#i hate to admit it but my Nine was also a tsun.

[eorzeashan]

in addendum every time I brainstorm about eight's scary ass i miss his Nine self even harder. he was so cute dude. an ice prince stereotype who bossed theron around half the time but immediately would plant his face in his chest and demand more affection as soon as no one was looking.

theron himself is a hard nut to crack in his own way, but there's something delightful about having him be with a character who let him come around on his own terms so he could be as doting as he wanted without restraint or fear. it's nice, considering how it gives him more agency over what kind of relationship he wants.

[oh-my-otome]

Hello :) I just want to say that I like your blog and I hope in a future you write that big Analysis of our lord Ieyasu ❤(ӦｖӦ｡) Because our lord Ieyasu is a lovely complex character, his stories show a fascinating developing of the character and he looks so adorable when he blush ٩(♡ε♡ )۶ Have a nice day (≧▽≦)(^_^)v

Thank you so much my lovely! I’m so happy to have you here with me! Let’s get right to it! Get comfy!

When we first meet Ieyasu, he has assumed control over his clan after having spent almost half of his life in captivity. 

Ieyasu was born Matsudaira Takechiyo, son of Matsudaira Hirotada, a daimyō. His parents re-married other people, and resulting in Ieyasu having 11 half brothers and sisters.

It is important to remember that Ieyasu was held captive twice.

When he was five, Takechiyo was saved by Nobunaga’s father, Nobuhide, who had learned of the plan to bring him to Sunpu under Imagawa Yoshimoto’s conditions.

When Nobuhide said he would kill Takechiyo if Hirotada didn’t cut ties with the Imagawa, his father said go ahead! He saw it as showing how strong his alignment with the Imagawa was, if he was willing to sacrifice his own son. Hirotada, despite being the one to suggest it in the first place, refused to kill Takechiyo, and so he was held for three years in a temple.

After the deaths of his father and Nobunaga’s, Takechiyo was held captive yet again, when Nobunaga made a deal to send him back to the Imagawa. In order to end a siege, Takechiyo was sent back to Sunpu as a hostage, where he remained from age nine to thirteen.

Knowing all of this, it isn’t surprising that he wants to butter up Nobunaga. Nobunaga’s father spared his life, but Nobunaga gave him over to the enemy. It wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to be afraid of it happening again. 

The only person that Ieyasu goes out of his way, tearing his ass to please, is Nobunaga…before he met his MC.

Ieyasu is almost obsessed with making sure that Nobunaga wins in a competition, and we can see how this can go back to wanting to keep Nobunaga happy, so that Ieyasu doesn’t have to go through something unpleasant.

No matter how “comfortable” one is, as a captive, one is still a captive. We know from Ieyasu’s own account that his life was especially hard.

Despite their history, Nobunaga and Ieyasu do generally get along. Nobunaga will occasionally say something about not being able to trust Ieyasu’s words, but Nobunaga also has the awareness to know that they’re more similar than he’d care to let on. 

Nobunaga doesn’t like his flaws pointed out, even if he’s quick to do so to others, and even if he shares those exact same flaws. So when Nobunaga snarks about Ieyasu being a tsundere, he’s also talking about himself.

Ieyasu tends to snap at people, but no two people more so than Hideyoshi and Mitsunari. 

When others are happy despite their circumstances, Ieyasu cranks up the tsun. He readily admits, over and over again, that he cannot understand that way of thinking and that it irritates him to his core. 

Looking at how he behaves, we can tell that that is just the surface level. He doesn’t hate the person’s ability to remain positive– he hates that he doesn’t know how to achieve it himself.

Ieyasu is deceptively open and honest about his deepest fears, the strongest of which is not the fear of trusting someone, but the fear of the unknown.

Look at much of his dialogue– it’s full of questions:

“How can you smile like that?”

“Why are you like this?”

“What do you want (from me)?”

On the surface, it looks like a throw-away comment made when angry, but we know that Ieyasu is actually asking for the secret, as that is what he assumes it boils down to, to how a person can have life throw so much at them, and get up after being knocked down. 

He is intensely interested in the answer. He truly wants to know, without being facetious at all. From his own experience, he assumes that it shouldn’t be possible, as the hope he lost when he was a child carried into adulthood.

Even his statements are veiled questions, as he silently hopes that the person he’s talking to will help him find a way to believe in something again.

Ieyasu may have a carefully constructed “public face,” but he is quick to tear off his own mask when he feels vulnerable, groping out for the first person who seems like they can help him.

We can see why he would behave this way to Hideyoshi, who comes from very humble beginnings, and went through so much to get to where he is. Hideyoshi’s ever-present smile and easy-going nature, and his ability to handle so much with good cheer is a complete mystery to Ieyasu. 

What he sees in Hideyoshi should be an impossibility, yet his own eyes show him that that’s not the case. Because Ieyasu can’t understand how someone can turn out like that, even having gone through what Hideyoshi has, Ieyasu berates him, as a defensive mechanism. 

He doesn’t truly hate Hideyoshi– he believes that Hideyoshi’s happiness, and ability to cope, is something beyond Ieyasu’s reach.

When it comes to Mitsunari, once again, they are very similar. Ieyasu likely sees a reflection of himself in Mitsunari, and that bothers him. 

Both are socially awkward to some degree, and both lived in isolation that they could do nothing about. They’re also both avid readers, going through several books in a day.

Ieyasu isn’t close to Hideyoshi, as you could imagine, so he has no particular reason to dislike Mitsunari outside of how alike they are. 

When Ieyasu is rejected by the people he asks to serve him, he continues to treat them with respect, in the hopes that they will one day change their mind. Because he and Mitsunari continue to snap at each other, we can see that this is probably not the case.

Prior to your arrival at his castle, Ieyasu was a completely different person. The writers go out of their way to talk about how Ieyasu tortured those who betrayed him, but that is not anything new, innovative, or different amongst war lords of the time. 

It was common.

Here, though, the writers have planned a huge turn-around for his character, so it makes sense that Ieyasu needed to be depicted as particularly bad in the beginning, to give his story somewhere to go with it.

At first, he allows defectors to be tortured, as that is only par for the course, as we learned above. After meeting you, he has a change of heart so profound that some of his retainers want to leave, in order to follow someone more blood-thirsty!

We should also remember that even amongst his own retainers, Ieyasu has to keep face, paralleling Masamune’s route. 

In a time of constant war, even with 30,000 men under his belt, one of the largest armies at the time, Ieyasu can’t just up and make a bunch of enemies, which is why he tries to placate Yasumasa in the beginning, and apologizes to you under his breath.

This is also why he starts to realize, with your help, that changing his ways only benefits the clan as a whole, even after those who disliked his new persona left. By being willing to risk losing some, he strengthened his standing with the rest, ensuring more camaraderie in his ranks.

We can hardly talk about Ieyasu without talking about his Four Guardians. Let’s talk about his most trusted one: Tadatsugu.

Tadatsugu very much raised Ieyasu, in the game. In real life, he was a hereditary vassal, having first served Ieyasu’s father, when Tadatsugu himself was just a boy, and naturally serving his former lord’s son as well.

Although Ieyasu endeavors to pluck out all of Tadatsugu’s hair when he’s annoyed with him, the fact is that Tadatsugu is balding anyway, so he is probably playing up his dismay, while providing stress relief to his lord.

Tadatsugu fully understands why Ieyasu is the way that he is, and takes on a fatherly role. We can tell that he very much thought that Ieyasu would be able to work out what he went through without much intervention, but rather than become a person like Hideyoshi, which is in and of itself atypical, Ieyasu went in the opposite direction, which would be the most common reaction.

Tadatsugu tries to do what he can to help Ieyasu, therefore, and when Ieyasu’s MC appears, he wastes no time on getting them together, seeing an immediate change in his lord, despite their social standing.

Ieyasu understands that Yasumasa is an asset, but at the same time, he doesn’t want to let him get too far. Ieyasu goes along with things, keeping the status quo, as is expected of a feudal lord, but he also puts his foot down, showing Yasumasa who’s boss.

For his part, Yasumasa is unnerved by the change in his lord, and is convinced that it will lead to the downfall of the clan. But all of that is by design on the part of the writers, as Yasumasa has his own transition to make.

Tadakatsu and Ieyasu have and understanding between them, as Ieyasu is not adverse to giving in to Tadakatsu’s masochism, if it’ll get Tadakatsu to leave him alone. Tadakatsu, for his part, offers his extreme loyal to the clan, and his expertise in battle.

This brings us to Toramatsu, Ieyasu’s page. It is not a very big theme in the main route, but in his event stories, Ieyasu is particularly concerned that Toramatsu is interested in his MC.

Toramatsu, for his part, is very interested in her in both Ieyasu’s main route, as well as in the event routes. Toramatsu also doesn’t try to hide it, so Ieyasu isn’t imagining things. 

Ieyasu has never been in love before, and he is a demisexual, so he has surely spurned many potential brides, before he ever met his MC. 

Wanting to secure ties with a strong leader would prompt many clans to offer their daughters’ hands in marriage as a bargaining chip, so it is not unreasonable to think that Ieyasu has had many offers, as one of the top three largest land holders in Japan, on top of having an impressively large army.

As this is all new to him, it’s natural that he would notice a love rival immediately, as he’s already understandably concerned with having things taken from him.

We see that this way of thinking is deeply rooted within him, as he will sometimes become sullen, not actually jealous, but more of a feeling of being left out, when his MC is having fun laughing a something with Tadatsugu. 

Ieyasu isn’t adept at joining in on a conversation like that, and tends to pout to cover up his lack of social experience unrelated to rubbing elbows with fellow warlords.

He’s never had something so valuable that was just his alone, so the only thing he can think of in situations where he’s the outsider, is to rely on tsun remarks that he doesn’t mean. He simply feels out of place, as jumping into a conversation of that nature is something he has never done.

Fake charm would be recognized as an insult, not a tool, and trying to gauge the right moment to slide in would probably embarrass you all, in his eyes. With nothing else to rely on, he goes for snark, knowing that both his MC and Tadatsugu understand.

Ieyasu has difficulty expressing his feelings, because he’s lived a life where actions truly do speak louder than words. He’s had to prove his worth over and over, having taken over his clan at the age of thirteen, and finding himself allied with the very person who put him into captivity. 

As such, he isn’t used to being in a situation where words alone, spoken from the heart, mean anything without an action being performed, almost as a tribute to magnify the meaning of the words. 

He hasn’t encountered it, and has no reason to believe in it, as the world that he lives in is driven by what the eyes can see, rather than what the ears can hear.

The last time he trusted someone’s word, he was put into captivity, when Hirotada said that he wouldn’t kill him, but he ended up being held captive.

Because of this, Ieyasu starts out not trusting anyone as far as he can throw them. It is after his metamorphosis, that he begins to give trusting people at their word a try.

Speaking of his metamorphosis, the chapter of the same name is often used to highlight how abusive Ieyasu is. It should be pointed out that both MC and Ieyasu were in the wrong, as both were being reactionary.

Either way, that scene had to happen, because tsundere characters always need to start from the roughest place in order to make their transition. And it is important to remember that a tsundere doesn’t transition on their own, they bring “their person/people” with them– it is mutual. They change together.

For tsundere characters, there is always something at the beginning that needs to be stark enough to get the character to be different later on. That is how this type of character is made, and this is where the appeal is, for those who enjoy tsundere characters– the transitional period and what comes after. 

The hard work, consistency, effort and dedication that the tsundere puts in, turns into an unshakable devotion, loyalty, and love (whether friendship or romantic love) that lasts forever.

When a tsundere has their rebirth, what readers then experience is akin to watching the tsundere imprint, for lack of a better word, to “their person/people.”

They are very much reborn as the person they always were on the inside, although still needing some semblance  of their tsun qualities, as it is a method of protection, and they are then able to begin to live a more fulfilling life.

We see this when Ieyasu begins to open up more, and while everyone is nervous at first, because he really is that different, everyone benefits as a whole from this change in temperament.

Tadatsugu, who was always like a father when it comes to Ieyasu, now openly cries in joy whenever he sees Ieyasu displaying signs of maturity, both in how he thinks, and how he is socially.

When it comes to his MC, Ieyasu is uncommonly accommodating, allowing her to get away with just about anything.

While others may be afraid to get close to him, he readily tells her to ask him anything she likes, and not to be afraid to come to him with her questions.

He doesn’t always answer right away, or with actual words, because he is still struggling with understanding the importance of using words to begin with, but he is sure to tell her than she can be frank with him, and not to be afraid to approach him.

Whenever his MC is in danger, Ieyasu just about loses his mind. He throws any semblance of shame out of the window and would do literally anything to save her.

When she is kidnapped, in his main route, he goes so far as to take any lead he can in order to find her, looking for tracks of any kind, and paying close attention to details others would miss, such as the direction of broken branches, using these clues to deduce her location.

Even when he finds her, he flings himself to the ground and cries openly in front of his retainers, praying aloud that she isn’t dead.

He also faced Nobunaga’s wrath by wasting no time begging at sword-point, in front of everyone, for not only permission to break rank and go looking for her, but to bring men with him. He then goes running right out onto the battlefield, risking his life to save her once again, taking on Yukimura with everything he has.

In fact, the only person we see Ieyasu desperately fighting against is Yukimura, as he was about to kill him, for having taken his MC captive, something that I can imagine chilled Ieyasu to the bone– he person he loves having to face the same fate that he had.

Ieyasu goes out of his way to provide his MC with gifts, as would be common for someone in his position. He learns quickly that his MC isn’t into displays of opulence, but he still wants her to have them, and lets her use them as she pleases. 

He understands that a bolt of expensive silk may not be what she wants, but he’s still concerned with not being cast away, so when his MC says that she wants to turn it into a shopping bag, he finds it funny– because it’s so random –but is happy enough that she accepts it as a gift and doesn’t spurn him. It doesn’t matter what she ends up doing with it, as long as he can show his love for her, and be accepted.

While Ieyasu may like giving gifts, he also wants his MC to know that he loves her, by being physically close to her.

He rides his horse specifically next to her, out of everyone. He sits especially close to her. Out of his closest retainers, she’s the only one allowed to be in his room for no reason at all, to the point where he even encourages her to nap and do her hobbies in his room.

In the whole castle, the only detours Ieyasu ever makes are places where his MC would go.

Ieyasu may not be a foodie, but he loves to eat anything his MC makes, giving subtle hints, likely so that she doesn’t see it as a critique of her cooking, resulting in her pushing him away, which is the very last thing he wants.

Because he knows how much she enjoys watching him eat her food, Ieyasu makes sure to eat everything that is put in front of him, even if it is a food that he absolutely hates the most– umeboshi.

The fact that Ieyasu would never eat in front of his retainers shows that his fear of being poisoned isn’t just in his head– ask Masamune. One of his firsts acts of displaying trust is to eat his MC’s food, right there in front of everyone, and he doesn’t know her from the next person.