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esmeraldablazingsky · 4 years

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I’ve finally hit my limit on the number of bad takes on the Lan parents I can see before I have to lay out all the reasons I disagree, so hello, I’m Blazie, and in this essay I will justify my visceral dislike of the assumption that Qingheng-jun married/imprisoned/had sex with Lan-furen against her will.

Warning for mentions of rape (in context of Interpretations I Really Hate) and a very, VERY long post below the cut.

Before I start going off about the finer points of all this, I want to make sure people are on the same page regarding what we actually know about what went down with Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen. What I say is based off the EXR translation of MDZS, for the sake of clarity, and although I don’t think the exact wording should be too important, feel free to let me know if you think I’ve missed an important bit of nuance or something (the whole story is in Chapter 64.)

The story we get is told by Lan Xichen, and it goes like this: a young Qingheng-jun falls in love at first sight with Lan-furen, who doesn’t return his feelings, and at some point kills one of Qingheng-jun’s teachers over unspecified “grievances.” Although he’s understandably very upset over the murder, Qingheng-jun sneaks Lan-furen back to Cloud Recesses and officially marries her in order to announce to his clan that anyone who wants to hurt her has to go through him.

After that, he locks Lan-furen in one house and himself in another as a form of repentance. Wei Wuxian speculates that this was because “he could neither forgive the one who killed his teacher nor watch the death of the woman who he loved. He could only marry her to protect her life and force himself not to see her.”

A central detail of this story that I think people don’t give the import it deserves is that aside from marrying and protecting her, Qingheng-jun’s other option was to let Lan-furen be executed by his clan. His purpose in marrying her wasn’t just for kicks/out of a possessive sort of love, it was so she wouldn’t straight up die. How she felt about this arrangement isn’t stated, but I’ll get into that in a bit. In addition to that, Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen live separately, which was apparently purposeful on Qingheng-jun’s part, and runs counter to the interpretation that he intended to take sexual advantage of Lan-furen.

Though there aren’t many concrete details in Lan Xichen’s retelling, he does specifically inform Wei Wuxian that his mother never complained about remaining in her house. What exactly this signifies is unclear— whether she was simply putting on a brave face for her sons, or whether she was in fact at all content with the situation— but it at the very least serves to further muddy the waters on how she and Qingheng-jun felt about all this.

Beyond what Lan Xichen and Wei Wuxian are saying out loud, there’s also quite a bit of subtext in this scene, especially in light of later events and revelations, like Lan Xichen’s confession for Lan Wangji at Guanyin Temple.

So what is Lan Xichen trying to convey with all this? There’s a lot of memes about this scene, most of which err too far on the side of Himbo Airhead Lan Xichen for my liking, but one that I do find amusing emphasizes how Lan Xichen draws parallels between Wangxian and the story of his parents (Lan Xichen: [flute solo] please use your one brain cell to connect the dots.) If Wei Wuxian hadn’t completely lost his memory of Lan Wangji defending him against his own clan elders, one would assume that Lan Xichen’s story would have had a much better chance of hitting home.

In hindsight and side by side, the parallels are much clearer— Qingheng-jun, “ignoring the objections from his clan… told everyone in the clan that she would be his wife for the rest of his life, that whoever wanted to harm her would have to pass through him first.” Similarly, according to Lan Xichen in Chapter 99, “for [Wei Wuxian,] not only did WangJi talk back to him, he even met with his sword the cultivators from the GusuLan Sect. He heavily injured all thirty-three of the seniors we asked to come.”

In that context, it makes a lot less sense to interpret Qingheng-jun as an aggressor towards Lan-furen, as in Lan Wangji’s case, the narrative clearly establishes that his actions are to secure Wei Wuxian’s safety. The action of Taking Someone Back To Cloud Recesses is— okay, actually, it’s a little more nuanced than I took into account when I started writing that sentence, so let me go a little deeper into Lan Wangji’s actions and how they relate to his father’s, story-wise.

My intent is not to dive into the terrifying underworld of novel-versus-drama discourse, but simply put, Novel!Lan Wangji as he is written isn’t exactly the poster child for clear consent. (I’m going to entirely leave off the extra chapters for the sake of everyone’s sanity, so I’m just talking about the main body of the novel here.)

He means well, and I’m sure we can agree that he does actually love and want the best for Wei Wuxian, but his lack of communication on this point means that he accidentally gives Wei Wuxian the impression that he wants to imprison and/or punish him in Cloud Recesses at least twice off the top of my head (pre-timeskip, as we know, and post-timeskip immediately after Dafan Mountain when he actually drags Wei Wuxian back to his room.)

That all likely has something to do with MXTX’s narrative kinks and regular kinks and all that, and can absolutely be taken with many grains of salt. However, these events establish how easy it is to misinterpret the action of Taking Someone Back To Gusu as an attempt to imprison rather than protect them (much to Lan Wangji’s chagrin.)

Failing to communicate his purpose to Wei Wuxian doesn’t mean that Lan Wangji actually had any intent of hurting or caging him— that was just a misinterpretation on Wei Wuxian’s part, and we, as the audience, find that out in due time— but as written in the novel, it can be really uncomfortable to read. Because of that, many people choose to accept CQL canon regarding Lan Wangji’s more possessive actions or mix characterization from different adaptations, which, to be clear, I completely understand and respect.

However, Qingheng-jun doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt as often, which I frankly find baffling, because nowhere in the text does it state that Lan-furen objected to being taken back to Cloud Recesses, while even Wei Wuxian clearly objected the first few times. In fact, while we’re on this note, I’ll take it a step farther— I find it baffling that people seem to default to an unsympathetic view of Qingheng-jun, because nowhere in the text does it state that he overruled Lan-furen’s wishes in any way. The text doesn’t clarify a lot of things, actually, and that is part of the point.

The narrators of MDZS are, in many situations, highly unreliable. This is, presumably, very purposeful! MDZS can easily be read as a sharp criticism of reputation and mass judgment and the concept of condemning people without knowing their motives! And I don’t want to sound mean, but guys… did any of us learn anything from that? Here, I’m going to put it in meme format for a second to convey what I mean.

MDZS: It’s easy to condemn someone as a villain if you don’t know their story or the reasons behind their actions

MDZS: Anyway, here’s a character whose story and reasons behind his actions you know nothing about

Some Parts Of This Fandom: Ah, a villain

Memes aside, here’s what I want to point out. It’s entirely possible to assume Qingheng-jun was a bad person who disregarded a woman’s wishes in marrying and confining her when all you have is Lan Xichen’s (actually very neutral, thank you Lan Xichen for being an eminently reasonable and concerned-with-evidence character) account of what happened. It would also be at least that easy to assume Wei Wuxian was just an evil necromancer if he hadn’t un-died and brought his own story to light, or even to believe that Lan Wangji had somehow tamed Wei Wuxian into submission and being a respectable cultivator if you were an average citizen of Fantasy Ancient China with nothing but rumors to operate on.

The thing about Qingheng-jun and Lan-furen’s story, then, is that there is nobody left alive who knows the full tale. Nobody knows what they thought about anything, really. Nobody even knows why Lan-furen killed Qingheng-jun’s teacher. Wei Wuxian asks why, and Lan Xichen can’t tell him, but I think the best answer would be something along the lines of I don’t know, Wei Wuxian, why did you kill people? Your guess on the motivations of your own thinly disguised narrative parallel are as good as anyone’s.

So, while it’s not technically impossible to assign darker motives to Qingheng-jun, the cautionary tale of MDZS seems to warn against that exact assumption.

I’ve refrained from getting too salty on a personal level thus far, but now that I’ve said a lot of the more logical and story-based points of my argument, I will say that at least some of my annoyance with the interpretation of Qingheng-jun as a possessive rapist and Lan-furen as his victim stems from the fact that I just think it’s straight up boring. Where’s the nuance? Aren’t you tired of reducing these characters to the flattest possible versions of themselves? Don’t you just want to add a little flavor?

In a slightly more serious phrasing of that criticism, I find that making Lan-furen a helpless prisoner strips her of whatever agency she might otherwise have. To be fair, she’s more or less a non-character in keeping with the general state of the MDZS universe, but making her a damsel in distress only consigns her more deeply to hapless, milquetoast innocence.

It’s perfectly valid to enjoy ladies who have done nothing wrong, ever, in their lives, but like… Qin Su is right there, if that’s your ball game. There’s also really no need to make Qingheng-jun someone who doesn’t respect women. Isn’t Jin Guangshan enough for at least one universe?

Anyway, ultimately, you do you. I don’t like arguing on the internet, and will just ignore things I don’t agree with (or write an 1800 word vaguepost) like a mature human being. I’m just saying, if it’s a cut and dry tale of imprisonment and assault you’re looking for… you probably don’t want to turn to a woman who committed a murder and a man who loved her enough to forfeit everything to keep her safe.

#mdzs #qingheng jun #madam lan #lan wangji #wei wuxian #(in a narrative parallels context)#blazie .txt #anyway without further ado here is my.... essay?#rape mention

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aizawaskittenwhore · 3 years

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𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐮𝐭

words:3.7k

pairing: aizawa x fem!reader

warnings: tw mention of blood, tw mentions of death, mentions of drugs in case you forgot this is a cartel au, murder, swearing, keigo being a cocky lil fucker, sexual harassment towards the end cause yakuza men suck

rating: 18+ cause shit gets real this chapter

a/n: i FINALLY FINISHED IT FUCK YES chapter two mothafuckas!!! i’ve been having so much fun brainstorming everything to come, and here you’re gonna really get a feel for how big this cartel is. player two, f/n l/n, you’re up! <3

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐨: 𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐝’𝐬 𝐞𝐲𝐞 𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰 ↳ 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞

September 13th, 2181

2:56pm

Musutafu, Japan

“Hold the fuck up. This doesn’t make any sense, I mean—these are Pros. Well known and well respected Pros, at that. The hell would they be tryna’ run a fucking cartel for?!?” Ken Takagi (more commonly known as Rock Lock) rubbed the bridge of his nose in confusion, not understanding the motive or correlation. “I mean think about it. These motherfuckers got more money than they know what to do with. Endeavor is a shareholder in goddamn Nintendo, Hawks owns his own fucking agency and line of sports cars, and I could’ve sworn I saw Eraser getting Shinsou fitted for a fucking Cuban on his birthday a few months ago. It’s not like they’re strapped for cash these days.” Ken huffed, the agent’s arms crossed as he leaned back in the conference chair.

In an attempt to try and broaden the range on your current investigation, your department recruited the help of several Pros to provide reinforcements in Japan, the States, and wherever else sales were being made. Going undercover was already plenty dangerous, and going alone was the equivalent of signing your own death warrant. Enlisting the help of Rock Lock, Ryukyu, Miruko, Fatgum, Edgeshot and plenty of others was relatively easy; these were Heroes that had experience with smugglers and narcotics-based operations, so when you’d approached them with the task at hand, they’d happily agreed.

However, some needed more convincing than others.

“Takagi. Think about it. Sure, they may not be living paycheck to paycheck, but look at the timeline.” You state, looking over your shoulder towards the holographic board displaying an interactive timeline of the investigation, including photos, invoices and even audio recordings pulled from surveillance cameras. “Two years ago, we seized a truck containing approximately 78 kilograms of crack cocaine. When we questioned the driver on where he was taking it and where he got it from, he didn’t budge. Luckily for us, the dumbass wasn’t smart enough to avoid a paper trail, leaving the insurance documents in the glove compartment when we’d taken him into custody. The insurance company was under the name “Target Lance”, but after doing some digging on the name we found out the corporation went bankrupt six months before and was eventually bought out by Chevrolet.” Pausing to return to the screen welded to the wall behind you, your hands swiped as you searched for the file reading December 5th, 2178: A live video feed of a towering skyscraper being built, the building’s name reading “Chevrolet Corvette Inc.” as it hovered above tens of stories above each worker.

“But you all haven’t heard the name Chevy in a while right? That’s because two weeks after that building was built, the hundred-million dollar company was bought out by Takami Corporate-”

“-who owns Takami Motors. Which is the brand associated with the Peregrine Speedsters, Hawks’ damned sports car line.” Ken finished for you, brown spheres twinkling in sudden clarity. “Now you’re speaking my language.” You nod, hands waving as you continue to brief the room of Pros.

“The Todoroki and Nintendo console collaboration didn’t happen until about earlier this year, March to be specific. Which is quite convenient..since around that time the price of cocaine per gram stabilized in both America and Japan, rising from $112 to $138 bucks a pop. I’m nobody to speak on looks either, but for as long as we’ve known of him, Eraser has dressed like a depressed college student with insomnia that doesn’t understand the concept of soap or a pair of clippers. Now he’s got his wife in Cartier bracelets and getting his shirts tailored because the collar “doesn’t allow him enough room for his capture weapon”?!? Bullshit.” You huff, stifling a smile as you watch Miruko and Edgeshot snicker in their seats at your...blunt observation.

“It makes sense. Three years ago all our agencies, including those overseas, started cutting our checks down by half. They can barely afford to pay us a quarter of what we used to make, and these guys are making these lavish purchases while we all starve?? No way. Something’s fishy, and it’s damn sure not this takoyaki.” Fatgum spat, hands quivering with rage as he struggled to grasp the food with his chopsticks.

“Fatgum’s right. Hero unemployment is at a staggering 8.7 percent. Meanwhile, these men are spending money like it’s going out of style. It makes no sense.” Miruko pondered, Ryukyu folding her hands in her lap as she voiced her approval for immediate action. Edgeshot nodded in agreement, brows furrowed in frustration at this blatant disregard for the law. “So we’re all in agreement that our own people have resorted to breaking the law. Cool, got it. Question is, why? And what the hell are we gonna do about it?” Ken demanded, his patience having worn thin from all this speculation.

“Good question. I think they’re trying to take advantage of the tough spot the Hero Commission is in right now, manipulate that vulnerability and use it for their own gain. They’re not invulnerable to the tough times Pros are facing in the workforce. So they’ve gotten together to try and make it work for them, even if it means breaking the law.” You query, hands typing furiously at the virtual screen to pull up the files of each Hero, displaying all the current information on them from their blood type to each known family member. “These three banding together though? Along with other people? There’s no way. They hate each other. Or at the very least couldn’t get anything done even if they did have a common goal in mind.” Edgeshot murmured lowly.

“I thought so too. But then it hit me: it’s not just some flimsy group project. Sure, crime has gone up since the formation of this cartel, but nobody who holds any rank has been murdered or harmed in any way. No no no, these guys are singing in tune for now...which means there’s a damn good choir director among them. So I’ve volunteered to go undercover, work my way through this organization and figure out just how high up this goes.” You assert, shoulders rigid and chin aloft as the harnesses of your costume frame your figure.

“Alone?? Are you outta your goddamn mind? Let me go, you’ll need back up-” Rock Lock sputters, hands fanning out in shock.

“No way. What about your wife, your kid?! This isn’t just some average drug bust, we’re dealing with powerful men in possession of superhuman abilities that have the game on lockdown. You’ve got too much to lose, more than any of us anyway. Edgeshot and I will go, we’ve seen the other side of the law before, and our quirks are better suited for stealth should anything go wrong.” You fire, eyes narrowing into slits. “The rest of you will be working in tandem with the DEA and our resources, and we’ll report back to you with all future developments. We’ll also need you to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice, if we need it.”

A thick silence clogged the air, Ken settling back into his seat across the table. His amber eyes flickered in irritation before huffing in acceptance, the situation being out of his hands. All the conference participants’ gazes fixed in determination, some with anger. The tense aura weighed on everyone present before Miruko cleared her throat, ivory teeth gleaming in a smirk.

“Well we’ve got a solid plan. So all I wanna know is...when do we start?

June 2nd, 2182

In all honesty...you thought the nickname was just a sad attempt to stroke his ego. But seeing the way over seventy commercial-size planes and approximately 30 seaplanes sat aloft balmy concrete in the Guadalajara sun showed you exactly why they called Hawks “Lord of The Skies”. Arrays of laborers with avian-oriented quirks loaded kilo after kilo of coke on to each and every plane, some by hand and others by forklift. Welders were personally hand selected by Keigo himself to eliminate the issue of utilizing every available inch of space; each vessel having been stripped of everything from the seats to the built in mini-bars (much to Keigo’s chagrin). From where you stood in the scalding hot beams, the runway seemed to extend for miles as it brimmed with visible heat-waves.

Dressed in a simple black tank top, black biker type shorts, aluminum plated gauntlets, steel toed combat boots and harnesses that encapsulated the curves of your body before coming to a stop at your thighs, you silently rejoiced in the airflow your gear allowed you in spite of the color. The bandanna atop your hairline helped to absorb some of the sweat, which was a bonus.

“Not bad for a starter fleet huh? The wingspan on these babies almost makes me jealous.” A rich and decadent voice called from your left. Sleek carmine appendages and brassy blond hair entered your peripheral vision, giving way to the man who ran the show: Keigo Takami. Adorned in a pair of low rise denim jeans that were so incomprehensibly tight they accentuated every bit of his dick (which was likely intentional), a plain white tee and ebony cowboy boots that looked like they cost three times what you make in a week; he most definitely looked the part of the People Magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” and Playboy’s “Player of the Month” titles he’d earned. Luminous olive skin glistened with sweat, droplets sliding down the deep v neck of his shirt with ease; the way the daisy-hued fabric stuck to his crafted abdomen leaving nothing to the imagination. Tourmaline and Argentium piercings dangled effortlessly from both ears, and if you weren’t so hell-bent on putting the motherfucker in jail you would’ve had no problem admitting how attractive he really was.

“Starter fleet? You’re about to put Delta out of business, look at this shit!” You guffaw, arms folded, an eyebrow raised in astonishment at his “humble” admission. “Flattery will get you everywhere, and then some.” Keigo chuckles, breath hot against your ear the instant he bends at the waist, hands settled in his pockets with that cocky aura about him.

“-And having your damn breath against my ear in 107 degree weather will, respectfully, get you my foot up your ass. I didn’t fly down here to get treated like one of your poor interns. I came here to make money, so let’s talk it.” You lash, the climbing tempature slicing your tolerance for bullshit to shreds.

“Shit. Straight to the point huh? I like it. You wanna talk shop, say no more. Over lunch though, I’m starving out here.” Keigo clicks his teeth with a grin, escorting the two of you towards the very jet he’d arrived in. “A little unknown fact about me, usually I hate flying ”conventionally”. Gives me anxiety, and I’m awful company when I’m nervous.”

Settling into the light taupe hued cabin, you observe the not-so-subtle elements of class. Ivory shochu bottles with intricate crystalline glasses to match, the bar fully stocked with gold accents along the upholstery. Plates of costly Kobe style beef rested atop spotless porcelain, romaine lettuce coupled with grilled applewood bacon, chicken, avocado and buttermilk dressing settled into envy-inducing black marble bowls. The plane was spacious, and certainly cost a pretty penny or two. “You’re upfront, so I’ll be honest with you. As of right now, this plane is the last thing I’m worried about-” Hawks mutters lowly, dijon eyelets tapering into thin slivers.

“-It’s the Shie Hassaikai making their encore appearance, and with the Colombians at that.”

You choke on a sip of Vega Sicilia, pupils dilating at the thought.

“Now you spoke about wanting to make some money, right?” You nod, heart rate steadily rising.

“What if I could offer you something more? Something of...extensive value.” Keigo drawled, dark undertone flooding the air like a thick smoke. “Like what, Takami?” You inquire.

“A seat at the table.” He shrugs, like one would if they were discussing something as trivial as ice cream flavors or Friday night plans, not the reorganization of a crime syndicate. “You’ve been workin’ for me shy of a year now right? Somethin’ like that? Anyway..”

He takes a deep, contemplative swig of the chestnut liquid, eyes boring into yours.

“You’re efficient, and you don’t take anyone’s shit. Good help’s hard to find in our line of work, and before you know it, this little hierarchy is gonna go under some..reorganization. Only the people who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty will have a place in the new order, so I want you there.”

“What’s the catch? I’m not dumb enough to just assume this is some promotion for busting my ass.” You tread, brain working double-time to try and decipher just what Keigo’s getting at. “Clever girl. It’s a simple task, in and out.” He assures, middle and ring finger sliding a matte-finish photo across the mahogany. Displayed was Kinan Zango, a member of the Shie Hassaikai’s middle rankings shaking hands with Joaquin Fuentes, a Columbia native known for having a body count in the double digits.

“Another fact about me: Only one thing heightens my anxiety more than planes...people who fuck with my money. This asshole Kinan’s been selling my routes to the fucking Columbians and pocketing the profits, and getting 20% of the product as a little “thank you” when he knows nobody moves coke through the Gulf other than Takami fucking Keigo. He’s becoming a problem, and I don't like those.” Kei growls, left eye twitching minutely. His nails are sinking into the polish of the wood, his energy vehemently furious.

“Take care of this for me, and you’ll be my plus one to Guadalajara tomorrow.”

The general public often made the mistake of writing Keigo off as just your average “pretty boy”. Whereas a trained eye could see that while he may be pretty, he was nobody to be tested. The sheer intellect he possesses to seek, hand-craft each and every route, assign planes to their designated locations along with alternatives should there ever be an issue? He just didn’t get enough credit.

So he took major offense when someone had the audacity to treat his hard work as though it was theirs.

Besides.. you got a man with looks, money and bloodlust? Tch. You’ve just created a monster.

You weren’t necessarily opposed to the idea of ridding the world of another drug-dealing degenerate, but the idea of casually committing a murder as a DEA agent in a foreign country just didn't sit right with you. Undercover agents weren’t permitted a “license to kill” should the investigation call for it either, so it was between committing a murder as government agent, or declining Keigo’s request and missing out on a front row seat to the cartel’s entire operation.

The silence that followed his sentence was deafening. Ice cubes chimed loftily as they swirled around inside his glass, clear liquid sloshing around while he awaited an answer.

Your jaw sets, eyes piercing into his.

“Consider it done.”

Blood spattered onto the pale concrete, moonlight illuminating the scarlet hues. Your knuckles throbbed with pain, the sensation blossoming through your hand as your lips curled back in a snarl, vigorously ridding your hands of the other man’s bodily fluids.

“ If you really think coming after me for that bird brained motherfucker is gonna change anything, you got another thing fucking coming.” Kinan spat, nose steadily flowing with red. His lip was busted, face splotched with yellowing purple bruises. Tugging at his restraints he thrashed, mouth spewing white-hot venom.

“You’re talking a lot of shit for a middle-ranking yakuza who thinks some new coke routes is gonna keep the Hassaikai from dumping your body on the side of some road in Zacatecas.” You observe, sending a harsh kick between the mans ribs, steel toed boots making an audible crack. “The Japanese are like Dixie Cups to them...”‘use em’ once, then throw em’ away”, right? You’re a fool if you think your days aren't numbered once you wear out your welcome.”

“Fuck you. You’re little boy toy threw a temper tantrum, so he sent you to “take care of things”, isn’t that right?” Kinan coos, eyes softening in a mocking pout.

“Trust me, you're not the first slut Takami’s been sticking it in that he’s sent to kill me. Only difference between you and the rest of those bitches-” He huffs, head craning back against the metal chair to let our a soft breath of laughter. “-is that you’re gonna put up a fight.”

Suddenly his bones began to shift, popping and snapping as his skin began to pool below him; you recoiled in fear watching his body slowly slip from his imprisonment like gelatin exits a mold.

“I’ve got elastic bones kid! Whatever breaks just snaps right back into place.”

Skin stretching and pulling as he regained his original form, legs sprinting towards you. Before you could fire off your Quirk’s sonic blast his grip seized the back of your neck, a blade taking residence just below your left eye; it’s tip pressing uncomfortably into your water line.

“Now, if you're good, I’ll make it quick. Though I’m known for being pretty... through with my toys.” Kinan leers, a hand slowly slithering down your sides to reach for the muscle of your ass.

“Go to hell, and die there while you’re at it!” You shout.

Bile creeping into your throat, you seize the momentary shift in energy, generating a small sound wave that sent Kinan a few feet to your left; giving the two of you some distance. Your Quirk allowed you to absorb sound to power-up your physical movements, or send it out in the form of sonic blasts or sound waves, so the louder the sound, the more power it gave you. Readying your fists in anticipation for combat, you silently willed for a sudden disruption in the deafening silence as he rushed back to your rigid body.

What you didn’t anticipate was that the sudden bang that filled the air, and the lifeless body of Kinan dropping to your feet with a thud, his head...

excavated, for lack of a better word.

“Don’t you know the entire point of having backup while under cover is to... call for backup?” Edgeshot snarked, striding towards you, gun settled back into it’s holster. His foot carelessly nudged the bleeding man before removing a Polaroid camera from his knapsack and snapping a photo of the carnage.

“W-what the fuck?! Look, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful when I say this, but what the absolute fuck did you just do??? We’re government agents, in a foreign country, we can’t just fucking murder these assholes nor do we have the license to-” You sputter, brows arching in frustration.

“This was your ticket into Guadalajara. I just secured you box seats when you were this close to getting stuck in the damned nosebleeds. I believe the correct words you’re looking for are thank you.” Kamihara snaps, shoving the photo into your hand.

“We’re in a world completely different from our own. It’s forgiveness first, and permission later down here. I don’t like it either...but it’s just the way things are.” He sighs, hanging his head while his shoulders settled like the solar system rested on them.

“I’ll take care of this. Now take that to Hawks, and don’t you dare fuck it up. Don’t let me have killed this poor asshole in vain.”

You nod, stepping over Kinan’s body.

Good riddance.

“Thank you, by the way.” You putter. Kamihara returns the sentiment with a nod, before turning to the corpse before him, phone raised to his ear as he spoke with whoever was on the opposite line, eyes that were once grey now swam with deep scarlet.

“Excellent work! I won’t lie, I had a feeling you were hardcore, but damn, this is some seamless shit! You deserve my praise.” Keigo beams, pearly teeth sparkling in the light of the cabin. Nodding in acceptance you grasped his hand upon his offering, permitting him to escort you towards your respective aircraft.

“Well, a promise is a promise. And if nothing else, I’m most certainly a man of my word. Meet me at this airstrip same time tomorrow, 8am. Pack light, Mexico’s a bitch in the summer, though you already know that.”

“Got it. Pleasure doing business with you, Hawks.”

“Call me Keigo, if you want. I hate all the formal shit, long as we got respect, that's all I need.” He shrugs.

“Understood. See you tomorrow, Keigo.” You affirm, climbing the ladder to your jet, body visibly relaxing at the thought of rest.

“Wait--before you go, I wanted to ask ya. What’s with the whole ancient hieroglyphics tat you got goin on, on your spine? It just looks familiar, is all.” He queries.

Home.

November 12th, 2174.

“Y/N! I found somethin’! It’s this super cool protection rune I found in grandma’s things. Check it out! It wards off all evil, and whoever’s in possession of it can, like, balance their energy with the divine power.”

“You’re such a hippie, I swear to god.” You grin.

“Don’t hate because my chakras are balanced and yours aren’t, bitch.” She grinned, index and thumb coming together to flick your forehead.

“At least take it with you for your exam, for good luck! Pleaseeeee! I think it’ll really help.” Her doe eyes melting your steely resolve. You could never deny her, those eyes constantly solidifying her role as the younger sister.

“...Only if you’ll clean my room for me when I come back for Christmas.” You demand, an eyebrow raised in mirth.

“Deal.”

And even though you never did admit it to her, that tiny piece of paper tucked into your bra did more for you during that exam than any late night cram session ever could’ve.

“It’s a protection rune. To ward off all evil energies, spirits and all that shit.” You mutter.

“Hm. Looks like it works, seeing how well tonight panned out for ya. Could use me one, would probably keep old man Todoroki out my fuckin’ hair.” He chuckles, hands releasing from the railing as he threw you a wave.

“But I wouldn’t worry too much about tomorrow, anyway. I got a feeling you’re gonna fit in just fine with us.” He smirked.

Ah.

If only that were true, Keigo.

taglist! : @liliesoftherainmain @therealwalmartjesus

#aizawa x female reader #mha x reader #aizawa x reader #shouta aizawa x reader #aizawa x you #mha #bnha x reader #hawks #nyafterhours

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miralia · 3 years

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Speculation on the Historical Influences on the Kyoshi Warriors of Avatar

(Disclaimer: I know there are multiple influences. This is just something I found that I thought was really interesting. And we’re not going to get into how ATLA appropriated, appreciated, and cherry-picked Asian cultures. This is just a fun thing I found out. It might just be a coincidence. If you wanted an essay on “how terrible Bryke is”, go under the “anti bryke” tag and laugh at the toxicity. This is about history.)

I don’t know if this has been done already, but I was really excited when I found out, so I had to share!

So, I’m not quite sure how I found this out, but I think I was both off-and-on researching premodern combat weapons of different cultures (link here if you want to spend a few hours ogling swords and daggers) and trying to figure out what kinds of cultural things influenced the Kyoshi Warriors. I figured out (at least I’m pretty sure I did, sword experts feel free to correct me) that they do, in fact, wield the Japanese katana (I don’t know which period. Not trying to lump anything together, just thought it was best to refer to it as a collective for fear of being wrong). This was kind of odd to me, as the Earth Kingdom appeared to have *mainly* Tang and Qing dynasty influences. So I decided to dig a little deeper on this subject.

(SECOND Disclaimer: People more well-versed in the different parts of Asian culture I will be referencing can tell me I’m wrong in the comments and I’ll edit this. I really and truly am not trying to be offensive or say my opinion is correct blindly, but at the same time, I did do my research and that has to count for something.)

Introduction

I’m an ATLA nut, as well as an Asian women’s dress nut. I’ve made connections between real clothing and ATLA clothing before, but then realized that other people had already done it, and done it much better.

But I haven’t seen anyone really talk about the inspiration behind the Kyoshi Warriors yet, besides a few mentions, so here I am with my two cents!

The First Thing (Swords)

The first thing I noticed that started me on this quest was realizing that the Kyoshi Warriors wield katanas (also called nihonto), as opposed to a Chinese weapon that would be more fitting for their position in the Earth kingdom (like we see with Jet’s hook swords).

For clarification, I figured this out by using still frames of Suki from the show, then measuring the rough length of her sword to her height, approximating the length to see if it would be correct (it was). Then I watched the video of the Kyoshi Warriors’ fight with Team Azula, which is (if I’m not mistaken) the only time we actually see them use their swords as well as their fans.

In a few frames, we can see Suki’s sword has the characteristic tsuka ito (cord wrap) around the hilt of her sword, a gold-colored habaki (blade collar), as well as a golden kashira (butt cap/pommel), paired with a golden fuchi (a band at the end of the handle before the tsuba (guard)) to make a fuchigashira. From what I can gather, these are usually intricately decorated, but we can blame early 2000s animation for exempting that detail.

But anyway, the presence of the katana got me thinking. What other Japanese influences are displayed in the Kyoshi Warriors?

(Actually, scratch that. The first thing that got me clued in to the presence of Japanese influence was the red and white makeup that the Warriors wear. It seemed similar to that of the geisha, but I disregarded this as it wasn’t similar enough to warrant real research on my part. Just google ‘geisha makeup’ and you’ll see what I mean.)

And the answer was: a good few. Something Mina Le (a fashion youtuber) already touched on in her video on Avatar. But the question is, what exactly influenced them?

So, back to katanas. Once I figured out that they wielded katanas, it was a simple conclusion that they drew inspiration from the samurai of feudal Japan.

War Fans (Tessen)

Another similarity that ties them into samurai are their characteristic fans.

I actually learned about the art of Japanese war fans (tessenjutsu) before I even watched Avatar. The fans called tessen are made out of iron, but the other types of war fans, gunsen and gunbai, don’t seem to fit the bill for what the Kyoshi Warriors use them for. So, instead of being made of iron, their fans are made out of a golden metal, probably to fit their gold-and-green aesthetic.

An illustration of a warrior using a tessen.

The way they use these tessen to fight is debatably accurate. I have never studied tessenjutsu, nor do I really trust modern videos of tessenjutsu, so I have no basis. But it is said that wielders would use one to attack and one to parry, and that does seem to be somewhat what they do? Not sure if their forms or usage or that one time that one girl threw both her fans at Azula like some sort of razor-sharp Frisbee is accurate. Tessenjutsu practitioners, feel free to correct me!

But all this talk about fans and swords isn’t coming to the real core of my speculation. There is one crucial fact: samurai are men. But the Kyoshi Warriors are girls. Were there any female samurai?

The Onna-Bugeisha

Yes, there were! They were called onna-bugeisha, literally meaning “female martial artist.” You can read more about the onna-bugeisha on their Wikipedia page.

Let’s start with the similarities between the Kyoshi Warriors and the onna-bugeisha.

Clothing/Armor

The first, and most obvious, is their clothing. The onna-bugeisha appear to wear both the traditional kimono or large, loose pants in illustrations. This really does seem to differ a lot based on source material, and I’m not knowledgeable enough to really affirmatively say why. But they do appear wearing the pants when riding horses, and the kimono when they’re standing or looking super regal in the illustrations.

Empress Jingū, a mythological example of onna-bugeisha. She became empress after her husband, the fourteenth emperor Chūai, was slain in battle. She is said to have led an expedition to Korea around 200 AD, and was the first woman on a Japanese banknote. This illustration is probably not accurate, as it was made by a European man, but it does illustrate one of the earliest known cases of onna-bugeisha in Japanese culture.

Hangaku Gozen, a famous general of the Genpei War (allied with the Taira clan).

The Kyoshi Warriors!

Bryke/the animators chose the dress route for making the Kyoshi Warriors, dressing them in split-front dresses colored in shades of green, with a dark green layered underdress under a lighter green overdress crossed left over right at the collar (like many, many different kinds of traditional Asian women’s dress). The coloration appears to be more to signify “Earth Kingdom” than to be historically accurate to the onna-bugeisha, something that was probably a good idea. Remember, this was made to be a kids’ adventure show, and they had already established the color-coding based on country.

The sleeves are voluminous, which is definitely a characteristic of the onna-bugeisha. They are cinched at the wrists with dark cuffs, which isn’t a characteristic of all the different illustrations/photographs, but is certainly present in some. These cuffs are paired with two-toned gloves, which are always a good idea in any kind of weapon battle, but aren’t present in many, if any, photographs, but at least in some illustrations.

Partially covering the dresses is the thing that most tipped me off: the armor. It seems to be of black plating, which bears a striking resemblance to the plating/ridging on the onna-bugeisha’s armor. The chestplate itself bears a really, really close resemblance (if it isn’t an exact copy) to the chestplates of the onna-bugeisha, though the color isn’t the striking red that seems to appear a lot of the time. The rectangular shoulder/upper arm plating that is present in nearly all depictions is severely lacking, however, though this seems to be a choice to make the Warriors seem less bulky and more dynamic. Plus, it would be easier to animate. (They do have slimmer shoulder plates that attach, though.)

But the (for lack of a better word) skirt plates of the armor remain really, really similar to the onna-bugeishas’ armor. It really just looks like a scaled-down, black instead of red version. And I think that’s super cool, and one of the best pieces of evidence that backs my theory.

Topping off the “Kyoshi look” are gold-and-green headpieces that are different depending on the warrior, and a hairstyle that differs depending on the warrior. I’ll probably go more in-depth about the headpieces and hairstyles on a different post, but the gist is that yes, the presence of headpieces is historically accurate, at least in some photos/illustrations (which appears to be the norm. Can I ever get something concrete here?).

Examples of onna-bugeisha wearing headpieces.

All of them wore helmets (obviously), but some seem to have some sort of decorative aspect (again, tell me if I’m wrong and the pieces have a meaning or purpose).

Edit: One commenter, @atla-headcanons, said that their Japanese grandmother once said that warriors’ headdresses were status symbols, as well as ways to tell allies from enemies. This would be supported by the fact that Suki, as the leader of the Kyoshi Warriors, would have a headpiece similar to Kyoshi’s, and the rest of the Warriors would have different ones. I was unable to fact-check this at the time (may return to it later), but it seems likely, and it would be really cool if it was intentional on the characters’ designs!

Avatar Kyoshi

The second thing that made me speculate whether the Kyoshi Warriors were connected to the onna-bugeisha was actually Kyoshi herself.

We all know about badass Avatar Kyoshi. She’s amazing. A definite certified badass. But there might actually have been a real-world counterpart to her. Nakano Takeko, a famous onna-bugeisha of the Aizu Domain who fought and died in the Boshin War, could have been possible inspiration for her.

Statue of Nakano Takeko. I don’t trust that the pictures on Pinterest are actually her.

Not only is Nakano a certified badass, taking down five to six men with her naginata in the Battle of Aizu, she also taught women and children to fight with the naginata for a time. Sound familiar? It might just be a coincidence, but I’m sticking to my theory here. You can read more about her here, but I’ll give a rundown of the highlights that make her a Kyoshi-Level Badass™:

- Taught naginata to the lord of Niwase’s wife

- Taught naginata to women and children in Aizuwakamatsu castle

An onna-bugeisha wielding a naginata. They’re pretty awesome!

- Worked in defense of the shōgun Tokugawa Yoshinobu

- Fought in the Battle of Aizu using a Japanese weapon (naginata) against a white weapon (guns)

- Created and headed an ad-hoc group of female warriors in the Battle of Aizu, retroactively called the Jōshitai (Girls’ Army). She did this without permission, as the senior Aizu retainers didn’t want them to fight and wouldn’t let them fight as an official part of the domain’s army

- When she was taken down by a rifle shot to her chest, she asked her sister Yūko to behead her so that the enemy couldn’t take it as a trophy. Her sister employed the help of Ueno Yoshisaburō, and did as she was asked

- With the reforms of the Meiji Era (samurai class abolished, western-style army established), Nakano Takeko was one of the last samurai in history.

Conclusion

That concludes my essay! Remember, this is all speculation. If you have your own take, please tell me! I love hearing all the cultural influences in Avatar.

Now, if Bryke meant to make the Kyoshi Warriors to be inspired by the onna-bugeisha, then there is something more that I would have liked to see. It would have been really cool to see them use naginata in the show, as it was actually originally a weapon for females to use, its length compensating for the smaller body size and comparatively lesser brute strength of women warriors.

(Also, I just want Suki utterly destroying Sokka with a naginata in that episode where she kicks his butt to prove a point. Hey, I’m a simple girl with simple tastes.)

Sources:

Basically all Wikipedia. I’m sorry I couldn’t reference, like, ebooks on this subject. But I did look at the reference lists for the Wikipedia articles I used, and they all seemed to be credible ones. So, don’t come at me, please! I did the best I could!

I really appreciate whoever read this far. It takes stamina!

Thanks for reading!

#avatar theory #avatar the last airbender #kyoshi warriors #a:tla #atla #atla theory #atla essay #onna-bugeisha #samurai #japan #japanese culture #suki #sukka #avatar kyoshi #atlaworld

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whirlybirdwhat · 4 years

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Oh I wonder how Katsuki would react to them! If it was an op au he would probably have Zoro's role (wants to be the best and doesn't care about what people think) but I don't know if he would like Zoro if he met him (and I really don't know what he would think of Luffy)

OKAY SO REALLY TINY ANSWER TO YOUR ACTUAL ASK AND THEN UNDER MY CUT MY FEELINGS ABOUT THAT KASUKI AND ZORO OPINION BECAUSE BOY. DID I FIND OUT I HAD EMOTIONS!

So! Kastuki be enraged. here are people who give no fucks about heroes, if bakugo’s better than him, have a drive he can’t match and the ability to cause bigger explosions than he could ever hope (Three Thousand worlds, red hawk, fire bird star... i can go on.) They aren’t bound by science like he is. And they don’t care about heroes, or the government, things that validate Bakugo.

So he’d be enraged. and then maybe ave a lil bit of respect? Because they are, sorry, stronger than bakugo in an objective sense and would wipe the floor with him. Especially since Bakugo wouldn’t have haki. And More, they wouldn’t care about what bakugo thought of them and would just do their thing. I think bakugo would want to be them. And He’d be 100% baffled by luffy who would just think his explosions were cool then show him his red hawk attack lmao.

NOW. Onto my very strong opinions underneath the cut.

gonna be honest i havent watch bnha since i watched one piece, so its been awhile, but i also feel that Bakugo and Zoro are just. very different characters. especially due to the extremely different themes both medias have. Zoro has a goal, an unbeatable, impossible goal that he will sacrifice anything but his friends to get - and in the beginning, when we first meet luffy, he would have sacrificed him if he got in his way. Zoro, however, supports others - he believes, no, knows that luffy will be the next pirate king. He’s the first mate and steps up when the captain can’t (water 7) and knows what need to be done and what he won’t sacrifice (which quite frankly is only his crew mr “chopping my legs off to win a battle is a good idea” fucking dumbass ily).

Bakugo, to my understanding as i stopped watching when Bakugo got captured, is literally. Not that. He has a goal yes, but its a goal shared by several other characters - deku, and i believe todoroki wants to be the number one, etc - and we also don’t know why beyond he wants to be the best. Its a baseless goal, as of right now, one that can only be given meaning through fan speculation. Which is in comparison to Zoro, whose goal to be the best is through a promise to a dead sister-figure and for his need not to be weak and to be strong enough for his captain - his crew - not himself, like Bakugo presumably. Additionally, Bakugo has literally stepped on others in a malicious way to get to the top, and while Zoro has done so, it is simply because he doesn’t care; he’s better than them in skill, and in the one piece world its a dog eat dog world. Zoro is staying true to the values he as a swordsman has. Bakugo wants to be a hero. Bakugo has less compassion for citizens than Zoro has, a world class criminal. Who has destroyed several towns and taken down several kings, tyrants, and government officials.

Too my last point, Bakugo... isn’t really a leader. Zoro isn’t either but Zoro steps up and people listen. Bakugo steps up and yells, and people listen. Its different.

And Bakugo does cares about what people think - he wouldn’t yell, proclaim he’s the best, be as competitive as he is, bully children, or anything if didn’t. He wouldn’t want to be the best with seemingly no motivation if he didn’t care what people thought.

Zoro has quite literally said that it doesn’t matter if he’s a pirate or a marine, or what people think of him - as long as his name rings across the land as the best swordsman, fufilling his promise to Kuina, he has achieved his dream. (Chapter 5 -6 I believe.)

This difference is of course to the themes of both manga. To my Understanding, BNHA is all about being a hero - what does it take to become a hero, what makes a hero, do not give up without trying, help others before yourself, theres a solution to every problem, etc. I looked most of these up because the only one I could think up off the top of my head is what makes a hero/ is it ability or your actions because how bnha handled it esp with its opening line pissed me off but!! thats a story for another time!

One Piece’s themes disregard heroes. One piece’s themes are first and foremost - dreams, the romantic view of the world, sticking to your ideals, being selfish, and freedom. I could go on for hours about it. In fact, I have.

The One Piece world is a lawless place. the government is corrupt, slavery exists, and its heroes are either pirates who saved you only because you were their friend (strawhats, despite not wanting to be called heroes) or marine heroes who are chained to the concept of a ruthless justice and have to let family members die for it (garp). Everything is weird, but only one character in the entire history of one piece has been alienated for being weird - Katakuri, for his mouth, which is fucking absurd considering his brother literally has an oven on his head and his mother is a soul sucking cannibal who wears a polka dot dress. In one piece your ‘quirks’ aren’t celebrated - its just normal. Fun even. Especially on. the Grand Line where the rule is anything can happen, from rubber boys fighting God or islands made out of food.

The world of BNHA is the exact opposite. While they have “quirks” which can be anything, its not something anybody can obtain, unlike one piece, where only Conquerors Haki is an unobtainable skill unless you are born with it. BNHA is a world buried deep in laws, heroes, and villains - black and white for the most part to my understanding. It is a world where if you are villain, you are pretty much expected to be evil or out for blood, and if you are a hero, you are generally expected to help people, even if you might be doing it for money or fame. Unlike one piece where each and every character has a dfiferent moral compass. BNHA is also a realistic world in terms of quirks - you won’t be finding islands of candy or the like, and it is pretty much contained in one setting, which shifts characters characterizations a lot.

How does this affect Bakugo and Zoro?

Well. In a world where dreams and selfishness are valued, you would think Bakugo would flourish. I think he would falter, because of what you pointed out - his willingness to be the best. In BNHA, theres a structure for how you become the best, through school and a career, an official ranking. There’s nothing like that in One Piece, as bounties have been shown to be absolutely fucking worthless, and literally all the top bounties are just puns. fucking puns. I love it.

If Bakugo went around as he does in BNHA, in one piece, a world where he doesn’t have people protecting him from his actions or not hurting him because he’s a kid, bakugo would honestly probably die. Bakugo’s drive to be the best and his normality as typically being the best in BNHA would not translate over well.

In One Piece rookies get knocked the fuck out unless you have plot armor which honestly doesn’t always protect you. See the Baratie. Saboady. Fucking Marine Ford. Wano. Big Mom. Fucking FOXY. You can surrvive by staying lucky - Buggy, but it isn’t often.

What would Bakugo even be the best of? The Marines where he has to listen to the Five Elders? He’d be a less hateful Akainu (because no one can be as bad as Akainu)

In a world without structure, Bakugo would fucking die.

In comparison, in a BNHA au, Zoro has drive and would probably just be like an accidental villain like I have in my au.

In the End, Zoro is a pirate, and Bakugo is a hero in training. Bakugo relies on organizations to help him reach the top while Zoro actively destroys them. Bakugo wants to lead but can’t (as of right now) and Zoro can lead but loves his captain, so won’t. Zoro’s goals are seated in concrete ideals, concrete promises that he has to keep. Idek why Bakugo wants to be a hero beyond being the best.

BNHA could not work in a one piece right down to the fucking morals. Pirates Vs Heroes. The pirates could maybe be the heroes, but could the heroes ever set out to purposefully take down others, obtain land, and be free from responsibility?

Thats just a portion of my thoughts on it. BNHA characters are just... so incompatible with any world that isn’t theirs because their lives revolve around fitting the algorithm of UA and the Hero Career. OP, in its focus on selfishness and disregarding the rules of any place and bringing chaos anywhere, can pretty much go anywhere without being odd because even in their own world they ruin every thing.

Okay. Im done now. Sorry anon you opened a can of worms i didn’t think i had thoughts on!! guess i do!!

#Anonymous #FUCK DID NOT KNOW I HAD THOSE EMOTIONS #op #one piece #bnha #whirlywhat #whirlywrites #zoro #whirlyrambles #roronoa zoro #disc horse>#bakugou katsuki #bakugou #op meta #mha #my hero academia #boko no hero academia

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withastolenlantern · 4 years

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The lobby to the Shinjuku police precinct was packed. A mass of bodies occupied the lobby, ebbing and flowing as uniformed officers dragged several men across the open area, their hands zip-tied together behind their backs, and many others stood or sat taking statements or arguing with Yokota assumed to be attorneys in a jumble of dialects and languages.

The hospital administrator hadn’t been particularly interested in the report of their findings. “It’s one old woman,” she’d cautioned Yokota. He protested, but to no avail. They were directed to destroy the sample and get back to more… productive pursuits. Midori was incensed, but the older doctor cautioned him to follow the directives. They autoclaved the remainder of the sample, except for the small remainder Yokota was carrying now.

The doctor approached the desk sergeant with confusion. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“What?” the sergeant yelled in response over the roar of activity.

“I said, ‘what’s going on?’ Is it always this busy here?” Yokota repeated, louder.

“Part of the refugee crisis,” the sergeant explained. He gestured toward the officers leading the handcuffed men. “Human traffickers. Port authority found an entire shipping container full of NorKs held in bond. These guys smuggled them out, but then were planning to sell them off to the Triad or boryuks. We’re having a hard enough time managing the regime collapse over there without having to deal with this crap too.”

The banality of the officer’s explanation took Yokota somewhat aback. He supposed that the police eventually became inured to the plights of the common just as his profession had hardened him against some of the grotesqueries of human anatomy. It was an unpleasant if familiar thought.

“What are you here for?” he asked Yokota.

The doctor produced a sealed vial of what remained of the red fluid they had tested. “My name is Doctor Shinichiro Yokota with the Tokyo Medical University Hospital. I need to talk to someone about this. I think it’s a new kind of drug or something, and it’s very dangerous.”

The sergeant took the vial from Yokota’s hand and swirled it around slightly. “Don’t think I’ve seen this before. Where’d you get it?”

“I, uh…” the doctor stammered, suddenly realizing he’d purchased the drugs completely illegally. “We found it in the jacket pocket of a patient.”

The sergeant looked at him with brief skepticism, considering the situation carefully, until behind Yokota one of the zip-tied men kicked and struggled free of the two officers holding him at the arms. He sprinted toward the door, but collapsed quickly as three other officers drove him to the ground in a dogpile. “Baka,” the desk sergeant swore, clearly very tired. “Vice is on the third floor. Ask for Lieutenant Matsuzaki.”

Yokota sighed with relief. “Thank you.”

He followed the sergeant's directions to the elevator bank and rode to the third floor. The doors parted and revealed an open floor layout of desks alive with a flurry of activity. Uniformed and plain-clothes officers milled about, carrying chipped ceramic mugs of coffee, holo tablets and paper folios, and wax cartons of noodles. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it reminded him of any regular office floor he’d seen before, with no jail cells or tattooed gangsters. He realized perhaps for the first time that unlike the drama and intrigue the police holo serials suggested, these officers were mostly just normal people going about what for them was a normal job.

Yokota approached a man in a collared shirt and tie, a badge hung loosely around his neck. “Excuse me, I need to see Lieutenant Matsuzaki” he explained.

“You have an appointment?” the detective asked.

“I’m a doctor,” he explained, showing the man his hospital credentials. “It’s important.”

The detective sighed, and then gestured for Yokota to follow. He led Yokota to an office near the corner of the building and paused in the doorway as the woman inside finished a call. She gestured them into the office as she terminated the call. “Somebody here to see you, ma’am. Says he’s a doctor.”

“I don’t have any doctors on my schedule,” she replied, looking at the holo monitor on her desk.

“It’s urgent, ma’am,” Yokota insisted. “It’s about narcotics.”

“You’ve got… five minutes,” she said, looking at the clock on her screen. “Thank you Tani, that’ll be all.” The detective left and the doctor took one of the two worn chairs in front of the lieutenant’s desk. The woman was middle-aged; perhaps in her early forties. Her jet black hair had started to go grey slightly at the temples, and she wore thin glasses in a navy cats-eye frame. The wall behind her was lined with commendations and photos of her shaking hands with other officers and dignitaries. Yokota felt he had come to the right place. He placed the vial onto the cracked formica surface along with his hospital ID.

“Am I supposed to know what that is?” the woman asked.

“I was hoping you might be able to tell me,” the researcher responded. “It’s some kind of new street narcotic. Opioid-based, from what I can tell.”

The lieutenant lifted the vial up to the light and peered into it. It sloshed thickly around the plastic as she rotated it. “Never seen it before. Where’d you get it?”

“An old woman came into the hospital a week ago. She expired quickly under strange circumstances. We found some in her jacket pocket.”

“What kind of strange circumstances?” she asked, putting down the vial.

“She bled out, almost like she had some kind of hemorrhagic virus. I’ve never seen it before,” he explained. “We needed more information, so I bought this particular sample on the street.”

The lieutenant arched her eyebrows in response. “You bought this?”

“For research purposes,” the doctor continued, ignoring the insinuation. “We did some more testing. There’s something strange in there. An enzyme that shouldn’t be. Some kind of… nano-mechanical structure. It kills people.”

“Where did you get it?” she pressed.

“Abandoned warehouse of some kind, over in Roppongi.” He gave her the address, and she immediately went into a trance or fugue state. He couldn’t make out what she was saying, as she was subvocalizing into some kind of throat microphone, likely into a police-wide radio channel, but it was clear she was calling for officers to investigate the location.

She returned to normality just as soon as she had left it. “Is this the only sample you have?”

“Yes,” the doctor half-lied. He’d kept the vial he found in his son-in-law’s bag, and stored it in the freezer in his apartment. He told himself that it was valuable to his investigation, and that it would only do more harm than good to drag his family into it. Those justifications did not come without shame; history was rife with disasters when those with power or knowledge chose to put themselves above the moral good. But his daughter was all he might have left, soon, and his selfish impulses outweighed all else.

“Okay. Walk me through this again,” she instructed with a healthy amount of skepticism. “Someone is selling these new opiates on the open market, and they’re cut with some kind of… chemicals?”

“An esterase. It’s an enzyme that breaks down polymers,” he corrected.

“...and some kind of nano-whatever…”

“Tungsten-based MEMS device.”

“...that you think is killing people? And this is all based on a theory from one old lady?” the lieutenant finished.

Yokota frowned. “When you say it like that it sounds crazy.”

“Okay, so you hear it too. I’ve worked vice for the metropolitan police for seventeen years. I’ve never once seen what you’re describing. I’m sure you’re an excellent researcher, but...” she trailed off back into her trance state.

“Lieutenant…?” he asked after a moment.

She snapped back instantaneously. “The uniformed officers we dispatched to the warehouse say it’s completely empty. No traces of anything illicit.”

“That’s impossible,” Yokota gasped.

The lieutenant sighed. She put her hands down onto her desk gently and sat up straight. She looked him in the eye with an expression he knew all too well; it was the same he’d given his grand-daughter and daughter before her when he was about to explain something he knew they’d rather not hear. “Look, Doctor, I understand your concern. But even if what you say is true, which I’m not convinced of, what would you like me to do about it? Drug cases are tough to pursue, and our resources are thin right now. I assume you passed through the lobby and saw our current ‘refugee’ problem. I just don’t have the officers to spare chasing a theory. Can you provide me a dealer, besides the one who ‘disappeared’? A source of supply?”

“...I cannot,” he replied sheepishly.

“Then I think we’re through here. I appreciate you coming forward with this, but if and until you have more concrete evidence, or something more than speculation, then come back to me. Leave the sample, if you want. We’ll certainly catalogue it for now.” Her tone wasn’t dismissive so much as it was one of pure disregard, and it told him there was no point in leaving anything here, lest he never see it again.

“Thank you for your time,” Yokota replied and got up to leave. He slid the sample back into his pocket, and exited the lieutenant’s office. As he walked to the elevator, he noticed the detective he’d spoken to earlier; he appeared to be eyeing the doctor closely as he spoke into an earpiece attachment for his mobile.

The doctor entered the elevator and pushed the button for the ground floor. The doors closed, and he slammed his fist against the wall in frustration. How could he have been so foolish? It was folly to assume he would be believed. This was not the same world he had been brought up in, one of order and morality. This was a new world, now, of chaos and imbalance. What was the value of one woman’s life, so old and frail and driven to desperation? Would his death too be so callously discounted? Perhaps that was why Tomoko had walked out into the bay and never come back; to spare herself this unbecoming. He resigned himself to toss away the sample when he returned to the hospital, and be done with this whole misadventure.

He exited the police station and lit a cigarette.The Shinjuku precinct was only a half block across the Kita Dori from the hospital, and he wanted to steady his nerves before returning to work. He noticed a man directly across the precinct entry awning, hovering about, also smoking and half-heartedly staring at his mobile. Every once in a while he glanced up toward Yokota, careful never to make eye contact.

The doctor stamped out his cigarette on the concrete and started to cross the street. As he waited for the pedestrian crossing indicator to turn, he saw the man similarly put out his butt and follow to the intersection. The light changed, and the doctor crossed rapidly, trying to appear nonchalant. Perhaps it was simply residual paranoia for telling half-truths to the police, but he felt suddenly very aware of his surroundings.

The man hurried across the street behind Yokota, several meters back, and followed as he started up the street toward the hospital. The man was walking with purpose now, faster, and clearly staring at Yokota. The doctor quickened his pace, and he saw the man panic and break into a sprint.

As they approached the hospital, Yokota cut right and ducked down the stairs into the Nishi-Shinjuku Metro station. He topped his rail pass to the turnstile and hurried through the terminal, looking behind to see the man fumbling in his pockets for his own IC card. Yokota spring across the platform and quickly squeezed through the throngs of other passengers into the Marunouchi Line train just as the doors closed. The train lurched into motion, and saw the man left stranded on the platform, huffing and pulling out his mobile.

#the world ocean #long post

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sugurushimura · 7 years

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Thoughts on Suguru Shimura’s relationships with the other Yotsuba members.

The individual members of the Yotsuba group and their many, many interlocking relationships have been a constant source of unending fascination and speculation to me for the past few years, as anyone who has known me for that long will tell you. Although each of the eight members is interesting in their own right and I could undoubtedly go on about them for hours, the member that I have for a while focused the majority of my attention to is – as, again, anyone who has known me for that long will tell you – Suguru Shimura. As the title should hopefully have clued you in on, this post is mostly going to consist of me talking about his relationships with the other seven members of his fellow (mostly) unwillingly murderous businessmen.

It is no little-known fact that the Yotsuba members are not exactly major characters. As an example, Eiichi Takahashi has only two actual lines of dialogue in the entirety of Volume 6 – and the majority of them only appear in Volume 5 and Volume 6 (with the exceptions being Kyosuke Higuchi, who is also in the beginning of Volume 7, and Arayoshi Hatori, who is only in Volume 5). As such, it would not be unreasonable for one to assume that solid relationships between them are … well, for the most part, non-existent. There is some truth to this – not all of the pairs of Yotsuba members have concrete interactions, and Ohba is not always consistent (as, alas, is often the case with these poor dudes) – but I would argue that for a good majority of them, there are certainly defined relationships, even if subtle in nature, and while they are proportionate to the characters they come from, there is something to be taken from each of them if one cares to look.

Essentially, this post will be divided into seven subsections, not counting this introduction and the end, with each subsection focusing on a different coworker of Shimura’s. Naturally, these will vary greatly in length, with the section devoted to, say, Reiji Namikawa being longer than the section devoted to Masahiko Kida, since Namikawa and Shimura have far more to go off of than Kida and Shimura do. Each section will offer each interaction between the characters, and then delve into bridging any possible inconsistencies (because our Good Friend Tsugumi Ohba is Very Kind And Careful with his characters) and discussing different interpretations. In some cases, I might offer my own personal headcanons, but of course they will be labelled as such and you are free to take away from them whatever you’d like. That’s one of the fun things about minor characters; in most cases, there are multiple valid interpretations.

Arayoshi Hatori

Right off the bat, Shimura is extremely uncomfortable with the meetings. His very first line is in protest to them. Hatori, along with Namikawa (and one unseen member from a previous panel), are the ones who try to reassure him.

For the rest of the meeting, the two of them aren’t seen speaking to each other much. The next time they’re seen together, well…

Scandalous. The bathroom, really, you two? I’m only joking, but the fact that they’re the two to stumble across Touta Matsuda leads pretty directly to the two of them leading him away from the meeting room and asking him some questions while the other six discuss poor Matsuda’s fate. It’s a brief enough scene and focuses mainly on Matsuda and L’s phone conversation, but it does give us this:

It seems that, at the very least, these two are able to work together well enough to be sent together to talk to Matsuda in the first place (although their position relative to him probably had a lot to do with it), and this scene shows that that much seems to be true.

Following their return to the main meeting room where their coworkers have wrapped up their murder plans, the two of them don’t interact for a while until a couple of chapters later at the following meeting, when Hatori decides that he doesn’t want to be a part of the meetings any longer and that it’s a good idea to profess so to the rest of the participants in the middle of a meeting. This is, predictably, a bad decision on his part, and Higuchi (who, funnily enough, turns out to be Kira – who would’ve imagined?) tells him that he’s going to die. Subtle, Higuchi. Shimura is the only one who protests this.

Thank you for the insightful commentary, Namikawa. Anyway, come the next meeting, others (read as: Takahashi) are visibly upset about Hatori’s death, but Shimura was the only one to directly try to convince the others not to kill him. It didn’t work, of course, but there was at least an effort. On top of this, he is obviously upset when the rest of them (specifically Takeshi Ooi) don’t pay much attention to it:

… And thus ends any interactions between Shimura and Hatori. Sorry, Hatori.

One could take the way the two of them interact different ways. Although Shimura is the only one to protest killing Hatori, he is also the most vocally against killing people in general and it’s possible that he was trying to narrow the deaths as much as he could while having no real relationship with Hatori. Since Hatori dies so early in, any further interactions that they could have had are cut short, but we do know that they are able to work together and Hatori did try to reassure Shimura at their introduction. The most we can say for sure is that their relationship was more positive than negative, which is not a whole lot. In the end, most of the interpretation is up to the reader.

Personally, although I do believe that Shimura was partially motivated to prevent yet another unneeded death, I also think it’s likely he did care about Hatori on as a person, even if they weren’t necessarily close. It’s not hard to imagine them being something like friends, but it’s hard to interpret them as complete besties or anything like that. Again, it’s pretty much up to your own interpretation.

(Another thing I’d like to add is that, while there are a few slight changes in seating during the meetings, Shimura sits by Hatori at every single one, and continues to sit by his empty chair after Hatori dies. Take this as you will.)

Masahiko Kida

You may remember when I used Kida as an example of someone who Shimura had a less defined relationship with. To be blunt, the two of them have almost no interactions. The most we have to go off of is a fairly subtle comment Kida makes, which is indicatory of his views on Shimura not because of what he said, but because of who he directed the comment to.

In Chapter 44, Shimura suggests that Kira reveal himself so that he can personally explain the rules about how they can kill people to the rest of the group (real opaque excuse, Shimura). Namikawa agrees and offers no real meaningful contribution. Kida (and Mido, but I’ll save that for later) responds as such:

By directing his criticism to Namikawa, who didn’t even come up with the idea in the first place. He completely ignores Shimura, who did come up with the idea. Ignoring Shimura is something that most of the group does at one point or another, and Kida is obviously not innocent of it. All we can really get from that is that he most likely doesn’t think too highly of Shimura – not enough to acknowledge him, at least. Or perhaps he just particularly dislikes Namikawa. Without going into Kida and Namikawa’s relationship, I’ll say that either seems plausible enough.

Shimura, on the other hand, shows no real opinion on Kida at all. You’re free to interpret it pretty much however you please. I’d have to say that I personally do not headcanon him as having much of a personal knowledge or opinion of Kida, but again, it is what you make it.

Takeshi Ooi

In Shimura’s attempts to consult in his worries with the other Yotsuba members, Ooi is the first that he tries to speak with outside of the meetings.

This is before he’s started trying to unmask Kira, and the topic is instead Eraldo Coil, who Shimura (accurately) believes to be untrustworthy. Ooi, however, promptly brushes him off, and tells him to bring these things up during the meetings and relax some.

He also makes a poor joke about blasting missiles at people, which Shimura does not take favorably.

A small thing to notice is that Ooi asks Shimura why he “always thinks so negatively,” implying that they’ve known each other for awhile. This would make sense, as they are coworkers and have likely worked together before, but I thought it would be interesting to note anyways that Ooi and Shimura know each other relatively well before the start of the Yotsuba arc.

The following meeting takes place directly after Hatori’s death. As seen above in Hatori’s section, Shimura is visibly confused when Ooi moves on from Hatori’s death without much discussion at all. Despite this and Ooi’s prior disregard for his worries, Shimura voices his concerns (notably, just like Ooi had told him to), particularly directing them at Ooi…

In the very next panel, Ooi changes the subject, completely ignoring that Shimura had said anything at all. This just after he had specifically told Shimura to speak out more during the meetings. There is also an instance where Ooi directs the conversation specifically away from Shimura’s concerns, effectively ignoring and silencing him, treating his concerns as if they’re entirely irrelevant. Following all this, Shimura makes no further attempts to ask Ooi for assistance, instead skipping straight to Mido.

It is obvious that Shimura is well aware of Ooi’s position within their group and, at least at first, is under the impression that he will value his opinion. Ooi, however, pretty blatantly defies this. He doesn’t act at all like he wants to hear what Shimura has to say, and he hardly seems to want to deal with it; given the rest of the group’s reactions to Shimura, it seems likely that Ooi also simply believes that he’s too easily concerned over things and doesn’t want to indulge him in it. Even though he tells him to speak out more, he cuts off any attempts Shimura makes to do so, which eventually causes Shimura to give up on finding any support in him. It seems to me that they actually knew each other pre-canon and that Shimura trusted him a good deal, which just makes the whole situation feel more like a betrayal, in my opinion; after all, he clearly keeps a close eye on people and is not someone who gives his trust easily. While Shimura seems to hold a positive opinion of Ooi earlier in the meetings, I doubt he does later on.

Shingo Mido

The first interaction between Mido and Shimura is a bit difficult to discern as them in the manga. We cannot fully see their faces, but from what I can tell, it seems most likely to be them. Although the anime, in my opinion, butchers a lot of the Yotsuba group’s scenes and characters, the equivalent of these lines are spoken by them.

Shimura (who had just reentered the room with Hatori) voices his doubts about the situation to Mido, and Mido updates him on the what the other six had been discussing. It’s also interesting to note that this makes Mido the first to bring up the idea that it would be easier if they knew who Kira was, making it a possibility that this is actually what gave Shimura the thought to mention this in a meeting in attempt to make Kira reveal himself.

However, when Shimura does eventually bring this up during a meeting, Mido does not act favorably. As shown above in Kida’s section, Mido (and Kida) directs his criticism to Namikawa, who didn’t even bring up the point in the first place. Shimura is completely ignored.

Despite this, Mido is still Shimura’s first choice to confide in when he decides he can’t let Kira’s plans continue. How exactly this discussion went is majorly unknown. Mido implies that Shimura was in a state of obvious distress, but that’s … really all that can be said for certain. They end up setting up a private meeting, to which Namikawa is also invited to attend (as well as Ooi, but he declines).

It’s obvious that they had been discussing something before Namikawa arrived, and while it most likely was related to their current situation, we’re never given any specifications.

After Namikawa shows up, Mido explains how they can be sure Shimura isn’t Kira. His wording makes him seem annoyed with Shimura, but the fact remains that he did still hear him out and set up this meeting with him. Shimura also acknowledges that Mido doesn’t need help to succeed and isn’t stupid enough to willingly take part in the meetings.

It is obvious that Shimura thinks relatively highly of Mido. While he acknowledges his abilities, he also apparently has enough trust in him to know that he would side with him and to approach him as a potential ally. Mido, on the other hand, does not appear to view Shimura as favorably; there are times when he completely disregards him or expresses annoyance towards him. That being said, he is still willing to hear Shimura out and even provide him with assistance. The interpretation that I take from this is that while Mido seems to find Shimura irritating at times and would sooner give his attention to others (“others” meaning Namikawa), he does recognize that they are on the same side and Shimura has the potential to be a useful ally.

Eiichi Takahashi

Shimura and Takahashi are initially shown to be on seemingly friendly terms. Although they don’t have any telling interactions within the meetings (Takahashi is notably probably the member that talks least), they do have an interaction outside of an elevator during Matsuda’s infiltration of the Yotsuba group.

It is pretty odd that Shimura, the most cautious and nervous out of all his coworkers, is the one to thoughtlessly clue Matsuda in on the meetings. This is most likely nothing more than an inconsistency in Ohba’s characterization, which tends to show when one looks into these two’s relationship … but we’ll get to that soon. As this scene is, the two of them are conversing in what seems to be a friendly tone. The above dialogue speaks for itself in that respect.

Takahashi and Shimura don’t have any more notable interactions like this -- in fact, Shimura is one of the few members who doesn’t ever try to reprimand Takahashi in some way. The other point about their relationship – or at least about Shimura’s feelings about Takahashi – comes during the private meeting between Shimura, Mido, and Namikawa. Upon being asked by Namikawa who he believes Kira is, this is Shimura’s response:

Unless Takahashi had said something we, as readers, never saw (which I find unlikely), there really hasn’t been any reason for Shimura to suspect Takahashi of being Kira. Given how observant Shimura is, the fact that he shows suspicion of Takahashi, of all people, especially given their prior amiability toward each other, seems off. One might speculate that something changed to make Shimura suspect him between the elevator scene and this, but Takahashi’s behavior has been less in favor of Kira since Hatori’s death, if anything. One might speculate that Shimura was merely acting friendly during the elevator scene, but this strikes me as out of character. Never does Shimura suggest anything close to a duplicitous personality – he is really quite upfront about his feelings from the start, and there doesn’t seem to be any reason for him to treat Takahashi differently. Even if one did go with either of those theories, that doesn’t change the fact that there is no reason for Shimura to suspect Takahashi more than anyone else. Mido even points out that it couldn’t be him.

The answer to this issue is, from an out-of-universe perspective, merely that Ohba made an oversight in characterization. Any in-universe views would have to be based in headcanon, because there is no in-universe explanation for this. Perhaps Shimura was just so anxious that he offered Takahashi’s name by some slip of the tongue. It’s possible that he mentioned two people in order to avoid accusing just one and chose Takahashi specifically to appeal to the group dynamic, which is the idea I tend to go with, but it’s entirely subjective, and really my own personal cover-up, for lack of a better word, because I refuse to leave any characterization issue unexplained for the sake of my own peace of mind.

Kyosuke Higuchi

From off the bat, the fact alone that Shimura was invited to the meetings shows that Higuchi does value some of his abilities.

Namikawa theorizes that it’s because he’s “sharp” (stellar wording, Reiji), and I’d have to agree with that. Shimura has no connections to speak of, having apparently risen from low social standing to his current position within the company, and certainly isn’t particularly charismatic. He certainly isn’t there to make Higuchi look good. Even despite his presumed purpose at the meetings, Higuchi doesn’t act much like he values Shimura’s opinion.

Higuchi does not treat Shimura and his ideas particularly well. Outside of this, neither of them show any particular opinion on one another during the meetings. This presents an something of a contradiction in Higuchi’s opinion on Shimura. His objection to the first point makes sense, as Higuchi is Kira, but he has no reason to feel threatened by the second point. Perhaps he was acting rude to Shimura for the sake of consistency after talking down to him before. Perhaps he was just in a bad mood and felt like calling someone an idiot, and couldn’t abuse Takahashi since he had fallen completely silent by this point in the meetings. Perhaps he was just annoyed with Shimura for bringing up theories with no solutions. Perhaps his opinion on Shimura had changed since the beginning of the meetings. I tend to go with a combination of the former three options, but it could also be an inconsistency. Ultimately, there are multiple valid interpretations that one could take away from this.

As shown above in Takahashi’s section, Higuchi is one of the names Shimura mentions as a suspect. Unlike with Takahashi, there are no inconsistencies in this accusation; Namikawa and Mido both agree that Higuchi is almost certainly Kira, and, of course, he is. Thus, we can assume that this was a genuine accusation on Shimura’s part without any dispute, and given his views on Kira, he likely doesn’t think too highly of Higuchi, either.

After this, Namikawa and Mido go on for about a page or so to trash talk Higuchi before moving on to talk about Ooi. Even though we can safely assume Shimura has no love for Higuchi, he still doesn’t take part in this particular part of the discussion. One could interpret this in different ways, but I tend to believe the most likely explanation is that it’s not really relevant to the discussion and Shimura would rather get somewhere in his plans to stop Kira than sit there being petty about a coworker who they dislike (and who is also Kira).

The last point regarding Higuchi and Shimura’s relationship – and, chronologically speaking, the last point in this post – has to do with a line spoken by Higuchi in regards to all six of his co-conspirators while alone at home.

Although not directly stated, the implication here is that Higuchi is planning to kill all of them after he becomes company president. This speaks no more of Shimura’s relationship with Higuchi than it does anyone else’s relationship with him, but the result remains: for whatever attributes Shimura (and the others, as well) has, they are not enough, in Higuchi’s eyes, to merit him escaping with his life at the end of the day. There has never been much of a question about this, but it’s abundantly clear that he views his coworkers as nothing more than pawns to further his own plans. He was planning to dispose of them as soon as their use passed, and likely had been planning to do so for some time.

Regarding Shimura specifically, Higuchi acknowledges to himself that Shimura is intelligent, but does not make this opinion public and seems to enjoy putting him down. Any acknowledgement of his abilities is not equivalent to anything resembling care on a personal level, as Higuchi was planning to kill him without a second thought. Shimura seems to hold a dislike of Higuchi, but is more focused on the fact that he is Kira and less on having a personal disdain for him, like Namikawa and Mido seem to be.

Reiji Namikawa

As you may remember from Hatori’s section above, Namikawa agrees with Hatori in his attempt to reassure Shimura about their relationship to Kira (even if it doesn’t work). Throughout the meetings following this, Namikawa does acknowledge Shimura’s opinions a few times later on, which is … more than any of the others do.

It’s not too much, but, again, this is more than any of the others give during the meetings. Shimura, on the other hand, doesn’t ever outwardly react to any of this. In fact, the only major acknowledgement he makes of Namikawa is after “L” (who, of course, we all know is really Light Yagami) calls him.

Yeah, Namikawa, he’s obviously not buying that excuse, sorry. He doesn’t mention it for a while, but that’ll come up soon enough.

The majority of their interactions come from the meeting between them and Mido. Interestingly enough, Shimura entirely bypasses Namikawa as an option for support. Even though Namikawa has expressed verbal support for him during the meetings, however minor it was, Shimura never goes to him after Ooi proves to be unhelpful even though Namikawa is quite an influential voice in the meetings (not to touch on whether or not he is well-liked; that’s an entirely different matter) and goes straight to Mido when he can’t stand for the meetings any longer. This could be interpreted different ways, but it seems obvious to me that Shimura does not trust Namikawa. Not entirely, at least – and after Namikawa said he was happy their coworker died, why should he?

Nonetheless, Namikawa is still invited to their meeting. He states it was Mido who called him, but whether it was Mido or Shimura who first suggested his attendance is up for debate. Mido, from their interactions, seems to have a favorable enough opinion of Namikawa, so I tend to believe he suggested it and Shimura went along with it, but this is up to the reader’s speculation.

As you may remember from Mido’s section, Shimura states that he knows Namikawa (as well as Mido) is capable of achieving success on his own and is smart enough not to start up those meetings. This shows that he does have some level of respect for Namikawa, but doesn’t make it seem like he necessarily likes or trusts him. Namikawa, on the other hand, shows some actual interest in what he has to say. A couple of these instances are already shown above, in Mido and Takahashi’s respective sections, and while there are a few more that I could add, they only serve to further the same point, so I’ll leave it at those two.

Finally, Shimura brings up the phone call Namikawa received.

Just to speculate some – and these are merely my own thoughts – I’d say it’s likely that part of the reason Shimura agreed or suggested to have Namikawa come to this meeting in the first place was partially for the purpose of asking him this question in private. He does acknowledge that Namikawa is capable and intelligent, yes, but this doesn’t change the fact that he has priorly expressed verbal support for Hatori’s murder and generally shown no unwillingness to participate in the meetings. A disdain for Kira, sure, but nothing that proves on its own that having him join them would be helpful. Perhaps the opportunity to ask about this phone call helped further the reasons for his involvement? But, again, this is mere speculation.

As seen in Higuchi’s section above, Namikawa responds to this question by complimenting Shimura (and taking the chance to diss Kira some more). Shimura doesn’t respond to this at all, although Namikawa’s phone probably prevented him from doing so if he wanted to. Nonetheless, Namikawa quickly reveals the caller to be L when Shimura asks him to.

After this call, Shimura is visibly shaken up, but Namikawa attempts to provide him with some comfort.

Following this, Namikawa gives his little speech about “the true purpose of a Yotsuba employee,” to which Shimura goes along with unenthusiastically. To quote Mido, “Good one, Namikawa.”

It is fairly obvious that Namikawa likes Shimura. He doesn’t seem to pay him much mind for a while, but begins to acknowledge him during later meetings and realizes that he is really rather clever. He grows to have genuine interest in what Shimura has to say, and tries to make him feel more optimistic about their situation. On the other hand, while Shimura seems to have some level of respect for Namikawa and acknowledges his capability and intelligence, he doesn’t trust him on a very deep level and doesn’t seem to particularly like him, either. If you want to take their death scene in the anime into account, Shimura seems to grow to have a more positive attitude toward him over the months after Higuchi’s death, but there is no such scene in the manga and the anime isn’t always accurate in its portrayal of the Yotsuba members, so whether or not you accept this is up to you. Frankly, I don’t consider it manga canon; there is far less available characterization for anime Shimura, but manga Shimura shows far more discomfort around Namikawa than anything else, and I can’t imagine him overlooking Namikawa’s obvious disregard for human life (especially Hatori’s) enough to befriend him, or even trust him at all.

One final interesting thing to note is a line Shimura gives us in Chapter 50.

The fact of the matter is, Shimura’s coworkers have been far from kind. Repeatedly, the majority of them have ignored him and paid no mind to his opinions, and even Ooi, who he tried to seek help from multiple times, let him down in the end. Most of them have expressed no hatred for their situation, and when Hatori tried to leave, no one else spoke up or tried to convince the others to spare him. Despite this, somewhat bafflingly enough, Shimura believes that those of them who aren’t Kira will rally together with him and his two co-conspirators. Perhaps this would have worked (I’m of the opinion that they could find enough support to manage it), but either way, it shows a surprising amount of faith in his coworkers on his part. Even after all of their shortcomings, he still believes they will ultimately chose to do the right thing and try to help take down Kira. Shimura has every reason to believe otherwise, and yet he still places that much trust in them.

#Yotsuba #Suguru Shimura #Arayoshi Hatori #Masahiko Kida #Takeshi Ooi #Shingo Mido #Eiichi Takahashi #Kyosuke Higuchi #Reiji Namikawa #thoughts #spoiler: no one cares #....... anyway i love suguru shimura with all my heart and soul

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rwby-rants-and-theories · 7 years

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My problem is I see a lot of hate on Jaune and much of it is stupid or takes his flaws and makes them worse. Then there is the whole Pyrrha thing where its a series where Magic is made real we know Ozpin cheated death and we havent even got started learning the rules and people just go no she is dead period and I am like wut? Dont even get me started on the whole Jaune disrespected Pyrrha thing its like no one had ever heard of taking up another's sword before.

There most definitely is senseless Jaune hate.

People who say Jaune should just die are haters who engage in pointless vitriol and aren’t really suggesting a good solution to what a is very real characterization and pacing issue.

Jaune is here to stay because his is the story of the underdog who has glaring flaws and has made a dishonest action but also has the potential and drive to make things right.

He’s the deuteragonist, meaning that his story is pivotal to the overall narrative, but is second in priority to the story of Team RWBY, the title characters.

However, that doesn’t mean a very good job has been done with his characterization in the first few volumes, nor did he have an appropriate amount of focus in Volume 4.

Jaune’s a genuinely good guy. He really is. He’s my boi. My son. I’m rooting for him.

I just don’t like how his progress and growth is being handled.

(Incoming RWDE, beware.)

See the BRNZ vs JNPR fight, where his leadership is reduced to a joke just to have a gag about team uncoordination, or how he shouts vague orders rather than be given serious delivery about his strategy-building when RNJR fought the Geist Grimm. Or how he told Ruby, Ren, and Nora to go in a circle when they were already doing that.

In the first two cases, it’s not like there can’t be funny moments during a fight. But comedy shouldn’t come at the expense of a character’s development. Specially when said development is such a profound sign of progress. In the third case, that’s just a plain writing inconsistency. It’s one you might miss, for sure. But it shows that very little attention was put into it.

For more on that, I’d like to refer you to this post, where I explore the unwarranted amount of dialogue delivered by Jaune or centered around Jaune.

I’d like to talk about Pyrrha dying and Ozpin’s ability to wander around without a body.

Ozpin’s spiritual being is something that is probably inherent to his powers, whichever those may be. Many, such as myself, believe that Ozpin received the powers of the Wizard, much like the powers of the Maidens are transferred from woman to woman.

Obviously, that raises a lot of questions. One such being, “If the Wizard’s consciousness can transfer to the newest receiver of the Wizard’s power, can the same happen with Maidens?”

Back to the matter at hand, however, you have a point in saying that if Magic is a thing in Remnant, how is it less likely for Pyrrha to survive than Ozpin?

Well, you could argue that a power unique to Ozpin enabled his survival, and because Pyrrha does not possess it, her death is certain, or rather her return in any other form is unlikely.

We’re still very early in the show’s timeline, however. That could be proven wrong down the line. Who knows?

The issue is that it is very difficult to bring back a character from such a fate without it feeling like a cop-out.

No doubt it can be done, but… it can only be done in a handful of ways, since you could end up contradicting rules you had previously established. Or you could disregard the poetic and thematic gravity of a moment. Character deaths are meant to be heavy and meaningful. If a character just comes back without the proper foreshadowing or a significant change in their personality, the return of said character fails to be genuine.

But I’m sure you know that, Anon. I just needed to make that statement for argument’s sake.

Again, I’m not saying it can’t happen. It absolutely can. It just wouldn’t feel right if not done properly.

But that’s something that’s way down the line. When it comes to RWBY, a lot of things can only be dealt with a wait-and-see approach. That’s why speculating can feel a bit pointless.

But hey. It’s fun. We all do all sorts of things simply because it’s really fucking cool.

As far as that goes, I don’t disagree with you on that, Anon. But because I’ve deviated from my initial position, I’m kind of on the fence until I can collect more evidence and pick up on more and more foreshadowing.

If said foreshadowing comes.

I’m just the kind of person who’s gotta work on concrete evidence when it comes to stuff like this.

Now, about Jaune taking Pyrrha’s metal and using it for upgrades… It is disrespectful. Not just to Pyrrha, but to her family. As far as we know, she only has a mom, but she’d still want to know how her daughter’s doing. She probably don’t even know Pyrrha’s dead.

And Jaune just… thinks it’s a good idea to keep what’s left of Pyrrha to bury to himself rather than look for her mom so she can have closure about Pyrrha’s fate? So she can decide what happens to Pyrrha’s former belongings? Pyrrha’s mom should get to decide whether those things should be part of the only burial Pyrrha might ever get or if Jaune should inherit them as a memento of his partner and the person who saved his life countless times.

Pyrrha being mostly only relevant to Jaune is yet another tiring and frustrating iteration of the “Girl-Exists-For-Boy-and-Only-For-Boy” trope that has crushed the agency of countless female characters since time immemorial. Pyrrha shouldn’t just exist for Jaune. Pyrrha should get to be her own person separate from Jaune. With other relationships that get to be explored in the show.

That’s why Ruby’s reaction to Pyrrha’s death felt so… forced. Because there hadn’t been any true meaningful interactions between her and Pyrrha. Every single heart-to-heart conversation Pyrrha’s ever had has been with Jaune. Who’s Pyrrha to Ruby? Just this nice girl she’s hanged out with a few times and fought with that one time.

“Well, they probably had a very close friendship off-screen!” you might say. And that’s a very flimsy argument, to be honest. Because that’s just pure conjecture that can’t be proved unless it is mentioned or shown in canon that such moments really did happen.

In a show about strong female characters, you’d think you’d see other female characters bonding, other than the titular characters. Nora is the kind of person who’d adore Pyrrha and spend time with her and have fun. But we don’t get that.

I’ve also been meaning to write meta about how there was a missed opportunity with Pyrrha and Weiss bonding over their foiling circumstances of privilege and solitude. Pyrrha in Weiss have so much in common. It’s absurd how similar they are. That could have been a great relationship.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s good stuff about Jaune and Pyrrha. I’m absolute trash for Arkos. But Pyrrha’s character shouldn’t revolve around Jaune as much as it has.

Volume 3 was refreshing because Pyrrha finally got a story arc of her own that was pivotal to the overall story. It was hers and hers alone. Jaune was a small part of that. It was much more different than Pyrrha being a big part of Jaune.

Those are my thoughts on that matter, Anon. I made it as thorough as I could. Feel free to add anything else.

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwde #jaune arc #anonymous #daniel answers #thanks for the ask!

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jovieannramos-blog · 7 years

Text

Who is really the “boss”?

(photo courtesy from Google)

Rodrigo Roa Duterte elected as the 16th president of the Philippines on June 30, 2016 at exactly 12 in the afternoon. Who would imagine that a Davao City Mayor now became the President of the nation. His love for the country as well as his love for the people of the Philippines are one of his reasons why he was placed on that position. Indeed, he is ready to start his work for the nation. Unlike what former president Noynoy Aquino pledged to Filipinos, “Kayo ang boss ko”, President Duterte took a great risk of change.

According to Professor Richard Heydarian, a professor of political science in De La Salle University-Manila said,

“Duterte presented himself as an independent, competent and simple-living provincial mayor. He promised safety and effective governance.”

These characteristics made him to be the champion of the nation. He promised to the people that in his administration, change would come. According to Dindo Manhit, president of Stratbase-Albert Del Rosario Institute (ADRi) for Strategic and International Studies stated,

“During Duterte’s campaign, He positioned himself as an alternative to traditional presidential candidates. His unorthodox demeanor appealed to many Filipinos who saw him as unafraid to speak his mind, even to the extent of testing the limits of so-called “civilized” behavior. As a result, the millions of Filipinos that voted for him have high expectations for his presidency.”

Duterte’s aim is to destroy crime, illegal drugs and corruption. I am favored for his agenda because as one of the youth of this generation, we deserve a good and well-disciplined community. I noticed that he was focused in the campaign against illegal drugs and he continue this kind of war with the joint efforts of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). He said that whoever makes the lives of Filipinos miserable because of illegal drugs should be punished. He assured that these evil factors would be end in 3 to 6 months but later, he said that he might given a chance to extend another 6 months or even years for these to end. If we remembered in his inauguration, he pledged that there would be promotion, protection and fulfillment of human rights to the people but now that he is on the core of his campaign, however, he praised the extrajudicial killings (EJKs) of suspected or allegedly drug pushers and users. Even though the PNP denied about it, many Filipinos still cry for justice. According to Inquirer.net,

“On Tuesday, Sen. Panfilo Lacson described as “disturbing” that Filipinos seemed “resigned” that EJKs are part of the government’s war on drugs. On Monday, Pulse Asia’s Survey results showed that 73 percent of the 1200 surveyed respondents believed that EJKs exist in the government’s brutal crackdown on illegal drugs but 88 percent of them still support it.”

Some were killed by vigilantes others by military and police. I was worried about EJKs. I don’t know what is the standard of the current administration but we should still respect our law concerning human rights and even our culture that we are a Catholic nation. Not just about the issue of EJKs is being tackled about even the corrupt government officials have been revealed. According to Los Angeles Times,

“Dozens of government officials in the Philippines have surrendered to police under Duterte’s administration. Last year, he named 150 officials that he said were involved in country’s drug trade.”

One of the most prominent government officials he jailed was Sen. Leila de Lima. Well, I am satisfied for he really fear not the government officials as long as it is corrupt and greedy in money. But I don’t want his other side where he favors someone due to campaign’s performance before. One of those is the dancer turned blogger Mocha Uson. He rewards her with a position of Presidential Communication Assistant Secretary and now earns ₱106,000.00 monthly. It is okay with me if he is not bias in appointing officials and it would be better if he chooses the right and skilled people regardless its political background.

Aside from those, I also noticed that among previous administration, President Duterte made international trips for most of the time. According to Official Gazette,

“As of October 2017, he made 11 presidential trips to 16 sovereign states internationally since his inauguration day.”

Well, I doubt no more because his trips serve as an opportunity to foster and maintain relations with other governments and meet other leaders of the countries. The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) classifies these trips as either a state visit, an official visit or a working visit. Whatever the purpose of his trips, I assumed that there would be sense and significance in each. He must be aware of the amount of budget releases especially now that Marawi City is under construction and about to rise up.

There were lot of beautiful plans that Duterte promised to us. According to Philippine Star, there are his plans to carry out:

1. Improvement of government provision of social services which include education (now that we have K-12 curriculum), health (now that he wants to implement the reproductive health rights, children’s rights, HIV epidemic awareness), mass transportation (now that he wants to phase out old jeepneys and implement the modern ones).

2. Provision of assistance to Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families.

3. Adaptation to climate change through reducing risk.

4. Preparing for national disasters.

5. Adopting 911 nationwide.

“Duterte intends to overcome the alleged structural dissonance between macroeconomic reform which has been the hallmark of Aquino’s “Daang Matuwid” program and concrete improvement of living conditions and standards of Juan Dela Cruz.”

Yes, there were lot of good plans of Duterte’s administration. Some are implementing and some are still in the line of waiting. However, you are wondering why this essay is entitled, “Who is really the boss?”. Despite of his good achievements in his first year term, still, I must say that his character is more important than anything else. His character will reflect on his actions. His decisions are always changing and some are not put into practice. Did you remembered when he said that he would place our Philippine flag and protect the West Philippine Sea from China but what happened now? Well, I think he just did that because he wanted to maintain foreign relations in China. Did you also remembered when the family of Mary Jane Veloso cries for mercy and help to save her from death in Indonesia but what our president replied? “Follow your own laws, I will not interfere”, he said. Well, I think he said that because during that time he was so aggressive and angry when it comes to illegal drugs issues. I want to extend my deepest condole for those families who have been involved in EJKs. I am not satisfied for what’s happening in war on drugs. Though I like his agendas but the way of executing his people, that is another story to be concerned about, I am also worried about “Dutertards” thingy that is supposed to stop because there must be equality between government groups. No more “dilawans’’, “pula”, or even “asul” groups reigning in our country. At the end, the people itself will be suffer.

Well, how we will called the boss if even the president prefers to listen in his own decisions. Is there a possibility that we could lose our justice forever? Indeed, no one can stop the administration in governing us. In fact, he said that,

“There is no due process in my mouth.”

“You can’t stop me and I’m not afraid even if you say that I can end up in jail.”

- President Rodrigo Duterte

He sometimes called joker to the point that he once reported in media the fake news information about the bank account of Sen. Trillanes IV. Is it still a joke? Our president should realize that he is no longer running for campaign but he is now leading the country towards victory. He should think first before releasing a statement since all his words will now be treated seriously. Even though his hallmark was “Change is coming”, change can not be done immediately rather it is gradually happened. Changing one country is not just a responsibility of a single person rather it is done by the unity of the people whose mind, decision and passion are for good.

Though the administration is busy in fighting illegal drugs and criminality and sometimes the president admits that his decision is the decision of all, they should be reminded that we, Filipino people are still living in this country and we’re waiting for the government’s better quality of service. They should not disregard the voice of the people because at the end, the government is created to serve its constituents.

After all the events happened under Duterte’s administration, the question came up to my mind,

“Who is really the boss? The Filipino citizens, the president or the speculators inside the government?”.

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