#and i think mitsuki sees that?

[protect-namine]

I am about to start a neji route (because I feel that I need at least three playthroughs to fully understand neji and his plays, so I can't leave him for last). so my thoughts on this may change, but for the moment, my thesis is that neji and kisa are the same kind of thespian, just in different fonts.

(I am slightly exaggerating kisa'a character here. there are hints and I do think pushing the envelope of what her character could be is part of what makes kisa... kisa. as I'll explain later, for better and worse, kisa is constrained by the conventions of being an otome heroine.)

anyway. in essence. neji turns Other Persons into stories,

and kisa turns Other Persons into performances,

while they both simultaneously run away from, avoid, or sacrifice Becoming Persons themselves, for the sake of theater

or maybe it's the other way around. something something discovery if not recognition of the self through the other... except they're both unreliable narrators so who's to say if the recognition actually takes hold, really. kisa at least is a little bit self aware. neji, on the other hand, deals with realizations of the self through writing, without actually processing them (e.g. ms robin, domina, etc).

I keep thinking about (novel) kisa closing her eyes and feeling like her sense of self would melt away until tsuki centers her and gives her theater as a way to heal from the grief of losing her mother. it happens again during tsuki's univeil performance: kisa curling in on herself and tsuki pulling her back to theater as way to help kisa move forward with her dreams. pretending to be others is more fun than being herself.

and then there is neji (insert spiderman pointing at spiderman meme). but in his case, he would rather play eccentric roles, caricatures, comic relief, than be a Person With Depth on stage. neji is always either a seer of some kind (a fortune teller, a ghost who sees 10 seconds into the future) or a bit character (employee A), or... whatever he initially planned for domina. he is the mechanic behind the stage, but never the lead actor. his vulnerabilities do not need to "stolen" for the story, though others' are fair game.

kisa does not think about gender as it applies to herself in her daily life (mostly) and only sees it through the lens of acting and theater. how does she act mukai vs maiden, charles vs chicchi? the same way that neji does not think about the motifs and characters he writes as a window to himself, but rather as objects to be put on stage. rukiora is based on a younger neji, mary jane is I Am Death: Revisited (mary jane is to takihime as gashadokuro is to jacob), sissia is always meant to be the foil to I Am Death. but neji doeen't really understand that just like how he didn't understand oh rama havenna. sissia (kisa route, jack jeanne ver) is to kisa as domina is to neji.

literally kisa at her most extreme is just theater thoughts 24/7

kisa "I don't like being me; I'd rather be other people" tachibana 🤝 kokuto "I need to experiment and witness visions I can't create or I'll die" neji: this is a totally sane and Normal way to cope with abandonment and grief 👍

(it is not implied in the game, but since kisa turned to theater to cope with grief as a child, I wonder if the reason she never looks too deeply into tsuki's disappearance is because she's once again using theater as an excuse to conveniently Not Think About It. out of sight, out of mind. tsuki must be doing well, wherever he is, whatever it is he's doing.)

there is also the meta perspective of how kisa in-game inhabits a role where the player can (and is expected to) self-insert. otome dictates that protagonist kisa must be malleable to the player (who can choose to focus on a variety of relationships in her stead), and the plot dictates that actor kisa must be malleable to her stage roles (jack or jeanne, maiden or hero, flower or vessel), and novel kisa dictates that kisa must malleable to pretending to be other people because it's more preferable to being herself.

every thought she has about herself must be tied to acting, somehow. kisa's personhood is defined through stagecraft. she is the maiden, and mukai, and charles, and chicchi, and sissia. she can romance anyone in the school, of the player's choosing. she can be jack, and jeanne, and jack jeanne. don't get me wrong; kisa is her own character and has a strongly defined personality, but the story also demands for her to be malleable. a painting and a blank canvass at the same time.

neji externalizes where kisa internalizes. where kisa Must Perform™ to function and to avoid herself, neji Must Create™ to function and to avoid himself. scriptwriter neji dictates that neji must use everything at his disposal — his memories, his classmates, his obscure knowledge — as inspiration for stories. director neji dictates that he must use everything he knows about his actors — their complexes, their relationships, their weaknesses and strengths — as inspiration for stories. from the cook (mitsuki) needing apricots for a recipe and wanting to harvest honey from a beehive, to mary jane (fumi) being good at sewing and wanting an equal in jacob. suzu and sou fighting and developing a rivalry leads to jire and fugio fighting over chicchi. kai limits himself as a vessel in hasekura, and kai learns to embrace his desires as the priest. from the water/ocean/drowning themes, to rukiora being based on neji's younger self, and her family life and relationship with domina.

every thought neji has must be tied to stories, somehow. neji's personhood is scattered through stagecraft. the more you read his plays and lyrics, the more you get a glimpse of who he is. it is to the point that neji himself doesn't... really see how his stories reflect himself. ms robin being a "random" song the jazz lounge singer sings thay hasekura and ando can dance to, oh rama havenna being a so-so throwaway play that neji doesn't understand why it's entertaining. lmao. neji, please.

and this is why when problems arise, neji becomes a demanding director and kisa becomes a chameleon actor with a shaky sense of self (we don't really see this a lot because jack jeanne is not that dark of a story and kisa is still an otome heroine of an uplifting game, but it's a reasonable conclusion if you push hard on the kisa from neji's "good morning" exercise, or kisa going ham on method acting as charles. kinda wish the game explored more of that. I think a very stressed kisa can get lost in method acting, just as a very stressed neji is almost paralyzed by the fear of the death of talent).

idk where I was going with this. just. them. they have the same issues, just in different fonts. and I think that's actually what first attracts neji to kisa. kisa "steals" (to borrow neji's own words) just like him. kisa is a fountain of inspiration, an ever changing muse. and neji provides kisa with an endless amount of prompts and characters for her to inhabit. kisa does like to play pretend a lot. that's why she's in theater!

kisa and neji: Art Imitates Life people stuck in a Life Imitates Art video game

ANYWAY usual disclaimer that I'm jotting down livebloghing thoughts and I know some spoilers to neji's route but I'm only just about to actualy start his playthrough so. yeah. this was drafted all the way back in may lol, opinions may change and all that

[seiwas]

everytime i think about ex!bakugo, i get so emotional thinking about how he carries on with his day-to-day like the breakup didn’t happen.

he doesn’t even give himself time to mourn the relationship, to process the loss of you. he throws himself into work, practically drowning in it because he can’t bear staying idle.

you’re everywhere, still—

in the picture frames scattered around his home, in the decorative pieces that each hold their own memory. some of the clothes you returned to him smell like you.

when kirishima asks him how he is, he never answers, always redirecting the subject back to work. deku notices longer bouts of silence during joint patrols, and when he pries, bakugo’s only reply is, “s’not a concern.”

it’s unusual, because bakugo is loud and rough, he barks and barks and barks, but with this, he stays quiet.

[gemgdynamight0]

A pro hero uncle kudo would have fixed him😭

In a serious note, I think one factor that had a big impact on Katsuki's development in the beginning, was the fact that he went to UA and meet lots of ppl who were equal or stronger than him (both teachers and students) . This humbled him because before that he never were in a place like that so he thought he's the god of the universe. I wonder what would happen if he had a strong pro hero uncle from the start that he looked up to.

His dad didn't do anything about his behavior because he thought it's a phase and it's gonna pass while his mom thought violence is the answer. None of them obviously worked. I think a strong person like the uncle I described could have helped him improve his view exactly like how him, shoto, inasa, and camie did with those kids later when they told them let's fight and were acting impressed by their quirks (the pictures) . Which would be really good for Katsuki since you can see in the first Pic (above) he is challenging his dad and wants to see who is stronger, his dad or himself.

[willowser]

HI WILLOWWWWW

do you think you’d ever have to have a sit down discussion with katsuki about how to discipline your children? early on? it’s mentioned in the anime that he was spanked as a kid and thinks it’s fine bc it happened to him in the provisional license training, they go against it anyway but i was curious about your thoughts on if a discussion like that would happen?

HIIIIII FREN 😌🩷✨️

this is actually such an interesting question !!! 🤔 bc i feel like there is so much to unpack here LOL

but but but !!!! to make a long topic shorter i will say !! yes, i think the conversation comes up only once, and he brings it up himself. it's pretty early on, i think, before you even know what you're having and it happens very suddenly, maybe when you're laying in bed and not quite asleep, but eyes closed, lights off.

and he just says, voice firm and strong. "i ain't hittin' my kid."

it hangs in silence for a minute, heavy and serious, before you sit up a little to look at him. you frown just slightly, and you can't tell if it's because you're tired or if it's just too early into the pregnancy that you hadn't even started thinking about discipline, but you ask, "what, honey?"

he's sitting up with his back against the headboard, already watching you intently. it takes another moment for him to gather his words, but eventually he sighs and shifts his gaze to your ceiling. "i didn't have no...fuckin'....'time out' or 'sit in the corner and think about you did' kind of thing, but," he raises a hand and rubs his fingers into his eyes and you wonder how long he's been sitting there, thinking about this. "i'm not hittin' 'em."

it seems like such haunting topic, so suddenly—any kind of connection of harm against your growing little bean—and you almost want to press katsuki for why he's bringing this up, now, but—there's a severity to his voice that warns you otherwise.

instead you roll over in the bed until your head is resting against his shoulder, and rub a hand across his chest until he's linking his fingers with yours. "okay, yeah," you agree simply, smooshing your cheek against him. "yeah, no hitting." when he doesn't react, you squeeze him. "y'okay?"

"'s'fine," he tells you—immediately, dismissively, in that way he does when you're looking too closely at something he's not quite ready to share. when you don't react, he turns his face and presses his mouth into your hair, taking a breath to steady himself. "'s'fine," he says again, softly enough that you think it might not be, really—but maybe someday.

[mitsukikoga-lookbook]

hi green yuri lovers!! it's been a long while but I'm back!

Don't know if anyone actually missed me but I'm back to be a clothing nerd and analyze a fictional character's whole wardrobe!! See you guys soon!

[descendant-of-truth]

I'm not really sure what the narrative function of Boruto having three (four?) potential love interests is, but what I am starting to feel confident in is the idea that we're not getting through this story without an eventual love confession from at least Mitsuki

Like. they're spending A Lot of Mitsuki's screentime showing us how he's steadily puzzling out his feelings and what it all means to him, in particular when it comes to Boruto - that's the kind of thing that needs a conclusion at some point, even if Boruto doesn't reciprocate. And having it be in the form of Mitsuki vocalizing his feelings only makes sense, because he also struggles a lot when it comes to expressing himself.

I've touched on it a couple times before, but I really don't think Mitsuki identified his feelings as being romantic until like... maybe chapter 88. And even then, he doesn't seem fully committed to the idea, so there might still be more introspection waiting for him on the topic.

But since they've intertwined his arc about learning to understand and express himself with his romantic feelings for Boruto, it only makes sense from a writing perspective for there to be a moment where he tells him how he feels. It's not entirely dissimilar to Hinata's arc, in that way; both would be overcoming a deep-seated personal struggle that makes it difficult to communicate, all because of the strength that their fully-realized love gives them. And I just think that's pretty cool

[thepositivefella]

Both Bakugo's parents know he's 🌈. The day he comes out Mitsuki will straight up tell him she's been waiting ages for that and was kinda wondering if he didn't trust her by that point, Masaru, on the other hand, will pull off the most exaggerated shakesperean teatrical acting Katsuki has ever seen in his life just cause he thinks the socially acceptable thing to do is to act surprised

[deus-ex-mona]

mona’s self liner notes for fukutsu no idol!

This song was the first of my new songs to be released. I sang it with many thoughts and feelings about everyone I know and everything I’ve gone through up till now in mind. I really love the MV and my costume too. I did fret about how well the song would be received, but I was really happy to receive many comments about how excited people were for my album♡

[keicordelle]

So I don't like, actually ship anyone from Idolish7 aside from yukimomo. I respect the Mezzo shippers, but I'm on the fence about it; I think they make a really nice platonic pair and I'm not really sure how I feel about viewing that in a romantic light. I see it, I get it, I'm on the fence.

BUT I could fully see Pythagoras in a QPR together. Nothing sexual about it at all, but they all just sort of come together and support each other in a way that probably makes others squint at them in confusion. You'll find them cuddled up together on the couch or in someone's bed because "it helps Nagi sleep". Know what brand of toothpaste and coffee and tissues the others prefer, makes sure to bring that home whenever they're running low. They go to each other first for comfort when something goes wrong, Mitsuki sneaks little memos into their lunches, Yamato brings home little gifts every time he goes out.

Anybody Yamato or Nagi dates learns really quick that they must be okay with the qpr trio or they will not be asked out again. Pythagoras comes first

[mothinabottle]

Ok, so I'll go back to posting drawings soon, but I need to ramble about girls with short hair like??? What gives them the right to be so pretty???? And when someone has bags under their eyes, like REAL bags under their eyes. A tired person who is themselves and has short hair ohmygod I knew this was my type, but fuckkkk

Saw someone with short hair and bags under their eyes at the breakdancing olympics and I JUST FELL IMMEDIATELY. Saw this yuri manga that is called "The guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all" and fell for Mitsuki, too 😭(That without counting the fact that all my girl crushes have been girls with short hair through my life). It's like I have this instant crush for girls with short hair that I can't help. It just looks so fashionable and great and so comfortable and makes them look so cool.

Help, I am having a huge gay panic rn 😔

[rose-lalondde]

the difference between the tumblr and twitter reactions to the boruto time skip designs has been so funny omg

[mazojo]

Yeah your ship is cool and whatever but have you heard of childhood friends to I thought you liked me but it’s all a lie but it’s really miscommunication so I hate you but not really to enemies to lovers??

[tiixij]

So I'm watching boruto now (sorry) and honestly I think Mitsuki is a really funny character because he's always saying things like "Boruto is the sun in my sky" and "I like doing whatever Boruto likes doing" and Boruto is just kind of like oh haha yeah I forgot you say that

[protect-namine]

do you think when mitsuki wanted to quit being the al jeanne, neji got flashbacks to the times when his scripts made: 1) amber's first year al jeanne quit; 2) a loooot of univeil students quit (okay, to be fair, half of the issue was chui and not just neji. but still)

mitsuki: I don't want to do this anymore. get fumi to be the al jeanne instead. I quit!!

neji: (amber days flashing before his eyes) oh shit. I fucked up really badly this time huh

I mean, for sure neji has grown since then, especially in how he perceives himself. he can't articulate it in person but he can write about it. the revenge-seeking "princess who possesses the heart of a monster" (takihime) has turned into a whimsical dollmaker who finds friendship in ghosts that love life (mary) (they're both neji; mary jane is I Am Death revisited). neji still likens himself as a "villain" quartz must overcome at times, but like. he's better now!! he apologizes and makes people enjoy the acting experience now!! he's making an effort to be a good senpai!!

alas,

[and-you-found-me]

Unpopular opinion but I really do not like the fandom idea of Mitski being a bad mother. Like at all.

[cashmoneyyysstuff]

ring pop proposal ♡

fem reader, pure fluff, childhood friends to lovers lemme alone do not perceive me yk the drill by now, lil self indulgent fic cus i love childhood friends to lovers and puppy crushes, polar opposite’s trope, this reeks of my oc x canon katsu ship sooooo shh shh do not perceive.

the first person who realizes katsuki has a crush on you is his mom because when she comes to pick him up one day from kindergarten he suddenly mentions you. it’s an innocent little interaction he had with you that mitsuki doesn’t think much about at first, simply surprised her son managed to befriend someone outside of his little group of friends until he starts mentioning you more and more.

soon you’re the only thing he talks about and katsuki even starts begging her to have you come over to play. mitsuki is extremely curious to know what kind of person you are to have been able to enchant her son the way you have, she says it’s fine as long as your parents agree.

you’re a sweet little thing, almost the complete opposite of her little devil’s spawn. you’re polite and a little shy when you ask “ is it okay if i come to play at katsu’s house, please miss katsuki’s mom ?” and how could she say no to you ? she pulls at your cheek lovingly and her son almost snarls at her.

“no touchin’ !” he snarks, pulling you against him like you were his teddy bear.

mitsuki was the first to realize her son had a crush on you when you were always around. when he found something cool during a class trip you were there and whenever he was upset it was always because you had argued about something irrelevant that seemed so much bigger in the eyes of a child.

she realized because katsuki had, and in some ways, will always be rowdy. he’s rough and temperamental and moody—basically, he can be quite the brat. (she wonders where he gets that from a lot) but he’s different with you.

he’ll always be a little rough around the edges but it’s the thought that counts. he drags you around a little too hard but it's to show you something he knows you'd like and you repay him by being patient with him and letting him drag you around to his hearts content. he let’s you use the crayons he’d just denied another classmate seconds ago and when it’s really early in the morning and you’re still sleepy unlike your more energetic friend, he waits for you. sitting with you in the reading corner quietly commenting on a little bit of everything in the book you’re sharing until you’re awake enough to start the day because katsuki wanted you to be together through anything no matter what, starting the day without you was simply unimaginable.

you offer him your kindness and he repays you with his loyalty. acting like your guard dog, protecting you from everything and everyone he considers a threat to you. he goes a bit overboard but it’s the thought that counts and he’s definitely got the right intentions.

“ i’m g’nna marry yn when i grow up !” katsuki proclaims from the backseat of the car after mitsuki had come to pick him up. she looks at him through the rear view mirror only to see he’s not even looking at her, looking out the window somewhat longingly, watching as his school fades away from his sight, further and further and further away from you. she smiles to herself.

“yeah ?” she asks “yeah !” he responds proudly, crossing his arms “ i asked yn if she wanted to be my wife an’ she said yeah, so we’re gettin’ married !”

“huh. how’d you propose ? you don’t have a ring.” she jests.

katsuki responds immediately and exclaims he does have one, shuffling around to reach for something in his pocket. he pulls out a plastic ring pop holder, the candy on top is missing and mitsuki can imagine what happened to it.

“gave her one of these !”

“so that’s why you had me buy those from the store last time,” she hums. “ you ate it, though.”

katsuki tries to roll his eyes but just ends up looking up and to the side, mitsuki recognizes it as him trying to mimic what she does a lot and she snorts.

“well duh, we both did ! ‘f i kept it in my pocket it woulda gotten gross !” he defends. mitsuki simply responds with a hum, smile on her face growing larger as she hears her son happily chatting about the rest of his day with you.

she knows her katsuki is hard to handle. extremely so. but when she sees the way you both interact she can tell something is there. you don’t ‘handle’ him. you like being around him. you like playing and talking with him, she sees how happy you make him whenever you come over for playdates. he holds your hand when you get scared and you hug him tight and beam when you see him again after he’s gotten over a nasty cold.

she can tell you make her son happy and he does the same for you in the way children do with pinky promises and shy cheek kisses, kisses over tiny wounds and refusing to be separated whenever the rowdier one of you both gets his recess time taken away for being naughty.

mitsuki hopes this crush, this love you have for her son can grow along with you. she hopes you’ll stick around as katsuki grows up more and potentially more rowdy and rougher around the edges but even more enamored with you. and with the way her son is squirming around in his seat and tugging at his seatbelt, giddy about you accepting his ring pop proposal, she has a funny feeling you’ll be sticking around for a long time.