#my whole worldview is crumbling

[thelediz]

Sonic Underground Episode 25: The Hedgehog in the Iron Mask

I’m watching Sonic Underground in search of inspiration to finish a fic I’ve been writing forever. It’s a sad state of affairs. See the recap of the first three episodes here, if you're interested!

The plot (for want of a better word): The triplets rescue a mysterious hedgehog who claims to be a long-lost relative, and spurs thoughts of what life will be like after they regain their birthright. Will the Sonic Underground be able to overcome their sibling rivalry, and remain a team forever?

Yeah… this episode should have been so much more plot relevant than it ended up being.

So Aleena starts this episode talking about how we secretly hide our ambitions from other people, and how it takes courage to let the world see who we really are. It’s… interesting. The first half of her little monologue sounds quite suss, and then the second half is inspiring. One could make too much of this, Aleena!

The triplets are breaking into some kind of prison on the idea that Aleena was once imprisoned there, and there will be clues as to where she is now. Meanwhile, there’s a guy doing opera warmups and preparing for a show.

The triplets are going to be surprised he’s an actor later, but the audience is, as always, way more aware than them. I wonder if that was supposed to be a running theme or point at one point?

The triplets are confused when they hear him, because Robotnik doesn’t normally imprison people—guys, you literally just said Aleena was imprisoned here—and he howls when he calls out, and Sonia finds his voice familiar. None of this will stop them believing him later.

Manic jokes about Sonic’s off-key singing. This is not the only time they will make a joke like this. Now, granted, I would probably not say I enjoy any of the triplet’s vocals, and as I said once, when I was a kid I liked Manic’s best (I no longer know why), but this is such a strange joke that comes up every so often. It’s the sort of thing I’d work up into a big thing about Manic and Sonia resenting Sonic being the front man of both the band and the Resistance, except it’s not. It’s just a random joke. And it’s bothered me since the first time I heard it.

Moving on.

Gotta say, the flow of the animation in this episode is not terrible. Character models are still awful, and they are reusing frames where they can, but the flow is good.

Oh look. An orange item in the middle of the room. A suspiciously moving curtain off to the side. Whoever could have seen this ambush coming.

Dingo is a great actor. I just want to say that. When the triplets tie him up and interrogate him, he spits his lines about how the prisoner is important but did nothing wrong brilliantly. Give that man a Tony.

The Song: Part of the Problem. Another rare Sonia lead, with a pretty funky brass backing. They’re singing to the crowd to try and get people to tell them who the prisoner is. This of course will not really help because there IS no prisoner, but it’s a good propaganda song for the Resistance, so uh. Cool.

But of course it doesn’t work, so of course they need to break back in to rescue him. Which is not very hard, given that’s Robotnik's whole plan.

The prisoner is wearing a metal headcovering, which he claims is a bomb that will explode if it’s removed. And he, in a complete turnaround from literally everyone else in the series, does not recognise them as Aleena’s children. Now, at this point, even if we didn’t know he was an actor, I’d be suspicious, because EVERYONE knows these kids EVEN WHEN THEY SHOULDN’T.

Also, he’s not a great actor. He barely avoids saying the word 'GASP'.

He gives them some golden rings that ‘bear the royal family crest’ which—I remind you—was established last episode as the Royal H. They do not have the Royal H. But this may just be poor continuity, so whatever. They're tracking devices, spoilers.

Now. Now. He gives a speech here which is totally made up but I clearly internalised and took it as gospel. He claims to be the queen’s twin brother, and that there’s a law that says there can be only one ruler, so he was sent into exile. This is to sow conflict between the siblings, obvs, but is also legitimately contrary to the Council of Four. In my story, I very much make this a point, because triplets don’t just come out of nowhere, genetically – you will tend to see twins and triplets throughout family lines. But we NEVER hear of any other family members. So I, being the problem that I am, take that to mean that problematic heirs are quietly removed from public life once they stop being important backups and lose their legitimacy to the throne. Because this royal family has PROBLEMS, folks.

Meanwhile, no sooner has the actor said his lines than the triplets start bickering, with Sonic assuming he’ll be ruler, Sonia laughing at the idea because a “ruler needs to have some CULTURE”, and Manic stating that he’s the “real representative of the people”. So, you know, effective plot building on their pre-identified internal conflicts (except Manic, but we’re pretty sure that’s just fumbled characterisation, not actually out of nowhere). It’s not a bad setup for an episode, is what I’m saying.

I also obsess over the fact that Sonic is the only one of the three who focusses on how he won’t banish the other two. Manic and Sonia DO NOT MENTION THIS ISSUE. Sonia, in fact, is being SO SHALLOW this episode, claiming she gets the crown because the other two would suck and she looks best in finery, while Manic is just getting all resentful.

Oh, oh, oh, I love Sonic and Sonia’s argument so much for my purposes. Sonia snaps that Sonic would drive Mobius to disaster (which he would, to be fair), and Sonic is the first to say that he’ll banish HIMSELF if Sonia becomes queen, and points out how he never needed anyone before and doesn’t now (which again, is true, to be fair), while Sonia is clearly throwing a tantrum and runs off on her own. Manic, as always, just goes along with it, and so the triplets split up.

Manic, naturally, lasts about five minutes before he gets captured. Sonia needs a bit of a guilt trip, but then gets caught too. But when the actor tries to finish up by catching Sonic, Sonic’s suspicions kick in, he decides he’s had enough of this ‘uncle’, and recognises the rings as homing beacons. But as he fights the ambush off, the actor throws himself in the middle of Sonic’s attack and Sonic brains himself on the helmet.

Yes, that’s right, Sonic actually doesn’t just save the day this episode! They’re actually going to bring the Sonic Underground back together to win this time! THIS EPISODE ISN’T GOING TO DEFEAT THE WHOLE STORYLINE OF THE SERIES!

So now that the hedgehogs are caught, the actor has served his purpose and is thrown with prison along with them. Without his mask, revealing himself to be “Luke Perrywinkle” (oh honey. Luke Perry was not this hammy thespian.) that Sonia was a huge fan of and Sonic thought was a ham. Manic had no idea.

Sonic with a sword, Sonic with a sword, Sonic with a sword!

So of course they have to work together to get out, and the actor announces he’s going to join the resistance, and the triplets decide they will rule together, and we end happily once more.

And I... I'm...

This…

Guys.

This was an actual good episode, guys.

Like… still low budget and still a bit messy, but… guys, this was… actually good? Like… it had story and character progression and a lesson that the siblings actually learned that would legitimately lead them toward The Council Of Four and…

It was COMPETENT???

WHAT THE HELL, TRASHFIRE. I AM OFFENDED, HOW DARE YOU.

Tomorrow better be back to form, or so help me I might actually have to give you credit for trying.

[until-another-one-comes]

I usually don't like having a solid theory on a piece of media before it's finished because I don't want to get my hopes up too much, but at this point I can't ignore this.

More and more people are pointing out and realising that Miguel broke the dimension he was in because he purposely infiltrated a dimension he doesn't belong in and took the place of another version of him, thus fucking up the place and being the real anomaly. His presence there was what caused the dimension to implode.

The real lesson is: Don't fuck around in other people's dimension, NOT 'Don't mess up the 'canon' in your own dimension' but he doesn't realise this (whether purposely cus guilt or he truly doesn't realise it). You can't mess up your own dimension by going against canon. If that was the case, Miles' dimension would've imploded a long time ago if he 'wasn't supposed to be Spiderman' (and if he isn't supposed to be spiderman, then doesn't that mean he HAS no canon to even follow in the first place??). But it hasn't. Miles' dimension is perfectly fine before the Spot came in.

Obviously I have no idea how the next movie is gonna go, nor do they have to follow what a random person on the internet is saying, but this theory makes so much sense. I sincerely hope this will be revealed in Beyond The Spiderverse as the big plot realisation and I hope it will be mind blowing.

[aq2003]

oh btw i get even more why brennan (like me) clocked sophomore year fabian as fucked up and sad even if some of the other pcs were like "what are you talking about dude" . it's because the basic core theses of fabian and leiland eftbk as characters are actually pretty similar

[super-paper]

You know,, at first i didn't realize because the leaks are low quality and i couldnt really understand what happened with kurugiri and where bkg showed up from.. but after you pointed it out and the more i think about it, the more im mad how izuku and bakugo just fucking killed kurugiri. Like, what the fuck was that???? Even if one tries to defend it as 'oh he's on the villains side and maybe they though he was going to warp shigafo somewhere or protect him' it's still mind-boggling how izuku didn't hesitate at all. Like you said, that was one of the few characters that wanted to protect and save tomura, who was pleading for afo to give him back and they just........ignore that and punch him as well. No surprised look, no hesitation, no thinking on what to do. Then add izukus lack of reaction to tomura decaying and i question who is that, bc sure as fuck isn't the "i want to save that crying little boy" hero deku. Doing that in front of aizawa and yamada as well is so foul damn. I haven't been this disappointed in izuku since 327 (my beloathed) and his overall response in that "reunion" with toshinori.

It's implied Kurogiri was already dying (which is, it's own can of worms,, because there's really no way to spin that particular writing decision in a way that makes Hori look good considering how it was never once foreshadowed that Giri overusing his quirk would kill him). But yeah, Giri's treatment is definitely one of the most upsetting aspects of this chapter-- Izuku and Bkgo may not have killed him per se, but they also didn't hesitate to run him through just to finish off AFO. Izuku exhibits zero reaction to Giri begging for Tomura's life and makes no attempts to even speak with him. Like, Giri is honestly the only character in this chapter who actually felt heroic in what was supposed to be the grand finale of Izuku's journey to become one of the greatest heroes. It's an absolutely massive writing fumble.

Like, if we're looking at the arc as a whole, the intended read is like.... Tenko tells Izuku that he's a villain who is fighting to be a hero to the villains, and the unspoken implication is that Izuku immediately gives up on saving him because "Tenko can't be stopped/changed and made his choice to keep fighting for evil"-- even though we literally get a reveal in the very next chapter that he was manipulated into this position and forcibly given the power that helped shaped his entire life/worldview. Izuku does not react once to this reveal despite the manga making it clear that he is also seeing AFO's memories. Tenko isn't allowed to properly process this reveal and the implications behind it + how it skewed his perception of himself. The heroes arrive and yap about how "tragedy is bad and shouldn't happen :(" while making no attempt to actually engage with the fact that AFO is openly grieving, and then they proceed to annihilate the body of the biggest victim in the series without any hesitation (while also running through the crumbling body of another victim who is the only one on the battlefield that's attempting to save the first victim's life).

Like. Am I misunderstanding anything or.

[whartonists]

I really like what they did with the union plotline this episode--I thought that the stakes of it were taken seriously and that they leaned into the drama in a way that was really compelling. George's visit to the Hendersons' home was a wonderful bit of role reversal, and visually I thought they did that scene excellently--I could write a whole post on the Henderson house set, but I thought it was really well-done, stark (especially compared to the interiors we're used to on this show) but dignified.

But I think my fundamental problem with the handling of this plotline gets back to my complaint about the George-Henderson scene in 2.03, that the writing never allowed Henderson to rebut George's arguments even when they were obviously not only in bad faith but built upon entirely false premises. Here, George's change of heart is just that--a charge of heart, without changing his mind, which casts Henderson and the other (nameless) mill workers as figures of pathos rather than intellect.

They exist within their circumstances to stir George's conscience rather than to pose an alternate philosophy--in part because, of course, if George truly changed his mind a large part of the show's practical foundation would crumble. But by positioning them this way, the show cedes no ground to their perspective, but instead particularizes them within their pathetic (literally and in the 19th century sense, a source of pathos) circumstances, which serves to both a) prevent any intellectual or symbolic reach beyond those circumstances and b) sentimentalize George's decision in a way that keeps him and the show from having to incorporate any of Henderson's arguments--which he was never allowed to make--into his/its worldview.

[ceriseo]

the only change i'll actually be mad about is still just nettles sorry. cut daeron? lowkey a boring flop anyway. replaceable! alicole sex scene? okayy lets bring on the catholic guilt and hypocrisy. no maelor? whatever i trust them. but my daughter... my beautiful daughter nettles who disproved valyrian blood purity and used nothing but cunning and wit to take a power held exclusively by ennobled dynastical tyrants, crumbling their whole egotistical worldview with one move. screaming crying throwing up. wheres my giiiirl where is she...

[wildpeachfarm]

kinda sorta spitballing a bit here, but i think at least some of the UK group's behavior in this stems from wilbur being publicly exposed recently. because he was in their circle and close to a lot of them, and they are... very online, basing a lot of their understanding of morality/ethics/etc on a very twitter-esque framework that lacks nuance. where people can be neatly sorted into Bad and Good boxes and shunning the Bad Ones and grouping with Good Ones is something that happens pretty much automatically, and if you fail to do it that means you also go into the Bad box. obviously in reality, relationships are waaaay more messy and complicated, and there is no clear cut good/bad binary to sort people by. but when that's your worldview, finding out a close friend is actually a serial abuser, and you weren't able to see it until then, well, it really threatens to shake the foundations of what you think being a good person is and whether you are one. and when you have built yourself up to be better than others based on your perceived moral superiority (in your own or in others' eyes), having that perception shaken effectively shakes your sense of self. especially in your younger years, and the UK group is all what, barely over twenty at most now? i'm turning 28 this year and i have had so much therapy focused on dealing with centering an unachievable moral standard in my sense of self that meant that any time either my understanding of Being A Good Person was challenged or i failed to live up to that unrealistic standard, i ended up in (identity) crises. nowadays, i won't say i fully fixed that issue, but there is like... "more" to my own self-identity, so having one part of it crumble or change temporarily doesn't shake me as a whole so deeply. which is a very long build up to the point i'm actually trying to make. specifically, i think a lot of the UK group just had their own self-perception about their moral standing challenged significantly, and are/were looking for proof that they are "at least still better than someone else" which prompted them to point fingers and do it loudly. couple that with the - possibly subconscious - need to get prying eyes away from their own hurt and vulnerability, and you get rue comparing george and dream to wilbur, and max screaming at the camera. they're performing the outrage and anger that their (definitely twitter/younger skewing fandom influenced) standard for Being A Good Person demands, without having to center or focus the situation they are personally involved in, attached to, and where they personally may have failed to recognize and/or act against someone who was harming others. (mind, i don't think they should be doing the processing of their relationships with wilbur publicly, but this also circles back to a mentality of "everything must be done in the court of public opinion and also immediately" that is just... not healthy, not how it works, not actually solution-oriented) ANYWAY this got way longer than i meant it to but. tl;dr is basically: i think we are seeing a lot of "SEE? They do it too, so we're not bad! Actually, they are even worse!!" from the UK group that really is testament both of a lack of maturity on their part and also how toxic and counterproductive to personal growth the "twitter stan" approach to morality is.

possibly! We have no idea what goes on behind the scenes but this could be a fair guess

[liaisun]

uhm... you're writing something from riko's pov? would you perchance like to share more details? it's okay if you don't, just curious.

hello anon!! i forgot i enabled anon asks again but i will keep it on so people arent scared away from asking abt these things LOL. i would absolutely love to share the details :3c

the fic is 2nd person pov, flashes of riko’s life through the years and the way he perceives the world, the development/degeneration of riko and kevin's relationship, riko becoming who he is, and his descent into madness

it all began with my most trusted confidant sending a msg abt “all the ways riko could have been different and all the ways his pathways were cut”, riko being ONLY 19 like he wasn’t even 20 when he died… augh what the hell . so i immediately started thinking abt riko’s thoughts and state of mind at the time of his death

do we think he didn’t see his kingdom crumbling? that he was holding on the tightest to the only thing he had, until it destroyed him? icarus to the sun? AHGH. and yet riko is such a clear case of a made monster.

riko’s convictions are fragile. that's why he constantly needs external validation of his superiority over others by exercising control over them; moriyama family status being the excuse provided to him, and it's what he clings onto when he sees behavior that doesn't fit into his worldview (like when he is with kevin and sees kayleigh/a loving parent.) you're a moriyama, you're different, you're not lonely, you aren't affected by things like that because you're better.

tbh i think riko doesn’t even conceptualize himself as a person. he’s a vessel for success, he calls himself king (a title rather than a name), he’s defined by the number on his face and is part of a set with kevin (his relationship w kevin is whole other can of worms lmfao). riko is simultaneously above everyone else and yet worth nothing, because he will never have the thing he truly wants— his father’s regard, a place in the main line

many of tetsuji's statments are translated as riko's own thoughts and he repeats them as children do. his behavior becomes more controlling but it isn't maliciously intentioned; riko genuinely believes he is protecting kevin by doing this, because he knows how the nest works and kevin doesn't yet. it's heartbreaking!!! it's also at this unstable time when kevin is taken in by tetsuji where you can see the dynamic between riko and kev take root and become twisted.

also, riko's thoughts on family and brotherhood are so contradictory— he sososo severely values the idea of a brother. yet he's seen how tetsuji's been treated by kengo as well, understands that brotherhood is conditional. so it's this thing to want and to fear, which leads to how kevin is simultaneously idolized and adored, while being objectified and diminished at the same time. kevin is his brother, but only when it's convenient. over time, it's less and less of kevin as a separate person, and more of seeing kevin as an extension of riko.

this became a meta LOL but that's what happens when u write a character study i suppose! most of the fic is written i just need to clean it up, hoping to post by the end of the year :-)

[semper-legens]

79. Gravity Falls: Lost Legends by Alex Hirsch

Owned: Yes Page count: Unknown/not numbered My summary: Pacifica and Dipper must battle a monster to save Mabel’s face. Soos breaks the fourth wall, and reality begins to crumble. Mabel tears a hole in reality and discovers the Mabel-verse. And young Stanley and Stanford fight some bullies. Welcome back to Gravity Falls. My rating: 4/5 My commentary:

Gravity Falls again! Yeah, I read the Book of Bill, and then this literally fell off the shelf into my lap ready for me to read. I love Gravity Falls, and this wasn't exactly a huge time investment, so hey, why not? All of these comics take place over Dipper and Mabel's summer in Gravity Falls (bar one, a flashback to the older Pines twins) at various points, and they all focus on a different person or area of Gravity Falls. And, of course, there's a ridiculous framing device. Shmebulock, the gnome who is cursed to only say his own name, can apparently talk once every thousand years, and uses that time to tell us stories about the Pines family, because of course he does. Schmebulock, the fourth wall gnome, what secrets are you hiding?

The first story is about Dipper and Pacifica. She wants to get rid of a wrinkle, and ends up summoning a face-stealing creature (as you do) that steals Mabel's face, forcing the other two to chase him and find it. It's really exploring their antagonistic relationship, as well as giving some insights into Pacifica's worldview. She's been raised to believe that being beautiful is necessary for her, that she needs to live up to this perfect ideal of what a family is, but she learns that the stress she is under from living up to this ideal is causing her pain. Actually, she prefers to be more authentic, and to look like herself rather than an idealised version of what she should appear like. Dipper helping her to learn that, even through a grouchy, antagonistic, argumentative set of banter, is sweet. And there's some great gags in this story. I really liked the faceless Mabel drawing a smile on while sitting in the dark, creeping Stan out - it was a fun little aside.

The second story is about Dipper and Mabel getting some comics, which Stan throws into a cursed chest. Lo and behold, he gets trapped inside the comics, and the others have to follow him in to save him. It's really fun, with the artstyle and tone that the comic is presented in changing based on which kind of comics they're currently inside - classic cartoons, superheroes, manga, edgy apocalypse stories, down to Stan's old comic, which is Peanuts-esque. The theme this time is Stan's own self-worth issues and inability to square up to his past - every venture he's tried, even this one attempt at creativity, has been a failure, and he feels very much dwarfed by the success of Ford. But when they get out of the comics world, Stan puts his story on sale at the Mystery Shack, and a kid ends up buying and loving it. The whole thing is a fun romp through different comics, with a sweet ending where Stan finds something of the success he was hoping for the whole time. Nice!

Next up is the Mabel story, where Mabel falls through to a multiverse of lost Mabels, Rick and Morty style. Stan Mabel! Military Mabel! Table Mabel! Velociraptor Mabel! There's such a huge variety of Mabels on show here, half the panels are basically Where's Wally-esque tableaux - and there even is a Where's Wally Mabel hanging around to make that very joke. I liked that this story shows off Mabel's flaws - her silliness, her self-centred nature, her tendency to get caught up in ridiculous schemes - without ever demonising her or making her seem like a bad person for it. I see Mabel be denigrated too often in the fandom for the crime of being a twelve year old girl, so it's nice to see some official media that shows she isn't perfect, but also doesn't blame her for it. And seeing all the Mabels is fin. This story has like 4000% more Mabel for your Mabel. What's not to love?

The final story features Stan and Ford as children, solving the mystery of their father's missing necklace. After having mostly seen them in their adult, antagonistic forms, it's really nice to see Stan and Ford as friends who help each other out here. The young Stans are cute, and again, we get a bit of nuance from them - Ford is just as willing to wreck things and join in hijinks as Stan is, and Stan's nice despite his bluster and bull-headedness. They're just kids, you know, messing around on their summer holiday, trying to make the best of their situations despite not exactly being the ideal kids. Stan's derided by his father for not being as smart as Ford, and Ford feels uncomfortable about his six fingers and the way he doesn't really fit in. But they have each other, and they're working things out, and it's really nice to see. I love them.

Next up, a look at pirates in culture, with a book about Pirates of the Caribbean.

[nicomrade]

On being lost in the Labyrinth; a Souichi Kiruma and Kaoru Yukiide joint analysis.

I've been wanting to write about Souichi for a while now, but Usogui is BIG and DENSE and goes a LOT of places and Souichi (/Hachina Naoki/Hal) has unstable memory and his role in the story varies a lot (sometimes antagonist, deuteragonist, love interest, side-kick, … ) so... To properly talk about this in one coherent, whole way I had to limit my scope by A LOT so I'm going to look at Souichi through the lense of Kaoru Yukiide, the ways they mirror each other, where they differ and what it means for the broader themes of both Souichi's story and Usogui (manga) in general. And try my hardest to stay on topic.

The full piece turned out almost 7k words long so join me for a bit of a journey under the cut! I included as many images as tumblr allowed me to and it's sectioned in 6 parts including the short prologue so it's hopefully not too hard of a read. Cheers! 🐜🐝

0. Prologue

Kaoru Yukiide is a minor antagonist for the 1st part of the Labyrinth gamble (chapters 83 to 104) of Usogui. His active participation feels almost cut abruptly short but this is indicative of the kind of character he is. He’s no Sadakuni and no Vincent Lalo, he’s just Yukkii. But in those 20 chapters he’s given a full inner world and a full character arc. He is a complete character.

He was diagnosed at 12yo with Encephalitis lethargica (“sleepy sickness”) and at 15 he went into a coma. He’s the son of a police official involved in framing innocent people for crimes the wealthy committed, all for the sake of “keeping order”. His father framed his own wife in one of these schemes, and eventually took the blame for a higher-up’s crime himself. This is a duty and fate Kaoru inherited after waking up from his 10 years coma. He’s now the one who frames innocent people and he, too, will shoulder a death penalty for something he didn’t do. This catastrophic loss to Baku not only condemns his life it also made him realize how twisted his actions and his idea of order have been and it triggers another catatonic episode in him. He’s a character who’s been deeply hurt by following along with what his parents taught him was right without questioning it, and when this worldview crumbles, so does he. But his epilogue in chapter 147 is a happy one! Kaoru wakes up, and yes he now has to come to terms with all the harm he’s done and he feels like it would’ve been better if he’d stayed functionally dead, but he has people who care about him and who will help him. You are never truly alone, things can always get better, you CAN break free from your family’s Labyrinth.

I think Kaoru’s generally an easy character to find hope in- as someone who caused immense harm, but who was still a victim of his circumstances and got to have a second chance at life. In-story we have Marco who comments on the two of them being the same and a lot of what I will discuss here will apply in some measure to him too as a mentally ill character with an abusive dad. However, I find he has striking similarities with Souichi’s story specifically, and looking at the two together can help us shine a light on the complicated fate at the heart of Souichi’s character. I realize by using Kaoru as a tool to talk about someone else- a means to an end and not his own person- I’m perpetuating the very workings of his abuse. I’m sorry Yukkii :(

I. Inheritance

Souichi and Kaoru are both successors to their fathers and they were raised to follow in those footsteps. Souichi, as a Kiruma, is a member of a “sinful bloodline” and was always going to be 21st Leader of Kakerou. His dad raised him this way and put him under Eba’s guidance all so he could stand at the top of Kakerou- the ones who make sure the rules are obeyed perfectly.

[1. Vol 37 Ch. 404 Duwang translation 2. Vol. 9 Ch. 93 Easy Going Scans translation]

Kaoru was not strictly raised as a successor in this way but he inherited this vision of order from his dad, one where the ants that step out of line must be killed. Both him and Souichi are sons who took on that very heavy duty to “keep order” after their respective fathers, and they both became orphans from it. Kaoru’s mom was sacrificed by her husband, and then he sacrificed himself too, leaving Kaoru alone when he woke up at 25. Similarly, Souichi’s mom died before he was born and he will lose his father during the course of the story. He was orphaned, too.

This is not to imply that Tatsuki Kiruma (Souichi’s father) had a personality like Yukiide senior. Kaoru’s dad is characterized as borderline abusive, he is refused any real kind of redemption as we don’t even have a first name or a face to put on him during the Paper Labyrinth chapters. He is the shadow that haunts Kaoru, and he is talked about as the origin of this specific worldview. Tatsuki was an odd father but he was not responsible for his wife’s death and he, too, inherited this fate from his own parents. He is not the root cause of Souichi’s ill. Where Kaoru was lied to and manipulated into following in his father’s footsteps, Souichi became leader willingly. This is getting to the impact a heavy family history can have on someone (whether forced onto them or embraced by them) more than any one individual father’s harm.

The impact of that family history is shown in Kaoru with his sleepy sickness that makes him literally absent from his own life at times. It is a way for him to escape from the real world and the responsibilities and ideals pushed on him. I think it’s very meaningful that his big episode was triggered at 15, that’s right into his first year of highschool, soon an adult. And this mental harm is also seen in Souichi and his chronic memory loss. His own timeline is more vague than Kaoru’s but I think it’s fair to estimate Souichi was around 15 during the 1998 flashbacks, which is when he has a significant memory loss episode and also when he receives doctor feedback on this illness. It is first said to be without cause but later confirmed this is a way for him to remain “perfect” at all times, by throwing out the memory of his flaws and resetting himself back to a clean slate. This is how he is coping with this responsibility of being (or becoming) leader of Kakerou. In Kaoru, this weight puts him in a coma and creates a 10 years gap in his memory, for Souichi it will lead to him forgetting a length of 10 years after the Tower of Karma arc. Sounds familiar?

[vol42 Ch 454 Duwang translation]

What they’ve inherited from their fathers is not just this responsibility towards order, it is also more literally a spot where they have to resort to playing rigged games. Kaoru’s routine with the Paper Labyrinth game is revealed in the manga to be nothing more than a well-practiced script. We see a similar resort in Souichi for the Flying Vehicles bet where he simply has Baku’s (Kakerou appointed) men betray him. This way of approaching games goes against how the Usogui manga portrays gamblers. As shown in Drop the Handkerchief when Souichi admits re-using these sort of means for this game would not give him a “perfect victory” and when Baku congratulates him on “gambling” for the first time, a gambler in Usogui is not just someone who participates in gambles. They are a kind of person who is able to cling to a low chance of victory and keep to their unlikely plan the whole way through all because they aspire to something better than they already have. They are moving forward with no certainty of what will come of it because the reward is worth the risk to them. We see it in Kaji’s character arc, first someone who is the perfect prey to various scammers but who is then able to keep to his convictions and win the Contradictions game without killing his opponent.

Souichi and Kaoru are much closer to the Kaji in that 7-Stud Poker gamble (who is totally out of his depth the second things don’t go as he thinks they should, who loses large sums of money without truly registering it’s happening) than to him in his face-off against Floyd Lee. Think of Souichi accepting and then losing the bet with Baku on the Missile Launch for a grandiose sum, or how he hides behind Yakou in the tunnel. Kaoru is a volatile character during his games, incapable of thinking on his feet (he freezes completely when Kaji interrupts him), think of his outbursts against Kaji or Kadokura that he frames as righteous. The two of them are only performing for the sake of rules and order. They aren’t gamblers because they don’t have that thirst for something better, their drives are completely extinct. They have accepted their situation despite the harm it’s causing, all for the “greater good”.

[Vol48 ch523 Duwang translation]

Their common obsession with puzzles (Kaoru’s Labyrinths and Souichi’s Rubik’s Cubes) is part of this drive for rules and keeping order. Chapter 101 gives us this narration: "Upon first glance, the bewilderment and fear of not knowing what lies ahead reminds one of disorder. But, in ancient times, people created and solved these [mazes and puzzles] to acquire the feelings of relief and order." This text is illustrated by a jigsaw puzzle, a sliding block puzzle, Picross, Tetris and, on the next panel, a Labyrinth as Kaoru knows them. This explains the symbolism behind the Labyrinth Gamble for the Police Department (“The Labyrinth [...] doesn't just solve unsolved cases, they are being solved at the hands of the police.") but also for Kaoru himself. This is a way to fulfill his own need for order, and this idea applies to Souichi too. The Rubik’s Cubes give him relief throughout the story with too many appearances to list comprehensively. We see it as a memory exercise (post-memory loss in the Hangman tunnel, chapter 64), as a motif on a childhood T-Shirt (chapter 412), it simply helps him think (he’s seen playing with one at Gakuhito’s, chapter 273), and the imaginary cubes in Drop the Handkerchief. This culminates in the Rubik’s Cube becoming a symbol of Souichi himself as made explicit in chapter 521. By seeing himself reflected in the cube he is made to be the object of his own obsession. Solving the Cube then becomes his urge to “solve himself”. It is dehumanizing and belittling of his own (very real!) mental problems to view himself as a puzzle that exists for the only purpose of being solved- and that CAN be solved at all. What’s the “true ending” of the human mind? This is not something that has any answer or exit. We know that by the end of 2008, Souichi has resetted his memory 138 times. Souichi and Kaoru are trapping themselves in their own Labyrinths here.

[1. vol10 Ch101 Easy Going Scans Translation 2. vol48 ch521 Duwang translation]

In a way, Kaoru IS the Minotaur: a son who was locked away to his Labyrinth where he is fed innocent victims regularly, both victim and executioner, all because of his father’s sins. Along with Souichi, they are two kids who were groomed into taking their father’s place and have shouldered the weight that came with it from a very young age, and this weight has formed cracks in their minds. This is their way of coping with their fate: they stop being fully present in their own lives, they stop wishing for more, and they blame themselves.

II. Worker Ant and Prince Bee

It’s made clear during Kaoru’s breakdown that ultimately, he too, was an ant. In that final moment before losing consciousness he remembers how, as a child, he did not crush the ant that had strayed out of line. He’d tried to guide it back with its peers, but it did not follow and was accidentally killed. I think both Kaoru and Souichi are acting a version of this story on themselves, both as the child and as the ant. They are forcing themselves to stay in line, hurting and killing themselves slowly for “the greater good”.

[both vol10 ch102, easy going scans translation]

Souichi is likened to an insect as well within the story, he’s Hachina (“蜂名”, 蜂 “hachi” meaning bee), the Prince Bee, the Lost Bee, etc. From that shared bug symbolism we have to remember Souichi’s super-organism speech- a kind of organism that necessitates the loss of individuality for the well-being of the hive. Tatsuki brings this concept up to say the Private Funeral Division and the police as a whole are in such an organism, which would include Kaoru too. Even only going by the definition it’s easy to interpret him as in such a place, “just a cog in a machine”, and the same can be said of Souichi. They are both included in the ones losing their individuality to keep the system alive: “Even the Queen will draw her blood or sacrifice her life for the system.”. This self-sacrifice is something Souichi takes pride in: “[He] isn’t even worth an insect”. He rationalizes his own resolve to harm himself (“being prepared to bleed”) as something he is doing right.

[both Vol 24 ch 257 Duwang translation]

This loss of individuality is seen in how Souichi’s identity has been fragmented. He is “Souichi Kiruma” when he is acting as Leader and “Naoki Hachina” for public-facing matters- disregard that the two often overlap as seen in chapter 68. He was taught not to "build too deep a relationship with anyone" (chapter 273), and his memory loss routinely erases the memory of his bonds anyway. He allows his personal history to be rewritten for the sake of Kakerou (accepting that he did not face Baku Madarame but Kaoru Yukiide on April 9th 2001) and lastly he positions himself as non-human in his introductory scene with the Alien Invasion speech. This speech will come back a 2nd time during Air Poker when he gains full control of his memory, it is iconic of Souichi’s character and it is worth looking more deeply into.

[Vol6 Ch55 Duwang translation]

The image evoked here is that of an alien leader, “we” means the alien society as a whole- in this case it’d be Kakerou. Just like in the super-organism speech, he views himself as only one element in something much bigger than himself. This really puts the dehumanization into perspective. He’s a bee, he’s a super-organism, he’s an alien. He’s just barely a name, and not even a face. It takes the manga until the very end of chapter 68- the conclusion of the Hangman gamble- to show us Souichi’s face properly. It is completely obscured during the Alien Invasion scene and the referees do not call him by name. He’s just a faceless leader. He’s so little of a person already, and digging into the alien analogy only furthers this idea.

Alien Invasions as a trope also come with the “take me to your leader” shtick, that IS reflected in the story if we look at who Souichi has directly interacted with in the manga. He’s first introduced outside of flashbacks when he personally comes to the Hangman gamble to see Sadakuni, the leader of a terrorist organization. He gambles with Commissioner Sasaoka during the Tower of Karma arc. He invites Vincent Lalo, leader of Ideal, to meet him. He seeks out and shadows Nobuko during Protoporos, who will be crowned King and is shown as the strongest player on the island. Only then does he seek out a meeting with Baku, after he’s won the Ban and has earned that right. The point is, he only really interacts as a Leader and with other Leaders- it’s from one super-organism to another. He only deals with other people as parts of their own collective, this is the same world view as Kaoru’s with his ants that cannot exist outside of the collective. They both dehumanize others and themselves and this is something they’ve inherited from their fathers (the super-organism speech being started by Tatsuki Kiruma).

The dehumanization inherent to their places is also seen in the shadowy figures that haunt Kaoru and Souichi. Kaoru’s represents the memory of his dad, it tells him what to do and what to think, he looks to it for reassurance. Souichi’s takes the shape of a stretched version of himself that act upon him (as an alien does the human it kidnapped, and like Kaoru does to his ants.) These are two strikingly similar manifestations of the inner workings of their suffering minds. More than that, Souichi and Kaoru’s goal, here, is to fully BECOME that shadowy figure that haunts their psyche. That faceless, nameless existence is representative of what’s already succumbed to the super-organism. It’s something that takes over Kaoru when he gives in to the idea that anything can be justified for the sake of order and it’s the part of Souichi that dictates the memory resets. Their shadow is the part of them that’s “prepared to bleed”. It is the ideal ant. Let it be noted, then, that Kaoru becoming one with his is drawn in the same way as Souichi is when we first see him.

[the shadowy figures. Vol10 Ch98 Easy Going Scans Translation + Vol42 Ch454 Duwang Translation]

[Vol 10 ch98 Easy Going Scans translation + Vol 2 Ch 14 Duwang translation]

This is where the comparison takes its full meaning. It is obvious from Kaoru’s story that he is a victim of his situation; that he was manipulated into taking his father’s place by someone he trusted during his most vulnerable moment. He had just lost all that remained of his family, of course he’ll chase after the only thing he has left of it (his father’s spot in the Labyrinth game). Telling him not to is only making him believe that he had more agency in this decision than he really had. Can we say the same for Souichi?

Compared to Kaoru’s worker ant, Souichi holds much more power and freedom. This is reflected in his family situation being healthier and in him willingly stepping to the Leader role instead of being manipulated into it, as discussed previously. It then begs the question, since Souichi realizes that this is harmful to him, that his very humanity is being taken apart, why doesn’t he leave? Being Leader of Kakerou is not a lifelong duty, his dad retired and became referee almost 10 years before he died. Even without an heir to succeed him, couldn’t Souichi find a way? Is the system really worth all this harm?

III. November 23rd 1998

In 1998 Souichi has a memory loss episode and wonders around, following the instructions Eba gave him to find his way back. During this period he meets Baku Madarame and as per the Prince Bee narration they filled the hole in each others hearts.

[Vol30 Ch323 Duwang Translation]

Baku also gave him a new name- Hal- and generally showed him another way of living. One that is much more chaotic, dangerous, but also much more free. This is his alternative to Kakerou and being assimilated into the super-organism. After some time he gets his hands on the clue that will allow him to meet up with Eba, but before that there is a gamble he decides to take. That is the Russian Roulette Poker game against Fukurou on November 23rd. Souichi- Hal- usurped Baku’s place and decided to take the gamble himself. Despite the common in-story interpretation, this was not a sacrifice he made for Baku (see chapter 455). It is something he did for himself.

The reason he takes that gamble is because he’s a man of rules. He wants to stay by Baku’s side but he can’t just abandon his duty at Kakerou like this, and most importantly, he doesn’t want to make the choice himself. To decide for himself has consequences, it’d mean he, on purpose, betrayed his bloodline. It’d mean he broke the unwritten rule that it is his duty, as a Kiruma, to lead Kakerou. So instead, he turns to leaving his fate to a gamble. If he wins, it would be his sign to forsake his Souichi Kiruma life and stay by Baku’s side, but if he loses Hal would die.

There is a suicidal drive in this. We know Souichi did survive his loss and that the gamble took place in the building owned by Eba; there were preparations in place to facilitate his survival. Despite this, it is my reading that he was truly, fully, prepared to lose his life if he couldn’t keep being Hal- if he had to go back to being Souichi. Regardless of his intent at the time (if he did bet on his survival or not) there is weight to that symbol. Hal- Souichi- put a gun to his head because he yearned for something else, and in chapter 321 as Souichi in 2001 explains that he’ll kill himself if Baku wins Surpassing the Leader, we are then shown a scene from November 23rd of a black-suited man laying on the floor, presumably dead. This was suicide, if not on a literal level, on a symbolic one. It really did “kill Hal”- the only part of him that didn’t belong to Kakerou.

[Vol 30 ch321 Duwang translation. Notice the date on the clock.]

This leaving of things to fate brings us back to the Alien Invasion speech again, but in a flipped perspective of it. Another big part of alien stories is the alien abduction. Its appeal as a trope is the fantasy of being forcefully taken away and changed forever. Now, Souichi would no longer be the alien but the human the aliens act on. It’s an inversion of our original reading of it and it does position Hal in the picture instead. In a way, he has already been “taken away and changed forever” in 1998. His thread to return home was intercepted by Baku (the Prince Bee picture book) and he had to follow him into this new lifestyle. He feels like he “will never be able to become [himself] again” (chapter 321). But the aliens always bring the person back home in the end, and they have to carry on with that memory (and alien abduction stories also come with their share of memory loss, another one of Souichi’s motifs). What I really want to get to here is this duality of the invasion speech. On one hand, Souichi is the Aliens and a part of something greater, and on the other, Hal is the individual being taken away.

[Vol30 Ch321 Duwang translation.]

Souichi will try to escape his fate of being the alien again. During the Lost Bee arc, he has another major memory loss incident and he flees so he can meet with Eba secretly (having forgotten that Eba is now dead). During that escape he meets Baku again and from there the Protoporos arc starts, an arc where Souichi willingly takes on the name of Hal again. He will cling to this identity, seeking out his missing memories (chapter 449 for one exemple), looking for that place outside of Kakerou’s reach once more. Just for a little while, he is indulging in this special permission he is given to be Hal until the Ban ends. Then, the game is over and he has to be Souichi Kiruma again. Hal goes back to the dead, reburied, it’s over, it’s gone.

[vol43 ch469 Duwang translation]

This is also relevant to the end of Air Poker. During the game, he realizes that his systemic erasure of memories under stress will make him lose, that this aim to be perfect has rotted his brain, and that it’s nothing but a pipe dream (chapter 455). He finally accepts the fact that every person is flawed- only to then turn around and decide that therefor he has to try even harder to be perfect. He views his newfound control over his memory, of what he forgets and what he keeps, as proof of his extraordinary being. He thinks that even though no human can, HE can get close to perfection. It’s Icarus building himself a 2nd pair of wax-wings and giving the sun another try. The mythological comparison applies a bit further than that too. Icarus is the son of the architect of the Labyrinth. His father warned him not to fly too low or too high, which is to say not to want too little or too much. Tatsuki taught Souichi that “to be able to enjoy a delicious meal, to feel pain when you see blood, or wanting to avoid being hurt and hurting others" that is the default state of being he should seek. Instead, Souichi embraced his hubris, as discussed this role where he is “prepared to bleed” is something he takes pride in. He is no longer flying to escape the Labyrinth he was put in but to reach the sun itself despite having already fallen into the sea once before. It’s a fool’s errand.

[1. vol42 ch455 Duwang translation and 2.vol46 ch496 Duwang translation]

This contradiction arises from the fact that he did try being human and flawed before! He is not naively refusing to change. He already tried being Hal and he died for it! He died. He has no other option: “A dead person cannot be revived." (chapter 496). There is no alternative for Souichi, yes he is the Prince Bee, yes he is the ruler of the mind-breaking machine, son of the Architect, but he cannot escape his bloodline on his own. No matter his place in the system he cannot win against it. He is powerless to change things for the better as long as he is navigating within its rules.

IV. The Place That You Belong

There is a recurring idea in Usogui (manga) of the place that people belong to. It’s presented as something everyone has, and that as long as they’re there everything will turn out right for them. It’s “the stage that you shine on” (chapter 539), etc. Souichi explains this idea himself in the epilogue. Are you where you’re meant to be? Are you betraying yourself by refusing to stand in the right place?

[vol49 ch539 Duwang translation]

This concept is relevant to every character in Usogui but it’s best illustrated by Baku and Kyara. In Kyara’s fight against Jonglyo it is his bond with Baku that makes him win, the place that he belongs is by Baku’s side (chapter 384). This is why he lost against Marco during the Hangman arc, and never lost again. Baku’s only ever lost the Flying Vehicles bet, which he lost on purpose: he is already at the place that he belongs. This why they are the two characters who “keep on winning” no matter what, because they are following their “correct path”. It is why you want to be where you belong and why you belong there in the first place, because as long as you keep to it you will keep on “winning”.

For Kaoru I think it’s obvious the Labyrinth gamble is NOT where he belongs. As mentioned, he’s gambling while not being a gambler himself and he’s completely out of his depth when things are out of his script. He’s not even fulfilling his wish to “keep order”- he’s never solved a single labyrinth, he’s never saved a single person.

After his failure against Fukurou, Souichi resigns himself to accepting Kakerou as the place he belongs. But is that really true? As discussed, you know you’re on the right path because you keep on winning. In Hangman he had this to say: "A life in which I continue to win forever... I guess that's just my destiny?" (chapter 56) but it’s demonstrably not true! Souichi does lose! He lost his bet for the book in 1998, he lost against Fukurou, he didn’t manage to take over Tipa, and he lost Drop the Handkerchief. If it was his place to be Leader of Kakerou at that time he wouldn't have lost Surpassing the Leader. He isn’t Baku or Kyara. He is not where he belongs.

So if it’s not by Baku’s side and it’s not at the head of Kakerou either, where does Souichi belong, then? There are times that Souichi miraculously “wins”. We see it in Air Poker where he overcomes his memory loss and regains ALL discarded memories, and we see it when he wakes up in the hospital during the epilogue. These miraculous recoveries, I think, are indicative that he was doing something right at those times. The common thread between the two is that Souichi (or Hal) was acting in Baku’s interest without totally disowning his ties with Kakerou. He invites Fukurou to become a referee at the end of Air Poker and he steps up to being Leader again during the epilogue, but in the 1998 flashbacks he was hiding his bloodline and denied knowing what Kakerou was. This blatant lie is the narrative reason that made him lose against Fukurou, and his rejection of ever having been changed by Baku is what made Kakerou wrong for him afterwards. He does not belong anywhere until he stops living these lies. He cannot abandon Kakerou OR Baku, he needs both.

This is the reason Souichi and Kaoru became prey to the Lie-Eater. They were living their respective lies, and so Usogui came and ate them up. “It all began with a small lie” (chapter 535).

[vol6 ch 64 Duwang translation]

Kaoru should’ve died from this defeat after he was made to shoulder Baku’s loss at Surpassing the Leader, but he was saved in extremis by his own mental illness. He fell unconscious and this was judged as “collection on his life” enough for Kadokura so he was spared. He got to wake up in a hospital post-canon, free of this place he did not belong to, and still living. This is also the pattern Souichi follows. It is his mental illness that makes him lose Drop the Handkerchief, his memory loss episode that made him forget about the leap second and that Baku exploited. This defeat at Surpassing the Leader means he is now free of his duty to be Leader, and it allows him to later wake up in the hospital like Kaoru did. He can now be his own person, without any lies, without killing his mind to stay perfect- the very thing he’d tried to do on his own and failed. In a way, wasn’t he saved by his illness, too? And isn’t it their respective flaws that let them become their own person again, that re-humanized them?

In a lesser way this is also reflected in the Referee who presides over the Labyrinth gambles, Yuudai Kadokura. He’s characterized as a man of restraint during the arc. He, too, is obsessed with carrying out his job perfectly and tries his best to contain his emotions. “Please excuse me... Momentarily, I, Kadokura Yuudai, have unintentionally made a face that was a little indiscreet." (chapter 91) and this self-restraint will be lifted after he suffers (and recovers from) brain damage. It’s their mental ill that saved Souichi and Kaoru and that lifted Kadokura’s chains.

Usogui (manga) as a whole has more to say about this idea that it is our flaws that make us human. We see it in the Hangman gamble, when Sadakuni is hanged. He first claims he’s not afraid of death but in his final moments he thrashes and struggles and admits he doesn’t want to die here. Baku comments: “I won't let you die as a monster. You should at least die as a human.” (chapter 66). This explicitly conflates someone’s humanity with this display of desperation. It asks the question, can you accept your own death gracefully and remain human? What is being human but to fight tooth and nails for more out of life? Isn’t being alive inherently grotesque? This is also reflected in the ending of Air Poker in Vincent Lalo’s final, ugly, moment, just to name one other example. We are back to Tatsuki’s definition of what being “normal” is like, and it is this human fear of death and blood that makes the gamble against Commissioner Sasaoka work. Generally, it is the thirst for things that you don’t have and the willingness to fight for them no matter how unsightly you get that makes us truly alive- like a gambler is. This is reflected in the Protoporos arc when Champ chooses to stay on the island because he feels alive for the first time after having gambled with Baku as well as in Kaji’s character arc more broadly.

[Vol7 ch66 Duwang translation + vol38 ch 412 Duwang translation]

For all that Souichi tried to erase his failures and reach perfection he was only making himself less and less human. It’s only when he let his true desires show in Drop the Handkerchief and that he truly fought to “one up” Baku that he started to approach something that rings true. To be human is to be flawed and to accept and remember this, and grow stronger from having tasted defeat. And it is this defeat, that honest and bitter defeat, of Souichi at Drop the Handkerchief that leads to the realization of the Prince Bee story’s happy ending- the Prince Bee Duo rising up.

On a surface level, if Baku had lost again there was no way for him NOT to die this time with how weak we know his body to be (see, the Labyrinth Minotaur game and the Dotty game). But more than that, Souichi had to lose and stop being Leader so he could be himself, so he could stop lying about who he is. He cannot change his bloodline, he cannot stop being a Kiruma, but he cannot stop yearning for something more either. He’s a flawed, weird little guy and he will always be changed from Baku’s presence in his life. This defeat returns his humanity to him and it allows him to reconcile the contradictory positions he was in. He can then embrace that he IS Baku’s ally, and he IS Kakerou, too, and come back as his full self and no longer forced to keep people at arm’s length. That is the true place he belongs, both Leader of Kakerou and Baku’s friend.

[all three are vol49 ch 539, Duwang translation]

Both Souichi and Kaoru had to bear the weight of their fathers’ inheritance so much so that they hurt themselves and lost their very humanity, all to stay somewhere they shouldn’t be. It is their flaws that free them, but it is also the people around them who saved them. It’s Baku speaking up that Kaoru is “pretty much already dead”, it is the summon for Hal to wake up because “if it’s you, it will be alright.”. They woke up knowing people cared for them and sincerely wished for their recoveries. They were accepted fully for who they are, sinful bloodline and flaws and all, and with their curse lifted they can now return that care, too.

→ You are never truly alone, things can always get better, you CAN break free from your family’s Labyrinth. If it is forcing you to harm yourself and is keeping you isolated, then it is not the place that you belong.

[vol 14 ch147 Duwang translation + vol49 ch538 Duwang translation]

V. Conclusion

We see this loose pattern ripple in other characters. Kaji and Marco are grappling with what they’ve inherited from their parents too (namely, abuse) and it is through Baku’s support and help that they could set their minds free from this influence. As symbolic of the turning point where they can truly start to heal is their stay in a hospital (Marco post-Labyrinth gamble, Kaji on bed rest during Protoporos). To truly break free comes with being hurt deeply before becoming anew. It will be different but it will be okay.

The motif of dysfunctional or fragmented families generally runs rampant, most characters with known backstories have some sort of family troubles from our main characters to one-off antagonists (Marco and Kaji as mentioned but also Kyara, Satoru Suteguma, the Yakou twins, Voja, Jonglyo, Mitaka, and so on). Usogui (manga) features a lot of parents who suck absolute ass, yes, but it also more generally touches on the way parents shape their children even in healthier families- think Ranko taking over her dad’s mafia, the sons who’ve never faced consequences because their fathers are powerful, etc.

In light of this, the fact that our protagonist is someone who is seemingly completely devoid of family starts to stand out. We do not get to know anything about Baku’s parents, his childhood, how he was raised, etc, anything from before he was already a well-established gambler within Kakerou. This is very significant in a main protagonist, who we’d usually know a lot more about. It separates him from the weight of inheritance, only he is free of those bonds that tie someone to their family (or lack of it)- for better or for worse.

This feeds into the repeated use in the story of Surpassing the Leader as a way to lose your “bonds”. It’s stated Baku lost that 1st STL bet to get rid of this past that tied him to Hal, when Souichi loses Drop the Handkerchief he escapes his bloodline, and it’s the thing that’s pinned on Yukkii and frees him of his Labyrinth. This is the big “reset” button featured in the story but its point is not to go on with life devoid of relationships and ties to other people. No, Baku does rebuild his bond with Hal, Souichi comes back to Kakerou a healthier man, and the last scene Kaoru sees before falling unconscious is himself as a child holding both his parents’ hands. Loss is always painful but it often cannot be avoided (may it be to break free of an abusive family or a toxic job, or because a loved one dies, etc) and bonds are what shape us. The two ideas coexist. You cannot go on without any attachment to anyone. This is seen in the “planting seeds” imagery of chapter 320, all lives are interwoven and ripple against each other to grow and become something else.

Bonds are also the strength and support you gain from other people, it is how Kyara wins against Jonglyo, and it is Souichi’s parting words in Handkerchief: “It is you who made us stronger.” (chapter 530). Who can ever hope to leave the Labyrinth without Ariadne’s gift of yarn to guide them out? It is the two Bees’ friendship that’s at the core of the picture book, and it is also those relationships between people (good or bad), and love, that’s at the core of Usogui, too. To be loved and to love someone is to be changed.

[Vol 35, ch384, Duwang translation]

[fan-kingdoms]

okay cool i see many of us are talking about the scene where annabeth gets rooted down in the fields of asphodel and we all wanna know what she regrets so much so here’s my two cents on what i thought it meant

the obvious answer is thalia, thinking that she could have saved her (even though she was seven. annabeth has always been an overachiever with impossibly high standards for herself we all know this). but i think it goes deeper than that. i think it’s about her worldview and relationship to the gods. let me explain.

annabeth has worked with the gods’ system for Years. she followed all the rules and fought for kleos and became head counselor at the age of TWELVE. she wants so badly to be recognized and seen by her mom, and i’m so glad she uses her yankees cap as often as she does because it really shows that she treasures this one gift from athena. and then percy shows up.

and he’s impertinent. and angry. and does not give a single shit about what the gods expect or want. openly shit-talks his father. and yet, when he’s in danger poseidon comes for him. meanwhile athena LET ECHIDNA INTO HER TEMPLE AND LEFT ANNABETH TO DIE DUE TO SOMEONE ELSE’S ACTIONS. and suddenly, annabeth feels all her efforts to be the perfect demigod daughter crumbling while percy ‘pay your fucking child support’ jackson gets not only acknowledgement but his father but aid for all three of them. she tells hephaestus as much: percy isn’t like the rest of them, he’s better than that. and she doesn’t want to be like them either. and think about it: that turns her Whole Worldview on its head

she never saw herself as deserving of her mother’s attention, even if she craved it. she believes love is transactional, and now she’s learning it doesn’t have to be. and that’s a Lot to process in such a short amount of time— realizing that all that time, effort, and energy, all those pieces of herself, that she gave to the gods were useless. that so much of her life was wasted on the gods’ fucked up cycle of neglect. it’s HARD to look back and realize “i deserved better,” and regret putting up with it all

it’s even harder to realize someone else deserved better. in the beginning. of the series, annabeth saw thalia’s fate as an honorable, even enviable, one. a hero’s fate. dying in battle, for glory, and having a god intervene in the moment of your death. i think she sees that very differently now. i think she realizes just how cruel zeus and the world were to thalia, and how fucked it was that she idolized thalia’s “hero’s fate”

and guess what! percy’s worldview only really started making an impression on her like . three days ago. she probably feels so much guilt on TOP of all this regret and anger, because it takes a long time to break out of mindsets like hers. she hasn’t deconstructed it all just yet, and in giving up her blind servitude to the gods and her mother, she’s probably struggling with the feeling that she’s not allowed to be angry, that she’s ungrateful, that she’s severely insulting them. i think this absolute tsunami of emotions is more than enough to bog her down in the fields of asphodel and would align with her character development as she starts seeing the gods for what they really are

(but what do i know, maybe this scene is just foreshadowing some crazy tv annabeth tragic backstory that we get to see later)

[alpaca-clouds]

A bit of storytime

Okay, this week I wrote about some pretty heavy stuff in regards of capitalism and all of that. So, let me end the week with something more light and maybe just a bit inspiring.

I want to tell you the story of how my roomie radicalized herself.

Now, my roomie and I are living together for about three years now. And when we met she made a big big point about being centrist. And about making fun of everyone and, quote, "hating all people equally".

You should know, my roomie is female, queer and disabled. Her boyfriend is also disabled (like badly disabled - he is blind and in a wheelchair). But she still was very, very centrist and in the lines of "police is actually good" and "communism is a bad word".

By now she isn't. And the story of how it got there is kinda a funny one.

When we moved in together, I was already starting to identify as anarchist, while she did not want to hear anything about that. In fact she made a rule of not discussing politicis with me. And she stuck by that. While I was radicalizing myself further through seeing how capitalism failed us in the pandemic, she... didn't.

That was until June 2021. When she suddenly came to my room and was like: "So, the police is actually bad, isn't it?" I, dumbstruck, was like: "Uhm, yeah. Obviously. Where does this come from?" And she replied: "Yeah, I just heard what they are doing to the indigenous people in the USA and Canada. And that is bad, right?"

Me, who at that point had been following indigenous rights movements for a good while was like: "Yeah. Sure. Uhm, do you want some reading material on that?" And while she did not want reading stuff, she took the podcasts I offered for it eagerly.

I still got curious, though. Where did this come from? So I did some prodding. Asking her about it. And it turned out... It came from true crime.

June is not only pride month, it is also indigenous peoples month. And one of the true crime channels on Youtube she was following did a whole month worth of videos on MMIW, which also went into how the police are not following up on those cases or are, at times, responsible for what is happening in the first place.

And this was, what convinced her that, indeed, the police might not be a good thing.

Now, outside from giving her those Podcasts recommendations, I did not do a thing. I did not go all anarcho-communist on her or anything. I just... let her roll with it. And rolling she did. In the end she came out on the socialist-communist end of it. Because it turns out that you barely can learn about decolonialisation and indigenous rights, without ending up at this point.

Why am I telling you this?

Mostly, because I found it kinda wholesome. The fact that she did not go and end up left-wing because she realized the harm done to herself by the system - but because she realized the harm done to other people and found it unaccaptable.

It is also showing one thing: Usually the entire pro-capitalist worldview needs just one little crack to crumble.

Personally I found, that for many the crack is climate change. But as you can see... It is not the only possible crack that can happen.

Which is why it actually is important to teach people. And be it online.

We also need action, yes. But also education. Because education is our friend.

[flower-boi16]

King is my favorite character from The Owl House - Here's Why

So The Owl House is a show I quite like. While I don't think it's exactly perfect, it's a great show with good animation, an interesting fantasy world and magic system, great emotional beats, great characters, and great LGBT representation. It's definitely a great show. There's one thing I do like about The Owl House the most though, and that's the characters. Sure, most of them are very rough in season 1 but in seasons 2 and 3 they get quite well-written and compelling. From our main protagonist Luz, to Eda to Amity or Hunter, the show has some solid character writing. But which character is my favorite? Well you've already seen the title of this post so let's talk about this little guy:

In this post, I am going to explain why King is my favorite character in The Owl House, by talking about his arc throughout the series and his development. This post WILL contain spoilers for The Owl House, so you have been warned.

First talk about the smaller reasons I like King before I talk about his development. First, I like how King acts as sort of a little brother to Luz. Their dynamic is a super sweet sibling-like bond. And also, King is just very funny mainly in season 1. His whole gimmick of thinking he's a king of demons somehow never gets old and is very funny. Plus it sets up his development in season 2. Alright...now I'm done.

So...let's talk about the reason why I love King, that being his development throughout the series, more specifically his development in season 2. I don't have much to say about King in season 1 other than he's a funny and cute comic relief character in that season.

Season 2 however is when King became a great character, starting with episode 3: Echoes of the Past. In this episode, Luz, Lilith King and Hooty go to an island that King claims he came from so he could prove that he was the king of demons. While they explore the cave and look at a bunch of murals, King in this episode tells the others a bunch of stories of what he did as the King of demons, saying that he was cursed by someone into his current tiny form. They get chased down by this rock monster thingy and Eda comes to rescue them.

Eda then explains the reason why King always acted like he was some kind of overlord. Eight years ago, while Eda was looking to hide from the EC while it was boiling rain she went to this island when she was looking for shelter. She went into the cave and found King when he was just a little dogo. Also...

Can we appreciate how adorable Baby King is? Like, awww just look at him he's SO cute!!! Okay so erm, anyway, she took King from the cave because that monster in it was going to kill them both, and she took home with her. When they got home, King was building a bunch of stuff out of random objects, and after Eda makes a remark about him being a "king amongst his subjects", it makes King wonder what a king really was, and Eda tells King what a king really means and that's how he got the idea that he was some kind of overlord.

After that, King's entire worldview kinda of crumbles. He begins to realize that all this time his memories of being a king with feasts, subjects, and all that stuff were all just memories of him as a baby pretending to be a King. What I like here is how this episode takes what was once just some running gag throughout the first season and recontextualizes it in the second, adding some context to why King thinks he's some kind of ruler.

For years King thought that this fantasy that he was some kind of king of demons was real, and that he was the king of demons that lost his memory. And now that he knows it's all been a lie, he breaks down. It also shows that King is still a little kid, which is why he believed this fantasy for so long; he's a child who thinks that he was this awesome amazing ruler who was feared and respected by all, only for it to be a lie. Anyways, back to the episode, King runs away to somewhere and Eda Luz and Lilith all go to find him on the island.

Luz finds King sitting on a log and goes to talk to him, and he's still upset. There's one line here that stands out to me;

King: Eda was right wasn't she? I'm not a king, I'm a nobody

Earlier the episode showed that this fantasy that King was the king of demons was very important to him, as shown by how he reacted when Lilith mocked his stories earlier in the episode. This line implies that believing this fantasy that he was some all-powerful king made him feel special in a way, and now that he knows he was never really a king, he thinks he's a nobody.

Alex Hirsch also does a great job voicing King here, you can hear the emotion in his voice during this scene. Luz says that maybe some of King's memories were real, and King goes and tries to remember some of the memories that were real. King reluctantly agrees and they go rejoin the others and they go back to the cave. After avoiding the monster in the cave, Luz shoots some fire at the hole blocked off by the rocks and they go up to the hole.

There they find some rooms that King finds familiar. He gets some of his memories reawakened and it's revealed that the monster thingy was trying to protect King, as it stops when King orders it to. The memory is King hatching as wil ol baby and then crawling to open the door, the rock monster carries them and they fall down the hole as they hear a roar sound. King says that the roar meant "son", which means that it was his dad. King says that he wants to find out who his dad is and they go back to isle leaving the island. Thus, an arc for King is set up about finding out who his father is.

So this episode was great! Like I said earlier, it takes a running gag in season 1 and recontextualizes it in a way that's interesting. It also does a good job of setting up King's arc of self-discovery this season.

The next two episodes I'll talk about are Eda's Requiem and Knock Knockin' on Hooty's Door. In Eda's Requiem King wants to win a race so he can record a message so his father can see it. They didn't win the race because King puked and they got 6th place. They do still record a message and post it online, and his dad does end up seeing it..or at least someone who looks like King's dad sees it. Before we continue...let's talk about this brilliant piece of subversion here.

See this guy? The first time you would see him you would instantly think that he is King's father. I mean, he looks a lot like King with the skull and general body shape, so it's very easy to assume that this is King's father. Buuuuuuut as we know now, he isn't King's father, he's a part of a certain group which I'll mention once I get to episode 17, Edge of the World. Anyway, the next episode I'll talk about is the one right after Eda's Requiem, Knock Knockin' on Hooty's Door.

This episode has Hooty trying to help Luz, King and Eda with some of their problems. Let's talk about the scenes with King, because...well this is a post talking about King lol. So here King really wants to know who his father is and Hooty tries to help King find out by trying to figure out what kind of demon he is.

After some funny scenes with Hooty trying (and failing) to figure out what kind of demon King is, he takes some of King's blood and runs a test. Turns out, Hooty still doesn't know what kind of demon King is and he says that King is "him". King is disappointed by this, and then King gets upset because he still can't know who his father is, as he's never responded to his message or wanted posters, and he thinks that maybe his dad is gone. He then gets upset that his dad was never there for him, that he supposedly disappeared and never talked to his son.

This scene definitely hits pretty hard as it shows King getting more desperate to find his father, and it's also when King ends up unlocking his powers. Basically, King shoots some yellow ring wave things whenever he roars or does the "weh" sound. And at the end of the episode we see this figure again and send a note to King, though Hooty eats it once he sees a bug on it.

This episode did a good job of continuing King's self-discovery arc and introducing his new powers. Now, let's skip to 9 episodes later in episode 17; Edge of the World. The episode's plot revolves around Luz, King and Hooty going to an island which transports them to the other side of the world to meet his dad. They do end up finding the same figure that sent the note to King, whose name is Tarak, though unfortunately, he isn't his dad. However, Tarak is one of the people in a village of Titan Hunters, witches who, as the name suggests, hunt titans. Later in the episode, Luz and Hooty meet the leader of the titan hunters, Bill. When Bill describes what a titan is, they realize that King is a titan, and that he is in big trouble.

They go to tell King that he is in danger, but when Bill finds out that King is a titan he sends a bird phone to tell Tarak about it and King gets taken to a ceremony where Bill almost kills him with a dagger. Luz and Hooty stop them before they could do that though and they run away. King gets enraged by this and says that the titan trappers weren't gonna hurt him. He also says that they "get him", and that they know how it feels to be left behind, and he also says that he knows that Luz is gonna go back to the human realm eventually, and that he is preparing for a life with them. Luz however tells King that he's a titan, and obviously, King is shocked by this revelation. The titan trappers eventually catch up to them but they end up escaping and destroying the way through. And the episode ends.

So this episode did a good job of concluding King's arc of self-discovery and wrapping it up. I like how King knows that Luz is going to leave the demon realm one day and go back to her mom, and that he's going to not be able to see her again, and King does care about Luz like an older sister so this would hit for him, and that the Titan Trappers would be his next family after Luz when she leaves. That gives more depth to King and I like that.

So, King is my favorite character in The Owl House. He's funny, he's cute, and his arc in the second season was great. There are other things I could talk about here, such as episode 19, but this post has gone on for long enough. Anyways, this is why I love King, so...bye.

[squeakintothevoid]

Bohemian Rhapsody hits different after you go through an existential identity crisis.

I wanna explain what I think of when I listen to this song. (TW: religious trauma, cptsd, and an overabundance of gifs)

"If you can see it there, darling, then it's there."

-Freddie Mercury

This song is an epic hero's journey of a song that deserves to be overrated. 11/10. Freddie is an artistic genius.

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a landslide No escape from reality

So when you grow up in a traumatic situation (I was abused and neglected by mormon parents) you live in a detached way and learn to never trust yourself. You inevitably get some doubts in the back of your mind about how great and perfect the situation you're raised in actually is, but you don't dare confront these thoughts because that would risk crumbling your sense of security.

But real life comes through and crumbles your foundation anyway like a landslide. You get doubts upon doubts. Oh crap, reality is scary! Santa isn't real! Mormonism sounds a lot like a cult! And I think everyone can relate to realizing that their parents and adults in general are just grown-up kids.

Open your eyes Look up to the skies and see I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy Because I'm easy come, easy go Little high, little low Any way the wind blows Doesn't really matter to me, to me

So you've realized that your security is not a guarantee in life. Now all you can really do is appeal to whatever holds power over you, be it god, your parents, the skies.

"Don't worry guys, I'm no trouble. I'll be good. My feelings don't matter. I'm good with anything you want."

You end up convinced that the people pleasing mask is who you really are. And in this state of being detached from your actual self, you become less capable of feeling much, high or low.

Mama, just killed a man Put a gun against his head Pulled my trigger, now he's dead Mama, life had just begun But now I've gone and thrown it all away Mama, ooh Didn't mean to make you cry If I'm not back again this time tomorrow Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters

But at some point your soul just can't take it anymore, it's been pushed to it's limit. The mask slips, the shelf breaks, the walls come down. You start to realize that what you think might actually be important. You begin to accept the truth. And when you realize you can no longer be this version of you they want you to be, well, it feels like you've died.

Because your whole identity was built on something that wasn't real. Your world's been turned upside down and now you're terrified of disappointing all those people who you've been so desperately trying to please this whole time. Despite everything, a part of you may even care for them and hope their worldview doesn't get shattered for their own sake. Let them carry on with their ways.

Too late, my time has come Sends shivers down my spine Body's aching all the time Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth Mama, ooh (Any way the wind blows) I don't wanna die I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

Freddie writes like he's walking to his own execution. I felt a similar way when I was taking my last flight out of BYU as a fresh nonbeliever to see my mormon family. My anxiety must've thought I was escaping North Korea or something. Because I really didn't know if I was about to lose everything or not. And that last line was way too relatable, which scared me. I actually avoided this song for years because of it.

I also got physically sick several times that last year at BYU from living the double life. Definitely ached all the time, and still do. The body really does keep the score.

I still remember how I felt when I finally faced the truth by reading the CES letter, subconsciously hoping it would shatter my testimony of the LDS church. It felt like walking straight into hell. Which brings us to...

I see a little silhouetto of a man Scaramouche, Scaramouche, will you do the Fandango? Thunderbolt and lightning very, very frightening me (Galileo) Galileo (Galileo) Galileo Galileo Figaro Magnifico-o-o-o-o

...my SPOOKY MORMON HELL DREAM!

Time to feel guilt like no other! Because part of you still isn't entirely convinced you aren't going to hell! Or at least end up homeless from being kicked out and disowned.

So I see this part of the song as demons taunting you. The demons being your own self-hatred and the subliminal or even direct messaging you got from your authority figures. If I were to transcribe what I hear in these lyrics...

Hey look, a shell of a person!

Keep dancing for me, little bitch! (Scaramouche)

I am so scared of getting punished and hurt!

Ha, loser! You little heretic! (Galileo) You think you're so clever (Figaro) and important (Magnifico)!

So the Galileo, Figaro, Magnifico part is name-calling. Which you fall for because you're sense of self only just sprouted out of the sidewalk that is your mind.

I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me

Still not used to being confident, you attempt to defend yourself, but you're kinda just wallowing in self-pity.

"I swear I don't think I'm better than anyone! I just want to do my own thing! I don't hate the mormon church, I just disagree with it! And you're definitely not the reason I'm in therapy, mom & dad, but I totally understand why you asked! (Aw man, I can't trust my parents at all! I'm hopeless!)"

Wow, real confident.

He's just a poor boy from a poor family Spare him his life from this monstrosity

But the deeper, more real, compassionate, and self-confident part of you knows the truth. It says, okay sure, you are a poor kid. But does any other poor kid deserve to be treated like this? No! Stand up for that kid!

You have to treat this self-assured part of yourself almost as a different sort of being because you don't trust yourself so much. It's not you asserting yourself because that would be selfish of course! So instead, it's god or a little voice or a call that is directing you to be confident. Or it's you being confident but for the sake of a little kid in your exact situation.

Easy come, easy go, will you let me go? Bismillah! No, we will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let him go!) Bismillah! We will not let you go (Let me go!) Will not let you go (Let me go!) Never let you go (Never, never, never, never let me go) Oh oh oh oh No, no, no, no, no, no, no

Because you're not self-assured yet, the self-doubting & self-loathing parts of you war against the self-confident parts that know what's right for you. So you feel like you're doing mental gymnastics. What's wrong and right anymore? Is it really okay to drink coffee? Is it okay to throw out spoiled milk? Do I deserve a raincoat? Might my parents actually be...bad at parenting?

Notice that the high-pitched angel-like voices that were standing up for him transform into his own voice. "Let him go" becomes "let ME go." It's like those parts are integrating into a whole and you're realizing you genuinely think you deserve better.

Oh, mamma mia, mamma mia (Mamma mia, let me go) Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me, for me

You want your parents (mamma mia!) or whoever is holding power over you to just change and accept you so you don't have to stand up to them. But that ain't necessarily happening. You cannot control them. You can't control anything but you. Not having control is scary! You can lose everything!

But with everything lost, you're the only thing left. Just you. But you can still think for yourself, control yourself. For the first time in this search of who you're supposed to be, you realize that you were there all along. And that feels powerful. You might even wanna stand up for yourself.

So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die? Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here

Cue permission to be ANGRY. You aren't being fooled anymore, you see what they've done to you. And now that you actually see yourself as valuable, you're not gonna take that shit anymore. "Yes dad, I am an exmormon. Yes, that does convey a sense of animosity. I did buy new shoes for myself so that I don't hurt my feet. And I like drinking tea and watching R-rated movies." I'm such a rebel.

Ooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah Nothing really matters Anyone can see Nothing really matters Nothing really matters to me Any way the wind blows

Before, nothing mattered to you because you were only shown how to be a doormat. Now, nothing matters to you because you're only doing what you want now, nobody else's opinions really matter. I know what's important now, so life can come at me bro. I'm not what other people think of me, my talents, my failures, my achievements, nada. I'm just me and I'm gonna do whatever and quit worrying about being worthy all the time. You do you. Leave me to me. Any way the wind blows.

Of course, trauma means you fall back into the same patterns a lot and keep having to remember your worth, so life's not all wrapped up with a bow now. But, once you realize your opinions and feelings matter, it's hard to put the toothpaste back in the tube. There is nothing that can convince me to run back to the Mormons. But I do keep finding time and time again more ways in which I still don't fully trust myself. It's hard feeling like I'm going in circles finding shortcomings I didn't even know were there, but I feel like I'm spiraling up now.

So that's my exmormon/cptsd-fueled interpretation of Bohemian Rhapsody. It really is such a great song with so many interpretations. Some songs you remember the first time hearing it and even fewer songs get even better as you go back to it, you know? Anyway, thanks for reading and tolerating the gifs!

[summer-r-storm]

Hi! Saw your post about writing homophobia and thought that I maybe could share my experience:

I'm rewriting a fanfic I wrote 10 years ago, where one of the personal conflicts includes a homophobic character. It may be peculiar for him to be homophobic, being surrounded by a lot of queer people, but I think a lot of people are able to jump through a lot of hoops to make the world black and white to them, because it's easier. He doesn't know most of his subordinates are queer - he knows his boss and his co-worker are, but classifies them as 'good gays.' That's pretty much it - Anyone he doesn't like for whatever reason he can stamp as a freak. Easy world.

And especially with the character he has the most beef with, the homophobia is very much part of his toxic masculinity. It's not about hating gay people first and foremost - It's viewing his gay rival and enemy as a threat to his own masculinity. Being good at violence, being a 'man' who has power through butch behaviour and performing cishterosexuality, the idea that someone who's not playing the same game, who's exhibiting traits he was always told were 'weak', makes him SEE red. Being beaten by another man is bad enough, but also kind of honorable. Being beaten by someone he perceives as less than him, as not a man, makes his whole worldview crumble.

So I think homophobia can be better achieved when you think WHAT so unsettles the person about alternate existences. How do they view the world? What fears to they project onto others?

(I'm also writing a mafia story however, so I've been getting more and more comfortable with most of my characters being able to justify awful things in this cycle of violence, so.)

Wow, thank you for sharing your thoughts! I am still struggling with this character in particular but I will definitly thinking about what you wrote. <3

[skitskatdacat63]

misc lore drop day 33/?

Going to be doing something a little different for the next couple posts!! I reblogged this ask game because when I saw it, I could only think of answers from Boy King AU. So I thought it’d be fun to be prompted and force myself to think inside the confines of these questions. Please send more if you are interested!! Tysm Csilla for the first three!!! I’ll answer one per day, because I like sticking to this self imposed schedule :D No one was specified so I’ll answer this for both Seb and Fernando!

What is a trait your OC hides about themself from others? Do they refuse to acknowledge it or begrudgingly accept it?

Fernando

I’ve talked about this before, but he definitely hides his passion. It’s like pulling teeth, in the beginning, to get him to admit he genuinely likes or enjoys anything. Especially any of his fondness for Seb, he will absolutely never admit it. He’s actually a pretty fun-loving guy, but he believes he needs to be stoic to survive and succeed in the world. He must only focus on doing his duty, plotting and scheming, to move up in the world. He used to be very carefree and whimsical, but that got him nowhere, and he believes if he stayed that way, he’d still be a prince. When in reality, his passion dissipated when he got closer to being a king. Not because that’s what kings should be like, but because the proceedings around it were practically designed to undermine him. But, he still got what he wanted. So he believes that is how he got where he is, instead of it in reality being a symptom of where he is, if that makes sense? 

He definitely evolves throughout his life to become more like his younger self. Those around him, especially Seb of course, chip away at that impassive facade over time. But in the beginning, he;s definitely the type to deny it to his grave. “A king has no time for silly games such as these, I must focus on my duty” etc etc. He can’t accept it because he feels like everything will crumble away from him if he does. Becoming dispassionate is just a sign of growing older, okay? He says. It’s more of a part of himself that he’s intentionally hiding/shoving away, than one he needs to accept. Though maybe he needs to accept it’s not normal nor healthy to hide your true self and desires behind 10 masks of indifference and seriousness. 

Seb is a bit harder because I think he’s a much more straightforward, carefree guy than Fernando is. I’ve talked about this as well, but it’s definitely insecurity. He, as someone who has been king and a destined emperor since as long as he can remember, does not have experience not getting what he wants. He expects everything to come his way, and everyone to bow to him and prioritize him overall. Yes, that’s kind of selfish BUT, can you really blame someone who’s been raised with the idea that he is the most important being? That’s not what he’s insecure over, but rather suddenly dealing with the idea that he can’t instantly get everything his way, i.e. his relationship with Fernando. It’s very tough for him to suddenly face that, someone that outwardly doesn’t like him nor thinks he’s the greatest to ever exist. It fuels him to try to win Fernando over, but it also causes his worldview to start collapsing. Thus: insecurity. Insecurity over: is anyone actually telling me the truth, does anyone even like me, etc???? Also specifically in regards to his and Fernando’s marriage. At the beginning, he’s like well of course Fernando would love this and love me, because I am me, how could he not!? But later on when he starts to get insecure, it makes him question everything. Wait so he doesn’t actually like me, he wasn't in awe of getting to marry me?

It’s definitely something he really struggles to come to terms with. He’s not supposed to be feeling these emotions. He shouldn’t be having to question his whole life up until this point. It’s something that he keeps to himself, because it would probably ruin him if anyone else knew. He’s supposed to be the epitome of self confidence, of ardent self belief. So why is he suddenly getting all squirmy over everything?