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wait I replied to that last ask about the Chui+Mitsuki CG and I totally forgot that my partner had already drawn this please enjoy this chuimitsu content inspired by that CG XD

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How did you feel about that one cg/scene of Chui and Mitsuki?

I love that CG!! It’s maybe my favorite of Chui’s more ‘normal’ CGs. (Not including the bad end CG, which is obviously gorgeous)

I’m going to be referencing the poses in the CG a lot for this reply, so I’ll put the actual CG under the cut. To anyone reading this who hasn’t played Mitsuki’s route and seen the CG, please be warned of this if you��re trying to avoid spoilers!

As always, Chui has his signature melancholy expression, and it looks especially pretty in this CG. Also his hand is beautiful, even if he forgot to put on his nail polish today. (His hair thwippy thing is missing, but we can forgive it I guess)

But the thing I like most about the CG is the body language. (Body language is really interesting to me and it’s something I point out not infrequently when talking abut CGs… And real life interactions tbh…)

Mitsuki is standing as straight as he can, shoulders rigid, chin lifted, getting up in Chui’s face as much as he can. It’s a confrontational pose, like a puffed-up angry cat. He’s basically challenging Chui to a fight.

On the other hand, Chui’s shoulders are relaxed and his arms are folded behind his back. He hasn’t backed away from Mitsuki getting in his space, in fact he’s meeting his gaze very directly, signaling that he’s not intimidated by Mitsuki’s confrontation. And yet, the exposure of his midline is taking that a step further.

Think about what it means when someone crosses their arms in front of their torso subconsciously (as opposed to intentionally to signal annoyance haha). It’s a defensive, self-protective pose. It’s a motion we do subconsciously to protect our vital organs when we feel unsafe (even if the threat isn’t physical) and the self-hugging pose offers us emotional comfort and reassurance. (which makes it interesting also that Chui’s sprite is halfway to this self-comforting, self-protective pose at all times…!)

But here, Chui is doing the opposite. He’s exposing his vital regions to his aggressor and folding his arms behind his back where they won’t be seen as threatening. This is a pose that says, ‘You are not a threat to me’ but more importantly it says, ‘I am not a threat to you’. He’s signaling very clearly that he won’t back down to Mitsuki, but he’s also not here to start a fight or hurt anyone. It's the body language equivalent of throwing down your weapons to end a duel.

This was something I noticed immediately when I first saw this CG and I think it’s fascinating because the body language in this CG kind of sums up Chui’s entire vibe. You can see him as a threat and treat him as a threat, but he’s not actually a threat. He just also won’t back down (at least until he has Kisa’s answer, in one form or another).

(Also Chui compares Mitsuki to a bird in this scene, because he compares everyone to birds. This may be because of his penchant for poetic metaphors, but regardless of that everyone is birds to Chui and it's really funny to me.)

Anyway! All that aside, there’s a lot of tension in this CG between the two of them and I don’t know why it hasn’t triggered more Chui/Mitsu fan content to come into being. XD They look a little like they might kiss (angrily).

(I do know a couple chuimitsu shippers, and I have some content I wrote for this ship for them, but I never finished or posted any of it publicly… and I don’t actually know if anybody else would be interested in reading it XD)

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Tanakamigi's Stupid Pretentious Revenge Fantasy Play, Again | Life Cycle : Love Story, Ch. 30

Mobu-kun scoffed. “Kamio. Let's be honest with ourselves. He hasn't led Amber to win the gold class award since his first year.” Kamio paused to consider that. Mobu-kun continued. “Amber spent all of last year crowing about how Tanakamigi would have defeated the great Tachibana-senpai if only they'd been contemporaries. But he can't even defeat that shrimpy inferior Tachibana, let alone the legendary one. It's honestly embarrassing.” “…He hasn’t shown his full power yet. You know that.” “Is he ever going to? He’s class leader, Kamio. He’s supposed to be more than just his own talent. If he leads us to failure, that’s still his failure. Forget the winter performance debacle. Think about the fall performance—what does it say about how the class is doing if we can’t get gold even when he’s in a supporting role? What would it have said about Quartz if Tachibana Tsuki brought them a streak of silvers as class leader? Factor in that Quartz is otherwise a garbage no-talent class and Amber is the class of elites and the humiliation is at least doubled.” “What are you complaining about?” Kamio’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “You don’t even like it when he wins.” “When he wins! He’s still winning, when he bothers to fucking participate! The only time he doesn’t get gold is when he’s literally not on the stage! Meanwhile, the class is drowning in silver and all he does is talk a lot of lofty artsy bullshit about how ‘awards don’t matter.’ Yeah, easy to say when you could play a trash can on stage and they’d still throw gold at you.” Mobu-kun shook his head as he pulled out his phone. “There’s no Tachibana Tsuki here anymore. There’s no goddamn reason Amber should get silver in every performance for an entire year.” “Well, the year isn’t over yet,” Kamio pointed out cheerily. Mobu-kun didn’t snipe back, which was odd for him. And then, just as Kamio looked up to see what had caused the silence, Mobu-kun swore under his breath, glaring at his phone. “What the fuck.” “Dare I ask what infuriating email Tagane-sensei has sent us this time?” “Not Tagane-sensei. And not to us. At least, not specifically.” Mobu-kun turned his phone to show Kamio. “Special edition of the Univeil newsletter.” “They send that out even during winter break?” Kamio took the phone curiously. A little furrow of confusion formed between his brows as he read the article. “…We’re doing ‘I am Death’ again?”

continue reading on ao3

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I ADORE THIS AND ALSO WANT EVERYONE TO LOOK AT IT!!!

Kisa, my beloved ♥

Rolling girl

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Wow, I'm so glad!! I always hope I can write thoughts that people find interesting and worth thinking about, whether or not they agree with them. (I just hope that it's fascinating in a neutral-to-positive way and not a 'wow this person is a paranoid weirdo who overthinks the actions of fictional characters' way XD I am a paranoid weirdo ofc and I have a strong aversion to liars and lying. I'm sorry, Neji, we were doomed from the start. v.v)

It's interesting to me also, because while I agree Neji can have Machiavellian tendencies, that's actually something about him that doesn't bother me at all! Frankly, ruthless pragmatism in fiction can be kinda hot. (Hi there, Chui fan here XD) I've been told that some people find that off-putting about Neji, such as that they think he's mean to the class during the winter arc by making them all do such challenging roles. I don't see that as mean at all--this is an acting school, they're here to learn. Playing it safe might win them class awards but does that matter if they're unprepared for the real world of acting? I don't know if Neji's thinking of it in quite as big picture terms as that, but it doesn't matter really. In the end, he is doing it to make them better actors, and that's his job as class leader. So I'm in full support of that. (There are other things he does in the winter arc that I'm less supportive of, but the tough casting is fine with me)

Basically, I'm fine with the ends justifying the means here, so long as the ends themselves seem justifiable to me. It's when I suspect they aren't that I start side-eyeing the guy XD

I actually started seeing NejiKisa more through the lenses of toxicity with your fics and writing. I think I felt it in the back of my mind but I’m used to seeing things very 1 dimensional. So ty, I am happy with the new perspective. I’m also protective of Kisa, overall, I want her to be happy. I’d dunk over Neji if it meant making Kisa’s dreams come true. KISA MY BELOVED!!! CHEERS TO THAT!!! How do none of the other students want to try to be her partner as a lead?! SHE’S SO DANG GREAT

Though I don’t think I have the capabilities to stand next to her if I were in the JJ universe

*insert spongebob dunking meme*

Still working through these asks! (not necessarily in order lmao) Sorry, the thoughts are kinda disjointed, I’m actually kind of bad at translating my thoughts into words.

Long post again, putting it under a cut lmao

Actually this is one of the things I think is really great about Neji as a character—Kisa can’t identify his flaws, which makes it very difficult for the player to see them clearly either. Kisa is an unreliable narrator for Neji, and Neji is an unreliable narrator for himself. Being able to balance the interior, exterior, and perceived goals of multiple characters while keeping them consistent without revealing them outright is a technique that requires a skilled writer. Kisa isn’t supposed to KNOW about Neji’s toxicity, so the writer can’t tell the audience outright either. You just have to pay attention to Neji’s actions more than his words, because he is alllllll about distraction and deflection.

Kisa seems to have a hard time identifying people’s flaws in general. She’s very good at identifying people’s inner strengths and limitations, this is a core part of her character (and basically what makes her a ‘transparent vessel’), but limitations aren’t necessarily the same thing as flaws. She seems to only be able to identify the most superficial flaws—they have to be pretty glaringly obvious for her to catch them. She doesn’t tend to think about what someone’s motivations are, she just sees their limitation and tries to figure out how to break it (though she doesn’t necessarily think about this consciously).

This works really well in most cases because it lets her dodge the entanglement of emotions that people’s motivations are generally wrapped up in, so she can just act on her decisions rather than get mentally paralyzed. (And she definitely has a tendency to get mentally paralyzed, so this is probably critical to her success, possibly her survival.)

Unfortunately, if you can’t identify people’s flaws OR their motivations, and if you’re not a toxic/manipulative person yourself, you can’t identify when someone else is. This makes it impossible for her to identify it most of the time someone does something awful that isn’t completely blatant. She doesn’t assume ill intent, she’s just as likely to blame herself or come up with a sympathetic justification. And because she is the perspective character, this skews the lens for the player as well.

I confess, I’ve only read the first five volumes of Tokyo Ghoul. Mostly this was because a friend of mine told me that if I read it, I would see that Neji ‘definitely isn’t a Sui Ishida villain’, but honestly it just made me more convinced that Neji is exactly the kind of villain Sui Ishida writes. I think the main difference is actually that JJ is first person perspective, and manga isn’t. Manga tends to show the audience a lot of things the main character doesn’t see or doesn’t realize, and JJ does a little of this but largely tries to avoid it. JJ is also written entirely in dialogue and Kisa’s inner monologue, there’s no descriptions of anything, which makes us limited to knowing things someone says or that Kisa explicitly thinks. If Kisa is deceived, so is the narrative.

Neji is a liar, this is canon. He’s obsessed with protecting his own ego and identity even at the expense of others, this is also canon (and was very strongly confirmed by the recent birthday short story). I would say the protection of his ego/identity is his core driving motivation, it’s a very consistent throughline of his behavior. It’s also something Kisa could not even begin to fathom, she just isn’t wired that way, which would make it much harder for her to learn to detect.

“But Ren, if he’s obsessed with his ego, why does he always cast himself as silly side characters?”

Actually, that’s exactly why he’s casting himself as silly side characters. Admittedly, if I get into that now, this post is gonna get crazy long(…er), but it’ll probably be pretty obvious once you grasp the rest of his character.

Since he’s a confirmed liar, we can throw out everything Neji claims about himself. Any backstory, any justifications, any rationalizations. Also throw out how he says or does things (since he tends to distract you with his intensity, which normalizes his behavior) and focus on the core of what he’s saying and why he might be saying it. Throw out everything we haven’t been able to confirm with our own eyes through Kisa. (Yeah, that even allows for the possibility his dad is actually still alive. I’m not saying he is, obviously I have no idea. But anything that we can’t Confirm is an Unknown.)

The other characters are not known to be liars, but they can have their perceptions skewed by their own experience or by Neji lying to them. We can therefore also throw out anything Neji told them (except for the fact that he did tell them, because what he told to who and when could be significant), and take with a fistful of salt anything they extrapolate about him that mirrors their own experience (even if they don’t explicitly reference their own experience. Maybe especially so.)

This should leave us with the facts of Neji: his actions, the types of things he talks about, the ways he reacts to other people in various situations (such as when criticized, questioned, ignored, praised, rejected, etc), the things we’ve witnessed or have external proof of, and the timeline of events. It’s also worth paying attention to his tone of voice and the expressions used for each line—pay special attention to when he’s got a sweatdrop (anxiety) or when he’s doing that ‘half-lidded eyes’ (confidence) expression (not so much the one where he’s turned to the side, I mostly mean the straight-on one.) I’m willing to bet the one where he’s looking to the side from straight on (regret/contemplation) would also give some interesting insights.

If we do all of that while observing him in the game, his actual nature becomes very clear, imo.

As a fun exercise, try doing it with the other characters in the game too. Throw out everything they say about themselves that you can’t confirm, etc, and you’ll see who they actually are. Some of them are wrong about themselves in small ways, though none as egregiously as Neji of course. Obviously, I think this is fun to do with Chui, because it’s me, but also because he’s in direct contrast to Neji. Chui doesn’t actually talk about himself or try to establish his identity much, so it’s mostly what other people are saying about him you’re throwing out, as well as the way he says things (because Chui is actually also distracting you with his intensity, just in the opposite way, and he doesn’t get enough screentime to normalize it for you.)

In some ways, a relationship with Neji (or even just a close friendship with him) could benefit Kisa because unfortunately the way you learn to identify these kinds of people is by experiencing them and the hurt they’ll inflict on you. The possibility that they work out as a healthy and functional couple in the long term is extremely slim imo, and he would put her through a lot of pain in the interim—but she’d be better equipped for the next time someone like this comes into her life. Whether that’s an advantage or not kind of depends on how bad he is versus the people in her future.

But considering that I believe Principal Chuza is going to be our Big Bad two-faced antagonist in the long run (JJ3, anyone?), Neji wouldn’t be a bad choice in the meantime for a mid-boss.

Post got long again, I’ll have to save my thoughts on being Kisa’s Jack Ace for another time. But a lot of characters do express wanting to be her partner! Generally if they don’t already have a partner and they’re not an idiot (love you, Kamiya, you idiot XD)

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PLEASE I'll wait until JJ3 if I have to also look how melancholy he looks in that CG if you rotate it, it changes the vibe of his expression completely. sneaky sneaky ishida original:

rotated 90°:

He looks so sad. Stupid depressed bendy theatre goth. I love him so much. T~T

gonna need a full chui route in the sequel please and thank you

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really can't stress enough the power of not consuming any other media for a time while you're trying to get writing done yeah consuming other media can inspire you to start, but eliminating distractions is what keeps you motivated to keep going drop all media consumption (movies, shows, youtube, social media, mobile games, video games, etc. music is ok) for a minimum of two weeks to let your story to be your only source of entertainment and see what happens worst comes to worst, you'll just go back to bingewatching and doomscrolling a couple weeks from now. nothing will happen that you can't catch up on later tbh

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I actually started seeing NejiKisa more through the lenses of toxicity with your fics and writing. I think I felt it in the back of my mind but I’m used to seeing things very 1 dimensional. So ty, I am happy with the new perspective. I’m also protective of Kisa, overall, I want her to be happy. I’d dunk over Neji if it meant making Kisa’s dreams come true. KISA MY BELOVED!!! CHEERS TO THAT!!! How do none of the other students want to try to be her partner as a lead?! SHE’S SO DANG GREAT

Though I don’t think I have the capabilities to stand next to her if I were in the JJ universe

*insert spongebob dunking meme*

Still working through these asks! (not necessarily in order lmao) Sorry, the thoughts are kinda disjointed, I’m actually kind of bad at translating my thoughts into words.

Long post again, putting it under a cut lmao

Actually this is one of the things I think is really great about Neji as a character—Kisa can’t identify his flaws, which makes it very difficult for the player to see them clearly either. Kisa is an unreliable narrator for Neji, and Neji is an unreliable narrator for himself. Being able to balance the interior, exterior, and perceived goals of multiple characters while keeping them consistent without revealing them outright is a technique that requires a skilled writer. Kisa isn’t supposed to KNOW about Neji’s toxicity, so the writer can’t tell the audience outright either. You just have to pay attention to Neji’s actions more than his words, because he is alllllll about distraction and deflection.

Kisa seems to have a hard time identifying people’s flaws in general. She’s very good at identifying people’s inner strengths and limitations, this is a core part of her character (and basically what makes her a ‘transparent vessel’), but limitations aren’t necessarily the same thing as flaws. She seems to only be able to identify the most superficial flaws—they have to be pretty glaringly obvious for her to catch them. She doesn’t tend to think about what someone’s motivations are, she just sees their limitation and tries to figure out how to break it (though she doesn’t necessarily think about this consciously).

This works really well in most cases because it lets her dodge the entanglement of emotions that people’s motivations are generally wrapped up in, so she can just act on her decisions rather than get mentally paralyzed. (And she definitely has a tendency to get mentally paralyzed, so this is probably critical to her success, possibly her survival.)

Unfortunately, if you can’t identify people’s flaws OR their motivations, and if you’re not a toxic/manipulative person yourself, you can’t identify when someone else is. This makes it impossible for her to identify it most of the time someone does something awful that isn’t completely blatant. She doesn’t assume ill intent, she’s just as likely to blame herself or come up with a sympathetic justification. And because she is the perspective character, this skews the lens for the player as well.

I confess, I’ve only read the first five volumes of Tokyo Ghoul. Mostly this was because a friend of mine told me that if I read it, I would see that Neji ‘definitely isn’t a Sui Ishida villain’, but honestly it just made me more convinced that Neji is exactly the kind of villain Sui Ishida writes. I think the main difference is actually that JJ is first person perspective, and manga isn’t. Manga tends to show the audience a lot of things the main character doesn’t see or doesn’t realize, and JJ does a little of this but largely tries to avoid it. JJ is also written entirely in dialogue and Kisa’s inner monologue, there’s no descriptions of anything, which makes us limited to knowing things someone says or that Kisa explicitly thinks. If Kisa is deceived, so is the narrative.

Neji is a liar, this is canon. He’s obsessed with protecting his own ego and identity even at the expense of others, this is also canon (and was very strongly confirmed by the recent birthday short story). I would say the protection of his ego/identity is his core driving motivation, it’s a very consistent throughline of his behavior. It’s also something Kisa could not even begin to fathom, she just isn’t wired that way, which would make it much harder for her to learn to detect.

“But Ren, if he’s obsessed with his ego, why does he always cast himself as silly side characters?”

Actually, that’s exactly why he’s casting himself as silly side characters. Admittedly, if I get into that now, this post is gonna get crazy long(…er), but it’ll probably be pretty obvious once you grasp the rest of his character.

Since he’s a confirmed liar, we can throw out everything Neji claims about himself. Any backstory, any justifications, any rationalizations. Also throw out how he says or does things (since he tends to distract you with his intensity, which normalizes his behavior) and focus on the core of what he’s saying and why he might be saying it. Throw out everything we haven’t been able to confirm with our own eyes through Kisa. (Yeah, that even allows for the possibility his dad is actually still alive. I’m not saying he is, obviously I have no idea. But anything that we can’t Confirm is an Unknown.)

The other characters are not known to be liars, but they can have their perceptions skewed by their own experience or by Neji lying to them. We can therefore also throw out anything Neji told them (except for the fact that he did tell them, because what he told to who and when could be significant), and take with a fistful of salt anything they extrapolate about him that mirrors their own experience (even if they don’t explicitly reference their own experience. Maybe especially so.)

This should leave us with the facts of Neji: his actions, the types of things he talks about, the ways he reacts to other people in various situations (such as when criticized, questioned, ignored, praised, rejected, etc), the things we’ve witnessed or have external proof of, and the timeline of events. It’s also worth paying attention to his tone of voice and the expressions used for each line—pay special attention to when he’s got a sweatdrop (anxiety) or when he’s doing that ‘half-lidded eyes’ (confidence) expression (not so much the one where he’s turned to the side, I mostly mean the straight-on one.) I’m willing to bet the one where he’s looking to the side from straight on (regret/contemplation) would also give some interesting insights.

If we do all of that while observing him in the game, his actual nature becomes very clear, imo.

As a fun exercise, try doing it with the other characters in the game too. Throw out everything they say about themselves that you can’t confirm, etc, and you’ll see who they actually are. Some of them are wrong about themselves in small ways, though none as egregiously as Neji of course. Obviously, I think this is fun to do with Chui, because it’s me, but also because he’s in direct contrast to Neji. Chui doesn’t actually talk about himself or try to establish his identity much, so it’s mostly what other people are saying about him you’re throwing out, as well as the way he says things (because Chui is actually also distracting you with his intensity, just in the opposite way, and he doesn’t get enough screentime to normalize it for you.)

In some ways, a relationship with Neji (or even just a close friendship with him) could benefit Kisa because unfortunately the way you learn to identify these kinds of people is by experiencing them and the hurt they’ll inflict on you. The possibility that they work out as a healthy and functional couple in the long term is extremely slim imo, and he would put her through a lot of pain in the interim—but she’d be better equipped for the next time someone like this comes into her life. Whether that’s an advantage or not kind of depends on how bad he is versus the people in her future.

But considering that I believe Principal Chuza is going to be our Big Bad two-faced antagonist in the long run (JJ3, anyone?), Neji wouldn’t be a bad choice in the meantime for a mid-boss.

Post got long again, I’ll have to save my thoughts on being Kisa’s Jack Ace for another time. But a lot of characters do express wanting to be her partner! Generally if they don’t already have a partner and they’re not an idiot (love you, Kamiya, you idiot XD)

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Blessing, Ch. 4: The Fight

(tw: violence)

One of their new transfers is screaming at him. That one. Yonaga Soushiro. “This is your fault!” He doesn’t try to stop Yonaga from shoving him in fury, and then shoving him again. He’s right, after all. This is his fault. He stands ready to take the well-deserved hit when Yonaga winds back to punch him, but the blow never connects. A feral pink blur hurtles past and tackles Yonaga to the ground with an enraged shriek. “Kisa-chan—!!” Yonaga yelps, eyes wide with fear, hips pinned beneath her knees. She doesn’t seem to register his desperate pleas turning to strangled gasps as she grips his throat and drags him up, before slamming him back down, his head striking the floor with a sickening crack! It happens so fast that it takes another second for Chui’s brain to catch up enough to realize, as she lifts Yonaga off the floor by his neck again, that if they don’t stop her she might kill him.

continue reading on AO3

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Ty for divulging on the three way triangle idea, I can imagine it in my head and be happy with the idea of it! *chef’s kiss*

Who knows, maybe one day I'll finish it!! Maybe. It would be a lot of work so it's unlikely. But this ask did inspire me to open it up and work on it a little... c: I'm kind of embarrassed to show it but since you seem to like the idea, I'll share a little scene from the toxic Neji/Chui/Kisa thing below >///< (this is very unedited and of course it's a fic where everyone is a little ooc, please overlook this XD)

“You must still be in love with me,” Neji taunted, half-breathless, his eyes sharp and bright. “You wouldn't go this far otherwise.” “Of course, I could not deny that. I have tried, have worked to achieve the clarity of indifference toward you. Yet still, my pulse quickens when you enter the room, my ears sharpen at the sound of your voice, your scent heats my blood to frenzy.” Chui’s fingers had somehow wound themselves around Neji’s tie, pulling his upperclassman closer. “I am denied the comfort of apathy. So these filaments of love that I spun from fantasies, I twist into ropes of loathing I may use to ensnare you.” Neji smirked, because he couldn't resist flirting with danger. “It's sad that you still want me so badly.” “I agree. And I will make you regret that I do.” “As if it could be that easy!” “Is it not? When I saw the way that you looked at her, and the way that she looked at me… I can't say there wasn't some divine beauty to it. A gift. As if the universe had presented her, the perfect instrument of my revenge, and asked me to play you a sonata.” Neji hesitated, thinking quickly. Revenge, huh? So it really was something that pedestrian. “…You don’t need to do this. You don’t need to destroy her just because you know it will hurt me.” “…Destroy her?” Chui’s eyes glittered. He paused. “…You really do think you’re clever, don’t you, Neji-senpai?” Neji stared back, trying to keep his expression unreadable. “Of course I don't need to destroy her. Quite the opposite—you would love if I destroyed her. So much that you even hope to bait me into it by begging me not to do so,” Chui continued, his voice like cold velvet. “It would serve you so well to be the one to swoop in and pick up the pieces. Your fear isn’t that I will crush her into dust—you would far prefer that I do her irreparable damage than what I will do to her.” “…Which is what?” Chui lifted Neji’s chin with his fingertips. “I will give her precisely what you cannot.” His grip tightened near-painfully on Neji’s jaw. “I will make her immeasurably, euphorically happy.” “…Why?” “The horror in your tone suggests that you already know why.” Neji’s lip curled. “You can’t make someone fall for you out of spite.” “Can’t I?” Chui’s yellow eyes bored into his, ice cold for all the warmth of their color. “I have been told that I’m a rather good actor, you know.” “You’d pretend to be in love with her for the rest of your life just to keep me from having her?” “Who says I would have to pretend?” Chui leaned closer and brushed their lips together, snatching Neji’s breath away. “I am certain she will be easier to fall in love with than you are—and I somehow managed that.” Neji wasn’t sure which of them moved first. Maybe they both did, magnetized to each other in that way he always preferred to ignore. What he did know was that their lips were sealed together and his hands were buried in Chui’s hair as he snarled into his mouth, and Chui was growling in return as he sank his teeth into Neji’s lip. The flavors of passion and defiance and blood danced across Neji’s tongue and that was all he could think about as their battle dragged out, until finally he broke away just far enough to hiss his response. “I will destroy you.” Chui gripped Neji’s hair and jerked his head back, forcing him to meet his eyes. An uncharacteristic smile split his bloodless face, his teeth stained scarlet. “Die trying, Neji-senpai.”

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Sorry to hear about the negative experience with Neji fans. Also, I do apologize about the asking for toxic NejiKisa fanfic thing. I don’t think it got in my head that you heavily disliked. I do sincerely apologize (I cringe now, looking back at it)

I confess I had a moment this evening where I saw my inbox suddenly had a bunch of new messages and I was like O_O "oh no it's an influx of hatemail because I said nejikisa was toxic, fuuuuuuck" but obviously that was not the case XD (And to be fair, while I've certainly gotten my share of anon hate messages in my time, I can at least say I haven't had any over Jack Jeanne. Maybe people don't do anon hate so much anymore? Is that out of style now? XD) Please please please do not apologize or cringe over it!!! It was fascinating to think about. I just assumed people would write me off as a hater after I posted "No." XD Please don't cringe, that would be so sad!! I'd much rather get the question than not, I promise. It was just really funny that it happened to be the ship I like least that you were asking about XDDD

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Oh haha… were my questions that noticeable for other jj blogs to see the pattern? I don’t know anyone who likes the game so I got a bit too chatty. I try to separate the asks in case if I asked too many. Parse through them

Eek, you might see more then, let me know when to stop or take your time answering them

I guess I don't know who is regularly checking the JJ tag. I check it most days, probably a few times a week, so when there was a sudden uptick in people in the tag getting anon asks, I naturally assumed that they were all coming from the same person! Honestly, I think it's great. People LOVE to be asked for their opinion on stuff and it's really exciting to get asks in your inbox. So personally, I think you're putting great energy into the fandom <3 Please ask as many questions as you like, and I apologize in advance if I am slow at answering because I, too, get a bit too chatty XD

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every time someone posts a new jack jeanne fic in english on ao3, even if I had absolutely nothing to do with it and even if I have no personal interest in reading it, I am excited about it and consider it a personal victory all of you are my little 'theatre school fanfic' ducklings, sorry

[archaeren]

Would the use of Neji’s now known inner working of his brain fuel any toxic NejiKisa mayhaps? 👀 👉👈

Honestly I was really shocked to get this ask because I tend to assume that most people reading my work have figured out that NejiKisa is pretty much the only JJ ship that I actively dislike. (Obscure crackships excluded, obviously I haven’t evaluated every possible combination lmao) I suppose I tend not to talk much about it on my social media posts, because I’ve unfortunately had some bad experiences with Neji fans and I try really hard to not start drama. (This doesn’t come naturally to me, I’m a very loud, aggressive, opinionated person XD It’s a conscious effort on my part)

But then I thought more about this ask, wherein anon says, ‘does your new understanding of canon Neji make you more likely to write toxic NejiKisa?’ and that’s actually a really fascinating thing to ask when you think about it. Because if understanding canon Neji makes toxic NejiKisa content more likely, then the implication is that NejiKisa is canonically toxic. (Which I do agree with and also think was intentional, not gonna lie). And I can’t deny that I have a lot of respect for NejiKisa shippers who wholeheartedly own that toxic dynamic. Like, damn, I really support y’all. (I probably still don’t wanna look at it myself, but I think it’s super cool if people are making it or want it to be made)

Frankly, I’m really protective of Kisa. I’ll throw Chui through the fucking wringer, but I don’t like Kisa suffering. (And if I were a Quartz student, I would also be out here fighting everyone to be her Jack Ace. Kisa, my beloved…!!) I know, I know, trust me, I understand the hypocrisy of that when the only canon end Kisa can get with Chui is a bad end. But as far as that goes, I feel like that’s more a matter of unfortunate circumstances than anything inherently wrong with the MigiKisa dynamic. But I digress!

I did actually start a toxic three-way triangle Neji/Chui/Kisa fic like last year where everyone is awful. It’s basically Neji and Chui being toxic ex-lovers at each other while they both try to outsmart the other to get their hands on Kisa. I wrote about 3000 words of it, but it’ll probably never be finished because I think it would be way longer than I’m ready to commit to. (and it is migikisa endgame, obviously, because it’s me and nobody is ever getting a nejikisa endgame out of me unless they write me a banger migikisa first and I thus feel morally obligated. XD)

All that being said, if you’re open to other toxic Neji ship dynamics, my partner is currently working on a long fic (60k+ words and counting) that focuses on toxic NejiMitsu and toxic NejiChui. It’s not published yet but I’m sure I’ll be sharing a link when it is! After that’s done, my partner did say that a toxic NejiKisa fic idea was up for consideration as well, so even if it’s not from me, you might get something eventually! <3

[archaeren]

also idk who is going around sending anon asks to a bunch of JJ fan blogs, but you da real MVP <3 (I have a few in my inbox too, I'm drafting responses to them because I can't write a short reply to someone to save my life. This is also why it takes me so long to reply to comments on my fics oops)

[archaeren]

"but why would so many people write fics of your ship for you?"

one time I, an ommetaphobic, dug out and consumed an eyeball from the head of a roasted fish. I was drenched in sweat and tears and I had to cover my face afterward and get someone to wrap the head in a napkin so I couldn't see the socket. I did this on a bet for a migikisa fic. do not underestimate the lengths I am willing to go to for my ship.

[archaeren]

getting the sense lately that the migikisa numbers on AO3 are starting to give people the impression that it's a popular ship in the fandom they don't yet realize the dark truth