#broke: kristoph physically abused klavier when he was a kid

[ronsenburg]

i saw this post and IMMEDIATELY started writing an essay, so I moved it here so as not to clutter up someone else’s post...........

it absolutely blows my mind that, today in 2021, i honestly can’t remember what’s canon from the turnabout serenade case, what i read in a fanficition, and what is my own personal HC. like, it’s been more than a decade since i played the case for the first time and it’s probably been 5ish years since the last time i played AJ (definitely forgot to play it again before writing youngblood which is.... contributing to this) so i really don’t know if what goes on in my head is accurate, but, over the years, i’ve come up with a Lot of Thoughts, which i’ll discuss below. 

tldr; it’s all about power (the desire for, the subversion of, the need to maintain), but if you’d like the specifics, here you go:

daryan: i think the explanation that he did it for “the money” is a line. please don’t mistake me, daryan is an asshole and a murderer, im not discounting that, but in court ive always thought that he was playing the part that everyone- especially klavier- is expecting of him. he’s the bad guy. might as well make it a finale for the books.

i’ve always seen daryan and klavier as opposite sides of the same coin when it comes to family and career aspirations. where i imagine klavier came from a well off and well loved family before his parents died, i see daryan from a working class, difficult upbringing. i read a few papers on the psychology of children/parenting style of police officers and decided early on that daryan’s dad was also a cop. his mother is either dead or (more likely) left them early on. dad coped by working a little too hard, gambling/drinking a little too much, and was overall not around a lot and kind of an authoritarian/controller when he was. it left daryan with a lot of anger he had to cope with, about what it means to be a cop, the idea of a “just cause” and the ends justifying the means, and an issue with authority (which is laughable, considering what a bully he turned out to be. sometimes we emulate our parents unintentionally; it’s the only thing we have to model our behavior on). so daryan started off at a disadvantage. klavier started off loved and supported and surrounded by expensive belongings, but the death of his parents and the subsequent emotional and financial abuse by his newly appointed guardian/brother left him in a similar place by the time he and daryan met. i think it was probably the foundation for their bond, and i think it’s why klavier decided to become a prosecutor instead of following in his brother’s footsteps and why daryan ultimately decided to enter law enforcement as well. i think they had a lot of optimistic, idealistic thoughts on being better than the people that hurt them, on utilizing the law to make the world a better place. i don’t think klavier ever conceived that kristoph could have wanted him in the prosecutors office as another pawn to play, and i don’t think he realized how fluid daryan’s morality could be.

shipping alert—you guys know me, im crazy for the idea of a “best friends to on again off again lovers to tenuous coworkers to bitterly disappointed in but still harboring feelings for the other person despite being on opposite sides” dynamic between daryan and klavier. i honestly can’t separate the ship from the case and im sorry about it. if you read youngblood you know that i think daryan started to resent klavier pretty early on, when they were still together, when the band was still successful, because klavier was able to move forward and work through the issues of his past while daryan was seemingly stuck. yes, daryan had made detective and the gavinners were a hit, he’d risen above his initial social standing and thrown off the control his father, he had money and fame and a future. but everything he had was because of klavier. daryan needed klavier, emotionally, morally, financially. but even when klavier was professing his love for daryan, both privately and in the form of chart topping songs, he didn’t need daryan. it was obvious (and of course, healthy, but how do children of abuse learn what a healthy relationship looks like without help? especially when the only relationships you’ve ever had are codependent and, in some ways, just as toxic?) and so things spiraled. daryan got possessive and angry again and klavier got distant and they broke up and got back together and broke up and didn’t get back together but kept ending up back in each other’s arms for comfort and for support and because how the hell do you move on when the person you’ve been in love with since you were 15 is sitting next to you on a tour bus and is also your partner in a homicide case and singing songs he wrote about you on stage in front of thousands of screaming fans?

okay, shipping glasses off, sorry. but no matter how you look at their relationship, daryan’s promotion out of homicide was probably the most distance they’d had from each other in years, as it removed a large chunk of the daily “working relationship” aspect. and without klavier there to act as a moral compass, it was likely easier to slip back into his earlier thoughts about what constitutes justice and his intense hatred of being pushed around by someone who has more power than you. so enter the chief justice with a son who is sick, dying even, but can’t get the medicine he needs because there’s a government out there telling them no. The reasons are arbitrary: the medicine could be used as a poison and can’t be found anywhere else so it might come back to bite the country in the ass if it’s misused by criminals. newsflash: pretty much all medicine is poisonous if it isn’t used correctly, should we stop using penicillin entirely because some people might be allergic to it? they’ve essentially condemned a whole bunch of people to death because they’re worried about their reputation. and that doesn’t sit well with daryan, who is caught up remembering the bullshit justifications his dad would spout when he knocked him around, that kristoph would give when withholding every single penny of money klavier was entitled to until he agreed to do what kristoph wanted. it isn’t right, it isn’t fair and unfair laws shouldn’t have to be upheld, especially when they’re the unfair laws of a country you most definitely did not swear to uphold and protect. it was never about money, though daryan agrees to take it when the chief offers it to him, more for his comfort level than for daryan’s need or desire. it’s about justice and putting a bully in it’s place with a (seemingly) victimless crime that should be so easy given his role in the international division of criminal affairs and klavier’s sudden hard on for the country of borginia. seriously, how could this have been any more straightforward? daryan is capable of murder, though. all cops are. and if it came down to a “them or me” shootout, of course he’d pull the trigger. 

machi: when you come from nothing, the desire to have something of your own is overwhelming. the idea that machi is famous and financially set is disingenuous; he is not individually famous, he is Lamiroir’s “blind” pianist. yes, she views him as a son and seems to care deeply for him, but his main purpose in her life is to perpetuate a lie. machi has been abandoned before; what will happen to him if lamiroir suddenly remembers who she was in the past? what if she has a family and a true son of her own and has no use for him? what if their secret is found out and the public rejects him for his role in it? he is 14. what does he know about being provided for? about contracts and trust funds and royalties? he ended up in an orphanage originally because he was unwanted, and that led to a life of poverty and hardship. abandonment issues are rooted in fear and are rarely logical. i find it far easier to believe that machi did it for the money, but more for the power money might have given him towards independence in an unfeeling and capitalist world.

kristoph: i won’t get into this, because this is supposed to be about daryan and machi and the guitar’s serenade, and kristoph is not really involved in that at all. but i think everything that kristoph has ever done in the game, good or bad, is rooted in a pathological need to constantly be in control. i think that kristoph and klavier both have very intense personalities that they have sought to control over the course of their lives for the sake of their careers. kristoph believes that to be a good lawyer, you need to play your cards close to your chest, that to show your hand is to expose a weakness that the enemy can exploit, that to show no weaknesses at all places you in a position of power. klavier believes that to show his true self, to display his weaknesses and fears to the public, would result only in their rejection. as such, they both wear masks of their own creation even under the most intense of pressures: kristoph as pleasant and calm, klavier as magnetic and dynamic. note the primary difference in their rational? klavier wants to be wanted, while kristoph wants power. and power corrupts, after all. once you have it, what could be more overwhelming than the idea that you might lose it all? it can drive even the most rational people to commit acts of passionate irrationality in the name of holding on to that power. and kristoph has so many pieces involved in his strategy to maintain.  

#i love daryan crescend i'm so sorry #i cut this to spare you all the pain of my rambling and also my inability to use caps and proper punctuation #gonna tag this as klavdar so you can avoid it just in case it bothers you #i think it's hilarious that this is JUST AS MUCH ABOUT KLAVIER as it is about any of these other people #shut up krissy #i have a lot of feelings about this case okay #man i'm still obsessed with lamiroir and machi's portrayal in 'dirty sympathy' #excellent stuff i'm going to go read that again #klavdar #i don't think i ever managed to squeeze in my hc about the specifics of kristophs abuse towards klavier into any fics #specifically the financial aspects of it #but its absolutely an effective weapon #klavier's money from his parents would absolutely be in a trust and controlled by kristoph until he was legally able to access it #he would have to ask kristoph for EVERYTHING #can you imagine how easy that would be for kristoph to turn against him? as a means of control? i just...... #broke: kristoph physically abused klavier when he was a kid #woke: kristoph didn't have to abuse klavier when he could manipulate him so completely with money and mind games #all the while making klavier believe that he was truly looking out for him and any hurt klavier experienced was selfish and misguided #and klavier's fault #:|

[benjaminhunter]

T, U, V

under the cut for length!! ty for asking !!!

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

fast and hard headcanons, huh.. you’ll notice how my vocaloid hcs are short because i have so much of them but i don’t want to list them all.

(voca) 

all vocaloids know sign language

rin & len kagamine are both genderfluid and most vocaloids/utaus are pan, no one is straight (god forbid);

lui hibiki has aphonia and ring suzune is Deaf

v flower is agender and refers to themself with they pronouns and gendered terms like “Im fuckboy??” or “im just some country girl”

v3 & v4 flower are selective mute

fukase has a skin picking disorder

miku append solid has an eating disorder  (just a heads up i don’t want to treat this as a cute headcanon like an accessory or a fashion statement, its literally headcanons because i project myself on characters i love the most ! ok !)

miki is an alien, can float, makes funny beeping noises when excited

ia is an alien, can float

piko has prosthetic legs

gakupo is a gay trans man

sachiko is a trans woman

all len units are big narcissists and want to date each other somehow

yuzuki yukari is a lesbian

yuzukari on is good at video games, yuzukari lin is not

anon and kanon both are flirty jerks and woo all the girls (especially rana)

OTOMACHI UNA LOVES DRAGONS

cocorobo eats dirt. she straight up sucks dirt

(dr) 

komaru wears socks in bed (and during sex hfsdhskdfjsds); 

touko smacked mitarai in the face once; 

shsl impostor is nonbinary; AI nanami isn’t a different person from dr3 nanami but in fact nanami reincarnated;

when tenko held hands with a girl for the first time she had to lie down for twenty minutes and broke down crying in Gay Joy 

(lok) 

kuvira has a swarm of beauty spots on her stomach and hearing the name beifong associated with her makes her skin crawl; 

kuvira fell in unrequited love with korra and probably will always be in love with her, always there for her if she needs a hand, mako-style

lin was married to another woman and is a widow now

bolin and opal’s kid is an airbender

when katara dies, bumi didn’t make it in time to see her one last time and he has to live with that guilt for a while and disappears in the spirit world for like. two years; and then asami and korra go look for him because Bumi Is Their Friend? and a sweetheart

rohan is gay

(aa)

phoenix is bi, maya is bi, edgeworth is gay, mia is bi, athena is pan, apollo is bi, trucy is gay, klavier is pan, ema doesn’t care, rayfa is Fucking Gay My Dudes, nahyuta transcends gender and is bi, simon is gay

kristoph isn’t all black. he’s terrible and murdered people but my hc is he didn’t physically / mentally abuse his brother like so many think he did

hc that manfred von karma is mentally ill (ocd ?) and while that doesnt excuse his actions, its one of the reasons he put his children through so much abuse

i ship cy/ke/squill in a weird way, in the way that they adore each other, they require physical touch (like athena needs to rub her head against simon’s shoulder) and could sometimes kiss yeah,and they sometimes speak in unison and if asked, they’d probably marry each other, but they aren’t in love?.. they don’t.. have romantic love? platonic love only. if that makes sense

rayfa is smitten with trucy and maya.

wow lana and angel are still dating after all these years

lana and simon are buddies. aura and lana… hooked up also

(plvsaa) 

layton and phoenix flirted. it’s canon. it happened

darklaw’s scar on her right hand comes from when she dragged espella away from the belltower the night of the Great Fire; 

rouge & foxy are dating, rouge & barnham are cousins, darklaw is related to aura & simon blackquill,

espella and maya dated in the past, 

espella is a lesbian, rouge is bi, barnham is bi, eve is bi (leaning more towards girls)

darklaw has avpd and is psychotic

espella is Not Neurotypical (ptsd / psychotic) + suicidal (!she has all my Mental Illnesses because i said so) and this one headcanon i’ll fight for it in your local supermarket parking lot

(zero escape)

diana, phi and sigma all live in a big apartment after ztd; its strange because they’re technically all related to each other but they’re all the same age so sometimes they get really drunk and then diana is like “fuck im supposed to be the mom” and then passes out

diana and sigma don’t get together asap because theres a lot of dancing around and phi watches them with a quirked eyebrow over the breakfast table because they both are So Straight it’s annoying

eventually sigma builds Luna and the four of them live together and it’s actually a Lot Easier to live with such a positive presence who’s here to comfort them

SIGMA PINCHES DIANA’S CHEEKS EVERYDAY AND HE SQUISHES PHI’S CHEEKS WHEN SHE LOSES AT MARIO KART, DIANA PINCHES PHI’S CHEEKS AND LUNA WILL PINCH SIGMA’S CHEEKS. THERES A LOT OF CHEEK PINCHING

phi drags luna to a bar once and tries to get her drunk or just see if a GOLEM can dysfunction with alcohol but mostly its just phi downing shots of vodka while boys and girls come to flirt with luna

carlos explains to akane he’s dating someone, akane is overjoyed and want to meet them, and almost drops to the floor when she sees carlos is dating her brother aoi   (junpei laughing in the distance)

sean jOINS A CIRCUS

mira actually kills eric. sorry eric. She then goes to follow sean around while he’s following the circus. they adopt gab

eric isn’t actually dead but he’s away from mira because them being married is an horrible idea. What The Fuck Was Kotaro Uchikoshi Thinking

tenmyouji is Cool Grandpa and quark is good at soccer (???)

alice and clover are dating

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

lin beifong, because she’s lin beifong, thats why. touko fukawa because shes so strong, you know. v flower because… i really love flower’s voice and design and to this day they help me figure my gender out

V - Which character do you relate to most?

kuvira. has ambition but crippled with visions of grandeur and recklessness, full of regrets and bitterness and knowing she betrayed someone, all the while burying deep abandonment issues inside of her. damn.

#shut up paru #Anonymous