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[jackthespicer]

people who say that Anji X Baiken is good because of the malewife/girlboss dynamic are missing the point. The appeal of those two together is the idea that two horrible people meeting each other and forming a bond can save each other and themselves rather then just make them both worse.

Make no mistake. Anji and Baiken are not traditionally “good” people. They have both done some underhanded, brutal, evil shit for petty, personal, selfish reasons without a hint of remorse. Leaving Baiken’s tragic backstory and Anji’s probably tragic one (I say probably because we have little to any actual info about this guy we can actually trust) out of it:

One of them is a brutal warrior who cuts down anyone who gets in her way without thinking about it at all and is on a path of complete self-destruction to put someone very specific in the ground no matter what collateral damage she might incur on the way and is this close to snapping all the way and just going on a indiscriminate killing spree. And the other one is a pathological liar who schemes endlessly and manipulates just about everyone he meets for his own ends and is so deceptive to the core of his being that the name most people know him by is not only fake but one out of probably hundreds of fake names he’s used over the years and he doesn’t care about the moral character of the people he works with so long as he gets what he wants out of them.

Or at least, that’s how they used to be. Because than they met each other. And than Anji just decides to hang out with Baiken, and Baiken, for whatever reason, just lets him hang around.

And, somehow, they started to change.

Baiken grew a sense of mercy, started actually stopping herself from hurting people, started the long and arduous process of reflecting on herself and what she’s doing. Anji began gaining a wider perspective, started focusing his talents into something more productive and constructive, began making actual connections with people that ran deeper then plain manipulation.

It didn’t happen over night. It took them years to change and unlearn and turn into something new. And at the core of them they are still the lone killer and lying ghost, but that’s not all they are anymore. And they have each other to thank for it.

They call each other out on their bullshit. Baiken sees through Anji’s lies without even trying, forces him to at least try and be honest and truthful about what he’s doing and what he’s thinking. Anji stands his ground against Baiken’s anger, forces her to find another way to get through to him, to actually communicate with him in a way that doesn’t involve violence.

They were two broken, wounded people, completely unable to help themselves. And than they met someone that they, somehow, made a connection with, that they wanted to help. And through helping each other, they also help themselves. As one grows so does the other, until finally Anji puts his all into saving the world by bringing a truth to light, while Baiken faces a mirror of who she was and both teaches and learns to let go.

 And that’s the goddamned appeal of Anbai. 

….although, if I’m being honest with myself, the malewife/girlboss dynamic is a very nice bonus.

[jackthespicer]

character.ai is repetitive sometimes