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bi-dazai · 5 years

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ok my bsd predictions for major plot points in the future

If dazai were to be killed off in bsd, chuuya would probably be killed with him in a final act of coded symbiosis.

Tbh tho that's such a major thing that it probably wouldn't happen until when the manga is finishing up so

Chuuya will either become the PM Boss or he'll join the ADA.

So chuuya is strongly suggested in two ways for his future which is HM INTERESTING. So the way that Mori clearly recruits him not just for his ability but for his leadership skills, plus the how chuuya has been developing those skills, is something I was thinking about a lot in S3. Mori is very clearly not happy with Dazai being the heir, even though he was the best choice. Dazai would have probably killed Mori and taken his place by the time he was 20 if odasaku hadn't died. Chuuya has loyalty to the mafia plus the fighting and leadership abilities. He's also got a certain obedience and controllability that if Mori was to step aside and not die he would like. Also something ppl forget is that chuuya is actually good at negotiation and staying calm under pressure, it's suggested that dazai particularly triggers his anger because dazai is an annoying shit who seems to be in canon attached to him whenever they're in the same room.

HOWEVER. Now I don't think I've ever said this on this blog despite me constantly thinking about it but Fukuzawa's ability is the perfect thing for Chuuya, as it has the possibility of actually reigning in corruption. If chuuya joined the ADA he would actually be able to use corruption's ability of throwing black holes without losing control of himself. Arguably that would also get rid of the need for dazai's intervention although it's been established that skk were thought of as a perfect fighting duo for a year before corruption even first manifested in a fight, so I don't think this would kill skk. And chuuya joining the ADA would mean that he and dazai have to interact on the daily. It also means that the mafia is left without any clear heir. People have vouched for kouyou in this situation but I think it's clear that kouyou is being forced to be in the mafia, she's given up on leaving and doesn't want to be there actively.

I don't think the second outcome is very possible plotwise for a few reasons. These are all totally writer's arguments so appeals to logic and plot aren't exactly going to work here, but as a writer myself these are the planning issues that stick out extremely badly if we get chuuya to defect:

- it would have to take something extremely major to get chuuya to leave the loyalty of the mafia

- chuuya becomes even more OP. asagiri kafka has said that though he really likes chuuya (as evidenced by the amount of goddamn times chuuya comes up in the novels), he avoids putting him in the manga because chuuya is extremely overpowered. If he and dazai were logically paired together for each issue every arc would be solved far too quickly for things like character development, or like...story...to take place. This is why chuuya is constantly sidelined. You have to actively make it so that chuuya isn't on people's minds constantly, or get him out of the picture immediately, so that your narrative can actually develop. Chuuya is honestly a mistake in a writing sense. But he's a strong character and he and dazai were written in tandem to each other so he's absolutely unremovable. A character like chuuya NEEDS to exist. So the way chuuya has been toned down is Corruption. Chuuya's ability by itself is just...incredibly powerful. He's virtually indestructible. However Corruption, the ultimate form, is shown to actively kill chuuya. The only times we've seen corruption used is cthulu, shibusawa, and shibusawa big dragon, all extreme threats. So chuuya's life when he's pulled out as the deus ex machina is tied to dazai. This makes chuuya's unchecked OP a little less unchecked and a little less OP. Chuuya is actually a fantastic example of why you CAN have OP characters, you just have to write them a certain way.

However in writing them a certain way, the most stupid thing you could do for your narratives would be to bring corruption under control, and to bring chuuya into the group of protagonists. you have to find excuses in every problem to why chuuya can't just come out and handle this himself, like you were before but now dazai's absence isn't an issue PLUS your readers are paying more attention to chuuya because he's around all the time.

So yeah, chuuya being in the ADA would be a bad choice narrative wise unless it was for like...one arc or smth. Chuuya becoming the next boss of the port mafia is wayyyyy more likely to me. I don't think chuuya would like it but he's really the most obvious choice

Dostoyevsky/rat arc is going to be mega arc/s.

one of the exciting things abt this series is that I have no idea how long this conflict with the rats will go on for. At first I thought it would be an occasional and ongoing plotline that is explored not as one big set arc but interspersed with other non-rat arcs. However by the way it's going it looks like we have two options, either 1) the rat issue is being dealt with across one mega-arc or 2) rat issues will still be dealt with like I thought, interspersed, but each time they pop up it will be a mega-arc like it has been so far. I genuinely don't know how this will be resolved, and I'm actually kind of wondering if the characters will finally leave kanagawa prefecture and maybe head to Russia to defeat the rats. I think this could be a good start to travelling the characters to settings outside yokohama.

Agatha Christie is going to be matched up to Ranpo.

Like Dostoyevsky is dazai's foil because their works IRL were similar in tone, Agatha Christie and Ranpo match up in that way perfectly. We've already met the trick foil (we thought he would be, but he wasn't) for Ranpo in Poe (IRL Poe actually did write mystery at times, and his works do contain elements of suspense and unknown). Ranpo is clearly going through hell in this arc which makes me feel like he's going to start being a much more major character in the future.

Agatha Christie and Edogawa Ranpo's works both fit in the mystery genre and were both alive irl around the same time. They both played historic roles in developing the mystery genre of their language's literature and are pretty well-known in non-literature circles because mystery often has a pulp, mass-consumable aspect to it. It was actually surprising to me that they were made into characters considering the other characters are named after authors of much "higher grade" Literature, as in Literature capital L. Mystery authors especially like Agatha Christie don't fit that bill, but they've played a central role in developing the fiction industry so I don't find it odd. Plus there's a bit of a debate what counts as Literature and every person has different opinions. Mine differs to asagiri kafka's which evidently seems to be that if the author has had a significant impact on the literary field then their works become Literature, thus they become 文豪 (Literary masters), thus they become a bsd character. I think that's fair, even if it isn't what I would personally say Literature is. This is par for the course tho lol, p sure any person who is into Literature will have a different thing to say about what gets that capital L.

But yeah, I think Ranpo and Christie are clearly going to be each others foils.

Christie is going to be cold. Like. COLD.

Dostoyevsky is more obvious evil, it shows on the surface. But Christie will have a polite veneer, a charm to her. We've seen her in a shot, and she sits tall, she enjoys tea, she dresses expensively and lives in colourful rooms. But she had no hesitation to destroy Yokohama if a situation wasn't dealt with within half an hour in the cruelest way possible. Christie was actively ready to incinerate Yokohama alive, that was her first instinct when contacted for help. Christie very clearly has a lack of care for the lives of others, OR she wants to destroy Yokohama in particular. However considering this is the goal of Dostoyevsky and Christie will probably be the next major villain after Dostoyevsky, repeating that goal and motivation is pretty boring and not very bungou stray dogs.

The order of the clock tower will not come to yokohama first.

The Guild were the ones to come to yokohama and threaten it up close. The order of the clock tower was a major threat to yokohama from across the continent. That's terrifying. The ADA/Mafia will have to work proactively

The end of the clock tower will have major repercussions.

The order of the clock tower seems to have its claws in everything and has a tight maintenance of leadership and control over almost every gifted organisation we've met. The Order seems to literally keep order. But they've clearly got a goal with sending the guild and the rats after the book. If the order is destroyed then certain aspects of gifted society slip loose and create new problems. This will probably be the creator of an arc or two after the order arc is over.

Chuuya's backstory is linked to Dazai's.

Chuuya was used by the military and experimented on until he could contain a god of destruction, after which he went haywire, blasted a huge crater in yokohama, and became a feral child.

Dazai was...we don't know. The furthest back we can tell is that some time in his early teens he was taken in by Mori. Before that he was apparently wandering around trying to find some kind of emotion, something to make him feel. He eventually found that with the violence and adrenaline rush of the mafia.

Now I don't think that dazai is a psychopath. It's easy to say he is with the way he seems to talk about the hole in his heart and the absence and emptiness. However dazai very very clearly cares. He cares about odasaku, he cares about atsushi, he cares about the ADA, and he even cares about chuuya (this is not my shipper brain talking, I am literally talking about canon). Dazai very clearly CARES. He isn't a psychopath.

My belief is that dazai is the most clear argument for my case that the series is about mental illness and self worth. Dazai very clearly has a major depressive disorder.

I also think that dazai is extremely traumatised. Obviously he's traumatised by being in the mafia at 15 and by odasaku's death, but I also think dazai may have been traumatised even before then.

Atsushi is dazai's mentee, the half of shin soukoku. He's shown to have childhood trauma. Akutagawa also has childhood trauma. Chuuya has childhood trauma. This may be a coincidence but almost every main character in this series has some form of early trauma.

Dazai IRL was not called Dazai Osamu. Dazai Osamu is actually a very sad name but Dazai's birth name is Tsushima Shuuji. IRL dazai/Tsushima was the son of a rich family that lived in Aomori prefecture (which is very rural lol). Dazai had an absent father and a sick mother and wasnt raised by his parents but rather by servants and his aunt. His father died when he was young (not that he got very old) and his life was plagued by constantly running off with girls, getting his allowance cut for being a marxist, and, yes, suicide attempts.

So my ideas for how this may translate into bsd dazai is this:

- dazai ran away from home when he was young

- dazai never had a good parental figure

- dazai is from a rich family in a rural area very far away. Like for those who don't know Aomori is at the northern tip of Honshū, just below Hokkaido. Yokohama is just south of Tokyo. The region in between is mostly forest and smaller cities. Most of Japan's (major) cities are cloistered around Tokyo and Kyoto and Fukuoka which are towards the south. So dazai is a country boy who has wandered japan after running away from home.

- dazai's real name is Tsushima Shuuji and there's a personal reason he's distanced himself from that. This one im not sure about but yeah

- thus follows that why would dazai be so fucked up if he isn't a psychopath and he did come from a rich family? Dazai to me reads that something major happened. In shin skk it's clear that atsushi and alutagawa share a past of abuse at the hands of parental figures and loneliness. With all the similarities and parallels drawn between the characters in skk and shin skk it seems logical to me that chuuya's past of torture may be similar to Dazai's in a way. It would be disappointing to me if dazai's past was covered and it didn't in some way affect him. The clearest parallel between skk is that they both lacked parental figures most if not their entire lives.

There's also this comment that dazai makes when the head of atsushi's orphanage dies. It's that relationships with fathers are messy and even if they were terrible it's natural to cry. This seems like bsd dazai may share irl dazai's father's death early in his life. It's hinted therefore that dazai's father was either abusive or neglectful and died when dazai was younger.

Anyway this went longer than I thought it would but I invest far too much brain time into bsd so it's gotta seep out at some point lol

#long post #bsd

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uniformbravo · 6 years

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me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)

ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first

so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out

i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:

(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)

so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere

so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab

i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain

so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this

(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)

from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?

& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?

i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear

but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline

and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!

(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)

krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right

well, time to export it as a gif

haha

hoooo oo o

so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options

well

i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:

notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??

so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look

it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY

?????????????

and it also gave me all This bullshit

like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk

((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)

so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr

so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)

so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain

so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately

WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”

so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH

so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy

here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green

(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)

the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*

anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s

(^that’s my outro music)

#this started out so boring like a tutorial (but made by someone who doesn't know what the fuck theyre talking abt)#& then things derail Real Quick #that's why this is the ''buildup ver.''#retag later #talkin bout stuff #today posts #rieley's wips #(me: i can't mention this youtuber by name in case my post shows up in search #me: *adds a link to the post rendering that effort for naught*#me: *leaves it anyway bc it's funny*)#pls listen to the outro musi c it's rly good & tunmgmldnr wouldnt let me embed the video & idk how to do it thru html & too lazy to look it #up :(

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notesofarichlycolorednight · 6 years

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Why does no one talk about how luke lost siblings pre war? Like like is what 14 when he comes to camp, hes 19 when percy does. Meaning, because he wasnt the cousler when he got to camp one or more of his soblings had to die in the five years he lived at camp. In the five years he lived at camp his brothers and sisters would go home and not come back? How many bodless shrouds did luke have burn???

oh i think

but on this blog, we stan luke castellan

i stanned luke before it was cool, before the word “stan” even existed

i was stanning luke the moment i finished tlt

but, uh, anyway,,,

in a more…coherent way, i think it’s bc a lot of ppl don’t like luke. like at all. and a lot of it stems from two things,,,

1: many ppl, i think, don’t separate kronos from luke and luke from kronos. OR, they don’t fully grasp just how manipulative kronos was, and how far someone can go when they are being manipulated. OR, they could not do both of those things and still hate luke, and that’s fine and fair. they’re entitled to their opinion

2: the whole “did you love me” scene, when luke was dying

and i know this isn’t what you’re asking for–in fact your question at the beginning of your ask is probably more rhetorical than anything–but like i said, i stan luke castellan, and i have a lot of feelings abt this topic. so i’m going to break down my points, and then talk abt his life at chb before percy showed up, regarding the deaths of his siblings

which is my usual at this point so, ya know,,,

what are you gonna do

as usual, hcs under the cut

one

1a: sometimes i get the feeling that some think luke and kronos were basically one in the same? and that luke is completely and wholly responsible for his actions throughout the series. which is wrong. he’s not, he was being severely manipulated by a titan; misled, misguided, and used. kronos was taking something that already existed in luke and twisting it to his own gains. additionally, after kronos possess him, he’s no longer in control of his actions. he’s trapped in his own body, while kronos pulls the strings, quite literally.

1b: i also get the feeling that sometimes ppl don’t quite understand how manipulation and gaslighting can effect your ability to think for yourself, to think clearly abt a lot of things at all. or, swinging in the other direction, perhaps think too much abt everything. for this post, it’s the former. manipulation is subtle and insidious, you start to do and say things you wouldn’t normally think you’d do or say for fear of punishment, whether it be physical, emotional, and/or psychological from the other. manipulation like that is abuse, and luke was being abused by kronos. so he is not completely and wholly responsible for his actions throughout the series

1c: finally, ppl may very well recognize these two things–that luke and kronos were two separate entities, and that manipulation can be a terribly powerful and destructive tool used against ppl–and still decide to hate him. and ya know, that’s fine. we’re all entitled to how we feel abt fictonal characters. at the end of the day, agree to disagree

two

a lot of ppl hate him also bc of the question he asked annabeth in tlo, a dying man’s inquiry

and a lot of ppl interpreted it as romantic. and therefore, rightfully so, saw that as disgusting, considering luke is considerably older (6 to 7 yrs, at least).

not only that, but luke oftentimes used annabeth’s crush on him against her (whether he knew annabeth’s love was romantic or familial at that time, who’s to say; i mean i say that he didn’t realize annabeth had a crush on him for a very long time, he probably mostly saw it as familial, bc he is considerably older)–i think the biggest example of that would be when he got annabeth to hold the sky for him bc he knew if she saw him in pain, she would help him, no question, bc she loved him. that i can’t really argue against. i will say he was still being deeply manipulated by kronos, but it’s still a p despicable thing to do just in general

the infamous question he asks annabeth, i see as way more complicated. i think since we’re in percy’s head, it’s meant to seem romantic, considering percy could tell immediately annabeth had a crush on luke at the beginning of tlt, and percy, himself, had completely fallen, head-over-heels in love with annabeth at that point in time.

i see the question as familial, as well as romantic love, but not in the way you think. i felt it was him almost checking to see the depth of annabeth’s romantic love she felt for him–was it just a crush, or has she deeply and truly fallen in love with me? i think he knew she’d fallen in love with percy (even if it took him a while to figure out she had a crush on him). his question was more a check, rather than a, “oh i’m going to ask this girl who is 7 yrs younger than me if she loves me romantically.” but also one of familial love. her answer is implied to be strictly romantic, but luke knows that annabeth’s always loved him, and he’s checking to see if not romantic, than still as family. i.e., “but, no, i didn’t love you in that way”

bonus! three

and look, before you get all indignant and ready to pull receipts, i’m not a luke apologist

i recognize that him being manipulated, and not fully in control of his actions, does not excuse the fact that he still committed them. i am fully aware that he was not a good person, and that he did terrible things

but i also recognize that for one, he wasn’t entirely in control or himself bc of the manipulating kronos was doing to him (which does count for something in the grand scheme of things, even if it does not excuse his actions), and two he had a point abt the gods. the gods are fucking awful. they ain’t shit, and they care little abt their own fucking children.

[aside] hey so cool concept: if you don’t want to put in the effort to do the bare minimum for you children…DON’T HAVE CHILDREN. wild i know. and for gods??? the bare minimum would be like claiming them, and making sure their cabins are the least bit comfortable to live in, which they could do, literally with a snap of their fingers, which would take less than a second. the bar is on the fucking ground. if you’re gonna try and give me the Ancient Laws shit, first of all it was clearly shown throughout the pjo and hoo series, the gods often help demigods, even if they aren’t “““““supposed to interfere””””” so that’s a weak argument. second of all, for bigger things, like getting them to camp or smth, well why not find adults who maybe can take care of them??? maybe it’s a bit idealist sure, but adults should fucking know better. not to mention, the fact that i wish older ppl would care and take care of younger ppl is me being ideal speaks for itself. i recognize not every single person can be the perfect parent, but we can sure as hell try to get close

luke did those things bc he thought he was helping demigods–he started doing it for them and it spun wildly out of control bc kronos is a titan, he’s ruthless, and wanted to kill the gods for his own gain. he didn’t care abt luke, but he’d gladly use luke to achieve his goal. by the time luke realized that, it was already too late. but anyway, /tangent

i can completely understand luke’s motivations, while also understanding that his methods were not the way to go abt change. and that’s another thing abt it, is that i feel like many in the fandom take a very black-and-white perspective on his character, when it’s much more complicated than that

there’s a post going around, talking abt how antagonists and villains should be relatable, bc it reminds us not to go there. and i think a lot of ppl should really take that to heart. i can like a character, but not the person. i don’t idealize luke is any sense of the word. i am aware of all his flaws.

now, first i would like to point out that the rules of becoming head counselor don’t have to involve death. i’m sure with demigods, they often do, but there are two other options: 1) two competing head counselors have a chat and agree on who should be head counselor or 2) they battle each other, and whoever is victorious becomes head counselor

it’s a safe bet that that probably happened quite a lot in the hermes cabin, considering how many demigods resided in there before the second titan war (tho i imagine chiron at least tried (???) to make sure legit only children of hermes become head counselors, bc it is...well...the hermes cabin).

but, as i said before, they are demigods, and so it’s another safe bet that their head counselors were often lost to death

it’s hard to say just how many of luke’s siblings were lost to death, but let’s look at the timeline here real quick. in tlt, luke says that he screwed everything up for everyone else, bc after his quest went so awry, chiron stopped letting kids out of camp to go on quests...which thinking abt it now, almost doesn’t make sense.

i mean, the fact that luke failed so miserably and came back horribly scarred was the catalyst the made chiron stop letting ppl out, but demigods literally dying on quests didn’t???? uuuuuummmmmm?????????

and we can extrapolate from the spoils in the attic of the big house that a lot of campers did die on their quests

i mean, maybe it was also bc chiron had a feeling the great prophecy was getting nearer and nearer to being fulfilled, and he decided after luke failed his quest--a close call like that--he didn’t want to risk any other demigods’ lives anymore until the prophecy began, bc war takes a lot of lives, but still, that’s p fucked up logic

/tangent

anyway, so i think luke was at camp for abt 3 yrs before he finally got a quest of his own. so luke had three yrs at camp to lose siblings to death.

i mean, going by how much luke fought to get his own quest, hermes’ children probably didn’t get a lot of issued quests (more evidence abt how others see hermes as a god, despite him still being a major god).

but, for argument’s sake, let’s say that before the great prophecy became too real for chiron to let out kids on other quests, abt 5-10 quests were issued for each full yr, depending on how long the quest itself would take (tho we’ve seen that a lot of things can be accomplished in v little time, so that’s why my estimation has a lot of variation)

[aside] these numbers are completely and utterly arbitrary, i’m totes making this up as i go

and for more argument’s sake, let’s say that the hermes cabin were issued at least half of those, since they have so many kids--maybe even some of the undertermined kids were issued a quest and as a reward would get to know who their godly parent is (wow, that’s just so shitty, where did my mind come up with that)

and i imagine, even tho they were undetermined, luke felt like they were siblings all the same bc everyone, even children of hermes, were miserable in that cabin. it was jam-packed, crammed, with no breathing space. and some of them in there had completely given up that they’d ever find out who their godly parent was bc their godly parent didn’t care abt them at all

luke hated seeing that. so when a quest was issued to anyone in his cabin, and they didn’t come back, that probably took a serious toll on his mental health. not to mention only did to feed his anger and hatred toward the gods. esp if he thought that the kid was only doing it to find out who their godly parent was

bc they get at least half of the quests during the yr, across 3 yrs, luke probably lost from 5-15 of his siblings, and those he considered siblings.

i have a hc that he cares quite a lot abt his half-siblings. for as much as he hates his father, his siblings didn’t do anything to be ignored like he is, and as luke grows older, he probably takes on kinda father-figure. like if hermes isn’t gonna step up, then luke will he just kinda went abt it the wrong way, with the whole kronos thing...

i imagine, also, that he sometimes lost his siblings when they would sneak out of camp. i mean, from what little glimpse into luke’s life we got before he started trying to take over the world, he made it sound like the hermes kids often snuck out of camp to get things from new york proper like junk food. and it’s more dangerous for them outside the borders, so it’s safe to say that if they were in the wrong place at the wrong time and met a monster they were unprepared to face, they most likely died.

that only increases the number of siblings he lost over those 5 yrs before precy got to camp.

i think tho, those that went on quests and died would have more impact, bc it’s obvious his siblings dying after sneaking out didn’t dissuade him from still sneaking out. but luke was probably more careful abt it

actually, jk, it probably affected him A Lot. and hc that that’s part of the reason he trained so hard with a sword--he probably told his siblings that he’d be the only one going out of camp for any bargaining chips, didn’t matter if he was directly involved or not. and bc he was so good with a sword, he’d be better equipped to handle tougher monsters.

with every lost sibling, i imagine luke throws himself into sword-fighting and masking his grief and pain with anger and hatred even more--it grows exponentially, and never hits a ceiling. he probably blames the gods to bury the fact that he actually blames himself. bc if he accepts that he blames himself that means he also wasn’t strong enough to protect his siblings

it’s easier to blame the gods and train so that maybe one day he’ll be strong enough to protect his siblings. that’s another motivation behind why he decides to join kronos and lead his army until kronos can reform/find a host. kronos promises to make him strong enough to protect not just his siblings, but all demigods who have been thrown to the wayside by the gods--no more useless quests that needlessly take their lives, just to get their godly parents to “““““approve””””” of them

i’m sure he gets tired of feeling powerless, and sometimes the grief is so overwhelming he hides in the forest and lets himself feel for once, but not willing to let anyone else see him break. then he somehow puts himself back together, more determined than ever to become powerful enough to make it stop. at the very least, make it stop happening so frequently.

hmmm, not sure if this is what you asked for, but this is where my brain went. not quite happy with it, i feel like i keep saying the same thing abt luke over and over again but in varying ways, but i did add some new hcs

if you wanna send in another ask with some of yours ideas, i think my brain would be able to use that as a springboard and come up with more specific hcs

as always, thanks for sending this in!!! i know i say this with every ask, but i really do enjoy thinking/discussing these things ^_^ it’s always fun to interact with the fandom for me

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#girlygirlbishop #luke castellan #pjo meta #pjo hcs #asked and answered #washingdad writes

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