Asch, for the character rant meme ❤️
Oh, absolutely.
Favorite thing about him:
This feels very hard to narrow down. I like the arc of his story. I like how he both mirrors and contrasts Luke. I like that he's dark and often in the wrong. I like that he's soft and wants to come across as cold and rational, but is fundamentally incapable of burying his feelings. I like that he's a loose cannon who sometimes makes mistakes, but then also comes at his enemies from a direction they never saw coming. I love the character growth we get in things like Tales of the Rays, which show him warming up to Luke and becoming happier and his whole personality expanding into something more mature. I always like long implausibly red hair. But I think what really draws me to his character is the tension between him being angry and depressed and disengaged, but still an idealist. He has the potential for heroism, and he never succeeds in killing it -- arguably, he never even wants to kill it. He might think of himself as worthless, and he might say awful things to his loved ones, and he might frown all the way through it, but he keeps doing what he thinks is the right thing. Not the right thing for himself, the right thing.
Least favorite thing about him:
I think there's a reason Abyss adaptations keeping cutting out the scene where Asch controls Luke's body in order to make him attack Tear. Yes, it's a dramatic scene, but when you look at the rest of Asch's personality, it feels jarringly sadistic.
Favorite line:
I'll go with Asch's closing line during Natalia's escape from Baticul: "Luke! One mistake and I will kill you." First off, he does it while standing over an evil general he's just struck down for the sake of his people, check him out, he would actually be a decent royal. Secondly, look at him revealing his love for Natalia, right then and there, in front of a crowd of witnesses. A lot of his lines in that scene do that, and it's great -- a rare moment of Asch being emotionally honest. And tied in with that, he unthinkingly, seriously calls Luke "Luke" -- not replica, but using their shared name. Yes, he's threatening to kill him, but he's not only trusting Luke with his most precious person (Natalia), he's using his own name for Luke -- I feel like, in that moment, Asch trusts and respects Luke in a way he usually doesn't allow himself to -- he finds reasons not to. This is the real Asch in this moment, and this is what his relationship with Luke could really be.
brOTP:
Ginji! I feel like Asch and Ginji seriously bond over the course of the game. Asch doesn't often express it (of course), but by the end of the game, I think they're as close as Luke is to any of his party members. I see Ginji as having a softer, more emotionally open personality, but he's also thick-skinned enough not to take Asch's angry posturing too seriously; he sees past Asch's pretenses to the real him, and I imagine he misses him terribly and has a lot of regrets after the game.
OTP:
Asch and Natalia, it's always Asch and Natalia. I remember my first time playing Abyss, being in Ortion cavern when Natalia thanked Asch for protecting her from the boss monster, and Asch very coldly brushed her off. And my brain just went, Oh wait, hold on...? Does he still...? Is it not just her? Are they both...? And then a few minutes later there was an earthquake and he protectively grabbed her and I haven't looked back once.
nOTP:
This is sort of a yes and no. No, there are no (major) Asch ships that I consider so out there that I can't believe anyone would ship it. (I had to add the "major" because maybe out there there's someone who ships AschMieu.) But at the same time, while I acknowledge that Asch and Natalia can have very interesting ships with other characters, I love them so much together that I tend to never even entertain the possibility. I think for me, one of the most significant things that bothers me in an AschNot-Natalia ship is when writers use it to denigrate Natalia's character. Write her off as unimportant, or even unlikable to Asch. By all means, pair him with someone else, but I don't think you can believably write him as not caring at all about Natalia and finding her awful.
Random headcanon:
He (and Luke) are naturally very musically gifted. Asch is particularly good at the piano and used to play it for his mother when he was a child.
Unpopular opinion:
Hm, I think there are potentially some controversial takes with Asch. I think some fanwriters sometimes err too far on the side of making Asch cool and composed and mature, always in control and aloof compared to the more emotional Luke. This makes him very suave and alpha and unflappable, a bit more of a conventional brooding hero. That's not really the Asch I see. To me, Asch is overflowing with emotions and often not good at hiding it. There's footage of the stage play rehearsals showing their Asch actor releasing a primal scream, and I don't know why he's doing that, but whatever his reasons, that feels closer to Asch.
Song I associate with them:
Something edgy and forceful would be right, but let's go with his softer side and say "Lonely Lullaby" by Owl City. It's always made me think of Asch, and all through writing The Stars Are Fire, I had my eye out for an opportunity for Asch to sing Natalia to sleep -- never happened though.
Favorite picture of them:
Excuse me, let me go search my files.
Okay, I limited this to art that's just of Asch, no one else, and while a lot of his official art is unintentionally hilarious (I have a dedicated tag), I've always liked this shot from the anime:
Hair is down, he's super moody, and having him leap onto the side of the moving Tartarus is a much more dynamic way to end the scene than in the original game.
Thanks for the ask! I always love talking about Asch.
Meme taken from here.
