#on both a watsonian and doylist level

[snarp]

Q. What if Marika was Radagon's tulpa. What if Radagon made/became Marika because he was from Maiden Village and they wouldn't let him be a maiden

A. Oh that would be so fucking funny. And so fucking bad

[crimeronan]

it kind of gets overshadowed by the horror of the rest of the episode, but. how funny is it that hunter Takes Off His Mask to yell at luz in the beginning of hollow mind. he's the perfect boy i just-

sorry i know it's my usual agenda rearing its head but i do think this is adorable. the Second the rebels are gone, hunter is like well fine. you just tackled me and fucked up my whole arrest and you're an anarchist shithead who constantly ruins my plans. but i KNOW you aren't going to attack me. for some reason i trust you implicitly. i don't need full armor here. what i NEED is for you to see JUST HOW LOUDLY I'M FROWNING-

[chamerionwrites]

Another day another version of me having Star Wars feelings about Luke and Leia’s very different experiences with local bad dad Anakin Skywalker

[freakcliff]

after reading interview with the vampire I cannot express enough how much old man daniel was a stroke of absolute genius for the show like not only does he facilitate the narrative layers by being a much better journalist on both a doylist and watsonian level who can pick through the unreliable narration but he's also a great character in his own right AND. it's fucking hilarious that every so often we cut out of the main story for some guy to go wait, hold on, you BOTH fucked lestat????

[icantbelieveitsnotbutler]

Phantomhive Manor Layout

I'm the type of person who loves a good fictional map or floor plan and, unable to find one of the Phantomhive manor house on the internet, I naturally tried to make one myself. I figured that I would be able to to follow the routes the characters take to get to certain rooms and compare the interior and exterior window positions and designs to map the rooms.

I've been trying off and on for around a week now and, besides the entrance hall, I couldn't confidently tell you the location of a single room. Windows seen from the inside don't exist on the outside and windows on the exterior aren't present within the rooms. Certain windows and external doors exist in one chapter and are gone the next. Characters go up 3 full flights of stairs only to end up on the second floor. Entire stories appear where they weren't in previous in arcs.

This is obviously due to human error and things being changed to make them more historically accurate or to serve the story. It also doesn't matter where the rooms are, only the purpose they serve and what happens in them. The location of the dining room isn't important; we just need to know that's where people eat and have birthday parties, and one time Sebastian did a cool flip there.

That being said, I always want a Watsonian explanation even when there's a Doylist one. I could only come up with one in-universe explanation for the logical inconsistencies of the house: when Sebastian restored the manor house, he didn't just fix it. Whatever he did to it, the house is no longer a static, spatially-consistent structure.

If anyone is interested, more details about how confusing this building is are below the cut (with some out of context manga spoilers).

The Manor House

The first image is the front of the house, the side which carriages approach. The second image is the back where the garden is. Both are from Meyrin's backstory.

Here are more aerial views:

Note the appearance of extra windows along the side of the central section in the first one, which is from the same arc as the previous two images. The second is from the Blue Revenge Arc.

Here are details of the back view of the building:

Note the disappearing windows in some.

Ciel's bedroom.

Before the Green Witch Arc, Ciel's bedroom windows look like this on the interior and exterior:

Note that they open outwards (casement). Also note that they interrupt the hip-height decorative design inside. The three exterior shots are from Sebastian's record in the Luxury Liner Arc and don't match any corner on the more zoomed-out views of the building.

At the end of the Green Witch Arc, the windows are now hung (the bottom half slides upward to open) rather than casement style, but are otherwise the same:

In the Blue Revenge Arc (including the servants' flashbacks and r!Ciel's time there after he reclaims his identity from o!Ciel), the windows change:

The curtains are now a solid color and the decorative design is below the windows, rather than being interrupted by them. Those are insignificant details, but the panels showing the exterior directly contradict the interior and information from previous arcs:

The room is now on the middle floor while before it was on the top floor (not including the attic level), in addition to having a different architectural design around it.

The bedchamber together with the front room have 4 windows altogether, but the exterior only shows 3. The dressing room and bathroom each have a bay window, but the area where they would be seems to be up half a level. There's also a window on the exterior on the wall behind Ciel's bed, but no sign of it inside.

Interestingly, the layout of his quarters would be closer to the floor above, which has the four windows on the back and the two bay windows on the side. It's missing the dormer windows above, and the architectural details below, but it makes me think that there was some error in planning/drawing and the bedroom was actually supposed to be on the top floor.

It seems that the whole manor is actually two main floors for the family and guests, with a basement level and an attic level for the servants, and that one additional floor in the corner block got added at some point. In the earlier arcs, the roof of that section was the same height as the section to the left of it. It was only in the Blue Revenge Arc that they became different heights:

I thought things might be cleared up by following the routes of the characters to reach the room, but it's hard to understand where they're going.

In the Murder Arc, they go up one flight of stairs from the dining room (usually on the first floor in these types of houses) to reach Ciel's bedroom, and the second time they go up at least two floors from a bedroom (usually on the second floor) to reach the same room.

In Bard's backstory, Finny tells him Ciel's room is on the second floor, and then Bard goes up three flights of stairs from the first floor to reach it.

Something to note is that the three middle panels of Bard's route are identical to the first route of the Murder Arc, and then he goes up an entire extra staircase to reach what is supposed to be the same room.

In the Blue Memory Arc, Ciel has to come down from a higher floor to reach his parents' room (which became his room).

If the bedroom is on the second floor, he must have come down from the third floor, but I can't find the window in the stairwell anywhere on the outside of the building.

The Dining Room

The dining room is a long room with two entrances on one of the short walls, three large windows on the left, a fireplace on the right, and a huge bow window at the end. I initially thought there could be two of them, because I noticed that the height and design of the bottom of the bow window seemed to change depending on what meal was being eaten. However, I now think it's just inconsistent drawing.

As usual, there's no way to tell where this room is located. There are no bow windows on the outside of the building, or even a corner of the building which would allow for this configuration of windows.

The Drawing Room

This room has two enormous windows and conveniently has a panel of Ciel looking out of one them so we can determine its general location. However, I'm not sure which of the following sets of windows is correct:

The blue and orange are very big, but the yellow has the same window pane pattern as the most recent iteration of the room, which is the most accurate. However, the yellow is a set of three windows while the room has two. One of the windows could be in the next room, but it feels unlikely. The interior distance from the top of the windows to the ceiling is lacking from the the blue on the outside, so if the drawing is accurate, it would probably be the orange. The orange also feels most accurate to the panel of Ciel looking out the window, but the earlier volumes were less consistent in perspectives and proportions, so it's impossible to tell.

Ciel's Office

Ciel's office has a bay window overlooking the drive up to the house. There are two locations that fit this criteria.

In volume one (so take this with a grain of salt), there's a second window consistent with the teal option, but it doesn't seem to show up again. The side where the second window would in the orange option is never shown (to my knowledge).

Whichever option it is, the other side might be the room where Sebastian tutored Ciel.

The wall shown with bookshelves doesn't seem to have a window consistent with the teal side, so assuming the window is on the opposite wall and this room is the orange, Ciel's office would be the teal.

[umbrellajam]

I feel like whether Tim is on some level suicidal in RR #12 is very open to interpretation, which is part of what makes it fascinating!

because Tim's homecoming to Gotham is the culmination of an upward/self-actualization arc, after struggling through multiple low points/depression/an extended breakdown.

he finally got proof Bruce is alive. managed to claw Tam and himself out of the Cradle and away from the Council of Spiders/LoA by the skin of their teeth. thumbed his nose at Ra's and reaffirmed his own principles by blowing up all the LoA servers. finally kind of processed that Kon and Bart are both alive again - he just tackle-hugged Kon in RR #9 and told him, "when you found me in Paris, I was in a bad place. Now... Now I'm in a good place." he's full of renewed purpose and the realization that he doesn't, in fact, have to do things alone! (team-up Robin ftw!)

so probably not actively suicidal

but then in all of his frantic calculations to thwart Ra's and save each and every person Bruce loved - he doesn't factor himself in. he doesn't put himself on that list of loved ones and set up a contingency for preserving his own life (wtf Tim).

or does he??? that's where the ambiguity comes in for me, because we don't actually see him discussing the full details of his plan with anyone. and he doesn't mention it in his internal narration, either! because his internal narration is always super reliable..... hmmm.....

we know that Dick isn't aware of any other contingencies, or indeed the full details of the plot they were thwarting - after catching Tim, Dick has to ask him, "You want to tell me what that was all about?" and of course "How did you know I'd be there to save you?"

and as I've mentioned before, I don't think Tim had actually planned for Dick to save him, so his "You're my brother, Dick. You'll always be there for me," response is uh, both loving BS and a "genuinely felt expression of retrospective faith", as Silver put it (and which has been stuck in my mind in glowing cursive letters ever since, lol).

but. we do know that as part of his plan to thwart Ra's ninja-assassinate-Bruce's-loved-ones plot, Tim calls all three of his best friends into Gotham. (among all his other rallied allies.) his best friends who are various combinations of flight and/or superspeed capable. and who had each just smugly patched in via comm to confirm that their protection jobs were all successful, meaning Tim knew they were available if he potentially needed them.

the fact that the rest of the Core Four then twiddle their thumbs and let Tim keep fighting Ra's on his own after confirming Alfred/Selina/Barbara are safe, instead of zipping over to have his back (ie punch the jackass through a wall) almost has to be because of: (a) Tim's plan to deliberately stall so Lucius could file the WE paperwork (on the Watsonian level), (b) Yost allowing Tim to have his Final Showdown with the villain of the arc on his own, and also (c) Yost setting up the emotional climax/reconciliation of Dick catching Tim (both on the Doylist level).

like, Tim stalls Ra's for long enough that Dick is able to glide and grapple his way over from his own ninja-busting detail, we don't think the speedster or the Superboy could have gotten there in time?

Dick is the one who caught Tim because it was thematic, it's a motif in their relationship and the resolution of their 12-issue arc, and don't get me wrong I wouldn't change that moment for anything - but! he wasn't the only one around who could have done so.

and Iiiiii have to suspect Tim would know that? there's ambiguity and room for interpretation, of course, especially since Tim doesn't say anything at all or call out to anyone as he's actually falling.

but also. Kryptonian superhearing? Tim's comm which could very well still be connected? could he have been relying on allies listening/clue-ing in, whether or not he actually explicitly sketched out a back-up plan with anyone to come back him up, after Lucius was done transferring WE? all according to (dumbass improvised) keikaku??

idk! seems plausible to me, but it's all so open to interpretation, it makes my brain go BRRRRRR 😊 like you can make a compelling case/headcanon/fic any way you look at it!

anyway. Dick catching Tim is very much The Moment Ever Of All Time <3 but also the thought of Kon just hovering at the ready to grab Rob but spotting Dick!Bats swooping in and being like ":))) oh ok. they both need this." is v. hilarious to me

[sigynpenniman]

Okay so I’m developing a theory based on all of the information we have have now

The black parade died in 2007 in a fiery ?accident?

The black parade are, or at least NOW are, the dictator’s official band, maybe even a war band

We’re doing a kind of proto WWII European fascism

This world seems heavily controlled by propaganda

The description of the very first trailer says the black parade have had their “work privilege ceremoniously reinstated” and literally SAYS they were sent to the “MOAT” (one assumes the Gulag), doesn’t say anything about a death

The secretary is clearly Our Secretary, but also very much ISN’T our secretary - on an doylist level it’s just a different person, but on a watsonian level, that feels potentially deliberate

The news reporter in today’s video mentions that they are “very much alive” (note he does not say they did not die, only that they’re alive), but then immediately turns around and says “their untimely expiration” and not “their suspected expiration”

We have yet to actually see the black parade in any fashion, including their faces

All the material has focused on the black parade as a fictional in universe band and has talked about my chemical romance none at all other than in the obvious real-world stuff

Today’s news clip is clearly in-universe propaganda news

So I’m building a theory here. What if the black parade - the original black parade - predate this dictatorship, and were never aligned with it in any way. They were never the dictator’s band, they were just A Band, probably a popular/common man’s one. The dictator, seeking to quash the voice of the resistance, staged a death for them in 2007, and sent them to the gulag. Now that he’s solidified his power (the concrete age), the dictator seeks to do a fascism celebration and the stars of his show are going to be the apparently-dead black parade, Magically Surviving the fire - except now, they’re his national band. The kicker is this - what the dictator is trying to do here is a “look, the resistance now represents me and my glorious empire” thing. A humiliation ritual for the resistance. Except - the real black parade is far too dangerous for that. And I think maybe maybe THAT is what’s really going on here - I think it is different people. Note the way the news reporter carefully doublespeaks their being both “very much alive” but “untimely expiration.” How can they both have died (and in reality be in prison) and still be alive, PUBLICLY alive, and playing on behalf of the dictator? If it’s actually four totally different people. I don’t think My Chemical Romance - the real people - are The Black Parade anymore. I think the “Black Parade” band we see is going to be four similar-in-appearance people, that the dictatorship has propped up as a show of power, as a show of “converting” the resistance - and the REAL members of the original Black Parade band are still in the gulag. The black parade, the fictional BAND the black parade, is very much alive - but with entirely different members. MCR themselves are going to be the original black parade members, overthrowing the imposters and taking back their legacy. The secretary being The Secretary but not OUR secretary could hint at this idea of people being replaced by similar-looking imposters. And what could possibly be more MCR than a grand theme about the terror of your image and legacy being used to promote things you don’t approve of, people with nefarious intent stealing your name and using your name and face for their own ends without your consent? That fear is the most MCR theme imaginable.

okay I’ll be back in two months to see how right I was about all this

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

I was rereading Kyle Rayner's origin and it occurred to me that Earth seems surprisingly well-connected to the intergalactic community. Or at least, the heroes of Earth are.

Like, even tho Ganthet tells Kyle jack shit about what happened to the Green Lantern Corps, he finds out pretty quickly. And not even because he went looking for answers or encountered Parallax- Alan Scott breaks into Kyle's apartment (must be a Gothamite thing) to tell him what went down with Hal Jordan.

And yeah there's perfectly good explanations on both the Doylist and Watsonian levels. The readers had seen Hal's grief-fueled descent into madness over the previous three issues. And in-universe there are a bunch of Earth heroes who have ties to space (Superman, Martian Manhunter, Starfire, Adam Strange, the Darkstars, etc.) and the fall of the whole GLC is the sort of news that shakes the entire cosmos.

But I can't help but wonder about a version of Kyle's origin where Earth's status as a "primitive backwater" is played completely straight. A version where Alan doesn't track him down or warn him about Parallax. A version where none of Earth's heroes know what really happened to Hal Jordan or the Green Lanterns, only that he disappeared after Coast City's destruction and that the Corps have gone mysteriously silent.

Imagine if, instead of the Emerald Twilight we got, the 90s Green Lantern comic went straight from Coast City getting blown up to Kyle getting his ass yeeted through a window. The implication being that Hal Jordan was unceremoniously killed off with his city, and has thus been replaced by this new guy.

(This would piss off so many readers and is exactly why it would not be done by any sane comic publisher. Being that I am not a comic publisher and of questionable sanity though...)

Naturally, longtime readers will be questioning whether Hal really is dead, but the comic doesn't immediately answer that. Instead, it focuses on the new kid and his initial attempts at learning how to use the ring. But strangely, there's no mention of Oa or the Corps, save for the flashback to Ganthet in the alleyway. Even if Kyle is aware of other Green Lanterns, none of them show up.

It's only once Kyle meets Superman that the story begins to hint that Hal may not have been the only one missing. Even the Fortress of Solitude doesn't have a direct line to Oa, but the Last Son of Krypton has been around long enough to have some contacts in space and all of them confirmed that the center of the universe has gone dark. So when Superman meets the new Green Lantern, he spends a bit more time trying to get answers about what happened to Hal and the Corps.

Of course Kyle doesn't know anything, but in this version he understands the gravity of the situation quicker and goes out searching for the Green Lanterns much sooner. And it's through his eyes that the readers learn that the Corps is gone.

The Green Lantern comic thus becomes a mystery/horror story as Kyle tries to piece together what happened. He finds out that the entire Corps suddenly lost power not long after Coast City's destruction. The few survivors he meets like Adara aren't able to tell him much more than rumors, but that's enough for Kyle to confirm the timing.

Then, someone begins to hunt Kyle.

An enemy who calls himself Parallax. Whenever he's shown on-panel, he's shrouded in blinding light or intense shadow, so you can't see what he really looks like, only the shape of his armor and cape. He claims to have destroyed the Green Lantern Corps and the Guardians of the Universe, and he wants the last power ring.

It's all that Kyle can do to escape this powerful foe, to flee to Earth to try and enlist the help of more experienced heroes. He tells the Justice League about Parallax and how he has powers just like Green Lantern's. That, and the villain's vendetta against the Corps and the Guardians, sounds all too familiar to those who'd known Hal. The other heroes come to the conclusion that somehow, Sinestro must have escaped his imprisonment within the Central Battery and taken revenge on the Corps.

Oh, how wrong they are. Because when Parallax finally arrives on Earth and they see him clearly for the first time, he comes wearing the face of a beloved friend thought dead.

I've always thought that if DC were to use Kyle as their primary GL for a cinematic universe or TV show, they should adapt his origin to be similar to the Original Trilogy of Star Wars, and this is the "I am your father" moment. Parallax!Hal is pretty obviously Vader, but I think the role of Luke is best split between Kyle (the audience surrogate) and Wally (the personal connection to the villain)

Wally: You're going to pay for what you've done, Sinestro! Parallax: Sinestro? You've got it all wrong, kid. *the blinding aura around Parallax fades, revealing his face* Hal: It's me, Wally. Wally: Uncle Hal? No... no, that's not possible!

[felikatze]

listen to me. the Emblems are living existential horror. I am just going to talk about them and you can do nothing about this.

They are. Explicitly. not the people they seem to be. Emblem Marth knows he's not the real Marth. He's aware that he is simply a simulacrum, the personified image of Marth, as seen by myth and history, reconstructed into a person.

Listen to me. Look me in the eyes. What route is Corrin? What route is Byleth?

All of them. It's ALL OF THEM. And that's why they're so vague. That's why they're nigh contradictory. They're every telling of that character, rolled together into a ball.

And in Elyos? That's fine. There is only one Marth, and one Corrin, and one whoever Emblem. But you see, in Askr... There's so many of them. And they're just Another One. Just Another Marth.

But also, now suddenly all too keenly fake.

Any given Corrin in FEH is not filled with contradiction, because FEH is not restricted to having Just the One - you can have one for BR, one for CQ, another for Rev, keep some vague... The multiplicity of the characters can be portrayed in different figures in different stages of life.

But. the Emblems are just "stories".

DOES ANY EMBLEM EVER REFERENCE POSTCANON?

My theory is. the Emblems only remember what is contained in their story, within their game.

Take for example, Emblem Lyn, and Emblem Roy. If Lyn truly is the Lyn-- how come she doesn't recognize one of her best friend's children?

And yes, Sigurd is keenly aware that he dies, but... His death is part of the story, no? It's not something that happens far off and far away, it's part of the plot. Of course he's going to know it.

Whereas Emblem Hector, who dies in a different game to his Emblem's origin, is blissfully unaware of his own fate. It's not part of his story, it's part of Roy's.

(Listen. This first crossed my mind when I read all of Emblem Hector's bond conversations. He references Serra thrice, and his own daughter not even ONCE.)

They are their games, down to the fundamental level. FEH can have a Celica be Queen of Valentia, but that's just one blurb of epilogue, so obviously Emblem Celica is not.

You cannot change my mind on this reading of them. You cannot.

And. The game of course never explores this. But how does it feel for them? To only have this nebulous sense of identity? To remember and feel iterations of you that contradict one another? FEH opens so many doors it is too cowardly to explore in depth.

How does Marth feel remembering both versions of his own past, one with Kris and one without? How does Corrin feel knowing every path she has walked? How do they feel seeing versions of themselves that are specific lived experiences, instead of just legends?

In Elyos, there is no one to contrast them. There are only the legends, only the Emblems. Nobody truly remembers exactly how their stories went, so they never need to specify and show their version of events. They just exist, as the holy, powerful, worshipped Emblems.

Does Lucina know who her mother is? Does Roy? Does Lyn know who she marries? Does Hector know he's going to die? Does Byleth see every student dead or saved?

They are their games and they are every version of their games they are every version of themselves which amounts to being NONE of them.

Which amounts to vague platitudes and allusions to other events and what is a doylist fear of spoilers and an advertisement is also a watsonian nightmare.

This isn't even the worst thing about them.

They're not just simulacra. They're also tools. Literal objects to be called upon and dismissed at will. Sure, in the Somniel, they can move around. But.

They can only affect the physical world in the arena. In combat. Because that's what they are! They are tools of war!

And sure, the divine dragons ask them nicely for their powers, and they get to keep their free will when summoned this way instead of having their souls subjugated.

or well. Do they...?

Do we ever.... see an Emblem say no...?

Of course, the divine dragons are Just and Good and Nice. Obviously the Emblems want to aid them. Obviously the Emblems would rather fight beside Alear than Sombron, saving the world they've been entrusted to. Because the Emblems are their stories, the manifestation of Good and Rightous Heroes, always ready to save the day and slay evil.

Which, of course, leaves us with something unconfirmed.

Could an Emblem say no if it wanted to?

The line between divine and fell is dangerously thin. (That is a conspiracy rant for another day.) Like, we see Alear combine prayers and incantations into one package with just prayer effects. You can use an incantation as a prayer if you put your mind to it and you can probably also do it the other way around.

The Emblems either have no choice at all, or are given a choice with one option they would never pick, which renders having a choice moot in the first place.

They are tools, and they know this. They are swords, and it's all a matter of how nice the sheath is.

And yet. All of them remember being human. All of them have loved ones that do not exist, not for them. And what strikes me about the Emblems added to FEH so far... they're all universally stoked to be able to eat.

It's like a fucking sensory deprivation chamber. Unable to touch, to eat, to decide where you go, and the only physical sensation they DO feel is when someone touches their ring. Like I'm realizing this as I write this goddamn post. An Emblem going "That spot was bothering me" when being polished is the only time they ever express physical sensation. Like feeling the dirt on the metal is all they get.

(Side note: you know you're fucked when you look up the petting minigame for Lore)

Like. They know they're fake. That they never had anything outside of this half existence. But they remember it anyways. Of course these memories are going to be precious to them, as vague and muddled and contradictory as they are.

They're tools. They're literal objects. They're alive. They just want to eat some good food again. They want to be with people they love, with people that are long dead and gone.

And this weird spirit existence has to be enough. Smell good food instead of eating it. Make friends with your wielders, enjoy the scarce scenery you get to witness after every battle.

It has to be enough. There's nothing else for them.

And when their duty is done, they can finally rest.

[shsl-hubris-guy]

this wasn't triggered by anything in particular, I was just talking with a friend about media analysis and remembered this and don't think I've ever formally talked about it on here lol

I know damn well I'm not the first person to mention this (I honestly wouldn't be surprised if I've already said this shit before and just forgot), but Chihiro. Genders, am I right? I think a lot of people interpret Chihiro in very different ways and have a different level of removal or connection from the plot in which they come from. And because of that, there's like, a million different headcanons for them, none of which I think are necessarily the "wrong" way to look at them, even if I do have a bias for transfem Chihiro in particular

Chihiro as a character and their presentation is one that's incredibly flawed. While it's meant to be a breakdown of toxic masculinity and criticizes the expectations put on men, it does so through a pretty misogynistic lens, and doesn't do much of anything to critique that misogyny. And, while most likely unintentional due to the cultural context and time period, it also reads as transphobic, with the subgenre Chihiro comes from often being referred to as a 'trap' character in the first place. This can all be read pretty easily by just playing the game or watching the anime adaptation, though it's admittedly much worse in the localization than it was in its original form. That's also why you get so many different reads of the character, because different people consume different versions and have differing experiences of their own that they can connect it to. For example, someone who read the original Let's Play or have more knowledge of the otoko no ko subculture are probably going to read Chihiro very differently from, say, your average anime watcher.

What I take issue with, and I think a lot of people can see where I'm coming from with this, are the people that make a point to say that anyone who interprets them other than the way they do are somehow morally incorrect for doing so. Chihiro Fujisaki's character is a work of fiction, and while the experiences they have and the arc they undergo is relevant to the story, none of it is real. It's based entirely on how the author perceives the subculture they're based upon, which is a pattern with every character from THH in particular. So treating the work as infallible and shooting down people's interpretations, headcanons, and even criticisms with textual evidence doesn't really accomplish anything other than making all parties frustrated. A Doylist problem can't really be disproven with a Watsonian explanation, yk?

Generally, the people who enjoy Chihiro as seen in canon take a lot of value from the Watsonian angle. Chihiro dresses femininely because bullies made him think he wasn't good enough to be a boy, so he pretended to be a girl so he'd fit people's perceptions of weakness. His determination to shed the disguise is the proof of his mental strength, but the tragedy is that he still believed in the same system, and went to a symbol of hypermasculinity only to then get killed by it, both literally and metaphorically. He was a man because he chose to be, and didn't need to prove it. That's the in-game explanation for his character and his internal struggle, and why his death occurred.

Those who like alternative reads of them, meanwhile, look at the story beyond just what the game gives us itself, and look at the how and why of it on a meta sense. That's the Doylist look at it. Why does the game think dressing femininely functions as a sign of weakness? Why does it treat men being stronger than women as a generalized truth? Why is Chihiro's backstory written the way it is, and what does that say about how the author's views? Otoko no ko as a subculture comes from the conscious choice of the people who dress and act that way, so what does it say about the people who made Chihiro that his participation in said subculture is an inherent weakness on his part, and that strength comes from discarding it entirely?

You can have people who take the game for what it is, people who discard the game's choices for its flaws, or a mixgture of both. This is generally where you get the split between cismale, transfem, and transmasc/genderqueer interpretations. And again, none of these reads are wrong as long as you can respect other people's right to read them differently than you. But there does always seem to be a pocket of Chihiro fans that seem to think anyone outside of their own interpretation is wrong for doing so, and go out of their way to say that on other people's posts and stuff like that, and I just can't for the life of me understand why, because all it does is make people more defensive of their own read and, consequently, more apprehensive to people outside of that. Rinse and repeat, and the Chihiro fanbase eventually becomes a total minefield.

the TLDR is all Chihiros are valid, and also be nice to people

[catcauthon]

Mat/Tuon drives me crazy because on a watsonian level, I hate it. I want better for Mat. He deserves more than an abusive relationship with someone who uses slave-breaking tactics on him under the guise of flirting and finds enjoyment in humiliating him! But from a doylistic perspective? They are so interesting.

'The man who remembers Hawking's face' and the woman who leads the remnants of his old empire, remnants that worship an idealized and corrupted version of his image. 'The man of the Red hand' who has that title because of the lives he saved, because he couldn't walk away when he saw people in danger despite the personal cost, VS the 'Daughter of the Nine Moons' who has hers because of manipulation, because of her success in the Imperial Assassination games and as a slave-breaker. The man that unwillingly creates an army held together by trust, and the woman who proudly inherits an empire that runs on paranoia. The man who claimed selfishness as he risked everything to free slaves, VS the woman who breaks and trains slaves to calm her fears that it will happen to her while claiming what she's doing is kindness.

And yet...Both asked for answers about their future, and were given foreboding prophecies of marriage to someone they never would've chosen, someone they don't really want. But they're stuck with them, and they know it, so they try to figure out what to expect, how they can make it work. In doing so, they discover that there's more to this person than they initially thought. They find a mutual love of stones, horses, and bars. They begin to enjoy spending time with each other, despite the fact that the other is on the opposite side of a war. To convince themselves that it can work, and maybe to excuse their own growing affection, they tell themselves the other person is only like this, only on the wrong side because of the backwards environment they were raised in. But they'll change them with time. Bring them around and make them understand what they're doing is wrong. But they're deluding themselves. They might be an unstoppable force, but they're acting on an immovable object.

They're narrative opposites placed into the same weird situation, and for all the (mutual) destruction it's going to cause, I can't help but be intrigued.

[suzannahnatters]

I'm so obsessed with how SOFT Adar is to Galadriel, not just in ep6, but in 4 and 5 too. Like, when she captured him for interrogation, she tied him up, held a knife to his throat, threatened his children, and vowed to kill him. When he captured her for interrogation? He addressed her in Quenya by the name her husband gave her. He kept her safe from his men. He offered her roast rabbit and fresh berries. He promised her an alliance. When he DID chain her up, we even got some PRIDE AND PREJUDICE hand flex level tenderness. Adar didn't have to do any of that. He's an Uruk, for heaven's sake. He could have tortured her into giving him what he wanted.

Instead he chose to be soft. Why? Well, the Doylist explanation is that the writers of this show fully understand their assignment, to be kind and merciful and respectiful to their characters: if Adar is to get what he wants, it must be softly, not harshly. Bad things happen in the Tolkienverse, but we don't get dragged through it in explicit detail.

But the only Watsonian explanation my brain will tolerate right now is that he misses the flowers of Beleriand because he first met this woman dancing among them, and when they first joined hands they fell out of time while the stars counted out the centuries above them. And he's not that person anymore. He doesn't WANT to be that person anymore. He's chosen his new life and his new children and his new enemies.

But he still knows her better than anyone else ever could. More than ever now that Sauron has wormed his way into both their minds. And he can't resist the victory of showing her how much more alike they are than she's willing to accept.

A friend says that "there's tension, but it's not romantic tension". I agree that this doesn't HAVE to be romantic tension - but it is precisely what you would see if you WERE creating romantic tension. Because the fun of every enemies to lovers situation is this precise thing: a person who has every reason to want to hurt you instead chooses to show you tenderness, and that tenderness results in a trust far deeper than any hostility.

I don't know where this is going. After all, the tenderness in ep5 doesn't result in greater trust - it results in a betrayal, as Adar shows that his primary motivation was not an alliance, but information. Maybe he really did just want to show the elf that he was also a person, and not just a monster, and that's all there is to it. OR MAYBE HE'S REALLY CELEBORN. Because this Softness (TM) is exactly how I would be writing this season if he was.

I cannot WAIT to see where this is going.

[aihoshiino]

Would you say there are any narrative parallels between Kyubey and Ichigo Saitou?

Oh for SURE. Obviously they both exist in very different contexts and are approaching the topic from varying levels of abstraction and such but both OnK and PMMM are at least in part about engaging with (specifically misogynistic) systems of exploitation that turn the societally imposed expectations of women's emotional labor into a commodified resource.

Kyubey and Ichigo are both agents of their respective systems acting to further its goals and ends, not necessarily out of malice but because they see exploitation as just the done thing within the framework they operate in.

Ichigo, obviously, is a businessman and I've talked before about how interesting I find the slightly manipulative undertones in the early days of his and Ai's relationship and how disappointed I am that it's something the series seems to want to downplay/retcon these days. Either way, he was still the one managing B-Komachi and therefore, he was the one who decided to market a bunch of middle school girls as 'gachikoi' idols to grown men who were way too fucking old to be thinking of them as romantic interests.

Kyubey is even more manipulative than Ichigo at the end of the day, but more out of this obsession with raw, razor's edge efficiency that the Incubators as a whole operate with. It's not that he feels... basically anything about the girls he's exploiting, but that it's just easier to bullshit them if it gets them to agree a little faster.

On that note, both of them are also pretty obviously similar in the ways they disguise exploitation as opportunity. The big hook of the MadoMagi magical girl system, after all, is the promise of having your wish granted up front and Kyubey constantly goes out of his way to emphasize to the girls just how much they could do with the opportunity that represents. The entertainment industry in OnK is framed in much the same way - Ai lets slip a certain lack that she's wrestling with and Ichigo immediately leaps at the chance to prescribe idolhood as the cure to all her ills.

Where they differ is in their actual personhood as characters as opposed to their utilitarian function in the greater narrative. Kyubey obviously doesn't really HAVE personhood, from both a Doylist and Watsonian perspective. He's an anthropomorphized representation of the system the girls spend all of PMMM fighting against and The System does not feel any sort of way about you or anything. It just Is.

Ichigo is, at the end of the day, an actual person who can and does have feelings about the exploitation he perpetuates and - at least in theory - comes to regret his hand in it. His entire role in the story post-volume 1 is (at least when Aka lets him do anything lol) about him trying to make sense of his grief in the wake of Ai's death and the role he ultimately had in making it come to pass.

TBH, there's a lot of interesting parallels between OnK and PMMM as a whole now I'm rolling them around in my head - the tension of trying to retain your personhood and agency within a system that's rigged against you, the way said system will use your desire for agency to make you complicit in your own abuse, the discussion surrounding the way girls 'fall from grace' and become monstrous once their emotions are no longer pure and palatable enough... A lot of this is just naturally emergent from being a story about systems that cannibalize girlhood, but it's interesting all the same. It's been way too long since I've properly engaged with PMMM for me to dig into it more but if anyone is at the right cross-section of OnK and PMMM brainrot, I'd love to see if you pick up on any of these same ideas too!

[gothamspring]

im in a current search for academic law papers about batman's concept of justice (and his application of it) so i can be even more pretentious about comic books (and familiarize myself w legal terminology in general). and one issue that was already obvious but's now become 100% clear is that. whatever ethical critique you are going to do depends a lot on the comics you pick up as a source. it's not the same to do an analysis of year one-long halloween-dark victory than it is to do one of utrh, for example. the most blatant classification that could be made is batman as a newcomer (no legitimacy) vs. batman as a established vigilante (gained a certain level of legitimacy, if not full—depends on reactions by the authorities)

but doing a critique of his ideology based solely on legitimacy falls flat.....you'd have to analyze the flaws in his vision of crime, violence as a means to an end, punitive vs transformative vs rehabilitating vs restorative vs retributive vs whateverthefuck justice, etc. both when the story gives him full legitimacy and when it doesn't. judge it as a project too before it becomes "law" in application

and you also need to question from what framework are you to analyze bruce? as an individual? or as a possible equivalent to the State? because his status as the title and central character to gotham gives him a sovereignty of sorts that a personal analysis would not give him. i suppose it's a watsonian (individual) vs doylist (state-like) point of difference. but also....i may be tempted to equate him to the state just for ease of analysis since that's the theory im more familiarized with. and should that distinction even make a difference in the critique ? not really

it really just comes down to who's writing him and what the current continuity is. as it happens w every other analysis.

all in all i think what this has made me realize is that i have a far higher dislike for bruce's take on justice if i view him as a legitimate force in gotham, than if i view him as an illegal vigilante. which definitely has to do with my distaste for the state. but i should be able to criticize him as a personal ideology as well, bc i can't have such a blind spot in my political critique

[ckret2]

I believe I remember a post you wrote once, as an answer to an ask maybe, where you mentioned that you forgot not everyone has a clear mental map of the Mystery Shack's layout as you do, and some people were confused about what floors existed and how you were writing characters coming from where. I wanted to check the post again since iirc you explained or described some stuff in there, but I can't find it >_< I was mostly wondering, does the Mystery Shack have a basement that isn't connected to the elevator, and is this where Ford's room is, or is it in the ground floor? I feel like I see people treat the shack like it has 3 floors completely separate from everything the elevator leads to but I might also just be confused

i'm not gonna put the effort into digging that post back up but you're in luck because the basements weren't addressed in that post so it wouldn't have helped anyway!!!

Yes, the Mystery Shack DOES have another room that appears to be a basement, separate from THE basement with the elevator where the portal is! We see it in Bottomless Pit:

We never see how this room connects to the rest of the shack so we can't guarantee that it's underground. But the concrete-looking floor, plain cracked walls, bare bulb, exposed pipes, utilitarian hot water heater & washing machine, and very high window all scream "basement."

I personally call this room "the cellar" to distinguish it from THE basement.

We never fully see the wall that would be to Soos's left, so we aren't SURE that there's no additional doors down there, but there's no evidence of any.

As to where Ford's room is, it depends on which of Ford's rooms you mean. If you mean Ford's room as in the one that was revealed in The Last Mabelcorn, it's part of the elevator basement levels:

But you probably don't mean that one since we see them taking the elevator down to it.

If you mean the one revealed in Carpet Diem, it's somewhere in the main house:

Both the room itself and the hallway outside the room have normal large windows, preventing the room from being underground; and the room has a tilted ceiling with sunbeams coming through, indicating it's directly under the roof.

A complication: we don't know where the staircase on the left goes and there's no sensible place to put it based on what we do know about the house's layout. But that's the case with several locations in the house.

Based on the map we have of the house, this room is likely the "study." Notice that the shape of the hall leading to the room (dead ending against an outer wall) and the fact that there's a hall on the side of it lines up with the study's location; even if the staircase doesn't lol.

The reason a lot of people headcanon the shack has three stories is because the first floor's fully accounted for with these blueprints, (the three unlabeled rooms are the entryway, kitchen, and office), there's nothing in the attic but an open floor and the kids' room, and yet there's multiple rooms we have no location for (Stan's bedroom, the storage room the wax figures were found in, ANY of the bathrooms). The doylist explanation is that the showrunners wanted the shack to be a little magical with a confusing layout (up until they dropped these blueprints) so it doesn't always make internal sense; but if you want a watsonian explanation for where those rooms were, "second floor" is the easiest.

[greenerteacups]

Hi!

I have so much thoughts about pureblood families in HP, it's insane how underdeveloped they are. Harry is a pureblood and from a very good family that according to JKR fully upheld pure-blood traditions while being very sympathetic to muggles. Potters were direct descendants of Perevell's and also voting in Wisengamot for ages.

Seems like James was the first person in his family to marry a muggleborn, too. Wonder if that was a consequence of Fleamont and Euphemia being very liberal, and then dying too fast to become deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of their golden boy marrying a muggleborn! Especially with soft parallels between Petunia and Lily marrying up, I wonder if there was a less insane and more charming version of aunt Marge Potter

The Potter family is a cool lacuna in the text, because there's this "Great Dying" that takes place in their family right before Harry comes into the picture. Harry's the last one, and we don't even seem to have an executor for the estate left over from the war, or a trust system in place for Harry; the first time we hear the Potters might be well-off is when Hagrid rocks up and lays it on Harry's eleven-year-old self that he has full fuckin' fiduciary control of the Potter estate, apparently.

I reckon James wasn't the first person in his family to "marry out" — Dumbledore has this throwaway line about how most pureblood families have muggle in them somewhere if you just look for it, which rings true to me — but I would believe he was the first heir to do so. I'd also believe that Euphemia and Fleamont didn't have any qualms about it; we don't see anything in the text to suggest James has blood-related reservations about Lily, and none of their surviving friends indicate that was a problem in their relationship. I think that works on a narrative level as setting up James as the foil to Snape; Snape is closer to Lily's blood status, but he actually has the prejudices that would impede their relationship, whereas James is further away socially, but is progressive and chooses to fight against the pureblood faction in the war. In my mind, that difference underscores the text's stance on prejudice: it isn't something genetic, it's something learned and practiced, and either way, it's a choice with consequences.

So that's the Doylist take. On a Watsonian level, the Potters get married during a war, and they don't live long enough to have a marriage during peacetime, so I guess we don't really know what their relationship would have been like in the long term — isn't it fucked up to think that Lily and James were only together for like, three years? — but it's possible tensions about her blood status would have developed among his extended family/family friends. On a slightly unrelated note I do like the parallel of both Lily and Petunia marrying out of Spinner's End, while Severus lives the same house he grew up in — there's a lot of stuff in there about escapism, denial of the past, and the inability to move on.