Kyanite Hoarding Dragon

Kind of a weird thing to get hung up on, but I suppose if you're trying to help your friend bounce back from uh...being possessed? Dying? Some version of all of that. You would be doing your best to guide them on how to be human.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

A week on a mountain is, in fact, the dead zone. The odds of you coming back from that are very, very slim. Honestly, if I hear about rescue efforts for someone who has been gone like, three days around here, my brain goes, "We are looking for a body." It's not pleasant, but it is what it is.

So if I had a friend that came back after a week, with no gear, no supplies, as it seemed with Hikaru, and he doesn't remember anything...I don't believe in the supernatural, but I do believe weird things happen, and I would start wondering about weird things. I mean, it is a miracle, sure, and also very weird.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

I love this not only just as some good ol fashioned body horror, whatever this thing is pouring out of what was Hikaru's ruined eye, but in Hikaru's confession there's something very different from the usual expectations of the monstrous or whatever. He likes going to school. He likes eating ice cream. One does not expect this from a disembodied spirit. There's no malice in this one moment. It's just a plea.

HIkaru is already dead. Will you let someone live his life for him? Will you let someone be the shadow of him? Will this make something of his death?

And of course he knew. I have said, previously, I am a huge huge huge sucker for the doppelganger thing. "It's not you. I would know you blind. I know the way you walk, you smell, the way your voices bounces over a syllable." romantic, not romantic, does not fucking matter I am whooping and hollering and screaming yes. There's something so intimate about "You look just like him and you sound just like him but you are not him"

But! This is convenient (for me) also in that the nature of grief is, 'Are you prepared to accept the shade of your friend in order to not have to grapple with his loss?' and many of us do not get that bargain. How many of us would take that?

hm also also nascent thought, it may mean nothing, but--something something your lvoed one goes through a horrfying trauma and it is them but it also is not them and can you love the person who lives their place

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

And here it is. held so close. You know it's wrong. You know it's fake. You know that in no way could it really ever be Hikaru, and yet, you can feel his hand on your back. You can feel his arm around you. And you can't let him go. You can't let him be dead. So you are willing to accept whatever this thing is, because otherwise, you would have to admit that he is gone. A pale impression, but something nonetheless, like a worn statue that only resembles the thing it was meant to be, all the fine details missing.

But you accept it anyway.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

And then, of course, there is 'the memory.' the last moment before it all went wrong. This is what he'll ahve to live with as being one of his last memories of HIkaru. Just talking to him about his plans to go up into the mountains. A normal thing, and yet a secret from even Yoshiki. What WAS Hikaru seeking up there, and did he find it?

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

Let's give it up for the fetal position all my homies loves the fetal position!

Unfortunately, often the death of someone you love is really fucking stupid. The last thing you remember saying to them, the last conversation you had, oh wouldn't it be amazing if it had been full of meaning? Wouldn't it have been amazing if you told them how much they meant to you? If you had closed up loose ends? But life is rarely so kind. So often we have to square with an unremarkable ending, to wonder if they knew the things we did not say.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

YES.

He just...sobs. That long arm of grief takes hold of him and he just puts his face to the bed and sobs. Nothing will ever bring him back, not really. He'll never smile at you again, or tease you about girlfriends, and love. He'll never annoy the shit out of you again. Everything you carry with you right now is everything you will ever have. Prepare to have this moment over and over again. They space out, but I don't know that they ever really stop.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

There's a line of dialogue coming up that makes a better point, but I'm going to make this point anyway: It's really...moving? I suppose? The way that Hikaru--I guess I'm going to call him Hikaru even though he's not Hikaru--is crying about this, because of course he IS the cuckoo. He IS the replacement. And so it can be meaningful to him, because even as he is doing the replacing he can have empathy for the idea of being easily replaced

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

This whole extended scene is great because it shows us how normal things are. Clubs are still going on after school, they ride the same places in their bikes every single day, people are working, the creek still runs the same way it always used to, so many of things are the same.

So you still ride and you still laugh with your friend, because it some way, they are still there, right? In some way, you can still hear him, even if it isn't quite right, that's okay, because it is something. I am so taken with the idea that this shade of his best friend came back and he's decided to be okay with it because it's better than not having him at all. I don't have an opinion on it as far as it being good or bad because more than it being good or bad, I like that it is INTERESTING. I could make an argument for it either way, honestly, as a symbol or whatever, but I am so invested in the why. WHy is this okay for Yoshiki? I think different people would be able to handle this differently, and I love that he has the burden of carrying around that this isn't his friend, but there is a part of him that has decided it is GOOD ENOUGH.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

I love the way that he is truly obsessed with getting it right as far as reliving things that he and Yoshiki used to do. I'm saying a lot about Yoshiki being willing to pretend, but there's also something to be said for Hikaru trying to be Hikaru. He's not very good at it, but he's trying for Yoshiki's sake, and I think that counts for something. I also probably cannot eat whatever is in his hand but boy would I if I could.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

I LOVE that HIkaru doesn't really have the words for what he is either. I was wondering when we started this whole thing, what it was going to be. One of my favorite things about all this is that whatever is possessing Hikaru's body does not seem to have any quality of malice. It wanted to be a person, and Hikaru was dying, so it took its chance to be one. Now, of course, much to be revealed and it may yet be that it DID kill HIkaru or something like that, but as of this exact moment, it doesn't come off as evil. Just curious. Wondering what it would be like to be a person.

It's such an interesting take on this idea, that your friend came back as something else, but the thing that they are is earnest and good.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

Yes! I love that Yoshiki is being forced to consider the fact that though he may be great and fine and willing to work with the fact that Hikaru is now some sort of thing, rather than a person, not everything and everyone is going to react that way. Some things, possibly some people, will sense the wrongness in him. The not-human in him. And that takes him back, for a moment. Not only is he new to humanity, but he is, in many ways, still not human.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

God this is so fucked up, I'm feasting. Not only is he willing to accept the imposter, but he wants the love of the imposter so he can pretend it was all Hikaru. Now, Hikaru may well have liked Yoshiki very much and just not have been the sort of person who would ever say such a thing. I don't think people who are more closed-mouth about their affections are invalid, but it seems pretty clear to me that this si something Yoshiki never FELT from Hikaru, whether it was true or not, and desperately longed for. While for me, personally, it would be another sigfn that my friend was well and truly gone, it means something to Yoshiki, and only makes this desire to cling to him worse.

He learned to let a wav

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

And I love that it kills her and then we hear Yoshiki whisper "good night, Hikaru." This creature is dangerous and frightening and loved.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

Uh, weren't you lost in that same forest for a long time? Would it not make sense, if you are pretending to be Hikaru, that Hikaru might find the whole thing a little unappealing at best and terrifying at worst? He might not want to wander back into that mysterious land? Just a thought I'm having out loud. I mean I know that part of it is that you are bad at pretending to be human but good god.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!

OH okay, and on top of it being something that might unnerve him because of his, uh, death, it sounds like he was not exactly the most courageous boy while he was alive. And now that he's been caught out in that he needs more of Yoshiki to aid and abet, to say, "Oh yeah, he was but he's totally not like that any more, not problem" further further and deeper and deeper.

Please do not spoil me! I am watching as i liveblog, I have no knowledge of what is to come! Please please please do not confirm, deny, hint, supply outside information like interviews, or anything like that!