Hello mutual boy it’s me @crisantassocialmediamanager (it’s my sideblog your honor) and I wanted to ask:
As the self-proclaimed penias CEO, could you explain some of the dynamics/story/appeal of the ship for you and your penias associates?
"hello mutual boy" is cute lmao
I have waited for this question for my whole life ehehee.
As a disclaimer, I must say here that I only talk about the True Ending Pathway, because the other endings only provide kind of shallow angst material and there is nothing to work with deeply. And also the way I write might be wacky because English is not my first language
1. To start from the basics, as a fan of "Religious guilt game" I love religious guilt portrayed in characters, and if to consider the Miracle being homophobic yada yada yada it carries some impact on both the penitent one and esdras from this angle. The penitent one, if, of course, headcanoning, was most likely more exposed to the outside world than esdras was, and this can result in a dynamics between a person who knows what the deal is (aka acknowledges affection), but is not ready to accept it, and a person who does not know what the deal is, but was, on the other hand, had been more exposed to affection as a concept in the past.
2. To continue the point about parallels between them (you talked about it in your own post a lot and I agree on the most points), I like to percieve them as a warrior who failed his duty (esdras) and a warrior, whose duty will be fulfilled no matter what (the penitent one).
3. Another thing I consider interesting is that in the penias mindset is that the penitent one is the only person Esdras has any sort of connection with. I do not think Crisanta is something meaningful personally to him apart from the Capitain (even if that would be a non-mutual feeling), Perpetva is, well, noticably dead, and from the lore crumbs we get the chance that Eddras had been buddies with someone from the Legion is slim. And, even if he was, Esdras fled the Legion, which could not been an easy decision for him to make in general since he was raised by the Church and protecting faith must have been his life goal. So at the end of his ark, he is basically left with nothing, and it would be kind of logical for him to latch into the only person he feels something towards and that might feel something towards him.
4. ...as I mentioned in 2, the penitent one's duty will be fulfilled no matter what, which adds to the overall "doomed" thing and there is nothing like a fresh cup of doomed yaoi in the morning. Getting serious, this means that any type of connection established between them would be very temprorary, and they are both aware of it. You can even go further and say that Esdras kind of prolongs the penitent one's mission by giving him the key which leads to penance boi getting smacked on the head by isidora sierpies and other hellish things
5. I can't quite put it into words, but there is also something in the way Perpetva is involved in all of this mess that gets me
6. And, ultimatively, they are just kind of funny. Little guys. I loved Esdras since my first playthrough because he is kind of silly as a character, so maybe this involves projection for me, but not in a romantic sense
p.s. also they mirror crisanta x perpetva which is kind of silly also