#this is chapter 208 for reference

[shaba-the-art]

Redraw of a manga panel

[oshiawaseni]

Between BkDk, which of them knows they're in love with the other?

A question was asked: Is it just one, is it both, or is it neither? This is my reasoning behind why I think that both of them have realised their romantic feelings for the other.

I'll start with Izuku’s side first, as he is the veteran.

Izuku's been sitting on his feelings for quite some time and repressing them as much as he can, simply just knowing these feelings… exist. Izuku has always loved Kacchan, but I'm talking specifically about the moment he realised what kind of love it was.

I think the moment that really did Izuku in was witnessing the growth in Katsuki's heroic heart for the very first time, during his team's battle in the Joint Training arc. Shiny eyes watched Kacchan's newly perfected teamwork as he fought the opposition while protecting his team and allowing them to cover for him in return.

This change in Katsuki was his heart becoming more like Izuku's, in his efforts to become the top hero that cares about saving and winning equally. He no longer looked down on the action of saving a person, so he no longer looked down on what it meant to be saved by others either. I think this really cast him in a new light for Izuku.

Kirishima: "But it's true it might be the first time we've ever seen him do something like this." (Katsuki protecting others)

As well as planting a seed foreshadowing Bakugou Katsuki Rising, Hori placed the speech bubble over a very bare panel of Izuku watching Kacchan for two reasons: Emphasis that Izuku was also seeing Kacchan's character growth for the first time, and to imply that the change in Katsuki's character that Monoma had just been yelling about was, in large part, influenced by Izuku himself.

The paneling is so genius. It seemed insignificant enough to be ignored by Bones, yet it says so much more than all other panels because it tells a story of the piece in Katsuki that had been missing their whole lives, it’s simplistic emptiness conveying the beauty Izuku saw in him finding it. If Katsuki was changing, maybe Izuku was, too... and this panel was the start of Izuku's admiration evolving into something more romantic.

Izuku watching Katsuki's heroism was an incredibly important moment for them and puts Izuku's view of love in ch.348 into some more context. Because chapter 208 was Katsuki definitely... undeniably sharing Izuku's heart. RIGHT AFTER sending his thoughts to Izuku: "Just keep your eyes on me, shitty Deku!"

".......If it responds to my feelings, at that time, I..."

And not long after JT, we get these unfinished thoughts about WHY Black Whip was triggered and Izuku has been hush about his inner thoughts on Katsuki ever since. (Other than telling Kacchan he doesn't mind being called Deku, if it's too hard to call him Izuku.)

The reason Izuku's emotions were so deeply triggered that day is because Monoma reminded him of the pain he saw in Katsuki's face when he cried to him about ending All Might in DvK2.

The recent anime ending further backs this theory during a montage of Izuku running away from the significant memories he has with his friends. This memory is a very important one to Izuku.

When Monoma triggered him, Izuku felt Katsuki's suffering on a personal level. His precious Kacchan, who had cried to him with that face, had fallen under attack, so by extension, Izuku was being attacked too. That day, Izuku discovered how very protective he is over him. (see also: "Give him back to me!")(see also: Kacchan getting hurt "because of me" to save Izuku was the Vigilante arc catalyst) (see also: Vol 37 Cover Art)

During his Bakugou Katsuki Rising chapter/episode, Kacchan too felt an immense amount of empathy with Izuku, because he refers to the moment he was about to lose Izuku as being "at death's door." Not specifying it was Izuku's death, but death in general. Izuku feels Katsuki's pain. Katsuki feels Izuku's pain. And this attunement with one another makes them both feel immensely protective over each other. Amazing.

So... Izuku has just figured out his feelings... and when asked directly by Kacchan, he runs away from giving him a concrete answer because he doesn't want to upset him with the love and overprotectiveness he feels for Kacchan inside his heart. At this point in the story, Izuku still feels somewhat disliked by him and is scared of Katsuki's potential harsh rejection. I'm sure he was thinking something like "Better to omit the truth and not cause anyone pain." No pain for Kacchan, no pain for him. Hedgehogs can't get hurt if they never lie close to each other, right?

＊* .•° ✿ °•. ❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。 ೋღ

With Katsuki, I think he awoke to a new feeling born inside him after he almost lost Izuku. The uncompromising need for Izuku to stay in his life. And his feelings from childhood that he’d hidden deep inside reemerged with the same explosive level of fervour that he’d given Izuku their whole lives, except now when he thought about Izuku, his heart was filled with something… different.

He only realised what those feelings really were at the same time he faced the looming death that was ahead of him. Katsuki was stripped completely bare by AFO and found all that remained of him, which was now staring him straight in the face, the precious piece of him AFO could never touch: Izuku’s and his intense and binding love for each other. There's no other explanation for chapter 362, other than him becoming more aware of both Izuku's and his own feelings. That's why he thought of him in the end, that's why he longed to see him so much.

That's why he wanted his feelings to reach him, to have Izuku in his grasp, at a time when he knew he had no hope to. All For One told him to face his reality. But that reality and Katsuki's wishes are two very separate entities and nothing can come between the love and belief Izuku and Katsuki have for each other. Katsuki would not be broken… and it was his hope that won out.

Edgeshot: "Don't give up, Dynamight! The guy you're waiting for will... Deku will come for sure. That's why I won't let you die!"

Hori revealed on the back of Volume 37 that Izuku is the person Katsuki had been waiting for because... (and this BREAKS ME):

Katsuki had been waiting to be saved by him.

I KNOW, I KNOW. There's a small part of me that's just like "SHUTUP HORI THESE CHAPTERS WERE ALREADY HARD ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU DIDNT HAVE TO RUB THEM IN EVEN MORE :((" because thinking about all of this hurts like hell.

But I know these lines probably weren’t written to upset those of us who live in a perpetual state of bkdk canon brainrot, and were written so that everyone else, the average "casual" fan, can start to see/accept the love that's between them a little more. I'm sure it's with this kind of intention that he reminded everyone again of who exactly it was residing in Katsuki's heart and whose name it was Edgeshot felt he needed to use to call out to Katsuki with, for the sole purpose of motivating him harder to stay alive. (ily Hori, thanks for the pain.)

As of ch.362, they are both now aware they love the other, Izuku doesn't know yet that it's very reciprocal, but I think Katsuki realised it, and he allowed Izuku's love to overflow him during his delirium, using it as his shield to protect his spirits after the awful things AFO did and said to him. It's devastating that he had to suffer so much to see the truth that had been lying dormant inside his own heart the whole time.

This uncovered truth is why he got back up and acted in the way he knew Izuku believed in most about him. Izuku wasn't coming. But at the very least... he could still become the hero Izuku admires and loves one last time, before it was all over...

"(Never giving up until I get my win is what you always believed in about me,) so I just gotta win, right.... Izuku....?"

Ch.362 felt like Katsuki's answer to Izuku's feelings, an incredibly private moment of him exposing his bare heart for all to see. His final act was an acceptance and reciprocity of the love Izuku felt for him that had been there all along. He was completely run down mentally, physically and spiritually, so he comforted himself by thinking about his special guy.

What provides more comfort than your beloved being right there with you, at your lowest? What greater desire does the heart have than to feel loved by the person it yearningly aches for the most?

Katsuki was only able to see Izuku's feelings because he could finally face and recognise his own.

[ezralva]

Unpopular opinions but from what I've seen around since ppl predicting his death, most of Choso's fans still got so hung up on that 2 panels of Yuki's last words in the past that they perhaps skipped the fact that neither Choso, Yuuji, nor everyone afterward nor the narrative until this very chapter ever touched on the subject whether Choso is a human or a curse even matters, it's just figurative speech back then to justify that Choso deserved to live beside Yuuji, as long as the latter allowed, which Yuuji did.

Most of the arguments I saw was that if Choso died then Yuki's sacrifice was for nothing. Imo that's more of a 'You' problem, depending on how one wants to interpret it. This 'black and white' separation is clearly just more important for the fans but actually not so much in the narrative for the arcs afterward.

Let's be more objective with what happened after chapter 208 and it's the fact that we never saw Choso or anyone ever hinted a scene afterward whether that statement (of his identity) is important anymore beyond that arc as Choso never referred to himself as either or shown that he was in any dilemma anymore due to it. Or that his still being a half-curse standing between the sorcerers ever became a problem or caused a rift amongst them. Readers should start admitting that literally no one in JJK after chapter 208 ever brought that topic again of what Choso is or cares about it. Choso was given the chance (and also a confident boost) to be with Yuuji and Yuuji allowed it so he took that. For others, the only thing that matters to them is that he's siding with Yuji and thus with them. The next thing we knew, the narrator referred to him as one of the sorcerers. We saw him smiling and standing naturally among the entourage who cheered for Gojo's last battle, the guy he tried to kill before. Other characters refer to him as just 'Choso'. Choso only cares that he is Yuuji's big brother that needs to protect him, not what he is now that he sided with the sorcerers. Yuuji himself is also a half-curse now so that's the more reason for Choso not to care abt what he is, not when his last little brother is finally the same as him.

Even in this chapter when Choso said 'I need to apologize to Tsukumo too', there's still no flashback to that 1 scene because it was preceded by Yuuji reminding him that it's not an enough reason for him to disappear after Yuuji became strong and is immediately followed by, 'Yuuji, I'm sorry for leaving you again'.

To me this is more referring to Yuki's words at the bar when she said "but if you die, he'll be alone again" and the fact that Yuki died so Choso could have more time with Yuuji but now he indeed had to leave Yuuji again, rather than about whether he had lived on as a human or not. I personally believed he already did, though, if that really matters, but to Choso now what he is isn't more important than the fact that he, as Yuuji's big brother, is now leaving him alone.

Feel free to argue w/ me abt this but the fact remains that after saying sorry for leaving to Yuuji, it is immediately followed by panel of Eso and Kechizu reappearance calling after their big brother to join them on their side again, now it's in the their original form again, the cursed object.

For me personally, Yuki's death was not in vain as Choso had time to pass down his legacy to Yuuji before joining Eso and Kechizu's side again, but if people wanna see that Yuki's death only amounted to ripping Kenjaku's shirt open now that Choso still died, then be my guess. (Besides, Yuki isn't the first side character in JJK that gets this treatment of not having much importance, after her role is finished. Even though she was being mentioned a couple times for her research and even here in this chapter, but not even one flashback to her might be a sign that Gege doesn't hold her high in their list of priority, but hey it's JJK so it's not news.) It is important to also note (and I think this one is where most readers perhaps skipped) that back then, Choso didn't have much to say or choice for the sacrifice cz Yuki's CT was already transferring Choso to a safety place, before he himself could choose, say, or do anything.

Yet this time he chose to threw his life on the line for Yuuji. It wasn't even the 1st time he did this. We saw this back from his fight with Naoya (before chapter 208) and he wasn't acting any different until now, after passing chapter 208 👆

When the others got hurt one by one during the fight, Choso might've healed himself but we didn't see him come back to distract Sukuna from chasing after the others or took the blow for them, but we saw him immediately come back to Yuuji's side when Yuuji cudn't handle his wound and then of course we saw him protecting Yuuji with all his last efforts. He's just persistently living up to his big brother character, not whether he's a human. He would do the same if it's Eso or Kechizu in Yuuji's place.

So here's the highlight, even after this far, Choso isn't self-sacrificial for all humans like how other sorcerers showed. He's only self-sacrificial for Yuuji and the other little brothers that are now merged in him, because for him, he's a big brother above all else.

TLDR Choso's arc was set from the beginning that he lives only for his little brothers and that is the meaning of his life. It is one of his first lines when he appeared. What Choso ever wanted wasn't to be human or curse, but to be worthy of living with his little brothers and then of being Yuuji's big brother after what he did in Shibuya and to Yuuji. Doesn't matter whether he's a human or curse because he will always be both and that is not a bad thing. In fact the very presence of him and Yuuji as half-curses till this arc is special because he represents that grey area between human and curse, that not one is the more right than the other which is also one of the very theme of jjk.

[shiro-s2e2-erukinzu]

OMG!!! 😆 I loved this chapter of Undead Unluck SOOO MUCH!! 😍 Here are some of my favorite parts in Chapter 208!!! 💗:

[UNDEAD UNLUCK CH. 208 SPOILERS FROM THIS POINT ON, SO BE CAREFUL!]

THIS COVER IMAGE!!! 😳:

We got shirtless Shen (my boy 💗), Tella, Rip and Billy...!! 😍 Bless you Tozuka, bless you for drawing this...!!! 🙏🥹

Sean being sad about Fuuko giving his points to Feng...!! 🤭:

This was just really funny to me!! 😂 Poor Sean...!! 😌

Seeing that Fuuko's mom is super clumsy (or really unlucky...!! 😏):

This was super cute and made me wonder if Fuuko's mom's clumsiness/unluckiness could've been one of the reasons as to why Fuuko was chosen to be the next Unluck by the previous users...!! 🤔 Probably not, but who knows at this point...!! 😄

THE FACT FUUKO STARTED TO DISAPPEAR BECAUSE OF HER MOM CAN'T DO THE IDOL SHOW WITHOUT HER BAND...!! 😱:

If this ain't a Back To The Future reference, then I don't what is...!! 👌😌

Seeing everyone out on other missions:

I love the fact that Billy and Tella as well as Gina and Chikara are keeping an eye on Tatiana, while Rip and Latla going to for Bunny (I assume)...!! 😄 All the characters here are going after the people that they once knew in the previous loop, and I think that's awesome!! 😁 We also have Shen and Mui training under Feng, which I also love to see!! 😊

THIS!! 😆:

I can't wait to see this go down and I hope that everyone will be involved...!! 💗😆💗

And those were my favorite things about this chapter!! It truly feels like we're in the home stretch here, but I'm glad that we are gonna have a little fun before then!! 😊 But before I go...:

That's Fuuko's dad. I am 99.99% that this man is Fuuko's dad and I think that it funny that Fuuko hasn't recognized him...!! 😌

Okay, that's all... Bye!! 👋😉

[redthefortuneteller]

Both Snake and his snakes came from over the hills and far away

Right then, in regards to chapter 208, I'll be now focusing on my theory of Snake being originally a snake and originating in a facility owned by some sort of Dr Moreau type figure.

The flashback starts with Snake saying that since he could "remember" he was in a cage. Now I feel I should mention that from fan's translations it often came up as "when I woke up, I was in a cage." It would be great if someone who understands Japanese could be so kind as to clarify if there can be any double meaning to the word used in the original. Its meaning could change things a little bit. Regardless, he then says he didn't know why he was there nor did he know anything about the outside world.

So, from this I gather that he was born in a cage. In other words, captive bred. Forgive the reptile keeper term. It sounds dehumanizing, because it is. Unless we're talking about a snake. If he was born a snake, in a facility, it makes sense that all he remembers was being in a cage since he remembers.

Regarding the human mother and python father: I don't deem it necessary to waist time on taking what that repulsive charlatan said into consideration, as he's lying through his teeth to sell Snake's image as a product. If Snake says "It's all a lie." then it is so.

Now, another question I have in my mind about the translation is when he follows with "I have no father." because the translation I got, admittedly not through proper means of a human translator, but through google, is that he said "It's all a lie. There is no father." "I have no father." can mean his father died, but "There is no father." can mean that there's no such thing as a father there, meaning it's not specifically that rock python in the cage the charlatan lied about. Regardless, what these two phrases can hypothetically both mean, literally, is that there is no father, end of story.

As a small side note, @abybweisse mentioned that the snake in the image above looked like it could be Wilde. Indeed, this snake is a royal python and Wilde is portrayed as a (albeit impossibly huge) royal in the anime and the in the musicals. If we follow the concept of there being no father, he could have been created in a test tube, properly referred to as in vitro fertilization: taking a mature egg and fertilizing it with a sperm cell in a lab. It is possible to artificially inseminate a female snake too, thus having no father (that one would know of).

But allow me to stretch my ideas a little and ramble on about snakes for a bit. There's a certain phenomenon that very rarely occurs with snakes called parthenogenesis, or virgin birth for those of you more poetically inclined. This means the animal reproduced asexually, without copulating with another of the opposite sex. I won't go too much into the offspring, for the sake of time. Suffice to say that they're usually not as strong or as well developed as the ones produced by two animals of different sexes. There is one species of snake that is an obligatory parthenogenesis breeder though, the Brahminy Blind Snake. But only females are born. They're all girls, always! No boys allowed in their club.

Then there is a more common possibility. This is the retention of sperm during copulation with a male by the female, for later use. So, you go out and acquire a beautiful rainbow boa that had been a breeding female in the past and has retired, you come home with her, set her up nicely, give her a few kisses (don't do this, you'll get salmonella)… and a few months later you open her vivarium and are greeted not only by your baby, but by her, still slimy, 15 brand new wriggling babies! No father (in sight)! Sometimes a female could even have babies from an already deceased father by having stored his sperm for he was oh so worthy. The lovely joys of Nature…

All silliness aside, if Snake was a snake to begin with, there's these three possibilities to explain the lack of a father. The mother could even have been captured from the wild while pregnant for instance. Whichever the case, it's important to note that snakes rarely stay around to care for their young. A few do stick around to protect them but that's the extent of maternal care they provide.

Then he adds "These snakes and I were all brought here from somewhere far away" He ends it with "We have no family." In chapter 202, page 9, Dan says "Snake and us are family", which leads me to assume he's talking about humans this time around, especially since he then says that that's what he thought until he met the circus troupe.

This made me feel hopeful in a way and sad in another. Hopeful because he definitely came from somewhere along with all the snakes as I'd suspected. Sad because I feel as though that's the only information we'll ever get, since now we're already at the circus part of the backstory. I reckon there's no chance of bringing up a flashback about a past older than the freak show. Wherever they came from, it wasn't the wild. He has a wide array of different species with him, and a green anaconda and a black mamba are from completely different types of ecosystems and different continents. These snakes weren't found in the wild all together with him, it's impossible. They all had to have come from a collection, a facility, somewhere that could provide the necessary husbandry to at least keep them alive. So I believe he wasn't in the wild with all the snakes and then they got captured and brought to England. I think they must have either been sold or something happened to the facility they were being held in (as it did with Finnian). The people that got in brought what they found back to England and sold them to a freak show. But then there's the issue of the orphanage… I don't know what to think about that. If anyone has any ideas, I'd love to hear them. I've run into a wall here because I can't fathom someone placing a snake hybrid with loads of venomous snakes into an orphanage. Not only that but Snake said he'd been inside cages since he remembers and knows nothing of the outside world. Did someone tell him something about an orphanage while at the Noah's Arc? Does it concern one of the troupe members and not him directly?

Since this post is getting too long, I'll briefly mention the other points of interest about Snake: He had no name at all until the circus and Joker named him. The snakes had no names either and Jumbo named them.

So I should scratch what I've written about the names of the snakes in my master post as Jumbo made the kind contribution of dispelling what I'd been contemplating as an explanation for their names. By the way, Wuthering Heights is an absolute favourite of mine as well. Just remembering certain passages sets my heart aflutter. Seems I have found something in common with Jumbo. Never thought he'd read those sorts of gothic works… he struck me as having a more Zen philosophy mind and Wuthering Heights is quite intense.

As always, thank you for reading and forgive my rambling style of writing…

[meowunmeow]

Undead Unluck Chapter 208 Spoilers!!

How nice (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

HOT FUCKING DAMN WHAT THE FUCK.

Check up on the Tella fans I know they're dead and unresponsive rn

Tozuka-sensei, you're never beating the manservice allegations. Buff sweaty men in a coloured page. In June??

Latla and Mui are freaks for their respective partners thank you for the confirmation 🙏🙏

I get Rip and Shen because of my previous point but Fuuko... Why are you imagining Tella and Billy shirtless? You got something to tell us?? I mean, thank you for your service, but what is your reason?

Now, what is this face supposed to convey... Is it because he's cheered up or is it because of his girl crazy talk? We'll find out soon enough

I feel like this is equally about Sean and his father as well as Tozuka-sensei and his mother. It's a bittersweet dialogue when you hear both the character and the author speaking.

We finally see it... Two Unlucks!!

Ehe Sean winking to not accidentally activate Unseen in front of Kaede. He looks cute with this hair, actually.

How strong is Kaede's genes oml... All from her, nothing from Papa Izumo.

Would be funny if "familiar face" isn't a reference to Kaede's face but Papa Izumo's. "Hmm, there are several things that look like me but I'm gonna focus on the ones that look like my crush!"

Awh I love how even after Fuuko grown physically tougher and fitter, she still has that tanuki face :] She's rounder compared to her mother, it's so cuteeee

NOOO THEY DIDN'T GET TO BANG 💔

Wait a minute waittt this implies that they're gonna have Fuuko eventually... But Fuuko's already here. So who is this hypothetical Fuuko they're about to have and has Fuuko's existence hinge on??

What's with the constant covering of her dad's face. Is there gonna be a whole bait and switch??

Is that Tatiana? And her dad?? NOOOOOOOOO DONT PUT HER RECRUITMENT ARC IN THE BACKSEAT :(( I WANNA SEE IT IN FULL WEHHHHH

Chikara's there I hope Tozuka-sensei doesn't get any funny ideas nuh-uh

Backs no... You're... YOU'RE AMERICAN?? FROM LA NO LESS??? Impossible... This is so not agoo

He actually kept his promise!! "I'll only teach Shen" "I'm not including others" He didn't wanna admit he's including his daughter-in-law 😒😒

The girls uniform are kinda.. bland and ugly. Fuuko, I love you but, I don't trust you with the fashion. Gina needs to take the wheel on this one.

Is Feng just permanently wearing Kokuto'un like a tutu now or what

Gahdamn Billy's hair genuinely looks like mine it's unsettling

Awh Void and Phil in the background :]

"I know I gave you tasks but for the sake of guaranteeing my parents' banging, I need you to ditch it to help your boss"

Okay so when are the men stripping to recreate the colour page (⁠☞⁠ ͡⁠°⁠ ͜⁠ʖ⁠ ͡⁠°⁠)⁠☞

That was a great chapter. I hope Tozuka-sensei feels okay in the future, he deserves rest.

[thevividgreenmoss]

While the editors claim the historiography of Zionism, in reality theirs is a historiography for Zionism, a Zionist historiography seeking desperate renewal. In seeming response to Raz-Krakotzkin, the editors write in their introduction that in addition to Europe, Palestine and “in many other non-European spaces Zionist movements developed as well” (13). “Moreover,” they go on, “Zionists claimed a land outside of Europe not as a colony, but as their ancestral homeland” (13). While the latter part of that sentence is certainly true, and a core part of Zionist ideology, to argue that Zionists did not claim Palestine as a colony is a lie and nothing less. As is undoubtedly well-known to the editors, Zionists regularly and repeatedly referred to their efforts as a colonial project as countless historical studies have demonstrated, most recently Areej Sabbagh-Khoury’s meticulously researched and powerfully argued Colonizing Palestine: The Zionist Left and the Making of the Palestinian Nakba (2023). Moreover, the claim of Palestine as a homeland marked Zionism as more than simply another nationalism. In her review of The Holocaust and the Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History (2018), Nadia Abu El-Haj carefully critiques the effort therein to define “the colonial” as “excess” and frame histories of Palestine and Israel in terms of competing nationalisms, without attention to the structure of settler-nationhood. “The distinction of Zionism,” Abu El-Haj makes clear, “is that it was a settler-nation from the very start: that is, it was a colonial project of settlement that imagined itself as a project of national return. Not only was there never any ideological space between the national and the settler-colonial. In contrast to settler-nations elsewhere (the US or Australia, for example), there was never any temporal distance either.”[6]

Every chapter in Unacknowledged Kinships seeks to eclipse the settler-colonial history of Zionism. A chapter by the historian Orit Bashkin, who has otherwise contributed to modern Arab intellectual history and the social history of Iraq and Israel in a series of well researched books, provides an overview of the recent scholarship on Arab Jewry. The chapter’s value, however, is diminished by an incoherent conclusion. “Finally, Zionism,” Bashkin writes, “was not simply a foreign movement imported from Europe and Palestine, as the postcolonial school would have it, or a natural response to Arab Fascism, as the conservatives have argued. Rather it was a local option, one among many, that appealed to Jews, especially as Arab national elites let them down and the conflict in Palestine seemed to have determined the lot of Jews outside it” (208). The conscription of some Arab Jews into Zionism does not make it local. Does the presence of American nationalism among some Indigenous or Black people make the United States any less a settler-colonial or slave society? Zionism was not “imported” from Palestine to elsewhere across the Arab world. The transplantation of a racial ideology that pitted “Arab” against “Jew” was a European Zionist project. All the major leaders of the Zionist movement in Palestine were European. Of the thirty-seven signatories of the Israeli Declaration of Independence, “all but two… were from Central or Eastern Europe,” as Ussama Makdisi reminds us.[7] To name Zionism “local” is to elide again, as this volume seeks to do, its colonial function.

...Quayson however, reveals himself a fellow traveler in the editors’ campaign, readily adopting their prejudice and the logic of the Israeli security state. In his Afterword to the volume, Quayson writes that the events at the 1972 Olympics in Munich were “stomach churning” as he observed them as a child in Ghana and that unlike “the foreign policy positions being taken by African states” the Israeli raid on Entebbe Airport in 1977 “served to consolidate the Israelis as heroes in our young eyes even further” (298). Quayson is certainly welcome to recount his youthful impressions (although readers may wish to consult proper histories of African and Third World solidarity with Palestinians in the same period to read alongside such anecdotes). But Quayson’s reliability is thrown into serious doubt when he turns to the 1982 massacres of Palestinians in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. He characterizes them simply as a “public relations disaster” which “created a bitter taste toward Israel for many people in the postcolonial world” (299)—although apparently not for Quayson. While Israel’s complicity in the massacres is well-documented and well-known, Quayson seeks to absolve Israel by both raising doubts about these facts and justifying Israel’s actions due to the “complex geopolitical calculus” that Israel and its adjuncts in Lebanon were apparently working under, namely the perennial specter of Iran. Why? In the end Quayson makes clear his opposition to BDS, “something I personally think precipitously abandons the possibility of dialogue and collaboration with progressive Israel-based scholars” (299).

...Faisal Devji, in a piece that rehashes the arguments of some of his recent books on Pakistan and Gandhi, takes the opportunity to scold supporters of BDS with insidious comparisons. Arguing that “BDS has taken on the role that states and the international community are meant to play by imposing punitive sanctions on a criminal regime. This effort is inadvertently mitigated by the movement’s weakness and so its own vulnerability to sanctions of many kinds. Such vulnerability gives BDS its moral idealism, but this is promptly squandered by the desire to speak in the name or at least in place of the state and international order.”[12] Inexplicably, a stateless people, many of whom without even a passport to their name, endlessly abused by a state-system which restricts their movement and blocks their access to those legal mechanisms of international governance, are condemned for attempting even the smallest pragmatic use of that system. Shall we also condemn Six Nations of the Irouquis’s appeal for sovereignty to the League of Nations or the Civil Rights’ Congress historic charge of genocide against the United States presented to the United Nations in 1951?

Palestinians and their supporters, Devji goes on to argue, would do well to heed the example of the Gandhian refusals which mobilized millions against the British in India. No mention is made, of course, that Palestinians have been practicing civil disobedience in their land since before the State of Israel even existed. Or that the General Strike in Palestine in 1936 was the longest in human history (perhaps only surpassed by the hartal that consumed Kashmir in 2020). While Palestinians are daily arrested, maimed, and murdered for stepping out into the street or opening their lips, when dozens of Palestinians participate in wave after wave of hunger strike as they’re stuffed into cages, Devji, our Thomas Friedman, dares to ask where is the Palestinian Gandhi?

[drstonetrivia]

Chapter 208 Trivia

Brody-Os! Part of a complete breakfast.

Magma is posed here like Senku is in the manga volumes' character introduction pages. He's also next to Senku's two best friends rather than Nikki and Yo.

I don't think it means anything but Magma did beat Senku this chapter… Is Magma the replacement for Senku? 🤔

We finally see Joel's arm, and it does seem to be fully functional given he's rapidly weaving donuts between Luna and Yuzuriha (while blushing, because he still hasn't gotten used to women).

I think this implies that broken/crushed bones heal similar to piercing wounds.

The mathlympics coincides* with the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics, and the little icons on the banner they faxed are based on the ones Japan used for the sports.

*Technically the closing ceremony was a few weeks ago but the manga was on break.

This panel is interesting: either they're saying this person was revived 51st in Corn City and had the number written on him, and that it stayed on his skin despite having been written on the outer/damaged layer of stone, or that tattoos don't count as healable injuries.

This could mean that the petrification only heals life-threatening injuries, as Soyuz's head scar and now this tattoo (technically the body treats the foreign ink as an infection of sorts) have stayed.

This does imply Kaseki's arthritis was considered life-threatening though…

If the number on the soldier's arm was in fact his revival number, then the population of the world is probably close to Dunbar's number already, since 51 + 75 = 126, plus the Spaniards, making the total Earth population ~150.

The corn harvest here may be telling us Corn City has been back up and running for the last 60-100 days, as that's about as long corn needs to grow. If we assume the start date is October 1st, then it would be around late November/early December now.

(It could also be much earlier if this corn was still the corn growing naturally over the last 7-8 years, rather than them planting it.)

Just for fun I compared the ring size to Kinro's thumb width and I think it's accurate, at least it is for my hand. His hand is a little smaller than I was expecting though…

(0.5 * 33.6 = 16.8mm if you want to check your own thumb!)

Just because nixie tubes are cool, this is how the calculator number display looked. Depending on the noble gas/gases they filled it with, it could be orange-yellow, blue, or purple-pink.

(They should also have 12 pins on the bottom, one for each number+decimal point+1 anode)

Gen mentions they're crossing the Indian Ocean, so I guess Math City is considered established now. The next ones are Rubber City and Aluminum City, but since they're both across the Indian Ocean from India, they could be going to either one of them. Rubber is closer, however.

The scrawny scientists are fine, but Magma is too big for his contestant podium and has to straddle it.

Magma's studying payed off, he can read numbers!

Ukyo's such a good teacher :)

The calculator itself is a 32 bit floating point calculator, has four functions (+, -, *, / ) and with a display that shows 12 digits, the sign (positive or negative numbers) and status (for example if a number is too big to display or some other error).

The name on the calculator, Senku Intelligent - 1, may be a /very/ loose reference to the TI calculators you likely used at school, though "TI" stands for "Texas Instruments" rather than "Texas Intelligent".

These candies Minami's has next to her are definitely corn syrup based, and are probably getting stickier by the minute because sugar candies should be stored in an airtight container and that looks like an open jar.

If anyone's confused by how Ryusui Bank works, I believe the plan is to add and subtract any transactions people make and save their totals on the calculator, or keep a paper record of it (=ledger). It's entirely trust based, there's nothing of physical value being traded.

The time difference between India and California is 12 hours 30 minutes, so it's probably mid-morning for the ones on the Perseus and evening for the ones in Corn City, going by the skies shown.

From what I could tell, all the magnetic memory parts were basically exactly as they described them, including the little history lesson Senku adds on page 8. There just wasn't much more to add! (I know I said this before but I loved this chapter haha)

[liiacfleur]

The Undead Highlands

contains spoilers for unpublished chapters 6/7/8/9. don't read the indicated spoilers if you don't want to be spoiled about certain places and (vague) references to events that take place later in the story. ones that I would consider larger spoilers are labeled as (MAJOR SPOILERS) and the text has been crossed out. this will be updated again around chapter 9/10.

Capital:

Moonstone

Capital of the Highlands. A major port city carved into the sea wall with an affinity for mining, sheep herding, and artisan materials. The first established city within the Highlands, and the home of their leader, Kas the Banished. In the time of the Ancient Kingdom, it was the only city south of the wall that was able to hold off the Undead King's seige. Unfortunately, its residences subsequently starved to death trapped within the city, their bones only found by Kas and his army many centuries later.

Major Towns/Cities:

Moonsmouth Sanctuary

The first attempt at settling in the Valley of the Vanquished. With a population of several thousand, they were able to build homes in the trees around them after forming a spiritual connection with the sentient plant life. The village initially specialize in wood exports across the fledgling kingdom, and made occasional trades to established merchants from Hawkins. Eventually, they became a sought out trading post, and their economy expanded to include a variety of merchants and goods.

By 207 GC, they became the first established city outside of Moonstone, joined by a second later in the year, and a third on the west coast in 209 GC.

Loch Hellfire

(Minor Spoilers)

Built in the remains and rubble of a city from the ancient times, Loch Hellfire was built along the coastline at the outer reaches of the Bog of the Dead. Beginning as another outpost such as Moonsmouth, it was officially established by the Byers siblings when they went to study old tombs preserved inside the rubble. More resources were allocated to its construction thereafter.

By 207 GC, it consisted of nearly six thousand residences, specializing in magic, apothecary, and the training and soul tying of monsters found south of Moonlit Wall.

Dragon's Peak

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

Originally an abandoned ancient city on the western side of the continent south of Denfield and the Crescent Tower. After an expedition led by Robin and Steve in spring of 209GC, it was later established as a major city in the following years, culturally mixed between those of the Undead Highland and a flood of citizens from Denfield who possessed old magic. It became a sea trading port, specializing in mining, and held the most impressive military for centuries afterwards, consisting of not only highly skilled soldiers, but dragon riders as well.

Lesser Locations:

Cabin Near Mirkwood Tower:

(Minor Spoilers)

The site of Eddie's death in 202 GC. Sometime after the war, a single cottage, a water well, and a small orchard were constructed by Kas the Banished and his Arch Mage. In the summer of 208 GC, it was established as a small farming village, accompanied by a militia to guard the border after the court rebellion in Hawkins. They specialize in farming gourds and wheat, but eventually became the main exporter of cider south of Mulberry.

Cave in the Bog of the Dead:

(MAJOR SPOILERS)

Where Steve and Kas found shelter after Kas was injured fighting a Nightwalker in 208 GC. Location where Steve learns the more about Kas' undead nature and their ally-ship is officially established.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Year in Review! Thank you so much for a wonderful year!

Hey! So this was my first year with... any kind of social media actually. I finally plucked up the courage to make an account and post stuff instead of just looking at other people's stuff and wishing I was more involved haha... I'm really glad I did! You people are so nice and I've seen so many incredibly creative ideas - I can't wait to see more. :)

I have a few things ready to go for the new year and I'm excited to get back to answering asks again!

Tags (not surprising):

#bsd - 605 posts

#bsd dazai - 220 posts

#random - 208 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#fukuzawa wanting to ditch most everyone he meets and only begrudgingly taking in these kids but helping them find their footing and do good

My top posts... you know I never expected any analysis I did to get too much attention. The Dazai and Q chapter one (#2) was especially surprising to me... never expected that to blow up like it did.

Fjfnfjvns and my #1 post being my stupid joke post. Sounds about right hahaha!

#5

I've been thinking a lot about the one-dimensional kinda fandom interpretations of Dazai and Chuuya in particular - the overemphasis on Dazai's weird brand of mischief/manipulation and Chuuya's anger and tendency to lash out and how it's not like these traits are... wrong, per se - these are their surface level/immediately notable characteristics - it's just that it misses the nuance as to why these traits likely exist.

What these interpretations don't fully capture is their very similar cores deep down - two people plagued by feelings of alienation, human inadequacy and repeated loss. Despite starting from these very similar places, they both dealt with the issue in near opposite ways. Dazai numbed himself to pain (remember: he hates pain! I cannot emphasize this enough!) and rarely gets close to anyone for fear he will lose them - his loss led to apathy, a withdrawal from humanity, a fear that he will always be empty inside - his ability: No Longer Human. Chuuya, on the other hand, refuses to numb himself and instead feels every single emotion in full and values his bonds with others over anything. He wants to belong and makes efforts to be perceived as a part of his group. Underlying this, however, is a kind of tired grief paired with resilience - remember that his ability is Upon the Tainted Sorrow. Not anger, or rage.

Sorrow is what results from this kind of heavy identity crisis and loss - for both of them. Think of Odasaku's read on Dazai as someone who looked close to tears when "acting" in front of the sniper poised to shoot him, describing him to Gide as a too-smart child left in the dark, or the way Stormbringer constantly reminds us that Chuuya is 16 and the desperation he feels in the scene where he holds his own dying clone, unable to help him.

Both characters carry a melancholy, resulting from their respective issues with their own humanity - I know I'm not the first one to comment on how their abilities could just as easily be referring to each other as well as themselves. This reads as very intentional to me - much like Atsushi's story begins as a clear parallel to the short story Rashoumon and Akutagawa sometimes being referred to in more beast-like terms than man, it makes sense that Dazai and Chuuya would reference each other in a similar vein.

And if that was the end of it, then we would expect that deep sorrow to shine through in both characters, but it rarely does except in pivotal moments. That's because the both of them have had to constantly deal with external threats - they believe they cannot afford to show vulnerability.

So, what you get instead is Dazai taking a kind of twisted ownership over his inhumanity and using it to make people afraid of him and to control everything so that he is never blindsided and hurt again, in the process, further alienating himself and making his issues worse. He inflicts fear so he doesn't have to be afraid. He can relax and be as silly as he wants - so long as everything around him is completely according to his predictions. There's a bonus to his foolish demeanour as well: hardly anyone can read him well enough to get close.

Then you get Chuuya, who feels so strongly and so much that it has no choice but to boil over, and due to never being able to or feeling comfortable with being anything but "the strongest", he hides moments when he is touched, or worried, or grieving, with anger and violence and defensiveness. As such, he is always seen as more weapon than person, a cut above the rest, forever standing out to others no matter how much he tries to integrate. The closest he came to true belonging was wrenched away from him before he could have a chance to know what that would actually feel like with the death of the Flags.

These surface traits are defense mechanisms. And the amusing thing to me is that likely means these two would love if that's all most people ever saw of them. (Of course, they clearly do want to be seen and accepted, but defense mechanisms become automatic over time because they often feel much safer. Likely another reason they clash so much - they see each other, and it is deeply uncomfortable for them both.)

So, you have Dazai defending himself with his two-faced nature, making jokes and/or manipulating everyone in the vicinity, and Chuuya defending himself with intimidation and anger, never letting any vulnerability show through because anger is easier but at the core of all of this is that loss and that grief and the sorrow and fear that pervades from it.

885 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

#4

Dazai and Chuuya are two people who don't need to talk to each other to communicate but who also really should

1,372 notes - Posted October 30, 2022

#3

Not to skk post on main but that scene from Dead Apple made me insane for I think a slightly different reason than most...

Ok so. Gonna be honest. When I first watched this, the ah... positioning... did not occur to me at all, other than thinking "that looks really uncomfy :/".

I was too focused on what Dazai's hand does here. He first pushes him. Ok so he was trying to stop him from getting up and losing contact due to the fog. Cool. That serves a practical purpose.

But then Chuuya falls unconscious and Dazai's hand loses that contact for a second before he lowers it back down to rest on his head.

The thing is, there's no need for him to do that. Chuuya is already in contact with Dazai's legs and his ability works through clothes. Moreover, it wasn't just a continuation of pushing him down - there's a slight delay before he sets his hand back on his head.

He sets his hand there just because. And, due to the delay/hesitation, it appears to be a conscious choice to do so as well. Chuuya's out. There's no one around to act for.

I watched that and went holy shit that's genuine, isn't it? It's such a simple gesture of fondness, maybe even a bit of protectiveness, but it means a lot from someone as emotionally closed off as Dazai.

It's... weirdly sweet. He appears to have done it after Chuuya lost all his friends (again...) during DHC in the manga adaptation too, which is... :(

And now, with seeing Dazai immediately start playing with Chuuya's hair in the latest Fifteen adaptation, it also doubles as really funny to me. He saw a chance to touch his hair again and took it. What is wrong with this man.

1,565 notes - Posted December 12, 2022

#2

Genuinely don't think I've seen anyone talk about chapter 25 as a pivotal moment for Dazai so I'm gonna put this out here because I think his reactions here kind of negate that whole omnipotent Dazai interpretation which I hate with every fibre of my being.

Firstly, he's like, clearly caught off guard here. And don't try to tell me he wasn't, because this is just one instance of his genuinely horrified reaction to Q's release and when he realized what was actually going on with Atsushi, Naomi and Haruno.

Him being caught off guard carries significance here because you'd never catch him screwing up this bad later in the series - which is exactly my point.

I wrote a post earlier about how I don't think Dazai really is very much like Mori or Fyodor at all, and I stand by that, because their motives are different. Tldr for that post: Mori and Fyodor are ambitious and proactive, while Dazai is empty/numb and reactive.

What this leads me to believe is that Dazai is less a chess master like those two and more of a contingency planner - he's so good at "predicting" because he is uncannily good at thinking like his opponent and then planning for literally any possibility under the sun he can come up with. He's no gambler. Everything and everyone is practically (and unknowingly) micromanaged. It's almost paranoid in a sense, and I definitely think it's a trauma response to something he went through that we don't know about yet - after all, he was more than capable of this before he even met Mori.

...which brings to me to Mori's influence here. It's straight up like Dazai forgot how willing Mori is to gamble huge risks for a good outcome. It's like he forgot the mafia could be a real threat to his best-laid plans.

Going to throw out a wild claim here that I don't think is actually all that baseless - I think it's widely assumed that Dazai molds himself to what he needs to be (true!) but I think this misses the idea that he is also easily influenced by the mindsets of the people around him (see: the difference between Entrance Exam Dazai and early manga Dazai, the whole "the longer he was in the mafia the darker and more incomprehensible he became" thing from Stormbringer, how dark his eyes get in the prison sections with Fyodor, etc.). I could go on, but for the sake of not making this post too much longer, let's assume this is true because it suddenly makes sense as to why he failed to predict Q but predicted other events much later that were inherently more difficult to predict:

He was in the wrong mindset. He was thinking like an Agency member, and dare I say, he even got a little complacent. He started to get used to not having to manipulate every last variable - he was removed from a toxic environment - only for Mori to pretty much instantly fuck that up in one scene.

Let's also not forget what happened the last time he miscalculated Mori's intentions.

The consequences of this blunder could've been a lot worse and he knows it.

In his mind, thinking like an ADA member wasn't good enough to stop a potentially awful outcome - awful outcomes that could bring him pain. So, he goes back to what he knows - think like the demon prodigy. Think like Mori. Later on, think like Dostoyevsky. Because it seems to me that he believes as long as he is still working for the light that it doesn't matter if he uses these horrifically manipulative and inhumane methods of getting there. But he is wrong. Darkness within the context of good intentions is still very much darkness, and it hurts people all the same.

In the very next chapter, Dazai arranges Ango's car accident. And he only gets worse and worse throughout the series as he regresses back into his paranoid darkness that manifests as this omnipotent facade - his safety net that ultimately prevents him from developing in a positive, more human direction.

1,999 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

live mafia reaction

2,124 notes - Posted November 26, 2022

Cheers, and have a happy new year! I hope you can find something to be proud of, even if that was just making it through another year. See you in 2023!

[ao3feed-stevebucky]

Unsinkable love

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/47YR0xX

by Atlandis

And then the lights turned off, only to reappear a couple of seconds later. Strange noises came from inside the ship. Noises of steel folding and glass breaking. Noises that sent a shiver down Bucky’s back. It was like the ship itself was suffering with them. Like Titanic was screaming, just like its passengers.

“Bucky!”

He jumped as he heard his name. He looked up and was met with Steve’s blue eyes. Those beautiful, perfect eyes he never managed to forget ever since the first time he saw them. “Stay with me, okay?” Steve told him kindly, almost in a whisper “I need you to focus. I need you to stay with me”

Bucky nodded and for a moment his numbness vanished and everything was clear. “I am. I’m with you till the end of the line”. And he knew he always will be, no matter what was going to happen.

Words: 208, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Titanic (1997)

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: James "Bucky" Barnes, Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson (Marvel), Natasha Romanov (Marvel), T'Challa (Marvel), Abraham Erskine, Howard Stark, Phil Coulson, Alexander Pierce, Thaddeus Ross, Nick Fury, Chester Phillips, Peter Parker, Peter Quill, Shuri (Marvel), Clint Barton, Stephen Strange, Bruce Banner, Wanda Maximoff, Aldrich Killian, Scott Lang, Other Marvel Characters

Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers

Additional Tags: RMS Titanic, Titanic AU, Original Fiction, Bucky and T'Challa are best friends, steve and sam are best friends, Bucky is rich, Steve is not, Historical References, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Falling In Love, Romance, Coming Out, Loss of Virginity, Steve knows he is gay, Bucky doesn't, Self-Acceptance, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Period Typical Attitudes, abusive Step parent, Bucky is kind of arrogant, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Change of attitude, Top Steve Rogers, Bottom Bucky Barnes, Eventual Smut, Tragedy, Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/47YR0xX

[mesillusionssousecstasy]

Fight Club (the book): Review

Honestly, I feel a little bit disappointed, because I watched the movie before reading the book and all the suspense was robbed for me. Is it me or the end is different (death or jail)? A good summery at page 167, "I said that if you talked about me behind my back, you'd never see me again," Tyler said. "We're not two separate men. Long story short, when you're awake, you have the control, and you can call yourself anything you want, but the second you fall asleep, I take over, and you become Tyler Durden." Also, for me everything started when Marla came to the support groups (page 24). We will never know the name of the protagonist, right? The book is more of a twisted hate / love story in the end for me (page 197 and 205), with a fight against the consumer society. I have just noticed that the first chapter was actually about the end (page 11 to 15). From the beginning we learned that the character cannot sleep since three weeks and "everything becomes an out-of-body experience," (page 19), or "This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you" (page 21 and 96-97). On the opposite, "Every time you fall asleep," Tyler says, "I run off and do something wild, something crazy, something completely out of my mind" (page 163 and 174) or to summery, "This is a dream. Tyler is a projection. He's a disassociative personality disorder" (page 168 and 196). We meet the famous Tyler Durden at page 25. The protagonist job is terrible, those poor victims. When we learn about the five rules of fight club at page 48 to 50. We learn more about Marla at page 61. I'm so team Marla, especially when she said, "You're such a flake. You love me. You ignore me. You save my life, then you cook my mother into soap" (page 160). The protagonist is really one of Marla's stories (page 183). The most disgusting thing Tyler did with the soup, page 85. Then, there is the Project Mayhem at page 119 and its five rules (page 122 and 125). Are all the space monkeys men? (page 130) At page 136, they are using human fat to make soap? I didn't understand the dog's name reference "Entourage", because he feels so lonely? (page 146) RIP Big Bob (page 177), at least better dying like this than from cancer. Oh and the boss is dead (page 185). Almost all the sign of Insomnia: page 19, 21, 22-23, 24, 25, 96-97, 99, 101, 122, 162. All the clue that the protagonist and Tyler are the same person: page 26 (I know this because Tyler knows this), 27, 32, 33, 48 (I did this to myself), 52 (I did this to myself), 54, 56 (I dreamed I was humping Marla Singer), 59 (I dreamed I was humping Marla Singer), 65, 68, 71, 75, 78, 93 (It wasn't me. It was Tyler), 94 (Until I found Tyler or until Tyler found me), 112 (I know this because Tyler knows this), 114 (Tyler and I were looking more and more like identical twins), 116, 123, 124, 129 (Good cop. Bad cop), 138 (I'm still asleep. Here, I'm not sure if Tyler is my dream. Or if I am Tyler's dream), 140 (Is this a test? Are you testing us?), 155 (These are Tyler's words coming out of my mouth. I am Tyler's mouth. I am Tyler's hands), 157 (If you can wake up in a different place. If you can wake up in a different time. Why can't you wake up as a different person?), 158 ("You stopped in last week, Mr. Durden," he says. "Don't you remember?"), 159 (You have a birthmark, Mr. Durden, the bartender says. On your foot"). It's finally at the page 167-168, that we learn the true identity of Tyler Durden, "Tyler Durden is a separate personality I've created, and now he's threatening to take over my real life" (page 173). I really didn't understand chapter 30, especially page 207 and 208, is the protagonist dead or just in jail? Nice quotes: - page 46: "May I never be complete. May I never be content. May I never be perfect." - page 49: "Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer. Tyler never knew his father. Maybe self-destruction is the answer." - page 50: "The gyms you go to are crowded with guys trying to look like men, as if being a man means looking the way a sculptor or an art director says." - page 58: "Sometimes you do something, and you get screwed. Sometimes it's the things you don't do, and you get screwed." - page 62: "Put a gun to my head and paint the wall with my brains." - page 69: "So, I say, how is Marla? Tyler says, "At least Marla's trying to hit bottom."" - page 70: ""It's only after you've lost everything," Tyler says, "that you're free to do anything."" - page 99: "Maybe, I say, you shouldn't be bringing me every little piece of trash you pick up." - page 108: "Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't." - page 126: "If you know where to look, there are bodies buried everywhere." - page 137: "A telephone was ringing in my dream, and it's not clear if reality slipped into my dream or if my dream is slopping over into reality." You shouldn't definitively watch the movie before reading the book. Bonsoir. Thank you, next.

[analytik2]

List of Urusei Yatsura Season 2 Episodes and their equivalent Manga Chapters & Original Anime Counterparts

(source)

I made a list of Urusei Yatsura Season 2 episodes with the manga chapter that they adapted alongside their OG anime counterpart as the season was airing. I also wrote down my thoughts and notable aspects of each episode.

I already made a similar list for Season 1 where I listed each of the Urusei Yatsura Remake episodes and their corresponding manga chapters and 1981 original anime episodes. You can see it here.

Anyway, here's the list for Season 2:

Episode 24A Fantasy Bubble Gum Manga - Chapter 275 Fantasy Bubble Gum Original anime counterpart – Episode 169 It’s Exciting! The Terrible Overhead Cooler!! Note: The original anime combined Chapter 275 with Chapter 241 Ice Cooler Relaxation. The concept of the fantasy bubble gum was merged with the ice coolers. The Remake only adapts Chapter 275 and does it faithfully.

Episode 24B Love Knows No Barriers Manga - Chapter 206 Love Knows No Barriers Original anime counterpart – Episode 163 Oh No! Darling Can't Understand Me! Note: The original anime episode was much longer and had references to other anime like Aim for the Ace! and even the movie Halloween.

Episode 25A Trickle of Memories Manga - Chapter 176 Trickle of Memories Original anime counterpart – Episode 81 Oh! The Memories of Mother

Episode 25B Album of Memories Manga - Chapter 177 Album of Memories Original anime counterpart – Episode 81 Oh! The Memories of Mother

Episode 25C The Home Visit Blues: Feuding Fujinami Edition Manga - Chapter 298 The Home Visit Blues Original anime counterpart – Episode 189 Deadly Home Visits! A Teacher's Life is Dangerous Too

Episode 26 Electric Jungle Manga - Chapter 301-304 Electric Jungle Part 1-4 Original anime counterpart – Episode 192 Come Quickly, Darling! Lum's Dangerous Marriage Talk Note: This is the 1st episode of Season 2 and the 4th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall that is full-length. The OG Episode 192 was the last episode that adapted the latest chapters (at the time) of the manga before being canceled. Episodes 193 and 195 adapted older chapters and 194 was a rebroadcast of Episode 44.

Episode 27A Lover Thief Manga - Chapter 207-208 Lover Thief, Part 1 & 2 Original anime counterpart – Episode 121 Here Again! Hunter of Love Princess Kurama

Episode 27B That Mizunokoji Girl Manga - Chapter 224 That Mizunokoji Girl, Part 1 Original anime counterpart – Episode 132 Matchmaking Hell! Is the Armored Daughter a Beauty? Beast? Note: This is a strange one. The manga story spans 4 chapters so the original anime adapted them in 2 episodes which was a rare thing for the OG anime to do. So I assumed the Remake would dedicate one entire episode to That Mizunokoji Girl storyline. But since it's only half an episode, I guess it's going to skip a lot of scenes from the manga. Or parts of the story arc will be covered in a later episode.

Episode 28 The Continuation Of: That Mizunokoji Girl Manga - Chapter 225-227 That Mizunokoji Girl, Part 2-4 Original anime counterpart – Episode 132 Matchmaking Hell! Is the Armored Daughter a Beauty? Beast? and Episode 133 Love of the Armored Daughter! Maiden Heart is Shaky Wobbling Note: This is the 2nd episode of Season 2 and the 5th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall that is full-length. This means this episode is technically the 2nd part of a 2-parter. So, Episode 27B only adapted Chapter 224 and the rest will be adapted in Episode 28 as a full-length episode. Honestly, I thought all 4 chapters would be covered in one episode so this is a bit of a bonus. The OG anime adapted this arc in 2 episodes and it's nice to see that the Remake also did something similar.

Episode 29A Kotatsu Love Manga - Chapter 250 Kotatsu Love Original anime counterpart – Episode 146 The Scampering Kotatsu-Neko! Anything to Get Warm Note: This episode choice is peculiar because the Remake completely skipped Kotatsu-Neko's origin story. So it's weird to have an episode about him adapted. If you want to see the origin story of Kotatsu-Neko then watch Episode 51 A Cat with a Grudge on the Stairs or read Chapter 111 There's a Cat on the Stairs! Highly recommend it.

Episode 29B Lum Becomes a Cow Manga - Chapter 221 Lum Becomes a Cow Original anime counterpart – Episode 117 Lum-chan's Becoming a Cow? Note: Adaptation of a fan favorite story.

Episode 29C The Home Visit Blues: Luxurious Mendo Edition Manga - Chapter 298 The Home Visit Blues Original anime counterpart – Episode 189 Deadly Home Visits! A Teacher's Life is Dangerous Too Note: Second part of The Home Visit Blues. There will be 3 more parts.

Episode 30A Eerie Earmuffs Manga - Chapter 72 Eerie Earmuffs Original anime counterpart – Episode 24 Beware the Earmuffs!

Episode 30B Family Tree Manga - Chapter 12 Intention Original anime counterpart – None Note: Note: This is the second story of the manga that was not adapted in the OG anime in any way until the Remake adapted it into anime for the first time. The original anime probably skipped it for a specific reason. The chapter came out when Urusei Yatsura was still pretty new and Shinobu was still considered the main heroine. The anime was released a few years later when Lum was considered the new main heroine. So it's speculated that's the reason this chapter was skipped in the original anime. Also, the name "Intention" in the new Viz translation of the Urusei Yatsura manga is one of its many mistranslations. The kanji of Intention and Family Tree look very similar so that's probably how it got mistranslated. But it still blows my mind that they didn't proofread the manga which resulted in a very rough and unnatural feeling translation.

Episode 31 Open the Door, Part 1 Manga - Chapter 329 Open the Door, Chapter 330 The Ends of Love and Sadness, Chapter 331 Running for Tomorrow Original anime counterpart – Urusei Yatsura OVA 3 Inaba the Dreammaker Note: This is the 3rd episode of Season 2 and the 6th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall that is full-length. Not only that but also it's a 2-parter. Making it similar to Episode 28 The Continuation Of: That Mizunokoji Girl. In the original series, the Inaba storyline was adapted into a single hour-long OVA that was released after the TV series had finished airing. Apparently, it also screened in some theaters like some OVAs of the time. In the Remake this will likely be a 2-episode story.

Episode 32A Open the Door, Part 2 Manga - Chapter 332 Dream Doors, Chapter 333 Once for Tomorrow Original anime counterpart – Urusei Yatsura OVA 3 Inaba the Dreammaker Note: This episode is the 2nd part of a 2-parter.

Episode 32B The Home Visit Blues: Prohibitive Miyake Edition Manga - Chapter 298 The Home Visit Blues Original anime counterpart – Episode 189 Deadly Home Visits! A Teacher's Life is Dangerous Too Note: Third part of The Home Visit Blues. There are 2 more parts left.

Episode 33A Haunted Mendo Manga - Chapter 274 Haunted Mendo Original anime counterpart – Episode 166 Scary!! There is an Octopus on Shūtarō's Head!?

Episode 33B Last Date Manga - Chapter 247 Last Date Original anime counterpart – Episode 157 I Love Darling's Kindness... Note: Adaptation of one of the fan favorite manga chapters. The author Rumiko Takahashi alongside some of her editors considers this their most favorite chapter of Urusei Yatsura. If you hate Ataru then this chapter might change your mind...

Episode 34A The Case of the Battered Principal Manga - Chapter 311 The Case of the Battered Principal Original anime counterpart – None Note: This is the third story of the manga that was not adapted in the OG anime in any way until the Remake adapted it into anime for the first time.

Episode 34B The Secret Flower Garden Manga - Chapter 233 The Secret Flower Garden Original anime counterpart - Epissode 135 I Hate Gossiping Flowers!

Episode 34C The Home Visit Blues: Hellish Moroboshi Edition Manga - Chapter 298 The Home Visit Blues Original anime counterpart – Episode 189 Deadly Home Visits! A Teacher's Life is Dangerous Too Note: Fourth part of The Home Visit Blues. There is only 1 more part left.

Episode 35A L❤ve-Darling in Danger Manga - Chapter 162 L❤ve-Darling in Danger Original anime counterpart – Episode 77 Darling's Dying!?

Episode 35B Foxes of the Moonlit Night Manga - Chapter 222 Foxes of the Moonlit Night Original anime counterpart – Episode 134 I Dearly Want to Meet You! Return of the Pure Fox!! Note: The original anime version of this episode is simply better because of a beautiful insert song by Lum's voice actress Fumi Hirano.

Episode 35C The Home Visit Blues: Onsen Mark Goes to Space Manga - Chapter 298 The Home Visit Blues Original anime counterpart – Episode 189 Deadly Home Visits! A Teacher's Life is Dangerous Too Note: Final part of The Home Visit Blues.

Episode 36 Wretched Shutaro! Manga – Chapter 178 Wretched Shutaro & Chapter 179 Frenzied Shutaro Original anime counterpart – Episode 86 Outraged! Piteous Kid Shutaro!! Note: First episode of the 2nd cour of Season 2. This is the 4th episode of Season 2 and the 7th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length. Also, this is the first full-length episode that only adapts 2 chapters. Because of this, the pacing was fantastic and the Remake could add some original scenes with Mendo's family. I liked that a lot.

Episode 37A Asuka Returns Manga – Chapter 237-239 Asuka Returns, Part 1-3 Original anime counterpart – Episode 150 The Armored Girl Returns! Plenty of Older Brothers Note: The ending of this episode in the remake was more faithful than the original. For whatever reason, the original anime episode didn't adapt the final jokes of the manga.

Episode 37B A Stormy Date: Part 1 Manga - Chapter 252 A Stormy Date, Part 1 Original anime counterpart – Episode 153 The Armored Girl Appears Again! A Storm Raising Date

Episode 38 A Stormy Date: Part 2 Manga - Chapter 253-256 A Stormy Date, Part 2-5 Original anime counterpart – Episode 153 The Armored Girl Appears Again! A Storm Raising Date Note: Yes, A Stormy Date is a 5-chapter long arc which makes it one of the longest stories of Urusei Yatsura. This is the 5th episode of Season 2 and the 8th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length. This episode is also the 2nd part of a 2-parter similar to That Mizunokoji Girl episode. Interestingly, the OG anime adapted all 5 chapters in one episode instead of making a 2-parter like the adaptation of That Mizunokoji Girl Part, 1-4 which was Asuka's introduction story. As a result, there were lots of cuts in the OG anime version of this episode. A lot of the jokes from Chapter 255 A Stormy Date, Part 4 did get cut which is a shame.

Episode 39A Nagisa's Fianceé Manga – Chapter 341-342 Nagisa's Fianceé, Part 1 & 2 Original anime counterpart – OVA5 Nagisa's Fianceé Note: Many of the concepts and jokes shown in this story would later get recycled in Ranma 1/2. Namely, the arranged marriage plots and the character of Nagisa and his joke would be recycled into Tsubasa.

Episode 39B The Fairy's Parasol Manga - Chapter 299 The Haunted Parasol Original anime counterpart – Episode 186 Dreaming Ten-chan! The Great Adventure at the End of the Rainbow!!

Episode 40A One Night's Battle Manga – Chapter 349-350 One Night's Battle, Part 1 & 2 Original anime counterpart – None Note: This is the fourth story of the manga that was not adapted in the OG anime in any way until the Remake adapted it into anime for the first time. This is the second and last Nagisa story.

Episode 40B Deadly Peril in the Classroom Manga – Chapter 120 Deadly Peril in the Classroom Original anime counterpart – Episode 56 We'll Risk Our Lives During Classtime! Note: I gotta say, I'm very disappointed with the chapter selection in Season 2 Part 2. This is the second Ten-focused episode since the last one. Not only does this character not need more screentime this late into the story (other characters should get it instead) but also if they had to give Ten more screentime, there were plenty of better chapters to pick from such as the ones with his potential love interest Mako or with his mother who is a firefighter and also only received a small cameo in one of The Home Visit Blues episodes.

Episode 41 Flower Petals of Love and Courage Manga – Chapter 346-348 Flower Petals of Love and Courage Part 1-3 Original anime counterpart – None Note: Finally, after 4 consecutive episodes with unwanted characters we're getting the second story with Inaba and Shinobu. This is the 6th episode of Season 2 and the 9th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length. This is the fifth story of the manga that was not adapted in the OG anime in any way until the Remake adapted it into anime for the first time. I wish the Remake focused more on these unadapted chapters. I wonder if we'll get more episodes of unadapted chapters or if this will be the last. I hope it's not since there are still lots of bangers left.

Episode 42A Lum's Wrath Manga – Chapter 166 Lum's Wrath Original anime counterpart – Episode 88 Enraged Lum-chan!

Episode 42B Steal My Heart Manga – Chapter 354 Steal My Heart Original anime counterpart – OVA 9 Catch the Heart! Note: Welp, both of these stories were already adapted in the OG. I was kind of hoping that we'd get more unadapted chapters but oh well. Even if we weren't getting more Benten or Oyuki chapters I was hoping for adaptations of AtaLum chapters such as Chapter 320 Ultra-Colorful Couple's Look and Chapter 322 Darling's True Feelings. Even among already adapted chapters they could've picked something like Chapter 353 I Howl at the Moon which was Ataru's counterpart of the Lum Becomes a Cow chapter, Chapter 183 A Night Alone where Ataru and Lum try to sleep together, or Chapter 217-219 Blue-White Flames of Anger Part 1-3.

Episode 42 Post-credits scene Manga – Chapter 320 Ultra-Colorful Couple's Look and Chapter 356 Boy Meets Girl, Act 1 - Pitch Black Original anime counterpart – None and Urusei Yatsura Movie 5 The Final Chapter Note: The biggest surprise of Episode 42 was the post-credits scene. I knew that they'd probably tease the final arc at the end of this episode but I didn't think they'd also adapt Chapter 320 Ultra-Colorful Couple's Look. Sadly, they didn't adapt the rest of Chapter 320.

Episode 43 Boy Meets Girl: The Morning of Farewell Manga – Chapter 356 Boy Meets Girl, Act 1 - Pitch Black, Chapter 357 Boy Meets Girl, Act 2 - Will You Marry Me?, Chapter 358 Boy Meets Girl, Act 3 - Farewell Morning Original anime counterpart – Urusei Yatsura Movie 5 The Final Chapter Note: This is the 7th episode of Season 2 and the 10th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length.

Episode 44 Boy Meets Girl: Are You Really Getting Married? Manga – Chapter 359 Boy Meets Girl, Act 4 - Heart Ignition, Chapter 360 Boy Meets Girl, Act 5 - Labyrinth Reunion, Chapter 361 Boy Meets Girl, Act 6 - Are You Really Getting Married? Original anime counterpart – Urusei Yatsura Movie 5 The Final Chapter Note: This is the 8th episode of Season 2 and the 11th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length.

Episode 45 Boy Meets Girl: Crooked Heart Manga – Chapter 362 Boy Meets Girl, Act 7 - Crooked Heart, Chapter 363 Boy Meets Girl, Act 8 - Disaster, Chapter 364 Boy Meets Girl, Act 9 - Unstoppable Original anime counterpart – Urusei Yatsura Movie 5 The Final Chapter Note: This is the 9th episode of Season 2 and the 12th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length.

Episode 46 Boy Meets Girl: I Want You When I Can't Have You Manga – Chapter 365 Boy Meets Girl, Act 10 - I Want You When I Can't Have You, Chapter 366 Boy Meets Girl, Act 11 - Fin Original anime counterpart – Urusei Yatsura Movie 5 The Final Chapter Note: This is the 10th episode of Season 2 and the 13th episode of the Urusei Yatsura Remake overall which is full-length. Ngl, the ending was done very well. It surpassed my expectations.

Season 2 adapted 63 chapters from the manga. Season 1 adapted 65. So, Urusei Yatsura Remake roughly adapted 128 out of 366 chapters of the manga in total. Which is almost 35% of the manga. The rest of it was not adapted.

There were 6 stories in total that were adapted in the Remake but weren't in the original.

There were 10 full-length episodes in Season 2 and 13 full-length episodes in the series overall.

(source again)

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Tsukumo Yuki—Supernova, Twin Star and Jocasta

I am not sure how this turned into a chosoyuki meta but... let’s talk about chapter 208.

First: What the hell happened?

Second: What the hell happened?!!!!!!

Third: How does this moment land flat when it was most likely meant to hit hard? Gege is, after all, a genius at executing poetic justice.

But Yuki’s “death” was just... blah AND annoying. 

So I decided to do mental gymnastics to try to understand the whole backstory that Gege only showed us briefly and that is written between the lines.

That said, this post is heavy headcanon influenced by canon and uses symbol analysis to fill in the blanks. 

TLDR; I’m not entirely sure how this became a chosoyuki meta. 

Depth Psychology 101: What is an Archetype?

Before we get started I thought it would be smart to define the word “Archetype”.

In extremely simplified simple words, an Archetype is a pattern of thought or behavior that is repeated across people and cultures throughout the world. The Archetypes are all “found” in what Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung called “The Collective Unconscious”--basically a massive pool of unconscious psychic material that all of humanity shares. 

Just as a brief side note, the space between dreaming and waking that Kenny walks into in chapter 160, and Megumi’s shadow (at least from the Jungian perspective) both have “access” to this Collective Unconscious.

An example of an Archetype is “Jesus Christ”, an Archetype that is also seen in the Egyptian God Osiris. If you aren’t aware of their similarities, I recommend you go read about the topic.

Another example is the Sun. Since the Sun was a common experience to peoples of different cultures across the world, as an Archetype, it becomes a symbol that can have many different interpretations--one of the most common interpretations is that the Sun illuminates and gives life both psychologically as a concept, and physically as a literal object in our 3D reality. 

This idea that the Sun can have a psychological influence on our minds as a concept is very important because Archetypes influence our minds through symbol AND operate underneath your conscious awareness. In other words, most of the time, you don’t even realize when you are being psychically and physically influenced by an Archetype.

Like Urie here getting eaten by a literal “devouring mother”.

Ok, that was extremely simplified but... moving on.

Yuki as Sun

Aside from the obvious interpretation that Yuki is, literally, a “star plasma vessel”, not to mention that the chapter titles in this recent arc all refer to “stars and oil”, there is other symbolism that Gege uses that ties Yuki to the concept of a “Star as a celestial body”.

The clue relies on surface understanding of Garuda’s symbolism, Yuki’s Shikigami. 

Originally, Garuda is a mythological figure from Hindu and Buddhist lore that is renowned throughout Asia. In Hindu mythology more specifically, Garuda is known as a destroyer of sin and as the God Vishnu’s vehicle. 

Since JJK’s Garuda is Yuki’s “tool” in much the same way the mythological creature is a tool for a God, I am going to associate Yuki’s power to be meant to be comparable to Vishnu’s in the JJK-scheme-of-things.

Now, amongst many other associations, the God Vishnu is known as “the preserver” because he maintains the order of the universe. But more importantly, he is also known as a solar deity. 

So think of how all of the planets in our solar system are held at just the right distance from the Sun due to its gravitational force, and now consider how Yuki has been shown to use her Cursed Technique combining the concepts of mass and gravitational force.

She’s so fucking badass why did she have to die why god why?!

Now, let’s add a new layer beyond the obvious association to a Sun: Yuki as a dying Sun.

Yuki as Supernova

A black hole is basically formed when “[a star/sun] becomes unable to withstand the compressing force of its own gravity...” 

“Stellar-mass black holes are born with a bang...” 

“...They form when a very massive star (at least 25 times heavier than our Sun) runs out of nuclear fuel. The star then explodes as a supernova. What remains is a black hole” (source).

So what we have is Yuki sacrificing herself by ending her own lifespan as a Sun to create a black hole.

And this is where it gets really interesting to me because, as the mental gymnastics anime girl, psychological symbol analysis is my jam. What I’m interested in here is in learning what psychic process the symbol in question represents in the characters.

Huh?

Supernova as a metaphor for the sense of self

JJK can be very spiritual. 

Not only does it present symbolism from many different religions, thus demonstrating an awareness of the vast diversity of ways that the human desire for transcendence of the material world can be expressed. 

But Gege’s use of cursed energy, introduction of curses as sentient beings, how the characters navigate their ego, and the esoteric themes in JJK are all  transcendental in and of themselves.

So when I say JJK is Jungian af, I don’t say that lightly.

All that to say is that, to understand Yuki on a deeper level, we need to look at the Supernova not just as a strictly physical phenomenon, but as a symbol for reaching the pinnacle of one’s existence and sense of self.

After all, in a story like JJK where the strongest sorcerers have the strongest sense of self, Yuki’s sense of self basically burned so brightly that it consumed her--and I think there’s something very poetic about that.

I also personally loved learning that her will suppressed the intensity of the explosion. It’s almost like she was looking out for others up to her last moment as a conscious entity in this realm of existence.

And if you find yourself thinking: “wait, did he really just kill her?!”

Well, this is when things get a little... ok, yes, a lot disappointing.

“Because... what about her motivation as a character?!”  

“Are you fudging kidding me?! What do you mean Gege just killed her off?!

What’s going to happen to her motivation? He can’t just make that storyline go *poof* and make it disappear!”

Ok, first of all Karen, yes he can, he’s the mangaka.

I’m Karen, I’m talking to myself here.

Second, because of her exalted role in the plot, and probably also very likely because she literally represents a Solar Archetype to which we all felt naturally drawn to (because that’s what archetypes do when in an unconscious state), we all took the bait and thought she was going to stick around for much longer than she did.

High expectations make for disappointment when not managed correctly.

So I’m not sure if this was master manipulation on Gege’s behalf or a happy accident. Basically after writing this meta, I like to think of Yuki as a masterclass on how to use an Archetype to define how an audience perceives a character. 

But to address the Pink Elephant in the room, I can’t deny that in killing Yuki, Gege did indeed show us the deeply rooted unconscious expression of how Japanese society might view women as expendable creatures whose purpose is to become a sacrifice to support their male counterparts. 

In my opinion, if this is the case, he probably didn’t even notice he was doing it.

The question is, if Yuki was a male character and Gege did kill this male character like he did with Yuki, would the story loose its meaning?

But back to JJK... because of the symbolism, I really do think Yuki was meant to be a character who Gege planned to kill from the beginning. Most especially because of two more Archetypes that could be at play here, which I will mention as the ramble progresses.

To wrap things up with Yuki... 

The thing with Yuki as a Supernova that has metaphorically reached the pinnacle of it’s existence as a Solar entity, is that a Supernova is a transformational symbol that ushers one state of being into a new way of existence in a violent manner--its basically alchemy. So Yuki surviving this explosion is a matter of who and what she becomes next.

Is she perhaps still alive somehow and has she been changed as a result of such a massive and powerful explosion? 

Will she become a ghost/curse that haunts Choso for the rest of his life? 

Or will her legacy (motivation) live on through others?

And since JJK has been underscoring the importance of the “sense of self” ever since it’s humble beginnings, I can’t help but associate the Supernova with Yuki’s sense of self achieving some sort of pinnacle of existence.

“I long to feel my heart burned open wide til nothing else remains, except the fires from which I came”

- Nova, VNV Nation

I like to think of Yuki as someone who found deep peace within herself to where she could basically commit suicide because it was the right thing to do in that moment.

I also reckon Yuki had been searching for “something” that she was finally able to find in the moments before her death. 

And if that isn’t poetic justice, then I don’t know what is.

The Twin Star archetype

This is a deep rabbit hole y’all. Mental gymnastics aren't even enough to begin to unravel the depth of the Twin Star archetype as it is used with chosoyuki because “incest” as an archetype is also at play with them. 

In fact, here’s your official warning...

Things are about to get weird y’all, so keep an open mind or stop reading.

As a result, this headcanon gets even more headcanon because my personal interpretation of the supernova symbol also takes into consideration another major interpretation of “star” as symbol--that is the idea of a Twin Star or a lover’s fated encounter with their “match”--the beloved.

So if you’re following me down this rabbit hole... I welcome you into the realm of romantic soulmate bonds. This is where this whole ramble inadvertently and rather surprisingly turns into a chosoyuki ramble--not necessarily because I ship them, but because I would have liked to see more of this dynamic that was hinted at.

In the end, I think one of the main reasons the arc fell flat is because we didn’t get to see this dynamic fleshed out. The symbols are all there, but the execution ultimately fell short.

Moving forward, the thing to keep in mind is that Yuki isn’t the only one with Dying Star symbolism. 

No, she has a Twin Star...

First, I cannot underscore how important it is to consider the circumstances in which these two Twin Stars came together. They’re Twin Stars after all, right? 

They are a doomed OTP. 

They can’t be together.

Which means one of them must die, better yet if it is in a double lover’s suicide attempt. And at this point in JJK, aside from Sukuna, is there anything more dangerous and suicidal than taking Kenny on?

Second, if you want to go even deeper into this crazy Twin Star symbolism rabbit hole, the sibling incest trope that Gege uses throughout JJK is, at an Archetypal level, a representation of the Hieros Gamos--the divine wedding which is sometimes represented by twins (or metaphorical twin stars in this case) and/or siblings.

**Please, I implore of anyone thinking that this means incest irl should be supported not to take the symbols literally. These symbols live beyond conscious awareness and are not to be taken literally but rather metaphorically.**

What JJK does is that it takes the symbol of the Twin Stars and the Alchemical Wedding of the siblings, and uses Yuki and Choso as literary carriers of the symbols.

In that sense, Yuki playing the imoto role is not just a kink or a trope, but a representation of an archetype--she’s one in a pair of Twin Stars.

The thing about the Twin Star pairing is that they are somewhat defined by the romantic longing for the other. The longing is so strong that it is even seen as a form of psychological “sickness”.

So I got to wondering if this is why Gege made the point of showing us a very peculiar trait about Yuki’s character... the fact that she would ask others about their type.

What’s your type (of woman)?

Sorry but...

When this man gets animated the internet is going to break...

But what does the question “what’s your type?” try to get at?

More importantly, what is the person answering that question trying to convey?

And like... if I’m honest, I LOVED Yuki verbalizing that her type is Choso. It’s a nice payoff to this question getting asked a bunch of times but never having a real concrete answer...

As for Yuki, the look on her face speaks a thousand words. I like to think that Yuki feels glad to have met Choso and has come into a sense of self in which she’s satisfied to have met her match as one of the many things that she sought to accomplish as part of her life journey.

That is not to say that Yuki was solely motivated by her romantic longing. Quite the opposite, if you look at the possible meaning of the kanji in her name, it speaks to a person who values and prioritizes her freedom as the basis for her sense of self (由 phonetically sounds like “yu” and is also used in the word “freedom” and 基 (ki) means “basis or foundation”).

I also love the way in which for every one of these panels of Yuki verbalizing what her type is, we get the corresponding picture of Choso embodying the qualities Yuki considers to be her type.

It’s kind of beautiful to watch this little sequence if I’m honest.

To add another fun layer to this, my favorite part about this whole thing is that we don’t get a soapy love declaration. Rather, even as she verbalizes who her type is, she’s completely and 300% unhinged during this whole battle sequence...

I think her capacity to let herself be consumed by her madness is one of my favorite things about Yuki because my favorite characters in JJK are always those that give themselves that range.

Shinjū--The Double Lover’s Suicide

But back to this idea that Choso and Yuki found each other under circumstances where one if not both of them could die...

“In Japanese theatre and literary tradition, double suicides are the simultaneous suicides of two lovers whose ninjo, (personal feelings) or love for one another are at odds with giri, social conventions or familial obligations” (wikipedia).

With chapter 208 we have a conversation about what it means to be and live as a human, and what it means to be and live as a curse. If you think about it, from this perspective alone, Choso and Yuki’s relationship is at odds with social conventions right from the start.

And when you see that whole setup they had going where it looked like they were just hanging around each other in the most ridiculous of setups... it’s hard not to think of this as michiyuki.

“The tragic denouement [of a double lover’s suicide story] is usually known to the audience and is preceded by a michiyuki, a small poetical journey, where lovers evoke the happier moments of their lives and their attempts at loving each other” (wikipedia).

I mean... Choso and Yuki were both literally going on little dates and wearing Black Tie while having casual and deeply intimate conversations about life while sipping on Dirty Martinis.

How much more michiyuki does it get than that?

To me, this is amazing writing, and one of the reasons I love JJK--the authorial intent behind the ridiculousness depicted always serves a purpose if you know where to look for clues.

Back to chosoyuki...

The thing to remember is that at the core of this interaction there is a sense of finality. I reckon Yuki was highly cognizant that if it came to it, she would have to do the whole “Supernova” thing and die in the process.

And to finally meet the person she had been longing for that she didn’t know she was longing for is what the Twin Star trope is all about.

In other words, Choso and Yuki found each other when the odds of living through a dangerous ordeal were at the lowest they could possibly be. 

And if you think about this from the perspective of the “double lover’s suicide”, to take Kenny on is suicidal.

Ok but that’s not all there is to chosoyuki. The other Archetype defining their arc as individuals and as a pair is the Oedipus Rex myth.

And in true Oedipal fashion, Choso has to kill Kenny (his father) in order to be freed from his unconscious “incestuous” bond to his “sister” so that he could become human and enter into a human relational dynamic.

Yes... this rabbit hole just keeps going deeper...

Patricide and Choso’s Oedipal Complex

Regardless of how disappointing Yuki’s death was, the way Gege uses Archetypes/tropes in the narrative is nothing short of genius. In other words, the high level Archetypes he uses always influence and define a character arcs like I believe it happened with Yuki as Supernova and Twin Star.

And now Gege gave us the above panel with Choso deciding to commit patricide as a clue to what Archetype might be ruling his character development.

Also this is about the point in my mental gymnastics that I start to feel like I sound like a crazy person.

But like hey. The symbolism is all there, so I’m going to keep over analyzing because that’s how I roll.

Now...

For context, we will want to think of Choso as Oedipus Rex, everybody’s favorite incestuous patricidal mother focker. Literally. 

The main difference between Oedipus as a character and Choso as a character is that the metaphorical marriage that Choso enters into is between brother and sister pair (Hieros Gamos), and not son and mother--thus denoting a certain level of equality.

Quick detour here to give you a friendly reminder to not take the symbols literally. These are all metaphors for deeply engrained and largely unconscious psychic processes and I do apologize profusely for not being able to ground these terms into everyday life terminology. IT’s NOT EASY!

In fact, this is one of the reasons why Jung and Freud parted ways in their shared understanding of how the Collective Unconscious influenced the psychology of the “modern man”. 

Freud would interpret Choso’s symbolism as his desire to commit literal incest and sleep with his mom. Jung, on the other hand, asked for the symbols not to be taken literally but rather to apply meta thinking to them so that they could be looked at metaphorically.

To quote Jungian Analyst Julian David:

“That psychic incest spills over into actual incest is beyond doubt. It happens when an individual cannot distinguish between the realms and falls victim, therefore, to the law which governs the relation between psyche and reality: that what is not dealt with psychically comes upon us, from outside, as fate.”

This ramble got really deep all of a sudden... it was just a chosoyuki rant.

Back to Choso as Oedipus...

In a nutshell, from a Jungian perspective, the Oedipus Rex myth is about the interplay between human nature when up against the inevitability of fate and destiny. In that sense, Oedipus too is a symbol of consciousness (here we have the Sun as archetype at play in Choso once again).

In the story, Oedipus is compelled by fate and his own nature to kill his father and marry his mother. This alone makes me wonder whether Choso will be the one who kills Kenny in the very end. 

But I think the most relevant detail here is the idea behind Choso living on as human.

Now, there's a lot more to the Oedipus Rex story that I am not sure how or whether it will have a role to play in the JJK-scheme-of-things moving forward. But one thing is for sure--when Oedipus finds and proclaims his humanity, Jocasta, his mother/wife, commits suicide.

I am not sure whether this is all a happy accident or deliberate authorial intent. But if it is the latter (which I really hope it is), I think Gege is a fucking genius for hiding the Oedipus Rex myth as a metaphor for Choso’s character development and Yuki’s ultimate and predictable death.

Of course, again, this is all what I headcanon could be written between the lines and I am aware that I am taking canonical facts to validate my headcanon. It’s just that the symbols are all there telling a story on their own.

TLDR;

Does it still suck that Yuki died? Absolutely. She was an amazing character. I’m still in denial about her death if I’m honest.

Was the chosoyuki arc well executed? Eh. Not really. Honestly, I have to wonder what happened with this little side story. It felt so rushed and forced and like it came out of left field that I have to wonder why it made the cut into the chapter at all.

Again, Gege went to town with the symbolism so I think there was a story he wanted to tell in the dynamic that these two characters shared if only for a short moment.

The problem was that Gege relied on symbolism to tell the story and didn’t take the time to show his audience a deeper reason to care for chosoyuki. Instead we get a few panels of “what could have been”. 

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t think chosoyuki makes sense. Quite the opposite, I personally would have liked to see more chosoyuki and not have it crammed into a few panels towards the end of an arc.

Was Gege in a rush? 

Did he not know how to execute because he truly does think he sucks at writing romance?

Was he told not to include this side story by his editors? 

Or Is Yuki as a character simply a victim of a Japanese man’s unconscious bias about women?

Or maybe... just maybe, the above is true, AND it goes deeper than that.

Whatever you decide, as Oedipus, it is your responsibility as a conscious being to make a choice as a human and decide whether you will be bound by your fate.

Boom.

To anyone who reads this, I hope the mental gymnastics made ANY sense lol.

I think my thesis advisor would have given me a B+ for this meta and then would tell me I need to understand Oedipus Rex better.

[jasontoddiefor]

Tyki Mikk is a Clone and I can (almost) prove it

Tyki Mikk is undoubtedly a fan favorite and yet we don’t really know a lot about him. For a character that was created with the purpose of being handsome (cf. D.Gray-Man Manga Volume 5, page 150), he carries a lot of baggage and has a rather unclear past. A theory that has haunted me since I read chapter 198 and has only grown in strength with the most recent arc is that Tyki is in fact a clone of Nea. As far fetched as this seems at start, there is quite a bit of evidence supporting this theory.

1) Tyki’s visible similarity to Nea (and Mana)

One of the first things Wisely remarks on when he meets Tyki is his similarity to “a certain man” (Chapter 187).

This similarity is picked up twice more in the manga. When Allen meets Nea for the first time (cf. chapter 198), he mistakes him for Tyki at first.

And it is brought up a third time by Nea himself in chapter 225 when he says:

To which Tyki, or rather Joyd, has this wonderful reaction:

But more on that guy specifically later. Point being right here is that three different characters, or four if you want to count Road and Wisely separately, acknowledge that Tyki resembles Nea a lot, down to the man himself. How does that saying go again? Once An Accident, Twice A Coincidence, Three Times A Pattern? This is something that repeatedly gets brought up again. And this is without going into detail on how much Tyki resembles not only Nea, but said man’s identical twin as well. Just look at that dashing long hair!

And take this from chapter 158 as well

Pretty long haired boy Mana is nothing new as of chapter 218 and 219:

Another interesting point here is that Tyki is the exact same height as the Earl in human form! They’re both 188cm tall. Nea, on the other hand, is listed at being 177cm. This could just be that Nea unfortunately ended up as the shorter twin, or, we take into consideration what Mana tells Allen/Red in chapter 238:

He remembers being seventeen, which means that he and Nea probably weren’t done growing yet when the “Earl” corrupted Mana. (It also kind of makes everything about Nea more hilarious if you realize he’s just seventeen.) Tyki, however, is 26 when we first meet him and should be around 27 now. He is an actual adult and not bound to hit another growth spurt.

But to summarize the first argument: Tyki looks uncannily similar to Nea and Mana and the manga keeps pointing it out so we can assume this resemblance is important.

2) Cloning is possible in canon

Now the second point is just here to point out that we know cloning to be possible. Funnily, Tyki’s resemblance to Nea gets pointed out just before the Alma Arc, which very much deals with the concept of reincarnation – only there we have the brains of deceased Exorcists transplanted into youthful bodies.

However, it’s not as if something like DNA hasn’t been mentioned before. Specifically, it has been called “Helix of life” by no other than maybe-former-Bookman but definitely First-Nea-host Past!Allen in chapter 221:

So let’s assume that, in the aftermath of Nea’s “death”, PastA didn’t just wait around for Nea to wake again, but tried to find a vessel for him. Messing around with this helix, and whatever other dubious science and magic this world had to offer, and created a new body to host Nea. Except he failed, and the result is Tyki.

But if that is so, shouldn’t Tyki remember anything about that? Good question. Time for some more shady weird stuff about Tyki.

3) The Missing Years

In chapter 202, while the Earl is resting, Tyki talks to Road. I don’t speak Japanese, so I can’t verify which translation is more accurate, but I’ve found these two:

Now the official German one also goes with a similar translation as the second one here, implying that Tyki has been with the Earl for ten years. In any case, the fact that this decade at all gets mentioned is quite odd because it doesn’t match up with what we know of Mana travelling with Allen. Cross calls Allen a “ten-year-old brat” (chapter 208) when he looks after him. So between Mana travelling with Allen and current canon, only 6 years have passed – what are up with the other 4 that are supposedly within this decade? We don’t have a definite age for how old Allen was when he met Mana, but I’d say around 7 or older. That’s still not enough to fill out the decade they speak about here.

Now, presuming that it does in fact refer to Tyki staying with the Earl for that time, we’re either left with assuming that the Earl acted as a separate entity as we see in 218, or that Tyki’s memories are just flat out wrong.

4) Tyki Mikk’s Canon-Typical Ignorance AKA The Baby of The Family

The more often Tyki appears, the more we see how much he actually doesn’t know about the going-ons of the war, or even himself. This goes back as far as the Ark Arc in chapter 130 with the Earl pointing out that:

So this form is apparently something that all Noah of Pleasure can take on, a sort of second stage of awakening. Still, it feels significant that Tyki separates his life so much into “black” and “white”, “Noah” and “human”, going as far as suppressing a part of his Noah. It puts him in direct opposition to Skinn, who was more or less entirely consumed by his Noah memories. Though, perhaps this is also just a narrative ploy because a character with the ability to chose is, frankly speaking, fuck off overpowered and the only reason why Tyki isn’t constantly leveling battlefields is probably that he just doesn’t know how to apply himself.

Regardless, Tyki’s ignorance also becomes visible in chapter 187 again when he wonders about his Noah name:

Nobody else reacts like he does, even though the other Noah haven’t been awake as long as he has and also should have retained the same memory damage as Joyd after Nea’s murder spree. Yet Tyki feels a little like the baby of the family, still learning and growing while everyone else is already in the know, which can’t be too far from the truth if we look at chapter 225:

Wisely and Road definitely know that something went down and kept it from Tyki for so long for reasons. So besides Allen learning the truth sometime in the future, Tyki is also heading towards some kind of realization – and honestly, what better than the fact that the man who enjoys his freedom and roam so much, was artificially created?

Road could have manipulated his subconsciousness, his memories. It’s a miracle really that the Earl hadn’t had a breakdown around Tyki already given how much he looks like Nea. And if Tyki really awoke as a Noa a decade ago, then eh would have been right the age Nea was when he died. The Earl should have reacted in one way or another.

Other small details that don’t add up is a) the claim that Tyki and Sheril are actual brothers. They have different last names, which would imply that they are perhaps rather half siblings, sharing one parent, or maybe they just aren’t related at all in the first place. The other thing is that Nea recognizing Tyki’s face immediately after confronting Mana about his changed appearance just adds even more suspicion.

5) TLDR

Tyki is either a clone or something else messy went down because there’s no way that there’s a natural Nea and Mana copy running around who also just so happens to be a Noah. No way.

Thanks for coming to my  TED talk I’m never writing meta again this was a nightmare to post.