#and if that's what it's doing then it's not...a real deconstruction

[infriga]

One piece chapter 1153:

I know I've already brought this up but I feel like saying it again, I really like the way Oda is deconstructing the Elbaph myth that he's spent so much of the series building up. It's made very apparent in this flashback that back then Dorry and Brogy were actually exceptions to the rule in their fair treatment of humans. The spirit of Elbaph we see in them that inspired Usopp and caught the reader's fancy turned out to be more of a reflection of who they are as people, though their kindness does better represent what kind of country Elbaph wants to be now. Harald himself even says that they have an "unusual disposition" in that regard, which I think is really interesting. And it makes what they've been turned into even more tragic with that in mind. Like I've mentioned before, Oda doesn't seem to be saying that there's anything wrong with having a warrior culture, or enjoying a good fight, but he's no longer separating that idea from the reality of violence and its consequences when used selfishly and needlessly. Dory and Brogy are violent and rambunctious and loud and irreverent, to each other, because they know the other is fine with it and reciprocates, but they were always gentle and kind and respectful to Luffy's crew. Their violence is controlled, purposeful even when it seemed frivolous to others. We've only seen them using it against other people in order to protect someone. Harald's violence, and by extension Elbaph's, wasn't controlled, not originally. It spilled out to other countries, other people, and caused a lot of harm.

Another thing that's interesting in this arc is the way Oda is depicting adherence to tradition here:

These panels are so jarring because in all the other panels the Elbaph citizens are depicted as jolly and boisterous, their faces individually drawn and visible, and while they're a bit confused about Harald's sudden change in personality they're still open to his ideas. But in these moments where an obsession with tradition rears its head, suddenly they become these faceless and jagged horned shadows.

This theme actually contrasts quite well with Egghead, because Oda is clearly trying to strike a balance between two extremes. In Egghead we got to see the very real dangers of progress with Vegapunk and the things he wrought in his desperate search for knowledge and innovation. I've made a meta post about it before but the reason why York ended up being the traitor was because Vegapunk's greatest weakness and vice was his desire for more, more funding, more knowledge, more discoveries, and more progress at all costs. In the end his greatest regrets came from that hunger for more, and so his hunger was what betrayed him to the government and got him killed. In his own words, "In my desire to push the world forward into the future, I flew too close to the sun."

Elbaph seems to be representing the other extreme, the dangers of staying too stuck in the past and not being willing to move forward, as well as the importance of people choosing to move forward towards a more peaceful future. But even then there is still an emphasis on the importance of a culture's history.

Oda has never depicted traditions as inherently good or bad, but he definitely leans towards leaving harmful traditions behind. It's actually an interesting parallel to the situation with Calgara and Norland. Norland didn't disrespect the Shandian's culture as a whole, but he also didn't believe that people should be harmed for the sake of maintaining tradition and he harshly denounced the act of human sacrifice, calling it barbaric. But when he found out that the trees he cut down to stop the spread of the plague were sacred ancestor trees, he felt terrible and said that the Shandian's were completely justified in their anger because what he'd done was unforgivable even if he'd just been doing what he thought was right. He recognized that he should have told the Shandian what the issue was and discussed it with them because he does respect their culture and their feelings on the matter.

But the Shandians do forgive him once they learn it was for their own sake, and importantly the way they show that forgiveness, the way they connect with Norland, is through another tradition. Ringing the bell of Shandora so that Norland may someday find his way back to them, lead home to them the same way their ancestors are. So It's not that traditions are treated as inherently bad, just the ones that are destructive, that hurt people, that ruin or end lives. The good traditions are ones that connect people, and make them happy, and tie them to their history and the history of others.

Similarly, chapter 1153 is all about the importance of those differences and the importance of learning about and experiencing other cultures and exchanging with them. But when their traditions become harmful, destructive, that's when they become a problem. Especially when they start to encorporate discrimination.

In the end it always comes back to the importance of the people, without whom there would be no culture and no traditions to begin with. And while I do hope it can still be saved, Elbaph deciding to burn everything down to save their kids is actually a perfect culmination of this narrative thoroughline, even more so because this time it's the good kind of history and culture being burned. And it fucking hurts because it doesn't deserve to be destroyed like that. But because of that it puts emphasis on what is most important. As Norland said, "people's lives are more precious."

With that in mind it's worth noting that Nika is meant to be a god of the people. Oda has typically depicted rulers and kings and gods as 2 kinds of people. The bad ones believe that people should serve them, and the good ones believe they should serve their people. Enel vs Gan Fall. Wapol vs Dalton. Doflamingo vs Riku. Orochi vs Oden. Kaido vs Momo. Etc. But Nika, and Luffy, are never depicted as ruling over anyone and never serving them either, just saving them, freeing them and bringing a smile to their face. Luffy even says he doesn't want to conquer anything, despite having a conqueror's will. What he's conquering is himself. I think that's part of why he doesn't want to be seen as a hero, because he doesn't want to tie others down or be tied down himself. It's funny because he's the kind of guy who doesn't really plan for the future, and doesn't care about anyone's past. He is the ultimate example of living in the present. In a way he's arguably struck the perfect balance between the two extremes by simply not engaging with them and just doing his own thing, which in light of everything I've said is kind of hilarious and very typical of Luffy. He's irreverent towards both tradition and progress, but he does care about people.

Anyway I'm just really enjoying the themes of Elbaf so far and how well they've resonated throughout the story and I just had a lot of feelings about it that I wanted to try to put into words lol. Oda is always great at packing a lot of meaning into relatively short flashbacks and this chapter was a really good example of that. Also Ida is great and Harald had good taste in women (fuck Estrid all my homies hate Estrid).

[artbyblastweave]

So to me, an understated aspect of Watchmen is that it deconstructs supervillainy. Without the need for a rotating rogues gallery in the name of endless serialization, wannabe supervillains end up dead, imprisoned, sticking to common profitable crimes, or going straight like Moloch. I think this a missing aspect of other attempts to deconstruct the genre like Marshall Law or the Boys, because if there isn't a threat on the level of the Legion of Doom or Darkseid, then superheroes are just a solution in search of a problem, and if there are supervillains, then the superheroes need to get their shit together. This was also a problem with the League of Extraordinary Gentleman, were told about much of a threat superheroes are, but all they do is lounge around to be marketed, while the League goes out and tackles issues that a superhero could actually help with, such as the aliens from War of the Worlds, actual authoritarians like Big Brother, or even the antichrist.

Hard agree with at least the parts pertaining to Watchmen. Moloch's quivering little "Oh God, I spent the 70s in jail." is such an effective refutation of such a huge number of tropes at once, and hits above its weight in contributing to the sense that Watchmen proper is set well after the party has wound down, so to speak. I really wish that it had made it into any of the adaptations.

My endorsement as this pertains to Marshall Law and The Boys is much more tentative. Marshall Law is simply on my to-read list. The Boys is almost entirely about the idea that superheroes are just a solution in search of a problem, but also doesn't commit to an actual in-universe angle on what supervillains are, or whether they exist at all, in a way that severely limits it's ability to say anything about anything at all; they go from a real issue to which superheroes are framed as a bad solution, to controlled opposition stage-managed by Vought, and it's not a clean transition; as a comic it's concerned with getting in a lot of (decently funny) shots at the meta-editorial level at the expense of being a well-realized world. The show is meaningfully better about this, because the for-profit cultural elevation of "heroes" without a clear-cut exigence is both analogous to several dynamics in contemporary American culture and reflects the cultural idea of the superhero as shaped by the MCU.

As far as League of Extraordinary Gentlemen goes- I only ever got around to the first two volumes. But the entire point of those first two volumes is that the conflicts between heroes and villains are in fact just different groups of monstrous shitheads working at cross-purposes- as is the nature of Victorian great-game politics. The twist at the end of the first volume is that Fu Manchu, while evil, isn't actually meaningfully worse than the people who sic the quote-unquote "heroes" on him- but he is foreign, and thus easier to paint as a legitimate target.

Then, in volume two, individual heroism very pointedly plays a very limited role in the defeat of the Martians. They're driven off Mars to earth in the first place after years of warfare with a guerilla coalition of several other fictional Martian species of note- led but not defined by the efforts of John Carter and Gullivar, and it's ultimately a lukewarm, unsatisfying victory. The League's involvement in the Martian situation actively causes setbacks at first because it puts The Invisible Man in a position to sell out the entire defensive strategy to save his own hide. Nemo is only able to provide an effective stalling action because he's assisted by his sizable crew. Hyde is the only one of the group who gets to do a traditional singular superhero moment, and he's motivated to do it entirely by his overwhelming desire to kill stuff over anything intrinsically heroic, and he dies doing it. And the tide is ultimately turned by black-ops germ warfare perpetuated by the English government, ultimately bringing the entire conflict down to the level of two packs of imperialists taking swings at each other with countless innocents caught in the crossfire.

(Man, I forgot how much I liked Nemo in these, by the way. Had to quickly reread both volumes in order to make sure I wasn't going to be talking out my ass, so thank you for motivating that. What a cool guy.)

[lazyyogi]

The Seven Blessings of Daily Meditation

Meditation is not just one practice among many—it’s the ground beneath them all. It doesn’t replace ritual, devotion, or energy work. It empowers them. Why? Because it speaks directly to the one continuous thread running through all of them: the felt sense of existence itself.

At first, sitting down to meditate may feel like doing nothing. But simple daily practice quietly sets countless transformations in motion. If I had to name just seven, they would be these.

One: Directly Encounter the Real

Meditation bypasses philosophy and belief, going straight to firsthand experience. Every authentic spiritual path—whether Advaita, Zen, Dzogchen, Christian mysticism, or Sufism—has some form of meditation at its core because it leads to a direct encounter with reality.

Two: Stabilization of Attention

Meditation strengthens the capacity to stay present, making all other spiritual practices more effective. Without stable attention, any ritual, prayer, mantra, or shamanic journey becomes diluted.

Three: Cultivated Wholeness

Daily meditation aligns mental clarity with embodied presence. It’s not just “zoning out”—it’s the cultivation of intimate contact with the moment, sensation, thought, and breath, which leads to a unified experience of being.

Four: Healing without Suppressing

Rather than suppressing emotion or spiritual conflict, meditation gives space for all inner material to arise and be seen without judgment. This witnessing is inherently healing and transformative.

Five: Universal Accessibility

You don’t need special tools, initiations, or beliefs to meditate. It’s available to anyone, anywhere, and adapts itself to every stage of spiritual maturity—from basic stress relief to profound realization.

Six: Freedom from Identity

Over time, regular meditation reveals that you are not your thoughts, not your roles, not your emotions. This deconstruction of the egoic center is what allows spiritual rebirth to occur—naturally and organically.

Seven: Profound Realization

Meditation opens the door to non-dual insight—not just peace or concentration, but recognition that the self and the world are not-two. It is a method that dissolves the very sense of separation that most spirituality seeks to overcome.

These seven blessings aren’t theoretical—they’re the natural fruit of steady practice. And they’re backed by science. Meditation isn’t about escaping life; it’s about entering it more fully, more honestly, and more freely. Just 20 to 30 minutes a day will legitimately change your life.

LY

[musical-chick-13]

Not-infrequently, I will see posts about how something (<-usually a concept I spend way too much time looking for examples of) is a Mainstream Storytelling Trend that you see Everywhere™ and like. Where? Where are these stories? SHOW THEM TO ME!!!!!!!

[lucabyte]

A belief in Nominative Determinsim

[wackywatchdotcom]

got reminded of it ... but i think about the symbolism of jax' model a lot bc i think its subtle!!! but its there

and i think the crux of it is that jax' model is very much a prey animal, something that contradicts his general tendency for reckless, mean bullshit. there could be something there about him having front-facing eyes too. and iirc gooseworx said the farm was a lie which i do take into account but also i think it helps w his generally very 'natural' or real-world-nature design components and ideas being evoked. he has clothes and these clothes are very minimal and hes a real animal fairly closely associated with farming or hunting and is very humanlike and his pocket just Has Mulch in it. even if the farm isnt real theres definitely something his design is evoking here

that and an idea ive thought of is that rabbits are VERY much animals that operate on instinct. they do a lot of things based on an immediate need, typically for survival, at least in the wild. and i dont know if id describe jax as fearful (some could argue he is in his own way, which i dont disagree with, but i think the implications can be a bit loaded- but theres many ways a person can be fearful) but he definitely operates on what he immediately wants. he wants to have fun. so he DOES. it doesnt matter what that entails. he wants control, so he takes it out on the others. it doesnt matter what that entails. etc etc. hes also running from something and i think the image of a rabbit fits that well

i think its deliberate that jax is the only design that actually revolves around an animal that we see. theres dobby and that worm on a string in the back but of the main cast its ALL humans or items, jax is the only one whos an animal (and probably still intended to be toy-like, but none of the others have distinct animals theyre meant to be). and it feels purposeful in a way i genuinely think about a lot. i cant place what its implying for certain because i genuinely dont think we have enough information on jax to fully understand his thought processes, but it does make him very connected to the real world, but in a distant way

[hanzajesthanza]

the training montage in crossroads re-ignited a headcanon i had of geralt waking up and doing gymnastics, performing kickflips and mid-air spins around on a fencepost outside an hour before sunrise to ‘limber up,’ and bleary-eyed dandelion wrapping himself up in a blanket to be like "heyyy... what the hell are you doing 💖"

[icarrymany]

the mh comics open up such an interesting narrative for our few surviving characters. to them, what happened in the videos was real, but to everyone else its a cool creative web series. when all of that is viewed as fiction, fans have a freedom to speculate about and invade the lives and privacy of real people. and that would be so uncomfortable and terrifying. imagine someone irl having headcanons about YOU. writing fan fiction about you and your real friends. assuming things about you PUBLICLY ! IN MASS!

wouldnt it be so cool to see a character grapple with that in like a self-reflective way? fans asking questions the muse is too afraid to ask themselves. of course, theyre the only person the answer matters to.

[larrythefloridaman]

WOAH, HE'S BIGENDER? I DIDN'T KNOW THAT!

[jon-sedai]

Just letting asoiaf fans know that subversion does not necessitate avoidance.

Yes, subversion does not necessitate avoidance!

I repeat, SUBVERSION DOES NO- *gunshot*

[pistachiopie]

pacing around my room. previous post has me thinking about the way pkciv went and how I felt kinda. disappointed? watching pkciv 2 because it's like we spend the entirety of pkciv 1 seeing the injustices of this system and evbo finally gets to the top and then. he doesn't break out of it. he doesn't realize he has to deconstruct the entire system for it to ever be fair and it's so. noooooo </3

auwauagh does cc!evbo not realize that this deconstruction is necessary for a truly fair world or does he not want to deconstruct it because he wanted to continue telling a story set in the world of pkciv lol.

[miirshroom]

Elden Ring and Introduction to the FromSoftware Meta-Narrative

If a rune is a story and a great rune is a great story, then what are the great stories represented by the Great Runes? The answer that I have arrived at: The abstract concept of FromSoftware's various videogame development pipelines. Afterall, the Elden Ring represents a metaphysical concept, so why not an examination of the past, present, and future identity of a company that produces videogames. Major spoilers ahead for Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Armoured Core 6, and minor spoilers for several other FromSoft games.

Godrick's Great Rune

The Dark Souls (2011-2018) Great Rune seems obvious - Godrick's Great rune. If the 3 ringed shape wasn't the tip-off (corresponding to 3 games) then perhaps that the dragon figure on top of the Banished Knight helmet is the same creature as the Nameless King's mount. Dark Souls Eygon of Carim wears the Morne set and guards a fire keeper named Irena, while in Elden Ring Edgar of Castle Morne in Godrick's territory loses his eyes to frenzy after discovering the death of his daughter Irena.

Godrick himself seems to function as representative of Dark Souls Remastered, in a sense that the repulsive practice of grafting is being equated to the creative dead-end of revisiting old games such as Dark Souls (2011) and pasting on updated graphics and quality of life features while having to work around out-dated code. I think that Godefroy could be seen as a much earlier use of this practice as the difference between original Dark Souls and the Prepare to Die edition (2012) that included improvements + Artorius DLC. And Godwyn's parallel would be Dark Souls 3 (2016). I would thus consider Godwyn and Godrick as brothers in Elden Ring because in the internal logic of FromSoftware there were always planned to be a trilogy of Dark Souls games.

Dark Souls 2 is annoying to explain succinctly partially because it was directed by Naotoshi Zin Yui Taimura (correction: Naotoshi Zin was the supervisor, which was his role on all Dark Souls games as president of the company from 1986-2014) instead of Hidetaka Miyazaki. In short, there are some blurry lines between Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin and Bloodborne.

Malenia's and Miquella's Great Runes

Malenia herself has an obvious match in Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019) - it is in the Dragon Rot being correlated to Scarlet Rot, the parallels between Malenia's dedication to Miquella and Wolf's dedication to Kuro, and that it's one of the few recent FromSoft games to be released without paid DLC or sequel (which as it happens is common among all empyrean and their game counterparts). Numerous people have commented that Malenia feels like a Sekiro boss to fight - although with the added twist of mechanics like clearing her poise break that allow her to "cheat" compared to the bosses of that game.

However, the exact nature of Malenia's Great Rune is more nebulous - probably could be a stand-in for multiple Japanese-style combat games in the catalogue including Shadow Assault: Tenchu (2008) and Otogi: Myth of Demons (2002). Certainly, it has been confirmed by FromSoftware representatives that Sekiro was internally considered a Tenchu game for some time before release, as discussed in the aptly titled 2018 GameSpot article "Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice Originally Started As A Tenchu Game".

Miquella may or may not have a Great Rune. If he does, it would correspond to games in a similar spirit to Déraciné (2018), the game which Miquella most likely represents. A much smaller game, the idea of which originated in the wake of Bloodborne's release at around the same time that the idea for Sekiro began to form - twin ideas. The game Kuon (2004) also seems to have served some inspiration for the Haligtree, as there is a side-story told about silkworms and a central Mulberry Tree in that game.

Radahn's Great Rune

Radahn's Rune represents the Armored Core franchise - or perhaps the broader idea of mech combat games - while he is himself a personification of Armoured Core 6: The Fires of Rubicon (2023). The opening part of his boss fight is an artillery bombardment, similar to the long range weapon capabilities of the AC units. The central motifs of AC6 are "fire" and "coral" - and the general theme of Caelid is using fire to control the rot that has eaten Radahn's mind and which manifests in the landscape as growths resembling coral reef.

A major part of Radahn's character is that he idolized Godfrey, who is himself embodying AC4 (2006)/4A (2008). The name "Loux" means "Lynx" - and in a departure from the Ravens of earlier titles AC4 introduces the Lynx units. It also simply makes sense that the progenitor of the Golden Lineage - who I previously correlated to Dark Souls - would be represented in the first game that Miyazaki directed.

And I can see the objection that this doesn't make sense because we know that Radahn must have been born before Malenia/Miquella, so how can he represent a game that came after? Simply: it's not about when the game idea was executed, but about when the concept was first proposed. FromSoftware probably knew that they would eventually return to Armoured Core at about the time they wrapped on AC5V.

Morgott and Mohg's Great Runes

Now that some boundary conditions have been set it is easier to speculate on the nature of Morgott and Mohg - AC5 (2012) and AC5V (2013), respectively. Points of comparison: 1) They are of the Golden Lineage as they preceded from AC4A represented by Godfrey, 2) They are omens that any game without Miyazaki attached will be perceived poorly in hindsight (as he did not direct either game), 3) The AC games were at the time FromSoftware's most well known and active franchise before being overshadowed by souls games - those touched by the Crucible were once considered divine and only later fell into disfavor.

But as I already mentioned, with speculation that Radahn holds the Armoured Core Great Rune Morgott and Mohg must have claimed some other stories. This also aids in understanding how they can exist as multiple copies - there is the version of them before and after claiming Great Runes that do not match their original natures. Morgott is the easiest to figure out - it's the Elden Ring (2022) Rune. There is one Great Rune in the entire game that is mandatory to beating the game, and it is the one held by Morgott. Perhaps this raises a question of how can the Elden Ring have a single Great Rune dedicated to itself, but as I have been attempting to describe - all FromSoftware games should be treated as a single body of work looking backwards from Elden Ring. The initial concept of an "Elden Ring" stretches back at least as far as Eternal Ring (2000), and Morgott's rune is described as an "anchor ring that houses the base" so it does have a central importance.

And there's a relatively straightforward answer to which game would be considered a twin to Elden Ring - Demon's Souls (2009). The leitmotif in the menu music for Elden Ring has been identified as a more triumphant version of the Demon's Souls menu music. The core themes of Elden Ring are also much concerned with philosophies of identity in much the same way that Demon's Souls explores the definition of the self as an entity that thinks (look up "Philosophical Analysis of Demon's Souls" by The Gemsbok on Youtube for more on this). And Elden Ring serves as something of a bookend to Demon's Souls - both games are divided into 6 sections via 6 stone structures (the Archstones of Demon's Souls and the Divine Towers of Elden Ring). The 6th Archstone of Demon's Souls is broken, but what lies beyond is a snowy landscape. Elden Ring finally provides access to that snowy landscape in the Forbidden Lands, which is again only available after defeating Morgott - and with the Great Rune being activated at the tower closest to this area.

But there are independent reasons why Mohg's Great Rune should be the one that encompasses Demon's Souls. The Demon's Souls franchise potential has been irreversibly corrupted by the recent remake. The philosophy is still generally intact - that is portrayed through text. But critical aspects of art design have been altered beyond recognition - mostly of interest to me is the portrayal of the Yellow Monk and the Fool's Idol and the area of Latria in general. Mohg himself has this in the design of his robes and trident which steal the motifs of the helix and the black flame but corrupt them in ways that read almost as gibberish compared to their deliberate uses elsewhere.

The four-armed doll of the Fool's Idol hints at who the original owner of this rune might have been - Ranni's mentor Renna. And through embodying the witch Renna, it may be that ownership of this rune was transfered to Ranni before she chose to discard it. Demon's Souls did generally fit the previously established criteria of Empyrean game (no sequels or DLC), but the potential for future games is lost now as creating a sequel to the original would alienate people confused by the aesthetic corruption of the remake. There is also a rabbithole here for what all this Great Rune encompasses because Demon's Souls itself did not spring out of nowhere - it is of a similar approach to game design that was previously last seen in Shadow Tower Abyss (2003) and Kingsfield IV (2001).

The Great Rune of the Unborn

The Great Rune of the Unborn is a difficult one to pin down through this method of unpacking the Great Runes as much as any other. It seems possible that Miquella wanted this Great Rune and thought that it could be obtained by arranging his own rebirth. It is also one of two stories that must be obtained for Ranni's Age of Stars to be possible (the other being Radahn's story) - indicating that it represents something that did not exist at the time of Elden Ring's release. Running low on demi-gods, perhaps this is best understood as Melina's Great Rune. It is implied through Melina's abilities to channel Marika's echoes and through her descriptor in the code "MarikaofDaughter" that she is an offspring of Marika. Contradictory to the other demi-gods who can typically be matched to FromSoftware games, Melina's bodiless status seems to indicate that she never has been and her burning at the Forge of Giants is acknowledgement that she never will be. A comparison can be drawn between Melina and the disembodied Ayre - voice of the Coral in AC6. The unrealized potential of the Great Rune of the Unborn seems a good match to Melina.

Rykard's Great Rune

So, by process of elimination there is one rune left and it is Rykard's Great Rune. Fitting that the one game candidate remaining is Bloodborne (2015). An article titled "How the Spirit of Bloodborne Lives on in Elden Ring" (posted on VG247 by Alan Wen) goes over the ways that Volcano Manor evokes Bloodborne. The Manor sits on top of a hidden town of gothic architecture similar to Yharnam being stacked on top Old Yharnam, the Ghiza's Wheel weapon found in the manor has a clear design lineage to the whirligig saw from Bloodborne, the Iron Virgin at Raya Lucaria transports the player to a secondary location similar to Bloodborne's Kidnappers. But to me, the most clear connection is the finding of the Serpent's Amnion and Rya's dismay of being born of a hideous ritual. This seems a form of call-back or iteration to the ending of Bloodborne that involves consuming four 3rds of umbilical cord and being reborn as a Great One - a repellent little squid-slug thing.

[femmeleatherface]

fully convinced that the only reason the opening lawyer's office scene in big trouble in little china exists is to establish that the film is secretly part of the x files universe

[blueish-bird]

burnout is sapping my hyperfixation of creative energy, but not to worry! I’m still thinking about Aki and Angel an incredibly abnormal amount

[buttonupdyke]

That weird sense of like intelectual and moral superiority catholics have over literally every other group irks me so badly

[musical-chick-13]

When I was like. 22. There was one (1) anime I made roughly half of my personality. And I feel like, since then, I am 2 millimeters away at all times from doing exactly the same thing again.