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season 2 uma musume maaaan 🐎

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i watched season 2...

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This is probably the last thing I'll do for the Horse Girls but here's my tribute to Teio so she'll perform!!

Tokai Teio and Rudolph are so cute, Rudolph should have been Teio's mom in the game.

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So I finished Burning Shores and had a thought:

If, when they met, Aloy represents the sky (aka crashing from her sunwing)

And Seyka represents the sea���

They are the Horizon.

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Oops

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GWitch: Red King and White Queen

I felt like I was onto something in my As Above, So Below post when mentioning the Philosopher's stone. After a bit more research, I'm fairly certain that's the intent

In Alchemy the marriage of the Red King and White Queen is an allegorical union between sulfur (Red King) and mercury (White Queen). Their dissolution and coagulation is a method for gaining the Rebis or Philosopher's stone.

The stages of the union are as follows:

Nigredo, dissolution or blackening. This stage is the complete breakdown and blackening of elements. In Jungian psychology, it signifies a complete beakdown of self/ego under immense despair

Albedo, purifying or whitening. The next stage involves the purging of impurities. The soul is cleansed of its shadow/ego.

Citrinitas, awakening or yellowing. In this intermediary stage the elements are filled with inner solar light. An awakening of self as the final stage nears. (Considering we have a solar ray involved, this feels pointed)

Rubedo, coagulation or reddening. The final stage is unity as two alchemical opposites marry. The Red King and White Queen

Considering the theme of cycles and my analysis on As Above, So Below this isn't the first time a Red King has joined with a White Queen. Notrette and Elnora were the first and spawned both homunculi and a method for eternal life. Their magnum opus

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i’m convinced that a good chunk of the cold takes some people have about g-witch are just bc they’re used to other anime spelling everything out to them in lengthy exposition or internal monologues so a more “show don’t tell” approach is lost on them even when it’s super blatant

that or bc in a lot of cases the audience has been given information that the characters still don’t have and so they get mad at the characters for acting without taking into account things which they have no way of knowing

miorine in particular has got hit by this a lot with her very clear feelings/motivations being ignored bc she doesn’t turn to the camera and state them aloud then especially the past few eps with her making choices the audience knows will backfire due to factors she’s unaware of

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I'm begging you, I want you to be happy by @otsumami_09

source

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"When I asked if I had ever been in love, I wanted to say yes. Right now..." by @gksrnrdmlaksu

source

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I need Suletta to STEAL the Schwarzette

Not have it be handed to her or gifted to her, I need her to steal it.

Just so she can parallel Miorine stealing Aerial. I want Suletta to say this WORD FOR WORD:

If this happens: OKOUCHI SAMA, I KNEEL

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"wow I bet you Yuri fans can't wait to get off g-witch after all this emotional manipulation and politics?"

still here

"omg the horrors of war! Yuri fans hide!"

Still here

"ohohhoh I can't believe they betrayed her out of love! Where's the yu-"

THAT IS OUR TROPE WDYM?!??

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G Witch's Cinematic Rhythm and the Poetic Edda

You might have noticed or seen someone highlight the rhyming shots in Gundam The Witch from Mercury. If you don't know what I mean, I refer to the repeated usage of rhyming shots such as these

Important moments echoed and distorted, rhyming with each other. These are just a couple flagrant examples but hardly alone. When you look close, G Witch loves to do this clever bit of repetition throughout. But what's its purpose? A mere stylistic choice, might be your first assumption. I suspect it's meant to invoke something specific.

Because as I've discussed in my G Witch Norse analysis, the show appears to partly follow beats of Norse Myth (link to examples). And from these rhyming shots, call to mind the Poetic Edda. The Poetic Edda is a collection of tales, skaldic poetry, and songs featuring the mythological exploits of Norse gods and hero-cycles. It features alliterative poetry; echoing but different. The same as the rhyming shots above.

This isn't limited to its episodes either, but also in the various homages to past gundams, such as Miorine being a distorted echo of Relena Peacecraft (link to my analysis on the subject), her relationship with Suletta mirroring Utena/Anthy (RGU) and Miranda/Ferdinand. (The Tempest)

Considering the other influences within the show, The Tempest and Utena respectively, this theme of cycles and rhyme is perpetuated. Revenge, systematic abuse/oppression; metered verse and fantastic tales of witches, royalty, and love blooming within the dark ugliness of humanity. Its rhyming structure becomes nothing short of brilliance.

WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?

First off, neat right? But what will it mean in the grand scheme of G Witch. Consider the Poetic Edda is not a coherent narrative but an amalgamation of stories/skaldic poetry that flows past, present, and future. It simultaneosly tells of Ragnarok or the twilight of the gods, the strife between the Aesir and the Vanir then unification through a marriage between Odin and Frigg/Freya. Similar to the Tempest where Prospero rescinds his plans for revenge upon the union of Miranda and Ferdinand.

This tale ebbs and flows and so do its references within G Witch. Yet I suspect the show's end will likely mirror the most prominent beats-- The End of the Gods, which could mean Benerit Group/Permet weaponry/Spacians, peace and unification between Spacians (Aesir) and Earthians (Vanir) and of course if Miorine becomes president that would make her Odin within the spacian pantheon; a Queen as Relena becomes in Gundam Wing.

Another rhyme in a show enamored with poetry and cycles

Note: Odin does descend into Niflheim, a realm of the dead, to consult a seeress/witch (maybe Eri👀👀) so she could still take a dip into QZ hell

[ghikij]

“why cant you just hate me?“ you make things so complicated

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I once heard someone say that because Arknights' disability representation is mostly tied to their fantasy turbo-cancer, then it doesn't feel like real disabled representation, and I've been unable to get it out of my head, like a piece of popcorn stuck in my teeth. So, rather than doing my homework like I'm supposed to be, I want to talk about why I disagree and why I love Arknights' approach to disability.

So, for those who are unaware, Arknights has a shockingly high amount of disabled characters, and characters who are disabled in a lot of different ways, both caused by being Infected and just being disabled in the way that normal people are. Nightingale has chronic pain, Lemuen is the best sniper in Laterano while being in a wheelchair, Akafuyu is mostly blind, Eyja has severe hearing loss, Rosmontis has severe memory loss, Amiya has very severe PTSD, I could go on and on.

And of course there'd be a lot of operators with disabilities! Rhodes Island is a medical organization dedicated towards long-term care of terminally ill patients. Of course many of them would develop disabilities, and of course Rhodes would have the resources and facilities to help them. They even make notes of how to treat them in their medical files, like how Ejyafjalla's has a little guide on how to best have a conversation with her. It makes perfect sense, but I can't say a lot of games would think about it on that level.

And that why I like this game's approach to disability so much. A lot of video games just treat disability as "someone missing an arm" or "someone in a wheelchair because of Their Injuries From Combat. It's usually treated as an individual thing, just someone who got hurt, or who maybe has a frail constitution or whatever. But in Arknights, disability isn't simply treated as a character trait for individuals, but as part of the worldbuilding itself. The world is largely defined by Oripathy, this fatal degenerative disease with no cure. And the Infected are treated as second-class citizens, considered free labor that they don't have to treat ethically because they're dying anyway. The writers realized that this would cause severe disability, both real and fantastical, and worked it into the story and world.

This runs the other way, too! Arknights' worldbuilding follows a sort of social model of disability, in a way. There's a lot of fantasy stories that treat the inability to use magic as a sort of disability, but to Arknights, it's... not. Because Arts require specialized training, and so a lot of people just don't know how to use them, and might not even know they can't use Arts. So it's not treated as such, even though it is still a physical inability to perform things other people can.

But on the other end, Laterano's culture is based around the Sankta having empathic communication between each other. Mostima, as a fallen angel, can't use this telepathy anymore, and she speaks about how othering it feels sometimes, to be physically unable to engage with an important part of her culture. While it's not explicitly stated as a disability to the Lateran culture, I certainly feel like it's treated as one to some degree. Namely that it's explicitly contrasted with Fiametta's PTSD rendering her unwilling to empathize with the people around her, as opposed to Mostima's physical inability. It's the fantasy disability treated with the same weight as real world disability, because within the world of Terra, they're the same thing.

And of course there's just some of the more fucked up fantasy stuff like "On top of her existing narcolepsy, Ptilopsis was forced to become plural after she had to have part of her brain replaced with a computer that forces her to speak and think like a computer or else it causes her severe mental stress to the point of physical pain." Which uh. I don't know where that fits in the conversation but jesus christ someone hug that owl

Of course, its representation isn't always perfect. Just off the top of my head, Nightmare is a pretty rough stereotype, with the whole "Oripathy gave her multiple personality disorder with a violent personality trying to take control of her body!!" trope. And, of course, I'm sure other people have complaints with the representation of their disability in ways that I'm not aware of because I only have the perspective I have.

But... what I remember about this game's treatment of disability isn't when it fails. What I remember is reading Glaucus' module for the first time, the story of the first time she ever put on the mechanical exo-suit legs that allowed her to walk for the first time in her life. And I started bawling my fucking eyes out. I cried because, even though I don't know the specific feeling of walking for the first time in years, I know well what she felt. That feeling of liberation from something you secretly feared was just who you are now. Even though you know it won't be a perfect solution, the physically choking emotion that you're able to get a little closer to a normalcy you've always wanted. The feeling that right now, the only thing you can do is run like the wind.

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Divine Beasts

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The first time they met

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