I need to make my testament bedtime post but im too sleepy dont know what to say
Finished Trigun Maximum a couple days ago, concluding my binge of basically all Trigun content starting with the 98 anime in January and god damn bro that was incredible. Easily one of my favorite manga of all time now. Also, I was rooting for Crimsonnail against Livio. Nothing against Livio I just support womens wrongs
Nagi ended up growing on me significantly throughout the game as I started to pick up in the clashing of philosophy between her and Fret, and looking at her development in general.
I made a whole Twitter thread about this a few months back but I figured that I might as well bring it here as well.
Today I want to take some time to make another NEO TWEWY analysis post on the Identity Crisis sidequest revolving around Eiru and how it actually provides extra insight into Nagi and Fret’s characters.
Basically, the main gist of the sidequest is that Nagi and Fret are debating on how to imprint confidence onto Eiru, who’s suffering with his physical insecurities, and this is where we see the differences with Nagi and Fret's philosophies on life.
Fret's response is to tell Eiru to ignore the haters and even more so, ignore confronting the insecurities; life is better when you don't have to concern yourself with anything or try; don't take anything seriously. Nagi, however, believes that insecurities should be understood and harnessed so that they can ultimately be turned into a strength that can be used as a tool for success; accept your weaknesses and come to terms with them so that you can weaponize your strengths better.
On a surface level, these might read to be the same thing. Fret’s advice can be read positively as "don't let others judge you for something you can't control" and Fret certainly thinks so, hence why he thinks that he and Nagi are on the same page even though she disagrees.
However, when you read between the lines and think about it some more, there are notable implications that Fret's advice is more of a dismissive approach to dealing with emotional struggles as opposed to Nagi's own methodology. It’s no coincidence that Fret used to be a fan of the Eiji "the Prince" Oji in his ennui/apathy phase. The Prince in the original TWEWY was beloved for his “don’t give a damn attitude” and how he expressed that both in person and in his blog “F Everything.” Fret claims to have grown out of it but with certain reveals about his character later on, there are some implications that Fret latched onto the Prince and aspired to his attitude due to his own struggles with feeling genuine and wanting to embracing apathy instead.
However, if you recall in the original game, Neku and Joshua came around and helped the Prince sort out his own issues and in the process, helped him to become more genuine and true to himself in the process. With all of this in mind, you can interpret Fret’s response as him seeing the process of the Prince’s reconciliation with his genuine emotions happening in front of him and didn’t want to confront the possibility of that happening to him as well so he "grows out of it." It also acts as a neat parallel to Neku and his own thing with CAT. Whereas Neku latched onto his misinterpretation of CAT’s words in order to cope with his trauma, Fret turned away from the Prince changing so that he wouldn’t have to deal with his own trauma just yet.
To get back to the quest, if player had decided to choose Fret's philosophy, Eiru ends up doing just that, spinning Fret's stance on the situation into self-motivating positivity. However, there's a element of emotional responsibility lacking in Fret's way of processing struggles in that he doesn't seem to have the awareness to recognize the difference between overcoming adversity and just ignoring it (or maybe he does but refuses to confront that truth). In order for someone to truly not care what other people think, they need to do what Nagi suggested first, which is to find acceptance with their insecurities and build a stronger foundation for their character through that acceptance.
If the player chose Fret's approach to solving Eiru's issue, his dialogue afterwards shows how he feels about not having to face issues head on, with Nagi lamenting that her approach was not used despite being glad that Eiru's mood was visibily improved.
I also really like this moment here for how it subtly foreshadows what caused Fret’s attitude and way of thinking to happen in the first place.
Stuff like this is why I always tend to roll my eyes whenever I hear the claim that "Nagi is mean to Fret for no reason" when moments like these show why she acts the way she does towards him: their philosophies on life are complete polar opposites.
In Nagi’s eyes, Fret acting the way he did screamed to her that he seemingly had no regard for how his attitude and actions towards others made other people feel in service of his own self-interest and she fundamentally cannot get along with other people of that nature, as shown with how she dismisses Motoi entirely off the bat when the crew first meets him because she could tell that there was something off about his attitude. However, once it was revealed that Fret’s attitude was due to him trying to unhealthily cope with his trauma and not because he was seemingly unconcerned for the feelings of others, she’s far more understandable towards him and empathizes with his grief.
That’s when Nagi learns to understand that she does not need to dismiss people right away and that they, like Fret, might be going through struggles of their own and trying to cope with it via other means, even if she doesn’t agree with it at first. Hence the friendship they start up at the end of the convo.
The characters in NEO have a lot of internal flaws they need to work through, some that might not be immediate obvious at first compared to the original, but when you look back at it all, the game goes through a lot of painstaking detail to flesh out their struggles and mindset and aspects like these is what makes the game a joy for me to replay whenever I go back to it.
Staring at people's cool art heals my soul
Side Order
Experienced the kind food service shift that they only speak about in legends. Had maybe 5 minutes of downtime throughout the 8 hours and otherwise was robbed of a moment to even gather my thoughts let alone take a break. Just me and my one coworker at an undersupplied coffee shop booth getting slammed with the traffic of two entire standalone store locations that were redirected at us. The kind of war story you relay to your grandchildren like an injured veteran whose seen the face of the death.
Just started on volume 5 of witch hat atelier and all imma say is master Qifrey is my husband fr like I wont hold u I would cook n clean for this nigga like I will be his stay at home wife
these niggas on hooloo
AceVane BLACK PANTHER V
alright so trying to work and go to college at the same time did not work at all lets not do that again
I was searching for kissing photos to have as reference for something else but it turned into vilex because i have no self control 🏃♀️
19 》 They/Them 》 Evil Sorcerer Nigga Wielding Swords And Darkness 》 Mech pilot for the imperial IDGAF forces 》 transfem 》 Studying mandarin 》
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