#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.

[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.

[artsycooky13]

top 3 fave bbys in the burrito show (bonus SUPER LONG tags on how i feel bout the characters)

[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♡

[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

[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 😔

[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

[theloveinc]

No but actually... Bakugo’s parents who are SO nice to you? Know your own family isn’t in Japan so they take you in as their child-in-law almost immediately? Even after only a few months of dating their son??? 

They all probably say it’s because Bakugo was such a bad child they need you to make up for it... but just like your boyfriend, they have very keen senses regarding who’s going to last in a relationship with him and for whatever reason, they know it’s you.

Then every other weekend you’re going grocery shopping arm-in-arm, in sun hats with Mitsuki and being bought fancy lotion and clothes... while Masaru is coming over all the time to pull weeds in your garden and give you nice meal prep. 

Funny, because the both of them remind you so much of Bakugo... and because you have two new parents before you even know what’s happening. 

[mixelation]

What's wrong with Boruto? (plz ignore if you don't want to talk about it)

reference post

it was a joke! i don't have a burning hatred for boruto (here i'm talking about the series). however i know a lot of fans don't like boruto (which is why i made the joke), and most of the complaints i've seen have to do with decisions made with canon characters. i think the main one is that naruto himself is shown ignoring his family in favor of work, even though you'd think the guy with seven thousand flashbacks about how hard it was growing up without a family wouldn't do that to his wife and kids, and then on top of that as Hokage he doesn't appear to have solved any of the problems the OG series brought up...? Some other complaints include: why is Team Taka still with Orochimaru if they were shown being abused under him previously; the Sakura-Sasuke marriage is uuuuh flawed; why is Hinata apparently a housewife instead of fixing her clan; why can little children beat up Shino?

I've only seen/read the beginning of Boruto, so it's possible these things get addressed or explained at some point; I'm just reiterating common talking points I've seen. (Also they're not my personal complaints, so I'm not interested in being "corrected" or told Boruto lore.) A lot of people do like Boruto, which is why they're still making it. Personally, I did really like the mini series about Sarada, but the quality of storytelling in Boruto itself seems on par with some of the less stupid anime filler arcs, so I stopped following it. If I ever get through my reread of the original manga I might try it again.

[rose-lalondde]

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

[opens-up-4-nobody]

I like the snake child 🐍

[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??

[kn11ves]

i just saw someone call oroc himaru morally grey ill eat us both alive he litearlly stole babies so he could commit as many experiemtsn on them as possible he probably was eating people in his dinky ass lab what do u mean morally grey i mean hes litearlly pronouns so i like him what are u on about tho

[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