Zero-Two is a nightmare

(It's super long and ranty btw) So I recently watched Darling in the Franxx since I saw the memes a while back and overall, good anime. Definitely a recommendation if you haven't watched it and like mecha animes and romance. However the main character dynamic is just so disturbed. If you haven't seen it and plan to, full spoilers below the breakpoint. If you want the romance 'ruined' though try to keep this question in mind (Yes I'm drawing it out so you can stop reading): "Does she actually know Hiro's name?"

I'll be honest, I didn't think I got off on the right foot with the show. The kiss she forced on him without Hiro knowing what it was already rubbed me the wrong way and somehow that managed to be the least of her problems. In the first half of the show the 'relationship' is one-sided, with Hiro moving heaven and earth for her while she's clearly just using him. At no point does she actually show care for him as a person, for his well-being or for his relation with other people. Even the feeding him at the table, which is the most relation-y thing I can remember her doing, is just for her benefit. He doesn't seem into it, he doesn't seem to like steak with honey and she doesn't wait for him to eat, she forces him to.

Zero-Two acts cold, dismissive with no concern for other people and her relationship with Hiro is nothing but 'greed'. She 'loves' him like a dragon loves gold. Not for any intrinsic value, both want to have it so no-one else can. She doesn't care whether he lives or dies to such a degree that when she has to pick between 'an itch for battle' and his last few minutes on this planet, she picks the former. Other people's lives just don't count to her. She's caused the deaths of multiple people and she can't even be bothered to remember for 24 hours with a living reminder in eyesight.

Another thing is that at no point in the entire show does she take any responsibility for what she's done. The narrative keeps forgiving her but she never actually bothers to learn her lesson. The only even possible exception I can think of is at the start of the second half after the Hand comes down. That off-screen conversation is the only spot where it could feasilbly be slotted into. And it's not once or twice, it just continues. She kills Hiro, he survived so it's fine. Insubordination endangering the team, eh. She puts the rest of the team in the hospital, reconciliation is on the table once the scabs are fully formed. And another thing about that hospital scene: Her thought is 'This is my punishment' which just shows you how much she thinks the world revolves around her. It's a logical consequence of how bad she's acting and her mind frames it like it's divine punishment.

But the main thing thing that just didn't leave me after I thought about it is the constant use of 'Darling'. It was super cute in the memes but once I noticed she literally never calls Hiro by his name it became much less sweet. It struck me like a rockstar calling their side-piece-of-the-week 'babe' because they can't be bothered to learn the actual name. With Zero-Two it mostly strikes me as the actual object of her affection. This vague memory of her 'darling'. Every corpse she's squeezed of energy like a capri-sun was just a temporary substitute which was enjoyed as long as they could last. Hiro is no different to her.

You might argue that that's just until their shared memory is unlocked and I firmly argue against. I don't think Zero-Two actually loves Hiro, the person, even after that. Nothing much changes about Hiro after that so what is this part she oh-so-suddenly loves now? Is it his sweet personality which he'd been displaying since day 1? Is it his leading position among people she didn't even bother to see as alive before? Why does she 'love' him once she knows that he was the boy who gave her freedom? To me the answer became 'she doesn't, he just changed roles from being a substitute to being the embodiment of her Darling'. She acts better because she's supposed to act lovey-dovey with her Darling. She plays ball with his friends so they don't force the wedge between parasite and host again. Maybe this is a bit too assenine, in fact it almost certainly is. But a healthy relationship tends to provide some actual counter-arguments to this line of thinking.

Some miscellaneous things: She fully intended to rape Hiro on that beach. The interruptions between Hiro and Ichigo were most likely intentionally since her senses are suggested to be excellent. Even in those scenes after the Princess kidnapped Hiro I didn't see concern, just focus on her-her-her.

Overall she can feel like a psychopath who instead of reading the Wolf of Wallstreet, read a sappy romance novel. (And thought that analogy up before the picturebook came to light) The show overall is great, the side-characters more than making up for the more messed up parts of the dynamic. Even the main couple themselves aren't unwatchable since the scenes themselves are sweet enough to be enjoyable. It's just the more I think about it the less sympathetic Zero-Two becomes. It just makes Hiro feel mind-controlled honestly.

The weirdest thought I had was that overall the show feels like a fanfic of another show in which Zero-Two doesn't exist. One where Hiro and Ichigo end up together which the writer of the fanfic really hated for whatever reason. The "I feel nothing" line just felt really egregious to me thought it lines up nicely with this. It'd probably have two seasons with the second being VIRM focused with them under command of the Princess and Hiro under some effect similar to that pulsing tumor-thingy he has during his third ride with Zero-Two. Since Zero-Two takes a decent chunk of the role of the Princess, the VIRM plotline is squished into just a few episodes and of course the central OC solves the issue by blowing up the VIRM homeworld. As opposed to something like Hiro and Ichigo undergoing full Saurification and slumbering underneath the earth for the next wave. I don't know, just some deranged idea to explain why the show feels so centralized on someone with surface level humanity.

Sorry for the rant, I'm probably wrong and/or stupid for it but thanks for reading. (if you did.)

Even Umbreon need love to evolve so you better go to bed on time or you're gonna be an Eevee forever!

February 2017 It's not a phase, MOM, I'm gonna be an UMBREON WHEN I GET OLDER.

Naegi ships on AO3

I was going to AO3 and for whatever reason I started wondering how Naegi Makoto was being shipped on there and so I decided to sift through the list. I only checked the canonical ones to keep the volume down. A few I thought were interesting are put below. Spoiler break for appropriately Danganronpa reasons

First up the one I hoped was low and it was! Kinda. With how much Enoshima pops up in other places I thought this one would be one of the highest but luckily that anti-thematic angsty tragedy was avoided.

Next up was one of my personal favorites and I was delighted to see how many it had. I'm just a sucker for the snippets we got of her in DR1 and DR IF. Great to know that I'm not the only one who thinks Naegi has more chemistry with Mukuro than with her sister.

I was honestly surprised that there weren't many here. I had imagined that the whole 'childhood friends' thing, their obvious crush for each other and Maizono's girl-next-door+pop-star thing would have made this an easy target for fanfics... Even her partial mental breakdowns make her easy to white knight for, I thought... I guess the attempted murder and framing didn't do her any favors. Or maybe I'm just missing something in the fandom, who knows.

And now for Nr. 1:

Boom. Kirigiri best-girl takes the top spot! (Mukuro is close second but still) By far the most popular girl among all the ships, by almost a thousand if I didn't miss any big ones. Definitely see it, hope they got together after wherever you stop acknowledging official material as canon.

Oh right, the runner up. I did say it was close among the girls. I don't see it, Togami is a douche who has literally never planned to be marry or be faithful or loving. But hey. Vaguely decent looking guy with a superiority complex. Whatever floats your boat. I guess.

Still, I wish all ships and fics and their readers a good and enjoyable time. Maaaaybe with the exception of this one:

That's all. Enjoy your night

I absolutely don't play much fighting games (just the full single-player on easy) but I once mashed so much on Mortal Kombat vs DC universe I got a 2 inch blister on my hand...

I n the tags, tell me which game(s) and what hurts (and would you do it again). Please reblog - thanks!

For me, I played botw, acnh, and stardew until my thumb tendons threatened to explode. I'll probs do it again lol

I feel like a 14 year old on public transport to uni and like a giant when going abroad.

The gif with that frame in it sustained me through Pantheon of Hallownest. Good times.

*Dog Squeaky Toy Sound*

Wait... you can block tags...? Where in the Hellscape Crashcourse was this? I want back to check, someone help me how to Tumblr here!

I'm genuinely curious! I personally don't because it's fun learning things second hand, and if something annoys me too much I just unfollow them.

It tends to switch between first and second (Incidentally I get a lot more pissed at second person)

Don't worry though, I know I don't have DID.

My disassociation is much more vanilla. (Also, we need a better spice to use because vanilla is basically saffron-levels of expensive.)

(sorry if this has already been done, I haven't seen it)

It feels like a certain rollercoaster-maker has taken some inspiration from this 'suislide'...

i’ve seen a lot of really messed up images in my time on the internet, weird fetish shit, even a few IRL gore images but nothing. NOTHING evokes such a deep seated, gut wrenching fear in me like this image of the fucking water slide from Action Park with the loop in it

As weird as it should feel, coming from someone with that pride-flag behind as their profile picture.

E.g. delightfully so

⅃ƎƎᖷ ӘИIꓘƆUᖷ TI ƧƎOꓷ WOH ꓷИƎIЯᖷYOꓭ ӘИIꓘƆUᖷ ƎHT ƎЯUOY WOИ

I love how this is both odd and comprehensive. I know nobody is around this blog (no bots, you don't count) but I'd love-love-love to see charts like that for other kinds of dynamics. (I don't know how humans interact, so sue me.)

at the request of @fierifreak, here is a chart i originally posted on twitter that inexplicably did numbers (credit to OP of the blank graph in the corner!)

Not sure if it counts as a birthday but happy 10th [creation]-day Vessel!

happy 10th birthday <3

C'mon bots

Why do I get a few follows a day from bots but zero messages? Do I need to change a setting? Do the bot makers think an empty blog with a barely SFW profile pic is going to get messages without innitiative?

To be clear, I'm not saying I want to get scammed but... it feels like even the bots think I'm beneath them...

I should be the one to ignore them, damnit!

Suffer with me

I just had the worst 'huh could that be true' ever. I promise this is a good/bad one. If you don't know the characters, look them up. It's worth it if you wanna feel awful. The sentence is safe, except maybe Danganronpa flashbacks but looking it up has some heavy trigger-warnings. Ready? Okay...

What if Manami Aiba/La Brava from BNHA is based off of Kotoko Utsugi from Danganronpa Ultra Dispair Girls?

I mean... Eye color, hair color, twintails. Not perfect but a bit close for comfort.... Kinda puts a different spin on her La Brava's quirk, doesn't it?

I checked, Ultra Dispair Girls came out way earlier. Before the manga chapter count hit double digits. Easily enough time for inspiration.

It's prooobably nothing though. Definitely nothing. For sure.

Enjoy the thought though! I had to jot it down to get the hairs on my neck down, so I thought I'd inflict it on those foolish enough to listen.

I can't help but imagine 'Team Magma grunt' taking her Numel here for a playdate.