krowmanticism

[krowmanticism]

[krowmanticism]

Lil doodle I made 10hours before the Direct

Aitsf nation how are we feeling?! 🔥🔥🔥

[krowmanticism]

i hc them as slavic (+ german). you can't change my mind, i've had this hc for years

[krowmanticism]

happy birthday to 12 y.o. mizuki okiura!

[krowmanticism]

Playing dress up with my simulation theory cult leader

[krowmanticism]

reposting

[krowmanticism]

[krowmanticism]

My piece for @uchibigbang !! This is a poster for @krowmanticism ‘s AI: The Somnium Files x Witch’s Heart crossover fic, Cursed Self, Mind’s Eye. Check it out here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66564160/chapters/171696124

[krowmanticism]

Cursed Self, Mind's Eye woohoo !! here's my @uchibigbang fic :]] it's a crossover between two of my nearest and dearest games of all time, aitsf and witch's heart. colloquially referred to as witch files bc i intend to post more about it. eventually...... check it out!!! it's got some gorgeous art

8.2k words + ongoing. major spoilers for aitsf!!

[krowmanticism]

In the release trailer of AITSF, there is a particular string of words that loops rapidly while a high pitched drone plays. It reads:

“I KILLED HER FOR eye

I KILLED HER FOR i

I KILLED HER FOR 愛

I KILLED HER FOR ai

ALL THAT REMaiNS

IS DESPaiR”

As far as I can tell, this text is never once directly referenced in the game. It appears here and only here, without any attempt at outright explaining it. However, I do believe that without a shadow of a doubt, this speech is from Saito’s POV. A monologue of sorts, cycling constantly as the screen zooms in on the justifications, as something we can’t see cracks the screen. And what Saito is speaking of here is rather clear; the death of Manaka Iwai. Each line parallels his in-game motivation to kill her and the aftermath, which I will explain in this post.

“I KILLED HER FOR EYE”: One’s first thought may be Rohan, with how he originally took out Manaka’s eye after death and offered to partner with Saito to continue doing exactly that. However, that is wholly irrelevant to Saito’s motives overall, especially as a child.

No, I would argue that this is referencing “an eye for an eye”. In Resolution, Saito tells us, “That woman took my dad from me. And she stole all the happiness from my house.” We’ll go further into that particular statement later, but this just leads me to believe that “I KILLED HER FOR eye” is meant to be understood as “I killed her for revenge” or, if you leaned into the Biblical roots of “an eye for an eye”, “I killed her for justice”. Either way, it fits the particular sort of anger and jealousy a child Saito felt.

Curiously, the font chosen almost seems to reflect the childishness of this motivation, being closer to handwritten and comparatively messy to the rest of the fonts used for each line.

“I KILLED HER FOR i”: This is about Saito’s initial explanation for killing her—

“Before Manaka, I would kill cats and pigeons… It was the only way I could feel happiness. The only way I could feel anything. But like a drug, I eventually grew a tolerance to it. “Next…I’ll kill a human.””

I would argue that Saito’s default state is being miserable rather than just apathy. Most of the time, he is deeply unhappy, detached from himself and the world around him. As a child, he wasn’t allowed any proper coping mechanisms- no therapy, no medication, not even a stable support system -despite his father having the resources to give him all that and more. We don’t know what exactly made him realize that making others hurt made him happy, but he latched onto it because there was nothing else. He decides that he wants to kill a human because the joy he got from killing animals was gone. Just about anyone would’ve done, but Manaka was a convenient target. Manaka gave him the justification his twelve year old mind needed. “i” refers to his never ending pursuit to feel something.

“I KILLED HER FOR 愛, I KILLED HER FOR ai”: These, I would argue, are the most important parts of the monologue. The trailer itself even goes out of its way to highlight their importance, as when the screen briefly zooms in on the looping text, it only zooms back out after “ai” is stated, and once the screen cracks, the final dialogue we’re left on is

“愛”, before it cuts to the game’s logo.

This is the same exact sentence being repeated twice, telling us that beyond jealousy and beyond the search for happiness is that Saito killed her for love.

More than anything else, Manaka’s death was Saito’s attempt at gaining So’s affection (or perhaps to him, regaining it). I genuinely doubt that as a child, he even realized So would be at all upset by her death— this wasn’t to hurt his father, this was to show him just how much he means to Saito! Manaka took his dad from him, she stole all the happiness from his house— it wasn’t that she somehow kept him from killing animals or somehow made him grow a tolerance to the sensation it used to give him, it’s that So was actively spending so much time with her, giving her attention and while Saito was already neglected, his existence was nigh invisible at this point. Eventually, So stopped seeing her, but the moment it was time to go meet with her at the warehouse…

…

Of course, things didn’t work out the way Saito was hoping, despite achieving his goal of killing her.

“ALL THAT REMaiNS IS DESPaiR”: So states that Saito’s murder of her was when he lost control (“But if I had never been involved with Manaka in the first place, perhaps he wouldn’t have ended up losing control completely,”) it being the metaphorical breaking point where he was fully convinced that there was nothing for him but bloodshed. This leads to more and more people dying in Saito’s efforts to not be miserable any longer. This leads to more and more people mourning the deaths of their loved ones. All that remains is despair. Saito is aware of this too, given how he talks about the Cyclops Killings; “If I didn’t kill Manaka…would things be different? Maybe the murders six years ago never would have happened. Me, you, Rohan… Maybe none of us would’ve gotten mixed up in this. Isn’t destiny a curious thing? One mistake can change so many lives.”

The fact he even refers to Manaka’s death as a mistake is fascinating though, and there’s so many different interpretations one could have of it. I personally view it as partially being a result of the immediate aftermath- he didn’t get the love he was expecting from So and realized that no, his father wasn’t going to be happy about her death -and partially being that Saito is very much aware of how awful he is, how her death led to him getting worse not only as a person, but in his own mental health as well. He’s addicted to killing, to the point where when he’s in a body that can produce oxytocin normally, he’s more concerned about how killing makes him feel horrible rather than experiencing what joy had been otherwise denied of him. And he must be especially aware of how he stopped feeling happiness from killing animals— if he grew a tolerance to that, it’s inevitable he’d grow one for killing humans as well. What then? Then (in his eyes) there would be nothing left for him, just constant misery. But Saito has dug his feet in and refuses to break out of the cycle, willingly locking himself in because at this point, there’s nothing else for him anyways, there’s no changing. All that remains (for him) is despair. That’s the mistake.

(And not, you know, murdering an innocent woman and separating her from both her daughter and her close friends, and likely causing trauma for plenty of others as well. That’s not the mistake in his eyes!)

As you can tell by this mini-essay, there is so much to be said about Saito. Even with a rapidly looping monologue, you can uncover so much about him and his view of others. He fascinates me endlessly and this is a little look into why. Thank you for reading!

[krowmanticism]

Sincerely, a friend

[krowmanticism]

more of aiba trolling saito, uchikoshi hire me to rewrite the end of the game

[krowmanticism]

thank you deltarune for making my favorite characters even favoriter very awesome

[krowmanticism]

been on ponytown again :-) go my aitsflings. I dont know why date won't fit in his damn box. IM WORKING ON AIBA #promise

+ my aitsf spoiler and aini spoiler ponies:

Saito horse.

[krowmanticism]

oh he’s just a silly guy

[krowmanticism]

this is what i really wanted to happen to saito when he got his body back.

IT MAKES SENSE TO ME, that brain has been rotted by oxytocin and pornmag addictions. i want to psychically torture saito. hes now in a prison of his own brain that was slowly fermenting in injected hormones for 6 whole years 😌 aiba send him more images of boobs from date's recent memory he'll hate it

[krowmanticism]

messing around with brushes and the lasso tool. love the lasso tool.