#why does puppet always bring others into her mess and then try to justify it she did it with eclipse now she’s doing it with Charlie | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

itsclydebitches · 5 years ago

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You know, if we’re throwing blame around, why isn’t Clover himself responsible for his own death? He isn’t Ironwood’s brainless puppet, he made his own choices that night. And honestly he’s the one who kept STOPPING QROW FROM ATTACKING TYRIAN. Like, Qrow and Robyn played their part in this mess, too. That’s for sure. But Clover set himself up in the end

I’m going to answer this one in as much detail as I can and then save it to my meta page so I can actually return to it when needed, because I think the fandom as a whole has really misinterpreted that fight based on the circulation of leading statements like “stopped Qrow from attacking Tyrian” and “set himself up.” Which isn’t a knock against you, anon. These are claims I’ve seen circulated for months now but (like everything!) they can’t be removed from their context.

So what actually happens during that fight?

What happens is that Qrow starts out in a level-headed and mature place. Despite being pissed at Ironwood and having no desire to be arrested, he verbally tries to keep a fight from starting.

Clover, to my mind, also starts out in a level-headed and mature place. I get that the fandom doesn’t like the arrest warrant... but it is justifiable. Team RWBY was given official huntsmen licenses. They were working under Ironwood. They did lie to him and betray him. They did stand against and threaten to attack their general. Clover is a leader responsible for following the orders he’s given. Which I get is another hot-button phrase on tumblr. Only “bootlickers” just “follow orders,” but the fact remains that Clover doesn’t even know about any of the ethically complex details of this situation. All he knows is that his general and kingdom leader has ordered the arrest of the teens he was helping to train, along with their uncle. He doesn’t understand how that may or may not fit into the five second info dump said teen gave over their comms. Something something martial law and Salem’s coming. There’s no reason why he would forsake his loyalty to Ironwood as well as his duties here. Clover has no reason to prioritize Qrow’s ‘But I don’t want to be arrested’ over years of trust in Ironwood and his pride as leader of the Ace Ops. Besides, who wants to be arrested? His job isn’t to listen to every potential criminal who says they’re innocent because, you know, they’d all say that. His job is to bring them in and let the justice system decide that for him.

In terms of “setting himself up,” all Clover did was begin a legal process that he was justified and responsible for starting. That’s it.

Qrow, at the start, recognizes this to an extent. He’s hurt that Clover wouldn’t drop all these other parts of his identity to just let him go, but he’s not willing to physically fight him over it at first.

As said though, “at first.” The second Robyn attacks Clover? Qrow is on board.

So does he go after the seething bandit who shot an arrow at Clover’s face despite him insisting that there was no reason to fight? Maybe so that once the powder-keg that is Robyn Hill is out of the way he and Clover might talk like Qrow had originally hoped?

Nope. He attacks Clover.

That’s really, really important because from here on out Qrow has established himself as Clover’s enemy. As far as Clover knows he can’t trust Qrow as an ally anymore. Robyn attacked him. Qrow assisted her. Tyrian is a crazy serial killer. Clover is on his own here.

Despite this, twice Clover tries to talk to Qrow. Twice Qrow refuses to back down. The first time is on the ship right after Qrow slashes at Clover.

Qrow might say it doesn’t have to come to this but his words are absolutely meaningless because he’s still attacking. What is Clover supposed to do here? Not defend himself? Qrow doesn’t get to say a version of ‘We don’t have to fight’ seconds after he attacked Clover entirely unprompted. For the record, this is the exact same thing Ruby did to Harriet. She insisted they didn’t have to fight immediately after slamming through two steel doors to start a fight with Harriet. The way RT writes its heroes is by having them say a fight isn’t necessary while simultaneously having them instigate that fight themselves. And of course, it’s only unnecessary provided the other party does exactly what they want. Ruby will only back off if the Ace Ops let them go. Same here: Qrow will only stop attacking if Clover agrees to forsake his orders and let Qrow go, on top of ignoring Robyn’s attacks against him.

The team-up between Robyn and Qrow is re-emphasized with her line, “You can hug it out once we’ve taken him down!”

Again, Qrow is Clover’s enemy here. He attacked him first. He continued that attack. He stood beside Robyn and allowed her to speak for them both about “taking him down.” When it comes to the fight against Tyrian, Clover is attacking both of them because both have proven themselves to be threats. He’s not stopping Qrow from attacking Tyrian because he wants to save the serial killer or something equally ridiculous. He’s making use of openings in a fight where he’s outmatched two to one.

Before that though, we see the second time that Clover tries to diffuse the situation. After Tyrian gets free and crashes the ship, Clover approaches and tells Qrow that they can get Robyn help if he surrenders. That’s a fact. If you stop attacking me we can get her the medical attention she needs that much faster. Qrow interprets this as “manipulation.”

His immovable stance that he cannot and will not be arrested has justified everything else in his mind (despite arrest being the easiest and currently only way to talk to Ironwood like he wants...) To Qrow, a potential arrest is so horrific that it warrants him attacking Clover. Clover wants to peacefully take Qrow back to Atlas and hold him somewhere until they can work out whatever is going on. Qrow wants to attack Clover until he is defenseless and then he can... what? Leave him in the deadly cold? Take on the serial killer alone that he couldn’t handle less than a year ago? Somehow get medical attention for Robyn even though he’s a wanted man? Their motivations here are in no way equal. Clover is being fair within the bounds of his laws. Qrow is being a chaotic mess that’s (shock) going to get someone killed.

This is reinforced when Clover insists that they don’t have to fight. Here, unlike when Qrow says it, his words mean something because Clover is not attacking him. He’s actually giving Qrow the chance to lower his own weapon and end this. Qrow responds emotionally, insisting that they’re not friends and “this is how it always ends.” Qrow has allowed his self-hatred, pessimism, and depression to blind him here. He literally has someone going, ‘There’s a better option where we both come out happier’ and he goes, ‘NOPE it can only end in tragedy.’ That’s been his experience and thus that’s what he insists on.

Qrow rejects the possibility of peace between them even though it’s being offered, right here, right now. He established himself as Clover’s enemy by attacking him first and he then re-affirms that position by insisting that they can only cross weapons. Qrow is Clover’s bad guy now. He insists on trying to hurt him. So Clover is going to defend himself any way he can. That means that when Tyrian arrives and Qrow turns to attack him, Clover makes use of his unguarded back and snags him with his hook. Why wouldn’t he? Why would he suddenly think, ‘Oh, Qrow is on my side again and we’re teaming up to take out Tyrian’? Qrow has given no indication of that. It would be an entirely different situation if, after Tyrian shows up, Qrow growls out something like, ‘Fine, let’s deal with him together and we’ll settle our problems later.’ But he doesn’t. All Clover knows is that now Qrow and Tyrian are both fighters he has to take out somehow... so yeah, use whatever advantage you can get.

We get a shot of Tyrian’s gleeful expression when he sees Clover attack Qrow. He knows now that they’re still fighting each other like they were on the airship and he’s already planning how to use this to his advantage.

When Tyrian next re-enters the fray, his moves work to defend Qrow. Eventually he succeeds in pushing Clover away from him entirely.

While Clover is out of earshot and picking himself off the ground, Tyrian poses his offer: let’s take him out and then the two of us can finish that unsettled score.

Qrow charges and, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, it’s impossible to know who he’s charging at. Tyrian and Clover are both ahead of him. He’s attacked each prior to this moment. Clover is just as likely a target as Tyrian so, again, when he sees his opening he takes it. We can assume this is Clover interrupting an attack against Tyrian, but it would just be that: an assumption. Neither the audience nor Clover knows Qrow’s intentions here but, thus far, his intentions towards Clover have not been good. So he takes advantage of this moment where he can snag Qrow’s weapon and get a hit on Tyrian.

At this point in the fight Clover hasn’t a single reason to trust Qrow to have his back. Even if he wanted to still believe in him that hope is obliterated when Tyrian once again gets between them and pushes Clover back.

They share their look. This is Qrow agreeing with Tyrian’s proposition to take out Clover together.

And they attack.

We then know the rest of the fight. Clover is overwhelmed, his aura is broken, and Tyrian slams Qrow’s weapon through his stomach. So to answer your actual question, yes. Clover has agency... but I honestly don’t think he did anything wrong here. He never “set himself up” to be killed. He certainly never “stopped Qrow from attacking Tyrian” in the way most people mean the phrase: foolishly stopping an ally from attacking an enemy. What Clover did do was:

Adhere to his responsibilities as a huntsmen by trying to arrest Qrow

Insisted on this happening peacefully and emphasized that they’d work this all out later on

Was attacked by Robyn

Was attacked by Qrow

Tried to talk Qrow down and get Robyn medical attention and was unambiguously rejected

Defended himself against Qrow and Tyrian both, first under the (correct) assumption that both were his enemies in this fight and then again with them working as a team

Was ultimately killed by them both

If we really want to play the ‘You attacked a (former) ally instead of Tyrian’ game then we also need to acknowledge when Clover succeeded in subduing Tyrian and instead of helping him, Qrow a) deliberately left his weapon unattended (you can see him look to it before running off) and b) broke Clover’s aura. Both actions led directly to his death.

We even get to see the split second Tyrian realizes that Qrow has chosen to continue attacking Clover instead of helping with his capture. Remember how stupid Robyn’s agreement with Tyrian was? If you’re doing what the crazy, Salem worshiping villain wants you to do, then what you’re doing is wrong.

I adore Qrow, but he was entirely in the wrong here. Every decision he made from deciding to help Robyn attack Clover, to breaking his aura after Tyrian was bound, to blaming Ironwood for it all was just a Grade A Stupid Choice. To my mind, the only knock against Clover is the argument that he shouldn’t have tried to arrest anyone in the first place which, as I’ve made clear both here and elsewhere, I find to be entirely unpersuasive. Clover was the victim. He tried to do his job in the most peaceful, empathetic way possible and was murdered for it. That murder was assisted by someone he thought he could trust and who he considered to be a friend.

No, no one was a “mindless puppet” here. They all made their own choices. The difference is that Clover’s choices were based in responsibility, legality, hope, and compassion. Qrow’s were based in recklessness, illegality, pessimism, and hatred. Those choices simply aren’t equal.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas

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dogbearinggifts · 6 years ago

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“Dad Sent Me to the Moon” vs. “Because Dad Made Me”

How Luther and Vanya Talk About Trauma, Part Two

This is Part Two of a series examining how Luther and Vanya address their own trauma and respond to the trauma of others. My goal is to compare their canon reactions to how fandom portrays them, and see if the common perceptions are accurate. As I said in Part One, I’m not out to make one character look better than another; I just want to examine what happens and what is said and give each scene as fair an analysis as I can.

You can read Part One here.

Episode 3: Extra Ordinary

This is the episode where we learn about Vanya’s book—but as I said I wasn’t going to count it as a mention of her trauma, I’m going to leave that aside. A few scenes after this montage, though, we find Luther and Allison in the main living area, discussing Grace’s potential involvement in Reginald’s death. Before long, though, Luther changes the subject.

Allison: And then we left her here. Alone. In this house, for thirteen years! I mean, no wonder she lost her mind. To be away from your kids? Luther: Hey, what happened with…Claire? With Patrick? You never told me. Allison: Yeah, I don’t want to talk about it. Luther: It’s just…when we were kids, we used to sit in here and tell each other everything. Allison: Yeah, and then we grew up. Pause Things got ugly between Patrick and me. Now the court tells me I have to do this mandatory therapy thing before I can have visitation. Luther: What for? Allison looks at him, then away. Luther: You used your power on her. Allison: I mean, there were these days when she would have these epic meltdowns. And no matter what I said, she wouldn’t stop. She was three then, and I…I know that’s what three-year-olds are supposed to do. So I said I would do it that one time. Only it wasn’t just that one time. I told myself any parent with my power would do the same. That it wasn’t wrong. I just had an advantage. I mean, from the time I was little, I used it to get everything I wanted. With Dad, with my career…but now I know nothing in my life was real. So I’m starting over. I just didn’t think it would be so hard. Luther: It’ll get easier. Some things just take time. Allison: Yeah. And some things just stay broken.

What’s interesting about this exchange—which is the first time Luther has responded to someone else’s trauma—is that Allison is not the one who brings it up. The subject of Grace’s mental state is tangential to the topic of why Patrick filed for divorce and got custody of Claire, and Luther is the one who brings it up. Allison at first hedges, Luther pushes a bit, and she tells him everything.

Now, there are two ways to look at this, the first being that Luther is nosy. He had no reason to pry into her personal life, Claire had nothing to do with him, and he just wants to know all the juicy details about Allison’s divorce, possibly so he won’t have to feel guilty should he decide to make a move on her later on. While I can see evidence to support this theory, I don’t think that’s what’s happening here. Rather, I think Luther could tell Allison was upset about her divorce and even more upset about losing custody of her daughter. As he said, he and Allison used to tell each other everything, so he’s probably heard her vent about more than a few things before the family broke apart, and he’s probably seen her become noticeably calmer after she’s had a chance to get whatever ailed her off her chest. To me, it seems Luther is expressing concern for her, and giving her a chance to vent.

What’s more interesting about this exchange, though, is what Luther doesn’t say. If you watch his facial expressions as she confesses (which I can’t capture because my laptop is old and screenshots just turn to blackness) you can tell he’s horrified by what his sister did to her own child. He absolutely does not approve. But he doesn’t tell her that. He doesn’t say “Jesus, Allison, what the hell were you thinking? She’s a kid! Your kid! You don’t treat her like a puppet!” He can tell, by Allison’s expression and the trembling of her voice, as well as the words she uses to describe what she did, that she knows it was wrong. It’s clear she hates herself for it, so Luther doesn’t pile on more guilt. He just listens and gives her a safe place to confess, not speaking until the end: “It’ll get easier. Some things just take time.”

That line might not look it, but in context, it’s incredibly validating. Allison has just shared her darkest secret with him (and it’s a pretty dark secret). She ruined her own life, and now she has to relearn everything and she’s not sure she has the strength for it. So what does Luther tell her? “It’ll get easier. Some things just take time.” The first part—It’ll get easier—acknowledges that what she’s trying to do is difficult. The second part—Some things just take time—is an attempt at encouragement, telling her to not give up if she doesn’t see results right away. Luther is encouraging his sister to keep trying to make amends, without offering false hope.

But I think it’s what he says next, after Allison says “Yeah. And some things just stay broken” that’s the most overlooked bit of validation here: Nothing. After Allison says that, Luther is silent—and with that silence he validates her fear. She knows this whole mess might not have a happy ending. She knows she might never see her daughter again, and that she has no one to blame but herself. And Luther doesn't try to tell her otherwise. He doesn’t brush off her fear with some pat answer like “Well, you just need to keep trying” or “Everything will be okay.” He just lets her fear stand and remains quiet, allowing her space to talk more if she needs to.

Not too long after this, Vanya heads over to Bricktown to find Leonard’s shop, and as they’re walking together, they run into Allison. We then get this:

Leonard: You didn’t tell me your sister was a movie star! To Allison: You were in that Umbrella thing too, weren’t you? To Vanya: But you weren’t in that, were you? Vanya: No, I was sort of the fifth Beatle of the family, so… Leonard: Never did like the Beatles. More of a Stones guy myself. Allison: Um, sorry to interrupt, but could you, uh, come back to the house? We’re having a family meeting. Vanya: And you guys want me there?

From the way this line is delivered, it’s clear that this is not a simple, innocent question. Vanya meant it as a swipe at her siblings, a reference to being excluded, and it comes across as one. (As a side note, I think her word choice is worth mentioning: referring to herself as “the fifth Beatle of the family” casts the Umbrella Academy as something cool, a guarantee of fame and fortune she was passed over for—rather than as the vehicle for wanton child abuse it was. I doubt she’s trying to gloss over the abuse her siblings were forced to endure, because it doesn’t seem she was aware of most of it, but comparing the Academy to one of the most iconic rock groups in history says a lot about how she views it.)

Unlike her first mention of her exclusion in the previous episode, this one is far less appropriate to the conversation at hand. Knowing Vanya, and knowing what Allison said to her the previous day, it’s not entirely out of left field; but it’s still a swerve from the topic—and it’s neither necessary nor beneficial.

Imagine, for a moment, that Leonard is exactly what he seems: a sweet, somewhat dorky guy who maybe comes on a bit strong but is pursuing Vanya not out of sinister ulterior motives, but because he thinks she’s neat. He’s walking along with her, talking and joking about all the things they have in common. Things seem to be going well, he’s glad he made his move—and then her movie star sister pops up out of nowhere. And he realizes—holy shit! Movie Star Sister was also a superhero! But he doesn’t think Vanya was one, so he asks if she was. “No, I was kind of the fifth Beatle of the family,” she says. It’s clear she’s not happy about that, but hey, might as well try to cheer her up. Now Movie Star Superhero Sister is asking Vanya to head back to the house for a family meeting—a family meeting of superheroes, holy shit….

….and Vanya immediately takes a swipe at her. Drags her rotten childhood into the conversation, uses that simple invitation as a reminder that she doesn’t think much of her sister or the rest of her family. Movie Star Superhero Sister, to her credit, doesn’t respond in kind, but wow, Vanya suddenly doesn’t look so nice anymore. Sure, she had a rough childhood—rough enough to fill an entire book—but her sister was trying to be friendly and Vanya tried to pick a fight?

If Leonard had been simply a normal guy pursuing a normal romance for normal reasons—if he hadn’t stuck with Vanya to use her for his own ends—that not-so-subtle jab probably would have convinced him to move right along. Bringing up family drama in front of someone you barely know, regardless of how comfortable you feel with them, is generally a relationship ender. At the very least, many people will want to take a big step back and reconsider—because if your partner will make cutting remarks like that to their own siblings for no apparent reason*, what will they say when they’re mad at you?

I understand where Vanya is coming from. I understand she’s been excluded by her family and that taking swipes at them probably gives her a few seconds of catharsis. But that does not, in my opinion, justify what she does here. She can be angry with her sister for what she said. She can hate her siblings for making her feel like an outsider. But saying “And you guys want me there?” in response to her sister’s invitation is rather uncalled for. Allison is making an effort to reach out—presumably what Vanya always wanted—and Vanya bites her hand off.

Furthermore, Allison hurt Vanya in private. When she lectured her on how little she understood about relationships and how she needed to stop blaming Dad for all her problems, they were in the Academy with no one else around. Vanya chooses to hurt Allison back in public, in the presence of a man Vanya barely knows and that Allison has only just met. Vanya isn’t just returning blow for blow—she’s escalating the fight. Allison humiliated Vanya for sure, but she didn’t put Vanya on the spot in front of anyone else. Vanya humiliates Allison in front of a stranger who—from the fact he recognized her right away from a movie she’d been in—seems to be a fan of hers. For all Allison knows, he’s going to take that tip right to one of those trashy gossip magazines, trade it for his 15 minutes of fame, and she’ll see it in the bottom corner of the next issue’s cover: Sibling Squabbles—Allison Hargreeves’ Meeting With Sister Hints at More Family Trouble for Embattled Star.

Allison chooses not to return an eye for an eye. Rather than lash out at her sister, she tries to reconcile. Which was, I think, the right decision—but I also would not have faulted Allison at all had she chosen to avoid Vanya after that.

Later, as Hazel and Cha-Cha are combing the Academy in search of Five, Allison finds Luther sitting on a windowsill, staring up at the Moon.

Allison: Wow, look at that. Luther: Mm. Home sweet home. I tell ya, things were a lot simpler up there. Allison: What’s it like? Luther: Quiet. Cold. And uh…lonely. Although, every now and then, when the sun came rolling over the horizon just right, and the light hits it, everything would turn to white glass. It’s….it’s beautiful. Pause You know, whatever you told Claire….I didn’t really feel like a superhero up there, but those few moments when my whole world was glowing, I felt like I was meant to be there.

This is Luther’s first onscreen mention of his trauma. As with Vanya, and as with Allison and her trauma, someone else broaches the subject first. Luther does not bring up his time on the Moon apropos of nothing; Allison asks him a question and he answers.

What’s most noteworthy about this exchange, however, is that Luther does not speak of his time on the Moon as if it were traumatic for him. His first words about it (“Things were a lot simpler up there”) are somewhat positive; his initial description (“Quiet. Cold. And lonely”) is neutral; and his continuing description is actually quite positive. His mention of conditions on the Moon is brief and perfunctory, and he spends more words describing the moments of breathtaking beauty he found.

As we later find, his time on the Moon was much harsher than he lets on here, but we get hints in the opening sequence, where he must squeeze his massive frame through openings and corridors clearly built for someone of average size. Yet the Moon base was designed by or on the orders of Sir Reginald. Even if it was created years before he ever considered sending his son there, he had the money for modifications to accommodate Luther’s mutated body. He chose not to do this, forcing Luther to spend four years in cramped conditions, unable to even take much of a walk outdoors. What we see of his base, too, is spartan; he has a bed with homey blankets and artificial gravity as well as a small houseplant, but little else. And he spent four years like that.

Yet he tells Allison none of this. He gives her a simple description of life on the Moon that carefully avoids too much negativity before regaling her with the majesty of it, ending with a particularly sad bit of foreshadowing: “I felt like maybe I was meant to be there.”

Luther has not yet begun processing his time on the Moon as trauma. As far as he knows, he was sent there for a reason that was not disclosed to him. Would he speak of it differently had he already begun processing his exile as trauma? Possibly. Whatever the case, Luther’s first mention of his time on the Moon is a simple answer to a simple question, followed by a description of the scenery that makes the Moon sound downright lovely—not a demand for pity.

Running count of trauma mentions (cumulative of all episodes thus far)

Own Trauma: Vanya 2, Luther 1 Trauma of Others: Vanya 1, Luther 1

*There was a reason for Vanya’s low blow. We the viewers know it, and Vanya and Allison know it, but Leonard had no way of knowing it. I said “no apparent reason” because from an outside perspective, Vanya’s remark seems to come out of the blue.

Read on to Part Three

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary: Part 6.6

Be aware that this is not a blind playthrough! This will contain spoilers for the entire game, regardless of the part of the game I’m commenting on. A major focus of this commentary is to talk about all of the hints and foreshadowing of events that are going to happen and facts that are going to be revealed in the future of the story. It is emphatically not intended for someone experiencing the game for their first time.

Last time as trial 6 began (and no, this trial is not getting any exclamation marks), we retried Rantaro’s murder, Rantaro’s Survivor Perk note was not a video, Kaede still did meaningfully bear responsibility for his death but her execution was not justified even by the game’s rules, Kaede’s twin was a ridiculous and very telling red herring, Himiko continued to be a little bit Kaito (though only on a surface level) in her desperation to keep believing in Tsumugi, Shuichi still hated accusing his friends of murder but managed it anyway, and Junko Enoshima waaaas…

Tsumugi: “Junko… Enoshima is…”

“Junko”: “Right the fuck here!”

…Not actually even remotely here at all, of course.

“Junko”: “Even if nobody was waiting, even if it makes you go, ‘What, again?’… The diva of despair takes the stage once more! Junko Enoshima the 53rd!”

So… are we seriously to believe that in every single in-universe Danganronpa series up until this point, they’ve always found some excuse for it to be Junko each time? That this really is literally the 53rd time she’s appeared? Damn, no wonder she’s lampshading the repetitiveness and how bored everyone must be of that.

That’s difficult enough to believe that I’d rather assume she’s only saying 53rd to give them a hint, and really Junko has appeared more than enough times for people to be tired of it but still not nearly every time.

(This also reads like a dig by the out-universe writers at themselves for this, even though she only returned once and that was pretty believable because of the situation they were in. Unless she also somehow returned from the dead in the anime or UDG. Geez, I hope not.)

Monokuma: “Bwah-hahahaha! There you have it! Once again, the mastermind is Junko Enoshima!”

Monokuma has apparently just become like a sports commentator, now that the mastermind herself can play the role he usually has. This is after all the first time Monokuma’s still been around once the mastermind takes the stage, because he’s not a literal puppet this time.

Himiko: “Tsumugi… wh-what’s the matter? Aren’t you… Tsumugi Shirogane? Our friend who survived with us?”

“Junko”: “Hahaha, sorry about that. You can go ahead and forget about Tsumugi Shirogane.”

Tsumugi: “Cuz I’m just a character! Y’know, a lie!”

This is, in a certain sense, not wrong. The Tsumugi they thought they knew and were friends with never existed – it was just an act being put on by the real Tsumugi who was cruelly making this fiction for entertainment and enjoying every second of it. It may have been somewhat based in reality in that Tsumugi based that lie off herself and just did what would come naturally to her if she wasn’t a fucking terrible person, but it was still ultimately not a person who really exists. “Tsumugi” was the only one of the students here who really truly was just fictional.

“Junko”: “Sorry to all her fans out there. If any of you even exist, that is.”

And now joining Monokuma in the Not Remotely Subtle club: Tsumugi! Not that she probably cares because she’s intending for Shuichi to figure out the real truth soon enough.

“Junko”: “Tsumugi Shirogane was nothing more than a cover for me, the mastermind.”

However, here she’s trying to imply that there never even was anyone called Tsumugi Shirogane in the first place and she was just Junko in disguise the whole time. And for some reason, the students seem to kind of buy this (as did several of the blind LPers I’ve watched), when nobody should? Tsumugi is a cosplayer. It is still perfectly possible that this is just Tsumugi cosplaying Junko rather than the other way around, and especially since Junko is supposed to be super super dead, that should be what everyone immediately jumps to rather than believing this.

“Junko”: “As you can see, I am a perfect reproduction of Junko Enoshima.”

Maki: “So… you’re just a freak pretending to be Junko Enoshima, huh!?”

“Junko”: “No, a perfect reproduction!”

Tsumugi: “Perfect reproductions are exactly the same as the original.”

She’s clearly talking about cosplay here, guys! At least Maki seems to get it, but nobody quite zeroes in on the fact that beneath the mask she still is Tsumugi the Ultimate Cosplayer and it’s just that the Tsumugi we thought we knew was mostly an act.

Maki: “So if we kill you, then that’ll be the end, correct?”

Maki Roll, no! Didn’t you decide back in the investigation that you weren’t actually going to kill the mastermind?

Shuichi: “You killed Kaede, and Monokuma covered it up with a false narrative!”

Hah, I like how he calls it a narrative. Way more appropriate than he realises.

“Junko”: “I knew of Hope’s Peak Academy’s Gofer Project, and my inner Junko told me…”

…

Tsumugi: “And then I took the name ‘Tsumugi Shirogane’ and sneaked in among them.”

She can’t even keep her own narrative straight! “Junko” is implying she’s not really Junko and just wanted to be, and Tsumugi is saying she’s not really Tsumugi! Which one is she even trying to go with here!? Apparently she’s just trying to confuse everyone as much as possible.

Maki: “Did… Kokichi know about this? Wasn’t he a Remnant of Despair?”

Maki, you were with Shuichi when he saw Kokichi’s motive video, you should know now that he wasn’t! It seems she was so fixated on her belief that he’s a Remnant (for reasons we will get into soon) that she told herself the motive video must have been some kind of hoax.

Himiko: “Who’s this killing game being shown to!? Where are the survivors of humanity!?”

Tsumugi: “There’s nobody watching.”

You literally just talked about your “fans” like five minutes ago, Tsumugi, I don’t know why you expect this to work on anyone.

Shuichi finally brings up with the notion that their memories might not be true. He let Tsumugi ramble on for far longer than he needed to about things he had every reason to think were most likely lies before coming out with this, but.

Shuichi: “This book contains years of research about Hope’s Peak Academy. Nothing would indicate this book is a prop. I believe this information here is accurate.”

Oh, no, Shuichi, this book is very much a prop and everything written in here is also a lie. I guess he’s saying this because, for the out-universe audience, they already know that everything written in that book is the real truth about the Hope’s Peak story. But it’s still pretty flimsy the way Shuichi just takes this book as the truth at this point in the trial in order to argue that their memories are the part that’s wrong. Especially when he now has plenty of other ways to prove that anyway.

Monokuma: “Alright! Time to play some Danganronpa trivia!”

…Apparently this is why the narrative is doing this and is about to make us go through three Nonstop Debates just about this: because they really did just want to make us play Danganronpa trivia. Anyone playing this game who hadn’t played or seen the other games can just use the book to be able to do this, but man, surely they’d feel so bored and left out and questioning why they should care about all this.

(Also, the students are probably wondering why the hell Monokuma just started talking about Bullet Rebuttals like that’s supposed to mean anything. …Or maybe they’re not, because Monokuma was always full of non-sequiturs anyway and this is probably just another one, right.)

Maki: “Wasn’t Junko the Ultimate Despair?”

Keebo: “…That’s what I recall as well. That label should only apply to her.”

Apparently they don’t think that the Remnants of Despair count as being called the Ultimate Despair in any capacity. In DR2, a certain group of people who were referred to as “Ultimate Despair” were definitely also called “Remnants of Despair” in at least one or two lines. However, that’s the part of the story that everyone’s fake memories seem to be missing out, so I suppose that explains why they see the Remnants of Despair as a totally separate thing.

“Junko”: “Ugh, does it even matter? I’m bored already.”

Really? Because you don’t seem that bored. This “Junko” we’re seeing here is only really showing one personality, the “base” Junko so to speak, rather than switching between multiple different ones like the real Junko would do because she kept getting bored. Of course Tsumugi isn’t going to get bored like that – how could she ever be bored of being one of her favourite characters?

Keebo: “…because Junko had prepared countless ways of spreading despair.”

“She did no such thing!”

“Oh, maybe she did…”

Is Tsumugi switching characters mid-debate in order to disagree with herself? Boo, only Kaito was allowed to do that. (Or maybe she’s just arguing with Monokuma.)

“Junko”: “It just means those documents were written all half-assed. There’s no need to worry about it. Your memories are all correct.”

Shuichi: “What you’ve been saying isn’t consistent! First you said it was just ‘coincidence’.”

I appreciate Shuichi picking up on how inconsistent her narrative is and calling her out on that. The previous time he’s talking about was her claiming that everyone coincidentally misremembered the same thing, which is the complete opposite of her claim here that the book is wrong and not their memories.

Keebo: “And with that… recruitment of talented students resumed.”

This is supposed to be Keebo remembering that they all applied to Hope’s Peak when the “truth” is that the school didn’t accept applications and scouted all its students. But the phrasing “recruitment of students” definitely sounds like Keebo is saying that they were scouted. Probably a localisation error, but way to mess that one up, localisers.

Shuichi: “Me too. I *chose* to come to Hope’s Peak.”

And if you think about it, that really isn’t in character for you, is it, Shuichi? Until you met Kaede and Kaito, you hated your talent and didn’t think you deserved to be called the Ultimate Detective. You were scared of revealing the truth and certainly wouldn’t have decided on your own to apply to make that something you had to do even more of.

On that same note, why in the world would Maki have applied to be recognised as the Ultimate Assassin and have that become well-known?

Shuichi then goes on to mention the other evidence of this all being bullshit, specifically that they have no memory of the killing game Rantaro participated in, and that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair. It’s almost like we didn’t need to do all of this business with Shuichi inexplicably insisting the book must definitely be the truth in order to prove this.

Maki: “He wasn’t… a Remnant of Despair?”

Maki in particular looks very shocked to hear this. If he wasn’t, then it means she had no good justification for trying to kill Kokichi – not only was he not actually the mastermind, but she had no genuine, non-fabricated reason to even assume he was. It means she was just being manipulated into doing what others wanted of her and killing who others wanted her to kill on an even greater level than she was already aware of. She’d thought at the time that it was her own decision and her own desire, but all of it was just manipulation, just someone else using her as a puppet to kill, like always.

Shuichi: “An organization centered around petty crimes, one that forbids murder.”

Whoops, there’s a remnant (no pun intended) of the original Japanese line in Kokichi’s motive video that mentioned their explicit motto about not killing people. Apparently Shuichi’s localiser is not the same one who localised the video and did not get the memo.

Maki: “You mean… he wasn’t a Remnant of Despair? That’s… not possible…”

Because if it is possible, if it is true, then why did she try to kill him? Was she really just killing for someone else’s whims yet again? Is she not allowed to have any of her own agency at all?

Shuichi: “Kokichi didn’t tell us because he wasn’t exposed to that Flashback Light. And… neither was Kaito.”

…

Exisal Kaito: “… Junko?”

I like that it calls back to this and allows the players to very explicitly realise how utterly fucking confused Kaito must have been during those bits. (Even though it’s technically wrong for the text box be calling him “Exisal Kaito”; sure, we know now it was Kaito, but he was pretending to be Kokichi at the time and that makes him “Exisal Kokichi”. The name “Exisal Kokichi” never referred to the real Kokichi at all.)

Shuichi finally gets to the point and starts talking about how the Flashback Lights were fake. Since he has pretty concrete proof of this, I really don’t know why he couldn’t have brought this up sooner. (Because clearly we all really needed to play some Danganronpa Trivia, I guess.)

Keebo: “So the memories we recovered with the Flashback Lights were…”

Shuichi: “Not real. They were all false memories. They were all lies!”

One thing to note is that nobody remembers the very first Flashback Light at the beginning where they “remembered” their talents – understandably, since it created their entire characters and overwrote everything that came before. So, even though Shuichi now knows that the entire backstory about the Gofer Project was all a lie, he’s not yet able to think this through to its conclusion of just how bad this is.

Monokuma: “Then everything was a lie! All the suspense and foreshadowing was for nothing! Can you believe it? It’s like everything that happened didn’t matter at all.”

You’re giving yourself and your in-universe writer friends way too much credit, Monokuma. It’s not like the backstory ever actually really mattered. The things that mattered most in this story were the deaths that happened in this killing game and the efforts everyone went to to avoid letting more happen, all of which was very, very real. All this changes is that a few of the murders – Kirumi’s and Gonta’s, and Maki’s attempted one – were done for a reason that was based on a lie. But that doesn’t make it not matter, that just makes it more tragic in hindsight to know that they were manipulated.

Tsumugi: “Lies are just like snowballs. The more you roll them, the bigger they get. The bigger they are, the more fun and shocking it is when they’re revealed.”

“Junko”: “That’s why everything up till now has been lies! That’s the truth!”

Not even remotely “everything”. Tsumugi is right to say that a bigger lie being revealed makes for a better plot twist, but doing so to too great an extent does run the risk of making the entire story seem pointless. I think the out-universe writers struck a good balance here, though, because not everything has been lies. Everyone still formed bonds and fought and struggled and died, and all of that has been real. Everything which really mattered still matters. And most of the actual meaningful foreshadowing and suspense we’ve had has been very much on an out-universe level, because the in-universe writers couldn’t have predicted what would happen in future, especially not for cases 4 and 5 which were all “written” for them by Kokichi.

Himiko: “We’re not students from Hope’s Peak?”

Himiko is the only one who even seems to be particularly upset about this part of the relevation, probably because she’s the only one of them who’s truly proud of her talent and would have been happy to think she’d been part of a huge legacy of talented people.

“Junko”: “Looking back, it was a mistake to have you remember Hope’s Peak.”

Tsumugi: “I didn’t originally plan on giving you those memories, but… I was in a rush and overlooked all those inconsistencies, so you figured it all out…”

It wasn’t only a mistake because it let them figure everything out, Tsumugi. It was also just bad writing.

There’s no reason to doubt this claim that she didn’t plan this from the start. Everything about the Hope’s Peak part of the backstory was clearly shoehorned in and not truly connected to everything that had come before it; nothing about it was foreshadowed in the previous memories. That book in Kokichi’s lab was thrown in there in a hurry and had nothing to do with the rest of the room.

(It would have been perfectly possible to foreshadow Hope’s Peak in their memories. They could have all vaguely remembered growing up in a world that was slowly recovering from some apocalyptic event, even if they were unclear on what that event was. Instead of remembering being at ordinary schools and just having their talents recognised by a separate Ultimate Initiative, they could have remembered being at some fairly prestigious kind of school and just forgotten the name of the school and that it was the same one for all of them. And they maybe could have had it so they didn’t remember why they knew of their Ultimate titles, only for it to turn out that that’s because Hope’s Peak bestowed those titles and they forgot the specifics about Hope’s Peak. But nope – none of that was in their memories, because none of this was planned.)

Shuichi: “So that’s why Kokichi had to die?”

I mean, really, Kokichi was planning on getting himself killed for his grand plan anyway whether the mastermind had any say in it or not.

Shuichi: “He usurped the mastermind’s role, but in doing so, became a thorn in their side. So to get rid of that hindrance, the mastermind played along with the lie.”

However, the mastermind was probably hoping to get Kokichi killed before he could pull off whatever grand plan was going to be the endpoint of all his scheming and possibly make things even worse for them. Too bad that didn’t work out – all thanks to Kaito jumping in the way of Maki’s arrow, which is emphatically not something that was part of the writers’ script.

Tsumugi: “At the same time, having everyone remember Hope’s Peak Academy… made you guys target him because you thought he was a Remnant of Despair.”

Yep, she’s straight-up admitting it. It wasn’t just believing he was a Remnant, but also the fact that they believed they themselves were these symbols of hope whose duty was to “defeat” anything associated with “despair”. Hope’s Peak was very much a part of the manipulation.

Maki: “Then the reason I tried to kill Kokichi was…”

Monokuma: “You were being controlled by false memories, like putty in the mastermind’s hands.”

I’m afraid so, Maki.

Monokuma also goes on to confirm that the Hope’s Peak memory was also to artificially make them recover from the despair they were in. Really they should have been able to figure this out themselves at the time, but hey.

“Junko”: “New mysteries and truths turn to motivation. Motivation drives a story. Everything from the Flashback Lights was just motivation to move you forward. But… I guess it was fake motivation.”

Monokuma: “You idiots kept getting jerked around by meaningless lies!”

I mean, yes, she’s right, they needed motivation to make the story interesting and that was a lot of the point of the Flashback Lights. But it really wasn’t to the extent that she’s claiming. Most of their motivation was just wanting to get the hell out of here and not die, which was entirely the truth and nothing to do with the Flashback Lights. The only fake motivation that actually drove the story was some of the motives for murder – but then everyone’s reactions and further motivations in the wake of those murders were very real.

“Junko”: “This class trial was like that too, wasn’t it? Why was it you were so motivated to do it? Because you got a memory from one of the Flashback Lights, right?”

Haha, no, stop giving yourself credit you don’t deserve. She goes on to talk about all of the flashbacks they had during the investigation and how that supposedly filled them with the hope to fight back, but no, that had nothing to do with why Shuichi and his friends were determined to do this. This trial would still be happening exactly like it is now if they’d never had those flashbacks. Shuichi is doing this because of his determination to end the killing game, thanks to the promises he made to Kaede and Kaito and everyone else, because he doesn’t want their deaths to be in vain. All of that is completely real and had nothing to do with the pointless flashbacks that were entirely irrelevant to anything that’s actually been happening here.

“Junko”: “Remembering the weight of that hope should’ve made you feel stronger.”

Eh, that depends. That could also have just put too much pressure on them and made them hesitant to act for fear of messing up and letting down everyone who’d supposedly been relying on them – especially for someone like Shuichi.

Tsumugi: “Even though Kaito and Kokichi were gone, and Keebo started to go berserk… You guys didn’t give up hope.”

Oh, you can fuck right off with your implication that now that Kaito’s gone he has absolutely nothing to do with them holding onto hope. Kaito’s death is precisely why Shuichi is so determined now! And if you didn’t think that was going to happen when Kaito died, why in the everliving hell did you even *kill him*!? Am I seriously going to have to accept here that Tsumugi didn’t have any kind of meaningful narrative in mind for Kaito’s death? That she killed him not even for the sake of at least Shuichi’s arc in her story, but purely for the hell of it?

I can try and tell myself that she doesn’t quite mean this and is only saying it in a pathetic attempt to sell the importance of her pointless backstory and even more pointless flashbacks, but geez.

It also sounds awkwardly like she could be saying that Kokichi ever inspired anyone with hope, but I presume what she means there is that he was providing an obvious enemy whom they could be inspired to fight against.

Maki: “You were controlling our emotions? Even our resolve to defeat the mastermind?”

Maki’s voice sounds very distressed here. She is not at all happy to realise that she’s still just being controlled and used by a higher power that doesn’t care about her, even now after she’d begun to feel like she’d started to make her own decisions and break free of that. Her desires matter? No, actually, her desires were never really hers in the first place.

I really enjoy how, even though it’s never explained why Maki’s so distressed over this and over learning that Kokichi wasn’t a Remnant of Despair earlier, it’s still very much there in her voice. This is hitting her right in the issues in a way that’s going to continue to be very relevant as this trial continues.

Himiko: “A-All the memories… were fake? Then… what was everything till now?”

Still real, Himiko! Angie and Tenko still really died, you know! This doesn’t change that much!

Himiko: “If they were all fake memories, then… Where… are we? Why are we in this killing game?”

She’s acting like the memories of the Gofer Project and everything somehow justified that they were being put through this killing game, but… they really didn’t. The killing game part of that was unrelated to the actual backstory and was supposedly because one single evil asshole suddenly decided “hey wouldn’t it be fun if the survivors of humanity all killed each other”. Which is the only reason a game like this would ever happen: because some asshole thought it would be fun. The wider context of it really isn’t that relevant – it only served to make it more tragic that they were killing each other despite how important their lives were to humanity – so it really doesn’t matter now that it’s all been revealed as fake.

Shuichi: “But we have nothing to do with Hope’s Peak, so you can’t be Junko. So who the hell are you!?”

I… don’t know why this is only just occurring to you now, Shuichi. It should have been obvious from the start that she’s not really Junko. Why is it so hard for you to think that she could just be Tsumugi, albeit a different “Tsumugi” to the one you thought you were friends with?

“Hajime”: “I’m me. No one else.”

Shuichi: (…What?)

Keebo: “What… is this?”

Tsumugi: “Huh? You know him, don’t you? He was in the Jabberwock Island killing game.”

The general public in the Hope’s Peak universe didn’t watch that killing game, though. Shuichi and friends shouldn’t have fake memories of Hajime or anyone else from DR2. At most, they should vaguely remember a list of names and faces of the people who were involved in that conflict that the general public maybe learned about afterwards, but they shouldn’t be familiar with them.

Tsumugi: “What am I doing? I’m just cosplaying.”

Shuichi: “Cosplaying?”

I would say “come on, Shuichi, this isn’t hard to grasp”, but, to be fair… at this point, it becomes less cosplay and more shapeshifting. I can just about stretch my disbelief to buy that she can change clothes ridiculously fast – sure, whatever, this is an anime-style universe, let’s go with that. But now, she’s not only cosplaying Junko, she’s cosplaying several characters who have completely different body types to her. To some extent cosplayers can copy body types by using binding or padding, but not to this degree! Some of these characters are significantly shorter than her, and there’s no way you can do that!

So, everyone else’s talents are faked, but Tsumugi is so talented at cosplay that she can just do what has to be literal shapeshifting. Sure, sure, I guess we’ve just got to go with that. Tsumugi is a shapeshifter, okay then.

“Kazuichi”: “Check it out! Even my voice sounds exactly the same!”

(Haha, hi, Kaito’s voice actor. The English dub had all of the V3 characters voiced by someone who did one of the DR1 or 2 cast in order to spend less money on this. Apparently the Japanese dub didn’t and yet still managed to get all the old VAs back anyway.)

We’re also supposed to believe that Tsumugi can just perfectly mimic all the voices, even the deepest male ones. I guess the Ultimate Imposter could do that kind of thing (even though they couldn’t change their body type), so sure, whatever, even though this is not supposed to be a universe where some people are born with talents that are practically superpowers, I guess Tsumugi can do that too.

I suppose her being able to do this does make it slightly more justifiable why the Exisals randomly have a voice changer that can perfectly mimic anyone’s voice, right? That’s a plus to this, isn’t it??

This is the moment at which Tsumugi’s magical cosplay aura is meant to appear… but there’s a well-known glitch where if you save and quit and then resume at any point before this while “Junko” is here, the aura will show up before it should and somewhat spoil the reveal. I write this commentary in sessions that don’t necessarily correlate with the post breaks, so this happened to me too this time. Whoooops, game devs.

Shuichi: “How can she cosplay as students of Hope’s Peak Academy!? Because Tsumugi told us…”

Shuichi, that stupid cospox claim should not be taken as any kind of evidence for anything! You have no proof she was even telling the truth about that!

Tsumugi: “Ah, you remembered! Yes, that’s exactly right.”

“Makoto”: “So then… what does this mean?”

The cospox nonsense is supposedly used to “prove” that the characters she’s cosplaying are all actually fictional. But that really is not necessary, because Tsumugi is clearly ready to have Shuichi figure that out and would have therefore been quite happy to just tell him if he couldn’t figure it out himself. This entire stupid cospox plot point was just 1000% Not Needed. Even if they wanted Shuichi to be the one to figure this out to give the players a game to play, they could have just used the fact that Tsumugi always very strongly argued that it was wrong to cosplay real people and seems to still be agreeing with that philosophy even as Shuichi brings it up now.

(I mean, I suppose since Tsumugi is a literal shapeshifter maybe I shouldn’t be considering it such a ridiculous leap compared to that that her superpowers come with the caveat of only being able to do it with fictional people. But still. (And when she “demonstrated” it to Kaede, she did not attempt to shapeshift into her, just put on her clothes, so.))

Shuichi: (Hope’s Peak Academy is…) “It’s fictional… It’s all fictional!?”

Shuichi looks incredibly shellshocked at this realisation… but I’m not sure why it’s getting to him so much now. As soon as he realised that their memories from the Hope’s Peak Flashback Light were all fake, it follows that not only were they not Hope’s Peak students, but also that the school and all the backstory surrounding it may well have never existed in the first place.

Shuichi: “Dangan… ronpa…?”

I love how bewildered Shuichi sounds at hearing this name for the world he thought he was a part of. Okay, sure, maybe rebuttals are kind of relevant to these class trials, but what do bullets have to do with anything???

Himiko: “S-So… this was all fake? Everything was made up? And the whole time… we thought it was real?”

What do you even mean, the whole time? You guys started thinking Hope’s Peak was real literally only two days ago! Again, this should not be the point at which everyone’s being the most shocked about this – that should have happened simply when they realised their memories from the Flashback Lights were all fake. I think the out-universe writers are slipping a bit too much into having them react like the audience would to such a revelation, because obviously Hope’s Peak is totally the most important thing, right? Not to these characters, it shouldn’t be. The last time they reacted more like a fan than they should have done regarding Hope’s Peak revelations, that was probably in-universely deliberate brainwashing from that Flashback Light, making them super excited for the sake of artificial “hope”. But this time there’s not that excuse.

I’ve also seen one or two blind LPers get kind of upset at this revelation that DR1 and 2 were “all fictional”, as if it callously retconned things so that nothing in those games ever mattered – but this is completely misunderstanding how fiction works. Of course Danganronpa 1 and 2 were fictional. We ourselves consumed them as works of fiction. But within that fictional universe, it all really happened and really mattered. All this is saying here is that Danganronpa V3 does not take place within that universe after all – instead, it takes place in a universe similar to our own where DR1 and 2 were works of fiction. That does not make the events of the Hope’s Peak storyline any less meaningful to itself – it just means that those events aren’t a part of this story like we’d been led to believe.

(And like I mentioned back in chapter 5, this is a good thing, because it means that those surviving characters we cared about in the Hope’s Peak universe weren’t randomly, meaninglessly killed off by meteorites! They did still live somewhat-happily ever after!)

While Himiko’s saying this, we also get a bunch of flashback images from both DR1 and 2… and again, she shouldn’t be remembering any of the specifics of Danganronpa 2, because the general public didn’t watch that killing game.

Tsumugi: “Did you think the Ultimate Cosplayer’s talent was only limited to characters?”

“Junko”: “It’d be kinda lame if that was all the big bad mastermind could do…”

I guess that’s our reason for why she’s a straight-up shapeshifter. Because she’s the big bad mastermind, so she’s got to be able to do something over-the-top like that. Sure.

Tsumugi: “I can do far more than that… I can cosplay the world itself!”

…No, not really? Shoving memories of that world into people’s heads and making them think it’s the truth isn’t “cosplaying” it and has nothing to do with your superpower and everything to do with Flashback Lights.

Shuichi: “B-But… why? Why would you do this? Why make us think it’s real—”

“Hina”: “Well, duh! It’s so you’d all play the killing game!”

That’s really not why. They were all playing the killing game just fine long before they thought any of the previous Danganronpas were real. You don’t need to know about the previous ones to be forced to do what the bear tells you to. The only reason she made them think it was real was to pander to the in-universe audience when they were mad at her after Kokichi had made things temporarily boring.

“Nekomaru”: “In other words, it’s Ultimate Real Fiction!!!”

In other words, you’re still killing real people for this killing game, regardless of how fictional the backstory is.

Maki: “But… if it’s fiction… If everything… isn’t real… Then… the world being in ruins is also fiction, right? The world outside… is fine, right?”

It would be a little surprising that it took so long for someone to mention this part, the thing that would be good news about all this… but I suppose they didn’t only get the “truth” about the outside world from the Flashback Light. It’d be harder to find a reason to doubt what they also saw with their own eyes until reaching this point.

Unless, of course, you’re Kokichi and are already certain there’s an audience and using that as your base premise, resulting in a thought process of, “there’s definitely an audience, so what do you mean the world’s been destroyed?”. But since everyone else only learned there was probably an audience after seeing the outside world, they had the destroyed outside world as their base premise instead, and so they were faced with a mystery of, “the world’s been destroyed, so I’m not sure how there can be an audience even though the evidence suggests there is one”.

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lokiarsene · 6 years ago

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I know modern fandom folks--mostly young adults--go into moral panics about “problematic” characters, which is really just shorthand for characters who aren’t one dimensional mouthpieces that in no way contribute to the necessary drama of a story. And I think this is a really pointless way to look at and work with pieces of fiction, especially a game like Persona 5, whose main cast of “heroes” are intentionally made to be by default non lawful.

If you look at what they do removed from context, you have the following: a group of people invade the most personal, private spaces within the human consciousness in order to trigger a dramatic mental and psychological change in someone they’ve deemed a fitting target. They do this regularly in Mementos, and are basically little more than hired mental hitmen thanks to the Phan-site giving them suggestions of who to find next. If successful, the target suffers physical and mental distress, sometimes to the point of requiring hospitalization, and a complete emotional breakdown when forced to face up to the severity of their actions.

All of that is fucking terrifying!

Most of their targets were horrible fucking people so I waste no tears or sympathy on them. And while I as a person would totally support these methods if they were possible in real life, I also recognize that to study P5′s characters and analyze them, you have to set aside your personal moral code to look at what is the story’s moral code.

And the moral code is large swathes of gray.

Nobody in the main crew of Persona 5 is purely “innocent” (in the sense of puritanical fandom’s concept of innocence). None of them. By default the PT are lawless, and if you go by the D&D morality alignment (which isn’t about how moral your actions are from an outside perspective, but what the character’s personal morals and behavior are) they are chaotic good at best.

What the PT do is justified in the sense that corruption is so deeply entrenched in society that they can’t rely on adults or the justice system to bring about true justice. The ends (change of heart) justify their means (forcing a change of heart), and that’s borderline Machiavellian thinking. What stops them from being purely Machiavellian is the fact that the PT are also driven by empathy and a sense of morality. We see them struggle against vain things like self-interest while also working to uphold their original goal of bringing society’s corrupted adults to justice.

I really think this is one of the major things that people in the P5 fandom on here don’t get, especially if they have some weird hate fascination with Akechi. It’s absolutely hypocritical to point fingers at Akechi for what he did and yet completely overlook everything the game set up to remind you, the player, that the PT are doing risky, dangerous shit and forcing themselves into someone’s consciousness. Akechi spends half the fucking game talking about how questionable their methods are! Did you think that was just put in there for shits and giggles? There’s a reason why it gets under the PT’s skin--because it’s not far from the truth!

They are forcing a change in people who, yeah, shouldn’t be doing what they’re doing, but that doesn’t change the fact that the PT are the ones conducting a mental and moral breakdown that forces a confession. And you know, when I put it like that, you know what that sounds like? Ren getting beaten in the interrogation room, drugged, and forced to sign a confession.

The game repeatedly draws lines between what the PT does for “justice” and what they’re trying to change because they’re comparable methods with different motives. But they’re still the same (or similar) methods! We can talk for days about whether this is morally justified or not, but the fact still remains that the game is drawing these lines and it is foolish to overlook them.

That’s another reason why Sae’s final words to Ren are what they are--she asks them to leave reforming society in her (and adults’) hands now. That’s the end result of all the efforts in P5: you can’t and shouldn’t take the law into your own hands. If you want to see change happen, you need to be a part of it from within. You have to contribute to the change, instead of force it. I wonder how P5R will add on to that theme or even change it, since a big thing this time around seems to be wishes/dreams coming true, “stealing” those dreams, and whether dreaming itself is even a good thing if all it does is lead you to retreating from reality. Maybe that’ll be the third semester’s plot point?

Now. I mention.... all of that because one of the other things I think people miss is how Ren isn’t some pure uwu cinnamon roll, either. He was falsely accused and unjustly labeled a criminal, but he’s also the ringleader of a group of people who invade and force changes inside people’s subconsciousnesses. He constantly forms bonds and makes deals with people on the fringes of lawfulness themselves (with very few exceptions--which is weird to me, because those exceptions stand out as functionally pointless in a story like this). He’s the Trickster, the Wild Card, the core of the PT’s spirit of rebellion. Those words and descriptions aren’t just for show, y’all. Plus his Velvet Room is him locked up in prison! It reflects his view of himself as a criminal! So if Ren sees himself as a lawless outcast, why are there people in the P5 fandom who can’t see that themselves?

I think it would’ve been far more satisfying (and more overtly establish Ren as morally gray) if Ren remembered Shido from the beginning, and had his end result goal as finding a way to Shido to make him pay. Knowing Shido’s identity from the start removes that pointless “twist” at the end about him being bad, but it also sets up a really fucking strong rebellious motive for Ren from the start. Everything he does with the PT would be about taking apart Shido’s web of informants, sycophants, and puppets without that “you can see it coming from a mile away” ~twist~ of Shido being evil all along.

There really isn’t any point in messing with Ren’s memory--it doesn’t add anything to the story. If his damaged memory is a result of trauma, it’s never addressed or handled in any way. So just get rid of it and have Ren know all along who he wants to go after, he just doesn’t know how. Which would add so much drama and tension to the already dramatically satisfying Ren/Goro stuff the game gives us. Because Goro is nothing but honest about his goals: getting revenge on the adult who ruined his life. He might be hiding his other plans, but the main motive and his main focus isn’t hidden from the PT at all.

Now just imagine the conflict that Ren would have to go through when he realized not only was Goro trying to trick them, but they were both going after Shido all along. Aren’t enemies of your enemy your friend? They were both going after the same man who ruined their fucking lives--wouldn’t that make them allies (of a sort)? And as if that weren’t enough, all the time they spent together, all they shared and learned of each other--all that Goro confided in Ren--would make for an even more dramatic and painful conflict of trying to trick Goro before he can sell them out. Because it’s not like all those moments together were for nothing. They still happened, they still mattered, they still changed Ren because it was significant enough to be a Confidant link for Ren. But wouldn’t Ren, being Ren (empathetic, determined, stubbornly selfless to a fault), want to at least try to get Goro to change his mind? Talk to him? Listen to him and still offer that hand to help? Y’know, the thing he does in Shido’s Palace?

This could have happened earlier if Ren knows his target is Shido, deduces that Shido, or someone close to him, is Goro’s target too, and does a desperate attempt to appeal to him--to ~steal his heart~--before it’s too late. And hey, they can still do a twist in the Palace and have them pretend to be enemies, since the writers love twists instead of satisfying writing like they’re a Marvel movie.

I was thinking about all that this morning, and how I actually wish Ren had remembered Shido from the start and what that would do to the story and his relationship with Goro. I don’t really know why they mess with Ren’s memory and do that whole ~remember your bonds~ thing during the interrogation, since it doesn’t make sense. Especially since they had him do that later during the Yalda fight, where it makes more sense (and it’s something the previous games have done). They try to pass it off as Ren struggling to remember the truth, but then the whole first three acts of the game are him clearly remembering everything he did since he got to Shibuya, and telling it to Sae in the interrogation room. If they just removed his damaged memory entirely (both wrt Shido, and wrt the truth serum), I think the story would be far better off for it.

I’ve always said that this game really needed a second draft and a partial rewrite, so I’m hoping that’s what P5R ends up being.

#long post #this is the ask tag

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our-elven-lady-of-chaos · 7 years ago

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You Are My Home

A Loki x reader series

(Comments at the end of the post!)

Chapter 1: The Promise

��Poor motherless child,” Loki fawned over her, brushing the tears from her cherubic cheeks. “Who could ever abandon such a child as precious as this?” He thought to himself. “Fae bastards, casting out their own to live amongst mere mortals.” That even a princess should be subject to this made his blood boil. This was Oberon’s own daughter, for Odin’s sake!

“Come now, little one. Dry those tears.” He lifted her chin, looking deep into her eyes, blue as sapphires. She stopped, transfixed by the striking emerald of his own, or perhaps the beauty of his ebony locks contrasted against porcelain skin. She reached her much smaller hand to cup his cheek. Even living amongst the fae, she had never seen a grown man who was so beautiful, so perfect.

He pulled her in close. “As long as I shall live, you shall always have a home, and you will always be loved. This, I promise you.”

Some days she really hated the fact that she was honor bound to a fault.

It wasn’t really her fault, being a faerie and all.

She rolled over in bed, glaring at her digital alarm clock. Again.

4:53 am. Wonderful. Looks like she wouldn’t be getting any sleep that night. She stretched her arms above her head until she heard a satisfying “pop!”, then proceeded to work her legs in the same fashion. Might as well get some training in to work off some stress before Thor arrived to whisk her away to Asgard to retrieve his wayward brother.

She got out of bed, unperturbed in the slightest by the chilly morning air. Everyone except for Tony, Bruce, and Thor questioned how she could keep her chambers at such a temperature. Banner didn’t, as he was fully aware of what she was and her capabilities, while Tony had been the one to take her in and adopt her into their ragtag gang in the first place. Thor, like her, wasn’t as bothered by the cold as a fragile mortal body would be. At least it came in handy sometimes. She shuffled to the bathroom, donning her robe and slippers before splashing her face with warm water in an effort to become more alert before taking the time to brush out her long golden mane. She sighed, cursing softly in a long forgotten language as the knots in her errant curls snagged on the brush. Tea it was, then.

How did she get stuck in this mess in the first place? Right. She owed Thor a favor. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

*Flashback*

After months of working with the elder prince of Asgard, she had finally mustered up the courage to ask Thor a question that had been nagging at her for eons. Being an immortal stuck amongst humans grew to be quite taxing after a few centuries, after all. Watching the vast majority of her friends live their lives, build their families, grow old together, and die left something to be desired in her.

“My Lady Lysandra!” Thor boomed, as regal as ever. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

Lys shifted nervously under his cheerful gaze, heavily burdened by the weight of what she was about to reveal.

“I have a request of you, one that does not come lightly.” She absentmindedly toyed with the silver bracelet around her slender wrist.

He raised a great eyebrow in question. “Oh? If it is something that is within my power to grant, then I will be most happy to do so.” He motioned for her to continue.

“Deep breaths, Lys,” she reminded herself. “You can do this.”

“I’d like to go with you to Asgard. Once the rest have...faded with time.” She chose her words carefully.

Thor grinned, having expected something of the sort for a long time. Her magic reading were off the charts, much like his brother. There was no way she was just a simple midgardian woman.

“That’s a big decision there,” he said. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while?”

She nodded. “My father has forbade me from living amongst our own people, as it is far too dangerous for me. I grow weary of watching my companions die every few decades.”

Don’t cry Lys. Not now.

She paused for a moment, regaining her composure. Thor merely nodded in understanding.

“You aren’t mortal,” he said knowingly.

“No.”

“Then...what?”

She removed a portion of her glamour with a dramatic sigh. Pin straight silver hair turned to lushious golden curls, with a pair of delicately pointed ears poking through the sides. “A faerie. One of the high fey.”

He chuckled, bringing her hand to his lips for a kiss. “Nínimel. Daughter of Oberon.”

She nodded warily. “You...know of me?”

His grin widened. “Of course, princess. Your father pleaded with mine for your protection ages ago. It is the reason why most of the fae can no longer travel freely between midgard and faerie.” He let out another laugh. “You reached no higher than my waist last I saw you...like this.” He indicated her pointed ears and long golden hair. “Although...I must apologize. Your father forced us to wipe your memory of the time you spent with us, otherwise you wouldn’t leave.” “You’d have come back to Loki,” he told himself wordlessly.

She looked downwards in shame, regardless of whether or not it was justified. “I don’t use that name now. Only one person has dared to call me that in the past hundred years or so, and, well….he isn’t exactly a person to begin with.”

Thor chuckled again. “While I am unsure as to what manner of fae creatures you choose to hold court with here in the mortal world, I do wish to meet them someday. Loki too.”

The shadow of a smile crossed her face at the mention of his brother’s name, though she knew not the reason why, but Thor picked up on it, almost instinctively. While her stay in Asgard was quite short, he had treated her kindly and shown her a few tricks to convince her to come out of hiding. It had been enough to get her to temporarily remove her glamour, but she had still clung to the trickster, like a child to its mother for the remainder of her stay.

Had she been allowed to stay, would they have fallen in love? And if brought together, was there any hope that they could start now? Thor liked to think so, but the kindhearted trickster he had once known had grown into a somber and brooding young man with a penchant for lashing out and inflicting pain upon others. Still, he had to try. If there was anyone that could bring his brother back from the brink of his suicidal thoughts and self-destructive tendencies, it was her.

A soft niggling in the back of his mind snapped him out of his reverie. There was something he was supposed to remember, something important about dealing with the fae. Ah! There it was.

“Now Lysandra,” he started, a soft smile playing upon his lips. Well, as soft and gentle a smile a big, burly man like Thor could manage. “Lys, you know how these deals work.”

She continued her study of the marble floor tiles. “I know,” she mumbled.

Geez. Did she really loathe her kind THAT much? Yep, her and Loki were a perfect match.

“I’ll take you to Asgard with me. In fact, I can take you tomorrow.’

Uh-oh. This was the part that wasn’t sounding good.

“But I need your help with something,” Thor continued, his smile faltering as he struggled to find the right words to explain the situation.

Nope. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t worth the pain or the hassle it would cause her. She put on a fake smile and nodded for him to continue.

“I’m...rather, we’re bringing Loki back here, as part of his sentence for his crimes. If it is as he has said, and he was merely a puppet in the whole thing, then it shouldn’t prove much of a challenge.” He sighed, then stretched out to scratch something on the back of his neck sheepishly. “As per Tony’s rules, he is required to have a so called “babysitter” until he proves himself trustworthy, and I’d feel better if it were another magic user.”

Loki? Loki was the one she had to deal with? That didn’t seem too bad. At least he could be reasoned with, unlike much of the fae.

“Is Tony in on this then?” she ventured to ask.

“Of course!” Thor replied reassuringly. “I wouldn’t be bringing him here otherwise.”

She paused for a moment before speaking, thinking of all the things that would need to be in place to make his containment - er...rehabilitation possible. And plausible. She knew she would have to go about this a certain way, both to gain his cooperation and trust, and to make sure he didn’t go stir-crazy from not being able to exercise his abilities for too long. She knew all too well what that felt like. That must be why Thor had come to her for this specific task. Because if the one who was placed in charge of him was unfamiliar with the constant ebb and flow of seider within the body of a magic user - she shuddered to think of the consequences.

“Alright, I’ll do it, but on certain terms,” she responded cautiously. Thor nodded, still wearing his ever present grin. He was a lot like a Golden Retriever, that man, all over-eager and willing to please. She would have hugged him for it, for the reassurance it could provide, if she had been a hugging person.

“I’m sure they’ll want to impose some sort of restrictions on your brother’s magic, at least outside of battle until we know he can be trusted, but it has to be something I can remove.”

“Your assumption is correct, which is why we will leave it up to Tony to construct a device rather than my father” Thor interjects, before motioning for her to continue.

She takes in a deep breath to regain her composure, unused to being involved in such large decisions. “That’s...good. Good. Loki will be expected to join me in training every day, in my special training rooms. I can have them warded so that he can’t teleport himself out or exit before I do, but he’ll have to have the barrier restricting his magic removed for at least that long every day. It is extremely important, otherwise it will keep building up and hurt him. Severely.”

Thor nodded in understanding. “I figured as much. My mother explained to me something of the sort, which is why only you can do this, little flower.”

She smiled softly at the old nickname. It was the same as her father always used endearingly. She greatly enjoyed the comfort of it, although it was something she would never admit to. Despite all he’d done, Thor still cared deeply for his brother, saw something in him that was worth saving. And for that, she would fight for it.

Noticing that she still seemed quite unsettled by things, or perhaps the nature of her own revelation, he reached out to take her hand, squeezing it gently in reassurance. “Don’t worry princess,” he spoke, blue eyes glistening. “My brother may be many things, but he has always been a perfect gentleman. Treat him with the same kindness you do everyone, take him on whatever adventures you cannot share with the likes of our fragile mortal companions, and everything will turn out just fine. I know it. I believe in you.”

He kisses her hand again, preparing to leave. His facial hair tickled as it brushed against the back of her hand.

Upon reaching the doorway, he provides her with one last piece of advice as an afterthought.

“Right now, my brother could really use a friend, more than anything. Become that person, and he’ll give you the world.”

Alright guys! First thing I’ve done in ages, also the first non-Fire Emblem fic I’ve done. I’m not quite sure what my posting schedule is going to be like, so please bear with me on that (anxiety and depression is a wonderful moodkilling combo, and I’ve got work and school on top of that so XP). I greatly appreciate any feedback I get, especially on pacing and that kind of thing, or just good old fashioned encouragement to keep me going.

Now, the idea for this story actually came to me from a line from another fic about the reader musing that Loki was well enough endowed (through magic, his godly strength, and uhh...other means) to bed the great fae queens of old, but much to my displeasure it is a trope that has yet to be explored. I intend to fix that.

A small note that if I ever end up naming my characters, I will give careful thought as to what that name will be, so that you won’t be stuck with something that feels very out of place for someone who is supposed to be royalty, of a different time period, ect. (I hope this doesn’t annoy anyone. It just helps me for the sake of the story.) Additionally, I might end up using a small amount of (Tolkien) elvish in the story, but translations will be given at the bottom of the page.

Thank you for reading!

XOXO Yoshi

Nínimel - (Sindarin) Snow drop

#loki x reader #loki (marvel)#loki fic #loki fanfic #loki laufeyson #loki x oc #loki x you #reader is a faerie #fae #fey #faeries #fairies #reader insert #yoshi writes shit #fanfiction

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overthinkingkdrama · 7 years ago

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I'm the kind of person who doesn't write a thing about what I'm watching, but, I have to say I love Money Flower, and I love every post you make about it. You're not alone (?) ;) As a spoiler but something I have to say, I'm dying with Boo Cheon going badly, and it hurts that what finally crack him was Pil Joo's betrayal. Jang Hyuk's final face was too much :v

Thanks for dropping by to throw some gasoline onto the fires of my own personal hell, anon. I think I spent 3 hours ranting to my BFF about this exact subject yesterday. I was trying to organize my thoughts to write a post about it but I couldn’t. I feel ya. Oh yea, you and I are in the same boat.

In all seriousness, I love it when I get anonymous message that give me an excuse to write about something I was already privately ranty about. So thank you, lol.

[Fair warning…I went HAM on my reply. Sorry?? Huge spoilers for the show past this point, y’all.]

It was hard watching my three crazy kids fall apart this week. Especially Boo. The turn his character took this week broke my damn heart. Full disclosure: Boo Cheon is my favorite character in this garbage fire of a show. Has been for weeks now. I feel like I’m pretty much alone in that opinion. My mind twin, agaggleoffandoms (for whatever reason tumblr is refusing to let me @ her) and I are on the same page, but for the most part people seem to really hate Boo. I don’t get it. I can’t wrap my head around how you could love and root for Pil Joo in this whole thing, and yet have no sympathy for Boo Cheon whatsoever. Like, I get it, but I really don’t get it.

Okay, so, I think Kang Pil Joo is actually Satan himself and this is why…

First, let me disclaim and say that I like Pil Joo as a character. I like him a lot. I like the way Jang Hyuk is playing him. I like his scenes. I like him because he’s twisted and terrifying. I like what a manipulative monster he is. I went into the drama expecting it and I was not disappointed at all. He’s every bit the sociopathic puppet master the poster promised me. I watch this show because it’s a crazy-sauce makjang mess. I enjoy the characters because of how insurmountably dysfunctional they are.

Additionally, this isn’t supposed to be a post to justify Boo’s actions, or claims that he’s done nothing wrong. Clearly that’s not the case. I’m just trying to understand the audience’s reaction to him. Why I find myself rooting for him so much, and other people have no time for him at all.

The first thing Boo Cheon does at the beginning of episode 17 is threaten the mother of his child making it clear in no uncertain terms that if she goes through with the press conference and torpedo’s his chances to be chairman she’s as good as dead. That’s monstrous. I make no bones about that. I would just argue that Boo is merely the monster that Pil Joo has made of him.

If we’re going to completely jettison the possibility of Boo’s redemption arc based on that scene, Pil Joo shouldn’t be getting a pass. In the moral landscape of the show, Pil Joo has done everything Boo has done, but three shades darker.

Pil Joo has personally laid hands on Seo Won not once…

But two separate times….

He has also directly threatened her life on multiple occasions. He’s the Jang family fixer. We know how dirty his hands can get. The show has shown us. And we can argue all day long that Pil Joo never would have actually harmed her. That he was trying to put the fear of god into her because he was also a victim of Jang family violence toward mistresses and their unacknowledged children…but does that justify it? Boo has also on multiple occasions attempted to remove her from the situation, and taken steps to protect her from his family by bringing their son to Mooshimwon. Seo Won is either too foolhardy or too determined to take the hint. She revealed herself to Mo Hyun with malicious intent and became indirectly responsible for the loss of his unborn child.

He goes to the hotel room to meet Seo Won because Pil Joo sent him there. He threatens her with a knife–Pil Joo’s knife interestingly enough–making good on his promise not to let anyone stand between him and the chairman position. Why does he even want the chairman position? Because that’s what Pil Joo groomed him to want:

Sure, Boo has said that he wanted to become chairman for his own reasons now. He is motivated to succeed so that Mo Hyun will praise him and feel proud of him. He’s motivated to do it because he’s developed a real affection for his wife. He loves her enough to feel jealous over the prospect of losing her, to go head to head with his mother over her, and even to put his own life at risk for her. Why is he even married to Mo Hyun? Because of Pil Joo’s manipulations.

Everyone is in the position they’re in because of Pil Joo’s manipulations. Look at what he’s done to Mo Hyun! He lied repeatedly, fed Boo lines, write apology letters for him, engineered situations to further the seduction plot for his own personal benefit. He has continually withheld crucial information from her in order to control her actions. Because it all forwards his revenge plot.

Furthermore, he resents Mo Hyun for falling in love with Boo according to his own plot.

This is a pattern we have seen repeatedly. Since as early as episode 4:

Pil Joo blames other people for falling into his traps. He doesn’t take responsibility himself. He is “unable to stop himself” so they have to be the ones to resist him. He merely writes the scripts, he sets up the pieces, but if you fall for his tricks then it’s your own fault. That’s the attitude we’ve seen again and again.

And sure, he’s in denial. He obviously still has feelings for Mo Hyun. But those feelings have always been subordinate to his need for revenge, and continue to be sacrificed in the name of his goals. Along with the people around him, their lives and their happiness. Whether they deserve it or not. Everyone is expendable in the name of revenge.

He sets Mo Hyun up to hear the ugly truth about their deception and her arranged marriage as though he’s about to tell her everything, but then he only tells her enough to break her and drive her away from Mooshimwon. He didn’t even tell her why he, the real Jang Eun Cheon, is hiding his identity and staying in that family. He didn’t tell her why he was doing what he was doing. He didn’t explain why he became the Jang family dog. He only told her enough to devastate her and driver her away. Let me repeat that: he didn’t even tell her the whole truth. His whole “confession” was just another one of his manipulations!

This has nothing to do with making a clean breast of it with Mo Hyun, and everything to do with the revenge plot. Pil Joo isn’t a martyr. He’s a monster.

Immediately after the confession, where is he? Planning his take over of Cheong A. He doesn’t even take a breath to recover. He immediately asks Yong Goo to go over the final leg of the plan with him:

After intentionally breaking Mo Hyun’s spirit and wrecking his supposed “friend’s” sham marriage of his own design, Pil Joo is right back on his slash and burn war path toward the utter destruction of Cheong A. We may want to attribute all these suppressed emotions and noble feelings to Pil Joo to try to mollify his guilt in some way. His mysterious friend/helper Yong Goo sure seems to want to. But you know what kind of person consistently suppresses their better feelings in the name of goal oriented, ends-justify-the-means pragmatism?

A cold blooded, sociopath. Which is what Pil Joo is.

By contrast, where do we find Boo after he threatens to kill the mother of his child in the name of his goals? Sobbing like a child in his car:

Where is he after his wife’s very understandable mental breakdown upon find out that the last five years of her life have been one long series of lies and manipulations orchestrated by and large by the man she loves? Watching over her as she sleeps.

Of the two of them, Boo is the one most visibly shaken and horrified by his actions. And it’s honestly a wonder that Boo isn’t more messed up than he is, morally speaking. Considering that he’s been physically and emotionally abused by his terrifying mother and manipulative friend for the past 20 years.

Oh yeah, remember how Pil Joo frequently uses violence with him when Boo doesn’t do what he’s supposed to do?

Boo still has a soul and is capable of feeling things like remorse and betrayal. Like the desire to protect his son.

While I feel terrible for Mo Hyun, because her life has been utterly and undeservedly wrecked by these people, I think she’s capable of recovery. After all, she already suspected what kind of people lived a Mooshimwon. She has had multiple indications of what kind of situation she is willingly placing herself in. Boo is coping with the shock that everything he believed about his life for almost 20 years is a lie. His sense of identity has been shaken–everything he’s wanted, everything he’s ever attained is part of this lie. He was forced into an arranged marriage that he didn’t even want at the time and now that he truly loves his wife, she’s calling out Pil Joo’s name in her sleep! He just found out that his only friend has never been sincere with him. Rather, he approached him maliciously with the intention of ruining his family and taking his place. Not only that, he’s found out that he’s not even the biological son of the father that he idolizes. Pil Joo is the true heir, here to take everything away he’s ever taught Boo to want.

Anybody would crack up in these circumstances. And he can’t even talk to anyone about it. He can’t tell his mother or confide in wife or the person who was supposed to be his best friend. He ends up going to his unacknowledged father (I think he knows, or at least strongly suspects who Driver Oh is) to vent some of his grief.

He talks about the truth of Pil Joo’s deception being enough to kill Mal Ran if she was to ever find out. But I think the same scene can be taken a different way. He doesn’t want his mom to find out the truth, because he doesn’t want her to feel the way he feels right now. Like he might die from it. Because Boo really loved Pil Joo, damn it! If we can say nothing else about Boo Cheon, we have to at least give him that.

Even if they intend to make Boo the antagonist from this point until the end of the drama, I just can’t bring myself to hate him. He’s too pitiful. Sure, he’s weak and selfish and entitled. But he is what he was conditioned to be from a very young age. His mother has treated him like an incompetent disappointment and Pil Joo has turned him into a puppet. If things had played out different, who knows where he would be right now? If not for Pil Joo’s interference, who knows what kind of person he could have become?

One big thing that the shooting range scene demonstrates (besides the fact that Boo has officially been driven around the bend) is that when he isn’t comparing himself to or being hopelessly dependent on Pil Joo, he can actually perform very well.

As much as I despise his cousin, I think Yeo Cheon was right about something:

Anyway…that’s why I can’t help but root for and feel sorry for Boo. I hope that he’s not past the point of no return. And I’m still waiting for Pil Joo to recognize the fact that a) Boo is a victim of this corrupt family as much as he is himself and b) he doesn’t have the right to manipulate and destroy other people’s lives like some kind of vengeful god. Even when the deserve it.

If it’s not evident from what I’ve written above: I really, really like this show. It’s mad entertaining, and the character arcs are as complex as they are tragic. I am still hoping for Pil Joo’s redemption, I think the man is utterly fascinating. I don’t see this train wreck having a happy ending. But I’m still waiting for Pil Joo and Boo to actually have it out about Pil Joo’s lies before someone gets shot or stabbed. I want to believe, even at this point, that Pil Joo really did come to care for Boo. Even if he started out hating him, I can’t believe all he feels for Boo is hate, anymore than I believe he really put a stop to his feelings for Mo Hyun. Forgiveness might not be possible at this point, but at the very least I’m hoping for closure. A lot can happen in 6 hours, so lets keep our fingers crossed.

Anyway, those are my TL;DR feelings about Money Flower. Raw and unabridged. Thanks for your patience while I worked on your ask, and thanks for sticking with me if you read this far. Goodnight, my lovely followers. You’re all so beautiful.

Jona

#answered #mbc money flower #money flower #I should never be allowed to screencap things #I always go overboard #what even is this?#meta #commentary

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katrinapavela · 7 years ago

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Is Rowan Trying to Bring Olivia Back to the Light, or Irrevocably Shutter Her in Darkness? #Scandal

Let me start by saying that I have a well-known history of not seeing it for Rowan, since 301. I didn’t even wanna write this because it seems boringly obvious to me (and other folks who see through this man’s behaviour), and I just want it to be over. I’m tired, even more than Olivia seems to be. I never bought into the idea back then that this man was trying to help save his daughter from destruction and danger brought about by Fitz. That he was going to extraordinary lengths, and showing “tough love” like a strong, black father.

The short version: Rowan is an abusive person. He has been an abusive person since we met him through Jake. Abusers always need the abused more than the abused need them. Without an object to play games with, the abuser doesn’t really exist. His “games” have gotten more and more intense over the seasons, switching tactics and acts like the shapeshifter he is. Rowan is trying to complete the process of eliminating Olivia’s chewy centre (her soul, her humanity) by eradicating ties to those for whom she has the greatest vulnerability. Except him. Fitz and Quinn have been used tactically this way. The ultimate point is for Olivia to have nothing and no one but Rowan (”You never choose one of them over me” (407); “If I have to choose between [my father] and you [Fitz]; you will lose” (611). Rowan sees Olivia as his only connection to humanity. Jake is just another “son” he created. Olivia is “[his], [his] child, the thing [he] made” (310). Everyone needs someone. Rowan’s soul is lost. He can’t have a genuine relationship with anyone. So he’s compelling Olivia, through control, manipulation and domination, to be that someone instead of working for it.

The reasoned version:

Y’all want me to believe that Rowan is simply a stern father who sees Olivia’s potential, and is practicing ‘tough love’, so that she can be the “championed” he raised? That Rowan has been transformed by his encounters with Ponytail and Peus? That Rowan is the old, feeble, victim now?

Y’all can forever and a day miss me with that messed up psychology. I have too many receipts listing the ways in which that kind of thinking is fucked up. The moment Rowan became an active presence (seen or unseen) in Olivia’s life, the level of death, destruction and alienation has increased, not decreased. I cannot think of a single thing Rowan has done for his daughter that did not require she give him something in return. That’s the definition of transactional, not family. Anyway, let me get to it.

HELL NO ROWAN IS NOT TRYING TO SAVE OLIVIA!

It makes no sense. Every single time Rowan has intervened in Olivia’s life, it has been to his primary benefit, which he manipulates her into thinking is also to her benefit (hold on to that because it’s relevant). Think about it. Can you name a single parental, altruistic thing he’s done for her? Even paying her goddamn student loans, before she knew he was Command, required her to report for weekly Sunday dinners in exchange (302).

Rowan: “People are predictable. Unchanging. Monotonous. They use the same language. They offer the same excuses. They make the same mistakes. People are endlessly disappointing because you hope they won’t be…” (413, “No More Blood”)

There is no way on god’s green earth that Shonda could write anything that would justify the levels of abuse Rowan has perpetrated directly upon Olivia himself, and through his prostitutes, Jake and Russell. I’m not gonna bother to list them all because it’s too great. Plus, Olivia, in her 707 monologue to Rowan, already alluded to the ways in which he has destroyed her life so that she is almost unrecognizable to herself.

But what is it that Rowan ultimately wants from Olivia? Why does he keep doing this?

Olivia actually said it best herself, in 409:

Olivia: “You’re not leaving. You’re never leaving. You can never leave me alone because you have no place to go. The only life you have is the sad, twisted one you built here. The one where you lurk in the shadows, pull puppet strings and pretend the world couldn’t exist without you. You can’t disappear, become a normal person because, dad: you are not normal. You’re a sick, lonely man who only knows how to lie and call it love.”

Maybe that hot truth she spat reaffirmed to him why he needed to let the kidnapping happen to her.

Because every word above is true. In fact, we can say Olivia has inhabited some of that ow, too. Change is a verb. I haven’t seen Rowan change anything, except the act he puts on in order to manipulate, people. Case in point: the dialogue @Jarmstrong05 on Twitter dug up.

Rowan did that because he wanted Olivia to run B6-13. Why the fuck would Rowan want Fitz’s soft ass heart to run B6-13? That was just another manipulation of Olitz love, just as Rowan’s trip to Vermont. Rowan started cultivating Fitz as an asset the moment he was on house arrest in the White House, in 6B. Rowan knows that if he went about convincing Olivia to be Command directly, Olivia would run back to Zanzibar. Just like he knew not to directly suggest she take on Mellie’s campaign, but instead created the circumstances to point Olivia in that direction.

/Pause for the cause:

(I am seriously wondering if he promised Mellie that Olivia would make her president in exchange for Mellie letting Tom out of prison, too (506). Because what incentive would she have to let Tom out? Mellie is thirsty for domination, short-sighted, and is too busy wanting to be the mammoth who gets the glory, so that she doesn’t see the stronger mastodon running circles around her)

pause for the cause\

But why wouldn’t Rowan just want to run B6-13 himself? Is he just trying to take it back from her?

Rowan switched up his tactics when Olivia was with Fitz in S5. He started cultivating her as daddy’s girl, instead of the usual “against me, you will lose” adversarial rhetoric he used with her in S3-4. Allow her to think you are both on the same side, and you get what you want from her more quickly. In fact, Olivia has been making the transformation to Rowena after 509. It is in 510 that we see the colour red premier (rowan means red).

If he tried to run B6-13 as Command Olivia would make it her mission as CoS to fighting him. Low key, Rowan has already been running B6-13 indirectly, by using Jake to undermine Liv’s decisions and go behind her back. Jake is a tin man with no brain of his own. He needs orders from someone, a mission. Like, I’m sure Olivia doesn’t know Lucy is B6-13. Rowan has basically allowed Olivia to borrow power (that’s the real ‘something borrowed’), and think that she was controlling the world. It’s easier than fighting her. If Rowan took back direct control, against Olivia’s wishes, she would dedicate Mellie’s whole administration to fighting him, which is tiresome for us and Olivia, but not Rowan:

Huck:“I never considered it before. But, yeah, you were made. Just like us. By him. Why wouldn't you have a guy? ... No. You don't have a guy. You don't need one. You have your father. He is your guy, and he is always out. And you really do need him, because as long as he is by your side, nothing you do seems bad in comparison. Your guy is always out, and he is the biggest, hungriest monster on the loosest leash in the world. ... A monster does not change. A monster is always hungry. Do you not understand that when the monster gets hungry, he will turn around and eat you?”

What I think Rowan has been doing this season, is cementing Olivia as both his replacement, and his permanent companion, until he dies. Rowan is trying to eat Olivia this season. His consumption of her keeps him alive. It’s either she dies or he dies. You already know the option for which I have advocated for 4 seasons now.

Rowan: “You are like looking into the window of my past. You are me. No matter how much I tried, all I could create was me. There is a reckoning coming for you, Olivia. You think you have it under control. You think you have all the power buttoned up inside you behind your eyes, lighting you up. But one day you'll glance into a mirror, and you will discover that some of that power is missing. The lights are going out. Then? You'll have some difficult decisions to make. Do I want that power back? Who am I willing to hurt to get it? Now I can say this because I know You cannot have it all, Olivia.” (701, “Watch Me”)

Rowan doesn’t make predictions. He engineers them. Of course she never had it under control because with him around, she will never be in command of her life. As long as she thinks life is defined in the parameters her father as given her. Of course she can’t have it all, because he never did.

Wait, so why did he try to get Fitz to save her?

lmaoo, Rowan doesn’t give a good goddamn about Olivia’s soul. He’s been trying to make it as black as his. The performance Rowan gives depends on his audience. He told us (and Jake) as much in 406. He needed Fitz to come back to DC in order to test Olivia’s chewy centre. Referring to Fitz as “son” (703, 704) and instructing him on how to “lure her into a cage” (704) all indicate Rowan’s cultivation of Fitz as a deputized B6-13 prostitute. That tactic would never work because Fitz has a genuine connection with Olivia and doesn’t need B6-13 tools. In any case, Olivia eventually passed the test and sent Fitz packing. (I can now see in her own way that she wanted him gone so he wouldn’t be used against her, and so that she can keep up her bad bitch facade. It’s harder around people who actually see you as a person, not just what you can do for them)

When Olivia tried to punish Rowan by taking away his livelihood, something he genuinely enjoyed (his BONES!!!!!!!), he was done playing. You don’t take Rowan’s things. He has a transactional relationship with everyone. Olivia took Annie, so Quinn now gets taken. A person like that is not tethered to reality (which is why Maya laughed incredulously when Olivia told her what Rowan did). Rowan doesn’t need to actually kill Quinn to achieve his goals. He needed to test Olivia's centre. From Olivia’s reaction to those gun shots, her time as Command is dead, to me. When QPA connect’s Quinn’s abduction (I know there are a lot of parallels with her and Olivia, but that’s another post), Olivia’s relationship with them is as good as done (Rowan hopes). Fitz and QPA are the last real connections Olivia has, even though she’s treated them shittily since becoming CoS and Command.

Lessons from the Alternate Universe episode (610)

(does anything I’ve written above make sense?)

Rowan’s influence goes back to the Defiance decision. The AU showed us the contrast in Olivia’s life when her father was not in it (and, by extension, Jake). She had more agency. She smiled. She loved her work AND her friends. She actually stayed and tried in her relationship with Fitz. She was in Command of her life, it wasn’t in command of her. So, in what world would the man who brought darkness into this girl’s life be the one to save her? Change is a verb, and I have seen no action from Rowan. And I need to seem some action from Olivia in the opposite direction. Otherwise, she will be eaten alive by the monster under her nose.

Some of this might be

So y’all tell me.

What do you guys think is going on?

#Scandal #it was only supposed to be a paragraph #i'm sorry #Olivia pope #Rowan pope #bastard

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