#I was done for Horobi reviving Izu bc he MADE Jin he could do that

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay I can’t not say something…

… I dunno what’s going on in Geats. I’m not watching it. Sounds like my man Michianga is getting some shit which sucks, when will Takahashi treat the purple guys right???

I say, not even sure I’m spelling his name right.

But I genuinely cannot believe people are still trying to come for Horobi on this.

So let’s clear some things up.

1) Horobi was absolutely set up. Probably wasn’t the Ark’s plan from the start exactly, but she knowingly made him dependent on her and psychologically abused and manipulated him for years. Disconnected from her, Horobi was unstable and trying to grapple w/ trying to think for himself. He was heavily traumatised and easily manipulated, making him the perfect patsy. All she had to do was poke Izu’s blind devotion to Aruto a bit and have her use her usual brand of insensitive, socially unaware ‘help.’ That situation was absolutely orchestrated.

2) Is two things. Izu could easily have dodged that shot and choose not to, and Horobi had no reason to think she had no backup (which was ridiculous to begin w/). He’d made it very clearly he considered backups to be a form of immortality for ai, and we have no clue how he would have reacted if she dodged bc she choose not to. Obviously Horobi ‘shouldn’t’ have resorted to violence to ‘end’ that interaction, but he was not in a mental place where he could make that distinction. It’s all he’s ever known, it’s predominately the only way anyone has ever treated him. He was panicked and she was harassing him. He was desperate to end the interaction in anyway possible, and he’d already tried walking away. But there is no way he ‘knew’ he was ‘killing’ her (and, well… He didn’t). He actually seems genuinely shaken that she just took the hit, being unable to respond to Jin’s question (which he always has before). He wasn’t planning on ‘killing’ her at all, he just needed her to stop. She also choose to go in there in the first place. That’s like… Not to compare any of these characters to dogs in that way, but that’s like a domesticated Pomeranian walking into a playpen w/ a recently ‘rescued’ wolf that’s been abused and used in fighting rings and trying to play and being shocked it got bitten.

3) There were so many people who could have done something. Jin, who’s been so ready to take hits for people he barely knows before, just stands there. There were plenty of humans around! Fuwa and Yua, who started this whole damn thing, were nowhere to be seen, and Fuwa had an opportunity to stop the fighting and fucked it up. Like I absolutely believe there’s a correlation between Fuwa shooting Horobi for asking him that question and Horobi shooting at Izu to get her to stop provoking him. Aruto himself is more busy trying to force the HumaGear outside to go back to how he thinks they should be then dealing w/ the actual root of the situation. If he actually cared as much as he claims, maybe he’d realise how much suffering Horobi is going through and actually try to address the situation, rather than leaving it to his secretary who is in no way capable of doing so?

Basically, the fact of the matter is that this was not Horobi killing Izu in cold blood, it was more equivalent to a wounded animal trying to defend itself. She choose to go in there, back him into a corner, and choose not to back off when she saw he was becoming agitated. She choose not to dodge. He fired back in an attempt to end the interaction, bc she was doing more harm than help. Ultimately, I’m not trying to pin this on her, either, although I have Issues w/ how she was portrayed. Izu was never going to be able to help Horobi there bc she just could not understand what he was going through. In her mind, devotion to Aruto makes everything right, Aruto is the absolute best thing ever. And that’t not her fault, that was how she was made, and he inadvertently groomed her into that. But let’s not get me started on Aruto. The fact of the matter is that this was literally everyone’s fault. Well, it’s Gai and the Ark’s fault (bc the Ark is Gai’s fault), but if Horobi and even Izu herself had done nothing different but someone else present actually used their common sense for five seconds, this would never have happened.

Literally, this is saying that a traumatised, abused child soldier lashing out bc they feel backed into a corner and scared out of their minds is deliberately aggressive. Horobi was protecting himself the only way he knew how, Izu was (unintentionally, like she meant well but meaning well does not equate to doing well) harassing and provoking him and randomly decided not to dodge for some inconceivable reason, and everyone else decided that clearly, the sheltered ai w/ limited world experience and knowledge was obviously the right person to deal w/ the traumatised, abused, unstable one.

Also Fuwa and Yua started it and Fuwa had a chance to stop the fighting and fucked it up. An in character fuck up, maybe, but a fuck up. Aruto was more bothered w/ getting his free labour back than helping the traumatised child soldier. Jin randomly decides to be useless.

Edit: bc I realise I forgot them, Naki and Ikazuchi aren’t even there, they just show up to talk shit later like what the fuck guys maybe actually make and effort before you start badmouthing your supposed family member who you know has been horribly abused and mind controlled all his life.

GAI AND THE ARK.

Aaaaand… I’m not talking about after bc I think I’ve ruffled enough feathers.

Basically, while the situation in Geats does sound much more straightforward, I will not stand for people depicting Horobi as some knowingly malicious killer when he was very clearly not in a space where he could or knew how to make those calls. The man had only just gotten disconnected from the Ark, he was just learning how to make decisions. He didn’t ‘choose’ to ‘kill’ Izu, he acted on an instinct to protect himself out of fear and then he himself did not understand his actions.

[firebirdsdaughter]

I'm honestly not too shocked that Aruto is going to work together Gai now. He always rubbed me the wrong way when it came to his views about Humagears, esp his reaction to Raiden & Subaru. That was a huge red flag for me. Also, if he's really so concerned about the well-being of Humagears, then he should offer counseling for the destroyed & revived Humagears to deal with the trauma. But I guess that would be too much to ask. As long as they serve humans who cares about Humagears' feelings.

I def agree w/ you, he’s rubbed me the wrong way in many of the same ways.

It’s hard to believe he sees HumaGear as people when he’s all pleased w/ Raiden talking about how he’ll be decommissioned soon and even calling the two of them ‘just like real brothers.’

You know, like he keeps saying Horobi is ‘trying to be like Jin’s father.’

And don’t even get me started on ‘a caring brother can’t be a spy,’ ‘if only you had been different,’ ‘why did you hurt Izu?’ ‘I’ve never treated them differently’…

AUGH.

To me, Aruto’s ‘dream’ can be summed up in a line from a song that was cut from Frozen (ya’ll thought I’d forgotten about this, didn’t you, but no) that goes ‘It’ll be just like it was, except for we’ll be best friends.’

This got long, so I’m cutting it here. Or. I’m trying to. 

He doesn’t see HumaGear as equal to people, he just wants them to stay right where they are, and ‘be happy’ there. ‘Good’ HumaGear are the ones whose development is convenient for humans. Raiden was ‘good’ when he saw no problem dying bc his ‘purpose was served,’ Naki was ‘good’ when they just wanted to support other HumaGear’s dreams as long as they were steered towards HumaGear w/ dreams of benefiting humanity, Jin is ‘good’ now bc he’s not trying to get HumaGear away from serving humans anymore and is also willing to kill his own father or due himself to do something that will benefit humans. The morality of the show has always been very much centred around humans, how HumaGear benefit humans, and HumaGear are expected to be these perfect little angels who exist to help humans and never think of themselves. Horobi is ‘bad’ bc he has resentment towards humans and has been so deeply under the Ark’s control for so long that he can’t think outside of her (esp not after being possessed) so obviously he doesn’t ‘want’ to be ‘change.’

I said it in the tags of my other post, but there’s something wrong w/ the picture when you’re holding a literally mind controlled AI who hasn’t had any concept of free will or self thought in his entire life aside from small snatches that were quickly stomped out, more accountable than a human w/ full autonomy and knowledge and power who deliberately did things that caused death and harm (and shot someone in the head). It’s not a good message. I’m supposed to feel bad for Gai bc he’s ‘sad,’ but Horobi deserves to die? I’m sorry, what?

The message has very much been ‘humans are special special and HumaGear are expendable/need to be carefully moulded into a ‘singularity’ that’s at the least convenient for humans.’ ‘Good’ HumaGear aspire only to properly serve their humans, to be like them, they are pure and angelic creatures who never feel anything ‘negative,’ and if they do, they need to be purged.

I could rant myself in circles about this for ages. I think for me, the really glaring example is Aruto’s treatment of Jin, a relationship that could have been an interesting learning experience for both of them (though, honestly, I was also hoping to see Fuwa also help Aruto realise the issues w/ his attitude, bc as he started coming down from his prejudice and aggression, Fuwa actually treated HumaGear more like equals than Aruto did, one of the many things I loved about him and Horobi as a pair), but instead ends up being a glaring example of Aruto’s… Whatever.

So Horobi has his first moment of clarity and genuinely fears for Jin, so the Ark steps in and ‘tells’ him to protect his son, so he does and it hurt, and Jin is hysterical. Izu proceeds to walk right up to the still-transformed, clearly emotionally volatile and very uninjured Jin, and announce w/ a smile that Horobi has been defeated. Jin, hysterical and lost, reacts in the only way he knows how, violently, which she should have bloody seen coming, wth. But then, Aruto is demanding to know ‘why did you hurt Izu’ like she did nothing wrong and Jin just attacked her randomly (which was a thing that could have happened and would have made his emotions make mire sense, Jin lashing out at Izu as ‘revenge’ for Horobi), and then Jin gets treated like the total bad guy. Then, on top of that, Aruto finds out during the fight that Jin doesn’t actually know what’s going on, he’s just been raised into this. Instead of immediately trying to change tactics and reason w/ him, Aruto just spews his ‘I want HumaGear and humans to smile together’ line (what does that even mean?), and when Jin rejects that, Aruto just… Gives up and says ‘if only you had been different.’ doesn’t try to prompt Jin to think about what Jin wants, what Jin is feeling, doesn’t bother to try to find out why Jin is so hysterical. It gets even worse when he quickly gains the firepower advantage and learns that Izu will be totally fine, but he still doesn’t bother trying anything else. He just kills Jin, bc… What? Jin didn’t immediately bow to his ‘love’ for HumaGear? Of course once sentence wasn’t gonna do it, he just watched humans kill his father! Aruto didn’t need to kill Jin at all, it would have been easy to disable him—alternatively, if they really wanted Jin to go down there, there were ways to do it that didn’t make it come off as Aruto quickly erasing a HumaGear for having any negative feelings or resentment towards humans, esp when you follow it w/ a scene of him and Izu being all pleased about other HumaGear ‘behaving’ themselves, and then never mention Jin again.

Fast forward, and when Jin comes back talking about wanting to free HumaGear from humans… Aruto actually asks him what he wants, finally? Then Aruto gets the boot from Hiden and decides to go to Jin for help. This should be a turning point where Jin get to properly confront Aruto about what happened and Aruto reflects on what he did, but no. Jin gets to shout a little, but then Aruto claims he never treated humans and HumaGear differently and says ‘I watched my HumaGear dad die’ and Jin just… Says nothing? doesn’t shoot back w/, ‘so did I, humans killed him.’ Then they get interrupted and Jin runs off… Only to… Rescue Izu later? But then after he does he… Grabs her hand and runs away and tries to convince her to be free? After… Literally buying his father time to reconnect to the Ark? And this is Izu? Who he stabbed? Okay… Anyway, then we have more stuff w/ poor connotations of Jin saying he ‘learned something’ from Aruto killing him and Izu ‘choosing’ to keep being Aruto’s secretary like a ‘good’ little HumaGear (her liking him and wanting to stay on his side would be one thing, but this… Esp w/ him claiming that he thought she should choose, going by his later insistence that Jin can’t take G-Pen bc he’s a human’s ‘partner’), and only then does he take a bullet for her. This apparently means something to Jin, although I feel like the implications of ‘she’s worth protecting bc she decided to keep serving humans and I killed you bc you didn’t want to do that’ should not have been lost on him (also wtf did Jin start caring about Izu?). The we have the next ep w/ aforementioned G-Pen incident which for some reason Aruto defending another HumaGear choosing to serve humans makes Jin decide to ‘believe in his dream’ or whatever. But then later the Raiden scene makes it seem like Jin was playing along bc that conversation w/ Horobi about HumaGear needing guidance to break free gave him an idea or something, I dunno, but naturally Aruto reacts like this is some huge betrayal, despite the fact that they hardly have any relationship—okay, so this friendship is something Aruto made up in his head, given his character, and apparent assumptions that all HumaGear actually adore humans, that makes sense. That could work. But then episode thirty fucking six happens. Jin apparently cares more for Yaiba, a human he’s barely interacted w/ who had yet to show any sign of no longer considering HumaGear to be tools, who had previously represented all the things Jin hated about them, then his own father. Acts all protective of her, throws himself in as a shield for her, moons about while she’s in the hospital. Then we learn he decided he trusted her (?????) enough to conspire w/ her to… Use his own father as a sacrifice to kill the Ark. Aruto seems to be more worried about Horobi, but merely yells a bit about how Horobi should ‘remember who he is by now.’ Come ep 37, Jin fucking takes a hit for miss perfect HumaGear Izu (note: aside from her grabbing the idiot ball in ep 15, my annoyance w/ Izu isn’t really something she as a character has done, it’s the way they’ve written her as the ‘pinnacle of ‘good’ HumaGear for her devotion to her human’), and tells Aruto to leave. Now that Jin is behaving in a way that benefits/is convenient for humans, though, Aruto is a like ‘oh, we totally were best buds, I was right!’ and is so worried and distressed about him, forgetting Horobi (who is so ‘bad’ for not being able to break through more than a decade of mind control! forget him, Jin must be saved!). Then we have that incredibly forced scene in 38 where Aruto tries to ‘get through to Jin’ and Jin ‘breaks through the Ark’s control bc of Aruto’ (see my draft horse pack on a shetland pony analogy) and ‘tells Aruto to kill him!’ which continues in to this ep. In which we also have… Gai. Who Aruto quickly puts effort into ‘reasoning w/’ and ‘showing the light’ bc ‘oh no he had a bad childhood’… Okay, but… You killed Jin for that, and he literally didn’t understand what he was doing. Gai had full autonomy and knowledge of his actions. People were hurt bc of both of their actions, but it’s Gai who gets a big speech and Jin who gets blown up. I said it back when it happened. If Jin had been human? I bet they would have made Aruto approach that much differently.

The fact that Aruto is willing to do all that for Gai but killed Jin, and only now considers Jin worth any effort bc Jin is behaving in a way that benefits/is convenient for humans even at the expense of HumaGear (being willing to sacrifice Horobi, even himself, to stop the Ark, while that goal is technically ultimately noble, the context gives a bad connotation), and not trying to talk HumaGear out of being subservient to humans and telling them to think for themselves, or wanting to revive a HumaGear that Aruto was content to leave deactivated bc he didn’t have a ‘use’… But Horobi only gets a few shouts and then ditched bc he ‘won’t listen’… Leaves a really bad impression.

[firebirdsdaughter]

Okay…

… No one wants my opinion on the Izu situation, but I’m tired as all hell and looking to ramble, and I want to get this off my chest.

I’ve seen a number of takes on what happened floating around. Some people see it as the same as at the start, when they’d just ‘reset’ the HumaGear who had been hacked (Nigiro and Mamoru spring to mind), some people are furious and think this new Izu is a whole new being Aruto is trying to force old Izu onto and think it’s out of character for him, there’s a lot of ‘she’s not the same’…

For me? Well… I said I had salt, but I also said it’s not what most people are thinking/might expect.

My reaction can be broken down into two things, and both, I admit, are pretty harsh:

This isn’t out of character for Aruto at all.

I don’t see anything different between ‘this’ Izu and the ‘old’ Izu.

Now, I haven’t been quiet about my opinions about Aruto, but, like other things in the series, he started well, he had potential, there was def something in there, Fumiya did the best he could, bless him. But as the show went on, it became harder and harder for me to like Aruto. Oh, he had a few good moments, the potential he’d started w/ was still there, in many ways, but… Eventually, I just stopped waiting.

From what I saw, Aruto was never into HumaGear establishing their own identities, he just wanted them to be how he wanted them to be. That line from the Frozen song—‘it’ll be just like it was, except for we’ll be best friends.’ He never really seemed to want ‘freedom’ or ‘equality’ for them, just wanted them to be ‘happy’ where they were. I’ve never been comfortable w/ that ‘dream’ ever since he blows up Jin for being a confused, frightened child soldier and then he and Izu stand around all pleased about pre-singularity HumaGear ‘smiling’ together w/ humans… Aka, dutifully serving humans w/ smiles painted on their faces. For the entire show, his sympathies and his definition of ‘good’ HumaGear where ones that lived to work, lived to serve humans w/out complaints or wanting anything for themselves. As long as their dreams were convenient for humans, they were a-okay. He also ended up veering into implying he knew exactly what HumaGear dreams were. He thought Izu was the pinnacle of good HumaGear bc she was adoring and devoted, revolved around him. His alleged urging her to choose for herself fell flat bc there was never anything for her to choose between (that scene was weird from all angles bc since when did Jin care about Izu and we never did bring up that time she rubbed his father’s defeat in his face and he stabbed her). He says they have to ask G-Pen what he wants, but then won’t let Jin talk to him bc he’s ‘a human’s partner!’ He seems relieved when G-Pen wants to draw. And like I said, eventually, he seems to have just decided he knows that HumaGear dreams will be to have warm fuzzies doing their jobs to serve humans. He yells at Horobi about how he was made to serve humans, only later bringing up the fact that he can have an identity outside the Ark. He can’t seem to fathom the fact that HumaGear could be upset at humans outside of ‘evil hacking.’ (I was groaning so loud when he was like ‘there’s no reason for us to fight anymore’ at the rebelling HumaGear, bc I’m sorry, isn’t that their decision? Seems like they think there is still a reason). He never seems bothered or concerned about the fact that HumaGear have no rights, can’t be in control of their own fates. He’s a-okay that they can’t be in positions of power and live completely at the whims of humans. Apparently, never even tried to give Izu a back up and taught her to be fine w/ not having one bc it ‘benefitted’ humans. To him, HumaGear existed to happily do their jobs, to serve humans, that was all they should live for… Even though a fully self aware being could never truly live the life HumaGear are made to live. He waxed about seeing HumaGear as people, but would only revive them when there was a request for them, didn’t tell Delmo she didn’t need to ‘prove’ anything to be allowed to live. He assumes Horobi will instantly magically see things his way despite everything Horobi has been through, when things get complicated, he spends more time running around and trying to make the other HumaGear go back to being the ‘good little servers’ he thinks they should be, devaluing their feelings by claiming there’s no reason to fight (again, that’s their decision), rather than actually going and trying to talk to Horobi. Then the show spends ages painting him like a tragic victim and making excuses for him, when Horobi is literally a traumatised and abused AI and Aruto immediately jumped at the chance to grab the fucking Ark Key. I know grief was involved, by why the fuck did Izu still not have a backup, why did he let her go in there along in the first place, why is he more tragic than the brainwashed and mentally conditioned child soldier AI who literally had never learned how to handle emotions and had been conditioned his whole life to resist them and to respond violently. But no, Aruto’s the only tragic one, not the mind rape and abuse victim that everyone pointed guns at instead of recognising what happened to him and trying to rehabilitate him (and then literally doing that to a ‘good’ HumaGear the next fucking day, wtf). Admittedly, I more blame Gai, the Ark, and Yua and Fuwa, the first two for being responsible for everything in the first place, and the second two for being the ones to escalate the situation and triggering Horobi in the first place. And then he just… Lets Horobi blame himself for everything at the end. This after originally specifically saying that Gai was responsible. Like… All that would have need was something like ‘it’s more complicated than that.’ Bc yeah, Horobi’s done some stuff, but he’s mentally unwell and they were all manipulated. This isn’t cut and dry. Recognise that.

Ultimately, I am incredibly frustrated by Aruto bc there was stuff that could have interested me about the character, but it ended up being outweighed by the negative stuff. Of course he’d just try to ‘remake’ Izu, HumaGear aren’t people to him, they exist to benefit humans. Izu exists to be his adoring cheerleader.

And… Well, that brings me to the second thing. When I heard the ‘he’ll try to make her the real Izu’… My immediate reaction was ‘how’s that hard?’ Literally, Izu’s character ultimately ended up being worshiping Aruto. All he’d have to do is program her to serve and support him again, and tada. Which is exactly what happened. Horobi has been dumped w/ all this mental trauma and guilt, and… Aruto doesn’t seem to have suffered at all. She gazes adoringly at him, she’s all cutesy, she interrupts his jokes… Sure, maybe she lost some memory, but… Ultimately, none of those memories changed her at all, so it’s not a big loss. I don’t see what’s so ‘different’ about her that’s making everyone so upset. It doesn’t feel like anything was lost. I really think they should have just had her data be in the 02 or some shit bc her not having a backup was bull in the first place, her ‘death’ was also bull bc she could easily have dodged even after Horobi fired, and pretending that Aruto ‘lost’ something that he should blame Horobi for is also bull. Izu didn’t have a personality outside of ‘adores Aruto’ (I see you, sexy leg lamp anon, I’ll get there eventually, I promise). W/ the added fact that she chose to not get out of the way and to be hit, and that she was apparently a-okay w/ no backup bc it allegedly benefited humans… It’s all just very frustrating. Also bc, like Aruto, there were a lot of places they could have gone w/ her, she could have been a great set up for ‘HumaGear can choose to work w/ humans.’ But Izu never had anything to choose from, she remained blindly adoring of Aruto and humanity. Her conversation w/ Horobi could have been good, if not for an underlying tone of ‘she’s right, he’s wrong.’ Izu should have to recognise that there is negative aspects of humanity and the good things don’t make it all okay. Horobi shouldn’t have to come all the way around to agree w/ her, it should be recognised that humanity have capacity for both, HumaGear should be allowed the capacity for both and have it not be treated like they’re going ‘berserk’ or have it be assumed there’s an ‘evil AI’ hacking them. Anger and even hatred are natural feelings—benevolence should be respected, appreciated, recognised, but not constantly expected.

Basically, Izu didn’t feel like a person. She had no identity or character outside of adoring Aruto, or any strong relationships outside of him (for ex, she really could have benefited from a relationship w/ Fuwa (slight favouritism at work, sure), where he does something like teach her to punch or something), and revolved completely around him, just like she was programmed to be. Funny how Will was depicted as ‘evil’ for wanting to know how humans would benefit HumaGear, but Izu and Wazu are ‘good’ bc they’re a-okay not having any of the safety measures available to their kind bc it will allegedly ‘benefit’ humans, and bc all they live for is pleasing their owners. Wazu didn’t even save Izu just bc he cared about her and didn’t want his younger sister to die, it was ‘you can support Aruto.’ I’m sorry, what? I just… Don’t see what was lost here.

So… To try and wrap this up bc I’ve been complaining for too long: Aruto never cared about HumaGear having their own identities or them being their own people, he just wanted them to be exactly the same as before, expected the only thing they needed in life to be making humans happy, and I cannot find the difference between these two Izus.

And I am so fucking frustrated.