Lanzhou And Control

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mtp characters as birds (2)

a follow-up to this post (part 1).

and in this part it's gonna be the rest of the moriarty's party + even more fun facts about birbs~

MORAN: a steppe eagle. these birds are large and formidable birds of prey that both hunt live game and don't shy away from scavenging for carrion. and that's exactly the line of thought that i used for an association here. moran, as william's right-hand man, matches this description well: he both hunts down those who are not needed alive anymore, and clears william's path of any filth that could lead to the lord of crime and get in their way. tbh initially he was meant to be an eastern imperial eagle, but i settled for a steppe eagle purely because in my mind, it matches moran's appearance more (as its plumage is quite darker than that of an eastern imperial eagle).

FRED: a shrike! these little cuties look harmless and defenseless, but in reality they're as much fierce hunters as any preying bird. shrikes can eat about anything from insects to vertebrates, including other birds as well, and are known to hunt prey even larger than themselves. but their uniqueness comes from their hunting technique. as shrikes are not true birds of prey (they're passerines), lacking assets that those guys have (like sharp talons), they stalk their prey and ambush it in one swift strike, using their beaks to break victim's neck. and when it comes to killing prey bigger than themselves, they often impale it by carrying and throwing it at sharp barbs or thorns. all in all, they're such cool birdies lol.

anyway, all that yap is just to say that fred's fighting skills and his general role as a spy that hide behind his quiet and kind character (or is it the other way around?) remind me a lot of shrike's behavior and its deceptive nature.

BONDE: right after william, he was the second one with whom i struggled the most, but eventually i've settled on a european bee-eater for him. it's a very beautiful and colorful little bird that imo perfectly reflects james' charm and charisma. but another noticeable thing about bee-eaters (as it's evident from their name lol) is their diet, which consists mostly of, well, bees. sadly, for that reason some beekeepers would often kill them thinking they ruin their hives (which is not the case at all). in a way, that somewhat reminds me of irene adler's fate as well, considering how they endangered themselves for so long while working for a good cause, but then got involved in something far bigger than themselves and just... couldn't handle it, because, despite how talented they are, they're but a human being after all (or a bird being in case of bee-eaters ig).

JACK: ok, it seems like this fancy old man is actually the only one who gets two picks from me lol. you see, i just can't imagine him in his youth and him in his old age to be the same bird. idk, he's like a totally different person, and that's it.

alright, so, the first one, corresponding to his youth, would be a golden eagle. this apex predator perfectly describes jack at his prime, with him being feared by both his foes and allies alike.

the second pick, matching his old butler persona, would be a white stork. tbh it should've been a black stork, as i think its shy and reclusive nature better reflects jack's retirement and living for years as a simple butler, severing any possible connection to his past. and, uhh, bc how could i not include a black stork in a bird list of mine.... my friends would be shocked if they heard about it lool. but then i kinda looked again at this old man and thought that he's. um. if he's old, let him... be old. and look just as glorious for his age even as a bird. :p

MONEYPENNY: a short-eared owl! just... dang. look at how gorgeous these birds are and tell me that moneypenny isn't just as gorgeous as them. honestly, it's one of the few characters/birds where i went mostly by vibe and somewhat by appearance, but gosh that owl looks just like her incarnate, and i can't see it any other way.

VON HERDER: a proud example of a true magpie! he's sooo magpie-coded lol. again, as yet another corvid, magpies are intelligent birds that are also quite playful and energetic. even though them liking shiny/metal things is actually a myth, they're still fond of collecting some little trinkets for building their nests. and i can't help but think of von herder who always does as he pleases and invents all kinds of stuff from nothing. i bet if you give him one day, a can of trash, and leave him in a basement, he'll make you an endless engine because he got too bored. and him loving those strange metal puzzles? so cute. so magpie.

THE ORIGINAL SIN AND TEMPTATION - MILVERTON VS. ALBERT

Moriarty the Patriot is full of religious themes and references and one of them is the tale of the Original Sin. It is told in the third chapter of the Bible, in Moses' first book and it's about how the first humans, Adam and Eve committed the first, the Original Sin due to the temptation of the Serpent who made them eat from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil what was forbidden for them by God.

Milverton and Albert both bring up this tale - now I will analyze how they look at it and view their actions regarding the Original Sin and how they tempted their victims (at least, in Milverton's case) - Whiteley and William - to sin.

In Albert's case, the Original Sin appears in chapter 63 during the Empty Hearts arc when Albert, after the Final Problem, was imprisoned in the Tower. He views William's fate as his Original Sin, that he was the one who made William the Lord of Crime. Albert loathed the world's current state when he was young and wanted to change it what led to a tragedy. He realized that he doesn't have the wisdom, neither the power to change the world - and that's when he met William and hears how he talks about his ideal world. He adopts William (and Louis) because he thinks that through his noble status, William can do the change Albert wishes for. He admits that he saw Christ in William.

Albert already decided to kill his family by that time but he was unable to do it on his own so he asks William if he would kill for his ideals. In the end, the murder of Albert's family is done by William and Albert's hands and Albert seems to blame himself for it even long, long years later. Not for the death of his family, but to make William a murderer. He talks about himself that he tempted William to sin because he himself was afraid to sin, that it was him who robbed William of his innocence and made him a murderer and later, the Lord of Crime. He even compares himself to the devil for this action.

When it comes to Milverton - whose Original Sin speech appears in chapter 37, during the White Knight arc - he talks about the Original Sin when he tempted Whiteley to sin. However, unlike in Albert's case who talks about his reasons why he tempted William to sin, Milverton's speech is not about Whiteley specifically, just generally about the reason behind temptation - for devils, those who are pure evil, nothing brings greater pleasure than tempting the good-hearted to sin and he himself is pure evil. And while Albert feels guilt and self-hatred for tempting William, Milverton feels pride and joy. For Albert, making William to sin was a mere tool for the ideal world, for Milverton, tempting the good-hearted is the goal and all he does is for that end. That's where the necessary evil vs. pure evil contrast between the Lord of Crime (which is also Albert) and Milverton comes to picture again.

But there are also similarities between the two temptations. While Milverton doesn't compare Whiteley to Christ, he is very much sees himself as a hero and that's what draws him to him, just like Albert became interested in William just because he saw Christ in him. Both William and Whiteley was fighting for an ideal world but while the temptation of William led to this ideal world, the temptation of Whiteley pushed away from it (even when Milverton himself was not against equality, he was after Whiteley because he was good.) Both temptations led to a family being murdered and the target of the temptation committing murder. Both Milverton and Albert talks how they dragged Whiteley and William down from their innocence to a murderer.

(Btw, Milverton here actually says OUR side, not MY side. The importance of that will go for a later analysis)

When it comes to Albert, he feels bigger guilt than his actual crime was (but Albert is after all, like that.) The child William talks about killing the evil nobles, so he already had these intentions in his heart, he already knew that the world can only be changed through evil methods, it was actually not Albert who planted these thoughts into him. William was also ready to kill Albert's family before Albert asked him to do so, so Albert didn't manipulate William into a crime (as he thinks) while Milverton truly blackmailed Whiteley (and Sturridge. And that police officer) into committing murder. Albert also took part in the crime, he was the one who killed his mother, while Milverton uses people to set up murder scenes and doesn't dirty his own hands. Albert thinks his Original Sin through years after the happenings, Milverton is during the actual happenings. Albert probably didn't think that it was like the Original Sin for him back then, Milverton is actively aim for a temptation. And talking about his crime as an Original Sin as HIS Original Sin, the first sin he committed is sensible to do in Albert's case, but for Milverton, what he did was not his first, HIS Original Sin.

So despite that they both talked discussing the same religious theme (and the same art is used) their approach regarding it - while having certain similarities on the surface - are fundamentally different. It was very interesting to analyze this through, I'm sad that we didn't see Milverton and Albert having a conversation about the Original Sin.

Wen Ning: *sends a voice message to WWX*

Wei Wuxian: (texting) I’m a little busy, is it urgent?

Wen Ning: (texting) No, don’t worry, just listen later.

[later]

Wei Wuxian: *presses play*

Wen Ning’s voice message: THERE’S A FIRE—

Eren Jaeger’s Final Words

So there are many people unimpressed with the final statement given by Eren’s character, either finding it inconsistent with the build up to this point, or too ambiguous a motivation for trampling all over the world. I’m not really here to talk about the quality of the story, whether it was good or bad, because I don’t really care. However, I think it’s fascinating what the text is trying to say about Eren’s character and his motivation. 

This is why, “I don’t know, shrug” is both an answer and not an answer to why Eren did what he did in the end. For making my point in this analysis, I’ll be talking about Eren’s character from Marley on showing both the Eren that appeared before Reiner, the one that talked to Zeke, and finally the one Armin saw are all the same person. 

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SNK S4, EP 11 : FAVORITE SCENE

“There are humans outside the walls and they call us the race of devils, right? But I couldn’t understand why the world despises us like that.

Mia. Ben. Tell me.”

I definitely read Mo Xuanyu’s “bad” make-up as being intentional. He wasn’t out here trying to look like a pretty, delicate flower. He wanted his appearance to be confronting. He wanted to externalise his feelings. WWX looks at that face and thinks he looks like a corpse and that’s exactly what MXY was going for.

We don’t get a direct look at MXY’s state of mind at all, and other characters think he’s just ~bad at make-up~ because he’s ~crazy~ but actually he independantly invented being a goth. I love that boy.

Sparrows on wisteria, by Ohara Koson, 1910

stormbringers fucking insane for using rimlaine as a contrast to skk. these two couldnt trust each other fully and rimbaud only believed he could help verlaine feel human, not truly be so, and still considered him Other, however much he believed them to be equals, verlaines humanity only existed in rimbauds eyes because he gave it to him. verlaines inability to accept his own humanity or even really that rimbauds feelings for him were genuine because he, alone, singular, monstrously set apart from humanity, should be incapable of receiving anything resembling affection or genuine understanding, such that it left him betraying his partner. and then they cannot exist as two beings working seamlessly together. rimbaud and verlaine in fact cannot exist as two beings at all, only as one conjoined entity. verlaine kept alive with rimbauds skill, and rimbaud, long dead and refusing that reality until he can find his partner, existing only as an extension of verlaine. while skk who do trust each other blindly, who do see humanity in each other enough to look past when they doubt it in themselves, who see humanity not as a defined be or be not, but as a set of values, as a do or do not. they are able to exist as one act in two parts. interdependent, always, even down to their skills, but still functioning as one unit in two separate cogs made to fit together.