![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waterscrollI was chatting with scytale the other day about headcanons...I'm still thinking about Sanan and Sanan-route Chizuru a little too much and I have lots to say about them, so I figured I'd post here.
1. Backstory
Sanan spent his early years on the street and never knew his parents. He was taken in by some monks when he was about ten. By that point he was already extremely good at fighting, because he needed to in order to survive. The monks were very kind to him and educated him and he became a devout Buddhist. He lived as a monk into his twenties but he always knew he had a talent for combat and kept getting into fights and hating himself for it. It was a tough decision but eventually he left and joined Kondo's dojo.
Sanan-route Chizuru was the oldest of the Chizuru's, about twenty-six by the time we meet her. (I imagine the different Chizurus as having different ages and backstories.) It was well past time for her to get married but she wasn't very interested. She was working with her father in his lab and was good at research science and enjoyed it. She knew that something she was working on with her father was a secret weapon for the Shogunate, she didn't fully know what it was but she knew something was up. When she went to find him she thought she would need to help him or stop him and wasn't sure which.
2. During canon
Unlike some of the other routes, this Chizuru always saw blood drinking as sexual. She hadn't been very interested in sex before, so it surprised her how much she wanted this. Although they don't kiss until later in the route, when she thinks back to when her sexual relationship with Sanan began she always thinks of it as starting from the first time he drank her blood, which she enjoyed just as much as he did.
Because blood drinking is so sexual for her, I have an easy time imagining them having sex much earlier in the relationship than canon shows.
Sanan never bothers to formalize the relationship with her earlier in canon only because he doesn't think he's going to live very long. He expects that he will die shortly and that she will get together with Heisuke, because Sanan can tell that they like each other. He thinks he's a kind of training relationship for her, for her to work out her issues and have her adventures before she settles down with the guy who is actually good for her. It takes a while for him to get over his surprise that this isn't how things end up going.
We're not shown her working as his lab assistant but it absolutely happened. In a DLC scene we see her offering to translate from Dutch so I imagine she helped him a lot with translation. Once they get to Europe her ability with languages becomes very important. She's a very different kind of scientist than he is, she always likes to collaborate and work with others.
We're also not shown all the times she follows him at night. If she wants to know what's going on and he doesn't tell her, she's going to try everything she can to find out.
3. Post-canon
Almost all the Shinsengumi furies, along with Heisuke, survive the war and settle on the Yukimura lands. They end up taking her clan name and become the new Yukimura clan. Many of them marry, and in particular many marry war widows. Their children are also furies and also struggle with bloodlust even as babies.
Sanan and Chizuru work together with French vampires and manage to develop an improved medicine that helps furies endure the bloodlust. It doesn't completely undo the effects, though. The Yukimura furies eventually figure out a way to live that works for them, with a combination of medicines and strict vegetarianism and pacifism. They do mostly ok, although once or twice things get a little out of hand and Chizuru has to give blood to all of them. This is awkward and uncomfortably sexual but Sanan and Heisuke help her through it.
Descendants of the Yukimura furies are still around. After all these generations some of them can even live in cities as long as they go back to drink the magic water every few months and take their medicines and stay strictly vegetarian and pacifist. They know who they are and still have a strong clan identity.
In World War 2 some of them thought that they could handle going to war, it didn't go well and none of them survived.
Sanan survived for fifteen years post-canon, which was longer than they expected but much less than they hoped. Sanan and Chizuru had one daughter who was born in France and eventually ended up going back there, where she became a famous intellectual.
After Sanan died things were pretty awkward between Chizuru and Heisuke for a bit. He'd married a human woman but still loved Chizuru. Eventually they talked about it and Heisuke realized that he loved his wife and wanted to stay with her. He and Chizuru stayed friends and eventually it was fine. Chizuru met and married a human man, they never had any children but were happily married for fourty-five years until he died of old age.
Chizuru is now working in medical research. She has to switch labs (and identities) every once in a while so that people won't notice that she doesn't age, but she's well respected in her field and finds ways to make it work. It means a lot to her that she can keep saving lives.
Chizuru was never religious herself but she knew how much Buddhism meant to Sanan. She thinks if reincarnation is possible for anyone it should be for him. She still hopes one day she'll see him again.
ETA: A few more from Sanan's perspective...
If you ask Sanan what he thinks about how things turned out, he's pretty happy with it. His years with Chizuru were the happiest of his life and brought him more happiness than he had ever imagined possible for him. It was the only time he felt truly loved and accepted for all the different things he is.
But almost more important to him is that his people survived. That was really all he wanted. And they survived not only as individuals but as a clan with a sense of identity, and they still think of him as a father. It's important to Sanan that we know that the Yukimura fury descendants still have some unusual abilities, they tend to be unusually strong, fast, and precise, and they work well at night. The natural application of these skills might be warfare but since they can't fight they've found other ways to use them. Some are artists, or work in construction, and those who stayed on the Yukimura lands built an extremely successful farm. They know they're different but they have good lives.
Also Sanan is insistent that since he took the Bodhisattava vow a long time ago of course he's going to reincarnate, he's committed to staying in this world until all living creatures reach enlightenment, and the fact that he was an utter failure as a Buddhist for much of his life doesn't change that. So he'll be back, and Chizuru can expect a SLBP-style reincarnation reunion at some point.
scytale the other day about headcanons...I'm still thinking about Sanan and Sanan-route Chizuru a little too much and I have lots to say about them, so I figured I'd post here.1. Backstory
Sanan spent his early years on the street and never knew his parents. He was taken in by some monks when he was about ten. By that point he was already extremely good at fighting, because he needed to in order to survive. The monks were very kind to him and educated him and he became a devout Buddhist. He lived as a monk into his twenties but he always knew he had a talent for combat and kept getting into fights and hating himself for it. It was a tough decision but eventually he left and joined Kondo's dojo.
Sanan-route Chizuru was the oldest of the Chizuru's, about twenty-six by the time we meet her. (I imagine the different Chizurus as having different ages and backstories.) It was well past time for her to get married but she wasn't very interested. She was working with her father in his lab and was good at research science and enjoyed it. She knew that something she was working on with her father was a secret weapon for the Shogunate, she didn't fully know what it was but she knew something was up. When she went to find him she thought she would need to help him or stop him and wasn't sure which.
2. During canon
Unlike some of the other routes, this Chizuru always saw blood drinking as sexual. She hadn't been very interested in sex before, so it surprised her how much she wanted this. Although they don't kiss until later in the route, when she thinks back to when her sexual relationship with Sanan began she always thinks of it as starting from the first time he drank her blood, which she enjoyed just as much as he did.
Because blood drinking is so sexual for her, I have an easy time imagining them having sex much earlier in the relationship than canon shows.
Sanan never bothers to formalize the relationship with her earlier in canon only because he doesn't think he's going to live very long. He expects that he will die shortly and that she will get together with Heisuke, because Sanan can tell that they like each other. He thinks he's a kind of training relationship for her, for her to work out her issues and have her adventures before she settles down with the guy who is actually good for her. It takes a while for him to get over his surprise that this isn't how things end up going.
We're not shown her working as his lab assistant but it absolutely happened. In a DLC scene we see her offering to translate from Dutch so I imagine she helped him a lot with translation. Once they get to Europe her ability with languages becomes very important. She's a very different kind of scientist than he is, she always likes to collaborate and work with others.
We're also not shown all the times she follows him at night. If she wants to know what's going on and he doesn't tell her, she's going to try everything she can to find out.
3. Post-canon
Almost all the Shinsengumi furies, along with Heisuke, survive the war and settle on the Yukimura lands. They end up taking her clan name and become the new Yukimura clan. Many of them marry, and in particular many marry war widows. Their children are also furies and also struggle with bloodlust even as babies.
Sanan and Chizuru work together with French vampires and manage to develop an improved medicine that helps furies endure the bloodlust. It doesn't completely undo the effects, though. The Yukimura furies eventually figure out a way to live that works for them, with a combination of medicines and strict vegetarianism and pacifism. They do mostly ok, although once or twice things get a little out of hand and Chizuru has to give blood to all of them. This is awkward and uncomfortably sexual but Sanan and Heisuke help her through it.
Descendants of the Yukimura furies are still around. After all these generations some of them can even live in cities as long as they go back to drink the magic water every few months and take their medicines and stay strictly vegetarian and pacifist. They know who they are and still have a strong clan identity.
In World War 2 some of them thought that they could handle going to war, it didn't go well and none of them survived.
Sanan survived for fifteen years post-canon, which was longer than they expected but much less than they hoped. Sanan and Chizuru had one daughter who was born in France and eventually ended up going back there, where she became a famous intellectual.
After Sanan died things were pretty awkward between Chizuru and Heisuke for a bit. He'd married a human woman but still loved Chizuru. Eventually they talked about it and Heisuke realized that he loved his wife and wanted to stay with her. He and Chizuru stayed friends and eventually it was fine. Chizuru met and married a human man, they never had any children but were happily married for fourty-five years until he died of old age.
Chizuru is now working in medical research. She has to switch labs (and identities) every once in a while so that people won't notice that she doesn't age, but she's well respected in her field and finds ways to make it work. It means a lot to her that she can keep saving lives.
Chizuru was never religious herself but she knew how much Buddhism meant to Sanan. She thinks if reincarnation is possible for anyone it should be for him. She still hopes one day she'll see him again.
ETA: A few more from Sanan's perspective...
If you ask Sanan what he thinks about how things turned out, he's pretty happy with it. His years with Chizuru were the happiest of his life and brought him more happiness than he had ever imagined possible for him. It was the only time he felt truly loved and accepted for all the different things he is.
But almost more important to him is that his people survived. That was really all he wanted. And they survived not only as individuals but as a clan with a sense of identity, and they still think of him as a father. It's important to Sanan that we know that the Yukimura fury descendants still have some unusual abilities, they tend to be unusually strong, fast, and precise, and they work well at night. The natural application of these skills might be warfare but since they can't fight they've found other ways to use them. Some are artists, or work in construction, and those who stayed on the Yukimura lands built an extremely successful farm. They know they're different but they have good lives.
Also Sanan is insistent that since he took the Bodhisattava vow a long time ago of course he's going to reincarnate, he's committed to staying in this world until all living creatures reach enlightenment, and the fact that he was an utter failure as a Buddhist for much of his life doesn't change that. So he'll be back, and Chizuru can expect a SLBP-style reincarnation reunion at some point.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-20 03:31 pm (UTC)It's a very good route.