for lovers

first: the composition. this piece is intentionally in vertical orientation, and it's for two main reasons. one of them is the visual pluralism of joker 'exiting' toward the surface (top of illustration) and akechi remaining in the underworld (bottom of illustration), which is just like, wordplay but in visual form.

the second, more distinct one is to make obvious the readability of progression. as your eyes (and your screen) travel down the piece, they follow joker's (orpheus's) changing figure, and become witness to him as he actively turns around. similarly (this was an observation by someone in my replies!), as you scroll past the image, you slowly cut off parts of it until akechi is the only thing left. if in horizontal orientation, it could be read L->R or R->L which would obscure the action being conveyed: orpheus is looking back, not turning forward.

moreover, in regards to lighting and colors, i wanted them to reflect the gradual shift from the surface, to the underworld—from our true reality, to maruki's reality. closer to the exit, joker is kissed by the warm hues of sunlight. overall, his coloring is darker and more grounded; his shadows have form and weight to them. but, as he recedes back into the throes of the underworld, maruki's reality awashes both him and akechi in bright pastels that are saturated and shadowless—ghostly and unreal. it's that specific sense of 'unreality' that i wanted to convey.

the last thing of note is joker's reflection on the lefthand side. this, combined with the fact that you don't see akechi's reflection, represents their souls and the uncertainty of by akechi's existence: is he there, or not? is he real, or not? is he part of reality, or not? neither the audience or joker know the answer, which is why you can't see his reflection.

now, my jumbled thoughts on joker and akechi's relation to the myth of orpheus and eurydice!

this piece is a portrayal of the 'bad end' (accepting maruki's reality) because the defining component of the myth's tragedy is that orpheus, no matter what, will always look back. there's a variety of reasons/ portrayals of how he looks back, why he looks back, and when he does, but he always looks back. and it is always an act of love. orpheus looks back because he loves eurydice—he holds her so dear that he can't make it out of the underworld without knowing she's there.

orpheus is the active player in their myth—the one who traverses the underworld, sings his songs, and begs hades to let eurydice return. seldom do we get ever get eurydice's perspective. she does not have agency/control over her death, nor over her return—it is she who is taken to the underworld, and it is she who is bargained for—never is it her own choice. i imagine you can start to see the akechi parallels. despite the fact that eurydice is stripped of her agency, it doesn't discount the fact that orpheus's choices were made out of love for her at every step, and that he dooms them both because he loves her so dearly.

third semester as a whole is constructed on the cast's deepest, most intimate desires, and for joker, his greatest desire is to see akechi again. the same is true for orpheus. for both of them, that desire is what dooms everyone involved.

in another draft of this idea, i had a comic-like line overlay of joker's eyes, tearily turned to the side in unknowing. akechi's face was obscured, so neither the viewer nor joker knew what he was thinking. in this version, you see joker turn around, and outstretch his hand towards akechi. if you were to look closer at akechi's body language, you can see how he stands stiffly, and his foot is retracting, as if in retreat. you don't know what he's thinking. but you do see that akechi is looking forward, toward his own death, while joker looks back at him and wants nothing more than to see him again.