#somewhat new to being here on a daily basis but I'm serious i just have to do this and im not being shady im just Something™

[forehead451]

stream of consciousness type deal.

[metalgearstranding]

kaz

Alright here we go:

FIRST IMPRESSION

Probably "oh no he hawt" when I played like an hour or whatever of MGSV before I actually became a fan of MGS lol

IMPRESSION NOW

Fuck I have so many conflicted feelings about Kaz, most of it says more about me than about him... What I really love about Kaz, what draws me to him, also really repulses me and makes me despise him at the same time. I find it hard to be subjective about him because he's somewhat of a black mirror for me personality wise and I don't wike it lol But hey, my visceral feelings about him are also proof of how compelling he is as a character. In a game where everybody is, well, playing games, wearing masks, Kaz feels like a breath of fresh air. He does a little scheming on the side (as a treat) but mostly Kaz feels very authentic and sincere, cards on the table face up for all to see. And I don't think he can help it at all. And he doubles down about it and it's dangerous and stupid and fuck it's relatable, what's wrong with you Kaz, I love you.

FAVORITE MOMENT

Unserious one: when he absolutely loses it in a codec in Peace Walker if Snake is in his underwear. His reaction is so over the top, which is very Kaz, but it also says a lot about how it must be like to work with someone like Snake on a daily basis lol

Serious one: when he absolutely loses it in the helicopter in Ground Zeroes when he goes "give it back! This isn't right, that was ours!". Kudos to Robin Atkin Downes for that delivery, it was absolutely heartbreaking.

IDEA FOR A STORY:

I just want anything dealing with the relationship between Kaz, Snake and Ocelot, not even necessarily in a shippy way, just as people who deal very differently with stuff. MGSV doesn't scratch that itch, because Snake just isn't Snake, and except for the hamburger tapes, all Kaz gets to do in this game is rage and brood. So yeah, it'd probably have to happen during Peace Walker. If anyone knows of a fic like that that's not obviously biased towards either ship hit me up.

UNPOPULAR OPINION:

I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion, but I hate when people woobify Kaz while demonizing Snake and Ocelot. I'm sorry, your pookie has a lot of blood on his hands.

FAVORITE RELATIONSHIP:

I'm gonna give an honorable mention to Ocelot, just because I think there's a lot of untapped potential there. I have to go with Snake though, because oh boy are they fucked up... On the one hand they compliment each other wonderfully (although it kinda borders on co-dependency). If they had been normal people their differences could've brought them together even more, but sadly they're both unhinged assholes so mutual destruction was all but assured.

FAVORITE HEADCANON:

Eye problems aside, I really love Kaz perpetually wearing sunglasses, and all the different ways you can interpret that symbolically: 1) vanity (both real and a front) 2) a futile attempt at trying to hide his real feelings, and a third thing I thought about recently.

This might be obvious or old news to some, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone talk about it: just the fact that his sunglasses could also hide slanted eyes and betray his origins, which we know he had trouble dealing with when he was younger. I'm not a fan when Kojima makes his character half Japanese but doesn't bother giving them Asian traits at all, Kaz being the worst offender of this. But yeah, I guess my headcanon is that one of the reasons he always wears sunglasses is to hide the one clearly Asian trait he should have lol

[casually-inlove]

I'm a bit curious about the change in He Tian's attitude towards Mo in some earlier 2016 moments. He looked like he was playing around with Mo and even taunt him then, but the kiss came out of nowhere, and he is now having a crush on the boy. What do you think that makes him interested in Mo in the first place, and at which point did he start taking their friendship seriously, and started loving Mo?

Hey there, anon!

That’s a fabulous question actually. At some point, I also wondered what it was that made He Tian interested in Momo to begin with, or when this transition actually happened, and I was addling my head a lot over it, lol. I can only speculate here, but nonetheless here goes.

First of all, let’s take a look at how OX initially presented He Tian. We saw a wealthy, privileged and somewhat snobbish boy, who enjoyed top grades and enduring popularity among other students. Hell, even the teachers were fond of him, while girls flocked around He Tian every break. Whatever he said or mentioned was being met with giggles and bashful sighs. You get the picture. 

Unfortunately, it’s all but a pretty wrapping. In reality, none of those people knows who He Tian really is. We as readers know that in fact, He Tian suffers from profound loneliness. We know that despite all that money, he barely has any noteworthy personal possessions. That he still experiences the aftershocks of childhood traumas. That his relationships with his family are deeply fractured. People who surround He Tian on a daily basis could be described as sycophants. Their adoration towards him is pretty shallow. They are so crazy about him why exactly? Because he’s handsome, rich, popular, etc. Not saying that it’s a bad reason to like someone, but it’s not particularly meaningful either.

Anyway, this leads me to my main point. He Tian is used to that sort of shallow attention and plays along with it for his own reasons. He’s used to people nearly applauding him for whatever he does. He’s used to people wanting to be near him. If we think back to his childhood, we’ll see that instead of a mother he had been (apparently) surrounded by maids (?), who were hired to care for him (and that’s apparently why he’s so bad at house chores, haha). 

Case and point: he’s used to being in the center of attention and having people bend over to his whims.

And then… cue Mo Guan Shan, who gives zero fucks about He Tian. Who gives zero fucks about his popularity or his money, who has the balls to tell him to bugger off in the rudest ways possible. Momo doesn’t dance to his tune, and that’s something new to He Tian, something he hadn’t experienced before.

So… Momo comes off as belligerent, dirty-mouthed school bully who is contemptuous towards those rich and powerful (he has reasons for that, but still Momo’s view is tinted through his own childhood experiences). There’s raw honesty in Mo Guan Shan and that initially fascinates He Tian. Let’s admit it: He Tian comes off as being bored or somewhat indifferent towards life. The fact that there’s one person who doesn’t bow and kowtow before him is refreshing. That’s probably one of the reasons why He Tian hires Mo to cook and clean for him in the first place. He’s bored and Mo is the cure to his boredom. A cure that runs his mouth, threatens to knock his teeth out and outright calls him fake and dangerous, haha.

If I were to give a Tvtrope to this one, it would be “I love you because I can’t control you”. He Tian cannot approach MGS normally, like how he would have approached anyone else. Friendly attitude doesn’t work with him. Momo truly reminds me of a stray dog that is used to people treating it so badly that it would bite the hand that tried to pet it. There’s also a matter of MGS being very prideful. That raw honesty of his doesn’t fade away even when He Tian gives him beatings or pays him to do house chores. Sure, he takes the money but he never sugarcoats his attitude, never hides his distaste for He Tian and people like him. He makes it clear that he HATES every second of being near HT or in his apartment, yet he manages to put it aside when needed. 

Anyway, I digress. I believe that fascination on He Tian’s part had been rather instantaneous. It may have very well happened during the fight between XiXi and MGS. Momo has shown that he didn’t follow any rules, and literally had a savagely pragmatic side to him (when he used a stone to hit XiXi). That was probably the moment when HT’s curiosity was aroused. He’s not used to seeing people like that.

The kiss scene is also very telling. From the easiness with which He Tian invades personal bubbles of the others, we can surmise that he thinks it’s no big deal, and if it’s no big deal to him, he literally thinks it’s the same way for everyone else. As I mentioned before, he’s used to people being willing to “give in” to him, hence he seems to have a mindset that he can take whatever he wants (like a spoiled brat, haha) and that nobody ever would mind — precisely because they are willing to begin with. This fails with MGS. Not only he reacts violently, he begins crying. That’s absolutely not the kind of reaction He Tian was expecting; you can blatantly see it written all over his face. He even asks Momo if he finds HT disgusting. 

I believe that’s when He Tian actually felt a pang of guilt for his doings. The way Mo Guan Shan reacted is extremely human and understandable. Someone he DESPISED came up and forcefully pushed their tongue into his mouth, forced him into a kiss that is by all means just another taunt or a joke, not to mention that by the looks of it, it was his first kiss — something that in many cultures is considered to be nearly sacred. And He Tian probably for the first time in his life experienced a rejection. He wanted someone who didn’t want him, and there’s nothing his cool reputation or money could do about it. He also realized that he disgusted somebody — also something new to him. The novelty of it all, the unexpected guilt — these are the new feelings in his otherwise stale daily life. Mo Guan Shan made him experience something dramatically different.

Another point is that there are rather obvious parallels drawn between Momo and that puppy He Tian used to care for. He saved that puppy from a violent mountain torrent and nursed it back to health, just like he saved Mo from She Li and the angry mob later. He Tian’s failure to protect that puppy from “death” (like He Cheng made him believe) is one of the unresolved issues of his past, which he tries to rectify (or I should rather say, prevent from repeating itself) with Mo Guan Shan. Subconsciously he might be projecting that dog onto Mo Guan Shan, although he seems to be very much aware of his own associations, as he calls Momo his puppy.

During the time He Tian spends taunting and forcing Mo to do stuff, he learns things that make him admire Mo. Like Mo’s refusal to sugarcoat his attitude, the fact that he’s shouldering a heavy financial burden, that he’s actually extremely hardworking, that he has pride and doesn’t entertain shallow ideas of being someone’s monkey on a display even for a princely reward. He Tian discovers traits that he likes. He Tian discovers that under that hard-shell hides someone very honest and raw.

Lastly, if you think about it, Momo and He Tian are somewhat very similar: both of them have been marked by isolation. Mo has been ostracized because of his father’s imprisonment, and grew up being mistreated by likes of She Li and possibly looked down on due to his poverty. He’s withdrawn into a shell out of fear of being hurt, and he the way he views others is marked by suspicion and trust issues. He’s used to people acting nasty to him and, as sad as it sounds, to Mo this is a normal occurrence. What’s abnormal and suspicious is when somebody pulls a random act of kindness on him. And that’s what makes him think “why? what’s their agenda? what’s the catch?”. He Tian, on the other hand, is isolated because of his money and family influence. People who surround him are sycophants, those fangirls and fanboys, whereas in reality not only they don’t care for who he is, they probably wouldn’t even believe if he admitted to being a broken bird. Cause that’s unfathomable, right? Someone who has been born with a silver spoon in their mouth cannot be unhappy or hurting or alone. On top of that, he also has experienced his trust shattered, by his older brother, no less. He feels betrayed. He Tian is just as lonely — if not more — as Momo. So I guess that makes them — two coyotes from the same hill? Or how that Chinese “two peas in the pod/birds of a feather flock together” saying goes, haha. But even still, Momo has something that He Tian never had: someone to love and fight for (Mo’s mom), a home where he’s cherished. I think on subconscious level He Tian craves that, and Momo enables him to vicariously live that life he never had. Does it even make sense? xD

At which point He Tian’s playing around grew into something more serious? I think the kiss episode was akin to a bucket of cold water doused over He Tian’s head that made him reconsider some of his ways. What really triggered his desire to help MGS was probably the plot devised by She Li and the consequent fight. It may have made him suspect that MGS with his financial issues is far more vulnerable to shady vultures than he initially thought and that MGS is walking on an edge here. A little push to the wrong side and he would end up in deep shit. It’s after that fight that He Tian realizes how much Momo is shouldering by himself, and it’s then when we see him try helping him, like getting him a part-time job in that photography studio. Incidentally, it’s also when he’s started to find out Momo’s other sides. Like him being industrious, or unwilling to entertain an idle crowd of onlookers, etc.

Undoubtedly, He Tian’s feelings grew after the mob fight, where Momo got badly injured. We actually see him scared of losing MGS. Not to mention his consequent visit to his father — well they do say absence makes the heart grow fonder. It’s also clear to me that Momo’s display of care (during He Tian’s nightmare) had a big impact on HT. That’s when his violent tendencies of forcing Mo gradually fizzled out and became a lot more playful.

So all in all, He Tian probably started to gain feelings once he realized that Momo had his reasons to act like a delinquent, and that underneath it all there lay a person with integrity, who had been simply disenchanted by life and the circumstances that befell on his shoulders.

Whelp, that’s again a long-ass post. These are but my speculations and I don’t aspire for it to be 100% accurate, but I think I jammed in most of my ideas here.