#they got mentioned so they get tagged

[aberooski]

The School Duel

So today the rewatch hit the school duel, which for me and for my fellow Chazz stans is a very loaded 2 parter. There's so much I have to say about these episodes not even really so much because of the Duel itself because as we all know, despite years and years of watching ygo religiously, I still don't understand fucking anything about this game somehow. But it's the character stuff surrounding and interwoven into it.

I'll try to keep it brief because I've talked extensively about this several times on this blog over the years. But anyways, the important part is that the School Duel is a pivotal moment and a turning point for his character in many ways. The effects of this run through episode 35 as well but we'll get into that when the time comes.

The School Duel is where the other characters are confronted by the fact that the Chazz they knew, wasn't the real one. It's the facade his had to put up in order to satisfy the insane requirements his brothers are pressuring him to fulfill. He doesn't get a say in what he does up until this point, it's already decided. He's going to win this duel and work even harder to prove himself to them and become the head of the dueling world.

He has to.

They've already decided this for him, which is why they literally televise the event. Because they've already decided that he's going to win and since they've decided that, there's no way it won't happen. So why not? Show the world that the Princeton's are the best at everything in every way. And the pressure of all of this is too much for him, because let's not forget that they are grown ass adults doing what they do and they're forcing all of this insane pressure and expectation on a child. And before the duel Jaden catches him having a breakdown and crying in the bathroom. Then he goes and tells Syrus and Chumley before the duel that he's starting to understand Chazz and why he is the way that he is, because Jaden now understands that Chazz isn't coming from "an easy place". Which no, he truly isn't. And up until this point the only ones who knew that, were the Princeton brothers, and the audience.

But now Jaden knows it too. At least to a certain extent based on what he overheard.

But this opens a door because Jaden throughout the duel is trying to coax the real Chazz out, he's trying to get him to forget about his brothers for a second and just enjoy the duel. But he can't. Throughout the duel Chazz keeps looking to them, and getting angry like they're literally breathing down his neck all the way from the stands.

Jaden reads him like a book, he calls him out for dueling for his brothers. Because he largely still is, but at the same time, he's already made the decision to take back his autonomy from them by choosing not to use the cards they gave him, and therefore, whether he knows it or not he is also dueling for himself. It's episode 35 where we see that little act of rebellion allow him to truly duel for himself again. That's a discussion for another time, but that's the thing about the school duel that gets me, it's seeing Chazz for kinda the first time be able to, in the face of his brothers, do something for himself. To make his own choice and stand up to them even by just not using the cards they gave him. Because for once he wasn't playing on their terms.

But the thing is that up until now, Chazz's entire demeanor has changed around them. He closes off, he shrinks down, he shuts up. He sits there and quietly listens and does what he's told and that's not the real Chazz, we all know that. But Chazz doesn't even know the real Chazz anymore at this point, but his little romp and North Academy showed him a glimpse of himself, his true authentic self. And that gives him that little push to find the strength he needs to defy his brothers and not use all the rare cards they tried to give him and stuck with his own cards and North Academy's cards that he was given to represent the school. That is a major step and it's his first step in breaking free and finding his true self again.

And I wanna bring in the idea of Chazz up until now having his choices dictated by others, specifically his brothers. Because this is where that begins to change. Chazz does still want to and plans on winning this duel (which sadly he doesn't) but the thing is, while he is still trying to please them, he's not doing it for his brothers completely anymore. He's not even doing it for North Academy, he's doing it for himself even though he doesn't recognize that yet because he can't yet.

And when he does lose the duel, I just wanna say it sucks that he lost for one, because it's so monumental of an occasion for him. It's everything. But it also gives us honestly another formative experience for Chazz due to that loss, because we see Jaden and the others actually stand up for him. He's never had that before in his life, I guarantee it. And certainly not because anybody actually cared enough about him and valued him enough as a person to do so out of any genuine concern and care for him. He's only ever had people hanging around him to be a status symbol, because of his wealth and high social status. The moment he loses any of it everyone turns on him. When Jagger grabs him practically by the neck and while his brothers are abusing him in front of TWO entire schools it worries me to think what goes on behind closed doors when we see what they'll do in front of that many people without giving a shit, Chazz is genuinely shocked to see Jaden defending him, much less the others backing him up. And that hurts my heart a lot, it kills me even.

This is where another shift in Chazz happens and the door is opened for him to actually become their friend. Because they are opening the door first, they are showing him that they care and again I say, that's something he's never had before. It's a beautiful moment in the midst of what for Chazz honestly must feel like is the world caving in on him. Yet another thing and another victory that he's been denied, another humiliation, another reason for his brothers to hate him and to treat him even worse and make his entire situation that much more unbearable. And yet, in the midst of it all, there it is.

The reason Luke Hemmings' Comedown is in my Chazz playlist.

---

"All my life

I've been beatin' this horse

Breakin' these same old wishin' bones

Hopin' they'd bring me back to course

All my life

I've been passin' this blame

And once you get on, you won't ever get off

And won't be the same

Let it come down on me

Let me see all the things that I was supposed to see

Light up a darkness I was never meant to

Climb out of like a bursting sunrise from the deepest sleep

A change of heart and a silver linin' down on Camellia Street

Let it come down on me"

---

Because at the end of this duel, there's that light, that silver lining, another defining shift in Chazz's character and no doubt a core memory in his life and all it took was Jaden telling Jagger to let him go.

The School Duel is everything to me.

Anyway that's why Chazz should've won the School Duel, thank you, goodnight.

[bloobydabloob]

Holy shit I love your Dirk interpretations, it's so true and I could talk about this shit forever. I feel like another part of his character that people seem to forget (along with Roxy for some reason) is that he's from the future in solitude in an apocalyptic wasteland. I just see that part of his character always removed which is disappointing because I feel like that's a pretty big part, especially regarding his themes around technology, his brother's theme of Time, his own isolation, and how he plays in the vastness of the universe and spacetime.

Art I drew related to the subject because I like to respond to asks with art.

But absolutely. I certainly understand where the lack of discussion over his isolation + upbringing comes from, considering a majority of the fanbase that I have seen builds their ideas based on their own version of postcanon. I’m not entirely sure how that would be fixed, but certainly even in the somewhat recent past I would see a lot more content regarding his upbringing both literally and symbolically. I don’t have much to add regarding the things you’ve mentioned, because they just are what they are. Dirk being confined to a singular room left to him by a father figure he never met, in a future where the only other person left on the planet is someone he cannot pursue a relationship of because of himself, with purely 3 robots to keep him companion, one being an exact replica of his own brain who is *also* trapped inside a pair of glasses, is about as literal as it gets to me.

The contrast to me involving the flooded, organic world in comparison to the little speckle of Dirk’s apartment packed with the dude and his technics is not only a representation of his isolation and entrapment within himself, but also of his lack of control. I think his obsession with & themes of control are a direct product in the case of Dirk specifically *of* this kind of upbringing. His themes of technology are also related to his themes around control. So much of his character is actually revolved around this to me like so much. Dirk is so deeply disconnected from humanity in every way and so much of his character + symbolism is based around that.

It doesn’t even have to be about the symbolism or anything though. It’s just pretty *interesting* in the literal sense that he lives in the middle of the ocean in the future. There’s not only a lot to theorise on to do with his young life there, but on how it might affect him in the way he acts for the rest of his life. The latter part is probably what I see mentioned the most by people talking about Dirk regarding this, I’m surprised I don’t see more discussion on the former too though. I really ought to actually talk more about Homestuck stuff on here. I will do it myself.

Roxy & Dirk’s relationship is largely ignored though because there is a narrative a certain demographic spreads that Dirk resented and blamed Roxy for her interest in him, and thus too many people believe that their relationship was or would continue to be an abusive one. Realistically, I believe it’s important to acknowledge that the way Roxy treated Dirk regarding his homosexuality wasn’t right while still acknowledging the obvious amount of respect and admiration Dirk had for Roxy. I mean we have a huge piece of dialogue from their post trickster mode conversations on the quest beds from Dirk purely stating how he feels about Roxy that people completely ignore somehow. I think this usually happens to characters that are women though. I know everyone says it, but it is true. Jane gets the exact same treatment of boiling her down to solely her negative aspects. The things I see completely mischaracterising both of them are horrific.

I mean how much more explicit can it get that their relationship is obviously very important to Dirk? But I digress. I think the best or I should say “most interesting” interpretations of their relationship usually come from DirkRoxy shippers actually.

I would be interested to hear about Dirk’s relation to his brother’s theme of time though. I don’t have any thoughts on this and I don’t recall ever hearing anyone talk about it before. If you or anyone else would be willing to enlighten me I’d be thrilled.

[deerspherestudios]

Hello hello! I'm excited to announce my submission for the Monstrous Desires 2024 Jam: Astronought is out! 🌑🎉

If you're interested, I really hope it's not with the expectations that it'll be similar to MO. I really wanted to try out different things with a new character and had a lot of fun with the process!

Be sure to heed the general warnings, and if you're sensitive to body horror,,, maybe sit this one out hjhs (tbh it's my first time attempting it so it's probably not even that graphic but just a heads up! There will be mentions of fleshy things!)

Anyhoo, I don't know if MO enjoyers will like it, but it's certainly a game I made! If there's any bugs/issues I'll get to them as soon as I can! Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't; I made it, so have it! <3 /aff

[sparrowlucero]

this is the iconic dinosaur horror jurassic park wishes it was

[beargregor]

wait i'm curious, what makes you say that gregor doesn't like everyone else (if i read that post right)? just curious since i've never seen anyone else say that

i don't necessarily think gregor dislikes everyone else at lcb but i do think that gregor is an incredibly petty person that isn't nearly as close to the rest of the sinners and even outright dislikes some of them cough cough rodya cough cough which a lot of people just Refuse to see because he's as much of a doormat as he is. there's several examples i could get into to try and prove my point however i'll just focus on what i personally think to be the biggest ones.

additionally, this is going to be kind of long, so i'm adding a read more. read more! read it. sorry for being so wordy. i have several diseases.

Pt1. gregor is the type to try and get along at least decently with everyone, especially if he gets a good first impression from them.

this is less a point in favor of gregor's distance w/ the rest of the sinners and more just a contributing factor to it. once again there's several examples i could point to here but i think the most in your face one happened in canto I with yuri, as several people have pointed out. even before gregor comes clean about growing attached to her as quickly as he did because she reminds him of his sister, we get this interaction.

i'll go ahead and make the disclaimer now that i don't necessarily think gregor is the most reliable of narrators, especially when it comes to his feelings and interactions with most people, but from the way he acts when the topic of yuri comes up (and the way we still see him act even all the way up to c7, nearly a whole year after yuri's death) i don't see reason to question his sentiment here. gregor immediately got that aya and yuri were close, potentially even taking note of their traded belts, and went out of his way to get something nice for yuri despite hardly knowing her.

i feel like a lot of people have forgotten as much, especially since it's been so long since c1, but gregor actually spent a good bit of season 1 doing the exact same thing with the other sinners! gregor reads a connection between him and ishmael pretty quickly despite getting off to a rocky start

mostly because gregor can tell that ishmael is pretty sardonic in a very similar way to him. there's been multiple instances where ishmael and gregor have essentially expressed the same sentiment at different moments, most notably gregor's little argument after ishmael got shot with a decay ampule in c4

and ishmael's response to pilot talking about self-sacrifice in c5

i could go ahead and pull up more examples, but in general pm has gone out of their way to show us that gregor and ishmael are pretty similar, so it makes sense for gregor to assume that they're friends, right?

this will be pushpin 1. keep note of this for Later.

ishmael's only the first sinner we see gregor trying to do this with in s1, we also see him try it out with heathcliff, sinclair, and ryoushuu

he's tried to get along with charon, being one of very few sinners that we've seen actually try to establish a connection with her at all

even rodya, despite my insistence that gregor doesn't like her nearly as much as the fandom thinks he does

all of these seem pretty fine and dandy, right? sure it frequently leans towards self-degradation, micromanaging, and commiseration, but gregor can at least be pretty chummy with most of the sinners, can't he?

Pt2. hell's chicken was more than just comic relief guys please

i'm fully aware that this is quite the hot take, but i think hell's chicken deserves a lot more credit for character writing than the fandom gives it. hell's chicken gave us foreshadowing for several events, such as the donqui bloodfiend reveal

heathcliff's distortion in c6 (as well as hong lu's highly speculated distortion at some point in the future)

and ryoushuu and sinclair's continued connection by making him the odd one out on her team

which, hey! that implies something about gregor's odd one out, don quixote, too, doesn't it? yes. yes it does. that's pushpin 2. keep note of that for later.

speaking of pushpins, hey! that's pushpin 1!

splitting into teams is one of the major events in hell's chicken, and most of the sinner's choices are either motivated by very little, backhanded, or motivated primarily by not wanting to be on the opposite leader's side. i didn't include all of the picks, just because i feel like including most of them already gets this across, but i think gregor took one major thing from this: most of the sinners, when push comes to shove, will only side with gregor when they refuse to or can't take his opponent's side.

now, don't get me wrong, i'm fully aware that this is primarily intended to be comedic relief, but when gregor is being described as having his trust broken by ishmael or nearly crying because no one on his team properly sided with him for him, i feel like it's pretty fair to read into this.

something that i think is pretty important to remember in conjunction with this is that we know that gregor is the type to hold a grudge, both from his general attitude towards the G corp soldiers in c1 as well as his continued distaste for vergilius

even beyond the splitting into teams of hell's chicken, the sinners have given gregor plenty of reasons to feel bitter. i feel like this is something people have noticed but haven't really put a finger on, but it's kind of wild just how often the rest of the sinners make gregor the butt of the joke

and sure, we could argue that a fair few of these aren't really made with any ill intent. quite a bit of it could have been meant as harmless teasing, but with gregor being more sensitive than most, it coming from nearly all sides, and as often as it does? yeah, i think he's prone to taking it a bit personally.

Pt3. yes i do still think gregor was the third most important character in canto VII you guys gotta hear me out okay

of course, all of this leads up to the bit of the story i highlighted, doesn't it? c7? i totally get why people haven't really picked up on all the gregor things i did in it, seeing as they were mostly not *directly* said about him or by him.

personally, i think that gregor's distaste for talking about himself on any serious level and thus leading to him getting sort of "sidelined" narratively (which i take issue with that claim, but still. it's effective for getting what i mean across atm) is supposed to lead players to take a deeper look at the times gregor gets held up to other characters and compare and contrast what's being said about them by the matchup. as i showed earlier with his immediate latching onto ishmael, i think this is something gregor himself is at least partially aware of too.

so, that begs the question, who was gregor compared to in canto VII that makes me think it's one of the most critical pieces in understanding his character?

really, i'd like to avoid getting too lost in the analysis of this canto specifically, since i'd like to do a proper post about this later, but i figure i can bury the lede a little before doing it properly.

c7 features several characters being made to perform in sansón's play, acting out the relevant backstory for this segment of the plot. a lot of these characters have rather direct, degrading reasons for playing the roles they do.

outis, a character with an inflated ego who wants her journey to have a purpose, is made to play an aimlessly wandering villager with a single line.

hong lu and ryoushuu, two characters for whom families and the expectations placed upon them are likely going to play a major role, are made to play bloodfiends.

rodya, a character who resents her lot in life and is constantly shown to be eager to leave her destitution behind her and become someone special, is made to play a helpless villager that's too poor to even offer any money to the hero that saves her.

heathcliff, a character that has spent most of his life getting dehumanized by comparing him to beastly animals, is made to play a literal bear whose sole purpose in the plot is to get beat up and then quickly left by the wayside.

sinclair, a character that has two opposed parties essentially treating him as a macguffin to procure for their side, is made to play the character who was arguably the catalyst for this entire canto, not to mention playing a decently major role in ruina.

our star don quixote is made to play her father, the first kindred, but there's someone by their side the entire time, isn't there? don quixote's dear, steadfastly loyal companion. a character which don quixote has tasked themself with getting to come out of their shell?

hello again, pushpin 2.

gregor has been made to play our unreachable star, sancho. someone had to, of course. you can't really tell a story without it's main character, now can you?

now, i should once again give a disclaimer. i am not trying to say that i think adapting what happens to donqui/sancho in c7 to gregor is the road pm is going to take here, not only would that toe a bit past the line of foreshadowing, but it'd also just amount to rehashing that plotline again, which i don't think would make for a particularly exciting story.

what i DO think is that we can take a lot of the things that are said to either directly be the case for sancho and use them to inform how we see gregor.

and god, does playing sancho have some fucking implications for our favorite ossan archetype.

starting off, the earliest moment we get to see of sancho is quite literally her just waiting for death to take her in a pile of ashes.

which, i should remind everyone, is actually pretty damn close to what happens to gregor's literary counterpart at the end of the metamorphosis. gregor samsa experiences one final breaking point that pushes him over the edge and makes him decide to just wait for starvation to take him.

gregor and sancho both consider themselves to no longer be human, something which sancho goes out of her way to highlight repeatedly throughout the canto and gregor is quick to get defensive on her behalf for when outis starts really tearing into her

sancho spends quite a lot of this story denying herself the joys of community and friendship, despite knowing that, even with the rest of the sinners frequently making jokes at her expense and outright insulting her, they were things that she desperately craved.

and, while this is getting into my "outis is a red herring meant to distract us from gregor's eventual betrayal" theorizing, i also think it's worth noting for this discussion that sancho's fellow kindreds, her family, all seem to be under the impression that she dislikes them and ultimately her departure was an act of betrayal

and that, despite gregor being one of LCB's resident mood makers and attempted conflict de-escalators, one of the sinners that's most prone to making appeals to the bonds they've all forged together, only him and faust remained silent during everyone's speech

so yeah, i think there's quite a lot of little details and hints building up to the reveal that gregor's not quite as fond of everyone as he presents himself to be. i do think a lot of this ultimately comes down to gregor getting in the way of his own happiness, similarly to donqui, particularly because he's been frequently portrayed as something of a self fulfilling prophecy, especially by giving him as many christ allegories as they have by way of priest and garden of thorns. gregor is convinced that the rest of the sinners don't like him because he's not convinced anyone could like him, so he convinces himself that he hates them because why should he care if someone that he hates hates him too?

a lot of this ultimately ties back to my personal interpretation of what happens in the metamorphosis as well as my own theories regarding all the times gregor has made weird callbacks and references to lobcorp and ruina, but yeah. i think about this guy and his deeper characterization a fairly normal amount, i think.

to end this off i'll highlight one of my favorite little "gregor is fucking seething and trying so hard to keep it cool" moments, in the credits CG for c7 we see rodya teasing him by drawing a little horse on his window and actively pointing and laughing at it, which gregor really doesn't seem all too pleased about.

i personally think this ties into the other cruel part of sansón forcing gregor to play rocinante, which is the more literal "he's actually just straight up playing rocinante" side of things. gregor was quite literally made to play something less than human, less than even animal really, as he was reduced to nothing more than the shoes don quixote wore as she got to play the leading role. sansón directly makes jokes about gregor being nothing more than shoes in the play twice, which adds to this reading, i think.

this, imo, really plays into the adaptation of the metamorphosis! i've seen a lot of readings for the book that posit that, despite being the protagonist, gregor samsa can't really be considered the main character due to nearly everything he experiences in it being used to further his family's character development at his expense, which i think fits nicely with limbus gregor seemingly having the most said about him through indirect means by holding him up to other characters. also it's rodya carelessly making fun of His Big Major Insecurities™ again like she did in c1 which i always find fun. rodya i love you but god you're the worst.

[ask2ps]

in the 2P takeover, alfred struggling to retain some level of consciousness while allen puppeteers him backfires in the end, as it only really allows him to be personally present for matthew's (permanent!) death at his own hands.

anyway i'm representing this through a discord meme redraw.

[sysig]

Let’s Geckin’ Gooooooo! (Patreon)

[macking-cheese]

@numberonetribble 's Piston appeared in my sketch book yet again and this time brought @my-anndreamer 's Bluesun with them, what are they up to this time I wonder ����

Leave it to Bee to make the vibe weird, it must be his specialty atp. Based on this pic

[clockworkreapers]

so we all know the main characters of course... but these two I really like in the books- for very different reasons

[jubileedeeznuts-posting]

the art of remembering history

[what-am-i-doing-in-this-fandom]

I was wondering, does Fiddleford still have a wife in your Halloween au? And if yes, does she know about him being a vampire?

I've been sitting on this ask for a bit, but I think I should finally answer.

In my AU, Fidds is actually pretty old-- not like ancient or anything, but surely a few centuries?

Anyway, so way back, when he was human, he did have a wife and a kid!! But when he got bit and became a vampire, he actually outlived them :(

He tries to think about them often, but it's definitely one of the things he chooses to erase when he creates the memory gun

[royalarchivist]

Phil: I feel so bad when when it gives us Player contracts, I dunno. I know it's just part of the game, but I feel so bad killing people, I don't want to do it. [Laughs]

Cellbit: Oh, I can! Don't worry, I feel great killing people. I've been wanting–

Phil: [Laughs] Alright, I'll pa– I'll pass on the– the killing...

[...]

Cellbit: And you know, I already like, took a piece out of Pac one time, so I'd– I'd just be finishing the job.

Phil: [Laughs]

Cellbit: I'm like paying in– in parts, you know?

Phil: Yeah, yeah?

Cellbit: That was the next part.

Phil: Installments? Installments of debt?

Cellbit: Yeah, I got him like at 15%, I need the other 7– uh, 85%.

Phil: [Laughs]

[orphiclovers]

It's sort of implied Yoo Joonghyuk starts off every regression in his signature outfit already and I have. Headcanons on how that is possible.

It's explicitly stated in canon that his coat does not travel back to him when he regresses (kdj says so to sp), so the two possibilities are either he buys it as soon as possible and just does the first couple scenarios in a normal outfit (boring, unsupported by canon) or... he was already wearing the coat on the day the scenarios started. Which is what I think, and is more interesting. Since those coats already have so much narrative weight in yjh's story let me add a little more.

I think when Yoo Joonghyuk spawned into existence on the side of the road one day, he was wearing the full WoS outfit, coat included. Because, what else would the protagonist wear? This was the only outfit he was written in.

Eventually, he of course did buy normal clothes (in yoo mia side story, which happens a few years later, he wears 'an old jacket') but that coat he started off with with would have been one of the very few pieces of evidence of his supposed 'past' that he wanted to discover so badly. So even if he stopped wear it day-to-day, I think he wouldn't have gotten rid of it.

For years, A Black Infinite Dimention Space Coat hangs in his closet, totally anachronistic in a pre-scenarios world. Like Yoo Joonghyuk himself.

It's important to note that on the day the scenarios started, Yoo Joonghyuk was taking the train to meet his parents for the first time. Perhaps he felt the need to dress up, and what better way than the unusual clothing he wore on the first day he remembers? He would have finally gotten the answers he had been looking for - perhaps even to the comparatively insignificant question of why he was wearing this coat when he forgot his past.

Well, his parents house was empty, but he still gets the answer to his questions eventually, when at 7 p.m on the ride back, the scenarios start.

In a bitter irony, that outfit he chose to wear on that day would be what he wore for the next thousand regressions. But of course, it never could have happened any other way.

[cable-salamdr]

I know that Dragons Rising is meant to be like a soft reboot that should be able to be watched without having watched the entire main show However I do think the extraordinary happiness at old characters getting mentioned is completely missed that way

[cent-scratchnsniff]

green apple flavor

[incessantlark]

eef wieners...