SUPPRESSION RELATIONSHIP DYNAMICS - KEVIN AND SOLSTICE
NOTE: These arenât ACTUAL translations of these songs. Theyâre close but occasionally there are just lines I rewrite to fit the characters I associate with them. I also didnât write these translations, but Iâve long since forgotten where Iâve gotten these translations. I know some are from Kafka-fuura (for Touhou songs) and some from other sources that Iâve modified.
If you donât know what Suppression actually is, itâs a webcomic that was created and maintained by my friend Degulus, which you can read here. Iâve worked on it from time to time. Particularly, I wrote the original incarnations of Solstice Disglair and Kevin Sentor and helped adapt them over as well as assist in the development of other characters in Suppression.
This one is a little different. I WOULD just talk about Kevin but itâs difficult to talk about Kevin without going into things like his dynamic with Solstice. They were designed as a pair, but Kevinâs more heavily reliant on Solstice, whereas Solstice can act independently. I donât exactly understand how or why, but theyâve always been a pair designed to be like soulmates.
They are both simultaneously the Sun and Moon, where the Sun can stand bright on itâs own but only distantly and the Moon that reflects the Sun in all of itâs aspects and sides but is much closer. They reflect each other in their actions and their personalities compensate to suit the situation theyâre in.
KEVIN AND GREED
So, where do I start?
Kevin/Kamine has always been fairly sensitive to the suffering of others. Probably too sensitive. Heâs practically drawn to it and always attempts to resolve their issues, with his mileage varying on how well he does. He wants to help everyone he can with whatever he can. In fact, the net he casts is too wide. But he canât help everyone. Thatâs madness. It overwhelms him.
And he canât take too many strides towards change in his position. Kevin/Kamine is too visible, because unlike Solstice and others like her, he has a position of power that he was born in to from the start. He canât move without a million eyes watching him. He didnât earn anyoneâs trust himself.
Enter his attachment to Solstice.
If he canât save everyone, he can at least save this one person who canât help herself. And he puts all his energy into accomplishing just that. Their relationship starts from this thought and it stays with him even as their friendship and partnership evolves and changes.
But his relationship with Solstice is a fairly tentative one. Itâs full of trust and mistrust.
Over time, Kevin realizes that Solstice is fully capable of taking care of herself. Sheâs not a damsel in distress. And sheâs not entirely helpless. His friend has enough drive and motivation to accomplish the goals she sets out for herself and is generally very smart about it. Solstice doesnât need Kevin for those sorts of things and Kevin acknowledges this. And Kevin knows that Solstice is a kind soul. She wants to do the right thing and they bond on that. He tries to help her when he can in this capacity and allows her to freely make her own choices and decisions without his input but with his support.
However, her ambition and bitterness causes her to spiral out of control.
It breaks her. It causes her to compromise her kindness and love of the world. Kevin doesnât want this person that he treasures to destroy themselves and the things they care about pursuing what is right and just. He doesnât believe that she wonât be consumed by her greed just like all the other people around him. Heâs seen it happen too many times. Itâs the world heâs trying to escape. His position is product of greed and ambition. Itâs the world he comes from.
Kevin doesnât want that for her. He doesnât want that for anyone. He doesnât want her accomplishments and happiness to be seen as something born out of just her selfishness like the rest.
So, he turns to lying for her sake; he lies to the world and he lies to himself. Heâs also greedy like the rest. Heâs driven to keep her away from her own ambition... To save her. To save everyone from her ambition. But most of all, he wants her to be happy as the kind soul he treasures. And he despairs knowing that those two things will never meet.
He knows all too well that she canât be happy and get what she wants without giving up part of herself in the process. He doesnât want to accept that the darkness she has is also what makes her who she is.
But he can try. He can damn well try... And he knows heâs failing. And it hurts.
All he can do is watch Solstice and slow her down so she doesnât take on too much and too quickly, and thatâs okay because she still stays the same. Sheâs still his friend and the person he cares about... But thatâs not the world they both live in. Things escalate too quickly. Too rapidly. And the power she accumulates does too.
He canât trust her to not give in to temptation. The possibility that everything will fall apart with her at the helm torments him. Itâs keeps him up at night. And he canât stop her anymore. Sheâs become much bigger now. Sheâs not just his treasured person anymore. She represents so much more to their world.
And he can only watch as everything falls apart with her at the center of it.
Solstice is living proof that a peaceful world cannot exist without conflict, strife and suffering. And Kevin cannot accept that and move on.
As usual, donât expect this to be a thing in Suppression. These are the incarnations of the characters as were originally plotted out to be, even outside of the context of Suppression since theyâre used in multiple places. Iâll probably always see them like this though.
Suppression!Kevin is really just emotional, irritable and quirky big kid with a mild superhero complex. A huge gag character. Since Solstice doesnât dive in to the murky grey area, there isnât any real reason for Kevin to either. Your mileage may vary on how you interpret them.
SONGS FEATURED:
Otsukimi Recital (ăȘăăăăȘă”ă€ăżă« - Moon-Viewing Recital); By èȘç¶ăźæ”P (Shizen no Teki-P) aka ăă (Jin); Vocals by: IA ; Cover by: kradness ; Album: ăĄă«ăŻă·ăăŁăŹăłăŒăș (Mekakucity Records)
Shonen Brave (ć°ćčŽăăŹă€ăŽ - Brave Boy); By èȘç¶ăźæ”P (Shizen no Teki-P) aka ăă (Jin); Vocals by: IA ; Album: ăĄă«ăŻă·ăăŁăŹăłăŒăș (Mekakucity Records)
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SUPPRESSION CHARACTERIZATION - SOLSTICE DISGLAIR ( BASED ON [THE LOST ONEâS WEEPING], [CLEAN FREAK], [IRONY] and [THAT WHICH REMAIN UNCHANGING] )
NOTE: These arenât ACTUAL translations of these songs. Theyâre close but occasionally there are just lines I rewrite to fit the characters I associate with them. I also didnât write these translations, but Iâve long since forgotten where Iâve gotten these translations. I know some are from Kafka-fuura (for Touhou songs) and some from other sources that Iâve modified.
So if you donât know what Suppression actually is, itâs a webcomic that was created and maintained by my friend Degulus, which you can read here. Iâve worked on it from time to time. Particularly, I wrote the original incarnations of Solstice Disglair and Kevin Sentor and helped adapt them over as well as develop other characters to Suppression.
Suddenly creator commentary? I donât know what this is. I felt like writing something about this stuff, considering the time and effort put into this. Story being: a while ago, I made these series of videos with art, mostly with the purpose of sharing my perspective on how these characters feel and acted. Though, I never really expanded on what they meant. They were just something abstract that looked like they informed very little. I shared them, but never got much feedback on them. Looking back at it, I probably should have said more... But better late than never, right?
Itâs fairly interesting, knowing that a lot of my decisions on how I wrote a lot of these characters end up strongly tied to the music I associate with them. Solstice and Kevin/Kamine tend to be kind of my babies that fascinate me, mainly since the characters themselves are written to be fairly depressing in nature. They generally have fairly polarizing music on their playlists despite constantly being written as dorky people with weird quirks but seem pretty chipper.
SOLSTICE AS THE SHADOW
In any instance of her that Iâve written. Solstice is easily tempted by the darkness that was born out of her own loneliness and frantically grasps at things to fill in that space. She wants control. She wants stability. She desperately wants the power to make it happen.
And yet these are things she cannot have. Solstice doesnât know a life where she can control anything that happens, her environment is incredibly unstable and will probably stay that way for the rest of her lifetime, and she is nothing against the powers that cause things to go awry.
All she can do is fall back to the darkness and the chaos to create order and will embrace those aspects of herself. Theyâre the only things that will welcome her back with open arms and she believes theyâre the only things that can grant her what she wants (but not always what she needs). She will always be at a loss when trying to embrace the ways of the light. She only knows how to manipulate the dark.
But the darkness is not always evil. Just different.
While Solsticeâs intentions arenât evil, she will drag herself down to sickening levels to eliminate problems and potential problems. She is not above being underhanded. She is willing to kill people that get in her way. She will manipulate the world like itâs some kind of twisted game. She will break things to put them back together the way she wants them to be. She will drag people to Hell with her to create the world she wants to exist. And at that point, Solstice is no different from a villain. She just wants different things from the villains in her story. She only knows how to be a villain to accomplish good things.
Solstice knows this. Sheâs aware that she can never be a wholly good person after crossing the threshold which allowed her to do abhorrent things. And doesnât mind if those actions creates her desired Utopia. But she can never be a representative of that Utopia; only itâs supporter. Solstice has long been unworthy of being a representative. She doesnât fit her Utopiaâs ideal. She cannot see the world she lives in as beautiful in itself in all itâs imperfections, but she searches for itâs potential to be beautiful in the things that exist in it and treasures what she finds.
To abandon this aspect of herself to try and be â100% goodâ suddenly removes a huge aspect of her identity. Her understanding of herself leaves her. She would feel she is suddenly someone with no direction. There would just be the stinging loneliness that can never be erased that was always there. And the despair that comes with that feeling is worse than the feelings that come with being a villain in someoneâs story.
You can never ask her to be âgoodâ. Itâs a promise she canât keep. You can only ask her to be âbetterâ.
As with most things adapted for Suppresion, this pretty much isnât in Degulusâ interpretation of her in Suppressionâs main story line. Solstice is interpreted to be more-or-less okay with how her life is, thus your mileage may vary on how you read her in Suppression.
Iâll probably always see her as this very sad person who would never be 100% happy in her life. Just content and never satisfied with the way things are. Solstice is forced to live with what she got and would forever strive to change things for the better using whatever method she needs to no matter how messy it is, as long as no one else notices.
But for the most part, actual Suppression!Solstice is just your quirky âgood informant-allyâ character. There arenât really any deep shades of grey sheâll dive in to that would make the reader question her morality and whether what sheâs doing is right or not because sheâs a âgoodâ character of such a configuration. Thatâs really all sheâll probably ever be in the end. Who knows. I could be wrong. But so far I havenât seen much evidence that Iâm not that I hadnât put in myself. People are definitely free to make me eat my hat though if I am wrong.
(...But not actually make me eat my hat because it would be a waste of a good hat...)
SONGS FEATURED:
Lost One no Goukoku (ăăčăăŻăłăźć·ć - The Lost One's Weeping) - By Neru; Vocals by ăăȘ or ééŁ (Sana)
Irony (ăąă€ăă) - By scop; Vocals by ăȘăăăă (Nayugorou)
