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Vijay through the years – Part 2 of 4
|—2064: Sweet Sixteen.
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|—2068: Rebel Yell.
SHORT VERSION:
(for the long version klick the Keep Reading under the time line and skip the short version)
What has happened to the cute cinnamon boy from next door?
The answer is simple: bad influence — through a girl named Reva, he met around 2065 and fell in love with. Vijay saw no sense in staying with his parents who didn't care about him anyway, so he went off to live with Reva and the gang she was in instead. The result? — three years of thievery, harassment, vandalism, violence and even murdering. He also started smoking, drinking and taking drugs.
Reva was addicted to add cyberware to her body and in three years only she replaced more and more of it with chrome. That combined with hard drugs she was taking all Vijay was able to do was to watch her disintegration. It went so far, that she wanted him to modify his body as well, trying to force him, but he didn’t want to replace any of his limbs.
Though he loved her, at some point he knew if he didn't break up and cut ties completely to everyone from that group it wouldn't have ended well for him. Well, it almost cost him his life because Reva turned Cyberpsycho one day, attacking him with her mantis blades that cut his throat, luckily leaving him alive but damaging his thyroid so, it had to be replaced with a synth one, visibly seen on his throat.
After rehabilitation and finishing school, he set for a new start in a city far away from Portland: Night City. Vijay does not talk about this span of his life. He buried it deep down in his memories and would love to entirely forget about it, but the memories keep coming back in form of nightmares. And mantis blades can be a huge trigger for him.
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|—2073: Shock to the System.
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|—2077: Neuromancer.
LONG VERSION:
At some point of his life in 2065 Vijay met a girl named Reva. Well, you could already say she was a young woman, because she was about three years older than him. V was fascinated by her appearance because she didn’t look like any other girl he knew from school. She looked rebellious — dressed all in black, had a side cut and if he had to describe it in a style, he’d say she looked like a goth-punk-rock girl. He took a liking of her immediately. She was doing things he’d never dared to do, she smoked, she was fearless, she loved to prank and every story she told of herself sounded exciting to him. Vijay didn’t see it as bad influence on him back then but it definitely turned out to be exactly that. He was a naïve young guy who happened to be totally over the moon for her. She would spoil him almost completely.
One day, Reva offered him that she could get him a cyberdeck. Vijay was really into hacking and read a lot about cyberdecks and quick hacks. He had found himself a liking to hack into computers, servers and practically anything that is connected to the net by using his own devices just for reading about information while staying invisible. He took the offer and Reva took him to the place where she lived. A friend of her started to make himself a living by becoming a ripper doc and through him V got his very first cyberdeck. Of course, he had to do something in return for that because he couldn’t pay for it. The favor he had to do was hacking into Portland’s police data base system to delete a few files that gave any info on Reva’s gang. Easy task for him. Thrilled from that new triumph he licked blood and the gang saw potential in him as well.
Reva showed him the entire place and he met all the people she lived with — you could call them some kind of a nameless outlaw gang where everyone really seemed to live either some punk-rock or vampire-goth style (the last one is to take seriously as well, because at some point in those three years a few of the gang really started believing they were vampires, getting themselves vampire fangs, drinking blood and only be active at night). Vijay got excited — it was the entire opposite of what he’d known so far. Out of nowhere, he was thrilled to become a part of it. To break this cycle of his boring and often lonely life of the teenager he was. Following rules, taking orders, always be polite, learn all day so you get good grades — for what? He didn’t know what to do with his life anyway. So, he decided to join these people — not caring about school. Not caring about the future. Not even caring about his parents. They didn’t care about him anyway in the past 17 years. So, what?
That’s when he started being a different Vijay. He dyed his naturally ginger hair black, shaved his sides and added piercings over the following three years to his body. His wardrobe changed into one of a rocker-like style, so he’d fit the overall gang look and started living a life as a true Portland rebel outlaw. That of course included him starting to be involved into thievery, robbing, vandalism, harassments, using violence and also sometimes murder in self-defense. He taught himself to shoot a gun at a self-constructed shooting range and he developed his skills in quick hacking where he definitely found a liking in using mostly non-lethal or useful hacks at first such as Overheat, Short Circuit or Breach Protocol and Cyberware Malfunction. Once he experienced that he was also able to kill someone by also using quick hacks only such as Suicide or Synapse Burnout he kind of felt inviolable. But he was also scared after using it the first time. The sheer power it gave him to decide about life and death was something very dangerous he could play with. He had to keep himself under control not to use it too often because it awakened a rush deep inside him, a superior feeling of being untouchable, that he could be the one deciding whose life was to hang by a thread. He agreed with himself he would only make use of it in desperate situations.
Of course, he also started to smoke, drink and — yes, he also took drugs. Why? — Because everyone did and they all said it was a great feeling it gave you, so Vijay didn’t hesitate any moment. He had no fear of taking some but consumed mostly Blue Glass or Stim drugs, though. The hallucinogenic Blue Glass had this amazing flashing out effect on him, where he often stared blankly at pretty neon colors in his mind that began to form the craziest 80s style vaporwave worlds he could have ever imagined — and he already had a very bright imagination without the use of any drug when he was daydreaming escaping into his fantasy worlds back when he was still a kid. Somehow, he had been rational enough not to take the real hard stuff — either it was because he was completely fine with being on Blue Glass only or because of the stories he had heard and even witnessed what some drugs were able to do to a human.
The first year and a half were times full of fun, excitement, thrill and new experiences for Vijay. He felt completely wrapped up in his new self. After having his first time with Reva and losing his virginity as well he was able to live out the sex life he was having the wildest fantasies about for so long (everything in the city is sexualized so teenagers get early into contact with that sadly). She was fun and loved to experiment. This was also the time Vijay eventually found the explanation why he liked men and women the same way — he discovered he is bisexual. By reaching teenage age he slowly noticed that he didn't want to kiss only girls but also boys but thought it was wrong at first since all his male school friends had been with girls. So, he did the same, until someday, when a young man joined the gang a year after him, who Vijay found quite attractive. That young man made a move and kissed him while the gang was having fun at a lake going skinny dipping. Reva was the one to encourage the two to try out some more. She was completely fine with it. Maybe it was just because everybody has been permanently high from the consume of drugs — however, Vijay was still in a happy relationship with Reva which soon was doomed to turn into a nightmare.
The last year and a half, Vijay slowly began to notice that the life he lived for now was not making him really happy anymore. He was far away from being content. The use of drugs and alcohol made him look like a mess and he often felt a big emptiness inside him. He was living through the day without any reason until the gang decided they would need to rob someone because they ran out of money. He began to ask himself what was the purpose of all this? This couldn’t be it. He witnessed the ruin Portland got into because he was part of it: underclass slowly decaying in the back alleys being pumped up with drugs and robbed of the few eddies they got while the rich and filthy upper class bathed themselves in real champagne and shiny gold at luxurious parties. He wanted to do something against that but the rest of the gang didn’t. They found it too risky to get involved with the high society so they continued focusing on easier targets — and Vijay didn’t like that because it was wrong. After all, these people where in the same need of money and fighting to survive every day as them.
And to cap it all: Reva had begun to add more and more cyberware to her body. She already had lots of fashionable chrome on her face but found a liking to replace her limbs with entire cyberware such a thermal mantis blades. She simply got obsessed with it — any part that made her human needed to be replaced bit by bit. Once she got the eddies together she was always at the ripper doc getting new chrome. V began to worry about her — not only did it change her outer looks, no — her soul seemed to change as well. He tried to appeal to her conscience but it was no use getting through even not a breach protocol helped because he wasn’t advanced enough to get through. She was addicted to replace everything. She even went so far trying to get him into it as well as soon as she seemed to run out of what she could replace on herself.
But Vijay didn’t intend to replace any of his limps neither to add some cosmetic cyberware. The cyberdeck and his Kiroshi optics he got were already enough for him. He saw no sense at all in replacing any well-functioning part of his body with some partly cheap chrome. The love Reva once had for V slowly vanished and brought up only anger, disappointment and indifference. She developed violent tendencies — first only verbally but soon to be physically as well — her character completely changed with being almost fully chromed and high on drugs. All Vijay was able to do was that he could watch Reva’s disintegration. It hurt him to see her like this, to live through it each day. Some days she felt a little better but most times it was only torture for both of them.
Once he found out she was taking Black Lace, Vijay got to a point where he realized, that this couldn’t go on like this. Either she stopped taking this very dangerous shit and got help or he had to leave for his own good. He didn’t want to see her fall apart while his hands were tied, yet he couldn’t leave her because he loved her. He tried everything he could but she didn’t seem to want any help. She needed that stuff so badly, she failed to resist the addiction, so that it ate away her last bit of humanity throwing her into cyberpsychosis. That was when the worst case eventually happened: Reva attacked V with her thermal blades. She wasn’t able to divide between friend or foe — anything was a thread to her. Vijay almost lost his life that day because one blade pierced his throat just so, that his entire thyroid took damage, thankfully not hitting any important arteries. He was only able to prevent getting his head chopped off by rapidly using the Synapse Burnout quick hack on her that stopped her from ending him — but in a lethal way for her.
He didn’t know how he managed to get out of this entire situation. All he knew was that he dragged himself away from her lifeless body having a blurry vision, pressing one hand onto his throat until he fainted with everything turning black. The next he remembered was waking up in some kind of shady hospital. Someone had brought him there and left him at the doorstep was all the doc would tell. The thermal blades thankfully almost burned the open wound so there wasn’t much of blood loss. His thyroid was completely damaged and had to be replaced with a synthetic one alongside with a few vocal chords that took damage as well. From now on Vijay had to live with a visible scar in form of cyberware on his throat (there is no visible scar left because the skin there is synthetic as well). While everyone just saw some fashionable chrome on him, he would always be reminded of his past and the horrible denouement the first love in his life came to an end. He killed Reva. He had to do it. She would have killed him. One quick hack and she got chipped out of the system. He’ll never forgive himself even though she was lost already. That he couldn’t breach through the wall. That the cybernetics consumed her identity. That he wasn’t able to stop her from becoming cyberpsycho. The only exit was to hit delete.
It took him four months of rehabilitation before he was able to pick up where he left: finishing school and getting his life back together somehow. Once he passed his exams he decided to leave Portland behind and set for a new start in a city far away from the past: Night City. He brought back the happy cute guy he was from before, just in a grown-up version — completely burying the past three years somewhere deep in his mind not telling anyone about it. Nobody would believe him anyway. There are days where he almost entirely forgets about it because life keeps him busy — he started studying marine biology — and he’s thankful for the second chance. He doesn’t try to cling on the past, because he lived right here and now. Yet the memories will haunt him for the rest of his life in form of nightmares — and mantis blades ready for action will continue to remind him and be a huge trigger, when they cross his personal space.
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I wish I could have written in a different view. not only the view of a story teller but also in Vijays view, so it would have maybe more emotions and all. But if I did that I'd spend like half a year on this to get it to a point where I like what I've written and this ist not going to happen.
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"Weeeh! I wanna recruit Minthara on a good playthrough! Weeeh! I don't like the ultimatum and want to keep both Minthara and Halsin! Weeeh! I wanna make Minthara good! Weeeh! I don't want Minthara to break up with me!" Minthara deserves more content but none of these things are at all what she needs or deserves. No, these are all things that you want for yourself, but do absolutely nothing for her. This is one of the biggest L's in the game and it will forever enrage me because I just know it will never happen.
Minthara deserves to confront Orin like all the other companions do with their abusers. She deserves to scream and yell at Orin. She deserves to cut at her the same way Orin did, make her bleed and scream in pain. Minthara deserves to torture Orin, just as she did her in the mind flayer colony. Minthara deserves the right to roll up to the Temple of Bhaal and beat the shit out of Orin with her bare hands. Leave Orin begging for mercy in which Minthara will not even give her a drop. To slam Orin down on that altar and slice her throat, offer her up as a sacrifice to the father she is so blindly devoted to.
And yes, Minthara would be afraid. She would be TERRIFIED. Despite how strong and powerful Minthara is, she is also the only one afraid of Orin. Unlike Ketheric, or Gortash, or Sarevok, she is the only one who fully acknowledges just how dangerous Orin actually is and does not underestimate her. She will walk down into that temple, intending to duel Orin with a massive disadvantage because she is terrified.
Minthara choked when seeing Orin again in the mind flayer colony. She choked when seeing Orin as an imposter, throwing her deep into the ocean of paranoia and fear. And she is so entrenched in paranoia that it actually becomes palpable to everyone around her, even you. She describes herself as paranoid, but this is the first that you actually see how paranoid she is. And she choked again when Orin kidnapped someone in camp, making her feel inadequate, making a mockery of her for being unable to protect one of her own. And every day that passes, the more and more likely that the victim is going to die and she has doubts on their survival.
At every possible avenue in which Minthara could have done something or said something about Orin, she froze in place with fear. But she's had enough. She cannot be afraid of Orin forever and she doesn't want to be. One way or another, Orin has to die and she wants to get over that fear. She needs to know that Orin is dead, for herself.
This would also make the alurlssrin confession all the more impactful. She wants to tell you that she loves you in the best way that she can because of the very high likelihood that she will never have another chance to do so. She would beg you to come with her as you give her the courage. She has the courage to face her fears and confront her tormentor, because she knows she has you in her corner. If you have the courage to stand up to the very gods themselves, then she can stand up to Orin. Romanced or not, your presence alone is enough to give her the strength to do something she would otherwise be too terrified to do.
Minthara deserves the honor to solo duel Orin in a fight to the death. Minthara deserves the right to achieve vengeance for herself. No, I do not care that this confrontation would conflict with a Durge playthrough. In fact, it would provide a phenomenal source of some interesting, and toxic, drama between Durge and Minthara. Especially if they're in a relationship. This also does not mean that Minthara killing Orin instead of Durge would not have its consequences (because it most certainly will). Even if Minthara does not fight Orin, it would be so much better if Minthara was just given the fucking chance to yell at Orin like all the other companions in their personal quests.
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BNHA Ch. 429
So, I guess Toga is dead, and people are losing it.
I get why people liked her--she was actually queer, being pan/bisexual. She was representation for them and that's rare in shonen manga.
But here's the thing--she was bad representation at best and insulting at worst. Nor do I think she was made queer because Hori really wanted to represent a queer girl. Himiko was always the author's poorly hidden fetish--she just was. She liked girls as much as boys because Hori wanted to draw a girl touching sexually on another girl. You can see this in how he draws her and Ochako in solo pics together.
I mean, people seem to understand this when it comes to Momo and her outfit being overly sexual or that both Himiko and Hagakure's Quirks either leave them naked or they have to be naked to use them. These are excuses to draw girls in a sexual manner. Himiko being into other girls is the same thing and that's the kindest interpretation.
Given how Himiko acts and her Quirk being heavily coded sexual desire, and therefore her use of it against someone unwilling being sexual assault, it could just being playing into harmful stereotypes of predatory gays.
As a queer person myself I just found Toga insulting. She was designed to be overly sexual and give the male author a female character that he could draw being suggestive with his other female characters. When he did flesh out her character, her backstory was eventually the trope/fear of straight people, that gay people will be so overcome with their lust that they end up sexually assaulting them.
In the end Ochako accepts this part of Toga and says she'll giver her blood forever, but as much as a lot of readers took that that as some deep lesbian confession, for me it really fell flat. Hori never really gave any of the main kids time to actually learn about their villain or show how that changed their minds toward them. Shoto only works because Touya is his brother (even though he admits he barely remembers him). But Ochako goes from not thinking of Toga at all pre-first war, to one thought about her during her speech, to suddenly caring about her so much she--given how Toga's quirk is coded, is willing to essentially fulfill Toga's kink for the rest of their lives.
It's weird and it comes out of nowhere. It's made even stranger because Toga doesn't actually change or show remorse for anything she did, which included personally hunting and murdering people before she joined the LOV. None of the death and destruction she is also partially responsible for is brought up either, something that Ochako was rightfully upset about during the first war when less people and property had been destroyed. Ochako just accepts everything about her suddenly and her past serious crimes are forgotten so they can cuddle and cry.
Am I shocked Toga died--a little. I didn't think Hori would have the guts to kill off a young girl character, especially one that he clearly got a lot of joy drawing in sexy poses. But at the same time, once he killed off Shigaraki and ended Touya's story with his slow death, I'm not surprised he went the same route with Toga.
This isn't Naruto--Hori isn't really kind to characters that do something wrong, especially if they don't try and change. Enji, Bakugo, Hawks, and Aoyama all sort of got punished for what they did. Enji is the worst off, being permanently crippled, missing an arm and burned everywhere. Bakugo's hand is damaged, his heart weaker, plus he feels bad that Izuku lost his Quirk so they can't compete the same way he wanted them to. Aoyama, despite doing way less wrong and even helping his class during the forest raid, still leaves school because he doesn't feel he earned being there yet. Hawks lost his Quirk and even though him running the HPSC could be seen as good for him, Hawks always wanted a break, but now he has one of the most time consuming and stressful jobs out there.
So, if this is what characters who actively did good things and even changed and fought to be better get, what would characters who never changed and never did anything positive for anyone but their friends/themselves get?
Before the last Arc started, when so many people said the LoV were 100% going to be redeemed I had doubts and always thought it wouldn't make sense with how the story presented redemption or treated other non-LoV villains in the past. That if the main LoV did get some happy ending where they were bffs with the main cast it would clash with how other characters had been treated.
That doesn't mean that I think how Shigaraki, Toga, and Touya ended up in the manga was well done. I think their endings fit far better then a last minute redemption would have, but at the same time you can feel how rushed everything has been since the end of the first war arc. Hori was done with this story months if not years ago, yet he was contractually obligated to finish it. Because of that I think he left out as much as possible. As much as I think he's written some pretty obsessive stuff, particularly towards women, I can't really fully blame him cutting corners or the story being shit at the end.
We know Manga authors, particularly those that work with Jump are treated like shit. That they suffer incredibly long hours at times not even getting to go home for days. We've gotten messages for Hori saying he's sick quite a few times. On top of that, weekly story telling is not a great way to tell a cohesive narrative. Ideas probably change week to week or at least month to month and you can't go back and change the last chapter no matter how much you need or want to. Then you remember he also gave a lot of ideas to the people who made the movies, which would also change his plans for how he wanted the main story to go.
The story is bad--it has been for a while, but I think a lot of people put their hopes on their favorite characters getting a happy ending, even when there were signs that probably wasn't going to be the case. I know how much it sucks when a character you love gets a shitty ending (Stain was my fav, but he got an absolute dogshit ending) but at least, knowing what I know about the industry I can't really blame Hori the way I see some other people doing. Criticize it, sure, but saying Hori hates his readers or is horrible writer isn't true. BNHA was popular for a reason--he's great with characters and the beginning of the story had some great pacing. We'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if BNHA could have been amazing if Hori had been treated better and the story hadn't needed a chapter every week.
If anything BNHA has taught me how much a story suffers when authors/artists are treated like crap and forced to work past burnout.
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I think something that changed me is finding out french and spanish people don't seem to get on well. Like, digging around on spanish Xitter does bring you to some jokes/memes aganist the French and all. Example:
Not sure if this is reciprocated from the frenchies, but it already was HUGE for me.
...Though to my surprise turns out it wasn't something because of history (I mean... Napoleon) or similar, but because... Streamer rivalries? Not sure. Other than that, this doesn't seem to be that strong, not even on soccer. Though ngl... I'd love to see FFI Spain and France have something going on >:D
I think that for the most part, it's a healthy rivarly. Most of the players of either team don't hate the opposite party, though it is true there is some resentment coming from RM towards RG due to previous experiences with them in the former Euro League (1 tie and 1 french win).
The tension is most promiment on the captains overall. They like to keep it fair and square in the match; two opposite defenders who are willing to prove one another who's the best leading their team. But at the same time, well... Let's just say that Pierre has had some weird fascination with the lion for a long time, even before their current teams were formed. Whatever is the reason why, it always ends with Pierre taking any chance to tease and provoke him. Even if he doesn't hold any ill will aganist Que, with his typical self-centered atitude he can become a nuisance quite fast. At least Que has his goals always set: To kick that stuck up french's ass at ANY chance.
Of course, the relationship between captains isn't all that bad. When France and Spain were both mutually eliminated, Pierre and Querardo were able to put their tensions aside and support each other in a moment that had left the two distressed (Plus Jonas could be a nice mediator. Emphasis on could). I think their relationship improved quite a bit thanks to that. Who knows, maybe they left Liocott as friends :)
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