Uh? It’s CANON Gojo and geto saw each other as BROTHERS.
alright I’m gonna answer this now lmao — I think with fiction everyone is entitled to their own take on things but with gojo and geto I believe the two to be soulmates — whether it’s platonic or romantic —
I personally see it as romantic, but if you don’t that’s completely fine and I’m not here to force my opinion onto you — it was in the tags — you don’t like, don’t read it! That simple.
I mean I could explain to you why I see it as romantic —
gojo calls geto his “one and only,”
the button left behind when geto defects is his second button that gojo ends up with — the button often given in Japanese culture to romantic partners / interests,
gojo literally says, when he sees kenjaku in geto’s body, “I know in my soul you’re not suguru geto” even in the English dub they localized is as “in my heart and soul,”
to add to that, kenjaku’s whole plan hinged on gojo freaking out upon seeing geto’s body — gojo is someone who is always very calm — he only gets emotional when it comes to geto. literally itadori dies and megumi got taken over Sukuna and he stays completely calm (for the most part), nothing in comparison in his reactions to geto’s defection or kenjaku
geto’s body literally fights back against kenjaku when trying to hurt gojo — and kenjaku has been alive since the heian era at least, and he says he’s never seen that happen before — what that says about their connection is pretty clear cut in my opinion.
the whole theme of jjk 0 is that love is the most twisted curse of all — where did gojo learn that from? Obviously there’s more than one type of love — but this movie was focused on romantic love in particular (between yuta and rika) but also was reflecting on geto and gojo’s relationship
gojo’s last words to geto are allegedly three words according to the VAs and what else could they be? Other than the theme of the entire movie — “I love you???” and then Geto literally blushes in the manga and says, “at least you could have cursed me in the end” — which gojo kinda did.
there’s a whole bunch of other things I could analyze and I’m not here to debate with you or anyone else! it’s fiction — it’s up to us to interpret things that are vague. And you are entitled to your opinion — but what I don’t like is you telling me that my opinion is wrong when it’s not!
It’s vague in the manga for a reason. never did they call each other brothers, nor did they call each other lovers — all they said is that they were best friends. And a lot of people are best friends with their brothers but also a lot of lovers are best friends so
you are allowed to have your opinion friend, just don’t tell me mine is wrong — if you don’t like the ship, read the tag and don’t read the fic!
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For the Royal AU Twinyard backstory... Maybe Andrew, as a second son, was sent away for study? He could have become an apprentice to a knight or a scholar when he was young, maybe even with the Spears, and that's where Bad Shit Happened. And then he could have returned when he became of age, or when their last parent dies and Aaron needs a familiar (ha!) face around
*excited* okay okay this has been brought up a few times now and every time I read it the idea grows on me more, you’re all so smart for it
(I was gonna put the art at the end but this got a lot longer and sadder than I anticipated so. Sometimes Andrew likes to do stuff like this when they’re stuck talking to important boring dignitaries)
(It’s the main reason Aaron develops an incredible poker face)
tws this time are all canon compliant
Honestly yeah! I do think this is great because I want the twins’ father to be around after birth and for a while, because the whole point of Andrew being sent elsewhere is probably so they can give that extra attention to Aaron and raise him as the heir to the throne. So it’s a perfect balance, in my mind, of a family that cares enough to get Andrew an education/proper upbringing and a father that doesn’t care enough to spend time on a second son.
In my head the Spears would be almost always overbearing, partly because Andrew is the prince and they Do Not want to disappoint the royal family and partly because Andrew is the prince and they immediately assume this little five year old they get on their doorstep is going to be a spoiled brat. Even though he isn’t. And, as you may guess, the only thing they turn a blind eye to is Drake. Drake, their own son, probably the real spoiled brat that gets his way in all things, even with the young prince. Faces no consequences, even when Andrew tries to tell someone. It’s probably his governess or nanny at first (either way, it’s not really important what the role is, just that she’s there). And this woman has been Andrew’s biggest advocate since he arrived, she genuinely cares about and is worried for the little prince with his bruises and fear. She cares enough to bring this up to Duke Spear - maybe he really is dumb enough to just be unaware, she hopes - and confront him about Andrew’s treatment. But of course the duke doesn’t do anything to discipline his son. Instead, the governess is fired and a new woman takes her place, a woman that isn’t as outspoken and won’t ever question the authority of the Spear family. Andrew learns soon enough that trying to tell someone or speak out only makes things worse for himself. Sometimes he still wonders where that first governess is, if she’s doing well.
Meanwhile at the castle, Aaron is going through his own rigorous training. A lot of the same stuff as Andrew is learning, honestly, with a few added duties and lessons and a lot more official meetings he attends with King Minyard. It’s a pretty average upbringing for an heir, I think.
Then maybe when Aaron is around the age of ten or so, King Minyard passes. This wouldn’t normally be a political issue, since it’s expected of the Queen to take over and divide the king’s half of the duties as she sees fit until either she remarries or has an heir become old enough to take the throne, at which time she may pass it to the child or continue to reign until she either passes or is deemed unfit. And, politically, this is exactly what happens. What most don’t see is how grief stricken she becomes and then remains. She can’t pull herself from her grieving, and instead of passing duties to more fitting people, Queen Tilda simply lets young Prince Aaron take on as many duties as he can without breaking down. (Though he has, before. Likely a few times. A kid being pushed past his limit again and again.) Aaron grows up so much faster than he ever should have. He’s thirteen now and sometimes he shakes with stress.
Then the queen finally gives into her grief and passes as well. If it weren’t for Katelyn, Abigail, and Betsy, Aaron might have been next to lose his mind, leaving the throne empty. As things are, Aaron swallows everything down just long enough have word sent to the Spear family. He wants his brother back. A familiar face and his quiet, desperate hope: someone to just help.
And return him they do. Andrew’s been perfectly competent with all his studies, they say, they’d even managed to break that stubborn streak. (They didn’t like he wouldn’t speak or shake hands when instructed. They didn’t like being told no.) And yes, it’s a familiar face. Aaron sees the carriage door open, sees his twin for the first time in eight years, but he isn’t sure he recognizes Andrew. Andrew isn’t supposed to have bags under his eyes like this. Andrew didn’t hold his jaw so tightly. And Andrew certainly didn’t answer questions like some kind of unthinking, unfeeling shell.
The first thing Andrew says to Aaron getting off that carriage is “No.” It’s quiet, but he does say it. Aaron is confused - he’d thought they’d still be allowed to hug each other, or shake hands at least - but he does step back and instead ask if Andrew wants to see his room. He can see Andrew relax.
It might hurt Aaron a little when he watches the Spear boy get a hug with no protest, or how Andrew quietly addresses the duke with more than a one word sentence. But he’s not going to ask about it for a while. He’s the stranger to Andrew here, after all.
(I think Andrew does let him ask. The most he tells Aaron about it - maybe as much as a year later - is that the younger Spear had been much worse at listening than Aaron ever is. It is much better here. At least you and Nicky understand the meaning of ‘no’. Leave it at that. And after that Aaron is even more supportive of Andrew’s wide bubble than he was before. He enforces it himself when he has to. And growing up together for longer, with no looming secrets or much reason for animosity between them - it isn’t Aaron’s fault King Minyard decided to hand Andrew off and the twins are both mature enough even at that age to know it - means the twins are much closer than in canon. I don’t think it would be a typically ‘fond’ relationship, because they’ve both still been through it. But they support each other in all things, no questions asked, and always get through problems together.
It doesn’t take much longer than that first year for Aaron to earn the right to touch Andrew, even if he does need to give or show warning before he does. Andrew never says it, but he’s grateful that Aaron is generous with his shoulder pats. It feels a little like the validation he never got anywhere else. And Aaron never says it, but he’s grateful that Andrew is always at his side to tell people ‘no’ when Aaron is technically not allowed to.)
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I just unlocked Eight’s palette yesterday and the additional challenge placed on this run specifically is really interesting from a story perspective with what was set up earlier in the DLC. So I ended up typing up this little essay on the intersection of gameplay and themes in Side Order. Slight spoilers under the cut!
Eight so far hasn’t gotten much attention at all in Side Order. Which makes sense for a silent protagonist, but I couldn’t help but see the narrative parallels with the gameplay associated with Eight’s run. Side Order is about confronting the fear of change and the fantasy of living in a bland, but safely controlled world of order. Marina gets a lot of guilt from the Memverse getting all messed up with her constant apologies, but maybe her desires and the ones of engineers aren’t the only key players in the development of Order and its takeover.
It’s revealed in the Dev Diaries that Eight was always intended to be the first subject in the Memverse project. Which inherently makes her special since the tower’s creation at some point took her specifically in consideration. But then when everything goes wrong, Eight is trapped there. Even when you beat the DLC and can leave the Memverse, it’s always your player character that transitions between spaces, not Eight. And sure, (a piece of) her soul is trapped in the program, but so are Deep Cut’s, and all of them are able to give the pre- and post-run news report about the situation in Inkopolis. So why is Eight unable to leave the space?
What I was surprised to find was that Eight’s palette wasn’t actually inside locker 36 like the game implied, but it was revealed that her palette was the lockers themselves. Like, all 36 of them. And even Marina calls out that it's “kinda weird.” Afterwards, the extra challenge of the final run reveals itself, a run with minimal hacks. The more hacks you have enabled, the less chip slots you are afforded. In order to have access to all thirty-six chip slots in Eight’s palette, you need to have zero hacks enabled, which resets you back to where you were in the beginning of the DLC after the tutorial run.
The thing that got me thinking about how interesting this was from a narrative perspective is that this challenge is really hard. It’s very difficult, in fact, at time of writing I have not beaten it and I’ve played for multi-hour sessions. But this difficulty switch actually reflects the themes of the DLC, and possibly how Eight feels and what she’s experiencing.
At the beginning of the game, the tower is chaotic and scary. You don’t know about the floors or their properties and the chips you can get are random. You don’t know what awaits you on that next floor and that could make you entirely start again from the beginning. And that’s exactly the fear that Octolings have about going to the surface. They are completely starting over at a game that they don’t know the rules of, or if there are any rules at all.
But then there’s the introduction of the hacks. The hacks are a valuable and life changing modification to the challenges and randomness ahead. You want more lives? Sure! Take less damage? Go for it! More upgrades for the drone? The more the merrier! Are the prices at the vending machine more expensive? Here, have a discount! Oh, you don’t like challenges or the chips available for this floor? Just hand over some coins and we’ll spin the roulette again! You can even reveal the bosses ahead of time and reroll what you get if you don’t want a certain one. Runs get easier, and more forgiving. And as you get further, the tower gets safer, more secure. More controllable. If you know what you’re doing, you can even manipulate the entire program to get solely what you want.
Except your memories.
As a player, you have to fully clear the tower eleven times before even unlocking Eight’s palette. Which matters because once you’ve cleared it eleven times with different loadouts, you become pretty familiar with the mechanics and might even have reliable plans for specific floors. And that’s without the hacks. The tower becomes routine at that point, and with all the hacks, it’s likely you plan trips to specific vending machines on certain floors. I remember having specific membux amounts I wanted to reach and trying to save up to spend on floor fifteen. You watch your in-game timer on levels start to decrease and feel a bit of pride when the happy clear music plays and you see the little “updated!” next to your time. You know your way around the tower now.
And Eight gets that experience too. Eight also experiences the repetition of each successful and unsuccessful run. The tower becomes familiar to her too, and maybe, comfortable. Eight gets to climb the tower, again and again, with her friends in an environment that she understands and can reasonably control. Pearl even has a line sometimes when you start a floor that echoes this sentiment, “let's hurry this up so we can go hang out with Marina and Acht some more!” And isn’t that the perfect fantasy for a freed Octoling? An environment of freedom, with a little spontaneity for spice? To be able to hang out with people you like, and aid each other in battle where the greatest punishment is that you get to enjoy this all again? Nobody controls you or tells you what to do. You call the shots. You pick the floors. You snap your fingers and decide how hard you want this to be.
And that’s exactly what Order stands for, an unchanging, safe world. Born from the wishes of the Memverse’s engineers, ironically standing in the way of the point of the program. At least, that’s what Smollusk said. But this is a world that Marina designed, with Eight as an intended subject. Not the only, but an intended subject. The person who was supposed to be saved first, ended up to be the last you find to save. Interesting. But maybe Order came to life specifically from Eight’s desire.
Eight is special. When you reach the top of the tower and face Smollusk with Eight’s palette, it recognizes it. “At wast[last]!,” it says, “you finawwy bwought me THAT Palette!” And it even calls Eight out by name. Smollusk doesn’t have dialogue calling out or even recognizing specific palettes you’re using, but it recognizes Eight’s. And the thing separating the palettes from the player is the lockers, a piece of Eight’s soul itself, may represent Eight’s desire to stay. The reason to keep playing is because everyone’s palettes are locked in a piece of Eight’s soul, tucked away. Because if the lockers weren’t there, then it would be significantly easier to reconfigure everyone’s palette. And easier means faster.
All of this would make the necessity of minimal hacks symbolic. Eight’s palette is resistant to Marina’s hacking, which serves two purposes for the narrative. One, it makes the game harder, which makes it harder to walk away from. If it takes one hundred attempts to clear that tower with minimal hacks, then that’s one hundred more repetitions experienced before it all has to eventually end. It’s another form of the lockers, extending the time of the evitable.
Its second symbolic purpose is that Eight has to let go of her grasp of control and embrace chaos to reach the top and reconfigure her palette. And it’s hard. Both mechanically like previously mentioned, but it also makes you feel Eight’s frustration with embracing chaos. Disabling my extra shields and damaged swim speed and extra lives, going back to the hardest, least controlled phase of the game feels bad. Embracing that chaos is difficult. Just like how it would be for Eight.
But it is possible, it’s just a slow climb up. Floor by floor. Facing nearly impossible challenge after nearly impossible challenge. And while you have the option to skip, it’ll cost you. But prices are much higher, the hits you can take are much more expensive, and you move much slower. But you still have your friends. Even if they can’t help you hack your way to the top, or drop five consecutive bombs, they’re still there for you. Keeping the elevator warm, and helping you resist gravity. Maybe they can’t exactly be much of help going up, but Eight’s friends can help her from falling back down. A team of four. How fitting.
Now, I haven’t cleared Eight’s palette yet, I’ve already mentioned this. And the 2/3 secret Dev Diaries I got doesn’t spark confidence about learning more about Eight, unfortunately. And I’ve accidentally been slightly spoiled that she doesn’t get her memories back which is disappointing. I wish there was more specific emphasis placed on the characters in the DLC, to be honest. But as I was playing I noticed this little ludonarrative happening with Eight’s run that I thought was super interesting and probably the closest I’m going to get for Eight development for the DLC. I haven’t played the first or second game(I didn’t have the hardware at the time), I just watched them and I heard that the memcakes in Octo Expansion actually reveal Eight’s personality so I’m going to have to read those, because I haven’t. But I like Eight, and I liked this neat little unspoken story going on in Side Order, like the agent herself.
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