#ywtext

[magnoliawaltz]

@magnoliawaltz | @criaturamonocromatica -> @malesper0

I've created a new blog, a more personal one, where I intend to post sketches and *gulps* o-opinions... I'll keep this one as an archive, as I've been using it since 2010 or so. It would be a shame to simply delete it.

At first this was that kind of blog, but I grew ashamed of my own writings and drawings and it ended up turning into an inspiration hub instead. No guarantee that it won't happen again there.

bonus oc (his name is asra)

[criaturamonocromatica]

I'm on Bluesky as criaturamonocro.bsky.social

I have invites too if anyone wants one

[magnoliawaltz]

What do you think about Soushi sleepiness in BTL?

I've finally watched BTL this week, so I can answer this now!

It was a cute way of softening his showa era boss shtick. Honestly, the whole biorhythm thing also seemed like a backhanded way of connecting him to KoSoushi. No, seriously.

Can you see how the roles begin to reverse here, audience? Can you see how truly similar they can be when Soushi doesn't suppress his emotions?

( 💢◠‿◠ ) these demons....

He even sleeps while Kazuki is telling him about his life expectancy, a very serious topic. I wonder if he just ended up staying over at his place like that (give me 11 doujins of that please).

Apparently something chief director Noto Takashi said at Anime Japan 2023 caused some commotion among fans. I found a tweet where someone transcribed what he said:

「脚本に眠くなる総士を入れてくれとはいった。隙がある総士が欲しかった。 一騎の前では隙だらけの総士。 あそこは友達というか細胞レベルで繋がってる友情。 自分の一部みたいな感じなので隙だらけです」 “I asked to include a sleepy Soushi in the script. Soushi lets his guard down in front of Kazuki. Better than saying they're friends, what they have is a friendship that's connected at cellular level. He feels like he's a part of him, so his guard is down."

.....Right.

When It's Noto saying it really feels like he is talking about pure love and friendship ❤ however since it is Ubukata writing it also feels like ooh... 🌚 is there some kind of fucked up setting underlying that statement? That may as well have become biologically true after two years of constant crossing and an implied connection through the mir. I'm probably thinking too much.

[magnoliawaltz]

I was thinking, I'm not sure why Youko and the other characters are so sure Misao will be reborn because a new mir took root in that lake.... All characters who had died in that last battle came back after receiving Altair and Miwa's blessing, except him, maybe because he was the only one who actually committed suicide in that last fight. Would he want to be born again after that? I'm not sure about that. I guess it all depends on how one imagines the tabula rasa future.

Director Noto Takashi said the following in an interview:

能戸: 二代目操に関してですが、彼はアルタイルを与えられてレガートのように復活することもできたと思いますが、「竜宮島で生まれて羽佐間容子の子供――翔子のように育ちたかった」という願いを受けた形として、12話であのように島に根づいた彼を見せました。チビ操はとびっきりかわいいと思うし、それを見に帰ってくる甲洋おじさんの手には世界中のお土産がたくさん――そんな未来が見えませんか？ Noto: As for Misao 2nd, I think he could have been given Altair and revived like Legato, but his wish was "I wanted to be born on Tatsumiya Island and grow up like Shouko, the child of Youko Hazama". So in episode 12, we showed him rooted in the island like that. I think that a Chibi Misao would be extremely cute, and when Uncle Kouyou comes home to visit, he brings a lot of souvenirs from all over the world in his hands: can't you see such a future? (Source: Animage Plus, 2021.12.22)

......I agree that kid Misao would be extremely cute, however after the "KoSoushi Chronicles" he tweeted years before TBY was announced, and which ended up being a total misdirection...... I can't say I believe him! 💢💢

But Misao did die saying "mom..."

[magnoliawaltz]

Talking about Fafner Exodus drama cds: The Follower 1 and 2

Spoilers for both Exodus and The Beyond ahead.

(I had some details wrong the first time I wrote this, I'm reposting with those details corrected. As this drama cd hasn’t been translated I didn’t want to spread wrong info with my half-assed report)

I thought I would have a lot less to talk about these cds, because in Exodus the character’s intentions and interactions felt a lot more obvious, if not shallow, to me. The thing with Fafner is that the more it expands the scope of the world, the more the individual characters’ writing suffer -- it becomes more about how they embody their duties towards said world.

Even little Miwa already had the sacrificial mentality at age 5. It’s just so sad. But the extended sequence where Michio appears as a memory of the mir and they walked together and talked was so emotional, I had tears in my eyes. I don’t have much to talk about the first cd besides the fact the family reunion between Yumiko, Michio and Miwa was great.

The concept of the Mir appearing as the parent they can’t see anymore was very interesting. It’s at times like these that the sekai-kei aspect of the narrative really shines. In the second cd, only when the three key characters make their personal choice is when the path to the island’s future opens. More on that later.

Maya seems to have come with an understanding with her father, already having seen too much of herself and her hate in him and his actions. And Kazuki is still in that vague state where “mom” is both mom and not mom since he doesn’t remember her much (I remember Fumihiko clearly stating “that” is not Akane, in Gone/Arrive but the concept was evolved, and it is the mir after all). I got taken aback with how curt Soushi was with Kouzou. I knew their relationship really was not good at all (with good reason, since his dad raised him to be a “tool”), you can really hear the strain in his voice -- At the start he is using keigo but by the end has stopped. Only to use it again when saying good bye. How very Soushi. It just left me wanting to know more on their family situation. Need me a whole spinoff about that, specially when it comes to Soushi and Tsubaki’s mom.

So the three choices they made were to overcome the willingness to sacrifice, ask for further dialogue and decide to leave the old world. That’s how Kouzou resumes the choices. I had got this wrong the first time I wrote, as I was trying to much to fit it into my theory without listening again, because oh my god I really can’t stop seeing the Hegel influence everywhere now. 

So in Exodus these three concepts that derivate from this same word with contradictory meanings (aufheben) become manifest as the mir’s blessing. It’s is the same as Kouzou said, just changes the order of things. They choose: 

1. to negate the old ways of Tatsumiyajima, an island hiding from the world, only preoccupied with maintaining it’s own people’s subsistence; 

2. to preserve its essence, the mixing with the festum which possibilites the dialogue between them, here symbolized by the Esperanto; 

3. to elevate itself, which I think means to overcome the need to sacrifice themselves and other people to let their loved ones live.

It’s the whole elevating of the vessel thing -- the show has used pottery as a metaphor for this whole process since the start. How The Beyond is going to do that is what I’m curious about now.

The thing is the trio's choices here, in turn, becomes their destinies in The Beyond.

Soushi has his old existence and old way of thinking “negated” and he is reborn, most likely repeating the process forever. Maya has her existence as a human “preserved”, accepting a mind that will continue to change and a body that will continue to age as parts of herself. And Kazuki has his existence “elevated” to something less than festum and more than human, more akin to a god, losing part of his human heart in the process.

(　ﾟдﾟ)ﾎﾟｶｰﾝ

Everything makes sense now, even the push and pull between the trio, that I couldn’t understand at first and thought was flimsily written in Exodus, specially the interactions between Soushi and Maya that left me ? at the time, makes sense when I think of the characters as both embodying these qualities and going through that sublimation process themselves. Even the initial estrangement The Beyond caused is more understandable.

However, I have to say, it sure is still frustrating to see these characters I love so much become mere puppets of fate at the hands of the writer. Must Soushi suffer so much like that forever????? (Edit: oh I was so innocent about this. “Soushi” is “fine”, the other two? Not so much). Sure, I’ll see how much of my opinion will change when I finally finish The Beyond. I need to get to that before BTL’s BD comes out. We’ll see.

[magnoliawaltz]

I think most fans already know that 総 and 一 mean all and one, respectively.

But did you also know that when you mix 皆城総士 (Minashiro Soushi) and 真壁一騎 (Makabe Kazuki)

you get 城壁騎士 (Jouheki Kishi), a knight in the castle walls?

Dare I say, a Fafner in the Azure?

( ◠‿◠ )

I thought it was an interesting reading.

[magnoliawaltz]

This song came up in a 2000's jpop playlist I was listening to and I thought "wow this has impeccable Soushi and Kazuki vibes..." It's about a sequence of meetings and farewells, eternal love and allegiance.

I went to search to see if anyone had said something about it on Twitter and turns out Noto Takashi said this in a suggestive tweet:

It was not a good idea to listen to Kiseki no Hana and Sora while working (ノ_＜) My hands have stopped and I'm looking at the ceiling

Oh.... I see

Sora is probably referring to this song by the same singer, which is even sadder the previous one as it's about reminiscing on a childhood love who passed away.

I recommend listening the first one from Soushi's pov and the second one from Kazuki's (^Д^)

[magnoliawaltz]

Kazuki is the product of war. He’s been conditioned to survive in war. How would he survive during peacetime?

Honestly? I don't know. I'm not good at imagining a future for that world or even at headcanons in general. I thought I knew these characters but TBY and BTL slapped me in the face and said I knew nothing actually.

How to save the one who brings salvation? I think tby was trying to answer that through Miwa's storyline. To Kazuki maybe that answer came too late. Really, to someone aimless, who wanted to sacrifice himself to some greater cause, living as an (presumably) eternal soldier during peacetime is just punishment. Maya was smarter because she went ahead and became military personnel.

If it was not for Miwa and Altair's blessing I would promptly answer "by stop having to pretend he's still human". That is, if he had completely lost his human heart by the end and left like that, as he has been detached from the human world for some time, even before receiving the mir's blessing. "Change is a blessing in itself" is Fafner's message in a way and I think having the elements clumsily cling to their past selves goes against that. Being someone who cooks for others but not for himself was an extension of that consciousness, that need to be a support for other people, as expressed in daily life. Food as a symbol of peace and humanity was for the others but not for himself. That's why I can't see him going back to the island and simply working at Rakuen with Kouyou like usual after that ending.

Flying the fafner, in turn, has become his life, so for a while that alone should be enough. Expand his horizons and remember he chose to live because he desired first and to devote himself to realize Soushi's wishes/protect the island second. He has not blessed the world yet, has he? From a practical standpoint, there are probably many places in need of humanitarian aid there. Since he always had a philanthropic inclination, maybe he and Kouyou will travel around the world helping places that have been destroyed by festum/Benon. Although, as I said, I don't want him to live just to devote himself for others again....

However, everything I said presupposes "change" in the character. Since Altair's blessing seems to just have reverted his heart back to a previous state and by the last episode he is back to spewing the same lines as before, talking about finding another way to "use his life".... I'm not sure if we're supposed to infer that his way of thinking has stagnated after all that. Seems very likely given how other adults are portrayed.

(then he needs to come back to the island at least once to apologize and talk to Soushi like a proper adult!!)