#whereas i think furina talked to focalors exactly once. </3

[aromanticasterisms]

sitting bolt upright in the middle of the night with the realization that furina is not a parallel to seele, she's a parallel to veliona. walk with me,

obligatory disclaimer that i do not think furina and focalors are an "expy" of the seeles [taking this word away from hyv fans and putting it on a shelf] because nothing shared across these games is ever a one for one copy. even for characters whose names and appearances are the same or similar, inspiration is drawn from multiple different sources. [talk to me about different aspects of mei being seen in makoto and ei respectively, and yae miko being more like rin / higokumaru than sakura]. the setting and tone of each game is very different, and this shapes the characters in different and interesting ways.

i enjoy seele and furina's stories because they're distinct and different entities!! but it's fun to draw comparisons between the two and see what aspects of these stories have been repeated versus where they differ from each other.

like okay listen. i've understood the shallower parallels between focalors and furina and seele and veliona for a while. there's two of them. one of them has short hair the other long. the sea of quanta / the primordial sea. the little mermaid analogies. the shade of life creating focalors's predecessor / veliona being a stigmata of the previous era herrscher of death, seele becoming the herrscher of rebirth. okay yeah fine whatever.

the seeles' story is one of codependency as a result of trauma and isolation, and recovering from it and learning to rely on each other in healthier ways. focalors and furina's story is one of loneliness, duty, and sacrifice.

but both of them are about identity.

since the time they came into being, both furina and veliona have taken on this role of protector to something they hold dear - furina's doomed people, veliona's meek and fragile other half. in order to take on this role, they put on masks - furina's arrogant and exuberant showmanship, veliona's harsh and sarcastic demeanor - to hide away the insecurities that lie beneath.

and when their counterpart is killed / separated from them, these insecurities come right up to the surface, and they're at a loss for what to do with themselves. they don't know who they are if they're not projecting this mask and playing the part of protector. who is veliona when seele grows stronger, makes more friends, doesn't need her anymore? who is furina, after five hundred long years, when she doesn't have to pretend to be a god anymore?

without their counterpart to hide behind, to give them meaning, who do they have that cares for them? that sees past the mask they've put between themselves and the world?

perhaps surprisingly to them, a lot of people!

their friends pick them up when they stumble and pull them forward into a more hopeful future where they can be themselves and live their own lives. seele assuring veliona she does want her around, bronya accepting her, the herrscher of sentience trying to get her to be more confident in herself. neuvillette looking after furina's financial costs, clorinde inviting her out drinking and to meet up with friends so she doesn't stay locked in her apartment forever, the people of fontaine accepting furina as she is.

in the end, they don't entirely abandon these masks of theirs, but repurpose them, borrowing that false confidence and making it into something more real as they take steps to discovering who they are and who they want to be.