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lxmelle · 2 months

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Thoughts/Ponderings/Musings on ch 236. About Gojo reaching Sukuna, his death, his relationships, etc.

I know there are people who really dislike the characterisation here, expressing that Gojo is likely far more kind and caring for his students, etc.

Gege and his infinite wisdom over his creation seems to like encouraging headcanon kaisen, lol. He certainly keeps things quite true to life and allows the reader to make their own conclusions.

It is not my place as a casual reader to judge his writing, and I will defend it inasmuch as I also had hoped for more: Just because it isn’t explicitly said, doesn’t mean those things we have seen about Gojo aren’t true. I agree that it is also a shame that more wasn’t or couldn’t be included in this chapter to either dispel or confirm, but that’s masterful writing in itself, I guess.

I take small refuge in my interpretation that this is a glimpse of a conversation; as in real life, we ease into conversations. I enjoyed the dynamics and overall tone. I like to remember that each expression was a decision made, and these details can hold a lot of weight in meaning.

So we see that Gojo prefaces with something else and was responding rather specifically to Geto’s question regarding his fight, his end.

Geto, a natural conversationalist, who is said to be good at being at Gojo’s level, enquires about his fight - entering into neutral territory after Gojo expressed frustration and being stunned after his sudden arrival there.

Geto reads him / the atmosphere well and responds to tune the conversation to a level he can reach Gojo, despite possibly having a lot to say and catch up on himself. (Like, we never hear him talk about his family aside from confirming they escaped.)

He is showing respect for his friend. What do they have to rush for, anyway? I don’t think there is a specific afterlife if they chose to go south. Time may be infinite?

—

A lot more under the cut. Feel free to skim and apologies in advance for tangents. I hope it makes sense overall. I tried to make it as cohesive as possible despite being lengthy.

:: Beware the Word Vomit, overall reaching, meta, interpretations, some satosugu shipping, and general weaving and stringing of themes. ::

Disclaimer: I’m fully aware I may be wrong, as I am with many things, and you’re welcome to drop me any comments or thoughts.

One of the glaring issues was the “Sukuna glazing” as some fans called it. To see Gojo having regard for Sukuna’s strength doesn’t take anything away from Gojo imho, but I get it. What was all this reaching that Gojo was expressing? Surely that doesn’t that precedence? Of all things, is this what he’s regretting in what is possibly his last significant scene in the manga?

A part of me relates to this outrage, but then I try to bring myself down, because we are often kept out of what intimacies are exchanged between Gojo and significant ones (Geto, students, etc.) and we aren’t / haven’t been privy to many deep and elaborate reflections of Gojo or Geto. All we get are ellipses “...” and depictions of longing stares that don’t quite betray their honest thoughts.

So, within the context of the above, Geto asks directly and Gojo describes. Of course he’d want to know how Gojo experienced it. He’s always been the one who cared about how Gojo actually feels or experiences things. He might join in a bit of friendly ribbing, but Geto and Gojo communicate on another level with banter, etc. there’s a reason they’re each other’s best friend.

I also see an interpretation where it cycles back to love is the most twisted curse: it can save people, but it may hold you back from being the strongest. Love has been a theme since the origin story in jjk 0. Gojo’s love for his students and Megumi may or may not have affected their chances of success, but he nevertheless cares and bets on the future (students).

Geto has always been shown to be Gojo’s significant person - a safe person, if you will. Thematically, their designs are two parts of a whole. Their fates intertwine in so many ways, only to be separated ultimately to death.

Since, he’s described not feeling lonely anymore, through love for this students (his legacy and will) and even more now (for himself) that he was wrong about dying alone. He had wanted to find a way to bring Geto home (to jujutsu high [Geto’s theme song “come back home” given by Gege is all about this after all]) but despite all that’s happened, he is with him at the airport, and Gojo is satisfied enough with that, but won’t waste time not bridging gaps any longer -

Gojo is so very forthcoming with Geto in his adult years. Given the opportunity in jjk 0, he not only asks for his last wishes, but conveys his as well. He then speaks his heart in his conversation with Geto; he is candid, yet serious.

I’d like to think it’s infused with more emotion than he ever did in their early days. He confirms his feelings to Geto and confesses his desire to have had him there to send him off. More on this later.

In the original version of the manga, Gojo momentarily reverts back to the use of “ore” just once, before it becomes “boku” again - a shift had taken place in him due to what Geto said in the past. To demonstrate that in a few short panels is quite something too. People change; we evolve through the influence of significant others.

Gojo knows loneliness as he has learnt about love in its different forms. To really know it is perchance what Sukuna doesn’t, despite saying he does.

From this point of view, he says he is sorry for him, as he’s got empathy for Sukuna; that Sukuna couldn’t learn what he had wanted to convey, but perhaps the emphasis was more of a pity for him than feeling disappointed.

In a typical Gojo fashion, he captures it clumsily and makes it about strength in his speech, as if punches and skills thrown at each other could convey that it doesn’t have to be lonely and that they could understand each other - that having a peer would be interesting / satisfying - perhaps also seeking a sense of validation himself in Sukuna. It’s possibly also what prompts people like Nanami to call him out on the extreme emphasis on strength. But maybe that’s Gojo’s defence mechanism too, who knows. If Gojo had a love language, would it be fighting talk? Ha ha.

This reminds me of how Gojo was perhaps unintentionally condescending to Geto at the KFC breakup scene - it was the final nail in the coffin for Geto and he shut down completely, remarking the now infamous, “Are you Gojo Satoru because you’re the strongest or are you the strongest because you are Gojo Satoru?” But that’s by the by I guess. It wasn’t as if Sukuna was going in for therapy / love intervention with anyone, lol. Fighting was the conversation.

So moving on, what is Sukuna’s perspective and what could it be that Gojo wanted to convey, and presumably died trying? Looking at the next fight, he is asked directly about his perspective as the strongest in history who stands above the rest.

Sukuna. The pinnacle; the epitome of strength, solitude, and one who has cast away everything - seemingly peacefully - in favour of being formidable at the top. Revered and feared in equal measure.

He is so strong yet he doesn’t need anything the others facing off with him seem to yearn. The all want to reach him for their own reasons. Maybe like disciples chasing the Buddha. What is his message? Can I understand him, and he, me? And then, ourselves?

This fight was supposedly for himself too - but what was he yearning? Gojo at first glance appears to wish to defend himself, everyone, and save megumi. Mourn Geto too. From what we understand, he's been lonely, despite this improving over the past year (through his admission to Geto later on in the airport scene).

The mark of The Strongest has been left: As soon as Gojo became strong, Geto left. Geto didn’t love him for his strength - he had to leave; in part, because feeling out of place and left behind in the a shadow of a person who is now living by “the strongest, alone” hurt, making the ills of the world unbearable, as it tipped the balance greatly for him. He could not see beyond Gojo’s apparent selfless selfishness, and he did the same with his own version of it. He had to pave his own way and build another family & world - even if it was a shell of what he had with Gojo.

But I digress. Gojo had strength but it wasn’t enough to reach Geto. He has been using his Strength as a teacher to foster a new generation, allies, in a bid to change the Jujutsu world in a different way to Geto. Yes, they shared a dream. (I hope this comes back into the picture with Geto's side fighting Sukuna too.)

He sees this curse taking shape - first with Yuji and then Megumi. I can’t imagine the outrage, and how it’s internalised by Gojo. He possibly dissociates to some degree, as one wouldn’t be able to function if they carried the weight of the world (in information and in sensation overload) all the time. He’s trained himself to be selective. So, nevertheless, there is a call to defend his title; he is also bored, wants to be a good example, and plays his part to assist with defeating Sukuna - tries to reach him but maybe it just wasn’t his message to relay. Gojo’s job was done here. He got what he wanted - a satisfying fight. More on this later.

We see the futility this far in reaching Sukuna across chapters. Responding to “love”… Harming those along the way carelessly, as he wanders simply proving his existence, as if that alone is enough to justify and bring it purpose. As a calamity or curse, he doesn’t need to consider what he is.

This is the extreme of what strength is - of what Gojo could have become. Perhaps if he wasn't so deeply touched by having someone complete him, so he could be a brat in his youth and actually trust someone to fall back on. And had he not suffered loss through Geto leaving, would've meant he never had to question himself or experience doubt or longing in his life, as he was gifted, was he not? Or was it actually a curse?

Is it meaningful to be the only one at the top of the mountain where nobody can even reach? What good does the embodiment of strength bring, if there is nobody to recognise that it is, no one to yield the power for to give it meaning, and no use for the sheer magnitude of what you can do to give it purpose?

Sukuna says he knows love and cast it away, finding it worthless, that he responds to others’ strength with love through besting them in a fight. He gets his “kicks” like Gojo did to some degree like in the theme song for Gojo by Aviccii:

(Oh, my, my) That's what I get for lovin' you

(Lie, lie, lie) You know I can't live without you

(Why, why, why?) And all the things you put me through

(Cry, cry, cry) 'Cause I'll get my kicks without you

Life must be pretty monochromatic as The Strongest. Rinse repeat until no one is left.

Following the loss of love, Gojo tried to find meaning and pass the time in ways befitting of him too. Everyone has to find a way to move on, right? But it doesn’t mean everyone feels fulfilled or healed. He drilled skills into his tempered body throughout the years of his existence; he wanted to showcase it all to Sukuna - the reason he fought and battled and trained and developed his incredible sense - his spirit that does so for himself (yes he does get kicks from it) but also for others - because Gojo is an evolved form of The Strongest. Maybe The Strongest 2.0 and Yuta is version 3.0. You get my drift.

Gojo is representing the sorcerers of the modern world. Whilst Gege likes to poke fun and say he is devoid of a personality; I’d say that isn’t it quite natural when your role in life has already been partially determined for you at birth? Further, as a “victim” of circumstance due to the setting, trauma and heavy reliance on Gojo to fulfil all sorcerer duties from a young age (esp after Geto left) can certainly leave you in a state of emotional arrested development.

To reiterate, Gojo, unlike Sukuna, DOES find meaning and purpose in his students. He wised up and found the sense in what he and Geto discussed, learning from the past and adopting certain philosophies that suited him.

But still, as the strongest, Gojo was lonely with the line drawn - as a human being (self/identity) hiding behind a living creature (of strength/facade); Gojo seemed to be saying through the blooming lotuses (flowers growing out of literal muddy waters - rich in religious and cultural sumbolism) that he loves everyone but despite that they couldn’t understand him, and him, them. This is the main interpretation that makes sense as Gojo is talking about himself, his allies (esp Megumi), even possibly Geto, but he is also talking about reaching Sukuna.

Considering the possible interpretations for who the lotuses symbolise... he less common one from my readings thus far would be Sukuna; but it kinda makes sense: Sukuna, who was born to unfavourable circumstances, and similar to Hakari who described the strong looking down at others as if they were dirt. And achieving so much like a rising from the ashes. We also see him glorified as the strongest of all time now.

And it reinforces the “unreachability” (made up a word here) and how it was an impossible task in the first place.

The message being: How can Gojo reach someone who does not want to be reached? This cycles back to what he said to Yaga when Geto left. He cannot save anyone who does not want to be saved by others.

If Sukuna was the lotus, and was a beautiful flower in strength that defied odds to bloom in the murky depths of dirt - he certainly isn’t pure as the flower symbolises, but he certainly is some kind of divinity. But I really don’t want to glorify Sukuna.

I prefer the interpretation of the lotus being Gojo or those around him, but narratively, it is simply possible he is describing several people’s parallels here with how solitude accompanies being strong. Sukuna is like the unreachable Enlightened One. Yet, he strangely doesn’t seem to have a solid sense of identity - there is no “I am the strongest” that Gojo embraces, not that this is anything to hinge one’s identity upon, as it is part of Gojo’s problem.

And yet this still brings us to what Gojo wanted to reach Sukuna with aside from a demonstration of his skills. Does Yuta have anything to add to this, as the next Gojo Satoru?

Yuta, if we can appeal to his character for parallels in messages, and if we can consider him The Strongest 3.0 asked Uro - don’t you have a lover or friends? Implying that if one fights so desperately for their own sake, it reaches a dead end fairly quickly. Just WHO are you fighting for, and doesn’t fighting for yourself get a little old after decades?

Even Toji (without his soul when ressurected) instinctively ended his rampage at the sight of what his reason for living was, his son, albeit he cared for Megumi in a very dodgy roundabout way, fearing his closeness would ruin / stain his son. I’m reminded here of how Geto’s body reacted to Gojo’s voice; momentarily seizing Kenjaku by the throat.

Somehow the bond between Gojo and Geto is marking its significance again, isn’t it? They all had reasons they fought for, and through the many evidences of these, we are allowed insight into recurring ones that may hold more significance than others. You know, like: my students are watching, let’s schedule it on the 24th of December.

These are important things to gojo, he is also showing Sukuna what he doesn’t have. He didn’t need to live like a cursed object for decades, etc and his significance doesn’t die when he does. Yes, a big part of Gojo had craved this “all out” but as he lives his life and engages in the battle, all the pieces of WHY, WHO, and WHAT he is wielding power for start to surface.

As the reader we are finding these Easter eggs along with him, because the narrator and Gojo don’t disclose this openly. Gojo has people modelling this for him throughout his short life, and he seems to be quick on the uptake, despite preaching about strength. Maybe he isn’t terribly aware, but he knows more than he lets on - Gojo had a persona.

We probably can say the same about the “I’d win” scene that pretty much foreshadowed his defeat. That kind of a Champion enters the ring without fighting talk?

The scene depicting him reflecting upon his first ever defeat showed him to be chasing a “high” of satisfaction from going all out and fulfilling the itch of Boredom and Loneliness that plagues the unimaginably strong. Pursuing and honing his skill, getting stronger and stronger, drew him further and further away from anything meaningful - ending up in a state where he never really gets the satisfying release he craves.

Like a runner who is only allowed to run at 5kmph for a short distance; an artist who isn’t able to paint their desired masterpiece; a singer whose voice can only whispered to an audience; the strongest weightlifter who can only utilise 20% of his max strength... How terribly dissatisfying.

How stifling it is to have such a limitation. And yes, his skill is limitless. How ironic indeed - the repression, the impotence strength imposes.

And while we are on skill/technique names, others have pointed out before - unlimited void? What a perfect description of what felt meaninglessness / existential emptiness is.

The underside of this however was how it also alluded to the possibility that he was going to experience another enlightenment - but of a final kind of his physical form. It implies he was tired from his isolation or that there was at least no remedy for it, and therefore his present sense of fulfilment was to engage in battle and enjoy it - although he recognised signs of defeat - it would be satisfying as he could go all out or die trying.

It would fulfill the purpose of his existence as The Strongest contender anyway. He, could be the victor, or the pawn, who plays his part in the universe. His reigning time as the champion needed to be defended with dignity anyway. It reminds me of his conversation with Megumi about death and being selfish.

I mean, that's just imbued with meaning there. A whole post needs to be dedicated to It, and I'm not the subject matter expert by a long mile. Gojo’s bottom line was that strength did define him; he was born with it.

Watching Megumi possibly minimise his worth and clip his wings without pursuing / living up to his potential may be a waste, as a person who inherited the skills that took their ancestors down. However, the selfish path may not be for everyone.

Other writers’ meta I’ve read seem to touch on this too - that Gojo unwittingly became a form of the old Jujutsu world himself due to being a product of it himself, but he did do his best by his students to inspire change. This, to me, speaks volumes about him entrusting them to live out their paths upon his passing - what could he do in death, anyway? He taught them the importance of accountability and his own version of the truth - that power and strength - living to your potential is certainly one way of living, and they can expect to die alone, so make the most of their youth!

We witnessed Gojo making preparations for the match, following setting the date on 24th December. How romantic of Geto, to try and either seek Rika in jjk 0 or die to Gojo’s hand - and then now, Gojo, who may mourn Geto again, or die trying on the same day. It begs the question: was he also secretly at peace with the possibility of dying to Sukuna? At not being the strongest? It seems that him being a pragmatist (or “resignation man” as Gege apparently once put it) he would find some peace, especially since he was Geto in the afterlife and could see that his soul wasn’t trapped in his physical body or something - their corpses could be left to the living and Shoko, which seems to be the faithful stance they both take in trusting the living to “carry on” their respective teachings.

Nevertheless, Gojo is trying to reach Megumi here. But as the incredibly gifted, talented, and strongest - albeit as cursed as it is to be afflicted with it all, Gojo may not empathise with the struggles of the weaker. It is reminiscent of how he approaches the battle with Sukuna in the first place. He was challenged and he accepted.

A sport. That's not to say he lost sight of the bigger picture - we saw Gojo making preparations for a possible reality where he does not return.

Unfortunately, his skills also lend towards fighting alone, unless they were back-to-back with him. (I still hold onto the belief he and Geto could be a dynamic duo). Which Sukuna also used against him in their match in order to not get hit. Gojo has never learnt what it would be like to fight with others and it's old-fashioned egoist rules about matches when viewing it as a sport rather than of survival. But, Gojo had changed enough to feel he could reach Sukuna and had desired to impart something - maybe to have significance or be regarded by an equal - once again - for this would be of utmost satisfaction for him to receive.

He had learnt a whole lot about things in his short life. He did well. In a final battle of 3 vs 1? Against Sukuna in the body of Megumi and the 10 shadows that his ancestors had died to? That’s already unprecedented. But strength aside, Gojo had reached many people and it’s time for him to pass on the baton and be where he wants to be, in the version of himself where he is the happiest.

Gojo admits to being wrong about dying alone, further listening to how Nanami and Haibara reflected on the former's death betting on the future seemed to solidify some kind of understanding for him.

That he didn’t have regrets either. He, too, fought for a purpose beyond seeing satisfaction of being strong; it just became evident as it surfaced to his awareness. With his six eyes, he couldn’t see everything. With limitless, he couldn’t reach it all either. Even if you have everything, you can’t do anything. It is not enough to just be strong. And Gojo wasn’t just strong in the end.

He may or may not have reached Sukuna, but maybe, just maybe, in being wrong about dying alone, the necessity for everyone to be both selfless and selfish, was enough for Gojo. To reach and arrive at: Acceptance.

Seems pretty good to me, to be at peace.

—

“The absolute strongest, the loneliness that follows, the one who will teach you about love is... “

Yorozu’s haunting words.

Gojo is not the strongest anymore

Gojo didn’t feel lonely anymore

The one who will teach has taught him about love is...

You, Geto Suguru. It started with you, and it ends with you.

—

Yes, sound the alarm! It's satosugu brainrot headcanon.

Gojo seems to be saying, and I’ll phrase this as if he were speaking to Geto in his mind’s voice:

Yes, I was undeniably the strongest; until I wasn't. It was a fun fight. My students are my legacy; I trust them to take it from here too. They know they have the permission to be selfish. I trust that they have their own wisdom to know the difference; it is up to them now. I did my best to change the world that let us down in our youth; and fostered and shielded those under my care as best as I could with what I had. I think they had some good memories; I sought to give them a flavour of what we had, preserving the treasure that it was for us. I was never the teacher type, but I wanted to do something and clung onto a dream you and I shared.

I responded to others who loved me and surrounded me for my strength (living creature); but for me as a human, I am undeniably greedy and longed, pined for you (the only one who saw me: Satoru). You held the space as my one and only. I let you go back then in Shinjuku, and couldn’t let your body go when you died, and you came back as a puppet... I didn’t get to mourn you, but here we are: dying on the same date a year apart. Others still don’t quite get me (like Nanami and Haibara) but they understand the creature that is a part of me. They accept me; in itself, it’s enough, for a part of it is true.

As for the rest of me: you complete me with your understanding of me; parts of me that I don’t see or have forgotten. Just as unchanging as it was before, I’ve only ever needed you to satisfy me (and ease my solitude) ; no matter who filled the space around me, your absence spoke the loudest, because your presence alone would have been the most profound - I’d have felt satisfied / complete.

And yes, I am 100% romanticising here. Unashamedly!

—

A more pragmatic take would be:

He could be quite simply implying that he carried a guilt for the longest time and the one thing he couldn't achieve was to bring his best friend back home to Jujutsu High. I mean I adore Teacher AU and I'm totally open to this more shonen interpretation too.

The finale was as he entered the other land, in a dreamlike state, he sees Geto, remembers he’s tasked Shoko to tell Megumi, demonstrating he has infinite faith in the next generation to survive, and it’s sufficient, it seems, to have a death without regret.

We see Sukuna offering recognition of his skill and existence after he is slashed, laying on the floor, as it begins to snow. A small smirk appears that seems to also mirror the same on his expression in the cover of volume 26. Satisfaction. Gojo might’ve been a worthy opponent and reached Sukuna in that regard after all; maybe love was not his lesson to teach Sukuna. He has died a noble death befitting of a warrior to be surrounded by camellias.

Gojo Satoru passes onto the afterlife and heads south.

—

It’s controversial somehow; it is both enough, and leaves me wanting more. Here’s to hoping it’s not the last of Gojo (or Geto).

Maybe I did just want to dream a little. Thanks for reading if you made it this far. My tapestries tend to get quite complicated, and I wouldn’t blame anyone if they bailed!

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sigmoon · 1 month

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Wildflowers under the summer rain - Chapter Five: Bittersweet Nightshade

"Healing holy man, once upon a time / hunting high and low to seek revenge / brand new moral code / got made reluctant renegade / evil spirits flowed / he drank the blood like lemonade." (Morcheeba, Blood Like Lemonade)

"And how I tried so hard to hide the pain / what bad temper we're keeping / and so I followed a light into the night / and you kept me waiting in the dark with no place to hide / cause we are more than our disguises." (Weyes Blood, Twin Flame)

Pairing: Fyodor Dostoyevsky x reader

wc: 4.2k

cw: Dark content! Implied self harm (cuts). Implied sexual abuse. Implied depression and suicidal ideation. Implied murder. Religious themes. Implied manipulation/brainwashing. Vague hints about Fyodor’s past. Subtle flirting. Fyodor’s POV.

Author's note: It's been so long since the last chapter, and rereading the first four chapters made me cringe a lot. My writing has changed, and so have my original plans for this story, and the most recent revelations about Fyodor from the manga have interfered with them a bit… I don't want to make promises I might not keep, but I'm sure I won't take 4+ months again until the next update. That being said, enjoy reading part five!

“Man, there are many ability users out there.”

She knelt on the floor, surrounded by a sea of files she’d taken out of the shelf in the corner of Fyodor’s office, and browsed through them one after another.

Fyodor, who sat a few feet away from her at his desk, and was just as busy, had told her to read through the many files he had assembled about various ability users from all around the world. They included detailed descriptions of their supernatural abilities, and Fyodor hoped that at least one of them might be useful for the next missions he’d planned, and replace one of his current subordinates if necessary.

However, he felt no need to entertain her need for conversation, unbothered by the silence between them, unlike her, who tried to fill it by at any given chance.

Though inevitably, Fyodor had learned over time that she was sharper than he’d initially thought.

But he simply had very little interest in wasting his time with a sinner like her, let alone bond with one. She was a useful tool, but it was best to keep her an arm's length away from himself, emotionally.

“Oh hey, look!”

She held up a thin file, no more than a few pages with a small photo stapled on.

It was a bit blurry, but one could still recognize the face of a boy, presumably in his teenage years, with brown, messy hair. One of his dark eyes was covered by white bandages.

“What about him? His gift is… ’ability neutralization.’ That sounds pretty useful, right? I mean, sure, he’s a little young, but–”

“No, not him,” Fyodor said, clipped. He’d looked over his shoulder and recognized the file, or rather the person in the photo.

“Why not?”

“He already works for another organization. He can’t be trusted.”

“Are you sure?” she asked and skimmed through the file again. “Judging by what it says here, he'd make a pretty good hitman, at least."

“Not him,” Fyodor repeated. “Check the other files; and no members of other organizations.”

“So we’re only looking for people in vulnerable and unstable life situations?”

“Correct.”

“Exclusively employing easily manipulated people and desperate losers...good business model you got there. Religions take a similar approach,” she said, putting the file back. Her tone was provocative and her words were meant to be a jab at Fyodor.

“Shut your mouth and get back to work,” Fyodor said sternly. Who did this girl think she was…

“Sorry, I forgot that being reminded of what a terrible person you are is a sensitive topic…” she said and met Fyodor’s cold gaze with a contemptful glare of her own.

“You’ve got quite the nerve calling me a bad person. You’re no better than me,” replied Fyodor.

„Are you serious? I might not be a saint, but you’re a lot worse than I am. Yes, I’ve hurt people, but I didn’t kill any of them, and you’ve built an entire organization that does nothing but spill blood because their leader is some delusional fanatic who believes it’s for the greater good.“

Much as she was pushing her luck with him, and despite his anger, Fyodor grinned mockingly as she spat insults at him.

„You clearly do not understand my lifework one bit, but that was to be expected of someone like you. Impulsively going on a purging spree because someone took your dignity, only to get locked up and not change a single thing, not even for yourself. Pathetic,“ he hissed right back.

„Did it feel good, at least? Because I can assure you that your adorable little plan to rid the world of evil was entirely self-indulgent and did not help anyone in need, not even yourself. Why else would you see so little meaning in your life if not because getting revenge did not free you of the shackles that person apparently still has you in? You’re still as miserable as you were before, aren’t you?“

“You don’t know anything about me, you sick fuck!” she growled and trembled with fury. The way she eyed Fyodor betrayed her apparent desire to pounce him and tear him apart.

“I don’t have to; that deranged look on your face speaks volumes," Fyodor said coldly, but as soon as the words had gone past his lips, he realized that he’d gone too far. Her face was no longer twisted in outrage but in genuine hurt and humiliation.

Her efforts to hide it were unsuccessful– Fyodor saw her lower lip quivering, like that of a child about to burst into tears.

He wondered how she'd managed to agitate him like that once again. Insults were not usually his style, and neither was lashing out at people.

He cleared his throat and calmly, he added: "What I know for sure is that vengeance is never worth it. Not the effort, nor the blood that's being spilled...and especially not the remorse that comes after, either."

"It’s better than doing nothing about the things others have done to you," she whispered.

“And it’s ironic how you’re judging me for how strongly my past affects me when your entire life’s purpose depends on the words that someone else has put inside your head.”

“I never expected you to share my beliefs, or to understand them.”

“I wasn’t talking about your god, and I think you know it,” she said with the same penetrating expression that had made Fyodor so uneasy since the day they’d met.

“Sucks to hear it, huh?” She said, amused by the aghast look on Fyodor’s face. “You’re just as controlled by your past as I am, but I’m trying to escape that grip, while you succumb to it. You’re someone’s little puppet, and yet you believe that you’re acting on your own accord."

Fyodor swallowed hard and tried to make sense of his racing thoughts.

There was no way she could know...Fyodor had never spoken about his past in her presence. Not like he did around anyone else, ever. And how on earth could she possibly know about him?

No, she only enjoyed taunting him by making provocative assumptions. She was only playing a mind game, in hopes to rile him up.

Or was it her ability’s doing? Fyodor’s information about her ability was vague, but he knew that she could make people suffer a great deal by using it, so it wasn’t far-fetched that she was trying to do this to him as well.

After all, she was vicious, unstable, and, despite their teamwork, a dangerous individual.

“You’re being ridiculous…I’m ending this conversation now,” Fyodor murmured and turned away in his office chair, shaken up, and attempting to keep his composure.

His underling seemed just as fed up with their argument as he was. She pulled out another file from the shelf and browsed through it.

“What about him?” she sniffed. Her voice was shaky, her eyes glistening with tears that threatened to fall. “He can create portals.”

The file she was showing Fyodor now was significantly thicker than the previous one. Fyodor recognized it immediately; he’d been working on it for a fair amount of time now, as the ability user it was about had already piqued his interest a while ago.

He hadn’t been quite sure how to utilize him so far, but Fyodor was convinced that when the time was right, he would make for a valuable accomplice.

“We’ll keep an eye on him.”

━━━━━

Fyodor let his head fall back against the headrest of his office chair.

It was late, he’d been ignoring his body’s cries for rest for hours and was now nearing his mental and physical limits.

Working himself to the bone wasn’t rare, and though the price he paid was high, Fyodor deemed it necessary, willing to do everything in his might to get the job done.

His head was pounding, and he closed his eyes with a sigh of resignation, thinking about today’s incident.

His underling was not an easy person to have a conversation with, and maybe, under different circumstances, Fyodor would have appreciated someone to talk to who wasn’t as dull as the rest of the people he was surrounded by.

However, while he appreciated her desire for autonomy - a trait that his other subordinates lacked - broadening his horizon by constantly questioning his every sentence wasn’t what he’d hired her for.

She didn’t seem to have a shred of respect for him or what he stood for, and Fyodor was fed up with defending what was holy to him against a lowly sinner like her.

He stared at the ceiling above him and gnawed on his thumb as he reveled in his thoughts. While she wasn’t as degenerate as others he considered a pest in this world, her mind and hands were tainted with sin. And just like everyone else, she refused to see it.

She was not at fault for what had been done to her, Fyodor knew that, but he firmly believed that she was to blame for how she’d dealt with it.

Fyodor could even see why she’d decided to walk down the path of bloodthirsty revenge, an understandable desire, after being violated by another person, but still, it was not her rightful place to deliver punishment on those who deserve it, but his.

And always that damned expression on her face. Fyodor was unfazed by all kinds of horrors, having seen and done a lot, but the way her stare pierced through him as if she could see his soul creeped him out.

She knew things that she couldn’t possibly know, because Fyodor had never spoken about them with anyone, ever. But he had a feeling that she still knew, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Other than that, he had yet to figure out what exactly her ability enabled her to do. She hadn’t told him anything, and Fyodor wasn’t as almighty as people thought he was. Skilled at seeing through people by analyzing their speech and behavior, yes, or getting someone to reveal information about themselves without even realizing they’d been interrogated, but even Fyodor’s intelligence had its limits.

He assumed that her ability went beyond enabling her to inflict severe white torture upon people, which was the only proven knowledge he had about it. It would have been naive to believe that there wasn’t more to it than that.

Sometimes, when Fyodor felt his patience run out, he stooped to taking his irritation out on her by voicing how little value she had to him as a person and pointing out his superiority over her.

He wasn’t proud of participating in this infantile tug-on war between them, and it upset him that she had the power over him to get such petty reactions out of him.

Their discussions, no, her entire being only proved Fyodor’s point; most people failed to comprehend his mission– that they had to be saved from the misery that they were either put through by someone else or managed to maneuver themselves into.

Both were the case for her and - while it was uncomfortable to admit - it was for Fyodor, too.

In this world, nobody was free of sin forever. No matter how hard one tried, it would get to them at some point, and someone needed to put an end to this vicious cycle. Even if it required sacrifices.

Fyodor was more than willing to die on a cross and take those who stood in his way with him if it was for the sake of a better world.

A metallic taste spread on his tongue, and he retracted his hand to inspect it. A drop of blood oozed from his bitten nail bed, and Fyodor watched it trickle down the length of his thumb before bringing it back to his lips and licking it clean.

The sound of distant footsteps, slowly approaching, followed by the creaking of his door, pulled Fyodor out of his thoughts.

He knew that this late visitor could only be her, but her presence was not reason enough for him to drop everything and turn around.

„Aren’t you a bit too old to be suckling on your thumb?“

Fyodor didn’t reply to the voice coming from a few feet behind him. Even if he had felt like entertaining another argument, he would’ve been far too exhausted for that.

He felt miserable; his eyeballs were dry and stung, and his head still ached; telltale signs that he ought to abandon his screens and make up for the lack of sleep these days. Fyodor knew that he wasn’t doing his already strained body any favor, but there was work to do, too important to be postponed.

„No witty comeback?“ she asked when Fyodor stayed silent. „I’m just saying that you’ve got quite a bad habit with your nail biting.“

„That makes two of us,“ Fyodor said, looking at her over his shoulder, and he briefly nodded at her forearms.

Usually covered by her daytime attire, they were now exposed, the sleeves of her t-shirt barely reaching her elbows. The tender skin revealed was uneven, with multiple streaks of scar tissue betraying that she was no stranger to unhealthy coping, either.

Fyodor could tell that the cuts were not inflicted recently, but rather several months, if not years ago, as they looked mostly healed, as far as injuries like such could.

Still, he murmured: „You might want to give me that gun back I gave you some time ago.“

„Are you worried about me?“ she smirked, her tone surprisingly sober, considering the topic that hung in the air.

„No, but I don’t want to be the one scrubbing your brain off of the floor one day.“

„I‘m sure you wouldn’t have to,“ she replied and approached his desk. She took a seat on a chair next to Fyodor’s. „You’ve got plenty of lackeys who’d do anything for you, even that.“

„Still, I have no interest in losing my most valuable subordinate.“

“So you do care about me.” she grinned, but Fyodor wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of believing he liked her, which he didn’t. If he did, and he’d told her, she’d only be going to exploit it.

„I do not,“ Fyodor repeated. „But the others lack the competence that you have.“

„Is that a compliment? Are you promoting me?“

“It’s a matter of fact, not flattery. But I might think about assigning you with other tasks,“ Fyodor said, tilting his head and resting it in his palm. A small smile tugged on the corners of his mouth. „If I don’t keep you busy, you will just keep pestering me.”

„That’s great,“ she smiled back. „But if you make me babysit Ivan and Pushkin, I will use my gun.“

„To kill them or yourself?“

„All three of us, in that order,“ she said, and Fyodor finally chuckled, though he blamed the slip-up on his tiredness.

He was certain that his exhaustion was to blame for this conversation even happening, as he rarely had any interest in speaking with her, or so he thought, as he’d never given her a proper chance to prove herself worthy of sharing his few moments of spare time.

Neither of them said anything for a minute or two, the dim light coming from Fyodor’s computer screens painting the room, as well as their faces, in a soft purple, enhancing both of their weary expressions, and Fyodor could see that just like him, she had dark shadows beneath her eyes as she looked past him.

“Why are you awake at this hour?” Fyodor was the first to break the silence.

“I could ask you the same thing,” she said firmly, no trace of the lightness from just a moment ago left.

“I asked first,” Fyodor replied, but he didn’t expect her to open up. She’d never been eager to do so, and he doubted she would be now.

She scowled at him but sighed, and leaned back into her seat. “I had a bad dream.”

“About…?”

“Yes,” she said quickly, cutting him off.

Fyodor was on thin ice. He had to be careful, otherwise, this opportunity of taking advantage of her vulnerable state would pass, without having gotten any new information about her.

Fyodor was aware of this risk, and yet he asked: „Has hurting others made your suffering more bearable?“

She didn’t respond at first, and Fyodor already feared he’d lost his chance. But after pausing for a moment, she said: „Momentarily, yes. But the satisfaction, the relief– it didn’t last. What did last, was this rotten stuff inside of me. I’ve hoped that if I just kept doing it…then it might finally go away.“

„But it didn’t,” Fyodor said confidently, though he could only guess what she meant by the ‘rotten stuff’.

„No. The damage done stuck around, I guess.”

“I see. You never told me what your ability does, by the way.”

“Don’t you know?" she asked. “You’ve seen me use it.”

“But that is not all it does, am I right?” Fyodor insisted. As talkative as she was on occasion, she wasn’t easy to read.

“Why would you think that?”

“Because you know things you can’t possibly know,” said Fyodor.

“So I was right?”

“About what?”

“About you being someone’s puppet. Your actions are influenced, your entire plan is.”

Fyodor felt disrespected, even more than whenever she dragged his lifework through dirt, the very thing he’d gone through hell and back for.

What fueled the humiliation was that she wasn’t entirely wrong, but Fyodor didn’t want her to have the upper hand in this. However, the time spent trying to come up with a response only confirmed her accusation.

“I was only taking a guess, actually, I’m not a mindreader. But thanks for confirming my theory. I had a feeling that there’s more to this all than just your faith.”

Fyodor’s expression must've looked hilarious to her, as she giggled. “Don’t look so grim. It doesn’t take an ability to figure out that you have issues.”

There was a deep line between Fyodor’s furrowed brows, and he clenched his jaw.

Was she, perhaps, able to deduce someone’s feelings simply due to a high level of empathy and emotional intelligence, even without the help of a supernatural ability?

“Wanna tell me about it?” She asked, disturbing the silence, as well as Fyodor’s train of thought.

“Absolutely not.”

„Come on,“ she pleaded. „I don’t mean to make fun of you, I promise. I just think it would be helpful for us to understand each other better. I’m sure I wouldn’t despise you as much if I fully understood what all of this is really about.”

„And why do you care?”

Tight-lipped, she fidgeted with her hands as she struggled for words. “Well…Because you’re not boring, as much as I don't like you.“

"Oh?"

“Now, don’t mistake this as flattery, but you're really smart. You could be anything you wanted, and why would you make use of your potential the way you are right now,” she asked, “if not because someone convinced you that this is your sole purpose?”

“You’re both right and wrong,” Fyodor said solemnly. “It was someone else’s words, but the power of many that made me realize what my purpose is.”

“What, becoming a terrorist?”

He scowled. “No. That I must change the world, no matter the price. Sacrifices are inevitable, and no, I am not indifferent about that. I know that the measures I’m taking are drastic at times, but it all happens for a reason.”

“Ugh…” She grimaced and pretended to retch.

“I don’t care if you understand my reasoning here, but I know that those who end up being sacrificed for my plan will be rewarded when my work is done. Because then, all the lost souls will be granted salvation. God has mercy on those who deserve it, and I am creating a world with no room for those who don’t, which is why I assumed that you would gladly assist me when I had you brought here,” Fyodor said. "After all, what you did was similar to my plan. Bungling, lacking skill and precision, but of the same essence. That’s the whole reason I wanted you as my right hand.”

“First of all, rude, and secondly, I lost interest in cooperating with you when you started preaching about god and salivating as you did so.”

“Cut the blasphemy if you want this conversation to continue,” Fyodor hissed.

“Fine, fine. But a world devoid of evil and ability users? That goal is quite hypocritical, considering that you are an ability user yourself.”

“Abilities are part of the problem, which is the sin, infiltrating and corrupting people. They do more harm than good. I seek to free the world of this burden. Mankind is foolish and people need to be saved from themselves. Even you must agree, no?”

“Yes, though I wouldn’t have assigned you, of all people, with that task. You’re a menace.”

“Well, some people have thought differently in the past.”

“In other words, you’ve been manipulated. A person of your intellect would never come up with this crap all by themselves and let it dictate their life.”

“Call it what you want– I have lived a long life, long enough to know that I am the one destined to fulfill God's plan.”

“You can’t be that old,” she said, tilting her head and inspecting Fyodor’s face.

“Clearly, you don’t know as much as you think you do. Not about the world, and certainly not about me,” he said.

“Then enlighten me. Tell me about yourself.”

All of Fyodor’s resistance was futile. He felt weak and disgustingly vulnerable. The way she spoke, the way she looked at him; it all made him want to open up his heart, and spill everything he’d safely locked inside it over the years, just to get more of this new feeling– the sweet relief that he’d felt when she first made it clear that she wasn’t so easily fooled by his facade. The relief of having some weight lifted off of his shoulders.

“I feel with every person who's died at my hands, directly and indirectly. And I wish there was another way to change the world than wiping out the sinful parts of the population like they’re parasites and doing so at the cost of innocents. But I’ve been assigned this task, by God himself, and I must complete it, so no one else has to taint themself like I do. This means everything to me…all the lost souls, even the evil ones, will be forgiven for their sins and granted a second chance, but I…I’ve got blood on my hands that I cannot wash off, and I know that I won’t be granted a place in the new world I intend to create."

“That’s really fucking sad,” she said once Fyodor had finished.

“Hm.” He shrugged. “Anyway, there is a specific tool that will enable me to achieve all of this, a very powerful one. And I need to get it, at all costs.”

“What kind of tool?”

“A book. A novel, to be precise, with all blank pages, and whatever is written inside becomes reality. Getting my hands on it is difficult, and requires resorting to drastic measures, but once it’s in my possession, nobody will have to suffer anymore.”

“I understand,” she replied. “And do you think you’ll be able to find peace if your plan works out?”

“What? I’m not the one with issues, and I don't need your pity!” Fyodor said with a dark glare. He was angry, especially at himself, for blabbering with no restraint.

“Sure you don’t,” she said mockingly. “You might be fooling yourself, but not me. Look, I have no idea who made you carry the weight of the whole world all by yourself, but I can’t sit here, watching you approach this problem the way that you are. Surely, there must be a way to get that book with less mass destruction along the way.”

“Don't you think I'm already trying to avoid unnecessary suffering?”

“Yeah, no, I don’t believe you are. We might have a similar goal, but our approaches are worlds apart. And to be honest, I have little respect and understanding for your strategy.”

Fyodor rolled his eyes. “Yes, you’ve told me already. I lost count of how often.”

She smiled. “And you will hear it again. Just please, let me do more than interrogation, let me actually partake in this plan. I don’t care about hurting evil people if it’s necessary, but unlike you, I don’t believe in the afterlife, so I don’t want innocents to die because of us.” She then held out her hand, waiting for Fyodor to shake it. “Deal?”

“Fine, I can live with that. Yes, we have a deal,” Fyodor said, after a last moment of hesitation, and shook her hand; smaller, softer, but just as cold as his, causing chills to run down his spine. His gaze flicked down to look at the streaks on her forearms, and then up to her face, where a pair of eyes stared back at him, with an indefinable expression.

Fyodor had yet to realize that he knew far less about this sinner, as well as about himself, than he’d initially thought, and about how deeply her fate was to affect his own.

This handshake, their first touch, was only the beginning of a series of events that was going to turn Fyodor’s world upside down.

#bungou stray dogs #bsd #fyodor.bsd #dark content #fics #bsd fanfic #bungou stray dogs fyodor #fyodor dostoevsky #fyodor bsd #fyodor x reader #bsd x reader #wildflowers under the summer rain #factum est❁hio

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aihoshiino · 2 months

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different anon! but i 100% upvote other anon's comment of you being the professor of hoshino-aiology 😎👍 your posts about her give me a newfound appreciation for her and imo you should be the one writing 15 year lie frfr 🤧👏✨️

and if you haven't written anything abt it, could you share your thoughts abt the spica ai chapter? i liked ai and saitou in it but i was shocked at how intense the b-komachi bullying was :0 poor ai 😢

THANK YOU ANON…….. god can you imagine what this manga would be like if i had been given that kind of creative control. you're going to read my 15 volume hoshino ai backstory flashback and you're going to love every single chapter of it!!!

When it comes to Spica, I have pretty mixed feelings on that first chapter. For transparency's sake, I broadly dislike the novel overall and I think it takes away from the relationships it depicts more than it adds. Like I mentioned in a previous ask, my issue with Spica (and its depiction of OnK's world and characters) is its tendency to flatten and simplify many of the interesting interpersonal wrinkles that characterize these central dynamics in the main story. This is much more evident in the GRSR chapters (as outlined in that post) but you can absolutely see it in Ai's chapter as well.

POST-WRITING CLAIRE EDIT: So while this post initially started as me broadly skimming some of the issues I had with chapter 1, it has ballooned into a much, MUCH longer essay about what it is about Spica that I disliked and why, broadly, I think it fails to work both as a standalone piece and as an addition to OnK as a canon. I'm pretty negative about the book in this post and very critical of the writing so if you really liked Spica and it would bum you out to see me take it apart, feel free to skip this post.

On the surface, Ai and Saitou's dynamic is pretty true to the main story and I will admit that I do enjoy their rapport in this chapter and just that we got a chapter focusing on this relationship full stop. Ai and Saitou's relationship is one I've always been particularly soft for and getting a whole chapter that was basically just exploring its early days was really nice. But it's also a very rose tinted view of that relationship in a way I think does it a bit of a disservice. I discussed this in my OnK anime rewatch but Spica's take on Saitou (and thus on his relationship with Ai) frames him as a wholly positive and supportive figure whose desires for money and success in the entertainment industry are explicitly, textually said to be secondary and unimportant to his uncomplicated kind desire to support them as they succeed. There's almost this sense of "wow, isn't it so noble and cool that saitou is kindly allowing these tweenage girls to work themselves ragged making money for his company!!!" that's a bit icky to read.

This is in line with the bizarre ways Spica portrays idol culture, in particular the 'oshi'/fan dynamic. This is another thing I've discussed before, so I'll borrow my previous words on the topic:

The Japanese text of [chapter 137] takes this dehumanization a step further: Rather than the wasei-eigo term アイドル (aidoru), when calling [Ai] an idol, Gotanda uses the word 偶像 (guzou) - an idol by its original definition. It goes beyond just reducing her to an animal - it’s objectification in the very literal sense. Ai is an idol, a ceremonial object of worship, an inanimate vessel for the dirty desires of the people around her. [...] Spica [...] depicts the moment that Ai starts down this road, committing herself to being an idol who will love and support everyone, even people who hate and scorn her. This is framed by the novel as being something of a breakthrough for her and being liberating for it but I came out of it feeling deeply unsettled in a way I don’t think the novel wanted me to be. [...] Spica depicts the moment that Ai goes from アイドル to 偶像 without seeming to realise that’s what it’s doing and thus does so in a way that is not just uncritical but wholly celebratory. In a lot of ways, this makes sense - Spica, broadly speaking, is about the “oshi” part of Oshi no Ko: the emotional fulfillment of not just receiving support but in the act of giving support yourself, in cheering someone on and seeing them succeed. Spica depicts these sorts of relationships in a straightforwardly and uncritically positive light, even in cases of parasocial relationships between fans and celebrities.

There was a lot on that topic that I left out just because that chapter review was already getting so fucking long and unhinged but Spica's entirely uncritical and celebratory view of idol culture in general always leaves me feeling deeply uncomfortable every time I engage with the text. There's a degree to which this can be excused, because Spica takes place in the POV of characters who have drunk the industry kool-aid and thus would not necessarily interpret some of this stuff with the same critical lens as a reader. A charitable interpretation of the material is that, like Viewpoint B and 45510, the story is choosing to refrain from commenting on these troubling elements for the purposes of allowing the reader to have their own take on it.

This would be nice… except it's just not how Spica handles emotional beats at all!

When talking about Spica in the past I have jokingly referred to it as being written like 'the emotional equivalent of the Superdictionary' and by that I mean that it has absolutely no restraint or subtlety when it wants you to Feel Something. When Spica has an emotional beat, it hammers it in until any organically resulting resonance with the material has been reduced to a fine paste. When it has Thoughts and Opinions about a topic, it will explain them to the reader in excruciating detail so there is no risk of the reader taking away anything that wasn't intended by the author.

My point is that there is every indication that Spica's straightforwardly celebratory portrayal of idol culture and the way fans respond to idols is something intended to be taken at face value with no further interrogation. Spica is, by and large, entirely uninterested in acknowledging the ugly underbelly of exploitation, dehumanization and misogyny that drives idol culture and idol fandom.

I think the best way to illustrate this is to look at the scene near the end of the chapter where Ai finally sits and reads her fan letters. The first two are genuinely warm and sweet but the third always jumps out at me in a way I don't think was intended by the author;

“Hello, Ai-chan. I'm a devoted listener to your streams. B-Komachi's songs and talk shows have honestly become my sanctuary. I'm currently stuck working to the bone at a terrible company. They hardly pay me anything, and every day I just want to die. But what keeps me going is knowing I have your streams to look forward to every week. I’m not even kidding. Ai-chan, you're my reason to live!"

The story does not for a second pause to linger on this letter but I want you to stop and really take it in. While we know nothing about this letter's author outside of what's written here, but given that they have a job they can be presumed to be an adult. In addition, the final line of the letter in Japanese is 『アイちゃんは俺の生きる希望！』, using the masculine first person pronoun 俺 (ore), implicitly gendering the writer as a man.

An adult man writes to Ai to traumadump on her uninvited about his suicidal ideation and telling her in no uncertain terms that she is the sole, singular reason he is alive. Ai is a twelve year old girl.

Spica frames this as an entirely good, wholesome and affirming moment for her. It's one of many similar moments where Spica's celebration of idol culture clashes so strongly with the main story's that trying to make them tonally cohere is almost impossible. In fact, mild tangent, but I was working with the Spica TL team on chapter 1 right around the time chapter 137 dropped, and reading the ending of this chapter back to back with 137's tearing down of Ai's exploitation at the hands of the idol industry was some real injury-worse-than-whiplash inducing shit.

To be clear, I don't need Oshi no Ko to have a huge UM ACKSHULLY THIS IS WHY THIS IS BAD!!!! digression every time characters have positive interactions with the concept of idols. It is fundamentally dishonest and lacking in nuance to portray idolhood as something entirely and unrelentingly negative or to act like idols hate every single second they spend as idols. Sarina and Gorou's POV chapters do a very good job of highlighting what I talked about earlier - Spica's ruminations on the 'oshi' part of Oshi no Ko and how a relationship of support can be emotionally fulfilling both for the person being supported and the person unreservedly providing it. But that's purely from a fan perspective and I think it would be really interesting to Spica to take the opportunity afforded to it by being in Ai's POV to properly interrogate what Ai enjoys about being an idol.

But the way it chooses to do so just feels atonal both with Ai's arc and relationship to idolhood as portrayed in the main story and ways the manga has talked about 'oshi' culture in chapters published before and after Spica's release. It clashes with Oshi no Ko in ways I find difficult to satisfyingly reconcile.

This sense of clashing with and contradicting Oshi no Ko is an issue Spica has more broadly, in big and small ways. Some of this is just small, incidental details but other issues are larger and added all together, it results in a sense that Spica was not written by a person fully keyed into Oshi no Ko's world and characters. Like, just off the top of my head, here's some things that stuck out to me just from chapter 1:

Ai notes that she was separated from her mother a long time prior to the story's timeframe but given the ages give for her in 131 and here in Spica, it cannot be more than three years max since she was removed from Ayumi's care.

B-Komachi's formation and Ai's joining the group are both said to have happened 'three months ago' as of chapter 1's timeframe and thus to have happened more or less at the same time. This contradicts the Akasaka written material that consistently frames Ai as being one of the senior members, yes, but as having joined the group after Nino, Takamine and Watanabe.

The portrayal of Ai's bullying by the other B-Komachi members in no way matches Nino's account of it in 45510. This isn't even in a way you can put to Nino being an unreliable narrator. The details are so different that the only way to reconcile them is to assume these are two separate instances of bullying and that Nino just. Didn't mention the first time it happened for no reason.

On the subject of the bullies, the two girls targeting Ai are implied by their physical descriptions to be Takamine and Mei. While we don't really know anything about Mei yet, the vicious and unapologetic hostility Takamine displays clashes with her 'tough love' roughness that we are shown in the main story. In addition, this contradicts 45510's very explicit statement that Ai's bully was IMMEDIATELY fired from B-Komachi, no questions asked, the instant Saitou knew who she was. There is no indication in Spica that Ai's bullies so much as get a slap on the wrist for their behaviour.

Spica attributes B-Komachi's current success almost entirely to Ai and portrays her as working very hard on set and communicating with every other member of staff almost excessively to the point of annoyance. Not only does this contradict the early manga's portrayal of Ai as being antisocial and uncommunicative on set prior to her being sent to Lala Lie, it also contradicts chapters that were released following Spica that explicitly credit Nino as the key figure for B-Komachi's initial boom of success and states that Ai joined the group after Nino had cemented their popularity.

There are absolutely ways that you can handwave these contradictions and sew up the internal logic but to me, the nature of these contradictions matter to me less than the fact that they exist in the first place. This implies, especially given that some of these are in material written by Akasaka after Spica was published that he and Tanaka were, to some degree, not on the same page about the book's material.

There's some other things scattered about that aren't necessarily direct textual contradictions but nevertheless feel really out of step with OnK's takes on these characters. And like… I have tried to be relatively measured and good faith in my critiques so far but there is a part of chapter one that makes me so just bees buzzing around in my brain flames on the side of my face blood boiling in my veins insane that you must allow me to just uncharitably tear into it.

[Ai:] “Ah, now I get it. Are you buying a gift for your girlfriend, President? You like them young, after all…“ Finally, it clicked. The president, being considerably older than his girlfriend, needed the insights of a girl closer to her age in order to pick out the perfect gift. If that was the case, that explained why Ai had been roped into this. [Ai:] “Well, not that I should be getting into your business or anything, but…President, be careful when you mess with underage girls, okay? Nowadays, you’ll seriously end up in jail.”

I'M SORRY. WHAT THE FUCK AM I READING RIGHT NOW. SHE WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This moment actually makes me so angry that it is difficult for me to clearly and calmly articulate what I find objectionable about it. I understand that it sounds very dramatic, but this is the first in a very consistent line of Spica bringing up the idea of adult men engaging in romance and/or sex with underage girls with this blithe, jokey and dismissive tone that entirely undermines everything Oshi no Ko itself says about CSA. The fact that it starts off this trend by putting these words in the mouth of Ai, WHO IS HERSELF A FUCKING CSA VICTIM, and treats the entire exchange as a throwaway joke honestly makes me feel a little bit sick.

This is part of a much broader and more troubling trend in Spica of Hajime Tanaka simply not being able to write young women in a naturalistic and human way. It's difficult for me to express exactly what it is that feels so off other than to say that it's Covered In The Fucking Ooze in a way typical of Men Who Can't Write Women. Ai's bullies in chapter 1 are so cartoonishly and stereotypically catty and mean that they barely feel human and they are written with all the distinct individuality as Thing 1 and Thing 2. The more complicated, two-sided conflict between two flawed people as seen in Ai and Nino's relationship is totally absent here. It's just the most vapid, stereotypical depiction of Teenage Girl Bullying you can imagine.

On top of that, there is a consistency with which Tanaka puts the topic of sex into the mouths and minds of these young women that fees… icky and offputting to me in a way I find difficult to articulate. In general, the voices of these young girls feel off and inauthentic in a way the main series never struggles with. For all I've criticized Oshi no Ko for in the past, something I think Akasaka is consistently and surprisingly good at is writing female characters who feel just as distinctly well realized and fleshed out as his male characters and that he does so in a way that does not rely on completely degendering them - their experiences as women are important to and inform that their characterization but does not entirely rule it. Despite overwhelmingly centering girls as the heart of its narrative, Spica barely feels capable of writing them as people.

All this together gives Spica this really strong sense - to me - of not really fitting in with the spirit of Oshi no Ko as a story. It's not just that the narrative voice is different but that there is an underlying flavour to Spica's takes on this world and its characters that clashes with the original. The cast as a whole just feels off, not blatantly OOC in a way you can directly point to but just enough to feel uncanny and give me a THEY WOULD NOT FUCKING SAY THAT!!!!! moment for almost every single person with a speaking line. It feels, as I put it on the Oshi no Brainrot server, like a thing that exists not because there was a part of the OnK narrative that worked best as a light novel but because somebody, somewhere thought a Oshi no Ko light novel would make some money and decided to have one churned out.

oh my god anon I'm so sorry lmfao you did not ask for this GIGANTIC ODYSSEY OF A POST!! This was just one of those asks that tapped into a topic I had already been having extensive conversations with myself about in my brain (I have a very boring job with a lot of time spent alone lol) and the more I typed, the more of those thoughts spilled out. I think a big part of why I am so compelled (derogatory) by Spica's missteps and mishandling of its material is that there is so much potential here and so many points where the material really comes close to just being flat out good.

A moment in chapter 1 that I think about a lot is Ai thinking about why she hasn't been reading any of her fan letters - because the last letter she got was her mom's lawyer telling her that Ayumi had gone missing after her release from custody, thus confirming for Ai that she had been abandoned to the system by her. Because of her association between those emotions and the act of reading a letter, she simply can't bring herself to open any of her fan letters because of the lingering anxiety.

Not only is this an entirely human and believable traumabrained anxiety kid fear for her to have but it's totally in line with Ai's flaw of avoidance and unwillingness to engage with or confront things that make her anxious or uncomfortable. It's also paid off wonderfully and in spades when she does finally confront that fear and is rewarded for it by an avalanche of love and support from her fans. It's one of the few moments in Ai's chapter where I think Spica really does well in conveying what a person like Ai gets out of being the 'oshi' in the oshi/fan relationship.

But this otherwise great moment is ruined by like… all that shit I said up there lmao. Spica is just laced through with this issue where moments that come so, so close to working and being really good are just marred by other issues in the text around it or trip themselves up in other ways. It's frustrating both because it comes so close to doing fresh and interesting things with the characters and because… I didn't want to dislike Spica! I was so, SO excited for it to come out and so willing to give it the BOTD even as summaries leaked and I was put off by the plot beats. But the more time I give to it in my brain and the more I try to engage with it in good faith, the more I come away frustrated and feeling like my time has been wasted.

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #onk asks #meta essays #onk spica #onk spoilers

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trans-mephisto · 10 months

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The somewhat popular theory that Lightning = Rin and why I personally don't buy it

(And my own theory)

So, quick disclaimer; this post isn't made with the intent of "ruining fun" or putting down other theorists in the fandom, but rather is simply me putting in my own two cents on a character. I'm very analytical and find this kind of thing fun! My essay is below the cut so I don't take up too much space in the fandom tag :]

Okay, starting with the reasons I really don't think Lewin is Rin from the future, which I've skimmed the manga to support my personal doubts.

First off, though they do share some similarities, Lewin and Rin still have distinct differences in their designs. One of the main things I took note of was the difference in their eye shapes. When his eyes are shown, Lightning has rounded eyes with small, thin irises, whereas Rin has angular eyes with larger irises. Examples below!

And these two images aren't far apart in chapters, so it's not anything like an art style change. Even so, eye shape is something that Kato doesn't really change drastically within her character designs.

Now, another thing is we actually see Lightning as a teenager during the whole flashback arc. He would be nineteen during this time, and we also have an image of Rin at eighteen (albeit in another timeline from the main one, but it generally doesn't matter). Though, again, kind of similar, there's still stark differences. The main ones again, being eye shape, Rin having round irises and Lewin having thin ones, and the fact Lewin is babyfaced compared to Rin having a slimmer face at nearly the same age.

Lastly, there's also their personalities. Lightning has always been mostly emotionless, intelligent, and analytical, whereas Rin at his core has always been very emotional, and no shade to Rin, has always been kind of stupid. Once again, they may have some similarities but their differences are more prevelant.

So, what gives? Who or what is Lewin?

Well, while thinking this over, I kind of stumbled across a character who I think is far more like Lightning personality-wise. Shiro Fujimoto.

There's many comparisons to be made between them, especially with younger Shiro. Perverted, tendencies towards violence, the fact they both generally don't seem to care till they're upset enough? Very similar. Although I definitely don't think they're one in the same, I do have suspicions that tie together as to why he's similar to Shiro, and to an extent, Rin and Yukio. And it's pretty simple.

They're related!

Now I don't mean anything like "Shiro's secret child" or "Rin or Yukio's child from the FUTURE" or anything like that, what I think is that he's simply the grandchild or a similar descendant to Azazel, and since Shiro was directly cloned from Azazel and Satan was also inhabiting an Azazel clone when Rin and Yukio were concieved, all the overlapping similarities make sense. And I have a TON of evidence to back this up.

First of all, Lewin has a very strong connection with demons to the point where it's often showed he has an easier time summoning them than any other tamer, even high-level entities.

For higher level demons, he doesn't have to finish the summon, and doesn't even need a verse in general for the low level demons.

Also, both these demon types are kin to Azazel.

Later on, we even learn that he has god-level demons (literally the gods of winds) as his familiars, and guess what? They're kin of Azazel.

So he has a very strong connection to Azazel's kin, and also Azazel himself.

During the Blue Night flashback, we see he was for some reason, a member of Azazel's group of Grigori represenatives.

Not just that, but he in general seems very close to Azazel. He mentions speaking to him, goes to visit him to calm down, calls him "old man" or "gramps", and when discovering Section 13's cloning secrets, at one point seems genuinely upset mentioning that the process of extracting Azazel's DNA probably led to his advanced crystalization. His soft spot for Azazel is obvious.

So in short, I do understand the connections Rin and Lewin share, and why it led to many people believing they were the same person. But after doing some digging, I believe the point was to hint at their relation and also draw parallels between his situation with Azazel and Rin's with Shiro.

Hope everyone enjoys reading my long-winded ramblings. :]

#meffy rambles #aoex #ao no exorcist #blue exorcist #theory #aoex spoilers #lewin light #long post

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animehouse-moe · 1 year

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Chainsaw Man Chapter 128: Main Dish

Well, not every chapter can be deep and meaningful. Some of them just have to be as stupid as Denji can be, and be full up on action and comedy, and finally a big reveal.

⚠️Warning: Spoilers Ahead⚠️

There's not really a whole lot of stuff going on this chapter so it's gonna be short, but damn is it ever funny. Asa completely rains in Denji's parade as if she hasn't been faced with the same issue. A look in the mirror might be a little necessary for Asa, but that's also what makes her such an enjoyable character.

And then there's the comedy in this scene, which is absolutely priceless. Asa singlehandedly causes herself and Denji to fall up into Hell, because she couldn't keep her mouth shut. And that single panel of Denji's Chainsaw Head ties it together perfectly. There's not a single facial expression that crosses your mind when looking at it, but you can 100% tell what's going through Denji's mind (spoiler: it's nothing).

Now, I might be crazy, but for some reason I really feel like the door Asa and Denji fall through is familiar. Something about it just seems like I've seen it somewhere in the manga, but skimming part 2 I can't spot it anywhere. So, maybe there's something, maybe there's not, it just stands out to me as something I feel like I remember.

What I find interesting here though is that the Falling Devil is able to traverse and open and close doors to Hell at will. Are they working alongside the Hell Devil or do they exert that much power themselves? Hard to say. What I do find interesting though is that the Falling Devil has some form of respect or understanding of Chainsaw Man. Do they have prior experience with Pochita?

And finally, finally, we see the faux Chainsaw Man again! Damn well took long enough. So, so many questions. To me? It looks like it's a Devil Hunter given the black pants and white shirt. Even more interesting is the confirmation of the "style" of the Chainsaw. It's more like teeth than blades.

Now, for whatever reason, Yoshida's popped into my head. He's aware of Fami and was previously at a café with her, so the late entry would make sense. The only thing is how Yoshida can assume the form of Chainsaw Man. It's possible for an octopus to contort itself into different shapes and they can change colors, so it really is possible. But would that be the case? I don't know, it's hard to say because Yoshida is meant to protect Denji, and this Chainsaw Man imposter seems to know a good deal about the Falling Devil and their nature, which Yoshida could have learnt from Fami.

I don't know, the chapter itself didn't really do anything to create waves, but writing this out and thinking about it has really got the gears in my head turning. I'm incredibly curious to see who this Chainsaw Man is, or if they even reveal their identity in the next chapter.

#chainsaw man #csm pt 2 #chainsaw man manga #csm manga #chainsaw man part two #chainsaw man part 2 spoilers #csm part 2 #csm spoilers #csm denji #asa mitaka #falling devil #manga recommendation #manga review #anime and manga #manga

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note-boom · 1 year

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Anyway. I just have come off from seeing last week's episode (ep 12) and while I fully support bashing it, I WILL grab a shovel and dig for some positives i found in it, so...

- Atsushi apologising to Lucy for her help because it'll brand her as criminal is REALLY sweet and all, but my boy. My dear tiger. She used to be a part of the Guild (which I know skirts international laws and all but...)

- Love. LOVED seeing Fukuchi say how much "the lone wolf" has changed BECAUSE HE HAS

- I do like that I think, so far, we haven't seen a distinct ability colour for Tachihara's ability (we might've in Yosano's ep but memory)

- Tecchou stabbing Jouno in the foot. Beautiful

- Teruko's VA. The way she switches from sweet child to cool child to just child to Adult like the TALENT

- I don't know why but the fact that Lucy's ability can go from glorified time refrigerator to the heart of the ADA's new base makes me laugh

- SIGMA. I'M JUST GLAD WE GOT HIM!

(But I want to jump on the bashing bandwagon so...under the cut)

Honestly? A lot of people have said it better than I have. And I'm not toooo familiar with the Skyfall arc, even though I have skimmed a few panels or chapters here and there.

But, hmm. My two cents on it was the classic too many characters, too little time.

Also, what I've seen, this arc is supposed to really sell just how desperate everyone is. Like, take Atsushi saying "this is Dazai's plan" after verbalizing what Ango said about getting the location of the page.

I think what this arc was supposed to do was sort of...gently refute that? Show that maybe Dazai's plan isn't the best plan or at the very least emphasize how it really is the desperation of ordinary people that move things along. Yosano said it in the manga. Dazai also said it. Even Fyodor.

I mean right here, the characters that are present might not exactly be ordinary people, but compared to the genuis and/or power of the other characters, people like the Hunting Dogs or Sigma or the Kyouka-Lucy-Atushi trio really are less extraordinary than people like Dazai, Fyodor, and Fukuchi. And yet they're the ones making (excuse the Englishy pun) the sky fall...

I think where the episode falls short the most is that they didn't capture that desperation of these guys, showing how they ALL really were just hanging by a thread. So manga skyfall, I think, shows not how Dazai's plan is supposed to work but how the intense determination and will of just some guys will make it work. Or how the plans of genuises will fail and STILL there will be ordinary people to get back up and try again. Tachihara literally using his identity crisis to overpower the book. Teruko using the simple act of growing up to stop a plane. Atsushi, Kyouka, and Lucy with their powerful abilities but comparatively "lesser" intellect figuring things out through their empathy. Sigma and his desire to belong.

Something something step 1, the ada loses credibility via powerful book. Step 2, normal people struggle and sometimes fail, sometimes come out on top of powerful book...and it sure hurts a lot

#not me being impatient and wanting to write and post this right away #one less draft i guess?#i dont know if the criticism made sense but there i go #BUT i still liked ep 12 anyway. it kinda felt like a clip compilation of all the action scenes you know?#yep yep....there we go #bungo stray dogs #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd musings #spitting nonsense #bsd season 4 #bsd s4 spoilers #bsd spoilers #too lazy to tag all the characters

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haleigh-sloth · 2 months

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I just scanned the spoilers for Bnha chapter 420 ! And one thing I wonder... in the end many heroes comes to help Deku do you think we will see Kacchan, Endeavor, Hawks, Tokoyami and more heroes or are they too badly injured to fight ? I just wonder this because many heros that came said "they are exhausted but they want to fight because Deku is doing his best”

I’ll be completely transparent:

I forgot leaks were yesterday because I’ve been so busy, so I slept through them completely forgetting they were a thing

From looking at the server I’m in, the feedback tells me I’m better off not even bothering

From looking at the feedback on tumblr, it looks like I’m better off not even bothering

From skimming the panels, it really looks like I’m better off not even bothering

I will be honest—I find all characters outside of the main focus cast extremely boring, I care very very little about them, and the fact that we detracted from the best plot line in the story to go to that, as well as seeing that Deku got his arms back for the reason he did and as quickly as he did, has me more than disappointed and feeling burnt out once again.

Looks like the manga is on break next week so I won’t be reading anything until a decent chapter comes out. If the next chapter is focusing on 1A then I won’t be reading it. What I’ve been doing—putting myself on break until I am interested in what is the focus—has been working for me. So I’m gonna keep doing that.

I really don’t have much to say on this one, so I’m sorry!

#anonymous #bnha asks #bnha spoilers #negative

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roobylavender · 2 months

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omg i always find the discussion on kishimoto and shounen writers re: writing romance and female characters really interesting bc it's so true that wider fandom refuses to engage with heroines even at the level of male characters who have the same amount of screentime/development, even more so if they occupy any sort of love interest role because they're "in the way" of m/m pairings - but i also wonder how much of this discussion has turned into "if you don't ship this (shoddily-written) heterosexual pairing you are doing a disservice to X female character" with the poor excuse that shounen series supposedly """don't focus""" on romance anyway (if that's truly the case, why does the author bother introducing it as a last-minute element by suddenly marrying off half the cast?) like if romance is going to be a genre introduced to the manga (and if any and every interaction between the two characters who end up as married in the final chapter is to be taken as romantic, then romance is indeed going to be counted as one of the story's genres), surely it needs to be taken seriously and held to the same standard as the action and fantasy world-building genres of a manga...

also not to out myself as a grandma but personally this new idea i sometimes see on reddit or twitter that "shounen authors aren't 'allowed'(?) to develop their romances properly or focus on romantic subplots" honestly disgusts me as a certified 80s manga enjoyer lmao because it's such an insult to decades of prior shounen manga that did in fact take the time to write romance well and thus didn't end up with canon pairings anywhere near as controversial as, say, the ones in nardo or bleach... like it just goes to show how little people know about the genre to be making super broad and baseless statements like that. it's got the same energy as when people read 2010s DC comics and think they've gotten the best the genre has to offer even though 1) they haven't even skimmed the surface of the material 2) modern stories are written terribly compared to their predecessors

LIKE people cite that ursula k le guin quote about H/P to talk about how it's like incredibly derivative, practically factory-generated fantasy but imo it doesn't quite hold true because H/P isn't fundamentally a fantasy story but rather a boarding school one with fantastical elements - but that quote does absolutely hold true for naruto and its role within the shounen genre because every element of it is ripped off from its betters (i.e. slam dunk, HxH, etc) yet people praised it as if it was completely original and the pinnacle of shounen... and yet despite it all, broader fan consensus still found the female characters and their romances in both the series examples i listed (that kishi clearly plagiarized from) more agreeable than the canon ones in naruto 🙈

somewhat tangential to this but i feel like what makes this phenomenon (as in the one you talk about in the last paragraph) prevalent within mainstream shounen manga specifically is the way that manga publication works to begin with. like although magazines are generally reflective of genre categorizations they need not always be so (eg clamp which has published typically shoujo content in typically shounen magazines and vice versa) and usually your serialization in a magazine happens because you applied to it through a competition. and you applied through that competition for that magazine because you were enamored with the mangaka already employed by the magazine. the wsj hierarchy is essentially a long form example of this in that many of its mangaka were either fanboys of their predecessors on the magazine and thus decided to apply to it or they were lucky enough to work as assistants to those mangaka and then spring off into their own work once they had found the footing to do so. the derivative nature of the various series in the magazine is practically manufactured! and it's a wonky sort of survival of the fittest scheme in that the successor mangakas get to pick and choose what elements that were key to their admiration they incorporate into their own work. that's how i think you get to works like naruto and bleach. i don't think it's outright plagiarism but more.. fanboy antics distilled into fanfiction that subsequently goes through an editorial process to prepare it for original publication. the twilight turned masters of the universe turned fifty shades of grey phenomenon if you will. how you fare after that then depends on your own additional input. i feel like although kishi definitely modeled some character and relationship dynamics on those of his predecessors what attracted people to his story was his world (which is ironic because it's more than arguable that his world is underdeveloped in various places) and how that world contextualized those already familiar dynamics. that's why even though the naruto-sasuke rivalry was admittedly modeled off of the yusuke-hiei one there was still a significant difference in overarching function between the two relative to their place within each series

as for the commentary on romance specifically i definitely agree with you that there's no excuse for romance writing to be taken less seriously merely because something is published in a shounen magazine lol. and frankly with respect to naruto specifically i always find this excuse to be very confusing because at least with sasusaku the writing is very intentional.. a lot of people seem to skirt over their development with respect to each other because it's convenient to ignore and that always frustrates me because kishi is more than due his fair share of criticism for any number of things but it's silly to criticize him for the absence of something when there is precisely.. no absence. i think a lot of people mistake subtlety for absence if anything. the moments when sasuke deliberates on his weakness and inability to save sakura and how that should render him worthless in her eyes are largely unimportant to naruto's readership so they either act like they never happen or they conveniently isolate sasuke's explosive reactions to that worthlessness without allowing other people to view the context that birthed them. that scene in part one where he shoves the apples away from her is one i see spread sooo often but no one ever includes the thoughts running through sasuke's head right before it happens

i do think kishi can generally be criticized for not making romance more of a focal point of his narrative because love in all of its forms is so important to that narrative and sasusaku's example in particular is quite revolutionary with respect to the world the characters occupy (as is naruhina's i would say). but i also feel like it's premature of people to say that they lack development. they only really lack development with respect to that final chapter which most people acknowledge is a corny fast-forward future written for the sake of wrapping things up in a bow. where they end up by the end of chapter 699 is pretty well predicated by the extent of their journey and people only really dislike it because where they're willing to look beyond the violence between naruto and sasuke they're not willing to do the same for sakura and sasuke. admittedly i'm biased but i do think it's one of those rare situations where people are doing a disservice to sakura if they don't even try to read into the intents behind her relationship with sasuke. i don't think people have to like it by any means but i wish there was more good faith engagement with it because there is certainly plenty to criticize about kishi but i don't think most people actually even get at what's worth criticizing because they're too busy making up excuses for him even though those excuses are supposedly supposed to be criticism loljfkldsjgdf

#this is such a mess and so convoluted i'm sorry. idek what i'm saying atp #outbox

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blackstarchanx3new · 10 months

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FSR Rambles revenge of the sixth

The titles are dumb.

I'm dumb.

We're all dumb and reading my cringey gay fan comic for a book that has completely taken over my life.

What are any of us doing here.

I don't even like starwars.

This chapter takes place during the "The Fall of Hyrule Castle" chapter aka chapter 2 of the manga.

And yeah there will be quite a few of these and I'll specify where they take place in the break downs. (I try to make it obvious in the comic itself but ya never know.)

Shadow is rambling evil little nonsense and gets dragged to the hell dimension which will look very familiar to us...

This is Dark Link's crib where he lives with all his Links hot chicks Does literally anybody get that reference lmfao.

Also where the four heroes are trapped for 7 years. Well when they stopped being disembodied voices anyway.

Vaati drags Shadow here though to talk.

Shadow's just a cutie pie that wants to please the dude Ganon's no doubt been hyping up as a good alley lmao.

So that's why he recognized the ol wind mage. He saw his divine face before. Vaati's been shown to having shapeshifting magic so I found it fitting he could just...Look like his old disguise.

With the context for this line given: Makes you wonder what else Shadow knows lol.

Vaati being a mentor figure is smth I've always kinda seen him as. I noticed after skimming Vaati's scenes in minishcap Still haven't fully READ it but holy shit there's so many interesting things that link back to FSA....Like uh...How Minish cap Link MAKES THE FOUR SWORD.

I noticed they basically share all their abilities. So I head cannoned Vaati taught him things.

I like Vaati as a pathetic simp who is also a terrible abusive father. COPE. HE'S MY VAATI I DO WHAT I WANT WITH HIM.

Since I've spoiled Hero's shade showing up at some point Woops if you haven't seen any of his art lmfao this also mirrors how he teaches Twilight Princess Link things.

Baby wanted to impress his new dad but new dad is a fan of tough parenting. Vaati sets his expectations high from the get go.

Again: Shadow recognized this attack because Vaati freakin' taught him it. X'D

Fool him once, shame on him. Fool him twice, now Vaati you're just an asshole-

Smth you might notice if you've read the manga a million times:

He blows the four heroes away EASILY but can't get Vaati to budge.

Vaati is powerful lmao not Shadow being weak. XD

Vaati also links his disappointment to physical pain.

Vaati just showing off his power while also making thin threats. A blatant display of who's more powerful, he reenforces Shadow's fear of the light.

Haha. The wording here might ring a bell if you know specific lines from the manga.

Who the hell made Shadow feel worthless before?

Vaati. The answer is Vaati lmfao. Ganon probs too but he's being ignored rn cause I'm unsure if I even wanna touch him tbh.

Vaati's advice comes in handy here actually in more ways than one:

Shadow could shift into one of the heroes, and cause problem.

Shift into Link and cause issues for them.

Also Vaati mentions nobody trusting Shadow how he is.

Ties back into how he shifts into Vio later in the actual manga hah.

Again Vaati veils his and Ganon's disappointment as something to fear, but gives Shadow a small reward of physical affection.

Shadow Link imo obviously craves physical affection so Vaati giving it here is just to keep him on the line of behaving how they want him too.

Shadow can't tell he's being yanked along oof.

Vaati makes his relationship with Shadow clear: Keep in my good graces, I will reward you. Make me angry or disapointed and I will hurt you.

Shadow likes to think he has SOME amount of superiority over Vaati, that they're at least equals but Vaati ain't interested in that.

Hahahha. So much for that plan buddy.

Shadow's eyes were red the entire scene because he's a demon.

I don't got a lot to add to these pages cause they're pretty self explanatory. XD

#four swords returns #Four Swords returns rambles #FSR rambles

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arwainian · 3 months

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Reading This Week 2024 #6-8

sits here. i have been behind on this.... once again... i think i just have to accept that i do these when i do these.

Finished Week 6 (Feb 4-10):

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (skimmed/read the spark notes for class discussion, won't be reading more)

Undoing Gender by Judith Butler (read Chapter 6 "Longing for Recognition", currently won't be reading more)

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin, narrated by Rob Inglis (started the same week, audio book was lots of fun)

i love Tenar...... i think it's really cool that the way the Earthsea books are working is that even tho Ged is a reocurring character, we get a new child perspective for each one

Orange, Vol. 4 by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis (started same week)

truly TRULY the love triangle/rivals in this are so primed to be read polyamorously it had driven me crazy. just form a triad, you all like each other

about 10 other smaller things (articles, short stories, excerpts) that i shall not be naming individually bc this post is already too long

Finished Week 7 (Feb 11-17):

Burnt Shadows by Kamila Shamsie (started in Week 6)

this book flips is like reading a multigenerational family drama with each section involving the slowly growing tension of knowing what horrific historical event/conditions they are about to live through

Venus by Susan-Lori Parks (started same week)

The Way of the House Husband by Kousuke Oono, translated by Amanda Haley (started same week)

“Experiential Gender” in Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano

“Black (W)holes and The Geometry of Black Female Sexuality” by Evelynn Hammonds

"Unsexed: A Zero Concept for Gender Studies" by Kath Weston

"Of Catamites and Kings: Reflections on Butch, Gender, and Boundaries" by Gayle Rubin (these four i read for a class that i lead the discussion four so while they fall under the category of articles i'm not mentioning right now, i felt they should be included for that reason)

a shit ton of student papers

6 smaller things (articles and abandoned books that i'm skipping for same reason as above)

Finished Week 8 (Feb 18-24):

Story of a Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam (started same week)

very in-depth descriptions of bowel movements in this

Orange, Vol. 5 by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis (started same week)

so cute! once again i am advocating for them to just form a poly triad

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan (started ages and ages ago...)

you've already seen my frantic reblog spam about this. i'm glad i finally finished reading this. the quarter 3 of it was kind a low point but i think it really captured me again by the end (however, i think the like... FINAL two pages are really scream "remember! that this is technically inspired by some real history!" in a way i found unneccesary and kinda too me out of the satisfaction of the end). i think the ending worked for me because Ma was really underused (i know it would have made the book kinda bloated but i would have loved a chapter or two of her perspective holding down the fort and dealing with internal politics while Zhu was away doing war things....), so her role in the finale was what really solidified it for me. this book drove me crazy in a great way, i think so many people should read She Who Became the Sun and then this sequel

Witch Hat Atelier, Vol. 11 by Kamome Shirahama, translated by Stephen Kohler (started same week)

the panelling in this manga is simply so fucking good. read this. its so cute

Orange, Vol. 6: Future by Ichigo Takano, translated by Amber Tamosaitis (started same week)

i don't think this volume was necessary lol... i did not need to know how Suwa and Naho got together in the future where Kakeru died, it was better as implications

Ongoing Reads:

Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree (read another chapter)

i am so sorry to my girlfriend who has to deal with me complaining about this book i am reading to her after every chapter... i am glad she is enjoying it regardless

The Farther Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin, narrated by Rob Inglis (about halfway through)

The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien (basically read the preface material so far)

#cal reading log #arwainian princessoid decrees

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kingleeh · 2 years

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It's clear what happened here. We've all been reading different versions of Tokyo Revengers this whole time.

I've tried many times to understand how this ending can be acceptable as 'logical' or 'making sense' or 'happy' and it's just not coming to me.

There are two options here.

The Author was told to wrap up IMMEDIATELY with no warning and he had to cram 50 chapters into 2.

Something happened to the amazing writer that is Ken Wakui and someone else, who's never actually done more than skim the manga, had to finish it off.

I am a huge advocate against attacking Writers because they go somewhere different than I thought. A writers story is their own to do with what they please.

That does not mean I, the reader, am not allowed to question it when those things don't align with everything else we've been told so far. Pairing up a couple I don't like would be one thing, but throwing the entire story and it's meaning in the trash is another.

This isn't just about the characters not being those we've grown to love and care for during the whole story, (which is still a perfectly reasonable reason to be upset), that was to be expected if this ending were to go the Time Leap route.

Just make it make sense. And it is absolutley not doing that.

And before someone starts, no, I'm not opposed to a happy ending. I'm a slut for 'they all lived happily ever after'.

But I value logic and sense more than I value soulless panels of people I don't know smiling and being happy for events that make no logical sense.

#I'll revisit this post when the chapter comes out #just in case #if anyone has a logical way to explain some things #id be happy listen #tokyo revengers spoilers #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers manga spoilers #tokrev #tokyo revengers manga #tokyo revengers ending #tokyo revengers 277 #tokyo revengers 278 #yes im reblogging myself #some things must to be said twice.#some things need to be said twice #what a bitch slap this turned out to be

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ramblesofthemad · 4 months

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What if the BSD Great War...

So while doing some digging around while working on one of my many analysis projects…my brain began to create a weird rabbit hole theory that seems so crazy but it could be like 10% possible.

As we all know as members of this fandom, there was “The Great War” that occurred 15 years before the start of the running manga. Yet, we are given such little details about such a detrimental event for multiple big-name characters within the series. It makes me question why this might be the case. While I can't pick apart Asagiri to the point where I can figure out his own personal crazy thinking, I can theorize the plausibility that this war was based on a real-life historical event, given the fact that a good 90% of our cast was real people as well, with their BSD relationships reflecting large similarities as the real-life relationships between the authors.

Now that is said, here is what i came up with…WHAT IF this war we speak off is a odd play off World War II.

Don’t throw me to the wolves here, I have no clue if anyone else has thought this either… But hear out at least my breakdown:

Evidence piece number one: Basically as mentioned above, Asagiri uses historical authors and plays the switcheroo game, religiously.

What started as me just trying to figure out what chapter Yosano’s backstory began in, I came across this line in an article breaking down her experience with the war that reminded me that in true international history, WWI was considered The Great War. I stated our Great War is the second one though, but here's why I say it is indeed the second one. We know Asagiri brings in characters that influenced or knew each other in real life, but he does not keep all the facts true with a lot of rearranging of the order of ages and who mentored who, For Example, look at Dazai and Akutagawa; where in the series Aku looks up to Dazai, but in real life it was Aku that inspired Dazai. Yet on the other hand, we also know that if you were to look at the average period most of the authors came from, taking out our lovely Russian friends and a few others, the majority come from the years that are considered pre-WWII to post-WWII. So would it not make sense that he would use people who did experience wartime in real life to have experienced a similar war in this worldly universe as well, which was WWII. This brings us to the next part that looks at the question: so he switched around some things, but why would he need to do that?

Evidence piece number two: If you look at details from light novels and certain parts of our main story…the alliances between certain countries look oddly familiar.

I will not lie that I have not read these light novels in a hot minute and I've consumed a lot of other media, so my memories are a bit hazy. But from skimming plot summaries for the books “Stormbringer” and “55 Minutes”(credit to the ppl on this website that give these details) I began to notice something. There are three major groups of authors, once again taking out the Russians, we have the French (who worked in tandem with the English), the Japanese, and the unnamed Germans (besides our man Johann who is mentioned in 55 minutes, I believe). Now pair the countries with how the events played out with the relaying of information about the singularity research, the research that is considered to be one of the major reasons the Great War had even begun, the pairing between countries reflected eerily familiar to the allied and axis powers during the real WWII. The timeline that I have worked it out to be is Germany theorized it first then stolen by France, who succeeded, then stolen again by Germany, and then handed over to Japan, who then also succeeded.

Evidence number three: Comparing the facts to WWII and the descriptions we receive from the characters in Bungo about the Great War, there are a lot of indirect overlaps.

Since Asagiri made it that out of any event of the series prior to the start of the running manga, he chose the Great War to have the least amount of number facts to its name. Yet, by looking at how the great war within the series is described by the characters who experienced it and then looking at the basic facts about WWII as well, the "events" of Bungo's war are quite familiar. I will say that history was never a class I paid close attention to at any point in my life, but Wikipedia is helping the case here. Whether it is the fact they focus on how it was filled with science and technology advances that led to the deadliest parts of the war. Or the fact that islands played a huge role in many events from the war. There are just enough overlaps for me to consider this as evidence.

And more recently discovered...evidence number four: The book that inspired Asagiri to even create bungo stray dogs was, you can guess, related to WWII.

While I was looking into the career paths that Asagiri had before he became an author, it was mentioned that a book by the late author Shusaku Endo named Ryugaku, which is set post WWII. There are also similarities between the countries used during the great war in Europe and the countries mentioned in this book. This book, combined with Dazai's own novel that also inspired him, gives great sway to the time frame Bungo is actually set in.

Overall all of this could be my delusions doing its delusion things, but I do believe that I can fancy my brain for one minute. Thanks if you decided to read all the way through!

#bungo stray dogs #bsd theories #bsd thoughts #bsd #bsd fandom #media analysis #spilled thoughts #what if

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