#and then proceed to Expand the analysis | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

springsmile · 8 months ago

Text

over my shoulder || 03

18+ | h. shinso x f. reader

series masterlist.

warnings: non-con, smut, pre-established trauma (r*pe), extreme anxiety/paranoia, victim blaming/shaming, abuse of prescriptions, self harm, suicidal ideation, disassociation, negativity around hospitalization, violent intrusive thoughts, kidnapping, murder, specific reader characterizations, manipulation, anorexia/bulimia behaviors

** reader's quirk is enhanced senses. upon activation, emotions and sensations are pretty much exacerbated. reader never learns how to channel or control it to its full potential, only to turn it on and off.

one time is a coincidence, twice is… an oddity?

your door is open again— well, you’d left it open, but it was acute angularly. you only leave it open a crack.

was there a draft? you raise your hand in the air, and unwittingly activate your quirk, heightening your sense of touch. the flow of air is ordinary, breezing around your hand slowly, and with a cheap low pressure.

there’s nothing, as such. it wasn’t as though you could afford a better ac system.

everything was in its right place. the knick-knacks cluttering your windowsill, your bedsheets creased in the corners, comforter balled in a misshapen lump in the center— everything was eerily correct… to your knowledge, at least. as if time had never raked across it. your stomach tightens, and you shift your gaze to the bathroom door, equally as ajar.

your scale is still slotted against the toilet, and while the occasional meeting of the porcelain and the glass did make you wince, it was more accessible in that position. upon further analysis, even the curtain was drawn back and the fabric ripples. it might’ve been a touch juvenile, but the ever-present fear of a form appearing shadowy from behind the polka-dots was stifling.

still having been equipped with your quirk, your gaze becomes more intent, hardening with each blink. it’s still bunched to the left, and is just that. still.

your quivering hand hovers in the air for a pregnant pause, suspended by uncertainty and fright. you inhale, which does nothing to quell your rampant heart, and seize the curtain—but when you pull it toward yourself, nothing is there. just the protective plastic and cheap design.

but when you drop your head on your pillow that night, your head encounters some light difficulty committing your habitual tossing. you lift your head, and peer down. bemused, your fingers ghost over your bare pillow.

there’s a new girl at work.

company policy, which you’ve been forced to commit to memory, states that hair must be a solid color, and a natural color at that. her hair is anything but. there's raccoon tails and pastels melting together, done indisputably by her hand, but adds to her charm and absent-minded character.

seniority rules, and so, it's decided she spends her first day with you. Initially, she begins her introduction by informing you the cheese danishes in the store's cafe were her drug, proceeded to mime snorting a line of coke. your laugh is ungodly at best, and your throat airily expands with the sound. clarity hit her seconds later, where she meekly asks you not to tell your superiors she said that.

"don't tell me you're an op, y/n." she murmurs to you with pressed palms.

"umm... i'm not?"

she proceeds to make small, correctable errors, and hits it off with the customers. you study her rapport with apt awe. every so often, she runs her fingers along the glossy spines of moby dick and war and peace whenever we pass them, and she remains there for a pregnant pause.

your breaks aligned, as she would be shadowing you for the day. the break room is desolate, save for her and you, and a shade of white that elicits a vague memory of TV static before your eyes. in your periphery is the equally disconcerting bright phone screen in yuka’s hands (nails a collection of color that don’t compliment the other in any particular way) that stains your side view. but you can make out the familiar formatting of the tumblr website. her phone ringer is on, so as her thumbs flit across the bottom of the bright glass, it goes something like ‘pcka-pcka-pcka’ but you’d have to produce a sound with your mouth that required you to press your lips together and suck them in, in order to replicate it correctly.

you like her.

you might’ve assumed kinship due to her appearance— it's anything but conventional. or maybe it's her manner. quick, blunt, but doused with sweet sincerity;

“so, it turns out that’s not how you pronounce it–I think that’s where the disconnect occurred.” she’d stated matter of factly, but there wasn’t a trace of animosity.

with darkened eyes, the customer’s mouth protrudes. his upper lip furls into a snarl.

“No. It’s accor-di-ance.” he insisted.

“accordance.” she said with a gentle smile. “but it’s alright–we found it! I hope you enjoy it.”

he left contentedly, despite his earlier erroneous insistence. flummoxed, you remained silent during the exchange. selfishly, you didn’t feel the need to interject. that, and you deduced that yuka capable enough to sort out the issue herself.

either way, it's difficult not to acquiesce her boba tea date request. you have some leftover money from making rent early, and it's not like you had anyone to call a friend.

it could be a safe change. hopefully. you’d take the leap. what could go wrong?

"if you were boba–with the pearls–you would be taro. just because I like the color. It's pretty. just like you." yuka says in the midst of alphabetizing and brain-racking. you’d been section detailing fiction. yanking out titles that didn't belong in the various shelves, or were in the wrong order. tedious, but it wasn't hard.

the warm flush that encompasses your cheeks is alarming— you hold them in your hands dazedly.

"oh." you utter stupidly. "thank you."

she giggles, and you’re instantly envious of its melodiousness.

“what section is this in?”

you pull out the device that displays inventory and genre, and twist the book around, where the scanner is particularly blinding, and survey the tiny print.

“social sciences.” you answer, watching the screen illuminate her gentle features.

she bites her bottom lip—it’s plump and full, swollen with color and life. “where’s that again, (y/n)?”

the shelves stood half way to the ceiling, and it was difficult to see around them. but you could navigate the labyrinth with ease. and so you weaved your way through the bays and yielded to a few elderly patrons, before halting upon the social sciences section.

“remember that the subsections aren’t labeled. you’ll figure it out by eyeballing the titles carefully.” you say. something about her charisma and unconventionality brought you solace, and a smidge of relaxedness.

she raises her wrist and inspected her watch.

“it’s time for our break now, isn’t it?” she asks fervently.

you crack a tentative grin at her. “it’s 5 already? then yeah, go on.”

“y/n!” a barista calls out with plum crescents under her eyes. you stand from your ornately ivory wired seat— you have angry red imprints on the backs of your thighs— and retrieve your sugary boba tea.

admittedly, you’d never really liked that herby-earthy taste. but something about the sparkling excitement in yuka’s eyes made you inclined to spend a minute amount.

she watches you earnestly, waiting for you to slurp up the pearls and taro. you do, and you unsuccessfully suppress a cringe.

“it’s not bad.” you lie, still working on chewing the onslaught of saccharine.

she studies your face for a few seconds, before leaning back in her chair with a pout. “you hate it.”

you nod solemnly. “i do.”

her chest heaves with a hearty laugh, eyes crinkling in the corners and mouth falling half open. her teeth are aligned perfectly. you wondered if she’d had braces.

“i appreciate you trying to spare my feelings, but don’t force yourself to drink it. i can give you the money back for it—“

“no.” you interject, pausing when you realize the harshness of your tone. “no.” you soften. “don’t even worry. i got it.”

she didn’t seem deterred by your insistence, but relinquished anyway with a sigh.

“alright, y/n.” she huffs. “you win this time. next time, i’ll treat you.”

you smile small. “okay.”

you fall into light conversation about your boss, who flirts with all the girls staffed.

“when i was taking out a book off of the bookseller favorites display, he told me he’d ‘fill my hole.’” you scowl. “fuckin’ weirdo. why would he say it that way?”

yuka giggles, hiding her smile behind a heavily ringed hand.

“i can’t believe there’s so much drama at my new workplace! you have to keep me updated, y/n. i’ll let you know if he says any pervy shit to me.”

you marvel at her words. this was an invitation. to friendship? you weren’t positive. but it was the start of something new. and for once, the potential of change didn’t frighten you.

words flowed with great ease past your tongue, much to your shock. her very character assuaged your nerves, briefly, and you’d spoken more than you had in months.

out of nowhere, your hair stands on the back of your unexpectedly. you throw your chin over your shoulder, attempting to glimpse the cause of your paranoia. but besides the bustle of patrons, there was nothing you could pick out.

“you okay?” yuka asks concernedly, eyebrows pinched at the middle.

“yup.” you answer unconvincingly. “just fine.”

#shinso x reader #hitoshi shinso imagine #shinsou smut #hitoshi shinso x reader #yandere bnha #yandere mha #yandere shinso

81 notes · View notes

paceywittters · 5 months ago

Text

yes, i do think lucy has fault in their relationship breakdown - happy to talk about that elsewhere if you want

okay, so @to-the-east asked me to expand on this thought from my other post and while i know this is an unpopular opinion on a beloved character, i don’t mind talking about it (even if it’s become a really polarizing thing for the rookie fandom). the fact that lucy's flaws get looked over in favor of constant praise for her actions is kind of odd to me.

a note before you see how long this is: this is just my opinion about a tv show, i am allowed to have it just like you are allowed to have yours! if you don't agree with me that is ok i will be fine and so will you. please don't come at me for typing my little essays, if you've been here long enough u know i just like to yap.

also just to be clear: i think lucy's a great character. i think she's good at her job. she deserves happiness personally and professionally in whatever way that looks like for her. i also, however, recognize that as a three-dimensional character, lucy's flawed - and i like that she's flawed. i want the show to delve further into those flaws the way they do with basically every other character rather than pretending they're not there. me saying lucy has flaws is not an attack on her character. it is observation and analysis of the source material. that is all.

ok now you may proceed if you want lol

some chenford fans looked at the breakup in season six and saw tim’s issues, tim’s faults, tim’s lies, etc. as the root cause - and they were absolutely part of the cause, but there were bigger things at play than just what was happening in the moment. tim’s knee-jerk reaction to his deception/inability to see himself in his actions/breach of his moral code during 6x06 was to break up with lucy, because he didn’t know who he was. he couldn’t trust himself with himself, so he certainly couldn’t trust himself with her. we’ve all heard this a hundred times over, i’m sure, but it’s worth repeating because i actually think the breakup happening like this did a major disservice to the characters. while i wanted a breakup, after sitting with the way it’s played out, this breakup didn’t scratch the itch for me, so to speak.

throughout the end of season 5 and the beginning of season 6, tim and lucy both wind up facing a major shift in their lives. they decide to be together in 5x08/5x09, and this is where we begin to see the…lack of consequences, more or less, for lucy’s actions specifically.

just to reiterate, because i'm about to sound harsh: i want lucy to succeed, and i want her to grow. i am not trying to say lucy should have to face consequences for things while others shouldn’t - this isn’t meant to be a comparison to anyone else in the cast, but an analysis of what we’ve seen laid out in front of us.

throughout the show’s run, lucy’s had fairly good luck when it comes to not facing disciplinary action when she should’ve - but this goes absolutely batshit crazy in season 5 and 6. in the span of a season, lucy:

breaks up with her boyfriend of at least 6 months who has been expressing interest in living with her, giving little to no reason re: why (regardless of how you feel about chris, this should've have some kind of consequence or challenge attached)

begins dating her superior officer in secret without disclosing that information appropriately despite knowing she is supposed to legally (skirting around rules, ultimately without any consequence)

devises an inter-departmental swap with a group of colleagues in order to find a way to benefit her personal life without consulting tim, who this would directly impact (she does eventually face a professional consequence for this, but not a personal one)

expresses no remorse to tim when she gets caught and he is, rightfully, irritated (she quite literally says “sorry, not sorry”)

learns that someone within the inter-departmental swap is not happy that she’s manipulated a bunch of people for her personal gain and doesn’t seem to understand this is a problem (again, she will eventually face a consequence with this - but does not appear to understand why, which is the issue)

continuously appears to understand that her boyfriend, who has baggage surrounding undercover work, is struggling with her decisions but is trying to put on a brave face and doesn’t call him out for a lack of communication (to be clear, this part is very much also on tim - in moments even more so than lucy - but we’ll get to that later)

picks fights with her boyfriend for doing his job/treating her like his colleague when she has directly asked him to do so (i will not be engaging on the discourse surrounding tim's behavior in 6x01 other than to say that lucy asked him to behave like a TO and he did)

pushes her boyfriend again on his stance on undercover work when he’s openly trying to resolve his issues with it in order to keep their relationship stable (6x01/6x02 pre lie detector test is wild)

makes some deeply dangerous and mostly unnecessary calls that put her in extreme danger in order to make herself stand out because she doesn’t feel she’s getting enough recognition at work (lucy getting that dinged up radio as a trophy was sweet but we veer away from the fact that lucy quite literally chose to do something she didn't need to for kudos and could've died because of it - instead, we see her praised and applauded for her efforts without any ounce of "but you didn't have to do all that")

ignores the fact that she knows going into her detective’s exam that one of the proctors is not in favor of her, and then doesn’t anticipate the fact that it will impact her score/opportunities moving forward (again - this is a time where she does face a consequence, but does not anticipate it whatsoever, which i think is part of the problem)

and that’s just the big stuff. lucy consistently doesn’t face consequences for her actions - the detective’s exam thing is probably one of the few times i feel like i’ve seen her actually find herself in a pickle due to something she’s finagled. i love the fact that lucy can be crafty and creative, it’s one of the things i enjoy the most about her character…but a lot of the writing in the last season or so has felt less to me like she’s being crafty or creative, and more like she’s just skirting any legitimate consequences for her actions/ignoring any faults she’s shown as she’s moved through this phase of her career. even when she does have to face her decisions head-on, lucy often winds up trying to justify her behavior rather than admitting she was just...deeply over-achieving, or trying to do something to better her situation. she rarely sees a consequence coming, which is confusing when her character is clearly someone who can analyze situations for others.

with that being said, let’s get to this part: tim and lucy had problems before their breakup, and neither of them wanted to talk about them. think about the back half of season 5 - we see tim struggling with lucy’s uc work, lucy struggling to talk to tim about it or get him to own up to his feelings.

early on in season 6 we see them confront this a little, but it comes to no resolution whatsoever - and while it’s tim’s problem with lucy’s uc work, lucy chooses to act like that’s the only problem in their relationship. in 6x02, tim’s discomfort with uc work is treated like it’s their biggest issue when we as viewers know that there have been multiple times lucy’s just straight up lied to/withheld information from tim, either because she doesn’t think he needs to know or doesn’t want him to be in the know. lucy’s long-preached having great communication skills/knowing that open honest communication (5x18) is the key to her relationship with tim…but she doesn’t actually practice it.

lucy, unfortunately, is a bad communicator who thinks she’s a lot better at sharing her own feelings than she is. lucy is good at facilitating communication for others - it's a major skill of hers - but she's far less in touch with her own self, and we've seen that many times through the course of the show.

seeing her refuse to acknowledge her faults to tim, who she’s supposed to be sharing herself with fully, is a struggle throughout the beginning of season 6 - and so the tension was brewing for chenford when tim’s whole past-life-army-drama came into play.

now, here’s the thing: tim also has some serious baggage that he brings into this relationship (and just being real, in your 30s/beyond who is not bringing baggage into a relationship? i would be offended if they didn’t) and he has his own level of fault. the direct cause of their breakup in 6x06 is a tim thing. he’s not communicative, he’s a people pleaser (this is what i meant when i said we’d get into that later - tim’s people pleasing tendencies, esp in interpersonal relationships, are huge, to the point that he needed to be hooked up to a lie detector to even really grasp that he had issues with lucy going uc. that man gaslights himself into thinking things sometimes, and he’s always going to try to be amenable to the people he loves because he doesn’t want to lose them - which is a big flaw and a big reason why he broke up with lucy, but i digress), and he’s the kind of bitch that self-sabotages. things got difficult and he fucked up and he took himself out of the equation because leaving is easier than getting left - which, honestly, is probably a new feeling for tim.

but. this is about lucy, and the fault she has in the breakdown of their relationship. to be clear: they share fault. they are very much both at fault for the breakdown of their relationship (again - the direct break up was tim’s call, but we’re talking about what led to that), and i don’t think either of them grasps it just yet.

lucy has become used to getting her way more often than not (not all the time, obv, but enough) and if she doesn’t get her way directly, she can usually find a path into what she wants without much consequence. she doesn’t speak directly about her feelings or find herself probing for the feelings of others in tough situations where she’s directly involved. it's a strange dichotomy for lucy, who comes from such a psychology heavy background - and i often think it's one of the most interesting parts of her character, but the way she's been written in the last season and a half has really brought to light how misused it feels as a trait when she doesn’t see it.

so, tl;dr: lucy has flaws in her communication style and often finds herself lucky enough not to face the consequences of her actions, so when they do crop up at times, she's gutted by them. her chronic over-achieving has become her fatal flaw, as she's often trying to overdo things to make herself look good, rather than taking a step back to actually consider situations. while we can see these things on screen, they’re not addressed by the show which can be frustrating.

these qualities of lucy’s wrapped up in a bow make for her own set of issues that lent directly to the slew of issues that simmered into a boil of a breakup for chenford. while i don't think lucy was the whole problem by any means, i'm also not going to put that fully on tim. i want lucy to be able to grow and change and receive recognition for her work in a meaningful way, but without actually focusing on her flaws and acknowledging them, i don't really see how the rookie can do that in a way that serves the character.

ok don't hate me bye

#chenford #the rookie #tim x lucy #again i am going to say first and foremost sorry this is literally an essay #second please do not bother engaging if you are just here to fight with me bc i have caveated the fuck out of this #these are my opinions and you do not have to agree with or like them #no one who works on the rookie or is associated with the show will ever read this so it really is not anything you need to worry about #also i love lucy chen and i want her to be the three dimensional character she deserves to be and that is why i have written this diatribe #disregard what time i am posting this lol #anyway. sorry! bye!

55 notes · View notes

storgicbytes · 10 months ago

Text

ahem. cracks knuckles.

you know what time it is boy

highlights of attacking the innocent (also balling): general analysis of influencer arc episode 1

(so. the green onceler arc might be actually real)

THIS EPISODE WAS SO SICK. the animation????the music??????? the 3D CYBERSPACE??????????? MWAH chefs kiss . and the most interesting new thing: new character to play dolls with (thank you everyone who put their 5 cents in and shared a braincell: calling him greenscreen)

and. god.

the 3d insides of the computer box and programs... GOD !!!!!! GOD !!!!!!!!!!!! THIS IS WHAT I LIVE FOR BABY!!!!!!!!

i NEED to find out the dimensions of it.

the way the ab team decided to expand on the 3d perspective just like this is. oh my lird

personally this means SO MUCH for me as the #1 lover of the "internet is walkable" trope. one of the main reasons why i adore avam so much

more points on that: the icons dont seem to.. "gain shape" until they're interacted with: in this case picked up by the cg. another point: sticks need to apply force to an icon to open an app . swag

additional note: the episode itself seems to begin in sticksfight?? or just a random table that was drawn

additional note electric boogaloo: green seemed to hit the CEILING when performing his ballin movement. is the gui of the computer really not that high?? and.

where are the doors. where are. where is the backstage that the sticks constantly come out of. hello

the way they interact with adobe premiere is SO SO interesting. the whole process of videomaking in the universe is something im gonna be thinking of for a GOOD while

(small note: i know sticks own hammerspace and can basically bring out anything but. is the red cape the red fabric green used in the matador short?

now, onto our new character

greenscreen seemed to appear out of the adobe video being overloaded? with effects n unnecessary sfx and clipping masks and such, causing it to glitch. in fact, adobe itself warned to proceed with caution the second the cg put too much stuff into it.

honestly, we can always put this monent into the "something glitchy-fucked happens and there are consequences" category, with the consequences just happening to be a new guy (thank you so much whoever did that). but worldbuilding wise, how exactly did it manifest? did the excessive amount of effects and glitches.. shape a creature into existence? with it taking the appearance of green as the main character that appeared in the video the most. sort of like a puzzle to create a being?

what's interesting, the screen focuses on the cg throwing the video away before the sequence with it gaining sentience by taking the form of green starts.

now, the main thing about the fight scene to me is how greenscreen took all of his movements/actions from the video itself,

and how many people have already pointed out, is that..

he doesn't seem to have wanted to attack in the first place.

screen, from the beginning of his existence only possessed powers/moves that green & cg themselves have shown in the video. and of course, the main point of the video itself was fighting a monster — obviously filling up the video, the whole essence of the character, with mostly that. his whole being was shaped up that way.

screen might've tried acting friendly, or neutral at least — but the whole way the video, a fighting video, was jumbled with glitches kind of.. forced him not to exhibit any other behaviour. perhaps, if not for these glitches, he could've controlled his own actions — he would still know the most of the world from the video, but at least, if he wanted to fight — he could control it. and do it himself, if he wanted.

(additional note: greenscreen seems to glitch everytime he's hit, also.)

the time he does attack, himself — is when he is cornered, and has been shown nothing but violence from others.

woah that pal has some seeerious issues to get under control ! anyways, onto other highlights of the video! (/silly)

the new video did a WONDERFUL job at showcasing the cg's fighting style in a new, clear manner. the gang regained the weapons they have wielded in the first part of "wanted", but in another form.

orange, equipped with the classic brush tool, seems to be mostly focused on defense. (regaining the previous defense styles based on the last parts of wanted & avm s3!)

red seems to focus on melee and hand-to-hand fighting,

blue, classic: fighting at a distance with the bow.

yellow seems to also fight at a certain distance, but it is only a hand's reach: enough to hit, enough to not get hit. (this also heavily reminds me of yellow's behavior with the staff, where in fight she has mostly hung out in the middle: aiming and attacking from a certain distance.)

i'm not particularly sure what category to put green in, also taking in his usage of the rod in avms3 and a .. gun. in the beginning of wanted. but his moves are the most agile and sharp (literally) out of the crew.

a bit of the video i am . Really interested in

finding out about his adobe-abilities, screen consumed other bits of the program to use it for attacking. including posterizing time, which is not only a quite strong ability in on itself, but!

..also seemed to affect other sticks, while he, himself — was unaffected by time.

the move seems to be incredibly powerful??? like. if it was that easy for a glitched video to consume parts of adobe, use it for his own powers, to a point of manipulating time???

damn. the cg basically created an adobe demigod????????

another supposition i have onto why it worked on sticks: the cg were drawn themselves, and drawn in adobe flash, therefore being interacted with as symbols whether they were affected because of just being drawn beings themselves, or because of some kind of influence all adobe programs might have on each other — their creation itself is probably the reason for this. (once again. they created a killer machine and provoked it itself!!!!!! damn pick a struggle!!!!!/j)

the episode finishes off amazingly in my opinion by the cg recreating and using the basketball movements they learned when filming their first video. they Slamdunked a stick. good lord

anyways. FEEL FREE TO ADD ON TO THIS POST WHATEVER YOU WANT !!! i appreciate all notes !!!! :D

#this episode us everything to me im cradling it like my own baby child #rubs hands together.#time to tie all of it into victim youtube loop theory #animator vs animation #alan becker #animation vs minecraft #animation vs animator #green influencer arc #anim vs #avs #storgesinsaneramblings #ava theory

78 notes · View notes

phantombanquet · 1 year ago

Text

Main Story: Diasomnia Book Chapter 8 Episode 7-117: Preparation for Departure! (Translation)

Episode 7-117

⚠️ Major Diasomnia spoilers! Proceed with caution.

translation by: phantombanquet

Idia: MALLEUS-SHI, HUH~~~~!

THIS GRUDGE… SHOULD I LEAVE IT UNSETTLED~~!! ¹

If that happens, that pretentious inexpressive² guy, who usually keeps up his strong chara moves up in his sleeves…..

I can't help but feel sorry for myself if I don't see his pathetic figure sobbing with a runny nose and begging for forgiveness!

Now, what should I do…… Heh… Ehehehehehe!

Ortho: W-What a malicious scheming face…

This… May have angered someone who shouldn't be angered~

Idia: Heheh…… I'll show you. The ultimate power of a lone wolf³ trained in the gloomy “underworld.”

Just you wait, Malleus Draconia……

I'LL GET REVENGE BY SEIZING YOUR SPECIAL WEAKNESS!!!

Ortho: ……That's all.

From the magical disaster caused by Malleus Draconia until the awakening of Idia Shroud. This concludes the progress report.

Grim: Oohh~~! While we were fightin’ over in Lilia's dream, that's what happened to you guys.

Silver: I see. So Idia-senpai and Ortho are outside of the magical realm. It means that there is support coming from the real world.

Idia: Y-Yeah, t-that sort of thing…… Well, for now, we'll be playing a dummy video on the surveillance camera for a short while……

I can only do this much.

Sebek: So, even if you have woken up, Malleus-sama will fail to notice and the “darkness” will not attack you.

Ortho: Yes.. And like I said earlier, Malleus-san is currently……

Focused on putting Lilia Vanrouge-san to sleep.

So, I expect that he has not traced down the whereabouts of Silver-san and the others.

Sebek: Hm. I honestly want to praise your skills, but it is quite complicated when you are outsmarting Malleus-sama……

Idia: Well, that other guy is a battleship-like⁴ cheater so… We're still far off from completely capturing him.

Silver: However… I had no idea that Malleus-sama continued to expand his magical realm beyond the island……

Sebek: Furthermore, if the area is forcibly destroyed from the outside, there is a possibility that the trapped person's psyche could also become destroyed!?

Grim: Somehow it's a real mess for real.

[Choice 1] Yuu: Can we do something about this?

[Choice 2] Yuu: (If this continues on, Tsunotarou will become the enemy of mankind.)

Ortho: Yes. That's why we need your power!

Silver: Our… Power?

Ortho: Currently, the S.T.Y.X. staff is working together to assign ID numbers to the dreams of those trapped in the magical realm.

During that time, we captured your magical reaction as you “moved around on your own” in the dream.

Silver: Could it be that it was my “Meet in a Dream?”

It's my unique magic that allows me to cross between dreams……

Ortho: Yes! That one, that one!

When traces of someone moving from one human dream to another were discovered, the engineers at S.T.Y.X. were in a commotion.

So that was Silver-san's unique magic, after all. Magic is a really mysterious power, huh.

Silver: However, my magic is to reliably travel to the dream of the person I'm targeting after, like you guys. I can't call someone into my dream.

I don’t know what else to say; it's hard to explain… It's a very intuitive kind of magic……

That’s why I was really surprised when Ortho appeared in the Dream Corridor and led us here.

Ortho: What are you saying?

S.T.Y.X. prides themselves on their super computers and experts in magical engineering and magical analysis.

They tried their best to analyze magic and they finally found a way to travel from dream to dream.

Moreover, it is difficult to say that the current method is 100% reproducible so they said: “it's still a beta version.”

The mere fact that you can do it intuitively is astonishing.

Sebek: Hm. So the “power” that you need is Silver's unique magic?

Ortho: That's a part of it, too, but…

Sebek Zigvolt-san, Grim-san, and Yuu-san, your cooperation is essential.

Grim: Hmph! You're just trying to make us do the messy work, aren't ya!

Ortho: Wow♡ Grim-san, you talk too fast.

[Choice 1] Yuu: This pattern is similar to the headmage……

[Choice 2] Yuu: I don't see any other reason to be called out……

Sebek: Hmph, I don't like this sluggishness. Get to the point!!

Idia: S-So, uhhh……. While you guys were chattering in Lilia-shi's dream..

I-I was trying to think of a way to escape from my dream world……

Or rather, I've been trying to come up with a strategy to deal with Malleus-shi.

[Choice 1] Yuu: Is your strategy to get him to cry and beg for forgiveness while his nose is runny?

[Choice 2] Yuu: Is it a strategy to take revenge by capturing their special weakness?

Idia: Y-Yeah. That… Hih, hihi.

Anyhow, I made a video to explain that strategy…… W-Would you like to watch it?

Grim, Silver, Sebek: Video?

Idia: Waah~♪ Only good things have been happening lately~ It's so fun every day~ It's just like a dream~♬ Well. It was, in fact, really just a dream. Welcome, all you carefree people who live in the world of empty dreams. I am Idia Shroud. So for today, a cheat trick to create a dream world using magic — — was used by The Most Evil☆Final Boss Mage. Let me explain the strategy used by Malleus-shi. The magical realm that Malleus-shi created is kinda like a server running a huge MMORPG. And each dream of someone sleeping is managed individually. Malleus-shi is using himself and his alter ego to keep an eye on this server. To give you an idea, Malleus-shi is a server admin. And his alter ego is cracking down on users to commit violations in the online game — like a gamemaster. Malleus-shi, with the authority to operate and manage over the entire server, is currently in the state of a demon king who has the world right under his thumb.

Under Malleus-shi's control, we have NO chance of succeeding…… BUT! Because of the super geek hacker group S.T.Y.X. and Ortho's attack, all of the server's source code (construction formulas of the magical realm) has been analyzed and is now completely visible!

So — I'm going to use that data from my dream to develop and build a cheat tool. And then get rid of that damned invulnerable status! It seems like a perfect strategy at first glance, but in fact, there’s actually a flaw in this cheat strategy……. If Malleus-shi (the server admin) discovers this during development— IT'S GAME OVER IN AN INSTANT. But hold your horses! Despite that his alter ego uses autonomous magic, with the total population of Sage Island, monitoring and managing the dreams of about 20,000 people is not an easy task — even for Malleus-shi. If a problem happens here and there in your dream, there's a high chance that you'll have to deal with it by yourself! Therefore — I’ll be developing a cheat tool. I want you guys to catch Malleus-shi's eye and gather party members so we can subdue the demon king.

When everyone wakes up, we'll hand out invite codes that will allow them to travel to my dream.

Then, when all the preparations are ready, Malleus-shi will be lured to my dream and that's when the cheat tool that I developed turns on!! As planned, Malleus-shi's invulnerability will be canceled. And by using the invite codes that were diligently handed out, everyone will gather in my dream! We're going to beat him up with our sheer numbers of forces!

If things go as expected, Malleus-shi will also lift the spell and free us—! How was it!? “A lone wolf magician engineering guy explains how to capture the demon king in three minutes video.” If you think this video was good, leave a like! And this was Idia Shroud.

Grim, Silver, Sebek: ............

Idia: Ummm, e-everyone�� Thank you for your attention. ⁵

Th-that’s why……

I ask you guys to go on a journey to gather “the strongest party members who will take on the challenge of defeating the demon king!”

Grim, Silver, Sebek: EHHHHH~~~!?

TO BE CONTINUED...

translator notes:

¹ - 「この怨はらさでおくべきか」 is an old Kansai (Osaka) dialect phrase. This phrase, although it seems like one will forever hold a grudge, actually means something along the lines of: “Shall I leave this grudge unresolved? (No, I actually have to solve this),” due to how the phrase is structured (which would be too deep to delve into but it’s mainly because of the か and べき/べし in the phrase).

² - 「スカしま」 is a Japanese slang usually used as an insult

³ - 「陰キャ」 is yet another Japanese slang used to describe someone with a gloomy or reserved personality or introverts. I used a known English slang instead of translating literally to preserve the meaning of the word.

⁴ - 「弩級 (どきゅう)」 is the Japanese translation of “Dreadnought,” which is a type of battleship in the early 20th century. Idia was just being a nerd again by using game-like terms so I decided to stick with using “battleship” instead of the literal translation.

⁵ - I wanted to note that Idia addressed them as 「皆様」which is a polite way of addressing others due to the inclusion of 様 (sama). Also, the “thank you for your attention” line was written as 「ご清聴ア��ガトウゴザイマシタ」 in the text instead of the usual 「ご清聴ありがとうございました」 which I think it's just to note Idia's personality www.

personal notes: this wasn't jp proofread so there might be inaccuracies;;; additionally aniplex jp actually posted the "how to subjugate the demon king" video but it's only available in japan.. you can still access it by using a vpn though~

#twisted wonderland #twst #twst translation #diasomnia #diasomnia chapter 8 #silver twst #sebek zigvolt #idia shroud #ortho shroud #twst grim #twst yuu #diasomnia spoilers #twst spoilers #phantombanquet #phantombanquet twst

67 notes · View notes

pyro-madder · 3 months ago

Text

On the Four Guardians, their connection and relation to X (the both of them)

-because the lore is a mess and I Needed Answers. i only meant to compile the different pieces of the puzzle at first, but once it turned into a full essay, i figured i'd share it !

disclaimers :

due to my inability to read or understand japanese i'll be relying solely on english material - official localizations, fantranslations, and a bit of machine translation, and pray there weren't major farts during either processes. all my sources that aren't in-game screenshots will be linked at the end of the post.

for the sake of simplicity - both in analysis and writing - i will proceed with the assumption that all the guardians were built/activated at the same time, and that a hint applying to one applies to all four of them (and by "one" i really mean Harpuia who hogs all the screentime for himself)

this is merely my own analysis and conclusions for the sake of my fanworks and interest, not a guideline on what people should believe. anyone with more info or thoughts is free to chime in ( ´ ◡ ` )

So... let's dive into it.

First things first : who, or what, are the Four Guardians ?

First game introduces them as Neo Arcadia's elite and Copy X's inner circle, then the lore entries in 2&3 (Ciel's computer + Secret Disks) specify they were built after X himself.

In-games we only know the Four as military generals, but the Official Complete Works reveal they had another job - or at least Harpuia and Leviathan did.

This is repeated and expanded on in their profiles for the Remastered Tracks : Zero booklet (which i'll just link here instead of pasting four more paragraphs). An excerpt from Harpuia's : "Neo Arcadia, aspiring to restore the world of humans, heralded 2 goals. One of them was the annihilation of the [Mavericks], source of the wars, and the other was regeneration of the Earth's environment to expand the human living area."

Terraformers ; Reploids made from X to assist in the repopulation of a planet damaged beyond words by over 100 years of war, while suppressing the maverick threat.

Then, the Megaman Zero collection website drops these bombs (flash website, translation courtesy of ggle lens, with thanks to @/cinnamononions for two of those three screenshots and to @/irys955 for the post that brought the matter on the table for me) :

Here rather than merely built after X, the Four were full parts of him that separated into their own beings upon sealing the Dark Elf. Not the same thing ! This is something that not only contradicts the games - aka the source material - but has never been seen anywhere else. So, I don't think it's worth much unless you want it to, but there are two implications to point out anyway :

the Cyber Elf X we meet and speak to throughout the games is incomplete compared to his original MMX self, something you'd think would be addressed, or that you'd be able to tell when interacted with ;

the Guardians never met the original X. This was my main question out of this whole mess, and this bit is what directed the rest of my digging.

In Z2 Harpuia has this line-

-which i've seen taken as evidence that he knew of the og X's body all along. while not impossible, it's not a guarantee - there is a whole year between Z1 and 2, he could very much have found out during that period, especially from his newfound leadership of Neo Arcadia !

and YET, when faced with MK-II in 3, knowing him to be the copy (Zero only says "a" copy, but MK-II clearly has the memories from the one in 1, so either way works) - he still immediately submits.

And in the first half of the game, while he tries to reason with MK-II, he never turns directly against him - even when MK-II tells him off and steps him down, even after the missile strike (the human deaths !!) he's co-responsible for, Harpuia's anger is consistently and ONLY directed at Weil.

He knows that's not the og X, yet he keeps his respect, and with him being comatose while MK-II goes out, we will never know how long that could have gone on.

Apart from what the Collection said above - which again, I consider as dubiously reliable - the question of when the Four were built, or at least activated (the distinction is important) is never asked and never clearly answered. The only thing we can be certain of is that it was after the Elf Wars - Z1 is their first meeting with Zero, they're not aware of Omega's true body (Phantom learns it first through Cyberspace), and the intro cutscenes in Z3 make it clear that while they knew Omega and Weil by name, they had never seen them in person before.

The implicit question behind it being, "have they known the og X while he was alive ?"

Well, the OCW has a timeline, let's take a look !

... they're not on it, except for that mention alongside Copy X at the bottom left paragraph.

And on (an excerpt of) the relationship chart from this same book :

They are written as underlings to Copy X only - no link to the og X at all, not even a "created after"...

So my takeaway is that they were activated roughly around the same time as Copy X. (There's also the fact that they use Copy X's leitmotif, "The Legend", rather than X's "Cyberelf", even after Copy X is no more, but that may be a stretch on my end.)

According to the devs, Ciel may have been as young as 5 when she made Copy X, so doing the math with her being 14 in Z1 brings us to at most 9 years before Z1.

And this made me think, aren't the Four a little late for their terraforming business then ? Neo Arcadia has been standing for almost a century ! To which the devs answer that they'd been working outside of Neo Arcadia. Crisis averted.

(The "they weren't supposed to be weapons" is an interesting bit, in-line with Megaman tradition and twice as ironical coming from expies of the pacifist X, though we're never told what non-military function Fefnir and Phantom could have occupied. But I disgress.)

So now we have Reploids made after the og X but likely never knew him alive. So the last (and I'd say most important) question is, were they at least aware they were following a clone ?

The "disappearance" of X was likely not something planned ahead, by Neo Arcadian authorities or by himself - I'm not that familiar with his character, so feel free to correct me on that, but I can't imagine he'd be in favor of maintaining a facade with a fake, even for the sake of maintaining a sense of stability and security. Copy X's lie is held to the general populace, as we see in Z3 (through Weil framing "X's" sudden brutal end on Zero) and Z4 (the human Caravaners very much believing that). But how high exactly does it go ?

See again my point about Harpuia's Z2 line not being irrefutable evidence he was in the know, and let's compare with what other characters know, as told by the Remastered Tracks : Telos dramas !

Case 1) TK-31 :

We are already in Copy X era, and the to-be Elpizo is at this point a regular worker in Neo Arcadia's City Management Bureau - in other words, a civilian (in Z2, he's referred to as a citizen by Leviathan and as an errand boy by himself). He seems to be in content, practically complicit ignorance of Neo Arcadia's inner workings despite his own condition as a nameless, mass-produced model, so it's safe to assume what he knows isn't much above what the average citizen knows. He recognizes the Dark Elf and Weil but not Omega, and is of course unaware the X he sees here is different from the one he knows.

Then he gets found out and berated by Harpuia :

Is Harpuia trying to keep a mere civilian away from the truth he's privy to, or is he himself unquestionningly following orders not to pry ? It honestly wouldn't be far off from his character. Remember the earlier paragraph with MK-II. Remember that in Z3, any of his protests are immediately shut down with "you used to be more obedient than that" !

Case 2) (half of) the Eight Gentle Judges :

Now we're at the top of the echelon - or, well, close enough. And that last line is immediately telling : the Judges knew the og X and noticed the change without realizing he's been replaced. And immediately after that...

From the respect Kelverian shows here, it would seem that the Guardians are at least one rung above the Judges on Neo Arcadia's ladder, so again : is this keeping the lower ranks in the dark, or is this just the usual Sage "don't you dare doubt Master X" Harpuia ?

Case 3) Fellow Guardian, Phantom (and with direct ft. of og X) :

The wording here is a little confusing ("we meet at last" but also "you haven't changed a bit", is this their first meeting or a reunion ?) ; but we do have "my darkness will not serve any other light than [the og X's]." Can Copy X's "light" be equated to the og X's ? Because we're dealing with the guy who was willing to blow himself up to stop Zero from reaching Copy X. Whether or not he already knew about the og X back then, Phantom's loyalty, like Harpuia's, seems to extend to both Xes unconditionally.

Note that he also states "protecting the people and Reploids", which up until then seemed to be completely optional for the Guardians with how ready they were to terminate their own.

And now, with Harpuia's own musings :

An illusion. There WAS something he didn't know at this point. And this point is the beginning of Z3 - he's aware of the Elf Wars, of Weil and Omega, and he's aware of the original X's now-destroyed body. So what is it he's still missing ?

When Harpuia asks Zero to stop Elpizo, and when he opposes Weil and Omega, it's because they threaten human lives. There's no character development here, no changing to Zero and the Resistance's side. Leviathan and Fefnir too, when asked by X to help Zero in their own drama track, only accept because Weil/Omega are shared enemies, and they're shared enemies because they threaten humanity and Neo Arcadia's order as a whole. The protection of humans, and their master(s), has been their singular consistent goal, even when it came at the cost of their own kind. Perhaps much like the Judges, merely carrying out orders while being kept in the dark of how exactly their victims came to be labelled Mavericks !

So, my conclusion on what Harpuia figured here is the original purpose of Neo Arcadia - an utopia for humans and Reploids, as the og X envisionned, and not only for the former. (And if you listen to the drama track itself, he sounds in clear distress and denial, which may explain why he holds onto MK-II anyway.)

Last but not least is really just... law of parcimony/occam's razor. It's much easier to explain the Four's ruthless enforcement of Copy X's agenda, something we know the og X would have never stood for, if it's the only status quo they've ever know, isn't it ?

If you're still there, we're nearing the end, and I'll recap my own conclusion with another homemade Canva masterpiece made from everything we've discussed :

The Four Guardians were modeled and coded after X, and activated alongside or after Copy X to help humanity repopulate the Earth before being reconverted as military assets. They were either kept in the dark about the og X entirely, or were led to believe they were carrying on his legacy by enforcing Copy X's regime, regardless of whether they knew about the og body in Yggdrasil or if they learned about it later.

I specify "activated" to keep the possibility that their project as terraformers might have been something X was involved with, but the seal of Dark Elf happened before he could see them open their eyes.

The whole other can of worms that is important yet that we will probably never know ANYTHING about, and the one that makes me use the passive voice above, is the human side of Neo Arcadia's government : whoever made Ciel build Copy X to begin with, and saw no issue in his regime. These are people with enough power to keep the truth away from up to the Gentle Judges, and I'm thinking the Guardians may not have been exempt from that.

Everything compiled here still leaves a ton of blanks, and anything more will have to be headcanon territory, so...

Thank you so much for reading ! Figuring out this mess then writing this took me like A Month, and it's quite awkward doing that on a 20 y/o game from a franchise we KNOW gets inconsistent. It might just be a compilation of what we already knew from still fairly recent translations but I hope you enjoyed the read anyway. 🙏

Sources :

MMZ2 in-game script

MMZ3 in-game script

MMZ Official Complete Works

MMZ Remastered Tracks booklet translation (character profiles)

MMZ Remastered Tracks Telos booklet translation (creator's chat)

MMZ Remastered Tracks Telos drama tracks (audio w/ translations, MMKB translations)

MMZ Collection Website (website, MMKB translation)

#sage harpuia #fighting fefnir #fairy leviathan #hidden phantom #megaman zero #mmz #I AM FREE AT LAST #and ive built some confidence so it goes in the tags now #pyro's media talkshow

14 notes · View notes

rewritingcanon · 1 year ago

Note

( hi is the person who sent you those next gen hcs. Sorry if this bothers you but I decided to make a part 2, hopefully better formated of more hcs or just expanding on the past ones. My interpretation of them!)

About the teddy lupin hc with his teeth- yes! He would most likely mess up his teeth worse then they already were so Andromeda had to get him braces despite his protests and begging. After being straped to the chair and wearing them for like 2 years his tooth gap was still there SO HE DID ALL THAT FOR NOTHING. (biggest L he's ever taken)

Lilly wears lots of colorful and wacky earrings just like aunt luna. They probably trade pairs or something.

James sirius is really into cinema especially horror. He loves being scared and most of the time he just laughs at the jumpscares. I also feel like he has written entire analysis in his head on the things he's fixated on but doesn't have the energy to write them down so he just rants about his favorite stuff to his family.

Victoire was the one making moves on teddy not the other way around. This made bills distaste for teddy even worse cause he wasn't even the one doing anything 🙄

Albus's room is filled with action figures, stuffed animals, posters ect of all the stuff he enjoys. Like people always talk about how much of a loser scorpius is but not so much albus. Trust me though he goes to bed reading fanfiction and was most definitely "the weird kid" at school. Probably grew up watching markiplier and jacksepticeye.

Teddy gives me those vibes where every time something happens teddy just goes "don't worry, I know a guy" and proceeds to fix the problem.

Victoire is really close to her maternal grandpa because everyone on the weasley family had lost stuff to the war including her parents so her grandfather was 1 of the only people in her family that didn't have any tragedy on her birthday so he was one of the few people who celebrated it without any sadness about the day. Then later teddy did as well.

Albus likes to draw and several pages of his sketch book is dedicated to just scorpius.

So when it comes to scorpius's appearance I kinda wrestled with it because on one hand there's no way he's not attractive because his mother is Astoria. Not even draco too just Astoria is enough to make that kid divine looking but if he was super pretty then there's no way he wouldn't be asked out even if it was just for shallow reasons. So in my head he is pretty but looks like a corpse. He has eye bags, beauty marks all over his body he's pale and skinny too so he doesn't look human. Albus of course thinks he looks like a sculpture but others think he looks uncanny.

Teddy loved being in the woods/forest cause he loved running around and getting all that energy out. Probably met a old man named Charles who taught him how to fish and scavenge or something. Nobody knew teddy was being fr when he talked about Charles because Charles was probably some urban legend. He was being real though.

(Anyway hope you don't mind me sending you these! if I wrote a fanfic I would include all this stuff but unfortunately I don't have the dedication or skill to do that)

aw ted babe noooo (little does he know a beautiful person without a tooth gap is like an angel without their wings so in truth he was saved).

i agree with all of these lmfao. i feel like luna makes lily earrings for her birthday every year like a tradition. i also heavily fw assertive victoire— i like to think teddy had always been the flirty, confident one in his other relationships and victoire had been shyer in her other relationships but the roles are just reversed when they actually get together. and james being a horror movie freak is soooo real to me, he laughs at all the western films and only genuinely gets kicks out of asian horror movies. victoire with her maternal grandpa is so cute man, its canon to me now. and i have ALWAYS said this about teddy but he is the definition of “i know a guy.” he could get you any job, get you out of any situation ever, “everybody’s got a cousin who can hook you up with something” type. and charles bro 💀💀 yeah you’re so right nobody believed teddy when he said he mastered muay thai until he whipped out martial moves, or when he learnt tagalog when rooming with this old lady in the phillipines until he started rapping a song in it 😭 the only person who would believe him immediately with no questions asked is andromeda. hes so freaky, now he could tell people he was the first one to set foot on mars and everyone will be obligated to believe him.

“not even draco too just astoria is enough to make that kid divine looking” this is the truest yeah 😭😭 ok ok you’re actually so right about this, scorpius would be attractive but unconventional-looking. i feel like his uncanny years is only in school though, no one saw the vision but albus and it paid off sooooo well in the end.

34 notes · View notes

dazais-guardian-angel · 2 years ago

Text

Okay, a good amount of time has passed, and after having seen this post by @weretiger-be-my-horse , I've been turning it over and over in my brain going absolutely feral over this concept. I need to expand upon my thoughts on this idea and all the evidence there is pointing towards it, whether that be actual tangible things, or purely strong vibes I have.

First of all, full disclaimer: I did not like the season 5 finale, and how it wrapped up the DoA arc. To say that I "disliked" it is putting it extremely lightly, in fact -- I absolutely hated it, and I am still, to a degree, in disbelief that I actually even watched those 24 minutes with my own two eyes, and that it somehow wasn't a complete fever dream. While I'm not going to go in long-winded detail into all the ways that I feel like the finale almost completely bastardized all of its featured characters and destroyed any and all buildup we've had going on in this arc for 50 some chapters now, because that's not the main point of this post, I will not make any attempt to hide the fact that the theory-crafting I'm about to pose here is partly influenced and prompted by how much I hated the finale, and how much I desperately hope that it will not end up being manga canon. Therefore, if you enjoyed the finale — and that's fine! — and don't want to read any negativity about it, then I would not recommend reading any further (I mean, you've probably already left by this point, which is fair lol), While obviously it's important that I be as objective and unbiased as possible when explaining my thoughts, some of my negative feelings about the writing will be a part of this analysis, even if this isn't going to be a full-blown rant. Just know that if you proceed.

With that out of the way, let me continue.

So. In the aforementioned post, the theory presented is that the anime may be operating on an alternate timeline, and that this will become evident once we read the upcoming October chapter, wherein things will go completely differently post-chapter 110 than they do in the final episode — probably for the worse, with the s5 finale intending to lull us into a false sense of security and make us assume that everything in the manga arc finale will wrap up as smoothly and consequence-freely(? lol) as it did in the anime one. It also suggests that the Fukuchi we see at the very end that sskk are fighting came from the manga timeline, where he won, and that he used the Book to jump to a timeline where he lost, the anime one, proven by the fact that this Fukuchi is wearing a mask with the same design on it as the mask Fukuchi is wearing on the chapter 110 DoA color spread/title page.

First of all, I want to note the fact that it's not just the mask design that's the same: the entire outfit is roughly more or less the same as well. It's not completely 1-to-1, because the anime can never fully match the intricacies of Harukawa's beautiful outfit designs, and the Fukuchi in this scene has the kimono half-off because of the... super saiyan mode he's in, but most all of the main pieces of clothing are there. Any small inaccuracies could also be attributed to the fact that Harukawa probably didn't have this finalized art ready back when this episode was being made, so the animators wouldn't have had the complete design to work off of. But in general, because it's all so similar, I think we can quite confidently say that the ending episode Fukuchi is meant to be the one from this manga art.

Also, people have pointed this out, but it's worth mentioning that the mask Asagiri wore at Anime Expo in July was referencing this Fukuchi. It's not a crucial detail, but it just proves more that Asagiri is a gigantic fucking troll, and that he clearly wanted to draw attention to this Fukuchi design. It's important. He describes the mask here as made in the motif of an ellipses inside a speech bubble... could that perhaps be referencing meta aspects, like the Book?

Next, I want to talk about the even bigger elephant in the room, which to me is the most damning and undeniable piece of evidence there is of the anime operating on a completely separate timeline from the manga:

This Fucking Hand™️

As we all know, in the anime, Fyodor injures his hand when the password input device blows up, and as we all know, this does not happen in the manga. In the last episode, Dazai claims that the final nail in the coffin of his impromptu plan to kill Fyodor relied on this hand injury: because Fyodor couldn't pilot his escape helicopter himself, he would ask one of his Meursault vampires to do it for him, unaware that Bram and thus this vampire was now on the ADA's side, and said vampire could kill him while his guard was down.

Ignoring how utterly stupid and contrived this plan is when you stop and think about it for more than two seconds, the fact of the matter is that something that initially seemed like nothing more than an odd but inconsequential anime original addition ended up snowballing into being the entire reason one of the big bads was brought down. If Fyodor hadn't hurt his hand, he wouldn't have needed another pilot, and so the traitor vampire wouldn't have had an opportunity to get near him and kill him without him expecting it even though said vampire was presumably with him as they were leaving Meursault, and was probably already a traitor by then, so there was plenty opportunity for him to still die. not to mention by Chuuya's hands at literally any time he wanted to, because Chuuya was coherent the whole time. Also there's absolutely no way Dazai could have known exactly what Ranpo would do, no matter how smart he is and how much he trusts him. idk it's fucking dumb, just roll with it. Therefore, putting aside all other variables for now, we can conclude that, on the most basic level, this signifies that no hand wound = no death.

And let me tell you, this hand wound bothers me. It really, really does. Because they focus on it a LOT — they go out of their way to draw attention to it MULTIPLE TIMES, from the moment it first happens to the end of the season. Fyodor even talks about it to himself, about Dazai being able to cause him tangible, visible, bodily harm, (something that, again, as far as we've seen, has never happened in the manga). Hell, even after Fyodor's death, they're still drawing attention to it, because his right arm is all of him that survives, and Dazai picks it up and gives it to Nikolai to do his hilarious sad little gay fondling of it played completely straight even though there's nothing straight going on here at all! It's like it's a big red flashing sign at all times going "you see this injured hand? This is important. Are you picking up that it's important? Are you taking note of it?" Why is that? Obviously, it serves to give us the lore crumbs about Fyodor and "that man", but that's hardly the main, much more glaring reason, as I've already mentioned.

Fyodor doesn't hurt his hand in the manga. Fyodor won't die here in the manga. I am so dead serious by this point about this, and it's not just simply the fact that this was absolutely not at all the time for him to die, or the fact that his hand is the reason for his death in the anime in and of itself, but how much EMPHASIS they place on this, and on the hand in general. What would be the point of adding something like this, if it's not meant to alert us to the fact that it has a major impact on how the story plays out? We all know Bones: they struggle to get right and include everything that's already there in the source material; they would never go out of their way to add something this noteworthy if there wasn't a very good reason for it, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I've seen a few people bring up the fact that Fyodor gets shot in the shoulder by Sigma and that that could lead to the same outcome in the manga, but I disagree: although he has blood on his shoulder in the manga, it seems like the bullet just grazed the top of it, because his arm and hand appears completely functional afterwards (not hanging limp by his side or anything). But that doesn't even matter, because this isn't even about the semantics/logistics of how the hand wound caused Fyodor's death because again, it's a stupid outcome, or what could serve as a substitute in the manga — thematically, this is a textbook example of the butterfly effect. Countless parallel universes exist within this series, ones where even the most minute differences lead to a majorly different outcome: this just happens to be one of them. There's no reason to think it isn't, and there's no reason to not think that the anime wants us to clue into the fact that things only went as smoothly as they did on the Meursault side because of this wound; in other words, that things will go very differently in the manga thanks to the absence of said wound. They wouldn't have added it in the first place and put such clearly deliberate emphasis on it otherwise.

Things are going to happen very differently in the manga, at least when it comes to the Meursault crew (but then, if you assume that, you then naturally assume it all will be very different). This is the only conclusion one can come to with the presentation of this anime-only wound, combined with the fact that parallel universes are a very real thing in BSD.

I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, so bear with me. I play a lot of visual novels, and although such concepts aren't really as original now as they were a while ago, some of my favorite and some of the very best VNs out there are the ones that break the fourth wall and make the visual novel branching route format directly intertwined with the story: you know, the ones where the characters go "if only I had done things differently, maybe everything would have turned out better...!" in a wink wink nudge nudge moment, and the ones where the characters are aware of the different timelines, even, or even have the ability to gain information from their selves in said alternate timelines to influence events in their current one (I'm intentionally not naming the games I'm thinking of for the sake of spoilers, but if you know, you know lmao). It gets very meta in this regard, and this is how I started viewing BSD through the lens of ever since I first learned about Beast: like a visual novel with many branching routes, and only a few routes that feel entirely "right".

When I first read Dazai's Entrance Exam, I was struck by how unnerving the ending sequence in the abandoned hospital felt. Obviously, Kunikida's internal struggle over Sasaki's actions and motives is him still desperately clinging to his ideal world that does not exist, but the specific type of phrases he uses — "who is wrong?" "[who is] the cause of all this?" "there has to be an ideal world" "there has to be something, I'm sure of it" "There must have been something we could have done!" — and the framing of the scene in general, is eerily reminiscent of a bad ending in a visual novel, to me. There's a haunting, looming, bleak sense that a different outcome could have been achieved, if different decisions had been made, or if things outside of anyone's control had been different... and we know that this is true, because in Beast alone, Kunikida never goes through the Azure Messenger incident, because Dazai doesn't have his entrance exam. Hell, you could even consider the anime's version of the Azure Messenger arc an alternate timeline in of itself, if you really wanted to, long before we even arrive at season 5.

When it comes to Beast, this timeline has almost the opposite feeling of what I described above, that I've also encountered in visual novels: the idea of a "good route" or "good ending" that still doesn't feel quite earned, or as perfect as one would expect. Beast is presented as the "ideal" timeline purely for one sole reason: Oda is alive. It is the only timeline where he's alive, and keeping Oda alive is the ultimate goal Dazai wants to achieve, the only reason this timeline exists; therefore, disregarding all else, Beast should be the best timeline, because Oda's death is the greatest devastation in the series to date. We all want him to live, so why wouldn't the timeline where he does be the best one? And yet... of course, it isn't. Dazai is alone, and steeped in darkness and loneliness without Oda, and dies by the end of the story for Oda's continued living. Atsushi has Kyouka still, but he's suffering and more traumatized, and unable to heal while stuck in the mafia, and neither can Kyouka. Akutagawa is living a much better life in the ADA... but without his sister, and without what he has from his bond with Atsushi in canon, that isn't replicated in Beast. And Oda... Oda is alive, and he has his children and his novel, but there is a feeling that he is aimless, that something in his life is missing. He has everything he ever wanted, but all that means nothing without what he truly needs: Dazai, and his time with Dazai and Ango at the bar. In this way, things going well and us getting what we want — in this case, Oda living — goes against how it's supposed to be, the natural order, which is why it feels so hollow. In the specific visual novel I'm thinking of here as a comparison (again, shoutout if you know), there's an alternate ending that involves you inputting information you gain at the end of the game very early on in the game, wherein the protagonist now has memories of the future and is able to bypass and prevent all of the events that take place normally. This means that people who die or are hurt somehow in general are saved from that fate, and nothing bad ever occurs; everything wraps up neatly and nicely... but again, there's an undeniable, unsettling feeling of emptiness, of a victory that rings hollow, because what's the point if everything is simply handed to you easily, where's the sense of accomplishment, without any struggles to achieve said victories, or any growth along the way? How can it feel earned if one doesn't have to, in Dazai's words, "scream within the storm of uncertainty, and run with flowing blood"?

You can probably already see where I'm going with this.

This finale feels weird. Really, really weird. It feels too cheap, too simple, too unsatisfying. So much so, in fact, that for almost the entire runtime, as I was bombarded with resolution upon resolution one after another, I kept thinking "There's no way this can be real. Where's the catch? When is the "gotcha!" moment gonna happen? The "it was all a dream" reveal?". And this isn't just because I hated the writing, and that it really did feel like a fever dream watching fanfic levels of bad (actually, that's an insult to fanfic writers, tbh; they could do better) — no, it genuinely feels so incredibly fake. Even upon rewatching it and already knowing what happens, my brain still naturally keeps expecting some kinda of "sike, you THOUGHT!" moment to suddenly appear. It just.... feels "too good to be true". Dazai and Chuuya come out unscathed, and it's revealed that they were never in any real danger to begin with. Fyodor, one of our biggest threats, is dealt with supposedly for good (I say "supposedly" only because of the Jesus line, but if anything imo, I think that's just a hint that this won't be the canon ending in the manga, so in a sense he's going to "come back to life"), and Nikolai seems somewhat at peace with his death. The other biggest threat, Fukuchi, is also dealt with, and he and Fukuzawa get their final moment together of closure. Yes, Sigma is left in Meursault don't even get me started on how angry this alone makes me, and Fukuzawa loses Fukuchi, but overall, everything is portrayed in a positive light, and any negatives or losses are quickly glossed over. Everything is tied up nicely, neatly, and smoothly. ...And that is exactly what makes it feel so wrong, and hard to trust in.

I'm not sure if this will make sense, but to me, the finale is so incredibly poorly written that it almost feels.... intentional. It's so bad to the point of feeling self-aware in how bad it is, how unrealistically happy and convenient an ending it is. It had to end this neatly in order to rush to wrap up this arc for the season finale and not leave the last episode on a cliffhanger — which imo is chiefly the main reason it turned out this way, and, if this whole theory is true, Asagiri just used it to his advantage — and I'm not saying this was probably an effect Bones had in mind intentionally, I'm sure they just threw shit at the wall and went with whatever stuck, maaaaybe with some suggestions/approval from Asagiri, but the result is that you have a conclusion that contradicts so much of what was set up before and goes against so many character arcs, making some characters so out of character and even regressing in their development Dazai. I'm talking about Dazai abandoning Sigma, because he would never; hashtag #NOTMYDAZAI. Also Nikolai, Nikolai for most of that is so ooc I can't even begin to describe it oh my god. Everyone is OOC to a degree though lmao, and opens so many plot holes, to the point that it's impossible not to watch all that and get the feeling that it is subtly saying to you "did you really think it could be this easy? It feels wrong, doesn't it? It doesn't feel satisfying. It feels unearned." I find it incredibly interesting and suspicious in particular that they confirmed multiple theories people had about soukoku in Meursault: that Chuuya slowed the elevator's fall so that Dazai wouldn't die from it, that Chuuya slowed down the bullet so that it only penetrated Dazai's skin and not his skull, and that the both of them used Fyodor's camera angle to their advantage because they knew he wouldn't be able to see certain things from his view. I'm not saying that Asagiri trawled BSD twitter and tumblr after those chapters dropped for the most popular theories before the final episode was made lmao, there was no time for that (imagine though lol—), but I do think it's highly likely that he already had in mind exactly what theories would be made about these parts (I mean, the evidence for the gun scene was all there), and that Dazai rattling them off in his long monologue to Fyodor at the end is essentially him speaking to the audience and going "yeah, that's what you would predict, right? Those are the clichés, after all", much like him suggesting earlier that he can maybe bring Chuuya back to himself with a few moving words and the power of friendship, and Fyodor using the split personalities trope to fool Sigma. We expect these tropes to be true. Of course we'd fall for them, as Fyodor tells Sigma, especially if the evidence is right there. But Asagiri himself has explicitly said that he likes doing the opposite of what people expect. And so just because people predicted correctly with the three things I mentioned in this timeline... doesn't mean they'll be true in the manga's. Things happened how we wanted and expected it to, and everything turned out happily. So we can relax now, right? Everything will work out just as easily in the manga, right? Or... is the reason most of this finale feels so fake and unsettling and unsatisfying because it's meant to lull us into a false sense of security before all our heroes lose in the manga? Because deep down, we don't want an ending that's this simple, because we'd rather have a conclusion where our characters have struggled more and grown more and come out the better for it, and we know it?

After rewatching the episode a lot, and watching some other videos, and doing a lot of thinking, I am pretty confident in suspecting that the only part of this finale that is actually from manga canon, aside from Aya jumping off the building of course, is Fyodor and Nikolai's exchange after Fyodor leaves Meursault — specifically, them talking about Fyodor leaving Sigma behind, and their "new game" and Nikolai being excited at the prospect of it. This little conversation actually feels in character for them, and it's easy to tell this when contrasting it with everything that happens immediately after, wherein Fyodor is fatally stabbed, and Nikolai, completely at odds with what he was just talking about, just... stands there and watches Fyodor die while Dazai monologues lmao. I'm not sure if the helicopter is still a factor, but I would bet good money on Fyolai getting out of Meursault being manga canon, and that Dazai and Chuuya getting out as well and killing Fyodor + everything with FukuFuku, is part of the anime original ending, in order to wrap up everything positively. It makes much more sense if you think about, in reality (aka in the manga), Dazai and Chuuya still being left behind in Meursault (where they can eventually try to get Sigma), because none of it was an act and things did not go according to plan, and Fukuchi having an entirely different goal that doesn't feel so stupid and contradictory to his character, and Fukuzawa possibly dying — everyone seemingly loses, with Aya still being the last hope, perhaps by awakening her ability like we all speculated.

There's a youtuber I watch who covers BSD in-depth, despite being an anime-only (she reads the respective manga content after each season, though). Going into this finale, she knew about the fact that the anime had overtaken the manga, though she didn't know where the cutoff point was; despite that, however, she made predictions about what was from the manga so far and what was anime original, and it was almost entirely spot-on, based mostly on what she basically described as "anime original dialogue." She talked about how you can always tell when dialogue is veering into the realm of anime-original, because the sentences are very short, choppy, and slightly out of character, but generic enough to not be TOO out of character, and so that anyone can easily write said lines, even if they're not extremely familiar with the character like the original author would be. And when I heard this explanation, everything clicked — because so much of this finale has dialogue like that. The Fyolai scenes just feel peppered with it, around the lines I mentioned earlier, the Dazai dialogue does too, and ESPECIALLY shit at the end like Fukuchi and Fukuzawa exchanging the cliche death lines to end all death lines: "Are you there? I'm a little tired." "Rest up." That just isn't Bungou Stray Dogs. That isn't Asagiri. BSD is cheesy at times, yes, but it isn't like this; it's smarter. The dialogue is smarter, the explanations/plot twists are smarter, Asagiri is smarter, and the aforementioned youtuber I watched agreed. She's a pretty casual fan of the series, so if even she could pick up on these things, I think it speaks volumes.

I mentioned this briefly earlier, but this theory makes sense if you consider that this situation probably came about because of Bones wanting two seasons back-to-back when they did, and this arc being as long as it is. Season 3 aired in 2019, and I imagine Bones would have wanted season 4 in 2020, and might have then been willing to wait a bit longer for season 5 in order for more of this arc's manga chapters to come out — but then covid happened. Because of that, season 4 was delayed to 2023, creating the longest gap we've had between seasons, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the delay made them want season 5 right together with it, after getting so far "behind", so to speak. S4 was announced in November of 2021, and roughly around that time, Asagiri was finishing up writing the plot of the DoA arc. If Bones came to him sometime in late 2021 and said they wanted two seasons now (so basically, one giant two cour season), Asagiri would know that not only of course would this arc not be finished publishing in the manga for a very long time yet, but that roughly 20ish episodes would not be enough to cover it all to the end, with this arc being longer than any arc the anime has adapted to date. Because of all this, and the arc manga chapters being nowhere near fully drawn to completion, he'd have to make a decision about what to do, and what to give Bones. Without ending season 5 on a massive cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved for years until an eventual season 6, the only other option would be to rush towards an anime-original ending for the DoA arc.... and for Asagiri to take advantage of that, and integrate it into BSD's lore. Thereby creating a truly unique cross-media experience that utilizes the different mediums to create multiple timelines, that could make both the anime and manga interact with each other and become part of a bigger picture (not that you'd need to see both to get the full experience, mind you, just that it'd provide a little bonus if you did).... and would without a doubt be Asagiri's biggest surprise yet.

...I feel like at this point I'm starting to ramble, and my evidence become more and more incoherent and less substantial lmao, so I should probably end this post. 💀 Thank you if you've read this far, and hopefully it made some semblance of sense, despite not being structured very well; I know I promised at the start to try to be as objective as possible and curb my negative feelings, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that regard. If it weren't for the Fukuchi thing and the Fyodor hand thing, I probably wouldn't take how wrong and strange and bad the finale feels to me as serious evidence about it being an alternate timeline, especially since I seem to be one of the only people who actually hates all of it.... but combined with everything else, I am just so convinced of this theory being true. It started off as pure copium, but as more time has gone on, I fully, 100% believe in my bones (ha) that there is no way that finale is the same Bungou Stray Dogs I know and love, for so many reasons. It just isn't. It can't be. I know BSD better than this, I know Asagiri better than this, and I know that it's absolutely in the realm of possibility for him to cook up this whole scheme to completely blindside us with in the upcoming chapters, because that's exactly the kind of shit Mr. "Please Be Surprised!" himself would pull. If I end up being completely wrong, I guess I'm wrong, and you can laugh at me all you want then.... but I just know that ages ago people were teasing the idea of the anime operating on a different timeline from the manga, and I truly do think that only now are we finally seeing that idea come to fruition, as a setup for Asagiri going full-bore insanity with the Book in the upcoming arc(s). if I and the OP of that theory end up right, this will be the wildest time in the BSD fandom's history.

Like. I cannot even emphasize how hard they are trolling us at this point. Something is going on. Something is being cooked over there, the likes of which we've never seen before... and I don't think any of us are ready for it.

Oh yeah, and one last thing of note: both Fyodor and Nikolai here have their right arms hidden from view. Is that alluding to anything? I'm not sure. I also think that since chapter 110 was so short, next chapter will likely be 110.5 instead of 111, and if that's the case, this title spread could still technically be associated with the next chapter... wherein we might see this Fukuchi, who ends up wreaking havoc, right before he jumps to the timeline in the anime, as we see him at the end of the s5 finale.

I guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

#bungou stray dogs #meta #bsd season 5 #bsd s5 spoilers #alternatively titled 'when you copium so hard out of stewing in your denial anger and grief that it becomes reality'#is it still copium if there's strong evidence for it? idk #i DON'T know what i'll do if the stuff in this finale ends up being canon :))) make no mistake about that #but until the very moment the schrödinger's cat box is opened and i am forced to acknowledge it with my own two eyes in chapter 111/110.5 #i am choosing to stay calm and rational and look at things with a sound mind... and acknowledge all the signs that are there #of which there are so many #Asagiri is a troll. he has always been a troll and this is more evident than ever lately #and he would know that everyone who watched the finale would take it at face value #never expecting it to go completely differently in the manga #and he's so much smarter than what was in that finale. he would never write those things. i would stake my life on it.#i don't care how many flaws BSD does have that i do acknowledge; he is a good writer in so many ways and he is so much better than /that/#i could fill an entire BOOK (ha ha) with all of the reasons why this finale does not work. seriously it is a never-ending can of worms #of ooc characterizations and plot holes and abandoned threads and straight up CONTRADICTIONS with what has been stated before in the arc #with fukuchi's motivations and presentation; with things that were happening in meursault; just.... so much illogical shit in general #THE MACHINE HEALED THEIR WOUNDS??? ARE YOU FOR REAL????#*sigh* but i said i wasn't gonna rant alskdjgfkdls #tbh though the only REAL thing i need to know that the finale was anime only was what the youtuber i watch pointed out:#that Bram magically regenerated all his clothes. because if it were Asagiri Bram would be naked from the shoulders down fjdkslsaskd #...anyway. This theory is real and true. I am manifesting it into existence 🙏🙏🙏#Asagiri my man...... you have never let me down yet in all the years I've known your series. Please don't let me down now.#I'm trusting in you more than ever right now...... and your ability to blow all our minds in the best possible way #(guys i'm really really really scared deep down; please hold me hahaha ahahahahaaaa- *cries*)#this would the coolest thing in the history of ever though if it happened though. I am SO EXCITED FOR THE POSSIBILITY!!!!!#ASAGIRI YOU SICK AND TWISTED MF; HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME BEG FOR MY FAVES TO SUFFER JUST SO THAT THIS BAD WRITING DOESN'T BECOME REALITY!!!!!!#he knows exactly what he's doing *SCREAMS* :))))))))

77 notes · View notes

astersofthesky · 1 year ago

Text

I am currently watching the Death Note Drama (2015) and I couldn't help but notice how the characterization for drama!Light seems a lot closer to the manga than in the anime in a sense that both manga and drama Light have not developed the "god complex" yet early on in the series.

Expanding just because. Manga!Light did lose weight and sleep for five days when he did the killings. He hid himself in a blanket when he realized he killed two people. He was willing to sacrifice his life because it's already a "point of no return," meaning he can't stop even though he wanted to.

You know, very like his drama counterpart. Yeah, Ryuk actively manipulates drama!Light into the continuous use of the Death Note though, BUT even that feels a lot more closer to the manga because if you've read this analysis post about Light, you'd understand. Here's a TLDR tho, Light told Ryuk he'd be "god of the new world" because of three reasons;

(1) Ryuk is looking for entertainment.

(2) Ryuk could very much kill when he wanted to. What better way to entertain a bored shinigami by doing something unexpected?

(3)-this one is of my own opinion- Light was offended.

Anyways, back to the manga, we see Ryuk appearing and then proceeds to tell Light he dropped the note cause he was bored and that probably was like an ice cold bucket poured in Light "admired by all" Yagami's head. He thought he was "chosen" yet Ryuk denies this. Yagami Light is a prideful man, he has to make himself feel he was chosen because he's "special" as it always has been the case for him. He starts developing this idea in his head that "you're wrong ryuk, i am special because i am the only one who can do all these 'sacrifices' to enact justice. I will be someone special! I will be the new god of this world!"

Which makes you realize why he tells Ryuk that in what qualification does he see himself deserving the title, it's because he's the top student of japan! Yagami Light is so prideful he thinks he's doing something heroic and altruistic, when in reality, his pride was the biggest factor why he started this "kira" thing.

That's why i said drama!Light is closer to manga!Light in this regard. However drama!Light is just a lot more genuine and good in his intentions, but with people screaming in his ear "Kira is our savior! Kira is kami!" it's so easy to indulge to in the voices until you start to believing in yourself that what they say is real. Like waking up the pride and arrogance lying sleep in his subconscious.

This is why the anime differs slightly at Light's origin. Anime!Light is already a man with a "god-complex."

Imagine anime!Light trekking up a huge mountain of praises and he was just one step closer to the peak when suddenly he can't find any stone to further advance in his steps so he just stays there, dormant and bored because maybe this is the only height he can climb with his limited resources but suddenly, a magical rope appears and he uses that to pull himself towards the upmost top. The magical rope was the Death Note. The one thing he was waiting for so he can reach the higher heights.

So when he claimed "I will be god of the new world." you CAN see that this man REALLY believes he is higher that all humans, that he was a "god" over them, and the Death Note was a testament to that.

Meanwhile, manga!Light and drama!Light took its time to actually solidify their god complexes over the course of the series.

Short mention for movie!Light!! A man who had an extremely high sense of justice that actually believed in the justice system so he was heartbroken to know the truth that the system is very much flawed. He gets the Death Note and decides to do what the law can not. So I think he had also developed his "god complex" much earlier than the manga and drama Light because the very reason movie!Light started killing is because "The law is useless, the police is incompetent. My judgement is better and it actually BRINGS results." is a perfect recipe for feelings of superiority over the others.

It's really interesting, how these Light's vary from one another.

#death note #yagami light #death note anime #death note drama #i absolutely adore masataka kubota's light #that man nailed the light the drama was trying to portray #all of these light's and their 'different' origins and yet they end in the same tragic fate #ofc who is light if not disillusioned and dead #fujiwara's light is the closest canon light though #for me atleast #he was able to show Light's perpetual confidence yet still maintain that humble character he is supposed to throughout the movie #the small smirk he showed L whilst trying to show innocence when they first met in the movie absolutely does it for me skfksk #this is something unique to him i believe #drama!light is just a little bit too conscious and musical!light appeared more like an excited kid instead of a mature man #i love their own take on light's character though

38 notes · View notes

turningsoft · 1 year ago

Text

Richie Tozier & Will Byers Werewolf Metaphor Post

@pinkeoni's old What's up with all the werewolves? post and its further discussion made me think of a lot. Seriously, it's lengthy.

I wanna preface this by saying I don't actually believe everything is connected or intentional, as it would be a huge reach. However, it's rather interesting to draw connections even where there were intended none. Proceed at your own peril.

As we all know, the Duffers originally wanted to write Stephen King's IT remake. Naturally, we also know they took some inspiration from King's various work, so for me it was a really small leap from werewolf references in Stranger Things to Richie's werewolf in IT.

Richie Tozier Was A Teenage Werewolf

In the book, Richie goes to see a horror double-feature, which includes movies I Was a Teenage Werewolf and I Was a Teenage Frankenstein (both 1957). Let's read the excerpt from the novel.

The Teenage Frankenstein was suitably gross. The Teenage Werewolf was somehow scarier, though… perhaps because he also seemed a little sad. What had happened wasn't his own fault. There was this hypnotist who had fucked him up, but the only reason he'd been able to was that the kid who turned into the werewolf was full of anger and bad feelings. Richie found himself wondering if there were many people in the world hiding bad feelings like that. Henry Bowers was just overflowing with bad feelings, but he sure didn't bother hiding them.

Now, this quote contains a lot of information to suggest that Richie at least empathizes with the character, but we don't actually see him relating to Tony until Richie comes face to face with Pennywise — for the first time, or so he thinks. During this encounter, It takes the form of the Teenage Werewolf and chases Bill and Richie out of the house on Neibolt Street. His appearance is described in great detail and mostly doesn't contradict the original movie, except for the werewolf's silk jacket.

It was black with orange piping — the Derry High School colors.

And a bit further on:

It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machen's for a buck if you wanted it. Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolf's jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER.

In the movie it's Tony's signature jacket that allows others to recognize him in his werewolf form, so it only makes sense to assume Richie's scared because he's forced to recognize himself in the monster. The implications affect him so deeply that he considers giving up his own life.

Bad feelings

It provides a bit of insight into Richie's head and makes us question what exactly he considers “bad feelings” within himself, if not anger (he doesn't seem to be an angry person). Some speculate it has to do with growing up and becoming an unstable, hormonal teenager in the future. Others link it to his possible undiagnosed ADHD, self-hatred and the ever-present fear of being ostracized for his differences, both visible and not. Being a queer person in the 50's would also fit the narrative pretty well. For those who are interested, I strongly recommend reading expanded analysis on the matter here (werewolf as a symbol in IT), here (bisexuality viewed as “monstrous”) and here (Richie's fears explained).

Not his fault

Obviously, none of the aforementioned reasons justify putting such strong labels (monster, werewolf) on a literal child. Richie seems to understand he's not at fault for whatever makes him a target, but he also believes in a strong possibility someone can inflict this inhuman identity upon him. Despite already being bullied, he fears his situation can take a turn for the worse. And despite having a wonderful support system, he somehow knows it's not enough. If someone or something decides to “fuck him up” and exploit his vulnerable state, they will, so he cuts down on the amount of vulnerability. Heavily. I can't believe I'm still not talking about Will Byers.

Hiding stuff

As ironic as it sounds, Richie Tozier is canonically good at hiding. Other people find it difficult to make up their minds about his personality and actions — the most famous instance being, perhaps, this quote.

He had known Richie Tozier for four years, and he still didn't really understand what Richie was about.

Richie uses his Voices and “numbers” both as a shield and a weapon. He shows raw emotions only when he considers it absolutely safe. He takes “refuge in absurdity”. To reiterate @/jasperathrifteddoll's werewolf symbolism post, Richie 1) is confusing; 2) tells half-truths; 3) puts up facades; 4) “through his concealment of his inner thoughts to the reader, seems almost aware of his status as a book's narrator”.

All of Richie's fears are connected to or based on public perception. “But he knew well enough” has earned a meta post in and of itself.

Will Byers Has Werewolves In His Closet

So what's the meaning behind this werewolf costume in the Trick or Treat, Freak episode? Maybe it's a manifestation of one of Will's fears, or maybe there's no hidden message. After all, even if Stranger Things and IT are connected, I Was A Teenage Werewolf has nothing to do with ST… Unless we consider it left a huge legacy and inspired The Cramps to write a song of the same name — the one that introduced Eddie Munson to the audience in S04E01. Frankly speaking, I don't think this was an easter egg the writers were actively trying to include, but it doesn't take away from the parallel. It's still fun to compare Will and Richie, especially because on a surface level they're so unlike.

To execute Stephen King's werewolf metaphor, one would need:

a character with enough emotional baggage,

who is afraid of being perceived as a monster,

especially as a result of trusting an authority figure,

who breaks his trust and exploits his vulnerable state,

potentially making him dangerous in the process.

Let's see if Will ticks all the boxes.

Bad feelings

Will's otherness is easy to pick up on. It's either “being a sensitive artistic kid who grew up to be gay in the 80's” or “being a child who was abducted to a horrific dimension and is now attached to it”. Arguably, we don't even have to choose: these two plots are closely related and can become one through the AIDS metaphore. Not to mention the whole “growing up poor with an abusive and neglectful father” thing. Simply put, Will Byers has plenty reason to experience “bad feelings”. On a rare occasion, we can hear about his struggles firsthand.

Bad feelings = self-hatred

So far, Will has internalized a variety of epithets:

“Zombie Boy”

“Freak”

“Stupid”

“Mistake”

We can see each of them affect him to some extent.

In season 2, during multiple heart-to-hearts with Jonathan, Will expresses his desire for everyone to stop treating him different, like there's something wrong with him. Meaning, he himself doesn't think there's something wrong. He stubbornly insists: “Yeah, I am. I am [a freak],” but he's quick to be offended when Jonathan agrees. It reads as a defense tactic, not his own opinion. After all, when you pointedly address yourself in a hurtful fashion, shouldn't those words stop holding power over you?

When drawing the Zombie Boy, Will essentially tries to reclaim this identity in a way that's true to him — by using art. He doesn't want to passively accept the label, he wants to strip it of its negative connotations. But then again, when a kid deemed as dead comes back to life, it's a pretty dumb reason to bully him. Will probably knows it's dumb, so he fights back. His homosexuality, though, is a harder pill to swallow.

There's no denying he feels guilty for his attraction to Mike (well, boys, but Mike specifically). Guilty and other things as well, a mixture of shameful, jealous, hurt, confused and angry. In seasons 3 and 4 he learns that even the tiniest portions of his affection and his sincerest attempts at salvaging a friendship can be neglected or misconstrued. It cuts deeply.

Then there's, of course, the van scene. Will says he feels like a mistake sometimes. Not all the time, he clears up. Mike makes him feel better for being different, and yet Will cries after the speech, knowing full well his differences don't make his life any happier or simplier, or better.

Bad feelings = past trauma

Still, all of it pales in comparison to plain old trauma and its prolonged effects. This anon ask and @/heroesbyler's answer have summarized it better than I ever could. Here's a quote that I can't not mention:

His trauma is one of the most if not the most multifaceted in the entire story, and also he literally is the main character foil to the big villain. Saying that Will hates himself for being gay is such a gross oversimplification of what we see. It's haunting to know that people want to project a stereotypical situation to his nuanced one.

Additionally, there were theories that Will is a victim of CSA, and I'm not only referring to the ones about Vecna/MF/UD allegories (these I very much agree with) but those about full-on CSA by Lonnie. While I'm still on the fence about it, I acknowledge this is also a possibility.

To sum up, our boy Will has been through a lot. Emotional baggage? Check. Susceptibility to “monstrous” labels? Check.

Not his fault

Up until this point I was being ambiguous about whether my theory is applicable to S2 only or other seasons as well. I have to admit, right now the werewolf costume guy is no more than a little foreshadowing of the S2 plot. However, given the fact that S5 is promised to take inspiration from S2, some of its key elements or plot points may be reused, albeit probably in a different fashion. Additionally, new information might be revealed, meaning that the metaphore has potential to grow into something bigger in the future.

For now I'll focus on the S2 events mainly and compare them to I Was A Teenage Werewolf.

___

Movie: Tony Rivers embodies a typical delinquent from the 50's. He's a troubled rebellious teenager with anger issues. He exhibits such violent behavior that he's advised to seek psychological help.

IT: Richie doesn't fixate on the anger part and instead uses “bad feelings” wording to convey broader (or perhaps, entirely different) meaning. Ultimately, we're led to believe that it doesn't matter what character traits Tony possessed. What's more important is 1) he had psychological issues; 2) he was advised to seek out professional help.

ST: Will has a lot of unresolved trauma from his experience in the UD, which manifests in “bad feelings”, so-called flashbacks and coughing up demonic slugs. He's advised to undergo medical supervision/scientific surveillance at Hawkins Lab.

___

Movie: Dr. Alfred Brandon embodies the classic mad scientist archetype. He conducts experiments on people by using hypnosis and medication in unconventional ways and claims it's for a greater cause. He draws out Tony's traumatic childhood memories during their sessions. Brandon has an assistant, Dr. Hugo Wagner, who comes across as compassionate and humanistic.

ST: Dr. Martin Brenner is affiliated with multiple scientific projects that conduct experiments on people by using sensory deprivation, psychedelic drugs and various abuse/manipulation tactics. He, too, claims it's for a greater cause. Also works with traumatic childhood memories, e. g. the whole NINA project. If twelvegate is proven true in S5, these parallels will become positively unhinged. Brenner repeatedly works with Dr. Owens, who on the outside seems more sympathetic towards main heroes.

___

Movie: Tony finally accepts Dr. Brandon's help after a Halloween party gone wrong. He decides to trust everyone's opinion, goes through the procedure and ends up becoming “possessed by wolves” (= made into a werewolf).

ST: Will accepts the fact that he's spiraling and needs help on Halloween night. He decides to trust Dr. Owens, Joyce and Bob that his visions are just PTSD-related episodes. He follows Bob's advice and ends up possessed.

Ultimately, this is the moment when Will's trust is broken. Although it's definitely not Bob's or Joyce's fault, a collective authority figure represented by Hawkins Lab fails Will. It fucks him up big. And one can argue, Owens' incapacity to protect him wasn't a simple negligence but an extension of Brenner's politics. @/runninguplenorahills suggests the following:

If Owens knew about Brenner being alive and deliberately kept that information to himself (which he did), and if Owens knew about Henry and everything that happened (which seems to be the case too)……. Well….. doesn't that make Owens' inability to help and protect Will in s2 a deliberate choice?

Regardless, it isn't Will's own doing that turns him into someone dangerous — it's the Lab's fault.

___

Movie: Dr. Brandon and his assistant argue about the necessity of transforming Tony because it might be harmful or even fatal to him.

“But you're sacrificing a human life!” ”Do you cry over a guinea pig?”

ST: Dr. Owens argues with other scientists over attacking the UD vines/tunnels and potentially harming Will in the process.

“And if it kills the boy?” ”Then quite frankly, Sam, it kills him.”

___

Movie: In his werewolf state, Tony kills a bunch of his classmates, a random dog, Dr. Brandon and his assistant.

ST: While being possessed, Will leads the soldiers into a trap and gets them killed because they've upset the MF. Owens ends up injured, and Bob gets killed. We can view them all as Brenner's “assistants” to different extents.

All in all, I'd say the metaphor fits. But wait, there's more!

Hiding stuff

Once again referencing @/pinkeoni's posts, there's a long history of Will hiding his feelings. Fascinating how the conversation that basically establishes this trait of his, aka his exchange with Joyce, happens in S2 and specifically in relation to his not-actually-PTSD episodes. But the motive of hiding, be it in a literal or a figurative sense (as in hiding parts of himself), is integral to Will's character. It is continually present troughout seasons and is supported by in-show elements and costume design choices alike.

Billy Hargrove And Henry Bowers Are Overflowing

Parallels should be drawn between Henry and Billy, too. This section is small, but nonetheless I like it — it's a finishing touch to the story and a cherry to top it all off.

Richie completes his train of thought by contrasting Tony and Henry Bowers, accentuating how the latter “didn't bother hiding” his bad feelings, e. g. his anger, bigotry and violent outbursts. The same could be said about Billy. Both of them killed people under the influence (Flayed!Billy, Pennywise-inspired!Henry) and definitely were capable of assault regardless. For both of them a relationship with one's father seems to be an instigation of their descent into madness, although Billy hates Neil, whereas Henry appears to have a more complex, effectively love-hate attitude towards Oscar.

It's also noteable that Billy is a foil character to Will, who is mirroring him in many ways, while Henry and Patrick may be seen as foils to Richie and Eddie when it comes to handling “their same-sex attraction”. And by the way, if sexuaility and attraction is consired “bad feelings” within Will's mind, one particular part of this post becomes all the more relevant. To quote and paraphrase, “Billy wears his sexuality proud and openly”, yet Will's sexuality is suppressed — another case of hiding versus overflowing.

I'd love to TL;DR this post into something concise and coherent, but I fear I'd just end up repeating my points and wording. I'd rather say I have more thoughts on Richie and Will's similarities, so there's gonna be a short post about it sometime down the line. Thank you to anyone who decided that this was worth reading!

#tw csa mention #will byers #richie tozier #stranger things analysis #st analysis #my analysis #this is not gonna get noticed but whatever #i'm doing it for the sake of doing it

33 notes · View notes

thetriumvirate · 2 months ago

Text

[ callum kerr, pansexual, cis male + he/him, smoke manipulation ] alistair macgregor is a neutral evil agent of pandora selected for their gift with words in the world of politics, well-versed in backstabbing and plotting as well as influential contacts and underwent the top-secret mutation process. to the rest of the world, the thirty-six year old originally from glasgow, scotland is deceased or missing. however, in atlantis, they are now known as smoke of envy after developing the ability to create, control and manipulate smoke as well as become intangible in a gaseous form, suitable for either cover tracks or assassination. the agent has been with pandora for seven years and is trusted for being confident & easy-going, but once reprimanded for being possessive & envious.

»»»ACCESSING DATABASE««« »»»PASSWORD REQUIRED««« »»»CONFIRMED««« »»»SMOKE FILE SELECTED: DO YOU WISH TO PROCEED?««« »»»Y/N«««

PERSONAL FILE: Name: MacGregor, Alistair Callsign: Smoke Division: Envy Service Time: Seven years Age: 36 years old Original from:Glasgow, Scotland Height: 6’0’’ Hair Color: Light Brown Eye Color: Blue PSYCHOLOGICAL PROFILE: SMOKE hails from a world of politics so it is expected that he can keep up a façade no matter the circumstances. His true intentions and thoughts are difficult to access, for SMOKE appears to know always the right thing to say and how to say it. Gifted with a charming personality, it is not hard no evaluate his ability to quickly befriend friend and foe alike. In depth analysis cannot access his true allegiance. He is confirmed to the loyal to PANDORA but he is also loyal to himself first and foremost. As long as our interests and his align perfectly, no further actions are required. CURRENT SKILLSET: Expertise: intimidation, marksmanship, culture and politics Proficiencies: acrobatics and evasion, deception, battlefield endurance, stealth and infiltration, insight Substandard areas: seduction, perception AUGMENTED ABILITY ANALYSIS: SMOKE is capable of creating, manipulating and shape smoke under a wide array of effects.

His primary use is to become intangible by transforming himself into a cloud of smoke that can easily slip through cracks, keyholes and other usually inaccessible places. In this form, he can also enter someone’s lungs and make it impossible for them to breathe, often leading to death. This ability is not limited to a single target but to the location it is used. Closed spaces are preferential for SMOKE to use this particular ability. SMOKE is also able to become tangible or intangible at will – often resulting in any blows that would make contact pass through him as he becomes a cloud of smoke. He is capable of becoming intangible in the form of smoke to also cloud someone’s field of vision and make their eyes burn due to this.

In his smoke form, he is capable of flying but this appears to only affect his gaseous form. His physical form is currently unable to fly or even levitate. SMOKE can also change the density of the smoke he creates to make it either resemble a light mist or become so thick that makes it unable to cross due to extensive periods without oxygen. The longer a mark is exposed to his gaseous form, the more adverse and potentially lethal the effects become: these vary from extreme coughing fits, burning eyes, lack of oxygen to the brain which may cause hallucinations, lung damage and in specific cases – death.

AUGMENTED ABILITY KNOWN LIMITATIONS: While SMOKE possess extraordinary abilities, his primary weakness resides in air. Strong gale winds may dissipate the smoke curtains or even his gaseous form – which in turn will require a larger period of time for him to reform himself after being disbanded. Large spaces may also prove a complex challenge for the larger the area to cover in smoke, the longer it will take for him to expand his gaseous form to cover more ground. In these cases, it is preferable for SMOKE to target groups of people or single individuals. Places with access to the exterior may also pose a problem – for the stronger the air current, the more effort is required of him to remain in his gaseous state.

#pandora.intro #( smoke profile analysis )

6 notes · View notes

justinspoliticalcorner · 1 year ago

Text

Chris Geidner at Law Dork:

A federal judge rejected Florida’s request to dismiss sex discrimination claims in a lawsuit against the state’s ban on teachers using the pronoun that corresponds to their gender identity. In a brief order on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker denied motions from the state and other defendants to dismiss sex discrimination claims raised in the lawsuit under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972. Under the anti-transgender law, teachers in the state can only use the pronouns associated with their biological sex assigned at birth in the classroom — or risk discipline that can include suspension or even licensure revocation.

Walker issued a preliminary injunction in April against enforcement of the ban as to Katie Wood, one of the teachers who sued, under a free speech claim, writing, “Once again, the State of Florida has a First Amendment problem. Of late, it has happened so frequently, some might say you can set your clock by it.” Wednesday’s ruling expanded which claims will be allowed to go to trial. Walker, an Obama appointee, initially allowed parts of the lawsuit to proceed as to free speech and equal protection claims, as well as a preemption claim, but agreed with the state in the April 19 order that the challengers — three current or former teachers — did not show that the pronoun ban constituted a “term or condition” of employment that could justify the sex discrimination Title VII or Title IX claims.

In a somewhat unusual moment for a federal judge, however, Walker on Wednesday reversed course — acknowledging that he got that latter part wrong the first time. After dismissing the sex discrimination claims, the parties filed a second amended complaint to provide more information to Walker backing those claims. Additionally, the Justice Department weighed in, with a “Statement of Interest” setting forth the position of the United States on the matter — and backing the teachers’ Title VII claims. “The mandatory nature of the title/pronoun policies and the consequences for non-compliance make clear that the policies are a term or condition of Plaintiffs’ employment,” the Justice Department lawyers wrote in the statement. In response, Walker on Wednesday changed course.

[...] In response, Walker on Wednesday changed course. “[U]pon review of the second amended complaint and the briefing — particularly the thoughtful analysis from the United States of America — this Court concludes that it erred when it previously held that Plaintiffs failed to sufficiently allege that the challenged pronoun policy discriminates with respect to Plaintiffs’ terms, conditions, or privileges of employment,“ he wrote. Additionally, he further detailed the effect of a U.S. Supreme Court decision from this term, Muldrow v. St. Louis, which was issued April 17 and set forth standards for determining the “terms [or] conditions” requirement under Title VII, beyond his consideration of it in the earlier ruling. Specifically, Walker wrote, ”This Court’s incorrect analysis relied on case law that is no longer good law following” the Muldrow decision.1

Challengers score a big win on the fight against Florida’s forced misgendering law HB1069 in Wood v. Florida Department of Education that bans the usage of pronouns congruent with their gender identity instead of the gender assigned at birth.