#just a general... consesus? of my take on haz + the direction I wanna nudge his character in after neo

[ikiyomeru]

ACKSHUALLYYYY while I’m here... I’ll do a bit of a ramble under the cut because I can’t exactly jot my stuff down on a doc for some reason so this’ll be the next best thing

It is no secret music is the main motivation to my characterization with my muses (especially with TWEWY, seeing as music is fundamental to its gameplay and themes), so with Haz... given that most of his songs in his playlist are dreary, I knew I wanted him to have a pretty sinister start.

Where Joshua (and Neku in that regard) were misanthropists, my direction I’m angling for is that while Haz is also a misanthropist, he teeters on the deeper end of that spectrum by being a nihilist. Nihility is a theme I ADORE exploring, and have been seen delving into with several muses (ie. Lucilius from GBF, my WOL from FFXIV), and given Haz’s general lack of understanding about anything regarding purpose (”what makes this city so great” “why do these people mean anything to you” “why do you struggle for things that shouldn’t matter because the end result is the same” “why is it that I hoped for you to be a risk taker”), it seemed interesting to try and jump into his characterization, especially considering the fact he’s an Angel (it’s completely contradictory to their purpose).

To that end, my Haz is a little bit more sinister than he lets on or even realizes. His apathy goes beyond his lack of faith in humanity, and extends into his lack of faith in existence itself. It’s moldable and malleable, and he figured this out solely from the fact he knew it wasn’t normal to be so unfeeling as he was. He wants to see just how far these things can change, and whether it can hold his interest long enough before he eventually discards that too. Yet, he’s a part of the hivemind all the same – willing to discard his humanity because in spite of that emptiness, nihility is usually born from a deep innate anger that’s so dark – you’d rather not feel it altogether. 

So, my path with Haz’s nihility in particular, is that it breeds so much contradiction.

In NEO, it’s stated Hazuki is someone unsympathetic, and yet he also gives in to the sheer impulse of helping Rindo for the hope he would see Joshua throw himself into intervention.

With that, I decided to feed into it and give it sustenance as a habit Hazuki cannot help. It’s adrenaline – it makes his heart race. His life was driven by adrenaline because at the time, it was the only means that could quell his anger because he loved to feel thrill in spite of the stagnancy he believes is a constant. Nihility = stagnancy. Adrenaline = unpredictability. He was eager to be reborn from the stagnancy, and ironically, doing just that lead him back into it because he decided to join the hivemind. The only reason he isn’t wallowing in nihility again is because it won’t allow him to. 

In spite of everything he’s done to lead himself to the position he’s at, it left him vulnerable to being touched by the unpredictability of love and what it makes you do by the end of NEO. 

SOOOOOOO all in all, the direction for Hazuki I’m angling for is that he’s someone who wallows in his apathy, but in that same vein is weak to something as simple as his impulse (he feeds into it even as someone as adjudicative as he is). His goal when he died was to be reborn into something grander than life, so as an Angel, he believes he achieved that – but what he doesn’t understand is that people could be reborn more than once. 

Rebirth baby. I try to write it with metaphorical flames (his heart) in his chest (the flames are his heart) that change depending on what thrum of an emotion he can vaguely feel (the flames are his heart guys it’s his emotions bc he’s a phoenix). He’s walking that thin line of it constantly.