#wanna play around w my designs a bit more if they end up inconsistent for a bit you guys know why

[emimii]

more rum tum tugger art? or tuggoffelees? or both? XD

always on that tuggoffelees grind anon 🦐💥

[juhihuji]

do u have any random facts or things about Depth of heaven and ur characters (sfw or nsfw 🤭) even if what you want never comes to light, I really enjoy reading the concepts and asks about ur OCs

Hehehe I haven't thought about the characters and their story in a long time, until recently...but I never put a huge amount of thought into them before either! I kinda just knew I...wished I could make something cool that had everything I wanted in that kind of game lmao. Even if it doesn't happen, I felt like I wanted there to be twists and secrets...if it never happens then nobody but me will ever know about them, huh! But, if it does happen then I'll spoil stuff for later! What to do...ah I'll share about it! But I'm giving it a spoiler warning for something that doesn't exist anyway lmao Also I'm not a writer or a scientist this is all wacky world rules ok xd also there might be inconsistencies idk I never wrote anything down I'll tell u their heights! June: 5'4 Puzzle: 6'3 Koa: 5'6 Adam: 6'1 Keizo: 6'7 Lloyd: 5'11 Static: 6' Cyril: 5'9 Holly: 5'7

In high school June and Puzzle were da weeaboos who listened to vocaloid on their phones at lunch. Puzzle wore cat ears, big headphones, and tutus to school. I think....I decided that because of her old bad design lmao. I thought I had a drawing of her in cat ears but I can't find it 😔 June prolly just wore hoodies and graphic t-shirts. They were each others prom dates! June wore a tux! Okay spoilery stuff ahead!

I have a general idea what I want the story to be, but right now I just see it as disjointed scenes in my head. I posted some June and Puzzle wearing dresses where I wanted a scene to happen in a casino on the ship. Cruise ship casinos are kinda lame though lol, but it'll be as big and cool as I want >:•3 and it's an excuse to have everyone in cool formal wear cuz that's always fun! The cult leader calls for a big party on the ship and everyone has to attend! It's also where he culls the herd...because not everyone is worthy of going to heaven...apparently Koa likes playing video games! He's on the top of the leaderboard for one MMO, and during one event the top prize was blueprints for an in-game item: roller skates! It would make for cool merch to put on your wall or something. There was a rumor among the playerbase that the blueprints could make skates that function as they do in the game. Koa won the prints then used them to custom build his own skates (they look kinda generic now but I haven't put a lot of thought into their design lmao). The combination of materials used and construction give them a magical quality that allows him to skate faster than any human could! He's always pushing his limits, and sometimes it gets him in twubble xd Keizo has an issue with bad dreams...at night he replays all the times in his life where people were rude to him or each other, how he needs to keep peace between them, he just really hates assholes! He has nightmares about them treating him badly and there's nothing he can do, because at his height and with his strength he'd come off as the bad guy no matter what! They push and push 'til he's about to snap...then he wakes up! The rage super heats his blood and his skin glows red and steam pours out his ears! His hair is all wacky cuz it holds it's shape on the pillow from all the heat lmao June and the rest of them find out about it when they see steam coming out from under his door at night. Don't wake him up though! If he's still glowing hot he'll sleep walk while in a berserk state. First, it makes him really rude himself lmao. He'll say all the nasty things he won't when he's awake! Second, if he sees someone doin' shit he don't like, they're gettin' these 🤜🤛 In his happy ending you'd see him with his hair flat for the first time wouldn't that be nice :•3 Adam is always doing experiments on himself, kinda just for shits, kinda because he wants to discover something amazing....!.....?!?!??! When he was younger, his sister, who he loved v much, died. He wanted to become a doctor, not because he wanted to find a cure for the thing that killed his sister...because she died in an accident! He wanted to find a way to make people invincible! He's always injecting himself with stuff hoping it'll make him stronger. He likes Keizo as a friend, but to Adam Keizo is a perfect specimen of an indestructable human. Adam's been fascinated with him for a while, but Keizo also just makes for a good subject for testing against! Also, they met when Adam was studying abroad and Keizo came up on a motorbike and attacked the wheels on Adam's scooter. Cute! :•) Keizo used to be a bad boy :•( Other experiments Adam's done: Eyesight like a HAWK Cat ears but for real Jelly bones(?) Longer ween 😳 Lloyd is a stinky tech wiz who likes playing around with AI's and robotics! He has myassive myega brains and he monitors many of the functions of the ship by himself in his server room. When the captain is captured and thrown off the ship, Lloyd uses his know-how and special accesses to make sure the cult doesn't make a mess of everything. He knows about and can see everything that happens on the ship...for fun he likes video games toooo! And plays with Koa! He likes buildin' lil gadgets n tings for fun too! They can come in real handy! nsfw! Stuff past here!!!!!!!!! June, Koa, and Lloyd are all inexperienced!

As a lover, Keizo tries to be gentle...but once he gets into it he can be a bit rough! If you're into it, just enjoy! Or speak up and he'll slow down! Hmmm I was inspired by a scene from the film Crying Freeman (which I haven't actually watched 8•|) of some ppl doin' it in a closet(?)...it's all dark and cramped and humid and their skin is so shiny and glistening it's probably the thing that awoken me to drawing people super sweaty. I just can't help myself 😳 def wanna give Keizo a scene like that. This doodle was inspired by it actually lmao

Adam is patient and gentle! Lots of kisses and verbal reassurance and checking in w/ u. He's aware of his age and he doesn't wanna come off badly so he'll let you do all the pursuing. And June will pursue him hard if she has to! He's also gonna make you beg and ask, just so he's sure sure :•) He loves to sit her up on the examining table n do things wit his mouf n fingers 😳 I'd probably make it an option to call him daddy in certain scenarios...up to u if u choose it find out what happens for urself idk 😳😳😳 or don't

Koa likes to tease you, maybe bully you a lil, but when it comes to intimacy he's a wimp! I just like the idea of making the bully bend to your will, but he likes it. It just feels good to wipe that cocky smile off his face! Step on him! Make him whimper! I know June's a virg too, but Koa is just so easy to tease it makes it feel like second nature. BUT the more time they spend together, the more confident Koa becomes. So! Enjoy havin' him under your thumb while you can cuz it might not last forever! Lloyd tries to stay composed when June starts showing an interest. He's usually alone in his server room, but secretly appreciates her company when she comes by. At first he'll act like he's too busy. He's not used to being around women! As his interest in June grows it becomes harder to hide his feelings! So June notices...and teases him! Cuz it's just so easyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyYYYYYYY 😩 Seeing his serious expression crack when you put ur hands in his pants is lots of fun :•3 And he shows you a voice he's never shown anyone else before 🤤 He does his research and with your help he'll learn exactly how to worship u 😌 IF it ever happens there has to b a new game plus where u unlock threesome scenes with Koa/Lloyd and Adam/Keizo :•x That's all 4 now! Sorry I'm fuckin' gross and don't know how to type :•|

[toxicpineapple]

Please give me your amami essay, I'd like to know the TEA! I was also gonna ask for the mastermind essay, but honestly I REALLY wanna hear your thoughts on his characterization (and your thoughts on his shitty fanon characterization)

HOOO BOY OKAY. this is good, it gives me an excuse to procrastinate on reading that new amasai fic on the latest feed. (note that i REALLY WANT TO READ IT, i’m just anticipating commenting and tbh the spoons,,, i lack them. it’s okay though i’ll get over it.)

so!!! let’s start with general attitude, because i think that amami’s is really unique. he’s a subversive character. in general i feel like that was the biggest goal with his character design and personality combination-- he looks like a total playboy, kaede even comments as much moooore than once. but he’s the absolute opposite. i’ll rant about that in a bit. i’ve already gone off on a tangent and i said i was gonna talk about attitude.

amami is laid back, but not to the point of complacency. y’know what i mean? like, he’s relaxed, but he’s on his guard, too. his speaking style is pretty casual (typically he’ll greet people with a “hey,” whenever he’s slightly uncomfortable he’ll probably say “haha”... this isn’t necessarily a canon thing but i like it when people have him talking in sentence fragments. ex. “forgot to grab my jacket” or “wanted to get a snack” sort of thing) and that’s just,,, the type of person he is. he’s casual. it’s remarkable considering how wealthy amami is-- though bear in mind, he still IS wealthy, so there are bound to be things he doesn’t understand about people-- that he can be so normal and like, down to earth, in a way. when people mess around with him he’ll probably just laugh it off.

to cite a fic i read once that had REALLY phenomenal characterisation, imo, ouma ends up dumping a bucket of water on amami’s head (on accident; there are some semantics and i won’t get into it but again the fic is really good and funny and you should totally read it) and amami just squeezes out his shirt and makes a couple cracks before walking away. (sorry this isn’t meant to be a “dumping love on fics” post but GOD that fic is hysterical.) he’s an enabler too, at least i think so-- remember that anthology chapter where kaede, shuichi, and kaito are trying to catch ouma and kaito sets an “amami trap” to stop him? all ouma has to do is flutter his eyelashes and go “pleeeaaase let me go amam~niichan!” and then he just. he does. what a fucking doormat i can’t believe him.

he’s like that though. i feel like big brother stuff is kind of his weakness. (and not in a kinky way alright i will destroy you. he might make a joke about having a sister complex in one of his ftes but he DOESNT that joke was just tasteless COME ON RANTARO WHFKLDSJFK) which brings me to his whole older brother thing, because like,,, YEAH. guy grew up with twelve younger sisters!!! and he remarked in his ftes with shuichi that they’re mostly step sisters, which means he just.... has a nurturing personality. i mean amami is somewhat conservative (if you try to come on to him during salmon mode you will be brutally rebuffed; amami tells u to keep your horny thoughts to yourself, though you shouldn’t be ashamed of having them) so i imagine he’s not the biggest fan of his father’s tendencies-- not that i don’t NECESSARILY interpret his father’s behaviour as him sleeping around.... it’s possible he just likes children and deliberately marries women who already have kids so he can take them... i mean it’s exceedingly decent to keep considering ur step children to be your children after a divorce so i have a hard time reconciling this common image of rantaro’s dad as some kind of player figure with the impression i got of him in my head but that’s just my daddy issues coming into play again so ignore me-- and yet he still considers all his sisters to be his sisters.

not to mention he feels a great deal of like, responsibility, when it comes to taking care of them. i find it impossible to believe that all the losses were his fault. you could ARGUE that the one he tells you about with his younger sister was to be blamed on him? but i mean, amami is a child. he didn’t even know his sister was following him out. sure he blames himself for it but there’s no real good way to blame him just considering that,,, he’s a kid. and he was so young-- he was obviously so young-- when it happened. so like, not to be all Good and Bad on you, but i do feel that amami is fundamentally a good reason. and you SEE that too, in the killing game. i’m certain he was on the fence about trusting that note he woke up with. would you trust it? he had no memory whatsoever of writing it, all he had were the words “ultimate hunt” and a map of the school to guide his way. i imagine he wasn’t even sure if he should do what the note said. but then ryoma started talking about sacrificing himself for everyone else, and rantaro probably thought, “well... if i have a way to get us out of here, even if it doesn’t work, i can’t just let ryoma sacrifice himself without having tried.”

rantaro is self-reliant too, i think. in the talent development plan mukuro remarks that she noticed he was injured a good number of times, but never said anything about it because she felt like he was trying to keep it under wraps. (note: good idea for an amami and mukuro friendship fic. must write. someone remind me.) i think amami kind of feels isolated from his classmates? either because he has these perceived notions of like, independence and whatever, not burdening anybody else with his problems (honestly not to go chabashira on main but wtf men ask for help c’mon i promise if you find a person who’s worth being in ur life they won’t treat you like shit for feeling ur feelings) or just because he’s not around a lot. i think amami is the type of person to invalidate his own problems a lot, or at least downplay them to others. he blames himself for all his sisters going missing, took the responsibility to find them all. you know the blow that’s going to be to his education? traveling around the world looking for twelve different people? and he plans to keep doing that!!! forever!!! ugh ;-; poor babey. but anyway i feel like he doesn’t want to tell anybody about his problems because he feels like it’s his thing to deal with.

i also believe that rantaro is a bit prideful. i mean, anyone can be prideful under the correct circumstances, and in fact there is a great deal of pride that simply isn’t addressed by the fandom in analysing characters and that makes me really sad because pride is such a SEXY character flaw but i’ll leave that alone for now. he hates being told to give up on what he’s doing. i mean everyone in his life has been telling him to stop looking for his sisters. that’s got to suck, but also, DAMN look at what his reaction was. this utter refusal to open up to anybody. shuichi’s ftes with him are spent pretty much just trying to get amami to stop squirreling around and actually TALK to him. amami asks shuichi at one point if he has any siblings and when the response is negative, amami immediately assumes that shuichi wouldn’t understand, would tell him to quit. just like everyone else.

(i mean, even with kiyo and mukuro, whose circumstances mirror his almost painfully at least in willingness to sacrifice stuff for their siblings, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing, just that he’s doing it for his sister-- singular-- and that he would do anything for her. kiyo and mukuro!! out of ANYBODY, they would understand. in tdp they DO talk about it-- kiyo encourages him to keep searching-- as his friend...... fuck amaguji is such a good ship even if the implications of kiyo saying he wants to meet rantaro’s sister after he finds her bc she must be suuuuch a good person if he’s doing all this for her are uhhh not great-- and mukuro immediately understands when he says it’s to do with his younger sister. like, full stop. she just goes “okay” and goes serious. all at once. damn rantaro, mukuro, and kiyo really do be a power trio huh. i need to write more fic about them i miss them.)

this is more into baseless conjecture so take this as you will, but i also think rantaro is kind of,,, easily distracted lmao. he mentions helping out a village with a disease-- been a while since i’ve seen his ftes, sorry for any inconsistencies-- among other shit and like... bro what are you DOING. you have sisters to find. and he can’t be getting injured all the time, getting wrapped up with gang violence and all that, looking for people who were lost traveling. i mean sure, you could say they went all over the world and got wrapped up in all sorts of mess, but more likely they stayed in roughly the same area, waiting for him to come back. and also? i have a hard time believing his sisters were lost in these remote forest places people always put them. COME ON, who the fuck goes to some village for a vacation? a RICH person no less. i’m on another tangent. sorry. but yeah, i love the people who write rantaro as an absolute airhead. i headcanon that he has no way of judging the passing of time and thus is the absolute worst in the bathroom bc he sits there for twenty minutes thinking about the universe and then walks out like “:) ok ready to go” like wtf are you even doing there stupid akljdf anyway.

i think rantaro is softhearted and thoughtful. in his ftes with kaede he demonstrates an ability to look past what people show at surface level-- you can ask him about miu, kiibo, or kiyo and he’ll give u Good Fucking Insight(tm)-- and analyse their intentions more closely. and i mean this is just from a couple day’s interaction. he’s down to earth for sure, understanding when people are intimidated but also caring and observant. (his ��talk about a first impression” line is so fuckaindgf.... good for his characterisation. i love romantic amamatsu but he so clearly takes an older brother role in those ftes, he’s really such a sweetheart,,,, hnadhfkj ;w;) rantaro is just. he’s patient with people. and selfless and kind. idk it’s all the good stuff. warm smiles and indulgence. all the way. probably lets kokichi steal his lunch.

THAT BEING SAID: i think rantaro also has a very serious streak. he doesn’t show it a lot but there are moments. he’s self-sacrificing-- i mean, obviously. he was the ultimate survivor, after all. some people hc that he got there by killing, or maybe everyone else in his game died but one person, but bro that doesn’t make any sense???? no. what happened was there were probably like three people left, and monokuma was like “one has to be sacrificed” and rantaro thought, welp. it’ll be me then. and i wouldn’t say the choice would be immediate because rantaro DOES has self preservation instincts-- he’s only human-- but i don’t think he’d have let anybody else make that decision. i think ultimately he would try to protect other people.

he can be scarily confrontational too. i do believe he’d usually only do it in the defense of others-- like, his base instinct is to protect. i read a fic once (oumami, unfortunately) where ouma was committing crimes and went to hide behind rantaro and rantaro instinctively moved to protect him, and that’s.... that’s good characterisation. point one to the oumami stans, point zero to me. motherfucker. (love u oumami stans, it’s just not my thing.) i really like it in fics when he’s stern, lecturing people for hurting other people, but i also think rantaro is too understanding to be truly unforgiving. like if two people got into an argument and one came out of it more hurt than the other, i don’t believe that amami would be unsympathetic to the less hurt one. i think he’s mature enough to take a look at the situation and go, well, okay.

i think he’d be TERRIFYING when angry. he’s patient, y’know? so it takes a lot to get him to that point. he’s really, ah, accommodating of people. puts up with a lot of bs kind of thing. but i imagine the best way to get him to snap is by hurting someone he cares about. and at that point: ur fucked. i’ve never written it before because i’m terrified of what i’d do with that kind of power but.... imagine the shuichi whump. holy god.

i’m NOT here to talk about shuichi whump (though i’m down to do that any time of day believe me) so i’m gonna like. shhhhiiiiiiffft.

i project on characters a lot so at this point it’s difficult to distinguish if some of my characterisation things are like, actually characterisation things? or just me venting, so like, take nothing i say as canon, but also,,, akdsjf we love a man who bottles up his emotions.

because rantaro just doesn’t have the TIME to be crying all over the place. he was probably a total wreck when he lost his first sister. and his second. and maybe even his third. but then he started to gather his composure, more and more. because if there’s anything that rantaro has in excess, it’s composure. the more losses he suffers the more of a shield he builds up. and the self hatred and the guilt and the blame and the responsibility are piling up and up and up, but god he hates it when other people see him sad, because he needs to be the strong one, he can’t just pile that up on other people. that’s not their weight to carry, and besides, he’s the older brother, he should be able to deal with his own problems. he’d just be burdening the people he cares about by letting them see his demons.

and then he doesn’t have any coping mechanisms because he never lets himself feel enough to cope, and when people get close enough to actually CARE about him, when people notice he’s upset or struggling and offer him help, he doesn’t know how to deal with it-- and god he hates lashing out at people but it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences of being mean than the consequences of breaking down. only conflict is scary when he’s one of the causes so he needs time to recover, and well, what better way to do that than to get on a plane or a boat and go look for his sisters? after all he’s wasting time whenever he’s just sitting around, they’re still out there and he needs to find them, so might as well just keep pushing himself to the limits, because it’s his fault they’re lost anyway...

something mukuro said to rantaro in the talent development plan stuck in my brain. like, initially it’s just a funny and cute interaction (rantaro even blushes and a blushing rantaro is a GOOD FUCKING RANTARO) but when i thought about it more i was like.... huh. hm. angst ideas. mukuro makes a joke about rantaro going over to her stand at the festival to flirt with her-- i think that’s the context, i know it’s play-boy related-- and rantaro assures her (as he always does) that he’s not that kind of guy, and mukuro agrees, saying she was just pulling his leg and that he seems like the kind of person who gets dumped because he doesn’t show his emotions enough. rantaro laughs, blushes, and says “haha, not touching that one,” and akdjfnnnnnn god mukuro you’re so blunt i love you fkdjf but wow. i usually have rantaro as not having dated anyone, just because i feel like he kind of hyperfocuses on finding his sisters? and given that he’s like sixteen (seventeen at the MOST) there’s not much of a timeline for when his sisters got lost. in my fic search i had to cram all the losses into a four-year period and damn that was rough. anyway i just don’t think he’d really prioritise romance. but that reaction implies that that’s EXACTLY his experience with romance, which makes a bit of sense because mukuro is ridiculously sharp, and also it’s,, it’s just sad idk poor rantaro. getting dumped because he’s like the emotional equivalent of a doorknob when it comes to his own feelings.

i do think rantaro is a bit cowardly. not in the sense that he’d shy away from danger-- i think he’d RUSH INTO IT HEAD FIRST because he’s a man or whatever, i know he respects women but he does seem to hold some of those very stereotypically masculine ideals of constantly protecting those around him, which is like.... ok toxic masculinity mcgee can u and kaito stop throwing hands every time u see each other ty-- but more in the sense that he avoids,,, confrontation. emotional confrontation just ain’t his thing. and i think he’d rather run away from it or otherwise find some way of ignoring it than try to address his problems.

he would, with that in mind, probably try to associate with people who don’t push the matter. kiyo and mukuro, for example. they both have a fair amount of baggage themselves so they’d probably be respectful. ryoma is lowkey enough that he just, he wouldn’t bring that shit up, that’s uncool. i also think rantaro would get along REALLY WELL with kaito, and i actually don’t think kaito would pull his sidekick stuff with him? just because in a way they’re kind of kindred spirits, and i think kaito would see an ally in rantaro before seeing someone to try to nurture, so they’d probably have some kind of a truce like, if you don’t force me to be vulnerable, i won’t force you. one of the reasons why i love amamota so much is because it involves the two of them growing to care about each other beyond that sort of unhealthy camaraderie and breaking down each other’s barriers and i just..... hhnnfhhdkfj they could be so good for each other but nobody wants to talk about thatjslfkj

you weren’t asking for my amamota mess lmao sorry anon i get sidetracked SO easily. but yeah, amami gravitates towards people who wouldn’t try to get him to be more honest with himself. and i honestly think the v3 cast would be pretty good about that overall, except for shuichi who is a detective and has a habit of sticking his nose in places it shouldn’t be, but i see no reason to write that out because amami’s ftes already display that beautifully. (well, that’s a lie, i’m absolutely plotting out a slowburn in my head already that involves shuichi stripping down his walls one by one, but forget about all of that rn we don’t need to talk about why amasaimota is my ot3.) also he is softer on childish people like ouma and himiko. ain’t nobody wants to TALK TO ME about how brilliant it would be if rantaro and hiyoko were friends because hiyoko has such problems in that department and he would take one look at her and go hm. i’m adopting her. and he’s so fucking patient and nice and she’d lose the will to make fun of him and i have to do ALL THE GODDAMN WORK AROUND HERE but it’s fine. at least i get to write it.

i’ve described the fundamentals of his characterisation pretty well by now i think. i have some throwaway headcanons, like uhh,,

he’s claustrophobic

plays the guitar and the ukulele

he prefers warm weather and perishes in the cold

high pain tolerance

he’s a Good Cook

doesn’t like sex jokes (they make him uncomfortable)

asexual (i do like a good demisexual hc at all times of day tho)

master of piggyback rides

does his own piercings

impulsive as hell

gets lost easily but can always find his way back

has a lot of scars from travels

hands are rough and calloused (again from travels)

morning person

smells like evergreen (you know i had to, you know i did)

Radiates Heat Like A Fucking Toaster Oven

good hugs

hates tying his shoelaces

likes being the big spoon :)

has a tongue piercing

i said “some throwaway headcanons” but i ended up listing way more than i mean to. i’ll make a separate list of my rantaro headcanons someday and talk about them all in detail but for now, uh, there’s that.

SO AS FOR THE RANTARO CHARACTERISATIONS I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE:

god where to fucking begin. actually i know exactly where to begin. it’s my least favourite one just because, like i said at the very beginning, rantaro is a subversive character. i mean i think he’s kind of a low hanging fruit when it comes to that. there are plenty of other subversive characters in the dr series but rantaro is like that. you expect a flirt and u get,,, a sweetheart. but then some people (usually the ones who ship him with female characters exclusively though i will see it on occasion in an amasai or oumami fic) decide to throw that out the window and make him a total playboy!! and listen, i have no problem with people who are a little flirty. we’re kids!! flirt ur heart out!!! and hey, that’s not what this is about but y’know what? so long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, then yeah!! exercise your sexual freedom and sleep with whoever you want to!!! i don’t think there’s anything wrong with messing around a little, dating who u wanna and experimenting with ur tastes and preferences. if rantaro WAS a playboy, then there would be nothing wrong with that. i would love him just the same because he’s such a fundamentally GOOD character.

except that.... he’s.......... NOT. you slaughter one of the biggest aspects of his character by throwing away what matters to him and making him some hunky-deep-voice-dreamboat dude meant to sweep kaede/tsumugi/whomsteverthefuck off her feet. rantaro is one of those characters where he’s so blatantly not that kind of person, and it’s like. it’s an affront, almost, to portray him that way? and i do believe you should have the freedom to write what you want, since we’re in that age (aside from romanticised pedophilia and incest; that shit ain’t cute, i say this often but pro-ship DNI) where u should be able to take some liberties, but it’s just. hnnn. it’s so frustrating. rantaro does not know how to smolder! if he DID smolder, he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it. he doesn’t have people lying at his feet, okay? he’s too flaky for that. i wouldn’t say he’s unreliable but he definitely ain’t at school as much as he should be.

another one that i hate: st-stalker? what the fuck? that is not sexy that is creepy and weird?

another another one that i hate: yandere? what the FUCK??? that is not sexy that is glorified ABUSE???? the yandere trope is AWFUL bc you’re taking a controlling relationship and turning it into a fetish. NO. if he limits ur contact with other people, if he follows u everywhere, if he threatens ur loved ones, if he tries to control you, ladies and gents and nonbinaries, he’s not a yandere, he’s an abuser and you need a fucking restraining order. actually, people of ANY gender or sex can perpetuate this behaviour and IT IS NOT CUTE. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT BOUNDARIES U SET IN PLACE, IF YOUR FREEDOM IS BEING RESTRICTED THAT IS ABUSE.

hate it when people make rantaro violent. hate it when people make rantaro a murderer. hate it when people make rantaro controlling. hate it when people make rantaro overtly sexual. some kind of sultry deep voice dominant kind of figure. dude, what the fuck? i don’t,, want to make any public comments about sex positions because i think that’s kind of Strange to just talk about on a post, but i do think that the way people portray him for their smuts is,,, idk it’s weird. i’m not gonna kinkshame u but like. :eyes:

i will however accept rantaro as a thrillseeker, or a highstrung rich boy, or a total space cadet, or a himbo, or a cryptid. these are all very good interpretations of the Mans. just, like. be wary of making him two dimensional. a good character is multifaceted. if you can take a trait that clashes with all of these and SELL ME ON IT, i will buy it. if u give me good justifications, or even just good writing?? then i will accept it.

the long and the short of it is, anon, he’s my favourite so i think about him a lot. i love writing rantaro. he’s just, he’s a Guy. y’know? He’s A Good Dude, If You’ll Give Him A Shot. :) we don’t get to see very much of him but i think that there’s plenty of material if you overanalyse everything, which, as you probably all know by now,,,, i absolutely do.

thank you for the ask, this was a delight to spend an hour talking about.

[roominthecastle]

Hey Room! Thanks for replying to my Q. But if Illya was that lovesick for Katarina since he was 6, doesn’t it give a stench of classic transference to the Red/Liz dynamic? Like, Illya couldn’t get Kat, so he sees her daughter as his second chance . . . with Kat really. Liz was supposed to be the woman Red “loved and lost” in Cape May, but if Red = Illya, then that description must apply to both girls.

I would see it as such if Red chose to whisper Kat’s name as his final word, or a memory of her flashed across his mind before his impending almost execution, or if he talked about her as the woman he loved/his heart/his life. But it’s always clearly Liz, there isn’t even a touch of ambiguity to this. If he still harbored feelings for Kat, they should have surfaced in these key moments but they didn’t. His past relationship w/ Kat has an influence here, I don’t deny that, but I don’t believe Red sees Liz as a replacement or consolation prize. He sees her as her own person, and if he fell for Liz, he fell for Liz bc she fits his type just like all the other women he has fancied before – 99.9% of whom were not her mother. He’s loved before but not the way he loves Liz now.

And I should have worded my response better re: the lovesick puppy thing bc I don’t think he’s been in love w/ Kat since they were 6 or that it’s some sort of guiding constant in his life. They likely lived separate lives on different continents, for starters, and she wasn’t interested in him that way. And I mentioned somewhere else how I see an inconsistency in his attachment to Kat in “Rassvet”: he isn’t devastated when he thinks she committed suicide, at least nowhere near as affected as he was by Liz’s death, which undercuts the whole selfless lover-hero image that seemingly follows soon after she comes out of hiding to ask for his help. There are no hurt feelings, no stinging sense of betrayal in the way he interacts w/ Kat (it’s almost like “oh, you’re back, good, wanna make out?”), yet it was all there after Liz came back from the dead, which already suggests different depths of emotional involvement.

Ilya’s repeated insistence to honor a pledge he made when he was 6 is the takeaway in “Rassvet”, imo. “My word is my bond” and “loyalty above all else” are still the most important guiding principles in Red’s life (both in business and personal relationships), and this is also what Ilya – or through Ilya, Dom – kept emphasizing as the only reason to help Kat. Treating a childhood promise as a serious, binding contract is a very Red thing, imo. How much actual “in love-ness” went with it remains to be seen since this is Dom’s version of the story and Red is clearly not happy w/ it.

But this signature compulsion is there in Red’s relationship w/ Liz, too. He promised her to keep her alive and safe, to give her the life she longs for, and he is not stopping until he succeeds but he also has his own agenda unfurling in the backdrop of their relationship. So he pledged himself to Liz, too. This compulsive aspect of the “lovesick puppy act” is what I think these two dynamics have in common, that’s why I said that Ilya’s behavior around Kat fits w/ how Red behaves today. This super intense loyalty to a select few stems from who Ilya/Red is as a person at his core, and it’s independent from romantic/sexual feelings but it’s easy to confuse/conflate the two, esp if one is young(er) and/or lonely like Ilya/Red was ~30 years ago.

And all this naturally brings something James once said to mind:

“I think in life, people have this confusion about love. We all want to fall in love so badly that we are almost willing to lie to ourselves, to force ourselves into believing that we are in love when we aren’t. It’s too bad, because in so doing, we cheapen it. I don’t think we recognize the depth of the emotion at all. It’s entirely transformative and we think of it as a blurb on a Hallmark card. When you’re in love, you can’t control it. It’s when you can’t take charge of what you feel, when you are completely powerless in the face of the emotion. When it happens, it happens in spite of you.” [x]

In “Rassvet” Ilya is, in fact, taking charge and Dom emphasizes this by calling him “the architect of this charade”. He gets himself transformed as part of a deliberate plan, a power move, he came up with and had to talk Kat into. Liz, however, is unintentionally yet inescapably transforming him in ways he is 100% unable to control, and she is transforming him back to who he used to be (a lá Beauty and the Beast). She tears right through every design he’s ever come up with, zigs when he zags, and lands him in the most insane situations he had no intention of ending up in (most recently: the execution chamber).

So the first part of the quote above feels more Ilya/Kat atm, and the last bit is 100% what I see when I look at Red and Liz’s relationship and, perhaps not by accident, that last bit is also what made it into actual canon dialog btw Red and Liz, and it’s been repeatedly stated how only Liz can render Red powerless and how she is his kryptonite. Liz.

So I don’t think Ilya/Red truly felt for Kat in the past what he – in spite of himself – ended up feeling for Liz in the present (true, all-consuming love). But he follows the same “my word is my bond” principle in both dynamics.

I can def see him being irritated by how Dom chose to reduce his relationship w/ Kat to some sanitized fairytale, but I still don’t think Dom believed that lying through his teeth was the way to dispense closure here. It’s Dom who warns Red at the end of S5 that Liz is never gonna stop digging for his true identity, then again tells him that she was gonna find out sooner or later anyway, so he did Red a favor by ripping off that band-aid. Liz was desperate to know Red’s real identity and Dom gave it up, hoping/thinking it would be a small price to pay for a way forward. Dom himself is sick and tired of secrets and hiding, living that way has cost him so much already and he knows nothing good ever comes from it, so I don’t think that heaping full-on lies on this issue was his go-to move here. I could be wrong, of course, but for now, I am rolling w/ “most of what Dom said he believes/assumes to be true but stuff was omitted that will end up re-framing things once they are revealed”.

But nothing (potentially) traumatizing was revealed here? things Red wanted to keep from Liz were revealed and he clearly did not like it or the way Dom chose to tell it, but “I know you used to be Ilya who made a huge sacrifice to protect my mother and me” is not quite in the same league as “I know you killed Sam” or “I know I killed my father” as far as devastating revelations go. I think Red’s reaction matched that + he was also still fuming and hurting from the confirmation of her most recent betrayal, so that’s also coloring his response and mood here, imo, making him so tightly wound that only a few twitches escape as he listens to her.

That smartass Popeye remark was not his immediate response, it’s not a response to “I know you’re Ilya”. It’s a deflection that comes when she – sensing an obvious hole in the story – starts questioning why he kept Reddington’s identity once the alleged reason of taking it on was satisfied. That’s when he says, “I am what I am. … Popeye the Sailor Man.” to avoid the topic bc – imo – now she is truly close to knowing everything and he needs to stall to figure out how to handle this entirely new playing field.

I think his reaction to her at the end of “Rassvet” is a unique mix – previous methods of (now half-hearted) deflection w/ an undercurrent of surprise, fear, anger, uncertainty + a touch of “you disappoint yet impress” he also voiced at the end of S5.