#going way too philosophical

[thesillyexpresser]

After reading a fic with (the best most thought provoking depiction of) AI Turo, it reminded me of a certain poem from Evangelion, so I drew this ✨💜

No text version, a way to philosophical rambling based off of mentioned fic and Evangelion that’s about an essay long, and a doodle under the cut v

Features Spoilers for Pokemon SV and references to Evangelion anyways let’s start the ramble

SOOOoooo this fic (📒 Turn Back the Clock by MahinaPea11) has what I believe hands down one of the bestest thought provoking depictions of AI Turo (FYI: it is a yn romance fic in the 2nd pov and it is tagged as smut BUT the work is relatively 98% SFW and the smut tag was for a smut chapter that never really came as of now) (and that two percent NSFW is the yn getting attacked with a description of every bone they broke in the first chapter and a weird bath scene in chapter 4 so if you like robots questioning their existence and having crises but not smoochy smooching and awkward moments [aka me] you can skip some of that) (I’m not the biggest fan of yn romance as of the second pov category and get really uncomfortable around smut and 18+ crap but I actually really really enjoyed it and if you like man-made objects having epiphanies about their own human identity, I highly suggest this) (and before you ask what I was doing reading a yn romance fic, I was feeling really sick n’ crappy so much so that I gave up my pride and actually read it).

Anyways, enough with explaining myself. The main reason (of course there’s more reasons but here’s the most thought provoking one) I really like this fic (specifically in the 6th chapter) is because it deals with something that I found interesting about the Prof AI as a character, how they feel about being the original Professor and not. In a sense they are the og. They have all the memories of the og. They look like the og. The sound like the og. They are meant to represent wholly the og. But at the same time, they’ve explained they’re different. They don’t see eye to eye on the beliefs and dreams of the original. Yet, it’s not like they have to drastically physically change themself to assert that. I don’t think that’s something they’d want to do anyways. They’re just them. A being of wires that has the memories and experiences of a real person but never actually lived through them. They an exact copy of another person but different all the same. They are a vessel for a soul that isn’t really theirs. They’ve lived through a life though not really having one anyways. Do they have a life?

The reason why I chose lines from Rei’s I am Me poem from episode 14 as text for the art is because I think her situation is similar. She is (theorized to be) a copy of Yui. Although she isn’t seemingly aware of this, I think she is partially aware that she’s man made. She questions if this factor means she’s qualified to be called a life form of if she simply is an object. To be called her own person separate from what she was made to do.

Not to negate Rei as a character, but I like to think that somehow the AI profs have dealt with this contemplation, too, and I think it’s made worse with how they actually know for certain that they were made just as a mechanical copy as their creator. They themself are a paradox of Area Zero, and I believe they simply accept this. They accept the fact that they’re a tin can representative of a dead person rotting away in the ground. They accept the fact that they are different from each other and that they am their own being. I’m pretty sure that from their realization of the og professor’s flaws and them leaving at the end of the story, that they were still dealing with the “people” they are. In the fic, AI Turo even has the balls to consider himself to be considered a living being (and good for him).

Holy crap I went too philosophical and deep and whatever here’s a doodle I made.

[faaun]

Jack Marsh (2005), Friendship Otherwise - Toward a Levinasian Description of Personal Friendship

[ctrl-alt-deleting-yr-face]

okay to those of you who saw my last rb and care about my stupid guilty gear au. i NEED to rant right now. Massive long winded about bedkari (aka bedman x hikari, my stupid ship that’s part of reverie of rebirth) under the cut. Be warned they’re so toxic yuri

i just realized. The cornered pray analogy exactly how the dynamic between Romeo and Hikari is. The lamb preparing for their slaughter specifically is. Exactly them. But the thing is… The roles are swapped in a way.

Romeo, of course, has sheep elements. Those are a huge part of his design- Even in his canon story as well. He’s a lamb being led by a shepherd. He’s naively being led along by Ariels, she calms him when he rebels or lashes out against her, and she led him all the way to his eventual slaughter. He’s the lamb.

But with Hikari, he gets to be the shepherd.

Hikari is a yokai. She’s powerful. I wrote her to be powerful on purpose. She could be fatally wounded and survive, not even batting an eye due to her lack of pain receptors. Which she does. Right when she first meets Romeo. He tries to kill her, and yet she’s unfazed. She doesn’t care. She didn’t feel anything, and she knows she wants to be near him no matter what. All that’s important is pleasing him.

Basically all Hikari knows is Romeo. When she first met him and emotionally latched onto him, she had only recently awoken and still had all her emotions. All her emotions were developed around Romeo’s guidance and treatment of her, which basically just meant being his little assistant, aiding in his war crimes, and associating joy with his slightly harsh treatment.

All Hikari knows is showing her neck and stomach to Romeo.

When comparing the specific animal motifs of both Romeo and Hikari, it’s really fun to see the contrast. Hikari has the designs element of the predator animal, while Romeo has motifs of the prey. However, those roles are swapped in terms of their behavior. Romeo is abrasive and only begins to show care towards his yokai companion after months in his presence, while said companion innocently follows his commands and accepts anything he throws her way- Naively believing every word he says like it’s gospel. A little cat blindly loving the cruel shepherd. It’s a beautiful parallel that honestly was not intentional.

The sheep bares its teeth and bites into the neck of the two-tailed cat.

[martianbugsbunny]

It's not as fun for me to watch the Captain America movies anymore because even though it's on me for actually thinking Marvel might have Steve and Bucky end up together, it was one hundred per-cent a reasonable assumption to make. The chemistry was there. The history. The narratives revolving around each other's lives. Steve saying it's hard to find someone he has shared experiences with when there's a man who matches that description heart achingly well. Bucky knowing Steve so deep within his core that not even brainwashing and mental torture can keep him from remembering. I'm with you to the end of the line being almost like a marriage vow. The way Bucky can't remember the name of the girl he dated once (but Steve can) but he remembers the part of that experience that involved Steve. The way he's believed in Steve since before he was Captain America. The way Steve would literally rather die than hurt Bucky anymore once he knows the world is safe, even if he doesn't know whether or not Bucky will have mercy on him (and it's not even important if he believes Bucky will, because that wouldn't have any impact on Steve's decision to stop fighting). The way they just keep haunting each other. The way it should be impossible for them to still exist together but the universe conspired to save them both for the twenty-first century. The way Bucky is the only person alive who knows that Steve used to put newspapers in his shoes. The way that's all Steve needs to hear from him to know this is Bucky and not the Winter Soldier.

No, I don't expect that every ship will become canon. But can you blame me for hurting when something that felt so much like eternal love, that felt so close to seeing people like me up there on the movie screen, didn't get to happen when it so easily could've?

Would you blame Icarus for plunging too hard into a taste of freedom, after being locked away for years, when it was really the weakness of the wax and the fury of the sun that killed him?

[note-boom]

I was thinking about BSD's female characters again (as one does) and being mildly frustrated that a lot of their trauma comes from being controlled by an outside male source....and then it hit me.

Almost EVERY BSD character has a past and trauma rooted in being controlled or having a lack of control.

Atsushi under the orphanage headmaster. Akutagawa under Dazai. Kyouka under Akutagawa (and keep in mind Koyou helped get her out in the end). Yosano under Mori. Kenji losing control after his best friend dying. Chuuya under the government and then the Port Mafia. Koyou losing control over her freedom thanks to the old boss. Ranpo having no control over his own self and having been isolated from the world. The Hunting Dogs under the government. Sigma under the DoA and the Book. Even Dazai a little (more on that later).....just this persistent theme of people not getting control over their lives.

And you know what that sounds like? Characters in a story being manipulated by an author.

We have this persistent theme of literature and writing and books throughout BSD, after all. And this incessant use of a character having a tragic past rooted in lack of control or losing control and being manipulated by some superior force screams (to me at least) literary imagery. And what's most interesting is that Dazai both is a character and a manipulator.

Of course he's not the only one pulling the strings, as we know. But he does eat up a BIG part of the narrative, I think...a character who previously had no will to seek out anything to do (and thus adopted the values or reasons of the people around him) trying to craft a narrative of his own after the death of his friend. A character essentially trying to become the author (the light novel Beast just makes me wonder more about this, tbh). But also one whose story is told through the stories of other characters.

And what I find interesting about that AND Beast with regards to Dazai is this page from Vol 17...

People writing. The writer including their own self into the story. Being both a character AND an author and in that sense taking control of your own life and your circumstances....

I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, but I just wanted to really point out that part of a lot of the BSD characters' narratives have to do with this lack of control over their own lives....and we see the ADA full of people trying to take back control. Kunikida and his ideals, Yosano and her healing, Ranpo being the agency's core, Atsushi trying to save people, and Dazai trying to become the author in other people's lives if he can't be the author of his own (his inability to die, you know?).

So my question honestly is just what's the deal with that? Am I making mountains out of molehills or seeing themes and motifs that aren't there? And if not, what does the existence of the Book say about these characters struggling to write their own narratives? (Or the narratives of others, in Dazai's case). Just....literary imagery in BSD and the "toxic" relationship between the author and the character....

[hua-fei-hua]

when i was in my second year of high school i sat next to this guy in history whom i didn’t rlly get along w/until i saw him writing love letters to his girlfriend and offered to fold them into hearts for him. i wonder what he’s up to.

[bingobongobonko]

took some screenshots cuz ive been playing soma and i've finally reached the dunbat but im like. holy shit? holy shit. i don't wanna do spoilers so i won't but simply put: simon jarett you are just like me fr. i too am massively confused and have no fucking idea what's going on.

BTW SPOILERS IN TAGS just in case

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

Evermore anon, I just reblogged @wavesoutbeingtossed’s brilliant posts of that exact theme! YES something about all of this and the weight of forever, the reality of a a future that forces a person to get truly philosophical about joining together two humans in such a final and intimate ceremony. That introspection can recomtextualize a lot of relationship stuff that maybe felt more symbolic or abstract until it’s Happening.

[faaun]

ok let's catch up quickly

[batking-lich]

"i'm not like those Other People, i only consume Unproblematic Media™ with Good Representation™ and i don't like Irredeemable Media™"

"i'm not like those Other People, i don't like this Sanitized Media™, i only like Real Art™ with Bad Messy Representation™"

you are literally the same people wearing different hats the only things you disagree about are what counts as bad media and what counts as good representation

[blue-b-bro]

.

[llycaons]

something else I was thinking was that they didn’t include the full extent of fantine's abject misery and exploitation. in both the musical and movie, she sells what she has and then sells her hair. in the book, her two front teeth are ripped out by a dentist to pay for what she believes to be cosette’s medicine

[giantkillerjack]

Oh I have consumed too much Christian discourse I need to have gay sex immediately

[jyuanka]

"his lips tasted like ice and sin"

[lord-squiggletits]

Also idk if I can elaborate on this in beautiful enough detail, but I think that the Autobots going through unreasonable amounts of effort to save other people even at great personal cost to themselves is literally something good about them, and if you try to criticize that as a way the Autobots are “bad” then I really don’t get you.

[thedevotionaltour]

i havent even read enough gl to justify the feelings and emotions i have about kyle i just have the lovers heart and also something wrong with me. and my projection. in my mind he's just like me. and he would have loved college vending machine frozen cheeseburger and heating it up in the microwave at 1 in the morning because he was bored and didn't want to work on a drawing assignment on 20" x 30" paper that was due tomorrow in his freshman year. he would have loved going to the club to push off finals work that's creating the worst stress known to man in his brain. and he would love to annoy the fuck out of his roommate when high and avoiding homework on a saturday.