#rf post

[roulettefeel]

Shin going to a game event where people sign up in two-player teams but his only friend in the world hasn't been around in years. Did he hope to see him there?

[roulettefeel]

A translation note that recently came to my attention:

あはは  キミの婿養子にでも入ったみたいで嫌だね他の名前にしてよ

deepL translation: I don't want to feel like I'm your adopted son-in-law.

On the surface not seeming like the translation is too far off the mark from what Midori actually said, but looking into the word 婿養子  Mukoyōshi there might be a little context we are missing out on. Searching the definition gives me

Noun 1. son-in-law taken (adopted) into family​ 2. mukoyōshi (literally "adopted son-in-law") is a man who is adopted into a family as a daughter's husband, and who takes the family's surname. This is done to preserve the name and occupation of the family when there is no suitable male heir.

By naming Midori “Chidouin” he makes a joke about how he doesn’t want to get married to Sara, with the added context that it’s a marriage for taking over her family’s assets.

[roulettefeel]

Saw a post pointing out that the flowers around the consent form are called Sheperd’s Purse

That other post made an interesting point about the flower’s name and how it’s written in Japanese, but the thing I want to point out here is what I found while looking up the “flower meaning”.

Midori out here making a wish form surrounded by a flower which has a meaning along the lines of “I offer everything to you” or “I offer you my all”

Saw one site give me a flower meaning of “I offer you all that I am” which reminded me of the Asunaro Vow of “What I want to be today, ‘asu naro’ - tomorrow, I will be”

Depending on if the signer of this form is meant to be the giver or receiver of this flower it’s either a cute nod to the wish granted or a symbol of relinquishing one’s self to the organization. Or Both!

[roulettefeel]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Wanted to write some Momdori but so little is known about her it's a little hard so if I write more in this fic she'll be more in the periphery while I write some Kai&Hiyori (&Sei) content.

[roulettefeel]

Minding my business on twitter and happened across a post of someone saying they think soushin is not abusive ??????? How can anyone look at the way Shin attempted to treat Kanna in the death game and the way Shin reacts to Hiyori and conclude that the relationship wasn’t harming Shin.

Not all abuse looks evil from the outsiders perspective. Shin having mixed feelings of admiration/love with the terror is what keeps him attached even when he’s aware of red flags.

My personal taste for soushin is that Hiyori genuinely does have an attachment to Shin and does love him, but that literally changes nothing about whether the relationship is abusive or not. How Nankidai portrays them since then is a lot softer than 3-1A made it seem like, but everything that made people think their darkest thoughts about this ship still exists in the game.

[roulettefeel]

With beforeitrains recent Kai and Sou posts it has me wanting to make up some headcanons for them knowing each other as kids myself. I get a little caught up on how we don’t really have a canon basis for it, but in this post I’ll try to just make stuff up instead of worrying about justifying it with the flimsiest of canon excuses. So with my personal read of the characters, how would I imagine the concept of them having a shared history in the organization?

Ages are up for debate, for simplification I’ll just say I imagine Sou to be three years younger than Kai. Who knows how old Midori really is, just as a basis for what I’m working with I’d imagine that by the time Kai could have started his first year in highschool is when Sou would be in his first year of middle school.

- 20~ years ago

Kai meeting Sou pre Sei involves a Kai who wants to become Asunaro’s top assassin to make his dad proud and a Sou who if we can assume the Executive is his mother may be thought of as a “delicate creature” by her. Small children whose parents put the needs of the organization above their well being. If Sou came along with mommy to work he might get to watch her manipulate and control Gashu, an exemplary vision of the sort of strength Asunaro demands of its members.

Even at such young ages I could see their interactions being limited by the expectations placed on them. They are tools that need sharpened firstly and children second. At best I could see 6~ year old Sou working on a too big for his age pile of homework at the Satou dinner table and if Kai isn’t so desperate for any scrap of affection from his father just yet he might think to share a piece of cake with Sou while on break from training. At worst the only language these kids truly know is violence, with the added social pressure that Sou is born a higher priority to the organization than Kai ever will be so Sou can get away with taking things too far in a way Kai would not be permitted. The festival sketch where we see them fighting and they are winded at a point where Sou has sliced Kai with a knife vs Kai having whacked Sou’s hand with a cooking utensil and disarmed him can be applicable here.

- 17~ years ago

Hard to judge ages but I imagine Kai met Sei around the same time Keiji met Mr Policeman (with how Kai and Keiji are the same age). I have wondered if Midori had some sort of personal connection with Rio for him to use Ranger’s AI when he was shoving in “strong” AIs into Maple, why them over any other AI specifically? Could be some interesting potential for Sou and Sei to have known each other before Sei died. If we’re imagining Sou semi regularly tagging along with mommy on her in person meetings then a few years into it he’s probably excited to meet up with Uncle Gashu and his playmate Kai~. Sou might have played with Sei too while Sei still lived with his dad, so meeting Sei in the Satou household for the first time -- with how much of a brat Sou is and how prickly Sei is over the grief he isn’t afforded, ohh that is a recipe for disaster. If Sou doesn’t take endurance classes like the assassin kids I can imagine Sei at some point tricking Sou into taking a class with them and embarrassing him with shock torture training or any of the other awful things they go through regularly. When Kai and Sei are on better terms with each other then Kai has the comfort of having someone actually on his team, and Sou would enjoy the added challenge of messing with them both.

- 10~ years ago

Interaction between Kai and Sou I think would cut off around 10 years prior to the death game with Kai possibly being assigned to the Chidouins while he was still a teenager (but finished with his education).

After Sei’s death the Satou family isn’t the same.Gashu is a broken man raising a son to be as broken and loyal to the organization as he is, because that’s the only way for people like them to survive in Asunaro. By the time Sou is in middle school I imagine he’d be under pressure to act like an adult so the older the boys get the more distance is put between them. Maybe Kai could get an assignment to have Sou under observation, get some of Kai’s stalker skills tested before his real assignment. Kai also knows some coding so it’s not impossible for him to be involved in the creation of Sou’s AI. With Kai stalking him Sou could get some fun out of trying to evade Kai or on the other hand trying to catch Kai in the act. But mostly their relationship shifts towards being coworkers who are doing work.

- misc

It’s a government requirement for children to be in school up to the end of middle school, so I imagine Asunaro has a public school where they mix their young members with normal children. Then instead of highschool I imagine they get tracked to specialized programs that might not even legally certify them outside of the organization as another way the organization traps members within it.

[roulettefeel]

On a (tragic-) comedic level soushin works as a ship because Shin was clearly designed to be a squeaky toy and Sou?

the squeaker

[roulettefeel]

Someone on discord asked me about a yttd timeline of events and it made me realize that every consent form signature we hear about in 31B besides Shin was arguably done after the Alice incident.

Reko+Alice = done on the same day, focal point being on the incident of course. 2.5~ years ago

Kugie+Kanna = the artbook informed us that Kugie is likely two years older than Kanna, so for her to be in her highschool uniform in that flashback it has to be within the past 2 years

Gin = he’s so young that if it was done longer than within the past year or maybe two you’d think there would be any sort of indication of him being younger, but there isn’t any that I can tell.

Qtaro = He was kidnapped after his comeback game, so it entirely depends on how long it took to schedule his surgery and however long his recovery time was but I wouldn’t expect it to be longer than 1 year ago.

Certainly he spent time with the Yabusames and likely others while he was with Shin, and he had the consent forms in mind before the incident since he apparently printed them out at his home instead of within the organization lol

Sou: Hmm... Sure, I guess.  ..........  ...I remember.  It was displayed on the screen... The consent form...

Sou: It was the file for printing. Midori must have made it...  I should've deleted that horrible file on sight.

I suppose we can likely pin down Shin as the first Hiyori had sign a form? If the paper originated at their house and Hiyori was “often” with Shin when he had 15 other people to chat up for this piece of paper. It’s unclear when Shin would have signed beyond having a close bond with Hiyori by that point to consider him family. He’s known Shin up to maybe 6 years ago but the consent forms don’t seem to have been signed earlier than 3 by my estimation.