...and then I trample on it with depressing mindfuckery, for that is what I do?

[mithrigil]

.

So, one of my springkink prompts bit hard and fast--and then refused to comply with what the original prompt asked for. I asked the prompter's permission, and she is cool with me writing the thing as, well, it wrote itself.

Title: Three Men Make a Tiger
Fandom: Digital Devil Saga (2)
Characters: ...so she asked for Bat and I gave her Bianfu. Doctor's

Comments

[qara_isuke]

Even though you went off in a different direction with the prompt, I'm delighted with this whole piece. (I'm pleased that I'm not the only person that thinks Bat looks Asian, for one thing~) The little touches and subtle hints are lovely, how they color the events of the game.

Also, bravo on a completely unexpected spin on the characters and who they might have once been, before.

[mithrigil]

(Oh good I'm not crazy for seeing it either~)

Thanks so much! I think this entire fic was operating under the principle, SERA WAS WRONG WRONG WRONG and going from there. I love exploring that, with her, and using Bat like this was just a blast. It reminds me a lot of Rosencrantz in Vagrant Story.

[qara_isuke]

(Dude, he totally is. I remember doing a comparison between a screenshot and a picture of several different Asians, both models and people I know. Though it's stylized, his eyes totally have the same shape and uniquely Asian eyelids.)

You know, I've heard Vagrant Story is awesome. But I've yet to play it. D:

But again, bravo on such an interesting take on his character.

[mithrigil]

Thank you for prompting it. I'm sorry the hatesex didn't happen.

VS is indeed of the awesome. And if you're persistent and patient enough to play DDS, you'll probably enjoy how difficult the VS gameplay is.

[tenshi_kain]

The cudgel has landed a critical on my spine. x_X

[mithrigil]

I think that the Project needed to be breached at some point, because an outsider's view might be the only way to see it without, you know, missing the forest for the trees and the couerls and the bunnygirls. So I am really glad the fic turned out how it did--it's more II than I, I think, in the end, despite it beating the Bat arc of I over the head three times over.

[puella_nerdii]

Mith, you know this is really fucking good when you can get me to empathize with my least favorite character in DDS.

Of course, the whole point of this is that Bat wasn't that, that the Bat Sera created is every bit as fake as Jenna and Sera's demeanors here (like mother/father like daughter, huh), and that's what really twists the knife for me: seeing Bianfu's playfully blunt humor warped into Bat's crudity, seeing the affection between Bianfu and Argilla Anders (whose last name works both as a BSG nod and an implicit contrast with the not-quite-human AI-Argilla) turned into -- well, the deserted ship cutscene in DDSI. And all because kids raised in test tubes have no sense of what normal social interaction should look like. Of all the four-letter words in this piece, "fake" is by far the worst -- and the most damaging.

Heat and Bianfu's dynamic is also great here, so damn cute and SERA UR DOING IT WRONG argh

[mithrigil]

Puel got it all right too~

::loves so hard::

Fake, and Home, and Sera. Four letter words.

[lindenleaves]

What Puel said, about the least favorite character and the liking. You're only making it easier to hate Sera, not that I needed help, haha.

"You don't look like a bat," Sera says, and no, he sure doesn't--bats are virtually blind, and what can't Bianfu see? He pegs them all, correctly and nigh instantaneously. So yeah, way to ignore the savage beatings of your own irony cudgel, Sera sweetie.

...I want more Krishnaswami. I do.

[mithrigil]

I really love it when you understand.

::hugs::

::hides the bloody cudgel behind her back?::

[zombie_fetus]

The outside perspective is invigorating, indeed. Clever use of poetry as well and it certainly enhanced this vision of the character (don't even get me started on Bruce).

I guess what resonated the strongest (further) was this venomous image of the knife, twisting, this is why man deserved what he received.

“So it’s not enough that you’re sticking kids full of needles and trying to get them to talk the sun out of frying us all?” He chuckles to cover up that he’s wincing when the cotton scrapes too deep. “Well, how about that you’re hiring tutors to make sure they get an education before they hemorrhage to death?”

The doctor doesn’t bother concealing it when he winces. “Doesn’t that apply to the rest of the world, when you think about it? That we’re trying to learn as much as we can before God kills us all, and maybe that’ll save us?”

[mithrigil]

Apt phrase, that, the knife twisting.

Because compliance is compliance, and reservations are reservations, and if you have one despite the other you're still exhibiting them both. Poor both of them. ::smiles::