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teatitty · 2 years

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Sparbossa Brainrot Part 4: Dead Man’s Chest Edition

WOW BUT THIS GOT WAY LONGER THAN I EXPECTED IT TO CONSIDERING THAT BARBOSSA ISN’T IN THIS MOVIE UNTIL THE VERY FUCKING END BUT BOY DID I HAVE A LOT OF THOUGHTS AND CRAZY THEORIES TO BRING UP SO BUCKLE IN MATES HERE WE GO

Jack goes through...a range of emotions when the crew corners him over their adventures and these emotions can best be described as "this shit again okay here we go another mutiny I guess"

As you can see he doesnt uhhh take it that well! Too many memories of when he got mutinied 11 years ago because the crew thought Barbossa would make for a better Captain! We love barely repressed trauma haha

He even immediately pulls his gun out when Cotton's parrot says "walk the plank" and wow Gibbs is going through some stuff in the background there isn't he haha oops

AT SOME POINT IN TIME JACK THE MONKEY GOT ONTO THE PEARL AND THEY JUST. KEPT HIM. AND THIS BIT BETWEEN GIBBS AND JACK CONFIRMS THAT JACK JUST SHOOTS IT SOMETIMES TO MAKE HIMSELF FEEL BETTER BUT HE ALSO HAS NO REASON TO KEEP THAT MONKEY OUTSIDE OF THE FACT THAT IT USED TO BELONG TO BARBOSSA I AM SHAKING HIM INTENSELY

I just want to point out that this is how I talk irl and it's all because I projected so hard onto Jack Sparrow as a child. So theres that

I know this is a Sparbossa thing but listen. Listen. Beckett is definitely Jack's toxic ex the way he says this line and stares at that "P" mark come on now thats toxic ex-boyfriend behaviour if i've ever seen it

And then his reaction when Will asks "and what mark did he leave on you?" I’m just saying. Rewatch these movies with that thought in mind and you'll notice too but unfortunately for Beckett I'm not here for him so

IM SORRY I KEEP GETTING OFF TRACK BUT THEIR SHOCK WHEN JACK SAYS TO LEAVE HIS HAT IS SO FUCKING FUNNY

Also it's very cool that The Kraken itself is attracted to Jack's hat showing that, much like Barbossa, that hat is part of what defines Jack Sparrow. Just husband things <3

I want you all to please imagine and appreciate that Barbossa and the Cursed Crew used to get up to these same bullshit shenanigans pre-mutiny as what took place on this island. That is all

The way these two just slyly simper up to Jack and how he looks at them like "you two? here? Gods" and then he simply keeps them around just like the monkey! Say what you will about Jack but he does seem to have an odd fondness for The Cursed Crew

Parallel to Barbossa saying "you don't know what this is, do ya?" to Elizabeth previously!

Unlike Barbossa, Jack completely bullshits his answer and you can see the very shit-eating amusement from Gibbs in the back

Take away the name "Tia Dalma" and this could also be him talking about Barbossa. Fancy that

He's so fucking happy about finally getting rid of this monkey even though he coulda done this at any other point in time. Also chalk Tia Dalma up as another ex-lover of Jack's because all their dialogue reads as if they've slept together. "I always knew the winds would blow you back my way" and "You want to know me" "I thought I knew you" "Not as well as I had hoped"

Barbossa's boots! Jack the Monkey always knows where his father is uwu

Jack for sure saw those boots btw and he's making a staunch effort here not to look at them

He then does a little double take here because he spots Barbossa's hat :) which you can see just behind Will but there's a better shot in just a minute

Very blurred cuz its in the background but you see him pick it up mere seconds after noticing it

And is distracted by it only because Tia Dalma herself addresses him! It even still has the missing feather where Jack cut it off in the last movie and he's holding the hat rather softly, all things considered, as if he were simply reminiscing or admiring it. Now obviously we didn't get to see what full range of emotion passed over him since all of that was blocked from view but we can certainly imagine it can't we?

And while difficult to get a good shot he does caress the brim of it very gently with his thumb when Tia Dalma asks him why his compass can't take him to the key (Now if not for Beckett knowing about the compass and how it works, I would assume this to mean that Jack got it from her post-mutiny to find the Pearl but as per Beckett's knowledge it seems to be something he got when he was much younger! The only reason Beckett wants it now, after all, is to find the chest) and why, oh why, would he act so tenderly towards the very hat favoured by the man who betrayed him, hm? The man he killed not a year ago? Rather telling that he could recognise it just from a passing glance and then was distracted by it enough that it took Tia Dalma's direct address for him to snap back to the task at hand

He was looking down at the hat again when Tia Dalma muses about him not knowing what he wants and then, a contrast to his earlier gentleness, he quickly drops the hat back down where he saw it

He looks at it once more while to play off an aloof nature ("Your key go to a chest")

And then when Tia Dalma asks what vexes a man most he's the only one to reply "a woman" with clipped tone and Tia Dalma confirmes that Davy Jones "fell in love" and, well, given the historical queerness of pirates and the previous hat scene...I'll let you draw your own conclusions here but what I am saying is that all signs point to Jack knowing said vexations given previous history with a certain Captain

Of course these three all turn to look at him at once because they know

As Tia Dalma talks about Davy Jones' love being as "harsh and untamable as the sea" Jack's body once more turns towards Barbossa's hat, because surely that sounds familiar, doesnt it?

The hat is right behind will and you can see it again here

Can still see Barbossa's boots when Tia Dalma goes into her back room! He was likely already alive again by this point and simply resting given that Jack the Monkey is sitting with him but left him when he was dead at the end of Black Pearl. Which means he's either knocked the fuck out or doing a very good job of staying silent as he hears Jack's voice though I'm betting more on the former given Tia Dalma's goddess nature could probably keep him under for a while lol (though the latter would be incredibly funny)

Jack the Monkey also calls out to him and the boots are freshly cleaned

I do appreciate Jack trying to rules lawyer his way out of this and how Jones turns it on him by pointing out that, mutiny or not, he did still introduce himself as "Captain" for those years and Jones even knows the exact inflection he uses to do so, repeating it in a mocking fashion

Jack is terrifyingly good at bartering and I don't think enough people give him credit for that. If he was a more cutthroat sort he could've easily done this in the days given but he's not which is what causes his issues (that and he doesn't actually want to get rid of Will like this). Up until now the only other person shown to be able to one-up Jack was Barbossa himself so this scene, imo, is also a very good indicator of how fantastic Barbossa was at bartering deals himself but you see that more in AWE, when he barters with other people who aren't Jack. Those two would be a veritable force together is all I'm saying. Those two years pre-mutiny must've been something else for sure

I've seen people in the past say that Barbossa is the better pirate because he's more merciless than Jack is but look at this scene and tell me they aren't both vicious when they need to be. He learned Jones was in love and, at the first chance, used that to try and exploit him, even circling him like a predator. He and Barbossa are far more alike than anyone seems willing to notice if you ask me

There’s also something to be said for the fact that he’s using the idea of marriage being worse than no love at all to try and get Will off the ship, because Jones’ love was tragedy but since this is a Sparbossa meta...so was Jack’s. They both know how much marriage truly hurts, don’t they? How cruel it can be

Anyway Dead Man's Chest is actually a gothic comedy and if the island scene wasn't enough then Jack's face as Norrington starts talking about his tale and how he tries to subtly sneak away and the ensuing barfight is

Remember when Jack said he would buy Barbossa a bigger hat and now here he is trying on new hats to replace his own? Poetic cinema and more proof for my "Sparbossa both have an unnatural attachment to their hats and are fully aware of this and its all because of what those hats symbolise" meta because if you would notice Jack does not completely lose his control of the situation at hand until after he loses his hat. From that point on he is desperate and frightened and running, and it’s only at the end of the movie, when facing the Kraken head on with a smile, that he gets his hat back. Because he chose to come back to The Pearl when he could’ve kept running - he was in control of his fate, there, and he chose the course that would surely lead to his death

Now here's some fun niche history for you. Jack's line he uses to turn down what he believes to be a boy hitting on him is actually something similar to what a lot of queer sailors and navymen used to say to explain why they didn't have wives. "I'm married to the sea" or "I'm married to my work" was an easy excuse to give without outing yourself as gay and so in context of pirate history what Jack is actually saying here would be smth akin to "I'm taken" and given the queerness of the history behind that line and my earlier thoughts with the Tia Dalma scene, well, the only man he would be married to is Barbossa isn't it?

Elizabeth wants so badly to say something about why she saw Pintel and Ragetti just now lmao

I know this has nothing to do with my meta but the Liar's Dice scene is a very good example of how Will is "Pulling a Sparrow" as it were, though a little unrefined in how he does it. He barters an eternity just to learn where the key is kept where Jack would've bartered much less but his thought process and quick mindedness is still on the right track. Love to see it

More parallels between Willzabeth and Sparbossa! (the part missing and forgive me for that was "Will strikes a deal for these and upholds it with honour") also more of Jack being casually menacing!

He gives her such a disappointed side-eye for this I'm sorry not everyone can be as good to spar with as Barbossa even if they were somewhat inspired by him. And then he gives a muffled scoff when she can't figure out how to do it lol

It's kinda amusing to think that Jack saying this is the reason Elizabeth asks Barbossa to officiate for her later, because she remembers that a Captain can perform a marriage at any time on the deck, so really Jack and Barbossa both played a pivotal role in that lol

The "you're going to want it" conversation Jack and Elizabeth have is the closest Elizabeth has ever gotten to matching his wits like Barbossa had so it's really no wonder Jack’s infatuated with her. To clarify, I don't think he has any romantic feelings for her at all I think she just reminds him so much of Barbossa in this moment specifically that he can't help wanting to sleep with her. Just a little

Well except for Barbossa, of course, as we saw in Black Pearl

This right here is the pivotal moment of Jack's character: he could've kept running, scared, and left them all to suffer but he stops, agonised and looks at his compass - compels his compass - to point him right...and it does. And he returns to take command of his ship in her most dire need and that's how you know he's a true Captain Of The Black Pearl

And there is no hesitation when he shoots, just like he had none for Barbossa either, even with the rum there (me? making a callback to my previous observation about him equating losing rum to Barbossa’s betrayal? More likely than you think)

God look at his face, knowing he has to abandon The Pearl...how can you claim he does not love his ship with a shot like this. And Gibbs himself knows how much this hurts

This is just such a sad moment...everything he was, is and wanted to be was this ship and now he just...

He's not even surprised she shackled him to his ship. He's just impressed and he says nothing for most of this, just keeps smiling, but his eyes aren't really focused on her. On the past, I suspect, the last time someone left him to die. The only thing he says to her is a snarled, "Pirate" because she is now, isn't she? Just like him. Just like Barbossa

This is an inverse of Barbossa’s death: where Hector had music befitting a pirate for buildup and then a sad melody when he died here Jack has the reverse - a sad melody for the buildup and a death to the sound of triumph

I kept saying the Cursed Crew had genuine respect for Jack and this proves it

Now obviously the main reason they need Barbossa to Captain them is because he himself has been to the afterlife but there are a MULTITUDE of other factors that I won't get into until AWE but the biggest one is that he can bargain with Jack like no other and who best to bring back Witty Jack than the very man who knows him best of all, hm?

Gotta love that the first thing he does is ask about “his” ship. Not even death can stop him from wanting to take The Pearl for himself

And he finally got to eat that apple! The forbidden fruit itself! We come full circle for his life and death and rebirth!

#sparbossa #long post #not as long as my black pearl posts were thank god #but haha ho boi is AWE going to be a fucking monster to get through #I can only apologise in advance #and of course: more forehead kisses for those who read all of this!

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eve-mega-theory · 5 years

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My theory on Eve’s MVs, from Sister to Raison D’etre

People have asked, and since no one else has yet (and since I’ve always wanted to do it), I’ve went and put together a theory that connects all of Eve’s MVs into a single large narrative about the cycle of depression. Since I go over every song in-depth, and each song is filled with detail and complexity, it’s long. I actually had to skip over a lot of little details making this, because if I did the length would just get out of hand. Also keep in mind that I’m not assuming my theory to be the “one true meaning.” I just took a lot of personal meaning from this series, and its portrayal of depression and how to overcome it has helped me immensely. I want to do these videos, which are clearly labors of love, some justice.

*I’m going to put time stamps for the other songs to make things easier to follow. It's not required, but I recommend that you rewatch the previous songs as you read.

**Each of the early videos have a dominant color to them, which is often used in later MVs to subtly reference them, which I’ve listed next to the title.

Sister (Red):

The first Eve MV released was Demon Dance Tokyo, but I believe the 1st, and arguably most important video in the timeline is Sister. The MC suffers from severe depression throughout the series, and this is where it originated from. His sister died in an accident while he was young, and he was overcome with guilt that he was so distant from her while she was alive. He felt like this happened because he was rotten to the core, with him declaring that even if he went back in time, he still would've made the same mistakes, because that's just the kind of person he is. He ends up repressing those memories to deal with the guilt, and he becomes distant from people. The video's expressed entirely through notebook paper and paper mache because as a child, the MC was fond of drawing and sketching, and used this to cope with these difficult times and express himself.

Chocolate Town (Brown):

This song’s pretty easy to miss, as it’s under the account of the artist “Sou,” who did many collaborations with Eve in the past. It’s sung by Sou, but written by Eve, and it shares too many similarities with his city-scape series to be ignored. It fits perfectly in between “Sister” and “Demon Dance Tokyo.” There’s a large time skip between the two songs, in which the MC goes from grief-stricken child to selfish teenager, and this song fills in that gap, making for a more seamless transition. His appearance here is more similar to that of “Sister” (0:15), as he tries to live the way he used to. The world is no longer a rose-tinted explosion of color, but a uniform chocolate brown, more sickening and suffocating than sweet (0:51). He doesn’t experience new things anymore, he just stays in his comfort zone and drowns himself in the things he knows, as he’s locked in place by a vague apprehension that eats away at him (0:21). He’s suppressed the memory of his sister, but the guilt remains. That guilt leaves him unable to connect with people the way he used to, out of fear of hurting or being hurt. The ‘book of spells’ from Nonsense Literature is referenced, as the MC keeps the deeper parts of his heart locked away (1:30). As he grows distant, his friends do the same (“Mason does seem quite superstitious,” which you could take to mean the MC’s real name is Mason) [0:32]. He tries to just ignore it and go with the flow (0:36), but it’s not enough. The tries to drown himself in desire to ignore the pain he’s feeling (1:10). Deep down he knows it’s wrong, but the guilt he feels keeps him trapped (1:15).

In the second half of the song, it’s revealed that after Ano Ko Secret, the MC successfully worked up the courage to talk to the blue haired girl, and a friendship formed (2:00). As shown in later MVs, the two would play on the playground together, and we see here that even during this difficult time, the MC felt complete when he was with her. Even so, here she’s obscured in chocolate, showing that the MC is unable to see outside his own problems. Because of his selfishness, he’s unable to connect and they grow apart (2:08). Losing her hurts him, as he lost the only real friend he had left, so all that’s left to him is his suffocating city of chocolate (2:30). He tries to just keep enjoying his little comforts and joys (2:45), but it’s not enough as his “heart is destitute” (3:08). His pain and guilt continues to eat away at him from the inside. Being alone isn’t enough for him, and he won’t let himself truly connect with other people. Combine that with his focus on simple pleasures, and it’s no surprise that he turns to being on top of the ‘social heirarchy’ as a teenager in “Demon Dance Tokyo.”

Demon Dance Tokyo (Green):

This song depicts 3 people touring around Tokyo, dressed in the finest clothes and dining on the finest food. In actuality, this city is in the MC's head, and is a metaphorical manifestation of his psyche. That's the style and layout of this series, they all take place in the MC's head, and almost all are in a city that changes from song to song to reflect his mental state. In this case, he sees this touristy, trendy world because he's like a desperate tourist, trying to run away from his problems by flying off somewhere else and drowning in the superficial; food, parties, clothes, women, etc. Since he repressed his guilt over his sister's death, this is how he chases happiness; by running away from that guilt and chasing materialistic fulfillment. Relationships to him are the same way. He just chases after people who look trendy and beautiful to him, and puts on a fake mask to appear cool. That greed is personified by his crocodile form dining on the women and the massive Godzilla towering over the city. He wants to be above everyone. At 2:40 of that song, his undercurrent of loneliness takes over, as it often does, because those kinds of relationships never last. At 2:57, that loneliness overcomes him, making him desperate. He's still selfish and bad at relationships, but he swears to one girl that he'll be her everything on matter what. This leads into the next song....

Nonsense Literature (Black):

This is where things really get bad for the MC. Out of desperate loneliness, he tries to get into a serious relationship with this girl (maybe one of the girls from the last song), but he doesn’t really know how to connect with people anymore, putting thick mental walls between them. Despite regularly meeting with the girl, he doesn't really know her at all,which is why she has a cone on her head throughout the video. As a result, their relationship is no more than "becoming idiots, dancing on air," so it doesn't take long for them to start fighting and disagreeing, at 1:16. Since he refuses to open up to her, he starts to feel trapped and bitter around her, becoming paranoid at 1:29, and eventually believing she's taking advantage of him and lying to him, that she doesn't understand him at all, that he doesn't even understand himself, that he might be going a bit crazy, but they keep hanging out, during 1:42. At 2:00, he can't take it anymore. "I lost my composure when you laughed at me in scorn;" either he was genuinely betrayed by her or he just misunderstood. Either way, that betrayal severely damages him, and depression takes over hard. While you see many tiny dancing demons throughout these MVs, the main face of his depression is the mysterious cloaked One-Eyed Man. He essentially acts as the devil on his shoulder, feeding him all the worst ideas, telling him to protect only himself, morality be damned, and believing that he's doing it for his sake, that he's protecting him. In this case, he uses this moment of weakness after his betrayal to take control of the MC. He rips his guts out, opens up his head, and stuffs it with books. It’s the same as whispering into his ear "you don't need people, they'll only hurt you. You don’t need this world, it will only hurt you. I’m all you need. Use this sharpened blade of words to ensure no one will ever do this to you again." The MC, smiling, gratefully accepts. He cuts ties with that girl, as well as the rest of the world. He's become a monster: safe, but empty.

Dramaturgy (Light Blue):

This one is basically "depression the song." This time the world is like a stage play, with the MC being an actor. After shutting himself out from the world, he's lonelier than ever before, his self esteem skyrocketed down, and his life has come to a screeching halt. He no longer even feels human. Every day is a struggle just to keep on living. By making the whole world into the enemy, he's incapable of revealing any of himself to them, disassociating to the point that he might as well be just an actor wearing a mask. He's trapped even within the safety of his own mind. If you act only how everyone wants you to act all the time, eventually you feel like there are actual physical walls all around you. It's exhausting to keep up, and you start to forget who you are. He’s also developed an inferiority complex, and a fear of other people. He just doesn’t want to be betrayed again. At 2:13, he wants to reach a climax where he breaks out of these walls around him, but he can't do it, because he NEEDS them, they’re there to protect him. The One-Eyed Man makes sure he never forgets this. At 3:28, we get a kaleidoscope zoom-in to the MC's psyche, which stops at a floating white cube. These cubes contain him at his deepest level, his fundamental perception of himself. His hopelessness, and the One-Eyed Man's words have reached to his very core and torn him apart at the deepest level. At 3:48, he's lost himself. He likely becomes a shut-in at this point as well, only doing the most basic necessities and heading straight to his room when he gets the chance.

As You Like It (Yellow):

You might’ve noticed that although yellow’s the most prevalent, this MV has plenty more color to offer. It's probably the most colorful so far even. Not only that, the pacing's way faster, the music more upbeat. Why would this come immediately after the most depressing and hopeless song yet? That's because this song is in the MC's imagination, like a daydream. While he's lost almost all hope, trapped in his own head and unable to move forward, he's still able to cling to hope by escaping reality into this fantasy. In this escapist world, he's cooler, a popular musical artist, singing his heart out to a big crowd. And he's able to conquer his fears, deal with his stresses, and connect with a girl the way he wishes he could. After all, while he doesn’t let himself connect with others out of fear, whether he realizes it or not,he just wants to be loved and understood. So he makes up this ideal fantasy girl with perfect fashion taste (0:03), who can do that for him. In the song, he represses his true self in the form of the Glove-Mask Man so that he can deal with life’s stresses (which hit him one after the other at 0:35, and are symbolized by the rocket taking off at 0:22), and he disassociates, literally splitting into two people. He starts to struggle against him (1:33) so that his honest self can reach her, and he finally pulls it off at the end, her responding with a wholehearted smile (3:26). A perfect conclusion. Thing is, his ideal girl is a reflection of reality as well. The playground at 0:28, where he wishes he could go back to his childhood memories, partly shows that he’s letting his past drag him down, but he also describes talking with this girl in memories of old, because he had a real-life friend when he was young that he would talk with at a similar playground. She is his goal in these dreams, because he never forgot those times they had together, and he has subconsciously idealized her as a result. On a sadder note, this fantasy also confirms that he’s become a shut-in in reality, as we see him lock himself away in his room (1:02). That’s what he wishes he could escape from. Regardless of the truth behind the scenes, this dream of his gives him hope that he’ll get through this difficult time.

Outsider:

Now we leave the escapism and return to the MC’s mind he’s trapped in. All the past colors come into play here, as we see that the only color in his world comes from these past scars and experiences. He can’t see anything else, he’s painted by them. The test tubes everywhere (0:59) show that he's genuinely trying to deal with his pain by organizing and compartmentalizing it, and by grasping onto hope with his fantasy, he's able to get by. But he's not at all perfect at it, with his little demon-monsters knocking over test-tubes and purposely painting each other. The pipes everywhere all lead to his brain, with each of them pumping these experiences and memories into him. It’s like they’re in his blood stream, a part of him. These pipes also nourish past monsters, like the Godzilla monster depicting his narcissism. He’s come to hate these less desirable parts of himself, so at 1:30 he tries to just break the tubes to sever that part of him, but that just breaks the overall flow, flooding his brain with black, bringing him back to square one. You can’t just get angry at yourself and remove all your flaws. It takes immense time and dedication. This accidental overflow causes some of the monsters to transform into even worse forms. At 3:02 he's sitting next to an especially nasty-looking demon, shaded black and red. This demon is a reminder that his refusal to confront his guilt toward his sister is at the heart of all of this. He keeps struggling with himself, hating himself, and he won’t tackle the fundamental problems. But at least he’s fighting. The last lyric "because this tiny bit of courage will ignite the fire in my heart," shows that just by being aware of the struggle, he's trying to change and improve, he's not giving up.

Tokyo Ghetto:

This song takes place after a lot of time has passed. His cityscape is more dilapidated and volatile. Now, instead of the One-Eyed Man, the prime demon in control is the blue robot with the teeth mask. The robot symbolizes anxiety, a primal, damn near uncontrollable feeling which desires to keep him here by any means. He’s always watching, and he’s not afraid to get physical against the MC when push comes to shove. The shady-looking people in the town are extensions of that anxiety, individual worries and fears. This is why the town is more colorful, yet somehow more harsh and uninviting. All this time has allowed the anxiety to get in his head, to drive his imagination wild and fill his heart with more and more worries. He wants to believe these worries are on his side, but they just want the easiest path(1:41), they don’t give a damn about his wishes. The MC makes meager attempts to escape from the hell of his own mind, always being swiftly pulled back into a never-ending cycle (0:40). After a long while of this, he meets a girl who he sees much of himself in, and he reaches out to someone for the first time in a long while, in the hopes of maybe being saved by her (1:02). Problem is, she acts the same way he used to back in Tokyo Dance, and he winds up getting a taste of his own medicine. Every time he tries to get close to her, she just pushes him away. Like him, she’s actually hiding pain from the past too; she just refuses to show it (2:01, “it was sentimental, though it wasn’t like you at all) . At 2:40, we get a full glimpse into her mind. Many pairs of her shoes are bound together all around her, symbolizing that day after day she ties herself down, and the holy statue behind her symbolizes her holier-than-thou attitude. At 2:55, she happily bites into one of those shoes, drawing her own blood. She hasn’t yet learned that her self-destructive lifestyle isn’t the right way to go. At 2:59, we see their two psyches summed up perfectly. The girl, shrouded in darkness, putting up a cool front and slowly losing herself, standing confidently all the while. The MC, aware that he’s in a bad place, but desperately groveling, searching for any kind of escape at all. Without being able to find solace in the girl, shadows grow, the town floods, monsters come out of the sewers, the Blue Robot gathers his power (2:55). The MC’s anxiety is bubbling up as his desperation to find an escape increases. He’s pinned down by the water (symbolizing stress and struggle to change), and with the girl out of his reach, merely electing to watch him crumble, the Blue Robot is free to strike with all his might, revealing his true, monstrous form (3:48). The MC, in his weakened state, is torn to bits, reduced to trash (4:01). He’s back to square one, and the cycle begins again. He remains trapped in the Tokyo Ghetto.

Ambivalent:

After being trapped in that cycle for so long, the MC decides that he needs to do some serious soul searching. He looks deep into his subconscious, deeper than any song that’s come before. He peers all the way into his basic, fundamental outlook on life, to try to get to the heart of the problem. Keep in mind that he’s not trying to commit to any real action; he’s just introspecting, trying to take a look at his core values. This world is split in two sectors: the safe pink room, where his heart and memories lie, and the planet, which symbolizes change and reality, or rather his perception of it. He’s been resting in the pink room, stagnant, for so long that everything is overgrown, and his heart is weak, without motivation. Even resting is exhausting for him, something he’s only able to do thanks to his yellow wheelchair representing his hopes (As You Like It). The MC wants to understand why he can’t venture out onto that planet. Every time he tries, it’s a labyrinth of endless signs all telling him to stop and turn back. The plants themselves attack and hurt him. It’s a volatile world full of unknowns and hostiles. The source of this hostility is the disagreement between him and the cat, who's with him at all times here (1:26). Believe it or not, this cat is the One-Eyed Man’s true form. He doesn’t appear mysterious or “all-seeing” because the MC is self-aware of the One-Eyed Man’s influence, and he’s just thinking in the safety of his room; the One-Eyed Man has no power without perceived danger. He’s a cat because he represents the primal part of us from long before humanity developed complicated cognitive ability and intelligence. He only cares about the MC's safety and desires, and doesn’t give a damn about anything or anyone else. He was always watching, acting as the hidden voice behind every decision. When the MC wanted to run away from the pain of his sister's death (Sister), he helped him. When the MC desired safety from the world above all else (Nonsense Literature), he granted it to him. When he struggled with depression (Dramaturgy), deep down that desire never actually left. When that desire became the core of his being, the cat even created the Blue Robot as a sort of "hired muscle" to keep the MC in check for his own good. Despite the awfulness of the One-Eyed Man's actions, he’s just granting the MC's wishes. He genuinely cares about the MC and wants what’s best for him; that’s why he’s so cute and small. But the MC has been blaming him for all of his problems, without understanding his own responsibility in the matter, leaving them at an impasse (1:26). They both come to understand their disagreement with the words: “when I was a kid, I picture myself as a main protagonist in this world. I started to get embarrassed so I turned my eyes away.” (1:36). He's finally come to accept and understand his share of the blame, rather than just blaming the cat. His hair being green here could also show that he never truly grew past his selfishness after all this time. He begins to recall all the things he’s taken for granted and ignored in his life, and he realizes he wants to protect them (1:48). He doesn’t want to just be selfish, he wants to live for their sakes and be useful to them. Now that they’re talking on even terms, the cat can understand his desire for selflessness and gives him a match. They've agreed to stop letting memories of fear and pain that have long since passed guide their every move, so they burn them away (2:00). Those times won’t disappear, but it doesn’t mean they can’t move beyond them. The cat now realizes he was being overprotective, and that the MC can make his own decisions, so he decides to try and get out of his way (2:15). The MC's world is no longer centered around his own desire; he can see the 'bigger picture' (2:24). But while the cat is taking a more reserved role in his life, he didn't completely disappear (2:55). After all, desire is what gives our lives meaning. The difference is that the two are now a pair bringing out the best in one another, a balanced mix of selflessness and desire. Now that they’re in agreement, a world of possibilities is open to them, and the MC is ready to reach out and grab them, and begin his life again (3:01).

Last Dance:

The MC has now returned to the outer layers of his mind, and he wants to turn his newfound paradigm shift into action. Due to this shift, the city’s layout has gotten more realistic, lively, elegant, and inviting, far closer to the real world. He and his demons are hiding from it all at the center of his mind, a small, comfy room resting above a black center (2:32). This is to show that the MC is aware that the real world wasn't the problem; his own outlook was. His nails are being painted red by a demon to show how long he’s been letting these memories paint him without fighting back (0:22). He doesn’t blame them though, he understands himself and how this all came to be, so he gives one of his demons a hug (0:25). The room is more organized and homey to reflect his understanding. But he sees how small his world has been, and he wants to try and get out. He’s decided what he wants to do, but still easily comes apart when trying to move (0:37). He's put back together, revived by the support of the One-Eyed Man, who's lost his overbearing, omnipresent appearance, and learned to keep his dark side more under control (0:41). It's possible he's even taken on 3 different forms simultaneously, to reflect how both he and the MC now understand his multifaceted nature (0:47, 1:00, and 1:03). So the MC is spiritually strong, but he still unravels in the face of anxiety. At 0:33, he says “with different values, that guy who I hate put on a ridiculous sneer," referring to the Blue Robot, his main enemy. Even though the One-Eyed Man created the Blue Robot, it was never in his control. Anxiety doesn't think for itself; it's a raw, unfiltered emotion that carries out its objective long after its needed. The MC can't beat it alone, even with the One-Eyed Man's help. He realizes he absolutely needs the support of others if he’s going to move forward, and he needs a goal to get him moving in the short-term. He recalls the thing that’s given him hope for all this time, the person who was at the center of all his hopes for tomorrow, and the person he wants to protect most (1:52). It was a girl who spent time with him back when his sister first died. He was in a dark place and full of guilt, and that girl’s kindness gave him hope. But he drifted apart from her due to feeling guilty that he didn’t deserve to be around someone like her, that he would only get in her way. But he always idealized her, and those memories kept him going long after they stopped meeting. The elegant woman dancing is his perception of that memory (1:52). She’s also the girl from As You Like It, but that version of her was only a fantasy he himself didn’t even realize was based on her. She’s here because he only now consciously realized this, and he wants to reach out to her again and start over, without being selfish or afraid. Now fully motivated, he vows to be like “the melancholic patients who chose tomorrow,” and venture out into the world in spite of fear (2:12). He’s taking a leap of faith, venturing on a thin balance beam along with all his demons (3:02-3:32). Obviously they won’t really leave, since they’re a part of his psyche now. He has to understand and accept them, thereby rendering them harmless, or at least manageable. He reaches the girl (3:36), but before this point, he realized something about her. Notice that her hair is painted a light blue, the color of Dramaturgy? This means that throughout the song, upon examining his memories of her more closely, he realizes that she wasn’t as perfect as he was choosing to remember her. In reality, she was suffering too, and the reason they drifted apart so easily was because they both felt undeserving of each other. Deep down a part of him always knew, but when he gets a taste of the blue paint, (2:14) it's the first time he consciously considers the idea. When she tears off her hair and he gently caresses it, he accepts that her pain was real (3:15). He's finally taken the physical journey out of his mind, and he gives her a gentle, honest smile; a far cry from his actions in Demon Dance Tokyo (3:35). At 3:58, the One-Eyed Man gives the MC a book from Nonsense Literature, this time as an honest offering. The One-Eyed Man will help him through this new chapter as a partner, rather than a controlling force.

We’re Still Underground (Orange):

Now it’s time for the grand finale, We’re Still Underground, in which everything finally comes together in the most stunning video so far. This video marks the first time the MC has ever accepted the real physical world in the entire series. After Last Dance, he’s finally venturing outside of his room and moving forward again. As a result, this video is the real world mixed together with his mind. It’s almost like a fantasy world, filled with weird and unknown things. After all, in Last Dance he said “I will not understand everything right now,” but he’s still going to move forward. The camera shows reality, then pans down to the MC’s perception of things. His mind is now jaw-droppingly beautiful and full of color and life. The crows from Tokyo Ghetto are now beautiful pink birds, and big flying ‘monsters’ personify his newfound hope and optimism (0:14). The world is filled with vegetation and vines, similar to the blue planet from Ambivalent. Again, this is all new and uncertain to him, so it’s covered with the same vegetation. At 0:20, we see that much of the city is flooded, calling back to the water from Tokyo Ghetto. He’s moving forward, but much of the world is closed off to him due to that stress and worry. At 0:28, cloth being hung like laundry symbolizes how the MC is more collected and calm than before. We zoom into the house he’s spent so much time in, and it’s dark, overcrowded, and filled with masks symbolizing his mental journey (0:35). As an added bonus, his hair is orange, which is the color we’d often see in Outsider when all the colors were mixed together. He finally ventures out to fulfill a basic task, buying from a gas station, but even that proves to be a little too much. The people around him are shifty looking like in Tokyo Ghetto, and eventually a big octopus busts in and forces him to leave and settle for a vending machine (0:40). Both in the gas station and vending machine, you see the eye from the One-Eyed Man marking various items and signs, symbolizing that he’s using desire for the end goal and new things drive him forward (0:41, 0:43, and 0:46). The lyrics here are him wondering if he’s good enough for the girl he’s going to try and meet again, and deciding that if she’s hurting so much, then he needs to help her through it. Meanwhile, we finally learn who this girl he looks up to actually is. She looks very different from any version the MC had in his mind, dressing quite plain and modest, and having both blue hair and blue eyes, perhaps to symbolize her Dramaturgy-type depression. We learn that that song sums her up pretty well, but her depression still takes a somewhat different form from the MC. She’s not afraid to go out, but the life she’s living is completely dictated by other people. She’s afraid to do anything for herself. This is why she receives texts from the One-Eyed Man, and her world looks so realistic, dark, and rainy. She believes this is the only possible road for her, that THIS is reality. She’s like the opposite of the MC; she’s TOO selfless, and her One-Eyed Man, her desires, have taken on the form of everyone around her, as it believes that’s the safest route for her. She herself is empty. At 0:53, the playground is fenced off; no playtime allowed, your childhood doesn’t matter, your memories don’t matter, those times you played with the MC as kids (As You Like It) don’t matter. At 0:54, she sits in her house, dejected, the zombie poster behind her a good description for her mental state, and there’s a constant hue of water all around her. She always feels like she’s drowning, anxious that something about this isn’t right, that she’s about to lose herself. Meanwhile, MC is biking over to meet her (0:59), but they both end up falling into water (1:06), drowning in anxiety right at the moment before they both meet. Once they meet, they each see an answer in each other, a person to rely on in this difficult stage of their life. The two of them are then seen running toward a sort of junkyard of gold (1:26). Now that they see hope in one another, they are able to catch a glimpse of all the good things in life that they had taken for granted, ignored, treated as trash. Upon seeing it, they decide they want to move forward, and bite into an apple, symbolizing rebirth like Adam and Eve. They’re accepting this new chapter, and all the sin and desire and change that comes with it. For a moment, at 1:40, the girl sees the world the way MC does, with the beautiful monsters and rising bubbles everywhere. She’s inspired by his hope, and realizes she’s “still underground;” something needs to change.

At 1:44, the camera pans underground to show us a web of complex piping and overgrowth. It’s meant to call back to Outsider, and I think to show that while he’s moving on and changing, he still has an undercurrent of guilt with him. At 1:49, we see the girl surrounded by posters of people. They all have one eye; she doesn’t just feel oppressed and subservient to her loved ones, she also feels like she must be obedient to society’s whims as well. The lyrics here are calling back to everything that the MC went through in the past, especially Tokyo Ghetto at 1:55, where he remembers that giving up made him feel at ease, and that he feels helpless because of it. But his hopes and dreams (2:06) kept him believing in tomorrow. We see more shots of the duality between the two of them. At 2:15 we see the girl skateboarding on a bright green skateboard, rather out of place and spontaneous, hinting that she’s playing at embracing her individuality and optimism again. (Also, at 2:20 we see a poster of an apple with the One-Eye on it. This could further imply that rebirth and upheaval are what she truly desires deep down). The line at 2:22 “I’m not saying this as a joke, but everyone mocked me,” could imply that either his selfish, fake self of old would never be listened to by others, or that the demon residents of his mind aren’t going to help him (again calling back to Tokyo Ghetto). At 2:21, both characters’ strong desires for change finally manifest in a Matrix-style “red pill, blue pill” choice. They now have to take a true leap of faith, and accept that their lives are going to change irreversibly from this point on. We don’t see them choose, but the line “It’s goodbye to this town,” speaks for itself. At 2:26, we get a badass shot of the pair as two halves of the same whole, perfectly in agreement on what must be done. They’ll support each other through what happens next. At 2:28 we see a massive protest from the less agreeable parts of his mind, likely people from Tokyo Ghetto and on the far left the glove man from As You Like It. The billboards say “No,” and “Give Up,” and some have the One-Eye on them, perhaps a plea for the One-Eyed Man to return to their side. At 2:31, the MC and girl are seen spraying graffiti in direct rebellion to everyone, perhaps a last burst of courage before making the big choice. At 2:35 we see the MC abandon his bike in a carnival, perhaps a last goodbye to his naive childhood and an acceptance of adulthood. At 2:36 we see the girl with an umbrella in the rain, which is meant to further connect her to As You Like It. At 2:45, the pair has made their choice, and the town begins its massive upheaval. At 2:51, the two are back in the playground they used to play at, swinging way up in a leap of faith, looking toward the skies. At 3:00, “there will be no rerun,” this is the moment. At 3:08, he vows not to avert his eyes anymore, to accept whatever life throws at him without running away. At 3:13, the pair move up toward the future, toward the skies. The line at 3:18 is extremely important, as the MC directly calls back to when the two were young at the playground. He remembers how the guilt they both felt kept them from relying on one another, and while he treasures the friendship they had, he wants to make sure they never grow apart like that again. 3:23 is them coming to fully understand where they went wrong at that playground, and where they went wrong after they drifted apart. The MC’s mind is filled with symbolism; books from Nonsense Literature, birds for his greed and overactive mind, board game pieces for his attempts to distract himself and shun other people, every-day appliances for his focus on basic survival rather than true living, the list goes on. The girl, however, is completely empty, just an empty husk with no will of her own. They vow that while they’ll always be imperfect, they never want to return to this state of being. They cast aside these fake, improper forms they’ve made for themselves. At 3:36, we get to see VCR tape footage, a clear sign that this is in the past, showing sketches the two shared at that playground as kids. This calls directly back to Sister’s paper notebook style. Sketching was how the MC expressed himself as a kid, so it was deeply personal for him, and it looks like for the girl too. The images of a monster boy and a magical girl with horns come across as cries for help and a desire to escape, but neither of them realized the other’s suffering. This was where it all began, at a time where neither of them really understood what was happening to them; they were just kids. The VCR tape then shuts off, we see flashes of the town, and a messy drawing of the MC saying “goodbye.” He’s finally made peace with himself, he accepts the mistakes he made, he’s saying goodbye to that naive child that was behind every decision of his, and moving on. At 3:51, the two are played in reverse, undoing the damage they’ve been causing to themselves. This is a goodbye to their self-destructive tendencies. The line “wait for the 1, 2 signal,” directly calls back to As You Like It, and how once they get the ball rolling, things are going to happen really damn fast, and they need to be ready for it. 4:03 is the epic climax, where the Blue Robot, anxiety, once again appears in a last-ditch effort to stop the two. He’s not in control anymore, and he knows this, so he reveals his true form: a massive, feral, insane, uncontrolled mess of fear that wrecks havoc all across the city, almost like it’s willing to destroy the whole thing if it has to. The two are prepared, and together they run with everything they’ve got. At 4:14, we see masses of planes dropping hellfire on the beast in an attempt to quell it. Perhaps this is the One-Eyed Man, dropping in one last bit of support for the two. Maybe it’s a show that the pair now has more control over their minds, and are finally able to fight back against the entities that used to control them. Whichever it is, it’s enough to save them, and at 4:21 the sun rises, the two safe and sound overlooking the now destroyed city. At 4:23, the cube from Dramaturgy, their core, is perfectly fine, showing that they’ll get through this massive upheaval intact. At 4:25, we see that amidst the destruction, a massive tree has sprouted up, symbolizing rebirth. Perhaps this tree was able to sprout up from the piping underneath, meaning that the two making peace with themselves allowed their pasts to finally stop clogging up their brains. Finally, the video rewinds to before their upheaval, and we see the MC’s room, this time in the real world, no strings attached. We’ve finally been shown the real life setting for the vast majority of the MVs. Not long after, the MC pukes up darkness, which is a little nod to the fact that while the world itself wasn’t technically real, the pain and struggle he was going through certainly was.

This World To You:

This song is like the epilogue of the MC’s journey. He’s overcome his inner cycle which has kept him trapped for all this time, learned to empathize and think things through (2:07), and he’s now able to confront the feelings that were at the core of this struggle all along: his guilt toward his sister. During a beautiful purple sunset, he’s bicycling through the vivid new world open to him, grieving for her and accepting that “her tomorrow’s never coming” (0:48). This acceptance hurts him (0:31), and at first it even feels like he’d rather things just remain the way they are, (0:37) but it’s the only way he can learn from his mistakes and become someone she’d be proud of. He thinks from the newly found perspective he has, and seeing things more objectively, more selflessly, he wonders how similar her life was to his (1:11). He’s seeing his sister not as a vague, hazy image built up in his head made up of his worries, anxieties, and guilt, but as a normal person, with their own worries, feelings, problems, and dreams. By empathizing with his sister, coming to terms with the improper image of her he built up in his head, he’s able to move on, and empathize with other people in a similar way. By doing this, he no longer has reason to be afraid of the world out there, and he can start to reach other people’s hearts, learning from the mistakes he made in the past. Instead of wallowing in remorse over his sister, he can be someone she’d be proud of, and help other people who are hurting in the way he couldn’t with her. This spurs him on, and although the fact that she died so early is a fact he’ll always carry with him (1:52), he’s found a hope for tomorrow he’s needed all his life (2:14). However, he also accepts that death and pain is always a possibility (2:20), and that things won’t always go his way. But instead of fall into despair, he’s able to believe that things will get better, and that he has the power to make them better, reflected in the beautiful vista filled with sea creatures swimming in the sky (2:38). The creature at 2:39 is elegant, beautiful, a sight to behold, vividly painted by all sorts of colors, a callback to Underground. Its face also looks similar to the girl he’s managed to reach, symbolizing that reaching her is one of the cores of his hope. Throughout the video, we see the city to change to reflect the MC’s stream of consciousness. At (0:02), the MC is recovering from the wreckage after the mental battle in Underground, and he’s dealing with the grief of his sister, and as he comes to terms with it, the buildings gradually get cleaner and more structured, eventually colored with lights of his empathy and understanding. At (1:51), he continues to change toward hope and acceptance, and he moves toward an industrial zone, reflecting how the city is moving forward, springing back from this change stronger than ever, rebuilding and even adding new zones and structure. At (2:12), we see the sign “think it through,” as a reminder that the one-eyed man, once a force he saw as evil, is now a friend, working with him to overcome his anxieties and fears. The signs throughout the city spatter negativity like “arrogant” and “pathetic” and “regret,” but are now mixed in with “hope” and “future” and “I would put a flag here.” Then at (2:37), his hope is stronger than ever. Then finally, the MC’s empathy and selflessness is made manifest in a way it never has been before. At (3:01), the MC’s city seamlessly transitions into the perspective of the girl, and at (3:20) it beautifully changes into the girl’s more realistic view of the city. By empathizing with and reaching her, part of her perspective has now become his, as he’s able to learn from her and see things more objectively. He’s come to terms with his guilt, and allowed himself to truly connect with someone. By doing this, the world has opened up to him, and he’s finally able to become a part of society. He has made it.

Baumkuchen End:

At this point the MC has managed to enter society and step into the real world without running away (0:09 and 0:16). Rather than monsters of anxiety and fear, everyone he sees are normal people just like him. However, things aren’t going quite how he thought they would. He’s not afraid anymore (0:46), but he feels surprisingly empty. The world is a little less vivid than Underground, and the MC’s hair has been colored white, blank and aimless. He’s realized that things are more complicated than he expected. He went through so much to overcome his mental hangups, and now that he’s succeeded, life is still going forward. He’s struggled with that mental cycle (symbolized by the orange and blue swirl at 0:57) for so long, that he’s having a hard time seeing past it, and he feels unsure what to do with himself now that the cycle which defined him for so long is gone (0:45, “there’s nothing left to do”). In Tokyo Ghetto, the reason he couldn’t escape from himself was that deep down, he didn’t really want to leave. Part of him wants to go back to that time where things made sense, and he could comfortably wallow in hopelessness and self-pity (0:30). It’s like he hoped that once he reached this point, the credits would roll and everyone would live happily ever after (0:34, “there seems to be no ‘critical hit,’” and 0:37, “I was expecting an answer,” and we see the MC’s many paths disappear in front of him, leaving a blank wall of vague white). Not only that, but the MC is having a harder time with empathy than he expected. He wants to see beyond himself, but his own limitations are getting in the way of that. His ego has swelled somewhat after his victory (0:41), against his better judgment. Whether he likes it or not, he’s not an omniscient being that can just teleport into other people’s perspectives and points of view; he’s a human being, with their own emotions and biases and egos, and he can only see other people through the cage of his own skin. At 0:24, he vents over this struggle, lamenting “it’s all about me,” feeling both “disgusted and separated.” He hates these limitations and how he’s growing apart from the girl he reached out to. He’s afraid of getting trapped in a never-changing rut in which he can’t reach anyone, never changes, and slowly loses himself again (symbolized by the optical illusion triangle surrounded by orange inside the MC. It’s a cycle, always moving further inward, never changing.) However, things are far from hopeless. The MC isn’t the kind to give up anymore. He’s grown, and he’s more self-aware of his predicament. Throughout the video he’s introspecting, thinking to himself (0:48) and refusing to look away from the problem (0:43, 0:29, 0:38, 0:46, all throughout the video). To deal with these newfound problems, rather than get complacent and give up, he’s decided to ‘go back to school’ (0:41 and 0:58) and accept that he still has a lot to learn, that he needs to keep improving. And this time he has plenty of help. All the sides of his mind that were once his enemies: the one-eyed man’s multiple sides, the black blob of terror, the anxiety bot, and the bull-faced man (which is a japanese symbol of young people’s perspective of society); now that he’s managed to reign them in and keep them in check, he understands that they’re a part of him and they’re not going away. So instead of shunning and hating them, he’s decided to teach them how to work together (0:58). And since they’ve always wanted to help him, they eagerly accept. Through this teacher-student relationship, he’s realizing that there’s a lot he can learn from them, and they can actually help him in positive ways, like a paradigm shift. They actually have more sides and depth to them than he realized, and by shunning and fighting them, he was suppressing important parts of himself needed to improve. For example, the MC let desire aimlessly control him for so long (1:10, a strong callback to the brown of Chocolate Town), that for the longest time he ran from and shunned it (1:12). However, that desire is actually needed to motivate oneself to learn and change. That’s why the MC’s other sides are now wearing brown (0:47), because they’re all painted by the MC’s personal desire to improve. Understanding this, at 1:15 the anxiety bot makes a “no” motion, to tell him that he shouldn’t run from it. Speaking of the anxiety bot, his appearance has changed; he looks more inviting and friendly, and isn’t defined by the blue of depression anymore. “Anxiety bot” isn’t really the right name anymore, now he should be called “Motivation bot” instead. Because of the MC’s paradigm shift, the bot isn’t focused on instilling fear anymore. It’s instead focused on giving the MC a desire to improve. Because he needs a little fear to put things into perspective and keep from getting caught in a rut. He needs that reminder that time is limited, and that if he doesn’t do something, he may very well end up lost and alone. They both believe in him and know he’s strong enough to manage, so they use that fear as drive to move forward. Anxiety’s been symbolized by water throughout these MVs, and we need water to survive, so the MC keeps it under control and make sure he only takes it in in small doses (symbolized by the water bottle at 0:44).

Now that all of this is in place, the MC can start to really confront and understand the problem. He decides that the main thing he wants motivating him is the fear that the girl is suffering, with him unable to reach her or help, basically a repeat of what happened all those years ago (1:16). He’s not going to let that happen, and we see him twirling a yellow key (1:23). This is a callback to the fantasy he dreamed up in As You Like It, and how he realizes the fight isn’t over, he still needs to make that dream real. He defiantly declares “I don’t care if it’s a lie” (1:24). He’s going to make it real. At 1:25 his other sides all proudly take the stage. This calls back to Dramaturgy, but now he’s not afraid of the stage, he embraces it confidently. Now, after deciding his next move (1:30), he takes action. His first step is to hear the girl’s perspective for himself, to ensure he doesn’t create a convenient image of her in his head like he did with his sister. At 1:33 he talks to her with the support of his other sides. He opens up to her, sharing his worries and fears (“when he gets annoyed with his daily routine, he wants to break it down”). He talks in the third person because he’s starting to look at himself without being as clouded by emotion. In response, she confides in him. She tells him that she’s still having a hard time, she’s not sure if she can manage through the day-to-day, desperately gripping the rails (1:42). At 1:45 we see a shot of stairs, symbolizing that she’s suffering an uphill battle, unable to see her destination. Not too different from the MC’s situation. The girl is in a hospital gown connected to an IV, calling back to the hospital theme of Last Dance. Whereas before she was an elegant light as he struggled sick in bed, now she’s the one who needs his help. He processes what she said (1:48), and realizes that of course just reaching out to her isn’t enough. She needs to be helped through her predicament. If anyone here’s played Persona, think social links. Just wanting to help isn’t enough. He needs to regularly make time for her, teach himself how to properly talk to her, and gain life experiences. Basically, before he can tell her how to improve her life, he needs to work to improve his OWN life, turn himself into someone she can look up to, instead of just wallowing in his uselessness. This snaps him back to reality, gets him out of his doldrum (1:52 “I was attacked by this helpless dizzy night”), and we even see him reading a self-help book. A little bonus detail, in the background of the train as the MC is fighting to improve himself, we see the girl from Tokyo Ghetto, wallowing in self-pity. Turns out letting herself be consumed by her bad habits didn’t work out so well, and now she’s all alone. It could also be the MC’s old self from Tokyo Ghetto, as a visual reminder of how far he’s come. Back on track, we see the MC visiting a bakery, and ordering a strange ring cake, a Baumkuchen (1:55). This cake appears throughout the MV, and is a visual metaphor for the MC’s current actions, and how his perspective has changed. The cake is visually similar to a tree trunk, and a tree is a symbol of strength. It lives for up to entire centuries, and almost nothing can bring it down. This is possible because of its incredibly sturdy trunk and roots dug deep into the ground. A tree has rings in its trunk as a marking of its age, and the more rings it has, the longer it’s lived. This means that the stronger and wiser a tree is, the more rings it will have. Quoting a Japanese chef who specializes in Baumkuchen, “The appeal of the cake is in its many layers. The layers represent the accumulation of happiness, making it a strong icon of luck.” Sound similar? So by purchasing this cake, he’s moved beyond the As You Like It fantasy in which he does one big thing and the credits roll. Now he understands that the story’s never really over. To keep himself from falling back into his old ways, he has to create a sturdy trunk out of many small rings. This means taking on positive habits and responsibilities that he continues constantly throughout his life; working a job, going to school, scheduling his time, learning to cook, reading books to learn. He seeks to keep getting more rings, making more roots, and never getting too set in his routine. He now understands that the battle is never truly over, and he can always improve more. That’s why he’s willing to jump off the building for the cake at 2:05, because he comes to accept its importance. Once he does that, everything clicks, and he sees the light again. At 2:08, the girl’s IV is juxtaposed against the beauty of the sky. At 2:15, the Motivation Bot acts as a sort of gatekeeper. He hears the MC’s newfound purpose, and allows him to move beyond his little apartment from 0:25. At 2:18, he becomes more self-aware. He sees the enormity of the world, and how much he has to learn, and he realizes that if he keeps assuming he’s done all he can then he won’t be able to keep up. At the same time, it’s beautiful, and full of opportunity. At 2:28, the other selves watch him with pride, and once things have sunk in, they’re there to calm him down and snap him back into reality. Now the MC’s learning from them. They listen intently, (2:33) and once he’s ready to fight to get his life together and reach the girl, the Motivation Bot gives him a big hearty throw to get him started (2:42). At 2:47 we see the chairs the MC had been resting on, painted orange and blue to symbolize his previous cycle of guilt and self-destruction. They’re now empty, as proof that the MC is finally setting himself up to move beyond that cycle. At 2:45 the girl’s anxiety and hopelessness coalesces into a teddy bear, a callback to Ano Ko Secret. This is a final challenge to the MC’s selfishness and childishness, something he must overcome to finally reach others. Since her pain is a reflection of his, he’s essentially fighting himself too, and the bear attacks him with a laser at 2:53, tearing down part of the red tower from Demon Dance Tokyo. If you remember, in that song the tower was a symbol of the MC’s memory of his sister. Now, it’s being damaged because if the MC can’t grow beyond his past mistakes, he won’t learn from the mistakes he made with his sister, and he won’t be doing her life justice. 2:54 calls back to the MC’s fall at the beginning of As You Like It, a symbol of his frustration and hopelessness toward his situation, but now when he hits the ground (2:59), he takes it in stride, grits his teeth, and keeps running. At 3:04, he uses everything to fight to reach the girl; the memory of his sister, the help of his other selves, his positive habits and drive to improve. At 3:14, for the first time, the girl’s eye is colored with orange, meaning the MC’s efforts have truly touched her. At 3:16, the MC successfully reaches the girl, with the help of all his other sides supporting him. He’s made it, and at 3:20 the glove man from As You Like It gives him a round of applause. He’s sitting in the orange-blue chair, he’s nothing more than a dream. The MC has accepted that the battle doesn’t just end, made his dream real, and the glove man is proud of him for that. At the beginning of the video, at 0:19, the explosion from As You Like It rocked the MC and girl’s world, but this time he was ready for it, looked straight ahead, and overcame that trial he feared so much. The MC’s journey will continue, and he’ll be ready for whatever comes.

Raison D'etre:

The MC reached the girl, and that's deeply affected her. The MC realized he could only help her after helping himself. By being a living example of what she wishes to be, she not only knows she isn't alone, she's also starting to understand what she needs to do. This video is the first time we see solely in the girl's mind rather than the MC. Her outlook's changed from the pure blue of sadness to a mix of the black of discontent and the yellow of hope. As she leaves her now messy room, going about her daily routine, she starts to get lost in introspective thought, likely something she hasn't done in a long time. Her falling into the underground of her mind, it looks similar to Ambivalent. That's because we're looking deep in her subconscious mind, seeing her fundamental outlook. It's like the mind of a child; pieces of an amusement park, a mess of toys and blocks. Our previous looks at her were almost barren of imagination; grey, lifeless, mundane. But here it's full of color and life. This shows all her deeper emotions and hopes were buried deep down inside her, and she kept from becoming totally empty by making sadness her purpose, her identity. Atop it all, we see the queen of this place, an alternate version of her with her old all-blue color scheme. An imposing crescent moon presides over the entire city, and the blue girl wears a similar crescent as a mask. A crescent moon is merely the first stage of the moon's cycle. It's perpetually a crescent moon here because the girl never moves forward, she's always waiting for something to change things for her, and this mentality blinds her. We even see that her leg is chained by blue as further proof. We can see by all the toys and such that she's being childish, she's emotionally immature. She's elected not to think and to just assume things will get better, letting her hopes come to her. If you look closely, her robot-arm things look like distorted, stylized power outlets. We see in her irl room that she's constantly plugged in, a little too exposed to technology. Nowadays our perception of the world is all too skewed by our biases via the internet. We believe what we want to believe, and there will always be a group of people online to confirm it. This girl is no different, the internet is keeping her that much more locked down. We see irl that as she walks around, the uniform grey people around her flicker like a computer glitch. She's not seeing people as they really are, the internet is skewing her perception. When we see her in the subconscious world, she's cloaked in black and red. The red is used to symbolize the girl looking to her past. For the male MC, red was almost always negative until Baumkuchen End, as guilt toward his sister was holding him back. But with the girl, the past is actually a source of hope, as she remembers the good times she had with the MC as a small child. She sees who he was, and who he's become through nothing more than his own strength. She also spins her past regret into something positive, as her failure to see outside herself and reach out to him more back then has turned into a vow to do better now. So her past frustrations and memories are coming at odds with her present blue self who expects others to come and fix things for her. At the 1:30 mark, she wakes up after this realization, horrified, having a bit of a quarter-life crisis. She finally sees things for what they really are, and she knows this can't continue. We then see the irl city surrounded by red, in the windows, street lights, cones. She had the opposite problem of the MC. While he looked to the past too much, she didn't do it enough. She needs to remember the past to remember who she is, to be able to make her own decisions. At 1:40 we see a sort of medical blockade, to show that she's put a much needed temporary stop to things so she can think about where her life's going. As she walks along, moving up stairs rather than down, she sees her black and red reflection. It scares her, because it can't be ignored at all anymore, it's pervading her real life as well. Essentially, there's no going back to her old way of life now that she's seen the truth. In her subconscious, the mental bedrock supporting the irl city fails, and her world turns upside down. Turns out her "realistic" view of the city wasn't any less a delusion than the MC's. She fights with her present self, doing markedly better, and forces her out of the subconscious and into the real world. She can't hide anymore. Now that her present self has been brought into reality, she really starts to see the truth of things. At 2:38, she sees her current path for the barren, ruined wasteland it is, and screams out in discontent. At 2:41, she realizes she'd been drowning in stress and fear the entire time, choosing not to notice. At 2:45, she's in the fetal position surrounded by a cocoon of introspection, a symbol of rebirth. At 2:48, she sees her present self in a beautiful field of reeds, as she comes to understand her. Finally, at 2:57, Her present self is flanked on both sides by red cones. She clearly sees who her enemy is, there's no doubt in her mind anymore. The two fight, her present self almost like that of an omnipresent goddess, what with her blue rays and power of flight. Yet the red girl is still able to reach her, breaking her mask of wait in the process. When she sees her face, she's almost dumbstruck, realizing her present self isn't just her enemy, she's a part of her. The two meet in the middle, coming to an understanding, similar to what the MC did in Ambivalent. The red of the past lifts away, reverting back to the yellow of the future, as the two are ready to move forward. The girl then wakes up with a smile. Like the MC, she's not going to wait on a miracle to come and rescue her anymore. From here on out, she's going to make her own choices, and decide for herself who she wants to be.

*If you’ve read this far, then thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed making this, and these MVs have felt like looking into a mirror. Whenever I wouldn’t understand what a video means, I would just think in terms of my own struggles and experiences and everything would quickly come together. I doubt any of this was even what Eve and his animators intended, but that’s the beauty of art. Regardless of what an artist intends when making something, its messages can sometimes resonate with its viewers in ways even they didn’t expect. These MVs have impacted me so deeply that I had to get this out there, and if it reaches even one person and helps them a little, then posting this will be worth it.

Bonus Song:

Ano Ko Secret (EVERY color):

I was having a lot of trouble deciding where this song could fit, as it’s just so damn colorful and happy. In a tale about depression and guilt, why would the MC have such a fun romantic comedy amidst it all? He already has a daydream in the form of As You Like It, he doesn’t need another one. And then it seemed obvious. This song is at the beginning, before everything got out of control after the MC’s sister died. The MC and blue-haired girl have their true hair colors, because they’re both real (0:43). They’re both quite young, but because the MC is a standard happy-go-lucky kid (with an overactive mind and a touch of narcissism), he FEELS like a grown-up. When he sees the blue-haired girl, he’s infatuated with her at first sight, so she’s pretty and mysterious, also a grown-up (0:52). The MC is constantly experiencing new things, symbolized by the multi-colored bears popping out of the gacha machines en masse (0:11). He has no idea what the future might hold, but he’s eager to see it all. He even has a good friend in the form of the especially large orange bear (1:22). As orange is what we see when all colors are mixed together, this shows that the MC is able to confide in his friend and be totally honest around him. The fact that he’s a bear instead of a person could also symbolize how the MC literally sees himself as the ‘Main Character’ of his life, and others are background characters. Again, a little on the narcissistic side. But he’s so interested in the girl, that she looks different from everyone else. Because of that interest, he’s afraid to talk to her, so he enlists the help of his friend (1:03). Even together, he can’t gather up the courage, so his friend consoles him (1:19). When he finally does manage to talk to her, (albeit only through texts), all she seems to care about is his friend (1:37). He likely had a crush on her too, so with all her interest centered on the friend, asking her on a date is out of the question. He feels left out, betrayed by his best friend (1:54). But, angered, he refuses to give up, and he pushes past his fear to reach out to her anyway (2:05). Despite his best efforts, his anxiety wins out (symbolized by the black bears shooting down the white bears), and he stops just short of reaching her (2:18). However, he sees the girl reject his friend from the sidelines (2:47), and he rushes over, looking past his feelings of betrayal to console him (3:01). He doesn’t meet the girl, but when he saw her reject his friend, for a moment he saw a bit of himself in her, symbolized by them both exploring the same bear shop at 2:41. It’s a feeling he doesn’t fully understand, but he’s not afraid of her anymore, and he later works up the courage to talk to her off-screen, as proven by later songs. Neither of them truly realizes how similar they are to one another, and how their fates will be later intertwined, but their friendship will be a source of hope for them in the coming years.

#eve utaite #eve #vocaloid #theory #raison d'etre

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bastard-onthe-daily · 6 years

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Conspiracy Theory

Ryan Bergara was probably possessed by a demon as a child.

Now now before you go screaming “but Madison how can you say that!” Here me out

I was rewatching some old episodes and this particular moment from the voodoo episode really caught my attention

M: Do you feel like a scared little kid?

R:All the time, every day

M: Why are you scared

R: I don’t know

Now this really bothered and I didn’t know why at first but then he said

R: I always felt like I was being watched as a little kid

Then it hit me “Holy fuck he was probably being stalked by a demon!” Now I thought this for three reasons

Demons are drawn to the life energy of humans

Children are more susceptible to being tricked by a demon

Children give off more life energy than adults due to their innocence

That being said (lol trademark) it’s more likely for a child to be possessed than an adult.

“Children are most likely to be victims because they have clean minds” - Rosanna Roces. (Now that quote might not be the best example but it’s all I can work with atm)

Anyway, Let’s get back on track. Sigmund Freud once theorized that memories of childhood abuse/trauma can be suppressed. However there’s little evidence of this since most trauma survivors remember at least a small bit about the things they endured. That brings me back to Ryan, he suppressed the memory but not completely. That’s why he only remembers the feeling of being consistently watched and not the possession.

Let’s say, Ryan was possessed for two days and then was exorcised and he repressed the memory. How does that explain his disbelief in ghost up until he was 17? How does he not at least remember being exorcised? Well I’ll explain it.

Most people who were possessed begin to act normally again and on some occasions don’t even remember it happened. I’m using the story of Julia for my example. In a 2008 documentary a girl named Julia was being exorcised. However after her exorcisms she had no recollection of what happened before and during it. This shows that on occasion some people entirely forget being exorcised. Ryan was one of those occasions.

Now let’s move on to my final piece of evidence. People who have experienced trauma have common symptoms, let’s say paranoia and night terrors as main ones in this case. Well Ryan didn’t experience those as a kid, but he does now, so how does that make any sense? How can he experience symptoms years after the original trauma? The answer simple my dear boogaras, something triggered them. What was it? It was none other than the Queen Mary. After he experienced all that weird shit on the ship, it’s triggered the symptoms.

Paranoia- Ryan’s terrified of everything, and is suspicious of every little sound. He always watching his back and brings holy to every demon investigation

And of course night terrors

The dreams where Shane dies. Dreams where his family dies

S: How often does this happen?

R: Pretty often

Conclusion, Ryan Steven Bergara was possessed by a demon when he was little. He repressed the memory and symptoms until he experienced the paranormal phenomena on The Queen Mary at age 17.

(Now this is just a conspiracy theory and I don’t mean any harm towards Ryan or his family)

#buzzfeedunsolved #bfu #boogaras #conspiracy #ryan bergara #shane madej #demons #demonic possession #shyan #ghoul boys

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opaljade · 7 years

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The Lying Detective is Lestrade

Ever since S3 aired, I've been finding it extremely weird that Sherlock just cannot remember Lestrade's first name. Yes, the first time in THoB, it was funny but to have it happen repeatedly... something's up. It seems to be a pattern. I’ve been thinking this for a LONG TIME. I even mentioned it to marsdaydream when the title of episode 2 came out. Yesterday, I finally made a post about it on LJ. I discussed this with some clever LiveJournal members and everyone seems to think I’m WAY OFF. They had valid arguments but after a re-watch of T6T last night, I still could not dismiss the idea that Lestrade is the Lying Detective. (And it makes me sad, because I love him! <3)

But this is why the idea that it’s just a running gag nags me...

Sherlock doesn’t seem to be joking or teasing Lestrade. He literally can’t remember.

Yet, Sherlock remembers Anderson's first name: Phillip. He also remembers Molly's fiance's first name: Tom.

I researched what could make you forget a name (called Name Amnesia) and discovered that there are two things:

1) Trauma: The name is associated with a traumatic event and is repressed in one’s memory. (Rare)

2) Hypnosis: Derren Brown explains in his book Tricks of the Mind that you can make someone forget a name (even your own) by simple hypnotic suggestion.

So, after T6T, I'm even more convinced that Lestrade will be involved in a big plot twist because of either possible “name amnesia” cause listed above.

And there we go, another unpopular theory! ;D

Edited to add: (January 7)

Okay, I am now convinced that Lestrade is the big plot twist. It’s so funny because Steven Moffatt wants his “I am Birdy Edwards” moment: The huge moment where people are shocked by the identity of a character. The sad part is, Moffatt and Gatiss will say, “All the clues were there and NO ONE noticed” and I’ll be screaming from my living room, “I noticed, I noticed, but no one listened to me!” LOL!

Here was the final proof for me: I rewatched TAB and every single time there was an additional clue linking E. Ricoletti to Moriarty, it’s always Lestrade who points them out.

In the morgue: Holmes is investigating Mrs Ricoletti. Hooper says that the blood wasn’t on the corpe’s finger before and then Lestrade points out the “You” in blood on the wall. This is a direct connection to the Moriarty case.

At the crime scene: There is no note on Sir Eustace but then Lestrade says,“And he left a note.” Holmes looks and sure enough there is a note that says “Miss Me”.

Sherlock’s subconscious knows that Lestrade is linked to Moriarty.

Other proof:

TSoT: Lestrade about to break the Waters Gang case and he doesn’t want credit?! Suspicious... but cleverly covered up by humour.

I think this is all part of the bigger picture and TFP. See next post here:

#Sherlock S4 theories #sherlock s4 speculations #lestrade is the lying detective #I don't think I'll get more than 2 notes on this.

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frogboy0 · 3 years

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Amphibia season 2 rewatch + notes :)

So here is my season 2 Amphibia analysis stew as promised! I hope you enjoy! I had more than a fee break through regarding theories and what not!!!

S2: E1 Handy Anne

Anne is having some pretty bad memories about all the shit that went down at Toad Tower with Sasha, I feel bad for her :( they're all only 13,,,

Anne: The house… Everything I worked so hard to protect

The second time (I think) we officially see Anne's eyes glowing blue! The first time was in season 1 but it was only for half a second and frankly, when I first saw it, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me or it was some animation eerie BUUUUT!!

This time we KNOW it was on purpose, it wasn't quick and it even gave a little 'shing!' sound effect!

I love seeing how the blue heart stone is evoking itself in Anne through passionate, emotionally driven situations like right now!!

I think Anne worked so hard to protect the house and the Planters this episode is not only because this is just how Anne Is but also because she probably felt a little more than helpless during Toad Tower, she couldn't help or protect Sasha and was helpless to just watch her best friend just fall to her death (before getting saved by Grime of course but still).

Also Hop Pop says it takes 2 weeks to get to Newtopia, obviously they had a lot of stops and interruptions on the way but if they DIDN'T, it would've been 2 weeks. But that got me thinking…

If Sasha and Grime are going to Wartwood in season 3, do you think we'll get some episodes with just them and their travels there? I think it would be cool to have more Sasha and Grime episodes!!!

S2: E1 Fort in the Road

Hop Pop is so cute, I can't even get mad at him and all his rules,,,

Okay so that ancient technology with all the old frog structures are apparently called "The Ruins of Despair" and they've been around longer than any written history

I wonder if they had another name before that or of they were renamed by King Andrias (who we know is like over 1,000 years old) as a way to scare people into not looking or checking out the ruins since they are super important ancient tech

Sprig: Forget the rules! This place has everything! Cool atmosphere, implied historical significance!

Oh if only you knew my sweet baby boy,,,

ALSO THE TECH GLOWS BLUE... JUST SAYING

I wonder if there are more buildings that make robots around Amphibia as well.

Anne: You know, there was a time I would pick out the bug bits [of the crickets and cream ice cream] THAT TIME HAS PASSED!!

I can't believe Anne just,,, eats bugs now. That habit is gonna be hard to break.

We know Sasha wasn't eating bugs if the food they had at Toad Tower was anything to go off of, so I wonder if Marcy was eating bugs. If she was, it was probably super fancy ones like beetles (are beetles considered a delicacy in Amphibia? I dunno) since she was living with King Andrias

Whatever, her and Anne could potentially bond over eating bugs then. Sasha thinks it's DISGUSTING

Also,

FROBO!!!! MY SOOOOON!!!

S1: E4 Toadcatcher

I mean, I know we talk about Marcy's self destructive tendencies but I think we gloss over Sasha's. She does NOT want to think about what happened in Toad Tower, she literally throws herself into her training to the point of obsession to AVOID thinking about it.

Also, omg Sasha has Suspicion Island downloaded on her phone too, I wonder if she and Anne would talk about the show a lot with each other.

And Grime letting himself go and basically leaving everything to Sasha was a pretty dick move. I mean, I know he basically lost everything and has the emotional competence of a meatball but COME ON. Sasha has to fend for herself and Grime WHILE repressing the SHIT out of her trauma, but I get it honestly. They aren't close yet, I know.

But I think it's amazing how much their relationship has grown. Like, the end of season 2 Grime would NEVER do that to Sasha.

Grime 'You hate the sword don't you, I knew I should've gotten a gift receipt!' Would rather die than see his daughter repress her emotions like that and not be there for her.

Their relationship has just come so far y'all,,,

GENERAL YUNAN!!!!!!!

SCOURGE OF THE SAND WARS, DEFEATOR OF RAGNAR THE WRETCHED, AND THE YOUNGEST NEWT TO EVER ACHIEVE THE RANK OF GENERAL IN THE GREAT NEWTOPIAN ARMY!!

SHE'S HERE!!

(Also doesn't the Newtonian flag kinda look like The Night? Or is it just me,,,?)

Yunan just cartwheeled out of the bar, she just,,, does that

God I'm in love.

Yunan taught Marcy how to make GREAT entrances and exits, you CAN'T convince me otherwise

(Yes I am a supporter of General Yunan and Lady Olivia being together AND adopting Marcy FIGHT ME-)

And all those dramatic poses Yunan does when she introduces herself, she definitely learned those from Marcy, there's not a doubt in my mind.

Aw Grime still has something left to fight for, it's his and Sasha's friendship I'M-

Did Sasha and Grime really come up with the idea of leading a rebellion to take over the capital from a fucking adrenaline rish after fighting Yunan? That's HILARIOUS

S2: E5 Wax Museum

I honestly didn't think I'd make an analysis of the Gravity Falls parody (even though it is SUPER FUNNY) but I nearly forgot this is where we see the Skip Man!!!!

So Mr. Ponds (again, fucking HILARIOUS) told Anne while she was in that wax tube thing that he found it in Newtopia!

Now this could mean 2 things depending on WHEN he actually found it.

1- It's Marcy's and she dropped it somewhere and he found it which I doubt considering I don't think Marcy would have a Skip Man if Anne's PARENTS had one

2- This is what a I believe more. This was from King Andrias somehow. That maybe from all his weird, crazy, colonizer multiple universes thing he has going on, must have dropped or left or something with that Skip Man for Mr. Ponds to just find it lying around in Newtopia

I dunno how important the Skip Man is to the overall plot line but I DO know that this means there are OTHER ways of getting to other worlds besides the Calamity Box then, or at least showing us that we could transport things to other worlds.

S2: E6 Marcy at the Gates

MARCY MARCY MARCY MARCY MARCY MARCY!!!!!

Oh wow, I didn't even know Marcy was warped right inside the Newtopian city walls when she got transported here, I figured she teleported right outside or at least a couple miles away. Buuuut thinking about it now it makes sense, there's no way Newtopia would just let in any ol' rando, especially not some creature they've never seen before.

Hop Pop: Marcy, how would you like to be adopted?

SHE WOULD LIKE THAT A LOT ACTUALLY

Okay okay GREEN EYES GREEN EYES!!! Marcy's eyes (as we all know) turned green in this episode!

Since the gem of wit (what Marcy has) is green, it makes sense that her eyes would turn green in this scene! Her last line just before they turned green was:

Hop Pop: Who knew those ants were so bouncy!

Marcy: I did! Because I studied them!!

Marcy studies, she learns, and applies her knowledge like, all the time. And she did so here as well, she was not only proving her agency to Anne, she was protecting her skill of knowledge to ALL of them! To show them ALL how much she's learned here in Amphibia!

I believe the next time we see her eyes glow in season 3, it will be in a situation with a similar case. To show everyone her knowledge or her applying said knowledge in things (and those things are most likely life or death situations)

LADY OLIVIA!!!! HEY GIRL!!!

I LOVE how they introduced King Andrias at the very end with him looking down and watching over the group from his castle and then saying how all the pieces are coming together along with the flipwort board!!! Such a great way of showing how he was the big baddie this entire time!!

S2: E7 Scavenger Hunt

Okay I was right, Marcy DOES eat bugs like Anne does, if her saying that Burg makes the 'best beetle burgers in all of Newtopia' was anything to go off of

Sorry Sasha, I guess you're alone in the whole not eating bugs thing.

But I'm still wondering what types of bugs qualify as a sort of delicacy in Amphibia because now we know it's not beetles if they're in plain ol' burgers (or maybe they COULD be if you prepare them right?)

Listen LISTEN, I HATE King Andrias for all his killing a 13 year old (especially MARCY!!) And not to mention all his COLONIZING but,,,

I think it's the cutest thing EVER that instead of just giving Marcy a message, he makes it into a puzzle for her to solve because! Marcy! Loves! Puzzles!

(But I do know he only does this not because he cares but because he wants to make her think that he does. That he does care for her and cares enough to set things up in ways that she likes. That he is only using her for her skills and brain. And because he is GROSS AND MEAN AND-)

Anne's ability to form such close knit bonds so easily and not to mention quickly (And half the time by accident) is something that I touched upon in the Season 1 analysis stew with Sasha!

I said that Sasha felt lesser in terms of relationships when compared to Anne. Because Anne can make these amazing relationships where people are willing to risk their lives for her, because Anne has this wonderful support system and Sasha doesn't (or, at least not at the time).

Sasha didn't have anyone to help hold her at Toad Tower but Anne did. Sasha didn't want to drag down one of the only people she actually cared about. She wants to PROTECT Anne, not see her hurt, suffering and struggling to hold her up.

And that is exactly how Marcy feels, or at least in a way. Marcy can't make relationships in the way Anne can. That's why she even tried her luck at the Calamity Box in the first place. Because moving is scary, because she will be away from her only friends, the only people who cared for HER, because she has trouble making friends and would NEVER be able to make any in a new school with new people and NO support system.

Marcy isn't like Anne. Sasha isn't like Anne. That's why Anne is the heart, that's why she's the emotional connection they need in their logical worlds.

I think Marcy, like she said in this episode, is jealous of Anne's friend-making ability. And Sasha, I think she just feels… inferior (but I guess that's jealousy as well) something she HATES feeling.

Matt Bradly himself even said that Marcy and Sasha have SEVERELY doubted Anne's abilities when they were still back on Earth.

But Amphibia changed that.

S2: E7 The Planters Check In

Kinda fucked up that Anne didn't help Marcy (And Andrias too I guess) with trying to find information on the Calamity Box.

Like, I know she can't translate ancient texts like Andrias and Marcy could but staying for some moral support could've been nice and also considering she just LEFT Marcy, who she hasn't seen for MONTHS, for days at a time to go hang out with the Planters.

But I know this is a regular thing for their friendship (plus Sasha) to leave Marcy to do the work for school like with group projects.

Anne: Just like group projects back home!

And damn, that royal Newtopia credit card can single handedly destroy Amphibia's entire economy.

So frogs can stick to things, newts can swim up and down streams like, super fast (just like amphibians in the real world) so what can toads do that are unique to them? Should I Google real life toads or did toads do something in Amphibia that I missed??

S2: E10 The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers

Aw wait, Marcy has plants?? That's?? So?? CUTE!!!!

Hop Pop is gonna have some me-time while Lady Olivia is gonna be in the kitchen drinking wine,,, these parents omg,,,

Hop Pop is a tired dad/grandpa and Olivia is a wine mom confirmed

I think it's so cute how Anne and Marcy are like the older kids while Sprig and Polly are just like Anne's younger siblings, just AGDKDKAJA

HHHHH DID LADY OLIVIA FALL ASLEEP READING

In the Heat of the Swamp

IS THAT A STEAMY, EROTIC ROMANCE NOVEL FOR MOMS???? WHAT!!!!

I LOVE HER SO MUCH

And not to mention she was knocked out in a rocking chair holding a margarita WITH SLIPPERS ON

SHE'S SUCH A MOM GUYS

Marcy: You know, some cultures believe that mirrors can ward off malevolent spirits Marcy: OR SUMMON THEM! (Maniacal laughter*

Marcy, you're too gosh darn cute to be scary even if you tried

Some of those spirit things came out of the coffins in the crypt, maybe they're the souls/spirits/ghosts of whoever died in those coffins?

Well if they are my next question is why are those bodies even down there in the first place and were those spirit things SUPPOSED to exist/be there?

Also, why are there moss men in the garden? And why are they chained up?

I think the moss men were created there, probably made by King Andrias or whoever to replace the robot army (that they didn't have for a while since their ancient technology was all gunked up at the time).

It also REALLY worries me that one of the tunnels in the basement (or let's be honest, the dungeon) leads to MARCY'S ROOM!! LIKE??? WHY????

Why do the reflection of the mirrors cause those spirit things to turn physical? Will this be important in the future? I think we all should remember this.

S2: E10 Day at the Aquarium

Ooooo!!! Let's take a look at this book, shall we??

Okay so on the left page, we see the 3 gems with their corresponding main attribute. The green is brains/wits, the blue is heart/passion, the pink is a fist/strength, yadda yadda yadda all stuff we know already

BUT what I found the most interesting is on the right page! There it shows small, simple pictures of the 3 temples which I found super cool!

But even cooler was the thing on the bottom left!! It looks kinda like a capsule, but it plays music apparently? My mind automatically jumped to the Skip Man but I doubt that it's supposed to be that.

Maybe it's something that has to do with the actual Calamity Box instead? Like, we know it technically is a music box too, maybe it's a device INSIDE of it that plays music and does something else as well?

Well, it has to be important if this is the page we're shown, right? I'm sure we'll see more of it in season 3!

Anne: Anytime I was feeling gloomy back home, the Aquarium would always make me feel better!

Aw, now I'm thinking about when Anne was back home and going to the Aquarium and just being so amazed by all the fish and stuff there. That's so cute,,,

I've watched before but it STILL pains me, the whole Marcy being SUPER hurt that Anne had just chosen the Planters instead of her but still let her go and even played it off like it was still the "most logical thing to do" as if like, 5 seconds ago she was saying the OPPOSITE

(I'm just a Marcy kin y'all)

The scene also reminds me sort of the whole thing with Sasha back at Toad Tower, how she let go of Anne.

Both Marcy and Sasha let Anne go. They both chose Anne over honestly, themselves.

Sasha was ready to straight up DIE to keep Anne from straining or hurting herself. And Marcy was willing to let Anne go, something she was so unwilling to do with both her friends which is the reason they're in Amphibia in the FIRST PLACE, just for Anne.

They both see how close Anne is with the Planters. They both know that she loves them and sees them as family and they… I think they honestly want what's best for Anne even if that thing isn't them.

I think those 2 scenes mirror and play off each other very well.

But honestly, the whole re-reunion with Anne and the Planters always makes me tear up,,, they care for each other so much,,,,

Andrias: Always sad to see someone go, isn't it? I have a proposition for you, Marcy. And I think you'll find it VERY interesting

Okay, wow manipulative jerk much? Andrias KNEW how much Marcy cared for her friends and KNEW that she was probably so SAD after watching Anne WILLINGLY choose the Planters over her.

He knew she was in a vulnerable state, he knew that she would agree to ANY plan if it meant not having to leave her friends again. He knew she trusted him and he knew he could get her to be his little pawn.

Just…

FUCK KING ANDRIAS

Me and my homies all hate him

S2: E13 Ivy on the Run

Okay really quick, ANNE WAS ALSO IN MUAY THAI???

So far, Anne plays varsity tennis, rock climbs, AND also did Muay Thai. Fucking JOCK

S2: E13 After the Rain

Okay so at the end, Hop Pop finally shows the others the book with the giant 'P' on the cover that had information about the Calamity Box

He said that it's been in his family for as long as he could remember (And he is around 68 years old so that's like 68+ years)

But why would the Planters have information of the Calamity Box?

Hmmmmmmm….

S2: E14 The First Temple

So right off the bat, when handed the Calamity Box, Marcy had pressed a couple things on it and music started playing which then caused the gems to be able to pop out of the top.

So there are OTHER things you can do with the box it seems and doing certain actions (besides opening it of course) can lead to different things happening and Marcy knows this!

This also means that Marcy knows OTHER things that the box can do, whatever she was doing in True Colours with opening the portal and saying something along the lines of "Okay, I just need to-!"

Marcy knows this box. She knows how to work it at least somewhat but that knowledge is still more than many characters combined.

Also, remember what I was talking about in A Day at the Aquarium? With that capsule looking thing that plays music? Well I speculated that it was probably something INSIDE the music box and guess what the music box just did before popping out those sweet gems?

Play music.

Now, I wanna say that maybe every time you do a different action on the Calamity Box, the box plays music but I can't be certain. Because during True Colours when Marcy had reopened the portal, no music was playing.

Granted that could have been because she was further away or maybe even because they were playing some super cool, dramatic and suspenseful music. But I dunno. Maybe?

Marcy: But don't worry because none of them were Marcy Wu!

Marcy: Head of the chess club, master RTS player, straight A student (except for gym because I was reading in class which only proves my point!)

HHHHH Am I looking too deeply into this or did she get the introduction/monologue from Yunan? (Please let me be right. Please let me be right. Please let me be right. Please let me-)

"Only the worthy will have the wisdom to choose. Whether it's more important to win or have the humility to lose"

"A choice was made to save thy friends and, honestly, doesn't that make you a winner in the end?"

Only so I REALLY liked how they handled the first temple. How they were testing not just intelligence but EMOTIONAL intelligence as well (because intelligence comes in different forms!!!) The humility and the wisdom to step down, to willingly lose in order to make the right choice, to realize that the lives of your friends are more important than any temple or puzzle.

They also showed this in the actual temple trials. How in the second and third trial you NEED more than one person in order to solve it. Hell, even in the first trial, those floating ball things happen to whoever was holding the cube, ANYONE could've done it, people could've taken turns trying to solve it!

This temple tests intelligence, and it also tests humility and priorities and co-dependence.

OH OH OH!!! ONE MORE THING!!!

Okay so I, like a ton of other people, have been thinking that the weird secret basement where The Night is was in that OTHER secret room that King Andrias and Marcy found during their research in Lost in Newtopia.

BUT I WAS WRONG!

The basement with The Night was in the Throne Room (And Andrias seems to be well aware of its existence) while the room that Andrias and Marcy found was in the Royal Library (And it looked like he didn't know about it, though it could've been a cover up but I don't think that, I think that's where they found info on the Calamity Box)

They're different rooms!! So I doubt Marcy knows ANYTHING about The Night OR about the secret room in the Throne Room.

And speaking of The Night… Rewatching this made me realize that The Night has… gears and screws and bolts. And like,,, wires. (BUT there are less wires here than there were in the Season 3 intro). So…

What the FUCK??

IS The Night a robot or at least was made with that ancient technology? Or maybe their life force is being kept alive by those metal parts and stuff?

King Andrias: The prophecy is being undone as we speak, my Lord. Soon, we will have our revenge

Okay so obviously we know the prophecy is where the holders of the 3 gems come together in an epic showdown and beat the shit out of the big baddies

But draining the stones force from the girls would mean they are unable to go all super saiyan which is what I'm assuming that was what Andrias meant when he talked about "undoing the prophecy"

Because making the girls unable to go super saiyan means they can't have the gems' powers and that means they can't try to stop the big baddies.

But we know that draining the stones' powers from the girls isn't needed to make the box take them home, if we look at Marcy during True Colours. She was able to open the portal without the blue gem's charge.

Charging the stones was never important to get Anne, Sasha, and Marcy home, it was important because it was going to prevent a prophecy.

S2: E17 The Second Temple

"But empathy alone isn't enough. For what is heart without responsibility?"

I really like this!!! I LOVE how for every temple, it focuses on the main attribute but then there is a secondary thing that makes you TRULY worthy!

Like with the first temple, Marcy was smart yes, she could get through all those puzzles easy. But what made her worthy wasn't her brain, it was her ability to make the right call and step back, losing to save those she cares about.

It's just like that with the second temple! Anne has the heart obviously, she's got grit and is passionate and not afraid to help and do what is right. But that alone isn't what made her so special. Her ability to own up to her actions, to take responsibility for them is what makes her so amazing!

And not to mention this is something she learned to do while IN Amphibia! Anne wasn't really one to admit she did something wrong and was always quick to pass the blame, but she's grown and matured here. Same with Marcy! I doubt back home Marcy would have EVER willingly lost or willingly get a bad grade on ANYTHING for ANYONE! They've both grown in little ways and I love it!

I also think it's super cool how the 3 trials for the heart stone were kinda like,,, low key. Like, you obviously couldn't KNOW it was the trials or you would obviously sacrifice your life for a stranger or to your warmth for your friends. They had to make sure that all your actions you were doing out of your own free will and your own morality.

S2: E17 Barrel's Warhammer

The whole thing with Sasha reassuring Percy and Braddock that if things get too wild, she'll stop the whole thing… But ended up NOT doing that…

I think that Sasha meant what she said, I think she really does care for the two of them and really did wanna make sure they were okay and not you know, scared or eaten.

But when push came to shove and Sasha was too focused on her goals and her own stuff, she didn't take into consideration their feelings. She was just too driven, too passionate, too CLOSE.

I think this was the kinda thing that probably happened a lot back home. Sasha obviously cares for Anne and Marcy and always wants to make sure they're okay but sometimes her care and protection can get too much, that sometimes she just does in the wrong way and ends up hurting them.

And not to mention that she has probably done the same thing with them as she did with Percy and Braddock. I wonder how many times Sasha had reassured Anne and Marcy that if things, no matter the situation, were too much or scary or risky or anything, she would stop and they could go do something else.

But it didn't happen. Sasha would get so caught up in it and just… not do it, she would go against her word because whatever they're doing was almost done it not that much or whatever ither reason she would say. And Anne and Marcy would just keep going even though they didn't want to because Sasha is the leader, because Sasha is their friend.

I don't think Sasha is a bad person, I don't think any of the girls are bad people. I just think they all are just flawed.

And also like, 13. What 13 year old is morally the best honestly?? Middle schoolers are the WORST and middle school judt fucking sucks for EVERYONE

S2: E18 The Third Temple

"You've definatly got skill no doubt, but it's time you learned what strength is all about"

*one epic fight scene later*

"Congrats, bruh! You finally what it takes to go the distance. For what is true strength without persistence?"

The third temple is about strength, no doubt about that obviously. But the most important attribute that accompanies true strength besides how much you could dead lift is, you guessed it, persistence!

Sasha has shown time and time again how much determination and grit she has. Hell, even in Barrel's Warhammer I even said how she can get so driven by her goals that it kinda becomes her downfall.

Because like intelligence comes humitly and empathy comes responsibility, strength needs persistence. The need to keep going, to keep pursuing even when all else is against you.

That's how we knew by the end of THIS episode that there is NO WAY Sasha was gonna go through with the rebellion. Because Grime said himself that there was "nothing stopping this rebellion now"

But there was, it's Sasha.

Because strength comes persistence. And if Sasha believes is happening shouldn't be happening, there is no WAY IN HELL THAT IT'S GONNA HAPPEN! NOT ON HER WATCH!

S2: 19 The Dinner

Nothing to really say about this episode besides that it's ONE OF MY FAVORITES (besides any Marcy centric episodes and True Colours)

Also I think it's ADORABLE how the girls are all wearing clothes that kinda show where they were transported to.

Sasha has army from Toad Tower. Marcy has teal/aquamarine robes with even a pink sea shell on the collar, which is literally what everyone wears in Newtopia. And Anne has a cute, simple outfit with flowers to show Wortwood.

It's just cute :)

S2: 20 True Colours

I honestly didn't think I'd have anything to talk about for this episode that hasn't been said 1000000x better by other people on this site but I think I got something!

The Calamity Box doesn't send people home by just opening it again like how the girls did when they firdt got transported to Amphibia.

Granted, I'm sure someone has said that already and I already did touch upon it but I'm saying it again.

The Calamity Box doesn't need to be completly or even partly charged to transport people.

The gems use is to take away the power from the holders, to prevent them from going all super saiyan not to charge the box for it to work.

We know this because even with all the gemstones charged when Sasha opened the box, nothing happened. And at the end, Marcy was able to open a portal with the blue stone not fully charged.

Marcy KNOWS how to open the portals and I bet she learned how to when her and Andrias found that secert library wing and info on the box.

AND AGAIN!!!

When Andrias takes the box, he presses a couple things on the top which is the thing that sets forth that giant laser on top of the palace that blows up Toad Tower.

This box can do a LOT more than we ever thought…

Overall Notes and Season 3 predictions

Okay so first of all, I hate Andrias but DAMNIT HIS VILLAN BUILD UP WAS SOOOOO GOOD!!!

I mean starting with his very first sort of appearance, where we see him watching over the others from his castle window. And it's all dark and he moves his flipwort pieces and stuff!! AAAA!!

And then in episode 7 where they get the message/puzzle from him via arrow and Hop Pop screams, "AH! SOMEONE'S TRYING TO KILL US!" Like YES HE IS GUYS!!!

And Marcy is autistic, OBVIOUSLY! As someone who is autistic as well, I see a LOT of my own habits and tendencies in her! Her avoidance of eye contact, hyperfocusing or The Zone, her hyperfixations, her need of constant stimuli, RAPTOR ARMS!!!!

And who could forget...

Anne: Who says there has to be one [sleepover] queen?

Marcy: everyone. That's kinda how the whole system works, Anne

SHE TAKES THINGS SO LITERALLY!!!

I just love her guys,,,, can you tell she's my favorite?

Alright before I get too sidetracked with talling about Marcy, let me get into what I think may be in store for season 3!

LET'S BEGIN!!!

Okay so first of all, the Season will start sorta slow, not TOO much plot driven things will happen in probably the first couple episodes.

And I doubt we'll be seeing anything of Marcy until maybe episode 4 or 5 honestly.

I think the first episode will start with Anne and the Planters trying to hide from the world, maybe they're getting waaaay too much attention and need to lay low.

Then it'll end with them making it to Anne's house and the second episode will start from there.

The next 2 or 3 episodes from there will be with the Boonchuy's and the Planter's getting used to each other, maybe with a TINY TINY cut to what Sasha and Grime are doing.

Speaking of Sasha and Grime, I think that they escape the King and get the FUCK out of Newtopia, leaving Lady Olivia and General Yunan behind with the agreement they will be more like leaks or the inside you know?

Sasha and Grime will definatly then start to head back to Wortwood, but this traveling could take place over the course of a couple episodes but I predict they may get there in around episode 5 or 6, maybe 7.

But anyway, I think Anne may think about everything that went down in True Colours, maybe while explaining to her parents what happened and they'll all start to think about what the FUCK did she do back there with the whole turning blue thing.

Which would then lead to Anne trying to learn how to control it.

Anne will probably be taking the Planters out to show them her world, with disguises of course. But it won't last long as it seems that the news or the government are gonna be after them.

And those 2 mechanic girls, I think they'll be helping Polly rebuild Frobo.

And the girl with the blue hair looks kinda young, I think she's a practicing doctor or something. I bet she'll be like a doctor who's gonna check Anne out to figure out how she turned blue (with very little answers of course)

And back on Amphibia, Marcy's probablt gonna be in that tube for a while and the next time we see her will probably be her waking up from it. (Which could be anywhere from episodes 5 to maybe even 8)

I DO think that she's the one controlling that robot thing that was chasing them in the Season 3 intro, there was a camera. But I have no idea why she would be so there's some holes in the theory…

Also, I really don't think The Night is gonna be controlling Marcy. I think her brain is way too valuable to just,,, control. It'll be taking away her only "use" so to speak (I don't think Marcy is only food for how smart she is, just to be clear). Plus, if The Night was gonna control someone, you would think it was be the big beef cake Andrias.

So I think she doesn't really remember what happened during True Colours (with Andrias' betrayal) and is just getting manipulated again by Andrias

So when Sasha and Grime get back to Wortwood, they're gonna lead a rebellion with the frogs, toads and the newts, officially uniting them all against their king.

Anne is gonna be on Earth, dealing with the things that are getting sent there by King Andrias (And potentially Marcy?) While learning to control her blue power thing.

And Marcy is gonna be helped by Anne and Sasha I think. Like reminded of all the shit that went down and then the 3 of them are gonna take down Andrias TOGETHER!!! :D

And I'm HOPING to get a super saiyan for Sasha and Marcy!!!

I dunno how Sasha will unlock her's but I think Marcy May be able to unlock her power when she finally realizes how fucked up Andrias is. Like taking back control of her feelings and refusing to be manipulated any longer by finally remembering what happened during True Colours.

Anyway, this is just my take and may not even happen but I'm still excited for season 3 nonetheless!

I hope you enjoyed my Amphibia Season 2 stew!!!

#amphibia #anne boonchuy #hopadiah plantar #hop pop #sprig planter #polly planter #sasha waybright #Marcy wu #king andrias #season 2 #analysis #my ramblings

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