#meta theory

[llamaisllama777]

TSAMS FAN THEORY: TITAN IS THE AUDIENCE! (Meta-theory)

Okay, after today's episode I really think Titan represents three things

1. Cosmos' darkest demons given form

2. The writers' evilest/chaotic ideas they could come up with.

3. <- (The biggest one) US!

Allow me to explain...

I just feel like this might be true for some reason.

Titan seems to be the 'voice of the audience' he calls out Solar on how he treated Cosmos during the Overseer arc. (Much like how a lot of fans wanted to call out Solar/did call him out for how he treated Cosmos)

Titan has some pretty twisted ideas and has done some pretty twisted things. He's now basically forcing Cosmos, Nebula, and Solar into these twisted games and adventures to keep himself entertained (like how some of the audience as writers, put the Celestials in even more trouble)

He literally watches them like how we do! What else is there to say?

Titan seems to dislike Solar and Nebula's relationship and would love to see it end. (I know Startools isn't the most popular ship in the fanbase. It seems to be quite unpopular honestly, but as a Startools shipper I don't care) Granted Titan says he wouldn't mind if their relationship lasted but he does want it to end and seemingly wants to be the reason it ended.

Solar and Nebula bring up the idea of just being so boring that eventually Titan leaves cause he rather leave then watch something he hates. (Not flat out calling out the fans that hate watch but like... why are you watching this if you hate the show? Seriously? Why? Stop it.)

Sorry if this is so incoherent but I just wanted to get this idea oit there.

TLDR; Titan is basically the audience. He's the voice of the audience, and the writers in the fanbase.

If anyone has more evidence for this theory (or would like to explain it better than me) let me know?

But hey that's just a theory...

A TSAMS THEORY!!!

Thanks for reading!

[lifetimeoftired]

Lute; The Right and Left Hand

Thinking today about how I don't really remember Lute ever being on Adam's right side.

Like, she's consistently referred to as "Adam's Right Hand", and in the battle where he died, she symbolically lost her own left hand and became nothing but "A Right Hand". Fascinatingly juxtaposed with the fact that we the viewer almost always see Lute on the right side of the screen when Adam is on it, but she's almost always standing to his left. Which is so interesting when Gravity, and just before her full on breakdown, she runs to the left side of the screen just as she's at her most vulnerable and teary-eyed, only to chase him back to the right when she sings about 'getting her hands wet' and 'what she needs to do'. Then song ends with her fully in the middle of the screen to as she finds a sort of equilibrium after venting and in her new plans.

Anyway, on the symbolism;

Right hands are often more talked about. With good reason of course- the right hand is seen as powerful. It is seen as the power and ultimate tool of the person holding the 'Right Hand'. It's seen as a "having honor and holding favor of" the person wielding them. It's even referred to the "Hand of Deliverance" in the bible.

But the left hand, while it can be seen as merely the counterpart and no real difference from the right, but no one really does so. In this context, someone being a "Left Hand" is just calling them a "Right Hand" and people will still default to the latter anyway making the concept a moot point. The far more interesting context of the "Left Hand" however, is from a passage that, simply put, says "We will separate the sheep to the right, and the goats to the left... The King will say to those on his right, join me in my kingdom". This means, in short, that the Left, and therefore the Left Hand itself are symbols of punishment, judgement towards sinners, and those who are deemed less important.

There was also a line that's really stuck with me all these years from Dragon Age: Inquisition in which when asked what the Left Hand does, Leilana the Spymaster says; "I protected her. I watched, had an ear to every door. I identified threats, and I dealt with them."

Now obviously Lute isn't much of a 'spymaster', though I'd argue she might be better at planning ahead than Adam simply because she thought to go to Lilith to get Charlie in line, but Adam seemed much more willing to just duke it out violently straight and to the point. And he praises her solely on her battle prowess and never on her brains. Even in Gravity where he's in her head, only ever encourages fully fledged violence as the first and only option even though she also is talking about a slightly more thought out revenge plan in the form of killing Vaggie to hurt Charlie which gets silence and a smug look.

Anyway, two of the lines really stick out to me here in regards to Lute; "I protected her." and "I identified threats, and I dealt with them." Because Lute cares just as much about protecting Heaven and firmly believes that she is being holy in her slaughter. It's the only thing she's ever known and been allowed to believe. Protecting heaven and stopping threats as an extension of Adam and his holy mission is what she has based her entire world view and view of herself on, much like a right hand is supposed to do. But she, just as the Left Hand can be treated as no different than the Right, in her case, she is treating the Right Hand as no different than the Left.

In my own opinion, it also seems like they were handicapping each other. The honor and blessings of the Right Hand were denied to Lute because she was never allowed any connection with anyone but Adam. By standing always at her right, he was, in effect, blocking her Right Hand. Just as she was block his Left, because the truth neither of them wanted to acknowledge, is that she's his Left Hand. If you'll notice, we never actually saw Adam killing sinners, we only saw Lute and the other Exorcists. Making her the "Hand of Shadow for Sinners" in a sense, that prevented Adam from ever having to look at his own sins because she took on those burdens for him.

[chestersbraincell]

So like. The way Alphys’s view on humanity is through anime, ie a very unrealistic usually romanticised and generally more positive+less mundane than human lives are in reality. And the way that parallels the way that we see this mostly cute, fun representation of the monsters’ lives underground while playing Undertale as a video game.

We don’t see them grappling with re-building society from the ground up upon being sealed underneath the mountain. We don’t see them struggling with being forever trapped in an enclosed space. We don’t see the worry of overcrowding and eventually outgrowing the space or running out of resources. Not really. Some of these things are touched upon but never really, emphasised, in the story.

Idk I just thought that was a cool parallel or whatever.

[lohengrinoverture]

More Drosselmeyer ramblings, so a continuation from this post

I just really like the potential behind Drosselmeyer’s motivations. We know he clearly wants a tragedy. But taking into consideration the reveal of his backstory and how the nobility and monarchy exploited his powers for wealth adds another layer to his stories. So two of the stories he’s written is The Prince and the Raven and the Ghost Knight.

For the first, he’s wholeheartedly set on destroying this beloved prince, the figure of the kingdom’s worship. But the prince is also connected to the monarchy—the same crown that turned against him. Drosselmeyer’s set on a tragedy for the monarchy-proxy. And the knight who’s so loyal to the prince just gets sliced in two. His devotion to serving the prince is ultimately fruitless.

For the latter, the main knight is wholly devoted to the crown and its war. He even betrayed his own lover for the sake of the crown, all for it to betray him. He was basically exiled and discarded when the throne decided he wasn’t needed anymore. In a sense, his own loyalty cemented his end. And it’s shown to mirror Fakir, but it also mirrors Drosselmeyer.

The monarchy had no issue exploiting his abilities for their own sakes. They already had wealth and power but demanded he bring them even greater riches. And his stories did grant their wishes. But they were the ones who turned against him, the same way the kingdom failed the ghost knight after he served out his duty. The story shows the consequences the monarchy has on those who serve it.

And my personal headcanon is that the Bookmen are connected to the original fallen nobility who initially demanded his powers to grant their wishes. They’re so scared of his powers because they’re exactly the ones who wanted to capitalize them. But then they were unable to ultimately control Drosselmeyer or his descendants.

That maybe Drosselmeyer’s so obsessed with tragedy because his own life was a tragedy. The family tree Autor shows Fakir depicts that he did get married and have children. But when the king and nobles turned against him, they took all of that away. He doesn’t believe in the concept of hope or a happy ending because he never got the chance to have one. And if everyone thinks he’s evil anyway, then he might as well have fun with it.

[sigynpenniman]

WHAT IF ALL OF THE FEMALE TOUR CHARACTERS ARE ACTUALLY STAGES IN THE LIFE OF ONE WOMAN?

Disclaimer: I'm not 100% sure I'm the first person to have this theory/idea. We stand on the shoulders of giants etc

So, I've been getting really into the various tour date anniversaries, and it's brought something to the front of my mind that wasn't before: the order the outfits appeared in, and the fact that most of the outfits are roughly in historical order, for the vintage style of each garment.

Acknowledgements about possible issues with this theory at the bottom.

There's a segment in Shakespeare's As You Like It which goes through the seven ages of man. As listed in the play, these are: the infant, the schoolboy, the lover, the solider, the justice, old age, and eventual oblivion. So, what if Gerard's outfits are the ages of woman? Cheerleader > nurse > lady/wife > office worker > eventual oblivion. Nashville > Detroit > Riot > Firefly > Ring of Fire.

I'm allowing a bit of wiggle room for slight anachronism in the styles of the various dresses as I think Gerard and Marina were more concerned with the overall look & impression of the outfits than with being 100% historically sound.

So, let's take just the dresses (and Alpharetta), and go through - in the order these outfits appeared on the tour.

The Cheerleader

Let's imagine a woman born around ~1945. Maybe 1944 or 1946. She'd be 16 in ~1960. And she's a cheerleader!

x

The Nurse

She gets a bit older, and becomes a nurse. Nurses in the 50s and 60s tended to be young and unmarried. Our hypothetical woman would be 24 in 1968.

x

This is just about right for our Prettiest Nurse In The Whole World - the dress pre-dates the shift for nurse attire from dresses to scrubs, but could easily be a later 60s silhouette (straighter, slimmer fit compared to the "new look" fluffier skirts of the 50s and earlier 60s).

The Lady/ The Wife

I think this both overlaps with and leads into Riot. This is her when she's off duty.

x

This is very easily a late 60s look. It was also common in the 50s and 60s for women to quit working upon getting married, or even be forced from their jobs upon getting married. There were parts of the world even where nurses were not allowed to be married. Perhaps Riot is not only the nurse off duty, but also a transitional outfit, symbolizing who she's becoming, as she ages into the next phase of her life - the wife. Maybe she has kids, even, in this space. And then...falls off the radar a bit. Perhaps the fact that we lose track of her for a bit in the "timeline" is in itself relevant.

The Office Worker

The office worker takes us through multiple outfits, and a pivotal point in history. Through the late 60s and 70s, it became increasingly acceptable and common for women with children to re-enter the workforce. So, we assume she has kids, maybe, and when they're 6, 7, 8 - old enough to go to school - she goes back to work, perhaps in the mid 70s. You know what looks quite 70s?

x

Good old Alpharetta.

From here, I think, we follow her through her career. Firefly is sometimes called the teacher, but there's no particular reason to assume that. The only real evidence is Gerard's joke "you get this at the end of class," and I don't know that they meant anything in particular by that. So what if Firefly isn't a teacher, but just a further evolution of office worker?

x

This could easily be a very late 70s or early 80s office worker fit. Our hypothetical woman would be in her 30s at this point, which feels quite right for this look. Which takes us toooooo Auckland.

x

This still feels quite 70s, actually. There was obviously quite a bit of shifting and minor changes to what we call the Dead Secretary over the course of ring of fire, but if you assume you're looking at an office worker's wardrobe from the late 70s onwards (and we accept that Brisbane 2 was just for the sex appeal), it all follows fairly smoothly. And so we move on to

Eventual Oblivion

When the Dead Secretary Dies.

x

If we assume that the prevailing theory that the character from Ring of Fire is implied to have died on 9/11 is correct, that puts this fit in 2001, and makes our hypothetical woman 55ish years old. It's hard to think of 2001 as vintage, but it is to some extent - and the skirtsuit here is actually a bit more 2001 than it is modern, with its shoulderpads and pantyhose. This is very much what a 55 year old woman with a closet slightly out of date might have worn to an office job in 2001 (if we discount the gloves, which, Character Choice). I've seen it recently pointed out that the outfit changed and then stopped changing - and it DID! It stops changing when the contacts come out. The outfit stops changing when she dies.

Obviously, like I said, it's not perfect. I'm allowing some stylistic wiggle room with dates and clothing eras. But when you look at the feminine outfits overall, there's a striking order to them - they seem to be traveling forward in time, aesthetically, from the 50s to the 2000s, in a fairly consistent way.

But wait, what about -

Joan of Arc: I don't count Joan of Arc as part of any tour "canon," plot or concept. Joan of Arc is her own thing, we know Gerard loves Joan of Arc, she stands alone.

Houston - Houston is the one real non-canon/non-fitting dress here. Interestingly, it does actually fit nicely in the chronology of the outfits over the 20th century - the Manson girl fit would be late 60s/early 70s, which slots in just fine after Alpharetta. I'm not sure, though, if it makes sense as an event in the life of our hypothetical woman - she would have to be in her 30s at the time, and already have had a number of phases of her life, which seems doubtful for a Manson girl - but frankly, who knows. I do think, as much as I risk sounding like I'm disregarding things that don't prove my theory, it's important to remember this is Gerard we're dealing with, and while they most certainly have a concept or story they're working off of, they also will Do What Ye Will depending on the vibe of the moment. The whole Manson girl thing fits nicely into the overall theme of disparaged and victimized women, and fits well into the overall vibe, so I don't think its existence disproves the previous theory. Gerard very well may have just wanted to do a Manson Girl fit and thus he did - we may never know. Or maybe I'm completely wrong about everything I've said!

I don't know if this is what was intended to be the "story" of the tour but it sure does work nicely and I have to admit I am sort of obsessed with it now. It fits nicely, the chronology is fairly clean, and it feels like something Gerard is always trying to do - to tell a story.

[magic-in-onyx]

Await hold on!! What if...

Fakir kidnapping Mytho and holding him captive, with him being of Drosselmeyer's bloodline, was what caused the Story to not move? (As intentional or subconscious as it could have been on Fakir's side.)

Because Drosselmeyer's goal with it was to trap the characters in a perpetually reoccurring cycle of Despair, right? And Fakir shattering Mytho's heart and keeping it shattered (and letting the Sword of Lohengrin rust, only to later reforge it IN HIS OWN BLOOD which is of Drosselmeyer's own line) stopped the Story, because the point of the Story was to endlessly repeat the cycle of "everyone loves the Prince - their feelings wake the Raven - the conflicts free the Raven - the Prince fights the Raven - the Prince loses his heart". (The shard that is soaked in Raven blood is Love for more reasons than one, because Love takes on many forms, and is easily tainted, as Edel has said.) By suspending Mytho in nonfeeling darkness, Fakir effectively stops the cycle of Despair.

Enter Duck, whom Drosselmeyer personally seeks out and engages by giving her the Shard of the Prince's Hope - a both real and false hope which is to both force the Story to move, make the characters blindly believe they can succeed, but also deepen the Despair the characters would feel during the climax as Hope is unavoidably betrayed. Drosselmeyer gaslights Duck and makes her temporarily forget her origin, causing her to better adapt to the Story, which probably in some way also influences the memories of other characters, including Fakir, as the Cogs begin to turn.

This would mean that Fakir, over the course of the series, and likely more instinctively than not, stops, resumes, rewinds, breaks and resumes again, and finally completely reconstructs the Story's original narrative, in that order.

Note that he meets Siegfried just around the time he causes his parents' death as well, albeit after the fact, so around the time he stops writing (actively, that we know of).

For there to be creation, destruction must occur first. Chances of failure, of re-establishing the cycle of Despair are grand, so no wonder Fakir is so wary of Tutu, and so reluctant to agree with her mission, and believe in their success. Once he does, Duck's own Hope and Faith light the way, and not the borrowed Hope, which is also a product of Drosselmeyer's writing just as much as the Prince himself.

Fakir likewise renames Siegfried to Mytho when he 'claims' him from Drosselmeyer, and personally shatters his heart and traps him in protective limbo.

Fakir also damages the Sword of Lohengrin twice, once before the beginning of the series, (inadvertently or not,) and the second time when he breaks it while enabling Tutu to win the Shard of Love from Kreahe. (Not to mention he also inspires her dance confession, because he is the one to tell her not to speak the words of love and disappear.) A sword that is meant to belong to the Knight from the Story, but is in the end wielded by Mytho. (So is Mytho/Siegfried a knight as much as he is a Prince?) The Sword's two halves transform into two swans (a motif also on its hilt) that end up pulling the flying carriage at the end of the series. The Sword is only ever reforged in blood once, it being Fakir's (bathed in the blood of the Prince's enemy, god, captor, friend, and protector). Mytho reconstructs the two broken halves by summoning the swans to face the Raven. It is also partially wielded by Rue, who slays the Raven together with Mytho.

I'm not sure how I want to end this post, but I had to out these drabbles in writing.

Also how come, while even Fakir's and Autor's memories were altered, and complacency encouraged by the Story's influence, Charon appears to have forgotten nothing at all points in time?? If even Drosselmeyer's own Heir is made to forget his origin, and his puppet of destruction (Tutu) as well? (Autor logic-ed his way to the right conclusions.) The only other people who seem to be immune to the Story's hypnosis are the Bookmen.

Was Charon secretly a Bookman who deffected from the Order to raise the Heir to Drosselmeyer in hopes of winning against Drosselmeyer once and for all? So that this poor child would neither die as a result of Drosselmeyer's sadism, nor suffer from either his ability or the Bookmen's prosecution? So that he would be the savior of the new age?

I must be reading too much into the meta... (^^')

[beansfrombeans]

Wilbur Soot of Newfoundland is not the same person as Wilbur Soot of L’Manberg. He’s actually named after the guy his dad used to know on another world long before he was born and long before Philza settled down to have a son. In this essay I will