#clearday return

chatting with other mains and how they perceived shaoxi hollow caleb is so eyeopening

i keep forgetting mc was an amnesiac here too, i feel they wrote that part very poorly. but remembering that—

caleb always chooses to be her brother first. it seems he’s not even willing to give into something more (like mc wants) until she remembers who he is. that he’s family, and not just a caretaker that looked after her that she calls ‘gege’. he had every opportunity to be something more, but to him, he wanted to be her brother first.

his aloofness seemed to ease up as she was starting to remember, in the latter half of the memory. remember the night caleb murdered the previous hollow master, remembered the moment he promised no one would ever hurt her again.

that’s his most cherished role in all universes. he loves being her gege. he NEEDS to be her gege.

parallels with councilman perses

i think there’s a strong emphasis on home, and what that means to calebmc (again this theme is strong w all versions of caleb, but i found it particularly center stage in tainted cuts)

in TC, caleb becomes councilman in part to achieve the promise he made to give her a home on the “nice” side of the river, opposite where they grew up. in the end, the home she wants the most is anywhere where caleb is, like the watchtower, and she ends up waiting for him to come home (forever, bad end)

for SXHM’s mc, she already she knew didn’t want to be separated from caleb. this version of mc already knew her home was with caleb, she even was willing to prolong her sickness because she didn’t want that to be taken away from her

at the end of SXHM, mc is literally content to be in a basket on caleb’s back, traveling with him, because that is her home. wherever he is

i think perses and SXHM also have a heavier emphases on calebmc growing up together with no one else there for them. ofc X02 and A01 have this too, but they met once when they were children and then were separated until they were young adults. for marshal caleb, i infer they grew up in a castle in which there were people to raise them, maids/servants/advisors/etc.

so really, it’s these two versions of calebmc that grew up with NOTHING but each other, but in TC, we see a mc that grew to be independent from caleb yet choosing to need him in her life. in clearday return, we see a mc that was wholly dependent on caleb, both necessity and choice.

the “is loving someone enough to keep them from leaving” made me think of perses. even knowing how much mc loved him, he ultimately made the choice to leave her to keep her safe.

parallels with X-02/decoherence

i think there’s a theme of innocence and exploitation of that in clearday return and decoherence. it’s not a direct 1:1, as SXHM caleb doesn’t really fit the bill. but i think mc is particularly innocent in this one, in ways that can only make me think of the way X-02 and A-01 were, even after being subject to such horrific atrocities

and because of that exploitation we see an mc who longs to see the outside world, and a caleb who wants to be the one to guide her and show her.

the ending in particular stood out to me because it felt like exactly what X-02 and A-01 would have wanted. and it felt like what decoherence would have looked like it it had a “good end,” in which they fully escape the lab and fulfill their promises.

there is also a parallel in the cycle of death and rebirth, in which X-02 was the thing healing mc, and she ultimately was what would destroy him (after they switched energies). in clearday return its more about poison and healing. the specific mention of caleb saying he is a poison to mc, and yet her being the thing that heals him (their playful scene when collecting herbs

all throughout clearday return i literally couldn’t stop seeing our precious X-02 and A-01 in them and it made me sob

parallels with high marshal caleb/imperial thronesong

most glaringly, we see a calebmc dynamic that is reminiscent of empress mc and marshal caleb because they aren’t afraid to be together

twice now, we see that without restrictions, its almost always mc making the decision that she wants caleb. her confessing her feelings, her kissing him in the greenhouse.

i think his parallel reminds me that mc is always the one in control when it comes to caleb. yeah, caleb locked her up in HCW, but in the end she controls him wholly. in extreme cases, caleb will take away mc’s right to choose, but besides that, he follows her lead. he lets her dictate what they are. he would be anything she needs. thats what he wants.

the line about his reputation also reminded me of marshal caleb. “caleb’s name no longer symbolizes danger and destruction. rather, it will be the most gentle, romantic footnote of this era”

but what about colonel caleb/main story caleb?

to me, while clearday return had similarities to ALL the other caleb AUs and i could see pieces of each and every one of them in shaoxi master caleb, for colonel caleb and shaoxi master it feels more…directly mirrored. more of a retelling than them in a different universe, though it is that too.

not only the storyline itself in which they grew up together, and then mc was taken from caleb and exploited, leaving caleb to be the one to need to find and protect her.

when he finds her, she’s forgotten him, and he (presumably) introduces himself to her as her gege. he then climbs to a position of power where he can do something about the forces threatening mc, and he’s ruthless in that role, baring his true self to mc and mc only.

the moment where mc is faced with a caleb that terrifies her, and she ultimately decides if this is the caleb she knows and wants.

in addition to the retelling of SPECIFIC famous calebmc moments: the hand scene with viper/the gang. mc saying she wants to pry his heart open to see what’s inside.

the flashback scene where mc remembers someone who always held her when she was in terrible pain, is highly reminiscent of when mc had a fever due to the toring chip. and subsequently, the choice between survival and forgetting everything. (when he chose to have the chip removed, and when he gives that choice to the woman with the dying sister).

even the note caleb left for her when he left to find the replacement soulbloom made me IMMEDIATLY think of the notes caleb leaves behind when he goes on a mission.

in both of these, caleb specifically thinks himself a monster, that his love is something that will hurt and poison mc. the house of monstrosity feels like the “mountain that has spirits that feed on human souls”

another specific parallel from the main timeline i thought was insanely powerful was when shaoxi hollow master caleb says

i pursue herbalism because i enjoy it. but im not interested in saving everyone i see

does this not sound like burnline, where caleb jokes that he does heroic acts hoping mc will see?

i think this is another great example of when i said caleb IS the ruthless colonel who will ultimately allow others to die (including children) if it means keeping mc safe. yeah, Ever might’ve forced the uniform on him, but it was always part of him already.

even when he gives the woman the medicine for her sister, he did so because he needed something from her. now, i’m sure caleb would’ve saved her regardless. similar to burnline, caleb does good deeds even when mc will not see, which is why mc disagrees w him that he does it hoping she will see.

he does good deeds for mc, not because he is a good person. BUT HE IS a good person, and that’s because he wants to be a good person for mc. he wants to be everything for mc, including the best version of himself.

which again feeds into the “i can’t pretend it’s always about you” line in indulgent scheme. caleb indeed does everything he does for mc, but he cloaks it as his own free will and desire. and the reason for that is because IT IS in fact his own desire. since he wants to be everything for mc. that’s what HE wants. ref 1 | ref 2

main story caleb - became a pilot so that he’d be able to take mc and escape if another chronorift catastrophe happened. subsequently became the colonel to find a way to keep ever away from mc and her aether core

councilman perses - became councilman to make sure he could fulfill the promise to mc that they’d have a home across the river.

X-02 - was “born” to heal mc, and ultimately decided to become the one who held the destructuo energy so he could save mc from her own fate

marshal caleb - became marshal of the glory federation so that he could make sure mc could fulfill her dream and ambition of uniting the cosmos under the empire, joining her in doing so

shaoxi hollow master caleb - became this so he could not only heal her, but make sure no other hollow masters would hurt her again

lastly, i will agree there are translation issues once again. for me, they didn’t take away from the story as i could pick up the differences from the dub, but i think if you rely on english it will take away from the story

i think the familial aspect here is particularly interesting and impactful and gives more depth to the shaoxi hollow master, and to mc’s innocence and naivety as well. it makes their dynamic (and the overall plot) feel more organic

ultimately to me, the translation wasn’t the best, the plot wasn’t the strongest (still cohesive overall and i enjoyed, but much weaker than ex. imperial thronesong and tainted cuts). but the character of the shaoxi hollow master and the new dynamic we get to see were strong enough that i really really enjoyed it.