#kamukura is great too but it's just not the same appeal

[kimmysfandomblog]

Heya! :D For the character ask, how about Hinata Hajime?

I got my favorite character from two of my favorite video game series? Sweet!!!

Thank you for the ask, Anon!!! (Sorry this took so long… and is so long XD)

Give me a character and I will answer:

Why I like them: Hajime had such character development over the series! Like, you can really see how he has learned from his mistakes! Not only that, but he cares so much for his friends! It’s obvious to me he has been hurt in the past, and he starts off DR2 being wary of all his classmates and of his situation, but no matter how much the others may have insulted him, he cared about them and listened to them, and in turn they cared for him back! He’s such a sweet and caring guy, and he won’t get physically violent ever, unless you are first! (*coughs* Juzo *coughs*) Although he may have some sick burns in mind, even if he won’t say them out loud all the time XD

Why I don’t: Oh gee, what is that thing that lifts you from one floor to the next? IT’S AN ELEVATOR, HAJIME. ELEVATOR. (I hated Chapter 4′s trial XD) Okay, more seriously, I feel like as if DR3 threw a wrench in his character development. He was kind of rewarded for having undergone the Izuru Kamukura project. He seemed to have no repercussions besides having lost Nanami. All of his other friends are alive and well, and he has all of the talent, and no side effects? Huh. The only thing that we know for sure is that he and the others took the blame for the killing game in DR3, but they were already at-large criminals before, so we already know they wouldn’t be accepted anywhere in the world. Also hated this thing where Nanami is his only motivation ever in DR3… no. They even made it seem like she was his reason for accepting the project? Also no… Natsumi’s death shed light that HPA saw all RCS as replaceable and easily forgotten and Hajime hated that. Yet she was the last thing on his mind? That he chose to sacrifice himself for her? They reduced him to a love interest of an important character :( Although, I think in general, all this means is that what I dislike the most is that he tends to lie to himself, or wants to accepts living a lie to be happy.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): When he shoots down everyone’s doubts with the “Future” truth bullets! Epic!!!

Favorite season/movie: SDR2 of course! It’s how I slowly grew to love him!!! I loved his sassiness, and he was able to figure out a lot of things by himself! We learn that, despite being less passive about things than Naegi, he’s still a very sweet and caring guy! He didn’t have all that much screen time in the anime, although DR3 episode 3 was also really good imo!

Favorite line: “It won’t be just hope… There’s a lot of despair out there, too… And I don’t know what kind of future it’ll become… But our future is ours! We’re not going to leave it in anyone else’s hands anymore!”

Favorite outfit: His SDR2 school uniform! I mean DR3, he only had a very simple school uniform, basically just a suit :P Plus, I like the design of his tie, and the little heart pin on his pocket!

OTP: Well, although I prefer OT3 (KomaHinaNami

Brotp: Basically the whole SDR2 cast? lol! Nanami and Komaeda, as well as Souda and Kuzuryuu are his best friends! Also, I would have loved more interactions with Naegi! And I loved his relationship with Natsumi as well!!! I also really like the Izuru/Hajime brother AUs!

Head Canon: Post-canon, he tends to run himself ragged caring for his friends, to the point where he is less Hajime and more Izuru, but no matter what, he still cares for them, even if he’s not able to show it as transparently. The others learn how to deal with it and force him to take a break and rest! They also try not to get him to do everything for them so that it never gets to that point!

Unpopular opinion: His parents weren’t really abusive, but they had HUGE expectations for him. I don’t think they were aware of what they signed Hajime up for, since HPA was apparently very good at hiding things from people, including dozens of dead bodies. I also blame the school for cornering him into the project, as if it was the only chance he had to become more confident. So, I personally think that maybe they were harsh on him for being average, but only because they could see being average was hurting their son. Doesn’t mean it was a good thing, but it wasn’t abuse.

A wish: I wish we could have seen him fighting off the brainwashed FF members??? Not AI Kamukura using finger guns to kill off everyone, ut Hajime disarming and knocking out those in his way without ever using a weapon!

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: I don’t know, join the Future Foundation officially? I think he’d be more than willing to help sometimes, but please don’t join FF. We’ve now learned they weren’t that great :/

5 words to best describe them: Most Relateable and Best Boy (I’m terrible at these things :P)

My nickname for them: Haji! (so creative right?)

Link to hopefully avoid this showing up in the tags!

psst check the tags

[honhonluigi]

I say we take a second to appreciate the positive. The writing of DR is a shitshow, yeah, but what are your favorite things about the series?

Honestly, I like some of the writing in DR. If it was all just terrible writing, then I wouldn’t play the game. It’d be the anime all over again-- nothing but terrible writing and horrible characters and I’d just avoid it like the plague. Nah for the most part, I think the writing is pretty good. The plot is a really interesting concept. The lore about Despair is fucking stupid, but the backstory of Hope’s Peak is good, and the Kamukura Project is great. The fact that Hope’s Peak’s own hubris and cruelty and ambition is the thing that eventually brought them down is a really good twist. The individual characters are written well, including the way they interact with each other. There’s just a few characters/relationships that are written horribly that stick out: Maki, Chiaki, KaiMaki, Junko, Shuichi. And they stick out because they’re written so horribly compared to the rest of the game. The same writing is also responsible for characters like Nagito, Hajime, Izuru, Kokichi, Kaede, Celeste, Kyoko, Makoto...And that just baffles me. How can you write characters that are so fun and interesting, and then shove these horrible Mary-Sues down my throat? (Fanservice! That’s how! Fanservice is the devil of all fictional media!) 

But my favorite things about the series-- 

1. The characters. This is DR’s absolute strongest point. If I don’t like the characters in something, then I’m never going to enjoy it, no matter how interesting the lore or plot is. I love the majority of characters in DR, and the ones that I hate vehemently are the ones that actively strive to ruin the story with their awful writing. Other than them, the rest of the characters are good. They’re consistent, they’re solid, they’re interesting, they’re fun to learn about and interact with (even if their backstories are wtf???? sometimes). I hate Byakuya, but he’s written well. He makes sense as a character and he serves his function. Same with Hiyoko. So I still don’t view those characters as ‘negatives’, because they’re well-written, and I don’t dread it when they speak. They’re fun to hate. Every piece of media needs someone you can hate. Most of the characters are super fun and interesting. I love seeing content of them, hearing them speak, learning more about them, etc. I would never have played the games if I hadn’t liked the characters. Plus, I find more and more that I like large-cast media because there’s so much more opportunity for character. You get such a large ensemble of different personalities and it’s fun. Plus, if you have a bunch of completely different people, the odds are more likely that I’ll love at least one. Whereas in most main-character + love interest focused media, I hate both the MC and LI, and so the whole thing is ruined for me. In large-cast media, I can hate the main character and/or their lover, but love the rest of the cast and go through it for them. 

2. The plot. The backstory and plot surrounding Despair is the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard. Completely unbelievable. Outlandish. Ridiculous. But, the plot as a concept is really fun. The idea of the killing game and being trapped there and having nothing to do but make friends or kill each other leaves so much room for character growth and fun drama. It’s like those “mysterious mansion dinner party murder” books but better. And the backstory and plot surrounding Hope’s Peak is actually fairly decent, and interesting, if you take the ‘Despair’ bits away from it. 

3. The moral ambiguity. This might not be DR’s strongest appeal to people, but it is the most important thing to me in any piece of media. I need moral ambiguity. I can’t get interested in a piece of fiction if there’s absolutely no sense of moral ambiguity at all. If it’s just black-and-white “good hero defeats evil villain”! Then I’m going to be bored and angry and I’ll never read/watch/play it. There’s nothing I despise more than black-and-white hero stories. I need moral ambiguity. It’s a theme that I prize above everything else in fiction. I need my fiction to reflect the greyness of the real world. That real people aren’t good or evil, they just have motives and they act on those motives according to their personalities. That no one is good or bad; bad people do good things, good people do bad things, etc. DR2 is literally that theme, tied up in a nice little bow. None of the characters are ‘good people’ after Despair (except the little Mary Sue!!!), but they all are shown to be worthy of life and friendship and love anyway. They show that they can do good things as well. Plus, there’s the theme of all the murders being “for good reasons”, and you have to decide for yourself if that’s true or not. And the question of “are they really evil for committing a murder when they were forced to by threat of Monokuma?” Hajime is the closest thing we get to a morally ambiguous protag, and that’s why I love him. Makoto is definitely a ‘good person’, but his character isn’t used to preach some moral theme about goodness. He falls in love with Kyoko, who’s the second shadiest person in the cast. And he’s best friends with Sayaka, who is the shadiest person in the cast. And he defends them, even when they do bad things. This theme right here, about being allowed to do bad things and have it be recognized by the writing and other characters, is what separated Sayaka from Chiaki for me. It’s why I like one and hate the other. 

This is also why I hate Shuichi. His character is used for nothing but toting around this moral stance of Kaito’s black-and-white good-and-evil “belief”. Shuichi’s character arc outright destroys any of the moral ambiguity in DRV3. And this is a huge part of why I hate Junko. She’s just a purely evil villain with no other personality and no motives. She has no opportunity to show ANY good traits at all. She’s just pure evil, for evil’s sake. Literally. And honestly, this also serves to make Chiaki more obnoxious too. Being the only faultless one in a cast full of ex-terrorists? Fucking lame. And the writing portrays her like she’s a perfect angel hero, who never does anything wrong (even though she does a lot of selfish, shitty things in the game and she’s a horrible person too), because of course! you’re not allowed to hate Mary Sues. There can’t be any such thing as flaws in a Mary Sue, and they can’t do anything wrong, otherwise you’d have a valid reason to hate them! And you can’t hate them because they’re the best character!!!! Anyway, you might be thinking “how come you hate Maki? She’s the definition of moral ambiguity!” Nah bro, she’s the definition of denial and hypocrisy. She and everyone else ignore and deny and cover up all the bad shit she does and insist that she’s a “good person” for absolutely no reason. She never shows any good sides. Then she and everyone else go around talking down to and hating every other cast member for being “bad” when idk?? They’re not fucking serial killers so I’d say they’re better off. And we’re not allowed to acknowledge her flaws or hate her for them, because it’s all part of her tragic backstory!!! 

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title: The one where Komaeda is the producer for a terrible movie, Enoshima is the worst kind of celebrity, and Hinata is just a stuntman for Kamukura.

Author: @serahne-is-here

For: @ask-the-sakamaki

Rating/Warnings: Some swearing, but that’s it

Prompt: AU ! ( I picked a ‘Actors AU’ even if technically neither Komaeda nor Hinata are actors )

Author’s notes: I didn’t write in english in ages, so I really hope you enjoy it <3

“And… cut !” declared Director Kirigiri, holding firmly her bullhorn with two hands.

As soon as the magic word was spoken, relief flooded the studio, as everyone on set felt allowed to relax, if only for just a little while. It was a stressful - and yet, pretty normal - day in Hope’s Peak Studio : one scene down, two to go.

“Sonia, it was your best take, we keep it. Izuru, stunning as usual,” offered Kirigiri off-handedly, before standing up and starting to stretch, arms behind her back. “Let’s take a thirty minute break, and then we move on to the Waterfalls. Please tell the stuntmen they need to go get dressed, we miraculously managed to be on time for today, let’s try to keep it that way.”

Everyone in the studio mumbled in agreement, before they dispersed themselves around the room, in a chaotic, yet very organized fashion. From where he was standing, just a few feets behind the camera crew, Hinata was perfectly well-placed to admire how everyone in this creative hive was buzzing around, in a dance that they all knew by heart. It was, after all, their sixt day of filming Dreams of Future, and they knew their roles and lines as well as the actors did.

Koizumi, Kirigiri’s assistant, bounced toward Sonia and started praising her, at such speed that Hinata couldn’t understand half of it. Kamukura looked around, his eternal bored expression carved in his face at this point, before he disappeared inside his lodge. Slowly, as would a heavy animal migrating for winter, cameras and micros started to move to the Waterfalls set.

Hinata was about to go and get dressed - Kirigiri had been really adamant stuntmen shouldn’t be late, and he wasn’t about to make a bad impression to the studio owner’s daughter - when, from behind him, came a voice he only knew too well.

“What did you think of the show, Hinata ? Absolutely splendid, was it not ?”

Hinata turned around, frowning, and his eyes immediately found the voice’s owner : Nagito Komaeda, main producer for the movie, and all around one of the most unpleasant person he had ever met. Which wouldn’t be so bad if he wasn’t also one of the most attractive person he had ever met.

Both of these things sent mixed messages to Hinata’s brain, and it tended to just shortcut whenever Komaeda was nearby.

“I guess,” he replied, making sure that his eyes didn’t linger too long on the other - over his dead body would he be caught staring at Komaeda. “Sonia is really talented. Her role might be small, but she is nailing it.”

She really was. Sonia Nevermind was an european actress, looking to make herself a name in Japan. Beyond her eccentric personality, typical of foreigners, she was also incredibly sweet, humble, and hard-working, which was more than could be said for most actors than Hinata had worked with.

Komaeda huffed at Hinata’s reply, a sound that made him both incredibly adorable and punchable at the same time. As he said : mixed signals.

“Only Miss Nevermind ?” he noticed, amused. “I see that your jealousy over Kamukura’s incredible success is alive and well. How awful of you.”

“I’m not jealous of Kamukura,” said Hinata, gritting his teeth. “Why would I be ? He has the emotional range of a vacuum cleaner. A four-year old emote more in a minute than he does in a year.”

Komaeda hummed quietly. “That might be so. But we both know you couldn’t care less about anyone’s acting skill. Actually, if you truly think so low of his skills, his popularity must be even more insufferable to you, right ?”

“Will you shut up ?” Hinata mumbled back, 

Hinata shook his head. Kamukura’s success in the filming industry was the most bewildering thing for him. The guy didn’t act. He wasn’t even bad at it, he just didn't try. All he did was wearing the same bored, vaguely annoyed expression, movie after movie. And for some reasons, critics loved him, praised him for his ‘original take’ on his roles, and promised him a glorious career.

This was ridiculous.

“Don’t be so bitter, Hinata,” the white-haired man calmly smiled at him. “The truth is, even if Kamukura wasn’t as talented as he is, it wouldn’t make you more popular. These studios are full of nobodies thinking they can become somebody. This is admirable, but useless, for most of them. In a way, I think you should be proud of your achievement : at your own level, you are helping our stars to shine, in their creative processes. A wonderful stepping stone for the glorious people blessed with talent.”

Hinata narrowed his eyes. Back when he first met Komaeda, this kind of insult would have made his skin crawl, and he would have breathlessly argued with the other. But he had eventually realized that no amount of arguing would change his mind. And he had to be on set in twenty-two minutes.

“Great talk, but I have to go and get in costume. And them I guess I’ll throw myself from the top of the Waterfalls, if Enoshima acts her usual self.”

“That sounds lovely !” Komaeda clapped his hands, excitedly. “I wish I could come with you, but alas, I have to talk to Kirigiri before the next scene begins. Though I won’t leave without saying goodbye, of course.”

Hinata sighed, a smile working his way up to his lips, despite his annoyance.

“Sounds good.”

*

Stunts weren’t Hinata’s first choice of career, of course. He had always dreamed of being an actor, ever since he was a starry-eyed kid, whose nonsensical babbling wasn’t taken seriously by the adults around him. This dream had stuck with him, up until adulthood, when he had finally found out how impossible it was to get roles when one didn’t have any contact in the industry.

One year ago, when Hope’s Peak Studios had called him, telling them that he had the ‘perfect body type’ to play Izuru Kamukura’s double, the offer has been too tempting to refuse. It was finally his chance to meet people who could help him grow as a true actor.

That hasn’t been the case, so far. His work was spotless, and he was regularly called back by the Studios - who was even ready to discuss his fees from movie to movie - but always as a stuntman, and most of the time for Kamukura. It wasn’t the worst job in the world, he was being paid more than most people working in the Studios - he was putting his body on the line, after all - but… if anything, being so close to his dream, without being able to live it was his own personal hell.

Something was missing. And maybe Komaeda was right, and it was the popularity, and the spotlight, and the journalists begging you for interview, and the expensive gifts, and all this superficial stuff that society told him to adore and reject, all at once. But, Hinata knew, it was more than that. It wouldn’t have hurt that much if it was only that.

He did want to be an actor, and a part of him had always thought he would end up being one. As a child, he had wanted to be a samurai, a cowboy, a wizard, an adventurer, an astronaut, and has soon realized that only one job would allow him to be all that - and even more - at once.

Being an actor was to live a thousand lives. And maybe it was worth wasting the only one he had over it.

*

It was four hours later, and nothing was going well. Everyone was on the Waterfall set, which was pretty awful in itself - everything looked really fake, and Hinata knew everything would be corrected in post-production but still it was barely better than a green screen at that point.

Everyone was exhausted, Kirigiri was on her four coffee cup, and Kamukura seemed almost in a dissociative state with how much he seemed to care about his surroundings.

Of course, it was all Enoshima’s fault. She was objectively one of the biggest star in Japan, and everyone knew that her being in the movie would guarantee some kind of success. She was also a terrible human being, who enjoyed nothing more than to reduce to tears her assistants.

“This is what you call a macchiato ?” She spat to the poor girl’s face, who was already quivering in fear. “I could piss in a cup and it would taste better than that. Are you trying to poison me ?”

“I can’t believe you accepted to hire her,” Hinata mumbled to Komaeda’s attention, as they were both looking at the scene with consternation. “She is not a bad actress, but she is not worth the hassle. Sonia could play her part just as well.”

Komaeda looked at Hinata, all wide-eyed and pink-cheeked, and it was really infuriating how pretty he looked after so many hours of being stuck in the Waterfall set with the entire film crew. Hinata was sure that he looked like a mess, even after he took off the heavy wig he wore when he incarnated Kamukura.

Seeing how things were going, he wouldn’t have to save Junko’s ass from a well-deserved fall to death before ten o’clock, anyway. And only if Kirigiri didn’t give up and call it a day until then.

“I’m not taking any creative decision,” Komaeda replied with a shrug. “I wasn’t the one who asked for Enoshima. I’m not sure who did, to be completely honest.”

“Someone who doesn’t have to spend hours with her everyday,” guessed Hinata, grimacing when he saw Enoshima’s assistant run away, probably in order to get another coffee. “I never thought she was that good of an actress. Did you ?”

Komaeda hummed noncommittally but didn’t add anything, which, considering his habit to wax poetry about every actor in the Studios, definitely meant he was agreeing with him. Hinata weirdly felt vindicated by that.

“She will attract a different audience,” explained Komaeda. “She is very popular with teenage girls, and straight males. Since I’m neither I might not be the best person to judge of her appeal.”

They both fell silent, looking at Kirigiri and Enoshima’s argument about a specific line that Enoshima wanted to change in the script, and Hinata took the time to file the information he had just received from Komaeda, just in case. 

“You could fire her,” Hinata suggested. “You’re putting the money, you get to decide, right ?”

Komaeda chuckled. “I’d rather leave the creative process to talented people, that’s better for everyone.”

“Wait,” Hinata replied. “You are talking as if you didn’t take any decision for the movies you are funding. That makes no sense.”

“That’s the case,” Komaeda shrugs. “I just give the money, and the Studios does the rest.”

“But this is ridiculous ! All your movies were success. All of them. Including the one that is entirely made in sign language. You have to… I don’t know.. influence some creative choices, right ?”

“Nope !” Komeada said, laughing. “You are confusing any kind of skill with pure luck, Hinata. I’m no different from someone who son the lottery.”

“Who won the lottery five times,” Hinata corrected. “You produced five movies. Six with this one, which will probably be an incredible success. I don’t know why because Kamukura can’t act, Enoshima is the worst, the script is terrible, and the set looks like it’s made in cardbox,” Hinata argued.

Komaeda fell silent, and looked away from Hinata.

“This is what you think ? Interesting.”

He didn’t have the time to say more, Kirigiri was calling him for his scene, and he had to put on his stupid, smelly wig and save Junko Enoshima from her death.

Sometimes his life sounded like a joke.

*

“And… cut !”

Hinata almost cried in relief, throwing his wig on the floor - almost hoped it would fall in the water, but since the waterfall wasn’t really one, it wouldn’t make this horrendous thing disappear. It was finally over. The crew was given a day off, and the express command to rest during that day, as everyone looked dead on their feet. Every scene with Enoshima had been filmed though, so the rest would probably be a piece of cake.

He was surprised to see Komaeda still lounging around, as exhausted as the rest of them were.

“You’re still there ?” Hinata asked him. “How surprising.”

“It really is,” Komaeda yawned, hand in front of his mouth. He was always so proper. “I just wanted to ask you something.”

“Shoot,” Hinata replied

“Let’s walk.”

Komaeda started to drift away from the crowd, getting closer to the waterfall.

“Uh, sure ?” Hinata said, following him, a few steps behind. “I kinda want to go home, at some point ? And, you know, sleep until friday morning, or until I’m dead may-”

“Why didn’t you ask me to star in one of my movies ?” Komaeda cut him off, very seriously.

“What ?” Hinata asked, caught off-guard. “Where the hell does that come from ?”

“Komaeda tilted his head on the side, curious. “You seem to think that I have some sort of curse, that makes all the movies I’m producing highly-successful. You are wrong, as I was only lucky, but if that is what you think, and if you truly want to become an actor in the future, why didn’t you ask for a part in one of my movies ?”

Hinata blinked. Truth was, he didn’t consider Komaeda as a ‘contact in the industry’. He was unpleasant, rude at the time, unwillingly hilarious, and Hinata enjoyed spending time with him, more than he would admit it. He didn’t want to… use his relationship ( whatever it was ) with Komaeda to further his career

God, he was never going to be an actor at this rate, right ?

“I didn’t want to owe you anything.” He settled for something that sounded vaguely honest.

“Well, aren’t you a prideful nobody,” Komaeda huffed.

But he was smiling too. And Hinata felt like he had done something right, in this whole mess. Without thinking, he took a few steps in the other’s direction, until he was so close he could see every nuance of green inside Komaeda’s eyes, and noticed how the other’s eyes fell on his lips. They were… as alone as they had ever been.

“I…” started Hinata, without any idea what he was going to say.

But he didn’t have to rack his brain for anything, as suddenly, previsibly, a chunk of the so-cheap-it-was-probably-carbox set cracked under Komaeda’s feet. Hinata saw his eyes widen comically, his mouth open in a silent scream of surprise, and the next instant, he was plunging toward the ground, five meters under them.

Hinata reacted in half-a-second, and caught Komaeda’s wrist as a reflex, and didn’t let go even when he heard the characteristic crack of a broken bone. He almost let go, though, when he heard Komaeda laugh breathlessly.

“See, Hinata ?” His laugh was borderline hysterical. “Am I not the luckiest person alive ?”

“You broke your fucking wrist, Komaeda,” he replied.

*

As predicted, Dream of Future was a huge success. It might or not have been because Enoshima created a huge scandal by pretending being pregnant with Kirigiri’s husband’s child, and then claiming that she would kill herself if he didn’t recognize the baby. Sure, critics tore the movie appart, as it was objectively a pile of burning trash, but everyone wanted a taste of the scandal, as short-lived as it was.

All in all, Hinata was happy to only be a stuntman in this whole affair.

Maybe not wanting to be in one of Komaeda’s movie wasn’t that stupid of an idea.