#The Puppetmaster arc

[ramshacklehousewarden]

Can I just Babble for a bit

Seeing artwork of Someone’s MC despite being friends with the Twst cast, but also showing their villainous side interests me! Like Yu might be friends or cool with the cast, but they of course aren’t too shy in showing off their wickedness and if Yu calls them out they are kind of like

“Lol we are not nice people no duh. You should know this by now”

Like even Riddle who is trying still shows some nastiness and recently Vil showing a sweet side is still showing his dark side. Basically, being like

“Yu, we like you. Your not as bad as we thought, but get in our way and

We will fuck you up, that’s a promise 

And Yu is just like 

“Oh right, these guys are based off Villains”

Yu just secretly being distrustful of all of them. Just like

“Bish you thought I would open up to you bitches, NAAH!”

Or even Yu thinks it wouldn’t be so bad only to see some shit and be like “NOPE”

Maybe the first years are cool, but what if they show villainous like qualities and when Yu see it is like

“Oh no, not them too”

I want Yu to be weary and if an artificial overblot happens to Yu just openly is like

“TO hell with you all! IF you overblot again YOU WILL DIE, because I won’t save you again”

No chill

Let the RSA students figure out what goes on here and how distressed Yu and wanna play hero!

#I have feelings about this stuff! #Let them be villains but also let the suffer by losing the person that stood by them #I know Yana Toboso said they won't get a redemption but if it happens in RP I want a slow burn #Unless she meant they would get a slow burn redemption arc then I'm here for it #(Puppetmaster: OOC) #twst yuu #twst yu #twst mc

[dnd-quotes-partynametbd]

X: So Beau’s going to split down the middle, and two metal dragons pop out and start running around, then Arcee, then I extend my hand and say hi, you may call me X

#so... #Beau is actually just a puppet #*homebrewed puppetmaster artificer subclass* #and X is the one who's been controlling Beau the whole time inside them #X is also an opal dragonborn #dnd quote #X #time shard arc

[boinin]

Batten down the hatches: Rin's ego is about to land

The latest chapters show Rin playing with an unfamiliar aura: what looks like swirling rivulets of water.

This represents the refinement of his ego and playstyle since the under-20 match. But what exactly are they going for with the swirling water? Here's my two cents.

Rin is strongly associated with water, specifically the sea. He grew up by the coast; he and Sae shared a love of watching the sunset over the water after training together. Those childhood memories are turbulent now, like dark clouds on the ocean's horizon.

It's here he realises that he can no longer play the puppetmaster football that helped him thrive in Blue Lock. As good as he is, it wasn't authentic... and it's nowhere near where he needs to be to compete with his brother, or even Isagi.

Rin's flow state is the most unique out of any others we've seen. Let's dig into it. All panels are from the official translation, which is important as the translation choices are 1) consistent and 2) likely chosen carefully.

In the dying moments of the match, Rin complains about feeling restrained. Being Itoshi Rin is eating him alive.

Cool, calm and aloof.

A genius. Prodigy. Puppetmaster.

Team player. Team captain.

Isagi Yoichi's partner. Shidou Ryuusei's rival.

Itoshi Sae's little brother.

The prospect of defeat rudely wakes him up. His pretence comes crashing down hard, triggered by his ineffectiveness in spite of the teammates around him. It's one of the best rugpulls in sports manga.

When the power of friendship comes knocking, Itoshi Rin tells it to fuck off and die.

What a glorious moment... and not just because it posits Rin as a Uchiha Sasuke kinnie. I prompt you to examine his eyes in this panel.

They're a swirling vortex of hate and destruction, befitting Blue Lock's angstiest character. The shape reminds me of this:

Satellite images of Hurricane Franklin and Hurricane Idalia, August 2023. Image credit: NOAA Satellites.

Rin's true ego, which he unleashes against Sae, is a storm.

Optional soundtrack for the rest of this post (because Rin 100% listens to this once it comes out in Blue Lock's universe).

Although it isn't portrayed visually as such in the under-20 arc, the metaphor fits Rin's evolving playstyle. What is more destructive, more uncontrollable, more senseless than a hurricane? A violent force of nature that we can predict but never avert?

When a storm approaches, all we can do is rank it, track it, then attempt to mitigate the inevitable damage.

In football terms? Sounds a lot like playing Rin.

It's even alluded to in chapter 250: the graphics for Rin's formation are similar to the satellite images of large storms.

Within the U20 match, there are exchanges that support this theory. Darai calls Rin's evolving playstyle arrogant and avaricious. The latter (meaning extreme greed) is evocative of a force that pursues what it wants without regard for anything in its surroundings. What it can't have, it destroys.

Niou is confident enough in his physicality to try withstand his opponent's attrack. Rin literally flips him into the air. Niou's hubris brings to mind all man-made constructs which are supposedly storm-proof... until a cyclone comes along and proves otherwise.

The contrast between Rin and Sae's egos are interesting. If we accept Rin's is a storm, i.e. a destructive force of nature that cannot be controlled, Sae's is the opposite despite being as impossible to defy. Sae's motif is defined in the manga as "beautiful destruction", plays and passes depicted in graceful data strings. Rather than natural, his playstyle is sleek and controlled, and dominant to the point of appearing pre-ordained by his opponents.

Their attitudes are equally different. While Rin drools and loses composure in the final minutes, Sae does little more than raise his eyebrows throughout the entire game. He's completely emotionless.

It's the extremes of human nature: animalistic rage versus robotic detachment. This time, the latter wins. Will Rin have an opportunity to face his brother again, with a better grasp on his ego? Here's hoping.

My final thoughts on Rin are speculative. How does one beat a storm? Not just endure—but subdue and calm one?

It's beyond human capability. The ability to control the weather exists only in myth and fantasy, and even then it's usually in the hands of powerful entities, not mere heroes or wizards.

Subduing something as powerful as a hurricane would require a god.

Is this Isagi and Rin's endgame?

Time will tell.

#blue lock #blue lock analysis #blue lock meta #itoshi rin #itoshi sae #isagi yoichi #i missed doing long analysis posts ❤️ #this was fun to pull together #bllk analysis #blue lock spoilers #blue lock anime spoilers #boinin talks bllk #mine #long post

[the-writer-is-always-write]

Thoughts on Dune: Part Two

General Impression: I adored this movie from start to finish. Having just rewatched Part One a week ago, it felt like a seamless transition hopping back into the story. The score, the set design, the costumes, all of it was impeccable.

Chani: her character arc was obviously the biggest deviation from the book, and although I felt a lot of surprise watching it unfold, I think some reflection has left me alright with it. I've admittedly only read Dune and Dune: Messiah, but both books are clearly meant to illustrate the dangers of religious fanaticism and the ways that religion and prophecy can be manipulated and utilized as a tool for oppression. While these ideas can (hopefully) be discerned fairly clearly by the reader, I think it makes sense to have an audible voice of dissent in a film adaptation, particularly from someone among the Fremen. The only concern I have is wondering how Denis will handle Dune: Messiah, since the plot sort of hinges on Paul and Chani being together. But I guess that's a worry for later.

MY BOY MUAD'DIB: Timothee is just so utterly perfect for this role, I genuinely could not imagine anyone else doing it with such grace and gravitas. Seeing the gradual spiral of innocent teenager to reluctant leader to religious icon was heart-wrenching. Paul has honestly become one of my favorite fictional characters because his story is so complex and layered with tragedy. He's simultaneously a product of manipulation and coercion, and an angry young man seeking revenge against those who have hurt him. He lacks agency in many ways, yet he still makes decisions that lead to so much destruction. He tries so so hard to avoid the holy war, but it becomes an inevitability he can't escape. Reading Dune: Messiah for the first time a few weeks ago really helped me to understand how the prophecy controlled him as much as he used it to control others. I could literally give a ted talk on this, and how it's such a fascinating take on the messiah figure trope.

Jessica: I saw an article recently where I think Denis called Jessica "the puppetmaster," and I think that's very fitting for her depiction in this movie. I like how it openly shows the manipulation tactics of the Bene Gesserit, particularly how they prey upon the "vulnerable" Fremen first. Rebecca did a fantastic job giving the creep factor.

Feyd-Rautha: I still don't know why Denis had a vendetta against Harkonnen eyebrows, but I guess it was cool? I LOVED the black and white lighting on Giedi Prime, and the arena scene was SO. GOOD. Denis really went for it. Feyd's accent caught me off guard a few times, but overall I think the ruthless and brutal nature of the character really shined through. He's the antithesis to Paul, and I think Denis captured that theme well enough.

I thought all the other characters were well done too. Stilgar was maybe a touch too comic relief-y at times, but nothing catastrophic. Gurney was great, but I would have liked at least one more baliset scene :(

Things we missed: I'm a little bummed we didn't get Harah. I know the movie was already pretty stuffed, but I honestly thought they could have used the actress that played Chani's friend (I can't remember if they ever mention her name). Even if the idea of Paul "acquiring" her was a little icky, they could have done something else with her character at least. I was also sad they didn't do the full funeral scene with Jamis, but oh well. I think the greater omission was Thufir Hawat, but again I can see why they chose to cut him. I just think the dynamic between the Baron and Feyd-Rautha had a lot more friction in the book, mostly because of Thufir conspiring them both against each other.

I'm honestly not upset we didn't get to see freaky-toddler Alia. I was excited for Anya though!

Overall, I really loved this film. No adaptation can get every detail perfect, but I can see the ways that Denis and the actors adored this story and wanted to tell it in a powerful way. I thought the themes stayed true to the book, and I'm really hopeful we get Part Three!

AND THE WORMS. THE WORMS WERE GREAT. LONG LIVE THE WORMS.

#dune #dune part two #dune part two spoilers #dune spoilers #frank herbert #paul atreides #chani #irulan #timothee chalamet #denis villeneuve #zendaya

[glitteringcrab]

I've seen this technology before

...Have we... really considered the implications of this?

The first possibility is that the creators of Rick and Morty kinda made certain things up as they went along (which makes sense) and this was simply Evil Morty's introduction: he's clever, he's ruthless, he can perform mind control. Cool. Spooky.

The second possibility, if Evil Morty's whole arc is planned from the very beginning and he's always been intended to be an overarching villain/antihero (honestly, it feels this way) is that in some point in the past there was either (at least one) Villain Of The Week (let's call him Random Puppetmaster Villain) or a Rick (let's call him Puppetmaster Rick) who would puppeteer people to promote his own agenda.

The Citadel Ricks examining Evil Rick had evidently no clue who could have been puppeteering Evil Rick. This can be read in two ways:

A) Random Puppetmaster Villain/Puppetmaster Rick is still at large, never been caught. The Citadel Ricks have no idea where to even begin looking. Evil Morty would likely know who it is.

I feel like this theory has some basis plot-wise, given that with Rick Prime dead and the Intergalactic Federation gone we're sorta running out of overarching villains.

B) Random Puppetmaster Villain/Puppetmaster Rick is dead, his villain lair destroyed, all his mooks defeated. The Citadel Ricks are like "wtf, what's this up now?" as all possible leads are long gone. They have no idea who could possibly be using the same technology now.

This theory has some basis if we consider the fact that Evil Morty does not appear particularly scared--just angry. His motivation to leave was because he was sick of being trapped with Ricks, not because he was worried a past enemy might hunt him down. I guess one possibility doesn't rule out the other (you can be scared and angry at the same time) but Evil Morty seems to be the living incarnation of the toxicity of the Rick-Morty dynamic; nudging that on the side with a generic being-a-victim-to-a-villain backstory feels very disappointing.

I guess in theory both possibilities could be true; Puppetmaster might have been defeated, Evil Morty might, along everyone else, think the dude (or dudette) is dead, but that person could have escaped.

There is also the possibility that Puppetmaster and Evil Morty parted in good-ish terms with each other, so one has no reason to fear the other.

C) Evil Rick was the Puppetmaster. I feel this is unlikely, same as I feel it is unlikely that Evil Rick was ever physically abusive with Evil Morty, despite Evil Morty's reaction to his yells. If he was in habit of hitting Evil Morty (or worse), I doubt Evil Morty would have worked up the courage to get in his face over something as mundane as a shitty (literally lol) adventure. (Other Ricks might have been though, which would explain Evil Morty's reaction).

IN ANY CASE

Evil Morty had the... good fortune (?) to interact with this person in the past. In the same way Morty Prime is used to disarming neutrino bombs drunkenly assembled by Rick C-137, Evil Morty was experienced enough to successfully perform brain surgery on Evil Rick. This is supported by Evil Morty's large range of brain-related abilities, and I'm not referring to the manipulation:

1. Performing brain surgery on at least two Ricks. It wasn't a one-time thing. He did it with Evil Rick, and he did it again when he was running for president:

Look at the Rick in the picture: he doesn't have the eye bags nor mouth scar that Evil Rick had, and Evil Morty is wearing his Candidate Suit.

It's unclear if Evil Morty set his assistant up for a failed assassination attempt to gain votes through sympathy, or if someone had really been keeping tabs of him... But whichever is true, I can totally see any people in the know being afraid to speak up: any of the Ricks accompanying Evil Morty might in reality be puppeteered by Evil Morty. Some of the guards that shot the District Ricks might have been Evil Morty. The Ricks that approved of him participating in the campaign run might have been Evil Morty. Good luck speaking to anyone; you risk basically confessing to Evil Morty.

2. Scanning Rick C-137's entire brain (when he finished this in the Citadel, he did it with no visible apparatus, I might add).

3. Scanning dead Ricks' entire brains. You'd think that the death would deteriorate the memories, but nope. Evil Morty was good to go.

4. Being able to instantly scan another person's brain and find out what they're planning:

5. Creating small devices that can instantly hijack robotic brains and enslave them to his own will:

6. Downloading specific data from another person more-or-less on the spot:

I mean, that wasn't even Evil Morty's tablet! He threw it away after he was done, and it seems that he had hastily wrecked Rick Prime's control room to hook him up with some cables so he could get what he wants.

(Interesting that he didn't bother downloading Rick Prime's insta-healing ability though; one with think that it'd be quite a catch, but Evil Morty apparently does not want to be able to live forever)

I mean, we've seen the Galactic Federation going into a lot of trouble to get Rick C-137's interdimensional travel secret, and those weird little dudes that specialized on simulations going to equally lot of trouble just to get Rick C-137's concentrated dark matter recipe.

They'd all wish they had the same abilities Evil Morty has, it'd all be over in a jiffy.

SO.

What I'm concluding when taking all the above into consideration is that Evil Morty was at some point paired with a Rick who specialized in brain control. Evil Morty got to observe the surgeries, assist in the surgeries...

...and have a surgery done to him.

Because he might be able to perform brain surgery on an incapacitated Rick, but I doubt he'd be able to do it to himself in his bedroom.

He had no trouble hooking his own cables with the eyepatch, even though the cables were sticking out of his freaking eye. He knew how to connect them. He knew how to make the eyepatch work. He knew what he was doing. This was all familiar to him.

And given that once he became fed up with Evil Rick he acted with no hesitation, it's clear that he had already considered this technique as a possible way out, and up to then had been simply deciding against it.

Now.

Best case scenario. BEST CASE:

Evil Morty was simply one of the Puppetmaster's experiments. (No hard feelings.) After all, Evil Morty had no transmitter in his skull. He had to hook up one externally. This means that Puppetmaster never considered him a partner; Evil Morty was never given free reign to puppet others. He was one of the people being puppeteered.

It's unclear whether Evil Morty has a receiver of his own still stuck somewhere in his brain (I mean, if Puppetmaster's transmitter is destroyed, I guess that Evil Morty would stop receiving orders and he'd be free) although even if that's the case, I'm sure once he became president and got access to more superior tech he'd make sure to fix this possible contingency.

The cables sticking out of his freaking eye kinda point out to Puppetmaster connecting Evil Morty to a machine while immobile (especially if Evil Morty was the initial experiment, needed updates, maintenance, etc) or having him wear a mook mask or helmet of some sort. Those cables are not really easy to use otherwise. Or maybe there was a receiver once in his skull, was later removed (e.g. once Puppetmaster was defeated) but the cables hooking up the removed receiver to his brain have remained.

Worst case scenario:

Evil Morty was not simply an experiment, but one of the people regularly puppeteered. Theoretically possible, although given that Ricks don't think highly of Mortys, and that Mortys usually do what they're told (a clone Morty with nowhere else to go even more so), I'm not really sure what kind of things Puppetmaster thought Evil Morty would be useful for and thought that the best way to get obeyed was literal brain control.

In any case, this wasn't just "a body modification" nor "just an implant", in the same way that Morty Prime can turn into a boat or breathe in space. This is a lot, A LOT more intrusive.

In conclusion:

Possible villain still at large.

Someone hug Evil Morty ASAP.

#evil morty #rick and morty #I've seen this technology before

[survivalove]

Avatar The Last Airbender

Sozin’s Comet, Part 4

As the two main characters, Katara and Aang’s series-long arcs come together in the finale as they face their enemies: Azula and Ozai.

Katara vs Azula:

After Azula broke the Agni Kai she made with Zuko, Katara was forced to fight her, dodging fire and lightning while hopelessly looking for any means to defeat the comet-powered firebender on her home turf.

Finally Katara baits Azula into approaching her close enough to freeze her over the drains. However, Azula moves to lightning bend Katara once more. In a split second, Katara bends the water and freezes both herself and Azula before the lightning sparks. Not only is this a testament to her speed, mobility and precision as a fighter, but it also shows how risky this move was as she was so close to being electrocuted and losing her life in an effort to subdue Azula.

[Azula is about to shoot lightning at her when Katara freezes them both with the water under the grate.] - Transcript:Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang

Aang vs Ozai:

Similarly, Aang has spent majority of the final battle running from Ozai as he tried to find a way to get close enough to him to take his bending away.

In the beginning, Aang gets the opportunity to take Ozai’s life by redirecting lightning, but chooses not to. Instead, Aang subjects himself to ~ 20 minutes of almost getting burnt alive just because he didn’t want to end Ozai.

A chance encounter with a rock physically unblocks Aang’s avatar state and he pins Ozai down before coming out of the avatar state on his own. Again, another opportunity where he could have ended Ozai but chooses not to. As Ozai berates Aang’s people for the last time, Aang holds him in place to take his bending away. There was absolutely no way he could’ve known for certain that this would work or that he could even do it successfully until he did it for the first time here.

[Aang remembering.] To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable or you will be corrupted and destroyed. - Transcript:Sozin's Comet, Part 4: Avatar Aang

To summarize, both Katara and Aang risked their own lives to spare the lives of their enemies. Just as Aang’s journey to the final battle builds up this moral dilemma of how he would end the war, so too, episodes like the Puppetmaster and the Southern Raiders introduce a similar theme for Katara where is she faced with the temptation of enacting extreme violence in the name of justice and vengeance.

In a show about child soldiers, the main theme I picked up from ATLA was “How does one win a war without losing oneself?” The protagonists, Katara and Aang, are both challenged with this at different points in the series and finally defeat the firelords of the nation that decimated their cultures without forsaking their personal beliefs and morals in the process.

#avatar the last airbender #atla #pro katara #pro aang #katara #aang #kataang #pro kataang #mini meta #parallels #sozin's comet

[the-trinket-witch]

PlayfulLand Theories before the event starts!

Everybody's excited for the New Twst Halloween Event coming to the JP servers, right? I am too. These bones been rattlin' since I found out. And my brain has been rotting with theories and predictions. Are they baseless? Likely. I would like to say I've seen enough of a pattern in this game to see a familiar plot coming down the pipe. Call it grasping at straws or pareidolia, but I'm having fun turning this all in my brain. Everybody in the Brainrot Buggie, we're making wild guesses and throwing shit at the wall to see what is right. 

(SPOILERS FOR TWST PLAYFULLAND EVENT, TWST CH. 6, BLACK BUTLER: BOOK OF CIRCUS. CW for Child Abuse, manipulation/loss of physical faculties, and general body horror)

Biggest takeaway from this theory dump: Fellow and Gidel aren't the main antagonists of this event. 

"But Trinket, they're the face of the event! How are they not the Big Bads?" I hear you wonder. It's because they weren't the Main Antagonists in their own source material. These two were:

Stromboli and The Coachman.

Assuming anyone reading has already watched the 1940 film, will note these two are connected to Honest John and Gideon/The Fox and Cat by their financial dealings. The Coachman in specific pays the Two for them to round up boys to bring to Pleasure Island to meet their fates. In most iterations of Pinnochio, Mangiafuoco/Stromboli and The Coachman are two separate entities. One adaptation, though, combines them. And while I will not delude myself to think it was an inspiration for the potential 'Actual Big Bad', an idea came to mind when thinking of the character from the 1996 The Adventures of Pinnochio, Lorenzini. A couple ideas, actually…

But before I get to that, where else in Toboso-sensei's work have we seen Charismatic Gingers in Circus Settings who are the bait-and-switch 'face' of a story arc?

That's right:

Joker. 

I guess not really 'bait and switch', but a lot of emphasis was put on him as a character when Book of Circus first came out. But then he and the rest of the Circus troupe began mentioning a man they called Father. Baron Kelvin. 

Before his obsession sparked for Ciel, he was a philanthropist who could have been considered a good man. But in the state we meet him in for the first time in BoC, he's a completely changed man obsessed with becoming physically appealing to Phantomhive, to the detriment of the children who had and would come under his 'care'. Their bones became the ceramic used to give prostheses to the rest of the circus. 

What if we're gearing up to have a similar figure 'pulling the strings' in this coming event? An amalgamation of Stromboli/The Coachman/Baron Kelvin…and Monstro the Whale? 

"Why Monstro? We already have a reference with Azul's cafe!"

Remember Lorenzini that I mentioned earlier?

He's also a combination of The Puppetmaster, Coachman, and Whale.  What if this Combination character… was a Whale merman? A merman looking for a different way to stay human, in a sense 'Become a Real Boy'? What if his transition to humanity has him stuck in one location out of the way? What if this is all a trap to sap the life/magic out of these boys so he can shirk his mer form for permanent legs? While it could be a stretch to say this is the case, lemme see if I can coherently explain…

@thecosmicjackalope posed the notion that the extraneous went characters might in some way be foils/parallels to the Overblot Gang. So far we have Idia getting a parallel with Rollo (two siblings dealing with the grief over the death of their brother), what if this is an event paralleling Azul and his dynamic with The Tweels? 

Shady fish men with (possible) varying degrees of disgust with their mer forms

Equally fishy business practices

Employ more physically capable individuals to do his 'legwork'

Plan(ned) on having the student body of NRC under their thumb of servitude

Employ magical tactics to entice and bind those they want into their grasp.

On top of all of this, what if his magic extends to both Fellow and Gidel? What if those two are just a regular fox and cat given sentience to do a whale's dirty work? Would they turn back after being defeated? That would explain the motivation, outside of just 'I'm getting paid handsomely to bring these boys in and not ask questions'. Even if this part is all thrown out the window, the idea that a shady Ringmaster lording over Playfulland just won't leave me. So then, what else can I guess about this event? (NOTE: THESE ARE ALL QUESTIONS AND THEORIES, not posed by much/any evidence)

The costumes/masks might specifically be used to control the boys. In a way similar to The Beast and the trees of Over the Garden Wall, thanks to @squidwen for the notion, maybe the masks progressively creep up on the NRC boys both subduing them, and eventually sapping them of life/magic? What if the incentive for the boys to act 'like jackasses' is how the mask takes root/grows? What if the end result (the host losing their life/stores of magic) their bones turn to wood?  What if the park is literally built of the Bones of Fairgoers Past?

Something I already began to theorize about when the announced SSRs came out was: why those three were picked.

Ortho we know shares A LOT of parallels/references to Pinocchio already. It's basically a given that he'd be a part of this. He is naive and fresh, so he could very well follow wanderlust wherever (by whoever) inspires it.  But why Kalim and Ace? Ideas for each:

Kalim:

He's a trusting person (played as 'To his own detriment')

A bit of a party animal

One to go with the flow, isn't quick to realize he's in deep shit til it's too late

Ace:

Brutally honest

Brother worked at a theme park. (Possible enticement to bring him in, on the promise of finding him somehow?)

One of the biggest liars of the cast-couple that with his immaturity and quick willingness to shirk responsibility, he's a prime candidate to pick off to someplace that promises leisure and fun away from school.

All three of the SSR boys are technically prime folk to lure off to the equivalent of Pleasure Island. Kalim with his weak will and shortsightedness, Ortho with his lack of experience both as a bot and now as a legit person, and Ace again because he has the most maturing to make for this arc. If anybody becomes a literal donkey in all of this: I can see it most likely being Ace. 

Assuming the rest of the Event Cast are only there on the premise of having drawn the short straw and not able to go to the Glorious Masquerade, I don't have any other theories for them. (Though I gotta say I'm digging the much more blatant Mad Hatter Ref in Trey's design.) A gameplay theory I had is that maybe we have to fight them to 'cut them loose', with eventually Ortho, Kalim and Ace being the 'final' bosses of the event, who defend the Puppetmaster in one final stand. 

For a TL:DR:

It's Book of Circus 2: Electric Boogaloo if it was written by Neal Shusterman (of Full Tilt fame). A Fishman wants to be a Real Boy, masks are terrifying, and Ace is an immature clown who's gonna get a lotta folks put in danger.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst theory #twst playful land #twst event #fellow honest #twst gidel

[starlight-bread-blog]

In Defense of Katara

Update: The views expressed on Aang in this post are majorly dated.

Katara has been..

a controversial character. Particularly for the following reasons.

Supposedly talking about her mother "all the time", bringing it up out of context, making it all about herself and lashing out about it.

But before properly analyzing her character, let's first actually list off all the episodes where Katara has mentioned her mother (also in video form):

The Boy in the Iceberg:

Mentions her mother to confront Sokka about being lazy, establishing the family dynamic after her death and generally setting up her character arc.

The Southern Air Temple:

Firstly mentions her mother to prepare Aang to discovering a "potential" loss when getting back home. Then again to show empathy to Aang by showing that she somewhat understands what he's feeling.

Imprisoned:

Brings up Kya to connect with Haru about similar losses. It's also brought up again by Haru when her mother's necklace disappears.

The Waterbending Scroll:

Didn't mention her mother, just the necklace. Since Zuko showed her the necklace, which was lost.

Jet:

Mentions Kya to connect with Jet who also lost his parents to the Fire Nation.

The Waterbending Master:

Once again, she only mentions the necklace. And only because Pakku notices it himself.

The Swamp:

The swamp makes her hallucinate about her mother. It was fully outside of her control.

The Crossroads of the Destiny:

Brings up her mother's death once she got a chance to have a conversation with Zuko, who was her enemy and for all she knew, represented the nation who killed her mother.

The Headband:

It is brought up by Aang. He tells Katara that people could recognize her necklace for being Water Tribe while hiding in the Fire Nation.

The Puppetmaster:

Katara connects with Hamma over being from Southern Water Tribe and being hurt by the Fire Nation.

The Southern Raiders:

This entire episode focuses on Kya. She mentions her 5 times total. (Worth noting that Zuko brought it up in the first place).

It is also brought up in The Runaway by Sokka, and in Sozin’s Comet Part 4: Avatar Aang by Hakoda.

To sum up: Katara brings up her mother in a total of 11 episodes. 1 to establish the tragedy, 1 to comfrot Aang, 1 was outside of her control, 1 to confront the Fire Nation prince, 3 to connect with someone with similar experience of loss, and 4 times it's just about the necklace.

The claim that Katara brings up her mother "all the time" and out of context is entirely baseless. But I know what you're thinking:

Yeah it's bad. Really bad. But Katara is a 14 year old, dealing with grief. By no means this is an okay thing to say. But let's dive deeper – how her mother's death effected her, the dynamics it created and if there is any truth to what she's saying.

Katara has always been the care giver, the one who'll notice when you're in need, giving seemingly unconditional emotional support. Even prioritizing other's well being over her own. In The Deserter, Aang acted careless, using his firebendering to accidentally injure Katara. Unsuprisigly, Aang feels terrible about hurting her. He is confronted about it not by Katara, but by Sokka. Meanwhile Katara heals her own scar. And in the end, she's the one comforting guilty Aang.

Another instance is The Desert. The Gaang was stuck without Appa, with little to no supplies, in the middle of a desert. They're all hungry, exhausted and unsure of what's to come. Katara shows incredible resilience and empathy – she offers her bending water to everyone, but isn't show to drink any herself. And her response to Aang's outburst after semi failinh to get water from a cloud.

Katara: Wow, there's hardly any in here..

Aang: I'm sorry, okay?! It's a desert cloud! I did all I could! What's anyone else doing?! *Points at Katara* What are you doing?

Katara: Trying to keep everyone together. Let's just get moving. We need to head this direction.

In the end of the episode, Aang finds the sendbenders who stole Appa. He gets in the Avatar state, and while all the other characters run away, Katara stays, she hugs him in an uncontrollable rage. Want to hear something interesting? We don't see the characters express gratitude to her efforts. Even in the next episode she helps strangers give birth.

Instead of resolving her trauma, Katara internalized it. She became "the mother". She is the reason Sokka doesn't bring up his mother. I'd like to add a quote from Sokka in The Runaway:

"I'm gonna tell you something crazy. I never told anyone this before, but honestly, I'm not sure I can remember what my mother looked like. It really seems like my whole life, Katara has been the one looking out for me. She's always been the one that's there".

This is the closest we got to giving Katara the much needed support. Their grief is not the same.

Same goes for Aang's grief. Yes, he lost his entire nation. While Katara's grief molded her character, Aang's grief is only brought up when used in context. It's only brought up explicitly 3 times: In The Southern Air Temple, while finding out what happened for the first time; in The Storm for giving us his backstory and in The Guru when he has focus on his grief. It's also used to create another layer of tension 3 other times (The Northen Air Temple, The Desert and The Serpent's Pass). In every time it's brought up, it's linked to the overall plot/subplot in some way. It isn't something that is shown to change who he is as a person.

Katara on the other hand, took on the mother role in the age of eight, fundamentally changing who she is. She is used to swallowing her pain, to suck it up because others need help. Only showing weekness when alone, when no one from the Gaang is looking.

Almost everything about her is somehow linked to Kya. She cooks, she she sews, she gives orders – like a mother. A quote from The Runaway:

Katara: What do you think, Aang? Do I act like a mom?

Aang: Well, I-

Katara (intensively): Stop rudding your eye and speak clearly when you talk.

Aang: Yes ma'am!

That's her canonical love intereat what? So casually, it's about Kya. The trauma they all experienced is semi the same, but the impact was completely different. Katara's experience of grief is fundamentally different from Sokka's and Aang's and never had a proper closure.

Until The Southern Raiders. Katara has a chance to finally express all of this pent up trauma. You might not think it's healthy, or sympathetic, but now it's Katara's grief that is on full display. But Aang and Sokka weren't understanding. They suggest her to go right back to what she has been doing for years. Aang even compares her loss to losing Appa and tells her she sound like Jet. And in a moment of humanity, weekness and frustration, Katara lashes out.

#oh my god #I'm done #also don't get me started on the fact that katara also feels guilty of her mother's death #because she died instead of her #okay that's it #I swear #katara deserved better #katara deserves better #katara defense #in defense of katara #anti kataang #katara of the southern water tribe #the southern raiders #water tribe #atla katara #atla #avatar #avatar the last airbender #avatar katara #Avatar the last airbender katara #katara #avatar aang #katara meta #katara analysis #media analysis #analysis #atla meta #avatar the last airbender meta #atla analysis #katara my beloved

[willyoubemypartner]

Alyssa Cho - An Essay

Preface - Why is Alyssa so unsympathetic?

One of the things that’s odd about Alyssa’s character is that readers have rarely been so divisive over a single character, particularly about whether or not a character is sympathetic. There’s generally a consensus about the complicated nature of characters like Kousuke or even Rand, but Alyssa discourse feels very different.

During the formal arc, Quim has mentioned a few times that many scenes had to be cut due to Webtoon’s concerns about mature/dark content conflicting with adsense policies. Quim has recently mentioned weaving these scenes back in wherever possible, meaning that things were still happening in universe, we just couldn't see them. But now when these themes come up later to be more explored, they have to be introduced in a roundabout way for it to make sense. Instead of us getting what was intended and being able to build off that foundation as we follow the story and naturally understanding the pacing as it goes.

Now how does this tie into Alyssa? Alyssa in particular had important scenes cut from the formal - parallels we lost with Alyssa and Shin-Ae, the understanding and characterization of the Kims and other elites, the reality of her life in the idol world. It turned the formal into more of a ? than it needed to or should have been, and pulled the foundation of understanding Alyssa’s character right out from under us. We went essentially 200 chapters without really getting a look at her. She was introduced (like many ILY characters) in a certain way, but it took so much longer for her to get to show her depth and development beyond that mold. And it makes it so much harder for readers to see her objectively. People don't want to have to flip their entire understanding of and feelings towards Alyssa at chapter 230.

The foundation for Alyssa being more than just the attention seeker has always been there, we just didn't get to see it.

I don't always love Alyssa. But I feel for her. She's a real person as much as every other character. She’s not just "a girl who makes the wrong choices" nor is she just “the bad friend” or just “the trapped victim” - she is all of them . Alyssa may be misguided, but that’s just it - she's misguided because she never learned how to conflict. She tries to make the right choices, and fails. She’s trying her best and it never works out for her. And so she makes mistakes and she hurts people - including herself. And a lot of them are big mistakes, with very real consequences. She can see what’s really happening around her, but thinks that maybe it can work. And so she keeps making those wrong choices, because the core that she needs to change isn't something she feels safe to rectify. She’s miserable, but she can’t get out. She draws herself to the only light she can see, like a moth to a flame.

She’s introduced as this foe, even the mini Yui. And we're supposed to originally see her that way and know that that's now Nol has come to see her. But we are simultaneously supposed to break that down and see that she is also trapped. She idolized Yui and fell so far into the deep end without realizing it and now has to be Yui's puppet. The puppetmaster imagery is both Alyssa taking after Yui and falling for it, AND Yui taking advantage of her and Alyssa having no choice anymore but to play along and be taken advantage of. There’s that inherent dichotomy to how Alyssa acts and who she is and why she is.

Something about Alyssa is that her motives and feelings are almost always far more complex than they appear. Alyssa is so plagued by those parts of herself that she’s afraid of. Alyssa gets so much criticism for making her choices because for us it's so easy to see where she's going wrong. But, if she could really see it, she wouldn't be here. We know how this really ends and what would actually help, but all Alyssa has seen is that the way she handles things is the viable option. The whole point with Alyssa is that nobody helped her navigate these things . She's as much a victim as everyone else, even though she's hurt arguably our two most sympathetic characters.

Everyone thinks that she is an attention seeker. That she's successful and aloof and just drops people. Nobody is taking a second to see her childhood trauma, understand her real motivations, look at how trapped she is, how miserable. Nobody is extending a hand to her because they don't understand. And with nobody understanding her, nobody can give her an actual way forward, because everyone's attempts will be for a problem that isn't the real issue. Like many, if not all, of our characters, in order to understand Alyssa we have to acknowledge that the reason this is happening is because of unmet and unaddressed needs, lack of personal insight, being in survival mode - the person feeling like they had no other choice.

The people Alyssa hurt are our two main characters, and we are supposed to feel a way about that. But so much of the point is about how our emotional reaction to Alyssa isn't all there is. That she’s not any more or less evil just because the people she hurt are the ones we’re emotionally connected to. That she is a person who has her own story, her own motivations, her own mistakes, her own needs, her own fears, her own traumas. Not that it negates all the harm, but just that there is more to it. That we have to be able to examine and sit with our complex feelings towards her.

Unconditional Love & Chasing The Light 

At the core of Alyssa’s character is the desire to be seen and accepted for herself, at odds with the belief that who she is can’t possibly be okay.

We get some important insight into this throughout the Shinlyssa arc, but especially at Alyssa’s house and with the bullies. In Alyssa’s bedroom we see portraits of Hedy Lamaar, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Albert Einstein, Melba Roy Mouton, Alan Turing, Vera Rubin, and Sally Ride. The portraits were identified and analyzed by Kimione back in 2022 (https://new.reddit.com/r/ILoveYoo/comments/ws18yg/alyssa_cho_symbolisms_notes_and_scribblings/) as well as this recent post (https://www.reddit.com/r/ILoveYoo/comments/15sh4k7/the_portraits_in_alyssas_room_in_episode_190/?sort=confidence).

Recurring themes in the portraits are all of them being involved in groundbreaking science, contributions to communication or space, being both scientific and artistic, experience of inequity and adversity, and nonnormative sexuality. For all of these people, resilience and passion in the face of a world which did not see them clearly, which did not initially support them, carried them through to their success. For many of them, a key figure (or several) in their lives provided that support that helped them reach the world. Hedy Lamarr said that her father “made me understand that I must make my own decisions, mold my own character, think my own thoughts.”

In Alyssa’s case, we can see based on her choice of portraits and conversation with Shin-Ae that she wants to be seen for who she is, leave her mark on the world through her passions, be genuine in an off-beat way. Like those on her wall, she has a natural skill for both arts and science, but intends to pursue her passion for science, perhaps using her skill in the arts to inform her manner of thinking. The difference, however, is that she does not appear to have that support network. She says that her parents follow her every whim and she’s never been able to develop a real sense of self. We see that her mother puts on a face, appears weak, passive, the trophy wife. When Alyssa was home sick from school, we see her struggle to cope with conflict and rejection, curling up in her room and refusing to talk to anyone but Shin-Ae - yet she “flips a switch” the second she hears her father walk through the door. Something that she does often, as her mother even expected it. Alyssa establishes in that moment that it is not her emotions flipping a switch, but rather the fear of what happens when her father comes home and she is not who he wants her to be. She likely fears her strict father, and resents her passive mother. Either way, Alyssa clearly doesn’t feel supported in herself - she must be the perfect poster daughter, has no role models to look up to, has no understanding of how to make her own decisions, mold her own character, think her own thoughts.

Alyssa frequently exhibits self-doubt and feelings that nobody is listening, that nobody cares. That she must mold herself to whatever others want. That she has to keep parts of herself hidden. That what she wants to be is not something that she can pull herself up in the world through. That she has to bide her time and assuage people to earn her freedom. That she is trapped and isolated.

Although not directly confirmed, we get many hints throughout the Shinlyssa arc that Alyssa is a lesbian, that she had feelings for Shin-Ae. Alyssa being gay in a homophobic world, desperately trying to fit the social mold and find unconditional love, creates such a tragic outcome. While there are obviously so many more types of love than romantic, to have something Alyssa feels such shame for, something that she can not escape or pretend away, something she did not choose, something so wrongly yet so often considered a disease, an abomination, wrong, unnatural, nonconformist tied so directly to the experience of love creates such an all-consuming conflict in Alyssa. Even if she were bisexual, she could suppress enough of herself to fit the mold and find that love (as much as it would still hurt). With her being a lesbian, it enters the fact that she will never be able to find that kind of love while she’s hiding herself. That in her quest to fit the social mold to find love and validation she’s completely closing off that gate. There is something so incredibly tragic about that self-fulfilling prophecy, and it fuels so much of Alyssa’s conflict.

Something important is how much the Shinlyssa event affects not only Shin-Ae, but Alyssa. And, when talking about the Shinlyssa event, something so important to keep in mind is how young they were. They were children, only 12 or 13 years old, in a new environment - especially for Alyssa, who had never been outside the social environment of her home.

Shin-Ae is a character whose light shines bright, which everyone is caught in. That same light that she’s sharing with Nol. A light that even Alyssa was in back in middle school, but that she couldn’t stand in, because Alyssa couldn't accept all of herself. If she stayed in Shin-Ae's light, it would have illuminated the truths she's afraid of. Alyssa is so afraid of the light shining on parts of herself she doesn't want seen that she lets the light go out all together.

It's better in the dark.

So she snuffed out her own light.

She just wants to be accepted and thinks that nobody will accept her because of those parts of herself that she can’t accept. That she’s been taught are wrong. So she can not find acceptance and belonging, she can not stand in the light. And she settles for the closest thing she can find, that artificial light that lets her keep those parts of herself hidden. But that light will never come close when she has to hide so much of herself.

There’s likely only one time in Alyssa’s life that she felt that sense of unconditional love - in her relationship with Shin-Ae. How Alyssa felt the emotional support she desperately needed, that love she craved, that acceptance for her authentic self. How she felt seen with Shin-Ae. How she pushed her away because those are feelings she's not allowed to have. Not for an outcast. Not for someone so brazen. Not for a girl. Not for someone who sees Alyssa as she genuinely is. And now that feeling of actual love and acceptance may be something she never finds again. Only conditional. Only for her image. Her persona. Only when she does what she's told. But none of it true.

Alyssa doesn’t chase fame or adoration, she’s chasing acceptance while being unable to look at herself. She is in this career, in Yui’s grasp, as a direct result of the Shinlyssa event.

Nobody ever showed her safe unconditional love. So naturally she thinks that the only way she can be loved is by chasing adoration. And, as she got older, nothing has proven that wrong for her. The Shinlyssa accident factors so strongly into why Alyssa doesn't see another way. She did have Shin-Ae, but things still went so wrong. It was ingrained into Alyssa that she can not rock the boat, can not be in conflict, has to play nice with those around her. Shin-Ae was unconventional, unpopular, and unafraid to stand up for herself. That created tension between them, and a lot of problems between them and the other kids. Alyssa, in her world, kept trying to keep Shin-Ae and not cause problems at school, but it kept blowing up in her face. And, in the end Shin-Ae falls out a window. This is a horrible way to experience your first taste of interpersonal conflict and likely just solidified for her that you absolutely can not rock the boat, you have to placate people and fit the social mold. It's also likely that her parents were involved in the aftermath of what happened in middle school, considering how much it all got swept under the rug. With her feared, strict father and her good family image mother, I can only imagine what sort of treatment she was welcomed to at home after the Shinlyssa incident. Personally, I also believe that her parents wouldn't have let her anywhere near Shin-Ae afterwards.

Hidden behind the large home and private lessons is how neglected Alyssa was. Treated as a trophy to compensate for the eldest daughter being a disappointment to their overbearing father. Living in a home as the trophy daughter with the trophy wife. Alyssa’s statements of wanting to be part of a power couple come from that resentment, the deep desire to not be that kind of submissive, docile woman.

And then in comes Yui - this godlike woman. Mother. Businesswoman. Charitable. Charismatic. Powerful. Married to an honorable man. Promising everything Alyssa needs - love, validation, adoration, success, belonging. Offering Alyssa a chance to shine, compliments, (fake) love, the potential to become powerful and adored like her. And she idolized Yui, so she took the chance.

It was everything Alyssa needed, on a silver platter … until it wasn’t.

Yui knew exactly how to play her. Manipulated a 14 year old girl just like she does everyone. And by the time Alyssa could see any which way, it's already too late. We can see that she's exhausted. Miserable. Isolated. Always 'on.' Always playing her role. Always on high alert, in survival mode. With Yui over her shoulder, groupmates that hate her, having to be dolled up for everyone she meets, no true allies anymore, being watched and exploited at home, at work, at practice, in the dorms, in public, at events - there is truly not a single place Alyssa feels safe, let alone accepted or loved. And yet she can not leave. She can't stop. They won't let her go now. If she were to stop, she'd have to fail . She has never been allowed to fail. Her life now is miserable, but she sees the price of failure as being even worse.

I think that we're going to see Alyssa continue down a dark path. She's never lived in a reality where it feels okay to be herself. She's pushing so much down and trying so hard to become what other people want her to be so that she may finally fit in. Be loved. Feel like she belongs.

Every one time someone says she's doing great it's like a hit for her, but it's so fleeting. So she has to keep chasing it, because she doesn't know where else to get it. But the more she chases it, the farther and farther down a dark path she goes, running after a torch instead of the sun. And the farther she gets, the harder it is to find an exit. So she has to keep chasing the only light she can see and just hope that it gets her somewhere.

Survival & Safety 

In the case of Alyssa, so many people underestimate the effect that an emotionally volatile upbringing can have on you and how you interact with the world. So many people are choosing to ignore that Alyssa is emotionally neglected and likely abused at home. Shin-Ae feels more like the victim to us because we're seeing the story through her eyes and we know that without money you can't physically live, but the thing Alyssa has lacked all her life, the thing that she needs is to feel like she's accepted and loved. That she, herself, is enough.

At the core of all of her actions, beliefs, choices, is one simple fact - Alyssa feels unsafe.

And even Alyssa’s song - she knows full well that she’s trapped now. The imagery points right to Yui. As Alyssa said, she’s not dumb. The entire time that we’ve known Alyssa, she’s known where she stands with Yui. When she talks about Yui at the formal her eyes are closed. The entire time she’s talking about Yui being charitable, nice for giving Shin-Ae a job, not being where she is today without Yui, wanting a mother like her, wanting to be like her. Her eyes only open again when she says she’d love to be part of a power couple. These are all things that Alyssa likely believed about Yui when she first met her, but has since seen the writing on the wall. The savior she ran to in order to escape her unsafe family life turned out to be even worse. And this is even what leads her to Gun Kim in the recent chapters - in the same way she desperately needed to escape her family, now she desperately needs to escape Yui. But since Alyssa doesn't believe in herself, can't let herself shine enough to brave the world and gain control on her own, she needs someone by her side. Needs to be part of a "power couple." This time it's Gun who comes in, the sparkling savior. Except Alyssa does know better this time, we can see that she's uncomfortable around him, that she knows the sparkles fade. But it’s too late now, and Alyssa just hopes to play the game long enough to gain some of her power back.

"Everything will go to waste I’m trying to find my way back But all these red hues keep me locked in place I can stay captive a bit longer So long as I end up on top"

Alyssa has been playing the game because it's the same game she had to play at home. Keep your head down. Do what they say. That way they won't hurt you as badly.

And when we remember that Alyssa's socioeconomic status is closer to Kousuke's than to Shinae's we can understand even more the implications, because it's not just about Alyssa’s weaknesses. It's about how it reflects on her family. Alyssa and Meg act as parallels to Kousuke and Nol, the golden child and the black sheep. Constantly told to not embarrass the family, don't make them look bad, live up to your potential. Nol and Meg are seen as wildcards, burdens, disappointments, people who do not fit the social mold and make everyone's lives more difficult. So Kousuke and Alyssa feel such intense pressure to fit the mold exactly. To never be out of line. To be someone that lives up to their family name. That brings respect. That doesn't cause trouble.

We see this same concept play out in the juxtaposition between the reaction to the girls’ catching Yui’s eye.

When we think about the parallels of Yui swooping in and "stealing away" both Shin-Ae and Alyssa the biggest difference is that Nol could see Shin-Ae, see how miserable she was even if she didn’t explain it to him. And, even then, the only reason even Shin-Ae ever opened up and leaned on people was because she had to. Because Nol had already seen it. He was able to nudge it out of her after seeing her eviction notice and pile of bills. After seeing her so blatantly miserable at the formal. And once someone had seen her weaknesses and supported her, she gradually was able to build back that trust that she spent so long unable to draw upon. But she didn’t start that by choice, she just chose to continue.

While for Alyssa he can’t see it - so much of her misery has been out of his view, she doesn’t open up and lean on people and is so good at putting on her brave face. The more people know your weaknesses, the more they have to use against you, and Alyssa sees so many weaknesses in herself that she can’t trust anyone. Alyssa has been trained all her life to hide anything negative. Never step out of line. Nol was able to see it in Shin-Ae because she’s easier to read, but nobody can see it in Alyssa because she’s been taught how to hide it. Shin-Ae’s biggest strategy for hiding her state was to avoid people - Alyssa is able to hide in plain sight.

Alyssa is always a strong contrast with Shin-Ae, and we can see it throughout the formal. Something so important to this parallel are cut scenes of Alyssa that foreshadow the recent developments we’ve seen of her with the Hiraharas and the Kims.

Such a theme of the night is how lucky Shin-Ae was that Kousuke and Nol didn't have ill intentions around her and were looking out for her. Everyone was looking out for Shin-Ae that night, but no one was looking out for Alyssa. Even her own parents, the people who above all else are supposed to keep you safe, sold her out to the entertainment industry and never looked back. And, to be fair, we come back to her self-fulfilling prophecy - Alyssa is afraid to be herself because she thinks her true self isn’t worthy of love, so she pushes people away, and then has no one. But, at the same time, Shin-Ae has also been pushing everyone away. Nol has to stalk her to gain her friendship, she coldly and pointedly rejects Dieter, she keeps Maya and Rika at arm’s length, she doesn’t tell anyone (even Min-Hyuk) about her problems with her home and her dad. But the difference between Alyssa and Shin-Ae is, in many ways, how well they hid it. With Shin-Ae it was obvious that she was keeping people at arm’s length because she had been hurt. With Alyssa, she’s keeping people away because she’s afraid, but she’s been taught very well how to keep up appearances, so it looks as though she just doesn’t care, that she’s more concerned with herself and her image and her career. So people leave her alone, while they chase after Shin-Ae. While everyone was off chasing Shin-Ae, Alyssa was alone with the elites - no one looking for her, no one caring where she was.

Alyssa is, at her core, so very alone.

Unreliable Narrators & Nolyssa 

One of the most pointed failings of Nolyssa, especially in comparison to Stalkyoo, is how much Nol and Alyssa really don’t know each other at all, despite being more privy to the details of each other’s lives than almost anyone else. Both of them are in survival mode, putting on masks day after day, not letting each other in, seeing each other as something they are so very not with goals and desires that only scratch the surface. On the one hand, neither of them have really put up a fight, but also the circumstances were against them. They weren't in a position to help each other. They were both kids with needs that weren't met trying their best to survive. Children forced into playing an adult’s game.

Nol and Shin-Ae are both unreliable narrators. Shin-Ae actually acknowledges this, specifically in relation to Alyssa, saying that she only ever has her side of the story. In Nol’s case, he sees Yui for what she is, and wants others to see it, too. But he also believes that everything is his fault, that it all stems from his existence, that Yui may be a villain but it’s because of him, not that Yui does what suits her best. And that makes it so hard for him to even begin to guess that Alyssa sees Yui for something else, that Alyssa fell for Yui’s manipulation for reasons that he couldn’t see and that she realized after what had really happened. That she could praise Yui, focus on her career, devote her time to this game, and be lying about it all. He sees that validation seeker and he didn't see beyond it because she didn't let him see anything more than that. He’s good at being able to tell when people are putting up a facade, but not so much why .

Alyssa is so much more complex than just someone seeking validation, and she is meant to make us sit with complex feelings. Meant to make us figure her out, to see beyond our unreliable narrators. To accept that she is more complex despite how negative her interactions with our two most overtly sympathetic characters are. We are supposed to be clued in to her more than they are, to see those things that none of our narrators can see.

Nol states that she knows how his family makes him feel, but does he know his family makes her feel? How this whole game makes her feel? That she wants off this ride but it's too late and she can't do anything?

Ironically, Nol is being used as Alyssa’s protector, but not in any intentional way. Nol said that he tried to steer Alyssa clear of Yui, but honestly it doesn't seem like he really tried. When Shin-Ae gets the invitation to Kousuke's apartment Nol just says that Yui is a nice lady. I think that Nol tries to save people from Yui by encouraging them to appease her and then wean away from her, thinking that as long as they do what she wants Yui won't hurt them. But obviously that's not how Yui works. And, Alyssa fell right into the trap, just like Shin-Ae.

But, where Nol is protecting her is by being the “boyfriend,” protecting her from the predators around her. Even if it's not much, having Nol as a boyfriend keeps those close to the Hiraharas who may try to take advantage of her just a bit more at bay. They can't step on the Hiraharas’ toes. I especially think that now that we've seen more of Alyssa's world, how she got where she is, and what likely lays ahead for her. And, it honestly works well for Alyssa - Nol is respectful, not interested in her, doesn’t push her, she doesn’t have to do anything to appease him, doesn’t have to do anything she doesn’t want to do. Doesn’t even have to pay attention to him (although she should, if even as just a friend). And I think that Alyssa does know this, and that’s part of why she fought so hard when he did for once express his own needs and desires and tried to break it off. I think that, once Nol is gone, it's basically open season on her, and it's going to be so incredibly hard to watch - that fake relationship is probably the final barrier keeping her in some semblance of safe.

But, the thing is, Alyssa's fate isn't Nol's responsibility. Alyssa does not deserve to be preyed upon, but Nol also doesn't deserve to be trapped and suffocated. We can see how much being in this relationship hurts Nol, suffocates him, how it's keeping him on a one-way path to misery. How, as much as she does not deserve what likely lays ahead for her without Nol, he does not deserve what lays ahead for him with Alyssa.

As much as I defend Alyssa, urging people to understand her complexities as a character, how her choices are born out of her own survival mode, how she is falling back on the methods that she learned from her home life were the only way to survive, how she has never felt safe and that leads directly to the choices she makes and how she feels that she does not have a choice at all - Nol is not the one responsible for her path, her choices. Some combination of Alyssa, the adults who failed her, and the adults who groomed her are responsible.

I mentioned earlier how Alyssa ended up here as a fallout of the Shinlyssa event, and that implicates Nol’s position too - both in relation to Alyssa and to Shin-Ae. If Shinlyssa had survived, Stalkyoo would never have been. All of this growth between Nol and Shin-Ae, chasing that future - it never would have happened. It’s even possible Nol wouldn’t be around anymore. Everything is a chain reaction. Sometimes there is no choice where everyone turns out okay. No matter which way it happened, one of them was going to be in a bad place. Which is the same way things are going with the potential ending of Nolyssa. Either Nol suffers or Alyssa is in danger - there's no scenario where they are both okay.

Shin-Ae is likely going to be a foil to Alyssa, and she may watch and have to understand. To see why Shin-Ae is so capable of being what she isn't. That at the end of the day Shin-Ae was always enough. That Alyssa was always enough. How different things would have been if she could’ve accepted herself and stood in that light. That if she could, people will come along who love her for who she is. That there was so much she couldn't see at that time and now it's too late.

Conclusion 

Despite how easy it is to dislike Alyssa, to to write her off as the validation seeker, the bad friend, the self-serving naïve idol - there is so much more to Alyssa to see. The girl seeking to fill that unmet essential need for unconditional love. The girl who has never felt safe. The girl who was never taught how to handle conflict. The girl who is so afraid of herself that she pushes everyone away. Who hides herself so much that no one knows who she really is. Who’s reputation for herself and her family rides on her back. Who is miserable but sees no way out. Who is trapped by choices she made as a child. Who still makes all the wrong choices because she doesn’t see any other way. Who is just as much a victim, desperately trying to survive, as everyone else.

Now she is trapped in this prison, abused and trafficked No way out in sight No one on her side Only empty love and adoration Chasing artificial light, snuffing her own out from fear of those inner truths, never feeling safe, having to keep going to have any hope of getting out but keeping going being so so bad and likely never going to get her there

Above all else I hope that Alyssa can learn to accept herself. That, even if she realizes it far too late, she can see that was all she ever really needed. Because she can’t have that love that she wants while she’s so afraid, so much in hiding, so fearful of the truths within herself that could be revealed if she stands in the light. The thing about Alyssa is that she pushes genuine people away because of this fear. And therein is her self-fulfilling prophecy, but she makes these choices because she doesn’t know what else to do and ends up further and further trapped. I feel an intense sadness for Alyssa as she, like all of our characters, is in survival mode herself and just trying desperately to fill an unmet need.

And, again, it's not about liking or disliking Alyssa. Absolving or convicting her. It's not that simple. As complex as she is as a person, so is her role in the story, her perception within us. But it's about understanding her - who she is, why she makes her choices, how she got here.

I will reiterate again a point from earlier - the people Alyssa hurt are our two main characters. We are supposed to feel a way about that. But so much of the point is about how our emotional reaction to Alyssa isn't all there is. That she’s not any more or less evil just because the people she hurt are the ones we’re emotionally connected to. That she is a person who has her own story, her own motivations, her own mistakes, her own needs, her own fears, her own traumas. Not that it negates the harm, the wrong choices, but just that there is more to it. That we have to be able to examine and sit with our complex feelings towards her.

In the words of Hedy - “I’m a very simple, complicated person.”

And that concludes my full length essay about Alyssa and why I have feelings

#i love yoo #i love yoo webtoon #Alyssa Cho #I love yoo alyssa #ILY Alyssa #ILY #Shinlyssa #I love yoo shinlyssa #ILY Shinlyssa #my writing #I just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Alyssa okay #My heart aches for her #She's not perfect and she certainly makes a lot of wrong choices but she's not a villain either

[arachnixe]

Familiar Face

The warrior who kicked down the door looked immediately familiar, though I'd never seen her before. Hers was the face in the mirror, the mold from which I was cast, the one my maker could never let go of.

Then her eyes fell on me, and I watched a whirlwind of emotions collide across those features I knew so well, a war that resolved itself when her mouth twisted into a sneer. Oh, and the perfect curve of her lips made even her contempt look beautiful.

"What the hell is that?" she demanded with a sweeping gesture toward me. But for all the disgust I seemed to provoke, the ire was aimed at my maker.

"The doll is a remarkable substitute for the real thing, wouldn't you agree?" Pride filled my maker's voice. "But this one knows its place is at my side. It knows to be grateful for my attention. It never—"

Interrupting with a snarl, my double lunged forward, the graceful arcs of her blade catching the moonlight pouring through the hall's great window. I had been instructed to run, to preserve the precious cargo I carried, but I could not bring myself to look away. For all the house's protective wards, all the magic crackling through the air, the warrior's ferocity triumphed. Yet even with a sword through the chest and blood pooling on the ground, my maker laughed in the last moments before death. "I'll be back."

Then we were alone together, my model and I, and as she turned to face me, I saw murder in those crystal-clear eyes. If I had a heart to call my own, its pounding would surely have been audible, even above the slap of her boots on the tile floor.

"Gonna draw a weapon of your own, or just stare daggers at me for killing your puppetmaster?"

Oh, was I mirroring her expression? I wasn't even aware. Hard to resist the urge to perfect myself by adopting her mannerisms, and now that I was paying attention, I noticed the way I was shifting my weight in imitation of the way she carried herself.

The warrior closed the distance, and I felt the tip of her sword rest under my chin.

"Please." At last I found my words. "Not there."

She cocked an eyebrow. Slowly, carefully, I brought my hand to her sword. I paused for a moment, hesitating, but with a curt nod she allowed my fingers to rest on the blade and with gentle pressure guide it lower—past so many carefully sculpted curves—until I had the point aimed just below the notch of my belly button.

"My maker's heart." The words came out in a tiny whisper, as though the quiet might help conceal this betrayal. "Hidden inside me for safekeeping."

With a brusque nod, she adjusted her grip to give her better leverage on the sword, readying herself to plunge it into me, but before committing to the motion, her expression softened.

"I'll make this quick."

I smiled. "Don't."

With fascination I watched how my words invited confusion—and something else—to play across her brow. Was I unconsciously imitating even that? I had no way of knowing.

Without further warning, she flexed her muscles, and I felt the pressure of the sword. My unyielding body resisted the sharpened tip, but only for so long. I did not need to look down to feel cracks spread from that small point as those familiar hands applied more force. The pressure building down there kept growing until at last the structural integrity of my exterior gave way, the cracks gaping wide enough to slip through. Slowly—just as I asked—she slid the naked blade inside my body with one smooth motion, right on target, drawing a gasp from me when she pierced my maker's heart.

Her face so close to me, her breath hot on my neck, her lips parted in a perfect mirror of my open-mouth gasp, I couldn't help but lean forward and close the distance between her mouth and mine.

Her kiss was utterly different from those I passively endured from my maker. No selfish hunger inspired her to slobber and suck like a starving beast; she kissed me like one would a person, soft and tender, her warm lips pressed to the cold of mine. She inspired such feats of mimicry in me that I never knew I was capable of, and my tongue danced with hers in almost choreographed precision.

We kissed as long as I was able before my strength failed. I slumped into her strong arms, and the last thing I saw of her was the look of compassion on her face as she laid me down.

---

I awoke in darkness, with sunlight's gentle cascade from the window warming my body. The heavy cloth atop me fell to the side when I sat upright, blinking in the sudden glare of daylight.

Oh, her cloak. Draped over me in a misguided show of respect for the dead? It still smelled just like her.

To my left, my maker's heart, pinned to the wall with the sword. My beloved must have dug the heart out of my body with her bare hands. I scowled (the same way she would have) in distress that I missed seeing that for myself while my self-repair matrix shut me down. I pulled her cloak—mine now—over my shoulders and claimed the sword for myself as well. A few experimental swings of it, and I was satisfied that I could defend myself adequately. I may not have been taught any weapon skills, but I learned a great deal watching her fight.

I was made to imitate her, after all.

Better than a sister, better than a twin, she was an idealized me. I didn't even know her name, and I couldn't let her go. I wasn't finished learning how to be her.

I left the house for good, following her footprints in the snow.

#empty spaces #my writing #dolls #romance

[ragingstillness]

BSD 107 - spoilers and meta

Ok I’ve scrolled down enough to tell that no one else is talking about it so I’m gonna lose my mind here. I am very very biased. 

So obviously we’re getting parallels between skk and sskk in that they’re both fighting each other and trying to get the other out of some sort of danger caused by Fyodor and/or Fukuchi. Have we considered the zskk implications of this? 

I’ve been saying all along that I think Mori’s gonna be a huge part of saving the day in this arc but the way it’s going a/sagiri might agree with me. 

Because up to this point Mori is the one thing Fukuchi hasn’t accounted for. To our knowledge. Obviously if Fukuchi’s done any research on Fukuzawa he’d know that the two of them have a contentious relationship at best but that can be explained by their status in Yokohama. Their true past, fighting together as reluctant bodyguard and reckless doctor, was dictated by Natsume and idk exactly why but I don’t think Fukuchi was able to get into anything of Natsume’s (quite possibly because Natsume’s a fucking cat most of the time lol). Not to mention that while Fukuchi would have access to most military records, I don’t think he’d have time to read through them all, and would have to justify accessing the top secret ones. One of which is Mori’s involvement in the war. We’re still not clear on why Mori was a top secret military asset but it’s not super important. Obviously Tachihara would be able to pass some information onto Fukuchi but Mori seems to have been aware of Tachihara’s background and ability and would have taken measures to guard against that, not to mention Jouno could also intercept the information. 

All this to say that I don’t think Fukuchi is as aware of Mori as he should be. I think he’s taken control of so much of the Port Mafia by turning them into vampires that he’s written them off, unaware that when he closed his net, the puppetmaster slipped out. And as far as we’ve seen, aside from Dazai’s rebellion and a few small independent actions by ppl like Kouyou and Aku, the loyalty Mori’s cultivated is absolute, especially among the higher echelons. Fukuchi can’t control the Port Mafia, not really, without wresting control of it from the man who already has that control. 

Mori is the king of pragmatism, the knower of all secrets. He sees where the tide is turning and throws his support behind whoever is going to let him come out on top. And tellingly, even at the beginning of this arc when everything was going to shit, Mori picked the Agency over the Hunting Dogs. He went personally to rescue Kenji when last we saw him. It gets mentioned in that recap that Mori going personally is something Fukuchi wouldn’t be able to predict. He’s the fly in the ointment, he’s the important piece Fukuchi’s forgotten and it’s going to stab him in the back. Knowing Mori, likely literally. 

Especially now that Fukuchi’s stabbed Fukuzawa. Now I can debate about how romantic zskk is all day, but regardless, Mori seems to keep a particular eye on Fukzawa at all times. So if Mori remains free and not a vampire at this point, do we really believe he doesn’t know Fukuchi’s stabbed Fukuzawa? Hell no. I fully expect Mori to interfere in that fight very soon and we’ll get to see just how unstoppable the two of them were when they fought together in the old days. The tiny flashbacks we’ve seen where Mori mentions how unstoppable they are take place post the destruction of an entire organization by Mori and Fukuzawa alone. The only people to have ever done that before are Chuuya (accidentally in Suribachi city), Dazai and Chuuya (working together on Mori’s orders), and Odasaku (on a suicide mission). We are long overdue a look at the original soukoku. 

Sidebar, there’s also significance to Mori’s specific ability. Elise is, as of right now, one of the only abilities we’ve seen that can speak and definitely the only one who appears to be able to take independent action. I fully believe that we have never seen her used to her full potential. Which would be very in character for Mori to keep in his back pocket. But clearly, a/sagiri is pulling out all the stops this arc, no reason to believe he won’t pull this one. 

tl;dr I am very excited by this arc and think that now we’ve seen Aku and Atsu, Dazai and Chuuya, we’re going to see Fukuzawa and Mori, and it’s going to be amazing. 

#bsd #bungo stray dogs #bsd spoilers #bsd manga #bsd meta #skk #sskk #zskk #soukoku #shin soukoku #zenki soukoku #bsd 107 #dazai osamu #chuuya nakahara #atsushi nakajima #akutagawa ryuunosuke #fukuzawa yukichi #mori ougai #fukumori

[yurious-george]

can you *please* elaborate on "fakir now questions if ratsel is real" in the patch notes post 👀

OKAY! SO.

The thing abt princess tutu - and one of the ways it differs from utena - are its themes of existentialism and free will. these aren't played up a *ton* - we aren't quoting Nietzsche here - but still, the existence of life outside the town is downplayed. within a story, characters only need to exist for as long as they're plot relevant; not so in the real world.

ratsel was never shown or mentioned before her episode, and isn't brought up again after. even though she comes from "outside," neither she or her sweetheart are altered into an animal to suit the Story, unlike the eleki troupe and the rhino.

in turn: does she actually exist at all? or does she just exist to serve the whims of the story?

can you imagine having a sister figure, who you thought you loved your whole life? that your father figure knows well? can you imagine having to face the fact that she never existed before that moment, and will never exist again after? what if you don't actually exist in reality either, and you'll just disappear once you enter the real world? can you imagine having to find a way to face reality in the face of those odds?

(can you image holding on to hope against hope once you're free of your puppetmaster, hunting down names and faces for a crumb of proof she existed at all, that the love you felt was real and meant something?)

Ratsel not being real has such insane reprecussions, whether or not it's confirmed. even just making fakir *question* it gives him an incredibly compelling character arc!

#princess tutu

[ty-bayonet-betteridge]

the simurgh could have been so cool. she could have been so cool and they wasted her

the explanation given for how the simurghs manipulation power works is that shes an extremely powerful telepath and precog and shes able to set people up in such a way that they inevitably take the actions that lead to mass casualties and destruction. shes supposed to be a puppetmaster/chessmaster type. and i have a REAL weakness for those. but she isnt very effective at filling that trope and that makes me SO MAD

the hallmark of good manipulation in fiction is that the character cant tell they're being manipulated but the audience, if they think about it, can. take The Magnus Archives for instance, as a piece of media that plays with this trope heavily. (heavy TMA spoilers through the finale inbound!) when Jonah Magnus causes Jon to initiate the Eyepocalypse, its done in a way that feels like all characters involved are acting in a way that seems to follow naturally from their previous actions. Jonah is creating this ritual in order to gain immortality. Jon sets out to stop him out of guilt for having participated. both of those motivations make sense. its only when you take a step back and consider where those motivations originated that you hit some interesting roadblocks, such as "why does Jon feel so culpable for an event that he was tricked into instigating?" that you can peel back a few layers and discover that large portions of this event were actually arranged by the Web. but the characters are oblivious to this, until it is spelled out.

good manipulation is good from a narrative standpoint because it shows what the character being manipulated is REALLY capable of. it follows logically, and those moments reveal hidden truths about the character being manipulated, allowing us to learn more about them, because the actions they've been manipulated into ARE in character for them.

the Simurgh doesnt do that. her manipulation doesnt set us up to learn anything more about the initial characterization of the individual, because it practically OVERWRITES that individual. i can only think of three major examples of the simurghs manipulation, so pardon if im missing something, but:

she manipulates Cody, aka Perdition, into being slightly more aggressive towards his friends. this causes him to be ousted from their group, which causes him to be acquired by Accord and subsequently sold to the Yàngbǎn. because of their cultish rules and Codys problems with authority, he comes to resent Accord for putting him in this position, and bcomes murderously violent towards him upon seeing him again, leading to him disabling much of the command station in the battle at Delhi, causing unknown extra causalties to Behemoth. while this one is closest to being good manipulation from a narrative standpoint, it still falls short because it doesnt REVEAL anything. Cody being angry, resenting his friends and especially Krouse, and chafing under authority are all evident from his first few appearances. there's no information gained about his character during this exchange, and it prevents him from having anything resembling a character arc. he doesnt get resolution, to find a community where he belongs or to realize hes happy being without one - he gets an interlude where we hear that he Fucking Hates All Of This Shit and then boils over and kills some important people out of personal anger. that's his most important contribution to the story - being angry enough to act like an idiot and validate the bad things that Krouse had been saying about him.

she manipulates Krouse and Noelle into feeling so trapped that they feel they have no choice but to take the Cauldron power vials, leading to Noelle taking the halfdose that gives her her Echidna powers. that by itself is fine. where this one falls off the deep end is in making Echidna a separate force to Noelle's own motivations. Noelle doesnt end up destroying huge swathes of Brockton Bay and indirectly revealing the truth about Cauldron because it made sense for her to do so as a character - she does it because she, as a character, literally gets replaced with a different, more reckless, more destructive character. its lazy and tells us NOTHING, actively LESS THAN NOTHING - to the point where Noelle has less characterization than most of the other Travellers despite having ao much screen time. Echidna is a fine character, but the Simurgh doesnt set up the dominoes for Noelles motivations to BECOME Echidnas motovations - she sets them up for Noelles motivations to be SUBSUMED by Echidnas.

and then there's Mannequin, and this one is EGREGIOUS. do i even have to spell it out? alan gramme is a cool character who gets traumatized, and then wildbow decides that being traumatized makes him so murderously insane that he BECOMES A DIFFERENT PERSON ENTIRELY. not only is that deeply insulting to the traumatized and mentally ill - who are, in my experience, onaverage NOT violently murderous - it also doesnt give us any info on Alan Gramme, the character. Alans motivations are to make the world a better place. Mannequins motivations are... to lash out at people who are making the world a better place? because he feels that he failed in doing so? it doesn't follow logically. a better Alan would have been one who gave up on trying to affect the world, instead retreating fully into himself, or one who decided his previous methods weren't working and instead starts engaging in more extreme methods. mannequin couldve been an ecoterrorist if his arc followed logically from Alan's but instead he decides to start killing his former allies. and THAT is not good manipulation

tl;dr the Simurgh's influence has a tendency to replace the affected character with what is, in all respects, just a Different Character. its lazy writing, because it means that Wildbow doesnt have to think abiut hiw a characters real values and morals get corrupted into causing destruction - he just transplants in new morals and uses the Simurgh to justify it. and its BAD writing, which is a much worse crime than being lazy, because it essentially chops off any chance the character had of having a real arc where we get to see them progress naturally - instead they reach an artificial cutoff point and then their character stops mattering to the story as they become someone else instead.

#rants #writing #worm meta #the Simurgh #wormblr #parahumans #worm spoilers

[cursedvibes]

Firstly, thanks for sharing the time period on JJK, it's really helpful. Also, do you mind if I ask a few things?

1.) In Hidden Inventory arc, is it a lie when it said Tengen need Amanai Riko? If it's yes, do they only want Riko to be dead?

2.) When Yuuji ate the finger for the first time, Sukuna is surprised cause he can supress him, did he already supect the connection to Kenjaku?

3.) "It's actually beyond thematically fitting that the antagonist (Kenjaku) who's been sneaking around in the shadows concocting his master plan for centuries got hit with the ultimate sneak move after letting his guard down and having fun for the first time in a thousand years." Do you agree with this statement? Is it true, that Kenjaku really don't suspect Takaba at all?

Sorry again, if my questions are kinda stupid, thanks if you want to answer....

Glad my timeline was helpful :) And your questions are very interesting, don't worry.

1.) Tengen does need Riko if she wants to keep her human appearance and consciousness. She can slow down her evolving process by using barrier techniques, but she can't fully stop it or reset it like what absorbing the Star Plasma Vessel would do. By that point Tengen seemed less invested in her survival/keeping her humanity than the last times the merger happened though, since when talking to Yuki she has a very "what happens happens" attitude towards it. If Riko had been successfully delivered to her, she would've likely merged, but since that didn't happen she only seemed interested in seeing how long she could hold on because especially when Gojo wasn't around anymore, it was pretty obvious that Kenjaku would eventually succeed in getting to her and absorbing her.

2.) I don't think so, at least not immediately after Yuuji ate the first finger. We don't know what kind of binding vow Kenjaku and Sukuna made, but Kenjaku likely promised Sukuna to see to his revival in a thousand years. When Yuuji started eating more fingers and was still able to suppress him is probably when Sukuna figured out what was up and he started coming up with the plan of swapping over to Megumi to be free. So by the time Yuuji died for the first time and he and Sukuna made their binding vow, Sukuna probably had a pretty big suspicion that Kenjaku was somehow involved in making Yuuji such a sturdy vessel.

3.) Eh, I wouldn't exactly call it the "ultimate sneak move", but the whole letting their guard down and that being their downfall/possible death is very appropriate. The scope isn't quite the same, I don't think you can compare this one plan to Kenjaku's entire life philosophy, but it is similar to what they did to Gojo for example. Except Gojo wasn't distracted for that long and in his case it relied more on shock than long-term personal investment. There is also much more of a connection there between Kenjaku, Geto and Gojo (everything from Geto's death onwards and even Kenjaku's history with the six eyes leading up to this) than between Kenjaku and Yuuta. Angel was the one who actually came up with the plan, but we still know very little about her and Kenjaku, just that she doesn't have a problem with them in general, but the merger with Tengen seems to go too far for her (at least I assume that's why she's helping the team take down Kenjaku). She isn't really much of a puppetmaster, she's far too direct and bloodthirsty for that usually. Still, she's at least a better counterpart to Kenjaku than Yuuta. I'd say compared to Gojo's sealing for example everything outside of Kenjaku and Takaba's connection feels very half-assed. Sure, it's "sneaky", but for a big thematic payoff I expect more. Again, Takaba's part about Kenjaku giving in to emotional vulnerability they tried to suppress seemingly their entire life is very well done, everything else not so much.

As for if Kenjaku suspected Takaba, they absolutely did. The moment he shows up Kenjaku knows that the protagonist team send him, they just can't understand why they chose him of all people and what his purpose is. They are also very aware what effect he has on them, both through his cursed technique and just general attitude. That didn't help though because in the end Kenjaku still got lost in the comedy show they were doing together. They were pushing back against it before, but while they were on stage is when they really gave into Takaba's spiel and got distracted. When asking Yuuta about the plan, Kenjaku also accepts what happened very quickly, since that was the suspicion they were having during the entire fight and they were proven right. Only that it happened after they already allowed themselves a moment of weakness.

While being beheaded Kenjaku figures out what went wrong. The wording in Japanese is ambiguous, there is no pronoun here, so it's hard to tell if Kenjaku says they didn't want the interruption or if Takaba did. Personally, I think it was a mix of both. Takaba's cursed technique cut Kenjaku's connection to their sensor curses (I assume he did that unconsciously to not be interrupted and because he wanted Kenjaku's full attention) and Kenjaku was too caught up in their show to notice. So Kenjaku did suspect Takaba had ulterior motives or was working for the protag team during the entire fight, but they had too much fun with him and that resulted in that moment of carelessness that was used against them.

#asks #kenjaku #jjk spoilers

[hinaypod]

★~Happy Black History Month from the Hi Nay team!~★

We've commissioned an amazing Black artist, Riptide (who's asked not to be tagged), to do a piece for our lovely but still mysterious Elder, Mary-Anne Weekes, who was responsible for creating the "good" Foci.

Once part of Sauvard's inner circle, Mary-Anne at some point chose to counter the other Elders with the creation of her own Foci. As the only Black member of the Ordo, and the eldest daughter of a hotel tycoon, she was treated with disdain by some members and alienated by others.

However, Sauvard and those in his inner circle respected her intelligence and prowess with magic, and she had a lover in Claudette-Jean, or CJ.

(picrew by @K_pupu)

Mary-Anne had a brother, whom she loved dearly, who offered to marry CJ for her so they could live together.

Her brother was eventually killed.

Her brother was represented by a bird, to match his flighty, free nature. She herself was represented by a fish, since she secretly always felt "out of water". And her love CJ was represented by a white lily, her favourite flower.

Mary-Anne's character was partly inspired by various pieces of information about Black Canadians living in Toronto in the late 19th century, early 20th century.

One of the figures that stood out was James Mink, who fled to Toronto from enslavement and became a millionaire, having owned a hotel and livery stable, who established the first transit systems in Toronto alongside his brother George. There's unfortunately a lot of misinformation about him and his family, since records on his life are sparse.

As a tribute to him and his daughter, we characterised Mary-Anne as the rich daughter of a hotel tycoon, her status respected by Sauvard and others.

While there was still a lot of prejudice in Toronto in the 1900s for Black Canadians (such as unions refusing trade jobs to Black workers), it had more opportunities for success for Black communities than other parts of North America.

With Mary-Anne Weekes, and another character - the elusive Journalist (who features in the Puppetmaster's Arc, and will play a big role in Act 3), a Black journalist active from the 1960s-1980s, I was able to delve deeper into Toronto's Black history and the kind of world these characters might have lived in. It's been fun and my brain is itching to write more about these two, hopefully in a way that's respectful, nuanced, and as historically accurate (or as close to it) as possible.

-Motzie

#black history month #hinaypod #hi nay podcast #hi nay art #mary-anne weekes #claudette-jean villeneuve #bhm #horror podcast #audio drama #riptide #black artist

[rox-reads]

as wormblr's certified democratically elected alec vasil scientist i MUST ask. what are your thoughts on his characterization after his interlude.

the interlude really had a lot going on, so there's a bunch of stuff to think about. i'm gonna try and list some of my thoughts

this ended up getting kinda long so i'm putting it under the cut

first of all, it looks like alec's lack of emotions (or maybe more accurately emotional capacity?) is being attributed to this event where his dad sort of "burned him out". obviously the terror he made him feel would be traumatizing, but i'm not sure something like this can be attributed to any one singular event. this might've been one of the biggest or earliest incidents, but growing up in an environment where feelings are things that can be manipulated and exploited at will at a moment's notice, i'm sure getting rid of any that you have control over would be an understandable coping mechanism.

another thing is that while he's clearly incredibly callous, he will still be frustrated at himself for not feeling what he's "supposed" to feel. i think that's something about him worth keeping in mind, and maybe a bit of a driving force behind the reason why he's going so far for his team. he knows it's what he's supposed to do: he's supposed to have their backs. he won't feel the emotional impulse to do so but he's aware, maybe more than most, of the motions he's supposed to follow. he wants to feel bad for taylor, but he can't. still, he cares about her enough to get retribution for her, though maybe he wouldn't recognize it as "caring".

on that note, considering it's true he doesn't seem particularly close to anyone else on the team (as he himself remarked) i wonder why he feels the need to go this far for them. i was thinking maybe he sees them as a sort of family, considering the team he used to be on was his Literal Family. and you're supposed to care for family, right? no matter how close you may actually be, you're still bound together. maybe he just traded one family for another.

anyway, he's still unfortunately a rapist who hijacks people's bodies for funsies and doesn't and likely won't ever feel any remorse about it. i think he's a very fun character, and i very much enjoy the perspective this interlude gave me on his character and what goes on in his mind. i even think he has the potential to become a better person, but i don't exactly get the vibe this is where we're going with him. or maybe it is? i wouldn't know. maybe if he sacrificed himself for the rest of the gang or something like that? not an actual drawn out arc where he learns to actually be a person (which is what i think he would deserve but don't see happening. worm seems like it's much more about people slowly Getting Worse lol)

either way, he still had some agency when it came to the bad shit he did, and i don't intend to take it away from him just because his upbringing was extremely messed up, especially since he proved he could walk away from it. i think he would be less interesting a character if i did that anyway. he's not a poor little meow meow, he's a messed up kid with the power to play puppetmaster with other people's bodies and no qualms about doing so

#worm #not lb #ask #all in all he's a cool character #excited to see more