GENSHIN MANGA SPOILERS! but honestly if you haven’t read it by now it’s your fault alone
So why did Kaeya initially try to hurt Collei?
The obvious answer- he was trying to defend Mondstadt, Collei was a very suspicious figure at the time, and he knew that being aggressive towards her would probably draw out her hidden powers and reveal herself as the culprit of the Black Fire incident.
But there’s more to it than that.
Kaeya canonically loves, LOVES kids. He adores them- there’s lots of times in the game where he talks about how precious childhood is and how he wants to protect the purity of childhood dreams for as long as possible before kids have to grow up and face the real world (kinda similar to Childe). In 3.8, it shows how he is literally willing to do anything to protect a child- Klee, when he literally throws aside his own sibling issues in order to shield Klee from being exposed to the same thing and scolds a couple of bickering brothers for upsetting her.
Additionally, there’s his whole thing with Mika and how he’s basically a big brother figure to the entirety of Mondstadt’s population under 17. The highly implied bond between Bennett, Razor, Fischl and him, even.
Anyway this whole aspect of his character obviously stems from his own childhood and how tainted it was by his hidden identity, so like he probably doesn’t want any other kids to have to go through such hardship especially while they’re still young.
So if he loves kids so much, and wants to protect them so badly, why did he not hesitate to become a full blown villain against Collei, literally wounding an innocent 12-year old girl?
Because he sees himself in her.
Collei hates herself (or at least she used to LOL). She hates the burden (her powers) that was forced upon her from a young age, and those powers inevitably label her as a bad person, one who can harness evil powers to kill And hurt and whatever. It makes her feel like she has no real control over herself, and that she has no self-identity- she doesn’t think of herself as a regular person, instead a monster. And she hates, hates, hates herself for it, but she shoves all of it down under a mask.
Sound familiar to a certain cavalry captain?
That’s why Kaeya didnt hesitate to Go after her. He knows her too well, knows that she’s hiding her true identity under a well-crafted face, that there’s something evil and dark in her- because that’s exactly who he was as a kid.
But then this panel happens.
Collei, evidently so tired of living such a torn life, gives up and offers her life to Kaeya just so that the torment can end, which stops Kaeya in his tracks, because that’s when she reminds him off himself just a little too much.
Kaeya, so caught up in her uncontrollable evil, forgets that she’s just a child, one who never should’ve been forced to deal with such a thing, and certainly not want to die because of it.
That’s exactly what happens internally to him, as well. Over the years, Kaeya internalized being a traitor so much, that often he convinces himself that he’s truly not a good person. Yes, he acknowledges that it’s really not his fault, but that still gets lost and it shows through when Kaeya shows us how willing he is to get himself harmed- because of his self hatred, he places so little value in his own wellbeing and his own life, because he thinks that all harm that comes to him is deserved and that it’s better off if he’s dead anyway so that he doesn’t have to deal with being torn apart every day.
No I’m not making this up, it’s in how he literally covers for Diluc all the time and risks himself in the process, and how Adelinde told us about that one time Kaeya literally took Diluc’s punishment for himself when they snuck into the wine cellars. There’s lots of times, even throughout in the game where Kaeya tries to convince us he’s not a good person- he quite literally says that, at some point.
Only when Collei shows that she’s in the exact same position does Kaeya realize what he’s doing and stops himself. Only then does he remember how painful and hard it really is, and he ends up helping to save Collei and removing her powers, because that’s one burden he can help take off, unlike his own.
Idk man for me the Kaeya vs Collei fight (I like to call it the chapter where collei gave us the hottest panel of Kaeya choking ever) told a story about Kaeya’s internalizations, too, and his own-self hatred and how deep it really goes. BRB CRYING
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Some things about Allan:
He’s the only one who reacts to the narrator
He’s the only doll (besides the Weird House) who isn’t swayed in some way by Ken’s takeover
He also declares himself as “Ken's buddy" (making canon his official box description) which makes his inability to be swayed more interesting
He has bendable legs (probably the only reason he tries to jump the fence instead of going around like everyone else)
He easily decked a half-dozen construction Kens and could probably singlehandedly win the Ken fight
He seems to know more about the real world than most Barbies
He knows what NSYNC is
He knows about other Allan copies living in the real world (I’m trying to figure out if he made this up to convince the humans he can live in the real world, but even if he did, how does he know what NSYNC is???)
There are no other Allan models
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It was the final hour. Doomsday at their door, with only hours left before the world was consumed entirely and every last living thing was devoured right along with it.
Summoning the High King of the Infinite Realms was the only option left, and even then felt more like choosing a firing squad rather than a noose at the end of the day. Pariah Dark might - might - accept the task of destroying the foe they faced, but tmit would come at a cost that was near equal to doing nothing at all. Provided the tyrannical ruler simply didn't let them all die, an entire planet dead was an entire planet to add to his endless armies.
They had to try. Stupid and suicidal as it was.
Zantanna and John worked in silence as they created the summoning circle, hands shaking and stomachs cramping as they worked under the apprehensive eyes of the rest of the League. They all understood that no matter what happened, they would all likely end up dead by the end of it. That the best case scenario meant that death was only the beginning of their problems.
Candles were lit. Insense burned. Blood spilled. Words spoken.
Nothing.
Nothing.
It failed, not so much as a flicker of magic. Which was impossible, they'd checked and confirmed a dozen times that they had the right ritual, that they were following the steps, they had done everything right way wasn't it working? What had they done wr-
"Ugh, gross is that blood?"
Elle Phantom, fifteen minuted late to the site of the ritual with both the boys Super, the most murderous Robin and a sugary abomination of an iced coffee from Starbucks, scrunched her nose in disgust as she looked at the summoning circle.
"This ritual is so out of date, where did you even find it? Wait is that Latin? Who tries to summon someone from the Ghost Zone in Latin?"
John had burned through every drop of alcohol and cigarette he owned hours ago while trying to find this bloody damn ritual and was very much not in the mood for the little hellspawn's color commentary on the process.
"I don't bloody well seeing you providing with any alternatives for summoning the Ghost King." He swore, turning away from the gremlin to tear through the ancient book he and Zantanna had discovered with the ritual inside.
There was a loud slurping noise as the undead hero sucked the last remnants of her drink through the straw. John's brow twitched, even Zantanna - who usually seemed endeared by the chaos goblin - looked at the end of her rope.
Then - "Oh, is that who you wanted to summon? Why didn't you say so?" She drifted over, handing her empty drink off to a disgruntled looking Batman, and began rummaging through the unused magival supplies left over from the - failed - summoning circle. "Here, give me like, five minutes."
John was fairly certain his head was about to explode.
"You know how to summon the Ghost King? You?"
Phantom rolled her eyes at him. "Duh, obviously."
"Obviously." Zantanna repeated, looking like she was half a moment away from having a breakdown. She didn't try to stop the ghostly girl, though, and to be fair neither was John. They were already fucked, might as well let the gremlin try her hand at it.
It took less than the five minutes Phantom had claimed she needed.
When she was done there was a significantly smaller circle on the ground. At the cardinal directions of the circle, written clockwise she'd drawn not any magical runes but instead what appeared to be the Roman Numerals for one, then two, then something akin to a sideways T with an additional mark rising upward from the long horizontal bar, then the letter L.
It had to have some kind of ancient magical significance John didn't know as Shazam made a noise like a dying goose and squeaked out the word Loss like it was a question. Phantom gave the Champion of Magic a sharp toothed grin before adding some words in a language John didn't know before she finally allowed gravity to pull her back to earth and plant her feet on the ground.
She wiped her hands together a bit dramatically, looking pleased with herself, but at that point John didn't care. He could feel the building magic, heavy and oppressive as she had begun her task. Unlike the circle he and Zantanna had attempted, this one was working.
He couldn't help thr nervous swallow he gave as Phantom then declared, with a strange amount of seriousness. "All that’s left are the words."
She took a deep breath, eyes closing for a moment, and the world went utterly silent around them. This, John could feel, this was the real deal. Fuck him sideways the hellspawn was actually doing it.
Phantom's eyes opened, glowing with that bright eerie green light of her power. Another deep breath and then -
"You are my dad! You're my dad!" He watched, any scraps of hope she'd instilled in him dying an undignified death as she gave a terrible little wiggle dance while she sang(?) Off key, "Boogie woogie woogie!"
Every last person on Earth was going to die and one of John's last moments was going to be spent watching the little undead shit do the Macarena. Well fuck him, he guessed.
Then there was the sound of the veil between the world's tearing in two and the fucking Ghost King was standing in Phantom's summoning circle screaming in a screeching falsetto:
"When will you learn? When will you learn that your actions have consequences!"
You know what actually at this point John would rather the apocalypse kill him.
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