#which is... important. if an idea is being repeated its important for the reading audience to be able to make the link

[gnomeniche]

SO. OKAY. "SILLY SAD DUCK" TALK BECAUSE IT HAS ME IN THE BIRDMANGELION MINES. welcome back to the corner where i spin conspiracy theories about duck.

so, "silly sad duck" was a bonus track from a dhmis album that was sent out to backers of the kickstarter in 2017. so it's pre-pilot and pre-tv show, which is important because i'm interested in this song in the context of the creators' ideas for where they could take dhmis and duck in particular.

this motherfucker's gonna get real fuckin speculative. and rambly. i'm very sorry i need to get all my thoughts out and it's the middle of the night so the structure's loose.

let's start out with some analysis of the song itself and the rest of dhmis surrounding it. the thing that immediately stands out is that this song, which is placed after every other song on the album, is about duck being "sad because he can't find his friends".

first of all. this was the last mental state we saw him in, and his fear of losing his friends keeps coming up in later dhmis media.

second of all. this kind of highlights how different his end was from his friends'?

like red and yellow were alive but isolated in relatively coherent false worlds, but as far as we know, duck just fucking died. and if he didn't, we don't know where he could have been. even the world he woke up in when he was being eaten was ambiguous.

a lot about his final moments were ambiguous. the metaphor is clear but the literal meaning of it is hazy. and he only appeared in the finale due to the machine glitching and bringing him out of... whatever limbo he went to after his consumption. this song's context, too, is ambiguous, and it makes significant use of audio glitches and distortion.

and like. this isn't the only time in post-original-series-dhmis that they've highlighted duck's existence relating oddly to the world's resets and the enforced narrative.

in the pilot he keeps repeating "i've lived in this town my whole life!" for seemingly no reason. this running gag is one of many reminders in the pilot that the three of them were somewhere BEFORE clayhill and they just can't remember. him insistently, dreamily saying it at odd occasions gives off the feeling that something about him has been thrown off. pilot!red gets flashes of awareness, but pilot!duck is strangely and pointedly unaware, as if he had been overwritten a little too forcibly. maybe due to both the shock of his death and how he disrupted the show so badly?

besides that, there's the connection between how he's pulled along by the antagonist of the pilot and how in the tv series he seems the least comfortable with throwing off the narrative. something about resets and death and punishments and replacements (though he's still the same even though he was replaced).

and SPEAKING of the whole replacement-but-does-it-really-matter thing, that's one of the weird interactions between duck's existence and the narrative in the tv show! along with that bit in the "electricity" blackout where there's his headless corpse next to a tv with a clip of him waving out at the screen that we've never seen before. which is another instance of duck in an ambiguous space. hm.

speaking of narrative, what's with the singer? who are they?

the singer acts like a narrator for the audience's benefit and maintains a warm, teacherly tone toward the student. the way they reads their lines gives the impression that they are doing the voice for duck; they inhale before the duck voice speaks its first line of gibberish. the dynamic of being a puppet on a show is extremely visible in this song.

to me, this gives off shades of lesley, our amiable narrator/puppeteer. i feel like this singer might have been some kind of precursor to her character. it could have been an early draft of an in-universe "show host" or "writer" presence, or it could have been a device that they used for this one song that later sparked the idea for the lesley character. but either way i think there's some kind of inspirational connection.

and the phrase "silly sad duck" itself... "silly" and "sad" are both fundamental to duck's character the way i interpret him. silly to deflect fears that may make him sad. however: how does the singer mean it? given how every other teacher in dhmis acts, they could very well be chiding him for being sad. saying that he's silly for grieving his loss? his sadness is silly?

and the singer's way of treating his loss as a cute little children's show (bc there’s a lot of these sweet-style little kids shows where a narrator speaks to an animated character as they do stuff! examples escape me rn though) might also serve to minimize legitimate pain in the characters as insigificant. which is a recurring theme with the authority figures in dhmis but i just wanna note its appearance here.

and the most important question: who IS that over there?

option 1: it's the other two! bc they came back once red pulled the plug and reset the show. he found his friends! the sweetness of this option IS undermined by the ominous deepening distortion of the narrator's voice at the end, but is the ending of dhmis not ALSO ambiguously sweet vs ominous. this does beg the question: is this song an in-universe thing. in the time between between his death and the plug pulling, was duck in some kind of puppet limbo where the meta of the show (where he's a puppet guided by a narrator) was a little thinner? if that's true, it would make sense with the increased meta associations of duck in later dhmis media.

option 2: it's NOT the other two. "who is it then" i don't know. but whatever it is, it can't be good. here's some sub-options:

2a: the audience? duck alludes to an audience a couple of times in a new series, and the clip of him on the tv in the blackout is waving at the screen and thus the watchers.

2b: a replacement? the first time his consciousness got transferred to another one of himself?

2c: another meta "puppeteer" figure like roy or lesley? maybe the featureless figures who are behind the cameras in "computers" and moving the puppets in "electricity"?

2d: a metaphorical thing of him realizing that the singer of the song is a separate person whose existence is weirdly enmeshed with his own? this one's probably too abstract but

so now we get to what i think it might mean regarding how the creators developed their ideas for the dhmis series. obvious disclaimer that i am not the creators and i cannot read their minds. this is just speculation.

this and the pilot are both two of the first pieces of post-original-series dhmis content, and they both show a strong focus on duck. which is very interesting to me. it couldn't have escaped the creators' notice that duck had a strange ending in the original series; both the pilot and the tv show constantly reference it.

this song focuses on duck's fear of being left alone. which is obv drawn from "health" (i've given up on calling it “food” bc the tracklist for the album calls the webseries 5 song "the healthy song"). but this trait keeps coming up in media released after this song was made? in the pilot, it's not explicit, but the way he's so easily able to be lured with the idea of keeping everything in the town secure could relate to this fear. and in the tv series, many of his negative reactions are spurred by his fears for his friends). and though we saw these traits in "health," what's interesting is that this song indicates a decision to keep and commit to this as a part of his character.

given this song's... everything... and how threads of its ideas keep running through the rest of dhmis, i really do feel like the creators have had the vague idea of something they want to do with duck's character development and and the narrative for a long time. in general, i think they've had many fairly consistent ideas for the direction of dhmis that they've been trying to shape across different iterations. like the whole "narrative is manipulating the protagonists and they will have to shatter it" thing

so, it's very interesting to me that duck's consequences of his own death, ambiguous existence within the world, and certain core character traits have seemingly been around for so long that they all come up in this bonus song from 2017.

just to be clear: i am not saying that the creators have had everything about dhmis planned out since the beginning. i truly do not think so. i just think it’s interesting to track the development of their ideas as they figured it out over time n what they decided to keep vs throw out. and i think it’s cool that you can kind of see it in these different stages of the show

anyway (pins all this up on a conspiracy board labeled with the words "get hype for birdmangelion" in huge block letters)

[ljomi-silvanius]

My response to Dawntrail. Woof. When I started the expansion I actually posted reactively about how much fun it was feeling, and deleted that two days later. Spoilery through the end of MSQ below-

I went into Dawntrail really excited for a chill start-up to future story. Vacation vibe while running into events and characters that might set up big consequences and meaning to other events down the road. No expectations of big drama within the expansion itself just building blocks. We got one block with zero attached narrative. While everyone is yelling that this is supposed to be our new ARR so we should chill about the quality of it- ARR provided us with countless characters, villains, and background plots without conclusions that continued into the future expansions (I know 1.0 really did this but for the sake of the story we have now, it was ARR). It may have been slightly confused and heavy-handed with its traditional MMO gameplay, but it did have a huge engrossing world set up for us. Dawntrail played out like any other expansion except feeling like it has even less effect on the future of the game in-world. We saved the day, again, and everything is exactly the same as it was a couple days prior. After Endwalker, I was excited at the thought of the WoL picking up their belongings and heading off into the horizon on their own and fumbling their way into new exciting events and alliances; yet our place in both the Void arc and Dawntrail felt so reliant on the Scions' decisions it's like nothing has changed. The WoL has been through so much and would be quite capable at this point yet seems to have no agency. This feeling of being trapped by past characters they can't seem to shake off, along with the idea being pushed repeatedly that we are an "adventurer" who goes where the wind takes us, makes the absence of a new band of allies kind of depressing. This was even more annoying as the Scions throughout Dawntrail felt very empty character-wise and unnecessary for the plot. Their reactions to events felt like having a livestream chat on the side of MSQ with no development of their own. I admit that I can't read the future, and maybe patches will make some characters we encountered continue on journeys with us, but nothing pointed to that as they all had their roles in their homes. While not new, I am hopeful Erenville will continue with us elsewhere! I was actually morbidly hoping something would happen making Wuk Lamat not end up in the throne, to give both continuous conflict and a new ally for some period of time past this expansion.

And regarding Wuk Lamat- absolutely love her. That doesn't mean that the dialogue making her repeat herself constantly about peace and learning wasn't some of the most tedious stuff ever put in this game. This tendency along with constant flashbacks and Scion commentary of "this reminds me of past expansion event" made it feel like the game, which has put us through complex politics and Limsa Lominsa dialect, now thinks of us as babies who can't pick up on the most basic thematic threads. The flashback to the Shadowbringers trolley guys was so unnecessary- let the audience pick it up on their own! And if they miss it, the current event should be fun or interesting enough that it's ok. I was thinking by the end that it was all for new players who chose to skip everything before Dawntrail, but flashback pictures would give nothing to them. I entirely agree with the complaints that this expansion was overtly exposition-based. Learning about new cultures is a huge basis of what we've gotten over the years, yet we generally learn through story beats that aren't just "learn the cultures". I love how important the individual cultures are, their differing ideals and lives, and how much color it adds to FFXIV, but I don't want to feel like I'm being placed in a classroom about it.

As we're tagging along with Lamat, it feels weird to me that we were asked to come at all. While I don't have qualms with being a side character to her, she's capable in combat and we're not given the chance to prove ourselves in much other than it, and we don't even mentor her in any way. We could have been the big sister/brother teaching her the ropes! Being given the mezcal jar to hold feels like an encapsulation of the entire ride. It feels like with how much new non-instanced dungeon/raid content we've started to get in MSQ, it was jarring how little there was in the entire expansion. We start out early with the look and zoom mode on Galool Jaja's tablets (which makes no sense why aren't we just walking up to them) and then they just forget we can do anything like that again other than sneaky stalk mode.

After the Rite of Succession and the brief moment in Texas, stuff starts getting better in plot and pace. There's some actual mystery, new characters who are more than an example of a culture, and it doesn't feel like you're doing things for a checklist. I'm obsessed with Otis and Galool Ja. At this point, the predictability seems to wane.

And then it comes back hard two levels later. The final area is again, a complete rehash of Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The Final dungeon is a complete rehash of Shadowbringers and Endwalker. The final zone is incredibly ugly, and I assumed with how jarring the colors were it would be glitchy and haunting. No, it's just a tasteless theme park that is keeping people happy for hundreds of years by having water fountains? Not much in this area points to people having anything but happy lives in a pointless and plasticky town, and yet as recalled by Alisae, their situation mirrors other civilizations we were shown to end up very unhappy. But they all like their salty popcorn and spending eternity serving it to others. I cannot understand the vibe they went for here and the task was again a tedious checklist. I also didn't understand the scale of this location- they made it Amaurot-esque extending to the horizon, yet we are able to turn off all memory sticks in a five malm radius- there could have been mention of other scions making their way to power down areas we weren't involved with, or a montage? Something? There's no way that would be everything.

I really wanted to enjoy Sphene, yet she has nothing to her but one side of Emet-Selch wrapped up in faux-innocence. They tried hard to place her as a foil to Wuk Lamat in the same way Emet and Exarch are foils, yet they had Lamat mention it directly ten times and at that point, how can you care about it anymore? There are threads they placed for her that I can't parse and was hoping to lead to a deeper character- how is the levin sickness her fault? In the end they painted her as nothing more than an overly caring helicopter mom. (Sphene WOULD beat you up at a child's soccer game.)

And that one building block I mentioned at the beginning- having an overpowered Azem-based stone that just hands Y'shtola exactly what she was looking for feels cheap and demeaning. I know she could have figured it out herself. In the same way I know Wuk Lamat could have figured out her trials without the perfect NPC walking up to her by chance every time.

In the end everything was entirely predictable. You get told x, you know that x is coming. We were told about Solution Nine before the drop- can you imagine if Amaurot was spoiled? We don't need plot twists, we don't need insane curves in characterization (Bakool Jaja I'm looking at you and your 90 degree angle), but some detail would really help, something that doesn't feel like it was a fan's recreation of tribe quests and the last two expansions, something I can continue to look forward to. I would have loved for Tural to have more stake and power in what goes on with Alexandria's presence. I would love for Tural to be more important in the future of the story, because I love everything there, and I'm just sad as hell about the package it came in. A package that came with Donkey Kong music using the same part of the leitmotif in every song, instead of Latino tinged songs that fit the region (if Kugane deserves that masterpiece, Tuliyollal deserves a sweeping and nostalgic piece that ties into the heart of Tural). Hell I would be happy with a minigame of making a piña colada if it was something new, but if feels like we're hanging onto loose threads now.

[okcomputeroknotok19972017]

attempting to write an actual response to the problem of saw but... im actually getting so fucking bewildered reading this that i can barely type up a response. every sentence of this paper is SATURATED with hatred for the series, right from the beginning. sharrett is slinging mud at a made-up version of the saw franchise, distorting the actual text and framing of each movie until it becomes something it never was. he is writing this for an audience who already disapproves of these movies without ever having seen them.

in what world can a film critic not understand the idea of an unreliable narrator? the concept of self-deception? "john kramer is the most active character in (nearly) every movie, and he fully believes in his flawed worldview and acts confidently according to it... so is he being framed as the good guy?! and some people online sure seem to like him, too!"

the way that sharrett spends the majority of the article waffling about other movies which he seems to have an extreme distaste for as well only serves to distract the reader and to suggest that he's making some kind of intelligent point by wandering aimlessly and using some big words. it's smoke and mirrors. none of it has anything to do with the supposed problem of saw, which sharrett cannot actually confront in detail because it is not there. it does not exist the way he wants it to exist. he is arguing with a made-up version of the series.

if you want to argue that john kramer is framed as a hero, then you have to ignore every time that the series points out his hypocrisy or general fucked up-edness, through text or through subtext. it's truly astounding to me that a professional film critic would need to have his hand held through a movie to figure out who's the bad guy. in the first movie, adam is tested because he does not appreciate his life. by the end, he is screaming that he wants to live. his death was rigged. you can't see that the movie is framing that as something fucked up? as something tragic? in the second movie, we see the extent to which john has manipulated and ruined amanda's life. do you have such little faith in the average moviegoer that you think they'd see that as a noble thing of him to do? do you think the movie is honestly justifying daniel's psychological and physical torment? if this is all too subtle for you, what does amanda's confrontation with john in the third movie mean to you? what does it mean to you?

this is all ignoring the behind-the-scenes context of saw. while the increasingly sensational gore of the later movies reflect societal trends, it's important to understand how and why this happened. saw was made by two broke australian film students, leigh whannell (writer/actor) and james wan (director). the idea of a slowly unraveling mystery set in a single room came about from budget constraints--they wanted a film to shoot in just one location. leigh's anxieties about health inspired the "hey, wouldnt it be crazy if..." idea of a serial killer with cancer who tortures others to vicariously make them "appreciate their lives." from the get-go, john is portrayed as a hypocritical monster--again, see the way adam's trap was shown to be unbeatable from the start through no fault of his own.

neither leigh nor james expected saw to get big, and its success was unprecedented. the one shocking scene at the end of lawrence severing his foot (a rather bloodless scene, mind you) amidst an extremely high-energy ending created lots of buzz, and saw was a very unique film for the time. the more intense second film was co-written by leigh, as it began as a script someone else wrote that was reworked into a saw movie. lionsgate, as any other corporation would, wanted to include more of the stuff that made people talk about their movie: gore. and so, it was ramped up. rinse and repeat for the rest of the movies, remove the original creators after the third movie, and insert a soap opera storyline of succession, family ties, and betrayal for the more dedicated fans to follow along with and feel rewarded for keeping up with ... and here you are.

(it is interesting that sharrett seems to think john kramer's complete dedication to his ideology must mean he is being framed as smart or correct. i, for one, can understand the difference between someone acting and talking like they're right versus actually being right. it's why i disagree with this article instead of blindly lapping it up because sharrett speaks with conviction.)

this paper is not about saw. not only does the author misrepresent the film series, but 85% of the actual text is about other fucking movies with no tie-in back to saw. the point sharrett is trying to make is shrouded in unrelated pompous bullshit about how he had some problems with that one jodie foster movie's portrayal of sexuality and blah blah blah blah fucking blah. this article only serves to affirm the biases of people who have never seen saw but have already made up their minds about it. it misrepresents the plot, narrative framing, and especially the portrayal of john kramer. also he calls billy ugly which is by far the worst.

[dorothydalmati1]

Obscure Animation Subject #55: Serial Experiments Lain

Originally posted on Twitter on April 15, 2023.

Created by Yasuyuki Ueda, written by Chiaki J. Konaka and directed by Ryūtarō Nakamura, this is a 13-episode miniseries produced by Triangle Staff, and aired on TV Tokyo from July 6 to September 28, 1998.

The series follows Lain Iwakura, an adolescent girl in suburban Japan, and her relation to the Wired, a global communications network similar to the internet. The show is an original idea to the point of it being considered "an enormous risk" by its producer Yasuyuki Ueda.

Ueda had to answer repeated queries about a statement made in an Animerica interview. He stated that Lain was "a sort of cultural war against American culture and the American sense of values we [Japan] adopted after WWII". He later expanded this in numerous interviews.

He created Lain with a set of values he took as distinctly Japanese; he hoped Americans would not understand the series as the Japanese would. This would lead to a "war of ideas" over the meaning of the anime, hopefully culminating in new communication between the two cultures.

When he discovered that the American audience held the same views on the series as the Japanese, he was disappointed. The Lain franchise was originally conceived to connect across forms of media (anime, video games, manga), but due to its failure that was scrapped.

Ueda said in an interview, "the approach I took for this project was to communicate the essence of the work by the total sum of many media products". The scenario for the video game was written first, and the video game was produced at the same time as the anime series.

However, the anime was released first. A dōjinshi titled "The Nightmare of Fabrication" was produced by Yoshitoshi ABe and released in an artbook An Omnipresence in Wired. Ueda and Konaka declared that the idea of a multimedia project wasn’t unusual in Japan, as opposed for Lain.

Despite the show’s confusion to the audience it wanted to appeal to, critics responded positively to the thematic and stylistic characteristics, and it was awarded an Excellence Prize by the 1998 Japan Media Arts Festival for "its question the meaning of contemporary life".

According to Christian Nutt from Newtype USA, the main attraction to the series is its keen view on "the interlocking problems of identity and technology". Nutt saluted Abe's "crisp, clean character design" and the "perfect soundtrack" in his 2005 review of series.

He said that "Serial Experiments Lain might not yet be considered a true classic, but it's a fascinating evolutionary leap that helped change the future of anime." Anime Jump gave it 4.5/5, and Anime on DVD gave it A+ on most criteria with some As for volume 3 and 4.

Lain was subject to commentary in the literary and academic worlds. The Asian Horror Encyclopedia calls it "an outstanding psycho-horror anime about the psychic and spiritual influence of the Internet". It notes that the red spots present in all the shadows look like blood pools.

It also notes the death of a girl in a train accident is "a source of much ghost lore in the twentieth century", more so in Tokyo. Gilles Poitras describes it as a "complex and somehow existential" anime that "pushed the envelope" of anime diversity in the 1990s.

Susan J. Napier in her 2003 reading to The Problem of Existence in Japanese Animation, compared the show to Ghost in the Shell and Spirited Away. According to her, the main characters of the two other works cross barriers; they can cross back to our world, but Lain can’t.

Napier asks whether there is something to which Lain should return, "between an empty 'real' and a dark 'virtual'". Mike Toole named SEL as one of the most important anime of the 90s. Anime Academy gave the series a 75%, but criticized it due to the "lifeless" setting it had.

Michael Poirier of EX magazine stated that the last three episodes fail to resolve the questions in other DVD volumes. Justin Sevakis of Anime News Network noted that the English dub was decent, but that the show relied so little on dialogue that it hardly mattered.

So all in all, this show is one of the weirdest shows out there, but despite being a miniseries, it still has significance thanks to the bizarre nature and sci-fi themes. Not in the levels of Neon Genesis Evangelion or Cowboy Bebop, but still really interesting to go through.

[magnorious]

Pirates of the Caribbean and How It Perfectly Executes A Theme

We are taught from a very young age, every year in English class, to study the theme of the texts we read. What “theme” means evolves with the complexity of the class.

Theme is first a single concept: Good versus Evil, for example. Then it’s a statement: Hubris leads to ultimate downfall. One cannot repeat the past. Comfort creates complacency creates apathy.

I like to think of theme as the question your story must answer. When all those people in all those stories had the chance of turning back, only they didn’t, what were they holding onto?

Answer: “That there is some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.”

That’s theme.

You as the creator ask a question to the world, and in your work, you provide the answer. Your work is your argument for your case, proven through as many characters as possible.

So how important is this notion of one central, driving idea to your story? Depends on the goal of the story. Those that serve as lessons or warnings or to inspire, probably should know and make explicitly clear what they want their audience to walk away with. If it’s a comedy, or an explosive action movie purely to distract so you can switch off your brain for two hours, then having a central idea is less important.

Theme is the common thread that streamlines a plot, when done well. It helps cut out the fat. Remembering you have one for each and every element you write helps you decide what is necessary and helpful, and what can be left out or modified.

But are action adventure blockbusters and life lessons mutually exclusive? Of course not. Enter Curse of the Black Pearl.

I adore Pirates of the Caribbean (1-3 we are not here for anything that comes after).

There’s a hundred and one essays out there about these movies and I’m likely not the last to point out what I’m about to say, but for a film franchise this old, to still having fresh content be made about it, praising it, there is something to be said about Pirates’ legacy.

So CoBP is based off the Disney ride, something with little depth or substance to its name pre-film franchise money boon. It being based off this ride, not a book or historical figure or event, or a previous film, this gave the writers the perfect advantage: It forced them to be creative.

Which is apparently kryptonite to Hollywood, but here you go.

This movie was so underestimated, so surrounded with disregard and skepticism, that it allowed Pirates the complete freedom to do whatever it wanted with almost zero stakes. It allowed for sincerity and passion, instead of being controlled by the unseen strings of shadowy producers and statistics.

Which meant that the writers were able to write the good story first, and cater to the money second.

CoBP poses a question, a theme, and spends the entire movie answering that question, and defending its argument.

“Can a pirate be a good man?”

Pirates is a story about social dichotomy first, and an action adventure movie about scurvy-ridden undead sea-farers second. The sequels, notably, do not keep providing arguments to answer that question, or provide a new question to answer. They are absent of a theme as strong as this one.

So can a criminal, a pirate, an orphan blacksmith, be a good man worthy of praise, or the love of his life? Can he overcome the societal boxes he is forced to be in, break out of his prescribed role, and perfectly blur the line between a man with a “sense of propriety” and a hero who, though he works outside of the law, still does the right thing in the end?

CoBP says: Yes.

We have four characters who answer this question of black and white social dichotomy all in different ways: Jack, Will, Norrington, and Elizabeth.

Jack is a pirate captain, wrongfully mutinied upon by his greedy crew and left to die before escaping with his life. Because his crew ousted him, because they were greedy, Jack was unable to take part in the curse cast on the crew by the treasure they stole before the plot began. For ten years now, the undead crew of the Black Pearl have been hunting down all the pieces of the treasure they stole, and Jack has been trying to get his ship back from his mutinous first mate. 

Elizabeth is the governor’s daughter, locked like a bird in a cage in her suffocating life, strongly encouraged by her father (who is genuinely a good man, not an ass like he easily could have been), to marry a man of the Navy, Norrington.

Will is an orphan rescued years prior by a ship Elizabeth was on, having been stranded at sea. He’s brought up as a blacksmith’s apprentice, and he and Elizabeth want very badly to be with each other but due to the massive divide between their social classes, it’s just not meant to be.

That’s the setup, then the plot begins.

Jack arrives in Port Royal looking to steal a ship to go hunt down the Black Pearl. Meanwhile Elizabeth is being courted by Norrington, the navy commodore, and due to her suffocating life and literally suffocating dress, she falls off a fort wall into the ocean below. Jack is around to rescue her.

Upon doing so, he’s discovered as a pirate and one of the movie’s signature exchanges occurs, when Norrington chides Jack for being “The worst pirate I’ve ever heard of,” and Jack responds: “But you have heard of me.”

And in the same conversation we have: “One good deed is not enough to redeem a man of a live of wickedness.” // “Though it seems enough to condemn him.” Sidetrack, I firmly believe Jack is absolutely referencing “People aren’t cargo” from AWE, even though that script wasn’t even a passing notion yet.

So already we have a rebuttal for the question, the theme of the story. Can a pirate also be a good man? Well, here is a pirate who did a good deed. What do you do with him?

The answer is to send Jack to the gallows.

Jack’s arrested, Elizabeth is safe but spooked, Will has missed all of this. Then the Black Pearl crew attack the city and due to some misassumptions, Elizabeth is taken captive by the previously mutinous first mate turned new captain, Barbossa.

(Sidetrack, this post isn’t about Barbossa but he’s not a bad dude, either. Will, Jack, and Elizabeth are just in the way of him breaking an awful curse. CoBP has two of the most unique villains in any summer blockbuster.)

Will, wanting to save her, frees Jack from prison since the Military’s strict rules prevent Norrington from speeding things along, and they go off together, breaking the law to do the right thing.

Plot progresses, we find out about the curse on the undead pirates, get some character development and backstory. Norrington is obligated to join the hunt now that Jack has commandeered one of his ships.

Due again to misassumptions, the undead pirates think Elizabeth is the key to breaking their curse, and take her to the Isla de Muerta to spill her blood over the cursed Aztec gold. It fails, because she’s not the person they need, and Will and Jack arrive in time to save her.

Turns out that Will is the person they need. Will’s father was a pirate, not the “good man” he believes him to be. Will’s father did the right thing, standing up for Jack against the mutiny, and was punished for it. It’s his blood that will break the curse.

Piratey ship battles occur, the protagonists’ ship is overtaken, Will’s discovered as the proper blood bag and Elizabeth and Jack are marooned. It’s Will’s turn to be sacrificed, only now Norrington has rescued Elizabeth and Jack and must decide whether to keep to his duty and drag Jack back to face judgment, or rescue Will.

Elizabeth persuades Norrington by agreeing to marry him if he helps Will and they all go to rescue him. Norrington screws his crew over by ignoring Jack’s advice, more piratey battles happen only now with an undead sword fight gimmick.

The curse is broken, enemies killed or captured, and come the end of the film, Jack is taken to face judgment, Elizabeth has agreed to marry Norrington, Will’s once again alone, and Norrington has done his duty. They even say it, explicitly, that everyone has kept their word, and no one is happy about it.

So then the final minutes are closing in, and Will comes to rescue Jack from the gallows, Elizabeth declares her love for Will, and Norrington… lets them all go. He’s a very rare honest hero, despite being an antagonist, and I wish there were more people out there written like him.

So the question of the narrative: Can someone deemed undeserving of praise and good fortune by society, actually deserve it in the end?

Jack answers it the most explicitly. Can a pirate be a good man? Yes. That line I highlighted earlier, “though one good deed seems enough to condemn him.” Jack would not have gotten caught had he not done the right thing.

Jack’s full semi-canon backstory is that he was a lawful privateer, then he was commissioned to haul slaves for the East India Trading Company. Jack refused, because, and I quote, “People aren’t cargo.” And because of that choice, the legally wrong thing to do but morally just cause, he was branded a Pirate, literally. One good deed was enough to condemn him to a life of piracy.

That semi-canon backstory was a deleted scene because the writers knew including it would make him unamibiously a hero, and remove a lot of the tension from AWE when it came time for Jack to decide whether or not to save Will and lose immortality, because we’d all know what the answer would be.

He’s self-serving more often than not, but in the end, he is a pirate, and a good man.

Elizabeth also answers this question, in a different way. She is also two nigh-incompatible things at once. She is a proper lady, and a sword-fighting badass pirate herself (eventually, Pirate King). Can a woman of her stature and social standing, also be a pirate? Yes.

Norrington answers this in another different way: Can a good man remain a good man, even if he acts outside the law to do good things? He is shown he’s wrong, proved by Jack and Will, and admits defeat come the end of the film. The Governor explicitly says that sometimes an act of piracy, if it may be the only course of action, is the right course of action.

And finally, Will. Will, who must reconcile with the fact that his father is both a pirate, and a good man. That ‘one good deed was enough to condemn’ two good men, branded as criminals by the laws that be. That he himself, is a pirate, and a good man. The iconic pirates theme “He’s a Pirate,” the title comes from a line at the end of this movie references Will, not Jack.

Elizabeth’s father accepts that his daughter loves Will, and admits that despite his upbringing and lacking social status, Will is a “good man.” It’s Elizabeth who corrects her father and says, “No, he’s a pirate.”

This is a fantastic movie, and so much of it comes from the theme. It’s not just a movie about pirates, it’s a question about society and the lines we draw to create artificial hierarchies so that those deemed worthy by arbitrary rule succeed, and those deemed unworthy are punished.

Thanks for letting me soapbox; TLDR: CoBP is a fantastic case study in thematic storytelling by using its four main characters to answer the question of the theme: Can a pirate be a good man? Will, Jack, Elizabeth, and Norrington all represent dichotomous sides of societal expectations: A poor, orphan blacksmith wanting to court a society lady AND a good man being a pirate (Will), a pirate being a *decent* man, when pushed (Jack), a society lady breaking free of classist expectations and being her true, nerdy and badass self (Elizabeth), and an honest military man skirting the law to do what’s right (Norrington). It’s just a shame that the other movies couldn’t be as strong.

[forget-mad-not]

Alas, I have not read Macbeth and therefor cannot judge or analyse you on your references. If I miss or misinterpret anything blame it on that. English classics are still difficult for me in terms of english, for the most part, so I tend to avoid them. Schiller, Büchner or Goethe references are very welcome though. /j

I love how everything, even before the last paragraph (the revelation) points to the fact that this is not the height of the plot, the story reaching it's climax of an organic development but a perfected, practiced tale being told to the audience.

"Once upon a time: all as it should be."

The very first line, fairy tale opening. This is the Actor introducing his audience to the tale. I really love how fond you seem to be of repetitions. How it is repeated again in the last paragraph, promising that nothing will change.

"Revenge is always predestined, a necessary heartbeat. If it is a good story, it must be fulfilled, because every good story is a promise kept, like ‘till death do us part’ or ‘I’ll protect you’."

Well, this is just foreshadowing to DAMIEN in the best way possible. Again, drilling in the fact that Celine is a character in this, by the Actor perfected, tale. Repeated actions over dozens of the same day all coming to a climax where she buries the axe in Marks chest. Revenge being fulfilled, planned, leading to Damien taking the leading role. As planned.

To me, it almost seems like sentences in italics are either thoughts planted by the Actor or direct comments of his (I'm obsessed with him, I can't help it).

Your use of stylistic devices is fantastic. The frequent use of anaphoras, parallelisms and repetitions combined with your fantastic use of metaphors? Perfection

Keeping this short as it is 00:29 here and I am tired.

Spoiler for anyone out there, we're talking about this fic of mine:

And now I'd like to shove all the thought-forming tools of my entire academic career into the answer /hj /lh

First of all, I swear I'm going to put a Woyzeck-quote in a piece of writing just for you :"D ✨

In this piece of writing, by the way, I didn't so much refer to the plot of Macbeth as use fragments of its more known speech because intertextuality is a wonderful thing:

Small allusions, I know, but first of all: they sound good ✨ On the other hand, the mental image of theatre evoked by these lines are to further build associations that are meant to suggest the reality-creating function of a story (which is an important point of the characters in WKM?, especially in relation to Actor and the DAMIEN-video).

The loop-mechanic, the act of continuous repetition, also evokes a sense of rehearsal, which can develop the classic rules of storytelling and the methods that can give a story its most powerful form. One might think, of course, that a self-regarding all-mighty story-creator like Actor would be aware of them and use them to the verge of obsession.

HOWEVER. Of course, there has to be a 'however' :"D

You point very well here to the self-reflexive nature of the text and, more importantly, the story, probably my favorite canon element of the Markiplier Cinematic Universe.

Because Actor may be aware of the elements that make up a good ol' perfect story, but on the one hand: fiction is not life, and on the other hand Mark as a writer (consciously or in his usual 'sounded cool' way) has very cleverly in DAMIEN subverted the audience's expectation and literally put a gun on the wall that didn't fire and said 'fuck Chekhov'.

Basically, he managed to take his Markiplier-promises to the level of storytelling meta-criticism. Brava.

So this fanfiction was trying to be a lyrical expression of that idea, as Celine, thinking like Actor, tries to adjust and win in this twisted world, because until the story is over, she can win. (The tragedy: the story will never be over.)

From that point of view, your point about the italicized sentences is absolutely correct, on some level Actor did indeed plant those ideas there, but they are more Celine's (otherwise correct-seeming) assumptions about Actor's strategies.

However, Celine's downfall in this situation is, ironically, that she is trying to play Actor's game, following in his footsteps, trying to make sense of his arcane, stupid story-beats, trying to use them to her (and Damien's) advantage. However, all this does is make us go round and round in circles and we just tire ourselves out.

Maybe, a solution (won't solve everything, though, some things can't be fixed, and that must be accepted): if you don't play by the rules, there is no play.

You can only break out of the loop. But look, it's cracking around the edges like ice anyway. Leave the gun on the wall. Here's an axe, more practical.

Fuck Chekhov.

But hey, that's just a theory, a dead author's theory! (Next time our lesson respectfully will be 'fuck Roland Barthes', just watch :"D)

Meo dear, thank you so much for your thoughts and for taking the time to reflect on my story and share your interpretations with me, it means a lot! :"3 💜

And, I haven't forgotten, I will definitely keep in mind your offer of beta-reading and German proofreading ;) ✨

[kyarbrougharts245-02]

Blog Seven

Today’s reading, titled “Hierarchy, Web Hierarchy, Web Accessibility,” covered pages 94-120. The reading starts off where Blog 5’s ended. Something important I didn’t mention last time was the topic of redundancy, which page 94 briefly delves into. Here it mentions that writers tend to avoid redundancy but highlights that such behavior can be accepted within typography. The examples the book gives are line indents and breaks. This specifically stood out to me because it cohesively compared and contrasted two feats associated with Graphic Design (type and writing) and how redundancy produces different results, explicitly illustrating how it can benefit someone depending on the work they are doing. 

Graphic Design can also delve into web design, a topic this reading also covers. It mentions hierarchies and how designers can make sites more accessible to a general audience (an example mentioned being line readers for the visually impaired). I knew of the existence of these amenities but I originally did not realize that Graphic Designers could play such a big role in its creation. The reading helps illuminate how vast the job of Graphic Design can expand. 

One quote in the reading that stood out to me was, “Paragraphs do not occur in nature” (Lupton, 102). I had not previously associated this fact with paragraphs. It makes sense as no animal has ever been seen to develop a written language, let alone an entire paragraph. Nor can the trees or the rocks found in the soil. It is mentioned that the standard of indenting new paragraphs began in the 17th century, another detail I did not know. Ever since then, we’ve seen most books being indented, associating the inclusion typically as professional. It draws me back to the beginning of the reading where the humans discover that indents make paragraphs more appealing and therefore repeat it. It is a desired redundancy.

Steering away from the reading, the class has remained relatively easygoing. We’ve entered the topic of mood boards and what to expect in a client meeting. Many valuable tips were shared but I think the one that stood out to me was the idea that a logo should stand the test of time, meaning logos should not have to be redesigned and if they do, there should be a minimum of ten-year lifespan before redesign. 

I can see how this would be useful going forward and the importance of why design is such a time-consuming process. Lots of research must happen for the best results. One of our classmates agreed to be our test client and we are currently tasked with designing a mood board based on an abundance of responses he’s given us. On Tuesday we recorded some additional information and now I plan to figure out how to make the most faithful mood board that represents him while discerning how to design when certain traits contradict each other. 

[ogma-conceptions]

Transform Enterprises Through Marketing Innovation

As a business, you often question how to get more prospects to recognize your company. With traditional routes such as print advertising or coupon mailers, you see a slight return with a trickle of business here and there.

Your business needs consistency. Whether you have a large or small following, there is always room for improvement with digital marketing solutions in India including social media marketing services in India.

Let’s transform enterprises through marketing innovation:

Innovative marketing is about being creative and uncovering fresh ideas to engage your customers. It’s about understanding the current trends in marketing and then taking it one step further to create something new and exciting. This can be anything from a creative campaign or concept to a fresh approach to traditional marketing techniques that sets your business apart from the competition with the help of digital marketing solutions in India.

Key Takeaways:

Distinctive Positioning: Embracing marketing innovation fosters a unique selling proposition that differentiates a product or service in a crowded market, capturing consumer attention and interest.

Enhanced Customer Relationships: Innovative marketing strategies nurture customer loyalty by engaging the audience with fresh and relevant campaigns, which translates to repeat business and a solidified brand community.

Revenue Growth and Market Agility: By continually reinventing marketing approaches, businesses can not only increase their revenue through novel offerings and expanded customer reach but also adapt swiftly to changing market conditions, sustaining their competitive edge over time.

Think about Tesla’s commitment to putting the first electric vehicle on the road in 2008, or Google’s introduction of a search engine in 1998. Each innovation was unheard of at the time and represented a major paradigm shift.

Benefits of digital innovation from digital marketing solutions in India with an eye on social media marketing services in India:

Improving the Efficiency of Marketing Campaign: innovation in technology and analytics can help companies optimize their marketing campaigns, making them more effective and efficient.

Increased Reach and Visibility: innovative tools and platforms can help companies reach a wider audience and increase their online visibility.

Increased Customer Engagement: it can also help companies interact and engage with customer in new and exciting ways.

How do social media play an important role in digital innovation?

We know what social media is and many of you reading this will most likely understand how it can be leveraged to meet your business goals, be it database capture, brand awareness or product sales. But how do you build a strategy that drives digital innovation with social media marketing services in India?

Here are three areas:

Building customer relationships

Enhancing brand credibility

Data, data and more data

Beyond improving efficiencies and streamlining tasks, perhaps the biggest advantage social media provides as part of a wider digital innovation drive is visibility. According to a survey, 90% of businesses understand the importance of social media and leverage it to drive growth.

A Word of caution from one of the best digital marketing solutions in India:

Firms must prioritize network security to safeguard against data breaches that can undermine customer trust and corporate reputation. Compliance with legal standards regarding customer engagement on social media is also paramount, as failure to adhere to these regulations can result in severe penalties. Maintaining a proactive stance on security and compliance helps protect the organization and its customers from potential cyber threats and legal issues.

[repost-this-image]

...And the same person has responded again. Clearly, either I am explaining something wrong, or this is a fellow queer person who doesn't understand that agreeing with homophobes on issues of sexuality and gender identity is generally a bad thing.

So let's break this down.

LGBT is not a kink. This is true. However, LGBT people having kinks is also not an evil or disgusting thing. Many people have kinks. Kink is just human inventiveness and creativity applied to sex instead of, say, sculpture.

I'm sorry that you don't understand that wearing a leather harness in public is NOT THE SAME THING as having actual, literal SEX in public. But it's not. You know what you tell a kid who asks about that man wearing funny leather stuff? "Some grownups like to dress up funny sometimes." Crisis averted. You don't even have to mention the sexual aspect.

Being LGBT is, literally, a failure/refusal to conform to a world that says that everybody MUST BE cis, heterosexual, and allosexual. That is what we do not conform to. You are bisexual. That means that, like it or not, you do not conform to the idea that everybody must be allocishet. As long as society continues to be cisheteronormative, we are not conforming. Because that is what society wants us to conform TO. You don't have to see yourself as some kind of rebel to recognize that you don't fit into the allocishet mold.

Let me repeat myself again. To our enemies, you and I and "respectable" queer folks like Pete Butigieg, are exactly as much "disgusting, degenerate horndogs," and in exactly the same ways, as the people who go to Pride in leather gear or full drag. To them, a man walking down the street, perfectly normally, and holding hands with another man, is a sexual act. When you say "Don't do anything sexual at Pride, think of the children," the homophobes are assuming that you mean that gay people existing in public is bad and sexual and should not happen, because that is how they see us. Nobody is fucking in broad daylight. Nobody. If you see people actually fucking or showing off their genitals while they are at Pride, let me know because I have never seen or heard of that happening. I would be deeply angry if it did happen, because Pride is also not about having sex in front of people.

The first Pride in 1970 (the first anniversary of Stonewall) was not a fun family event. It was a literal riot against police brutality and laws against our existence. Until the 90s or so, Pride was always a riot. People do not bring small children to riots. Some Pride events may be family-friendly, but children are not the target audience of Pride. It is generally expected that if you're under 18 and at Pride, then you are old enough to have learned our history and the ways in which our history is bound up with the history of kink. It is assumed that if you are at Pride, you are mature enough to understand that even though kinky people like to wear leather during sex, and these people are also wearing leather at Pride, that they are not having sex at Pride. Again, please learn our history because you are embarrassing yourself.

In fact, here you go. Here are links to educate yourself, person whose username I am hiding for your safety. Because you seem to live in some fantasy world where nobody is homophobic or transphobic, and I assure you, an entire political party in the US is working very hard to try to make us illegal again. Pick one and get reading.

This one is a paid course, but looks to be well worth it if you can afford it:

And lastly, a current example of why this shit matters:

…And @renthony said it better than I did.

I just want to say it again for the teens out there:

The “groomer” rhetoric is not new.

I remember when all LGBT people were generally considered to be pedophiles. By most other people. I was y’all’s age.

When my parents were teens, two men holding hands in public could be arrested just for that, because it was “lewd and lascivious behavior.” Having gay sex was a crime. Dressing as the “wrong” gender was a crime. These things were considered pornographic by nature.

Leather and kink were featured in the first Prides, to flout society’s rules. To say, we’re here, we’re queer, and you cannot destroy us.

Again, until I was about 10 years old, there were still sodomy laws on the books in the United States.

And when I was a teenager, when Matthew Shepard was murdered (look it up, but be warned, it is gruesome), most adults still believed that gay men were pedophiles by nature.

The far right doesn’t just hate us. They want to go back to the days when children did not know about us, when adults could go for years without knowingly encountering a queer person.

They want every last one of us dead or in prison. Every single LGBT person in existence. Because to them, saying “some kids have two mommies or two daddies” is pornography. To them, saying “I’m not the gender I was assigned at birth” is pornography. You may as well be giving them a play-by-play of How To Have Anal Sex With Another Dude.

So when you act like the leather pride flag “isn’t a real pride flag,” when you say “no kink at Pride,” you are telling the far-right: “You were right. We are a bunch of filthy degenerate horndogs who shouldn’t exist in front of children.” You are playing directly into their hands.

Fuck that. I don’t need other queer folks doing our oppressors’ work for us.

If you are not for the LGBT community, warts and all, “freaks” and all, then you are against us.

[khalixvitae]

urngh... (i flop onto your doorstep like a dying fish) please.... do you want to brainstorm for that vil fic of yours with the gay people in your phone im so sane about vil...

Hi anon! Sure thing, I’m still trying to nail down a few major bits of the plot line but I’m willing to share what I have!

To begin with, I think I want to make the setting somewhere very innocuous. A book shop, a cafe, something completely mundane and away from NRC. The basic premise is that Vil is going to this off campus hole in the wall destination to read/annotate scripts for an upcoming role. The reader is an employee of whatever business he’s started to frequent! Kind of tropey, I know, but if it ain’t broke, yk? But I’m trying to get it. A little off the rails.

The idea is that the reader basically just. Ignores who he is. He’s a customer, after all. I’m leaning into the idea of them being a bookseller more than anything else- the idea that they could want to provide him with any additional literature related to whatever role he’s playing/essentially help him hone his craft feels important. This is another one of those situations where my own life events may seep through as well- the idea that maybe the bookseller doesn’t really know what they’re doing with their life. Maybe they’re trying to earn enough money for a graduate level degree program? Something along those lines, like they have aspirations but don’t know how to achieve them.

Vil intends on keeping their interactions minimal and very professional- he refuses anything that he could consider preferential treatment until he sees the reader offering other people similar services. Then he has a moment of oh, they’re just kind. The reader tends to go above and beyond for customers that need assistance, or even for those that they just think could benefit from more information. Then Vil is a little less hesitant. Still professional, but maybe he’ll accept their offer to keep the shop open a little longer when he’s in the middle of a reading, or he’ll agree to have a cup of tea since they’re already making some. Naturally they get to talking. And yea, that’s Kind of the broader premise! I’m trying to nail down the role he’s playing. The one idea I’ve got floating around is kind of a weird one, but I recently reread Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and I’m spitballing Vil participating in a retelling of the story. Not as Dr. Frankenstein, but as the monster. Hear me out: in the book, he’s described as being intentionally crafted with beautiful features- which is what makes him all the more haunting to look at. He basically triggers the uncanny valley effect. Something incredibly beautiful and human and yet distinctly wrong. And the original monster is really an emotional and intelligent creature that seeks to be loved - only after repeated abuses does it actually become “evil”. It’s a story where the protagonist (Dr. Frankenstein himself) is frankly far more sinister than its antagonist. He plays god, creating a creature solely because he wants to know if he can. Then once he does, he just abandons it because he’s horrified at his own creation. Neither the monster nor the doctor are without their faults, and it’s one of those things where the reader is meant to be conflicted on who to root for. Anyway, I think a retelling that’s more sympathetic towards the monster (I.e., that characterizes it was Shelley did in the source material) would catch Vil’s interest. Yeah he’d be an antagonist, but he’d be a heart wrenching figure meant to conflict the audience and their perceptions of both him and the character he’s playing. And it would be a challenge for Vil, something he doesn’t seem to get often. It’s fundamentally different from any other role he’s played that we know of, and to play a creature so beautiful that it drifts into the territory of abominable? WHEWWWWW. idk I think. He’d be intrigued when it’s pitched at him and he’d accept this get out of type casting free card before his reps could shoot down the offer. Anywho! I would love feedback or other ideas if you or anyone else have any to bounce around !!!

[ajchip]

Hi!! Sorry in advance for the long ask ;-;. I thought your use of text in 'All Thanks To You' was really cool. I love how it becomes an object or an image itself when surrounded by the other images in your piece and (Is it actually your handwriting? I have no clue 😳) the handwritten quality of it ups the ante of the intimacy that you're trusting with us/with the viewer. What really struck me about the piece though was your use of the texts repetition. I think these ideas you introduce of important words being repeated so many times that their meaning becomes a little muddied, or intimate words being obscured so that your audience has to work harder to know you or, I guess, this invitation to take something apart in order to understand it better. Unravelling feels like a very trans experience to me, or at least, in knowing my own transness I've had to do a lot of unraveling. The whole piece was really beautiful (I love art that maps experience and your map is the first that I've seen that navigates transness so personally and so delicately) but the text stood out to me in particular. Super late congratulations on its exhibition ❤

not sure where to begin on these such nice words 😭 thank you for your interpretation on my work !! you’re the first person who has told me their thoughts that are so related to my mindset with creating this work. (it is my handwriting!)

we had an exhibition de-brief meeting & whilst people liked my work, other artists didn’t really get why i executed the pieces the way i did and the most confusion surrounded my inclusion of text, so to hear someone understand it the way you have, really means a lot to me.

my initial reasoning of layering the writing was so then it becomes a lot harder for the viewer to read it. it’s pieces of writing which i wanted to get out of my system, relating so closely with the other forms of imagery i used. the more i think about it, the intentions i had for keeping the privatised words in the pieces, was because the visual elements of the photos and the drawings were so easy to digest, i didn’t want the trans experience (in this case, more my experience) to be taken as easy, with making the text more complex i heavily relate to how you said - the unravelling of it all.

i knew that the people who were engrossed in the work would spend extra time trying to read my writing in its layered forms - and selfishly i believed that those were the ones who deserved to know what i had wrote. (looking back i know that doing this didn’t make this element accessible at all. i have captioned extracts available for those who ask)

again thank you so so much for this message. i’m so glad someone actually gets it. ❤️

[a-weird-cryptid]

Hey uh. As a system who read Elle(s). Please don't advertise as a comic about a girl with DID. That's not what she has. You can say it can be interpreted as DID but it is not about DID

SPOILERS FOR ISSUE 2

it's revealed that she was in the womb with 5 other embryos. And that they merged into her. That's not how DID works. As a system that sought out this comic after seeing this post, I did feel like it was a bit of a slap in the face. It's not your fault the comic falls into some actual misinformation but I feel like it was never meant to be about did

I think issue 1 leans into the DID coding a lot and I was very excited for issue 2. I think it's very DID coded but stating that its explicitly about DID is a bit inaccurate

Thanks for the criticism!

(Don't worry, I'll leave my comment spoiler free. But if you want to know what it's referring to, I'd recommend reading the spoiler section to the comment I'm reacting to, to get a basic idea.)

Again, I'm only half way through the first volume and I sadly didn't know that that's revealed in the second book. I can't tell my own opinion on it, because of the same reason, but I most likely will when I get there.

I wasn't intending to advertise Elles and I'm sorry if I accidentally did. The post was ment to be a simple, subjective review about the part of the graphic novel I've read so far. Since I'm new on this app and I wanted to try out a new type of post, to see what my audience would most likely want to see more of.

And I'm extremely sorry if I made anyone upset because I posted this review, not knowing that the series would end up being misinformative.

I def didn't expect the post to blow up that much. But since it did, I see it as my responsibility to correct this mistake, even if I didn't made it, nor could have known about it until I now. (If this person didn't made this comment to put my attention to it, I still wouldn't be aware of it. Again, thank you a lot. I think it's really important to stop spreading misinformation as soon as you see it.)

I can't really judge the accuracy of this reveal, because I'm NOT a mental health professional or similar, nor somebody suffering from DID (as far as I'm aware). But based of my own research, it's def misinformative and a mistake the writer (or whoever is responsible for the basic story) of this comic made. And I won't defend them for doing so, just because I like Elles so far.

DID is NOT formed like shown in the second comic. Instead, it's formed by extreme, repeated childhood trauma (most of the time of sexual nature) before the age of about 8. (And that's already simplified.) I most likely won't give my own, "full", explanation of this dissociative disorder on my blog. Unless there's a high demand. Since they're many ACTUAL systems and mental health professionals who did that WAY better than I ever could, already.

I will correct my post to make all of that more clear. But I won't take the it down, simply because of the positive feedback I got from the DID community. Which I assume means that it's still a good comic for DID representation. At least when it comes to the first comic book.

As well as the fact that, when searching about "Elles", most reviews, as well as real advertisement for this comic talk about different "personalities". Which is another term often used instead of "alter", as far as I know. I even saw some websites straight up stating she has undiagnosed DID. Which, in combination with the rest of the story, lead me to the conclusion that it most likely is about it nonetheless. Or at least it is suppose to be. Accurate or not.

Which makes it all the more disappointing to find out about the reveal in the second novel, in my opinion. I think it's such a "missed out" and rare opportunity to NOT show what DID is actually all about. And how it's formed. I thought they didn't mention it in any kind of way so far, simply because it's undiagnosed and noone really knows abt it. So I was hoping there'd be some kind of "big reveal" later. A few panels or even just simple sentences could have been enough to depict it more accurate, without accidentally triggering sb. Or making it less kid/ya friendly.

[the-far-bright-center]

#facts!!!#I feel like if you don’t actually…like the 6 movies (Disney is not a thing imo) then the story just ain’t gonna compute#I have zero issue with the story being about Anakin but imo it’s about Luke? that may be because I watched the OG trilogy years bf prequels#(we were allowed one movie a week and for like. a solid five years we watched one of the OG trilogy before every seeing any prequel content)#I always saw Anakin’s story in the prequels as added context to show you how remarkable Luke is#but everything they show us about Anakin is already determined by what we know about Luke. the son begat the father#i have this thing in my head where they’re both the Chosen One? which doesn’t make sense and I’m wrong!#anyway#op gets it (via @loubuttons)

Thanks for the support! I'm always glad to see others rejecting the Disney nonsense. I just wanted to respond to your tags—for what it's worth, I also grew up watching the Original Trilogy on repeat, particularly Return of the Jedi, which was one of my most-watched movies of my entire childhood. And RotJ!Luke was (and still is) my ultimate hero! In many respects, Luke can be seen as the Galahad to Anakin's Lancelot, the pure son of the fallen father, who doesn't succumb to temptation and succeeds on his quest where is father originally failed. So, of course, I agree that Luke is the protagonist of the OT who goes on a very clear Hero's Journey, and one that has always stood out in a positive way due to how he breaks the cycle by laying down his weapon and saving the 'monster' instead of slaying him. So I wouldn't say you are necessarily 'wrong' to view Luke as 'special'—he is! He's just not the Chosen One, because that's Anakin's role in the overarching story. Luke is the classic hero on a journey; Anakin is the mythic demi-god.

Of course, as a fan, it is your prerogative to view the story and its characters however you wish, so please note I'm not trying to disuade anyone from their preferred reading. That being said, when I say the story is 'about' Anakin, I'm not denigrating Luke's unequivocally heroic and redemptive role, I'm merely referring to the fact that once Lucas made the Prequels to complete the story that started with the OT, this reframed the entire saga in such a way that Anakin/Vader became its central figure. Acknowledging that the saga is 'about' Anakin is key to understanding its themes and message. Anakin's story is one of duality, so it is fitting that these two mirroring trilogies both feature him as a pivotal character whose story ultimately comes full circle. And as the Chosen One, Anakin's spiritual journey forms both the cosmic backdrop as well as the deeply personal heart of the story. The fact that Anakin is the Chosen One is undisputed in Lucas' canon. In fact, it's the whole point of why he made the Prequels in the first place: to depict Anakin/Vader as a tragic hero. This is what Lucas himself has repeatedly stated on the subject:

"The original idea for Star Wars was one movie about the tragedy of Darth Vader. But as the story grew, it ended up being three movies and the backstory was never explained. I decided it would be important to finish it off and do the backstory because things that I thought would be self-evident about the story, the audience didn't get. Over the 10 years after Return of the Jedi, I realized people misunderstood a lot—such as where Anakin came from. So it was a way of finishing the whole thing off." —George Lucas (from 'All films are personal: an oral history of The Phantom Menace')

and

Rolling Stone: Rewatching the Star Wars films recently, I found it interesting how the [Prequels] films reframed the old ones: They now seem primarily concerned with the tragedy of Darth Vader, rather than the triumph of the Rebels. George Lucas: Yeah, I made a series of movies that was about one thing: Darth Vader. Originally, people thought it was all about Luke. The early films are about Luke redeeming his father, so Luke’s the focus. —from George Lucas and the Cult of Darth Vader, Rolling Stone, 2 June 2005

from the Chosen One featurette:

"Darth Vader became such an icon in the first film, Episode IV, that that icon of evil took over everything—much more than I had intended. If it had been one movie that wouldn't have happened. He would have been revealed to be this pathetic character at the end of the movie. But now, by adding episodes I, II, and III, people begin to see the tragedy of Darth Vader as what it was originally intended to be. And I like the idea that the person you thought was the villain is really the victim. And that the story about the villain, trying to regain his humanity becomes really the story of Darth Vader’s redemption."—George Lucas

also

"The prophecy is that Anakin will bring balance to the Force and destroy the Sith. He becomes Darth Vader. Darth Vader does become the hero. Darth Vader does destroy the Sith, meaning himself and the Emperor. He does it because he is redeemed by his son. So the prophecy is true." —George Lucas

once again:

"You have got to remember that this is one movie, and it’s meant to be seen I through VI. So, I think when you watch the actual movie in order, the story will become very clear: that Anakin is the Chosen One. And even when Anakin turns into Darth Vader, he is still the Chosen One." —George Lucas

and finally:

"It’s a certain story about Anakin Skywalker and once Anakin Skywalker dies, that’s...the end of the story."  

—George Lucas 

There's a fundamental disconnect between my view of Star Wars and that of, well.... the majority of the SW fandom these days. Whether this is due to lingering disdain for the Prequels (despite fandom claims of acceptance, there's still plenty of prequels-hate going around, it's just taken on a different guise) or the constant onslaught of Disney’s big-budget fanfic muddying the waters, or a combination of both, I don’t know.

But ultimately, it's quite simple. I view 'Star Wars' as the Skywalker saga...aka the six-film Lucas saga, which tells the story of Anakin Skywalker's rise, fall, and redemption. I don't personally see 'Star Wars' as some ongoing, open-ended franchise that can or even should have indefinite *canonical* additions to it. (An optional expanded universe is one thing, but additions that we, as fans, are just supposed to accept as canon without question because Disney says so is another thing entirely.) Because 'Star Wars' is not just some cinematic universe that exists for its own sake. The fact is, almost the entirety of the world-building from the Lucas-era was done in service of the story and characters of the Original Trilogy and the Prequels. The galaxy far, far away was created specifically to be the backdrop for the Skywalker saga.

So when people debate topics like ‘pro-Jedi’ vs. ‘Jedi critical’, I’m often unable to relate to the angle that these discussions take because I feel like they are largely missing the point. Story-wise, the Jedi don’t exist for their own sake, they (along with the Jedi vs. Sith struggle) are simply part of the mythic backstory of the saga. As a concept, the Jedi exist primarily to serve Anakin and Luke’s respective journeys. So, the Jedi Order of the Prequels-era is written as having become rigid and flawed because that is the necessary context for Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side. And likewise, Luke bringing Anakin back to the Light through the power of love and familial bonds is what rectifies the Old Order’s failings and thus restores the Jedi to the galaxy.

That's just... the story. As in, how it was told. So when I write meta about the Prequels and Original Trilogy, and how they work together as one story, my descriptions and interpretations of both the Jedi Order and the Jedi religion (these are related but not exactly the same thing) are simply neutral in my mind. I'm just talking about what the story is trying to convey. I can't relate to this idea that we must leap to the Jedi Order's defense, nor the converse, that we must condemn the Jedi eternally for having lost their way by the time of the Twilight of the Republic. Rather, I step outside of the story for a moment, and look from the outside in to try to see what is happening from that perspective.

I'm not sure that everyone in the fandom is willing or even able to do that.

Whether that is because very few people actually appreciate the Skywalker saga as Lucas told it to begin with (many people still loudly proclaim that 'Star Wars sucks!', which leads me to believe they must not value the core story at its heart), or they have been so confused by the Disney nonsense that they think the 'new canon' has automatically overridden any meaning that once existed in the PT x OT saga...again, I don't know. I have purposefully tried very hard to stay away from any Disney-related SW discussions for years now, so this is just all what I've gleaned from glimpses here and there.

But it seems to me that many SW fans have trouble accepting that the concept of the Jedi (and the Sith) are inextricably linked to the Skywalker saga and the Skywalker saga alone. These things would never have been created in the way they were without that story. But to acknowledge this would means fans have to accept how central Anakin is to the entire thing. All of it exists for Anakin's story. There are fans who don't like this for a slew of reasons, whether it be that they became attached to a certain idea of the Jedi based on how they were portrayed in Expanded Universe stories that came out during the interim between RotJ and the release of the Prequels (stories that were largely jossed by Lucas' canon), or because they hate Anakin for in-story reasons and have never been able to accept that Star Wars is about him whether they like it or not.

It certainly doesn't help the fact that Disney has played into this discomfort by largely ignoring Anakin (at least, until fan-demand forced their hand) or even outright denying his importance to the story as Lucas told it. (Anakin is the Chosen One whether Disney or fans like it or not. Being the Chosen One is not about whether he 'deserves' it, it's literally just his role in the story. And Lucas' saga simply doesn't work without Anakin in the central role.) If fans are confused and disoriented these days, I can't entirely blame them. Disney's version of SW doesn't 'match' the Lucas saga and in many places outright contradicts it. But everything can easily be made clear if people step back (and put aside the Disney stuff for a moment) and just look at the actual story being told in the PT and OT. Likewise, any debates about the Jedi can easily be resolved in the same way. It's really not about how much fans like the Jedi as a group or as individual characters, or how much fans might wish they could be a Jedi themselves. It's about the role the Jedi play in the story, and it's about acknowledging whose story it really is.

[r4bbitdragon]

my heart is full, bursting.................. look at my Boy.... im so proud.........

OF YUA’S CREATION...

[colourful-void]

Let's Talk about Glasses for 1700 Words Straight - A Tiger and Bunny Analysis

And what those glasses represent!

So one of the things that stuck out to me in Episode 9 was Kotetsu's reaction. I think it's really interesting how it's like presented, because we see Kotetsu isolating himself from the rest of the team, not trying to get particularly close, his eyes hidden from the audience.

Now this is, of course, part of a set up. It's funny! Kotetsu lifts his head up, and he's wearing Bunny's glasses, joking about how he's never allowed to touch them. But the moment before is important.

At this point, we're viewing Kotetsu from an outside perspective, we can't judge whether his perceived upset is part of his joke or if its genuine, and the joke is a quick cover up. Here's my obligatory shout out to the dub because it's neat to see how things are interpreted by others. The dub takes the line "Bunny never lets me touch these." and adapts it to "Oh, just keeping an eye on Bunny's glasses." The dub version lends itself a bit better to an interpretation of a quick cover up, and the sub to the other side.

I think both of these make sense and have merit, so really lean towards whichever you want to go with is best.

Either way,

He's distracting himself. I believe this is part of how Kotetsu is coping.

When Bad Things Happen, people deal with them in all sorts of ways, I'm sure everyone reading this is already familiar with this idea. But how Kotetsu appears to cope, from my view, is a strategy of "I'll Fix Everything". It's a distraction, and a distraction that makes him feel somewhat more in control.

Time to bring up Tomoe! Direct parallels between what's happening now with Bunny and what happened with Tomoe are drawn explicitly in the show, with Antonio asking Kotetsu about it point blank. They are, very similar situations, and if you wanna take the dubs words for it, it's the same damn hospital too. No wonder Kotetsu's on edge.

But what's different about Tomoe and Bunny, beyond the obvious "one of them was his wife!" thing? Tomoe was dying of an illness. There was nothing that could've been done to prevent it, there is nothing Kotetsu can do now. Bunny is injured like this because of a conflict. This could've been prevented if he activated his power only a few seconds later, if someone had been there to catch him, if Vincent Carl hadn't become a villain, if, if, if. And what can Kotetsu do now?

Two things. First, his much more explicit of his quest to find Vincent Carl, which Agnes specifically calls out as a direct result of Bunny's injury. And second, in how he tries his hardest to comfort everyone around him.

Kotetsu's being optimistic, isn't he? Oddly optimistic, repeating out loud for the benefit of his teammates and daughter and likely himself, that he's certain Bunny will wake up soon. He's sure of it.

Something to keep in mind.

But of course, we're talking about the glasses here. They're used first as part of this joke, but they don't just vanish after this.

I think now is a good time to mention that most bits of symbolism, a lot of Good Symbolism too, can be explained away as "it doesn't mean anything, it's just practical, how things are done, its just convenient for the plot' etc etc etc. However this is a reading of this episode/scenes through a lens of symbolism, so keep that in mind.

Kotetsu puts the glasses away, into his breast pocket. The pocket over his heart.

By now I'm sure you've caught on. The glasses are a symbol. But for what? Glasses, conventionally, symbolize things like logic, wisdom. But what we see of how they're treated, as something Kotetsu clings to and "protects", the idea of wisdom doesn't really fit. In fact he's specifically noted as being 'irrational', bending rules and getting 'over emotional'. (to clarify i think his reaction makes perfect sense I'm giving points from the business side as presented in the show). For this we're going to have to look specifically inside the show. I'm not going to waste anymore time on this, the glasses represent Bunny. They're his glasses, they belong to him and Kotetsu's holding onto them because he can't hold on to Bunny right now. (and we know he wants to, as soon as Bunny wakes up his immediate goal is to hug him). But there's more to it. It's his glasses specifically, not any other object of his. What do we know about glasses? Glasses are breakable. Fragile. What do we know about Bunny's glasses in particular? He doesn't wear them in his suit. The screens and data mean he doesn't need them, his powers make his vision stronger than ever before. What do we know about Bunny's glasses? He wears them when he's not being a hero. He wears them when he's not invincible.

The glasses represent Bunny. Bunny as human, Bunny as breakable, Bunny and NOT Barnaby Brooks.

It's perhaps easier, at least visually speaking, to draw a line between Wild Tiger and Kaburagi Kotetsu. There's a clear difference between Pao-lin Huang and Dragon Kid. A lot of superhero media focuses on this divide between identities. Who you are in any given setting fluctuates, it's part of being human. This is especially true in the world of Tiger and Bunny, where Heroes are Celebrities, coated in advertisements. There's Blue Rose, sponsor for Pepsi/Coolish, adored hero and there's Karina Lyle, pretty normal girl in her late teens who wants to be a singer, not a hero. They're different, and they're the same person.

But Barnaby's lines are blurred. They're blurred by design, by his choice and Maverick's influence.

Bunny in season one devoted his life to finding his parents killer and avenging their deaths. Everything was secondary to that. Who he was as a person didn't matter, all of his being was simply a vessel to complete this goal. We can see it in how empty his apartment is, in his lack of motivation to socialize, etc etc.

But this is season 2. and we get to see Bunny grow.

Part of Bunny's growth comes from embracing more of himself. Letting himself have an identity outside heroism and revenge. Letting himself be a hero out of his own choice. Season two has a few examples of this, of how his plants and rekindled friendship with Mattia. Going with the plants metaphor; earlier his apartment was empty, the only things he needed were basic necessities, a bed to sleep, a chair to sit in, a computer to research. And now? The apartment is filled with plants, and life. Plants that Bunny clearly cares a lot about, watering them with a little spray bottle, talking to them, using special plant food. it's sweet and it shows how much he's changed since we last saw him.

These plants are private. This isn't part of Barnaby Brooks appeal as a hero. This isn't a selling point, this is just something he likes.

The differences between Bunny and Barnaby are growing.

When making the distinction between Tiger and Kotetsu, there's a mask, a physical eye mask, he wears. Blue Rose has blue hair, Karina is blonde. And Bunny? Bunny wears glasses. Barnaby does not.

The glasses represent Bunny. Bunny as a human, Bunny as breakable. Bunny's humanity in a sense, as opposed to him as a symbol.

It's Barnaby in the hospital. It's Barnaby who was injured. The glasses are off. It's not until he wakes up that the glasses come back on, he's back to being Bunny, a person, not a hero.

So what does it mean when Kotetsu is carrying them around?

Kotetsu carries Bunny with him. The idea of him as a human, breakable. He keeps that idea of him safe, putting it in the pocket against his heart. The only other time we see the glasses outside of the initial joke is here. When Kotetsu visits after the train crash, tells him to wake up soon, it's hard working alone.

And what's the next line directly following this shot?

"I thought we were supposed to go out for drinks."

Kotetsu is clutching onto Bunny as Bunny, onto his partner, in more than just hero work. The guy he wants to go out drinking with. The person he cares about so much. Not just as a partner in crime fighting. As a partner, full stop.

As I close this up I'll give my disclaimer reminder, this is just a little analysis for fun about symbols and stuff! and second, I'd like to wrap this up by speculating a bit!

After the scene holding them in his fist, the glasses aren't seen again. We see Bunny wearing glasses when he wakes up, but I believe these are a different pair of glasses. There's not a good place close to the bed in Bunny's room where Kotetsu could leave them. The last time we saw him with the glasses, the door was closed, so it's not like he even could've gotten in to leave them. The likelihood of Kotetsu passing them off to a nurse or doctor is extremely low. He was clearly attached to them by how he held onto them and wouldn't have given them up.

I believe that the glasses Kotetsu is holding were the pair that Bunny was wearing before he was blown up, and the pair Bunny wears in the scenes following him waking up are a separate pair. What happens to the pair Kotetsu carries around remains a mystery. Are they in his locker as seen in the intro? His house? Pocket?

There's lots of possibilities and I think they're all really intriguing.

After all, if the glasses represent Bunny as human, where do you think they should be?

...

Hey you made it to the end, I hope you enjoyed it! It was a lot of fun to write so I hope it was fun to read. Answer my questions or give thoughts in the tags if u want, I love to see em.

Thanks again for reading all this~!

[di-42]

So, I think we are talking about two things at the same time. One we agree on, that the final final fifteen don't mean Aziraphale doesn't love Crowley or is cruel and heartless. This for me is the most important take and I will fight whoever thinks otherwise. That's what my original post was about with sarcasm and intentionally exaggerated examples. Once we agree on that I'm happy to confront, exchange ideas, consider and/or politely disagree on other takes.

Which leads us to the take we disagree on (which I didn't mean to talk about in my original post but since I believe in it firmly it probably crept through!). Like I said I have fun talking about it (I can't stop, really), so I'm going to talk about it again here but that obviously doesn't mean I want other people to change their minds, it's just an exchange of opinions.

So, yes, I think Aziraphale is lying to push Crowley away and these are my reasons:

I don't think Aziraphale still thinks there's any good in heaven. I think this was in character for season 1 Aziraphale but I think by the end of season 1 the character had already grown to realise there wasn't and there would never be any good in heaven, especially when you think that season 1 was supposed to be a stand alone season. I think he has come a long way since the bandstand breakup. I think that's what Aziraphale means when he says "I've made my position quite clear" to the metatron.

I don't think Aziraphale is offended by Crowley's reaction. I think he's hurt and very emotional because he's having to break Crowley's heart and his own in the process and I think he falters in his resolves and he's absolutely aching but I don't see him being offended or angry with Crowley.

We don't see the whole conversation with the metatron and what we do see is mostly what Aziraphale tells Crowley. This is simply a fact, as audience we don't really know how the entire conversation went.

I think when Aziraphale starts talking to Crowley after his conversation with the metatron he's doing all the things he does when he's lying like he trips on his own words, repeat himself, stutters and wrings his hands, like when he's lying to God or to the angels.

I think the plotline where Aziraphale leaves Crowley behind to trust heaven only to then realise heaven can't be changed and no one is listening and go back to fight by Crowley's side already happened in season 1 and don't think it would be used twice.

We all think the metatron knows Crowley won't go back to heaven as an angel and we all know Crowley won't go back to heaven as an angel and yet I'm supposed to believe Aziraphale, who knows Crowley better than anyone, thinks that Crowley will go back to heaven as an angel?

This is at a more personal level but I'll throw it in with the others. I don't want to believe Aziraphale would want Crowley to become an angel again, no matter if he thinks they would be safer or if he remembers how happy the angel that Crowley was was. I don't want to believe he would disrespect Crowley's clear opinion on heaven like that or that he would kind of want to take away his free will. (Like I said, this is probably more personal/projection, so feel free to ignore).

Finally, I think Aziraphale is lying or there's something else that we're not seeing because Neil Gaiman does that (and that's one of the reasons I love his books). In many of his books things turn out to be different to the way they were presented at the beginning in many ways. In at least a couple of his books that I can think of (Neverwhere and Stardust) the reader is led to believe that one of the characters they have come to love is going to betray another character, in Stardust's case after the character's growth has already completed its arc. So I expect things to be surprising in his work and not exactly as they can appear at face value on a first watch/read. (Even the body swap at the end of season 1 is something of this sort... if the show had been planned to be spread over more seasons from the beginning maybe we would have been left on.a cliffhanger at the end of season 1 and would have learnt of the body swap only in season 2, who knows?). This last reason, however the story turns out to be, is the reason why I dislike people saying that if it turned out that there's something we don't see about what's going on and about Aziraphale's decision, that would be lazy writing. Like, no. That wouldn't be lazy writing unless you think that Neil Gainam lazy-writes most of his stories. That doesn't mean I don't accept it might turn out that everything is at face value but saying that if it's not at face value then it's lazy writing, aarrgghhh.

Anyway, sorry about the very long reply, I get excited talking about our favourite husbands. And like I said, my main point is that Aziraphale, whatever his motives, is not a cruel monster who doesn't love Crowley and I'm happy to exchange ideas and opinions with anyone who doesn't think that.

Ok. *rolls her sleeves* You want face value? *rubs her hands* I'll give you face value.

Crowley hates his plants.

He shouts at them, belittles them and k*lls them. He says horrible things to them and the fact that he k*lls the plants off screen is no reason for us to doubt that he does. Because we trust his words in that particular scene. His behaviour throughout both seasons, especially season 2 where the only thing he takes with him from his former flat are the plants, is absolutely irrelevant of course.

Crowley thinks Aziraphale is stupid or that he is an idiot. If he says so in situations of stress, in situations where the context suggests he's desperate for the angel to see things his way the context is just irrelevant, because he says that Aziraphale is an idiot. If the rest of the series shows us that he trusts Aziraphale and his intelligence greatly, that's irrelevant because in a couple of scenes he said that Aziraphale is an idiot.

If Crowley had gone to Alpha Centauri he WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE THOUGHT about Aziraphale. That's what he said, so it must be true.

Crowley actually wanted Muriel to arrest him because he's a demon. That's what he said, so it's exactly what he meant. That the unfolding of the story suggests that was a trick to get to heaven is irrelevant.

In Rome Crowley was an aardvark. Obviously.

Aziraphale is just an angel Crowley knows. Exactly like Sandalphon.

Crowley clearly wanted to k*ll Job's children. The whole goats-turned-into-crows thingy? Irrelevant.

I'm sure that if you take Aziraohale's words towards Crowley during the final fifteen at face value you'll agree with me that everything else in the show is to be taken at face value.

I invite everyone to come up with more examples.