10gallon

not to halimedepost but this one felt like a slap in the face and a bucket of ice water dumped on me. fuck.

the magus situation, or, "ak remembers log horizon exists and it exacerbates the brainrot"

(gonna be a long one)

so to the surprise of absolutely nobody i did in fact watch log horizon at one point in the past, and also tried reading the light novel but never ended up finishing it. my opinion on it is mostly "solid and had good potential, with some unfortunate quirks to how it's written". the anime is better than sao's, but the novel is worse

this isn't what this post is about

it's instead about a certain *spinoff manga*

the fuckign west wind brigade manga in all its janky beauty. it's a story that takes place in parallel with (and overlaps with) the main story while focusing on different parts of the world and a completely different cast of main characters. it tends to be somewhat more light-hearted than the main story (but not by a lot)

it's also technically a harem story, but in the same way UQ holder is, which is to say that soujirou seta has that touta konoe charm that makes me go "yeah i fully get it this guy is impossible to hate"; he's more the guild dog than the guild leader half the time (affectionate)

*anyway*

spoilers for the west wind brigade manga incoming

so the afformentioned soujirou seta (middle character on the manga cover) is in fact the very first person to die after the catastrophe, and in the process he proved that even after the world became real, *respawning was still a thing*

which suddenly made the prospect of pk'ing much less ethically daunting, leading to a massive explosion in guilds of bored disillusioned trapped people with nothing better to do starting to kill and loot en masse, as was already a massive plotpoint in log horizon proper. some are big guilds, some are smaller

and some are technically solo

which brings us, finally, to magus

*fucking magus* (affectionate?)

edgelord in a longcoat with the cringy speeches

but it's not exactly sincere is it? it's all forced, constantly like he's talking as much to himself as to his "audience"

like he really *wants* to believe what he's saying

"it's all a game anyway, i can do whatever i want! definitely! right? RIGHT?"

it is, in fact, a coping mechanism

because to admit it's real would mean it matters. would mean you're not actually hidden away anymore. no walls to hide behind. no mask

because it's all mask

it was the whole time

because it's easier that way

the persona and the longcoat an the fancy explanations for why it's totally correct and real, trust me! definitely not fucking desperate over here, no sirree!

it's the beater again. there's a beater in log horizon but you never meet them in the main story. because for this beater, the game doesn't end because it's over. but because they finally admit to themself it was never a game to begin with. which was of course the only way out, because log horizon doesn't have a win condition

if you can't "win", you need to stop playing

but that's not quite the whole story, is it?

because you know how it is with beaters

there's always a little footnote at the end

this funny little common thread that all examples ive found so far seem to share

yeah there's a massive very explicit gender angle to all of this because it's just part of the package at this point

and that is how magus' redemption arc also has her turning into a girl

it's frankly amazing, the thematic parallels write themselves, it's so delightfully on the nose!

this whole thing is in fact one giant transgender allegory that's barely an allegory at all

the "edgy longcoat-wearer with terrible coping mechanisms" to "cute akward goth girl" pipeline is real

connotations

[ID: Four panel "Pills that make you green" comic. Crudely drawn stick figures represent people.

Panel 1: A leaf green stick figure sits at a desk while a lime green stick figure is standing behind them.

Leaf: "I'm making a webcomic where I make fun of chromophobes through and elaborate allegory."

Lime: "I'm intrigued. How does it work."

Leaf: "Ok so the "humans" have "genders" and there are "transgender" people who-"

Panel 2: One long infodump later, Leaf is still talking to Lime.

Lime: "...So which "genders" are which colors exactly?"

Leaf: "I'm trying to make it somewhat ambiguous?"

Lime: "Ok but "men" are clearly meant to be pink people right?"

Leaf: "I mean, in-universe most "cis people" are like a stand-in for grayscales and most men are cis"

Panel 3: Continue conversation.

Lime: "So any "gender" can be "cis"?"

Leaf: "Well no because mainstream society only really recognizes two of them broadly"

Lime: "You get how that comes off as extremely standard "green is not a creative color" rhetoric, right? "Cis women" look like a commentary on green people."

Leaf: "Wait I didn't mean that-"

Panel 4: Zoom in on Lime.

Lime: "I think it's really naïve if you expect inherently political work you make to be interpreted in good faith by everyone who sees it. Whether you're consciously thinking about them or not, the connotations will be there."

Lime: "Also why did you turn the Gaelic Peninsula into an island what is up with that?"

End ID]

also,

[ID 2: Zoom in on Lime with additional commentary:

"Also, while I'm at it anyway, if "trans gender" is supposed to be like chromatic people why do some "humans" paint their "finger nails" isn't that redundant"

"The whole setup completely erases huerarchial polyhedra as well, that really drags down any comic about chromatic infighting."

"What the fuck were you even talking about in the comic that mentioned "crypto currency""

End ID.]

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Shinji Ikari was originally going to be a girl, put that into perspective.