MentalEdge

MentalEdge, 38 seconds ago

“What’s a computer?”

MentalEdge, 5 minutes ago

Nope.

For that to happen, the good ones would need to be bad enough to shoot the really bad ones in the face.

We should have been blowing up pipelines and sinking mega yachts for decades by now.

But this civilization is just too damn polite to do more than kindly ask the parasites among us to please stop killing us before they don’t have anything left to eat.

If things get better, if will be after we nearly go extinct.

And even after that, there will be some who take actions that risk the annihilation of us all, rather than have lass then others.

MentalEdge, 4 hours ago

Nice. Was able to see a re-screening of Redline once. Wish that kind of thing happened more.

MentalEdge, 7 hours ago

That’s right! All rise for the church of belly !midriffmoe

MentalEdge, 4 hours ago

I have seen art where the instruments look like cartoonified 3d models of the real thing, and it just looks wrong.

I like when it’s based on a real thing, or designed in such a way that it could be real, but has that wonkyness of being illustrated by hand.

MentalEdge, 12 hours ago

I touched on this in previous discussion threads. The retainers are property.

When they “join” the family as retainers, they don’t even get to keep their original names. They insisted on renaming Izutsumi to Asebi.

Their existence is so normalized, Shuro doesn’t give them a second thought. The only one among them he considered a person is Maizuru, as she was his tutor growing up. They formed a bond (this is why Maizuru is so “motherly” towards him), but he grew distant again after learning that his dad was fucking her. The consensuality of which is extremely questionable considering “no” is not an option for a slave.

Shuro has had quite a challenge growing into someone half-decent in an environment where completely fucked up things are normal.

MentalEdge, 12 hours ago (edited 10 hours ago)

Yes. The Nakamotos are very, very fucked up.

Izutsumi was given to Maizuru as a pet by Shuro’s father, though in practice she was just another slave purchased to become a retainer. And Shuro’s dad’s actions are questionable af as he was love-bombing Maizuru by giving her a literal person as a gift.

Unlike with most retainers, Izutsumi was never happy to be owned just because the Nakamotos housed and fed her. Likely because typically retainers start off very young so they can be indoctrinated into endless gratitude towards the family, ready to die for a Nakamoto at the drop of a hat.

But Izu was purchased when much older, as a drunken impulse buy to “get Maizuru a kitten”.

I’ll post Maizuru’s world guide chapter next, as it touches on these things.

That was the dungeon masters book, yes.

MentalEdge, 8 hours ago

It’s a big part of who Izu is, and as such will be a focus of her character exploration and development.

But Shuro or the other retainers are side characters, they’re just around. Exploring them fully would mean going off on a major tangent to the main plot, so it doesn’t really happen.

The Nakamoto family is elaborated on a bit in the world guide. They are themselves a servant family to the eastern emperor, but one in a powerful position. They employ retainer-ninjas to perform clandestine operations in the name of the empire. They are essentially the eastern Black Ops.

Shuro has been sent off along with an escort of retainers, to explore the world as a coming of age.

The current head of the family, Shuro’s father, seems to be a drunkard creep that does things on a whim. The only reason Shuro seems so level headed is that he was effectively raised by Maizuru, rather than his biological parents.

MentalEdge, 4 hours ago

It’s hard to hold Shuro responsible. I think he used to be a lot more down to earth.

Reading his character sheet, it says he didn’t really find anyone to look up to as a role model, and instead got attached to his tutor Maizuru, a person that is technically “below” him. Hiens chapter also describes that her past relationship with Shuro was much more like that of actual friends rather than master and servant.

He doesn’t really own the retainers, yet. He is the son of the man who does. He’s no longer a child, but still very much under the thumb of his father. While he might be able to have them die for him in some dungeon, setting them free “because that’s the right thing to do” would likely have dad disowning him the moment he finds out.

I think Maizurus relationship with the family head hurt Shuro, being a reminder that someone he loves and respects as a person, can be, and is treated, like property. As a coping mechanism he’s stopped thinking of her as a person, aligning himself with a status quo he can’t change. I don’t think that can last. He’s clearly miserable either way, and though Izu is left for dead, he actually gives the other retainers an apology for putting them in danger.

I’m very curious about what Maizurus inner thoughts might be on all of it. Because she seems to have a much, much clearer idea of what Shuros future will look like.

Her play seems to be backing a future head of the family in hopes he’ll be a better master.

The way Maizuru talks about Shuro, shows she has no qualms being parental to the point of manipulative in molding him into a “proper” person. By doing so she is in a way exercising power and influence through Shuro, the future head of the Nakamotos. She speaks of the current head in an almost traitorous manner in the world guide. That makes me think that though she is genuinely fond of Shuro, she has plans of her own to realize when it comes to how the Nakamoto family should be run.

Then again, Maizuru doesn’t seem to have a problem with the whole retainer practice, seeing as she was responsible for maintaining the spell on Izu. Like Shuro, she is terminally upper-class, and is just so used to the status quo that it simply seems “proper” for things to work the way they do. But I think that by becoming so important in Shuro’s life, she’s unwittingly set Shuro up to one day realize that owning people isn’t cool.

What’s he gonna do when he “inherits” ownership of Maizuru? I don’t think really “owning” his first-love-kind-of-mother-figure is gonna sit right with him.

If he “keeps” her, he’d just be like his father. I do not think Shuro likes his father, or the idea of being like him.

MentalEdge, 1 hour ago (edited 47 minutes ago)

I don’t like him, either. I’m lukewarm. I’m trying to explain why he makes sense, is so interesting, and is still potentially redeemable.

I used the phrase “terminally upper-class” to describe him. As in someone shaped by his surroundings to the extent that only serious interaction with new things will change him.

He’s 26, only recently kicked out into the world on his father’s whim. He’s trained. Not experienced. His recent joining Laios’ party is literally the first adventuring he’s ever done.

He’s a rich kid out on his first outing into the real world.

He already knows that the retainers are people. He grew up playing with them, literally raised by one of them. He started off knowing they were people.

I think he is in a depression and choosing to ignore that fact because it is easier than dealing with the feelings caused by caring about these people, while being powerless to help them. Something he hadn’t yet been forced to acknowledge until learning that the most formative person is his life, is also his dad’s favourite plaything. He knows they are people, and is trying reconcile that with the cards that real life has dealt them. And yes, he is failing. Hard.

Of course, he isn’t really powerless, but going from feeling that way to knowing otherwise, and then acting on it, can take years, no matter how old you are. And I think Maizuru is banking on it happening. Though she herself probably doesn’t realize how far Shuro will want to change things when he finally processes it all.

Still wouldn’t let him have Falin in a million years. She could do so much better.