speakveryclearly | Cavalry Masterpost

LMFAO GOD... i'm so glad that there's still this edge present in their interactions even years later... they get along but in a sometimes unfortunate way, except kaoru would be completely pleased by that. tbh the agreement and occasional lapses into ruthlessness would probably endear her to him since it's something he can understand so wholly. dklyfe: the ongoing saga, basically...

Kanaya has accepted the theoretical possibility that at some point killing a fellow survivor could be necessary, she's torn up about it but she doesn't think it's completely impossible (see again NOT SURE IF SHE SHOULD TRUST THE POWER OF DESTRUCTOCAMARADERIE), which I think is a relatively uncommon mindset in the group, but the DK Lyfe saga continues - like if Spain or Sonia were in a room, she would be orienting herself on the seats in the same way she did in the smoking room, and if Lithuania were ever around and asked her to do something she would do it without question in this freaked out way

Kaoru is the one fixed point for her, she kind of psychologically relies on their relationship not changing (unlike her relationship with Annie evolving over time)

no one ever gets over being a dk... good lord... no i love that though, i think kaoru would have outwardly gotten over most of it but he'd still have a subconscious bias LMAO. like "these are my suffering comrades, and these are my double suffering comrades".

kaoru is terrible at change at least SO SHE PICKED A GOOD ANCHOR POINT.

DOU BLE SUFFER IN G COMRADES YOU'RE RIGHT ABOUT THAT (bar wife; wife trumps dks and is the only person Kanaya trusts completely irrationally)

She would put on this brave face but hear a song that sounded a tiny bit like one Rin used to play and just have to leave the room

TRUE COMRADES FOR LIFE. there are so many cute couples in this resistance good lord

no that's so sad though... HOW'S SHE GONNA FEEL WITH RIN BACK IN THE GAME oh gosh

ONE WORD: EMOTIONAL.

If Rin had survived she would definitely be Kanaya's #3 after Annie @ #1 and Kaoru @ #2. Kanaya took the task of trying to do something for her robotic body very seriously before giving up because they can't carry her body around in this whole on-the-run situation. All that resignation took place very early on, in like a week. At the same time Kanaya was acutely aware that a resurrected Rin would not have the same memories so back when they originally were making the decisions she didn't think Rin should be left out on that account. In a burst of emotion - and only around Kaoru, not even Annie, they would have to be out alone on a task - if somebody else who had died did some negative thing, she might even say, we should have left that person behind instead of Rin. The point is Kanaya has a very strong emotional attachment to the belief that robot or not Rin was a real person. Like sometimes she thinks about how Reiko had to kick the bucket and feels guilty. Very few other people in the group are both culturally and physically not human in such an obvious manner as Rin was and Kanaya continues to be. Kaoru and Annie are the main exceptions on the cultural end, to an extent!! But Rin also always creates this little rift between Annie and Kanaya.

So after all this strife about how MM Rin was a unique nonhuman robot iteration person, RIN REAPPEARING IS THIS HUGE MIDDLE FINGER FROM THE PRODUCERS!! They just got another copy of her somewhere! The producers just love to prove that the stuff Kanaya does isn't worth it. All of the grief Kanaya has retained for over three years is worthless because it's all better after all...

...except as far as we know at this point, CC Rin is a different person from MM Rin with different memories. So even if they do get Rin out alive - which Kanaya does not even pretend to completely believe for sure, she's less than 100% optimistic about this whole operation but she does pretend to be confident about that, but Rin's personal survival isn't something for which she holds her breath - she's going to have to reopen the wound of explaining what happened last round, or else keep the secret to herself, and no matter what, that will strain her relationship with Annie.

Rin being a part of the game, in short, will stress out Kanaya even more than the presence of the trolls. The trolls, Kanaya can process in a straightforward manner, using the familiar and comforting rubrics of her wigglerhood (childhood), and at this point after such a long time thinking she would be the only troll left, she's just like, all trolls are good trolls, not 100% sure they will survive or even particularly trusting some of these specific trolls, but there's almost no way this can feasibly go WORSE than the previous situation of herself as the only troll in the universe, especially because power-wise she usually outclasses both of them so worst come to worst she can defend herself against that. Rin's reappearance has nowhere near as much of a guaranteed good outcome for her or for Kanaya and that will just mess with her so much.

OH NO...... gosh... this is all so rough, i love how so many characters being brought in this round are like the producers metaphorically flinging the bird left and right. i'm really excited to see how things work out re: rin and kanaya in the end AND TO READ HER REACTIONS when rin first appears on screen, gosh

I'M NOT GOING TO LIE 90% OF THE REASON I SET UP THIS WHOLE ADVANCED POPCORNING THING IS BECAUSE KANAYA'S SEVERE EMOTIONAL PAIN OVER RIN AND ERIDAN AND FEFERI WILL HAVE TO EVOLVE OVER TIME LIKE A GROWING PLANT

I AM EXCITED TO WATCH ITS EVOLUTION

Your SURVIVOR'S GUILT is EVOLVING!

SURVIVOR'S GUILT evolved into DESPAIR!

OKAY WAIT THERE'S MORE COMPLEX SUFFERING TO BE HAD LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THAT.

"MORE" IS MOSTLY ABOUT ERIDAN. YOU SEE FEFERI IS RELATIVELY UNCOMPLICATED. SHE WAS A FRIEND OF KANAYA'S WHO DIED AND DID NOT GET BACK UP. (ERIDAN KILLED HER ACTUALLY. AS YOU CAN SEE ALREADY HE IS THE CENTER OF A COMPLICATED EMOTIONAL NEXUS.) KANAYA WILL BE HAPPY INDEED TO SEE HER AGAIN.

Eridan though??? Eridan is a RATHER UNPLEASANT PERSON. Though I tend to emphasize the intimacy of their long-lasting acquaintanceship and common status as members of the species survival squad, day-to-day Kanaya absolutely could not stand him. In an ironic gesture, she made him this wand, he was very excited about it which she found pretty endearing. He takes off his cape. THEN. WITH THE WAND THAT APPARENTLY HAS MURDERPOWERS. HE MAIMED FEFERI'S BOYFRIEND. HE KILLED FEFERI. HE DESTROYED THE SPIKY BALL. KANAYA TRIED TO KILL HIM AND HE KILLED HER AND SHE BECAME A VAMPIRE. SHE HAD TO WRAP HIS CAPE AROUND THE STILL-BLEEDING WOUND. AND THEN SHE FOUND HIM, SNAPPED THE WAND IN TWO AND KILLED HIM FOR GOOD. this was the only time she successfully killed anyone before murder manor!!!! She had strange emotions about it that were not regret. All this was like two years ago, five years ago now, so she had pretty much moved on, the trauma was all in her past. Right???

BUT. Eridan comes into Craven Castle with his cape. This means one of two things: Costume department fucking with Kanaya, not impossible by any means, but given the limited items allowed to be brought in, very unlikely. The second possibility (which according to Zilon's intro is in fact the truth): Eridan comes from before he took off the cape. This asks several painful questions: Does Eridan still think of her as a friend, or had he never felt any genuine loyalty? Is he going to murder more people???? (HE'S IN MURDER MANOR, SHE KNOWS THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION IS YES UNLESS SOMEONE GETS THE DROP ON HIM LIKE WEEK 1.) Is he going to cooperate with the producers? And even if against all odds they reunite and he's remotely amicable towards her, Kanaya is like 40% older than him by now. She's a married woman. Turning into a rainbow drinker was very much the end of her childhood. All of this bullshit comes flooding back.

Basically, imagine that in eighth grade you were in class with this one sweater-happy guy who was your crush's ex or whatever six degrees bullshit, and had a bitter bond over that. During final exam week, you give him this cool knife you found at a garage sale because you think he'd appreciate it ironically in all his hipster glory. He shows up at school the next day in a button-down and stabs your mutual friend in the throat after slicing out her boyfriend's eyes. You see this and before you can intervene he slices up your final exam papers. Stunned, he gets away before you tie his sweater around your waist and run after him, tackle him to the ground, steal the knife, and start beating him to a pulp. When the authorities arrive, he is taken away, you get serious detention for your actions and your exams are disqualified. You have to attend a public high school away from almost all your friends. at the end of sophomore year you take an opportunity to cheat off of a girl; she is found out instead of you and goes to juvie. You have to change schools again. Here you make friends and things are hard but you make it through together. You are in your first year of college now and things are looking up. You think you might finally be off probation.

THEN YOU FIND OUT THAT GUY SURVIVED THE BEATING AND HAS BEEN IN JUVIE THE ENTIRE TIME AND JUST GOT OUT. Wow that wasn't a TL;DR at all I'm... so sorry, I thought it would be clearer but then it got so graphic.

Okay bonus round your turn to TL;DR: gimme Craven Castle Chizuru stuff

WOW I HADN'T EVEN CONSIDERED THAT... it's been so dang long since i read homestuck that eridan showing up just pinged as like "well either he is gonna supermurder someone or be supermurdered" I TOTALLY EVEN FORGOT HE WAS LIKE CASTMATES WITH KANAYA FOR A SECOND. i just think of the survivors as being in like a category of their own, gosh, castmates who needs those!! i just realized that's gonna be rough for gundam and sonia too with the dango rumps running around... THIS ROUND IS TERRIBLE, EVERYONE IS GONNA BE SO HAUNTED BY THEIR PASTS good lord i'm so looking forward to it.

re: craven castle chizuru stuff oH MAN kaoru is gonna be pissed... he hasn't really given up on seeing chizuru again, but it's kind of taken a back seat to this much more pressing matter of dealing with a threat that has become even bigger in his mind than humans. when kaoru dedicates himself to a goal, he dedicates himself wholly, so even though he occasionally pines over his old home and thinks about chizuru a lot, it's in a relatively passive way. he's put almost 100% of his energy and time into finding a way to bring the producers down and he's honestly not that unhappy with doing so.

SO THIS he's really going to take as a hugely aggressive, antagonizing sign from the producers. he'll assume that they brought chizuru in for the draw of having a set of twins who don't remember each other potentially aiding in the death of one another all for the sake of ratings and it will make him furious. the combination of having to deal with that and busting out his facade again after three years without is going to be super rough on him and if stiles wasn't there with him, he'd probably start sliding back into bad habits and his old toxic mindset very quickly. as things are though, he's only going to want to take down the producers more after any initial emotional outbursts and he's well aware of the fact that he'll have to bring his best game if he wants chizuru to survive. BASICALLY even though he'll flip his shit initially and probably struggle emotionally for the duration of the game, it probably won't be that bad for him in the long run since it'll just give him another motivator and an extremely solid reason to not mess this mission up.

Jesus Christ with the twin-offs these ratings are going to be so motherfucking sky-high YOU CAN DO IT KAORU. IF STILES SAYS SO SHE BELIEVES IN YOU. GOD.

What are the people in this world even like?? During the game Kanaya was a DK and saw the great opportunity Lithuania had so generously offered but now that she's out, like it just suddenly hits her, LOCKING THIRTY PEOPLE INTO A HOUSE SO THEY'LL KILL EACH OTHER IS REALLY, REALLY FUCKED UP. PEOPLE WERE WATCHING THIS AND NOBODY CARED. THEY SWOONED TO ANNIE'S AWKWARD BLUSHING WHILE SHE WAS SEPARATED FROM HER ARMY. Sometimes she thinks about how fucked up and murderous the old troll empire was and isn't sure it could come back especially peacefully coexisting with humans, but THEN SHE REMEMBERS THAT AT LEAST THEIRVERSION OF MURDER MANOR WAS A LITTLE MORE SELECT??? She knows from her fellow survivors that humans can be kind and smart and brave, her misanthropy hasn't mutated into the space racism I used to love to play. But she can't even properly get angry about them dangling the Matriorb in front of her. That's how much being a deekay fucked with her emotions; her reflex is still the gratitude. She's so miserable and just wants to get these poor fucking new kids out of here and never look back.

I KNOW oh my god im so excited for all these twin shenanigans... but gosh if stiles and kanaya both believe in him he'll clearly have to do it!!

i'm so curious about that too though good lord. like really, i'd imagine kaoru would have probably talked about that sort of thing quite a few times with kanaya too considering they kind of share a similar-ish pov what with not being part of the human race and all. like HE WOULDN'T... BE OKAY WITH LIVING IN A WORLD where a show like murder manor is so popular. he'd probably voice concerns every so often that if the whole place is that corrupt, killing the producers might not do much in the end, but he's also pretty done with the entire situation and would be like "WHATEVER, GOOD ENOUGH". he doesn't even care about the new kids, god... if just chizuru and the old survivors made it out, he'd be happy, BUT he also knows his destructocomrades enough to realize they wouldn't be and would make an effort to avoid that outcome. CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Yeah just imagine Kaoru and Kanaya putting their heads together trying to puzzle out the customs of this place. Kanaya's used to a little bit of cahoots and treachery but this is all kind of out of hand. Felicia Is the worst type of person to her but it goes far beyond that. The idea that residents of other worlds - including a few token aliens like herself - are seen as chattel, it really bothers her, being biologically inferior. So of course these two kvetch about thehorrors of humanity a lot!! She isn't exactly ultra invested in every new kid's personal welfare but I think she does have a soft spot for the new LCWs especially the more eccentric ones she's like YOU ARE REAL PEOPLE... LIKE RIN WAS... LETTING YOU DIE MAY NOT BE WORTH IT... tbh before the casting came out she was a lot more calm about the concept of new kid casualties but the trolls will make her shakier on that front, she's very afraid people will police her about these trolls being bloodthirsty and irredeemable and doesn't that also apply to her? She's afraid.

LMAO each talk session just ends with both of them going "yeah i still have no fuckin clue" but they keep trying to figure it out. right though, i think kaoru would bring that up a lot too, like "hey guys guess what, this world we're inhabiting is the kind of place where people like felicia live". HORRORS OF HUMANITY TOMODACHIS THO goodness. wah tho kanaya ;;;; at least she won't have to worry about kaoru on that front, though he's definitely of the opinion that whatever needs to die dies no matter what if it's for the sake of the plan. he's not discriminatory, at least...

i feel like if they had a chance to talk before kaoru left WHICH I THINK THEY WOULD, he'd probably try to do his best attempt at "chin up it'll all work out fine", kaoru-style.

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