#twilight speculation

[sophiamarieispinkbunny-chan]

My Analysis and Theories about Demetrius, Melinda, Donovan and Imperial Scholars

I hope you like reading because this is going to be a long one, I'm sorry. But I'm hoping to hear your ideas about these.

The Desmonds, aside Damian, are definitely weird, but I think there’s a high chance that Demetrius, alongside Melinda, was brainwashed and their minds are manipulated.

Demetrius seems to have empty thoughts aside from his constant belief that he doesn’t understand anyone, not even his brother and his father, despite spending a lot of time with him, as Damian stated. I think these thoughts have been instilled in him through brainwashing and mind manipulation.

That's likely the reason why Donovan spent a lot of time watching Demetrius when he was a child, forcing these ideas upon him since childhood.

This is the same idea he shared with Loid when they first met, that humans will never truly be sympathetic to each other because, at the end of the day, we are strangers, even to those who are our blood and flesh.

Melinda is the same too. Based on what we’ve seen of her so far, she seems to have conflicted feelings about Damian.

However, I think she was genuinely concerned for her son, but her husband is trying to instill those dreadful ideas onto her. (It might not be Donovan who was doing the mind manipulation, but based on the stitches on his head, there’s a possibility that he had been experimented on and had gained a mind ability somehow.)

I think that’s why she’s scared of Donovan knowing that she came for Damian at that school bus incident. Donovan doesn’t want her to care for anyone, not even their own sons (These poor kids).

But I believe she truly wants to be a good mother, and she wants Damian to break the cycle going on in their family. (If she didn’t care, she wouldn’t race through Eden just to check on Damian’s safety at the bus arc.) And I think that’s the reason why she wanted Damian and Anya to be close, for Damian to have someone that would make him break out of the expectations he had set for himself and be finally free to be a child since it’s what her son deserved. (But still, this theory of mine still doesn’t make her not suspicious to me; right now, all I’m giving these newly introduced characters is the benefit of the doubt)

Why does Donovan want to instill these ideas that humans can’t truly understand each other, not even those who are family? Because that’s the reason wars happen—people not trying to understand one another. It occurs when they don’t strive to meet in the middle. Assuming he does indeed plan to wage war against Westalis, then instilling that idea would benefit him.

Of course, it’s hard to instill the same idea in every citizen in Ostania, especially when the current government is trying to establish a diplomatic relationship with Westalis. So, how could he encourage these ideas? Where are ideas usually taught? What establishment is so respected that these ideas would be very much welcomed and widely taught in a subtle manner, making individuals unaware that they are being influenced? Oh, right—educational establishments, schools, and universities. And which is the most prestigious school in Ostania that could assist in achieving this and influence the children of Ostania to acquire nationalistic ideas so that, in the future, they would carry these ideas for the sake of Ostania? Eden Academy.

This is where the hidden agenda of the Imperial Scholars, I think, plays out. Kids like Demetrius, I believe, are being brainwashed to adopt the same thoughts and ideas as Donovan. Children are the most vulnerable to manipulation, absorbing ideas like a sponge. That's my guess about what’s going on with these Imperial Scholars in Eden.

Why do you think they choose the cream of the crop among these students? The geniuses—won’t they be useful in terms of war? The other talented and athletic students could boost Ostania’s economy, and when they become famous celebrities, they could be influencers, shaping public opinion in line with the ideas they hold. The heroic and helpful ones could also be valuable in times of war, willingly risking their lives for Ostania.

When I was a Humanities student in my senior year of high school, I remembered studying a case in my country where athletes and geniuses were brainwashed by rebel groups into supporting their ideals regarding the government. In the end, these students did join those rebel groups, believing they were doing the right thing. They left their families, not even caring about their feelings, because they firmly believed that what they were doing needed to be done. They were first introduced into these societies or clubs, usually inviting geniuses and, take note, scholars. As they associated more with these clubs or organizations, they became more and more exposed and influenced. I can’t help but think that this could also be true in Eden Academy. I think this could be confirmed or debunked once we meet more Imperial Scholars or former Imperial Scholars and have their minds read by Anya. So for now, this is purely my speculation. But I'd like to know your ideas about it.

Operation Strix, I'd say, challenges Desmond’s ideas about people not understanding one another. Remember, Twilight’s goal was not to assassinate him; it was for him to determine if Desmond was engaged in any suspicious activities that might lead to war between East and West and to prevent it from happening. I think, in a way, Operation Strix could really achieve that because at its very core, it disproves Donovan’s ideas about people. These three individuals bound by Operation Strix, who barely knew each other and hadn't even spent a year together, have a lot of secrets and differences in terms of nationality, behavior, upbringing, and ideals. Yet, they managed to live peacefully as a family. They may not understand each other completely, but that doesn’t stop them from trying.

Twilight, despite Anya being a stranger to him, strives to always humor her no matter how weird her statements are. Even though he couldn’t fully understand her, he wanted to and he always tries to, because he’s not just a spy; he’s a parent, her father. That’s what parents and families do—they always try to understand one another. This connects back to the inside cover theory I talked about before, regarding the Forger family understanding one another.

It was fascinating to see how the Desmonds and the Forgers are alike in terms of being not a normal family but very different, especially in how they treat each other. I would love it if Donovan, as a character, symbolizes the idea of war, while Twilight and the family he built for his mission are a symbol of peace, proving it to be possible despite all differences.

What do you think about this?

[copdog1234]

Ok, so I can see the end of the chapter leading us three possible directions. Blame fanfiction for my wild imagination.

1) Anya's reveal to Damian was a one-off joke and he will continue to not believe her, the status quo is maintained and we get some more silly chapters unrelated to the reveal.

2) Anya now decides to just. Really convince him of her powers and we get some shenanigans, but still very silly. Maybe they get closer and maybe (as her backstory is being foreshadowed heavily) she even gets close enough to share with him how she got powers once he believes her. It's their secret now and it becomes a narrative foil for Twiyor with how having someone to confide in is good.

3) Due to all the foreshadowing of her backstory, I heavily suspect we may get Kidnapped!Anya. I'm probably living too much in fanfic land, but what if having revealed herself to someone has put her in danger and we get Twilight learning about her background and Damian being the only person she's told manages to give Twilight the info needed to rescue her? This also reaffirms for Twilight that keeping secrets are top priority and while he now knows Anya's, he's only more determined to close himself off for the sake of the mission, even if this also shows him just how much he cares for his (100% fake) daughter. This one is also my biggest stretch.

Anyway, just some thoughts!

[cresneta]

Random thought - I can't help but wonder just how much Handler knows about what goes on with the Forgers and what she may have picked up on that Twilight may have missed

We know that she heard about Twilight collapsing after Anya got her second bolt

It's also all but confirmed that she knows about Nightfall's feelings for Twilight

I can't help but wonder if she at least has a good guess about what was really going on with Yor during the bullet in butt date, even though she likely wouldn't know the exact nature of that injury or how Yor got it. I doubt she's guessed Anya's powers just yet, but depending on how much detail she has about how Anya reacted to certain things she may be able to guess that Anya has seen more shit than the typical modern orphan has and may end up being the least surprised when and if it gets revealed that Anya is a former lab rat

I'll admit that I'll be very surprised if she doesn't already realize just how attached Twilight is to the Anya and Yor, and likely realized that well before he did

[prickly-paprikash]

There are two ways I see that SpyxFamily can go with the Authens.

Ever since we've been introduced to the world of SxF, last names have always been an indicator of who exactly it is we're dealing with.

The Forgers are literally a Forged Family. No-brainer.

Yor and Yuri Briar: both beautiful people but with sharp thorns to protect themselves and one another. Their coloring and their characters are related to Roses and Yor is literally Thorn Princess.

Fiona Frost: Ice Cold. Frosty Exterior. Snow Queen. Warm and melty and obsessed on the inside.

Franky Franklin: Frank, honest and blunt. He's always up-front with Twilight since the beginning. Franklin also comes from the word francos meaning 'free'. He's a free agent, allied with Twilight but not with WISE, since he is an Ostanian. He's also the first true free-thinker, holding no allegiance to any state but cares genuinely for the people around him.

The Desmonds: meaning South Munster, one of the provinces of Munster. While it doesn't necessarily have a defined meaning, it is said that the lucky number of this name is 11, and Damian is ranked 11th amongst 228 students for the exams. Neat.

So Authens, right? Sigmund and Barbara Authen. If Loid, Yor, Anya and Bond are a forged family, then Siggy and Barbs are an authentic one from the getgo. Ever since the introduction of these two, everyone has both been over-the-moon and skeptical. It's nice to add new members to the family in this show. It's nice to see a foil (and an insight into the future for them) to Yor and Loid, where the elderly couple are genuine in their love, while Twilight and Thorn Princess still struggle with what exactly their fake relationship entails. Sigmund and Barbara trust one another completely, while the Spy and the Assassin still have ways to go on that front.

Now, Anya is being tutored by Sigmund, a former University Professor, Lecturer and Neurologist. Similar to Loid in a way, who moonlights as a Psychiatrist. The Authens aren't just being shown as a "what could be" for Loid and Yor as a couple, but as parents and mentors as well as seen in this chapter.

Both Loid and Sigmund get into Spy Wars for the sake of educating their students. The difference however lies in the way they go about it.

Loid reads and watches the entirety of Spy Wars to show that he is a good father with a pulse on what his daughter likes, as well as an avenue for him to teach Anya since she responds well to the show. But Loid only memorizes the show and tries to brute force (relatively speaking) Anya's education with it.

Like... making a fake episode of the show just to try and make Anya interested in her studies.

Sigmund on the other hand really sparks a love and understanding for the material itself.

Loid tries to force Anya to see the value in education through cold logic and goal-oriented thinking. Anya should study to Prevent War from erupting between Ostania and Westalis. Sigmund guides Anya into seeing the worth of education by itself. The joys in learning for learning's sake. Loid tries a surface level approach, where Bondman's adventures are hamfisted edu-tainment. He thinks that since Anya likes Bondman, she'll be tricked into learning by using Spy Wars as a coat of paint to mask a really boring lecture.

Sigmud correctly identifies what Anya loves about the story itself, and then uses those elements to relate to classical language.

Loid and Yor are committed to their duties, but it doesn't necessarily bring them joy. To keep children safe and happy, Twilight will lie and Thorn Princess will kill, but their personal satisfaction isn't something they bother about. Sigmund, on the other hand loved his job. He loves teaching. He loves the altruistic element to it—cultivating minds, helping them along to their full potential, but he also has a personal joy in teaching.

Another thing is that Loid loves his family, but doesn't know he does and can't spit it out. He can come off stoic and cold. Sigmund readily shows his appreciation for his wife and for his new student Anya.

What troubles me now is what happens next.

Authen does mean authentic. I have no doubt that Sigmund authentically loves his wife. His love for his research is also authentic. His passion for teaching is authentic. His admiration for Anya is authentic.

But what's the context of this authenticity?

See, the first route is that Sigmund really is just a good guy. A simple, kind, brilliant man who probably had a hand in building Project Apple from the ground up with the goal of improving people's minds, starting with dogs. Maybe it was co-opted by corrupt officials, twisting it into a monstrous organization willing to harm children and animals to realize their goals for a powerful human weapon. A weapon that became Anya Forger. Sigmund and Barbara leave, aid in the war effort for civilians and victims, and make a life for themselves in Berlint. I do believe this might be the likelier option.

But what if the contrast between the Forgers and the Authens is taken to the extreme?

The second route takes advantage of the inherent and subtle darkness in SpyxFam. This manga is just a bundle of gooey joy, but that happiness successfully hides the brutal truth of the world. Every character in this show is touched by war.

Anya and Bond are intended as living weapons. We tend to forget about this since Anya is a goblin child and Bond is floofy goofball.

Twilight and Yor are orphans of war, turned into the most powerful soldiers on each side. We forget this since both are idiots when it comes to anything each other and their family.

Handler is a level-headed badass who radiates older sister vibes for everyone who works under her, and she genuinely cares for her agents. She's also a depressed wreck who barely functions outside of work and constantly relives the loss of her husband and daughter.

The Blackbells? Posh rich folk, right? But their money comes from warmongering. Martha, the kindly mother-figure/butler/security for Becky? A veteran of war. The seamstress who is fond of Yor? Most likely an anti-authoritarian activist, since Loid clocked her immediately as being arrested for political activity. Maybe a former Red Circus member. Bazooka Bill? Funny kid who hit puberty way too early and has a hilarious deep voice. He's also being groomed to be a venerated soldier at the age of six by his father, who has most likely committed war crimes.

SpyxFamily is genuine in its joyful moments. But it barely hides the darkness that constantly lingers. War is a shadow that haunts these bright pages, and it always recontextualizes the zany adventures our family goes on.

What if the Authens are like that?

Everything about them is authentic. But they're also twisted. An authentic love for neuro science can lead to an obsessive march towards human weaponry. An authentic desire for world peace can mean that the end justifies the means, even if that means a telepath that could, theoretically dominate an entire nation. An authentic love for his wife could lead him to hiding everything from her.

What if Sigmund Authen is authentic in every aspect of himself, and is still a man with a dark agenda? That would perfectly contrast Loid, a man who has faked every single element of himself down to his own name and identity, but has never once strayed from his goal of ensuring a bright future for the strangers around him?

What I'm saying is that it'd be really cool if Twilight, a living lie made human who will commit to any deception for the sake of children's safety and happiness would be heavily contrasted by Sigmund Authen, a man who lives so authentically to his creed that he is willing to put children in harm's way for the sake of World Peace?

With the upcoming chapters clearly focusing on Anya and her past, wouldn't it be cool to celebrate Spy x Family hitting 100 chapters by revealing more and more of its dark, haunting, war-torn world after more than a hundred chapters of Spy Family antics?

Uh... Anyway, here's Comedy by Gen Hoshino.

[somehow-a-human]

Moonlight Serenade & Good Omens &... the TV show Lost...?

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY.

The music of Good Omens is something I have been ACTIVELY avoiding turning my focus on. The risks of hyperfixating and spiraling into it are HIGH. There are so many elements to get lost in, repeating motifs like Dies Irae, tolling bells, character themes... but I digress.

Could I hold out forever? no. and something finally pushed me over the edge. Wait for it..... Lost. Yep. The TV show Lost. WAIT WAIT, don't leave! STAY WITH ME! I promise I don't *think* I'm crazy and I have a point here!

Why Lost? And what does it have to do with Moonlight Serenade and WHAT DOES IT HAVE TO DO WITH GOOD OMENS?! Well my lovelies continue under the cut with me and keep an open mind...

Okay so... Lost. Yes, the insane 2004 mystery plane crash island adventure drama. It's a wild ride, and a masterpiece and a little bit crazy, but overall pretty damn good. I've been on a rewatch spree and wouldn't you know it... parallels between lost and Good Omens popped up in my brain! I mean they are both intricate mysteries so it makes a tad bit of sense but there was one little detail that *might* be a *clue*, or just an easter egg if anything. I promise you don't need to know anything about Lost to follow this :)

First off, what are some of the recurring themes that Lost the TV show and Good Omens have in common you might ask?

Life & Death

Alternate timelines & Time Travel

Literary Allusions (Catch-22, The Bible, A Tale of Two Cities)

Prophecies & Premonitions

Symbolism of Black & White/ Light & Dark

Yeah okay that tracks, but look there are 121 episodes of Lost and 12 episodes (so far) of Good Omens so there's bound to be some overlap for these two.

You'll be thinking about now, "BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MOONLIGHT SERENADE?!" I'm getting there, shhh, lemme pet your hair gently and keep giving you background information to build it up shhhh...

If you've never seen Lost there is a very good chance you're mighty confused at this moment, so let me reassure you, you don't need to know anything about it to understand the connections I'm going to make. A brief synopsis is: Oceanic flight 815 crashes on an island. The plane crash survivors quickly discover the island is more than it seems to be and holds many secrets and mysteries. A lot of people die, most of them are murdered, it's giving Lord of the Flies if it was in the horror genre. That's honestly all you need to know.

Time Travel & Alternate Timelines

Time travel is cannon in Lost. It's super confusing and I'm not even going to try to explain any of it here. It's honestly just not worth it. If you'd like to try and read about it, the abridged version is here, but I don't think the details are important. Just know it's real and confirmed and exists.

Okay so, *SPOILERS FOR LOST WILL FOLLOW* In Lost season 2, episode 13 "The Long Con" two of the plane crash survivors are trying to find a signal on a radio they've found. While scrubbing they come across a signal playing Moonlight Serenade by Glenn Miller. One character mentions it must be from somewhere nearby, but the other counters that this type of radio can pick up signals from anywhere in the world. There is a beat and then another character jokingly adds "Or any time. Just kidding, dude."

It's later confirmed that the Lost characters in 2004 are indeed picking up a radio signal from 1940 that is playing Moonlight Serenade, a product of time travel.

Congratulations, you've made it to the point where I'm going to bring Good Omens into the mix. In season 2, episode 4 "The Hitchhiker" we open seeing Aziraphale driving back from Edinburgh late at night/early morning. Uncomfortable with the darkness and silence he asks the Bentley to "play something that's got a bit of swing? I'm in the mood for something modern."

The Bentley obliges the angel, as she always will, and we are shown a shot of the radio specifically lighting up, so we know she's tapped into the radio to play this for Azi, but there is no channel selected.

Compared to Season 2, Episode 3 "I Know Where I'm Going" when we see the radio is playing and does display the channel.

But hold on. Okay maybe it just isn't showing the channel, that's fine, but Aziraphale asked for "modern"? Moonlight Serenade is most certainly not modern. It was recorded in 1939! I'd say in 2023 it's anything but modern, maybe not in Aziraphale's long lived opinion, but certainly in the Bentley's opinion, given she's only a 97 year old car.

I think you can see now what I'm saying here. I think the Bentley picked up a radio signal from 1940, maybe 1941? Episode 4 is of course our 1941 blitz magic show bullet catch flashback extravaganza, so... it makes sense. I know we like to headcanon Crowley and Aziraphale listened to A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square in the bookshop in 1941 after the bullet catch, but what if they listened to Moonlight Serenade on the radio instead?

What does it mean?

A reference to this small moment from Lost could be a nod to the first hint of the canonization of time travel in that series. We know Crowley can control time to some extent and we can see some evidence of time discontinuities and possibly time weirdness in season 2 so is it a hint that timeline funkiness IS happening? Do I want to get into the fact that the main character in The Hitchhiker, the Twilight Zone episode this episode is named after, is actually dead? No I don't, not now anyway.

Or it's just an absolutely lovely little Lost easter egg.

SO! There it is... weird little connection that I couldn't get out of my brain. It just seemed a bit too... ineffable.

As always this is all for fun and all for fans! Don't ask Neil about these things, they're for us to have fun with. And something else that I don't think some people on here understand about meta-analysis; the goal of it is not necessarily to be correct. It can be, if that's your thing. Refuting peoples posts, theories, analysis, and headcanons because you personally don't agree with them and telling them they're wrong and stupid doesn't achieve anything. Meta-analysis is an exercise in critical thinking and creative writing. You could write meta about how Spongebob is a critique of the loss of christian values in modern society and you wouldn't be right or wrong, you'd just certainly be a person who wrote that for sure though. Just, be kind to each other, share ideas, you're allowed to disagree with someone's ideas or have different ones of your own but don't be cruel in saying so, don't call someone stupid, that's just silly.

Love you all, do something kind for yourself today <3

ps. The moment I see Michael Sheen with blonde hair come January I'm gonna bark like a dog, that's all. Thanks.

[artofjim]

Yeti Crab Warrior for Mermay last year

[fibula-rasa]

Cosplay the Classics: Elizabeth Montgomery in “Two”

“Two” first aired on 15 September 1961 and is the first episode of the third season of The Twilight Zone. Sadly, “Two” is the only episode that features Elizabeth Montgomery.

Montgomery was nearly ten years into her professional career in 1961. She had already carved out a solid resume in television, appearing prolifically on anthology and episodic shows and occasionally stretched her legs on the New York stage. Samantha Stephens was still three years away when Montgomery took her voyage through The Twilight Zone.

In its five seasons, The Twilight Zone was a crossroads of up-and-coming and well-established performers. “Two” paired the rising star Montgomery with Charles Bronson, who had a decade more acting experience in TV and film than Montgomery. Though Bronson was the more established star, “Two” is Montgomery’s showcase.

Read on below the jump!

“Two” relies on minimal dialogue throughout and notably Montgomery only has a single line spoken. The role relies almost entirely on Montgomery’s action/reaction, expression, and styling. The episode begins on Montgomery as The Woman wandering an abandoned city. The first nine minutes of the episode pass with no dialogue, with context given by visual elements and Serling’s opening narration. The entire episode takes place on a small section of city street (at the old Hal Roach studios, conveniently already in disrepair). 

We learn through newspapers and magazines that this city is in The Man’s homeland, invaded by The Woman’s nation’s army. Signs of the city’s long five-year abandonment are everywhere, including full skeletons left where they fell. (The macabre element of skeletons is used sparingly across the Twilight Zone and usually in circumstances less grounded in reality than “Two,” such as “Long Live Walter Jameson” and “Queen of the Nile.”) As The Man mulls over his first encounter with The Woman a dove flies up behind him as a symbol of his genuine desire for peace. Through a variety of posters and advertisements, we learn that The Man’s homeland had a culture heavily invested in war.

Collage of the war-related paraphernalia in “Two”

All of that is solid storytelling, but Montgomery’s acting adds an extra something. When The Woman first encounters The Man, Montgomery performs hair-trigger reactivity. Despite The Woman’s dire situation—a stranded foreigner in a decimated country with seemingly no chance to ever return home—her reluctance to trust The Man is significant. Pairing Montgomery’s wordless portrayal of these responses with the jingoistic quality of The Man’s homeland and the notable length of time that the city has been abandoned makes me feel that her feelings might not be a simple holdover of wartime hostility on her part but potentially extended trauma. Perhaps The Woman had previous awful experiences with other straggling remnants of The Man’s military, who may not have been as ready as The Man to give up wartime attitudes in spite of the war clearly being over.

The Woman is understandably acting like a cornered animal. As the episode progresses, The Man tries to be as calculated as possible in communicating to The Woman that he doesn’t want a fight through his actions, turning his back to her, and not retaliating the third time she launches an attack on him. Montgomery, in turn, does a great job of drawing out the cornered animal characterization—alternating between curiosity, hope, mistrust, and open hostility. Montgomery’s characterization gives the role the added dimension that saves the episode from feeling too much like an overly simple fable.

Unfortunately, it’s in executing the fabular aspect of the story where “Two” falters. The opening narration by Serling specifies: 

“It’s been five years since a human being walked these streets. This is the first day of the sixth year as man used to measure time.  “The time: perhaps a hundred years from now, or sooner, or perhaps it’s already happened two-million years ago. The place: The signposts are in English so that we may read them more easily, but the place is The Twilight Zone.”

It’s established here that the location is meant to be a stand-in for any city in any country, and that the use of English is merely a storytelling convenience. So, even though “Two” is intended as a Cold-War era anti-war statement, they are intentionally distancing the fiction from the contemporary real-world conflict. To create further distance from a contemporary place/time, they establish that the rifles are laser guns.

But, then, that one line that Montgomery speaks in “Two,” seventeen minutes in, is “Prekrasny” or “прекрасны,” a Russian word for beautiful or pretty. This pretty much grinds to a halt the concept that this is a cautionary fable and not a vision of a dark future where the Soviet Union and the United States moved to open warfare. While I’ll admit that the conventions used to establish “Two” as a fable are cheeky and a little on the corny side, the episode itself would have been stronger without the suggestion that The Woman is Russian.

I’m not sure who made the call to use a Russian word. I wonder if perhaps Serling wrote his introduction and he had a different read on the story than its writer, Montgomery Pittman. Maybe Pittman intended “Two” to be more of a dark premonition with a twist of optimism and Serling thought of it more as a fable and the two approaches hampered each other in the final product? This is pure speculation on my part of course, but it’s a black mark on what I think could have been an even better episode than it is.

Regardless, I think “Two” is a strong episode and a fine example of a Serling-esque story written by someone brought on to lighten the load of Serling, who worked himself to the bone on Twilight Zone. I also appreciate Pittman’s confidence to rely so heavily on visual storytelling techniques, taking into account that the high quality at which we watch the show now does not reflect the quality home viewers would have had in 1961. It reflects both Serling and the producers belief that viewers would be fully engaged in watching the show as it aired rather than just passively having it on in the family room while unwinding after dinner. 

Elizabeth Montgomery’s performance heightens the whole affair considerably. That’s no shade on Charles Bronson, in fact I think the monologuing he’s given could have come off as unbearably hokey if delivered by a lesser actor.

If you can believe it, this is my very first time cosplaying The Twilight Zone! (Though I did play Rod Serling in a set of sketches in high school. I was as weird as a teenager as I am an adult, okay?) If you didn’t already know, I run another blog called Twilight Zone in Close-ups, examining the powerful use of close-up shots on the show by testing out how much of each episode’s story can be communicated solely by its close-up shots.

☕ Buy me a coffee! ☕

[mylittleponyauprompts]

With how intense Twilight's magical surge was when getting her cutie mark realistically, she would have scars from flying debris. With how strong the magic was, she could have completely burned off the fur on her horn completely and made her horn unable to grow fur back.

If you want to go to extremes she could have lost the horn completely if Celestia wasn't fast enough.

She was probably extremely exhausted from magical overuse and i wouldn't be surprised if they had her stay in the hospital for a few hours at least maybe even a dsy or two. A magic surge that strong for a kid that young is probably pretty serious and seriously taken. She probably had to wear a magic dampener of some kind during the first few months or even year of being taught magic by Celestia just out of precaution. And more for Twilight's physical health than anything. Magic that strong in such a small body is probably uncomfortable at least

[gayymomgod]

could you even become half of what she was

[loosescrewslefty]

A small thing that's been bothering me a lot lately is the Spy x Family fandom assuming that Anya's an escaped test subject of Project Apple. It's true that the Scientists that experimented on Bond are the same ones that ran the lab Anya stayed in before meeting Twilight, but we were told that Project Apple was shut down shortly after the War ended, and one of the more recent chapters even says that some of the Scientists who worked on Project Apple together went off to conduct separate research after that Project ended.

I genuinely don't think that the Experiment Anya's powers came from is Project Apple itself, but rather it's likely the result of a spin-off project. After all, Anya is SUPER paranoid about anyone learning about her powers:

But has no reaction to Twilight and Handler discussing and thinking about Project Apple literally right in front of her.

I don't believe for a second that Anya can understand the concept of the Lunar Cycle and remembers the specific name that the scientists use to refer to its affect on her powers, but somehow doesn't know the name of the experiment she is a test subject of, or that she wouldn’t have a VERY visible reaction to those close to her becoming aware of that Experiment even on a surface level, whether or not they realize yet that she is the product of that Experiment.

(WILD that this girl can't read a damn analog clock, but knows that there are two weeks between a full moon and a new moon...)

And there is also the Test Subject numbering to consider as well. Bond was Subject 008, and Anya was Subject 007. Bond was described as being a bit older for a dog (he was described as being 'long in the tooth' at his introduction, implying that he is a senior dog. Likely around 7 or 8 for a dog his size) and Anya is younger than she claims to be (4 or 5) so it doesn't make sense to think that they are test subjects for the same experiment and Bond is the subject that directly followed Anya. Perhaps the scientists reset the numbering when they moved from animal test subjects to humans, but if the animal test subjects showed no real signs of a reaction to the experiment, that jump seems unlikely and would probably be viewed as a waste of time, money, and resources, which was the entire reason the plug got pulled on Project Apple in the first place.

It's likely some of the things learned during Project Apple were refined and applied to the Experiment that gave Anya her powers, but looking at the facts I really don’t think it's still referred to as Project Apple by the time Anya gained her abilities.

[choco-mooooose]

SXF MANGA SPOILERS + speculation!

I wonder if this chapter and the one before it are setting things up for the future. The series has gone on long enough that there should be some kind of big shift happening, but nothing too big, since this series still has a lot of life left in it. (No twilight/thorn princess mutual reveals yet!). I now believe that Yuri and Damian are gonna be the ones to know the Forger family secrets first.

At this point, I think Damian is suspicious of Anya, and Yuri is obviously trying to find a way to arrest Loid, so he might figure out Loid’s secret along the way. That might set the stage for some twiyor, where Yor and Loid finally prove they are really “married” to Yuri. (After all, Yuri’s only seen failed attempts at kissing and spoon feeding, nothing of their real domestic life together). I don’t think it’d be Twiyor in the sense that they’d kiss or show physical affection, b/c I don’t think they’re there yet, but if Yor puts into words what she feels about Loid to Yuri, then Yuri would call off the arrest, like how Loid refused to finish Yuri off in the sewers. Or, Yuri bugs the apartment and overhears how happy Yor is with Loid, and calls off the arrest. Either way, parallels!!

On Damian and Anya’s side, I think Damian is smart enough to know something’s up with Anya. In the last chapter, when he thought about the implications of why Anya wanted to talk to him, Anya very obviously reacts to what he realized in his mind. He could justify it as Anya realizing the exact same thing that he did at the exact same time, but it seems to be a common thing that Endo does where one character comes to a huge realization, the narrative then jumps away to another character in the next chapter, and then jumps back to that character in the next as they’re milling over that huge realization. That may be happening with Damian, and in a future chapter, he’ll start thinking about all the times Anya has seemingly read his mind.

From there, I have no idea if Damian will ask Anya if she reads minds, or if Anya willingly tells him, or none of that happens. This just may be me wanting this to happen, but maybe Damian will enlist Anya’s help in figuring out his mom? And Anya tells him about how weird and contradictory her mind is? I think it’d be cool to see them figure out the mystery that is Melinda. She is so weird! I secretly hope she’ll be the “real” final boss, not Donovan Desmond. Like, wouldn’t it be cool if she’s the real mastermind behind the Desmond name?

Anyways, all this is speculation and none of this could happen, I’m sure. I do feel like there’s gonna be some big change coming, or another backstory (Yor’s hopefully!)

[sakura-code]

Nocturnal Detective Agency Age Headcanon

Yakou Furio: Oldest and the father figure and Chief of the Nocturnal Detective Agency. Middle-aged, but that is a pretty ambiguous age-range actually. The prequel novel focused on Yakou did say it took place more than a decade before the game, so his age could be his 30s.

Vivia Twilight: The second oldest and technically the oldest of the five younger detectives. I just think it would be funny that the most unmotivated and laziest is the oldest of the five younger detectives. He is in mid 20s.

Halara Nightmare: The third oldest and actual responsible one (as a detective). They are in their early-mid 20s.

Fubuki Clockford: The fourth oldest of the detectives and one of the younger detective group alongside Yuma and Desuhiko. She is a year older than Desuhiko, and two years older than Yuma. The ambiguity of her age would be 19 to her early 20s.

Desuhiko Thunderbolt: One of the younger members of the detectives. He seems close to Yuma’s age, yet also just a little bit older, so I imagine him to be like a year older than Yuma. So his estimated hc age would be 18-19.

Yuma Kokohead: The youngest of the Agency, and also the leader of the World Detective Organization as Number One. I actually like to believe that Yuma actually recently became Number One a few years prior to Rain Code, and has been training for the role since he was young. It wouldn’t be farfetched from Kodaka since in Danganronpa, some of the Ultimate Students were working already despite still being in high school, and Kyoko join a top neutral detective organization at the age of 13 years old. In-game, he would probably be 17-18 (like if he were in his last year of high school age).

[telomeke]

LAST TWILIGHT AND READING THE SUNSET – VISUALS, OPTICS AND ENDINGS IN BONDAGE TO THE BAHT

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Last Twilight aired its final episode on Friday 26 January 2024, and the response on BL Tumblr to how things wrapped up (at least among the majority of BL watchers whom I follow) has been a lot of head-shaking disappointment, if not exactly full-on hatred. Without the bittersweet touches we've come to expect from Director Aof as counterballast for his trademark uplifting sentimentality, the ending came across as unforgivably sappy and sugary-sweet for many of us.

And I found myself agreeing with a lot of the criticism being flung at Last Twilight – for the ardent Noppharnachionados accustomed to more nuanced, thought-provoking output from Director Aof (Moonlight Chicken comes immediately to mind) the final episode of Last Twilight (and especially the fourth instalment, Part [4/4]) felt very boxer-gloved, rushing to hit its marks but then only clobbering bluntly at the surface, never venturing deeper and lacking subtlety at every turn.

But I've been giving it a once-over, because it's a little surprising to me that Khun Noppharnach (who's such an expert at his craft) could land quite the dud that some, including me, were so uncharitably calling Last Twilight.

And I now think – as Khun Noppharnach has done so many times before – he may very well be trolling us again. Because on my rewatch, I'm finding that the narrative holds certain clues that Director Aof was possibly quite conscious of what he was doing with Ep.12 of Last Twilight. On closer inspection it's a whole lot cleverer than it seems (maybe a bit too clever for its own good) – but it does require much sign-reading though (and caveat: I'm not a trained or professional tea leaf reader!). 🤷‍♂️

Anyway, after a speed-run rewatch of the 12 episodes (just skimming the surface really, so forgive me if I overlook anything) I've decided I need to reconsider a lot of my preliminary judgement about Last Twilight's final episode (and the series in general). I now think it actually does satisfy on a number of levels (even while it continues to disappoint on so many others). But because of work and other commitments though, this post is very late (still, better late than never I guess!)

I'm not wanting to spend too much time on the text and subtext, because it's the metatextual level of Last Twilight (what this BL says about BL) that intrigues me the most. But this is going to be a super-long post anyway.

In many ways Last Twilight was a departure from Director Aof's usual work, and the most obvious was its return to the structure and content typical of a traditional romance drama. Khun Noppharnach had actually moved away from this in his output over the past few years (once again, Moonlight Chicken is the paragon of examples; Bad Buddy nodded at this, if only to subvert it and signal to us that Khun Noppharnach was attempting an overhaul of LGBTQ+ depictions in the BL industry).

Some background to start things off – BL, including Thai BL, owes a lot to het romance dramas that set the archetypal framework early on, and early BLs often followed that inherited formula very closely (I think SOTUS and Together with Me fit this bill).

Painting with the broadest of brushstrokes, a stereotypical (het) romance drama can usually be expected to structure its narrative according to the following:

The meeting of the protagonists, usually a fraught mix of attraction and friction;

They go on a journey of falling in love with each other (and we get to watch along);

A major conflict arises to test their love and commitment;

They triumph over the conflict and end up happily ever after (most of the time) or are overcome by it (and the love story ends tragically, some of the time).

As a lot of romance stories are targeted at women, typically the female protagonist in a het romance drama is the center of attention, and the story is told from her point of view as well.

And because of their het predecessors, early BLs also tended to depict their couples with a masculine/feminine framing (which could also be spun out into a dominant/submissive and/or active/passive dynamic – the dreaded seme/uke binary).

Director Aof took a wrecking ball to all that with Bad Buddy (upending the structure, subverting the conflict, dispensing with seme/uke), and his works have since veered toward more-rounded LGBTQ+ drama, centered around romance, but forgoing the stereotypical structure and beats of more traditional romance dramas.

But if you think about it, Last Twilight actually hews quite closely back to the original template.

For example, Mhok is a big, scruffy ex-convict and mechanic, stereotypically masculine – the proverbial seme – while Day is slighter, younger and a Mama's boy (despite what Night says at Ep.10 [2/4] 16.24) leaning into uke territory.

The structure was pretty traditional as well:

The early entanglements of Mhok and Day were a mix of antagonism and attraction;

They went on a journey of falling in love with each other despite their differences, that we were allowed to witness – we had "masculine" Mhok losing his heart to "feminine" Day first, with the seme then pursuing his grumpy uke (a tsundere?) and subjecting us to plenty of swoonworthy Aaaaw moments as Mhok piled on much tenderness, care and affection;

The major conflict that tested their love and commitment was actually Day's questioning of Mhok's motivations, leading to their rupture in the clichéd Episode 11 of Doom;

They triumphed over the conflict after Mhok returned and demonstrated that he'd grown and learnt his lessons in meeting Day's less visible needs – not very convincingly though (and I think this is one part where a lot of us feel extremely let down by the narrative) – but it was enough to sweep Day off his feet once again, and they got their happily ever after.

There was some padding in the middle (including the obligatory out-of-town tourism jaunt – I'm convinced BLs that do this receive grants from the Tourism Authority, and in Last Twilight we were treated to a sojourn in Songkhla). The show really had to work stretching things out over 11 episodes (which was why, for me, the pacing started to drag in the second half). But overall I think the structure of Last Twilight marks a faithful return to BLs (and het romances) of older times.

With regard to characterization, Day rendered progressively hapless and helpless as his vision declined made him easy to read as a damsel-in-distress, the object of savior-knight Mhok's affections and ministrations. It's thus also unsurprising when we were shown more of Day's point of view than Mhok's (just as we usually get to see more of a heroine's interior journey in traditional het romance dramas than her romantic foil's). Last Twilight was nodding at the past once more, asking us again to view it through the lens of an old-school (BL) romance drama.

A lot of romance dramas also tend to be intellectually lightweight – some are pure sentimental, throwaway indulgence – and if we place Last Twilight somewhere on the less demanding end of the spectrum, it's a more than serviceable example of the genre and has in fact more heft than most. (I was expecting it to land more in queer drama territory as has most of Khun Noppharnach's work, and the fact that it only half did contributed a lot to my sense of disappointment at the end.)

But as a lighter piece of trad BL fluff, Last Twilight did punch above its weight class very often. And all of the discourse around vision and Day's increasing blindness was the early tip-off to one of its weightier, central themes – that of seeing and being seen in the light of one's truth.

As his vision faded, Day found himself subject to his greatest fear – of being seen as less than his truth, especially when by all accounts he had been a storied and admired athlete prior to his visual debilitation. Day was still the same person despite his loss of vision, and he was painfully reminded of this fact every time those around him forgot it. Last Twilight deftly showed us that his early snark and cynicism were a brittle defense against being seen as nothing more than an object of pity, the ghost of his former self (which is what Mee/Me in the novel Last Twilight was also about).

There are many examples of this, e.g., when he avoided his friends after blindness set in, and his meltdown at the party they threw him after a rapprochement (Ep.6 [3‌/4] 20.12, when it became clear they viewed him as a weakling in need of rescue at the first sign of trouble, inferior to his previous incarnation as an athletic champion). The story arc with August's feigned romantic interest was also another of Day's nightmares coming true, being exactly the sort of innocently insulting and unconsciously condescending treatment he was trying to avoid.

And of course this was the reason behind his break-up with Mhok in Episode 11, when he sensed that Mhok's care and concern were in part tied to a notion of Day as being less than whatever the nebulous concept of "normal" was in his head. (For context, Mhon and Day have an exchange about the meaning of a "normal" life for Day at Ep.10 [2/4] 7.35), Mhok talks about Day wanting to be "normal" at Ep.11 [1‌/4] 10.22, and Mhon reminds Day of his wish to be "normal" at Ep.12 [3‌/4] 16.29). Despite – or maybe because of – how objectionable the word may be, I think Last Twilight is inviting us to question our ideas about it too.)

So a large part of Day's story arc involved him overcoming his own hang-ups and dealing with how he was seen by the world around him, to stand in the light of his own truth (as a proud member of the differently abled community).

Mhok's character also had a parallel journey. Excluding those who knew him well, society refused to see beyond his rough-hewn persona (and his prison background too, it must be said). His options in life were thus limited by how he was always seen as an outsider, and subjected to othering because his presence was invariably associated with negativity, risk and harm.

But as Mhok demonstrated time and again, his truth (that for the longest time only Porjai and maybe Rung could seem to see) was far less violent and menacing than what was read by the people around him. And his character's journey toward self-actualization in Last Twilight was to arrive at a life truer to his inner self, noting that what we see at the beginning of the series is Mhok trying valiantly to live up to his ruffian image, prone to fights and aggression. With this, it's possible to read that Mhok himself was unable to comprehend fully his own inner impulses, and it was only his time as caregiver and later faen in Day's life that opened his eyes to living out his more nurturing, other-focused energy within (and that must have served him well too, in his later career as a chef crafting dishes for others to enjoy).

In contrast to Day, whose struggle was also about being seen for his truth while cast (by others) in a negative light, Mhok chose to align himself with whatever role the world put him in (whether it was a rabble-rouser mechanic, a straight boyfriend to Porjai, or a guardian to the infantilized Day) whereas Day chose to reject any outsider-determined identity outright. And Mhok failed at his roles mostly because they were inauthentic to his truth, except for his time as Day's caregiver. For the first time there Mhok's failure was different, not because the caregiving recognized his own truth (coming from kindness and softness within) but because it did not recognize Day's truth (as his approach to taking care of Day still perpetuated the invalidation of Day's wholeness as a person).

Mhok and Day's names are also a quiet hat tip to this – with Mhok's name (หมอก, that means fog or mist) also a metaphor for how visibility of the truth behind his amorphous self was obscured for the longest time, while Day's name (actually the English word day, with all its connotations of light and clarity) is a metaphor for how he was clear about his own truth and identity from the start, but needed to be seen correctly, undistorted by any filter of shame or pity.

However, GMMTV's commercial insistence on pair branding worked somewhat against the characterizations – my read is that Day was probably written as much more fragile in appearance (belying the tough athlete that he really was beyond surface impressions, and explaining the tendency of his friends, family and caregivers to want to infantilize him post-blindness). As an aside, badminton is one of those sports that forgives a certain delicacy of frame, as it rewards lightness and agility more than brute strength on the court. Meanwhile Mhok was (I think) written as this big beast of a man whose appearance would scare off all but the most foolhardy, meaning that his innate kindness and sensitivity would remain unseen by most.

Unfortunately Sea is built pretty sturdily as an actual badminton athlete (and he's tall as well) while dermatologist Jimmy is just too porcelain-skinned and delicate-featured pull off any convincing evocation of physical brutishness. Pity, because the pair do have chemistry and their acting was mostly credible in Last Twilight (especially from Sea, who brings an easy and natural charm to his portrayals).

Anyway, I can suss out two visual metaphors in the series that illustrate the ideas described above. But as the analysis of these metaphors is also long, I've moved it all away into its own post linked here: The Fishtank and the Flowers. I found both metaphors to be fascinating (the goldfish aquarium, as well as the pairing of the jasmine with the sunflower), but it was the blooms especially that took me by surprise (when it became clearer which was assigned to Mhok and which to Day). 🤩

So while we're on the characters though, here's an aside about the criticism of how Mhok was treated by the narrative and the outrage surrounding his apology at Ep.12 [2/4] 10.55. Yes, he had been a selfless caregiver and a caring lover, but there were also numerous examples of him treating Day as less than an adult with his own agency, doing to Day what August, Mhon and the replacement caregiver (Assistant Director Meng Chaiyapat's extended cameo, at Ep.10 [2/4] 0.27) had done, by controlling the playbook and removing Day's choice and say in matters directly related to his own life. Some examples of where Mhok fell short:

Pretending not to find the copy of Last Twilight in the Chatuchak secondhand bookstore, gaslighting Day into believing it was his own discovery (Ep.3 [3‌/4] 9.41) – you might lie to a kid about Santa Claus (and I'm divided about that), but nevertheless Day was not a kid and should not have been treated like one.

Lying about Night's involvement in their plan to see Mount Veha (Ep.8 [1‌/4] 17.34) – more gaslighting.

Going back on his word and telling Mhon and Night about Day winning the dancing garland (Ep.11 [4/4] 7.35) – this was just plain disrespectful, especially after Day had shared his mixed feelings about the "win" (Ep.11 [4/4] 1.45).

Taking advantage of Day's blindness to prank him (Ep.11 [3‌/4] 7.32 and Ep.11 [4/4] 3.38) – unless Day liked surprises (of which I see no sign) laughs derived from exploiting someone's vulnerabilities are never to be lauded (please don't jumpscare the blind, people).

And the ultimate – lying about the job offer in Hawaii, which was the last straw for Day (Ep.11 [4/4] 10.51).

All the above might have come from a place of love, motivated out of the goodness of Mhok's heart – but even if they were meant to uplift or support Day, his actions were all disrespectful (even damaging) to Day's own agency and personal situation as someone struggling with visual disability.

In this light (pun intended) I had to re-think my judgement of Mhok's apology to Day in Ep.12, because he did need to learn to care for Day on terms acceptable to Day as well, and not have expected him to give that up just because he needed care.

Now because it's Khun Noppharnach, it will always be possible to give a queer reading to his work. So Day's dread at being seen as less than what society perceives as "normal", and Mhok's struggle with his status as the feared and misunderstood "other", can both be read as stand-ins for (some parts of) the LGBTQ+ experience, where full acceptance of the queer minority has yet to become the norm for most, if not all, societies. But I guess that should be obvious to all by now.

Anyway, there's a whole lot more burbling within Last Twilight that can be explored at length, but as I've gone on too long already I'm simply going to mention them here and then skip on:

The novel Last Twilight that features so prominently everywhere within the series (that not-so-coincidentally shares its name) is rich with significance as a parallel to (and comment on) Mhok and Day's own story, especially with Mee/Me's struggle to be seen in a world often blind to her presence.

Day becoming increasingly unseen as the neverending night of blindness became his defining identity is mirrored by Mee/Me needing to step away from darkness in order to be seen by the world around her (and her light-chasing is also a parallel for the sun-seeking of the sunflower, Day's totemic bloom, and in that way another metaphor for Day's reliance on external validation – see this write-up linked here for more elaboration on that aspect of Day's personality).

Day's blindness was not at all the first time Khun Noppharnach has used a form of health-related affliction as a metaphor for the queer condition, highlighting the parallels of the LGBTQ+ experience with the social model of disability. Other examples of this in his work include Heart's deafness in Moonlight Chicken, Tian's and Med's heart conditions in A Tale of Thousand Stars and He's Coming to Me respectively (the latter maybe less so though) and Pran's obsessive-compulsive disorder in Bad Buddy.

Also in He's Coming to Me, Med's predicament as a ghost subject to all sorts of constraints in the world of the living, as well as his invisibility to those insensitive to his situation, was a parallel with Last Twilight's theme of being seen for your true self even as the wider world imposes restrictions on you, and is similarly an allegory for the LGBTQ+ experience as well.

Last Twilight's ideas about seeing and being seen correctly were also touched on (somewhat briefly) in Bad Buddy, in the discourse around Ink's camera, photography and Pat/Pa's contact lenses.

Mhok's journey was milestoned with numerous examples of the food = love trope, in which he could be seen giving of himself through the creation of dishes and meals for others.

(above) Last Twilight Ep.11 [2/4] 0.39 – Mhok's gift of Black Chicken Soup (ซุปไก่ดำมา) to Porjai is but one of many examples in the series of him showing his love to others through his cooking; in this instance Black Chicken Soup (made by double-boiling silkie chicken with medicinal herbs) is a traditional Chinese preparation, warm and comforting, that is considered particularly nourishing for moms newly post-partum and is also popular in Thailand for the same reason

This is paralleled also by Mhon and her career as a chef (especially when she ladled soup out for her ex-husband in Ep.12, which is a bittersweet Noppharnach touch with reams of cultural backstory – but that's fodder for another post though).

And Assistant Director Au Kornprom's cameo as chef-de-cuisine in Singha's hotel continues a meta-level portrayal of his role in BL as some sort of leader, instructor, teacher or creator with a select group as the intended beneficiaries of his work (see these links here and here for other examples).

(above) Assistant Director Au Kornprom Niyomsil pops up in a cameo as Chef Tom in Last Twilight Ep.11 [2/4] 9.47 

I think Director Aof is announcing that Khun Kornprom is his designated successor as the next generation BL director at GMMTV who will (perhaps) be carrying on a measure of queer activism within his own output.

And that brings me to what I think Last Twilight might be saying on a metatextual level.

What I'm going to be babbling on about here reaches not only into Last Twilight for some clues as to its comments about the wider BL industry, but also to some messaging in Khun Noppharnach's earlier (though still recent) work, because I think it all does come together to paint a picture of some significance.

In the names and chromatic metaphors of Moonlight Chicken (see this link here), Director Aof signaled that unseen persons in authority were increasingly making their political presence felt, especially where financial motivations were concerned (caveat: I think this is a reference to power play within GMMTV and perhaps the BL industry itself, not a comment on the wider political scene in Thailand).

And Director Aof's various cameos in MLC (written up here) as well as its themes of generational renewal and the struggles to leave the past behind, also seemed to be messaging that some of this conflict between artistic/activist directions and commercial considerations were possibly taking a personal toll even as he continued his career within the BL industry.

I would have left it at that, but then when the Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars episodes had their turn on our screens in 2023, it became clear that Director Aof was saying something quite forcefully about the telling of queer stories in the media, especially in situations when queer people have less control over the narrative (as is the case with Y-series churned out by commercial studios for mass market consumption; see this write-up here for the analysis).

So based on the above together, this is my read of the situation.

Khun Noppharnach has been signaling that because of the profit motive, queer creators in the BL world are under increasing pressure from higher up to return to more commercially-lucrative storytelling, perhaps in the form of more stereotypical romances the way Last Twilight was structured. (Whether this pressure is from within the producing organization or from the wider political sphere I do not know nor wish to speculate.)

As a consequence, QL shows are being made to veer away from recounting stories that are authentic to the LGBTQ+ experience (which was the warning embedded in Our Skyy 2 x Bad Buddy x A Tale of Thousand Stars), dialing back content that speaks with a queer voice to queer people (though of course non-queers are welcome to watch along, because after all a good story is a good story).

If the above is true, then the tidal pull of commercial goals may soon be dragging more output back toward the more romanticized imaginings of same-sex love seen before in formulaic (but arguably more profitable) BLs of old, with an emphasis on catering to mass market demand (largely represented by – whether rightly or wrongly – marketing perceptions of the cishet female teen gaze).

And all of this circles back to Last Twilight, which is an example of this return to the past, and perhaps explains in part why its ending feels so unsatisfactory for a lot of us.

I'm very much convinced at this point that the finale (with its hated timeskip, Mhok's spiffed-up but stagey return, his emotionally hollow reconciliation with Day, and especially all the schmaltzy vignettes post-couplehood part deux) is but a conscious reaction to political gameplay from echelons above. For Last Twilight, I'm sensing (guessing?) that Director Aof and his team were coerced not just to stay faithful to the traditional formula of BLs past, but also to shove in an unmitigated Happily Ever After for the branded pair of JimmySea, without any of the hallmark Noppharnach countercurrents to undercut the sweetness (or else).

And perhaps in a burst of inspired-slash-malicious compliance, the team took on the mandate for the HEA and ran with it, churning out a saccharine, nutritionally-deficient lump of candy and unceremoniously tacking it on as the ending of what had otherwise been a fairly measured and self-aware BL from the start. And it really sticks out – but I think it was meant to.

I may be misreading the tea leaves again, but to me the signs of the above are myriad. Here's some of what I think Director Aof is telling us about Last Twilight's subversion of the ending, embedded within the narrative and visuals:

Master Aon's name is signaling (to me at least) a parallel with Director Aof's name (Aon/Aof, On/Off, Onscreen/Offscreen, get it? 😆). He even has a similar look, with his wispy mustache, earring and floppy hair.

Noting that Aon was a respected, good-natured guru who'd already trodden happily the path that Day was on, this reads like a rendering of Director Aof's own role (that I'm tempted to say is self-defined, though it's my own reading really) as a queer elder imparting the wisdom of his own experience to younger queer people viewing his work. (Also, both Aon and Aof are gurus of BL who've had their vision stolen from them.) And if Kruu Aon was recommending acolyte Day to read the novel Last Twilight for the metaphorical lessons within (we were reminded of this many times: see Ep.3 [2/4] 9.08, Ep.8 [4/4] 1.07 and Ep.9 [4/4] 9.26), I think Kruu Aof is recommending that we look at the series Last Twilight more closely as well to learn of something similar.

Last Twilight the series is full of references to endings. And if the novel Last Twilight has been signaled as the roadmap to Director Aof's thinking behind the series, the missing last page and epilogue in Day's copy suggests that – just like the book version – Last Twilight the series is actually (and deliberately) open-ended.

But the messaging doesn't just stop there. We are also called upon to manifest the ending we want (if what we're presented with doesn't meet our expectations). For example, Mhok hated the ending of Last Twilight the novel (although Day liked it –see Ep.9 [4/4] 13.23). And he then conflated this with his disappointment at the lackluster twilight on Mount Veha as well.

But through the power of imagination Day helped Mhok see the beauty of the sunset there (Ep.9 [4/4] 16.28) – on one level it's a trite "Life is what you make it" sort of statement, but on another it also reads like a call to action ("You can change what you don't like"). And I like to think it also embodies Last Twilight's theme of recalibrating your own way of seeing things, and looking beyond surface visuals to find the truth that speaks to you (which, in a sense, is what I'm doing now, hah!). But when applied to Last Twilight at a meta level – I think we're also being reminded that a picture-perfect ending (such as Last Twilight's Ep.12 [4/4]) can also hide the reality of gloomy clouds behind the artifice overlaid by human intervention.

Another sign that the ending of Last Twilight deserves a closer look is all the flapping about between innkeeper Cherry, Mhok and Day around the missing last page of Day's book in the Ep.9 [4/4] scene starting at timestamp 2.38.

(above) Last Twilight Ep.9 [4/4] 3.11 – Cherry tears out the last page of her copy of the novel and forces it on Mhok and Day

I'm putting in a detour for a closer look at Cherry here. She was the unsentimental custodian of her father's guesthouse, with a personality that blew hot and cold (like the weather in the south, referenced at Ep.9 [4/4] 2.12). The guesthouse seemed comfortable enough, although Mhok found it less than welcoming (Ep.9 [3‌/4] 6.39). And Cherry herself was also a strange mix of brusque and friendly. She was more concerned about cash than MhokDay's lack of shelter at Ep.9 [3‌/4] 7.36, but warmed up to them later when they explained their Mount Veha quest (allowing them to stay, treating them to a musical evening with her guitar, and accepting the payment deferral). She preferred the old way of doing things (cash only, no online transfers) and had once hosted David, the author of Last Twilight the novel, at the guesthouse.

Based on the above, I'm thinking that Cherry is a representation of Director Aof's dual role at GMMTV, where he is both a creative (director and sometime screenwriter) as well as part of management (senior director of content production, at time of writing). And in Last Twilight we see this duality acknowledged both in Cherry's mercurial double nature, as well as in the capricious weather of Songkhla. The guesthouse, on the other hand, is a representation of GMMTV itself. On the management side, Director Aof has to make and/or implement decisions on behalf of the company even though it isn't really his (just as Cherry runs what was once her dad's). GMMTV is warm and hospitable enough to the performers in its stable, but as a commercial enterprise it has to prioritize financials above most (if not all) other considerations (symbolized by the guesthouse's paradoxically comfy yet unwelcoming air, and also Cherry's indifference to MhokDay's cashless plight). Director Aof's creative focus is the arts (represented by Cherry's musical interlude) but GMMTV itself prefers the old ways of making money, i.e., old-style BLs (and this is symbolized by the guesthouse unwilling or unable to explore new ways of collecting rent with no online transfers). And just as the guesthouse hosted David, whose bittersweet ending to Last Twilight the novel wasn't satisfying to salt-of-the-earth Mhok (standing in for the tastes of the mass market), GMMTV also hosts under its roof Director Aof, the auteur behind Last Twilight the series (whose original ending I suspect may not have pleased other GMMTV bigwigs in management, and who then enforced a change). Some of this is illustrated in part by the scene just before Mhok and Day departed from the guesthouse. When Mhok and Day asked Cherry to keep her autographed copy of the novel, she instead tore out the (signed) ending from her book and thrust it into their hands. And when Day asked if it had a happy ending – she jokingly tried to grab it back, saying "Find the ending yourselves." To me this is a metaphor that the original ending of Last Twilight the series is actually unknown to us, and the ending we got was forced into the narrative from the outside (because it's what the fans want, according to GMMTV speaking in Cherry's voice at Ep.9 [4/4] 3.15 – "I think it's more important to you than me"). And it has official sanction too (symbolized by the author's signature), indicating that Director Aof (David in another incarnation) may not have had a choice (since we're shown that the author's stamp of approval was artificially inserted into a different book instead). It also suggests (in the "Find the ending yourselves") that Director Aof was aware of how that artificial transplantation was going to be negatively received by some diehard Noppharnach fans, and he's saying to us – "Take the ending that's been given you", but at the same time "Find your own meaning in it".

And then Day tells us in no uncertain terms basically the same message, at Ep.12 [4/4] 3.37 ("We were made to discover our own preferred version of the novel’s finale").

The narrative actually tells us quite boldly in the first part of Episode 12 that we can expect the finale to start unraveling because of outside interference – I actually think this is the message behind Director Aof's cameo at Ep.12 [1‌/4] 10.01:

Mocked up as a hotel porter, Director Aof offered a guiding hand to Day – but at timestamp 10.06 Mhok suddenly inserted himself into the scene in an act of direct supplantation:

(above) Last Twilight Ep.12 [1‌/4] 10.06 – Mhok steps in and supplants hotel porter Aof (he of the white gloves)

To me this was unambiguously signaling that from this point onward the proceedings would no longer be under the guiding hand of Khun Noppharnach. In addition, hotel porter Aof's gloved hands were pure white, unbesmirched and free from stain, conveying the message that Director Aof was innocent and blameless of the plot shenanigans that were to follow. To underscore the point, we were then shown Day taking a misstep under new (non-Aof) guidance at Ep.12 [1‌/4] 11.20:

(above) Last Twilight Ep.12 [1‌/4] 11.20 – Day stumbles without hotel porter Aof's guidance, even as Last Twilight the series begins to falter

This was jarringly out of tone, given Day's confidence in his life as a blind person, as well as Mhok's previous – and very conscientious – stint as caregiver to Day the first time around (he would instinctively stand between Day and any physical risk, and place a protective hand over protrusions that Day might bump his head on, for example). The message from this visually dissonant moment is that we should expect the ending to stumble as well, without Khun Noppharnach guiding the process.

So what can we make of the ending with this in mind? I can live with the timeskip, Mhok's return, and the eventual reunion of our main pair. These are all somewhat expected beats in a standard romance drama – and if that's what Last Twilight is setting itself up as, I won't begrudge it the tropey hallmarks that some do love (though I do think some parts could have been handled better). I even liked the airport run for all of its brash, silly sentimentality (yes, Love Actually is one of my favorite films).

But where I think Last Twilight really falls off a Veha cliff is when it starts lobbing at us a plethora of candy-sweet dreams unrealistically brought to life, one after another, in Ep.12 [4/4]. We have:

Ep.12 [4/4] 0.51 – Surprise! Day can see;

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Ep.12 [4/4] 1.18 – Multiple scenes showing Day rejoining the world of the sighted, enjoying activities that were once denied to him (like reading and badminton) both alone and in the company of loved ones;

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Ep.12 [4/4] 4.01 – Family time! Mhok introduces Day as his partner to his deceased family at their memorial niches, and then we see Mhok very much integrated into Day's family (signified by his pasta dish receiving chef Mhon's stamp of approval) even as we see Night and Porjai joyfully announcing another imminent addition to the numbers;

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Ep.12 [4/4] 8.06 – Mhok and Day get a Mount Veha do-over, talk about the novel's ending and then act out the ending to their own love story.

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It's all just too, too fairytale, with happy news piled atop happy news, and just reeks of artificial sap and fakery.

But that's just it – I think that Director Aof and team were actually faking it. Remembering that the novel Last Twilight's full title is Last Twilight: Until the Last Light Goes Out, take a look at how each of the above little snippets of happiness is finished off – each draws to a close with its own Fade-to-Black.

Now the Fade-to-Black is a device borrowed from theater – in a stage play snuffing the lights for a few minutes of total darkness allows scenes to acquire a sense of separation, completion and closure while giving the crew time to change the sets. But here in Last Twilight it feels like we're being pitched happy ending after unrelated happy ending, each competing with the previous in the too-good-to-be-true stakes.

In the title of the novel, we're told to hold on until the last light goes out. Just when is that last light exactly though? There are so many here that each Fade-to-Black begins to feel not just like closure, but like a little death each time. (Also pertinent to note: MhokDay's kiss under that glorious sunset at Ep.12 [4/4] 13.26 gets replaced by a sky of gray clouds instead at Ep.12 [4/4] 13.37.)

Director Aof is really hammering home his point that traditional Happily Ever Afters in romance stories can be shallow and unsatisfactory, and is making us miss the trademark melancholy that propped up the wistful sentimentality in the closing scenes of his previous works.

However, much of the above is what Last Twilight is saying about Last Twilight.

At the metatextual level, what the show is communicating about BLs as a whole is even more somber. I think Director Aof is messaging that for the BL industry to head toward a happy, satisfying ending (if it really is being pushed down to lowest common denominator levels by commercial interests), it's up to us the viewers to manifest that and make it happen (just as Mee/Me and Day did for their own stories). How this might be done, I do not know. Lobbying GMMTV perhaps? Complaining ever more loudly about what this did to Last Twilight when it could have been so much more?

I rather suspect that unfortunately our numbers may not be sufficient to bring about change – the majority of Last Twilight fans actually seemed to like the final wrap-up and its fairytale ending (at least based on the reviews I've seen on MyDramaList). It's only among the more adult (and dare I say it – discerning?) viewership here in the BL sphere on Tumblr are we seeing more robust critiques of the series, mourning the greatness that could have been.

Last Twilight was a good BL all the way up to Ep.12 I think. And then it looks like we were purposely let down, to make a point about BL endings. As always, Director Aof is having the last laugh – and he lets us know this during the end credits.

For it's then that we see the various photographs that were taken by characters throughout the series but never shown to us before (it's strangely moving, and makes me think of the ending to Cinema Paradiso when Salvatore finally gets to view the priest's cut in one long montage as a final gift from Alfredo beyond the grave).

(above) The end credits of Last Twilight, replaying the scenes where the characters were photographed, alongside the images captured in the moment that hitherto were not shown to us

It's in the ending that we're finally getting to see the director's point of view (and hidden message) from his vantage point behind the camera, just as we're only getting to see those photographs (that were originally unseen by their subjects, and privy only to the one taking the photograph) right at the very end.

And the final shot? We get the whole cast and crew making the "span" gesture (that an almost-sightless Day used to approximate the distance at which he could still make things out visually, before his vision left him totally).

It's a loving salute to Last Twilight for sure, but can we perhaps detect a hint of mockery in the way it also resembles the Forehead-L for Loser gesture from the 1990s? Or a hint of a threat in the way it looks like a gun cocked and pointing? The gesture is also Thai sign language for the letter ล, which is somewhat the equivalent of the letter 'L'. And with so many 'L's or 'ล's in that shot, it's making me think of 'LOLOLOL' and also ลล standing in for ล้อเล่น/laaw len, which means Just kidding.

Is it all just a coincidence? I wouldn't put it past Aof for it not to be. But whatever it all means, I really do think he's having a hearty (if somewhat bitter) last laugh. 😔💖

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[cresneta]

「93」

Can I just say that I'm still bothered by whatever this panel is foreshadowing?

It could be foreshadowing that Anya is going to get put into a different class from her friends despite how hard she studied for her recent exams due to her low overall rank

I could also see it possibly foreshadowing that Strix is ultimately going to fail* as well. We did get confirmation that Demetrius isn't close to his father either this chapter

If Desmond isn't close to any members of his family, that may make it difficult to impossible for Loid to get closer to him so he can observe him for the mission by first getting close to a different member of his family, even if he manages to get access to Desmond via the Imperial Scholar events. That being said, I do think there's a chance that the Forgers will end helping the Desmonds to heal rifts in their family.

*I just want to say that I don't believe that Strix failing will automatically mean the end of the Forger family. More on that below.

WISE may find other uses for the family, such as gathering intel on other targets or serving as a bridge between them and Garden, or depending how his character arc goes Loid could insist on staying with the Forgers indefinitely. Given that Handler lost her husband and daughter, I have my doubts about her being willing to break up the Forgers, assuming she realizes just how attached they are to each other. Since she knows about Nightfall's crush, I suspect she has a good idea about what's actually going on with this supposedly fake family. One of my head cannons about Handler is that she is fighting for peace so that others don't have to lose their family like she did, which is probably a big part of the reason why I believe that she doesn't want to break up the Forgers.

[candy8448]

Dark world forms

The ones who can speak are the ones who are more magically experienced. So Legend, Hyrule and Four

Individual explanations, speculation, and references:

Wolfie and Bunny Legend

Sky (remlit)

Wild (blufox)

Hyrule (deer goat)

Four (hummingbird)

Time (owl)

Warriors (lion)

Wind (seal otter)

– Ive tried to design them based off of the animals in their game, but if they don't have that animal, then i will try to find refrences of that animal from other loz games –

[kinsey3furry300]

I Feel that it's very funny that The Twilight Zone, Star Trek and Dune are such wildly different takes on the universe, and yet are all a product of the same generation of white American sci fi writers. Like, "Hey what flavour do you want your future to be? Spooky, Utopian or Cocaine-knife-fight?"