In the tenth episode of Steins;Gate<\/i>, the world has undeniably changed in multiple ways, and Okabe wonders about changing it further. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Steins;Gate<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For a section that addresses transphobia (specifically transmisogyny), misgendering, and sexual assault, with a description of said act<\/b><\/p>\n
The world changed, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. The various forms of pop culture\u00e2\u20ac\u201dmostly attributed to anime, if I understood this correctly\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthat used to exist in Akihabara are all gone. GONE. An entire cultural force simply does not exist any more, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because the Lab group sent an email to the past. It is undeniably an affect of the PowerWave. (One of two major ones in this episode, for the record.) Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, WHAT THE HELL DO YOU DO AFTER THIS?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are tons of interesting observations here and details I imagine are seeded to either hint at future storylines or to build up this idea that the world is changing in escalating ways. The satellite disappears from the building at one point; is that meaningful? When did it get removed or did something else crash there in this world line? Why is it that the principal friendships in the Future Gadget Lab still the same? Why hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the shift of the world lines affected them? Is that<\/i> an important detail or just a sign that enough hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been changed in the past?<\/p>\n It is unfortunate, then, that Ruka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhich I find really heartwarming and heartbreaking\u00e2\u20ac\u201dis brought to such a viscerally uncomfortable place in order to show how the world has changed. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak to what this character means to others, but this is probably one of the only shows I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen where a transition of sorts\u00e2\u20ac\u201dalbeit one that is due to the most bizarre form of time travel I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever seen\u00e2\u20ac\u201dactually happens, and a trans character gets what they want<\/i>. It just… wow, it really sucked to learn that through an act of sexual assault? As someone who has been groped like this\u00e2\u20ac\u201dgay men can be really, REALLY terrible towards the bodies of other people, particularly those they think they are entitled to\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI can attest to how utterly dehumanizing and terrifying it is. And I mean that some gross dude actually made a joke about whether I was a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153real\u00e2\u20ac\u009d man or not at a bar and reached down and groped me very, very hard.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Is it the same situation\/context? No, and I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fair to say they are comparable beyond a surface examination. But that scene is HORRIFYING, incredibly uncomfortable, and then… Ruka is perfectly fine later in the episode? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no reaction from her at all beyond the scene itself, which felt odd, too. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s only Kurisu who allows for their to be any accountability in support of their friend. (Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t to say that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re always supportive either? In one of the previous timelines, they also<\/i> technically groped Ruka and then there was some trans panic on display. I only remember that I did not comment on it until right now.) I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s right for me to delve into this any further and look forward to a conversation from the community on it, but I did want to say that Okabe’s\u00c2\u00a0violence made me feel gross.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s unfortunate, too, because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already<\/i> such a complex character with so many unlikable qualities to them. And they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re actually starting to peel away, too! During the blackout in the midst of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chaos Theory Homeostasis III,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he and Kurisu have an incredible<\/i> conversation about friendship and Kurisu\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s slowly changing feelings for Okabe. And for once, he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually ruin it! He lets her speak and doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t rush off to his mad scientist character. That continues to fascinate me because he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dropping it more frequently than he was before, too, and I wonder why that is. Does he think he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t need it anymore? Well, I should also note, as I did on video, that more than any other character, Okabe jumps in and out of this mad scientist persona with Mayuri<\/i>. In fact, when she complains that he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do it at the supermarket, he deliberately goes back into character for her. That makes me think that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing it because of some childhood joke, maybe? She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only person who has never made a negative comment about it, you know?<\/p>\n I DON\u00e2\u20ac\u2122T KNOW, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122M TRYING.<\/p>\n Which brings us to Suzuha, who becomes the subject of the next experiment, despite that Okabe almost<\/i> decides that maybe they should stop changing the past. For the first time, we get a significant dose of her backstory, only to learn that it has been years<\/i> since her father disappeared, and she came to Tokyo to find him. All she has to connect herself to him is a small badge\/pin, the one we saw earlier in the show, and the slim chance that he will be at a certain location the following day. With what little we know, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s already<\/i> an emotional story. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, Suzuha has been working a part-time job, one she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s routinely bored by, so that she can be in the same city as her father and hopefully find him.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But a terribly complex bout of events occurs that prevents Okabe from assuring this happens and that Suzuha visits the lab for the first time to attend a going-away party in celebration of her reunion with her father. Instead, she just texts Okabe that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sorry, and she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaving. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s it. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a heartbreaking moment (once that hits right after the blackout scene in the lab) because… well, I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect it. I thought she was going to have a positive outcome. But I should have known that something<\/i> would push Okabe to a darker place, and he decides to change the past again, and…<\/p>\n It does not go as planned. BECAUSE IT RARELY FUCKING DOES. Yeah, she went to go meet her father.<\/p>\n At a time travel forum.<\/p>\n And his name is Barrel Titor.<\/p>\n WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE? Who allowed this??? WHY ARE YOU ALL TORTURING ME LIKE THIS????????<\/p>\n The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Chaos Theory Homeostasis III\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My YA contemporary debut, ANGER IS A GIFT<\/a>, is now out in the world!\u00c2\u00a0<\/strong>If you’d like to stay up-to-date on all announcements regarding my books, sign up for my newsletter<\/a>! DO IT.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the tenth episode of Steins;Gate, the world has undeniably changed in multiple ways, and Okabe wonders about changing it further. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch Steins;Gate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[688],"tags":[689],"class_list":["post-6920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-steinsgate","tag-mark-watches-steins-gate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}