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You’ll kill them all

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Okay so obviously one of the main questions that Severance is asking is "who is a person?" Like, what is a life, what constitutes living? The outies don't consider that when they choose severance, they're creating an entirely new person, someone with a consciousness that exists seperate from their own. Even if they know that's what's happening in some way, they don't really GET that.

Early in season 1, Helena Eagan seems like such a cold monster for telling Helly "You are not a person. I am a person."

And she clearly is cold, no doubt. But she's also being honest about the way most outies genuinely seem to regard their innies. She's just saying it in a way they won't.

Mark says he understands his innie is a person, but the way he talks to him betrays that. Him and Devon are nice and gentle, but at the end of the day neither of them consider what it will mean to take down Lumon or for Mark to quit. Will it be ending innie Marks life? Sure. But he's not *really* a person, he doesnt *really* have a life, not like they have lives. So it's not the same.

Theyre like, genuinely shocked he takes this so poorly.

When Dylan G proposes to Gretchen, he says "i can give you a life." Which struck me as such a specific way to put that, because... he cant, really? Not "a life" the way she would understand it, with all the things people use to "build a life together." Like, a family, a home, time spent together not in one weird waiting room.

What kind of life can you offer when you only exist on one floor of one building? When you can only see each other in one room, possibly for an hour at a time every few days or weeks?

For Gretchen, that wouldn't be a life. But to Dylan G, it's all he knows. So it is a life, a full one. He has nothing else to compare it to.

For Mark and Devon and Helena, it seems so cruel to look at the lives of the innies and see them as less. As not real. To see the innies as not real people.

But i don't think the show is saying that they're wrong. I don't think it's saying that theyre right, either. I think it's just posing questions, difficult ones. It's easy to say "of course the innies are people, with lives and consciousness of their own, and its cruel to discount that."

But even the innies do the same thing. They do it to Ms. Casey, and to every single one of Gemma's other consciousnesses.

25 seperate consciousnesses, who only exist for hours at a time, in one room. Are those lives, are those people?

As Gemma and Mark run for the elevator, Dr. Mauer yells for them to stop. He yells "you're killing them all." At first i didn't get who he meant. I thought maybe he meant all the innies on the severed floor, like Innie Mark said. If they took Lumon down, they all die.

But he meant Gemma. All the Gemma's that exist in those rooms, the ones Innie Mark created.

If innies are people, seperate people with individual consciousness, then both Innie and Outie Mark just committed mass murder.

And he did it to Ms Casey, too. Has been trying to do exactly that all season. To find his outies wife and get her out of there. It was never a question of asking Ms Casey what she wanted or letting her have a life of her own on the severed floor, the way innie Mark and Helly choose. It was always about getting Gemma out, saving her.

The innies complain that their outies don't treat them like people, that they don't give them choices, but when faced with the same question, neither Helly nor Mark hesitate to put Gemma over Ms Casey.

They don't see her as a person the way they see themselves as people. And they REALLY don't see her other 24 consciousnesses as people. But why not? How long do you have to be alive to be considered a person? How many places do you need to be allowed to exist in before you get a choice?

To the outies, it's hard for them to consider that the innies are people in the same way they are. Their lives are too small, too confined.

And its the same for the innies. Gemma was split into 25 people, 24 of which likely only exist in one room, for maybe a few hours at a time. It's an existence even smaller than their half-lives, and they don't give it consideration the same way their outies don't consider them.

Is a life that small really a life? Would each of Gemma's consciousness' fight for their strange existence if they had a choice? If they knew what walking out those doors meant, would they be afraid to do it?

Would Ms Casey have chosen to leave, if Innie Mark had told her what was happening? If he had stopped to consider what he was doing in that moment, do you think he would have done anything different?

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I don't understand justifying Yoru's manipulation and abuse of Denji using Asa's legitimate feelings for him, and worse, trying to blame Asa by saying that Yoru "does what Asa really wants." We know that Asa's feelings for Denji are channeled by Yoru (at least that's how I think it was at the beginning) and that she is a devil after all, but Asa would never manipulate and SA someone. All Asa wanted was a genuine connection with someone.

Actually Yoru is using Asa as a war trophy to motivate Denji, who is a hedonist and currently desperate for any kind of affection and she is aware of it. Yoru is narcissistic, ambitious and doesn't care about Asa's well-being or autonomy. There are no half measures or justifications here: justifying Yoru's nonsense and whims using Asa as a shield is not understanding that despite the fact they share a body and certain feelings/emotions, both are currently still different beings in essence.

Despite everything, I think that Yoru does feel… some appreciation for Asa in a very fucked up way? I mean, aside of being the war devil, she has a very twisted view of relationships, just look at what she thinks of parent-child relationships and how she used her "children" as weapons.

As for Asa, as much as it frustrates and disappoints me, it's obvious that there's a narrative intent in her absence. It's been set up and worked on since the beginning of part two how Yoru slowly took over Asa, while she lost and sacrificed her future and autonomy to the point that she was reduced to just an increasingly vague presence while Yoru was slowly getting stronger and present at the expense of Asa herself.

Personally, I interpret Asa as the last shred of humanity left in that world, and for now there doesn't seem to be much room for her among all that violence and chaos.

Still, I hope that Asa returns soon, and more importantly, that during this year the main focus returns to her. Fujimoto owes us a lot of chapters focused on her… Many of us are reading part two mainly because of her.

This is my interpretation, Asa is a very complex character that had to give up some space in the story in order to develop the other main characters.

It should also be remembered that Denji, up until more or less the Falling Devil arc, was quite secondary and many complained about Asa's main character status and wanted Denji to come back, and that Yoru until half of last year, had not received any development and many fans complained about her being useless so…

Patience, I guess.

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i hope this meme is a thing on tumblr because i Dont want to post on twitter

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oughhjj Asa n denji my sweeties...,,.

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How devils love

What this chapter shows is how a demon plays.

Having a goal while ignoring suffering

When Denji takes offense at the way Yoru kills people, she reflects back his own questionable morality.

Why is that? Because Denji is a devil who also plays, but still hides under the mask of a human.

Then Yoru pulls him, forcing him to transform as if it were his real face.

And Denji's having fun! Because he's a devil and he plays too

Ignoring suffering

His suffering

but there's a little subtlety: when a demon ignores the suffering of others, he plays.

but when he ignores his own, he loves.

Cruel as it may seem, THIS is how a devil loves

perhaps oblivion sets in, devils become strangers, but suffering is the game and the love of devils

this is their link

while memory fades

Denji will continue to love the demon of control because she's the one who made him suffer the most.

And the demon of control will continue to love him because he's the one who made her suffer the most

the vividness of suffering gives demons the illusion of a beating heart

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Thinking about Denji asking for whole cakes to eat when he's given the opportunity bc it's likely he wouldn't be able to afford them living with Nayuta. And also the fact that the cake was the first thing he saw when Power was killed by Makima.

Him eating the cake whole on his own when he's lifted of the burden of being the elder sibling who provides (Yoshida pays for it + the cake after Nayuta's supposed death) it also kinda ties back to the omake of kid Denji sharing the slurry with Pochita as cake while being the one who provides for both of them.

Denji being unable to enjoy and share the cake with Power, the cake that marks his growth as an indication that he's human and a child (17 years old) that growth instead a passage of maturity for him to be the csm and the elder sibling.

That he's being fed the cake through Yoshida with the framing of a "normal life". The decadence of the cake as Denji's original dream, that he eats the cake made to be shared by himself because it's for him, in that moment he's free of responsibility.

That Yoshida sneakily cuts a slice of it for himself. The way Yoshida's neat slice with the knife is contrasted w Denji's messy grab. As they're served their drinks (iced coffee for Yoshida, orange juice for Denji)

My snow and bitterness analysis all over again. Also the way Denji asks for ice cream too. (Loss parallels w Angel Devil tied to Aki) 🥴🥴🥴

Going back to this page. Their orders placed here is kinda wild along these line of thoughts + the fact that this acts as conclusion for the Aging Devil arc.

Kiga, the elder sibling asking for the same cake as Denji, her co-opting of his gluttony, his dream with her gluttony, her goal.

Fumiko asking for orange juice, the way she positions herself as a junior, a child alongside Yoshida and Denji. The drink that opposes the mature, sentimental cold bitterness of Yoshida's iced coffee (snow bitter analysis + kishibe parallels)

Asa's Royal Milk Tea, white tea heavy with milk, the child who shares her body with the younger sibling. The tea made of young leaves and dampened, sweetened bitterness. Yoru's ire shrouded in Asa's grief repurposed.

Anyways linking the snow & bitterness + ice cream parallels analysis again lol.

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From Mokumokuren’s official Bsky account

The AROACE element in the manga is intentional!

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tweet

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Revisiting ch103 and ch122 to draw a comparison. And noticed how pre-barf Yoshida's face is more shrouded by his hair. His expressions are more stiff and uncanny.

Post-barf Yoshida still has his long bangs but his expression is so vivid it shines through.

It's funny how unnatural he comes across when he was trying to seem like a normal high-schooler that he's just oozing social awkwardness with an eerie pretty face and at the same time, the way he's so naturally sociable in appeasing Asa and persuading Denji AND talking about being eaten and killed with that bright smile on his face that it circles back to being uncanny again.

Like just look at the gap in how the enthusiasm is displayed here?? One is forced and the other is cheery.

What is this friggin refreshed ikemen sparkles filter he got from Denji's spit. He's so funny.

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Once again, Yoru pulls the trigger but Asa is the one left holding the smoking gun. It’s like the handjob all over again.

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fujimoto is the absolute king of creating a world where mass death is a regular occurrence and yet every single time it feels singularly devastating. i've seen people say his work is nihilistic, that people die over nothing--i profoundly disagree! again and again, it is made clear that the deaths and horrors in chainsaw man aren't random acts of god, and that the people who die aren't random faces in a crowd but people who are willingly sacrificed in the name of social cohesion and the comfort of a few. the people killed by the gun devil all had names, lives, ages that were inescapable and their deaths are just as bad of a tragedy's as aki's. asa's mom's death might have been forgotten by all, and yet it has a profound impact on asa's own life and outlook. the people convinced to commit suicide by falling had long discussions about their everyday life before they fell off their balcony. it is power and nayuta's deaths--people who mattered little to makima and to barem, who were simply seen as tools for an end--that utterly crush denji and awaken pochita. himeno lost her partners, one by one, and every time she got more and more depressed. these are real people, all of them! their lives mattered! death is a normal occurence in chainsaw man, but the loss of a life is a tragedy every time

most importantly; most of these mass death events, as normalized as they are, are not random or natural. they're the result of devils being used as tools, of the powerful using those that they consider belong to them as payment for their comfort or to further their goals. in chapter one, denji got murdered after a lifetime of abuse as payment for his abuser's eagerness for power. the president of the united states pays for the gun devil to fight makima with one year from each american's life. the japanese government pays for makima's every death with the death of a citizen. public safety regularly sends its employees to cut their throats for a devil to wipe out a building. the german government contracted santa claus and gave her children in return. the chainsaw man cult used its desperate, scared child members to gain an army.

and now, foreign children are given citizenship simply so they can be gunned down coldly and used as blood and payment to use chainsaw man and make scared, rich old men live longer. idk how much more explicit you can be here. look at these kids! do their lives mean nothing? they're drawn in loving detail. they're real people being sent to be butchered!

death in chainsaw man isn't meaningless. far from it! this isn't saying "this world is absurd and has no meaning". this is about exploitation. chainsaw man has always been about exploitation and abuse, at its very core. these people mean something. these are real human beings, being fed to the grinder, again and again. they're being fed to it BY the rich and powerful, by their governments, by their employers, by their abusers. hell, yoru has fed her own children to this grinder, just to get a little more. ownership and greed, this is the core of what's happening. this is murder, not random acts of violence!

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denji just got his mouth used like a interdimensional portal and still has time to call her cute. he's the standard

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I know I'm fucked when it's gotten to the point where I start making song playlists for them

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cithis's overtly feminine presentation is so fun to me... the long dress and the cleavage window and the makeup and the fact that she's the only one who changes super noticeably in the genderswap is just . Idk its cool, esp with how androgynous all the other elves are

It is very cool! Cithis has a very overt gender presentation that we don't really see in other elves, even Otta who makes a point to present as male doesn't read as super masculine to the level of "hyper-feminine" that Cithis is

Elves seem to have their own fashion preferences independent of gender (from what we can tell from the gender swap)

Which makes sense, Lycion himself wears a very feminine hairstyle even in the original, so Pattadol also keeping the same hairstyle while she's a man is consistent! Meanwhile Cithis seems to be way more conscious of her own gender when dressing?

I wonder if presenting more feminine is more common than presenting more "masculine" for elves? Would a male elf dressed like Cithis be strange? I don't think Cithis is completely unique in how feminine she is cause we do see a few other elves with similar traits. Flamela has a exposed cleavage, Mysil has a long skirt, Daltian clan "Aunt Uranesse" seems very feminine with makeup and adorned hair, Cithis has it all at once but the pieces aren't unique I guess is what I'm saying

They say that for the most part there isn't much difference between male and female fashion but even here we have an elf in what we would call a "feminine" looking long dress

I wonder if those are things that male elves could wear without other elves finding it strange too 🤔

I wonder if there's an equivalent for "very masculine" in elf fashion, tbh I don't know what that would even look like, male Cithis just wears a very average looking version of the uniform (minus the boots and arm armor) even the neck piece is on instead of her choker. Otta does "dress like a man" to the point other elves get her gender wrong tho so there must be an equivalent? (besides the fact she wears the male uniform) Or maybe is her behavior along with the fashion that makes them read her as masculine and the fashion alone wouldn't?

Anyway it is very interesting!!! But I have no idea what to make of it!!!! Elf gender studies when