#storiesofsass

[danieyells]

@storiesofsass nope! Different statue!

Although I suppose that one could also be in Clementia, since he used to be there.

[oh-boy-me]

I'm your excuse to rant about how the pacts were handled. Please enlighten me.

:0 thank you I appreciate you!!

At first I was going to do them in order of pact-making but I decided to order them from most to least satisfying and give my reasons for why I like/dislike the circumstances behind a pact.

There’s spoilers for Chapters 19/20 here so skip this post if you don’t want to see that!

Most

Satan: I really love how they handled this one.  Satan starts by wanting to make a pact just to piss off Lucifer, and his response to your refusal really shines light on how shallow your relationship has been up until that point.  It takes some learning and growth and actually spending some time with you for Satan to mature a bit.  Then he asks you freshly to make a pact with him, and this time he’s coming from the right place.  There’s so much mutual trust in this pact, it’s completely voluntary on both sides and I really appreciate that.

Beelzebub: The first boy who got to know us before making a pact!!  Beel is baby and I really loved spending quality time with him while we were unbound.  Honestly, Beel is the only one who’s genuinely nice to you from the start and that alone gives him brownie points here.  If there’s anything that bugs me about this pact, it’s when it happens.  You shield Beel against Lucifer even though you’re human, and after you wake up from all that you ask him for a pact and he agrees to show his gratitude.  Which is good and all, but I can’t help but feel like a part of him felt obligated to go through with it.

Belphegor: Kind of like Satan’s, I love how Belphegor was the one who asked for a pact and not the other way around.  And also like Satan, Belphie made the effort to spend a lot of time with and get to know you before bringing it up.  He knew that something like this would mean a lot to you, so he decided to make it a gift to you??  He literally gave you his agency as a gift because he liked you that much.  There’s a lot of emotion there.  However it does feel like Belphie did a “get close to MC speed run,” which makes me prefer the above two pacts.

Mammon: Hahaha get fucking rekt, punk

Leviathan: Tbh I don’t remember Levi saying he’d make a pact with me if he didn’t win the trivia contest?  When did we agree to that?  I think he made that part up.  But anyway, I’m sure you’ve noticed that I like when a pact is made mutually and for the right reasons.  This is mutual, but I don’t really like the reason of “I lost a bet.”  But I appreciate that Levi sucks it up and stays true to what was apparently his word.

Asmodeus: So this man gets the reward for “worst reason to make a pact” imo.  He makes it pretty clear early on that he wants nothing to do with you beyond a surface level, and then he changes his mind once he gets a kick out of some power you have?  Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see him come to love you over time, but in the moment it’s incredibly underwhelming.  He barely gets character development in his own arc.

Lucifer: Asmo’s may have left me underwhelmed, but if we’re being honest, Lucifer’s made me frustrated, it not straight up angry.  First there’s the whole “blah blah blah you belong to me” thing.  I’ve said before that I’m a very independent person, and Lucifer’s attitude pushes all my buttons in the wrong way.  Second, his intentions aren’t the best either; he has a little tantrum about how you didn’t put him on some fucking pedestal over his brothers, and then he basically forces you into the pact.  And last, it just seemed very sudden.  I know Lucy’s real feelings and the ones he puts on display are very different things, but as someone who has mixed feelings about Lucifer already this was not my cup of melancholy coffee.

LEAST

Idk, these are just my thoughts on the matters.  Let me know what you guys think!

[pixelburied]

Is it wrong that I'm even more attracted to Colt after this? Like 100% going down with ship?

Asfajshafsk you’re just saying what most of us (me) are too afraid to admit: Colt is lowkey hotter after this chapter.

I love me one (1) criminal mastermind 😔

[pendulumprince]

Lurking the depths of the internet and found something interesting. The theory is pretty long but I found it plausible. (1/4)

Revolver’s Father worked for SOL technologies and they had a secret project to develop life and therefore become Gods by creating AI in the Cyberse. Revolver’s Father was the head of the experiments where Yusaku and presumably numerous other children were used for testing Human free will by scanning their brains during emotionally intense situations and Yusaku may have even been the culmination of the project as an AI 

or he was the basis for the development of Ignis and his kind which resulted in Yusaku having a specific connection with the VRAINS. Revolver’s Father realised the dangers of what SOL was creating and grew to regret his actions, he then likely freed all of the test subjects and subjugated the AIs they developed to stave them off for time and develop a way to destroy them, Ignis escapes and Yusaku is rescued with the other children likely including Aoi and perhaps Go. 

(Just so everyone knows, this is the first part of a series theories @storiesofsass sent me. Expect the rest in the coming days!)

So I like this, and feel that it has a good chance of being true. Right now SOL stands as the creator of Link Vrains; but we know that Link Vrains cannot exist without the Cyberse, which was created and/or maintained by the Ignis’s, who were created by Dr. Kogami. So it’s only natural to think Dr. Kogami has a connection to SOL.

So let’s say SOL employed Dr. Kogami to create a new lifeform, which could in turn sustain a new world. We can infer that Dr. Kogami was once very passionate about the Ignis’s; we can’t forget what he said in episode 8 regarding his special AIs:

So Kogami’s connection to SOL may have started out simply enough: because they gave him the funding to complete his life’s ambition. It would be one thing if Kogami were in on the whole “Let’s-Become-Gods” idea and simply realized it was wrong one day, but I personally think it would be more interesting if he turned against SOL because they targeted his son, Revolver, as a test subject. If he caught wind of this—that the Chess Piece Bosses wanted to rule over the Cyberse like gods, and were using his son to do it? That would probably hit him hard. 

… hard enough to start a quasi-terrorist organization to stop them, no doubt. And look, if Revolver’s wellbeing was his starting motivation, it’s since moved past that. Because if this was SOL’s plan, it involves the exploitation and subjugation of several key groups, first and foremost the Ignis’s. If we look back on episode 8, we get this scene between Ignis and Akira:

Akira: “Ignis! My company will retrieve you.”

Ignis: “Everything you do is by force. You’re losing your cool.”

And if SOL conducted a hostile takeover of the Cyberse? Used it to their own ends? Perhaps even forced the Ignis’s to maintain it? Then of course Ignis would feel contempt for them. This would especially be the case if the Chess Piece Bosses were the ones forcing the Ignis’s to “take over the network”, thus turning them and their world into the KoH’s target.

And after the Ignis’s, who else was exploited? The kids. Good lord, those kids. That episode 11 flashback added credence to the idea that yes, Yusaku was kidnapped; his Special Person tells him:

“Three. Think of three things. Three things to live. Three things to go home. Three things to defeat the enemy. By thinking, you can still live.”

I already unpacked what this quote implies, but tl;dr? “Three things to go home” means Yusaku once had a life, a home, friends and family that he was ripped away from. His Special Person, no matter their motives or true feelings, was using the possibility of his life going back to normal to incentivize Yusaku to not give up.

And this was probably the case for every. Kid. There. We have our Six Lost Babies, but we don’t know if they were the only ones kidnapped. For all we know, their were dozens more, and they were the only one’s to make it out alive.

Dark, but tbh I wouldn’t put it past Vrains to go there. There kids had their lives uprooted, destroyed, possibly ended, because SOL-fucking-Technology wanted to make a buck. Because it’s CEO’s wanted to become gods. Just. Just sit on that for a minute.

… and lastly, there’s one other group that’s been exploited: all of Den City. The first thing we learned about SOL in the preliminary information is that “nearly everything in Den City is connected” to them. Obviously this means Link Vrains, and by extension the dueling world. But it has got to go beyond that. Think schools. Hospitals. The banks. Law enforcement. Local government. The Chess Piece Bosses weren’t able to become real gods, but they certainly go lord over Den City like they are.

Now, back to Kogami. I’m sure he has the kids, Den City, and all of humanity in mind—and the easiest way to halt SOL’s ascent would be to destroy his own creation, the Ignis’s. Because they’re the ones keeping the Cyberse afloat; remove them, and the Cyberse is vulnerable to destruction. I mean, that was basically the first scene we ever saw in Vrains.

So, no matter how many kids were actually there, let’s say that there were six “main” kids, who resulted in successful AIs. They translate to the six AIs we see in episode 1. And they go, in this (relative) order: Revolver, Go, Yellow AI kid, Green AI kid, Aoi, and Yusaku.

Revolver’s first, as Kogami’s son. He results in the Red AI, the one who physically resembles a flame, harkening back to the name “Ignis” itself. Go, Yellow!Kid, Green!Kid, and Aoi come after. And last is Yusaku, who was used to make our Ignis: “Ai”. 

And it’s important that Yusaku came in at the tail-end of the experiments—because remember the Glitch/Incomplete!Ignis theories? Our Ignis looks quite different from the others, and that could be because Kogami released the kids before the experiment with Yusaku was complete. This would explain why our Ignis looks different, why he didn’t need to be trapped in order for the Cyberse to become vulnerable, and how Yusaku knows his past was messed with—because the memory erasing process was done haphazardly with him, on-the-fly, because the facility had been breeched. 

We can theorize that Revolver knows he was experimented on because his father told him and/or revived his memories. Yusaku retains some memory for the above reason. And Aoi, Go, and the other two have no memory of The Incident at all, because the memory-altering procedure was done properly, and they had/have no one around to tell them what actually happened. 

… I really went all around town with this one, so TL;DR: Kogami for sure could have worked with SOL, before discovering their true motives and forming the KoH to combat them. Several key groups were adversely effected by SOL’s actions: the Ignis’s, the Lost Babies, and all of Den City itself. The AI’s could have been formed using the kids; Yusaku was probably the last child to be experimented on, explaining why our Ignis is “different” and how Yusaku remembers anything at all.

[danieyells]

@storiesofsass

Somewhere in the distance Ren is going "I TOLD YOU SO" because he fucking knew Sho was a hit-it-and-quit-it type playboy.

But oh god yeah Sho's just in it for a good time and he's like "yeah i'm not here for that. I'm not helping with that. We can keep fucking around if you're down but I'm not raising a kid hell no."

And Hyde pops up out of nowhere already with this shirt on like :D

He would be so hype for tiny baby. He LOVED taking care of baby Sho as a kid. He'd 100%, no real judgement, take on the responsibility of Sho's kid's dad. He'd give Sho a little talking to about being responsible and how for him this is nothing but this is 9 whole months of the pc's life they have to carry this thing inside them and a whole child's existence he's trying to avoid responsibility for. . .but like he understands. It's not what Sho was planning for. But he has to think about these things more responsibly, he's too old to be being so careless.

Like LEGITIMATELY NO JUDGEMENT TOTAL UNDERSTANDING but you're better than this Shohei. C'mon.

(and Hyde tells the kid that Sho's its dad once it's born and Sho gets mad EVERY TIME like I AM NOT TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR IT LEAVE ME ALONE.)

(Sho however is 100% down to be the cool uncle once the kid's old enough to y'know not be as much of a menace. Not that Hyde's not already gonna be a cool dad, but like. He doesn't want the responsibility.)

Hyde is gonna take that kid EVERYWHERE. He's gonna be teaching class with the kid on his hip. Never gonna put the little shit down. Gonna show it to everyone like THIS IS MY BABY EVEN IF I DIDN'T FATHER HIM I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

[danieyells]

Premium brain rot for you. The flower/lily falling into the blood during the pre-prolouge takes on a whole new meaning with the recent revelations.

TUMBLR HAS EATEN THIS ASK A COMICAL FOUR TIMES. I COPYPASTED THE LAST THING I WROTE THIS TIME. I'M GONNA TAKE THE IMAGES OUT AND SEE IF IT'LL TAKE IT THIS TIME.

THE FLOWERS ARE DIFFERENT but yeah, the flower is more obviously symbolic of the pc now. . .if not directly one of the pc's flowers(maybe the flowers differ for everyone who gets the curse? Lyca mentions that in spring there's a smell from the Obscuary garden that smells like the pc among the flowery smells. . .so maybe the flowers the pc will get are out there in Obscuary. It'd be interesting if the flowers changed based on who you chose in the beginning or what character or house you have the most affinity with or smth--)

Of course if it's one of the pc's flowers, that could straight up be them getting killed, maybe even before the curse fully kicked in. . .it could also be that they start to grow flowers a few months out from the end and someone's holding onto one. . .and maybe the institute is killing them for something. . . . But unless it's the pc themself being killed(time loop theory or otherwise) it's probably nothing that literal, just a reference to the pc's curse. . .but that still changes the meaning of that little opening scene quite a bit, yeah!

[oh-boy-me]

A hot take for your hot take. Yanderes are a niche genre that is often badly written in favor of being downright abusive over being extremely overprotective and clingy. The line between the two can be thin but some writers go full crazy. Yanderes are supposed to be lovesick but since the popularity of future diary and Yuno, crazy seems to be the only flavor of Yandere you can get. In this essay I will

No please write that essay bc honestly at this point the Yuno Gasai-esque yandere is so mainstreamed that I’m not even sure I’m able to stop conflating the actual concept and its popular usage anymore.  Thanks for reminding me and clarifying!

If Belphie follows the overprotective and clingy route and stays out of the violent one then he’ll be ok in my book.  Honestly he can even have destructive tendencies and I’ll still be ok, because destructive =/= abusive or violent, and destructive tendencies can be towards yourself too, not just others.  He still won’t be my type, but overbearing and abusive are not the same thing.

[oh-boy-me]

Belphegor. That's it, what's your hot take on him?

Personally I think the murder was done poorly and then thrown away.

I’m pretty sure the only reason why Belphegor didn’t kill us in the original timeline is because there was never a point where we were alone together without Beel, so like.  That should have either had repercussions in the OGTL or taken effect in the new one.  Beel was also devastated to see you die, and maybe Belphie didn’t care about the rest but he should have cared about Beel.

And then he does a complete 180 when he learns you’re Lilith’s descendent, suddenly all “I’m gonna spend all my time with you!”  You get the choice to say you haven’t forgiven him yet, but it’s not like he goes away.  Idk man you don’t get over murdering someone that fast, he should have had some form of guilt.  Someone should have been mad at him.  Why were there consequences for thinking about murder but not for actually killing us?