#saianswers

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Thank you so, so much for reblogging that goldlewis

I always stand for the flag if Goldlewis Dickinson is the one flying it 🫡 you should thank OP for drawing it though LOL

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Do NOT join the Beginner Plus R hub they forced me to play bubbles and stole my identity

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Okay so I did it again

Ok this one is just gold LMAO holy shit

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Gonna bless you with this image

I CAN'T ESCAPE BUBBLES NO MATTER WHAT I DO! BE CAREFUL AROUND THE DRAIN!!! RAZORBLADES CAN ALWAYS HURT YOU!!!

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and happy Axl Birthday anon!!!

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

me when I fucking get you

The last thing you see before waking up on fire on a different part of the stage

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

what if potemkin was called potemkin and he had kara cancels

That'd be crazy. They'd never do that. Be serious.

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

what if axl low was called smacksl low and he smacked you in the shins

What if Slayer was called was called Freaker and he had a move where he got nake- Wait. Wait. Hold on.

Dear God he's real.

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

I was listening to some fighting game tunes and I just discovered how good your tag is. Fantastic choice.

LMAO thank you!! Arashi no Saxophone is one of the fighting game themes of all time - my favorite version is the KoF 2000 one:

A fun fact about me is I love KoF characters and big edgelord Iori is definitely my favorite but the sad truth is I am AWFUL at KoF/SNK games LOL. Never been good at a single KoF game but damn are they cool - hard as nails though. I'll be picking up City of the Wolves when it drops so we'll see if that changes...

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

have read a publication about i-no and I was fascinated by your analysis. So I want your opinion on why the hatred/enmity between her and Sol?

So I can hazard a couple guesses based on my limited knowledge of certain Xrd story beats, but here's what I've got (under a cut because this is VERY long:

Both I-No and Sol are non human for the majority of their interactions: Sol is a Gear because of Asuka, and I-No is a Magical Foci created by the hopes and desires of every human on earth during the crusades. Both have been forced into a kind of "Savior" role (Sol by Asuka, who said he "needed a warrior" for the things to come in Overture, and I-No just by the very fact that she was created by Humanity's earnest wishes for the crusade to end being focused into her in the backyard)

Now, the key difference here is that I-No has half her power taken by The Original/Happy Chaos before she can become a God, because he believes that that would be a bad thing. The unfortunate side effect this has is that it rips I-No's ability to feel things and have desires from her, and that eventually causes her to become EXTREMELY jaded and cold (her constant hedonistic attitude towards life is a facade she puts up because of this).

Now we start getting into my own interpretation of events here, so whether or not this is all correct is a total matter of analysis and how much lore I actually correctly understand or not (essentially: "Hey I could be wrong or missing some details here, so please take what I'm about to say from here on out with a grain of salt")

Guilty Gear has this running theme of what humanity REALLY is and how people who are non human can still possess humanity; in a world where a lot of new creatures exist and have sapience thanks to magic, is it really just to still claim that these things are "lesser" because we decide that "Humanity" is unique to one species? I think Guilty Gear says both "No" and "Being human doesn't necessarily make you capable of humanity - having humanity is a choice you make"

Look at Sol Badguy - the man spends the whole series desperately clinging to and chasing the humanity he's lost. Even being a Gear he experiences IMMENSE guilt over the atrocities he commits to the point that he isolates himself for a large part of the series while he desperately and violently tries to undo the damage the gear project that he and his friends created unleashed on the world. He has to clean up a mess that he is in part responsible for, and one that Asuka made worse and then forced him to be a part of by converting his Fiance into Justice and then himself into the ONLY Gear that could stop her (Hence Sol being the titular "Guilty Gear")

Now you have I-No. This is the part where I remind you I-No ONLY exists because of the Crusades. She was essentially wished into being by the victims of the Crusades so that someone could stop them. The crusades started because of The Gear Project and Justice declaring war on humanity. In a way, Sol Badguy is responsible for her (very miserable) existence. Couple that with the fact that thanks to The Original taking half her power, she awoke essentially half-made with this inherent desire to fix the world (because of Humanity's wish) meaning that she has this intense power and only a vague idea of how to use it and what she should use it for that she doesnt totally understand, and that will likely breed frustration. Xrd however compounds this a little:

We learn in Xrd that I-No has repeatedly tried, and failed, to use her time powers to stop a ruinous future from coming to pass. This mostly involves Ramlethal, but it's stated at some point that the massive Gear stomping around in the Ruined Future is Sol, having lost control of his Gear Cells and bloodlust (it's stated a few times that without the limiter and if he "dies" somehow that Sol will lose control of himself and convert somehow into a fully violent out of control gear but I'm not as familiar with the specifics of that whole deal)

So essentially, Sol and I-No have both been forced into this Savior Type role. However, I-No knows Sol as both responsible for a lot of stuff, and as a potential danger and even catalyst for the end of the world. Inherently, because of her own purpose as a Magical Foci, she hates him for that. I think for Sol it's just that this woman seems to keep getting in his way and pissing him off on purpose and fucking with him - and just in general Sol has very thin patience for that kind of person. I-No also works with That Man (Asuka) who he hates with a burning passion because of what he did to Aria and himself. That's one way to look at it.

The other way to look at it is that even though Sol and I-No have slightly similar goals, the TYPE of world they end up wanting is different come Strive; Sol wants his humanity back (which he gets) and I-No wants a world where EVERYONE is like her. It boils down to this: Sol has what I-No seemingly, at least from her perspective, can never have: humanity. I think I-No's actions by the end of Strive are actions that ultimately become fueled entirely by frustration and jealousy - she is trapped in a world that does not make sense to her and cannot hold her as she was meant to exist. She has no identity or as Ky puts it "Present" to live in (hence her obsession with the future). Sol does because he was able to cling to his own desires and chase his humanity until he finally caught up to it, but because of the aforementioned issue of having half her powers taken away from her, I-No couldn't even believe in her own feelings or desires as "real." She says that to Jack-O in the interrogation room when talking about her memories with Will. So basically, I-No was never even given the ability to chase what she really "wanted," she couldn't even if she tried to. She had only her inherent purpose, and in a way, Sol took that from her by having everything she wanted and also fulfilling her role in place of her by saving the world. A fair few times even. That's why she ends up trying to create a world of her own design when she gets her full power back in Strive's story.

The tragedy of I-No is that she is very much like Sol, except she was doomed from the very start. She was created with only half a self, born into and shackled to a purpose that she never had any chance of fulfilling. I think largely the enmity between the two stems from jealousy over all that, but also, just the very fact that the two butted heads on a very similar path that differed JUUUUST enough to make them really hate eachother.

That's just my take on it though. There's more I could get into here with how the Axl/I-No relationship fits into I-No's story but that doesn't have as much to do with her and Sol hating eachother (actually I got off on a few tangents related to your original question overall but I hope I ended up answering it at least somewhat LOL). I definitely reccommend asking around and seeing what other people think of it because admittedly while the passion is there for me when it comes to guilty gear lore, I still have a comparatively ramshackle understanding of a lot of plot beats and motivations when it comes to some other Gearsters around here. I do like talking though so thanks for the ask!

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

You and your friend are weird af

Yeah.

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

hi! i think i saw your post just now (i cant find it anymore so idk), something along the lines of how it sucks that you lost your old gg analysis posts when the old acc got nuked. it reminded me that i still have screenshots of 2 of your posts so here you go? i thought it might be worth sending them to you if you still care about them and haven't recovered these already

https://imgur. com/a/A4u7aKQ sorry for sending it from anon im a shy lurker lol

WOW that is extremely flattering and kind, thank you! I was planing to see if I could track down some of them and repost them but I haven't really gotten around to doing it.

Also yay that first one is literally the post that started it all LOL I still remember the tags on that one with people talking about how much they love Axl... some of the folks who sent those tags are actually beloved mutuals of mine now. Second one is just. Yeah. Gear does that you.

I'm so touched you saved these posts and thankful you sent them to me anon, thanks so much! They brought back good memories. I'll stick em below for anyone who wants to see em:

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Axl Low? More like Axl BOTTOM

when your two main relationships are I-No and Sol what else are you going to be, really

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Insert that one Tigger gif where he walks away dejectedly

(wipes tear) I never figured out how to totsugeki when I played accent core...

Thank you for respecting my DNI, I hope you get better (learn how to do a charge input) soon 😔

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Started playing strive just a few weeks ago and i love Axl can i ask what's so bad about him now?

My honest answer is no, you may not. If you love him and are having fun don't come to me to have that ruined for you. You enjoy that. You hang onto that. Don't end up like me. You be good, Anon.

[arashi-no-saxlphone]

Crunch

Thanks for having the decency to bite my non-dominant hand at least, I appreciate it. You display a level of courtesy absent in the vast majority of humanity these days; my respect.

P.S. Fucking OW