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gavv-hannah · 2 months ago

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i am So Well about your kuon/hoeru stuff thank u for the food . do u have any........ headcanons or additions to their relationship , im curious to hear . we are such a small group of freaks (positive)

ahaha sorry when you said a small group I just imagined a group gathering at tea time talking about favorite brocon fics/HCs/happenings with one another. Does such commune of freaks exist in the toku fandom T_T)? If so let me iiiiiiiin *rattling cage bars*

Anyway,

Thank you thank youuu anon for enjoying my food!! This is my first sentai rodeo so im always worried about not drawing/depicting/characterizing/whatever-ing them so you and anyone else enjoying my gozyu stuff means a lot to meeeee T_T

Now i say that but um.. So all of these are exaggerated well enough to cater to my gozyu brocon needs LMAO so if its OOC..... i bow deeply to say sowwy

(thoughts, words, stuff below read more)

+ they're codependent. Back then, and even now (but Hoeru's growing out of it. Kuon isn't) idk what their home life is like to make them be like that tho so uhm *insert bullshit reason*

+ they have a skewed sense of what's normal/appropriate between brothers. Probably weren't reprimanded/corrected as kids so they just kept doing it. What's sweet as kids is kinda weird now as adults~ idk something like having no sense of personal space or boundaries.

I like this one cz i can just imagine hoeru sharing smth he did with kuon to the gozyu team and everyone's just in shock with their kind of brotherly love mmcmfmd

Very delusional scenario but if they still got along after reuniting as adults, they'd probably take baths together ❤️ Though hoeru's starting to mature so he'd probably say smth like how this is smth they shouldn't be doing but kuon coerces him to stay in the bath longer with him anyway~

Sorry really vague and no concrete examples (can't think of one for brothers-to-brothers, only for sisters-to-sisters mfmfmd) but you get my point right 🥹?

+ Kuon's feelings, worries, and thoughts abt his brother were warped to be super intense after the No One World abduction

examples:

- that thing where older siblings feel a little sad when they notice how much their younger sib is growing and starting to want to be independent -> warping to -> Kuon not wanting Hoeru to leave him AT ALL

- that familial love for your sibling -> sick kind of love and obsession for hoeru. ("Hoeru's my love, my hope, my puppet" uhm! Ok!! Whatever you say Mr. Freaky!)

- Younger siblings being your responsibility. You're their teacher, their second parent, their most available guide (eldest child in an Asian household things ❤️) -> Hoeru grew up to have beliefs that dont align with Kuon's. Kuon thinks he is misguided and wrong. He's the only one that can set him right.

+ As kids, Kuon's praises and sweet touches would be like liquid gold to hoeru. Even if they have a weird relationship now, I'm pretty sure if Kuon praised him, Hoeru would feel like putty inside. It's hard to break off from old wants 🫶

+ not an HC but do you know the whole thing the mom and daughter in EEAAO had? The daughter in the "Alpha universe" was pushed to the limit to be excellent that she became a nihilist and wants to destroy the universe. She seeks out for her mom in this one universe who is awful at everything because she has the greatest potential (the whole "you suck so much that you have nowhere to go but up" thing) and is the only one capable of foiling her universe-ending plans.

The womanfailure mom = Hoeru

The powerful nihilist daughter = Kuon

Do you see the vision? Mfmfmfmfmdmd

~~~

This got long sorry!!! I hope you got what you asked from me Anon Q_Q it's probably unoriginal lbr pretty sure some other 5head fan already said these things about the tono brothers in like, a more comprehensible way ahahzhshzhs but still thank you for reading up to this point u_u lemme know what you think! If you got some HCs share em!

#I still haven't drawn like. A proper illustration for any toku stuff its all been doodles and sketches so ppl still enjoying it is a huge <3 #also im serious abt that group thing if ur all out there lemme in *banging windows* i want friends in toku who rock w brocon T_T #in my prev fandom i was invited to disc server and it had like a dedicated channel for the freaks ijbol so it do got me wondering if #toku had smth like that 🤔💭#wish i had very smart hcs and theories and stuff for the brothers unfortunately im very yaoi pilled hahaha #i should read fics of them too hohoh #unrelated but did u guys kno kuon scares the shitballs out of me now MDMXMDNDND #not in a negative way i mean in like oh youre way crazier than me im impressed. im also very scared #everytime he opens his mouth i just start sweating like what words are you gonna say mr. scary guy #i like it when hjs actor does the wide eyes expression haha. scary! im freaked out!! i read that he used to be youtuber so i checked it and #idk things just made sense. i think he runs an unhinged yt channel. he unnerves me. his kuon unnerves me. none of this is an insult #its all compliments MFMFMDM #omg yapper much? anyway thank you for the ask anon! im glsd i can write down my thoughts for them huhu and glad u wanna know!#im answering letters #muh art #tonocest #gozyuger #hoeru tono #kuon #ゴジュウジャー

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ratcandy · 10 months ago

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Big Huge Irritated Rant About The Latest COTL Update's Story Choices and the Implications

So the lore drop in the new Cult of the Lamb update, Unholy Alliance, pisses me off. The writer's confirmation of what that lore drop means pisses me off more.

Why? Because it's unnecessary recontextualization that was made pretty obviously in favor in one character in particular, and somehow in that process makes that very same character way less interesting. I think it's incredibly detrimental to the story and I will Explain Why in a second.

But before I do, I just want to put this out there: Prior to this update, my opinions on the Bishops and Narinder and that entire plotline were pretty neutral. I'm an NPC enjoyer, I spend my time thinking about that moth with two lines of dialogue. I did not previously have strong opinions on Narinder or Shamura outside of mild dislike for fandom treatment. So I'm not coming from a place of bias here (or at the very least I'm not trying to be). I genuinely, wholeheartedly, 100% believe this writing decision was unnecessary and the Wrong one to make, and I think it severely undercuts the original plotline because this was a retcon and one that sucks pretty bad.

Ok we're on the same page here? Ok awesome. Long rant ahead, and obvs spoilers for the Unholy Alliance update

So first, what the hell am I talking about? What part of the update do I not like? Let's clarify that first.

It's Shamura's dialogue. Like, all of it. For ease of understanding, here is all the dialogue I will be talking about:

"Ah... we gathered here, the four of us, a council of war and I the general. I have not forgot. I did not tell them that chains to bind a God must be forged of Godly matters. What matter of Gods? What matters of Gods? I have not forgot. The betrayal of kin, the breaking of spirits, blood spilled, his and ours. ...the sacrifice of what we had sacrificed so much for... ...shaped into shackles for our own brother. And our wounds always to weep. Such sharp claws..."

"He sought to break nature's own laws. Death was his, yet he placed his sacred duty in peril. His experiments... Experiments I encouraged. I am not... blameless. My soul, stained... yet I do not... Ah, The story. Yes the story... He wanted to open the doors between Life and Death, to... to allow their return. Those mere... mortals. Even though he knew their sacrifices, their faith, their fears sustain us. Death must be the end. Otherwise, what use would they have for Gods? They began to flock to him. What he promised, we could not match. He swelled with devotion... while we waned. Would he have let us perish? I could not take... the risk... the hunger... You are lucky there are none left to force such a choice on you. Hail, Lamb. Last God... lonely God... Ah... I feel... unburdened..."

And for fun, before anyone tells me I'm misinterpreting any of this or that it's left up to interpretation or is intentionally vague, Word of God (the writer of CoTL):

And it's this being Word of God that's spurred me into making this post to begin with. Because prior to this, I just seethed about this dialogue's implications in my server and hoped I was wrong. But now it's been confirmed what this means, and I'm . Disgruntled, to say the least!

And since I've started writing this post, there's been another addition made to further clarify parts of this. But I'm going to go over that addition more towards the end, because it also irritates me for separate reasons.

So, let's get this straight.

Prior to this update, the specifics of what happens between Narinder and the Bishops were pretty vague. We were told Narinder was "gluttonous in his ambition," per Shamura's previous dialogue, and that they "introduced him to ideas of change" but "Death cannot flow backward." Heket somewhat elaborates on this by saying he preached "heresy" and "noxious ideals" that would not be tolerated. Heket also notably refers to Narinder as a flat-out "monster." Narinder attacked his siblings and left them each with a big, symbolic wound. Then he was chained by the four of them, with Shamura the one to lead it (in their own words).

There's a lot of talk of betrayal, but before this update, it was unclear if the betrayal was meant to just be Narinder's experimenting with death (which even then was pretty heavily suggested to be resurrections) or the wounds inflicted upon his siblings. There's also a lot of talk of sacrifice, i.e. from Leshy if you kill Heket before him: "After everything we did. After everything we sacrificed. He will not be satiated."

Regardless, the picture this painted was of Narinder being this ambitious, evil, violent God that even his fellow Gods (Kallamar) feared and felt needed controlling. The idea that the wounds could have been in the nail in the coffin to this entire ordeal made sense; as they were obviously planned by Narinder to some extent (otherwise why be so intentional about who got what wound?) and a fair reaction to Being Mutilated would of course be to chain him.

Then of course there's the idea that the wounds were given while he was being chained and in self-defense, which only seems possible if you think Narinder could take on all four of his siblings at once like that and only manage to lose his claws in the ordeal (which was only revealed in this update to be something he's implied to have lost thru the relic). I thought this at first too, but realized it seems pretty impractical for that to have been the case if the wounds were also purposeful in who got what. I mean, sure, they could all be coincidentally symbolically appropriate for each Bishop, but I have doouuubts?

but now we're here, with this update, and all has been revealed.

And what's been revealed exactly?

Narinder's thing he was doing was indeed resurrections (we knew that)

Shamura encouraged him to do it (we also already knew this)

It seems like he did literally nothing else outside of that

His siblings got pissy about this because it made their domains purposeless and got all their followers to flock to him

"Would he let us perish? I could not take the risk" - Implies they literally did not even ask him

Shamura knew that in order to forge chains that could keep Narinder down, it would require a sacrifice of their bonds AND their flesh

They DID NOT tell the other Bishops this

Their wounds were requirements to chain him. They had to get the wounds they bear now in order to chain him. ONLY Shamura knew this. That means they allowed their siblings (and themself) to get attacked knowing full well what would happen. They may have even encouraged it, perhaps provoked Narinder into it, seeing as they knew the wounds were necessary to have him chained. (Or they just knew he would retaliate. Which, like. Yeah. They're condemning him after he went down a path they encouraged and, as far as we can tell, nothing else.)

And for... what?

In this version of the story, Narinder was experimenting with resurrections, and Shamura told him to keep doing that. Then he was successful, mortals turned to him, and his siblings (including Shamura, the one who told him to do it) got mad. That's it. That's their reasoning for chaining him. There's nothing else given. "Would they perish?" We have no idea. Is that how it works? Seems like Shamura doesn't know either. Or at the very least doesn't know if Narinder intended for that at all. Gives the vibe that literally no effort was made to talk to him and figure this out. They don't even really go down the "it puts nature out of balance!" path, which would at least have some merit, maybe. It's literally just "we are no longer sustained. What's the point of Gods in this world?" <- idk babe you had all the other ones slaughtered. So you tell me

And then Shamura just took it into their own hands, leading their siblings to their shared wounds (WITHOUT consulting them) and their inevitable destruction because of........... reasons, I guess. (I mean, if you think about it really hard, they probably also already knew what would happen following all this. With the lamb genocide and Narinder's resurfacing and etc. And they had their siblings wounded anyway. For no god damn reason)

And now why does this make me mad?

Because, honestly, in and of itself, there's not anything necessarily wrong with this added context. It's not contradicting anything in the main game. Shamura knowing what was needed makes sense, after all.

But it's... unnecessary. It screws up the motives and makes them more shallow, less nuanced, more... petty. Making gods petty is cool and all, I love doing that honestly, but in this case it just feels like a waste of potential.

But beyond all that. But most importantly.

This entire recontextualization of events REEKS of being made specifically to absolve Narinder.

I mean, come on. He's made out to be the victim, here. Shamura knew what he would do, knew what he would become, and knew exactly what would happen to their siblings if they sought to chain him (without doing so much as talking to him beforehand), and yet they encouraged it.

All blame is being shifted on Shamura. All Narinder did specifically against his siblings was inflict the wounds, which at this point seems to be hinted as self defense or a retaliation against threat or insult (assuming he was provoked into attacking, somehow). Because the wounds were part of the process.

And almost equally irritating, this seeks to arbitrarily absolve Leshy, Kallamar, and Heket as well, as they had no idea what the plan was and were just strung along. Which is just kinda worse, right? As far as they are aware, Narinder did just randomly attack them for no reason, and this wasn't foreseen, and surely couldn't have been stopped. All because Shamura didn't tell them any of it.

Shamura is being made into the big bad. Shamura is at fault for everything, for all of it. Narinder is a victim of Shamura encouraging him down a path they later condemn him for, their siblings are victims of Shamura and Narinder both (the latter of which could have been resolved at any point prior), and now any possible intrigue about Narinder being this big bad guy who tore apart his siblings due to his own ambition getting the best of him is ERASED.

It's GONE. All in favor of making him more sympathetic.

And sure, about a million different excuses could be made for Shamura, or could be used to headcanon whatever you want about exactly what happened. But with what we're given right now, just from the source, no attempt as made to stop Narinder before it got to this point. It is literally suggested they didn't even talk to him.

"Maybe they were too scared" - For the other three, maybe. Shamura is the eldest and clearly the most respected one, by Narinder as well (he holds some amount of respect for them even STILL. After EVERYTHING). They at any point could have stopped this.

"Narinder could still have been a bad guy outside of the attacks" - Sure, but we're given little to nothing on that front. In the old dialogue, literally all that's mentioned is the resurrection stuff and the wounds. Shamura is the one who said his ambition made a glutton of him, by the way. And hell, this isn't even touching the very real possibility that all of the Bishops (Narinder included!) are unreliable as hell.

"But Kallamar feared him even before his chaining, that suggests he was still a bad guy beforehand" - Sure, it could! But that's about all we get! And hell, in this new update, Kallamar's fears are fucked with, too. He states:

"Once, long ago, Followers would worship at my altar just to glimpse the beauty of my temple… of course, it could not last forever. Perhaps my siblings did not understand this, but I have always known. It did not make me less afraid. Cowardly Kallamar, ha…"

Here, it seems Kallamar's fears have been changed to be more about the decline of his temple and the loss of his followers, which was happening because of Narinder. He refers to Narinder's plans as "foolish" as opposed to... idk, horrifying, or threatening, or whatever. He also fully takes on the 'cowardly' title, giving the impression that his fears were somehow unfounded, which wouldn't make a lick of sense if Narinder indeed sucked ass outside of the wounds.

Not to mention he "didn't want to hear it" when Shamura "revealed the plan," but we know because of Shamura that they didn't mention anything about the wounds, so Kallamar didn't want to hear that they... had to chain Narinder? That's literally all he could've been told about the plan. Why wouldn't he want to chain Narinder if he was scared of him up until that point?? Doesn't make any sense!!! EDIT AFTER I POSTED: On reconsideration this might just be referring the lamb genocide plan, but that's hardly better, because now this update absolves Narinder, Leshy, AND Kallamar by making them blameless in everything (both Leshy and Kallamar expressed not fully understanding the plan for the slaughter or, in this case, not wanting part in it). What's up with THAT. Why is Shamura getting the blame for LITERALLY EVERYTHING.

Anyway, my point is

This was a story decision made to make Narinder sympathetic. It's so blatant. And it's so, so irritating. It gets rid of so many potential cool flaws of Narinder and replaces it with "Actually, Shamura was the bad guy the whole time! Huzzah!"

And honestly, had the entire game come out like this to begin with, released at the start how it is right now, I don't think I'd care this much. But being added now, as an afterthought, after the fandom and devs alike have grown to favor Narinder above all others, it just...

It reeks of favoritism. It smells of revising the story to make Narinder more likeable. It's just erasure.

And for what. Like, I don't want to be That Guy, but I cannot help but notice that one of two nonbinary characters (outside of the Lamb/Goat themselves) is being this heavily demonized in favor of absolving a Man of his crimes. What's, uh. What's up with that.

Oh, and that addition by the writer I mentioned was made while I was writing this.

This was made after Jojo was questioned whether this was a retcon as to who caused the wounds, as this whole thing could also certainly be read as Shamura being the one to directly wound their siblings (which I didn't think was the case, but still).

"I don't know if they thought it would be so severe" - How do I put this in a nice way. This feels like a weaseling out answer. This feels like giving Shamura an out only after being questioned on this writing choice. How could they possibly not know how severe it would be. This spider is Knowledge. This spider has Foresight of some kind. And how do you not know what they thought. You are the Writer. If you want to clarify something like this you gotta say it with your full chest.

Not to mention a good portion of the fandom probably won't even see these tweets, so this context is all missing from the story presented in the game. This is Tacked On Context on top of already Tacked On Context. It's unnecessary retconning all the way down.

Anyway. I realize the fandom at large will not care about this, because (and I mean this in the nicest way I can manage) the Narinder favoritism in this fandom is already impenetrable, but for me personally? This retconning that was so clearly done out of that favoritism?

It ruined Narinder's character for me. More than the fandom possibly could have. I mean, if it's fanon, it can be ignored. But this was canonized. Because Narinder is the dev team's favorite guy.

And I can't stand it.

#VERY long ramble #<- i mean it. this post is chunky.#I have a lot of thoughts. And they are not positive. MM dev team when i get you.#Narinder enjoyers beware. I do not like your man and it's because of this update.#If anything I said in the post is unclear please feel free to ask and I will elaborate where I can! I tried to make my thoughts #as clear as possible. but i am also a fulltime college student with a keyboard that is currently retaliating against me.#My brain is a little scattered atm lmao. but if I hold onto this post much longer I might just anxiety myself out of posting it.#because nobody else seems to be having these same critiques. Save for my tiny little discord server where we are all very loud haters.#If you don't agree with me that's awesome 👍 please be normal about it tho if you are arguing i'm begging.#if this post gets any amount of traction I'm going to be wary about having my inbox open hkjsdhg #ok now the scary part.#cult of the lamb #cotl unholy alliance #cotl spoilers #unholy alliance spoilers #<- i don'tknow if that still needs tagging but jic. also I'm wary of tagging characters on here. so for now i won't.#cotl #ok that's it for now. Runs away. Fast

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