#I have another flare up haha. ugh it'll rain tomorrow lol

[shiraishi--kanade]

Welcome back! It's an honour being your first ask!

Now onto business, hope you don't mind: I've seen some people around saying that Taiga never cared for An to begin with. Obviously, my first instinct was to say that An is Taiga's niece and he did care but... To what extent? His acts were only caused by grief as a sort of "necessary evil", but just how much did he care if he destroyed Vivid Street and vbs in such gruesome ways?

I couldn't pull any proof by myself so I wanted to ask you instead! What do you think?

Hoc you are my first follower twice now (thrice if you also count my main account), and I believe you've actually got to send the first ask twice as well - one of those asks was just shorter so I opted answering it before yours. It's actually hilarious.

As for the question... Very, very tough to answer this. This is also something I choose to believe we'll find out more about in An5, but for now I will say this: he did care. He just didn't care as much as others thought, we thought, and most importantly, as An thought. But he did care. He just cared about his own ideals and emotions more.

Here's why I think so, although bear in mind it practically borders on theory territory because of how little we actually know about Taiga's inner thoughts.

1) He knows singing is An's coping mechanism, and he urges her to use it.

This is something that we, of course, see with our own eyes for basically the entire An's storyline - at the very least, since An2. An also openly states it herself... In Vivid Old Tale second sidestory!

Quite fitting.

Those are nearly the first and only words Taiga directs to An after telling her the news. Sing it out. You know you want to.

This is vague, and it can be interpreted differently, but this is what I can see here, at least. He wants An to sing. He challenges everyone, but he wants An, An specifically, to fight him - with all that anger and distress she's got, and showed him a second ago. She blows up at Taiga and Taiga immediately says: redirect that into your singing.

And he is not wrong.

2) He knows exactly where An's roadblock lies, and pushes her to break through it (in the worst possible ways).

Since Resonant Town at least, we have a very consistent topic with An: she struggles with her singing, and she feels stuck as her teammates are moving forward. At the same time, her teammates are all going through... Discovering their feelings, as well. Kohane in Kick it Up a Notch, Touya with composing since Walk On and On but moreso in The First Concerto, and Akito in Burn My Soul; all of those have to do with feelings. And for all, ultimately, accepting and embracing those feelings, whatever they are, leads to a breakthrough.

An is the only one who has not done it yet. She is avoiding it, she's avoiding all of it as hard as she can, believing that singing more and more is the only solution to her problem - but she is stuck.

But in Resonant Town, we also see something interesting: An actually sings... Very differently when she allows her singing to speak through her song. That yearning, desperation, struggle - it colors her singing. Is it better? Up to debate, but I believe if Shiho has heard both that version of An and then her usual singing, controlled and devoid of those emotions, and found that something is lacking, and then L/N Miku echoed her sentiment as well... Then yes, I believe that An Shiraishi is An's true potential.

Then, there's this moment in Light Up the Fire; yet again, An tries to avoid confronting her feelings. The moment she tries to do that, she crumbles: Taiga then notices that and provokes her further. He says things that he knows will hurt, because he wants it to hurt; and he wants An to sing with that hurt, because that's what she should allow herself to do if she wants to have the power to surpass Rad Weekend.

Once again, he is proven right. It's very likely that this is the direction An's arc will go to: accept that grief, anger, fury, everything, and sing with it, not despite it.

3) He does care about other members of the team, as well.

Some less, some more; I think he cares most about Arata both because he's given him advice twice and because he sees himself in Arata. The advice he's given to him is something that Taiga himself took to heart; something that he believes has made him strong.

But: the fact that the battle happened at all is a sign that Taiga at least isn't indifferent towards An, and the rest of them. He wants them to surpass RW, to follow through Nagi's wish; if he hadn't, he would've just stepped aside and let them struggle and ultimately fail. They needed this - this push - to understand what they were lacking.

It doesn't mean he is not an asshole. It also doesn't mean he isn't cruel. But ultimately, an answer to your question: Taiga cared.

It can be argued he's done that for Nagi's sake, too, and not his wish alone. It's a very solid opinion as well, and I think a truthful one. But Taiga is also someone who ultimately didn't care enough about what Nagi wanted, too: this is important. He wouldn't have done something just because of that - for Taiga to do something, he has to have at least some personal stake in the matter.

I think he got attached to VBS and their team, despite trying to be skeptical: that attachment led him to do things he did, but he also resented it, because he didn't want to believe that Nagi was right about future generations; he still wanted to achieve their dream by himself, not pass it over to some strangers. He believes that he alone deserves to carry it, and seeing them come so close they might actually reach out to it is the main source of his anger and cruelty - not his grief alone. Part of him wanted to kick VBS and the team down so hard they wouldn't recover, proving that desire to carry on by himself right; but a part of him... Well, a lot of inner battles going in that man's mind, I'm sure.

I didn't think he ever cared about An as much as Ken did, or as much as Nagi did; my controversial opinion is that he didn't have to. At the end of the day, An is not his child, and is not a child he is obligated to support in any way that is beyond basic civility to her. For Taiga, An is just a friend's kid and Nagi's niece, not really his. And I can't argue with that, honestly; he and An just had... Different perception about who's who in their lives. That's upsetting, but before Taiga did something that horrible, I couldn't blame him for that.

I don't know if there was genuine care in there, to be honest. But I think there was definitely attachment and a little bit of hope. But above all that, there was selfishness - and once again, this is the overarching theme of VBS - and that was the reason Taiga did what he did.

Thanks for the ask! :D