#i will mourn them differently than i will mephisto and faust

[bungone]

apparently people like it when i rant about things, so

Mephisto and Faust didn't deserve their fate. They didn't deserve to die. Narratively, it makes sense. It's well written. Awful. I love it. The story would not have been the same if they hadn't. I'm not saying they shouldn't have died. I'm just saying, they didn't deserve to.

I see so many memes and jokes and whatnot about how much they suck, how they're pure evil (Mephisto more than Faust), but you have to remember they're children. Literal children.

In canon they're what. 13? 14? They could (should) be in middle school- and the fact they're not in itself is fucked up, because it's not just a normal situation for the world they live in, there's circumstances that were out of their control that prevented them from ever growing up to be normal kids.

Mephisto? he was in school. Then he got assaulted— that's a canon point. And by no fault of his own he now has a terminal illness that makes everyone around him simultaneously terrified of him and hate him on a fundamental level. Guess who was the only one who didn't? Faust.

And that's cool and all but two kids who's ages are in the single digits shouldn't have to rely solely on each other to survive. No buts, no exceptions, they're supposed to have adults care for them.

And guess who that adult was? Talulah. And that was fine, sure, at first, before the whole changing thing. She was the adult figure that they needed and it's no surprise at all that Mephisto refused to leave even after she changed. She was the only one who showed them an ounce of kindness and that was something Mephisto, unlike Faust, had experienced before. So it makes sense that Faust would be less trusting of her and ready to leave.

But they didn't. They stayed, and these 13 year olds, with like, severe developmental trauma, who have been conditioned to be okay with violence and death so long as they achieve their goal in the end, aren't to blame for their circumstances?

I mean sure, Mephisto is sadistic and doesn't care for the lives of all his soldiers. Tell me the fact that they all look exactly the same and wear masks doesn't have something to do with it.

Look me in the eye and tell me soldiers that don't have human faces and all wear uniforms and could easily be perceived as carbon copies to an outsider wouldn't be easy to overlook.

The fact they've been stripped of their individuality makes me think that he—Mephisto, I mean—can't actually handle killing people all that well.

anyway thats that pls get homeboy a res stone and cough drops and a karaoke machine and his silly little snake boy he's in a severely unhealthy codependent relationship with back pls thanks

[cerastes]

What do you think with the reunion squad? Do you symphatize them?

I'm assuming you mean the Reunion leadership in Arknights.

I only have one complaint with the way they are handled and that is that the game does veer into "you killed them :( feel bad about it" now and then, which, I get it, Arknights is built on a foundation of Who Is Right And Who Is Wrong, and there's a lot of persons of admirable character among Reunion, this much is true, so I don't particularly let this be more than a small complaint, and I realize that it's mostly my own views coming into play: I can mourn and honor a powerful and noble rival who stood on the opposite end of the board by carrying on and achieving the lofty goals of a better tomorrow we both believed in, rather than wallow in sadness. We both have beliefs, and this is just the outcome.

That very minor complaint aside, I think you can already tell, from this paragraph alone, and my previous posting regarding said member, ere you to peruse it if you have not already, that I do quite like them. I like the Reunion cast because they all have something to offer to the table. Each character could merit a whole post by themselves, so I'll keep it brief, for dashboard's sake, mentioning a few highlights:

Talulah, the leader, a young and brash idealist with the power and skills to make a difference, sweet Talulah, untarnished and warm and loving and caring, thrust into a raw, cruel world of warfare that twisted her beyond recognition, into a cruel manipulator, desensitized to the pain brought by the burden of leadership. Does this sound familiar? Talulah is an excellent narrative foil to the Doctor, as someone who has grown tragically unrecognizable to even their closest associates, who used to be oh so loving and compassionate, sanded by the burdens of leadership into a numb chessmaster. Yes, the Black Deathless Snake's possession is indeed a factor to consider, but keep in mind that by both the admission of both Talulah and Kaschei, he can't make her do things she wouldn't do, merely push her and influence her heavily towards things one might rationally not do but still would do.

Mudrock and Big Bob both represent the honest Infected that were wise enough to realize that Reunion had rotted from within, and yet, they couldn't, wouldn't abandon their ideal of making the world a better place for the Infected. Big Bob took his "family" and successfully funded an Originium Slug farm in Columbia, where he harvests the slugs' fluids, a commonplace item in Infected treatment to undo their pain, and gives it practically for free to the Infected (usually, these fluids are sold at an incredibly high markup), whereas Mudrock took it upon herself to fight for those that can't possibly fight for themselves, and to lead them to lands they could call a new home, where they wouldn't be second class citizens, in the borderlands of Kazdel, and was one hundred percent willing to die fighting to protect the refugees she had just saved in her Reel. The two of them represent candidly how, even though there's definitely a lot of violent and bad people in Reunion, there's also true believers not necessarily in the banner of Reunion per se, but rather, the goal of making the world better for the Infected, and that they, as powerful, skilled individuals, can make a difference.

Mephisto and Faust represent the horrors of child soldiers, those who die too young, who master combat to become rippers of flesh since childhood, who become twisted monsters to lash back against a world that has only hurt them. Mephisto is the latter, having become utterly incapable of feeling anything remotely close to kinship to anyone that isn't Faust, Talulah, FrostNova, Skullshatterer and Patriot, and thus being despised even by others in Reunion. Faust, on the other hand, is a subtle horror story. An unremarkable, weak, meek child, who got so distressed at seeing those who would protect him get hurt, who was so terrified of losing FrostNova or Talulah or any of the others any time they went out to fight, that he decided to kill his weakness and embrace the path of the warrior fully, becoming a master crossbowman and squad leader. Seldom is Faust's battlefield success seen as something positive. Yes, he was strong enough to pin down Nearl with his attacks. No, at no point is this anything more than a tragedy of how such a young child had to grow this strong just to make it to the next day. Faust's death is one of the most solemn in the game, mourned by practically everyone, akin to FrostNova's own: These were clearly caring people that had been dealt the mother of a mulligans. Can you blame them for fighting tooth and nail for what they truly believed was a better tomorrow, just the way you do?

There's a lot more than can be said for every member, what they represent, and their contribution, but overall, it's a well-balanced cast with a purpose besides just being antagonists.