The sexualisation of Mikoto, stalking, and how the fandom is repeating this.
CW: Stalking, sexual harassment, fanservice, murder
I’ve been thinking a lot about Double’s thumbnail, and especially the stalking theory. And if you think about it a lot basically everything fits up and that his victim was likely his stalker. Although a lot about what happened I never really have seen discussion on the why or how it’s been happening, so I just want to give my thoughts and theories on this all before Double.
The fanservice in MeMe:
The fanservice in MeMe has always felt really off to me. Milgram never has any fanservice-y stuff, minus Yuno in Tear Drop, but it’s only just her revealing outfit and nothing to do with strange camera angles or whatnot, and it’s very important to her character. For me and what I’ve think the consensus in the fandom has been, is it’s nothing more than that. That the fanservice is only there to appeal to thirsty fans or whatever. But I’ve been thinking a lot, and with the music videos extracted from prisoners minds, everything has a meaning in one way or the other. So for the creators to just throw a bunch of fanservice scenes in MeMe with no meaning apart from just plain fanservice feels really counter intuitive to the whole point of the MVs. And especially how this has never happened before makes it really strange to me. And with this idea in mind and going back to the stalking theory I mentioned earlier, I think it’s disgustingly clear what has happened to Mikoto.
Mikoto being watched:
I think what’s going on is that Mikoto was stalked for sexual reasons. The constant scenes of him in embarrassing moments (taking of his shirt, having a shower, having a bath) is what the stalker has been seeing and this subconsciously put itself into MeMe from Mikoto’s POV. Camera imagery in MeMe is very prevalent, from at the beginning him grabbing the camera and at the end him picking it up and punching it. I think this is supposed to represent him realising he’s being stalked and trying to hunt down who’s been doing it, and the destruction of the camera at the end to represent him killing the person.
Also around the middle of the song, we see security cam footage of him entering his apartment and crying on his couch, with Mikoto hyperventilating and gasping in the background. I feel like with everything I’ve said before this scene makes it extremely clear, that someone put up a bunch of camera around his house to catch him in those moments, if we’re taking that scene literally.
Then it cuts to him laughing at the screen in darkness, and the aforementioned fanservice scene right after this sequence of events really makes things scary to what was happening in his house. And also like I said before about the hyperventilating during this scene. I could mean multiple things such as him having a panic attack, being actually attacked or worse.
And the imagery of being watched doesn’t stop at just the camera stuff. At the beginning of MeMe in the scene at the train station, the camera moves around from behind a wall to reveal Mikoto sitting there holding a bat, like someone is watching him directly. To further back this up there’s a vignette around the edge of the camera and wee see it blink, like from a POV shot. And after the blink Mikoto disappears, and then we see him outside swinging a bat at the POV (just want to note this is outside and is probably in a different place than the train station, but I don’t know what to make of that right now, and how also the vignette I pointed out before isn’t present here). Then it cuts back to the scene in the train station, now with Mikoto holding a bat and walking towards someone on the ground, attacking them. Noticeably the vignette is still here in this scene, so the person Mikoto was attacking likely wasn’t his stalker, perhaps he just thought they were.
Wait I suddenly just got a theory from this. I just mentioned how the vignette in the scene I just mentioned likely means that Mikoto attacked someone else and the stalker was watching on. Me and basically everyone else has assumed that guy was his victim, but then what about the stalker? I’ve always strongly believed that Mikoto only killed one person but now I’m just starting to doubt that. If MeMe is to be taken in chronological order in this part, he probably killed that guy then realised that he was continuing being stalked. And as I said at the beginning of my analysis I mentioned that Mikoto punching the camera at the end could be representative of him killing the stalker and ending it (also to mention he gets the death card right before hand). And I didn’t think of it when I wrote that but what if he did actually kill multiple people in an attempt to kill his stalker. Hmm.
And going back to what I was talking about before, he probably entered his apartment afterwards and switched to Bluekoto after it was assumed everything was safe now. (Just saying I’m using Mikoto interchangeably to refer to all of the alters as it’s not clear who’s doing what, but this takes the theory of that blue was the murderer and not the other/s into account, because there’s a part of me that feels it wasn’t him attacking those people as red/green has a strong desire to protect blue and hide him from the traumatic events taking place).
I feel like I’ve gone way off track with what I’ve been saying here because while writing this I just keep noticing more and more stuff to write down and I just thought of someone thing again.
Every time it appears that Mikoto killed someone (the train scene, the garbage scene although the bag doesn’t look like a human body just saying), it cuts to a fanservice-y scene right after, maybe implying that the person he killed wasn’t the stalker, and he’s still being watched afterwards. Although this makes the bath scene kinda out of place as it doesn’t take place after a murder I think, and someone mentioned it was before the shower scene which kinda debunks this but I just wanted to mention this because why not.
Mikoto’s mindscape in MeMe:
Another thing I’ve been thinking about a lot is every character’s “mindscapes” as I call them. Yuno has an empty pink void with a tower, Fuuta has a fantasy land, Mahiru has a room inside a birdcage ect. And all of these places represent an aspect of their characters. Yuno’s representing her feelings of emptiness, Fuuta feeling that everything he’s doing is for justice and that he’s a cool hero, Mahiru being trapped and sheltered in an ideal concept of love and stuff like that. I’m going to make a theory on this in the future as it’s very interesting to me but Mikoto’s mindscape is always something that’s confused me.
Mikoto’s mindscape is a parallel of his apartment. Down to the couches, tables and everything, but lacking the bookcase and tv being buried in the water for whatever reason.
(Also I just noticed but there’s a blue thing behind the couch that Mikoto laid his head down on before which could be a bed or whatever. But in the mindscape and this other shot we don’t see it???)
(Actually maybe we do if we squint, oh well)
Okay, okay back to what I was actually going to say. The furniture from the apartment appearing in the mindscape makes sense, but what about everything else? The broken, tiled walls, the mirror, how everything is covered in a thin layer of water, the clear blue sky. There’s a bunch of this stuff I could analyse in my future post about mindscapes but I’ll just say the stuff that relates to what I was talking about earlier. But to say it right now, I think all that other stuff is supposed to be the bathroom we see him in.
Notice here the tiles are exactly the same, and we even see the same mirror he looks at himself in, in real life then Mikoto in the mindscape.
Also to point out how the Mikoto we see looking into the mirror here is wearing a sleeve and likely in the mindscape and as someone mentioned, since the ahoge is backwards it’s likely a reflection. Although it’s strange that it has the same green filter both ways.
After this we see bluekoto (presumably) fall backwards into the water. And another strange thing I noticed is that this mirror is behind the couch, but when he falls down the couch is tipped over.
Don’t know what it make of this but again I’m just constantly pointing stuff out I notice as writing this.
So basically I think the mindscape is a mix of the living room and the bathroom. The furniture from the living room and the water, mirror and tiles from the bathroom. But this makes things confusing, why the bathroom? Why would Mikoto project imagery of his bathroom into his own mindscape? This brings me to what I was saying before. The walls in the mindscape are completely collapsed, providing no closure or privacy to this “room”. The sky is also out, so his mindscape feels very exposed. And what I said earlier about my staking theory. It’s likely that someone placed cameras up in/around his bathroom to record him naked, a complete breach of privacy and that’s why this mindscape is so exposed and has elements from there. Even in this world that he created, he still doesn’t feel safe at all.
The audience and the repeating of Mikoto’s trauma:
Basically to sum it up from what I’ve said. Mikoto was being stalked and sexualised by someone. Cameras were placed up around his house to record him in embarrassing situations and he figured out, and attempted to kill the stalker.
But here’s one thing, that story we likely see in MeMe is happening again. But with the audience.
When MeMe came out everyone went ballistic. Lots of people were very surprised in how violent it was, how compared to the calm preview we saw it instantly started off with death metal and destroyed every idea we had about him, and kept switching between being calm and violent. But what I want to walk about right now is the reaction to the fanservice.
As we all know, when MeMe released a horde of thirsty tiktokers came over and started absolutely obsessing over Mikoto and all the fanservice scenes we see. Things got so out of control that people tried to vote him innocent just because he was hot and even jackalope bought this up. But thinking about this, it’s getting dangerously close to what I think happened in his story. Being filmed in embarrassing moments without consent, and having people obsess and sexualise you for that. The music videos are representative of the prisoner’s minds, and in no way would have Mikoto known how he was shown naked and shirtless for a huge chunk of MeMe. Same as him being stalked and recorded in his story if I’m right.
The fandom here is doing exactly what his perpetrator did to him down to a T. It’s almost like what happened with Amane when people tried to reverse her brainwashing by showing her tough love by not forgiving her, exactly like what the cult did to her to try and make her obey them more. This thing is happening to Mikoto as well as Amane and repeating their traumas. And also to mention how Mikoto has DID which is a result of repeated childhood abuse so it’s likely this has been happening to him alot and just can’t escape from this reality. And for the alters to take in all the trauma and leave the host blissfully unaware of everything’s that’s happening.
This brings into account how the guilty prisoners can hear the voices of the audience judging them. Fuuta completely broke down as he was constantly harassed with strange voices judging him and denying his actions. And he’s mentioned a lot of times how he can’t stand this feeling of being watched and this manifests through the eyes in Backdraft. And with Mikoto from everything I’ve been saying before it’s very likely he has trauma from this. And now feeling like he’s being watched and hearing the voices of the audience, who we know constantly sexualises him. It’s likely he’ll have to relive his trauma once again that he thought he finally escaped…
Conclusion / TL;DR
To sum this whole theory up I believe that fanservice in MeMe actually has importance besides just fanservice. And it’s likely Mikoto was being stalked by someone and recorded in those situations, and he ended up hunting the person down and killing them. And now because of the audience’s constant thirsting over him and how the guilty prisoners can hear everything we say about them, Mikoto will have to relive his suffering again.
Other things I’d like to briefly mention but didn’t have any space to put in, Is how since Mikoto rides a bike instead of a train to work as he said but we see lots of train imagery. And I think what happened is that he was probably being harassed on the train and switched to going to work alone. And the thumbnail in Double we see him looking depressed, on a train surrounded by destroyed mannequins.
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You've mentioned Zuko's "inability to kill" before, so could I ask you to elaborate on that?
sure. zuko is banished for, essentially, committing treason. he says to ozai that he was banished for "speaking out of turn," but simply speaking out of turn is not actually why ozai banished him. zuko said that people shoudn't have to die for the sake of further empowering the fire nation, and that goes against their nation's entire ethos. zuko lacks, as azula puts it, that "killer instinct that is just so fire nation."
while zuko does set fire to suki's village in his quest to capture aang, and you could argue that he may have committed other such acts offscreen, we never actually see him outright kill anyone. unlike zhao, who kills the moon, and azula, who kills aang in a manner that would have ended the entire avatar line had katara not revived him, zuko threatens and intimidates and harms, but when it comes down to it, he does not actually kill, because he simply cannot.
he threatens to kill zhao, and if he had killed zhao, no one in the audience would fault him for it. zuko does not even burn him upon winning their agni kai, going against custom; zhao calls him a coward for it. zhao tries to kill zuko on multiple occasions, including when he blows up zuko's entire ship. but, when the ocean spirit is dragging zhao under, zuko still extends his hand in a futile attempt to save zhao. contrast this scene with sokka arguing to leave zuko for dead in the same episode. he legitimately does not have a problem with letting zuko die, because, as he says, zuko would do the same thing to them (at least, sokka seems to think so).
sokka kills combustion man, toph kills yu and xin fu, and neither of them have any regrets. conversely, katara cannot kill yon rha, and aang cannot kill ozai. like sokka and toph, they are justified in killing these men, perhaps even more so (since yin and xin fu did not actually attempt to kill toph, "only" kidnap her), but they ultimately choose mercy. like zuko on kyoshi island, aang and katara's actions, such as blowing up the factory in jang hui, may have had indirect casualties (i don't count aang being merged with the ocean spirit because he was not truly in control), but they are never able to kill directly, because when faced with another human being, regardless of how much they may hate them, their pathos prevents them from delivering that killing blow.
zuko, as a foil to aang and katara and the deuteragonist of the narrative, is also someone whose instincts prevent him from being the cold-blooded killer his nation expects of him. it is why, unlike the rest of his family (including iroh), he is unable to produce lightning; he is too sensitive to become the perfect weapon his father wants him to be, which is why azula's reveal is so thrilling and terrifying to the audience, because she is what ozai wants in a protege, unlike zuko, who try as he might, fails at embodying the fire nation values of ruthlessness and power at any cost.
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I am actually. I am so emotional over the Salazar parents and I need to share this to tumblr too.
A lot of stories where the MC is adopted I feel. Either dismiss the biological parents and the impact they have on the kid's life, or makes them evil and abusive, framing the loss of the bio parents as a good thing, or at least something we shouldn't think about just look at this new family.
But Genrex doesn't do that. From the start, Rex wanted to find out more about his parents - it's one of his primary character motivations, next to helping people. He loves them, even though he doesn't know them.
And the more he finds out about them, the more he realizes they loved him. Rylander is consumed by guilt but as Rex's first connection to his pre-Event life, the first thing he does is hug him. And when he tells Rex about his parents, the two things Rex knows is that 1) they were scientists, and 2) that when he was in danger, they were desperate enough to use their secret, experimental technology to save him. Technology built from their desire to help the world, to save countless lives and end countless suffering.
And then. When he finds out that they were dead, he doesn't stop caring. It'd be so easy, too, to tie it up there - his parents were good people, he got his answer about them, the end. But they don't. He doesn't. Because the show is saying once again that they are his parents. He still calls them mom and dad, even as the show makes it clear Holiday and Six adopted Rex as their son. Even as the show even parallels Six and One with Rex and Six (and I will talk about that more later if I don't forget, trust me), to really drive home how much they're family. Rex even says he considers the two of them family, and later that he considers Noah, Claire and Annie family.
He has new family, the show tells us, but his old family still matters to him. He's upset that he never has the chance to meet his parents, that everything he hears about them, about his time with them, is secondhand knowledge. It tells us clearly that not only does Rex still love them, but that he still wants to know them. And everything we find out about them reinforces the love that they had for each other.
We see Abuela and the family in Mexico, who connect him to his birth family and tell him that he was so loved back then, and still is now. We see their office in Abysus through Rex's eyes. The picture of him and his dad on his desk. The drawing Rex drew, proudly pinned to the wall.
We see it in the familiarity of the drawing. That that robot, that build, was what Rex created when he was lost and scared and alone - that it was made to keep him safe. That it first appeared in his mind in a place he felt safe.
The show says, tenderly and softly, that the love is still there. That the fact these people died was nothing but a tragedy, that their love is a big part of what made Rex who he is today - that every molecule in his body is filled with their final gift to him. That every time he cures someone, every time he uses a build, every time he makes a machine - we see the love that they had for him.
And the way he quietly absorbs his father's face. The way he freezes and whispers "Mamá?" when he finds out Zag-Rs has their mother's voice. The fact that she even has her voice as a testament to Caesar's love, too - that it was meant to bring comfort and safety. The way Rex yells at Caesar when he finds out they have a family property, a connection to their past, the way he fights to protect it.
And, none of this takes away still from Six and Holiday being Rex's family too. None of this removes the work either set of parents did for him, the love either set has - the show says that it was unfair that the Salazar parents were lost. That Six and Holiday are not replacements, that they still love him as parents but play different roles in his life. They can not, and have no desire to, replace the Salazars. But Rex needs parents, he needs protectors, and so they will do what they can for him - at first out of necessity, to keep this kid they barely know safe, but then out of love. They aren't replacing what was lost, but are doing their best to do what Rex's bio parents would do. And they do mess up in it - they mess up in ways Rex's bio parents might not have. Six is clearly bad with showing affection, affection we saw the Salazars give Rex so easily, and Holiday is overworked and stressed constantly, sometimes breaking under the pressure and snapping at Rex and Six, things we never saw the Salazars do.
It's just. It's about how sometimes things will not be the same. They will be different. That doesn't mean the people you lost aren't still with you.
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