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primrose-path-of-dalliance · 3 years

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jester began falling in love with caleb in episode 103.

not any earlier in my opinion, and not later, either.

there's two elements to why i believe e103 is the turning point.

(1) the first is caleb's actions and jester's responses to them during the night they all sleep by the waterfall—his support of her idea to sleep underwater, his conversation with her after her commune with artagan, and his casting of programmed illusion in the dome.

(2) the second is the way her behavior toward caleb pivots around e103. before e103 is a noticeably different beast to how she begins to treat him after e103—the attention she pays him, her efforts to hold more standout interactions with him, and a dramatic swell of emotion and thematic meaning in these scenes’ respective subtext.

the rumblecusp arc is the point in which jester’s character growth, and caleb’s efforts to unconditionally support her, really begin to shine. throughout the complex growing pains that jester and artagan's relationship was experiencing, the one person who truly takes a moment to offer her support without any agenda or judgment is caleb.

(e103, 1:22:55, bold mine)

CALEB: You okay over there?

JESTER: (tearful) Yeah, I'm fine. Just—I'm just drawing.

CALEB: Maybe didn't go as well as you were hoping?

JESTER: Um... In some ways it went better. But no.

CALEB: I can't speak for him. But you do have us.

JESTER: I know.

CALEB: So whatever you land on, Jester, we'll make it happen.

JESTER: (shaky laugh) I have to figure out what I want to land on.

CALEB: That is the, uh—sticky wicket, isn't it?

JESTER: Yeah. Everything's confusing.

CALEB: Maybe... Maybe we sleep on it, it'll make more sense in the morning.

JESTER: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Caleb.

CALEB: I didn't do anything.

jester confesses that her commune with artagan didn’t provide the answers she was hoping for—that he knew about the curse on the island—and caleb doesn’t remark on what that seems like. he deliberately avoids speculating on why artagan is doing these things because “he can’t speak for him.” he doesn’t assume anything about what she might choose to do and explicitly leaves that choice up to her. jester vents briefly about how difficult the choice is, and caleb offers her reassurance, a reminder that some time will make things clearer. he doesn’t suggest solutions.

unlike fjord or beau, caleb doesn’t ask her to voice outright whether artagan is being a good friend. he doesn’t continually question his character and imply any personal opinions to her or what he thinks she should do. instead, he asks whether she’s okay. he listens. and he offers unconditional support.

this is consistently the stance caleb takes in the rumblecusp arc. and it’s not discussed much, i think, exactly how monumental that was to jester.

(hold on, this is a long one.)

jester is a young woman who grew up sheltered and wants to define herself outside of that shelter. for her, this campaign has essentially been a coming-of-age journey (talks for e76-77, 14:12). she is deeply sensitive to whether or not she’s respected because she’s aware of how her personality and general lack of experience makes others think she’s naive, immature, or incapable (talks for e79, 31:51).

it’s also incredibly evident that her relationship with artagan is unique. in e105 (1:15:01), jester tells the m9, “he really got me through a lot when i was younger, you know? and he was all i had, really.” he was her best friend from childhood in a home where she spent most of her time hidden in a single room. when she was younger, the few times she left the chateau, she was bullied by other girls (e110, 3:34:59). her best friend, though? her best friend was a god. a god with an incredible sense of humor, an aggrandizing attitude, and adoring respect for a young girl in a difficult situation who had as wonderful a personality as him. in every way that matters, artagan’s friendship undoubtedly saved jester’s life.

and she is so, so aware of this. she cares for him deeply, trusts him unconditionally, and is determined to be there for the one person who had been there for her when no one else was, not even her mother.

the renegotiation of this friendship after artagan revealed his full identity was clearly extraordinarily difficult for jester. she was having to reevaluate her entire relationship with the being that pulled her through a childhood of isolation and misery, question his intentions with her and whether they could even remain friends at all. and this was amidst her arrival at a dangerous island with her other friends to help him clean up his mistakes.

asking her to make a judgment on artagan before she’s ready to do it on her own, while managing some high expectations at the same time—not only is it a lot of pressure, it’s frustrating and painful. jester did not want to judge artagan without giving him his fair due and a proper conversation. knowing that her new friends dislike her old friend, besides being hurt by it, distracted her. she had to both defend him outwardly and interrogate him internally. and if she tried to explain how important artagan is to her, a lot of vulnerability would’ve been necessary when she was trying to be a leader and seem competent and capable, instead of a child who needs patronizing guidance.

this latter point is exceptional. because jester lavorre is so vulnerable when it comes to how much she thinks her loved ones respect her and consider her a valuable, equal, and trustworthy individual. and it’s difficult to feel like you’re being valued and trusted when people are repeatedly questioning you about a person and a relationship that they don’t understand in a way that, despite genuine concern, comes across as them doubting your own judgment of one of the most intimate parts of your life.

in this precise moment in e103, caleb is the only person who acknowledges—to her in person, even—that he doesn't have any place in judging her relationship with artagan. that it’s not what she needs from him or anyone else. that he’s content waiting for her to reach a decision. that he will respect that decision.

and jester can believe him. caleb’s done nothing but remain consistent on this stance. he repeatedly supports her choices to run travelercon, trust artagan, and come to his aid.

when other party members question artagan's legitimacy, caleb is the one who almost always speaks up to support jester (some examples: e61, 30:43 / e77, 49:17 / e95, 1:09:17 and 1:15:24).

he actively and enthusiastically offers his magical talents to her to provide for the event preparations. he has a whole conversation with her in e91 (beginning 1:53:41) where he expresses his immense respect for her and her personality, explicitly validates her faith in artagan, and shows her a tangible example of how he wants to help her during the upcoming travelercon. when she suggests some ideas, despite their arguable silliness, caleb takes them at face value and openly admits his lack of expertise in this area (e91, 1:58:35).

when they first arrive at rumblecusp, he directly reassures jester about the ‘travelercon 3000’ banner she leaves on the wrong beach by mentioning that he can make her a new banner (e101, 48:18). once preparations begin in earnest, caleb expends spells very freely, including ones of higher-level, to produce whatever jester requests.

in e103, he hears out her idea of sleeping underwater and gives it equal consideration in spite of other party members trying to shoot it down. the first time she suggests it (36:23), caduceus comments against it and no other party member acknowledges her except for caleb, who agrees with her quietly while the others move on. the second time jester suggests it (46:08), veth comments against it and caleb steps in to openly agree that it’s a good idea, even after fjord and beau join veth in being dubious.

compare these active, consistent moments of support and validation from caleb to similarly active and consistent examples of the other attitudes that manifest during the rumblecusp arc, in contradiction to people’s apparent claims of trust (one such claim of trust: e95, 1:00:21).

plainly insulting artagan to jester as if it’s a given, such as fjord’s “he’s generally full of shit, right?” (e107, 49:42);

fjord, beau, and caduceus’s conversation about “not ruining jester’s big day,” yet distrusting artagan to the extent of planning to keep her from being alone with him, preparing to attack him should he try to sacrifice 200 people for some speculated unknown ritual and/or hurt jester, and discussing all of this behind jester’s back (e108, beginning 15:41);

caduceus’s said shift to distrust of artagan because of a semi-disturbing conversation that jester was equally a part of (e107, beginning 20:40);

and the discussion right before jester’s commune with artagan where beau questions if artagan sent them to rumblecusp knowing of the memory problems, without regard for their well-being (e103, 29:40).

the unfortunate assumption being made by these party members’ repeated questioning and protectiveness of jester is that she cannot be trusted to have good judgment. despite their familiarity with some of the context of her relationship with artagan (especially after e105), they disregard her repeatedly-expressed support of him. they indirectly disrespect her ability to judge for herself whether someone is dangerous to her or her friends. they don’t acknowledge jester’s own role in creating dubious situations and instead direct all their negative feelings and sense of fault to artagan, minimizing her agency.

the e108 conversation is a dense microcosm of how the party perpetrates these assumptions throughout the rumblecusp arc as a whole. without qualm, they discuss deliberately controlling jester’s time with artagan to ‘protect’ her and their willingness to kill the evil image they’ve constructed of him, and dodge jester directly asking them what they’re talking about—even though it is a known given that the m9 would defend her with their lives with or without any prior discussion. the purpose of holding this conversation isn’t to make sure that jester is safe. like caduceus near-explicitly says, it’s to “feel better knowing” that “anybody else was on board with this” (20:26 and 18:57)—to validate their unacknowledged distrust of jester’s judgment with each other, behind her back.

and as laura has said: jester, with her very high wisdom, tends to know what’s going on even if she acts like she doesn’t (talks for e79, 32:39).

in e103, when jester is crying because she’s found out that artagan did know about the island’s memory problems, caleb doesn’t show any sign of taking this as proof of artagan's ill intent. what he does instead: he offers compassion for her pain with zero judgment. he promises to support her, no matter what she ultimately decides to make of this information. these are offers of safety and trust, ones that jester desperately needed.

then—caleb creates a programmed illusion of the m9’s lives. and it’s beautiful.

in comparison to all the analysis prior, this moment is straightforward. jester is an artist. she paints, draws, and creates, and she loves doing it. moreover, she loves making art for other people. though she doesn’t get many chances to do so, the mural of a flowery meadow that she paints for yasha’s room in the xhorhaus is a perfect example. similarly, she enjoys the art she makes when defacing other people’s property—altered signage or statue of the platinum dragon painted in rainbow—in part because they’re gifts to the traveler. she loves making those she loves happy.

happiness and love to jester is overwhelmingly about emotional intimacy. i’ve talked about this to some degree in a previous post about jester’s jealousy. please refer there for in-depth explanation. in brief, though, she puts value on how deeply she knows a person; how often she’s been able to be there for them. this is the love she learned from her mother and from artagan, and how she continues to love once she’s older.

caleb’s arcane rendition of the m9′s lives floating around the inside of the dome is a display of exactly this kind of love. not only is it art crafted from his magic and imagination and love—it’s blatant evidence of how much he cares for every member of the party and where they’ve come from. he remembers their stories and hangs them in the air in hopes that it’ll help them resist the memory erasing. he moves the memory of yasha and zuala in a meadow over to yasha’s pillow-side so she can watch it until she falls asleep. he creates a memory for vilya of her, her husband, and her daughter, listening to and respecting the emotional gravity of what she’s confiding in them.

only a few minutes after jester’s disappointing commune with artagan and her conversation with caleb, she walks into the dome and sees this art. she laughs and stares in wonder at all the memories (e103, 1:46:08). when beau points out the humorous memories of fjord being attacked by turtles so they can all laugh, she tells caleb with equal awe and joy, “wow. this is amazing, caleb” (e103, 1:47:04).

...of course, as lovely and meaningful as these back-to-back moments were for jester, it's not quite evidence of her starting to fall in love with caleb around this time.

that’s where the following episodes come in.

[id: three screenshots of messages sent in a discord channel by the user “prim” (the op). all are timestamped to friday, august 28, 2020, the day after the live premiere of e107. the first has an additional timestamp of 12:53 PM, the second 1:03 PM, and the third 1:30 PM. they read:

honest to god though i don't know if it's just the shipper brain that is making me think laura is trying to roleplay jester beginning to reciprocate caleb's feelings [...]

like........ the golden dick hunt teasing is definitely on par with jester's past shenanigans, but the compliments have been Catching My Attention bc it's honestly not normal for jester to compliment caleb of her own volition like that, just as a one-on-one "i appreciate you" reassurance

and i'm thinking less about the spells from last night's episode (although how much jester was emphasizing the compliments made me go "awwwww") and more of the moments like jester telling caleb "that was impressive" after getting cad out of the tunnel with beau's help

but laura is absolutely a shipping troll with jester this campaign so i'm here like "I'M MAYBE 80% SURE I'M BEING FUCKED WITH BUT IT MAYBE HOLDS UP????" [...]

basically laura keeps doing things that make the alarm in my brain go off and i don't know if i'm picking up something legit or if i'm projecting my hopes, like the recent pattern of compliments from jester LOL

/end id.]

i’m not going to lie, if i try to list every single receipt like i otherwise prefer to do in these metas, i think we (and especially i) would all lose our minds. so while i’m about to provide a lot of citations, they genuinely are just a few possible examples that will mostly be within the dozen episodes after e103.

the more important detail that can be observed from this is that e103 is a turning point.

prior to e103, jester does not particularly go out of her way to interact with caleb. by and large, most of their direct interactions are either initiated by caleb or prompted by the context of a general party conversation. the majority of other moments that could be referred to as ‘widojest’ are of caleb’s evident feelings. beyond early campaign days, jester rarely teases caleb about sexual topics while insinuating things about her own sexual life at the same time.

after e103, laura and jester begin to go out of their way to interact with and intertwine jester’s time with caleb.

the rate of jester’s compliments and enthusiastic gratitude to caleb skyrocket (some examples: e104, 30:36 / e107, 16:49 and 1:11:28 and 1:12:15 and 3:10:39 / e110, 15:58 and 3:37:24 / e111, 36:15 and 38:41 and 50:58);

several mature jokes/flirtations she makes involve both caleb and herself (examples: e107, 1:16:17 / e110, 1:18:07 / e115, 1:52:53);

she deliberately and specifically engages caleb in full-blown interactions, such as the conversations during the tour of her childhood bedroom (e110, beginning 1:11:38), hanging out with him on the icebreaker ship (e112, beginning 3:45:29), and the reading of der katzenprinz (e115, beginning 1:52:43);

as well as the expansion of more extended ‘conversations’ like their motif of dancing (e108, 13:39 / e109, 2:54:14), their parental relationships (e110, 20:44 and 3:38:41 / e115′s der katzenprinz / e121, beginning 1:52:12), and polymorph shenanigans (examples: e107, beginning 2:58:41 / e117, beginning 1:13:55 / e118, 43:57).

thrown in are additional background details that further tie jester to caleb, such as her determination to recover caleb’s amulet after their defeat of vokodo (e106, 25:33), the knowing comments on his purchasing of paper (e109, 22:32 / e111, 1:25:49), her deliberate choice to ride whaleb during the avantika chase (e113, 2:32:28), her retrieval of caleb’s coat when he’s attempting to remove the necromantic emerald (e115, 1:30:56), and her deliberate reference to der katzenprinz to iver (e120, 3:05:14);

and simply everything about the tower. it’s another example of the art and creativity caleb produces with his magic to make his loved ones happy, which jester acknowledges at least twice (refer to the e111 compliments). contrarily, jester also makes note of the signs that this tower shows less love to caleb than she thinks he deserves, in keeping with her value of emotional intimacy (e115’s der katzenprinz / e122’s floor 8, room 1).

the reading of der katzenprinz in e115 is arguably the pinnacle of these examples. it’s intentionally initiated by jester. she both takes the step to visit caleb's room and indirectly requests him to read the story to her. laura’s implication that she remembered this subplot because of beau’s reading of a very romantic letter from yasha is particularly suggestive. the story itself incorporates many similar characters and themes that are present in jester’s backstory: the lonely, sheltered boy and his single working mom as jester and marion; the dubious cat prince who ultimately gives the boy freedom and confidence as artagan; and the deep love between the boy and his mother because of how they only have each other, which compels a powerful being to have compassion and thus set the boy free so that they can be together. very similar to both jester’s depth of relationship with her mother and her pleas on artagan’s behalf to the moonweaver’s celestial servant.

and the post-story conversation—caleb’s confiding of its importance to him because of his mother. jester’s open willingness to compare the cat prince to artagan, knowing that caleb respects their friendship and has treated artagan fairly. jester’s lingering, repeated looks toward caleb while smiling and holding her copy of der katzenprinz to her heart.

with all this dramatic expansion of the emotional and thematic intimacy between jester and caleb beginning to roll down the hill after e103—in brilliant contrast to their more muted, less reciprocal dynamic before this episode—e103 is more than likely the turning point of jester’s feelings. and based on the events and context, it was caused by the combined emotional appeal of caleb’s offer of unconditional support and his display of love for his family in the programmed illusion of memories.

#cr #critical role #cr meta #widojest #jester lavorre #caleb widogast #by popular demand #inb4 the wrap-up #prim post #prim says some things #readmore #long post

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my-mt-heart · 2 years

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TWD 11x13 “Warlords” Review

I’m not sure how many people are going to read this one, but as someone who loves consistency, I can’t bring myself to skip a review just because my beloved Carol and Daryl aren’t in the episode. For what it’s worth, it isn’t a bad one. Maybe in some ways it feels like a major detour, but it does ultimately contribute to the larger story and makes me even more curious to further explore the budding dynamic between Lance and Carol in the episodes to come assuming it doesn’t just get dropped like so many other seemingly important storylines on this show. But let’s stay on a positive note for a sec…

First thing’s first, my girl Lydia finally gets some meaningful screen time, and my oh my has she grown. We get to see some sparks fly between her and Elijah and sure, it’s a bit out of left field, but what matters is that it’s the first time since Henry’s death that Lydia might be weighing the possibility of romantic love. It goes hand in hand with her longing for a more fruitful life where she can have everything she needs all the time without having to worry that it’s all just going to disappear the next day. Honestly, she’s not asking for more than any teenager or young adult would in the old world. What’s impressive is the conscious effort on her part to undo all of the “wisdom” her mother imparted on her throughout her whole life, and I’d like to believe it’s because she has much better people to look up to now, namely Daryl and Carol who share a lot of the same abusive history that she does, yet find themselves able to at the very least try for normalcy at the Commonwealth. I really hope she gets to reunite with them soon.

The one thing I’ll say is that, because Lydia does mirror my two favorite characters so closely, I feel deeply invested in her story and just wish it could be more fleshed out. Her jump from wary outcast to paradise-seeker is believable with just a couple small beats, but it’s still a pretty big jump to make. I guess I’m yearning to see the baby steps to getting her there, which I understand is impossible with such a bloated cast. Insert long rant about that here.

However Lydia reaches this new outlook, it seems to create some mild tension with Maggie. I’m seeing some people demonize her for letting trust issues get in the way of her people’s wellbeing, but I’m not really sure that’s fair. For one thing, she’s not refusing to let anyone seek out a more “promising” life at the Commonwealth, nor is she holding it against them. The way I see it, she’s doing what any good leader should by drawing on past experiences to make careful assessments about who she engages with, but those experiences go beyond the trauma faced in the apocalypse. She remembers witnessing her father persevere against all odds when developers were trying to take his farm, and from that she’s learned to have more faith in herself and what she’s capable of. Personally, I can respect that. Plus, she’s obviously right that the Commonwealth is shady as shit.

Aaron and Gabriel learn that the hard way. It’s great to see them interact because I felt like they had really strong chemistry in 10x19. They’re both adjusting well to their new positions at the Commonwealth, not that much adjusting is needed when they’re picking up the positions they used to have. Aaron is working as a recruiter again while Father Gabriel is back to preaching. Though emotionally speaking, they’ve definitely come full circle. Both started off with a strong sense of humanity, both lost their way, and now both are becoming believers again, understanding the importance of making connections with strangers who can one day become their family. The progress they’ve made is put to the test when trying to recruit a religious group, but I don’t need to go into depth because frankly that story is not important aside from creating the spooky ambience.

What’s important is the story behind the story, the fact that Lance sends a former, rather unhinged CIA agent to get to the bottom of some stolen guns. Though it’s hinted Lance’s intentions with those guns are much more sinister than he might let on, possibly planning to use them to overthrow not only Hilltop and Alexandria but also Pamela Milton, I find it very interesting that he’s using the greater good aka “making it right” to justify these extreme measures because who does that sound like? While it’s unclear whether Lance’s and Carol’s relationship will progress further, the mirroring between their characters is fascinating, especially considering the timing of it all. Remember that Carol is currently being made to feel lesser than, and from her vantage point so far, Lance is someone who has learned to overcome that. Obviously he is masking something much darker, a need for power and glory, and obviously Carol isn’t going to stand for that. I’m just saying that relationship can pave the way for some much needed self-reflection and possibly even some much needed conversations between Carol and Daryl. You know, how a confrontation between Carol and Leah could have. Speaking of, I think Leah is the one who stole the guns.

But moving on to Negan, well he’s back. It’s kind of random that he just so happens to be with this new group, a religious cult of all things (not like he’s been sent to assassinate their leader this time). Really, I think it just proves he can’t stand to be alone. But also, maybe he’s building a strong connection with this woman, Annie, who doesn’t scream crazy cult member to me. Not that I care to delve further into her backstory because as we’ve established, enough screen time has been stolen from the bigger characters as it is. Instead of beating that dead horse, I’d like to now file a formal complaint that the show’s attention to detail seems to be rapidly decreasing. How did Negan know that Maggie was staying at Hilltop again rather than Alexandria? Hmm?

I dig the philosophical aspects of this episode, particularly the blurring line between right and wrong, which I think just goes to show that each character’s choices are a matter of perspective. Lydia isn’t wrong for wanting some stability, nor is Maggie wrong for having reservations about trusting the big corporations. Aaron and Gabriel aren’t wrong for wanting to be cautious, yet respectful of new groups and you could potentially make the argument that Carlson and Lance aren’t wrong for trying to seek justice for their community so long as Lance really does have their best interest in mind, though I really don’t think he does. The biggest WTF moment is hands down the iPhone. I know the Commonwealth has some higher technological capabilities, but it’s still a little jarring. The ending is also rather abrupt, so I’m curious to see how this “side story” is going to escalate in the next episode and I am DEFINITELY curious to see what Carol and Daryl are up to. The trailer isn’t totally clear, but we might finally be getting Caryl, babes. Pray to the TV gods. Only three more episodes of this block to go!

11x09 “No Other Way” Review

11x10 “New Haunts” Review

11x11 “Rogue Element” Review

11x12 “The Lucky Ones” Review

#caryl #maggie rhee #lydia twd #lydia oh lydia #aaron twd #father gabriel #lance hornsby #twd #twd spoilers #twd season 11 #twd review #twd warlords

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blind-alchemists · 3 years

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Meta-Analysis of the Rift Mage Specialization

I said in February I was going to do it, and it only took me seven months to follow through!

Anyway. Analyzing game-play elements for narratives purposes has become somewhat of a hobby of mine ever since I really got into GameLit. Then, I started "fangs" and felt that my fight scenes were boring, so I build ability trees reminiscent of DA:I's for my OCs. You know, as you do. During that process, though, the lack of banter acknowledging several choices struck me as odd. Especially regarding specializations. Especially when it comes to Solas'.

We’ll be taking a look at (in order)

1. Description

2. Codex Entry

3. Skills

a. in comparison to DA: II’s Primal & Force Mage

4. Specialization Dialogue with Solas

5. Conclusion

Disclaimer: I talk a lot (this post might have about 2.5k). And, I promise you, you'll be tired of seeing 'the Fade this' and 'the Veil that' at the end of it.

Description

“These mages draw upon the force of the Fade, either pulling matter from the Fade to attack or twisting the Veil itself into a weapon to stagger or crush their enemies.”

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

So, lore-wise, mages do ‘draw upon the Fade’. Sure. But do they ‘pull matter from the Fade’? Absolutely not.

Physical things and the Fade rarely mix well. Plus – this is mainly my theory – the way magic is utilized (the 'drawing upon the Fade part') requires it to pass through the Veil. Magic being a form of energy, and thus not physical, does not constitute to ‘pulling matter from the Fade’.

That's the first thing other mages (read: Dorian, Vivienne, possible the Inquisitor) should (or could) have referenced in banter/dialogue.

The rest of the sentence ('twisting the Veil into a weapon') is also highly interesting, since there is little known about the Veil. Nobody knows how it works. And, thus, nobody should be capable enough to manipulate it consistently enough to use it as a weapon. But considering it's Solas who gets this specialization - well. He knows the Veil well enough, don't you think? (Which is why I think Rift Mage should have been Solas' personal, individual specialization like Fenris' Lyrium Ghost, but I just really like personalized skill trees in general.)

However, having answered that question, connecting magic so closely to the very thing can be described as a “magical vibration that repels the Fade”, I'm curious about how it would work. Since, you know, mages are inevitably tied to the Fade. Wouldn't the Veil repel a try to manipulate it by a mage? Is using mana the same thing as drawing energy from the Fade? If so, it would be straight-up impossible to actually use such a method for any ordinary mage (read: not Solas). If mana can be used without the Fade, it would be possible, but is such a thing feasible? Can you switch between spells and Veil quickly enough without horrific consequences such as possibly tearing yourself apart?

Very interesting topic. Would love to go into it more, but at that point, I'd become subjective, so let's end it here.

To summarize: Rift mages do things (physically pulling things from the Fade plus using the Veil) normal mages don't do. There is also a chance, logically speaking, that no one else but Solas (or mage!Inquisitor) can accomplish such a feat without dying a horrific death.

Codex Entry

From "Power Bleeds: Harness the Flow." Your Trainer's words make one passage stand out:

There are no tomes dedicated to this manipulation. There has been no time for academics, only the practical—and not in a manner that mitigates risk. Power in a raw form has found an outlet, both visible and in ways that only we of arcane proclivity can sense. The risk is great.

An account:

From this page forward, these are the notes of Thelric. They began as the work of my mentor Julion, and I will continue in the research she began, as she cannot, because she is dead. The rift we were examining did not react well to her last investigation. We believed ourselves prepared for demonic manifestation. We were not prepared for how the energies we expected would be encountered. Well-versed in the forces that magic can produce, my senior was surprised by an alteration, a deviance. That which previously had to be coaxed is now a flood that must be staunched. The same amount in different intensity, quick to expose fault in the way it is accessed. She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none, and her form suffered the brunt. Tread carefully in studies of new matters, for I cannot unsee the end of her.

Scattered symbols and sketches follow.

[source – DA wiki; bolding mine]

Apparently DA:I has a thing for hiding the true horror in Codex Entries and off-hand comments.

Here, we learn one key fact: The school of Rift Magic is relatively new ('no tomes dedicated to this manipulation'). I think it's safe to assume the possibility - and thus research concerning it - emerged around the time the Breach appeared. So it's new, people have no idea what they're doing, but it somehow works. A little like the whole time magic thing, funnily. (That brings me back to a lot of questions I have about the Veil: Just how powerful is it? Just how deeply is it intervened with Thedas?)

Reading further, the entry seems to (only) stress how dangerous Rift Magic is. Who would have thought! No, really, it's a fair point to empaphize. I'm not certain the Trainer and his previous teacher (or anyone else but Solas) know what kind of role the Veil plays in this, and so of course experiments are going to get ugly. The Veil holds a much greater importance than the people of Thedas realize.

And, in a very similar vein: The people of Thedas don't know much about directly interacting with the Fade through, say, a rift, which poses another risk. The wiki entry establishes two things in particular that are relevant here: Using spells (in the Fade itself) has unpredictable results, and one can draw unprecedented power from it while sleeping.

The codex entry cited above proves that. A rift is a direct connection to the Fade, and thus unpredictable ('She drew too much, expecting resistance. There was none') and that power is too much to handle ('her form suffered the brunt').

My theory is that, while a certain flunction is natural to the Fade, the Veil also plays a role here. Which I'm not sure. But it has one.

Personally, I wouldn't be sure the risks of a horrific death outweigh the benefits of power, but let's look more in depth at that!

Skills

Which brings me to the abilities themselves.

The first two you can choose from are Veilstrike and Stonefist. (Which I think should have had their names changed but, oh, well.)

Veilstrike: “You recreate your own fist from the essence of the Fade and smash nearby foes to the ground.” (Upgrades being Punched Down and Wounded Veil, but they don’t have anything interesting for this analysis. Note the names, though.)

Curious here is the 'recreate [...] from the essence of the Fade' part here. On first glance, it sounds like a rather ordinary spell, right? But it's not. That's just the 'hiding in plain sight for the first playthrough' aspect of Solas' character.

Mages do shape their spells with energy from the Fade (as far as my assumptions go). Maybe they can also recreate something. I'll give them that much. But the essence of the Fade - the inherit, unchanging nature of it - can't be manipulated by them. I think that's specifically a trait only Dreamers can have. (More evidence for my 'Rift Mage should have been Solas' personalized, individual specialization' hc!)

There is an argument to be made if this already constitutes for 'pulling matter from the Fade', but this isn't even the funkiest part yet.

Stonefist: “You summon a boulder from the Fade and smash it into your target, sending them flying.” (Upgrades being Shatterstone and Unblockable Force.)

'Summon a boulder from the Fade', you know, as in, bring physical matter from the Fade to the other side of the Veil. A thing that is pretty much unheard of. Remembers what happens to spirits when they pass violently through the Veil? There is an entire game dealing with that. (I mean, stones won't hopefully turn into demons, but my point is that bringing things through, usually, is not a wise idea.

Another thing someone could have commented on.

Passives: Restorative Veil, Encircling Veil, Smothering Veil, Twisting Veil.

Unfortunately, neither of these descriptions give me much, but they all have the ‘Veil’ component in their name, so that’s interesting.

Upon closer inspection, the Veil can function in a variety of ways: speeding up mana recovery, further weakening enemies, boosting your own damage. (Veilstrike being an example of a means of attack.)

Now, my question here would be: Do over mages notice changes in the Veil? Do they feel it shift and bend? If not, well, that's one thing. if they do, even subconsciously, I'd want banter. (I want a lot of banter, though. Just generally speaking.)

Pull of the Abyss: “You create a tiny rift that pulls enemies toward a central point.” (Upgrades being Shaken Veil and Devouring Veil.)

I can live with never hearing anything about everything else. Sure. But this one? This damned skill? You're telling me I read that the first time I played the game, nodded, and that was it?

'You can create a tiny rift-' I'm sorry, do you what now? After a good a couple of hours of learning just how bad rifts are?

And the upgrade names. Shaken Veil, Devouring Veil - is there anything this thing can't do, except for becoming more and more horrifying and giving me bad vibes ofr whatever DA4 will do with it?

Firestorm: “You summon flaming meteors, raining fire down upon enemies all over the area for the next several seconds. This ability consumes and is powered by focus.”

This one is ... honestly, I don't like it being here. It's an AOE skill, which does fit in with the rest, but it's fire and it seems rather randomly assigned compared to other focus abilities with a more personal note (Haste, Rampagne, Cloak of Shadows, Mark of the Rift).

Doesn't give a lot here to analyze, except that raining down flaming meteors is the level of (global) destruction I can see happening in the future if Solas isn't stopped. So. That's fun.

(It's the ultimate skill in the Fire/Ice tree in DA:II, or at least the ability there has the same name.)

DA: II Comparison

Nearing the end, I'll take a brief look at the Force Mage specialization from DA:II and the Primal base skill tree for mages. Both have some interesting similarities.

First, Primal.

Stonefist: “The mage hurls a stone projectile that strikes with massive force.”

It's only the name and the effect, honestly, but it is curious to see it in a skill tree that focuses exclusively on the elements earth and lightning. (Because Pride demons also use electricity ... yeah, yeah. I'm reading too much into this.)

Petrify: “The mage entombs an enemy in stone, leaving the foe temporarily unable to move. However, the target becomes more resistant to damage for the duration of the spell.”

This has nothing to do with Rift Mage, but in light of Trespasser, I'll just leave it here for your consideration. Petrifying people is neither new nor exclusive to Evanruis.

Now, onto Force Mage.

Fist of the Maker: “The mage slams enemies into the ground with incredible power, against which armor is no protection.”

The effect sounds like Stonefist (Primal) and Veilstrike.

Pull of the Abyss: “The mage conjures a maelstrom of energy that draws enemies to its center while slowing them to a crawl.”

This one is similar to the Rift Mage skill with the same name, so it might have served as an inspiration (or base).

Overall, though: nothing much to say here. Maybe I could talk more about Rift Mage being focused on crowd control, but that is probably for game-play balance. I could connect that to Solas' character and analyze every little thing to death. I'm not doing it, though.

Specialization Dialogue

Solas: You have begun practicing new magical forms. Interesting. You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade, likely using your mark as a catalyst. I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that. Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?

Inquisitor: (if chosen) I hoped that studying such magic would me help better understand the Fade.

Solas: While our fight affords little time for formal study, the wise can better themselves even in the midst of battle. Perhaps especially then. I hope your new studies serve you well.

[source]

Let’s go through this slowly.

‘You seem to be drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade-’ Alright, we’ve talked about that. Makes sense he’d comment on it. ‘likely using your mark as a catalyst’ Sorry? The Inquisitor is doing what? I’m not saying it’s not possible, I’m just saying it might not be an overly smart idea to use the Anchor in that way. Because it’s attached to the Inquisitor’s arm. And because the Inquisitor knows what happens if it snaps out of control. So, purposefully doing something that might cause you agonizing pain? Mh. Yeah. No, thanks.

Also. The 'drawing upon the raw substance of the Fade' part makes me think that the Anchor does give the Inquisitor Dreamer-like abilities. Forcefully, and possibly difficult to control, and the Inquisitor might not be aware of it, but. That would be an interesting aspect to explore.

‘I use similar techniques, although it took me years to learn that’. Well. Yeah. Mostly a sound response, except I’m not really sure it's true. Why does he say years? Because he didn’t go right to sleep after creating the Veil, or because he studied such methods theoretically beforehand? I doubt he refers to the time Inquisition spans, because it’s not that long, cannocially, (isn't it like ... a year? I forget what the devs said), but … I don’t know. It doesn't sit right with me. Solas never truly outright lies, so there is probably some merit in it.

‘Why did you choose such an esoteric area of study?’ That’s … an interesting way to ask. Sure, there is a very small group who has this specialized knowledge, but it feels a little like deflection.

The rest of the conversation doesn’t give much for me to analyze.

Conclusion

TL;DR: There should have been banter. Or Rift Mage should have been a personalized, individual specialization.

Pull of the Abyss is the funkiest skill in the entire game, from a meta-perspective, because tearing a hole into the Veil is the opposite of what the Inquisitor is trying to do.

There are also many more questions than answer to take away from this regarding the Veil and the Fade and how Solas manages not to blow his cover, but I believe there are theories about at least the two former points out there.

I thank you very much for bearing with me for this long!

#dragon age #dragon age meta #meta #rift mage #solas #analysis #rift mage specialization #skill tree #ability tree #analyzing game-play-elements for narrative purposes #long post #even for my standards

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chidoroki · 2 years

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Belle - movie reaction

I normally don’t chat about films since I wanna enjoy them to the fullest, but seeing how I waited almost a full year to watch this movie, I figured why not? So yeah, FINALLY got the chance to watch Belle and it was well worth the long wait!! Mamoru Hosoda never disappoints! I have many thoughts and feelings about it right now so I’m gonna ramble just a little bit.

Animation: Being familiar with Mamoru Hosoda’s other films, I became used to the 2d style of MADHOUSE & Studio Chizu, where the characters aren’t extremely details but simply drawn, to allow them to show a range of emotions and movement, so way back when the first trailer was released, I was a bit iffy about the 3d models that would be used in this place called U. I didn’t think the characters would be able to shine as much as those in previous films, but thankfully I was proven wrong and after seeing more trailers release and finally watching the movie, I can say the switch between the two styles was seamless. It supports the idea of how different reality and the virtual world of U truly are. As for the animation itself, I can’t say that any particular moment stood out to me? It was pretty standard stuff but I mean that in the most positive way! There were no dips in quality, the entire movie was beautifully consistent with its animation, but I don’t believe it to be the selling point of this particular film. I believe that to be true of Studio Ghibli; those movies are so loved because of the beautiful scenery and dazzling effects each one portrays, but with Hosoda’s films, I believe they grab attention based on the stories his films show us. That’s completely my opinion though. I just always find myself re-watching these films to relive the story and watch the characters again whereas I watched the Ghibli movies maybe one time each, just to say I’ve seen them.

Story: I barely knew anything at the very start, but knowing it was a new Hosoda film with him as the director was all I needed. The trailers gave off major Summer War vibes and was also obvious that the film was inspired by the classic Beauty & The Beast fairy tale, but only draws parallels with it instead of end up as another re-telling of the story, which is good. I eventually picked up that Suzu’s mother had passed away from one of the recent trailers, but even with that knowledge, my feelings still got hit hard during those scenes! Honestly though, the whole movie was pretty memorable, from the heartbreaking scenes to the lighter ones. I feel like I was constantly trying to figure out how all the characters could interact with each other or how important they might end up being, always cheering for Suzu whenever she sang as Belle and the mystery surrounding the Dragon kept me guessing til the end. It felt like such a long movie because there was so much happening, but that means it kept me entertained! I’m still not entirely clear how everything inside U works but I was probably too focused on other things to properly pay attention. I enjoyed the story overall though and I’d definitely watch it again, especially dubbed.

Characters: I love them. I felt so proud of Suzu throughout the entire story. Hiro is the perfect blend of blunt honesty and supportive. Shinobu I.. loved from the first moment, that wasn’t even fair. Ruka (yet my subtitles said Luka, I dunno which is correct?) surprised me for the better. Kamishin is adorable and totally reminds me of Don from The Promised Neverland. Hell, even found the choir ladies were endearing. And the Dragon... aah. I usually don’t feel this way about movie characters because we spend such little time we spend with them, but with this film, everyone (even the side characters) had their own special moments that made me wish I knew more about them! I wanted a post-credit scene so badly just to see them all again after everything that happened.

Soundtrack: OH BOY!! The absolute BEST!! Of course with the whole movie revolving around music and Suzu’s singing it had to be good, but damn! Even if nothing else thrills you, I guarantee the soundtrack is worth it! No doubt the main reason why I became so excited about seeing this movie. Despite listening to many of the songs for months now, hearing them play again within their respective scenes was so rewarding to finally witness everything come together, to see exactly how they play into the story and how meaningful they are to the characters. They fit so well it made me emotional.

I just really enjoyed every aspect of this movie and I wish I could chat about it more but I wanted to stay as spoiler-free as I can, for now anyways. I’m tired. Definitely give the movie a try if you can! I’m sure y’all will find something within it you’ll love!

(full movie reaction below the cut with obvious spoilers)

My excitement is about to skyrocket. Truly the best kind of distraction from all the Legends Arceus spoilers tonight.

Oohh YEESS, we’re starting with “U” right off the bat. My favorite song of the movie!! Hearing it for the first time is honestly what made me so excited see this movie.

I’ve really grown attached to the 3d animation over the past couple months. It is well done.

So many different AS avatars. I feel like I need to pause to appreciate them all.

Ah, so Belle is already a superstar? I should’ve guessed that, it is her singing the song after all. I’m sure we’ll jump back in time a bit to see how everything started with.. darn, what’s the girl’s name? Suzu I think?

I have been listening to the English versions of the songs recently and while they are good in their own right, I can’t deny the original Japanese just fits perfectly, especially the line “Time waits for no one” as a subtle nod to The Girl Who Leapt Through Time which was Hosoda’s first big film, hence the Studio Chizu logo being Makoto.

There’s our main girl! And huzzah I did get her name right. I love her room.

Ahh the mother did pass away right? I got that feeling from one of the recent trailers.

They’re already playing “Gales of Song,” oh nooo, my heart!!

Or not.. they teased me with a little bit of it. But also, Suzu has such an extensive commute to school.

Should I be concerned about Ruka? It seems this chick is quite popular at school. I wouldn’t be surprised if she turns out to be important to the story later on, like perhaps she gets jealous of all the attention Suzu gets as Belle in U? Or maybe not, I dunno, she doesn’t appear to be that snobby right now, but we’ll see.

“Lucky for you, you’re like the far side of the moon that gets ignored.” “Hiro, could you tone down your wisecracks about me?” I’ve known their friendship for two seconds and I love them already.

Oh.. oh no.. this black-haired basketball kid. I don’t even know his name and yet he stole my heart instantly! Goddamn it! He was only on screen for five seconds! Why does this always happen to me??

Shinobu, okay, there’s his name. Curse him. It’s just that look in his eyes. He’s great.

Oh? So he and Suzu are childhood friends? And he proposed to her when they were six saying he’ll always protect her? Well that’s adorable. Question is, are they still friends?

Now they’re playing a piano version of “A Million Miles Away.” Or is this just “Memories of a Sound”? We’re not even a full ten minutes in and we already got snippets of such wonderful songs. And I’m realizing now this song/melody is about her mother? Now I’m gonna cry dude, they’re so precious.

They used to sing together… in one of the trailers Suzu makes a comment along the lines of “I can finally sing again?” so I can only assume she stopped singing after her mother died? It’s too early in the movie for me to get emotional y’all, I swear.

The mom saved another child’s life from a raging river. My heart wasn’t ready for all this.

Bro what? So many negative comments for the mom’s actions though?? Screw these people!

Yo hold up, Suzu has to walk over a river every day to school.. that has to be haunting to think about.

Oh wow, singing actually makes her physically sick.. no wonder she becomes so surprised once she does enter U and can finally sing, without the emotional pain.

Aw, the first time she saw the Belle AS she thought it was Ruka. Suzu didn’t think she could be that beautiful, but she is!

“Suzu means Bell so..” Oh.. duh! How did I never pick up on that??? Also, I think this is the instrumental part of “Gales of Song” we’re hearing right now as she logs in.

“Did I just sing? I can finally sing again.” Yeessss! And I love how that was the first thing she tried when she entered U.

Full “Gales of Song” version, hell yeah!!!

Who are these people telling her to stop singing and making fun of her appearance?? I know that’s basically how the internet works; so many different opinions so not everyone is gonna praise you obviously, but I’m gonna beat the shit outta them because how dare they!

Does Hiro know it’s Suzu as Belle already? Or was it just coincidence that she was one of her first followers?

Aww look how much happier our girl is now! That’s what matters!

As does the.. ever-growing follower count, oh sweet lord, that happened quick. Yet she’s only following two people herself, which are probably Hiro and whomever her first follower was I’m guessing.

Ah I think this is “Swarms of Song” now? I confused it with Gales for quite a while, I had no idea both were different even though they have a clear distinction.

This Peggie Sue AS is totally jealous of Belle’s quick rise to fame.

Okay yeah, so Hiro actually knows Belle is Suzu. Good. She needs all the support she can get, because the fact Belle is getting hate irks me. She’s talented!

“Nobody would ever guess that Bell is a mousy country bumpkin like you.” Pfftt Hiro is great, she can be so blunt with some of her comments.

I love that Hiro is acting as Belle’s producer, but I sincerely hope it’s just because she’s Suzu’s friend and not for an ulterior motive.

Were these ladies practicing the Hallelujah chorus? Couldn’t exactly tell with the Japanese. I really wanna watch this movie is English too once I have the chance.

“Even at this age, I’m not sure what happiness is.” Ma’am you’re an old lady, if you can’t figure it out by now then we’re all screwed.

Shinobu being worried about Suzu in the past and present. What a great lad!

He’s… not gonna end up being the dragon/beast AS, is he? If anything I would think he’s whomever her first follower was, but now I’m not too sure, or why I’m even thinking this possibility in the first place.

Oh Shinobu c’mon, you’re talking to Ruka now? Sure he doesn’t seem all that thrilled and I don’t doubt she’s the one who came up to him first, but Suzu totally thinks of that interaction the wrong way now.

This song when she’s.. swimming? in the dome stadium, I think it’s “Fama Destinata,” but for reasons it reminds me of the theme of the Dry Lagoon stage of SA2B.

Dude, Dragon has no chill.

I take back my stupid thought; there’s no way Shinobu could be Dragon. He’s kind and this AS is brutal.

Dragon.. beast.. pick a name! Which am I using??

Pfft the leader of the Justices is named Justin? How intimidating.

The center of that gun laser he has looks like the Master Emerald.

I feel like so much has happened and yet we’re only 35 minutes into the movie.. or maybe I’m just over thinking a lot.

Oh, Kamishin, the canoe guy. I forgot about him. I wonder if he’ll become important at all.

Good lord Hiro, she took her entire computer setup from home to use at school. The strength this girl has!

Not only was that Angel AS Belle’s first follower but it also beat the Dragon in a match before?

Could the Dragon really be this Jellinek guy we never heard of til now? Seems a bit random. What would his connection to Belle/Suzu be?

Yo it took me a minute to realize that was Hiro with all that makeup on.

We’re really being suspicious of literally everyone now huh.

This family that has the discount looking Ray and the other boy who claims the Dragon is his hero, we’ve seen them briefly before didn’t we? On Hiro’s computer at the start maybe?

Suzu teasing Hiro about her phone wallpaper of the physics teacher is fantastic.

“If my mom found out, she’d just die.” I love how quickly Hiro realizes her mistake of saying this and genuinely apologizes to Suzu.

Hurray for Angel leading Belle right to the castle while the other AIs were being annoying.. or trying to stop her from coming here. Were they protecting her?

Yup, here’s when all the Beauty & the Beast parallels kick in; the castle, its inhabitants, the roses, the threatening monster.

The Dragon is kind to the Angel at least.

The lady choir gave Suzu the idea to write a song for the Dragon and I have no doubts that’s gonna be “Lend Me Your Voice.”

Oh my god.. and she’s thinking of Shinobu while coming up with the lyrics? I’m so soft for these two!

But see, they keep showing Shinobu and the Dragon now, so I wonder if they really are the same person. I get she’s thinking of her friend to convey the right emotions to the Dragon but still.

The fact they’re showing how many girls are angry at Suzu for momentarily holding hands with Shinobu via a mobile war game is hilarious.

Hiro flat out saying she’s not a nice person. I love her.

Kamishin’s energy gives me Don vibes, but dude could have not picked a worse time to show up. Let Suzu and Shinobu talk! Shinobu looks so annoyed as well.

Girl did you just give Ruka the okay to ask Shinobu out??

Oh yeah, Beauty & the Beast connections keep on coming. With Belle running away, I bet the Dragon is gonna come save her from something right? Possibly?

See? Saving her from Justin and the other Justices.

Ahhh here we go!! The “Lend Me Your Voice” scene! Of course it’s reminiscent of the TB&TB ballroom scene but who cares! It is heartwarming!

Bro he looks so content and relaxed to finally share a meaningful moment with someone who actually cares about him.

… Is it possible the infamous bruises on his back are not from fighting in the U arena but from real life? Was the person behind the Dragon abused? like at home perhaps?

Justin needs to back off, neither Belle nor I care for this nonsense he’s talking about.

I’ll be damned, the annoying AIs actually helped Belle escape from Justin.

Her dad couldn’t be the Dragon, could he?

So Ruka didn’t ask out Shinobu but Chikami instead? Who the hell is Chikami??

OH! Kamishin? Had no idea that was just a nickname or whatever.

But now we do get the confession that Suzu does like Shinobu of course! Yes!! I’m here for it!

That scene between Ruka and Kamishin was so awkward it was precious. They’re both a flustered mess yet bonding over their common interest in Belle. It’s a start.

Well damn, Shinobu correctly guessed Suzu was Belle. I wonder how long he knew, or how he found out.

I knew with all those passing cars she was gonna run away from him again..

Can Shinobu really be the Dragon if the Dragon is currently in trouble though? It’s not like he can be in reality and U at the same time right?

Or maybe it is possible? since Suzu is running to the old school and logging onto U at once? I can’t imagine she just falls to the ground upon logging in.

Okay, so it is possible. Suzu ended up at the school and even Hiro has her U earbuds in. Probably should’ve paid more attention to how U works.

Wait, did the entire lady choir know Suzu was Belle this whole time?

That one kid from the other family knows the “Lend Me Your Voice” melody as well? There’s no way.. is he actually the Dragon?

Hiro what kind of advanced technology do you have that you can zoom into someone’s eye that much and get a clear picture of what they’re looking at??

Wait, oh my god! Is it the brother? the discount looking Ray who is actually the Dragon?? And the bruises are from the abuse he gets from his father for protecting Tomo?? BRO!!

Kei is the Dragon and I bet you anything Tomo is the Angel! Tomo has to knows the melody since he was probably at the castle when Belle was singing it.

Ah, and the woman in the painting at the castle had to be their mother.

Dude it’s not even the long bangs covering Kei’s eyes that remind me of Ray.. like of course that was the main reason, but also how they act; protecting their siblings and never relying on others for help, Kei shares parallels with Ray during the Gracefield Arc.

Well now all that’s cleared up, I wonder which AS Shinobu is. He has to have one right?

For a brief moment Hiro reminded me of Sarada with the red glasses. I dunno why it took me this long to notice them though.

Ohhh Belle unveiled herself as Suzu.

Mmmm the amount of trust Shinobu has in her though, yessss.

“A Million Miles Away” coming back!!

“Without someone to love, what is there to love for?” Ow, my heart.

Before watching I thought this song was for her mother, but now I see it could be for Kei too. Although she did sing it with her mother, didn’t she? Maybe. I forget. We did hear it earlier though during that flashback.

Bro everyone is in tears.. and they all join in singing with her!! Oh I had listened to this song several times recently but never imagined the backing vocals would actually be everyone encouraging Suzu to continue singing like this!! I got chills. This reminds me so much of Summers, how the entire family and all the OZ accounts came together to help Natsuki win over Love Machine, only this is far more emotional to me!!

The lady choir knew Suzu and her mother! No wonder they treated her so kindly! Awww!!!

OHHH!! Shinobu was the person who stopped Suzu from going into the river! I totally forgot she tried to go after her mother!

Aw look at the AS of the choir, Ruka and Kamishin!

But then who is Peggie Sue? Do we never find out? And though I don’t care about him at all, but Justin too?

Oh? Suzu was supposed to fade away after she was unveiled? Another thing I completely missed. Too focused and excited on other things.

Aahh here comes the wonderful reprise! And she’s suddenly the Belle AS??

DAMN the last couple notes gave me chills again.

I’m so proud and happy for her y’all.

Kei and Tomo’s father needs to be pushed off a bridge. He is such a bastard.

Bro are you for real? They managed to locate where Kei and Tomo are solely based off of the announcement tune they barely heard and two building shown outside their window? Fucking incredible.

Suzu is taking the long trip to Tokyo all by herself to save these kids, amazing. I thank the couple of choir ladies for helping her though!

Having hold a conversation with her father warms my heart. Sure it’s by text but it still means so much.

Thank god she actually found the boys, but their dad can kindly fuck off though.

Goddamn dude! You didn’t have to pull on her face so hard!

It’s great that the dad ran away totally scared but he deserved to be knocked out. Of course Suzu wouldn’t have done that, but I would.

Bro they’re so cute.. this hug! Them learning from each other! And.. Kei’s love confession?? HELLO??

Aw, Suzu’s dad was waiting for her at the train! They’re finally gonna have dinner together! Happy family!!

“I’m done being your guardian. We can just be normal friends. It’s what I always wanted.” I mean that’s nice that you think she’s strong enough to look out for herself now Shinobu, but I kinda liked the idea of you two getting closer? Can that still happen please? I was rooting for you both!

OKAY OR NOT. The movie can just end there with all of them getting ready to sing again, that’s fine. But Suzu and Shinobu would’ve been cute, just saying.

I am.. so content and happy right now. Beautiful film. Would definitely watch several times over. Mmmhm this better win some awards y’all I swear.

#belle: ryu to sobakasu no hime #episode reaction #even though it's a movie.. im just too lazy to create another tag since these are rare for me to actually write about

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ancient-day · 3 years

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On the Third Semester and PT Awareness

Over the year, I’ve seen various interpretations concerning the third semester and how “guilty” the Phantom Thieves are in falling prey to Maruki’s reality, and I wanted to throw out my own take and observation on the group. And this observation is based under the assumption that Akira has reached Confidant Rank 10 with every single party member, including Akechi and Sumire.

This isn’t to argue with anyone, and I’m not looking to make any sort of “I’m right; therefore, you’re wrong if you don’t agree” arguments here because at the end of the day, responses to media will always vary, and these characters are all human enough to have a multitude of interpretations. That does not make them badly written, it simply means that we as the audience may have different understandings based on our own personal experiences that impact how we view the characters.

With all that being said, I’ll get right into it. Do I think the PT were “bad friends” to Akira in the third semester? Short answer: It’s complicated, and different friends fulfill different needs. Long answer, below.

Starting with Akechi.

I’m gonna get this out of the way, but worry not, this isn’t an elaborate excuse to gush about their bond even if they’re my favorite characters. Bias aside, Akira and Akechi have a solid bond where they’ve finally come to rely on each other, and we finally get to see that come into play in this final arc of the game.

In Rank 8, Akechi expresses admiration for Akira’s strength and admits that he’d be relying on him in a pinch.

And this is exactly what he does when he seeks out Akira as soon as he’s let out of police custody. He notices things are odd and immediately goes to the person he knows he can rely on so that they can figure it out together. It’s painted as a deal, and obviously that appears strictly transactional, but that’s exactly how Akira has operated in his own relationships. He makes deals with his confidants; this is nothing new.

He even admits that he’d have snapped Akira out of the delusion, just like Akira does for all his other friends (albeit in a much less gentle way, but in his defense, he’s not exactly equipped for gently talking someone out of their happiness).

So for better or for worse, Akechi’s here with all the straightforwardness and sharp edges you could expect from someone dragged back from death’s door to deal with yet another manipulative adult trying to control his and his friend’s lives. He isn’t without his sympathetic moments, but for the most part, he’s clearly trying to be the consistent voice of reason when anyone may falter.

One of the most incredible displays of this is 2/2. By this point, all of the PT have been broken out of their trance, and they’re well aware that Maruki is going to confront Akira, especially because Akechi basically goes out of his way to point out that it’s the most likely scenario in their group chat.

Even though they all know this, they trust Akira to be able to handle this as their leader and to reach out if he needs anything. The problem here is that... Akira isn’t exactly known to do this. By now, they’ve all known him for a year, and they know that he handles most of his shit alone (mostly due to the Protagonist ProblemTM where the protag has to be mostly self-reliant to give the player something to do, but there are also instances of Akira deliberately hiding his pain and trauma from others to ease their minds [his headaches and responses to Shido]).

So why are they making him do it alone? Why isn’t anyone on stand-by? It’s possible they consider Morgana as enough support, so perhaps the thought never crosses their mind. Even Morgana is apprehensive about the whole thing, but doesn’t advise him to contact anyone else.

So who does give him back-up? Akechi. He doesn’t invite himself in, he doesn’t text Akira to let him know he’s just outside in case he needs him, and he doesn’t draw attention to it until Maruki calls him out.

He could be here for any number of reasons, and it doesn’t even have to be just one reason. But let’s assume he’s here because he wants to make sure Akira won’t be swayed by Maruki’s words or the temptation of his life without him being present to speak for himself. In both cases, he’s emotionally backing Akira up and going out of his way to help in his own way.

This speaks volumes for his strength of resolve and how far he’s come.

I don’t need to discuss the rest of this interaction because the primary focus is that Akechi demonstrates his friendship by being there for Akira even when his year-long friends weren’t (physically).

But are they bad friends for not doing this?

Not necessarily. Not everyone has this kind of strength and awareness to understand their friends on this level. Akira and Akechi understand each other well because they’re very similar at their core. This isn’t necessarily bias because the game goes out of its way to show and tell us this (hell, Arsene’s and Loki’s silhouettes are strikingly similar!). It makes them inconsiderate perhaps, but it doesn’t mean that they’re overall bad friends.

It’s not completely their fault that they buy Akira’s stoic leader personality. He doesn’t really give them much to work with, and as much as we all want to believe that we’d do better as friends, sometimes you really do think people can handle the problems they say they can and just hope that they’ll come to you when they need you. It’s human.

So rewinding now that I’m done focusing on what Akechi offered as a friend this semester and going back to the PT being under Maruki’s influence.

Each of the thieves offers Akira an apology during their third awakening, and I’m sure many people found this highly unnecessary because as far as we know, they were completely brainwashed by Maruki’s control on the world around them. However, if this were the case, then why would they feel so deeply apologetic? I have a couple theories about this.

One. This would be the second time Akira has to push them out of their own wallowing (the first time in the Velvet Room just before fighting Yaldabaoth), and their resolves back then would appear flimsy to them now having fallen under yet another form of manipulation. Where before they were ready to submit to the hopelessness and sloth, here they’re falling under Maruki’s spell because a strong enough part of them desired things to be different regardless of how far they’d come and how much they’d grown.

Two. Because they were at least partially aware things were odd and willingly chose to ignore it because they didn’t want to confront the truth.

This is said before the third awakenings, right after the group comes to rescue Akira and Akechi and help defeat berserk!Cendrillon. While the group had a conversation about vaguely remembering events that contradict their happy reality prior to this, this confirms that at least Futaba was aware things were odd even before Akira tried to snap her out of it. Whether this is due to her navigation abilities or her awakening having been linked to her desire to never again turn her eyes away from the truth, it’s hard to say. But this is important to note that while they were tempted by Maruki, at least one person in the group was aware that things were odd and willingly chose not to question it.

Can we blame her? Of course not. But it’s still worth pointing out that this situation isn’t so clear as “the PT had absolutely zero idea that they were in an odd situation until Akira tried to wake them from it.”

So what about everyone else? What do they really have to be sorry for?

Morgana apologizes for not holding true to his resolve, and he feels as though he’s let both himself and Akira down in doing so. He also acknowledges that he’s responsible for shoving all his own problems onto Akira and vows to change this.

While he doesn’t seem to admit to any awareness that things were odd before Akira put the idea in his head, it seems like he still holds himself responsible for having had doubts in his resolve that he’d reached with Akira in their rank 10. And these doubts caused him to rely on that false happiness and turn his back on Akira, even if he didn’t mean to.

I think it’s great that he brings attention to this and wants to be more independent. Of course Akira will still be there for him, but it’s not healthy for either of them for Morgana to have put him in this position, and now they can continue growing in their friendship. And so when he promises to protect Akira from here on out, it’s a vow that rings true because he had the strength to confront his own weaknesses, admit to them, and apologize for how they hurt someone he cares deeply about. Sometimes we hurt people we love without meaning to or when we’re caught up in ourselves.

And these characters are teenagers. They’re inherently pretty selfish, which isn’t an evil or bad thing so much as it’s a stage of life that makes it difficult to look outside yourself. Makoto even admits to this in her own apology.

When we’re fans of these characters, our instinct is to say you didn’t do anything wrong; you have nothing to apologize for, but these apologies aren’t coming out of no where, and they’re allowed to reflect and regret what they’ve done even if they didn’t mean to.

And I know I already touched on Futaba’s situation here, but there’s something else in her third awakening that shows her bond with Akira and adds to her guilt. She specifically fears that she’s betrayed him and hurt him greatly, even though he reassures her she hasn’t. Why does this stand out to me? Because all throughout Royal, one of Akira’s consistent fears is the fear of betrayal.

And this shows that Futaba knows him well enough to know this is something that hurts him personally, and she’s worried she did that to him. While the hurt isn’t as severe as she fears, it’s a fair assumption for her to come to after having admitted that she willingly turned away from the truth.

I’m going to cut the awakenings here because I don’t have much else to add about the entirety of the PT because it could end up redundant, but these were specific examples that show that they do have things to apologize to Akira for, and it’s not a matter of them blaming themselves for being “brainwashed” so much as them apologizing for once again putting Akira in a position where he has to snap them out of their weaknesses after they’ve promised to be there for him.

The overall impression I get from their responsibility in the matter is that to an extent, all of them probably experienced something similar to what Futaba described about having felt something was off initially but ignored/denied it until Akira came to them and really made them confront it out loud. Her sense of it may have been the strongest, but I still think there has to be some degree in each of them, even if faint.

This makes them human, flawed yet sympathetic. They’re allowed to mess up in their friendships, especially since a majority of them have close to no experience with friendship as is. Akechi isn’t the better support here due to his own skills in friendship; he and Akira have a special understanding of one another because they’re extremely similar and aren’t convinced by masks and appearances. And Akechi has been severely manipulated, so he knows damn well that Akira’s gonna need back-up against another manipulative person even if he thinks he can handle it alone. Akechi’s been there and he knows how that goes.

So it’s not necessarily a matter of him being the better friend overall so much as they’re all Akira’s close friends and support him in various ways. And ideally, Akira should have that in his friend group. There are things that the PT can offer that Akechi can’t, and vice versa. But I think it’s more than fair to acknowledge when the PT slip up and have a messy handling of their relationships.

They’re all growing and learning.

#jest ramblings #whoops i rambled but there are at least screenshots here?#I was gonna go through each of the 3rd tier awakenings but tbh this is already so long #kingdom queue

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canyouhearthelight · 4 years

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The Miys, Ch. 108

And we are somewhat caught up! My queue has run out at least, and I’m astoundingly glad it has, because now I get to thank a bunch of people who have just detonated my inbox with love, and kept me going.

Before I get into the gratitude: If, at any point, a comment a character makes does not make sense, please let me know. Send an ask, even on anon, because I am well aware that everything in my brain does not get a chance to make it in the story (example: Charly’s triangle comment here, and the fact that Noah’s dialogue in the beginning has an actual translation…)

First, shoutouts to @charlylimph-blog, @baelpenrose, and @quantumizedinsanity for the characters in this chapter and for being very, VERY dear friends to me. A global pandemic and nationwide protests, along with a job change and a major move, have done nothing to hurt friendships that are already cross-country from each other.

Annnnd to everyone who has been blowing up my notes with likes and reblogs: @dierotenixe(hang in there! i PROMISE!), @iamverypotato,@itscryptifssil, @steadynightninja, @thepalemarcher, @feral-possums-in-the-bog, @26fancyraptors(MISSED YOU!), @werewolf2578 (we don’t talk enough, how are you!?), @experimentalspades, @odd-dream-worlds, @duchess-katala03, @pineapplewitchboi, @dark-choclat-cupcake, @littleshydragon, and all the others.

I held my breath, bracing for what I knew was coming. Nothing came after several minutes, to my surprise. I slowly lifted my head and opened my eyes, focusing on drawing deep, even breaths. Maybe he got bored and wandered off. Maybe he had mercy on me….

Yeah. And maybe Grey is making genetically modified fish that fly.

Slowly, carefully, I grabbed my fork and lifted a bite of pie to my mouth. A glance at Charly showed a serious expression, nothing given away. Damnit. I knew she could see Arthur behind me, I was hoping for a telltale giggle, or a warning glance, something. Right when a traitorous voice of reason spoke up belatedly to point out that Charly was never serious…

“You really will adopt anyone, won’t you?” Arthur asked as he came around to take the chair Jokul had just vacated.

Fuuuuuck…. Busted. “I didn’t adopt him!” I tried to argue. “I actually made a very concerted effort to avoid that!”

Unceremoniously, he snagged Charly’s pot pie, only to have his hand held at fork-point until he let go. Without even acknowledging the lunch-standoff, he leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. “You tried to ‘avoid’ it by foisting him off on Zach Khan, your… nephew, thing, and his girlfriend. Still adoption-adjacent.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to interact with him.”

“Uh huh. And how will you explain to poor Hannah that dear Ivan’s partner isn’t invited to Insert Winter Holiday dinner, hmmm?”

“I hate you.”

“Lies and deceit,” he rebutted calmly. “You adopted me first. Before anyyyyone on this ship. I daresay you’re quite fond of me.”

I scowled at him, shoving my remaining lunch in his direction. “Here, before you start poaching this direction.”

An eyebrow arched in the general direction of my fish pie. “That looks suspiciously like dairy. You wound me.” Grabbing my fork, he poked at the lumps of meat. “I would have thought you would be at least a little subtle in any assassination attempts. Have I taught you nothing?”

“Of course you taught me something,” I cooed, jokingly, while I patted his arm. “The fastest way to a man’s heart is six inches of steel through the ribs, slight upward angle. Cyanide smells like bitter almonds, so always use shortbread cookies to administer it. Three pounds of pressure will tear off a human ear, and even a three year old can bite through fingers,” I recited. “Also, the pie is dairy-free, surprisingly. The ‘cream’ is silken tofu and aquafaba, turns out.”

Charly was choking with laughter, while Arthur finally smiled at me. “See, I told you that you love me,” he gloated before scooping up a scallop and some crust. As soon as he started chewing, his expression changed from one of amusement to something strikingly similar to Mac when I flick water in his face.

“Scallops,” I explained. “I had the same reaction.”

“Heathens,” he managed around the mouthful. After he swallowed it, he gave the dish a considering look. “Not bad per se, but… There is no fish in this fish pie. What is aquafaba?”

“Chicpea juice. Usually it’s used as an egg substitute. I guess they used it for consistency here.”

Charly leaned forward, narrowly avoiding landing an elbow in her lunch. “And how can you tell that’s what’s in there?”

Glancing over at his student, Arthur shrugged. “She has a point. This,” he poked at the sauce, “looks like heavy cream.”

“Tastes kind of nutty, though,” I explained. “Anyway, enough about food. What brings you down here?”

“Galactic Core Curriculum,” he explained. “That’s the excuse anyway. Alistair - Cthulu damn his soul - told me you were eating lunch here after fifteen minutes of questioning. Tyche told me Charly was with you, so I figured lunch with you, lunch with one of my favorite students, plus I can kill two errands with one meal.” Charly stared at him like he had lost his mind, but he ignored her. “When I arrived - lo! What to my wondering eyes should appear, than a certain former cult leader harassing said friend and student! What person could resist such a temptation.” Deflating dramatically, he scowled at me. “Imagine my delight to hear you giving him relationship advice,” he intoned flatly.

“I got him to go away,” I pointed out.

“Before I managed even one strike in a highly one-sided battle of wits.“

“Mr. Farro,” Charly cut off, glaring for all she was worth. “Jokull came in peace, he leaves in peace.”

“Oh, he would have left in pieces. His ego anyway.”

“Fucking triangles, I swear,” Charly muttered, attacking her lunch with renewed violence.

“Anyway,” I forged ahead. “Jokul was here for fifteen, twenty minutes. You had your chance.”

He glanced away with a cough. “I… may have been resisting the urge to vomit.”

“Arthur.”

“Relationship advice is… not in my skillset,” he admitted. “Tell you your partner is abusive? Can spot a mile a way. Great for getting people out of bad relationships, with concierge crowbar service if necessary. Not great for saving them.”

“Crowbar? Really?”

“You know, for prying people out of bad situations?” He genuinely looked confused, so I left that one alone.

“For what it’s worth, Jokull wanted to talk to you about what he’s going through right now,” Charly added.

“Why in any galaxy…”

I had to laugh at that one. “Everyone treats him poorly,” I shrugged before giving Arthur a pointed look. “He’s having a rough time right now, feels like he has no one to talk to except Ivan, and thought you would have some insight into that kind of thing.”

“What part of this,” he gestured to himself with a fork, “implies anything remotely close to wanting people to like me and therefore actually knowing how to accomplish that.”

“I’m not even going to dignify that with an answer,” I muttered.

Giving me a hard, thoughtful look, Arthur’s entire demeanor changed. “Ah… On a more serious note, though… yeah. I don’t get why people not liking you is a problem, but you’ve told me before it’s something that bothers you, so it’s feasible it bothers other people. I’ll make a point not to make it worse.”

Clearing my throat, I pushed the conversation on to the next topic. “You mentioned two errands earlier. One for me, one for Charly?”

“Right.” The relief to be changing topics was palpable. “For you, Councillor, Galactic Core is almost finished. Eino is already considering other ongoing-education programs, and you’re going to need to start scouting educators again. That late-twentieth through contemporary Terran history course? Big support-base, turns out.”

“You wouldn’t tell me this without a reason,” I pointed out. “And you’re a History teacher. Volunteering?”

“I want it done right,” he admitted. “The idea being bounced around isn’t for a requirement that everyone take the course. Not at the same time, anyway. History-focused educators only, approved curriculum.”

“Approved?” I asked. “By whom?”

“A committee,” he shrugged. “Eino, obviously. Xiomara, with her background - which, by the way, is ridiculous - “

“We know, we know,” Charly and I groaned.

After glancing between us for a moment, Arthur continued. “And me.”

“Why you?” I asked. “No offense, just trying to understand.”

“No offense taken, I’ll explain that part later, but I promise it’s for a legitimate reason. The point is, Eino and his committee approve the curriculum and number of slots. You and Tyche make the decisions for who is allotted where.”

“Fair point,” I conceded.

“Fine. The area of history I focused on for my Master’s degree has an important component that ties a lot together and makes revisionism harder - wait. What?” I could almost hear the gears squealing as they ground to a halt. “Did you just say yes?”

“Basically, yeah.”

“That was… disturbingly easy,” he gave me a skeptical look. When all I did was grin, he slowly turned to Charly. “As for you, I wanted to talk to you about the assignment that’s due next Friday.”

“I already turned it in,” she pointed out.

“Which is what I wanted to talk to you about. It’s a week and a half early.”

“Right….” she nodded slowly. “And I made sure it met all the criteria on the syllabus. Plus I had three different people proofread it.”

“All of which is admirable, and it would be considered a very well-done assignment,” he admitted. “If you didn’t have an extra week and a half left to make it even better.”

“Mr. Farro….”

“You aren’t in trouble, in any way shape or form,” he reassured her. “But I know you are capable of doing better than the assignment you already gave me. I wanted to offer you a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Charly asked suspiciously. “This isn’t illegal, is it?”

“What? No…” he sputtered. “Illegal!?”

“Gotta be sure,” she nodded sincerely. I was reasonably certain she was giving him a hard time, but it was still hilarious to watch.

Shaking his head, Arthur did his best to recover. “The deal is this: if you stick with the assignment you already sent me, I’ll grade it as it stands. But. If you re-do it and hand it in on the original due date, you’ll be eligible for extra credit for your extra effort.”

“But I still get the grade on the one you already have, either way?” she asked skeptically.

“I’ve already graded it, and you won’t get a worse grade if you re-do it,” he promised.

“I’ll think about it,” she hedged carefully. “That paper was a lot of work.”

“That’s fair,” he nodded. “What if you sent me an audio recording, instead? No extra writing.”

“I can do that,” she agreed, sticking out her hand. After Arthur shook it, she glanced at the time. “Shit. I gotta go. Sophia, don’t be late back to work, okay? Tyche won’t care, but Alistair may stop letting me have extra marshmallows in my cocoa when I come by your office.”

After she left, I gave Arthur a very serious look. He tried to ignore it, but after about five solid minutes of The Squint, he caved. “For the love of… She’s smart, okay? You know, I know it. The paper she handed in a week and a half early was much more insightful than anyone else in the class. They were assigned a research paper on the underlying causes of the breakdown in relations between the Ekomari and Shalt-kri’i. Everyone focused on political ideologies, trade resources, navigational route control. Standard causes for war, from a Terran perspective. Do you know what Charly Harper wrote her paper about?”

“Food?” I asked, going out on a limb.

“So close! Cultural differences, plain and simple. Ekomari are vaguely mammalian, and their diet consists of native arthropods. Guess what Shalt-kri’i look like?”

“You’re kidding me…”

“Not even slightly. And! To add insult to injury, in a very close to literal sense, Shalt-kri’i greet each other as friends by spreading their appendages, a lot like a hug. Whereas Ekomari show aggression by… standing up on their hindmost appendages and spreading the rest to look bigger.”

“And no one caught this before?”

“Not on the Ark, no.” He spread his arms wide. “No one even considered it. Sure, the rest are good points, and they did make everything worse, more than likely, but the start? She nailed it.”

“Then why have her re-write the assignment?” I was honestly confused at this point.

“The way she wrote it, I could tell she wasn’t confident about the answer at all.” He looked about as frustrated as I had ever seen him. “You get her talking about engineering, or pranks, she knows she knows what she is talking about. I want her to know that she is just as right about this as she was about that.”

Hard to believe that this was the same man whose office I had marched into, out for a pound of flesh and the blood besides, because the same woman we were discussing left his class in tears and begged me not to make her go back. However…

“Honestly?” I ventured. “I want to hear this recording when she hands it in. I’m really curious about this.”

“You think she’ll write it?”

“Pfft,” I scoffed. “I know she will. You gave her a challenge where she can’t lose, but stands a lot to gain. I just hope you’re ready for that sound file.”

“I honestly can’t wait,” he smirked.

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#the miys #humans are weird #humans are space orcs #found family #aspec #science fiction #original science fiction #earth is space australia #humans are space fae #hfy #fiction #original fiction #my writing #apocalypse #aliens #post-apocalypse

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snakedevour · 3 years

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my thoughts on chapter 81 ahead, fellas. it feels like it’s been a while since i analyzed a chapter drop but in my defense they only release once a month and 80.5 didn’t give me a lot of meat to bite into.

nyanyway -- here’s kkg 81. this chapter brings the focus back onto yumeko a little bit, showing us again how she plays, how she thinks, and how she challenges the people around her. basically, for me, this chapter was the whole buffet after several chapters of scraps.

SPOILERS BELOW.

i made a post maybe a week or so ago at this point mentioning that i wanted to talk about how yumeko’s friendliness is “impersonal” despite being genuine and how that feeds into her ( for lack of better words ). and i’m still going to do that and it’ll be in a separate post from this one but this chapter gave me some ammunition in regards to that thought.

the thing that makes yumeko difficult to navigate in terms of interacting with her is that she challenges the conventional definition of “kind” and in a way kind of forces you to delineate between that and “friendly”.

yumeko is a cocktail with two major components:

1. she is friendly 2. she is powerful

and when you have a friendly powerful person it’s easy to fall into the trap tsubomi has here, in which you feel that because you side with someone friendly and powerful you’re inherently under their protection.

and in a lot of storytellings that’d typically be true... but yumeko is awfully atypical. recall tsubomi’s commentary from chapter 63:

so long as we frame “friendly” as something that inherently goes hand-in-hand with “good” i think we set ourselves up to misunderstand yumeko’s personality. yumeko is friendly but she is not altruistic. yumeko does not “save” people; every time that it seems that she has it’s because they “won” it from her -- yumeko has never been benevolent for benevolence’s sake.

by a lot of standard definitions, i’d argue that she’s not even a good person.

it’s really nice to be reminded of that weird layer of nuance. we’re also reminded of something that might have gotten overshadowed by her comparative calmness lately and the housepet drama from the last few chapters --

more than just wantonly putting herself at risk, yumeko is obsessed with simultaneously imposing high antes on other people.

let’s briefly throw all the way back to chapter 16 just to get that in her own words:

i kind of want to say that yumeko has sadomasochistic tendencies but that’s probably for another post another day.

anyway, this takes us back to today and chapter 81, where tsubomi goes on to notice the folly in her own thinking:

paired with her thoughts from chapter 63 this says a lot.

“would yumeko bother helping me if I’m not taking any risk?”

i’m pretty sure the answer is no.

this really just sort of further cements my original opinion that yumeko definitely operates on some sort of metric of “earning” what one has. if you’re interested in my thought piece on that subject it’s right over here.

i really like where tsubomi’s train of thought is going here. up until now we’ve seen yumeko’s cutthroat mentality mostly as applied to herself and an opposing player. we’ve seen her drive the stakes high with yuriko, with sayaka, with miyo and miri and so on.

this is what i mean when i say yumeko’s friendliness has an element of uncanny valley to it. you can argue that we’ve seen yumeko drag people into gambling alongside her ( like itsuki ), but we haven’t really seen it in this kind of light where it’s leveraged against her willingness to help people.

so +1 to chapter 81 for re-highlighting this fact about yumeko.

moving along, tsubomi is having these thoughts in the first place because terano came by and pointed out to her that she’s an “extra”, and per the logistics of the game yumeko only really needs suzui’s cooperation to win. then we cut to this short set-up scene where yumeko tells the gang ( and us ) the plan for this turn:

this gets tsubomi thinking. because yumeko is donating to suzui, she’ll have 0 points which means if tsubomi challenges her, she’ll win and thereby fulfill the requirements of her life plan to “knock either yumeko or terano out of the election”. tsubomi we’ve seen in past games though is still kind of coming into her own individuality, and is very much used to just taking orders. on top of that, she still feels indebted to yumeko for pushing her to play against kiwatari during the debt swap indian poker.

another thing i commented about in the past was the “human” qualities and motivations of the characters. tsubomi is a real highlight of this chapter because she reminds us of that quality too, because terano’s remarks spark what i think is a very organic conflict in her thoughts:

“i don’t want to be a housepet” vs “i don’t want to betray the girl i’m indebted to”

“i want to live as a person” vs “i want to keep a good conscience”

it’s the portrayal of internal struggles like these that make me angy at the sexualization in this series because these really show that it just isn’t needed. kawamoto absolutely knows what he’s writing and it’s not like he’s writing it poorly so its like...what gives.

not to make this about yumeko again but she does seem to get pretty meta here. i’m pretty certain that she knows what tsubomi is thinking here and i’ll also go as far as to suggest that she might have even set up the play this way to test tsubomi’s mettle. i’ll get into that here in a moment though :)

i say yumeko has an idea of what’s going through tsubomi’s mind here just because her question is very telling -- “have you made your decision?” -- yumeko definitely knows that some sort of choice has been imposed onto tsubomi, and tsubomi’s mentioning of her lack of guidance this turn also implies that yumeko is leaving her to fend for herself. which i think is something yumeko will always do. we’ve established that she’s not altruistic in the slightest...i don’t think yumeko is at all interested in people who lack the will to help themselves, regardless of how pitiable their circumstances.

i know suzui is supposed to be the audience-proxy but idk my guys... i think tsubomi is shaping up to be the better conduit through which we see yumeko’s real colors.

also, more of yumeko giving us some insight into her values and how she thinks... but @ naomura why did you draw her doing this. yumeko you look SILLY but ily anyway

“only a choice at the end of agony can move your heart” -- yumeko’s starting to give me vibes of someone who’s apathetic unless the ante is driven wildly high hence why she does it but i need at least one more backstory drop before i speak more on that one. just saying it’d line up with a few things tho

moving on, it follows that tsubomi ultimately decides to challenge yumeko because that’s the logical thing to do if she wants to look out for herself. plus some commentary from terano about how it’s all according to keikaku.

anyway, i really enjoyed this next sequence because it throws back to yumeko even more. it reminds us that while yumeko loves taking on huge risks, that doesn’t mean she plays to lose. it’s been a while since we’ve seen yumeko engage in a setup like this so it was great to see that kawamoto still remember what kind of gambler she is:

i actually really love terano but i do enjoy seeing yumeko consistently trip her up. it really upholds yumeko’s role as a dark horse.

anyway, remember how i said yumeko probably set this play up to see what tsubomi would do? this is where we can circle back to that because we see, in fact, that yumeko did not donate her points to suzui like she said she would.

yumeko is such a convoluted character that you can get caught up on one aspect of her character to the point of forgetting another. in recent chapters we’ve seen her in a supporting role: supporting mary, seemingly helping tsubomi... but thanks chapter 81 for reminding us that yumeko is a gambler before she’s anything else and can and will set up other players. this also kind of raises a mild albeit interesting moral quandary: i think it’s pretty safe to say that this was manipulative on yumeko’s part, but it could also be argued that this is a gamble and she read far enough ahead and just acted accordingly. i think that ambiguity is the point.

and that’s the jist chapter 81, and tbh i really enjoyed it. it felt like i was back in ye olden days of yore where kkg was yumeko’s misadventures. for a while there it felt like they were like “ok we’ve established she’s a really good gambler we must shine the spotlight elsewhere now” -- which is fair, don’t get me wrong. knowing the rest of the -bamis is really important to the plot. it’s just nice to see yumeko back in action proper again 🥺

#the kkg deep dive #kakegurui spoilers #are there typos in this? probably #i'll scan it over again later but my brain cells are fried for now #but 81 was Really Good #the whole buffet #long post /

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bemused-writer · 4 years

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Analysis of Subaru, Kamui, and Subaru/Kamui

Ever since I first read X/1999 I was of the Subaru/Kamui persuasion. The two have each suffered a great deal and went out of their way to support one another; every single scene they have is of them doing just that as best they can. And since I have returned to my X/1999 obsession with a vengeance, I figure it’s time to take a look at this ship–and the characters themselves–with everything I got. Technically, this is not a “confirmed” ship. Technically, there are a lot of unconfirmed or implied ships floating around X/1999. I figure that's on account of CLAMP’s multishipping tendencies. Anyhow…

Before we get into this, I won't be taking Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicles into account for two reasons: 1) It is an AU and therefore is supposed to give us an alternative look at the characters and 2) If I start including the plotlines of Tsubasa we will never finish this review. X/1999 is already plenty long. 8D I might do a separate post about their interactions in Tsubasa once I reread that manga, though.

With that out of the way, let’s take a look. One of the most obvious things people have to say about these two is that they’re reflections of each other. They’ve been through similar experiences and similar traumas. Their reactions to those experiences are quite different, however, and goes a long way towards explaining why they take separate paths later in the series. Let’s start with their first meeting.

When Subaru first meets Kamui, it’s literally at the worst phase of Kamui’s life. His best friend, Fuuma, has just had his brain washed thanks to fate (!) and the woman he loved, Kotori, was murdered by said best friend right before his eyes. As if all that wasn’t bad enough, he was nearly killed by Fuuma as well, which took on a weird, sexual vibe, which becomes pretty consistent on Fuuma’s part throughout the series.

All of this is extremely similar to what Subaru endured at Seishirou’s hands in Tokyo Babylon years earlier (although the sexual component with Seishirou is toned down quite a bit in comparison). There are some notable differences in circumstance, however, and these circumstances are important to understanding the fundamental differences between Subaru and Kamui themselves. As Subaru says, their pain isn’t the same.

The most pertinent difference between the two is the cause that led them into a coma in the first place and what ultimately brought them out of it. For Subaru, the betrayal and abuse at the hands of the man he loved is what sent him into a coma while the death of his sister, the other person he loved most, is what brought him out of it. In other words, traumatic shock put him into a coma and traumatic shock forced him out of it. There wasn't a single moment that wasn't painful.

For Kamui, it’s quite different. The death of the woman he loved along with the betrayal and abuse at the hands of his best friend is what sent him into the coma. It was doubly traumatic because Kamui lost everything all at once. This is a big part of why Sorata was so worried Kamui would never wake up; he literally had nothing tying him to reality. The only two people he'd ever had a significant bond with were both gone in one fell swoop. The only reason he emerged from this is, of course, because of Subaru’s intervention.

Perhaps the only reason Kamui is even slightly well-adjusted is thanks to the much gentler wake-up call he had in comparison to Subaru. Frankly, after Hokuto died, Subaru didn't have anyone for nine years. It's no wonder he dwelled on nothing but Seishirou, barely managed his duties as head of the Sumeragi clan, and developed a suicidal wish to keep him going.

Kamui has Subaru, so he managed to avoid a lot of that. He's still obsessed with Fuuma, but he has other things to occupy his time with.

Some other differences in Subaru and Kamui's backstory to keep in mind: Seishirou was acting like a good guy in Tokyo Babylon. Fate had absolutely nothing to do with his transformation into a bad guy; that's just how he is. Fuuma actually was a good person who had the good persona wiped away and replaced with ... his fated personality, I suppose. I think this explains some of Kamui's stubbornness when it comes to rescuing Fuuma; he knows fate isn't fair and Fuuma was a victim of it.

Subaru has no such delusions. He knows Seishirou was playing him for a fool and he knows he has no regrets about it. It's why his wish isn't to fix Seishirou; it's merely to die at his hands, so he can finally let go of the whole thing.

And Subaru does his best to keep himself at a distance from his fellow Dragons of Heaven for the sake of this endeavor. He doesn't really befriend any of them or spend any real amount of time with them; he knows his wish will bring nothing but pain to anyone that cares for him, so he tries to avoid those attachments. I suspect we wouldn't have heard much from Subaru in this series if he hadn't become unexpectedly attached to Kamui himself.

So, let's get back to their first meeting. Kamui is in a coma and Subaru delves into his memories in order to help him. This isn't the first time Subaru has done this, and there are a few parallels to his previous case to consider with this one.

In volume 2 of Tokyo Babylon, Subaru has to help a woman, Mitsuki, that he once knew that had fallen into a coma after being sexually assaulted. It's implied this is the first time Subaru has entered someone's mind to help them, and he comments it will be easier if she remembers him at least a little. He'd been dreaming of her earlier that very day.

Now, not only does Mitsuki remember him, it's revealed that she's harbored a crush on him since they were children. It's never made very clear whether or not Subaru returns those feelings, although there are some jokes from Seishirou that she is his rival in love. Regardless, Subaru saves a woman that considers him special and only emerges from her coma thanks to Subaru's kind words.

So, when Subaru enters Kamui’s mind, he knows it will be dangerous. Kamui doesn’t know him at all; there isn’t any kind of attachment to make this easier. But the end result is very similar to what we see in Tokyo Babylon: Kamui emerges both because of Subaru’s kind words, but also because he’s found someone that understands the pain he’s been through to some degree. Both Mitsuki and Kamui reverted to childhood in their sorrow as well, a time where things were much simpler and the world easier to understand.

There’s no doubt that Kamui considers Subaru special after this. How could he not? And if we compare Kamui’s case directly with Mitsuki’s there’s at least the implication he may grow to care for Subaru in a similar fashion to Mitsuki. CLAMP went out of there way to draw as many comparisons between Subaru’s past and Kamui’s present as they could within this series, so I think it’s fair to make this assumption.

It's also notable that Subaru's own feelings on the matter are harder to read in both situations. Did he have feelings for Mitsuki or was she simply a treasured friend from his past? Her words had haunted him for years at that point, so her opinion definitely mattered. Likewise, it's harder for us to tell what he thinks about Kamui. We can tell there's a deep bond and affection there, but it's not quite as straightforward.

The hug is actually quite important here. They held one another in the dreamscape and then continued to in reality. This is interesting because neither Subaru nor Kamui are physically affectionate people. Subaru only ever hugged his sister and maintains a kind of no-contact rule with people in general. He never initiated physical contact with Seishirou throughout Tokyo Babylon and definitely doesn't in X/1999. He doesn't go out of his way to pat his fellow Dragons of Heaven on the back the way Sorata does. The only exception is Kamui.

As for Kamui, he just … isn’t affectionate. 8D You’ll recall how crabby he was at the beginning of X/1999. He was pushing everyone away in a misguided attempt at protecting them. Then, one of the only notable times he initiated physical contact was when he held Kotori in his arms and cupped Fuuma’s cheek for the last time, and that was when he was incredibly distressed and finally willing to admit how much he cared about them both.

These are two people he’s known and trusted his whole life, so it makes sense he would allow some physical contact between them. Consider how he reacts to Sorata, Keiichi, evil!Fuuma, and pretty much anyone else that tries to initiate physical contact: it’s met with either confusion, overt hostility, or acceptance without reciprocation. Honestly, Sorata’s gotten all three of these reactions… 8D

The one exception is Subaru, who he not only accepts physical contact from, but will also initiate. So, the two of them are relatively similar in how they approach this, which is something we'll see throughout this review.

While Subaru was in Kamui’s dreamscape, they discuss several important things, such as the fact Kamui is trying to escape reality and the fact nothing will change or improve if he remains in the coma. He also explains his relationship with Seishirou and how things became much worse when he refused to leave the confines of his own mind.

But there’s a small detail CLAMP drops that I always found interesting.

This isn’t meant to show Kamui as naive. On the contrary, this is actually pretty wise and gets back to Subaru’s Shinto roots. Subaru is an onmyoji, a follower of onmyodo, which is a mix of Chinese philosophy (the five elements, yin-yang theory, etc.), Buddhism, and has elements of Japanese philosophy, i.e. Shintoism.

In Shinto, things really do have lives, and they deserve respect. It's yet another demonstration of how the Sakurazukamori are the opposite of the Sumeragi; they use these basic ideals and corrupt them. Things aren’t important, and neither are people.

So, in one fell swoop, Kamui has reminded Subaru of his own philosophy and demonstrated a fundamental difference between his worldview and Seishirou’s. Kamui is approaching things from a similar place Subaru would have when he was younger (it’s hard to say how much faith Subaru has in his own practice at this point; he’s pretty jaded).

Ultimately, Subaru asks Kamui several questions that give insight into both of their mindsets while they're in the dreamscape: If his [Fuuma’s] true self is restored, are you willing to tell him you killed Kotori? Even if it means he’ll hate you? Even if you must shoulder the blame for the rest of your life? Even if no one else will understand what you wished for and the reasons why?

It’s a pretty serious line of questioning because, in all honesty, what Kamui wants is dangerous. There’s no guarantee he can ever have it, and if he does attain his wish, no one will be spared the repercussions of it, least of all himself. In contrast, Subaru’s wish is a lot less destructive for the world as a whole, but he’s still hurting the people who care about him with it. Still, a lot of these questions are probably the same ones Subaru has had to ask himself over and over again. He knows no one will understand his own wish, that he will have to shoulder the blame for it, and that some could even hate him for valuing himself so little. He's making absolutely sure that Kamui understands the repercussions.

The thing is, while Kamui is willing to shoulder all the potential problems that might arise when Fuuma is restored, he's not at all prepared to think about whether this wish is what he actually wants or if it's even worth all the other problems that will arise from it. Subaru doesn't bring any of that up likely because he's never had to think of the whole planet with his wish. This is outside his own experience. He's doing his best for Kamui, but there are some things he simply won't understand. It's why he pointed out that his pain and Kamui's pain are different; there are some things they won't understand about each other, even with these similarities.

Our next important scene with Subaru and Kamui takes on a much less dramatic tone, which is probably for the best; there’s very little chill time in this series. 8D

Kamui has enrolled in high school due to its location being where the sword will be hidden until he has need of it. He visits Kotori’s grave, which is nearby, and then goes to study with Subaru, though a fellow classmate, Keiichi, had been trying to gain his attention.

For one brief, shining moment, it’s as if we’re in a completely different series where the world isn’t about to end…

But the first thing that’s interesting about this is that it means they must be conversing off screen if they’re making plans to meet up, which is a theme that becomes very common with these two. Unlike the bulk of the Dragons of Heaven, Subaru doesn't live in the same dormitory as Kamui, so they’d have to figure out some way of meeting up. I would have liked to see some of that planning and how often they meet up to study, but CLAMP leaves all that to the imagination.

At any rate, Subaru has enrolled in the college and Kamui is worried he will get in trouble for skipping class to help him.

There’s a lot that's wrong with this. First of all, Subaru is only enrolled in college because it’s a good way of tracking down Seishirou, which Kamui swiftly picks up on. This is incredibly sad because throughout Tokyo Babylon, Subaru had been trying very hard to graduate from high school so that he could then go to college and become a zookeeper. This complete lack of interest in college or anything he once cared about is constantly present and goes a long way towards explaining why Subaru cracks as the series progresses.

Kamui is always very quick to figure out when Subaru is thinking about the Sakurazukamori even though, outside of their first meeting, he never directly brings him up of his own accord. There isn’t a single time when Kamui looks happy about it either. The sheer frequency with which Kamui brings up the Sakurazukamori makes me think he’s constantly looking for confirmation that that man really is the only person Subaru cares about, as if Kamui is hoping one day he’ll give a different response.

At any rate, what Kamui is really taking issue with here is Subaru’s smoking and his attachment to the Sakurazukamori. Subaru says he smokes because it makes him more powerful (which is such… a lie? Does he think anyone would actually believe that?) to which Kamui has this as a response:

Kamui appears sad and disappointed at the answer because it is a disappointing answer (and a lie, but I digress) and Subaru looks surprised because… I think he was actually worried Kamui thought he would be ineffective as a Dragon of Heaven due to the smoking, that it would hinder him in battle. The fact Kamui is worried about his health didn’t even cross his mind.

Their exact exchange was this:

Kamui: But… don’t you worry that it’ll–

Subaru: It’s fine. Some people find that smoking weakens their powers, but for me it has the opposite effect.

He doesn’t let Kamui finish his sentence and immediately comes across as a little defensive about the whole thing. So, yeah, Subaru didn’t think Kamui would care because he cares about Subaru. He thought Kamui only cared as the Kamui, his leader. Realizing he was mistaken changes the rest of their dynamic for the duration of their study session. Subaru snuffs out the cigarette and resumes where they’d left off.

We don’t actually get to see the rest of the study session, though it's implied it goes on for a while. Keiichi interrupts things at some point because he is determined to hangout with Kamui. His reaction to Subaru is both amusing and kind of telling.

Keiichi’s repeated apologies to Subaru for interrupting and stealing Kamui away followed up by his comment that Subaru is good-looking to Kamui really makes it sound like he thought he was interrupting a date and/or that he thinks Kamui is interested in Subaru. Especially after he turns it all around by telling Kamui that he's really good looking as well and, as if that wasn’t enough, invites him to his house and offers to tutor him.

Uh… I’m just going to say it. Keiichi has never been subtle in regards to his massive crush on Kamui and he clearly thinks he’s stealing Kamui away from a potential love interest. 8D

My goodness. XD I really don’t think Kamui picked up on any of that dynamic. He just thinks Keiichi is friendly and kind of weird. It’s like Kamui has developed Sakura syndrome and Keiichi is Tomoyo.

As for Kamui, we get an idea of how he views Subaru thanks to this exchange and it's pretty interesting. It also explains pretty much every single one of Kamui's reactions to Subaru and why their interactions go the way they do.

There’s definitely a lot of fondness there. He agrees that Subaru is good looking and we get an actual image of how he sees him: someone who is ethereal, almost untouchable with a very literal barrier (of water from the dreamscape), but he's willing to reach out and bring Kamui to his level. He absolutely views Subaru as a savior because that’s precisely what Subaru did for him. That’s a pretty complicated relationship, quite a bit more complicated than Keiichi is thinking, that’s for sure.

As for Subaru, he resumes his smoking as soon as Kamui is out of sight. I think Kamui suspected that’s why he wanted to stay behind because he looks contemplative when Subaru says he isn’t coming with. Even Keiichi seems surprised. Maybe that’s why he thought he had a chance with Kamui? (Also, Keiichi and Kamui’s interactions kind of deserve their own analysis because he’s Kamui’s one tie to normalcy and Keiichi has a profound attachment to Kamui the second they meet.)

Even so, Kamui's words about smoking being bad for him sticks with Subaru and you can tell he's conflicted about it. He keeps the cigarettes close, but there's less certainty about it than there was earlier in their conversation.

This part in particular is up for interpretation since there’s no dialogue, but to me it reads as Subaru being unable to let Seishirou go, but possibly wishing he were capable of it. He knows his wish will hurt people, and Subaru has never been content with that. This scene also makes me think of Subaru's one-shot chapter, where a woman says only a person with an ill heart can go around thinking only of one person. Subaru knows smoking is bad for him, but he's also already accepted he's "ill."

I’m a little unclear on how much time has passed, but the next time Kamui and Subaru see each other, it’s after Kamui is returning home from Keiichi’s house. He’s attacked by Fuuma and Subaru rushes in to save him.

Subaru legitimately came out of nowhere in this scene. Where was he before? How'd he get there so quickly? I know that the Dragons of Heaven can sense when a kekkai is raised, but Kamui can't raise one, so... I honestly can't remember, can the Dragons of Heaven just sense when Kamui is in danger? Because if not, I really don't know how Subaru knew to be exactly where he was needed.

Regardless, the battle between Fuuma and Kamui was going about as well as it usually does, which is to say absolutely terribly. Subaru gets a kekkai raised, and we actually get to see him use his onmyoji abilities in earnest against Nataku. You have no idea how much I wish we'd gotten to see infinitely more of this.

Unfortunately, Subaru ultimately loses once Fuuma joins the fray, but that’s because Fuuma is, frankly, an OP villain. I have never understood why the villains are so much more powerful than the good guys in this series. That’s just bad game design.

So, Subaru actually manages to capture Fuuma in a kekkai. I’m a little unclear on what the end goal of this was going to be. Annihilating him? Trapping him for good? But we don’t get to find out because Subaru gets lost in visions of Seishirou, the man he wants to kill him. To add insult to injury, Fuuma attacks him the same way Seishirou did when he was 16 and blinds his eye, saying it’s “his wish.” Ever notice Fuuma only seems to grant the really messed up wishes? He doesn’t have to grant all of these. He could focus on some nice ones for a change. Sheesh…

More importantly (as far as this review goes), Kamui is once again in the same situation Subaru was when he was 16. He is being protected by someone who loses their eye and he was powerless to stop it, just as Subaru was all those years ago. The main difference is that back then, Subaru was purposefully allowing someone to take their anger out on him and Seishirou got in the way. Kamui was forcibly restrained from the battle and had no choice but to witness events. It also shows the difference in their personality: Subaru isn't predisposed to fighting and is more than willing to be hurt if it helps another while Kamui is perfectly all right with fighting, he just doesn't want to hurt the other Kamui because it will hurt Fuuma.

There are some other differences as well. When Seishirou’s eye was gouged out he kind of just… walked into the ER? 8D Didn’t comfort Subaru, just casually stopped the woman from attacking him and walked away. So, Subaru’s distress levels were through the roof.

Kamui’s distress levels are also ridiculously high, but once again, Subaru is far more compassionate than Seishirou and I’m sure Subaru can see the parallels here. He knows exactly what Kamui’s going through, and he doesn’t want Kamui beating himself up the way he did to himself all those years ago. He actually stops the gurney in an effort to comfort him.

It definitely helps, but sometimes Subaru is a little too honest with Kamui. He tells him this was his “wish.” Needless to say, that doesn’t exactly ease Kamui’s mind because it raises a lot of questions about Subaru's mental state he probably hadn't even been considering before.

What follows is the most clear cut parallel we’ve ever had between Subaru and Kamui. Subaru’s despair at possibly losing Seishirou when he was 16 is nearly identical to Kamui’s despair at nearly losing Subaru in the present. CLAMP is not doing this accidentally.

This, almost more than anything else, makes me believe that Kamui has feelings for Subaru because there’s not really a reason to include this parallel otherwise. In Tokyo Babylon, after Seishirou lost his eye, Subaru realized he was in love with him. It wasn't right away, but that was the incident that sparked the whole thing.

After Subaru loses his eye, Kamui stays by his side as much as possible. Kamui is never shown to have a sudden revelation he’s in love, but this is where the differences between Subaru and Kamui really become important.

Back then, Subaru was terrified of Seishirou hating him after the eye incident, and I think a lot of that comes down to the fact that Seishirou was trying to win a bet. He proclaimed his love to Subaru all the time, but he was also mysterious and decidedly standoffish. Subaru had a difficult time reading him, therefore he couldn’t predict what Seishirou would think of him afterwards.

Subaru also has a fundamentally different personality to Kamui; he had no awareness of his own feelings toward Seishirou until his sister made him think about it and a stranger said it sounded like he really loved this individual.

Whether Kamui is worried Subaru will hate him is a little unclear, but we do know that one of Kamui’s biggest opinions of Subaru is that he’s very kind. We also know he admires him as the man that saved him and saw him at his worst already. Subaru is always honest and very open with Kamui; there isn’t any additional layer of confusion in this regard (there is confusion about other things, though). The only thing Kamui fears right now is Subaru dying in this situation. He also feels massive guilt for being incapable of helping him. Kamui is taking the blame for this.

Another difference is that Kamui doesn’t have anyone deliberately trying to get him to think about his feelings for Subaru, but I think Kamui is more predisposed to falling for people in general? Or at least more capable of realizing when he has. He loved Kotori and never seemed to be in denial about it from what I can tell. It wasn’t declared in a straightforward manner in the manga, but the series made it apparent enough through other things. Kotori is considered his canonical love interest for this very reason. And I think that’s more or less what we ought to expect in regards to Kamui’s feelings toward Subaru. There isn’t going to be a big revelation; it will simply be.

And part of that quiet revelation is how attached he continues to be to Subaru after this incident.

Subaru is overtly worried about Kamui, probably because he knows how worked up he was over Seishirou himself when it happened, but also because he thinks Kamui hasn't slept. "It's harder for him to bear the wounds to his heart than the wounds to his body." Subaru definitely understands Kamui's pain all too well and he knows that while this particular incident is his own fault, Kamui is the one who will shoulder the blame, just as he did all those years ago.

It's interesting that Kamui asks for permission to visit him again. It definitely implies that maybe he actually is a little worried Subaru doesn't want him around, that he's sending him away because he's upset with him.

Kamui looks quite distressed at first, but one look from Subaru and he knows Subaru isn’t upset with him; he's worried about him.

These two tend to be very quiet around each other as soon as other people are in the room, and both Sorata and Arashi are right there. As soon as they’re alone, they engage in far more intimate conversation. Yet, they appear to be pretty good at silent communication as well and a lot is exchanged in the above panels.

Even if Subaru has forgiven him, Kamui is still plagued by what happened (understandably). He compares it to his failure to save Kotori. Two important people to him are hurt/killed because he couldn’t fight against Fuuma. It’s a powerful dilemma and a powerful comparison.

Still, after a conversation with Sorata, a visit to Kotori's grave, and a conversation with Keiichi, Kamui has renewed hope. He can do something against Fuuma: he can protect the people he cares about. This renews Kamui's determination to learn how to create a kekkai, a plot point that is never actually finished... I honestly wonder if would have learned to create one? And what would have sparked that?

We get a little insight into what Subaru is thinking about events, though. It's about as depressing as you'd expect with the trajectory of this series.

Subaru has a selfish wish. He knows that wish will hurt everyone that knows him and now there are quite a few people who care about him, something he'd been trying to avoid.

Yuzuriha is entirely correct in her analysis here, though for more reasons than she might realize. She's essentially saying that both Kamui and Subaru look down on themselves and try to solve things on their own. It's why she makes them promise to call on her if they need help. But she's also correct in another way: they both have selfish wishes and they're hurting everyone around them for the sake of those wishes. Subaru is hurting people on an emotional level by pursuing death, while Kamui is inadvertently getting people injured and killed for the sake of rescuing Fuuma. The message is clear: if these two could let go of their one "wish" they could finally move on to other possibilities and would be far more effective at saving the world. It's a cruel irony that CLAMP made their kindest character and their hero the most emotionally compromised and the most inadvertently selfish. It's also a little unfortunate that kindness and hope seem to get trampled on so much in this series, but that's a whole separate issue.

Yuzuriha also leaves Subaru with a parting gift and, honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if she reminds him of his sister just a bit.

The cherry blossoms definitely bring Seishirou to mind as well as Subaru's wish for death, but it also makes me think of Hokuto as well, especially the rabbit plush. It just seems like something she would do. Regardless, Subaru still hasn't moved on.

Kamui engages in yet another battle with Fuuma, which actually goes worse than the last one. Sorata and Arashi aren't as timely as Subaru had been (Dragons of Heaven must simply be able to sense when Kamui is in trouble because they also were no where nearby. Alternatively, Hinoto is just telling them stuff). Fuuma is saying something about eating Kamui's heart. We could put this down as him being a general creep, but there's usually a double meaning with him. Perhaps one of Kamui's wishes is that he just didn't feel anything at all...?

All of this eventually brings us to our next Kamui and Subaru scene. This one has a very quiet, intimate vibe to it, probably on account of it not taking place in a hospital but what I think is Kamui's room?

Kamui has some pretty serious injuries this time around, and we learn that Subaru stayed with him the entire time, just as Kamui did for him at the hospital.

Actually, these two seem a lot closer than they did previously. Is it simply because of Subaru losing his eye? Did that open up a new level of compassion between one another? Was there more off-screen development? My guess is it’s mostly the former, but the latter is a distinct possibility with the way things have been going.

What is plain is that these two are always supporting each other in times of crisis. Not always physically, but emotionally. Subaru in particular is always there to counsel Kamui on whatever issue he wants to discuss while Kamui reminds Subaru that people actually do care about him and Kamui is one of those people.

“And yet, despite all that, I still can’t abandon Fuuma.”

Honestly, I think even Kamui is beginning to wonder if his wish is really worth it. He’s losing all the people he cares about in this pursuit. I genuinely think if Subaru had told him to rethink things here, he might have, because he trusts him and his wish has gotten him absolutely nothing so far.

Unfortunately, Subaru isn’t exactly in a great place to be telling people they need to rethink their life choices, so he doesn’t. Instead, he tries to be encouraging, which is both kind and misguided.

This is a level of emotional and physical intimacy that we just don’t see between any of the nonromantic relationships in this series. It’s actually more touch focused than a great deal of Arashi and Sorata’s interactions and those two actually have a very close emotional connection that develops into a sexual relationship later on in the series, so I have a hard time believing I’m supposed to read this scene as entirely platonic.

But what Subaru is saying is important, even if I think it’s a philosophy that manages to get both him and Kamui into trouble. “Happiness” is basically satisfaction or completion in this context. It’s not necessarily joy. Subaru is essentially telling Kamui that, yes, his wish may be selfish but it’s his. If it is the only thing that can satisfy him, he must pursue it.

Kamui makes no further comment on his own wish; he’s latched onto Subaru’s once more and is bringing Seishirou up yet again. Subaru appears surprised, perhaps because Kamui saw right through him or perhaps because Kamui’s interest in the subject has been so pointed, but he says “yes.”

I really do think Kamui was looking for something from Subaru here that he didn’t quite get. I genuinely believe he’s trying to get confirmation on whether his path is correct or not, but Subaru doesn’t really give him an answer. When that doesn't work, he tries to figure out if Seishirou is really the only thing that can bring Subaru satisfaction, which reveals this is yet another thing that's been on his mind.

That is not acceptance or understanding on Kamui’s face. That is something a little closer to sadness, disappointment, or possibly even anger. He is not pleased with this answer.

There are a lot of layers happening with this conversation and a lot of insinuations, but none of it is ever just laid out for us to see. What seems relatively straightforward to me is that Kamui wishes Subaru would let Seishirou go. He isn’t content with Seishirou being the answer to Subaru’s wish, but he also can’t bring himself to criticize it either. After all, that would be pretty hypocritical; Kamui can’t selfishly pursue his own wish while simultaneously asking Subaru to give up his own for Kamui, but I think there’s a part of Kamui that genuinely wants that to happen.

It also reveals that Kamui does have doubts about the path he's chosen. He never says it outright--he's always vocally determined to save Fuuma--but he's looking to Subaru for guidance on this issue. Not anyone else. Subaru.

So no, Kamui can't reveal that he's unsure about his wish; it's what bonded him and Subaru in the first place. Likewise, he can't ask Subaru to rethink his own wish. What really needs to happen for these two is for them both to give up their current wish to pursue … whatever this is. I’ve talked a lot about Kamui’s feelings for Subaru, but Subaru definitely holds affection for Kamui as well. There would be no reason to hold his hand that way otherwise. And there’s no way Subaru isn’t aware of the parallels; he is definitely occupying a similar role to Seishirou in Tokyo Babylon, that odd mix of mentor and potential love interest. The obvious difference being that Subaru isn’t a psychopathic killer.

Anyway, Sorata and Arashi once again interrupt their odd bonding moment and it’s incredible how swiftly the mood in the room changes. Subaru physically moves away from Kamui, stands at a more respectable distance, and Kamui turns his attention to everyone else. It definitely feels like they aren’t trying to advertise their emotional connection or their problems. Kamui becomes the leader and Subaru becomes another Dragon of Heaven.

Subaru eventually returns to his side when Kamui enters a dream state with Hinoto while the others are there, but he doesn’t say anything further. It’s interesting that Sorata has no issue with hugging Kamui or putting an arm around him when others are around, but Subaru does. Of course, Sorata is simply more demonstrative than Subaru on any given day, but it does feel like quite a stark contrast.

It looks like several days go by between that visit and their next one. Kamui is mostly recovered and heading back to school.

This is so subtle it’s very easy to miss–I did the first couple of times–but Kamui just finished buttoning up his shirt here. He is not inspecting his scars like I initially thought.

How long has Subaru been there? They’re pretty obviously in the middle of a conversation; he didn’t just arrive. It kind of suggests Kamui just… got dressed in front of him, which is definitely a shift. Their general attitudes towards each other are quite different from before as well. The opening panel above shows both of them as seeming more confident than before.

I’m not sure I believe anything untoward happened between them because that would be a pretty drastic shift in dynamics, but if there ever was a point in this series where something more physically intimate occurred (not necessarily anything sexual mind you), it's probably the unseen precursor to this scene. It's CLAMP, so... I guess what I'm saying is that I sometimes just don't know with them. XD

Regardless, all of this reveals, however subtly, a side to their relationship that doesn’t get a whole lot of focus. Namely, all that off-screen bonding I was talking about earlier.

Some of their comfort level is no doubt from the situation being less bleak in general of course. That usually helps.

And then there’s all of this:

Kamui's left arm is giving him a lot more trouble than his right. That explains why he was buttoning up his shirt with just the one previously. But he appears thoughtful, maybe a bit sad, as Subaru helps him with his tie. A lot of that has to do with him not knowing where Yuzuriha is–she could be in grave danger–but I also think some of it has to do with Subaru and Kamui’s feelings toward him. I think it’s safe to say things have entered “complicated” territory. They have a relationship that's incredibly close, but no matter how close Kamui gets to him, there's always a barrier there.

There's also the fact that Kamui always feels guilty when he's incapable of something, so even something as simple as needing help with his tie could be causing him some distress.

So much of what goes on between these two is unspoken. Subaru helping him with his tie is something that doesn’t have to be romantic, but it is a frequently used trope used to demonstrate trust and care, usually between two people who are already together.

If Seishirou and Subaru’s relationship reached it’s culmination after Seishirou lost an eye, I think it’s safe to say that Subaru and Kamui’s is following a similar trajectory, only Subaru didn’t immediately turn on Kamui. Instead, they have time to explore things in a way Subaru never did with Seishirou, whatever that may mean.

Subaru moves things into safer waters from Yuzuriha’s disappearance to Keiichi. He says he will be glad to see Kamui back in school and that he asked Subaru every day if he was all right.

Now, I mentioned earlier that Keiichi definitely thought Subaru and Kamui had something going on and felt he might be stealing Kamui away, but what does Subaru think of Keiichi?

I'd say "curious" but supportive and completely unconcerned about any competition. Honestly, Subaru doesn't strike me as the jealous type, so even if there is something between him and Kamui, I don't think he'd stop Kamui from pursuing something with anyone else. Subaru wouldn't consider himself a great choice; he thinks he's selfish after all.

This is the last normal moment Kamui and Subaru have before Subaru's final confrontation with Seishirou.

I feel relatively safe in the assumption that Subaru was going to say "like you." This is before he even becomes the Sakurazukamori, but he now considers himself selfish and he can't move on from his past whatsoever. He's also lost some of the empathy he had when he was younger; he's definitely kind, but he isn't willing to give everything up for others. He's arguably taken on Seishirou's role with Kamui as well, which I'm sure he has mixed feelings about. And ultimately, he and Seishirou share the same wish: to be killed by the person they love. So, yes, Subaru is definitely different from how he used to be.

It's after Seishirou dies that Subaru really snaps in the series. He was struggling to get by for the majority of it, but this really does it. It’s notable that even now, Kamui restrains himself.

Kamui always holds himself back when it comes to matters involving both Subaru and Seishirou. He never tells Subaru what he thinks of his wish and he doesn’t know how to help him. I think a lot of his resistance to actively reaching out to Subaru on this matter, both physically and emotionally, is out of a misguided sense of respect for him. Subaru knows what he wants and did a great deal for Kamui; Kamui tries to return the favor by giving him distance, but I think distance was the wrong thing to give Subaru. He needs to be dragged into the now and he needs to be reminded that people care. That's a lot to take on though, so I can't blame Kamui for not knowing what to do, especially when he's looking to Subaru for guidance. He doesn't feel like he can take on that role.

Their final parting is tough to watch.

I think this time, Kamui actually is worried Subaru might hate him, because for the first time he’s actually “disrespected” Subaru’s wish. He didn’t let him die with Seishirou when the bridge collapsed. He saved him and that goes against everything Subaru has wanted for the last nine years.

But once again, Subaru misunderstands and I think there’s a part of Subaru that simply can’t accept that Kamui cares for him as a person. He’s stopped caring about himself, so he doesn’t connect the very obvious dots in front of him.

Subaru: You don’t need to worry about me. I’m not going to fall apart.

It could be this is just how Subaru deflects. Rather than discuss what’s really bothering him, he tries to treat Kamui like a leader who is talking to his subject, but that simply isn’t the relationship they ever had, least of all now.

Once again, Kamui gets to the heart of the matter; Subaru is thinking of Seishirou. Everything he's done is for Seishirou, and it's now very apparent Kamui simply can't accept that. He's sorry for it, he knows that if he really wanted to "respect" Subaru he would have let him die, but he couldn't do it.

Even now, Subaru is still trying to explain things to Kamui and still trying to comfort him to a limited degree; Subaru’s not exactly at his best right now, though and it's all pretty dejected. Despite having his wish denied, he doesn't blame Kamui. As he points out a little bit later, some wishes collide. He doesn't hold it against Kamui, though.

Kamui brings up the cigarettes again and this implies the whole thing is still bugging him and that he simply doesn’t understand Subaru’s motivations.

It’s interesting that our only previous glimpse into how Kamui feels about Subaru showed Subaru as being above him, yet reaching out to bring him closer. Here, Kamui literally sits on his knees before him so that Subaru is hovering over him, almost like a king with his subject, and Subaru is metaphorically reaching out to Kamui in an effort to explain himself so that Kamui might understand him.

Subaru explains everything, and essentially tells him he will never understand Seishirou now, never know what he really thought.

I think it’s safe to say that Kamui is feeling similarly about Subaru at the moment--he doesn't feel like he understands him nor does he understand what he's thinking--and once again Subaru is taking Seishirou’s role in a very roundabout way, albeit in a kinder fashion. But there's no doubt that Kamui is giving Subaru power here. Everything about their posture and conversation indicates that. While Subaru sometimes tries to treat Kamui like a leader either as a way of deflecting or because he actually believes that's the right way to handle things, we see here that Kamui absolutely views Subaru as the person with the wisdom and authority to determine things. Maybe not about the fate of the world, that's Kamui's duty, but as far as giving directions? As far as getting a say in what happens next? Absolutely.

And once again, Kamui is looking for something from Subaru he can’t give: he’s asking if what he’s pursuing is “right” and if he should change. Subaru is being given the power to change Kamui’s course and I don’t think he even realizes it.

While looking at their progression, I really think some of Kamui’s steadfast determination to save Fuuma is partially because of how Subaru keeps affirming this belief for him. There were at least two big moments where Subaru could have nudged him in a different direction, but he didn’t take it. Instead, he tries to be encouraging, although this time it’s definitely more fatalistic. Subaru doesn't understand the influence he has over Kamui and that is one of their biggest miscommunications in the series.

Even as lost as Subaru is currently, he still cares about Kamui. He wants him to focus on his own desires, not on him, and he wants him to take care of himself. The problem is that he’s completely missing the fact that Kamui relies on him, cares about him, and would do a lot better if Subaru stayed in some capacity. Instead, he disappears for a month.

Needless to say, Subaru is very much on his mind throughout his absence and Kamui still can't make a kekkai. He thinks about how everyone has something they want to protect, and that's why they can make one. His thoughts lead him right back to Subaru.

This is the person he's thinking about the most while he's visiting Kotori. This is the person he wants to return. And we actually get to see what it is Kamui actually wants for a change:

I don't know if this is the wish Kamui hasn't realized but it's definitely a wish: he wants Subaru to come back. He wants to go out and look for him. He wants Subaru to be capable of caring for someone other than the Sakurazukamori. The implication is that he wants to be important enough to Subaru for him to come back.

Just as Subaru wanted to be important enough to Seishirou for him to acknowledge him, so too does Kamui wish he were important enough for Subaru to do the same.

Kamui continues with "The people I most wanted to protect were Kotori and Fuuma. But Kotori is gone. And now all I want is to get Fuuma back. But... I still can't create a kekkai."

Fuuma is watching this moment through the dreamscape and has this input:

So, protecting Fuuma isn’t his real wish. What is? The only other thing he was thinking about was Subaru, but even I hesitate to say that’s the ultimate wish. I definitely think it's an important, unrealized wish all the same, however. As for Kamui's real wish, I’ve been assuming it was he'd chosen a different side so Fuuma could be spared or possibly that he had died instead of Kotori. CLAMP makes it hard to say for sure.

Anyhow, we finally see where Subaru’s been hiding out for a month plus: the Sakurazukamori’s house. I’m not entirely sure how he found it, but there it is.

Also, Seishirou’s final wish is about as messed up as you’d expect.

Wow, we get weird eye stuff and a dose of stalker possessiveness. 8D CLAMP outdid themselves. I can't even...

And as if that wasn't enough, we get this:

D-do I even want to know what that means? The context of this is incredibly bizarre. He’s talking about how Seishirou was upset another man hurt Subaru. The only person that’s been hurting Kamui is him.

Am I supposed to assume Fuuma wants to prevent anyone else from leaving any kind of mark on Kamui? Is that supposed to be a reference to an actual person? The only person I could think of is Subaru as far as who's been interacting with him, and I’m not actually sure that makes sense. 8D Is he talking about the original Fuuma? He’s jealous of himself? Or possibly even Kotori? Or am I supposed to assume Fuuma just wants to mark Kamui as his with another freaky eye exchange? CLAMP… Why…

Anyway, Subaru takes the eye because he’s been making a series of bad decisions and he isn’t about to let up now.

The next time we see Subaru, he has decided to do nothing, which is basically what he’d decided to do beforehand, only now he has Seishirou’s eye and is willing to watch events unfold. We see that there’s a little tension between him and Fuuma, which is… hardly surprising all things considered.

It’s interesting that Fuuma says Seishirou has been very selfish when it comes to Subaru. That would be pretty obvious to the audience, but Subaru is surprised by this assessment. Seishirou is preventing Subaru from achieving his “wish,” i.e. death and he’s also preventing him from connecting with other people. That’s the height of selfishness.

It is strange hearing this from Fuuma when he is being equally awful, however, which is probably why Subaru points out that wishes are something only Fuuma knows to begin with in what can only be described as an annoyed fashion.

We know Subaru has been on Kamui’s mind (a lot) and it looks like Kamui has been on Subaru’s as well.

Subaru does care about Kamui is the thing, which is why it's doubly strange seeing him as a Dragon of Earth. He doesn't want Kamui hurt, but he claims he's not going to be involved. Can that really be the case if he genuinely cares about someone on the opposite side?

Interestingly, he avoids the subject. He's always been private when it comes to Kamui and it looks like that isn't about to change here, especially when he's talking to the man who has tormented him so much.

The next time Kamui sees Subaru is in the midst of battle with Fuuma and Kamui definitely feels betrayed.

Subaru's presence here is a little strange and I think the only reason he's shown up at all is because he cares about Kamui, just like Fuuma said. He's not showing it in the best way, but...

At long last, Subaru tells Kamui what he needed to hear ages ago and using the opportunity he's been given many times, but never used. Kamui needs to rethink some things and saving Fuuma isn’t what he really wants.

And the thing is, Kamui listens. The final chapter ends with Kamui remembering Karen’s words and finally trying to piece together what might actually be going on and it’s all because Subaru finally stepped in and offered an actual opinion. That's the level of influence Subaru has over Kamui and I'm still not sure Subaru has figured that out.

So, how would things have progressed with Subaru and Kamui after all this? Obviously, there’s no way to say for sure. If CLAMP wanted to draw the final parallel between the Subaru/Seishirou relationship and the Subaru/Kamui relationship, then it’s quite possible Subaru will die at Kamui’s hands. Another possible parallel is that one of them realizes they love the other, but only when it's too late. But the thing is, while there are parallels between these relationships, their differences are far more profound and these two never had the kind of relationship where one would ever want to kill the other.

Even with Subaru’s betrayal, I doubt Kamui wants to see harm come to him; he’s still looking to him for guidance and support. He no doubt wants Subaru to come back. It's what he's been wanting ever since he left.

Rather than Kamui killing Subaru, it’s much more likely Subaru would sacrifice himself for Kamui, possibly as his final wish. It’s also possible Subaru decides to rejoin the Dragons of Heaven because there really isn’t any reason he has to be with the Dragons of Earth? He’s not a fan of Fuuma, he has no attachment to the people there. He’s just there for the sake of Seishirou’s memory. Undoubtedly there would be some conversation(s) between Subaru and Kamui even with them being on opposite sides. This wasn't supposed to be the final battle; Kamui doesn't die here. For all we know, that sword Fuuma's been holding up for years never strikes Kamui; it could hit someone that flings themselves in front of Kamui or it could be blocked or any number of things. But it isn't the end.

Furthermore, there's still the matter of Kamui learning to make a kekkai. It would be very strange if CLAMP never gave him a reason to create one. The issue Kamui is having is that the people he wanted to protect in the world are already gone. He needs some other reason or person to create a kekkai. This means he needs to realize an attachment to a person he didn't realize he had. I'm just saying, Subaru is a good choice for that.

And like Kamui, I have to wonder if there’s anything out there Subaru would be willing to protect. The likeliest candidate is Kamui himself.

Now, I would personally like a much happier ending to this manga than I think we were likely to get, but whatever the ending, I don’t think CLAMP was going to drop the exploration they had going of Kamui and Subaru’s relationship. It didn’t dominate the series, but it also got a lot more focus than they needed to give it. It was important and it was unique and I think their bond could have continued to grow if the world had been a little kinder to them and if they’d both been willing to move on a little sooner.

And that’s all for now. This turned out to be very long. I will now proceed to content myself with writing more fanfic. 8D

#long post #x1999 #x #subkam #ship manifesto #subkam ship manifesto #sumeragi subaru #shirou kamui #Bemused's post #This took so much time...#I really hope the pictures loaded in correctly 8D

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everythingtowin02 · 3 years

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Six of Crows- Worldbuilding

So, I don’t want to sound overly formal when writing about this stuff, because that does zap away some of the magic and excitement I feel about these stories. But because of school, where I write only formal papers, I have trouble really letting go and writing informally about literature. So please bear with me!

The worldbuilding in Six of Crows is just so… Active and colorful and alive. I mean, as I remember it, Shadow and Bone had really interesting worldbuilding, too—with all of the well-thought-out geography and history, and the way that Ravkan culture was portrayed, I did really enjoy that series. But Six of Crows, to me, feels like a different level of worldbuilding, even though the two series are set in the exact same world.

Nothing about Ketterdam ever holds still, and all of the characters are very aware of that fact. There is always something going on—somewhere, a couple of gangs are fighting over territory or money, people are getting robbed or killed in a back alley, a mercher is going to work, a child is being forced to take one desperate measure after another to survive, a businessman is taking advantage of those weaker than him. We, as readers, see all of these things just in the first book of the duology, and the main characters are not exempt from being affected by them. And we see those confrontations come and go with little fanfare, which tells us very plainly that these things just happen here, all the time. They’re happening right now.

I think that Bardugo’s covering such a wide range of circumstances really helps readers get used to Ketterdam as a setting fairly quickly. Because all of these terrible and dangerous and crazy things happen all the time, we get used to the quick pace of life in this city, and the main characters we follow around are perceived as just a part of a great sea of motion—just a half dozen kids whose only advantage over everyone else lies in their combined skills.

That “sea of motion” feel that I get from Six of Crows, starting with the first faceoff against the Black Tips and the descriptions of the Staves, is a really cool feature. I’m not a particularly experienced writer, and trying to write a focused story in a chaotic setting sounds difficult. Making constant use of that chaotic setting for the main characters’ advantage in a logical way, as Bardugo does in Crooked Kingdom, sounds even more difficult. So I really admire the “sea of motion” that is Ketterdam, and how all of that chaos contributes so much to the plot.

As far as drawing out a cohesive plot from a chaotic setting, the other factors that contribute to Ketterdam’s constant activity might have provided Bardugo with footholds, if you will, to pull her characters out of the absolute mess she landed them in at the end of Six of Crows. The nature of Grisha power and the way it is viewed by non-Grisha is very subtly integrated into the characters’ narrations, making it seem less like magic and more like a normal part of everyday life—which is important if you don’t want to risk your Grisha characters being perceived as the only “interesting” ones. Due to its activity, Ketterdam comes across as a great melting pot within the Grishaverse—anyone who strays one step too far from home ends up there, resulting in a mix of very recognizable cultures. (For example, by the end of the first book, we’re fairly familiar with the characters of Kerch’s Komedie Brute and the merchers’ and drüskelle’s respective religious beliefs. The names of Ravka’s Saints and colors of Grisha kefta are easily recognizable, and Inej’s memories of her family paint a rather beautiful picture of the Suli culture.) All of these cultures can easily become part of a subplot for a specific character—both Inej and Matthias actually are partially characterized by the way they react to Kerch’s culture as opposed to their home cultures. Also, Kerch’s status as a neutral country in a world where three major nations are at odds with each other and Novyi Zem’s jurda fields are highly desirable creates plenty of interesting opportunities involving how these world powers interact with each other, as seen at the end of Crooked Kingdom.

What I’m curious about is what came first—the dynamic worldbuilding or the elaborate plot? Because Shadow and Bone exists, I have to assume that Bardugo’s worldbuilding, with all of its politics and vivid cultures and whatnot, came first. But that makes it sound like the plot of Crooked Kingdom was just stumbled upon by a fair amount of luck and worked out beautifully, which just sounds so staggeringly incredible that I can’t quite bring myself to believe it. Just how much planning went into Six of Crows?

Regardless, talking in circles around that particular point will get me nowhere. I just think that the world of Six of Crows is really cool and interesting because it’s so complicated and yet consistent with itself. After Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows (and I’m working on getting a hold of King of Scars), I’d be really interested to know more about Novyi Zem and the Wandering Isles…

I don’t have anything else to say about Bardugo’s worldbuilding right off the top of my head... What do you guys notice about the settings in Six of Crows? What are your favorite things about the worldbuilding here? Always happy to hear people’s thoughts!

#writing #six of crows #leigh bardugo #worldbuilding #shadow and bone

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u23art · 3 years

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A LOOK AT NEO: THE WORLD ENDS WITH YOU (SPOILERS AHEAD)

A Look at Neo: The World Ends With You (Spoilers Ahead) The World Ends With You was and is a very special video game. It wasn’t just a typical RPG, it was an experience that took the gimmick of the DS’s two screens and created a wholly unique style of combat. That combat would in turn compliment the characters, and those characters would enrich the story all the more. Anyone who played it through fell in love with it and waited enthusiastically for any kind of follow up to it. And on July 27th, 2021, Neo: The World Ends With You. The story is a familiar affair. The protagonist Rindo gets sucked into the Reaper game and his party has to survive over the course of a week or 3. The gameplay consists of fighting the enemies such as the noise and the Reapers, collecting and leveling up pins, replaying segments with time travel, “remind” mini games and deep diving into NPCs for fighting challenges. This game, is middling at best. I’ll explain this by drawing comparisons between Neo and TWEWY, an entirely fair comparison to make. First on the chopping block, the combat. The first game required the player to split their attention between controlling one character (Shiki, Joshua and Beat) with the directional pad on the top screen, and then activating pin psyches with the stylus on the bottom screen with Neku. It sounds like a mess on paper potentially but it could be mastered. By making uninterrupted combos you could build up a meter to 3 levels which could unleash limit break moves with visual flair unique to the partner character you have at the time. In Neo, everyone uses pins, and your interactions with your party members amounts to a tap of the buttons they’re mapped to. This can be a disorienting affair, especially when you have pins equipped to the trigger buttons on one side. This ends up making no particular character feel unique with the exception of their evasion animation. Psyches in the first game were a manifestation of characters channeling energy through objects, Shiki fought with Mr. Mew, Joshua with his phone and Beat with his skateboard. Only Neku had the power to fight with pins. In combat, the characters don’t matter, the pins do. When everyone’s super, no one is. The smaller touches peppered into the game during navigation like “remind” and “diving” are forgivable. Remind is a cute unscrambling mini-game and diving can provide extra fights with extra rewards. The character shoka’s ability, flight, is more often a miss as what could have been a useful fast travel option ends up being an option to look in nooks and crannies of the map with usually nothing to find. The absolute worst new edition to this game, is time travel. During points of the game, usually when you’re about to go up against an anticipated big fight, Rindo can take away a player’s right to choose and force you to replay segments. Within the context of the story, this is meant to make a fight easier despite the fact that a fight is supposed challenge a player in the first place and shouldn’t be something to avoid. You travel back and replay scenes but you have to select dialogue options to make the scene play out differently. Heck, most of the time there are no dialogue options, Rindo will automatically alter the scenario.

This is especially annoying during the final big stretch of the game. The final week boasts the grand finale of facing against Shiba, Kubo, and a giant noise phoenix. In a typical RPG, you earn the chance to face the ultimate foe when you’ve conquered the challenges in a final area. Before you can face these bosses, you have to cycle through eons of text as you repeat events over and over again so the characters can move events in their favor. This doesn’t build excitement or tension, this doesn’t challenge the player’s mastery over the gameplay, this is utterly deflating. Time travel in this game is wheel spinning fluff that asks nothing of the player and trivializes the problems in the game, and is a problem that’s reared it’s head in other Square games, but I digress. My next shortcoming I’ll be forthcoming with. With the exception of Shoka, the protagonists made for this game: Rindo, Fret and Nagi; they could not carry this game without the help of the legacy characters. At least not with how they were written. Sure, it’s conveyed that these characters have problems and insecurities to overcome, but I ask you this; at what point in the game did those 3 have any friction between eachother? They’re passive aggressive towards eachother, but that’s it.

Rindo has an apparent inability to make decisions as the game explains and yet uses time travel to fix events from the moment he realizes he has it. Fret forces himself to be cheery and deflects responsibility with no proper explanation besides a quick mention of how a friend of his died. Same with Nagi, why does she so heavily retreat towards her favorite game for comfort and obsess over collecting merchandise? There are arcs here ready to be explored yet they’re never leaned on or overcome, any chance to get meaningful stories out of these characters is squandered. In the spirit of fairness, Neku’s reason for being emotionally distant isn’t explored but that problem still manifested in captivating ways, like when he’s so indifferent about being involved with people that he was willing to murder Shiki to get out of the Reaper Game. Even without that, TWEWY still had strong personal stories with Shiki and Beat who both struggled to either be comfortable with themselves or overcome their feelings of inadequacy. On a petty point, design, specifically with Rindo and Neku. I hate Rindo’s design, his coat is outrageous and the mask annoys me. Not because he has one but because he’s not wearing right, if he’s not properly wearing it over his nose then it’s just a jaw bikini. As for Neku, he puts on display Nomura’s perpetual weird fascination with plaid that won’t go away and keeps appearing in his current character designs. His coat is dumb and clashes with his motif. Petty point #2, the final phoenix boss. It makes it’s appearance after very little build up after another villain was being built up….in a game about time traveling. I’m getting flashbacks to Final Fantasy XIII-2 and I don’t like that one bit.

I think there was potentially a good game to be had here, and here’s how I’d fix it. 1. One partner at a time. Bring back the double character play style, you couldn’t do it with touch features because the switch couldn’t replicate the DS experience in a way that’s comfortable to hold. But overcome that problem and you have time to explore the characters. 2. Shoka could have been the protagonist. She’s a recovering antagonist, that’s an issue to be explored and was such a waste to keep to the way side.

3. Character specific weapons. Rather than collect pins, shops could offer items the character could use as weapons. -Fret could manifest power from scarves. -Nagi could summon varients of her favorite Elestra character through her own preferred pins. -Beat would have Skateboards

-Neku could get a selection of pins to use. -Shoka could also summon, like monsters from FanGo because she cherished her time with Rindo. Give the characters abilities derivative of their personalities. Uniqueness for the characters is so important for the sake of the games name. The World Ends With You. Neku’s world was small to him because he isolated himself, by knowing other people did he learn life can be so much richer.

I understand my criticism is biting, but this game is a sequel in name only. TWEWY is a phenomenal game to have as a foundation to build upon, but this game at most becomes a cautionary tale of what you shouldn’t do when making a follow up to TWEWY. Please Square, have more thought put into the writing of your new RPGs. And for the love of God; Stop. Using. Time. Travel. In your stories. You sure do like having it in your games despite the fact that you don’t want to make games for the Chrono Trigger franchise anymore. Like time travel? You’ve already got a franchise for that.

#Square Enix #The World Ends With You #neo the world ends with you #Tetsuya Nomura

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dakotacrisis · 5 years

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Transferred (7)

Kagami and Marinette are adorable besties and no one can change my mind.

---

Today was the day! Marinette was going over to Kagami’s house to work on their project. She had been rehearsing what all she was going to say to her when she got there. Marinette really wanted this to go well. Now if only she could keep her cool and not get tongue tied while speaking and everything should be fine.

Marinette arrived at the address Kagami had sent her. It wasn’t what she had expected. It was a rather modern looking house with smooth pristine white walls and large windows. It didn’t really seem to match the brick and wrought iron architecture of the rest of the city. She rung the door bell and waited until Kagami answered.

“Good afternoon, Marinette, I hope you didn’t have trouble finding the house.” Kagami smiled at her. She was dressed in a pair of dark grey sweatpants and a t-shirt with a cartoon character’s face on it. Seeing how casual Kagami was Marinette was starting to think she was overdressed in her sundress and ankle booties.

“Hey, Kagami, I found it just fine.” She stepped inside, “Wow it looks so much bigger in here.”

The house was simply designed with lots of open space in all directions. Some pictures lined the walls and a couple of houseplants rested in the corners but besides that it was pretty plain.

“Can’t have too much stuff crowding the hallways for mother.” Kagami said, “Oh, can you take your shoes off? I have a pair of slippers you can wear.”

“Not a problem. My mom used to try to implement the same thing at our house but with how much running in and out we do she gave up.” Marinette stepped out of the ankle booties she had put on and wiggled her feet into the slippers Kagami had handed her.

“Can I ask who that character on your shirt is?” Marinette asked.

“Oh that’s Pucca. She’s the main character from this TV show I was obsessed with as a kid. Kinda still am.” Kagami looked at Marinette with a chuckle, “Kinda looks like you with the dark hair tied up in red ribbons.”

“New Halloween costume idea.” Marinette followed Kagami into the living room and sat down.

They started unloading their project materials. “What is up with that empty room we passed on our way in here?”

“Practice room. When the weather is bad it is where I practice fencing. It was where I usually practiced all the time before I convinced mother to let me start training outside at different parks. Had to convince her the open air and city noise was better for getting me accustomed to fighting in front of noisy crowds.”

“Got a pretty short leash as a kid, huh?”

“That was last year.”

“Oh,” Marinette shifted in her seat, “Kagami, I am so sorry. I didn’t--”

“Don’t be. It was a short leash.” she made a little choking gesture that made both of them laugh. “Now, where were we on the project?”

Marinette relaxed and looked over her checklist of project hit points. “We finished the list of laws and regulations in class and were starting on the essay. At some point we are also going to draw the map of the island.”

“You’re the more artistic one if you wanted to do that part and I’ll construct the essay from our notes.”

“But that seems like so much more work for you.”

“If we collaborate on it then I feel our different styles of writing may clash and it will look a lot less neat than one person writing it consistently. Also, don’t take this the wrong way but, I wanna make sure it gets finished on time. Your schedule of chaos may impede that.”

Her mouth dropped open. “My schedule is not chaotic.”

Kagami arched a single eyebrow at Marinette. “Sure. What are you doing after we finish up here?”

“Go home and finish the rest of my homework, research water flowers, finalize the design I want to paint on my blouse, call Nanette, eat dinner, I need to get back to Jagged’s assistant Penny about if I can help design a new t-shirt for his tour, I haven’t watered my flowers yet today too, then I…” When she listed it all out like that is did seem pretty packed, “Okay I see your point.”

“Don’t worry about the essay. We’ll write down what the values and culture of the island is like and then I’ll piece it together.” She assured her. “Sound fair?”

“I suppose.” Marinette still felt like she was getting off easy in terms of the workload.

“Also, Marinette,” Kagami said, “Don’t overwork yourself.”

Marinette smiled at her and the two got to work. Kagami was a very diligent and straightforward worker. No surprise there seeing how she is in life. Which made it almost impossible to find a place to bring up the Adrien issue.

Marinette cleared her throat and turned fully to Kagami, “Hey, I wanted to say something.”

“Go ahead.” Kagami kept her gaze down on her notebook.

“You got a bathroom around here?” Marinette kicked herself for chickening out.

“Down the hall, first door on your right.” Kagami pointed, not looking up from her notes.

“Thanks.” Marinette got up and went down to the bathroom. After locking the door she opened her purse to let Tikki out.

“Is something the matter?” Tikki asked.

“No, just wanted to chat.” Marinette leaned against the sink. “How you been? Anything new?”

“Marinette,” Tikki flew up to eye level, “You’re just putting off talking to Kagami about Adrien. There isn’t going to be any better scenario to do it so you might as well go out there and bring it up now. The sooner you Ladybug-up, the sooner it’ll all be over.”

“Ladybug-up? Is that supposed to be like man-up or--”

“Marinette!” Tikki poked her nose.

“Alright! I’m going!” Marinette snapped, “You know you are really cranky when you miss your after school cookie.”

Marinette left the bathroom and walked back to the living room. Kagami was still working ever steadily on the project. “Ladybug-up,” Marinette whispered to herself and entered the room again.

“Hey, Kagami,” Marinette sat down next to her, “Can we talk about something?”

“Get lost on the way to the bathroom?” Kagami smirked.

“No, nothing like that. And it isn’t about the project either.”

This grabbed her attention. Kagami stopped writing and diverted her entire attention to Marinette. “You have my attention.”

“Okay, perfect,” Marinette took a deep breath, “Well, the thing is, I um--I wanted to say--it’s not a big deal or anything but uh...drat.”

Kagami was patient and didn’t push her to get to the point which was appreciated.

“Alright, there’s no easy way to segway into this so I’m just gonna go for it.”

“Please do.” She nodded.

“You and I both like Adrien and every time someone mentions him things between us get weird and it makes me really uncomfortable because I really like you and I don’t think a crush on the same guy should ruin the friendship we have.” Oh by the powers above Marinette felt like that simultaneously took three years off her life while also lifting a huge weight off her shoulders.

Kagami wasn’t saying anything. Her composure seemed to have slipped a notch and her big brown eyes were blown wide. ‘Please say something!’ Marinette screamed in her mind. ‘Anything!’

“Well,” Kagami looked away, “That was...not what I was expecting you to say. But I’m glad you said it.”

“Really?” Marinette didn’t dare relax yet.

“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it a great deal too.” She tugged at the hem of her t-shirt, “I know that you and Adrien have known each other longer and he thinks a great deal of you. He got so concerned at the ice rink when you left. Seeing how quickly he came to your aid made me a tad envious.”

“He’s like that with everyone really.” Marinette tried to keep her emotional distance, “He’d be there in an instant for one of his friends.”

“But when one of those friends has a crush on him?” Kagami probed.

“It’s not like he notices.” Marinette clenched her hand around her pencil, “In truth, it got to be more hurt than it was worth at one point. I almost gave up on him completely in terms of romance.”

“Why?”

“You.” Marinette felt her face grow hotter, “You two get along so well and have a lot in common. When he came up to me asking for advice on how to ask you on a date it crushed me but I said yes because I want to see him happy. Whether that be with me or you or someone else.”

“It probably also helped that you had a cute older guy mooning over you the entire time we were at the rink.”

“Luka. It is a lot easier with him, that’s for sure.” Marinette shook the thought from her head, “We’re getting off track. We were supposed to be talking about how our crush on Adrien is affecting our day to day interactions.”

“Right. Yes.” Kagami straightened, “If we’re being brutally honest then I should say that I feel a little threatened by you in that regard. I’ve done everything short of confessing to Adrien and still I feel like he keeps looking back at you.”

“Threatened by me? How? You’re so confident and cool all the time. Not to mention that you’re insanely pretty. You’re like Mulan made real!”

“Are you kidding?” Kagami scoffed, “How many passions do you excel at? You can create just about anything and already have major professional contacts in different industries. Also, you wanna talk about pretty? Have you looked in a mirror recently? You little blue eyed, button nosed, cream puff! How am I supposed to compete with the definition of a cinnamon roll?”

The two girls stared at each other before bursting into laughter.

“Oh, wow,” Marinette held her belly, “A cinnamon roll? Seriously?”

“Are you serious? Confident and cool all the time?”

“You are!”

“I can’t even muster up the courage to talk to my classmates in a social capacity half the time. For class or fencing I have no problem but if it is just me trying to be casual then…” Kagami trailed off. Their laughing fit flitting away into a dark hole of insecurity and awkwardness.

“Kagami, look at us,” Marinette rested a hand on her shoulder, “We’re friends. Nanette and Quinn and Adrien are all your friends too. There is nothing for you to be nervous about. Not in front of us. Not in front of anyone.”

“We are friends.” Kagami sniffed, “And I don’t want Adrien to come between us.”

“Neither do I.”

“But I also don’t want to stop pursuing him.”

“I don’t want you too either. Just like I don’t want to stop my pursuit of him. But I think we can rope that off as its own entity.” Marinette could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

“You mean the both of us keep on crushing on Adrien and try to date him but keep it civil between us.”

“Exactly. No sabotage. No jealousy. And if one of us does get to date him then we will back off and be happy for the other. Sound good?” Marinette stuck out her hand.

“Sounds perfect.” Kagami shook it. “I am so glad we got that out of the way.”

“You cannot even imagine. I was so stressed about bringing it up because it never seemed like the right moment and I didn’t want to run the risk of making you angry or ruining things further.”

“And I didn’t want to scare you off. I know I can be intimidating sometimes but I like you and I just wanted this whole uncomfortable part of our lives to disappear.”

“It’s over now.” Marinette cast her eyes down to the coffee table littered with their project supplies, “Unlike this major project we have to present in a couple days. We should probably get back to that.”

“Oh geez, I didn’t realize how long we were talking. Hand me the notes you made on the culture of our island.”

Now panicked and pressed for time before Kagami’s mother came home the two girls raced to make up for the time they had lost. By the end all that was left to do was for Marinette to take the rough draft of the map they had constructed and make it neater while Kagami ironed out their essay. They said goodbye and Marinette made Kagami promise that the next night they had free they were having a sleepover.

Marinette caught a bus home and took a few minutes to relax in her room before she jumped onto the list of other things she needed to do.

“I’m glad you worked things out with Kagami,” Tikki was sitting on Marinette’s knee munching on a cookie, “I knew the two of you would make great friends.”

“I’m more thankful that it’s over with. I never want to have a conversation like that again for at least the next year.” Marinette reached for a cookie off the tray by her computer. “Hm…”

“What is it?” Tikki perked up again. “Wave of inspiration?”

“Sorta,” Marinette booted up her computer and started searching. “Kagami is gonna love this!”

---

“And you’re sure that we can do this?” Adrien was on the phone with Chloe. Usually at this time he was talking to Marinette but Chloe had brought something to his attention that was pretty dire.

“When have you ever known me to fail?” Chloe bragged.

“It’s not that I don’t doubt you, Chloe.” Adrien was pacing his room, “But are you sure there isn’t anything I can do to help?”

“I’ve already explained your part in this, Adrikinz. Don’t worry about a thing and keep Dupain-Cheng’s nose out of this. I’ll call you when I have an update.”

“Can’t I at least hint at it?”

“Adrien,” Chloe’s tone was warning.

“Fine. I’ll keep my lips sealed. Goodnight, Chloe.”

“Sweet dreams, Adrien.”

They hung up and Adrien slumped onto his couch. He didn’t like the idea of keeping things from Marinette but this was a pretty big deal. Hopefully it would all work out in the end.

---

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#miraculous ladybug #marinette dupain cheng #kagami tsurugi #transfer au #salt fic #writing #adrien agreste #chloe bourgeois

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