Aishutoon

boy don't you just love placing all your self-worth on being useful?

i imagine conjuring is very draining for an AI that has had all admin privileges revoked. everybody else is a human; they can separate themselves from the code, in a way. it feels tangible, like a video game save file or a phone's camera roll. to Caine, it's probably more like chopping off all of your limbs and then performing a dissection on them with a pair of prosthetics.

hope the floor spontaneously glitching out isn't indicative of anything important! (why am i making everything important now i'm gonna have to remember all of this stuff later)

also sorry this update came a little late! one of my family members came into town and i wanted to prioritize spending time with her :)

oh yeah!! pretty sure there’s only gonna be one or two more posts until it’s the end of the intro — then it’s naming time :DDD

for @zoe-oneesama, because you know why.

Okay, so I ran into a problem while writing Number 6 and that I kept getting distracted from the specific character due to other issues that I felt needed to be addressed, but kept taking away from the character in the number six spot, so it seems necessary to make those other issues it’s own essay so I could get my feelings on this issue known and out of the way.

And the issue is simply put: kwamis.

Why? Just why?

(longpost warning im getting rambly) (also major aa6 spoiler warning duh)

ok whatever u do don’t think about baby nahyuta & apollo, deciding to be lawyers, being so excited about facing each other in court one day

(don’t think about apollo, years later, hearing about how klavier wanted to face kristoph in court and remembering things he’s tried so desperately to repress)

(don’t think about how when that day finally, finally comes, it’s nothing like either of them had imagined)

don’t think about the two of them running mock trials with dhurke as judge and datz as defendant, and nahyuta getting so excited when he wins and proves datz guilty of stealing the LAST CHOCOLATE BAR HOW DARE YOU!!

don’t think about dhurke, later that day, thinking about how if that was a real trial, with real consequences, nahyuta would have to sentance apollo to death along with the defendant

don’t think about how one of the reasons dhurke sent apollo, specifically, to america is because he wanted to be a defense lawyer - when nahyuta enters khurain’s justice system, he may be under garan’s thumb, but at least his life isn’t at stake during every trial

don’t think about nahyuta and apollo, living together on the run since they were infants, each other’s only friends, suddenly torn apart without explanation, not knowing if they’d ever see each other again

don’t think about nahyuta losing his brother, regaining his mother (and gaining a little sister), and then losing her again in such a short span of time

(don’t think about nahyuta, even years later, wishing deep down that dhurke would come save him again, would scoop him out of the rushing river his life had become and tell him it would all be alright)

don’t think about apollo, alone in a foreign country with no way of contacting his family, no way of even knowing if they were still alive or if the royal guard had finally caught them

(don’t think about apollo seeing himself in machi, a confused and scared kid stuck in a foreign country with very little idea of what was going on)

(don’t think about apollo only having one friend, only one kid willing to spend time with this strange orphan boy who probably barely spoke any english at the time)

(except then suddenly he doesn’t even have that friend anymore, and yeah athena got to save blackquill but where’s apollo’s happy ending, huh?)

(and then dhurke is back in his life and for a brief moment it seems like everything is going right for once and then the rug is pulled out from under him again)

don’t think about nahyuta burying himself under layers and layers of masks (let it go and move on) until even he’s not sure who he really is but his one consolation is that at least apollo never has to see who he’s become until—

don’t think about nahyuta’s slowly dawning horror as he realizes that every member of his family’s life is at risk in that trial, desperately trying to convince apollo to leave so that at least someone makes it out unscathed

(don’t think about nahyuta realizing then more than ever why dhurke sent apollo away)

don’t think about nahyuta’s worst nightmare come to life, having to weigh the lives of his father and brother against the life of his sister and not knowing who to choose

(don’t think about the relief he must have felt, for a brief moment, when he was given the option to offer up his life instead)

(a small price to pay, to save both his siblings)

don’t think about how by the end of that trial, rayfa lost both of her fathers, one of her mothers was arrested, and the other was shot and nearly killed in front of her

(don’t think about rayfa so abruptly realizing that her entire worldview up until now has been wrong. how many innocent people have her seances sent to the gallows? she’s fourteen)

(don’t think about rayfa, afterward, having to realize the kind of people her adoptive parents were)

(how to reconcile the inga who planned coups, kidnapped hostages, and willingly aided in sending innocents to their executions with the doting father who bought her lavish birthday gifts and kept every card she gave him?)

don’t think about both rayfa and apollo having to witness, over and over, their fathers’ final moments, in order to get to the bottom of garan’s crimes

don’t think about rayfa realizing that she’s spent her entire life as a hostage, that her gilded palace was actually a cage she couldn’t see until it was too late

(don’t think about rayfa, late at night, wondering if it all would’ve been better if she was never around to be used as a pawn. is this all her fault?)

don’t think about amara, spending all those years so close to both of her children but unable to reach out. how painful it must have been to hear rayfa joke about how nayna is ‘like a mother to her’?

don’t think about after, the way the people left behind all revolve around the space that dhurke once filled. amara, dhurke’s wife; datz, dhurke’s ’partner in crime’; apollo and nahyuta, the sons he raised; rayfa, the daughter he didn’t

(dhurke was the lynchpin, the center of their haphazard little family. who are they to each other without him?)

don’t think about datz pasting on a smile, because someone’s got to be happy, someone’s got to crack jokes to make everyone smile, and it’s not like dhurke was his family so what right does he have to grieve like the others are?

don’t think about how dhurke achieved his dream of a bloodless revolution, in a way, and all it cost was his life

don’t think about how dhurke put in the most work of anyone to achieve this bright future for khurain, but now they all have to go live in it without him

Questioning Eva Stratt at the Detention Center. Sorry Thena, she’s super guilty I don’t think we’re winning this one

Now imagine it happened before all this. Moonie, after fifteen years of not knowing who she was, is hit by the fresh memory of her husband getting murdered. That her daughter was raised by the idiot who egged on the 800-year-old psychotic murder demon. She realizes what actually lead up to The Fire. She learns that Flora pushed Jentry to use her powers when she was clearly traumatized by them. That Flora hired demons to impersonate her and her husband in ghost prison to manipulate her. That Jentry had to spend every waking moment looking over her shoulder because there were demons from hell out to murder her. That if she lost control of her emotions even for a second she could kill dozens of people. That her powers made her a social pariah. And that Flora could’ve solved this in minutes but chose not to out of pride.

Moonie is a career criminal. I don’t know the extent of her crimes but I can assume it’s mostly related to theft and black market dealings. I fully believe if she got her memories back then all hell would’ve broken loose. Flora’s house would’ve been destroyed. The Lair? She would’ve ripped the entry portal to shreds. The level of destruction would probably put her on the list of suspects for Flora’s murder. The powers would’ve been the first thing she addressed. It was her screwup that put her daughter in this position, and she’d be damned if she didn’t fix it.

She and Jentry would leave and cut off all contact with Flora. They wouldn’t stay in the states, but I could see them going back to Korea because Jentry has a support system there. I don’t know how they’d avoid Flora’s ex but Moonie would probably find a way.

Moonie’s actions damn Riverfork. Cheng gets access to the robes and episode ten happens without a way to stop it. The Mogui would’ve eventually been stopped but not without high casualties, both of the living and the undead.

None of this shit would matter anymore though. Moonie and Jentry would be on the other side of the planet. Jentry wouldn’t have to be afraid anymore. Flora couldn’t use her to live through her power fantasies anymore. They could slowly piece their lives back together after all the shit Flora put them through. Because while Moonie isn’t a great person herself, she takes responsibility for her actions. She knows she made mistakes, and she’s going to try her hardest to make up for them. She’ll probably mess up a lot, but it’ll mean far more than anything Flora ever did. When she dies she’s going to Diyu, but for now she’ll do her damndest to make sure her daughter no longer has to suffer the consequences of her family’s actions.

When Kit is sent after her by Cheng to murder her he models himself after some Kpop idols she follows but it turns out she doesn’t care about them as individuals she’s only in it for the music. She unknowingly stonewalls him at every turn because she doesn’t realise he’s trying to flirt with her. She assumes he’s just a sociable guy but she doesn’t have time or energy for any of this right now.

She meets Michael at Mimi’s with Gugu and is all “Hey man it’s been a while? Yeah my great aunt got so freaked out by the fire she sent me to live in a city thirty miles away from the border of North Korea. You have a girlfriend? Holy shit shes cool you scored big time! Cant wait to see you guys around. Have a good one Michael 🤝”

Gugu keeps asking about future grandkids and Jentry always responds with “eh”

Everyone’s just a buddy. There’s no love triangle or she doesn’t realise that something like that is there and just ignores it. She’s got business to take care of. Cheng needs to die. The fire powers need to be repressed. There’s a neighbor with a bunch of cute goats she needs to cuddle with. Life waits for no one.

“Oh BOY do I like setting things on fire 😃”

You guys have to remember that she lost her kids three times; she spent years believing Apollo to be dead, she lost her memories and couldn't raise Trucy and missed out on seeing her grow up and Machi, who she literally says was a son to her, was caught up in a smuggling case and was arrested and if he wasn't he was going to be executed in his home country. Literally I will never blame her for anything, and honestly? It makes so much sense why she kept lying to save Machi in Turnabout Serenade even if she was still an amnesiac.

Every time Thalassa Gramarye allowed herself to be happy-- whether that be travelling with Jove and raising Apollo, or having Trucy and loving her, or performing with Machi on stage and taking him in as a son --life dealt her a shitty hand and she lost everything, even losing her own goddamn name and identity!! Of course she's hesitant to reconnect with the baby she thought she lost in a fire and the little girl she was forced to leave and forget!! She's so happy her baby is alive and her little girl isn't on her own and she's terrified of losing them again and having to cycle through the same grief she's felt for most of her life!!