#we're all villains

[10000year-old-child]

Don't you just love seeing that one particularly evil Villain's redemption arc by either a second chance / Time travel / Reincarnation/ rebirth or whatever it's called when they get enlightened to become the best possible version of themselves?

Yeah, me too. Because if this Freak of nature deserves a second chance after everything they've done, then so do you.

If this insane, creepy, sadistic, murderous Monster can do it_ (fix their mess, choose a different path, figure it out, reflect, find happiness, build a home, let go..)

I assure you so can you.

[lotus-pear]

learning to love

[tritoch]

one thing I find neat about Emet-Selch is that his chauvinism is so intense that it actually prevents him from making the strongest possible case for the unique moral goodness of the ancients, and that this same mental distortion ties into his classic final fantasy need to turn into a Horrible Final Form Monstrosity for your final fight

(for my part I think any minor unique moral goodness the ancients possess they have due to their status as demigods living in eden before the fall. even if they really are morally/intellectually/spiritually/magically/etc. superior to every modern eorzean on a 1:1 level it still doesn't change anything because 1) they are mythical and impossible, that's the whole point and 2) even if they weren't, they still have no particular claim to existence that is superior to anyone else's, no matter how good they are. but the point here is the case Emet-Selch is trying to make, which is that they are more "worthy" of life.)

when he's setting you up for the final amaurot sequence, Emet-Selch hits you with this one:

it's a solid line! stops the party cold for a second.

it's also...not that impressive. do I think if we called a big world meeting that half of everyone would just jump up to be chosen? maybe, maybe not. but, sorry: we're having a big world meeting? are we also demigods with their every material need fulfilled in this version? do we have a one world government that almost everyone seems to fully trust telling us that it knows for real a way to stop the meteor heading towards earth? because honestly i think as soon as we start creating structural similarities like that, it becomes a lot more likely. and every step you take towards making the comparison happen on level ground makes the idea that the ancients were possessed of some unique moral fiber that made them capable of this sacrifice (as opposed to the undeniable abilities in magic and global governance that actually enabled it) seem less and less likely.

and especially if you consider it in the context of what actual people are like. human (and presumably eorzean) history is replete with examples of people sacrificing themselves to save others, even though none of us are immortal wizard philosophers. i don't know how the white-room thought-experiment "will half of you die to save the others???" turns out. but do i think, across a grand rolling catastrophe, that half our population would sacrifice itself to save the other half in a million individual acts of sacrifice to save a parent, a child, a lover, a friend, a stranger? that seems significantly more plausible. altruism and sacrifice for others is even pretty frequent in animals! it's not a very unique moral behavior!

(stanford encyclopedia of philosophy on biological altruism)

but that's not the only sacrifice the ancients made. roll the tape, hythlodaeus!

...Yet oh how the star had suffered. So many species lost. The land was blighted, the waters poisoned, and even the wind had ceased to blow. Once more did our people give of themselves to Zodiark. Another half of our race sacrificed to cleanse the world; to ensure that trees and grasses and myriad tiny lives would sprout and grow and flourish.

(every time I read this speech and hit the ff1/3/5 ref about the land and waters and wind i become mylongestyeahboyever.avi)

this is the step beyond, and it's what separates the ancients from modern humans. they viewed themselves as stewards of the star and really meant it; whatever other criticisms you might level, you can't doubt the depths of their commitment. and this i think really does make them morally distinct from modern people, or at least raises that possibility in a much more compelling way than the first sacrifice. half of the living population sacrificing itself not in a moment of duress and apocalypse but in a moment of calm? when the sacrifice isn't for anything but plants and animals and some tiny proto-eorzeans? that kind of cold, calculated, long-term altruism, aimed at people and living beings that are nothing like you...that does feel like something a little more unique, more worth preserving. even in just the text of the game, we can say with real certainty that the ancients were at least more capable of facing their problems and had greater moral integrity and care for the world than, say, the people who made ra-la.

but emet-selch can't ever say that because rejecting and dishonoring the decision the ancients made as stewards of the star is his primary goal.

like, "my people were uniquely morally good. half the living population sacrificed themselves not for their loved ones or for the survival of their people but simply for the world. for the trees and grasses and the wind and the water. for the humblest insects and for the summer breeze and the tides." that fucks! damn, you got me there! i watch enough people throw aluminum cans in the trash on a weekly basis that i find this sincerely moving and beyond the seeming abilities of my own brethren! oh no, i'm being persuaded by the fascist immortal space wizard!

"and therefore, because they are uniquely morally good, we are going to sacrifice and kill the very things they gave their lives to save, so we can have them back :)" well, shit. i'm experiencing some dissonance here.

but you can't actually lie to yourself as long as emet-selch without distorting your understanding of the truth. you cannot choose to see the world falsely half the time and clearly the other half. in committing to self-deceit and willful ignorance regarding the value of the modern world, emet-selch blinds himself not just to the world as it is but to the ancients as they were. if he could describe accurately the ways in which the ancients were genuinely noble and benevolent, he would also have to able to see clearly how he has entirely deviated from that ideal. and he cannot do that and stay on the path he has chosen, so he simply chooses not to see things accurately.

i cannot help but link this blindness of his to his trial. here, at what seems to emet-selch to be the last stand of the ancients, he says to you "to be clear this fight IS a metaphor, and in that metaphor i stand in for the Entire Unsundered World."

and yet, in standing against you, he betrays both the customs of the ancients and his very title, itself a direct signifier of the mission he was charged with as one of the convocation of fourteen: "to ensure that all is right in creation, that our star may know a brighter future." contra elidibus, for whom remembering his duty to the ancients is one and the same act as remembering his name, emet-selch declares his own to be mere pretense. and that's before we even reach the matter of his transformation.

emet-selch believes the only way he can save the ancients is to betray their principles, forget their greatest triumphs, and abandon their trappings. he renounces almost everything of the ancients, save for his pale and sad and faceless amaurot, in the hopes of bringing them back.

i am reminded a little of borges's three versions of judas, a short story which uses the lens of fictional literary criticism (appropriate for a story as interested in competing narrative interpretations as shadowbringers is) to recast the betrayal of christ by judas not as the greatest of sins but as the greatest of sacrifices.

The ascetic, for the greater glory of God, vilifies and mortifies his flesh; Judas did the same with his spirit. He renounced honor, morality, peace and the kingdom of heaven, just as others, less heroically, renounce pleasure. With terrible lucidity he premeditated his sins.

and, in turn, the sardonic footnote to that very same line, which unsettles that sentiment as soon as it has been presented:

Borelius inquires mockingly: “Why didn’t he renounce his renunciation? Or renounce the idea of renouncing his renunciation?”

[userarmand]

Daniel, you already know who you'll be.

[starry-bi-sky]

Okay so this is almost a direct copy-paste of my earlier reblog but only the Xin Yuan parts, because its long enough to be its own post and i want to share it! It deserves it's own post <3 typical starry stuff to write a 2k word long reblog, unfortunately.

I say almost because I went through to proof read and ended up adding more stuff.

I've been cooking on this idea for the last two days since I saw the Xin Mo!Shen Yuan post but??? I can't find anything on Xin Mo's backstory or how it came to be -- which means that's free fucking plot right there baby. That's a sandbox and im making LIFE SIZED CASTLES. I'm so excited.

The idea of Shen Yuan transmigrating centuries before the events of PIDW as Xin Mo -- but when he wakes up, he's not the sword. He wakes up in the body of a young boy named Xin Yuan. Now it makes sense for this boy to be a demon, but the drama, the intrigue, the spice of Xin Yuan being a human child.

SY wakes up as a boy below the age of ten, and the System tells him where he is, and SY is excited to meet his favorite protagonist -- only to gradually realize that he's like, a thousand years or so before the events of the novel. The rant he gives the system is legendary.

Bc what's the point of getting dropped into PIDW if he's never going to meet his favorite character??? This is a scam! BUT he settles into his new life, he's like, some orphan street rat or some other tragic airplane-esq backstory.

The system gives Shen Yuan his first mandatory quest: become a righteous cultivator. Which was like, kinda his plan/hopes anyways, except! There's like?? No official cultivator sects anywhere? The Cang Qiong Mountain Sect hasn't even been established yet, and there are pockets of cultivators running around, maybe some groups or schools popping up and then sinking back down, but nothing's really taken root!

If he asks someone how to become a cultivator, there's no straight answer. No "oh you can go to X to do that". He's pissed! How can he become a cultivator if there aren't any schools around to teach him? Deus ex machina, that's how.

Out of sheer luck, SY manages to help save a rogue cultivator, and promptly gets adopted by said rogue cultivator, who gives SY the name 'Xin Yuan'. He is ecstatic. And you know what? It's actually pretty fun!

He's getting to travel the world of PIDW in its early stages, and gets to see the building blocks for the eventual main story. He's discovering all this local flora and fauna that are foreign to his old world and unmentioned in the book, and he's learning cultivation! Granted, its unsafe, newly(ish) discovered cultivation, but it counts!

Wistfully, he thinks about perhaps he'll do something grand and get his name carved into legend. Something that would eventually help the protagonist later down the line in his quest for revenge.

The system remains silent to his thoughts.

But Xin Yuan doesn't take much stock in that daydream anyways. It's nothing more than fantasy to him; wish-fulfillment. He does discover however, that he is positively brimming with spiritual energy. Overwhelmingly so.

It's both a blessing and a curse, as it puts a strain on his meridians if he's not careful, and leaves him prone to qi deviations for the exact same reasons. He already has a heart demon or two from a few traumatic experiences in the past.

(bc hey! angst a day keeps the writer sadism at bay, and all that)

I'll say he's about... eight when he gets picked up by the rogue cultivator, who I'm calling Lin Kai bc he deserves a name. They travel around PIDW up until Xin Yuan is twelve, where he goes through a traumatic experience that results in a heart demon.

It's after that that Lin Kai decides to put a stop to his wandering, and find a place to settle down to raise Xin Yuan in. Coincidentally! They settle down in a nice mountain region that's thriving with spiritual energy. The mountains at the time were called something different, but they will be eventually known as the Cang Qiong Mountain Sect

Coincidentally, the mountain Lin Kai and Xin Yuan end up on is Qing Jing Peak. XY does not realize that the mountain he's on is Qing Jing. The System does not tell him. But he likes it there, more than he was expecting. And as much as he's traveled around, he really does enjoy being in one place.

He has a tendency to go down the mountain and help the village setting up down there, and when he's a teenager he starts venturing out more and more.

Xin Yuan forgets sometimes that he's in a novel, especially after settling down on Qing Jing peak. The system becomes remarkably quiet since there's no quests for him to do and not a ton of opportunities to get B-Points. He cultivates with Lin Kai, helps tend to the garden they're growing, goes down to the village to play with the other kids.

There's one boy he's best friends with, a boy whose not all that good with words, named Liu Zhihao. He's got potential for cultivation though, so Xin Yuan drags him up the mountain when he can so that Liu Zhihao can sit in on lessons with Lin Kai. He drags him all over the forest at the foot of the mountain to go look at bugs and animals.

(One time, when they're fourteen and Liu Zhihao has been learning cultivation for a few years now, Xin Yuan drags him out of bed late one night to go look at the stars. Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao about ascension -- something that still feels like a far off dream to many in this time -- that night, while they're sitting on the wet grass.)

("We should ascend together." Xin Yuan tells Liu Zhihao, jade eyes gleaming. Never let it be said that Xin Yuan doesn't love deeply, no matter what kind of love it is. He was always so lonely as Shen Yuan, Liu Zhihao is his best friend. "We'll become immortals, and then we won't ascend until the other is able to.")

(Liu Zhihao stares at him silently, his face unreadable. Then, quietly, he asks; "Promise?")

("Promise.")

When he starts adventuring outwards, further away from the mountain and the village, Liu Zhihao sticks to him like rice. Not that Xin Yuan's complaining, that's his best friend after all, and Liu Zhihao has become a formidable cultivator. He deserves to show off his skills.

He starts making something of a name for himself by the time he's, like, 18 -- although that name is in its baby steps, along with Liu Zhihao. They're slowly growing renown.

Perhaps XY uses his knowledge of PIDW and cultivation in general to help make advancements in the cultivation field. Although the system prevents him from sharing too much, it doesn't mean he can't practice it himself. Perhaps he's one of the first cultivators to develop a golden core. One of the first known immortal cultivators. One of the first to have a spirit sword.

(Although I don't know the logistics of any of this since my knowledge on xanxia/cultivation stuff in general is all still pretty new and google wasn't all that helpful lol.)

Either way, its my excuse to eventually make Xin Yuan come across as ethereal to other people. Peerless beauty SY for the win. Hs wifebeam is too strong, Xin Yuan has a line of suitors following after him and he's completely unaware of it. The rest of history is not.

Demon realm stuff has been stirring up since Xin Yuan was a kid, but at the time it was rare and in the beginning stages. Its been steadily ramping up and the system is sending him on more and more treacherous quests -- some of them mandatory, some optional. SY doesn't often take the optional ones unless it comes with a sufficient B-point reward.

for all intents and purposes though, he's a wandering rogue cultivator with Liu Zhihao, going from place to place to either help a town or village, or to discover more creatures or artifacts (although there aren't that many). Just all around living his life. He participates in a few major quest lines that are sure to get him mentioned in legend, even if it's a background character way.

(Unbeknownst to him, rather than being a side character in these legends, he's named directly. You can't become one of the first immortal cultivators and NOT get name dropped for clout.)

He has a spirit sword named Shā Mó, (杀 shā - to kill/weaken/counteract/reduce) (魔 mó - evil spirit, demon, possession). He routinely goes back to QJP to see Lin Kai, or to rest when traveling has worn down on him and he wants nothing more than to sleep somewhere he knows he'll be safe in. It becomes more frequent as Xin Yuan becomes more famous. Liu Zhihao often comes with him.

it all comes to a head though when the rifts between the demonic realm and the human realm become too great, and the balance between both realms becomes unstable. A demonic emperor's influence, wanting to merge the two realms so he could conquer both to satiate his own greed.

Typical evil king stuff. This comes to a climatic head in a great battle between every cultivator available and the demon emperor's army. Xin Yuan was one of the many who helped lead the charge.

In the end, it was Xin Yuan who ends up defeating the demonic emperor, but the rift that the emperor used to cross between worlds is destabilizing as well. Except instead of trying to close, it's getting bigger and bigger, threatening to swallow the heavens and earth and demonic realm whole.

You know how Yue Qingyuan's soul is bonded to his sword due to a qi deviation? Let's take it a step further >:)

Xin Yuan uses himself and Shā Mó to close the rift. However, it takes all of his spiritual energy to do so, as well as him filtering the demonic qi into his body to redirect it back to the demon realm.

In the end, Xin Yuan and his beloved sword Shā Mó fuse. Xin Yuan's soul becomes trapped in the sword. His physical body is unable to handle the immense amount of power it takes to close the rift, and is destroyed. He is immortalized in legend by his grieving cultivators.

(Liu Zhihao ends up ascending alone. He ascends with the hope that one day he'll see Xin Yuan again, even if it's in the face of someone else. Lin Kai does not ascend, too weighed down by the grief of losing his son.)

Xin Yuan, now Xin Mo, falls into a stasis. He's very confused and disorientated when he regains 'consciousness'. The system has been silent for most of his life, only popping up to give him mandatory quests, hints, points, or to answer any questions.

But once he wakes up, it cheerfully pops up again, congratulating him on completing the origin story of Xin Mo. SY freaks the fuck out. he'd shake the system screen if he could, but he doesn't have arms. or legs. or eyes for that matter.

He can sense his surroundings, but its all like imprints to him. He can sense the energies, but he can't see anything. It's all very disorientating and horrifying after years of being human. Like a sensory deprivation chamber.

The closing of the rift and the cycling demonic qi tainted both Sha Mo and Xin Yuan irreparably, and it did some kind of damage that resulted in SY needing to feed in order to use the spiritual powers. Kinda like how Xuan Su uses YQY's life force for it's spiritual energy, but instead of feeding on his own lifeforce, Xin Mo feeds on others.

The rest is history. Xin Mo is originally tied to the story of Xin Yuan -- believed to be all that remained of the man after he sacrificed himself to keep the realms separate. It's believed that the force of the realms closing permanently infused Sha Mo with demonic energy, turning it into Xin Mo.

But, like many stories do when faced against the tide of time, things get lost; chipped off; changed. Xin Mo is steadily separated from Xin Yuan, especially once it becomes clear how parasitic the sword really is, until they are all but separate entities themselves and the origin of Xin Mo's creation all but forgotten.

The years blur together when Xin Mo is not being wielded, and at first Xin Yuan was agonized by the fact that he stole the lives of all his wielders. He knows it's only a novel, but his decades spent in this life have softened him, and he's grown attached to the world around him.

But time erodes the mind like water erodes stone, and he becomes numb to it, then eventually anticipating of it. He forces himself to remember what he knows of PIDW's plot, and kinda fixates back on his old obsession on Luo Binghe. But while PIDW stays in his mind, his memories as Xin Yuan fall to the wayside.

Not forgotten, per se, but... tucked away. The system prevents him from forgetting fully.

Xin Mo isn't fully a demonic sword either i think, but instead harbors an ugly cocktail of both spiritual and demonic qi. Special circumstances and all that. Everyone just assumes he's a fully demonic sword because that's usually at the forefront, his spiritual qi weakened from the initial fusion and from years of not being fed spiritual qi. It's part of the reason his wielders always end up destroyed by him, other than the whole, yk, 'overwhelming qi' thing.

Nobody would recognize Xin Mo's human form as Xin Yuan other than some truly ancient demons. Of which Meng Mo might. But even that's iffy because there's a lack of surviving paintings of Xin Yuan, but also because of XM's demonic appearance and supposed lack of connection to XY.

Xin Mo has never spoken to his wielders before, not in the same way he does Luo Binghe. He tells Luo Binghe this, and he also tells Luo Binghe down the line that he is both spiritual and demonic -- something he also never told his wielders because there was no point to it.

okay okay i've got to end it here because its already gotten ridiculously long -- of which im both apologetic and unapologetic for -- but i DO think the Shang Qinghua and Shen Yuan meeting (and reveal) would be fucking hilarious. Especially if SY has learned how to pop between sword form and human form by then -- although i guess it doesnt matter either way because SQH's reaction is still the same.

And that reaction is internally screaming and going "hey what the FUCK?? WHY DOES XIN MO HAVE A HUMAN FORM??? WHAT IS THIS??? SYSTEM??? EXPLAIN???"

meanwhile from his place on the sword hilt xin mo is squinting at Shang Qinghua in bewilderment and going "aren't you supposed to be dead" but doesn't pay too much mind to it because its not like its going to change anything.

...up until he catches shang qinghua going "WTF" silently from his little corner while all eyes are off him. One moment SQH is standing beside his king, and the next he's been tackled to the ground by one wild-eyed, human-shaped Xin Mo.

everyone, including SQH, thinks Xin Mo is going to kill him. It is a surprise to everyone when he does not, and instead dissolves into deranged, uncontrollable laughter after spitting out some phrase in some ancient tongue and watching SQH's eyes grow wide in recognition.

[frobby]

Yukio doesn't realize rin was lonely because he was key contributor to said loneliness

[thebramblewood]

They're going on a best friend date. 🥰

Previous / Next

Helena: Caleb, get dressed. We’re going out.

Caleb: [mumbling] Oh, but Dru and I were just getting comfortable.

Helena: She looks like she’d rather be elsewhere. And so would I. I’m tired of being a recluse with you. All I can think about when I’m hanging around here is my next meal.

Caleb: But where are we-

Helena: It’s a surprise! Would you rather I ask your sister instead?

-

Lilith: Where are you two off to? Oh, are you having one of your little mental conversations. You know I hate that. It’s so unfair! Fine, don’t tell me. But at least take your hellcat with you. [to rubber ducky] I guess it’s just you, me, and that… thing. Now, what are we going to do about them keeping secrets from us?

-

Helena: Why have we never taken this path?

Caleb: Enemy territory.

Helena: Oh my god, is this the way to Vlad’s? You have to show me his place!

Caleb: [weakly] Helena…

Helena: [shudders] Ostentatious and creepy as fuck. It’s strange how little I noticed that first night. And what I do remember is all fragmented and blurry, like a dream.

Caleb: Well, you had an awful lot to drink, and you did technically die. [ruminative pause] Then, of course, there was all the glamouring-

Helena: Glamouring?

Caleb: Vampire party trick. Like hypnosis, but more sophisticated. Once you learn it, you can make yourself as discreet or flashy as you’d like. Most humans have encountered vampires without even realizing it. If they stumble into this place  — and make it out alive — they likely won’t remember how to return. Straud and the other ancients keep it well-shrouded.

Helena: [nervously] Does it work on other vampires? I’ve barely seen any-

Caleb: We can always see our kind for what they are. You’ve just been unobservant.

Helena: Hey! I’ve been distracted. It’s hard not to have tunnel vision when you’re in perpetual survival mode.

Caleb: You’re feeling better now. I can tell.

Helena: I’m full on plasma and ready to party!

Caleb: [chuckles] Seriously?

Helena: Well, not quite. You’ll see.

Caleb: You know, I could just peek into your head and-

Helena: [teasingly] Too bad your morals will never allow it.

[miabrown007]

Félix: kidnapping is a love language Kagami: you have no social skills, idiot

*two weeks later*

Félix: okay, so when Marinette's at her most vulnerable, I'll gaslight her into thinking I'm her boyfriend, so she'll follow me into an abandoned building where we can put her in an altered mental state and present to her my family's life story in the imaginable most cryptic play of theater she has ever seen, which will reveal to her our horrible secret and the fact that her abusive father-in-law is also her arch-nemesis Kagami: you're so big brained, bae 🥰

[sketchy-tour]

wait is that Moreau from Resident Evil: Village??? I love him sm! I literally did not think anyone (or many) liked him that much!! It’s great to see someone giving luv to a character that’s not Lady Dimitrescu or Heisenburg (no hate to them lol, I love them too)

Late to answer but YES YES! I'm in love with the nasty fish man from RE Village.

Hes just so tragic. My heart aches to hold his hands and kiss his face and give him the companionship he so clearly aches for. When it shows his collection of romance films he watches alone I just!!! AUGH!!! It's okay Sal bby I'm also a hopeless romantic lemme hold your hand and dance awkwardly in the rain with you. 🥺

[mohntilyet]

Personal headcanon about the "you picked the wrong dellamorte" line, I don't think illario actually likes rook outside the context of them being someone close to lucanis. Like rook on their own isn't much to him, but when they meet it's yet another person talking about his cousin (why isn't he good enough for whatever job they're hiring for?) and on top of that they somehow bring him back from the dead (another whole can of worms for illario). Now he starts turning on the charm, but whether he's actually interested or this is just one more thing his cousin has that he doesn't and it gets under his skin, who knows. Either way, rook ignores illario, the guy who lives off his charm, and is instead interested in the guy who's never even dated before and thinks giving someone a knife is how to flirt. Infuriating

NO THANK YOU !! i am genuinely sorry if i have ever implied illario is into rook like i see some takes about it and unless it like ties into your rook's personal backstory i don't seriously think he's romantically jealous. at all. my enjoyment of that line stems from illario's pathological need to make it about himself and not see his strengths but what lucanis has, and therefore what he doesn't. he's annoyed enough to try and goad you in the middle of a fight about the 'wrong' dellamorte and completely blind to the fact that the venatori are at best, a stupid fucking alliance, and at worst, a cult that will devour the crows from the inside out and illario would have been the one to give them the keys. he sees lucanis make allies, needs his own, and instead of charming the other talons/houses as he should, he (probably spitefully) picks the venatori. or maybe he just thought it would be easier. ugh he makes me want to telekenetically throw him around

[paintsplash1712]

Can people please stop saying Billy is a villain because he's not! He's just an angry kid who've grieving the very recent death of someone he considered a friend.

So of course he's going to snap when the other witches just act so nonchalant and insult Billy to his face! I would be pissed too!

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OOH YEAH BABY ITS THE SURGERY EPISODE BABY!!! ME AND THE HOMIES NEED SOME NEW FACES FOR OUR NEW PLAN, AND WHO BETTER TO GET THE JOB DONE THAN THE TWO MOST EVIL PEOPLE WE'VE EVER HAD THE MISFORTUNE OF HAVING OUR LIVES VIOLATED BY? I MEAN IT WOULD BE FUNNY. IT WOULD BE FUNNY.

[epickiya722]

It's still something to me that Sukuna knew Yuji was his nephew for like a month and didn't tell Yuji that.

Why he didn't, I don't know. But I guess it's because he didn't care to, at the end of the day. There would have been no point to it.

Even still, Sukuna wanted to so badly break Yuji's spirit and he didn't figure that may have done it, revealing they're technically family? Because had Yuji known, I'm sure it would have upset him.

Then again, maybe Sukuna figured "the brat wouldn't believe me anyways". In 248, he mentions no matter what he did, Yuji isn't breaking.

A part of me also feels like Sukuna just didn't want to be reminded that he still had family. The more you don't think and mention something and ignore it, the more nonexistent it becomes.

Maybe he acted dismissive while revealing that information to Uraume, who was more surprised and curious, to kind of cut off that connection. Extinguish that feeling of what it's like to have family that could care for you.

He was there to witness how Yuji's relationship with Choso changed and maybe it reminded him of what could have been had he and his twin survived in the womb. (I still think Sukuna just had it out for Choso and maybe part of the reason could be because Choso was so devoted to be being a big brother while Sukuna didn't get to experience having a sibling.)

We see how he acts just from Yuji showing any bit of sympathy and pity for him.

Maybe he is disgusted by the idea of human connections and emotions genuinely. That his own "me, myself and I" mentality is so strong that he convinced himself that even having family is absurd to him? And what if a part of him, deep, deep down just feels he doesn't deserve that love?

I'm just rambling and pondering right now.

[wynntermelon]

I really admire the scum villain fandom for surviving this long through sheer willpower and delusion alone

[7nsomnia]

💋🎾💋.

[chiyana]

Jon: Damian, I have a suggestion that you're going to hate, but I need you to bear with me and seriously consider it Damian: very well Jon: *takes a deep breath* I think we should go on an adventure with our brothers (Kon and Tim) instead of our dads Damian: *visibly vibrating with anger* *deep inhale* ...eXpLaIn Jon: our dads are constantly talking about responsibility and the importance of a well-balanced SuperBat partnership, working together as a single unit and approaching things seriously Damian: they are respected heroes, above reproach in their conduct and two of the three main founders of the Justice League Damian: meanwhile our "brothers", as you say, have a public history of being reckless and idiotic when teamed up together and are regularly involved in inane, useless shenanigans Jon: they would let us ride laser dinosaurs into battle without question Damian: they- Damian: -later- Damian: father Jon and I are going on an adventure with Drake and his clone boy