It Was Almost Exactly 10 Years Ago When I First Came Across This Official Dir En Grey Manga. Back Then

Sayaka Murata and Autism

Recently I read both Convenience Store Woman and Earthlings, and from my perspective, I see these books as two sides of the same coin. CSW is My Neighbour Totoro as Earthlings is Grave of the Fireflies in the way that they’re twin media, with one being exponentially darker than the other.

Reading from an autistic lens, I see CSW as being from the perspective of an autistic person that easily masks and wants to fit into allistic society (or “The Factory” as they call it in Earthlings); the convenience store is a representation of larger society with the main character having found her role in it, a role that she loves despite the shit she gets for not having a “real job” in her mid-30s. She grew up with a loving family that albeit saw her as odd, she has perfectly catered her very being to please others, using scripts and practised expressions and emotional responses to fit in with others and maintain her position as a convenience store worker, aka, her place as a highly masked autistic in society.

In comparison, in Earthlings, our main character is deeply traumatised, and abused by her family. Similarly to CSW, she is seen as odd, but is treated worse since she struggles to mask and fit in according to society’s standards. The fact that she, her cousin, and her partner see themselves as belonging to another extraterrestrial race is an act of literal and metaphorical alienation by perceiving themselves as aliens for being autistic and unable to gel with allistic society — and this isn’t an uncommon occurrence for autistic people, seeing yourself as non-human! And when she grows up and we learn that her cousin “stopped believing” in being an alien, it’s not because he’s matured, but because he’s learnt to mask.

While the cannibalism and incest in Earthlings is shocking at first, especially in comparison to CSW, I see it as symbolic of them accepting who they are by fully unmasking. Since they’ve been treated as grotesque monsters their whole life for being autistic, it would only make sense to me that by fully committing to the depravity depicted in the book that it’s supposed to be representative of them embracing themselves wholly.

Something something marginalised groups treated like filth will embrace filth and find beauty in it something something

i don’t know if anyone else has this uploaded so here you go. enstars anime, ep 11 (?) rei and tsumugi’s interaction. “You can do it if you try.”

(yes i have the fountain one too)

them

I was thinking about someone who said yoosung and rika mirror each other.

So you must have seen that chat where he talked about how he was depressed lacked motivation for anything until rika came to his life and gave him the motivation

But outwardly even if he was depressed and stuff according to rika, he appeared like a "bright" person.

Rika says "when I first met him I could picture spring with forsythias in full bloom. He had a face of a child who grew up basking in parents love which is nothing like mine....I could feel nervousness stirring inside me when I faced yoosung who gladly listened to me and followed me around, the boy is too bright to shiny he might be ruined if he gets too close to me."

And of course from the get go until we actually find out the truth behind mint eye and rika it is pretty much established that rika is also a very "bright and energetic person" to everyone when in reality she saw herself as a broken person with a demon inside her.

But there is a difference, yoosung is someone who keeps on moving forward towards the light and does not really turns himself away from it. If somebody gives him love he readily accepts it and not once pushes anyone away or doubts it

Meanwhile Rika sort of had a push and pull dynamic with "the light" she desired to be loved and accepted as well but also pushed people away from her whom she deemed as the "light" by any means even if it meant to hurt the person because she didnt want to give up the "darkness" inside her (idk if im able to word all this well but I hope it gets the point across)

That's an interesting observation!

"friends don't look at each other like that" well okay you coward you do whatever you want however i WILL look at my friends like they're the most important thing in the world. i love them with my whole heart and i will hold their hand and stare at the stars not because i wanna fuck them but because they mean the world to me and i care about them. fuck you

My Mystic Messenger: Master List

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Theories

⚠️ Please be warned: Several of these post contain HUGE SPOILERS so, don't say I didn't warn you. ⚠️

Part 1- It's a Game

Part 2 - MC Mystery *I'm not on acid, but maybe my brain is lolol*

Part 3 - The Characters are Error Numbers

Part 4 - 404 as F.E.

Part 5 - Dandelion

Part 6 - Mystical Chess

Part 7 - Vanderwood

Part 8 - Choi Twins (Saeran's AE)

Part 9 - The Agency

Part 10 - Cheritz Matrix (The Ssum)

Part 11 - Rika killed Sally

Part 12 - Memories

Part 13 - Mystic Messenger Timeline

Part 14:

♥️ 🩷 💚🖤

Analysing RFA & M.E. personalities

💜💛🩶💙

💛 Jaehee 💛

♥️ Saeyoung ♥️

💚 Yoosung 💚

🩶 Zen 🩶

💜 Jumin 💜

🩷 Saeran 🩷

*This includes Unknown, Saeran, and Ray*

💙 V 💙

🖤 Rika 🖤

* Currently working on these analysis.

Part 15 - The Muse

Part 16 - The Real Wizard

Part 17 - Analysing Mystic Messenger Iceberg

Part 18 - The Ssum & Mystic Messenger connection

(More soon)

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Mystic Messenger but it's things I created, (not theories):

♡ Mysme but it's all Taylor Swift songs

♡ My favorite colors are tied to some MysMe characters

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

The following ones are not mine but are interesting and add a lot to my theories. Plus, some of these blogs have been deleted so I just reposted them to not miss this info:

♡ MC Soul

♡ Wizard Theory

♡ Not mine but is so cute~~~

Their shared struggle with a lack of/weirdness towards their own humanity and lack of care for their lives and need to sacrifice themselves 👍how tsumugi treats him normally despite thinking he's extraordinary and having admiration towards him and a severe lack of empathy and then helps lead this campaign of dehumanization against him for the greater good and rei takes it due to his martyr complex. He emphathized with eichi so much he let it happen. and he has the audacity to critique tsumugi for some things that he had thought about in regards to himself. How were they so close but out of reach from each other but still genuinely truly friends? At what point did reis amusement and weird interest towards him grow into genuine true care despite it still being there because to be fair tsumugi is a weird little freak, but also, rei taught him so much and treated him like a human being when he saw himself as lower than that? He was there on the day he saw proof of his newly found humanity, of his rebirth thanks to natsume and the war, congratulating him for it. Even after all this time he finds himself slipping into his old tone with him, the tone of a self he has long killed off. And now theyre friends again even though the scars remain, even though it's tsumugi's torturous punishment, rei takes care of him. says they could take over the world together. Still wants him to be just a little kinder to himself, just as he'd wished for before. Not to mention the thing rei had implied about his own family when eichi asked if he was bullied, too, while being painfully aware of tsumugi's family and how awful it was...? 2nd year tsumugi saying he grew attached to him after only talking a few times because his concern made him genuinely, truly happy and rei saying he couldnt leave him alone and that he shouldnt act so distant. That theyre friends if he wants him to be. Teaching him what, in his perspective, friendship is, because tsumugis view of it is so skewed he doesnt even know when he has permission to consider someone his friend, and he has so many connections yet hes so alone. this isn't even all but I shant I cant and I shant.

Nothing about how I feel about you has changed.

i wasn't gonna post this part of the chapter bc it was too long but. i truly cannot stop thinking about it. im unwell.

dabbled in translating and it was fun!! this was translated and edited by me and pls do not repost this, at least until the event is over!! thank you!

I love Xue Yang