#he's the only one with common sense in the doa

[wizardfrog69]

what if doa ends up not even telling sigma that they found out about their relationship and just k*lls reader and says that their relationship would be a hindrance to their plans (plus they prob want to get rid of reader too)?

I feel like you're the same person who wrote the other teo requests but I'm just doing a bad job at writing them 😭

'•.¸♡ false choices ♡¸.•'

Sigma x gn!reader

Angst

A sequel to this and an alternative to this scenario

Cw!!! Death, blood, emotional manipulation, suicide.

If this subject is triggering in anyway please do not read, your mental wellbeing is more important

Sigma got home in the late hours of the evening all the lights were turned off and he just assumed you were asleep, but upon entering your shared room you were no where to be found. There was always a slight fear in the back of Sigma's head that his relationship would be found out and either you or him would end up dead but he never let those fears interfere with his life, up to this point atleast. Sigma hoped you were just out with your friends and would come back later that night or you had to do over time, he hoped you were alright and nothing happened to you.

Sigma tried to stay up all night but eventually gave up and decided to rest, hoping you would show up in the morning or at least call.

Waking up to a cold bed and the sound of alarms blaring in his ears Sigma got up, he still felt scared, more scared this time. He got up and looked around the house, everywhere he could think of, he called your friends, he stopped by your work asking about you but no one had seen you. His fears only grew and grew at thus point, nothing could have happened to you, no you were just out somewhere and forgot to call, you were alright.

Upon entering his office, Sigma felt something was off, as if someone was staring at him, but the feeling was looked passed and forgotten when he noticed an envelope on his desk, inside was a piece of paper which read "[address]" he didn't know what this meant but all he knew was that the handwriting seemed early familiar.

The address was of an abandoned wear house, something the doa was fond of. Sigma went to visit hoping to find you there, when he entered a strange smell hit him, the smell of a rotting body. Worried, Sigma followed the smell but when he saw what was causing the smell he couldn't move, his body was frozen in its place.

There was a body laying on the floor with a pool of blood around it, the blood was spilling out of the deep cut on the neck, the cut wasn't deep enough for the head to be completely severed off but it was deep enough for a long and painful death, the live of this person ended with them staring at a ceiling, counting down the seconds to their death as their life slipped away, they were probably all alone and couldn't call for help. But this wasn't what caused Sigma to go into a state of shock, no the reason why his heart was pounding, why his breaths became short, why tears kept on pouring down his face was because the life which the corpse held was your life, your life slipped away in this empty building, the most precious thing in the world slipped away and Sigma didn't even notice, he thought you were out having fun.

When Sigma got control over his body again he quickly ran up to your lifeless body. 'No no no please no this no please stay, stay with me, I can't loose you, not now not ever please stay, common wake up everything is going to be okay, everything is going to be okay, please just open your eyes, please don't go...' His words got distorted into loud cries after your soul, he was hugging your corpse hoping to revive you again, he wanted for you to wake up and tell him it was all a joke, he wanted for you to wake up laughing.

'Why did this happen, why would anyone let this happen, it shouldn't be like this, why are they dead, why.' Countless questions of "why" were roaming around his head trying to make sense of the situation.

'If only I left the decay of angels, if only we saw each other less, why couldn't they killed instead why them, this isn't fair, why!' His cries could be heard throughout the building, the empty building in which in one could have saved you, in which how ever loud you shouted he could have never heard you and say his final goodbye, in which he could hear footsteps...

Footsteps in an abandoned building... who else was there? Are they the one who killed you? Did they come back for the body? Questions started to occupy Sigma's mind. He sat up pulling your body closer to his so he could see who was waking up to the room he was in while still being able to keep you close, not letting anyone take you away from him.

A tall figure came in through the door, stepping into the light so Sigma could recognise who the figure was, it was no one other than Fyodor.

'Were you the one who killed them!' Sigma shouted not bothering to hide the feelings of hatred and anger towards him but also the sadness of the loss. 'Yes, they were from the armed detective agency.' Fyodor started to slowly walk up to Sigma. 'You didn't have to kill them! Why, why did you do it, why didn't you kill me instead...' Sigma's voice started to fade away into a silent cry. 'Get up.' Fyodor's stern voice pulled Sigma's attention away from you and up to him again. 'You killed them! This is all your fault you bastard!' Fyodor was now standing directly in front of Sigma. 'My fault? I wasn't the who fell in love with someone from the armed detective agency, I wasn't the one who dragged them into a life of lies and secrets. Their death is your fault, it is your fault they suffered here, alone, it is your fault, everything is, if you left them alone they could be happily enjoying life.' Fyodor was right it's my fault, they are dead because of me, I caused them to suffered in pain and misery....

Sigma stood up after continously apologising to a corpse, he apologised for ever meeting him, he apologised for everything they had ever done and he did as Fyodor told him to, he got up. His body still shaking he followed Fyodor out of the building and he went home to rest.

'What am I going to do without them? How am I supposed to continue on living without them, why did they have to die! It should've been me, why wasn't it me! Please someone tell me why am I still alive! Why am I still alive! Please let me die!' Eventually his cries died out along with his soul.

༺♡༻ 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧 ⋆ 𖡼.𖤣𖥧𖡼.𖤣𖥧 𓍊𓋼𓍊𓋼𓍊 ༺♡༻

I feel like this wasn't that sad honestly but oh well, it's good enough, I hope yall enjoy this! :)

Have a wonderful day/night and don't forget to take care of yourself!!!

-with love, Az :)

[well-dressed-sewer-rat]

SPEEDRUNNING A (PROBABLY MILDLY INCORRECT) DOA TRIO COLOR PALETTE ANALYSIS BECAUSE I HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO WITH MY LIFE HERE WE GO

okay here we go entire essay under the cut btw prepare yourself

made a diagram so you can see what i’m talking about, if it just looks like lines thats because it absolutely is don’t worry it’ll make sense later (i hope)

ok so. to start it off all of them have quite a bit of clearly visible black and white on their design, so black and white have to mean something they all have in common. colors like purple and crimson are shared between some, but not all of them, so those have to mean things that two of the three share but the one remaining does not. lastly, all of them have at least one color that is only seen in their design and not in any other member of the doa trio, so these colors mean something that is unique to them, a quality that none of the others possess.

let's start with black and white, which are the most obvious to me. i think those two colors together represent moral greyness; white and black are often associated with good and evil, and the first thing that comes to mind when trying to think of traits that fyodor, nikolai, and sigma all share is the fact that all three are wonderful examples of morally grey characters.

crimson is visible in quite a lot of small places in nikolai’s design, and in one big place in fyodor’s; sigma, however, has none. this is why i believe crimson represents violence. nikolai is by far the most violent of the three, hence why crimson appears in almost every corner of his design. unlike him, fyodor isn’t a very violent person upon first glance. when he is violent, however, he is VERY violent, usually ending lives right away rather than hurting or torturing anyone. he is quite well-known for this, which is why the color appears in a very large and noticeable area on his design; enough to make you remember it’s there without popping up every five seconds. sigma, as previously mentioned, does not have any noticeable crimson in his design (other than his eyes, which are more of a light pink, but are still technically on the reddish spectrum). he is introduced (in the manga) as a kind and considerate person who cares deeply for his customers, and right away it’s very hard to imagine him carrying out any acts of violence at all. he only does when it is absolutely necessary (to stop the hunting dogs from discovering too much about/attempting to stop the doa’s plan, when threatening taneda wasn’t enough and he was forced to stab him instead, etc.). this could be why his eyes are somewhat on the reddish spectrum without being entirely crimson, as seen in the other two.

now for purple/magenta, which is seen most often in fyodor and sigma; it is in nikolai's design if you squint, but we'll get into that later. because of this, purple could represent something like patience/knowledge/seriousness. it’s seen most often in fyodor, in his eyes and everywhere along his shirt thing, and second most often in sigma, in his hair and under his coat. his hair, which is a very prominent piece of his design, is a really light shade of purple, symbolizing how he is viewed from the outside; people see him as a serious and respectable person, in a good way. under his coat, however, is a much darker shade of purple, which represents how he is serious, but in a much darker light than people paint him in. it doesn’t jump out at you immediately, and the purple can often be mistaken for black, just like how his darker side is buried far below the side he lets the people of his casino see. this more serious side of him is also a big part of his moral greyness, hence it being mistaken for black, which we’ve already determined represents the morally grey side of the doa trio. the purple in nikolai’s design is also under his coat, hidden in a similar fashion to sigma’s, with one key difference; there isn’t any prominent purple on the outside. this is because upon meeting him, you don’t think, “wow, what a wise, serious person!” you think, “what the hell is that guy doing running around in a joker costume from the dollar tree?” the more serious side of him isn’t visible unless you really look for it, but it’s definitely there.

as for the colors that appear individually in their designs, fyodor’s is the yellow on his coat and buttons (it is worth mentioning that nikolai also has a gold chain near his neck, but it doesn’t really matter anyway since i haven’t been able to figure out what the yellow represents lmao), nikolai’s are the bright green and blue in his eyes, and sigma’s is the blue-grey on his lapels (woah new coat terminology acquired), his tie, and lining his giant coat tail thing.

i wasn’t really sure what nikolai’s blue and green could mean based on color alone, so i thought more in terms of traits that he has that fyodor and sigma do not. the answer here is fairly obvious; his longing for freedom. freedom is seen as a bright and pure concept, which could be why the colors are so vibrant, but i think the main thing about nikolai’s eyes in relation to his character is the fact that they are two different colors. not only that, but one of them is hidden and the other has a noticeable scar over it. the eye with the scar could represent the broken/twisted/insane side of himself he presents to the world, while the other hidden eye symbolizes the side of himself he keeps buried underneath all that, similar to the purple under his coat we already went over.

now, sigma’s blue-grey color is the interesting part. it can’t mean the same thing as nikolai’s eye, since the themes in nikolai’s eyes are tied more to their physical state rather than their colors (and also sigma has hardly anything in common with him lmao). sigma’s non-violent tendencies are the biggest difference he has with the others, but that was already covered with his lack of crimson. after a while, a really obvious detail smacked me on the back of the head; blue is the color often associated with the armed detective agency. at the time of writing this, i’ve only read up to about chapter 82 in the manga, but i’ve seen many caught-up manga readers talking about how sigma might join the detective agency in the near future. so with whatever’s going on right now in the manga and the desaturated blue in his design, i think it’s safe to say there’s a pretty good chance of this happening.

as previously mentioned, i’m not too sure what fyodor and nikolai’s gold could represent. the closest thing i got to a possible explanation was it symbolizing their characters’ strange and seemingly out-of-place, yet beautiful relationship, but i’m not sure where that ties in to the color gold. if anyone else has any better ideas feel free to rb with your theories lmao i’ve done enough thinking for one day

also the guy ever @geo-metric added some stuff and i asked him to shove it on here and he was like yeah sure so here’s that

“theres another part i didnt see you mention for the black and white parts and that is the way it is portrayed on each character. fyodors coat is the primary black part if his design, with nearly his whole outfit underneath being white which can symbolize the way how, from an outside perspective, its like 'woah this dude is really evil with all his murder and stuff' but then you look further beneath that and you see oh wait no hes got a point and hes doing this in the name of justice and not just 'hey you know what would be so silly of me to do'.

SIGMA, ON THE OTHER HAND IS THE OPPOSITE. his vest and shirt thing (idk wtf its called) are the primary white parts of his outfit, and his pants are the black part. in his case, the white doesnt fully cover the black like fyodors, but you still first see the white, the same way you first look at him and go 'yeah this guy is morally good' and then go just a smidge deeper and go 'oh wait. no. no hes not.'

for nikolai, he actually has a bit more of black and white just spread throughout his design, which shows the difference compared to dostoy and sigma, because you can see both sides easily. in one of his first scenes where he does more than point a gun at mushitaros head, hes talking to atsushi, and, upon being asked about all the. the uh. terrorisms. he responds with two main points: 1.) its fun. he likes to do it. he gets pleasure from killing people. thats like woah major. evilness. moral red flags. but then he brings up his second point: he knows murder is evil. he knows its wrong. hes guilty about it. he does it to be free. he doesnt feel free when hes abiding the law. he feels it to be wrong. he HAS a moral conscience, but it still comes out looking to be evil. because he explains those two things in the same paragraph, you understand both the morally good and bad sides of him pretty quickly

in conclusion: colours amirite. i spent 25 minutes typing this its not even that long”

everyone give a round of applause to the vertically challenged rock for his wonderful insight 👏👏👏

thank you for taking the time to read this all, you have the attention span of a. uh. a person that probably doesnt have adhd (if you do though i’m even more impressed, congrats on not dying halfway through this post)

anyway yeah. im so normal about them i swear to god i mean fyodor i’m the normalest guy you ever did see when it comes to them just the normalest

[kyouka-supremacy]

what do you think happened to Akutagawa's coat? I mean we saw that Atsushi left the submarine without the coat, where do you think it could be? do you think Atsushi lost the coat or left it somewhere??

I think it was implied to have been lost, as much as I can hate the thought of it. Atsushi isn't shown carrying it after landing on the beach, and the idea of him minding to carefully store it for Akutagawa... Doesn't really sit right you know, Atsushi isn't used to care for Akutagawa. I guess we'll have to see, because we still don't know how Atsushi's feelings have changed for Akutagawa– although, as for his thoughts in chapter 88 it doesn't seem like they've changed all that much (╥﹏╥) We'll probably learn more about how Atsushi's perception of Akutagawa has changed when he'll (hopefully) meet him at the airport. Who knows, it's possible that maybe then Atsushi will take out the coat to try and make Akutagawa come back to senses*: I feel like if there's anyone who's gonna pull off a “I know you're still there”, then it's going to be sskk.

If Akutagawa ends up surviving, it would be sweet to have a nice moment with Atsushi returning the coat to Akutagawa (fic writers LOVE the scenario), but realistically we know it's not going to happen (@/Asagiri prove me wrong challenge)– if anything it sounds more likely we'll have Akutagawa with his coat back no explanation given lmao. If his coat really got lost at sea, I just KNOW Akutagawa would dive to the bottom of the ocean to get it once he got back to his senses: after all, he already did it once (I'm not kidding peoples for some insane reason Akutagawa free diving to inhuman depths is literally canon).

If Akutagawa is dead-dead, I really need his coat to become integral part of Atsushi's outfit. I don't care if it'll never happen. It just makes so much sense on so many levels. Atsushi coming to a huge character development that shows directly in his appearance: him letting go of his very black and white worldview to understand that even bad people can do good, and that being reflected in his apparence changing from being predominantly white to having a balance of black and white. Atsushi every day carrying with him a reminder of all the pain and death the doa attack caused. Atsushi keeping a memorial of his long date dead rival wherever he goes to motivate himself by reminding that even if his soulmate-enemy is gone, he must carry on fighting with everything he's got for him too (no homo). If the whole yin yang / two faces of the same coin metaphor can't apply anymore, it's only fair Atsushi becomes a synthesis of the both of them, you know? Akutagawa's memory living on through him. But also, I just think Atsushi really deserves a coat?? There's this curious pattern of coats being particularly common between important characters in bsd (Dazai wore a coat in Dark Era and still wears a coat with his ada outfit, Akutagawa wears a coat, Chuuya wears a coat, Mori wears a coat, and even Beast Akutagawa, Atsushi and Dazai all wear coats. It's hard to think of it being a coincidence or lazy character design); I feel it's about time the protagonist starts wearing one too?

* Although there is no way Atsushi could have schemed it as he has no idea Akutagawa has been vampirized and is currently milling about, unless someone else informed him in the meanwhile.

[vampireonastick]

BSD Theory: Meursault is a Creation of the Book; Fyodor Created it As A Trap for Dazai

SPOILERS UP UNTIL CHAPTER 99 OF THE MANGA

So I have a theory about Meursault prison. Not only do I believe it is a creation of the book, but I also believe that it was created by Fyodor and Ango (that’s right, I still think he’s a traitor), and, its entire purpose is to serve as a trap for Dazai in the DoA arc.

Why Do I Think Fyodor and Ango Have Control Over the Prison?

These are some things about the prison that don’t make much sense to me, and that would be better explained by Meursault being a creation of the book. 

1. Why is Dazai There?

From what the manga tells us, this is a maximum security prison designed to contain some of the most dangerous ability users.

But Dazai is literally just a person?? Like, he’s just some random dude?? His ability is the least deadly thing ever. I really just don’t see how a nullifying ability warrants this level of security. I mean, sure, he’s wily and clever, and maybe they were more afraid about the rest of the ADA getting in than Dazai getting out, but it still seems kinda overkill. 

Meursault is supposed to be located in Europe. It just seems like a massive hassle to ship Dazai all the way there when his ability really doesn’t warrant it.

Most logical reasoning is that Ango pulled some strings, hyped up Dazai as a threat, so he could be sent to the same prison as Fyodor in order to study/interrogate him. But why would the European government in charge of Meursault prison take the suggestion of a random Japanese government agent? Seems strange. (Unless Ango and Fyodor are working together, and Meursault prison is under their control, in which case, getting Dazai there should be relatively easy).

Also, why is Dazai imprisoned in the ‘Infinity Room’? The one with the floating cells designed specifically to contain dangerous ability users.

When explaining his Great Prison Escape Game, Nikolai mentions the place he teleported Dazai and Fyodor to from their cells is the floor above the ‘Infinity Room’, where the “regular prison” is. Suggesting that there are more cells in this maximum security prison besides the ones Fyodor and Dazai were kept in, ones that are still four floors underground. 

It would have made so much more sense to lock Dazai up in one of the regular cells on level four, than in the ‘Infinity Room’ with Fyodor as his cell neighbour. 

2. Why Do Dazai and Fyodor Have Adjacent Cells?

Also why are they allowed to be in cells right next to each other anyways? You’d think with how concerned the guards are at the weird code Fyodor and Dazai are speaking in, they'd, I don't know, move one of them to a different cell further away so they can’t talk?? (sure this lack of common sense here might just be because of plot reasons, but it’s just funny to think about).

An easy way to explain this in the plot of the story would be to again, write it off as Fyodor and Ango’s meddling. 

None of the guards think of moving either of them because it was written in the book that they would have nearby cells, so the idea of separating them wouldn’t even cross anyones mind. 

(Or the guards figure that since this is a maximum security prison, nothing Dazai or Fyodor say to each other should hold much value anyway, since even if they are conspiring to escape, no matter what their plan is it shouldn’t be possible.) 

But if this is the case, then why are the guards trying so hard to discern what code they are speaking in? They obviously want to know what they are saying to each other. (though this may just be because they are curious and nothing more, it’s still something to think about).

3. Why Is Ango Allowed to Look at Dazai’s Vitals Transcript?

There shouldn’t be any reason for anyone to look at these transcripts. If the purpose for implanting these heart monitors in the prisoners is to be able to prevent escapes, then why should these transcripts need to be inspected by anyone when the prisoner they belong to is still in prison?

“To prevent the prisoners in Meursault from escaping, a vital sign tracker is implanted in them.” (Ango)

How exactly would this stop a prisoner from escaping? If it’s just designed to record a person's vitals, this won’t do anything if they manage to escape. 

If this tracker is designed to ‘go off’ and stop a prisoner's heart if they leave the confines of the prison then sure, that would make sense. But then why would this tracker need to record the prisoner’s vitals at all times? That seems like a useless feature. 

The only other thing I can think of is that these vitals are closely monitored in order to determine if a person is considering escape. If their heartbeat is faster, then that may mean they are about to try to escape, which the guards could then use to heighten security for that prisoner. 

But that still doesn’t make much sense. The best it can do is serve as a warning a prisoner may try to escape? If the prison is so secure and well made it shouldn’t matter how much intention a person has for escaping. 

“With my government clearance, I can listen to and decode them.” (Ango)

Why would Ango’s position in the government put him in a position where he is able to have access to Dazai’s vital sign transcripts?

Again, this is a maximum security prison located in Europe and run by the European government. So why is some random government official from Japan (a person who has a personal connection to Dazai) allowed to look at the transcripts of his vitals?

What does Ango have to do in order to access these transcripts? Does he need to ask for clearance each time he wishes to view them? Or does he have open access to view them whenever he pleases? Is there some sort of system in place that keeps track of how many times Ango accesses these files? Again, it’s a very odd thing for Ango to want to view, from an outside perspective. Anyone else should think that these transcripts are useless to Ango, and because of that, you’d think his continued interest in viewing them would be seen as suspicious. 

Also, is no one else looking at these transcripts?? Surely seeing Dazai’s heartbeat all over the damn place when all the cameras show him sitting peacefully still would make people suspicious.

My theory based on this point:

When the prison was created using the book, this feature of recording vitals was added. It doesn’t seem odd to anyone because it was written in the book that everyone would find this a normal and reasonable thing to do with the prisoners. 

The real reason that Meursault tracks and records its prisoner’s vital signs, is because Ango already knows that Dazai can control his own heartbeat, and would want to communicate this way while in prison. It was designed this way to give Dazai an easy method of telling Ango all of his plans and strategies.

And the reason Ango is allowed to access these transcripts, is because he and Fyodor are the ones who created this prison, so of course they would add that if Ango asks for the transcripts, his request would be granted and no one would find this suspicious or odd. 

4. Fyodor Needs Control

In my opinion, Fyodor wouldn’t have allowed himself to be caught if he didn’t feel completely in control of his situation at all times. Meaning he wouldn’t let himself be locked up in Meursault unless he felt completely confident he could escape whenever he wanted.

This is different from the time he was Ace’s prisoner. If Fyodor’s ability allows him to instantly kill anyone he touches, he could have easily killed Ace, taken the key to the room, and left at any time he pleased. But Meursault is different. Fyodor is locked in a glass cell deep underground, he can’t leave as easily. Sure he may have allies on the outside that will help him, but how fast can they help him if there is an emergency and he needs out of the prison instantly? When it comes to his own physical safety, Fyodor feels more like the type of person that would only trust himself to protect him.

If Fyodor actually is in control of the prison, then he could be as calm as he pleases, knowing that if he needs to, he can leave any time he wishes, and leave Dazai there to die. 

Also Fyodor had planned for Dazai to come to prison with him, it’s why he had Mushitarou release his ability that was hiding the evidence of Dazai’s crimes. So how did he know Dazai would be sent to the same prison as him and not just a regular prison in Yokohama? Like I mentioned previously, it really doesn’t make much sense that Dazai was sent to such a high security prison.

Option one is that he believed that Dazai would want to keep a close eye on him, and left it to the other to get himself into Meursault. But Fyodor really doesn’t seem like the type to leave that much power to Dazai. 

Option two is that if Meursault is a creation of the book (made by Fyodor) Fyodor included in the narrative that both he and Dazai would be sent to the same prison after their arrests. 

Option three is if Fyodor and Ango are working together, Fyodor would believe Ango was capable of convincing whatever government necessary that Meursault is the best place to contain Dazai. 

I’d say the most likely scenario is a combination between options two and three. Since people do need to put in effort to push the narrative in order for the book to work, if Fyodor and Ango wrote that after their arrests, Fyodor and Dazai would both be sent to Meursault, and then Ango worked behind the scenes to convince government officials, resulting in this outcome.

When I Think Meursault Was Created Using the Book

(I would usually explain the ‘why’ before the ‘when’, but I want to allude back to some points made in this section when I talk about ‘why I think Meursault was created using the book’.)

Firstly, When Do I Think Meursault Was Created?

Originally I thought that Meursault was created at the exact same time as the Sky Casino. We know the Sky Casino is a creation of the book because, despite memories being implanted of the Sky Casino, Dazai noticed its existence was suspicious, and conducted research to reveal that the Sky Casino has only existed for just over a week.

Surely if Dazai can pick up on such subtle clues, then he could just as easily have figured out that Meursault is a creation of the book. So I figured that both of these places were created at the same time, and that the Sky Casino was purposefully created to be as over the top as possible as a diversion, to draw Dazai’s attention away from Meursault so he wouldn’t figure out it’s also a creation of the book. (Also why the Sky Casino is in Yokohama and Meursault is in Europe. In order to keep Meursault out of the spotlight). 

But after looking it up, I realized Meursault was actually mentioned for the first time in chapter 47 (in the panel below). During the cannibalism arc the man the ADA were chasing, who they believed to be Pushkin, was said to have escaped from Meursault two weeks prior. 

But going back over the information, even though Meursault was mentioned in the manga long before the Sky Casino was created, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Sky casino and Meursault weren’t created at the same time.

Because doesn’t the claim that Pushkin broke out of Meursault sound just a bit odd? 

He broke out of Meursault? How exactly? Pushkin’s ability allows him to put a virus on two hosts. Yes it’s deadly, but it’s not exactly suited for combat, or escaping a prison as secure as Meursault is. He could have been a part of a group of prisoners to escape, but the whole layout of Meursault gives the impression that inmates can’t easily talk to each other, at least not without being listened to by guards. I highly doubt any other prisoner’s created their own code like Fyodor and Dazai did.

So how did Pushkin escape Meursault? A maximum security prison? Well, what if he didn’t? What if he was never in Meursault? What if at this point in time (the cannibalism arc), Meursault didn’t exist?

The book has the power to implant memories into people’s minds. What if the report Kunikida reads on Pushkin originally said “half a month ago, he broke out of prison”, instead of what it actually says in the panel, which is “half a month ago, he broke out of ‘Meursault.’”

As far as I know, this is the only time Meursault is mentioned before the DoA arc. And considering this information Kunikida is reading on Pushkin in this panel was false, and had been fed to them by Fyodor to put them on the wrong track, then this would further support my theory. Since Fyodor would have known what exact information on Pushkin the ADA would have read, he could have easily included that after Meursault is created from the book, the ADA members will remember reading that Pushkin escaped from ‘Meursault’ instead of ‘Prison’.

Also, less than two weeks after Pushkin escapes Meursault he’s already working for Fyodor? That’s too convenient. It’s much more likely that Fyodor had his eye on Pushkin and had been planning on using him as a pawn rather than him finding him randomly after Pushkin escapes prison. Meaning Fyodor would have had to contact Pushkin while he was in prison to try to convince him to escape, which would have been difficult if he was in Meursault.

So either, Fyodor broke Pushkin out of Meursault, which again, is unlikely. Or, he broke Pushkin out of a regular prison, which would have been much simpler. (There is also the option that Pushkin was never actually in prison, and that little bit of info about him breaking out two weeks ago was just one of Fyodor’s lies).

Also Fyodor is the one who told Dazai about Pushkin and his ability. But the person in that report Kunikida is reading is not Pushkin, it's a decoy. So where did Kunikida get this wrong information from exactly? Internet? Government? *cough* Ango?? *cough*

Fyodor in Meursault

But wait. If Meursault is as old as the Sky Casino, then where was Fyodor being held the last few months? Fyodor gets arrested at the end of the Cannibalism arc, and it’s a few weeks before Dazai gets arrested, so where was he?

Well isn’t it convenient that the person who arrested Fyodor was Ango?? I’m sure it can’t be that difficult for two intelligent people possessing a book that can bend reality to trick the government and hide Fyodor for a few weeks before Meursault is written into existence.

Why I Think Meursault Was Created Using the Book

1. How Exactly are the Glass Cells Floating?

Fyodor and Dazai spend their time in Meursault in floating glass cells. Yes, it looks cool as hell, but how exactly is that possible?

The cells don’t seem to have any support beams or wires holding them up. (These would have been super easy to draw in, so I think the fact that they are obviously not there is actually quite important). And neither Dazai nor Fyodor comment on their cells bouncing or tilting as they roam around, so the cells must be able to resist the force of their movements. 

This means the cells probably aren’t suspended by magnets, as it seems near impossible to suspend a glass cage mid air with magnets in a giant room (filled with other cells at different levels) and have that cage be perfectly sturdy with no bounce or give. 

It can’t be an ability holding the cells up either, because if Dazai touches his cell the ability would be nullified, and Dazai’s cell would crash to the ground. 

Going back to the Sky Casino, in these panels below, Tachihara and Teruko talk about how the sky casino stays afloat, mentioning that the Intelligence Department believes that someone's ability may be being utilized in order to keep the thing in the air.

I thought this discussion on how the Sky Casino stays in the air (and how it seems to use a lot less fuel than it should theoretically need) was an odd detail to include in the narrative. 

Even with the explanation of the use of Helium fuel, it’s still stated that it’s believed that an ability is being used. But why include these panels? Unless it’s important that the reader is told that it shouldn’t be physically possible for the Sky Casino to stay in the air on its own. Since we know the Sky Casino is a creation of the book, then its continuous hovering despite the laws of physics could be attributed to an effect of the book, not an ability user.

The inclusion of these panels could be a way to tell the reader that things created by the book do not necessarily have to follow the conventional laws of physics that the rest of the world is defined by. Another example would be how the ADA suddenly switched places with the masked figures during the live broadcast at the beginning of the DoA arc (something that should not be physically possible). 

So, Meursault prison being a creation of the book would explain why the glass cells can free float like this despite nothing holding them up. Because they were written this way. Things written in the book follow the rules of storytelling, not physics. 

2. Why Do They Seem to Be the Only Ones In the Prison?

Another point that supports the idea that Meursault was created at the same time as the Sky Casino is that there doesn’t seem to be any other inmates. 

In this above panel, we get a pretty good view of the Infinity Room, along with many of the cells it contains. No other people are drawn in these cells. 

That could easily be explained away by simply saying there’s no point drawing characters that aren’t relevant to the plot and aren’t mentioned in the story. Which is fair enough, no other prisoners have any lines so there’s no need to draw them. 

But if there are other prisoners there, why aren’t they mentioned in the narrative? Why don’t they have any lines at all? We get time with the guards occasionally, such as in this panel:

The guards comment on how odd Dazai and Fyodor are. But why aren’t we given any panels of other prisoners thinking to themselves how strange the two of them are?

The cells are close enough together that anything Fyodor or Dazai say to one another should be able to be heard by prisoners in nearby cells. Considering Fyodor and Dazai’s almost constant conversation, all of which is done through some strange code, you’d think other prisoners would get curious enough about the two to try and talk to them, or at the very least, yell at them to shut up already.

But we only get time with the guards. Which I find odd. 

This lack of prisoners could easily be explained by the theory that the prison is a farce, and has only existed for just over a week, so of course no other prisoners are actually here.

(Although there is no rule saying any other potential prisoners need to be shown, the fact that they aren’t leaves the idea of whether or not they do exist up for individual interpretation.)

Why Do I Think Meursault is a Trap for Dazai?

So, if Meursault is a creation of the book and it is under both Fyodor and Ango’s control, what exactly does that mean? Well, for starters, it means Dazai’s screwed (in theory).

If this theory is true, then it completely changes the entire prison situation. Instead of Dazai and Fyodor being on equal playing fields, trying to trick valuable information out of each other and playing their game of galaxy chess, it is actually just a trap. It's a way to remove Dazai from having direct contact with his colleagues, have access to all his strategies (since he relays them directly to Ango) and trick Dazai into believing he is actually gaining something from being in this situation (analyzing Fyodor). 

If Ango and Fyodor are working together, and this is a trap for Dazai, then no matter what, any information Dazai gets from Fyodor is ultimately useless, as Ango will ensure to steer the narrative on the outside of the prison in Fyodor’s favour.

Dazai

Now, does Dazai know his imprisonment at Meursault is a trap? I’d say yes. While I don’t think he is aware yet that Meursault was created by the book (and is thus fully under Fyodor’s control) I do think he knows that allowing himself to be caught and sent to Meursault with Fyodor was a bad idea. And I don’t think Dazai was being truthful when he said his intentions for going along with the trap was to discover how Fyodor is communicating to his allies (despite him saying that this was his reason). Why do I think this?

Why would he tell Fyodor his true objective for allowing himself to be locked up? Seems like the last thing you want to tell your enemy.

Figuring out how Fyodor is communicating to his allies isn’t worth Dazai removing himself from the outside world to sit in prison. Yes, he has a valuable opportunity to communicate with Fyodor face to face and try to figure out his plans, but he is also giving Fyodor the opportunity to do the same thing with himself and his plans for the ADA.

Even if Dazai could figure out how Fyodor was communicating to the outside world, there’s no guarantee that there would be a way to prevent him from continuing to do so. 

So What is Dazai’s True Goal?

I think Dazai’s real reason for allowing himself to be arrested and sent to Meursault is to test Ango’s loyalty. (That’s right, I tied it all back to Ango again).

If there is one thing that’s clear, it is that Dazai does not like or trust Ango. I mean, I’m sure there were plenty of other ways Dazai could have blackmailed Ango into getting Kyoka’s record cleared that didn’t involve Ango getting into a car accident. Dazai chose a method that involved violently injuring Ango because he wanted to hurt Ango for the role he played in Oda’s death. With how much Oda means to Dazai, I highly doubt his hatred for Ango will ever go away.

So why work with Ango during the DoA arc? I’m assuming Dazai’s picked up on subtle hints that Fyodor seems to have an ally in the government, or at the very least, someone who is familiar with Yokohama and its ability users. I’m positive the first person Dazai would suspect of working with Fyodor would be Ango, since he already knows he is a traitor. 

So by ‘teaming up’ with Ango and being sent to prison, Dazai can play Fyodor’s game while secretly testing where Ango’s loyalties lie. He develops his strategies, communicates them to Ango, and waits to see the outcome. And what’s the outcome?

The ADA is losing, badly. 

Both of their plans for the Sky Casino failed.

Dazai’s plan to have Akutagawa and Atsushi fight together failed (ending with Akutagawa being turned into the first vampire that goes on to infect the Port Mafia) (seriously though, how is Fukuchi traveling with Bram’s coffin everywhere without standing out?).

The plan to make the plane from Europe turn around before it got to the airport failed.

Every day the ADA is running out of more time and is further backed into a corner.

In fact, the only real win the ADA have had so far was when Ranpo kidnapped and reunited the ADA members (something that was not one of Dazai’s plans, and was done without Ango being aware of it beforehand).

I think this thing with ‘One Order’ being sealed with an ability is Dazai’s last (and most direct) way to test Ango’s loyalty. The box containing ‘One Order’ was sealed using an ability, something that will be incredibly easy for Dazai to get rid of, but no one else. So, if we find out that somehow, Fyodor predicted Dazai would ask Ango to ask the government controlling ‘One Order’ to put a precaution like this in place, and has somehow figured out a way around this already, then Dazai will take that as his proof that Ango is communicating with Fyodor behind his back. Because that’s just too convenient for Fyodor.

BONUS!! - Something Random That Would Make Sense if Meursault is a Creation of the Book And Under Fyodor’s Control

Would explain why Fyodor was the only one to get salt for his meal (could be considered a luxury), while Dazai gets a raw egg with his meal (symbolizing their treatment by the prison and it’s staff, with Fyodor obviously being the favourite) 

(Alright I know I’m reaching so hard with this one, but honestly that scene was hilarious and I just really wanted to mention it.)

----------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, this post is way too long, so I’m cutting it here. Hopefully I explained all my points well enough. Basically, I’m in love with this series and every single thing about it. It’s all I think about nowadays and I can’t wait to see how this arc unfolds.

Feel free to talk to me about this theory or any others you have! I love theorizing about bsd so much.

All of the manga panels I used for this post were from fan translations, so thanks to Dazaiscans and everyone else who does fan translations!!

[pompompurin1028]

The Growing Divergence of Fyodor and Dazai

Summary: The interactions between Fyodor and Dazai in relation to seeing a growing difference in Dazai and Fyodor's characters. In their view of humanity and how they strategize, and connections to some aspects of the DOA arc, it may inform us about what may be expected in the prision break out arc, and make sense of their respective strategies in Chapter 97.

Warnings: Spoilers for post-canibalism arcs (the manga) and Dead Apple

A/N: Knowing the bsd fandom, I'm quite certain that some of what I have analysed probably has been done by some others before me, but my dearest friend @n1kolaiz convinced me to write his so, here are some of my thoughts :)

Also thanks to @n1kolaiz and @alittlesimp for discussing the manga with me and helping me come to this idea; credit for the translations of manga panels goes to @czkkn-upload and Dazaiscans

1. The similarities between Dazai and Fyodor

1.1 How other characters view Dazai and Fyodor

1.2 How Dazai and Fyodor view each other in terms of similarities

2. The Differences in how Dazai and Fyodor view humanity

2.1 Dead Apple

2.2 Cannibalism Arc

2.3 Decay of Angels Arc

3. Insights on Manga Chapter 97 and final thoughts

I had only recently been caught up with the recent arc, and of course, I have been aware that quite a lot of fans have been finding the plot a bit stagnant in its development. I, myself have been seeing a difference in the current arc’s focus too in comparison to the others. Especially with the shift in its focus from one being character-driven to one more plot-driven. I personally would be lying if I were to say that this change did not puzzle me. However, I still feel that there are some connections to the series’ previous developments, in particular the main source of this stagnation -- with Dazai and Fyodor, so I thought I’d put down some of my personal thoughts. And I believe that this arc continues, as had in previous arcs and interactions between the two, a growing difference the can be found between the two characters, a clearer indication of their respective views on humanity, and perhaps comments on the unpredictability of human kind. So, shall we begin?

1. The Similarities Between Fyodor and Dazai

I personally believe that it has long since been established that Fyodor and Dazai act as foils for each other in BSD. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, a foil in literature is a character who is contrasted with another character, in order to highlight or differentiate certain qualities. Over the course of their interactions with one another, we have begun to see how similar the two of them are, in aspects such as their intelligence, their way of thinking and their (once) common sense of boredom with people. 

In fact, these similarities are so obvious that both the characters themselves, as well as characters around them had commented, either directly or indirectly on such. And though this notion is perhaps rather obvious, let us use this to review them.

1.1 How other characters view Dazai and Fyodor

“Devils”, “aliens”, “monsters”, “demons”. Since the two of the characters have been introduced, and placed next to one another, we have well been made aware of their similarities, and it is often that we see these two grouped together with such terms. This is especially so during their encounter in Dead Apple, and in the current arc. 

Beginning with that of Dead Apple, in the epilogue, we saw Ango describing the two of them, along with Shibusawa. Each of the three, as described in the novel, had “a mind so extraordinary that [they] seemed almost alien”, and he commented, and seemed sympathetic of how lonely and isolated being one of them may feel. This feeling of course, had been present in Dazai’s own past, and had been especially clear during his time in the mafia. 

During the current arc, with a closer proximity between the two characters, having gone to jail, we have a wider view of how the other characters view these two “demons”. This opportunity in itself is not a usual one, nor one in which we would easily be able to view with the previous arcs or developments. In the manga itself, even Dazai himself also commented such “that’d definitely be impossible without a chance like this” in Chapter 64. 

For one, during this arc, we are once again given awareness to the similarities in their intellect. Even Ranpo had commented that going up against Fyodor’s plans “almost feels like going up against Dazai”. During their time in prision, we are once again reminded of it, and how in sync they are with each other when we found out in Chapter 74.5 that they are speaking in their own language or code which they put together from past conversations. I also quite like how this panel was depicted with a line passing through the two of their minds, further emphasising this point.

Their profiles too, especially emphasised by the fact that they are wearing the same clothes, show almost something similar to a reflection as the two are placed next to one another like this.

1.2 How Dazai and Fyodor view each other in terms of similarities

Of course, not only other characters have recognized this level of similarity, the two “demons” themselves have too. This has been explicitly shown during the cannibalism arc when the two of them had met, and during the course of the arc itself as well when attempting to figure out Fyodor’s plans. 

With Dazai claiming multiple times that he had predicated or at least guessed what Fyodor’s actions entailed based on how he would have acted and what he personally would have done when placed in a similar situation. Especially nearing the end of the cannibalism arc this is further highlighted when Dazai was tasked with the act of figuring out in which way Fyodor was supposedly going to escape, and when asked for his reasoning, Dazai merely answers with, that was what I would have done. Showing how closely their way of thinking really is.

Their recognition of each other’s intelligence especially, is once again shown during the Decay of Angels arc. Beginning from the moment Dazai had entered jail, and had successfully stopped Fyodor’s attempt to kill Fitzgerald, each move that the other had done has in one way or another been stopped by the other. From this moment, to the Sky Casino arc, to when Fukuchi had gotten ahold of the weapon, demonstrating just how they each cancel one another out, therefore making the plot as of this moment rather stagnant. And even when the other had figured out their plans, the other doesn’t all seem surprised. This can be seen in the Sky Casino arc especially, during Chapter 72, when Dazai had commented saying that he had though that Fyodor had already figured out who the queen is. The two of them continue plans, expecting the other to figure it out (quite scary if you ask me). 

In additon to such showing this point, Fyodor and Dazai too in this arc had also explicitly recognize each other as someone close to equal. For example, in Chapter 64 Fyodor invited Dazai for a discussion, one that he deemed impossible unless his partner had an equal intellect to his own. And Dazai during Chapter 77, when he grouped himself with Fyodor as a person who schemes rather than being one of the people he sees as making “the world turn”. 

2. The Differences in how Dazai and Fyodor view humanity

But of course, despite how similar the two characters are, being foils, there must be something, even a single factor that differentiates them. And one of the main differences in their respective views on humanity.

Though the two of them had both felt a sense of boredom with life, as they found it predictable with their intelligence. And both of them agree that humans are “sinful and stupid”, yet their views are separated here. While Dazai finds interest and had discovered unpredictability in humans, with Oda’s help, and I also personally believe with Atsushi as well, and has a sense of fondness for humanity or at least some people; Fyodor feels the opposite, seeing them as boring and predictable, and one that should be destroyed and “cleansed”.

And thus I will be examining this view of theirs in their interactions in Dead Apple, the Cannibalism Arc and the Decay of Angels Arc.

2.1 Dead Apple

Being completely honest, Dead Apple’s plot somewhat confuses me. But all analyses on the light novel/movie aside, when we look at it as a whole, quoting Ango’s words “if we ignore  all the schemes and trickery aside, this may actually be a surprisingly simple case... Perhaps they wanted to see what [Shibusawa] would do and how he would meet his demise... or perhaps how he would be saved”. After examining the movie a couple of times, and reading some analyses, and I am hoping to read the light novel next, the plot of Dead Apple may actually be a source used to closely examine Dazai and Fyodor’s own intentions behind their actions, and may give some insights into the current arc and chapters as well.  

In a way, Dead Apple is quite interesting in how both Dazai and Fyodor are attempting to lead Shibusawa into seeing their own view of humanity and life. Similarly to the two, expressing a great boredom of life, due to the fact that he feels that nothing surpasses his expectations, he is filled with a yearning for something to fill a certain emptiness in him (quite similar to Dazai in the mafia). And therefore, he uses his ability and collecting abilities as a way to fill his boredom. In this sense, he differs from both Fyodor and Dazai in the way he passively allows himself to be alienated, while Dazai and Fyodor both take actions in order to solve this problem of theirs. This is to say, Shibusawa is almost like a blank slate in which the two can put their views on, and in a sense attempt to lure him to see their own view, and see which side he would end up on, just as Ango had implied.

Dazai, when he had talked to Shibusawa briefly commented that he once filled bored too, and suggested that he was in need of “salvation” by an “angel” which we later understood referred to Atsushi. And with Shibusawa finding himself no longer feeling bored during his battle with Atsushi. One couldn’t help but wonder if this is a indirect presentation of Dazai’s own view on humanity, especially when he had commented that he hoped Shibusawa managed to fill his boredom and lonelienss -- that though perhaps life is boring, there are some people like Atsushi who exceed their expectations, and make things, if not, a little more interesting. 

While on the other hand, Fyodor continued to hold onto the view that people in their sinfulness must be destroyed. Showing him his past, giving one of the things which he so desired, he encouraged Shibusawa to in a sense adopt his own views on life, to “eat, howl, make violence as [his] instinct desires”, using human’s own weakness to eradicate other humans (Now that I think of it Shibusawa and Sigma are quite similar in being used by Fyodor in this way). But of course, that is how I see it, again giving a passive view to the audience their own thoughts about humanity.

2.2 Cannibalism Arc

Unfortunately, in this arc alone, we do not see to much of their views being shown. With them being on opposite sides, and at a distanced place from each other the majority of the time, it makes it rather difficult to compare them. With exception to the scene in which Dazai said "humans are sinfully stupid, but what's wrong with that?"

When I had originally saw this scene, I had thought a lot about it. But in essence, Dazai’s view remains the same as what he had shown in that of Dead Apple. That though people can be sinful and foolish, they make mistakes and are not perfect, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t interesting, that they are not good as they are, and he is fond of them.

In a way, this actually reminds me of Dazai-sensei’s own works which he expresses his views on humans, with a certain fondness, despite his understanding of how artificial and horrible they could be as he expressed in No Longer Human. This can be examined in No Longer Human, The Setting Sun, his short story “Run, Melos!”, all of which I had examined in a different analysis. But also some of his other short stories such as “Thinking of Zenzo” in Self Portraits, and one of the works of his that I have recently been reading “Urashima-san” in Otogi-zōshi, in which the protagonist despite finding the people on land being too judgemental of one another, after being seperated, he couldn’t help but feel an affection for them, and find them even more beautiful than ever (but this is only a rough translation from my native language).

Anyways, this view of humans thus allows us to understand a bit more of why they act the way they do, why Dazai is able to befriend people even though the other person may not have his intelligence, because they intrigue him, and they are able to understand them a little, like Oda and perhaps Atsushi and even Chuuya. While Fyodor, only finds companionship or something akin to it in Dazai as seen in Chapter 64, due to their different views, perhaps he didn’t see the point in it.

2.3 Decay of Angels Arc

The topic of humans being sinful and foolish is once again brought up in the current arc. However, in this arc, we see an additional statement to what Dazai had previously said about humans: “they’re not such boring beings as you think”. 

Even in the moment of this panel, Fyodor maintains his view that humans are predictable. Commenting that it had been written into the page that the Hunting Dogs and the police wouldn’t believe that the ADA is innocent. In a way, Fyodor is asserting his view that humans are predicable and boring, expressing that just because that was what was written into the page, people will then follow suit. That’s why Dazai expressed that Fyodor “didn’t understand god one bit”, because he sees, perhaps, that humans, everyone of them including the two of them, are illogical, inconsistent, self-contradictory beings, unlike what Fyodor seems to believe, they are not entirely predictable, nor are they boring. 

And following this having Tachihara, as well as some of the policemen going against what was written in the page. These acts in itself, though perhaps passive, are literally going right against Fyodor’s views and beliefs. The beginning of a downfall of his views on humanity as what they do is slowly going against what he thought would happen.

In addition to showcasing more of the differences in their views, as well as Fyodor’s understanding of humans being defeated somewhat indirectly. This arc also prepares us for the coming chapters as we begin the prison break arc as it gives us a greater insight into how they strategize and their respective manipulation methods. Such can especially be seen during the sky casino arc and during Dazai and Fyodor’s discussion.

I think @/blackandwhitemusician had explained here really well in this post of theirs, but I would also like to add a bit of my own thoughts, especially about Fyodor. As they had written in their analysis, Fyodor and Dazai seem to be discussing how each other’s plans operated. And it is true, and we also seem to get a better understanding about how they view people as well.

In Fyodor’s strategies and planning, he always created them meticulously, pulling the strings and manipulating everything to a tee. He is orchestrating from behind, and there is almost nowhere for the people in his plans to escape from his strings (which reminds me of this official art in the cannibalism arc). This is why his subordinates in a sense “don’t take the initiative” and are not “autonomous”. This way of strategizing can again, actually be seen as another extension of his own view on humanity, that people will always do and go as he predict them to. This may also be why he may take some important tasks into his own hands, and thrives in isolation, perhaps in a way he doesn’t trust other people to be capable enough? Maybe that can explain why Fyodor had also planned to eliminate Sigma during the Sky Casino Arc as well. And also why he seems to fail in situations in which he underestimates the potential of Dazai’s comrades.

While Dazai differs in this, I believe I have seen a few people talking about this before too, but Dazai’s strategizing mostly involves a sense of mutual trust. He has enough trust in their abilities to do what he predicts them to be able and capable of doing, which too can be seen in the sky casino arc. But at the same time they also have a sense of trust in him, that Dazai knows what he’s doing and his planning will turn out as he plans it to be. This too is indirectly related to their views on humans as well. in a way he believes in their abilities to act in a certain situation that perhaps that even he cannot be certain what will happen, this is best shown in Dead Apple after Chuuya had saved him -- “I had predicted this far, but the rest is up to them”. And it is interesting that in the panel above Dazai’s question prompted an answer from Fyodor which as @/blackandwhitemusician wrote is him testing how Fyodor got his subordinates, through luring them with offers when they are ‘weak’, which is quite different from Dazai’s method which involves more trust in people. 

3. Insights on Manga Chapter 97 and Final Thoughts

So how does all this connect to the recent chapter? 

I feel like what each of them had chosen to help them escape in this new prison break arc can also be tied back to their way of strategizing, and perhaps the reason why they chose their respective “weapons”, thus their respective views on humanity. But of course this is only my personal opinion.

As I had mentioned earlier, Fyodor thrived in isolation and independence, he takes things into his own hands most of the time, and it is not too much of a surprise that he chose the security card. All the other items in a way seem to in a sense will entail the involvement of other people. 

Yet, Dazai surprised everyone by choosing Sigma instead as his “weapon” to help him escape. Of course, we cannot take away the option that Dazai had at the beginning wanted to chose the security card as well, but it seemed to me that there was no hesitation when he had chosen Sigma, whereas in contrast we saw Fyodor take a moment to think about his options. So it comes to the question, what is Dazai trying to do? What is he thinking?

Though I cannot be certain what he is thinking, but I do feel that it might have something to do with this:

“When you and your enemy share the same amount of intel, the side that does the unexpected wins.” This panel is from the guild arc, but when examining it in this exact situation, it seems fitting. Since in this current arc, both Fyodor and Dazai have the same amount of information on what their escape route entails from what Nikolai had said. So I would guess that in order for them to “succeed”, this death match would possibly be a game of trying to be as unpredictable as one could be. 

The act of choosing Sigma itself is already in a sense unexpected, we see both Nikolai and Fyodor (for once) shocked. But then it occurred to me, with how similar Dazai and Fyodor’s way of thinking, surely Fyodor must have realised that Sigma was a possible option to choose from, right? Then, with inference to the best explanation, maybe what had surprised Fyodor wasn’t that Fyodor didn’t think of choosing Sigma, but that Dazai had chosen Sigma even though he realized that it was a possible option. 

Linking back to how I have explained their separate views on humans, their options make sense. Fyodor, with his views that other people are merely predictable and boring, and in a sense tools to do something, even if he were (let us say that he didn’t think of doing so) to say knew that choosing Nikolai or Sigma was an option he could take, he wouldn’t have done it. He doesn’t see the point in it, not when he could do it himself and perhaps more efficiently, maybe he would see having another person with him as being bothersome.

But Dazai sees people differently. To begin, already knowing that he could trust Sigma, since he had helped Atsushi in the previous arc. Along with the fact that  he sees the potential in other people to succeed his, and even Fyodor’s expectations, he may be the perfect element for “unexpectedness” that Dazai needed. Besides, Dazai is much more practical than Fyodor in using other people and their abilities in his plans, though his way of planning does not seem as meticulous and detailed as that of Fyodor’s, when it comes down to it, they are much more prepared for when sudden changes happen. 

Additionally, previously Dazai had described that he and Fyodor are schemers, they are not the ones who could “make the world turn”, they are observers in the world, looking at it, he recognizes that. But even this panel shows us, Sigma is not like Dazai and Fyodor, he is one of those people who could “make the world turn”. And I wonder in this arc, if Sigma would be a representation of the humanity of which Fyodor is so critical about, and that through maybe through how he observes Dazai’s plans unfold, he can see before him that perhaps his beliefs are not right. But of course, all of this is but my own opinions.

Therefore, with what I had observed above, I personally I see this death match between Dazai and Fyodor as not only a battle of intelligence but also one of their beliefs and views, and a chance to better understand the characters themselves, as well as more on how they differ from one another. In addition to such, I am hoping that we will be able to see an even greater divergence as their differences become more obvious. As I had mentioned again and again before, they have a very similar way of thinking and this is an opportunity like no other that we get to see how they will slowly, in this arc, diverge from one another, as they would have to do so in order to get ahead of the other. And then, we can see into both of their characters through this with an even greater depth, fingers crossed that we will get to see more of Fyodor’s character.

Personally, I am also hoping that Fyodor will begin to doubt his own beliefs as he begins to see that he is wrong about his view on humans. It would be quite an interesting for Fyodor. And I also want to share this theory about why Sigma may be the only one who can led Fyodor to question his own beliefs since I really enjoyed it by @/fyodcrs. But we can only wait and see.

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[ye-local-simp]

Can I request the DOA with an emotionless reader?

[S/O doesn't experience emotions]

[Fyodor,Nikolai,Sigma]

Fyodor:

-You both would have a lot in common if this is the case.

-He actually might prefer this so the relationship would make sense.

-The only thing he would make sure is that you are comfortable or at least seem somewhat comfortable.

-If you are generally unhappy with life, he will introduce you to Gogol since this guy's aura is different to yours and he might actually make you crack a facial expression. Even better, a smile.

-He would do enjoyable things with you if he manages to have spare time so you both can at least have some memories.

-Otherwise, he doesn't love you less if you can't experience emotions like other people.

-Likes you because you are different to what society describes as normal.

Nikolai:

-Not going to lie, he thinks you are boring but interesting at the same time.

-You can't be surprised at his magic tricks or laugh at his jokes but finds you interesting because you don't fit in society.

-Despite that, he still enjoys giving you quizzes and magic shows.

-Likes to try to cheer you up and sees it as one big challenge.

Sigma:

-Tries to see if you are actually satisfied with your life first.

-If yes, he would just carry on with it like this, this would usually mean you would take care of him a lot more.

-I mean this guy requires a lot of care anyways.

-If not, he would find ways for you to be happy,like finding hobbies or a cure, if there is any for your emotion problem.

-Allows you to play in the casino so you get the feeling of thrill at least if you could feel that.

[awkwardravencosplay]

Decay of Angels Theory

So, here’s a few of my theories for where the Bungo Stray Dogs story is going to be going in the future; particularly concerning the Decay of Angels. Spoiler warning for up to 91 of the manga.

The End of the Decay of Angels Arc

For a few reasons I think that the DoA arc will be ending soon in the manga, partially due to the shear length of it as it’s almost twice as long as all the other arcs combined on its own which alone isn’t very strong evidence. However, in all the past arcs we’ve had one new gifted organisation introduced per arc; the Port Mafia in the first, then the Guild, then the Rats but already in this arc we’ve had two new organisations introduced. Both the Hunting Dogs and DoA are smaller groups than any previous ones and have the same leader so it makes sense to link them in the story but it was recently mentioned in the manga that the Order of the Clock Tower would finally be entering the main story. This would make three new organisations introduced this arc; therefore, I believe that this arc will end before the order of the clock tower properly enters the story.

Speaking of the end of this arc I believe that before the end of the DoA arc Dazai and Fyodor will be freed from the prison because as the story is progressing it is becoming more clear that those two are the chess masters controlling the actions of all the other characters involved in the story so to have them out of action for so long feels wrong. I’m not so sure about this but I would hazard a guess that Chuuya has been sent to free Dazai as we see Mori with Chuuya’s hat in chapter 91 with explanation as to where Chuuya is and that Nikolai will free Fyodor simply because of how suitable his ability is for staging a prison break (although Fyodor possibly planned that Nikolai would conspire with Sigma to kill him and count on him coming to free him to get an opportunity to kill him. I’m not sure about that though).

Moving onto my thoughts about Fukuchi, I think that his death will cap off the arc. So far we have seen three already established characters fight him with only one even managing to escape alive. Again, I’m not too sure about this part of theory but I would really like to see it so I’m including it, but I think maybe we will see Soukoku fight together again to take out Fukuchi. If I’m right about Chuuya freeing Dazai then they will be on their way back to Yokohama together and presumably their first priority will be fix the mess the ADA and Port Mafia are in currently, which would need to start with Dazai nullifying the vampirism ability and Fukuchi being killed as he is currently the biggest threat to both groups. As Bram is always with Fukuchi, Dazai will eventually have to go to wherever Fukuchi is and while realistically anyone could go with him it would be nice to see Soukoku work together again. Just before the fight Atsushi and Akutagawa think about what Dazai and Chuuya would do in that situation but they ultimately failed so seeing Soukoku do what Shin Soukoku couldn’t will show how far Shin Soukoku have got left to go before they can fully take over as the new Soukoku (presuming that Akutagawa somehow is still alive after the vampirism is gone).

The True Leader of the Decay of Angels

As mentioned above I think that Fukuchi will be dead soon in the manga which for someone who is supposedly the leader of the DoA feels strange that he would die so early into the Decay being out in the open. I believe that the DoA are going to remain the main antagonists in BSD for at least a few more arcs so for them to have no leader moving forward feels like a strange choice. Of course, Fyodor could take over, but I would like to put out an alternative version of another theory I’ve seen floating around. If you aren’t already aware The Decay of Angels is named after a novel by Japanese author Yukio Mishima and before all five members of the Decay had been revealed a common theory was that Mishima would be their true leader. Once we knew all of the member’s identities this theory was thrown out mostly, but it still feels weird to have a group named after a novel without having any connection to the author of that novel. I have a few different thoughts about how Mishima could be tied to the Decay.

The first isn’t my theory but I would still like to mention it: that Sigma’s true identity is Mishima. I have a slightly different take on it but here’s the run down. As it’s unclear how Sigma was created by the Book three years before the main story as if the Decay had had possession of the Book earlier then Fyodor would have already have enacted his plan to use it to get rid of all ability users. So the theory is that Sigma already existed prior to three years ago but as a different person and three years ago someone (possibly Fyodor as we’ve seen him mess with Ivan’s mind before) did something to him which caused him to loose his memories. Sigma’s former identity could possibly have been Mishima, but I think it’s more likely that if this is true his previous identity was Chekov.

The second is that Mishima is a completely separate character from any existing member of the Decay. I have two slightly different ideas on this: one is that Mishima has always been the true leader of the DoA. There are five members of the Decay as it’s based off the 5 signs of an angel dying from Buddhist mythology but what if that’s referring to five normal members, not including the leader so Mishima could have been pulling the strings behind the scenes the whole time. Alternatively, Mishima could simply replace Fukuchi as the leader of the Decay after he dies.

Bram and the Order of the Clock Tower

This section is going to be looking a bit further ahead than the others which were more focused on the end of the Decay of Angels arc but it was an interesting thought I had so I figured I’d just stick it in here for your consideration. I believe that Bram Stoker may have originally been part of the Order of the Clock Tower, not the Decay of Angels. As Asagiri has a habit of making the gifted organisations all authors from a single country, it makes the DoA a notable exception as it is made up of three different nationalities between it’s five members. As we know that the Order of the Clock Tower is a group made up of British authors, I think that Bram was originally a member of the Order, not the Decay as IRL Bram Stoker was British author.

What I believe happened was that whatever battle that Fukuchi fought in where he encountered and ultimately defeated Bram involved the Order in some way. It’s hard to speculate because we know so little about this, but Bram was possibly kidnapped from the Order after he was defeated by Fukuchi and forced to work with him for the DoA.

I’m aware that this theory is a bit half baked but it would be really interesting to see the interactions between the Order members and Bram after they arrive in Yokohama and I’m excited to see how this story unfolds in the future. I would love to hear any thoughts anyone has on the theories I’ve mentioned here, and any discussions are welcome.

[a-froger-epic]

oh gods help me, there's this boy, and we've become really good friends, and if my life were a movie we'd be dating by now, I'm sure XD

(also btw for context I'm afab, she/they)

He's very nice, has great taste, and all the factors point to "Perfect Romantic Partner", I mean-

• we showed each other poetry we've written and it was really great, (and that was literally only our second interaction ever)

• He has good fashion sense, loves thrifting, loves that I love thrifting, and we now have a deal that if we find cool vintage clothes in each other's size we'll buy it for each other (which works well because we're actually about the same size and I wear men's clothing a lot anyway)

• not to sound shallow, but he is quite aesthetically attractive. and he has an actual skincare routine (I mean, the bar is so low, but still)

• he's into photography and wants to show me how he develops film & all that stuff, which sounds super cool

• We've stayed up until nearly 2 in the morning discussing art and history and music- his favorite musician of all time is Tchaikovsky- I recommended Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet and THEN HE ACTUALLY LISTENED TO IT

• and most of all HE'S REALLY SUPPORTIVE OF MY SONGWRITING AND MUSIC AND I JUST- SKDGSKSHSKSKAKS

and I just think he's a really really interesting person and I just really want to be friends with him, and I don't want him to take that interest the wrong way...

...and part of me wonders why I feel that way??? Because, my goodness, if there's any boy on earth I should date, he fits the bill. But I'm just... not at all attracted to him in that way.

And I catch myself thinking, "Maybe I could be??? if I tried??" which is probably not how one is supposed to go about these things 😬

And the thing is, I generally call myself bisexual, but I've never officially dated anyone so I'm not 100% committed to that label and especially this past year I've started just going with "queer" bc I really just don't fuckin know at this point-

and it's probably ridiculous to be like "well if I'm not attracted to this one specific man I must not be attracted to men" but....

I am attracted to him, just not in a sexual way, and not really in a romantic way (I think)... but I don't know how to explain that to him, hell, I can't even explain it to MYSELF, so it's just... never brought up

and I'm worried one day it's gonna come out that he thinks we've been practically dating for a while, but I've thought we're just friends, and basically it's just this whole mess.

idk why I'm dumping this all on you, but it seems like in part of your fanfic one of the characters had a similar issue at one point??? (I haven't read DoA yet, forgive me if I'm wrong, just going off of vague memory of posts/asks i've seen) but even if not, you just seem really good with advice, and I know you're a good writer... maybe I just wish you could write me a happy ending... 😅

I'm sorry, I know that's a lot... you don't have to answer right away, or even at all, but I just needed to tell SOMEONE

Hey anon, I've been there.

When I got out of a 6 year relationship at the age of 22, first thing I did was go on a date with someone I met online. This was before tinder, so it was a forum and his post read "Geek Guy seeks Geek Girl" and I was like: "It meee!"

Anyway, we exchanged some emails, we had everything in common when it came to shows, film and literature we loved. We got on like a house on fire. On paper, this guy was the perfect partner for me. Literally, just wonderful.

We went on a date. He was the nicest, sweetest guy and we talked all night and we had such a great time.

I felt 0 romantic/physical attraction. Nada. It was like talking to my beloved twin brother, if I'd had one. I went on another date with him to be sure, and then called him before the 3rd date to tell him I was very sorry but the spark just wasn't there for me.

He was crushed. I mean, he cried on the phone, he was absolutely distraught. But what was I going to do? Anything else would've just been leading him on. He kept asking "What's changed?" and I was like "Nothing... I'm just... not feeling it, I'm really sorry."

Then I had three brief flings (and some really great sex) with two guys and a girl I had almost nothing in common with but felt crazy attracted to, before I met another guy who shared my interests and gave me butterflies.

So, all I'm saying is, it be like that sometimes. There's really nothing you can do, other than set boundaries. If your friend tries to make a move, you'll have to explain that you like him a lot, but the right feelings just aren't there for you.

It's not easy, and it might hurt the other person, but that's the way it is.

[ryanmeft]

Movie Review: Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is an improvement over 2014’s Godzilla, which certainly qualifies as faint praise. It’s a largely emotion-and-character free movie with the most boring script a film can possibly manage, occasionally bolstered by some hot monster-on-monster action. The monster stuff, in fact, is damned good, and not just when the claws are drawn: less hectic visuals abound that, while not subtle, are very effective. Yet when a movie has a character played by Sally Hawkins and you don’t care when she gets smooshed, it’s hard to escape the feeling of squandered potential.

The plot picks up from where the first movie left off, and frankly if you remember where that was you liked the original more than I did. There’s a tiny flashback at the beginning, where Drs. Mark Russell (Kyle Chandler) and Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) lose their son as an incidental casualty of Godzilla’s previous appearance. The two of them react differently to this. Emma becomes fascinated by the Titans, as people call Godzilla and his kin, going so far as to incubate an original model in a lab: Mothra, the giant, well, moth, whose introduction I admit made me fanboy a little. Mark has turned his attention to more common beasts,m studying wolves in nature preserves, and believes the Titans should be eliminated for the good of everyone. Emma’s lab is invaded by a fanatical eco-terrorist (Charles Dance) who has his own views about the Titans and their relationship to the planet. Mark, who for some crazy reason disagreed with raising their daughter Madison (Millie Bobby Brown) around ravening monsters, is called in to help save them. The cast contains a pretty respectable host of wasted actors, including Hawkins, David Strathairn and Zhang Ziyi, as well as another embarrassingly pointless turn for Ken Watanabe as Dr. Ishiro Serazawa, the one returning character.

There’s also Bradley Whitford and Thomas Middleditch as employees of Monarch, the company that creates and/or finds monsters, but I need to emphasize that this movie has characters only in the loosest sense of the word. The people in this movie exist to rattle off exposition, run away, speak such electrifying lines as “You are meddling with forces beyond your comprehension!” and occasionally, but not nearly often enough for my taste, get squished, burned, zapped or eaten. To call the story hacky is an insult to hacks. The script, by director Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields from a story by regular monster-verse writer Max Borenstein, never once offers a single creative or interesting line or plot development, and if I hadn’t made notes I’d have forgotten every bit of it, not even when I left the theatre, but as soon as it had happened. Looking at those notes, I’m reminded of when Watanabe looks grimly around at a room and grimly says, in grim words using a grim voice “We must find ways to coexist with the Titans.” There’s the response to an angry roar from Godzilla: “He’s definitely not happy about something.” There’s the fact that two characters actually say to each other “Good luck” followed by “We’ll need it,” in such a way as to suggest this is actually a very clever line.

 Plot developments proceed with no logic. Farmiga’s Emma, who I must note is played by one of the finest actresses we possess, is eventually revealed to have decided the best thing for earth is that the Titans lay waste to it, in hopes they will then also restore it, Ragnarok-like and free of corrosive human influence. This twist somehow manages to be both predictable and be given no set-up in the plot whatsoever; you can see it coming because of some of her previous actions, but it does not gel with anything established about her. Millie Bobby Brown, so essential in Stranger Things, gets her first film role here, and she does what she can, succeeding more than most of the adults perhaps because she’s not tasked with supporting as much of the cumbersome plot and dialogue. By far the big losers are Watanabe and Ziyi. Let me break this down for you: in a movie that serves as a reboot of an essential Japanese franchise, there are two Asian characters, they are played by two excellent Asian actors, and they are reduced to cryptically spooling out exposition instead of having actual personalities, and then one of them is made to drop a joke about fortune cookies. In a blockbuster landscape where everything is vetted, re-vetted and re-vetted again before it gets to screen, this somehow managed to make it through.

At least the artists are having fun. This is the area that makes this movie slightly more fun to watch than the original. Visual effects supervisor Guillaume Rocheron, who also handled the excellent work in films such as Life of Pi and Man of Steel, gets to cut loose after a visually sterile first film, giving us multiple giant monster fights that are at minimum effective and occasionally thrilling. The original film went with the less-is-more approach to Godzilla, and while I usually champion that, it didn’t work because the human characters that were the focus were so hollow. Perhaps this movie knows how bad its characters are, because it amps up the beasties to match. The main antagonist is Ghidorah, the classic three-headed dragon of the old Godzilla films; it is a vision from the book of Revelations, a connection made apparent when it roosts on a flaming mountain over a burned city with a charred cross in the foreground just in case anyone missed the hint. It has a battle with Godzilla that is reasonably entertaining and clear, or at least more so then when towering hunks of metal whop the crud out of each others in Transformers movies. The real visual artistry comes outside the battles, though. There’s a majestic shot of Ghidorah frozen in a block of ice, an apocalyptic view of Ghidorah lifting Godzilla into a fiery sky, and my personal favorite, a R’lyeh-like underwater city that seems to have served as a place of veneration for the Titans in vaguely hinted long-ago ages. I freely admit I love this stuff; any hint of ancient ruins with with murky histories and I’m there. This location makes me sad that Guillermo Del Toro’s planned At the Mountains of Madness adaptation is probably DOA.

Spectacular visual artistry, however, can only carry a terrible plot and anemic characters so far. There are three movies in this shared monster universe to date, and the only one with the slightest ounce of narrative heart has been 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, which had the good sense to know something of how silly it was. The original Godzilla movies are ridiculously campy, the kind of thing one enjoys specifically because they don’t take themselves too seriously. This latest in a long line of reboots is simply too earnest to have any fun with itself, and in the process, it largely prevents us from having fun with it, too.

Verdict: Average

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

 You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

 Or his tweets here:

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

 All images are property of the people what own the movie.

[arlingtonpark]

SNK 110 Review

#cultoferen4life edition

You know what’s a face you don’t want to find yourself making during a high stakes poker game? Confusion and surprise.

The fact that the EFC has the upper hand in this game of political cat-and-mouse is becoming more obvious by the chapter - no, by the page.

In this one chapter the Eldian Freedom Caucus has: 

Infiltrated the military. 

Killed Paradis’ leader. 

Busted Eren out of jail. 

And turned the people against the government.

Let me be clear here: this is it. It’s game time. Zero hour. The EFC is making its move, and as for our heroes?

“What’s going on right now?”

They’ve been caught with their pants around their ankles!

And so the trend continues. The EFC acts, the moderates react. They leak information to the public, Paradis reacts by jailing them. They secretly meet with Eren, Paradis reacts by jailing the volunteers. And the one time Paradis tries to take the initiative, by labeling Zeke DOA and feeding him to Historia, is foiled, presumably by Zeke’s machinations. The extremists are always five steps ahead, meanwhile the moderates are struggling just to keep up. The bad guys are winning, here.

Words cannot describe how fucked they all are right now.

But on the plus side- things I predicted that have been confirmed by this chapter: 

The presence of a right-wing nationalist faction among the population.

That these people look to Eren for leadership.

That they do it because he’s a war hero and has the Founding Titan.

Bow before me for I am your new King!

It’s not surprising at all that Eren is in league with the nationalists. Yeah, Eren cares a lot about his friends and about the Eldian people in general. That’s not a bad thing. That’s also not the point.

I cannot stress this enough.

It’s beside the point that Eren is (presumably) doing this because he wants to protect what’s important to him. Eren is a bad person because he thinks in a bad way. He thinks like a nationalist. And it’s not just him.

Floch, Louise, and reaching into our world for examples, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, these people and Eren are all cut from the same cloth. They all think the same way. That is what binds them.

The thing that’s important to understand about these people is that dominance plays a huge role in how they assess the world. People like Eren have a very brutalistic worldview. They think there are only two kinds of people in this world: strong people and weak people, with the strong naturally dominating the weak.

That Eren sees things this way is made clear in the very first chapter of the series. In fact, it’s the very first thing he says:

“That day, the human race was reminded of the terror of being dominated by them and the shame of being held in a bird cage.”

The narrator is obviously supposed to be Eren and that’s been clear since chapter 1. The tell is when Eren describes humanity as being in a bird cage, which is exactly how the narrator described humanity’s state of affairs in the opening.

(As an aside, if Eren is the one telling the story of SNK to us and he’s still caught up in his right-wing nationalist mindset, then that basically tells you everything you need to know about how the story ends.)

The titans keep humanity from going out beyond the walls and Eren frames this as humanity being dominated. Furthermore, and tellingly, Eren describes this situation as being shameful.

Think about that.

How would you describe humanity’s situation?

Dire? Untenable? Awful? Besieged?

Now look at how Eren describes it.

Shameful.

Humanity has been forced to live on a limited tract of land with limited resources and the only thing Eren can think about is the indignity of it.

Like a nationalist would. The indignity of injustice being visited upon a tribe is a common trope amongst nationalists. It’s what fuels the sense of grievance they use to propel themselves to power.

Eren hated the titans even before they attacked Shighanshina. The reason why was expounded upon in chapter 73. It’s because they prevent him from experiencing the world outside the walls. This fact makes Eren feel an unnatural amount of anger towards the titans, even though the titans aren’t sapient and thus are unworthy of that anger.

The titans are not intelligent beings, they are, as far as the walldians know, a force of nature; being Eren levels of angry at them before the Grim Reminder is like being angry at the laws of physics for preventing us from exploring the universe.

“And that’s when I knew I wasn’t free. I realized I had been living in a birdcage all that time. And that gravity had taken my freedom. The universe was so big, but it’d forced me into a tiny cage. And when I realized that I knew I could never forgive it.”

The irrational animosity Eren displays against the titans reveals a certain kind of egomania on his part. Eren is pissed at the titans because he thinks they’ve taken something that belongs to him. He thinks he has a birthright to the world. We know he does because he flat out says so in chapter 14.

“Why did you ever want to go to the outside world?”

“That’s obvious, isn’t it? It’s because I was born into this world!!”

That’s ridiculous.

Eren, and everyone else for that matter, has no birthright to the outside world. As a person, Eren has the right to live as he chooses and that includes the right to live where you choose. But a couple things:

First, rights are not absolute. They can be justly limited, and there are exceptions to them. You have a right to freedom of speech, but you cannot slander others. You have a right to freedom of movement, but your right can be limited in the form of being required to fill out paper work and have a passport to travel. You have a right to life, but, under some circumstances, someone can kill you and not be in the wrong. Self-defense is the go-to example of this.

Second, rights cannot be violated by non-persons. Titans are not people; they are incapable of intelligent thought. Because they are not people, they are also not moral agents. Being a moral agent means you are capable of being held morally responsible for your actions. Because of that, titans are exempt from moral judgement. They cannot take your freedom any more so than a tornado can. To make such a claim would be completely irrational.

Yes, the titans physically limit Eren. Because of them he cannot go where he wishes to go. In that sense they have taken away his freedom. But it is important to distinguish between freedom as it pertains to getting what you want and freedom as it pertains to enjoying certain rights you are entitled to.

When it comes to Eren, the object of what drives him is the former, but he thinks of it in terms of the latter. In other words, he thinks he has a birthright to something by virtue of the fact that he wants it. He believes he has a right to see the outside world in the same way one may think they have a right to fuck a really hot person. Because “I was born.”

Seeing the world? That is a luxury. Especially in a world where 90% of the population lives in poverty.

Eren wanted to see the outside world but was prevented from doing so, and he hated the source of that prevention, the titans. He hated them because they dominated him, because they had power over his life. The fact that they had this power over him was not unfair. Concepts like fair/unfair, just/unjust, right/wrong cannot be applied to non-persons, as I just said. He hated them anyway because of the position of powerlessness it placed him in.

This is indicative of his dominance-centric mindset.

Implicit in Eren’s dominance-mindset is zero-sum thinking. Zero-sum thinking is a way of thinking about the world. People who think this way believe that if you win, someone else necessarily loses. There are only two kinds of people in this world: winners and losers. The strong and the weak. The dominators and the dominated.

Prediction time! I’m sure some people were floored when I pegged Eren as a right-wing nationalist as early as chapter 105. Now I’m back with an even wilder prediction: I think Eren might be a racist.

Seriously. His dominance-centric worldview. His zero-sum thinking. The underlying fundamentals of racist thought are there. Add in the fact he rejects the notion that the races can coexist and it’s hard to not speculate.

Racism here refers to the belief that there are fundamental differences between the races and that because of this the only way they can coexist is in a society where one dominates the other.  

Eren’s focus on dominance leads him to obsess over strength and being strong. If you think we live in a world where the strong dominate the weak, you naturally want to be strong. You want to be the dominator. Eren’s obsession with being strong is a through line for his character.

When Hannes is killed, Eren wails about how he’s still too weak to protect anything he cares about.

As they’re making preparations for the Battle of Orvud, Eren flashes back to his mother’s death. She died because he was weak. That’s what Hannes told him, though in a more tactful way. As recently as the end of the Uprising Arc, that’s how he thought of it. He punches himself, trying to beat a “useless, pathetic brat” out of him. Implicitly, he’s pledging to be strong and make a meaningful contribution.

Because they see the world in terms of dominance, Nationalists naturally are also obsessed with strength and shows of strength. Chest-thumping bluster is a common hallmark.

These two facets of Eren’s thinking, dominance and strength, come together in the moment he vows revenge on the titans.

“Mom’s gone!! I’m never going to see her again. Why is this happening to us? Is it because humans are weak? Is crying the only thing the weak can do?! I’m going to destroy them!! Every last one of those animals that’s on this Earth!!”

Revenge is another common nationalist trope. In a nationalist context, the term for it is revanchism. Revanchism, the word, is derived from the French term for “revenge.” After losing a war with Germany in the 1870s, part of France’s territory was subsumed by Germany. French nationalists vowed revenge. The Germans had taken their land from them. They were trespassing on land that belonged to the French people. Not the French government, but the people of France.

In more modern times, people like Donald Trump speak in revanchist terms. They speak of taking back what was theirs and punishing the ones who took it from them. Eren thinks the same way. Taking back America and punishing Obama and his followers. Taking back Wall Maria and punishing Reiner and Bertolt. Revanchism is the common denominator.

That moment in this chapter when Eren takes the proffered Hoodie of Douchebaggery and assumes the role as EFC leader has been a long time coming. It is a culmination. Eren has matured. What he has matured into is monstrous.

The titans may have been eradicated, but Paradis is still crawling with mindless monsters. They congregate near government buildings where their calls can be heard for miles.

“Slaughter the Marleyans!”

“Eren Yeager will deliver us unto the Promised Land!”

“Eren is soo hot!”

You know at least one person in that crowd was thinking that.

So you’ve got this guy. He’s an outlaw, but not just any outlaw. He’s an outlaw because he speaks the truth. He’s an outlaw because he stands up for the little guy and fights the corrupt, incompetent establishment. As far as the people of Paradis is concerned, that’s basically Eren, right? We can all agree on that, right?

Yes? Okay, good, in that case I’m probably going to have to skip the next chapter because if this is what Eren is to the people then you know what’s coming.

Eren Yeager: Folk hero.

God have mercy on us.

This is all Eren’s fault.

What did Eren spend the whole first half of this series calling for? He spent it calling for the people to see themselves as part of a singular group whose survival was at stake and to fight back. His plea was basically a nationalist one.

(Nationalism is, arguably, not inherently bad. If you are a genuinely oppressed group, some degree of nationalism could be a good thing.)

Well, Eren got what he wanted. He won. The people see themselves as a singular group under threat and are prepared to fight. Now they’re calling for genocide.

Killing all titans makes sense. Giant, non-intelligent animals that are a threat to you? Yeah, knock yourself out. But human beings? No, God no.

Eren has always called for the walldians to fight the titans. Implicit in that is the fact that this would be a fight to the death. Only one side was going to make it out of here alive. Either the titans kill all humans or humans kill all titans.

Eren’s plea, implicitly, was for the walldians to kill all titans.

That is what he was calling for and he got what he wanted. By the start of the Return to Shighanshina Arc, the people were cheering the Survey Corps on.

But titans aren’t the enemy anymore. The enemy is other human beings and you just can’t call for killing all humans because that’s fucked up. And yet here we are!

“Slaughter the Marleyans!”

The situation has changed but the kill all titans mentality Eren strove to cultivate in the minds of the people has carried over. The Eren’s plea for more walldian nationalism has well and truly backfired, though that’s assuming Eren himself sees this development as unfortunate.

Which he may well not.

And yes, if the walldians lose they will all be killed. But just because the Marleyans are swimming in the gutter doesn’t mean the walldians have to join them. This doesn’t have to be a “loser dies” type of situation. It only becomes that if both sides are committed to genociding the other in the event of victory.  

What Paradis needs, what all sides to this conflict need, are more people like Armin. People who are willing to be compassionate and forgiving even to their mortal enemy. People who are willing to de-escalate the situation and turn away from the brink.

The same is true for Marley. If some Armin-type character were to gain power in Marley then the chances of peace would shoot up dramatically. That’s how situations like this usually end up with a peaceful conclusion. Both sides are willing to make a good-faith effort at peace.

But that doesn’t seem to be coming. On Marley, no one in a position to do so is calling for peace. That’s not surprising given the attack they suffered. On Paradis, people like Armin are in greater supply, but they feel, accurately, that they have to fight to survive.

We are moving, inexorably, towards disaster and the brakes aren’t working. Even if the titan powers were to excised from the Eldian people there would still be war. There’s just too much bad blood at this point.

You know, sometimes I can’t believe my luck. When I first started covering this series my biggest worry, aside from my poor grammar, was that I would struggle to find material with which to write about. I suck at character analysis; I just don’t have the attention to detail for it.

But wouldn’t you know it? I have a deep interest in politics and it seems I’ve jumped aboard just when politics is starting to dominate the narrative.

This recent batch of chapters have been very political in their content, and, it turns out, in a way mirrors American politics. The scene where Zackley gets boehnered by the Eldian Freedom Caucus is hilarious. And who can forget Jean grimly wondering what Eren and Zeke discussed, especially in light of the former’s inexplicable pro-Zeke attitude? I can’t believe that moment actually exists!

It’s actually hilarious how much the situation on Paradis parallels the Republican Party. Seriously, just think about it:

Floch and his team – The House Freedom Caucus, a group of right-wing extremists who’re a constant thorn in the side of the more moderate Party leadership even though both factions actually agree on what they want. Among all Republican politicians, they are the most obsequious to Trump.

Zeke Yeager – Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, a clear threat who seems to exercise some sort of control over Donald Trump.

Eren Yeager – President Donald Trump, the shithead President of the United States who inexplicably acts as though he’s under Putin’s control.

The denizens of Paradis – The Trumpistas, the faction of Republican Party voters who support Trump to an almost cult-like extent. Unfortunately for the party leadership, which is seriously put off by Trump, these people are actually the majority of the party’s membership. This forces leadership to be accommodative towards Trump for fear of a popular uprising that will destroy them.

Paradis’ leadership – The Republican Party leadership, the leaders of the party who fight hard for what they believe in but find themselves surrounded by fucking stupid people. Ostensibly, they’re on the same side as the Freedom Caucus, but in practice they’re actually at odds with each other because the HFC thinks they aren’t extreme enough in their methods. Even though they’re the leaders, the majority of party members don’t actually like them, but those same members fucking love Trump, so leadership is forced to live with the threat of a popular uprising unless they kowtow to this fucking twerp even though his impulsive actions are counterproductive. Leadership is seriously put off by Trump, mostly because of his coziness with Putin. They deal with this situation by trying to be “the adults in the room.” They try to mitigate Trump’s worse impulses and stand ready to pull the plug on him entirely if things get too hairy.

Needless to say, this all amuses me to no end.

[detroithistoricalsociety]

I’ll Be There For You, When You Can’t Find the Door?

Nestled within the archives of the Detroit Historical Society are a pair of surprising pop culture artifacts–copies of the draft lyrics for both the theme song of the 90s T.V. hit Friends, and for the Pointer Sisters’ 1984 single “Neutron Dance.”  The Detroit connection for these two songs may not be readily apparent to many, but if you check the sleeve of your well-worn copy of the Pointer Sister’s album Break Out, and pay close attention to the end credits of Friends, you’ll find the common factor is proud Detroit native Allee Willis.  Willis’ signature works may be her collaborations with Earth, Wind, and Fire, including their funk classic “September.”  However she has worked with a myriad of other artists, ranging from Bonnie Raitt to DMC, and Patti LeBelle to the Del Rubio Triplets.  In fact, you very well may have recently joined Willis as one of the 5,000 Detroiters who contributed their voices to her recent anthem for the city, “The D,” which she recorded over the course of five years at various events across the area, including stops at both the Detroit Historical Museum and the Dossin Great Lakes Museum.  Willis, hot on the heels of being honored with a Distinguished Detroiter award at the 2018 Detroit Music Awards, agreed to answer a couple questions for our blog about the draft lyrics, her creative process, and her other works.

On page 20, the chorus to “I’ll Be There For You” begins to shape up.

Across 27 typewritten pages, the lyrics to what eventually would become the 45-second Friends theme, “I’ll Be There For You,” reveal an involved process.  Willis began by working directly from the show’s pilot; “I watched the pilot and wrote down every characteristic of every character and then tried to make up lines about them.”   From these concepts flowed a litany of possible frustrations felt between the characters—ranging from dealing with the smells of second-hand aroma therapy to the tolls of freeloading roommates—contrasted with the now iconic affirmation of support expressed in the chorus.  Willis explained, “when you’re writing for something so specific as a TV theme you try every possible permutation of every line that you like. The only thing the producer of the show told me was that the title was to be ‘I’ll Be There for You.’ So I had at least 25 different choruses to sing for the producers with that line in it and at least 50 verses when I presented it to them.” About these unused lines, she continued, “if a line is really great and doesn’t get used in a song I catalog it and usually end up using it in something else. But the Friends lyric had to be so specific and so simple that I didn’t save any of those lines for further use.”

With Willis’ lyrics to set the tone, Friends drew millions of viewers each Thursday between 1994 and 2004.  Image courtesy imdb.com.

Reading the drafts today, there’s almost a sense of inevitability each time one of the final lyrics first appears.  Willis describes how these breakthroughs played out during the writing process; “The first line I got that I knew was a keeper was ‘Your job’s a joke, you’re broke, your love life’s DOA.’  I always liked internal rhymes, especially on long lines.  And the ‘A’ in ‘DOA’ is a great syllable to hold if the note is long. Second one I got that I knew was a keeper was ‘Well it hasn’t been your day, your week, your month or even your year.’  Something was falling apart in the lives of all the characters and I liked making a play on a common phrase.”

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In her notes, Willis mentions performing early versions of the theme for the show’s producers on the studio lot.  While reading the lyrics, it’s tempting to attempt to sing along yourself to see how these early drafts might have sounded.  When asked if these nascent versions of the theme followed the now familiar final melody, Willis responded, “The melody, written by Michael Skloff, remained the exact same from the time it was written to what we ended up with. I usually write both music and lyrics but I needed one more song to fulfill my publishing deal, which I was eager to get out of. So I agreed to just write the lyric. I never expected it to be a hit.”

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Willis’ “Neutron Dance” is widely remembered for scoring the chase through the streets of—appropriately—Detroit near the beginning of the 1984 classic Beverly Hills Cop.  However it was originally conceived for a very different movie, Walter Hill’s cult “rock & roll fable” Streets of Fire.  Befitting that film’s bleak yet musical retro-futuristic setting Willis bridged the concepts of 1950s doo-wop with nuclear devastation, and brought in a bit of her own experiences.  Willis elaborates, “I hadn’t seen Streets of Fire before writing the song but was told that people were trying to escape a nuclear holocaust. So I knew that the hook line had to have something to do with fire, explosion, or nuclear something.”

Even within that premise, Willis made the song’s themes personal and easily relatable.  She reveals, “The entire song was written in under an hour. It was very autobiographical. It was the first time in years that I had gone without hits and I wanted to write a song about not giving up and that if your life isn’t working it’s up to you to make a change. Someone could push the button tomorrow and we’d all be up in smoke so get off your ass and do something—i.e. Do the Neutron Dance. When we (co-wrote with Danny Sembello) finished the song in 58 minutes we had everything but the title.”

Willis brainstormed a series of concepts evocative of nuclear war, before settling on “Neutron Dance.”

Among the photographic reproductions of her handwritten notes, Willis included the page where she brainstormed possible titles; “As a working title we had ‘I’m just burning on the barbecue.’ I knew the ‘I’m just burning’ was right but knew ‘barbecue’ couldn’t stay, especially because the song wasn’t about barbecue. I kept wanting to use the word ‘neutron’ and was driving down the 405 freeway in LA one day and the words just popped into my head like a glowing neon sign. ‘Neutron Dance’ seemed appropriate as it got the burning point across but added some fun with the use of the word ‘dance’.”  Willis explains that the song was “thankfully rejected” from Streets of Fire, and instead recorded by the Pointer Sisters.  It was this version which made its way onto the Grammy-winning Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack.  Perhaps as an auspicious sign, in that movie, Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley sports a t-shirt from Mumford High School, Willis’ alma mater.

Beverly Hills Cop opened with a chase through the streets of Detroit set to the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance.”  Image courtesy imdb.com.

Of course, I also had to ask Willis about the endearing legacy of “September.”  Every September 21st, the song leaps back to the forefront the popular consciousness, making its presence known both over the radio waves, and in recent years as a trending topic on social media.  Was this annual relevance by design?  And just what was the significance of that date anyway?  Willis explained, “The only thing I knew about September when I started writing it with Maurice White, who had already started the music with the Earth, Wind & Fire guitar player Al McKay, was that he wanted ‘September’ as the title. We wrote it the first day we met. We tried singing every date of the month but the 21st felt the best. I only found out a month ago from his wife, almost 40 years after the song was written, that September 21st was the due date of their son. But at that time as far as I knew it was just the date that sang the best.”

Along with the lyrics, Willis also donated copies of several records that she worked on, including this 45 of Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” from 1978.

Last month, ahead of schedule, September became a topic of hot debate when Taylor Swift released a fiercely maligned country-tinged cover of the funk classic.  Willis was initially supportive of news of the cover, but her response became more measured upon hearing it.  Willis has promised to address the controversy in her upcoming performance, “Allee Willis Loves Detroit,” at the City Theatre on May 18th and 19th.  When asked for a hint as to how she’ll be tackling the Swift situation, Willis shrewdly responded, “For that you’re going to have to come to the show! No teasers. I will just say that the show is very very funny, stuffed with hits, filled with detailed stories about how the songs were written, I auction off stuff from my vast pop culture collection, and I guarantee it’s unlike any other songwriter show you seen before. And I talk about Taylor Swift. Prepare for a wild evening!”

I’ll Be There For You, When You Can’t Find the Door? Nestled within the archives of the Detroit Historical Society are a pair of surprising pop culture artifacts--copies of the draft lyrics for both…

[shadowron]

The Lonely Decker

(Dwarf Decker Julian Strouther from Dreamchipper in his Monopoly Man Costume)

Now.

As I’ve noted before: the decker was the first archetype I ever played in Shadowrun, and has always remained my go-to character. I ranked them 2nd best of all 1st edition archetypes, only being beat out by the rigger. So it pains me to say this:

Deckers are kind of boring.

Not that they aren’t useful. It’s just that, and I don’t even think this was really fixed in future editions, every decker you make is basically the same. Buy the best deck you can, buy the best progs you can, max out computer skills. Voila.

Want to play a combat-type? Former Company Man, Gang Member, Merc, Ork Mercenary, Street Samurai, Tribesman.

Want to play a magician? Burned-out Mage, Former Wage Mage, Shaman, Street Mage, Street Shaman.

Lots of variety there.

Even if you wanted to play a more social type: Detective, Rocker.

What’s left?

Well, admittedly, the Rigger. Given that the decker and rigger are both defined by the equipment they use, there is still much more room for uniqueness being a rigger than a decker. Third edition included separately the vehicle rigger and drone rigger, but there’s nothing stopping a custom-built rigger from specializing like this in 1st edition. Even for a vehicle rigger: which vehicle? Optimized for speed, for combat, or for transport? Ditto for the drone rigger. And this is just speaking of 1st edition, pre-Rigger Black Book.

As for the decker, even Virtual Realities didn’t address this flaw – while it included more detailed rules for building your own deck, everyone still made the exact same deck: the best you could possibly build following the rules.

There are two decker archetypes in 1st edition: Decker and Elven Decker. But, as I’ve already addressed in an earlier article, being an elf doesn’t really give you an advantage. Yes, you get +1 Quickness, but your starting Reaction is still limited to 6, and that’s what counts in the Matrix. The other races have penalties to Quickness or Intelligence, and so unless you want to start with a handicap, you want to play a human decker.

Early adventures tried to include more variants. Dreamchipper had a Dwarf Decker as a sample NPC. DNA/DOA had a (sigh) mage/decker. Horrible idea. “He lives for the rush”, which loads at 2400 baud since he’s using fragging tortoise mode because he doesn’t have a datajack. I guess the rush comes from getting your ass kicked in both Astral Space and the Matrix.

(Mage/Decker Andrew Shalene from DNA/DOA before his twelve-hour Matrix run getting past the first SAN)

Searching for Inspiration

The next step would be to say, okay, in what ways could you make different deckers unique?

Now, if anyone comes at me with Otaku/Technomancers…  Just no.

On the record? Just interested in 1st edition rules here.  Off the record?  I hate the entire concept. HATE. H@T3.

They tried to make cyberspace work more like magic, but frag that, don’t just make a lame mirror-image. Do it like Mage: The Ascension, and make the “Matrix” just another metaplane (and yes – I played a Virtual Adept). Or keep the techno-mysticism and ditch the magical element altogether, but then it would be a more blatant ripoff of Count Zero by Gibson.

Shadowrun was first published in 1989, I started playing in 1990. I had not read any cyberpunk literature at that point, and wasn’t even really that much into sci-fi. Had not read any Asimov at that point, was Team Star Wars over Star Trek. This was before The Lawnmower Man (1992), Hackers (1995), and of course, The Matrix (1999), which:

1.       You couldn’t even be mad at for co-opting the word “Matrix” from Shadowrun given how much blatant theft Shadowrun engaged in.

2.       Why did they never publish a table-top RPG?

Not that there was any lack of computer “hackers” in movies before that, with Wargames (1983), Revenge of the Nerds (1984), and Weird Science (1985) in successive years of my impressionable youth.  As 1990s computer nerds go, I was about a 6/10. I grew up on the Apple II and learned the basics of programming by high school, was a frequent visitor to dial-up BBSs and chatlines on the family PC.

Don’t mean to brag.

Back to the issue at hand: what are the interesting decker variants?

Aligning with the “cinematic hacking” aspect of Shadowrun, there really isn’t much. There are systems you want to get into, and the IC doesn’t want to let you in. Your two options are:

1.       Sneak past it, or

2.       Crash it.

That gives you only two specialties: are you a Thief, or are you a Fighter?

If you’re the only decker – most likely – then you must be a little bit of both. Pick locks and hide in shadows until you need to whip out the broadsword. Thief maxes out Masking and Sensors utilities, Fighter maxes out Combat and Defense utilities. If you’re not the only decker, then it makes more sense to specialize. Even then, the D&D analogy starts to break down – the Thief can’t “sneak” the Fighter past the IC using Deception or Sleaze progs, as their use is individual to the persona. Fighter could slow/crash the IC, allowing the Thief to pass, but then it risks triggering alarms. No point in the Fighter waiting outside the system and “guarding the gate”, as security deckers are prone to enter from within the system they are guarding.

You could argue that, if your entire campaign was built around deckers, then there would be room for a proliferation of decker species, and you’d be correct, except then you’re really talking about a different type of game entirely. Like if you had taken the Shadowbeat sourcebook and decided to run a *shudder* Rocker-only campaign.

Stuck with the lonely decker

So what is there to do?

Rather than varying what deckers do inside the Matrix, you vary what they do outside. The beauty of the classless system is that you can, apart from magicians, add as much as little of an archetype as you like.

Speaking of archetypes, what would it take to get one of the other, non-decker, archetypes to work as a decker? After all – a good starting nuyen rolls gives you the chance to buy a deck. A Radio Shack CD-100 with Rating 1 Bod, Evasion, Masking, Sensors, Analyze, Attack, and Sleaze is 9800 ¥. Is this the worse deck imaginable? Absolutely, but it is a deck. The character can at least attempt to do something in the Matrix.

To whom do you give this deck?  Only two of the other archetypes have a computer skill and a datajack: Rigger and Former Company Man. Of those, the Rigger is the better choice, with a slightly higher Computer skill (3 > 2), and a slightly more in-game motivation for decking (they’re the tech rat).

Now, the only other archetype with a Computer skill is the Detective (at 4), but he has no datajack. Which means that, if you really want to take advantage of this backup wannabe decker, you going to have to…

That’s right. I’m going to say it.

TIME TO BUY A FRAGGIN TORTOISE!

I realize I slammed an NPC mage/decker above – because that idea is just stupid. Detective Decker is slightly less stupid, because he has skills that can be applied elsewhere. Because of the limitations of tortoise mode:

·         -1d6 to Reaction

·         -1 to all program ratings

·         Locked in value of 3 for Persona programs

They’re, yeah, going to suck a bit.  But, the advantages of tortoise mode:

·         Immunity to black IC

·         Locked in value of 3 for Persona programs, so you don’t have to buy them

·         Costs a tenth as much as a regular deck.

It’s this last one Detective Decker will take advantage of. Buying higher rating progs to counter the -1 penalty is okay when that Radio Shack CD-100 Tortoise only costs 620 ¥. Less than an Armor Jacket! May as well splurge on the Allegiance Alpha Tortoise for 1320 ¥. Less than an HK 227! Roll well and you may just be taking home that Sony CTY-360 Tortoise (11,100 ¥) you’ve had your eye on all these years.

You deserve it.

Multiclassing

In college, I found myself in the lucky position of finding a group of friends who had Shadowrun as their common RPG – and only because my friend Jimmy had never played D&D. That’s right – had played Shadowrun but not D&D. I had no idea such people existed. Love you, Jimmy.

We also used a rotating GM system to ensure everybody got a chance to play, which works well for Shadowrun, with each run being nicely encapsulated. Led to some interesting inconsistencies with karma and money distribution, but was fun nonetheless. It was in this campaign that Josh’s merc commented “Generic Assault Cannon? That sounds like something I should have.” And Warren’s street samurai trying to argue he could tuck and roll through a window with an assembled sniper rifle strapped across his back.

He did roll *really* well on Athletics, as I recall.

I had a decker/rigger named Pandora. She, like a lot characters of mine, was a blatant filling of party gaps, but one that made sense. Since both decker and rigger are based upon equipment, you just need to start at max Tech level and choose your purchases wisely. Focus similarly in skills: Computer and one Vehicle skill.

Third edition Shadowrun, with its total rewriting of the archetypes, included what most deckers were leaning towards becoming anyway: Combat Deckers. When you were waiting for the one-on-one time with the GM so that you could fulfill the obligatory Matrix portions of the run, you had to do something, and it sure as frag isn’t casting spells, so might as well shoot a gun.

[milquetoast-on-acid]

I Love You, A Shandy Meta Post

Much like the proposal I decided to have a separate post about the "I Love You" scene because of how much I wanted to break this down. Because of how important this scene is to Sharon and Andy’s characters. The Emotion and the freaking bedroom. 

What this meta is about: Visuals & Parallels Their Pajamas The Bedroom Setup: Who sleeps where Cinematography and Echos Parallels and Callbacks The Meta Why the bedroom? And why we haven't had a scene in the bedroom until now. Sharon's Glasses = Her vulnerability Andy Flynn, the Gentlemen Faith and the role it plays in their Relationship When two emotionally damaged people find each other...   Andy   Sharon Sharon & Andy's Heart Conditions are Metaphors  I Love You When Two become One

Visuals & Parallels

Their Pajamas

Andy's t-shirt (which by the way looks like an LAPD shirt) and plaid pajama pants is EXACTLY what I thought Andy would normally wear to bed. Just like @roslinadama-sinequanon said this is much more like Andy Flynn and hella sexier too. 

Andy's stripped pajama's from White Lies really feels like something Sharon bought Andy. Maybe as a moving in gift. And of the three times that we've seen Sharon in her night clothes, it's quite interesting how much they've changed since "DOA". She's really dressing for him and I kind of love it. Sharon's nightgown is very her. It's femimine, lace, sexy yet modest. 

If you also note that their not matching colors here, because their not on the same wavelength. And if we don't get the matching and get a scene like this. Than i'm 100% for it.

The Bedroom setup: Who sleeps where Since is has been the only scene in which we see Sharon (and now Andy's) bedroom. I want to take a minute to look around. It looks like each of them have their own dresser. Which would certainly make a lot of sense considering how much both of them are fashionistas. The dresser closest to them is more than likely Andy's. There is a black tube of what could be lotion or what I think is aftershave. His watch in front of it and his belt beside it. And a very nice box full of what I think are his ties. Which is so nice to see since we have seen virtually nothing of his in the condo. I think that's the side he sleeps on. There's also that infamous jar of Vaseline on the side table.

It makes sense that Sharon would want to be closest to the door so that is that much faster for her to protect her child if something were to happen to him. You can see another dresser behind Andy, with what looks like a picture on top of it. But it, is so far away you can't tell what's in the picture. More than likely a photo of Sharon and her kids. And what could be books on top of the dresser.

Cinematography and Echos I love the way the beginning of this scene is shot. Sharon's face is completely in focus and we get a very emotional Sharon who's on the verge of breaking down. She's barely holding back her tears. It's shot exactly how Sharon's confession was in part 3. The slow motion, the very dim lighting. And it's absolutely gorgeous. Not to mention the visual parallels from this to Laura reflecting on her life in Daybreak.

Parallels and Callbacks I love this scene so much for so many reasons. One of them being that it feels like we are finally finishing the what was illuded to two years ago in "Taking the Fall". Only this time Sharon has the courage to tell Andy how she feels about him. This time, Andy has the courage to tell Sharon how much she means to him. It really is the last hurdle they had before they got married. It also feels very reminiscent of the scene in "Blackout" when Andy is telling Sharon about his blood clot. Both scenes dealing with Andy's heart condition. Not only that but this is an actually conversation about their relationship, Sharon's heart condition and the fucking feels! 

After all of the heavy emotional stuff is out of the way. Once, Andy knows what he's dealing with (as far as where Sharon is at emotionally). And him really getting his point across that their in this together that she's not alone and that she needs to stop thinking that way. Like everything that Andy Flynn does, he tries to use humor to put a smile on his fiance's face.

The Meta

Why the bedroom? And why we haven't had a scene in the bedroom until now.

I think it was a very very deliberate choice to have this scene in their bedroom. And for it to be the very first time we have a scene there.

A while back (when Sharon and Andy got engaged) I talked about how windows and doors were very symbolic in the progress of their relationship. I've also talked about how Sharon's office is her inner sanctum at work. It's a bit like her bedroom, her private place - where she can be more of herself there. We've gotten plenty of very pivotal Sharon/Andy moments there. Some of the really best ones, there's the

"I'll wait in case you need me."

The hug, Andy asking Sharon out on two non-date dates. Sharon telling Andy she's open to them moving in together. 

But until now we've only seen a tiny peak into Sharon's bedroom. The one other time we've seen it was when Rusty wakes Sharon up because 'someone's in the house'. Which turned out to be Jack. When Sharon's husband was bursting his way rudely into her apartment. Her husband. 

A person's bedroom can tell you a lot about them, it's their MOST private place. MC is visually associating Sharon's bedroom with her husbands. Where Jack was in her heart, although a fractured heart. Now Andy is in her heart. While it's frustrating that we haven't had any scenes in her bedroom until now it's also a kind of interesting concept. That the further we get into Sharon and Andy's relationship the more she seems to open up. To Andy and to us. And we are seeing that visually - where they want to place the characters in these particular scenes. 

Not to mention that the very first time we hear Sharon say "I love you" to Andy it's in her very most private place. It's certainly been implied that they've said the words to the other before this but WE haven't heard them.

Sharon's Glasses = Her vulnerability

It's been said that the use of glasses between Bill Adama and Laura Roslin were visually used to show emotional vulnerability in the characters. I have to wonder if the're doing the same thing with Sharon. And how seldom we see Sharon's naked eyes. The scene opens with Sharon looking at herself in the mirror, trying to compose herself. And she's not wearing her glasses. But as soon as she steps into the bedroom to talk with Andy, the glasses go back on. She's much more composed (although still emotional) than she was in the bathroom. 

There's no dialog just Sharon staring at herself, wrestling with her emotions. It feels really depressing and the whole mood is completely broken by Andy. It's an amazing way of us getting right inside of Sharon's head. Seeing what she's feeling. She's completely naked to us, there is no shield she's putting up. A lot of people have commented how much they thought Sharon was naked when she is first looking at herself in the mirror. Now that I think about it. I think it was done deliberately to add to Sharon's already vulnerable state. 

Seeing that scene really strikes me just how much Sharon is holding in. There's so much emotion and feelings that she holds in, in an effort to protect herself and others. Her putting her glasses on is a way of her putting a shield up. As a way to protect herself. As a way to distance herself from her own emotions that she's so desperately wrestling with right now. 

Even when she's in their own bedroom in front of Andy. she's still hiding. She talks about her heart condition in a somewhat emotionless detached manner. She uses clinical terms and talks about her potential options if things worsen. It's her defense machinsim to try to step away from her emotions surrounding her illness and the implications of that on her relationship with Andy.

Andy Flynn, the Gentlemen What I love about Andy Flynn and how he treats his soon to be wife here. Note that Andy waits for Sharon on the bench at the foot of their bed and NOT in the chair by the window. He respects her. You my love, please take the chair. He places her above him. Always. He is ever and always the gentlemen to his lady. Pulling out her chair for her at dinner. Giving her the more comfortable seat, but yet finding a way to be near her. Opening doors for her and letting her go first. 

Andy Flynn is worried like crazy about what's going on with Sharon but still manages to give her space and time to processes things in her own way. Not only in this scene but throughout the episode, this arc and their entire relationship. He is so very careful in not pushing her one way or the other. It's something that he and Sharon have in common in the way they deal with their loved ones. 

The further we get into their relationship, the more Andy understands Sharon. How she deals with emotions, when to push her and when not to. I love @themagicm (in her amazing podcast go listen!) for pointing out how much Andy gives up for Sharon. Part of being in a relationship is about compromise and sacrifice. Patience is really against Andy's nature, but for Sharon he's the most patient guy in the world.

Faith and the role it plays in their Relationship "I just want you to think about this for a second." "I don't need a second." Faith plays such a huge role in this arc and how different relationships are being tested. How some relationships had the strength to persuasive in overwhelming odds. While other's couldn't pass the test. 

Of all of the romantic relationships to be featured in part four. Sharon and Andy is really the only one (that's proven) to have the strength to last in the face of adversity. Kelly and Lucas was forbidden by Kelly's racist father. They had to sneak around to get any kind of time together. Which is so sad because listening to Kelly it really seemed like the two of them could have lasted if it weren't for Lucas' death. Meanwhile, Ryan is still wrestling with his sexuality and his crush on Miguel. Miguel who has a thing for Kelly, who's dating Lucas. (why do I feel like I'm watching kid versions of bsg characters here).

Sarah and Mateo have a volitile relationship where communication is non-existent. And neither of them seem to be dealing with Lucas's illness. Rusty and Gus are in some bizarre limbo state. Both are focused on their careers, along with a new guy that's come between them. 

Sharon in particular is being tested with her faith in God, her Church, her Priest and her relationship with Andy. For so many years their relationship hadn't really been tested. They'd been out of sync for somethings but it never really caused any kind of strife or any rift between them. They never really seemed to have any problems integrating their dating life with their work life. The only time it seemed to interfere was before they started officially dating. After that it was pretty smooth sailing. 

So Sharon's illness is a real test for their relationship. And Sharon was preparing herself to deal with this illness by herself. In the way she has always done. She really wanted to stress to Andy just how serious her heart condition is. And wanted him to really sit down and think about whether or not he really wanted to marry her knowing that she could possibly die. Or that he'd have to take care of a sick woman, most likely for the rest of his life. 

Jack Raydor always up and left when ever life got too hard for him. Whenever the responsibility of being a parent or husband became too much. So that is something that she is carrying around inside of her even now. She doesn't want to go through with a marriage to a guy she loves to pieces only for him to up and leave her. Logically, she's got to know that he won't leave her the way Jack did. But emotionally it's something that's so ingrained in her psyche.

When two emotionally damaged people find each other...

The two of them have found each other and have helped piece the other back together again. But there are still emotional issues that both of them are dealing with.

Andy "I don't know if I deserve it and I don't know why you care about me so much." It's been subtly illuded to over the years that Andy supremely insecure and does not think much of himself. There has been some really wonderful conversations lately on this.His words here make me think of this particular moment in season 1. When some dubious life coach gets an excellent read on Andy. 

"You're divorced. You have a whole in your heart so deep you couldn't fill it with booze so you covered it up with a badge. You feel you destroyed your children's lives even though they say they forgive you." There has been something that's been missing from this guy's life that he only found until just now. Andy certainly takes responsibility for what his drinking did to himself and to his family. But what had originally caused Andy to drink so heavily? There's some really wonderful speculation that Andy did not have the warmest of childhoods. That he grew up with a lot of siblings and there really wasn't a lot of time for his parents to really spend one on one time with him. That they really just were left on their own to do their own thing. It certainly jives with some of the things Andy has said through the years. And that Andy didn't really get much love when he was a kid, and would certainly explain that hole in his heart. 

The hole he filled with booze and when that made a mess of things. He filled it with women but that also didn't work. Both of those are kind of behaviors are really distractions from what he was really feeling. Or really to keep him from feeling the emptiness he had inside of him. The emptiness that was eventually filled with love. 

"Unless, you've changed your mind about us. Have you changed your mind?" Years into their relationship, with the two of them engaged and days away from getting married. And he's still so insecure that he wonders if her wanting to postpone/cancel the wedding is maybe her just not wanting to marry him. But the way he asks her this, his voice is so soft and so gentle. And he looks so damned sad when he asks her this. And it would probably kill him if they broke up but he would do it for her. He would do anything for her.

Sharon "As long as you understand what I am dealing with here." "What we're dealing with. Okay." Sharon has always dealt with everything by herself. From the time she became an adult, until Andy came along. Yes she had the support of her church and her children. But it's not the same thing. It is not the same thing as having a significant other that you can rely on for emotional support. And here she's still thinking that she has to deal with her heart condition by herself. As a mother Sharon is always going to protect her children. Even when it comes to her illness. 

Jack, as a husband and a partner never had any kind of support to give Sharon. She could not rely on him in any way. Not financial. Remember she was the one to support both of them financially until he became a lawyer. Him draining her bank account gambling. Which is a huge reason why she separated from him to get herself in a better place financially. 

Not as a father. It's been stated that Jack did not pay a dime to put Emily or Ricky through college. Sharon also paid to put them through St. Josephs and because of her financial straights (due to Jack), the church gave her a break on the tuition. Not as a husband. Although it's never been directly talked about,  It has been subtly hinted at that he had cheated on her before they separated. And how many times did he leave and come back? So if there was anything she had to deal with (usually drama because of him) she could never turn to him to help her. So she did what she always does. Deal with it by herself. 

Love was never the problem in Sharon and Jack's marriage. I'd even argue that Jack was still in love with Sharon after they divorced, which is the reason why he fell off the wagon. The point I'm making is that is ingrained in her psyche. Her, being a sole entity in a marriage. Even though she loves Andy to pieces. And even though she knows Andy loves her. It's something that's going to take (probably) years longer to break.

Even despite the years of Andy telling her that she's not alone. It's really only until his speech to her here that it's finally sinking in for her. Andy has been in love with her for years, and everything he has done before and after they started a relationship. Is really to show her that he's there for her just, as much as she has been there for him. 

"I'll wait in case you need me." I really feel that this is Andy Flynn in a nutshell when it comes to his relationship with Sharon. I will be here, you can lean on me.

Sharon & Andy's Heart Conditions are Metaphors "If we're not going to let my heart get in the way of that. Then uh, we're not going to let your's stop us either." What is interesting is that both Sharon and Andy have heart conditions. And I feel like the show is using that as a metaphor for their emotionally damaged hearts. While one is going through emotional and physical trauma, the other one is always there being loving, supportive and helping them through the tough periods. Exactly what a significant other is supposed to do.  And it's really been the foundation of their entire relationship. 

Andy saying here that their not letting their physical conditions stopping them from getting married. But he's also saying that their not going to let their emotionally damaged hearts stop them from getting married. Not going to stop them from finding and having happiness with each other. 

Together they are stronger than they are apart. That is something he realized a very long time ago. Neither of them are the person they were years ago. And a lot of the has to do with the relationship they have with each other. Andy was a very Angry person. He was cynical and bitter. At the world and at himself. For the things that he has done, seen and lived through. While he started working on himself and his relationships with his children. That is when Sharon (really came into) his life and help shape him into a better man. 

Likewise with Sharon, having a friend and a relationship with a man like Andy. Helped her to open up in ways she'd never been before. While Sharon was always a very caring person, it's not something we'd seen her express in a big way. He's really helped her come much more out of her shell. And to stand up for her own happiness. Such as finally divorcing Jack, adopting Rusty, pursuing different careers (because it makes her happy).

To further this concept, I finally looked up Cardiomyopathy and according to Wikipedia it is often called the Broken heart syndrome and can be caused by extreme emotional or physical stress.

I Love You "I love you so so much." A lot of people have commented that this is the most emotional I love You we've gotten from this show and I completely agree. I want to take that a step further and add that it's from the most emotionally closed off person. How amazing is that, from the one person that hides their emotions from the world and walls them off like a damned fortress. Is bursting with so much emotion here. It is an important and powerful I Love You. 

Much like with Laura Roslin, Sharon is the one we really need to hear the words from. As it certainly was implied and we did know that she loves him. Sharon is also a very emotionally closed off person who really hides how much she feels. Her emotions are not always so apparent. Even her love for Andy. While I would have loved to have heard Andy say the words. He says how much he loves her here, without saying the words. By telling her she's not alone and together they can face anything. By telling her that nothing is going to stop them from getting married.

When Two become One "Let's start where the Doctor asked me to leave the room. And you try to remember, word for word what he said to you okay. Word for word." What I love about this? In one sentence Andy Flynn using humor while being so serious and concerned about her. He starts off by trying to get a smile back on her face, after their very emotional heavy conversation. Using his humor to lighten the mood, is so typical of him and his relationship with her. There are times when Andy cracks a joke with his sole purpose of getting her to smile or laugh. 

Him asking her to remember everything that she can about what the doctor told her is because of how much he wanted to be in the room with her. He tried to bully the doctor into letting him stay and his poor face falls when the Doctor doesn't budge. He only stands down when Sharon tells him that it's okay. It reminds me of when Sharon was punched in the face by their suspect. Andy only stopped because Sharon told him to stop. 

It's also him showing her that he's got complete knowledge of what she has to face. SO he'll be completely informed about about exactly what's wrong with her and what her options are. His way of showing her that he's all in. And his way of furthering how much the two of them are in this battle together. That he wanted and wants to be with her every step of the way. 

"I think we should postpone the wedding. It's not fair to you." It is not until Sharon starts talking about the wedding and thinking about Andy that she gets emotional. Her voice cracks here and she's getting teary eyed. While Sharon may be scared about what's going on with herself it is her family that she thinks of and how it's going to effect them. And how powerless she is to stop that. First Andy here and later with Ricky and Emily. 

"Absolutely not. You think I would let anything get in the way of becoming your husband." What I love about this? Andy Flynn being so firm and so clear. What he wants in their relationship. As I have talked about Andy is so very careful in how he deals with Sharon and her emotions. This is the one time where him being firm and putting his foot down about something really mattered in their relationship. That no matter what is going to happen to Sharon, in happiness or sadness, in sickness and health. He will be there and has made his mind up to be there with her 100% long before he proposed to her. And emotionally long before they even started dating. Not to mention that this guy has waited years for Sharon to be finally emotionally ready to be married to him.

[alexsmitposts]

Liberalism’s Zombies Resist Dr. Putin’s DOA Diagnosis The most important announcement to come out of the recent G20 Summit was not still more economic and business voodoo. Thank God. The big message from Osaka was Russian President Vladimir Putin’s declaration that “liberalism is dead.” The proclamation stunned half the world and raised applause from the other half, which is a reminder that there are two sides to every story. Here’s a short take on Mr. Putin’s diagnosis, and a prescription for the liberal world order to swallow. At ThinkProgress, author Casey Michel is calling anybody who hates what the liberal hegemony has done to the world “fascist.” For the liberal maniacs and globalist bankster henchmen of this world, anybody who is not on their side is either a Jew-hating Anti-Semite, Pat Buchanan, or some other form of Nazi. And this sort of ludicrous name calling is a big indicator of the massive divide that grips the world today. Michel cites Financial Times writer Martin Wolf, who exemplifies the worst of ultra-liberalism with this: “Liberalism is not a utopian project, it is a work in perpetual progress. It is an approach to living together that starts from the primacy of human agency. But that is only the starting point. Making that approach work requires constant adaptation and adjustment.” I hope I am not the only one asking the question, “What the hell is the primacy of human agency?” Do these people actually use such words in mixed company? Has humanity traded traditional values and conservatism the last 50 years for a movement that seeks supremacy, ascendancy, sovereignty, dominance, and dominion? I wonder how many people reading the Financial Times realize the paper’s chief economics guru considers Marxism the true course of liberalism? Yes, this is what “human agency” refers to, the philosophies of Karl Marx and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who believed the “state should subsume family and civil society, in order to fulfill the perfected ideal. And now you know why the liberal order is so demanding of our allegiance. Martin Wolf CBE (Commander of the British Empire), is supposed to be Financial Times’ chief economics commentator. But, it’s his ties to the World Bank would seem to be the root cause of his cheerleading for the liberal order. Wolf, like so many other western experts, is connected by an umbilical to the order that has obliterated dreams of billions of people. And such people cannot deconstruct their existence. This is why Mr. Putin’s decree is being so painfully received. The real problem with Vladimir Putin’s pragmatic approach to this whole west-east idealism mess is that Mr. Wolf’s and the rest of the liberal order’s crazy bastardization of Marxist ideas by serving the bourgeoisie. You see, the liberal elites in the west have tried to turn reality upside down to convince the lower classes that THEY are the new socialist dreamers. But a new proletarian revolution is now in full swing. And they hate it. Putin is their nemesis, the ultimate weapon of the working class. A normal guy with an extraordinary capability to be recognized by the working class, who can also be a ringmaster in between Russia’s rich elites. When Mr. Putin told the G20 that Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory was a sign of “disenchantment with mainstream liberal ideals,” he was just stating fact. Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe opened the summit telling the world it has “a responsibility to squarely face global problems and to come up with solutions through frank dialogue,” but the world did not like Putin’s frankness. The fact in all these world financial matters is the liberal world order has failed miserably. Only the well-to-do and the apathetic world citizen has the unmitigated audacity to suggest that world economic policy has been a victory the last half-century. Like Hegel, they adhere to some ancient lunacy like the ideas of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, that there is something outside common sense to worship. Nowhere in their narrative can you find intuitive scientific arguments, but instead the entirety of the liberal corpus reminds us of dope smoking Californians riding in a pot ladened hippie van – Heraclitus in tow. The Greeks these days suffer because of liberal order banker Machiavellianism, and so do Spaniards, Romanians, and much of the rest of the world. An attribution the Heraclitus bears repeating here, since the phrase πάντα ῥεῖ (panta rhei) “everything flows” is what Putin’s foes are all about. You see, the high pitched and breathless voice of the billionaire globalist can be heard congratulating his or her minions, “Everything flows to me Reginald, this is the way I want it.” Liberalism is a success! Meanwhile, just three people, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and investor Warren Buffett hold combined fortunes worth more than the total wealth of the poorest half of Americans. The richest American, as an example, is 31 times richer than in 1982. And the richest 5% of Americans now hold almost all the true wealth in the country. When we turn outside America, the situation is even worse. By 2017 only 42 billionaires held more wealth than half the world’s population. I will not even get into how the elites accumulated their fortunes on the backs of people around the world who work for poor wages and under dangerous conditions. Finally, at the end of the day all these Marxist, socialist, left, right, or center arguments give way to whether or not people around the world (all people) win or lose. And the finality of short lives and death is the pendulum of “correct policy” our psychotic leaders should balance their programs on. There can be no argument that American billionaires are taking the lion’s share the last two decades, and that people with less simply life shorter and sometimes miserable lives. Economist and economic columnist have known for years that people who live in poorer societies live shorter lives. But the globalist establishment which supports its cheerleaders heaps praise on people like Martin Wolf, calling him “the Anglosphere’s most influential finance journalist.” I guess he is since he evangelizes exactly the lies that have caused these inequalities. No wonder Putin is their arch enemy.

[imdrunkandreviewingshit-blog]

Drunk Rant: Death Note

(Disclaimer: This review was recorded verbally, then transcribed. Drunk Idiot Reviews felt the need to revise much of the review for clarity’s sake, but the spirit and much of the language is kept intact.)

SPOILERS ABOUND

On Sunday night, I sat down with my good buddies on the various couches in front of the television. We mixed lemonade, vodka, and limoncello, because we are broke young adults who need to find simple ways to get drunk. And once I was at least seven or eight drinks in, we decided to watch Death Note.

Death Note is the latest original Netflix film, directed by Adam Wingard and starring Nat Wolff, Lakeith Stanfield, Margaret Qualley, and Willem Dafoe. This movie was released in 2017 on what I assume the 28th of August. The movie is an adaptation of a Japanese light novel and focuses on a young man who controls the fate of anyone that he writes the name of into a notebook, leading to their death. This is Netflix’s latest attempt to break into the film market, which they have succeeded in at multiple attempts with Beasts of No Nation and Okja. However, this latest attempt at an an original film, a well-marketed film, is a failure.

Holy shit, what is this movie?

Before I get into this, let me tell you that I’m a big fan of the original Death Note series. I love…no, I won’t say I love the series. I very much enjoy the first half of the original Death Note. The dynamic between Light and L, both of whom seek their own form of justice, was very intriguing to me and made me really fall in love with it. Even if there were certain questionable elements that come along with the territory of anime. This movie really fails to adapt anything I feel is intriguing or interesting about the series. I don’t generally like to compare adaptations to the source material, as I feel directors should be encouraged to create their own work with the source as inspiration, but I feel it’s imperative to do when the movie is just this bad of a misfire.

Let’s start with Nat Wolff’s Light. In the original series, Light is your perfect student. He’s smart, charming, handsome; everyone loves him. And that’s kinda what makes him interesting, right? He has it all but he has that narcissism inside him that makes him sure he knows what is best for the world. And then he gets something that allows him to shape the world in his image. And for that reason, you really fall in love with him, though he’s a shitty person. Then L comes in with his strong moral code, he’s a genius detective who also wants to catch all criminals in his way. He just does it in a much more acceptable fashion. And that’s personally why L is one of my favorite anime characters, but I don’t indulge too much in anime because anime is fucking trash (Drunk Idiot Reviews would like to remind readers that this is not purely the opinion of the author but is indeed a verified fact, yet the writer does still watch anime). In this film, Nat Wolff imbues Light with a complete sense of unlikability. Light is a dork, Light is ugly, Light doesn’t really stand up for the common man outside of one time in the beginning.. He starts off with a vendetta against the person who kills his mother, but as soon as Light kills the murderer, this motivation is quickly forgotten and unjustified. It’s simply not enough to make you care about his mission statement or believe his convictions. It seems—no, it doesn’t even seem, he IS an edgy child who feels like he has a better sense of justice because he is a “high thinking individual” or something. And you know what? I don’t even blame Nat Wolff for this. I don’t think Nat Wolff is a  good actor, I’ll be real, but the writing is what fails him. Light is an edgy teen who shops at Hot Topic two out of the seven days of the week, and he should be treated as such. He should not be sympathetic in any way, shape, or form, and it’s kinda disturbing to me that this movie feels like we should somehow be rooting for him. So when one of the main forces in the Light vs. L conflict is this bad, how can the film even hope to live up to its source?

That said, one of the standouts is Lakeith Stanfield’s L. Stanfield imbues him with an honest feeling of what he was in the source, a detective with a righteous sense of justice, but the script fails him again. His sense of justice isn’t incorruptible; he leaks the names of low level criminals as bait for Light, and the film actually leads you to believe that L is going to kill Light in a very poor cliffhanger. Now, Lakeith Stanfield is a great actor, he’s wonderful in Atlanta, and he’s good here, but it just doesn’t work.

The biggest problem with this movie, over the script, over the acting, over the fucking sophomoric cinematography that makes you feel like you’re about to topple over with the amount of Dutch angles, is the pacing. The pacing in this movie is breakneck and is so herky-jerky that you might get whiplash. The transitions from-- I mean, in the first fifteen minutes, Light is going from a regular student to killing massive amounts of people. There’s no moment of hesitation, there’s no sense of guilt, he just fucking embraces it.

Part of the reason he is so receptive to it is because it’s foreplay. It’s the relationship between Light and Mia, it’s that he’s trying to impress her, and it’s working. Mia is a sociopath that seems to get off on seeing people die. He wins her over and makes her fall in love with him by killing some bully in front of her. It’s just really fucking gross. I won’t say I was disgusted but it made me pity Light. He’s a fucking loser with no problems, he has a halfway decent life, but whines and feels like he’s disadvantaged. And you know what, there was a chance for this script to make everyone more sympathetic, but they try to shove in almost a whole season of the anime plus their own original shit into one 90 minute movie, and it’s just laughable to me. The tone is really strange too. It really felt the need to amp up the horror elements, but this wasn’t a story that needed it or ever delivered on even one scare. As such, the gore, the music, the shots, they all feel just like useless toppings on a shit cake.

I like Adam Wingard. Until the release of this movie, I was defending Wingard, I wasn’t put off by Blair Witch, but this is even worse. And now it makes me question Wingard’s ability outside of satirical movies. Death Note almost feels like he wanted to satirize the original film by putting it in a modern western context, giving us a more typical troubled protagonist, and maybe kind of highlighting how enamored we are with our own judgments, but the only joke here is his own movie. 

I will say there were a few positives to the movie. Willem Dafoe IS Ryuk. Willem Dafoe is Satan to me purely on a looks and acting basis, and he works so well here. Ryuk is much more of a tempter in this than in the original, but I dig this interpretation of him. The mix of practical effects and CGI makes him such an incredible presence on the screen, and he is almost always clinging to the shadows. There are plenty of scenes where you won’t even notice him until you see the eyes or some spiky shit in the background.  Let me tell you, I think it’s pretty damn beautiful.

But unfortunately, one and a half characters don’t redeem an entire cast of terrible performances. I really don’t want to see Netflix try to do anything else with this.

You know what? Death Note wrote its own name in the Death Note. And the time for its perish was August 25th at about 8:00 pm or whenever it came out. This thing was DOA. See it if you’re drunk and like the series, it’s worth laughing at Nat Wolff’s weird ass screaming. Otherwise, don’t waste your time.

[natashahudsonshares]

PS : Forgive me for my pictures as it was taken last year and many years of not seeing my siblings. Here I share what means so much to me and what i am currently going through at this crucial moment. Do not judge but understand.

Assalamualaikum Warahmatullah Hiwabarakatu,

As i write this heart races & palpitates with speed of 1000km tears of pain,sadness,overwhelming feelings of what is currently happening in my life. Things have been slow. Has it? All i know there has been a roller coaster ride of reflection,regret,pain and a little happiness shining in and out. (I wish)…a word that pops in my head,heart maybe? I wish i was closer to her,to them,to many things,people and Allah. Ya Allah nevertheless i should be thankful for all these test. I only have you Ya Rabb.

Are we grateful for the things in our life,the test,the hikmah? Masyallah tabarakallah Allah swt has tested me so much. I know as a weak human/servant i complain,we all do. Fullstop what a habit right? Cant we be more grateful. So much confusion.misconception here and there,fitnah,twisted world,dilemma all over the place for so many. But we are still lucky to have them all. Stabbing pain, a usual pain that is immuned in our system for many of us just in different levels and types. Just how do we overcome them? Before that, here goes my story.

So recently early last year about a few months ago, i was given the shock of my life. I mean its nothing new to experience but to me it is ( here we go all over again). My sister..my eldest sister…Belinda Ann Hudson which resides in Brisbane,Australia gave me news few months ago about being diagnosed with brain cancer,stage 4 and the worse type she could have. “Its treatable Tash, but not curable and its the worse of its kind!” she said. It happened too quick. One day she had a severe headache and next day over check up? Ka boom….she found out about this. Operation done and still fighting,surviving. It tore me..all of us. She is possibly the best sister anyone could ask for. Although we come from different mothers it does not make us any distant nor different but yet still known as blood siblings. She is the only one that truly understands me,and indeed she is perfect to my eyes. She is constantly steadfast in her way. So calm,bright,funny,beautiful,loving,kind,caring and the list goes on. This i found as an opportunity. What was it?

Alhamdulillah i remind myself off this test. Cry,scream,whatever but don’t wail. Its all written and how will ours be? I can’t deny i break down a lot,a kick in my butt that reality is kicking in. We will all die,we will. Time is passing by with a blink of an eye,we are ageing,our grey hairs are showing and embrace the ageing process,half of our life is over but are we ready? How will our life end & how do you want it to end? Have any of you ever thought about this?I have. Almost everyday.So I tried something unimaginable. I started giving my sister in Australia dakwah. Her faith is Catholic Christian. But to her religion probably doesn’t exist anymore and she hasn’t practice it for 2 years. I didn’t hard sell my religion but i wanted her to know what peace was, what calamity was about and how to remain calm even the storm is heading our way.She mentioned that she won’t watch any of the dakwah videos i sent her (my heart torn a little) to me which were considered light and more of motivational/therapeutic videos although it uses Islam as its base. Islam is easy and so easy to understand. It’s all about sense. Tawheed really. The oneness of god. I don’t know what i was thinking but i know that i want her to be in Jannah (heaven). I need her. I wish to gather with my family even till the end. I hold this responsibility as a muslim to bring my family back to the straight path. I want Allah swt’s rewards and Redha. She stopped practising her faith which was Christianity about 2 years now. She doesn’t believe in god anymore. She said “I feel like this because most people in the western civilisation hardly practice much of it nowadays!”

I once went to an Islamic class about siratulmustakim and the scholar then mentioned “If a disbeliever which was never a muslim says to Allah swt while being questioned just before the sirat “ Who is your god?’’ and replying  “I believe that Allah swt is my god and i accept him as my creator!’’ he will cross the sirat like a speed of light and into jannah. How amazing is Allahs mercy yet we deny him. I can’t force my sister to revert, going bck to her fitrah, my intention was her to accept the decree of Allah swt n its signs. I had to respect her for whatever choices she makes but nevertheless i would never stop making doa for her till her last breath. You just never know what Allah’s plans are.

And We indeed tested those who were before them. And Allaah will certainly make     (it) known (the truth of) those who are true, and will certainly make (it) known (the falsehood of) those who are liars, (although Allaah knows all that before putting them to test)”

[al-‘Ankaboot 29:2-3]

In my family sickness has been rather common. 3 of my siblings are unwell. My eldest brother Richard has been living with cancer for almost 10 years now, My sister below me Tania has been living with asthma and AVM ( a very rare brain condition) . She survived, as it is i almost lost her. Usually There is not chance of survival but Allah has given her many Chances. Me and Emma Jane (the youngest) so far are alright. I mean i was diagnosed with permanent low immunity after my second baby and eye issues but so far alhamdulillah i am ok. Keeping strong. May Allah protect me. I seek in him, i ask of him. We expected Belinda to detioriate by September but so far she is still looking fine and no news of her getting worse in any sign. I hope Allah swt changes her fate in some ways. A little more time for me to spend time with her. I found out  that  when i was visiting her she started going on Bicarbonate Soda. Apparently good to alkalise the body and a natural form of treatment/prevention for cancer and such . I found these article below :

~natureworksbest.com/dr-tullio-simoncini-sodium-bicarbonate-cancer-treatment/ ~http://drsircus.com/medicine/sodium-bicarbonate-baking-soda/uses-in-daily-health

You know few years ago i once said to myself. I know that my heart is sold rock but one day Allah will test me, it will be big and it would be about my loved ones. One by one i see it coming. How will i be able to face all this? I was clueless then, ignorant,less knowledgable, not so much on the deen yet searching. It all makes sense now. Why Allah says “Never love anyone else or anything more than you love Allah. Others will come along when you focus on him first. We need to prioritise our Creator first ,cause in actual fact who decides? Who listens? And who changes fate /things for all of us? He does. Believe it dear ummah. Ramadhan the most magical month gives us many moments,days,a month to repent,to ask,seek and make it all change. How did i go the last time? It was tough with 3 kids and a workload of responsibilities  and it was challenging but yet i miss our holy month. I hope allah gives me a chance and considered by appeals. I wish i did better but allah swt knows best and I’m sure he is the Ghaffar (forgiving).

3 days ago i received an email from my brother and numerous calls from Dad which i missed. My brother said i should quickly give my sister a call and say my last words. Keep on doing so he said, use the time left wisely. My dad mentioned how bad her situation is at this very second. No. Not now i tell myself. I broke down a few times. The last time i experience grief was when my best friend died to cancer as well. I didn’t like the memory of that. Grief is horrific. Its painful. Sorrow keeps u in a hole for agile. What do i have for her now. I can only offer my prayers. I can’t physically be there due to my weak finances. Its painful. I can only look back at the photos we took last year and cry. My last wishes? For her to utter the Shahadah. But then again who will guide her or remind her. I just wished i was by her side this very moment. Spoke to her yesterday and boy she sounded way different than norm. She slurs her words and i cant digest much of her words. My brother inlaw said she is not in any pain just tired,weak,short term memory lost and weakening. Down right low at this very moment. This worse part of her fight is here.

My sister Tania may be able to see her soon and i hope she gets the best last days with Belinda. Ya allah please may it easy on her. Give her the light down that tunnel. Please forgive her for her wrong-doing and protect her always. Allah swt has more than just names but he has the right to everything. We are not even close to it at all. All hikmah has it reason  to come in an out of our lives. We are waiting for our own ticket. Our own time. Life ain’t a bed of roses and we all have our own obstacles. The rich become poor and the poor become rich. The healthy gets sick and the sick gets healthy. How are we dedicating our life for our final destination? Are we working hard for it? Does your family member have to die first in order to make you repent now? Death should be your motivation each day. You have to be willing to accept that all that you love will go including “YOU” that you love so much. We forget that we truly have an obsession for ourselves in Dunya and not what we want to make of ourselves in Akhirah. Give it up, let it go. Drop you ego. Prepare and embrace yourself. Life is not a fairy tale. Real life starts after death. May Allah grant my last wishes for my sister inshallah. I still remember clearly when me and Rich had a chat with Belinda and she broke down saying “I just want to live!” I had no words, I couldn’t reply. Me and Rich were surrounded by silence. This silence will stay in a spot in my heart forever permanently. Which truly I am not looking forward too. Again Redha isn’t the easiest of it all. This would be something new to my heart. Loosing my blood sister for the very first time. One of Allah Swt Beautiful Attribute to remind ourselves off : The All-Forgiving,  The Absolver,  The Veiler of Sins and Faults, The Most Protecting One

The One who accepts repentance and veils or forgives our faults and sins, time and time again. The One who sets us free from the guilt and shame of our own sins and faults, such that we may discover inner harmony and peace.

The One who protects us from the effects of our faults and sins, both in the present world and the future. The One who accepts repentance and sets aright our faults and sins.

The One who veils, forgives or transforms our faults and sins in such a manner that we may go on without guilt or shame. The One who can set aright, or transform, wrong deeds and change them into what become good deeds.

Much Love ,

NH