#Van's answers

[honestlyvan]

Babe, I'm so intrigued by the Crime Slime who would die before breaking character and the Furry Genius who is good at everything he does, tell me more about them

They make me SO UNWELL, BARBIE.

I'll try avoid turning this into an essay on both of them separately (I've done my due diligence introducing both of them over here), but I do need to discuss character and role a little bit, because the way Dendro is explicitly a roleplaying game contributes a lot to the relationship between Shu and Sechs.

Or, well, Dendro can be played as just an action dungeon crawler action game, and there are quite a few key cast members who are "ludo", but because of the intense fidelity of the world of Dendro, most people end up at least somewhat engaged with "the plot" ie. the politics of the world, even as just the backdrop for the game. Neither Shu nor Sechs are that hardcore, but both of their actions make more sense "in-character" than they do out of it. Shu Starling (as compared to Shuichi Mukudori) and Sechs Würfel (as compared to his unnamed player) are in conflict because of the context of the world surrounding them, and their roles in the story.

So, what are those roles? Shu, obviously, is one of the Big Three of Altar, one of their most powerful and decorated. All told, he seems like a bit of a wild card, genuinely just playing Dendro for fun, and emphasises the for-fun nature of his playing when discussing the game with other Masters. Altogether, Shu really seems to be playing Dendro as a form of light escapism, another go at a "normal" life -- he jokes about being shy, and before the beginning of the story, had in fact been extremely well hiding the identity of King of Destruction from the broader playerbase, not wanting to deal with the hassle of being chased around by challengers.

He's "a hero", yes, technically, but honestly it very much seems like Shu himself doesn't seem to really care for that designation, and is consistent about how he only really does things he wants to, and is largely unconcerned about what his reputation is like. And despite that, he's ended up involved in damn near every big incident in the kingdom since he began playing, being ultimately the kind of good-natured and kind person who doesn't like leaving people in a lurch if he can do something to help them.

Because despite being fate's favourite middle child, Shuichi Mukudori is... kind of just a dude? Like, he's a rich NEET who pretty much just exercises and plays video games and doesn't seem to have any greater aspirations than to have a good time -- frustrating his parents, sure, but not really causing trouble for anyone. At worst, Shu is a bit of a sneaky shithead, and seems to have some resistance towards being relied on by other people, but it never rises to the level of refusing to help out of spite, and his strong sense of ethics and general kindness are clearly very typical for him, as we see his little brother Reiji being largely unfazed by Shu's big-dealness, sort of shrugging and going "yeah, what I expected from you, bro"

In fact, I feel like Ray's generally high self-esteem further speaks well of Shu. He's attentive without ever being overprotective, and their shared disposition towards never allowing their doubts to stop them from trying being something Ray explicitly learned from Shu. Shu portrays himself as more avoidant and passive than he actually is, even his discomfort with people explicitly relying on him, to me, reads more as trying to avoid having a cooling effect on other people's efforts. He doesn't like complacency, in himself or in other people, and in general tends towards cultivating strong, positive relationships with everyone he interacts with. He is, for all he can be a bit opaque, generally in a good place in his life.

Sechs, in contrast, uh. Very much isn't. He is essentially a hostage of his own family -- adopted in to literally replace and take on the identity of their dead eldest son, and isolated from the outside world until he manages to either convincingly pass as that son, or maybe just until the family finds a wife for him to have an heir with. Even before going through a stranger literally dying to give him the life he's currently living, he didn't have many prospects, and as a result doesn't feel any greater attachment to his previous or his current identity, pretty much just seeing himself as a piece of meat for other people to use for their aspirations. It's very bleak, and it has understandably had a crushing effect on his sense of self-worth.

And while Sechs didn't really have a solid reason to roll a villain character, basically deciding on a whim to play one, his ability to choose and to pursue actions congruent with that choice is some of the only freedom he has had in his life. "Sechs Würfel" is the only identity he's ever had that is self-authored, the only thing he truly believes belongs to him. Problem is, he's so bad at figuring out what to actually do with the agency and freedom this new identity grants him that he hard-commits into the mechanical validation the game system gives him, so pretty much the only things that matter for Sechs are the "sins" he commits -- everything else, everything that demonstrates that he is, honestly, a bit sideways but ultimately good-natured, is relegated to non-actions that bear no relation to his "self".

Let me reiterate for clarity -- Sechs is neither a sadist nor a sociopath. My distinct impression is that just like Shu, he has a very strong innate sense of right and wrong, but any ability for him to express or act on that sense of right and wrong has been systematically abused out of him. In fact, it's a little unlucky how well "villainy" works out for Sechs -- he can make his decisions based, essentially, on inverse utilitarianism, looking to cause the maximum amount of harm to the maximum amount of people, and thus avoiding any cognitive dissonance between his moral intuition and his professed reasoning, letting him suspend the need to self-examine about why he's doing anything indefinitely.

Sechs even argues that being a villain makes it easier for him to be friends with "someone like" Shu, because it allows him to essentially reconfigure his morality on the fly to rules-lawyer opportunities for him to work with Shu towards a common goal. But deciding to live a life in Dendro where everything he does either takes things by force or cheat others out of them doesn't leave any space for him to just... have relationships, to be non-transactional or to show kindness back when its shown to him, without "breaking character", without wasting his opportunity for self-expression. It's the only language he speaks, so to speak.

(And incredibly luckily for Sechs, as far as the game is concerned, the only people he can "sin" against in a mechanically demonstrable way are tians -- because crimes against Masters don't count, he never has incentives to hurt any real people. After all, as far as anyone knows the tians are just extremely advanced AI NPCs... right? )

So, we have Shu who is characterised by his refusal to limit himself, using his personal freedom strictly within the limits of his own ethics, and we have Sechs who is almost entirely defined by his limitations, using other people's ethics as scaffolding to explore his personal freedom. It makes perfect sense for Sechs to literally never shut up about Shu, to be absolutely obsessed with a kind of wholeness of identity Sechs desperately desires for himself, too, to admire him and to feel envious and to be literally attracted to him like a wilting flower turning to the sun. Shu is the strongest possible scaffold for Sechs to measure his own actions against.

They really are well-matched... and they are diametrically opposed within the diegesis of the game world because of the roles their behaviour has created for them within the narrative of Dendro. Which, y'know, works great for Sechs who honestly probably needs to adhere to his prescribed identity, who is still just learning what to do with all of the freedom he's been denied all his life, and sucks for Shu, who really did not sign up to have a damn archenemy and really, truly, just wants to have fun.

And the situation is not helped by the fact that Sechs high-key doesn't know what the fuck he's feeling about Shu, either. The vibe is very "I don't know how to flirt with him, so he has to die". Sechs' concept of Shu as a person is an extension of the narrative role he has within their interactions with each other, as a challenge to be overcome, as the hero to strike down. And in the process, Sechs either loses sight or never realises in the first place that Shu just.... isn't playing a character and just is like that because he is like that.

Except... Shu is playing a character. Shu Starling is literally a character played by Shuichi Mukudori.

So, like. Shu clearly gets it, but he's not happy about it. I am extremely emotionally compromised about the circumstances around their duel in general, but one of the most striking things about it is how hurt Shu seems over the whole thing. Like, he's holding both of those feelings in his head at once, both embracing Sechs' telling of the story and his place in it (he literally calls the letter of challenge a "love letter") and also being frustrated because he thought he'd made it clear that whatever it is that is between them was something different.

Because the character he is playing, the level he is meeting Sechs at isn't Shu Starling, King of Destruction. It's also Shu Starling, ascended joke character, Shu Starling, excellent cook, Shu Starling, professional slacker. He's in a similar position as Sechs, he's performing an identity that he is not able to embody in real life where he's marked by his fame and talent. And at the time of their duel, Sechs clearly wasn't able to meet him on that level, as two people playing a game together, within a shared narrative, and Shu gets that and he's so annoyed by it, because he wants them to be friends.

Unlike Sechs, whose isolation is clear and unambigous in the text, Shu's isolation from having a normal life is more in the subtext. And unlike Sechs, who has to deal with his mental dissonance and whose struggle to live as a whole entire person within his assumed identity is front and center, Shu's needs are backgrounded, and he's not telling on himself.

It's so easy to read almost a tone of betrayal to the way their duel in volume 18 plays out, except Shu is explicit about the fact that he likes Sechs. You can practically feel the fond aggravation of Shu going "I'm right here, dummy, you can just ask" when Sechs is talking about struggling to understand him. Shu, truly, wants to see him again, and wants him to... get better. Become happier. Find himself, so he can actually meet Shu where he's at.

The chemistry these two have is frankly incredible. Sechs, already, is set up for an incredibly compelling journey of self-discovery through the power of having friends for once in his life, but I was a fan of Shu first, and thus I am completely weak in the face of someone seeing right through him, not understanding what they see, and Shu liking them enough to actually bother explaining himself.

I love a villain who is obsessed with their own villainy in contrast with the hero, I was pretty much always gonna be extremely unhinged about Sechs' very blatant crush on Shu, but the flavour is really contained in how flatly unintimidated by Sechs' obsession Shu is, how much he likes him despite that and even, maybe, because deep down Shu also just wants to be known and seen. Sometimes the stranger who only knows us through our roles knows us better than anyone else.

[shorthaltsjester]

doing questionable things like rewatching a bard’s lament for “fun” and scanlan and vex you will always be famous. the fact that scanlan brings up that they’ve travelled across planes to fix vex’s daddy issues but then it’s vex’s daddy issues that ground her rebuttal to scanlan when she tells him to stop treating kaylie like an object. and god. vex’s “fuck him! fuck him for not saying anything sooner. and fuck us for not asking.” in the immediate aftermath, and then once she has time to put her walls back up, vex’s “my take-away from scanlan is that we all talk too much.”

the fact that vex was the one who made that comment that without his magic scanlan is just some guy but he’s also the some guy that vex spends the campaign looking up to (even if she does it through barbs and snark), the fact that when vex was fighting against saundor hearing things like “unproven ally” scanlan was all jokes until he realized how much vex believed what was being said to her. the fact that when scanlan comes back, it’s vex who literally sees through his disguise.

what do you mean scanlan was a deadbeat father who discovered a daughter that he did love but loved only as an object until vex called him out on it? what do you mean vex was a woman who struggled to forgive in part due to her crapshoot father and she was the first to forgive scanlan when he came back?

vex and scanlan also have such interesting interactions in terms of the balance of snark, silliness, and sincerity. it’s not uncommon from any characters of sam or laura’s since they are both silly little guys who also love drama and roasting each other especially when it comes to character rp, but as always it’s so dynamic when it’s the two of them bouncing off each other, especially when they’re doing so through scanlan and vex who are already bitchy characters (affectionate) with humour as a deflection method. but it’s a silly and deeply sincere moment when vex finally puts the witch hat scanlan gave her back on with his promise that he won’t run away from the final battle. it is one of my favourite laughable moments in c1 but it also reeks of sincerity when scanlan asks vex if she prefers planetar scanlan or normal scanlan and vex tells him he is fucking hot as a planetar, but she loves him like he was and he’s her favourite when he’s just himself.

like. they’re insane do you understand. the dawnfather asks vex to prove herself and scanlan turns her into a dragon to help her succeed, pelor asks vox machina what vex means to them and scanlan says she’s greedy and mean and the most perfect of them all. the knowing mistress asks scanlan to prove himself and vex escorts him on a broom he unlocked for her and then she picks an impossible lock for him, ioun tries to remind scanlan that his strength is the joy he provides to his friends and he makes a deflective quip that he’s really powerful and vex undercuts his deflection with a sincere assertion that he is. scanlan cast his last wish spell letting her see her brother on her wedding day. vex sent herself across the continent alone with her worry and grief while scanlan’s corpse lay awaiting resurrection to ensure that his daughter could be there to either bring him back or say goodbye.

they are the platonic chosen soulmates of all time to me. i make a post like this like once a year minimum and it’s because they Haunt me. both sam and laura said what if we made high charisma characters using their charisma as a shield and humour as a weapon and they saw through each other’s masks but they never explicitly talked about it to one another. good riddance to talks machina but i will never forget the episode post bard’s lament with laura and sam where sam revealed that vex was the only one who said anything that actually got through to scanlan and another episode where laura revealed that the reason vex was so angry and sad when scanlan left was that vex felt like her and scanlan had a unique bond where they were the only two who really saw one another’s masks for what they were. also laura providing the insight that while vex was actively working on being more forgiving, another reason she was so open and happy with scanlan when he came back was that vex didn’t want to scare him away again.

what am i supposed to do with all that? be normal about scanlan and vex? literally impossible

[arealtrashact]

I know you mostly love the Supes in the Boy’s (which same) but I gotta ask— what animals would the Boys be? Can’t stop thinking of Hughie as a giraffe lol

Hmmm . . .

Butcher - Billy Goat

Frenchie - Skunk

Kimiko - Tanuki

MM - Rottweiler

Hughie - Stag ( I like the idea of him having a similar enough silhouette to Butcher that he could mistake him for Lenny when he's soused )

[shaykappa]

Read six of crows! We have:

Kaz "I have a question about your mother and whether the rumors are true" Brekker

Inej "I like it when men beg, but this is not the time" Ghafa

Jesper Llewellyn "Thought of me? Late at night? What was I wearing?" Fahey

Nina "If I flirted with a plant, you can bet it would stand up and take notice" Zenik

Matthias Benedik "My ghost won't associate with your ghost" Helvar

Wylan "How about I push you in the canal and we see if you know how to swim?" Van Eck

[shit-people-probably-didnt-say]

Nina: Okay Mr Scientist if ‘matter cannot be created or destroyed’ then where the fuck are all my hair ties??

Wylan: …Uh

[thebibi]

"Have you cut window bars before professor"

"What are you friend John a nark. Anyway help me with these pliers."

Asdfghjk YES EXACTLY

Who's to say it wasn't in the original manuscript??

[aeirithgainsborough]

YELLOWJACKETS WEEK DAY 2 ➙ favourite character

[theaxolotlkween]

Silly little comic I made.

[origami-trust]

Lucy, Sept. 9, having recently received a transfusion from Arthur, writing about how she's thinking of their love for each other and how she knows he is thinking of her: "Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me....My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking."

Lucy, Sept. 12, having recently received a transfusion from Seward:   "I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing."

[honestlyvan]

id be really interested to see you talk about the dynamic btwn Haseo and Ovan + how it changes over time, love ur dothack thoughts so far

(Now on DW!)

I had to take a vigorous walk around the block and a shower before I could sit down to write this, lmao.

God, nonny, they are So Much. An unbelievable amount, even.

To step back from the mythical framing for a little bit and to just look at them as people, one of the things that makes me bark like a dog the worst is how all of the Epitaph are all circling and struggling with the similar kinds of of identity issues -- presumably being the reason the Epitaphs attached themselves to them, there's no room in the mind of people who are too secure in who they are to carry the duties of a Phase with them.

Each of the Epitaphs represent the temptation to fall into a variety of self-protective but futile failure modes that let you define yourself on your own terms but ultimately limit growth, and while I have thoughts about all of the Epitaph users and how they interact with each other, I definitely think Haseo and Ovan get the version of it that is the most brutal in its compatibility.

For Haseo, Skeith represents a temptation to do as thou wilst, to eschew a communal and social identity in favour of only exclusively defining himself -- which is, incidentally, how Ovan comes across initially. You could not find a guy who moves through the world with more assurance and less need to explain himself. Ovan appears to have a kind of singularity of identity that nobody else can get a word in edgewise -- and Haseo, who spends a lot of time feeling off and unsure and wordlessly anxious about having lost sight of who he is, that's like the holy grail.

Of course, the reason Ovan is so singular in his identity is because his sense of self is practically transparent and he exists almost exclusively as the life-support system for a machine that makes Aina happy. From the start, there's no way for Ovan to recognise Haseo the way he wants to be recognised because Ovan barely knows who he is, let alone what Haseo sees in him that is so admirable because Ovan is just reflecting back the thing Haseo wants to see in himself.

Because in contrast to the fundamental mistake in Haseo's thinking, Ovan is very clear-eyed about what Haseo is like. That's one of the core paradoxes of his character, he's very good at reading other people and completely oblivious to how they read him back. He's great at anticipating and manipulating people's behaviour, but is critically disconnected about how he should feel about the way other people feel about him. Haseo needs to see him as something to chase and grow into? Okay, if that's what he needs to be, it's as simple as that. The terms of their relationship are set forever now.

So, in a way, as much as Ovan's plan relies on Haseo growing as a person, as much as he frames it in those terms, what he actually needs is for Haseo to stay exactly the same. Stay exactly on the terms that Ovan needs him to stay on for his plan to succeed. Ovan can never let Haseo reach him because that would change the terms of their relationship, and make him truly unmanageable.

Which, really, is just how Ovan deals with everything in his life. He keeps it all at a distance, because he doesn't really have a sense of self to let people close to, except in the sense that he knows everything that has happened to cause this situation has been done by him, and that the only way to set it right is to find a way to cross himself out again. And if he has to let Haseo catch up to him, it's explicitly so Haseo can be his executioner, and help him rectify the mistake of existing in the world in the first place. Corbenik, the meaning of life and death, can only exist in the void.

And tbh, if Ovan's plans had actually worked out on the timetable he intended them to work out on, I think Haseo may have been fulfilled by that. From the start, he sees himself as the aspirant to Ovan's paragon, wants to reach him through his own effort, to exist in the world the same way he thinks Ovan does.

However, the rest of Haseo's arc is learning that none of us exist in the world alone. That we are defined by the experiences we have with other people. If he reaches Ovan and Ovan is no longer there, what does it still matter to have reached him?

[robby-bobby-tommy]

‼️SPOILERS FOR ACE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATIONS (1 AND 2) AND THE GREAT ACE ATTORNEY‼️

Plus Kazuma, Phoenix ect

Add characters that you think would fit the category

(Btw I'm not justifying their actions, but man do I feel bad for them. After one point their lives became a freaking greek tragedy)

[lesbians-4-shivroy]

I'm tryna see something 😎

[highabovethecloudssomewhere]

(Xerxies Wing AU)

I got an ask a while back about Hohenheim’s wings and whether or not Father would have a pair, as an imitation, as well as Edward’s left wing being returned to him after Alphonse’s sacrifice but tumblr mcfrickn ate the ask and for the life of me I Cannot Find It but I have Thoughts

[meeks-just-wants-to-scroll]

i am jittering violently for young vandermatthews.. i ask kindly please.... I have to see them kissing or smth every few hours it litrrally keeps me breathing... /j

Pose used

[paraphwrites]

charles is really out there like "crystal is so much like you maybe that's why i like her" yet failed to bring up their most similar character trait: the fact that they are both gold-medalists in the trauma olympics

[amethyst-halo]

Guydory pls🫴

this ship has actually been in my roster for a whiiiiiile bc my friend splash opened my eyes to it its very fun :]