guess who rewatched arknights perish in frost ep13 and remembered why faust/mephisto is my favoriiiiiiiiite childhood friends tragedy?
because what, except for the two of them being fundamentally different people, could have prevented their downfall?
Didn't you promise me? You said we'd always be together
-Mephisto
mephisto- obviously- shouldn't have turned his own soldiers into zombies, shouldn't have adopted a repulsively heartless fighting style, when his one friend has so much empathy for everybody. faust had to have that trait, to be the one person in the world who cares for mephisto, who values him above his own life
faust, meanwhile, shouldn't have turned a blind eye when he had the perceptiveness to figure out something's wrong with talulah, when he knows mephisto would fail to. but faust would rather relate and understand than create conflict. he'll fight others to protect mephisto, but he can't fight mephisto.
I'll beat anyone who dares to hurt you
-Sasha (Faust)
I don't want to hurt anyone or get anyone hurt
-Faust, in his final speech
it's mephisto that becomes the perpetrator, and faust who becomes the accomplice, rather than the boy standing up and defending another kid from abuse, and faust just doesn't know who to hurt about that except himself
it's a tragedy written exactlyyy the way i like it.
What are your ideals?
I wanted to sing
-Eno (Mephisto)
I want you to live on with a smile
-Faust
neither of these are ideals, nor are they big aspirations. and the closest they get to being fulfilled is, well, definitely not a happy ending (can a bird smile?)
faust asks mephisto to stop creating zombies, and mephisto asks faust to stop his pre-suicide speech. they're both self-sacrifices for the other's sake, and coincidentally, the one action that hurts the other the most and kicks off their tragic arc.
I-It's all okay. They aren't alive anymore
-Mephisto
look at what mephisto cares about (besides singing) because it means nothing to him to murder people who he perceives would have hurt him, if given half the chance to.
(mephisto says that line in the second image)
Singing? Sounds great! You gotta sing for me sometime
-Sasha (Faust)
look at, in contrast, the parts that faust wishes mephisto was concerned with. it's sheer disconnect. it's insanely lucky for meph that he got someone as kind as faust to stick with him for so long. they were never going to have a future together- the first person to show you kindness is rarely the person you really want to stick with for life- but maybe, maybe if they split, or they left talulah 2.0, they could have saved their own lives. and not killed thousands more in a pointless war (neither of their desires had anything to do with reunion's founding goal- they were only there to be talulah's child soldiers)
and that's how we end up with a suicide (love the anime for clarifying "he probably could've survived this alone if he wanted to") in lieu of a confrontation. and that's how we end up with the promise of 'we will live and die together' inadvertently coming true because faust can be in as much denial as he wants. mephisto was far too clearly dependent on his approval to do anything sane after his death. faust kills himself because only by their mutual destruction could he stop the most unethical, white-haired war criminal from continuing his torturous atrocities on the world
okay. i leave you with parallel screencaps:
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and a few more shots of how pretty faust is
Don't worry about ammo. "It's not a waste to show respect." Faust once said.
-Surviving phantom crossbowman
ah, thats a bit tough, because i tragically forgot most of my old headcanons for them ;-; hmm.
one hc that i liked was that faust liked tinkering with stuff and working with his hands. it makes sense given his turrets and that it would have been useful for him on the streets and in the tundra. this was when eunectes was the only pythia op and i, starved for content, went "maybe engineering is a pythia thing" and just rolled with it a little
some others:
because his family found it annoying when eno sang, he went to the sewers to sing, which is how he and sasha met
sasha's most treasured possession used to be a single tattered book that he found on the streets and didnt know how to read. eno ended up accidentally breaking it, as it was barely held together by the time they met. eno felt super guilty and this contributed to his "i dont want to make choices" mindset
eno used to cry when he killed bugs; however, sasha reassured them that they were only insects. this was later twisted when eno began to think of people as insects as a way to justify killing them
sasha's greatest wish used to be to go to school and have a normal education
eno tried to kill his family before he was infected (as sasha told him). it failed, and his family was disgusted, so they infected him and threw him out
faust was also indoctrinated by kash and had his thinking subtly manipulated, just to a lesser degree than mephisto. things like his impression of rhodes island, tactics, he and eno's chances, etc
this was like lowkey alluded to in the dialogue but: after eno killed his family, he took the brainwashed street children with him and showed them to sasha
one last self indulgent crack theory: kashchey is faust's father sknfkdkdkd
sometimes you suddenly miss characters from a game you haven’t played for two years. that hasn’t given them new content for four years. you know how it is
one thing thats very interesting to me is how faume relates to codependency!
i think (?) that a common misconception ab codependency is that its where two people cant live without each other and cant function on their own. that's not quite true! instead, its a relationship dynamic in which one person (the codependent) continually sacrifices their own needs and wellbeing for the sake of another (the enabler).
the codependent feels worthless unless they are needed. the enabler needs support and another person. its an incredibly unhealthy relationship dynamic that can often lead to abuse.
right off the bat, we can see how faume is codependent. we can see how mephi forms his identity around giving other people what they want, only existing because it's what someone else wants. however, in their relationship, faust seems to be the more codependent one.
the trajectory of his life and the situation he ended up in is formed around mephisto. he infects himself for mephisto, sacrificing his own health and life for him. he follows him, letting go of his entire life in order to accompany mephisto into a life of oppression. later, instead of asking mephisto to leave reunion with him, something that he clearly wants, he stays quiet and chooses to sacrifice his happiness.
codependent people will often stay quiet and avoid stating their own opinions and feelings, often lying. they'll often feel responsible for other people's actions. they tolerate behavior that belittes or hurts them. they have chronic anger. they lack a sense of identity, with an inability to make decisions or identify what they're feeling. they'll do anything to hold onto relationships. they have poor communication skills, and a lack of trust in themself and others.
these are all things that, in part, relate to faust. they are also things that relate to mephisto. we can see in their relationship specifically how faust is the more codependent one: mephisto is the one that leans on faust and seems to need him. faust is the one that avoids stating his feelings. faust is the one that sacrifices his happiness and wants for mephisto. faust is the one trying to keep everything together that seems to feel the pressure of it.
faust's entire character arc is based around not talking ab his feelings; he feels responsible for what mephisto does; he tolerates talu and mephi's treatment of him; he seems to have a lot of hidden anger (why did you say you would die for that monster?); he follows mephisto around instead of defining his own identity; he displays a lot of indecisiveness and lacks awareness of his own feelings (not leaving, "i didnt know if i could say anything anymore"); infecting himself to stay with mephi; he never opens up to anyone, even the people he's closest to, indicating a lack of trust.
as a side note: mephisto also seems to be codependent. a lot of the above traits also apply to him, along with these other ones that dont really apply to faust: need for approval, need to control others.
i do really like how the two of them explore the concept of codependent relationships. sometimes, the person that you love hurts you. sometimes, they hurt you even without knowing. sometimes, they hurt you and you cant find it in yourself to blame them. sometimes you hurt yourself for their sake, and sometimes they dont even know. and then you let them hurt you over and over. and maybe you hate them a little even though you love them.
a lot of times connection and love isnt really a good thing. a lot of times when youve grown up only knowing unhealthy relationships, you just tend to find them wherever you go.
A Faume week is being hosted on twitter! From August 16 - August 22, people are encouraged to post Faume content based off several prompts for each day.
More information can be found on the Faume week carrd:
Arknights : Faust and Mephisto Fanweek project. What I possess, seems far away to me, and what is gone becomes reality.
..and on the official Twitter.
The latest Tweets from Faume week 2021 ! (@FaumeWeek2021). #舟浮梅Week1st | #FaumeWeek1st
Faume week is a special week dedicated to one ship i
Everyone is encouraged to participate! I hope people check it out and have fun creating or consuming content! 💞💞💞
