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inkskinned · 2 years ago

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you're grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that's popular right now; an almost sardonic "twist" of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn't actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.

you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.

he says i don't like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.

a few years ago, you probably would have said you're above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you've been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there's something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she's not as nice as she appears. you liked i'm glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.

he doesn't like small talk, figure out something to say.

you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there's something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.

people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that's something that's come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it's just ... easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of "heteroflexible" is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you're trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it's not okay you're single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.

wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don't you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol' brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.

also. jesus christ. why can't you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn't date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you'd be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you'd think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.

he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. "i'm not, like an andrew tate guy," he's saying, "but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order."

you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what's your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it's fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you're into men, and sometimes you're sitting across from a man, and you're thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you're failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see "straight married" as being "all A's", and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being ... like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.

"so let's talk boundaries." he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he's rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. "I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don't care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you're there."

he wasn't like this over text, right? you wouldn't have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you'd be running. you'd just get up and go. that's what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it's rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.

you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.

is this settling down? is this all that's left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who "makes" you a wife?

you look down to your hand, clutching the knife.

#writeblr #this is a mashup of like 3 dates i accidentally went on lol #by that i mean that i was out with a woman on a date in 2 of these situations #and a man just. joined us. and we were too awkward to say anything while he tried to ''date'' me #& one was a longterm friend that i was like. you what????#like he's nice he's a doctor and my mom was SO happy she was like raquel think about it #''it's a perfect love story you grew up together and reconnected as adults and like the same things and he's friends with ur brother #and his sister is one of ur close friends!!!''#yes but alas. he is a boy . she only likes girls. can i make it any more obvious #anyway im tryna write about like the force of male attention being actually incredibly ingrained to women like we are SUPPOSED to like it #it's seen as the only important thing #even if ur gay #and it's a nuanced thing idk #and while rn i i.d. as lesbian #like .... it wouldn't be UNTRUE to say i am probably like ''cusp bisexual'' bc i CAN experience attraction to men bc like .#sexuality is fluid...#don't tell straight ppl tho bc they do not understand the concept that ppl don't necessarily need a solid everlasting label #they're like GET in the BOX #if ur gay & in boston i'm 30 and pretty please come kiss me.#(i usually only date older ppl sorry in advance tho)

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cloudbends · 2 months ago

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It's been rotating in my brain for a while, so I decided to compile my thoughts about the parallels between anaxa and sunday in terms of the way their writing, personality and themes align with one another. At this point, I don't believe this is coincidental.

Anaxa sees reason and emotion as coexisting concepts instead of opposing ends. he rejects himself but he doesn't reject his humanity. he rejects his life but doesn't reject his personhood. he debatably has more faith in his students than he does in himself, because he puts so much trust in them to continue his work. to question everything. to forsake everything. to prove everything he can because he has nothing to lose. he guards his theories with his life because its literally all he has left. and i just like how antideterministic it is. they're doomed but he proves its not humanity being doomed by the gods, its humanity's ability to both doom and save itself.

the parallels between sunday and anaxa are best summed up by these two quotes from their respective trailers:

sunday: knowing there were no gods who could save people unconditionally. to change anything, you can only rely on yourself.

anaxa: gods, decry it as blasphemy - if that is all you can do [...] we alone are the true gods of this world.

How can they believe there's such a thing as a god after all they've lost? A line that particularly stuck out to me in anaxa's stories was cerces's goading of anaxa, asking him if he prayed to the titans upon seeing his hometown ruined and his sister dead. It disclosed a deeper, more personal sentiment anaxa has towards the titans than a mere desire to erase their existence. For anaxa, forsaking the gods means to wrestle control back to humanity's hands, to his hands, in the face of an uncontrollably tragic fate.

In this sense, both anaxa and sunday must deal with a desire for control, doing so by getting their respective gods out of the equation. I think Sunday's words at the grand theatre are incredibly important to this point, and indicate just how similar (if, of course, different circumstantially) their characters and arcs are:

Sunday: My desire is not to resurrect a fallen Aeon, or become one myself... my sole objective is to create a paradise free from Aeons, where the Order ensures the dignity and happiness of all humanity. A paradise exclusive to us human beings".

Sunday, for all his religious theming and imagery, wishes to forsake the gods in favour of an order of safety, to be the sole person remaining awake to guard the dreaming. I think it's very interesting that thematically, anaxa is framed as chaotic, wishing to disrupt the status quo, a perceived opposite to sunday, who in fact shares many more similarities with his mindset than you'd imagine. They both want to liberate mankind from the gods, so their fates won't be inextricably tied to the gods' whims, having grown disillusioned with them. Here however, the stark difference in their methods comes into play: while sunday's desire for humanity's happiness is regrettably robbing it of agency, anaxa's desire for humanity to gain its agency back is knowingly robbing them of their faiths.

Sunday doesn't have faith in humanity's ability to overcome hardships, and in order to be their protector, he decided to usurp the role of a god - he saw horrors so severe, that he felt he had to shoulder their protection for himself. Sunday operates by his sense of anxiety which inadvertently disclosed his lack of faith, taking things into his own hands to ensure they will go as well as possible - he can ensure the success and happiness of humanity only if he takes the burden upon himself and sees it through with his own hands. He feels only he can, or really must, be the responsible person who can shoulder the burden of protecting humanity, which inadvertently strips them of agency. Meanwhile, anaxa's entire thesis is based on his own disillusionment with the gods and faith in humanity, that his plan and eventual usurping of the titan position was in service of proving humanity's agency over the titans by their being identical beings. Anaxa has so much faith in humanity, to the point of disregarding his life and physical existence and completely trusting his students to continue what he can't finish. The blasphemer is driven by faith in humanity, while the believer is driven by distrusting the gods.

To their respective ends, they both decide to pose themselves as antagonists in the eyes of the public in order to ascend to a higher position at the expense of their own lives and well being. They're both themed and viewed as performers of sorts (depicted in stage settings, the performer and the conductor), which on the surface level, epitomise sunday as an organizer, a puppeteering figure, a follower of Order, and anaxa as the wild stage performer, a soliloquy giver, disrupting the audience's understandings of the world into chaos. I contend, however, that the complete opposite is true, making these parallels all the more compelling. Sunday's performance is entirely puppeteered and driven by his sense of anxiety, desperation, and an urge to escape reality, not being able to withstand its horrors - the order hides personal chaos. On the other side of the coin, anaxa's performance is the epitome of calculated, an argument and theory decades in the making, meant to be his final proof so he can leave the world that pained him behind to his students to nourish and give a final sacrifice for his equivalent exchange - the chaos hides personal order.

These two opposing ideas disclose the paralleling approaches anaxa and sunday take in regards to their ideals, and their differences in mental fortitude and personality. Anaxa is very self assured that his method will lead to his desired outcomes, marches entirely to the beat of his own drum, passing his thoughts to his cherished students and trusting them to continue what he doesn't believe he can survive to accomplish. Sunday, on the other hand, is defined by his insecurity, being surrounded by the hostile environment of the family, the younger figure thrust into a position of power through manipulation, and being forced to conform to it. Anaxa's figure is that of a teacher, an authority, while Sunday was inherently stuck in the position of a novice political figure, forced to sway according to the authorities around him.

Probably one of the most dominant aspects paralleling anaxa to sunday is both of their incredibly meaningful and impactful bonds they share with their sisters. While in sunday's case his bond takes central stage and in anaxa's stage we can only infer based on the little that is mentioned about it, I think it is no less significant to a thorough understanding of his character and motivations.

In both cases, two young siblings are left to fend off for themselves as their parents either die at the hands of war (sunday and robin) or decide to abandon their children (anaxa and his sister). And as such, they're each other's most meaningful connections in the world. Sunday owes robin his dream of a utopia, her ever supporter because her happiness is his, cementing his dedicating his life for the sake of others. In a similar vein, anaxa owes his sister his education, his access to knowledge, to experiments, to what is going to shape his life ambitions. However, I think what ties these characters further together is this sense of debt towards their sisters, in a way that feeds their selflessness and becomes their central means to achieve their goals.

Anaxa, in what I can infer from his character stories, genuinely views his life as disposable after his sister's death. His philosophical emphasis on equivalent exchange is, in large part, a reflection of his guilt towards his sister and her sacrifice - allowing him to study at the grove, at the expense of her own life the moment he left. In order for him to be worthy of her sacrifice - or the exchange to be equivalent - he must give away everything in order to achieve his goal. He must continuously chip away at his body, and his spirit, while insisting on retaining his heart and person, in order to make her death have meaning, for the rules of the world to make sense.

They're both so riddled with guilt, to the point it becomes their driving force. Both of their most significant human connections were to their sisters, feeling such an intense amount of debt towards both of them, that this sense of owing encourages them to keep chipping away at themselves in a subconscious effort to live up to both of their sister's "sacrifices" (robin's is more metaphorical). The kindness they received makes them eager to sacrifice more and more of themselves, creating a core of guilt that serves as their motivation to keep losing themselves for their grander goal.

The following portion of anaxa's 'chrysos' volume drew more parallels between the two in a way I can only interpret as being intentional, at the foremost through the use of the songbird motif. While sunday's charmony dove allegory bears no need to repeat, and I could write about it for hours, the following quote by anaxa is meaningful:

anaxa: I once carved a songbird that miraculously flapped its wings and took to the sky, though it circled five times at low altitude before falling...

As it is explicitly told, sunday's turning point in his life and ideology was finding the charmony dove and having to confront the moral dilemma, a choice he viewed to be between freedom and security. His anxiety began to take root, as he had to watch the bird he nursed back to health attempt to fly again, and watch it plummet to its death, cementing in his minds that the weak, those he cherishes, are better kept secure than free. Ironically, he doesn't realise that he himself is stuck in such a cage, terrified of flying, and how his thought process ends up straining his relationship with the same person he so wishes to protect.

I don't think it's coincidental that anaxa chooses to emphasize the fact that the bird he manifested into life, also met its death a short amount of time after it was created by his hands. They're both left unsatisfied - they both must strive to do better, to either preserve life (sunday) or to create life (anaxa), so long as they can make sense of death. Both of these incidents end up solidifying and crystallizing their worldviews: they must sacrifice more of themselves in order to achieve their dreams. Be it a boundless utopia in sunday's case - posing himself as the sole guarding figure who shelters humanity from the terrors of existence regardless of the gods; or achieving transcendence and reaching an absolute truth in anaxa's case - by, similarly, posing himself as the one who must chip away at himself in order to prove, and give meaning, to humanity's existence regardless of the gods.

And perhaps most tragically, eventually, both sunday and anaxa were forced to sacrifice a part of themslves and lose the things they were most scared of losing. Anaxa, who was willing to sacrifice his physical well being, is forced to sacrifice his imprints on history and theory, sacrificing others memories of him, his legacy, his achievements. Sunday, whose drive for the betterment of others arose first and foremost from how much he cherished his only family, had to sacrifice his connection to her, the person closest to him, so he could protect her - they are torn apart, while ever present in each others' minds.

Something about these two, and their relationship to faith, the gods, their families, and worldviews, is deeply compelling in its similarity. They should meet up.

#vi rambling #hsr #UHM. HHHAHA SORRY THIS IS REALLY LONG #im not good at being succinct. and i haven't written meta in a very long time.#i hope any of this makes any sense.... ive just been trying to pinpoint #what is the similar themahic vibe im getting from both of them.#it felt at first like im just insane about my two favorite little guys in the game. but the more content they put out #the more i was proven right.#this is mostly a thematic comparative analysis so of course #some things get simplified. but #honestly. they will both talk endlessly about philosophy its just in their nature.#anyways. my hypercarry anaxa sunday robin team ily forever and youre never changing. favs on main or nothing!!!#IDK WHAT TO TAG THIS.#hsr meta #hsr anaxa #hsr sunday #I GUESS??? IDK!!!#i also got a terrible illness got being repetitive so. apologies in advance #vi.analysis

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