to the next stage of our adventure!
digimon survive week 2024
day 7: post-game / future
personal thoughts under the cut - less about the artwork and more about shuuji and lopmon themselves. a long rambling containing major spoilers and heavy topics. will cause whiplash. proceed with caution.
other than the fact this may be boring and long-winded, cw and tw:
there will be mentions of self-harm and suicide.
if these topics make you uncomfortable, please step back.
if you're sure, then alright.
i'm aware this is a weird place to ramble about shuuji and lopmon considering the notorious highlight of their story would match the themes of day 5 (villains) and day 6 (dark & loss) better. unfortunately (ironically?) i never planned to feature them for those days, so...
pretty sure i'm not the only one feeling this, but when i discovered that a good part of the fandom seems to loathe shuuji with utmost passion, even after they claimed to have completed the game, i was confused.
the way his death happened and (understanding) the cause made me uncomfortable for a while, but never drove me to the point of hate... once i recovered from the initial shock, what i felt towards him was more pity, then respect (on truthful route).
i feel shuuji should have been one of the most appreciated characters in survive. yet it was the opposite that happened.
(between you and me though, knowing there was this discourse with the fact digimon survive is a visual novel, i'm not that surprised it turned out this way...)
from my point of view, lopmon evolving into wendimon then killing shuuji symbolizes suicide, the act of taking one's own life. it was the climax of shuuji's mental breakdown, leading him to basically self-destruct, causing damage to everyone around him and ultimately himself.
lopmon evolved, just like he hoped. but failed to do it like other kemonogami partners (maintaining control of themselves and fending off enemies). the next and final outcome was death, through his own partner actually eating him alive too.
it reminds me how when someone thought they have prepared well for something important yet it failed spectacularly, the devastation and frustration would eat them in the same way from inside. and they probably would for one second think, "i'm better off dead".
the more i pondered about it, the more it hit home, so of course, the last thing i could do is hate him, when his struggles sound similar to my own - having to rely on consistent achievements to prove your value, to feel you are worth living and not a waste of resources.
the part where shuuji went all abusive on lopmon felt like the equivalent of pushing yourself to the extreme to reach your goal, to the point of neglecting your own needs. it's like a student so absorbed in their study, sacrificing food and sleep, until their body eventually snaps and shuts down for good (...this in fact happened to one of the students at my previous workplace. she was in her last year of high school. life was just about to truly start for her when her classmate informed us of her sudden death).
even in truthful route where shuuji and lopmon survive that point, things aren't immediately nice and easy for him. you can see that he still has self-doubts, and what i think is impostor's syndrome. he could be making a great contribution to the team and still put himself down for having done "nothing".
i have found it interesting that artists and writers tend to be especially fond of shuuji. so perhaps it's not just the matter of one's upbringing - whether you were raised in a harsh, competitive environment and/or with family with (unreasonably) high standards so you can relate more easily to him - but also whether one can see just what every struggle shuuji and lopmon went through symbolizes shuuji's mental state.
out of all survive characters, i think shuuji and lopmon pulled off this thing called "surviving" the hardest, no joke. which is why i almost always gravitate to drawing them happy because that's what they deserve :')
after all this, what i also would like to say is, it's okay if a character makes you uncomfortable. it's okay if you hate a character. but never, ever bring down the character to people who like them or even consider them their favorite or comfort character. if you must, do it in your own space and only with like-minded people.
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number 50 for the rogue one crew!! knowing full well that i have a prompt of yours regarding that very crew wallowing away in my inbox .... humblest apologies
50. the hands of fate (from this list)
a quick sequel to this.
cross-posted to ao3 here
happy more joy day 2024 🩵🤍💙
Baze spent a good twenty years of his life listening to Chirrut tell him that they couldn't leave Jedha, whenever the subject arose. Baze's arguments—that their fellow Guardians were gone, that their religion had been all but wiped out, that their holy city was overrun by the Empire, and that there was nothing left for them there—had never made much of an impression. Chirrut remained adamant that they needed to stay and when Baze asked him why, he only said the reason would become apparent in time. Baze, at least, had a lifetime of experience listening to Chirrut's vague proclamations to prevent him from getting too annoyed with this non-explanation. Being more in-tune with the machinations of the Force than Baze is, and being deeply beloved by him regardless, Chirrut can get away with such things.
He'd almost shouted at him on the ship as they narrowly escaped the destruction on Jedha. Had that been why they needed to remain? So they could watch their home, already stripped of its autonomy and its peace for so long, finally be annihilated before their very eyes? His eyes. Chirrut does not—cannot—watch. He hadn't been sure who, of the two of them, was the luckier in that moment. But they hadn't been alone then. They were surrounded by strangers and, while he wasn't above giving Chirrut a piece of his mind with an audience present, he hesitated to give these people on whom their lives now depended the impression they'd picked up two raving mad men in the desert. After that, everything else had happened too quickly for Baze to have the luxury of deep contemplation and the matter had been pushed aside in favor of following the captain, of helping Jyn, of keeping an eye on their pilot. Arguing with Chirrut would have to wait.
Baze is ashamed to say he doesn't put it together on Scarif, not even when they'd all nearly died. He doesn't put it together when they're back with the Rebellion, keeping vigil in the medbay as, one by one, their crew—Rogue One, Bodhi had called it—healed up and moved on. He doesn't put it together even as he watches with mild amusement as Jyn and Cassian grow closer and closer like two trees twisting around each other in the wild, becoming inseparable as he and Chirrut did long ago. He doesn't put it together when what he once thought of as a natural tremor disappears entirely from Bodhi's voice, replaced with a tone of gentle command, or when the frost melts entirely from Jyn's demeanor when she interacts with her partner's droid and he is so entirely shocked when that same droid delicately—delicately!—inquires about Jyn's bloodwork halfway through her pregnancy and listens sympathetically as she rants about the medical droids the Rebellion employs that he can be forgiven for not noticing it then either.
No, he only puts it together when he's sitting with Kitri in his lap and she wraps her whole fist around his pointer finger and refuses to let go. It's a random, seemingly insignificant moment for his heart to stop and the whole of his life to suddenly come into sharp and coherent focus, but he assumes no one really gets to choose these things or their timing for themselves.
Next to him, Chirrut makes an inquisitive noise, which probably means Baze stopped right in the middle of speaking.
"This is why we couldn't leave Jedha," Baze says, impressed that he's managing any words at all right now amidst what could most reasonably be called a life-changing revelation. "This is what we were waiting for, all that time. Them."
"Of course," Chirrut says, wiggling his fingers within capturing distance for the baby, much to her amusement, not seeming to understand or appreciate that Baze is going through something at the moment. "You mean to tell me you didn't know that?"
"You're telling me you did?"
"Not beforehand. I'm not psychic," Chirrut says, as if such a thing is entirely ludicrous to believe. As if that's not how it sometimes feels to Baze when Chirrut describes the way the Force moves around them all. "But the moment I spoke to Jyn, I knew. That's why we followed her and the captain! What did you think I was up to, if you didn't know until now?"
"I thought it was one of your strange whims, Chirrut."
"It's been years, you daft old man," Chirrut laughs.
"Yes, well..."
Chirrut shakes his head, amused. "You really will follow me anywhere, won't you?"
"Yes," Baze says, only vaguely embarrassed by the admission. "Don't act surprised."
Kit makes a noise of objection from her spot in his lap, the smallest foreshadow of an all-out cry, probably because she hasn’t successfully captured Chirrut’s hand with her own yet in this simple but frustrating game he’s initiated. Across the room, Baze sees Cassian, who has dark circles under his eyes again after many years of looking healthier and better rested (though these ones have appeared under happier circumstances), start to rise from his seat, ever watchful over his daughter’s moods and needs. Before he can get far, Baze sees Jyn put a hand gently on his forearm to arrest him and an entirely silent conversation happens between them in the brief eye contact that follows. He feels like he can read all of the beats of an argument and a counter argument and a surrender in the smallest lifting of eyebrows and lowering of lashes.
“We have help,” Jyn says, softly but firmly, as if they’ve spoken all of their concerns out loud so far.
“I know,” Cassian replies, and settles back in next to her. He briefly closes his eyes and rests his head on the back of his seat. Jyn doesn’t take her hand off his arm until he moves it to rest around her shoulders a moment later. Looking over to Baze, Cassian adds, “If you need me to take her, though—”
In the very same moment that Jyn reaches out to swat him for that, Kit screeches with laughter, having finally captured her other uncle’s hand and covered it in an unfathomable amount of drool in an incredibly short amount of time, and diverting Baze’s attention from her parents at last. Next to him, Chirrut smiles with a dangerous amount of pride.
“The Force moves delightedly around this one,” he says, surrendering to this injustice with good sportsmanship as always. “She would have made an excellent Guardian.”
Before the pain of that pronouncement can hit him, Baze hears Jyn speak up. “Good thing we picked up a couple of them in our travels back in the day,” she says, turning to Cassian. “Smart of us, wasn’t it?”
Cassian nods, not so successfully hiding a smile. “Wouldn’t want her squandering any of her potential,” he says. “You’ll have to keep an eye on this connection to the Force, Chirrut. Let us know if she needs any training…”
Chirrut lifts his head at that, looking like a hunting animal picking up a scent. The idea of it hadn’t occurred to him either, then, which makes Baze feel less stupid for not thinking of it himself. He’d grown so accustomed to think of the Guardians as gone and dead, like Jedha was, or at the very least nearly extinct. Kitri’s far too young to have the survival of an entire religion on her shoulders, but he and Chirrut can tell her the names of their teachers and elders and friends and their stories will survive for another generation. There are other children of the Rebellion, too. Their way of life need not die with them. It’s a heady, baffling new feeling, this untempered hope. They’ve been rationing it out carefully among them for years and to have his fill of it all at once is slightly overwhelming.
Chirrut’s expression would be closed off to anyone who hasn’t known him for fifty years, but Baze sees through its defenses quite easily. He sees the surprise and the awe and the barely guarded delight all there plainly. Chirrut turns his attention down to Kit, still chewing on his hand happily, and runs a palm over the sparse but silken hair on her head lovingly, and something heavy and ancient slots into place in Baze’s soul, the final piece of a long forgotten puzzle settling in where it belongs.
“Good to see there are some things in the galaxy that can still surprise you, old man,” Baze says, not sounding nearly as irreverent as he wishes to.
Kit laughs in the same moment Chirrut does, like she’s in on the joke somehow, like she’s been waiting for it. And who knows? Maybe she is. Maybe she has.
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