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comradekatara · 1 month

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Your atla analysis is the best so I wanted to ask your opinion on something I've found the fandom fairly divided on - what did you think of Azula's ending within the show proper? Unnecessarily cruel or a necessary tragedy? Would you say that her mental breakdown was too conveniently brought about in order to 'nerf' her for the final agni kai? Also, do you think it was 'right' for Zuko to have fought with his sister at all or would it have been better for him to seek a more humane way to end the cycle of violence?

okay so im saying this as someone who loves azula to death like she has always been one of my absolute favorite characters ever since i was a kid and i’ve always vastly preferred her to zuko and found her to be extremely compelling and eminently sympathetic. i am saying this now before the azula stans come for me. i believe in their beliefs. but i also think her downfall is perfectly executed, and putting aside all the bullshit with the comics and whatever else, it’s a really powerful conclusion to her arc. obviously that isn’t to say that she wouldn’t continue to grow and develop in a postcanon scenario (i have a whole recovery arc for her mapped out in my head, like i do believe in her Healing Journey) but from a narrative perspective, her telos is in fact very thematically satisfying.

no, she wasn’t nerfed so that they could beat her in a fight. the fact that she falls apart is what makes them feel that they can confidently take her on (although i do think in a fair fight katara could win anyway), but the whole point is that it’s not about winning or losing in combat. the whole point is that zuko and azula being pitted against each other in this gratuitous ritual of violence as the culmination of their arcs is fundamentally tragic. yes it’s a bad decision to fight her, and zuko should have chosen another path, but the whole point is that he’s flawed and can only subscribe to the logic he has spent his whole life internalizing through violence and abuse.

that’s why aang’s fight against ozai, while tragic in its own way, is also a triumph for the way in which his ideals prevail in the face of genocide, while zuko and azula’s fight is very patently tragic. there is no moment of victory or triumph. even as zuko sacrifices himself in a beautiful mirroring of “the crossroads of destiny” and as katara uses the element of her people combined with techniques across other cultures to use azula’s hubris and ideology of domination against her, it’s presented as moments of personal growth occurring within a very tragic yet inevitable situation. it was inevitable because azula had always been positioned as an extension of her father, and thus to disempower ozai also means disempowering azula, his favorite site of projection, his favorite weapon.

yeah, it does rub me the wrong way when zuko asks katara whether she’d like to help him “put azula in her place.” it’s not a kind way to talk about your abused younger sister. but it’s also important to understand that zuko doesn’t really recognize his sister’s pain, despite the fact that they obviously share a father, because he’s always assumed that she was untouchable as their perfect golden child and thus never a victim. and he’s wrong. zuko and katara expect a battle of triumph and glory, noble heroes fighting valiantly so that good may prevail over evil. but as they discover here, even more so than their previous discovery two episodes prior, a battle is not a legendary event filled with bombast and beauty until after it has been historicized. often a war is simply fought between pathetic, desperate people who see no other option but to fight.

aang’s ultimate refusal to fight despite having all the power in the world is what makes him so important as the protagonist. but katara and zuko both share a more simplistic view of morality and what it means to be good. and zuko assumes that by fighting azula, he can only be punching up, because she has always been positioned as his superior, and she (in her own words!) is a “monster.” and then azula loses, and his entire worldview shatters. joking about putting her in her place makes way for the realization that behind all her posturing and lying (to herself more than anyone) and performance and cognitive dissonance, azula has always been broken, perhaps even more than he is.

azula says “im sorry it has to end this way, brother,” to which zuko replies “no you’re not.” but i think azula is truly sorry, because in her ideal world, she wouldn’t be fighting zuko. she doesn’t actually want to kill him, as much as she claims to. she’s already reached the conclusion that zuko will only truly reach once their fight is over. she lacks a support system, and she needs one, desperately. if she could somehow get her family back, do everything differently, less afraid of the consequences, she would. she’s smirking, she sounds almost facetious, but really, she is sorry. as of this moment, she really doesn’t want it to end this way. but zuko cannot accept that, because in his mind, azula is evil. azula has no soul nor feeling. azula always lies.

her breakdown doesn’t come out of nowhere, either. it’s precipitated by everyone she has ever cared about betraying her. first zuko betrays her, then mai, then ty lee, and then ozai — the person she has staked her entire identity to and to whom she has pledged her undying loyalty and obedience, become nothing more than a vessel for his whims — discards her because she had the audacity to care about someone other than him. what i don’t think zuko realizes, and perhaps will never realize, is that azula betrayed ozai by bringing zuko back home. he was not supposed to be brought back with honor and with glory. azula specifically orchestrated the fight in the catacombs to motivate him to join her, and it’s not because she’s some cruel sadistic monster who wanted to separate a poor innocent soft uwu bean from his loving uncle, it’s because she genuinely believes that she’s doing what’s best for him. she believes that their uncle is a traitor and a bad influence, and she believes that bringing zuko home with his honor “restored” is an act of love. to her it is.

yes, she claims that she was actually just manipulating him so that she wouldn’t have to take the fall if the avatar was actually alive, but also, she’s clearly just covering her own ass. she didn’t know about the spirit water, and only started improvising when zuko started showing hesitation. but even if she was only using zuko, then that was an insane risk to take, because either way she was lying directly to ozai’s face. and zuko admits it to ozai while simultaneously committing treason, so of course ozai would blame azula, his perfect golden child who tried to violate his decree by bringing zuko back home a prisoner at best and dead at worst, and instead found a way to restore his princehood with glory.

we only see ozai dismissing and discarding azula in the finale, but it’s clearly a tension that’s been bubbling since the day of black sun. and we know this because we do see azula falling apart before the finale. in “the boiling rock” she is betrayed by her only friends. in “the southern raiders” we see that this has taken a toll on her, that she is already somewhat unhinged. she and zuko tie in a one on one fight for the first time. and she takes down her hair as she uses her hairpin to secure herself against the edge of a cliff. unlike zuko, who is helped by his friends and allies, who has a support system. it’s a very precarious position; she’s literally on a cliff’s edge, alone, her hair down signifying her unraveling mental state. azula having her hair down signals to us an audience that she is in a position of vulnerability. she is able to mask this terrifying moment wherein she nearly plummets to her death with a triumphant smirk, but it should be evident to us all that her security is fragile here.

and the thing is, even though she’s always masked it with a smirk and perfect poise, her security has always been fragile. azula has never been safe. azula’s breakdown is simply the culmination of her realization that no matter how hard she tries, she will never be ozai’s perfect weapon, because she is a human being. she is a child, no less. and there is no one in her entire life who loves her for nothing. zuko has iroh, who affirms to him that he could never be angry with zuko, that all he wants is simply what is best for zuko. but azula doesn’t have unconditional support in her life. she doesn’t even have support.

everyone she ever thought she could trust has betrayed her, and so she yells that trust is for fools. because she feels like a fool. of course fear is the only way; it’s what kept her in line all these years. azula is someone who is ruled by fear, and who is broken by the recognition that fear isn’t enough. her downfall is necessarily tragic because her worldview is wrong. the imperialist logic of terror as a tool for domination is her own undoing, just as ozai’s undoing is losing the weapon he has staked his national identity to. it’s a battle of ideals. aang v ozai: pacifism v imperialism. katara and zuko v azula: love and support v fear and isolation.

zuko is unfair to azula, it’s true. he tries to fight her even as he can clearly recognize that “she’s slipping.” instead of trying to help his little sister, he uses that weakness to his advantage, tries to exploit her pain so that he can finally, for the first time ever, beat her in a fight. it’s cruel, but it’s also how siblings act. especially considering the conditions under which they were raised, and how zuko has always viewed her. and in zuko’s defense, she has tried to kill him multiple times lately, both in “the boiling rock” and in “the southern raiders.” zuko is someone who gets fixated on a goal and blocks out everything else, including recognition of his surroundings or empathy for others. so of course when he’s promised to put azula in her place he’s going to exploit her weaknesses to do so. after all, isn’t exploiting his weaknesses exactly what azula does best? so he allows himself to stoop to her level, and in fact only redeems himself through his sacrifice for katara. but it is when azula is chained to the grate and zuko and katara, leaning on each other, look down and observe the sheer extent on her pain, that zuko realizes that “putting azula in her place” isn’t actually a victory. it feels really, really bad, actually.

they’re in a similar position as they were when they faced yon rha. and now it is zuko’s turn to understand that he is not a storybook hero triumphing over evil, but rather a human being, facing another human being, in a conflict that is larger than themselves. to “put someone in their place” is to imply a logic of domination, of inherent superiority, that someone has stepped out of line and must be reordered neatly into the hierarchy. but aang disputes the notion, ozai’s notion, that humanity can be classified along these lines, that there exists an ontological superiority among some and not others. so operation: putting azula in her place was always going to be flawed, even if she was performing competency the way she always does, because they’re nonetheless subscribing to her logic.

of course they should be helping azula, of course they should be reaching out to abuse victims through support instead of more violence. but first they must recognize her victimhood. first they must come to understand that they didn’t get lucky, and they didn’t dominate her because they are more “powerful,” that they weren’t “putting her in her place.” they must understand that they are not heroes fighting villains in a glorious trial by combat. that the logic of the agni kai is flawed. that they are all victims. that they are all just scared, hurt children who are still grieving their mothers.

#update: ok i readmored it 👍🏼#azula #analysis #zuko #katara #ozai #azula&zuko #azula&ozai #asks #malatilata #ugh azula is such a beautiful character….. i love her sm #her arc is so beautifully perfectly tragic #just thinking abt the mirror scene gets me sooo . distraught #this was supposed to be like 2 paragraphs lol #as is always the way . with me..

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eggonthemoon · 18 days

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Alien Stage Round 6 Character Analysis and Lyrics Breakdown

Okay so obviously spoilers, don't click Keep Reading if you haven't watched Round 6.

God fuck it's so fucking beautiful, where do I start?

I don't even know what is going on with those rapid shots of what I assume is some form of experiment that Till was involved in. I have no clue what the goal was or if it succeeded but somehow (for no real reason other than that one image of Luka standing behind Till ominously) I feel that Luka is involved with it.

Was this an attempt by Heperu's (Luka's guardian) rival to make a human capable of going up against Luka? Till being the youngest and Luka being the oldest also means that Till's guardian could have caught on to what Heperu was planning to do with Luka and then start experimenting on humans shortly after and it would still somewhat line up with the timeline.

But I'm getting into conspiracy territory, back to suffering!!

Allow me, to the tips of your fingers

Allow me, to the ends of your feet

Dissolve me in your gaze

I don't want to let you go

Oh this hurts. Seeing him look so defeated and exhausted, you can tell that even though to the public it's not certain whether Mizi died or not it doesn't matter to him. Because she's still gone away from his world, where he is unable to reach her. He wants to dissolve and die but he also doesn't want to let her go if there is even a sliver of hope that she lives.

Please, leave me scars

Please, hurt me so that

Not a single drop of me remains

Let me drown in you

The footage that plays to these lyrics really show how defeated he is. He refuses to sing, his passion for the art completely dead and buried. And (his guardian I assume) when someone shoves the fact that Mizi is gone in his face he lashes out and punches one of the aliens near him.

Until these falling stars

Are buried in the blur of time

However his heart isn't entirely in it and is quickly apprehended.

He is beyond exhausted and doesn't even protest or put up a fight while (the same alien he punched btw) another alien runs their fingers through his hair.

On your icy lips

Read my soul

Yes, my soul

He hopes that even if Mizi is dead that her spirit watches over him, seeing his soul and by extension, Him, for all that he is. Every thought and breath until he falls asleep is for Mizi.

But didn't we already know this is how he'd be like? Time for something juicier~

Even if your cold words

Carve scars beneath my eyes

May they linger on your tongue

You can break me apart

God this is heart shattering. Even if Till doesn't care for him, even if Till throws hurtful words his way, Ivan will still lie awake at night, cherishing what sliver of attention he is given. It doesn't matter if Till hates him, because as long as he is on Till's mind Ivan is happy. He is entirely in Till's hands, capable of being build up or torn down depending on how much (or how little) he is perceived by him.

Notice my pain

And mend me right now

To quiet my fears

I'll drown in you

He wants so deeply to be seen by Till, noticed. Till who doesn't let anything hold him down and always picks himself back up became a pillar of hope and strength to Ivan. It didn't matter how or in what context he gets to be seen, so he went out of his way to provoke him just to get Till to look at him even for a moment.

This was mentioned a while back on VIVINOS Patreon but the entire incident where Mizi and Till got attacked by that hound monster was orchestrated by him. I feel like there is two possible reasons for this depending on when in the timeline this takes place.

Either he wanted to test Till's resolve in hopes of being proven wrong about his courage (after all your hopes can't be dashed on the rocks, if you never had hopes to begin with) only for his obsession to end up growing even stronger than before.

Or he tried to let Till get roughed up enough that he'd be transferred (solitary confinement? emergency room?) somewhere else away from the others at Anakt, so they could escape together.

But we all know how that turned out.

Either way what Ivan wants isn't freedom, he's long since given up on that. There's no point in his freedom if the person that inspired him to yearn for it isn't by his side. He needs Till there, his very presence to reassure him that no matter what Till won't falter. But he failed to take account of the one thing that weakens Till's resolve.

Mizi.

Mizi is to Till what Till is to Ivan. And so without Mizi in his world Till crumbles. Since Till will only go where Mizi is and Mizi already gave away her heart to someone else, it's impossible for Ivan to be free while keeping Till in his world.

And so he follows him, resigning himself to a life without freedom.

Sick of these nights to come

To be engulfed in silence

But the distance between them is killing him, and each and every day they come closer to their inevitable doom.

It doesn't matter if they believe the lie the aliens told them, that if they die singing they will be blessed. Because what is the point in that? How can going somewhere far away from the people they love be a blessing?

In your gaze where I am seen

Consume me

Yes, me

His desires mirror Till's. He wants his soul to be seen by him, recognized for his undying love for him. He wants Till to see that he can give him all that Till yearns for in Mizi and more.

To this everlasting melody

Face to face we dance

And yet Till still refuses to look Ivan in the eyes.

Things get a little unclear but since they aren't shown singing here and there's no flashback to accompany the lyrics, we can assume that at this moment Till most likely gave up on singing.

With our story

Lost in forever's embrace

I'm not sure if Ivan intended this from the start or if it's a decision he made then and there but one thing is certain. If Till stops singing then that would mean he forfeits, he'll lose. Till has never once given up. Even when he went back for Mizi that night, he never intended to leave her in the first place. But now without her he crumbles.

And Ivan can't let that happen, not like this.

Moral grey area aside, this scene is so deeply moving to me

And I don't say that in a romantic context, absolutely not. This is something much deeper than just love. This is the culmination of everything they've been through, all those moments lead up to this.

Because this isn't a kiss.

This is Ivan throwing his life away for Till.

Till was going to loose, the only thing that could overturn that is if his opponent attacks him. The kiss was to distract Till and keep him from catching up to what Ivan was planning.

Just look at the contrast between their first and second kiss. As soon as the score board shows Till is in the lead, he gives him a gentle peck on the lips. The contrast is stark and full of meaning. This was the genuine kiss, hidden behind a smokescreen of aggressive bravado created from the previous one.

And it worked. Till was completely convinced that Ivan's intentions was to kill him, and he was fully intent on letting him.

I know a lot of people doubted his intentions. Because he didn't let go of Till's neck the minute he saw their scores, a lot of people assume that this was Ivan trying to drag Till down with him.

But the minute he coughed up blood what does he do?

He smiles.

and let's Till go.

He's only human. He might know logically that Till has won the match. But emotionally he refuses to let go until he is certain.

Until he knows for a fact that he is the one bleeding and dying he'll keep up his charade.

And then.

And only then.

Till truly sees Ivan.

As he dissolves in his gaze.

#THEY RUINED MY LIFE /POS #I FUCKING HATE THEM /AFFECTIONATE #ivantill #alnst till #alnst ivan #alnst mizi #alnst #alien stage #에이스테 #ramble rumble #I don't know what happened #I had a thought and a neuron activated #I think I might have ascended #alnst spoilers #alnst round 6

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bth3cowboi · 28 days

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love conjeture, lh44 x reader

masterlist

pairing: lewis hamilton x mathematician!reader

summary: sometimes algorithms win championships, other times they help find love. (social media au)

mercedesamgf1

liked by yninmath, georgerussell63 and 879.301 others

mercedesamgf1 This year we want to give a special thank-you to Dr. Yn Ln! With the creation of her new algorithm focused on data analysis and her extensive collaboration this season our view in analytics evolved to unimaginable levels. We are forever grateful for her contributions and what they mean for the future of Formula 1. Thanks again Dr. Ln, and good luck with the thesis! 😎💻

tagged yninmath;

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yninmath thank you for the opportunity🫡💙 it was an honor to work alongside this great team

mercedesamgf1 👏💙

user1 omg work girlll!!

user2 just googled her and im going crazy like how do you have 3 phds at 27😭?

user3 graduated super early too shes kind of a genius lol

lewishamilton thank you miss yn💙

yninmath your welcome sir champion🥹

user4 ok this is cuteee

user5 you should be thanking him bffr

georgerussell63 Outstanding!🙌 Make sure to come back Dr. Yn

yninmath oh but the travelling😮‍💨

lewishamilton nah you’ll make it back

yninmath if you say so haha

yninmath

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yninmath currently picking up trash couches, writing thesis and remembering the friends ive made along the way 🤓💘

on a serious note, if anyone is interested in reading about topology feel free to read my new paper abt it (link in bio #influencer)

tagged bestfriend, roscoelovescoco;

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roscoelovescoco working’s hard🐾😵‍💫

yninmath or hardly working🤔

bestfriend surprised the couch didnt bring rats or something

yninmath no rats or fleas!!! its been a great couch #trashcouch #luckygirls

bestfriend please never use # again

user1 great paper dr yn😍 is there any way I could get your paper on the hodge conjeture for academical porpouses? magazines are too expensive, help a girl out🙏

yninmath dm me girl that should be free so make sure your class gets it too

user2 dr yn youre saving the nyu maths class of 25’🫡

lewishamilton no rest on break miss yn?

yninmath you know me already haha💞

user3 suspicious…

user4 what? they cant be just friends?

user5 I thought she worked for merecedes, what is this?

user6 she was only there to develop part of her thesis tho still won them another championship

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f1paddockgossip

liked by pierregasly and 903.443 others

f1paddockgossip BREAKING! Lewis Hamilton was caught while vacationing in France with mathematician and Mercedes’ collaborator Dr. Yn Ln. The pair are rumored to be in a months-long relationship already, starting in the middle of last season.

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user1 NOOOOO

user2 isnt she like way younger than him? weird

user3 shes literally a grown woman lol she can be with whoever she pleases

user4 no cause they actually look really cute🥹 so happy for them

user5 right! she seems super nice

user6 i just know that man is confused everytime she talks numbers lmao the curse of dating a stem girlie

lewishamilton

liked by yninmath, f1 and 3.478.139 others

lewishamilton congrats on the finished thesis miss yn😉💙 love you

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yninmath love u and ty for the championship😘 would have failed otherwise

lewishamilton 😂😂

lewishamilton anything for my girl

yninmath 🥹

yninmath

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yninmath you best believe he sat on the #trashcouch #dearlordwhenigettoheaven

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bestfriend did it have fleas lewishamilton?

lewishamilton no but I was worried

yninmath booo tomatoes

bestfriend just buy a new one please

yninmath i believe in sustentability🫡🍃

lewishamilton there has to be a limit

lewishamilton ❤️❤️

yninmath love you sm

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——

a/n: ty for reading and i hope you enjoyed🩷 maybe ill be writing more for different drivers soon, so if anyone is interesed keep that in mind!

#f1 #lewis hamilton #lh44 #f1 x reader #f1 fanfic #f1 smau #f1 x you #lewis hamilton x reader

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reloaderror · 2 years

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expert at 5:30pm may 16th; hey i just had this thought! why was this not in the model?

me who already made an unsubstantiated note of that in the discussion: (fuck he’s right) cause i didn’t code the stimuli for emoji valency. but i will do that now :) (why didnt i think of that)

#FOR THE RECORD! the reason i didnt code for that was cause the framework made no predictions that had anything to do w that #one hour and 4000 excel columns later and the model now has another control variable #so now i gotta update/rewrite the data analysis and results chapters and partly the discussion #thank FUCK i got that extension #the 4k columns is not an exaggeration btw #txt #the date is important cause it’s the 17th tomorrow (constitution day/national day whatever) and g has a kid #he is not gonna see that email until wednesday

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lonestarflight · 6 months

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Space Station Concepts: Space Operations Center

"The SOC is a self-contained orbital facility built up of several Shuttle-launched modules. With resupply, on-orbit refurbish- ment and orbit maintenance, it is capable of continuous operation for an indefinite period. In the nominal operational mode, the SOC is manned continuously, but unmanned operation is possible.

The present mission management and control process is characterized by a people-intensive ground monitoring and control operation involving large supporting ground information and control facilities and a highly- integrated ground-flight crew operation. In order to reduce dependence on Earth monitoring and control, the SOC would have to provide for increased systems monitoring; fault isolation and failure analysis, and the ability to store and call up extensive sets of data to support the onboard control of the vehicle; and the onboard capability for daily mission and other activity planning."

"Like most other space station studies from the mid/late 1970s its primary mission was the assembly and servicing of large spacecraft in Earth orbit -- not science. NASA/JSC signed a contract with Boeing in 1980 to further develop the design. Like most NASA space station plans, SOC would be assembled in orbit from modules launched on the Space Shuttle. The crew's tour of duty would have been 90 days. NASA originally estimated the total cost to be $2.7 billion, but the estimated cost had increased to $4.7 billion by 1981. SOC would have been operational by 1990.

NASA's Johnson Spaceflight Center extended the Boeing contract in February 1982 to study a cheaper, modular, evolutionary approach to assembling the Space Operations Center. An initial power module would consist of solar arrays and radiators. The next launches would have delivered a space tug 'garage', two pressurized crew modules and a logistics module. The completed Space Operations Center also would have contained a satellite servicing and assembly facility and several laboratory modules. Even with this revised approach, however, the cost of the SOC program had grown to $9 billion. Another problem was Space Operations Center's primary mission: spacecraft assembly and servicing. The likely users (commercial satellite operators and telecommunications companies) were not really interested in the kind of large geostationary space platforms proposed by NASA. By 1983, the only enthusiastic users for NASA's space station plans were scientists working in the fields of microgravity research and life sciences. Their needs would dictate future space station design although NASA's 1984 station plans did incorporate a SOC-type spacecraft servicing facility as well."

Article by Marcus Lindroos, from astronautix.com: link

NASA ID: link, S79-10137

Boeing photo no. R-1859, link, link

#Space Operations Center #Space Station Freedom #Space Station Concept #Space Station #Concept Art #Space Station Program #Space #Earth #Space Shuttle #Orbiter #NASA #Space Shuttle Program #1979 #1980s #my post

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skepticalcatfrog · 2 months

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Kerch, Ghezenism, and the Van Eck Family

The title pretty much sums it up. This is a rather extensive analysis, and to be honest with you all it is 2,500+ words. So get into this absolute beast at your own risk!

~~~

From my experience in this fandom, I've seen it discussed very frequently how important religion is in the Grishaverse. Not only is it very deeply developed, to the point where many of the different countries have unique beliefs - which I'm not sure is seen very often in newer literature - but the various religious systems are also deeply important to many major characters, such as Matthias and Inej. However, one aspect of Grishaverse religions that seems to be overlooked somewhat often is the Kerch religion of Ghezenism. This may just be me, but I have a lot of thoughts on it. A big reason for that is that Wylan is, and always has been, my favorite character, and the culture surrounding Ghezen is actually a very important part of his character for many reasons. When you look into it in the way that I have, you discover that there are a lot of peculiar aspects of Ghezenism that make it stand out, as well as many ties that it has to major aspects of the story.

Right away, one thing that makes Kerch religion different from the others is how deeply connected to the economy it is. So much so that a lot of aspects of the two subjects are one and the same. Given that Ketterdam is a city largely fueled by commerce, it makes sense that Ghezenism would heavily tie into Kerch culture as well. Symbols of Ghezen can be found in many places throughout the city, even beyond the Church of Barter. A very good example of this is Vellgeluk, the island where the Crows meet Van Eck expecting to get their reward from the Ice Court heist: “Smugglers called it Vellgeluk, “good luck,” because of the paintings still visible around the base of what would have been the obelisk tower: golden circles meant to represent coins, symbols of favor from Ghezen, the god of industry and commerce,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 44). This just goes to show how many people in Ketterdam, and the wider country of Kerch as well, put their faith in Ghezen. Vellgeluk is a chosen place for smugglers to do business, specifically because favors of Ghezen are still present there.

Another interesting part of that passage is the fact that Ghezen is referred to as the god of industry and commerce. Kerch may have other gods, but as far as I can remember - and I may be wrong, but I don't think I am - we never hear about any of them. A similar situation can be found in Fjerda, where Djel is specifically the god of life, implying the existence of other gods. In Fjerda, it is very clear that Djel is mainly what they base their culture and belief system around. This makes perfect sense for a god of life, but isn't Ketterdam’s situation a bit more unusual? The most frequently discussed god, Ghezen, represents industry. We can assume Ghezen is the primary god within the Kerch religious system. Not to mention that their largest church is called the Church of Barter, barter obviously being a term that has much to do with economics. Ketterdam, if not the entire country of Kerch, seems to have no real concept of the separation of church and state. They quite literally hold auctions inside of the church; the auctioning of Kuwei is not a singular event.

The impacts of religion can also be seen in the culture and behavior of the people of Kerch, as seen in a brief section of Crooked Kingdom. “Kerch women—even the wealthy ones—didn’t bother with anything as frivolous as embroidery or needlepoint. Ghezen was better served by tasks that benefited the household,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 14). Obviously, things like this are much more typical of religion. But I would argue that even this holds traces of the same values expressed by the connection between Ghezenism and the economy. It is specifically mentioned here that Kerch women are encouraged to participate in tasks that will “benefit the household”. This displays one of the very prominent aspects of the Ghezenite religion, which is that one of the most important things a person can do is be productive, and create a prosperous life for themselves and their family.

In addition to direct ties between Ghezenism and the Kerch economy, occasionally the legal system is put into the mix as well. While considering what consequences his father might face after the events of the auction, Wylan reveals this piece of information: “Knowingly entering into a false contract for the purpose of subverting the market wasn’t just illegal, it was considered blasphemy, a blight on the works of Ghezen, and the penalties were harsh,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 41). Essentially what he means by this is that not only is tampering with the economy against the law, but it is also heavily frowned upon in a religious sense, and anyone who does so will face punishment from both sides. This is extremely unique, even within the Grishaverse. This single sentence also reveals another very interesting thing about Kerch society. The market, as it exists in Ketterdam, is believed to be a creation of god - it is referred to here as being a part of the “works of Ghezen”. That, more than anything, is concrete proof of just how interconnected the economy of Kerch is with its primary religion. This also means that committing a crime such as Van Eck did isn't simply illegal (which we can assume he has no issues with), it is also an act that goes against his own religion. But stop to consider for a moment: does he really have a problem with that either?

There are numerous examples throughout both books of Van Eck blatantly abusing the values of his own religion. On its own, the teachings of Ghezenism aren't inherently bad. After all, things such as tampering with the market for your own gain are actively discouraged using the threat of blasphemy, which I'd say is generally beneficial. The issue, however, arises when Van Eck in particular attempts to twist some of these values in order to justify his own actions. If there is one single quote from the duology that exemplifies this, it would be this one: “Ghezen shows his favor to those who are deserving, to those who build cities, not the rats who eat away at their foundations. He has blessed me and my dealings. You will perish, and I will prosper. That is Ghezen’s will,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 45). Van Eck openly believes that, since he is a member of the upper class, he is somehow more deserving of a blessing. He is insistent that “Ghezen's will”, or what he interprets as what Ghezen wishes for him to do, is to trample others in order to further his own success.

It doesn't matter to him who stands in his way, and it never will, because his goal is only to make himself more wealthy; he simply hides this behind a thin veil of piety. This motivation is especially clear when he is speaking to Inej while he is holding her captive. “When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor. Who will remember a girl like you, Miss Ghafa? What will you and Kaz Brekker leave behind but corpses to be burned on the Reaper’s Barge?” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 7). He frames people less fortunate than him - in this case Kaz and Inej - as forgettable and unimportant. The only thing he considers truly important is wealth, which he equates to power. He even references Ghezen here, claiming again that all of his actions, as well as his empire and legacy, are meant to show his dedication to his religion. He also claims that his ability to attain this level of success is a sign that Ghezen favors him. That in particular is a display of his extremely warped view of Ghezenism. The truth is that his success can only be attributed to his unethical actions, but the fact that he claims it is due to Ghezen's favor means that he will never be able to be convinced that he is wrong. He has what he believes to be an airtight justification.

His classism is also extremely evident, while indirectly, in an exchange between Kaz and Wylan earlier on in Crooked Kingdom. ““Your father much for charity?” “No. He tithes to Ghezen, but he says charity robs men of the chance at honest labor,”” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 2). This shows that Van Eck is very protective over his wealth. Which, quite frankly, is more likely than not the exact opposite of what Ghezenism is intended to promote. Based on what we are shown from an outside perspective, it seems as though one of the main aspects of Ghezenism is to create a prosperous economy for everyone. However, what Van Eck seems to believe is that he is intended to simply accumulate as much wealth as he possibly can, and keep it all for himself.

It is incredibly clear that Van Eck doesn't care about the well-being of anyone other than himself when it comes down to it. It could be argued that he cares for Alys, and will care for their child when it is born, but this simply cannot be proven. Just look at the exact mirror of this situation: Marya and Wylan. Wylan states about his parents, “I think he really loved her. They fought all the time, sometimes about me, but I remember them laughing a lot together too,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 14). If we are to believe that this is true, and Van Eck truly did love Marya, that doesn't change the fact that he didn't hesitate to send her away as soon as he discovered that Wylan couldn't read or write. There is no evidence to say that he wouldn't do the same to Alys, under similar circumstances.

And, of course, this all leads back to the matter of Wylan. When Van Eck decided that Wylan wouldn't be useful to him, he stopped caring about him very quickly. Near the end of Six of Crows, we hear more of the specifics on Van Eck's opinion of Wylan. “I have hired the best tutors from every corner of the world. I’ve tried specialists, tonics, beatings, hypnotism. But he refused to be taught. I finally had to accept that Ghezen saw fit to curse me with a moron for a child. Wylan is a boy who will never grow to be a man. He is a disgrace to my house,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 45). Van Eck believes that Wylan is a curse from Ghezen, purely because he thinks that Wylan will be incapable of producing profits for their business. This is perhaps one of the most egregious examples of his blatant abuse of his own religion, because he is entirely willing to abandon and even murder his own son in order to fulfill his goals, which he claims is all Ghezen's will.

There is no feasible way Wylan would be able to grow up being raised by Van Eck, and not be affected by his religious ideas in some way. In fact, there is evidence contained in the text that proves this rather thoroughly. There are even certain things that have already been cited within this analysis that can be circled back to, such as the quote just above. This quote exemplifies the sort of treatment Wylan was subjected to while growing up. This is mostly speculation, but it's safe to assume he was told at a very young age that his own father considered him a punishment from god. That is objectively terrible, and we know that by the age of eight his father was his only parent. The psychological impacts that that would have on a child that young are unimaginable.

Additionally, we can return to this quote from Crooked Kingdom: “When I leave this world, the greatest shipping empire ever known will remain, an engine of wealth, a tribute to Ghezen and a sign of his favor. Who will remember a girl like you, Miss Ghafa? What will you and Kaz Brekker leave behind but corpses to be burned on the Reaper’s Barge?” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 7). While Van Eck is not talking to Wylan here, and Wylan isn't even present at the time, this passage still indirectly displays Van Eck's feelings about Wylan. Here he is expressing the fact that he maintains that if a person is not able to create wealth and prosperity for themselves, they are essentially useless. As we know from the previous example, he believes this of Wylan as well.

It is evident that Wylan was taught Ghezenite values from a young age. While examining the exterior of the Church of Barter, his thoughts include this: “He didn’t need to be able to read the words engraved over the arch. He’d heard his father repeat them countless times. Enjent, Voorhent, Almhent. Industry, Integrity, Prosperity,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 31). This is confirmation that Van Eck frequently encouraged Wylan to think about these values, and it can be inferred that it likely wasn't in a particularly positive manner. Industry, integrity, and prosperity are clearly the three main ideals of this religion, and we can easily be led to the conclusion that Van Eck is certain his son is capable of none of them.

It is also suggested that Wylan may even associate his father's disapproval with religion subconsciously as well. A good example of this is in Crooked Kingdom, after Wylan is taken to the Church of Barter. “Van Eck shook his head. “Every time I think you cannot disappoint me further, you prove me wrong.” They were in a small chapel topped by a dome. The oil paintings on the wall featured battle scenes and piles of armaments,” (Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 31). While this is also simply meant to provide the reader with a description of the environment, the juxtaposition between the two halves of this passage cannot be an accident. What we can observe here is that after Van Eck once again expresses his ever-present disappointment with Wylan, emphasis is immediately put on the fact that they are in the church. This, along with the other passages listed, creates a clear link between Wylan's negative relationship with his father and the effects that their shared religion has had on it.

What I consider to be one of the most important quotes for this subject, despite also being the shortest one used, comes near the end of Six of Crows. After Wylan has played his role in foiling Van Eck's plan to trick the Crows, he says this: “Maybe you can pray to Ghezen for understanding, Father,” (Six of Crows, Chapter 45). This is sort of the first act of retribution that the reader sees from Wylan. He has just made his father look like a fool, and then he practically spits in his face by taking the thing that was used against him for so long - their religion - and using it against his father instead. Not only is this moment incredibly satisfying, it also marks the beginning of Wylan's growth as a character that eventually leads to him being able to stand up to his father in more ways.

Despite being arguably the least explored Grishaverse religion in online spaces, I find Ghezenism to be extremely interesting when it comes to the ways it ties into the themes of the story. It represents wider, more general themes found throughout the book, such as the idea that people often value their own success over the well-being of others, but it contains even more when examined under a closer lens. It opens the door to a completely new aspect of further analyzing the relationship between Wylan and his father, and introduces vital elements of in-depth characterization for both of them. The way Wylan and Van Eck each view the same religion is highly indicative of their individual values, and that is a very interesting thing to expand upon. It simply goes to show just how much thought went into creating both the culture of this world, and the characters who live within it.

#this is virtually just a huge monster of a brain dump #don't bully me too hard if some details are off guys #six of crows #crooked kingdom #leigh bardugo #grishaverse #shadow and bone netflix #shadow and bone #shadow and bone s2 #wylan van eck #wylan hendriks #soc wylan #wylan soc #wesper #jan van eck #marya hendriks #alys van eck #ketterdam

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tbhimnoteasyonmyself · 2 months

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WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH PHEE?

(and other equally puzzling things)

An EXTREMELY EXTENSIVE Post-Episode 10 Analysis/Theory

So, okay. Episode 10 was A LOT. Like... A LOT, A LOT. And a lot of this lot seems... Weird as fuck. So many odd choices were made in the narrative.

Top's drugged manipulation; White pulling info about shrooms out of his ass; Fluke becoming a victim of involuntary drug abuse ghosts of his past and begging for mercy after "all he did to Non"... But nothing beats Phee's OOC moments in ep.10 while he's alone with Jin.

Which is what compels me to make this post. Because this series has been nothing but the richness of detail and now suddenly... It's all over the place? Call it wishful thinking (or Last Twilight trauma) but I don't think so. And it mostly comes down to: Phee. And whatever his "agenda" is.

PS: All screenshots of the show I use (and I will use a lot) will have been brightened because this show is FUCKING DARK, BOYYYYYY and I don't think y'all deserve to force your sight at 3AM to enjoy my posts.

WHAT HAPPENS AND WHY IT'S SUSPICIOUS

So? What does Phee say and do when he's alone with Jin in ep.10 and why am I suspicious of it?

It's hard to say for sure. But we can base ourselves off of 3 things: what we hear him say, what Jin replies to him and the flashbacks (no, they're not just there to fill in time for this very short episode, they serve a narrative purpose).

So let's do this analysis following the order in which things are shown to us, shall we?

First of all, we get a short flashback. The events are as follows:

Phee and New go to see the gang's film

New approaches Phee and they talk

New and Phee decide to try and figure out what happened to Non by infiltrating the group

New and Phee join the gang's school and start asking question

Jin decides to leave Thailand

New suggests going to Por's mansion for the goodbye party

Phee questions New in the lab about his decisions

New suggests using their homemade drug on the group as a truth serum

Phee asks if the drug is deadly and New denies it

Although we don't hear Phee tell this to Jin, Jin does reply very angrily something along the lines of "and you just let him carry on with it? why didn't you stop him? what the fuck is wrong with y'all???", so we can assume we've been shown what Phee told him.

So far, it's very unsuspicious. We've been shown these events before in the actual flashbacks so we can be fairly sure all of that is true.

It starts to get suspicious, however, when Phee replies to him: "There's so much more that you don't understand. About Non, and Tan".

And I think Jin feels the vibe too because, the man standing on his tall pillar of morality and righteousness /s, says he'll give Phee another chance to cut the bullshit and tell him everything. And so Phee sighs and the dreaded narration of ✨New's Murderous Adventures✨ starts.

So Phee tells Jin (and consequently us) that:

Phee and New set up a bunch of cameras to spy on the gang

New drugged the drinks

It was supposed to end when everyone was high at the party but New didn't follow the plan

New deleted the camera files

Phee kept drugging the group

Por's injury wasn't an accident but a trap that he thinks New set

New's drug enhances people's inner fears

Phee "never thought New would be so cruel with Uncle Dang"

New drugged Top at the temple

New must've left the hard disk for White to find

By the time he figured New's plan, there was nothing he could do about it (and we see him looking distressed at New's arrival at the house)

Now, here we have some interesting things. Let me list them for you.

Why would Phee keep drugging the group after Por got hurt?? If, as he claims, he didn't mean for people to get hurt, why would he keep people on drugs while a man is dying on the couch? Especially when the guy you're on a revenge mission with is ELIMINATING THE CONTENT OF THE CAMERA RECORDINGS!! That sure isn't gonna help anyone survive!

How does Phee know about Top??? He and Jin never saw Top arrive at the house. For all they know, that bro is lost in the woods. Right??

HOW THE FUCK DOES HE KNOW WHITE GOT THE HARD DRIVE??? There's no signal in the woods. We've established that. When White tells Tee and New about his actions they're ALONE. The only other person there is LITERALLY THE MASKY (I'm calling the masked person that for convenience, it's shorter. besides, it seems the fandom has been calling them that anyways, so... yeah). So how does he know? How does he know???

And in that same fucking sequence: THE MASKY TRIES TO HURT NEW!!! Bu if New told Top to hurt everyone who hurt Non, why would he hurt him??? And why, my friends, WHY would he SAVE TEE, when he's the only witness of those events??? It would be so easy to just say the masky killed Tee and he couldn't save him... Is it 4D chess??? Is it a different masky??? Or, is it simply not true that New did that?

It's very confusing, weird and suspicious. But let's wait it out, guys, because there's more to PheeJin in the temple.

After this odd-ass narration, they're back to having a convo. Which goes as follows:

Jin (very validly) asks Phee what the fuck is wrong with him and New

Phee says he'd never allow them to go if he knew New was going for murder instead of just confessions ("you can hate me if you want but I never wanted anyone to get hurt, I swear" or whatever he said)

Jin asks if Tan is New and Phee is Non's boyfriend

Phee confirms Jin's suspicions and even adds that "p'New came back from England"

Jin asks if they ever saw the group as their friends

Phee says they wanted to infiltrate the group to find the truth because they didn't know shit about what happened to Non and it's haunting them (good choice of words there, very subtle /s)

Phee explains his motivation, stating he told Non to "get lost and die"

Jin confesses to recording the child grooming revenge porn tape and posting it on Twitter (-_-)

Jin explains his motivation, saying he respected Non's relationship (by constantly making moves on him?) but couldn't stand him cheating on Phee (so he one-upped him by committing not one but two actual severe crimes?)

Phee appears to be mad and disgusted so he says "Fuck. So we both were the ones who hurt Non?", gets up and starts pacing (oh no! the big boy is angy~~~ /s)

Jin gets up like a sad wet cat

Phee randomly finds an axe and takes some exposition out of his ass by stating "this must be Tan's axe that he keeps as a spare. But it's good"

Phee breaks the gate

So by this point Phee's whole speech sounds a bit insane, considering the type of person we've seen he is. Not to mention he just INSTANTLY calms down upon finding an axe and just decides to move on. Like ??? Excuse me??? If that ain't weird then idk what is. Like, sure, Phee is a very confusing and confused character (as better explored by @crysta1ized in this post). He seems to have his heart divided between many things and they could all be pulling at his strings there. HOWEVER, we have to remember Phee's also THIS guy:

Does this look like the kind of person who would just move on after a (perceived) treason? Does he??

And, the thing about this is that it gets worse.

After the scene cuts back from the house, Pheejin are lost in the damn woods (parallels to New and Tee? mayhaps, man, mayhaps...) These are the events there:

Phee is back to supporting Jin's weight with his body while they walk (which makes no fucking sense bc Jin hurt his SHOULDER which is a part of his UPPER BODY so there's no reason why he couldn't walk on his own but okay, sure)

They make no progress walking for a while, even despite trying to mark the places they've already been at

Jin is very upset that Phee's not very good at navigating through unknown forests at night

Phee, however, is very understanding and says: "Jin. I told you that I would be the one who would protect you. So I'll get you out of here" then PROCEEDS TO HOLD HANDS with him and continues with: "Right now, our friends are waiting for us to help them. So, you must stay strong. Believe in me"

-Jin nods (because, despite trying to play the apathetic bitch, he's a softie and very much has feelings™)

-PheeJin finally find the exit of the fucking forest

DO Y'ALL SEE HOW SOMETHING'S VERY WRONG WITH PHEE HERE??? Bro's not just acting weird (that would be fine, we love weirdos. *looks at New and winks* <3), he's abnormal. He's not acting like himself.

So, before I jump into trying to make some sense out of all of this, I'll just add the last scene of PheeJin alone in ep.10, last anyone come tell me I missed it:

They're arriving at the mansion

Jin falls down

Phee abandons the axe to help him

I don't think this one is particularly relevant to analyse Phee's character in this episode (although the axe is certainly relevant for other plots and our dear 9th person) but it's there. After this, they're back in the house with everyone and Por's rotting corpse.

PHEE IS HIDING THINGS

So what the fuck happened, really? Well, a lot. Some are easier, I think, to interpret, some aren't but regardless, there was a lot going on with Phee. To make this very complex thing a bit easier to understand, I'll start from the things I think are a bit easier to explain and/or are more solid and then I'll move from there towards the rest of this mess. Okay? Ok- (gets shot bc I hate John Green).

One thing for me that's nearly set in stone is that Phee, at the very least, isn't telling Jin everything. If he was, then the flashbacks would've started with PheeNon's falling love montage but they don't. They start at the cinema. Plus, Jin has to ask if Phee is Non's boyfriend and Tan is New, like he's piecing things by himself. If Phee had told him that, he wouldn't need to ask. AND Phee would've have referred to New as New during his whole monologue but he did not. He kept saying "Tan". He only started doing so after Jin asked the question and he confirmed Tan was New.

Curiously enough, he also never mentions the antidote he knows exists and KNOWS New brought along. And that neither of them ever used on the others.

The million-dollar question here is then, naturally: why? Various reasons, I believe.

1st of all I think we have to account for the feels. Phee is definitely in a weird ass zone with Jin but it's something. And he feels that something (whatever it is. believe me I could make an entire post about that shit, it's so fucking complex, man, and it only gets worse this episode). He likes Jin, even if he tries not to or if he dislikes that he likes him. It's undeniable. So yes, of course, he doesn't want Jin to hate his guts more than necessary.

But also... We cannot forget why Phee himself is there: to find out what happened to Non. And what does he get out of the conversation he has with Jin? That's right. A confession.

Now, I don't think it's the confession he expected if his reactions are anything to go by:

I mean... If this is not the face of a man thinking "well, shit", then idk what it is. And also because, idk if it's a subtitle error or not, but he seems to ask "what did you three do?" when he's inquiring about the events of the past, so...

Someone is being excluded.

Still, I think it's super possible he was hoping to get something out of it. After all, even if he assumes Jin is innocent in his actions, I don't think he's excluding him from having knowledge of what went down. That would make his positive bias even sillier.

So yeah, sure, I bet Phee feels genuinely guilty and it hurts him to be in the situation he's in and he definitely wants to be in a good place in terms of his relationship with Jin, especially because, as he said, he doesn't know if they can get out of the temple. But also... As Ta (Phee's actor) himself said in an interview: Phee can be really manipulative (I can't find the damn interview rn but, during my search, I found @raelle-writing had also mentioned it in this post, so I think it's enough to say I didn't dream that shit). You know... 2 things can be true at once.

Which brings me to the next part:

PHEE IS LYING

That whole talk of "I never thought he would hurt you", "if I had known I wouldn't have let you come", blah, blah, blah. That's some major BULLSHIT.

Phee knew exactly what New was capable of. At least, on a subconscious level. After all, if my friends started being murdered, my 1st assumption would not be that my best friend did it. Unless, of course, my best friend was spiralling down to madness, constantly using drugs to see his dead brother and answering shit like this:

With a smirk on, when I ask him if the absynthe is gonna kill our friends. Because yeah, sure, I guess the green won't kill them. But you can't tell me this motherfucker wouldn't. He definitely would. And if we can infer that, so does Phee, who has been living with him as his close friend for the last 3 years.

In fact, the very fact that he feels the need to ask whether or not the drugs will kill the gang is proof enough that he, to some extent and, whether or not he's aware of it, KNOWS that's, at least, a possibility. Knows that's something New would do.

So yeah, he's perhaps not just lying to Jin (but also to himself) or not intentionally lying, but he's lying nevertheless. Phee knew this was a possibility. He knew New was capable of stuff like that. And when he pieces the story together, that's him admitting, even if no one realizes, that he knew it. And that he let it happen, in fact, because he never tried to stop the drugging. Or talked to New about what was going on (you'd think if he had that he would've told Jin in that situation). His biggest weapon is his knowledge and he chose not to swing the sword sooner. How very Fluke of him, isn't it? Especially because now 2 people are dead and that's on New, right? Right???

Not necessarily.

NEW IS NOT A MURDERER (initially)

You see, for all we see New is fine with death and murder in episodes 9 and 10, he makes it clear his nº1 goal is to figure out what happened to Non when he gets in front of a fucking firearm to harass Tee into talking.

So why would he talk Top into murder? Why would Top attack him?? Why would he kill Uncle Dang?? And why, on the goddamn Earth, would he eliminate the recordings in the house when his whole motivation is

(Thank you, hallucination Non <;3) to expose them??? Especially when the only other person who knew about the hidden cameras was Phee. It makes no sense! Sure, he might've contemplated the murder, but on a later phase of the plan, I think. The priority was, always, to get them to confess on camera so he could later use the recordings to expose them to the country and clear Non's image. 'Cause we cannot forget, while the people close to Non don't buy the bullshit TV news sensationalist story (and, therefore, are searching for the truth), the rest of the country thinks Non is a slut who ran away with mafia money and his teacher(because, like @delululover explains in this post: Asian culture tends to normalize grooming of older teens and even blame them for the situation).

So what are we seeing when Phee narrates the events? Well, probably just Phee's guesses.

He thinks New is deranged and has drugs and that Top is missing and now they're being attacked by this person, who is conveniently wearing a mask. So he guesses that's Top. Plus, he doesn't know New was attacked by Masky in the middle of the forest.

He knows, like everyone else, that New had the hard drive. And, when Top and New go out in the woods with the bike he remains in the house. So, it's possible he saw the hard drive there where New left it before he went out.

And, because the only 2 people remaining in the house, as far as Phee knows, are Fluke and White, and New DEFINITELY wouldn't want the drive to get into Fluke's hands, he must've assumed New wanted White to find it (which may or may not be true but it's irrelevant, I think).

And, yes, calm down, I can hear you scream: "But how did he know White watched the video???" And the answer I bring you is very simple: he didn't. He has no idea. And the best part is: you only think he knows because you know. But Phee never says that. He says New left the hard drive there for White to find. And that's it. He never mentions a video whatsoever.

Now, is it convoluted? Yes. Absolutely. But we have to think this is Phee we're talking about. He's the guy who always thinks he has the upper hand (a.k.a thinking he can save Non or that he's not falling in Love with Jin). It's almost impossible for him to think he's in the dark as to what is happening to them. After all, in his narrative of his life, he is the hero. And, I know, lots of people in the fandom see it that way as well, so... It's not impossible to imagine that's what the story is trying to sell us. It's trying to make us believe Phee knows. When in reality, I think, it's more likely that Phee's the embodiment of this meme:

Okay. But then if New didn't do it, then who did? Because something is obviously going on with Top, right? And Uncle Dang IS very much dead. So what the fuck is that all about?

THE SECRET 9TH PERSON? ENTITY? THING?

As discussed several times by several people in this fandom, there's a very high possibility that there's someone else with them in the woods.

@blmpff points out the existence of various versions of the mask here. @subtextsays points out the crutches in the bathroom scene with Top here. There's this shit:

Whatever it fucking means (besides the fact that it gives me the hibbie jibbies). Someone is also obviously taking care of the Janta cult because there's fresh food in the offerings.

@raelle-writing also points out here that New is also seeing stuff even though our favourite insane motherfucker has got (and has been using!) the antidote.

And, as of episode 10, as @babyangelsky pointed out in this post. When PheeJin are lost in the damn woods, the cuts on the wood Phee supposedly make keep changing.

Which makes both of us question if they're all the same cut or even all done by Phee.

So, I think this is enough to speculate Phee could very much just be misinterpreting the whole thing and attributing guilt to New when, in fact, someone else has been causing the deaths.

Now you may question who and that's all very fair. You should even. But that is not what this post is about and, frankly, thank god, because this is already a monstrous creation.

So let's pick this cut these cuts in the wood and use it as a segway to the last part of this, shall we?

PHEE IS AS BENEVOLENT AS A GREEK GOD

So Phee's mad. Super mad. He's passing around and cursing.

Jin, the only person he probably genuinely thought didn't do anything, is the one who recorded and posted the video.

And then Phee finds an axe. And, suddenly, Phee changes. Why?

Well, we have to look at it with what urges Phee to talk in the first place (besides his feelings and his wants): Phee is losing hope. He states it himself that he doesn't think they're going to be able to get out of the temple. So, he talks. Sure, he doesn't say everything but it's the closest to being honest with Jin we've ever seen him be.

And then their whole reality changes. Because Phee found an axe. And it all comes down on him: they are going to get out of there. And what now?

As @yellingaboutkp states in this post Phee is not only hard to read for us or confusing to the other characters (Jin mainly). He's also hard to read and confusing to himself: "...is Phee still playing Jin? It seems like he's trying to, but the more time he spends with Jin, the harder it's getting to stick to the plan."

Thus, what we see at the end of their time in the temple and alone in the woods is a mix of things, I believe.

Phee needs to feel like he's in control again. And with the original plan being ruined and Jin knowing too much (and there's no way he's not gonna speak, in fact, it's the very first thing he does when they arrive at he house) he's simply not. So when he tells Jin everything is gonna be alright, he's also trying to tell that to himself. He's trying to reassure himself that they're gonna get out of that huge mess. And, perhaps, in saving Jin also finding some redemption because, according to his own narration of the events, he let New go to far (as Jin points out).

Phee also knows more now. And maybe, if he was able to get Jin to speak once, without even having to force anything out of him. who knows if he cannot do it a second time in front of the cameras they've set inside the house? So he's trying to follow the script and manipulate him into trusting him, like he always has been trying to do. Except this time he's more bitter about it. And this, alongside with reason 1, is why these two scenes feel so different:

And lastly: Phee knows the catastrophic effects his words and actions had on Non when they broke up. He knows the consequences of his rage. It's the entire reason why he's there. Because he failed at being a good boyfriend the 1st time. Does he really want that to happen again? Does he want to fail Jin too? There's a reason (besides the story itself and his need to justify himself to Jin) why we see that flashback of his break-up with Non in this episode. And I believe this is it. (so yeah, I understand it might be frustrating to see Phee be more benevolent to Jin who fucked up big time than Non who didn't do anything, it is EXACTLY because he wasn't benevolent to Non that Jin is getting princess treatment)

So, in conclusion: Phee is fucking confused. And it carries on being that way for the rest of the episode. Phee calls New out but he doesn't seem to care too much about Por being dead on the couch. He helps Phee on the ground, but he doesn't say a thing about Fluke pointing a gun at Tee. Sure, he does ask for the gun at a certain point but isn't that just more of Phee's desperate need to get control back?

And we see this all come down to the preview of the next episode and what it's probably going to mean:

Phee finally has got things under his control again. But this means, surprise, surprise, that Phee's gotta make a choice: to shoot (and stand on New's side) or not to shoot (and stand on the gang's side). Which, of course, metaphorically is a choice, in good romance and BL fashion, between 2 lovers: Non and Jin. But also, in good storytelling, as, once again, @raelle-writing (can't help myself, Rae's posts are FIRE 🔥🔥 sksksksksks) explores better in this post: a choice between the past and the present; continuing to drown in grief and a wish for revenge or choosing to move on and heal.

And, as I (YES, if I'm gonna tag a bunch of people and their works, YOU BET, I'm gonna link my own stuff) explore in this post about White's identity and role in the story (and other people in the fandom have commented), I'm inclined to believe he's gonna pick the gang, Jin, the present, healing. Because this is a story about the damage caused by cycles of violence and grief. And a story about how, the only way to stop them, is to choose not to participate in them by letting go.

CONCLUSION

Thank you for your time and attention. Feel free to comment and discuss this with me. And I'll see you either on my next long-ass monologue or next Saturday as we watch episode 11!

All the love 💜💜💜

PS: Shout-out to the group chat, including, but not limited to: @ayansbff, @cyberstalking and @squishysquadstuff who have listened to me ranting about this post since Saturday and told me to eat when I was too focused on writing it. Your patience was fundamental in carrying me through this monstrous project (it took me 10 hours to write this all) 💜💜💜.

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kuroshika · 1 year

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[ sorbet, 01×07 - long analysis below the cut. ] || [ tags: @lesbian-hannibal @shatteredlesbian @7x16pm ] || [ tumblr has refused to post this twice now and im giving up after this attempt. ]

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this episode, we're introduced to franklyn. he seems like a one-off side character who introduces us to the next villain, but his character seems to be a little bit more than that. he's eager to be hannibal's friend, and the rejection he feels when hannibal pushes those professional boundaries is a reflection of hannibal's actions towards will.

franklyn finds hannibal interesting. he thinks they'd be great friends, and is actively trying to form a relationship. this is a direct mirror of how hannibal feels about will — he finds will interesting, and thinks they'd be great friends, so he's actively trying to push will's professional boundaries. this rejection that franklyn feels is the same that hannibal feels.

hannibal's pause and redirection here is interesting. though he may not be getting paid for will's visits, it definitely might be sad to think that will is only seeing him as mandated - it makes hannibal upset that will sees him only because he has to (as shown when poor hannibal sits in his office and pouts when will is late for his session near the end of the episode).

he has intimate knowledge of will, and wants to be his friend because of it - an opposite (but reflection) of franklyn's attempts to be his friend. looking at franklyn, speaking to him, is sort of like speaking to himself. franklyn seems to be a less fine-tuned version of hannibal.

"tobias is my best friend, but i am not tobias's best friend". this sounds pretty similar to our weak relationship with will — hannibal sees will as his friend, will doesn't see hannibal as his friend, and will did take a higher interest in the ripper (and by extension, hannibal). i think here is where hannibal begins to realize the parallel between franklyn and tobias's relationship, and his and will's, as observed by the question he asks. "have you put him on a pedestal?"

in recognizing the reflection of the relationship he's chasing with will, hannibal is using his own therapy for himself - things make more sense when you tell someone else about them, out loud. he can help himself under the guise of helping franklyn if all goes to plan - and it does. franklyn agrees that he does, but also that he (and tobias) hold hannibal on a higher pedestal.

"i am a source of stability and clarity, franklyn, not your friend". this is the first time in the show hannibal adamantly refuses that he's someone's friend. he does the chasing, not the running. having such a reflection approach him to further their already precarious relationship is nothing but a problem.

franklyn assures him that he'd be a great friend, before swiftly changing the subject. the michael jackson tangent seems kinda kooky, and i skipped over it on my first watch-through, but i think i can make some deeper connections now. "you know what i think makes me the most sad about him dying? i will never get to meet him". ever since hannibal was introduced to will (or, rather, the exterior of his mental curtains), he's known there was something lurking beneath the surface. he's taken it as his mission to draw whatever will hides behind those curtains out, to see underneath his mask — to show him his becoming (as referenced in 1×05 "coquilles", when the angel maker tells will "i couldn't bring it out of you," to which will agrees "not all the way" (which feels like a callback to 1×02 "amuse-bouche", when hannibal only manages to draw will out half-way and have him admit that he enjoyed killing hobbs), and the angel maker offers "i can give you your becoming".). hannibal knows that the longer he waits to approach will, the closer the shadow behind the curtains comes to being repressed completely — the closer it comes to dying, in hannibal's mind, dying before he can meet him.

franklyn obviously has a savior complex, yet another reflection of hannibal — as shown in his prolific identity as a surgeon, and his tableaus as the ripper. his words are very familiar to hannibal, who feels that if will allows him to be his friend, he could stop him from killing part of himself. hannibal can see the correlation and prompts him on gently — how is franklyn's efforts returned? how will his own be returned?

franklyn's fantasy ends with him being the one to touch greatness, very much how hannibal's ends with him getting close to will — whom he already knows is great. he gets to be the one who draws will out into the light, he gets to be the one who sees will for who he truly is. he gets to touch greatness.

skipping over bedelia and hannibal's visit (mostly because i have a longer analysis for that scene and im already rambling), we cut to hannibal and will.

here we have hannibal, yet again, asking if they're friends. usually, will is unhesitant in assuring him they aren't, but here, it's a little different. he's gotten too familiar with whatever relationship he and hannibal have, and that part of him behind the curtains strains for more. if he says they are, there's a sense of intimacy that will isn't prepared for (especially not with someone he can't feel). if he says they aren't, however, he feels like he'll lose that sense of codependency they have. hannibal won't need him, won't want his company any longer (though it's reassured in 1×08 "fromage" that he appreciates his company). he'll be a professional curiosity— the same thing he is to alana (as, again, instated in 1×08).

so, instead he says yes to both. in agreeing that their relationship is not professional (and establishing their friendship), will is avoiding that sense of intimacy that comes with being someone's friend while still profiting off of their codependent relationship.

will reasserts control of the conversation by assuring that they're just having conversations. hannibal has been established as will's friend, and asserts himself as will's friend here — by repeating that he is a friend, and reminding will that the two share an intimate bond that has begun to blur the line between friendship and family.

whether will likes it or not, he's established that he's hannibal's friend. he's already intertwined with hannibal in a way that no one else is — he can feel the ripper strain under hannibal's person suit (or, as bedelia more aptly calls it this episode, his veil). he can sense what hannibal is, and part of him wants to get closer and wrap itself around whatever lays beyond the veil. i think this scene also offers the tipping point for hannibal's qualms about murdering franklyn — they are nothing alike anymore. will is his friend. the chase is over. he cannot help himself by helping franklyn - his death will be no loss.

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blueiskewl · 6 months

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The Tomb of a Royal Scribe Discovered in Egypt

Czech experts have made another important discovery in the Egyptian archaeological site in Abusir. They found the hitherto unexplored tomb of the royal scribe Dzhehutiemhat, which is richly decorated in the form of many hieroglyphic texts and images. They mainly consist of ritual and religious texts, which were supposed to ensure the soul of the deceased an eternal life in the next world.

In April and May of this year, another part of field research by Czech Egyptologists regarding shaft tombs from the middle of the first millennium BC took place in Abusir, Egypt. It was here that the archaeological team of the Czech Institute of Egyptology of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University discovered the tomb of a hitherto unknown dignitary from the time of the Persian invasion of Egypt.

“It is a richly decorated shaft tomb of medium size, whose owner, a certain Džehutiemhat, held the office of royal scribe,” explains Ladislav Bareš, who has been coordinating the research of Abusir shaft tombs for a long time.

From the tomb, the above-ground part of which was destroyed already in ancient times, only the main shaft was preserved, at the bottom of which lay a burial chamber made of limestone blocks at a depth of 14 meters. Access to it was provided by a small, more northerly shaft and a narrow corridor approximately three meters long connecting the access shaft with the burial chamber.

For reasons still unknown, this access shaft was largely filled with several dozen decorated limestone blocks, originating from the dismantled above-ground part of the nearby majestic tomb of General Menechibnekon.

A tomb with rich decoration

The burial chamber is richly decorated with texts and other scenes. A long sequence of incantations against snakebite from the Pyramid Texts covers the north entrance wall. Interestingly, the snakes mentioned in these magical texts represented a potential danger, but could also serve as powerful protectors of the deceased and his mummy.

“While the entrance to the nearby Menechibnekon’s burial chamber was protected by the guardians of the gates of the 144th chapter of the Book of the Dead, in the case of Džehutiemhat, snakes from the Pyramid Texts play this role,” adds Renata Landgráfová, director of the Institute of Egyptology and an expert on the ancient Egyptian language and texts.

The south and west walls are covered with a sacrificial ritual and an extensive sacrificial list. On the ceiling of the burial chamber are depictions of the journey of the sun god Reo through the sky, first in the morning and then in the evening celestial bar. The depictions are accompanied by hymns to the rising and setting sun. Inside the burial chamber covered with relief decoration is a large stone sarcophagus, which also bears hieroglyphic inscriptions and depictions of gods, both outside and inside. The lid is decorated with texts taken from the Book of the Dead, but also excerpts from the much older Pyramid Texts, which partially repeat sayings that also appear on the walls of the burial chamber.

Ritual texts for eternal life

On the bottom of the inner wall of the sarcophagus bath, the goddess of the west, Imentet, is depicted, and its inner sides bear the so-called canopic sayings, spoken by this goddess and the earth god Geb. “The goddess of the west inside the sarcophagus represents the protector, guide and symbolic mother of the deceased,” explains Jiří Janák, who analyzes and interprets religious and magical texts as part of field research.

All the mentioned spiritual-ritual texts were supposed to ensure the deceased a smooth entry into a blissful and well-secured eternal life in the afterlife.

The tomb of the scribe Dzhehutiemhat was discovered almost empty, as it was robbed probably already in the 5th century AD, similar to other tombs in this burial ground.

The deceased suffered from sedentary work

From the anthropological analysis of the skeletal remains, which was carried out by leading Egyptian experts, it was found that Dzhehutiemhat died at a relatively early age of around 25 years, he bore the signs of a kind of occupational disease (wear and tear of the spine during sedentary work) and suffered from severe osteoporosis, i.e. thinning of the bones.

The latter fact could place him in the family of other inhabitants of the Abusir shaft tomb burial, in whom the disease was also confirmed, such as the famous Iufaa, the owner of a nearby much larger tomb, whose unlooted burial chamber was discovered in 1996.

It is therefore possible that most of the owners of the tombs buried in this part of the Abusir necropolis belonged to one extended family, firmly anchored in the military elite of late Saiyan Egypt. However, Dzhehutiemhat’s mother probably came from completely different circles and a different part of Egypt at that time. Her two names can be translated as “Nubian” and “Fox”, while the latter is written in an unusual, most likely Berber form.

They also found a collection of pottery in the tomb. “The discovery of a large fragment of a Chian amphora with a perfectly smoothed edge is also very interesting, because the ancient looters probably used it as a shovel,” says Květa Smoláriková, who is an expert on Egyptian ceramics and Greek imports in the Czech team.

“The recently discovered tomb of the dignitary Džehutiemhat on the Abusír archaeological concession is the latest piece of knowledge in the mosaic of the history of ancient Egypt at the end of its glory in the late period, in the 6th century BC,” says Miroslav Bárta, director of Czech archaeological research in Abusír, about the discovery.

“The shaft tombs represent a special type of tombs of this time. They were created as a specific attempt by the ancient Egyptian elites for a renaissance and are based on the form of the tomb of King Djoser, the founder of the famous Old Kingdom, the time of the pyramid builders in the 3rd millennium BC,” he adds.

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skyflyinginaction · 7 months

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Clamp Art Style Analysis: Part 1: Creation Process and Materials

Introduction

Clamp is a manga artist team of four women. They are a prominent distinguished manga artist team known in the West and in China. The thing they are most recognized for is their highly detailed art style many people may have known and many may not. They did several manga you might have known such as Card Captor Sakura, Chobits, and even Tsubasa.

Clamp is one of the artists whose art style I highly admire and want to imitate in my art. I created this post so I can understand and take apart their art style and better understand it. It is going to be difficult since there are four people with different specialties and years of professional experience in their belt. They are constantly changing and adapting to every genre.

I am going to analyze Clamps’ art style in this post and this may take a while to crack due to how extensive the Clamp style is. I am going to pile up everything and explain this in this post which is going to take time to explain in this post. I am going to take apart interviews from different sources while explaining their art style in this post.

I am going to examine their art style and the materials they use. I am going to split into sections talking about the art style and what they use for materials for the manga.

To understand the art style and how it is defined I need to understand Clamp themselves since they created an entirely individual style that is going to talk about other things, not about the art style there is going to be so much I might miss while explaining in this post. I could be wrong while explaining this is an analysis I am going to take my crack at understanding the art style.

Influences

Though the members of Clamp are largely self-taught they are inspired by many figures that influence their art. The list consists of Reiji Matsumoto, Osamu Tezuka, Go Nagai, Hirohiko Araki, and Moto Hagio. The other works that influenced Clamp are animated cartoons and Galaxy Express 999. Reiji Matsumoto and Osamu Tezuka are major influences in their works Clamp used Osamu Tetsuka’s star system in their works which is seen often in the crossing over of characters from their series into their other works. You can see this prevalently in Tsubasa, X, and Kobato where you would find characters from the different series crossover.

Nekoi's favorite cartoonist was Moto Hagio in high school and Mokona mimics pictures by Reiji Matsumoto when she was younger.

While working on manga Nekoi started copying Shinji Wada and Rumiko Takahashi, in which She copied her art in drawing legs. She drew them thick and big. She liked the legs Rumiko Takahashi drew since they seemed long until short feet. She took them to make them more delicate and feminine. Clamp used other artists to help them while drawing.

Go Negai influenced the creation of X, taking inspiration from his work of Devil Man featuring two main male characters, and the murder of the lead's sweetheart triggers the apocalypse. Devil Man is used in creating x The extreme levels of violence depicted in X came from Go Negai's works. Clamp knows about Devil Man. They did a doujinshi of Devil Man in their works as doujinshi artists a while back and even had a doujinshi about the lead character's relationship in their works.

X was inspired by Go Nagai the heavy violence in x inspired from Go Nageis works and the assembled cast of x is inspired by Kyokutei Bakin's Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, The fight sequences of x were inspired by the manga Dragon Ball specifically Akira Toriyama's use of white backgrounds.

Mokona influences are H.R Giger and gérard di-maccio are used for the RG veda backgrounds.

Mokona likes Alphonse Mucha who is a considerable influence in drawing XXXHolic art.

Hirohiko Araki is another influence of Clamp with JoJo's Bizarre Adventure fan manga back when they drew doujinshi and starred in Clamp in wonderland animation with Jojo animated.

They drew a doujinshi on Jojo a while back starring Josuke and Kakyon and even they drew Jolynn once.

There is a lot of Kakyoin and Josuke fanart with Yaoi art drawn by these two characters.

Jojo was used in drawing wish with Kohaku and Shuichiro strongly resembling Jotaro Kujo and Noriaki Kakyoin and Kohaku's hairstyle strongly identical to Kakyoin and Shuiichiro resembling Josuke.

Members

Nanase Ohkawa

The main leader of the group, the main writer of the scenario, is in charge of the original story, script, and design. The other three artists are Mokona, Nekoi, and Satsuki, who are in charge of the art.

Mokona

Mokona is the artist and designer in charge of drawing. Mokona is in charge of sketching out the construction of the characters by hand. Mokona draws the storyboards and sketches out the characters. Mokona is responsible for drawing female characters.

Tsubaki Nekoi

Nekoi is in charge of character design, background scenery, finishing touches, and charge of the foundation of the art in their works. Her booth has been painted for design and screens for finishing touches.Nekoi likes to doodle and throw pages. Nekoi is in charge of drawing male characters.

Satsuki Igarashi

Satsuki Igarashi is in charge of design and drawing and is in charge of the finishing touches. She is in charge of designing the cover of the book itself.

Bio

Three members of Clamp were classmates in high school who took art-focused classes in school; none of them studied at school for manga. Nekoi tried using colored pencils and opaque watercolor in school when she was young. Satsuki and Nekoi were in middle school when they first started drawing manga. Mokona was in an art club in middle school. In high school, she started drawing manga with proper frames and dialogues. Mokona, Nekoi, and Igarashi studied art in high school Nekoi, Mokona, and Igarashi met in high school as a kid She found a friend who loved manga, Satsuki went to an art-type highschool and Mokona high school and college had art-focused classes, Igarashi was at an art department in highschool then to computer graphics vocational school. Clamp started as doujinshi artists who first published doujinshi fanzines Back then they had more people it went down to four in the year of their commercial debut.

The group never worked as assistants with most of the members being self-taught with Tsubaki and Nekoi being more self-taught.

They never used assistants to help them with their work since they wouldn’t be able to understand the years of jargon they created among themselves They created work for years without any help from assistants since assistants would slow them down and wouldn’t understand when we would tell them to do the same thing as before disrupting the workflow they created for work.

For inspiration, Ohkawa gets her ideas from dreams or inspiration based on events she hears or sees on the news a lot of times its deadlines. Ohkawa doesn’t always take notes and she usually loses ideas.

Clamp’s daily work hours while working on manga is in the morning, get in the studio at about 10 or 11 in the morning and in the afternoon they eat dinner at 6 in the evening then stop working at midnight.

The members share a single workspace and are separated into three booths while they work.

There are four separate studios and the member's workspace accommodates all four of them. Clamp work requires complete perfection with members having their own space where they have to work to create one of their works

The art of Clamp is lush layered and amazingly detailed. It has a high-quality art style with extensive details. Due to this, it's almost difficult to adapt to animation.

Each of Clamp’s titles has a different art style depending on the genre or magazine they are running in; their art styles change to suit the work and magazine the manga will appear in. The art style of the work is based on Ohkawa’s decision in charge of the art direction of the work. The art styles and pictures have changed but not their methods.

There is a lot to talk about the Clamp art style which may not be enough to explain one segment

Creation process

Clamp's work process is similar to an animation production; they work like a small animation studio. if you look closely at the work process for creating works it's more like an animation with the director, playwright, character designer, painter, background artist, creator, and publicist treating the manga or story like a script for a movie or anime, the creative process for creating manga is similar to that of animation and movies.

Ohkawa is the storyteller and writes the scripts other three draw drafts and original design, Mokona is the chief character designer, and Tsubaki and Nekoi work for the background Sometimes they they take turns doing different jobs

Ohkawa writes then it goes to Mokona who draws out the outline of the storyboard and sketches the characters

They would normally go to Nekoi for the finishing touches Igarashi and Nekoi work on the final touches the team may shuffle roles. Clamp members do get outside work with computer graphics. For drawing sometimes the members do character backgrounds or may draw everything depending on the story. They have a work where one person designs the character and another draws the actual story. They make storyboards and start drawing. Sometimes they decide who is going to make storyboards and then start drawing. The art is drawn by Satsuki, Mokona, and Nekoi, Nekoi draws the rough draft and thinks about how the story is going forward to next month's script. The designs are handled by Satsuki and Mokona. Satsuki worked on the design for the cover page. In the beginning, they believed that everything in the comic from front to back was important to the story. They take turns completing the rough sketch depending on the story. They divide the story into frames; they mostly draw it on art board paper after they create characters and scripts. Ohkawa explains what in each frame props and the characters in they have how they turn around and include emotions in the panel. Ohkawa and Igarashi never drew manga with split frames. They Look like frames from a movie

When Ohkawa comes up with stories Ohkawa drafts the outline of the story and the story setting The ending for each story is determined from the last scene back to the first scene and the end last and deciding the thing and heading into this way makes way for change drags the reader along for the story Ohkawa drafts the outline the other three members formulate characters designs by creating character profile sheets to avoid confusion. Ohkawas style of writing is considered a color woodblock print in the way it conveys and portrays things the manga is close to picture books and elimination of everything unneeded. Ohkawa thinks about the setting of where the story takes place and Ohkawa constructs a visual image at least in their head then splits up panels in their manga. for the writing process, they come up with the story Ohkawa gets together to discuss the story with the members about the purpose of the story and the main characters when writing and drawing After the members get well used to the story they write it down when creating a story for a weekly magazine they first decide on a rough story from beginning to end Ohkawa works backward from the ending for the story to have an ending like this the members don’t always know how the story develops. Ohkawa's style of writing for stories is not telling anyone the progression of the storyline before it happens reason for that is that when the members of Clamp learn of Hokuto's death one of the members couldn’t draw Hokuto's smile the same way this is how badly shaken they were since that the way Ohkawa created her stories changed for most of the works it was until Chobits she could tell them again. Ohkawa kept using memos in the beginning when she wrote the stories where she kept track of the flow of the story.

Before they start drawing they decide the flow of the story up until the end as well as the materials used for color and monochromatic drawing and the direction of the illustration. The members consider the art style during the planning stage and the materials for the manga, for materials Clamp uses color samplers In the order of how they draw. They draw them the same size as manuscripts, they draw rough sketches, and the size of the manuscript is b4 size and genkou size. They seldom use computers to create manga but only to color pictures, sometimes Clamp uses the scanning method when they draw or draw the rough draft using tablets. They don’t use references for their designs except at one time for Ohkawa she drew inspiration from a perfume and drink package she gathered together she drew more influence from the business art and art from Alan Chai's design.

The amount of lines and the thickness of the lines in the manga depends on the work. When you look at the manga, there are a lot of lines in the characters, Clamps can make the lines, and the thickness of the lines depends on the nature of their work from the thicker lines shows how serious and heavy the story thicker lines match the nature of their work that fits with a heavy theme like works like Tokyo Babylon, which have a heavy atmosphere. Mokona draws with thicker lines and uses pens with strong pressure when drawing. Clamps drawing methods changed with Tsubasa and xxxholic.

In the process of launching a serialization first is to decide on the major storyline work out the details of the characters later and consider the number of chapters needed to tell a story, second Ohkawa has a meeting with Mokona and Nekoi to decide on the design of the main characters Ohkawa asks for designs once they are finished they go over one more time. They go about creating manga and have two processes, one creating a manga based on the request from a publisher The second Clamp decides on the story first and then thinks about the magazine to write it for. Clamp comes up with an outline for the story First after they create the outline they discuss who's going to draw pictures or if they all draw together. They turn the project into a movie telling how a story goes and who the main characters are among themselves. They talk about the rough story and how they should do it when they bring a story to the publisher, attach the rough story and characters, attach characters' settings to them and draw the appearance in the manga to the publisher. Then after they show the work to the editor if the editor thinks it's okay they start the story. After receiving approval from an editor, Ohkawa assigns roles to each group member and then chooses the visual styles depending on the factors such as the complexity of the story and chosen art style the artwork depends on the genre and magazine of the story. Ohkawa provides a rough draft for each chapter with things such as dialogue panel size props and movement and characters' emotions. Storyboarding takes 12 hours while the script takes 8 hours to write. To Mokona from rough draft to inking 10 pages per day, the average Mokona puts into how many pages of black and white manuscript draws in a day the number of pages they draw in a month to finish one installment For example if they're in two monthly publications like Tsubasa and xxxholic one is about 19 or 20 pages other takes one day to finish 6 pages for the foundations for the fishing touches and inking takes a couple of days every 2 weeks when it comes to two weekly series its 120 and 130 pages a week. xxxholic takes two days and x took four days

Ohkawa will specify the proper production for the story and character. After the story, they will choose a person to perform the character design. Clamp switches up who works on character design and the drawing. Igarashi and Ohkawa do it together. One of them directs the work for design and the person in charge of the drawing for that work will draw a rough sketch which is discussed. Mokona is one of the concept artists When the scenario is specified in detail, Mokona listens to the basic story and consults the original concept with Ohkawa Mokona will show what she designed on the spot of the drafting and period. Mokona and Clamp often decide on the design first, then Mokona draws the illustration from format, paper, and photoshopping specifications to color specification. Mokona does pencil drawing first then ink and color it the pencil stage first so Mokona can fix errors in the pencil stage. Ohkawa as the main scriptwriter Ohkawa determines the story and setting and tells the members about it and the rest give their thoughts on it Ohkawa maps out the location, ideas, and character design Ohkawa gives the character's figures hairstyles, and clothes she envisions to the designers or sometimes Ohkawa draws them herself only sketches the rest get the art close to Ohkawa original version. Ohakwa doesn’t talk about the characters until it's time to create their visual design, Ohkawa decides the design of the character and the group visualizes it She explains their appearance she sometimes brings sketches instead of explaining Ohkawa decides the characters they have long or short hair their style of clothes and complexity. Clamp discusses together and thinks about how to make characters, Ohkawa makes requests and discusses them with the other three Ohkawa gives concrete and specific thoughts on what she wants the main characters to be. Ohkawa is the one who decides on the details of the characters and Clamp crafts their characters. They explain the story in the works that include the drawing of the clothes of what the character wears. Ohkawa takes all the info she gathered and has them design the characters based on the descriptions she gave like body build, hair length, and small details, next decide who is going to design the characters either Nekoi or Mokona design them characters and pick one of them then make a character setting chart and decide on the character's height. After the story they choose a person to perform character design. When that is happening, they use specific proper proportions for the story and character. They come up with a story through a character design phase Clamp and choose different styles and proportions for the characters. When it comes to designing characters they determine the head and body ratios since the person drawing can change the proportions in their sketches without knowing. They reference the proportions of the characters in case the person drawing it gets it wrong. Igarashi and Ohkawa consult each other and ask for revisions so that the proportions don’t shift, so it can come in tandem when working for 4 people. Mokona had difficulties drawing Yuko's proportions; she considered drawing them constantly a nightmare. Mokona found it reassuring to have partners who can check your work. Sometimes they decide on the colors to get the approval of the publisher to work on the storyboard and then agree on the birthday and height of the characters. The height is important because it's for drawing proportions that are made to keep consistency when drawing characters. The character designs look like character sheets like the ones you would see in anime. When they first set out to draw the members consulted such things as whether or not thin lines mesh well in the manga. what color materials they would be using the members play it by ear as they go along when they draw. Before drawing the portraits of the characters, Nekoi takes special care of the characters by differentiating them with their hairstyles.

For creating the clothes for the characters, Clamp dresses their character in stuff based on their own or things their acquaintances wear. Clamp reads a lot of informational magazines and fashion magazines on a personal basis which serves as inspiration for characters. Some of the clothes and other items that characters in Clamp wear are inspired by real-life pieces but most of them are done initially by Mokona.

Once the main characters are completed, they decide on the detailed settings for those characters, The members decide on each character's birthday and height. The height is used for doing the proportions of the characters. for the character settings the group goes into detail about the characters like what food they eat, special skills, how and when they do things, how they grew up, when they were young, their hobbies, the type of house they live in whether its Japanese or western style, if they are sleeping wearing pajamas or negligees and whether they like sweets or not; for example if a character is eating sweets it means that a character grew up in an environment where sweets can be easily eaten and if a character has long hair it can be tied or untied these details reference the characters way of life and polices the reason Clamp focuses on what a character likes to eat is because what a person eats says a lot about a character in personality. There's a lot of thought that goes into making character settings. It's mostly to advance writing their characters or fleshing them out as individuals. The character settings are important when writing the characters in the story These details are important for them to write for the characters the character profile is used so they won’t get confused when writing a character for the story to keep the writing of the character to remain consistent throughout the story.

Materials

When drawing manga and illustrations the group often determines the materials they use to draw during the meetings

Once they set out drawing they first consult things like whether or not thin lines and colors. Clamp used different techniques, art materials, and paper when they did manga and color illustrations Clamp used different materials at their disposal. For drawing Rayearth, the materials they use to draw manga are used include other works as well. The heavy colors are used to suit the tone of the story. This goes to show that you can change the impression by changing the pen you use and the paper used.

You can change the impression based on the paper you use. The paper makes a great first impression on the manga. Paper is not the only thing that changes the impression of the manga they draw, also the materials they use are used to change the impression.

Clamp uses different paper sizes for each work, the manga paper is sorted for each one of the members to use. Clamp has strong drawing pressure for their strong drawing pressure they chose thick paper. They use paper made by Daieidou printing for manga drawings because the members have a strong drawing pressure so they chose a thick paper that's three times thicker than manga paper. For the paper that the members use for illustrations Igarashi, Nekoi, and Mokona use Watson paper, BB Kent back of manga paper of copy paper. Both Ohkawa and Igarashi like acid-free paper, they love the sandy texture and don't like smooth art-coated paper. The reason for that is that if the paper is too smooth the texture will not be the same. Clamp uses many materials for works such as Copic markers and alcohol-based products, They use Kaimei Indian ink, and for color inks, they use Holbein and Holbein special black The screentone they use Brans that Clamp uses is I.C. 's and Letraset.

When they first used computer equipment, they were instructed by Takeshi Okazaki and Katsuya Terada. satsuki was into photoshop so Takeshi Yamazaki gave satsuki lessons in photoshop.

For the materials that Clamp used in their past works, rg veda used color inks, aeroflash, Liquitex, and modeling paste, Rayearth used Copic markers, Mokona used color inks for Mask of 20 faces, Tokyo Babylon used color tones and angelic layer had them use thick fountain pen like liner markers for drawing the manga.

Mokona’s pen uses a Kabura and a Marupen. Depending on the weather she draws a line to see which is better. Her favorite pens are Zebras Maru pen and Kabura pen nibs. with lnks, her favorite is Kaimei Indian Ink and Holbein’s Grey or Nouvel’s Burnt Sienna. What she used to draw backgrounds is Pigma 0.05, Mokona has strong drawing pressure. The G pen is too soft for her. She tried using one but it is hard to adjust and prefers using a harder pen. She uses a magic marker with a pigment ink called Prokey she used to draw letters on paper and uses Pentels water-resistant brush pens for solid areas like hair. She uses a powder board for paper with larger pieces and Baron Kent paper stretched with water. For RG Veda backgrounds Mokona used a lot of airbrush techniques. Mokona draws with thicker lines, and her drawings have been drawn with thicker lines. In the beginning, like in the third volume of Tokyo Babylon, the character's faces are angular and have thicker lines which show that her art is changing. Syaoran was Mokona’s favorite character to draw in Tsubasa.

Nekoi uses different nibs for the maru pen and g pen; she uses the Kabura pen for concentrated and close straight lines, also Pigma 0.5 for backgrounds.

For paper Nekoi uses whatever paper they have at hand to the back of wrapping paper bits of cardboard that have fallen around the back of cosmetics box envelopes from the publisher, the wrapping paper from a cup of tea that is Japanese style. She uses an eraser to reduce the tones in the screentone and sandpaper to reduce the large areas of tone she uses. A fine grit sandpaper will decrease nicely but not allow for fine adjustment which she had to fix with an eraser later. Nekoi loved experimenting with new painting materials; she especially loved painting in color.

Step to Step in Creating Manga

When it comes to drawing manga there are steps taken to create manga. these are the materials they use for drawing manga The list of materials and things they use in the steps to create manga are listed as this

1.) plastic eraser, mechanical pencil 0.5 HB

2.) Pigma 0.5, magic marker

3.) brush pen

4.) screen tone, tone cutters round sand eraser

5.) pen white, liquid paper ink, Mython

lastly, for writing the script, they use a pc

For the steps they use to create manga Rayearth I think it might be the same steps they use to draw other manga that come after it might be the same steps they did for Tsubasa,xxxholic, and other manga that come after it, and the materials they use. I bet it's the same materials used for Tsubasa, Card Captor Sakura and xxxholic.

1.) The plot is written by Ohkawa on a personal computer with manuscript paper, For the rough they draw frames with a pencil and roughly insert characters and other elements, they draw the rough while paying attention to the composition and balance the draw the panel as to what you want to show most when you are doing a specific scene. The rough is a lot of lines and its way is less detailed. The rough is used for the placement to know the place of things to ink. You can see the same rough stage with Tsubasa and xxxholic.

Clamp pays attention to the distribution of lines in the panels, the reason why Clamp pays attention to the number of lines is because it's a manga and they are going to ink over and over again. The reason they pay attention to the number of lines in the rough is to calculate how much you ink while you draw. the number of lines you use while you ink is important because you are going to use it over again

the rough is drawn with a pencil, they used a regular pencil for the rough rather than a mechanical pencil since the mechanical pencil has fine lines

2.) Next is the sketching phase, in the sketching phase the characters are drawn with a mechanical pencil they check the drawing by looking through the rough manuscript and back. Once the sketch is finished the member will fix it until they are satisfied The background is only included briefly in the sketch.

3.) The inking stages for the steps of Magic Knight Rayearth are inked mainly using a Pigma 0.05 or Kaimuji marker or brush. When Mokona was drawing Rayearth Mokona had strong drawing pressure so her lines became thicker She changed pens as soon as she noticed it her strong drawing pressure caused Mokonas tip of her pen to break quickly they often used 4 to 5 bottles a day for inking.

4.) Next up the beta stage, after they are done with inking they erase and check it again After that the members add solids the tool used is a brush pen to fill in areas like hair and stuff. They use ink that is resistant to water because if it is water resistant the area will become thin when the eraser is applied.

The steps for rough and sketch are used in their other works only the materials that are used for inking change consistently Depending on the series

5.) Next is the toning stage when they add screentone traditionally to a manga page, when it comes to screen tone they make sure that no more appears in the overlapped areas Clamp use a circular blade type cut when they apply screentone traditionally to a manga and small areas might be scrapped with a sand eraser scrapping the tone can change the texture of the object. They consider the effect and carefully cut it and their grain to the tone and know in which its neatly scrapped directions are not scrapped.

In Rayearth tint and gradation tones are used, and a little gala for the screen tone of the manga.

6.) This is the last stage of Clamp creation in drawing manga. The last stage is to express light and create glamorous images white is used for it. when applying white fluid to the image which is done by flicking the brush on the correction fluid with the rim of the container the effect changes depending on the concentration of the liquid. You can add white to the toothbrush or flick it with your finger. It changes the effect of the image. If you add fine white dilute it with water to adjust for the white. Clamp uses quirk drawing because the pen can be put on the white later.

This technique was applied in other manga like Tsubasa, Card Captor Sakura, and their other works. They used the same white ink to make a beautiful panel.

#clamp #x/1999 #meta #card captor sakura #card captor clear #tsubasa reservoir chronicle #chobits #tsubaki nekoi #Nanase Ohkawa #Satsuki Igarashi #Mokona #magic knight rayearth #xxxholic #kobato #angelic layer #tokyo babylon #my meta

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follows-the-bees · 4 months

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I've seen several people compare these two scenes of Ed hiding (his heart) the silk and wedding topper when Stede and Izzy walk in.

I want to deep dive into these similar moments and all that it reveals about Ed's differing relationship with Stede and Izzy here.

First, Stede walks into the room to check on Ed because he noticed Ed was upset. (This starts off positive.) Ed immediately hides the silk in his jacket over his heart as Stede walks right into Ed's space. While Ed does quickly hide the silk, he still turns to face Stede almost the whole time.

In the first moonlight scene, Stede sees and comments on the silk. He also asks permission to touch it, slowly reaching forward while looking at Ed and gently taking it from him: leaving room for Ed to make a decision. Ed could hide it again, or tell Stede no, but he lets Stede take it, and it slowly slips through his fingers into the trusting hands of Stede.

His heart, his love is returned to that same hiding spot but this time on the outside for all to see — no longer hidden — with tender care, kind words, and a soft smile.

These scenes are an extension of the "fancy a fine fabric" from their first meeting. We see how much has developed over time. How all of this is Ed opening up, becoming vulnerable, Stede enters his space both times are positive and Ed silently allows him.

All of these moments are an accumulation of their growing trust and love for each other. Stede and Ed are comfortable in each other's space.

Ed's opening himself up to it for the first time, being vulnerable and showing his heart.

Now let's look at the scene in 2x1 with the cake toppers.

Ed is hidden away in the captain's quarters, his back turned toward the door when Izzy appears behind him, one of the many instances where he just shows up quietly like a cat. Unlike with Stede, Ed doesn't turn around or toward him right away. He hides the Stede-similar wedding topper in the same hiding spot, over his heart, before inquiring if the crew got cake. And only looking at Izzy in short spurts. He then turns his back again and hides his feelings in another way: rhino horn and then kicking Izzy out of his space.

Later that day, Ed hides his heart, his feelings for Stede, by dropping the wedding topper off the ship and into the ocean, watching it sink into the water. Reminiscent of how he feels: just treading water. Izzy, in fact — no one else, is privy to seeing this.

The equivalent of the moonlight scene — Ed's feelings being spoken about more openly (yet, not by Ed) and on display — happens later in this episode. Once again, Izzy is talking to Ed in the captain's quarters, but he accidentally says "talk it through" causing the unspoken topic to rear its head.

After all the build up of this episode, Ed is at a breaking point and he carries this conversation onto the deck, into public. And by the end, after waving around a gun and acting manic in order to get Izzy to crack, gun ready for just the glimpse of a moment Izzy finally says Stede's name, Ed shoots Izzy in the leg.

This is a very different outcome than the first time. Both items are about Stede, but one is allowed to be nurtured by Stede, Ed allows his vulnerability to be seen by the object of his feelings.

In the second one, his space is being invaded again but it is in a negative way. And Ed acts accordingly to this negativity, to his feelings being prodded and probed. This wonderful analysis goes into more detail about the manic Ed, shooting Izzy scene, and Ed's headspace. Unlike proudly wearing his heart (silk) over his heart, he shoots Izzy when his vulnerability is public. As that same analysis describes, he doesn't shoot Izzy for saying Stede's name, but invading his space and making him confront his emotions.

All traces of his heart: both the silk and the wedding topper, are thrown off the ship, never to be seen again. But when Ed and Stede reunite, those are no longer needed. They have each other. And both are still present, alluded to in other ways: Stede's red shirt, Ed looking at Stede during LuPete's wedding, and especially during the lighting (red, purple, and yellow) in Calypso's Birthday.

Ed keeps all of his feelings hidden. Yes, the whole crew is aware of Stede and Ed's love for each other, but Ed never actually tells anyone his feelings for Stede. (Stede on the other hand waxes poetic about Ed to anyone who will listen.) Even when Lucius talks to him about Stede, Ed tells him that it is a fictional character who is having a hard time. When Anne and Mary tease them about if they had sex yet, he becomes defensive and says it's private.

All of his moments with Stede are in private, in the captain's quarters, auxiliary wardrobe, on deck, or on the beach. The first time we see them do anything in public is at the very end of S2 when everything comes to a head and they are reunited.

These two scenes show Ed hiding his love and then his love being put on display (one by the person he is in love with and the other by someone he loves but not romantically). The contrasting positive versus negative show how very different the outcomes are when one grows naturally and the other is forced. (As well the forming of a relationship versus the ending of one.) And we see how Ed, who always thought his feelings should/need to be kept secret, handles his secret feeling when made public. All until the growth at the end of season two, where they are in full sunlight, in public, on the beach - on land, grounded (he's not an impossible bird) but still adjacent to the sea (mermen.)

#ofmd #our flag means death #stede bonnet #ofmd season 2 #gentlebeard #ofmd stede #ofmd edward teach #izzy hands #ofmd meta #meta analysis #blackbonnet #blackbeard

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 7 months

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Ok so now that I've spent some time thinking about the whole "Chuuya was never a vampire" twist, I... still don't like it. For many reasons.

Here's my explanation; if you want to read it, please do. I strive to be fair. I want to wait for the manga release before making a verdict on whether it's bad writing or not, and I also want to see the start of next arc to see where they're going with all this.

If you don't want to read it, and you're having fun with the twist (it is funny. I will admit that much), then skip this and keep having fun! I don't want to ruin anyone's enjoyment.

First of all. It makes no sense. There are things that just do not add up. There was never an indication this was a possibility.

Bro. Did you put on costume makeup for the texture under your eyes? Did it wash off after nearly getting drowned and you had to frantically reapply it behind Fyodor's back and that's why we couldn't see your face for several chapters. Did you take it off again for your dramatic reveal here at the end? I demand smeared undereye makeup Chuuya in the manga when it releases hbfsdjhbfv

Ok this was more a joke. But here's what really irks me.

From what I can recall, this is. True. He needs to have made contact to manipulate gravity. It's also re-established in this very arc.

Great. So how the fuck did he slow the elevator? He was with Fyodor in a separate room! This makes no sense. Did he leave to stop the elevator and Fyodor was like "oh chill. ok come back soon"??? What?!

Here's another thing I want to address:

@ticklinglady I had this same question. However, on thinking on it again, I do have an answer that makes sense - they had to buy time for Sigma to use his ability on Fyodor, to gain knowledge on him about what he knows, and what his ability is. <-I feel confident in saying this is going to be important later. Sigma will still have a role to play and we will find out more about Fyodor!

Alright. Moving on to the themes, and why this also doesn't work (at least for me).

The theme in this arc is very much to do with the contrast between trust vs control. This is Fyodor's failing when it came to Dazai, and it is established very early on as the major contrast between them, in the Sky Casino arc. The vampires, though it seemed silly and random, fit nicely into that theming. And the conclusion, where Dazai showed extreme faith in Sigma and the Agency members (and what an interesting contrast that is; to have someone show faith in ordinary humans when his foil is a man who has faith in god but not humanity), that fits into that theming also. Ok, so this was an extension of that right? Showing faith in Chuuya, as always.

Yeah, no. I want to direct your attention back to this here.

This line is the one that had everyone going "oh man skk is going to fuck you up for that". I made an entire analysis back when this chapter first came out about the themes that we saw, and Fyodor's utter devaluing of the effectiveness of people beyond just their skills and abilities (it's here, if you're curious). This is why I suspected that, since Dazai and Fyodor are intellectually matched, it would have to be Sigma and Chuuya to catch Fyodor off guard - because he only values what people can do, not who they are.

Well, we got a little with Sigma, before Fyodor took control of the situation again. (Rip buddy.) Sigma's tenacity and unwillingness to fall for Fyodor's manipulating him away from helping the Agency was based off his personal choice and free will. He managed to shoot him! Fyodor was reduced to a cheap trick to get close enough to stab him! There was a certain level of payoff.

But Chuuya? I want you to think for a second. What did he actually do? Not a single part of this was Chuuya's idea. It was Mori's - he was at the very least sent undercover under orders, if not sent to Meursault under orders. He didn't even glue his own fangs in apparently. Now let's go over what he did. Why was it so necessary that it be Chuuya there? Well, obviously because gravity manipulation was needed to slow the elevator and the bullet. Oh... hm. So. His ability. Was what was needed, huh?

But it was necessary for it to be Chuuya because of the bond between him and Dazai, right? Oh. Wait. So, Chuuya's personality and goals don't matter - only his ability to read Dazai.

This twist makes it so Chuuya as a person doesn't actually throw a wrench into Fyodor's plans at all. All that matters is that he is Mori's executive and Dazai's partner. I guess he was "utilized" after all. I thought, with his characterization in Fifteen and Stormbringer, that we were moving away from this characterization of Chuuya only by his bond with Dazai. Do you want to scream.

You might be saying, okay, but at the very least it showed the depths of Double Black's bond! ...did it? Not really, at least not to me. The only impressive part of any of this was Mori's preparedness. This was barely an skk plan. It was a Mori plan. Double Black placing their lives in each other's hands is a Tuesday for them. This is nothing we didn't already know. And truthfully, it goes nowhere near the level of sheer trust we saw in Dead Apple. Mori sent Chuuya in sure, but it was only after everything settled down that he realized that Mori suspected Dazai would need help. Before that point, it seemed everyone thought Dazai was dead except Chuuya. Chuuya chose to jump out of that plane. Chuuya chose to risk his life. It showcased his personality, his free agency, and the level of trust they had far, far better. And it was emotionally satisfying! Dazai was extremely grateful that his trust paid off! Chuuya was somewhat conscious during Corruption, enough to weaken his own punch and shout Dazai's name! Dazai prevented Chuuya from having his ability be separated from him by the fog! They are an unbeatable team... but they were still left exhausted, and had to rely only on each other. How does what happened in this latest episode compare to that in a way that makes me believe they've actually outmaneuvered Fyodor?

Listen. I'll take twists that don't really have a great build up if they further the themes or character development, or it just makes for good drama. There's an interesting pay off, at least, so I say "okay, okay. Could've been done better, but I'll let it slide for the intrigue." But here? Nothing. It was boring. Are you bored.

Anime watchers were probably more fine with it. Maybe it was a little disappointing, but oh well. But manga readers have been having this plot dragged out for years. A lot of said fans (including myself) were excited to see Chuuya become main series relevant and receive present day development - and it seemed like we were going to get that with the recent publication of not one, but two Chuuya backstory novels, and the drama of this arc pitting Dazai and Chuuya against each other. Instead, this did absolutely nothing of interest for his character. Why was he even here?

Which brings me to the last point, which is the characterization.

Going back and re-reading this entire arc now, it becomes one big stage performance. Ok, fine, it's a little funny. But now there's hardly anything of value to these interactions. The only ones that actually matter are Fyodor and Sigma, and Fyodor and Nikolai. All that buildup to drama between Double Black, to another incredible display of trust, to something shifting and changing from the status quo... all that build up, and nothing has changed for Chuuya, or for Double Black. The show of trust wasn't even that dramatic really. Are you bored still.

This also weakens Fyodor's character to me. Fyodor witnessed their incredible show of trust in Dead Apple. I assumed he was prepared for skk-typical bullshittery, you know, being a genius on par if not greater than Dazai. You're telling me he was so overconfident he completely missed that Chuuya wasn't a vampire? Really? Fyodor really had nothing in place that would verify whether the vampires were actually under control? He wasn't constantly checking for a plan? It really was just red eyes and fangs, and he thought that was fine? That's it? Ok.

Truthfully, I was kind of :| about several of the preceding twists in the Meursault arc, particularly the dagger Fyodor pulled out when he started acting to Sigma, and the door railing being preemptively crushed by Chuuya before the drowning started. The dagger was actually ornate in the manga, which raised several questions - it couldn't have come from a guard. It made me think there was more to that interaction than just Fyodor pretends to have a split personality and that there was actually something to that knife. Well, it was made to be a regular knife in the anime, so I guess theorizing across those lines are dashed.

What bothered me the most though was the crumpling of the rail to stop the door from completely closing. There was no indication of this in the manga. None. No one could've predicted that - because it's stupid. The water filled so fast it couldn't get out of the crack in the door, even though it was huge??? Dazai was in the control room - you're telling me that there was no security camera focused on the door??? You know, where you would position a security camera??? It was dumb to me, but I was willing to roll my eyes and move on because I was expecting a good payoff to all this, and well, it was funny.

But now, the whole arc is one extended joke skk were playing on Fyodor. And you're telling me that's how our major antagonist goes out? Our major antagonist of several arcs? Be for fucking real.

And depending on when Dazai figured it out, it may even cheapen earlier scenes. If he found out after the elevator slowed like people have been theorizing, I could accept that. That's fine. But I need people to recall: in the actual episode he states "it was all an act".

Is Dazai probably lying to save face? Sure. But as of this moment we actually have no evidence it wasn't an act from the beginning. Remember that Ango was communicating the whole time with Dazai. Remember that Mori was involved and helped Tanizaki and Kenji get to safety. It's entirely possible it was all premeditated.

One last suggestion: the plan name was "Good-bye" as suggested earlier. This means that even if Dazai didn't know from the beginning, he knew by the time of his speech to Chuuya as he was drowning.

This means that his whole scheme with Sigma was not an extremely dangerous, life-risking play on his part at all (@daz4i has gone to explain why this sacrificialism isn't good for a suicidal character, which I recommend reading, but nonetheless it was still notable characterization for Dazai). And what about this?

Even his own flashbacks and memories were, what? A lie? A performance? For whom? Not for Fyodor, that's for sure.

For us. The readers. For the people who are invested in these two and their dynamic. For the people who wanted development between them, because there are actually issues there that have not been resolved. People wanted Dazai to show real concern. Chuuya is still bitter, even if Dazai thinks everything is fine and the same since he left. There was a tease that we're going to get how Chuuya felt when Dazai left the Mafia at some point in the future. People were making angsty art and writing and getting really excited because all the prior interactions had appeared to be set up for the payoff of this drama.

We get an introduction in the dungeon. We reveal their partnership and fearsome reputation during the Lovecraft fight. They perform flawlessly in Dead Apple. Throughout all this, they need no communication. They read each other and respond in tandem, always... but there's still an underlying tension in the way they do not talk to each other. I, and many others, had thought the prison escape arc was the breaking point for some development, since their prior appearances were all meant to establish them as a team, and this arc dealt heavily with the breaking of established things.

But no. Deus ex skk is perfect. They have no issues or flaws. Do you want to scream again.

Anyways. I recognize I'm probably just very disappointed right now and by tomorrow, I probably won't care anymore and will just roll with it. I think I was extra disappointed because while I tempered my expectations for, say, Yosano and Kyouka's involvement (sigh...), I fully expected skk would be handled well, being the fandom faves and where the money is at, so I guess I took the disappointment that much harder.

However, I'm eager to see how the manga tackles the ending, and if we will get any extra cues or better pacing there that may make me not quite so bitter. If it's any consolation, I do think we'll be getting Chuuya focus at some point in a future arc, and while I do think Fyodor is dead, I doubt he will have stopped haunting the narrative. He'll be back in some capacity. I'm pretty certain he's still the mastermind.

And I'm curious about the next arc and what's happening there. Maybe some things will be revealed later that will help smooth out the flaws here.

#storyrambles #listen by tomorrow i'll probably be totally chill and whatever about it #i just needed to get this out #bsd #bsd season 5 #bsd spoilers #bsd negativity

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