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lgbtlunaverse · 7 months

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I'm a little bit insane about how in novel canon the whole xiyao ending where Jin Guangyao wants to die with Xichen, who accepts, which then makes jgy change his mind and pushes him away at the last second isn't actually explicit. A lot of adaptations chose to make it so but in the novel this is all VERY up for interpretation.

Here's what actually happens in the text: Lan xichen stabs jgy, jgy moves away from lan xichen, xichen follows him, wwx realizes jgy is about to open the coffin and calls "watch out!" to lan xichen. Jgy unseals nmj, pushes xichen away, nmj kills jgy and they are both dragged into the coffin which is sealed again.

Here's what wei wuxian, our narrator, thinks is happening: Jin Guangyao wanted to lead lan xichen to his death out of revenge for stabbing him. Lan Xichen, unaware, simply followed Jin Guangyao to try and stop him from getting away. Wei wuxian's warning came too late, but Jin Guangyao- for an unknown reason- changed his mind at the last second and pushed lan xichen out of danger before lan xichen had any idea of what was going on.

Here's what most fans as well as the teams behind several adpatations think is happening: Jin Guangyao leads Xichen to nmj's coffin to die with him, Xichen accepts, because of this acceptance, proof xichen still cares for him, Jin Guangyao pushes him out of harm's way. Wei Wuxian just doesn't get that gay people who aren't him or Lan Wangji exist.

Here's what ALSO MIGHT BE HAPPENING: Jin guangyao wants to die in a different way than he is currently dying. Maybe he's afraid of what'll happen to his body after his death like he was scared for his mother's, maybe he wants to confront nmj one last time now that there's nothing more for him to lose, maybe - if he can't take her body with him- he'd at least like his final resting place to be where he buried his mother. Lan Xichen thinks he's trying to get away and follows but Jin Guangyao, who despite everything doesn't want him to die, pushes him away. Xichen doesn't know what happened until it's already happened. What he would've wanted if he had known remains up in the air.

Or, alternatively: Jin Guangyao's reasons are as above, but unbeknowst to Wei Wuxian, Xichen DOES know what jgy is about to do and either misinterprets this as an invitation to all die together, or inidividually decides he, too, is done, and wants to join his sworn brothers in the grave. To Jin Guangyao this has nothing to do with Lan Xichen, and he still doesn't want him to die, so he pushes him away against Lan Xichen's wishes.

Every single one of these interpretations is unhinged and they are all supported by the original text. It's like a choose your own adventure of tragic gay endings.

#mdzs #mdzs meta #meng yao #jin guangyao #lan xichen #nie mingjue #3zun #xiyao #rs: i wish it could've been you #honestly which is worse for xichen. Being denied his wish explicitly or only realizing he wanted it after it'd already been denied for him #OR genuinely not wanting to die but being forced to live with the fact that even after he essentially killed him jgy still saved his life #just another way he's in his debt #like no matter what he's not coming out of here okay #i switch between a bunch of these all the time but actually favor the last 2 because they're very underexplored in my opinion #I like it when 'i never even thought about hurting you' remains true to the bitter end. He never even considered it #also I just... have a lot of feelings about that being his mom's coffin #do you remember that in the novel the coffin was so heavy only sect leaders could bear the weight?#so for the burial a group of sect leaders had to be the pallbearers... the SYMBOLISM GUYS!! THE SYMBOLISM!#jgy dies in infamy but despite everything it's the highest of cultivation society who carry the coffin he's buried in #he's in the same coffin as a great sect leader!! As nmj!! After a whole life fighting an uphill battle finally in death they are equal #it's not justice and it's not fair but it's... something #wwx's interpretation is the one i favour the least. sorry bro you remain an unreliable narrator to me.#it feels rather uncharitable towards jgy which makes sense for wwx's pov but makes it not my favorite #there's an alternative version of that intepretation where jgy THINKS he's doing the coffin trio pact and thinks xichen accepts.#and has the same realization of oh no he still cares I don't want him to die and pushes lxc away #meanwhile lan xichen hasn't actually processed any of this because it all happened in about 0.4 seconds #i like that one slightly more but it's still not my favorite #there's tragedy in the misunderstanding but it's a bit convoluted.

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clowndensation · 11 months

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there’s a question to be asked i think about to what extent “getting out” can be conflated with “being saved” in this show, and what freedom actually means to any of these characters.

like you can argue that shiv saved ken by voting against him on gojo, but what if your intent behind saving someone is to inflict a worse punishment than if you’d just left them trapped? can a child weaned on poison survive on milk, or are you just sentencing them to a death by inches, starved of the only thing they know? and if you save someone specifically because you know that being saved is the worst thing that can happen to them, is that kindness or cruelty? at what point does a good thing become a malicious act?

and you can say that roman is finally free, but what exactly is he free from? the company? his father? does unlocking a cage mean saving a dog, or are you allowing him out on the street knowing there’s a kill shelter nearby? if the driving anxiety behind roman is that he’s an idiot and a failure—that he’ll never amount to anything, and trying will only lead to pain—and he’s finally cut loose once all of those anxieties have crystallized into cold hard fact in his mind, what has he actually escaped from? if the cage is in your mind, is it even possible for somebody else to unlock it?

the fundamental truth of a tragedy is that even being saved can be a death sentence, if the characters are incapable of escaping the thing doing them the most harm (themselves and their childhoods)

#'what about shiv' if i think about shiv i'm going to kill myself. she needs her own post. there's too much there to get into.#anyways seeing a tremendous amount of At Least Roman Is Free <3 tags that have me going. right. for sure. free from what?#because it's certainly not the intense amount of self disgust that has driven him in circles this entire time.#i fear he may feel the weight of alienation on his soul for the rest of his life. and he won't even try to alleviate it anymore.#and ALSO the idea that shiv went out of her way to save kendall as an act of like. altruism. like it was a sacrifice on her part #which i feel is a very toothless perspective on shiv and the psychological torment that's been weighing on her essentially since birth #like her choice in regards to gojo is one of the meatiest most harrowing bits of character work i've ever seen #and while of course there was love inside that action (because nothing these characters do is entirely divorced from love)#i don't think it was necessarily a kind or forgiving or sacrificial love #like this was an intense vitriolic snapping from a dog that has been kicked by her dad all her life.#and who absolutely refuses to accept that from her brother (because that would mean acknowledging that kendall takes the mantle of Dad-#and that she's subservient to him. which is the one thing she absolutely will never do #because it's a level of degradation that's finally a step too far)#anyways. um. insane season that i still can't look at directly or i'll perish on the spot.#succession

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americankimchi · 1 month

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wish i knew what to do with this helpless frustration i feel every time i see people vilify the jedi for their way of life when the person doing the vilification doesn't even understand them properly. it's one thing to criticize and dislike them if you have an accurate picture of who they were and what they're trying to do vs. hating them because you straight up don't understand them at all 😭

#personal #this isn't vagueposting i'm just tired of seeing it every time i go in the tags or on youtube or on ao3 #literally if you boil the jedi down to the essentials it's just #''these are psychic empath space wizards wandering around the galaxy trying to establish a higher quality of life for everyone''#a bunch of aragorns except anduril is a beaming blade of plasma #or gandalf with the ability to do backflips #the only hard rule they have is ''thou shalt not add misery to the world where you can remove it''#everything else is just interpretations on that theme #''they're cold and unfeeling and they HATED ANAKIN and BAN LOVE''#like WHERE in the WORLD are you getting this information #WHEREEEEE #SHOW ME YOUR SOURCESSSS #and don't say ''they ban attachments'' without understanding what that MEANS #ATTACHMENTS =/= LOVE #ATTACHMENTS ARE CHAINS THAT YOU USE TO DRAG OTHERS DOWN WITH YOU #YOU KNOW THE SAYING IF YOU LOVE SOMETHING YOU WILL LET IT GO? THAT'S IT. THAT'S ALL IT IS.#and where are u getting that they hated anakin do you think he'd be so torn up about betraying them all in ep 3 #if he was surrounded by people who hated him for over a decade like mans was IN TEARS #HE LOVED AND WAS LOVED BY THEM IN TURN #IT JUST WASN'T ENOUGH TO SAVE THEM IN THE END BECAUSE #CRUCIALLY #HIS ATTACHMENT TO PADME DRAGGED HER AND THEM AND EVERYONE ELSE DOWN WITH HIM #stop stripping anakin of his agency he made a CHOICE #star wars is ALL ABOUT CHOICE. THE CHOICE TO FALL IN EP 3. AND THE CHOICE TO RISE AGAIN IN EP 6.#like cmon fellas..... fellas cmon........

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homostacis · 3 months

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hey what if you and your twin brother were the central protagonist and antagonist of a character-action franchise and must therefore fulfill your narrative roles that inherently place you in conflict with each other

#save me dmc 5 as metafiction save me #like theres this extra layer of the story thats like dante and vergil must fight because the narrative demands it from them #especially that final fight where neither party is really at odds with each other and theres this profound sense that the characters #almost wish it didnt really have to be this way? but they accept it and reminisce while they can #thank god nero was like this shit stupid as fuck!#also another reason why i think his moment of stopping them is so good #its him essentially kicking them out of their narrative roles and taking over as the protagonist #he said my narrative now and it works dante even says he can go with vergil cause neros here #cause yeah with nero taking on the role of the protagonist dante and vergil can like actually be brothers again lol #they dont have to be defined by conflict #stories that in general reflect on characters playing roles in the narrative will never not hit for me #dmc #dante #vergil #nero

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elvisqueso · 3 months

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Love me, love my raccoon [Part 3/3]:

—Meeko's new favorite human <3

#john smith is the 'your pet likes me more :)' kind of boyfriend #pocahontas (1995)#pocahontasedit #john smith #meeko #pocahontas #disneyedit #love me love my racoon*#love me love my raccoon*#i'm exaggerating only a lil bit #but john and meeko's immediate attachment to each other is something that can be So Personal #i've mentioned this before but meeko is the literal first character john actually initiates a genuine interaction with #his first real conversation in the film is with this lil racoon who he gives treats to #and that's also the thing about him that endears him to pocahontas before they properly meet #like here's this strange dude being nice to her pet racoon for no reason other than he just is Like That #they're relationship is so important to me like i am so obsessed with the way meeko represents how john engages with nature #very indulgent and curious and genuine (even when meeko does something he doesn't like)#the way he lets meeko just hitch a ride and how meeko perks up whenever his new favorite human is around is justtt #i didnt gif it bc i couldnt get it to flow the way i wanted but also how meeko backs him up during the confrontation at the settlement!#ahhhh the way meeko REMEMBERS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE COMPASS HE TOOK and is an essential part in saving john's life!!!!#i am so obsessed with this like u gotta understand #they are Besties!#queso*gifs #queso*edit #i'm not as satisfied with this gifset as i am with the other two #but it just will have to do

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butchjess · 10 months

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Well. hrm. the way they all connect to each other. like it’s all starting to look like a circle of some sort. jess as rory’s mirror/reflection/narrative foil but also jess as he pertains to luke and jess as he pertains to lorelai. luke breaking the church bells luke who says he was troubled but they gave him a chance and just bc a kid has issues doesnt mean they don’t deserve that. luke who is a figure placed against the rest of the town, just in the sense that he is not like them, he does not hold their values, he doesn’t even sound like them. which is of course a result of scott patterson’s new york accent, but adds to this theme anyway. and they use jess to build this picture, because they walk the same and talk the same and they’re stubborn—independent to a near self-endangering degree—and emotionally repressed in the same way and luke himself admits that he spent more time working at his dad’s shop than he did at school, which jess also does. but jess and luke are also. very very different when you get past these similar values that are maybe ingrained into them through different circumstances and same genetic makeup. and in their differences you get a lot of jess and lorelai’s similarities. when it comes to their family dynamics and how it’s affected them in particular. it’s made them independent yes, but it’s also made them hypervigilant, almost paranoid in the way they are allergic to accepting help and especially accepting help from the people who hurt them. jess only goes to his mother’s wedding because luke asks him to, lorelai only asks her parents for money because rory needs it for school. and they, and this is where they differ from luke, don’t know how to trust people and so they don’t know how to talk to people. where luke’s particular brand of emotional constipation comes from a general cluelessness as to how to do it—which is why the tapes helped him so much—lorelai and jess’ come from emotional responses to the situations they grew up in. while it was different—lorelai growing up rich, jess growing up poor—the effect it had on them still resulted in something similar. lorelai with her overbearing manipulative mother and (emotionally) absent father, and jess with his neglecting manipulative mother and (in all senses of the word) absent father. the ways that, despite their effort to distance themselves, they still end up with similar mannerisms to the parent they have the most conflict with (lorelai and her controlling nature + that scene where they have the same nighttime routine, jess and his love for books + tendency to run away). and of course, their romanticism. their big confessions and period drama-esque speeches and, yeah, i do think in a way jess was asking rory to marry him in 4x21. come with me. let’s get married. luke and rory both being the most important people in their lives. literati+javajunkie where they are all melding into each other, and luke is rory and lorelai is jess but on the surface level dynamic luke is jess and lorelai is rory and they are all each other. on accident. by sheer nature of making jess as a character for the sole purpose of interfering with luke and lorelai’s relationship (which means he is important narratively to them both) and by making him rory’s love interest/foil (because ASP casted him before she even had the idea for the character) you have now made an accidental blending of them all together. he is like a skeleton key of a character. Okay. okay.

#clocking in for my shift at the pattern recognition factory #literati #javajunkie #gilmore girls #i was also going to talk about how rory is ALSO a skeleton key of a character similar to how jess is because.#well all the lines about how she is ‘just like her mother’ wrt stubbornness and defiancy and iron will. but it was already. very long. so.#i’ll save it for another post.#and in that post i’ll probably talk about rory and jess and their dads and luke also. bc that is also missing from this post.#sorry they are so mucu.#so much.#literatijavajunkie is the sun that this show revolves around.#also ties into how jess literally is the only side character that is also a Main Character. in this show.#like compared to rorys other boyfriends where their only importance is to rorys character. jess is like. essential to the narrative.#which is why he’s the one that almost got a spin-off show. he has the functions of a main character the exact same way rory does.#which is why the show would have been about him and HIS dad. literally a direct mirror to the concept of a show about a daughter and a mom.#whatever this is all going to be. in another post.#there are more screenshots to be gathered anyway.#ggwatch #gg meta

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grantwilsonenjoyer · 2 months

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i just. I Just. am so sad about grant. i am so sad about this little 12 year old kid who was convinced that he became his trauma and could never be anything else. And he never even got a chance to TRY. kms

#dndads #grant wilson #and it is like. Especially devastating bc i think if he WAS given a chance #i think he Would have gotten a lot better #grant is a soft person he just does not let himself be. grant is loving the world just does not let him be #and yet still love persists #ALSO #it especially devastates me that grant thinks all of his emotions r just Gone #and never really being proven otherwise #bc it is so clear to me that at least for A While. grant is still very upset about killing things !#he might not recognize it as him being upset bc there Is also that relief of feeling something. but #he is essentially just retraumatizing himself #hoping desperately to get his feelings back not realizing it just shoves them further down once the shock wears off #I could write ESSAYS on grant wilson & how he processes his trauma #but alas. this is tumblr i will save the 10 page analysis #can u tell i was always the most annoying motherfucker in english class

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ilynpilled · 1 year

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I feel like as the resident dishonor/honor guy enjoyer I have to speak on honor as a construct and how it seems to operate in asoiaf in my eyes. I will be stating the obvious here imo but: violence IS inherent to it. Be it directly or through the enablement of it. “Honor”, as a feudalistic moral construct, revolves around the reinforcement of a status quo. It is a moral construct that is embedded into a feudalistic structure, one that is inherently violent. It can be deeply flawed and destructive as a result of deeply rooted systemic issues. Being “honorable” is very complicated because, again, it does not exist based on a very sensible moral framework. It ends up contradicting itself because the way society is structured in Westeros.

Almost nothing embodies this more clearly than the KG. They are supposed to be the paragons of honor: an unsoiled white cloak.

Vows are social contracts this society is built on. This is why Jaime is very restricted in a lot of ways in his world by his label. Breaking one of the most important contracts (one that happens to be key in reinforcing a feudalistic structure: it places the king’s will above every single other moral or ethical code) makes it so he is not believed or trusted and he is unable to operate properly within their society in a lot of circumstances, as we witness in his chapters. It is honorable to protect the weak and the innocent, but it is honorable to protect your king in all circumstances and reinforce a status quo. To obey your family and play your societal role. To obey laws, even if they are unjust. To keep your word, to be honest. Loyalty to a tyrant has to be inherently more honorable (especially in certain positions) to maintain this status quo, even though it contradicts other oaths and we know it is inherently immoral. Balancing values is the most interesting aspect of characters dealing with ‘honor’ and morality. Feudalism is what makes the honor system collapse. Honor itself can be a more vague concept, “the quality of knowing and doing what is morally right”, but the way it is defined and how it operates within this society is so fucked. The KG appear in the weirwood dream (mirroring the imagery of The Others, conflating the honorable white cloak with snow and cold and death.) “You swore to keep your king safe” “and the children as well.” Yeah, the innocent children of kingslanding as well, that would have burned to ash. It is honorable to save your king, to protect the weak, to save the children, to save the innocents of KG, to obey your father. He tells this to them in the dream, he explains his reasoning for killing Aerys, but they do not budge. That is what Jaime fears the most, the complete collapse of everything that holds meaning to him, heroism becoming undefinable with these conflicting moral codes, which is likely another huge part of him keeping it a secret. It is something he feels powerless against. The way things are prioritized is wrong. Morality becomes skewed. In Jaime’s mind the enemy and primary source of doom is this nonsensical moral construct that contradicts itself represented by institutions that make no sense. It is what makes his symbolic fire go out. His moral code conflicts with this society’s code of ethics, which eventually leads him to cynically accept amorality. It is disillusionment that tears the idea of heroism and being “honorable” apart and leads to moral nihilism.

Another aspect of the honor code and its violence is the fact that it places more value to individuals based on class. It is dependent on class and a flawed social structure. This is despite the fact that vows of knighthood call for the protection of those that are too weak to protect themselves: the underprivileged. Jaime keeps having this epiphany of an inherent equality in death that seems to contradict the way society is structured. Aerys’ life is worth inherently more according to the honor code than Rhaella’s, than the lives of thousands of innocents, than Jaime’s. Yet, a lowborn hand, no one, seems to die harder than Aerys does (and nobody cares). A crown is worth nothing when crows feast on victors and vanquished alike, and the rightful heir himself. We are all equal in death, so the text is indicating that something is not right here.

When it comes to characters and their relationship with honor the important through-line is examining whether they are being “honorable” in the abstract sense, if they base their actions around empathy and a sense of actual justice, or if they are abiding by made up flawed constructs. Being viewed as honorable by this society does not make you a good person. In fact, in order for you to abide by the honor code you would likely have to turn into an amoral individual. For example, if you try to keep the cloak pure white you will metaphorically soil it. Like every one of Aerys’s kingsguard did. To keep their oath to the king, they broke vows to protect innocents and protect women. They should lose their honor by a lot of definitions, but that would mean the status quo collapses. Jaime’s knighting for this reason is very much like a boy being sacrificed at an altar. It is not just about drawing a parallel between young girls and boys being sentenced to bloody doom by violent constructs created for their gender.

“Blood is the seal of our devotion.” He bleeds on his plain white tunic. It was never “pure white”, it was always all tainted in blood. It is inherently violent. You can argue that is when “the boy died.”

Very rigid and hypocritical honor codes built for feudalism lack nuance and lead to amorality. I think George aims to address, interrogate, deconstruct, and then reconstruct honor, as with most other key concepts present in fantasy. Honor can be redefined. Examples like “No chance, and no choice”, among many others, are at the root of that reconstruction. Even then, the reconstruction does not conflate it with pacifism necessarily. For example, Chelsted did the ‘honorable’ thing, in the abstract moral sense, of quitting his job and not supporting a tyrant anymore, but that act achieved nothing in preventing the wildfire plot. Same with essentially everyone important at court abandoning the situation that is Aerys, turning away from a gaping wound and not addressing it before it was too late. Jaime had to soil the ‘white cloak’ and disrupt the status quo and lose his “honor” within those terms by murdering his king and his pyromancers as a kingsguard and actually save half a million lives. It was not glorious, nor was it anything like the songs, and the city is still doomed because there is no way to get that festering corruption out of there at this point, metaphorical of the greater problem with KG, but it was heroism, a choice with meaning, and a form of triumph, even if the consequences break Jaime down the line. He gets no answer to the question of what it means to be a knight and a man of honor if society’s version of it is so skewed. Then, Jaime and the readers get an answer in the form of Brienne: “I dreamed of you.”

#anyways what is honor? a horse #valyrianscrolls #theres also the aspect that honor is kind of individualized #its ‘your’ honor etc #like i think there r nuances in whether its treated as something internal or external #and at the end of asos hope is rekindled in jaime #but he desperately blinds himself trying to make the contradictions compromise #thats y he is suddenly reconstructing his thoughts about the kg and escapes int delusion #bc he has too many things that he still wants like cersei like his family and loved ones like the possibility of making ppl view him #as something redeemable someone good #but feast concludes that that is not possible #so all there is left is a pivot and brienne’s light #and a confrontation w so many things that have been repressed in order to keep him from essentially killing himself tbh #and nothing encapsulates that dilemma bw honor vs ‘honor’ than jaimes punitive justice against outlaws and his vow to cat #thats y its so significant that he abandons it to go w brienne alone to save sansa instead of pursuing the blackfish #and how he doesnt torch the village or even break in even if they hold info re the brotherhood #and then the irony is that that key choice will lead him to them #and what happens there is gonna be so interesting

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randomwriteronline · 5 months

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The lights suddenly burn out.

Only a circle illuminates the pavement.

The room is now a theater.

Pohatu stares, bathed in the shadow of a well-known back; beyond him, beyond it, Beings of flesh and skin (Beings he looks too much alike) stare at his little brother as he stands before them.

"I am Takanuva, Toa of Light and Shadow."

One seems to reach out; another stops them, eyes shining in the dark, curious and excited. To him, it's the apex of a thesis.

"But in the time before time, I was Takua, chronicler of Mata Nui."

There is a familiar theatricality in the voice as it fills every nook of the room, a familiar tone and pronunciation. Vakama would be - will be, when he returns, because Pohatu has decided his little brother will return, alone or otherwise - proud.

"It was my duty to write down the tales of my people: their strife and peace, their virtues and flaws, their victories and defeats, their sorrows and joys."

Through the silver sheen of his mask comes a vibrant golden glow.

"This is the weapon I raise against you."

His metal hand rises, obscure coils snaking through his tendons and robotic components - not as a threat. Merely a command.

"A story."

Then, there is light.

And upon the light, the shadows dance.

Before the stunned silence of the Great Beings' bewildered eyes, once Takua, now Takanuva recounts wordlessly every single chronicle he's ever seen and heard upon and within the Great Spirit Robot in a marvelous display that seems to go on for ages, tirelessly, endlessly, trying to spare no details for his audience although he knows he is missing parts that he will never be privy to. He shimmers like a sun reflected in the pieces of a broken mirror, blindingly bright; Pohatu shields his eyes before they burn completely before his glow, but still feels a warmth envelop him gently in a tight hug that doesn't pierce through his fragile flesh.

The shadows dance upon him kindly, so different from the Makutas', so exactly identical that it feels terribly surprising to realize that their element had been just as natural as his own, that their element had never been as evil as Teridax's actions had convinced them it was.

Through the sliver of his eyelids he sees his little brother's dark puppets dance, fight, cry, fall. He recognizes himself. His skin burns from dysphoria.

He shuts his eyes again before the light or the shadow can tear unwillingly through his flesh once more.

It feels like hours.

The story is a long one.

It's a hard one to tell quickly, after all.

The embrace eventually lightens. The light eventually dims. Pohatu looks: Takanuva is still in front of him, quiet, focused; the Great Beings seem overwhelmed.

One smiles.

It's a smile that misses the point.

"Old legends must be taught," Takanuva speaks once more. His voice is vast, stern, stalwart, still. "But new ones await to be made."

"You were not destined to make any legends!" one among the public shrieks at last, every drop of patience scattered in the still air hanging above them all, their face burning red, their eyes ablaze, their teeth gleaming angrily from the shade: "You had a clear purpose, a simple purpose! You were not destined to be anything! No need for all of this - these wars, these fights, this iniquity, this relentless destruction and death! You were cogs of a machine!"

Their anger turns to a specific face, twists into fury upon seeing that ever present smile. They cannot do anything against it; so their finger points back to Takanuva.

"You are defective! All of you! You're merely a primitive copy of our own world! A distorted image of our old failures, repeated! Our own past mistakes, coming to haunt us!"

"And you blame us?"

Takanuva's voice commands silence.

"You abandoned your people to their fate, shirked away from your duties when the time called, left your world to fester and rot: and you blame us?"

No response.

"Us, who never knew anything? Us, who you have kept on the dark about the reality of everything? Us, who you had destined to die without living from the moment you'd made us?"

No response.

"Our consciousness was a whim of yours. Yes, it is a defect, I suppose - yet we recognize it as something that is only ours, that you have nothing to do with. Our mistakes, our rage, our flaws and bloodied hands are nobody else's but our own. We do not blame you for our history, for the evil that might lurk within ourselves. We have every right to pin our misfortunes on you, who made us to toil away until we would have outgrown our purpose, but we do not."

Pohatu remembers this steadfast determination. He remembers it in a blue Pakari of a Matoran standing his ground with a group of misfits to defend Kini Nui.

"Has your distance from life made you blind, too? Did you not see what I showed you, at the side of destruction? Did you ignore the unity that binds us, that moves us to call one another brother and sister? Did you not recognize love when I put it before your eyes, over and over again?"

No response.

The quiet is embarrassed.

The quiet is thoughtful.

The quiet is ashamed.

"It was planned," a voice rises eventually, meekly. It answers a different question. "We had it all figured out. It was destined to be as we wrote."

"Destiny is seldom written," Takanuva shuts them down. "And when it is it's never clear, nor impervious to being reshaped. Not even those who claim to know it can predict which of its form is the correct one."

It's hard to understand.

Pohatu gets it.

It's the Cordax. It's the thousands of years rotting in a shell. It's the stars being rearranged. It's the poisoned bite. It's the plan from an opposite perspective. It's the betrayal by omission. It's the deceit. It's the defeat. It's the secrecy. It's the carelessness for the lives entrusted to it. It's the death. It's life striving to emulate the death. It's the herald who is at once both correct and wrong. It's the prophesized hero who defeats no villain.

It's growing a body that rejects you. It's being the ticket for an audience with the gods because of it.

It's a virtue. It's a curse. It's nothing.

Pohatu gets it.

"So?" a voice laments. "We too have made mistakes. We need not be reminded; we know too well. What do you want us to do, then?"

"FIX THEM!"

Silence.

Takanuva's words echo through the room.

"Like the Toa Metru returned to save the Matoran! Like the Toa Nuva fought back after Teridax won! Like the Toa Mahri struggled to revive Mata Nui!"

The walls tremble and shake before him.

"Like I failed Jaller, and accepted who I was!"

The gold in his mask is still dim, yet it glows harder as his voice cracks.

Pohatu's hand is warm and kind on his shoulder.

Breathe, little brother. Breathe.

I am proud of you.

Takua breathes heavily, on the verge of tearing up. He is so small and so alone upon this dark stage.

He is not a lone wanderer anymore, with no Koro to call home and no friend to his name; he is not an impatient Matoran anymore, searching for adventure without knowing how far he can go; he is not a young Toa anymore, confusedly holding onto a world of dichotomies that don't quite exist.

He is a storyteller before the Amaja circle.

He knows the story cannot end like this.

He knows there is one last thing.

His brother's hand on his shoulder is a gentle familiar weight that carries the warmth of the Island of Mata Nui's sun.

Takanuva breathes in.

There is a part of his voice that is young when he speaks again - like a child reciting a play as he tries to stave off the stage fright. There is a part of his voice that old and wise beyond its years, saddened, carrying a low rumble of solemn gravity within itself.

He sounds steady.

"Reunite with your people. Make amends for your wrongs. Guide them towards better futures."

That is a command.

"That is the way of the Bionicle."

Silence falls.

No curtain closes.

Someone claps.

Earnestly, vigorously, exhilarated, someone claps.

Someone claps as hard as possible, in genuine awe, and laughs loud, breathlessly.

Velika claps and laughs, smiling bright and wide, eyes twinkling with admiration and respect and unbound joy.

"Bravo! Bravo!"

None of that is for Takanuva.

"What a performance! What a speech!"

None of that is for Takanuva's story.

"Such a range of emotions! Such a variety of experiences! Such rethoric technique!"

Velika claps, and laughs, and smiles, and misses the point.

"Almost like a real person!"

Pohatu is a Toa.

Pohatu is still a Toa.

And only because Pohatu is still a Toa, and only because Takanuva wraps his metal hand around his unnaturally organic arm to shield him, Velika is not yet dead where he stands and keeps on clapping and laughing and smiling until his palms are ablaze, his voice is gone, his face hurts, and silence drapes itself across all beings in the room, across the smile that still doesn't fade.

Angonce looks straight ahead.

His lips are pursed, shut tight, his face looks livid.

Takanuva looks back at him.

They stare in silence.

Not a word.

Not.

Word.

Angonce steps forward.

#bionicle #takanuva #takua #pohatu #velika #angonce #great beings #random writing #you know whats one of my problems? sometimes i jump to the end of my stories without completing the middle part.#anyways context is Velika essentially abducted Pohatu bc hes organic and Takanuva managed to rejoin him #and this is their last stand to save the MU beings before the great beings decide to just kill all of them indiscriminately #pohatu is right btw. vakama will be so proud and flattered when he hears abt how takanuva told the tale

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codenamesazanka · 3 months

Text

extremely questionable methodology but i compiled all the dialogue spoken between Shigaraki and Deku starting from when Shigaraki breaks out of AFO’s control in Chapter 379 up to Chapter 412.

(There are chapters where they appear but do not speak. Those are the chapter numbers.)

The takeaway is that Shigaraki is extremely chatty! A lot of it is taunts, but Shigaraki’s also revealing a lot of stuff about his plans and his opinions.

Deku does not seem as interested in returning the conversation, however. Whenever he does speak, it’s less in response to any of the content of Shigaraki’s chatter, and more heroic statements of intent. (The ‘you’re still human’ is the only direct refutation, I think.)

To be fair, his focus is all on surviving Shigaraki’s attacks. Nearly all his internal thoughts are strategy - combining a quirk with this quirk, how exactly he can physically stop Shigaraki. Additionally, before Chapter 410, he was probably too worried about All Might; while for most of Chapter 412, he was asphyxiating. Hard to chat when so much shit is happening.

And you can argue Shigaraki is just Villain monologuing. Deku doesn’t have to pay attention to anything he says - a lot which are, after all, taunts - he doesn’t have to engage with Shigaraki’s dumb rants.

His goal is to save Shigaraki/The Crying Child, and only that - not like talking or asking questions about anything or responding is required for that.

#nalslastworkingbraincell #not a real analysis #just shoddy observation #structure is another element #just because Deku doesn’t respond and just because his thoughts hold no reflection on Shigaraki’s word #doesn’t mean he’s not listening and saving it to memory for later #but it is disappointing to view on paper #the thing is i am not opposed to deku saving shigaraki #i am opposed to lackluster writing #’shredding the rug’ touched my shriveled heart #then it turned out to not be the actual meaning/translation #now team OFA is hoping to pry open a mental wound to strike directly at Shigaraki’s consciousness and presumably find Inner Tenko #because Deku isn’t getting through to Shigaraki #but ‘getting through’ so far is the dialogue we have up there #which i think was barely an attempt #so like #none of this is satisfactory #at this point why bother saving the guy #just knock him out and use Eri to revert him to the crying five year old #that’s essentially the same regard Deku has towards Shigaraki #not the actual person #but the inner child he saw inside

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