#and stuff with Chikage's dynamic reminds me of stuff with my sister

[icharchivist]

i know last post is a joke and it's bc chikage clearly has issues and like i say that all the time that i have 0 standarts but also I'm joking when i say that :( he has a lot of fascinating elements to him and he's much better than that...

(fucktons of spoilers for act 2 underneath) (also it got long)

yeah chikage has a terrible start in the story and he sure has flaws but he's also like a chara who canonically tends to repress his trauma and i could argue that a lot of his bad traits come from that in particular and i have so much sympathy for it (even more so since he begs for help about being saved from it in his character song)

to me it's someone who's been thrown into an awful situation and coped as he could, the fact he considers truth a weakness is indication that he could never feel safe being truthful, and the circumstances of his grief really put the fact he has unhealthy coping mechanism on fire to burn the only person he still cared about.

not to mention i think there's something just to be said about his dedication to stay in the organization to protect hisoka because it's the acknowledgement that his hands are so dirty anyway that he can keep dirtying them if it means he can protect the people he loves, but like again, in his song he begs to "be saved from this fate" so i doubt it's something he's doing because he truly doesn't mind - August wanted to free him too after all, and he knew Chikage better than anyone.

and imo there's a layer of self hatred that comes with being dedicated in staying the monster. just like also in citron's arc he accepts to be "the villain" again and be hated if that's what Citron needs of him, Chikage has no fun at all about it and he doesn't even bother to lie about it either which imo shows how much he's throwing his life away for others.

not to mention his lies are also a reflexion of that - by denying others of knowing about him he's sacrificing a part of his identity to keep everyone's safe and imo the fact he was truthful to Tsuzuru about that ways before he considered the spring troupe family (and that the lie he tells tsuzuru to get him to protect himself is still based on half truth) show that it's not something he's doing out of joy and that even at his worst he still considered ways to protect those people (even if it was for something as simple as he projected August on Tsuzuru that time)

also i do think a few of his deeper lies are based on half truth which i find fascinating. the story he tells Tsuzuru clearly is supposed to evoke August and Hisoka. The lie he tells Sakyo about where he was with Izumi is based on, if you boil it down, "making things right for your sibling" which is still exactly what happened then.

also to anyone who called his lies gaslighting, please actually research what gaslighting is because it's not what he's doing. it's not a synonym for lying. gaslighting implies wanting to make their victim doubt their reality by enforcing that their recolection of an event was made up by them and remplacing said recolection by a lie. it's a manipulation tool to make people think they cannot even trust themselves. and it is a paterns, not a one off thing, because it's a form of long term abuse. Chikage always says he's lying about himself, not about what people think they know, he made it clear that people shouldn't trust what he's saying, the only "lie" he keeps up is about his identity and it's to protect everyone, even in the end he tells Sakyo that he wishes he could tell the truth but he can't share it. "Rather than fooling others, i'm better at fooling myself" as he says in his character song. also another indication than his lies are a coping mechanisms to set distance with his own feelings and keeping people from getting too close, not to manipulate others. (note also that as far as i can tell he never lied to Hisoka, ie the only person who actually knows him).

when people love or relate to a character who sees themselves as the villain, as the monster, there's deeper truth that can be unveilled for that.

and if he's honest about it, considering his thoughts on his mother and step dad(s) i think there is a deep cut into his ability to trust others because of that situation and it is so deep that it's probably more arguments on why he closed himself to this point. also i know ppl are mad at the direction this took and yeah i get it but it's a him problem, he just doesn't want to be touched and I'm still mhmmm at the amount of trust you must have lost from your parents to get to such a level of repulsion.

but without even going that deep a lot of Chikage's fans I've met are Gekka fans and they're especially emotional over his dynamic with Hisoka and his attempts to now make things right toward him. and imo part of the reason Chikage doesn't apologize (which i saw people being angry about) is because he doesn't even forgive himself for the things he's done, he's doing the right thing now because he wants to protect what he loves but i don't think he deserves to be forgiven, which is why he also tried to run away that one time, before he could have this one convo with Hisoka when they talked about their shared trauma.

(tbh add the lyrics to Scarlet Game where Hisoka says "but only i was forgiven" because he's the only one who got out of the organization in the end and allowed to move on while it acknowledge that as long as Chikage remains in the organization he is stuck unable to move on from the horrible things he has done and will do for it. Chikage is like trapped and he picked that fate to make sure Hisoka was safe but it's so sad.)

I'd also argue that considering act 2 acts in pair, with the spring and winter chapter foiling each other and summer and autumn doing so as well, Chikage's family mistrust and how it impacted him can and should be set in parallelism with Guy's situation, because both seem to have been coping with their mother's poor decisions in men and the neglect that followed in letting their kids being hurt and repressing themselves because of that and joining organization where both could be tools with a distance toward their emotions. tho that does rely on Chikage telling the truth about that one thing but so far I'd tend to believe it.

Chikage's copings are a dumpfire and it doesn't help that his grief was so raw that he just fucked up everything, but the amount of trauma that hides underneath is so compelling to me.

also lbr but i also don't trust someone who keeps a potion used to comit suicide on him at all time is someone who is completely at peace with his life. the organization likely wired in all gekka that their lives didn't matter and that they should throw it out for the organization and imo it gave them a unhealthy rapport to death. even the fact Chikage did threatens Hisoka that he "should not come back alive if August dies" the aftermath showed that it's not something Chikage seriously thought. imo i believe Chikage believed that, but when he learnt of Hisoka's death he must have felt partially responsible and realized the weight of his words. while it's an horrible thing to say the fact Hisoka rolled his eyes at it means, imo, that they were both wired in not setting values into their lives anyway. and considering how quickly Hisoka tRIED TO KILL HIMSELF i would actually bet that it extends to Chikage. i believe both of them were wired with suicidal thoughts they could easily act on. again, the fact August tempered with the potions imo really show he expected both brothers one day to kill themselves and he tried to prevent that blaming himself for it. so yeah while what Chikage told Hisoka was awful, they were probably both raised with that mindset, Chikage realized too late the weight of this mindset and has now an opportunity to fix it, but i also think it shouldn't be brushed off that Hisoka acted on it and tried to kill himself and that by all account, Chikage would have a similar thought process.

(also feel like it reflects in their character song of suicidal idealization but in different ways: Hisoka of not wanting to wake up, to keep living in a dream because reality frightens him and he's scared of himself, while Chikage's would probably be more about how he feels like he cannot be saved from his fate. that's overreading though but i think about it a lot)

ALSO (this is the fourth time I'm editing this post with an addition) his spice addiction is something to consider bc I've read a thread about it once and, it seems that, spices unleash specific chemicals that sends a pain reaction to the brain that is answered with andorphine to ease the pain and it is what brings joy out of it. Chikage eats an ungodly amount of spice which is already alarming, he mentions it's the only food he can bear to eat but it took him a long while to appreciate it, so the guy just needed Homemade Chemicals to be stable and ironically those involve pain. it also can product an addiction and we know Chikage feels it that way bc of his "I'm in spice withdraw" line and that in his vampire backstage when he tries to stop eating spice it reflects on his mood a lot, Hisoka gets alarmed by how much of a bad mood Chikage is in. so like... it's not healthy for Chikage to do that and while now he probably eats spice just to eat it and the chemical reactions doesn't do as much effect (like coffeeaddiction) it still is that Chikage had to find ways to cope with his life and now he can't really let go and it's super sad to me?

and it's honestly incredible because i started this post wanting to share very personal reasons Chikage's arc echoed with me but instead with the preface alone it's a character meta that just stands on its own, so like, feel that i feel all of that for him while also having deeply personal reasons to connect with him. (not relate tho, not... really, but connect and feel sympathy)

so yeah i know I'm also one to joke about my low standarts when it comes to how i love Chikage because he has glaring flaws but all i see is a wounded man and i feel so much for him and imo there's a lot, lot of reasons to feel sympathy for him.

so yeah i love Chikage bye.