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arashi-no-saxlphone · 16 days

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whats your opinion on asuka r kreutz

Buddy. Oh man. Either you know me and went on anon to enable me (in which case, thank you) or you're newer here and haven't seen me cry about Guilty Gear's saddest wettest cat yet.

I fucking adore Asuka R Kreutz. I think he's one of the most tragic and complex characters in Guilty Gear. I was gonna put "Well-written" too buuuut... it's hard to track down clear answers for some of the stuff that covers his time with Freddy and Aria as scientists and so I generally extrapolate what feasibly happened to the best of my ability based on what we have. (I am by no means a full-on expert, but I know enough to tell you this man does not deserve all the flack he gets).

In general, I find Asuka to be an immensely tragic and complicated man who at his core, just didn't want things to change and didn't want to lose his only and most dear friends in the whole world. Every single thing he has ever done was fueled by one of two things - his curiosity (which you can consider a flaw, as it often by his own account causes him to neglect right and wrong) or his deep love for Frederick and Aria (I find this to be his driving force for most of his actions in the story of Guilty Gear, right up until shit becomes so absolutely fucked that he has to spend most of his time trying to fix everything that goes wrong and banking on Sol to come through for him as a warrior). Asuka is the embodiment of the phrase "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" and that's probably why in lore he's labelled as "The Devil" in addition to "The Gearmaker."

When Aria gets sick, he suggests putting her in cryosleep until they can cure her disease. She refuses because she doesn't want to miss out on her time with Frederick. "Ok," he says, "well I can do something about that so please agree." And she agrees. And Asuka makes Sol a Gear and fucking immortal without telling him. Then all that crazy bullshit that kickstarts the crusades happens and Sol has to kill Aria because Asuka made her into Justice. This part is fucked up. It's a major fuckup on Asuka's part. In a drama CD, it's highlighted how important Aria's humanity and personhood is to her, and Asuka takes that away when he turns her into Justice. "What's the justification then?"

When Asuka found out that the government was going use their research to create gears as weapons and use them for war, he did EVERYTHING he could to try and stop that. Asuka isn't stupid - he's smart. He's a scientific genius. He could've easily taken the sleeping Frederick and Aria and fucked off, but he wanted to right a wrong. And it just... didn't work. He turned Aria into Justice, and though I think he probably intended to turn her back (after all, we see him demonstrate the ability to undo what he did to Sol at the end of strive) he never got the chance. Because the Universal Will overloads her and Justice just starts the Crusades.

In Overture's story, Asuka makes it clear to Sol that he needs him to be a warrior in order to be prepared for more horrors to come. Asuka realizes after the crusades that he can't fix it alone - everything he's done to solve a problem has so far ended up with him making things worse. Sol hates him. He knows Sol hates him. You know what's fucked up though?

He wants Sol to hate him. He feels like he deserves it.

I feel the need to point out that the crusades last over a century - Sol is immortal because of the gear cells and flame of corruption, but Asuka was just a normal guy - why/how is he here? Asuka created a synthetic body for himself that would not age, and transferred his consciousness into it so that he would not change. So that no matter what, Sol would recognize him. Knowing Sol wouldn't forgive him, knowing that he would always be able to find him, he didn't care - he never ever wanted to lose Sol.

Asuka clearly cares about people. He realizes the consequences of his actions, and he's clearly capable of feeling guilt over them. Look at what he does while working with I-No and Raven: He builds the Jack-O unit in the hopes that he can bring Aria back. He builds the Happy Chaos unit in the hope that he can help I-No regain her full self without going insane. He's Raven's only friend, a man who has been cast aside countless times and used for his powers. Those aren't the actions of a selfish or wholly callous man. If he was callous, he wouldn't try so hard to make SURE he could never escape Sol's anger by making himself permanently recognizable.

"Well maybe he just selfishly didn't want to let go of Sol." This is a legitimately fair point. However, let's recall what happens in the strive story: Asuka offers Frederick a choice between letting him remove the gear cells and flame of corruption from him, or letting Sol kill him.

I need you to look me in the eyes when I tell you I can't handle this part. I can't. Well over a century of fuckups and shit going wrong while Asuka desperately tries to make a million things right that weren't even entirely his fault to begin with - he didn't want to make Gears as weapons, hell he didn't even want to be a scientist! He laments about not having any control over his life and certain decisions. In all of that though, he fucking loves his friends Frederick and Aria. Now one of them's dead because of him, and the other one hates him, and after over 100 years of planning and thinking and work-

Asuka R Kruetz has no idea how to look Frederick Bulsara in the eye and tell him he's sorry. He only knows how to fix it, and also how to offer Sol a chance to feel better about it - I think he truly believes that after everything, if Sol killing him will make Sol feel better, that that's what he should let happen. I'm so fucking ill. Asuka thinks the fucking WORLD of Frederick - listen to this bit of his Strive theme, "The Gravity:"

"As the universe turned black / did the sun ever defy fate? / beyond it all do you recognize me?"

In case you aren't familiar with how Sol Badguy got his name, the government gave him the codename "Badguy" while he was running around wrecking gear compounds. "Sol" is a name given to him by Slayer, because he "shone brightly like the sun."

Now look at that snippet from Asuka's theme again - that line about the sun defying fate? That's about Sol. That's about how much he loves and values Sol, someones he repsect and looks up to, and the only person he had left to count on to fix the world that he feels like he fucked up.

As we know, Sol chooses to let Asuka just un-gear him, but after that Asuka just... leaves. He goes to the moon with the tome of origin to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. Do you know how fucking badly it fucks me up, that after everything, Asuka just ends up alone? He spent over a century trying to fix the world, nothing he did worked, and when it finally did everything was different. Everything. Aria is gone, Frederick is happier but not in his life anymore, and Asuka is alone. Everything he ever did started with his love for Frederick and Aria, and at the end of it all he's alone. And he feels guilty.

His Strive arcade Story rips me to fucking pieces - Asuka clones himself and when he does, the clone Asuka R # mentions specifically that Asuka made him "Chattier." He mentions that Asuka "Doesn't like himself." I read that as Asuka making an idealized version of himself - a self that wouldn't fuck up, a self that wouldn't be hated, but also

A self that would carry on his work.

This is where it gets heavy, but I personally believe Asuka intended to kill himself initially. He has no idea how to say sorry to Frederick, no idea how to atone, and no idea how to exist in a world that so far, he feels he has only ever fucked up in. Another snippet from his theme: "does existence have meaning? / the reality or the truth, the reality of the truth / what fact should we accept? / The reality or the truth? reality" He's trying to figure out if he can still live, if even if he wants to live, does he even deserve to? Have the right to? How can he atone?

The clone states, though it dances around it, that it's worried for Asuka - worried that he's hoping he'll lose the fight, hoping he'll die. But two of the possible outcomes (as strive arcade mode dialogue tends vary based on performance) are listed below:

In both of these conversations, the clone cites a desire to exist - which to the clone, since it is also Asuka in way, means that the original Asuka wants to exist too - and therefore that he can, and is trying to figure out how to.

I think Asuka, like a lot of Gear characters, is about trying to find a place in the world - even if the whole world feels like it's not built for you. All Asuka has ever done is tried - and failed. But he's still here. He DID manage to unfuck everything, and he did it because he DID still have Sol. Another bit of insight his clone dumps on him:

that bit there: "I know you can't affirm yourself. But at least tell me you’ll keep walking. Even if you lose your way. As long as one person out there cares about you… It’s worth it just to try to keep them happy." This is a common theme in Gear: relationships, both romantic and platonic, saving people; connections to others giving people a reason to go on or to see a new perspective that makes life worth living. Jack-O found Sol, who treated her like her own person and made her realize she was more than just a replacement for Aria. Dizzy found Ky and vice versa, changing Ky's perspective on Gears and having Dizzy realize she could be happy even in a world that treated her like a monster. Here on the moon, creating Asuka R# to talk to, Asuka is trying his very best to see and understand the world through Frederick's eyes - a world that Frederick saw as worth fighting for:

Asuka is a character who hasn't found his way yet, but all that matters is that he keeps looking.

Uh so to answer your question, I love Asuka R Kreutz - maybe you can tell by the fact that I dumped an absolute trainwreck mess on you after one small ask. Sorry! I apologize about this being a little all over the place and not having as much cohesion as I would've liked but this character is very dense and complicated and I did this kinda quickly so I had to sort through a bunch of weird feelings as I typed - I hope you found at least some of it interesting.

Thank you for the ask!

Ah, and a big fat huuuuuuuuge thank you to the stellar and amazing new Gear wiki, which is where I pulled those screenshots of his arcade mode script from! It's really a wonder how fast the wiki was put together and just what a fantastic resource it is for stuff like this; it saved me having to watch a video or, god forbid, try and do Asuka's arcade mode myself. Below is a link to the wiki page I pulled Asuka's stuff from - please check it out cause I didn't even come close to covering the full depth of what's talked about in his Arcade mode story and also because the wiki is glorious and deserves love:

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princekirijo · 7 months

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EEEEEE YOU GOT IT SO RIGHT WITH ASUKA GRAHHHH

she'd be so anxious around riku at first like him popping up would be a wholeass jumpscare for her 😭😭😭😭the poor baby...like she knows he means well but people are Very Scary to be around

but but but!!!! she is also a girlie very desperate for friendship!!! so i think she'd warm up to 'em <3 ALSO THE THING ABOUT HER READING PEOPLE GRAHHHHH she probably would pick up on riku's insecurity😔and that certainly would help ease her anxiety (and ofc sympathize!!!)

the really funny thing is that she's only close to good at reading people because of lucky guesses😭😭all her knowledge on how people work was attained from the fiction she reads so all she really does is see these patterns or similarities to what she's read about and mentally notes them--writing this out has gotten me to realize that technically asuka's mentally kinassigning everyone she knows nyx help us all

Ah I'm glad to hear dude :'] I did my best to capture everyone's guys correctly so I'm glad I got Asuka right 😼

And yeah LMAO Riku does mean well but he has the swag, energy and flirtatious attitude of a DMC Protagonist 💀 (Although I will clarify that Riku would never flirt with someone if it made them uncomfortable). He is just full of energy though so yeah Asuka is def looking at him like 0-0

But I do think they'd be good friends too!! Riku would learn to like reign himself in around Asuka because he'd feel bad if he made her too nervous. And yeah they'd probably bond over their insecurities as well and they both had a shit time with their respective palace rulers. Also I remembered in the fic too Asuka was like willing to take on Akechi and I wonder if that means she would be able to banter with Riku once she's more comfortable around him (if that makes sense?)

ASUKA KIN ASSIGNING PEOPLE IS SO FUNNY THOUGH 😭 I love the idea of her like assigning everyone a "character" in her head that's really funny of her tbh

#asks #misty-wisp #oc tag #im really glad u enjoyed my rambles about the potential riku asuka dynamic dude :]#its a fun friendship ive had in the back of my head lol #i'll be able to flesh out more once ive gotten riku down if that makes sense #to me he's a mixture of a dm€ protagonist s!mba from lk and my own personality lol #<- really sorry about the censoring i just dont want this in the tags #i actually think it would be really funny if asuka kin assigning riku went like:#riku and asuka are watching lk and at the end of it asuka just goes ohhhh you're basically s!mba but way more depressed and self conscious #<- sorry this is a lil silly 💀 would be interested in seeing who she'd kin assign him as fr #one of these days i will layout riku's personality its just he's such a complex guy in my head its hard for me to put it into words #<- that may just be my dumbass though #i swear proper references are coming... one day

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