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Characters:Korekiyo & his sister. Warnings: Graphic descriptions of illness/dying. No spoilers for DRV3 beyond Korekiyo’s freetime. Crossposted: To AO3 Author comment: Phew!!! This really took a lot out of me, haha. I’m really, really proud of this, though! There’s a lot of folklore: I tried to use good sources wherever possible, however, I’m no professional so please take it all with a grain of salt (ha.)
Also, a massive, massive shout out to @kumaspagheddi . Without you, I don’t think I would ever have given myself so deep into our shared hell. I was thinking of you and our discussions a lot while writing, so I hope you don’t mind if I dedicate this piece to you. Thank you for everything.
“In the Anmatyerre tribe of central Australia, the women and children are taught to fear a great spirit called Twanyirika,” she begins. She’s speaking so softly, the cover of her futon pulled up to her chin. “Now, Korekiyo, what does central Australia look like?”
She always begins stories like this. She needs to know the geography, paint the landscape. Peel back the walls of this room and let in the hot dust and red-whipped sand. “It’s a desert. Flat but peaks that jut out of the land like boils. Green shrubbery, snakes and kangaroos. Frequently subjected to bushfires, violently red as the earth it chars. ”
“A harsh landscape, wouldn’t you say?” She smiles. “Can you imagine? We’d melt in the heat.” She glanced down, humming a laugh. He could tell she still wanted to see it, a melted puddle or otherwise.
when you have a dope ass personality as well as visual design thats completely annihilated when your writers fall back on tired and inappropriate tropes for the sake of shock value and referencing/maintaining a stale formula from their own recent works
He hates air conditioning because that too-dry artificial air reminds him of hospitals.
Although his sister introduced him to anthropology via that book about how Princess Kaguya was a recurring character in the mythologies of the world, his obsession grew the sicker she became. When she was too tired for talking, he would tell her all the stories of the world. Places she’d never go to, people she’d never get to see, experiences she’d never have. Anywhere far away from that hospital bed.
This is a bit more of a loose headcanon, but I think his sister was dying of respiratory failure. Given we see that she has hair as long as his, I don’t feel like she was on chemo (barring wigs) - but moreover, I feel Korekiyo has a lot of choking themes associated with him. Ropes, stabbing people in the back of the neck, the fact that he couldn’t breathe when he had his near death experience. It just kinda works for me.
For as much as he seems to practically worship death, he also has an incredible deep love for life. If anything, his obsession with death is directly because he loves life. He just doesn’t want life to stop. It goes on and on and on forever after. It just really struck me when he took that cookie in his free time, as funny as that sounds. Like he was legitimately excited over a cookie and proceeded to describe it like it was manna. Can you imagine the guilt he must have had after his sister’s passing? I think that manifests in his attempts to appreciate every aspect of life, every story beat - no matter how ugly, in humanity. He’s constantly reminded of how finite life is and how precious it is that he can experience it when she can’t.
Which…. is obviously something he never got over. I think it’s incredibly obvious how desperately he wants to believe his sister’s soul is inside of him. So why would he think that he was sending friends to her in the afterlife if she was actually here, on earth, inside of him? If we ignore ‘bad writing’ as a response (as… tempting as that is), we expose just how… sad and desperate and in denial he really is. He fundamentally knows on some level that she’s a tulpa, a figment of his own making - but he holds onto that because for as much as he pretends to accept and look forwards to death, it terrifies him more than anything else.
It’s interesting that he rationalises that ‘luck’ isn’t really an external force that people can draw from, but it can be made real through psychological effects. It’s interesting that in every instance he seems perfectly logical, rational and thoughtful - relativistic and context sensitive…. and yet he can’t do the same when it comes to the soul/the afterlife. It’s obvious why, but again I just find that inconsistency born out of obvious desperation incredibly sad.
God, just imagine him having his near death experience and seeing her again. Just honestly imagine the emotion in that scene. All that guilt and angst and grief just washed away in the tide of a moment - all that suffering was forsomething, and they’ll meet again.
But… I’m sure he’s aware that this is something he wants more than is necessarily real, and I’m sure he’s experienced hallucinations that have felt real before. But then just, ugh, think about him researching near death experiences. All those thousands of accounts, across cultures, telling the same story over and over - a sense of euphoria, family members saying its not their time yet, a bright light. He can’t just take it as a subject of anthropological interest. He can’t separate himself from it. It has to be real.
It has to be.
And if her soul is touchable in a NDE, then why not in a seance.
He’s just… ugh,,,, I really wish he wasn’t a serial killer because he’s… so interesting and otherwise sympathetic. the serial killer thing just makes all of this so black and white and removes any gray mortality when you’re thinking about him, you know? even if he’d just seesawd 1 friend 4 sister because he was feeling lonely and isolated and fucked up by the game and it was a bit of participation observation mixed with suicide then…. i mean. I could take that. but… like…. 99 people? aghdhfhfh.
why wouldn’t he take the first blood perk ?? ? ? ?? ? if he was planning to kill when he got out again anyway … then …. ?? ? ? why ???
Confession:The fandom absolutely ruined Korekiyo and Peko, two otherwise stellar characters, for me. It’s a shame, really. Korekiyo and Peko are both interesting characters with an otherworldly aura, yet (some) of their fans made it impossible for me to enjoy them.
In Peko’s case, I was so tired of the writers putting her on a pedestal and having other characters praise every little thing she did, even if it was something like splitting a coconut. That made the writers’ feelings om her character wuite clear, and if that wasn’t enough, she was still labeled as “underrated.” In fact, simply proposing the idea that she wasn’t necessarily underrated resulted in serious backlash, which ended up being the final nail in the coffin for me.
In Korekiyo’s case, several people had a headcanon that his sister was abusive, and that the relationship expemplified Stockholm Syndrome on Korekiyo’s end. While this headcanon certainly holds water, a lot of the fandom treated this as if it was canon and weaponized it so that people who disliked that aspect of Kiyo’s character were labeled as “abuse apologists.”
anyways, since the games been out a while, i’d like to resuggest different wigs for the v3 cast! now that we’ve seen their designs in their entireties, i have some thoughts. let’s go through it!
kaede: it’s about shoulder length (let’s not fight about this) blonde hair, bangs pinned to the side, and a cute lil ahoge. i’d use a champagne buttercup or a fairy blonde eowyn if you’re going arda, but here are other places to consider. 1234
shuuichi: a short layered bob with an ahoge and long bangs. the five wits made us a saihara specific wig, actually! if you’re going arda, a blue grey caine, a midnight blue derek, or a dark blue blue steele would all be options! feel free to pick and choose from the colors and styles, because i think they carry some of those three colors in those three styles. 12
kirumi: a bob, but with long, long bangs, and a longer part of it that goes into a curl over her left eye. you can either cut the length of an aria blonde buttercup, or get the same color in a magnum and get wefts.123 (if you have wig experience, you could try taking the bun off of this wig and rewefting, straightening and recurling the wig to your liking.)
angie: a little bit longer than shoulder length, gently wavy, white blonde hair! its just the slightest hint of blonde. her bangs are feathered, but straight across. i’d say nina is the best style from arda, but you can choose just about any color from ash blonde, victory blonde, titanium blonde, or silver. amber is also a great choice in the aforementioned colors available. 123
tenko: tenko’s hair is…hard! it’s a dark green with brown undertones, but its held in two low “pigtails” that are kind of…helix? shaped…you can’t do this wig without foamcore or something, but you have options: either work with a super long wig, or…spare yourself and make it in pieces with a long-ish wig and wefts. from arda, i suggest anything from the colors cool dark brown,ivy, and mirkwood green. 12
korekiyo: just long dark hair with sideswept bangs. its worth questioning whether its a dark blue or green, but i guess that’s up to you? try a silky venus in seaweed. 123
miu: long, curly pinky-blonde hair with two ahoges and uneven bangs. the five wits made a miu specific wig! from arda, a nina in light strawberry blonde or pink pearl would be great– a luthien in pink pearl or a lightning pink amber are also good options. 1 2 3 4 5
gonta: long, wavy and wild brown-green hair with plenty ahoges. this one is…hard, because most of the wig places that have colors i like…Don’t have styles i like in those colors. a venusorluthien in hazel brown or ivy would work from arda, but be prepared for it to tangle. other options you may want to consider dyeing the wig. 123
kokichi: dark, spiky hair with purple highlights…the five wits made an ouma specific wig! from arda, i’d suggest a plum inigo– then you can dye in darker roots. you could also get the same wig in dark purple and weft in a lighter color like plum, or whatever your preference is. 12
kaito: plum-ish, reddish-purplish-pinkish hair that spikes from the top right hand side to the bottom left. unfortunately, kaito’s wig color is…really hard. the best options from arda are a jareth in plum or a jaguar in dark berry, but even then, they’re not perfect colors. 1
tsumugi: one of the easier wigs! middle parted dark blue hair, wavy. i’m a fan of a grace in indigo blue.1234
maki: SUPER SUPER long deep brown hair held in two low wavy pigtails, with straight bangs. a silky delilahorvenus in espresso or mocha works! 123
himiko: a blunt cut but asymmetrical red bob with her bangs pinned back over her right eye. i think an inigo in maroon, crimson or rust red would be great, but really any reds in that style work. 12
hey guys! just in time for halloween, there’s another v3 graffarts collaboration!
if you cosplay amami, saihara, akamatsu, gonta, ouma, kiibo, shinguuji, momota or harukawa, go hog wild!
i’ll break down their outfits under the cut, but feel free to embellish those outfits however you’d like!
amami: a standard looking vampire! a black cape lined with red, a white collared shirt, a blue vest with white vertical stripes, black pants and black shoes. its possible he has a tie (or a cravat, which works better for classic vampires i think).
saihara: a very generic detective costume. a deerstalker hat, a capelet, a vest, and pants, all with matching brown and checkered plaids. you can see the sleeves of his collared shirt underneath (so it’s a vest, not a jacket) and his shoes are dark brown or black? it’s probably likely he has a tie of some kind, and also he seems to be…armed with a huge magnifying glass.
akamatsu: this one is….hard. i guess she’s just…in a huge pumpkin? but she seems pumpkin themed. she has a black dress with thick straps that cross in the front, and a little pumpkin hat/pin in her hair. that i can imagine you can take whatever creative liberties you want, as long as there’s a pumpkin theme to it.
gonta: pretty simple! a white labcoat with either holes, black stains, or like…bats? butterflies? emblazened on it. it’s torn at the bottom edge. m-multicolored..? stained pants? similar shoes. a collared shirt? he also has his big net.
ouma: little jester…Tiny little jester boy. his outfit’s kind of complex, so i’m gonna doodle it out how i think its supposed to be:
kiibo: he’s supposed to be frankenstein’s monster! he has stitches drawn down from his eyes with screws in his head (and apparently, blue patches where the screws are on his head), a black coat with brown patchwork, black gloves, a green vest stitched up the front, a white collared shirt, an orange bowtie, green patchwork pants, and black patchwork shoes!
shinguuji: the grim reaper! he has his normal hat and mask, but a black, torn up hooded cloak, what appears to be black boots and black pants, and a huge, bloody scythe. we can assume he’s wearing gloves or something, but the rest is fair game.
momota: werewolf! fluffy ears, fluffy tail, and paws&claws! he’s got a black collared shirt that’s a bit unbuttoned under a mainly orange vest. there appears to be a splash of purple on the righthand side, though. he has a huge fluffy cape, which appears to have fur around the collar/shoulders and then is just fabric for the rest, and it’s lined with…a deep blue sky fabric? because that looks like a full moon on the underside.he has a belt across the bottom of his vest, black pants with red stripes up the left leg, and black shoes.
maki: a little devil! it’s hard to tell, but i think its a pink dress of some sort with a red collar that ties in the front. black wings and little horns, a black cape? and black gloves and boots. very….warm.
that’s basically it! if you notice something i didn’t, feel free to reblog or send an ask adding it– i may disagree and not reblog it back/add it into it, but i’d still appreciate people’s attempts at it because i can’t see everything very well.
