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haylorsbabe · 1 year

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Question…? is haylor: explanation-

i’m just gonna go lyric by lyric since i’m doing somewhat long explanatios(also if anyone wants me to do this with any other song just send me an ask)

‘i remember’

this song literally samples OOTW in the beginning which is obvi haylor. also this song is track 7 and which is harry’s lucky number

‘good girl sad boy’

this lyric is similar to in style when she names attributes between her and harry ‘good girl faith’ now around the time that they dated harry was assumably going through a lot as was all of one direction for this song im gonna reference to an unreleased song of harry’s/one direction’s called half the world away (which i think is haylor)which gives the impression he was struggling

‘big city wrong choice’

we can assume this big city is new york since around the time of haylor (2012-2015) taylor was in new york a lot. And many times that they were papped together they were in new york. now as far as wrong choices, the first thing that would come to mind is when harry kisses someone else in australia. Since that’s what caused their first breakup. it could maybe also be harry not fighting enough to get her back and then she ended up with calvin which to me was the ultimate downfall of haylor. i’d put my money on either due to the following lyric

‘we had one thing going on i swear that it was something’

now taking it from the perspective of the first situation, after harry kissing someone else taylor and harry broke it off for a bit. So this could be taylor realize that her and harry had something special and she would want to try again. if it was the latter i would say it’d be more her realizing that her and him had something she may never get with someone else specifically calvin.

‘cause i don’t remember who i was before you’

now i think this combined with the next lyric essentially says that this relationship was mind changing for her. also taking into consideration the relationships she had before which were either young/immature or just inappropriate. but this one is different and special. many times she talks about the relationships that inspired songs i think are haylor she talks about how even in it being fragile and anxiety inducing it was still special and worthy of a chance.

‘painted all my nights a color i’ve searched for since’

now since i think maroon is about harry i think this lyric makes even more sense. but also taking just about any haylor song and you can kind of put together that she’s describing a relationship that didn’t work but no one’s to blame. And that it changed her and was important. I feel like with haylor it feels like a relationship like no other even if they are happy with other people it won’t have the spark that it had. therefore she can’t find that feeling (color) with anyone else.she also uses color imagery in OOTW

‘but it was one thing after another’

with haylor because they were off and on there was kind of like all these different dividing factors at different times that they felt like they couldn’t escape. and even when they were broken up they would always get asked about each other. or end up in the same place like parties and award shows. which is why so many people consider it ‘right person wrong time’. even though they went together very well it could’ve never happen at the right time for both of them

‘fucking situation, circumstances, miscommunications’

continuing my last point, timing was never right, or they weren’t in the right place to date at the time which through off the relationship. specifically with harry since we know he was struggling at the time. but this was also somewhere around the time taylor’s ED became more noticeable. so they weren’t really in a place to have the perfect relationship. also going back to when i said calvin was the ultimate downfall of haylor, one thing that kept them apart was having some level of a relationship with other people. but with calvin it lasted so long that at some point taylor wasn’t just gonna leave him and run back to harry, then she met tom which threw off her and calvin and she then found joe. so they didn’t really get another chance.

‘and i have to say, by the way, i just may like some explanations, can i ask you a question’

i think haylors final ending probably left them both with confusion. since it didn’t result in them trying again a month later. but also once it was over it allowed them to recognize that what they had was special. which is what i think the chorus represents, basically taylor saying have you ever found something like what we had, because she knows he hasn’t

‘did you ever have someone kiss you in a crowded room’

now obviously this could be a reference to the new years kisses or that supposed make out they had at that party. but i also think it can represent how public the relationship was which played a part in its demise, and how everyone was always looking at what they were doing,

‘and every single one of your friends were making fun of you’

harry got teased a lot for being with taylor by the boys and by his other friends. i honestly feel like him and taylor were like a disney couple it’s like of course it’d be them together it just makes so much sense.

‘but fifteen seconds later they were clapping too then what did you do’

now i think this could mean both how no matter how many jokes people made about it they had to recognize that they went together well. but also i’m regards to their new years kiss they were kissing before the ball dropped but everyone was cheering during their other kiss since the ball had dropped.

‘did you leave her house in the middle of the night’

nighttime and references to midnight/ middle of the night are common in haylor songs. and around the haylor time harry was photographed leaving taylor’s house or hotel in the middle of the night, many times.

‘did you wish you’d put up more of a fight, when she said it was too much’

i think something else with haylor is that taylor was looking for something more serious and committed which is something harry may not have been able to give at the time, so he also couldn’t fight to get her back. and i think taylor had wished that harry tried to get her back more before she was with calvin so she 1 didn’t date calvin for 15 months and 2 get one last try with harry.

‘do you wish you could still touch her it’s just a question’

first off, harry was the first time taylor starting making more clear innuendos. but also i think the last line of the chorus is important because she’s somewhat defensive of the fact that what she saying isn’t some casual checkup with an ex asking follow up questions

‘half moon eyes’

random connection about this lyric is that both harry and taylor got crescent moon necklaces from stevie nicks

‘bad surprise’

with haylor, just about everything both of them did was in a tabloid. and especially considering the previously mentioned miscommunication i can only imagine how many ‘bad surprises’ could come from this. like the AUS kiss or harry dating kendall who taylor was somewhat friends with.

‘did you realize? out of time’

there breakup i believe caused harry to self-reflect on what they relationship really meant to him. but it was too late to get her back.

‘she was on your mind with some dickhead guy’

basically just harry’s unreleased song him. as i’ve said in this before when harry didn’t truly understood how much taylor meant till she was already entangled with calvin

‘that you saw that night, but you were on something’

the 2015 billboard music awards. where he was clearly not a fan of mr harris also we know harry had dappled in both drugs and alcohol somewhere around this time

‘it was one drink after another’

as i just mentioned, also in harry’s unreleased song i talked about earlier ‘half the world away’ there’s a lyric ‘i stared drinking i don’t know half of what i’m thinking’

‘fucking politics and gender roles and you’re not sure and i don’t know, i just may like a conversation’

i think this can mean both politics in the literal sense but also in the who knows who sense. also around 2015 harry staring dressing ever so slightly more feminine and he got a lot of shit for it.

‘does it feel like everything’s just like second best after that meteor strike‘

yet again the realization that what they had was special and exclusive to each other. and they’d never find that same thing again even if they’re happy with other people.

‘and what’s that that id heard that you’re still with her’

honestly i think this could be kendall or olivia. taylor’s voice at this part is even somewhat condescending. showing she knows harry isn’t getting what her got with her and that these other relationships are missing the spark haylor had. specifically with olivia i think it pulls it back to now where she occasionally looks into what harry’s doing and she knows it’s still not the same.

‘that’s nice i’m sure that’s what suitable, and right, but tonight can i ask you a question’

again she knows he’s in the relationship because they feel right and they though they might not get scrutinized the same way the pay off won’t be as good. it’s just what’s suitable at the time.

ok that’s it !! i hope y’all enjoy that took way too long lmaoo, and like i said before send me an ask if you want me to do more of these🤎

#haylorisback #haylorisreal #haylor #harry loves taylor #we’re still getting haylor in 2022 wake up people #harry and taylor #haylorsbabe

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seerofmike · 1 year

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1, 4, 9, and 13 from the Salty Ask List

im assuming this is for apex

1.) What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

ok so there's a lot of ships i hate for an active reason but as for a ship i simply do not get. revenant x ash. like they're both simulacrums i guess. is that it?

i guess i just don't get the specific way REDDIT likes revenant x ash. they seem to think that ash would be all tsundere for him like im sorry are we talking about the same character

4.) Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

i hate several ships but i'll just list the 3 i hate the most. life//tane, crypt//age and crypt//son. the straightie ships are like moderately popular for straightie ships ig but crypt//age is everywhere and its like. they're like that one post about straight women's first gay ship LMAO

9.) Most disliked character(s)? Why?

rev and caustic r obvious answers so i'll name 3 others. Fuse because he's boring and obnoxious and kinda contributes nothing except being BH's love interest and the reason Maggie joins. like i feel like you could cut Fuse out of apex entirely and with minimal rewrites everything still functions the same. He just feels really irrelevent. tbh i didn't hate him until the past few seaons when Fuse/hound started really ramping up and I couldn't escape seeing him which just made me more annoyed every time I saw him. overexposure ig

hate mirage cuz he hogs so much screentime and has like 3 character traits the writers bring up over and over without doing anything new so people can go AUGGH MIRAGE SADDEST CHARACTER EVER 🥺🥺🥺 and yall somehow fall for it when its the same piece of info literally every time. like how many times do they need to remind you evelyn has dementia. give him a storyline already. "Mirage sad because mom forget" is not a character arc yall have been doing this for like 12 seasons now come up with something new

then finally. Wattson. i have written several posts about her so im gonna be short but she's SOOO terribly written and such a shit person which like, i LOVE me some terrible petty bitches like loba. but loba being a terrible petty bitch feels like its on purpose and wattson being a terrible petty bitch is on accident and the writers bend over backwards to make her the cute uwu do no wrong girl all the time and it's SO exhausting like let her have character flaws and maybe have someone acknowledge she's made mistakes???? 😭

edit: crypto!! 13.) unpopular opinion about he.

i have two: 1. he is kind of jacked under that jacket. he is not a twink. he has muscles. not like fuse or gibraltar, and he doesn't have shredded abs like seer and octane, but he's built after years of working out and when he wears a tight t-shirt, you can See. Percieve Them. and 2. he has ADHD (and a paranoia disorder).

i know the more popular hc for him is autistic which is VALID but i personally read him more as ADHD who developed a paranoia disorder due to his circumstances and both of those things combined are why he's so fidgety and messes around with his jacket and puzzle cube a lot

#not tagging this one cuz its mostly just hate

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yahargulian · 10 months

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im gonna send you a bunch of these fic asks xgxbdhnxjs SOOO 7, 27, 41, 43, 58, go!

Catch me kicking my feet excitedly hehe here we go!!

7. Post a snippet from a wip.

"Satisfied that, for the moment at least, they were in no immediate danger, Leon let his stance loosen just a touch, the hand hovering over his pistol falling away to his side. He took a deep, steadying breath. That was his first mistake. Because the thing that this line of work never prepares you for – never could prepare anyone for, really – is the visceral nature of shit like this. Sure, logically it makes sense that if flesh burns, you’d be able to hear it, smell it. And, it also makes sense that such an experience would be... unpleasant. But they had just melted a body – a very large body at that – in molten metal. Unpleasant didn’t quite cut it. " This is also the last thing I wrote for any of my wips! This is one of the two fics I'm actively (slowly) working on - the other one being the key fic, which I've posted a snippet of before - and I'm so excited for them both honestly. This one in particular I'm trying to make like.. As Visceral As Possible. Just go absolutely ham asgjkdhasg it's gonna be fun!

27. What area of writing do you feel strongest in?

I'm trying to figure out how best to word this, but like.. Structuring sentences and things to help get the Vibe across. I've always typed exactly like I talk, even in messages, so I'm always like. Kind of thinking about how to best express myself using not just the words, but also the way the words are gonna be read and, hence, interpreted. Or, well, that's what I think anyway ashgkjadsjg tho I got told recently that I have a distinct voice when it comes to how I type and that it's present in my writing too, so hopefully I'm doing something right! (And I'm still not over it like.. I have a writing voice? Me? For realsies?)

41. Who’s your favourite character you’ve written?

Leon! And maybe I'm biased, because he is literally just. One of my favourite characters ever, I love him. And also maybe this is influenced by the fact that I hadn't actively written much for a good year or two until I fell into RE fandom all of three months ago. But anyway, I love to burrow my way into his head and poke around and see how he works and take stock of all the emotions and vibes, and then absolutely put him through the wringer ahdjkgahjgsdj It's an expression of love, promise! But a very close second would be Wanderer from Genshin Impact - and for pretty much the same reasons. His whole situation is way, way more complicated than Leon's, but he fascinates me in the same way. There's a lot to consider with them both. A lot of 'what if's and regret and guilt. Trying to do some good for the world. Both stories of a young, bright-eyed and naïve guy who gets thrown into a situation way beyond his control, and comes out of it as one of the only survivors. A situation that kills a part of him.. I think I have a type.

43. Is there a trope or idea that you’d really like to write but haven’t yet?

Soulmates and time loop fic - and these both come to mind immediately because I'm planning to do them both in one go sometime soon! Yippee! I really want to finish a sex pollen fic. Or just anything in that specific kind of trope. I have one wip (in a document titled 'eeby deeby') that's sitting at like 4,000 words and has been for two years now and one day. One day! I will finish it adshgjkh And, not a trope, but I want to write something that's just a little unhinged. Just in general really, not even in a specific circumstance. Sometimes the best way to fully express an emotion in writing is to take it to an extreme, I think

58. Do you have a favourite piece of figurative language you’ve written?

"Through Azar’s hand, the path of Sumeru’s future was cut in cursive." Now like. I am kinda happy with just this as a line, but the context for it is what makes it my favourite. Because this is a wip (that I really need to finish for a friend omg) where one guy kinda gets off to this guy having really good handwriting? There's more to it than that, but something about having this line in this fic - which I wrote based on a joke that got out of hand - just brings me so much joy ahdgjkhgd

#thank u so so much for the ask aaaaaa #talking about writing is making me wanna write ahgjdhas #success!#santonali #answered

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shinidamachu · 2 years

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Not really sure how to explain this because Im not comfortable in English but you know how Kikyo was always kind of testing Kagome throughout the show to see if she’d actually save her and that stuff? Well it always seemed to me like Kikyo was testing Inuyasha whenever she brought up him using the jewel, to see if he’d actually be willing to sacrifice that part of himself for her so she could become an ordinary woman. Like many people say, it was very problematic of Kikyo to assume that Inuyasha using the jewel would work, since she knew it was a very powerful and danger object. I felt like she was wanting to test his devotion to her and ended up using him in the process, and I feel like she was just waiting for him to turn against her the same way she was expecting Kagome not to save her all those times hence why she never trusted him. She didn’t even trust him enough to tell him about Onigumo, if she did maybe her life could’ve been spared or at least Inuyasha could’ve been more aware.

I definitelly see where you're coming from, but I don't think Kikyo was testing Inuyasha at all. You see, she's a prideful character and, as such, she tends to think her perception is always right.

She honestly thought she had Inuyasha all figured out. She honestly thought their loneliness were one and the same and, therefore, she was doing him a favor by offering to get rid of the part of him she was taught was impure. She honestly thought he wanted to live a "normal" human life, if it meant he'd be accepted.

Of course, we know how wrong she was because, unlike Kikyo, we know the real Inuyasha. His loneliness wasn't self inflicted due to a prestigious job that demanded him to always keep his guard up. Rather, he was ostracized, hunted and hurt because of his race, which is something he had no control over.

And even though he was desperate enough for acceptance that he was willing to become a demon or a human to achieve it, deep down he wanted to be accepted for who he was. The acceptance Kikyo offered wasn't for him because it was conditional. It wasn't real. And he would never be happy being someone he's not.

I don't think any of this ever ocurred to Kikyo because she was projecting her own insecurities, expectations and desires onto him and, if she was on his shoes, she would have said yes in a heartbeat. Why would he ever consider rejecting such an offer? Especially because after they started being civil to each other, we don't really see Inuyasha going against her will. And when he actually comfirms her incorrect assumptions, she doesn't look surprised, even though he was literally planning to use the jewel to become a demon just the other day.

And so, she didn't need to test Inuyasha to see if he would actually be willing to sacrifice that part of himself for two very specific reasons. One: she already believed he would. Two: she didn't see it as a sacrifice. How much — and in which circumstances — his demonic heritage bothered her is debatable. Kikyo didn't seem disgusted by it, but wasn't fond of it either.

She believe it to be impure and took the first chance she got to get rid of it, thinking wishing it away was a good and selfless thing to do, but regardless of her intentions, the truth of the matter is that she should never have suggested it in the first place. And as much as she was "killing two birds with one stone", this has always been less about Inuyasha and more about her own freedom, therefore she did end up using him in the process, otherwise she could have made that wish herself without worrying whether it was selfish or not, especially considering she didn't actually know how the jewel worked.

With Kagome was a different story. Like I said: Kikyo thought she got Inuyasha down, even if in the back of her mind the possibility of him betraying her was always present. And to an extent, Inuyasha behaved precisely as she expected, because projecting herself onto him, it's easy to assume that he'd accept her proposal or that he doesn't trust her, sinch she doesn't trust him either.

But Kagome? Kikyo could never pin her down because she kept surprising Kikyo, again and again.

They were "rivals", Kikyo tried to kill Kagome and was overall awful to her and to Inuyasha even though she has been nothing but kind in return and Kikyo is already dead, feeding off souls of miserable women to keep walking on Earth. She wasn't supposed to be there anyway, so I think Kikyo, being the practical character that she is, could totally see the reasoning behind Kagome supposedly not wanting to save her, especially because if the roles were reversed, she would most likely let Kagome die, at least in the first half of the series.

I think that, deep down, Kikyo expected Kagome to leave her behind because, if Kagome did, she wouldn't have to feel guilty about her earlier actions. In fact, they'd be somewhat justified, in a "well, she wanted me dead too, so no harm, no foul" kind of way. That's why she never thanks Kagome in the end of the day.

But then again: Kikyo was projecting. Just because she wouldn't save Kagome, it doesn't mean Kagome wouldn't save her. Kagome was her own person, with her own moral code. And she acted like it.

#Sidmailing

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star-ocean-peahen · 2 years

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do you think loam link is illiterate. What about Shei. being The Famous Ex-Royal Winemaker's Son TM has to give him like. sub noble status like lower middle class but not dirty peasant poor right. but not Rich Rich. He's sorta a homemaker, he has all the skills of one, plus being raised by a single father, his dad must've been out working the wine crops or something all day, leaving him to do all the house chores and stuff. I'm just. thinking about Shei's skills and what would fit with his backstory- and maybe trying to build up some Trademark Proficiency with the rest of the cast.

Link's instincts for survival are pretty good, and I wonder if some of her faerie magic animal traits might aid her in some ways. I forget what all she has so I can't really. be Specific but, I think there were antlers and fangs, and maybe a few more.

I think Stella can smell rot. More like sense. something something poeticism about her being an undead thing and being facinated with the life-death cycle and living things being reclaimed by the earth. does she wish to be reclaimed by the earth? long for it's embrace? rest? does she look at Link and Shei and wonder if there'll be rest for them in death. Shei's death, does she think his life cycle was incomplete or because he and Link were torn far beyond their time that it was long overdue? hhhhhhh

I also think she should be obsessed with mushrooms and frogs and worms. that's cute and it plays into the whole circle of life thing

I wonder how she feels about it all after her pinocchio arc...

you. you are a GENIUS

okay okay starting with the first paragraph HECK YES she's illiterate from what I can surmise (signs and stuff) most of the population of Hyrule is literate but like??? she was in faerie way past the age when she would have been taught.

bby shei DEFINITELY spent most of his childhood hanging around the tavern his dad owned, helping the barkeeper and listening to people's stories and stuff. As he got older he 100% got more interested in keeping their home cozy (although that got cut off short when ya know)

and hhhhHHH yeah his skills DEFINITELY need to be built up more compared to the rest of the cast like before he gives up the goddess powers hes floating around throwing golden bubbles at people but thats not exactly a skill or one he can keep.........

Im just spitballing here but what if he has a bunch of functionally useless skills for the general circumstances the group finds themselves in like embroidering or macramé or like SOME kind of craft you do with your hands (i get the vibe modern shei would customize dolls but THATS OFF TOPIC) and it can't really help much unTIL they all get themselves tied up and hes like "you guys can't untie knots with limited wrist movement?? wtf its so easy??" and tada

I feel like thatd be a good vibe for him in general that he's good at a lot of random stuff that you can't see EVER being useful but by the magic of Plot Shenanigans they always do

ohhhhh YES for Link's survival instincts what I wish I could have expressed better for her is that most of the changes made by faerie are on the inside so while antlers and snake fangs and extra cat thumb (thats the complete list btw) might help a lil bit she can smell the spirits around her and see messages in the arrangement of flowers on a bush and she might not be able to tell what people are feeling by looking at their faces but she can tell by tasting their emotions (which makes crowds kiiiiiinda uncomfortable) and OH YES (i really need to compile a list of everything she picked up in faerie. but that would require them all to make sense and ARGH that is the worst part of making up a story)

ANYway back to what you were ACTUALLY saying she totally has a prey instinct left over from when she was turned into a stoat and chased around the banquet table another kid wasn't so lucky and roasted rabbit was on the menu that night and the ability to digest things that?? probably?? aren't?? digestible by human standards?? on the flip side she can't digest a few kinds of human food—like avocados, onions (garlic and chives too), alcohol, and mint (i lifted all these off of google searches for what not to feed your pets lmao). Hyper processed foods (in a modern au) like packaged cakes and chips would also not be good for her system. The weird stuff she CAN eat includes random bushes, SOME weeds, bark (???), and whole flowers. She likes those especially (but not the important ones like roses and bluebells those would get her in Fae Trouble).

I have this hilarious picture in my head now of Link just chowing down on a piece of bark or something and newly-humanified Stella thinking that looks awesome and nabbing a piece only to spit it out in disgust because??? it tastes awful for some reason??? meanwhile Shei is having aneurysm because apparently hes the only one in this group that actually understands What Food Is And Isn't

OAGH OGH OAGHOAHGS THATS GENIUS STELLA HAVING A GREATER CONNECTION TO THE CYCLE OF LIFE AND DEATH THATS THE FUCKING COOLEST HER LOVING MUSHROOMS AND FROGS AND WORMS AND CREEPING THINGS THATS THE FUCKING BEST

I forgot to mention this but Stella has a pet rat she adopted just as a friend. I think its name was Snazzy or something like that.

#it is just the fucking BEST to talk about loam with you #ty <333333333 #Legacy of a Millennia #loam stella #loam link #loam shei #loam #spam in the slammer

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geordon · 3 years

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I think there's a pretty big difference between lashing out when scared/stressed and being an angry person.

Between having an amount if anger in you that comes out when things get bad and being the one that makes thing bad

Between violence in reaction to something and actively wanting to cause harm

And I think some people could really do better in understanding that difference

#geo dialogue.txt #idk ive just been thinking about how the vrai fandom characterizes gordon #and how some people apparently watched a wat different series than i did based on the fanfics ive either read or looked at the tag of #and some people try to skirt the line in a really weird way of oh no he literally attacked ben but then snapped out of it #which could maybe work in Specific Circumstances but. the one im thinking of was literally just. the kitchware was all on the counters #bc ben didnt know that that isnt how it should work. its such a disproportionate response #but the rest of the fic treats it like this isnt a major thing. like. i Inderstand that people respond to trauma in wild ways #i get that. but if you attack someone over something that small then maybe you should tell them it would be best if they hung back for a bi #then you should go directly to therapy and get that sorted bc thats messed up and you cant pretend everything is fine bc you cried abt it #and you know what? the entire rest of the plot of that specific fic wouldnt have happened. which id be fine with #bc it involved gordon deciding to play with bens feelings to find out what those feelings were #which would suck and be awful even if it wasnt involving someone who spend a good chunk of time as a science experiment #if youre going to characterize gordon as someone with barely controlled anger issued whod do that then dont chicken out #if youre going to make him do these things then dont continue on to talk about how hes still a good person #maybe i only have strong feelings abt this bc im someone who lashes out when cornered & also with a sibling with really bad anger issues #but it really bothers me when people completely ignore that pre rescas gordon greeted everyone cheerily #and that post rescas gordon genuinely wanted to try to save as many peopld as possible #and acab stream gordon actively wanted civillians gone before the shooted started #that doesnt read to me as someone who'd attack someone who was trying to help but didnt know how #anyway hi i have a lot of feelings about things and got reminded of this in particular #not tagging the fandom stuff but if yoy wanna reblog or add onto this feel free

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kcatta-wodahs · 3 years

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Making Lore Out of the Angel Event

Im the definition of 'its not that deep but I'm going to dig a hole to make it that deep'

In this case its me making it that deep because otherwise this event is upsetting so I'm making some dark lore theories to make it make sense to me.

I'll have a lot of spoilers below. For the event and everything I know, which is up to like lesson 32 I think.

Basically, TLDR; this was an attack by Michael/their Father on Devildom. Simeon and Diavolo have successfully negated the threat by turning it into a game.

TLDR Thesis; The Celestial Realm is governed through careful mind control. The Demon Bros are not "avatars" because of being demons- they have been cursed by their Father to suffer as no other demon nor angel has to.

First we hear direct from Michael, and he's giving these bangles that appear to brainwash the main cast.

This was an attempt by their Father to bring them back under his control. By control, I mean this literally.

I've felt for a long time that the way the Celestial Realm seems to be run is... shady. It's a utopia to outside appearances only, and those who have been most deeply embroiled in the Great Celestial War know this.

The Great Celestial War was over free will, rather than the specifics of Lilith's situation. She was the catalyst for a long-time-coming revolt against the rulers of the Celestial Realm.

My logic for this:

The reason for Lilith's expulsion goes against the current action plan of the Celestial Realm. Peace between the realms? Sure, but their Father is bound to realize that you put angels, humans, and demons together you're going to end up with more angels like Lilith, who fall for other races. Why would he accept this truce if he lost his favored children over an issue that is very similar? Did he have a change of heart? Heavens no.

Luke's behaviour towards the demon's seems case-and-point. Luke is not the strange one out of the angelic transfer students- Simeon is. Not only that, Simeon is chosen not in an attempt to promote peace, but to protect Luke from being influenced. (Which is, again, the whole point\of the exchange program.)

That time we went to the Celestial Realm for real - Lucifer was worried. Scared, even. This can be explained by, you know, the War and Lilith.. but I wonder if it may be more sinister. Like perhaps being brainwashed.

Diavolo and Barbatos weren’t required to wear bangles to become less “demon-like” for the “party”. This is because the bangles were a ploy to get the brothers back.

My theory is that when an angel begins to show signs of rebellion or questioning the divine order, they are forcibly stopped. Michael is that enforcer, and these 'gifts' are a method of stopping them.

The bangles cause a person to act *perfectly angelic* against their free will. The people affected become all smiles and sunshine, so clearly nothing could be wrong with it, right? They’re happy, right?

No. Very not right, and we can see that through Satan.

Poor Satan is always the exception to the rule of the Brothers, as his circumstances are different from everyone else's.

In this case though, he's the one who provides insight on this mind control.

Let me remind you of the quotes Satan gives us during this time:

“I feel worked up.” “I don’t feel like myself at all.”

“It feels like something foreign is forcing my heart to be calm.” “Like my heart... becoming tranquil.”

Satan has never been an angel. He has never experienced this before. He has something the other brothers don’t: self-reflection. Satan can tell the difference between his feelings and feelings that are being imposed upon him. He tells you what he feels - “worked up” and “not like himself” and he is not smiling during this. He’s clearly unhappy, even though an angel might say he should feel unburdened by losing his anger.

He even mentions this.

“Normally, that wouldn’t seem like something bad, right?” “Something isn’t right.” “Maybe you shouldn’t come near me when I’m in this state.”

Satan is under the effects of the bangle, being forced to act angelic, but he can tell something “isn’t right.” He clearly shows that he thinks this is a “bad” thing, not because being calm is bad, but because it’s not “normal”. And can I remind you that he’s the Avatar of Wrath? The Sin that is most likely to be dangerous to be around - and yet it’s only when his anger is forcibly quelled that he thinks you should stay away from him. He knows that this is not something to desire. He knows that it is not happiness.

“I can’t concentrate on reading today.”

I mean, he’s obviously going through a lot, so that’s fair. But I have the theory that if he were to try and research this condition he wouldn’t be able to either. I have a theory about the Garden of Eden. My theory is about Paradise.

Remember when Eve ate the fruit? Do you know what that fruit was? Sin?

No. That fruit was knowledge.

Specifically, knowledge of good and evil. Now, why would this knowledge be something to keep from those under the control of the Celestial Realm? It sounds rather like they might be able to then make their own decisions of what is right and wrong.

Satan has known this from the beginning. Knowledge is power. The Ruler of the Celestial Realm, the other demons’ Father, knows this, too.

Why are there no other Avatars?

Sin was not something inherent to Devildom. Sin is a judgement sent from the Celestial Realm. There are no other Avatars because they are a wholly angelic creation. There are other posts that have examined the Sins as outlets, and how each of the brothers are attempting to find ways to allow themselves to express their sin so it does not overtake them.

From the get-go, we are shown that these Sins are a defining point for the brothers, but we’re also shown that they cause more trouble than anything else. Again, part-and-parcel of being a demon, right?

So why aren’t other demons like this?

Look at Diavolo and Barbatos, or even just the background demons who work across Devildom. Look at No. 2. They are all far more complex, and could even be considered normal. No. 2 is specifically meant to be based off of Mammon and his greed, but is much more rounded when we interact with it.

If Diavolo is meant to be the ruler of demonkind -- the paragon of what a demon should be -- then why would he not be the epitome of all of these Sins in one? What is Diavolo, instead?

Diavolo is accepting.

Hold up a moment here. What? Sorry y’all but it sounds to me like Mr. Demon Daddy King trusts his son enough to pass the kingdom on to him... so that must mean that Diavolo is behaving as a demon should.

Barbatos doesn’t question Diavolo’s choices. Nobody does. He’s an all around popular ruler. Devildom seems to be quite.. the opposite of what we’ve been trained to expect, huh? Trained by who exactly?

What are the Demon Brothers?

Cursed. They don’t act like other demons because they’re not like other demons. When they rebelled against their Father, they were punished for this act, but I posit that the punishment and the exile were two different acts. Their Father knew that leaving the Celestial Realm was not punishment to those who desired free will. So instead, he gave them Sin. Something that Demons are not normally bound to.

But how would the brothers know this? They only know what they’ve been taught by angels about demons. Surely these new, pressing desires come from turning into demons..?

So, why was this not taken seriously?

Short answer: it was. But in the way that aligns with Diavolo’s ultimate goals.

Diavolo wants peace.

Let’s Talk About Simeon

Simeon is an enigma and a half isn’t he?

Simeon is close with Michael, closer than Luke in any case. Now, I’ll be honest, I can’t remember if it was a fanfiction I read that said this or if it was canon so uh - forgive me. But Simeon was chosen to accompany Luke as an exchange student so that Luke would get some education. Simeon says this is to help relations, as Diavolo wants, but of course that’s what you would say as a sleeper agent?

Now, don’t get sad. Because we love Simeon here and we support him.

Simeon is wise and neutral. He seems to support the brothers, and even still wishes to foster a relationship with them. This could be seen as an attempt to bring them back, or some such, but I like to think that Simeon knows what’s wrong with the Celestial Realm.

Simeon, however, doesn’t think that a revolt can solve it. Simeon is working with Diavolo to create a form of peace - and has been transparent about the fact that Michael chose him to prevent Luke from being corrupted. I like to think he’s also been transparent with Diavolo about Michael’s actual goal.

Simeon believes that the races should co-exist and love freely. How could love be evil, after all? Whether or not this is a new concept to him (because of his falling for you) or if this is just who he is, I’ll leave up to you and your preferences, but since he is now no longer undateable, it is established that he does not believe love between angels and humans to be bad - as his Father did with Lilith.

What happened, then?

My theory is that Simeon told Diavolo that Michael had given him a task - to give these bangles to the brothers to remind them of the joy they were missing by disobeying the Divine Order. Either that, or to brainwash them into coming back home.

Simeon’s position would be revealed to Michael if he didn’t give the brothers the bangles, but he does not want to instigate another war either. So he told Diavolo Michael’s plan.

Diavolo wants peace, and he knows that with time, the brothers can overcome this mind control as they had in the past - especially with his help.

So thus comes the “party”.

An excuse to make the bangles seem like a “harmless” gift, that had only gone wrong because of strange magical interference, when really they had done exactly what they were supposed to.

And a wonderful way to maintain peace while leaving the Celestial Realm to stew in their own pots.

Simeon gets to maintain his facade for everyone - and put on a show for Michael as being loyal. He also gets to show Luke that perhaps being wholly angelic isn’t the way for some people, letting him learn a little more about peaceful coexistence. Nothing happens to ruin Diavolo’s grand plan for peace, and he gets to learn more about the curse that is set upon his friends - One that he hopes to be able to break someday, so they can live their lives unfettered by their Father.

#okay this has gone on long enough #i have other ideas about satan in this whole situation but this is my canon now okay #the celestial realm is shady af #Our group of friends are the ones trying to rebel against it #but also are the victims of what happens if you do #man i wish that they would go into deep lore and plot like this in the game #but its an otome so i can't really expect that #anyway this is how im going to treat the whole thing #obey me lore #lore #bast babbles #obey me event #angel event #obey me angel event #obey me #obey me shall we date #obswd #headcanons

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lovebecomeshim · 3 years

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hello! your zutara posting today has finally motivated me to ask this question because I came to atla very late(last year, to be specific) and I Love It Very Much but am 1000% out of the loop as far as why what remains of fandom (at least that I've seen among my friends) is so very strongly zutara. I'm not opposed to it per se I just don't really know what has driven it to apparently be such a popular ship? can you help me understand and maybe convert me a little bit?

Hey!! Your ICON! :D I can try but I’m not sure how coherent I’ll be; however I AM sure someone a lot more competent will be willing to add to this. Either way, I’m glad you asked because my plan was to drag down as many people as possible with me.

*smacks the hood of zutara* this baby can fit so much mutual love and support!

This got so long, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to put it under a cut on mobile and it already got deleted once so I’m scared to mess with it lol. Moving on.

I’m gonna start this with a disclaimer that im on mobile so formatting is tricky and I’m also really new to atla in that I only completed my first watch through in like 2019??? So some of my info is all just based on what I’ve picked up from Discourse 👀 so anyway the sparknotes version: zutara was wildly popular from the beginning. To the point where the atla crew internally disagreed on which ship should be endgame. (Ex. Bryke [showrunners] asked the writers to rewrite The Southern Raiders to make Zuko seem less ideal for Katara than Aang [which failed, depending on who you ask]; the animation team purposefully created a visual parrallel between Oma and Shu in the Cave of Two Lovers and Zuko and Katara in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se in the Crossroads of Destiny; etc.)

The ship was popular enough that Bryke actually chose to display zk fanart at a con for the sole purpose of mocking the fans, but that’s neither here nor there. The entire episode Ember Island Players, while a love letter to/parody of the whole show, was an opportunity to address zutara’s viability as a canon pairing (while, again, mocking zutaras for romanticizing that catacombs scene). Point is! It’s always been popular but with it not being endgame, there’s got to be something that’s given it staying power.

And that’s honestly got to do with three things: their dynamic, thematic cohesion, and potential.

(You know what... you know what, it’s four things. The fourth is they’re so aesthetically pleasing together and individually. Like, they’re just good looking people [specifically when they’re grown but they’re also cute kids] and that absolutely doesn’t hurt) (but it’s not the Point, it’s just nice to point out sometimes)

The dynamic is hard to get into without also looking at the canon pairings, but I think I can do that without unnecessary bashing. It’s just that part of the magic of zutara is really highlighted by what they give to each other that their other relationships don’t.

First off, it’s classic enemies to (would be) lovers. The absolute truest form of it. It’s not too different from how CS started out: a rogue antagonist with a job to do—but no personal vendetta against the future love interest—who is deeply and emotionally invested in his personal storyline (revenge/redemption) with little regard for how it effects other people after his entire life and genuine good nature are marred by suffering, and a fierce warrior girl with a strong moral compass and her own personal investment in stopping him (protect her family and save the world doing it). Obviously frustration and animosity grew between them by the nature of them being on opposing sides, but that just lends itself to the sweetness of their later reconciliation.

The thing is that while they’re wildly different on the surface (he’s a hot-headed prince of a fascist regime who is trying to capture the Avatar to please his father; she’s a nurturing daughter of the chief who is trying to protect and train the Avatar in order to topple his father’s throne) they find out that they have so much more in common both in their experiences and their personalities.

(What follows is an excessive use of the word “both” and I’m sorry about that)(I can edit it. I can do that. That IS an option............)

They both have an innate sense of justice that they are determined to see done (zuko, at the war meeting, sticking up for the Earth Kingdom kid when the guards torment his family, choosing not to steal from the pregnant couple despite his circumstances, abiding by his word to leave the SWT should Aang come willingly, etc.; katara, literally.... at any point). They both have pretty one-track minds at accomplishing certain goals once they’ve put their mind to it, regardless of a lack of support in that endeavor (it goes without saying I guess, but zuko’s entire hunt; katara’s determination to get the earth benders to fight back, her determination to absolutely destroy Pakku until he agrees to teach her, etc.). They both lost their mothers at young ages. Their worlds are war-torn and traumatizing to them both, if in different ways, but that ultimately forces them to grow up too quickly to be wholly independent individuals. They both have issues with their fathers (for WILDLY different reasons, but). They both hold extreme prejudices that they need to learn to overcome (which ties into thematic cohesion)(bit like Lizzie and Darcy in that way but magnified by a million). They’re both extremely emotional and empathetic—which can and often does result in loud outbursts. Katara’s a bit better adjusted and can temper her anger for longer than S1 Zuko can, but they both feel that anger deeply and have no compunctions expressing it (Katara is, usually, more justified, particularly in S1. Again, S1 Zuko is severely maladjusted but at the point when they could’ve feasibly become a couple, he’s so much better off with the way he carries himself). They both struggle with feelings of inferiority in their bending abilities when confronted with prodigal benders like Aang and Azula, but have the work ethic required to double down and become two of the most powerful benders in the three remaining nations. This is a little more minor but it is a parrallel that appeals to some shippers that they both have these alter egos in the Painted Lady (notably fire nation coded) and the Blue Spirit (water tribe coded) that are pretty different from who they are day-to-day and are useful in accomplishing a purpose that they as themselves cannot.

(I’m.... I just realized that this could potentially get very long. Should I have made a slide show with bullet points??????)

Anyway, similar. I know there’s more but there’s literally so much to love about zutara that I’ll drive myself a little crazy trying to compile all the ways they’re similar. (Just gonna say that at this exact moment I went back to add more similarities.... so okay then)

Once they’ve reconciled, we see how all of these things only lend themselves to a deeper intimacy together than they share with literally anyone else. There’s a steady partnership that positions them as the mom/dad of the gaang, while also providing the support necessary to allow the other to not have to carry so much responsibility. A lot of zutaras will point out how zuko is actually depicted doing the more domestic chores that are normally relegated to Katara once he joins the gaang, since the others in the group are two 12-year-olds and sokka. The one that sticks out the most is how he makes tea for the group and then serves them, while Katara is able to just relax with her friends around the fire. Fanon expands upon this a lot to Zuko helping with the laundry or the cooking or whatever else needs doing since he, as a once-refugee, is used to doing his own domestic tasks. Before Zuko joined, Katara was the one mothering everyone, sewing for them, cooking for them, etc. She’s always tending to the needs of the group, and that includes emotionally. She does the emotional labor for the gaang 99% of the time, but when she’s the one falling apart, she’s usually doing it alone and without the comfort that she normally provides for others. Until Zuko. And that’s before they’re even friends.

Which is WHY people romanticize the catacombs of Ba Sing Se so much. Katara is verbally attacking Zuko out of her own righteous anger but also her own prejudice when Zuko, surprisingly, chooses to be vulnerable with her. He’s been on a journey that’s opened his eyes a bit, but he’s never actively chosen to expose the rawest parts of his past to anyone. But for some reason he chooses to do that with Katara of all people. While she’s yelling at him. He sees her humanity, and for once can look past his prejudice and empathize with her. And this time, when she breaks down, she gets to be comforted. Katara normally talks about her mother when she’s trying to explain to someone else that she sees and understands they’re pain, as a form of comfort to them. Here, Zuko uses the exact same tactic. He sees her and he understands. And for zuko? He’s not being shut down. He’s allowed to articulate his pain regarding his mother without being ignored and made to internalize it, and he’s allowed to process how he feels about his scar out loud without being told that he deserved it. And then he lets her touch his scar, something we’ve seen him actively avoid before. He’s completely open to her and she’s completely open to him and all it took was one five minute conversation. She was about to use the little bit of Spirit water that she had, that she was saving for something Important, to heal the scar that still daily causes him pain just because they had, somehow, connected.

Plus there’s the whole parallel to the star-crossed lovers forbidden from one another, a war divides their people—

And then zuko messes up, he regresses, he gets what he wants and he HATES it. And the sense of justice he had as a child has been restored to him against his will and he can’t think of anything he wants to do more than the Right Thing, so he joins team avatar. Before he does that though, we get to see his relationship with Mai, which is where comparison really comes in. And what we see is Zuko, fresh off of his encounter with Katara in the catacombs, trying to be emotionally honest with Mai... and getting shut down and dismissed. Which is just how Mai is and it’s fine, but not for Zuko. Still, he keeps trying, and he keeps getting ignored or scoffed at or yelled at. Which is really a larger symbol for how he doesn’t fit in his old life anymore, but again that’s about thematic cohesion. He tries to articulate his anxieties about returning home, he tries to make romantic gestures, he tries to explain how morally conflicted he’s feeling—and Mai diverts to some kind of physical affection to shut him up and a parting comment that is pretty much always, in essence, “I don’t wanna talk about this.” So they don’t. On the other hand, once zuko and Katara are friends, we see him again emotionally distraught and caught up in his anxieties about facing Iroh, and it’s Katara who comes to him and listens to him and comforts and encourages him.

Similarly, we have Aang clamming up and getting uncomfortable whenever Katara shows any negative emotion, usually resulting in him making excuses or running away. Or, in the case of the Southern Raiders, lecturing her on how she needs to just let go of her anger about her mother’s murder. People have talked this episode to death and usually better than I ever could, so imma... keep it brief. There’s a serious disconnect between Aang and Katara in his ability to empathize with Katara and her needs that has her tamping down her vulnerability and amping up her anger. He tells her that he was able to forgive his people’s genocide and appa’s kidnapping (petnapping? Theft??), which is blatantly not true but also not an entirely equal parrallel to Katara’s situation, and continues making these little remarks throughout the episode. But it’s Zuko that Katara opens up to. It’s with him that she’s able to talk about the most traumatic day of her life, and it’s with him that she’s able to get the closure she needs, cementing their bond as friends and partners. This disagreement between Aang and Katara is then... never resolved. They just never bring it up and hear what the other is saying.

There’s a fic called The Portraits of Ember Island that has a line that so completely sums up the heart of the matter for why people love their dynamic. For context, zuko has woken up early to help Katara with the cooking and they spend the whole time just letting one another talk, and zuko stops to ask why she always just lets him talk. And so she stops to ask why he’s always helping, and it goes as follows:

There’s just... so much mutual support! Trust! Intimacy!! And it just continues like that from the Southern Raiders on, listening to each other, advising each other, watching each other’s backs! And then! Literally saving each other’s lives!! I will never be over the last Agni kai. Not ever. Zuko may have been willing to jump in front of lightning for anyone, but he actually did it for Katara. And in a show, that’s the thing that really matters. It’s a fulfilled trope usually exclusively applied to romantic pairings, and it ended up applying to Zuko and Katara. And then she ran out into the middle of a fight with tunnel vision just to get to him.

Also!! Also Zuko pushing Katara out of the way of the falling rocks at the Western Air Temple!! And Katara catching him as he fell from the war balloon that he fought Azula on!! Before they’re even getting along, they’re the ones reaching for each other. They come to this place of equal ground, as partners, who watch each other’s backs, call each other out but still listen attentively and understand, and provide the support that the other has been sorely lacking up until they knew each other (whether that be from lack of effort or lack of understanding from others, or an unwillingness to accept it for themselves).

Then, trailing along under the surface of this, we see the themes of the show totally embodied by Zuko and Katara as individuals and in their relationship to one another. There’s a YouTuber, sneezyreviews, who has a, like, 2-hour explanation on why she not only loves zutara but also believes that their endgame would’ve actually elevated the writing of atla to new levels particularly because of thematic cohesion and resolved character arcs. It’s the zutara dissertation I never knew I needed, and it’s funny and eloquent and effective, so I’m just going to sum up her section on thematic cohesion to the best of my abilities and then link it for whenever you have the time. And I HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you want a full understanding of what makes zutara so great and gives it such longevity.

Guru pathik has a line that goes something like this: separation is an illusion; things that seem different are just two parts of the same whole. Iroh also tells Zuko something similar: balance and strength are achieved when the different nations come together and influence one another and celebrate what makes them each unique. And this lesson is a massive central arc that both Zuko and Katara go through, moving past a black-and-white, good guys-vs-bad guys, us-vs-them mentality and into a greyer, more nuanced view of the world. Zuko sees the fire nation from an entirely new perspective and while he still loves and hopes for his nations future, he surrenders his blind loyalty to them in exchange for an unflinching loyalty to peace and love. Katara too had to come to terms with the fact that cruel people exist in the earth kingdom and water tribes, while some fire nation citizens are just regular, kind people who also need and deserve to have someone speak on their behalf. And this is honed in directly on how they view each other. They grow in their individual journeys to be open to the humanity in the other and then, once they’ve found that, they’re able to grow more in compassion for others in a beautiful feedback loop. And this is all matched in the symbolism repeatedly and intentionally associated with them in canon: sun and moon, fire and water, yin and yang, Oma and Shu who found love despite their warring nations. Their individual arcs are completed in each other and complement the themes of atla beautifully.

The canon pairs... just don’t. Which, again, is fine. But the very things that give atla longevity and popularity are anchored in zutara. Kat@ang doesn’t accomplish this. They’re... nice. Sweet. Especially when you erase a good portion of their interactions in S3. It could’ve been just a sweet love story. (Personally, the dynamic between toph and aang accomplish the same thing that zutara does, with complementary personalities that fulfill the theme of opposites blending in harmony) M@iko, on the other hand, is less sweet but I think wasn’t even supposed to last. Zuko’s relationship with Mai seems to represent his relationship with his old life as a whole. He can’t be emotionally vulnerable, he’s goaded into abusing his privileges, his agency and opinions aren’t respected. They just don’t have common ground with which to discuss anything that matters, so they don’t. As far as themes, the relationship doesn’t fit with atla. It’s zuko returning to and sticking with what is (on the surface) like him, what’s expected. Fire nation with fire nation. Fluid water bender with the flexible air bender. Like with like, separated from what is different and challenging and complementary.

And all of these things combined of course lead to the potential for the ship. I don’t know how familiar you are with the post-atla canon but... well, miss “I will never turn my back on people who need me”, miss “I don’t want to heal! I want to fight!” ends up living quietly in the SWT as a designated healer who turns a blind eye to the water tribe civil war happening right outside her front door. Which can be fine! People change! Some people just wanna stay inside. I just wanna stay inside! But the potential future for zutara is so much more satisfying, with Katara becoming the most unconventional Fire Lady the uppity old cads who are stuck on the old ways have ever seen. Fanon has her serving as a voice for the other nations within a kingdom at the point of its biggest political upheaval, as a confidante to Zuko who can actually help him while he’s trying to figure out how to move forward and make reparations. They have the opportunity, together, to accomplish what they both have set on their hearts to fight for: positive change that lends itself to harmony and balance. And the steambabies! A popular headcanon is that their firstborn daughter, the crown princess, is actually a waterbender, which causes such an uproar among the people who are adamantly clinging to the old ways. It’s just a future full of potential to be forces for good together, full of trust, intimacy, joy. The exact era of peace and love and balance that zuko announces that he intends to ring in with the start of his reign as Fire Lord is, again, magnified by the very personal zutara relationship. And we love to see it.

tl;dr zutara isn’t for everyone. Some people just don’t vibe with it. Some are nostalgic. Some love the canon they grew up with. Some have been disappointed for years. Some just see themselves in other characters and want their happiness instead. Whatever the reason, that’s fine. But for me, I love the way these two, from the moment they give each other a fair chance, are able to lower their walls and prejudices to see the other for the kindred spirits they are. They see each other’s humanity, and their response is to pour out love and support and compassion. I love that they’re a power couple in battle. I love the symbolism and, honestly, soulmatism that colors their every interaction. I love that they embody the whole storyline of atla in their relationship and how it develops, which is notably why their seasonal arcs always culminate in each finale with how they relate to one another. I love that zuko adopting a waterbending move is what actually saves his life and then katara’s. I love the chemistry! And I love the future they could’ve had, instead of the ones they were given.

So, in conclusion: I just think they’re neat and I hope you do too, at least a little bit. Even if it’s just respectfully from a disinterested distance cause you do you. And now here is the video I mentioned. I’m sorry this post got so long and then I gave you an even longer homework assignment, but I can’t recommend it enough. She says it all better than I can.

youtube

#zutara #atla #zutara rant #like really the way the canon relationships were written throughout s3 #it would’ve been more believable for zutara to happen #or at least be hinted at #all of the major issues presented in those relationship were dug up extensively and then... never resolved #and then they just slapped some kisses on a screen and said ‘there all better’#and we just kinda had to say ‘oh ok guess it’s all better then’#this got long I’m sorry #I wrote it all out and then tumblr ate 2/3 of it #which is why it took so long #and what I’ve written now doesn’t even match what I had before #because there’s too much to say about why I love zutara #and the stuff I left out the first time is what came out this time #rip to my original thoughts but this post is different #anyway that’s why this took so long #and I should’ve just made a PowerPoint...#I can do that too if you’d rather not read all of this lol #I won’t be offended #this is incoherent #Alia rambles uselessly #also hoping this doesn’t end up in any wrong tags because I don’t wanna step on toes lol #it’s not anti!! it’s just critical #in a compare/contrast way #I can pinpoint the moment when I started trying to rewrite my points from memory #because everything gets shorter and more succinct #like... I really said all that??? sounds fake and I don’t remember it anyway so here’s the condensed version #with no!! smooth!!! transitions!!!!#also why am I so lazy with proper grammar over text

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ectonurites · 3 years

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hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

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betawooper · 3 years

Text

rating every demon fight in kny bc i can

non-biased, completely objective rating (more or less) of every significant demon fight in kny based on a number of factors, including:

cleverness of fighting tactics

placement in the story’s timeline

integration of character backstories

cohesive themes between characters

etc

by non-biased and objective i mean i’m not skewing the rating if a death felt fair or whatever

everything past where the anime ended will be under a read more so anime onlys who havent watched mugen train, youre safe lol

oh and i reread the manga like 20+ times (reread the latter arcs at least 40 times, haha hyperfixations am i right?) so be rest assured im not pulling these ratings out of my ass

also ill randomly be bolding certain phrases just to improve readability

anyways let’s gooooo

VS NEZUKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Nezuko. Tanjirou is fending her off by putting the axe handle in her mouth, keeping her from eating him. End Image Description.]

10/10

i like how realistic it is, because yeah tanjirou would react the way to he did with zero fighting skills against a demon

very clear why tanjirou is fighting nezuko and shows a bit of worldbuilding on how normal people react to their family becoming demons

always nice to see worldbuilding

giyuu is the perfect example of a seasoned demon slayer who’s good at his job, and he juxtaposes tanjirou very well in that aspect

my only complaint is not directly in this fight itself but how nezuko is handled throughout the story as a whole

like bro, it is literally never explained why nezuko is different from demons

could have been easily explained if maybe her family’s ghosts like slapped her hand every time she wanted to eat a person but nope

she’s just built different lol

so yeah youll see future ratings get points docked off bc nezuko unlocks some secret power with no prior explanation other than she angy >:3

VS TEMPLE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a demon. The demon has a sharp-nailed hand over his neck and there are four text bubbles around him saying “But a wound like this... will heal in no time! See? The bleeding already stopped!” End Image Description.]

10/10

may be more forgettable compared to like rui but still good

tanjirou did exceptionally well in this fight and his ability to think on his feet is once again beautifully illustrated here (trapping this dude’s head against the tree trunk with the axe)

very clever

again, establishes more demon worldbuilding regarding regeneration and still being able to move without their head

and the demons burning in the sunlight thing since nezuko wasn’t able to show that

the ending where tanjirou hesitates to kill the demon also serves to show his sympathetic nature towards demons that will last throughout the entirety of the first 60-ish chapters

we’ll talk about what the hell happens to tanjirou after that

or not, it could honestly be its own post

VS HAND DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a many-handed demon. He has six hands around him, three of them covering his mouth while he chuckles, two of them grabbing his cheeks, and one holding on to the top of his head. There are two text bubbles saying “That’s how many of Urokodaki’s students I have eaten! I’ve decided to kill all of his students!” End Image Description.]

10/10

ooooh probably the first big fight against a demon in the series

oh yeah not doing the two random demons tanjirou one shot in a single blow bc eh

anyways hand demon’s pretty goddamn scary, considering the fact that this is the 5th demon or whatever tanjirou has had to face so far

very nice way to show us how much tanjirou’s innate intuition and all his other random abilities (sense of smell, hard forehead) can come together and help him decapitate this guy

i liked the mini history with urokodaki this dude had and why he had beef with our favorite mentor figure, it establishes that urokodaki was in fact a super good demon slayer and its cool to see that actually shown

i also liked that small moment of compassion tanjirou gave this demon, staying consistent with tanjirou’s established kindness

the demon’s sad tale with killing his own brother very much humanizes him when all the reader has seen up to this point is that this guy is a monster who eats people

sets up the theme of demons just being humans but being victims of circumstance that unfortunately doesn’t hold up as well in arcs past mugen train

VS SWAMP DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou fighting off three horned demons as they appear from below. There is a spiky text bubble saying “Three of them!!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not my most favorite fight but it still portrays everything alright and im not allowed to let my personal opinions mess with the rating so

i like how tanjirou mentioned the fact that he trained in conditions similar to the bog and explains how he pulled off the whirlpool form

using past experiences to aid him in the present, nice nice

tanjirou and nezuko dont quite work together very well but its yknow the first mission so ill chalk it up to simple inexperience

also the way the muzan curse thingie was hinted at here? fantastic way of showing that little bit of demon worldbuilding

...

oh god, it mentions nezuko being stronger than normal demons

ok its not a problem here per say since i can still suspend my disbelief, but later on it just becomes a glaring problem that gets worse over time

VS SUSAMARU AND YAHABA

[Image Description: Manga panels of Susamaru and Yahaba. The first one is a joyful Susamaru about to throw a temari ball. There is floating text saying “Is she one of Kibutsuji’s minions?!” The second image is an annoyed Yahaba, holding one of his eye-hands to cover himself. There are two text bubbles around him saying “My kimono got all dusty. Tch!” End Image Description.]

9/10

why dont these bitches have a good looking panel together dammit

anyways amazing entrance, the way yahaba used his hand eyes to track down tanjirou is really neat

the synergy yahaba and susamaru have is incredible, its awesome dude, they work extremely well together and it shows

tanjirou actually mixing his water breathing forms together is a god tier move and i absolutely love how he can show off his ability to think on his feet once again

establishing how yushiro’s bda works early on is really well done

establishing tamayo as a fugitive this early on is also super well done

not to get into spoiler territory but both these things pay off

how tamayo ended up defeating susamaru is literally awesome in so many ways

shows off both how smart she is by exploiting the muzan curse

and speaking of the muzan curse, we actually get to see what happens to demons who even say his name, back when it was hinted with the swamp demon

tamayo is amazing dude, and we get some real evidence of the horrible suffering demons go through if they even accidentally attempt to betray muzan :D

...

now heres what keeps this fight from being perfect

nezuko somehow grew stronger against susamaru’s temari

with no explanation

which could have been easily explained if tamayo was like “oh yeah the drug also boosts a demon’s strength temporarily”

but nope

god, i just dont like how gotouge handles nezuko’s power boosts throughout the series bc like i said before

no explanation is given anywhere

this is a huge issue, this isnt a pokemon game, you cant just kill demons and get exp at the end of every battle, level up, get some sweet stat bonuses and move on

(actually if gotouge established that this is how nezuko grew in power, than all my complaints about this would be gone, im not even joking)

anyways i get that nezuko is supposed to be “special” but thats too vague of a descriptor

how the hell is she special? ya gotta be more specific and stick with that explanation or that suspension of disbelief is going to disappear

VS TONGUE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a four-eyed demon with horns and a long tongue. He is crawling in an awkward position, one foot in front of his tilted head. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Heh, heh! I’ll slurpy slurp your brains out through you ear!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not much to say, showcases zenitsu’s true abilities really well

nicely done

VS HORNED DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a big, single-horned demon. There are three text bubbles saying “You dodged! You’re awfully lively for a human! It’ll be a treat to carve away your flesh!” End Image Description.]

10/10

would have ignored this fight if not for the fact we havent seen inosuke fight before

it definitely shows how very fast-paced and wild inosuke is

no complaints here lol

VS KYOGAI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kyogai, a demon with tsuzumi drums attached to his shoulders. There are four text bubbles around him saying “Why?! Why does everyone keep sneaking through my house? It’s so aggravating. It’s my prey! It’s my prey! Found in my territory!” End Image Description.]

10/10

establishes marechi blood pretty early on, once again expanding the worldbuilding of kny which is always cool

interesting terrain where it’s always shifting, tanjirou once again proves his ability to adapt really quickly by altering one of his forms to work with the turning room

(man, i wish the form mixing/form modification thing carried on throughout the rest of the story, but it really didnt which is just a shame)

the injuries tanjirou had prior to this mission actually affecting him was a nice touch

oh yeah, kyogai gives us more worldbuilding (which is always nice) regarding the 12 kizuki, and the aspect of him being cast out due to being weak shows a lot about muzan’s indifference towards his own demons if they arent strong

his backstory being a failed writer once again humanizes kyogai as a former human being and not just a monster

tanjirou shows his sympathy and compassion again by not stepping on his written work and complimenting his bda

well, tbh tanjirou’s actions kinda came out of nowhere but its a very minor thing and not enough to dock a point off, like it didnt affect the outcome of the fight that much if at all

(so if you see future battles where points are docked off for things not logically making sense, its bc whatever nonsensical concepts were integrated into the fight actually turned the tide of the battle and thats a big no-no)

very good fight and if you remember how kinda bad tanjirou was at accurately slicing the swamp demon, you can see that he’s already improved leaps and bounds

im so proud of him

VS MOTHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and the Mother Spider Demon. There is a light shining down from the top right on to the demon as Tanjirou slices her head off, rain following in his wake. There is floating text saying “Water Breathing: Fifth Form - Blessed Rain After the Drought!” around them. End Image Description.]

10/10

i mean does anyone disagree?

all the demon slayers getting their necks snapped by her threads was pretty horrific, probably more horrifying than anything else we have seen in the entire series if im gonna be honest

the death scene is probably the most beautiful one in the series

it reveals a water breathing form that we havent seen before thats the 5th form

as far as i know, no other breathing style has this merciful sword stroke so it shows a lot about the original water breather and what they might have been like

but enough about them, really the focus is on tanjirou bc this is like the best example by far of how kind and sympathetic he is to demons

dunno what else to say, its perfect

VS SON SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Agatsuma Zenitsu performing Thunder Breathing 1st Form: Sixfold on a spider-like demon. Zenitsu is crashing through the roof of a shed, and a zig-zag path is left behind. There are sound effects all over the panel, saying “Bam!” in large font. End Image Description.]

10/10

chose a picture without a huge spider on it bc i would like to not scare myself half to death

anyways extremely amazing fight, showcases zenitsu’s immense talent and skill, adapting the 1st form of thunder breathing to be a more versatile move

theres a moment where his backstory with kuwajima and kaigaku were revealed and his hidden insecurities are out in the open which is super nice and further develops a character weve only considered as comedic relief until now

the anime made the backstory scenes and the killing scene so much cooler

while there is no thematic connection between zenitsu and the demon, it really isnt necessary to keep this fight interesting

anyways another pretty much perfect fight

VS FATHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Inosuke slashing at the Father Spider Demon. The demon has blocked Tanjirou’s sword with his arm, and Inosuke is slamming both his blades down on the demon’s other hand. End Image Description.]

10/10

again, not my most favorite fight but it does everything right

i do have to say it was excellent how gotouge hyped up the father spider demon to be the big bad, only just so the plot twist later takes the readers by surprise

nicely done

VS DAUGHTER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kochou Shinobu and the Daughter Spider Demon. Shinobu’s back is seen and her haori looks like a butterfly’s wings keeping her afloat as she holds her stinger blade out to the side. The demon looks surprised as blood gushes from her side, arm, shoulder, chest, neck, and forehead. There is floating text on the panel, saying “Insect Breathing - Butterfly Dance - Caprice!” End Image Description.]

10/10

first time weve seen shinobu and her fighting style

what i love most about this is how much it shows her true character, appearing as a carefree and naive individual so she seems underwhelming

then bam, reveals exactly how dangerous and uncaring she is of demons, listing out the specific ways she would torture the daughter spider demon in grotesque detail

her using poison to take demons by surprise is also super clever and brings back the worldbuilding established way earlier about wisteria being poisonous to demons

amazing integration of that concept

anyways this fight really encapsulates who shinobu is as a character and thats why it gets a perfect score

VS RUI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Rui holding his hand out directly towards the viewer. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Give me your sister. If you hand her over quietly, I’ll spare your life.” End Image Description.]

8/10

not only is it a super scary fight but there is a deeper conflict between rui and tanjirou, what it means to be family

they are opposites in the sense that while tanjirou believes love is what makes a family, rui’s subconscious desperation for an unbreakable bond drives him to use fear to keep his “family” together

excellent juxtaposition of their values, and this is only further emphasized when rui expresses out loud what he was going to do to nezuko

i also like the symbolism regarding rui’s bda, how he uses threads or the “familial” bonds to cut up his fake family with it if they act out of turn or annoy him

super neat detail

alright what i dont like about this fight is nezuko (again)

mostly her unlocking her bda to turn the tide of the battle bc her mom was like “yo, wake up, your brother is going to be killed”

feels... forced ig

her bda in general is confusing and not consistent

man, i wish i could make a stronger argument for this but i do believe the problem stems from the fact that we dont ever know what nezuko is thinking, and what she thinks of tanjirou specifically

if she even cares for him as a sibling or if shes only going along with what her family is saying to her, things like that which would have been fixed if gotouge actually gave her thoughts some screen time

so the action feels pretty shallow

im also conflicted over tanjirou somehow remembering how dance of the fire god works

on one hand, hes using past information and applying it in the current setting so he doesnt die, which is understandable

but on the other hand, this was a teeny bit random?

i think what could have fixed this is if there was a scene in the beginning of the series where tanjirou was performing it himself, like practicing before he actually had to do it for new years

so that when the rui fight rolls around, it would have felt less like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

but yeah

overall super good fight, giyuu ending up having to kill rui instead of tanjirou was super good in that tanjirou didnt become a pillar this early in the series and to show how strong giyuu is

there are some odd bits regarding the ultimate “beheading” of rui using nezuko and tanjirous supposed bonds but it doesnt kill the fight entirely so it deserves its pretty high score

***under read more is manga-only fights so beware***

VS ENMU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Enmu holding his hand out directly at the viewer, with a mouth on the back of it. There is floating text to the top right of Enmu that says “Whispers of Forced Unconscious Hypnosis!” End Image Description.]

9/10

id say this fight is definitely overshadowed by the dream stuff prior to this but its pretty good in its own right

enmu fusing with the train was kinda confusing, like when was it established that demons could fuse with objects?

this worldbuilding element doesnt even appear again so yeah thats why it loses a point

how the kmbk gang end up defeating enmu is pretty sweet though, tanjirou using dance of the fire god to sever the neck bone was really nice and shows that him using the breathing style in the rui fight wasnt a one time thing

while kyojuro’s role was smaller in this part, the next part makes up for it so i cant complain

anyways ye, almost perfect score but its pretty good

VS AKAZA (MUGEN TRAIN)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza holding his hand out to the viewer’s left. There is a text bubble saying “Why don’t you become a demon?” End Image Description.]

10/10

this encounter is literally amazing okay?

after the crew kills the big bad, it seems like everything is fine

but plot twist, upper moon 3 appears out of nowhere

this is the first time the reader has seen an upper moon, let alone the 3rd/4th strongest demon in existence and the way gotouge handled this twist is fucking amazing

kyojuro’s death scene really shows just how human even the strongest pillars are against demons with incredible power

its just

amazing

VS OBI DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panels of the obi-like demon. The first image shows the obi hung in the air and strung over each other like decorations, with women-shaped patterns in its folds. The second image is Hashibira Inosuke fighting the Obi demon which now has lips and eyes. There is floating text in that panel saying “Breath of the Beast: Sixth Fang - Jagged Gnaw!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

on to red light district

this fight is admittedly super forgettable and not very interesting at least compared to the main fight with daki and gyutaro

but it wraps up the sub plot of the women and uzui’s wives going missing so it gets a perfect score for not messing that up

oh and it establishes the stretchy neck thing daki has going on which is very good

VS DAKI AND GYUTARO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Daki and Gyutaro. Daki is sitting on Gyutaro’s shoulders. There is a text bubble on the top right that says “The two of us are one, after all.” as well as floating text that reads “The power of the irregular siblings...!? Next issue lead color and the fight reaches its climax!!” End Image Description.]

8/10

love how this battle challenges tanjirou’s sympathy and kindness towards demons, just simply bc daki and gyutaro are horrible people

(too bad nothing came of this, which ill explain in the hantengu portion)

daki and gyutaro are very good villains and kept this fight super interesting from start to finish

uzui acting as a foil to gyutaro is nicely integrated and properly shown with how jealous gyutaro gets over seeing uzui’s perfect form and stature

tanjirou not only mixes forms but mixes breathing styles as well, which is so fucking awesome

(too bad it was only used like once throughout the entire series, its quite unfortunate)

the super high tension right after inosuke gets stabbed and tanjirou wakes up was expertly portrayed and handled, it felt like the kmbk gang and uzui were actually going to lose

super awesome

the tanjirou and gyutaro parallels are expertly portrayed, with how gyutaro taunts tanjirou over failing to protect his little sister, and the more visual thing where tanjirou imagined his own neck underneath his blade, that was super duper nice

the ending is extremely tense and emotionally gripping, gotouge did a really good job with that artistically too

the demon mark acquisition scene was surprisingly not frustrating, considering that it wasnt really explained prior to the battle

i do think it has to do with how it was explained later just exactly how they worked so its not just some random thing gotouge pulled out of their ass

so pretty good

what i dont like is nezuko and her full power demon form

first of all where the fuck did that come from? she just got angry and suddenly shes as powerful as an upper moon

how?

that doesnt make sense???

her extremely quick regeneration makes no sense

her ability to manipulate her blood’s properties makes no sense

and it doesnt even appear again so what was the point of that existing

none of this is even explained later which annoys me

that one part where tanjirou sings a lullaby to her to calm her down was alright ig but nezuko in this fight makes me extremely irritated and frustrated

just ugh

VS HANTENGU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Hantengu opening a shoji door. He is crawling inside, his hand in a gnarled, unnatural position. There is a text bubble saying “Eeeeeeek.” End Image Description.]

1/10

swordsmith village

this fight can go fuck itself /j

no but seriously it has so many problems that it would be shorter to name its redeeming qualities (which ill do later)

first off, the nezuko full power form thing again

i hate it so much with a passion

again, where did her ability to regenerate instantly even come from???? this is never explained, ever

and why did she cut herself on tanjirou’s sword anyway

did she somehow know that it was going to turn red if she burned it?

gotouge what the fuck, there is literally no reason why nezuko would do that and we cant even read her mind to see her thought process

gotouge hates nezuko, i swear

remember when i said uzui is meant to be a foil to gyutaro in the rld fight? its pretty obvious that those two are opposites, it was nicely done

... what the hell does mitsuri’s insecurities about strength have to do with whatever the fuck hantengu has going on (which is basically nothing)?

so no meaningful connection between mitsuri and hantengu

theres no meaningful connection between tanjirou and hantengu other than tanjirou getting pissed off for like the second time

also tanjirou’s thing with being kind and sympathetic to demons was entirely dropped at this point

but instead of it leading up to a corruption arc of some sorts, it just doesnt

like honestly if something actually came of that anger he exhibited in this arc and from red light district from this point forward story-wise, i would have counted this as an amazing writing decision

but it literally doesnt so who cares

(god, i really start to hate what happened to his character after this )

and genya’s revealed motivation also doesnt fit at all with hantengu’s thing, he’s not a foil, not a parallel, nothing, there is nothing

tanjirou being the catharsis for development for mitsuri and muichirou, who he has only talked to like twice

theres definitely a better way to handle those two’s developments without his help

like gotouge, you have a big cast of characters, use them lol

i want to kick hantengu in the face for being boring as fuck (at least his clones have cool looking weapons)

doesnt even have a proper backstory, just a single spread of him being blamed for shit as a human

like... thats it? this is upper moon 4 what the hell

theres no clever form mixing here at all (regarding tanjirou) which probably would have helped with foreshadowing the 13th form for dance of the fire god/sun breathing better

also gotouge established that as tanjirou’s thing and now he doesnt do that stuff anymore which sucks

oh hey remember when tanjirou actually learned how to do zenitsu’s speed boost thing?

if you didnt, i dont blame you bc it literally doesnt appear again, ever

you could argue that he adapted it into his “waltz flash” technique or whatever the fuck that is but the way it was integrated into this fight was like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

which is just a shame bc its meant to be representative of how tanjirou and zenitsu are good pals but the way it was utilized is forgettable as hell

i absolutely loathe the crimson blade concept as a whole and im mentioning this now bc its going to come into play why future instances where this goddamn thing comes up again causes points to be lost

its inconsistent as fuck ill tell you that

at least some yoriichi stuff appeared here and not shoved into the final battle with everything else

so the yoriichi stuff later didnt come out of absolute nowhere

genya and mitsuri’s unique fighting styles expand the kny worldbuilding just a little more which is always nice

tanjirou got a cool sword out of this which would have been cooler if him and yoriichi had a deeper connection that was actually explored

but we didnt get shit so whatever

other people getting demon marks being revealed here is also okay so that again, the final battle isnt filled with absolutely everyone getting their marks at once

demon marks have their own slew of problems but its not as bad as the fucking crimson sword shit

god i hate the crimson sword shit

...

dude this section needs a tldr, even i cant sit and read through my shit

TL;DR - this fight sucks and crimson swords are bullshit (more on this later)

VS GYOKKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Tokitou Muichirou and Gyokko. Muichirou is looking to the left while Gyokko is looking to the right, both with their backs to each other. There are mist clouds billowing in the foreground and background, as well as a slash mark going across Gyokko’s neck. End Image Description.]

7/10

this fight suffers from the same lack of cohesive themes through characters like the hantengu battle bc the antagonist is given nothing

but its better

we havent actually seen mui fight before so theres no consistencies that the reader has to keep track of for now

and there arent like 10 characters in the fight so this fight gets a lot of points just for being a lot more coherent

i do like that this fight shows just how good mui is that he can defeat an upper moon by himself

mui’s backstory is neat

gyokko’s bda is very interesting too

... thats pretty much it lol

ye, anyways not the best fight but not the worst fight either

VS KAIGAKU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kaigaku holding the hilt of his blade with one hand. There is two text bubbles around him, saying “...As usual, you’re still shabby. It’s been a while, Zenitsu.” End Image Description.]

9/10

alright on to final battle arc

theres some good fights and then some really sucky ones, but this one was pretty incredible and very emotionally charged

theres a clear reason why zenitsu and kaigaku are battling each other (kai betrayed the corps and inadvertantly caused the only parental figure in zenitsu’s life to die, and zenitsu is rightfully pissed off about that)

the visual yin-yang symbolism is awesome too

zenitsu winning due to using the 7th form he created himself (which i have reason to believe was inspired by tanjirou) was the perfect ending to the fight, really couldnt ask for anything better and is a perfect example of how much of an effect tanjirou has had on zenitsu

the 7th form is what tanjirou’s waltz flash should have been lol

what keeps this fight from being absolutely perfect is lack of development prior to this conflict

(since the final battle arc is basically a culmination of all the hinted developments through the series, im going to actually factor in how much and how well these conflicts were foreshadowed)

anyways if we had actually seen zenitsu, kaigaku, and kuwajima actually interacting with each other and showing how they were essentially a family (not just through flashbacks), it would have made zenitsu placing the responsibility of killing kai onto himself a lot more tragic

but like, apart from brief flashbacks where zenitsu actually met kaigaku off screen and that one thing all the way back in natagumo where both kuwajima and kai were introduced, thats pretty much it in terms of thunder family development

so yeah its underdeveloped for sure

also one random thought, i personally think zenitsu should have gotten his demon mark in this fight, it would have been cool to see

VS AKAZA (INFINITY FORTRESS)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza’s face. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Okay, let’s get started. It’s time for the feast.” There is also floating text saying “The inspection of the strong has begun...” as well as a simple box on the lower left, denoting its the end of chapter 147. End Image Description.]

6/10

oh god please dont hate me for this

ill list the good things first how about that

this conflict was foreshadowed perfectly in mugen train, you bet the readers were expecting a tanjirou vs akaza battle after the death of kyojuro and gotouge delivered

akaza’s power is shown extremely well with how many close calls tanjirou and giyuu had while fighting him

akaza eventually giving up on his own volition was really nice and fit into the context of the battle very very well, like sure tanjirou and giyuu wouldnt understand why he gave up but us readers do know

akaza is a really good character and a good villain

now notice how im only mentioning akaza and not giyuu or tanjirou in the good aspects

bc those two are eh

no form mixing at all from either tanjirou and giyuu

i know i said form mixing was kind of tanjirou’s thing but you’d think giyuu would have gotten more creative with his moves once akaza said that he was getting predictable

(well he said he “ran out of water breathing forms” but same thing)

so its kinda bland lol

speaking of giyuu, his whole thing with his insecurities of being weak wasnt handled well (it was sort of immediately brushed off in pillar training, and its unclear what part of his character arc he was in)

like sure him announcing that he’s going to protect tanjirou is cool but it feels like he was haphazardly dropped into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

isnt he supposed to be both their foils? that wasnt really explored that well in this fight and theres no deep meaning behind him even being here just analyzing what he did in it

he could have been handled better or even given more focus is what im saying

the anatta state came out of nowhere, im sorry okay? just bc inosuke like barely hinted at not being able to sense grandma hisa bc she had no fighting spirit and tanjurou magically taught his son how to achieve this state doesnt mean it was properly integrated into the fight

if the anatta state was actually explored prior to this battle, i would have given it a pass but it just feels like a cheap and poorly developed trick to get around akaza’s technique development (which is overpowered as fuck might i add)

gotouge should have just given akaza a plausible weakness to his technique development instead, especially since they dont use or even mention the anatta state after this

the transparent world shit makes no sense but ill elaborate on that in the koku battle analysis

oh and this thing doesnt affect the score but why wasnt there a “yoriichi visage overlapping” moment when tanjirou was fighting akaza? hes an upper moon, he should have gotten those visions but he didnt

for some reason

anyways this battle was alright and has good set up but the middle and end parts didnt hold up as well bc random concepts were thrown at us without prior explanation or development

VS DOUMA

[Image Description: Manga panel of Douma licking Shinobu’s butterfly pin. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Anyway, tonight is a good night. Such fine feasts keep showing up one after another.” End Image Description.]

9/10

damn, such an amazing fight

the build up to this was properly foreshadowed

shinobu finally showing her true anger after hiding it for so long is amazing

douma is a super interesting character and fantastic villain

shinobu showing off her true power and determination against douma was sooooo nice

shinobu’s poisonous body plan is so clever and so interesting

if i was to rate the shinobu part of the fight alone, it would have gotten a 10/10 no question

the reason why its knocked down a point is because of the kanao and inosuke part

dont get me wrong, the way kanao is able to hold her own against douma by herself is pretty cool, how shes meant to parallel douma with their similar struggles surrounding human emotions and demonstrate how she has grown as a person, how she regains the ability to cry

that shit is cool, inosuke also getting in touch with his emotions after learning what happened to his mom was super neat as well

however

bc this battle takes place in the final arc with everything else, there wasnt proper build up regarding many things, the kotoha reveal especially

so inosuke feels kinda forced into the kanao shinobu and douma conflict, similar to how giyuu felt forced into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

its quite unfortunate bc if the kotoha stuff was actually explored prior to the confrontation, this “forced” feeling would have disappeared

i know some people have suggested that the douma fight should have just been its own arc, and i very much agree, it would have certainly helped fix this problem regarding inosuke and kotoha

last random thought, i wish shinobu, kanao, and inosuke got their demon marks

VS KOKUSHIBOU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kokushibou looking directly at the viewer, holding the hilt of his blade as if he’s going to pull it out. There are text boxes around him saying “This... is Upper Moon One... He’s so different compared to the other Upper Moons. He looks so dignified and majestic.” The text boxes are narrated by Tokitou Muichirou. End Image Description.]

5/10

this fight is... mediocre

at least theres a more tangible connection between muichirou and kokushibou

even though that was handled kinda poorly

tbh there really was no point to revealing that mui is koku’s descendant like at all, it just had no significant bearing to the plot of the fight

sanemi’s backstory being here is... okay ig?

idk the whole shinazugawa conflict has fundamental problems that i just cant think of any other place to put it without changing the entirety of canon

the marechi blood concept coming back was nice though

genya is there

him getting his bda was cool and helped turn the tide of the battle in a satisfying way (before kicking the bucket but thats not the focus here)

gyomei is a hollow husk of a character who barely got anything at all

but his fighting style is extremely cool and conveys his immense power very well

oh and him and sanemi are amazing at working together, like better than giyuu and tanjirou, and better than kanao and inosuke

theyre that good yet pretty much nobody acknowledges it which is sad

koku himself is pretty interesting and pretty tragic, very nice villain

but everyone together?

gonna be honest but this is such a random collection of characters, there was basically no foreshadowing that these four were going to go up again kokushibou, they are not that connected very well

i know there was this one post that focused on the theme of family that was common in all 5 characters in the fight but its just not enough

it would have been more cohesive if gotouge emphasized gyomei, mui, sanemi, and genya being like different aspects of yoriichi coming together to kill kokushibou hundreds of years after yoriichi failed to kill him

lmao its not like the 4 of them defeated koku with the power of family or friendship, they just smacked him over and over with a flail, shot him with magical bullets, and stabbed a crimson sword into his abdomen

wouldnt have been too hard to switch over to koku’s pov and go “damn these bitches are like my stupid brother”

...

speaking of crimson swords

i fucking hate the crimson sword concept oh my god can i complain about it now? im gonna complain about it now

unlike demon marks, the crimson blades werent even given any proper conditions, you just hold the stupid thing hard enough and it somehow imbues it with magical properties with no logic behind those properties

what part of crimson swords completely destroys a demon’s body in an instant? even muzan didnt go through that process when he was almost killed by yoriichi so where in the goddamn fuck did it come from

it could be explained bc the sword was left in the same spot for a long time but this tactic doesnt even appear again in a meaningful way (didnt kill muzan when tanjirou and giyuu held the sword together) so what the fuck was the point of having this even exist

its so underdeveloped and confusing and i hate it

the transparent world stuff is also confusing as shit and its pretty much never explained how they work aside from the vague “close your mind” advice, like why did it exist, it did nothing to help the present day demon slayers

its just so... poorly integrated

yeah anyways this is around the same rating as the akaza fight but a little worse bc there wasnt that strong set up beforehand

VS KOKUSHIBOU (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panel of a bag getting ripped open, pieces of a wooden flute tumbling out. End Image Description.]

10/10

easily 10/10

this fight shows the tragedy of kokushibou giving in to his envy and hatred, when yoriichi cries over seeing his own family commit terrible attrocities against the people he wanted to protect

and yoriichi dies, now carrying the fact that he couldnt even save his own brother from the influence of muzan on his conscious forever

what a sad ending for yoriichi

and after koku angrily slashes apart yoriichi’s corpse, having him find and keep the flute he gave to him when they were kids to the present day gives him a small shred of humanity in the midst of his monstrous anger

VS NAKIME

[Image Description: Manga panels of Nakime. The first one shows a low quality version of her playing her biwa. The second one is a close up of her eye. There are spiky text bubbles saying “It’s Upper Rank... 4!” End Image Description.]

0/10

no nakime backstory

not even a goddamn fight

forgettable

useless

VS MUZAN

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kibutsuji Muzan in his white-haired, mouth-covered form. There are text bubbles around him saying “Not a single one was of use to me. I will crush the demon hunters tonight. I’ll massacre them all right now.” End Image Description.]

1/10

._.

i have many complaints but ill try my best to not make this another hantengu rant section lol

first off, obanai deserved better

im serious, this poor dude was forgotten until pretty much the end when we finally get a backstory out of him

and then he died

what a waste of a potentially amazing character

mitsuri getting taken out early was ehhh

pretty sure someone else made a post about her supposedly being extremely strong but she was nerfed in this battle which i agree with

literally none of the pillars work together very well, like remember how i praised sanemi and gyomei for being super coordinated? lmao that doesnt exist anymore

you could say this is caused by desperation though and you wouldnt be wrong, its just boring to sit through

that causes issues bc this now basically requires the crimson sword and transparent world concepts to be there to spice things up

but in this fight, they do nothing in the long run (except for tanjirou using the crimson sword at the very very end)

youve already heard me talk about why those two things are super shittily integrated and i cant be bothered repeating myself so moving on

kanao, inosuke, and zenitsu

they... exist? they didnt do much tbh, which i guess is the point but like, now its boring again

nezuko could have been used as a potential way to raise the stakes and make things interesting again (like “ah shit, muzan might actually be unkillable if he gets nezuko but its okay bc shes not here- oh fuck shes here this is not good”)

but nothing came of her running off except confirmation that she became human again so whatever

uzui and shinjuro are useless, why werent they at the fight?

like they could have followed nezuko and contributed to the battle even a little but they just didnt and now theres literally no point to them appearing in this arc at all

wasted potential

tanjirou

i wish him going absolutely apeshit had actual substance behind it, like it being a part of his character arc or something

i remember having this one theory that he had a corruption arc (due to dropping his kindness thing towards demons) and i wanted this to be true so badly

but it doesnt exist

not with how the series ended

god

the only thing that saves this fight from being complete trash is tamayo’s poison thing being amazingly executed

and the part where everyone got blasted away, losing limbs and shit, that made things a little more interesting again

but thats it

VS MUZAN (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kibutsuji Muzan, Tamayo, and Tsugikuni Yoriichi. The first one has Muzan and Tamayo, while the second one has Yoriichi pulling out his sword. There are text boxes saying “And the moment I met him, I understood that I was born into this world to defeat this man.” End Image Description.]

9/10

finally something good again

while short, that’s just the nature of all of yoriichi’s battles with demons

anyways pretty nice, theres a clear reason why this battle exists (shows the scenario that made the original breather get super close to defeating muzan in detail)

adding tamayo here was a nice touch

my only complaint is that it seemed extremely coincidental that yoriichi somehow developed a breathing style specifically countering muzan’s multiple organs without even knowing prior that he had all those brains and hearts floating around freely in his body

like thats kind of ridiculous, even for yoriichi whos supposed to be “blessed by the gods”

could just be me though

VS TANJIROU

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kamado Tanjirou in his demon form. The first image has his eyes closed. The second image has his eyes opened and the tumor on his face almost completely faded. There are text boxes around him saying “You will destroy the demon hunters in my stead.” End Image Description.]

1/10

hoo boy

ok first off, demon tanjirou lasted for 2 chapters

thats it

2 chapters

so thats already a problem

i am aware its meant to parallel the beginning of the series but also its ridiculous how completely vague and rushed this entire thing was

nezuko doesnt do shit through not just this battle but this entire arc which i already explained so not gonna go into it further

kanao magically having a demon cure on her made very little sense

the scene where tanjirou leaves muzan in purgatory is pretty but if you look at it in the context of everything else, its ambiguous and confusing

(if someone could explain it and see how it connects to the original theme of “demons just being victims of circumstance,” i would love to hear it)

actually you know what makes me so mad about this “fight” as a whole? there was so much potential to do more with this concept

and im not talking about him escaping and nezuko becoming a demon slayer roleswap au (even though its a pretty cool concept)

him becoming a demon could have been a metaphor for his lost kindness and sympathy towards demons halfway through the series

it could have been a punishment for letting his anger towards muzan cloud his judgement

it could have symbolized literally anything about him losing his humanity as he got stronger

but those three things are just scenarios from my head, they dont exist in this series just based off of what weve seen from these two chapters

its disappointing

the only thing keeping this from getting a 0 is the one part where inosuke couldnt chop off tanjirou’s head bc he cared about him too much

that at least shows inosuke had grown as a character

everything else is just meaningless and convoluted garbage and “convoluted” is not what you should be aiming for if this is supposed to be the ending of your series

IN SUMMARY

early kny is very good, later kny is questionable and the ending is just a mess of wasted potential and disappointment

i get why gotouge had to have the transparent world ability, crimson blade ability, and the demon marks appear before they all appeared on yoriichi but theyre all just so underdeveloped and terribly handled in the battles they are used, it makes me want to kick a wall

like lmao, i could literally think of so many ways they could have been properly integrated, hell, im even writing a whole goddamn rewrite using my ideas for these three things (link to that is in my pinned)

just, god

if you want to debate over these ratings, my ask box is open ig? idk

#kny #kimetsu no yaiba #kny meta #demon slayer #my writing #long post

97 notes · View notes

sawtual · 3 years

Note

wow thanks! that was a really in depth post about it you make good points! when I played I definitely got the sense that monika had encouraged sayori to kill herself and I didn’t get the sense of any remorse when natsuki or yuri died or got fucked up but I guess u do make some good points there about how she was just trying to make them less desirable rather than kill them. I’m new to the game and the fandom so im not super familiar with everything yet but is there anything in the canon or lore that points away from monika having pushed sayori to commit suicide or is it mostly just fan theories and personal readings? either way thank u so much for answering!

yes i can absolutely find you some info on that!

there's quite a bit of information hidden within the games files, so I'm kind of assuming if you're new to the game, that you might not have seen these things? so ill dive into them too!

I'm gona do this under the cut so i can like, dissect things from the game !

(also i found stuff thats specifically pointing away from her meaning actual harm/death for Both yuri and sayori, jsyk)

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.txt (discovered in game files during act 2)

“All I want is for you to hate them. Why is that so hard.”

not, all i want for them is to die. she doesnt want to kill them. she wants to separate us from them so we are with Her, not them. things spiral out of control, but it was never her intention for things to get this bad. ntm its repeated over and over in this game how badly monika wants to die. she's hanging on by a thread, keeping on only because she wants to be with us, to be in contact with reality. this leads to really unfortunate circumstances but i really strongly believe everything in the text alludes to the fact she did Not want things to get this bad

ACT 3 INTRO:

(im copy pasting a transcript of the monologue here, but this is taken from the very beginning of act 3, which you can see in this video starting at 25:56)

imo this is all the proof needed to show that she really had no intention of ‘killing’ sayori and yuri. things spiraled out of control far beyond what she was capable of handling.

her goals with making sayori more depressed and yuri more obsessive were, in here words “to just try to make them as unlikable as possible”. she didnt want her friends to brutally die!! she loved them q_q i feel like a lot of people really dont look at this specific part of what she says and take it to heart. its very telling for her character and important for understanding what she does and why she does it

ACT 3 MONOLOGUES:

sayori's hanging (cw: graphic descriptions of suicide)

dialogue of importance:

"I was thinking about Sayori earlier... I still wish I could have handled that whole thing a little more tactfully."

"Come to think of it, it was probably less 'changing her mind' and more just her survival instincts kicking in." "So you can't really fault her for that." "It's easier to think that she probably wouldn't have changed her mind anyway, right?" "It's not healthy to think about the things you could have done differently." "So just remember that even though you could have saved her, it's technically not your fault she killed herself." "I may have exacerbated it a little bit, but Sayori was already mentally ill." "Still, though..." "I wonder how things would be if you and I just started dating from the get-go?" "I guess we'd all still be in the clubroom, writing poems and having fun together." "But what's the point when none of it is even real?" "I mean, it's the same ending either way, right?"

ok so whats important here, is monika is essentially using us, the player, as a mirror in act 3? the things she says i believe, very strongly show her sense of uncertainty in her actions, and her fears of what if she could have done something else??

"even though you could have saved her, its technically not your fault she killed herself" reads SO much to me like shes trying to comfort herself with this, she doesnt want it to be her fault. nothings real, sayori's a character in a game. but she wishes so badly they could have just been normal girls living together.

happy end poem

OK SO LIKE. this is actual proof of Why she does everything she does. she's scared if she reaches out and tells us she's trapped in a game, we'll stop playing, we'll kill her. she tinkers with the game, trying to make herself look the best, trying to make us choose her, and nothing works. and this leads to her becoming frustrated and scared, and screwing with the game more and more desperately trying to do anything to save herself.

if you recall, in act 2, she gives you a poem which bluescreen the computer. this was actually an attempt she makes to escape the game q_q she never wanted to kill yuri, she never wanted things to escalate like that. she wanted to get out but she had no idea how to program her way out of the game, resulting in everything crumbling around her, and her friends dying.

my own route

hang on this one genuinely makes me so upset.

it very much relates back to how in the conversation about sayori's suicide, she's still clearly thinking about how things could be Different. shes thinking about how they could be normal. "I may not have needed to take such drastic measures to be with you. Maybe the rest of the club would still be around..." , and then immediately trying to convince herself it doesnt matter, and that she doesnt care.

its so so obvious shes hurting and she misses her friends. the additional "i really dont (miss them)" at the end really shows that shes desperately trying to convince herself that it was worth it, that she did everything she should have, and her friends dont matter. but they clearly do matter to her. she loved them (she couldnt even delete them if u recall)

also another important part about this monologue, a lot of people say she killed the other girls out of jealousy, but this shows thats not true??

"I think I would end up forcing you onto my route anyway." "It has less to do with me not having a route, and more to do with me knowing that nothing is real."

this wasnt because shes 'in love' with us. she wanted to be close to something real, something tangible. she's clinging onto us, the player character, like someone lost at sea with a piece of driftwood, doing everything she can to stay afloat

wine

ok this isnt on the surface level as important as the other ones, but literally look at how she talks about this memory.. she misses them so much and talking about this memory she clearly cherishes brings her so much joy. she doesnt belittle any of them, she doesnt talk down on them, she’s just reliving this memory because it makes her happy

I HOPE THIS HELPS?? im sure theres a few more things im forgetting, but i did my best to scrabble up everything i could to show how monika’s not an evil mastermind, shes a scared girl who didnt realize what she was doing and when things got too bad, she did her best to fix it, only for it to get worse n worse

edit: oh heres the proof that monika always loved the girls and never actually deleted them

:’)

edit 2: haha.. um ouch

“It’s not right for me to miss things that weren’t even real in the first place.” shes forcing herself to try and ignore her feelings for the other girls

#asks #anon #ddlc #monika #oh i put warnings in the post but also #suicide mention

33 notes · View notes

arofili · 3 years

Note

i haven't read the silmarillion or anything related but i was wondering how do elves's fëas work?? like i read somewhere about them sharing this fëa bond with people they marry so their fëas meet and that's what makes the marriage marriage in the first place. but im not really sure about that, don't people's fëas normally touch even if they're not married? and what happens if they do touch? this is weirdly specific but im just curious,,,you don't have to answer if you don't want to ofc! thank you if you do answer my curiosities haha and you still don't, ty too! (i asked you this bc i feel like you have a lot of knowledge about elfs)

Hey anon! So, a lot of what you're talking about is fanon, though it does have basis in canon. From "Laws and Customs among the Eldar" we learn about fëar and hröar and elvish (largely Noldorin, to be specific) marriage customs.

It's worth noting, though, that LaCE underwent many revisions and is a highly dubious document as it was written in-universe by Aelfwine, a mortal from the 9th century CE who found the Straight Road to Valinor. That concept in and of itself is a framing device for Tolkien's "translation" of the Red Book into English, and isn't one he kept consistent throughout his writing or one he was ever fully satisfied with - it never made it into the texts published within his lifetime, and doesn't make an appearance in the published Silm, either. And as I said in a previous meta dealing with LaCE:

Maybe this is something Tolkien changed his mind on between writing LaCE and writing this section of what became the published Silm. Or maybe this is an in-universe distinction: the in-universe writer of LaCE is unclear but implied to be a human, not an elf, possibly Aelfwine; the writer of the Silm as we see it is Christopher Tolkien’s edits of JRRT’s translation of Bilbo’s translation of Noldorin loremasters, the chief of whom was Pengolodh. It’s complicated.

That being said:

LaCE doesn't actually offer that much information on the nature of elvish fëar in relation to marriage. We do get the quote that "It was the act of bodily union that achieved the marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete." Since human concepts of marriage are mostly legal/social engagements, and by no means indissoluble, this strongly implies something different is going on with elven fëar when they marry, but it's not stated outright. Still, the wording of "bond" in relation to "marriage" gives rise to the fan-embellished concept of a "marriage bond" that is very popular in fic/meta about elf marriages.

This concept is further supported by the description that a "greater share and strength of their being, in mind and body" is required for elves to create children (when compared to Men). It implies a closeness between a married couple where their "minds" (aka fëar) are as involved in the child-making process as their bodies. Later it is specified that after marriage, elves remain individual people with individual "gifts of mind and body that differ" - a strange thing to emphasize if there was not the possibility for misconstruing married elves as becoming literally one being.

For elves, marriage is forever: the Valar state that "marriage resides ultimately in the will of the fëa." Yet later in the same paragraph, it is explained that elves who are re-embodied need to be married again, because marriage is also of the body and the first body had perished. Confusing!

There are more notes about fëar in this essay, and the concept is mentioned in other places as well, but that's the basic gist of the concept AFAIK. (I highly recommend perusing LaCE yourself if you're interested in this topic! And remember that this is fandom, you can accept or discard certain aspects of the document as you see fit. I know I do.)

Most of your questions deal in extrapolation from canon - I would argue there's a strong basis for the concept of a marriage bond in LaCE, but it's not explicitly spelled out. I can't give you firm answers, but here are my personal headcanons about fëar and bonds. Everything that follows is headcanon, unless I explicitly state otherwise.

Elves are born with bonds with their parents; these bonds are important for the health and happiness of a growing child. (There's another line in LaCE about how the parting of parents and children in their youth is "a grievous thing," which is my starting place for this particular headcanon.) I also think that they have bonds with their siblings, though this is less supported; I just think that living with and sharing parents with someone is likely to foster the slower/less formal creation of a bond. Twins, however, are born with strong bonds between one another, having shared a womb.

(I also think certain Unbegotten elves - aka the first 144 elves who awoke at Cuiviénen - came into being with bonds, thus allowing for Unbegotten elves to have siblings, like Elwë, Olwë, and Elmo. But you could also argue that, depending on how you deal with timelines, those three brothers are not Unbegotten and were born the "normal" way.)

Then there are chosen bonds. These are the kind we hear discussed (albeit vaguely) in LaCE. Marriage bonds specifically are formed when elves "unite in body" and invoke the name of Eru. My personal (aroace) take on this is that sex makes the process of bonding much easier and faster, the naming of Eru and the intent to bond is what's really important, so if a couple would rather not have sex they can still bond. And it also opens up room for debate on which specific sexual acts count when it comes to bonding, what would happen if Eru's name wasn't invoked, etc.

But I also think bonds can be created in contexts other than marriage - found family, for example. I've seen this most discussed in the context of Kidnap Dads, but it could apply in many scenarios: you decide you want X person to be part of your family, and that means you want to bond with them. In the case of orphaned children, if you go with the idea that they need a parent-child bond in order to develop properly, this could provide substitute/adoptive parents to fill that role. Or it could be that you feel like a certain person is your sibling, but you weren't born of the same parents, but you still want them to officially be your family, so you form a sibling-bond with them. These are bonds that occur without the ~physical union~, and therefore take more time and effort, and thus are less common - but they do happen.

All these bonds are basically the same in terms of function: they make ósanwë (mind-to-mind/telepathic communication) much easier and more natural, they connect two fëar together in an indissoluble way, they show a depth of commitment and love between the bonded eldar. But they are valued differently in society, and created/brought into being in different circumstances.

As for fëar "touching" - that is, in my opinion, poetic license for communication/closeness through such a bond. If you touch your spouse's fëa, for example, that's connecting with them to see how they're feeling, possibly passing along comfort or a message, etc. This "touching" is basically ósanwë, I guess? Which, in my headcanon, you can do if you're not bonded to someone, it just takes more effort and closer proximity if you don't have a bond in place.

Hope this helps, anon! Feel free to send in another ask if you have more questions!

#silm #silmarillion #silm meta #laws and customs among the eldar #lace #lace meta #tolkien meta #my meta #headcanons #fear and hroar #marriage bonds #my writing #tefain nin #long post #anon #answers

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wistfulwatcher · 3 years

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Hello I saw your tag on that "im 25 and dying post" please tell us how it got better for you. Im 26, still living with parents, currently having a fight with my boyfriend, and i still have a year until I get my bachelors. The comparison to everyone younger than me is killing me.

I'm really sorry to hear that you're struggling, but I hope you can take some solace in the fact that that post has a lot of notes and you are absolutely not alone in feeling the way you do! I can certainly try and share my experience, but unfortunately I think the biggest factor is just time (and like, a buttload of self-reflection).

I moved back home after college and worked full time at an administrative job I was doing during school breaks. I majored in psychology and anthropology in college, and was planning to eventually go into forensic psychology, but wasn't interested in going straight into grad school. So I did that administrative job for about a year, and tried to find something that was a bit more stable and at least semi-related to my field. I did end up finding a new job when I was 23 - stable, semi-related to my field (a psych/research background was required), and decent pay (especially as I was still living at home). Exactly what I needed, since I still wasn't ready to start looking into grad school.

I was doing pretty well, until I started getting comfortable at that job, and then I started getting hit with the "I'm not doing enough," and "I need to look into grad school," and "will I ever find a boyfriend?" (friendly reminder that 23-year-old me thought she was straight, yikes), "how will I afford to move out, I have to save my money and do it soon!", "I'm not doing anything but watching TV, I'm wasting my life," "I'm lonely, but I'm too tired to try and make friends," etc., etc.

But it wasn't constant. I'd have a flurry of those questions and fears, and then days where I was just living life and doing my job and taking care of my dogs, without any of that. And I don't think I felt good or particularly comfortable those days, it was more like I just wasn't actively thinking about it, like when you feel "good" after a physical pain goes away and you're just normal.

Eventually, I started thinking about all of these concerns I had, and the fact that it felt like it was URGENT whenever I thought about them. It felt like I needed to get my shit together immediately. I also started to acknowledge that there was this big sense of guilt around those concerns; I was too old to be living at home, I was too old to be single, I was too old not to be starting a career. I felt like I was wasting my life (cue the guilt), and I realized that part of why I felt like I was wasting it was that I felt like I was missing milestones I wouldn't be able to do at a later time because the older I was past "normal" the more humiliating it would be to try (cue the shame and embarrassment, hard).

I also started to doubt that I wanted to go into forensic psychology. More importantly, I started to seriously doubt that I wanted a "career" at all. My job (as I kept that same semi-related to my field one) was absolutely a job, not a career. And I think this was a huge tipping point for me, because a career had always been a given in my life. I'm passionate about what I'm interested in, so it literally just never occurred to me that I would be content with a job. I also started acknowledging that I had some messed up associations about being content with a job meaning that I was lazy (because the only way to be ambitious is with a career and, more damaging, a lack of ambition is fundamentally bad).

Now, I need to clarify that all of the above occurred over the course of years. I was constantly seeing "friends" (i.e., of the facebook variety) go to grad school, start careers, get married, buy homes, etc. And with all of that alongside the entire mess I've outlined in the above paragraphs, it was really, really, tough. It gets hard to find a foothold in better thinking, I believe, when seeing all of these people (some younger) doing things "right" was really just compounding my guilt and shame. (I feel like it's worth mentioning, too, that I was always "an individual" growing up, march-to-the-beat-of-my-own-drummer, yada yada. I feel like that's worth pointing out for others who may be in the same boat, because I think it can lead to another layer of shame in comparing yourself to those around you - especially if it's a big part of your identity that you DON'T do that, because I think it's inevitable as you get older, and you're looking to reach these milestones that prove you're an adult.)

So, here I am, acknowledging that I feel guilt and shame about what I'm not doing. And suddenly I ask myself my first really important question: Do I want a career? The question hot on its heels is: Do I want to go to grad school? Honestly, my answer is no. There is nothing in me that's excited by the prospect. But what, does that mean I'm just going to work my job for the rest of my life? How is giving up going to make me feel better about Not Doing Enough?

As I'm opening this door (remember, years), three things happen: 1) I realize I'm gay, 2) I watch Dirty 30, 3) I start playing D&D.

First, realizing I'm gay. Woohoo! Not only was this exciting because girls are amazing, but it made me seriously look at myself. Realizing I had spent 25 years assuming one thing about myself that turned out to be completely wrong made me question everything for a while. I started to ask myself, "Do I really like this?" more often, which seems like a really obvious question, but I'm not convinced that it's one people ask themselves consciously all that often. But once I did, I realized how freeing it was to answer, "No," and move on to something I did like.

Second, I watched Dirty 30, the Grace Helbig/Mamrie Hart/Hannah Hart movie. It feels dramatic to say that it changed my life, but the older I get the more I honestly think it did. Mamrie Hart's character is a dental hygienist who is freaking out about turning 30 and feeling very much like that text post I reblogged. But (spoilers), at the end of the movie, she decides that she loves her job (job, not career!) because it's comfortable and she has fun at work, and that it makes her happy. She has other things going on, but the idea that a character in a film is content with her job and choosing to "settle" into her life as-is and she's genuinely happy about it? I honestly can't think of a single other time I've seen that happen on-screen. I still think about that ending very often. And after seeing it, I started to ask myself another question regularly: "Am I happy?" Again, this feels pretty obvious, but I think there is something incredibly empowering about making sure you are happy on a regular basis, instead of just assuming that you're fine until something hurts.

Third, I started playing D&D. This is not a plug for D&D! (Well, maybe a little.) One thing that happened to me when I started to get into the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion mess of my mid-20s was that I got very much into a routine of go to work, come home, sleep, go to work, come home, sleep, be totally brain-dead on the weekend, repeat. I found it very difficult to feel creative because I was just wiped, and as all of my creative outlets (gifs, fanfic) are self-motivated, it was really easy to brush them off. I ended up starting Critical Role (this is also not a plug for CR! well, maybe), and I wanted to give D&D a try myself. (I was VERY lucky - my best friend happened to be listening to the Adventure Zone at the same time I started CR, and she wanted to try to run a game. The stars truly aligned!)

I started playing, then DMing, and found that it was a great fit for my interests. I used to be a theatre kid, and I was getting to act again (something I didn't realize I was missing). I was getting to build and flesh out characters, which is what I love the most about writing fanfic. I was also discovering that I was stretching myself - world building and plot had never been my strong suit, but as a DM it became the majority of my creative effort. It gave me soft deadlines with people I didn't want to let down, and it made me truly social again for the first time since college. Essentially, it was filling in all of the gaps of what I felt lacking in my life. This isn't a D&D plug because it wasn't D&D specifically, but rather a hobby that satisfied what was missing in my life. For example, I didn't realize how isolated I was before D&D until I had regular interactions with friends, and that isolation absolutely made the urgent-guilt-shame-confusion worse.

D&D gave me that final push to realize that I was OK with having a job and being passionate about hobbies instead of trying to fit myself into a career, because I was getting out of that hobby what I had been convinced I would get out of a career. I started to really value that I could punch out and go have fun doing exactly what I wanted to do. (It feels so obvious as I type this, but it took me a long time to get here! Sometimes it really is that simple!)

The above is specific to my job vs. career struggle which may not be in the mix of things you're struggling with. But what I do think is universal/can be your take away, is that sometimes you just have to actively choose to let go of the pressure to be doing things. Which, I know, sounds so much easier than it is (and part of why I think it just takes time/is part of growing older). But I think it's something that can be worked at over time, by checking in with yourself about what you feel, why you feel it, and what you need to make yourself feel better in the present.

It's been 6 years since I started that semi-related job, and I'm still there. I still live with my mom. I'm still single. My circumstances have not changed since 24, but honestly? I'm OK. When I check in with myself about it, I do enjoy living with my mom and our dogs (even though I'm 30 and "real" adults move out). I am happy more often than I'm not (much more, actually!). I have a job that allows me to be done after 8 hours, and I have hobbies I look forward to doing each night (and the energy to do them, most of the time). My weekends are free to play D&D with my friends and laugh until I cry. That is what I've worked out as my definition of what I want life to be right now. You'll notice it includes none of the "milestones" that those younger than me have hit.

As I noted on that text post tag, I still struggle with this. I definitely have days where I think, I'm a mess, I'm not DOING anything. It's hard. But time does help, those days become fewer and farther between.

I know that was probably a hundred times longer than you wanted it to be, but I did want to illustrate just how much of a process it is. It takes time. My summary advice is to check in with yourself often, be honest about what you want and what you need, do not let anyone else define where you "should" be. And if you aren't living life how you want to be, identify what you can do (however small) to make yourself feel like you're getting closer.

#ask #me #personal #i am so sorry this is a novel #i hope that it helps you even a little!#can you believe i can write about myself for 2 hours? embarrassing lmao #long post

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