#all while acting like 1) the manga was even remotely complete by that point (there was only one tankoban when 03 was given the green light)

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Average fma fan talking about 03 positively: Man, it's such a miracle that the 2003 anime is written even halfway decently! After all, the writers who, as we know, have never written anything in their lives before [citation needed], they had to work while locked in individual underground cells [citation needed], only fed scraps of fma lore by Arakawa herself [citation needed] while her story was actually fully formed by the first printing of her manga in Monthly Shonen Gangan [citation needed] but they were adapting the initial first volume of manga and oopsy-daisy shot past it [citation needed], so they made up every plot beat, character arc, storyboard, and lore change completely on the fly and very randomly [citation needed]. Even though they tried to 1:1 adapt her story [citation needed, contradicted by existing sources], they fumbled the job and butchered her story, characters, and lore. Arakawa sagely forgave them [citation needed]. But somehow it's a cohesive story?! Wow! Even though the story is sad, dark, scares me, makes me cry, violent, gorey, and my fave ships aren't endgame, so -50 demerits. Still, good job team! A treat! A treat for the monkeys working the typewriters at Studio Bones circa 2002-2004! #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood

[hamliet]

Dabi’s Missing Heart

So I’ve been seeing two main responses to Dabi’s character as portrayed in BNHA 292, both of which I feel touch on a very surface understanding of his character and role in the story despite seeming like opposite takes.  

Take #1: 

Dabi is an unfeeling monster created to show the redeemability of Shigaraki and Enji in contrast with his true eeeevil villainy! He will never be redeemed! 

Take #2: 

Dabi is a sweet softy who did nothing wrong! He will never be redeemed because of this chapter which is so out-of-character! 

Note how they both have the same endpoint. I’m not actually gonna address the redemption question much because I can’t fathom what this panel foreshadows if not Touya’s salvation (alive): 

I’m not looking to debate this either; I’m just putting it here because I know it’ll come up if I don’t.

Instead, I wanna address Dabi’s character. He’s my favorite, and I’ve been asked a few different times whether I enjoy him as a villain or as an uwu poor baby, and my answer is always both. 

Dabi is a villain. This chapter’s rampage is, in my opinion, not remotely out of character for him. But neither is it the summation of his character, and he surely is not meant to make Enji look good by comparison. 

So, who is Dabi? 

Dabi is kind of a flaming jerk, and that’s why I like him. He’s an abuse victim who gets to be angry and crass and sharp. He pushes people away because he doesn’t want to open up to them and get burned (heh). He’s just like Shouto in that, except with a dose of murder. 

Believe it or not, this is a very realistic response to abuse, and very common too. It’s good to see that representation. If the writing was indeed just “he’s bad get rid of him,” well, that would of course be a terrible representation. But seeing a mean victim get redeemed? Now that’s some good sh*t I’m here for. 

If you want a sweethearted, misunderstood soft victim, there is one in MHA, and that’s Shigaraki. Dabi is not these things, but that does not mean he’s not a victim or that he’s somehow an unfeeling monster.

You see, Shigaraki is a heart character. Dabi’s the mind. (Heart and mind characters are a literary pattern that is utilized in literature across the globe; it’s not an eastern/western cultural thing. It has its roots in alchemy.) The problem is that you can’t have a heart without a mind nor a mind without a heart. If you lack one, you’re missing half the picture, and you won’t accomplish anything. 

We see this with Shigaraki in his quest to look for ideals, something to believe in, purpose to justify/enable acting on his feelings/emotions. 

Dabi, in contrast, has conviction and ideals, but eschews any kind of personal connection and care. 

So, both Shigaraki and Dabi struggle to unite heart and mind--but they need to do precisely this. 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki expressly envisions both Dabi and Himiko when musing on what his purpose is. 

Yet Shigaraki is able to unite more easily with Himiko as opposed to Dabi because Himiko is also a heart character. She claims to be motivated by extreme empathy that warps around to become a lack thereof (wanting to be who she loves).

Shigaraki’s motivations are basically revenge for hero society not saving him--which encompasses both a deep internal and external (societal) need for empathy and a need for better ideals. Shigaraki needs Himiko and Dabi. They’re a trio, and all of them need each other to grow. But Himiko, being similarly driven expressly by emotions, is easier for Shigaraki to understand and work with. 

The irony is that Dabi is actually a very, very emotional character as well. But what he does (as is typical for a mind character) is repress them, compartmentalize, dissociate. He constantly pushes people away, yet admits privately, to himself, that he’s primarily (and paradoxically) motivated by family. This is emotional, yet Dabi claims he “overthought” and, according to other translations, “snapped” can be actually be read as “went crazy” as a result over overthinking (note: both are mind allusions). 

Dabi repressing who he is--Todoroki Touya--is symbolic of him repressing his emotional side, because again, family and emotions are tied together for his character. Now his identity is acknowledged, and Dabi claims to be losing his mind (again), claims that he can’t feel, and yet is completely consumed by emotions. Like, does anyone think he’s being methodical and calculating this chapter? 

It’s not just negative emotions (rage, hate) that drive Dabi in response to his family. His seeking belonging and emotional connection is present even in a chapter where he tries to murder two members of his family and laughs off the risk to the life of another. 

See, Dabi first asked Shouto to validate his pain:

But like, given the circumstances, of course Shouto doesn’t really respond well. How Shouto responds is this: 

Shouto’s words are triggering. And keep in mind I am not blaming Shouto: he’s in shock and he’s a kid. I’m merely trying to explain how it likely comes across to Dabi. 

You’re crazy. Your feelings don’t matter. You don’t really care about Natsuo! You’re a villain and that’s ALL you are. Not a brother or abuse survivor. Just a villain. 

So, uh, yeah, Dabi then retreats back to being unable to feel, dissociating as has always been his coping mechanism. But that’s not all: Dabi’s been repressing for so long that of course he’s gonna go a little insane in response to the dismissal of everything he’s trying to point out. Why wouldn’t he? His family dismissed his pain back then and now again, and so, without that heart, without those emotions, principle is all Dabi has. This has been present since long before Stain’s ideology came into his life: 

Now, he answers this question of existence through Stain’s ideology.  Purpose is all he has, and to him, Shouto and Best Jeanist are dismissing that too. Why are they dismissing it? Best Jeanist dismisses him for an ideal: the overall good of hero society. Shouto has a mixture of this ideal and also like, genuine shock and pain. 

Back to Dabi. Dabi’s summation of himself and his purpose is incorrect and harmful to himself and others. I’m not excusing him or justifying, just explaining. It’s a tragic reflection of what Endeavor raised both Touya and Shouto to be (and thereby ironic that BJ uses an ideal to dismiss him): 

Instead of being raised to be the symbol of hero society--as Endeavor intended--he exists to destroy it. The root is the same: Dabi assumes he exists for hero society, as a tool. He dehumanizes himself, hence why his quirk physically harms him (which also fits his almost religious zeal for Stain’s ideology). But it is not all Dabi is. He’s not a tool, he’s a person, but to acknowledge he’s a person involves acknowledging his heart/emotional desires, and that gets to my next point.

Dabi’s not a reliable narrator about himself. At all. I’ve written about Dabi and dissociation before. So let’s look at Dabi’s devotion to his ideals, the ideals he puts above people and claims he only cares about... because there are moments where Dabi goes against those ideals. 

For one example, Dabi’s gone against those ideals when he’s allowed his personal need for revenge (an emotional/heart motivation) to overcome his longterm plan. Like, he was fully about to get himself killed here, even though that would likely mean no one would know the corruption of the Todoroki family and hero society, just for the chance to prove to his father that he hurt him. 

In addition, I’ve talked before about how Dabi’s the only character in the entire damn manga to comment that maybe using child soldiers is not okay. While it’s not explicitly stated, it’s reasonable to conclude that Dabi considers the abuse of children in hero training a sin of hero society that ought to be purged (hence, part of his ideals). 

That said, I have also pointed out that Dabi has gone after children in the past when it benefits his mission (Bakugou would like a word). So let’s look at four examples of Dabi and his principles concerning kids--since, after all, he claims to be motivated by heroes who hurt kids. 

Firstly, Dabi’s “save the cat” when he spared Aoyama. 

Why did he spare Aoyama? We can only speculate, but it seems quite likely there are two reasons: 1) hurting Aoyama would not add anything to his overall goal of downing hero society, and 2) a terrified, cowering kid might just have been a teeny bit familiar to Dabi. Here, his ideals--destroying hero society--either take a backseat to a reflection of his personal pain (and)/or his ideal of not abusing kids directly contradicted his ideal of bringing down hero society. But the important part is that in this instance, Dabi chose mercy and the goal of bringing down hero society was jeopardized as a result. 

So then why did he attack Tokoyami, Nejire, and Shouto this arc? Well, Dabi does things he knows are wrong for the sake of accomplishing his overall purpose. He does things he knows hurt himself for this purpose. This isn’t new. If he can’t be acknowledged, can’t exist as a person with emotions, then he at least will ensure he still has a purpose.  

In addition, let’s look at what sets Dabi off in all of these instances. (Again, this isn’t me saying “well actually Dabi’s justified.” He’s not. I’m just pointing to what’s in the text to explain the machinations beyond “bad guy do bad.”)

Dabi tries to reason with Tokoyami, pointing out that Twice was doing essentially what Tokoyami is doing: trying to save his friend(s), but Tokoyami doesn’t listen (also again: not me saying Tokoyami should have listened--realistically, in this situation, it makes sense Tokoyami trusted his mentor!)

Only after his reasoning was rejected did Dabi go to flames mode. He could have just let Tokoyami save Hawks, but instead he really wanted to kill Hawks and that overrode his other principles. Was this just because of his furthering his goal--killing the #2 hero would help destroy hero society--or because of a sense of personal revenge for Twice? That’s open for interpretation (in my opinion, it’s likely a mixture, because again, it tends to intertwine more than Dabi likes to think it does). His principles and/or emotions are brushed aside, and Dabi Does Not Like That. 

Dabi does this again with Shouto this chapter, asking him where he stands on their family issues, and gets brushed aside, and then Shouto goes into his rage mode and Dabi responds. Again, not saying Shouto is rational here or that he should side with Dabi’s murderous plan, but like, his words really don’t come across well to Dabi. 

Dabi going after Shouto after explaining things, asking Shouto for help, and then having his pain dismissed is pretty much a repeat of Tokoyami. When Dabi’s pain is dismissed, he says fine, let’s aim for the highest principle possible: making Stain’s will a reality, and damn any emotional ties. 

Dabi’s obsession with ideals, you might say, is a smokescreen to cover his own pain. Far from feeling nothing, he feels very deeply. (I promise I’m getting to Nejire.) 

So what does this indicate? Well, that Dabi does have a heart and a conscience. But when he lets his heart act, when his heart reaches out, he gets burned. His heart jeopardizes his overall purpose, so he most often dissociates himself from it. But by pretending he doesn’t have a heart, he dehumanizes himself, and he projects that dehumanization onto others (see: seeing Shouto as an extension of Endeavor, when that’s actually the precise image Shouto is trying to shed). 

It’s not a coincidence that Shigaraki has been unconscious during the entire confrontation with Endeavor, nor is it a coincidence that Himiko has been MIA. But, Shigaraki wakes up a bit this chapter not only when hearing Dabi spout about how hero society needs to burn, an ideal/the thing Shigaraki lacks, and through a less important but still-ideal-driven character in Spinner asking him to accomplish his supposed ideal of destruction, but when Dabi saves Shigaraki and Spinner. 

Dabi doesn’t burn Nejire for lols (not that this makes it better because it doesn’t) or even for ideals. He burns her to save Shigaraki and Spinner, because they are his links to full humanity right now. 

(Again, this is also dissociation and projection: Endeavor did this! No, Dabi, you did. You’re perpetuating violence against kids rather than stopping it.)

But anyways, when Dabi calls upon heart, Shigaraki wakes. He lends Gigantomachia and thereby Dabi and the league power. 

Dabi can only grow and actually accomplish anything related to his ideals (fixing hero society) through accepting a heart--even though that will likely mean some painful surgery to shift his ideals to accommodate said heart, because pure ideals don’t leave much room for humanity. He needs to feel to actually change anything, because right now he’s just making things worse (hence, the need for saving and redemption).

I know the League aren’t the protagonists of the serIes, but their complaints aren’t exactly incorrect either (if anything they’re almost a little too valid). But through growing together, Dabi, Shigaraki, and Himiko might actually be able to accomplish something, and get themselves in a place where they can be reached and saved by Shouto, Deku, and Ochaco. Because to be saved, the kids will have to acknowledge the villains’ pain and complaints, and do something about it. 

[liddolwhynot2000]

Decisions Of a Capricorn

____________________________________

Summary: Levi Ackerman woke up one fine morning. In the past. Shit.

Genre: Angst, lets-change-shit, drama, liddol romance (Levixhappiness)

Pairings: Levi/Original Female Character, Levi/Petra

Warning: Manga spoilers

________________________________

Chapter 1. Chapter 2

____________________________________

Chapter 3: Brace

____________________________________

Summary:  Capricorns can be naturally pessimistic. They already expect unfortunate things to happen in life, so they take them in a stride.

Alternatively, Levi braces himself for the worst and is pleasantly suprised.

____________________________________

Telling his squad had gone better then he thought it would. His special ops members took the news it in a stride, immediately launching into a discussion of what they needed to do now and how to utilize this information best. Eren, as expected of his 15 year old version, was befuddled.

Levi wondered how someone so innocent looking transformed into a complete monster in such short time.

His squad had lived up to his expectations, easily concluding that they need to keep this information to themselves for now. Eld, ever the natural born leader, took the lead and suggested that they need to learn to work with Eren. So that they aren't caught off guard on the bare minimum skill level they can expect from the traitor.

Gunther was the one who brought up the possibility of facing the armoured titan, and even though Levi was sure they wouldn't have to face that particular beast yet, he still agreed with their suggestions of carrying some fire arms. Thunder spears didn't exist yet, which meant that grenades and canons would be their best shot.

Eren had tried to voice out his own suggestion, that he wanted to train his skill set too. He felt that he needex to improve in some areas, and although Levi bitterly recalled how much Eren had improved without help in another life, he had to agree with the brat.

His squad, however, didn't share the same opinion and immediately began to shut Eren down.

'Eren, your job is to trust us. We expect you to leave it all to us and transform as an absolute last resort!'

'Yeah, you brat, don't get cocky. The only way you'll fight is if we somehow di-'

Olou had bitten his tounge and cut himself off before Levi could. Levi had then interrupted before Eld and Gunther could throw in their two cents.

'Eren is the main target, what will all of you do if Eren is somehow dragged away you from you and has to fight for himself? We need to prepare this brat for everything, especially how to fight in his titan form.'

They had all shut up, but he could tell it was only because of Eren's presence. They wouldn't be caught dead speaking speak out against their superior, especially in front of Eren. Levi had taken advantage of that little fact.

'We'll get back to this in a while-- Eren it's time for you to transform. Four eyes is here'

____________________________________

It went just like last time, Eren wasn't able to transform. He sat in front of Levi, looking just as despondent he had the last time. He didn't walk away from Eren like last time, instead having chosen to stick close to the brat. Some things still needed to happen, and Levi was just waiting for that inevitable explosion.

When Eren accidentally transformed this time, he immediately took out his blades and points them at his team, not at all surprised that they had already drawn their blades.

They would always be talented little brats, but they had a long way to go..

'Captain-'

'Put down your blades Petra.'

'Captain get away from Eren-Please-'

It had continued on, with the brats arguing in favour of heatedly questioning Eren and his motives, while he had ferociously stood by the him. It was a part of the plan really-he knew that Eren would be fine no matter what. He just hoped that, at least this time around, the brat would take his taking a stand for him like this into consideration before he decided to launch a mass genocide on his own.

'Shut up and obey.'

His team had faltered, and then slowly lowered their swords as he began to speak.

'Do you have any other titan shifters?'

They all looked confused. Only Olou managed to speak croak out a strangled no. Levi pointed at Eren, who was panicking alot less since Levi had begun to speak in his favour.

'You see this dumbass? He's our only shot. There's no replacement for him. All of you can be replaced, Erwin can be replaced, Hange can be replaced. Despite your silly admiration of me, I could easily drop dead and be replaced too.-'

His squad had looked scandalised at the thought of their beloved captain being anything remotely close to being replaceable. Then again, none of them had experienced Mikasa and her unnatural strength yet.

'We need him. He doesn't need us. Understand that none of you can afford to point your blades at him without my orders. The next time you do so, I will be your opponent.'

Eld and Gunther had looked nervous, Olou had visibly begun to sweat and Petra had looked at him a little strangely. However, they all seemed to understand the point he wanted to make. '

'Am I clear?

They all nodded

'Yes Sir!'

____________________________________

He had made sure to still have that chat with Eren, to make him understand his squads actions. He knew Eren trusted him a little more this time around-his showing support toward him like this had likely changed his opinion of him, if only a little. Levi was banking on that, hopefully he could push the kid in the right direction.

He had gone to his room after Hange had explained Eren's transformation and his squad had shown support towards Eren by biting their hands. A filthy act, but he supposed in this case he would allow it. Not that it stopped him from ordering them to go sanitise their hands and not come near him for a while.

He had even made his tea on his own, unwilling to let them touch them with their germ infected hands. Petra had looked at him oddly when he had told her he would do it on his own, almost like a kicked puppy.

He sat in bed, tea long finished and mind occupied.

He had been somewhat productive so far, managing to manipulate Erwin into changing the plan to capture the female titan. His squad was well in the loop, and likely making several plans to take on a titan shifter. Eren was beginning to look at him with more trust, something he hoped would blossom more.

There was still too much to figure out though. And since Levi had resolved to not let Erwin in on the plan, he was now drowning in things he needed to figure out. How Erwin managed to sort through so much crap was beyond him.

Some things, he had already figured out. Others were still being debated upon.

When it came to Historia, he would injure her tommorow, to the point she wouldn't be able make it to the expedition. She would likely try to jail him for it after taking the crown, but he figured he could call it vacation time from work and enjoy the silence. Those brats were too loud anyways.

He knew that Rod Reiss might come after her sooner after hearing that she had been injured, so he would have an old friend keep an eye out for her. It was an aquantince from the underground, one of the few he could trust, that had managed to crawl their way to the surface too. He was strong and capable-and very good at hiding when he needed to.

Only Levi had ever been able to find him- and since he knew Kenny Ackerman wouldn't be used yet, he felt it was the best way to keep her safe.

He had also decided that he would have to kill Kenny. He had contemplated recruiting the old bastard, but Kenny was too much of a gamble. The type only Erwin would take on trying to recruit. And while it would be feasible to drop hints about his mentor in the underground to the Commander, he wasn't sure the Survey Corps could handle a mission like that. Their attention needed to be on capturing shifters and getting Historia to the crown.

Maybe Erwin could risk something like that, but this time it would be his deicison. Kenny, despite his conflicting feelings towards him, had to be eliminated. He just couldn't chance their opposition having someone like that on their side, and wasn't confident enough that they could get him to jump ship.

The rest he was still a little muddled on. He was reasonably sure he could draw Ymir to their side, especially if he told her about how Historia would be queen soon. But the girl wasn't dumb, she would also be able to tell that Historia would have a part time job as child breeder, and might even try to leave with her then.

It pained him to do so, but he couldn't save Historia from that fate. He could, however try his damned hardest that her children wouldn't be turned into shifters.

The other shifters left him feeling conflicted. They needed the Colossal titan, he would be their mass weapon against other nations. The moment he could, he would get the serum and feed Bertolts titan to one of their soldiers. There would be no compromising on that, no matter how much he wished he could lure the kid to their side instead and spare him from that painful death. He just didn't know the kid enough to ensure he could win him over.

As for Reiner, Levi recalled the young man who had stepped up to stop Eren. He recognised that he was stuck in a tough place, but again, he would have to harden his heart. He had to keep his side as safe as possible, even if it meant taking away the armoured titan.

A part of him still hoped that he could get the kid to join him though, he would definitely try for it.

As for Zeke and Pieck, who had likely already arrived on the island, they would be dealt promptly. Zeke would need to be restrained and hidden away in a deep tunnel, while the cart titan would be given to someone else.

He would, unfortunately, have to allow Zeke to turn Ragako Village into titans. But he figured not everyone needed to be turned for it, he could at least get the children out of there. Connie's mother had been key in figuring out the truth about titans, and so he would have to sacrifice her. But Connie's siblings would at least live this time around.

More of his cormades would survive the attack too, having less titans to deal with. He was hoping that Mike and his squad would get out of it alive and not be dealt the same unfortunate fate they had suffered through before.

When it came to Annie, however, Levi already knew what to do. If all went well, he was more then sure that the Female Titan would be fighting for the Island soon enough.

His plans regarding the shifters were a big gamble on his part, since it was all relying on one thing specifically.

Getting the titan serum from the Royal government.

But Levi was a thief at heart, a man who knew how to get things no one wanted to give, to find them in the shadiest corner, completely undetected. Worst comes, he would easily infiltrate. Their security was crap anyways.

He would know. It wouldn't be the first time he had stolen something from those bastards anyways.

Levi laid down, covering himself with a blanket. He thought of one last thing before he allowed sleep to overcome him.

It was dumb of Marley to send six of their shifters to the Island, and all at the same time too. Because Levi had no intention of letting any of them go back home, not this time around.

____________________________________

In all his years of living, Levi had gotten used to being surprised. He had gone through surprise attacks, friends turning into foes, getting punched by the Queen and even time travelled. Yet had taken it all in a stride.

He had expected that half his plans would fail, that he would end up losing his squad anyways, that Annie would escape this time too. But here they were, sitting in the mess hall, post expedition, and very much alive.

Erwin had informed more squads about the traitor, although thankfully Reiner and his squad hadn't been told. Most of them had understood that they likely wouldn't be able to take on the threat, and their squad leaders had made sure to have them engage very litte. They had tactfully allowed the Female Titan to pass through the formation, thus leading her to Eren. More lives had been saved this time around, much to his pleasure.

They had gone through the same plan, trapping her in the forest. Erwin had stood by and watched as the female titan glared at him. Beside him had stood soldier with black hair, wearing a hoodie. Their face had been hidden, but everyone had called that soldier captain Levi. It had made Annie think she was safe, that when she called titans to her and left to go after squad Levi, Humanity's Strongest wouldn't come after her until she accomplished her mission.

It was only when she reached the squad and made to slice at Gunther that she realise that she had been duped. The sight of Humanity's Strongest blocking her blade with his own had caused her to sweat.

Things had gotten on easily then, she hadn't been much match for him. And his squad had taken double their usual measures, going as far as to throw explosives at her before he could carve her out of the nape. Eren had watched it all in awe, thankfully the brat hadn't needed to transform this time around.

His expression had quickly changed to shock and betrayal once he spotted his comrade sealed in a crystal. Levi wasn't suprised that she had sealed herself like that this time too, he had been counting on it actually.

Levi snapped out of his thoughts and pushed his now empty tray away. He decided it was the perfect time to put his plan into action.

He needed to pay Annie Leonhart a visit.

____________________________________

A/N: Heyooo. Here's chapter 3! Any guesses how Levi is getting Annie on their side?

Sorry I don't post much, but I swear things have been ridiculously busy. Uni life, housework, and my mom is sick too :(

[x0401x]

Why do you think the writers of the Tsurune anime decided to tone down masamina and outright cut out kaisei while pushing for sei/mina instead? It's just so baffling to me why they would alter the canon content from the novels so much. Like, what was even the point?

I’ve answered this question quite a few times before, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever made the point entirely clear, so here we go one last time. Sorry that it turned out so long.

So, in novels and manga or any written medium, creators normally have more freedom to do what they want, but when it comes to TV series, animators have been developing the habit of toning down whatever they can. Most of them have this conviction that the viewers only want to watch calm and relaxing stuff nowadays. Other than this, we get adaptations of popular works that basically exist to promote the source material, most of which rush up towards the end like crazy. It does seem like the Japanese audience has an obsession with comfort animes now, since life in Japan gets more and more stressful with each passing year, but it’s not like they’ve abandoned other genres. This general belief that creators should water down the contents however they can is pretty much destroying the industry, and it’s probably what the animators of Tsurune had in mind when changing the novel’s events into a much less dramatic versions or just cutting them off. That’s issue number 1 with the anime.

Issue number 2 is that animators of adaptations tend to ignore the reader demographic in favor of making the series neutral to please all audiences lately. But that’s only when the majority of the readers are women and girls. If it’s guys, you’d rarely see alterations. It feels like the general conception is that making the contents less “cringy” for men means more people will be watching it and having a positive opinion. It seems to completely slip the staff’s minds that the fans they disappoint mostly won’t feel willing to buy the DVDs or merchandise. This is where most of these adaptations fall flat, by the way. It’s kind of really obvious to me that these series are more prone to succeeding if the studios animate what the readers fell in love with, because the originals are popular for a reason, and it’s that people liked them the way they were. I think it’s only the expected when readers are disappointed not to see animes live up to the expectations, and that whoever picks the source material will feel the difference as well. Still, if the anime isn’t a BL, there’s this unsaid rule that you can’t show too much gay between male characters unless you have an excuse for it. Normally, nakama power and rivalry is what does the trick. I don’t think I need to mention that this is the standard in sports animes.

In the Tsurune novel, most of the gay doesn’t have an excuse. Of course, it’s not officially gay unless canon states it, but the books not only don’t give any justification for it, they get rid of possible justifications, so while you can’t say it’s not fanservice, you can’t label it as just fanservice, either. For a studio that banks off fanservice like KyoAni, that’s a problem, especially since the novel is packed with heavy scenes and even heavier quotes.

I mean, in Masaki and Minato’s case, they don’t have the nakama power or rivalry elements, so one possible excuse for them being so close would be that they’re master and disciple. But Minato makes it clear quite early in the story that Masaki doesn’t have to be his master because just having Masaki’s company is enough for him, and all in all, the two of them have a much more affectionate relationship than the other teacher-student ones from the books. Another excuse would be the found family dynamics, but Masaki already shares that with Kaito, who canonically sees Masaki as the older brother he never had, and their relationship is unlike Masaki and Minato’s as well. Kaito also has a monologue in volume 2 about Masaki treating Minato differently from everyone else in the club, and the way he describes it denotes that Minato is Masaki’s favorite, and that Masaki doesn’t bother hiding it. Just as a cherry on top, Minato often loses his rationality when it comes to Masaki despite being a serious kid, and he’s very verbal about wanting to monopolize Masaki. Add fate to the mix and you have the perfect recipe for anything except an ordinary mentor-pupil relationship.

As for Kaito and Seiya, there was a lot going on between them since the beginning, but the nakama power excuse only starts applying late in volume 1, because they didn’t get along very well at first. And even then the nakama stuff hardly applies to their interactions, where Seiya often acts like Kaito has a thing for him, for no reason other than Kaito’s reactions being amusing. Their relationship also does some big strides in the middle of volume 1, and Seiya literally migrates to Kaito’s side at some point. They don’t seem to have a friendship as strong as the one between Seiya, Minato and Ryouhei, but it’s Kaito who Seiya interacts with the most in volume 2 and he’s also the one that Seiya leans on whenever he needs any sort of assistance. There’s other unexplainable things here and there, such as Seiya taking a peek at Kaito’s sleeping face when it’s just the two of them in the room, or him implying that Kaito is jealous of the motherly attention he gives Minato. It goes on as far as the novel does. There’s literally no scene with the two of them that doesn’t make it look like Kaito is really into Seiya and that Seiya owns his ass but he’s the last one to know.

Back to the main point, it’s really hard to animate all of this without giving people “ideas”. For KyoAni, any gay exists ultimately for the sake of fetishization, and they often follow the “ship whatever you want, even yourself with the characters” model. If being gay is canonically a character trait in the original, it’s out (Violet Evergarden is probably the best example of that one), and if the gay can’t be interpreted as something else, it’s either out or downplayed. In Seiya and Minato’s case, that’s perfectly feasible. Not only are they best friends, they also have a familial relationship where Seiya treats Minato like a son. Minato has sworn eternal friendship to Seiya in the novel, and both he and Kaito describe Seiya as something like a helicopter parent. There’s more than enough counter-argument to remind the viewers that, whatever happens between Minato and Seiya, it’s all a product of their childhood friend bond. Anyone is free to interpret it differently in fanon, but the viewers (at least the Japanese ones) are ultimately aware that the anime is in its “safe zone”, portraying a friendship. Nobody on the Japanese side of the fandom actually believed that there was romance going on in it. On the other hand, if you search in Japanese for people’s impressions of MasaMina, you’ll notice people often saying that the novel makes you wonder if Minato and Masaki aren’t actually dating, or if Minato doesn’t have a puppy crush on Masaki, at the very least. Basically, everyone seems to agree that what goes on between those two is hard to define, but whatever it is, there’s this very particular, “special” air about them that differs from the rest of the characters, which normally manifests when they’re alone together.

As you can tell, this overall view is the opposite of the animators’ ideal. If the novel had been animated the way it is, it would’ve probably felt like a BL for the people watching. Not only does it come with practically set ships, it also doesn’t give much space for the proverbial “ship even yourself with the characters” option. To put it bluntly, the animation went through those changes so that it could fit the mold. It gave us SeiMina and even some NanaKai (the latter being honestly disturbing, since they’re cousins), while either toning down or erasing the rest of the duo and trio interactions. It made Minato’s accident with his mom actually seem like Seiya’s fault and didn’t really take the burden off his shoulders but instead swept it under the rug. It also made Masaki seem like a two-faced bastard who only became a coach for the sake of revenge, which means he was using his students (actual 15/16-year-olds) for his own personal gains. Shuu and Minato’s friendship went down the drain, Ryouhei was pushed aside as if Seiya was Minato’s only childhood friend, Nanao was never depicted as his own person, and the girls didn’t even exist 90% of the time. So yeah, none of the changes served any good purpose for the characters’ images. All it did was (try to) fill a quota.

Personally, this whole thing feels like we’re being told to the face, “we’ve given you what you want, now give us your money”. It brings me back to interviews I’ve read featuring Stars Align director Akane Kazuki and his statements about the anime industry being in a pinch, specifically because animators nowadays keep trying to make a fool out of the audience for monetary ends. Seems clear to me that the staff thought the female viewers would latch onto anything as long as it looked remotely gay, and that’s why I was so angry back then. Being looked down on like this by people who expect us to consume their media is pretty offensive, in my opinion. I’m glad there’s at least one creator speaking up about this matter and using the exact same arguments as I have been for more than two years now.

[innenofutari]

An Analysis of Vanitas’s Personality (meta)

I’ve always wanted to write some little meta for Vanitas no Carte, more specifically Vanitas, who probably is one of my favorite characters overall. I can’t help but find his entire character so well-built and intriguing! Most notably how he is written to be the center of the story- he’s like a “key” to the “catbox”; once you understand him, you can understand the themes and mysteries of the story (or at least that’s what I believe Mochijun is going for currently).

Diving into his mindset is, let me tell you, one hell of a confusing ride. But, at the end of it, I think I managed to form my own interpretations pretty well. Also, considering that he’s the type of character meant to be a mystery, feel free to agree or disagree with this meta, after all this is only the way I view things, and your interpretations aren’t any less valid than mine. With that being said, you better sit down because I’m one motherfucker who talks your ears off I’m so sorry.

1. Vanitas’s “change of mood” in the manga:

I think I want to start by talking about one of the things about Vanitas that caught my attention while reading the manga for the first time, and this is Vanitas’s “attitude change”. While I was reading, it was so subtle and gradual that I didn’t even properly realize until halfway through the catacombs arc. That instantly piqued my attention and I, a moron as I am, went “Wait didn’t this idiot act completely differently ten chapters ago?”. So why, exactly, did this dumbass change his demeanor so drastically? Well, he kind of didn’t, really.

At the start of the series, we all know Vanitas looked to be in “a good mood”; he laughed all the time, constantly wore a smile on his face and seemed like he was having fun with everything around him, yet suddenly, he got grumpier, angrier, snapping at the smallest things and so on. This never had anything with his temper and feelings, but everything to do with trust.

Now, what exactly do I mean by “trust”? I’m sure everyone reading this already knows, but I’ll talk about it anyway because it’s almost three in the unholy morning and I’m running solely on cans of soda. 

I’ll start by saying that there is no more effective way to conceal your feelings than by wearing a grin on your face; one smile can mean a multitude of things, and it’s very hard to tell anything about a person based on that. The “smiling tactic” is an extremely effective way of obtaining information without unintentionally giving any to the person you’re trying to take information from.

Even when August is literally choking him, and Vanitas is clearly in pain, his smile stays on, unwavering, from the beginning to the very end of his interrogation. Later, August himself even acknowledges that he himself couldn’t discover shit about Vanitas after all, since Vanitas is so well guarded.

His smile also serves another purpose other than to omit, and it’s exactly to extract information from other people.

Vanitas relies a lot on charm and charisma to gather information. He knows people are more willing to talk to someone friendlier, who wears a smile on their faces all the time and to who they can feel a sense of security and trust towards.

Based on this, it’s pretty safe to assume that with Noé at first was the same, wasn’t it? His enthusiasm at the beginning never really existed (although I still believe his instant interest towards Noé is pretty real, like he gravitated towards him). He uses his smiles to conceal, to gather information and also to taunt people (e.g. Astolfo), but it’s not truthful.

For me, Vanitas’s sudden “change” was one of the biggest proofs of his trust on Noé, and marks the beginning of when he truly started to see him as someone he could (kind of) confide in. You could argue that Vanitas jumping in the Altus portal was also a sign of trust, but I disagree. That still felt weirdly “calculated”, he knows someone with a personality like Noé’s would never let someone die in front of their eyes, so he gambled on this possibility. Vanitas trusted his own understanding of Noé’s personality, not Noé himself. However, what would he even gain by acting grumpy next to Noé? Nothing, right? He’s just exposing himself needlessly.

Now the question, what exactly sparked this sudden change in the way Vanitas felt about Noé? For the when, I think it’s pretty obvious what scene it was.

This scene is very important for many reasons. Each of Vanitas’s expressions here tell their own story and capture the nature of his contradicting feelings so well. But, I’ll get to these “contradictions” in a second, now I wanted to talk about something else: “hope”.

It’s no news to anyone that Vanitas is like, depressed as shit and is pretty much passively suicidal and, of course,  entirely disillusioned with the world and society as a whole. He believes people and vampires alike are inherently selfish, twisted beings. Creatures so wicked that there is no point to even reason with them. Vanitas doesn’t have any hope whatsoever, both in himself and others. For him, the person is already drowning before even stepping into the lake.

Even so, I firmly believe that there is a side of Vanitas that wished so fervently to be proven wrong. Even though he was dead set on his beliefs, he wanted someone to come and crush them. To prove him that there is good in this world, that he was being a damn fool this entire time. But no one ever stuck around enough to do that. They were all unable to truly reach out to him.

Noé gave him the hope that there was a person who could convince him. That there was a person who could understand him, reach out to the depths of his heart and get past his lies. He willingly sets up this façade of this cold, unfeeling jerk who has no care for others and always does as he pleases, but he’s always wanted someone to look past this. Yet, at the same time, he’s deathly afraid of this possibility. 

In the first picture, his face is in awe, as if he was looking at salvation itself. However, that all crumbles down when Noé says he is staying with Vanitas and the implications this has. That’s what he is terrified of. Aaaand with this we move to the second section of this analysis! (Damn this is getting so lengthy I truly became that one freak who writes a thesis worth of analysis of a drawing).

2. Vanitas’s fears and contradictions:

I think it’s really obvious to everyone that damn this dude got some issues regarding forming relationships with other people. It’s pretty safe to say the only friend he has is Noé, and that’s such an easy thing to overlook, mainly because of how he acts around others. You could argue that he’s friends with Dante but… that’s not quite so. Dante is, in fact, fairly good at reading Vanitas (which, unpopular opinion, is not a hard thing to do given how emotional he is, but let’s get to that later) but between them there is an emotional barrier neither is willing to cross. They’re more like close acquaintances than anything.

Well, this isn’t groundbreaking, but it’s pretty obvious Vanitas is terrified of forming any meaningful bonds with others. Thing most obviously showcased in the notorious chapter 12:

This panel… is a tricky one. It’s totally up to the reader’s interpretation and it could mean a myriad of different things, especially since very little was revealed about his past as of chapter 39.

I personally see this scene as showing Vanitas’s fear of attachment, laced with a tinge of self hatred. There is nothing Vanitas fears more than getting close to people and caring about them, he himself sees this as a weakness and something he absolutely must not have. On a side note, it is also possible that Vanitas thinks so lowly of himself that he thinks anyone that would seriously love him was completely out of their minds. Or both, who knows?

But what is so interesting is that… he can’t. Vanitas knows he should be cold, calculating, use people as pieces and discard them, knows he shouldn’t be emotional or act on impulse, knows he shouldn’t express any kind of feeling whatsoever and keep the concealing smile. Yet, he just fails so miserably in every single one of those. Vanitas cares a lot, more than he’d ever want to admit, he does completely reckless and uncalled for things for no reason other than it pissed him off, so of course he gotta get the last say because he has the mind of a teenager on their rebellious phase. 

Say, can you think of any, any at all, conceivable explanation of what Vanitas could possibly gain by making that speech for all vampires to hear during the ball? There is none. If you think from his perspective, the only thing that little spectacle of his brought were disadvantages for himself. So why? Because he felt belittled, humiliated, and he’s prideful as all hell, so of course he had to prove how none of that was even remotely true. He wanted to affirm himself. In the thinking process of a cunning, one hundred percent unemotional man, that was a completely unnecessary move.

It’s almost like Vanitas wants to become someone he’s not. He wants to act a certain way (to prevent even more pain?), but, ultimately, he cannot. It’s even funny how he fails spectacularly on keeping his expression “blank, without information” because even when he tries, his emotions all show on his face. It’s amusing how quick he is to try and cover said blunder with a laugh and a smile.

These contradictions are very deeply linked to his trauma, even if we don’t know the full extent of it it’s fairly obvious. What drives his wish to act so differently and thus his contradictions is, most of all, fear.

This part is pretty straightforward, in fact. In the end, Vanitas is afraid of forming bonds with others in fear of losing them, he knows firsthand how much it hurts (of course, he also doesn’t want anyone to discover his past). But that’s not all, remember how I mentioned that Vanitas’s expression only darkened in the clock tower (chapter 11) scene when Noé said he had decided to stay with him…? Well… I think Vanitas might think he brings misfortune to whoever gets involved with him. Like he is some symbol of disaster and doom that does nothing but kill those around him. If people care for him, they will suffer, but if they hate him, they will be completely fine. 

Despite his insistence of being detached to all people and being a cold asshole because that’s what he must do, to avoid getting hurt, to avoid having weak points, he also craves so very badly for intimacy. He wants to be close to someone, to make an impression on someone. After all, during his whole life I doubt he truly had any meaningful relationships with others. But love only results in pain in the end, so what other strong emotion is left? Of course, it’s hatred. 

Aaand this brings us to the last section of this analysis! May be a tad biased and controversial, but as I said, this is merely my opinion and I’m just as much of a random person on the internet as you! My opinion is no better than yours.

3. Vanitas’s relationships: Mainly Noé and Jeanne

As I said above, Vanitas wishes fervently to have some kind of relationship with someone, no matter which type. Since love is a no-go, he opted towards having someone feel intense hatred towards him. Because a strong emotion is a strong emotion, isn’t it? After all, hatred must be better than indifference.

Getting this out of the way, I do not think Vanitas truly loves Jeanne as of chapter 39. It’s glaringly obvious he does not, his way of showing true affection is not the way he does with Jeanne. The way he acts around her is much closer to the façade he tries to be. As I see it, this ties into Vanitas’s wish to explore intimacy and affection, even if a broken, twisted kind of. Another proof of this is that he doesn’t push her away like he does with people he knows he’s starting to grow fond of, but instead keeps her closer.

That is exactly due to the belief that she will always, always hate him, and so, there is absolutely nothing to fear. He can explore all these things and experience being the brunt of a person’s intense feelings without any consequences.

This is a very harsh thing to say, but I think Vanitas is using Jeanne as a “convenient female” he accused Dominique of being to Noé.

It’s also worth noting that in the one chapter he truly got somehow intimate with Jeanne he tried to avoid it in many ways, even trying the usual “flirting” to purposefully gross her out. By the way, can I just point out that this scene truly shows just how estranged from affection he is? He has none of the suave façade, he’s a blundering mess.

About the topic of whether Jeanne likes Vanitas or not, my answer is, too, a clear no as of chapter 39. Vanitas and Jeanne together are a combination that spawns all the disaster on earth, considering how manipulative and emotionally stunted Vanitas is, and how gullible and affection starved Jeanne is. It’s a recipe for disaster. Jeanne is not used to affection, she was mistreated during most of her life, treated as something below humans and vampires due to a thing that was completely out of her control, and then, melting at any sort of affection, no matter how twisted the person may be.

To be fair, I think overall Vanijeanne will develop immensely, and their relationship will grow into something else, more healthy? Who knows! I just think it’s undeniable that in the future Jeanne will have a big, big impact on Vanitas and vice versa. (Disclaimer: I will not tolerate any ship hate whatsoever and everyone is allowed to ship whatever they want regardless of the nature of said ship).

Shifting the focus away to Noé and Vanitas for now, there are some little things I would like to talk about and juxtapose with Vanijeanne, since parallels are my thing.

Parallels between Vanoé and Vanijeanne may not even exist and are just my mind overthinking (hell if this whole post isn’t just a big overthinking) but I would like to talk about what my sleep deprived mind came up with. First off, I think it’s safe to say that Vanoé’s relationship is depicted as complete opposites, opposite worldviews, personalities, fuck even color palettes! And the story as it is shows that they bring the absolute best out of each other and learn by staying by the other’s side. The whole narrative pushes the two halves of a whole idiot a lot.

Noé is naive, pure, idealistic but still possesses certain “selfishness” (like how he felt he was selfish when Louis died but he lived), while Vanitas is cunning, wicked, cynical and would throw his own life away for one corn chip. It’s like they were two people fated to meet.

Vanitas and Jeanne, on the other hand… are kind of similar, but only in certain ways, mostly due to trauma. Jeanne, too, only lives for a sole objective, the same way Vanitas clings to life using his self assigned duty to cure curse bearers. Jeanne and Vanitas both, are people who have essentially gave up on life, on the world, and on themselves. People who purposefully push themselves away from happiness, in fear of the consequences.

I think, at least right now, this is the main reason why they cannot see eye to eye (aside from Vanitas being an asshole). To understand Vanitas and reach out to him, one must see him with “love”. Without love, Vanitas’s struggles, trauma and suffering cannot be seen. If you look at him with eyes full of hatred, he’ll be exactly who he wants to be seen as; a cold, heartless bastard who toys with people and cares for no one other than himself. Jeanne doesn’t have the ability to see the world as purely as Noé does. She cannot find love even in seemingly irredeemable people such as Vanitas. Yet, at least.

That’s the main reason why I think Vanitas isn’t afraid of being near Jeanne, and that’s the main reason why Noé is probably such an… illogical existence to Vanitas. Vanitas, too, cannot see love in the world, and yet, Noé does. Noé catches every single small detail about him:

Whew! That was… one big fucking post! If you’ve reached this point, thank you! I write meta for fun only and to share my interpretations for you guys! Also, the last bit probably sounded very ship hate-y but I swear this was absolutely not my intention.

Actually, the true meaning of this whole post was that I wanted to make an Umineko reference with Vanitas no Carte and I have succeeded. Play Umineko, you guys.

[kanralovesu]

I Loved Beastars But Not Its Metaphor

Right out of the gate let me say I enjoyed watching Beastars. I think it has some of the best written characters out there and its world is very interesting. However, based on just season 1 of the anime I don’t fully understand or like what its trying to say. Held up against other media that use animals as a metaphor I 100% went into this trying to figure out what it was using animal nature as a metaphor for, but I left feeling like the vision was cloggy at best, downright destructive at worst. Lets take a look at some of the themes going on here. 

The divide between Herbivore and Carnivore is front and center in the show and so naturally that’s where I first looked for meaning. Instantly, however, I ran into a problem: Carnivores being biologically geared towards violence surely means whatever Carnivore is analogous to causes violence. Lets be honest, saying certain people in our world are biologically more violent isn’t the best message to be sending. There is certainly a school of thought in the “nature vs nurture” debate which says most if not all our personality is based on our birth, not on the environment we grow up in. At best this ideology can be wielded to say all humans have an equal chance of violence and at worst this can be straight up racism. I don’t think its entirely impossible to discount this potential racist undertone from Beastars as certain animal species are literally more violent than others. I hate to say it, but lines like “I’m glad I was born a wolf” which Legosi says as he fights off the lions to save Haru lend weight to this interpretation. Being a Carnivore is something you’re born with. I think the best interpretation here is that being born a Carnivore is akin to being born into a wealthy family, giving you natural advantages from birth. I don’t think this lines up as neatly as any metaphor where being a Carnivore is based on something biological though, but like I said I really don’t want to dislike the metaphors in this show so I’m trying the best I can to find something here. I also think it can be argued that the Carnivore is a representation of the dominant male and the Herbivore is the more traditional submissive women. 

Compare this to how Zootopia handles the idea of Herbivore vs Carnivore. For most of the movie we’re lead to believe that being a Carnivore makes you inherently more dangerous, but later we realize this is just a lie spread by Herbivores. In case the racism message wasn’t obvious enough, the Herbivore government officials also distributed drugs to the Carnivores just like what really happened in lower income neighborhoods in the US. Beastars uses this metaphor correctly once when Haru says the police will arrest any Carnivore who remotely looks like they’re harassing a Herbivore. 

“Devouring” is also a desire that Legosi much fight against in the first bit of the show. It then seemed very tonally confusing to me when he declared “I’m glad I was born a wolf” and proceeded to rip his opponent’s to shreds. Sure within the context of the narrative his actions are completely justifiable, but lest we remember that ever fight he’s gotten in previously because of his instincts has been widely regarded by everyone as a bad move. Of course “devouring” is also a sex thing as we can clearly interpret from the very first time Haru and Legosi meet and he almost eats her. To give them some credit, this actually helps the idea that Legosi’s arc is to eventually give into his desires just a little to eventually find love. It would explain why there was a character shift that allowed Legosi to take such violent actions even if I don’t think it was quite well explained enough. My one gripe with this, and this is going to sound weird so hear me out, is that if this was his arc then why didn’t they have sex? Yeah, I know but isn’t that just the natural completion to his arc at that point? I mean the real answer is the manga still needs to go on and that’s clearly the “one piece” at the end of it all. The somewhat reasonable answer is that Haru still has an arc to go on where she accepts the relationship. 

This leads me to one of the other big problems I have with Beastars which is that its not content to keep this as a metaphor and decides to have Haru be sexually assaulted anyway. In my option this shows that the writer didn’t trust or understand his use of metaphors enough in this arc. One great bonus of using a metaphor is you can touch tough subjects like this from a distance without coming right and saying what’s happening. Instead of doing this, Beastars gets far too literal and potentially turns some viewers off from being able to enjoy it.

I think there’s one final metaphor I should touch on, the one I think is the laziest and which I hope did not inform the majority of the reason animals were used: “People are animals” in that they are cruel, and driven by desires and human nature. I think this is a bad kind of edgy and I really hope this isn’t the message. If you’re just out to say “the world is fucked” but provide no context to why its fucked that’s just edgy and lazy writing. Its especially crazy when writers will write terrible worlds that really have nothing analogous to our own and say “see look! Look at how screwed up society is!” Well yeah, if half humans were born natural cannibals our society would be pretty fucked up too, but that’s not the case is it? So what part of that fucked up society actually reflects an element of our world?

I hope you can tell how hard I’m trying to write a world where this world presents a solid and well meaning metaphor. I really want to hear what I’m missing here. I am more than willing to write another piece on this show if any number of things (one of them being season 2) changes my views. 

Edit: Okay lets go down the proverbial rabbit hole and apply the theme of “accepting who you are” / “accepting your desires” to the work as a whole. I won’t doubt this is a good arc for Legosi in particular as he learns to accept his feelings and his violent impulses when they are placed correctly, but isn’t he still feeling this way because he’s biologically wired to? With Legosi in particular I definitely feel the Man / Women metaphor for Carnivore / Herbivore makes the most sense as we can interpret everything he’s doing as growing up with puberty and the like. The problem is this doesn’t work for other parts of the show and ruins the metaphor for even more parts. I always found it weird that Haru’s nature of “wanting to be eaten” ruined their night together. By Legosi’s metaphor of being eaten being sex and giving into your desires sometimes being good this shouldn’t have stopped their encounter (quite the opposite). I think this could be rectified with more information on Haru’s situation but currently the metaphors seem backwards. This also creates the problem that all the objectively bad Carnivores in the show are just acting on male instincts which, if you remember if you remember what happened with the lions, turns everything from a racist message to a sexist one by implying that males just naturally have the desire to do that. So basically, while that theme works for Legosi it doesn’t work in the grander theme of the narrative. 

[linkspooky]

Kumagawa + Ajimu = 0

Medaka Box is a school battle manga that isn’t at all about fighting. Instead it’s about how the characters connections to other people humanize them. How abnormals, are no more than normal people when they connect with others. The greatest example of this in the manga is Medaka and Zenkichi, the superhuman girl who becomes human through her connection to her normal and everyday best friend. 

Medaka and Zenkichi have been together their entire lives, to the point where they both sort of build their identity around each other. Medaka was only able to see herself as a person because Zenkichi saw her as a girl first and not a genius. In other words as Medaka says, you’re the person that made me, me. Medaka’s most formative memory is not with the people who praised her as a genius or showered her in affection, but with the one person who always treated her like normal. 

However, this post isn’t about them. Instead of looking at one of the most positive relationships in the manga let’s look at one of the most negative ones. 

Medaka and Zenkichi build each other up, but Ajimu and Kumagawa destroy each other. Ironically for the exact same reasons. Kumagawa and Ajimu are also the only ones who treat each other as humans, and they aer both at their most human and vulnerable when around each other, but unlike in Medaka and Zenkichi’s case this is what leads them to hurting each other. 

This is because Ajimu is a shadow of Medaka, and Kumagawa a shadow to Zenkichi, and they were both built as characters to foil a more negative aspect to their counterparts, and even in their relationship to each other reflects Medaka and Zenkichi’s like a reversed and inverted image in a mirror. 

Instead of talking about two good children let’s talk about two terrible brats. 

1. Kumagawa and Zenkichi

Kumagawa and Zenkichi are both untalented people who want to stand out amongst the talented and special people. However, the differnce between them is not something so simple as Zenkichi works hard, and Kumagawa is lazy and always tries to take the easy way or cheat his way through. 

The light novels even say so. That Kumagawa is a hard working person that always puts all of his efforts into everything he does. 

When he took up the position of Student Council President, I hadn’t expected it at all from him, but unexpectedly, as if he’d had prior experience, Kumagawa-kun properly completed his Student Council President duties.

He did his work in an unpleasant, indescribable manner that could really only be described as “completed”, and it was a very unpleasant manner from the point of view of a General Affairs Manager, but even so, even if the work couldn’t be considered splendid, I couldn’t deny that Kumagawa-kun was truly a hardworking person. [x] translation by @polaristranslations​

The difference between them is Zenkichi’s efforts have always led to self improvement. They get rewarded. He always progresses forward as a person. However, Kumagawa’s efforts never get rewarded. He never improves, he only gets worse, he only spirals down. Zenkichi could be given one thousand tries and make it on the 999th time. Kumagawa would go all 1,000 tries without ever winning once.

In the first place, even if you got infinite lives as Mario or as Luigi, you’re someone that still wouldn’t be able to defeat Bowser—but still, since you ended up dying anyway. [x]

Internally, the characters are almost the same person. They’re both relatively normal guys who try their hardest at whatever they do, and they both have aspirations to be among extraordinary people. Zenkichi wants to keep up with talented people because he believes that makes him worthy of Medaka. Kumagawa wants to keep up with talented people because he believes the world only allows talented people, or people who are strong to be safe and happy, and he idealizes it as an escape from the constant chaos and misery of his life, while at the same time feeling spiteful towards them because he’s left out. 

This is what Kumagawa also tries to get Zenkichi to understand about him in their first fight. Zenkichi and Medaka’s views on people acting out of trauma, or bad victims are a little bit black and white, they can’t possibly udnerstand why someone would want to lash out and hurt others. 

You know how a lot of people misinterpret Catcher in the Rye as the main character being unlikable, just because he presents his trauma in unlikable and not straight forward ways. Because he doesn’t directly ask for help, but rather conceals his trauma and rambles around the point. Because he at no point cries out help me like a victim? Therefore people have a difficult time seeing him as one.

That’s basically Kumagawa and Zenkichi’s entire relationship. Zenkichi cannot accept Kumagawa, because Kumagawa never asks for help in straight forward ways. he never presents himself as a beautiful victim to save. In reality thought, Kumagawa is Zenkichi, just with a lot of trauma piled onto him. Kumagawa is aware of this and tries to make Zenkichi understand, but Zenkichi just doesn’t. 

This is even lampshaded in an omake. That despite pretending to be the most terrible villain he can possibly be, Kumagawa’s personality is weirdly friendly and approachable once you get to know him. It’s because unlike Medaka, Kumagawa actually values the people around him as individual people. He values close connections instead of just trying to blankely love everybody. Which is what Zenkichi’s strength over Medaka is as well. They both are people that can connect to others on a personal level, they can harmonize others around them and their greatest strength is how they use that as a group rather than being individually strong on their own. Neither Kumagawa or Zenkichi actually need to be all that strong because their strength comes from empathy and their ability to understand other people. 

They’re both natural support characters who think they have to be the ones fighting on the front lines. They also both lose most of the fights they get into, Zenkichi’s only real victory is against Munakata at the start of the manga. Even when he beats Nianami, he says he’s still the weakest member of the group. When he goes to the jet black birdal ceremony to save Medaka, he completely fails to save her and gets stabbed and becomes a hostage instead. Even both of them are essential to Munakata’s development, as Zenkichi becomes his first friend, and Kumagawa becomes the first person that Munakata ever killed. They both go out of their way to try to help him, but in opposite ways, Zenkichi as a friend, and Kumagawa helps him by making himself a victim to Kumagawa’s killing instinct. 

They’re constantly comapred to each other in the manga, and they constantly act in opposite ways trying to accomplish the same thing at heart. Zenkichi even understands Kumagawa even when he pretends he doesn’t. 

Kumagawa is obsessed with cleanliness because he sees it as a relief from the constant chaos of his life, because he thinks he’s forced to love ugly, and unpleasant things because that’s all he will ever see. Zenkichi sees through him because he shares that same obsession, he acts like an average guy who doesn’t want to be dragged into the extraordinary but he loves beatufiul people, he’s obsessed with Medaka and part of him still sees her as something above the ordinary instead of treating her 100% like a normal girl. They carry the same contradictions within each other, it’s just for Kumagawa they blow up in his face a lot harder than they ever do for Zenkichi. 

They both loved Medaka. They both met Medaka when she was two years old, and tried to give her an answer to the meaning of her life so she would stop worrying. 

You could even say Kumagawa is just Zenkichi without a Medaka in his life, but that’s not entirely true. Kumagawa has a Medaka, it just happens to be Ajimu who is terrible. 

2. Medaka and Ajimu

Ajimu is the logical end result of Medaka’s ability to infinitely copy and gather skills. She now has quadrillions of them and is basically undefeatable. She too, like Medaka is a character that never has once lost in her life, the same way the main character of a manga never really loses. For both of them their incredible talent over others makes them feel completely inhuman and alienated from all around them, Ajimu just pushes it to an absurd extent crossing the line and becoming a “Non-human.” 

They also both are trying to pursue insane goals when they meet each other. Ajimu wants to create a perfect human, and Medaka wants to make everyone happy. Not because they genuinely want those things, but because they both want to fail. Medaka wants to be human and feel like she’s equal to everybody else. Ajimu wants to fail and prove that reality is real in front of her and alsot hat she’s a part of it. 

They’re both absurd girls, and absurdly lonely. They’ve lived their entire lives in almost complete isolation because no one has seen them as human. It’s just Ajimu has accepted that declaring herself a “Non-Human” whereas Medaka struggles with her desire to be a normal girl. If you think about it nobody in their lives has ever seen them for them. Medaka’s father sees her as an heir who has to take over his entire company the moment she turns eighteen, her other father saw her as a replacement for his sister, his brother obsessed over her to the point that it was creepy, every adult around her either put her on a pedestal or they thought she was terrifying and blamed her for their own inadequacies. The only person she had in her life who remotely treated her like a normal girl was Zenkichi. 

Ajimu was someone who can get anybody to like her in the whole school.

「She hadn’t been such a sadistic character in the past… What happened to the kind and considerate Anshin'in-san that everybody loved…」

“……?”

He was giving off a rather timid aura, which was unusual for him. [x]

Because if everything is fake then, Ajimu can act however she wants. If they’re not real people, if they’re just programmed npcs then she can just pick the right responses to gain points with them. That’s why Ajimu is equally capable of being a very caring and loving person, but also cruel and sadistic. Neither of them are the real her, she’s equally both because she has nothing to ground her personality on, she doesn’t see other people as people. 

Which is exactly what Kumagawa calls Medaka out on, which happens immediately after he reveals how his “love story” with Ajimu ended. Both Medaka and Ajimu have a trouble seeing other people as people due to how much they have been isolated and put on a pedestal their entire lives. However, both of them are both afraid ot come down from their pedestal as well and admit they’re wrong. Their entire identity is built around being girls stronger than anyone so who else would they be if they weren’t that? 

Ajimu is just the negative result of such an attitude. Medaka is preechy and looks down on other people, but it’s never treated that seriosuly as a flaw by the plot. It’s always looked on as something well intentioned and misguided, but ultimately just something she does out of ignorance. Whereas, Ajimu has full on malice for the people she doesn’t see as people.

Ajimu’s complete apathy for other people causes her to treat others terribly. She carelessly tears Medaka and Zenkichi apart, throws everything into chaos, basically because they’re her toys and she wants to play with them. The only reason Ajimu ends up not killing anybody is because Ajimu herself doesn’t really care enough about anybody to kill them. 

Medaka’s ignorance of other people, becomes complete and utter apathy with Ajimu. Her inability to love someone as an individual becomes Ajimu’s complete and total inability to see people as even real, or anything other than manga characters. 

They both ultimately live empty lives that leaves them some form of suicidal. Medaka wishes she had never been born, and Ajimu wants to kill herself out of boredom.

What both of them want desperately is to be equal to other people, and to stop being alone, but also neither of them can let go of the fact that they are special and they think they have to stand above others which is what creates the central conflict in both characters. It’s just that Medaka believes life is epic and keeps trying to learn how she can live, she keeps growing, whereas Ajimu like Kumagawa just spirals out of control slowly and becomes more minus, more negative. 

That’s why in the end Medaka is the only one that can stop Ajimu from killing herself, because Medaka is Ajimu, she has those same suicidal feelings and can understand them. 

3. Kumagawa and Ajimu

What exactly happened between Kumagawa and Ajimu in middle school is never fully revealed, despite being so formative for many of the conflicts of the plot. However, there is a lot of subtext for what their relationship was and almost none of it is pretty. 

The most defining moment of their relationship is that Kumagawa ripped her face off. If you think about Medaka and Zenkichi as two people who humanize each other, who give each other their identity than Kumagawa did the opposite. The face is the sign of identity. When Kumagawa ripped it off, not only did he destroy her identity, he also made everyone else forget about her.

Another thing is Ajimu appears to talk with Kumagawa every time he dies, and this close proximity to her is something that makes him hate her as much as he loves her. 

It’s a pretty clear metaphor for being trapped in a relationship that’s bad for both parties, that makes you eventually start to hate the person you love specifically because you feel trapped by them. Their relationship is something that contributes to Kumagawa’s misery, but at the same time it’s something Kumagawa cannot let go of because if he does not he’s afraid Ajimu might die.

Kumagawa was doing to Ajimu what Zenkichi did to Medaka when they first met. he was trying to give her a reason, any reason to live. However, his way of saving her life was to screw her down and steal away both her face and her freedom. That is to say he made her even less of a person that she normally is. 

The general story we know is this. They met in middle school, and during that time both of them kind of experienced a “honeymoon phase” of their relationship. Kumagawa was able to feel like a normal person around her because Ajimu is just that competent at getting along with others, and at that time he basically existed to do everything she said. 

Even though you’re sitting arrogantly atop the seat of Student Council President, you’re nothing more than her puppet.

You may have heard the term “puppet government” before, but right now, you’re actually making that a reality—just like our time in middle school, our time at Hakobune Middle School.

That time—that time you became the Student Council President with a zero-percent approval rating, you had basically turned into a yes-man for me, the Not Equal. [x]

Ajimu says the first time she had expectations for another person, that is the first human being she struggled to try to see them as human was Kumagawa. However, something goes wrong most likely due to Ajimu’s suicidal nature and Kumagawa’s wish for her to live. 

My guess is that on that “day” we never got to learn the details of, Ajimu threatened suicide first and Kumagawa retaliated. Or, Kumagawa knew she was suicidal all along and he was terrified of losing her and over the course of two years those negative feelings built up until Kumagawa finally broke and acted up.

At which point they both broke each other irrepably. They started being terrible to one another. Kumagawa is specifically referred to as having trauma that outweighs all the other trauma in his life and it’s triggered when Emukae takes both of the exploding bracelets and almost commits suicide right in front of him to save him. In other words he had trauma with girls he loves comitting suicide. It’s also the one thing he’s afraid of, like when he asks Gagamaru to kill him because he’s too afraid to just jump off the roof on his own. 

When Kumagawa is describing all the negative things he has to accept in his life, he says it’s like accepting a lover. Which indicates a very unhealthy view when it comes to accepting the flaws of a lover in any relationship that you’re in.

Like some of the examples he lists are just, stuff that would happen in a relationship gone wrong. 

The reason it went wrong being in the end, Kumagawa and Ajimu unlike Zenkichi and Medaka are too similiar, they’re both too afraid of being human. It’s even implied they both hold the same kind of cynicism and minus forms of views which is why the understand each other so well.

They both see the world as an inescapable reality that’s not for them, where they don’t belong. Kumagawa because he is too weak, and Ajimu because she is too strong. They are on complete opposite sides of the spectrum, but that is how they connect with each other, because the world is not for them, it’s like they’re the only two people in the whole world.

It’s Ajimu and Kumagawa who make all the metafiction jokes, about treating real life like it’s a manga. And that’s a form of using fiction as escapism. Ajimu believes everything is fake, because the reality is that everything is unbearably lonely for her. Kumagawa uses fiction to escape, because the reality is life isn’t like shonen manga and tragedy upon tragedy is going to keep happening to him and it doesn’t matter if he’s strong or week. 

They both have this desire to become human the same way everyone else is. They both feel left out from other people’s happiness. However, they also both have the desire to escape, to run away, because things are too painful, too lonely for them and they can’t handle it. 

Which is why ultimately both Kumagawa and Ajimu can’t work together, because neither of them wants to be human because being human is vulnerable. Zenkichi even comments this, Kumagawa doesn’t want to be understood, not really, or at least not the way he presents himself. He tries everything possible to make others fail to understand him. 

Ajimu too, distances herself from reality as much as possible. She even calls herself a ‘non-human’ all the time, not because she’s some weird space alien, but because she does not want to be human. Neither of them wants to get hurt, to feel pain the same way that humans do.

Which is why they can’t work around each other. When they’re together, they both know each other so well, they both fit so naturally together, that both of them become vulnerable in a way that neither of them can handle. Kumagawa even says as much, though he presents the notion in the most warped and twisted way possible. That he saw through the fact that Ajimu was just pretending to be kind and to get along with other people, and none of that was her real self, and he tried to see through the mask. It worried him that he didn’t get to know the real Ajimu. Kumagawa at least at one point didn’t want to love the Ajimu that was kind to others, he wanted to love the real her.

But in the end Kumagawa has no idea if his feelings reached or even mattered to her. When he says as much it’s the one time Kumagawa looks genuinely sad during this entire conversation, and the panel hides his expression. 

Which is why in the end they’re relationship is so important and formative to one another. They, just like Medaka and Zenkcihi are basically the ones who humanize each other. They make up each other’s identities. But at the same time both of them are so afraid of being humans they go out of their way to dehumanize and destroy each other. 

Ajimu even admits this on the final note of their relationship together. That Kumagawa in the end was the only real person to her, the only person she could show any bias towards. That’s why she’s able to hate him and love him, because she actually sees him as a person. 

In the same light, Kumagawa only starts to believe it’s possible for him to win when Ajimu tells him he can.

That’s how formative for Kumagawa Ajimu is. He cannot accept the idea that he could win, until Ajimu finally accepted and embraced him as a person. 

That’s what it means to be close, you are equally as capable of hurting each other as you are helping each other. That’s why Medaka Box so beautfiully illustrates the power but also the vulnerability of human connection.

[freevoidman]

Okay I’m reading through Porg’s update so some of y’all can save your braincells and here are some great highlights (under a readmore bc i couldn’t help but tear into a few things she suggested):

Flat out ignoring that Vergil had changed by the end of the game as a result of V and Urizen’s separate experiences.

In trying to make V and Urizen their own character, she throws out the idea of Vergil being manipulated by the Qliphoth/Urizen (??? somehow??? even though the tree is implied to be non-sentient i believe???), with V being a Devil hunter looking through the remains of Mallet Island (which was completely blown up, turned to rubble, and then swallowed by the sea, so... that can’t happen), finding the cane which makes him youthful and not sick but... having the cane makes it so he can only kill demons through the cane??? for some reason??? And he needs the Qliphoth fruit to heal himself and free him from the curse???

How did she make V’s backstory even more confusing and complicated how the fuck did she do that

Almost immediately after bringing up the cane, she instead changes it to be one of the rings he’s wearing because she wants her “precious V” to use weapons other than the cane, which makes all the prior paragraphs about the cane’s curse and only using it pointless. She’s the one writing this fic, why can’t she edit her own work so it’s more cohesive?

Despite saying that V should be a Devil Hunter, she doesn’t explain why someone who is supposed to be killing demons would form a pact with at least three to fight demons. Her rewrite dismisses Visions of V, and she even states later that the manga is a waste of time as it won’t ever be translated into English (which 1) is not a limiting factor to reading it as many people have translated it already and 2) doesn’t dismiss it’s value at building up V’s character, who she supposedly likes the best).

Also, for someone who complains about DMC5 being a rehash of DMC3, she’s sure doing her best to change it to a rehash of DMC1 (Vergil being controlled by an outside force, bringing back Mallet Island, bringing back Mundus [the cane is supposed to be tied to Mundus]).

V apparently can’t be human because she wants to give him a devil trigger, despite having 3 familiars and his own strength. Okay I guess?

Also it’s really fucking sick how she describes V changing, because it’s apparently V fusing with Nightmare? Devil May Cry has never been one for body horror but she straight up says she was inspired by “The Thing (1982), The Fly (1986), Bloodborne, and Resident Evil 7″ for the transformation imagery and I wanted to nope the fuck out of there real quick.

Her segments of actual fiction writing and dialogue are really bad it’s almost like a parody Youtube skit.

She switches between prose and script writing randomly, it’s really odd. She does it primarily with Dante i’ve noticed? Here’s an example I wrote of what she does:

“Hey, don’t stress out about it will you?” Says John following a few steps behind VINCENT: Don’t get your panties in a twist

And that just happens... randomly? Like, there’s no indication why she’s doing that it just happens.

She straight up writes notes in her fic about the controls for character actions in-game what the hell--

She also shamelessly puts in a link to artwork that clearly isn’t her’s (and I highly doubt she got permission to post about) to try and show what V’s Devil Trigger would look like. I couldn’t find it because I don’t know how pixiv works, but that’s just a shitty move, especially with how she treats artists on tumblr when they draw art of Vergil.

EDIT: Porg has now straight up copy-pasted the art into her fic without the artist’s permission which is, we all know, fucking theft. While it is good artistry, is just a weird mashup of Vergil’s and Dante’s. It’s not all that unique and I don’t understand why she had to reference a bunch of body horror shit when all the Devil Triggers in game are essentially just a large flash of light and a seamless transition between forms??? It’s good art, I’m not trying to bash the artist, but... Porg, you could’ve been a little more original here rather than just ripping off another artist’s designs...

Everyone in her fic acts super casually to seeing Vergil alive in the Qliphoth and it’s like... honey, no.

Vergil acts WILDLY out of character holy fuck. Like, I know I should have expected that but this is NOT how Vergil would act in the slightest. She’s pretty much writing an OC.

Building off of this: EVERYONE acts OOC and... it’s not exactly cringey, but it is perfect proof that Porg doesn’t know what she’s doing and hasn’t properly analyzed the characters.

Dante acts weirdly... detached? There’s no sign of him acting like his normal goofball-y self, and he’s much more serious than normal. He actually acts more like cannon Vergil than himself, actually. (He also knows CPR apparently? Which... is a skill he would really never bother learning, so...)

Nero doesn’t act nearly as emotional, and acts calmly for some reason. You can’t feel any of his emotions behind his dialogue, only through the adverbs added to the tags)

V is too informative. He knows way too much about random shit that... no one should rightfully know. I’ll mention it more later, but... V doesn’t act like himself and I don’t really know how to explain it.

Vergil is essentially her OC. Seriously--he’s not as brooding or snarky, he’s far too open and apologetic, there’s practically no sense of rivalry between him and Dante. Weirdly, he acts more like canon V than fic!V does, despite the fact that Porg wants to establish V and Vergil and separate characters. His actions also make no sense when put alongside his canon personality. We aren’t reading anything about Vergil, we’re reading about Porg’s weirdly idealized version of him.

I’m going to make a break in the post here because I feel like this is the part that needs the most attention:

Porg goes OUT OF HER WAY to dedicate a GIANT portion of this chapter to her own OC: Nero’s mom. There are several long paragraphs of establishing the relationship between her OC and Vergil, talking about leaving Fortuna, how they were ‘happy’ and then saying that after a hurricane (inspired by hurricane hugo, you’ll see later) she got separated from Vergil, never reconnected with him, GAVE BIRTH, died from a demon attack with Nero staying near her corpse, and then Nero was found by humans and taken off the mainland to be taken to an orphanage on Fortuna. She wanted a massive amount of time to be taken out of the fun parts of playing Devil May Cry to establish a relationship that would never come back and essentially turn into a 15 minute soap opera inserted into a game about having fun killing demons.

Alright back to the noted highlights.

Porg confirms in her fic that the universe of Devil May Cry happens in the US, and that Fortuna is an island along the southeast coast and I want to fucking rip my eyeballs out at this point.

The ONLY REASON why she is doing this is because she lives in Florida. I know she does, and she just wants to imply that this is all happening near her home turf. How anyone who lives in Florida thinks an island like Fortuna can exist is beyond me though, because playing through 4, most of the buildings are inspired by Italian designs, and no one in the states would build an entire island with italian designs. I’ve been to Florida multiple times--there’s no buildings there even REMOTELY designed to match Fortuna.

EDIT: I have been informed that Porg actually lives in Pennsylvania, not Florida, which makes both more and less sense. Why Florida? Why not a hidden island up on the east coast? Why does this have to be taking place in the states at all Porg???

Yeah, let’s take Nero off the MAINLAND OF FLORIDA after a DEVASTATING HURRICANE and send him to an orphanage on an ISLAND which would’ve been hit the hardest by ANY hurricane. TOTAL SENSE. 

She tries to make her own timeline for the series using actual real world dates and events and it’s terrible (she references Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and confidently states that 3 took place in 1990, despite all evidence for the actual dates of events being fan theory established through circumstantial evidence).

There’s so much horror movie inspiration here--not cheap horror, but really twisted shit that... doesn’t fit with Devil May Cry’s tone at all? In the slightest? She references Jacob’s Ladder, plus all the other body horror media I wrote above.

Straight up just tears Vergil’s arm off which sure, I guess we gotta make THAT a parallel between Nero and Vergil. They can have a father son moment over being physically maimed.

In the scene immediately before this, Urizen picks up Vergil by the head and roots around Vergil’s memories (somehow???) to show him all the ‘bad moments’ in his life to traumatize him. She describes it as the audience getting flashes of him falling to hell, charging Mundus, being Nelo Angelo, etc. 

This causes Vergil to cry and beg for Urizen to stop. Then Urizen rips off his arm. So. Yeah. Another point for the OOC!Vergil/OC-taking-Vergil’s-place board.

Also this point ALONE made me realize that Porg does not know how much time, effort, and money needs to be put into making assets. Like, the entire fic she was stressing that everything be done in 5′s HD Graphics--including the ruins of Mallet Island, so I have to assume she’d want these little snippets in HD too, which would be a massive money hole creating these assets for one scene that lasts maybe ten seconds total.

I know I stated it in one of my earlier posts, but most of what she’s writing would fit better with a sequel for the reboot series, not DMC5. It would make her OOC writing of Vergil make sense, all the horror movie inspiration and body horror shit would fit better there, especially all the crappy dialogue too.

She somehow made Griffon even MORE annoying than in cannon.

BTW if I had to listen to poetry while fighting the final boss of a video game, I’d sooner turn my PS4 off. Not that poetry isn’t cool and all, but it cheapens the final fight and distracts you. It wouldn’t work.

EDIT: I realized this point made no sense without context, sorry. Porg made the Book of Urizen (the poetry book by William Blake referenced multiple times by V) either weirdly prophetic or made it out like Blake had inner knowledge of demon powers or... something along those lines, and V magically has the knowledge that reciting poetry from the book about Urizen will... harm him? Weaken him? Open a gate to hell (she mentions a portal appearing near him)? It’s very unclear, but she essentially rewrites Urizen as the final boss, and makes it three stages (V [Griffon recites some verses, which is what the first point was about], Vergil and Dante [this is where Vergil gets his arm ripped off btw], and then Nero) with all three of them reading poetry from the book to deal the “final blow” to Urizen. I’d much rather have Vergil be the final boss than have to go through a three-stage boss fight while every character I play as recites poetry to kill the boss.

She mentions Dante using Sin DT against Urizen but I’m pretty sure with her fuckery of the game’s events Dante can’t GET Sin DT? Because there’s no fight between Nero and Urizen where he’d intervene?

COMPLETELY IGNORES VERGIL’S DEVELOPMENT OF WANTING TO TRAVEL WITH HIS BROTHER THROUGH HELL TO ELIMINATE THE QLIPHOTH FUCK OFF.

Also she changed the lore of the Qliphoth so that it sprouts semi-naturally around every 500 or so years? So... shouldn’t leaving the Qliphoth roots be fine now? Since it’s natural?

Nico acts like growing back arms is totally normal

Wrote an INCREDIBLY shoe-horned in moment in the van with Dante filling Trish and Lady in about finding Vergil and everything that happened where, once again, Trish and Lady act almost completely nonplussed that Vergil is alive after 20+ years in hell, with about 9 of those ten years being trapped under Mundus’ control and corrupted by the Demon King

Seriously why is no one surprised in this fic that Vergil survived? Dante has a brief moment before finding him, but everyone finds out and accepts it like flipping a switch (once again--ESPECIALLY DANTE, which is NOT how the grieving process works)

Porg states that the ending is trash because the twins are fighting in hell, but completely ignores that most of Dante and Vergil’s lives have been built on conflict and they like fighting demons, especially Dante. Both of them were happy and doing what they love.

She also completely ignores through this entire thing that Dante was really fucking depressed in the novels leading up to 5 but hey I don’t even know if she can read.

I can vaguely agree that Trish and Lady were sidelined and they should’ve had a bigger role. However, I can’t fault the directors for not doing this, because they were already developing three playable characters with their own unique fighting styles. She writes all this shit about the story, writes notes about controls and mission layouts, but forgets that it takes a lot more than pressing a single button to code a game.

She just doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Seriously, none of these things are cohesive or edited properly, and despite her saying she wanted better for Vergil, or Nero, or Dante, or V, she writes all of them incredibly out of character and doing illogical actions. I just... I don’t get it.

The best part is--I can’t even tell her about these things, or give constructive criticism. She moderates the comments on her fic and isn’t afraid to delete anything she doesn’t agree with or can’t make a ‘passionate rant’ about.

[pelikinesis]

just rewatched Trigun for the first time in probably 10 years or so?

Trigun is often extremely compelling, except when its writing becomes very bad, and by bad I mean dissatisfying in terms of internal logic.

production-wise, i get the sense that they blew the majority of the animation budget on the first two or so episodes, because they’re absolutely gorgeous, but in many of the later episodes they take a lot of shortcuts to the point where some scenes are basically slideshows.

writing-wise, there’s a number of really key moments that are intended to be emotional, but they’re so intent on discussing THEMES and making ON-BRAND CALLBACKS that characters start spouting dialogue in moments that are absolutely unfitting for the situations that were set-up, and a lot of the social issues in the later episodes is due to the fact that absolutely none of the main characters ever explain to anyone else, “Okay so there’s this guy named Knives, and he’s totally the reason why bad things happen around Vash”

and i’m not saying everything would be resolved because they’d be automatically believed, but everything Meryl and Vash say in lieu of that rightfully serve only to infuriate all the scared, misguided people precisely because they’re desperately asking for an explanation and instead they’re told some sanctimonious bullshit about how killing is bad, or so it sounds because it has not been explained to them that Vash is not who they think he is.

in hindsight, i mostly stuck around with this rewatch because of how good the first two episodes were, and the richness of the premise they promised. the idea of a pacifistic but extremely skilled gunman with a legendary reputation who is actually a dork IS interesting, especially when combined with the supporting cast. 

If someone pitched to me an RPG campaign idea set in some sci-fi wild west world where we’d be playing as insurance claims agents sent to make contact with an outlaw so fearsome he’s on the verge of being classified as a natural disaster or act of God, i’d tell them to sign me the fuck up. out of all the backgrounds for a supporting cast in this type of setting, that’s a very fresh one.

the way that all the drama in Vash’s backstory which took place aboard giant spaceships intended to colonize other planets effectively turns his past into that planet’s own Creation story in a way, and how this somewhat subtly casts himself and Knives as angels or demigods is actually way cooler to me now than i ever registered the first time I watched Trigun.

but i just don’t find that the whole Vash-Jesus-Job analogue exactly resonates. There’s no tension because Knives and the Gung-ho Guns are effectively all-powerful, and if they’d been even slightly more competent they’d have succeeded in their goals. But it’s also left completely unexplained why the most loyal of the Gung-ho Guns are loyal to the point of death to Knives, and at this point I’m actually just talking about Legato because the rest of them barely exist. but Legato, wow, what a hot mess of a plot device masquerading as a character. 

early on a question is raised: does Vash manage to get out of life-or-death scrapes with zero fatalities (though lots of property damage) due to dumb luck, or because he’s just that good? But the thing is, it’s never truly answered. Legato, in particular, is central to the least satisfying parts of the story. His powers are the most overtly supernatural and staggering in scope. It’s never explained why he has so little regard not only for the lives of other humans, but for his own life, allowing himself to be a total pawn to Knives despite probably being the most powerful character in the setting. Legato’s arc could have been used to help definitively answer the prior question, but it’s resolved in a different way that i’d call a swerve, but ultimately not a good swerve.

there are certain things i don’t mind not being explained, so long as the lack of information doesn’t turn into plot holes. So for example, i don’t really need to know what the Plants are. They’re humanoid and seemingly-sentient, and somehow provide all the resources humans need to survive on a desert planet. That’s fine. Not knowing how they work is fine. That mystery does not distract from the narrative’s comprehensibility.

But the show is very blatantly one wherein the fate of all humanity always falls on Vash’s shoulders, which is a bit too egoistic a story for my tastes--yet this wouldn’t be a problem if it were done well. i don’t think it is, though, not in its totality anyways.

Legato isn’t the only problem, he just happens to be the biggest problem. Legato isn’t so much a character as he is a plot device, a deus ex machina--not one that *resolves* the problems caused by the plot, but rather *creates* the problem that the plot requires so that the story arrives at the resolution the author wants.

Legato was the *facade* of an interesting character--an immensely powerful psychic with no regard for human life who also enjoyed eating sweets in his spare time. He can mind control hundreds if not thousands of people at once. Cool. Why can he do that, and what does he want? The answers to those two questions respectively are, (1) because shut up, that’s why, and (2) because he wants everything Knives wants because of reasons.

and that second part is infuriating, because in failing to address this, the writers miss an opportunity for exposition that would enrich not only Legato but also Knives as characters, at the same time. *how* did Knives convince Legato and also the saxophone guy to do his bidding loyally until death? Why is it that Legato is absolutely devoted to Knives, whereas Saxophone Guy shows some bitterness as they meet their ends to fulfill Knives’ plan? How has Knives secured their loyalty despite hating humans so much? See, those would have made for interesting moments, if they weren’t absolutely shunted off to the side in favor of varied scenes of Vash coughing up blood as he spouts his beliefs in a way that’s usually out-of-context for his audience.

Now, in other fighting superpower anime, i would normally expect a character such as Legato to be defeated once the protagonist figures out a weakness or limitation in his psychic powers and adopts a strategy to target that vulnerability. In a good fighting superpower anime, i might expect that a powerful psychic might have some vulnerability based on a psychological issue or two. that’s intuitive, and would not only be satisfying for the protagonist’s development to figure all that out, it would simultaneously provide an opportunity for deeper characterization of said psychic villain.

the swerve that instead Vash wins by losing, that is, by finally being forced into a situation where he has to (temporarily) violate his own moral code and shooting Legato dead was somewhat dramatic but only because of the buildup. Actually, one thing I unreservedly applaud Trigun about is the restraint they demonstrated in having Vash not even fire a gun for like the first five or six episodes which, in a 26~ episode show is quite an investment. It also spent even more time building  up like 24-25 episodes of Vash not killing anyone, and then suddenly he did. But that’s the only reason it was remotely dramatic. Legato was an enigma and and obstacle but ended up being an empty contrivance, which was disappointing.

in many early episodes, it was very clearly laid out what the villain and guest protagonists’ motives were and why they had them. the writer(s) clearly knew how to do that even within the span of a single mostly self-contained episode. and that makes the bundles of unanswered questions that Legato’s role in the story and also his existence altogether raise that much more grating on my suspension of disbelief.

As soon as Legato’s whole dilemma was resolved, i couldn’t really engage with the story anymore, save to watch the last few episodes for the sake of doing so, and also out of curiosity for where the writers were going with everything. but i was no longer invested in the characters, because at some point they started saying and doing things in a manner meant to tie a bow on the themes the writers had been harping on the whole series, but not in a way that demonstrated any internal consistency or believability as far as the characters themselves.

Vash and Meryl never tell anyone who Knives is because the writers need Vash to forever be a falsely-accused and persecuted Christ analogue. it’s so freaking transparent, and that’s one of a number of similarly unsatisfying elements to Trigun, and it’s a darned shame. because so much of the show is interesting and promising, but it doesn’t really have the follow-through. idk maybe the manga explains everything.

Finally, there’s no good reason why Knives didn’t just kill Meryl and Milly after Legato died. I’m not saying this because I wanted their characters dead or anything. I’m saying it because if Knives’ whole motivation is to hurt Vash, and if Knives thinks of humans like cockroaches, then why wouldn’t he kill Meryl and Milly not long after Vash breaks his own code against killing just to save them? Why not drive that final nail in the coffin just to spite Vash? 

All we know about Knives is that he’s Vash, but evil, he wants to wipe out humanity because he thinks they are inferior to them, and he wants to break Vash emotionally. Everything he does is motivated by spite towards Vash, and misanthropy, so killing Meryl and Milly while Vash is sulking over the abstract notion of taking a human life due to killing Legato would be the final insult to injury and would be 100% consistent with everything we know about Knives.

And this is why I couldn’t stay engaged with Trigun. Vash only adheres to his beliefs because the villains don’t do everything that’s within their power to break him. I’m not saying I wanted a grimdark downer ending. I’m saying that the only reason Trigun doesn’t have one is because the writers wanted a good ending, which clashed with everything they set up. Vash’s reaffirmation of his beliefs simply isn’t earned, not in my book, because the only reason they remain intact is because of either laziness or neglect on the part of Knives or the writers. 

[rwbyconversations]

The Princess and her Pauper- A Weiss/Emerald Character Contrast

One of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of a creator is the art of contrast. In storytelling, characters that contrast, often referred to as foils, can serve to highlight particular qualities of each other. How one acts to a situation and the other reacts. It’s why rivalries form the backbone of many a great story with conflict in its theme- why the most memorable moments in action titles like Devil May Cry 3 and Metal Gear Rising are when two rivals who serve as foils for each other come to blows in a winner-take-all clash of wills. Not all foils need be rivals, however- George and Lennie in Of Mice and Men are built as foils, with George being wire-thin and razor-sharp mentally while Lennie is a lumbering giant of a man with the intellect of a child. 

Rooster Teeth’s RWBY is a series that loves to set up connections between its central heroes of Team RWBY and the villainous factions under Salem. Although the connections between current villains Team WTCH and RWBY have not yet been solidified (Watts screentime when), RWBY’s initial foes in Team CRME (Cinder, Roman, Mercury and Emerald) all complimented aspects of RWBY’s personalities. Ruby and Cinder were both leaders, Ruby through example and optimism and Cinder through manipulation and fear, Blake dual-contrasted with Adam and Roman, Yang with Mercury and (regardless of what TVTropes tells you), Weiss contrasts with the sharp-tongued, fast-fingered gem thief Emerald Sustrai. 

Despite having not technically met in canon*, with their appearances relegated to sharing fights in the Volumes 2 and 3 OP, with their dialogue being two lines in a Chibi episode, Weiss and Emerald are almost perfect narrative foils for each other. I am convinced that they were purposefully written to contrast each other, and if/when Emerald has a redemption arc, you can be sure that this material will be used to show how similar Weiss and Emerald can be... not that either of them would admit it. And for the record? This is my OTP and Weiss and Emerald rank in my five favorite characters each, so this is going to be a self-indulgent mess. Consider it my two and three hundred follower specials wrapped into a neat little bow.

In this post, I am going to show the narrative, backstory and character contrasts between Weiss Schnee and Emerald Sustrai, and why I think they could have one of the best-written rivalries/friendships/bond in the entire show if Miles and Kerry play their cards right in the coming Volumes. As usual, the post is under the Read More for the sake of users on their phones.

(Art source: @nibbles-scribbles)

* (In before “Didn’t Weiss fight Em at Haven during the Checkmate scene?” offscreen doesn’t count and Let’s Not Talk About Haven This Is A Happy Post)

Part 1-  Lonely eyes, well, it sure looks like you just might be looking for something

Weiss and Emerald’s backstories on paper couldn’t be any different- which, again, is one of the purposes of narrative contrasts, connecting the impossible. Weiss lived in the lap of luxury her entire life, part of a family that probably had the combined net worth of half of the Fortune 500. The Schnee Dust Company was such a profitable venture that it bought out rival families and took them out of business. Weiss’s every need was catered for, she had a loyal servant in Klein, and became a popular attraction at parties thanks to her singing voice.

And she couldn’t have been more soul-crushingly alone. 

A young Weiss sits at a piano, basking in the praise of the adults around her

Weiss, narration: Words of praise were often overflowing around me. Whatever I did, with a little effort, I did better than average. I expected the praise as a matter of course and believed I deserved it all. As the daughter of the Schnee house, I would be the best. Nothing else would do. 

Weiss reaches out to her father who is walking away from her. The door shuts in her face. Weiss’s face comes into the panel. The smile is gone. 

Weiss, narration: My father felt the same way. So his indifference... was expected.  - RWBY Manga,Shirow Miwa

Weiss was little more than a toy when she was a child, something Jacques brought out for the guests to coo at, but they never cared for Weiss herself: 

Everyone only cared that I was part of the Schnee family, not that I was me. They were honoring the Schnee name. I thought all that praise was for me. It wasn’t. It messed with my head when I figured that out.

Weiss’s Volume 5 focus song, and the first chronological song about her, The Path to Isolation (AKA Mirror Mirror 0.5), is about when Weiss realizes how alone she is in Atlas with the realization that people only care about her for her money and surname, and not for Weiss as a person. We see this in person with her interactions with Henry Marigold in Volume 4 and Jacques spells it out later:

I don’t give a damn what you want! This isn’t about you!  

Miwa’s manga alongside Path To Isolation makes it clear that Weiss lived in the lap of luxury, but it was a cold, sterile lap where she never felt loved even with Klein’s presence and Winter’s distant love, thanks to Jacques’ distance driving Weiss further into her personal hell. Weiss lived a tragically lonely life in her childhood and its effects are still seen on her even in the present day. For a long time, all she was was an accessory to Jacques who got pushed into his obedient shadow.

Emerald’s backstory is less concrete than Weiss, but from what we do know it’s no less painful. She lived alone on the city streets with no parents (dead or neglectful we don’t know) or friends to look out for her, and every day was a struggle to survive. By the time we see Emerald in Volume 3′s flashback, she’s barely holding it together and is stick-thin.

Her clothes are frayed in various places, held together with belts and straps, and Emerald is nearly emaciated. She’s jumpy, paranoid and resorts to blatant daytime robbery of a jewel store just to cover the costs to get some food for a night. When Cinder finds Emerald, she finds a cornered street-rat barely staying alive. 

If Jacques manipulated Weiss through inaction, Cinder in turn twisted Emerald through action, providing the young thief everything she ever wanted. Cinder gave her a warm bed, food whenever she wanted it and possibly even the love of the mother that Emerald might not have had. Chibi Season 3 in fact had a skit where Emerald (within a dream) jokingly notes that Cinder really is “The mother figure I may- or may not- have never had.” Regardless, Cinder learned from Salem the best way to get people to follow you is to give them exactly what they want. She gave Roman some Dust and a chance to commit crimes, she gave Mercury a target and people to hurt, and she gave Emerald a sick, twisted lie. She made Emerald fall in love with her. 

I don’t care about Salem! But I owe Cinder everything.

Cinder twists Emerald around her finger and makes her almost entirely dependent on Cinder’s approval and love. And make no mistake, this is (at least from Emerald’s warped perspective, the poor girl) love. 

This is not the face of a heterosexual woman upon seeing Cinder Fall. 

Em sadly closing her eyes behind Cinder just... gets me, man. I care for that mint-ice-cream too much Jesus Christ.

Cinder, of course, doesn’t love her back. I don’t think Cinder knows what it means to love beyond that she can use other people’s love in her pursuit of power. She manipulated and tricked Emerald, making the thief fall for her in a worthless attempt to impress her. And every time Emerald stepped remotely out of line, even if by complete unintentional accident, Cinder harshly made her judgement clear and forced Emerald back into her obedient shadow. Cinder definitely didn’t love Emerald. But damn if she didn’t know how to abuse her.  

Emerald: We don’t need him (Mercury), everything was going fine- A slap is heard. Emerald shouts in pain. Cinder: Do not mistake your place.

As pointed out expertly by @alexkablob, Emerald’s body language when Cinder gets angry in this scene is very telling- she almost shrinks and hides herself, trying very hard to avoid Cinder’s wrath in that immediate moment. The mere threat of reprisal has Emerald assuming a more subservient position

Here’s what connects Weiss and Emerald from their backstories. Both had terribly lonely childhoods, with Weiss lonely in a crowd as she realized people only loved her for her money and name, and Emerald forced to live alone as a street rat with no one to rely on. Jacques manipulated Weiss through making her seek his approval which manifested as physical abuse, and Cinder as well manipulated and abused Emerald into falling in love with Cinder or seeing her as a replacement mother figure. Both were lonely children, abused and scorned by everyone around them, especially those who had the most direct power over them. Both of them, tragically, are victims of those above them who see them as tools and not even as people. Ones who occasionally fall out of line and need... percussive maintenance to fix. Weiss and Emerald have some of the darkest backstories in RWBY and in their tragedy, they compliment each other beautifully. 

(Source: @nibbles-scribbles, who gave me permission to use her art)

Part 2: Sight Unseen

Now that we’ve covered their backstories, let’s actually contrast Emerald and Weiss on a fighting and character level. 

Weiss and Emerald fight each other in the OPs for Volumes 2 and 3. They are so far on the very small list of fights in the OPs that have never occurred and are in fact the only notable fight to not happen ever four years since it was first teased, especially since it happened in two sequences. 

Both characters use revolver mechanisms in their weapons- Weiss for her Dust and Emerald for a ranged component. Both are agile fighters who dart around the battlefield and can be very damaging in the right circumstances and are the most fragile member of their respective teams (Weiss having the worst solo win/loss record of anyone on RWBY and Emerald being a stealth fighter who dropped very quickly when Amber focused fire on her being my evidence). 

What’s interesting in contrasting the two is their Semblances. Emerald creates vivid hallucinations for a single target that effects all five of their senses but ultimately is a purely mental effect on the subject’s reality. Her Semblance can’t create physical matter. However, Weiss’s Semblance is a purely physical one that lets her influence and change reality on a primal, physical level- be it for Glyphs, time dilation or using Summoning to create physical constructs to fight for her. Depending on if Weiss’s Summons can be affected by Emerald’s hallucinations (or if Weiss being hit with Em’s Semblance has consequences for her Summons), the two could serve as hard counters in the event of a fight. 

Long story short a fight between these two would be really cool.

Character wise, one of the more interesting bits of contrast between Weiss and Emerald is how they approach friendship. Both are equally sardonic and have razor-sharp wits on anyone who irks them, but while Weiss is cold at first and softens as she gets to know and trust people, Emerald throws up a facade of being chummy with people, a facade she hates. If her friendship with Mercury is anything to go by, Emerald can make some very biting remarks at the expense of those she’s close to. If her love for Cinder is anything to go by however, Emerald is very tender and affectionate when it comes to the people she loves. She rushes to give Cinder a hug in Volume 2 and in Volume 4, acts as Cinder’s translator, being almost sickeningly tender and rushing to come to Cinder’s side when she asks. 

And while Emerald’s a villain, it would be a shame to waste a rivalry between her and Weiss. Both are passionately devoted to their leaders and are willing to cross the world for them and fight in this endless war for them (note how Weiss volunteers for the war while Emerald is drafted). Emerald hates Ruby because she maimed Cinder at Beacon, while Weiss hates Cinder because... bitch shoved a spear in her. It’s more than enough conflict to kickstart a rivalry and as proven despite their lack of screentime, the contrasts between them write themselves.

Part 3) Dry your eyes now, baby, broken wings can’t hold you down

In the event (by which I mean when) Emerald undergoes a redemption arc and leaves Cinder, Weiss will definitely play a significant role in facilitating her joining the heroes, much like Blake did with Ilia. Weiss is honestly the only RWBY member who really can facilitate this redemption in the coming Volumes- Ruby will likely never forgive Emerald for her role in Penny’s death, Blake has basically done this arc already for Ilia, and Yang will be too caught up in her Raven/Blake issues. I have no doubt that Blake’s own abusive past can be used as a bonding point as well with Emerald (a common vector used for fans of the rare ship Cat Burglar), but Weiss perhaps more than anyone else shares a fundamental understanding of Emerald’s “love.” The love of someone determined to win any shred of approval that they can from the monster that haunts their nightmares every night. 

Given how Emerald has allusions to Aladdin and Weiss is Snow White, their relationship also works in referencing their fairytale sources- Aladdin saves Jasmine in his story, after all. Rags to ritches is also one of the most prolific tales out there, especially ones where a person destined for greatness falls in love with a member of high society and rises through the ranks. Weiss is a princess after all, and every princess does need her pauper so that she may find true love. Weiss has already tried her hand as the upper echelons of society romantically (Henry and Neptune) and they were found lacking.  

(Source. Art by @nibbles-scribbles​)

In some cases, literally. 

Does this need to mean a romantic connection, especially when Emerald will be coming off her last lover being abusive? Perhaps not, but a close bond between them would be impossible to avoid. However, a romantic attachment between Emerald and Weiss would be a beautiful thing to see develop. Two women, nearly broken down by their oppressive abusers, coming together and helping each other heal from their past traumas? I don’t know about you but that sounds like it could be a great story to me. Emerald already wears a lot of white too, so their color schemes unite smoothly. 

To conclude this extended love letter, Emerald and Weiss are two sides of the same coin. Young women beaten down and abused by those with power over them who had desperately lonely childhoods. Women who developed into strong and capable warriors with Semblances that altar different facets of reality, who could have a natural rivalry that leads into a smooth friendship and maybe even more beyond, all of which could be backed by organic references to both of their fairytale sources and allow for a wonderful string of character development for Weiss and Emerald as they heal from their past traumas. This may be a rare ship, one that may have gotten all the references it ever will when Emerald complimented Weiss’s dress.

But damnit. It’s my rare ship and I’ll go down with it, I’ve made too many great friends thanks to it. If you’d like to see more EmWeiss content, check out my great friends @goldibox, @dabby-the-house-elf (the main for @nibbles-scribbles whose seminal art I’ve used throughout this piece), SassyUnicorn7′s A Fight To Remember (one of the best fanfics for both EmWeiss and Yang/Merc, and Sassy herself is a delight to know who lights up my day when I get to talk to her).

(Thanks to @weisscoldglare for this)

Thanks again for reading. 

[queenofmoons67]

strike the match (let it all burn)

Hi everyone! I'm so happy to be back with another (much longer) addition to my "we are the challengers (plus ultra!)" verse! And by much longer, I mean this baby comes in at 5,677 words with another 3,267 in the omakes. If you would prefer to read it on AO3, you can find it here.

Thank you so much to @bookdancerfics for your help editing, it wouldn’t be what it is now without you.

Summary: Eijun, Furuya, Haruichi, and Raichi find themselves in the middle of a hostage situation.

A few things to know for those who haven't read the verse:

(1) it started as a list of quirks (basically superpowers) for DNA characters. that grew into a second list for Act II characters, as well as two short fics and a drabble. they can all be found under my "we are the challengers (plus ultra!)" tag.

(2) you do not need to have read the rest of the verse to enjoy this fic.

A few things to know for "strike the match (let it all burn)":

(1) quirks: Eijun (lion and house cat), Haruichi and Ryou (rose), Furuya (bonfire), Raichi (smoke and sparks), Kataoka (doberman), Kuramochi (cheetah camo), Miyuki (quirkless), Zono (oak tree), Toujou (rock), Chris (weakness reading), Asada (quirkless)

(2) this is the only fic for this AU so far that remotely qualifies as a crossover with BNHA, though the only two characters (Endeavor and Todoroki Shouto) only do so for a short while, despite being the reason this fic exists. if you aren't familiar with them, don't worry. all you need to know is: Endeavor is the number two hero and Shouto is his son. this fic takes place during a time that Shouto (usually attending a hero school) is doing field work with Endeavor at his hero agency near Tokyo.

I hope you all enjoy!

Raichi hummed under his breath as he bounced along to the restroom. One of the Seido managers had been kind enough to point him the right way, Yakushi was on a long winning streak even before the fall season started, and his dad had promised katsudon if they continued that streak with today's practice game. Life was good and, as he opened the bathroom door to find two of his favorite pitchers, he realized it was about to get even better.

"Furuya!" he exclaimed, eyes lighting up with glee to match the smoke now emanating from his palms in excitement. "And Sawamura! And -" Raichi frowned at the third Seido player. He looked familiar, with his rose petal hair, but he couldn't quite place him.

Rose Petal gave him a short bow, introducing himself with a quiet, "Kominato Haruichi, Todoroki-kun. Seido's second baseman."

Now Raichi remembered him.

"Devil boy!"

Sawamura and Kominato both choked, though for different reasons - the former was definitely holding back a laugh, which made Raichi beam even brighter than before. His cheeks were starting to hurt, but they always did during games. Sanada-senpai said it was because he was using his muscles.

Rose Petal - Kominato - opened his mouth to say something, but the door slamming open behind Raichi cut him off.

"Oi, boss," someone growled. "There are three other runts in here."

Ahead of Raichi, Kominato's eyes went wide and thorns began growing from his arms. Sawamura's tail was stiff, almost hiding behind him, while his ears laid back and his eyes became slits. A half threatening, half frightened rumble sounded from the pitcher's chest. Next to them, Furuya went completely still.

Faced with all of this, Raichi's smile fell, and he didn't want to turn around. He didn't get a choice. Thick fingers - the kind that came from pressing two hundred pounds a day - wrapped around his arm and spun him around.

"Hello, Todoroki brat," a second voice sneered.

Eijun just wanted a bathroom break. That was it. He didn't want yet another run in with an opposing player in the bathroom - honestly, was this a shounen manga or something? And he definitely didn't want three giant men bursting through the door, grabbing said opposing player, and roughly tying him up, all while pointing guns at him and his friends.

He could feel Harruchi's thorns pricking into his skin on one side, and the heat that came before Furuya's flames on the other.

"Calm down," he muttered - to himself or his friends, he wasn't sure. "Calm down, calm down, calm -"

Furuya burst into flames. They roared off him like someone tossed a match onto dry kindle, uncontrollable and frightening. Eijun had seen Furuya out of control before, but never anything like this. With a yelp, he leapt away and dragged Harruchi with him.

The move brought them closer to Raichi, who stared at Furuya with something almost like envy in his eyes. Next to the Yakushi player, two of the men stared between the pitcher and batter in confusion.

"Hey, uh, boss?" the first one said.

Eijun grit his teeth at hearing his shogun's nickname addressed to someone else, but pricked his ears.

"What?"

"You're sure the one only creating smoke is Endeavor's nephew, and not the one currently on fire?"

Eijun gaped and turned to Harruchi to see if he'd caught the name drop.

"Yes," the middle man - 'boss' - grunted. His tiger tail swished restlessly. "The file said he was short, had a scar on his cheek, and went to Yakushi. That's him alright."

"But -" the second man started, skin rolling around his arm in weird waves.

"But nothing! We need to get out of here before anyone else -"

"Sa - wa - mu - ra!" Kanemaru's irate voice called. "Bakamura, does it honestly take this long to use the bathroom? Miyuki-senpai and Kuramochi-senpai are looking for you!"

The door handle started to jiggle, and then it vanished under a coat of - was that skin? Eijun looked to the second henchman. His arm was still pointed at the door, skin settling back in place. What was on the door seemed to have hardened, and Kanemaru cursed.

"Oi, Bakamura! Did you lock it?"

Did the man's skin work like glue?

"Tell him to go away," the first voice hissed.

Eijun felt something prick the tender spot under his chin even as Harruchi whimpered, "Eijun-kun."

He looked down with his eyes, not daring to move his head. The first man's hand rested under his chin, porcupine quills coaxing beads of blood to roll down his throat, hot and burning.

Furuya shook with anger. From the looks of it, he wouldn't be any help, as everything the other pitcher had went to controlling his fire.

On the floor, Raichi lay absolutely still. The only exceptions were the occasional sparks that flew from his fingertips.

Eijun closed his eyes for a moment. With both lion and house cat blood, he had always had exceptional hearing, even for a cat. He could hear Kanemaru's cursing and shouting outside. The crackle of Furuya's fire and the snick as Harruchi produced more thorns. Raichi's heavy breathing. The rumbling growl within the tiger's throat.

What was it he had said? They wanted Raichi because he was related to Endeavor. Endeavor was the number two hero. Hero. Kidnapping. Revenge? Blackmail? Eijun didn't know the motive. What he did know… what he did know was that if he let Raichi leave the bathroom with these thugs, he might never face him in baseball again. The same consequence applied if he didn't obey their captors, here and now.

Opening his eyes, Eijun looked at the porcupine with, he hoped, a bit of fear. The quills backed off enough that he could talk, and Eijun opened his mouth.

"KIDNAPPERS!" Eijun-kun roared at the top of his lungs.

The man with the porcupine quirk lunged forward in an attempt to silence him, but Haruichi pulled Eijun-kun back and put up an entire arm full of thorns. The thug - kidnapper - scrambled to come to a halt before he ran into them. Taking the opportunity, Haruichi snagged Todoroki's jacket in one hand and walked backwards, using his thorns to ward off the kidnappers. Eijun-kun stumbled along behind him.

The man with the tiger quirk stepped forward, apparently deciding to just deal with the thorns. Haruichi glanced at Furuya, and the burning boy stepped forward with a fierce glare. His fire would keep the kidnappers back for now. He may not have enough control to be offensive yet, but defense he could do.

Sure enough, the three kidnappers came to a halt just in time for them to hear Kanemaru running away, yelling for someone to call the police.

"Good job, Eijun-kun," Haruichi murmured. He used his thorns to tear a strip off his jersey and pressed it to his friend's throat. "Now, can you untie Todoroki-kun?"

Satoru felt numb. His body had been continuously producing flames for about fifteen minutes, first because he had no choice and then because they were the main defense. If his flames fell, Todoroki would be kidnapped. He and his friends would likely be killed. They had to stay up, and to further deter the kidnappers, he had to stare them down and pretend he could control them. It meant the only things he knew about his friends came from their words.

Harruchi muttered to himself for now. From the sound of it, he was trying to strategize an escape using his batting strategies.

At the same time, Sawamura and Todoroki plotted loudly, uselessly, and disruptively. Once untied, it hadn't taken long for the opposing player to bounce back when faced with Sawamura's optimism. It left Satoru and Harruchi at wit's end - but thankfully, it also seemed to befuddle the would be kidnappers.

"Then I go -" Todoroki made an explosion noise "- and then you go -" that one was probably supposed to be a lion roar "- and your friends run and we follow!"

Sawamura hollered in excitement. The porcupine guy shook his head as if to clear cobwebs. Harruchi made soothing sounds.

Satoru just grunted. If they made a feasible plan, he was all for it. The problem with feasibility, though, was that it probably required the kidnappers to not know the plan beforehand. And with each plan being more extravagant than the last that seemed less and less likely.

Sawamura suddenly grew silent behind him with a hissed "hush!" to Todoroki, and Satoru jolted. Had they finally come up with a good plan?

"Footsteps," his rival murmured. "Outside. One is… shogun."

Todoroki made a questioning noise, to which Harruchi muttered an answer too low for Satoru to understand. He focused instead on glaring at the kidnappers, who now looked suspicious at the silence.

Or at least, they did until the footsteps Sawamura had heard became loud enough for all of them to hear.

Raichi stared at Sawamura as the pitcher cocked his head, lion ears swivelling this way and that.

Making up plans had been fun. It had distracted him from his stint being tied up, which he thought might have been the goal. He didn't know Sawamura well enough to know if that was true or not, but it seemed likely. Especially seeing how serious he was now…

"Heavy combat boots?" the lion murmured. "Police, probably. Though I don't think they'll be able to open that door, what with the glue quirk and all."

"Our captors are probably counting on it," Kominato replied. "Otherwise they would have given up and left before the police got here. They still think they have a chance at their goal; they just switched from kidnapping to a hostage situation since they can't reach us."

"Why haven't they shot me?" someone asked, and Raichi realized with a start that the monster pitcher had spoken. "If they shot me, they could have reached you all and gotten out before the police arrived."

"But not easily," Kominato pointed out. Raichi figured he'd been thinking about the same question this entire time. "Shoot you, or any of us, and they'll be shown no mercy while also attracting more and better heroes. That's the last thing they need when they already want Endeavor's attention."

Raichi grumbled at the reminder. "We're not even related anymore… he and my dad mutually disowned each other before I was even born. Something about each thinking the other was a -" he spit out a word he didn't know the meaning of. It wasn't Japanese, and his dad only used it when he was really drunk and thinking of his brother. Still, he knew it was bad, and was proven that by Sawamura's confused look and Kominato's wide-eyes.

Kominato recovered first.

"I don't think their bad relationship is gonna stop the kidnappers, because it'll still be effective."

Raichi sighed, but nodded. He knew what the other was getting at.

"No one else will care about the bad relationship. Endeavor can't leave a bunch of kids to be hostages, because the public would tear him apart. He'd fall from being the number two hero in an instant. The fact that it's not just me would make it worse."

The instant Raichi fell silent, Eijun's ears picked up a new sound: the cocking of a gun. He had never heard it outside of television before, but the way it sent shivers down his spine to vibrate through his tail was undeniable.

He stood slowly. He didn't know what he was going to do, just that he had to do something.

Harruchi reached out to grab his jersey, probably to stop him, but Eijun just shook him off and kept moving. A hand grasped his pant leg, and he let it. Right now, it grounded him a bit so he wasn't just running on instinct.

Peering around Furuya's fire brought him face to face with the barrel of a gun. Eijun let out a startled hiss and stepped back, though all it caused was the glue guy - the one holding the gun - to smirk.

"You want the kids?" the leader called, leaning in close to the door. "Tell Endeavor we want one hundred and twenty million yen from his personal accounts for the return of his nephew and friends. Once it's here, leave it at the door. If I open the door to any police, one of the kids gets shot. To show that I'm serious -" he nodded at the glue guy.

There was the sound of scrambling from behind the door, a blurted "Wait!", and the gun went off.

Furuya yelped and rocked back on his heels, but otherwise stood his ground. The hand in Eijun's pant leg twisted tighter, someone else latched on, and Eijun almost fell. Maybe they were trying to pull him down. Maybe they just panicked. But whatever it was, Eijun's tail lashed in an attempt to balance himself again and, instead, intercepted the bullet in mid-air.

Eijun yowled in pain as he felt the two connect. The sound tore at his throat and, as he fell to the ground, he saw Furuya flinch and cover his ears. It was a sound that he hadn't made since he was a kid, falling out of trees and scraping his knees. It was a sound that was supposed to gather his pride. But in this situation, that was impossible. The only pack member there was Harruchi.

And yet, as he hit the ground, he felt hands gathering him into a lap and saw furious pink eyes above him. The only one able to respond had done so, and he would never leave him. That was the promise of a pride.

Haruichi's hands shook as he ran fingers through Eijun-kun's hair. The bangs were wet with sweat, though thankfully not blood, as he'd managed to cushion his friend's fall.

"Knock on the door twice if you understand."

There was a pause, but the two knocks came quickly. Haruichi guessed the police were as shaken by the events as they were. He hadn't thought the would be kidnappers would actually shoot one of them, let alone aim for the only one with a connection to Endeavor. Though, granted, he didn't know exactly where it would have hit since Eijun-kun's tail… For all he knew the bullet was supposed to miss. After all, both the police and the heroes would be even more pissed now.

Haruichi looked down at the tail. Todoroki's fingers shook even more than his own as he tied a torn piece of jersey over the deep groove the bullet had carved. The Yakushi player had reverted back to his shy self with the turn of events - not that Haruichi could blame him. Right now, he wanted nothing more than to curl up in his aniki's arms. But that wasn't possible. He had to stay strong for -

The light in the bathroom flickered. Startled, Haruichi tore his gaze off of Eijun-kun and Todoroki to look up.

It wasn't the lighting that faltered, it was the fire. Even as he watched, Furuya's legs buckled and he fell to his knees, flames only half as strong as they originally were.

"Furuya," Eijun-kun whimpered worriedly.

Haruichi pet him some more to try and calm him, but he felt the same way. It had to have been almost thirty minutes now. The adrenaline rush that had fueled the fire at first was probably long gone, and Furuya had never kept it going for so long after. He had to be nearing exhaustion at this point.

With Eijun-kun down for now - while not a serious injury, it was to one of the most sensitive parts of a cat - and with Todoroki being the main target, they might need Furuya's flames later. While the guns were a big problem, plus the glue on the door they didn't know how to get off, it would be best to have a greater arsenal… right?

Trusting Furuya's flames to hide them, he bent down over Eijun-kun and beckoned for Todoroki to join them as he whispered his plan.

Satoru knelt in a bathroom stall, hands tied behind his back. At Harruchi's word, he had finally allowed his flames to die. The result was that he was slowly gaining back energy, but also that - with the protection of fire gone - the four of them had been separated into their own stalls and tied up. They couldn't see one another, but their captors could clearly see them. On top of that, all the toilets were western style, so they couldn't just sit on the floor and communicate through touch.

They had gained a few things, but in their current situation, they seemed rather small: Once Satoru had enough energy, he'd be able to burn through his ropes with his flames; Harruchi actually wasn't tied up due to his thorns preventing any of their captors from getting close to him; Sawamura was now sitting up instead of lying on a dirty bathroom floor; and lastly, if the police or heroes decided to burst through the door, they all had at least a little bit of protection.

Still, the fact they had to do so made him… he didn't know how to feel. On the one hand, he wasn't powerful enough to protect his friends. On the other, he appreciated that they recognised that and helped him. They didn't hold him accountable, and -

"Hello?" someone called from behind the bathroom door.

Satoru stiffened and tested his flames. He was so on edge right now that they simmered there, easily reachable, just below the surface. Only the fact he was so low on power prevented them from flaming non-stop.

"Hello? Who's in charge?" The longer sentence, though still muffled by the door, made the speaker clear. Satoru relaxed on his seat. It was Kataoka-kantoku. He had completely forgotten that Sawamura had identified his footsteps before, and must have been worried this entire time after the gunshot and cry. He wondered which of the policemen had held their coach back from storming the bathroom. It certainly hadn't been Takashima-sensei, who Sawamura hadn't heard and, though he didn't know her well, probably would have joined Kataoka-kantoku.

"Me," the tiger spoke gruffly.

"My name is Kataoka Tesshin. I was wondering if you needed a first aid kit or a doctor, for the fifteen year old boy in there you shot."

Raichi had listened with wide eyes to the Seido coach, but at those last words, he couldn't stay still and silent. He had retreated into himself after Sawamura was shot, but sitting by himself had done him some good: It had let him stew in his anger, both at their captors and at himself for the gun being fired in the first place. Now, he could finally do something about it.

"Sawamura's fine, coach!" he yelled, and cackled when glue-guy whirled on him.

He didn't have those eyes on him for long, though, because Sawamura himself called from the stall beside him, "Worry more 'bout Furuya, shogun; he's used up all his energy for pitching already!"

There was a choking sound from Kominato's stall, and an outraged cry from Furuya's.

Silence came from outside, before - "We can worry about that the practice game later, Sawamura. For now, I'm just glad you're alright." The voice was soft, and it invoked softness in return. Raichi imagined that if he closed his eyes, he would feel like he was curled up with a dog, running his fingers through its fur. Safe. Protected.

Raichi let out a cackle and pretended he wasn't awkwardly wiping away tears with his shoulder.

Endeavor arrived with a bang. Apparently, even glue created by a quirk wasn't strong enough to resist his fire, and he melted it in no time. One second, even Eijun could only just make out the sound of movement and mumbling, the next, the door was kicked in.

Eijun watched as the leader pulled out some kind of special gun, but he never even had the chance to fire it. Endeavor punched them all unconscious first.

Striding in behind him came a teenager, probably around their age, with red and white hair and wearing a jumpsuit as a hero costume. He looked between the four of them and, ultimately, headed straight for Eijun. It was probably the bandaged tail.

"Are you comfortable on the toilet, or would you prefer to wait for the paramedics on the floor?"

Yeah. It was definitely the bandaged tail.

"No, uh, I can walk to them," Eijun insisted, and stood up to prove it. He swayed a bit on his feet, but ultimately stayed upright and stepped out of the stall, hands still tied and all. All that time on the field where his tail was, essentially, illegal, had paid off in better balance without it. "My teammate Furuya, though, probably needs -"

"Shut up, Eijun-kun," Harruchi said sweetly, appearing out of nowhere to stand at his elbow. "Furuya-kun is exhausted, yes, but you're the one who was shot."

"Let us take care of you," Raichi added hotly, jumping to stand on his other side.

"Mm," Furuya nodded as he stepped up right into Eijun's face. Like Raichi and Eijun, his hands were still tied, but that didn't stop him from being intimidating. The action forced Eijun to either sit back down on the floor or be in someone else's space.

Eijun sat back down.

Things moved pretty quickly after that. Todoroki Shouto, as he introduced himself, was only left to watch over them for as long as it took the police and Endeavor to escort their captors out of the bathroom. Once that was done, Haruichi found himself being wrapped in a shock blanket and a policeman trying to move him and the others away from Eijun-kun.

After everything they had been through, they seriously thought he was just going to leave?

Haruichi let his arms grow thorns even as his legs grew roots and he, quite literally, planted himself to the bathroom floor.

Putting his hands on his hips, he gave them the most menacing glare he'd ever seen from his aniki and said, "I'm part of Eijun-kun's pride, so for as long as he wants me here, I'm not leaving."

The policeman stared at him, then looked to another officer and asked, "Captain?"

Said captain stepped forward with a flick of his lion tail, and Haruichi practically collapsed in relief. Surely the older lion would completely understand, and -

"No."

Haruichi swore he felt a petal die. "No?"

"You're not a lion," the captain pointed out. "You're not even another cat. How could you be part of his pride?"

Haruichi had made it through almost an hour of being held hostage, but it was now that he truly felt the urge to kill someone.

"Excuse me?" he asked, ever so sweetly.

The captain opened his mouth, but then paused. Good. At least he wasn't an idiot.

"We still need to take your statement," he said slowly.

Nevermind, he was a complete idiot and Haruichi was going to -

"Can't you just take his with Sawamura's?" Takashima-sensei asked, appearing out of absolutely nowhere. Addressing Haruichi, she added, "Kataoka has gone with Furuya to stand in as guardian. The elder Todoroki will go with his son, and I'm here to act as guardian for you and Sawamura." Turning back to the captain, she smiled and said, "Does that sound alright with you?"

The captain looked from Takashima-sensei, to Haruichi - still planted to the floor - to Eijun-kun behind them, loudly complaining as the paramedics treated his bullet wound.

Apparently giving up, he sighed. "Fine. You can stay with Sawamura."

Haruichi beamed and promptly turned his back.

"Eijun-kun, here. You can squeeze my hand while they rewrap your tail."

The instant they left the bathroom, Satoru was separated from Todoroki. He watched as a police officer led the Yakushi player away, but turned easily to follow a different officer when Kataoka-kantoku touched his shoulder.

"We'll get you an IV to go along with that blanket once we're seated -" the officer said.

There was more, but Satoru wasn't really interested. If he was being honest with himself, the only thing he wanted was to sleep for a thousand years. He didn't even want to pitch, let alone care about the practice game or giving a statement. Though, if that was required for the sleep, he would do it. Especially if it meant reuniting with Harruchi and Sawamura soon. He'd seen the two of them stay in the bathroom, but when he and Todoroki had tried to do the same, the policewoman kept them moving.

"Furuya," Kataoka-kantoku said, voice low and rough. It sounded like he'd been shouting a lot.

Satoru looked up to find the police officer gesturing them into a classroom. Inside, a paramedic was setting up an IV stand.

'Sleep,' he reminded himself, and walked inside.

Raichi's reunion with his dad was a tearful affair. He followed a police officer into a classroom only to be jumped by his dad and wrapped up in a hug, which promptly set both of them to bawling.

The police officer tried to wrangle them - Raichi thought, but couldn't be sure over the sound of crying - and eventually gave up. By the time the Todoroki's released one another, it was to find the room empty except for the red and white haired hero intern.

"Shouto…" Raichi's dad said slowly. "I haven't seen you since… well. I've actually never seen you in person before, though I cheered for you in the UA sports festival. Second place wasn't bad."

Shouto - ? - nodded. "Thank you. I… you didn't have to cheer for me. My dad never told me he had a brother, so I can't imagine your relationship was that great -"

Raizou let out a laugh. "That's an understatement, kid. We've had fights where looking back, I think we might have been trying to kill the other. But that doesn't mean I won't support my nephew." Looking serious, and hugging Raichi close to his chest, he finished, "I just needed to see you compete in that cavalry game to know you're nothing like your father."

Now Shouto looked close to tears, and Raichi was ConfusedTM.

"Wait a second… so, you're my cousin?"

Shouto nodded.

"And we're the same age?"

Another nod.

"But I've never met you, and neither of us knew the other existed?"

A third nod, though slower than the others.

"And… where did the police officer go?"

His dad startled, looking around as if only just realising the only other adult in the room had completely vanished.

Shouto offered, "He left after the first five minutes of crying and got me. He thought I might have more luck getting you to calm down, seeing how I'm interning under Endeavor and all."

The last part of the sentence had more bitterness in it than his dad's rants, but Raichi elected to shelve it and move on for now. A hostage situation and a newfound cousin were emotionally taxing enough on their own. He'd open his ears to his cousin's rants tomorrow.

Raichi announced this to a startled cousin and a proud looking dad. If others knew of the promise, it would stick better. There would be a tomorrow. He refused to let his cousin disappear on him again.

Eijun's tail didn't even need stitches. By the time they had exited the classroom, statement made, a doctor with a skin growth quirk had arrived. They'd unwrapped the bandage and watched his tail mend - though the furrow in it carved by the bullet would, the doctor confirmed, be there forever. Eijun didn't care. He couldn't use his tail during games anyway, so it wasn't like it would affect his pitching, and it wouldn't affect his balance either.

Now, he just needed to face the rest of his pack.

Takashima-sensei had promised him that both Kuramochi and their aniki had been kept informed of proceedings, as his roommate and Harruchi's brother, but in Eijun's opinion that just meant there was no way of hiding the day's events from them.

"We're dead, Harruchi," he muttered, ears flat to his head as they headed towards his room. "Absolutely dead. Mochi-senpai will strangle me and onii-san will kill you, and if we somehow survive them, Miyuki will surely kill us for missing the game. Our only saving grace is that that means Furuya will die too, so at least we'll all be together in the afterlife. We escaped death only to face it once again… oh, Harruchi, what luckless lives we live…"

Eijun buried his face in his hands. When he looked up again, Takashima-sensei and Harruchi pointedly shared an eye roll.

"We'll be fine, Eijun-kun," Harruchi reassured. "Aniki won't kill us, and I'm sure Kuramochi-senpai will at least hold off on the wrestling moves till tomorrow. And the game has just been pushed till next week, so I'm sure we're safe from Miyuki-senpai as well. Ok?"

They had reached his room's door, so Eijun felt like he had nothing to lose by giving a hesitant nod. Harruchi smiled and opened the door.

Eijun had a moment to take in clearly more than just Mochi and onii-san waiting for them in the room before he was jumped by the former.

"Bakamura!" his roommate scolded into his hair. He could clearly feel the other rubbing his cheek against him, and a churring noise reverberated from Mochi's chest. In return, Eijun let out a purr and pushed his head up into the other's cheek, closing his eyes to slits.

Haruichi was allowed to watch Kuramochi and Eijun-kun's reunion for just a moment. After that, he was distracted by the arm slung around his shoulders and a familiar voice in his ear.

"Furuya told us you kept everyone safe. Good job."

Haruichi debated slipping out from under the arm, but then it squeezed tighter and… well. After almost an hour of crouching in a bathroom, wondering if he or his friends would be killed, this seemed like a good place to be. He relaxed into the hold and smiled.

"Furuya's underestimating his own importance, Aniki. Except for Eijun-kun's tail, we all got out safely thanks to him."

Aniki hummed in understanding as he guided Haruichi to a seat on someone's bed.

Kanemaru yelped, "Wait, what about Sawamura's tail?"

Isashiki demanded, "Furuya?! You didn't say anything about a tail!"

Tetsu said, "He's sleeping, Jun. Don't wake him."

Zono grumbled menacingly and cracked his knuckles.

Miyuki, for once the voice of reason, popped the rising tension balloon with a calm, "Said tail is right there, and I'm sure Kominato and Sawamura can tell us what happened."

All of a sudden, Haruichi found almost everyone's eyes on him. The only exception was Furuya, currently a sleeping blanket bundle in the top bunk.

"It got shot," Eijun-kun piped up, and all of a sudden, everyone's eyes were gone. Haruichi relaxed a bit more into his aniki's hold. He hadn't even realised he'd tensed up again, but trust the southpaw to notice that of all things.

"Are you ok?" Aniki asked, voice low so as to not interrupt Eijun-kun's now enthusiastic retelling of how he'd been shot. "Apparently Furuya left out a lot. Though, granted, he seemed like he only wanted to sleep and was thoroughly done with interrogations for the day."

Haruichi laughed, but nodded. "I'm fine, Aniki. Eijun-kun is the only one who got hurt, unless you count Furuya basically running a marathon with his quirk."

His only response was another hum, but the arm around his shoulders slipped down to rub circles into his back. Haruichi closed his eyes and relaxed into sleep.

Satoru opened his eyes to the dim light of dawn coming through the window. His body was, for once, warm in its blanket nest. Deciding he had enough time to sleep some more before breakfast, he closed his eyes.

"Mmmrgh," someone groaned. There was a soft thump as they rolled over.

Satoru lay still, eyes still closed, but now wide awake. Who…?

"Mmmmm," someone else answered.

Now that Satoru paid attention, he could also make out at least three different people snoring. What had happened after he went to bed last night?

Satoru opened his eyes and rolled over to the edge of the bunk. Peering over, he almost fell out in surprise. The room was packed. It looked like no one had left for their own rooms, but at the same time, there were definitely more people in it than he remembered.

On the bunks across from Satoru, Masuko had claimed the bottom for himself, while Tetsu, Chris, and Isashiki cuddled together on the top.

As for the bottom bunk underneath him, Kuramochi and Sawamura were curled up facing each other, but with the lion's head still tucked under the cheetah's chin. Kominato lay with his back pressed up against Kuramochi's. Harruchi had his own back to Sawamura's.

Impossibly, the floor was even more crowded. Zono and Miyuki rested their backs against the bunk, legs sprawled everywhere. The former was drooling and the latter never removed his glasses.

Across from them, Kanemaru, Toujou, and Sakai had all squeezed in to sleep with their backs to Masuko's bunk, legs either crossed or mixing in with Zono and Miyuki's.

Shirasu had claimed the area in front of the TV. He was curled up with his front to Kawakami, who had his back pressed up against Tanba's. Seki and Asou lay back to back next to them. Ono, Miyauchi, and Yamaguchi had all chosen to sleep in the desk chairs, while Nabe and Higasa had chosen two of the actual desks.

The front of the room had been left to the girls: Fujiwara, Yoshikawa, Umemeto, and Natsukawa actually blocked the doorway. No one was getting in or out any time soon.

Satisfied, Satoru rolled over and went back to sleep.

OMAKES (also known as this entire fic, but from the point of view of those stuck waiting outside) can be found here.

Edit 09/04/2018: Since I have no idea what the issue with the text breaks are (they show up on my laptop) I’ve split the omakes from the main fic (link above). If you continue to have issues, please let me know!

And as always, I would love to know what you think, and if you have any ideas for future additions, I'm open to hearing them!

[dorkshadows]

@lalottered said: what do you mean #remember when kuro was good? What parts of it make you not like it anymore? I'd like to know your view about it.

Well, since you asked so politely, I’ll share :)

Disclaimer: Sorry if it comes off as too sour. And feel free to disagree- my opinion is just mine (and a few of my buddies’ haha). 

For me, Kuro started dragging towards the end of the Green Witch arc- that plot twist with the German military was 1) obvious and 2) dumb, full of plot convenience, I can’t believe these so-called “scientists” are supposed to be smart.

They spent all these funds on tricking a little into thinking she was a witch so she could do math equations for them. Like ?? Couldn’t they have done it themselves? Wouldn’t it be easier to just raise Sieglinde with their ideology? Or in a remote summer home, instead of wasting all that time/money. And they get taken down by a 13yo and his servants anyway- they shouldn’t be surprised.

We also supposedly saw a turning point in Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship, with Ciel trusting Sebastian less, but we really didn’t see that for a while. But all of this, including the military crap could have been forgiven out of loyalty to the story.

The story lost my loyalty with the current arc. They had a good premise, and then it started dragging again with the boybands (which was so boring OMG), then Agni died really cheaply imo, and to make matters worse, Yana decided to overshadow Agni’s death with the 2CT. 

BUT Real!Ciel alone kept me in the story. He was cool and really unexpected- I actually like the twins plot twist thanks to him. If we’d kept the focus on real!Ciel, things would still be good for me. But then we got that 10 million year flashback and I got bored again. A lot of it felt like filler to me, the twins act nothing like real siblings, and Yana was trying so hard to make us feel sorry for Our!Ciel, it felt like she was forcing his tragedy in the reader’s face. I’m pretty sure anyone with a heart already felt sorry for OC at this point- she didn’t have to throw all that at us.

And Yana put so much effort into this 2 Ciels, heir and spare, flashback, that it bothers me to know she didn’t care for anyone else enough to give them 3,000 chapters of flashbacks. Even Sebastian’s flashback was only like, 3 chapters. Hell, Agni and Soma never even got 1 full chapter of flashback. Lizzie got like, half.

I know Yana LOVES Ciel more than everyone else in the series, but this is just too much. There were times when Ciel was my favorite character, but all this is making me tired of him. He comes off as more and more of a helpless victim with each new reveal of the flashback, and that’s not who Ciel Phantomhive was to me. It feels like Yana’s going back in time to “correct” him, and that leaves me bitter.

Again, I’d be fine with this being the Ciel show if Ciel was the protagonist. Except he’s not. Believe it or not, Yana actually thinks the protagonist is Sebastian. And this is the the last straw for me. Like how Yana went back to ruin Ciel’s agency, I feel like she’s going back to make Sebastian even more unlikable and flat than he already was. She seems determined to make sure nobody likes the guy she deemed her main character (she succeeded! I don’t care for him anymore lol).

Sebastian’s been a background character for the majority of this arc, hasn’t developed at all (maybe he has, but it’s way too subtle and small for the protag), and the biggest reveal about him from OC’s flashback is that apparently he’s the villain of his own manga. It doesn’t help that Yana doesn’t want to reveal anything about Sebastian that has nothing to do with Ciel. I’ve seen literal aliens with more backstory and development than Sebastian, so no, I don’t consider the ‘he’s a demon” thing an excuse for his complete lack of audience sympathy. This is just bad writing. 

He’s not a likable protagonist, not an interesting villain, not a complex character. He’s plot convenience- he’s useful and “heroic” when the plot needs him to solve its problems, he’s its token villain and scapegoat when the plot needs to blame someone for everything else but can’t bear to accuse one of its precious tragic cinnamon rolls.

Lastly, we haven’t seen the shinigami since forever. I miss Grell, William, Ronald, Underdicker, etc. They’re the ones with all the info but they haven’t had good screentime in so long. Ex. Grell was an amazing villain in Jack the Ripper and just gains more depth the more we know more about her. And everything’s pointing at UT being behind all of this arc’s problems, but he’s nowhere to be found- when is he going to start answering questions instead of raising them?

TLDR; I’m out of patience for a lot of things and Yana’s treatement of Sebastian  and Ciel disappointed me. Every arc was great until now (campania is still my favorite of all time, and reminds me that Yana has so much potential), Murder/Weston were OK. The Midfords and shinigami got shafted for Yana’s bizarre love for the 2CT, and as it stands now, Kuro isn’t the kind of story with the kind of protagonists I’m interested in.

But I’m not dropping because I’m waiting for Lau and Claudia. Also, I genuinely like Real!Ciel and want to see his story more than Our!Ciel’s. 

[zandyin]

Ace’s Mostly MegaTen Room Tour

It’s hard to put into words how I feel about MegaTen, so… here’s my room instead.

Feel free to ask me where I got something! A ton of pictures under the readmore + optional ramblings about my set-ups.

A while ago, I moved into this room cause it’s slightly bigger than the old room I was occupying. It doesn’t have the nice minty blue my old room has, but my decorations are more than colorful enough to make up for it!

Because I planned on moving into this room for ages (it used to be my dad’s band room) I master planned the placement of all my furniture and all the wall décor I had at the time. :B

I love DSRK the most! So it got to decorate the area around the head of my bed!!

Then for the foot of my bed – obviously I had to pay tribute to my personeys, as p3 is kind of my reason for being. It’s a long story, but let’s just say p3 came into my life at a very good time and I have built my current happiness from there. I got this huge B1 size wallscroll with all the characters! The blue is very calming.

Of course, I had to add a bit more SPARKLE to it. So I put in a string of blue LEDs behind the frame. The effect is much nicer when it’s dark.

At the side of my bed is my weird shelf/desk, which I bought specifically cause it was a shelf/desk. I never put up the desk part, lol. It’s just my night stand now. My Surface Pro is right there… with like 8 doodles open in CSP that I’ll never post. :B

Remotes, controllers, a DS that has an 80% finished play through of Strange Journey, 3 tubes of chapstick cause I always misplace them… what more could I ask for? Oh yeah, some Jack Frosts are there too cause you can never have too many Jack Frosts.

Unfinished garage kit of nendoroid Raidou smh. I will start and finish it one day. After my grad degree. I have Raidou’s manga despite not being able to read it, and also the dsrk2 fan book? I used google translate to look at it a bit and laughed at how it calls Louis beautiful/handsome.

Upper half! Some mish mash, another untouched garage kit of Raidou, a Dahn standee that got the top of his hair chopped off when the printer decided to offset the picture, IGNIS, and the Baron! My old prints are behind on the wall along with some free stickers I got way back when from an artist who saw me in my Raidou cosplay, lol. The paper luck locust box is gonna be replaced EVENTUALLY with a really cool 3d printed version my friend modeled!!

A view from my bed. So colorful. Don’t laugh at my shiny drawer paper plastered over the backside of my shelves. >:v Notice P5 doesn’t have a frame yet. It will once I decide I feel like spending money on getting it one. It’s my least favorte personey game, tbqh. I’m actually indifferent to it, but I did buy the CE for collecting’s sake. :p

Another view from my bed. My closet! Funny story about the “DEVIL SUMMONER” over my door – my brother and I went to Home Depot to get some stuff and I wanted some cheap letters to spell it out. My brother goes, “Imagine when we get to the register and the cashier scans them to spell out DEVIL SUMMONER, lol” I shuffled them up to avoid that, but did a shit job so it read, “DEVSIL UMMONER” :x

It’s hard to see but on the coat rack there I have a Raidou-esque cape and hat hung on the third rack. It’s so fun to wear out. ‘ p ‘ I can’t wait til it’s cold enough to wear again!

That curtain rod wouldn’t normally be there, but I discovered it’s a nice way to have some privacy while keeping my door open. I hung up my own prints smh, tho that was kinda the point of ordering them, haha. Katsuya there, ah, he’s like a “good vibes” board where I post good things that have happened with the date on them. I haven’t added to him in a looong time, mostly because I stopped needing to? Everyday’s a good day now. It is nice to look back sometimes if I’m feeling down. I even used cupcake sticky notes since it was Katsuya. I just remembered I even photoshopped him to be smiling, lol.

Also – the fact he’s on the back of my door means as long as I keep my door open then ppl can’t ask me why I have a bigger than life size Katsuya on the back of my door.

An idea I carried forward from my old room. Clear files have art on them and need to be displayed!! The top ones are a paint to keep from peeling off the wall. I’m using an ineffective method that needs changing – I’m just tooooo laaazyyy to get the big ladder upstairs to fix it.

My Yasogami High letterman is on display forever since IT’S NEVER COLD ENOUGH TO WEAR IT IN THIS GODFORSAKEN STATE, at least not yet. I have a lot of jackets to choose from. Maybe I should do a jacket tour.

The thing that divides my room between sleep & play + my little “office”. Raidou, my best boy, is displayed here! I got a light up moon to put behind him. I am a SUCKER for things that light up. You can see Demifiend and Lucifer behind him, then of course Satan there acting as an impromptu jewelry holder. So spiny.

Jack Frost photobombs Satan.

Back to the other things in my room… here’s a poster of Demifiend I absolutely love and a Strange Journey poster I recently acquired! Fun fact, I had a chance to obtain a SIGNED Kaneko SJ poster but hadn’t played it at the time so I didn’t bid. No one bid and it went off the market. This was before the SJ remake was announced too so demand/popularity was nil. Ah, well, at least I got a nice original SJ poster. I wholly prefer it over the remake’s poster. >_> It’s very soothing to walk by… the pictures don’t do it justice!

I plan on buying a blacklight to hang above Demifiend’s poster later. Later.

On the ottoman below the SJ poster is my school backpack (with a small P3/P4 tarot card keychain) and then my general bag I take everywhere. A slightly professionally looking cat bag that I take to work. The “Don’t quit your daydream” pillow was an indirect purchase cause my mom wanted to buy a cushion to put between some huge pots we bought from a home goods store and I got to choose the pillow.

My keychain board! Plus some memories. Look at that good Raidou/Dahn my friend drew me. ‘ p ‘ I love it! There’s also an old xmas/bday card my long time friend sent me a few years ago. I’m sentimental.

Oh yeah, I moved the smt4 wallscroll that used to be in the SJ frame to here. I haven’t played smt4 yet and no idea when, but bought the wallscroll cause it was hella cheap. Maybe there was a reason for that, lol.

Other side of my desk. Catch a glimpse of my Sky High butt mousepad. Hunting that one down was fun.

I bought that blue double frame to put P3 art cards in, smh. Nick Valentine watches over me while I work. He was a gift from my long time friend and was delivered on Valentine’s day!!

Then these next few pictures are just close ups of the collections I have on my tall shelves.

My reason for being… there’s not much else I want for it. I don’t collect EVERYTHING, I collect until it feels “complete”!

Ah, yes, T&B! The otp for life. Those 1/6 scales were not cheap, man. I seriously got my first job at the bux just to start collecting P3 and T&B merch, y’know.

More T&B. I’ve been meaning to get Rock Bison and Blue Rose for a long time, it’s just not so pressing that I’m going to do it any time SOON however. Of course I had money to drop for my best boy Ryan, tho. :B The background thingys are displays I swiped from the bux before they were tossed out.

For someone who’s least favorite Persona game is 5, they have a shelf anyway cause dammit it looks nice. Mostly flash and little substance, as I tend to say when the subject gets brought up. I put Morgana in a shopping cart I picked up at a Daiso for no good reason.

AND THAT’S IT……………… That’s my room. This was an accumulation over 4 years of collecting. I’ve slowed down CONSIDERABLY and don’t buy as much these days simply cause they don’t make what I want. Which is good for my wallet lmao.

I hope you enjoyed whatever this was! And maybe understand how much I enjoy MegaTens, even if I don’t really draw it much.

[techouspeaks]

Top 13 Characters I Hate That Everyone Else Likes!

There are many characters we all hate and often times, we’re not the lone strangers when it comes to hating them. There are characters that are practically made to be hated on. Than there are characters in which everyone seems to enjoy but I for one can’t stand and this is it. From number 13 (which is basically grating) to number 1 down right I can’t fathom why anyone likes this character, here are my top list of characters I despise but everyone seems to like.

Rule’s for this list. I’m only listing characters that people really do like for whatever reason. I’m not gonna be listing characters that everyone does hate such as Angelica Pickles from Rugrats. I don’t care for that character either, but I’m pretty sure she was made to get under people’s skin. These are characters that people do enjoy, even if some were meant to be annoying or unlikable. I will be also including anime, western animation, comics and movies (Though these will be from animation, not live action.) and only from media I like. There is no point of putting characters from shows I don’t like.

Warning there will be some mild cussing. I try not to cuss so much in these. These are mainly characters from kid’s media, however, there is one from a comic that is aimed more for older audiences so just a heads up.

As usual if you like these characters, that’s perfectly fine. This is just my opinion and I hold nothing against anyone from liking or even loving these characters. So let’s get started!

13. Jeremy and Angie from Digimon Fusion

I’m gonna be brief with these two as they’re mainly annoying and kinda pointless, than actual hate. These two I just felt very little purpose to the team and shoot, they didn’t even get their own digimon until the near end. That and that horrible dance and singing sequence episode “Rumble in the Jungle Zone”, just made me annoyed at them even more...

12. Meilin from Cardcaptors/Cardcaptor Sakura

Again I just find her mostly pointless than I actually hate her. I would have put Sakura here because of her voice, but that’s because I only dislike Sakura in Japanese because of her voice. I like her as a character.  Meilin is just well...There. That’s it. You could have taken her out and there wouldn’t be much of a difference. I feel like she was just made to prove Syaoran isn’t a complete loner and actually has someone that does like him back home. 

11. Jeri from Digimon Tamers

What can I say about her? She creepily talks through a puppet on her hand, ironically at first acts like the boys are weird for constantly liking Digimon despite she talks through a puppet and of course getting into Digimon despite not wanting to at first. Gets depressed because her Digimon is killed, thus becomes a damsel puppet for the D-Reaper to get stronger and well did I mention she talks creepily through a falking puppet?! I don’t blame her for being depress and obviously, she probably suffers from something like autism and of course, the loss of her mother, but that doesn’t mean I have to like her. I found her again, pointless, creepy and annoying. She just became a thing for the Tamers to rescue when she should have just stayed a side character.

10. Toralei from Monster High

Out of all the characters in Monster High, Toralei has to be the weakest. She doesn’t change or go through any development. All she does is just cause trouble so something can happen within the series or in the movie. She’s self centered and a brat. Least with Cleo, she developed and matured and became more humble. The only change Toralei ever had was that she stopped having lackies around. I guess even they know that Toralei is not worth hanging around. 

They got rid of her in the reboot but just gained a character that’s just like her.

 : /

9. Bibury from Kira Kira Precure A La Mode

She’s got a creepy smile and her face always seems off. She’s also annoying and the fact she wants to basically falk a shadow creature thing is just disturbing. I get being down right loyal but it seems she’s got more feelings than being a loyal servant to Mr. Shadow thing...... 

8. Binkie and Steelbeak from Darkwing Duck

Putting both because they’re from the same series. I have another one like this. Let’s start with Binkie.

Binkie is blindly self centered in away. She often acts like her way of doing things is the best way and whenever she tries to help, it just makes things worse. Though, my hatred stems for the fact that Binkie tried to change Gosalyn into something she is not. A dainty little girl and worse, made Drake feel bad for not raising her as a “perfect little lady”. Yes, she basically follows the stereotype of a house wife and believes all young women should be pretty, sweet little things. I don’t mind when girls are sweet and motherly. I don’t approve of forcing people into being something they are not.

Steelbeak I hate because he’s one of the most annoying villains. That laugh and his voice just grate on me, not to mention his smug attitude. I get villains are kinda suppose to be like that, but when you combine that attitude with that voice and laugh....You get the most annoying things on the show next to Binkie!

 The only time I like him is in the comics and the Negaverse fanfics that feature him helping the Friendly Four out, but mainly because I can’t hear his voice and in the fanfictions of course, he’s not as pampas. That and I just didn’t find remotely interesting compared to the rest of Darkwing’s most colorful baddies. He just felt like a bond villain wannabe. 

7. “The Dark Magicians” aka “The Annoying Stooges” from Maho Tsukai Precure!

First off, they dare call themselves “Dark Magicians”. That alone is an insult to Dark Magician from Yugioh, shame on you Toei! 

Second, these guys are the worst villains in recent Precure series! They are incompetent, they can’t do anything right and worse, they’re the reason why Orba, the actual kickass villain died! The better, handsome and more redeemable villain died while these guys got revived and a second chance at life! These guys didn’t do anything remotely redeemable and finally, Sparda (the witch spider there) is a rip off of Arukenimon from Digimon! So she’s not even that original...She does the exact same things as Arukenimon does, just more incompetent!

6. Sailor Neptune and Uranus from Sailor Moon (Old Anime)

They would have been good if they weren’t bitches! Omg! In the manga, they were decent, in fact, I love Haruka/Uranus in the manga and Crystal anime! In the old anime, these two were just intolerable especially near the end of their debut season and Sailor Stars. They turned on Sailor Moon, they turned on their own companions and take their missions way too far.

At least in the manga and Crystal versions, they showed they wanted to be friends with the other sailors and they viewed Sailor Moon as their true princess. They valued the other scouts as equals. 

In the old anime, all that’s thrown out the window. “We’re better than you because we need to make the ultimate sacrifice. Something you kids can’t understand...” Despite the inners and Sailor Moon died like twice saving their world. Where were you two again when the moon kingdom was under attack, you stupid bitches?

5. Yakumo from Shinzo

Normally, I try to avoid hating characters from being weak and not able to fight, because let’s face it. That’s realistic. Especially if they’re motherly and kind, that’s always a spiritual strength to stay humble in the face of those that abuse you.

However, when your path for peace constantly makes you blind and gullible enough to trust others, not realizing what’s going on in your surroundings. Also to the point of scorning your friends for fighting, despite they’re constantly trying to make sure you don’t die on your very important mission for peace, yeah you deserve every single hate coming to you and that is what exactly Yakumo deserves!

All she ever does in the dang series is preach about peace and not realizing she lives in a hostile world where many  will take advantage of her, because supposedly she’s the last human being and they want her dead! There are episodes where she outright abandons her friends, to follow another person whom she just met, if they make her believe she will help them out best or if they convince her they can help her without the use of violence. Not to mention she is constantly a damsel in distress. I get being weak and not being able to fight, but at least learn to be more cautious and smart to avoid getting yourself in danger! Human beings are weak in general but there are ways with using your head to keep you safe.

With Yakumo, she doesn’t seem to have a brain in her head! She constantly gets herself in trouble and everytime she scorns Mushra, I want to slap her and tell her “Bitch, you’re living in a hostile world, everyone here wants to falking kill you! You better be grateful you teamed up with those who want to protect your sorry ass and don’t want to turn you into mince meat, because you’re not gonna bring peace to anyone if you’re dead! But maybe there will be peace when you’re dead because you would shut up!”

I HATED her so much that it was always hard to watch this fairly decent and creative series! I like Shinzo and many of the characters in it, as well as the designs and concepts of the creatures that inhabit in it. However, Yakumo just makes it insufferable so many times! Say what you will about Binka, her little follower but at least Binka, despite blindly following Yakumo, is a rather fun to watch character! Binka’s adventurous and can fend for herself. She can be a bit of brat, but that’s easily understandable for her age. Binka isn’t even a teenager so she’s gonna be a little bit bratty. That’s kids! Yakumo is just obnoxious and what Mushra/Mushrambo or anyone else sees in her, I will never know!

4. Gaston from Beauty and the Beast (Both movies)

No one is annoying as Gaston!

No one is overrated like Gaston!

No one is a disgusting, pompous pig like Gaston! 

You don’t have to be a feminist to see exactly what I mean!

Seriously, I’ve been sexually harassed in real life and this guy, while doesn’t do that, he comes close to it. The new movie makes him worse as he smiles smugly when he is turned down, thinking he can get the woman he wants. (Though, being Emma Watson is playing the lead in the live action film, honestly, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s getting himself into. So quite frankly he deserves her.) He treats women as a trophy and yeah, I get he’s suppose to be unlikable, a lot of people like him as a villain. Quite frankly, you can give me Myotismon or even Julio from Cross Ange. Least even when Julio attacks others with his fleet, he gets his coming in the end and is quite hilarious when things don’t go his way.

That and though the song is fun to parody as, it’s the weakest of the original film’s score. I always mute when his song comes on because I can’t honestly stand it really. Yea, in terms of revelation, Gaston at the time, was a game changer for villains. He was not powerful, not evil until he was pushed enough and it showed that anyone can be like Gaston (ironic to his song). However, that doesn’t stop me from hating him and being mind boggled at why people love this character. I never found him funny, engaging or interesting. He’s just annoying and I’m glad they tossed him to a fitting end!

3. Etemon from Digimon Digital Monsters/Adventure 01

Put two of my most hated things together (Elvis impersonators and monkeys) and you get the most annoying thing to date! He can’t sing, he’s cringy to watch especially in his mega form where he’s naked for some reasons...Why this character is liked is beyond me! There’s a reason why when some people mention good Digimon villain, Etemon is almost never one of them. His arc actually could have been edited to where Datamon was the real mastermind and done less painfully quicker.

When he comes back, there is absolutely no point to him! None! The other Digidestined don’t even face him! He just comes around, gets tortured by the more better Puppetmon and then gets killed by Saberleomon and Zudomon! He does nothing but kill Leomon! That’s it! Well done Bandai! We didn’t need a good character with a killer design in his evolution form! Just give us a metal monkey that can’t sing and is completely pointless!

Whenever the Digimon 1st series did a rerun, I would wait and not watch the episodes of Etemon’s arc. Thank the heavens, we got Myotismon after this guy! He was an improvement, especially since I had feared what Digimon would become after dealing with this weak, annoying pathetic digimon! I was just about to throw in the towel until finally Myotismon shows up and makes things interesting again!

2. Jimmy From Johnny the Homicidal Maniac

Got a question. Why the hell do people like this character!? He’s like Gaston if he was a wuss in the body anyway and Disney somehow allowed him to rape and murder people. That’s basically what Jimmy is and yet, so many fans of JTHM like this character. I have him in my fanfic but guess what? He’s constantly tortured and keeps losing in my fanfic, because he doesn’t deserve anything more than to be tortured and not redeemed for his crimes. 

Not to mention, but it was believed he was made by Jhonen Vasquez (the same dude who did Invader Zim) as away to tell fans that just wanted Johnny to be a mindless killer, to falk off! He is repulsive and deserved what Johnny did to him in the end. 

Yet in spite of that, people somehow still like him in the fandom and some even pair him up with Johnny, who hates him as much as I do. It’s sad because I like Eric, yes, Eric can be pompous too but he didn’t rape and stalk people. He killed one kid with his giant fang but that was played out for laughs and it’s actually unclear if that kid died. Eric is redeemable and can be likable if given proper development. Sadly, Eric gets kicked to the curb where no one seems to know him despite, showing up twice and even making a cameo in a Invader Zim episode, thus making more appearances than Jimmy. Jimmy doesn’t deserve to be redeemed ever and it still mind boggles me that people draw fan art of him, not getting his ass raped by a saw blade! 

Before I get to number one, let me give  quick dishonorable mentions.

1# Ciel/Cure Parfait from Kira Kira Precure A La Mode

Honestly, I hate her Precure design and think she can hit the Mary Sue levels at times, but Ciel as a character is at least humble and kind, so I don’t hate her.

2# Most of the characters of Cross Ange

Left them out because too many to count.

3# Characters from shows I hate such as Spongebob Square Pants, Jimmy Neutron, Fairy Oddparents, Teen Titans Go, CatDog and Adventure Time.

4# Angelica from Rugrats/All Grown Up (Who actually likes this character?)

Now...The number 1 character I hate but everyone else likes is...

1. Diaspro from Winx Club 

Ugh!!!!!! Where do I even begin with this freakin character! She’s like if Angelica grew up, gain powers and actually became a princess. All she ever does in the series is cause problems because she wants Sky! She wants to marry Sky and have him all to herself and you know, it’s clearly for lust and power purposes. Sky is a prince and marrying him, she gets to be queen with a “hot king”. If she actually cared for Sky, she would have just let them be in the series and move on. 

However, she doesn’t. Since season 1, all she does is be some love rival for Bloom. Some people say she deserves Sky more than Bloom. I beg to differ. She’s endangered lives, even the whole dimension just so she can have Sky to herself and it doesn’t matter who she hurts or nearly kills. She should be locked away in the Omega Dimension for her crimes! Not just banished but truly locked away there for all eternity! 

As said she does not care for Sky. She just wants him for power and as a trophy and you know she doesn’t truly love him, because she tries to manipulate him and take advantage over him losing his memories! Someone that truly knows and deserves love wouldn’t do such a thing. 

An excuse is “She’s lonely and might not have a good family” as some fans have speculate. Her family was devastated when they thought she was kidnapped! She’s a spoiled little rich girl! That’s it! And there are plenty of characters that are lonely and can be stuck up but develop more as a character. Stella for instance. Aisha! You got plenty of princesses that have been lonely and yet develop to be better!

Not to mention she doesn’t even try to change. Her last appearance was in season 6. 6 years and not bothering to change at all! Still wanting “her man” instead of growing the hell up and moving on like a grown woman should!

I had heard in the comics she’s quite humble, least not as crazy. I read the comic and that is true she’s not as bad, but still pretty petty and unlikable. Yeah, Bloom gets jealous of her but then she comes to Diaspro’s rescue showing Bloom can put differences a side in the end. Bloom does need to be less jealous and clingy, but at least Bloom’s not trying to kill people for not getting her way. Diaspro out right tries to murder her on several occasions in the show and her pettiness in the comic is just annoying . I get rejection is hard but you gotta move on some time. That’s life!

Not to mention, she is voiced by the ever stuck up, can’t get over herself Ariana Grande for most of the Nick’s seasons. I like Ariana’s singing but she’s like her character. She needs to falking get over herself because she’s got nothing on Celine Dion and Alicia Keys in terms of talent and personality.

Seriously, if you like her, I just don’t get it. Me, I personally would have thrown her in the Vortex of Flames in a heartbeat for what’s she’s done. There’s wanting a man and being spoiled. She takes spoiled and obsession to new heights. Every time I see her on Winx, I change the channel!

And that is why, she is my number one most hated character in animation and shoot, media in general!

[empty-dream]

Me watching Fate/Apocrypha ep 2

Omg they animated Jeanne’s execution down to the wood cross scene I’m so moved

I’ve always had this headcanon that when Jeanne’s burned she had short hair but whatever

I don’t know what kind of school Laeticia goes to but isn’t that shirt too fanservice-y for a school?

It’s like it’s made solely for Jeanne to flip her braid and show the fancy command spells in dramatic moments

The opening rocks especially in the first 33 seconds

Did they just, with Semirami’s silhouette-

Who doesn’t love Jeanne’s thigh high haha

Mordred and Kairi: Graveyard is the new trending hang out site yo

When I heard Shirou sleeping on Semiramis’s lap, I didn’t imagine in that pose

Badass Yddgmillenia crew but I don’t care CAULES IS THE FOCUS and Fiore too

The Black servants coming down the stairs like a prom queen

The fighting scenes are good

diD THEY JUST, FLASH THE TATTOOS-

At this point, A-1 must be all “Everybody play FGO, so everybody should know already right”

I love how Reika appears really so little in the opening I mean what is her role to the story

Astolfo is the gift for humanity

Fran is cute, Fran is mad, Fran is still cute

Gordes be an asshole within his first lines

I like how Caules and Astolfo stand together If you know the ending shot of the Apocrypha you know what I mean haha

However much I prefer Mordred over Artoria, her outfit under the armor is shit, still shit, and forever shit.

Mordred goes “DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER” brilliantly

I like that Mordred’s got unhinged obsession with her father, viciously badmouths the entire round table, smugly believes she is entitled to lift Caliburn, and still is loved by the majority of the fandom from day 1.

On the other hand, Kairi is best master and best dad.

Caules apologizing and trying hard to be supportive and protective mom to Fran is best thing ever

While, Fiore, in true Nasuverse opposite sibling style, sits elegantly and drinks tea

Is it me or Chiron’s biceps are enticing?

You know Fiore, it’s not the matter of whether you can win against Caules or not. Would you do it though?

CELENIKE NO

I can’t believe Astolfo doesn’t flip any shit after being molested like that We don’t deserve Astolfo

Gordes can you just stop being an asshole to Siegfried?

Fine, keep drinking your alcohol and acting like some nobleman. You know the last person who did exactly that? He ended up betrayed and dead

uM VLAD.

Finally Jack appears in decent clothes, probably one thing Reika does right huh

Look our main boy starts to be slightly be relevant at second episode

Is it a requirement for a character named Shirou to have eyebrows like that?

The queen has come, I would probably beg to touch Semiramis’s hair

Is it wrong to laugh at Vlad’s photo when he’s alive?

Did I say Kairi is best master? He acts all cool even tho he knew something is totally wrong and lets his servant know too. Unlike a certain master who is also a pro, but has a shit ass job at being remotely okay with his servant.

Shakespeare is literally the living incarnation of doing anything while screaming “YOLO”

If I were the hunter, I’d pass out right away at seeing a blue man grinning at me

Mordred’s transforms from casual to armor step-by-step like a damn magical girl

I also love how A-1 actually animates Mordred’s fighting MO with nasty punch, kicks and throws, completely the opposites to the grace them knights have.

GRENADE HEART

Have I said that Kairi and Mordred are best master-servant pair?

MY SUN SON HAS ARRIVED

The ending is beautiful actually. The nude part is kinda funny to look at, even tho I understand what it is supposed to mean (aside fanservice HAHAHA I still love you Jeanne)

Is it ironic that the character featured in a song about wish and desires in a series about people fulfilling theirs is the one who has none of it

Quality starts to decrease but again, this ain’t ufotable I don’t expect any god tier perfection in every episode

Love how the story is told from different perspective from the manga. It’s real fresh.

Can’t wait for my sun son whose life is full of bullshit to meet the resident suffering white haired boy and has a grand fight

[kazeshinigami]

ANGEL. stuff’s under the cut bc it got long…

skyvar replied to your post

Headcanons make your portrayal more unique and gives the character more soul. As long it doesn't contradict Canon ur hcs, is your portrayal still Canon, sorta, just better because you can answer plotholes, explain this or that etc.

deusuprema replied to your post

^^^^headcanons are the heart of a rp blog together with writing!!!! as long as they are explored in depth and explained, they will only add quality to ur portrayal

zetsumei-shuuto replied to your post

((Tbh, heavily headcanoned portrayals are great. They're unique & add more depth. I understand your anxiety tho :// But your Shuuhei is great & lovable.))

meishutori replied to your post

//but consider this: your portrayal is GREAT /BECAUSE/ of how much headcanon you throw in. Makes him unique and shows your passion for his character!! We love you Angel!!! And your SHUU! <3

ANGEL. thank you all for your encouragement!!!! ;0; i can’t express how much your support means to me!! i just i guess want to check myself to make sure i’m doing everything i can to write shuu to the best of my ability (maybe that’s just on me as a perfectionism flaw idk), and lately i’ve come to doubt several aspects of how i’ve written him for the majority of my time here due to this kind of high bar i set for myself. maybe if i word-vomit a little about it, having second opinions can help me sort out if i ought to seriously change something or if i’m overthinking?

(1) figuring out how to write shuuhei’s personality is frustrating because he’s (as far as my memory can retrieve) more or less the only character who seems to have a complete personality switch whenever the situation is comedic. in (a) filler episodes, (b) extra omake comics, or (c) some light novels (i’m mainly thinking of wdkaly), he is portrayed as the clueless butt of everyone’s jokes. conversely, i can count on one hand the times shuuhei acts even remotely silly in the actual manga (with the main instance being in the second to last chapter). for the vast majority of the time, he is almost emotionless (aside from his interactions with/about tousen)? so it’s tough to put these pieces together in a way that isn’t self-contradictory. i always feel like there’s some side of shuuhei’s personality i could be writing better, but it seems like, in order to do so, i have to sacrifice one part for another part.

(2) as a side note to that, i still don’t feel like i’ve fully grasped all the nuances of shuuhei and kazeshini’s interplay. that’s really frustrating, since i think kazeshini is meant to expose a particular dark side of shuuhei’s soul.

(3) one of the things emphasized in shuuhei’s comic-relief side is his crush on rangiku. i know more than once he has a nosebleed because of her in these situations. i looked up the meaning of the nosebleed trope recently and it’s confirmed something i was already worried it would: this trope almost always means that the guy having the nosebleed has no other sexual outlet. since for a while i’ve been writing shuuhei as being very sexually active, this now makes me feel like i’m ooc on this point. but, because the nosebleeds only happens in filler episodes and such, am i even supposed to take it seriously? if i ignore it, is that just my being stubborn in not wanting to have to rethink my whole backstory for shuu and thereby invalidate a lot of the really great interactions i’ve had on here? did i write his backstory that way in the first place because i really thought that was the best way to explain what influenced him during his formative years, or did i just want to write shuu a certain way, regardless of if there was a better (and idk less problematic™) option?

(4) something that has come to frustrate me a bit about rp vs. fic is that an rper seems to be expected to stick to one set of headcanon for the main verse of their character. however, in fic, i have seen one writer explore many different incompatible hc for one character through separate fics that each highlights a different hc. there’s something really freeing about that, and it makes me want to write fic more? but at the same time, it makes me doubt why i’m even rping if i’m stressing this much about something that should be a fun hobby.

there’s probably more, but i can just tell i’m stressing way more than i should about this stuff.