | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

iamhereinthebg · 1 month ago

Text

Spoilers Tbhk chapter 126

The end of the new chapter appears with a brand new question: Who is this Akane?

Is he the same one as the one Nene just tried to kill in the last Timeline?

I had a lot of random ideas about it, so let's talk about it! Disclaimer: It will be a little bit all over the place, some ideas will contradict each other! It's mostly to see what we have right now.

One of my first idea is: Nene doesn't exist in the Present anymore.

At the end of the chapter, Nene appears during the 103rd festival which takes place in 2005, 10 years before the main timeline, and for once, she doesn't seem to wanna use the sandglass right away.

Which means it may be a timeline where Akane and Teru remember, like in chapter 112, and Akane realizes that Nene doesn't exist as she should. It may be even coming from before this after all since she was born in 1999/2000, she should be 5/6 in 2005. He then decided or is asked by Kako to check each festival from 2014 to older years, to see when she is.

It also seems that the Clock of the clock keepers only functions during the three days of the festival. I won't go into details but I am pretty sure they can use the clock keepers biggest power at least only during the festival, which is why time is also so fragile at this period and would also explain the three days limit for the memories.

Second Idea:

Nene is 'stuck' in the hourglass.

This is Kako's reaction to Nene using the hourglass, he is shocked and angry that she wants to use it despite saying his Tale but here he seems just 'mildly annoyed'. The hourglass did disappear with her though. It's great to keep in mind that The sanglass wants to get more and more people into it, probably gaining power like this like the God Pit. Contrary to the God of the pit who at least gives people wishes in exchange, the SandGlass only set people to fail. Its malicious intention way more present than the other Kami the god pit.

It always make Nene go back to the Sand everytime, never allowing her to say she wants to get her old timeline back, to stay there, never giving her a break into the loop, driving people quickly into madness and losing all senses of self.

'It's alright, you can try again and again and again' until your lose your life and soul so you can join us. The Sandglass already knows what's waiting for anyone who uses it, it's never offering a solution, just forcing her to go back until she completely loses it. Making her thinks she has a choice in any of the decisions when she has none. After killing all her friends, I am pretty sure only a few more loops would be enough to make her take her own life or die by becoming much more reckless, and finally be part of the sandglass.

All stories told by Kako end up with the person using it dying. Either by their own hands or by others. The only one who ''didn't kill himself'' is the ClockMaker, putting a curse onto his own soul so it could never rest, so his soul would remember what he did and create a supernatural born from grief. So he could prevent people from doing the same mistake as all those people. The clockMaker is the only one who didn't use the sandglass 'one last time' to get what he wanted.

The Sandglass doesn't care what the present will look like, it only wants to empower itself by using greedy humans.

Which is why I think there is a possibility that the timeline Nene is in right now, is 'stuck' in the sandglass. I can't explain exactly how it would work tbh, maybe that just the sandglass 'create' false or alternatives timelines, enough to make the human using it go insane. Like it's a sandglass who can ''travel'' through timelines? I don't really know how it would work, but the dimension Nene is in is clearly a different space like the Nowhere where rules don't apply as in the real world.

But only humans can have access to it, hence why Akane is the one at the end who appears to potentially get her out, not Kako or Mirai, but a human, who can break the rules that bound the supernaturals and can fall under curses more easily, who can be cursed so can lure the sanglass to allow him to use his power. The sandglass would allow a human to use it, not a supernatural.

I already said here that I think there is a possibility Akane was already going after Nene since some times. The question now is: from which timeline it is? This this will be even harder to explain.

I personnaly think that Akane from the first new timeline (chapter 112 to 125) and from chapter 111 are the same, or at least, share the same memories.

Everything he says in chapter 113 is just so personal.

Which add to my idea that Nene is in a different timeline, that is not the same as the one she just left. She is not trying to change the timelines she is in, she is in a brand new one. The last twos were way more linked together than the ones Nene is in.

Because Teru and Akane don't remember anything, compared to the old one where the clock keepers used their powers.

Like when Kako uses its power in chapter 27, or when people are stuck in boundaries.

People with high spiritual energy always have better chance to remember.

Which implies to me that Nene hasn't really gone back in Time in the same way as they did previously. The Sandglass works differently that the clock keepers's clock. Kako and the Cat stayed in the real hourglass/clock.

Nene only has a part of its sand. The big part of it is controled by Kako and is what helps going back in Time, the clock keepers' powers over the Past.

I just wanna note that for the new timeline, only those who were present during the changes, ended up remembering right away (Nene and Teru). But it still happened at one point for others characters like Kou and Mitsuba/Sousuke. Characters like Tsuchigomori aren't shown remembering anything, but it's hard to say how much it may affect him since he is an old supernatural. His three days of memories left may have already passed, this memory thing is really wonky and only works when AidaIro want it to work though so I have no proof.

I also personnaly don't think the Akane from the many timelines Nene goes through, is the same as we see at the end of chapter 125. I don't think this Akane is supposed to remember the timelines. For a lot of different reasons that I think don't make sense, but Nene is pretty obvious in the way she acts that something is happening.

Akane doesn't change anything in the way he acts at all. He even worries for her because she acts differently and says non sensical stuff. There is no way he remembers all those timelines here. Or he can have the Oscar for the best actor idk it makes no sense. The only thing where I am not sure is the last one, the only time for me he would finally remembers all of it, is when he is dying. But I still think it's a weak plot point, really random and would go against the idea that he has been looking for her for some times.

(Funny note: Akane is a character who is always shown with half lidded eyes when ''''dying''''compared to the others like Teru. He is dying/losing conciousness, not dead/inconscious, right away.)

I still feel like what Kako did is way different than what Nene is doing with the hourglass. Nene is under the sandglass's influence, Kako uses its power only once to get things right (from his pov), never using it without taking precautions and doing his own investigation before acting.

Nene has a part of the sandglass, the core that wants it so bad to be used by human, but Kako still has the biggest part of its power with all the sand present when Nene enters the Clock.

And Kako, is supposedly working with Akane.

Let's go over Akane's role as a clock keeper.

This is more of a personal preference, but it would be insane to me that Akane has been stuck in the old timeline, in the boundary, alone, not doing anything when he has one of the most ''pro active'" personality of the cast. And especially that all this last arc, was for nothing. This arc already makes me mad that apparently no one will remember, this is just unfair to all others characters.

The idea of memories is important for the Clock Keepers in general. The idea that Nene is here using a hourglass creating different timelines and Kako being able to remember the first timelines/changes don't seem like a big stretch to me. They can't pinpoint exactly where/when Nene is and what she has changed since Akane implies that he has been looking for her for some time, with the 'Finally'.

But they know and remember that she is traveling through Time.

Which still begs the question of: why is Akane here in his clock keeper outfit if he doesn't remember/if he is supposed to be dead since he died in all new timelines? And I will be really honest with you and says that I have no clues which make really sense.

If we go into a more of one of the Meta sense of the Present, Akane may have something like Shijima's power.

A kind of power of Ubiquity power, but accross Timelines. There is the human Akane from the new Timeline, and the one from the boundary.

And the one, stuck in the clock keepers boundary, gain the memories of the others once they are erased, like a safety net so the supernatural part of him can still exist like Kako wants him to. By creating new timelines, it create new Akanes, that shares all memories before the changes were done by Kako but the clock keepers of the present is still out there. And with those memories he can see if something has gone wrong, that multiples bad timelines are being created, which is why, he finally acts now.

The only thing that point to this, is the fact that it's implied that Akane has two bodies. And that we don't really know how it works. But it's pretty clear that these two bodies are separated, they only share the same soul. (and we know that souls can be cut too)

He is way stronger and resistant as a supernatural.

If he kept his injuries, Akane should have died when the severance happened, or at least be not okay but he was. His injury only coming back when he gained his clock keeper form back in chapter 85.

Throughout the manga he is one of the character that has taken a lot of injuries, but only in his clock keeper form, and it never interferes with his human body, not even once.

(disclaimer: it may only be just a choice of Aidairo to absolutely refuse to show consequences btw :)) I will put it here because for all others characters it worked like this too when they went back from the far shore, humans go back to how they were when coming back from a boundary)

It's also shown that his power don't work when he wants to use it, because another Kami is in front of him. But he also supposedly know that it doesn't work outside of the school? And he thought that it would give Nene his autorisation but it broke?

We also know that his watch works outside of school in supernaturals prominent places, like the far shore.

I honestly don't really know how it would work, but I at least really think that Akane from the new timeline and the one in the boundary in chapter 111 have the same memories that's for sure. Is the human Akane able to use travel in time if he doesn't go himself 'free the clock keeper Akane'? I am not really sure how it would work once again.

The Akane in the new timeline is still Akane, like every other characters. I am just not sure about the timelines Nene is going through in the loops though. But I can't explain it more than 'it may be something the sandglass is trying to copy the way her friends are/to give her a sense of false security'. Is it some kind of tests to see how long Nene's soul would break? The sandglass don't even need to really travel back in time, it just needs to break Nene's soul to get her in the sand. But tbh this would be a weird choice too. So I am not sure about this, just that the sandglass definitely doesn't work the same way as Kako's clock.

The last option is, Akane at the end of chapter 126 is the one from chapter 111 (so from the old Timeline) and he absolutely doesn't share memories with Akane from the new Timelines, only Kako told him to go after Nene in the Timeloops. But once again it would kinda strange and really underwhelming from AidaIro, the writing for the characters this arc were... not really good for most of them, Nene being the only expection. I at least want one of the character to remember the Timeline we have been in since 1 year (10/12 chapters) for us readers. And Akane is the one who would make the most sense.

Last insane theory is Akane is the cat and he already tried to travel through time without being allowed to and Kako punished him but I won't expand on this because I don't like it much and would add a layer of 'wtf is happening' to this already really confusing arc.

New insane theory: he has another body that's made like the one of the clock keepers since they can cut souls. (I don't like it but here it is)

The clock keeper of the present can see through the eyes of people using the hourglass (no proof at all for this too jut random ideas)

And for the question: Will Akane pay the price to go back to the old Timeline? I already talked a little bit about it : here

I will be really honest but the only way it could have worked for me is: if it was confirmed that Akane was supposed to die at 12 and that the clock keepers extended his life with the contract, in the condition that they can take it back if needed.

But once again, we have no infos, Akane would have known this and I personally think it would be unfair to do that. To Akane, and to the clock keepers as characters. And for the loop Nene is stuck in, why would Akane pay for this? He isn't Kou or Hanako, Akane is a kind character, still he woudln't do something like this right away as the first solution expect if he had no choice, it's not Akane's place to pay for this. Nene shouldn't either but it would make more sense for her to pay a price to me for her timeloops.

I will end all of this to say that AidaIro's writing has... not been the greatest for me in this last arc. I understand the need to keep a lot of things mysterious, but they often put setups they never use after (*coughs* the key Nene got from Amane from the past *coughs* Akane's weird body thing I absolutely don't understand) and now we have so littles informations that we can create anything we want if we cross random informations.

I don't think it's too bad if people guess stuff from time to time, if it means the writing is less blurry. Being able to do theories is cool, but like the broadcasting club I just think it makes everything way more underwheling. Right now, absolutely everything could happen, and we could only nod. Because we have absolutely no informations, on Akane's contract, on how time travels really work in tbhk, wtf is going on with Amane and the big clock, how boundaries and the fare shore really work, why tf is Tsuchigomori a supernatural that can appear to human and not some of the others, why Nene is so special and what is the limits of her ''powers'' etc... They refuse to acknowledges some of the early rules they put, and absolutely don't make the characters deal with consequences. I really hope I will be proven wrong this time and to note that this is my opinion btw, but it's been a long time I've had this feeling with the writing and it's even worst with this arc.

I am glad Nene was proven wrong in this chapter (and it ties to something I talk about here more in details with Kou's character too), mostly because it's good to see something that has been implied since some times.

Nene is a good person, a really nice person, but play with the rules when they have been said explicitly, and see how they answer you.

Supernaturals are bound by rules and I truly think humans characters will be the ones who help them all in the end like it has been happening in the manga, even if humans are also the causes of a lot of their sufferings.

I think a human, will be the one to break the curse and the timeline from the clock keepers who are too stuck on their own rules, because it's still not fair. Nene is absolutely right on this and we understand why she took this risk. But I am still glad Nene was proven wrong this time. You can't expect to play with something as powerful as Time and think you will be okay after it.

They were against Death and Life in the last arc, trying to play by the rules and go out of it without consequences. Now they are against something more powerful than Death, something that can controls everything and suposedly exists everywhere, Time.

And the last thing they will probably be against, with the 7th mystery, will be something even more powerful than that.

Something probably close to Omnipotence, Creation and Destruction. Something that doesn't exist by the rules.

Little detail:

It's important to note that the Future still hasn't woken up yet contrary to the Past, since the Present isn't fixed/isn't here :)))

I can't wait to see if she will have a bigger role now, I am excited for her to appear at least. I also don't think Kako said the full truth and we will have the rest of their backstories a little bit later.

#toilet bound hanako kun #tbhk #jshk #this is all over the place but I am not brave enough to clean it sorry #aoi akane #yashiro nene #mirai tbhk #kako tbhk #tbhk manga #jibaku shonen hanako kun #ramblings #tbhk analysis #it's more like ideas after ideas than real analysis/theories #spoilers alert I have read the last chapter only twice oops #it's conspiracy theories over conspiracy theories lol #I needed to point out that this is kind of a mess #and if no one can guess it's normal :'))#I really hate the idea that Akane is the cat but welp I can see how it could happen still #once again if AidaIro decided to do that we could only nod #because why tf not lol #I wanted to get this insanity out of my chest #it makes no sense to me and I honestly don't know how AidaIro would make it up to me in term of writing rn #but welp #maybe ://#I am also aware I am so upset because it's a clock keepers arc and hmmmm #I am not really liking it :'))#Mirai save me #save me Mirai #may edit and add random ideas later #I did this in one go in like 2/3 hours rip

122 notes · View notes

miraculouslbcnreactions · 5 months ago

Note

The fandom can't make up its mind on what's supposed to be a joke and what's supposed to be serious because the show can't either half the time. It's a tonally disjointed mess that wants to have absurd over-the-top humor as well as a plot and moments of drama, romance, and angst that demand you see the characters as people and feel for what they're going through. Except you can't do that without also treating the dumb bullshit in a somewhat grounded way. Like, you're still dealing with the same characters. You can't just go "Oh, that? Let's ignore that!" the moment it's no longer convenient to you. You've opened this can of worms and now you have to sleep in it. So, every character flip-flops between two different versions of themselves depending on what the writers need in any particular scene.

This is not to say surreal humor can't be used right alongside characters you're supposed to empathize with, Teen Titans (not Go) did that and it worked. It's just that the absurdity can only come from the setting (Mad Mod, Mother Mae-Eye, pretty much anything Control Freak is in) or from designated joke characters (Date With Destiny). Teen Titans never had the main characters acting in clearly absurd ways as the butt of a joke unless those characters were brainwashed somehow, because the writers knew that would ruin any of the more grounded moments they wanted to write. The writers of Miraculous missed the memo on that one.

I don't disagree. A perfect example is Derision where the show takes all of the bad jokes about Marinette's crush and decides to take them seriously as if you can possible take them seriously without making Marinette come across as unhinged and dangerous. You can't, which brings us to the topic at hand: how do you even begin to understand these characters when the show is constantly making character-breaking choices?

My approach - and the approach I recommend others take if they're going to keep watching the show - is to focus on the characters' cores and reject anything canon does to violate those cores. I don't argue for this stance because I love the characters so much that I only want the good things to count. I take this stance because, if you don't, then the characters fall apart. There is no way to make them work as fully realized characters while embracing every choice canon has made. Miraculous has massive characterization issues that go well beyond the humor.

For example, Adrien has multiple moments of terrible behavior that are played in a serious manner such as the moment in the episode Frozer where he tries to start a fight with Ladybug in the middle of an akuma attack because she wouldn't accept a rose from him earlier:

Setup

Ladybug: I can't accept this rose from you. I told you already. I'm in love with someone else. Cat Noir: I know, M'lady. But if he weren't here, would things be different between us? Ladybug: Well, you know, I can't even begin to imagine him not being here. I'm sorry, Cat Noir. I really gotta get going, and you better do the same. (Swings her yo-yo to head back home; Cat Noir is sad, looking downwards, with one petal of the rose falling.)

Payoff

Ladyice: Cat Noir. We need to set up a trap for whoever turned the city into a giant ice rink. (throws yo-yo) Icecat: (bitterly) My feline instincts prefer to track and observe before I attack. You go your way, I'll go mine. Ladyice: Please don't tell me you're mad at me about the rose. Icecat: There may be a certain chill now between us. Ladyice: I get it, but we should really focus on saving Paris right now. Icecat: We don't always have to do everything together, after all. It's not like we're a couple. (skates away)

There's no way to argue this off as a bad joke. While Adrien has every right to feel hurt, those feelings don't excuse him acting like a pouting child in the middle of an akuma fight. It doesn't excuse him acting like this at any point! Ladybug is not a villain for telling him no. She wasn't even mean about it!

I clearly fully agree that Adrien looks awful and selfish here, but I'd still argue that it's not something that should be used to define Adrien's character if your goal is to tell the "ideal" version of Miraculous. "Ideal" being the version that canon seems to be going for based on the overall picture we can sort of make out if we back way, way, way up and look at the extremely abstract picture canon is clumsily painting.

Unless canon is going to do something monumentally stupid, Adrien is Marinette's endgame romantic interest. It's also clear that there is no plan to cut him from the team. He's going to be Chat Noir for the rest of his life or at least well into his adulthood. This means that he is supposed to be a good hero who deserves his miraculous just like he's supposed to be a charming and cute romantic lead. These are the two things I keep in mind when trying to shift through canon to figure out what writing choices I should fully embrace and what writing choices I have to either ignore or treat as true flaws that get an actual character arc. In my book, either approach is fine because most of the characters are deeply flawed at this point and you can't give them all arcs without bloating the story to nonsense levels.

My goal with this approach is never to say, "oh, that moment shouldn't count in terms of how people feel about the character." It's more, "that moment goes so hard against who this character is very clearly supposed to be that I can't take it into account if I want to tell the kind of story that Miraculous is trying (and clearly failing) to tell."

As an example, let's list off Adrien's worst behaviors. The things that make him look terrible:

He sucks at communicating his needs and feelings, leading to multiple moments where he gets mad at Ladybug for things she's totally unaware of

He has quit or considered quitting without warning multiple times and only one of those was because of something he did "wrong" (NYC Special)

He puts his feelings before the safety of Paris on multiple occasions, even going so far to purposely miss akuma fights to see what happens

He is incredibly pushy about his crush, often ignoring Ladybug's feelings on the topic by continuing to bring it up even after she asked him to stop

There have been multiple instances where he almost cataclysmed multiple people in a fit of anger

His love for Ladynette isn't strong enough to let him break free of things like akumas and nightmare dust even when he's looking her in the eyes making him a pretty crappy romantic lead

People will argue that some of this behavior makes sense for his character because of the abuse that canon has technically introduced, but that the writers seem blissfully unaware of. I don't disagree with that argument, but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is acceptable behavior for a hero and Adrien is a hero who keeps doing these things. A sad backstory doesn't give you the right to behave poorly without consequences.

At the same time, if I fully embrace these elements of canon, what I get is an Adrien salt fic where he loses his miraculous for good while Marinette finds her real true love or even just a non-salty fic where Adrien leaves for his own meatal health and gets replaced by someone who can handle being a hero right now. Canon's not writing either of those, so the only way to engage with these flaws while enjoying canon or aiming for the same end goals as canon is to say, "I guess this doesn't count" or "I guess I need to tone this way down and work through it via a character arc" or even "I guess that was just a bad joke maybe?"

That is the essence of what I mean when I call myself a writing salt, character sugar blog. It comes from looking at canon and seeing that there's simply no way to embrace the worst moments and the best at the same time. We're not dealing with a coherent plot and/or complex characters. We're dealing with a nonsense plot that will warp the characters to bizarre shapes to make random ideas work even if those idea go wildly against canon's end goals.

As an example, Glaciator and Frozer should not exist in the same universe or, at the very least, something should explain why Chat Noir randomly changed his stance on Ladybug's crush from acceptance to pushiness. As is, the pieces don't fit together. The behavior is too contradictory. Remember, this is how Glaciator ends:

Perhaps Ladybug will love me someday. I mean, like, I love her. I have to believe. In the meantime, her friendship is the best gift of all.

Where did this version of Adrien go? Why did he regress in Frozer? There's no in-universe reason. It happened because the writers weren't ready to let the love square date or grow close, but they also wanted the love square to cause drama, so Adrien ends up looking terrible just like Marinette ends up looking terrible when it's her turn to cause love square drama. Her terribleness takes a different flavor so it can be hard to realize that this is a systemic issue, but that's what it is. It's deeply frustrating, but it also clearly stems from cheap writing and not quality characterization.

This is also why my stance is that canon as a whole only supports my Doyalistic core-character analysis style of approach. The writing is too poor quality to do Watsonian analysis where you embrace the full picture and try to put it all together. The closest I'll get to Watsonian analysis is pointing out how much the writing botches a Watsonian take by showing you all the way the writing contradicts itself, twisting into a nonsense pretzel of frustration where the payoffs never satisfy! (See the season four rant for an example or anything where I talked about Chloe's supposed damnation arc.)

There are even characters where canon is such a total mess that you can Doyalistically argue for two separate takes! Gabriel is a perfect example. He is all over the place and his ending was so poorly handled that you can make strong arguments for writing him as a cold-hearted villain or a sympathetic villain without the end result feeling like it spits in the face of canon because both takes maintain his one core element: villain.

That's the big thing I keep in mind when I look at the characters and the lore and the plots and try to come up with versions that the average fan would like. I don't think that there's one true version of any of these things, but I do feel comfortable saying that there are versions that will very clearly only appeal to people who are salty about a specific thing that canon did poorly. That's not who I want to appeal to in my adaptions, so while I'm not going to argue that those takes have no backing in canon, I will argue that those takes are not supported by canon as a whole. Embracing them requires you to take the worst parts of canon at face value while ignoring what canon is clearly trying to do with the overall story.

I get the appeal of that, but it's not fun for me because that approach feels like rolling around in the mud with the pigs. I don't want to sink to canon's level! I want to have fun! That's why I talk about how to make canon into its best self, not its worst self. If you want its worst self, just go watch the actual show. I will be shocked it if disappoints you.