shiragiku dev
shiragiku's enemy is idleness
after suzu is gone and she has no one to play with she Despairs and the only way out of it is to thrill-seek
raising xianming to be her companion (she is 22 and he is 12; suzu was like an eternal 29 and she was 12 when she knew him. she is 20-21 when he dies at the age of 37-38) takes time and requires throwing him (xm) into the ocean waiting for him to sink or swim
while she is waiting she begins to gamble
she is great at gambling and games bc she doesn't care about stakes and is a natural tactician
she is fearless but also apathetic
she loves xianming like she loved suzu, like a kind of cousin
they are her only companions and playmates
the whole starting a fairy war on a whim comes from her learning stories about suzu's heyday
she does it bc she needs to wage / stake the souls of the court that is dependent on her but that cannot entertain her any longer
and xianming at this point is independent and grown and able to play against her, a worthy opponent
shiragiku is very lonely and unlike suzu and xianming not at all prone to romantic obsessions, she is obsessed with Games
and she wants someone to play with her... but has no match among ordinary people
bc she is a genius
she doesn't need A Lot of attention and dislikes constant pestering and is used to long bouts of playing by herself and likes to be in her own little world
but she Does get lonely sometimes
she misses suzu very much and that's why she basically replicated suzu's relationship with her onto xianming
it wasn't like an intergenerational kindness
it was more like suzu was her only role model
and she doesn't know what else to do
she doesn't raise xianming like a parent... more like a little cousin she looks after for a little while and plays with on easy mode until he grows up
and then can meet her evenly
suzu and xm both have their One person they stake everything on but shiragiku doesn't have that so she just uses random ppl
as poker chips
june: the using random people sounds like suzu would do before meeting haruie (and the breaking good men thing)
Yeah. yeah.
xm treats her like an annoying older sister/cousin and has a very warm familial relationship with her and even when they're both waging war with each other they are very playful and sweet to each other bc to them war really is just a kind of game
and it's this kind of attitude that zhouyu Really can't get behind
but xm doesn't like. understand any other way to be bc shiragiku was His role model
at the end of undynasty I think it's just like this scene of xianming holding bibi (his daughter's) hand but instead of the line of suzu/shiragiku and how they interacted, xianming tries to raise bibi like his and zhouyu's daughter
and tries to imagine how zhouyu would have loved and been responsible for her
and it's like, the end(?) of the cycle, bc xm doesn't deny bibi an ordinary life and raises her with the intention of assimilating into ordinary people
after two generations of. bad endings the third is also bad but maybe the fourth won't be
june: it's a lot! (and like, given what "ordinary" people do, the "assimilating into ordinary people" feels complicated. like, glad she's gonna live an easier life! and also :anguish:)
me: YEAH GOING BACK TO LIKE, HARUIE and Zhouyus unique brand of cruelty
also that requires xianming pretending not to be a genius
and basically lying about everything about himself to bibi
in order for her to see him as a parent figure and not the way he saw shiragiku
like xianming all this time was an unparalleled and exquisite genius and legendary cruel and capricious beauty
never was he plain and ordinary
but for bibi to live a normal life, he has to be a normal woman
xianming thinks a lot about shiragiku and himself... and the only thing he wishes for bibi is for her not to be alone
the very very last scene in the epilogue is xm and zy holding hands as modern day teenagers
after reincarnating together under suzu's blessing/curse
the epilogue is bibi (who is a trans girl) marries a Normal Guy who xianming dislikes but treats bibi well. that is to say incomprehensibly in every way but it's what bibi wants.
suzu and haruie also make a cameo at the end
and shiragiku as well I think... destroying ppl in mahjong