#Yes I am aware of who dies I spoilered myself accidentally but good for me cause I couldn't have handled that

[bluelancelion]

So👏

I'm watching Merlin for the first time and I'm absolutely floored by it and by how much I fell in love with Merthur and the Knights, so here's a couple of Modern! AU that popped in my mind.

Rugby Champion/Nerd AU

- Probably a classic, I'd be surprised if ao3 wasn't plenty of it.

- Of course Arthur is Captain of the rugby team and of course Merlin is the guy sitting in the library all day.

- Don't ask me how they meet don't ask me how they fall in love, they just do

- Arthur's father is the school's principal

- And for this reason there's some people hating on Arthur cause they believe he has privileges

- Spoiler: he doesn't (or denies any of it when his father offers some) but due to this he finds hard to trust people

- Hence he trusts only his teammates aka true friends aka the squad!

- And Merlin of course

- Literally Heartstopper but make it #merthur with gay! Merlin and #bi-and-still-in-the-closet Arthur

Musicians AU

- Merlin goes to a public school and no one knows he's literally a world wide known classic musician

- Idk how don't ask

- Arthur is like the popular guy who plays guitar and all girls love him yadda yadda

- he has a band (must have the boys in every merthur fic sorry not sorry)

- Leon is the bassist, Percy the drummer, Gwaine the second guitar, Elyan is the dj and plays the keyboard, while Lancelot is the singer

- Again don't ask why don't ask how but Merlin and Arthur fight or argue and end up talking ever since

- Maybe Arthur was teasing him about knowing nothing about music

- Merlin silently snickering like *You dare to fight me with your half cheap-ass rock band when rich people spend thousands to listen me play at operas lmao you fool*

- But for some reason he can't tell him that or reveal his secret or else he'll be forced to change school (I dunooooo)

- So Arthur has no idea Merlin is a genius at music

- But.

- He notices Merlin has a perfect pitch, and something like- He can't explain it but Merlin has something with music, like a touch, so he invites him over to listen to his band

- All band members fall in love with him and side with him against Arthur when the two have their - now friendly - banters

- Bros being bros - Dudes being Dudes

- Idk what I was going for with this but IMAGINE WHEN THEY FIND OUT

- Like

- Imagine this fragile boi all cute smiles and sassy remarks and Arthur goes into protective mode cause he develops a crush-

And like, Arthur has a rock band so they look cool and they don't fear anyone in case Merlin gets bullied or something

And then they see him, for the first time-

Wearing a black/navy blue suit that costs thousand of dollars, walking in this giant golden opera with royal red drapes-

And he starts playing the piano for all these rich people and he's absolutely phenomenal

And suddenly Merlin fears Arthur won't be friends with him anymore or he'll fear he's gonna think Merlin is too "marvelous" to enjoy their little rock band

- But in reality Merlin loves them and he loves Arthur and Arthur honestly can't look at Merlin and see any other man than the guy he's been teasing and has argued with for all this time,

- aaand I don't know where I wanted to go with this as well lmao

Feel free to drop any completed fic link in the comments pls I am desperate :)

[magnhild]

A Happy Review (kind of) of Ikenfell

Having ADHD means that I have a lot of trouble getting into new media if I’m hyperfixating on something else. As any follower of mine is no doubt aware, my current one is RWBY, and has been for a while. But with the show’s mid-volume hiatus underway, I ended up left in a void with nothing to fill it.

Two days ago, I had a friend reccomened to me a little indie RPG called Ikenfell. I’d never heard of it, but I was told it has a great number of LGBT+ characters, options to make gameplay easier, content warnings, and music composed by the great  Aivi & Surasshu, who you might know as the composers of Steven Universe. This grabbed my interest, but I found myself sketpical that it could be that good, and that the representation, in particular, was largely exaggerated and probably just mild implication. 

Nevertheless, I started the game the next day, intending to play for an hour or so before putting it down again, warning my friend that I was unlikely to get too invested in it.

Almost exactly 12 hours later, I found myself watching the epilogue play out with misty eyes, having finished the game and having gotten deeply pulled into it.

This game was everything it was promised to me and so much more. Between the representation, the accessibility options, and the overall charm of the game, Ikenfell ended up being laregly enjoyable and something truly special; a hidden gem in the plethora of video games released in 2020.

The game follows Maritte Hildegaard, a non-magical teenage girl, on the search for her yes-magical sister Safina, a witch attending the school of Ikenfell. A basic premise on the surface, but the story itself has a lot of neat little twists and turns that all come together for a satisfying story worthy of being animated someday. It probably won’t be, but hey, I can’t dream, right?

To begin with, I didn’t find myself too fond of the battle system, not because I found it flawed, but simply because I personally struggle with video game battles and they can also cause me a great deal of pain due to my connective tissue disorder and chronic shoulder pain. I was getting way too frustrated, even agaisnt smaller enemies, and was ready to put the game down after yet another failure agaisnt the same single boss. Tied alongside the fact you cannot see your enemy’s HP, making strategixing more difficult, I was ready to say that I wasn’t a huge fan of the game.

That is, until I found out about instant victory, an option in the settings that allows you to be given the chance to instantly skip literally any battle in the game, with no negative conequences and all of the rewards. For more avoid gamers, it might be tempting to mark this as a flaw that makes the game ‘too easy’, but is very much optional, and anyone who wants the challenge can play without it if they wish. But for disabled people like me, who also get easily stressed, it was an absolute Godsend that allowed me to focus more on the story and characters, which was what I really cared about.

On the note of characters, the representaion mentioned earlier is certianly no exxageration, with just about every named character being explicily LGBT+ in a way that I’ve never seen before in officially published media. I’m not just talking wlw and mlm characters, though there were plenty. No, the characters aren’t only diverse in sexuality, but in gender as well. Of the six playable characters, three- an entire half- of them are nonbinary. Several human nonbinary characters. And it goes even further- only one of these characters uses they/them pronouns. Why is that good? Because not all nonbinary people do. And that’s something that is severely overlooked by those with binary genders. One of them uses he/him pronouns, and the other uses ze/zir pronouns. You read that right. A main character in a video game, in media at all, that uses neopronouns. Now, I am fully aware that neopronouns have been used in media before; my own set were coined by a book, in fact. But in all of these cases that I’m aware of, they are used exclusively for non-human characters; aliens, bringing an implcation that neopronouns are nonhuman. This case, as far as I’m aware, is the first case that they are used to reflect and represent real human beings, and it is absolutely incredible. The LGBT+ representation in this game is amazing, but there is something very special and signifigant about a black, human, adult character, using neopronouns.

Even better yet is that this is all in the game completely casually, with no fanfare, no dramatic coming-out plotlines, no treatment as if it is anything but normal. Even the one instance of a character accidentally misgender another comes with a quick apology and correction with no big deal. Better yet is that terms like ‘gay’ and ‘nonbinary’ are explicitly used in-text as well, rather than avoiding the use of them as many other instances of LGBT+ characters in media do.

Aside from individual LGBT+ characters, the game also boasts five LGBT+ couples over the course of the story, though one is only sen in flashbacks and another is only mentioned between scenes. Nevertheless, it’s easy to become invested in the slight romantic aspects of the story.

SPOILERS AHEAD

One of these romances is between Ibn Oxley and Bax Twiford, and it’s the first one we see hinted at in the game. During the stoy’s climax, Bax is fatally wounded and I felt a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach, even tweeting an out-of-context ‘OH NO’ to confused and concerened followers. MLM couples in media are all-too-often doomed to fail, usually by way of having one half of the couple be killed off. I feared this would be the same case here, to the only MLM couple in the game, and resigned to it with a hevay heart.

Except, the game surprised me again, and saved Bax before he died, allowing for both characters to get their happy ending. In fact, all of the characters get at least somewhat of a happy ending, a refreshing detail for a sap like me. I was espeically pleased when I sat through the credits, praying for an epilogue that would confirm soemthing I was hoping for, being sure I wouldn’t get it, and then i got it. Every writing choice made felt like one of my own, albiet excuted better, with far more professionalism. It felt so utterly refreshing to have everything turn out the way I wanted it to.

Even decisons made outside of representaion satisified me, like Safina not being forgiven by Maritte after everything she’d done, including keeping Maritte’s entire existance from her friends. In many instances these days, it’s all-too-common for a character to do terrible things, only to be forgiven by everyone the moment they apologie, and it can be a bit frustrating if you’re someone who knows that nobody should ever feel obligated to forgive someone who hurt them, and that an apology is more than just saying ‘sorry’. It was yet another case of the story going exactly as I’d wanted it to.

END SPOILER WARNING

Ikenfell feels just like a fanfiction, and I mean that in the best possible way. Not because it’s exceedingly trope-y, or because it feels amature in any way, but because it doesn’t feel like something that was written for pleasing the (cishet and white) masses when it comes to its representation. The large majority of creators looking to publish their work will avoid going all-out with representation in fear of the classic ‘it’s not realistic’ critisism, with only fanfiction authors usually having the guts to make all of their characters LGBT+, because they’re writing for themselves and a small audience of people who enjoy the same things as them. Ikenfell has this same feel; it wasn’t created to be a huge, wildly popular, chart-topping game, it was created to be something that the people it represented could enjoy. It is the purest kind of video game, not one made for profit or attention, but simply because the creators wanted to create it. The fanfiction vibe also makes a lot of sense, considering the fact that was inspired by them- which may explain why I, laregly a fanfiction writer, agree with so much of its choices.

The game may not be everyone’s thing, but if you’re disabled, LGBT+, a POC, of even just someone who ejoys cute fantasy RPGs, I implore you to buy and play the game, because even my words can’t fully capture what an incredible game it is. There’s stuff I haven’t even mentioned, like the beuatiful music, the great visuals, and the many, many cats, so please, go and check it out for yourself.

Thank you for reading, and thank you to every single person who worked on Ikenfell for crafting such a lovely and inclusive game.

[invertedeidolon]

The Longest Library #3: Griffin & Sabine by Nick Bantock (Or, Eidolon again talks way too much about previous relationships, also, pretty art!)

(This is a series in which I attempt to read and review all (or most of) my library of 297 books.)

Rundown: Postcard artist Griffin Moss gets a weird letter from a weird lady who can apparently see what he's drawing telepathically. They form an ill concieved bond over it. The story is told in colorful postcards and envelopes you can open and then read the mysterious things inside. 4.5/5 for calling me THE FUCK OUT and having some BOMB ASS ART.

I can't give it a full 5 because not everyone is going to have that experience when they read this. It's just going to look very strange and floaty and things won't make very much sense. This book hits close to home with me because it heavily echoes (more like yells about) my first long distance relationship. I'm not really able to see this book through any other lens, so that's what my commentary is mostly about.

So for the part that ISN'T about that stuff though: The art is amazing. Even though it's made by one person technically, both fictional artists have their own, distinct style. Let's be real: The art and the interactivity is the main draw of this book. There are envelopes inside with letters carrying a myriad of little details: Griffin uses a typewriter for his long-form letters, and bits where he's crossed out typos or added in letters with pen, or that Sabine's correspondence is something I now recognize as someone who uses quills or manual dip pens. The inconsistency in the color of her writings suggests she's using a homemade ink, brownish in color, slightly too watery. Maybe it's even watered down watercolor and not even ink at all. They've also made the background of her letters and cards a rich dark gray, while Griffin's is a clean, sterile white.

"Will you explain to me about those geometric paintings you did at Art college? I want to understand their hidden language of color and shape. It's so alien to me."

So this is about the fourth time I'm reading this book since I first got it, and now that I have to write about it, I'm noticing so many more details. Here the line "It's so alien to me."is written in smaller, slightly more rounded letters. The ink is much darker here too, suggesting she wrote this slowly, thoughtfully. What a detail!

Anyway that's it for the objective bits of the book, the rest is entirely subjective from here on out.

"The phenomenon that links us has taught me much about you, yet I am ignorant of your history."

My years and years of suffering emotional abuse set me up to be able to read and predict what was going on in your head perfectly, as well as respond in the most helpful ways with eerie precision, yet I am ignorant of your history, and who you really are (because you use such obtuse floaty language and metaphor. Who were you really? Suffering, but that's about all I could tell.)

"Why doesn't this alarm me as much as it should?"

Because we're already "in". And I "feel safe" to you because I've been trained to be the least offensive, most placating being in the universe. If I could build a business model on conversational comfort, if I could sell my goddamn empathy like the capitalist machine really wants me to, *I'd be so rich*. It would be like, a step down from therapist. Anybody want a virtual friend for like an hour? Gimme 20 and we can watch stupid videos or I can calmly talk you through bread making. It's okay, you can cry. GOD PLEASE LET ME JUST SELL MYSELF SAFELY, I WAS MADE FOR THIS GODDAMNIT.

"I want to hear everything. Write in detail. Tell me all about yourself. I demand to know - please."

This is like fucking CRACK to those with a suppressed self. An unwitnessed self. "Someone who's interested in ME, and won't yell at, ignore, or dismiss me for talking! Holy fuck I love you!"

"Finally I knew who you were. I counselled myself to be cautious and find out what you were like before revealing myself fully."

Sabine at this point is to the reader who I was to Him. A weird mythical creature, the non-human monster of your lonely adolescent imaginings, who is intimately aware of your secrets, "I've been watching you" it says before introducing you to a wondrous world free of the pains of living, where you actually feel loved and all is well forever and ever. Except I wasn't as inhuman as I wished to be.

"Occasionally I'd come home to a re-enactment of The Battle of Britain in the front room. [...] My entrance would make no difference to their dogfight, but when one of them accidentally (and inevitably) knocked over a pile of books, they'd stop instantly and unite to examine the extent of the damage."

The whole 'making light of a not-great home life because it was your normal for so long that you still haven't learned that you need to be horrified about it' thing. As well as passing it off as something funny. Thankfully this character's parents (SPOILER?) get literally run over by a truck and he gets sent to live with his mom's step sister who is really good and lets him ditch school to become a potter's apprentice and eventually go to art college. He never really deals with the grief when the step sister dies, OBVIOUSLY.

"And hearing that my existence eased your pain made my heart race. We have found one another, and I give thanks."

Hearing that my existence wasn't going to be punished but instead, made someone happy? Fucking HEROIN. Downplay it a little with grateful gentleness, I don't want to be punished for being presumptuous or for seeming like I like it too much. If I like things too much they get destroyed, hard.

"My kinsmen are responsive to me - but there is no one to reach my heart, and you who are so far away, have been closer to me than any man on the Islands."

This is something I remember. So far all they've done is shared eachother's life stories and gushed about how close they feel now. She (like my past self), has confused the feeling of 'finally, a witness! they're witnessing me! I've been Seen!' with the feeling of attachment. Of course she would feel infinitely more attached to this man. She's witnessed his most private moments as a creator for a good portion of her life. It's been a mainstay throughout her adolescence through adulthood, so of course an unwarranted sense of intimacy is going to be attached to this mysterious figure. The whole thing wrapped up in a dream like sense of mysticism.

"I remember your first erotic drawing; I was trembling from head to foot by the time you'd finished. Was that Sarah? No don't answer; I'm only teasing."

...Unless? (Man the implications hurt to think about. I REMEMBER THIS FEELING. This author has unintentionally called me out. I wonder how much of Sabine’s writing is actually calm, or if she’s reigning herself in almost constantly?)

"I was finding it hard to get over the idea of there being other men in your life when I reached the part in your letter about my erotic drawings. I stopped being jealous. We were lovers and I hadn't realized it. The drawings weren't of Sarah; they were of you."

ow ow ow ow ow ow JUST SAY IT ow ow ow ow, Also, I REALLY wanted her to be like 'bitch that looks nothing like me, what the fuck', but instead she's all like "So you've been making love to me ten thousand miles away - how tantalizing." URGH. TOO CLOSE, TOO FAST. DISENTANGLE YOURSELVES NOW. GRIFFIN GET HELP.

"I had failed to understand how unhappy you are. You cover up with jokes and a front of being self-contained. I'm worried for you."

EVEN SHE SEES IT, GET HELP.

"When you found me, I thought my loneliness had gone for good. I was kidding myself. I desperately desire your company. I haven't talked to anyone in three days. I was sure I was going to start seeing your pictures like you see mine. I've tried so hard. [...] How can I miss you this badly when we've never met?"

BECAUSE YOU MISS HUMAN CONTACT AND YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FAMILY LEFT YOU NERD, GET HELP. DON'T HANG IT ON ONE PERSON WHO IS TOO FAR AWAY TO HELP YOU IN THE WAY YOU NEED.

"Island magic works on island souls. You and I will heal eachother."

ANTIDEPRESSANTS MAYBE UUUUGGGGHHHHH

"I've started to hate this city, this country, all these stupid fucking people [...] I finally snapped. [...] I want to know what you look like."

*HEAVILY RECOILS*

"Why, my kindred spirit, are you prepared to settle for a postcard of my face? If you wish to see me, why not come here? What is there to stop you - you're clearly unhappy where you are. Come."

Yes. I offered and I offered and I offered. What's to stop you from just fucking TALKING TO ME instead of DISAPPEARING OVER AND OVER AGAIN. and then COMPLAINING THAT YOU'RE SO HURT AND LONELY. I'M LONELY TOO. WHEN I HAD THE MONEY YOU DIDN’T TAKE MY OFFER FOR ME TO COME SEE YOU, SO WHAT THE FUCK IS UP KYLE?

"Foolish man. You cannot turn me into a phantom because you are frightened."

This kind of sentiment is what lead to the breakup. This feeling of being large, and dark, and slighted. Being real and supernatural. Make your choice. Say REAL words instead of just flagellating yourself. Do I exist to you?

"If you will not join me, then I will come to you."

Unfortunately, Sabine has what I definitely did not: Mobility, the ability to make things real. She had a job and money and her own life and the ability to travel. I had a shitty little shared room in my parent's house where I spent most of the time partially starved and dodging devils in one form or another. Many many times I wanted to spontaneously show up and give him the closeness that he needed. But I couldn't. And he wouldn't take my words. He wouldn’t take me.

3 down, 294 to go.

[justsomeelf]

Was Korekiyo Shinguji Innocent?

!tw: lots of abuse topics !!This is very long but there’s a TLDR at the bottom !!!Danganronpa spoilers ahead for V3 (obviously)

Cough oh shit look at that, discourse which no one cares about because I’m irrelevant.

No but seriously, I want to make this perfectly clear before I begin, I am writing this while throwing away my biases and being as open-minded as I always try to be. This is going to be an incredibly long post about what people think about Korekiyo Shinguji, and that reasons for disliking him isn’t as shallow as just disapproving of the actions he took in the game. If you’re interested about what I have to say, click keep reading, if you just want a shorter version of what I meant there’s a TLDR at the bottom.

Oh wow you actually clicked it? Wait, wait, gotta keep this professional. So I’ll be splitting the topics around Korekiyo as; Storyline, Character Design and Personality, Fandom’s Backstory Headcanons, The “Main Problem”, and a Conclusion. Remember, you don’t have to read all of it, there’s still a TLDR at the bottom, but thanks for giving this a chance!

Danganronpa V3 Storyline

We are all aware at this point at what happened in V3 regarding Shingucci, and if you aren’t aware, then why are you reading this-

Throughout the first chapter Korekiyo is mostly just neutral and calm throughout everything, but still a little creepy with a few off hand comments about the beauty of humanity. Similar events happen in Chapter 2, calm, not really bothered by his fellow Ultimates no matter how bizarre some of them are. Rather helpful in the trial but still annoyed by Himiko’s insistence on genuine magic and continues to theorise how she could be the culprit, but was still mostly the same even after seeing Kirumi’s undignified exit and execution at the end of the trial. Chapter 3 rolls around and Angie decides to try and resurrect one of our fallen Ultimates, Kiyo decides to hold a seance to communicate with one of the lost spirits as well, but of course this is just a murder plan in disguise to send his sister more “friends”. Angie accidentally walks in on Kiyo mid-saw-cutting and to make sure she couldn’t tell anyone about his plans later on, he hits her over the head then brings her to her own lab, ends her life, and sets up a lock mechanism to lock the lab with the corpse in it.

He continues his seance plan due to ‘not wanting it to go to waste’, and says the next day they should use it to contact Angie. More stuff happens and Kiyo’s pleased with Tenko being such a good candinate to be his sister’s friend, and proceeds to kill her with the plan he originally set up. (While also setting it up so he could almost perfectly pin it on Himiko.) During the trial he’s as composed as ever but as more clues show him towards him being the culprit to both of the murders, he becomes increasingly more erratic, and the tulpa split personality of his sister appearing to calm him, but he eventually admits to being the culprit. After the trial he confesses his reasoning, the incestuous relationship with his older sister who he swore to send 100 (female) friends to after her sickly passing. Obviously, people were going to be disgusted by the incestuous relationship he had with his older sister, but that’s not always the reason people are going to dislike him in the story. 

Korekiyo obviously hadn’t done much in the first two chapters aside from being helpful in the trials, and people don’t particularly like it when characters they like are killed, in Chapter 3 that concerns Angie, Tenko, and Kiyo. Angie was increasingly infuriating towards her demise, with the Student Council and the actions she took for what she wanted with the school, but was still an enjoyable character with her cheery attitude and honestly good intentions. Tenko both is and isn’t quite popular, with her resentment of men (which I won’t get into because that’s another topic entirely) gaining her hate, but her good intentions and wishes for friendship making her a likeable character. Kiyo hadn’t done much to establish his character side from being creepy, calm, and neutral, which doesn’t put much towards liking him if there’s no reason to, that isn’t to say there’s a reason to dislike him, just that there’s not enough events to show him in a highly positive light.

Character Design & Personality

To be perfectly fair, Kiyo’s final design was pretty well made in terms of appearance. By Kodaka taking a combination of multiple sorts of imagery, including underground culture, anthropology, and visual style, made him pleasing to look at aesthetically and in terms of genuine character. People can dislike him but still see his positive points essentially, at least design wise.

His personality is essentially what was previously mentioned, neutral, calm, creepy sometimes, and that’s essentially it. During the third trial he quickly became panicky when it was becoming obvious he had killed both Angie and Tenko (side note: it was extremely obvious he had killed Tenko from the start, Angie was the difficult one) but was calmed down by the ghost of his sister, also claiming he was deeply in love with her with what seemed to be genuine sincerity. There is also the fact that Kiyo felt no guilt for killing all those women to send to his sister, and seemed to consider everyone in the academy his “friends”, indicating he’s unable to understand or care about what other people feel. In the end he finally accepts his defeat and is executed by Monokuma and the later appearance of his sister’s spirit, causing his last expression to be disbelief and horror as both of them banish his spirit to the afterlife. The point of this paragraph is that although I understand why people can like his personality, people are allowed to dislike the kind of person he is by finding him boring, maybe a little annoying, selfish for having no regards for what the other characters felt, and it’s fine, because even if people dislike his personality they can still see why people like his personality.

Fandom’s Backstory Headcanons

Of course to start off with, there’s the canonical backstory of Korekiyo that we were given through FTEs and the storyline.  Kiyo had a sickly older sister who almost constantly required to be in the hospital, since she was lonely without friends Kiyo would spend all of his time with her. One day reading a book about Anthropology with his sister who suggested he could research it, motivating him to become an anthropologist. His sister normally picked most things for him, his hair, tailoring his uniform, and so on. According to Korekiyo, he had an incestuous relationship with her, believing it was truly love with no care of what others thought, although at some point his sister died. Left alone and frustrated he swore to kill and send 100 friends to her since she had none in her lifetime, we’re also able to assume he got somewhere close to that number before his death though. (side note: I personally headcanon that Tenko was the 99th “friend”). While travelling he had been captured and tortured by locals, leading him to hallucinate his sister that calmed him down, which also caused him to form a split personality/tulpa.

Since that’s about all the information we were given, of course it left the fandom theorising and wondering about possibilities. There’s the semi-popular headcanon of Kiyo that he was abused by that sister, of course there’s obvious signs of manipulation in their relationship, telling him how to act, dress, talk, what to do and like and so on. The headcanon is also backed up by canon, which essentially does imply he was manipulated and abused by the sister, as he spent so much time with her that she relied on him.

(Personal Experience Ahead, I don’t mind it if you skip) I tried to force myself to like Kiyo. I really did. I thought that with this idea it does explain his actions better than the canon did. But I couldn’t. I was and still am abused by my older sister for a decade now, emotionally/psychologically, verbally, and physically. Now leaving me medically diagnosed with anxiety (social and generalised), depression, and PTSD. While the fandom seems to say Kiyo had been abused psychologically and some add sexually abused. Abuse is a difficult topic to talk about, even bringing it up in this sense has brought back horrible memories from my life, if you do genuine research or know from experience what that abuse like that is like, it’s fine and I wish the best for you. But please do not just slap “abused” on like a label, like it justifies his actions. I said previously it explains it, not justifies. The “Main Problem”

I’m sure some people would be aware this was coming, if you have knowledge of V3′s full game, simply hearing Kiyo’s name will remind you of the third trial.

Korekiyo’s sister. Implied to be abusive, manipulative, constantly sick, dependant on Kiyo, now deceased, and previously in an incestuous relationship with him. The things Kiyo said about her would obviously throw everyone off, incest is quite revolting, so of course people would dislike him after hearing he was in a relationship with his older sister.

But that does not mean it’s the only reason to dislike Korekiyo.

(Intense) Kiyo fans immediately go to hating on and blaming the canon whenever someone says they dislike him, assuming they’re always referring to the sister relationship for their dislike. That is not always going to be the reason. Yes, the presence of the incestuous relationship is problematic if you want people to like Kiyo, but please don’t always assume it’s because of the third chapter. It’s as simple as having an open conversation, not attacking the creators, the character, or the person you’re disagreeing with, then if you can’t reach a conclusion, just agree to disagree and leave it there.

Conclusion I guess

Obviously most of this was just covering what we already knew, but reminding information is normally necessary for things like this. Did I just waste hours of my time writing an essay on a fictional character? Yes. Do I expect everyone to agree? No. Do I mind? No. Was there a reason to make this? Yeah, kinda. I just want to lay it out there that people are entitled to their own opinions, free speech and all that good shit. So people are allowed to decide whether they like Kiyo or not, just don’t hate them or assume and scream that it’s only because of chapter 3 that they dislike him. Everyone can have an opinion, people like Kiyo for their own reasons, people dislike Kiyo for their own reasons, V3 is done and finished. If you’re still unsatisfied you can go ahead and argue with me, I’ll try to stay level headed and hear you out. 

TLDR: People can have opinions. Kiyo stans don’t always assume it’s because of the sister that people dislike Kiyo, you can say he’s underrated or overrated it doesn’t matter either way, just don’t shove it down people’s throats. You’re all entitled to your own opinions and ideas, as long as you can reach a conclusion together that doesn’t end in hate it should be fine.

Either way, if you read this far I hope you have a good day/night! Stay hydrated, eat some snacks and all that jazz!