I'm not going to say this is the actual intended allegory for this stuff. This may be me getting too lost in the sauce. But, this being in my head is why I can't fully buy into some of the "Crests are an allegory for nobility bullshit" stuff, because I thiiiink this tracks a little better.
But that may be getting lost in the sauce! Regardless, though, here's my messy train of thought:
Crests (except maybe the ones from the Saints) and Relics are the exploitation of nature.
But if you want a little more detail. TL;DR: Relics are basically nukes for a new age, and Crests are natural resources that are scarce because of Nemesis's smoothie mixer.
Okay. What are Relics? Well, they're the mutilated, twisted corpses of Nabateans. And they may not entirely be corpses since they're still twitching. If you have a Crest, you can use the corresponding Relic. If you don't, then in-universe you'll get turned into a Demonic Beast, and in-gameplay you'll lose health every turn. But, even if you do have a Crest, you may get turned into a Demonic Beast anyway! So, you have these powerful weapons made by warping and twisting something that hurt you just as much as they hurt your enemy. That, if Nemesis's bullshit in the opening is anything to go by, could hurt the world itself.
If you want to be pretentious, you could say we made nukes by twisting nature. And would you look at that, the people who made or helped make the Relics like tossing nukes around.
But, in contrast to the Relics, we have the weapons of the Saints. If you don't have a Crest, they don't do anything, but if you have a Crest, it heals you. The Saints' weapons, made from co-existing with Nabateans, heal their users. While the Relics, made by desecrating and exploiting their bodies, hurt their users.
I think this mainly because, well, if Nemesis hadn't slaughtered most of the Nabateans at Zanado and scared (most of) the remaining ones into keeping a lid on their identities (or outright retreating from humanity entirely), there wouldn't be that issue. Because you could just get Crests whenever. By co-existing with the Nabateans. In fact, we get a glimpse of this with Rhea apparently just... sharing her blood with people.
What are Crests? Well, they're these... things in people's blood that are passed down from generation to generation. They give powers sometimes, maybe, sort of.
How did people get them? Well, either by murdering a Nabatean and drinking their blood (the Elites) or the Nabatean willingly giving their blood (Saints' Crests). However, in recent times, Crests have started to thin out. There's less Major Crests. People are starting to get desperate to get them. They're natural resources that have been made scarce by greed.
(Sure, the more Doylist explanation is that there needs to be dudes for you to fight in SS's final map but, even so, there's still her sharing her blood with people like Jeralt to heal them and help them. And that could happen more if not for the Red Canyon Incident.)
And yeah, sure, you could murder Rhea, Seteth, Flayn, and the other two and get a few new Relics and new Crest lines out of it. But when those Crests eventually dry up and the Relics turn more people into monsters, well...
I'm late to the party on this, but Moon Knight getting more popular because of Marvel Rivals and idk maybe some show that happened back in 2022 is cool and all, but I feel this means people get into him without knowing the extent of his lore.
So.
--Actually was introduced as some random jackoff mercenary hired to hunt Jack Russell (aka the Werewolf by Night) and his moon costume (made almost entirely of silver) was for the lols. Since he was hunting a werewolf and all.
--But then when he got his own comic that origin was eventually partially retconned and he was given the new origin story of getting killed and then resurrected by Khonshu, maybe. BUT HE STILL FOUGHT WEREWOLF BY NIGHT THOUGH, because, see, he got bitten by Jack Russell, which did not turn him into a werewolf. Instead, it gave him extra strength just in general, and then depending on the phases of the moon. Until his werewolf juice ran out and it stopped doing that. And then I think they retconned that phase away but I'm not entirely sure.
--Also his alters were just alter egos back when he was first created. I don't know when exactly the shift happened, but at one point they did become DID alters. He was depicted as having mental problems, though, but it wasn't specifically DID.
--He was part of the West Coast Avengers!
--Also hung out with the Defenders for a bit!
--RIPPED OFF BUSHMAN'S FACE. I cannot stress enough this random C-List (back then) Superhero, in an official mainline Marvel comic, ripped off the face of, essentially, his main villain. And as far as I know, they've never explicitly retconned this. Bushman has come back, but that face still got a good clean ripping off.
--His whole tie-in issue with Civil War (around the time he ripped off Bushman's face and was Going Through It) was basically both Cap and Iron Man going "we don't want you on our side, you're kind of crazy and also ripped that guy's face off, what the fuck"
--There was a time where they kept going back and forth on whether or not Khonshu was real or if it was all just in Marc's head. Nowadays, he is real, but at the same time Marc is still mentally ill. Your view on how good of a move making Khonshu real is will vary.
--There was also a time where it was proposed that his alters were, like, basically expressions of different aspects of Khonshu.
--... Oh and I guess there was that time his alters were Captain America, Wolverine and Spiderman but we don't talk about that.
--FRENCHIE. Marc had a best pal buddy who helped him with his Moon Knighting, and that was Frenchie. He was introduced with Moon Knight in Werewolf by Night, but as far as I know he's stopped helping Moon Knight in the field. Now he's busy with his husband (not said as a joke, this is canon) running like... a restaurant or something.
Den-O is on the whole a really good show with good character writing, but its main flaws (the plot and the villain) frustrate me because it's not like they're bad per say.
A lot of the seeds for later plot revelations (memories of Yuuto getting erased when he uses Zeronos cards, Kai being the one to send Ryuutaros to kill Ryoutarou, why Sakurai is always there when Imajins are performing time terrorism) are planted early in the series and they are followed up on! But they could have been paced out and revealed at a better pace, I think? IDK.
Also there is a genuinely interesting like... thematic thing with Ryoutarou (thinks having memories is good even if they are painful) vs Yuuto (sacrifices people's memories of him every time he henshins) vs Kai (destroys his own memories every time he sends an Imagin to one of his past selves[?]) but there's not enough time really I feel to appreciate it.
IDK. This was rambly but tl;dr really could have introduced Kai before like Episode 37.
"Wow, you're yapping about Tidus and Jecht again. I think you have a problem." MAYBE I DO I DON'T KNOW, THEY MAKE ME SAD
This is a mix of me trying to figure out characterization and maybe random headcanons. Or you could call it yapping. That'd be more accurate.
The game already makes a point that Tidus did inherit some traits from Jecht, in some fashion. But I like to think, based off the Jecht sphere in Luca, that Tidus's crybaby-ness actually did come from Jecht. Maybe Tidus is a bit more overt with it, or maybe Jecht managed to suppress it growing up.
I think Tidus would probably avoid alcohol like the plague. Might irrationally think if a single drop passes his lips he's going to instantly become an alcoholic like his old man.
Take this with a grain of salt because I suck at visual-stuff (character designs and such), but I want to say that Tidus and Jecht share a lot of their design elements. They both have some sort of asymmetry with their legs (Tidus with the longer pant leg, Jecht with the sash), they both have the Zanarkand Abes logo on them (Tidus has the pendant, Jecht has the chest tattoo), they have more armor on one arm than the other, and I want to say their colors aren't the same but are kinda similar. In Dissidia I think their official art also kind of line up. But Tidus seems to have toned down versions of some of those same elements. He just has a pendant while Jecht has a big tattoo. Both his arms are covered while Jecht has a bare one against his armored one. I might try to throw together some image in Gimp so I don't sound completely crazy. Or maybe this is a very basic observation, I don't know.
I have zero canon basis for this but I like the image of the rare times Jecht had to look after baby!Tidus on his own, he'd hum the Hymn of the Fayth to try and get him to go sleep. Baby!Tidus didn't care that his dad's not a great singer.
As much as I like Tidus being upset about other people getting a "nice" Jecht for angst reasons... I think he probably is a little numb to it at this point. People back in Dream Zanarkand liked him enough to where they're holding a memorial cup for him. People talking about his dad and how great he was and hey aren't you finally going to do his shot? was probably pretty common for him. I think some of the NPCs at the very beginning of the game even do that. Although I think seeing people even in another world praise the man probably still is a little :/ if his initial reaction to Yuna bringing him up is anything.
Speaking of: I don't think it's that shocking that Yuna would say Jecht was a kind man. He was one of her father's guardians, she would be inclined to view him optimistically, and also Yuna's not his kid. Yeah he'll be nice to her, whatever, he's not invested in making sure she becomes a star player!
But admittedly before the end of the game, I don't think the knowledge of "Well, Jecht was bad to you, Tidus, because he loves you!" would be that comforting.
PROBABLY READING TOO MUCH INTO THINGS WARNING: When Jecht offers himself up to become a fayth, a big part of his reasoning is that he's realized he can't go back to his Zanarkand and see Tidus again, and there is some special emphasis placed on that part specifically. Which makes me wonder--if, for whatever reason, Jecht thought he could make it back to Dream Zanarkand... would he have joined Auron in fighting a little harder? Also something something it's probably just supposed to be a case of Tidus surpassing his dad (still fighting where Jecht just gave up) but this is the reading too much into things bullet points.
(You could also make a really dark joke about how, in a roundabout way, both of Tidus's parents committed suicide [even if I think Tidus's mom did probably die from an illness] because they were separated from someone they care about. And then his babysitter came to Spira off of a suicide run! Maybe that's why he's actually cool with sacrificing himself. Not any character reasons. It's just all the important adults in his life were not great role models for staying alive.)
SPECULATIVE TERRITORY: I guess it does lead a little credence to my idea that as much as Tidus's mom went into a downward spiral after Jecht's disappearance, if something horrible happened to Tidus Jecht would go into a mental spiral. I'm thinking mainly pre-ending up in Spira since, as Sin, Jecht probably had to come to terms with the fact that ending Yu Yevon was going to mean, at the very least, a temporary death for Tidus.
Like, if he got sick and died, or if he suddenly disappeared, or some other tragedy, Jecht would trudge along at first. What, no, he's fine. Life goes on. Drinks way more and way too much. Still insists he's fine, maybe even starts talking about how the stupid runt should have fought harder or stuck around, and nobody knows if that's just the grief talking. And then he spirals downward at maximum velocity.
Based off the flashback to when Jecht showed off the Jecht Shot to child!Tidus, I like to think that Tidus, if he did try blitzball stuff, would consciously do it away from his dad. And Jecht would just be annoyed and think "damn brat's trying to hide his practice from me!" And show up unannounced and oblivious as to why his kid would practice away from him.
BACK INTO SPECULATION TERRITORY, BUT ABOUT THEMES THIS TIME: I've had this idea in my head for a bit, based off Jecht wanting to make Tidus into a star player and show him the view from the top that Jecht may have always wanted Tidus to surpass him. By the time of the game proper it's more about Tidus killing him as Sin and putting an end to the spiral of death but I like to think even before that, he had this schmoopy fatherly idea that Tidus would become a better player than him. It got distorted and warped by his frankly bad parenting (to put it kindly) and probably the alcoholism too but it was there. I want to say I have some canon backing from the ~themes~ and how Spira's caught in stasis, and something something Buddhist themes of breaking cycles but I may be getting lost in the sauce there. I don't know I'd need to sit on the game a bit longer before trying to write a crazed analysis.
From a Doylist perspective the Sin-memory-weird-charade-conversation-with-father at Operation Mi'ihen being the one where Jecht goes "Nuh uh! I can stop being an alcoholic whenever! Why are you crying small child" is because it's not that far from the Moonflow and when Auron tells Tidus about Jecht quitting alcohol. But if I want to give it a more Watsonian explanation, it's either 1. Jecht reminding Tidus of a time Jecht was cruel to him to get him more inclined to kill Sin or 2. Jecht, maybe, in a very roundabout and emotionally stunted way, trying to apologize for the fact he didn't stop when Tidus told him to. Or maybe it's just casual Jecht memories Tidus got blasted with. Who knows. I guess this depends on how much control you think he has over what Tidus sees when he takes a ride on the Sin taxi.
Which. As bad as that memory makes him look to me in a more real-world context (dude, why does your 7-year-old know about your alcoholism?) I do think it's meaningful that in the corresponding Jecht sphere for the shoopuff incident that as much as Jecht mentions not inconveniencing Braska, his ending reasoning is that if he keeps screwing up (because of the alcoholism) his wife and Tidus would never forgive him.
Tidus's mom because wow she definitely is a character that shows up in... two scenes:
I think I agree with the sentiment that the flashbacks Tidus has of her at the farplane definitely make her look like not the best mom. But I don't know if I view her that negatively. I think for Tidus to be upset that she basically ditches him whenever Jecht's around, she probably has to be, worst case scenario, a decent mom when he's not in the picture.
And she didn't keel over until at least Auron had arrived in Zanarkand, so she didn't entirely leave Tidus by himself.
It's just that, if Jecht and Tidus were trapped in a burning building, and she could only absolutely save one or the other, no ifs ands or buts? She'd probably pick Jecht. It's not a good thing but it's a human thing. But that's speculating about a character that shows up in two scenes.
DIPPING INTO WILD HEADCANON TERRITORY: But admittedly I think that, if Jecht had tried to be more involved with raising Tidus beyond "neener neener I'm better at blitzball than you, small child" it'd probably become evident that if Tidus and Tidus's mom were trapped in a burning building, and he could only absolutely save one or the other, no ifs ands or buts, Jecht'd probably pick Tidus.
And if it was Tidus with the choice he would probably be "No! I'll find a way to save the both of them!" And in order to do that he would probably have to commit seppuku so uh. Maybe this family shouldn't be near burning buildings is the takeaway.
This is just me rambling and trying to figure out that post-Auron landing in dream Zanarkand and pre-"well your dad says it's time for a road trip let's go Tidus" stretch of time and general childhood ramblings.
Auron apparently went there just to look after him. He didn't plan on taking Tidus to Spira until Sin popped up. He says in Luca he watched over Tidus until he could bring him to Spira, but then in-between either one of the Sin fight phases or after you enter Sin (can't remember exactly, but you can get it somewhere in the endgame) that he decided when Sin showed up during the game to bring Tidus to Spira. I want to lean more towards the second explanation being the more correct one (mainly because what reason would Auron have to lie to Tidus at that point) but who knows. Maybe this is just the writing being inconsistent or a translation issue.
I see sometimes in fic Auron arrive after Tidus's mom dies but he's in the flashback scene before she dies because Auron's the one asking if she's alright. It also makes sense if it's him because he says he wouldn't know what to do if she died, presumably because then taking care of Tidus would be entirely on him. That means there was some awkward stretch of time where it was, presumably, the three of them together in the houseboat. How much doesn't seem to be that clear, though.
If you want pain: it's possible Auron told Tidus's mom an abridged and redacted version of what happened to Jecht. And knowing for sure he was dead made her finally give out completely. So Auron can blame himself both for not fighting harder and preventing Jecht's death and for unintentionally taking Tidus's mom away! Yay!
... But maybe Tidus's mom was more willing to let go of life and reunite with Jecht in the afterlife (even if he wasn't actually dead) because Auron was there to look after him.
I... presume he told Tidus at least he was a friend of Jecht's. But the way Tidus asks Auron about the Braska pilgrimage ("You knew my old man, didn't you?" then "And you also knew Yuna's father?") could be read as him either reiterating something he does know with new information, or him finding out about this after coming to Spira. But then again he doesn't sound super shocked (as in "You knew my old man?!" shocked) when Auron gives him a sword from Jecht at the beginning so. Shrug.
This may purely be an ENG dub-based observation, but a lot of child Tidus's lines have him sound somewhere between bratty and awfully sullen for a 7 year old. He's not exactly mature the whole way through, but some of his lines in the flashback of him asking Jecht to stop drinking have him sounding more like the adult in comparison to Jecht. "I can quit whenever I want!" is a pretty common thing in fiction (and real-life probably) with in-denial alcoholics, but it sounds more childish when that's your comeback to your at maximum 7 year old son.
Admittedly, he's repeating what other people are saying about Jecht's drinking, but that's at first. And the plea for him to stop drinking is entirely Tidus.
But then he's pretty cheery when he grows up so, whether this is a case of puberty doing wonders, an indictment of Jecht and his wife's parenting, or Auron's ??? doing wonders is your call to make.
I don't think it'd be on the same level as, like, Squall, but I wonder if Tidus has some mild abandonment issues. Or maybe loneliness issues would be more accurate. I mean, from his view, his dad just up and vanished one day, and even before that you could say Jecht was already emotionally absent because of the drinking. His mom, intentionally or not, prioritized Jecht over him, so she wasn't really emotionally there all the time either, and then when Jecht went, so did his mom. Maybe that's why, even if Auron's distant, he's fond of him is because at the end of the day he technically stuck around longer than Tidus's own parents did.
How much raising did Auron do exactly? He certainly took care of Tidus in the sense of keeping him alive and watching over him, but how much like... rearing did he do? I think duty would keep him from bouncing on a small child and watching from a safe distance, so he probably was more hands-on when Tidus was still young but as he got older did he start bouncing? By the time Tidus is in the Abes Auron's apparently gone to just checking in now and then. I don't think his more hardass "move move we got a pilgrimage to do" behavior is going to be super reflective of his time with Tidus as a kid since that's Auron with a hard, time-sensitive goal, but I do think his turning a bit more gentle at points (like when Tidus is clearly upset about possibly never going back to his Zanarkand) shows he probably tried to be there emotionally to some degree. But he was still coming off the nightmare show that was the end of Braska's pilgrimage, and it'd probably be hard to be there fully when you're keeping a good amount of secrets.
But more importantly did Tidus have to teach him how household appliances worked? I imagine some wouldn't be that hard for Auron to wrap his head around, but like. Did Tidus have to show him how a rice cooker worked? Did Tidus walk him step-by-step through operating a toaster?
You know that stereotype about parents who just want a baby and not a kid? I imagine Jecht's the opposite. Thought Tidus's baby stage was the worst and he just couldn't wait until he got older and got to the good stages. Infants can't play blitzball after all!
And then baby!Tidus does some cute baby thing, like grabbing Jecht's finger, and Jecht has a revelation from the cosmos. "I get it now." And then he turns around and kind of fucks up the little kid stage but ehhh, what can you do?
I imagine Auron probably never broached the Jecht topic because he'd probably learn pretty quickly that he and Tidus have diametrically opposed views of Jecht, and Auron can't exactly tell Tidus how Jecht changed, and that Jecht did love him, without having to address the giant Sin-shaped elephant swimming around in the ocean. Maybe that's why he took the group to the side to find the one mandatory Jecht sphere, because then Tidus could hear it straight from the horse's mouth. A somewhat emotionally stunted version admittedly, but the horse tried very hard.
... Which makes it kind of sad I guess, because if Jecht could have returned to dream Zanarkand, he probably would have tried to be a better father. But he didn't, and Auron can't exactly "source: dude trust me" Jecht back into Tidus's good graces.
There is a part of me that wants to say Jecht was more loving when Tidus was a baby, but when he got older that's when the mocking came out because he shifted gears into trying to push and prod Tidus into being a great blitz player. Which leads me to the very angsty thought that Tidus has almost no "good" memories (i.e. ones where Jecht acted like a dad and not like he did) of Jecht aside from that time he told his wife to go give Tidus attention. But that may just be the melodrama in me talking.
I think I lean towards "Tidus isn't a natural blond" and specifically towards the "he dyes his hair" camp. I feel that way because Tidus does show roots, and while I'm not going to say this is true for every Nomura-designed character, and it's a little hard to compare because I can't think of many with hair styles close to Tidus's but when compared to other blondes Nomura's designed (Quistis, Cloud, hell Rikku) they don't have the darker roots Tidus has. Besides, if you mentally give Tidus the darker hair he had has a kid he arguably starts to resemble Jecht more. But fictional hair genetics are always weird so ehhhhhhh.
I dislike the whole "Punisher goads heroes into killing criminals" thing because I feel it goes against what makes his character interesting, makes his relationships with other Marvel characters (namely DD and Spidey) less interesting, and because even his most popular iterations don't do that. I think it's more interesting if he tries to dissuade heroes from being like him, because nobody knows that his life is an actual waking nightmare better than him.
But I also dislike it because it's inherently a little funny to me that every now and then Frank has to sigh, metaphorically roll up a newspaper, and metaphorically start whacking Matt on the nose. No, Daredevil, do not murder that person. Why do I have to remind you of that. No, not even if you think Nelson's dead--stop it. No.
I'm not sure about other Marvel characters, but you can kinda tell when a fic writer for Daredevil and the Punisher is basing them way more off the MCU versions, even if they don't tag their stuff with the MCU tags. Usually, it's because
Karen's alive again
Frank and Karen having any sort of pre-established relationship.
Microchip's been alive again for a bit and not riding the "Man, screw Frank" train (although he may pop up in fics based more on the Punisher's 80s and 90s stories).
The "Red" nickname pops up, and Frank's not talking about Norman Osbourne (it was used for DD when Frank popped up in the Zdarsky run, although his characterization there is, IMO, not great/not very in-line with 616).
If Jigsaw's mentioned he's said to be a former friend of Frank's instead of some guy he threw through a window.
Frank is said to have shot Matt in the (costumed) head with an actual bullet.
If they talk about the rooftop Saw trap Frank put Matt in, they either say the gun was loaded or just... mention details only in the Netflix show.
Frank's start as the Punisher happens with Daredevil, and maybe Daredevil's treated as the first other vigilante he ran into, instead of him Punishering around for a little bit before the Jackal gets him to fight Spiderman.
