#ugh the vicious quote always goes so hard

[darkmacademia]

favourite books I read for the first time in 2020

a gentlman in moscow; amor towles / “If a man does not master his circumstances then he is bound to be mastered by them.”

vicious; v. e. schwab / “Maybe to a point, but when I climbed into that water, I put myself in His hands—” “No,” snapped Victor. “You put yourself in mine.”

the night circus; erin morgenstern / “The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not.”

the watchmaker of filigree street; natasha pulley / “He would be none the wiser and he would be staying at Filigree Street, probably for years, still happy, and he wouldn't have stolen those years from a lonely man who was too decent to mention that they were missing.”

station eleven; emily st. john mandel / “The beauty of this world where almost everyone was gone. If hell is other people, what is a world with almost no people in it?”

the alice network; kate quinn / “Hope was such a painful thing, far more painful than rage.”

the bell jar; sylvia plath / “I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.”

crime and punishment; fyodor dostoyevsky / "What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind - then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it's all as it should be."

[2019 ver.] [my goodreads]

[lottesseenaghoul]

RE:169 quick thoughts before I go into rabbit hole of tg posts on tumbler (edited)

So I was expecting the scans to come out on Thursday but was surprised to see some fresh panels in the uta tag and FLIPPED.jpeg at my behavioural economics lecture. Honestly not the best place for getting a nosebleed xdd

Anyways here are some of hot takes I got from reading the chapter. More nuanced meta probably on its way. I read it on mangastream and I did screenshots there.

The chapter starts with the first part of Uta’s tattoo quote and ends with the second part, forming a sort of narrative framework to read it.

We jump straight into the fray, with contrasting shots of Yomo’s damn fine looking face and Uta’s there as well, clearly guided by very basic thinking and mostly intuitive, emotional impulses:

Like this is typical, stereotypical “unhinged” face people do in mangas. A mix of enthusiasm and bloodlust, it says this guy went “insane”. Ugh. Uta’s mental health warrants a LOT of unpacking nevertheless so let’s leave this face’ implications for later. 

We glimpse their fight styles then:

Uta is on the offensive, honestly his is such forceful, visceral way of attacking here - straight up fuck up your opponent with the sheer force of your blow. He is shown to be a lot more nuanced and deliberate in previous fights, steering clear from attacking and content with evading the blows, dealing some psychological damage afterwards. But that is Uta just half-assedly toying - clearly he doesn’t stop himself with Yomo. The reasons can be manifold - that’s how they’ve always done it; he’s so pumped, he stops thinking and loses himself in pure bloodlust; he’s in a serious crisis - this is my preferred angle.

Now his fighting style, besides the raw strength behind it, is also quick and agile. In a second Uta gets behind Yomo, and tries to strike through his body mid-air. His face looks like this:

Very unstable.

Uta’s pupils are incredibly large here - again, a visual reminder how little conscious control he might have in this situation. OR how vicious his intents are.

My impression is that when he’s led by such murderous motivation (whatever its composing parts), Uta moves intuitively, we don’t see him playing around or allowing to be struck. Here he has the initiative but Yomo can so far fend off or otherwise deal with his attacks.

I’m honestly so thirsty for Yomo in this chapter, just look at this fine motherfucker:

{I’m interjecting to thank my lord satan for my pan-shipping, slutty heart because now UtaRen became another ship I love. Add in some Itori and you have another one. This one just keeps on giving <3}

Also Uta is so messy here, my baby all playful like a rabid hyena. 

Despite all the refinements older Uta keeps about himself (suave clothing, neat hair, designer mask studio, antiques in glass cases, chess), he didn’t seem to have done much growing up, emotionally. Donato comments on it like that:

You just gotta love the fact that for most of the manga Uta keeps the facade of actually being the least reckless of the ghouls. But I trust Donato on this, who seems to know Uta’s darker impulses fairly well. Possibly better than Yomo and that dude got his fair of beating from Uta too.

What got me interested is how Amon had commented how pointless Clowns endeavours were. Initially I thought it’s Donato who said it, but later on he tells Amon that he would soon understand...

Oh Amon looks fine AF too. Be still my slutty heart!

Furuta says something possibly pivotal for the incoming plot arc:

(IDK wtf this is, but if even Furuta comments on it as if he was both grossed out/scared, it must be important. Oh, he meets Kaneki too, no biggie. “That’s just freaky!!”, I love you Nimura)

Back to my boys, Yomo is getting beat up but mostly evades Uta’s attacks and looks more and more pissed. Uta just looks like a dumbass. Or rather as stupid as cats who torture smaller critters for fun and recreation do:

Also we get a glimpse of his kagune. It seems to be very elastic, easily changing shapes as Uta sees fit. It was just this gigantic mass of RC cells in the beginning panels, now it’s much more resembling the spider legs en masse that we remember from his fight with Juuzou:

But what is most important here, we finally get the first shot of Itori. She is wearing a mask in the beginning, and it’s important in context of what Uta will be saying shortly: edit: It’s Itori speaking, thoughts on that in a different post.

She’s an observer in that panel, very significantly voiceless, not shown to be nearly as amused as Nico here:

Uta’s Itori’s words are honestly a key to Clown’s philosophy and deserve a meta of its own. [In the beginning I thought these were Itori’s words, especially after I saw “Kanekichi” being mentioned; it’s how she had referred to Kaneki before.] - no wonder, it was my brain’s way to remind me I was far too concentrated on Uta to consider the awesomest queen Itori :/

Uta Itori says something very interesting here:

Obviously, if he were to be an OEK, first or the second one, that would be right up the alley. But even if not, it hints at very interesting possibilities. I want to see Ishida expand on it in some flashbacks. 

The most important words are coupled with shots of Itori slowly taking her mask off. It has a very dramatic effect.

Theres a heck ton to unpack here. Honestly I would never think Uta would look at his value system from that particular angle. Edit - and he wouldn’t because he is currently in the midst of a mayor meltdown. It’s Itori who actually bothers with explaining.

He She refers to the coldness of their existence as ghouls, of how senseless it is - like a vast, cold void stretching infintiely in front of them. 

Uta’s ways of searching for warmth are probably the only ones somebody as uprooted as him could come up with - he sees drawing blood, wounding (but also getting wounded - Uta seems to have a very laissez faire attitude to him perishing eventually as we remember from his talk with Donato).

According to Uta  Itori, Yomo is the warm one. For him her, it’s via bloodletting that he can get closer to taste it. Edit Uta def seconds that in the panels to come with his own actions

 I still think there’s some theatrics involved in this speech, as the next panel shows....

God, way to make your opponent unsuspecting of your next move Uta. 

And we get another important shot of Itori. She’s clearly positioned as somewhat stradling the line between Uta and Yomo but this series consistently shows her as being closer to Uta nevertheless.

Her eyes are shining so bright here, it’s clear she’s in deep thought and possibly a bit torn apart with what’s happening here. What Uta says clearly strikes a cord but her taking the mask off, idk it may signal some important differences between her and Uta’s worldview. That or it’s a sign she identifies with his words deeply. Edit ditto, these are her words and the scene took entirely different meaning and made me Love Itori, the first time since reading the series.

Honestly Uta is just beginning tho, as he has some creepy words about dreaming of the day where he would get his hands stained with Yomo’s blood. He actually left Yomo on the ground to have this mini speech properly. He’s posturing as far as my impressions go - Uta reverts to his younger persona, sans earlier sentiments of not wanting to cut his fun short by killing the only one ghoul who could match him somewhat. 

The most important thing in this chapter is what Yomo says next...

Here Uta is, going off about his strange blood kink and Yomo goes all shonen manga on him. But it’s not the same shonen posturing he did in previous chapter. We don’t see his eyes - we see Uta’s and that dude is honestly #shook. 

Naturally he reacts in ways only Ishida can think of. Honestly how Yomo’s words are literally drowned out by Uta’s uncontrollable and histerical laughter is such a masterful move:

This is the guy who dug up Ren from the ground because he was his “friend”. Now he’s just a mouth apparently.

Idk but this seems like the key panel for analyzing Uta from psychological angle. This dude most pronounced feature is his mouth which is nothing like human’s or ghoul alike. It’s like he’s truly the chaotic trickster god with none of the sentiments he was hinted to possess.

I was talking with @gaiajulz and I love how she pointed out that it seems like Uta is actually drowning out Yomo’s heartfelt words and he isn’t even fully aware he’s doing it. With Uta’s firm worldview, he’d rather go full crisis-mode instead of acknowledging how vulnerable and in need of closeness he is. 

Honestly Uta is soo Washuu-like in this panel, like Furuta’s older brother or something. First screech like a  Cthulu monster and then do a little happy dance!

What’s important is how Uta links what he sees as Yomo’s nivete with his emotional honesty and lack of any hidden agendas. Yomo is pure and good and this is why he is naive enough to trust a world like this. Uta saw so many sides to it, he literally sees no other option than to play the fool, including fooling around with one of the precious few of potentially close people in his life.

I also think he kind of looks like crying? From laughing so hard maybe. 

The chapter ends with my baby going full kakuja (predictably it’s his shifty face that’s the most inhuman part here, just a mass of flesh) and this flirty words:

Renji seems so shocked, it’s possible he had never seen this form. Either way he’s speechless.

And Uta’s philosophy is hinted at again - he’s willing to trample his friend just to feel anything. 

What we are dearly in need of is some good meta on Uta’s mental health, how his values feature into it and how his own actions contribute to it unraveling. Obviously such speculations are about as scientific as psych profiling but I feel it would be very important to try and understand this character better.

And boy, is there a lot to unpack here... 

Edit - crossed the parts where it’s suggested it’s Uta who summarizes Clown’s philosophy. It’s Itori and I don’t get my brain could hint at the discrepancies in my own thinking but not make the definite link. Gotta love that sweet ADHD folks.