#may need to edit this later | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr’s website traffic is steadily declining.

#may need to edit this later

adoroborosgoth · 4 months

Text

Crowley dying in s3

I wasn't sure how to start this meta. I've had this theory with possible (big possible) evidence sitting around for ages and I just didn't know what to do with the information.

After I'd already had this information, I only seen a hand full of others talk about it, but none have touched on it in the same way as the things I've found in my research.

So let's get on with it. For reference I'm going to tag @nightingalecottage and their lovely post here. I really recommend reading it. This theory only saw the light of day because of their post and I told them I would tag them with my meta since it lends a lot to it. And I promised myself that I would finish this for them.

Now for the meat and potatoes. I'll break it all down about how I found this information and how it might lend some theory about possible plot to s3.

This got really long so I put a cut.

-Silly narrator voice-

The facts were these.

To start I was doing research for a fic I'm working on and the details don't matter much but I'd planned to make my 'human' crowley a barrister. I was googling famous barristers for inspiration.

This lead me to wikipedia naturally as you do. And as I was looking over the list I saw this.

After seeing this name on the list of barristers in popular culture I had a mini freakout. Mainly because two things NG is a huge fan of Charles Dickens and A Tale of Two Cities is on the bookclub reading list. And I kept thinking why did this seem familiar and this is why.

A Tale of Two Cities is on the list of books that they recommend we read or were found in s2. So after I stopped freaking out I immediately went to the wiki page for this character. I wasn't too familiar with this book so I wanted to know more. As I was now super invested and intrigued. And found this.

Sydney Carton

I couldn't help be blown away by the similarities here between Sydney Carton and a certain depressed snake demon from s2. Morosely asking Shax on a bench in the first episode "What's the point of it all?"

For some context, in the novel Sydney Carton and his later best friend Charles Darnay share a striking semblance and are easily mistaken for each other. This is how Sydney is then able to make the switch with Darnay in the end saving his life.

This brings to mind of the lore that we know that Crowley and Aziraphale were once long ago one character and split into two. Also with the ideal casting choice that Terry Pratchett wanted one actor to play both roles. That would have been really interesting and funny. Also this plays into our favorite duo MS and DT having not worked together before because they were up for the same roles.

Let's move on to

Charles Darnay

Darnay resents his uncle's views much how Aziraphale resents certain aspects of heaven, but is never able to act on very much.

The note about Darnay being tutor of French made me chuckle considering what we know about Aziraphale being terrible at French. With that whole scene centered around it in s2.

Ok so we all are well versed and familiar with the famous Bastille scene. We all know the one and its clear the inspiration here for it comes from A Tale of Two Cities possibly.

Side note Darnay and Carton are both in love with Lucie here, but I posit that in the case of Good omens, Aziraphale is possibly both Darnay and Lucie. Making him the best friend and love intrest.

Lucie Manette

And finally why does any of this matter and what does this have to do with Crowley maybe dying in s3 you ask?

The one important detail in all of this is that at the end of the novel Carton heroically sacrificed himself to save his best friend and for the women he loves. He feels it gave him purpose and felt as if his life finally had meaning.

Two things here. The scene in which Carton swaps places with Darnay being able to pass as him well enough to save his life. Is very reminiscent of our Body Swap from s1. As well as the idea that in s3 this could also happen, but in the sense that Crowley does it to save Aziraphale's life. I clearly have no idea how s3 will play out.

Now I'm not saying that s3 will be as dramatic as all of this. It is still a comedy at its core. As others have touched on in meta and in nightingalecottage's post there are many little hints that point to the similarities and the idea that Crowley maybe doomed by the narrative. In a way, I personally don't think that Crowley's hypothetical death will be permanent. I just do not see that happening at all. A temporary death I could definitely see and it could also serve to show how much Crowley truly means to Aziraphale. The shock of it would maybe be similar to how Crowley thought he lost Aziraphale in s1 and could be a parallel.

In the end this is all speculation and theory. Either way the idea of it all makes me vibrate and I needed to finally share this with someone else. They wouldn't have recommended this book if there wasn't some sort of meaning here right? And its entirely possible I'm looking in the wrong direction.

Overall there are many parallels and similarities here between A Tale of Two Cities and certain parts of Good Omens, I'm sure I may have missed some and I just wanted to end this now before it gets too long. If you made it this far and have any other theories or something you want to add on to this please feel free to tag me. I release this into the void.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #good omens 3 #good omens theory #a tale of two cities #charles dickens #crowley #aziraphale #ineffable husbands #doomed by the narrative #this got away from me #ive been sitting on this for months #its time #im ready to finally talk about it #may need to edit this later

70 notes · View notes

summerlycoris · 2 months

Text

The Mimic has been defeated- not just once, but twice. And now, Gregory can have his normal life back.

Except. Not quite. Because, after spending a few years missing, and/or under an assumed identity, he now has to grapple with the fact he kinda lost a few years of his life.

Luckily, he has friends who want to help him feel better. Even if they don't know how to do that.

AKA the three amigos go to a halloween event.

What do you guys mean, it's march?

@ggyweek2024 thank you for running this event! It's been super fun!

#ggy fanweek 2024 #fnaf fanfic #gregory fnaf #tony becker #ellis fnaf #fnaf #oh. my. god. i am LATE! its like 230am here. on the 9th of march #slack! slack! slack! bad summerly!#in my defence- scope creep. scope creep indeed @.@#im tired im sorry i MAY EDIT this later to have fic under a cut but not right now #i need to be up at 540am kill me kill me #summerly writes

40 notes · View notes

all-mighty-axle-arc · 26 days

Text

hey i'm back! accidentally found my lost phone while making my way to the store :D

weirdly enough, my phone feels tacky, but i don't see any substantial damage on it yet, so i think we're good!!

#i'm thinking an animal took it further than it needed to go but #i doubt my phone looks that tasty #anyways i hope i didn't miss anything real important!#i'll take some time to check out posts #//queued post made really late at night may edit later #//sorry #parody acc #phighting #sword phighting

22 notes · View notes

lxmelle · 9 days

Text

The subconscious, the soul, and the body...

It’s an understatement to say that the links and concepts between these are complicated / complex within the jjk world.

I’m just going to write about what I understand so far, and if anyone else has theories or a deeper understanding of it, please drop me a comment or reblog with your own thoughts. I’m open to discourse!

The rest is just largely focused on Gojo and Geto - exploring how their subconscious, soul and body may have been affected by their relationship.

What was meant to be short has gone into theorising territory as I attempt to make sense of things. I am Satosugu / SuguSato indulgent.

(Ps: I don’t discriminate over who tops/bottoms or if they even do it at all. Soulmates don’t necessarily need to copulate as far as I'm concerned).

Be warned and afraid.

It’s a real whopper of an essay by the way. If that’s not your thing, please just skim or pass - or stay for the parts you want to read and do it in multiple sittings if it gets too much.

Can you imagine what it’s like living in my brain? Ha! It’s too much for me too, hence, the info dump.

Sharing here, as I think some people enjoy reading about them too.

NOT spoiler-free. More under the cut (o^^o)

In my brainrot, the cogs start turning and sometimes 2 becomes what looks like 4 and I just have to get it out - you know the drill. Word vomit. If you’ve clicked, welcome and I hope you enjoy your stay with my obsessive brainrot, tangents, love for Gojo and Geto.

A bit on the Soul, the Body, Sub/Consciousness, and Cursed Techniques - skip this part if it’s boring:

So, based on what we have been told, Mahito believes he can see the soul, and that the body & soul are separate. For humans, souls can linger after death but upon rebirth, curses and humans alike will not know one another nor will they retain memories.

“Lingering after death” might be relevant to “north and south” too, but we don’t know with certainty what the afterlife in jjk looks like. North seems to mean rebirth - to become “someone new” - that is assuming Mei Mei is right.

Being sealed in an object (like Sukuna) is different to being in another body (Kenjaku and Tengen), and being in a binding vow/curse also changes depending on the nature of the contract, and being reborn is largely different to the rest because it seems to denote that the soul resets its memories at the very least.

Worth noting that I’m not clear on whether the spirit is different to the soul as well. They could be synonymous to some degree, but I think a spirit has the essence of a soul (indicating consciousness), and I define something with a soul to be at least a creature (with a physical body) or entity (metaphorical form).

In Toji’s resurrection case, his body is so strong from Heavenly Restriction, that it overpowers the soul of the host - Toji thus kills granny. His soul information wasn’t brought back, but some information must’ve been carved into it for it to retain… something. This something included parts where his body recognised Megumi as someone significant enough and attacked itself. (One has to ask if this is a parallel with Geto in no less than fewer than 10 chapters earlier, where his hand moved - more on this later.) Based on this, the body is separate to the soul but information can be written into it. And like the soul, a body can also be brought back through cursed technique.

OR, another interpretation is like as Kenjaku hypothesised - the body and soul are one. And if granny’s cursed technique is just summoning information, and when the soul and body are very linked like in Toji’s case, they both manifest - as in the body is so strong it pulls his soul along with it. I’m speculating. It could equally be soul information carved into the body (I’m leaning more to this interpretation).

Where curse techniques are concerned… For Yaga, he can extract the soul from the body - insinuating they are also not one and the same. And it’s not just information because the soul exists within what becomes a special grade cursed object. Multiple souls in panda’s case.

And cursed techniques themselves seem to be bound to the body for some - as in Geto’s case where Kenjaku can utilise his as well as his own techniques (along with those of his previous vessels)... however, with Sukuna and his vessels? Soul. Yuta with his copy technique - these are existing without the body or soul as this is his curse technique I guess. Reincarnated sorcerers bring their skills along with their souls too. And domains are supposedly tied to the soul. Geto was not shown to have one (but jjk 0 was created at a time where domains never existed) and if he did, Kenjaku did not have access to to it, unless the theory that the Womb Profusion is real.

Yuji could meet with Megumi's soul buried deep in his own body shared with Sukuna, that was now sunken in due to the bath of evil and killing of his sister. He also has the ability to shake a person's soul through his punches. So the soul seems to be something that can reside within a vessel and be touched through powers / ability.

Gojo was shown to be able to “see” something akin to Megumi’s soul, but this wasn’t depicted for when he saw pseudoGeto, despite the light novel saying he was constantly “staring at the shape of his soul” as he flew off on his pelican spirit. His physicality (six eyes) all but confirmed it was Geto. It was his soul that said otherwise - and it was enough to refute his six eyes. And Kenjaku believes the body & soul are one and the same, thus, confirming Gojo’s six eyes.

Or maybe Gojo can’t quite see souls? We haven’t been explicitly told. Did he see souls everywhere in that case? A part of me suspects Gege retconned this “seeing of the soul” for his fight with Sukuna, but I might be wrong. We saw the same blurry image as a representation of the soul with his six eyes, but this theory doesn’t hold up when we consider how he met with Geto at the airport.

The afterlife scene in ch236 shows their souls / consciousness somewhere at an airport (it is not known if they are merely greeting Gojo or have been there awaiting his arrival). This shows us also that they are separate. The soul has gone somewhere: Cursed realm or an Afterlife are the possibilities presented to us... because they haven’t reincarnated. Going nowhere doesn’t seem likely in the jjk world as they talk incessantly about souls and how they can be resurrected in one form or another.

For the sorcerer Geto fought with his Shiba doggy in HI - it was a fantasy of sorts - and is similar to the space between “curse and reality” that Kenjaku talked about with Sasaki. So it could be a cursed realm. And then Gojo smirking when Sukuna was giving his after-battle “send off”… did that indicate the body and soul could be one & the same? Is the afterlife a fantasy? It was a death dream? (Ah, idk how I feel about this, but again, the jjk world believes in souls).

It is so confusing. I know Gege likes the whole “there is no ultimate truth” but making this topic “up to individual interpretation” is really mind-boggling.

But Mahito and Kenjaku end up agreeing that they must be different based on technique. Maybe this is Gege’s retcon lol. Like how he created limitless and then got some people with the knowledge of physics to explain it retroactively?

I guess the manga readers needed a bit more real-world explanation once it got traction, which is understandable. But equally, some things may just need to exist as they are in fiction and unexplainable based on earthly morals or boundaries by the laws of physics and biology as we understand it.

It is possible that it’s just all dependent on curse technique, which makes Yuta’s copy possible without the body, the creation of Sukuna fingers allowing the transcendence of skills and soul without the body, Kenjaku to access soul-information (like memories) without the brain (as well as utilise the cursed technique), and for exceptions to occur, like Megumi and Yuji both accommodating the soul of another entity in their body. How some entities (sorcerer and cursed spirit alike) can touch souls - or even for cursed spirits to take on more human-like existences - implying they, too, can evolve and become a soul. Like humans evolving to become sorcerers (if they can).

And with a technique like cursed spirit manipulation, once a human’s soul is unable to exist in its physical body, the person will die unless they are like tengen with a curse technique that allows its soul to be removed - as as its form weakens… what happens to the soul if a creature / entity / being becomes more spirit than a human, where someone like Geto / pseudoGeto / Kenjaku can absorb it? I suspect they are exorcised, and they live as Pokémon-like shikigami spirits that have no soul?

We know those like Naoya can become cursed spirits, and Rika’s soul can ascend into somewhere leaving a shikigami spirit behind, so this tells us there are various levels of existence and consciousness - like a hierarchy of sorts with the soul being the most pure / transcendent. It makes sense based on my Buddhist understanding too, but who knows what exists in the jjk world. I’m just trying to make sense of it all...

And of course as I write this, ch.257 just dropped and Kenjaku bloody managed to create Yuji in a completely different era after somehow accurately discovering the reincarnated soul of Sukuna’s twin that was absorbed by him in the womb?!? 🤯 Gets pregnant as Kaori and manages to birth Yuji who could have been by luck or by design, inherited his father’s old soul’s Cursed Technique? So since Cursed Technique can manifest despite completely different DNA, it’s possible for one to assume that the Cursed Technique may be bound to the soul rather than the body… or at least for Kenjaku’s technique, he can create it within the body. or the soul?

What. The. Actual. Heck. And what happened to papa Yuji?

My brain starts to go bananas.

So souls can be split into twins if the egg splits into two (Maki & Mai and Sukuna & his twin (reincarnated into papa Yuji), and can reincarnate. But are considered one. But one can reincarnate separately. 🤯

And on reincarnation: Was the previous six eyes & limitless user Gojo before reincarnation, and does that mean that there won’t be another six eyes + limitless user since Gojo chose to go South? Especially since only one can exist in the world at any given time. Did Mai's spirit join up with Maki, or did she reincarnate?

It would make sense if the series is leading us to a conclusion whereby there is a new world where sorcerers don't exist anymore and all these OP beings like Sukuna, Kenjaku, and skills like the six eyes and limitless, cursed spirit manipulation, cursed speech, or copy aren't being reincarnated in the jjk world as it is now - by choice of the users. If Gojo and others all decide to stay in wherever they wish in the afterlife (pockets of reality wherever they may be), then the human world and the sorcerer world and the cursed spirit world will all exist separately.

But I honestly don't know if that's a good ending. It wouldn't make for very good storytelling? And all it would take was for a soul to get bored and wish to be reincarnated. So too many loopholes.

I mean, I could go deeper into speculating, but I really just wanna focus on the impact on Gojo and Geto for now...

More within the Satosugu / Sugusato context. Read here for it, or skip if it’s boring:

It seems romantic for those who have enjoyed the meme... “would we know each other in another life?”

Especially if these two were made to be counterparts. Anyway, moving on to what we see in the jjk world.

Those who like this pairing probably know these scenes:

Take it how you will. It’s rather evocative and indicative of a strong bond. If you’ve read some of my other analyses, you’ll know I feel that in the jjk world: To love is to recognise / know the other, even if they presented themselves differently. To love is to long for them, and to yield - something - whether it is a power or a sacrifice, for another.

Love shapes and forms a reason. Meaning. Purpose. It does something to the subconscious. It affects and alters a person and their soul. And even without the subconscious or the soul, one’s body can react.

Some of this will be my personal interpretation but it remains canon that Gojo’s soul recognised it wasn’t Geto with Kenjaku inhabiting him. Gojo didn’t want to kill Geto but he did in the end partly because Geto wanted him to. Maybe a part of him always wanted Gojo to, which is why it/he was a curse only Gojo could bear - the responsibility to kill him was always Gojo’s.

Gojo always had Geto in the palm of his hand. Neither acted to tip the strange unspoken balance they had where no lines were crossed until Geto declared war. Geto didn’t want to pull Gojo into his broken-down world in an attempt to attack the roots of the problems in the curse-filled world. Gojo attempted to reform the jujutsu world for a long time whilst holding it up within the institution as he knew it, hoping to make room for Geto should he wish to be saved. Yeah we know he really didn’t want saving in that way... he was too busy trying to save the ones he deemed worthy by eradicating the sinners, evolve those with potential and annihilate the weak. If he was weak he deserved to be killed.

Both longed for the other but could never quite be honest with one another. I headcanon that the words, “if I could be you” were thought about more than once by each of them. That’s why Geto said it and tried to be strong, and Gojo wanted to reform the world through eduction. They swapped fortes because they lost the other on the paths they walked on. They needed each other but fate had a different plan.

They didn’t know how to bridge the gap that had formed between them until many years later. Ultimately, despite their differences, they shared the same ideals and were designed to be counterparts. There was always a space for the other in their hearts.

In those two scenes, I wondered for a while: what was Gege’s point of depicting Gojo switching back to “ore” (in reference to himself - a nuance that cannot be translated into English from its original context within the Japanese culture) for two brief moments. What does it imply about their connection? How do we understand the levels of their “counterpart-ness”? Soulmatism. Romanticism. Whatever you want to call it.

And even pseudoGeto’s body reacting to Gojo’s voice calling out to Suguru. Nothing much ever came from it, and the conversation Mahito and Kenjaku had about the soul hasn’t been expanded on since (to my knowledge). So what was Gege getting at? What are we meant to understand? Back then, it maybe served as an unresolved issue - that Geto may need to have been rescued if his soul was trapped. But now that we saw him at the airport... we can all collectively breathe a sigh of relief - unless it was just a death dream. Then we can collectively cry.

So let’s go back to their connection. We know that Gojo and Geto were practically bonded and changed by being each others’ “one and only”. However you interpret their love is up to you, but it is undeniable that there is something unique and irreplaceable shared between them.

It was Mimiko and Nanako who recollected that Gojo was Geto’s One and Only 「たった一人の親友」.

This is undeniably canon. Geto mustn’t have mentioned him only once, or at least they learned through observation, that Gojo was important to him despite having his cult family. It’s possible that Geto might not have seen the other cult leaders much, if they were operating from different places. So this precious space was never filled after they “argued”. Geto was probably lonely / alone too after becoming PapaGeto.

And as a parent: you love your kids but they aren’t replacements for your life partner / soulmate. The same can be said for Gojo and his students. Even after death, there is a placeholder for that person. Even between partners, some people are more significant than others.

I wanted to note that this happened after the Toji incident:

Geto is actually holding an eraser, and Shoko, the pencil. It appears switched in the anime. So maybe it is not as important as it could be: by that, I mean, if Geto chose an eraser because he doesn’t like the idea of harming Gojo. So this is my headcannon.

But I theorise that it’s possible. Geto doesn’t like harm to come to those he loves - like arguing. With his cult family, this was one of the philosophies they continued after his death. Geto interpreting the kfc breakup as an “argument” also speaks volumes, imho.

The eraser goes further than the pencil, probably because it is considered less dangerous than a pencil, which Gojo elaborates in the next panels.

We also know that Gojo knows Geto - the ins and outs. He knows what he smells like (residuals, scent or whatever you want to call it) and can predict what he might do based on how well he knows him. This is reciprocal as Geto, too, knows how Gojo thinks. Kenjaku of course exploits this.

It’s not too much of a stretch to think that Gojo has a tendency to let his guard down around Geto. Hence his switching to “ore” 「俺」 and his mask “of proper decorum and speaking politely” slips when he sees pseudoGeto (whom he thinks is Geto momentarily) and also Geto at the airport. He reverts to “boku” after that. (If you’re not already aware, Gojo used “ore” throughout the Hidden Inventory arc but changed to “boku” after Geto left - likely as a result of maturing and adopting his friend’s advice to be more polite.)

For context:

Gege himself says he sometimes switches to usage of “ore” when he is excited - taken from the hared interview with Tite Kubo in the jjk character book.

So it’s really not imagining things when we see Gojo depicted specifically to be reacting like this to Geto alone. It seems like Gege is showing us something about Gojo’s subconscious / psyche. They are largely authentic with each other. There is a cultural difference in Japan about context of the inner (honne) and outer voice (tatemae). “Ore” and “Boku” represent that for Gojo respectively, I gather.

Their friendship, the rupture (and the intermittent anguish over 10 years), and having to kill his best friend - are all precisely why he gets sealed. His subconscious seems to know that Geto wouldn’t hurt him. He also trusts that Geto’s subconscious wouldn’t hurt him either. He believed Geto wouldn’t kill young sorcerers - and true to form, this cost him his life.

So there is trust for the person’s mind, there is knowing/identifying of the soul, there is familiarity of the body…

Which is interesting because all that is there is the body. Geto’s subconscious isn’t there anymore with his brain not physically present in pseudoGeto/Kenjaku’s body - but then his arm reacts to Gojo.

It even continues reacting for some time. Look at those veins along his arm in the panel below:

This is significant in the reciprocal nature of Gojo and Geto - Gojo’s speech changed for a moment and he is hit with all the memories from 3 of the best years of his life - his “3 years of Aoi Haru”/3年の青い春 like being smacked with his own unlimited void. Geto’s body reacts involuntaril and tries to retaliate, (just like Toji did several chapters later to stop himself from hurting Megumi/ending his massacre).

They reached for each other, y’all 😭

Again my brain just goes places, and it made me wonder about the soul & body thing. I hope that Geto’s soul is really at the airport, but that there is information carved into the body (like his memories) - if they’re important enough to become instinctual.

It is also, by extension, then possible that... Kenjaku experiences something outside of just thoughts /memories when inside his host...

Just as we see here - yes he does need to keep an eye on the cube, but his expression / reaction to knowing that the girls’ presence are there... addressing them only after the curses have left, and what he says to them, as well as admitting he doesn’t remember what regret feels like -

…and cue an tighter shot of the prison realm (with Gojo’s eyes in the anime depiction) (and interestingly the back of the realm has stitches like Kenjaku’s forehead).

Gege likes to foreshadow and follow up with something significant. So similarly to the above where he sees the girls and acts like he doesn’t give a toss, but is depicted to seem contrary to what he says. Could it also be that it Gojo’s eyes staring that incited the involuntary movement, and the reemphasis of Kenjaku saying he was enjoying the view of seeing Gojo captured - a similar pattern? This old man is just a brain who forgot how to feel?

It begs the question for me: If there was something imprinted within the body that Gojo could call out, what was there?

It remains possible that Kenjaku was simply detached / in denial / ignoring any emotion that arose within from Geto’s body.

Arguably, it is possibly quite characteristic of Kenjaku who was a “mother” and had some motherly instincts remaining, or it could also be seen as an emergence of some sympathy or sadness for the girls that may have come from Geto’s body. I mean, he led Yuji’s friend (Sasaki) out of the culling games, acting like a parent / guardian...

Hmm…

We do not see a physical reaction to any children though; and I guess a situation like that (with the Hasaba girls) in comparison to one that may be filled with adrenaline like a trapped Gojo speaking in that low baritone to him, is inherently different. But regret though? Was it actually a knowing smirk Gege showed us of Kenjaku in front of the prison realm - as if to say he had bested Gojo and Geto? He got his way with the girls too, despite knowing Geto’s feelings?

Or did he simply not recognise it, and it was truly a first for Kenjaku because there normally isn’t something there, but with Geto’s body - something actually stirred / retaliated... because it was Gojo?

I mean, from a neutral perspective, it would seem like the author is shipping them, lol. But I’m not going to lie - we don’t get much honest feedback from Geto about Gojo, so nuggets like those are quite affirming that the connection felt between them was very mutual.

Because if we see how it all began, and note that all Geto wanted to do was to protect those who needed it (even if it was at his personal expense). First it was humans, then Gojo, then sorcerers and then his family too.

And this was born out of the fracture from being unable to be relied upon to kill Toji (avenge Gojo & Riko’s death) or to fight Toji with Gojo, since leaving him alone resulted in getting him killed - which he must’ve believed happened until the point he saw him alive again carrying Riko’s lifeless body...

His connection with Gojo was so strong that (as Gege described it) his body reacted like a dragonfly whose head has been cut off. Something imprinted so deeply in their friendship that it became instinctual - carved into the body - and may not be related to the mind (therefore my avoidance of using the term “subconscious” with pseudoGeto, as it would be Kenjaku’s consciousness).

Moreover, if we take Toji’s resurrection as an example, even in the absence of a soul, the body can still remember and react. In a Geto’s case, where there is a different mind controlling it, for the body is react as separate entity is rather remarkable. I guess by saying this, I’m postulating that I believe body & soul are separate - because, if I’m honest, I want to believe Geto’s soul is with Gojo post-chapter 236.

But. We know there are all of Geto’s memories within the body still after Kenjaku inhabit it. In the absence of the host’s brain. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, Gege - but here we are. And maybe. Emotions too. Or memories of them at the very least. Not that it matters to Kenjaku.

This greatly disturbs me. It’s a level of injustice that also feeds into why I have been avoiding doing metas in Gojo - because his suffering and level of unfairness thrust upon him for simply being “blessed” and resilient just … hurts so bad. I can’t face it just yet.

So what exactly made their connection so profound?

I theorise that Geto interpreted Gojo as wanting to fight alone. That he was in his best element doing so. Kenjaku says this about Gojo too, knowing Geto’s memories.

Short sidenote: Whilst it is true that his technique lends itself better to soloing, I wonder how they might’ve fought together had the Toji incident not occurred. How would they overcome Unlimited Void aside from being back/to-back? Could Geto obtain a curse of his own to swallow him up as protection? No doubt, as a team, Geto’s progression could’ve been exponentially increased due to the number and level of curses available to him with assistance from Gojo. And would Gojo be different and enjoy fighting together had it not occurred? I don’t know, but they do seem to have wanted a connection with one another.

He saw Shoko being asked for help with teleportation. Once upon a time, might it have been him? There was no longer any “we” that he could sense. He didn’t feel there was a use when he had “failed” in so many ways after the failure of the mission and also believing that Gojo died that day and he was unable to avenge him.

The conversation with Yuki all but reinforced his feelings of irrelevance and perceived waste of their sacrifice when tengen was allegedly stable again. Subsequent conversations with Haibara and Nanami seals his skewed belief that he wasn’t needed there. Nanami’s choice of words is very interesting in the original text, implying that “it’s enough for him (Gojo) alone, isn’t it?”. Ref post by @nanami-says who has a nice selection of pieces about translations.

Gojo alone could do it. He could train and ascend all without him; untainted and untethered. His downfall was that he didn’t speak to Gojo. Gojo alone was left out. I mean, just because it suited him doesn’t mean he should be left to do it all...

This is so sad.

He left his heart (Gojo) alone. He also left his own heart alone (never happy from the bottom of his heart). In his descent, he was busy rationalising everything else except getting sad that he felt he’d lost his best friend. Arguably, the most important thing, because it is the scariest things and the things that hurt the most often have the most power / potential to heal.

It is possible he was actively avoiding it. Because, if it was purely about chasing an ideal he could have been drawn to look obsessed with it. Instead he has a sorrowful “I love you so much imma break up with you” face.

Gojo could have been the strength he was seeking if he did indeed want to just eliminate all humans, but he didn’t seek that out because (I theorise) he didn’t want to be outwardly rejected by Gojo.

And thus, he left instead (ugh! you foolish brave coward!) after snapping, and Gojo was left alone to pick up the pieces all by himself in a place haunted with memories of them together.

Just bloody tragic.

And that’s why it was carved into their souls.

In the depths of despair that he was in, could it be that he believed Gojo was better off without him , and in wanting to cradle whatever pride he had left, he sought to build his own temple where he could live in the void of his own making without facing that he had lost everyday?

Gojo could be free to grow and grow and be the strongest and embrace whatever belief system he now held - whether it was borrowed from him or not.

He even goads Gojo into killing him off since there would be meaning to it.

Sigh. Heartbreaking. It wasn’t the best decision. But we know suffering builds character. At least Gege really likes this theme❤️‍🩹.

Why do I believe he yielded though?

Because caring for others comes second nature to Geto. How many times have we seen him make that forlorn face?

Even with the souvenir he requested from Haibara, in the original he phrases it in such a way he implies he isn’t even sure if he’ll see him. “Satoru too; I don’t know if he’ll have some, but I guess, something sweet?” But. He yields to his preference.

There is limited space in his heart, and all he can do is exclude some in order to vehemently love those he can (or deems worthy enough based on his moral system). He didn’t know any other way to exist. Monstrous love. I’m pretty sure someone wrote about it. If I can find it I’ll link it! I call it maternal rage, but it’s a similar concept.

If he had wished to leave without staining Gojo, the absence of a confession of his love at any point also makes sense - like Nanami, he chose his final words carefully - that he hated monkeys (why preface with “no matter what anyone says”) and in a roundabout way, that he djdnt have hate for anyone at the school (can’t he just say he was happiest in those few years?). He wasn’t happy in the world (you can just kill me).

When he saw and felt Gojo’s love - unwavered and unchanged, seeing him having blossomed into someone still so pure - effortlessly righteous, strong, and proud with his army of students who loved each other... did he dare feel absolved? Did he feel like it was worth his defection? Yielded to others? Unable to be selfish? As sad as he was for himself and that his family would be without him and his dream unrealised; Gojo turned out ok.

Suddenly it gave meaning to his perceived sacrifice. It parallels with Toji and seeing Megumi who wasn’t a zenin.

Ah, this makes me mad somehow, but if it helped him pass and have a good death, what can I say? We all need something different at the end of our lives. And it’s important in the Shinto perspective to have a death free of regret in order to live in the space between nowhere/rebirth and earth. I posted about this in another piece too.

And I think that’s also why it was all carved into his body - enough to react to Gojo calling out to him, “Suguru”, despite being inhabited by Kenjaku. And carved into his soul that’s why he waited in the afterlife for Gojo. To be the first to greet him. I want to believe the body and soul are separate. The subconscious may have acted as a bridge between the two, transferring information from the mind / soul into the body.

But of course as a reader we wished it could’ve been a kinder fate for them. But I guess sometimes people have to pay for their sins as well as the sins of others? Life isn’t fair after all…

And arguably, Gojo needed a way to truly sympathise with the weak and how else through loving and losing someone to shape a person’s soul? It was just rather Geto-shaped, as I elaborated on in my other post.

I highly suspect Gojo may have wanted something different - as being born the strongest, he was always going to be the strongest anyway. This came with a burden. Noblesse Oblige. Being the strongest was written into his entire being - mind, body, soul.

And I think this was something they had both respected. I doubt Geto ever thought of himself as a power equal to Gojo, but they had both valued their friendship. Geto was someone who saw Gojo for a person, before the strongest. That’s why when Mimiko and Nanako asked, he was considered thus “my best friend”, and not the latter. Gojo recognised that for what it was, and felt the tender words that showed Care. Consideration. Love.

Gojo may have wanted Geto to lean on him a little. To let himself take the fall. They both didn’t like burdening the other, and after Toji it might just magnified. He wasn’t the type to overthink his role, but wanting to be the strongest (seeing how far he can go) and taking on all the blame was one of the ways Gojo was extremely loving. It was just something he accepted.

I feel like Gojo wanted to be relied upon to do his part; be his best friend, someone he could still love and do the mental and emotional load for him, spoil him a little in return so he could just do his thing as the strongest and train. He needed his other half to help him to do the things he doesn’t like or isn’t good at doing.

I think that as they experienced their bafflingly complementary and reciprocal friendship … before he knew it, all these experiences and emotions shaped him so much that his soul made room for Geto - as the one person who represented fulfilment outside of being the strongest.

Never once did he think he’d lose Geto like he did. He never wanted to be at it alone. Like a lonely army tank whose comrades had left him on the battefield to fight it out on his own.

Ugh, it hurts so bad. He didn’t think Geto was slipping down. Maybe because it wasn’t something he could understand- even more so after the enlightenment incident where a chasm emerged between him and others. Maybe nobody was ever important enough for him to worry or miss if they left.

He nevertheless never deserved to be met with such loneliness and misfortune. He carried the weight of it all, all by himself. I know they both did in their own way, but there is some tragedy to Gojo where he probably wanted or could have had more to fill his life and soul but there was always a chasm or a void that could not be filled because he could not feel understood by anyone since Geto.

How awful it must feel to have to kill someone you treasure.

We have no idea without much insight into his life growing up. Nevertheless, Gojo consistently shielded those he cares about from self-blame even from the beginning where he must’ve known Geto had such inclinations to be stuck in his own head and he tried his best to absolve it and take it upon himself. The priorities of those he cared about became his, provided if he could do it. He protected the students and made light of situations so they could experience their youth. Something he can remember treasuring well into his adult life. His blue spring / best years of his life were deeply etched into his subconscious and soul. It was what he wanted to give his students and reason for reforming the jujutsu world.

But being shielded at that time wasn’t enough for Geto who was experiencing the worst spiral in his life yet. He needed to feel the weight of his responsibility had meaning and a role. In his trauma, grief and denial, he shatters and reaches a point from which he cannot return. He also knows how Gojo defines the weak - tiresome, “lower”, etc. and that could have been another factor that led to his avoidance of him.

I want to really emphasise how I don’t blame any of them. They are not inherently responsible for the other. Arguably, Gojo needed to learn about that pain in order to know what love is. And Geto needed to realise how flawed and unloving his path actually was.

If only they could’ve both had a compassionate mentor who guided them onto the Teacher AU path 😭

In the absence of such a connection etched into his soul, what might Gojo have become? Another Sukuna? I theorised that Geto helped Gojo connect with those “beneath” him in a recent post. I’m not going to repeat that here, but it makes a lot of sense to me that Gojo learned a lot about love through Geto and his own hard work following the numerous hardships he faced as the loneliest strongest of the modern era.

He faced so much in his short life. Being blessed with the six eyes and limitless was a curse in itself. He spent years paying the price for losing his friend, and even had to kill him. How profoundly tragic. He faced loneliness and criticism for finding joy in the only thing that he practically had: jujutsu (yes that kept him one-dimensional, but similar to MeiMei chasing money and several others pursuing strength alone) it was a hefty price to pay. But he was a sorcerer. After all, the only thing he really wanted was to treasure his blue spring and the person associated with it - Geto.

It is poetic that when Gojo died, his soul found its counterpart. He opened his eyes to the person whose presence had etched itself so deeply that he knew Geto in body, mind, soul. Geto was there to greet him with a heartfelt smile (and pout!).

One meeting him at the point of death, and the other, upon death.

Their exchange is really reciprocal here too, with Geto admitting he was envious and Gojo responding in a way where he implies reassurance akin to “I needed you there”. Link to a post on this:

Geto’s little tear in his eye in not one, but two panels as well.

Anyway… then appearing at the airport reminds me of their exchange many years ago “you’re late Suguru - no you’re early.” And “you’re late, Satoru.”

Well, they’re on time now... better not be late for your flight, kids.

And as Kenjaku said to Gojo before sealing him - 「新しい世界でまた会おう」

“let’s meet again in the new world.”

—————————

Sorry, it’s a whopper from me again.

Just some words in an attempt to close this off:

For someone whose emotions guided and drove his rationale, it was ironic how Geto’s body became a puppet for someone like Kenjaku, who was so cerebral (devoid of empathy) befitting of his curse technique to brain-hop. It fits with the jjk theme of being strong in the absence of love, I guess?

Seems fitting that Kenjaku was bested after slipping up when having that good of a time with Takaba. Ironic isn’t it? All those years scheming, only to lose himself for a moment as he indulged in something novel, and he lost to a scheme himself.

And to be killed by Gojo v3.0 (Yuta) who already defeated him once, also as foreshadowed by Gojo before being sealed, on the date he scheduled 24th November.

The parallels don’t end there either, where somehow mahito who stood beside Kenjaku was created to parallel Gojo in some way too (I haven’t quite pondered on this much yet, but I reckon there is something about the thrill in growing exponentially / fighting sense that they share - it might just be that alone or possibly also the juxtaposition of one being human and one a curse? Their reasons for seeking strength?

I dunno - i gather Yuji who also developed exponentially fast and as an anomaly himself may have similarities. And again, as ch 257 leaked, it makes sense and I look forward to finding out what’ll happen to them (seeing as Yuji is kind of sukuna’s son 🤯 if the jjk world considers twin souls to be one soul - papa Yuji is Sukuna’s twin after all) and also Megumi of course.

Just going to wrap up here now, and please feel free to link me up to a post that can enlighten me or drop a comment with any thoughts?

Sorry for a rambling post. I hope it made sense.

For real, real. Thanks for reading my brainrot ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

21 notes · View notes

captainbogwitch · 11 months

Text

Excerpt - The Princess, the Knight, and the Beast

Again, again, again, again, the coughs and the pain return. The boy goes back, a third time, but did not call for the stranger, he fell to the sand and wept. A shadow loomed over him, blocking out the sun, and in his ear, he heard a whisper.

‘My love, your tears make my heart heavy with woe. Why do you cry?’ He did not lift his eyes to see what was before him, he had not the energy.

‘They are ill, again, again, again, and nothing I do will save them. They will perish and the light will be gone from my world.’

‘What would you do to save them?’

‘I would do anything!’ The voice hummed again, deep and rumbling, like the distant thunder.

‘My heart, look at me.’ And he looked up and was confused. This…this was no Goron, no Rito, no Gerudo, no Hylian he’s ever seen. Fear overtakes his heart, and he scrambled backwards but stops once he noticed the beast does not follow. Its eyes are gold and soft and full of sadness and kindness. It is tall, its face is so unlike his own, but it is beautiful. The fear leaves his body, and he is flushed with the feeling of calm and rightness. This was the being that had helped him without question, who he turned to in time of need. This Zora knelt before him offering to help him once more.

‘Would you leave them? Would you give away your heart’ And he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know the answer—if he stayed, they would die, but…but if he left…

He looked up at the Zora’s gold eyes and nodded. ‘Yes. If by my actions they live, I will do whatever it takes.’

“Go to them, they will be strong and healthy, you have my word. Tell them you must go, but that you will return to them one day when they need you most.” He nods and runs. His parents met him on the beach, they left their hut for the first time in weeks, and as the Zora said they were strong and they were well and they wept when he told them that he must go, but that he will be happy. He ran back to the beach, ran to the Zora, the kind, generous Zora, and he took the man—a boy no longer—to his kingdom beneath the sea, a kingdom of plenty where kindness abounds. And the man, now a Zora, remembers just as his kin remembers, the life he lived under the sun and over the sand. And he watches the village, he watches the fishermen as they sail over the sea and coaxes the fish into their nets, he leaves shells and previous gifts on the shore for the children to find and he sees them prosper beside the one who holds his heart.

#What do you mean i can't put a fairy tale in a fairy tale that's wild bro #this is the story i SET OUT to write #but now here I am #15k later #still not done.#sidlink #sidlink fic #loz fic #my writing #my fic #writing excerpt #i'll update the full fic soon #I need to edit the next chapter #i'm about to reach the final part of the story in the writing and i'm highkey excited lowkey sad i've so enjoyed this #maybe i'll finish in time for the ending of zora may #who knows #not i

32 notes · View notes

catkin-morgs-kookaburralover · 9 months

Text

i remember once seeing an ad for scar reducing creams and ended up deciding no that's not reasonable to buy if it's literally self inflicted. but because of this now being in a visible place (can probably hide until summer, but after it's too warm to wear long sleeves... oh gosh. :< ) I feel like I probably should do research on how to minimise scarring at least for visible cuts for the sake of others.

and maybe invest in a nice light summer cardigan :) you know those pretty lacy ones, I bet I could pull that off, and I've wanted one for ages so this might be my motivation :)

....I should also do research on how to hide them before they've healed, because I've got a simulation next Tuesday. If necessary I talk to the person running the sim and get permission to be in long sleeves for that

oh gosh why did I forget. I'll have to be in short sleeves for placement. oh gosh oh gosh I am an idiot

#[editing to add that there is somewhat graphic description of self harm below. i'm no judge of how graphic or otherwise something is but i #kinda described it a bit ig]#I might invest in some good coverage makeup of some kind idk. if i can find something like that that will hide the scarring. but like. it's #stretching halfway along my forearm and it will all scar #tmi sorry #looks nasty already but at least it's stopped bleeding #shoutout to the knife sharpener i could Not use at the time so it wasn't as deep as it would've been #anyway #such is life #tw sh #puddleglum hours #personal #the first time i harmed was May last year. i only actually seriously started harming during february this year and all this time i have #worked SO HARD on making sure i DON'T harm in a visible place #and then! whaddaya know! it got too much!#honestly tho i'd nearly talked myself down it was rlly weird #bc it was like i just. blanked for a second and became aware of it having happened a second later it was weird #the muscles feel really weird now tho idk why #not damaged or i don't think so anyway and yknow. didn't need stitches or anything #don't know how deep they are

17 notes · View notes

toushindai · 2 months

Text

some nattering about how I characterize Rauru and Sonia in my Ganondorf/Rauru fics.

as I have mentioned before, usually I prefer to adhere strictly to canon when writing fanfiction, to the extent that I used to think of myself as trying to write exactly what the author had in mind but didn't put in the story. yes, I have always been this pretentious.

but then I looked at what Rauru and Ganondorf have going on and went "ah, they need to have nasty, resentful, dubcon-at-best sex about this" and I'll be honest I'm not sure played-straight loz characters (vs. various permutations of joke characters) are even allowed to know sex exists, so this was obviously a departure.

which means that Questions of Kingship exists, in my mind at least, in a strange space that is both canon-compliant and AU, and I have made characterization choices based on the story I was telling rather than prioritizing sticking to what the game has in mind. And I don't think my readings are entirely wrong--do I think Nintendo intends their King of Light to be a rapist, no, but they sure did write a guy who disregards and tramples over an implicit "no." This is what is conveyed by Ganondorf mentioning that Hyrule has sent the Gerudo repeated invitations! I didn't actually make that part up! Honestly I expected to have to defend my choices re: Rauru from some very irritated fans who forgot about the back button, but it seems that if I irritated anyone, they remembered the back button. Good for them, and to everyone pressing the "more of this" buttons instead, thank you, I appreciate you, what the fuck is UP with this guy amirite??

Anyway though,

Sonia.

Oh, I have struggled with Sonia mightily. I did not want Rauru to be cheating on her. And partially this is because I don't particularly care to write about cheating but largely it is because a huge part of Rauru's sense of superiority over Ganondorf is a moral one, and if Rauru were betraying someone he loved to carry out this affair, that sense of superiority would be chopped off at the knees. And I'm using that sense of superiority, thank you very much.

So: it became the case that Sonia needed to know about the affair, needed her to be on board with it. And well, there were very quickly quite a lot of jokes that she and Rauru had "looking for a third" vibes, and I do think that's true, and anyway that girl married a goat god. "A very canny monsterfucker" is the kernel of canon characterization that I wound up building around. Very clear-eyed, less self-deception than Rauru; an overpowering propensity to identify what she wants and go for it. It's just that Zelda didn't see much of that. I guess, is the argument I'm going for. Well, then, Sonia is someone who can play at sweet and harmless and kind until she reveals how much of an edge she has.

Does the game suggest she has such an edge? ...No? I guess it doesn't. I don't know. But if it is not possible to hide anything from Sonia, and Hyrule is behaving coercively towards its not-yet-allies (and it is! again I did not make that part up!), then she must be aware of this. And she must be on board with it. She adores Rauru--this is clear in the cutscenes, just look at the light in her eyes when Rauru is speaking sometimes--and so I make the two of them a team, united in intention. But where I write Rauru as conflicted--naive thoughts about kingship stumbling against the reality of it--I place Sonia in a more decided position. Her premises: that Rauru is good, and that a unified Hyrule is a superior outcome over disparate nations. She is aware that the latter premise is not automatically accepted by everyone, but she has unwavering faith in it so she moves to carry it out without the indignation that resistance inspires in Rauru. Resistance does not make her doubt herself in the same way. (That's worse??) She is more pointedly, more cannily political than Rauru. Rauru wants a kingdom united in friendship (genuinely he wants this, as I write him); Sonia knows that friendship is not what unites kingdoms.

She just... winds up with this strange amoral core to her. A surprising one, I think. What I find myself writing is a Sonia who seems kind and sweet and confident and only very occasionally lets anyone see the part of her where she has made up her mind and is unmovably certain of her own rightness. A part of her that doesn't need it to be a moral rightness. Am I making any sense here.

I mean for some of that startling strangeness to come out in the way she regards Rauru's relationship with Ganondorf--I don't know if that comes through. I write Ganondorf conflating Rauru's sexual submission with political submission to excess; Sonia is almost the opposite, believing that the relationship between the two can exist as a function of desire alone regardless of the political dimension. It's about wanting and having and that is all. But the very assumption that that's all comes from the position of Hyrule's dominance, an unassailable position in her mind. I'm having trouble getting at what I'm getting at, but, my point here is that she's a little scary. that's all.

@toushindai

#tou and the tearful kingdom #and we were both kings 😳#rape mention #ya I think I'm gonna make this one unrebloggable bc this really is entirely about how I write her in the environment I need her in #I get fidgety when my posts about my fics go wandering into the totk cr*tical corner of this blue hell #oh it's work time I have to do work now #may edit this later. gotta go

6 notes · View notes

individuating · 6 months

Text

reasons why i personally am a brunette sayo truther:

never ever actually shown as blonde in the VN

manga ep7 sayo is another obfuscation being projected to protect herself (and for bernkastel to hate on those who havent figured out the truth)

beatrice is an idealized form based on battler’s tastes (reflection of kinzo’s fascist obsession with the west) and the line “take the blue eyes he likes and the blonde hair he likes” makes 0 sense if sayo already has blonde hair and/or blue eyes

western beauty standards of blonde and blue eyes being prominent in her mother and grandmother but sayo lacking them herself is much more coherent with the tragedy of her situation in lacking the other bodily appearances she thinks she’s meant to have. beatrice I and II both are the pinacle of aryan femininity and sayo not inheriting those traits is another reminder of how much more of kinzo’s blood flows in her than beatrice’s

lion having to regularly bleach that mane of hair is fun to imagine

#will voice You shouldn’t neglect the racial element.#.me #also part of why ep8 manga’s ending bothers mee but thats another post for another time #btw i think lions blond hair is in itself symbolic as well but also its fun to rotate them w the most fried breakageful hair of all time #topic: sayo #topic: west vs. east #topic: gender #also not sure if this needs to be said but im using she/her in the nonbinary way. let the reader understand #i may edit this later i just wanted to get my thoughts out though

4 notes · View notes

torilaa · 6 months

Text

...I'm back.

Sorry for the long wait! Real life happened during the summer and writer's block got me after summer! But I'm glad I can start writing Revan again :)

#my writing: fragmented #This was an...interesting chapter to write #since I forgot the half I wrote...so I had to rewrite some things #I hope it's okay...but I may edit some grammar things later #idk need to get back into the flow of things

5 notes · View notes

mizukagami-takamagahara · 1 year

Text

What Characters Were Planned For BBDW?

I finally got my hands on the BBDW game files. Like other people have mentioned, there are a lot of blank placeholder images, specifically as part of the character asset groups. While looking at the files, I thought I found a pattern, so I decided I'd see if I could figure out which characters were definitively planned to be added to BBDW.

We already know that all characters had a chance to be added, but these characters had actual evidence in the game's files- places prepared for where they would have been put.

Here's what I mean. Ciel is the first character listed- both of her images start with 0001. Then there's a placeholder for a character 0002. Next we have all of Jin's assets starting with 0003.

Considering the order that the following character assets go in, and the fact that Mori did end up releasing his character art, I'd bet money on that 0002 asset being reserved for Ragna. Let's look at a larger section.

Here, it looks like the characters are grouped up based on the games they came out in- we see the Calamity Trigger cast all next to each other. And we know they aren't numbered in order of when they were released- if that were the case, Hakumen would much farther down the list.

Considering that the order the characters are shown is almost the same order as they appear in Calamity Trigger's story select menu, I'm pretty sure that 0011 was meant to be Carl, and 0013 was going to be Nu-13 if I'm right, I love the detail that they managed to have her the 13th character in the files.

To keep track of which characters I've already found a place for, I'll be using the handy dandy icons from the wiki over here. So, here!

Obviously, none of these are confirmed.These are just my best guesses for who all of these placeholder characters would have been. If you have any ideas, I'd love to here them! For now, let's move on the next games. This is gonna be a long post.

The majority of the Continuum Shift cast is accounted for. Like with the CT cast, it's pretty easy to figure out who those two blank spaces were for. There are only two playable characters from CS that don't show up in BBDW- Relius as 0019 and Mu as 0020.

The Chronophantasma characters are next. I'm pretty confident that Terumi is 0027, starting the list of Extend character assests. I'm not sure who's 0022 or 0024 between Amane and Azrael, but I'm certain that those places are for them, in whichever order.

The interesting one here is Kagura. Kagura was in BBDW, and we have other assets for him, but we're missing one card art, and that's what that placeholder (where I put his icon) is for. You can tell by the fact that all four of those files- the placeholder, the NOL Kagura, the normal Kagura, and his max art- start their numbering with 0026.

And we actually do have a hint as to what would have been on this empty Kagura card. Somewhere else in the game files, hidden in another collection of character assets, we come across 002600 again- this time, it isn't a placeholder.

Unfortunately, this is all we can see of the art- there's almost undoubtedly a full body version of this somewhere (likely in the possession of ArcSys) but it definitely isn't anywhere in these files. I wonder if the, uh, Kagura Incident, and how that all went down, has anything to do with why they didn't finish putting in all his assets... There are other characters with a placeholder for some of their art but proper images for others (you can see Jubei, 0037, at the bottom there) but I haven't found any other characters who have a placeholder for an image in one group of assets and but no placeholder for the same costume in a different group of assets.

it seems like it could be a costume for Kagura based on his Academy look/his appearance in Amane's Astral Finish.

Continuing into the Central Fiction characters with Hibiki, 0030, at the end of the previous line. For the unknown characters/placeholder slots, I believe 0032 was for Nine as we know her in CF. Nine would have had multiple playable versions, much like Valkenhayn; who had a playable C-series and Bloodedge Experience version released for BBDW and a Phase Shift version in the files that we never got to play.

0033 would be for Izanami. Susano'o would be 0036, right alongside his fellow DLC character, Jubei, at 0037. Similarly to Kagura, Jubei was playable in game, but for some reason one of his assets was never added. Unlike Kagura, I haven't been able to find any sign of what that asset- presumably a costume- would have looked like.

Then we have two spots at the end of the CF list. We're out of playable characters from the mainline games, but thanks to Homura in the 0039 spot, we know that 0038 must have been a C-series Blazblue character, not part of the Phase Shift cast that comes next.

I was stumped on who 0038 could've been for a little while- Linhua was one thought, since she made it into the game, but she doesn't have any placeholder slots- she appears later in the files as 0092. Roy is also a popular enough C-series character but I didn't feel confident in that pick.

If I had to guess anyone, I'd say 0038 had been meant for Torakaka. She'd be right next to Jubei who she replaced in Tao's Astral when he was added to CF, and we know from Chachakaka's early implementation that the game seemed pretty eager to add the Kaka Clan cast- they even had some gameplay trends specifically associated with them. So, let's slide her right in there.

So there are all my best guesses for which characters were on the horizon for BBDW before its untimely end. I'll be stopping here, and will continue starting with the Phase Shift cast in a future post. I've taken a look over those sections, and I actually expect them to be much harder to figure out... We don't have any easy playable character rosters to compare to the empty slots anymore.

18 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

dothob

.documenting.the.obvious

brandflyjsc-blog

BRANDFLY., JSC

birartemiskadar

neyse ne

transheso

Transheso

winemastery

Wine Mastery