kako-tsukumo

[kako-tsukumo]

cooking up a hot take (i find the joint shion kill in rebellion to be maybe the most romantic eitaku moment in the entire game like

okay i think part of my pov on rebellion is like. not viewing it on its own but more. as a reflection of both route 0 and second scenario. and in that case, it's sorta perfectly in the middle of the two. it's still eito killing shion near the end, like in route 0, but this time, it's him doing so because someone needs ot do it to save lives, and he wants to so the rest of the group doesn't have to have that sin on their hands. so it's that cherishing them from second, while still carrying out the part of his betrayal necessary to save lives.

and takumi...joins him. where in route 0 he and eito never saw each other and ended on horrible terms and on second he was too broken to return eito's feelings, on rebellion, he...offers to do this with eito. like i'm of the very firm belief that eitaku is at its healthiest when they meet in the middle, and here's where they are finally able to. it's a massive display of trust and it's one that pays off. i love how it revisits eito's r0 betrayal but this time it's totally healthy.

plus also if you use kg logic since it has shared writer of oyama. kg had the logic of like sharing sins with someone so you can bear them together and in the process sharing your life with them. so if we go with that then that sin is shared but also their lives are as well

but also like. if route 0 asks the question of how could these two be healthy and second gives an answer, but also raises the question of "could they be healthy and live", then rebellion answers it. they could. they could face and overcome every betrayal of the past together.

[kako-tsukumo]

i want a physical copy of hundred line at some point sooo bad. watched so many playthroughs that I wouldn’t even play it it would just sit there and look fucking awesome on my shelf

[kako-tsukumo]

rating routes I’ve done/skimmed and comedy on ‘if there was a canon ending’ personal potential. thinking about it now I miiiiight bump CoA up a tier for Best Friend?? maybe?? but I doubt it.

btw this is happy from not a narrative perspective but I ‘I care about these characters (especially Eito) and want them (Eito) to be happy and living a fulfilled life (not dead)’

[kako-tsukumo]

you ever see how people talk about a controversial character and it becomes glaringly obvious that they believe some kids are just born inherently evil

[kako-tsukumo]

[kako-tsukumo]

i just think he might be guys (multiple)

[kako-tsukumo]

this is actually the face of true evil and I am not kidding. next time he does this fuckass sprite i’m actually going to reach into the screen and gut him like a fish. i hope he feels pain

[kako-tsukumo]

thinking about how badly nozomi wants to kill herself and how much the story won't let her die. she has to learn to live. she can't die as a weapon like she wants to. she has to live.

[kako-tsukumo]

just two best friends sharing their deepest feelings under fireworks ♪（ｖ＾＿＾）ｖ

[kako-tsukumo]

Eito Aotsuki. Have you ever considered this

many. many times. he really is interesting in the way he is set up, in a way, as the heroine of the game, initially. he is the kyoko kirigiri. he is the chiaki nanami. he's the one takumi always leans on for support, the one who encourages him but still lets him have all the big moments. the one upside on komaeda he has is that nagito drops the ball in Chapter 1 and then u have chiaki on your side the whole game but eito just. doesn't. eito's betrayal hits a lot of people hard for exactly that reason

but also i don't think eito's mask is false per se. because. it IS true that eito has only learned to socialize from books, and that he's very obviously emulating shonen anime (love and peace ✌). So I think that, if Eito is genuienly socializing, it wouldn't look any different. It's still the only way he knows how to actually talk to people. Which is pretty funny. And also, #relatable, I sound entirely too much like Odin Dark for anyone's comfort. U just Know i am a jrpg bitch.

I also love Eito as the sorta. cunt autism rep. Bcuz (from personal experience) it can make u feel like you are the only one who Fucking Gets It and everybody else is stupid. i get it man. i figured out a long time ago that there are precisely two things u can do: a) hate yourself or b) hate others. it's either/or. u cannot do both. and it's interesting to witness from that perspective that once his superiority complex shatters in the 2nd scenario path he pivots to hating himself most of all. bcuz yeah it turns out you're not Chosen. u dont have some Divine Purpose. you are just Different, and it makes ur life way harder, for no fuckin reason at all.

i am a merciful god so i have put a read more here. i thought leaving it uncut would be really funny. alas. i like my dear mutuals. at least until tomorrow fore i've decided i will reblog sparkle off grima 30 times in a row again. equivalent exchange.

[Talking about ableism, Rebellion & 2nd Scenario, also, Saya no Uta spoilers]

he's like, i understand 100% where he's coming from, but he's also still an ecofascist about it, bcuz he doesn't really care about doing good. Helping the futurans stop the war is definitely the moral choice, but it's not like he likes them either. With due time, he'd probably come to think of them as rotten as well.

Actually, also, Eito is so, fascinating/sickening to look at, through the lens of Saya no Uta, which is referenced by name in the story by Darumi, and is pretty blatantly the basis for Eito's cognitive disorder. So, in SNU, Fuminori gets into a car crash that kills both of his parents and leaves him near death with brain trauma. He survives thanks to an untested surgical procedure, but it leaves him with an affliction that causes him to perceive the world around him as made of rotting meat, and the people in it as malformed monsters. Notably, their voices are distorted as well, and everyone's presence is grating to him.

(Fun fact! I believe Takumi's affliction in one branch of Box of Calamity, where he perceives the world around him as made of meat, is also a reference to Fuminori! Eito just ONLY has the people part, and that particular Takumi ONLY has the world part.)

Fuminori can't stand his friends anymore. They disgust him. Their voices grate on him. They keep asking him what's wrong, but he can't tell. Obviously things devolve for Fuminori and friends, but it starts like this: Fuminor can't tell his friends, or his therapist, what the world he sees is like -- because if he does, he's going to be institutionalized for life. And that possibility is worse than going through life like this.

It maps well onto Eito's actual lived experience, with how he did spend most of his childhood in a hospital. A mental hospital, that is. He did get institutionalized for opening up. And the child Eito we see in cgs isn't righteous and anrgy, he's scared. So, maybe Eito does want to sabotage the mission.

But also, what does Takumi do when he discovers what Eito's world is like?

He either kills Eito, or locks him up in a cage.

In Saya no Uta, we never get to see what the Fuminori before the accident was like. But his friends describe him as quiet, maybe shy, but nice. Which raises the question: was the Fuminori of the past truly that different? Or did he always harbor hatred within his heart?

His friends mourn who he used to be. It's like he's been killed and replaced by an impostor. They want the old one back.

One of Fuminori's friends, Koji, discovers the truth -- that Fuminori is beyond saving, and Fuminori confesses to his involvement in the disappearance of Koji's other friends. That the Fuminori whom Koji knew and liked, was well and truly dead.

Upon surviving after Fuminori shoves him down a well, Koji receives a gun from his rescuer, and vows to kill his former friend.

The parallel to Eito is, I think, evident. Eito is honestly SUCH a good depiction of the effects of ableism and I cherish him. And i agree with that one Kodaka interview where he says he's not interested in a "cured" Eito, bcuz, Yes.

[Reason no.1 i have not continued playing SF yet I DO NOT LIKE THIS]

There's so many subtle ways it affects Eito. It's so fascinating to compare and contrast 2nd Scenario and Rebellion. Because in Rebellion? Eito is actually included. Takumi is surprised that Eito is just, on the loose, but he's told, "Well, we're on the same side now, so why not?" and Eito is actually included in the group! As himself! Eito makes comments about how hideous everyone is, and they all go, "Awww, classic Eito! Good one buddy!"

Eito's hatred becomes something less like an ideology and more like a character gimmick. It shows that everybody is capable of understanding where Eito is coming from. And the only time I actually believe Eito when he calls the others beautiful is exactly during Rebellion, when they all take a class photo together. When Eito sees their faces on that photo for the first time. When it's not truly about seeing everyone's faces, but that they've all banded together to fight for a cause they believe in, to do the right thing. That's what makes them beautiful, no matter Eito's vision. That's why he can stand to be around them, now.

2nd scenario. However. I CONFESS. I do not like 2nd scenario eitaku at all. It makes me a bit sick. People draw it very wholesome and fluffy and it is nauseating.

Because we return to what I talked abt earlier. We return to an Eito who is scared. In Rebellion, everybody decides to do the right thing even if it means risking their lives for an uncertain future. In 2nd Scenario, everyone decides to be complicit in an atrocity for their own comfort.

Where Rebellion is everyone at their most selfless, 2nd Scenario is everyone at their most selfish.

And it's disgusting. That's why I think everyone eats shit at the end of it. Too little, too late. That's why this is the only route where V'ehxness pulls out a nuke of their own. There is no longer any ignorance. There is no longer forgiveness. There is no longer, "I didn't know!". There is only you chose this.

And I think, to Eito, this thought also applies. If the choice makes me want to throw up, what about him? However! His own mission is no longer righteous, either. Again, he wasn't chosen, he just is.

There's something to be considered in how the cruelty he suffered as a child technically doesn't exist, but affects him anyway. It's cruelty without malice, which is exactly what happens in the real world so often as well. Very often people don't intend to be cruel, but they just are. It just happens.

So Eito finds his groove again for actual justice when everyone backs him up. But when everyone turns away from justice while he's also on shaky ground, he shatters.

I've made a post abt it before, but like. Consider Bittersweet Youth Eito, who was so utterly disgusted with everybody that he killed himself just to spit in their faces. I genuienly think that Eito gouging out his own eyes in 2nd Scenario is the only way he could stand to coexist with the SDU without killing himself. It's desperate. In this scenario, Takumi holds Eito's life in his hands. Goodbye Eito demonstrates this. If Takumi says Eito dies, then Eito dies, and unlike CoA, he doesn't have The Truth to wreck his spirit. After The Truth, Eito doesn't believe his mission is worth dying for anymore, and living means appeasing Takumi. Living means being the meek, helpless version of Eito that Takumi wants. That maybe never really existed at all.

sorry to complain again but like. saw one art of takumi leading eito by the hand and it makes me want to just yell LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER because we literally have a scene of eito going "can you guide me to the cafeteria <3" and takumi just going "ew. no. you can find your own way."

rebellion everyone accepts eito As He Is but in 2nd scenario eito is rejected even when he's included. yknow. like. ableism cranked up to the max. eito is so gross and weird and he has to debase himself to the utmost to be worth keeping around. plus the ADDITIONAl ableism surrounding eito's new blindness. eito doesn't need help he's just a trickster. when asking takumi to guide him doesn't have to be about finding his way at all. it's a bid for connection. for any scrap of acceptance. and he doesn't get any.

IT'S JUST LIKE. THERE ARE. SO MANY LAYERS. to the ableism in THL. like for example, tsubasa! She's been bullied for her condition before, and the way to integrate her into the group? To get her to fight? Isn't trying to fix her. It's accomodating her. Flat out, Tsubasa tells Takumi, any method you've thought of to fix this, I've already tried. Which is a COMMON sentiment among people with disabilities of all stripes -- unaffected people coming up with slapdash solutions as if you yourself were an idiot and had never considered it before, despite being the one with the condition.

and after tsubasa is accomodated? people don't react to her throwing up outside of things like "please not on my shoes." it's seen, it's expected, it's Not A Big Fuckin Deal, at all.

so the SDU ARE capable of being chill about disabilities. more or less.

it's just. chews on some rocks. there's so much to it.

Eito's hatred isn't really a product of his condition at all, it's a product of an ableist society that only knows how to deal with him by locking him up. Which happens both in his backstory and in the actual game. Any attempts to "fix" him are non-consensual and violent, that drive him to suicide in CoA. He so desparately needs a grand mission or cause to live for or else life is not worth living at all. He's fine dying if it's at least for a reason, but if he loses that reason, he becomes afraid. He genuienly models all his social skills on books because he had nothing else, there is a part of him that is still just scared and lonely, but fitting in means repressing every part of himself that chafes with the world around him.

One wrong step, and you're a freak. One wrong word, and you belong in a cage.

There are only two options. You either hate yourself, or you hate others. There is no third option. It's your future.

[kako-tsukumo]

someday I will have to release my eito playlist. i think you all need to understand the many visions I have because NO ONE has made animatics for eito to any of these songs yet and it kills me every single day.

[kako-tsukumo]

question I’ve been thinking ‘bout recently. these are all character from media I’ve been consuming recently I think fit this roles but I wondered…

if you haven’t seen one or more of these please go check them out, they’re all really good. reasonings for placement under cut, spoilers for:

all of revolutionary girl utena

route 0 of hundred line

deltarune ch1

(vague) rebellion movie

all of omori

anthy: characters not understanding her is crucial to the plot. utena not understanding her is crucial to the plot. the viewer should be able to understand her by the end of the show because otherwise, they’ll end up either dismissing her wrongdoing, or condemning her completely

eito: eito’s position as a main antagonist is crucial to almost every single route in the game. even when he’s dead, his presence haunts both takumi and the narrative. if you don’t understand him, you can’t understand a good 3/4 of the game, because it relies on themes that eito is DEFINED by.

kris: if you don’t understand their deal you just don’t have basic media literacy. they’re being controlled by the player and do not like that. failing to understand this means you literally, on the most basic level, don’t understand deltarune

homura: the girl of all time literally. not understanding her motivations is how people got around to thinking she was completely evil for doing what she did at the end of rebellion. you can’t understand rebellion without understanding her. the main series is a little more dubious but it still applies.

basil: if you come away thinking the 12 year old was evil for frantically trying to protect his best friend and doesn’t deserve to be forgiven i think you should be forced to watch omori video essays for 12 hours straight clockwork orange style

[kako-tsukumo]

hey what the hell !!!!!!!

[kako-tsukumo]

Kurara art stuff messy sketches v

[kako-tsukumo]

Do you like keychains?! Hundred line?! J-fashion?!?!

If so, I have the perfect thing for you!! Today I opened my hundred line j-fashion keychains and a Tsukumo twin standee! Pre orders are open for a month so feel free to check it out!

https://forms.gle/4z9yoKHLNWz5m2qx6

[kako-tsukumo]

hundred line plays with themes of morality really well. nozomi and eito are two great examples of this.

nozomi is a sweet, kind, person who loves her friends dearly and would do anything for them, even taking blatant emotional abuse from fake moko without protesting. she’s never mean or vulgar or violent. a perfectly nice girl for takumi to fawn over.

but she ISN’T perfect. she destroys herself trying to fight for a cause that abandoned her to her sickness. that’s not noble, it’s not right, it’s horrible. she priorities the war over herself. her kindness has made her complicit and compliant. it is love for something that has only ever hurt you and only ever will, because hurting is what ‘had to be done’. her care for humanity is an echo of what her mother did to her.

eito is…not that. his whole faked arc in the first 100 days is pretending to get over his concerns about fighting a horrid unfair war for the sake of his ✨friends✨. that’s not a good thing. once he rejects that, he is cruel and vindictive and mean and insults everyone the second he sees them.

but he will not partake in this war. he is the one who tells them that they’re being used as puppets by humanity. he is the one who tells them that their memories most likely aren’t real. he is the one who refuses to be a living weapon used to win a war.

so which one of these people is good? moral? is it someone who’s kind? sweet? or is it someone who’s willing to refuse to participate in a genocide, but doesn’t play nice about it?

[kako-tsukumo]

th. the eito thoughts have returned. head in hands.