#finis analyzes

[finisnihil]

I’m tired of people acting like Zhongli is a serious and chill guy who would never cause problems on purpose as if he isn’t one of the biggest menaces out of the Seven. He used to throw mountains at Venti for annoying him. He, the god of history, starts fights among historians for shits and giggles. He tried to gaslight the Traveler into thinking he was totally not at the Chasm guys really Aether/Lumine you must be seeing things maybe you should go see Baizhu. When Qiqi wanted “Cocogoat” milk he was like “Oh yeah sure totally let’s go look for it” knowing damn well it was a wild goose chase. He made the Traveler sing to a flower and then was like “Oh would you look at that” when a Whooperflower jumped out to maul them. I love him. He’s like a cat pushing things off the counter to see how people react. I would pay to see him interact directly with Neuvillette because I know for a fact he’d get on that man’s nerves and argue about water tasting just to feel something. Furina used freedom from godhood to take a nap and Zhongli used it to give psychic damage to anyone who talks to him longer than 5 minutes. Iconic.

[finisnihil]

You can pry the other Stellaron Hunters going out of their way to be kind to Blade out of my cold dead hands. Every time they mention Blade it's always in a kind way, he's a person to them no matter how much he isn't one to himself. Kafka calls him a cute nickname, Silver Wolf tries to get him to game with her, and Firefly brings him oak rolls because she knows he'll appreciate it. When we make a little cat cake that looks like him, Silver Wolf knows he likes it. They steal his phone all the time and he lets them. Yingxing is dead but he is still so loved even if by different people.

You up-keep a blade because you care about it

[finisnihil]

“They finally made this theme more blatant-" Why does it need to be blatant. What's wrong with subtlety? Concepts can be underused but subtlety is not neglect.

Blaring all your concepts and themes is not good writing. It's so disruptive to a story's flow when the characters look off the screen to be like "See? This is the concept. The idea. The theme."

If you can feel the hand of the author becoming too heavy that's bad.

For example: I see people saying Azula's abuse in ATLA is more blatant in the live action and it's good because "it's being discussed more". It already was discussed at length. The show made it clear she was a victim at every turn, every behavior, every reaction, it came from a place of trauma. It was made clear that she was scared of ending up like Zuko because Zuko was an example of what would happen to her if she failed. When she says she's better than Zuko it wasn't just because she was raised to think hersef superior to him but because Zuko failed and failures get mutilated and exiled, failures are abandoned. In that final Agni Kai the music is morose and somber because this isnt some epic battle its a fucking tragedy, the burning out of "Ozai's brightest light" and Azula finally succumbing to her terror and trauma she was repressing now that her worst fears are realized. How can you see a fourteen year old girl chained to a sewer grate wailing and writhing and breathing fire desperately as unsympathetic? Even Katara and Zuko are horrified as to what has become of her.

The writers weren't looking us in the eye and saying "See? She's a victim too" when they wrote this, they weaved it in. They weaved it into her obsesison with symmetry, her extreme perfectionism, the way she talks about Ozai, the ways she calls herself a monster, her isolation from those with healthy home lives, all the ways she held herself together and ultimately all the cracks and seams that she shattered down when she fell apart. It did not need to be blatant to be clear.

[finisnihil]

I think part of why a lot of American fans like Obey Your Master specifically (Like more than the fanbase likes Taiki Shuttle, also an American horse and one that has much more content) is because she's such a perfect capture of the phenomenon of the American Ego in sports from an international show/comic.

Like sports has a weird place in American culture because it feeds into the competitive part of the culture and its relationship with capitalism but also the "Build-Up" culture that i've seen a lot of international people reference. Bc American culture is built a lot on the American Dream™️, the idea you can do anything and be anything, that your dreams are grounded realities you just have to work for. People will hype you up over the smallest things even if they don't really know you because not only does everyone want to see people succeed as proof of dreams being grounded and achievable, it's also so competitive at times that even the smallest achievements are big victories worth celebration.

And adding onto that this mindset can lead to very self destructive and performative behavior (performative as in your ambitions consume you to the point you become a character of yourself defined by that ambition). Which all fits Obey Your Master perfectly. She risks it all for this race and she puts more effort into it than anyone, literally saying she doesnt care what happens to her body as long as she wins.

She's never won a G1 before and she may never win one again.

She is literally gambling her life and career on this ambition. And she knows she can win. She has the ego, the obsessive dedication to achieve her dreams in reality. Everyone else in this race is racing within the logics of reality and reality dictates that Tamamo Cross, Toni Bianca, or Oguri Cap will win. They are the legends. Queen, King, and Jack. Obey Your Master is running for a pipe dream but her ego and her dedication to the point of her own destruction make her the wild joker, the card that disrupts the entire deck.

Like it's genuinely such a good depiction as to the lengths Americans go to in ambition especially sports because of how American culture is structured. Under all the glamor of victory and hard work you see the rot of sacrifice. You see the reflection of every American athlete that operated like a dying star that burns out in an instant rather than fading away. Anyone can achieve anything for the right price.

The master you obey is the high of obsession.

[finisnihil]

Zhongli is interesting to me because he’s very much an outlier among the other Archons.

All the Archons have some sort of “twin” except Zhongli. Ei and Makoto, Venti and the Nameless Bard, Nahida and Rukkadevata, and Furina and Focalors. One could argue Guizhong is his “twin” but I heavily disagree because the Archon “twin” is directly related to the identity of the Archon. Ei and Makoto were twins, Nahida was a new iteration of Rukkadevata, Focalors and Furina are the divine and the human sides of the same person, and Venti directly took on the identity of the Bard. Adding on, the “twin” usually dies. All this implies two possibilities. Zhongli either never had a “twin” or his “twin” was already rendered deceased long ago. Either way both of these imply he’s different from the others on a level we don’t know.

Next: his draconic motifs. His Exuvia form was a dragon (some translations I’ve seen Half-Dragon, Half-Qilin) and his character design is very heavily based in this draconic identity. Further still, no other Archon so far has this motif. They are associated WITH dragons sure, Venti and Dvalin, Nahida and Apep, Furina and Neuvillette, but no other Archon is depicted with both divine and draconic motifs. There’s theories about Zhongli being or related to the Geo Dragon Sovereign for a reason. In his ascension voicelines he comments on his power growing stronger which isn’t unusual that’s the point of them but the giving up of his Gnosis makes his odd because it almost seems like the removal of the Gnosis was suppressing an aspect of his power, possibly a draconic power. Even when his divine identity was mostly shed his draconic aspects remain.

Finally, the cubes. All the other Archons in their statues have a circle motif. Venti and Rukkadevata/Nahida old some sort of orb, Makoto/Ei has her circle behind her and Focalors/Furina holds a sword with circular designs. Zhongli, however, holds a cube. Not just any cube either, a cube that is reminiscent of the Heavenly Principles who kidnap the Traveler’s Sibling at the start of the game. Add to this Zhongli weird connections to Celestia/The Heavenly Principles, his weird motif with the sun and the whole sun chariot lore, his Archaic nature and unknown origins, it’s extremely odd.

Zhongli is one of my favorites because he definitely knows more than he’s able to tell and he’s so different in the pattern of the Archons. Anyways feel free to give thoughts, have a great day, mwah!

[finisnihil]

I think it's really interesting how Konoha's autonomy is stunted by Iana's presence (Iana being our og Konoha) like. Man. You never really SEE Konoha be her own person unless Iana is absent. And there's many reasons for it but it's such an interesting mirror of their nature and dynamics. Konoha is Satou's self insert. She was not written to necessarily be a person but more so a skin for Satou to embody, and now, Satou is her god and Konoha is her saint. Konoha has always been a vessel of Satou's will. When Satou is near her she can't be anything else. I'm loving what glimpses of Konoha we see when she isnt serving as a vessel for Satou in some way. She's so close to cracking. She's so so close to just crashing out.

I'm actually excited to be the inevitable clash between her and Ginoford, since Ginoford is spiraling into darker mindsets and becoming more a threat to Iana. A threat to Iana; to Konoha's god; her sister; to some extent, herself; is a threat Konoha cannot tolerate. The more Ginoford chases Iana to kill her, the farther behind he leaves Konoha. It makes me wonder that if forced to chose between the world and Iana, would Konoha actually chose the world?

Would that too be, ultimately, an extension of Satou's will?

[finisnihil]

I think there's something so interesting about Phainon fighting Zephyro of all the Lord Ravagers in 3.4. Canonically the scariest Lord Ravager but also the most merciful because he doesn't like inflicting painful death. He seeks to destroy the Path of Nihility, the end of hopelessness and the idea that nothing matters. Khaslana has gone through loop after loop, losing himself and gradually his humanity bit by bit. Our Phainon, the one puts a scratch on Nanook, he's fighting so hard because the presence of the Trailblazer gives him hope.

Zephyro is so contradictory in the effect that he's a Lord Ravager but the Path he opposes puts him in a better light than his fellow Emamtors of Nanook. While he's obsessed with the final moment of erasure, his destruction is seen by the Doctors of Chaos (who seek to treat Self Annihilators and don't believe in absolute Nihility) as a form of resistance. Where Acheron and IX are a black hole, where nothing can escape, Zephyro is a white hole, where only escape is possible.

When Zephyro cut off his sword arm, Phainon switched which hand he fought with. When Zephyro sliced off his wing Phainon ripped the other off too. When Zephyro stabs Phainon with his own sword he melts it down and manages to get an attack past him. Consuming and expelling, each trade a form of resistance that pushes Phainon further towards some kind of escape. Time loops and multiverse narratives are inherently tied to the concepts of Nihility. Amphoreus should be fated to destruction because nothing matters, Phainon is just code in an equation, this world he loves and bears is programed to spread pain and suffering, but fighting Zephyro flips that. Everything matters because if nothing mattered, Phainon wouldn't fight this hard. Destruction itself is not invulnerable and the existence of Amphoreus is meaningful beyond Irontomb's potential.

The fight with Zephyro allows Phainon to escape the loops, being consumed by Irontomb, but in the process you see that jaded and broken form crumble away to reveal a younger Phainon full of life and hope, reaching for the light. His wish? It's to fulfill everyone else's wishes, because everything matters due to Phainon's resistance and Zephyro was symbolic of that.

[finisnihil]

One thing about me is that I typically find characters who are genuinely bad people and who chose to be better much more interesting than misunderstood antiheros. Allow characters to actually make real impactful mistakes and bad choices. Allow them to be unlikable. Allow the discomfort of reckoning horrific past choices with better future ones.

I find that someone who was god awful and chose for whatever reason to be better, to try and help fix the harm they caused and reduce similar harm going forward, who struggle and struggle as guilt and frustration eat at them, and yet don't forsake growth for the sake of the safety of stagnation, is much more interesting and complex than someone who killed people but it's okay because the people they killed all deserved it so they're fine the way they are.

If your character makes one shallow oopsie and grows from it that's not redemption that's an after school detention. Redemption should be messy and difficult but ultimately worth it. You will only be able to pull off such an effective redemption if you aren't afraid of your audience having mixed feelings on the character in question.