#or maybe the writters are striking idk

[lesbianseaweed]

I am really neurodivergent or i am just being written poorly

[icharchivist]

Kind of a weird curiosity. But I remembers years ago when there was talk over what it'd be like if Allen had been a girl instead (I even read a girl!Allen fic about her time with Cross. It was surprisngly good. Probably because it had no shipping =p). For some reason I just start thinking about that topic again and I wonder how Allen and Lavi's dynamic would be? For the most part I don't see most of Allen's dynamics changing at all (except more (more) fanboys. Lol). But then I remembered Lavi -

2 and I think it's been pointed out Lavi treats females a bit differently. He doesn't seem to prank or tease them as much as the males (not that he's the perfect gentleman either. Komui Talks makes me wonder how innocent he actually is XD). Nor give them nicknames. With this is mind I wonder if Lavi would still act the exact same (chaotic prankster. Touchy feely physically. Retaliating over rough housing) or if he'd tone some things down but do other things more (maybe try to be more like a -

3 big brother initially if he kinda of bases off from Lenalee and Komui, w/o the complex, to get closer to a female Allen?). Lol, Idk. This is kind of more of a Lavi meta question since it's been stated Allen's relationship is utterly crucial to Lavi's character. Again, I'd be curious if a dynamic w/girl Allen would be slightly different or the exact same (in a you're an exception. And people bop him more because 'stop picking on a sweet girl' while Allen cackles menacingly from behind).

Oh my this is... interesting to think about.

I think it’s fair to start with... the fact that Allen was originally a girl. Or more- when Hoshino pinched the idea to Shounen Jump she made a one shot with a main character called Robin. Here you can find it. And Robin... was an akuma. A girl in a boy’s body. Long story short, you can read the one shot if you hadn’t yet - but ye that was originally the character we were going with.It’s to argue that it would make a point for Robin planned as a transwoman in those instances.

According to the Gray Arc however, when the series became serialized, her editors were against the idea, because “No one would care if a girl would be crying”. That’s litterally word for word the reasoning. So Hoshino had to scrap it.

and she mentions quickly that it was one of the reasons she had no idea what to do with Allen to start with. He kinda started with him being a revamp of her character. (What I admire a lot with Hoshino is how much Her Vision can be affected by little things? Like how Lenalee became an entiere different person in her head the moment her editors forced her to have her with long hair.)

There’s also the elephant in the room that considering the timeperiod it was originally written. DGM was originally published with some big name shounen, Shounen Jump had some control over some choices, would react to fan backlashes (Lenalee being forced to have her hair long again is among those btw) ect... I mean like I think people may take for granted that for instance, the Alma arc was a complete anomaly when it came out in 2009/2010. That it had like. Major effects on fanbases. I’ve seen so much dudebros yell at this arc while i was thriving my friend. And tbh before the Alma arc DGM was often lurped in the “basic Shounen” category. A lot of people argued about the tropes it had to follow or not, and if this sort of things had any impact on the writting of the manga earlier? I can see how things wouldn’t go smoothly.(The Alma arc rooted out all the bad dudebros i’ve known of though. I don’t even care what people’s reaction nowadays are to it, to me back then, from the experience i got from fandom, it was revolutionary when it came out.)

I’ve stired away sorry, but Lenalee also works better, bc I know Hoshino fought for the Alma’s arc and that her editors didn’t agree with the direction she was taking. But if you read some of the interviews of the Grey Arc specifically, you see that Hoshino was constantly told how to rewrite Lenalee to fit a male audience sort of. Her editor pushed her to have long hair bc “that’s the kind of idol he found cute”, there was a complete backlash when Hoshino managed to cut her hair, the fans supported the editors, Hoshino talks all about it with such a bummer because “her Lenalee” had short hair. (also during that specific interview her editor calls her a moron. Later on she got called very annoying for sassing her editors after they called her dumb when she had a writter block writting the 14th song, and she sassed them asking for help going “since you’re far more intelligent than me-”. And the editor failled hard, Hoshino didn’t even use his writting, and the editor insulted her for being bossy. Needless to say I’ve since then been filled with anger with how the early days of DGM must have been hard on Hoshino).

I’m forced to make this preface because I truly think it would have affected Allen’s writting had he been a woman. 

If i’m optimistic i would like to think that nothing much would change because Allen’s writting kinda transend genders. But If i’m realistic i know it wouldn’t have happened.

As for Lavi specifically (wouh 7 paragraphs in and i’m finally touching the point of this post) the thing is that he also has a soft spot for women. (I mean i personally would argue he describes Dug as “cute” far too much in his novel to be 100% straight but he at least show his attraction to women more easily in the manga). 

And ye he does tend to treat the women differently but he also doesn’t... have a lot of women to be around to. I mean Lenalee whom he respects (and can be worried Komui will kill him if he tries anything), Miranda that he kinda met at the wrong time? He was always so overly serious around her because he was griefing and we didn’t see him with her at all since he got better. Aside then from his occasional crushes, that he does let himself feel, he didn’t really have an opportunity to spend more time with those women.

My point is just that the women he had met don’t help us set up a patern about how he treats them more casually: in term of pranks for exemple. Like in the day-by-day, we only have Lenalee and Miranda, and pranking Lenalee would be really putting a target on him to be murdered by Komui, while I would argue that Miranda’s anxiety (and the circumstances in which Lavi met her) would make him go softer on her. It doesn’t mean we know for sure he wouldn’t tease a woman in his peer surrounding in others circumstances.

I would love to think he would make an exception for Allen if only because of the timing: He was still handling Dug’s recent death and I think even if Allen was a woman the parallelisms would be there for him to be bitter. 

I want to think that because of that Lavi would still have teased Allen normally like he teases guys. But it’s not impossible that he would have treated Allen differently.

I think eventually like... If Lavi recognizes his soft spot for women (that it is with his strikes and whatever) he might actually be more ready to keep a guard up around them? Like I personally think he has a major soft spot for Lenalee but it took eventually Allen shaking everything up for him to acknowledge this soft spot. That he would have otherwise just protected himself against.

That, the reason our Allen was so effective was that Lavi really, really didn’t expect anything like that. and I think expectations would have been his doom, and I am inclined to think if allen had been a woman, he would have had some expecations.

Regardless: The major plot points that changed Lavi’s mind on Allen were emotionally driven and would still have had the same impact had Allen be a girl, i’m convinced of that. 

So it’s only on how he would treat that Allen more casually. And tbh... considering how vicious Allen can be, I feel like if Lavi treated her “more softly”, Allen’s reactions would probably have ended up with Lavi going “nevermind she’s a prick” and tease her just like he teases our Allen. I mean just taking the Vampire’s arc, with a whole joke about when Allen got bitten and that Lavi was lowkey scared because of that that Allen would turn into a vampire- in the term of, Allen being a danger to him. And Allen therefore sassing him because Lavi was being a moron. I don’t see how the gender would have changed anything, and if Lavi did treat Allen softly “as a girl”, I think this sort of things would have stopped him dead in his track as in “ye no she’s a PRINK where is my sharpy i’m gonna draw on her face.”

But that’s wishful thinking. I honestly don’t know and I think a lot of this post is more how i’m tryng to reason it. 

I’m sure more people would be more able to pinpoint exactly the characters and how it would work. I think i can’t ignore what went down backstage in term of the women’s writtings  so i cannot help but let it affect how I would see the manga as written by Hoshino be affected by it. But also perhaps if Hoshino had managed to keep her female main character, she could have gone more “fuck you” to her editors and manage to flesh her out to a point where half of what i’m worrying about wouldn’t even matter. 

If we divorce the story from the backstage stuff, perhaps there would be a complete different take to have - and it’s cool if people get to explore it. I am just... not the one placed for that.

I used to be good at transformative media, like headcanons and fics, and let those a little take over, but I got kinda insecure of my interpretations so i started to rely on canon a lot more. I already get insecure when I push my interpretations of canon too far. So something that really get me out of my comfort zone is not where you’d find the best answers about that, i’m sorry. 

But hey i hope this ask made sense? If not for the second half, at least for the half where I mention the backstages issues.

Take care!

[mikanrulz]

tbh i feel like one of the main differences in this season is how the lead writter, shizuka oishi, doesnt seem to have experience writing animes. from what google is telling me, she's written movies and drama series, and virgin soul seems to be the first anime she's worked on, so that may explain pacing issues and all. maybe???

I don’t really know anime behind the scene or anything like that, so I can’t really comment on it. When I said “the writers”, I just mean the whole staff responsible; for example, the director also has a hand in the final script and may issue a change if he feels it necessary - like what happened in genesis (e.g. azazel being let alive).

It’s just, while we can’t pinpoint who is responsible for which scene/story line, if we look at the staff’ past works, there may be a pattern that we could trace to pinpoint said staff’ particular style/brand of work.

For shizuka oishi herself, the only drama of her that I have watched is second love (2015). imo the drama has slow pace, has much melodrama and cheesy lines that could be sweet on the right presentation; meaning, the right director could bring her script alive perhaps. Even tho I like both main actors in this drama, I can’t say I like them *here*. even tho they say they’re in love, there’s no chemistry between them. also I hate how the female lead is so… accepting of the male lead’s… er selfishness? egotism? something like that. But the thing about human drama is that bad acting is a thing, so it’s possible the drama is bad bcs of the actors and not necessarily the script.

also, in regard to snb:vs, in some interview, oishi says her fav ep is ep6, and in another interview, she says that ep 17 is Onda’s fav. on the other hand, director sato says his fav ep is ep8. (also there’s another staff who says his fav is ep 6 *and* 8, but I forgot who)

in a relay interview, producer otsuka (mappa guy) says “nina’s romance is an element that is not present is genesis, and for that, it is left in the hands of oishi, who has always been writing love stories. Simply put, the love story part is totally thanks to oishi’s strength.”

In a tweet, director sato says snb:vs is made as he wants it to be made; as in, he has more creative freedom compared to when he made genesis, which, according to him, underwent strict editing process and much scenes are cut. (keep in mind also that genesis is only 12eps).

I just. If ep17 is actually onda’s fav, then it means… er idk what it means ^_^; just that maybe there’s something beyond the surface, that everything shown is not as it seems. onda’s taste strikes me as more similar to sato’s than oishi’s. idk tho.

even keeping in mind this interview while watching, i still get angry and disgusted at how that particular ep went down.

Also, director sato has a thing for “dark hero” (lunatic in tiger and bunny for example), and he also has a thing for putting his favs in “embarrassing” position (or more precisely, putting them in an unusual situation that would force their personality to do the opposite from what they’d usually do). taking this into account, it’s possible the embarrassing outfit azazel wears as well as his weird dance in 2nd ED is actually sato’s love for him. /coughs

speaking of azazel and charioce’s kabedon (a hand on wall, chari in ninas dream in ep16), according to one of sato’s tweet, azazel’s ashidon (foot on wall in ep7) was originally a kabedon also, but he has it changed into ashidon bcs “well, azazel’s a demon after all (laughs).”

reading that, i’m just. huh. is that so.

TL;DR

azazel is director sato’s fav

uh my point is that, anime is a group project and it may be unfair to just blame a single person.

Although oishi is clearly in charge of the love story, director sato has admitted he has a hand in several of azazel’s scenes.

I want to say that *maybe* oishi writes charinina part and everything related to them, while director sato tweaks azazel’s (and other parts) from her to his liking, but bottom line, he still lets what happens in the anime happens, so.

speaking of 1st op, according to them, apparently it’s only azazel’s simulation of his upcoming battle with charioce. But it that’s true, then that means even in his imagination, azazel foresees himself losing lmao

…and yet still he braves on marching ;____; omg why do i do this to myself