#thank you for letting me ramble about all the ways kira sucks as a romantic partner i love him dearly <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[fruchtfleisch-art]

kirashino and kosakira! perhaps even... kosakirashino...

Kirashino: 

Hey, that’s a bingo! Nice!

Ah, what to say... I mentioned before how I love relationships where characters are forced to find common ground, and this is that in spades. When else would a serial killer and a housewife bond except this extremely specific situation where he has to lay low and pretend he can be normal around women? Kira really looks at the first person allowed to hug him and goes “oh no :(”.  

It’s something I touch on a little in the story I’m almost done writing, though Kira lacks the self-awareness to realize that he wouldn’t give Shinobu the time of day if he was still living his regular lifestyle:  

However, I also marked this pairing as “conflicting feelings” because the whole dynamic is built on deception. Stories where Kira decides to spend the rest of his life as Kosaku creep me out, because Shinobu never gets a say in that! Even if she didn’t like her husband, I think any person would have a strong reaction if they knew their spouse had been killed and replaced. It’s probably for the best Kira was ambulance’d, before he had the chance to get (more) creepy and possessive. 

In the short term, though, and within the canon of DiU, this pairing is fascinating. It’s like watching a “cute” video of a predator “playing” with a prey animal. You know it’s not going to end well! It’s stressful for both parties involved! But maybe... maybe a mouse and a snake can be friends...       

Kosakira:

I... I have a confession to make... I am a Kosaku enjoyer. Yes, he doesn’t get a single line of dialogue, yes, his only narrative purpose is to die and be replaced by Kira, yes, we know almost nothing about him, but what we do know paints such a picture! He can’t shave with a razor. He doesn’t get angry when his wife is mean to him. He has bowling pin nail clippers! 

He looks like this in my brain: 

Add in his (possible) passive-aggressive traits and there’s just enough here to intrigue me, haha. I’d be tempted to call him a Poor Little Meow Meow if he wasn’t such a neglectful husband/father. 

Anyways. Pairing up a meek person like Kosaku with Kira is just a disaster waiting to happen, IMO... Kira already has a huge ego and a proclivity to bully people when he can get away with it, so adding a sad little man into the mix would probably make that proclivity worse. It’s certainly interesting, though!   

I have a text file on my phone where I peck away at a little story about them when my day gets too stressful. It starts with Kosaku asking his new coworker about a computer problem and escalates very quickly to stuff like this:

Jeez, that’s a lot of words for a pairing with only one real character involved! Have a poor little dummy trying to be helpful (not pictured: Kira holding down the power button on his monitor every time his PC reboots). 

Kosakirashino:

THIS ONE... this one makes my brain melt. 

I love the idea of the Kawajiris fixing their marriage by bringing in a serial killer as their third. This is our boyfriend, he can cook and he can drive and sometimes he brings corpse parts to our house, we love him dearly <3

This is (surprise) yet another scenario I can’t see ending well, because Kira is too himself. He says he wants a quiet domestic life, but he gets stressed out when he can’t be a homicidal creep! He’s not a big spoon, he’s a knife! 

The Kawajiris, meanwhile, are just happy somebody can be available to pick Hayato up from soccer practice. Together, they are... still a deeply dysfunctional household, lmao.

[annakie]

Random SWTOR Blather

Not interesting at all if you don’t play and only slightly interesting if you do.

I’ve basically been off and on SWTOR since it came out.  My longest break was less than a year after I lost most of my credits to a GTN scammer, back when 8 million credits was a LOT that I’d spent like months of intense crafting to save up.  

At the beginning of 2017 I decided to get serious about playing and joined a guild.  They were great for a few months, then things got slow and I dropped out of SWTOR for awhile after Andromeda came out and then my summer was crazy like it always was at my last job and then job drama started happening in the late summer through fall.

In November I went back and things got really awesome again in the guild, and for over two months it was daily log-in and fun, fun times.  There was heavy recruitment and we’d have like 20+ on at night and we were running FPs and Ops like, daily, working on Vet mode Ops.

And then the new WoW expansion came out and overnight attendance dropped like a stone, and there was a little officer drama, and then the GL had some RL drama and left and... now the guild is completely dead again.  We still hang out on Discord some but no one is playing.

So I guess I’m back in search of a guild of ADULT, MATURE (not in the ERP sense, just you know, like, actual grownups) guild of nice people and no drama on Star Forge.  My DPS Trooper and healing Scoundrel are both Command Level 300 and both are well outfitted.  Those are my mains.  RP Optional, I could do it, I’d be OK with not.  So if you know of an active, established guild an oldie like me (I’m over 40) would fit into, let me know.

Anyway, other stuff...

I have spent an insane amount of time and credits decorating.  Ever since Strongholds were introduced it’s maybe been my favorite aspect of the game.

I spent just... dozens of hours making my Tatooine Stronghold awesome.  Tat was my #1 choice for a main Stronghold because it feels like a place you would actually live, even if it is you know, on a barren desert planet.  It has nicely sized, well-sectioned rooms.  It really just makes such SUCH good use of the space and hooks it has. It’s exactly the right size to feel like if you live there and have it decorated it’s where a wealthy person would live.  I love it.  It’s been my Trooper Bethlany’s home for two years now, though I think of it as a “family home” for all my characters.  Now I’m constantly now trying to figure out what hooks to remove so I can add new, cool stuff.

It’s not only got an awesome party Cantina/dance hall/casino/sportsbar combo, but a full-service medical clinic, an indoors science room and an entire outdoor science section.  An awesome garden, a marketplace, a garage with a welcome area, droid repair section and full monitoring, a decked out master bedroom and Vos-ka inspired guest room, a diplomacy / meeting room, a sculpture garden, a techno war-camp for Aric, and a Rakata / non-technical training / archeology site, a small area dedicated to celebrating Life Day all year round, and a small oasis for large and small animals alike. 

But like, I never stopped buying decorations.  And when Manaan was introduced I decided this would be the home for my Inquisitor.  Manaan is gorgeous, even though the hook situation there is completely wtf.   Oh yeah, let’s put a ton of tiny hooks on narrow, already decorated walls.  Lets only put narrow hooks along the walls in this huge, open room.  Let’s make most of the ceiling hooks angeled, so almost nothing can be put there and look even halfway not-stupid.  The entry outside is great, the narrow hallway is terrible, the big room upstairs is so, so frustrating, though the patio is generally nice.  The downstairs mostly needs better ceiling hooks.   IDK.  But, it looks amazing.  And I did a pretty good job making it feel like a breezy vacation home, with a very dark and private undersea area fit for training a new generation of Sith.  It’s got the majority of my statues out in the entry area, and not a neon sign or non-organic plant in sight.  And there’s a lot of plants and stone and water everywhere.

All of my characters use it as a vacation home, my lightsiders (which is... almost all of them) just avoid the undersea part.  They’ll go back to their ships for sleeping after a dip in the hot tub, thanks.

I was going to start on re-making Naar Shadaa next and then Umbaraa came out, and I knew that train belonged to my Imperial Agent, Croach.  Dark and moody with an urgent feel.  I filled it with all the “Cargo” and “precious resources” I could find, with a couple of makeshift sleeping areas for the guards and a slightly nicer car for the Agent and her companions.  So many centerpiece hooks to finally put so many misc huge things I had no other use for.  Hey, yeah, we totally would be transporting this huge machine and this droid in a big ‘ol jar and there’s some rancor and huge turrets and ginormous droids up top along with most of my collection of rotating Zakuul turrets guarding it.  Drop in a bunch of Imp guards standing around, and even made use of a lot of the destroyed speeders and walkers and turrets then slap some blaster marks on the walls to give the place a “we’ve already seen some shit” feel.

And then... my Secretly-a-Double-Agent-For-The-Republic got her Vector back and holy shit the Imps mistreated the Killks, and then oh shit (huge spoilers for Nathema in the IA storyline here) Shara Jenn found out she’s a double agent and welp... any cover she ever had was now blown.  Despite going with Acina on Iokath, Croach told Lana to make a deal with the Republic.  Might as well finally make the move officially.

So now in my head, the Umbara home is a covert mission, and everyone there is actually working for the Republic... with the train made up to look Imperial to sneak through some checkpoints.  Also, her ship resides on Tatooine, Beth is watching out for it (it’s hidden in the garage, while the Thunderclap sits out on the visible landing pad.)

With finally getting the Umbara Stronghold feeling “Done” (though it and Manaan are only like 70% filled each, I don’t want to cram more stuff in there just TO when aesthetically they look good) it’s time to turn my attention to Naar Shadaa.  For the first year or so of Strongholds, it was my main Stronghold, but I grew out of it easily and moved to Tatooine, and have always meant to get back to it.

It’d always meant to be my Smuggler’s home, she was my second Main, after all.  I’d also bought the Mandalorian War Camp pack in hopes of making my BH a home someday.  Because of the server merge I have two Nar Shadaas, and I figured one for each.  But looking at my available decos, it’d be a long time until I could make it happen.  When Rishi was announced I was excited, thinking I could make it work for the BH, but after watching Dulfy’s walkthrough Video I was disheartened.  It is definitely beautiful and awesome for guilds, but it doesn’t really feel like a home for a person. I feel the same way about Yavin 4, btw.  It’s an amazing place to visit, and great for guilds, but it’s just not a functional home.  Too damp, and no actual rooms, especially not rooms with doors.  I’ll hang out there all day, but I’m going back to my ship to sleep.

I still eventually might try to make the base of Rishi work, IDK.  It will probably come down to cost.

Anyway, back to Naar Shadaa.  I started decorating it for my Smuggler and quickly realized that if I was going to ever get to Coruscant and Dromund Kaas, compromises would need to be made.  My BH defected to the Republic at the end of her class storyline, as little good as that did in canon.  I think she, too, is going to make a deal with the Republic when I finish her storyline.

Which means either my Counselor or Knight is gonna take a turn for the Imps, I haven’t decided which yet, just to bring back a little bit of balance, and also, see that side of things.  It’ll be interesting.  I’m going to wait to see what making that decision actually does in the next bit of the story before moving either of them along.

So anyway, my BH and my Smuggler always knew each other in my backstories for them, they were contacts, helped each other with jobs, etc.  So when Orna heads to the Republic, she and Red went into business together.  They each have a suite of rooms near the front, but the rest of it is their shopping center, battle arena (place your bets!), casino, spa, dance club, and sports bar business. Please, come and spend all your money there, and feel free to use a private booth to make your deals.  As soon as possible I’m going to find a second spa to add in that service, too. Torian is happy with the Mandalorian flair the place has, and Theron has a monitoring/spy station.  Where better to pick up the best information than the most popular nightlife spot on Naar Shadaa, anyway?  The only part that sucks is just one starship hook, so I’ll be rotating which ship is parked there occasionally.

That’s still in progress, but coming along.

Next I’m moving to Coruscant to make it a Jedi training hall and haven for Annakie, Jyn’leeviyah, Kira and Nadia, along with a medical clinic for Doc and an information outpost for Felix.  

And then making Dromund Kaas into a Sith academy and Imperial for Sith Warrior Frevi and moody, romantic hideaway for her and Malavai.

...I really need to start crafting and finding more expensive stuff to sell on the GTN.  I’m usually careful to stay over like 90 million credits, but I’m running out of good shit to sell. >.>

Anyway, so much rambling.  I should actually like... go play.

[casuistor]

Did you listen to the NY demo songs of the musical that were put online recently? Some of the songs that weren't officially released are now available. Was wondering if you have any thoughts about them... Adrienne Warren's Misa in I'm Ready sounds v different compared to Fūka Yuzuki!

I am so happy the NY Demo got leaked tbh, I’ve been listening to it nonstop for the last couple of days and lemme just say – even though I don’t fully agree with all the characterization choices, the demo is gorgeous ;~; THANK YOU for the excuse to ramble about this, haha. 

I’ll outline my thoughts on the songs that weren’t released previously under the read more, but just keep in mind that these are just some quick opinions on the songs rather than my thoughts on the demo vs the final versions of the songs b/c then this would be writing for weeks and nobody wants that textwall, haha. 

…I say this is going to be abbreviated and then it turned out long-ish anyway.

Where is the Justice?

Yes I know this was released previously, but the version that was officially released cut a minute out from the song, so I’m commenting, fight me.

While I think the song is overall too focused around the issues with the criminal justice in America for a story that is supposedly set in Japan, I think the verse that was removed was more reflective of the sorts of things Light in canon might think. 

That said I don’t fully agree that Light would argue that “draining the color from within until we’re back to seeing black and white and wrong and right again” is actually a good thing, especially considering canon Light does evaluate mitigating circumstances in his evaluation of who is guilty.

Overall, I think the song does a good job of establishing Light’s character as a kid who, despite having some deeply flawed views about justice, does genuinely care about fairness and has his heart in the right place.

To this day though, I’m not convinced that manga! Light is the kind of kid who would spark this debate in his classroom. He very much seems to be the kind of person who keeps his cynicism about the world to himself.  If you ask me, his “ic” response would be more along the lines of “sure, the justice system isn’t perfect, but it’s our job as the next generation to keep improving it, isn’t it?”  But that doesn’t make a cool song, lmao. 

Hurricane

Yes, this one was also leaked before, but you’re not stopping me from talking about Weather Metaphors The Song™ now that it’s out in HQ. 

Why. WHY.

I think the problem I have with this song is that there’s really not much character development during this song. Light is just immediately sucked into a power fantasy and this is really… not reflective of Light’s character in the series. 

I’m Ready

LOVE. FUCKING LOVE ADRIENNE WARREN’S VOICE. 

But i really don’t agree that Adrienne is a good casting choice with Misa. I LOVE her voice and her singing, but she’s… too much of a power house and Misa is just not that at all. Misa needed to be bubbly and radiate cuteness rather than maturity. 

Hearing this rendition of Misa really made me understand why the Korean production went the direction they did with Jung Sun Ah’s Misa though, and it comes as much less of a headscratcher now. 

I think these lyrics are also not PG enough for Misa’s idol image which sounds ridiculous b/c it’s overall a pretty tame song, lmao

Specifically it’s lines like “let me kiss you and then let me kiss you again” that are maybe not… squeaky clean enough for the image that idols in Japan have to project. 

We All Need A Hero

Perfection. Absolute perfection.  I love that they threw in that dumb light pun lmao. 

Honestly this almost made me cry and I wish I knew who sings this song as they were the perfect Sayu singing voice. Young, sweet, optimistic, sincere sounding? Nailed it. (Edit: I am told that the singer is Laura Osnes)

I am VERY much intrigued by the fact that this song was written as a solo in the NY Demo as opposed to the odd duet that it became in the final version. This makes much more sense to me and avoids weird/creepy parallels between Sayu and Misa that the final version forced by making it a duet. 

The Game Begins

I am so distracted by the line “for even the perfect crime has the perfect flaws” because this is just not logically coherent.

ON LESS GRIPEY TERRITORY – having the whole demo did put into perspective for me why the Weather Metaphors had to be, and I think it’s because they may have been going for a nature vs machine type of theme… and while I can appreciate it poetically (?) I just don’t agree that it fit thematically with the character of L and Light. 

Like why… does L keep making tech metaphors? Is this supposed to be a quirk of his the same way that the posture/diet is? I think in a way this was poorly executed and characterization was ultimately sacrificed in favor of poetic analogies. 

The literal first line “empty your mind of any feelings” is very unlike L to do. L is a detective who works heavily based on his intuition and his gut instincts. He did not tackle the Kira case like a super computer interested in objectivity and eliminating bias. That’s just not what happened in canon. 

I stand very much corrected on these lyrics as they are “empty your mind of any theories.” My bad, I don’t have the best ear for lyrics. But that said, doesn’t this contradict the fact that he already took an action based on a theory with the LLT plan? 

Overall I think this song took too many poetic liberties with L, and tried too hard to make him sound intelligent by throwing in “smart sounding words” like ~calculus~ and ~evolution~ even though those words didn’t actually make that much sense in the context he was applying them in? 

“A stronger mind and evolution determines who wins the game” – for example. Evolution and adaptation aren’t synonyms, but he uses them as such anyway and this kind of clumsiness, though very lyrically pretty, is a bit… idk, not quite what I associate with L myself.

In terms of the overall performance – lovely. My issues are 100% the lyrics on this one. Jarrod Specter performs fantastically. 

There Are Lines

Fight me this song is best song and I honestly did not like this song much in the final version of it.  

J’ADORE how salty Soichiro is about L’s method of offering up Lind L Tailor as a decoy. His anger seems so genuine and believable in this, and I love how it’s so obvious that he has no idea that this is applicable to Light too, since they don’t force that dumb “KAMI NI NARU!!!!” line to ram the subtext down your throat.  (… I say as I claim that I wasn’t going to talk about comparisons to the final Japanese songs, ahem). 

That said, was Soichiro actually that salty about L’s tactics there with LLT in the manga? No. At least not to the extreme that he lost a lot of respect for L for it. In fact, manga!Soichiro seemed impressed by the results L achieved and didn’t really seem to dwell on the moral implications of L’s actions. 

tl;dr not the most ic or canonically based interpretation of Soichiro, but I am standing by this man. 

Personally, I think this is an improvement on the character AND LET ME JUST SAY THIS SONG MADE ME REALLY WISH THEY’D ADAPTED THE YOTSUBA ARC IN THIS MUSICAL??? Can you imagine this song as a reprise as Soichiro shoots Light while they’re in the car? 

You’re welcome

Secrets and Lies

I cannot emphasize how much I love when Soichiro calls out L for his awful morals in addition to calling out Kira’s. This is so nice -w-

I am also deeply enamored with the fact that L also outright says “I don’t care who gets hurt now, as long as I get one more shot” because fucking yes – L is so brazen about this in the manga, and most adaptations try to sweeten his attitude. 

I enjoy that it is constantly reinforced that neither Light nor L are in the right because there are constant parallels between the two and the two are criticized by the narrative. 

Mortals and Fools

“What I see in your eyes is a counterfeit emotion” – the truest thing ever said about the manga!Misa’s feelings about love. 

Admittedly, Demo!Rem annoys me as a character though. It’s not a problem with casting – Carrie’s singing is lovely and I think they made a good choice there. This is a bit of an aside I guess, but I just don’t understand how it is believable that Rem actually romantically fell in love with Misa as the song “When Love Comes” implies after all this love is for mortals and fools lark and Misa… doesn’t really seem to do anything to win Rem’s love in a romantic sense of it. Platonic love I can squint and buy certainly, but not romantic based on the contents of “Mortals and Fools”, “Borrowed Time,” and “When Love Comes.” Maybe something in the actual script/dialogue justifies it? But with the material available so far, I’m not seeing it.

I think also Demo!Rem’s fixation on the notion of love is something that’s… overexaggerated from her more subtle curiosity over the issue in the manga. I just don’t think I’d agree that the melancholy tone demo!Rem has when she says she tries and fails to really understand love as an emotion is true to the manga. Manga!Rem seems to have a more “god Misa, I get this is important to you but could you maybe slow down” kind of vibe to her. Melancholy doesn’t really seem to be it, exactly.

For the sake of clarity – the issue I have is not that Rem’s character was changed from the manga to make her develop romantic interests in Misa. That is perfectly a-okay and it’s actually pretty cool that they went this route with demo!Rem. 

My issue is that from a narrative perspective, Rem’s character development in the demo seems underdeveloped and not optimally executed given that she is a) literally not human and b) as she herself points out is a shinigami who fundamentally does not understand why humans idealize romantic love. 

Shinigami themselves in the context of this musical are not shown to idealize love within their own culture. Ryuk and Rem both seem to find it funny or baffling/futile indicating that this is not a culture that parallels human culture in its zealous overvaluation of romantic love as a be all end all goal of life. Shinigami, according to the musical’s own internal logic, are not amatonormative.. 

My pet peeve exists specifically because it is somewhat frustrating to me, an aroace person, when even non-humans who were very firm on not relating to romantic love (and yes, “Mortals and Fools” makes Rem come down more strongly on that side compared to “Zankoku na Yume”) and have no reason to inherently want to experience or idealize romantic love the same way human society normalizes it for humans, starts extolling the virtues of romantic love as the pinnacle of interpersonal relationships.

I can fully respect that this is not a pet peeve that most other people will have, or even be inclined to view from this perspective and that to many, none of these things matter and that’s fine! Just keep in mind that I would find this just as pet peeve-y if Rem were a male shinigami and would have no problems whatsoever with any of this had Rem been a human girl or if shinigami culture as a whole been portrayed differently in the musical itself. Also please note, I am only speaking for myself. I’m sure other aroace folk will have different opinions as well.   Ironically enough, Rem in the final live version, I can more readily see as developing romantic feelings for Misa precisely because “Inochi no Kachi” was written the way it was and it is a damn shame that that is not the direction that was eventually taken with the character in the live productions as they seem to view Rem as having more maternal instincts. (…which, I’d again disagree is an inference of the manga, as I do think Rem’s feelings about Misa were very platonic in a ‘friends’-ish way rather than a parental way.)

tl;dr All I’m saying is that I think demo!Rem should have gotten more charater development, and it is a shame that she did not. 

On a performative note – it is really odd that Rem’s voice is higher than Misa’s. I don’t think I’d make this call. 

Borrowed Time

Adrienne delivers yet another killer performance!!

I know I said I wasn’t gonna make comparisons but I have to say that between “Borrowed Time” and “Inochi no Kachi” Borrowed Time is just so much more IC for manga!Misa. 

I’m glad they based this song around something Misa actually said in the manga since that line “Just kill me. I was supposed to die that day anyway” is actually something that stuck with me for a very long time since it says so much about where Misa was in her life.

In the end, I guess I find it more convincing that Misa would be singing a song more centered around herself than singing a less me me me focused song about the virtues of sacrificial love as she ultimately is a person (in the manga) who is pretty selfish and focuses mostly on her own perspective. 

Which is not to say that demo!Misa is really reflective of manga!MIsa because I don’t think that’s the case at all. 

The Way It Ends

Blurgh more machine/tech metaphors and analogies from L…..I still don’t like this, sorry. He does not view himself as a robot in the manga, so it just comes out of left field for me.

I think the part of this song that lets me down is Jeremy’s delivery. He’s not !!!!!!! enough for what is supposed to be a victorious moment for Light. He has so much less energy and power than he did when he was singing Weather Metaphors, and it really shouldn’t be that way in my opinion. 

On that last “a minute more.” Jeremy sounds weirdly remorseful, though I guess it’s hard to interpret the exact emotion behind that without an accompanying facial expression. 

But speaking of delivery holy shit, Jarrod’s delivery as L is spot on. I’m kinda stunned by the range of emotion in his voice for this one: confusion, defiance, anger and that hint of regret that his life is coming to an end as he goes into “like a closing door.” It’s so… good?????? 

Overall I think the NY Demo is lovely and it has made me really happy to be able to listen to it after years of wondering what on earth it was like, lmao. 

I know it sounds like I have a ton of gripes, but just keep in mind that a) even I consider these gripes pretty minor and they didn’t really hurt my enjoyment of the demo as a whole, and b) I think that adaptations have every right to make changes and take creative liberties with their source material. It’s important to do that in order to keep material fresh and bring in new thoughts and perspectives to the original.