#but it was also cruel and self-destructive and the result of me being deeply not okay mentally. i never want to go there again. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

clarabosswald · 2 months

Text

NYT OPINION: Israel Is Falling Into an Abyss | David Grossman

[Art by Dror Cohen; excerpts chosen & emphasis added by me]

The renowned kabbalah scholar Gershom Scholem coined a saying: “All the blood flows to the wound.” Nearly five months after the massacre, that is how Israel feels. The fear, the shock, the fury, the grief and humiliation and vengefulness, the mental energies of an entire nation — all of those have not stopped flowing to that wound, to the abyss into which we are still falling.

[...]

But Israelis of my generation, who have been through many wars, are already asking, as we always do after a war: Why does this unity only emerge in times of crisis? Why is it that only threats and dangers make us cohesive and bring out the best in us, and also extricate us from our strange attraction to self-destruction — to destroying our own home?

These questions provoke a painful insight: The profound despair felt by most Israelis after the massacre might be the result of the Jewish condition into which we have once again been thrown. It is the condition of a persecuted, unprotected nation. A nation that, despite its enormous accomplishments in so many realms, is still, deep down inside, a nation of refugees, permeated with the prospect of being uprooted even after almost 76 years of sovereignty. Today it is clearer than ever that we will always have to stand guard over this penetrable, fragile home. What has also been clarified is how deeply rooted the hatred of this nation is.

Another thought follows, about these two tortured peoples: The trauma of becoming refugees is fundamental and primal for both Israelis and Palestinians, and yet neither side is capable of viewing the other’s tragedy with a shred of understanding — not to mention compassion.

[...]

Who will we be — Israelis and Palestinians — when this long, cruel war comes to an end? Not only will the memory of the atrocities inflicted on each other stand between us for many years, but also, as is clear to us all, as soon as Hamas gets the chance, it will swiftly implement the goal clearly stated in its original charter: namely, the religious duty to destroy Israel.

How, then, can we sign a peace treaty with such an enemy?

And yet what choice do we have?

The Palestinians will hold their own reckoning. I as an Israeli ask what sort of people we will be when the war ends. Where will we direct our guilt — if we are courageous enough to feel it — for what we have inflicted upon innocent Palestinians? For the thousands of children we have killed. For the families we have destroyed.

And how will we learn, so that we are never again surprised, to live a full life on the knife’s edge? But how many want to live their lives and raise their children on this knife’s edge? And what price will we pay for living in constant watchfulness and suspicion, in perpetual fear? Who among us will decide that he does not want to — or cannot — live the life of an eternal soldier, a Spartan?

Who will stay here in Israel, and will those who remain be the most extreme, the most fanatically religious, nationalistic, racist? Are we doomed to watch, paralyzed, as the bold, creative, unique Israeliness is gradually absorbed into the tragic wound of Judaism?

These questions will likely accompany Israel for years. There is, however, the possibility that a radically different reality will rise up to contend with them. Perhaps the recognition that this war cannot be won and, furthermore, that we cannot sustain the occupation indefinitely, will force both sides to accept a two-state solution, which, despite its drawbacks and risks (first and foremost, that Hamas will take over Palestine in a democratic election), is still the only feasible one?

This is also the time for those states that can exert influence over the two sides to use that influence. This is not the time for petty politics and cynical diplomacy. This is a rare moment when a shock wave like the one we experienced on Oct. 7 has the power to reshape reality. Do the countries with a stake in the conflict not see that Israelis and Palestinians are no longer capable of saving themselves?

The coming months will determine the fate of two peoples. We will find out if the conflict that extends back more than a century is ripe for a reasonable, moral, human resolution.

How tragic that this will occur — if indeed it does — not from hope and enthusiasm but from exhaustion and despair. Then again, that is the state of mind that often leads enemies to reconcile, and today it is all we can hope for. And so we shall make do with it. It seems we had to go through hell itself in order to get to the place from which one can see, on an exceptionally bright day, the distant edge of heaven.

#jumblr #ישראבלר #the full piece has also got excellent bits on the israeli pov #especially pre-october 7th and during october 7th #israeli authors and artists have been consistently coming up with the best and clearest opinion pieces on this nightmarish mess

9 notes · View notes

thyqueerblueberry · 1 year

Text

roman roy and fleabag parallels

hi. so, the worms in my brain got a little (very) out of hand and this post is a result of it👍

let's talk about the line "i dont know what to do with all the love i have for her i dont know where to put it." fleabag as a character is deeply, incredibly flawed. she's broken, depressed, self-destructive; i could go on and on. to me, the show was essentially about love and grief and being able to find support in the people around you, and coming to terms with the fact that there are in fact, people that love you and that you deserve to be loved. fleabag thinks she's "greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical and depraved" and yeah, she is, but she's also trying her damned best to get through life goddamit. roman, my precious failbaby, my son, he literally thinks of himself as unlovable, thinks he deserves being hit because he's "annoying." the core of roman's self-hate stems from the abuse he suffered as a child (and continues to), all those years that he spent trying to please a father who thought there was something wrong with him. he's a cruel, evil guy (first time we see that on screen was the baseball game where he promised that kid 1 mil and then proceeded to tear the cheque in front of his eyes) and yeah, he too, is "greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical and depraved."

"i think you know how to love better than any of us that's why you find it all so painful." phoebe waller-bridge why would you do this to me. do i even have to elaborate on this line? fleabag holds so much love in her she doesn't know what to do with it she wants to be loved but doesn't want to go through the terrible ordeal of being known, of being seen, her boyfriend literally told her "don't make me hate you, loving you is hard enough as it is", the priest's speech on love, his decision to choose to stay or leave her and he chose the former !!!! her relationship with her sister, how claire loves her but doesn't see her, not the way the priest did. just. yeah. rome. he has so, so much love to give. i think out of all the characters on succ, he's the one vulnerable enough to say something like "i don't know dad, love?" like??? and that scene where he asks greg to get him one of logan's sweater, something that smells like him?? how he's the one who initiates hugs?? "hey can we do the hug-y thing"??????????? ARHJHJEFKHDFS im not going to elaborate on the love he has for logan or his siblings bc there are sooo many posts that do it better than i could, but essentially, just like fleabag, roman wants to be loved but he doesn't think of himself as deserving of it.

their relationship with sex. it's so different but also not?? my friend phrased it for me so im just going to paste that over here (my fave part about this is the fact that they literally haven't watched succession but figured all this out from whatever i've told them HAH)

feel free to interact w this post and elaborate on this more!!

how they blame themselves for the death of the person they loved (logan and boo), although in rome's case it's kinda funny in a tragic way if him calling logan a cunt is what killed logan.

how they use humor as a coping mechanism, how they deal with guilt.

something something their relationship with their sibling/s too.

and that is all for today, thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#succession #fleabag #long post #dya speaks #roman roy #logan roy #kendall roy #shiv roy #connor roy #succession spoilers #succession season 4

41 notes · View notes

gatheringbones · 3 years

Text

["Today, a “good” family model is based on an ideology called “loyalty” or, more neo-liberally, “being supportive.” Often this is one in which the members reinforce each other regardless of the content of their lives and the consequence of their actions on others. They are “always there for you.” They overpraise in a broad sense. George W. Bush may be a war criminal, but his family is always there for him. As Edith Weigert recalled about Harry Stack Sullivan’s observation, families can create a “deprivation of indulgence.” No standard for how to treat others is forged. They can reproduce class and gender Supremacy systems by not expecting their members to face and deal with conflict, to learn how to take care of themselves or others, to literally and spiritually clean up after themselves, or to be self-critical.

As a result, family members learn how to be exploitative, expectant, and entitled. They learn to view some jobs as beneath them or some paths as above them; they understand that accountability is beyond them because they always have the family and its emotional resources to fall back on. They can come to expect a level of gender, class, or race Supremacy without having to work or earn their comforts. From the family’s perspective, this is considered “love.”

Some “good” bourgeois families build their strength at the expense of others, especially others in need or who don’t have a family. It’s inherent to the construction of the bourgeois classes. The family says “no” to others in order to enhance their own status. The family puts its own privileges first, positioning the rest of the world as a threat to their time and resources, or even their double standard. Bizarrely, we have deceived ourselves into believing this is responsible behavior, even though it only serves the state and its embedded classes, not the broad community. It defines itself by in-group silence about each other’s cruelties to outsiders and preservation of its resources for its own exclusive use.

Of course, no one is being asked to purposely disable their children’s futures by restricting them from enjoying superior education, health care, or living conditions. But rather, I am asking for some reality about the meaning and values and consequences of entitling our bourgeois children to dominate, even if the entitled don’t know how to best implement alternatives. And I am suggesting that some of this is inherent to social definitions of the mother role, particularly as it adheres to state systems of dominance.

(...) The “bad” family, as we understand it, is the opposite of this Supremacy model. Instead of bonding with each other to the detriment of outsiders, the family turns on its own members directly, demeaning them, beating them, fucking them, conditioning them towards self-destructive and socially detrimental behaviors. As my father once told me, “Families do worse things to their own members than they do to other people. They kill them, they rape them, they burn them in boiling oil.” And he was right.

The problem with this pathological dichotomy is that when “bad” families destroy their own members, they produce people so traumatized that they can’t problem-solve with others and become the source of impulsive, triggered acting out: e.g., blaming others, committing violence, overstating harm, bringing in the police or the state in lieu of problem-solving. The problem with “good” families is that they do the same thing, but from a place of over-privilege and Supremacy, so that when they are cruel and unfair, their family members “stand by” them, and create no consequences for their actions. Both of these systems hurt other people’s lives and produce new adults who don’t know how to be responsible and to problem-solve, who are entitled to a level that is detrimental to the rest of the world. And the rest of us have to live with these people. Even if we also are them, taking into account our earlier recognition that Supremacy and Trauma can exist in the same body.

I believe that a truly “good” family is one that is deeply and in fact primarily concerned with the behavior of its members towards other people. That instead of reinforcing indifference, exploitative behavior, arrogance about class, race or gender, blind allegiance to the state, and cruelty towards sexual partners, they systematize methods of accountability. In this way, each family member would grow up with a loving practice of opposition, with the commitment to psychological insight, individuation, and a means of discussion that emphasizes context, objective, and the order of events. Blind adherence would be the definition of “disloyalty,” as it is detrimental to peace and justice. Our model for relationships within groups can be transformed from obedience to biology, biological assumption, or simulacra of biology, emphasizing instead the ethics of each individual’s actions, cumulative consequence, and the necessity of self-criticism. In other words: accountability."]

Sarah Schulman, Conflict Is Not Abuse

#sarah schulman #cw abuse #currently reading

136 notes · View notes

uwurakax · 3 years

Text

another day ♡

pairing: oikawa x f!reader ♡

genre: angsty // exes // mutual pining ♡

summary: after the constant fighting and bubbling insecurities, you and oikawa both decide that breaking up is probably for the best. too bad that it wasn’t what either if you had wanted ♡

♡ read part one ‘save your tears’ here ♡

word count: 2k ♡

author’s note: super tired, i should be packing but im not lol, 4am gang ayyy. as always not proofread because i cannot stomach the idea of rereading what i wrote. this was what originally ‘save your tears’ was going to be, but part one got too long so haha. spoils of part one, so if you haven’t read it go ahead, or don’t lolol it could be read alone ig hurr hurr ♡

♡ (inspired by save your tears - the weeknd/ariana grande) ♡

At one point in time, you would’ve enjoyed an atmosphere like this; the blaring lights, pounding music, and even the heat radiating off warm bodies in a cramped space. It was much more enjoyable when you had the familiar, comforting presence of him.

Yes him: Oikawa Tōru. Also known as the the guy who broke your heart less than two months ago. You hadn’t seen him since the week after, finally being able to pick up everything and go. It was scary how silent it was between you two. The unit the both of you had made a home, your first home with him, just a little more barren. Just a little more bare.

Just a little more empty.

Once homely rooms were now plain. To anyone else, it could be called minimalistic or modern. Sleek if you were to exaggerate it. To the both of you however, it was just stone cold. A lifeless corpse. One poor imitation of what it once was.

And seeing it like this was almost enough to have your heart break for a second time. It was a physical representation of your relationship. The feelings of warmth, comfort, admiration, any and every word any literary body could ever akin to love was once found here. It was sad to see it gone, almost like it was never there. However if you looked past the surface you’d see all the small details of things that once occupied the room. The once full drawers now easily fitting clothes with plenty of room to spare. A countertop with products only to one half of the sink. The minuscule dust imprints left behind on the shelves that once housed your books.

The lingering smell of your perfume that was once so prominent.

You couldn’t tell, but Oikawa could. In the week you were gone, it slowly started to fade. The first night Oikawa was drowning in it. It clung to, what once was, your pillow and on the blanket. Choking and suffocating him with the sweet smell. He couldn’t bear to see the bed without you in it, and hated the God awful smell. Opening the window and facing away, he had a dreamless sleep that night.

And as the week passed, so did the scent of you.

He couldn’t explain why, but the moment he opened the door, his body felt at ease. His eyes blessed, even if you had those dark circles and slightly red eyes with unkempt hair. It was as if it was instinct to feel relief at being near you.

It was the longest few hours of Oikawa’s life that day, and somehow it was still just too short. Helping you gather your things, putting them into boxes and loading them into a tiny hired truck until eventually there was nothing left.

You were gone from the apartment, and now Oikawa’s life.

It was awkward the second time, saying goodbye. The finality of it all dawning on the both of you. You at least had this excuse to see each other once more. After this, there was nothing. No more reasons to come back, to call, message or even see each other again.

This was officially the last time you’d ever get to see Oikawa Tōru.

You’d both stood there for a few moments, only the wind against leaves and the occasional car offering any sort of background noise. Neither of you wanting or willing for this moment to end. Despite it all, it wasn’t hard to see that you both yearned for each other. Just how cruel it was that you couldn’t see it.

Oikawa kept your pillow close that night. The smell of you was so faint, he was sure that it wouldn’t be too long before it completely faded. As he held the plush item near his chest he couldn’t help but wonder what kind of life he could’ve had with you if he wasn’t so prideful? All the fantasies and white picket fences surged in his mind, and so he finally drifted off to sleep, thinking of you.

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

“Here”

You turned to see your best friend handing you a glass of, well you weren’t sure exactly but anything to dull your senses at this point was okay in your book. Yes, almost two months since your breakup and you were still so torn. It was what he wanted right? Your lives are better this way. You’re sure his is. He wouldn’t have to hear you “nag” as he so put it, and you didn’t have to feel the exhaustion resulting because of it.

It was better this way. You knew it. Oikawa knew it. Your friends and family knew it. Heck even the old ladies down the damn street knew it.

So why did it feel so shitty.

You downed the drink quickly, not wanting to go through the spiral of emotions you were sure you were going to experience. You’d deal with the pain and hangover tomorrow like the adult you were. For now you just wanted to dance till your feet hurt, and then drink until they stopped hurting. A quick descent into self destruction that you’re sure you’d regret.

Or maybe you wouldn’t.

The moment you turned your head to get back to the dance floor you locked eyed with him.

For a moment you stopped breathing. The music faded out quickly and the patrons of the club disappeared. Suddenly it was just you and him.

He looked good this time around, nothing like the last time you saw him. His perfectly fluffed and styled hair that was just so effortlessly Oikawa had become messy bed head. His bright chocolate eyes that twinkled just a little with mischief when he smirked had become sunken. His whole demeanour had completely drooped into a depressive state. It hurt to see.

He wasn’t like that now. He looked like how he had been before. No longer were the remnants of a heartbroken man. Oikawa Tōru had gone back to his charming self once again.

A cute girl with silky, long black hair approached him and just as quick as they went, everything came flooding back; the music, people and you found yourself being able to breathe again.

She touched his arm and laughed. The look in her eyes filled with the glimmer coyness. Her body language oozed with flirty persona. It was all too familial.

You should’ve guessed that he’d date again. It wasn’t like he couldn’t. The moment you both severed the relationship he had every right to do what he wanted. You did too. Sure you were seeing someone, but it wasn’t like that.

All too, touchy-feely.

It hurt to see, you weren’t going to lie. Seeing the way he touched her, held her, danced with her. For a good portion of the night you saw it. Seeing him be with her, the way he used to with you. No longer being the main character in his story; you were in the audience, watching.

You didn’t want to stay until the ending.

Without a word, you briskly brushed passed sweaty bodies, being bumped a few times before you finally made it to the door and opened it.

You walked a couple paces to the middle of the footpath, deeply inhaling the fresh air. It wasn’t suffocating anymore. You fumbled with your purse, reaching inside to pull out your phone. With the glow of neon lights emanating behind you, you saw a stray tear on the blackness of your screen.

Fuck, when did that happen?

You wiped it with the palm of your hand, and went to unlock your phone. As you prepared to send a text you heard the call of your voice.

“Tōr-Oikawa?”

He mentally winced at this, the formal tone of using his surname struck something inside. He didn’t like it, not at all. It wasn’t right, it felt strange.

“What are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here? You followed me”

“Right... I guess I just wanted to see how you were, that’s all” he looked away, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. You softened at this. It just took you back to why you fell for him in the first place. The little things like this, that made you feel cared for and loved. Perhaps for a few minutes you could be delusional and pretend that Oikawa still cared for you.

“I’m fine, what about you? How is everything going?” Yikes. You cringed at how awkward you were being. You supposed that that’s how it was, not exactly friends and not complete strangers either.

“Yeah fine too...” he trailed off, and just like that you were brought back to that time before you left. Before the official goodbye. Not ready to end things just yet, but neither knowing what more to say.

Just for a little while, let me remember every trace, curve and detail.

You didn’t know what came over you, but soon enough you found yourself drawing closer to Oikawa. He looked at you with half lidded eyes, not daring to move a step, almost afraid if he did it would ruin this moment with you. Yes, it was selfish but...

You lifted your hand to cup his cheek, just like a memory from before. Using the pad of your thumb, you gently brushed over the soft skin. Ever so delicately, you traced down his jaw. The intimacy of your movements crossed a boundary between you. You knew it and he did too. You’d let yourselves be greedy though.

Oikawa raised his own hands to touch your face, perfectly ingraining it into his mind and body. His fingers slowly going over your features. He wouldn’t allow himself to forget any part of you.

It wasn’t long until you both wanted to overstep more.

The longing between you too great to try and stop. Eventually you both moved closer, faces and soul alike reaching for the other. Just a bit closer.

“Y/N?”

“Oikawa?”

You both frantically pulled away, heart racing now.

“Kageyama..”

“Tobio”

Oikawa tried to hide the venom in his voice, he really did, but when he saw Kageyama make his way beside you he couldn’t help but see red.

It didn’t seem like life was playing a very fair game.

“Oikawa are you alright?” He looked down at the petite girl beside him, now clinging to his arm. He threw on one of his brilliant smiles and told her it was okay.

“Are you cold? Here” Oikawa couldn’t keep up that smile for too long, not when he saw him putting his jacket around you. How you snuggled into the warmth. How it showed Oikawa that you were no longer his, and that you now found solace in another.

He couldn’t blame you, he knew that deep inside. He did the same, why shouldn’t you? It didn’t stop the burning hatred and envy he felt. The overwhelming sadness that enveloped him. All a heavy dump of emotions thrown on him within a few seconds.

You felt it too though. That girl hanging off his arm. Getting to parade around that Oikawa was hers. It was totally unreasonable to feel this way. You both ended things. It was mutual right? You would’ve told him and he would’ve told you if this breakup was a mistake right?

Right?

“Wanna go?” Kageyama whispered in your ear. You nodded.

“It was nice seeing you again T-Oikawa” you smiled sadly.

“You too Y/N...bye” you both turned away, walking in opposite directions. With every step, your heartache grew just a little more. Almost like your body needed to be near his, the memories it held being more truthful than your head could ever be.

Your heart, body and soul wanted Oikawa.

Your mind told you to let him go for his sake.

“Hey Y/N?”

“Hey Oikawa?”

“Yes Kageyama?”

“Hmm?”

“He was your ex right? Oikawa?”

“That girl back there, is she her? The ex?

“Yeah he was”

“Yeah, she was”

“Do you still love him?”

“Do you still love her?”

There was a pause and you both stopped, mulling the question over.

Did you still love each other? It wasn’t hard to tell, everyone knew the answer. Ask any stranger but...

“No”

...

You both lied.

#haikyuu x reader #oikawa x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu angst #hq angst #oikawa angst

132 notes · View notes

cosmicjoke · 3 years

Text

Levi and Zeke: Their similarities and the Fundamental differences between Them:

I’ve recently been having a discussion with @ourmondobongo, and it’s spurred me to want to kind of analyze further the fundamental and philosophical differences between Levi and Zeke. I know I’ve gone into this thoroughly already, but my discussion with ourmondobongo has really made me want to delve in even deeper. First though, let me thank them for, as always, inspiring such insightful discussion among the fan base!

Some really interesting ideas were posted here, about Zeke’s experiences growing up in Liberio informing his world view and his views on the worth, or rather, lack thereof, in human life. ourmondobongo suggested that, because of Zeke’s experiences with his parents, utilizing him as a tool for the Resistance, and his subsequent utilization by the Marlyean army as a tool of war, it ended up warping his perception, and influencing him to believe that all human life is inherently worthless unless it can be molded into a tool or a weapon to further some goal. I agree with this interpretation of Zeke’s mindset and what shaped it. This is undoubtedly how Zeke views the world, and humanity as a whole, and he’s deemed, because of his own suffering, brought about by his experiences affirming this world view, that life is not worth living. Because he sees life as without value unless one can make themselves useful in some way, in his view, the suffering inherent in that makes life fundamentally pointless and meaningless and not worth the effort.

Now, where I diverge slightly from ourmondobongo’s view on this is in relation to Zeke’s influence upon Levi in the final arc, or rather, what they say about Zeke’s philosophy overriding or undercutting Levi’s own. They said that Levi’s belief in an intrinsic value in human life is bombarded and undermined during the final arc of SnK, Zeke’s own belief in the worthlessness of human life being affirmed to him again and again by the chaos and destruction around them, the rightness of his philosophy and belief that this sort of destruction can only stop with the eradication of the Eldian people being confirmed. But see, the thing is, I don’t think Zeke is at all showing Levi something new, or something which he hasn’t already known all his life.

Zeke claims that his experiences in life make him uniquely suited to understanding the conflict between Eldian’s and Marleyeans, and that his experiences make him uniquely capable of knowing how to solve that conflict. But Zeke is nothing if not a unfailingly self-centered egotist, someone driven purely by selfish, egotistical viewpoints, unable and unwilling to perceive anything outside of his limited world view. His life ISN’T unique, his experiences AREN’T unique. They’re, first of all, shared by every single Eldian on both Marley and in other countries around the world. Further, and more importantly to the point I’m about to make, they’re shared by Levi.

Zeke grew up being treated and regarded as a second-class citizen, relegated to a limited area, an internment zone, which he wasn’t allowed to leave unless given direct permission by the powers that be, and regarded as something less than human by the people of Marley. Well, these are all things Levi himself experienced growing up too, and, I would argue, to an even more extreme degree than Zeke.

Levi grew up in the Underground, a sprawling, subterranean city filled with the so called “dregs of society”. A place where the poor, the persecuted, the sick, the dying, the deviant and the criminal were either forced to flee to, or more unfortunate still, were born into. All this underneath the Capital of Paradis, Sina, the richest, most exclusive district inside the Walls. A place where the elite of society lived and worked and raised their families in wealth and luxury. The irony of the poorest, most poverty stricken area inside the Walls being directly beneath the richest, most affluent area inside the Walls can’t be overstated.

Perhaps most relevant to note in this comparison between Zeke’s experience growing up in an internment zone and Levi’s growing up in the Underground, is that the people of the Underground were not only considered second-class citizens, but relegated to something even below that, considered not citizens at all. They were literally denied citizenship within all areas above ground, within the Walls, and if they somehow managed to make it to the surface, and were found out, they would be promptly deported back to the Underground, where they would continue to be denied any and all rights given to the people up above. And, it can be easily argued, that the people of the Underground were treated in many ways significantly worse than the Eldian’s inside the interment zone in Liberio. The people of Liberio seemed relatively well provided for, able to find work, able to earn a living, able to have homes for their families and put food on the table, essentially allowed a sustainable and comfortable life, if one burdened by outside prejudice. They weren’t made to live in squalor. Largely, no doubt, because they were seen as an unwanted, but useful resource for the Marleyean government. The people of the Underground were provided no such provisions. They were viewed as simple refuse, society’s unwanted and unneeded surplus. Poverty and depravation ran rampant in the Underground, a lack of resources and support from above resulting in high crime rates and desperation, to things like murder, prostitution, violence and other sorts of criminality. Further, leading to things like rampant orphaning of children, likely due to starvation and disease claiming the lives of parents, etc... It was a place literally cut off from the sun, a world of perpetual darkness, sickness, poverty and dire straits. They received no aid or support from above, were not provided any of the benefits or privileges of the people on the surface, were not offered any sort of path to success, or betterment of their lives. They were just plainly rejected and left to the whims of fate. This alone makes it a more difficult and desperate place than the interment zones of Liberio, for even there the Eldian’s were given opportunities to improve their lives through the Warrior Unit programs.

You might try to point out that Zeke’s experience differs from Levi’s in how he was taught that he, and on his assumption, every other Eldian, would only ever be seen and treated as a tool to be used for some greater gain, and that Levi, at least, had the love of his mother, and Kenny to show him the ropes of how to survive in a place as ruthless as the Underground, and so Levi couldn’t possibly understand what it means, the way Zeke does, to be seen as a tool, or to be deemed worthless outside of ones utility. But I would counter this simply, by saying that Levi grew up, spent the first, several years of his life, in a brothel, where the very mother who loved him also worked as a whore. Through this experience alone, it can be easily assumed that Levi was exposed to repeated instances of his mother being EXACTLY used as a tool, as an object who’s sole purpose was to give men pleasure. From his birth, then, Levi was exposed and taught the brutal lesson that the sole most important person in his life, his mother, the one person we can assume was the only positive influence and relationship he had, for the first, several years of his life, was seen and treated by everyone else as nothing more than a tool for their basest and most perverse satisfaction. I can scarcely imagine a more horrific or cruel example of a young child being taught the same lesson Zeke seems to think is unique to him alone, that people’s lives are worthless outside of what use they can provide for someone or something else. Beyond that, Levi was again forced to face a situation in which he and his two, closest friends in Furlan and Isabel were used as tools by other people, recruited by Lobov to kill Erwin and retrieve from him an incriminating document, promised, if they succeeded, citizenship above and a handsome payday, only to find out later the entire scenario had been set up by Erwin himself to press Levi and his friends into military service, to be used as tools in the fight against the Titans. Both of these are prime examples of Levi being faced with the lesson that he and those he cared about were seen by people above ground as nothing more than tools, to be used at their disposal. So this was a concept Levi was already well acquainted with by the time Zeke showed up, a merciless lesson in the harshness, violence, brutality and suffering of life. Zeke didn’t experience anything Levi didn’t in turn, and in many ways, with greater extremity.

Anyone trying to claim, also, that Zeke had no positive influences in his life like Levi did would be wrong. Zeke had Mr. Ksavar, for one, and his grandparents, for another. Mr. Ksavar asked nothing of Zeke, merely showed care and concern for him, and a desire to spend time with him, playing catch. It was Zeke who offered to inherit the Beast Titan from Mr. Ksavar, not something forced on him. And while Zeke’s grandparents may have tried to enforce Marleyean history on him in regards to the Eldian’s, they did so out of love for him, in a misguided attempt to PROTECT him, because they cared, not because they were trying to use him in any way.

My point in talking about all of this is to draw a parallel between Zeke’s life, and Levi’s, and then to demonstrate how, despite deeply similar life experiences, the two of them diverge in vital and fundamental ways which, more than anything, can only be attributed to their strengths of character and natural inclinations as people.

Essentially, the gist of my argument is this. Zeke is a bad person. Levi is a good person. And there can be no excuses, or influencing factors found in either of their lives to credit for the way either of them turned out, other than themselves, other than their own natures.

Because Zeke let his life experiences twist him into a heartless, emotionless, unfeeling sociopath who murders other people without remorse, and regards other human lives as meaningless, worthless trash, expendable and disposable as a means to his own ends. He let his experiences in life serve as an EXCUSE for his natural cruelty. He chose to view the lives of others only through the prism of his own experiences, and cast a judgment upon the worth of those other lives. The true reveal of Zeke’s megalomaniacal egotism is in how he finds himself unable to separate the lives of others from his own. In how he’s unable to view the lives of others as anything other than an extension of his own existence. Because he deems his own life worthless, then so too must be the lives of everyone else.

Levi, then, is perfectly his opposite. It isn’t because of Levi’s life experiences that he’s turned out the way he is. It is IN SPITE of his life experiences that he has. Everything Levi’s ever experienced in his life, according to Zeke’s philosophy, should have turned him into a monster. He should have come out of the Underground a sociopathic, unfeeling, brutally uncaring and violent man, ready to take from and use others for nothing more than his own, personal gain, because that was the lesson his life had taught him. Because that was what he’d been shown over and over again. That life is cruel, and ruthless, and uncompromising in its unfairness, and that to live is to suffer. And yet, Levi came out of the Underground with a greater capacity for compassion, feeling, love and kindness than any other character in SnK. He continually and routinely, throughout the series, demonstrates an incredible empathy, consideration, sympathy, generosity and understanding for other people. He is immensely accepting and nonjudgmental, and always, always goes out of his way to express gratitude towards others for their own sacrifices and efforts. He does his absolute best to protect the lives of others, constantly putting his own at risk to help others live, constantly putting his own at risk to save whoever he can. Constantly and consistently, Levi places the lives of others above his own in terms of worth.

And here’s the thing that makes Levi most remarkable of all. The thing which demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt the immense strength of his character. Levi very well knows that life is cruel, that life is brutal, that life is unfair, and that often people die for no damned good reason at all, that they suffer for no reason at all. He very well knows that people are breathtakingly cruel and terrible to one another, that people treat one another in unspeakably horrific and unforgivable ways. He very well knows that the dream of a lasting and peaceful world, a lasting peace between humans, is nothing more than a pipe dream, an unrealistic, unattainable ideal. A fancy only a child should genuinely be able to believe in. And yet, once again, despite KNOWING this, despite every lesson and experience in his life impressing this awful reality upon him again and again and again, Levi still does everything within his limited power to ease the suffering of others, to improve their lives, to protect them and show them kindness, to help in any way he can, whichever way he’s able. Despite knowing the futility of life, the pointlessness of suffering, the injustice of other people’s cruelty, despite knowing these things INTIMATELY, Levi still has in him an open, generous, kind and caring heart. Levi still has in him a deep, unending well of compassion and an unwavering desire to protect and better the lives of all the people around him. It isn’t even Levi’s own dream that he fights for, it is the dreams of OTHERS that he fights for. He can’t ever fully embrace this notion of a peaceful existence, free of violence and deprivation and cruelty, because he knows too well the way of the world. He’s been too mired in the indifferent reality of nature and the human condition to ever, really believe it. But in spite of that, IN SPITE OF IT, he fights to protect that dream and belief that others carry, that others strive towards, that others commit themselves to. He gives everything he has, every piece of himself, to protect a dream that he himself can’t even fully believe in, and for no reason more than that it is something which gives others hope, something which gives other’s a sense of purpose, something which one day, possibly, however slim the chance, might come to pass.

It is all in spite of Levi’s experiences in life, all in spite of his weary and cynical understanding of the world and the people in it, that Levi commits himself to kindness, compassion and the chance to help others, in whatever ways he can, even as he knows deep down the ultimate futility in it, even as he knows his own, relative powerlessness in the face of nature’s unyielding and uncaring apathy.

And that really is the fundamental difference between Levi and Zeke. Two men who have experienced such similar lives, and who have learned early on their lives the cruelties of existing in this world, but one who reacts to those cruelties with defiance and courageous opposition, standing in the face of overwhelming odds, while the other yields to it and lets it excuse his cruelty in turn, bowing to its power and letting it consume him.

#attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #Levi Ackerman #zeke yeager #meta #thoughts

44 notes · View notes

officialinuyasha · 3 years

Text

InuYasha Wide Edition #14 Translation - Band of Seven: Part 2

Original Japanese Scans Provided by Me

Spanish Scans Provided by muffin_0626

Translated by @marusamaa-tradus

Proofread and localized by me

Rules: No screenshots or using my photographs, copy/paste, not using without permission, reblogs/linking only

WIDE EDITION VOLUME 14 - BAND OF THE SEVEN PART 2

The army that was revived thanks to the fragments of the Shikon jewel

All the members of the band had previously died and been buried in their tombs. However, after Naraku gave them fragments of the jewel, their bodies were revived. The seven of dead are corpses, in other words, “ghosts” who live thanks to the fragments of the jewel. Just like in their former lives, they’re still bloody, destructive and love massacres. As always, they move forward exterminating everything in their way.

Body: indestructible as long as the fragments of the jewel aren’t taken away

Their reborn bodies thanks to the fragments of the jewel can’t be mortally wounded, even if they’re cut or pierced/impaled.

Each of them have different abilities

Their abilities differ depending on their physique, personality and capacity. The big, strong one uses physical strength to fight, while the little one who lacks physical strength uses poison as his weapon. Even if they use different abilities, their aim is the same: to kill.

(page 2)

-Desires and instincts of the group of assassins-

Kyokotsu: wild appetite and destructive desire

Kyokotsu’s soul is filled with appetite and a destructive desire that matches his appearance: his body is as huge as a mountain. He eats everything that’s edible, no matter if it’s an oni or a demon. His logic is simple: the strong eat the weak. Besides eating, to show his strength, he acts violently by destroying everything around him.

Mukotsu: sadism and complex of inferiority

His soul is filled with complexes regarding his appearance, since he believes women don’t like him because of his looks; this results in the sadism that fills his soul: he desires to immobilize and kill them little by little. He’s also fragile since, when being counterattacked by a girl, he cries and gets angry. He also has a disciplined side: he mixes several kinds of poisons and tests them to check/verify the results; however, his goal is to kill, so his soul is totally polluted/contaminated.

Suikotsu: a heart between the good and the evil

Suikotsu’s heart is divided in two since before he died: the good Suikotsu, with the heart of a doctor, and the bad Suikotsu, with the heart of an assassin. The two of them live in the same body. Besides, when he’s a doctor, his assassin self knows what he’s doing and vice versa. Nevertheless, the repressed personality can’t do anything regarding the other personality present at that moment. When he was reborn, since it happened inside the sacred area of the mount Hakurei, he did it as a good hearted doctor who protects the village, but as his fragment of the Shikon jewel gets polluted, his personality as an assassin becomes bigger and stronger. However, he still has the heart of a doctor inside him, something that makes him suffer a lot...

(page 3)

Ginkotsu: a fighting machine

At first, Ginkotsu had weapons embedded in his whole body, and even though his looks weren’t very human, it was easy to identify him as a human man. He could talk and make his own decisions. However, after being mutilated by Inuyasha, he’s rebuilt by Renkotsu and becomes something “non-human”. He now moves with steel wheels and iron hoes, and shoots at his targets with the cannon on his back, controlled by Renkotsu. He fully trusts Bankotsu and Renkotsu, and doesn’t hesitate to be of use to them. This is how Ginkotsu leaves behind his human heart and becomes a weapon gradually.

Renkotsu: ambition and astuteness

Among the members of the band, he’s the only one who thinks deeply about things. However, he’s also cruel and loves to fight, just like his companions, but he doesn’t fight using his body, physical strength or sword abilities, but using a wide variety of weapons, like explosive tubes and flamethrowers. Rather than a soldier or a warrior, he’s a tactician. He’s the one who modified Ginkotsu and turned him into an object similar to a tank. His role inside the band is to plan battle strategies instead of Bankotsu and advise him, since it’s hard for him to think too much.

When acting as an army, he leads Jakotsu and Suikotsu, fulfilling the function of their commandant. He obeys Bankotsu, who is younger than him, and supports him. However, deep inside him, he thinks this isn’t correct. He calls Bankotsu “older brother”, but inside him, he calls him “brat” and longs for taking over his position. He shows his astuteness by taking the fragment of the jewel that another member of the band had and manipulating his companions at his convenience. His desire is to survive, even if he has to betray his friends. His heart is cold, black.

(page 4 - interview with Rumiko Takahashi)

A distribution of characters considering the concept of team vs team

For me, the band of the seven are something special, especially regarding the concept of team vs team. Regarding Suikotsu, his double personality is his most interesting characteristic. When being a “good person”, he was so good that even me, the one who drew him, could be deceived; of course… It's also because I wanted him to be like this. In conclusion, each member of the band of the seven faced one member of Inuyasha’s team; I think Suikotsu was perfect as an opponent for Kikyo. At the end he dies by the arrow shot by Kikyo right in the jewel. Anyway, I think this was something Kikyo had to do. Kyokotsu was the first one to appear and died immediately, but that was his role. That is to say, he’s a stereotype that had to be known as “the weakest of the group”, while having a fearsome appearance.

It happened the same with Mukotsu. He was out of the stage very soon. I didn’t want someone so depraved like him in the story for too long, so… that’s what happened. As for Ginkotsu… After drawing him for the first time, I had the chance to think about him. Maybe that’s why the modifications in his body increased, though I thought about turning him into a vehicle at some point from the beginning.

And now Renkotsu… He’s a double-faced person I wanted to have in the band. I thought it was better to have a character like this instead of having everyone in the team together and happy.

The perfect villains

I think none of the Shichinintai had long-term thinking… I wanted them to be villains like that. They weren’t thinking about anything in particular before dying and after being revived, they were ordered to defeat Inuyasha, so they only acted to fulfill this goal. I think this was because, rather than because they had to fulfill the vow, they enjoyed fighting.

The desire to bring together a team

I looked forward to bringing together a team like they do in the “Weekly Shounen Jump” magazine or drawing the process of defeating villains one by one, like Masami Kurumada sensei does. That’s interesting. I like to read those kinds of stories and I also desired to draw something like that. I knew it would be difficult, but I decided to do my best and give it a shot.

#inuyasha #inuyasha wide #inuyasha wide edition #inuyasha wide edition 14

15 notes · View notes

zenosanalytic · 3 years

Text

Growing Up is Hard; It’s Hard and Nobody Understands

So I noticed netflix has Neon Genesis Evangelion up last week and started watching it front to back for the first time ever(this happens to have coincided with me being in a down-mood for your edification, dear readers u_u), finished it today, REALLY liked it, and I wanted to try my hand at explaining what the hell is even going on in NGE cuz it actl seemed super-clear to me(a person who has been consuming NGE analysis and post-NGE media for literally 25 years) u_u

Surface Plot; Or NERV: What the Hell Is It?

I’ll try to make this as brief as possible: An organization of super-wealthy individuals calling itself Seele(looking this up, it means soul in german) wants to possess the power of God. The final third or so of the series is clear on this; it’s all about power. Ikari Yui, a geneticist, is recruited by this organization, and her husband Gendo(having taken her name which says a LOT given typical Japanese practice) comes with her. In seeking out this power, they discover a hollow sphere underneath Antarctica(”The White Moon”), send an expedition there under the guise of the UN, encounter an entity with this power which they label an “Angel”, and do SOMETHING which prompts it to explode the continent flooding the earth and killing half the population(that Gendo left beforehand implies this may have been intentional, or that a bad outcome to Seele’s approach was easy to predict, tho in typical Gendo fashion, his is the only ass he cared to save).

Afterwards Seele blame the scientists for this outcome and send Gendo on a salvage mission which recovers both remains of the Angel, now dubbed “Adam”, and a device they dub “the spear of Longinus”. Seele creates Gehirn to study these remains for practical use; they clone “Adam” and dub the result Evas(Eves). Having cloned them, they now need a way to use and control them as the Evas are non-responsive. They hit on the idea of injecting people into them via the Entry Plug system, presumably to act as a brain. The first person to try this, Ikari Yui, was absorbed by the Eva(Unit 01); the second(Soryu Kyoko Zeppelin; Asuka’s mother) was partially psychologically absorbed by Unit 02, psychologically and mentally injured by this, institutionalized, abandoned by her shit USian husband Langley who remarried to her LEAD DOCTOR, and eventual kills herself in a hanging which Asuka either is the first to discover or, given her memories of promising to die with her/begging her not to do it, was present for. An important thing to note about this: Shinji and Asuka’s ability to sync with their Evas comes from the fact that their mothers are PART of their Eva’s identity, and all of their classmates are potential pilot-candidates. The implication here is that Seele KNEW this happened when you put adults into an Angel, and they KEPT DOING IT ANYWAY to create more pilots, but there’s no confirmation of that in series.

After the attempt at human adult control fails, Gendo combines Yui’s DNA with Adam’s and creates Rei. At the same time he is doing this another team, under Akagi Naoko, is developing Magi, a biomechanical computer for simulating the human mind(again: certain implication to this re: Evas though the series never says anything). Naoko is romantically interested in Gendo, and they start getting together(Gendo’s too much of an asshole to be said to date, I think). After Rei, a toddler, tells her Gendo calls her an “old woman” in private, not realizing this is insulting, Naoko kills her, then kills herself out of shame over having MURDERED A CHILD, and Gehirn is folded into a new organization, NERV, which Gendo is put in charge of. Rei forms the basis of the second attempt at controlling the Evas; child-pilots.

How they use Rei for this I’m not exactly sure. It could be because Rei is cloned from Yui(she easily syncs with Unit 01 before Shinji bonds with it completely), or because she’s part Angel via her Adam element(Kaworu says Angels merge with one another easily and naturally), or it could be they did something with Rei I’s corpse and Unit 00(I dont see how as it seems to require a LIVE pilot). Regardless, she is raised to be the pilot for 00, the prototype. MUCH later, when the rest of the Angels finally decide to come looking for Adam, Shinji is called in, and after his success Asuka(who like Rei and unlike Shinji has been training to pilot her whole life) is called to Nerv headquarters(under Japan, in the “Black Moon”; a second spherical hollow where they found another Angel they call Lilith) too.

Regardless the child-pilots are only a step in Nerv and Seele’s plans, as Rei is ALSO the template for the Dummy Plug system, the final step in complete control of Eva units. To put it simply, the Dummy Plugs are Rei-clones without her personality or memories, and will just do whatever the heck they’re ordered to. At least once during the series(and I’d argue two, possibly three times) Rei dies and is replaced by one of these clones through some process, which involves what looks like a pre 00 Eva’s spine and probably a Magi-like backup, which transfers her personality and memories into the new body.

So what is Nerv? Well it’s hard to say EXACTLY because Gendo is in some sort of conflict with Seele(and I want to keep my watches of End of Evangelion out of this post; to focus entirely on JUST NGE itself) and Nerv IS Gendo, but as the series states repeatedly it’s an attempt to control the future of humanity by controlling what they call “the power of god” which, given that it’s what most distinguishes the “Angels”, is the AT, or “Absolute Terror”, Field. What is the AT Field? It’s a field that can make or unmake any kind of matter or energy from basically nothing, and it also seems to have a strong tie to what you could call the Ego; to desires and sense-of-self. An AT Field gets stronger when the person generating it is experiencing powerful emotions; Confidence, sure, but also Fear, Abandonment, the Will to Live, and Anger.

That last bit is very important. Why? Strong AT Field effects require a powerful emotional motivation in the pilot combined with high sync-rates with the Eva(basically a lobotomized Angel-clone) generating the Field. The three pilots we meet, the Strongest candidates, are all exceedingly traumatized people, and Gendo is the direct cause of the trauma of two of them. At no point in the series is Gendo ever a good father to Shinji, he is CONSTANTLY unreasonable, neglectful, and cruel to him; he’s kinder to Rei but at the same time her loneliness, the state of her “home”, and her lack of self worth shows that he rarely interacts with her outside of missions or explains what’s going on beyond bald facts; and he COMPLETELY ignores Asuka, a deeply lonely child with a history of abandonment and close brushes with death; he even delegates bumping her from the program. This point is important because it’s important to recognize that Gendo is a bad dad on PURPOSE; that he instrumentalizes his bad dadness to traumatize Shinji(and Rei and Asuka, though sadly the series doesn’t focus on them enough for us to see much) as much as he can, because he thinks that trauma, that emotional instability and anger, MAKES SHINJI A MORE USEFUL PILOT; ie lets him generate more powerful AT Fields. This is never said clearly, but it’s clearly what’s going on as forcing Unit 01(and thus Shinji) into awful, heartbreaking, life-threatening situations is vital to his plan. Gendo’s a piece of shit, and I want ppl to recognize just HOW BIG a piece of shit he is, because I feel this powerfully.

And for what? For Power. To be “God”. To get the highest numbers. To generate the MOST Invincible Invincibility Shield. For Ridiculous, Absurd, Childish reasons. For, you know, the same reasons rich and powerful people do all the fucked up shit they do in the real world where giant magic robots thankfully DONT exist.

And how do they plan to do this? Through “Human Instrumentation”, which will literally kill everyone by turning them all into goo.

Metaplot; Or “SHINJI! Don’t Get in that Robot!!”

So, maybe this is just because(as said previously) I’ve been reading NGE Analysis and consuming media which NGE heavily inspired for ~25 years, but I think it’s old hat at this point to note that Neon Genesis Evangelion is ALSO an allegory for becoming an adult, centered on Shinji. However, it’s just really SO on the nose in this, so PERFECT as such a narrative, that I want to run through it real quick. Also: A Cruel Angel’s Thesis is basically a thesis-statement for this series; please check out the lyrics.

So Shinji is living under the guardianship of a teacher(yup: this series even takes a swing at how our society uses schools to warehouse kids so their parents can waste their lives producing “Value” instead of raising them), when the shitty dad that abandoned him decides he has a use for him after all and calls him up.

On meeting with a child he has not seen SINCE HE WAS A TODDLER LITERALLY ABANDONED HIM ON THE STREET WHEN HIS MOTHER DIED he immediately ambushes him with the command that he get in a huge body(that he grow up) to do what? Whatever Gendo tells him to, but specifically: commit acts of violence for Gendo and Seele’s profit. He tells him this will protect people; meanwhile doing it destroys those peoples’ literal homes. The rest of the series is a series of monotonous, incomprehensible “Tests” judging his, and his peers, worthiness for approval and affection on the basis of how well they can use those giant bodies to do what Gendo tells them(so: capitalist work), punctuated by unpredictable, brutal, traumatizing, and physically dangerous events(so: capitalist work). Every friend, and the one lover, he meets, he is placed in unnecessary, destructive competition with and, when they are male, forced to attack and(in the case of the one lover, Kaworu) kill them; this last comment on homophobia is so stark and obvs I don’t even feel like you can CALL it subtext, even IF it plays out over mostly a single episode(honestly this plotline should have been given more time). And all the time they’re doing this, they must ALSO continue going to school and maintaining the front that they’re happy smiley Heroes, completely normal and not traumatized at all, and Nerv and the government that lets them run this city is a great and wonderful organization. Is this not what becoming an adult, over your teens and 20s, feels like?

And then there’s Seele and Nerv. Able to move state governments as they wish, Seele CAUSED Second Impact(Global Warming). By not returning Adam’s remains, they’re CAUSING the Angel attacks on Nerv meant to retrieve them(the threat of Human extinction). The Angels eventually begin trying to communicate and Nerv’s response? Destroy them before they can; blow up the Evas(and their pilots) if they succeed. And to top it all off Seele and Nerv are actually trying to CAUSE the very extinction(Third Impact) they claim to be preventing! Seele and Nerv are just SUCH good metaphors for capitalism in our modern day.

The transwoman reading of Shinji also seems pretty dang strong to me, though I’ll only deal with it shallowly. Shinji is the only “male” of all the pilots. Outside of command and security, most Nerv staff are women. Being an Eva pilot, being Nerv staff, is marked as “feminine”, and Shinji is an Eva pilot; is a Nerv staffer. The body he gets into, Unit 01, acts as a metaphor for the large, imposing, masculine body he’s expected to have as an adult “man”, yet it’s also spiritually his mom -feminine- and his ability to use it is tied DIRECTLY with his ability to “Sync” with that spirit; with his ease and comfort being feminine. Even at the level of mere aesthetics, Shinji’s plugsuit makes him appear to have breasts! Going a bit deeper, he initially relates to the women around him by relating to their gender. He’s most at ease with Rei because of the personality traits she shares with him which, we know from his gender-policing of Misato from earlier in the series, are traits he considers feminine(ie: he doesn’t feel like Misato has them, so he thinks she’s being a woman “wrong” and gets oddly offended by this in a way that really feels more about him than her). Asuka is constantly expressing her frustration with him for not “being a man”, ie, for being “feminine” in her eyes, and he isn’t really bothered by it(her calling him an idiot seems to stick much more firmly). Misato and Shinji establish a modus vevendi when she accepts him as he is, allowing him to do the household chores and to cook; he’s comfortable and happy when accepted into roles his culture considers feminine, while most of the series is him bucking AGAINST the masculinity forced on him by Nerv, his father, and others. Again: this is a very surface-level engagement with the subject, but even at that shallow level I feel like the case for reading Shinji as a transwoman is pretty solid.

Dislikes

It’s not a perfect series by any means of course.

There’s allot of dialogue that’s pure 90s nonsense, though the series mostly includes it only to shoot it down.

Like I said above, I don’t think Rei and Asuka really get the time or attention they deserve. In general the series treatment of women is ...Weird... especially around the issue of sex. It’s really strange; in many ways it’s far better than most anime(spcl from that period) on this. Women are ACTUAL PEOPLE with psychology, opinions, and pasts; they’re allowed to have emotions of their own, and struggles, and to be damn competent; they are independent and their own selves rather than accessories or “prizes” to men. But on the issue of feminine sexuality it just gets suddenly so weird in this very particular old-school misogynist way. Like: it treats women’s attraction and reactions TO relationships as something devoid of and impenetrable to reason, without belittling the emotions(the desire and hurt) behind those reactions. That’s the only way I can describe it, and it’s so strange to see something that is both so insulting and sympathetic at once. Oh, and the Akagis in particular are done super-dirty for seemingly no reason I can see, tho I can guess, and Akagi Ritsuki is CLEARLY a lesbian(possibly bi lesbian) and also Rose Lalonde(srsl; her Deal should have been an unrequited, unspoken crush on Misato. They openly dealt with queerness re: Kaworu and Shinji they could have done it here too).

The Kaworu storyline should have been a series of episodes or even developed from the start with him as another pilot(maybe replace Toji with him), though they’d have to tone down his weirdness, at least at the start. A deeper dive on Shinji’s sexuality(honestly his attraction to Kaworu is SO much more immediate and believable than anything we see with him and Asuka, which there is basically nothing of beyond the ep where they had to do choreography for a fight, and that’s not developed on) would have really been appreciated, and having Kaworu be a bigger part of the series would have facilitated that.

Also honestly the whole series feels a bit rushed? Spcl the second half. Like I said: I haven’t done any followup reading lately, but I remember there being some budget problems or something, so maybe that’s the cause. Ironically it might actl also be why it’s as GOOD as it is; having to keep it short forces you to write concise and lean, and that’s probably why its themes and message are so clear. But, I’d have liked more rambling for character development, and more time spent on seeing Rei and Asuka react to the stresses we saw Shinji face(also they never really get moments to shine like he does; another negative common to the medium and genre). Asuka in particular, as a Japanese German with a USian temperament abandoned by her parents, already an outsider in SO many ways, coming to live in an entirely different culture where she’s even MORE of an outsider; forced to live with people(Misato and Shinji) she finds it impossible to relate to or connect with; who has literally NO ONE beside a single adult guardian who totally blows her off THE WHOLE SERIES after delivering her; PLUS her awful past: there’s just SO MUCH material I’d have loved to see explored more slowly and with greater depth, detail, and sympathy even if what IS there already is pretty powerful and effecting. She’s SUCH a good Vriska(so I’d also have loved to see her break more shit too >:>)

Conclusion

So Anyway: I really liked this series. It had its problems, there are things I’d have liked to see, but it absolutely deserves the reputation it has. I might write more about this, I might do a watch through INCLUDING End of Evangelion(which actl makes much more sense having watched the series, though having done so makes Shinji’s masturbation scene comPLETELY out of left-field like where the hell did THAT come from); we’ll see.

#Neon Genesis Evangelion #The Dreaded Animes #zA Reviews #zA Opinions

23 notes · View notes

robininthelabyrinth · 4 years

Text

Three Gates - on ao3 (for content warnings check Ao3) - on tumblr: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6, pt 7, pt 8, pt 9, pt 10, pt 11

- Chapter 12 -

The Nightless City was grand and glorious, as luxurious as Koi Tower and as tasteful as the Cloud Recesses, and Meng Yao would burn it all down in a heartbeat for the chance to return to the familiar sparse stone and metal of the Unclean Realm.

Wen Ruohan had forgiven him for murdering Wu Bixian and blowing his cover once Meng Yao had explained the circumstances, although he’d been displeased; Meng Yao had had to work his way back into his inner circle the hard way, inventing monstrous machines for him to use in his Fire Palace, where he played at treating torture the way other people viewed sport.

Meng Yao had once dreamed of torturing his enemies – initially defined as anyone who insulted his mother, but later expanded to include anyone who made a serious effort to harm Nie Mingjue and recently he had been considering an additional expansion to loop in the same for Lan Xichen – but now he realized that torture was boring and burdensome and messy, and a quick execution was clearly much more effective.

There was a lot less upkeep, for one.

A lot fewer tormented doctors as well – that poor Wen Qing would probably have never picked up her needles if she’d known this was where she was going to end up using them, that was for sure – and anyway, neither of his lovers would have approved so it was all a moot point anyway.

Possibly former lovers.

Not that they’d ever actually made it to the stage of being lovers, what with Lan Xichen’s sect rules and parental trauma, Meng Yao’s nightmares of the brothel, and Nie Mingjue’s experiences with Wen Ruohan…

Probably for the best, actually, given what Meng Yao now knew about Nie Mingjue – something that he was almost certain that Nie Mingjue did not know about himself.

A few months at Wen Ruohan’s side had certainly been enlightening on that front. As Meng Yao might’ve suspected, he treated even the people in his clan about the same as wooden furniture, useful to varying degrees but all ultimately disposable, and someone like Meng Yao, a talented retainer he’d stolen from another sect and who had no way out, made for amusing company.

Wen Ruohan had in fact heard the rumor of someone in the Nie sect being born as a yang furnace, very likely from Wu Bixian himself in an attempt to get rid of what he perceived to be a stain on the sect’s reputation, and he’d investigated, ultimately figuring out that the person in question was Nie Mingjue. A yang furnace, Meng Yao learned, was considerably rarer than a yin furnace, requiring the right horoscope and lucky (or unlucky) parentage, and was considered far more precious – people with that constitution would have an incredible talent for cultivation themselves, but would also be able to magnify, many times over, the cultivation or even cultivation potential of those with whom they engaged in dual cultivation.

The furnace’s consent in the matter was not required.

After discovering the truth, Wen Ruohan had apparently gone back and forth for some time in deciding whether to snatch him up immediately, training him up as a concubine reserved for the use of the Wen clan, but one of his more esoteric specialists had told him that the sort of intense cultivation techniques he had in mind would likely kill a child and, more importantly, that the positive effect on his own cultivation would be magnified if Nie Mingjue’s cultivation were higher when he began.

“Sect Leader Wen’s patience is admirable,” Meng Yao said with the sort of smile he’d worn when talking to the brothel owner that used to beat his mother on a regular basis just so she’d ‘remember her place’. “If only I had known..! I am not so certain I could resist such a temptation for years on end.”

Wen Ruohan laughed. “Well, I must admit I gave it a half-hearted effort a few times. The doctors did say that a few times early on wouldn’t hurt.”

By hurt he meant damage to Nie Mingjue’s ability to cultivate, or to cultivate with others, not to the lifetime of nightmares and terror that Nie Mingjue suffered as a result of his unrelenting pursuit.

“Though on that subject,” Wen Ruohan continued, a faint smile on his face, “perhaps you’d like to take a look at the room I’ve prepared for him, and let me know if you have any suggestions – anything you think he’d enjoy for the times when he’s not – in service.”

“Of course, Sect Leader Wen.”

“Naturally, if you also have any proposals regarding any of your marvelous machines…”

“Naturally, Sect Leader Wen.”

“Good,” Wen Ruohan praised. “If you please me well enough, perhaps I’ll let you take a turn once I’m done with him.”

He had other requests, too, which were even less savory – mostly storytelling, Meng Yao casting his mind back to his days at the brothel and even in desperation some of the artwork Nie Huaisang insisted on collecting to describe all sorts of scenarios for Wen Ruohan’s evident enjoyment.

Meng Yao took a bath as often as he could plausibly manage it, and still felt unclean.

(Chiwen, hidden away as best as he could in the room he’d been assigned because a Nie saber did not voluntarily enter Wen hands, screamed in his head. He hated everything about what they were doing.)

It was amazing, Meng Yao thought, how far self-deception could go: he had thought, once, that he would be able to distract and dissuade Wen Ruohan without losing anything along the way, that he could sell himself without counting the cost, and at the last he realized that his mother had been right about warning him not to get used to making deals with bad men.

Wu Bixian, too. He had thought that Wen Ruohan’s goal was domination of the cultivation world, his pursuit of Nie Mingjue only a means to get there or at best a distraction, when in fact Wen Ruohan wanted to be a god, to break through the barrier of cultivation and rise up to the heavens, and he believed that Nie Mingjue could get him there.

And yet Wen Ruohan, too, was deceived – he thought that everything in the world was meaningless grist to that great ambition’s mill, thought that everything he did was for power and power only. And yet there was the great care and attention with which he had filled the prison room in the Nightless City with all the things Nie Mingjue liked, things that he’d figured out from casual mentions in discussion conferences, the fascination in his eyes when Meng Yao told him stories that were sometimes so very boring and mundane, the casual way he dismissed even his own heir’s death at Nie Mingjue’s hands…

Perhaps the interest had been merely practical once, but it certainly was no longer.

At least the war was going well.

Not much else was.

His letters with Wen Ruohan had been belatedly discovered and publicized, his betrayal becoming widely known – Wen Ruohan deliberately cutting off Meng Yao’s route of return, no doubt. The fact that it was a good move, and one Meng Yao would have done if he were in his place, did not make it any easier to swallow.

He had always assumed he would be there to explain the letters to Nie Mingjue.

He’d said so many cruel things in those letters over the years, hurtful things, things he didn’t believe but thought that Wen Ruohan would like to hear – things about Lao Nie, about Nie Mingjue, about Baxia, about Nie Huaisang…disdainful, wretched things, lies that had flowed so easily out of his brush when he’d thought it was all a game.

He didn’t want to think about Nie Mingjue hearing them – seeing them – reading them –

He didn’t want Nie Mingjue to think that was how he really felt.

Some days, in the middle of the night in the too-brightly-lit core of the Nightless City, Meng Yao put his head in his hands and felt the prickle of tears in his eyes. He should have known better, he thought. He shouldn’t have tried to take it all on his own shoulders; he shouldn’t have assumed he’d be able to explain, that he could swear on Chiwen that his motives were pure and that all would be easily forgiven; he should have told Nie Mingjue what he was doing early on so that it would not come to him as a surprise –

He should not have repeated his mother’s mistake from all those years ago.

(“They don’t trust us!” Lao Nie had shouted, his voice still audible behind those stone walls, and Nie Mingjue had gone silent, the words hitting their mark and leaving a wound, before he’d started arguing once again.)

Meng Yao had originally planned on having both Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen act as his contacts during the war, but instead for his sins he got stone-faced Lan Wangji and, eventually, red-eyed Wei Wuxian, who was clearly still deeply shaken by the near-destruction of the Lotus Pier and how close he had come to losing everyone he loved.

(Meng Yao killed time in between boring torture, nauseating dinners with Wen Ruohan, and interacting with his two contacts in trying to figure out how to get said contacts to confess their obvious attraction to each other without ever actually telling them to their face that they were being idiots.

How anyone had ever compared him to Wei Wuxian – citing their status as fatherless children being raised by sect leaders alongside their heirs – he honestly did not know; the boy had a genius for cultivating and the arrogance to go with it, but simply no common sense whatsoever. Meng Yao was his exact opposite.)

They had both briefly been guests of the Wen sect, brought in by the same invitation that had been forcefully extended to Nie Huaisang; once they were there, they were given to Wen Chao to lead and reshape. Obviously that went about as badly as anyone could imagine, Wen Chao being what he was.

Nie Huaisang had been there too, of course, and Meng Yao hadn’t dared go anywhere near him. It wasn’t that he doubted his own acting abilities, or Nie Huaisang’s for that matter, but rather his own perception. Nie Huaisang was a very good liar, and if Meng Yao got it into his head that his own blood brother didn’t believe him, he might very well fall apart.

So he didn’t go.

That turned out to be a mistake.

Apparently, not showing up was seen as some sort – admission of guilt, perhaps, because the second Nie Huaisang returned to the Unclean Realm, things started going very badly indeed. Many of his old contacts stopped talking to him or even disappeared, even the ones he would have sworn Nie Huaisang had no knowledge of, and he didn’t even want to think about how many of his plans ran into obstacles that had nothing to do with luck and had everything to do with Nie Huaisang’s Nie temper.

Meng Yao only hoped that the cause of the temper tantrum was his failure to apologize for not letting Nie Huaisang properly into his schemes, and not that Nie Huaisang thought –

Surely Nie Huaisang would have said something to Wei Wuxian or Lan Wangji if he didn’t believe Meng Yao to be trustworthy? They were peers, had been schoolmates, and a few months together was more than enough time for Nie Huaisang to get the measure of them – he had to know what they were doing on his behalf, surely, and he hadn’t stopped them, so…

Sometimes Meng Yao thought that his circular rationalizations would drive him mad, long before anything else about this horrible life of his did.

(He also thought, sometimes, about how his mother would feel – how she did feel – about what he was doing, and whether she approved or not. He usually tried to stop thinking about it as soon as possible.)

At any rate, the sect heirs had all escaped after some unfortunate encounter with a corrupted Xuanwu that made Meng Yao twitch in fear when he belatedly learned about it, and soon after that the war began in earnest.

The Nie sect took Heijian, as had always been the plan; the Wen sect’s cultivators threw themselves against their iron wall without any success and even some heavy losses, especially whenever Nie Mingjue himself there to lead battles. The Lan sect was scattered after the burning of the Cloud Recesses, but Lan Wangji’s early warning had preserved more of their lives than might have otherwise been accounted for – the attack on the Lotus Pier had been similarly blunted through timely advice, although Jiang Fengmian’s stubborn refusal to take immediate action had resulted in injuries, some rather serious.

Two major attacks, in under a year – the rest of the cultivation world was alarmed. A sizeable number chosen to give in at once, while others opted to join the opposing forces, and war was everywhere.

Meng Yao had hoped that his information would be enough to tip the balance, that he could play the same role he’d played against Wen Ruohan in the past – acting as an interruption, but never quite tipping his hand. Never pushing for the real reward, taking the big risk…

The war dragged on.

There were some close calls – some difficult battles. People were dying on both sides. Several times there were reports of terrible injury to key people; the death of someone he loved was only a matter of time.

It seemed that he didn’t have a choice but to take more dramatic action.

Evil, Chiwen screamed in his mind, just as he had every day since Meng Yao had arrived at this horrible place. Kill it!

Meng Yao wished it was so easy.

“Do you mind if I borrow your brother?” he asked Wen Qing, who glared at him but accepted the jar of wine he offered her. “Just for a while.”

“None of your machines,” she said at once. He couldn’t blame her.

“No machines,” he agreed. “I need a courier.”

She paused, then put the wine down. “Out of the Nightless City? Safely?”

He smiled.

Wen Ning was delighted to see Wei Wuxian, and the feeling was decidedly mutual – Meng Yao had picked Wen Ning in part because of the extraordinary initiative he had taken at the Lotus Pier, initiative that made the entire Jiang clan quite fond of him – and Wei Wuxian happily agreed to smuggle Wen Ning out of Qishan to deliver a private message.

“Make sure he gets to Lan Xichen,” Meng Yao instructed. “A message can be compromised or lost – a person, not so easily.”

“I’ll do my best,” Wei Wuxian said, and almost looked approving, like he thought that Meng Yao was doing this to save Wen Ning from the worst of the war.

He had no idea what Meng Yao was doing.

“Wei Wuxian,” Meng Yao said when they were about to leave. “What does Lan Xichen say about me?”

A blink, there and gone. “He fears for your safety, and hopes you are well.”

“And – Nie Mingjue?”

He didn’t bother asking about Nie Huaisang. If his brother didn’t want someone to know how he felt, no one would ever have the slightest clue.

Wei Wuxian hesitated, and Meng Yao waited, and in the end Wei Wuxian finally said, “I don’t think I’ve heard him say anything about you at all.”

Meng Yao nodded. It was no less than he’d expected, for all that it felt as if his heart were shattering. “Thank you. Please go.”

Wei Wuxian would take Wen Ning to Lan Xichen, and Lan Xichen would believe the words of a person more than he believed a letter – it was his nature to do so, especially when that person was as serious and earnest as Wen Ning, who seemed so trustworthy and who would never knowingly tell a lie.

But a person who would never knowingly tell a lie could still be made to carry one, and so Lan Xichen would listen to Wen Ning, and he would take what Wen Ning told him to Nie Mingjue, and Nie Mingjue – who might have questioned information brought by Wen Ning but who would never question Lan Xichen, the way he had previously never questioned Meng Yao – Nie Mingjue would listen, and believe, and act on that belief.

He would go to Yangquang –

And Wen Ruohan would be waiting for him.

Sometimes Meng Yao hated himself.

#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #wen ruohan #wei wuxian #wen qing #wen ning #my fic #my fics #three gates

83 notes · View notes

annebrontesrequiem · 3 years

Text

So since I’ve seen a few people discussing the changes to Rina’s character in a positive light (all of these posts were btw very interesting with very good points so I’m not trying to demean anything or anyone) and since I made a very short post about it yesterday discussing my initial feelings - which were distinctly negative - I think I’m going to go over my thoughts again.

So, as I said yesterday I didn’t like the way they changed Rina’s character. I think part of it is because I find plots centered around misunderstandings really irritating - like if I have to read one more Shakespeare play centered around that I’m chucking the whole folio out the window. Another part of it however is that this volte face by Rina puts Rena in a really awkward position, a position that was already really awkward from Satoko’s decision to inject her.

So, what am I saying? From a logical perspective this change makes complete sense. It makes sense to make Rina a sympathetic character because in doing so you get to explore the ways that Satoko is completely warping the world around her, world’s that seem more and more determined to roll in Rika’s favor, so to speak. On top of that making Rina a sympathetic character also introduces a layer of complexity to Rena’s story - something that her dad slapping her also does but apparently that was in the original VN which I need to finish reading I digress. Making Rina sympathetic, willing to change to the point that she actively tells Rena this, it’s written to show how much Rena’s paranoia from Hinamizawa Syndrome is self-destructive. Rena is robbing herself of a better life by letting herself be controlled, by not reaching out to help, by simply following the programming of Hinamizawa Syndrome.

Except that doesn’t work in this case. Satoko is the one who injected Rena, to the point she’s supposed to be at L5 (which I wouldn’t say she’s at that stage based on actions but idk she’s really mentally strong I digress). This isn’t some tragedy of Rena not reaching out for help because she’s been purposefully pushed to the extreme, to the point of no return. There is no time in this arc in which Rena can take the initiative to reach out for help. Her killing Rina is no longer a symptom of the isolation that characters push themselves into by not believing in one another, it’s simply the result of Satoko’s plan.

Going back to this idea of logical perspective, because of extenuating factors, this change should work perfectly fine. Gives depth to a character, adds to the idea of how much the worlds are being manipulated by Satoko, wow we’ve covered all the bases. But the problem here is because Rina changes at the drop of a hat, because we don’t see the loops which could have driven her to change from being part of a scheme with Teppei to willingly disconnecting herself from Rena’s dad, from an emotional perspective this doesn’t work, at least not for me.

I mentioned Shion’s arc in the initial post and I think that it’s still a really good example. The reason that Shion’s arc works so incredibly well is because all the characters she deals with are fully fleshed out. We’ve seen her friends who obviously have the potential to care about each other deeply. We’ve seen the good the characters she brutally murders, and we’ve also seen their flaws. For example Mion does all in her power to help Shion escape her situation, but she is still so frozen by her place as heir that she let’s her sister’s nails get torn off for this weird idea of “taking responsibility”. Almost all the characters in Shion’s arc feel in some ways cruel, but they’re also very vibrant, and because of that her arc works so well. We can sympathize deeply with Shion while still also feeling terrible about the characters she’s murdering, understand that they were in no way deserving of being horrifically murdered.

The reason this works though is because of the literal hours of groundwork laid on all these characters. All the mundane stuff we see from their perspectives, the club games, the commenting on uniforms and names and all that (this is more specific to the VN). That’s the reason that Shion’s arc works so well. If that arc came before all the others then it would be frankly awful. It’d be hard to sympathize with either Shion or the rest of the Hinamizawa gang. It’d feel like watching some terrible person murder some other terrible people. Wow, this is every slasher film.

While Rena’s actions certainly don’t go as far as lazy slasher films, I do think it sort of taps into that similar vein. Logically I understand why this arc exists, but emotionally I just feel sort of… vaguely disapproving. I don’t feel really awful for Rina because I’m suffering from character whiplash, and I don’t feel awful for Rena cause it feels like she’s going on a rampage for no damn reason. Which yes, in the original arcs there was also no damn reason, but the slow buildup of characters and paranoia worked so well that you didn’t feel that way. Again this swings back to Satoko injecting Rena. We already saw the groundwork, but immediately turn the dial up from 10 to 100 lost all the content in between, which is sort of imperative for stuff like this in my opinion. And Rina’s quick switch makes this even worse. Not to mention that she seems to have lost braincells because someone cryptically telling you no one comes to a garbage dump while wielding something that obviously looks like a weapon just, this isn’t a slasher film please. Redeemed Rina doesn’t have to be stupid Rina please she doesn’t have to be an idiot.

As much as I also loathed Teppei’s redemption (I’m not letting that off the hook that still irritates me immensely) at least the writers did some sort of effort to show his thought process, even if that thought process was absolute nonsense. If that had been shifted to Rina’s character, maybe it would’ve worked better. I mean Rina in the original is a terrible person who literally tries to murder a child but I do hate her less than Teppei. Because Teppei, well, no redemption for him.

This is way too long so I’m going to stop while I’m ahead. I hope I explained my perspective well.

Tl;dr: This is an example of logic v emotion, planning v execution. Theoretically making Rina a sympathetic character adds a lot of depth to the story. But due to rushing, poor laid foundations, and the bias of an entire preceding, instead the attempt just falls flat. It increases my sympathy for Rina, yes, but in a sort of vague and superficial way. And as for Rena, well it’s hard to feel much for her at all that isn’t a holdover from previous emotions.

I genuinely liked the two first episodes of Sotsu and I am excited to see where this goes. But this decisions is still something I’m not wild about, and I just wish at the end of the day it had been done better. This whole thing is 2.2k words long (I’m so sorry).

#higurashi #higurashi sotsu #higurashi spoilers #mine

9 notes · View notes

iamnmbr3 · 3 years

Note

Loki is a literal saint. There is no other option. Watching movies I am still amazed at his kindness, patience and good manners towards all those scoffers. I hope he went to Christian Heaven, not the cruel Valhalla with the manipulative Frigga and the cruel Odin. I really wish Jesus would hug Loki and tell him that he deserves to be happy.

Personally I think Loki does also have flaws. What makes him interesting to me is that he is a very complicated and grey character. He is the outsider and the other. He is raised in a culture that values being a warrior and enjoying warfare for its own sake, and yet he is someone who fights only when it is necessary and is willing to lie and to kill to prevent war. He is someone deeply shaped by trauma and betrayal. I think the ways all of this feeds into his viciousness and resentment are really interesting. I saw a post once that talked about how Loki isn't “a good victim” and I just love that. He lashes out in messy and complicated ways. He doesn’t just sit there and look sad.

Over the course of Thor 2011 we see his downfall - and it very much mirrors the arc of a Shakespearean tragic hero. We see him victimized and hurt and we see him fail in ways beyond his control. We see the context and circumstances that lead him to his fall and we empathize and recognize it as deeply tragic. Yes by the end he’s literally crying but he’s also angry and snarling. We see his vulnerability and his poison - this roiling complex mess of contradictory emotion and conflict. That’s what makes him endlessly fascinating to me.

That said I do think Loki’s held to a different standard by the narrative framing than other characters. For example in Thor 2011 Thor laughing and enjoying himself while murdering Jotnar (aka fully sapient and sentient people!!!) for fun is basically given a pass but Loki is framed as treacherous and evil for getting several Aesir guards and several Jotnar killed in the beginning of the movie not for fun, but as part of his plan to avert a war. Similarly, Loki killing people on earth in Avengers while under the influence of mind control is framed as the height of evil while Clint doing the same thing under mind control is framed as him being a victim. Etc. Also the ways he’s been victimized definitely gets downplayed a lot.

Interestingly the narrative tends to vilify him for things that aren’t his fault and never really engages very much with his actual bad acts because it raises too many complicated questions. Nobody seems to care much about the guards who died when Loki let the Jotnar into the vaults. Loki was willing to sacrifice them to save lives and prevent the war Thor would have inevitably started. But they still died. As did the Jotnar he let in. That was a very morally grey choice. Thor and Odin don’t seem to particularly mourn their deaths either and seem to view them as expendable. Engaging with this would require engaging with the ways Asgardian society and the hero-coded characters are also flawed, and with he reasons Loki chose to do what he did (namely he felt he had no other choice to stop a war) so it just sort of gets glossed over.

Similarly, Loki’s attempted destruction of Jotunheim in the context of his suicidal self hatred resulting from the discovery that he himself is Jotun gets dropped after the first movie. We never engage with the fact that Loki feels the way he does because he was raised in a society where genocidal hatred of the Jotnar was the norm (as a child Thor already talked about wiping them all out so he obviously was mirroring the adults around him), that his parents knew his true origins and planned to tell him one day but allowed these attitudes to go unchecked in their society and in their own family, that Loki despite all this actually wanted to avoid killing the Jotnar and viewed them more as people (he tried to engage Laufey diplomatically to avoid a fight) and wanted to avoid a war until he learned the truth of his origins, had a breakdown, and tried to kill himself and his own people. We also never engage with the fact that Loki changed his mind and that under his rule in Ragnarok we see that he’s worked to change the attitudes towards Jotnar in Asgardian society.

I would have loved to see more of Loki coming to terms with his identity, but again this would have led to engaging with the ways Asgaridan society and the heroes are deeply flawed. I wish Thor came to realize some of these things and Ragnarok featured reconciliation and Loki and Thor both vowing to build a better, less flawed society. I mean we sort of got that, but we never get Thor realizing how similar he was to Hela or why Loki did what he did in Thor 2011 or any of that.

#was this ask probably sarcastic and in bad faith? yeah. am I gonna give it the benefit of the doubt and give a serious answer? also yes.#asks #Loki #Thor #Marvel #MCU

9 notes · View notes

just-a-simple-otaku · 4 years

Text

Alina Gray analysis

Well then, Alina Gray sure is a piece of work. The problematic fav of the MagiReco fandom, fondly referred to as psycho artist or JoJo reference. But Alina is more than a reference and more than just a psycho. In fact, is she even a psycho? In that case, psycho meaning either psychotic or psychopath (or I guess here psycho as in crazy murderous bitch). So let’s have a meaningful analysis of this character and undercover what might be a tragic tale of objectification.

We are introduced to Alina in the game in chapter 5 and in the anime in episode 9. In both media she arrives to stop the protagonists from destroying Ai, an uwasa. In the game, Madoka and Homura (Moemura) were there but not in the anime version. In the game, in her first appearance Alina appeared at first as serious, cold and irritable, before she revealed her mad and sadistic antics. In the anime, she showed up laughing maniacally, acting all eccentric and borderline insane, even strangling herself. It seems that the anime went overboard with the Alina acting crazy part. Not that I disliked it, but given that the game is the original source, I’ll keep this analysis mainly game-only.

We should start by the beginning, which is Alina’s backstory as shown in her magical girl story. It’s implied that Alina’s fascination with life and death in her art started when her grandparents and dog died when she was a child. Given that this event was what drove Alina’s art, I’d say their death must have left a pretty big impact on her (especially since she was 8 years old and might not have been fully able to grasp the concept of death). Alina mentioned how her parents often got mad at her for spending too much time painting, which led her to make her wish to have a space when she can be alone and nobody can disturb her there. Alina was treated as an artist genius from a young age and gathered a lot of attention and big expectations and ended up having no privacy and being used for her talents by people around her, including her parents and teachers. Alina wasn’t valued as a person but only for her art and adults didn’t respect her privacy or free-will as they often shared personal information about her to the public or submit her arts without her authorization.

Despite being a famous artist, Alina shows no interest in popularity, admiration or love from people and simply wants to create more art. She doesn’t seem to enjoy attention or even the company of others and prefer to be left alone. No ones seem interested in how she feels, only in her art and how they can use it for their own benefit (like her teacher who submitted her art against her will and tried to force her to participate in other contests for the sake of the school’s reputation), and when she refuses she’s been called selfish. The only person who genuinely cares for Alina as a person is her kouhai Karin, but I’ll get back to their relationship later.

Her magical girl story shows Alina as someone pretty antisocial with mood swings and impulsivity issues where she can snap and result in material destruction. She seems relatively unhappy with her life and on the verge of depression. The breaking point was when she refused an award for a contest she didn’t agree to participate in in the first place, she received a letter from one of the judges: “It seems you are capable of creating a work that is so beautiful and arcane that viewers will think about it until their deaths. However, your work, which has no external theme, is a powerful drug that might drive people insane. That's why I want to tell you this. If you don't want to change the world, stop creating. You are only fifteen years old; if you haven't realized this, your brilliance will probably run out.”

I just want to mention first that the English translation doesn’t mention she’s 15 years old at that time (she’s 16 in the main story). At first, this letter may seem insignificant and harmless, until you realize how fucked up it is for an adult to say that to a teen. This judge said that Alina’s art is hollow and hurt people and that if she doesn’t intend to change the world with it, she should stop creating, and that her light will burn out. It basically implied that Alina creating art for herself is wrong and harmful and that if she isn’t creating for others, then her art is just worthless and so is her life. Again, implying Alina is a selfish person who is basically useless because she doesn’t want to meet people’s expectations and shaming her for that. Can we talk about how inappropriate, irresponsible and cruel it is for an adult to say that to a child? To crush their passion and treat its worth only by how others appreciate it? And the fact Alina was already feeling depressive before sure didn’t help.

Some people might think Alina is selfish, but let me tell you this: Alina doesn’t owe the world anything. Her art is hers and only hers, yet people kept trying to appropriate her art for their own goal, with no concern for how Alina felt, her desires, and basically treated her as a tool and used her. Now remembers, Alina started to show interest in art at 8 and in her magical story she was 15, meaning she went through 7 years of being used, guilt-tripped, having her privacy violated and having no free-will over her own creations. No wonder why she’s tired of people and just wants to be left alone, and is overall hostile to others.

After she received this letter, Alina became full of doubt and questioned the meaning of her art and life as well as her own worth, and came to the conclusion that just like her art, she’s worthless and is basically a poison and toxic to everyone. After leaving on a vacation to find some inspiration and a meaning to her art, in vain, Alina then decided that she would be better off ending all her art, as well as herself. She went on a rampage to destroy all her art before planning to commit suicide by jumping from a rooftop. She wanted her death to be her final work, concluding her art of life and death, so people can witness her last moment before her light fade away (she put a camera to record her suicide). A last desperate attempt to give some meaning to her life through death.

Kyubey did try to convince her to make a wish, twice, and the second time, Alina agreed, and wished for a space where she cannot be bothered by others. But she had no intent to play her role as a magical girl, she just wanted to add her wish in her life so it can be lost as well in her death.

Of course, as a magical girl, Alina survived the fall and encountered a witch, and, amazed by its beauty, found what the theme of her art was, what she wanted to convert to the world: Alina’s Beauty. She found a reason to live through that and a meaning to her art. She wants people to witness what she considers to be beautiful. And this is how she started to breed witches together and create even more powerful witches (again, let’s talk about that later). Interesting thing, Alina’s doppel is highly based on virus and poison that can drive people insane, which is a clear reference to her thinking her art is poison that drive people insane because of the judge.

So, what I got from her backstory is a subtle tragedy. Alina was basically objectified in a way since she’s a child, used for her talent and treated as a mere tool. Almost no one has any consideration for her feelings, desires and privacy and is, yeah, treated more like an object than a human, and put an insane amount of pressure by all the expectation and guilt-tripping people kept putting on her shoulders. Alina ended up with a disturbed sense of her own identity and what was the purpose of her life, splitting tendencies (incapacity how seeing both positive and negative, lack of nuance), impulsivity and recklessness, unstable and chaotic relationships, self-damaging behaviors, detachment from reality, as well as depression, anger and rage.

I might have sounded really precise here, right? Well, those descriptors I used for Alina are almost all the criteria for a specific disorder: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Yep, I’m basically saying that I think Alina might suffer from BPD. At first I thought she might be bipolar because of her mood swing between depression and almost manic behaviors, but bipolarity is mainly genetic and the mood switch is usually not that fast, unlike BPD. BPD is also a personality disorder, it’s not genetic and is caused by the environment, which makes more sense for Alina.

People with BPD also tend to be extremely sensitive to any form of criticism and alternating between idealization and devalorization and emotionally unstable and erratic. That sounds pretty much like what happened to Alina in her magical girl story if you think about it. BPD can also lead to psychotic episodes in more serious cases.

Now, I wouldn’t say that Alina perfectly fit the diagnosis or that it was the creator’s intention, but I feel like she’s a pretty good example of someone who suffers from untreated BPD and to me, it helps me understand the character on a more psychological basis and empathize with her.

There’s also more input on Alina’s psyche in the Holy Alina magical girl story. Again, after one critic that might look trivial from Karin (implying that Alina’s work isn’t art but breeding), Alina became overwhelmed with doubt regarding her art and extremely moody. Having her art compared to breeding and raising a pet deeply upset Alina, who’s forced to admit it’s true. She is indeed breeding witches, and she came to doubt that it’s real art.

Alina feels conflicted feelings. She’s mad that her art may not be art, but at the same time, feels excited at the idea of breeding witches, which only frustrated her even more. Surprisigly, it’s Karin who managed to make her feel better by making her read her favorite manga, bing worried that Alina might attempt suicide again. Alina understood through the manga that even if the plot is redundant, there’s a recurring theme that draws people to it. As a thanks, Alina bought a strawberry milk to Karin (while she usually stole it from her whenever she’s disappointed by her). Alina knows her art is more than just breeding and that she just need to find the core of her theme beyond life and death.

Alina decides to seek advice from her fellow Magius, Touka and Nemu. Nemu did notice how irritable Alina was these days. They make Alina realize that people tend to share a collective unconsciousness, like different civilizations worshipping the sun even though they had no contact with one another. So Alina needs to find something all humanity shares collectively, something she also shares with them. Touka suggested destruction: a death drive, a self-destructive urge. So the core of Alina’s art would be a craving towards death. After reading more about it, Alina became obsessed with the idea of self-destruction and, unable to fully grasp it, threw a tantrum and destroyed her atelier and aggressively asked Touka and Nemu for more explanation. Both explain how humans is one of the only species who kill one another even if it’s unnecessary, especially through wars. Mifuyu then arrives and complained that by destroying stuff, Alina is damaging the environment. This comment brought Touka and Nemu to find the perfect example of humans’ self-destruction: them destroying the environment. Not only are humans killing one another, they are also destroying their own planet.

Alina concluded that humans unconsciously crave death and destruction, leading them to their own destruction. She thinks this is why everyone is so fascinated by her art, because humans do seek their own death. Alina decides that she’ll indeed change the world with her art and that the core of her theme is “changing the world for the good of humanity”. Even if it sounds good, there’s something sinister behind this. For her, the “good of humanity” is granting what she thinks humans want: Their own destruction.

This is how she decided to become Holy Alina by wearing an Uwasa supposed to grant people their desires. And this is how Alina came to the conclusion she has to cause destruction, for the “sake” of humanity.

We might think that Alina’s actions actually came from a misguided good intention, but let’s not forget Alina is far from being a good person. She enjoys making people suffer and causing misery all around her, she doesn’t show any empathy for others and is remorseless. She’s sadistic, cruel and callous. And that lead to another diagnosis:

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD).

In case you don’t know, ASPD is often referred to as sociopathy or psychopathy, even if both are technically incorrect, but let’s not dwell on that. Alina does exhibit a lot of antisocial behaviors, even before she became a magical girl, such as: Failure to obey laws and norms by engaging in behavior which results in criminal arrest, or would warrant criminal arrest, impulsive behaviors, irritability and aggression, disregard for her own safety and irresponsibility. She laters shows a blatant lack of remorse for her actions and a lack of empathy. The only traits she doesn’t seem to have is lying, deceiving and manipulating for her own profit or amusement. Alina is someone who is brutally honest and has no issue with speaking her mind and herself said that she doesn’t lie. I don’t recall any incident where Alina lies, but she can be deceiving and manipulative, like when she purposefully misled Madoka and Homura about Mami’s fate to hurt them, making it look like Mami met a gruesome death simply to make them suffer. But, ASPD can only be diagnosed when you’re 18 and alas, Alina is 16. But, there exists a precursor to ASPD for kids and teens, which is required to be diagnosed with ASPD: Conduct Disorder.

Alina almost fit the textbook criteria of conduct disorder. She’s a bully, aggressive, cruel towards others (and potentially animals), vandalism, deceptiveness and serious rules violation. And most of those were even before she became a magical girl. She often mistreats Karin and shows no respect for authority, she’s cruel towards others and I feel like it’s implied that Alina might have killed animals (and there’s also her reaction to Kyubey, who she thought was an animal and ended up kicking) and causes a lot of vandalism. Those were rather mild thoughts before she became a magical girl, where she’s downright dangerous and craving destruction.

BPD and ASPD both belong to the same cluster of personality disorder, cluster b, and are often comorbid. ASPD is often referred to as sociopathy, and given her borderline behaviors, Alina is pretty low-functioning. She’s impulsive, erratic and doesn’t bother to hide her true nature.

So, am I saying Alina is an irredeemable evil person who only seeks death and destruction? Yes, but no. There’s more to her. I won’t deny Alina’s cruelty and sadism and lack of concern for others well-being. After all, she doesn’t shy away from tormenting people, torture and attempted murder. But Alina isn’t born that way, she was driven to become a monster by the people around her. Alina wasn’t allowed to be a human, her feelings, desires and freedom were always disregarded, everything that makes someone human. Instead, she was treated like an object, an an object doesn’t have feelings and only serves a purpose. And the big tragedy in that is that Alina herself ended up objectifying herself. She decided to accomplish what she thinks humanity wants by causing destruction, but she’s also projecting her own self-destruction craving unto humanity as a whole. In the end, she tried to become the tool who will change the world for the good of humanity.

Being treated like an object made Alina unable to relate to others or understand their feelings, treating others just like she was treated: as objects. Alina seems to care for Mifuyu, but not as a person. Alina only values Mifuyu for her body, which she considers to be a work of art. Let’s not forget that magical girls’ true bodies are their soul gems and their human’s body is pretty much an empty shell, so Alina only caring for Mifuyu’s human body and not her as a person does show that she views Mifuyu as an object, not a person.

She also doesn’t understand humans’ bonds. When she proposed to spare their lives in exchange for Felicia (who she was angry at for destroying her witch), she didn’t understand why Tsuruno was so upset. Tsuruno even said “people aren’t objects!” which confused Alina even more. For Alina, everyone, including herself, are objects, and she herself can’t understand why others value people’s lives.

There’s also the way she’s treating witches. At first she seems to care about the witches she raised, considering like like pets and art and throwing a tantrum when Felicia destroyed one of them. But later in the story she shows no remorse to sacrifice the witches she raised, which shows that Alina doesn’t actually care for them, but given that they are hers, she can’t bear people other than her destroying them (or destroying them against her will). Alina did say that only an artist can destroy their own art. Given that she views the witches she raised and breed as her art, she doesn’t actually view them as actual pets but again, as objects. Alina’s objectification extend to witches too.

In one of the Christmas Events where she turned into Holy Alina, she ended up causing a lot of good actions while trying to do bad actions, which made people love her. But it didn’t please Alina at all. She doesn’t care about being loved or hated, she doesn’t care about what people think of her, good or bad actions. At some point, she noticed someone about to blow off a bomb and didn’t care nor show any interest in stopping him until she realized the bomb could damage Mifuyu’s body (again, she wasn’t worried for Mifuyu’s well-being, just her body). Alina seems to not feel shame for her behaviors, neither find it rewarding to be loved and praised.

Another thing regarding Mifuyu. At some point, the Magius (so Alina too) decided to sacrifice Mifuyu and feed her soul gem to Eve. I found it strange that Alina seemed to agree, until I realized something: A magical true body is their soul gem and they only need to feed that to Eve. There’s no need to feed Eve with their empty shell of an organic body. So I came to the conclusion that Alina didn’t mind sacrificing Mifuyu’s soul gem as long as she can keep her body. It just shows how much Alina doesn’t care about Mifuyu as a person and only valued her as a piece of art. An object. (And God knows what she would have done with her corpse).

Well, I’m not making a case about Alina not being an unredeemable piece of shit huh? Well, I decided to keep the best for the end: Her relationship with Karin.

It’s undeniable that Karin holds a special place in Alina’s heart (or whatever Alina has instead of a heart). Alina is cruel and mean towards Karin, true, but unlike other people, Alina never hurts Karin for her own pleasure or by sadism. Most of the time, she ended up mistreating Karin out of anger, mostly when she deemed that Karin made her lose her time or disappointed her, or when Karin is being dishonest with herself and doesn’t improve. Alina insults her and belittles her, as well as stealing her strawberry milk, not with the intention of hurting her, but as a form of punishment. Like a parent disciplining their child. But Alina does sincerely want Karin to improve and the fact that she takes the time to teach her, spend time with her and even rewards her proves that, in a way, Alina does care about Karin. In a really shitty and abusive way. But I don’t recall any instances where Alina physically harm Karin or show to enjoy hurting her. Still shitty and abusive, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like Alina is being abusive towards Karin because she’s unconsciously repeating how her parents may have treated her as a child. We know her parents often got angry at her and perhaps they acted in a way that is similar to how Alina treats Karin. The cycle of abuse sure is a tragic thing.

But why Karin? Well, I got a couple of theories. First, Karin is the only one who seems to care about Alina as a person and not an object. Karin greatly values Alina and is concerned about her feelings, something Alina isn’t used to, being only values for her talents. Karin often notices Alina’s change of mood and shows rejoice whenever Alina is in a good mood. She also worries greatly about Alina when she’s in a bad mood and even fear that she might try to commit suicide again. Karin is also someone who respects art and thrives to improve even if she seems to lack the talent. But she is still optimistic and never gives up, and she knows why she’s doing art. She wants to make people happy with her stories. Almost the opposite of Alina, who’s rather pessimistic, she oftens despaired regarding her art, she has the talent but lacks substance and doesn’t exactly know why she does art. Alina even admitted that Karin might be a bigger genius than her because of her passion, which Alina feels like she lacks, feeling empty inside. Even if Karin has expectations towards Alina, it doesn’t seem to put pressure on Alina, as Karin shows interest in how to make her own art and not Alina’s art itself. In a way, perhaps Alina can relate to Karin in a certain way, with her desire to make art, as well as being envious of how Karin can just be carefree about her art and be able to enjoy it without having people trying to use her. Perhaps this is why Alina is able to care about her, because in a way, she can relate to Karin. Still, Alina is abusive towards Karin and her intention doesn’t change how poorly she treats Karin.

Funny thing, Alina herself doesn’t seem to know exactly why she makes art, and ends up needing others' opinions to figure it out. She ended up deducing that her core theme is self-destruction because of Touka and Nemu, which seems to make sense with Alina’s fascination with life and death. People focus on the death aspect, but Karin thinks that Alina’s works are actually full of life. Perhaps Karin is the one who’s right, maybe Alina's actual core is more towards life, but given how twisted Alina became, she doesn’t even realize it herself. Maybe Karin is the only one who can see the good Alina might have deep down inside of her, or may even bring the good inside of her. Who knows, Karin might be the key for Alina potential redemption.

Also, it may not look like it, but I think Alina is constantly hurting inside, due to depression, but she’s so disconnected from her own feelings that she doesn’t realize it and unconsciously hurts others because she’s hurting. Alina is full of unhealthy coping. Her own fascination for life and death started by the death of her grandparents and dog when she was a kid, and might actually have traumatized her and her way to cope is her art. That would explain why Alina herself is uncertain about her theme, because often, understanding our own trauma can be quite hard, or even realize that we experience trauma in the first place. Perhaps death traumatized Alina and her art is her way to understand death better and accept it as a part of life itself. Maybe she actually wants to value life by understand death, because without death, life loses its core value.

So, did I answer the question? Is Alina a psycho crazy jojo villain? Yes, but no. Alina isn’t a psychopath and not downright psychotic either (even though she might experience psychotic episodes). Crazy? Well, I do think she suffers from personality disorders, but it doesn’t make her insane. A sociopath? Maaaybbeee. But to be honest, I mainly think Alina is someone broken who is the result of her environment, someone constantly hurting inside with deep self-destructive urges. The objectification made her feel disconnected from her feelings and humanity and turned her into a monster. But it doesn’t excuse her villainous actions, it only made them understandable and Alina more sympathetic.

Well that was longer than I expected. Let me know what you think and thanks for reading!

#magia record #magireco #magia record game #alina gray #alina grey #analysis

137 notes · View notes

sendmyresignation · 4 years

Text

alright. writing this “little” piece to exorcise the demon inside of me that wants to expand my teenagers meta further than it needs to go (if you weren't aware I'm writing a post, well an essay, wellll a short paper, about why teenagers fits on the black parade- stay tuned) BUT i cannot stop thinking about the multiple little "rockstar to kill" moments within the song/music video/live performances so... I'm self-indulgently going to write about it :)

anyway, at its most simplified, teenagers is a song about the violence within adolescents and being an adult whose afraid of that capability. that is the basic, surface-level understanding of the song. inherently, with mcr specifically, that sets up a conflict between the narrator of the song and the song’s audience. that means conflict is generational- it duplicates itself over and and over which allows for several different understandings of the narrator’s perspective. the cyclical nature means they could be speaking to a representation of what they view as the fundamental corruption of the youth, both by outside focuses and their very human nature, as the narrator become more cynical in their old age. it could be representative of them talking to their past self, reminiscing on the revenge fantasies they had in high school or the ways they were made to feel like an outcast when they were young. and they also could be speaking directly to the very literal future about their concerns as a mentoring figure (teenagers, to me, functions in layers, its interpretation can shift and change depending on the context) right now we’re preoccupied with that last perspective both within the song and the video’s contextualization, and into this wider idea of what the band’s purpose was (or how they saw their purpose).

putting the rest under a read more out of respect <333

moving into the actual text with that in mind, what becomes significant is the tonal contrast between being the seemly scathing, sarcastic indictment of Dangerous Teenagers on the surface to the actual understanding (if we’re talking about the single on its own) which is moreso criticizing the Authority figures who create and mold this violence either purposely (cog in the murder machine) or with indifference (you’ll never fit in much/they’ll leave you alone/as well as the implication of having to take matters into your own hands because the adults are absent). As a result, the song, on its own, isn’t actually blaming teenagers for the violence they perpetuate, but the narrator attempts to extend their understanding and offer advice. here is a figure looking to bring catharsis without patronizing. like this is most clearly expressed in the use of “maybe they’ll leave you alone, but not me” at the end of the chorus, which in this reading means the other adults may leave you alone, the but I am stepping in to tell you that both self-directed and outward expressions of violence are bullshit and useless and that’s what everyone else is expecting of you so fucking stop it! (this can obviously be re-figured within the context of the album- because, interestingly, the pronouns are purposely confusing with the multiple uses of they in this section) the violence is never explicitly vilified by the speaker,- its exaggerated- what you have under your shirt won’t solve anything isn’t that obvious how ridiculous it sounds, how ridiculous I sound saying it out loud? but also, the violence is implicit. the conflict is still there. the teenagers still scare the shit out of the narrator. so what gives?

well. the song is still about the gulf between generations. the speaker is still afraid and out of touch, regardless of the leadership role they’ve assumed or the perspective of the past they can offer. there is ultimately a limit to how much they can give.

which leads us right into the music video.

So first things first, Black Parade as a whole is heavily inspired by Pink Floyd’s The Wall musically, but the actual aesthetics of the wall are kind of divorced from the ww1 cabaret weimar thing that parade is drenched in (bc britian circa the 1950s is boring and the wall is purposely very ugly and grey and removed from emotion which isn’t dramatic enough for what mcr had in mind). However, teenagers exists as a sort of connecting point between the two- the music video of Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (which you can watch here if you’ve never seen it) is clearly an influence on the subject matter and the setting and the “plot” of teenagers video- it serves as a sort of a parallel to it. more specifically, there are the “running shots” of kids making their way through unlit hallways into the auditorium that evoke the children in the pink floyd video marching through the school. there’s also the line “cog in the murder machine”, which seem particularly inspired from the depiction of children as going through machines and coming out the other side stiff, wooden, and obedient. then the backdrop of the large bomb centered in my chem’s stage show mimics the shot of the headmaster standing behind the large, lit up clock- especially since that where the teenagers in the crowd of mcr’s video all begin acting in unison, similar to the children in the wall all falling into line (but, like, just the use of ww2 era bomb imagery and gas masks in general is very reminiscent of the early wartime parts of the wall anyway). so in a vague sense, there is a huge connection between teenagers and that emulation and replication of the wall.

however, the most striking similarity is that, in the same way the students destroy their school in a moment of violent inspiration after sequences of disconcerting compliance, the group of high schoolers in teenagers do the same against the band. the difference is that in the case of the teenagers, the explosion is directed at the source of their outburst (they switch from the on-beat fist-punching to wild moshing as the song devolves and ray’s solo starts) instead of in opposition to a more institutional suppressive force. they are not motivated to action because of something done to them, instead it is the actual music itself that serves as both the impetus of conformity and the fuse that destroys that same unison action and then the band. and what’s significant is the particularity of the actions the crowd takes: they steal the band’s instruments from them and they bodily remove gerard from the microphone. like contrast this violence against the band vs the desolation row video where the whole band is physically incapacitated- there, its about knocking them around and getting them to stop (ray is beat down by police, bobs drums are destroyed, etc etc). but here, its about taking their places- the act of destruction is calculated but not purposely cruel. so, in teenagers being a parallel to Another Brick, that moment of turning on the band is the moment of violence but is also the moment of freedom. the difference in the two becomes the ways in which the band is responsible for reawakening the fire within the audience and giving them a purpose. which here is “killing the rockstar” by taking over, taking their places. and that is the nature of music and the nature of the conflict implicit to becoming the “rockstars”

it brings us right back around to that generational conflict: except when your talking about mcr’s realationship with their audience, that becomes the fostering of a group of outcasts and weirdos and freaks and giving them the tools to save themselves, yes. but also giving them the opportunity to do exactly what they did. to pick instruments and take their places. its the cyclical nature of creation and destruction “because when we get old and lazy some of you guys are gonna have to eat us alive by starting your own fucking band (x), that idea of needing a “rockstar to kill” has been refigured to mean something newer, positive. we are the ones killing them, but not in the way of typical martyring where a crowd of detractors and nonbelievers burns you at the stake- but instead by continuing the natural cycle of art, true genuine art. just as mcr is built off of so many influences- creating an entirely new project out of that existing landscape of sound that reaches people and gives them an outlet, we are doing the same things. by besmirching metal and punk by mixing them together, by “selling out” so they could put together a rock opera, by adding theater into a hyper masculine culture of nu-metal and post-hardcore, by making deeply emotional music that was still violent or angry, by writing the way they did they killed the bands they loved and made something better. its the the way in which the creative cycle is a rebirth, of scavenging the good things from the people who came before you and moving forward and taking the world by storm. here, in the video, the audience redirects their violence at the band, yes. but that is the point. teenagers still scare the shit out of the narrator, but that’s not going to stop them from reaching out, from speaking to them directly, from performing until their very last moments

until they take over. until they kill the rockstar. until we eat them alive.

in the end, that is the mission of my chemical romance, isn’t it- to inspire that level of passion, to turn the music into a life-raft and then gasoline and fire in your gut and then a sense of purpose and then into freedom and endless joy? and isn’t it the greatest act of love, the truest expression of admiration to tear them apart, build ourselves creations out of the wreckage to fill the space they leave behind, and then lay them to rest when the time has come?

#my brain. is crazy :) enjoy :)#mcr assigned reading #my posts

49 notes · View notes

kob131 · 3 years

Note

Same berserk anon still on their shit (feel free to tell me to fuck off). Yeah, i guess your right about it being unadaptable, maybe a director could be found that could do the big fights OR the character stuff, but not both and never without loosing something fundamental from the original artwork, a film nerd can dream though xD. Feel free to take this as an opportunity to say whatever you want about the seriese though! All content is good content and i love yours.

Sure, why not?

-I really admire how Guts’ behavior isn’t portrayed as being super cool or totally awesome but rather the result of years and years of tramua and a fucked upbringing. His anger and cruelness isn’t something to be admired or emulated: it’s a sign of how deeply scarred Guts is as a person. And how he drops his guard, shows how deeply scarred he is and how damaged he is. Forget male characters- most characters in generally don’t get as vulnerable as Guts does and it makes the moments where it happens rather soulful and touching. And as he develops as a person, moving away from embracing his rage and hatred to mellowing out as a person as he builds a new family in his journey- it’s the embodiment of a satisfying transition.

- The design of the Berserker Armor and the Dragon Slayer. As someone who has anger issues himself, the Berserker Armor is pretty much a perfect representation of what the emotion feels like. Unhinged, animalistic, heated, all consuming, primal- The Berserker Armor is truly one of the best personifications of an emotion I have ever seen.

The Dragon Slayer is different in that I love it for how simple it is. It’s just like how Guts’ describes it: a slap of metal. A slab of metal with a simple handle with a black blade and silver/grey edge. It works wonderfully in motion in the manga, it’s so easy to follow and understand while it’s size and subversion of how most swords are treated works so well with the story of Berserk. Guts is complicated but at his core he’s just a guy who wants to live a good life and I think the Dragon Slayer’s simplicity reflects that.

And since it’s apparent not too sharp it means the thing is reliant on Guts’ strength and skill to kill the impossibly powerful foes it cuts through. And that’s so excellent because each battle can be considered a representation of Guts’ struggles, a normal human reliant on his attributes fighting against monstrous creatures who sold their humanity for unearned and undeserved power. (also it means every death is a cruel, painful which is deserved by most of Guts’ foes).

-Going back to the Berserker Armor, I love how it’s PORTRAYED. As in, each time it’s shown it’s cool and powerful yes but it’s first and foremost UNCOMFORTABLE. It’s painful, it’s intensely scary, it’s just...inhuman to such a degree you wouldn’t want to use the armor. Which is perfect because Guts SHOULDN’T the armor, it’s not HEALTHY for him to use it between how it supresses necessary things like fear and pain and how it feeds his self destructive rage- He’s forced to use it but for his sake, he SHOULDN’T do it. And you feel that whenever it shows up, even though it’s role in the story usually ends up with people wanting that kind of power.

Also it’s interesting to see the influence of the Berserker Armor show up in other places, using the same techniques to communicate a similar sense of unhealthy ruthlessness and wrath (for example: Goblin Slayer and how he’s drawn when he’s getting VERY intense about his job.)

-Just...the use of contrast. In a world of people decrying tonial contrast as being inconsistent as shorthand for something they don’t like, Berserk’s use of it shows WHY people use the contrast in stories. Moments like Eclipse and the Lost Children stand out alongside Guts and Casca’s love and Puck’s everpresent humor because they exist alongside each other. Berserk logically should be full of tonial whiplash with such differing tones and moods but the blend together so seamlessly like a unique symphony, emphasizing how special the warm hearted moments are and how cruel and disturbing the cold dark parts are. Each opposing moment works to make the other more impactful while preventing the reader from rolling their eyes at sappiness or giving up from the sheer darkness.

It’s just...pictures of the human experiences. That’s how I’d describe Berserk. With Guts being the absolute refusal to surrender to the cruelty of life.

P.S. You’re not being rude or anything. Come by anytime, I love the interaction. And it’s good to talk about other things.

5 notes · View notes

jonthethinker · 4 years

Text

Together Or Alone?

Since I finally have a few days off work, I want to get weird and really dig deep into why I personally enjoy the Mighty Nein and its particular breed of found family so much, and why the dynamics between its members are so satisfying for my heart in particular. Let’s get unnecessarily deep, shall we?

You may not completely understand why I think this would be weird, but you’ll understand fairly quickly as I get started.

I’ve been on a sort of spiritual journey, in a way, over the course of this most eventful year. A small part of me feels bad that while so much suffering is going on, and so much of the world feels like it’s falling apart, I’ve been making positive strides in determining my place in the grand scheme of things. But a larger part of me is just really grateful to finally find a bit of internal peace after years of not having it, of finally having some bit of quiet in a mind that’s never been able to still itself long enough for any such thing.

I haven’t exactly found religion, but I have given more shape to how I best want to imagine our universe and my humble place in it, and I’ve finally started asking the right questions.

One of those questions stands above the rest, and it’s the question I’ve decided the Universe Itself is asking; Together or Alone?

I started seeing attempted answers to this question everywhere. In the universe bursting outward, yet huge masses of it clinging together to form all we know and can perceive. I see it in wondrous solar systems forming and spinning in a rippled field of mutually affected gravity; and I see it in the black holes that can form, and tear and pull all that beauty into nothing. I see it in incredible ecosystems where the life and the land combine to form what feels like its own organism, larger than just the sum of its parts; and I see it in the environmental devastation caused by our own actions, killing that organism, and in turn doing irreparable damage to the very spirit of our world.

I see it in humanity’s natural inclination for cooperation and concern for others; and I see it also in our inclination to be blinded by power and in that blindness, inflicting unspeakable harm on each other in order to hold onto that power. I see it in our bodies, organs one by one relying on each other in a perfect act of faith to form something greater than a liver or heart or brain could ever be on their own; and I see it in cancer, single-minded in its pursuit of self-replication by all means, all memory of belonging to something greater stricken from its damaged DNA. I see it in basic elemental particles, most of them ready and able for their eventual combination with other particles to build wonderful compounds with entirely new properties, adding untold dimensions of complexity to how our world works; and I see it in those small rogue particles the neutrinos, that can shoot off from a star for eons without interacting with a single thing.

The question and its many answers, and the dialectical relationships those answers have, are what I feel can really undergird all of our interactions with each other, all progress and all regress, all friendships and all rivalries. It’s there in all our stories and all art we create; Together or Alone? What’s your answer?

For me, the answer that felt like it escaped the singing lips of an angel, was, “Of course, together. Always together.”

It shapes my politics heavily. I’m a lefty, but its not just because I believe we’re all equal as individuals; it’s because I believe we are all a part of the same thing. We are all a part of that same great organism, that same great body. The Universe. God. Whatever you want to call it, though it needs no name. We are in this together because we are one thing from many different things, whether we like it or not.

But I’m not just blindly optimistic about this. I don’t think it works like this all on its own. It takes work and time. It took billions of years for solar systems to form. For single-cell organisms to band together into colonies and then evolve into multi-cell organisms. It took a while longer for creatures to stick together as families, for the mutual dependencies of ecosystems to form, and even longer for the first tribes and societies to form. It took time, and an incredible amount of energy and effort, and so much failure. We’ve hurt each other so much, that’s true. But it’s only by coming together that we’ve ever been able create anything new, anything Good.

The universe has a bias towards entropy; things tend to fall away and apart. So there’s a beauty in the struggle for togetherness. I’d argue that it’s the only source of beauty in the first place; the unity of forces interacting. The quest for togetherness gives my life meaning, drive, and purpose. And for someone who’s struggled with depression for so long, I can’t tell you how wonderful it is to have purpose, especially for something bigger than me.

And by this point, you’re probably wondering when I’m going to stop sermonizing and actually talk about Critical Role. so here we go.

The individual members of the Mighty Nein are some deeply flawed and deeply troubled people, at least when we first met them. Some of them have done awful things, sometimes against their will. They’ve all been the victims of powers much greater than themselves, and as a result, have been left feeling frayed at the edges. They’ve all had hurts and been shaped by those hurts; whether it was loneliness, unfair expectations, or just being unfortunate enough to be different in all the wrong ways. Damaged is a word that carries unfortunate implications, as does broken; but it’s undeniable that you’ve got seven people who have all felt like Sisyphus when the boulder rolls back down the hill.

Some have taken this fate better than others, but it’s undeniable that these people have suffered, and in that suffering, gained nothing.

But then they met each other.

It wasn’t all roses from the get-go. You throw these people with underdeveloped social skills and an untold amounts of personal baggage, and you’ve got yourself some friction to say the least. But when they all met each other, they had nothing but their bodies and their hurts. They were total equals. Even when the Mighty Drei met Caduceus, they had just felt like they lost everything, and they were meeting someone who had no one. They all started together at their foundations, and over time, built something I think is truly beautiful.

This process hasn’t been perfect. Beau, for instance, can still be totally rude and abrasive to strangers and outsiders (and I love that about her), and still has a hard time swallowing her pride long enough to ask for help. Caleb is very much struggling with his trauma, and that path is never a straight line of progress for anyone. Jester for the longest time still didn’t really want to feel any negative emotions around the others, and her own pride has gotten in the way of owning up to how new she is to all this. Yasha bears a great deal of guilt for a great many things, and while she’s making strides, it’s still left its mark on her. Veth has come so far, but doesn’t know how to reconcile the contradictions between the two lives she wants as both a mother and an adventurer. Fjord has a deep desire for answers, answers that may open up a lot of wounds that have started to heal in the Mighty Nein’s care. And Caduceus refuses to share his troubles, his doubts about how much his time with Nein has fundamentally changed him from the boy his family knew all those years ago.

That’s a lot of hurt, and some of it will never go away completely. But it’s like how our bodies have all of these vestigial functions that no longer serve any purpose to it, and make our daily lives in office chairs or standing in one place all day harmful to our health. Or like ancient seas whose waters are long since gone, but have left their undeniable mark in the shapes of canyons and mesas, in the colorful layers of sedimentary rock they leave behind. The past is an unavoidable factor in how everything in the universe gets to take shape, but the present finds a way to adapt. And we people get to choose how to adapt. And the Mighty Nein chose caring about each other as their method of adaptation.

And the thing of it is, I don’t think its just having people finally caring about them that has allowed them to come as far as they have. I think it’s also the act of caring, the act of serving others, considering how the path you wish to take will affect someone else, that has really pushed them to this great place we currently find them in. I truly think there something inside of us that wants to be a part of something bigger than ourselves, and that in the moments we feel emptiest it isn’t because of what we lack on the inside but the connections we lack on the outside, and it’s the systems we inhabit that make us think otherwise. I see this so clearly in the Mighty Nein. If left all on their own, in the cruel worlds we first found them in and have learned they came from, I see seven people going on seven unique paths of self-destruction; but together, they can build something greater than themselves, that thing being the Mighty Nein.

I really do think the Mighty Nein is like its own entity. They are something totally different when they are together, like seven different elements that came together to form a compound with entirely different characteristics. It’s why the work so smoothly together in combat. Why, when the pressure is on, they tend to work as a relatively well-oiled machine. Why they hurt so much less when they are with each other. It’s like up-scaling from an atom to a cell, a cell to an animal, an animal to an ecosystem.

This togetherness is why I love the Nein so damn much. It’s reaffirming at a deep level for me. The story that they are telling, and the one forming without their active intention even being involved, is a wonderful thing. Stories about togetherness are my bread and butter; it’s why I’m a sucker for a good romance or found-family narrative, because I love it when people come together to make something more than them, making one plus one equal three. There’s nothing quite like it. And Critical Role has it in spades.

And it’s not all about the depth of answering some spiritual question. I enjoy the potty humor and the eight people just trying to fuck with each other and make each other laugh. I enjoy the silliness and joy and endless pop culture references. But also the act of eight friends coming together to make a show where they create a beautiful, silly, heartfelt story together has its own sort of spiritual resonance with me.

I also want to establish that I understand that this is a company selling an entertainment experience to me. They aren’t just doing this in the spirit of togetherness, they are doing this to strengthen their careers and incomes. I get that. But in the end, it’s all a part of the dialectic. It’s all motivation for me to continue working towards building a world where people can make wonderful art like this without worrying about building a career out of it or paying the bills. It reminds me of how much work there is to be done, but also of all the work that’s already been done.

Critical Role has its flaws, but it is a wonderful thing and I’m happier everyday I’m reminded it exists. The Mighty Nein are probably my favorite found family ever, and lately, a very powerful affirmation for my own journey. I do wonder if anyone else has had similar experiences, with this artwork or others like it. If so, I’d love for you to share them with me.

#critical role #The Mighty Nein #a bit personal #a bit philosophical #but if you want a deep dive into how someone thinks about things #this might be your jam #long post

8 notes · View notes