#and i feel highly validated knowing that the card I tried to say wouldn't work doesn't

[didsomeonesayventus]

Hm. Malding.

[paperstarwriters]

oh yeah absolutely I thought about this too and for a while it kinda made me hate Asra for exploiting Muriel like that but like yeah I agree that it was probably something to do with Asra's tunnel vision on MC. Idk, there's a lot of unresolved tangled relationships between Muriel and the others and I just feel like he should've been given the chance to actually have those difficult relationships untangled so that he could better connect to others as his upright route is supposed to imply is good for him.

Like, I know a bunch of people are shipping Nadia and Muriel and I'm sure the both of them would get along well, but (unless there's other content from Nadia/someone else's route that signals otherwise) Nadia and Muriel don't really know each other initially and if they did, it would've been through Lucio which might've affected how they see each other.

But like imagine for one moment: what if in Muriel's route we got to see Muriel start to get along with each other due to their mutual snark & sassing style of insults to people they dislike. Like, Muriel starts sassing Lucio the same way he does Julian but worse, and it's a sign that he doesn't see Lucio as such an unstoppable force anymore. And then Nadia just replies back with something equally snarky and clever further validating them, and they just bounce off of each other like that much to the delight of everyone else watching.

Maybe Asra wouldn't intervene even though they hate him too, because they knew this was an important thing for the both of them to get off of their chests. Julian tries to interviene but is promptly sassed back into place, though their comments are notably lighter and fonder to Julian than to Lucio.

But yeah back to the point though, i just think it would've been nice for Muriel to untangle some of those past relationships he's had with people. Especially with Asra. Like I wonder if the way Asra acts near the end of the route, where he drunkenly ushers Muriel and MC into an isolated cave together is because they think that they would like to be alone, and that in the same way Asra did to Muriel, Muriel & MC will end up isolating themselves from Asra & everyone else, even though they don't in the end. Like maybe that's why they hung around Julian so much, because they wanted to distract themselves from MC and Muriel not wanting to interfere. Keeping Julian by him because he knew Muriel didn't really like Julian, and so wouldn't try to approach them so quickly, so that they could better keep their distance.

How would Muriel feel about that? Is he trying to keep MC to himself as some sort of petty revenge? I highly doubt that. How does he feel at the point that Asra might just be avoiding him all over again? There's just so many questions about their relationship and I feel so salty that it's just never resolved in Muriel's route :(

Like I think it would've been nice if Asra just re-established themself as a really close friend with Muriel again, cracking inside jokes or cleverly working together in cards like they did when kids or something. Like, I'm not saying that Asra shouldn't have been close to Julian at all, but I just think it would've been nice to have that relationship with Muriel a little more fleshed out.

Even more than that honestly, (though this might be me being greedy) I kinda want to see Asra sort out their relationship with MC a little bit as well. Like, I feel like since it's Muriel that MC has fallen in love with it becomes so much easier for Asra to be happy for them, and yet so much more difficult considering their past feelings. Idk, if Muriel was able to mend the relationship between himself and Asra maybe he'd encourage Asra to do the same to MC, and we just get Asra extending the offer to still be friends after everything is over, and Muriel and MC promising that just because they're close, they're not about to abandon Asra altogether (which of course makes the reversed route all the more heartbreaking when they break that promise lmao).

Some thoughts on Asra's route...

Replaying Asra's route after having played Muriel's really hits different...

In one of the other routes Asra and Muriel appear to start a romantic relationship, and in Asra's route it's very clear that Muriel cares very deeply for Asra and dislikes the Apprentice. He mentions in one of the paid? dream scenes that he's worried about Asra and the Apprentice fading into their own world and leaving everyone else behind (again, apparently), and that he's determined to stop this from happening. His concern for Asra and initial hostility toward the Apprentice may be rooted in jealousy, not only because his oldest (and only) friend was more or less taken from him, but perhaps with romantic connotations as well.

In Book XI: Justice, Asra and Julian stage a mock trial by combat against Muriel. Though he apparently agreed to participate and is implied to have returned to the Coliseum of his own volition, presumably out of concern for Asra, who has been accused of being Julian's accoplice... he is still more or less backed into a corner and forced to play along with Asra and Julian's plan to stage a fight.

Now, to be fair to Asra, he states after everything goes wrong that it wasn't supposed to end this way, and it appeared that he was attempting to not only exonerate himself and Julian from their charges but somehow help Muriel overcome his past (he does disintegrate Muriel's chains during the fight no matter what choices you make). There was a point during this that I thought I could guess what Asra's plan was regarding Muriel's past, but being refreshed on how it actually pans out, I can't remember it now. Something about making the people of Vesuvia realize how barbaric the Coliseum was under Lucio.

The thing that stands out to me throughout this whole ordeal is that Asra knows about Muriel's trauma. He knows he was enslaved to Lucio and forced to fight and execute people in the Coliseum. He knows that Muriel is terrified of hurting other people, especially those he cares about. In Asra's route, the only person Muriel cares about is Asra, so hurting him is triggering for him. He literally is in a stupor after the board he was using as a weapon splinters off and hits Asra in the mouth, making him bleed. This is clearly meant to make the reader worried about Asra, but Muriel reacts as well, and appears hypnotized by the blood. I remember the first time I read this I thought he was going to have some crazy berserker-Hulk sort of reaction, but having read his route, it's way more tragic.

Though Muriel did seem to return to the Coliseum of his own volition, it does seem that Asra took this as a sign that he was coming to terms with his trauma. He was willing to exploit Muriel's care for him in order to save his own skin so he can be with the Apprentice. Though I recognize Asra's other toxic traits to some degree, I also have similar ones myself so they don't really stand out to me. This, however, where he more or less disregards Muriel's feelings on the matter, is actually really crushing. In Muriel's route, his whole thing is that he DOES NOT want to fight, he DOES NOT want to even spar with the Apprentice with blunt sticks out of fear of hurting them, so why would he willingly go along with this unless he was more or less in the same position Lucio put him in? Fight in the arena, or something bad will happen to Asra.

Asra knows this, and puts him through it regardless. During the whole fight, Julian's actions are written so as to make it seem like he's the one messing things up--he takes the "finishing blow" that Muriel was going to deal to Asra and gets knocked unconscious. Asra spends most of the entire time doing flashy, dramatic magic tricks that get the crowd cheering for him. After he "wins", he and the Apprentice are carried out of the Coliseum like heroes. Though Asra will try to soothe Muriel if the Apprentice so chooses right before the end, and he does look for Muriel in the crowd, he seems otherwise unbothered or unaware of the impact this may be having on his oldest friend. Which is pretty shitty.

Of course, Asra, Julian, and Muriel are all playing characters during their fight--Asra is the flashy magician, Julian is the rogueish BDSM dagger guy, and Muriel is the Scourge. Asra obviously can't show his concern even if he wanted to because he's supposed to be fighting Muriel. But putting his bro into this situation in the first place says a lot about his character. Though Julian is the one whose route is based around self-loathing because he believes he hurts everyone around him, Asra is the only one who gets what he wants out of this ordeal, and he even says so right before the chapter ends. Muriel was forced to relive his trauma and didn't get the resolution that was intended, and Julian gets KOed by a punch that literally sent him flying across the arena (though he probably enjoyed it tbh, he's a nasty little man like that lmao).

I wonder if this dynamic between Asra and Muriel was intentionally written this way in order to further amplify his tunnel vision when it comes to the Apprentice. Is this is how he acted in the past, causing Muriel to hate the Apprentice as he does and remark that he won't allow it to happen again? Maybe (probably) I'm reading too much into it, but as a survivor of abuse and trauma it rubs me the wrong way much more than Asra's obsessive, clingy nature. Of all of the reversed ends, Asra's is the one that actually scared me and kind of haunted me, because it hits a little too close to home.

These are all just thoughts that I wanted to spill out because I thought it was interesting and I wasn't sure if anyone else has talked about it before.