#[ volume 1 follows asch from the tartarus massacre to akzeriuth ]

[akashicmuses]

Reading through the first Asch the Bloody Manga (it came today!!)

Thoughts:

- Gosh the art is so beautiful I love it a lot.

- Van is literally so manipulative it drives me crazy every time Asch talks about how Luke “replaced” him. Because Luke didn’t replace Asch. Van replaced Asch with a look-a-like and kidnapped him. Which Asch even admits a couple pages later that Van “stole my life from me.” It makes me think he’s trying to justify hating Luke more because he doesn’t want to hate Van?

- Speaking of which, Asch has a lot of internal conflict about Van. He tells himself he has to trust him, but he also...clearly doesn’t. Asch doesn’t know what Van’s plan is yet but he doesn’t like that he’s being kept in the dark. Like Asch was under the impression that they were kidnapping Ion ON the Tartarus, and no one told him they were actually taking Ion off the Tartarus. And when Asch is like “what the hell, Legretta?” she just kinda brushes him off with “you know when we need you to know, so don’t ask questions and be obedient.”

- ^ not the actual quotes but that was the VIBE of it.

- Asch did indeed get Dist to come with him to kidnap Luke to Choral Castle by promising him ‘sciencey things’ or whatever. Asch’s discussion with Arietta was basically: Arietta: we cant mess with them. van said no Asch: but they killed your mom Arietta: Arietta: fine

- Asch did NOT convince Sync to go with them, Sync just went with them because he’s canon confirmed to be Asch’s babysitter (I know it was already confirmed but it always makes me laugh).

- Wow Van fed Asch the exact same stuff he fed Luke about experimentation. Van told Luke that Luke was experimented on as a child and it was why he kidnapped him. He told Asch that he kidnapped him because he "saved him from terrible experiments and a future of nothing but despair” (<- exact quote). I don’t think Asch was ever actually experimented on because his bitterness about losing his past life is too... strong. I think it means that Van told Asch he WOULD have been experimented on maybe?

- Van continues to manipulate Asch and tells him that he loves him and he needs him and wow this is so blatant that Asch gets mad about it.

- Sync is great in this. He sees Asch looking longly at Natalia after they kidnapped Ion and asks Asch if he’s jealous. Asch is like “of what?” and Sync laughs at him and goes “how would I know? >)”

- Asch does the mind-link thing and watches in disgut as Luke goes on about how he’s the goodwill ambassador to Akzeriuth and all his expressions were great.

- Yeah, so Van actually told Asch that he’d replaced him with Luke to save him from Akzeriuth. 

- Sync interrupts Asch’s mind-link and tells Asch he’s “too old to be going through a rebellious phase.” Asch gets mad and attacks Sync and then Sync says something really interesting. “Nobody will give a damn whether a pawn lives or dies. You’re going to live on because of that. So you should stop being so concerned with what happens to a pawn!”

- Sync must be so irritated because he’s been dilligent about staying away from Ion. But Asch just keeps running up to Luke and yelling at him when Luke does something that pisses him off. And Sync has to tell Asch to cut it out almost every single time.

- The cave in Zao Ruins starts collasping and Tear saves Natalia from a falling rock instead of Luke (even tho Luke was right next to her). And Asch is all “he can’t even save his own fiancee what kind of farce is this.”

- Sync: Asch don’t use the hyperresonance Asch: *phew phew* Sync: God damn it

- IT’S SO FUNNY TO ME that Sync is the one who keeps lecturing Asch while Largo just stands there. Also triple confirmed that Sync is just a glorified babysitter because he tells Asch straight up that Van ordered him to keep Asch alive.

- Ohhh, so Asch discovered Van’s plan because he used the mind-link and found out that Luke was thinking about what Van said about using hyperresonance to destroy the miasma. Asch, who has more knowledge about it is like what the fuck? and goes off to investigate.

- Also it was nice to see Asch admitting that he has no place to criticize Luke for being dependent on Van when he has also been dependent on Van up until this point. It really makes his confrontation with Luke after Akzeriuth more like Asch is taking his internal frustrations out on Luke.