...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

[emerald_embers]

*jaw drops*

That was... awesome.

Seriously, that was so, so unbelievably awesome - just - oh, the idea of Sera having got Bat so *wrong*, the fact his proper intro to her is when he can't help but grimace because of pain - it... wow. It's inspired, it's fabulously well-written, and everyone's just so... believably how they could have been in the real world, Serph and Heat especially - I want to scoop Heat up and hug him but not in a "Oh you poor little thing" silly way, rather, in a "Man, you were really pretty great, it sucks what happened to you".

And Serph is so CREEPY, it's brilliant XD. I'm glad you portrayed him that way because even though he comes across as a smooth charmer sometimes, he's so obviously not right in the flashback bits - if someone who's clearly smart, like Heat (and to a certain degree, I've always felt, Varin) aren't taken in by him, I'd be very surprised if other people were as well.

Thank you so much for giving me the link, hon :D! It's really, really good :).

[mithrigil]

T-t-thank you so much!

I am really sorry that the prompt didn't go where the prompt initially wanted, but I'm not sorry that it went here. I love writing about the doctor's cast a lot, and Bianfu/Bat was another really fun way to get at them, and then he became fun to write on his own. I hope I can make him come back.

And yeah, Sheffield's a creep. I get the feeling that part of how Argilla fell for his shit is that, no, she wasn't that smart, but also that she and others let themselves be taken in, ignoring the wrongness by dismissing it as a component of the intelligence. Because Sheffield is intelligent, he has to be, and he has to have somehow acquired all the power he's got. So.

Again, thank you!

[harukami]

asdf;j I -- this is amazing. I was completly pulled into the rhythm of this piece; the reality, and how horrible it was, yet how... 'reasonable' it was to do (not at all, but at the same time, very). I love how the playground reminded me of the playground at my preschool -- which was, of course, in the psych department at university. (Where all university preschool playgrounds are, in the psych department). I like how... intuitive, intelligent Bat was here, and how linked he was in SERA'S mind with blood and with rejection...

Damn amazing.

Pretty much perfect, really.

[mithrigil]

!

I am so, so glad you enjoyed it. And more importantly understood it. What Sera did to all of them...it's frightening. And getting into how our actions and appearances can be misconstrued by context and bad luck was just a blast to explore, here.

Thank you so much!

[harukami]

It's funny you should mention the "What Sera did to all of them" part, because in reading the comments, I was flummoxed by how many people hated Sera for that. I mean, admittedly, I adore Sera, and I'm well known to get pretty damn frustrated at Sera-bashing, but ... reading this, I liked Sera a lot here because you did a fantastic job of demonstrating how little autonomy she had in the situation. Of course, if you go by the premise you present here that everyone had original models (which in a canon situation I don't follow because of David-Gale, but it works fantastically as a premise for exploration here) -- of course in that situation, she'll associate people with things not accurate to them. She's two years old and while her body/mind might be growing up fast, her context has been extremely limited; she's still fitting people into mental 'boxes' in order to learn about them. Psychologically, that's what toddlers do. Identifying 'traits' become all-identifying. So much of the backstory to the series IS Sera discovering that when

[mithrigil]

I'm closer to with you on this than appearances would have--writing Sera, especially in the context of the Doctor's Cast and O'Brien most of all, has helped me sympathize with and understand her a great deal more. I don't dislike her as much as I dislike her archetype (hadaka na hakoirimusume, GAAAH), and then when she deconstructs it and goes beyond it that made my initial aversion to her so much less pronounced. And yes, recontextualizing the last spiel on the Sun in that light...

I think efforts in fandom to characterize Sera and her situation are fascinating and really telling about the individual author. It's one of many things I consistently like about your work, actually. :smiles: That what she did was frightening but not consciously so is the key in the matter. She's a child. She has no malice, just selfishness, and whether one can fault her that or not is more up to the beholder and the context than anything else