#Anyways I will always be deranged about atsushi learning to not let the violence he experienced define him

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somehow my brain has decided to be neurotic about atsushi as a trans man, so I’ve decided to inflict my thoughts upon you

in the beginning of the series, atsushi is very much afraid of byakko. He’s scared it will hurt people, and he’s terrified because it’s out of his control. He has been hurt so much, and he is so scared of inflicting that pain on other people without even knowing it.

Atsushi is a victim of horrific abuse.

imagine with me for a moment, a young trans man who has gone through violent abuse at the hands of a male authority figure. His abuser is the biggest example of an adult male in his life, and he has no reason to think that all men aren’t like that. So he grows up believing that men are inherently violent, and angry, and cruel, and everything he doesn’t want to be.

When standing face-to-face with his own masculinity, he feels dread and fear mixed up into a wonderful fuck-you cocktail made specially for him. He shoves it down, but he can’t run from it forever.

I think it’s fairly obvious by now where I’m going with this.

atsushi is the young trans man, and byakko is his masculinity and gender identity.

at the beginning of the series, atsushi is all alone, believing himself to be a fundamentally violent, broken person, and the ADA changes that. instead of his abuser being his sole example of masculinity, atsushi now has some good people who care about him, and male influences that are well-adjusted enough. He doesn’t want to be his abuser, but that is not a guaranteed thing that comes with accepting masculinity anymore. For the first time in his life, atsushi allows himself to look at byakko and accept it as a part of himself.

do you ever think about how maybe if byakko was given room to exist and its needs were met, maybe byakko could have been calm instead of the wild animal it was? Do you ever think about how byakko acted like a wounded animal, lashing out at anything that got near it because it didn’t know kind hands existed? Do you ever think about how that boy exists dozens of times over, all over the world, and they grow up prickly and defensive and isolated? Do you ever think that they don’t know their hands are capable of kindness?