𝙾𝙼𝙾𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚆 : indie portrayal of 𝙰𝚂𝚄𝙺𝙰 𝚃𝙴𝙽𝙹𝙾𝚄𝙸𝙽 as seen in 𝚈𝙶𝙾 𝙶𝚇. permanent semi-hiatus, semi-affiliated with the rpc, highly selective. established march 2025. written by steph, early 30s. psds by ariapsds, cavalierfou, and kingsleigh. icon raws.
𝙼𝙴𝚃𝙰 & 𝙽𝙾𝚃𝙴𝚂 // 𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴𝚂 // 𝙼𝙰𝙸𝙽𝚂
relevant sidenotes : while the original yugioh anime series, and parts of 5d's, influenced my childhood and adolescence, i lack nostalgia for gx and i do not abide by the fandom's perception of the show. as much as i love the premise of the story and the potential of the characters, i've grown out of taking the card game as seriously as the characters do, so you can expect canon divergences. my portrayal does not follow the manga timeline, nor do i know much about arc-v. in fact, i have zero knowledge of any other chapter in the franchise.
𝙶𝚄𝙸𝙳𝙴𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙴𝚂 𝙱𝙴𝙻𝙾𝚆 ▼
english is not my mother tongue and my prose is rather meta-heavy. if you reckon you would be bothered by that, i advise against following.
i welcome pre-established relationships, plotted or improvised threads and duplicates. i neither practice exclusives, nor am i part of an affiliated group of people, but i practice having mains if anyone is interested in it. this muse is single-shipped with gxtchas, each and every other interaction will be platonic, familial or antagonistic.
the best way to start interactions with me is a discussion for a dynamic between our muses as established context will help a lot with sending in inbox prompts. of course, i don't expect to plan out a whole novella for a thread but i greatly appreciate mutual exchange of ideas. continuations of replied asks is the most common method to start threading. i also like starter calls sometimes to break the ice, but i post them rarely myself, and if i do, it will mostly be for one-liners that can be built upon.
i beg you tag your callout posts properly. do not involve me or send me callouts unless someone committed a crime and violated a law. that said, i have no patience for trivial drama, and i avoid people at my own discretion, when i see fit.
mature and potentially triggering content is bound to be present here. i will not censor themes such as brain washing, religious imagery and trauma, familial trauma, violence and murder, heavy survivor's guilt, mentions of drowning, cosmic / bodily / psychological horror, fictional political themes as well as war and conquest. while i am not particularly fond of erotic interaction, i avoid blogs with minor admins regardless. please, do not expect mutual following if you are below 21.
blogs / fandoms i have little to no interest in and will likely not interact, unless you’re a close friend or writing partner of mine : genshin / honkai impact, anything marvel, or overwatch --- list is subject to expansion.
a reason for me to hard block as a visceral reaction is seeing AI generated content on my dashboard ; these include generated music, writing, and images. but also the mere advertisement of / linking to generating products or apps will result in a soft block. i do not need those here.
i preface this by saying, i haven’t played the actual yugioh card game for twenty years so my analysis is more introspective of themes injected into those cards for interpretation of her character rather than strategy. for now i address asuka’s primary cyber angels / ladies anime-based deck and will not mention her society of light ‘white night’ deck, or the ‘ice counter’ from the manga. i’m not sure if and when i will write a continuation but this post has gotten a little longer than intended anyway. and as a side note : the majority of this post was written first before any translations for the memorial book portion that addresses her was available and only a few complementary words were added after.
𝙱𝙰𝚂𝙸𝙲𝚂 : the first thing that is observable about the monsters of her choice is that most are themed around performance dance such as ballet, rhythmic gymnastics, figure skating, japanese fan dance, and blade dance, encapsulated strength of ‘hard working female athletes’ as an interview in the recent memorial book states, which suggests that asuka values discipline and diligence, and at the same time it comes with pressure of perfectionism. but also, as it is right in the meaning of the word — performance — asuka performs, not only for dueling, but for general academics, for mental aptitude, for emotional stability. being ‘put together’, ‘being strong’, avoiding vulnerability and maintaining caution. her surface persona is that of a performer, and like one she is admired. but behind this, she is far from perfect, and of that she is very aware.
𝙳𝙾𝙱𝙻𝙴 𝙿𝙰𝚂𝚂𝙴 : speaking of which, let me address asuka's signature card. its illustration depicts a ballet dancer in the spotlight wearing a smiling mask, hiding something maybe only few will notice behind the scenes ( and a few indeed do ). the effect of taking a direct hit instead of her monster while also returning damage back to her opponent, is both a presentation of her protective nature but also her willingness to strike back when she, and especially those around her, have been wronged. one can point to her duel with titan, a man who kidnapped her, making a desirable offer for her brother’s memory to be recovered upon defeat, a risk she takes and emerges victorious from and sends titan’s soul where it belongs. or let's look to her duel with mitsuo who stole something that was important to her, a goodluck charm from her mother, and she humiliates him by winning. or to her duel in the genex tournament, a duel she took over from junko and momoe facing humiliation by their opponent and asuka elected to continue it with 1k points left instead of the full 4k and wins to defend their pride. doble passe is not only a card that leaves a strong first impression, it’s also a demonstration of who she is at her very core.
𝙴𝙻𝙴𝙼𝙴𝙽𝚃𝙰𝙻 𝙳𝙸𝚂𝚃𝚁𝙸𝙱𝚄𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 : the elements of her monsters are mostly earth and light. earth for ladies like cyber tutu, etoile, skater, blade skater ; and light aligned monsters like dakini, benten, or idaten allude to mythological figures. from them we can draw a duality between heaven and earth, the idolized and the grounded, both of which are in tune with asuka's character. while she is idolized, she has still the qualities of a normal teenage girl who works around her own pride to earn her achievements, but that same work is also overlooked via glorification and fantasies created around her.
a quote from episode 81 summing up how far the glorification goes : " the girl i'm after is everyone's idol. she is so unattainable. " asuka being seen as 'unattainable' when she is mostly down-to-earth explains how the ranking within the academy works socially for the students, and her status as the popular honor-student uplifts her from the rest in ways she doesn't even ask for.
𝙵𝙸𝙴𝙻𝙳 𝚂𝙿𝙴𝙻𝙻𝚂 : ritual sanctuary / church of blessing is an interesting demonstration to pick on the overt romanticization of her character, and by turning it around with the ‘machine angel ritual’ spell, she ‘steels’ the aisle and applies a dreary look onto the otherwise beauteous. it is somewhat of a message that what you see is not necessarily what you’ll get. while she is pretty, she is also raw as a wound ; while she is hopeful, she is also in war with her hopelessness ; while she prideful, she is also doubting her good qualities ; and while she is bright, she also obscures something darker.
𝙶𝙾𝙳𝚂 : here are a few quotes that describe the aforementioned mythological figures and the concepts they are associated with. they relate to enlightenment, protection, and once again, performance :
" in nepalese and tibetan buddhism, 'ḍākinī' can refer to both what can be best described as fierce-looking female embodiments of enlightened energy, and as human women with a certain amount of spiritual development, both of whom can help tantric initiates in attaining enlightenment. "
" benten, also known as benzaiten, is one of the shichi-fuku-jin, or seven gods of luck, in japanese mythology. she is the patron goddess of literature, music, and wealth and like many other japanese deities, had a dual purpose in both buddhism and shinto religion. being the only female figure in the shichi-fuku-jin, she is also often considered a deity of femininity, and is believed to be the deity of everything that flows : speech, knowledge, music, and water. her role as the patron goddess of music has caused her to be seen as the protector of geishas, dancers and musicians. "
" skanda, or idaten, is a mahayana bodhisattva ( refers to anyone who has generated a spontaneous wish and compassionate mind to attain buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. they are spiritually heroic persons that work to attain awakening and are driven by a great compassion ) skanda is regarded as a devoted guardian of buddhist monasteries who protects the teachings of buddhism. according to legends, skanda was the son of a virtuous king who had complete faith in buddha's teachings. ( ... ) he is associated with extraordinary speed and came to be regarded as a protector of monasteries and the sangha, as well as warding off fire and theft. "
performance that elevates her, protection that she deeply commits to and is willing to give her soul for, and enlightenment to represent the desire for finding truth in a world that tries to gaslight her, resulting in an instinctive path as a researcher.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙴𝚇𝙲𝙴𝙿𝚃𝙸𝙾𝙽 : honorable mention of the one irregularity among the collective of ladies which is cyber petit angel. it has neither anything to do with dance, nor is it a deity, but unassuming as it is, i dare say instead it resembles an aspect of innocence. that ‘little’ remaining portion of the girl she used to be.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙸𝙽𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝙰𝚂𝚄𝙺𝙰 ( and her 'society of light' counterpart )
obligatory warning for mentions of : brainwashing into cults, subtle eye horror, drowning but not really, sappy sappiness. also this is a long post. ( if you'd like to read more on character introspection, my analysis of her regular deck might interest you. )
𝙸𝙽𝚃𝚁𝙾 : first i must say, i doubt the writers had any grander plan with society-asuka since they admitted to have written the show per weekly improvisation and came up with random things on the fly, so at the time there was likely no consistent reason behind the build-up for asuka's recruitment into saio's cult aside from messing with the protagonist, but with the power of the red thread and my uncensored raw insanity, i shall make sense of her. and because the duel against society-asuka makes it thematically obvious that it's appropriate to do, i'll be taking some influences from the snow queen fairytale for my interpretation of that era ( along with a layer of white swan vs black swan themes, the controlled vs the shadow self, perfection vs chaos ). the trick is knowing which character of the snow queen she represents. spoilers : it's not the queen herself, despite the whole theme around ice first suggesting so. but let me elaborate.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳 𝚆𝙷𝙾 𝚆𝙰𝚂 𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴𝙽 𝙰𝚆𝙰𝚈 ( the outer layer ) : within the tale exists a mirror created by the devil, one which " does not reflect the good and beautiful aspects of people and things, but magnifies their bad and ugly aspects. " the mirror in this case parallels the light of destruction which takes its victims hostage on a mental level and reveals their flawed inner aspects, but in turn, they see the world as tainted and ugly and as one in need of destruction to redeem it, to achieve a perfect world of light. asuka is, in the case of the fairy tale, an equivalent to kai, a friend of the protagonist gerda. after the mirror of the devil shattered into little pieces and scattered around the world, a fragment gets stuck in kai's eye, who then, like asuka, becomes cold and cruel because he has begun to see the world as irredeemably ugly. he is then taken away by the snow queen and gerda ends up looking for her friend, overcoming several hurdles on the way. ( an ironic part of gerda and kai's story, which frankly is somewhat relevant if you consider what happens later in s3, is that at some point before her search, gerda thought kai has died in a river and asked the river to return him in exchange for her favorite red shoes. )
the context and symbolic value between gerda ( judai ) and kai ( asuka ) is simple yet important : they're close playmates who are tied by virtue of neighborhood and they deeply love each other, which makes kai's grotesque changes uncharacteristic. whereas they started as children, time passes in the process of finding kai and saving him from the influences of the mirror shard, and by the end as they return home, they find themselves 'changed' while the world around them didn't ( a parallel about 'changing upon returning home' can be taken into account in context of s2 and s4, too ). because love is a vital component to 'melt the ice around the heart' it's also important to note it is pure and selfless in its nature, which the sacrifice of one's precious possession ( the red shoes ) symbolizes. it is relevant because the connection between judai and asuka is selfless as they've been willing to save each other before without second thought, and pure because they've been looking out for each other without ulterior motives.
within a portion of the story it is revealed that kai can be saved by the very purity gerda possesses :
" i can give her no greater power than she has already, " ( ... ) " don't you see how strong that is ? how men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. she cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. if she cannot herself obtain access to the snow queen, and remove the glass fragments from little kai, we can do nothing to help her ..."
this is what freed asuka, as kai has been warmed by gerda's love when she found him, being purified off the fragment. ( to add to that, judai uses a fire-elementar monster to defeat society-asuka and wake her from her trance ) judai's intentions with asuka were always pure and never otherwise motivated, something that she finds rarely in the world around her. it makes their bond precious and easy to cherish. i will someday talk more about how the sequence of the closure of the duel itself went, but essentially, eye contact and 'seeing the other' seems to have been an underlying element to succeed with that, and ironically it plays into the element of the blinded eye that caught the fragment and changing their perception of the world around them, and eventually seeing clearly again upon receiving love and the faith of the other person.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙱𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙺 𝚂𝚆𝙰𝙽 ( the inside ) : so with that out of the way, what makes society of light asuka so different from regular asuka, and how does that relate compared to her other society peers ? it was obvious with members like misawa and manjome, as i have mentioned above, that via their brainwashing, their bad and ugly aspects are magnified, their insecurities and their vices externalized. while misawa's fear of falling behind was what made him 'follow the herd' ( re : the increasing amount of students who have been brainwashed into the cult ), manjome's insecurities about his rivalry with judai, and his wounded pride around it that's driven by severe performance pressure, was exploited and twisted. asuka was pulled into the society by neither of those things. she lost a duel and by her loss 'has seen the light', but that doesn't mean she is without her insecurities ready to be exploited and externalized. the thing with her is though, that she embodies a horrid person who seems to be uncharacteristically callous, but what if this is simply what she fears she is ? being worse than what people say she is ? because the reality is that she had an opportunity to show she wasn't all too cold, that she actually was stirred when someone she knew got hurt and humiliated ( junko and momoe ) and protected their pride and honor. even at this stage, she was still defending someone, instead of destroying them.
thus, the apathetic persona society-asuka presents is NOT who she actually is, but an insecurity manifesting as a shadow self.
there is the potential juxtaposition between her idolization, her glorification, and the admiration she is surrounded with vs the pressure of a projected perfection becoming consuming self doubt that makes the inward turmoil and its imperfections seem worse than they are and blowing them out of proportion. so it translates into this macabre display of someone who is awful and unreachable. i could say that asuka 'is strong enough to not care for what other people think so she will express herself freely' but that would be a lie. she does care for how she's perceived, she is just not haughty or self-entitled about it. nonetheless, asuka fakes it till she makes it so much that she believes even her well-meaning actions are an act ( you only teach / want to help and elevate people to satisfy yourself ), which obviously isn't true. how many times has she instinctively acted out of love or tried to uplift someone ? as mentioned above, even in her brainwashed state she selflessly cared. unprompted. in other examples, she didn't give up on fubuki and looked for him without the help of authorities, she reassured hayato in his self-doubt, she looked out for sho when he tried to understand what happened to ryo after his graduation, she was willing to give up her soul to save them, including judai. once again, love is a vital component to her and the resolution of reversing her shadow self into her regular self, the white swan.
yet while out of love she was willing to remove herself, she also does suppress herself when the conversation shifts to how the emotional world inside of her looks. there are at least three times where i noticed that happening so it is a notable behavioral pattern which makes the creation of a manifested 'supposedly repressed self' all too inevitable. vulnerability is complicated. all that is a classic case of self-demonization over the slightest flaw with the suppression of herself, and how that demonization can twist and become a monster of its own that wants to be seen for what it is in stark contrast to superficial admiration, and lashes out. as her teacher says in duel links ( bless ), if there is some room for improvement for her, it would be that she needs to believe in herself a bit more. although it is not so much that she doesn't believe in herself to achieve things, because obviously she actively achieves things, she is a top of class honor student and she came to a boarding school on an island to find her brother. but it's rather that ... she doesn't believe in the version of her which other people see, even if they're right in some cases. but it's okay. for as long as she is working on that, there are some people who believe in her instead.
quotes used : february letter to ghost mother, leila chatti ; ugly, bitter, and true, suzanne rivecca ; sharp objects, gillian flynn ; erosion, jamie oliveira
𝙿𝚁𝙾𝙼𝙿𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝙼𝙰𝙸𝙻 ; 𝙲𝙾𝙽𝙵𝙴𝚂𝚂𝙸𝙾𝙽𝚂 ( 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙵𝙸𝚁𝚂𝚃 𝙺𝙸𝚂𝚂 ) // @gxtchas : judai touches his lips afterward, a little stunned. “…oh.”
𝚂𝙷𝙴 𝙷𝙰𝙳 𝙳𝙾𝙽𝙴 𝚂𝙾𝙼𝙴𝚃𝙷𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚂𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙻𝙳 𝙽𝙾𝚃 𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴 𝙱𝙰𝙲𝙺. she could not un-spill the milk, or un-crack the vase, or un-shatter the dishes. mary, though unwillingly embodied anyway, could not undo her weakness of kissing the savior in his shadowed lonesome space, and therefore left him with the first time for either to feel someone else's lips. but what if she did that on purpose ? what if she snapped at the sight of her hand being kissed first, the offered comfort within her open palm gliding against the verge of the savior's mouth, his eyes aglow like solar edges spying a glimpse of her reaction. what if she could not take another second of this blurry fondness ? this unaddressed longing. what if that was her stupid, stupid revenge? asking if she may draw herself near, and upon receiving a yes, giving in to her curiosity for what might happen if she bluntly abandoned all restraint. opposing eyelids already half closed by the time she dared move her weight and loom within but few millimeters betwixt noses left to overcome. and you had it coming, this impending contact, this accident, this thing thoughtlessly executed. you had it coming. she had it coming. the fusion of stars, their nuclei bursting open and setting themselves free / the admittance of attraction revealed in its humble placement of love, breath muffled by another’s breath. meekly and delicately. it lasted three seconds, as long as the amount of time needed to realize what she had done and pull back. gently. puzzled, too. “ … ” and as you contemplated so did she.
oh, you breathed. an o as hypnotizing as the corona of an eclipse, as saturn’s rings, as a well’s opening. one could have fallen into it. the heavens were as mighty as they were soundless. empty space stinging between warm bodies, though there nestled no whole void, but rather the invitation to close the gap again.
as you touched your lips to feel the remnant of her action, so did she touch hers to savor the sensation. she was scared of how bizarrely nice it tasted. how good it felt. she should not have liked kissing someone as sacred as a friend, as pure as someone so ready to melt her heart out of its own winter, pure as sun-rays and dew on grass. neither was particularly innocent in anything, and even if they once more were, she still broke something, violated this gap never truly defined before. “ … i ... ” voice cracked ashamed, it was another broken thing, another spilled thing. what did she do ? she did the same you did to her. selfishly taking nearness for granted. she had done something she could not take back. there was no fixing this. there was only saying sorry or i don’t regret anything. but she ever so frequently needed to fix her mistakes if they were regrettable. so … was this regrettable, the deed which neither could have been undone, nor corrected ?
it’s more questionable the more the silence stretched with the same speed by which the distance stretched between stars. ‘ the more space between two objects, the faster they separate. ’ she panicked abruptly in hallucinating this distance, that she pushed you away rather than pull. that you could, would, might have seen her as her grotesque, needy true self. that you could, would, might have been ... disappointed. “ that, uhm, that was silly of me to do, please forg— ” forgive ? forget ? she was denied the opportunity to complete the sentence and finish stringing together her wish by the very pull she thought had long decayed between her and you. her stature in the prompt, magical seizing of loving hands, the evenness of her jawline cupped. her head adjusting to the instantaneous inching of a second head. the shape of hers clashing against yours. again. again. these atoms touched, even if the science behind them insisted they would repel. nothing made sense anyway. she did not make sense and felt them all seep through, returning — but wait ...
oh, she realized then, that she felt her mouth pressed by the careless curiosity of your mouth.
burnt sugar against grave-flowers abloom upon her gloss-faded pinks. ash to soil. the second kiss played out as thoughtlessly as the first, but much worse in its gluttony. much, much worse. mind-numbing. ‘eye-closing’ instead of ‘eye-opening’. erasing every thought, every quiver of her fingers, every sense of despair, every paralyzing hypothesis. she simply clung to your torso, dug into your black shirt over your shoulder blades, and she forgot about her shame. too much of her was entirely adored to not accept it in exchange for a few shuddering exhales. if she were to be trapped in this darkness, don't save her from it, she had it coming. she did not need to invent a redeemer. she welcomed the darkness wrapped around her — all, all around her — and she did not want to be rescued.
"That doesn't surprise me at all." words were warm as her sweet smile grew wider. "but isn't it better to feel like a teacher's 'pet' rather than being scolded all the time? Some of the professors here are pretty strict. I've witnessed poor Lynae being lectured more times than I can count. Sooo ... be proud! Your brilliance is something to be admired, Asuka."
In response to her companion's offer, Sigrika's head tilted slightly, a soft hum emanating from rosette lips. "Ah..... you know? I've always wanted a study buddy ..... but I'd hate to inconvenience you ... would it really be okay?"
𝙾𝙷 , 𝙷𝙾𝚆 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝚂𝚄𝙽 𝙷𝙰𝚃𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝙱𝙻𝙸𝙽𝙳 𝙸𝚃𝚂 𝚂𝙿𝙴𝙲𝚃𝙰𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚂. how unchangeable it was. how relatable. in its blaze, it donated its bright whims, on and on it went, delightful as it was calming, then it shone its praises and shifted away to not further bother come night time. what a troubling sight to watch this cycle in repetition, self-removal upon self-removal, all hers, self-inflicted, onlooker-inflicted, and the praised one understood what she witnessed. quick as the habit fell had she been as quick to catch it, without brushing it off. “ don’t ever think you’re inconveniencing me. it’s okay to do things together if it comes easier. besides, i offered, didn’t i ? ” she did, she did, she did. ( and don’t deny it. ) quietly slid a pinky finger then, to hook with the one belonging to the sol-sworn, preened for unbearable glory. “ it would also be a good excuse to meet more often. although i would like to go watch films with you, too. or go shopping. having fun together again. ”
𝐏𝐑𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐄𝐋𝐋, 𝐎' 𝐑𝐈𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐀𝐖𝐍: 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐋𝐎𝐍𝐆 𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐁𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐊𝐘 𝐈𝐒 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐔𝐄𝐒? Extended periods of time spent together allows one to sense emotions you try your best to hide. Sentiments of sadness, of solitude despite being in company— abandonment. All of them shades that obscure your auburn eyes, meant to glow with the intensity of the sun. Slender fingers rest 'neath your chin so you may look into her cornflower irises, as if she may find something within. In truth, it is strength she means to share, so she does when her fingers leave warm skin only for deceptively-fragile arms to envelop you in her embrace. ◜No one says it has to be easy.◞ Certainly not her. Doing so would be the highest form of disrespect to your story, to your struggle and daily trepidations. Arms tighten their hold, a quiet sign to lean onto her. ◜So do not ever pretend it is.◞ Not to me, she means to say— but she does not. For the saint isn't so capricious as to demand what cannot. Nor conceited enough to believe herself above everything and everyone, including you. Warmth emanated from the smile painted 'pon roseate lips as she separates herself, only enough to peer into your brilliant bronze eyes. Long fingers reach out to tuck away a few strands behind your ear. ◜Night must pass in order to make way for dawn to illuminate the skies. Remember: no night lasts long enough for the sun not to rise.◞
𝙰𝙿𝙿𝙰𝙻𝙻𝙴𝙳 𝙱𝚈 𝙷𝙴𝚁 𝙴𝙰𝚂𝚈 𝚈𝙸𝙴𝙻𝙳𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝚃𝙾 𝚃𝙷𝙸𝚂 𝙴𝙼𝙱𝚁𝙰𝙲𝙴 , 𝚂𝙷𝙴 𝙰𝙻𝙼𝙾𝚂𝚃 𝚆𝚁𝙸𝚃𝙷𝙴𝙳. almost. not truly. hers, a protest dead on arrival soon as arms created their cradle. solace was a banquet from which she refused to ever steal, or beg for crumbs at the table's edges. no scenario could have altered the haunting sense of subjection to benignity, its pain akin to a touch placed against a re-opening gash, but in lieu of wincing did she allow the pressure to stop the bleeding. worse even, she returned the squeeze in kind, frown concealed by limbs interlocking with limbs, threads of pale and dirty blonde mingling. “ cartethyia … ” she faintly called upon you, the nurturer. you, the executioner of misery. you, her friendly rival in her soothings. a giving girl meeting another giving girl. a hopeful girl, pure in her convictions, pouring the daybreak and its symbolic splendor into the gaping melancholy of the other girl who dreamed of tomorrow for the sake of another. they shared a promise. a promise to believe that, surely, surely, morning might come for them both and wash away all their sorrows. “ … i know. ” the belief continued with a confirmation. while refraining from following the luring grace of celestials, so urged she still to trust in something, lest she teared at the brims, with the tears she suppressed at the caress of her far too kind friend and her inescapable charity. “ i’m trying … i’m trying to not break. for him. but i wish for just one sign. just one. ” i only want my brother back “ am i being too selfish ? do i ask for too much ? ”
ohhhhhh very good question, i had to sit with this for a bit but here are a few points that might be a start ( for anyone unfamiliar with ff16, here is a warning for mentions of religion, persecution over witchcraftTM, slavery, other medieval practices. )
asuka is a lady of a lesser noble house and studies at kanver university to learn more about magitek and its properties. because she was uninterested in marriage, she was originally to be sent to a convent, as was commonplace for women in the middle ages, but since she was intelligent and curious, and her father caring despite his emotional awkwardness and distance, she was permitted to study abroad instead. she does not speak of her values of the world needing independence from her mothercrystals, she is not a religious person ( which also would have made a convent life torturous ), therefore any spoken normalization of them or reveries for any god is to avoid her family being ostracized due to her beliefs. her ancestors hail from the outer continents back when the tribes still migrated and thus mingled with the people and settled, but she was born sanbrequois.
there is the possibility of fubuki, her brother, to be a 'late-bloomer' bearer, meaning that as a baby he was tested but considered born without magicks, which means he won't be branded and given to slavery, and at some point later in his life it might awaken due to stress or other factors. there is also the possibility for asuka to be like her brother, and if fubuki were to be taken away it would trigger in her, too. fubuki's magicks would be darkness based, while hers would be light based, making her a healer.
friends with the arrogant but charismatic manjome born in a higher noble house ( but one-sided in love with her ), the genius misawa, and the prodigy ryo ( a brother figure with whom she often likes to walk by the sea ). ryo is also close friends with fubuki. uuuuh unless there is a major for alchemy, judai is probably not an university student lol. but if any of them were to discover the tenjoin siblings as a bearers they wouldn't tell a soul. the siblings are popular among nobility and university and a lot of ppl actually want to marry them.
idk she should stab someone with a sword or swing an axe at them, who am i to tell her what to do
yuna and asuka sanbreque childhood friends, despite their differences in religion, they hold different flavors of hope and hide their sorrows
if you ever go back to your clive he should adopt her when the thing happens
obsessed with the idea of asuka being both winter and spring, night and dawn, she is cycles, of death and rebirth and death and rebirth again. even society asuka says 'she has been reborn', and then she was freed, and then in s3 she dies, and then she comes back to life again. she got all the brains and courage and kindness but none of that helps her and the only thing she's really good at is rebirth. coming out of all the gloom anyway.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙸𝙽𝚅𝙴𝚁𝚂𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝙰𝚂𝚄𝙺𝙰 ( and her 'society of light' counterpart )
obligatory warning for mentions of : brainwashing into cults, subtle eye horror, drowning but not really, sappy sappiness. also this is a long post. ( if you'd like to read more on character introspection, my analysis of her regular deck might interest you. )
𝙸𝙽𝚃𝚁𝙾 : first i must say, i doubt the writers had any grander plan with society-asuka since they admitted to have written the show per weekly improvisation and came up with random things on the fly, so at the time there was likely no consistent reason behind the build-up for asuka's recruitment into saio's cult aside from messing with the protagonist, but with the power of the red thread and my uncensored raw insanity, i shall make sense of her. and because the duel against society-asuka makes it thematically obvious that it's appropriate to do, i'll be taking some influences from the snow queen fairytale for my interpretation of that era ( along with a layer of white swan vs black swan themes, the controlled vs the shadow self, perfection vs chaos ). the trick is knowing which character of the snow queen she represents. spoilers : it's not the queen herself, despite the whole theme around ice first suggesting so. but let me elaborate.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳 𝚆𝙷𝙾 𝚆𝙰𝚂 𝚃𝙰𝙺𝙴𝙽 𝙰𝚆𝙰𝚈 ( the outer layer ) : within the tale exists a mirror created by the devil, one which " does not reflect the good and beautiful aspects of people and things, but magnifies their bad and ugly aspects. " the mirror in this case parallels the light of destruction which takes its victims hostage on a mental level and reveals their flawed inner aspects, but in turn, they see the world as tainted and ugly and as one in need of destruction to redeem it, to achieve a perfect world of light. asuka is, in the case of the fairy tale, an equivalent to kai, a friend of the protagonist gerda. after the mirror of the devil shattered into little pieces and scattered around the world, a fragment gets stuck in kai's eye, who then, like asuka, becomes cold and cruel because he has begun to see the world as irredeemably ugly. he is then taken away by the snow queen and gerda ends up looking for her friend, overcoming several hurdles on the way. ( an ironic part of gerda and kai's story, which frankly is somewhat relevant if you consider what happens later in s3, is that at some point before her search, gerda thought kai has died in a river and asked the river to return him in exchange for her favorite red shoes. )
the context and symbolic value between gerda ( judai ) and kai ( asuka ) is simple yet important : they're close playmates who are tied by virtue of neighborhood and they deeply love each other, which makes kai's grotesque changes uncharacteristic. whereas they started as children, time passes in the process of finding kai and saving him from the influences of the mirror shard, and by the end as they return home, they find themselves 'changed' while the world around them didn't ( a parallel about 'changing upon returning home' can be taken into account in context of s2 and s4, too ). because love is a vital component to 'melt the ice around the heart' it's also important to note it is pure and selfless in its nature, which the sacrifice of one's precious possession ( the red shoes ) symbolizes. it is relevant because the connection between judai and asuka is selfless as they've been willing to save each other before without second thought, and pure because they've been looking out for each other without ulterior motives.
within a portion of the story it is revealed that kai can be saved by the very purity gerda possesses :
" i can give her no greater power than she has already, " ( ... ) " don't you see how strong that is ? how men and animals are obliged to serve her, and how well she has got through the world, barefooted as she is. she cannot receive any power from me greater than she now has, which consists in her own purity and innocence of heart. if she cannot herself obtain access to the snow queen, and remove the glass fragments from little kai, we can do nothing to help her ..."
this is what freed asuka, as kai has been warmed by gerda's love when she found him, being purified off the fragment. ( to add to that, judai uses a fire-elementar monster to defeat society-asuka and wake her from her trance ) judai's intentions with asuka were always pure and never otherwise motivated, something that she finds rarely in the world around her. it makes their bond precious and easy to cherish. i will someday talk more about how the sequence of the closure of the duel itself went, but essentially, eye contact and 'seeing the other' seems to have been an underlying element to succeed with that, and ironically it plays into the element of the blinded eye that caught the fragment and changing their perception of the world around them, and eventually seeing clearly again upon receiving love and the faith of the other person.
𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙱𝙻𝙰𝙲𝙺 𝚂𝚆𝙰𝙽 ( the inside ) : so with that out of the way, what makes society of light asuka so different from regular asuka, and how does that relate compared to her other society peers ? it was obvious with members like misawa and manjome, as i have mentioned above, that via their brainwashing, their bad and ugly aspects are magnified, their insecurities and their vices externalized. while misawa's fear of falling behind was what made him 'follow the herd' ( re : the increasing amount of students who have been brainwashed into the cult ), manjome's insecurities about his rivalry with judai, and his wounded pride around it that's driven by severe performance pressure, was exploited and twisted. asuka was pulled into the society by neither of those things. she lost a duel and by her loss 'has seen the light', but that doesn't mean she is without her insecurities ready to be exploited and externalized. the thing with her is though, that she embodies a horrid person who seems to be uncharacteristically callous, but what if this is simply what she fears she is ? being worse than what people say she is ? because the reality is that she had an opportunity to show she wasn't all too cold, that she actually was stirred when someone she knew got hurt and humiliated ( junko and momoe ) and protected their pride and honor. even at this stage, she was still defending someone, instead of destroying them.
thus, the apathetic persona society-asuka presents is NOT who she actually is, but an insecurity manifesting as a shadow self.
there is the potential juxtaposition between her idolization, her glorification, and the admiration she is surrounded with vs the pressure of a projected perfection becoming consuming self doubt that makes the inward turmoil and its imperfections seem worse than they are and blowing them out of proportion. so it translates into this macabre display of someone who is awful and unreachable. i could say that asuka 'is strong enough to not care for what other people think so she will express herself freely' but that would be a lie. she does care for how she's perceived, she is just not haughty or self-entitled about it. nonetheless, asuka fakes it till she makes it so much that she believes even her well-meaning actions are an act ( you only teach / want to help and elevate people to satisfy yourself ), which obviously isn't true. how many times has she instinctively acted out of love or tried to uplift someone ? as mentioned above, even in her brainwashed state she selflessly cared. unprompted. in other examples, she didn't give up on fubuki and looked for him without the help of authorities, she reassured hayato in his self-doubt, she looked out for sho when he tried to understand what happened to ryo after his graduation, she was willing to give up her soul to save them, including judai. once again, love is a vital component to her and the resolution of reversing her shadow self into her regular self, the white swan.
yet while out of love she was willing to remove herself, she also does suppress herself when the conversation shifts to how the emotional world inside of her looks. there are at least three times where i noticed that happening so it is a notable behavioral pattern which makes the creation of a manifested 'supposedly repressed self' all too inevitable. vulnerability is complicated. all that is a classic case of self-demonization over the slightest flaw with the suppression of herself, and how that demonization can twist and become a monster of its own that wants to be seen for what it is in stark contrast to superficial admiration, and lashes out. as her teacher says in duel links ( bless ), if there is some room for improvement for her, it would be that she needs to believe in herself a bit more. although it is not so much that she doesn't believe in herself to achieve things, because obviously she actively achieves things, she is a top of class honor student and she came to a boarding school on an island to find her brother. but it's rather that ... she doesn't believe in the version of her which other people see, even if they're right in some cases. but it's okay. for as long as she is working on that, there are some people who believe in her instead.
quotes used : february letter to ghost mother, leila chatti ; ugly, bitter, and true, suzanne rivecca ; sharp objects, gillian flynn ; erosion, jamie oliveira
𝐁𝐀𝐑𝐁𝐄𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐒 𝐖𝐑𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐀𝐑𝐏. there is a jagged blade wedge between cardiovascular pulse and slumbering reverie. words that are spoken naturally climbs out of his throat until he taste nothing but ash and tart. an ancient ache lingers and dwells within his ribs, violently nesting against the blacken ink he ceremoniously had inhaled — in another life, from a distant dream. the 'him' from before nay, the him of today : crown-less and deadbeat, remarkable yet presently perplexed. memories dwells within him without the need of captured snapshots or written sentiments, it was always live within the moment with him. but when the moment is gone, what happens then ? farewells. goodbyes. sayonara. gone. it was always easier to leave first, then to be the one left behind. it was an archaic pain he knew so intimately well that it bleeds among the fractures of his distorted soul. but you reminded him : his smile still belonged to him, regardless of past sins — so stop running away. stop running from her, from them, from everything they had cherished and protected from all these years.
but now that he stopped, it was your turn to look away / your turn to leave and not look back. the barb wires wrapped in tarp did not belong in his narrative, it was yours. trapped and restrained, until you are left suffocating — how could he not have known the price of his carelessness always resulted in your hidden tears and pained smile. forgive him, he knows : you value privacy above all else and he — alien and otherworldly peered within the glimpses of your heartbeat. you had always been like this, gold flash within diluted irises and he resisted the urge to pull you into a tight embrace. instead, he offers you this : his heart laid bare, distant and reserve, but still undeniably sincere and true. ❝ — yeah i am the absolute worst. look at me talking nonsense again. ❞ he confesses without a skipping a beat. dancing to your witty words, countering against your clever riposte, tempo after tempo : his darkness surrenders to your splendour. just like before, just like how it will be. ❝ but you know, since your kidding and all ... it might not be such a bad idea. ❞ he continues on, almost bantering / almost lighthearted and warm with a familiar gentleness reflected onto his gaze.
❝ for you to go i mean — it is a great opportunity, ❞ he abhors the word goodbye, and though haou once yielded to it, he refuses to succumb to it again. therefore, allow him this gift — his second chance made real, and given to you like a dagger at an offering. for now you alone have the power that the illuminated destruction venomously desired : break him / undo him or cherish him too. this time let him be the one to pay the price for your desires. ❝ well that settles it, ❞ judai declares almost triumphantly, once again in his own candour and obliviousness, ❝ you can go and i'll.... ❞ a silent pause tentatively escapes his lips, his sheepishness soon reduce to quiet hesitation, a whisper. ❝ i'll be sticking to you, no matter where you go. ❞
𝚃𝚆𝙸𝙻𝙸𝙶𝙷𝚃 𝙻𝙸𝚂𝚃𝙴𝙽𝙴𝙳 𝚃𝙾 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝚆𝙷𝙸𝚂𝙿𝙴𝚁 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙳𝚁𝙴𝙰𝙼𝚂 𝙱𝙴𝙶𝙰𝙽 𝚃𝙾 𝙲𝙻𝙾𝚂𝙴 𝙸𝙽. they made up for lost time, and little did she discern, in unknowable actuality, how much time that would have been. here, in that mesmerizing smile, ached a beginning she never witnessed. to her, there was only the beginning of your endearing taunt, and she stumbled over the realization of its gutting reality, how dolefully she felt the three-year-old tittering wither at the base of her throat. the past bled into the muscles of you, clad in a different shade of red, clad in nightfall red. it bled in so many variations, it molded you into a person she could have thought to have loved since time immemorial, or since yesterday. you, a boy she had to learn to love again. admittedly, she never stopped. it was a vexing and beautiful phenomenon she might never solve. you stood there in refusal to part ways and surrendered to the glorious slaughter of the guilty lamb, waited for her to commit to her bluff to smother you, therefore she turned her own hand and instinctively locked her grasp against the pulsating vein of your wrist, palm slipping against your palm. the anatomy of hands in a symmetric hold. she got you now. she got you. it was an equal payback capture, like regretful photos awkwardly capturing you, only with the difference that she could not decide between flinching and leaping into your arms, while you no longer flinched.
“ you will ? ” ( you promise ? you go where i go ? ) hope-bruised and amassed with anticipation, her eyes, gone alight. peering more. what they revealed of the soul, and what the soul longed for, flickered in them as they widened before she went ahead and leisurely aborted her daydreams. “ oh, i— i mean— wait a minute. ” ( no, of course, it isn't like that. we used the word ‘forever’ too lightly, like stupid kids who don’t know better. but we do — we do know better by now. after life. and after death. ) “ for a second there, i thought you were serious. but fine, okay. i set myself up for this joke. i’m … i’m … ” i’m not hurt i’m not hurt i’m not— but she was. she’s lost the game again. the shade of disappointment wholly soaked up between her vocal cords, a deep blue that could not have been any deeper. she remained restrained within the fetters of your fingers still curled around her wrist, and her fingers around your wrist, and she had no intention to liberate herself. in truth, if she had any say in the passage and cycles of the day, then she would have stopped time and proceeded to be tormented by your loveliness till the universe grew starlessly cold.
it’s the real twist of it all. this voluntary capture of two voluntary hostages readying their hearts for the consequences of their actions. and it's almost pitiful how she hesitated. she was entrapped by your carelessness and free with your tenderness and able to see her organ tethered to the spot where she knew to discover endlessness / there, within your open rib cage calling her innocently in, too ready for the knife she'd thrown away. “ what if i told you i don’t want you to let go of me right now, ” what if she called you the name she knew you by and hinted at her hope you meant it when you agreed to a connection everlasting that same night when the separation was undone ? a spark, a connection forever maintained. but forever how ? it did not matter. forever anyhow but through nothingness, or apathy. so what if she talked more nonsense ? so what if she was worse than you ? “ — for maybe five more minutes ? and … and then … what if i wanted, ” to be brave for once, what if i didn’t want to go— “ to be closer to you ? would that scare you, judai ? ” ( i can't ask you to love me back, but can’t you hold me tight, at least ? )
also since i mentioned honorifics and names and all that, asuka apparently doesn't like being called 'tomorrow girl' by jim, at least according to duel links, so my headcanon on this is that she might out of politeness not say anything to correct him, since in the anime she doesn't, and probably gets used to it begrudgingly thinking it might be an australian thing ( it's not, it's just a jim thing, but you know ), and if he were to call her by her name normally at some point it would just feel weird.
for someone who uses the standard honorific for her brother, it is interesting that asuka uses none at all for ryo and judai, who mutually refrain from formality with her. ryo and her know each other prior to the events of gx, so there is a preexisting closeness between the both, however, he should technically be a senpai since he is 2 years older, but they've seen each other pretty much eye to eye, and she expresses her comfort and trust in him by leaving out the honorific. judai is someone who doesn't use honorifics unless it's for a teacher, he mostly addresses by given name for the people he interacts with and that's it ( save for manjome ) which culturally can be seen as impolite, but asuka doesn't seem to mind that. she usually adds a -kun for the boys, yet indulges him by simply reciprocating his way of address, and she does that ever since idk, episode 6 or 7 maybe, where a big shift in their dynamic happened in contrast to their first encounters. ryo and judai are the few characters for whom formality is dropped in favor for closeness and i think that's nice.
thank you!!?? i honestly don't even know what to say because i'm so shocked every time i receive nice messages like these and the worst part is that the cap is so small i could easily go beyond that for blogs that i stan. either way i'm grateful you stuck around this long with me, and i'm throwing the flowers right back at you ! 🌺🌺🌺
