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sanderssideswriting · 4 years

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Youtuber Life Chapter 4

Ships: familial sleepxiety and eventual Prinxiety

Words:???

triggers: attempted suicide mention

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Summary: Remy Sanders is a famous beauty vlogger and just moved to LA with his teenage son Virgil after their location was leaked by fans. Remy AKA CoffeeAddiction has several million subscribers. Virgil also has a secret Drama channel, where he doesn’t show his face and uses a voice modifier. He just hit a million subs and grows more everyday because of the level of production his videos have, the mystery around who he is and the fact that he ALWAYS has the latest information regarding youtube drama.

“Welcome back to another episode of “the fuck did she say now? I have a DID drama update. I’ve been waiting awhile to gather information to do a long segment. Since she first came out about having DID which has been disproven time and time again she’s tried to make it more believable in the stupidest way possible. By reviewing Chick-Fil-A’s spicy chicken sandwich, five fucking times. I watched all those videos plus others to see if she’s trying to keep up the lie. She’s really not. I swear every time I have to give her my views to tell you all what’s going on I die a little inside.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“DAD! Read the fucking sign! I’m recording!”

“Are you talking about Trisha?”

“Yes dad, now let me tell them about her.”

“She’s a total bitch! I fucking hate her!”

“WE KNOW! Damn it, now I’m going to have to edit all this out.”

“I’ve been looking into DID. And it’s actually a very interesting topic, and I encourage everyone to learn more about it. There will be links to videos and article on DID in the description. DisociaDID has not been on social media very much since all of this. I know they attempted suicide. Not because of Trisha or atleast only partly. Nin the systems host was dating someone in another system called Team Piñata who was discovered to be doing some shit I will not mention because it’ll get demonetized. I actually feel really bad for they system, it seems like they have been going through a lot recently. Now for all the OTHER shit Trisha has said and done over the past few weeks.”

Virgil edited the video and posted it, making sure to edit out the bit where his dad interrupted him and called Trisha a bitch.

Roman texted him.

Roman: You’re a meme Virgil: I’m well aware, fucking Jake Paul Roman: I thought you hated the guy, why are you fucking him? Virgil: I’m so fucking done with you

“VIRGIL!”

Virgil rolled his eyes “What?”

“I have in idea for a video get your ass down here!”

Remy was in front of the camera “K, so what if I mixed all of my eyeshadow together into one?”

“First of all Cristine did that with nail powder and polish and Safiya did that already in one of her weird make up science videos. Second, scraping the eyeshadow would kill you to watch.”

“UGH! You’re right, what else could I do?”

“A Bob Ross painting on your face. you could use only drug store products for something,”

“Bob Ross painting with drugstore shit!”

Virgil shrugged “yeah sure, you could also get lip gloss mix it together and try to make something really fucking weird, or do that with gel polish”

“I refuse to touch lip gloss, it’s fucking gross.”

“Bob ross painting not on your faces with lip gloss and other lipsticks.”

Remy nodded “thanks Virgil, you’re helping my buy it later.”

“No, people at school could see me, you can order it,”

“that’s less fun though,”

Virgil rolled his eyes “fine dad, I just need to make sure that no one can recognize me.”

He was ready pretty fast, with a light brown wig and blue contacts he also had close that where black and purple reserved for the occasion.

“Hello everyone! We are in the car today at our local Walgreens because we’re going to be buying lipstick, lip gloss and lip liner to make a Bob Ross painting!”

“Not on your face.”

“Not on my face, fuck lip gloss.”

“I wasn’t aware that was a kink or whatever.”

Remy glared at Virgil “smartass, you can walk home.”

“Gladly, I’ll be laughing when I see you trying to film and carry everything and talk and pay the cashier. You’ll be a meme.”

“You already got memed once this week, I’ll meme you myself if I have to. Or I could turn you into an E-Girl, you did lose that bet.”

“I absolutely despise you,”

Remy laughed “no you don’t.”

“I really do, and you can’t make me e an e-girl.”

“No, but the people can, there’ll be a poll right here, vote should my intern be an e-girl for the day?”

Virgil groaned “times like these make me wish I was aborted.”

Remy laughed.

The rest of the video went ok and no one recognized Virgil.

Raccoon: I hate life Dukey: I saw, I voted yes, you’d make a wonderful e-girl hiss hiss motherfucker: so did I, suffer bitch Raccoon: you’re both traitors hiss hiss motherfucker: at least we’re not going to be an e-girl

Virgil was pissed the whole week. “What’s up with you Dr. Gloom?” Roman asked.

“Made a bet with Remus, and lost, I’m going to commit toaster bath.”

Roman made a face “why would you make a bet with my brother? nothing good comes out of it.”

“I thought I’d win, turns out he’s totally willing to eat deodorant if it means I’ll have to dress like an e-girl for a day and make a tiktok.”

Roman laughed “I cannot wait to see you dressed as an e-girl.”

“I can, I’ll be locking myself in my room all day.”

“I’m surprised Remus didn’t say you’d have to walk around in public like that.”

“He did, but he can’t see me, so I’ll be in my room.”

Remy was in front of the camera. “Time for you to become an e-girl!”

“I’d like to say a very special fuck you to everyone who voted yes and that after this I’m going to commit toaster bath,”

“It’s one day, you’ll be fine.”

“One day in my room with the door locked and curtains closed.”

Remy laughed “oh no gurl, you’ll be going out, I suggest you make plans.”

“WHAT? That wasn’t part of the deal!”

“I thought it would go without saying you’d have to go outside.”

Virgil just glared, happy his face wasn’t in frame.

The makeover took well over an hour. when it was over he looked almost unrecognizable, thankfully.

Virgil: Hey, anyone want to hang out, my dad’s kicking me out of the house for the day says I need to be “social” whatever the means Princey: So you do need to go out as an e-girl Virgil: unfortunately, anyone free? Logan: I have to study and Patton is out at the animal shelter volunteering, Roman? Princey: I’m free, meet you at the mall? Virgil: Sure

“Dad! I’m going to hang out with Roman see you later.”

“Have fun on your date!”

“dad! It’s not a date!” He slammed the door and left.

Virgil waited in a café for Roman. He got an iced coffee as always.

Someone shoved him while he was waiting in line.

“What are you? A boy or a girl make up your mind,”

Virgil didn’t look up from his phone “gender is a spectrum and gender norms are fake and I refuse to give into toxic musicality and if you have a problem with that you can leave because I already ordered and payed for my drink and am not leaving until I get it.”

“You can’t change your chromosomes, it’.” the guy said in a feeble attempt to get back at Virgil. basic biology

“How about you stop relying on basic biology and come back when you can argue the same statement with complex biology. If you really knew anything about biology more then the basics you’d know that scientifically there are at least three genders according to chromosomes. Male, female and intersex, and that once again biology isn’t fucking basic otherwise everyone would be a biologist. I can wear a skirt if I want to.”

He grabbed his coffee and left, Roman had arrived a few minutes prior.

“Damn emo nightmare I didn’t think you’d go all out on the E-girl look.”

Virgil shrugged “go big or go home, and I was kicked out for the day so I had to go big. Dad said I needed to go outside. For some reason, no idea why. I mean last time I left the house of my own free will not for school was only six months ago.”

Roman looked at him in doubt “I’m pretty sure you’ve been outside of your own free will sooner then six months ago.”

“Outside? Yes, of my own free will? not so much. Oooh hot tpic.”

Roman laughed.

“Shut up princey, they have cool stuff, including gay stuff.”

Roman shrugged “could be gayer.”

“You’ve been in hot topic?”

Roman shrugged “a few times with Remus, he makes me go, bribing me with Disney.”

Virgil smirked “why am I not surprised you can be bribed with Disney?”

He started looking around at My Chemical Romance t-shirts and other things. He also grabbed some purple hair dye.

“Where to next princey?”

Roman shrugged “Game stop?”

“Sure,”

They hung out at the mall for awhile longer before guess what another youtuber came.

It was Safiya doing a weird makeup science vlog.

“Virgil, planning on becoming a meme again?”

Virgil rolled his eyes “no, besides Safiya’s cool, I like her make up science videos. I just hate vloggers who do shitty content and make to much money through it.”

They left shortly after going their separate ways.

“How was your date?” Remy called from the basement.

“Not a date! You made me get out the house!”

“Come down here and finish filming!”

“So, how was your day of being an e-girl?”

“Got harassed about my gender and whatnot, I fucking destroyed the idiot, that was fun.”

“And who did you hang out with?”

“I told you and again, it wasn’t a date, everyone else was busy.”

Remy looked towards the camera in doubt.

“Well I’m never doing this again, I’m going to go change.”

The video went viral when it was posted several days later.

I saw a kid at the mall dressed like an e-girl a few days ago. They got harrassed at the Starbucks.

#sander sides #youtuber au #famous au #prinxiety #familial sleepxiety

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queen-of-hearts92 · 6 years

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Revue Starlight 3: Venus Victrix

Wow, Swan Lake is a little different than I remember.

For the previous episode go here!

To go to the start of these posts, go to the Prelude!

Sup y’all, welcome back to theater fight club with system breaking confused lesbians the show! This episode was fuckin SWEET. I’m so happy this is still going strong! So much went down this episode I got excited and posted a theory about the show, check it out if you wanna! I might repeat myself a bit here but I’ll try and keep it to new discussion points. Alrighty, let’s continue.

This post’s title is in latin and it means “Venus the Victorious”! You’ll see why I chose that in a bit! Anyways on with the show!

>The show is here! And it’s BIG AND LOUD!

The episode starts with showing a phrase that has been seen on the girl’s phones when Giraffe comes a calling. The phrase is, “And it shall be bestowed upon you, the Star which you have longed for.” which totally isn’t ominous at all. We then go to a flashback of the previous year’s production of Starlight, Maya and Claudine are the leads. We see them as the goddesses reaching for the star, which yes is the same pink star we’ve been seeing in the underground stage.

*whispering* I’m onto you ya piece of shit star tiara, YOU CAN’T FOOL ME!

The setting of the play and other details are still unclear but we can see from the outfits it seems pretty greek/roman inspired. We see Maya and Claudine dancing and the two of them being separated (with Maya going up and Claudine going down) as it’s pointed out again that the story of the play Starlight doesn’t have a happy ending. “Their dream could never come true.” seems like the final line of the play before it ends (Maya’s character speaks this line). The girls take their bows and we go to the opening sequence.

Sappho wrote this fucking play confirmed, thank u based Sappho.

After the opening we’re in the classroom, Nana offers Hikari banana muffins since Hikari said the previous day she didn’t like jiggly things. Before Hikari gives a response, Mahiru comes into class dragging a very sleepy Karen with her. Mahiru had a very hard time getting Karen to wake up all the way this morning, more than usual (Hikari leaves without them lol). Karen says she had a busy day the day before, Mahiru asks what she was doing but Junna walks in and says Karen should learn to wake up on her own since it’s inconvenient for Mahiru to be on wake up duty all the time. Mahiru says she doesn’t mind. Karen greets Junna calling her Jun-Jun, much to Mahiru’s alarm, and comments on Junna always being early. Junna scolds Karen for being the only one in their class who still comes late and called Karen by her first name which only alarms Mahiru more. They both say they’re exhausted “from yesterday” causing Kill Bill sirens to go off in Mahiru’s mind and Nana asks if something happened between Junna and Karen. Karen says it’s a secret and Junna says it’s none of anyone else’s business. Class then starts.

I’m not gonna lie but this is the best damn screenshot I’ve taken so far.

We then find out Claudine wasn’t in class, much to the surprise of everyone in the room. The teacher hands out the Starlight script and the plans about the festival to the class. We find out that Nana is switching from taking part in the acting to working backstage for the festival, also to her classmate’s surprise. At lunch (Futaba, Kaoruko, Junna, Hikari, Karen, and Mahiru are there) Nana explains that while she liked being an actress she was curious about the inner workings of the theater and wanted to try that. Hikari takes Karen’s banana muffin and leaves, a paper airplane sails past.

Hikari omg stop ignoring Karen, she’s so adorable. Don’t sleep on this gurl!

Mahiru comments that it would be a waste of Nana’s talents if she switched to backstage, then our favorite top dog comes in. Tendou Maya. Maya says that Nana can still put what she knows about performing to use in crafting a stage for others to perform on, the other actresses will be counting on her to create a stage to bring out their full potential. Nana thanks her and expresses she hopes that the show they create is as good as last year’s. She offers Maya a banana muffin which Maya accepts. Kaoruko makes a terrible pun on Nana’s nickname I much show it here:

THIS SHIT IS BANANAS, B-A-N-A-N-A-S! Also Futaba looks like she’s heard this joke from her gf 300 times lol.

Anyways, Kaoruko gives a candy bribe to Nana so she’ll get the lead in the Starlight play. Nana can influence that or even chose the roles herself now after all. Futaba scolds Kaoruko for bribing Nana with candy before doing so herself, Junna points out the hypocrisy. A loop of the girlfriend’s giving Nana endless candy ensues. Maya looks off dramatically in the distance.

Only Maya can look so damn dignified while holding a banana muffin.

The girls go back to class talking about auditions (as in actual ones) and Mahiru expresses once again she wants to be the fated couple with Karen. Claudine then comes in and startles Mahiru. Claudine’s reason for not being at morning classes is she was very exhausted and slept in. They tell Claudine about Nana changing over to back stage and Nana shows off her very huge collection of candy she got from Kaoruko and Futaba at lunch. Claudine also gives her candy as a bribe and Karen complains that Claudine was one of the leads last year so why bribe Nana. Claudine says alright then and goes to her seat. Maya says hello to Claudine and we see the paper airplane again, it just got very awkward. Futaba watches this unfold.

The paper airplane hits a Venus de Milo statue and falls to the ground. We follow the girls going through voice lessons and classroom lessons. Mahiru has left this plane of existence and Kaoruko doodles her and Futaba’s names covered in hearts in her notebook. If it wasn’t obvious to you they’re a couple now, I dunno what to tell you. The girls have dance practice and then the school day is over.

In this photo, we see Mahiru has ascended into the 20th dimension.

Mahiru wonders if Karen went home without her and we get a quick answer about where Karen went. She’s in a shed. Tied up and locked in there by Hikari. Wow. Karen is confused how the fuck this happened and why, she tries to get Hikari to talk to her and let her out but nope. Hikari locks Karen in there leaving her the banana muffin from earlier to eat. I’m sure this is fine.

We then go to Junna in her room reading a fuck ton of books about mythical animals, UFOs, and cryptids. And a book on giraffes. She’s trying to figure out what is up with Giraffe and what he is. Nana gives Junna tea and she’s working on a stage script. We see Nana has a lot of candy from her classmates, she popular.

CHECK QILINS JUN-JUN! YOU’RE SO CLOSE!

We go to Claudine still practicing dance in the practice room, she falls down. Futaba comes in and says the floor should be clean if she wants to keep dancing. Meanwhile Mahiru looks for Karen at the dorms, she checks the bathroom and Kaoruko is there taking a bath. Kaoruko invites Mahiru to bath with her cause her girlfriend isn’t there and she’s bored. Back at the practice room Futaba cleans the floor and asks Claudine if something was going on between her and Maya. Instead of responding, Claudine takes Futaba and starts waltzing(I think) with her. Futaba is startled at first but then she’s like “alright I’m game”. Claudine ends up telling her that she feels that even though she is very talented, Maya is more so and therefore beat her during the duel. The two finish waltz and Futaba offers Claudine some candy, Claudine thanks her in french.

Back with Kaoruko and Mahiru, Kaoruko complains about Futaba not being there and teases Mahiru about her huge gay crush on Karen. Kaoruko comments that it’s been pretty odd lately, ever since Hikari came to town. Back with Claudine and Futaba, Claudine says she’s surprised that Futaba came here because she’s usually with her girlfriend all the time. Futaba answers with saying while Kaoruko is special to her and she wants to support and protect her, she has her own ambitions beyond just being in a supporting role too. Everyone’s cell phone rings, it’s audition duel time!

We are back with Hikari, according to her phone she has no one to fight today. Karen sneaks out of the window at the back of the shed and books it. Hikari sees her running off and looks very panicked. She frantically sprints after Karen, trying to stop her from going into the elevator therefore her duel. Karen says she has to go and she’ll be back when she wins, she goes down. Hikari is too late. Hikari expression becomes determined and she runs back to get a crowbar.

We go to Maya in her room, she’s looking at the Starlight script by a photo of her and her classmates after they did the play the year prior. Seems like Maya is fond of this event too considering she kept the flower hairpin she wore during the show. Birds are seen in her room too btw. We zoom into Claudine in the photo and go to a flashback to the show again. Maya approaches Claudine, smiling at her, and holds out her hand. Claudine moves close to Maya’s face and whispers in her ear, “I haven’t lost”. We go back to Maya in the present, we see her phone with the notice for the duels. Maya flips her hair and it’s show time!

And at this very moment, Tendou Maya realized she was gay.

After Karen transforms the curtains rise, Karen introduces herself and then Maya introduces herself while descending on the back of a swan prop. Karen isn’t intimidated by Maya being her opponent. Meanwhile Hikari is trying to break the elevator door down with a crowbar, she smashes a light on the elevator ceiling on accident and the doors open revealing stairs going down to the audition duels. Back on stage, Giraffe gives us the name of this fight. The Revue of Pride. The duel begins.

The two girls clash for a bit before Maya locks swords with Karen and asks why she was here. Karen tells her she’s here to become a star with Hikari, who we see running down long ass stairs, judging by Maya’s expression she doesn’t seem to like what Karen has said. We then see briefly that at the same time this duel is happening, Futaba and Claudine are dueling. Maya recites lines from the Starlight play and says “It’s an exchange. ” She then shuts the lights off and asks Karen what she has offer in exchange for being a star. Maya activates her jewel, which is on the very bottom of the hilt of her sword, and the stage starts rearranging itself. Maya has control of the stage now. Maya is at the top of dove stairs and starts singing. Smoke and a golden dove spring up behind her lighting up the stage again. The revue resumes. The fight is intercut sometimes with Hikari running to stop the duel. Maya tells Karen that there can only be one top star, that’s what everyone is fighting and struggling for after all. We get a quick look at all the girl’s jewels that are on their weapons, we saw Futaba’s earlier.

Maya then, starts talking about Claudine. She says Claudine has offered and given up everything and that Claudine has the noble determination to challenge a star. The fight picks up again, they sword fight for awhile before Maya knocks Karen to the stairs which she turns into a slide and Karen slides down smack into a huge swan prop. Karen looks up towards Maya who is at the very top of the stairs and says she can’t even begin to reach her. Hikari bursts into the theater and she’s suddenly outside (trippy). We are shown it’s raining outside. Karen races up the stairs to clash with Maya.

We then are shown Claudine declaring she hasn’t lost and Maya declares “Even alone, I am a star!” They win their fights at the same time. Maya declares position zero, the curtain falls and a single spotlight shines on her. Karen has dropped to her knees on the stairs and Maya says, “Only one star can shine at the top.”

We go back to Claudine and Futaba’s duel, Claudine is the winner. However the two take the results very well, Claudine helps Futaba up. We hear Maya talking about how passionate Claudine is again before we go to the credits.

After the credits we see the rankings board by Giraffe and find out where everyone is ranked, Karen is in 9th place. Then we get Hikari and Karen standing in the rain, Hikari has been crying. Karen, looking like she’s in shock, talks about her not being good enough to win or even compete in these wild auditions and says her head is spinning. Hikari slaps Karen in the face and calls her an idiot. We get this shot and the episode ends.

I can’t believe Umi slapped Honoka...wait wrong show.

>Goddesses, lesbians, and stairs. Oh my!

-Something that took me back was the amount of goddess symbolism in this episode which lead me to realize that it had been there the whole time, this ep just made it more obvious. And the really interesting thing it’s two goddesses in particular that have their symbols everywhere, Aphrodite/Venus and Inanna (aka Istar). I talk about this extensively in the post I linked at top but I’ll put a shorter version here. These goddesses are very closely entwined with each other, Aphrodite/Venus is, a descendant of sorts, of Inanna. The funny thing about mythology, other cultures often take ideas or gods from older/different cultures and adapt them as their own. This is the most obvious with the Romans taking the Greek gods as their own. The Sumerian culture and Greek culture likely clashed thanks to trading and the Bronze Age. The two cultures met and exchanged ideas so incorporating the ideas into their mythology would easily occur.

Aphrodite the love goddess is likely based off of Inanna the love goddess (and farther back the goddess Astarte), and even more so the planet Venus was thought to be ruled by Inanna. The two goddesses have shared symbols and domains. Doves are symbols of both goddesses and they are both love, sexuality, desire, and passion goddesses. And Inanna is a war and justice goddess, it turns out in some cultures Aphrodite/Venus was a war goddess too. Both goddesses also went to the underworld to rescue their loved ones, Inanna went to save her husband Dumuzid (aka Tammuz) while Aphrodite went to save her lover Adonis. It’s really cool, these goddesses could be very relevant to the show for sure.

--I’m also gonna add, while there are many myths about gods or humans going to the land of the dead to save someone they loved (ex: Orpheus and Eurydice, Izanagi and Izanami, Isis and Osiris), the myth of Aphrodite and Adonis is thought by modern scholars to be derived from Inanna and Dumuzid’s story specifically. That’s fascinating! Granted, many of these tales don’t have happy endings....Oh dear, have mercy Revue Starlight! ono

-Let’s take a look at Aphrodite/Venus, her symbols are mostly around Maya. Before her duel Maya is seen next to the Venus de Milo statue and reflecting its pose, we see several white birds in her room and on her desk. During the duel birds fucking popup everywhere, swans are a symbol of Aphrodite and Maya descends from the ceiling riding one, there is ancient art of Aphrodite doing just that. Maya chucks Karen into a huge swan at the bottom of the stairs, there's also a curled up swan right here before Maya opens up the stage. The smaller birds on the stairs and one as a gold statue could indicate two different bird symbols, either sparrows or doves. I’m leaning towards doves since we see white birds earlier in Maya’s room.

Aphrodite/Venus is also associated with water since she was born rising out of the sea, there is a fountain by the golden dove during the duel. Speaking of gold, Ode to Aphrodite is the only full poem that Sappho wrote that survives to this day. The word “Chryse” in Greek means golden and it’s used in the poem to describe the goddess. The dove on the stage is golden, also Sappho is a very famous lesbian and this show is gay so. Yes. Anyways.

The planet Venus is a star in the sky, in fact it’s other name is the Morning Star. You might find that sounds familiar and know there's a being whose name in latin means just that, and that being is Lucifer the fallen angel. So you could say he is a fallen star. Oh...let’s hope that doesn’t mean anything bad will happen to Maya. *nervous laughter*

--Side note: Maya’s stage was greek/roman looking again. And had STAIRS. Apparently stairs are a staple in this type of theater lol.

-As for Inanna, her symbol seems to be around Karen. Inanna’s presence isn’t as overt as Aphrodite/Venus but the symbol that is here is one of her primary symbols, the Star of Inanna. Also known as the Star of Ishtar or the Star of Venus, any depictions of Inanna is accompanied by this eight pointed star. Where is the star you ask? It’s in the jewel on Karen’s sword! And no the circle isn’t a shine on it, it’s dark in this shot and I’ve checked other screenshots and the circle is still there. In the screenshot I linked I counted seven points on the star but I might have been unable to see the eighth one due to the angle, however even if there are only seven the symbol greatly resembles the star.

Additionally, one of the most famous myths Inanna is in is her going to the underworld to rescue her husband. In the myth she has to strip off her clothing to get through the seven gates of the underworld (in Sumerian mythology the underworld is called Kur) but gains her clothes back when she leaves. Karen descended into an underground theater and falls below to rescue her love Hikari, and she also loses her clothes and gets new clothes. That’s about it for Inanna right now, let’s keep a lookout for lions too cause that is Inanna’s other primary symbol.

-Whoever designed the school campus really loves the Venus de Milo, it’s EVERYWHERE. This is really obvious in this episode, I counted a total of seven appearances. So Aphrodite has had quite a presence at the school since the start of this show. What it means is a little unclear for now, but the statue for sure ties into the presence of the goddess in this show.

-Ok so. I think I misjudged Maya, I guess I had Touga Kiryuu on the brain while seeing her. Before this episode we didn’t really spend time with her and saw her through the eyes of others, and the person she’s around the most is Claudine. She sees Maya as someone to beat therefore she would see anything Maya does as a challenge or Claudine thinks Maya is looking down on her and because we are following her POV we start to think the same. This is the power of perspective everyone! So this episode we get to see things from Maya’s perspective and we learn that she doesn’t look down on Claudine, quite the opposite in fact, she really respects her. And Maya has a hugeeee lesbian crush on her!

Like, I’m so mad at not noticing but I rewatched the previous episodes with this in mind and yeah. Yeah Maya is in love. It seems to me that how she smiles at Claudine is different than if she smiles at anyone else, when we saw them dancing in the previous two episodes her smiling comes across as smug on the first viewing but no, that’s not what’s happening. Maya just loves dancing with her that much.

There is a part in episode two where while Claudine is practicing after school Maya turns the lights on in the practice room and walks away. At the time you think like Claudine and you think Maya is being condescending but looking back on it I think Maya was legit thinking she was being nice and helping her out. She knows Claudine practices a lot therefore will be there after dark so she turns on the lights for her so Claudine can still practice even if it does gets dark. Maya was thinking, “She’s so passionate to be practicing this late! I should turn the lights on so she doesn’t have to stop and do so!” *turns lights on* “Aw yes I helped her out, I’m so fucking good at this :D.” and Claudine was thinking “Well fuck you too bitch”.

The moment in the flashback when Claudine whispers in Maya’s ear, the look on her face suggests she’s wondering if Claudine was going to kiss her and it’s quite a WHOA I’M GAY look too. During this episode’s duel she spent a good part of the fight telling Karen how great and passionate Claudine is, and it’s obvious she’s speaking about Claudine cause we cut to her several times during Maya’s speech.

And we learn something interesting from this episode via a quick flashback to the end of Maya and Claudine’s duel. We see after Maya cuts off Claudine’s cape and Claudine starts to fall, Maya catches her. She does no such thing when she beats Karen this episode. As for how Claudine feels, I’m pretty sure she also likes Maya back but she hasn’t really realized that cause she’s too busy thinking “CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!” whenever Maya does anything. Also Claudine doesn’t want to be second best, she wants to be first hence she sees Maya as someone to overcome and hasn’t been able to look past that just yet.

This begs the question of why Maya still fights Claudine anyways? Well, the answer is because she wants to be Top Star and since there’s only one Top Star, she has to fight. I think Maya would rather have Claudine stand with her on the same level as her but, that’s not how the system works. The system says there can only be one and Maya likely believes that the system can’t be changed, that’s just how it is and there's nothing that can be done about it. So she’ll fight anyone she has to, even if it’s someone she loves. Besides I think that Maya doesn’t go easy on Claudine because she feels it would be an insult to her to not give Claudine her all. I was wrong in my episode 2 post, Maya didn’t take pleasure in beating Claudine. Instead she simply feels she did what she had to do to keep her high rank, no happiness here. It’s why she looks so serious after fighting Claudine, she did what she felt was needed and claims her place even if it came at the cost of taking down the girl she’s in love with.

I think even fighting Karen was something she rather not do, hell she mostly borrows lines from the Starlight play and then makes a speech about how great her crush is instead of personally insulting Karen like you’d normally see with characters like her. She doesn’t show her dislike of this system because, she’s a performer. She’ll play whatever part she needs to even if it means being an antagonist and you’d never be able to tell. When she wins, she casually takes position zero and says there's only one Top Star. No extra gloating or insults, Maya isn’t here to fuck around or be antagonistic after the show is over.

Maya grew up in the world of the theater and she’s very used to this system, it’s normal for her hence she’d never have the thought to actually change it or even think it could be changed. Maya will end up being beaten last cause she embodies the ways of the system more than anyone, feeling she has to follow it and anyone who thinks like Karen just doesn’t understand this is just how it is. I’m excited to see how Karen changes her mind that’s for sure. I do have a feeling that Claudine will be a factor in her change for sure.

--Also, during the Starlight play we see in the flashback. When the characters that Maya and Claudine are playing are separated, Claudine is on a pillar going down while Maya is on the one going up. This is not only showing that fighting over Top Star is keeping them apart, it also shows if Maya does become Top Star alone they will never be on the same level with each other ever again. Maya goes to the top alone, lonely at the top.

-I’ve noticed the Top Star competition is awfully damaging to the girl’s relationships. It seems like Maya is kinda lonely at the top, being Top Star alienates your peers from you since they see you as above them. Maya is referred to by last name by several of the girls and even with the -sama suffix. Claudine is so consumed by her desire to be Top Star that she misinterprets Maya’s actions as a challenge all the time and it’s probably quite stressful feeling like you always have to one up someone every day. When Futaba and Kaoruko have to fight each other I imagine it might break them up. Mahiru’s fight, when it comes, will probably be filled with strife. This isn’t healthy, and if nothing is changed everyone will be forever fucked up from this experience.

-Remember how I said I was worried there will be Yuri Bait in this show? Good news, there isn’t! I 100% think Futaba and Kaoruko are for sure canon dating. Much like Haruka and Michiru of Sailor Moon, it’s not commented on by the other girls really cause them dating is just a given. Everyone knows they are together and that’s just how it is. They are almost always together and in the prequel manga both of their chapters are titled like they are dating. The titles are “Our first time living together!” and “Our first fight!”, that is language used to describe romantic couples experiencing life together. This episode made it even more obvious with Futaba saying Kaoruko is special to her and how Kaoruko teases Mahiru about her crush on Karen.

So yes, Mahiru is romantically interested in Karen and Karen just doesn’t notice. Maya has a huge lesbian crush on Claudine like I said above, I’m still baffled how I totally missed it cause during the everyday stuff Maya does not hide how much she likes her at all. Hell even during the duel she uses a big speech moment to praise Claudine omg. When dancing with Claudine, Maya’s smiling like this is the best thing in the world. I’m also mildly humored that Claudine is in such denial that she’s attracted to Maya it’s one of the reasons why she focuses solely on one upping her, “I’m NOT staring at her because I think she’s hot or anything I’m CLEARLY just analyzing her dance moves so I can beat her!”. Oh honey.

So, everyone is canon queer I’m very happy that is the case! And anyone who disagrees with that, I will throw a rainbow flag through the computer and it will smack ya in the face. Don’t be that asshole please and thank you. uwu

-Hikari is REALLY freaked out by something. I talked about it in my post I link at the top but basically Hikari’s behavior comes across as someone who desperate and fears something hence she’s trying to keep Karen away and finding out what it is, even jumping to extremes like locking Karen in a shed to do so. Very Homura Akemi. She knows something is wrong with these audition duels, and I look forward to learning what it is. But I’m also terrified to find out what it is, my poor girls. ono

-I know for sure now the jewels on the Stage Girl’s weapons control the stage, notably Karen hasn’t used hers to change the stage in anyway. Maya’s is at the bottom of her sword hilt, tried to see if I could see the symbol in it but no success. The jewel itself isn’t very visible often during the episode, and the others shine too bright to see anything inside them. You can see everyone but Claudine’s jewel in this episode. Futaba’s, Kaoruko’s, Mahiru’s, and Nana’s are the new ones to see in the show. I checked Claudine’s character art and yup you can see her jewel on the blade of her sword. Let’s hope they aren’t soul gems or something like that ahaha.

-The fantastical part of the show is seemingly kept separate from the normal everyday stuff. In fact, this is enforced since the girls are told they can’t speak about it. However the fantastical still lingers, you can see it in the tiara light following the girls literally everywhere. And yes we are supposed to take the stage fights as literal, it’s possible a dream world thing is going on when the duels occur but I strongly think that the girls are literally fighting under the school’s secret stage at night. The elevator existing, Hikari being able to speak to Giraffe during the day, Giraffe being mentioned by the girls are all examples of this being real. There's no evidence to suggest the audition duels are imagined besides them being weird so let’s drop the idea.

-I love how Junna was trying to figure out wtf Giraffe is, I’m glad cause if I was in her shoes I’d be doing the same thing. Look at Qilins Jun-Jun!

-Ah, the girls who dueled are tired the next morning again, especially those who lost. I still think there's something fishy with that!

-On the Starlight robes in the flashback there was a symbol and I couldn’t figure out what it was (if it was anything irl anyways). It looks like a combined sun and moon symbol but yeah I couldn’t find anything in real life that looked exactly like that.

-Now that I think about it, Karen hasn’t once asked Hikari if she is still chasing the same dream they had when they were five. Karen is, just assuming Hikari still wants that. They, really need to sit down and talk. How it is now is damaging their relationship man.

-The Starlight play, from what we know, reminds me of the story behind the Tanabata festival. Connection? Maybe.

-Interestingly, the fight between Futaba and Claudine happened on a very minimally decorated stage. Also their talk and dancing together was very cute I love it.

-Oh btw, here are the Stage Girl rankings we see this episode!

1: Maya

2: Claudine

3: Nana

4: Kaoruko

5: Futaba

6: Mahiru

7: Junna

8: Hikari

9: Karen

>Speculation and bananas

-Nana says she is going to switch to backstage cause she wants to give it a try, but is that all there is to it? I ask this cause Nana is in 3rd fucking place on the rankings board, that’s really fucking high. Why would she give that up? Well, understanding her personality and knowing how much she talks about the play they did last year, I think she doesn’t like being apart of the audition duels. She hates the system and fighting the classmates she cares about, so she is trying to leave. Why she talks about last year’s play is because back then they weren’t doing the audition duels. It was simpler, less competitive and no one was fighting.

I think Nana really wants to go back to that time, so she is trying to pull out and put her life back to normal but. Will the Underground Stage let her go that easily? Will Nana not be tempted to go back anyways? I think, one way or another, Nana will be drawn back. This means that future episodes are not gonna be very fun for Nana, poor thing.

-Every episode that passes the more sad I feel for Mahiru, like gdi the fallout will be badddd. That episode is gonna hurt man.

-This episode we find out that the message Giraffe (or whoever) sends to the girls also tells you if you are dueling and who you are dueling, while Hikari is scrolling on her phone I spot this. It’s pretty hard to read but I am pretty sure it says Starlight Gatherers…..Uh. Ok, that can mean two things. One, gathering means that the messages gather the girls to announce duel things.

Or two, my theory about the girls being targeted for their radiance/starlight is fucking right. They are gathering girls to create starlight or the girls themselves are gathering this starlight without knowing it, like waiting for a flower to bloom. Whoever blooms first wins, and is picked and therefore screwed. Oh shit man.

>*Claps wildly over this show*

This episode was great and this anime is still going strong! I’ve seen the episode 4 preview and it looks like next episode might not have a duel in it, which is fine with me. A breather episode will be fun and we will get to hang out with the girls more! And, of course some nice build up to the next fight and foreshadowing can be done. We got three very wonderful fights so far, so no one be complaining about a breather episode. Be nice to the animators you guys, they obviously work very hard on this show.

Also wow I have a new appreciation for Maya after this episode, good to know everyone is a useless lesbian and I love them.

See you on the stage for episode 4!

Also: This anime isn’t an idol show and people really need to stop saying that pass it on.

#shojo kageki revue starlight #revue starlight #moo watches revue starlight

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