#//You could Tell a tournament was coming up solely by gauging how much better of a mood Dan’s been in

[dutybcrne]

Halfdan absolutely loved each and every chance he got to participate in any tournaments in Khaenri’ah. Win or lose, he was sure to be all smiles throughout the whole event.

Except when he is in Full Focus Mode.

#hc; halfdan #//You could Tell a tournament was coming up solely by gauging how much better of a mood Dan’s been in #//He’s usually all smiles and happy; but upcoming tournaments have him like a kid awaiting Christmas #//All jittery with excitement and everything; he’s almost like a puppy #//Never once frowns; just kinda purses his lips in focus or a pout of anything #//Esp if a certain someone happened to see him lose a bout #//But even that didn’t last very long bc he’d get alll hyped up watching his mates and THEIR fights #//He just rlly likes showing off his strength and skill #//Not in a cocky way; more like ‘Look! look! What I Can Do!!! :D’ kinda way nfbfbb

[crystalkleure]

Do you think that Shu still would've become Red Eye even if he had someone to go to America with him? And how would you make it so that Ashtem/Ashram were a better antagonist? I would've made it so that he blackmailed Shu into joining the Snake Pit by threatening to harm Valt.

Yeah, I think that if Shuu’s friends [well, at least one friend, but preferably multiple/all of them] had been around to help him hold it together, then the entire Red Eye mess probably would not have happened. Ashram wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of Shuu’s unstable emotional state if Shuu’s friends had been there to stabilize him.

However, [at the risk of going off-topic a bit] the snag is that Shuu is aware of the fact that his friends have a tendency to stop him from making bad decisions, and Shuu wants to deal with all of his problems himself [completely disregarding the fact that he’s so BAD at that], so he actively isolates himself from his friends when he feels a Bad Decision coming on. “Let me make my own choices in peace dammit, I know what I’m doing,” etc. He wouldn’t WANT them to follow him to America, they’d have to be super tenacious about not letting him pull a disappearing act, but the problem there is that people might not feel the need to BE that tenacious because sometimes Shuu can fool them into thinking he has his shit together when he really, really does not. And not all of Shuu’s friends can see through that. Shuu’s just way too good at pretending to be okay until he breaks down completely :/ And Valt is, ironically, possibly the worst at noticing when something is really wrong with Shuu – Dyna and Wakiya are actually the best at it, I think. Before I get TOO off-topic here because I just fucking love Shuu dynamics so much, the point I’m slowly trying to make is basically that helping Shuu should ideally be a team effort, ahaha.

And as far as Ashram goes…I call Ashram stupid a lot, but he’s not actually COMPLETELY stupid; there are some things he actually accomplished extraordinarily efficiently. Ashram did a pretty damn good job at getting Shuu WHERE he wanted him [into the Snake Pit, and then into the Big Green Brainwashing Tube], just not…HOW he wanted him, if that makes sense? Where he fucked up was with the actual brainwashing method. He did it in a way that caused Shuu to not OBEY him. Like…he really hammered in the whole “You are weak. The way to fix that is to just fucking d e s t r o y everything that is in your way. Victory is merciless. True strength is victory at all costs. A conscience will impede this and make you weak” etc, buuut he didn’t specify that HE would be the one to direct Shuu to his targets. Ashram totally neglected to mention that Shuu should LISTEN to him because he would tell him what, specifically, needed to be destroyed to get to “the top”. So, Shuu got the whole “Kill, crush, destroy to be strong” thing down, but the conclusion he drew from that lack of clarity was just “Kill, crush, destroy absolutely anything that impedes me in any way at all. Smash every minor inconvenience. Indiscriminate domination.”

So Ashram DID actually have a decently solid plan there, but the execution of that plan was botched and so it didn’t quite give him the result he wanted. The end result he GOT was a mindless loose cannon that was ruthlessly dangerous to anything and anyONE who got in its way. The fuckup was that Ashram didn’t give his little soldier a clear enough objective, and also instilled no loyalty in him. Ashram didn’t make enough of an effort to present himself as a leader. Shuu saw no reason to listen to him. And all Ashram needed to do to fix that would’ve been to incorporate a “Oh yeah, I know how to get you where you want to be, so you need to listen to me bc I’ll help you achieve your goal” bit into the brainwashing session. That’s probably ALL it would’ve taken to make Ashram’s plan not blow up in his face. He didn’t even realize Shuu wasn’t fucking listening to him until it was too late, though [overconfidence strikes again].

…Though, we don’t actually know what Ashram’s main “plan” even was, for that matter. I mean, he obviously wanted to turn Shuu into a weapon, but a weapon to use against what? Red Eye surely didn’t exist for the sole purpose of winning that tournament, Ashram’s tournament felt more like he was just taking his supersoldier on a test drive. Gauging his destructive capabilities. We don’t know what Ashram’s ultimate endgame GOAL was. Because whatever his plan was, it fell apart while it was still in the “weapons test” stage :/ And, I mean, I’m ASSUMING he wanted to actually, idk, conquer something, and he didn’t just want power for the sake of power. I could be overestimating him ._.

TL;DR, Ashram is actually quite good at taking advantage of people who are already emotionally compromised, like Shuu and Joshua. He can be very successfully manipulative, but he KNOWS this and it seems he becomes so smug and self-assured about it that he doesn’t realize when his tricks AREN’T working. So, Ashram IS clever, but he’s not nearly as clever as he thinks he is. To make him a better antagonist, I think I’d want to pop that overinflated ego of his. It’s what’s clouding up his judgement.

And for the Valt thing, I don’t think blackmailing Shuu’s friends to get Shuu into the Snake Pit would’ve even been necessary, because Shuu was already just so willing to go along with Ashram anyway. And post-brainwashing, Ashram threatening Valt to get Red Eye to listen to him definitely wouldn’t have worked because Red Eye didn’t care at all about the wellbeing of his friends, as illustrated by the terrible Puppet Murder scene ;-;

#Dear god it has taken so long for me to finally answer this I am so sorry D: I have no time management skills to speak of tbh #CK replies #CK dissects #Long post #I have a terrible persistent headache so this was probably much longer and...rambly-er than it needed to be x_x #I get so carried away whenever I think about Shuu #Also...backtracking to when I said Valt sucks at noticing when Shuu is having problems; #I think that's probably something Shuu REALLY LIKES about Valt. Valt is too oblivious to nag him. #Shuu likes to hide his issues and it's EASY to hide them from Valt #Hm.