#this would have turned into an essay

[melodyartist]

What all the brothers think k about Cronos? After all it’s a bit because of him they are … chained

Atlas:"Oh wow! These questions bring back a lot of memories with Uncle C, there are some bad ones and some good ones...I mean, I had a strong opinion back then, I was rash just like Menoetius, I led the legions proudly but as you can see it didn't end well for any of us ah ah ah! I learned from my mistake, and I'm not gonna blame anyone else for them, look at Epimetheus he made the smart decision to side with the gods"

Epimetheus:" I'm gonna give Promy the credit for that, but I think that siding with Chronos wasn't a mistake, the Olympians kinda sucks"

Menoetius:"Those times of war were a mess! All of that to be slain by the gods and thrown into a pit... I think that Prometheus is the one that feels most strongly about Chronos, he sided for the gods once and then for Chronos "

Prometheus:"..."

*he is shutting up rn because he knows he would rant endlessly about how much he hates the gods and how much he doesn't totally agree on Chronos view but at the same time he is cool with the idea of overthrowing the government and bringing back whatever was going before just because Chronos promised a new gold age for the humans and the guy wants the best for them but at the same time he is conflicted and wants them to feel the torment that he felt*"

[blueskittlesart]

cinderella adaptation for my comics history class :)

[kagoutiss]

pelican town, ‘72

[bardandbear]

But whose heart would not take flight? Betray the moon as acolyte On first and fierce affirming sight Of sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

[chronologically-challenged]

I think that the party's communication issues can be summed up as "man, is it awkward to tell someone that you want to spend the rest of your life with them if you've only know them for a few months? Probably."

[raeofgayshine]

Thinking again about the fact that when Eddie and Dustin finally convince Steve to play DnD with the party, all of them, but especially Eddie, quickly become exasperated with Steve who has extremely high charisma, and decides that he can fix almost any situation by flirting with whoever they were in conflict with. Especially the fucking monsters, this man is bound and determined to himself a monster boyfriend and until it happens, he will make every single person they come across fall in love with him. So naturally, this happens a lot:

Steve: I’m going to flirt with them

Eddie, exasperated: Steve, you can’t date this monster, he’s trying to kill you-

Steve: Hot.

Steve: I’ll flirt with them harder then

[nayruwu]

full entire analysis of The Shinya Scene in chapter 83

... because in all my years of being here i've only ever talked about it in bits, but now that he's back and my demons have caught up to me i guess it's time to look at the whole thing combined.

and yes, i will be talking about guren. a lot. because whether you like it or not, guren is the main character, and shinya's role to an extent revolves around him. yes, i also wish we knew more about him outside of that, but it is what it is. i'll work with what i've got.

i actually recently saw someone who was wondering why people shipped gureshin, or why they believe shinya is in love with him - and since this chapter was my personal 'awh fuck i guess this is what i'll be constantly thinking about for the next 6+ years'-moment, perhaps when you see someone wondering the same, you can send them this.

let's start with the basics! in case you forgot it all starts off with shinya asking byakkomaru for more power to try and save guren.

yay for character exposition!

normal people's personality traits aside, shinya largely turned out the way he did because of childhood trauma. if your friends are constantly taken away from you, eventually, you're gonna stop caring about others. if emotions like sadness or fear of death will make you more vulnerable to attacks, you're gonna stop being afraid out of pure necessity. the training facility required shinya to care about no one but himself and go through there with an absolute calmness and rationality that protected him but also turned him into an empty unfeeling husk that doesn't really know why it's even alive.

also, lovely touch that it's just always raining inside his heart. i'm sensing he might have experienced sadness of some sort.

don't really appreciate the "yet you still hold burning desires" without any indication of what they might be, although you can guess looking at the following pages.

i'll talk about this topic some more a few pages down, but it's quite interesting how shinya believes reaching for impossible goals is meaningless, pretty much says 'no one cares that you tried if you don't succeed', while simultaneously admiring guren so much for never giving up.

"Though you never managed to make mahiru yours, you still feel nothing." shinya expressed some jealousy in catastrophe about having his government assigned fiancée constantly talking about another kid, but he seems to acknowledge that such a feeling is useless, and eventually drops it. which is also probably how he could talk about it so freely to guren instead of letting it fester and turn into bitterness.

"It is believing that way which fulfills your desires." he knows it's not the only way to think, but it acts as a sort of defence mechanism which spares him a lot of the pain people that experience emotions normally go through. i imagine it feels quite relieving, to be able to save yourself from it.

and oh! byakkomaru asks him a question about himself and shinya grins and tells him he doesn't need to ask these things, because he's his demon, he already knows everything about him! how interesting. let's call back to that later.

interesting comparison here. i think what it really comes down to in the end is passion.

to be quite frank, shinya's entire existence is downright miserable. he was entirely on his own for most of his life, having no one to depend on, being constantly reminded of his worthlessness and stuck in that horrible place he knows he can't get out of. but that's just it. he knows there's no way out, and he doesn't question it anymore. he's accepted it. he doesn't outwardly want or strive for anything. (although of course, byakkomaru needs to draw power from somewhere. so we can assume those other 'burning desires' are sitting somewhere very, very deep inside to the point where he can't even put them into words - considering that when asked about his biggest wish in the official fanbook, he can't think of anything, and instead chooses something that might make guren happy. whatever he wants himself is probably so impossible to him he wouldn't dare reach for, or even dream of it. if you can't get it, 'the effort is meaningless'.)

meanwhile guren, despite the general degradation of the ichinose clan, starts out with much more, a clan that supports him fully, a parent that loves him, devoted followers and a beautiful home - which is all violently ripped away from him one after the other. he suffers so so much within the story, and yet he never stops trying, never falls into that sad routine, never accepts defeat, always burning 'like the sun' in a way shinya can't. and because he knows he can't, never could, he tries to help. he bases his entire self worth on supporting someone he believes to be good.

i do appreciate a good Guren Roast. guren acts strictly on his feelings, which is confusing but incredibly endearing to shinya, who would be long dead if he'd acted the same. which i suppose is why he's looking at him like... that™. a little reminiscent of shinoa longingly staring at yuuichirou and thinking "teach me more", except shinya is a guy, so he's not allowed to blush about it.

he then very casually mentions that he hates idiots, so therefore he hates guren. note this down.

and here we have it. the fucking "person who is a stone cold rationalist but suddenly throws all logic out of the window when it comes to love" trope. in MY shounen manga. fucking wow. all that talk about shinya not feeling anything and only ever acting logically but when it comes to guren he starts contradicting himself. that's certainly not suspicious at all.

alright here we go fuck you fuck you fuck you.

i've yapped on an on about this page way too much, but just for completion's sake:

byakkomaru uses the word "恋" (koi). and i'm not japanese, i don't speak japanese, but my embarrassingly extensive research has concluded that as opposed to "愛" (ai), which is the stable, general and intentional feeling of love you hold for family members or your actual romantic partner, koi is an exclusively romantic term for when you've fallen in love with someone without meaning to, and whom you're not in a relationship with. or - oh dear! - "It can also have a meaning of longing for something or someone." sounds oddly familiar, maybe?

because what shinya actually responds here in the japanese original is "it's just 憧れ". and while this little fucker of a word can be translated to 'deep admiration' (which, of course, fits quite well), it can also be translated to 'longing' or 'yearning' - which is a word that has also been used to describe guren and mahiru's feelings for each other, in which case it has always been translated as longing. huh. funny that.

other than that, let's look at it in relation to what else has happened in this scene!

first off - "you're my demon, you know that!" byakkomaru doesn't need to make assumptions about him. he knows shinya better than anyone else, probably even shinya himself. knowing that, it seems more like he's trying to make shinya acknowledge it, perhaps to pull out more of that desire that he needs out of him, rather than an actual 'well MAYBE you're in love just saying. it's entirely irrelevant but it kinda popped into my mind right now'.

secondly, shortly before byakkomaru's statement, shinya does that cheerful intentionally-lying-through-his-teeth, stating that he hates guren because he hates idiots. which is obviously fucking bullshit, and everyone knows it. he knows it. byakkomaru knows it. guren knows it. hell, my fucking grandmother that i haven't seen since i was seven years old knows it.

but seriously - he spouts obvious lies in a sing-songy voice and laughs off everything byakkomaru throws at him. and we know smiling is shinya's way to deal with stress. (it's quite obvious, but was also explicitly mentioned in catastrophe). acknowledging something like this outright, that you might be in love with your best friend who's also your ex-fiancée's ex boyfriend, that'd be incredibly stressful, perhaps even scary, wouldn't it? especially for someone like him who we just established has survived by not growing attached to people and locking away all strong feelings for most of their life. who's to say that his "it's just 憧れ" isn't also just a lie meant to avoid a direct confronation about his own feelings that is obvious to byakkomaru but not to the reader?

once again we're talking about guren's passion and the fact that shinya really, really wants to help him. awesome.

what's also interesting to note is the part where he says "i completely understand why mahiru chose him over me". something similar is said multiple times in catastrophe, where he goes on about finally understanding what mahiru sees in him and why she loves him. could be 'girls love this guy that's so much better than me i wish i could be like him'. could also be kagami trying to sneak "SHINYA'S FEELINGS FOR GUREN = MAHIRU'S FEELINGS FOR GUREN" past censorship. who knows. not me. i'm just cleaning personell. anyone seen the broom closet?

"Do you intend to die here?" - "Good question." Thank you Shinya very cool.

he really just doesn't give a shit does he. insert another paragraph about how he doesn't have anything to wish for or look forward to. guren come get your passively suicidal emotional support animal.

the statement of never having had a reason to live despite him outright telling guren that his life had meaning because he got to meet him implies that this realisation only came as he was dying. he had to die to be able to see any meaning to life. which is really fucking sad if you ask me, but it lines up with his development in the novels - as soon as you accept weakness you accept that it will kill you. as soon as it all makes sense, it's over. can't have shit in owari no seraph.

despite everything, shinya hates losing to guren. this is something that's always been difficult for me to understand because i can't relate at all and it just seemed kind of childish, but we can actually explain it pretty easily by looking at the circumstances of his upbringing once again. shinya grew up in an environment where not being the smartest, fastest and most talented, where losing meant immediate death. if he's the best, he gets to survive. if there's someone better than him, he'll be disposed of. of course someone close to him that's a better person, is easily loved by so many different people (especially mahiru, who from shinya's point of view was the only reason he was even allowed to exist), can feel like a threat. it's what makes his characterisation so fun to me, because if i just look closely enough, i can explain most of what he does and says. i am nowhere near as good at understand whatever is going on in guren's mind.

anyway. do i think shinya is in love with guren? yes. i don't think any author would put this much thought into something that in the end is just there for shits and giggles. there's the drama cd too, where shinya uses a phrase that is commonly used in writing to subtly confess to another person (i actually only recently realised it was used in The Stranger by the Shore as well, which is straight up queer literature). his fanbook entry states that he is not interested in women. he can neither sit nor stand up fucking straight. there are so, so many hints if you just look for them. now, do i think it will lead anywhere? although i wish it would, nope. everything that nods to romantic feelings is from shinya's side exclusively, and he's far from the only one that fell for guren. but what i am certain of is that he is meant to be read this way.

aaand this actually concludes my little essay! thank you very much for coming everyone. it was a blast. feel free to leave some marzipan in the tip jar by the door. toodles!

[corviiids]

woke up this morning and my immediate first half-asleep thought was "could i post an academic paper on ao3"

[jinxedshapeshifter]

can u explain the 'kris killed the gavin parents' hc , or is it js 'hes evil and killer so'? Also i'd like to hear motive!!! (Also yaauy npd kristoph mention on your blog :3)

At least part of it is how fucked up the Gavins' backstory is implied to be. Klavier implies that even up to Turnabout Succession, he was under Kristoph's control in some manner (he specifically asks Kristoph if he's spinning out of his own control or Kristoph's). I've mentioned it a few times but Klavier seems to have had a pretty good opinion of Kristoph during Zak's trial, but that opinion changed at some point before Turnabout Succession's main story, and even during Turnabout Succession's 2026 sections, Klavier's begging for proof that Kristoph attempted murder and commissioned forged evidence, implying even during the 2026 sections of Turnabout Succession, he doesn't want to believe Kristoph's as shitty as he's being accused of being (and this is confirmed when Klavier says himself he wanted to believe Kristoph).

Additionally, Klavier has one hell of a fawn response to Kristoph exclusively. I analyzed it a lot more in-depth here, but basically Klavier defaults to going along with what Kristoph says while Kristoph's on the witness stand. Fawning like that, especially to the degree Klavier does it, is usually a trauma response (it's not always but the vast majority of the time it is, as far as I can tell). He doesn't respond to conflict with anyone else this way; under any other circumstances, he defaults to a fight response (for example, when conflict arises with Daryan, he tends to get into arguments with him, and he's pretty aggressive during both Turnabout Serenade and Turnabout Academy. This results in him taking out his emotions on Apollo and Athena in Turnabout Academy, although Apollo gets the brunt of it). Klavier's fawn response is so intense, in fact, that Trucy and Apollo mention it multiple times.

TL;DR for that specifically, Klavier and Kristoph's dynamic stands out enough as Fucked Up to me that I think there must be some equally as Fucked Up history between them. There could be worse than Kristoph killing his and Klavier's parents, but considering how Kristoph is, I think just Kristoph killing his parents would be enough to irreparably fuck up his and Klavier's relationship, which brings me to his motive.

I actually think Kristoph's motive for killing his parents is similar to what I think could've been Excelsius's motive for killing Eustace's mom (which is just implied but I 100% think Excelsius killed Eustace's mom). It would take away avenues for Klavier to ask for help when/if Kristoph started abusing and/or manipulating him, if he wasn't already (and it's worth noting that there's a pretty decent chance he was, because a kid's formative years are the first 8 years of life).

I also think it's worth noting that red flags for NPD start showing quite early. I think there's a chance Klavier and Kristoph's parents noticed this, then tried to get him help and he refused. I think it's 100% possible Kristoph was so peeved about it that it became a motive for murder (and we know his motives for his crimes tend to be petty or fueled by paranoia. If his parents implied that his behavior was a problem, and he got upset enough, in Kristoph's case specifically it could absolutely become a motive for murder).

Klavier's age might've also been a factor. Kristoph and Klavier are 8 years apart; Klavier's 24 in AJ:AA, and Kristoph's 32. With this 8 year age gap in mind, and the fact that red flags for NPD start showing early, I wouldn't be surprised if Kristoph got jealous of the attention Klavier was getting and killed their parents in retaliation. Why wouldn't he kill Klavier instead of his parents if that was the case? As an adult, Kristoph exhibits a desire to be the center of attention (although to a lesser extent to Klavier), and this trait probably would've been well-developed by the time he was a teenager. Going back to how child development works, your personality is usually fully developed by age 8. Assuming Kristoph embraced the traits he had that negatively impacted other people from a young age, he probably got a lot worse as he became a teenager due to the lack of intervention.

This also brings me back to Kristoph and Excelsius parallels. Excelsius used Eustace to build up his own ego and emotionally abused and manipulated him to keep him close. I wouldn't be surprised if this was Kristoph's reason for keeping Klavier around, especially because this seems to be part of why he kept Apollo around. I don't think Kristoph's reasoning for keeping Apollo around was anything genuine. At best, Kristoph was keeping Apollo around to boost his ego (as Apollo does look up to Kristoph, which is why he's so torn over loyalty at one point in Turnabout Trump) and at worst, Kristoph was keeping Apollo around to genuinely train him for nefarious reasons. Kristoph takes Apollo listening to Phoenix's testimony as a personal betrayal, and tries to emotionally manipulate him into standing down (his specific dialogue there is "Et tu, Justice? You would betray me, your teacher?").

We know Klavier trusted Kristoph, even looked up to him, during Zak's trial; he kept Kristoph anonymous when he mentioned the prosecutor's office getting a tip about forged evidence, and trusted him at his word. Klavier is either the worst judge of character in the entire franchise or Kristoph manipulated him into thinking he wasn't the piece of shit he is.

ANYWAY. Klavier and Kristoph's dynamic is Fucked Up enough that I think something had to have happened at some point to cause Klavier's quite extreme fawn response and I don't think Klavier is that bad a judge of character. We even see how he decides to trust people BEFORE he's betrayed by Daryan or Kristoph, and in Daryan's case, mention is made of him seeing an opportunity and taking it, so it's not like he's a consistent criminal like Kristoph is. Daryan probably didn't have as many red flags, if any, while Kristoph very likely did, and Klavier was conscientious enough to realize something was off about Kristoph knowing Phoenix was going to present forged evidence.

I very much think he could've been motivated by his ego and desire for attention to kill his parents. An 8-9 year old is going to get more attention than a 16-17 year old, and I don't think the chance of him killing his parents and taking in Klavier, who, at the age of 8 or 9, would be a perfect pawn for him, would be lost on him. When Kristoph was a teenager, Klavier was at the right age for Kristoph to essentially be able to shape him into whatever he thought would be most useful to him; in this case, he could've shaped Klavier into someone who wouldn't question him and would essentially go along with whatever he wanted (which could explain why Klavier basically lets Kristoph do his job for him for a time in Turnabout Succession). Kristoph very likely fed off the attention he'd inevitably get from raising Klavier, and Klavier wouldn't (and didn't) realize anything's wrong until he's older.

So basically: my reasoning is Kristoph and Klavier's dynamic being all kinds of fucked up, which includes the implication that Kristoph manipulated Klavier into never questioning him (which I don't think he would've been able to do if their parents were around, although I do acknowledge there could be other explanations for this, such as Kris and Klav's parents being neglectful), and I think Kris's motive would've been a combination of his ego and a desire for attention that he refused to get help for.

[otome-dissection]

I think everyone should think about yakuza kenzan forever and ever and talk about the insane levels of kazumaji in kenzan forever and ever and rgg should announce and make a kenzan! remake please please guys talk about kenzan Plea

[daincrediblegg]

personally I think the best thing that the joker sequel did for me was expose the exact degree to which how much of internet/public criticism is not based on genuine analysis of the content using social and cultural resources to support an actual argument but is actually adult children whining because someone took their batman toys and put them up on a high shelf for once and they, as a consumer, feel like they're entitled to throw a tantrum about it

[rhaenin-time]

No, House Targaryen is not inherently "doomed" by the very same flaws (and themes) that doomed the civilization that they left.

No, they're not fated to succumb to the Doom that they survived specifically because of the foresight that set them apart from everyone else who perished. Not only would it be terrible, simplistic writing, it would also endorse a terrible, simplistic worldview.

People choosing to make House Targaryen a representation of and thematic successor to not just the civilization that they differentiated themselves from, but the power structure that they chose to leave, literally divested from, and actively worked to prevent from rising again in another form... really rubs me the wrong way.

Why isn't this projection and generalization done for any of the families that come from the cultures that are not coded as other? Why is it only the family that's been separated from their cultural context? Why do the other families each get to be unique, complex manifestations not just of different aspects of their cultures, but of their own specific histories?

Why is the foreign degenerate family both a representation of everything wrong with the culture they come from, and a scapegoat for everything wrong with the system they assimilated into? How is it they represent everything bad about what they left behind, and also everything bad about the land they came to? Even though all those flaws are not only shared by the system as a whole, but are flaws that predate their arrival, that they were punished for resisting, and that they are demonstrated to be incompatible with. Why is it always both?

It just rings so familiar to the way so many people view the other in real life. Because the Targaryens are overtly, and intentionally written as the other. It's the reason so many people identify with them, and it's the very same reason that other people vilify them. They're not just the in-universe other to the 'default' culture established in the text, but they're also given characteristics that we, the reader and audience, can recognize as other and even sometimes anathema to Western Christian culture.

Perhaps the old tales were true, and Dragonstone was built with the stones of hell

A Storm of Swords, Chapter 25, Davos III

I want you to ask yourself: Why is the idea of "fire and brimstone" evil?

To paraphrase the annoying people that love to cite Ramsay when they feel like it: If you look at a morally complex family surrounded by other morally complex families in a morally complex world in a story that's famed for seeking to challenge your underlying assumptions, and think that their association with fire and brimstone is meant to signify their singular satanic evilness, rather than say... challenge that very Eurocentric assumption, you haven't been paying attention.

This vilification mindset where the Targaryens are the singular evil of Westeros is so common to people who seem to want to consume ASoIaF without engaging with the criticisms of the Eurocentric worldview of history at the heart of it. And they end up using the convenient “others” to project all the wrongs of that world onto so they don't need to examine it any deeper.

This is the part where I so often get crucified!

This is the take that so often gets me crucified for "trivializing real world bigotry" in an attempt to "moralize interpretations of fiction" by an onslaught of people with troubling ideologies who then ironically steer the onslaught to moralizing their interpretations of fiction in a way that seeks to either mask or justify their troubling ideologies.

The worldbuilding of ASoIaF is an almost unparalleled projection of the Eurocentric worldview. That's what makes the world feel so rich. That's why GRRM and even the readers and audience are able to craft so many details that feel intuitive. But that also means that how you choose to interpret that world is often driven by underlying biases and ideologies that relate to that worldview — especially if you're not willing to challenge them the way George RR Martin does and encourages you to do.

It means that certain potential biases and ideologies people might balk at outwardly expressing in the real world are recontextualized in a way that feels more comfortable to indulge in.

There are countless examples from countless parts of the narrative. Honestly, you could fill books on the matter. But the one I'll point to right now is how the vilification I pointed out earlier is so emblematic of how the Eurocentric worldview often seeks to project their own flaws onto the other or choose scapegoats for systemic issues.

It comes from the same place with how someone pointed out that the baffling bastardphobia that would have medieval peasants giving the side eye is so often people jumping at the chance to “cosplay” as bigots who base their arguments in misogyny and bio-essentialism. Because it's an acceptable channel to indulge in that mindset in a way that they'd often otherwise question, or at least hold back from expressing out of caution.

And there I go again. "Moralizing fandom" for pointing out that fandom is so often used as a 'safe space' to build communities that share and spread troubling ideologies that you're not allowed to criticize because those ideologies have been 'appropriately' decontextualized from their real-world parallels, even though those parallels are still very much there.

But the problem is that it's impossible to simply 'channel' bigotry and leave it in an 'acceptable' space, because bigotry doesn't work like that. It's not a static object you can carry around in your pocket to play with when you think it's safe to do so. It's a blight. A living poison that feeds and grows and spreads. And if you give it a 'safe space' and continue to feed it with 'acceptable' fuel, it will always find its way out.

[spiegelgestalt]

Everyone is talking about how the Bachelor is dying in Marble Nest and how everthing he does is futile... and here I am standing a bit further away and am thinking

People are caring for him, they fight about the chance to care for him, they are grieving him, they don't want him to die

He is loved! Even though he is such a prickly prick and arrogant asshat - he is loved!!!

And that just gets to me man. It just gets to me

[moongothic]

Crocodile/Robin is so fucking funny in a Crocodad Context though because Robin would eventually find out and then have to come to terms with the fact that she fucked her captain's dad AND spent like two years just Hanging Out with her ex's ex

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

[pocket-ghostie]

Ok, I knew that Buff Studio already had plans for Charlie in Underworld when making Underworld Office (bc of conext clues), but I didn't know HOW MUCH they knew what they were planing when they made the first game!!!!! Aaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!

(Spoilers for UwO/CiU)

First, in chapter 4, early sleep, right before Eugene gets kicked out, Boss says "I hope I never see you again."

This implies several things, Boss hopes Eugene lives a long life and/or when they die they can immediately go to 'the other side'. This also implies that Boss can't leave. Because of the door that he is in charge of guarding, he can never leave. Of course, at the end of Charlie in Underworld the door gets destroyed so Boss could leave (after a lot of work). However in this game, Boss doesn't know that's going to happen. He is under the assumption that he is going to stay in the office forever.

Furthermore, in the Peace Somewhere Beyond ending, Eugene mentions that Boss might never find peace.

This could also be because he can't leave due to the door. Although it could be argued that Eugene mentions this because Boss will never be bright, I disagree due to the end of Charlie in Underworld. Boss clearly has a desire to right his wrongs and be bright, however he can't because his duty is to protect the door. So, because of what happens in the Peace Somewhere Beyond ending, Charlie in Underworld doesn’t happen in that timeline, and the door is probably never destroyed. Which keeps Boss guarding the door forever. The door is never mentioned in Underworld Office as an obligation for Boss, as that is only revealed at the end of Charlie in Underworld. However there is plenty of evidence that the writers were thinking about this connection while making this game.

In addition, Charlie gets sealed, leading to the beginning of Charlie in Underworld. Obviously, this is a rather basic connection. However, there is more to it. They could have had Charlie escape or get torn into pieces, without Eugene interfering and letting Joan deal with Charlie. This would get rid of Charlie and give Eugene the opportunity to get Joans help and be able to call the cane later on, because Joan wouldn’t be mad at Eugene. But, Charlie was sealed so that the Office ghosts could easily get to them. It also allows and gives a reason for Charlie to lose their memories, so that the player can slowly learn about Charlie throughout the plot. Because Charlie was sealed, we got the beginning of Charlie in Underworld.

Also, I saw a post in the Underworld Office tag (idk how I would find it now) that said “Eugene choose to be a dark ghost” and it came with this image:

When I was first playing through the game, I thought this was just a fun design choice, and it might be. But if Buff Studios was already thinking about the plot of the second game and how ghosts actually work, this may be a nod to that. This could be refuted with the argument that Eugene thought he was doing good and should be a bright ghost, however this brings up several problems. First off, Buff Studios wanted to keep the conflict of how ghosts work for the second game, and also Eugene did think what he was doing was wrong. They justified it in their head because Jack was a murderer, but I guarantee that Eugene still thought that murder was bad. In fact, Eugene wanted to stop Jack in part because he was a murderer. So it would make sense for Eugene to be a dark ghost, along with the fact that Susans desire for vengeance was still in the area too.

Next, we have the fact that Boss didn’t explain how ghosts work in the beginning of the game. It was River who explained to Eugene how things work. While giving this explanation, Boss stayed silent. This could hint that Boss already knew how ghosts actually work and was staying silent in the beginning of the game. Although this can be refuted with the fact that in the second to last chapter in Charlie in Underworld, Eugene states that Boss has been getting darker because of his guilt of keeping this secret. Which means that Eugene had to have already seen Boss before to tell that he was getting darker. But since Boss got attached to Eugene, he may have felt more guilty about keeping everything a secret. Thus, making him darker when Eugene was around. Although this is an interesting theory, I disagree with it. I think Boss figured out how things actually worked either in between the two games, or the beginning of Charlie in Underworld when Charlie is unsealed. Despite this however, Boss most likely still had an idea that ghosts did not work the way he thought. I believe the fact that River explained everything rather than Boss was very intentional, and an important fact when thinking about Charlie in Underworld.

Finally, all the ghosts have images of when they were alive. At the end of every chapter, there is an image that goes along with it. (Like this one)

I believe this image changes depending on what choices are made. Some of these images show the ghosts when they were alive. Like Hayden playing with a cat, or Joan with her gun and in her soldier outfit. Through these images, it is clear that Buff Studios already planned out the ghosts' backstories. They already had their backstories planned, but they did not say anything about them. This is because they go into the ghosts' pasts in Charlie in Underworld. Further proving that they had already planned what they were going to do in the second game, and were planning on making a second game.

In conclusion, these were all the things that I found in the first game. All of these little details show how Buff Studios was already thinking about Charlie in Underworld when making the first game. They put so much thought into these games, how they would work, the worldbuilding, and the characters. Because of their care and passion for these games, it makes their world feel so real.