#like the exact same panels the exact same dialogue

[murkystarlight]

So you remember the Netflix version of minecraft storymode? And it had dubs?

I was never a fan of dubs in general. But there was this random dialogue, that doesn't really mean mean anything, but it became so darn funny because of my language

So, the word 'apple' and 'apology' have the same spelling and they sound the same too

So in the first episode, when Lukas comes back with an apple and apologies- it just makes a funny dialogue. I'll try and explain it he best I can

So Lukas comes back saying "I picked some apples" and "there's enough for everyone" and Jesse replies with

"Are you apologising?"

So- in my language, apple and apology sound the exact same- so we got Lukas giving *apples* as an apology

I know it makes no fucking sense. But it is funny. I swear-

So pretend that the word apology has been replaced with apple. So both the fruit and the action that was originally called 'apology' is now called apple

So now- the lines would be

Lukas: "I picked some apples(fruit)"

Then Jesse's line becomes something like

"..is this supposed to be an apple(apology)??"

It- I don't know how to explain it anymore- but my friend gave me an idea for a bonus panel so-

Also,

They have 👅

Like- the mouths up close look so... creepy- I never noticed it but the inside has volume- and a actually functioning, moving tongue(also in volume)??

[obstinaterixatrix]

out of boredom/curiosity I read 60 eps of a webtoon. it was not good.

[01tsubomi]

for fans of the “came back but slightly wrong” trope may i recommend the current smash hit manga The Summer Hikaru Died. i’m only now starting to read it but it’s a horror/BL series that has come to me hiiighly recommended. i sort of expected this sort of moment to come later in the story but these are some of the first pages and i’m really liking the handling of the “but wrong” theme so far

a quick translation:

Hikaru: What? You gonna confess your love, or something?

Yoshiki: Not that…I dunno. This isn’t, like, something I just thought of now. ‘S been on my mind since came back after disappearing on that mountain, but…you’re not Hikaru, right?

Hikaru: Eh? ……………………..how?

I was imitating him so well…

[genericpuff]

Lore Olympus just pulled off the biggest whiff in webtoon history.

I promised I would choose one of two headlines and of course, this is the one we wound up with. But should we really be surprised? Rachel herself seemed to be telling on herself down to the minutes leading up to the finale, fully confirming to us that yes, she's been writing this comic at the last minute, by the seat of her pants, for ages now.

(that second one was literally posted TWENTY FUCKING MINUTES BEFORE THE COMIC UPDATED.)

Welp, let's get into it. Possibly the last essay I'll ever write about this dumpster fire of a comic (but probably not, let's be real LOL)

CONTENT WARNING: DISCUSSION OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AND FASTPASS SPOILERS FOR THE SERIES FINALE AHEAD!

Holy crap, where to even start with this. I knew it was going to be bad. I knew it was going to be rushed. I knew it wasn't ever going to live up to what I had hoped it would be years ago when I was still a diehard fan.

But I didn't think it was going to fall quite this hard. Despite bracing myself for the worst, Rachel has once again let my expectations down through a final display of explosive mediocrity and disappointment.

Yes, the episode is called "You're Welcome", and yes, that instant "ick" you're feeling is the exact same as what we're all feeling. This title plays into the dialogue later, but what a shitty, lowkey mean-spirited title for the series finale.

Now, before we get into the actual episode, the WT ads for this are just... so desperate and misleading.

They are trying SO HARD to hype up something that isn't there, and at the last minute to boot, because Rachel definitely hadn't written any of this ahead of time.

First off, the bit about the gods being in "eternal chaos" of course isn't a stake worth worrying over because Gaia literally does away with Ouranos in the first 5 panels.

Did you really think I was joking about that 5 panels thing?

That's it. That's the death of Ouranos. As mysteriously and quickly as he arrived, he was gone, after Gaia ripped out of him what appeared to be some purple sunny side up - but it's actually, in fact, Apollo.

And that's when we start to get some of the worst dialogue I've ever seen throughout LO. Remember when I said LO's dialogue was like Shenmue 3? Welp, the finale decided to continue that tradition and further fuel the suspicion that this entire thing was written by ChatGPT.

Oh, by the way, that "thank you, ma'am" was Artemis' first and last line of the episode. So once again, just like in Episode 248, we're completely robbed of her reaction to Apollo being a rapist piece of shit and the character development she could have had as a supporting character. The women in this "feminist retelling" really couldn't be more half-baked.

Gaia stumbles upon Persephone, and I'm not even gonna fucking bother showing the panels where Gaia says it's time to "make things right" because they literally don't matter. Why don't they matter? Because Rachel just had to get in one more pointless time skip.

We're shown a sequence of pointless images that I'm not gonna show as I don't want to waste my image limit on them, depicting Hades having a sad day because his small wife isn't with him and oh nooo what could have happened?? Did Persephone finally divorce him ??

Nah, we couldn't possibly have an actually happy ending in this comic. Instead we get a completely pointless phone conversation between Hades and Hecate-

Not only is the grammar particularly bad in this episode, but the actual script-writing is atrocious. We literally did not need this phone conversation to happen because-

-we're cutting BACK TO THE PRESENT THAT WE JUST CUT AWAY FROM FOR A 3 MONTH TIME SKIP. FOR NO REASON BESIDES SHOWING HADES BE SAD OVER SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY ISN'T THAT BIG A DEAL, AS YOU'RE ABOUT TO SEE.

I- I LITERALLY HAVE NO WORDS. I HAVE NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE WHAT THE FUCK THIS IS. ALL I CAN HEAR IN MY BRAIN IS THE LEGEND OF ZELDA ITEM GET MUSIC-

-BECAUSE THIS WHOLE THING SUDDENLY SOUNDS LIKE SOME CONTRIVED FETCH QUEST. WHAT DO YOU MEAN HADES AND PERSEPHONE HAVE PROVEN 'TRUE LOVE' IS REAL? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY HAVEN'T USED 'LOVE' AS A FORCE FOR DESTRUCTION?? ARE WE FORGETTING THAT HADES MUTILATED A GUY IN THE NAME OF 'LOVE'? THAT PERSEPHONE LITERALLY INVADED THE HOME OF HADES' CANONICAL FIRST WIFE BECAUSE SHE FELT MILDLY THREATENED BY HER?

This whole concept of "true love" that Rachel is trying to convey feels so juvenile especially for a series that has sold itself as being mature and thought-provoking and progressive.

HAHAHA SO FUNNYYYYYYY why does Rachel write like this. this is, at best, the writing of a 13 year old on fanfiction.net, which I SHOULD KNOW, because I WAS ONE OF THEM. BUT I'M 28 NOW AND RACHEL HAS ANOTHER 10 YEARS ON ME.

Okay, this is the part where I'm CONVINCED Rachel either just mashed this into the episode in the MINUTES leading up to its release, or she used ChatGPT or something. Because NONE of this dialogue makes any sense. Beyond how stilted and lifeless it is (seriously, this dialogue reads like something from Empress Theresa) Gaia is clearly meant to 'replace' Erebus here which I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO EVEN EXPLAIN IS SO FUCKING DUMB, but ALSO what is even Persephone trying to communicate here? "That is true, but it was a deal I was willing to make and ties me to the Underworld. Please don't change me." What? Gaia hasn't even insinuated that she's going to do anything to Persephone, why is Persephone immediately jumping to this conclusion? What does 'changing' her mean? Is she asking Gaia not to force her to sacrifice something (which she never did)? Or is she asking Gaia not to strip her of her Underworld status? Because again, why is that even something Gaia would do?

Maybe this is harsh but I'm pretty sure even Empress Theresa is more coherent than this, what in the flying fuck is Gaia talking about?

"I can just see the potential for conflict! To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres." Like... okay, first of all, that second sentence isn't even a complete sentence, it's a dependent clause left hanging, but also what the fuck does this MEAN. Is she EXCITED for the conflict but then contradicting herself by saying she wants to relieve Persephone of that conflict? Or is she saying she can see the conflict it would cause for Persephone to have to perform duties in both realms and trying to insinuate that she's going to relieve her of those complications?

Here's what I think happened - I think that second 'sentence' wasn't supposed to be a sentence, but the start of the sentence to the next panel-

So with that theory in mind, the sentence becomes, "To relieve you from the burden of the whats, the hows, and wheres, you are to spend three months in the Mortal Realm to do spring and the rest of the year in the Underworld. That seems fair to me."

It's still a very poorly written line of dialogue, but at least with that fix in mind it makes sense. But man, you can really fucking tell this episode was submitted at the last minute because that's a serious syntax error that should NOT have happened in this two-time-Eisner-winning comic.

Errors aside, it's clear that Rachel is following through on having Persephone spend only three months in the Mortal Realm, rather than the traditional six. There ARE other translations that have that number closer to four, but those four are the time she spends in the UNDERWORLD, meaning she's always spending either equal or MORE time in the Mortal Realm. Of course, Rachel doesn't want her self-insert small wife power fantasy to actually have to be separated from Hades despite this being a retelling of The Abduction of Persephone, so instead of her spending three months in the Underworld, she's now spending them in the Mortal Realm, literally doubling the MINIMUM amount of time (four months) she was originally meant to reside in the Underworld.

But oh no, apparently those three months are STILL NOT SHORT ENOUGH FOR PERSEPHONE-

Of course, Rachel "Retcon" Smythe had to have her cake and eat it too. I always worried something like this was a possibility, but I never thought she would actually prove me right - not only is Persephone only separated from Hades for three months out of the year, but actually he can visit her any time he wants to, so really, they're not separating at all.

I think Rachel needs to look up "reunion" in the dictionary, because if you can visit each other any time, then that means the 'reunions' are no longer special occasions. This completely removes any semblance of depth or meaning from all of the storytelling leading up to this, all of it with the expectation that this was a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone, because that's what Rachel said it was going to be. At this point it's safe to say that Rachel has zero business attempting to "retell" mythological stories, because she doesn't even seem to grasp the concept of why they were written the way they were to begin with. Either that, or she really just doesn't care, and the only reason for making LO a Greek myth comic at all was to propel her career.

This also brings me back to those promotional ads, the other one that posed the question, "Will sacrifice be enough to bring these two back together?"

This is stating the obvious, but I need to make it perfectly clear - Hades and Persephone have never sacrificed a single thing. The only thing they could POSSIBLY quantify as a "sacrifice" is "not being tied at the hip for a few hours", because even Persephone going on the equivalent of a work trip next door is apparently enough to make Hades sad as we saw in the 3 month time skip panels. Why is Hades so sad and lonely if he can visit her any time? Why is he acting like he hasn't seen her in years when he's actually on his way to reunite with her? Why is Hecate calling to ask him if he's "okay" as if he JUST got separated from her, but actually he's about to literally go to the Mortal Realm to reunite with her?

Hades hasn't 'sacrificed' a damn thing, neither has Persephone. They've both always gotten exactly what they wanted, even at the cost of breaking the story's own established rules. Their 'sacrifice' is equivalent to what billionaires think are 'sacrifices' when they can't buy another yacht or go on that third overseas vacation for the month.

And even outside of this episode, when have these two ever sacrificed anything?

I've tried so hard to think of what sacrifices have been made by the characters within LO, and I genuinely can only think of one - and that was when Artemis chose to go to the Mortal Realm with Persephone instead of staying with her family in Olympus. That was a genuine, selfless sacrifice, made by a character who has been shelved in favor of focusing on the self-centered pink and blue airheads.

Being forced to be apart for a couple days to do the equivalent of a day job and whining about it the whole time is not a 'sacrifice'. Neither of these characters have ever sacrificed anything, they just feel like sacrifices because they have the integrity and empathy of soggy cardboard.

sigh Anyways, we're back in the present and Hades and Persephone immediately decide they're gonna have sex because ofc, and then we get this gem of a panel-

MMMMMM

FUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY JOKE

For some reason it's just a common thing for people to just be in Hades' home, and they can't seem to get any privacy as a result of this, but I digress. Turns out they still need to have that coronation for Persephone.

There is... so much wrong in these three panels.

First, to state the immediate issues - why the fuck are they mentioning Apollo at Persephone's coronation? Like first of all, no shit Apollo isn't gonna be there, but also, if this is supposed to be an event for and about Persephone becoming Queen of the Underworld, then why in the WORLD is Apollo even being mentioned? This is supposed to be a "feminist retelling" where the victims are empowered and heal from their trauma, but LO once again can't try to show any sort of positive growth for the victims without bringing up the assaulters and giving them screen time. It just goes to show that Rachel's idea of "healing" is purely rooted in the revenge, and not the growth. It's a very high schooler approach to this subject, hellbent on showcasing how all the meanies from the past are losers now and life just sucked for them forever, but inadvertently proving its own point that the victims haven't and can't move on because the narrative is spending so much time on caring what's going on with the abusers. It's the "I don't care! Look at how little I care! I'll prove it to you by putting in the effort of showing you how little I care!" approach, it doesn't really feel like moving on.

It's not about how Persephone and his other victims could have grown and healed, no, Rachel always needs to highlight just how much worse the bullies and haters and abusers are doing to make the victims seem like they've healed by comparison. Don't get me wrong, I can understand wanting to showcase the downfall of a character like Apollo, but this just... isn't the right context for that? Because it's once again taking attention away from the victim to focus on the abuser. It's once again spending screentime on the voices of the oppressors rather than the oppressed.

And speaking of, what the fuck is this punishment even? I knew Rachel wasn't gonna be able to resolve this plotline properly, she never had the capability to, but ... community service? Are you fucking for real? What is this even a punishment for even? Was this EXCLUSIVELY the SA, or does this ALSO include his attempts to overthrow Zeus by poisoning him, nearly killing Daphne, Eris, Eros and Psyche, trapping Eros and Psyche in an enchanted basement, and framing his father's 'death' on his half-sister? Because if so, how in the world is anyone content with community service? He hasn't even been turned into a mortal, HE'S STILL A GOD, so what's to stop him from going "WE'LL MEET AGAIN, SPIDERMAN" and trying something else? How is this a reasonable resolution in ANY context?

This is why I talked at length about what an issue it was to hide what Apollo really admitted to. Because now we really don't know what exactly he confessed to, and thus we can never really see the point of views of the victims outside of just Persephone - and we still don't even get Persephone's, because she just walks away from him and then he gets eaten by Ouranos and next we see of him is him doing community service! Once again, any emotional development that could be given to Persephone and the other victims is stripped away to make room for the point of views of the oppressive men. In this, the two-time-Eisner-winning "feminist comic" that is LO.

And that brings us to the "where are they now" segment. Yes, as we all feared, there's a "where are they now" segment, and it's as rushed and underwhelming as we ought to have expected it to be.

There is just... so much to unpack here, and yes, all of it is delivered in the dumbest way possible that only raises more questions than answers.

So Rhea and Metis are just back and we're not gonna talk about the implications of them being alive again?

Dionysus is a 3 month year old in the body of a teenager / young adult, and his mom is just alive now because Hades conveniently got his hands on more ambrosia and brought her back to life offscreen? But somehow Triptomelus and Hedone are still child-sized relative to their ages?

How did they 'heal Zeus'? And why is he so content with losing his power as King and Apollo being sentenced to community service after making an attempt on his life? How does he feel about the letter that Hera gave him? Did he even read it?

Where the fuck is Hebe in all of this? Is she okay? Do people still think it was her who put Zeus in a coma? Or did Apollo confess to that, too?

You're telling me Hera and Echo are just in a relationship now despite the fact that Hera is literally racist towards nymphs and there is ZERO reason for them to have a relationship in the comic beyond the fans making gratuitous headcanons out of it? How is Rachel, a bisexual woman, so bad at writing actual lesbian relationships and giving them the same amount of attention as the heterocis ones without shoving them into the background as props for insincere queer rep? And what about Hera herself? How did she overcome her role as the Goddess of Marriage to finally divorce Zeus?

"Ares is still a dog!" Haha! Ares is still a Persephone simp! Happy end!

Why is Eros just standing there smiling at the camera struggling to be seen past Hedone who's just floating right in front of him? You're telling me there wasn't a better place to put her out of that entire panel?

"Hades and Thanatos have been making more time for each other. Sometimes they even have a conversation." I'm sorry, is this supposed to be funny? The man abused Thanatos for years, treated him as just a lowly employee when he was literally his adopted son, and now you're trying to play it off as a joke that they're "making more time for each other"? What the fuck is this?

TGOEM disbanded? Why? What about the women who were genuinely a part of it?

Also, Artemis and Selene are just good friends now because reasons? Because they're both affiliated with the moon, I guess? Why is Selene even in this comic-

"They are still looking for Kassandra". Who? And why? This feels like such a last minute addition to acknowledge a character that the comic spent WEEKS foreshadowing only to have her finally appear as a pointless McGuffin, but it's so last minute that it does nothing. I'm assuming it's Eros and Psyche looking for her, but like... why can't they find her? They're gods, tracking down one mortal shouldn't be that difficult LOL ???

And also, where the fuck is Leto?? You're telling me she was an accessory - maybe manipulating Apollo, maybe not - but we don't see what happened to her? Is she just back to being a social outcast then? jesus christ this comic isn't finished-

Kassandra is where the "where are they now" sequence ends, and we're treated to one final horribly written dialogue scene between Hades and Persephone, where they tell each other how much they love each other in a desperate attempt to convince the audience that this is, in fact, a romance.

There's this thing in romances called chemistry, and if you're good at writing it, you shouldn't have to write dialogue like this. You should be able to see how much the characters love each other through their actions, through their small behaviors around each other. It's not always about what they say out loud, it's about what they don't have to say, because when two people really share that close of a bond based on love and trust and chemistry, words often aren't necessary.

Hades and Persephone do not have that chemistry. It has been apparent for years now, but this final exchange really is the nail in the coffin. There are no microexpressions or subtle emotions, no subtlety in their word choice, and nothing unique setting their voices apart. It's all just "wow thank you for being such a wonderful amazing partner, you are amazing and I love you" word salad that has to do all the heavy lifting for the completely non-existent chemistry that's been at its absolute worst throughout this entire season.

And worst of all, despite this story trying so hard to be focused around Persephone, around her story, her trauma and her healing, her voice... it's still all just about Hades. In the end, she's thanking Hades, and forcing him to say "you're welcome". All of it is trying so hard to convince us that Hades has been a positive addition to her life, that she 'owes' so much to him, but we've obviously seen plenty throughout the comic that begs to differ. And even if he were a better person than he is, it still doesn't change the fact that once again, the men are being held up above the women, with the women being grateful to the men who choose them. LO can try its hardest to convince people that it's feminist, but it is, at best, reinforcing the very same structures of the patriarchal system that it claims to despise and rebel against.

We do get one line from Hades acknowledging Persephone's part in the relationship-

-and it falls so fucking flat because it's still about him and what she does for him, and because nothing about their relationship was built on any sort of organic chemistry. There was a lot more chemistry back in S1, but it was still predicated on Hades lusting after a vulnerable 19 year old girl.

Yep, and that's it. That's the end.

Except it isn't because Rachel wanted to try and be smart by including an 'epilogue' that's really just stretching the episode out pointlessly for another few panels. And of course, we had to get another time skip, just a final dose of salt in the wound, this time to years ahead when we inevitably had to reconnect with Persephone and Hades in the future after Melinoe was born.

To recap, Melinoe doesn't remember... because Hades had Morpheus erase her memories.

This plotline has really started to give me the ick because it actually feels very familiar. Bear with me here, because I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent about my own original work, but it's because I wrote a plotline exactly like this years ago.

There's this... turning point, in Time Gate: Reaper, when the main character Uzuki is kidnapped by a Reaper (see: undead) who wants to experiment on her in the hopes that he can somehow gain her abilities to bond her soul with others (which later allows her to literally possess people after she becomes a Reaper herself). Mitsuhiro, the male deuteragonist who kickstarts the plot by telling Uzuki she's got a limited amount of time left to live (which he knows thanks to his magical death timers that mark themselves on his skin), feels an immense amount of guilt after finding out she was kidnapped by the Reapers (at this point she's been gone for three months), as they were originally after him; he worries that she was made a target simply due to him associating himself with her, and vows to rescue her.

With the help of some other spunky teenagers and anime trope characters, Mitsuhiro does eventually rescue Uzuki - but for the three months she had been gone, she had been tortured, abused, and experimented on, causing her mind to split and for her to lose any sense of awareness of who Mitsuhiro or her other friends were. She was no longer herself after the hell she had been through.

Mitsuhiro's solution to this is to have Springlock - another Reaper with motivations that are not yet clear to the cast - erase her memory. This is not a light decision that comes without consequences - for the remaining duration of the story, Uzuki is plagued by night terrors and panic attacks, unable to really remember what happened to her aside from whatever brief flashbacks her brain recalls in its haze of memory loss. She is traumatized, both physically and mentally. She has lost three months of her life and memories, and doesn't know how to explain why she's covered in scars that are still healing, why she's missing organs, why she's now blind in one eye, and why the sound of scraping metal and ticking clocks gives her panic attacks. Mitsuhiro has convinced her friends that she's suffering from memory loss due to trauma, but only he knows the truth that he forcefully took her memories away from her, without her consent. This was not the right choice to make. It was not noble of him, it was not a grand gesture of love, he made a decision on her behalf without her consent that has now resulted in her becoming a nervous wreck. Sure, she still would have had PTSD if she remembered what happened, but at least she would know why and could then seek adequate help. Without those memories, she has nowhere to begin to heal. And so we see the consequences of this throughout [AFTERBIRTH] and even the upcoming Thread of Fate. It is a long-term problem that is not going to be solved overnight, especially not with Mitsuhiro withholding information from her.

Reading about Melinoe having dreams about her experiences trapped in Tartarus with Kronos ... it felt familiar enough that I had to talk about why the insinuations of this are so fucked up. I know there are people who are gonna handwave it away as "she's just a kid", "these are gods so what does it matter", etc. but ... it just feels like such an oversight to have Hades effectively erase her memory of her trauma and then hint at them still being present in her mind through her dreams. She did not ask for that. And the fact that she's now dreaming about it all does not bode well. But we're supposed to think Hades made the correct choice, regardless.

But none of this is effectively expanded on or explained, because we get one final scene of Melinoe and Demeter visiting Persephone, who has just given birth to... Makaria?

So it turns out Persephone and Hades are just able to have biological children now. Don't know why, but of course they both look exactly like Hades.

What I was really confused by though is the fact that it's Makaria and not Brimos. Do you remember Brimos? The child that was foreshadowed in Hades' original fantasy dream sequence about his future children about Persephone?

Either Rachel completely forgot about him, or she saw all the criticism over the fact that Brimos isn't a confirmed child of Hades and Persephone (rather, an epithet that can apply to basically any Underworld god including Persephone and Hades) and that her "research" was dependent on a book she read when she was 13 and decided to axe that. But she went to the effort of establishing that all the dreams Hades had were , in fact, canon visions of the future, so good job Rachel, you created yet another plothole on top of the hundreds of others.

And that's where the series ends, on a final nuclear-family-photo of Persephone, Hades, Melinoe, and Makaria. Of course, Dionysus and Thanatos aren't present in this shot because this is Lore Olympus and only biological children count /hj

Why Rachel couldn't move the "the end" portion to THIS part, I don't know, but I'm also expecting way too much of the person who finished this 20 minutes before it was due.

So that's it. Six years and that's what we get. I didn't expect much, but I was still incredibly disappointed, as were many others who walked away from this dazed and confused. Maybe it's all the "haters" deserve at this point. But what of the fans? While many of them are celebrating this ending at best and tolerating it at worst, I can't help but think of the fans of this comic who hung on for so long in the hopes it would "pay off", just for it to go out as gloriously as a wet fart.

As for me, I have such mixed feelings about Lore Olympus ending, but none of them pertain to the comic itself. Most of what I'll miss from this comic isn't the comic itself, but the people who have made reading it every week so fun, the artists and writers who have enriched the content with their own interpretations of what could have been, and the experiences of being part of such an amazing community made up of people who are as long-term-obsessed about this piece of media as I am.

I get people who ask me a lot if it's "worth it" to be so engrossed in the LO slander, who assume that I'm going to "regret" ever being a part of it all... but from where I'm standing right now, I couldn't ask for a better view.

Even if I didn't love every minute of it, everything I have here I owe to this comic. This stupid, wonderful, boring, amazing, pile of shit comic.

[linkspooky]

Are You Satisfied?

As you might have heard chapter 236 of Jujutsu Kaisen ends with the death of Gojo Satoru. The fandom is making a pretty big deal about it. As someone who predicted from the beginning that Gojo was going to lose against Sukuna, the reaction is fascinating to me. This is perhaps the most controversial chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen I've ever seen. So I've decided to throw my hat into the ring.

The central theme of Jujutsu Kaisen is death, so the death of one of the main characters isn't too surprising, but what does Gojo's death mean for the story? What does it say about his character?

As I said above I am a little bit shocked by the extreme controversy over Gojo's death. Gojo was never going to win the fight in the first place, because Jujutsu Kaisen is a story and the story would be over if he defeated Sukuna. He'd easily be able to take care of Kenjaku afterwards and the main conflcit would be resolved. Would it really be an interesting story if Gojo one shotted the villains while the kids just wathced on Television?

The story is also not about Gojo, it's about the students. Gojo may think he's the protagonist of reality but he's not the protagonist of the story.

Once again, Jujutsu Kaisen is a story and stories have themes. We may grow personally attached to characters, but characters are just narrative tools to convey the themes of a story, no different from prose, dialogue, and art. Characters are a tool to be used well or used poorly, and sometimes yes that means killing them. Whether Gojo's death was naratively satisfying though isn't the purpose of this post though we're only asking what does it mean?

Finally, Jujutsu Kaisen is not only a fictional story, it's specifically a tragedy. Full disclosure, it's a manga about death.

The Protagonist of a Tragedy

So, number one shout out to me for making this post 4 months ago where I called the way Gojo would end the fight.

Excuse me while I fist pump for calling it!

The question on everyone's minds is why does one of the most powerful characters in the manga die offscreen in a pretty humiliating way, cut in half and helpless on the ground just like Kaneki. The reason Gojo didn't get a more heroic (or cooler) death is because we're not reading My Hero Academia, this is not a story about heroes or even a typical Shonen manga it is a tragedy.

In poetics Aristotle defines tragedy as:

"an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions" (51).

To paraphrase a tragedy is about human action, actions characters make in a tragedy often have dire consequences. One of the most common consequences if the reversal of a hero's fortune, a hero of a tragedy usually starts out on top and ends up on the bottom because of the bad choices they make. If in normal shonen manga characters overcome their flaws through effort and persistence, in Jujutsu Kaisen we see characters more often than not lose to their flaws.

The reason I posted that Kaneki panel specifically is because it was a brilliant moment of narrative punishment for Kaneki's central character flaw. Kaneki the hero's main flaw is that he always fights alone, and he constantly makes that same choice over and over again to fight alone. One of the characters helpfully explains it as well.

Stories are primarily about change. If a character doesn't change they're not serving the plot, unless that specifically is the point. People have pointed out how abrupt it is for Gojo to get sealed in Shibuya, get let out, and then immediately die afterwards but that's kind of the point. Gojo made more or less the exact same choice (he asked for Utahime's help for a buff but otherwise fought the entire battle himself). The definition of insanity and what not, why would doing the same thing over and over again net him a different result?

Not only did Gojo choose to fight alone, but as I've been hammering on and on about in previous meta the entire fight Gojo cared more about fighting a strong opponent then he did saving Megumi, the child he was responsible for.

Jujutsu Kaisen is not a typical shonen manga where everything is resolved by beating a strong villain in a fight. That's specifically why I used the Tokyo Ghoul reference, because the reason Kaneki is defeated offscreen like that is because he thought the world worked like a shonen manga. He has a fantasy sequence where he's fighting Juzo in a shonen battle tournament like this is Yu Yu Hakusho right before it snaps back to reality and he's limbless on the ground.

Gojo is a major character in the manga Jujutsu Kaisen, literally "Sorcery Fight" and he is the best sorcerer in the whole world. His entire identity revolves around being a sorcerer. Since he is so good and beloved at what he does, he thinks that everything is resolved by exorcising a curse or defeating a strong opponent. He has basically no identity outside of that. Which is why when he's fighting the possessed body of his student, a person he's been mentoring since childhood his priority is not to save Megumi but to beat a strong opponent. Gojo is a sorcerer, before a human being. That's who he is, that's who he always has been since day one.

I think part of the negative fan reaction comes from fans being really attached to this scene in the manga and deciding Gojo's entire character revolves around being a good mentor figure to children.

Which is just incorrect, Gojo's entire character revolves around being the strongest. On top of that though, Gojo can care about children and also care about being the strongest he can care about multiple things at once and have those things contradict each other because humans are complicated. I'd point out even in this panel where he's stating motivation he's not trying to raise these kids up into being healthy adults, he wants them to be strong Jujutsu Sorcerers. Even when he's raising kids, his intention is to turn them into Jujutsu Sorcerers because everything in Gojo's mind revolves around Jujutsu Sorcery. Gojo does not exist outside of the world of sorcerers. Gojo may be the chosen one but he'd never be able to hold down a job at Mcdonalds.

I think in general readers put more investment in the things characters say out loud, rather than their actions. You can say one thing and do another. I can say "I should never eat sweets again I'm going to improve my diet", and then go and eat ice cream five hours later. Gojo can state out loud his intention to foster children and protect their youths, but then fail to properly do that in the story. Characters are not always what they say they are, that's why they're interesting to interpret. This isn't me calling the readers stupid, just pointing out that Gojo is made up of contradictions. He wants to get rid of the old guard and replace them with something new, but Gojo IS THE OLD GUARD.

If the culling games arc has shown us one thing, it's that ancient sorcerers brought to the modern age do not care that much about human life on an individual level, they are all of them egoists. There's a reason Gojo resembles someone like Sukuna more than he does any other character in the manga. I'm not saying Gojo is exactly like Sukuna, he's far more altruistic and uses his genuinely noble ideals but at the same time Sukuna is a shadow archetype to Gojo he represents Gojo's flaws. The flaws that Gojo succumbs to in tragic fashion.

Which if you believe that Gojo genuinely does love his students, and the ideal he's fighting for is to raise up a better generation and allow them to live out their youths, then Gojo throughout the entire Sukuna fight is acting against those ideals. He cares far more about fighting Sukuna then he does saving Megumi, it's shown over and over again in the battle, Megumi is an afterthought to him. If Gojo care moredefeating the big bad and saving the world is more important than helping a child that Gojo is responsible for then Gojo is acting against his stated principles. Why should Gojo win the fight when he's fighting for all the wrong reasons?

Tragedies are like visual novels, if you make the wrong choice the novel will give you a red flag. If you ignore the red flag then you get locked into the route with the bad ending. Gojo always fights alone. Gojo only ever fights for himself, even if he's using that selfishness in support of a more noble ideal like creating a better generation of sorcerers. If Gojo consecutively makes the same changes then in a tragedy he's not going to be rewarded for it.

Gojo wants the old generation out and the new generation in, but Gojo resembles the old generation too much. Old sorcerers like Hajime and Sukuna respect him, Hajime argues that Gojo being able to fight for his pride is far more important than him living to the end of the battle when Yuta wanted to interfere and help him.

Gojo's death isn't a surprise curve ball that Gege is throwing us for shock value, it's a result of his choices throughout the manga. A manga about change, and the change between generations is not going to punish a character for remaining roughly the same. Of course you might find it disappointing that Gege didn't give Gojo the chance to grow and change and experience a character arc like Megumi or Yuji, but Jujutsu Kaisen is a tragedy, and the way Gojo's arc ended is consistent with what Gege wrote.

Jujutsu Kaisen is not just a tragedy though, it's a manga about death. The manga begins with Yuji's grandfather warning him not to die alone the way that he did. His grandfather's dying words are what motivate Yuji throughout the beginning of the manga as he's searching for a "proper" death.

One of the major themes of Yuji's character is a contemplation of death. He accepts that death is inevitable, so he wants to save them from the gruesome deaths they'd experience if they became victims to curses and allow them to have a more satisfying death. Yuji's grandpa died an unsatisfying death because he died alone in a hospital room. Yuji even tries to make his own death a satisfying one because he believes by dying to seal away Sukuna he'll reduce the total number of casualties to curses.

Jujutsu Kaisen keeps investigating the theme of death and what exactly would make for a satisfying death. At one point it's all but stated that death is the mirror that makes humans analyze their lives.

When Yuji fails to save Junpei from the "unnatural death" it calls into question whether or not his goal of saving people from unsatisfying deaths and the gruesome deaths caused by curses is even feasible. Nanami even says that Yuji might not be able to accomplish his goal and warns him away from the path.

We see repeated unsatifying deaths in the manga, each time someone reflecting on their deaths that they weren't able to get what they wanted out of life. This list comes via @kaibutsushidousha by the way I'm quoting them.

Nanami's a character who chose to work as a sorcerer because he didn't want to evade the responsibility of doing all you can to help people, he wanted to believe he's somewhere where he's needed. He never runs away from responsibility like Mei Mei does so he quite literally works himself to death, living and dying as a sorcerer. Nanami or Gojo's dying hallucination of Nanami even says as much, his death is the result of him choosing to go south and returning to be a sorcerer.

Maki chose revenge against the Zen'in over her sister, and as a result Mai is dead. Maki has all the power in the world now, her revenge complete but she's left with a sense of "now what?" She's as strong as Toji now but she failed to protect her sister, and it's the result of the choices she made. Maki's reflection isn't triumph, it's "I should have chosen to die with her."

Even Yuji himself is robbed of his narrative purpose. The manga began with Yuji saying he wants to choose how he's going to die and he'll die taking out Sukuna with him so he can reduce the number of people killed by curses in the world. Both of those things are thrown in Sukuna's face. Number one the amount of people Yuji can save by permanently killing Sukuna is now a moot point because he let Sukuna rampage in Shibuya.

Number two, Sukuna isn't even in Yuji anymore. To build on what Comun said though, this repeated tragedy has a purpose to it and understanding requires understanding that Jujutsu Kaisen is an existentialist manga. Existentialism is basically a school of philosophy centered around the question of "Why do I exist?"

There's nothing about the invetability of death to make you question why you're alive in the first place. In the myth of Sispyhus, Albert Camus boils down all of philosophy to one question.

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. "

All of philosophy is should I shoot myself in the head or should I keep living? Everything comes after that question, which is why in Jujutsu Kaisen a lot of the characters motivations revolve around them contemplating death. Sorcerers exist in a world where they can die any moment, and as Gojo says most of them die alone. It might be the nature of sorcery itself that causes so many people to die, not only are they dying because they are trapped in an uncaring system, but the characters themselves aren't really attempting to live outside of it. They live and die as sorcerers, replaceable cogs in the machine.

All of these unsatisfying deaths may just be the result of all these characters making one choice, to live as sorcerers rather than people. Because to exist means to live in the world.

Even in Mechamaru's case, his goal is deeply existentialist by what I defined, all he wants to do is live in the world with everyone else rather than be stuck in his hospital room but his actions contradict that goal. Instead of letting his friends come and visit he's obsessed with the idea of getting a normal body because he feels that's the only way he can exist with everyone else, he makes a deal with the devil, he lies and goes behind their backs. He wasn't living with everyone else in the world and he could have chosen to, he chose wrong and his death is the result of that choice.

Jujutsu Sorcerers aren't living in the world. They're living in a little snowglobe far removed from the world with its own rules, most of them regressive and disconnected from the rest of society. If you define existentialism as just "living in the world' then a lot of these characters aren't, because they only exist in the world of sorcery.

INVISIBLE BUFFY: What are you talking ab- SPIKE: The only reason you're here, is that you're not here. (drinking) INVISIBLE BUFFY: Right. Of course, as usual there's something wrong with Buffy. She came back all wrong. (moving around on the bed) You know, I didn't ask for this to happen to me. SPIKE: Not too put off by it though, are you? (drinking) INVISIBLE BUFFY: No! Maybe because for the first time since ... I'm free. She tosses the sheet aside. Spike looks around, trying to figure out where she's going. INVISIBLE BUFFY: Free of rules and reports ... free of this life. SPIKE: Free of life? Got another name for that. Dead.

Not living in the world with everyone else is the same as being dead.

A lot of these characters either make the choice to act alone, or be a jujutsu sorcerer rather than a person and because of that they die as sorcerers, b/c sorcerers die that's what they do. Mai didn't want to keep living as a hindrance to Maki so she kills herself. Maki didn't want to be anything other than a sorcerer, so her little sister dies and she's not a big sister anymore. Nanami chose to leave his job behind and become a sorcerer again, he dies as one.

Of course I don't think the manga is punishing characters for being too egotistical, but rather too unbalanced. If anything Mai is too selfless and that is why she died, she didn't want to live for herself and chooses self sacrifice for her sister. An unbalance between selfishness or selflessness results in an underdeveloped ego. Jujutsu Kaisen doesn't punish individualism per se, moreso if you're not a fully developed individual you won't last long. Because it's also a manga about growing up in the world, and a person who doesn't have a healthy, mature, well-balanced sense of self is not a grown up.

This twitter user det_critics points out that Gojo (and also Yuki + Yuji's) failures in the manga can be attributed to the fact they don't have real senses of self.

Gojo has an identity crisis as outlined by Geto, "are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest, or are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo?"

It's a challenge for him to find some reason to live outside of being the strongest, and in tragic fashion Gojo just doesn't find it in time. Gojo lived for fighting others, and proving to himself that he's the strongest, and that's how he dies.

There's something I like to say about narrative punishment in stories. There are two ways to punish a character, you either don't give them what they want, or you give them exactly what they want. This is the latter, Gojo wanted to find someone stronger than him because deep down he believed that nobody could understand him unless they were on his level. He wanted to be surpassed, and that's why he focused on creating stronger young sorcerers, but he never shook himself of the belief that only someone as strong or even stronger than he was could ever be emotionally attached to him so he made a deliberate choice to draw a line between himself and others.

Gojo's essentially gotten what he wanted from that choice in the worst way possible. The student he picked to succeed him Megumi, has his body stolen and kills him. Gojo is surpassed, but it's not by one of his own students it's by an enemy that's not only trying to kill Gojo but is going to massacre his students afterwards.

Gojo's spent his entire life believing that because he's more powerful that makes him inherently different and above others, and being lonely because he himself believed he couldn't relate to ordinary people and he dies like an ordinary person, an unsatisfying death where he wasn't able to bring out Sukuna's best, where he gets unceremoniously cut in half offscreen but yay he's no longer the strongest. He's gotten exactly what he wanted. Megumi is still not saved, Sukuna's probably going to kill more people because Gojo failed to stop him here, but hey at least he stopped to compliment Gojo.

It's empty, but it's empty because of the choices Gojo made in life to just not bother connecting to people or develop any kind of identity besides being a sorcerer. Gojo lives and dies as a sorcerer, and his dying dream is returning to a teenager being surrounded by everyone he was with during his school days, because that's the happiest time in his life. Ironically he was happier before he became the strongest, because that was the only time in his life that he allowed himself to connect to people.

However in the eyes of others, he is someone who has it all. That's why he is always alone. There was no one who could hold the same sentiments and mutually understand him. Geto was the only one who could understand what he was trying to say, and the only one who could communicate well with him.

It's no coincidence Gojo and Geto die exactly a year apart on the same day, if anything I'd say the reasons they die are similiar to at least thematically. They both die because they don't want to live in the world. Geto thinks the world is too corrupt and GOjo doesn't want to be anything other than a sorcerer, both of them fail to adapt.

「 'It's just. . .' It's just that it was what Geto had to do. [...] To someone like him, the reality that the world of sorcerers presented to him was just too cruel. '. . .that in a world like this, I couldn't truly be happy from the bottom of my heart.'」

They can't be happy in a world like this from the bottom of their hearts, so narratively they both die. The things they chose to live for at the end of their life they fail to accomplish, Gojo is no longer the stronget, Geto fails to wipe out mankind or make major changes to the world and they die as normal people unsatisfied because they weren't trying to live in the world and make connections to others. They die almost karmically a year apart because their main connection for both of them, the thing which made them feel connected to the world and other people was each other.

Which is why this panel breaks my heart and is so narratively satisfying because of how unsatisfying it is...

"If you were among those patting my back... then I might've been satisfied."

Gojo reflects that he's not satisfied dying against Sukuna, not because he failed to give him a good enough challenge but because Geto wasn't there to pat him on the back. The one thing that would have satisfied him he couldn't have, because he didn't live to connect to people he lived to be the strongest and he died alone as the strongest. There's just something deeply upsetting about Gojo's dying dream fantasy just him being there talking with all of his dead friends who he never appreciated or connected to properly when he was alive. Knowing that if something had just gone a little differently, that even if he had to die no matter what he could have died happier if Geto was among the people saying goodbye to him because that connection with Geto is what gave his life meaning.

Dazai Osamu: "A life with someone you can say good-bye to is a good life, especially when it hurts so much to say it to them. Am I wrong?" -Bungou Stray Dogs Beast

[saphushia]

|| part 1 || part 2 || part 3 || part 4 coming soon... ||

the update!! is finally!! done!!! holy shit i'm so glad i can finally post this aubdskjg. it was so fun seeing everyone guess what ace was gonna do after the last part! turns out, he can be silly AND pissed! who knew he was so multitalented~ i do wonder though- with the abilities they had when they were 17, who would win in a fight... >:3c

if you're wondering why this update took so much longer to come out than the last one, well... i got halfway through making it and then scrapped everything and started over completely... ah eto... bleh >v<

if you're curious what the initial version looked like, or want to see the pages without speech bubbles, they're both below the cut ^-^

so! first off! the scrapped pages:

the reason that i scrapped it is because... well. it doesn't flow well at all. i tried too hard to cram it to 4 pages which resulted in both the layout and the story flow feeling cramped. for the most part both versions cover the exact same beats but with the dialogue and timing/spacing tweaked. compare page 1 here to the first 2 pages in the final- it's the same exact scene but the final has way more impact because the larger panels give a 'pause' at emotional beats (such as ace's realization) that lets them sink in

my only regret is that i had to scrap sabo's expression in the first panel of page 2 aubsdkjfgb.

here's all the pages textless now ^-^

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

I admire your patience with those readers who need you to spoon feed them the story. Everything is in the comics but they still manage to go pass it. I can't help but feel a bit sad for them? Do they not understand what they read? Are they not attentive when reading it? I'm legitimately concerned because I function so differently I can't fathom this. If you like a story, isn't it normal to make your best to grasp it's essence and reflect on it? I know I project a lot about this, everyone works and registers things differentely of course but sometimes it's very frustrating to see people consume any media and just completely miss all the important messages in it, or even just fail to get the scenario sometimes, and it feels like it's very common now... Idk I just wanted maybe to have your perspective on this? Sorry for the long post (Been here for a few years now and your a true inspiration to me. All my luv to you! ❤️)

You know, I'm gonna be honest. I used to stress out about this... a LOT.

As a story-brained person, this is definitely something that comes naturally to me, and perhaps to you, and to many other people who are wired similarly. To us, following the path of a story in an analytic, highly detail-motivated manner and unwrapping the themes can be as exciting as lifting up a rock to see the bugs underneath. It's an exciting mental activity that's stimulating and feels effortless.

And yes, as an author who spends literally 60% of my day thinking about this comic and how to draw it, panel it, script it, make it better (I script and panel in my head constantly)........ I have trouble realizing/dealing with the fact that some people are just here to CASUALLY enjoy the story that I am lowkey obsessed with.

But I've come to realize that... that's NORMAL! And healthy.

People have different attention spans for different things.

People have varied ways to read a story and engage with it.

People have unique interests.

People don't have the same amounts of energy to devote to reading!

Maybe someone missed a detail I lovingly and painstakingly put into the dialogue because they're reading the update late at night after a long shift at work. And maybe someone scrolled past the dialogue completely and just got the gist from looking at the art, because they're in a hurry to get to practice at their favorite sportsball.

And maybe someone just had a really bad day with a really bad encounter, and they're reading the update in a terrible mood and instead of seeing MY grey-morality narrative, they're focusing on all the negative points and misread the vibes because of their own biases that stem from places of hurt.

The thing is, I have to be okay with that as an author, because I will NEVER be able to get into my audience's heads and read this comic 'correctly' for my own sake.

They will always have a slightly different interpretation of things, and they will always misunderstand details and miss clues. And sometimes, they will be wrong about the way they read a character's motivations... and sometimes maybe they won't be! That's just a part of communication. That's a part of telling a story.

An imperfect delivery, and an imperfect reception should, in my opinion, be a natural and accepted part of storytelling. We're human, and we all have a different lived experience, and we will ALL have different takes on a comic, even if it's so close that we THINK we are both getting the exact same thing. That small human interpretation variation is a home-made touch that makes it feel more organic.

In short.... Not all light particles make it here from the sun, but damn the result is stunning anyway.

[rivangel]

in this exposé i will

Isayama talks about his drawing in way too humble a fashion. but this is especially true when it comes to emotions and expressions - especially in aot where emotions and the nuances of character emotions are portrayed outside of dialogue.

but - especially wit - went about doing a disservice to Levi in particular when putting his character to screen. i don't think it's too controversial to say that most aot fans are anime onlys right? and it's much less controversial to remember the very bad take that throughout aot Levi is emotionless.

obviously, this is clear enough in the anime. but the manga really brings the emotional spectrum of his character to all new horizons. it's been stated by Isayama that Levi is the most emotional character in aot. and if you cross-examine scenes in the manga vs the anime, this is unmistakable.

so i want to give a few examples of where the anime - mostly wit - miss these nuances in Levi's show of emotions.

thank you to this person on twt for giving me this idea with examples!

i'll start with what i consider the greatest offender of all (from the moments on my mind for now):

right as Midnight Sun starts, Levi has just managed to get back to Wall to find that Zeke is escaping and Armin is half-dead. he failed in carrying out Erwin's order.

i mean WOW, right? in both, Levi looks exhausted yes, but in the manga he looks frantic. on the verge of tears almost.

this is going to be a trend, where the anime portrays Levi in a much more hardened and determined manner compared to, arguably, how he really is. i think that there's a balance that the manga depicts much more equally.

later, Floch is recounting how he found Erwin. he found him alive, and considered putting him out of his misery, but decided that Erwin didn't deserve mercy.

this scares the shit out of Levi - much, much more clearly in the manga. in the left 2, he looks afraid in both, but in the manga, that fright is just. so much more intense. you know how strong Levi's feelings are.

right after RtS, Levi and Hange have come to let Eren and Mikasa out of jail.

understandably, Levi is neck deep in mourning. not just Erwin, but every life that was sacrificed just so he could fail; the two veteran squads that died when Bert transformed; Moblit; and of course Hange was badly injured too.

his depression is TANGIBLE in the manga. the anime doesn't convey it as well... (if at all i would argue)

in season 3, when Kenny has given his speech about how everyone is a slave to their own vice, and he's just retorted to Levi, "what're you, a hero?!"

clearly in the manga, he's much more exasperated. his head is hanging more and he looks pleading instead of angry.

the anime didn't even include this panel.

he feels sorry for him.

the attack on Liberio. Levi is cutting Zeke from his Titan.

in the manga, it's so INTENSE. i'm sure he's experiencing the same exact feelings as he did 4 years before. this moment is supposed to be his triumph - when he completes his promise to Erwin. you can clearly see the longing and disappointment, but along with forced determination, because putting on a show of killing Zeke is torturous for him, but it's his duty.

(i posted about this earlier but) Levi has just cut Zeke out of his Titan and needs to put down a grenade in order to give the impression that Zeke is dead. then he notices Magath, but most importantly that two kids are directly below him.

in the manga, his head is more downturned as opposed to above them, which is important in the scope of getting across that Levi doesn't see them (or Marleyans for that matter) as below him.

in the manga it's clear that he finds absolutely no satisfaction out of it, which is seen in the anime version too, but like i've said, not like Isayama gets it across.

[penguinkyun]

chapter 146 review

i feel a little insane about this chapter. alright not just a bit a lot oh my god we are so back everyone 

before we begin, due to the nature of this chapter including himekawa airi, csa and child abuse along with a murder suicide are going to be mentioned so if you do not feel upto engaging please click off and take care of yourself

lets start with the filming scenes then. so we start with airi trying to reassert control and get into hikaru's head by telling him taiki was his son (horrifying) and how he would return to her because no one would love him (can i strangle her can i please please i really fucking want to this absolute-). this is the lead up to what is essentially the turning point in kamiki's life and hkai relationship: the uehara-himekawa murder suicide.

its so incredibly fucked that right after hikaru asks ai if she'll love him forever (as a direct response to airi manipulating him) she doesnt outright say yes (but she admitted she was trying to be honest and that is such a huge step forward for her) and when he tells uehara, the murder suicide happens. its a string of events very heavily culminating in an absolutely horrible situation for kamiki to find himself in. you can see from that panel of kamiki screaming that he absolutely did not mean for that to happen and it weighs on him. and speaking of weights…the Cut 156: Importance of Life comes right after the scene of the uehara-himekawa murder suicide. doesn't that name sound very Very similar to a certain dialogue? 

honestly its this similarity that has me tentatively putting out an incredibly batshit theory that for some reason, before filming and the final script was produced, aqua and kamiki met and something in that conversation caused a noticeable shift in how kamiki was portrayed in film. because for a film meant to murder someone, its oddly sympathetic isn't it? even to the point ai herself becomes a little less sympathetic. almost like it isn't kamiki's sole responsibility (although he was definitely involved) of the murder of ai and that someone else was pulling the strings as well cough secret villain kaburagi-. 

the shift is obvious in how frill calls it an extremely spiteful script…but once the final script is produced, both mem and kana point out that there is some kindness in the work, and that its difficult to say whether there is hatred or not. very shrimptresting. 

this is also backed up by…how exactly did aqua know all of this? i doubt kamiki would've told anyone else except maybe ai, and the only person who would know all of this down to the exact detail is kamiki himself. 

right this is becoming a full conspiracy theory that deserves its own post so lets move on 

anyway this chapter was so good for hikaru-ruby and ai-aqua parallels because hikaru nearly begging ai to say she loves him and will stay forever is incredibly reminiscent of ruby asking aqua if sensei still likes her and not letting him go out of fear he'd disappear if she did so and how both ai and aqua deflect awkwardly in those conversations out of discomfort with the question being presented to them and out of a desire to not outright lie to kamiki and ruby respectively

sidenote: goddamn the acting in this chapter. frill deserves several many awards for this film

sidenote sidenote: in movie!kamiki flopping onto ai was so adorable askjfsks ruby flopped the same way onto ai (in the bath scene in the volume extra)

and before we get to the next section let me just- 

screams 

kana nation we are so fucking back. 

this really is the start of aqua opening up!!! finally. i wonder what shift caused this given how intent he was on Never Telling Anyone but man am i so happy its happening. aqua being happy for the first time in quite a while like…how many chapters has it been? he's happy for 0.6 seconds!!! he giggled!!! im so happy aqua is actually happy askhfsks

aqua also now has a specific wry smile when talking about his mental health (just like ai has a very specific suffocating smile when shes trying to deflect)

kana’s response to this is honestly incredibly in character in that expression of concern she has seconds before she decides to keep the status quo of bickering esque dialogue that she has with aqua (likely trying not the overwhelm him) but very clearly expressing that she doesn’t want aqua to die and extracting the promise from him that he wouldn’t do so. then proceeding to act extra silly to try and cheer him up. kana i love you

aqua dropping the “i find myself happy when im with you” inhales. please excuse me while i go scream into the void. aquakana lets fucking goooooo. and kana quietly saying it back when aqua leaves? auuuuuughhhh

and finally, the real star of this chapter: KAMIKI’S BACK WITH THE MILK THIS IS NOT A DRILL HES BACK

so many things are interesting about these last few panels because at first i thought ruby was at ai’s grave but on a closer look she’s actually at a shrine? hm. for whom i wonder. did crow girl finally get fed up and tell her to give reverence akfsjsks. 

thing is, i don't think ruby’s in danger. because back in the chapter where kamiki debuted (c.72) he…never actually expresses any hatred or dislike towards her? honestly its rather reads like he’s proud of her and also nino apparently confirmed to kamiki that she wasn’t like ai so if that is his actual motive she’s not in danger of being killed for that. akamengo are the real antagonists of this series for the break next week fr. don’t you love oshi no ko our favourite biweekly manga

so this is an interesting ground for a father-daughter conversation isn’t it? 

[mariposahxh]

KilluGon and the Chimera Ant Arc

idk what to title this. but it’s basically just a few interesting killugon parallels and connections i found in the CAA. (SPOILERS AHEAD!!)

1)

“Precious.”

“You’re the only one for me!”

The Killua scene happens in chapter 219. The Palm and Knov scene happens right after, in chapter 220.

Y’all know the story. Killua fights a rabbit and proclaims Gon as his “most precious friend” . Killua thinks of all their moments together, the most emphasized one being from the dodgeball game when Gon said some gay shit to him.

“KILLUA JA NAKYA DAME NAN DA!” is the exact phrase Gon used.

It’s a romantic phrase in Japan. The English equivalent is :

Killua is the only one for me! ; it has to be Killua! ; Killua is my one and only!

READ THIS ARTICLE. IT EXPLAINS EVERYTHING ABOUT GON AND THE PHRASE HE USED.

The top panel is the next chapter when Knov caught Palm using her power without his permission. He manipulates her by saying “Your blood is precious resource.” , knowing exactly how that word would affect her. After hearing Knov say “precious” , Palm thinks to herself “Knov is the only one for me!”

clips from the anime bc i luv how they portrayed these two scenes

i wanted to address that each scene uses different wording BUT they all mean the same thing, just like how there’s multiple ways to say English words and phrases, it’s. the. same. thing. romantic phrases. preciousness. one and only.

Gon :

じゃなきゃダメなんだ (Ja nakya dame nan da) = You’re the only one for me / It has to be you

Palm :

しかいない (Shika inai) = You’re the only one for me / There is only you

Killua :

大事な (Dajina) = Precious / Important

Knov :

貴重 (Kichō) = Precious / Valuable

Anyway, the point is, Togashi’s intentions with this little connection is clear. Knov calling Palm’s blood “precious” and Palm saying “Knov is the only one for me” which was expressed in a very romantic manner, and it all happened like 15 minutes after Killua and Gon said the same things abt each other.

Palm and Knov paralleled Gon and Killua from the very moment they were first introduced.

I’m working on a separate post that focuses solely on the parallels between PalmKnov and GonKillua because it’s a lot.

2)

“Can I stay by your side?”

“Would you stay by my side?”

The bottom panel is the conversation between Meruem and Komugi before they... you know... shinjuu.

I know I talk a lot about Palm and Knov paralleling/reflecting killugon but the parallels with Meruem and Komugi go CRAZY. It's so underrated. The above dialogue is just one example of the many parallels.

Isn't it interesting how Togashi chose to make Gon and Killua reflect not just one but TWO romantic pairings so far?

"I want to stay by your side... always........."

"I'll stay with you... forever!!"

(they make me so sick it hurts)

3)

Importance

I never realized how big of a theme "importance" was in hxh. It connects everything all together.

In the top left panel, it explains how Komugi is important to Pitou because of how Komugi is important to Meruem, and Meruem is important to Pitou.

But the thing is, although Pitou already knew it, Meruem (at the time) didn't realize that Komugi was the thing most important to him. The thing most important wasn't his initial goal of taking over the world, but the person he met along the way, the one who flipped his world upside down and gave him his first feelings of friendship and love.

Meruem didn't realize Komugi was most important to him until after they were separated and reunited again. He fully understood her importance as they prepared to die together (shinjuu).

Oh, and then we have Gon, Killua, and Palm, of course. And Ging.

We're all familiar with Killua's little breakdown. Palm reassured him that she wasn't the one most important to Gon, but that it was Killua all along. Killua is the most important to Gon.

Killua then also becomes important to Palm, because of how Killua is important to Gon, and Gon is important to Palm.

But the thing is, although Palm already knew it, Gon (at the time) didn't realize that Killua was the thing most important to him. The thing most important wasn't his initial goal of finding his dad, but the person he met along the way, the one who flipped his world upside down and gave him his first feelings of friendship and love.

Gon's true feelings and thoughts are actually still unclear, which leads me to believe that his story with Killua isn't over yet. I can only assume that he'll have a similar realization just like Meruem.

According to the bottom right panel, Gon will "inherit" the heart of realizing what (or who, in this case) is truly important. Togashi told us right there in bold lettering.

You alr know that man is cookin somethin real good up 🔥

"Killua is the only one for me!"

"You are the one most important to Gon."

4)

Love

"It'll be a lovers suicide."

"His most beloved...." "Gon."

"Love will always prevail!!"

Ok but can we talk about how HISOKA of all people was the first to say it outloud that Gon and Killua are something more than friends? His little speech doesn't sound that ambiguous to me, he make it pretty clear that Gon is KIllua's beloved, right after using a hetero romantic couple as an example. read my post about this moment here!!

Love love love. HXH IS ABOUT LOVE. The main love of focus is between Gon and Killua, obviously.

And yeah, i know two of the panels aren't CAA related, but everything is indirectly connected to that arc so i'll allow it.

I already have a post regarding "the teachings of love" and how it connects to killugon. here ya go.

yeah. that's all i got for tonight.

long story short :

hxh gay killugon canon killugon reflect romantic pairings everywhere even hisoka admits it KILLUA LITERALLY ADMITTED IT OUT LOUD. killugon will reunite and maybe shinjuu together. thats how they end. just like komumu and meruru

WAKE UP. HXH WOKE!!!!! TOGASHI WOKE!!!!!

[augustheart]

more khaji da dialogue, these ones by recommendation of @astrid-goes-for-a-spin who said that the scarab-speak in blue beetle vol. 7 #26 is really good. which it is. here are my top moments:

here's kaji da saying (in response to jaime fretting about parasite knowing his identity and having all the powers of the posse) "we're in trouble."

i read this as kind of teasing. always love khaji referring to the scarab and jaime as a unit, and i like the return of the symbol used for the apostrophe being the same as the question mark symbol, making it so the actual word is spelled as "we?re."

above we have two examples of ipad baby khaji referencing pop culture and media absorbed through jaime! not the last time this will show up in this post. when asked for a plan B by jaime in that first panel khaji offers "kelly clarkson!" exclamation mark and all, and in the second khaji da says "try tuf-acting tinactin!" to complain about parasite's foot on jaime's face. this means dashes are another thing used synonymously with question marks in the reach language ("tuf-acting" is "tuf?acting").

(here's most likely the exact foot fungus medication commerical khaji da is referencing, btw--there are several tinactin commercials with madden that use this slogan, but this one seems to have aired in 2005, the most recent-to-writing-of-this-issue out of the three i could find recordings of, and also appears to have played on spike tv. which. yeah. jaime and paco would've been watching spike tv.)

possibly my favorite scarab dialogue in the entire issue--khaji saying "oh, hamburgers!" while jaime is faceplanting in the dirt as parasite offers to rip khaji out of him but let him live. khaji da once again remembering things from tv.

another cute thing. "let's paint his nails" about an unconscious parasite. once more i'll write out the direct translation of "let?s paint his nails" just for fun.

we'll close on the last thing khaji says in the issue--"to infinity and beyond!"

[royboyfanpage]

HELLO BELOVED can u tell me abt how Wally and Roy's friendship/views of each other change after Wally finds out Roy is/was an addict (i think he finds out after Roy is clean???)

The few issues Ive seen abt this stuff were N52 so I feel like ur a better source

Alrightalrightalright

So first thing's first, I'm gonna address-

This, which I feel like is the most notable instance of Wally’s reaction to Roy’s heroin addiction (funnily enough, another mutual sent me a DM about these exact panels a few days ago- we’re on a streak with these). Now, it’s important to note that these panels were from Titans (2008), specifically #23, which was one of the comics leading up to Rise of Arsenal and, later, Roy teaming up with Deathstroke in this same series. At this point in time, Roy was already in the hospital and Lian was already dead- he just hadn’t woken up yet. Now, I don’t have any sources to back up that this is what DC was actually trying to do so I’m just talking from my observations, but this issue in particular very heavily focused on trying to alienate Roy- particularly, a teen Roy who didn’t have Lian yet. Almost all of the flashbacks, and even a few bits of dialogue outside of the flashbacks, are very derogatory towards Roy. See:

Yeah. Just in general, very not nice towards him. It tries to paint him as someone who doesn’t belong with the rest of the team, an outcast (which is just bullshit considering they literally made Roy a Justice League member a few years earlier for the exact opposite reason). A little side note- one of the flashbacks in the issue is a continuation to the ending of Teen Titans: Year 1 #5, a comic which was far more enjoyable than this one, and I wish we’d gotten an actual resolution to that little storyline inside of Year 1 instead of… whatever this is. Anyway, back to #23, at the end of the issue there is one little scene wherein we see Wally and Roy actually getting along in a flashback, and it’s when Lian’s introduced. Which, if you remember what’s just happened at that point in time and what’s going to happen in the Rise of Arsenal arc… yeah, you can see why they wanna push the narrative that Roy’s friends only liked him after Lian was born, particularly Wally.

So! Lets’s rewind back to the 60s and see Roy and Wally’s relationship pre-retcon, both pre and post Snowbirds.

Roy and Wally’s first interactions in the original Teen Titans series were generally pretty positive! Particularly when Roy was a “guest star” instead of an official member, Wally expressed a lot of respect for him and genuinely enjoyed working with him

The main problem with their relationship came from, as most problems do, a love triangle. In all honesty, the Roy Donna Wally love triangle is one of my least favourite Titans things- it’s just kinda unnecessary. However, at least in most instances, in the original Teen Titans run this triangle wasn’t particularly aggressive- in fact, the most aggressive Roy ever got over Donna was actually with Hawk, not Wally. Titans (2008) definitely played it up a lot more than it ever was previously, especially on Wally’s end. But the love triangle was definitely more of a Big Issue between them than Roy’s addiction- when Roy returns to the Titans post-Snowbirds, Wally’s concerns have nothing to do with his addiction but more on “0h great, Roy’s back so I don’t get a shot with Donna”

Generally speaking, Wally and Roy do have a pretty close relationship most of the time, especially when they reach adulthood. The only instance that comes to mind immediately where Wally talks about Roy’s drug addiction prior to pre-Rise era is in Teen Titans (1996) #13, and even that is not particularly negative and also not spoken aloud (though there may be more I haven’t considered)

And even in the Gargoyle issues of Titans 1999 where tensions are at an all time high, Wally’s the Titan Roy has the least significant issues with- going just off of memory the only real “conflict” between them was Wally’s single remark of “he’s not even an original member” and the very brief revival of the Roy-Donna-Wally love triangle for a panel.

I might be forgetting some things (to be perfectly honest, of all of Roy’s Fab Five relationships Wally is the one I think about the least), but generally speaking all the conflict between Roy and Wally surrounding Roy’s addiction was fabricated in Titans 2008. Why Wally? Not sure. But yeah, they’re buddies :)

[manicpixiedreamedwins]

Alright Dead Boy Detectives Fandom:

Some of you need to pause here before you get back on AO3. Here's the thing: not everyone writes with your exact ghost head canons, or dialogue preferences, or characterizations 100% of the time. Hell, some people even bend or throw canon out the window to tell a good story. (I have been moved by stories like that in my lifetime).

That is not an excuse to write rude little tumblr posts and comments about what you didn't like. It's just not. This makes for a really, really caustic fandom environment over time. It does not encourage people to write more of what you want. It causes people to walk on eggshells, and write less in general, because they don't want to be on the receiving end of that wank. They're so afraid of doing something wrong that they don't do anything at all because it's just insurmountable- then, slowly, things die down. I have seen great fandoms die this way.

You, as the reader, need to take some ownership over what you're seeking out (and no, rec lists are not a "search", but they are nice). Reading tags on a fic should the bare minimum that you are doing before diving in. If you aren't doing that, then start there.

Here's what else will help you find what you want and avoid what you don't:

1. Use the "Sort and Filter" sidebar to the right of the main search.

I know you have all seen this panel. Many of you discuss sorting by kudos (which, in all fairness, means you're missing some beautiful, heartbreaking works). So go to the Sort and Filter panel. Scroll to "Exclude". That trope you've been complaining about for a solid month? Find it in the "Additional Tags", or type it in "Other tags to exclude". This will even work for ships you are tired of seeing, mostly. Some ship tags will slip through. You will have to type those into "Other tags to exclude" or...

2. Mute and Block (If Step 1 Fails)

So there's an author you keep complaining about through the confessions blog, or just... outright name dropping them. This is rude. Stop it. Do this instead. Go to their page on AO3:

Block or mute them. You will never see their work in the tag again. You will never be tempted to read it again (and really, why are you doing that in the first place? What is your malady?)

Be kind to each other. Art is a window into someone's soul, and I think a ton of us have forgotten that in this post consumerist hellscape. Y'all need to stop acting like transformative fiction is in the same class as mass produced trinkets you ordered with two day shipping.

[kidovna]

You’re fairly notorious for making really incredible and dynamic mini comic strips. I love making them as well but really struggle with creating a layout on a canvas. Do you make the sketches individually and then lay them out in comic form or do you do the entirety of the comic one page at a time? All this is to ask if you have any tips or suggestions on how to improve at making more dynamic mini comics?

I’m so glad you think my comics are dynamic! I’ll try my best to explain my comic making process in this answer:

I almost always start with the dialogues on my notes app. This process usually happens in the middle of the night when I’m struck with an idea but I have no energy to draw anything. I find it very useful to try and figure out how many pieces of dialogue there are in the comic and how many pages it might take. This is how the initial notes for this comic from @spideywillandmjwheeler looked (you can see that I’ve made changes in the final version):

Next, I always work on the layout. I imagine the scene in my head and try to understand how the panelling should look. What dialogue requires a bigger panel, what requires a spread, etc. this was the base of the bi Mike comic:

Here’s a little insight into how I do the panelling and how I make the choices with the sizes of the panels based on importance (from the Will with powers comic):

Once I do the layout, I basically just get started with the lines and colours and see what works best and then it’s the usual illustration process. It’s almost always this exact same process and with time and practice, each comic gets easier to work on. Sometimes I have an idea for a panel (like the one below. This is four whole panels but drawn as a spread instead) that I get very excited about because I’m like “wow, that’s kind of genius” and I keep hoping that I get more creative with it as time goes.

I hope this was a little helpful and what you were looking for! I’d say trust your gut in the comic making process and don’t feel limited by the panels. Things and characters can move out of the boxes and you can have all sorts of fun with it. Just remember to keep a certain amount of structure to the pages so that the comic is readable :D

[genericpuff]

You should watch Jack vs. Webtoons video on Lore Olympus before it gets wrongfully taken down.

His video pointed out something I wasn’t able to put into words until now. Lore Olympus has a real bad dialect problem. One second the characters are talking like they’re in a Shakespeare play which makes sense, sense they’re gods or what not. The next second you’ll have characters saying shit like “blue balls” “clout chaser” and “you’ve got a young wife with a fat ass”. It probably wouldn’t bother me if certain people talked a certain way like how Hera doesn’t use any slang and how Hermes uses some but all the characters vocabulary are the exact same.

Honestly I can look past the art and it’s inconsistencies but having dialect jump from regal to tiktok facebook slang makes my brain hurt more than glossy lipped Hades and bug eyed Persephone.

I checked it out, it's pretty great haha and yesss this is something that's been discussed before but I haven't really ever made a post about, the dialogue is CONSTANTLY flip-flopping between royal talk and "hello fellow teens" quipping. Sometimes it feels like it's trying to be like Marvel and then other times it feels like it's trying to be Bridgerton. I can think of no better example than all of the "pedigree" talk, it makes me squirm every time I read it because in the modern context of LO, it SCREAMS eugenics. The whole B-grade goddess thing made sense, until they started talking about Persephone like a poodle:

But then you ALSO get INCREDIBLY stiff dialogue that makes it seem like the comic is either being written by AI or Rachel is actually a real life version of Michael Afton post-scoop:

And yes, there is a tinfoil hat theory that LO is being written by bots at this point because I don't know how a single person could write something so tonally confused. That said, I do think the more reasonable explanation is that Rachel is likely copying dialogue from shows and movies she's watching and just tweaking it slightly before slapping it into LO. She's not observing why the dialogue works in the media she likes, she just knows she likes it and slaps it in there without any regard for context, tone of voice, or personality.

And that leads to, as you said, all the characters sounding the exact same, and that metric by which they all sound the same changes all the time. I think at this point the only reason we haven't seen Hera dropping TikTok language is because she hasn't been onscreen long enough for her to get the chance LMAO That said, we've definitely gotten some weird inconsistent dialogue with Hera as well:

(like she's essentially saying the exact same thing across both of these panels but one is being said by an adult and the other is being said by a teenager lmao)

I think the dialogue is definitely one of the most glaring issues with LO, among all of its other problems. It just never feels like it's being written by a human, there are problems with this even as far back as S1 but it's become especially apparent in S2 onwards.

To finish off this ask, here's one of my favorite dialogue mishaps in the entire series, from S1, in which Apollo literally adopts an askew English accent:

[celaenaeiln]

Batgirl/Nightwing Barbara Gordon and Dick Grayson is literally the worst. Even worse that there are people who ship both Oracle/Nightwing and Batgirl/Nightwing when like their personalities are completely different, it feels like people are willing to ship them together just because they are Dick and Babs.

Honestly I feel like it’s unfair to talk about Batgirl/Nightwing because I feel like the majority of people agree that Oracle/Nightwing is better but I wouldn’t say I like it much either. There are some good panels between them but honestly it always felt more friendly like the thing that always irked me about them is that there will we or won’t we is so tiring, especially when you have so many other couples who have valid reasons for being star crossed, their arguments and fears always felt juvenile and annoying and then when they are together there is something that just feels off in their dialogue or tone of the ways things are written for both characters. There’s also this thing that shippers do where they make both characters finding a home in each other or being each others safety net which doesn’t really feel true to their characters because their are so many other characters that played a bigger role in Dick’s and Barbara’s life compared to what role Dick and Barbara had in each others lives (this is why I also hate the retcon that they were childhood friends because they weren’t! They didn’t grow up together!) And I don’t care about the age gap, like people can meet as adults and develop feelings for each other but like it makes no sense to me what they would see in each other that makes those feelings go from friendship to romance other then it just does. Like all the skills they can do other characters can also do and a lot of their character traits that they have other characters have as well, like what makes these two characters look at each other and desire the other. That chemistry and desire has always been lacking for me when they are together. Like it feels like just two Barbie dolls being smashed together with writing telling me I have to like them together meanwhile I’m just scratching my head.

You talked a lot about Dick but honestly there are many things that he has done that makes me wonder why Babs would want him.

It’s sad because Dick and Babs are such cool characters but when they are together I’m so bored!!!! Barbara deserves an interesting love interest and a love interest that can be just as complicated and messy as she!

"it feels like just two Barbie dolls being smashed together with writing telling me I have to like them together meanwhile I’m just scratching my head."

OMG LITERALLY I'VE SAID THE EXACT THING ALMOST WORD FOR WORD IN ANOTHER POST.

Honestly everything you said is so true.

There's physically no possible way to like both Oracle and Batgirl and still respect the Dick and Barbara. I'm not a big fan of Oracle/Nightwing either but I like them much, much more than Batgirl/Nighwing.

The safety net thing is the biggest crutch for Dickbabs. DC is trying to push them as if they'll always catch each other but that's only true in the physical sense like literally grab the other out of mid-air. Emotionally the wishy-washy behavior is tiring and emotionally draining and neither of them come out of it happy.

It makes me mad when DC has Dick claim that Barbara is Dick's best friend

Wally's stewing moodily on Dick's couch when he heard. He'll probably be like "I made you best man at my wedding and you calling her your best friend?"

The Flash (1987) Issue #142

Dick'll be like "W

Wally...I swear-"

Wally: "I made you best man! TWICE!!"

Not to mention, Dick and Barbara before the retcon didn't even know each other's superhero identities! I think it might've been the Legends of the Dark Knight comic but Dick's hanging out with his friends when he runs away to the bathroom with Congresswoman Gordon enters the place because "Robin and Dick Grayson can't be seen in the same place!" Barbara also says something in her point of view when they're fighting crime.

EXACTLY!! They do their best work separately. But together their personalities are an awful combo and it really makes me mad.

Yeah, I know I'm biased towards Dick but the reason I took Dick's side is because while Dick may have done things to Barbara, the majority of the transgressions are against him in their relationship. I don't know DC writers constantly nerf him when they're together or why they write Barbara so awful in a relationship when she's fine otherwise. The only thing I know that was wrong from her perspective is during that Devin Grayson scene. But that's just one of the worst writings of his character that I've seen (post).

Barbara deserves someone like Jason Bard

Batgirl (2016) Issue #42

Someone she can save and whose skillset won't be overlapping. Someone she can be strong with and will let themselves be commanded without it weakening them. Someone she doesn't have to feel like she's fighting the world over to call hers.

Jason Bard was perfect, sweet, good-looking, and smart for her. He even described him as complicated as a trait she loves about him.

Barbara definitely needs someone who isn't Dick and Dick needs someone who isn't Barbara so that way both their skills and personalities can shine.