#truly terrifying and evil character from the moment he shows up

[spacepunksupreme]

kind of incredible how many different posters and dvd covers there are for a difficult to find, kind of mediocre, remake of a banned tv movie that doenst even have its own wiki page

[spuffybot]

Hey hi! I saw your post about Buffy being your favorite show and what do you mean "you know what’s happening with certain characters based on the colors they are wearing"? That's SO cool and something I've never noticed despite being such a tv nerd, do you have examples?

Ohhhh my gosh I love this question!!! There are a few characters who come to mind (Buffy & Willow) but I’m gonna talk about Spike because I love to talk about Spike.

So Spike is a character who very much has a uniform and this uniform is linked to his identity. It’s important to note that this is an identity he crafted. Because as we know Spike started out as William, a man who was sensitive and kind and who was unappreciated by his peers. When he became a vampire he wanted to shed that weakness and he uses his hair, accent, and clothing to reinforce the idea that he is a strong, tough, and evil being.

Spikes official uniform is perfectly slicked back bleach blonde hair, a red shirt, dirty black jeans, combat boots and his signature leather duster. This is Spikes armor. It’s how he embodies Spike and leaves William behind. The red shirt is also quite critically linked to his “evil era” as I’ll call it.

Throughout the show there are key moments where Spike deviates from this uniform and it’s always linked to a crises of identity.

The first moment I want to talk about is Spike in the Hawaiian shirt. He’s just been chipped, he’s relying on the Scoobies for survival, the core tenants of his identity (predator, killer, lover of Drusilla, leader of a vampire gang) have all been stripped from him against his will. He looks ridiculous wearing Xanders clothes because we know it’s ridiculous (at this point) for him to just be one of the Scoobies.

This is not unlike Tabula Rasa (which has a deliciously layered theme of loss of identity both literal with memory loss and metaphoric with each of the characters personal lives) where we see Spike once again out of uniform completely and lacking his identity. Now like I said on the surface he has truly lost his identity he has no memory of who he is. But it’s no surprise that he draws the (incorrect) conclusion that he’s a vampire with a soul on a mission of redemption because for the past few months he’s been playacting that role. After Buffy died Spikes entire identity was usurped by the need to live up to her memory. He babysits Dawn. He patrols with the Scoobies. He lives a mundane and neutered life because he thinks it’s what she would have wanted. Except now she’s back. And she’s opening up to him in ways she never has before. And she’s kissed him. And this is simultaneously the most incredible and terrifying thing to ever happen to Spike because it’s all he wants but he knows deep down, it’s not who he is. He has no soul. He has no remorse. He is not good.

Now let’s talk about some less overt examples. Because the wardrobe team does an incredible job of making subtle shifts to Spikes uniform that communicate his emotional arc.

In Crush, we see Spike swap the red shirt for a light blue shirt (blue is going to be a theme!) and lighter pants. By doing this he communicates to Buffy that he’s different than before. He’s lighter and softer. A man she could be interested in. But of course, just like the uniform of Spike is a performance, this too is a performance and one Buffy sees through quickly.

Blue comes back again in Smashed, an episode where once again Spike’s identity comes into play. He has been play acting at being a Scooby but we know that’s not who he really is. Now, suddenly he finds that he can hurt Buffy without activating his chip. All of a sudden he gets a glimpse of his old self and it infuses him with confidence and purpose. The blue shirt in this episode is deep and rich, verging on purple. By wearing this shirt it shows us how deeply conflicted Spike is. The war between his selfish love for Buffy and his feelings of being trapped and controlled by his chip (and his feelings for her) is coming to a head. And of course, by showing his teeth he gives Buffy the push she needs to sleep with him.

Ok so now we get to talk about my FAVORITE season when it comes to Spikes loss of identity and the use of his uniform to depict that: season 7.

When we first see Spike in season 7 something very important is happening: his hair is completely disheveled and curly, with his natural brown roots showing. This is the closest we have ever seen Spikes hair resemble Williams hair and this is important because as we know, Spike now has a soul and so he is closer now to William than he has been in over 100 years.

When Spike finally leaves the basement he is in a bright blue shirt and lacking his signature leather duster. The duster becomes a key plot point in season 7 with the introduction of Robin Wood (considering it was his mother’s jacket and Spike killed her.) Now, Wood is a controversial character but I personally think having Spike have to reckon with the consequences of his past all tied up in the metaphor of identity that is his leather jacket is chefs kiss.

Speaking of the leather jacket, in episode 15, Get It Done we see Spike put the jacket back on for the first time since Seeing Red. This is a moment of reclamation of identity. Souled Spike is listless and guilt ridden. And as the potentials point out, even a demon can kick his ass. When he puts that jacket back on he takes back a piece of who he is and starts on the journey of self discovery that we will see him continue in Angel season 5. Because ultimately it’s not Spike or William but the fusion of the two that make Spike who he is. AND TO BRING IT BACK FULL CIRCLE while Spike reclaims the jacket, he does not bring back the red shirt.

One other interesting thing about season 7 is that Spike is no longer as wiry and muscular as he was in season 6. Now, James Marsters has said that this was deliberate on his part because he was tired of being naked on the show and figured if he stopped working out (he has also said that he created his season 6 body deliberately upon being told he would be naked all the time) then they would stop making him take his shirt off. And while this is obviously not a deliberate choice on the part of the show, I do think it’s interesting that Spike becomes less angular and sharp after he gets his soul. He releases some of the hardness that defined him emotionally and physically. Which ties in nicely to this overarching theme of identity crises. It also hints at a certain level of toxicity on set if one of your lead actors feels the need to take drastic measures to protect themselves but that’s a whole different essay.

I hope this answers the question and I would loooove to hear what other people think about this. I know I didn’t touch on every Spike moment but I wanted to highlight ones I feel are critical parts of his narrative.

[muzsmocsing]

Reviewing tgcf characters because I have thoughts

I finished S2 recently and I need somewhere to put my not exactly hot but like warm (?) takes because it's taking up too much storage space in my brain.

🤍 Xie Lian 🤍

It's a good thing I'm not into guys because if I was I would be on my knees for this man in every sense of that expression and his pet menace to society would mince me up like garlic.

So I'll try to be brief about my overflowing feelings about him. Xie Lian is the best main character I have come across in a WHILE. He's the embodiment of compassion and kindness. And also a cold blooded murderer. A babygirl. A father figure. A terrifying martial god. A silly little guy. A pathological liar. The most genuine man you'll ever meet. He's everything, and Hua Cheng is 100% valid in his obsession. I'm right there with him.

Rating: 10/10

❤️ Hua Cheng ❤️

Idk if we ever figured out who wrote My Immortal but I'm pretty sure we have our culprit.

"Hi my name is Hua Cheng Crimson Rain Sought Flower Red-Robed Ghost King and this is my evil weapon of death E-ming. I've killed soooo many gods with it!! My dark power is I can summon storms of BLOOD and SUFFERING. I have my own scary city of DEMONS and they all love me and think I'm HOT but I only want my BOYFRIEND who's the only REAL GOD so STOP FLAMING HIM YOU POSERS-"

Needless to say I love him. Being the 8 time winner of the Loverboy of the Century Awards with unbeatable records in the yearning olympics is truly a remarkable feat.

Rating: 9/10

(Bonus: E-ming. Cute little guy. Likes his stepdad more than his real dad. Not afraid to show it's feelings even if it makes it look like a muppet, 10/10)

🧡 Feng Xin & Mu Qing 🧡

Tweedle dee and tweedle dum gets a shared rating because they would hate to be grouped together like that and that's funny to me. Their dynamic is great, they're good characters, I wasn't sure which one was which until midway through the second season. But then also I have a pair of 7yo twin cousins who I still can't tell apart despite them not looking even a slight bit similar so that might just be a character flaw on my end. Oops.

Rating: 7/10

🩵Shi Qingxuan🩵

I'm doubling the rating because she is best boy and best girl at the same time. I love that I can use any and all pronouns for him because he's literally a pride parade personified and therefore all of them are correct. You don't get that type of chaotic fun just anywhere.

He is truly living my dream, presenting as whatever gender they want depending on what's more convenient and/or funnier in the moment. Super useful, for things like gathering intel and terrorizing Feng Xin by being a woman.

And I personally think we should crown her the new emperor. She'd look significantly better on that throne, with her Barbie-like radiance and flourishing Kenergy.

Rating: 20/10

🖤 Ming Yi 🖤

Listen, I hate to say it because I like a sunshine x grump moment as much as the next gay but he's just... not giving what he thinks he's giving. Everyone is whispering ominously about him having some dark devastating secret but MY point is no matter how big his boobs are in his female form, Shi Qingxuan could do better. I'm sorry. She really could.

Rating: 4/10

💙 Lang Qianqiu 💙

Just an honest man with good intentions and a sickass fucking sword. He did NOT hesitate to attack the infamous Crimson Rain Sought Flower on SIGHT and I respect a quick decisionmaker, even if it shows some himbo tendencies. He also has the same distinct energy as Fred from Scooby Doo.

Rating: 6/10

💚 Qi Rong 💚

He's got some odd dietary and moral choices going on. Definitely. But he's just such a fun villain!!! Being Xie Lian's nr 1 source of migraines SHOULD make me like him less but I'm sorry, every time he was on screen I was LIVING. He would do numbers on reality TV. Someone put this guy on Kitchen Nightmares, I need to see him 1v1 Gordon Ramsay.

Rating: 7/10

🌚 Jun Wu 🌚

He has his emperor status & DILF card going for him but something about this man just ain't right. If he came to a party I was attending I would cover my drink is all I'm saying.

Rating: 2/10

🔥Pei Ming🔥

I don't know much about him besides he had that one shady empolyee or whatever (could not hear the plot over the deafening sound of Hua Cheng's yearning) but I'm partial to a good manwhore character. The thought of people praying to him like "Hugh Mungus, who art in heaven-" really tickles me.

I know he's probably straight but I headcanon him as at the very least bi-curious because you can't be that hot with that much game and not use it for evil. (That evil being causing large scale gay awakenings among his soldiers.)

Rating: 7/10

❓Pei Xiu❓

Unreliable, unimportant, unattractive, unemployed.

I remember not a singular thing about him besides fucking up Xie Lian's daughter's life and also being on my last nerve from the jump. If you're going to be evil at like least be memorable about it, you know? You can't be a bad person and a bad character at the same time. Pick a struggle.

Rating: 1/10

📚 Ling Wen 📚

I heard she committed some war crimes but honestly if I had to do an entire realm's tax returns by myself AND teach Pei Ming how to read (I refuse to believe that man is literate, just look at him) I would want to rage on occasion too. I hope she has a hot wife waiting for her at home to give her massages after carrying the whole system on her back all day. It's what she deserves.

Rating: 8/10

Thank you for reading!! Opinions might change once I read the books but as of now this is it. Remembering everyone's names has been a journey and a half so this post is sponsored by @kirstenly 's character cheat sheet go look at it! and everything else too!!!

[having-a-hyperfixate]

Don’t mind me sprinting to try and get this thought in order before the Anime Expo panel. I need it to be out in the wild Just In Case.

So, a few of the Gung Ho Guns have gotten reworked for Stampede, yes? To varying degrees.

Ninelives is apparently not a horrific flesh mech, Dark Souls boss thing, according to the end credits of episode 3.

E.G. the Mine just got a HUGE upgrade and didn’t get owned 3 seconds after he showed up.

Monev was an actual character with a fubar backstory and emotional impact instead of just Some Guy who trained in a basement for years specifically to kill Vash. (and Orange is SO EVIL for this)

Elendira is. *gestures futilely* There is so much going on there but yeah. She’s going to be terrifying once she achieves adult body and loses (drops?) the childish attitude. Also because of the whole Plant hybrid thing her nails truly are literally infinite sooooo.

So I have some thoughts about Hoppered the Gauntlet.

In Trimax, Gauntlet’s narrative weight comes from the fact that he makes Vash remember, which by extension makes US, the reader, understand what July really meant. Before that we had heard mention of it a few times as ‘a city destroyed in a single night’ and talk of there being ‘no survivors’ but we had no actual connection to it, and also no real idea if that was even true. But in Stampede, we saw July happen. We were there. So even if Vash’s memory is still shot afterwards, and he doesn’t remember Lost July, we the audience DO. So having the Dragon’s nest play out exactly the same isn’t going to have the same narrative punch in the gut that it did in Trimax. It can’t.

There’s also the fact that, given how we’ve met most of the major players in the story, or had them mentioned at least (hi Milly), it feels kind of Odd™ that we haven’t seen someone has emotionally impactful as Gauntlet yet.

Unless we have.

We saw with Rollo/Monev that Orange is willing to have the person’s regular name be one thing and then have a second Eye of Michael code name. I suspect that is going to happen with Gauntlet; either because EoM or because he has decided on his own to lie about who he was.

And yes, I do in fact have someone in mind.

I checked myself the translation there is accurate; the only change I would make is calling the gun ‘gaudy’ instead of ‘shiny’ but that’s not a huge deal. Also for the record, the original tweet is from Jan. 11, well before he makes his reappearance for the season finale. So when it talks about a ‘reappearance���, it is talking about seeing him again in July. Original tweet here, tweet containing the translation here.

I think Chuck Lee is going to be our Gauntlet. That he made it just far enough out of the city to survive, but that he was badly maimed in the process, and that his family didn’t make it. He’s the ONLY member of the military police with a unique design. He has an actual name, and the director himself tweeted about his backstory. His gun is so unusual that we would recognize it anywhere. Hell, I referred to him as ‘the gold gun guy from episode one’ when one of my friends didn’t recognize him immediately. His gun is so incredibly recognizable. Almost like we need to be able to recognize him by that alone, when everything else about him has changed.

THIS could be how narrative weight for Gauntlet is established in the Stampede universe when it can’t be done the same way as in Trimax. Taking a character who has, in a way, also been with the audience ALL ALONG, who was there with us for two pivitol moments, the beginning and the awakening, but who comes at it from such a horrifically different angle and bringing him back in such an agonizing way. Because he was very much in the wrong with his stunt at Jeneora Rock, but his rage over the loss of his family in July would be justified, even if we know it wasn’t Vash’s fault.

(Also, the IRONY of him ending up as one of Knives’s lackeys when Knives is the one that caused all of this? Damn.)

Footnote: I have Thoughts on why they can get away with adding Milly to The Squad late. That is a whole other Thought but tldr; (and also I haven’t actually written it out) Milly is the most perceptive of all of them she doesn’t NEED an extended intro to Vash to Know.

[haunted-radishes]

Hey, you seem to be a Wen Ning enjoyer, can you tell me what you like best about him? I feel like he has a lot of potential that isn’t really explored enough for him to be a fave so I’d like to hear your POV on him!

Honestly, right from the beginning he has always just made me happy :D

But to delve into it, the first thing that struck me about him was how kind he is. He's a sweet guy! I started with The Untamed, only reading the novel later, so my primary impression of him is the version that sneaks down to the dungeons to take out the evil dog and give Wei Wuxian some medicine, so he's going behind his sect's back to do what's right as soon as he has the opportunity to do so. I love how he's timid and gentle, but has the backbone of steel to risk it all to do the right thing.

But he's also kind of. Odd. Sometimes it ties into his hidden nerves of steel, like when he drugs the entire cohort at Lotus Pier to help Wei Wuxian and co. Like, it was an incredible act, but he just. Fucking. Drugged them. No hesitation. Absolutely wild behavior. Especially in the novel where he had only met Wei Wuxian once before this! I do prefer the drama version where his actions make more sense, but his devotion is at least a little unhinged no matter the version. But also, even besides the obsessive devotion, his energy is just. Endearingly strange and off-putting. Like when he decides that the best way to quietly contact Wei Wuxian is to dangle upside down outside his window. Or feels absolutely no need to make himself less terrifying when he power walks towards the tied-up juniors with a sword.

And then! The unexplored depths and unexamined tragedy! You're left to wonder so much about him! How DOES he feel about the whole fierce corpse thing? About his compromised autonomy? Would he have turned against his sect even if Wei Wuxian hadn't charmed him? Does he regret any of his actions before killing Jin Zixuan? How deep do his grudges run? Is there anyone from the Wen sect outside his established circle of family and cultivators who he misses or secretly mourns? What does he think about the other great sect members, especially the leaders? Plus so many more questions we'll never truly know the answers to, because he tucks his problems away and never speaks of them! The closest glimpse we get of his inner turmoil is his verbal evisceration of Jiang Cheng with the core reveal, and that does show us some interesting things about his character! For the first time, we see him choosing to be as hurtful as possible, showing how much he clearly resents Jiang Cheng, but how much of that is personal dislike, how much is anger on Wei Wuxian's behalf, how much is blame for the deaths of his family, and how much is gall at him benefiting from dear late Wen Qing's genius and service without even knowing it? Also, what is he going to do after canon? What is left for him?

Also he's relatable, lol. That awkward uncertainty he always carries with him is very endearing in an "oh, me too buddy" kind of way. He has so much going on inside his head, but all that comes out is, "oh! Excuse me >.<" People are having massive emotional moments right in front of him, and he's just..... There.

Anyway, Wen Ning! Love that guy! Makes my brain go "brrrr"

[tyrantisterror]

Who are your top favorite personifications of death in fiction and what is it that endears you to each version specifically?

None will ever surpass Death from Discworld, a character of supreme compassion who toils endlessly to care for people and assure their end is handled with all the grace and kindness they have earned in life. He's in many ways a pitiable figure, full of love for the living that he is never able to get truly close to, horrified at the cruel realities of life that he cannot undo but merely soften, and rarely ever acknowledged for the hard work he puts in at every moment of existence. He is one with his Duty, responsible to a fault. Death wants nothing more than to give life, to preserve it, to make it so we don't suffer anymore, but he knows reality doesn't work like that, and can't work like that, so instead he does his job and does it well, making sure we get some atom of justice and mercy in death when it's earned, even and especially if we didn't get it in life.

It probably seems a bit trendy to list Death from Puss in Boots as my second favorite, but I think he's going to stand the test of time as one of the GOATs of death personified. He's terrifying and relentless, bringing a looming dread that hangs over the story from his entrance on despite him only popping up sporadically, exactly as death should. While he's an antagonist in the story, he, like Discworld's Death, holds life itself in high regard, and only pursues Puss in Boots so maliciously because Puss has failed to do the same, treating his lives as frivolous and expendable rather than the precious and finite gifts they are.

Death in Bill And Ted begins as a riff on Death from The Seventh Seal, but, after being beaten by the titular duo at a shitload of board games, slowly comes out of his shell to reveal he's actually a pretty sweet and fun-loving guy when he's allowed to get out of his gloomy work persona. It all continues this theme of Death cherishing life in its way - that the finite nature of life, its necessary end, makes it all the more valuable to cherish.

The Red Death from Edgar Allen Poe's The Masque of the Red Death is a bit more malicious, tormenting the courtiers of Prince Prospero's titular masquerade by reminding them of the plague they're all ignoring before finally killing all of them when it's dramatically appropriate to do so. But, like, they fucking deserved it, using their wealth and power not to help their countrymen, but to live in lavish luxury while the common folk die hideously to a vile disease. The Red Death, in his indomitable grip on humanity, ensures a certain level of justice is held - that while the rich and selfish may steal some escape from the grim realities of life, Death will come for them just the same as it comes for the poor.

I'm going to end with Death from the Castlevania show on Netflix, who's about as evil as Deaths get in fiction, and deliciously so. He's crass, vulgar, petty, and utterly selfish, which ironically makes him feel more human than anyone else on this list. Which works for how death and violence as a whole are shown a consequences of those very human vices - after four seasons of characters inflicting death wantonly for the sake of their own personal desires and faults, it makes sense that the Death of this world would have all that pettiness cranked up to the extreme - and that he is defeated by a hero deciding once and for all to rise above his own vices and faults to fight against impossible odds for the sake of everyone else.

[myfandomrambles]

My Master Rankings Least Fave To Most Fave

[Of The masters I've seen enough material I think I got a good vibe for the character]

9) Roberts!Master

He just doesn't compel me on a fun level, on the idea he's complex nor does he feel menacing. His main story just doesn't give him enough to work with. The lack of getting to really act makes it so hard to feel for him. And I haven't listened to his EU stuff yet so I don't have good wider vibes yet. But I just don’t get a lot to vibe with. Also why the slug, just why slug?

8) Decayed!Master

Love the theory but kind of boring in practice. Just didn't get super fun vibes from him, maybe just too restricted by the virtue of how his whole story is done.

7) Child Master

Only there for a short amount of time but like damn do I love this sinister little kid. Terrifying in the best way. The right kind of creepy. Very top Master in the way he messes up his own timeline. Yes we don’t get much to read here but i just feel so much more for this character over Roberts and The Decayed.

6) Simm!Master

Okay don't hate me, but I just don't think he's that good okay? Like not John Simm he can fuck it up but like i don’t think it’s written that well. He just makes me uncomfortable in a way that's not that fun to watch. I love very specific scenes but not enough of the time. Like I love the way he plays off ten in very specific scenes but so often he's being just so ~wacky/crazy~ it's no longer any fun. Yes the master is strange and extra but they aren’t like this out of control!! And the drums make his villainy less interesting. I hate this. The rest of The Masters get to be evil without this strange head screwy reason done by the big old time lords. But whatever, okay. And also why does he eat people? Why did we do that? And why does he have laser beam hands? Like I prefer when The Master’s villainy is more in doing things, not just being weird. So many questions!

5) Jacobi!Master [including EU]

I love him for being legitimately scary. Like maybe I've seen Simm take over planets but this guy would kill me while staring into my eyes with a truly coldly terrifying expression and I'd say thank you. Love that for us. He throws people out of TARDISES!! I mean even in his moment in the show the way he kills Chantho? Love it. Peak actually threatening Master.

4) Ainley!Master

Part of my rating this guy higher is just how long this Master lasted. Like Ainley, my king being The Master for so many Doctors. Also though a very versatile Master. In more kinds of TV stories than many Masters. Got a Doctor kill in there too good for him. Good at being over the top, has a good enough report with The Doctor to make watching them face off enjoyable. And him getting this way by stealing a body is downright awful and shows a deep cruelty in The Master I do quite enjoy. The Rani making fun of him for being obsessed with The Doctor? Love it. Being punched by The Brig? Awesome. He’s delightfully evil if not scary in the slightest after the whole body snatching. Also he becomes a cat person? The image is quite funny.

3) Dhawan!Master

Handles over the top erratic behavior in a better way then Simm. Because he doesn't EAT people. The dancing and convoluted plans work well. I don't like that he wears a Nazi uniform that feels out of character for the Master, they are way too regimented and a banal kind of evil filled with human hate and bile and vileness when The Master tends to find more enjoyment in bombast and intrigue of larger than life villains. But overall Dhawan just puts in so much life into the character it makes him often the best thing in a scene. Making the monologuing and talking at the audience of TTC worth getting through if you're not super invested in the whole big meta lore. I also like that he is definitely trying to die a little in series 12 and destroy himself in the special, like falling apart? interesting. Wish there was more connective tissue explicitly done between Missy & Dhawan!Master. Like sure you can work it out. But I still think Missy would want to destroy parts of Galifrey explicitly for The Doctor, angry because the time lords hurt their best friend vs. Dhawan being mad The Doctor is a part of him ya know? The Master and The Doctor have considered themselves inextricable from each other forever.(I have a whole AU story here but i'll skip that)

2) Delgado!Master

The OG has to be this close to the top! I love this guy, everyone. The way he and UNIT are like enemies in the most gentlemanly way possible. You buy that Delgado and Three were friends and I love that about them. The start of the "only i can kill The Doctor" idea that carries for many of the Masters. He wants to take over earth, sure but he also wants to pick fights with The Doctor. No he swears it's necessary for the plan he has to call The Doctor first. Dumbassess. Love that about them so much. He's also the most distinguished silly man ever. He always made me want more. People say he is overused, But it made those seasons feel kind of like a sitcom with an annoying neighbor who uses mind control. Also has a catch phrase! The way the brig is just so done with his shit, and like honestly UNIT kind of stops viewing him as a real threat lol.

1) Missy

I love her because she just wants her friend back. I love that she loves The Doctor. Sure she's still chaotic and out there making all kinds of evil for most of her run and thinks humans are funny and small, but she doesn't want to be cruel and cowardly anymore by the end. She wants to learn kindness. I think that's freaking beautiful. She will never really undue what she has done to planets full of people, but she isn't asking for their forgiveness, she just wants to stand with The Doctor. And that's so heartbreaking. She was going home to her friend, the long way round. Honestly I wish this had been the end of The Master's timeline. Sure she died, and was killed by her past. But that's okay, can they really have a happy ending? But she dies bravely! Without hope, without witness, without reward, she was The Doctor's friend. She stood up to her past self and to stand with The Doctor and she fell.

[euphoric-dramione]

That One Dramione Fic That Broke Me.

I’ve been thinking about this fic (The Sun, The Moon, The Truth—hereinafter TSTMTT) for the past week, since I finished reading it, and I realized that I need to write out my thoughts or else I’ll explode. For anyone who’s ready to type ‘BUT YOU CANNOT REVIEW FANFICTION’ this is not a review. This is an analysis.

You know how video essayists sometimes start their videos with a quote from the film or a book that they then go on to analyze, followed by an impactful pause? Imagine that this is a video essay. And it begins now.

[ff: The Sun, The Moon, The Truth by fantomas]

Be a tree, a fearful tree and timid,

Ne’er know peace of heart but tremble always.

Let the rain torment you without mercy

Let the wind pull madly at your tresses.

(From TSTMTT Interlude: The Lovers)

[Pause.]

The first chapter of TMTSTT was published on ao3 on November 2023, and I’ve been it’s loyal reader ever since. When the uploads paused in May, I reread the first three Acts over and over again, looking for clues, trying to guess what was going to happen next. Not to brag, but I guessed a lot. Not because I’m Sherlock Holmes, but because there were clues in every single chapter, and because this fic uses literary techniques that are evident to a seasoned scholar like me. Everything was thought out. The characters, the metaphors, the complex nature of the narrative itself.

The story follows Hermione as she wakes up from a months-long coma with no memory of the last ten years. Harry tells her that she’d spent the two years leading up to the coma in the hands of the mysterious Phantom—the man whose identity is unknown to both Harry and Hermione, and who, as Harry says, held Hermione as his captive, raping and torturing her. But the truth is not as it seems—when the Phantom kidnaps her again, Hermione starts to remember what truly happened to her. And it is one of the most trippy and terrifying journeys.

Memory is a tricky thing. It is a peculiar and fragile construct, shaped as much by our perceptions as by reality itself. It is both a map of our past and a filter through which we understand the present, yet it is unreliable—a patchwork of moments stitched together by emotion, bias, and time. Trauma can fracture it, leaving behind jagged edges and dark voids, while love can amplify or distort it, softening painful truths into something bittersweet. Memory is not just about what we recall; it’s about what we choose to forget, what our minds protect us from, and what might lurk in the shadowed corners, waiting to resurface. In the forests and castle of Hermione’s mind palace, the truth is not what it seems, so much so that we never truly find out what the truth is. Is the Phantom evil? Is Harry evil? Is Hermione evil? Who can say?

I tried to draw a scheme of the time loops in this fic, and what i got were quote some earrings—the snake eating its tail, which, I would argue, is one of the main ideas of this fic. This snake shows up as a metaphor numerous times, and twice—as an actual snake. Time is just as subjective as memory, and just as personal. In this fic, the past, present and future all exist in the same timeline, which immediately makes me think of Saint Augustine’s philosophy. Saint Augustine is one of my favorite philosophers, and he claimed that at any given point in time of the present when we think about the past or the future we can ever only think about it from the point of view of that moment when we think about it. That is, if we think about the past, there is always only present past, because when we thought about the past in the past, there was only past past. The same applies to this fic. The non-existence of the boundaries of time and space are hard to see in the flashback chapters, and yet even in the smallest of glimpses, it is quite effective: one of the first instances is when Hermione sees her self on the other side of the river, battered and bruised, and we know that this is the Hermione from act one, that is Hermione from the future, because we read an identical scene in act one. Flashback Hermione is followed around by a ghost of a Death Eater—that Death Eater is guilty for George’s accidental death and for many other things that happen to Hermione, and although it is never clearly stated whether that Death Eater ghost is Draco from the future, I think it’s safe to say that it is. The Death Eater ghost is the same Phantom that haunts Harry and makes him lose his mind—he comes from the future, yet he affects the present. There also an interesting tid bit of Narcissa describing flashback Draco as PhantomDraco which makes us wonder whether she can also see into the future or whether the time frames have blurred in her eyes too. My favorite blurring of the boundaries of time and space, however, is the scene where Draco meets Hermione’s ghost a few days after the Battle of Hogwarts. The ghost is from the future. She starts haunting him from then on, awoken by her own name coming from his lips. The story takes a full circle when we realize that Hermione haunts Draco because he’s the one who killed her and she is only visible to him because he ate her. This story is wild, isn’t it? The tragedy lies in the fact that Draco did everything he could to keep Hermione alive so she wouldn’t come back to haunt him, get eventually it is his actions that cause the string of events that lead to her becoming his personal ghost.

One thing I noticed was the use of seasons, weather. There was lots of mention of snow, water and ice, then fire, heat, flames. There was also a lot of metaphorical usage of the sun and the moon, which makes sense because it is in the title, but while reading I kept wondering what was the reason for it. In part one, snow, ice, and water symvolize Hermione’s inability to fully feel the consequences of her trauma and her “frozen” sense of self. The water reflect her deep yearning to recover what she had lost. There is a particularly vivid scene in one of the earliest chapters when Hermione where she watches the river flow by as she reflects on what happened to her. However, these memories are also “frozen,” which is why the water is cold, and there is ice in the river. The pivotal element moving forward in act two is fire. It is the first thing she pays attention to when she finds herself in the Manor. In later chapters of act two, Astoria’s funeral fire awakens one of the most deep-seated, although false memories hidden in Hermione’s mind. Fire gradually melts the ice and snow confining Hermione’s mind and sense of identity. In the last chapter of act two, when the drawing room is set on fire, the flames make Hermione remember the truth. If we dare call it the truth.

I don’t think it’s that important to explain the meaning of the sun and the moon, and in this fic that meaning is quite traditional, the moon standing for something that is hidden (half of Harry’s face in the moonlight, the other half hidden—chapter one), and the sun is symbolizing clarity and rebirth, and is mostly embodied by Draco as he is often described as illuminated by sunlight, even if his eyes resemble “two full moons”. You might disagree that he is the good one, and he isn’t, BUT. Although we can never be sure what the truth of Hermione is, we can be sure that Draco was and always will be the key to that truth because he is the mastermind, he is the one in control, he knows the truth and is ready to do anything to be the only one to know it, so much so that he kills the old witch who tells him his future in fear that she might tell his secrets to others. He also symbolizes rebirth because he literally is reborn after he makes a horcrux—his physical appearance changes, making him terrifying and overwhelming—and he is also a vessel for Hermione’s transformation, as she becomes a ghost after going through his digestive system. In one way or both ways, Draco is the key to both of theirs immortality.

Transformation, in my eyes, is another key aspect of this fic. Not only Hermione’s aforementioned transformation, but Draco and Harry’s too. Let’s talk about Harry now. He is the only side character who gets whopping two chapters from his POV, same as Draco, which puts him into a position of being as important of a character as Draco, and just as mysterious. (And just as evil. Or really?) Harry, unlike other characters, goes through his transformation early on in the story while Hermione and Draco are still in tact. He transforms into his mad-self when Hermione accidentally flips a stone of the Hogwarts castle on top pf him and George. George dies, fuelling Hermione’s eternal guilt, while Harry survives, suffering a months-long comatose state, which mirrors Hermione’s coma that she wakes up from after he tortures her. After waking up, Harry is eerily different, yet not so different as to make Hermione believe he’s evil. Although Hermione convinces herself that Harry did not die in the accident, Harry claims that she did. Although Harry says that he doesn’t blame her for what happened, Hermione blames herself. Harry’s corruptive transformation ascends slowly and mostly off-page, yet we know where his way leads to even though we have no proof of him doing anything wrong, ever.

Harry becomes tortured with visions of the future, and knowing what is going to happen to him, he tries, just like Draco, to do everything he can to turn the wheel of fate sideways, yet, just like Draco’s, his visions come true. Knowing the future doesn’t protect one from it. Here is where Macbeth comes in. It is very literally mentioned in one of the conversations where Draco and Hermione talk about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, and as they talk about them, we readers feel as if they’re talking about themselves. Having Macbeth as an intertext only furthers the feeling of inevitable doom.

The fate is inescapable. There is a god, or a higher power, that controls these characters as if they were puppets on strings. In numerous scenes, Hermione feels like she cannot control her body, that her body works on its own accord, as if someone would be in control of it. In the last chapter of act two, when she tries to kill PhantomDraco, yet her own hand turns her own wand against herself, is the scene which illustrates determinism in this fic the best. Determinism is the philosophical idea that all events, including human actions, are determined by prior causes and conditions, meaning everything happens because of something that came before it. Characters tried to do everything they can to escape their fate, yet they only end up solidifying the ineffability.

There are five characters, besides Harry and Draco, who get their own POV chapters, one for each—Blaise, Pansy, Daphne and Narcissa. These chapters serve a few purposes. The first is to show what an unreliable narrator Hermione is. Her understanding of the Slytherin gang as people is very limited, which makes sense and gives the story a sense of realism. Other people always have rich lives beyond what we perceive. The characters’ POV chapters reveal their inner lives and complex relationships with one another that Hermione doesn’t notice. The other purpose of these chapters is to show Draco from others’ POV. Apparently, all the other characters hate him because he is evil. In all the chapters, except these, Draco is shown to be kind and loving, but the key thing is that he’s like that when he’s with Hermione. When he’s with Blaise, or Astoria, or Pansy, he is an uncaring and egotistical monster. Blaise’s chapter is the first glimpse that we get of Draco’s true form. And we don’t get many chances like that. The third reason for these chapters is to show that characters mirror each other. I already mentioned that there are a lot of scenes that get repeated over and over again with some minor changes (symbolising the snake-like slithering of time and events), but the same applies to characters—they mirror Hermione, and each other. Blaise mirrors Hermione’s inability to take action when it comes to facing the truth (that Harry might be going mad; that the Order might be using her; that Draco is not what she thinks she is). Daphne mirrors Hermione later in life—upon their first meeting, Hermione judges Daphne for living inside a beautiful house with a murderer husband, growing flowers and taking care of Astoria without worrying about the state of the world; in act five, she becomes a wife locked in a house, growing flowers and taking care of Astoria (seemingly) without any other worries. Astoria, although without her own chapter, also mirrors Hermione even in the early chapters while they’re both sick. Their borderline-obsessive infatuation with Draco is a thing they have in common. Pansy mirrors Hermione’s wish to please others and to save the world in her own little ways (which, of course, never goes anywhere). Narcissa’s chapter is incredibly vivid and beautiful, and it mirrors the way Hermione’s mind gets wrecked in the later chapters.

Another thing to note is that these characters die without ever doing what they always wanted to do. Blaise dies after going mad and losing his mind, killing Daphne, the one person he swore to protect and save from the mess of war. Daphne dies being killed by the love of her life. Astoria, who spent her life in Blaise’s house wishing to get away and be back with her parents, dies begging Hermione not to move her, saying please, I don’t want to go. Pansy wishes to never lose herself, to never let evil take over her, and she dies as one of Harrys inferi, without a mind of her own, which in life was her greatest insecurity. Hermione dies from brain cancer caused by memory alteration, just like her mother. Narcissa dies by jumping off a balcony, just like Hermione’s father does after losing his daughter, just like Hermione attempts to do in the earlier chapter after “remembering” that PhantomDraco killed their daughter.

Now let’s talk about those god forsaken interludes. One folklore tale, one painting by William Blake, two poems, one heart-wrenching song, one play-like chapter… But firstly, I want to mention the epigraph which is a scene from the Bible, featuring one of the most well-known scenes of the great red dragon and the woman clothed with the sun. The woman is giving birth and the dragon awaits to eat the child. Many scholars interpret the dragon to be the devil, the woman to be Mary, mother of god, and the baby to be Jesus. This epigraph paints a picture of some evil threat hanging above Hermione, as of course, we interpret Hermione as the woman clothed with the sun. In the first act, there is some clever half-misdirection that makes us believe that Harry is the evil mastermind behind it all and that Draco is just a misunderstood antihero in love with Hermione, and so, having read this epigraph, we interpret that Harry is the dragon waiting to eat Hermione’s child. But then, in the later part of the fic, there is an interlude titled The Moon, which features the same exact scene as the epigraph, only in the form of the famous William Blake’s painting, although by then we have an entirely different context. The interlude follows after Draco creates a horcrux and turns into PhantomDraco, so right now, we interpret the bleached red dragon of Blake’s as Draco, while Hermione still remains the woman clothed with the sun, as Daphne titles her before dying.

But the very first interlude is a folktale The folktale Spruce, the Queen of Serpents of Spruce, the youngest daughter of a poor family, who is forced to marry a magical grass snake after promising to do so under pressure. The snake transforms into a handsome prince, and they live happily in an underwater palace, raising four children. When Spruce visits her family, her brothers trick her youngest daughter, Little Aspen, into revealing the prince’s name, which they use to summon and kill him. In grief, Spruce curses Aspen to forever tremble in fear as a tree, while her brave sons become mighty trees, standing tall beside their mother, who is also transformed into the Spruce tree. This tragic tale mirrors the one of Draco and Hermione, and even of their daughter, gifting us a glimpse into how it’s going to end, yet it’s not an exact copy of the folktale, it only serves as a metaphor, and also makes us root, undeservingly, for Draco, in belief that he is the lover. Another epigraph which is foreshadowing is the poem also by William Blake “The Sick Rose” which foreshadows that Hermione is going to be sick and that she’ll die. Another poem is “Lady Lazarus” by Sylvia Plath which tells a story of a woman who dies and dies and yet resurrects each time. This interlude is right before the epilogue, where we find out that Hermione became Draco’s ghost. The character of Lady Lazarus solidifies the fic’s biblical imagery. The interlude of the song, Poison Tree by groupie, is another William Blake moment, as it is inspired by a poem of the same name. In author’s note, it says: “[the song] uses metaphor, antithesis, and biblical associations to highlight the self-damage that can proceed from suppressing anger. The emphasis is on letting go of negative emotions and moving on with life before this energy impacts the health and well-being of others. This poem is an extended metaphor – the wrath (anger) becomes a tree, a fruit, a poison apple.” Again, this ties up the loose ends with biblical imagery, the symbol of a tree, and anger that Hermione feels towards Harry and everyone else who harmed her, Draco included. It precedes right before Hermione gains back her memories.

At last, why the hell are the chapters named after Tarot cards, you may ask? This is perhaps the simplest question I can answer. As per my interpretation, Tarot cards represent something that is written in the stars, coded in fate, something that is while possible to foresee, impossible to avoid. Each chapter being a Tarot card tells us one more time that this story won’t end well and that nothing that will happen cannot be avoided.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

We're finally at the final (thank the gods)! Things that we talked about that I haven't seen discussed:

Nathalie trying to kill Gabriel is such bullshit. "You can't do this! You'll hurt someone!" Nathalie, you have known that since day one! You knew he was working on this all season and you're good now! Why are you only trying to kill him now? You were healthy most of the season! You even physically pinned him! Oh, right, because you're not actually good. It's all just "better than thou" lip service. Hypocrisy is the easiest way to make us dislike a character and Nathalie's a massive hypocrite, so we're not fans.

Evil Nathalie was pretty fun. "Good" Nathalie is aggravating and has as lackluster a redemption as they gave Felix or perhaps even more lackluster. Felix at least switched for love of Kagami. Nathalie switched because Gabriel didn't heal her even though she had zero knowledge that he truly had a chance to do so (she wasn't there and Gabriel has never given up an opportunity to save Emilie so that he could chase Ladybug before). Adrien was never Nathalie's motivation or else we would have seen her protest things like Gorizilla, Style Queen, and Chat Blanc.

Moving on!

The mass teleport to Ladybug should have killed everyone because the whole world is supposed to be after her. A couple billion people teleporting to the same location should mean people squish each other or that portals open over each other/on top of people. Just saying. Budget saved her life because Mirauclous' Earth has a teeny tiny population due to rendering costs.

SO was mad how anticlimactic the final fight between Marinette and Gabe feels. Oh two people who barely interacted, have minimal personal connection, and always hated each other are fighting? Such a big moment! I'm so invested! He talked about how other shows build up to moments like this by making the villain terrifying or by making the villain and the hero have a strong, personal connection or even by making the fight super fun to watch, but miraculous did none of that. SO seriously didn't care about the fight at all and, to be honest, neither did I when I first watched it. I only tuned in when Marinette detransformed and I went, wait, wtf are you doing?

We get to all the scenes with heroes in other locations and SO paused the show every few seconds to ask me who tf person X was. Fei resulted in multiple pauses because of her varied forms. So I can confirm that the casual viewer totally followed this part and it was a wonderful addition (that's sarcasm, btw). He did ask "why would the French say that they need a bunch of Americans to win?" Which I though was pretty funny. That's certainly one way to read the Americans showing up!

SO works in IT. He was so mad that the laptop wasn't remotely wiped after it was lost/Lila stole it. And why does it have access to the Agreste mansion and not just the police robots? I thought Tsurugi corp was a tech company? This is all security 101.

SO's final thoughts: well that was soulless. I feel nothing. I can see why you're so done with this show.

Credit where it's due: while the final was massively disappointing from a story perspective and while I don't think Caline Bustier was written like a good teacher for anyone above the age of 5, it is really cool to show a pregnant woman run for office, win, and then be allowed to do her job with her baby in tow without any of that being treated as a joke. That's a really powerful thing for a young child to see and I'm glad it was included even Caline would make a terrible mayor in real life.

[noperopesaredope]

I am a hardcore Collector apologist, and I will stand by them forever. I do believe that they aren’t truly malicious, they just don’t realize that what they’re doing is wrong. 

But I also kinda like it when fanfics portray them as both blissfully naive and straight up sadistic at the same time. It’s honestly one of the things that draws me to his character. Sure, I adore it when the Collector is just an easily manipulated little kid, but I also like seeing portrayals of them in which they describe how he will violently maim someone. I actually like seeing both portrayals at the exact same time.

One of the things that I like about the Collector is what I call “Terrifying Innocence.” The Collector is definitely a naive little kid and mentally quite innocent and impressionable, but here’s the thing about little kids: they can be really fucked up. Even the sweetest and most kindhearted children can be scary af.

Cognitive empathy is mostly a learned trait rather than an inherent one. Children do not come out of the womb with the knowledge that other beings have feelings and that their actions affect others, and this is clearly the case with the Collector. So they can commit different types of violence with no reaction, as they might not be aware that it is wrong. 

It’s like children who torture ants during recess. They are more fascinated by it than anything, and they don’t fully process how cruel they are actually being. When you don’t understand that other people experience pain, can’t properly empathize with it, or generally feel extremely removed from it, you become fascinated by it. It’s the same reason people like true crime or even slasher horror.

Honestly, as I said, I kinda like it when the Collector is shown to be weirdly playful upon seeing horrific things. It’s because he feels less like a sadistic ass like Belos, and more like someone who is really into slasher movies. Little kids are into violence a surprising amount. 

I have been told that I’m a very compassionate person (I don’t completely believe that I am, but a bizarre amount of people have told me this, so I guess it’s true), but as a kid, around the Collector’s age, I had multiple “disaster” phases

I had an obsession with the Titanic for a while, particularly the part where hundreds of people died. I had an even bigger obsession with Pompeii, and upon seeing a museum exhibit with some of the preserved bodies, I actually took a good few minutes imagining how each individual person died and what their last moments were like. Fucked up, I know, but it happened.

Children don’t typically go out of their way to hurt others once they realize that their actions can hurt others, but they will occasionally watch (from a distance). I imagine that the Collector is like this as well. Maybe they did watch Belos hurt the Grimwalkers and were still playful about it. 

I even brought up a small potential headcanon that they (slightly unintentionally) gave Belos ideas. Kinda like “what if you EXPLODED one of them? Ooh- ooh- or...you could THROW THEM IN LAVA!” Not an evil whisper-in-your-ear kinda way, more like asking a preschooler to describe what they think demons would do to people in hell or something. Kids get creative with it.

It wouldn’t be that he truly meant harm the way Belos did, they would do it because they found it interesting. They don’t understand other people’s pain, and therefore just experiment without realizing how bad their actions are. It’s interesting to me to read portrayals of the Collector where they are still show in a sympathetic light and he’s clearly just a little kid, but he also doesn’t really seem to care about others that much.

It’s realistic in a way that I like and captures the spirit of the messiness that is a child’s morality. They aren’t evil or completely sadistic, they just don’t see the severity of their actions and are mostly self-centered in terms of worldview.

So, in conclusion, we need more fics where the Collector is a blissfully innocent kid with a love for slasher films.

[wianes]

Exploring Griffith's duality symbolism: beyond Light and Dark part 1

My intention was to explore the various contradictions surrounding Griffith's character. These contradictions stem from the narrative itself—what the series conveys, how other characters perceive him, and the underlying allegorical subtexts. This, of course, shouldn't be taken literally. Still, I believe that considering layers from different interdisciplinary fields is a valid and approach.

As a result, I ended up writing quite a lengthy piece about Griffith. Sometimes that happens when the source material and my engagement feel endless.

In Berserk, Griffith holds a central, almost heliocentric position, reflecting the broader universe in his complex nature. My goal is to illustrate that his duality is a recurring theme throughout the narrative, resonating on multiple levels. I plan to illustrate this across different points in the manga.

For technical reasons, I decided to split the topic into two parts. Even though the second part turned out especially long, I hope this work will be to your liking, both for the exploration of Griffith’s character and the cultural elements it touches on.

What drew me to explore this concept is how Berserk presents an intriguing perspective on the interplay of opposing forces. These elements transcend individual characters and shape both societies and the cosmos. The series demonstrates that contradictions extend beyond personal conflict, influencing the natural world and the universe itself. Griffith embodies this complexity, merging the Falcon of Light with the Hawk of Darkness, symbolizing the balance between light and shadow.

As time unfolds, the duality woven into his character becomes increasingly clear through his many actions and intricate interactions. These moments reveal the rich, multifaceted nature of his persona, surrounding him with an air of mystery and adding depth to the story. This ongoing conflict in his character, shown through his decisions, is a key theme throughout the story. While Griffith initially appears innocent, his later choices reveal a more complex individual, combining outward purity with a calculated, methodical approach. From the very beginning, after his first encounter with Guts, it becomes evident that Guts holds two distinct impressions of him.

As the inexorable flow of time continues, Griffith’s complexity invites deeper scrutiny. This becomes particularly evident during his reflective conversation with Judeau. In this exchange, they delve into the core essence of Griffith's character.

Judeau carefully outlines the various instances that illustrate the complexity of understanding Griffith. He doesn’t know the direct answer, even after all the battles they’ve fought together. After observing Griffith closely... Judeau describes him as someone who swings between childish tantrums and a deep seriousness—showing absolute conviction in everything, sometimes to the point of being incomprehensible. Griffith seems to have a gift that feels otherworldly, and this reveals the paradox within him. By now, he has already become both mesmerizing and unsettling. Even someone as observant as Judeau struggles to define him, as Griffith seems to constantly shift between extremes.

He is both terrifying and captivating. Whether he is a hero or a villain seems less important. Judeau notes that, at times, Griffith blurs the line between wise and immature, revealing a mix of human vulnerability and divine purpose. The character remains a mystery, someone whose true nature might never be fully understood. The story emphasizes that, whether he appears good or evil, his most defining trait is his extraordinary essence. This suggests that what truly draws people to him isn't their belief in his goodness, but rather the sense that he is beyond ordinary human experience. There are indeed aspects that go beyond verbal description and manifest themselves in ways that are truly mystical.

Charlotte, too, senses this duality in her view of Griffith.

We can see poeple (especally women) adore him for his grace, which surpasses the elegance of the most refined members of upper social circles. These individuals, who should naturally embody grace—as if chosen by the gods themselves, and also spend their entire lives among peers of similar refinement.

Grace encompasses a range of traits: poise, dignity, aesthetic sense, charm, articulation, fluidity, and lightness in physical movement. It often appears almost supernatural, like the divine figures depicted in art and religion. Heroes and deities show a level of harmony and aesthetic that surpasses human capabilities, suggesting that grace, in its rarity and uniqueness, may have its roots in a higher realm. Yet, even among nobles, Griffith, a commoner, stands out remarkably.

Nonetheless, Charlotte also perceives a certain extremity in this. His divine grace stands in stark contrast to his image as a simple child from the countryside. Children, as we know, can be tactless and unaware of social conventions. They act with little understanding of what is considered appropriate or inappropriate, following their natural instincts. They do what feels pleasant and avoid what feels unpleasant, unburdened by the social constructs that societies have built over centuries.

This contrast becomes especially clear in the hunting scene. Here, Griffith decides to approach the princess who represents his ultimate goal. While the subtle tension of being watched by both allies and enemies is present, he casually plucks leaves from trees and whistles in the presence of the most important woman in the country.

Charlotte perceives Griffith through his fundamental simplicity and naturalness, finding it enchanting. He evokes the carefree spirit of a child wandering through an endless meadow, reminiscent of a butterfly. Griffith embodies straightforwardness, fun, and spontaneity. His innocence stands out against the sophisticated and artificial world around him, which adults have built up over time with learned behaviors and restrictions.

His godlike grace seems otherworldly and reflects an inherent perfection, untouched by mortal clumsiness and heaviness. He expresses beauty, flowing effortlessly with each moment.

In this child-like purity, Griffith reaches the 'source' of an original state of being—something divine, since beyond human again. Childlike and godlike figures exist outside the complex web of human rules and norms, though for different reasons. Griffith’s approach is akin to that of gods and children who often act according to their own will.

From my perspective, Charlotte’s admiration wasn’t due to Griffith's stylized kindness, romanticism, or his services to the country. Nor was it based on his physical attributes. Instead, she was captivated by his genuine nature. His grace, his detachment from conventional desirable behaviors, and his ability to address existential matters with deep conviction stood out. He spoke with inspiration, as if he possessed the breath of a god. And Griffith's purity, rooted in fundamental principles of reality, extended beyond mere gifts.

He seems almost perfectly made, like the gods with all their awareness shaped him with passion and love. Yet, he remains pristine and innocent, driven by unconscious instincts.

During the hunting scene, we get our first glimpse of the intricate interaction between Griffith and Charlotte. She represents his desires and is dressed in a way that reflects the contrasting aspects of his fantasies, showcasing his varying shades.

In the Golden Age arc, this theme is consistently explored around Griffith's character. It appears in moments like his conversation with Guts, which takes on a more abstract and metaphysical context. As we know, Griffith may be interested in this topic since one of his motivations is to uncover the truth about the world.

I will quote Miura’s words to show how his reasoning aligns with Griffith’s perspective. This approach may be crucial for understanding the series and suggests that Griffith’s striking presentation is not insignificant.

“If I used words like ‘god’ and ‘devil,’ the world of my story would become more limited, lacking depth and originality. God and the devil are constructs of human thought. This argument is similar to the chicken and egg paradox: which comes first? The existence of god and the devil reflects human existence.”

Berserk does not follow the structure of modern stories where absolute good prevails. Instead, it closely resembles ancient mythological narratives, where even gods and heroes also commit acts of moral ambiguity. With this in mind, let’s consider some icons from different parts of the world.

Heracles, renowned for his Twelve Labors, once killed his wife Megara and their children in a moment of madness. This event shows that even heroes are capable of tragic violence.

Sigurd, famous for slaying the dragon Fafnir and acquiring his treasure, later betrayed his loved ones. Under the influence of treacherous advice, he killed his friend Regin.

Apollo, the god of art, beauty, and prophecy, was also known to flay people alive in his rage.

Gilgamesh, the builder of Uruk and seeker of immortality, was both a hero and a tyrant. He oppressed his people, illustrating the complex duality in leadership.

Odin, the god of wisdom and war, often used manipulation and led brutal conflicts to achieve his goals. This demonstrates the darker side of divine wisdom.

Zeus, the ruler of the gods, maintained cosmic order but was notorious for violent affairs and betrayals. His actions sparked countless tragedies.

Shiva, the "Destroyer" used extreme measures, sometimes testing the devotion of his followers with harsh trials. This reflects the unpredictable nature of divine power.

Achilles, one of the greatest warriors of the Trojan War, brutally killed Hector and desecrated his body by dragging it behind his chariot.

This emphasizes the savage side of heroism, and I could continue listing more examples like this.

Each of these mythological figures embodies both greatness and cruelty. Their actions challenge the notion of absolute good, leaving morality in a constant state of flux.

Expanding on Miura's quote and Griffith's idea: Deities, in their essence, are neither inherently benevolent nor malevolent. They might choose to favor us or ignore us. This dichotomy, which we refer to as fate or luck, is a fickle force that shapes our lives and influences our perception of the world. Consequently, the fruits of our labor may yield a bountiful harvest or turn our orchards into ashes. This reflects a natural order beyond human control or intervention. We should accept the full spectrum of reality, avoid unnecessary interference, and seize opportunities when they arise. By engaging passively with existence, we might discover a deeper sense of purpose.

In summary, Griffith suggests that what we consider good or evil is not universal; what’s good for one might not be good for another, like how a fish might not see things the same way. Everything is relative; defining good and evil is inherently arbitrary. Moral values are not concrete but abstract by nature, and abstraction requires a mind to abstact it.

This perspective allows Griffith to navigate his complex web of relationships with introspection. He sees a clear divide between those who openly revere him and those who secretly conspire against him. As an exceptional figure, the character evokes strong emotional responses. He attracts both deep admiration and malignant intent. Some people are willing to risk their lives for his cause, believing he can elevate their existence and provide unmatched fulfillment. In contrast, others view him as a serious threat, particularly because of his humble origins and the sweeping reforms he envisions. These changes might marginalize them in the new order he proposes. Thus he is no longer seen as the embodiment of fulfillment, Griffith now represents an element of insecurity.

In the grand theater of observation, whether viewed from a high or low perspective, this complexity makes it challenging to establish fair relationships with him. How can one achieve fairness when some people view him with disdain, while others see him from a perspective akin to that of a frog? Some people smile at him with the intent of taking something from him, while others smile in hopes of gaining something from him. Let's be honest— No one is here because they woke up with the idea of bestowing this young man with a castle. Both factions , fixated on his presence, inadvertently give him a degree of control over the course of their lives.

Moving on to the eclipse, Femto emerges from a form that also carries symbolic meaning related to this theme.

The cosmic egg, a recurring symbol in many mythologies, appears in Greek, Egyptian, Finnish, Buddhist, and Japanese traditions. From the primordial void of non-being, the world came into existence, emerging from a state of pure potential. Hindu sacred texts vividly describe it: "In the beginning, it was without form. It took the shape of an egg, resting in tranquil stillness for a year. When divided, the shell split into two halves: one silver and the other gold. The silver half became the earth, while the golden half turned into the sky. The outer membrane of the egg transformed into mountains, while the inner membrane gave rise to clouds and mist. Rivers formed from the egg’s veins, and its fluid gave birth to the ocean. From this genesis, the sun emerged."

Symbolically, the shell of the cosmic egg represents the universe’s spatial extent, while the latent seed power embodies nature’s boundless energy. This symbol is essential not only for understanding the origins of worlds but also for illustrating the interconnectedness of creation and existence. It represents the duality of the cosmos and the intrinsic potential that drives the ongoing cycle of creation and transformation. By revealing a profound truth, this mythological archetype shows the intricate balance of the universe, with each element playing a crucial role in the grand scheme. The egg’s shell often signifies the external or physical realm, while its inner contents symbolize the internal or spiritual dimensions.

Many mythological traditions depict the cosmic egg as split into two halves: one half representing the Earth and the other representing the sky. This division highlights the dualistic nature of existence, separating the tangible from the celestial. It captures the essence of dualism, revealing the interplay between the material and the immaterial, the manifest and the unmanifest. Different cultures view the cosmic egg through various dualistic lenses, representing unions of male and female principles, light and dark, the divine and earthly, creation and destruction, order and chaos, or birth and death. The egg's role in creation often involves a transformative process, symbolizing the dissolution or transformation of a prior state. Its symbolism blends creation and dissolution, merging corporeal and ethereal elements, thus integrating dualistic principles.

During the eclipse, Femto stands on the palm of the hand, symbolizing the acute union of opposites.

This imagery combines fish and flames, symbolizing mercury and sulfur, respectively. In alchemy, the prominent placement of the fish in the sixth secret sign underscores the importance of the center of the hand, which represents this key element. According to alchemical philosophy, the presence of both mercury and the fish is crucial for achieving substantial results. Mercury (quicksilver) is considered the alpha and omega, acting as a priest who harmonizes all elements. It is believed that all metals originate from the male essence, seed, and water, with mercury playing a central role in all arts and symbolizing the highest of secrets.

The palm of the hand carries additional symbolism in alchemy. The seventh sign of the philosophers is fire, which represents sulfur. Sulfur symbolizes the earth and the origin of all metals. It embodies the feminine principle, nurturing growth and symbolizing the fertile soil needed for seeds to flourish. When pure mercury combines with pure sulfur, it produces pure fruit. This fruit represents the union of man and woman, father and mother, fire and water, and seed and ground. This alchemical marriage brings together opposites to create harmony and perfection, highlighting the transformative power of alchemy. By combining these fundamental principles, one achieves the ultimate creation.

Among the series' quotes, the most beautiful and enigmatic one clearly relates to this motif.

Femto perceives the shadowed aspects within both the external realm and the self. Enlightenment and wisdom come from recognizing how opposing forces naturally interact. It's not just about understanding that the day is good and the night is bad. From the darkness, the essence of illumination emerges, with light and shadow working together as harmonious forces to create profound, unified insight.

Consequently, we see Femto as a demon emerging from the shadows. He has a void-like, murky interior and radiates beams of light from within. Despite the emptiness at the core of his monstrosity, his eyes are imbued with a white light.

To avoid being verbal-only, I should add that, at least during this period in the manga (we don't know what will happen next), Griffith consistently receives symbolism related to harmony and balance, as seen here.

Griffith’s connection to Lord Vishnu is a prime example of rich symbolism. Vishnu is depicted as a deity who blends childlike innocence with the role of a protector, preserving cosmic equilibrium. His armed form symbolizes omnipotence and multifaceted nature. Each of his attributes represents a different aspect of his divine character: creation, preservation, and spiritual liberation.

This is just one example among many in the manga. I have illustrated various scenarios to show how this principle intricately weaves into different aspects of Griffith’s character. It is quite meticulously shown that the theme surrounding Griffith starts to develop at the beginning with Guts's first contemplation about him. This theme will be continued and elaborated upon through the lens of other characters, Griffith himself, symbols, and the visual applications.

I consider this a good point to conclude. I will continue with this topic in the next post, as I have more to discuss on the subject. The next part will focus even more on various synchronizing motifs, concentrating on the concepts from Jungian and Freudian psychoanalysis, as well as European, Chinese, and Hindu religious and philosophical traditions.

On the margins, I want to emphasize that these symbols should not be taken too literally as exact representations. Nevertheless, We can see that their application is quite consistent, deliberate, and inevitable. I don’t believe that understanding the narracy and subtext is unnecessary or completly useless when trying to grasp the author’s intentions.

[huasahyo]

I have read Qiang Jin Jiu and honestly think I'll never recover

(Spoilers ahead!)

Oh god, where to start this? Maybe I should start with the very begging: I didn't understood shit. I just saw a kid being tortured and lots of information. When I felt it was too much, I went after the translated map and OMG that was so helpful! Bless the translators for that. After looking carefully at the map, things started to make sense.

As the story went, before the end of book one I was not very familiar with all the characters. I kept mistaking Hai Liangyi for Hua Siqian lol. But during my reading I started to take some notes and was never confused again. The thing is, this book has A LOT of characters and some of them are introduced early but only become major players later (Yao Wenyu, Hua Xiangyi...)

Even though this huge ensemble would make characters easy to forget, this doesn't happen. The author managed to create likeable and rememberable characters pretty easily??? I fell in love with many of them at first read, even if they didn't show up a lot. And there were characters that got me completely off guard, I wasn't expecting them to be so cool and relevant, BUT THEY WERE (Fei Sheng, Kong Liu)! And the antagonists were also brilliant, I love a good story where everyone has a point and no one is actually evil: People from Biansha had their truths and in a war there are no right sides, Xue Xiuzhuo wanted the best for Dazhou (even though I can't forgive what the did to my baby Yuanzhuo), and Li Jianting??? WHAT A LEGEND! Also, Feng Quan plot twist left me speechless, what an interesting character. Every character was very human (in the good and bad way), everyone had their own goals and beliefs. I actually might do a second post screaming about every character because I have a lot to say about them. (hello hasen my love)

The Plot??? Perfectly done. AND WELL EXPLAINED! I was always a little afraid of reading novels with a lot of politics, but I really dug this one. The problems with grains, provisions, registry, army and BRO THERE WAS EVEN SOME AGRARIAN REFORM SHIT

The way this author write the MOST well written battles I have read, without using any magic... it's just... I never thought I would be so enthusiastic about cannons, rocks and GRAINS.

The conflicts in Zhongbo could be all repetitive, but they weren't at all. Each prefecture that Lanzhou took back had a interesting story.

The war with Biansha was also brilliantly written. The way Amu'er was attacking Dazhou from the inside out and the scorpions with those hammers??? My man was a genius. Sadly, he could never have predicted Bai Cha and her son.

Talking about that, the family relationships are a great point in this. Seeing flashbacks about Lanzhou, Ji Mu, Ji Gang and Hua Pinging made me CRY! They were so happy... And seeing Xiao Chiye with his brother and HIS DAD LIKE... Xiao Fangxu and Ji Gang best daddies. Fei Sheng and Yin Chang too, what a beautiful chapter the one that they talk after Fei Sheng has a fight with Qiao Tianya.

Talking about Qiao Tianya, it was refreshing to see a novel with more LGBT characters. The secondary pairings were great, they didn't steal the spotlight from cezhou, but were very enjoyable (even though THAT happened between Songyu). I just wished we could have seen more Qihua moments and OH GOD KONG LIU AND LUO MU??? That got me truly off guard, wasn't expecting at all. Also, I found really interesting how Lanzhou basically got a LGBT parade following him at the end, that was truly the gayest empire ever. I have so many headcanons here, let me scream them: Xue Xiuzhuo is AroAce, Li Jianting is a non-binary legend and Huo Lingyun a Bi King. Also, Fei Sheng is not straight. Said it.

The little animals in this??? I WAS TERRIFIED WHEN LANG TAO XUE JIN FELL IN THAT HOLE YALL I THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA DIE. But luckily he didn't. Meng, Hunu, Feng Shuang Ta Yi were all the cutest, I need more novels with cats.

THE CHILDREN - Ding Tao, Li Xiong, Xiao Xun and Jiran. They served chaos, humor and cuteness. I really liked whenever they showed up.

THE LADIESSS - If you have read my other posts you know I love some powerful women. This story did not disappoint me in that sense. Hua Hewei had some despicable acts, but she really got everyone on her hands despite never leaving the inner palace, good for her. Hua Xiangyi is a way better version of her aunt, my girl was smart and cared for the people, an amazing woman. QI ZHUYINNN owns my life, I really adored the fact that she was a badass and that she never hated the fact she was born a girl, slay. Bai Cha was really out there helping women that were sold and their children, that is some real sorority there. Lu Yizhi was so kind, loved seeing her interactions with Lanzhou. Li Jianting was everything, her story was one of the saddest and yet she was doing her best to become a ruler. Duo Er'lan was amazingly brave, even more than Hasen, mad respect for her.

And last, but definitely not least, there is cezhou. I have no words to explain how much I adored these two. The way both of them got their own development and had their own private goals and went after them, so good. They are so well written that I wanna scream. The chapters that are focused on Lanzhou's feelings are not big in number, even when he is the main character, his feelings are shown in discreet ways (the handkerchief!) and most of the time we don't know what he is plotting or thinking. But when we take a peek at what's going inside of his heart, it's... astonishing. And I love seeing how he actually cared for the side characters, even though he doesn't show a lot.

And Ce'an kind of caught me off guard, I thought he was going to be a totally different character but he went and delivered

Xiao Chiye was a perfect fit for Lanzhou and Lanzhou was a perfect fit for Xiao Chiye: they were both in similar situations where only them could understand each other's suffering, and after they leave Qudu we see how much of a match made in heaven they are (not just romantically, but strategically).

THE SEXUAL TENSION AT THE BEGINNING YALL... They were scheming/fighting and flirting at the same time. Iconic.

Read this, you won't regret it!

By the way, I started reading the story in December and finished by March, but I completely forgot to post this! College has been frying my brain these days.

Hopefully I will resume my Sha Po Lang reading and come back here to tell my opinions on the book. (Not sure when though.)

See ya!

[sunnydaleherald]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Tuesday, January 21, Part II

[Fandom Discussions]

The dynamic of their relationship is Addicting by watermelonrindsstuff

hey remember when kendra was born and bred for a role she didn’t inherit by automatonwithautonomy

but let me busy say… i understand fuffy completely by selkiemaidenfae

Bookshop AU: Where Willow and Tara meet at a bookshop instead of on campus at a Wiccan group. by

Dark Tillow, anyone? by magickinthewillows

buffy comes home from work and patrol with a doublemeat burger for dawn for dinner by mattholicguilt

i definitely appreciate the boom studios buffy comics for pairing up characters that weren’t a thing in the shows by xaeyrnofnbe

s6 buffy LOVES that she has such power over spike. by lesbianmarrow

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To me Faith was never evil or bad. by suiriswhite

The btvs Angelus arc changed me by goblins-riddles-or-frocks

Spike should have been friends with Tara and Anya as well as Dawn. by sparklyfaerie

buffyverse shipping drama is truly where nuance goes to die by all-seeing-ifer

actually thinking about it the weird in between space cangel are in by all-seeing-ifer

Wesley’s arc in the second half of Angel season 3 is so heartbreaking. by autumnknight

AtS's overarching villain and its themes by Stoney

Wolfram and Hart's organ-harvesting facility is one of the most terrifying moments in the show. by bringouttheolives

Implanted memories by Lookintomyhazeleyes

Anya had every right to sleep with Spike by Ok_Addendum_8115

If they made Dawn from Buffys Essence, then wouldn't that technically make Dawn, Buffys Daughter by letingsername

Season Six Buffy is a much better person than me... by HumanBeing182

Unpopular Opinion About the Trio by grxveyard_girl

How Did Amy Know Where to Find Rack and Who He Was? by Anna_Begins

Just a quick question on the novels by Getafix69

Unfair Treatment of Buffy in S6 by KookyChapter3208

WHY DIDN'T THEY CALL FOR HELP!?!?!?? by Goofy_ahh_cat_meme

Realizing Fred could have left by Erawk

So, was the episode Normal Again reality or a delusion/spell? by ComprehensiveFlan638

Giles deserved better by Zealousideal_Pie9102

That one episode by keli31

Are the Powers That Be ever a thing on Buffy (again)? by yeahitsme9

Missed opportunity of Marcie by DickJames19

Is Regular Gun the most powerful weapon in the Buffyverse? by charlespdk

What minor thing in a plot or subplot would you change? by jogaforacont

Wiilow and Gabrielle by not_firewood_yeti

I love this scene, the look on Oz’s face when he realizes it’s “that girl” by literary_freak

Buffy season 6 getting a job by Illustrious_Plate803

I can pinpoint the exact second I became a fan by WerdNerd88

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An apology to Angel fans by HockneysPool

Why this is too hard to watch by melbreddituser

In this scene, Robin looks at Spike in the MIRROR by Miwha_24

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Just caught this Alien Easter egg in Harms Way by Good_Ad3485

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Buffy novels by Realistic-Drama8463

Thoughts on Angel show. by SubjectTie6218

What Happened to the Box Spike Stole from Joel Grey that Was Going to Help Stop Glory? by Traditional-Sort2385

Weird, probably unimportant take: I've always wondered how Tara experienced Buffy during the moment by shukii89

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[witchcraftandburialdirt]

I really love how even though Robin is messed up in the fog that he still reads as a sympathetic character. Could you tell us what happened to him or why he has issues remembering anything? Does he want to leave the fog?

✧ ━━ 𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐃𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐈𝐍𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐒 : 𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐍 𝐀. 𝐁𝐀𝐔𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐄 𝙳𝙴𝙰𝙳 𝙱𝚈 𝙳𝙰𝚈𝙻𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴

Thank you anon! I wasn't expecting such a sweet message in my inbox, and I would be delighted to delve deeper into the details of Robin's experiences - unfortunately I cannot spoil the lore I just finished ( it'll be posted soon! ) I'm glad however that despite all of his habits and uncomfortable mannerisms, that he still reads as a sad figure moreso than a purely terrifying one. He's lost a lot in life, and I want that to always be present; he will never be without his grief. No matter how much he tries to get rid of it. I can definitely go over the basics and explain his feelings towards Fog! Frankly that is long enough on its own since, despite the worlds that leave his mouth, Robin's feelings towards the Fog are pretty complicated and a bit all over the place.

A good chunk of this is because Robin truly, to his deepest core, does not remember what the world was like when he was in it. He cannot remember what food tastes like, what rain sounds like, and a lot of the things most people take for granted just don't exist in his mind anymore. Music, singing, the sweet smell of flowers in spring and the tweeting of birds nestling in the hazel thicket ... its all gone. That being said, he is very aware of the "lost" bit of him, and tries to hide his concern for the growing holes in his memory - but it really isn't working. It's part of the reason he instinctually is always seen wandering about the fields and forests, part of him still primally yearns for all of those things; but he's lost the words or reasonings to really explain it. If he did it would be like trying to describe the tones of a color that doesn't exist. I think he might honestly cry if he reintroduced to music or had someone show him that the organ in his church can actually play still!

Fun Fact: Robin never got to see the ocean, but he always wanted to.

He's been stuck in the Fog for over 150 years and each day that ticks on takes more out of him, and its forcing him to conform ever more to what the Entity wishes for him to be. The problem with that is given Robin is an actual human being, he can't be an unconscious tool for her use - but She can at least peel and strip away the parts that make him less than cooperative. The Entity gained that ownership of him once it resurrected him from his boggy death and forced him into the scorching light of the sun where every part of him that could not serve Her was burnt away to ash and blown off with the winter wind. Then he did what earned his entrance into the Fog.

But that's a tale for another day.

Within his lore, those tiny joys through nature were one of the only ways he could find any sort of solace as he had a relatively difficult life, granted it wasn't without its pure arresting moments of wonder ━ but a lot of it was riddled with grief and tragedy due to his bloodline. For this explanation I'll be focusing on the subject as its seen within Europe and more specifically the UK as that is where Robin is from, however there are other mentions of it within histories around the globe from various cultures. You see eating sins was an actual occupation, and a very much hated one at that; but it was a necessary evil in the eyes of many even if the church did not approve - and was practiced within the multitude of rural communities within the UK from the late 16th century to the earliest years of the 20th century.

I won't go into too much detail regarding the profession, but in short they were summoned into town when a death occurred. For anyone who had died without confessing their sins, a sin-eater would take on the sins of the deceased by eating a loaf of bread ususally placed on the corpse's breast overnight and drinking ale out of a wooden bowl passed over the coffin/body ━ practices varied throughout different communities but you understand the idea.

Abhorred by the superstitious villagers as a thing unclean, the sin-eater cut himself off from all social intercourse with his fellow creatures by reason of the life he had chosen; he lived as a rule in a remote place by himself, and those who chanced to meet him avoided him as they would a leper. This unfortunate was held to be the associate of evil spirits, and given to witchcraft, incantations and unholy practices; only when a death took place did they seek him out, and when his purpose was accomplished they burned the wooden bowl and platter from which he had eaten the food handed across, or placed on the corpse for his consumption. ( Funeral Customs by Bertram S. Puckle ; 1926 )

With the Entity taking away the comforting moments of his time alive; what does he really have to gain by trying to get away from the Fog? All he knows for certain is that the world he came from was cruel and he feels it is undeserving of any mercy that could be granted to it; how could he when all he remembers is the suffering he went through? He's deep in Her manipulations and genuinely believes the Entity is God coming to bring about the Fourth Seal and he's been chosen to participate. It's the only way his brain can make sense of anything that's happening to him, and he's really let it take complete hold of him. Any sort of compassion or sympathy or humanly bond is too late in its arrival, he is lost and he can never go home, both in the material world and in the plane of his mind. Or at least that is what he believes, but humans often overestimate their capabilities and their eagerness to be alone, and in comes a rather unexpected problem to his "I'll simply fade away into nothing and become what God needs me to be, and that is my purpose in this life" outlook.

In steps the biggest wrench in his plans.

No no, it is unfortunate for Robin but @mxlevolence is clinging to his blood soaked hand while he hangs over the edge of his doom ━ urging him to not let go, and for some reason Robin is listening to them. Their relationship is pretty complicated but GF so intensely affects Robin's view of the Fog that it's impossible for me to not talk about it. Vicious at one point mentioned that "poems cannot even begin to describe their relationship" and I think that still stands true. Especially for Robin, who struggles to really understand what friendship and love are because he is relearning what those emotions mean and what it's like to not be completely alone. They've found a kindred nature within eachother, and few and between are the days that these two don't interact, even if its just one of them approaching the other like "and another thing!"

━ And Robin hates it.

Well, more specifically Robin's human brain is really satisfied and happy by the social interaction its getting, and he is genuinely enjoying the time he has with Ghostface as well. That said he knows he isn't supposed to, and it is wrecking his viewpoint; what was once so clear of a destiny for him now seems blurrier and blurrier the more the Grave Walker opens their mouth. He gets the concept. He does! But ... The sadder angle of the entire thing is how easy it would be for Robin to just grab onto the bond that he's made and find strength within it, he is so close to being pulled back from the end of himself, but he's terrified of the consequences that might not even exist.

There is also the very high possibility that somewhere deep within Robin he does feel an immeasureable weight for the acts he's committed, and that maybe he doesn't think he deserves to be saved or the kindness that comes along with it. And maybe he's right. Robin has done atrocious things in the name of his God, and has shown basically no remorse about them; but that's the thing about love and mercy; it cares little for how worthy someone is of it. Whether or not Robin feels remorse for his actions seems to mean little to GF so long as they get to be free together, it doesn't matter what he did. All that matters is who he is, and who he shouldn't let go of.

Vicious kind of broke my brain when they referenced beloved Tolkien and I haven't been able to get the thought or the comparisons out of my head???? help???

There is something very curious about these two accidentally finding the humanity in each other that they're both desperately trying to erase from themselves ━ yet they're both like "NO NO NO" at the other doing it. How ironic that in order to save someone in the same situation as yourself that you have to take your own advice. Becoming a human being and accepting the weaknesses that comes along with it all to save a singular person is like ... idk man a massive fucking deal when you're talking about these two. It's almost desperate in a way. SO desperate in fact that Robin has found himself being a bit more honest and genuine then a Devil should be, and Danny has peeled off the Ghostface mask; things that they absolutely do not want to ever do. And yet! It's happening, and seemingly getting worse every thread.

I always find it really funny because Vicious and I were like "you ok if they die" "yes" "cool" and then we just let these two take the reins of the threads and tbh its been such a cool experience seeing them just ... exist and thrive! Well, ok maybe thrive isn't the right word, but steer the wriring? I suppose.

And there is the acknowledgement from Robin as well about his predicament, he knows whats happening to him, and what will. However at this rate, he's been so beaten down and sanded away that there's little left in him that can cling to any notion of hope, and instead clings to the glory of duty. It is an honor to serve such a reverent God etc etc. The delusion is very strong and Robin is happy to cling to it just as hard. Fate is unavoidable. They are to be given over to the jaws of fate one way or another, and he'd prefer the easier descent into the Entity's maw ━ and he wants that for Ghostface too. It would be a mercy compared to what could unfold if the Entity should grow to dislike them, and he does not want to face those possibilities.

Ahhh but you see, the cyclical issue of then "is he wanting Ghostface to just obey so his own horrors will be easier or is he worried about what the Entity will do to his dear friend should they continue to agitate it?"

From a narrative standpoint its relatively easy to see what part of that he thinks is true, and which is actually true. Robin will always be a man no matter what the Entity does to him or what he tells himself to be or what his village told him he was. And it is a very frightening experience to have that tossed back in his face and to reminded of how small he actually is within the grand scheme of things. His pain doesn't equal to any sort of cosmic destiny and the suffering he experienced was just the cruel indifference of the universe. It gets ever more unpleasant with the understanding that if Robin does remember what it was to be alive he will be standing face to face with the terrifying reality he's put himself in. Worse still is he's now being forced to confront it all because someone in this cold life cares enough for him to try and save him ... because as much as he will deny it and bite back, he wants to save them too.

[sortasirius]

"Ashes, Ashes" and the Ashes of the 118

Good grief.

(I do talk about suicide in this so please take care of yourselves first <3)

FYI, I'm making an entirely separate post on Eddie. I had too much to say to keep it all in here.

At least they all got their moment with their awards it's fine I'm fine.

I know I sound like a broken record here but I just love Bobby Nash. I just love him. I know he doesn't think he deserves the life he has, that he deserves to be recognized, that he got that medal and immediately thought about his father. I know he believes he's a worse version of him, but he's not. I know we know this, but I just have to say it.

RAVI APPEARANCE!!!!!!!! LOVE YOU RAVI!!!!!!

Hey guys, just fully fucking missed on my first watch that Gerrard calls Tommy a fairy. What the actual fuck. What the fuck.

"Whenever I see some filth I think of you." Chimney Han is the greatest man to ever live, no one else even comes close.

I've got to give the actress who plays the councilwoman her flowers because you could immediately feel how off and sinister her energy was. And the casual "I thought you only had a son." EVIL!!!!

Bobby is so desperate not to have this award that he wanted Athena to be included on it...he truly does not think he deserves the life he has at all. This thing with Amir has brought back those feelings of not deserving to be alive because of how many lives he's ruined...I'm so fucking emo.

Him retiring is the beginning of him self destructing. I'm being dead serious that I immediately understood that he was going to attempt suicide. The retirement, teaching everyone how to do his job when he's gone, giving things away?? I know he told Athena that he wouldn't do that to her but...I think he was going to before she called him out on it.

"I don't have anything more to give." Heartbreaking. Soul crushing, even.

I'll get into the Eddie/Kim...debacle in my other post, but suffice it to say this man was asking to get caught at every turn. Learn to cheat better, my man.

I really don't think Amir had bad intentions in the beginning of the ep. I think he really did want to help Athena, I think he's a good nurse and wants to help people, and would have if he hadn't seen those photos. Those photos that, to him, prove the "happy life" that Bobby has, not knowing how much he's hurting.

"Those aren't the only kids you're raising, Mother Hen," and gesturing to Buck and Eddie......

Yeah okay, they're the youngest, been with the 118 the least amount of time, but then why not Ravi?

Why the character that, just four episodes ago, Hen said "it's about damn time" when he came out to them? Why the character that's so deeply struggling with who he is, what he wants?

I think we know.

I'm just clinging to the 118 family dinner scene because I am terrified that we'll never get another one with everyone.

"You going to see Tommy?"

"Listen...I know we haven't really...talked about him-"

"What's there to talk about? Tommy's good people, he's good for you."

"How do you know that?"

"Because we haven't had to talk about it."

It speaks volumes to me that we don't see Buck talking to his parents about Tommy at all, other than the soot face scene (my beloved). Because they really aren't parents to him. But Bobby? Bobby is.

I've talked about it before, but Buck's journey with his bisexuality is being handled in such a loving, gentle way. This is another thing that all queer people should be able to experience: an accepting and loving conversation about who they are/who they're seeing from a parental figure. And Buck gets to have that. With all the other drama and all the fear and heartbreak going on, none of it surrounds this journey for Buck, and I think that's so, so important.

"Hey Cap? Thanks...for everything."

"It's been my pleasure, kid."

I've been speared through the heart, actually.

The fact that Kim just SHOWS UP to the firehouse? And that BUCK is the one that sees her?????????????? Jail for all involved.

The emotional whiplash to go from the Buck/Eddie scene to the Han/Buckley and Wilson dinner party???? I think I aged 15 years watching this episode.

"Meet me in the kitchen in ten minutes." Pushover dad Chim I know that's right!!!

MARA AND DENNY SIBLINGS SO TRUE!!!!!!!

Sadly this situation with Mara is such a reality. People in power can do whatever the fuck they want, even for a personal vendetta, and no one will say anything against them. Councilwoman you are my fucking enemy.

"You have a beautiful home" AMIR PLEASE DON'T DO THIS BRO I KNOW THIS ISN'T YOU!!!

DAVID AND MICHAEL GOT MARRIED!!!

"Well he's a lucky man. Looks like he's found a great life for himself."

Part of me does think that Amir's potential arson could be a red herring. I do think it's entirely possible that he DID set the house on fire, and maybe it's just me clinging to the idea that he isn't that bad, but it feels...very obvious. Which who knows! Maybe it's meant to.

This scene between Bobby and Athena just reminds me that we really have ANGELA BASSETT and PETER KRAUSE on this show. Insane. Absolutely insane.

"And you're standing on the ledge of a building again Bobby."

You can tell Athena is terrified. She absolutely terrified of losing him.

"I threw it in the trash on our first date."

Hey guys, is it normal to feel like you really know these fictional firefighters and feel like they're a real and huge part of your life? Asking for myself.

Again I want to commend this actress because the general disdain and frightening way the councilwoman acts is incredible but also i HATE HER so jot that down.

"You think very highly of yourself, don't you firefighter Wilson?"

I have to crawl through the screen someone get me IN THERE.

I know the point of the councilwoman bringing all these calls up is to show that she doesn't know and doesn't care about the nuance of the situations, that she's a suit behind a desk that couldn't imagine doing the job that Hen does. She's out for blood and she doesn't care who gets hurt in the process, but boy did it make me mad anyway.

"I think you may want to take that call." EVIL!!!!!!!!

I feel so bad for Mara, and Denny pushing the social worker "don't touch my sister" I burst into tears.

"We are still a family. Even if we aren't under the same roof."

They've fought so hard for Mara, and MARA has fought so hard, only to have one awful person tear her away from a real loving family. GIVE ME A LANDSLIDE OR SOMETHING TAKE THE COUNCILWOMAN OUT SHE NEEDS TO DIE!!!!

And Bobby's horrible dream, of his father, of the medal around his neck being too heavy and painful to carry (I saw someone on twitter say that the weight on his chest was a symptom of his heart attack and I may as well die now).

"I was supposed to save you, kid. Now you've gotta save yourself."

Strangely enough, it was this line, more than anything, that made me feel like we weren't going to lose Bobby next week. It's a mirror to Buck's episode after the lightning, he had to figure out his purpose to wake up, and I feel like the same may be true for Bobby.

Why were there no smoke alarms?????

The burning of the Grant-Nash household felt personal to me, I'm still clinging to the delusion that it was a dream Bobby was having.

Idk y'all that was the most stressful five mins of my life and then BOBBY COLLAPSING FROM A HEART ATTACK??????? I NEED THESE WRITERS TO GO TO JAIL!!!!

That promo? Also some of the most horrifying footage I've ever seen I CAN'T LOSE HIM.

I really do think a major theme of these last two episodes is how we deal with grief. Some of us push it to the side until it all comes bursting out (Eddie), some of us blame ourselves and try to pay penance, whether everything we blame ourselves for is warranted or not (Bobby), some of us throw ourselves into work to try and be better (Amir), sometimes we let the anger get the better of us (Amir again), some of us get so angry that we seek revenge, even if the person we lost was the one really in the wrong (the councilwoman).

In some ways, it feels like the show is saying that grief is inescapable, or maybe that the way we deal with grief is up to us, even if the grief itself isn't avoidable.

I'm hoping and praying that we don't lose Bobby, that he comes out on the other side of this and learns to move forward with his grief.

It's gonna be a really, really long week.

[kikizoshi]

At what point does a character become so evil that they're just irredeemable? Because I can ignore the Meursault arc by setting my story before it, remove Fyodor from some of the more catastrophic decisions made by the DOA and Guild, which at least bring him back down to some sort of relatability but... how can you redeem a man who manipulated a little girl into blowing herself up? Who put guns in the hands of children? It's so... evil. I can write Fyodor as a previously mostly good person, who took a horribly dark spiral into a delusional genocide mission. It's hard, but I can, so long as he doesn't succeed very far. Even killing Karma, while still an evil action, is questionable, debatable, to the reader. Because you can understand why Fyodor did it: he saw ending Karma's life as the only way to save him from a lifetime of torment and sin. And the reader can question how much they agree with that decision. And that's fine; I like that. But the little girl? It's the same principle, in theory: Fyodor could justify it to himself by saying that he wanted to save her from the sin surrounding her, to send her to God before she had the chance to sin. But that's where it breaks down. Because it becomes such a flimsy excuse, trying to mask such a massive evil.

Maybe I'd take out the kids with guns. That's too much, unless I'm missing something. Have the long walk through the tunnels with Atsushi and Kunikida be tense instead, them peering around every corner, ready for a harrowing fight. Kunikida's gun held tight, Atsushi tensed and ready to tiger out. Both peering through the darkness, only to reach a clearing in which stood a tiny little girl, hands clutched in front of her, scared, with some strange kind of necklace. And then in the next horrifying moment they realise: it's not a necklace, but grenades. Then the scene plays out from there. Not only would this be more impactful as a scene (in my opinion), it'd also characterise Fyodor in a different, much more interesting and nuanced way (in my opinion).

Because in that situation, it's only the little girl he's justifying to himself. And it's a bad justification, clearly paper-thin, but he believes it. And that makes the underlying horror and twist of Fyodor's character all the better--now that you've trimmed the fluff, that one point speaks so much more. You've emphasised that Fyodor's the type of person who's willing to manipulate a little girl into blowing herself up, but you've also shown that he put deliberate thought and care into that decision. It was to break Kunikida, but it was also to save her, to end her life before she fell into sin. And you would remember, because of how impactful the scene would be (whereas I'd bet a lot of people don't even remember Fyodor had gun children).

I think that's a problem the entirety of BSD (or maybe just manga in general) has. There's too much fluff action. It waters down the truly impactful scenes and breaks down the interest in characters like Fyodor. Because when he's killing very selectively, not only can you show how he rationalises those deaths for the sake of his plans and have that not be broken by continuity, but you get so much more out of those deaths. And if nothing else changed, and Fyodor was the only antagonist who didn't kill wantonly, imagine how different that would make him feel. His plans by their very nature would be new, interesting, contrasting. An antagonist who uses precise and measured deaths, just a pinpoint here, to achieve a much bigger effect on the characters than even the destruction of Yokohama by the Guild, would be something both new and far more terrifying.

And it would show how well Fyodor understood the ADA, that with just one death he could shake them so much--and how little they knew him in return would be very worrying. Imagine how much better his conversations with Dazai--the discussion of saving people would have so much meaning if Fyodor wasn't a hypocrite who killed people for no reason. If Dazai says that people are worth saving, and Fyodor agrees, even though they've entirely different meanings behind those words, and the meaning is actually there- imagine the subtext, the intrigue, the actual good writing that could come of that. God, I really wish it was so.