heya, I'm axaxill. i go by she/her and stuff
Lesbian :)
I specialize in writing, editing, and art...? sorta?
FANDOMS:
inanimate insanity
project sekai
katseye
kpop
pmmm
that one cool magicial girl show that's on prime that i forgot the name of?? something with "inc." with it idk
I do have a ao3, which is @axaxill :)
do not interact with me if you are apart of controversial/problematic communities!! Use common sense for gods sake!!!
INTERACT IF YOU HAVE THE SAME INTERESTS !
farewell...
how many times do these 30 year old men have you tell you that they do not CARE about r34, they don't give a flying FUCK about what someone does with their characters, rather than someone using the characters not acknowledging the copyright laws.
Violating someone's personal space??? oh come on now, wtf are people doing atp 😭😭😭
Going through this scene because I think people might take it the wrong way.
(The yap never stops)
"Do you like having me around" maybe isn't the best conversation starter?? Like mainly with things he says later it seems worse, but that wording definitely makes it sound like he's suicidal. "Do you like having me around" and "do you like being around me" are two different questions. The first is more general, "having me around" could mean either in their life or being alive, where the second puts the focus on the other, do they like spending time with fan, not do they like fan being here.
Bot, tries to open up about their feelings, fan, too caught up in feeling terrible he just says ,"no, that's not how you feel." IT HURTS.
When fan starts listing the things that he made them do, he's taking away from the real issue. He didn't make them join the game in the way he portrays it, they did that to make him happy. The way he tried to blame all of that on himself is just making e conversation less real. Bot is trying to be a good child for fan and test tube (here), but it wasn't like he said they should host with him, he asked them if they wanted to play, they said no, didn't want to disappoint fan, then offered to help host. That fear of disappointment is an issue, but that's not what fans SAYING here.
I just think that "all I'd wonder is what took you so long" focuses on himself still, how he thinks they should feel. It's how he feels about himself, not how bot feels.
When bot said fan made it hard to resent him, his first instinct is to apologize, this ISN'T HELPING THAT. Bot, trying to say that him being accepting and kind to them made them feel conflicted and bad for resenting him, fan, apologizing. Do we see how this makes this worse? Him apologizing when he didn't do anything wrong here will only make that feeling WORSE.
Bot, opens up about their struggles, fan, still responding with an I have it worse... IT HURTS. I know he's not trying to and he's just depressed, BUT IT HURTS. He's rejecting what they're saying but it's because his self worth is at rock bottom...
"Oh, don't look to me for guidance, you're better than me, or asked your overworked mother," LIKE A HOUSE FIRE IN SLOW MOTION.
The worst part is the Marshmallow scene makes it SO clear what he wants from this conversation. He wants Bot to hate him because he thinks that's for the better, he isn't looking for Bot to make their own decisions here. AGAIN. THIS HURTS.
All current evidence that's pointing towards Fan = Mephone4
It's always been interesting to consider what the different contestants subconsciously mean to Mephone4 as a person and what aspects of himself they were originally created as representations of, but none of them moreso to me than Fan.
Mephone, at the time of conceptualizing Fan, was in exactly his position. A huge reality TV enthusiast who wanted to be appreciated through it.
Fan was quite literally Mephone4 making a variant of HIMSELF for his own show.
And after Mephone went away with 3GS, Fan ended up doing exactly what Mephone4 had done all those years back. Stepping up from being an enthusiast to being a host.
And then there's Fan's near death experience. It has some concerning parallels to Mephone's first death.
The cliff. The Meeple product that caused it all. Everything down to the inclusion of Bot as a parallel to Bow, both hurt from their prior experiences.
The recurring electrocution in the water.
You can even draw interesting conclusions as to how this suggests that Poppy is the stand-in for the suitcase, a prize or treasure being sought after? Either way, they're set up to be eerily similar.
Now - Let's look at Fan's dream:
"I see you were a fan too."
I've wondered about this screen, and exactly what its supposed to represent. First guess would have been that It's Inanimate Insanity, but Fan doesn't talk about it like they're watching II, but later lines make more sense if that was the case. With the fact that he uses the pronoun 'this' instead of 'the', it sounds more likely to be an unrelated show. Its possible that the mystery screen is meant to represent whatever shows either of them we're interested in, both II and whatever Mephone enjoyed simultaneously. That still brings up two equally concerning possibilities:
Either Mephone is here sitting in Fan's shoes, or Fan remembers a show we know only Mephone has actually seen.
Either way, there's a connection being drawn here.
This whole scene is even more confusing but there's some stuff to pick out here.
First is that when Mephone questions him on the use of 'were', Fan automatically assumes that he was asking why Mephone isn't a fan anymore, as opposed to assuming hes scared something might have happened to him.
Fan saying "You were a fan too" would make sense in the context of him not knowing Mephone anymore after the events of season 2, but it's immedietely made strange by the fact that he backs up this claim by saying that the show he was watching got worse over time when pushed. That, and Fan seems to just know that Mephone isn't a fan of this show anymore. Mephone's reaction immedietely after is even more jarring.
Somehow, this causes him to genuinely fear that something happened to him. Whether you think that it was the past tense usage alone or fan's small explanation that sets him off, this is still an either an incredibly irrational conclusion to get to considering Mephone's perspective of this conversation.
Fan immedietely catches onto this and reassures him that they stopped him. Cobs name is not said, but its implied.
Him accusing Fan here is even weirder. We can definetely say that Fan has to feel some sort of guilt with what happened to Mephone for this to come up in his dream. You could also say this connects back to Fan's insecurities and conflicting feelings towards the show, especially now that hes in charge of it.
I think theres a 2nd interpretation you could see in all of this, that Mephone is Fan and 'him' is referring to Mephone4 himself. 'You stopped me, so where am I? What did you do?' Admittedly thats a stretch but I think its worth considering.
And in the final scene, Mephone seems to do a sudden 180 on him. Leaving Fan with the same problem that he had to go through. That Meeple was coming for him. That he had to leave. That Fan had to run away from it all.
And Fan falls down.
And whats the first thing he does when he wakes up? When he leaves this dream and falls out of the building window? Pretend to have lost his memories.
After that, he seems to unknowingly take what Mephone told him to heart, too. In the hospital, he panicks and says that they are coming for them, that everyone needs to run away and get off of the island. He ends up making that specific person a little clearer afterwards, sure, but the unspoken threat here is Meeple. And even when he is asked what makes him so sure of that threat, all he can say is that its just a feeling.
And thats a paranoia we've only quite seen in one other person before.
Another minor thing in this episode that I want to mention is the fact that when Fan opens his phone, it opens on II episode 1, but specifically the scene in which Mephone first introduces himself to the audience. What an interesting choice for the first episode of this season we see him again.
Overall, I think this show is going to play a lot with the idea of Fan going from being a fan to being a host, and in that same way, paralleling Mephone's journey along the way. Like some sort of... how did Cammy put it, ...a second coming of him?
If anyone else has something to add to this, please comment! All is appreciated.
i just noticed something from the newest ii episode that i haven't seen anyone point out yet
Fan splicing Mephone clips to have him say "good job Fan" parallels Mephone ripping Ballpoint Pen's "you can't do this forever" note into saying "you can do this" in the iii finale. Both of them are taking the words of someone they look up to—words that were either in criticism of them or not even about them—and spinning it into a positive/inspirational message for them.
In Mephone's case, BP's original message was telling Mephone that he can't keep making new seasons while avoiding his problems, and by the end of iii, Mephone accepts this and is ready to go back to s2. The modified message is in line with BP's original advice, and Mephone uses this as motivation to do what he knows is right.
In Fan's case, the "good job" wasn't even directed at him, and the "Fan" was spoken during Fan's elimination. There was nothing personal about it. There's no emotional weight behind it and it feels hollow, just an artificial positive motivater for something Fan isn't even sure about. BP's note was personal and came from wanting the best for Mephone, while to Mephone Fan was just another contestant.
These differences are also reflected in their reactions to the message. Wheras Mephone looks comforted by the words, Fan still looks uneasy, and it doesn't seem like the message really worked for him.
