#i want to know his backstory. who is he........

[vigilskeep]

hello! you know a lot of dragon age lore so i thought id ask you— i saw a post earlier that was discouraging to me aa trans person where the op said that veilguard having top surgery scars in the cc goes against established worldbuilding. does it make sense for top surgery to be possible in thedas? thanks

my rule of thumb is that in a world where healing spells exist, there’s absolutely no logical, believable reason for it not to be possible. you don’t have to go back and provide sources about historical surgeries—which is something i personally know nothing about—for this to be true

like, i just can’t take this line of thought seriously. ohhh we can have floating cities and magical neon lights and spirit healers who can mend injuries just by passively standing next to you, but we draw the line as soon as it’s something that would make our trans players happy! it’s so transparent. do not listen to these people or let them discourage you

if you want to get into the worldbuilding potential of it—which is just fun to do—we can probably guess that for the top surgery scars to be as neat as they seem to look in the veilguard character creator, similar to modern ones, magical healing was involved. now i do believe that the chantry might get suspicious of body-altering magic, that magical power is hoarded by the circles in the south and the wealthy in the north, and also that “out” trans people are a minority in thedas. so i’m not saying that this is something easy for your average guy to get hold of. that’s where you can feed it into backstory. are they powerful and connected enough that they could find specialists willing to go beyond the ordinary? or do they have underground connections to hidden apostate healers, whose only priority is what helps (or perhaps just how much you’re willing to pay)? do they belong to a culture that might not be restricted by the chantry’s norms about gender or magic, like the dalish or the rivaini? or do they belong to a mage-focused community or order, who among themselves do whatever they like? endless options

some might be referring to a line in dai from krem, a trans man, where you can ask him about potentially changing his body with magic and he essentially says he wouldn’t let magic that could do that anywhere near his body, though when he was younger he might have dreamed about the possibilities. firstly, krem is absolutely not the gold standard for trans representation and nobody should care about being flexible from what bioware put out a decade ago. secondly, krem is a random mercenary who knows one (1) mage, who spends the entire time insisting she’s not a mage. i very much doubt he’s the no. 1 source for what might be magically possible in this or any regard

also ultimately, and i cannot express this enough, you can do whatever you want forever. it could be absolutely fundamentally impossible in-world somehow and it would still not be that serious to be “unrealistic” in the dragon video games. don’t let anyone discourage you from making the character you want to make. it being an option makes it canonically part of thedas, end of. they put it in the game and nobody bitching about it can take it out

[necrotic-nephilim]

I started in DC by reading fanfics, but as I began to read actual comics, I started to be unable to read the actual fanfic that got me into it in the first place because it's so out of character.

But there are still some stories that I love to read because I love the found family trope so much, even if it isn't really accurate to the source material.

As a comics purist (sometimes), are there tropes that you like enough that you'll still enjoy a fic even if it's not accurate to canon?

oh my god this is SUCH a fun question. bc while i started with the comics, there were certain characters and/or character dynamics where i was exposed to the fanon before the canon (just bc it's hard to read everything when you start out just to read some fanfic) and so i've definitely experienced the fanon to canon transition. (*especially* with Jason Todd. i had only read 80s/90s stuff where he was already dead or the New-52 bc that was on-going when i got into comics and man. the fanon misunderstandings i had about him before i got frustrated and sat down to read all his pre-Flashpoint stuff were absolutely bonkers.) and aside from that, whilst i tend to prefer canon over fanon, i'm not past giving fanon its flowers for occasionally having really interesting insights. occasionally. so some of my fanon "guilty pleasure" tropes would probably be

Morally Grey Tim Drake - this is one where if you try to back it up with canon, i *will* get salty about it. of everyone in the Batfam aside from maybe Bruce and Cass, Tim has the *most* black and white morals. often his internal conflicts are routed in such an inability to compromise his moral views and it can cause him to clash with other characters. he's *very* stiff and rigid in his beliefs and is *rare* to compromise in even the smallest ways. i mean, DC has repeatedly used Tim Drake of Tomorrow/Savior/Gun Batman!Tim for a reason. it's to demonstrate that of everyone, Tim *cannot* have his morals compromised. there's no grey area for him. he's zero or a hundred, so if he tips over the edge of "too far" he tips *all the way*, and doing so is one of his worst fears, how he could go "too far" if he let himself. a couple panels out of context from Red Robin (2009) (which was a grief spiral for Tim to begin with) don't change that. now that said. if it's done *right*, i sort of love Tim being morally grey in fanfic. it takes a specific flavor for me, and it's incredibly important to include that mental spiral along with it, of him struggling to justify it. i don't have any interest in "Tim Drake is loosy goosy with Bruce's morals and has the highest kill count and no one knows teehee" bc it doesn't play with the interesting parts of making Tim morally grey, which are fracturing his psyche. but all in all, i think it's fun to put Tim in a morally grey area and i will read it in fanfic and i enjoy writing it a lot

Joker Junior!Tim Drake - i've not written it on this account (yet) but on my main ao3 account one of my biggest fics surrounds this concept. this is one of those "well *technically* it's canon but only in a specific very divorced from the comics universe and would not work at all in the main timeline" so, i categorize it as fanon in that 95% of fics exploring the concept are not doing so within the Batman Beyond universe, but the main timeline. i just love it. I'll take any excuse to whump Tim, but this concept is so fun. psychologically breaking Tim will always be my favorite pastime. there are so many ways to explore the long-term effects this could have on him, how it could affect the Batfam. i'm not a fan of it being used as a "gotcha" to Jason or Babs' trauma with the Joker to paint Tim as the Ultimate Victim, but it is fun to see how their relationships would be affected by being mutual victims of him. (i have a vague JayTim idea where TIm fully retires from being Robin after being Joker Junior and killing the Joker, making Steph Robin for most of his typical Robin era and Jason still tracks him down out of curiosity bc he wants to know what happened and all. very underbaked but i've got thoughts.)

Renegade/Apprentice of Slade!Dick Grayson - this is another one where yes, this happened *sort of* in canon, but i highly doubt most people writing Renegate!Dick have read or are actually pulling from Nightwing: Renegade. it's just an exploration fo the concept fo Dick being Slade's apprentice and i will always eat it up in any capacity. whether Dick grows up with Slade from a young age, or chooses Slade for whatever reason later in life. it's not anything that works in canon bc it compromises Dick morally (similar to the above with Tim) and therefore will always come across incredibly fanon in most fics. but i can't say i don't enjoy it. it's fun to make Dick a little morally fucked up and see what you can make him under Slade's tutelage.

Jason & Damian Meeting in the League -there's no world where i believe this could work in the canon comics. (maybe in the Young Justice cartoon i suppose, but even then i think it's iffy) i would go as far to say it's wildly unrealistic. i don't see a world where Ra's would let Jason anywhere *near* Damian, bc Jason was Talia's pet project that he didn't approve of. that all said, there's something very interesting about how they *could've* met and them potentially bonding during that timeframe. them being somewhat brotherly during this time because Jason sees Bruce in Damian and sort of latches onto the kid and Damian is full of wonder hearing real stories about Batman and Robin, then that getting violently ripped away by Jason leaving the League is fun to me. it's fun how that could affect them within the Batfam and all. it's super fanon to me, but i do not care. i will eat it up

Bad Dad Clark Kent/Good Dad Lex Luthor - i will admit as a late, i've been less and less kind to this particular fanon bc of everything i've argued with people about, *this* one seems the most pervasive as misunderstood fanon. i don't mind when fanon exists, my gripe is when ppl try to claim it's canon. and the *arguments* i've had over this with people who can never seem to cite an actual comic are... frustrating. but that said, i think there is something fun to this strictly in fanon. the duality of who you expect to accept Kon and who you expect to hurt him being flipped is just sort of fun for the occasional guilty pleasure fic. it can make Kon's internal conflict a bit more interesting. the same goes for the Jon favoritism from Clark, it's not a canon thing (and i rlly wish ppl understood how complicated the timeline of Kon and Jon is and any distance from Clark toward Kon isn't malice, it's that Kon is from a timeline that Clark does not remember in the current canon so Clark just straight up doesn't know the poor kid.) but it's sort of fun to give Kon that complex of being overlooked and forgotten sometimes. making Kon just a *bit* more Luthor than Kent will *always* appeal to me in fanfic, especially if he *knows* it's wrong but craves approval from anyone who will give it.

Good Dad Bruce Wayne - i'll die on the hill Bruce is canonically a shitty father. maybe not to the extreme some people write him as, but he's not great at it. that said, i enjoy it in fanfiction. sometimes, i just want silly fluff or hurt/comfort where Bruce finally gets it right and manages to comfort whatever Batkid is in the fic. one of my favorite fics of all time is hinged on Bruce being a good dad, so i think it's just fun to explore how good the relationships *could* be, if Bruce was slightly less of an asshole. i usually prefer him as an asshole, but there are times i want low stakes nonsense.

Gotham Rogues Having Soft Spots for Robin(s) - just about every Rogue in Gotham has done something absolutely irredeemable, and most of them don't like or care about anyone in the Batfamily. but if there's a fic where one of the Robins inexplicably is sort of close with a Rogue and they have a cute silly relationship out of it? I'll eat it up i fear. Steph and the Riddler are besties? I'll believe it. Tim and Scarecrow get along pretty well? give me ten of these. Rogues protecting Robins just hits a spot. the unexpected nature of the relationship, as well as the fact they see each other regularly, can make a lot of good fodder.

[year2000electronics]

I absolutely LOVELOVELOVE your Reverse Falls HCs from what I've seen :). I would love to ask more about so much aspects haha.

What is Reverse Ford's main goal in this universe?

What is Ford' and Stanley's backstory?

Mind sharing some info about Reverse! Dipper and Reverse! Mabel?

HOKAY. i will use this ask to talk a little about the reverse stans' backstories because i have Some Ideas. as always full answer under cut bc its got images and rambles galore

in my mind, the gleeful family association with magic & the supernatural starts with caryn's phone psychic business, and ford having "The Gift" while stan ABSOLUTELY doesnt. but in real terms that means just having a really strong intuition and being able to guess well. (at least thats what filbrick and caryn thing. ford genuinely thinks he has some semblance of psychic ability and so does his mom, but they just havent properly honed it yet) and so ford is the preferred child for that, instead of his smarts really. ford is also obsessed with the supernatural still, but it's more focused on the magical aspect.

ford and stan's relationship ends up being close because stan is the only one who believes ford about magic. i mean there are other reasons but thats very important to ford

ford, seeing how stan has always had his back by believing what he says about magic, offers to try and "tutor" stan into having The Gift. drilling him for hours by holding up cards and making him guess, stuff like that. but yknow, since both of them are kinda clamoring to inherit their mom's business, stan kinda ends up relying on ford for everything, and theyre taking on almost a mentor-student relationship when theyre Literally Brothers.

instead of west coast tech, the scholarship ford is being offered is for a famous performing arts school after his teachers saw him take the leads in school plays year after year. they tell him a scout will be at their school's talent show, and ford decides he's going to put on a stage magic show (with stan as his assistant). this time, not only is stan worried about ford leaving, but also, since they've both been working towards a really similar thing (performing for a crowd), he's really worried he'll never get a chance to show off that HE has skill, too! ford brushes him off about this saying that he'll put a good word in for stan when he's at performing arts school and stan is like "ok." and agrees to be his assistant.

in the middle of ford's show, he goes rogue, trying to show the scouts that he can be just as skilled as ford is, and completely screws up the trick he ends up performing. ford doesnt get that internship, ford is furious, so is filbrick, stan gets kicked out, you know the rest.

ford goes to backupsmore and double-majors in both theatre and whatever he majors in in the show. he plans to move to gravity falls because of its high ratings of weirdness. after stan got kicked out, instead of becoming a traveling salesman, he becomes a street magician who doubles as a pickpocket. stealing peoples' watches and stuff. he runs around all over the place

ford digs up four mystic amulets once he gets to gravity falls and stays there for a while, and is like "oh man i can USE these". so how i imagine the amulets to work is that they're kinda like, a conduit through which you can learn legit magic? like casting spells and stuff. but he probably only needs one so he keeps the other three in his house (and that's how the kids eventually find the others)

and of course thats how he starts up the tent of telepathy!

but he wants more. he wants to make the world pay for ever calling him a six fingered freak. and he wants to prove to the world that his magic IS real. he can't just lie sequestered in gravity falls forever. so he goes hunting for more answers about gravity falls' weirdness, and how he might be able to get more POWER to make a show so good the entire world will see... and that's how he summons will cipher! will tells him about the portal, and how itll open up a dimension of weirdness into his own, and ford accepts on those terms, looking out just for himself. then he asks fidds to come help with the portal, fidds walks out on him, he shackles will to him in a deal, but they both realize they don't have the manpower to run the portal. reluctantly, ford calls stan up, telling him to come and that it's important.

...but of course that doesnt go well. stan initiates a physical fight and ford ends up getting sucked into the portal. will is left alone with stan, who tells him he can buzz off because HE certainly doesnt want him around. stan works for the next 30 years to get ford back because he wants ford to finally be the one who has to suck up to HIM and owe HIM something.

at some point, mason and mabel's parents become unable to take care of them and give them to stan. he reluctantly takes them in, but soon after, not only do they find the amulets but also journal 2, and they end up reactivating ford's deal with will, getting passed down to the "next of kin" after stan rejected it. AND THATS SORTA WHERE THE SHOW STARTS. THUMBS UP.

[writerfae]

Okay, so now that I'm awake: The mighty Willow dying, am I right?

Let's think about this! First off: Why is it dying, because I personally wouldn't want to give the Willow Court the Alder Court backstory, sooo...

But regardless, it's dying. And Callan has to sacrifice himself

The thing is that the whole court would be devastated, because Callan's a great king plus he's the baby they prayed for the moon goddess to save!

And imagine his friends! Rhys would lose his best friend!

Imagine Amelie!

And, of course: Henry...

I can't decide if Henry would accept Callan's decision or try and keep him from going through with it. I mean in the end he would surely realize that it's the only way to save the court but I could see him having a brief "I'm not letting you do this" panic moment.

And afterwards Henry just cries and cries and holds Callan in his arms. And Aiden would I think try to comfort him the best he can, but...

Another great angst idea:

Same concept but with the royal willow siblings! Because then here's what I think could happen:

All three of them arguing over who gets to sacrifice themselves and I can imagine a heartbreaking scene where:

Celene and Tamlen are arguing, Celene claiming that she should do it because she is the queen and the oldest, Tamlen arguing that that is precisely why she shouldn't do it, and he'll do it instead... and while they're arguing, Nolan sneaks over and does it himself 😭😭😭

Haha do you truly were coming back for this xD

Okay, so hypothetically the Willow could die. All mighty trees can if their spirit or the tree itself get damaged. It doesn’t have to be like with the Alder court.

So this would be the backstory for this scenario.

But like maybe someone who isn’t the king could try to pull a Rook on the Willow (obviously they would fail, but they could damage the Willow enough for it to fall sick) or someone would find a way to like poison it or something.

And I totally see your ideas! Really delicious angst! With Callan doing it cause it has to be done and his friends and family grieving him. Henry especially, obviously. He’d only let Callan do it if it’s the last chance they have, knowing he cant stop his beloved from doing what he put his mind on.

But let me raise you this: Callan sacrificing himself after Henry died. Callan, at this point an old king with grown up kids, grieving the loss of the love of his life.

Him sacrificing himself to the Willow not only cause he’s the king and this is the best and last service he can do for his people (especially his children, the one thing from Henry he still has), a death of far more use for them than one of heartbreak. But also because then he doesn’t have to live without Henry anymore.

I also like the idea to do it with the siblings. I could see them arguing about who will do it, all trying to keep each other safe. Also, I agree that if one of them were to do the sacrifice, Nolan would do it. He’d be best suited.

The poor siblings though. In both scenarios…

[lulu2992]

Greg Bryk was in episode 25 of Podcast141, co-hosted by Marwen Heni, Mars Lipowski, and Jim Boeven, to talk about his acting career in general, but also and mostly his role as Joseph Seed in Far Cry 5.

Since he’s already shared a lot of anecdotes in interviews and live videos on Instagram, I thought I wouldn’t learn anything new... but I did, so here’s a summary of what he said about his experience playing the Father.

We knew that the dev team (he specifically mentioned Dan Hay and Drew Holmes) had struggled to find the “right” actor for the role, but what I don’t remember ever hearing before is that, after two years of unsuccessful search, the project was almost cancelled for this reason!

Thankfully, that was when Greg Bryk auditioned. He had already said the script they gave him (and that he thought was “amazing”) was what became Joseph’s monologue in the mission “We Must Be Strong”, but he gave more details about what was originally in it. In this early version of his backstory, Joseph was 23 years old and working two jobs to support his family. One night, exhausted, he fell asleep on the couch as his pregnant wife went out to get ice cream. He was then awoken by a knock on the door, told she had been in an accident, and taken to the hospital. The rest of the story is what he says in Far Cry 5: when he arrives, his wife is dead, their premature daughter is “stuffed with tubes”, he hears God’s calling, and understands he has to make this sacrifice.

So he got the role, and when they called him again to record a sermon (my guess is it was this one, but I’m just speculating), he saw what the game looked like and thought everything and everyone was “incredible”. Over time, as they got to know him, they even changed the character and partly rewrote the Father specifically for him.

The team was also very accommodating. For example, the scenes are usually shot in the huge performance capture studio, but for the Heralds’ eulogies, which are much more intimate, they built a small room so he felt like he actually had something around him instead of a big, empty space.

A day before the game came out, the cutscenes were already available online and he watched some of them. He was very impressed by the last eulogy (or, as he calls it, “snot monologue”) in particular because of how “vivid” and “human” it felt. It brought tears to his eyes and he recalls his wife was “blown away”; it was “special”.

As for the fans, he thinks they’ve been very supportive and welcoming. Some have told him they felt heard and seen by Joseph, and he believes it’s because he’s a character who loves people for who they are. At this point, he and the co-hosts agreed that being an actor was a gift because it gives an opportunity to make people’s lives better, especially in video games because there’s a unique connection that doesn’t really exist in movies or TV series.

Marwen Heni mentioned that, while most villains want you to hate them, Joseph, on the contrary, wanted you to reflect and think that he might be right. Greg Bryk admitted that he believed everything he said, especially about family and technology. Sometimes, people are isolated or only have online connections, so having someone tell them, “I see you and I love you for what you are” is powerful. In his opinion, this message resonated with a lot of players because it’s a simple truth and we all want to be part of a family.

Joseph doesn’t control his followers with fear, Marwen Heni commented, but with devotion, and that too makes him compelling. As he was playing Far Cry 5, he started questioning whether or not he (as the Deputy) was right for opposing the Father, which is something Greg Bryk says he saw a lot in comments. He believes there’s “an intimacy to the relationship” between Joseph and the player, a “seduction” in the sense that we all want to belong. He’s humbled by the impact his work had on people.

When asked if he would be open to reprising the role, this time, he answered, “Absolutely”. In fact, and this is news to me, he revealed there were discussions about turning Far Cry into a TV show, and the different games would have been standalone seasons. That said, he added that, at a certain point, it’s necessary to let characters go and that he was grateful for what he had already experienced playing the Father.

Marwen Heni then asked if Joseph, who is very complex, was entirely fictional or if it was Greg talking through him. He answered his characters are always him, to a degree, because he wants to connect with the material so he never lies and can work from things that matter to him. He never judges them and tries to think about what he wants to express through them. He’s interested in their humanity and what motivates them. “We’re all broken,” he said. “Some are much more broken than others, and sometimes those broken pieces are very sharp and jagged, and they lash out.”

He also revealed he had “very specific rituals” to help him become a character and then let them go. He mentioned a few prayers that one of his friends, who is a Wiccan, taught him. In fact, and all the co-hosts agreed, it can be very hard to “disconnect” from a character sometimes because actors aren’t just pretending; they’re using real emotions.

He had already said his son Dempsey had done the mocap for John and Jacob in the Collapse DLC and that he felt carrying Ethan’s body in New Dawn was a way for him to honor his “boy”, his dead dog Lucky, since he deeply regretted that he couldn’t be there to take him to the veterinarian the day he passed. What I didn’t know, however, is that it was Greg himself who had asked if Joseph could carry Ethan, and the team made it happen. He also explained that, when it was time to play this scene, he tried to imagine what it would be like to actually lose his son.

But who is Greg Bryk’s favorite Far Cry villain? Well, when he auditioned and started researching the franchise, he was interested in Vaas because of Michael Mando’s performance. He still doesn’t know him personally but has a friend who worked with him and who spoke about “how electrifying his talent was”. There’s something “unhinged” and “primal” to him as a performer; he’s a “wild” and “special” actor.

Finally, when told he was born to play Joseph, he confessed he felt he was indeed “called” to play this part but wants to give credit to Dan Hay, Drew Holmes, and Jean-Sébastien Décant for creating such a “terrifyingly human” antagonist in the first place.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Watching season 2, Armand is so fascinating yet confusing to me. I have only read 1.5 books at this point so I don’t know much about him at all from a lore standpoint. But, the show seem to made him more nuanced than he was at least in the first book, with his backstory and hearing things form his pov and all that.

What I find fascinating is his bad side; his cruelty and violence, because it doesn’t seem unmotivated as in, like, he SOLELY take delight in - it’s almost like he actually feels ENTITLED to it? Like, he genuinely seem to NOT understand how cruel he is sometimes? Or that he is going too far. Take it out on people that I make no sense too. Or hurt people that he claim to love, and then believe it won’t change anything, and when it does it confuses him?

Very interesting, a lot of the reason for it seems to simply be out of just pure jealousy - and nothing more.

It’s…strange?…And tragic.

I surprised when I started to feel bad for him because I can actually understand how his thought process may go.

Also, his what it seems to me twisted way he sees love. Confusing love with dominance and control; and when he witnesses actual love being given to someone, he doesn’t know handle it and either want to destroy or make it fit the only mould that he knows.

;(

Armand... is Armand. :) (And yes, they gave him a LOT of nuance!)

I'm not sure how else to say it. He does not think like other people. Part of it is the way he was broken, for centuries, by the cult. Part of it is definitely the way he thinks, imho. Anne wrote him with synesthesia, too.

He feels deeply, but fails to foresee the emotional impact on others when he does not feel for people and hurts them (Claudia, for example, and the emotional impact him killing her would have on his relationship with Louis). He cannot really anticipate the repercussions, and therefore is then taken aback and hurt by said repercussions. (Which is why he ends up "readjusting continuously", in the show, too, he constantly tries to protect his own feelings, and reach his own emotional goal, but thereby hurts others... which then backfires.)

And yes, he feels entitled to what he does - and he does what he thinks best, regularly, even in the later books, which is imho part of the centuries of forced ruling as a coven leader. What he thinks is best does not always match with what others think is best though - which is, ironically, something he shares with Marius, who also often does what he thinks best, no matter the opinion of others.

[nynyhaha]

Do you think Chrollo expected the Troupe to last 12+ years? The expectations set at the start largely determine his current views. How good did they do?

Now Ofc he’d want it to ✨last forever✨ or as long as possible,but how long did he think they’d actually get to live?

Chrollo in yorknew carries himself with a confidence that the Spider will live on way beyond him,we somewhat feel like the adventure is only starting. But at the same time he is lost and doesn’t really know the direction the Troupe is heading in.

At the start he mentioned offering up their lives in order to: -find Sarasa’s murderers and get revenge -free Meteor City from crime/mafia so that no child can be kidnapped again

We know the troupe later also broke the deal where Meteorians are exchanged for money. This is a significant achievement,it implies the Spider provides enough money instead,and it hints at the fact that the previous points are already done,that Chrollo has achieved what he planned.

Those were things that he was ready to die for,things for which the others were also ready to sacrifice themselves. And that’s what they kind of expected,right?

My theory is that they greatly surpassed their expectations.

If they were still fighting for any of the above,we wording have this sense of directionless roaming around that is present in the yorknew arc. The Spiders seem to be beyond the theme of revenge unless it directly affects them. Uvo even said he hates those who fight him for revenge reasons (and I wonder why).

Maybe little Chrollo would’ve marvelled at the progress he managed to make in those years,but he probably couldn’t know how it would affect his psyche. He knew he’d become a “villain” but he probably meant that he’d be fighting for a noble end using bad means. What is that end now?

The Spider needs some sort of plan to justify its existence. For its death to be a tragedy,it needs the will to live and some goal to achieve. Or is it a question of a candle stump losing its flame once it’s burned down?

Should the Spider just retire?

If they have achieved all of their previous goals,the answer could well be yes. Sadly those goals aren’t milestones that you have to reach once and for all,but Meteor City’s safety is fragile and needs maintenance.

And yet,it’s never stated as the reason why the Spider has to keep moving. Maybe to the characters it’s obvious,but we as the audience can only speculate. Also it would make the problem way too simple.

“Oh the Spider is still needed back at home” Ofc it is,duh,but that’s not enough to satisfy the quest for meaning.

It would be interesting if the Troupe started out as a team that’s some sort of necessary evil (and the backstory chapters present it in such light) but now that all it’s done it’s no longer necessary so just evil, but they don’t see it as such.

You know,a band of child soldiers that grew up and is now terrorising the world because their original purpose is completed.

But how is the Troupe unnecessary when it’s the solution to the Mafia problem? It’s rather that they don’t know how much more that can do and how much of that will matter at the end.

No one is forcing them. All of their duty is “self inflicted”,they chose to carry that burden.

Are they suffering from success?

Chrollo thought on the way to avenging Sarasa he might loose his own life or some of his friends. He made that commitment still,and then they all survived. Ok,they lost number 8 & 4,but those weren’t original members and it’s still lucky that the rest made it all the way to yorknew. Yk,after they’ve already done what they wanted (and yes,they have already found the murderers,fight me on that, I KNOW its the truth).

So Uvogin and Pakunoda didn’t die on the way,but after they’ve arrived at the top.(But at the top there was nothing :()

Is that to say that they could’ve hopped off and lived a safer life? At this point they were unable to. Much like Chrollo,they might not have a proper self outside the Spider. AND YET the reason it hurts so much is because they died for the Spider after it lost its main goal. This is why Chrollo quickly needs a reason to ground it all since they couldn’t have died for nothing.

There must be a reason why they’re still doing this other than “we can’t otherwise”, right?

RIGHT?

In conclusion, Chrollo is what happens after one survives the “Kurapika arc” and completes his revenge. He might be free to live on,but after he threw away his life and morals already,this existence looses meaning and so do all deaths for the sake of it.

[linkspooky]

How to write the perfect revenge story with Kohaku-Sensei! What Tsukihime does better than Avatar the Last Airbender.

So a follower asked me why Kohaku was my favorite of the Tsukhime girls after I made an offhand comment on my Ciel/Noel post on how Kohaku is the perfect take on revenge. Both Noel and Kohaku's story arcs are near perfect revenge tragedies that make their characters the standouts in Tsukihime. I tried writing up just why I thought Kohaku's character was good but it kept turning into a carbon copy of this post by comun right here. Eventually I decided to dig deeper.

Why does Kohaku's revenge story work so well? Why does every other revenge story suck so hard in comparison? See the thing is I hate a lot of revenge stories in fiction because they are very shallow, black and white tales of the good guy giving the bad guy everything he deserves.

In other words, I'm disappointed by most omdern revenge stories because they display a critical lack of understanding of how cycles of abuse start in the first place, and how both sides on the conflict no matter what are equally human. Perhaps that's why Kinoko Nasu writes revenge so well, because he's a deeply humanist author who's not really focused on good guys or bad guys but rather just understanding the characters involved.

So to show just how well Tsukihime humanizes Kohaku as both victim and villain of the story, I'm going to compare it to one of the worst revenge stories I've read in fiction. Both of these stories are tragedies that kill their main character, a victim who just wanted revenge for the long abuses they'd suffered in life. However, one of these is Tsukihime, and the other one sucks. So without further ado under the cut.

ORESTES THE FIRST REVENGE STORY

So Yun is a character from a spinoff novel prequel of Avatar the Last Aribender, focusing on the life of Avatar Kyoshi. In a lot of ways Yun is like Noel. He's a completely new character, thrown into the backstory of an already established character. He also steals the show because he's allowed to be a lot more flawed and act as a villainous foil to the main character, Yun even acts as a Jungian shadow the second novel is literally called the shadow of Kyoshi.

However, there's one major difference Noel's character greatly enhances Ciel's even if she is fridged for Ciel's character development. Whereas Yun's character and the eventual ending the story gave him ruined any kind of enjoyment I could have had from the story for Kyoshi's character. In fact, I think Yun's death made the whole story fall apart thematically.

Which is ironic because it was the exact same ending. Noel's character ends with her dying by Ciel's hands. Kyoshi kills Yun with her own two hands in order to stop his revenge. In both stories the victim dies so why does one frustrate me to no end and the other ending elevates Tsukihime to one of my favorite pieces of fiction?

The devil is in the details.

Revenge stories are by their nature tragedies. It makes sense for them to, for the most part with a few hopeful exceptions have bad endings. Taking personal revenge against every single person who's hurt you grievously no matter how deserved that revenge might be does not solve the problem. In fact it creates several new problems.

This is pretty well explored tragedy in fiction, all the way back to The Oresteia. Orestes is the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra. If you know anything about the trojan war you should recognize those names.

The story begins like this, King Agamemnon of Mycenae offends the goddess Artemis by killing one of her stags. So, in retaliation she prevents the greek troops from reaching troy by taking the wind out of their sails, unless Agamemmnon kills his oldest daughter Iphigenia. Agammemnon drags his daughter away from his wife Clytemnestra who was crying and begging him not to and offers her as human sacrifice. Ten years later when Agamemnon returns home he finds his wife sleeping with another man, and the two of them together butcher him to avenge iphigenia.

Then in order to avenge her father's death, elektra urges her brother Orestes to kill their mother and the man she committed adultery with. Orestes eventually goes through with it out of duty to his father, but because he's committed the clan of kin slaying the gods send the furies after him to chase him down and torment him.

The revenge just continues to cycle. Orestes doesn't right a wrong by avenging his father's murderer, he just commits kin slaying a taboo among the gods. Even though he felt he had an obligation too because he couldn't let his father's murderer live, the gods don't let him live in peace. Orestes would have been chased by the Furies for the rest of his life if Athena didn't intervene and basically hold the first court case in order to rule if it was really just to punish Orestes like this.

The point of my long foray into greek mythology is that no matter how entitled each person in the revenge cycle might have felt to their revenge, in the end they were committing a horrible act. Clytemnestra was avenging her daughter against the man who killed him, but she alienated her other two children. Orestes was duty bound to avenge his father, but he still killed his own mother with his two hands. At each link in the chain there's no real innocent parties, and the moment you take revenge you become a perpetrator in this cycle of abuse as well.

That is I think a central concept that the greeks understood but many modern authors fail to grasp, that revenge is a cycle during which any time a person can become a victim of it, and also a perpetrator of it. It's not a matter of internal goodness or badness but rather an uncontrollable cycle of violence that people get caught up in.

What revenge stories should be about is escaping the cycle. When the character manages to escape like Orestes and live for something other than revenge that's a happy ending, but when the character fails to escape that's a tragedy. Whether or not a character actually accomplishes their revenge is a footnote.

The Count of Monte Cristo accomplishes most of his revenge but the act of revenge isn't what saves him, but rather the faithful love of Haydee who had always been by his side and the words "wait and hope." The Count isn't saved by the revenge he took on all the people who hurt him, but by the strength he had to wait through a terrible situation until it got better and then live on to the better future. Carrie accomplishes her revenge in burning down the school gymnasium and all of her bullies, then goes home and dies a few minutes after killing her mom the last of her abusers unable to escape the cycle.

While their endings are opposites, in both cases completing their revenge didn't give them any measure of peace at all. In fact, the Count almost in the course of his revenge committed a sin far worse than anyone had done to him by killing a newborn infant. No, any good revenge story should know that in the words of percy from Critical Role you can't murder your way to peace.

"There was nothing I could’ve done to save my family, yet I still sold my soul in search of vengeance. Later I allowed Ripley to leave, knowing full well she was a greater threat to the world than the Briarwoods would ever be. I traded the world’s safety for the belief that I could murder my way to peace; that if I could be a greater horror, it would bring my family back. And once this lie was shattered I scrambled to find a solution, to make a deal, to undo my mistakes and balance the scales. I now understand that there are no scales, there is no redemption, and no ledger that judges me good or evil. I am free to simply be myself and live with the terrible mistakes I’ve made." -Percy's Death Letter, Critical Role

In most revenge stories I've noticed that revenge is the main character motivator for the character taking revenge. Therefore the conflict becomes whether or not they can find something new to live for by the end of the story. The characters seeking revenge often make that revenge their entire reason for living, but then what next?

This quote from Oldboy a modern adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo is relevant.

Seeking revenge is the best cure for someone who got hurt Try it The loss of 15 years the pain of losing your wife and child you can forget all this Once again revenge is good for your health But... What happens after you've revenged yourself?

What happens after you've revenged yourself should be the central question to these revenge arcs. The ones who don't have an answer to that question and are unable to free themselves from the cycle are the ones who end in tragedy.

YUN VS KOHAKU

Yun and Kohaku are characters from a western animated series that adopts eastern themes and a Japanese visual novel about vampires. These two characters come from very different genres of stories, an adventure story about magical warriors using martial arts to bend the elements and a horror story about vampires and serial killers respectively.

However, because both Yun and Kohaku are the central figures of a revenge tragedy they end up having a lot in common. The largest common thread between them is that both of them is that they are child abuse victims, specifically the victims of long term grooming.

They are children who were adopted and then groomed by their father figure for years. In Kohaku's case, it was sexual grooming, whereas in Yun's case it was grooming him into a child soldier. The official definition of child grooming works for both of these cases, it is when an adult forms a relationship with a child to sexually assault them or induce them into doing something dangerous or harmful to them.

Kohaku and Yun are more obscure characters though so for the sake of people who haven't read one or both of these series I'm going to go more into depth on their individual circumstances.

Kohaku is an empath, born with the ability to transfer energy to other people through sexual intercourse. She and her sister were brought into the Tohno Clan, because Makihisa Tohno the elder had demon blood in his veins. This demon blood made him at risk of going through a process called inversion, where he would slowly lose all his mind, all reason, and violently attack everyone around him until he was finally put down. In order to mitigate that risk, Makishisa engaged in regular sexual intercourse with a young Kohaku and made use of her abilities as an empath to control his demon side.

As the elder of twin sisters Kohaku made a deal with Makihisa that she'd let him use her whenever she needed as long as he never touched her sister. Since he kept his word to her, she found it hard to resent him in the long term. Also, because she was constantly high on drugs that made it impossible for her to feel pain.

"So, I took in everything Makihisa-sama wanted to do. I asked him not to touch Hisui-chan because I would take everything myself. He was probably ashamed and agreed to my request. He probably also thought it was better that as few people knew about this secret as possible."

Kohaku is eventually sent to take care of Makihisa's son who also inverted, but when he loses control and rapes her too that's when she loses her last bit of humanity and starts to think of revenge.

At this point she starts to think of herself as an unthinking doll who cannot move for herself, and can only move for revenge. She eventually starts to move against Makishia, first by informing Akiha and Hisui of the abuse she's suffered. She's surprised when Akiha immediately protests what he farther was doing right away, and the sexual liason ends and Kohaku becomes a normal servant. However, even after the abuse ends Kohaku decides to continue living for revenge leading to the main plot of the Far Side of Tsukihime.

Yun is the false avatar. If you've heard of Avatar then I'm sure you at least vaguely know of the concept of the avatar, spiritual guide in the world of avatar that reincarnates over and over again to guide both humanity and the spirits.

In the avatar prequel novels it's established each nation has its own way of tracking down the avatar, but because Kuruk died early and under mysterious circumstances the earth nation was in a panic to find the next avatar. Instead of waiting for more sure confirmation, they picked one random kid on the side of the road on what was basically a hunch that he was Kuruk's reincarnation. This kid was named Yun, a nameless but smart kid with no parents who was conning people by playing Pai Sho really really well. While all along the next avatar Kyoshi was right next to them as one of Yun's servants.

Yun is trained as the avatar through years, and is put through the kind of training that only the Zoldyck family from Hunter x Hunter would approve in. Including being forced to walk on spiked caltrops to learn bending, and being forced to microdose on poison to gain an immunity. Like, this is literally what Killua's parents did to him in HXH.

"I'm surprised you can move," Jianzhu said to him, more impressed than anything else. "Poison training," Yun spat through clenched jaws. "With Sifu Amak, remember? Or did you forget every darker exercise you put me through?"

Yun is a genius earth bender, a brilliant statesman, he works all around the clock to become the avatar everyone is telling him he's destined to be but he's not physically capable of bending any element other than earth. To the point where after a year of failing to learn fire, his bending teachers frequently lambast him as being lazy and not trying hard enough.

"Your situation isn't unique" Hei-Ran went on. "History is full of Avatars like you who tried to coast on their talents. You're not the only one who wanted to take it easy." Yun slipped. An event rare enough to notice. His motion took him too far outside his center of gravity, and he stumbled on his knees. Sweat stung his eyes, ran into the corner of his mouth. Take it easy? Take it easy? Was she ignoring the fact he spent sleepless nights poring over scholarly analyses of Yanghcen's political decisions? That he'd extensively memorized the names of every Earth Kingdom noble, Fire Nation commander, and Water Tribe Chieftan back three generations on the living and the dead? The forgotten texts he'd used to map the ancient sacred sites of the Air Nomads to such a degree that Kelsang was surprised about a few of them? That's who he was when no one was looking. Someone who dedicated his whole being to his Avatarhood. Yun wanted to make up for the lost time he'd squandered by being discovered so late. He wanted to express gratitude to Jianzhu and the entire world for giving him the greatest gift in existence. Taking it easy was the last thing on his mind. [Literally a few seconds later...] "In the old days, masters used to maim their students for insubordination," she said horsely. Yun restrained himself from flinching, "What wonderful modern times we live in."

So Yun is physically and emotionally abused by all of his teachers, Jianzhu, Hei-Ran and several other adults who were complicit with it to train him up into being the avatar. Then, when it turns out Yun isn't the avatar, he's immediately abandoned and left for dead.

Yun gets dragged into the spirit world as a human sacrifice to a horrifying spirit known as Father Glow Worm. He is abandoned by his master who makes no attempt to save him the moment he learned that he wasn't the avatar. Then, in the spirit world he fights Father Glow Worm for days and eventually has to eat him in order to escape home.

After getting to a random village he asks for water. Yun is mocked by a man he saved earlier fo rasking for a single glass of water. When the man throws the water on the ground and tells him to water bend it, Yun snaps and then kills the man who mocked him, the city guard, and everyone who was sitting in the teashouse and has his Geto moment. He decides to start living for revenge against all of the teachers who abused him.

"Well," he said out loud to no one. "It looks like I've been fired." Perhaps it was for the best. He would need the free time, because he had a losit of things to do. lots of personal business to take care of. And at the top of the list was paying his respects to Jianzhu. Filled with new purpose, Yun took off down the road, whistling as he went.

Both of these characters decide to make revenge their reason for living. To quote Oldboy, "Seeking revenge is the best cure for someone who got hurt. Try it." They also face the same fundamental issue, now that they're only living for revenge then what happens after they've revenged themselves?

These characters are also similar in a couple of other ways. They are schemers who mainly work through manipulating others. Yun fakes a political conflict between the fire nation royal family and another noble family in order to bring one of his abusers into the crossfire. Kohaku manipulates both SHIKI and Shiki through the use of drugs to orchestrate her revenge in the Far Side Routes.

They're also both trickster characters. Yun refers to himself as a clown and constantly hides everything behind a smile. "He added that smirk that everyone said reminded them of Kuruk's. After all, a clown needed his makeup." A major part of Kohaku's character is that after Hisui learned about how her sister was being abused she stopped smiling. Kohaku wanting her sister to be happy, started to fake a smile and goof around the way Hisui used to because she wants to see her sister smile again.

One more similarity before I begin dissecting their differences and the way these two characters are handled is that if Kohaku and Yun were the main characters of the story their revenge would undoubtably be framed as one hundred percent justified. If they were the main characters it would definitely be a kill bill situation.

I don't think they are justified, because straightforward revenge is boring. The fact that they are antagonists is the point of each story. I'm just making an underlying point on how a lot of revenge stories suffer from protagonist centered morality. It's alright if Maki Zen'in, or The Bride kills upwards of a hundred people in retaliation for the harm that was done to them and we're supposed to root for them without thinking too deeply on it because they're the protagonists of the story. Protagonist centered morality is bad, because it makes things too centered on the protagonist and therefore if the morality of a piece of based on the protagonist it will make things too easy and the protagonist will go unchallenged.

In fact, in the story of Tsukihime itself, the entire Tohno family thinks that Kohaku 100% has the right to take revenge against them. Akiha is fully aware of Kohaku's revenge scheme. She lets Kohaku get away with her revenge every step of the way, including taking what is essentially a bullet on purpose and dying for Kohaku's revenge scheme because she believes her family deserves it.

However, because they are not the protagonists they don't get the easy route of taking their revenge against the people who deserve it and then riding off into the sunset happily. No, Kohaku practically gets her revenge handed to her on a silver platter and still revenge doesn't fix anything.

Once again, revenge is good for your health, but...

WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU'VE REVENGED YOURSELF?

Yun and Kohaku are both characters who either lost everything, or had no reason to live to begin with and decided to make revenge a reason for living. Both of them were unable to keep living for revenge because revenge is unsustainable. It's not something you do once and you're done, it's a cycle. The act of participating in it continues to perpetuate the cycle. As a result both of them met their tragic end.

However, Kohaku's tragedy surpassed Count of Monte Cristo for my favorite revenge story in all of fiction, whereas Yun's ending made me want to rip his book in half.

There are some differences in how their revenge stories play out. Kohaku is a very unique character. In spite of being an emotionless doll, she takes her revenge not out of anger or hate but empathy. I can't word it better than Comun so I'll just quote their post:

Hisui route ends with the reveal that Kohaku masterminded the demise of the Toono family and her motives are pretty obvious but I never expect the way she felt about it. Kohaku describes herself as not as a human, but as Makihisa’s emotionless doll. Kohaku had to constantly intake pain-removing drugs in order to endure Makihisa’s (and latter SHIKI’s) abuse and this state of not feeling anything disconnected her from her emotions. Kohaku admits that, to some extent, she did all of this because it made her feel human a little. What you would expect from this premise? Kohaku channelling her remnants of humanity into hatred for the Toono family and orchestrating her revenge. Was that what really was on her mind? Nope, Kohaku (and Kinoko himself, as Fate/Grand Order is a great evidence of) has a much more positive definition of what it means to be human. Kohaku expresses her humanity through fairness, empathy and a desire to make the situation better. Even though, Makihisa singlehandedly completely ruined her life, she acknowledges that he didn’t do it out of sadism or perversion, he did because he really had no other choice in order to keep himself from inverting and causing even bigger harm to everyone. Kohaku sees Makihisa as much of a victim of this tragedy as herself. 

Kohaku's revenge actually takes a twisted form of empathy. Kohaku doesn't have the standard revenge motivation of just wanting to hurt the people who hurt her, because she can objectively see the points of view of almost everyone involved in the tragedy.

It's a bit like Orestes where there's no true beginning or end point. Makihisa is a sick pervert and the instigator, but he also didn't choose to be born with demon blood that made him liable to turn insane at any moment. SHIKI is kind of helpless in all of this, as another person with demon blood he couldn't help inverting at nine years old and going completely insane, he's not really in control of his actions. Hisui is an innocent, and while Akiha is a part of the same family the moment she learned what Kohaku was suffering she stood up for Kohaku and made it stop.

"But, there wasn't anything else I could do. Without a purpose like that, I couldn't live. A doll cannot move on its own. Without anything to guide it, it can't move." "But still--" ...... That is unforgivable.

Comun frames Kohaku's motivations as genuinely believing the world would be better off without the Tohno bloodline, because it only has caused everyone involved with it suffering. Therefoer she makes a plan to kill every member of the family, except for Hisui and Shiki who are technically innocents, and then herself finally so Hisui can run off into the sunset together with Shiki who she'd always loved.

I'd also add that on top of empathy there's also a certain justice in her actions. Not justice in the sense that she has to hurt the people who hurt her, more like justice in the sense of fairness? Like, Kohaku isn't driven by personal hatred but rather a desire to make things fair and balance the scales. A family like the Tohno who cause misery to everyone shouldn't exist, because people shouldn't have mixed their blood with demons in the first place. There has to be a consequence to Makihisa's actions because you can't get away with child rape and the only one who could enforce it was her. The same way that Kohaku considers everyone's opinion equally and considers everyone equal victims in this twisted family cycle of revenge, Kohaku also acts to make things more fair.

To quote Percy again, it's like she's trying to balance the ledgers.

"And once this lie was shattered I scrambled to find a solution, to make a deal, to undo my mistakes and balance the scales. I now understand that there are no scales, there is no redemption, and no ledger that judges me good or evil."

Kohaku's also constructing a narrative around her pain. She needs a reason to keep living, and that reason is the narrative she's constructed, the story she told herself that she only half believes that everyone would be better off if everyone associated with the Tohnos, herself included, except for Hisui and Shiki died off.

Of course this is just a narrative. A lie she is telling herself to justify her actions. Because Kohaku acts out of fairness, and empathy, but she also acts for the sake of acting. She wants a reason to move, because otherwise she would just be a doll, passively enduring suffering. The story she tells herself is in the end a lie, like all stories are. Kohaku ignores the feelings of two people in her assumption that everyone would be better off without the Tohnos, that is her own personal feelings towards Akiha, and Hisui's feelings towards her. Kohaku understands that the reason Hisui can't smile any more is that she's too horrified at all the things her sister endured to protect her. However, she can't grasp that killing herself in front of Hisui would just make Hisui live with that guilt forever. That Hisui would rather be miserable with her sister alive than happy with her dead.

(From the good ending)

"Nee-san......? Nee-san, hold on......!!" A desperate cry. Seeing that, the girl smiles like a child. "...... Huh? ...... Don't do that, Hisui-chan. Crying like that, it feels...... like back then." "What---Nee-san, why----" "...... Yeah, because if I, don't do, so, you won't be, able to return, to the way, you were." Her words in pieces, and with glazed eyes, she speaks to Hisui. "---------Nee, san." Hisui's face contorts in grief. Her tears flood her face. "...... Why? That's fine. I was okay with the way I was. If you were happy, then I was happy. I---I was always protected by you, so---" I was always happy. Painfully, she swallows her last words.

Yun is in comparison less magnanimous towards his abusers. He wants more straightforward revenge against his teachers and all the people who "lied" to him by promoting him as the false avatar.

This is the biggest area where he differs from Kohaku. Rather than Kohaku, I'd say he's more like Geto, someone with a savior complex who genuinely put their all into being good because they believed they had the responsibility to save people, only to be then betrayed by those same people they were working so hard to save.

I do still think empathy is the central motivation for both characters. Kohaku commits revenge out of a twisted sense of empathy to see the perspectives of everyone involved and decides the only way to fix everything is to destroy it all and wipe the board clean and give the two innocents in the Tohno Household a fresh start.

Geto and Yun are both high empathy individuals whose empathy for other people twists them so much when they're confronted by human ugliness and selfishness, that they end up turning on the same people they wanted to save. They feel a bone deep empathy that twists them into monsters because they're not able to exist in an unfair or imperfect world that isn't the way they imagined it to be.

'...no matter what, I hate non-sorcerers. But it's not like I hate everyone at Jujutsu Tech. It's just...' It's just that it was what Geto had to do. In some ways, Geto and Yuuta were the same. Geto was too sincere. To someone like him, the reality that the world of sorcerers presented to him was just too cruel. '...that in a world like this, I couldn't be truly happy from the bottom of my heart.' To live for the purpose of being yourself. And for that goal, Geto could only continue to pursue his twisted dream, drowning himself in the curse that lies in the gap between ideal and reality. This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in pursuit of his goals. The only person who could bear such a curse was Gojo Satoru. JUJUTSU KAISEN ZERO LIGHT NOVEL

Geto is broken by the idea that all of his comrades and himself are considered expendable, and they're all meant to sacrifice themselves for an ignorant public. Yun is broken by the fact he broke his body and mind trying to be a great avatar because he wanted to help people, only to learn that it was all for nothing because he was discarded the moment it turned out he wasn't the avatar.

(Yun is more Morgan Coded but that's a different post).

It was too late. "I dedicated my life to people like you." Yun said. He couldn't tell if he was laughing, crying, croaking out beastial sounds of fury. "I wanted you to thrive. I wanted you to prosper. I tried so hard."

However, I'd say both of them Kohaku and Yun are driven by an underlying idea of fairness. They're not taking bloody violent revenge for personal gratitude, but because they can't cope with the unfairness of the world they're living in and are trying to find some ways to balance the scales.

Yun is so driven by fairness that he doesn't want to punish Kyoshi even though she technically stole the title of avatar from him. He considers her innocent of the whole thing, and even sympathizes with her and the struggles she carries right now as avatar.

"I can't believe you think I would ever hurt you." He gently tugged the closed fan out of her right hand. "You, the one innocent party in this whole affair! I would never hurt you, Kyoshi! For Yanghcen's sake, I used to be your whole life.!" He dropped the weapon and it pinged against the ground. "I know what's happening here. Your duties have gotten to you haven't they? I remember what it was like, carrying the weight of Four nations on my shoulders. Jianzhu used to liken them to unruly students in a classroom, requiring the guidance of a strong hand." He paused and chuckled, "I used to believe it meant showing the wya, leading my example. Now I know better. The world is a child refusing to listen, creaming in a tantrum. It needs to be slapped a few times until it learns to be quiet."

I think this is essentially the difference that makes one narrative and breaks the other. Nasu is fully aware of Kohaku's humanity even as she calls herself a doll. He goes to great length to demonstrate Kohaku's humanity in all the ways I pointed out above, by showing how much she sympathizes with others, by how she protected her sister, by how she's guided by principles.

More than anything, it sympathizes with Kohaku by making us as the reader understand that while she did bad things it was in retaliation to an even more horrible evil done to her. Also, that Kohaku only did these things because revenge was the only way she could think of to live, Kohaku was just a victim coping in the worst way imaginable. I think Nasu really nails down the hopelessness of someone who's clinging to revenge because they can't think of any other reason to live.

Whereas so much effort is put into Yun's backstory and detailing all of his suffering, only for him to be treated like a very standard villain. Like, honestly, Geto is a genocidal maniac and he's framed way more nicely by the story he's in than Yun. All Yun really wants to do is kill his abusers and that is apparently a sin too deep to continue living with.

Geto who does way worse things than Yun, and who is also killed by his former best friend is shown way more love and acceptance in his ending than Yun is.

This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in pursuit of his goals. The only person who could bear such a curse was Gojo Satoru. Where did it go wrong? And how could they start over again? The answer was left in their far-away, far-away youth. And even considering everything that had happened until now, it was clear that this story was about to end. But, there was one thing that was concrete. Even if everything was different now, there was still one thing that - from the very moment it all started - had never changed. Gojo knelt down, meeting Geto's eyes as he sat there. '...Suguru.' '...?' Geto Suguru. It was a named that the Jujutsu Tech organization feared: one of the four special grade sorcerers, who had killed over a hundred ordinary people, who had been named and exiled as the most evil curse use. But to Gojo Satoru, he was —— '————, ————' '...ha.' When he heard the words Gojo blurted out, Geto couldn't help but laugh. Such embarrassing (t/n: makes you self-conscious) words. Even why they were students, those words had never been said before. 'You should've at least cursed me a little before the end.'

In the actual manga of JJK too, Gojo tells a teenage ghost of Geto that if his adult self was there he was the only one who could have satisfied him. Gojo thinks about how he has to finally catch up to Geto after being left behind that day, when he moves on to kill the higher ups. Gojo's dream of protecting the youth came about because he never wanted someone to suffer alone like Geto did again.

Whereas, this is basically the only thing Yun gets told from his best friend and the hero of the story who is supposed to be the chosen spiritual guide of humanity chosen by the gods.

“It’s time to let go.” Kyoshi lowered her hands. “Whether you kill me here today or not, you have to let go of what happened.” “And it didn’t brting me peace. It was wrong that you were lied to, Yun. It was wrong for Jainzhu to do what he did, but he’s gone. Whatever pain and anger you have left - you have to live with it. You can’t put it on anyone else.”

Have you tried, uhhhhhh getting over it?

The "you have to live with it" is just particulary insensitive because as I went to great lengths to demonstate above, Yun was TRYING to live with it. Just like Kohaku, revenge was the only reason he could come up with to keep living.

It's fine if the heroes cannot find a way to reach out to save Yun in time and he dies because living for revenge is unsustainable. That's what happens to Kohaku, that's what happens to Geto. There's just a cruel lack of empathy in the way that Yun's death is framed. It's framed as a mercy killing, because Yun, a like eighteen year old boy who was retialiating against his abusers was just apparently so beyond hope. Not to mention that Kyohsi deliberately sides with one of the abusers and gives Hei - Ran a chance to redeem herself, but doesn't give that same chance to Yun her victim.

It's just this way that they characterize violence as bad but don't analyze at all where the violence came from or why they'd want to retaliate in that way. Gojo mercy killed his best friend Geto, but he also realized that the problem didn't begin with Geto and sought to create change in Jujutsu Society after Geto's death in order to try to break that cycle.

"I'm sorry for saying you have to live with your pain." Kyoshi put her palm into his chest in a gesture of comfort. "Because you won't." The cold she sent through his body formed a tunnel of ice between his ribs. It happened so fast, and with so much force, the air behind him turned to frost. With his heart and lungs frozen solid, Yun fell to the side.

Kyoshi kills Yun by freezing his heart. She specifically uses a technique that was taught to her to heal people, to murder him and put him out of his misery.

In the aftermath Kyoshi buries him and then lets the entire world remember him as a boy who went crazy and tried to kill the avatar. She doesn't even like... tell the whole story. That he was abused and lied to his whole life to clear his name.

Like, what a great friend.

This is what happened with Noel and Ciel too, but as I said in my Noel / Ciel post, Ciel killing Noel is meant to make her look like a terrible person. Noel is a victim caught up in circumstances, and Ciel could have saved her much earlier by lifting a finger and now that it's too late all Ciel can do is coldly put her out of her misery because Ciel isn't a hero. Shiki, a character who chops women into tiny little pieces has the opportunity to kill Noel a couple of times and doesn't do it, because he knows that killing her would be wrong and leaves it up to Ciel to decide.

Noel is fridged and dies a miserable death as a victim but it serves the greater story purpose of pointing out what a terrible hero that Ciel is. However, in avatar, the story still wants me to believe that Kyoshi is the hero so the only way they can accomplish that is by villainizing Yun and giving him an unsympathetic death.

if you wanted Yun's life to be some great tragedy, then you should let Kyoshi look bad. Let Yun died because Kyoshi completely failed to save him, have it be her wrongdoing. If you don't want Kyoshi to look bad, if you want her to be a hero then have her save Yun. You can only have it one way or the other. If the only way you can make Kyoshi still look like a hero is by victim blaming a victim of long term child abuse for not just getting over it then I don't know what kind of story you're writing there.

The writing just needs Yun to be a straightforward twist villain in the end for Kyoshi to defeat, so they downplay all of these good points and his status as the victim to make him fit into a more two dimensional role. If Yun is wrong because violence against his abusers won't solve his problem, then why is the solution for Kyoshi to just put him down with violence? Why is Kyoshi's violence sanctioned but Yun's violence not sanctioned? Kyoshi is allowed to kill Yun and put him out of his misery, but Yun can't kill his abusers? It's justice when Kysohi does it, but revenge when Yun does it? Kyoshi preaches that you can't stop the cycle with violence you have to let go then proceeds to end the cycle... by murdering Yun.

You can't preach this empty revenge bad message unless you're willing to look into why a character like Yun would want revenge in the first place, and how the world has failed him in ways that he thinks the only way to keep living is for revenge. You can't just tell him to let go without showing both him and the audience what letting go would look like.

This is exactly what Tsukhime did right with one of the most beautiful scenes in all of fiction, by showing that the cycle didn't end with Kohaku killing her abuser, and it didn't even end with Kohaku killing herself because each time she tried to enact revenge all she succesfully did was bring more pain into the world.

"But----" "Eh?" "But, there was just one strange thing." Really just a little bit. She said that as her eyes trailed off into the distance. "Akiha-sama protected me in the end. I knew there was a fifty-fifty chance she would do that. I stayed close to her for that reason. Revealing Makihisa-sama's abuse and devotedly helping Akiha-sama who was slowly turning nonhuman. ---Yes that's right. Really, I knew she would die protecting me." That smile. Even though she is smiling, she looks really sad, as if she's-- "But----I was really surprised at the time. Why is she protecting me? Why is she protecting me, risking her life?" ---She looks like she might burst into tears. "I still don't actually understand if I was actually happy or sad when Akiha-sama died. But when I wake up in the morning, I take tea to her room even though I know she is gone. Isn't this strange? Even though there's no one in that room anymore."

Kohaku thought she was relieving everyone of pain by killing the Tohno, that everyone would be better off, but the moment she succesfully kills Akiha she regrets it. It's all so hollow that she goes to Akiha's room every day for like a month leaving tea in front of her door.

Kohaku's identity is so wrapped up in pain, she forgets that in spite of the pain caused by those bonds there's also love. Hisui might not be able to smile because she feels constant guilt over how much Kohaku endured for her sake, but that doesn't mean Kohaku disappearing would fix that because she loves her sister.

Kohaku may think that Akiha is better off dead, that they're both better off dead because they only cause each other pain through their twisted connection but once Akiha is dead she goes to her door and leaves tea there every. single. day. because she valued her connection to Akiha so much.

Then she kills herself by gauging her knife out with a heart, mirroring Akiha who was pierced by the heart protecting Kohaku. "Hang in there...! Why, why did you do that...!" "Because revenge was the only thing I could do----I can only disappear when it's all over. I tried to find new springs, but I could never find one, and time ran out." She smiles. That... for no reason at all---- "What the hell is that? What are you saying...!" I look at the wound like I did to Akiha. ---She won't make it. It has pierced her heart. "........." Why? There was no reason---I just can't bear the sadness.

Revenge was unsustainable but because she couldn't be her genuine self in front of others, because she couldn't get in touch with her genuine feelings of affection for people like Akiha tshe couldn't find any other reason to live in time.

Even after Kohaku has just confessed to orchestrating the murder of Shiki's sister and terrorizing him for weeks on end, Shiki still begs for her to live though.

"...... Right? You're a normal girl who liked Akiha, was always worried about Hisui, and laughed when we talked about stupid things. So----" Even if she wished it and caused the deaths of Akiha and SHIKI... "--Kohaku, there was no reason for you to die." Increasing my grip, I say these words from the bottom of my heart.

I think that's ultimately what makes Kohaku's story superior, because it is at its heart a story about an abuse victim who couldn't find any better way of living. The story bends over backwards to show us all of Kohaku's good qualities, and how it's those good qualities that led to her fall, not any internal badness on her part. Even if Kohaku is someone who's capable of doing bad things and got a whole bunch of unrelated people serial killed by SHIKI. The tragedy is also on the onus of the main character. That's what the story of the ribbon is for, the whole thing could have been prevented if Shiki could give the ribbon to the proper girl in time. The whole thing is written with the premise that Shiki could have saved her, and he does in her route. It's as much of the main character's failure as Kohaku's.

On the other hand, the tragedy in Yun's story isn't that Yun is a longterm victim who didn't get the help he needed in time. It's that Kyoshi is sad because she has to put down her childhood friend like a mad dog. All of Yun's good traits are invalidated and he's painted as a villain to make the story simpler and as a result it's far more boring and doesn't have anything to say about abuse, or the human condition and how it survives terrible abuse like Nasu's writing does.

That's why Nasu is the goat.

At least until Tsukihime Remake comes out and Kohaku's route gets padded out with filler and turned into a giant extended boss fight that didn't need to exist at all that takes like five hours to finish NO I'M NOT BITTER ABOUT CIEL ROUTE'S TRUE END IN THE REMAKE AT ALL.

[gumbootillustrations]

i can fix him your honour *smacks him with the oc-ification hammer*

anyway. enjoy the babygirl-ification of aaron lycan. more stuff below the cut.

i love the idea of aaron. like, some guy whos hellbent on revenge learning to live and love outside of it?? and he finds not only love but a new home in someone else searching for the same thing after they've both lost so much??? UGH ITS SO GOOD. and then jesson fucking. fumbled it. SO BAD. im still mad abt it almost like. ten yrs later (how tf is diaries this old i swear it was still airing like last yr). so uh. ive tried to go in n fix him. i swear. but in the process a Lot of his backstory n stuff has been overhauled and im sorry to all the canon aaron truthers but the way that jesson handled his arc n stuff was God Awful and i hate it. so uh. yeah.

aaron shows up in ashes, ashes way earlier than he does in canon diaries - hes following the high priest's trail, and when he catches wind of him travelling to phoenix drop to officiate a wedding and track down his supposedly dead brother, he follows the rumours and shows up right after alexis is cursed. he forms a sort of truce with aph (although garroth is hesitant to trust him, given that he wants to murder his younger brother n garroth still believes that zane can be saved) and fucks off again until they meet up again when aph n co are snooping around pikoro trying to find lord luke so that she can sign a trade deal with him - aaron's (rightfully) convinced that zane has something to do with luke's disappearance, and once all that tomfoolery is settled, he decides to return to phoenix drop with aphmau, believing that the impending war will offer the best opportunity for him to finally kill zane.

as we all know, though, this... really doesn't go to plan. they get trapped in irene's cathedral - which is more of a labyrinth with religious imagery plastered everywhere - and it isn't aaron who lands the killing blow on his mortal enemy, but rather garroth, who gets possessed by esmund's relic. then, when they manage to escape thanks to zoey, ten years have passed and the cathedra of irene (the religious organisation that zane was in charge of as high priest) has all but collapsed. up until this point, all aaron has really been living for is destroying the cathedra, and with his job already done for him by the passage of time, he's now sort of... lost, is the best way i can really describe it. he decides to stick around in phoenix drop - although he doesn't really want to admit it, the people are nice, he's become friends with garroth and katelyn, and it's a safe place for him to stay while he figures out his next moves. it also doesn't help that aph keeps roping him into her adventures (although he secretly enjoys having something to do).

it's through these new connections that he learns to start opening up about his past; how he was raised as the heir to the lordship of a hunting town up north named falconclaw, how the cathedra ordered its destruction and the murder of all its people due to them allegedly being descended from shad, the destroyer, how he came back from a hunting trip to find all his family and friends dead, how the grief manifested in a long-dormant magick that causes anything he lays eyes on to disintegrate, only to be controlled by an enchanted blindfold given to him by a passing elf who took pity on him. over time, he learns to control his magick, leading to him starting to leave his blindfold off - a sort of symbol of his willingness to trust in others, and to trust himself around others. most of this is me wanting his fuckass bandanna to have some sort of meaning behind it outside of "uwu edgy man with edgy outfit" but uh yeah. idk.

anyway, after a while he decides to stick around permanently right before the gang heads to gal'ruk to track down carin valkrum, an ex-juror who went missing decades prior, who katelyn is convinced knows of the whereabouts of the keeper's relic.

which means an outfit change. i tried to make his second winter outfit noticeably lighter than his first one, but still incorporating his trademark reds and browns. there isn't too much else to say abt this outfit? i dont think?? like there isnt a ton of lore stuff tied up in it except "oh hes going to a cold place lol". uhh i guess i could mention that he has a fucked up knee from a hunting accident when he was younger, hence the wrapped up knee?? idk. also he has a lil brooch w a falcon claw on it as a sort of homage to falconclaw. and his fucked up eyes r a reference to his eyes being fucked up in mys. yeah. idk.

uhh casual outfit. i like to think that he asked laurance for help w finding something to wear that wasnt super casual for more formal events (like the monthly potluck dinners that phoenix drop holds for everyone to celebrate the new moon) bc garroth is fucking useless when it comes to clothes n katelyn isnt that much better so laurance, having grown up in meteli surrounded by pirates, threw a billowy white button down at him n told him to go ham. i think laurance also lowkey influences aaron to get the falcon tattoo at some point - i dont think he loses the brooch, but since its so obviously a reference to his birthplace in ru'aun and could potentially get him and the rest of the gang hurt or even killed once they decide to travel to tu'la, he decides to get the kārearea tattooed over his heart as an homage to his family. anyway, it's in tu'la where he learns that he isn't the only survivor of falconclaw as he had previously thought: the werewolf pack that he'd grown up alongside (blaze, dottie, maria, rylan, and daniel) are still alive and well, as is melissa, although she's been cursed w what will later become known as the "ultima" curse due to her striking a deal with the demon warlock in an attempt to restore falconclaw. anyway, it's pretty emotional, esp since both sides have long thought the other to be suuuper dead. the scars on aaron's forearm are from when he n blaze got into a tussle as kids.

and finally, his destroyer form! after katelyn finally kills ivy n recovers shad's relic, there's a lot of debate as to what to do with it; some folks think its best to find it a host, others want to try and destroy it, and others want to simply lock it away in a pocket dimensino or something to keep it safe. eventually, aaron decides that, in order to protect the family he's created and the family he's rediscovered, it's probably best for him to take on the mantle of the destroyer of the second war of the magi, especially once it's revealed that the aaron of the first war (shad) cleaved his soul in two once he began to get corrupted by the influence of the void - the half that was corrupted would become the shadow lord, whereas the uncorrupted half would go onto reincarnate like the other souls of the divine warriors (excluding irene). i'm still fiddling around w how the second war of the magi ends, but my thinking as of right now is that the first war ended with irene burning away her first physical form to seal the shadow lord in the nether, the second war (mcd) ending w the restoration n reunification of shads soul n the divine warriors sealing away most magicks as a temporary stopgap against the spread of the void, and the third war (mys) being the war in which the void is finally defeated.

and finally some headshots. i personally headcanon aaron as being autistic as fuck n being the kind of autistic where he isn't super expressive (sorta like garroth), although a little less stern. speaking of, i really wanted him n garroth to be sort of foils for each other: namely, where aaron was raised to only ever see lordship as a privilege, garroth was raised in an environment that led him to believe that lordship was only ever a burden. anyway, they're best mates n i will die on this hill. yeah i know that in the first war esmund n shad didnt like each other that much (as an understatement) but something something healing the wrongs of the past with each reincarnation cycle something something they're best friends now and you can't stop me. also he and aph do end up together but it takes sooo fucking long, like those two are the most awkward motherfuckers this side of ru'aun and it takes longer for them to confess than it does for garroth and laurance to confess and thats Saying Something. like. c'mon. it was stupidly out of character for this wet noodle of a man to hook up w aph in the middle of s2. tell me that u don't know how to write ur characters without telling me that u don't know how to write ur characters n all that jazz.

anyway. gumboot rambles once again. its 2am at the time of posting this n i need to go sleep so uh. yeah. dante or travis is up next mostly bc aph has like thirteen outfit changes before s3 n im dreading drawing them all so yeah.

feel free to ask any questions or anything!! :D

[epically-ace-attorney]

*Intro Post ~ Welcome to the chaos!*

Hallo! This blog is an Ace Attorney AU using the musical EPIC! Canon is our bitch and we do as we please :)

The blog is joint run by @weltato (hi) and @the-ace-attorney-siren. Feel free to ask us anything about this AU in the inbox and not DMs - PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A WIP AU AND IS CONSTANTLY BEING THOUGHT OUT!!

The "backstory" I suppose would be that Wel was watching a great guy on YouTube by the name of Mortius (you should check him out, he's cool) react to "We'll Be Fine" and "Love in Paradise" from the most recent saga released from EPIC as of writing this (20/09/2024) - The Wisdom Saga. Wel had also been binging through some Ace Attorney streams by The NyanCave (also really cool, you should check them out too) and had that on the brain at the same time. Then she noticed something interesting - Odysseus had been on Calypso's Island for seven years.

You wanna know who else had a seven year gap? Phoenix Wright.

So obviously, I go to burtrice1 and say:

And then this happens:

And everything came from there. Just imagine it: Phoenix on that cliff calling for Mia T^T

Anyway, we had some planning to do: there is currently a list of characters from The Ace Attorney Trilogy, Ace Attorney: Investigations 1 & 2 (we're using the fan translation names in this house), and Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice (because Wel hasn't finished Dual Destinies and hasn't seen Spirit of Justice yet) and what people from EPIC they're going in as.

*RULES OF THE BLOG!*

No spoilers for the games please! There will be people that see this blog with no idea about the Ace Attorney series and they'll want to find out themselves (also one mod hasn't finished the series yet).

No spoilers for EPIC! There will be people that see this blog with no idea what the craic is with EPIC and letting them experience the joy that is this musical is all the sweeter with no spoilers <3

As previously mentioned: game canon is our bitch and we do what we want with it, which means that if you see an inconsistency with ages or anything, no you don't ;p

Please keep questions PG, there are minors that enjoy both Ace Attorney and EPIC and we'd like to keep this blog a safe space for everyone.

In the words of Ricky Potts: don't be a dick. We don't tolerate harassment of either the mods or anyone sending an ask into our inbox. Respect isn't hard, friend :)

If you've asked us a question and we haven't responded yet, please don't go into our personal inboxes or DMs to ask us about it - see the rule above. Both mods are busy people and do this purely for fun, so we'll get to your question when we see it. The timezone of this blog is GMT/BST depending on the time of year, so both mods could very well be asleep.

The canon of this AU follows with EPIC canon, which is NOT the actual Odyssey or Iliad. If you want to read those in your own time, feel free to.

Have fun! We want to share this with people to see your reactions and interact with other fans of the Ace Attorney games and EPIC: The Musical.

If you're excited about this blog, REBLOG OUR POSTS!! Reblogging is the lifeblood of Tumblr and can make or break a post. We want to reach as many people as possible with this silly little idea of ours.

If you want to write fics about our AU, please ask us first! Wel is a regular fic writer and she has some ideas floating around, so maybe let her finish those first before jumping in - but we love the enthusiasm! Thank you!

Fanart is awesome!! Please credit the idea to this blog and @ us in the post with the tag #epicallyaa, we'd love to see what you've done :D

This post will update with extra rules as and when needed, if we need to <3

*TAGS!*

#wel writes - this is for whenever Wel writes a fanfic about something. This is a personal tag from Wel, so if you want to see more of her work feel free to peruse that tag on her main Tumblr account. All the fics posted here will be specifically for this AU.

#bart or #burt art - we haven't decided which to use, might just use both, but this is for whenever burtrice1 posts art to this blog. Again, any art posted here will be specifically for this AU.

#epicallyaa - this is a tag for us and others to use about our AU! If you post any fanart or fanfic about our AU, use this tag and @ this account too so that we can see your awesomeness :D

#wel answers - whenever Wel answers an ask

#burtrice answers - whenever burtrice1 answers an ask

Like the rules, more tags will be added as and when we feel we need some more.

Thanks for reading all of this!! This post is very important to read, so if you come in asking questions blind, we might just refer you to this post and ask you to try again :)

~ Wel & burtrice1

[literatureloverx]

One of the things I find curious about Fyodor is that in the latest bsd guidebook, he describes himself as the color white like his hometown's snow. Fyodor still remembers his hometown, after all he's gone through and after all this time. And he describes himself as the color white like its snow. That with his character's disconnect from people, makes me very excited for when Asagiri decides to reveal his character's backstory. Of course he probably means snow in a more way of "purity" than sentimentalism for his hometown itself but omg he mentions his hometown which is something enough. Not "like snow" which would convey purity enough but "like the snow from my hometown". Maybe it's because he found his faith there? Maybe he just wants to pay respect to where he was birthed? Idk but there's much to theorize. What are your thoughts?

-🎪 anon

I agree, 🎪-anon!♥️

I don’t know if it’s because he found his faith there, but I think that is very likely and seems reasonable.

However, I also believe he was born into a religious family to begin with. I’ve thought through other aspects as well. Let me break it down for you:

Purity and Fyodor’s inner moral code:

Fyodor describing himself as the color white, especially like the snow from his hometown, speaks volumes. It hints at his complex inner moral code—he engages in dark actions under the belief that they serve a greater good.

This idea of “purity” contrasts sharply with his behavior. But does it?

In my humble opinion, he is well aware that what he does is evil, but his inner moral depiction is influenced by Machiavellian tendencies.

He does whatever he needs to do to cleanse humanity of their sins. Therefore, his actions reflect Machiavellian principles.

In short: the ends justify the means (The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli).

I’m imagining it like this: God has given him the enormous power of being immortal—never truly able to die.

God also gifted him with an intelligence that is above any other human being.

This means he must be someone important.

This means he is meant to be the rightful hand of God, tasked with creating a world that is worthy of God’s beauty.

Therefore, he wishes to help God’s creations, cleansing them and this sinful world of all their sins.

This is one reason why he says that he likes all humanity equally. Because he really does.

They are all the same to him—fools who could do better. Fools that could be worthy of God’s perfect world.

What fascinates me the most about him is that, even though he is doing all of this out of pure self-assurance and his own complex inner moral compass, he still claims that he is doing it for the whole world. And I believe he does.

I can totally see this being his ultimate end in the future.

His Hometown and it’s significance for him:

By referencing his hometown, he reveals a more humane side to himself.

If you haven't already, l'd recommend you read THIS and THIS posts of mine, where I explained very clearly how I perceive Fyodor's humane side.

It shows that he yearns for connection and perhaps misses the simplicity and innocence of his past.

This duality makes him such a fascinating character, caught between his dark pursuits and the remnants of his humanity.

Imagine feeling like, or even knowing that you're "the chosen one," only to end up isolated, dehumanized, and lonely, with nothing to hold onto but your belief in your God.

You can't die, because the only way for you to do so is by your own hands, which is considered the greatest sin.

You can't die. Not until you take your own life.

How deep must his religious beliefs run for him to be this dedicated to his goal, mentally able to endure and live for hundreds, maybe thousands of years?

This made me so emotional. I want to give him a hug. My precious love.♥️

[tater-tot-jr]

Yapping time! Spoilers for DRDT C2E14

So the entire episode was great, but there’s one part I’d like to talk about most. David’s monologue towards the end. Specifically the second half, where he gets away from his logical stuff and into the more interpersonal stuff. I’ll break it down line by line.

“All I want is for Teruko to distrust others.”

Okay we are starting off interesting. Now, due to David’s nature we can’t trust him to be honest. We cannot take this as explicit confirmation of any sort of goal. With that said, his goal appears to be fucking up the class trial in some manner. We don’t know his motive, but that goal seems consistent enough to work with. So let’s work with it. Teruko is literally one half of this classes helpful trial participants. Her and Charles are the entire brain of this class. Charles can be killed, he has a glaring flaw in a debilitating fear of blood, he’s easy enough to deal with when the time comes. Teruko is stupidly resilient. To everything. The one thing she obviously struggles with is her trust issues/paranoia. If you’re looking to get under her skin that’s where you gotta go. Saying this is a clear demonstration he intends to poke at Teruko emotionally, which is an interesting thing to admit out loud. If I had to guess, it’s because he’s trying to kill two birds with one stone and make the class start to distrust Teruko as well.

“That’s why I’m doing this, telling such obvious lies.”

This is him saying he’s lying about seeing the body, I think. He’s doubling down on inciting paranoia, in both Teruko and the class. It’s interesting he would say this out loud. He’s hyper focused on fucking with Teruko and it shows. If you take out the brain, the body goes as well. It’s certainly a strategy of all time.

“There is no other proof of Eden’s innocence.”

As far as we know, this is a true statement right now. Unless I’m unaware of something that was the biggest piece of evidence meant to clear her name, and he brought it into question.

“As long as there’s a possibility that the evidence is false, as long as there’s even the slightest reason to distrust others, then Teruko cannot trust Eden.”

Oof, he’s got her dead to rights. I don’t think there’s a good faith argument for him being wrong. It’s cool to see how much he understands the cast. It’s an interesting way to show how Teruko’s thoughts process works without betraying her guarded nature. Having a character so ready to pick at her weakness is a good writing choice, and I hope they keep David around for a time. Teruko is the least trusting character I’ve ever seen in any fangan game, granted I haven’t played them all but still. There’s a chance the story doesn’t have any sort of lesson, and we’re just gonna watch Teruko suffer. The idea that she can’t bring herself to trust if there’s even a 0.001% chance of something being false is such a good character flaw. She’s clearly terrified of risk, and she doesn’t know how to get rid of her paranoia, even though I think she wants to.

“Isn’t that right, Teruko?”

Ohohoho you smug piece of shit. You fucking dick. This is more proof he’s not just saying these things in an objective way. He’s just trying to hurt her, as far as we can assume.

“…”

Yeah she’s fucking rocked. Teruko really doesn’t take things lying down. Befitting of her backstory, she’s the type to struggle and fight back against anything she can. But here she has nothing to say. David has read her for filth and they both know it. Now that I think about it, this probably also plays on her fear of being vulnerable. What could possibly be more vulnerable than someone telling you your own exact thought process?

“It’s in your nature to distrust people.”

This is a more interesting statement than it appears at first glance. Specifically because he says it’s in her nature. To him, this isn’t a choice she’s making because of the killing game. It’s not circumstance that has pushed her into this. No, this is who she is, and this is who she’ll always be. Which is a horribly insulting thing to say, because it’s within most humans nature to trust each other somewhat, and it’s life circumstances that push them away from collaboration. He’s saying that Teruko is so fucked in the head that she’s fundamentally different from the standard human baseline.

“Everyone you know has already betrayed you. There’s no one in this world who won’t hurt you. Even the people you love will turn their backs on you in the end. You know that well enough, don’t you?”

…Jesus Christ. He really is just the devil on her shoulder. These are her worst thoughts said out loud and back to her. Do you think she considers someone dying on her and leaving her alone a betrayal? Is that a part of this? Him saying “even the people you love” is interesting, does she really even have anyone she loves in the cast? Or does she just tolerate them. He’s making grand, sweeping statements about her life potentially before the killing game and hitting the nail on the head every time. An impressive feat of manipulation and perceptiveness.

“So distrust in others. Because that’s the only way you know how to live.”

Ow. Ouch. Owie. Not only is this a banger way to end the monologue but it’s just so telling. Teruko doesn’t even say anything in response she just waits for Charles to change to subject. Also, is he even really wrong? She tried to afford people trust and then she got stabbed and everyone else blamed her. She’s definitely swung too far the other way, but it’s not like she was good at knowing how much trust to afford people. This life is really the only way she knows how to live. How things are now, she’ll suffer any other way. It’s such juicy character writing. Damned if you do damned if you don’t. David has definitely been watching Teruko’s behavior, and quite frankly he has her figured out. He’s perceived her, and she hates it. I think we all know Teruko is lonely, she deeply wants people around her. But between being a danger to them and all her trust issues she shuts herself away. David is doing everything he can to keep her as far away from forming meaningful connections as possible. He’s clearly got some sort of plan.

—

There’s also a few things I want to talk about that I didn’t have the ability to put under a spoken line, so I’ll yap down here.

Firstly, Teruko extending some “trust” to Eden doesn’t prove David wrong. If anything, it strengthens his argument. Looking at the actual content of Teruko and Eden’s back and forth, it’s barely a scrap of trust and it’s completely conditional. Teruko basically said “because you helped me last trial I will trust you enough to investigate you second” which is still incredible progress for her, but it’s nothing close to genuine trust. This is not to diminish the progress Teruko made in that scene, but it’s nothing close to countering David’s claims.

Secondly, THAT VOICE ACTING HELLO?!?? David’s VA has always been great, but combined with DRDTdev’s wonderful writing and sprite design/choices he really brought this scene to life. He was perfectly smug and condescending. He had a voice that really portrayed that “I’m 100% right about you and you can’t do anything about it” vibe. Just a total piece of shit. 10/10 would listen again.

[nightwonder7]

i want to bite ur ocs

(i want to know about them <- interested)

AAAaaaaaahhh you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear that you're interested in my OCs! ;W;

I'll give a run-down of the ones I posted recently. Their names are Cyril Iwo Davinski and Angelica Sage Thornwood, and their story takes place somewhere in the late 1800s.

Angelica lost her parents at a very young age, but was adopted by a priest, who was also an exorcist/demon hunter. It was from him she learned the art of exorcism and how to fight demons. This was motivated by the fact that she had been tormented by a demonic entity from early childhood and she wanted to learn how to defeat them. Angelica grew up to be a strong, young woman who would take on cases caused by demons, though developed a bit of a hero complex with a desire to "save people from evil".

Cyril was raised by his mother, who owned a small antique shop. One day an artifact containing a demon soul entered the shop, and at eight years old, Cyril managed to get cursed by it and become a host for the demon; two souls residing in one body. From that day forward, Cyril would transform into this demon whenever he was overtaken by fear or anxiety. The demon would be in control of his body during these events, often hunting for prey. They tried everything to vanquish the demon, but their bond seemed unbreakable. One day as a young man, something horrible happened that forced him to flee from his hometown and start a new life.

Cyril eventually opened his own antique shop elsewhere and would use his fascination in history and the occult to find a way to lift his curse.

Things get complicated when reports of frequent monster attacks in his town reaches a certain exorcist who is intent on finding the culprit and vanquish it for good.

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That's pretty much the gist of their backstories. I could've said more things about them, but then it would've become too long pfffff I also have some other OCs as well, but I assumed these were the ones you were referring to ^^; Anyways, I'm always open for OC questions!

[yuujiheart]

Reading chp 270 feels so weird.. I thought this would be the chapter where we would finally see yuji and will get some info on things that are actually necessary to complete the story.

What really gave me a headache was sukuna stuff. They found tengen remains in sukuna's remnants so logically they should have found it after sukuna's remains perished right? As we did see him getting disintegrate. But gakuganji said it is preserved in his remnants??? Like how???

This means sukuna's remnants DIDN'T disintegrate . So did yuji ( coz he was the only one who was there) stop the disintegration?? And this wasn't addressed at all.. I knew that not showing him disintegrate fully was suspicious... ( if anyone has a better explanation, feel free to comment). Not just that there was no mention of his last finger and the fingers he threw up.. Oh and the way they spoke it looks like this is a temporary arrangement so they still need to fix it..

They not talking about gojo itself is suspicious.. At least tell us what the hell is going on with his body. Or gege gonna jump scare us with his face in next chapter

Gakuganji not being in a hurry to take countermeasures.. Higuruma's hand/ arm still hasn't recovered as if he forgot he can do rct.. I didn't think too much of him being alive as I thought shoko along with arata and amai might have saved him from dying as uiui took him out of the battlefield swiftly but now this is weird..

Aside from this chap stuff, I am also thinking why gege isn't addressing the real thing as he must know readers are waiting for yuji's lineage, kenny , sukuna, tengen relationship, yuji gojo convo.. What is yuji thinking? Sure we can't get a backstory but he could have revealed that info in chp 257 style. Bro dedicated one chap to less important stuff but completely ignored the real deal... I find it irritating and funny too. Only I don't want to laugh... 😑😑😑

And now that they have added this mission too and it will surely take at least 4-6 pages assuming it would be a normal mission and then will address the real stuff which I wonder if he can cover in one chp. And that's why I suspect we are gonna get a jjk part 2 with a big twist in the last chp.. Because I find it hard to believe that gege would end his first major work like this. This person dedicated half chap answering why they didn't do certain things in a certain way in battle but yeah I should believe he doesn't want to address major plot points which again I don't think he can do it in one chap ..

So yeah i am gonna believe in gege till the end.. I mean I know I am signing myself for disappointment probably then again it can't get any worse than this... So why not one more time.. As if we aren't familiar to this...🥲🥲( but I strongly suggest to not do this as it can get reaaaaaaaalllly painful)

[eggmeralda]

if I had a nickel for everytime a funny little guy from an album cover by a band I don't regularly listen to evoked something vague and unknown in my soul and haunted my thoughts during late january/early february, I would have two nickels

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt "i will NEVER deadname my best friend" of rivia

"he will ALWAYS be dandelion to ME"