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occasional-drabbles · 3 years

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Compress Hates Apologies

Okay so!!! I got into a LOV mood today thanks to re-watching the summer camp arc, and finally did a drabble with my OC Miyuki, partially from Compress's POV! This is pre-relationship, and I couldn't find a way to smoothly add it in, but Compress had been planning to confess to her after the mission.

Warnings: Amnesia, descriptions of injuries but nothing too serious (Bruises and scrapes, mostly), probably a lot of OOCness but fight me it makes me happy

“I’m sorry”

Two little words, and the alarms in Atsuhiro’s brains sounded. They’re never good to hear. It means there is something to apologize for. And in their line of work, there’s terrifying possibilities.

Best case scenario, it’s just an attack too close for comfort, missed footing that is easily corrected.

Worst case scenario…

He dismissed that thought for now, ducking down to dodge an attack aimed at his head, keeping his focus on Miyuki. She was planning something, and he couldn’t tell what. But he couldn’t focus on her, he needed to trust that she’d take care of herself. Right now, he needs to get this little hero off of his back. Sure, he could compress him, but he has no use for him, so why bother?

As Atsuhiro moved to use his cane as a weapon to hit him with, the hero completely froze, and seemed… confused. His eyes glazed over with a lack of focus, his drawn back fist slowly lowering and loosening.

“What in the world…?” He mumbled, his eyes widening behind his partially broken mask, turning his attention quickly towards where Miyuki was. He focused on her just in time to see her collapse. Ignoring the hero, he ran towards her, unable to help flinching with the ‘thud’ that followed her hitting the ground. Hopefully she didn’t break anything, and won’t end up with a concussion…

He reached her just as Kurogiri’s gates started to open for all of them, giving them the chance to finally escape, as all of the heroes they’d just been struggling with had been immobilized similar to the one he’d been going toe to toe with. Wasting no time, he scooped up Miyuki and carried her through the portal. Damage can be assessed once they’re all safe.

The portal deposited them in the main room of their hideout, which was secure enough. He carefully put her on the couch, the most comfortable place for her to be laid down, because like hell he was putting her on the floor. Especially since whatever she did seemed to have been the reason they could escape.

I’m sorry…

What was she apologizing for? Was it just an apology for not being able to warn them better? Not doing it sooner? Did she know she’d pass out? All of that seemed likely, knowing her… but it felt like there was a greater weight to it. Like there was something more… He’ll have to ask her when she wakes up.

If she wakes up, a part of him thought. But he dismissed it as the rest of the League came filing in through the portals. They all seemed relatively exhausted, Twice was limping with parts of his suit torn (though his mask was still thankfully in tact), Spinner’s left eye was already starting to swell, and Toga and Magne both sported some forming bruises. His own coat had a few tears, and he had a scratch on his forehead that he could feel throbbing now that he could take a moment to think about it, thanks to a particularly hard hit having broken off the top corner of his mask. A shame, too. He quite liked this one.

“That was fun!” Toga chimed excitedly, somehow still having enough energy to bounce in place as she started to unstrap some of her combat gear then and there. The blood tanks, the extra knife storage on her thighs, all of it was being put with surprising care against the bar for the moment. Perhaps it’s the fact that she had seen plenty of blood today that she was still happy despite their forced retreat.

“It was epic! That was terrifying!” Came Twice’s response, seeming to at least partially agree with his young friend, groaning as he perched at the bar, spinning just a little as he surveyed the others. No doubt taking in the damages, just as Atsuhiro had just done. Dabi simply grunted in response, his hands shoved in his pockets as usual. He seemed the least ruffled by their little excursion, but then again he was their best ranged fighter. He didn’t need to get in the thick of it.

“That was way more of a response than we should have gotten…” Spinner mused. Or well, pouted, as he set aside his sword and took a seat near Twice, taking the chance to catch his breath, and accepting the ice pack that Toga was putting together for his eye.

Magne came back with the first aid kits that were kept around the base, setting one at the bar for that trio, and bringing the other over to the couch, where Atsuhiro was sitting on the arm and checking over Miyuki as much as he dared, and Dabi was leaning against the wall with his eyes shut.

“What happened to her?” She asked, letting Compress tend to himself while she took her turn checking over Miyuki, checking her for a fever and any obvious injuries. “Small fever, some scrapes and definitely going to have bruising, but I don’t see anything else.” She announced, to anyone who was paying attention.

Atsuhiro gave a small shrug, finally taking off his mask and balaclava in order to tend to the scrape on his head as best as he could. Though, Magne was helping him after he seemed to keep missing where the injury was with the cleaning wipe.

“I’m not sure…” He admitted, sounding almost guilty as he shut his eyes, hissing a little as she put a disinfectant on the cut. “I heard her give an apology, then the heroes all just seemed to… freeze.”

Toga climbed up right next to Twice, kicking her feet and frowning, her eyebrows furrowed. “But why would she apologize? Whatever she did got us out of there! It was so cool!” She beamed.

“I’m not sure, but she must have expected repercussions. Be it from us, the heroes, or maybe even her own quirk?” Spinner offered, though didn’t sound too sure of himself.

It’s true that they didn’t know much about the limits of her quirk… but it was to make people forget her, not to paralyze or disorient them. So it’s not likely to be her quirk, as near as Atsuhiro could tell.

Dabi had his eyes half open now, looking at Miyuki before scoffing. “I’m going to go lay down.” He announced before leaving the room. No one really said anything on it, figuring he was done with people for the day, not that anyone blames him.

Spinner ended up going to do the same after he’d tended to what he could, dragging his sword with him after wrapping it back up, and keeping the ice pack over his eye. Toga, Twice, and Magne stayed out with Compress for now, chatting amongst themselves and recounting their individual battles while waiting for Miyuki to wake up.

It took over an hour before a soft groan broke the silence, the group having migrated to be sitting around the couch. Twice and Toga were on the ground, Twice laying on the floor with his head in Toga’s lap as she ran her fingers through it, absently putting little braids in it, but avoiding his stitching. Magne was leaning against the back of the couch, Compress content to stay on the arm of the couch where he could best see Miyuki’s face. Toga heard the groan better than any of the others, having been the one speaking. She immediately froze before lighting up, scrambling up to her knees so quickly that Twice’s head thunked to the ground, but she ignored his complaints as she shuffled over to get in Miyuki’s face, despite Magne carefully putting her hand on the younger girl’s shoulder and trying to nudge her back.

“You’re awake! You had us really worried, you know that?” Toga asked, absolutely beaming down at her other sister figure.

Miyuki finally managed to open her eyes, rubbing at her head as though it ached, her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “Who…?” She mumbled, pulling her legs up a bit closer to herself as she worked on sitting up.

Something wasn’t right….

Toga tilted her head for a moment before just laughing “It’s Toga, silly! You must have hit your head when you fell!” She tried, not too concerned just yet.

“Toga…?” Miyuki mimicked, slowly curling up in the corner of the couch, similar to how she did when she first got to the base… before she knew them.

Atsuhiro felt his heart drop to his stomach before she had the chance to speak again, a sick feeling in his gut.

“I don’t remember you.”

Toga blinked a few times as it slowly seemed to register. “Don’t… remember me?” She echoed, shifting to sit back on her feet. Twice was sitting cross legged beside her, having to put his mask back on at some point, but openly surprised at the admission.

Miyuki shook her head a little, hugging her knees to her chest.

“Do you remember who you are?” Magne asked, keeping her tone soft, and careful not to crowd her.

It took too much thought for Atsuhiro’s comfort for her to answer. “Miyuki… that’s my name… right? Miyuki… Nakashima?”

Magne nodded, her posture relaxing a bit. “Okay, that’s something at least. Do you remember any of us?” She asked, gesturing to the four of them around her. Miyuki started with Twice, staring at him thoughtfully for a bit before shaking her head, repeating the process with Toga. She focused on Magne next, and again remembered nothing.

Then she focused on Atsuhiro, and he thought his heart was going to stop. There was none of that familiarity in her eyes. No familiarity, no amusement, or mischief, no relief… nothing. Just… confusion. And a bit of fear. He managed to keep from flinching when she shook her head again. “I’m sorry…” Came her soft apology. Atsuhiro was starting to hate those words.

Magne gave her a soft smile, gently smoothing out her hair, getting some of it out of her hair. It was a mess, but that wasn’t important right now. “That’s okay, dear.” She reassured softly. “I’m thinking you just pushed your quirk, and lost your own memories.”

Twice perked up at that “That’s why everyone froze! They forgot what they were doing! How can you lose your own memories! Keep track of that shit!”

Toga seemed relieved that that was all it was. “Will you get your memories back??” She asked eagerly, trying once again to get in Miyuki’s face, held back by Twice this time, who caught her in a playful headlock.

Miyuki considered before giving an uncertain shrug. She was back to not talking much.

“That’s okay.” Atsuhiro finally said, giving her one of his signature charming smiles, even if he didn’t feel like it. She needed their support, so she gets it. His feelings be damned. She’s surrounded by strangers with hardly any memories to her name, he needs to focus on her. “We can help you try to get those memories back, and in the meantime get you up to speed.”

His reassurance seemed to be what she needed, as she gave a hesitant nod and uncurled a tiny bit. At least she was opening up to them quicker than she did the first time. It probably helped that they knew her better now.

“Wait… how do we tell Boss?” Toga asked, frowning. “He may not like having one member down for the count…”

“Yeah, she can’t do her information stuff if she doesn’t remember anything! We should kick her out! She’s useless like this!”

Magne huffed a bit and rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses. “I can tell him when he gets back from his meeting with his ‘Master’. Or we can have Kurogiri do it or something. We just need to see how things go. But she can still help, so long as she wants to.” She insisted. Then she turned her focus back to Miyuki. “In the meantime, you should get some rest. It’s been a busy day for you. For all of us.” She said, expression softening some.

“Compress, do you mind-”

“Not in the slightest, my dear.” Atsuhiro answered before she could even finish, standing from the couch and offering a hand to Miyuki. Remembering how much she always seemed to appreciate his showmanship, he even gave a playful bow, taking his hat off and everything. Hearing the faint, familiar giggle as she took his hand, he felt some of his anxiety about the situation pass. It really would be okay. She was still Miyuki.

She was still the woman he’d fallen for.

#text post #fic #bnha #my writing #bnha oc #oc x canon #miyuki nakashima #my oc #compress #atsuhiro sako #mr. compress #mr compress #compress x oc #mr. compress x oc #mr compress x oc #magic memories

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rutilation · 5 years

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Does mulching a prisoner of war into shiny little woodchips before burying them alive indefinitely count as a violation of the Geneva Conventions? Asking for a friend.

(Hi guys, I’m back, and I brought 4,400 words with me.)

First of all, my apologies for the nearly five month wait. Ever since last spring, I haven’t had much time at all to devote to writing and I’ve only been able to work on this essay in small increments. And yet, despite the fact that I don’t have the time to do so, this essay somehow turned into a bloated treatise on the failings of gem society. Truly, I am a slave to my obsessions.

I’ve refrained from reading chapter 80 because I just know that if I do, it will insinuate itself into my brain like a tumor and I won’t be able to concentrate on finishing this essay. (That said, I did happen to see someone on twitter make a joking reference to third impact in regards to said chapter, so I am certainly Afraid.) Though my takes may be ice cold by this point, I hope that there are some nuggets of insight to be found in this. With that said, here are my thoughts on chapters 78 and 79.

While the past two chapters have certainly been…hard to read, I think that their contents have been a long time coming, primarily regarding the parallels between Phos and Kongou, and the uglier undercurrents of gem society reaching their logical conclusion. (And I gotta say, this display of—for lack of a better term—inhumanity on the part of the gems jives quite well with all the Shirley Jackson I’ve been reading lately. When I get tired of one display of flagrant mob violence, I can quickly flip to another.)

And then there’s the matter of the gems on the moon… I remember that when I first got into hnk, which was right around the time when Phos and the others left for the moon, everyone was afraid that Phos would go off the deep end and the gems stuck on the moon would end up as collateral damage in Phos’s quest for vengeance. But since Ichikawa is too powerful us, she said “what if it was the other way around, and Phos is the one getting thrown under the bus while the moon gems start a death cult?”

So there’s a lot to talk about, but let’s address the earth gems first, because these characters sure do live in a society. (In order to make my prose more tolerable, I encourage my readership to take a shot every time I write the words “gem society.”)

First of all, I’ve seen a number of people interpret Kongou’s line about the gems forgetting Phos very literally, and assume that the earth gems all have Phos-specific amnesia. I highly doubt this is the case, and he probably just means that Phos is now out of sight and out of mind.

As bleak as the situation is, I think it’s been a long time coming. From the beginning, one of the major philosophical elements of the story has been how the gems’ desire to give meaning to their long lives has compelled them to create a society in which only those with a concrete purpose have value. The characters see themselves and each other as instrumentally but not inherently valuable. With so much of the story focused on how this ethos hurts those individuals who aren’t seen as useful, how much it fosters shame and self-hatred, and how much it makes the gems unable and unwilling to help each other through hardship and depression, it makes sense to me that this inhumane mindset would eventually boil over into something truly cruel, and thus the other shoe has finally dropped. In a strange way, I have more respect for Rutile’s attitude towards the situation than I do the rest of the earth gems (sans Euclase, who I’ll get to in a moment.) Rutile is treating Phos like an enemy that must be vanquished, whereas the others are treating Phos as a kid treats their dirty clothes when they don’t want to do laundry—by shoving it in the back of a closet and trying to forget about it. The former strikes me as less dishonest and dehumanizing than the latter.

Even before chapter 79 made it official, I had a gut feeling that the timetable for figuring out what to do with Phos was nonexistent. I’ll be generous and assume Cinnabar was being sincere in the moment when they implied that they’d put Phos back together eventually. But just like how everyone ignored Cinnabar’s suffering because there was no compelling incentive to do anything about it, or how they all turned a blind eye to the Kongou/Lunarian situation for millennia, I figured that Phos would end up as another problem they wouldn’t bother solving. (Regarding Cinnabar, while I hope they’re still on good terms with everyone after the time skip, I would not be the least bit surprised if the earth gems started ostracizing them again once it became apparent that there would be no new attacks from the moon and thus no further reason to tolerate their mercury.)

(Bort, please stick up for them.)

And to be clear, this is a problem that the earth gems are refusing to solve in exchange for a short-term sense of security. If Phos and Kongou had been allowed to hash things out, and this stalemate hadn’t festered for 220 years, then maybe the moon gems wouldn’t be entertaining the idea of starting that aforementioned death cult. (Tbh, this mostly applies to 84, Yellow, and Dia, since Cairn has been their own personal death cult since chapter 33.) Even leaving aside how bad things have gotten already, if this state of affairs had continued to drag on, I think the situation would have gotten very ugly the second Aechmea got tired of waiting. While playing fruit ninja or whatever with Cairngorm, he says something to the effect of losing a battle here or there isn’t important as long as you win the war in the end, which I’m pretty sure is meant to communicate to the audience that Aechmea is playing the long game. And since he hasn’t done anything in the interim other than reluctantly and incrementally humor Cairngorm’s pet project, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he’s biding his time specifically for Phos, and that he’s counting on them eventually being reawakened. In that case, what would have happened if Kongou had been too meek to interfere, and the gems succeeded in getting rid of Phos for good? If Aechmea eventually gave up on his current scheme, scrapped working with Phos, and came up with a new plan, I’m betting things would quickly devolve into heinous war crimes since he’s only played nice so far in order to keep Phos on his side.

In chapter 78, we get to see two instances of the most common nugget of gem wisdom: only act when you’re guaranteed to succeed, and never take risks. It been a common refrain, with Antarc, and more subtly, Dia being the only gems aside from Phos to push back against that sentiment. And to be clear, I’m not saying any one of these iterations necessarily are bad advice, but it’s become increasingly obvious that it’s the only acceptable mode of dealing with problems in gem society. More on that in a minute.

So, uh, regarding Euclase, here’s an exclusive picture of me, after I’d spent months writing: “Gee, this Euclase character seems pretty shady, but I have faith in Cinnabar, Bort, and Jade to act humanely!’

That said, I think I got at least one aspect of their characterization right in my Euclase-focused essay—that they have a greater comprehension of their mortality than most. Unlike the other gems, they’re not childishly naïve enough to believe that ignoring their problems will save them; they understand that death is always around the corner, and that the (mostly) tranquil life the gems lead requires constant maintenance. Simply sliding down the path of least resistance will come back to bite them all in the ass later down the line, and Euclase knows it. That’s probably why they at least went through the motions of asking Kongou to pray every day for two hundred twenty years.

This is a bit of a tangent, but regarding my earlier point about the gems not commiserating at all, Peridot and Sphene come across as anomalies in that they helped each other through their grief over their lost partners, but that doesn’t seem to happen all that often. As we see in the aftermath of the winter arc, it seemingly did not occur to any of the gems who had lost friends of their own to try and help Phos through their grief. And I think it’s likely that they weren’t given much comfort in their hours of need either. Yellow bottled up their grief, Alex and (presumably) Red Beryl threw themselves into their work to the point of obsession, and Ghost seemed to have largely withdrawn from everyone else. But none of them really healed or helped anyone else heal. Despite their society placing a high value on interdependence, the gems are truly alone when they have to reckon with complicated or inconvenient emotions.

It may be hard to remember, but Phos was once influenced by all these toxic mindsets as well. Recall Phos’s conversation with Benito in chapter two: it implies that Cinnabar did live with the other gems during Phos’s lifetime, recently enough that Phos expects to find them in their room. From this we can infer that our kindhearted Phos never reached out to the clearly lonely Cinnabar while they were actually around, and didn’t even notice when they left the school for good. They may have had the potential for kindness from a very young age, but it was only when they were hit with with the stark truth of Cinnabar’s suffering that they snapped out of the fog of apathy that seems to surround the gems.

In fact, it almost seems like the struggle to drag the gems kicking and screaming out of their comfort zone is a macrocosm for what Phos had to grow out of at the beginning of the series. You’ll recall that once upon a time they were lazy, wanted easy solutions to their problems, and had no faith in their ability to effect change. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that in the eyes of gem society, the problem wasn’t really that Phos was lazy, it’s that their laziness manifested in the wrong ways. They were supposed to be fastidious and reliable about things like crafting, or fighting, or writing reports, but apathetic towards anything that requires more nuance or imagination than that, kindness or cruelty be damned.

All this is cast into even sharper relief if you think back on the arc with Ventricosus. She was in far more dire straits than the earth gems are now, and had a compelling incentive to throw Phos under the bus. But in the end, that wasn’t a line she was willing to cross. Her final line: “If we’re not willing to change our ways, we’ll end up just like the Lunarians,” seems quite portentous in retrospect. I don’t think Ichikawa is positing that being immortal makes you a sociopath, otherwise characters like Kongou, Yellow, and Padpa wouldn’t be such cinnamon buns. But I think she is insinuating that someone who refuses to change is dooming themselves to a state of perpetual immaturity, and that being truly kind requires growing up a bit. It’s a harder for someone who knows they’ll die one day to remain in a state of arrested development than it is for someone who could indefinitely procrastinate on growing up, and just focus all their mental energy into making paper or whatever for all of eternity.

And this seems as good a point as any to stop harping on gem society and start talking about the gems on the moon, starting with my muse, my most problematic of faves.

I brought up in my chapter 77 essay that Aechmea may not be willing to divulge what he was about to tell Cairn, and that was exactly what happened. Since he’s only willing to share this mysterious information if he literally would not be around for the fall out, I’m guessing that whatever this secret is, it’s not benign. And while Cairn has probably put it out of their mind by chapter 79, it’s clear that it’s bugging them before the time skip. I smell a shocking revelation brewing and I dread to imagine what could possibly top mind-control eyeballs. Make no mistake, I’ve devoted an embarrassing amount of brainspace the past nine months or so to contemplating what it will look like when the other shoe finally drops for Cairn’s character arc. (Is there a German word for the ambivalence that arises from wanting to call future plot twists for bragging rights, but not wanting to look like a dipshit if your predictions are wrong?)

Their line from chapter 78 that I alluded to earlier in this essay is rather interesting to me, because although they’re referring to Phos, they might as well be talking about Aechmea. They exhausted themselves to their breaking point trying to look after someone who didn’t take care of themselves, but they’ve nonetheless latched onto someone who is also seeking self-destruction. And as I pointed out earlier in this essay, this line also serves as yet another iteration of the defeatist sentiment that the gems often espouse. But, for a while, it had seemed like Cairn was moving away from that. The decision Cairn made in chapter 67 was certainly…fraught. But, one can’t deny that it wasn’t a brave one on their part, to leave behind everything they knew and cared about for a shot at living authentically; the only problem was that they undercut that step forward by returning to their chronic doormat tendencies. And again in chapter 70, they took a risk by sneaking off to earth knowing that Aechmea would pitch a fit later. But ever since chapter 75, they’ve been backsliding. As said chapter pointed out, their wish has shifted from wanting freedom to wanting what amounts to eternal codependency. I also find it interesting that Cairngorm apparently hasn’t bothered with getting a new name, and is just copying Aechmea’s shtick of going by his title. They’ve gone from sharing a name with Ghost, to having their own name, to not having a name at all. In conclusion, my child is a god damned mess.

I know I said I was done talking about gem society, but I guess I’m not. Going back to what I said in the last paragraph, about Phos not taking care of themselves, that’s been a reoccurring element throughout the series, and in my opinion, it was a significant contributor to the breakdown of Phos’s relationships. The reason Phos never just tried to make friends with Cinnabar—which is what the latter really wanted, and only focused their efforts on following through on their promise, was because Phos’s self-loathing runs so deep that it doesn’t occur to them that anyone would actually want their company for its own sake. Chapter 14 is the most direct allusion to this in my mind. Phos clearly wants to talk to Cinnabar, but instead they hide away and mutter that they’d have nothing to say to them. And as I touched on a moment ago, Phos’s self-destructive tendencies wore down Cairngorm over the course of their partnership.

But, here’s the thing: Phos’s self-loathing isn’t some immutable part of their nature, it was instilled in them by their society from the moment it became apparent that Phos couldn’t slot neatly into a role. This is very apparent in the early chapters, in which no one ever misses an opportunity to remind Phos of their uselessness (except Dia, bless their heart.) Back then, they pretended to not care about it by way of snark and bravado, but in truth, I think it warped their self-perception in an incredibly negative way.

There’s also something that illustrates this which has been on my mind for a while, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about it. When Phos was trapped by their arms during Antarc’s fateful capture, the insult they yelled at their arms to get them moving is the same one that Bort lobbed at them a few times in volume one. I usually see different translations of the word between the two scenes, but to my non-Japanese-fluent ears, it sounded like the same word to me when I watched the anime. It was a striking way of implying that this moment of personal growth had been seeded with something more insidious, that their self-loathing is a taint that has followed them across their many incarnations. I’m not the first one to point this out, but there’s always been a certain tension within the text regarding Phos’s changes. On one hand, their courage to change is framed as admirable and heroic, but on the other hand, they’re also hurting themselves because of social pressure to avoid being useless, which is kind of awful. I think the narrative resolves this tension by making Phos’s quest for validation something which would eventually lead them to try and tear down the status quo that they hurt themselves for in the first place.

Okay, back to the moon gems. I’ve reread the part of chapter 79 focused on the moon several times, and it just feels more ominous with each iteration. What exactly was their idea of administering therapy for Yellow? Why is Amethyst on board with Cairn’s death bullshit? Why is Dia okay with it? Why did they stop fixing the dusted gems? And most concerning, where are the other three gems—especially Alex who would probably be extremely opposed to halting the gem restoration? It feels as if there’s something terrible just out of our field of view and chapter 79 is dancing around it. (But hey, my intuition was wrong about Euclase so maybe when I read chapter 80 Ichikawa will tell me that Alex, Goshe, and Benito were at moon-disneyland the whole time, and that Aechmea is a real swell guy, actually.)

(No, I’m not bitter in the least.)

I also find it interesting that in chapter 79, Cairn is espousing a lot of the same sentiments as poor Yellow, but since they can mask the dysfunction better, they’re treated as an expert rather than a victim. In reality, both of them are in serious need of a therapist, which is apparently non-existent in the post-post-apocalypse.

And finally, Barbata continues to be the truest audience surrogate. I find it interesting that he clearly doesn’t approve of all the bullshit going on, while at the same time being too reticent to do anything about it, aside from some side-eyes and passive-aggressive comments. Perhaps there will be some payoff to this down the line?

At this point, let’s talk about Kongou, because both his actions and his role as a sort of parallel to Phos in the narrative are fascinating. I think this is the first time in the story that he’s really done something proactive. I touched on this in a cursory character analysis I did for him, but to reiterate, the impression I got from his at times obtuse and contradictory behavior was that he had completely given up on trying to solve the Lunarian problem long before the series had begun, and that the only thing cutting through his despair and compelling him to get up in the morning and not just “meditate” forever was the prospect of spending a little more time with the people he loves, even knowing that he couldn’t protect them in any way that mattered. But watching Phos’s struggle reignited a tiny bit of hope in him, enough that he wanted them to succeed in their efforts, but not enough for him to believe that he himself could make a difference. To me, that seems like the only explanation that accounts for both his obstinacy when Phos directly confronted him along with his casual acceptance of the path Phos has been walking.

So for him to go behind everyone’s back to fix Phos is quite the departure from his usual passivity, and it tells us that he’d rather subject himself and everyone else to Phos’s brand of chaos than endure stasis that comes with their absence. And it really does seem like the world enters a stasis along with Phos whenever they end up comatose. Nothing moves forward, and the only thing to mark the passage of time are small deteriorations: Morga and Goshe are captured, and Cairn quietly becomes suicidal, and this time around, Yellow gradually loses their mind, the Admirabilis that Phos tried to spare overcrowd the tiny waterways they were released into, and the gems on the moon stop caring about whether they live or die.

For a while now, various characters both gem and Lunarian have called Phos their hope, or their savior, or some variation thereupon, and with each new iteration, the sentiment feels more and more ironic. Time and time again, Phos rises to the occasion only to buckle under pressure, their noble intentions haven’t gotten them good results since, like, chapter 10, and everyone who at one point had faith in them is completely done with them. And at the end of it all, they don’t have it in them to ask Kongou to pray on anyone’s behalf but their own, as if they’ve become so exhausted that they don’t have the energy to be kind anymore. And just to rub salt in the wound, their ambiguous phrasing makes it unclear whether Phos is asking to Kongou get rid of the Lunarians or themselves.

All of this seems to mirror what Kongou is implied to have gone through. He was created to save the souls of humanity, but was ill-equipped for the task, and he’s spent god knows how many millennia dogged by his failure to deliver. Aechmea’s line in chapter 55 about how his human creators didn’t bother to think about what would happen to him after everyone was gone, in my mind, parallels how Phos has been abandoned by the people who once supported them once they became too much of an inconvenience.

So now that these two failed saviors are finally confronting each other with no lies to hide behind, and nothing to get between them, what’s going to happen? I get the feeling that chapter 80 is going to give us some long awaited catharsis, for better or worse. (Please Ichikawa, make things a little better for once.)

On a related note, I’m hoping this possible catharsis might clarify something else for me. For all that the series is steeped in Buddhist symbolism and philosophy, I’ve never been able to tell what Ichikawa actually thinks of Buddhism. On one hand, the assumptions that life boils down to suffering and that the self is ephemeral and illusory are certainly present, but on the other hand, the characters who lean most heavily on the Buddhist aesthetic are villains, the characters most invested in reaching nirvana are portrayed as…let’s say misguided at best, and as I’ve already noted above, our two would-be Buddhas are chronically ineffectual. If I had to take a stab at it, I’d guess that the aspect of the philosophy that she takes issue with is the idea of relying on a savior figure and the idea that there exists a nirvana that could save anyone from samsara. But if the Lunarians’ wish were a complete pipe dream, then Shiro et al wouldn’t have already disappeared? Unless that was a misdirection and their souls were actually reincarnated? Idk, I don’t have enough brain cells to parse The Most Viable Interpretation at this juncture in the story.

Lastly, assuming Phos doesn’t ascend to nirvana via pure rage next chapter, I think their next replacement is going to be imminent. All of Phos’s other changes have been accompanied by death and birth imagery: they lost their legs out at sea, which is where inclusions are said to emerge, they lost their arms and their head at the site of their birth, the time they spent comatose evoked the image of a shrouded corpse in a morgue, their first trip to the moon in which they got their new eye apparently lasted the length of a Buddhist funeral, and now, they’ve literally been buried. (On a side note, it’s interesting that there’s a lot more death imagery for their later transformations, while their earlier changes alluded to birth.) I’m not the first person to point this out, but it seems likely to me that Rutile made good on their threat to throw Phos into the ocean, and discarded whatever pieces they were assigned to bury. And indeed, there seems to be a gaping hole in Phos’s torso. I still think Padparadscha is the most likely candidate for a replacement—the red stone from the lotus sutra has been alternately described as ruby, carnelian, amber, or coral, and Padparadscha is the closest we have to any of those—but who knows. Ichikawa might even decide to stop short of all seven treasures in service of some greater thematic purpose.

And with that, this belated essay is finally done. Except it isn’t. This is a complete tangent, but I recently looked up the one and only region where gem-quality phosphophyllite was briefly mined, a mountain in the Bolivian Andes called Cerro Rico. Hundreds of thousands have died there since the 16th century while mining silver, and that figure may be lowballing it, as some scholars think the death toll is actually in the millions. It is colloquially known as “the Mountain that Eats Men,” and the miners pay tribute to this fellow in hopes of avoiding cave-ins and pockets of toxic gas, but are otherwise doomed to die young from silicosis. According to a forum post I found belonging to a mineral collector, the mineshaft where all the phosphophyllite came from had to be walled off with a concrete bulkhead because the poisonous gases that accumulated in the tunnel had killed a number of miners. The idea of gem mining already conjures up images of exploited workers in abject conditions, but I must say that Maneater Mountain exceeded my expectations.

Okay, now I’m actually done. I’m going to get some sleep on account of the fact that it’s 2 AM, but afterwards I shall read the new chapter and repeat this whole grueling cycle over again, but like, in a timely manner.

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous #I know I’ve spent the whole essay trashing ¾ of the cast but I really do hope they eventually get over themselves #i've spent hours rereading this but i just KNOW in my heart that there are a billion typos and those typos will haunt my soul #goodnight

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raeloganthesonic06fangirl · 4 years

Note

No I mean when you plead guilty to a crime all you have to do is appear before a judge and say so. You don't even have to go through a trial. - Pixel Anon

Naw, from what I'm reading on about, the trial definitely still happens, it's just that the remaining time is used to determine the what the time served will be, or at least has the defendant presented as either taking full responsibility or trying to get through it as efficiently as possible:

Of course, I'm far from an expert on the subject and I could be interpreting it wrong. 😅

I would like to point out that QuackerJack canonically held the employees of Whiffle Boy Entertainment hostage and essentially expressed the notion that he'd be willing to run a lady through what amounts to a woodchipper for attempting to stage a bum rush to try to overpower him:

Even if in this AU the impact trauma localized temporal lobe damage retrograde amnesia wiped the event out of his brain and he doesn't recall doing so specifically... There's still security tapes and audio recordings in the main lobby that likely have this exchange stored in the data tapes.

Then there's the whole fact that he intended to plug into the servers and direct the modified Molecular Digitizer's beam to transform 12mil+ subscribers to WhiffleCraft into ragdoll drones that he intended to take control of, under the belief that his idea would be a far better fate than to be slaves to the machine

QuackerJack's canonically a lunatic, and I suppose what separates him from being identical to the Joker is that QuackerJack thinks his methods and plans are either "beneficial" or "helpful" in his eyes (ie: Destroying the video game market so he can gain customers and get people off the digital devices, or even initiating a grand scale attack against QuackWerks because it's "ruined all [the] fun" by sucking the life out of the city), while Joker is chaotic for the sake of being chaotic.

And overall, the series is very aware that QuackerJack isn't exactly a stable minded individual, and some canon incidents to support that statement:

Gosalyn referring to him as "demented" ("Toys Czar Us", shortly after QuackerJack shows up at the school to recruit kids for his toy kingdom)

Darkwing quipping that he really should seek professional help ("Toys Czar Us", after Darkwing spots the assembly line of Grim Reaper dolls, shortly before QuackerJack swings a scythe at him)

QuackerJack usually doesn't hesitate to refer to himself as either crazy or "wacky" (several episodes, but also in "Jail Bird", it's notable that after magically being stripped of his insanity, he shows signs of severe depression in the short screentime of this predicament. Played for laughs, yes, but he's absolutely miserable during this part, and is desperate to get his "wackiness" back)

Darkwing specifically states "even before QuackWerks, he was hardly a stable individual", and there's the later exchange with QuackerJack via use of Mr. Banana Brain that refers to the request of QuackerJack "[getting] better]" while trying to talk him down during the Whiffle Boy Entertainment incident. ("Toy With Me", which honestly had several statements and notes on QuackerJack's deteriorating mental health)

Also, in "Toy With Me", it's explained that a catalyst for his most recent sanity snappage was due to awful work conditions that chipped away at his patience and his rage hit a boiling point and finally exploded after too many factors, having his projects ripped from him and given to less qualified people in the middle of designing, and unappreciated overtime hours he put into the company, as it was explained that he worked himself ragged trying to turn over a new leaf, only to have it all blow up in his face, which did absolutely nothing to placate him.

QuackerJack's canonical social skills, quirks and emotional processesing is very reminiscent of multiple Neurodivergent disorders, as I've explained many times before, and even could overlap into a variety of trauma induced maladies.

At best, he could probably plead innocent by reason of insanity, but that becomes a gray area because it's kind of a Catch-22 to personally admit to such a state of mind, as it would show cognitive awareness that becomes a bit of a paradox, and doesn't bode well. 😟

Full disclosure, tho: My model of what I'm using to portray St. Canard's justice system is just the established universe, my comics, and a specific Archie Sonic the Hedgehog comic arc I quite like, since this is, at the end of the day, just an AU based on a series with an already loose sense of continuity, with the intent to treat the situation as respectful as possible while still keeping the general feel of the original material.

I have no real idea what happens next; I'm along for the ride as well. I like to just let the story happen. 👀

Because QuackerJack deserved better:

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justavengeit · 6 years

Text

i wrote some tony-being-deaged-to-IM-era but i didn’t get very far with it but check it

Tony wakes up not knowing where he is. This is unfortunately not an unfamiliar sensation, although he's pretty sure he and his handlers - his team - had mostly trained him out of this. He hasn't lapsed in a year and a half now, always finding his way back to Happy or Pepper so they can make sure he gets home safely.

He already knows he's not home. The sheets aren't right. The weight of the mattress. The temperature of the room and the way it smells, clean, blank, impersonal. Tony's not huge on having particular scents in his home. Scents are dangerous. They key into the emotional parts of the brain that connect strongly to memory.

There's only so much drinking he can do to forget before it starts to damage his body permanently.

It doesn't feel like he's been drinking, though, which begs the question of what the hell he's doing away from home. Tony cautiously pries his eyes open and takes in the room. It's transparently a recovery room, soft and pale and comfortable. No windows, but the lamps are casting a gentle frequency that mimics natural light. A clock on the wall. No monitors. An IV stand hooked into his arm.

His chest aches heavily, and before trying to sit up, Tony cranes his head and looks down. He's been dressed patient scrubs. His shirt opens at a diagonal in the front, meant to fall open like a maternity gown, held shut with velcro. Although he can already see the protrusion, he fumbles it open to see that the Arc Reactor has been taped over, gauze held around the seal. It's spotted red with blood and it's stiff with plasma. Peeling the tape back, he checks one more time - sees that this is a good reactor, still bright and vibrant. It doesn't appear to be tampered with.

(mobile readers: beware of cut)

Getting upright is awful. Tony still tries to sit upright out of habit and gets two inches before the pain cuts through his chest and everything compresses. His insides thump weirdly, and a crushing sense of doom sweeps through him - his heart being compressed by the casing. Falling back, he takes a few moments to catch his breath, nervously eyeing the door. No visible monitoring equipment, but Tony knew how little that mattered when he installed JARVIS in his house. He pulls the IV carefully, fairly certain it was feeding him nothing but saline. His head isn't fuzzy and his mouth isn't unnaturally dry.

This time, Tony carefully leverages himself into something of a sideways plank position, slinging his legs out of the bed and getting upright. There's no unusual muscle trembling, no weird weakness in his limbs like he's been unconscious and still for a long time.

It's at this point that he realizes that he can't remember what he was doing before this. Pausing with one hand still braced on the bed, Tony takes a moment to try to remember - anything. He can't remember what he had for breakfast last. He can't remember what the last paper that Pepper had him sign was. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen Pepper. It was like trying to remember specific tiny details from a year ago.

The pressure of the casing against his heart makes Tony painfully aware of the speed at which it's beating. God, he was going to have to design a better, less invasive case - well, if the palladium didn't kill him first. That was always a possibility. Tony is just too damned good at what he does, so when he designs a weapon to kill people, the best anyone is able to do so far, himself included, is extend his expiration date.

But until then, Tony Stark will be damned if he lets the Arc Reactor fall into the wrong hands.

Straightening, he ignores the way the tape he'd pulled loose fails, the bloody gauze hanging out of the open shirt. Making it to the hallway is only a bit chancy - his stomach feels empty, but not enough to really count as being starved. More like barely enough gruel to handle pounding metal for hours over several days.

He's not going to be kicking anyone's ass, though - not without the Iron Man suit. Tony pauses carefully at the door, and when he hears silence, cracks it open and peeks out, ducking back in. When nothing happens - no shouts, no alarms, and he doesn't recall seeing anything more sinister than an empty hallway decorated in the same soft, comforting hues of his room, Tony looks again. Then he steps out of the room on the rubber bottomed socks, and carefully closes the door behind him with barely a click.

Cutting a look up and down the hallway, he makes his way toward the double doors at the end of the hallway to the left. There are a few huge windows that lead into dimmed and darkened ICU rooms, and a surgery theater. Despite it's unused and unprepared state, Tony pauses, shutting his eyes tightly and grasping at the Arc Reactor. He taps it gently, reminding himself that it's there. The tiny impacts sting both more and less than the standard level of aching it does, like tonguing an empty gap in his mouth where a tooth used to be. Only, you know. Ribs.

It's only when he nears the double doors that Tony hears quiet voices. Some kind of argument is going on - not the threatening or mean kind, but the sort when people are searching for a solution and no one can agree what counts as one. He doesn't recognize any of the voices, but - they're English. American. Which, really, means absolutely nothing. The man that had kept trying to kill him for a year was American. Trusted. Loved.

Banking on the fact that he's not drugged, nor restrained, Tony carefully puts his hands to the doors and pushes.

At least half of the people notice him immediately, none of them the ones arguing the loudest. Tony feels caught and penned under their eyes, their sudden, sharp attention. No one seems alarmed to see him, so that's. You know. Something. He steps into the lobby. This is clearly a private facility. Despite the surgery theater and the ICU behind him, there's no nurses' station for anyone to check in at, and at a guess, Tony doesn't think any of these people standing around being stressed about - whatever - have medical doctorates.

They are all, to a one, astoundingly good looking though. Perhaps some kind of alternate universe of crime fighting models have kidnapped him.

"It's polite to ask people before you kidnap them into a harem," Tony points out, because he's incredibly into consent and it's just his luck that the one time interdimensional harems kidnap him, they don't care about it.

"Tony," one of the men says, "you shouldn't be up." He's wearing glasses, and he has curly hair that's going salt-and-pepper, and he has very nervous, self-contained body language. He takes one step toward Tony.

Only the one. Tony absolutely doesn't mean to, but he takes an equal step backwards and bumps into the closed doors. His heart continues to pound unpleasantly in his chest. He can feel it through his entire skeleton. Everyone goes a little quiet and stares at him, and that's. Not. That's not great. Tony really doesn't like being stared at by a room full of very athletic, very on edge people, who look like they're well studied in violence. He presses his shoulder blades into the door, and casually slips a little sideways.

"Well, I was feeling better," Tony says. There's a tight, painstakingly light edge to it. His eyes skirt over them. There's not a single person he he could take one-on-one without the suit. Maybe even with it. Obadiah certainly schooled him when he'd thought he'd be able to take on more than the mundane terrorist. "So I thought I'd take a stroll around and check things out." He favors all of them with his best kissing-up-to-the-press smile.

For some reason, it just seems to really weird these people out. The guy who'd taken a step to him says, "Oh, no," very soft, smiling with incredible dismay. Taking off his glasses, he shuffles a few steps clear of everyone else, polishing them and looking one word away from a hysterical giggle. The tall, blond beefcake he'd been arguing with looks at Tony like he's somehow defective, which - you know. Fuck him.

"Tony," another one says. He's standing off a bit separate from the others and has looked oddly bereft this entire time - until now, when he's suddenly sharpened up and watching Tony narrowly. Tony notices that he has an arm that's made out of metal. So that's terrifying. "Do you recognize any of us?"

That's a really fucking odd question, or would be - but it means they're expecting him to recognize them. Tony, conveniently, has already determined he's lost a lot of time, somehow. At least a year's worth. "You know," Tony says glibly, "you do have one of those faces."

The man with the metal arm doesn't bother responding, looking to the graying man in glasses and the tall beefcake. Honestly, they're all kind of beefcakes, for all that Nervous Glasses Guy has been doing his best to make himself small and unnoticed. "What's Rhodes' ETA?"

The red headed woman standing to the other side of Blond Beefcake and Nervous Glasses Guy finally looks away from Tony. "He's in a meeting and unlikely to be out for a few hours, still."

"Update him. He'll want to get his ass down here," Metal Arm says.

Would he really, Tony wonders. He hasn't been a great friend to Rhodey lately. The past few years at least. His drinking had gotten especially bad - and then after the sudden turn around that he did about the weapons. That hadn't made Rhodey's life pleasant. Tony knows all levels of the brass had been after Rhodey to change Tony's mind. And now this whole vigilante superhero thing. That doesn't sit well with Rhodey, either. Dealing with - whatever this situation is, kidnapping or just Tony being amnesia, right after dealing with the brass is - that's a little much, probably. They've been. Drifting apart.

Which is. You know. Fine. Tony's expiration date is unnervingly close. He doesn't want it to hurt Rhodey or Pepper more than it strictly has to.

"The rest of you," Metal Arm says, making a military-sharp gesture. "Clear out."

Blond Beefcake shifts uncomfortably. "You know we can't do that, Buck," he says. "Amnesia or not, you don't know what he's capable of." Alright, so hotstuff is also a giant asshole. Tony is at least a little bit flattered by the fact that Beefcake acknowledges that Tony is dangerous, but all this talking about him like he's not in the room is - actually giving Tony plenty of time to navigate toward the painting and the small table that houses a potted plant and something attached to a power cord.

Metal Arm - Buck - looks at the only man in the room larger than him like he's something small and dirty and pathetic. "You think I don't know how to handle a dangerous amnesiac?"

Beefcake clearly thinks this is unfair and undeserved. "I didn't say that," he says, and dropping his voice further into an undertone, he says, "think rationally about this. Please. You're letting your feelings get in the way of your judgment."

"Steve, I'm gonna sock you in your goddamned nose if you don't shut up and clear out."

Red, who has been watching Tony this entire time, gives him an arch look. Tony supposes a potted plant is a rather pathetic weapon. On the other hand, even if she sees it coming, she'll have to dodge it if he throws it. He winks at her, indication that he knows she knows that he knows that she knows. Red looks decidedly unimpressed.

"Okay," she says and turns to face Beefcake Steve. "Actually, I agree with Bucky. Come on, Steve. We'll leave Bucky and Bruce with him until Rhodes gets here." She reaches out, laying her hand on Beefcake Steve's arm just so, urging him to give ground.

"Um," Nervous Glasses Guy says, shifting and navigating out of the others' way as they moved. "I'm not sure that's a good idea? Sm - small lobby. Soft. Breakable humans."

"I'm sure you'll have to go through Bucky first," Red says dryly.

"I take protection detail seriously, Doc," Bucky of the Metal Arm agrees. "I have seven escape plans. Only three will work with the Hulk, but I'm very fast and very hard to kill."

"Right," Bruce says with a thin, unhappy smile.

They're all very thoughtful and confusing and cute, Tony thinks, as he casually locates the device mostly tucked behind the plant that connects to the power cord. If he's very lucky, he can rip it right out of the cute little - sound emitter? - that it's connected to. He won't bank on Bucky's metal arm being very conductive, but it does sound like it runs at least a little bit on power. It probably won't be a fun time if Tony connects him to the building's power supply.

Going back through the double doors is a last resort. He can't be entirely sure that there's a fire exit that way, since this is a private facility. If these goons have any intelligence at all, they know that you can only give Tony Stark one exit, and then you'd better guard it and die trying, because that's the kind of effort he's putting into getting out.

He watches as Red and Steve leave, taking the cute guy with the smart facial hair with them, down the wide hallway and the sliding glass doors that Tony figures make some kind of airlock. Wide enough for a gurney and a team of nurses, he notices.

"Um," Bruce says, "I am - my name is Doctor Bruce Banner." He finally finishes toying with his glasses and slides them back on his face. They're either a very low prescription or a prop, Tony notices. "You might want to, um." He gestures at Tony.

No, at Tony's chest. Tony glances down and notes that the gauze is still hanging half off the reactor. Ripping it off, he sticks the crumpled, bloodstained gauze into his pocket, his other hand quickly pressing the flap of the shirt to the velcro that would hold it shut and hide most of the Arc reactor. Then -

"Wait, Banner?" Tony cocks his head. "That's familiar. Why's that familiar?" He studies Bruce narrowly, but there's nothing about his face or his posture or mannerism that are in the least bit familiar. "I don't know you. I know Bruce Banner. I think I know Bruce Banner." He shifts and tilts his head the other way. "What do you do? For a living. When you're not kidnapping billionaires, I mean."

"Uh - what. What year is it for you?" Bruce asks. He looks a little pleased, though.

That doesn't answer Tony's question at all, and he's run into too many assholes in the Arms Dealing world to think that it's necessarily a good thing that people like their name being recognized. On the other hand, Tony now discovers that he doesn't know what year it is. Again, he just vaguely knows that he's lost time.

"It's some time after oh-eight," Tony says, sharp and sarcastic. "Now do you want to tell me why I recognize your name?"

"The year is kind of twenty-eighteen," Bucky says wryly. It's a lot more polite and patient than he'd been with Beefcake Steve, but Beefcake Steve had implied he's somehow emotionally invested in the situation. "Why you would have recognized the name kind of depends on how much you know that's happened."

"Point," Tony acknowledges, and then: "Two thousand eighteen?" He stares at the two of them because - well, he's pretty sure he's maybe six months to a year out from the whole Iron Man reveal. Not. A whole decade later.

That's distressing enough on it's own that he doesn't worry about it much when Bucky suddenly moves, fetching a chair from the other side of the room. He sets it in the middle of the lobby, which is closer to Tony than the others had been, and gives it a shove that sends it sliding closer to Tony.

It takes Tony a precious moment to realize what the chair is for, that it's not a warning or a threat. While Bucky retreats back to Bruce's side, Tony reaches out and grabs the back of the chair for a moment to steady himself.

"That's," he says, and raises a shaking hand to rub over his face, down his jaw and his neck. He blinks at the two of them, looking cautious and concerned - Bucky's actually giving him doe-eyes, what the fuck, like he's seen this kind of reaction before or something - and finally gingerly moves around the chair to drop into it. "What," Tony says with a mouth numb with shock. "Did we finally figure out human-safe cryogenics or something?"

"Um." Bruce glances at the man standing next to him. "No. Not quite."

"Alright," Tony says, blinking rapidly, "Not cryogenics. What then? Some kind of suspended animation? It can't be a coma, I feel too good to have been in a coma, I don’t have any muscular atrophy. You shut my entire body down somehow, Doc." He smiles widely, with all his teeth, and angry. He's not actually sure he believes any of this - that he's actually in 2018, that these people know him, that he knows them, that they aren't just after the Arc Reactor.

"You have it backwards, Tony," Bucky says. "Although I get why you'd think that. You didn't come forward. You've gone backwards."

It's not enough to cool the hot pops going off in his chest, like a chemical in his heart is heating and it's just fractions of a degree away from explosion. "Sorry, what?"

"Um, well," Bruce says. "Tony. You've been - ah, regressed in age. Physically and mentally. Apparently."

Okay - "What?"

#my stuff

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drink-n-watch · 5 years

Text

Here we are, the penultimate episode, and I’m already a little sad. As much as I’m going to miss this surprisingly loveable little show, I think I might miss our after reviewing tradition even more. OK maybe not more, it really is a very sweet show, but just as much!

It’s been great! I hope you’ve felt as creatively free as I have!

Crow (crowsworldofanime.com) and I have been pretty united in out praise of Zombieland Saga so far but this was an odd episode. Let’s see if the trend can stay true to the end. Not that I’m teaching you guys anything but Crow is bold man.

Well, bold-ish…

this is meta, why is Zombieland showing me watching the show?

Straight off the bat, this episode was a bit of a gamble for Zombieland. Not that it’s unusual to have the before last episode take a tonal turn, it’s actually fairly common. However, this week’s Zombieland wasn’t only uncharacteristically sober, it reframed the main character into something that may not be as likable to the core audience. Effectively throwing out a lot of character clichés and even robbing Sakura of any real redemption arc. Any feelings about the narrative shuffle?

You’ve honed in on exactly the part of the episode that left me feeling uneasy — at least, emotionally jolted. Sakura’s despair and self-reproach are almost too familiar! And at the same time, those apparent failures in her life, and her reaction to them, robbed her of the ability to understand something important: That she really helped those old ladies. That she really had friends who rooted for her. The insight changed how we have to interpret the entire Sakura arc, and it also raises an important psychological “what if…” But let’s leave that for later.

sort of…

As soon as the episode started I got excited. Last week’s cliffhanger was one of the best I’ve seen in a while and I couldn’t wait to see how they were going to resolve it with so little time left. I never expected them to play it straight. Although, I’m not sure what I expected at all.

You and me both! The show’s conditioned me to expect subtle irreverence at every turn, but this time, they plowed straight ahead.

Sakura has lost her memories of being a zombie but remembers her life. Which turns out to be frustrating and unsatisfying. Moreover, her traumatic death is just the last straw in what she considers an utter failure of a life. Completely demoralized, Sakura more or less shuts down, and pushes everyone and everything else away.

she’s pretty much always like this

The opening scenes, with Sakura freaking out over the zombies, were a nice way to call back to episode 1 and bookend the series though. Even the visuals were parallel.

And, of course, she just had to meet Tae first! And Tae has such a gentle way of saying “Good morning!”

Saki looked so worried about Sakura and it was adorable!

All of their reactions were just heartbreaking!

agreed

I must say, that was an impressively down to earth portrayal of depression. It was a bit obvious, although I’m not sure they could have done otherwise considering the time constraints, but it was also unflinching. There was something weirdly admirable about Zombieland’s resolve to not just let Sakura magically snap out of it.

That’s another aspect that left me feeling so unsettled — and I don’t mean that in a bad way. It was too spot on. But given who Sakura is, and given what this show’s presented so far, I can think of only a handful of other shows that could trigger this kind of reaction.

this framing is brilliant

Equally laudable, in my opinion, was the grim repercussions on Saki, Junko and Lily who attempted to help.These situations don’t just affect one person, they affect everyone around as well. And they affected them all in different ways. This was far from a flattering depiction of Sakura but sometimes, when you fall far enough, you just don’t have the strength to empathise anymore.

I couldn’t believe how bad I felt for the others as they tried to help her! Especially Saki and poor Lily! For Lily to go from “Before you said you thought that star and my smile were cute!” to sobbing uncontrollably into her pillow drove home a critical point: That until now, these zombie idols have supported each other; and now that one of those pillars of support is crumbling, all of them are in turmoil.

and the repetition makes it truly special

Once again, Zombieland Saga is tackling a fairly serious and not at all funny subject openly and resisting the urge to turn it into farce. I really didn’t expect any of this when I started the show!

I remember the old M*A*S*H series. Great comedy for its time, but because of the comedic expectations, it had an opportunity to make powerfully dramatic points — as long as they didn’t do it too often. I get that vibe from this show!

You know what, I see it now. I loved M*A*S*H (use to watch reruns with my folks). That cutting sensibility is very much like Zombieland!

most of us feel this way

After having hurt the people closest to her (and having them retreat helpless, not knowing what to do), Sakura just aimlessly wanders the night ending up in a park.

Here we see the return of the creepy police officer. He didn’t really have much to do other than once again instill the feeling of déjà vue. But just like everything else this week, the familiar scene played out completely differently. The downtrodden and hurt Sakura was almost pleading to be shot. A sort of balm to her intangible pain. The entire thing was extremely unsettling and yet, oddly pretty.

I remember thinking it was tragically beautiful.

this scene was delicae, poignant and solemnly meaningful…

I should have realized it sooner of course. Sakura has always been a bit helpless after all. I should have seen that she was being set up as a damsel in distress. Still, such an unusual distress for anime.

In the end though, Sakura at her worst, brought our Kotarou at his best. Manager made his glorious entrance in the nick of time. Knocking out the cop (that poor guy has to have some long term brain damage by now) and swooping in to save the day.

Maybe that’s why he’s so creepy? One (or ten) too many blows to the head?

he’s had a few shocks

Manager has never been that great with words. It’s part of the gag. And although Zombieland played the scene seriously, he still wasn’t exactly inspiring. Sakura was more confused than motivated. This said, there was enough feeling, care and passion behind his words to at least give her something to latch onto!

May favourite line of dialogue was manager exclaiming “It doesn’t matter if you don’t have it, because I do!” The I’m good enough to make you good pep talk is not what we usually hear and I loved it. Would have worked on me! How about you?

It would have been so unexpected that it’d have a good chance at loosening my defenses. And did you catch how the show played with the trope of the voice of reason (the manager, in this case) storming off to let the main character wallow in a miserable soliloquy? Just as Sakura is descending into a self-loathing speech, Koutarou startles her with “Yeah, you thought I was done, huh?” Loved it. This show knows how to teeter right on the edge of melodrama!

surprisingly, that might be true

One of the few straight up jokes in this episode, was Yuguri dressing up in full geisha get up, and looking mightily impressive I might add, just to realize Sakura’s already left. I really would have loved to see Yuuri in that outfit longer. Any thoughts?

My first thought was the typical male response. I mean, Good Lord, she looked amazing! But then I had this sudden chill and realized that Yuguri had slapped before, and she could slap again! I was in fear for Sakura’s face!

I’m not thinking about anyone else’s face

This episode brought up a fascinating question: Just how profound an impact do our life experiences have on our hopes? In Sakura’s case, she weathered a seriously frustrating series of events. From an operant conditioning perspective alone, I can understand her reaction! But to be running out of the house, all excited to be back on track, and get killed? Jeesh!

But in her case, and apparently in her case alone, her amnesia was a complete blessing.

I still can’t get the image if Lily sobbing into her pillow out of my head. All of them are standing on such thin ice…

Saki is all of us

For me it was Saki. Frustrated, lost and a little scared Saki. First time we are seeing hr shaken up. If Saki can’t just make it all better and shrug it off, what are we going to do?

Seeing her check her thumb nail was such a perfect way to show her pain.

[ Did you want to mention anything about Koutarou’s conversation in the bar? In the comments on the ZLS 11 review on Random Curiosity, https://randomc.net/2018/12/13/zombieland-saga-11/, users Nene and Panino Manino had some really interesting theories…

This was a difficult episode to watch — and to review! Thanks for setting up the frame! ]

risk it, it’s worth it

Guys, this little bracketed text is in fact just meant for me. I’m leaving it in. I like seeing behind the curtain stuff on posts so I think you guys might enjoy it too. I also really like that Crow pays attention to his fellow bloggers and readers. He often points out comments or posts I have missed and I am very much richer for it.

You should go read Nene and Panino’s theories.I unfortunately don’t know enough to add anything interesting.

This said, manager’s bar scene was very intriguing. I didn’t originally comment on it in the post proper because I had so many things to get to, I didn’t want to overcrowd it but you know what – clarity has never been my brand.

flashback scene without warning or context!

There’s a reason your blog’s so popular! (dawwww)

These are my random takeaways from that scene. The village of Saga itself is responsible for the zombie phenomenon in some way, and Koutarou is not the only one who knows. He also plans to make it public at some point.

Koutarou himself has been around for a while. Since it’s very reasonable to think that he’s also not quite human, he could be hundreds of years old for all we know. This may be one of dozens of attempts to save Saga.

Maybe that’s why Saga’s still there at all?

this took a turn

The bartender seemed to have a very close personal relationship with Yuguri. Considering the family theme so far, I’m tempted to say he’s her dad.

Yuguri is a courtesan, which implies a lot of things. Although she is certainly charming and imposing, she has so far avoided being openly seductive or sexual. This could simply be because of the tone of the series but it may also have something to do with her life. Did she leave someone important behind?

I’m still wondering about the scar around her neck!

what do you mean just one episode left?

There cannot just be one episode left. We have so very much to explore still!

I’ll second that. It seems like this season has just given us a brief glimpse into a zombie world that’s coexisted with the human world — apparently for hundreds of years! Are there other zombies out and about? It seems they’ve kept themselves private, but I think you’re right when you say Koutarou wants to make it public — why else do something as obvious as an idol group?

And I’m just not ready to say goodbye to Franchouchou!

Despite using do many in the post, I actually still have a few screencaps left. I hope you enjoy them. This week was great for caps.

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Irina and Crow in Zombieland (Saga) ep11: It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn Here we are, the penultimate episode, and I’m already a little sad. As much as I’m going to miss this surprisingly loveable little show, I think I might miss our after reviewing tradition even more.

#anime #CGDCT #Collab #comedy #episodic #idol #Zombieland Saga #zombies

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