#asahi is a can of worms to unpack

[impossible-rat-babies]

I’m thinking about yotsuyu and like! did she understand that eyrie loved her. did she understand that they cared about her and wanted her to have the life she deserved. maybe they saw themselves in her. maybe they saw their brother in her. their daughter in her. or they saw her as this woman tortured by her life and the choices she made—her anger and rage and they wanted her to have a better life.

[88moofs]

(1/2 sorry abt the essay jumpscare) i've used it to describe just his room before, but Tsukasa as a whole is surprisingly pragmatic? We see it off the top of my head in how he handled happiend, in that though he was sad he knew if emu didn't join them they would have to move forward without her. (you can kind of argue also in NY3, how despite wanting to go beyond wonder stage to get more experience he knew wxs still needed him). Not to say he has no idealism, his goal is pretty much entirely idealist, but he balances out the two pretty well overall by striving to become the best while knowing realistically he needs to work hard to achieve it. (He also accepts that sometimes things can't go the way he wishes it to, smth he learned way too early...) It is kind of a double edged sword, bc despite the abstractness of his dream he treats it more like a logical goal he will achieve in a certain amount of time (aka: "as soon as possible") and as we see in sky's edge the idea of not knowing how long it will take until finally becomes a star really digs into him. But what does it mean to finally become a star for tsukasa? Also let's be real his expectations for himself are fucking insane, he clearly using his idol as a model but he is so hard on himself for not being closer to his level despite not even being an actor on a more professional level for a year yet, while only being self taught. Like, that's really impressive???? Sakurako and Asahi can recognize the talent and hard work it takes for that kind of progress but Tsukasa can only see it as a failure for not immediately being the best. we see in pimh how the riley stage performance affects him too, he can only tunnel vision on being able to match their level bc they're further along than he is until it really rears its head in sky's edge, being so terrified of failing both his and his friend's expectations of him that he's willing to go to extreme measures both physically and emotionally to be able to push himself higher up. and during all this he takes his feelings about everything and views them in a strangely utilitarian way, as a way to help the show go smoothly, to help him get into a role, even in happiend he only willingly opens up bc he wants emu to open up and god knows if that wasn't the case he'd never admit how he felt to wxs! Idk. I think, just with the inherently vagueness of his goal and how he goes about it, as is, Tsukasa will never really be satisfied with himself. In the industry there will always be someone better than you and the way Tsukasa handles this is just not healthy, especially with how Sky's Edge worked out for him by a miracle I'm worried he's gonna see that extreme measures he took and lean more and more into it when he struggles with roles to make up for how he struggles to acknowledge the emotions he wants to just...ignore and bury to be forgotten. He's not equipped properly to deal with that reality bc he sees becoming the best as an objective goal he can achieve. The way he treats his emotions like a utility aka "i'm glad that my loneliness and sadness as a child could help me play torpe *packs that shit right back up and puts it away*" is a whole other can of worms to unpack but i'm gonna wait till his next event i think? idk this detoured as this always does sorry i HATE tsukasa tenma /j