now that episode eight is out... here's an analysis of mutsumi,...

now that episode eight is out... here's an analysis of mutsumi, mortis, and DID in ave mujica episodes seven and eight written by a DID system:

if you haven't already read it, check out this initial thread. it contains my analysis of episode 3 and links to the ep 4 and 5&6 threads:
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starting off episode seven, we find mortis fronting in her and mutsumi's bedroom. she is angry that sakiko is there and lashing out at everyone there. she asks if sakiko is even human before starting to imitate minami and the role she played in the film we saw in episode two.

mortis has already been very clearly proven to be an introject, and this is only more evidence. anon and sakiko both call attention to mortis imitating minami too. this is the first time mortis has started acting like minami, so she has now copied minami, sakiko, and soyo.

sakiko says that she was the one who made this happen to mutsumi. we as the audience obviously know this isn't true since episode three gave us a very clear image of how the system formed and why. sakiko is projecting her own insecurities onto mortis here.

right down to saying that mortis is just a doll that only knows how to copy others. sakiko struggles with her own sense of self and is projecting her fear of not being human onto mortis. this doesn't reflect on how mortis actually is since sakiko is a biased viewer here.

in the mirror scene, mortis is continuing to double down on doing what she thinks is best for mutsumi: keeping her away from sakiko. mutsumi wants to see sakiko since she is waiting outside the manor, but mortis believes that will only hurt mutsumi more and says no.

this leads to the book throwing scene where mortis shatters the mirror mutsumi is reflected in. i think it's an interesting note that mutsumi's voice is somewhat distorted and thick until she begins to reach through the mirror for mortis to take control of front.

but mortis obviously doesn't want mutsumi to front since she'll talk to sakiko, so she shatters the mirror. mutsumi and mortis continue to struggle for control after this though with mutsumi going out to speak with sakiko even as mortis wants to keep her away.

the two switch back and forth until sakiko hugs them. mutsumi wants to be with sakiko, and sakiko promises to look after her, but this scares mortis away, and she runs back into the mansion. mortis wonders if she's doing something wrong once she's inside.

mortis has always been the protector, and she clearly holds that role very close to her heart. the idea that she could be protecting mutsumi in the wrong way or not looking after her scares mortis greatly since in her mind, protecting mutsumi is all she has ever known.

mortis is listening in on sakiko, soyo, and taki's conversation later in the episode. she finally agrees to let sakiko see mutsumi after realizing that sakiko has reflected on her actions and changed. this was what was holding her back from accepting sakiko previously.

mutsumi is in control for the rest of the episode, making up with sakiko and the rest of crychic for them to do one last live performance. interestingly, mutsumi is one of only two characters alongside tomori who does not have a monologue during the reunited haruhikage...

and that reason is revealed in episode eight! there's a lot to talk about here. starting with the opening, we see mortis falling through an empty void of water, begging to not disappear as mutsumi and sakiko turn down umiri's offer to reform ave mujica.

this water imagery is really interesting to me personally because i have described dissociation as feeling like you're pushing through a thick layer of water. you're blocked off from the world by water, and it's not impenetrable, but it takes a lot of effort to break through.

so mortis is pushed away from front as mutsumi turns umiri down. if mortis had been in charge though, she would have said yes as she proves later in the episode. mortis is still aware of what is going on in front though, making her co-conscious even when not in full control.

co-consciousness is when another alter is aware of what the body is doing even when they are not fronting fully for themself. mutsumi and mortis seem to be co-conscious a lot of the time, and it makes a lot of their switches instant and seamless with very little dissociation.

when mortis shows up later on in the episode, she proves that even after she and mutsumi came to an agreement regarding sakiko, there's still tension between them. mortis no longer thinks sakiko is evil and horrible, but she and mutsumi still disagree on a lot of things.

sakiko has clearly come a long way though. she is able to recognize it instantly when mortis comes to front and calls her by name instead of wrongly calling her mutsumi. sakiko is accepting mortis as part of her and mutsumi's lives at last. her ableism arc is over! /j

mutsumi and mortis have conflicting desires on what band they want to be in. mutsumi has chosen crychic after the reunion performance (showing why she didn't have a monologue during episode seven) while mortis wants ave mujica to be their band instead.

the next sequence is spliced between mortis and minami both talking about the story of mutsumi and mortis' system. mortis begins by saying that the mutsumi sakiko thought she knew does not exist and never has, and this is a very common experience for systems.

the outside world thinks it knows what the system is like, but the facts are a lot messier. the mutsumi the world knows is not mutsumi as an individual alter but instead as a collection of the many alters (called "roles" here) that have made her up over the years.

so even though mutsumi exists as an alter, the world does not know mutsumi the alter. it knows mutsumi as the amalgamation of many alters who have both tried to mask as her and those who have given up on masking entirely. this is a clear sign of depersonalization.

and it's something we struggle with a lot too. we've written a lot of poetry talking about how we feel like nobody truly knows us because of how much masking and acting we have to do in daily life. it's a bit of a mind fuck to be so many people at once--

and have no one notice it. sense of self in systems is already unstable, and feeling like no one truly sees you for who you are is really hard. it feels in a way like you don't exist because nobody sees you as an individual but instead your ability to mask as an acceptable ideal.

minami gives her take on the situation to nyamu, and she has a very negative take on the situation. we saw from episode three that it was the trauma of being in the public eye essentially from birth and having no privacy or childhood that created mutsumi's system.

and minami was a large part of that. she is clearly neglectful given that she did nothing when mutsumi was spending her nights in the basement unable to sleep or when mortis was hiding away in her room having a psychotic episode for weeks if not a month.

minami is a huge part of the reason mutsumi has DID. DID often forms as a response to childhood trauma, and minami is neglectful on top of being stated to view her daughter as competition rather than as a child by yuzuki watase, mutsumi's voice actress.

minami believes her daughter is outclassing her as a better actor and projects this insecurity onto mutsumi when she was as young as three years old. minami claims this is when she saw that something was "off" about mutsumi beyond simple childhood mood swings.

but this isn't accurate at all. yes, mutsumi's "mood swings" have a lot to do with her DID, but symptoms of DID usually don't show up until later on. for example, we've had DID since forever, but our first big sign of symptoms came when we were eleven bodily. three is too young.

minami thinks of her own child as a monster even though she is quite literally the reason mutsumi is like this. mutsumi had to mask to survive the media circus she was put into from birth. maybe it was acting, but it was more importantly a survival mechanism.

mutsumi felt like she had nothing to call her own. she was constantly compared to her parents and had no privacy or childhood. she only started to get a stable sense of self when she began to play the guitar when she got older. and a lot of that is minami's fault!

on the other end of the story, mortis similarly views all of this as acting and simply trading out roles. in truth though, these "roles" are alters who are stepping up to handle situations and then retreating once their jobs have been done. mortis describes them as a doll too.

and it's pretty easy to see where this comes from. mutsumi was never humanized as a child, so her alters think of themselves as monsters and manipulators. i'm willing to bet this cruel reading of their circumstances comes from minami's opinions of them too.

because mortis has already been shown to have a few traits she picked up from minami. she imitated her last episode. so it wouldn't shock me in the slightest if mortis thought of herself and her system as villainous because of the way minami talked about them.

mutsumi fits perfectly into the wakaba family as the quiet child to be viewed and idolized by the world. mortis is the social one, handling situations that would otherwise overwhelm mutsumi. they are the way that they are because of their trauma and past being neglected.

minami views mutsumi as a monster, and this reflects back on mortis too who thinks that all of this, their survival mechanism, is inherently evil and deceptive. minami's insecurities only worsened the system's situation and put more distance between them and the world.

mortis goes on to describe the many "characters" and "roles" that have made up their life. they all came together to form the person the world thought was mutsumi. before mutsumi started to play guitar, most of the alters were indistinct and had little sense of self or stability.

mutsumi the alter only found a sense of self when she began to play guitar. when she did, she had something to ground herself with, and that gave her the identity we now know that she has. before that, none of the alters really had anything stable like this.

the other alters were all "fragments," or alters that are one-dimensional and do not have a full sense of identity. fragments can split off to hold one emotion and have a limited sense of self. they are less defined and less elaborate than more prominent alters in a system.

when mutsumi began to play guitar, she solidified herself as the predominant alter in the system, becoming the host now that she had something to call her own. most of the fragments began to fade away once there was someone who could handle the system's day to day life.

these fragments then became the empty, blank-faced versions of mutsumi we see in the system's headspace. alters don't really die, at least not in the way people die in the physical world, but they can front less and less and seemingly fade away.

the fragments all still exist, but they don't front anymore because mutsumi has taken over as the host. we can see the fragments in the episode three flashback sequence in the form of the other dolls and toys littered throughout the dollhouse in mutsumi's memories.

the toys all fell off the house though, and this is symbolic of the fragments not fronting anymore. the one-off "roles" aren't necessary now that the system has something closer to a stable sense of self, and this is why we don't see the toys in mutsumi and mortis' modern day.

throughout this process, mortis also distinguished herself as mutsumi's protector. when the other fragments began to fall away, mortis remained, using mutsumi as her reason for being and her saving grace. this is why mortis hinges so much of her identity on protecting mutsumi.

mortis is terrified of "disappearing" like the other fragments. she wants to live with mutsumi but feels insecure in her position because of how easily it seems like the rest of the fragments vanished when they were no longer needed. mortis doesn't want to be forgotten.

systems grow and change, and that is where all the fragments went. mortis doesn't want to be left behind though, so she fights with everything she has to stay by mutsumi's side to protect her. mortis' sense of self is unstable too, so she makes mutsumi the center of her world.

mortis thinks her only purpose is looking after mutsumi, so if mutsumi is no longer struggling, then she will be redundant like the fragments were. to this end, mortis has made ave mujica another center point for herself since that was what she was protecting mutsumi from.

the difference in mutsumi and mortis' band allegiances come down to their conflicting fears of being left behind. mutsumi has made crychic her reason, and mortis has done the same for ave mujica. their struggle is about not being forgotten and abandoned like the others.

mutsumi wants crychic, and she doesn't think she needs mortis in order to get it. mortis, however, wants ave mujica so she has a reason to stay. she wants mutsumi to see her and recognize all she has done for her more than anything.

mortis has been there for mutsumi when no one else was, and she's afraid of mutsumi no longer needing her. mutsumi, however, sees mortis as having failed in her goals of looking after ave mujica. mortis has been claiming to act in the best interests of mutsumi...

but in actuality? mortis hasn't been doing what mutsumi wanted at all. mutsumi says she doesn't need mortis, and mortis snaps the same in return. mutsumi grows and tries to consume mortis as mortis begs to not be swallowed the same way the others in the system were.

despite this, there's still a power struggle between mutsumi and mortis. at the end of the episode, mortis agrees to meet with umiri to talk about reuniting ave mujica. umiri offers to teach mortis how to play guitar, even calling her out by name after realizing she is fronting.

umiri tells mortis to imitate people while she learns guitar. then umiri promises to help mortis "become real" when she expresses fear about disappearing. the narration from uika immediately contrasts this, saying that dolls cannot become real because they are simply dolls.

personally, i think this is more of a reflection on uika than mortis. uika has been absent from the last few episodes, and given that the shot cuts over to uika when the narration begins, it feels like it's about her more than about mortis.

now for my closing thoughts on this episode! i don't think mutsumi really consumed mortis since we can see them both in the preview for next episode. i also don't think mortis is going anywhere, and i'm hoping these two will learn to live with one another peacefully.

this episode gave a pretty good depiction of what the formation of DID is like. it comes from an unstable sense of self due to trauma, and it creates an unstable sense of self too. mutsumi and mortis both pin their identities on outside factors because of this.

i want to draw attention to this intermission line (translation by @/hanamukes). this is clearly about the fragments struggling to differentiate themselves. mortis and mutsumi are afraid of disappearing from front like them too, and it shows here.

mortis and mutsumi are both desperate to stay present in their own life, and that's the reason for their conflict. rather than see that they can coexist though, they struggle for control and the ability to make their own decisions, leading to even greater strife between them.

minami's opinions on mutsumi and mortis are very cruel, and she is deliberately choosing to not see her role in this. she is the reason mutsumi and mortis are the way that they are, but she is too caught up in her own insecurities to recognize that properly.

so instead, she calls them monsters. i do not think mutsumi or mortis are monsters for what happened. they survived however they could given what they were going through. their ability to act and imitate others was what helped them to keep their heads above water.

from this episode, i'm willing to guess that a lot of their other alters are also introjects. i mean, we already knew they were based on mutsumi and mortis' toys, but i'm willing to assume that they were introjects in terms of their behavior too.

copying other people was how mortis got by, so it wouldn't shock me if that was what the other fragments did too. if that's the case, then it would explain why they struggled to set themselves apart. they were always focused on imitating others instead of being themselves.

as for mutsumi's behavior and trying to swallow mortis here, i can best describe all of this as "system host syndrome." this is not actually a thing, but it's how i describe system hosts and their bad habit of doubling down and locking alters out of front entirely.

mortis did this at the end of episode six too, so it's not unheard of for them at all. mutsumi and mortis haven't figured out how to share their life at all, so they keep pushing back and forth to try and get control over the body.

mutsumi pushing back against mortis first is her using mortis' tactics against her. mortis previously swallowed mutsumi in the name of protecting her, and now, mutsumi has taken over mortis for the sake of taking charge over their life. it's a role reversal.

before i wrap this thread up, i want to share a theory i have really fast. i have to wonder if perhaps the mortis at the end of the episode was actually mutsumi imitating her. personally, i felt like the mortis at the end of the episode didn't feel entirely right or accurate.

so maybe mutsumi is acting like mortis for the sake of sabotaging ave mujica? mutsumi wants to get crychic back after their reunion performance. i don't know if mutsumi would just let mortis front willingly after their big argument in this episode, so i think there's more to it.

so maybe mutsumi is acting like mortis for the sake of sabotaging ave mujica? mutsumi wants to get crychic back after their reunion performance. i don't know if mutsumi would just let mortis front willingly after their big argument in this episode, so i think there's more to it.

either way, i want to reiterate that once again, neither one of them are monsters. minami's reading of them is very uncharitable and harsh, and mortis internalizing that doesn't mean they're evil or villainous. minami, on the other hand, deserves to get kicked off a cliff.

right now, i'm hoping that mutsumi and mortis will be able to learn to coexist. it would be really unsatisfying if their story ended with fusion because of all the effort that has gone into establishing them as different people. come on bushiroad. you can do it. please.

the scene of mortis with raana and the cats in episode six gives me high hopes for this. i don't see a way that a fusion ending to this storyline would be satisfying, so hopefully, the writers agree with me and decide to give them a happy ending existing together.

and i think i'm finally done. thank you all for reading. this was a lot longer than i expected it to be, but i hope you all enjoyed. if you enjoyed this, please check out my other threads about mutsumortis and DID that i'll link below. have a great day, everyone.

episode three (master thread):
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episode four:
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episodes five and six:
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