#any instance of people showing nico they care about him and i’m in tears in really is that simple

[glassamphibians]

i have a very specific headcannon that for Hazel’s birthday Nico got her those really opaque markers that show up bright on black paper and Hazel jokingly went “i might draw on ur walls with these” and he was like “idc go for it” and thus began people drawing on cabin 13

hazel hesitantly did a few little doodles by her bed and nico was like “no go wild seriously i do not care” so she now has a section of the wall she’s working on and when she went back to camp jupiter she forgot the markers

then rachel showed up

she thought it was the coolest thing ever bc rachel draws on her cave walls so she’s in on it in no time

unlike hazel who a gave herself a specific part of the wall on her side of the cabin, rachel goes all over

the cabin is still mostly black, but each time one of them visits it gets a little brighter

at first it was just them drawing but everyone else joined in pretty fast

when percy visits he claims the blue marker and doodles food and band logos and sea creatures other random stuff while they talk

jason used to sketched temple ideas. nico covered them with posters bc they’re hard to look at now

when annabeth and nico were on the same team for capture the flag they drew out their whole plan and then pushed his desk over it so no one from the other team would see it

Will loves to doodle hearts and stars and planets and leave little messages

one night neither of them felt like talking so they wrote an entire conversation instead

meg drew flowery vines along the windowsills

theres multiple random games of tic-tac-toe strewn about from when reyna visits

nico writes a lot of random things, reminders, book quotes, song lyrics, etc, but he writes most of them in italian so people don’t know what they mean

reyna tried, and failed, to draw her dogs and filled the outlines with super tiny intricate designs so it still looks cool-ish

all the drawings and scribbles and measages are really good reminders that nico has people who care about him and they help a lot when he feels alone

also seeing rachel and hazels amazing drawings and everyone elses stick figures side by side is extremely entertaining

[madara-fate]

Now that Darling in the Franxx is over, could you rank the characters from least to most favorite and why? as well as your opinions about the endgames.

I guess I’ll just stick to the characters from the main group. In which case:

10. Miku - She definitely had the least focus out of all of them and I therefore had the least reason to really care much about her. During the few times where she did get some attention, she didn’t really resonate with me. She just seemed like the typical tsundere with pigtails, and that’s unfortunate considering how a certain other girl with pigtails from an earlier anime by Studio Trigger…

Was by far the best thing about the show, bar none. Nico was absolutely amazing in Kiznaiver (and not just because of how adorable she was!!!), and Miku just kinda disappointed me in comparison. 

9. Futoshi - I had nothing to really say about him prior to episode 11, and then during said episode he annoyed me with his possessive clingyness and his primitive ideals about how the worst thing a man could possibly do is to hurt a girl because that’s just completely untrue, and overly chivalrous sentiments such as this just annoy me, but I digress. He showed a lot of growth following this, but I just wish we got to see more of him and Ikuno interacting as partners, because they weren’t ever really depicted as “partners”, but more like two people who just happened to operate the same FranXX. That was rather disappointing, because I feel like two people who were as different as Ikuno and Futoshi could have made for a very interesting dynamic.

8. Hiro - I won’t call him bland, but I just didn’t find him interesting at all. He had a few good quotes here and there, with perhaps one of my favourite quotes in the whole show coming in episode 21 where Hiro said “I don’t live to fight anymore, I’m going to fight to live”. That was a very good line for him and was very applicable to all of them. But overall I just found Hiro to be rather “meh”.

7. Kokoro - I liked how as the show went on, she grew out of her shell and stopped hiding behind a smiling face that just went along with whatever her peers desired. She began to be more assertive, both in regards to voicing her opinions and in her romantic advances towards Mitsuru (a lot of which was actually influenced by him from their talks in the greenhouse), and this was nice to see. She obviously didn’t go about voicing her desire to partner with Mitsuru in the best way because she broke her promise with Futoshi in the process, but she acknowledged this and didn’t make excuses for her actions, which was commendable. She followed her heart and actively went after what she wanted, which in itself is admirable considering how they were brought up.

6. Ichigo - She was a character that intrigued me because I was always interested to see how she’d react to certain situations. I found her to be a good balance; she wasn’t the standard tsundere like Miku, she wasn’t the standard “waifu” like Kokoro, and she wasn’t quiet and reserved like Ikuno. I found this balance to be very appealing, and I think this balance of her character was what made her a good leader. She obviously made a few mistakes during episode 14, but what transpired during said episode was every bit Hiro and Zero Two’s fault as it was her’s, and her actions were very understandable under the circumstances, so I never held any sort of grudge. Besides, she then demonstrated a lot of character in the ensuing episodes, so it’s all good.

5. Zero Two - She was the character that added the “spice” to the series, which is always a plus in my book. She was unpredictable and captivating, which always made for high quality viewing and entertainment, and she ticked the box which I always find the most important when determining how much I like a character - their ability to retain my interest and attention. There were instances in which she irritated me though, such as in episode 14 where rather than simply clarifying to Ichigo that her outlook on Hiro had changed after discovering that he was the darling from her past, she instead decided to continue acting like she didn’t care and that Hiro was still expendable to her, which was what caused Ichigo to act obnoxiously stubborn in the first place:

That was utterly stupid on her part… But I digress. Zero Two was undoubtedly the heart and soul of the show. She made the show what it was.

4. Zorome - Towards the beginning of the show, I never would have imagined that he and Mitsuru would end up becoming two of my favourite characters, because they were both such pricks, lol. But I guess character development is a great thing eh? Like Miku, he didn’t really get too much focus, but unlike Miku, the focus that he did get resonated with me very much. Once you get past the brash exterior, you can see how much of a caring person he can be, with a good example being when he shed tears for Futoshi because he was so worried about his friend’s health in episode 16. I really wish that his fascination with being an adult could have been explored further, because episode 10 was very interesting. His conversation with the unnamed elderly woman caught my attention greatly, not least because Zorome found her to be inexplicably familiar. Alas, this was never really touched upon again, which is a shame. That plot point had a lot of potential.

3. Ikuno - With her, I always felt that there was so much more to her beneath that stoic facade, but as the episodes went by I felt that it grew increasingly less likely that she’d reach the potential that she had as a character. Thankfully, the 2nd half of the show showcased Ikuno in a really powerful fashion. Her confession to Ichigo was so well done because the manner in which she explained herself was just so understandable, saying things like how frustrated she felt that the boys were able to ride with her just because of their gender, which is something she could obviously do nothing about. I just found myself nodding the entire way through, and following this, she undoubtedly became one of the MVPs of the group. I don’t think the importance of the research that she conducted following Hiro and Zero Two’s separation from the group can be stressed enough. Hopefully she spent the remainder of her days happy with Naomi by her side, it’d be no less than she deserves.

2. Goro - If there was ever a character who remained consistently great throughout the entire duration of a show, Goro would be up there. He and Ikuno were the only two characters who never annoyed me once throughout the whole show, not even a little bit. But what puts Goro above Ikuno for me was that he was a great character from start to finish, whereas Ikuno took a while to get there. There wasn’t much development to speak of with him, but when you start off great, then this isn’t exactly a requirement. He was the constant voice of reason for the group; he was that safety net which assured you that no matter how mental the group may act, Goro would always be there to bring them back down to earth, and I really appreciated that. 

1. Mitsuru - This guy was development personified, seriously. His transformation from the difficult and pompous person he was at the beginning, to the kind and compassionate person he became later on was astounding :

It was essentially like watching two completely different characters. A lot of his development can be owed to Kokoro, because much like how he helped her break out of her shell by influencing her to speak her mind and become more assertive, she helped him recover from his self loathing as a pilot, and through her unwavering belief in him, he was able to regain the belief in himself. And in doing so, his conceited attitude began to wane, and in it’s place emerged a bundle of fluff who would become “Papa No.1″.

As for the endgames, the pairings were to be expected. I couldn’t be certain of whether a relationship would be canonised between the Goro-Ichigo-Ikuno triangle, but I have no issues with the conclusion.

The reincarnation thing with Hiro and Zero Two understandably caused a lot of controversy but I had no real problems with it to be honest. Maybe because I had already resigned myself to accepting the likelihood that the two of them wouldn’t be getting the standard “happy” ending, long before episode 24. This made it a lot easier for me to accept the ending for what it was, and appreciate the journey that all of them had gone through during the course of the show:

Still though, even without Hiro and Zero Two’s story concluding in a standard happy ending, they were at least able to have a second chance to spend their lives together in peace and happiness, without the hindrances that came with being nurtured in a dystopian state where you’re bred to pilot and nothing more.