#they did the same thing to me with moral orel

[zimtlees]

Honestly, I see Orel as someone who holds very little grudges, which is why I never bought into the whole ‘Orel wouldn’t forgive his dad’ take.

Like, he loves him, but that love makes him feel. ashamed? of everything Clay’s done. I can’t explain it well, but since he’s also ‘hyper-sensitive,’ hearing people talk shit about Clay would probably make him cry sometimes. Because, well… he’s still his dad.

Even as an adult (remember, he's married to Christina and not living with his parents), Orel would still go out of his way to make Clay feel better—that guilt never really goes away. He'd try to help him out financially (even though his paycheck isn't exactly huge), though sometimes Clay refuses to take the money. He'd also call him all the time to check if he needs groceries or anything

[ultravioletqueen]

I love hazbin hotel but....nerdy prudes must did MANY things BETTER

I currently have a love-hate relationship with Hazbin Hotel, because whether I like it or not it was part of my adolescence since I saw the pilot, but I must admit that it has flaws that irritate me a lot and I know that it irritates others too:

my main problems are:

1) the humor is too immature to be a program "for adults" (there are fans who are not even older, I'm not saying that, the conventions say it💀),its the humor of a teenager that recently learned what swear words are.

They pretend this show is more complex and deep than it really is,they want us yo believe that this is how an adult show works when,NO???? THERE'S PLENTY OF ADULT SHOWS THAT WORKS WITHOUT CONSTANT SWEARING AND SEX JOKES! like My Aventures with Superman, Moral Orel, Bob's Burgers and others!

The audience of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss are mostly teenagers, not even adults.

2) the villains have no depth nor are they intimidating, I'm talking especially about VALENTINO and ADAM (as much as I love Adam, I don't feel intimidated by his presence) and they don't feel like a real problem for the protagonists.

ADAM is the biggest villain of the first season but i never see him as a threat,the characters don't feel in danger,he is not a bigger evil they should care about. Adam had a lot of potential to be the big villain they tell us he is,he in fact had the potential to be the best character of the series but they just make him a douchebag just for the sake of being one,he has no motivations besides being a sadist that enjoys killing his descendants and fucking around.

VALENTINO is just a petty manchild that is intimidating in just one scene and after that there is no other moment where that threatening persona shows up again,he is not a real threat even if he is important to Angel Dust arc,they could put travis in his place and is just the same shit, nothing changes.

3) the characters have no variety, the lack of diversity and other colors that are not red is so annoying to me as a person who likes to find variety on colors and shapes, but all, i mean ALL characters have red in their clothing and it makes that they mix with the background in a way that gives me the ICK.

In the part of body shapes is the same problem, the only characters that are not skinny twinks/voluptuous chicks are antagonists or villains, they just make the fat characters annoying just to make the audience like the skinny ones more.

The women and men bodies are practically the SAME FUCKING THING:

Vivziepop only knows hourglass and twink bodies.

And as a fashion lover i must say that the lack of variety in clothes,especially for men is KILLING ME, every man in this show uses suits, shoulder pads and bowties, even if some characters looks good it make my blood BOIL no seeing other look more than this.

4) They rush the story to the point that they waste possible arcs for the characters (SIR PENTIOUS'S and ANGEL DUST path to redemption),they make the war to heaven the priority instead of the real premise of redeming sinners,they ignore it and not even make real attemps to let the audience know there is a real progress and the ways they use to "rehabilitate" are so childish that makes me cringe,if CHARLIE really wants to help them she should make REAL REHABILITATION PROGRAMS instead of kids excersises.

ANGEL DUST was a prick from day one,not only in the pilot but also in the series,he is a pos that DESERVES ALL THE BAD THINGS THAT HAPPEN TO HIM, and he was not only an addict to drugs and sex, he was a MOBSTER, HE KILLED PEOPLE FOR A LIVING AND HE SHOWED NO REMORSE, his sudden caring for the other cast feels so out of character and rushed that makes me ANGRY.

The redemption of Sir Pentious was so rushed that makes me feel NOTHING AT ALL because we dont see him get better, we dont see him chance and we dont even know how sacrificing himself redeem him, i dont know, maybe he was very selfish in life??? Its not that hard viv.

Now, what does this have to do with Nerdy Prudes Must Die? It's very simple, Nerdy Prudes Must Die takes several of Hazbin Hotel's flaws and makes it BETTER.

1) the humor is universally funny, it is not sold as something for adults because it has swear words or sexual jokes, it is not shown as something more mature or profound than it is, they know that it is not the eighth wonder of the world and they make the most of it doing comedy, improvisation and very funny situations.

Their songs, for example, are very fun and bring weight to the plot. Each song shows a perspective and the thoughts of the characters that cannot be expressed in words. Each musical number enters the minds of the protagonists, from the beginning to the end.

2)MAX, the villain of the story, is the nightmare of every teenager who has gone to high school, a bully who gets his way and makes everyone's lives impossible, and that makes him SCARY AS HELL.

When MAX enters the scene you can see the fear that everyone has of him, he feels intimidating and inspires fear and respect among others, everyone knows that if he is around there are SERIOUS problems and he acts like a true threat.

and MAX is deeper than he seems, unlike ADAM or VALENTINO you can notice that he has certain qualities that make him charismatic such as being naturally funny, appreciating when people do good things for him, having a genuine interest in GRACE CHASTITY and that his family life not being the best means that you can have even some affection for the character without leaving aside his actions against others.

All the characters represent the average 17 year old teenager and that makes them friendly, they show the reality that adolescence regardless of who you are has its problems especially in an environment like high school.

The protagonists are sympathetic, it's easy to get attached to them, I still haven't get over RICHIE'S death and his "im not a loser" because we saw that in fact he wasn't just a loser, he was a someone who, although he had his problems, was a good boy and he didn't deserve the ending he had(and his dead showed how sadistic Max could be).

Unlike Sir Pentious and Angel Dust we were able to see more of Richie, we were able to see that he was the one who felt the worst about what they did to Max, while the others are worried about going to prison he talks about how he feels about it (" i think im gonna throw up"/"oh my ashtma is back"), we can see that he wanted to be accepted as someone important on the team and when he finally feels valued Max kills him when he feels his kingdom crumble, in my opinion his "im not "a loser" is a way of giving himself confidence or courage to confront his bully from years ago but obviously it didn't work and he ended up dying in a horrible way, what makes it sadder is that he probably tried to run away from max and ended up in the bathroom because every victim of bullying knows that it can be a safe place (locking yourself in a cubicle until the bully leaves) but Max being a ghost didn't work:(

the characters are empathetic almost without wanting to, even MAX can be empathetic if you analyze enough.

3)there are more diversity here than any other series of vivziepop, i know is different because is a live musical with real people but they make sure that EVERY CHARACTER IS MEMORABLE, every character has his own quirks and clothing that makes them stand out.

We see variety of colors, races, faces and more! They make them iconic and easy to remember in all scenes, no character is left behind and they all are unique in clothes, personality and depth.

4)The story doesn't feel rushed, they take enough time to tell the story without making it too long or shortening it either, each arc is resolved in a way that goes well with the plot and doesn't feel forced.

My god, STEPH AND PETER have more chemistry than CHARLIE AND VAGGIE and they achieved it almost effortlessly. Their arc is not the best in the world, but I love their dynamics and chemistry more than CHARLIE and VAGGIE (and I like Chaggie in concept) and the story advances without the need to focus only on one character, everyone has their moment to shine and that fascinates me about this musical, each one is in the spotlight at the right and necessary moment.

In conclusion: Vivienne should learn from starkid, who were able to make a story that, although it begins superficially with a teenage drama, over time becomes deeper and talks about hard topics such as bullying, murder, death and the occult. way that we can feel connected with the characters and with the story in general, they give us a story with soul, something that unfortunately makes the hotel fail completely, it also helps me accept that I can like a series and still recognize its mistakes and see That others can get it right where Hazbin Hotel went wrong.

[romeedoused]

Romee 17 (as in carmen and dancing queen). shifting blog intro!

divider ! She/her

hiii! im romee! row-may, idgaf if the og name is pronounced romy, i read it rowmay and went with it, 08 liner, bi (all 3) found out about shifting when i was 13, if for anything, i shift to relive my adolescence over and over again, all my drs are scripted like fanfiction ! all cinderella stories, sofia coppola movies, beautiful teenage girl that only gets sad to a romanticizable extent, and is unfairly beautiful, im greedy as shit and realism has absolutely nothing on me!!

my english sucks, im Inarticulate, i dont proofread, and i have absolutely no social cues, good lusk with that.

interests! ( im surface level deep in every subculture so im basically lame to everybody)

i wouldnt call myself a cinefile, but god knows i love movies, also one of my reviews got FIVE likes once, im that annoying ass friend who somehows has a movie to talk about everyday and nags the shit out of you to download letterboxd, i would instantly be friends with you if you recommended movies to me, i will not be giving my letterboxd because its not as impressive as id want it to be, and also theres an embarrassing amout of horrible movies i watched solely for josh o'connor, i dont care if he has total screentime of 17 seconds, i will watch the movie if hes in it,

my top 4 is just my own private idaho repeated 4 times

internet is limited in my country, you pay for the quantity, this is what karl marx was warning us about, point is i dont watch lots of shows, i only watched fleabag, bojack horseman, euphoria and moral orel and i watch an episode of community once every two weeks(and the good place but i didnt like it enough to watch s2)

characters i relate to:

patrick ❀ challengers, if you hate him you hate me too, you guys are cruel.

mr darcy ❀ pride and prejudice fleabag ❀ fleabag

tracy ❀ Thirteen needy ❀ jennifers body

withnail and i ❀ both guys. dally ❀ the outsiders

rue ❀ euphoria, i relate to everyone on euphoria to an extent except for maddie and that blonde dude, forgot his name too.

Realities!! (fame drs and others, damn girl did anyone love you as a child?)

please PLEASE I AM DESPERATE, if we shift yo the same reality interact w me, esp challengers! please!!!!

❀ Fame 2023 actor, 2014 alt tumblrs darling singer, 2010 pop star (came from disney), 1967 (taking gena rowlands entire career) , 2024 singer (powerhouse) 2011 (idk tbh 2011 is cool) 1920s (babylon 2022 inspired)

❀ challengers. ❀ euphoria. ❀ the outsiders.

❀ Trailer park darling, inspired by betty blue (if they gave her some character) no script at the moment, just unreleased lana songs glued together.

❀ small town. ❀ Moral orel. ❀ Spongebob.

❀ better cr. ❀ rocky horror picture show

❀ crash

DNI LIST!!!!! must read.

antishifters, kindly, i dont want anything to do with you and ill block you if u interact w me :/ its no use, ill be upset and youre gonna be enraged i didnt reply in the same energy

if you in anyway shape or form, capatalize out of shifting or manifesting, FUCK OFF, unkindly, i dont care if its channeling or coaching, 14 year olds on this app can give better advice that you do, + any form of bigotry, zionism, shift to do crime, i dont have to write every tiny thing, please don't interact if you shift to suck on your sisters titties, haha.

don't interact if even youre just mean, i hate it.

[princess-charlie-of-hell]

What's your opinion on Adam x Lilith? Personally I really love it because of the drama in the folklore, like Adam wanting Lilith to be submissive during sex and Lilith raping Adam, they have done quite some horrible things to eachother and yet still had plenty of kids and slept around once which made me like it for it's toxicity and drama. It's like neither of them can forget about eachother.

Hazbin will most likely go for Lucilith but I wish we got to explore more of the first couple's relationship and actually see the drama we got in the myths

I can't really say much about the actual Folklore of Lilith and Adam as I don't really know much about it, the first time i actually heard about Lilith was in supernatural

But i can talk a lot about the Hazbin version like i find their relationship very interesting especially because of their toxicity despite being technically made for each other they despise each other

While we still don't know a lot of Lilith's character i personally think that her and Lucifer bring out the best in each other while Adam and Lilith bring out the worst in each other

Adam leading the exterminations of the people Lilith seemed to love so much, Lilith giving together with Lucifer the apple of knowledge to his new wife which caused Eve and Adam to be thrown out of eden

They also despite their differences seem to have similar roles , Lilith being the one to motivate sinners and we see Adam actually doing the same as he gives his prep talk to the exorcists in the last episode of season 2

Whatever deal was made between the first humans allowed Lilith to stay in heaven for at least 7 years, while i don't think that Adam did it because of niceness but more he saw an opportunity to take one of heavens greatest treats and also get back at Lucifer,yet still find it interesting

What was so important for them that they made a deal with each other despite their history and how much they suffered from each other because of the others actions?

I don't really think they ever were really in love with each other but only were together because they didn't know better but i actually HC that despite their dislike for each other that they are physically very attractive to each other kinda like in the horny angry tango

If they actually stayed together i think they would end up similar to Clay and Bloberta from moral orel, blaming each other for their own live choices but not being able to break up because they still enjoy seeing the other one suffering

Yet i wonder if they were a possibility for them to be happy with each other, if Adam just accepted to get pegged by Lilith and lose his misogyny like they seem both to enjoy music maybe they could connect about it or if they end up in a poly relationship with Lucifer and Eve

But I don't actually think they really could be in a healthy relationship by themselves without serious help,sad that marriage counseling wasn't invented in Eden yet. But i hope that we maybe get more insight on their relationship before Lilith meets Lucifer

[puzzled-pegasus]

Bloberta and Clay analysis ramblings

(TW: discussion of child abuse, spousal abuse, alcoholism, and SA)

I just rewatched Help and Passing and think it's time that I talked about our favorite dysfunctional husband and wife from Moral Orel.

Both Bloberta and Clay are really bad people in my opinion, and both sympathetic, but Bloberta is undeniably responsible for the fact that they ended up together when they shouldn't have, and Clay is of course mostly responsible for the way he treated Orel. It's important to note that I do NOT think that Bloberta is responsible for Clay's alchoholism, at least not by encouraging him to drink one single time at a party. He's responsible for his own choice to keep drinking so much every day after despite the person he became when he was drunk.

She did, however, essentially squeeze a not-even-proposal out of him after he made it clear that he wasn't into the idea of marriage, and then was disappointed and frustrated when he looked sad at their wedding. It's possible that she may have had somewhat of an "i can fix him" mentality?

Mostly, though, it's shown in the episode Help that all she wants is to be useful and wanted, and to find a man as quickly as she can to get married to so she doesn't feel left out in her circle of women around her age. She was a middle child at home and constantly pushed aside everywhere else as well. So of course, she's going to snatch up the first young man who so much as engages in pleasant conversation with her. Even if that man is someone who very strongly hints at wanting nothing to do with her romantically.

As we learn in previous episodes of the show, Bloberta also seems desperate for male attention because Clay avoids her, but she probably also was back then; Clay just didn't satisfy her want for attention like she thought he would, because he resented her.

Of course, we don't see into Bloberta's childhood at all, not that Clay's childhood flashback didn't make him look like 100 percent worse as a person, and Clay gets more screentime overall. But with what we do have, Clay gets a few more sympathy points from me, especially from what we learn in Help and during his Nature rant.

As the best, and most well-rounded-out story antagonists do, Clay has a really interesting cocktail of trauma that makes him the intimidating abuser that he is. There are so many points during his screentime where you almost just feel bad for him, or concerned. Especially in the Nature rant.

One thing that's so good about that rant is that the whole scene almost perfectly illustrates the feeling of having a parent dump some of their darkest traumas onto you just because you're forced to listen. The concern on Orel's face, the sorrow, the shock, the disturbance of seeing someone---that he trusted and looked up to, and who he thought had everything figured out, like lots of children believe their parents do----just...fall apart in front of him.

Just the same as Orel does in this scene, the viewer might feel very uncomfortable and somewhat angry at Clay for putting all this onto a child who is dependent on him and who he put into a dangerous situation with his drunken self, but there's also an undeniable sense of sympathy for Clay as he rants about how unhappy he is with his life. A large part of the rant is also about his resentment toward women and Bloberta in particular, and the way he describes their relationship...to me, makes it sound like Bloberta has sexually assaulted him, and I'm surprised I haven't see anyone talk about that.

As additional evidence, consider the exchange in The Best Christmas Ever:

"I don't even remember concieving [Shapey]!"

"Oh please, when do you ever remember?" Now, in a normal argument, this would just be a jab at how Clay is constantly drunk, but this is a conversation about the origins of a child, thus, having sexual intercourse; implying that Clay often doesn't remember when he and Bloberta do it.

"All I do is try to forget." This one really confirms it for me. If Bloberta doing sexual things to Clay is so awful for him that he's constantly self medicating to forget about it---of course, that among other things---then I would classify that as SA.

And then there's the line, "I can't believe I gave you the privilege of satisfying me every night," which may or may not be evidence. He may have phrased it that way to convince himself that he had control over the situations where Bloberta coerced him, or it may be regret of the (very) few times he cooperated willingly. Possibly both.

Who knows. Maybe Clay didn't mind it for a little while after they were married, and didn't see the need anymore after they already had a child because he wasn't sexually attracted to Bloberta in the first place. Maybe he was attracted to her for a short while and he lost the feeling when she was pregnant. Either way, his distress during the Nature rant made it undeniably clear to me that at least a portion of his sexual encounters with Bloberta were instances of marital SA with Blobs as the perpetrator.

I'd like to say again that this observation about Clay does not in anyway attempt to redeem him as a character or say he was "good all along," I just think it's annoying that the rape of Nurse Bendy and Miss Sculptham were such impactful scenes in the fandom and yet I've never seen anyone bring up the possibility that it could have been happening to Clay.

Moving on from that, though, there's another thing I've noticed about the relationship with Clay and Bloberta----the absence of domestic abuse, as least that we have seen. Not that I'm complaining that no one is beating their spouse in this show, but looking at all the other dark topics in Moral Orel, it's just a little interesting that they didn't cover the topic of spousal abuse, even as a joke. Which is to say, it's interesting that despite how much Clay and Bloberta hate each other, they never get into physical fights or push each other around using violence. Well, except for that one time in Help where Blobs punches Clay in the face. But who's to say whether she did that while married.

They also don't get into very many heated fights, to such an extent that Orel still thinks they're somewhat happy at the end of the show. In general, it seems like they're mostly just trying to stay out of each other's way. Maybe they do have some sort of small shred of human respect or base level love for each other. Maybe they don't see the point of being violent toward each other, or maybe they just don't want anyone to see bruises on the other to arouse suspicion that they're not actually perfect and happy and loving. There are ways to cover bruises, though, so I think there's gotta be some other reason. Maybe they're just worried about it being a sin to lay hands on a spouse? Maybe Clay took to heart the fact that his own father never, ever laid hands on his wife, Clay's mother? Maybe it was enough for Clay to take his frustrations out on Orel instead, since he misbehaved so often?

Anyway, this is a long post. These characters are just so interesting and the story is so thought provoking. Send me asks if you want. Or don't. I just like talking about these loser ass puppet people.

[petitprincess1]

Warning: Hazbin Hotel Spoilers and mentions of SA

I dont know if you've noticed but there's been new drama on Twitter regarding one of Angel Dust scenes that depict him being SAd by Val and people got so mad over it saying it was incredibly disrespectfull, harming and insensitive to real SA victims.

While I agree maybe not everyone will enjoy that scene I dont think they should be surprised when it was announced that Hazbin was much darker than Helluva Boss considering its +18 calification and setting (also it makes sense when you consider Pride is inhabited by the worst of the worst and people got sent there as punishment for their misdeeds but get no regulation/sentence for their crimes and can continue their sinful acts while Hellborns were born there hence why they have a more grey morality-like Blitzø,Loona, Moxxie or Millie-and lower Rings actually have laws to ensure people's safety). The warnings are there for a reason, buddy.

Also people are talking about how bad it is to represent SA as what it is; something uncomfortable for SA victims and are comparing it with stuff that did it for laughs like Moral Orel in S1. Yes, SA is uncomfortable and ugly to watch but I think its important to have the representation as male SA victims (or just SA victims in general) get laughed at and blamed for something that wasn't their fault. And trauma isn't something pretty and people sometimes have not extremly good coping mechanisms to deal with it. It's raw,ugly and discomforting to watch but SA victims can relate to that and actually aive seen oeople saying that they had similar expierences to Angel and honestly it feels good to be seen.

Plus honestly this whe debacle kinda reminds me of how people victim blamed Stolas for also being a SA victim as confirmed in the Circus and went out of their way to villify him by implying that he must have done something to piss Stella off for her to rape him and concevie Via which is essentially the same as asking a girl or woman what they were wearing and blaming them for getting SAd. And also shame them for trying to cope with it however they can, like joking about it or glorifying it in attempts to make them feel not so shitty for what happened to them; like how they're doing with Viv for joking about her past trauma currently.

Idk it just feels like people, especially non SA victims, dont want SA victims to have visibility and go out of their way to say harmfull stuff like SA victims shouldn't be sexy or shouldn't have sex again in their lives which is more harmfull than good as youre basically shaming them into being unhappy with their bodies just for an unpleasant and undesireable expierence they had no say in it instead of healing. I get that its uncomfortable but it doesn't mean we wont to see Angel get better and be treated with the respect he deserves in future episodes.

I kinda find it funny they bring up Moral Orel, considering they did show rape victims in a more serious light in S3, which is what got the show canceled by Adult Swim. But yeah. I dont see what's wrong with showing how horrifying and terrible SA is. If it's because of his behavior, yeah...that's how he copes. Like, hypersexuality is a thing that victims of SA can go through.

Then again, I guess Antis know better than SA victims. I mean.........just look at 'em. /sarcasm

[tinyattack09]

ALLL MORAL OREL FANS

you wanna see a fix where Clay is confronted by literal god???

Here it is!!!

Beseech

After the Danielle incident and the hunting tragedy, Clay Puppington receded to his study most of the time. Making no attempt to change, he would waste his days drinking and having an affair with both Censordoll and Stopframe. But, we all know that the lord giveth, and the lord taketh away.

“Clayton Middleinitial Puppington!”

“G-…God!?”

“It is I, the Heavenly Father.” His voice shook the room, and boomed into his body.

“Wha-…Why have you visited me, Lord?” Clay said, clearly in a daze.

“You have a lesson to learn, Clayton. You give your own

lessons and stories while convoluting their meaning to fit your way of destructive, abusive life. It is time that you learn, mortal. The Lord’s mercy only reaches you if it remains pure.”

A sword of pure light appeared. As the Lord held it, the power

changed its hue.

“Lord, what are you doing!?” Clay stepped back. He knew that

he was in trouble, and he couldn’t bribe this one to go away. The sword was raised, and all the light in the room was focused only on Clay.

“What is necessary to keep my world pure.”

“Why…?!”

"Why!? Pathetic. Unable to realize thy faults. Let us see your life, and what it really was."

Everything fades. There is a young boy holding a gun. It shakes in his hands as he struggles to bear such a deadly tool.

"It's a tradition in the Puppington family that the head of the household would pass off this gun to the eldest son."

"Wow, dad… But I don't think I could kill an animal. That seems too mean."

"Son, nature was made to be hunted. We get to 'play god.'"

“Play God?? Golly Pops… that doesn’t sound very right…

You know the sixty-third commandment! ���Thou shalt never hold a gun without anything to shoot at!’ And we have to follow God’s rules!”

The memory switches to a young Puppington, holding that

same gun, while ketchup was spewed all over the child’s body.

“Clay! Clay! Clayton! Open your fucking eyes!” Clay’s body was shook violently.

“What?? I didn’t do anything!” Clay springs back to life, having

pretended he was dead. His mother then cried out

“Oh thank the heavens! Lord, thank you-“ She froze in the

middle of her sentence. She fell to the floor, her heart unresponsive.

“Mom!” Clay ran to his now dead mother, understanding what he did.

“Get back!” Clay’s father pushed him back, slamming him to a wall. No CPR could be done, and Amanda Puppington was declared dead. The memory fades to black.

Clay was frozen.

“I-… I was so young, Father! I didn’t know what I was doing! I was only six years old!”

“Then let us watch something more… recent, yes?” The memory flashes to the wilderness. Clay is an adult, and stands there with his twelve year-old son, Orel.

“Dad… I think you might be *too* drunk.”

“I… Let me tell you something, Orel! Drunk is nature.”

“I’m not really comfortable hunting with you, Dad.” Orel is tense, gripping to the log he’s sitting on.

“You aren’t comfortable hunting with me? Ever tried hunting with you!?” Clay gulps down his liquor like it’s the last bottle of water in the desert.

“Y’know kid, your cup is always half empty. Look at me. You should be more like your old man and look on the blight side of life.”

“B-Blight?” Orel said, shivering from his fear.

“No, I didn’t say ‘bright,’" Clay interrupted, "I said blight. My life is sunny and blight. ‘Bright’ means the opposite — it means sudden withering death. And that’s… not… Oh, who am I kidding, my life is full of bright…”

“Dad..?” Orel replied, terrified that his father would lose composure.

“Oh, God.”

“What’s happening, Dad!?” Orel cried.

"Oh, I hate myself…”

He runs out of liquor in the bottle. He stares at his reflection, silently hoping that it would be the last time he’d have to see it.

“Why do you quit working on me!?!”

Everything goes silent. No birds chirping, no crickets, no owls in the night.

“She always fools me, Orel. ‘I’ll make things better dear! Drink me! Put me inside of you, I’m great!’ And then she chokes me just like every other whore out there!! They’re all worthless, kid! Every woman. Don’t let ‘em get ya! All of them just wanna get ya! They just grab you and pull you into ‘em! And then you’re forced to stay in, pull out. Stay in, and pull out!! And then they cut ya! And they grip ya by the… right where it counts! And then they start SQUEEZING things out! Things that are like weights around your head! You’re stuck there for the rest of your life, with NOWHERE to go and NO ONE to be!!! AAAAGH!!!”

The scene faded out.

"What's so bad about that?! It's useful advice!" Clay exclaimed, deluded by his own prejudice.

"Just wait, mortal."

The scene reappeared. It opens to clay and Orel sitting across from each other, with clay in a drunken stupor. Orel is now as far away from Clay as he can be while still on a log.

"It's time you became a man. Where's my rifle!?" Clay yells, searching for it/

"Dad, I don't think-"

"There it is! No mistakes, no accidents, no fuck-ups, no blunders."

"Dad! W-What are you doing?!"

"Somethin' important!!"

A single, lone spark flew. Following it was an ear-splitting bang. No noise could be heard after that, other than the ringing going through both of their ears.

"D-...Dad…"

The scene fades for the final time.

Clay was frozen.

"Do you realize thy fault now? Are you able to comprehend the weight of your sin?! Do you finally see that your actions have consequences, Puppington!?" The ethereal voice boomed. Its volume was so loud that Clay was shaken back into reality.

Clay was speechless. Instead of pleading for his case, he simply stood there thinking. He didn't need to speak, for his god could tell exactly what he was thinking.

I couldn't have done that. But I did. How? Why? What do I do!? What do I do?!

But then a thought hit him.

Just give up. You've been so dedicated to your Lord your entire life. Give everything to Him.

"Please…" Clay said, hopeless and weak. Clay then fell to his knees. He didn't dare to raise his head, or so much as stand up.

"Please what?" The deity spoke. Tears began to roll down Clay's cheeks as he remained there kneeling before his God.

"Please… Have mercy," he muttered. He was too weak to raise his voice.

"Forgive me, Lord. Forgive me. I'm weak without you, God."

"You beseech for something you could not give to your own, Clayton. The kingdom of heaven does not allow those like you."

The sword of light raised up once more, as Clay said his final vow.

"I'm sorry, Orel."

A scream rang out. The scream of a weak, hopeless, self-destructive, and miserable young boy. The light disappeared, and all that was left was a soul, going to neither heaven nor hell. The soul was trapped in the mortal world, and had a chain around its neck.

Suddenly, Orel walked into the study. As he stepped further, something came into view.

The end of a chain that led directly to his neck.

RB AND LIKE I SPENT SO MUCH TKMD ON THIS OKAY BYE

[saderplate7]

LONG POST TIME: SONGWRITING WITH SADER

in honor of it officially being 2025, i would like to state that i SUCCESSFULLY followed my 2024 new year's resolution: to write a song per month so i'd have 12 by the end of the year. it is now 2025 and i am happy to announce:

I WROTE SIXTEEN SONGS IN 2024 AND NOW I'M GOING TO TALK ABOUT THEM!

JANUARY: -pass me a note. originally intended to be the theme music for someone else's podcast. then i changed my mind about that so i made it into a good omens song.

FEBRUARY: -twin-sized coffin. for sure my best production of the year, also some of my best lyrics. the only song of the year to have harmonies. it's about moral orel!

MARCH: -joy ride. (not kesha's, i swear.) my second and more successful attempt to write theme music for the aforementioned podcast. it was also my first ever song that i heard somebody else sing! (they did not use my voice for the podcast)

APRIL: -not today. my cop-out song. i had no motivation so i wrote about that. it's only about a minute and a half long.

MAY: -are you having fun yet? had an absolute nightmare of a time trying to record this one, and in fact i still do not have a good recording of it. it's my own fault though. it's about the stanley parable!

JUNE: -common threads. my best song of 2024. best combination of lyrics and music. i'm a little bit obsessed with the bridge of this one also.

JULY (songwriting summer!): -nice things. i tried to make it jonathan-larson-esque. i really like its chorus. i wrote it after the gaiman allegations and that's all i'll say about that -descendants song. i cannot shut up about this descendants song (i have a whole tag for it, check it out if you want). and soon it will be performed by real life people and i'm very very excited. -if you were into it. definitely does not count as a completed song but i would be remiss if i didn't include it. it was a fraction of a song, written for a very old wip that i probably won't return to for a While, if at all. but i had a lot of fun with it.

AUGUST: -along the way. i wrote this one on a very frustrated, upset, exhausted day. in fact i was so exhausted that it doesn't have an instrumental, it's just me hitting the table in lieu of percussion.

SEPTEMBER: -million-dollar smile. the frustration continues! i was very stressed out and not very happy when i wrote this one, but i am a fan of its chorus.

OCTOBER: -the way iamb. i really like this one- it makes me very happy. part of it is in iambic pentameter. it will possibly eventually be a part of a Larger Project. we shall see.

NOVEMBER: -unsure of myself. very very short piece, honestly barely even counts, but it was my only ukulele accompaniment and i thought it was cute. -want you to want me. i wrote THIS one about a play nobody has ever heard of! has some pretty decent melodies in it.

DECEMBER: -hashbrown hanukkah. i wrote this one when i was extraordinarily sad. -you need jesus. i was so sad after writing the previous one that i wrote this one in the SAME NIGHT. i had never written two songs in a day before. this one was not sad. it was a LOT of fun. for the same possible project as the october song.

IN CONCLUSION i'm going to try to keep this up!!! and if you actually read all of this, you must not have anything to do right now! and i hope you enjoyed!!!

[clownkiwi]

genuinely hate the way heaven and hell is set up in hazbin like. in all honesty. whats the point of using the dantes inferno layers of hell if you are only allowed to use the pride layer. for every sinner. why the fuck would that make sense. like. a serial killer would be in the like. idfk wrath or lust (bloodlust) layer. dantes inferno isnt even fucking canonical to the bible.

the angel designs are flat, their movements feel stilted to me, all the humans in heaven just have a color swapped monster design just like the sinners.

and no fucking shit people think alastar is fucking white, you only find out that he mixed race from somewhere else. i only found out through my friend that the guy is half black because he saw a video or something of her drawing alaster in his human form (this sounds aggressive, but i am not doing that towards you this is in total agreement wirh you)

also i think adam as an angel is stupid as shit from like the standpoint of someone who is interested in the bible in the way greek myth isnt "canonical"/is separate from greek gods

the designs look like theyre still a fucking pain to animate, and i do genuinely like a lot of the designs, i think angel dust is iconic and uh. the bat cat guy looks pretty cool, i think theyre more for like. comic books.

story feels flat and rushed, and very much like i'm watching a childrens show for adults, and i fucking hate adult shows that think putting sex, seears, blood and gore in their product is soooooo fucking mature and cool of them and its just boring and samey and it fucking sucks. if hazbin was nade by someone else i'm sufe the peoduct wouldve been handled so much better and treated the audience like adults

LITERALLY THIS THIS THIS!!!!

for the first part, of the lore. the lore gets so much more fucking confusing and lamer if you watch the spinoff helluva boss. they go into more detail & spend more time in the other layers for each episode, but theyre all so lame and predictable. the lust layer is pink and full of clubs & bars because. romance??? the greed layer is green and pretty much chicago, especially with the demon mobs (demon mobs Should sound more fun). the wrath ring is red/orange and like The Middle Western Desert that literally takes place during the Wild West from USAmerica. LIKE they made dantes inferno LAME!!! wheres the imagination??? was the best you could come up with for greed "chicago" and wrath "the wild west"???? come on

and the way heaven and hell are addressed is so much more confusing. like. the angels have a Moral code Not To Kill, even if theyre demons (in the episode the angel opposite of IMP are focused on, they lose their jobs when they indirectly kill a guy they weren't supposed to kill), which comes into direct conflict with what the angels Were ALREADY DOING IN HAZBIN???

itd be one thing if they were taking place apart from each other in the timeline, and we don't really know that ATM, but they're supposed to take place in the same universe, so they never really seem to make up their minds on what they wanna do with that???

AND LIKE the core concept of hazbin hotel is broken from the very worldbuilding the show is built on. no demon would ever wanna work on redeeming themselves by just going to a hotel, and even in cases when they do, its really just to sabotage each other, before they solve their problems like. my fucking little pony. i cant believe this was a show made for the same target group as bojack horseman or moral orel, it makes me sick

and this idea isnt broken either!!! it can work!!! the good place worked and improved on this idea In Strides and did it with much more maturity and respect for its audience than vivziepop could even do for two of her shows

like hazbin hotel & helluva boss could be improved upon, they just need Better Writers and a Stronger Vision for where the story could go. im not even being a hater Just Because (altho i am), i'm just really upset that this was the direction the show is seemingly going to with no stop. ive seen people that have looked up to vivziepop as inspiration and felt deeply betrayed when the story was shit, when the writing was horrible, its really disappointing to see. i think the only people left watching this are people who think what vivziepop is doing is good, even if she spends more than half her time online looking up her shows to try to fight back against any and all criticism

[rarilee33]

Moral Orel people (hi) there is something on ao3 which is a criticism of our fandom's behaviour at large and I wanted to address a few of the points in the second chapter because it bothers me. Not the concept itself, fine, and I wouldn't address it if that were all, but. The person speaks to the show being a 'silly satire on Christianity and family dynamics' until it became a 'roller coaster of sadness' both in and around the show, and the person wishes it had never reached that point (they say verbatim 'it should not have gotten this far' with 'this' I assume referring to the previous point they made). Of course the show did take a turn at Nature and everything season 3, and the cancelled rest of the show (that never saw its full potential because the network deemed it too dark after claiming they wanted something darker). This shift in tone is spoken of negatively and it is fine to criticise the show but something doesn't sit right with me about this take. Maybe because it feels reductive, stripping away the more serious critiques of Christian fundamentalism and the themes explored that were alluded to in season one and pre-Nature season two, amidst the satirical tone the earlier episodes took.

Next, I cannot find evidence to substantiate the pretty serious claim about Dino being blacklisted from Hollywood because of giving an actress heroin. If someone has confirmation otherwise that's one thing. As far as I'm aware Dino is doing fine and has his own projects going on.

In the following section there is the idea that it's bad to write sex just for itself, for no other reason, a la pwp. And the adjacent point which I take more umbrage with is the claim that those of us who consider ourselves homosexuals and ship the characters as only gay (which I'm not sure what that means but I think they are referring to making a character staunchly gay or lesbian as opposed to questioning or bisexual for example) are equivalent to proshippers. Which idea I disagree with. These are not in the same category, considering what proshippers have written and with whom.

Please don't send hate or anything to this person. I am only addressing this because I wanted to discuss some specific points that are or could be problematic or I wanted to elaborate on.

[thebekashow]

I JUST FINISHED WATCHING ALL OF MORAL OREL-

!!major spoilers!! so I had only ever watched little snippets of Moral Orel, and I thought: "huh! can't be that bad.. why does nobody ever show the ending?" I know why now. and oh. my. god. on one hand: woohoo! Orel got his happy ending! on the other.. it feels very.. bland :/ I'm happy Orels happy! but at the same time, it made me wonder "what happened to everyone else?" we know Mrs. Censordoll planned on doing stuff to the town, but the sad thing is, because the Adult Swim executives pulled the plug, we never got to know what said plan is. and I know, before you say: "But Beka! they didn't have enough time!". I am fully aware of it! which is why I wish they hadn't called it off. it makes me mad that Adult Swim lets weird unnecessary shows go on forever and ever, but its too much if they get serious in it. I am glad Orel got his happily ever after, and I just hope everyone else did too. we know Reverend and his daughter reconnected, Nurse Bendy got her son back, Shapey and Block are firefighter and police. oh, and Orel broke the cycle of abuse :) thats all I gotta say- thanks for coming to ma ted talk!

(i will be making fanart of the show soon! :D)

[monarch-boo]

Okay so, *months* ago now I had two very vivid Moral Orel- related dreams that I have been meaning to share as soon as I had them, but I just haven't really gotten around to it until just now. I've remembered them this whole time because they are kinda fascinating to me.

☆☆☆ I had no knowledge of the show itself in the dreams, it would seem. In the world of these dreams I was never at any point like "oh it's such and such from Moral Orel", no, it was genuinely like these were just actual people who lived in my area and I met up with sometimes. There were *some* things I knew about, but it was never like I knew those things from the show, I knew them from seeing them around in the past "IRL" in this dream world, it seems.

I had each of these dreams only a couple days apart. I had also been watching video essays about the show before sleeping both times so that's probably what triggered these... and I swear to fuck I'm not making these up.

I'm actually gonna readmore this and split it into two posts since this got long as hell. This post is only the first dream.

▪︎The First Dream▪︎ I went on a little trip with Clay and Orel to some kind of massive indoor flea market. Didn't resemble anywhere I had ever been or knew of, guess my mind completely fabricated a place.

Clay really did not like me (I mean, he definitely wouldn't), in fact he insisted I keep my distance from him and Orel once we arrived to the place. He even made me wait until the two were almost in the building before I even left the car, he wanted that badly to not be seen with me.

We had separately been looking through stuff people were selling, when at some point we unintentionally ran into each other in the same room. I want to note here that Orel had a cast on his leg the whole dream (and yes, it was his left leg. I made absolutely no connection with the hunting trip until after I woke up, had no idea about it whatsoever in my dream seemingly. Only strengthens my idea that these dreams just had them as real people in our world, because if I knew anything of the show in this dream I sure as shit would've known that). I tried to greet Orel, Clay got irritated with me and distanced himself and Orel to the other side of the room while saying some rude shit I unfortunately don't remember now. In response I kinda just blurted out "Hey, fuck you". Clay responds "Fuck me?!?" and goes on some kind of rant with a You Wish You Could Fuck Me sort of conclusion. He didn't say *exactly* that, I remember that much, but whatever he *did* say basically boiled down to that, you know?

At this point I had a strong, STRONG urge to clap back with something along the lines of "I'm actually more interested in your drinking buddy" (this is the "some things I knew about" I stated at the start of the post. Apparently saw enough of Clay in the past that I was into Stopframe and knew enough about his and Clay's interactions that bringing him up in this manner would REALLY piss Clay off).

BUT I ultimately held my tongue because my "Hey, fuck you," was an accident anyway and I felt bad enough that I cussed in earshot of Orel, the fact it only triggered more f-bombs in a sexually charged rant from Clay also in earshot of Orel had me kinda mortified, so I figured I should just shut up and go check out a different room.

I just went through various tables and rooms and bought a handful of things when I eventually found Orel alone (well, separated from Clay at least, there were all sorts of random market-goers around), sitting down to rest his leg a bit. I asked if he was doing alright, he said he was fine. He seemed a bit distant. I didn't really know what to do or say so I just took his word for it and went to the next room. Unfortunately I don't know what happened with Clay and Orel next because I just looked at more merch for a short while before I woke up.

Random thing about this dream though, a weirdly specific thing my mind completely fabricated, at least I think so since I've never heard of these being a thing IRL. Something I saw somebody selling in the dream. Those plushie backpack things, where you usually open up their back and there's a smallish pouch to hold stuff. Happy Tree Friends ones. That specifically depict them frightened and/or injured. Instead of opening up the back you would unzip whatever part of their body as if it were a wound or severance, like flip the top of their skull open or open up their chest vertically or their belly horizontally, different characters/designs had their zippers in different places. They even had bloody red colored lining inside, like come on. My dream cooked there, these should be real.

[robotlesbianjavert]

i’ve been following you for a while and i love your blog! got a question however: i see you blogging moral orel and i’ve never seen it but from what i’ve read on wikipedia, how would you compare the bad dad to bnha’s bad dads. is he fit to join the club. looking at him gives me afo vibes somehow.

eyyyyy thanks for following and keeping up !! you're a trooper. anyways clay puppington is way way worse than the bnha bad dads. like easy clear. one of the best characters! but definitely the worst dad.

moral orel primer

The thing about Moral Orel is that it's an edgy-ish mid 2000s satire about hypocritical fundamentalist Protestant environments and how badly one eager and god-loving kid can be lead to misinterpret the bible. It's got that irreverent humour. Skip the episode "God's Xhef" if you ever watch it. To set up my point, one of the running gags for the series is that at the result of Orel's shenanigans is Clay taking Orel to his study to belt him. And then his pants fall down! haha.

The series then takes a swerve, starting from the first season Christmas episode and leading into the third season, for a darker, more character-driven narrative. It delves more into the citizens of Moralton, the impact that their Christian environment has on them and their relationships with each other, and bits of history to understand how they turned out the way they did, etc

One of the characters most impacted here is Clay. While he's always been the second-most prominent character after Orel himself, and their relationship is central to the story, it's with this new take on the story that Clay really becomes the deuteragonist of the series. He becomes that much more fascinating a character, and his treatment of Orel and his family becomes that much more vile. Sadly the third season is cut short, reportedly after execs saw a particularly dark episode (not Orel or Clay related!) and thought. hm. that wasn't funny.

I lay that all out to explain that while Moral Orel starts off as a pretty silly, shock-value cartoon about how weird Christians are, it also depicts a lot of serious subject matters, and the treatment of that is much more frank and realistic and difficult as the series progresses.

So while he becomes a much more developed character that the audience can understand, Clay's abusive behaviour loses a lot of that wink-wink satirical irony. He's also CRAZY pathetic.

also it's got the mountain goats! that's how i first found moral orel!

how comparable is it to bnha?

First things first, I do think there are largely interesting things to say about how BNHA depicts abuse, despite the downhill trend of writing in the third act that I complain about all the time. I don't think every aspect is perfect, but it's like. I do think there's more positive to say there than how other stories depict abuse. There's actually lots that I love about what the series does, or think that it could do were it not hobbled by things and stuff.

Ultimately, there isn't really a bulletproof way of comparing fictional abusive situations to another, because respective to real life you can't compare one abusive situation against the other.

But one can compare things like the genre and structure of a story, who the intended audience is, what the production of the story is like, how much time and focus can be devoted to certain subjects and what the actual focus is meant to be, etc etc.

Moral Orel can pull together different elements of abuse, like the suffocating environment of Christian fundamentalism, the abuse of a self-destructive alcoholic, the neglect that comes from mutually disaffected and inept parents, the generational nature of abuse, so on and so forth in a sincere way. Meanwhile BNHA, as a weekly serialized shonen battle manga whose creator has become increasingly rundown, has Things To Say, but doesn't necessarily have the same capacity to devote its power to those things. Abuse is vital to the themes of BNHA, but it's not the center of it the way it is for Moral Orel.

So when Clay does his thing, stripped of the fantastical couching of BNHA's bad dads, it just feels more real and it feels worse as a result.

anyways.

clay SMASH bnha's bad dad club

Never a question that Clay is a worse dad than Enji lmao. However one feels about Endeavour's arc, or how well-written or 'deserved' it is, or how successful and genuine Enji is in his efforts, at the very least he's realised that he's done wrong and wants to atone for it, while also grappling with the fact that there may be no way for him to do that. spoilers but clay shan't do this. you get flickers that he has regrets, but he'll NEVER change baby.

I guess Clay gets a one-up where his marriage with Bloberta is mutually destructive, harmful, and toxic in comparison to Enji unambiguously abusing Rei though. so failmarriage win.

Kotarou is actually similar to Clay though! Lots to say, to compare and contrast. I'm actually kind of obsessed, especially because what I said about Clay being more realistic also applies to Kotarou - Kotarou just gets less screentime. They're both deeply affected by their childhood and relationships with their own parents in ways they take it out on their children (the "explained but not excused" idea behind fictional depictions of generational abuse). They also project an image of the upper(?)-middle class family man and Patriarch of the household, either to make up for the failings of their childhood or because it's what expected of them as a man in their world. (Wee bit of conjecture on Kotarou's part but I think it has solid grounding.)

But there's also significant differences. Physical abuse is normalized as corporal between Clay and Orel, on top of the emotional abuse, manipulation, and neglect. Kotarou's abuse of Tenko is largely emotional, with the big slap implied to be the first time that abuse manifested as physical and a line crossed for the rest of the family. And while I'm sure some people would debate this, the idea that Kotarou promised Nao a home full of joy feels genuine. He did want that, the happy family full of smiles he lost as a kid, only for his own resentment to poison everything when Tenko can't obey the rules Kotarou created and enforced to achieve it. Clay, on the other hand, like. There's bits of him implying he loves his family but doesn't have the means to show or act on it, but when he has a whole speech about the sacrifices he makes for his family, family never rings as more than an obligation that he has to put up with for the appearance of manhood.

And Shigaraki can have xyz feelings about his dad forever, but he accepts and espouses the one true lesson Kotarou taught him, that heroes can't do shit all. His father was always a scary and domineering figure, but it feels like while he will never forgive him, Shigaraki does understand him more as an adult. Meanwhile, Orel tries as hard as he can to honour thy father until he can't anymore.

Again, I think that Clay and Kotarou are probably most comparable in terms of being the Bad Dad with some similar hang-ups and relationships to their kids, but part of what makes Kotarou interesting is that we don't know what he would have done had Tenko's quirk not triggered how and when it did. With his family finally willing to push back against him and himself feeling regret for hitting Tenko, could he have changed? We don't know! But much like I said when talking about Enji, Clay's never going to change.

All For One has become more of a cartoon villain that I am determined to turn into a dress up doll for my own amusement than a bad dad and is more evil guardian or whatever. BUT there's one thing that I almost forgot about when I was first writing this up, but realised is actually soooo interesting.

There's a lot to say about AFO and Clay being the primary "teacher" to Shigaraki and Orel! I that while AFO does influence Shigaraki's villainous ideals, he also lets society and Shigaraki's experiences speak for themselves. And frankly, Shigaraki has a lot of leeway and agency in evolving his ideals through his own experiences, particularly after AFO's incarceration. He sees AFO for what he is, probably has for a long time, and is determined to establish his own identity outside of AFO regardless of what Shigaraki has learned from him. Clay is much more strict and obvious about imposing his worldview on his son, but while Orel is desperate for his dad's approval and love and can be led to do things that feel wrong for that love, Orel never absorbs those lessons the way that Clay wants him to, and separating himself from his father and come to terms with what Clay has done is a much more difficult process.

but mostly i just think that clay could do this

and afo could do this

beautiful world.

[nodutra19]

I'll be damned if I said I understood this series, but I'll throw something in about what Kanba sharing the apple with Shoma means. As stated, this series is very much about love.

Now I ask you, what love is there in a world that puts continuous prices on human lives, as Sanetoshi and private health insurance do throughout the show? What love is there in a cult?

In short, I think the apple is a collective love.

We're often raised with the notion of "Blood is thicker than water." But really, it's "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." What it means is, the connections you choose to forge say more about you than the ones into which you were born. But it's also more complex than that. What you're born into shapes who you are and even what choices you make. Oftentimes, people who were abused as children will go on to abuse other people. And yet there are also many people who were raised with loving families who still go on to commit terrible things, and there exist many who are the inverse, people who were raised by terrible parents who still choose to do good. It's both true that we are molded by our surroundings, but we still make choices at our own will (if we ignore the extortion and violence of poverty).

We love to say "Disturb the comforted, comfort the disturbed," but the truth is we are all mixes of it. I'm NB but I was still raised a dude. I had to work out a lot of what I had been taught. And while I never physically harmed anyone, I still feel some dread and culpability hearing what women go through. As sympathetic and understanding as I am, I'm not beyond reproach. I "get it" from an outsider's perspective. I can still relate to anyone regardless of category, but I also must keep in mind how different experiences can be. I was still raised with the comfort of not being sexualized as a child, as little girls often are (obviously boys still face SV, I'm just saying that the experience isn't the same). I still get disturbed in a particular way when I watch something like Revolutionary Girl Utena or Moral Orel, because these are things I don't personally face. Even though I don't commit terrible acts like Akio and the residents of Moralton, I still have to confront these things in order to participate in its dismantling. I still have to reach out. The sacrifice is my comfort and previous understanding in order to grow as a person and help and understand others.

There's a fundamental contradiction to the human condition. The Takakura parents were seemingly normal and almost texbookly loving, and yet they were part of the Kiga group, and Kenzan went on to commit an act of terror.

This "comfort" I had, the "privilege" of more than likely not facing SV if I were to take a walk out at night, also comes at a "price": I had to conform to the ideas of "boy" and "man" which did nothing but stifle me.

I think the apple represents unconditional love, a Tolstoyan love, one not bound by personal biases. Tabuki had to conform to his mother's idea of talent, intelligence, while Yuri had to conform to her father's idea of beauty. But of course, these are all impossible standards set upon fluid, abstract concepts. They are inherently inhuman ideals born not from a love of humanity but the exaltation of a non-existent archetype, of a past that never existed, hence the dealing with the economic crisis.

Sanetoshi doesn't hold a gun to Kanba's head but he still extorts him to do his bidding, to carry out another cycle of violence for a fiery cleansing of the world. Sanetoshi permits Himari to live not because she is human, but because someone is willing to work for him in exchange. No one in this society is given that unconditional love. The condition is you must conform to the cogs which make the system turn.

Kanba asked nothing of Shoma when he split the apple and handed the other half to him.

A child is born with no state of mind Blind to the ways of mankind God is smilin' on you but he's frownin' too Because only God knows what you'll go through You'll grow in the ghetto livin' second-rate And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate The places you play and where you stay Looks like one great big alleyway You'll admire all the number-book takers Thugs, pimps and pushers and the big money-makers ---The Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five

For as self-centered as children are due to their very nature, they're still purer, in a sense, than most adults. I've always had anger problems due to the environment in which I was raised, but people still call me empathetic and caring, because I still make that effort. Kanba made a grand gesture by offering Shoma the apple. It shows he cares. And there was no condition to it. Kanba asked for nothing in exchange. He saw a human being in need of help like him, and when he was blessed, he decided to share. As horse-girl-anthy writes, Kanba would later go on to resent Shoma due to the fact Shoma had such a loving family and yet Shoma disowned his parents upon learning of their original sin. Kanba, the orphan taken into the Takakura family, resented how Shoma disowned them because he saw it as ungrateful and selfish because Shoma possessed that of which Kanba had been dispossessed. For as illogical as it is, you and I can't fully blame him. We understand where he's coming from in spite of the Walter White of it all with his trapping and strapping.

There are many differences between them as little children and as we find them as teenagers in the show, but one of the main differences is that neither one of them had been shaped by society yet. That's why Shoma leant a hand to Himari, why Momoka leant a hand to Tabuki. We're told we're inherently selfish and cruel. I'd say humans aren't any one thing, neither inherently good nor evil. To subscribe to any essentialism is to erase any collective responsibility we have about the world and for each other.

I still have trouble understanding the sins of the father current of the series, but I think the ultimate punishment in life is how finite our existences are.

"Whenever I start thinking of my love for a person, I am in the habit of immediately drawing radii from my love - from my heart, from the tender nucleus of a personal matter- to monstrously remote points of the universe. Something impels me to measure the consciousness of my love against such unimaginable and incalculable things as the behaviour of nebulae (whose very remoteness seems a form of insanity), the dreadful pitfalls of eternity, the unknowledgeable beyond the unknown, the helplessness, the cold, the sickening involutions and interpenetrations of space and time." ---Vladimir Nabokov Speak, Memory

No matter what we do, we'll die. Death is the one guarantee in life. The greatest irony of life is the intensity with which we love, with which we burn, and yet it will all turn to vapors and disappear. We construct things like God in order to give our suffering meaning. But we also imbue God with our authority. God oftentimes becomes a thought-terminating cliche and ad hoc justification. But atheists also have similar mental workings, hence why the atheist movement in the U.S became reactionary after 9/11.

For as much as Sanetoshi talks about the cruelty of the world, for as right as he is to bemoan businessmen and the cogs of society, he is not a solution in himself. Atheists have a point in criticizing Christians and Christianity, but they fall into the same trappings. The Christian man says women belong in the kitchen because God decreed it so. The atheist says women belong in the kitchen because she has a womb. Both, in spite of their seeming opposition, believe in capitalism and complimentarianism and other institutions.

I think this is why Kanba ended up going Kiga rather than Shoma. You'd expect the biological son whose parents participated in the original incident to go that route, but no, it was Kanba. Everyone is fighting against the cruelty of the world and life itself. The core struggle is finding meaning and love. But we all suffer the collective punishment of death, of eventually turning to ash. We just also live in a world filled with inequality and alienation.

Shoma felt responsible, because as a descendant he kind of is. What his parents did is his cross to bear. But he's the one who made Himari a Takakura. The Penguindrum ended up being the siblings' bond. This means what they had to sacrifice in order to keep Himari alive was the end of their bond. And yet in spite of that, in spite of the fact that they no longer know each other, a remnant remains, a spirit of their love. That's why the stuffed animal remains. The sacrifice was hard and unideal, but Kanba and Shoma truly cared for Himari. The true test, the true exhibition of their love, of their sharing of the apple, was sacrificing their bond in order to give her a normal life. There is no exchange there. There is no reward. They wanted to lift the curse of their parents and paid the price. And yet even in that do-over, Himari feels the spirit of that love, hence why she cries.

She feels love beyond a death she knows nothing about, a love that transcends space and time. That's the pure love we all seek. Kanba sharing the apple was the start of this. I think that's why that scene isn't revealed until so close to the end. It's meant to be paralleled.

I hope I made sense, My mind has been sloshing with this series, so I hope I managed to give my thoughts some sensical form.

Night on the Galactic Railroad, or the Apple, the Scorpion, and the Stars

From a series on Mawaru Penguindrum’s literary influences.

This place is cursed with spoilers.

Night on the Galactic Railroad (1927) is a novella by Kenji Miyazawa. It takes place in the fictional fairy tale country resembling Italy. There, on the night of the annual Centuarus Festival, two boys, Giovanni and Campanella, are whisked away on the titular Galactic Railroad to tour the heavens. While on this journey, they confront the nature of human connection, transience, and sacrifice. At the end of the story, Giovanni and Campanella part ways. Campanella was on the train because he drowned during the festival and was on his way to the afterlife, while Giovanni, still alive, was allowed on the journey with his friend.

Mawaru Penguindrum specifically seems to be influenced by the 1985 anime adaptation directed by Gisaburo Sugii. It’s a faithful adaptation, but it plays up the story’s somber parts. The darkness at Penguindrum’s core seems borrowed from this version of the story rather than the original. Shouma and Kanba resemble Giovanni and Campanella as realized in this version.

Giovanni (right) and Campanella (left) on the Galactic Railroad.

Like Giovanni, Shouma is associated with the color blue and has a sensitive, demure personality. Like Campanella, Kanba is associated with red and is determined, distant, but ultimately devoted to his friends. Unlike NotGR, however, Shouma and Kanba depart together at the end. It seems to me as if Ikuhara has dwelt on the sadness of Giovanni and Campanella’s parting at the end of the original story and, in Penguindrum, created a version where they could be together in the end. Penguindrum also explicitly references Kenji Miyazawa in its first and last scenes. Near the beginning of the first episode, a pair of children are walking out side the Takakura’s home discussing what the apple means in NotGR. You can tell because they mention Campanella and someone named Kenji - the novella’s author Kenji Miyazawa. This exact conversation repeats in the final moments of the last episode, but this time the boys have Shouma and Kanba’s hair colors and the audience follows them as they keep walking into the stars.

THE SCORPION FIRE

Night on the Galactic Railroad also contains the explanation for that scorpion metaphor! A lot of people get stuck on this - Kanba is referred to as a scorpion several times throughout Penguindrum, and allusions are made to him burning up. This is actually direct reference to NotGR, where the story of the burning scorpion exists as a fable told to the main characters as they’re on the train. You can see it in this clip:

“"My father told me its story: A long time ago in a field there lived a scorpion that ate other bugs by using its tale to catch them. Then one day he found himself cornered by a weasel. Fearing for his life, he ran but could not escape it. Suddenly, he fell into a well and, unable to climb out, began to drown. He started to pray then, saying: 

”‘Oh, God. How many lives have I stolen to survive? Yet when it came my turn to be eaten by the weasel, I selfishly ran away. And for what? What a waste my life has been! If only I’d let the weasel eat me, I could have helped him live another day. God, please hear my prayer. Even if my life has been meaningless, let my death be of help to others. Burn my body so that it may become a beacon, to light the way for others as they search for true happiness.’

“The scorpion’s prayer was answered, and his body became a beautiful crimson flame that shot up into the night sky. There he burns to this day. My father was telling the truth…”

From Night on the Galactic Railroad, translation by Julianne Neville. 

The fable of the scorpion fire is about sacrifice. The scorpion, who lived his life as a foul predator, faces something more powerful than him - the inevitability of death - and regrets that, after a life of heedless consumption, he couldn’t die in a way that aided the proliferation of life. The gods hear his prayers and set him on fire, turning him into the red star Antares, heart of the constellation scorpio, whose light aids life. 

From episode 12. Kanba offers his life to the Princess of the Crystal’s in exchange for Himari’s and, due to the purity of his sacrifice, it is acceptable. Unlike later on in the series, here Kanba is exhibiting the true nature of sacrifice.

This fable gives insight into Kanba’s motivations but not his actions. While the scorpion discovers his kinship with all life, Kanba is rushing headlong towards a sacrifice that nobody wants but him. Kanba views himself as a predator and wants his final, massive act of predation - the terrorist attack - to lead to some concrete good:  extending Himari’s life. His role as a man of action rather than a man of reflection (Shouma) binds him to Sanetoshi’s will, which offers a convenient means of achieving his goal. But those outs don’t exist in the real world, and these justifications can’t be made ahead of time. Shouma knew this and Kanba should have known. Maybe that’s why it’s Shouma, the brother with a more intuitive understanding of sacrifice, who bursts into flames and not Kanba, who fades away. Kanba’s identification with the scorpion represents misguided, emotionally selfish sacrifice - egoism - while Shouma, Ringo, and Momoka’s association with the purer flame represents true, transcendent sacrifice. 

From episode 24. Ringo casting the spell (“Let’s share the fruit of fate!”) and subjecting herself to the scorpion fire. 

THE APPLE

There’s a scene late in the novella where Giovanni and Campanella encounter some people who died on the Titanic. The trio consists of two children and their governor, who allowed them all to die to make room for more people on the lifeboat. These people tell Giovanni and Campanella about the scorpion fire, and this is also where apples come into play. A lighthouse keeper, traveling down the train, gives them some apples, which they disperse amongst themselves. The film actually makes it so that the flocks of birds that they see flying outside the windows turn into the apples - something that wasn’t present in the original story. Apples as a metaphor for live sacrificing itself for the sustenance of more life seems to originate here, since that wasn’t tied to the apples in the original story. 

Christianity, apples symbolize knowledge and defilement. NotGR however, reclaims that image. Here, they represent people understanding their limitations as individuals and accepting community - and the necessity of making sacrifices for humanity’s greater good -  as a way to make up for their flaws. NotGR stresses over and over again that people value humanity or some abstract conception of “life” over themselves, and that this path leads to profound spiritual contentment. Penguindrum borrows this idea and the apple symbolism wholeheartedly, but emphasizes valuing one’s interpersonal relationships as a proxy for loving all life. 

From episode 20. Himari reinterprets the biblical Fall of Man as a good thing because it allowed humanity to experience connection and joy, however transient, alongside pain. 

One of the biggest mysteries left in Penguindrum to me is what Kanba sharing the apple with Shouma represents. I know what happened between Shouma/Himari and Kanba/Himari. Shouma brought the abandoned Himari into his family and Himari brought Kanba into the family after his father’s death. But what happened between Kanba and Shouma? How did Kanba have to save Shouma by sharing his fruit of fate? It’s left purely abstract - Shouma and Kanba were starving, Kanba shared his fruit, and both were saved by the gesture. Maybe Kanba helped Shouma by being assertive and dedicated in situations where he wasn’t naturally inclined towards that? Like Giovanni and Campanella, Kanba and Shouma have complementary existences. Giovanni couldn’t exist on his own without adopting some of Campanella’s traits, while Kanba and Shouma, although they acquiesce to each other a bit, ultimately reaffirm their paired existence. I opened this up to discussion with some people on twitter and Bryan Baxter suggested that the two boxes Kanba and Shouma are in during episodes 23 and 24 are their mothers’ wombs, and that by sharing the fruit of fate they became spiritual twins (they were born on the same day). Yoni Linder suggested that Kanba helped Shouma survive the KIGA group’s brainwashing when they were children. It is odd that Shouma, the Takakura actually born into the cult, is the one least susceptible to it.

The idea that there’s something beyond what we consider life is central to NotGR, which uses Christian imagery and often seems overtly Christian in its themes. Kenji Miyazawa was a devout practitioner of Nichiren Buddhism, but like many Japanese people his life was saturated with Christian imagery and scraps of biblical scripture. Christianity exists and is portrayed positively in NotGR, but neither Giovanni nor Campanella seem to be practitioners. When Giovanni and the children get into an argument over whose god is “real,” the tutor reconciles them by raising the possibility that their gods are one and the same and reminding them that the point of religion is true faith in what you believe. NotGR is thus a neutral but positive synthesis of Christian and Buddhist images towards a more generically humanist message.

“"And who says he’s the real God? I’ll be he’s a fake!”

“How would you know? Maybe the God you believe in is the fake.”

“No! He’s the real one!”

“Then tell me, what kind of God is your God?” asked the young man with a gentle smile.

“Well… to be honest, I’m not quite sure… but I do know he is the one true God,” Giovanni replied.

“Of course he is. There’s only one true God.“ 

"And my God is that one!”

“I agree. I can only pray that the two of you are seeing us off before that true God now,” the young man said, clasping his hands together. Kaoru also clasped her hands together.

Everyone was sad to be parting, and Giovanni was about to burst into tears.“

From Night on the Galactic Railroad, translation by Julianne Neville. 

Over time, it becomes clearer and clearer that one of the railroad’s purposes is to deliver people to the afterlife, two of which are represented by giant glowing crosses. "Dying for love” thus means something more concrete in NotGR than it does in Penguindrum. There’s an actual reward for doing it - entrance into heaven. The same isn’t true in Penguindrum, where the existence of an afterlife is much more abstract. Sanetoshi and Momoka were humans with some supernatural powers who died and became ghosts, but that form of afterlife seems much more a curse than a reward. In the last episode, Momoka vanishes from this world for good through some sort of opening, but exactly where she goes is unknown. Penguindrum’s final shot is of Shouma and Kanba, having died for love, walking into the stars. While characters do allude to god, the show as a whole seems nonreligious, more concerned with taking the aspects of stories it deems meaningful and applying them towards a new, secular humanist message. Here, god is synonymous with fate, chance, or destiny - the circumstances outside human control that one is subjected to and dictate life. So what is Kenji saying? I think he’s saying that humanity’s survival up to this point has been due to our ability to love each other, to willingly sacrifice for the greater good, and that this is the foundation for human existence. That's where everything really begins. 

[keefiswhoiam]

May 05 - 2024 Sunday

11:29pm

6/10

Last night I woke up at 5am and downed half a bottle of water because I was so dehydrated. When I woke up, I did my dishes which included cleaning the big ol crock pot bowl. During my shower I played VRchat on mobile with the goal of finding some people to just listen to which I did. When I was sitting after I had cleaned, I did speak up after I was addressed directly. For breakfast I heated up leftover rice a roni which was god tier. Something about leftover beef ricearoni goes super hard. I ate it while playing horse island and I had a really chill morning. Same when I drank my coffee. Then I switched to WT for a little. The morning devolved into playing things that were really more of a way to kill time than things I actually enjoyed. I had loosely planned to figure out a collab YCH with BD today and I made plans with her to do so just before DS messaged me to chill during fursuit time which was also loosely planned. So I drew with BD for about 40 minutes just to figure out how we could start to generate ideas. Then I called DS and we put on the Twilight movie recreated in the Sims 2. I made and ate tuna spaghetti while we watched which was delish. I left out the garlic powder and paprika, keeping it simple with just lemon pepper and tabasco sauce. We got through the whole Twilight film while talking about how weird and ridiculous the romance actually is. Then DS went to make dinner. I joined back on BD and they were playing Risk of Rain 2 which I joined them in. That was pretty fun. Also IT messaged me back and explained how she can't play VR due to some house damage and ranted to me about her Minecraft world on the Switch. I left BD and friends to chill until DS got back. As she worked on her suit we watched the latest Brutalmoose video which was pure cinema. I completed the moon mission I was having trouble with in KSP while we watched. Then I put a few episodes of Moral Orel and they were HEAVY. To end we witnessed the Lord Farquad makeup ASMR video and a sausage video. While DS was on her way to bed, I made dinner and was looking at Twitter but doing so very deliberately. I gave myself time to look at and process every post on my feed which had me noticing and thinking about a lot. It was a great experience to actually absorb some information. In bed DS and I did puzzles and I continued KH2. I beat another VERY annoying boss and started discovering how confusing the Kingdom Hearts plot is. I also shared some thoughts I had while looking at Twitter and some other stuff in general. Like how I've noticed that I can be very happy when I happen to drink and what that might mean I could change in my daily life. I think the problem is lack of focus and self judgement, things that go away when I get tipsy.

[shessolovely-ao3]

Have you thought about any hcs for the posabules? Like differences they might have, i dont want to them to be JUST carbon copies of the puppingtons. It annoys me with what little stuff we have/know about them. (Also i cant wait for that orel/christina wedding fanfic?!?! I just know thats its going to be great!)

You know thats a good question, i don't often see hcs of them but i can't think of any right now. I think i need to rewatch the episode that introduces them (even though that ep literally makes them out to be carbon copies of the puppingtons so im not sure how much that'll help)

I do like the theory out there that says poppet is to clay as art is to bloberta since we see in the s3 premiere that she like... abandons her son? and just lets him live with the puppingtons (granted he was probably happier there than at home but still) I will try to think of some hcs and post them here though, i do agree that i dont like how theyre essentially the same as orel's family

(and also thank u! I haven't started outlining it yet but i will this weekend/this week. i would expect it to be out by... mid-may? i know that seems like a loooong time but people are so excited about it! so i want it to be perfect)