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probably-haven · 3 years

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Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^

I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.

.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance

Anyway! onto the actual content!

- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.

- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.

- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.

- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.

- Lets talk about killing. - During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master

..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first... do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"

Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it. - the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen. - it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."

- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.

a couple character story quotes:

-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins. The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat." -"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory. No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time. Xiao has spent many long years alone. But his battles have never been in vain." -"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield." -"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage." -"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end." -"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."

i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him. - until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute. - and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.

and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"

...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should.

to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.

^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.

idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go- Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.

anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.

but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...

He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.

- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts

One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:

A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can. Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it.

both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory: Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t

Xiao’s power coming from himself and Venti’s from others And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes

both have killed a lot of people during the archon war Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself

and this is where we meet out balance

Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty Venti on the other hand-

See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game

Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-

whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows.

however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-

Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over-

they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.

GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING

I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.

anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason

Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of- Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included Xiao: Then why me above others? Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right] Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]

it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings. I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is.

I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other- Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it

within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely

so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action.

and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways.

-Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay

-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though.

-Messages whispered on the wind

-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips.

- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.

- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them. - And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself.

- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change

- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those

- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you: - Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt. - turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing.

- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”

- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)

- “How long have you been together?” “Adepti have no need for-” “1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love” “O///O our...? ...useless”

- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics- - so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard- - uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-

- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth. - Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced.

- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute - just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh

- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports

- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.

- and because i just had to.... love languages

- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so- - Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”

- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service - its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that.

- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead.

#genshin impact #genshin xiao #genshin venti #xiao #venti #xiaoven #genshin analysis #genshin headcanons #xiaoven headcanons #xiaoven analysis #this is a mess i really shouldnt be putting all these tags but oh well #oh wow the grammar and spelling here is truly repulsive #sorry to all my english teachers i have failed you all

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shihalyfie · 3 years

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The different aspects of Miyako’s personality and character arc

Miyako is a character where there’s just a lot going on with her in general, and asking different people to summarize Miyako in one phrase could feasibly get you some very different answers -- “the computer nerd girl”, or “the one who keeps talking about boys”, or “the one who panics all of the time”, or whatnot. Given that there’s so much to unpack at once even from her base profile, ironing out the full extent of her character arc can get a bit tricky, and there’s a lot going on with it. So, given that: Who is Miyako, anyway?

Miyako’s background and personality

Miyako is a character that I think is best understood by understanding what kind of person she is, and the personality and mentality she goes into the story of 02 with.

An interesting background story behind Miyako’s creation is that she’s based off a real person -- more accurately, a certain assistant producer on the series (whose identity has remained undisclosed, presumably for privacy reasons) was used as a reference for her behavior and actions. Although Adventure and 02 have a philosophy of portraying realistic human behavior in general, this level of specificity is a unique designation to have, and series director Kakudou Hiroyuki has referred to this a few times over the years -- it seems she’s the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have such a concrete single-person reference, and it’s also the reason her blood type of AB and star sign Gemini were given in 02 episode 25 (the other kids don’t have mentioned birthdays or blood types to prevent personality restrictions via horoscoping, but a real person having Miyako’s personality, star sign, and blood type wouldn’t make that as much of an issue). Even Volcano Ota himself confirmed Miyako’s resemblance to her upon hearing it after the fact! Indeed, a lot of 02 fans (especially adults) have admitted that Miyako’s probably one of the most relatable people in the cast, namely because her gushing about things she likes and panicking at things that overwhelm her is...well, a bit too uncomfortably on-point at times.

(And especially since so much about Miyako’s character has to do with how happy she makes everyone around her, it’s not too hard to imagine that the staff was so fond of her real-life inspiration that they wanted to pay tribute to her in such a way...)

Still, Miyako is a fictional character, one with her own backstory and interactions in 02′s story, and said backstory is such: she comes from a family that runs a convenience store in Odaiba, and is the youngest of a family of four siblings. Running a convenience store on a small island means that Miyako has probably seen a lot of the island’s residents, and her family also has various levels of connections to the other kids’ families (her older sisters Momoe and Chizuru are friends of Daisuke’s sister Jun, and Chizuru is Yamato’s classmate). Moreover, she’s befriended her nine-year-old neighbor (one who otherwise has trouble socializing with his peers) to the point of regularly going over to do computer repairs for his family. She’s also worked in the computer club under Koushirou, and even before the series has started, she looks up to him and adores him in a way not entirely unlike how Daisuke looks up to Taichi -- and although it’s unclear whether or not she started after the beginning of 02, 02 episode 29 reveals that she helps Yamato with his band.

The pattern here is that Miyako is extremely sociable, and one who actively pokes her nose into nearly everything so she can help out. This makes her a very different sort of Mom Friend from Sora -- both of them are Crest of Love holders for good reason, but in Sora’s case, she was compulsively going out of her way to help other people to the point of exhaustion, and her character arc was about trying to find a way to detach herself from obligations and do something for herself. Miyako is the complete opposite -- she’s the kind of extrovert who actively enjoys poking her head into other people’s business, picking up a bunch of peripheral hobbies so she can do something useful for everyone and go I’M HELPING!! If you actually look closely at those hobbies of “computer programming and hacking”, “hardware tinkering”, and “sound engineering”, other than vaguely being related to computers, they are completely different skillsets, and every single one of them is one Miyako’s depicted employing in order to help someone else out. (Koushirou is never really depicted as having super amazingly high technical skill and most of his unique talent comes from being a thorough analyst, but in contrast, while Miyako is established as being good at even hacking in Diablomon Strikes Back, she doesn’t really seem to have a huge propensity for deep analytical thought.) It’s hard to tell if she has any personal preference for any of them as much as she basically turned herself into a jack-of-all-trades so she could do whatever job was necessary for someone else.

If we’re to believe the official 02 site, Miyako’s been a bit pampered by her family -- as the youngest of four siblings, she’s the “baby of the family”, who hasn’t had to live with a ton of responsibility for others. This means that, much like Mimi, she seems to have been raised surrounded by a ton of affection, which is why she herself is such an openly affectionate person who’s open-minded towards trying all sorts of things, and why she’s used to wanting to help others by actively throwing herself into situations -- but it also means that, being the youngest of a family who is now in the situation of being the oldest in a new group, she ends up in Jou’s situation of suddenly being faced with the pressure of the concept of proper responsibility for others.

As far as Miyako’s general personality goes, she is constantly overflowing with affection and cheer and a desire to dote on everyone -- but the flip side is that she’s also aggressive. She has zero sense of restraint. (If you ever get around to listening to the Japanese version of 02, Natsuki Rio’s performance is energetic and over-the-top in almost every way imaginable to the point that you get the impression of Miyako as someone who doesn’t easily run out of batteries -- at least, until things start getting really serious.) When she loves something, she’ll gush about it as if there were hearts floating around her (and, depending on the level of closeness, even jump in and physically hug them), and she has no qualms against physically manhandling if she feels she needs to, and if she dislikes something, she will make it very clear (including yelling very loudly about it). You could argue that she’s actually closer to the archetype of the brash shounen protagonist than Daisuke himself is!

In fact, Miyako and Daisuke have very similar temperaments -- pure-hearted, but also rough around the edges -- but can be distinguished by the fact that while Daisuke is actually deferential and somewhat lacking in assertion, Miyako is actually aggressive, and while Daisuke’s “honesty about his feelings” is mainly because he’s too simple-minded to be any good at hiding anything, Miyako’s honesty is because she has no brain-to-mouth filter, and everything she’s thinking comes out of her mouth before she can control it -- in other words, Miyako has a huge case of foot-in-mouth syndrome. She doesn’t want to be insensitive, but it keeps coming out of her mouth before she can control it -- and even worse, her emotions are prone to taking control of her, and she is very prone to getting overwhelmed and collapsing into a massive panic.

If you think about the two archetypes of “girl who takes care of everyone” and “aggressive action girl”, Miyako has a tendency towards both at once, and moreover there’s an extra nail in it -- most “action girls” in the latter category would be portrayed as badass, put-together characters with a cool personality, but Miyako is a mess. She’s prone to panicking, all over the place, and her tendency to get in-your-face is not exactly in the most dignified manner. And as a result, a huge part of her character arc (as we will be going more into detail about below) is that she’s aware of this and doesn’t like this about herself -- because she doesn’t want to be insensitive or rude, and in fact she wants to be someone who can better help and take care of others, but, in her mind, her own personality keeps getting in the way.

Miyako in 02

After fully becoming a Chosen Child in 02 episode 2, it only takes one more episode for Miyako to bring food for everyone, as if to say “Right! I’m going to be working with everyone now! All of you are now my new best friends!” (”Bringing food for people” is one of Miyako’s many ways of showing love, given that she returns from Kyoto in 02 episode 34 and immediately hands off souvenir yatsuhashi to Koushirou.) And with that, Miyako settles into the archetype of the group’s “mood maker” -- someone whose role is to keep everyone in emotionally high spirits by influencing everyone with cheer and energy. 02 episode 5 features the debut of her famous “Digital Gate, open! Chosen Children, let’s roll!” catchphrase -- this and her other famous “Bingo!” catchphrase establish her as the only of the Tokyo Chosen Children to have a catchphrase (at least, in the Japanese version). Because catchphrases are fun.

As much as everyone (especially Daisuke) is a bit blindsided by her behavior at first, they eventually come to embrace the positive effect she has on all of them -- Daisuke very genuinely asks her for “the usual cheer” in 02 episode 10, and, all the way in 02 episode 22, this is such an agreed-on and established role that they’ll still wait on her to do the honors even when they’re in a hurry. So in other words, it didn’t take long for Miyako to go out of her way to shower everyone with cheer, and it didn’t take long for everyone to answer to that cheer and appreciate her for it.

The flip side of this, however, is that Miyako doesn’t start off being very emotionally equipped to handle this -- right off the bat in 02 episode 2, she says that she’s not inclined for fighting, and in 02 episode 4, she refers to it as being “like an adventure game”. That is to say, she’s not at the point where she’s able to handle the full gravity of what she’s just involved herself with (Daisuke reminds her that she’d panicked earlier, but she just blows it off). She’s handling it so cheerfully now because the series is still in its early stages, when she can enter and exit the Digital World at will, and she’s capable of treating it like this.

So when the stakes do get higher, she’s the first one to take the stress hard. As mentioned before, she’s the youngest in her family, now recast as the oldest in this group -- but unlike Jou, who consciously knew this fact and took stress onto himself because of the responsibility this entailed, Miyako seems to repeatedly forget that she’s the oldest in this group, and the events of 02 episodes 9-10 (when Agumon is kidnapped) cause her to break down from stress and have to take a time-out. (Which everyone allows her to do, because this is not a series where people are pressured to fight if they’re not emotionally ready for it.) Miyako comes to terms with the fact that the stakes are going to keep escalating, and she can’t just gloss over everything with cheer -- and she does manage to pull herself enough to bring Yamato into the fray at the end of the episode, but this continues to be a recurring theme for the rest of her character arc.

While we’re discussing these early parts of the series, one thing I want to briefly address is the part where Miyako infamously calls a lot of people hot. (Although, not as many as the fanbase would love to make you think; it’s only four people in total.) This tends to get her pinned as some kind of flirt whose head is only filled with being hot for people, but while she’s certainly a bit on the shallow end at this point of the series -- dealing with that being what this character arc is about, after all -- this trait of hers tends to get exaggerated by a lot of people in the audience as if she’s completely lacking in common sense. Miyako’s ridiculous (and we love her for it), but she does have some degree of grip on herself! Context is important here -- she might show a crush on someone, but at no point in the series itself does Miyako show any indication of seriously thinking of full-on dating.

For Miyako, who’s accustomed to just blurting out the first thing that comes to mind, commenting on someone being hot is like commenting on the weather -- she means it as a compliment, but there’s no evidence she thinks she has a chance with any of them, let alone wanting to try dating. This is especially when you take into account her self-esteem issues that we learn about later in the series, and also...well, the fact she’s only twelve. (Remember: even Daisuke’s thing for Hikari comes out as a lot of unfocused affection, and it’s unlikely he’s seriously considered the concept of following that up with a serious relationship -- any serious prospects of romance or dating are not going to be on the table for these kids for a while.) Miyako has also been accused by some of being abysmally shallow for still complimenting Ken’s looks in 02 episode 9 (after it’s already apparent he’s the Kaiser), but although she certainly is a bit shallow at this point of the series, she’s not that lacking in common sense; Iori got in on it too in this scene, and both of them were doing it to tease Daisuke more than they seriously wanted to compliment the Kaiser all that much. So in essence, it’s just “Miyako has eyes” -- she still completely agrees he’s their enemy and she’s not going to judge him any better for his looks, but she also doesn’t see this as a reason to lie about the fact she thinks he’s visually good-looking, especially if it’s to tease Daisuke about it.

In any case, 02 episode 14 digs a lot more into Miyako’s stance on herself regarding others -- in 02 episode 6, Miyako met Mimi for the first time, and latched onto her for their similar dispositions and her looking up to Mimi for being beautiful, amazing, and cool (and she should, because she’s right). 02 episode 14 adds another layer to this, however, when Miyako spends the duration negatively comparing herself to Mimi. At first it starts off as simply just shallow jealousy for Michael giving Mimi more attention, but as the situation with Digitamamon escalates, Miyako spends a prolonged period of time trying to figure out Mimi’s behavior of pure-heartedly choosing to trust Digitamamon despite everything, against Miyako’s insistence that Digitamamon’s behavior proves that he was untrustworthy the whole time.

Mimi and Miyako’s stances are both on extremes here -- Mimi’s pacifistic tendencies are causing her to let her get beaten up by Digitamamon despite the fact that “appealing to people’s hearts” has never really been demonstrated as a good way to get Evil Rings off (to be fair, this is probably the first time they’ve made an attempt at this with a Digimon that can still talk coherently with it on), but Miyako’s acting as if this retroactively proves him to be untrustworthy even though she knows that the Evil Rings are tantamount to brainwashing. Nevertheless, Miyako acknowledges that her own stance was borne out of her being shallow and judgmental, especially since the discussion between Mimi and Digitamamon brings out a question about the meaning of the “true self”.

Miyako, at this point, is confronting everything that’s bad about herself -- that she’s shallow and not as much of a “good person” as Mimi is. But the Crest of Purity -- once meaning “lack of malice” back when it applied to Mimi in Adventure -- now has a secondary meaning of “not lying to oneself” (the dub translation of “Sincerity” is not actually that off in this sense), and it also means that Miyako is not going to get anywhere pretending or forcing herself to be someone she’s not. The secondary Digimental arc has a recurring theme of understanding that there are still things you need to learn and improve on in order to do better, and this is Miyako’s version of it -- she will have to acknowledge all of the bad parts of herself before she can get anywhere and become a kind person like Mimi is -- and, indeed, becoming less shallow and judgmental and not jumping to conclusions, and learning to reach out to more substantial cores of the problem, ends up becoming a major part of her character arc in the latter half of the series.

This episode also implies one more thing, even if she doesn’t realize it yet at this moment: the path to her becoming a less shallow and more considerate person is not going to involve trying to force herself to be like Mimi, but rather in a way that’s closer to her “true self”.

Miyako’s first major turning point is in 02 episode 18, an episode that’s said to have such a profound impact on her that even Natsuki Rio testified to having to alter her Miyako performance thereafter.

Back in 02 episode 10, Miyako first started to realize that this whole experience of fighting as a Chosen Child was a lot more stressful than it seemed at first, and reacted badly to it. Here, the ante gets upped even more -- the kids decide to make use of their summer break and organize a Digital World stakeout, and, eventually, Hikari accidentally becomes indirectly responsible for tipping Miyako over the deep end by making an implication that they need more “determination” to the point of refusing to leave until they’ve beaten the Kaiser. (Remember that Hikari can be terrifyingly assertive as long as it’s not something to do with herself.) For Miyako, who’s never had the same experience of being in the Digital World for a prolonged period of time the same way the Adventure group has, this is terrifying, and she tries to “get herself together” over the night -- only to completely overshoot it and go into the complete other extreme. As much as this ends up being one of Miyako’s peak hilarity moments, it’s most certainly representative of her being under a huge amount of pressure and stress, and it’s effectively her “peak worst” moment -- which results in Hawkmon ending up having to cover for her, and getting injured in the process, and Miyako immediately realizing how badly she’d messed up.

Miyako is thus forced to face a major consequence of her behavior: if she doesn’t manage to figure out a way to get herself under control, other people will be hurt, and as someone who wants to do her best for other people, that’s one of the worst possible outcomes for her.

In addition, it’s also important to point out Hikari’s role in this. The Jogress arcs have yet to set in, but the series still gives you a little preview of what’s to come eventually, such as the insight we get about Daisuke and Ken’s initial attitudes towards each other in 02 episode 8, and Iori later personally witnessing (and being very disturbed by) Takeru losing his composure in 02 episode 19. In this case, we see a bit of what Miyako and Hikari’s opposing personalities can offer for each other (especially since the later 02 episode 31 more heavily involves Miyako returning the favor in the other direction) -- Hikari correctly identifies exactly what it was that set Miyako off, takes responsibility for it, and even decides to make sure Miyako and Hawkmon get proper alone time so that they can figure things out. In general, everyone in the 02 team is understanding of Miyako’s antics and doesn’t hold any of it against her because she’s doing her best, but right now, Hikari may be the only person in this group who can actually proactively do something about it, because Daisuke’s not assertive enough to step in, Takeru has a tendency to dodge things whenever they get awkward, and Iori’s holding himself back too much for the sake of manners (especially in the presence of Miyako, who’s the oldest one in this group). But while Hikari does have an emotional repression problem, she’s perfectly capable of holding herself together and putting her foot down when it comes to other people, and because of this, she’s the one who’s able to understand what exactly is going on with Miyako, and how to adjust the situation around her to make things easier for her.

Miyako and Hawkmon have a proper heart-to-heart, and we see more of Miyako’s self-hating tendencies going on here -- she refers exactly to her problems with impulse control, and even labels herself a “bad partner” as a result. But Hawkmon reassures her that she’s fine the way she is, and it ties into how a larger theme of her character arc will involve her learning to find better ways to channel the qualities she already has, rather than trying to force herself to be someone she’s not.

Once the Kaiser is defeated, the second half of the series is where we start to see Miyako’s growth start to really kick in. In 02 episode 24, there’s a short blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene where Miyako suddenly takes Daisuke and puts him in charge of taking care of the Punimon. Why is this important? Because two episodes prior, Daisuke had been running around in circles like an idiot due to having been third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari, and the moment Daisuke started exhibiting similar signs this time, Miyako personally stepped in and gave him a job to do -- and her actions of keeping an eye on them and her conversation with Takeru and Hikari indicate that she did it exactly because she figured that he would like it. Or, in other words, Miyako correctly identified Daisuke’s need for validation and purpose, and became the first person to proactively do something to address it -- Hikari and Takeru had generally been dodging it awkwardly for the duration of the series, which had only really been making it worse, and, in the absence of another crisis to take care of or someone like Ken to fill the void in Daisuke’s life, Miyako was able to properly figure out exactly what he needed at the moment as a stopgap, and thus is starting to settle into her proper role of understanding what others need in terms of emotional support and actively working to address it.

Since the second half of 02 is dedicated to Ken slowly establishing his place in the group, 02 episode 25 is dedicated to Miyako tussling with her conflicted feelings on the situation -- she’s just as open-minded and pure-hearted as Daisuke is, but the one thing that’s bothering her is that she’s a little more doubtful than he is in regards to whether Ken’s heart is really in the right place with all of this. She says, outright, that she believes he’s learned his lesson -- in a way far more firm than Takeru, Hikari, and Iori are about it -- but that one thing about him having potentially killed Thunderballmon in cold blood doesn’t fit the optimistic image she’d like to have of him.

Daisuke is more practical-minded than she is and is more willing to accept that there might have been a good reason -- especially since he himself starts to consider in this very episode that killing an enemy may be necessary if it’s the only way to prevent more victims -- but Miyako is more emotionally oriented and just can’t accept the idea of doing this at all. Both the internal debate over accepting Ken and the internal debate over having to potentially do a kill tear her apart over the course of this episode, and Miyako finds herself constantly waffling back and forth between the two positions. It’s not just her expressing minor doubt; she actually agonizes over this for the duration of the night and the next day, to the point she even considers asking him about it (and eventually can’t bring herself to).

It’s also made a prominent point that Miyako’s prior attraction to Ken in 02 episode 8 was not the reason she wanted to be optimistic about him -- remember, back in 02 episode 14, she completely admitted that she judges people by appearances, but at this point she’s well past that! Miyako takes this entire issue of whether Ken should be considered a friend very seriously, and that’s why it torments her so much over the course of the episode.

Eventually, all is resolved (at least, for the time being) when it turns out that Ken has been dealing with non-sentient Dark Tower Digimon, and Miyako takes this as sufficient evidence that Ken has changed -- the morality debate about killing comes back in full force in 02 episode 43, and Ken himself ends up just as shaken about it, so the important part is that she understands that he’s trustworthy and wants to put faith in him. Attention is also given to Miyako deciding she’ll now call him by given name (”Ken-kun”) from now on -- even Daisuke himself won’t start calling him “Ken” regularly until 02 episode 39, but Miyako starts slowly inserting given-name basis for Ken into her vocabulary from this point on until she finally commits to it fully in 02 episode 30. This is a proactive and conscious act on Miyako’s part that she actively wants to get to know him better and consider him a close friend, and it’s because of this that she ends up one of the only people who never gets habituated into surname basis with him by the time everyone’s come to properly befriend him.

So, at this point: Within only one episode (and, in-universe, one day), Daisuke and Miyako landed on the same page with their ideological stance towards Ken. They’re both open-minded and forward-thinking, and have an interest in becoming his friend (the next person to show active and open goodwill towards him, Hikari, won’t do so for another 9 episodes). However, despite their surface temperaments being somewhat similar, they have some differences in their priorities and way of approaching things, and it means that each of them ends up reaching out to Ken in ways that the other isn’t as good at. Daisuke, being the very practical and simple-minded sort who doesn’t overthink things or get caught in arbitrary philosophy, is the one who most proactively reaches out to Ken and most famously connects with him the most due to Ken very badly needing guidance in how to move on forward and stop getting fixated on his past. Miyako, on the other hand, being very much the type to consciously think about things (to the point of sometimes thinking about too many things at once) and focus on “how do I most show my support for someone right now?”, puts her priorities on checking on Ken’s current emotional state and actively attempting to glean his feelings and position. 02 being a series about relationships and what people can provide for each other, this ends up reflecting on their roles in the group as a whole -- Daisuke becomes the person who can pull everyone forward in determining the best thing to do, whereas Miyako fills in the parts his rough-around-the-edges demeanor doesn’t quite cover in terms of supporting everyone emotionally and keeping them together.

And thus, Miyako resolves to “wait” until the day Ken will join them -- that is to say, she takes the stance that Ken deserves proper space and to come on his own terms. It’s an interesting inversion of the usual roles you’d expect from Daisuke and Miyako at this point -- and, again, since 02 is about relationships, “each character’s approach towards the new kid and how it impacts them” reflects a lot about their own characters. For Daisuke and Miyako, who were open-minded towards Ken early in the game, you can already see the impact on them -- the necessity of reaching out to Ken causes the normally deferential Daisuke to become more proactive and put his foot down, whereas the normally uncontrollably in-your-face Miyako comes to understand when something needs to be handled delicately and starts getting a better grasp on the concept of restraint.

Which means that Miyako’s actions regarding Ken in the following episodes are significantly more passive than Daisuke’s are, but it’s clear that she’s still supportive. Moreover, it’s also important to establish that she and Daisuke aren’t fighting about this or anything -- Miyako does want Ken to come around eventually, so she doesn’t stop the more proactive Daisuke from reaching out to Ken in an important way, but she instead exerts her position in ways such as joining in with the others reminding him that Ken might have gotten a bit emotionally overwhelmed by the Jogress (and thus that it’s understandable that he might need some time to parse this before pushing the issue further). The way Miyako words this statement so casually can easily be a distraction from the fact that she is completely correct -- as we see later, Ken did emotionally freak out the moment the incident was resolved and had to go home to think about this. Scatterbrained as Miyako may seem, as the series proceeds, it turns out that she has a natural propensity for empathy that means she’s capable of making perfectly correct readings of the situation, even without her thinking that hard about it.

Not that she’s correct all of the time, though. 02 episode 30 has her attempt to get Ken and Iori to hopefully be a little less tense around each other end in complete disaster (although to be fair to her, it’s not like she and Daisuke were particularly forceful about it, it’s just that their plan was so poorly set up that it was too easy to read the motive behind, and it’s ultimately thrown off because -- as Daisuke correctly points out -- the two are being really childish about it.) But in response, Miyako takes direct action and responsibility to fix the situation when Ken continues to refuse to help despite how badly the situation is escalating, and when she finally reaches him, she gets frustrated at the fact he’s being so stubborn, smacks him, and personally drags him back over. Miyako cared a lot about this, she had wanted Ken and Iori to get along for no reason of personal benefit to herself but more because she cared that much about the group’s dynamic and friendship, and she’d held herself back so much because she was worried about him, but here he’s taking all of that and still giving them all the cold shoulder when everyone is in grave danger, and all of that frustration causes her to break down at once.

And note Ken’s reaction -- he’d been holding off on the grounds that he was being a burden on everyone’s friendship, but he sees Miyako distraught and upset and calling him an idiot (i.e. his whole pretense of not hurting others has clearly not worked here), and his “idiot...?” comes out flustered and off-guard, and he shows no resentment towards her thereafter and comes quietly with no protest, even holding a hand to the place she’d smacked him as if mulling in agreement that he deserved that. So, again: Even when Miyako is coming to all of these conclusions in a haphazard manner, it doesn’t change the fact that her readings of these situations are often completely correct.

02 episode 31 is another landmark episode in which we get a lot of insight into Miyako’s current feelings regarding herself in comparison to others, and what she’s trying to achieve at this point in the series. Daisuke makes an offhand remark at the beginning of the episode about Hikari being more “kind” than Miyako (”kind” having a double meaning of “gentle” in Japanese, so Daisuke’s mainly referring to Miyako being such a rough and belligerent person). The way Miyako takes this statement indicates that Daisuke had accidentally just hit a very deep-seated complex within her -- Miyako had never liked the fact she was aggressive and belligerent and in-your-face (remember, back in 02 episode 14, she was constantly negatively comparing herself to Mimi for not being as good of a person as her, and now this has extended to Hikari, who “keeps so much inside”.). As the crisis in the episode escalates, Miyako continues to fall victim to her foot-in-mouth syndrome, saying things and instantly regretting it, because she sees herself as making the situation worse -- and especially when it comes to a situation also involving Ken, whom she’s actively trying to reach out to right now. Her frustration at the fact she can’t see what Ken and Hikari see is because, unable to understand what they’re talking about or what their feelings are, she’s basically a sitting duck who can’t do anything while things are getting worse for them.

Which ultimately results in Miyako completely losing her marbles and Hikari having to smack her out of it -- again, recall that in 02 episode 18, it was shown that Hikari is one of the few people who has enough assertiveness to be able to rein in Miyako’s behavior, and even outright admits that Miyako is a bit of a handful. Miyako, as it seems, had been carrying a complex that Hikari had been thinking of her badly for all of this -- but Hikari then proceeds to reveal the flip side of all of this: she’s also conversely jealous of Miyako for being able to express herself so clearly and easily, because she herself is the type who compulsively represses her own feelings about herself, which is why nobody had been able to properly reach out to her for the duration of Adventure and 02.

For someone who had spent so much time considering herself a “bad person” and a “worse person” in comparison to people like Mimi and Hikari, that someone considers her qualities outright enviable is a huge deal -- it’s not that Miyako’s an objectively worse person than all of the other people who aren’t as rough or in-your-face, but rather, that those qualities can bring out positive things in their own way. And, immediately after that, we see one of those things -- she makes Hikari laugh, thanks to her antics. Of course, it involves Miyako being a bit all over the place and making a lot of mistakes, but even she admits “I guess it is funny.”

And there’s another thing to this, too: Miyako continues to end up with foot-in-mouth as she casually refers to things like the Evil Ring and Ken being the Kaiser with zero fanfare, before realizing seconds after that she probably shouldn’t be doing that in front of him, but, once again, even without her realizing, her evaluation is not incorrect -- although the fact he’s extremely out of it doesn’t make that clear quite yet in this episode, Ken is not the kind of person who’s touchy about acknowledging that he was the Kaiser, and, by his own statement in 02 episode 23, his stance is that he wants to “accept everything about it”, take responsibility, and move on. So here we are with Miyako, who just casually tossed that statement out like it was no big deal, has accepted his past with no lingering grudge against him, and even made a casual evaluation about him presumably having the same resilience he had as the Kaiser, which, again, is completely accurate. All of this is exactly the kind of attitude that Ken needs to be surrounded by right now, and Miyako had just touched on this without even thinking that hard about it, and also is still making it clear she doesn’t want him to feel bad about it...

And so, the episode’s climax has Miyako finally attaining the solution to the question of reaching out to Hikari, the one that nobody had been able to successfully accomplish throughout Hikari’s childhood of never expressing herself properly and the majority of Adventure and 02: to get Hikari to stop being so passive and accepting her inevitable fate because she doesn’t want to burden others, someone as aggressive as her will need to reach her and yank her out, and hit all of the exact points about understanding that someone will be there for her and that she should not accept this defeatist mentality. Hikari is unusually, unhealthily passive, and Miyako, being outwardly aggressive and someone who never hesitates to be blunt about things, is the best person to yank her out of this; it was never a sign of her being a “bad person”, just something she needed to channel in the right direction.

At the end of the episode, we’re also reminded once again that this is a series about relationships, so this kind of growth is important to everyone’s relationships with others as well -- thanks to Miyako’s efforts, Hikari is finally able to speak honestly with Takeru in contrast to her way of leaving off in silence with him at the end of 02 episode 13, and Miyako herself is happy that she’s finally gotten to have a better understanding of both Hikari, whom she herself had been unsure about the position of earlier, and Ken, whom she’d been worried she hadn’t been reaching out to in the right way.

While Ken was out of it during said episode and unable to coherently respond, we do get confirmation that he himself has hopped on the train of respecting Miyako’s intent well enough that he doesn’t hold anything over her -- during 02 episode 33, a mere three episodes after she’d personally slapped him in the face and two episodes after he’d practically seen her at her emotional worst, he still takes it upon himself to personally deliver Poromon to Kyoto and trust her to handle the rest. This isn’t that particularly interesting by itself, but moreso in terms of the context this is in -- this is a point where Ken’s still at awkward arm’s length with a lot of the team (including even Daisuke, in some ways), and he’s seen Miyako do all of the above messy things only not too long ago, but he still is comfortable enough around her and trusting enough in her abilities that he’s okay with casually approaching her and saying “you got this.” So it’s working, all things considered!

We also learn that Miyako had trusted Koushirou with Poromon during her trip to Kyoto, which says a lot about the fact she trusts her senior that much -- and, on a meta level, seems there specifically to facilitate the existence of the above scene (it would have been very easy to save time by just having Poromon accompany Miyako from the get-go and ending Ken’s involvement in the episode at his conversation with Koushirou...).

The following episodes also meanwhile establish that Miyako’s relationship with Hikari has been improving a lot -- with Miyako now actually understanding what Hikari needs, she’s much more proactive in reaching out to Hikari, and it’s even said directly by Iori in 02 episode 36 that their relationship seems to have gotten much better now. And, once again, Miyako’s antics are depicted as making people laugh -- note her and Hawkmon’s over-the-top advertisement performance doing so for everyone in the vicinity.

Which is also reinforced, again, in 02 episode 38, when this even spreads to Ken himself, in a moment that’s said to be particularly unusual and portrayed as one of the first times Ken has been able to be truly carefree in a long time. Again, the point here is: Miyako’s “all-over-the-place” nature brings joy to other people, and that “she makes people laugh” is continually reinforced as a symbol of this over the course of the second half of the series.

Beyond that, the visit to Ken’s house kicks off with Miyako noticing the picture of Osamu and asking about it, to the point she’s shown leaning over and staring at it for quite a while -- Koushirou had allegedly informed her about it earlier, and a whole point is made that she’s the one very prominently wanting to understand more about Ken and his background.

Also, Miyako reminds us all that she still does think Ken is attractive, but it’s a huge contrast to her behavior from back in 02 episode 8, when she knew nothing about him except that he was some celebrity genius boy -- she got completely worked up about it, moped about it for a whole day, and even dragged the fixation into the next day when she started aggressively confronting Daisuke about it, but we’re here 30 episodes later with Miyako actually considering him an important friend that she respects the feelings of, and she simply casually tosses out the statement of him being cute in her usual “like it’s commenting on the weather” manner, with no extra weirdness about it.

We close up some of the threads of Miyako's character arcs when Miyako herself is forced to confront the possibility of fighting an enemy to the kill in 02 episode 44, and Silphymon is eventually forced to kill LadyDevimon to save Miyako's life. Miyako’s emotional reaction is given the most attention here, since she herself had fixated so much on the horror of potentially killing Golemon back in 02 episode 25 -- in fact, everything Miyako does in this episode is about her emotional empathy and empathy for others, in that she rails on LadyDevimon for being a “coward” who hurts other people. Eventually, it’s once again the assertive Hikari who’s able to get her back on her feet by putting it in a way she can understand -- they were not doing it out of a callous and cruel intent to kill, but to save the exact victims that Miyako herself wanted to prevent.

And, even to the very end of the series, Miyako continues to channel her proactivity into emotional awareness first and foremost -- 02 episode 46 has her take the lead in the Dark Seed roundtable, and it’s implied that she’s doing this mainly because she knows this is a very personal issue for Ken to have to witness. In contrast to the way she frantically started spitting out potentially insensitive things in front of Ken in 02 episode 31, here, she outright says that she doesn’t want to make him feel bad about this (and, fortunately, he understands perfectly well that she’s trying). Even all the way to the very end in 02 episode 50, she’s the one who first brings up the question of the issue, because of how emotionally invested she got into this and her high level of awareness as to how deeply this impacted Ken.

In 02 episode 49, BelialVamdemon presents everyone in the team with a potential deep-seated desire that none of them want to admit, and in the case of Miyako’s, it ends up being a rather tame thing in comparison to Iori and Takeru’s more severe family issues, Hikari’s desire for WORLD PEACE!!, and Ken’s complicated feelings about punishment and forgiveness. In Miyako’s dream world, she’s just eating cake, and it says a lot about the fact that were it not for the fact that she overthinks things and often gets easily stressed, she’s fundamentally fairly free of deep-seated issues in a way not entirely dissimilar to Daisuke’s simple and pure-hearted way of life.

The thing that causes Miyako’s issue is often misinterpreted to be about her selfishly wanting everything to herself, or the idea she’s fighting for attention with her siblings, but Hawkmon actually says what the real problem is in direct words: her crowded family is “noisy”. Or in other words -- Miyako, being the overly empathetic type and someone who easily succumbs to stress, is just really overwhelmed and stressed because of everything around her.

An interesting thing about Miyako’s “illusion” is that it’s the only one that in itself starts making its victim feel lonely and sad even before it’s taken away or dispelled -- Takeru and Iori had to have their happy images pulled away from them, Hikari had to have Tailmon clarify that everything is fake, and Ken had to have Wormmon personally chase the image of his brother away. But in the case of Miyako, all Hawkmon has to do is ask if she’s happy right now, and she’s quick to admit that she’s not. It’s just that everything was stressful and overwhelming and there was so much to deal with all of the time, and for once she wanted to be able to enjoy a little peace, but she loves her family and she loves everyone around her and she doesn’t want to be alone, and she’d rather have them back even if it’s stressful. Miyako’s love for others is so strong that even an illusion supposedly made to cater to her won’t make her happy if everyone’s gone.

Miyako also takes the moment to realize that for all Hawkmon’s been going out of his way to be steadfast and loyal to her, she hasn’t been doing enough to understand her own partner in turn, and there’s still a lot more she can do in terms of thinking of others.

Miyako after 02

As per Spring 2003, once Miyako graduates elementary school and moves to middle school, she continues trying to be helpful to her juniors -- she joins the computer club and once again ends up under Koushirou, and now outright makes music for Yamato’s band (some creative differences aside). It’s also interesting to note her attitude towards her other friends when she tries to recruit them into her music unit -- she snarks at everyone right up until she gets to Ken, who declines politely, and in exchange, she just can't bring herself to be mean to him and simply apologizes for asking too much. It’s ambiguous whether this is because she’s still trying to have a heightened level of consideration around him (this is still only four months after 02′s finish, after all), but it seems she’s still concerned about the idea of handling him overly roughly, and is able to exercise a proper level of restraint about him.

Which brings us all the way to Kizuna, a whole eight years later where we have to fill in a lot of blanks about what’s been happening in the meantime, but the official website establishes that she’s now pursuing a degree in computer programming at an engineering university, and is now on study abroad in Spain (implied to be Barcelona, given details in both the movie itself and the drama CD). Pretty ambitious stuff!...or at least that’s the first impression one would get, until it turns out that she’s getting her flighty personality enabled by the local culture. As we learn in the drama CD, she’s absolutely taking the time to milk this entire situation so she can play around -- and, in accordance with how she was established to be an important factor in bringing Hikari out of her shell, it’s rubbing off on Hikari, too.

In addition, Miyako is still working under Koushirou despite their educational careers having completely diverged, this time as his assistant in terms of managing the Chosen Child community. Interestingly, her specific job seems to be consultation, and people come to her for “advice and stuff” -- meaning that it’s very likely that a lot of new Chosen Children who are having a hard time adjusting to life with a partner are coming to her for practical and emotional advice, and she’s still continuing to channel her ability to be emotionally aware and supportive of others.

That is to say, until she gets a mysterious request from a certain Menoa Bellucci. We learn later that Menoa’s motive was to obtain the list of international Chosen Children, meaning that she most definitely was not approaching Miyako for emotional help, and with that, Miyako decides that she doesn’t want to do this and dumps it on her seniors...

...but then picks it back up with zero hesitation the moment her friends present her that exact same job, and not only is it just “zero hesitation”, Ken even comments on how “fast” she arrived to do so! (This was also before Iori came up with the plan to infiltrate Menoa’s office; there wasn’t any indication Miyako’s computer abilities would be particularly necessary at the time.) On top of that, the drama CD gives us full context as to why she was so willing to dump this on her seniors in the first place -- she had wanted to see her friends so badly that she practically invented D-3 gate exploitation so she could hang out with her friends despite technically being in another country, and even wanted to invite them to come visit her, and eventually they’d all made an organized plan to meet up in New York. In other words, her loyalty to her friends is still stronger than anything else -- remember, she’s the kind of person who was picking up tons of jobs specifically so she could help her friends in the first place.

On that note, Ken’s ability to be casual with everyone besides Daisuke has noticeably improved, and that’s especially prominent with Miyako, whom he proactively converses with in a way that wouldn’t have happened back in 02, and, likewise, in contrast to the sense of distance she’d still been maintaining with him back during the final arc of 02 and Spring 2003, she has no qualms about handling him as casually as she would anyone else.

Which eventually leads us to...

This is a recurring theme on this blog, but every so often I have to draw the distinction between creative concepts “in meta” (i.e. the way the audience will read it, in relation to franchise standards and other real-life factors) and said concepts “in-universe” (i.e. with audience factors completely removed, whether there’s a presumable logical reason for these events happening in-universe, and whether this is reasonable behavior to expect out of the characters). This blog is largely dedicated to the latter, but the reason why I have to keep drawing this distinction in the first place is that I get the impression that the staff behind Adventure and 02 really did not pay much mind to the former part as part of their dedication to the latter. And, I mean, part of the reason I respect the writing of Adventure and 02 so much is how uncompromising they were in terms of not really pandering to what a fanbase might expect, which allowed the story to retain a lot of creative integrity that it wouldn’t have otherwise.

But every so often you get something like this that makes me want to just bang my head on the table and scream, I swear, I get what you guys were going for, but I am begging you, please think a little harder about how people are going to read this!! In general, I do think there’s something that’s not very good about disregarding your audience completely, because if you’re trying to say important things and those things are going directly over your audience’s heads (this is a kids’ show, for goodness’s sake), you can’t call that good communication, and it’s not like you can blame the audience for getting blindsided or being upset, and this is before we get into what they just dropped on the global audience that was presumably full of young girls interested in STEM fields who were hoping to see them go all the way with that, or the feelings of those who are bothered that one character has to be singled out to be defined solely by her relationship to others, and I mean -- to be fair, with a character like Miyako and the tons of things going on with her, there was probably no outcome they could come up with that wouldn’t be reinforcing some negative stereotype (believe it or not, there are people who have conversely mentioned identifying deeply with Miyako’s personal story and the meaning of this ending to them, and have also expressed discomfort about some of the comments the fanbase has made over the years), but at the same time, holy hell, they really went for the one that immediately looks the worst on its face...

...That aside, I will reiterate that this is a blog and analysis meant for that latter category of “analyzing things in-universe”, and making good-faith assumptions that there was a reason for everything (and, I’ll be quite honest, reading everything the staff has said about the characters, including Miyako, there is no indication that they didn’t treat every single one of them with love and zero intention to curse any of them into a horrible fate). We can debate whether this was a good or bad choice in the context of real life, or how much they really should have thought this through more or considered alternative ways to do this, in another place and time (it’s been done by many other people, myself included, in the last 20 years, and it will most certainly continue after this, and probably should continue). It’s not like I’m necessarily giving my blessing to every single creative decision in Adventure or 02 in running this blog, it’s more of the attitude of “now that this decision was in the series, can we figure out what that was intended to mean?”, and that’s going to apply to this one too. And so, we’ll proceed with the analysis.

In any case, here’s the first thing to start with, which may surprise some people to learn: at no point in the epilogue is the word “housewife” ever used to refer to Miyako. The only words that Takeru uses to describe her are: that she is married to Ken and is a mother of three. Not only that, post-02 materials that have referred to the epilogue and Miyako’s part in it have also avoided using that word -- the Character Complete File and the Animation Chronicle only reiterate the same points of “married to Ken” and “mother of three children”, and practically go out of their way to avoid insinuating that being a stay-at-home housewife is the main focus of her life right now. It would have been so easy to say it outright if they’d wanted to, but they didn’t, and they consistently don’t, to the point the omission is almost suspicious. And, indeed, if you want to believe the Character Complete File, Miyako is not a full-time housewife and is simply not working at the time of the epilogue due to maternity leave because the third child had recently been born. So it’s completely within the realm of possibility that she’s still working! In that case, why is something that could easily be a big deal left ambiguous like this?

If you look at the way the epilogue presents its information, there’s a certain pattern: what information is emphasized and what information is given little attention or omitted has very little to do with “how curious the audience would be about it”, but rather “how relevant it is”; just because a certain piece of information is omitted doesn’t mean it necessarily isn’t true. For example, Sora; she’s married to Yamato, but despite how much the audience would probably consider that as vital information, it’s left for you to infer from the visuals and an oblique comment that Sora’s daughter is a “dependable older sister”, and even the question of whether Sora did succeed her mother in flower arrangement is left up in the air despite that also probably being a question the audience is curious about (and in fact, a few flower branches are clearly visible in the front, implying very heavily that, whatever happened, she’s at least still maintaining her roots with her family instead of violently cutting it all off). But we do learn about the fact that she went into fashion design, which is something that’s not an expectation that was placed by her family but rather something she presumably decided on herself. Hence, presumably why that’s the part emphasized, and moreso than her marriage to Yamato -- said marriage is of course an important part of her life, but it’s not as prominent as the fact that she has her own independent career, especially since her entire character arc was about doing things that she wanted for herself instead of doing things for others. That is to say, compared to their own individual ambitions, Sora and Yamato’s love life is “an important part, but not the important part.” This is especially when you add the context that Takeru is delivering abridged single-sentence “catch-up” descriptions of his friends on their behalf (possibly to the world, if this is part of his novel), and so, it begs the question: what would each of these characters want to be most remembered for accomplishing?

(And if you think I’m being tinfoil hat about this, remember that a constant theme with this blog I’m running is that “being annoyingly subtle and relying on ridiculously oblique messaging” like this permeates the entirety of 02 in general, and it’s definitely not the only time they’ve used this kind of technique to communicate details that are too consistent and on-the-nose to be passed off as coincidence. As far as assuming that this series follows rational storytelling logic goes, we are far past that point, and in ways that extend far beyond this epilogue.)

So we look back at Miyako, and the hobbies she’d indulged in and what purpose they were for, and her personality, and the fact that the main point of her character arc was about her complex that she would never be a good enough person who could properly emotionally reach out and take care of others -- in some ways, her arc was the opposite of Sora’s, in that while Sora’s was about not being as beholden to others, Miyako’s was about how to become someone who can better support others -- and once we apply the above question, there lies the answer to why the priority and emphasis given to her future in the epilogue is “Miyako is the kind of person who prioritizes taking care of and supporting her loved ones more than anything else.”

This is especially because (in an epilogue with not very many lines, so every bit of information becomes vital) the lines we see Miyako and her family exchange are representative of a lot of what that character arc was about. According to her son, Miyako is still her panicky and emotionally messy self, even when in the role of the matriarch of a large family who’s responsible for taking care of all of them. She did not ever become the ideal “gentle” and “mature” kind of person that she considered Mimi and Hikari to be and negatively compared herself to. However, her family responds by cheerfully laughing, which is -- most likely not coincidentally -- the same thing that was shown to be the positive flip side of Miyako’s over-the-top personality back in 02 episodes 31, 36, and 38, in that it brings joy and cheer to others.

If you do want to take the Character Complete File’s statement at face value, the fact that she’s on self-imposed maternity leave means that it’s very likely she wasn’t on a salaried job and was instead freelancing, or at least was involved with something that didn’t require constant commitment. Considering the fact she’s consistently portrayed as an impatient sort who gets bored easily, she probably would prefer something more flexible like freelancing or at least not being tied to a single thing; even looking back at her completely disparate hobbies back when she was a kid, when she was basically jack-of-all-trades-ing to fit whatever people needed her for, she never really came off as someone who could commit very easily to a single form of work, but what she did have commitment to was other people, especially her friends and family. If you (or, perhaps, Takeru) were to ask her during the time of the epilogue “what are you up to right now?”, it’s not really that hard to believe that gushing about her lovely family would come before everything else; not to say that everyone else here (especially her own husband) isn’t presumably devoted to their own families, but Miyako’s the type to have that much higher sense of pride in what she does for those she cares about than she would have particular attachment to any kind of work. Look at her behavior during Kizuna; she’s pursuing a degree in computer programming and thus is still aiming to be a busybody with a high level of skill, but when given a job by a stranger, she immediately dumps it off on her seniors so she can be with her friends, then happily accepts that same job again when the same friends present it back to her.

So, in other words, the conclusion is: the biggest priority and most important thing to Miyako in regards to her future is that she finally became someone who could properly support others around her, even in spite of her personality that would suggest otherwise.

In addition, the fact that she has three children might initially come off as a little in-your-face or overkill, but remember that Miyako came from a family with four siblings, and 02 episode 49 had her say outright that she does treasure that – or, in other words, being part of a big family surrounded by affection and love is something she considers to be a valuable part of her life (especially since the age gaps between the three children imply a reasonable likelihood of actual family planning, moreso than even Miyako’s own).

Incidentally, this is just a bit of a personal note, but one might notice that I’ve also never actually used the word “housewife” to refer to the epilogue’s depiction of Miyako in the course of writing for this blog, because of how little evidence we have that she is one – being on temporary maternity leave still being a very viable and, given the post-02 materials we now have, arguably heavily likely interpretation, it’s not like you’d necessarily call someone a housewife if their break from work is only temporary, even if they’re a freelancer. Given the above circumstances, perhaps something like “family matriarch” would be more accurate…

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure last evolution kizuna #inoue miyako #miyako inoue #kizuna spoilers #shihameta

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seventeendeer · 2 years

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I actually really enjoying hearing your cartoon opinions! :o may I ask why you really dislike atla?

I'm glad you enjoy my goofy little rants! they're very entertaining for me to write, so it's nice that some people enjoy them also! <3

ah, atla, my old nemesis ... there are a lot of things I dislike about it and disappearingly few things I liked to any extent.

my biggest problem with it is that I simply find the character writing deeply grating. the character concepts are very charming, but the execution feels forced, dry and hand-holdy. every character feels like A Problem To Be Solved, with some positive and comedic traits tacked on there to try to make them likable. the narrative is constantly moralizing their actions, focusing more on the aesops it wants to teach than on portraying anything resembling real people. it also insists on using the same milquetoast pseudo-snarky vocabulary for every main character, further making them come off like a bunch of sock puppets instead of distinct personalities.

by contrast, I love stuff like spop - a show for the same demographic with comparable themes and characters - where the main focus is not on moralizing the characters' actions, but simply on portraying lots of very different people dealing with tough situations, how and why the shitty ones do what they do, and the consequences of their choices. spop doesn't choke its own characters out in an attempt to Teach A Moral, it simply lets the characters roam free in an exciting, complex story and realistically portrays the fallout. for a more specific comparison: atla starts Zuko's redemption arc early and devotes a ton of time to showing how wrong and shitty he was vs the amount of time he was actually allowed to be shitty on screen. by contrast, Catra spends most of spop being a terrible person and suffering the consequences, before having a short (beginning of a) redemption arc, which is portrayed as difficult but ultimately rewarding. I found Zuko's arc boring, predictable and overly finger-wagging - meanwhile I thought Catra's arc was engaging, nuanced, detailed, relatable and I felt like it flowed naturally among the other narratives.

atla only really allowed the villains to be heavily flawed by the end of it. all the good guys had to be scrubbed clean of their problems before they were let off the hook. any personality trait that was more than mildly irritating was treated as something to be fixed. I honestly don't like stories like that. I greatly prefer stories where characters get to be weird and fucked up and barely functioning in society, but they happen to find people who aren't bothered by it and want to hang out with them anyway.

another thing I really don't like is the comedy. so much of the comedy doesn't have an actual punchline, or at least not any good ones. mostly characters just act kind of quirky or say something you wouldn't expect. it feels like the writers are desperately trying to get a reaction out of me by pulling funny faces. the fact that comedy only comes up in the Designated Funny Moments is also annoying and again makes it feel like the characters are not real people with consistent traits. if a character only has a certain personality trait when it's funny and drops it as soon as it's time to be serious, that's not a personality trait, it's something stuck on there to try to force a specific viewer reaction - which then falls apart the moment the viewer doesn't find it funny.

I also don't like the way the faces are stylized. I think spop might actually be the only instance of a highly animesque art style I actually liked to look at. everything else from atla to voltron to totally spies looks terrible to me. the facial features are too floaty and it makes expressions look stiff and lifeless (unlike a lot of actual anime styles, which I often find pretty and very expressive). though this problem is probably made worse in my mind by the fact that whenever there's a face on screen someone is probably talking and I am about to once more feel a deep violence well up within me, so take this opinion with a grain of salt

also this one isn't really mine to complain about at length, but honestly I just never really feel comfortable in stories that take place in non-white cultures that the white writers have no connection to whatsoever. it feels like I'm being invited into a house by someone who doesn't live in that house. it's like ... why do you think you have the authority to invite me in? do you even know how the owners of the house feel about this? no matter how good your research into this house is, how can it possibly measure up to the lived experiences of the people who live here? how can I be sure you're not lying to me to make this place seem more appealing to your own tastes? what even is your motivation for giving me a tour of the house in the first place?

my research tells me there are countless opinions on the subject and I sincerely don't know how valid or not valid my concerns are, but these are my personal feelings on the matter. I love stories set in non-white cultures, but I strongly prefer to stick to the ones made by people with personal connections to said cultures. I want to feel invited into the house by the owners of the house; I want to see only what they choose to share and learn about the house from the people who have the most personal, intimate relationship with it. I feel I have a better chance of understanding how to treat others with respect when this is the case.

anyway, that was a little serious detour on my otherwise needlessly goofy and facetious rant about cartoons for babies. the fact of the matter is that I don't like atla for a myriad of subjective reasons. only character I cared about was Azula, probably exactly because she was allowed to remain deranged and maladjusted until the end and wasn't forced through the Character Flattening Device in the name of teaching lessons

also I probably would have only developed mild disdain for it was it not because no one ever shuts the fuck up about it pfffffft now I hate it with a white hot rage bc you know how it is when a lot of people very vocally like something you don't like. hell on earth

#thesketcherasks #atla negativity #posting this feels like kicking a wasp nest but idc. getting tumblr hate mail is its own reward

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x0401x · 3 years

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Given the Movie: Web Newtype Interview

Depicting the immature romance of the adult trio! Interview with Nakazawa Masatomo, Eguchi Takuya and Asanuma Shintarou about “Given the Movie”.

“Given” has gathered attention due to being the first BL comic that Noitamina adapted into anime. If one attempted to open the lid and take a look at it, they would find it was a youthful drama that sensibly portrays the growth of bandmates, which could be enjoyed regardless of age or gender. In the TV anime, the main focus was on the high school characters Satou Mafuyu and Uenoyama Ritsuka, and a teenage-like heat and freshness were the charm of it, but in the movie, the main focus is on Nakayama Haruki, Kaji Akihiko and the violinist Murata Ugetsu. It depicts the nature of the adults’ relationships, which was not in the TV anime. Here, we had Nakazawa Masatomo, who plays Nakayama Haruki, Eguchi Takuya, who plays Kaji Akihiko, and Asanuma Shintarou, who plays Murata Ugetsu, discuss about the movie’s appeal.

——Please tell us how you felt when the theatrical adaptation was green-lit and you found out that you would play the main roles.

Nakazawa: I was both happy and surprised. I had heard that the anime would only have one 11-episode cour, so I imagined that it would end at the first live concert scene, and just when I was thinking that people were supposed to look forward to seeing the trio’s story in the original work, we received this proposal. I was overjoyed, and while listening to it, I was thinking, “So we’re going to do that scene”. *embarrassed*

Eguchi: In the TV series, we did not manage to perform their true forms, as in their realistic side, so I was purely happy that we would be able to enact what happens afterwards.

Asanuma: Just before I took part in the TV series, I heard that my character was apparently active in the movie, so I remember feeling tension at the fact that I had to perform while keeping this in mind. Nothing changed in the drama itself, but I thought that, since the sound and the screen size are completely different and people would watch it in an environment so unlike watching at home, I should be conscious of thinking it out by matching all of that.

——Please tell us your impressions regarding the nature of Akihiko and Ugetsu’s relationship.

Nakazawa: The timing in which Akihiko became serious about music – but a genius appeared and crushed him – and the one in which he fell in love happened at the same moment. For Ugetsu, too, the instant in which he fell in love was the same as the one in which he decided that he wanted to focus more on his beloved music, and this was where things began to turn sour, I guess. I watched while thinking that it must be hard to start from there.

Eguchi: Akihiko and Ugetsu are such adults, so warped. They aren’t dating even though they like each other, and despite having no idea what awaits them in the future, they’re living together and leading their daily lives with one another anyhow... It’s outrageous, but in contrast, it’s shrewd. *laughs* Still, what the feeling of wanting to be with someone means is complicated. But I felt emotion in that and I liked it. Feels like their days are made of glass and seem easily breakable.

Asanuma: On my own accord, I refer to this work as “usuhari” (a particularly thin type of glass). It feels like it’ll fall apart if you aren’t careful with how you handle it... I’m always being told this a lot so it’s embarrassing to say it now, but there’s the saying “you don’t do love, you fall into it”, right? It feels like these two have exactly that kind of relationship, and even then, they had no motive to get it together, so it gives you the feeling that they’re always searching for a reason to be drawn to each other, as well as to let go of each other. But even when they think, “This is it”, they set the reason aside... so I’m sure that they indeed “fell”.

——How about Haruki and Akihiko?

Nakazawa: I think the fact that Haruki gave special attention to Akihiko must have become an obstacle. Akihiko, too, was hiding a part of himself, either knowingly or not, like, “Haruki would probably hate me if he saw this”. He must have feared that their bond would have no fixing if it ever broke. I have the impression that their romance doesn’t move forward because they think of each other as special.

Eguchi: I simply thought... “Haruki has it hard, huh”.

Nakazawa: *bursts into laughter*

Eguchi: He keeps shouldering a love that he doesn’t sort out, and most likely, he catches onto the feeling that Haruki favors him, which I believe has turned into comfort for him and he basks on it. That’s an unfair side of him, but Haruki accepts it too... I think this would be all right if their relationship was of bandmates, but since romantic love comes into the scene, it gets difficult. Akihiko is doing all he can in his own way, but in seeing it from Haruki’s eyes, there’s also inertia in him, and since people have many sides, it all gets tangled in an even more complex way.

Asanuma: There’s one amongst Haruki and Akihiko’s scenes that makes me think, “Ah, I wish I was in it too”. In this painful story, which is sometimes intense and feels like it’s going to break, this scene between Haruki and Akihiko became somewhat of a salvation. Also, I felt that when Haruki said, “Leave me alone”, he actually didn’t want Akihiko to go away, yet when Ugetsu said, “Leave me alone”, it was when he really did want Akihiko to go away. *laughs* I thought these two polar opposites were interesting.

——From Mafuyu, who confessed on his own, to Haruki, who was always hiding his feelings, each of the characters experiences a different type of romantic love. Which character to you sympathize with the most?

Asanuma: The only one I could be is Haruki. I’m the type who feels complexed and raises the flag too early. *laughs* But when it comes to sympathy, they all have a side of them that I can sympathize with.

Nakazawa: *nodding* There’s nothing impossible in this series. The way they love and the agony of it is realistic, and i want all the love stories to become happy ones, to tell them all that they don’t have to suffer... but amongst them, I guess the one I can personally relate to is Haruki. But I can also understand Ugetsu’s feeling of wanting something to remain in the end and Akihiko’s impulse to break him, and I think one of the characteristics of “Given” is that none of them can be said to fit the mold.

Eguchi: I want to be Akihiko. I think he’s wonderful because he ends up at a point where he’s “seeking people”. He has this conflict because he’s trying to find some sort of truth by pursuing someone, and he’s got a way of protecting himself that could be considered unfair, yet he’s forgiven because of it... That’s nice. *laughs*

Asanuma: When it comes to which of them is more human, it’s most likely Akihiko.

——Please leave a message to the fans who had been waiting for the movie’s release.

Asanuma: I described it as “usuhari” earlier, because this sort of series is just that delicate and perilous, and when things do break, it’s sharp yet beautiful – the kind of work you want to look at forever. When people write about romance in fiction, there’s a huge drama and absurdly shocking things tend to happen, but this series is full of things that, if they happened anywhere near you, it wouldn’t be strange, yet even in the middle of all this, there are several scenes where emotions are portrayed down to their detailed bits. I hope people can love it deeply, along with the music they play.

Nakazawa: In the TV anime, regarding each of the so-called adult group’s three people, it was said that Akihiko was the “older brother figure”, Haruki was the “nice person” and Ugetsu was the “genius” or the “mysterious guy”. But in the movie, you can see that Akihiko is someone who has an older brother-like attitude, Haruki is someone who talks and acts like a good person and Ugetsu is someone who has a raging love for music deep down. There’s a grown-up side to them in the way that the high school duo sees it, and it’s realistic that the adults choose it and go along with it. I hope everyone can enjoy the different ways of watching it as it went from TV anime to movie.

Eguchi: We’ve made something good, so I’m filled to the brim with the wish that people watch it by any means. Even when the animation was still not ready, there were many scenes that struck home. I think there’s a part of it that can move people’s hearts not just from the romantic aspect but also as human beings. I wonder which parts will move my heart... I believe these works are mirrors that reflect myself. “Given” is a series that has many such mirrors in this sense.

Asanuma: *whispers something into Eguchi-san’s ear*

Eguchi: There aren’t just four yearly seasons. There aren’t just four emotions either. It makes you think that there are many sorts of feelings... *laughs*

Asanuma: He said everything I wanted to say! *laughs* The rainy season was added to the four seasons of the year. Along with this, many kinds of emotions that aren’t limited to joy, anger, grief and pleasure are depicted in it.

Nakazawa: Ones with a high “humidity level” at that. Movies sure are good. *laughs*

Eguchi: Please watch it in the theaters!

#given #givendaily #dailygiven #fyeahgiven #given movie #kaji akihiko #nakayama haruki #murata ugetsu #eguchi takuya #nakazawa masatomo #asanuma shintarou #anime #interview #my translation #newtype #seiyuu

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sparklingdisneyprincess · 3 years

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Having Amber know for weeks affected fans view of her and why it was not done well.

In the tags on a reblog of one of my posts, someone mentioned that the scene where Amber tells Mark she knew he was a hero was bad writing and I low-key agree. I plan on doing an analysis on that specific scene later, but today I wanted to get into why the way the writes handled that situation just wasn’t great.

Keeping in mind the context of who the writers are can somewhat explain the thought process behind the decision. The creators of the comic book said themselves that's the comic book very often pokes fun at superhero stereotypes and tropes. One of the main stereotypes in superhero comic books is the main non-super female love interest being upset with the male superhero love interest for constantly flaking on her/being unavailable trope. In this trope the conflict is typically resolved when the female love interest is told or discovers in the moment usually by so accident that the male love interest was the superhero the whole time and the revelation is suddenly supposed to negate all the negative emotions that the female love interest was put through and everything just ends up fine.

In today's time it wouldn't matter if he was a superhero or not. He still made her feel terrible, he still lied. I do think women today wouldn’t allow that to excuse all the hero’s behavior especially when it was evident that said behavior was hurting them.

We know the writers like to poke fun at stereotypical superhero comic book tropes and plot points, and a good way to do that it to utilize trope subversion.

Trope subversion definition:

A subversion has two mandatory segments. First, the expectation is set up that something we have seen plenty of times before is coming, then that set-up is paid off with something else entirely. The set-up is a trope; the "something else" is the subversion.

Pure trope subversion vs Partial trope subversion:

Executing a “Pure trope subversion” means to follow the blueprint for “Trope subversion” to a tee. The writer sets up the story with essentially no hints that the outcome will be anything but traditional, and then proceeds to suddenly turn the outcome on it’s head in a way that was unanticipated. In the case of the “Partial trope subversion” it’s the opposite. The writer will drop subtle hints and clues teasing that the outcome will not be traditional for the trope. The hints must be subtle because the writers goal is still to trick the reader into believing that the traditional outcome will occur.

The main problem with them writing it as a pure trope subversion is that Amber ends up looking really bad and that people already didn’t like her as they wanted Eve to end up with Mark.

The set-up of the secret identity relationship trope leads us to believe that the female was mostly if not completely unaware that their male love interest is a hero. They often times are suspicious, but the dots don’t usually get the chance to connect before it’s all revealed. Going with that type of trope set-up leads the audience to believe that it’ll end like it always does. The girl will feel sorry for her actions and completely forgive the hero (even though I don’t find think that’s realistic), so instead of it going in that direction they subvert it. They have the female love interest (Amber) figure it out herself and silently not be in the dark for a period of time till it’s revealed that she knew. This is fine unless it’s written as a pure trope subversion because the traditional trope buildup includes anger over canceled plans, late arrivals, and feelings of neglect. That anger makes the female love interest look completely irrational in the case that she knew! (Though perhaps she was not truly angry over those things after she discovered the truth, but she was angry with him lying and couldn’t tell him that without saying she knew, so she expressed her anger through those situations instead of the main reason??? Hmm, I just thought of that and that’s an interesting theory for another time.) Anyways...

I found that the trope subversion making Amber look so bad to be a glaring issue that should have been weeded out in the writing room. They had to have known how it would be perceived. There’s no way they wouldn’t. The only logical reason they’d do this is if they plan to go through with what I suspected was happening at the beginning of the show, which would be that the writers are telling us that Amber is not Mark’s endgame and that she’s just taking up space until Mark and Eve eventually get together. The only problem with that theory is that they had Mark and Amber get back together at the end of the season which is another trope subversion. In the usual love triangle bait-and-switch trope the first female love interest the male superhero chooses gets booted out to make room for the second girl in the love triangle who he was apparently supposed to be with the whole time, however the writers didn’t got through with that trope. They instead subverted it (whether purposely or not) by having the original couple get back together and setting it up in a way that shows the couple potentially growing stronger, rather than him staying single and eventually ending up with female love interest number 2. The writers even took the subversion a step further by setting the outcome up in a way that showed potential for female love interests 1 and 2 to actually start a beautiful friendship instead of a rivalry.

I’m honestly confused by what the writers wanted us to perceive. If they wanted us to root for Amber and Mark why set them up like that? To prove that they can move past it? But who will support the relationship after everybody now hates Amber? It is contradictory, so I’m very confused. I did write another post speculating that though Amber knew Mark was a hero, she did not know he was Invincible. The theory does shed more light on the situation and it resolves a lot of issues, but it still doesn’t negate the fact that the use of a pure trope subversion in this instance made Amber look really bad. Especially when people would sooner find ways to cancel her, rather than attempt to understand why she did it. To understand someone does not mean to agree with or support them, but it reminds you to humanize the other person, a value we are all owed.

If the writers had not done a pure trope subversion and instead decided upon a partial trope subversion the fallout would not have been nearly as bad. If they had done a partial trope subversion they could’ve allowed Amber to be more patient in some of the later scenes, while showing that even though she’s patient, she’s also very upset. It would show more understanding on her part, however I think Amber was actually already understanding of his situation. What she did not understand was the lying and how it seemed that he didn’t even care enough to lie well. She was hurt that he didn’t trust her and during their relationship she was constantly questioning whether or not he was serious and if he actually cared about her and honestly we questioned it too as an audience! Imagine how frustrated she must’ve been those 5 months out of 6 when she didn’t know why he was lying to her.

Amber and Mark didn’t have any relationship issues that I noticed aside from his secret identity. Their dynamic was interesting to watch in my opinion because Mark wasn’t phased by Ambers weird sense of humor and her having essentially no filter, in fact he embraced it and was also snarky in return. He liked that she has strong core beliefs and clearly enjoyed spending time with her. Even though Amber is sarcastic and pokes fun at Mark she finds his enthusiasm to be endearing and often laughs with and smiles at him. Heck, she even approached him first! They’re just two teenagers dating and it’s nothing too exciting like it’s usually portrayed in media. They text, go on dates, make out, enjoy the others presence without really needing to talk, it’s just nice normal dating stuff and it’s realistic and lowkey, and I really liked seeing it. Upon my first watch of the show I liked Amber and Mark together, but I didn’t see the chemistry. I think it’s because everything about their relationship needed to happen in the span of 8 episodes, but also that the reasons why their attracted to each other are very subtle. They don’t shove it in our faces, they just place it there and if you caught then you caught it, if you didn’t then you didn’t. It took me re-watching the episodes a second time to realize why Mark and Amber enjoy being with each other. The body language speaks volumes when you also pay attention to the little things that go on between them. I’ll probably make a whole other post about it because I think it’s something to talk about, but yeah.

In conclusion either the writers truly didn’t realize the outcome of their choice, the writers knew the outcome and did it on purpose to set the audience up to root for Eve and Mark, the writers knew and set it up in order to later on grow/redeem Amber and strengthen her and Mark’s relationship by having them over come it, or they didn’t think it’d be a big deal due to assuming that the trope subversion would take everyone by surprise and that we’d like it.

(If you made it to the end, I’m impressed cause this was long. Also, shoutout to the person who first brought up this topic in the tags. I didn’t realize I felt some kind of way until I started typing and couldn’t stop. It was honestly kind of cathartic😄 I didn’t tag you cause I didn’t know if you’d like that but, thanks for unintentionally giving me the motivation to write this!)

#Aark #Amber Bennett #Mark Grayson #Mark x Amber #Invincible #SDP reviews #SDP thoughts

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intimidatingpuffinstudios · 4 years

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I’m releasing an old Patreon story publicly!

This here, folks, is a fic about Morkai and Straasa shenanigans from when they were teenagers!

Straasa even references this incident in-game if you pick that drawing is your hobby!

Hope you like it! Enjoy!

~*~

The paints are arranged beautifully in front of him, waiting to be combined in a pandemonium of colors and vibrancy. New worlds are waiting to be birthed on his command, starry skies and green fields waiting to be unleashed.

Straasa stares at the blank canvas, and the vast emptiness stares back. Not even a single line of color mars its snowy surface, and while he could probably spin some wild tale about life and its meaninglessness being depicted on this very piece of paper, he doubts his father would appreciate the philosophical musings.

Or even if he did, then Miriel certainly wouldn’t. She spent a fortune to get all these wildly expensive paints for him. He had mentioned once that he would like to try it out, and now he was suddenly expected to create a masterpiece breath-taking enough to compete with the masters.

And that masterpiece will, of course, be an utterly life-like portrait of Miriel’s likeness, every single nuance captured to depict her profound and inimitable beauty. He’d be lucky if he could paint a realistic stick figure at this point.

He slowly puts down the palette, all 16 of the years of his life weighing down on him. She’s going to be so disappointed. He hates it when she looks at him with that look—the look that says that he didn’t try enough, didn’t love her enough, wasn’t good enough. In anything at all.

“I have to say, what you’ve created portrays Miriel’s vapidness quite well, I’m proud of you, man.”

Straasa springs up from his stool as swiftly as a snake springs from the sand, his heart beating like mad in his chest. His stares at Morkai with eyes wide open, a hand clutched over his chest. What is he doing here? He wasn’t supposed to come in today! Miriel would have a fit!

“Morkai,” he hisses, trying to keep his voice down in case someone is passing by outside his room.

“What are you doing here? Miriel said that you can’t come by until I’m done with her portrait! She’ll skin us both if she finds you here! And how did you get in without me hearing you?!” the blue-eyed teen whispers furiously, grabbing his friend’s arm and trying to lead him out.

Morkai, of course, doesn’t budge, looking at the blank canvas with an air of snobbish evaluation. He nods his head sagely, pointing to an indeterminate point.

“This part particularly, where her heart should be, I think you’ve captured that part to perfection. Yes, I’m quite pleased. I will hang this above your bedroom door,” the redhead keeps on going, acting for all intents and purposes like this is a fabulous piece of art that he is critiquing with his sharp eye.

Straasa exhales loudly in frustration and stops trying to move his stubborn friend. No one can make Morkai budge if he doesn’t want to be moved. He is already almost as tall as his father and Rhaygan is nothing to scoff at, towering over everyone at 6’2”.

But then Straasa notices a sweet smell coming off of Morkai, something that reminds him suspiciously of… His eyes zoom in on the satchel hanging from his friend’s waist, and his hands swoop in to open it greedily.

The redhead grins at him roguishly as Straasa finds what he was looking for— a small, cloth-wrapped bundle containing nothing but… lemon cakes! His favorite! He didn’t think the kitchens would make that today!

“How did you get these?!” he exclaims in glee, immediately snatching one of the pastries up and bringing it to his mouth. Morkai’s grin gets even wider, like a cat that has just gotten the cream.

“You know Ilya likes me. I promised her a moonlit walk in the gardens tomorrow night if she would make these for me,” Morkai informs him smugly. Ilya, the cook in training in their mansion. She thinks Morkai has hung the sun and stars, the poor girl.

“You’ll keep your word to her, right?” the blue-eyed teen asks a bit uneasily. He knows that Morkai doesn’t particularly care for the girl. His friend has at least the grace to look completely affronted.

“Of course I will! Who do you take me for, man?! That’s insulting! I’m a man of my word! Trust me, I’ll give her a night she’ll never forget,” the redhead reassures him, his smirk turning lecherous, and Straasa rolls his eyes in response.

He instead turns his attention to the delicious cakes, leaving Morkai to his thorough examination of the snow-white canvas. The red-haired boy makes a small “Ah,” sound like he has just figured something out, but Straasa doesn’t turn to look at what his friend is doing.

A mistake in hindsight. A huge one at that, too. Once he’s done demolishing the sugary treats, Straasa finally raises his eyes and immediately freezes, his mind refusing to take in the devastation right in front of him.

He can feel the cakes coming up as he stares horrified at the huge boobs Morkai has drawn on the canvas, complete with a donkey’s head attached to them. Because it’s certainly the breasts that take the place of honor in this ‘painting,’ they’re twice the size of the equine head.

“Shit, no!” Straasa shrieks in desperation, covering his eyes with sticky fingers. He lifts his hand after a moment as if time might have erased the abomination from existence, but no, it’s still there, still glaring at him accusingly.

Morkai, for his part, looks exceedingly satisfied with himself, not realizing that Straasa was given no spare canvases in case he messed up. He was supposed to get it at first try. There is no way to hide this from his step-mother.

He is doomed. Absolutely freaking doomed. Morkai seems to register that his friend has gone pale as a sheet, almost shaking in front of him. He quickly sets the palette down and grabs Straasa by the shoulders, making him look at him.

“Hey, man, it was just a joke. We’ll tell her I did it, since it’s the truth and also because she can do absolutely nothing to me,” the green-eyed teen tries to comfort his distraught friend, having no idea what exactly Miriel could do to punish them both.

She could deny Morkai visits and the other way around. She could keep them apart and had already threatened to do so many times. This would surely be the last straw, causing the threat to become a reality.

“And if she tries to separate us, I have Ilya to sneak me in whenever I want.”

Straasa’s eyes snap to Morkai’s, surprised, hopeful. How had Morkai figured this out? Straasa had never told him of Miriel’s threats. And was this the reason his friend kept on indulging Ilya when he wasn’t all that interested in her?

The redhead was a lot more devious than Straasa originally thought. Also, kind of ruthless, using people to get what he wants. But Straasa can’t help but feel grateful to him. For making the situation at least sort of bearable. Even if it was him that created the problem in the first place.

The hands on his shoulders suddenly grip him tightly, and Morkai’s gaze turns far-away and distant, then an unholy light enters his eyes. It’s like a candle has been lit behind them, and Straasa knows that he is in serious trouble. When the redhead gets this excited, it means disaster is at hand.

“Morkai, no! Whatever you’re thinking…!” Straasa tries to caution, but his warning is cut short by a colorful missile hitting him straight on the mouth. Paint. It’s a glob of red, incredibly expensive paint that Morkai has scooped up from the palette and launched right at his face.

It dribbles down the blue-eyed teen's chin, and Straasa can taste it in his mouth. He wonders in a panicky sort of way if he can get poisoned from this. Morkai, having efficiently shut his friend up, turns his attention to his short-lived masterpiece.

His large hand scoops up more of the paint, and he slathers it over the breasted donkey in wide strokes, erasing all evidence of Miriel’s supposed likeness under a mountain of mismatched colors.

Once he’s done, he looks at the canvas with a forlorn look, like he regrets erasing the monstrosity from existence.

“It’s a pity, really. I believe I captured her essence perfectly,” he mourns, the palette still held in his hand. Straasa wipes his mouth and takes the weapon of destruction away from his friend.

“She doesn’t look like a donkey, Morkai, she’s beautiful,” he chastises the redhead, taking one of the brushes in his hand and swirling it through the remaining paint. Morkai shrugs his shoulders in response, not interested in debating Miriel’s beauty.

“Who cares? She behaves like an arse, that’s all that matters. An arse with boobs,” he snickers gleefully, and Straasa seizes the perfect chance as Morkai’s eyes briefly close.

He lunges forward, the brush held like a sword heading straight at his impossible friend’s face. His aim proves true, getting his friend’s nose and part of his cheek. Morkai squawks in outrage and ducks, trying to get the palette away from Straasa. The two grapple for a few minutes, loud laughter and curses echoing in the air around them.

By the time an infuriated “Boys!” slices through the moment, the teens have managed to get their clothes and faces, even their hair covered in remnants of paint. Straasa is laying down on the ground, wheezing, and Morkai is sitting down next to him, still chortling, his leg over Straasa’s calf.

Furious footsteps head straight for them, and Straasa doesn’t sit up to look who it is. He’d recognize Miriel’s gait anywhere. He instead turns his gaze to look at his friend instead.

Morkai’s eyes are glimmering as he flicks his attention at his friend, shooting him a mischievous grin before he gets up, holding his hands out in surrender in front of him, trying to calm down Miriel’s explosive fury.

Straasa takes a deep breath and gets up to join him. Yet as he looks at his clothes, at Morkai’s, at the mess their grappling has made, at the ruined canvas that held his step-mother’s likeness done Morkai-style…

He chuckles despite knowing it will piss off Miriel even more. He regrets nothing.

~*~

#the soul stone war #tssw #snippet #background story #Morkai #Straasa #Patreon

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p1harmonyofficial · 3 years

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[📰] K-Pop Rookies P1Harmony Are Writing Their Own Coming of Age Story

By Crystal Bell

K-pop group P1Harmony debuted three months ago with their audacious single "Siren," and member Jiung is already dreaming of the perfect solo vacation. The 19-year-old singer wants to emphasize that this is a trip he'd like to — no, needs to — do alone, when he can safely do so. ("You need to bold the word 'alone,'" leader Keeho adds in English, a knowing glint of mirth in his eyes. "Put it in italics too.") So, more about this excursion: "If possible, I want to go to a foreign country," Jiung tells Teen Vogue from an office in Seoul, South Korea. He doesn't have a specific place in mind, just somewhere new and exciting and, most importantly, a place where he can be alone to freely organize his thoughts without any other responsibilities.

It sounds like a lyric ripped from the pages of his notebook, or the plot of a coming-of-age movie his 17-year-old groupmate Intak would enjoy: a young man on a voyage of self-discovery, chasing a feeling to a faraway land to escape his adolescent ennui. For now, however, it's just a lofty resolution for the new year.

"I also want to travel alone because I've never done it before," youngest member Jongseob, who recently turned 15, enthusiastically offers in Korean. Jiung, always one to help the younger sort out his feelings, is quick to quash the teenage rapper's theoretical plans. "That's not very realistic," he says. "You're too young to travel alone." Undeterred, Jongseob carries on: "Then my goal this year is to drink more milk."

"He wants to grow taller, but I don't think milk helps that much," Keeho comments, shaking his head while his teal quiff stays firmly in place. "I heard that's a myth."

Technically, they're not wrong. Unaccompanied minors can't travel internationally without a parent's formal consent in South Korea, and there's no proven scientific correlation between dairy and height. But spoken aloud, this interaction sounds more like playful goading among good friends. It's a testament to Keeho, Theo, Jiung, Intak, Soul, and Jongseob's comfortable dynamic as a group that the copper-haired youngest just earnestly smiles through the minor sting of his hopes being swiftly dashed.

For all of the training that goes into a K-pop artist's career, perhaps the most vital lesson is learning how to symbiotically coexist in close quarters with someone who is unfamiliar to you. Like most things, it is a process. Harmony isn't achieved overnight, especially among six teenage boys who have differing definitions of the word "clean." Cultural differences present unique challenges, too. When Keeho left his home in Canada to pursue his musical dreams as a trainee at FNC Entertainment in Seoul, he didn't have much trouble fitting in. Or so he thought. "He was funny," Jiung says in retrospect. "But I don't think we were able to communicate well." It wasn't that they couldn't understand what Keeho was saying — the soulful singer grew up speaking Korean with his family — but rather they couldn't understand him.

"Everyone would be stressed out, and I would be like, 'Guys, relax. Why are you stressing out over this?'" Keeho says animatedly with his hands. "They couldn't understand why I was so relaxed. How could I not care about anything? And I couldn't understand why they were always so stressed about things. It took a while to get on the same page."

That's where communication comes in. "The key is being honest," Jiung explains. "We have a lot of talks." These regular conversations allow the members to resolve potential issues before they spiral into larger, more disharmonious problems. Keeho is refreshingly open about this. "We're always stuck together," he adds. "We live together. We see each other 24 hours a day. Seeing anyone 24 hours a day, you'll eventually be, like, ugh, get away from me, but because we communicate so much, that [feeling] is reduced." Establishing rules and boundaries also helps. "We have a basic rule that you clean up the mess you've made," Jongseob says from where he's perched behind Jiung. (This rule is especially important to methodical Jiung.) And then there's vocalist Theo, the eldest member who also takes on the role of the group's even-keeled mediator because he's a good listener, and he likes giving advice.

"I'm not very opinionated," the blonde says. At 19, he's a few months older than Keeho but harder to read. He's both lighthearted and enigmatic. "I'm not good at expressing my feelings," Theo explains. "But the members are really good at expressing themselves and their emotions, so I'm learning how to open up because of them." According to Keeho, Theo is "bad at being serious," adding, "We'll have to have a serious talk, and he won't be able to take it. He's always trying to lighten the mood. He's the comedic relief."

Keeho makes a habit of describing the members' various idiosyncrasies in fervent detail. It's a very leaderly thing to do, to make sure that everyone feels understood. Occasionally, he also jumps in to help interpret their answers into English, or to encourage others to speak. Soul, who is half-Korean but was raised in Japan, could be described as a quiet person: an introvert who wears a lot of black, listens to metal, and has a particular obsession with massive skull rings and accessories. But he's also acutely perceptive. He'd rather listen and observe than be an active participant in the conversation. "I like when the rest of the members are discussing an idea," he says quietly in Korean (he's still learning the language). "I like watching them talk." It's not that he's not involved, but as Keeho puts it, "He's always supporting us silently and observing us." For Soul, it's more fun to sit and watch.

You can get a sense of these dynamics as they unfold on the last track of the group's debut EP, Disharmony: Stand Out. It's a skit, or audio recording of the members — then, just trainees — as they talk candidly about their dreams to perform and contemplate the implications of such aspirations. "I work hard here for the debut, but when I go to school, I wonder, 'What am I doing here?'" Intak says on tape, recalling how strange it feels to not have the same priorities as his classmates who are all preparing for their college admissions. Theo quells his concerns, telling him how lucky he is to already be working toward his dream. "That's a cool thing," Keeho adds, as Soul silently listens in the background.

While his peers prepared for their academic futures, Intak was spending his evenings dancing, rapping, singing, and writing lyrics, while also stunt training alongside his groupmates and preparing to become a… movie star. A few weeks before the release of their album, P1H: A New World Begins hit theaters across South Korea in early October. The first K-pop origin story to hit the big screen, the feature film introduced P1Harmony and their sci-fi lore to the masses. Long story short: After a deadly virus spreads chaos and violence around the globe, six boys with extraordinary gifts are humanity's only hope for survival. The filming experience was invaluable for the artists, who until that point had only ever studied music and performance. "Acting training really helped with my facial expressions," Intak says. "I learned how to portray my emotions on stage." Keeho agrees, adding, "We got very friendly with the camera."

Singers who rap, rappers who sing, dancers who act — the boys of P1Harmony forgo clearly defined roles in favor of being versatile and, well, good at everything.

As for their music, Disharmony: Stand Out is a snapshot of Gen Z unrest, simmering with angst ("Siren") and bucking wildly, vibrantly against convention ("Nemonade"). Teenage turmoil has been fueling the K-pop industry since the very beginning, and there's a certain nostalgia to P1Harmony's no-holds-barred approach. Members Soul and Jongseob both credit B.A.P and their hard-hitting style with inspiring them to become artists, with Zelo influencing Jongseob to pursue rap in elementary school. You can hear those more aggressive, hip-hop-tinged influences on Disharmony, as well as softer, more lyrical R&B flourishes ("Butterfly").

"We wanted to convey feelings and situations that are not harmonious," Jongseob says. "We want to say don't be afraid to stand out and to say what you want to say — speak your truth, and do it with courage and confidence." Despite his age, the young rapper carries himself like a veteran. By all accounts, he's earned the title, having won the competition series K-pop Star 6 at age 12 in 2017 and competed in YG Treasure Box less than two years later. These experiences, he says, helped him feel more comfortable performing. By the time he came to FNC, he was already a prodigy with the confidence and flow of a performer twice his age.

"There are so many people, our age especially, who aren't always able to speak courageously and confidently," Keeho adds. "So we wanted to encourage everyone, especially ourselves, to never be afraid to say what you want to say."

And they practice what they preach. All of the members are credited lyricists on the album, with all six collaborating on the roaring hip-hop track "That's It." Part cypher, part vibes, "That's It" is teeming with boyish swagger and possibility. "Even though it was the first time all six of us worked on a song together, surprisingly we were all on the same page from the very first meeting, and it came together quickly," Jiung recounts, adding that each member wrote their own verse. "It was fun," Keeho chirps.

That creative energy is also channeled into their performances. "Because we do take part in a lot of the songwriting, we also want to convey that in our dance," Intak explains. Though he's part of the group's rap line, his first love was dance. He started taking lessons as a child. "My mom is a dancer, so she's where I got my love of dancing," he says. As such, he's well-versed in conveying emotion through motion. "We always have an idea of how we want to portray these emotions with our bodies," he says. The members choreograph their own center gestures. These movements are a small but significant part of any performance, because this is where their charisma and individuality shine brightest.

"I wanted to become a singer because I wanted to perform onstage," Theo says. "So being able to be on music programs performing on real stages, surrounded by bright LED lights and visual backdrops, I feel like a main character. When all of the lights are on me, I feel like a star."

Unsurprisingly, even when he's offstage, he's still singing. He even likes to call his friends and take song requests. "I like to sing to my friends through the phone," he says. "I'll sing anything they want. I play piano for them, too. They're very open to listening to me." Next to him, Keeho adds, "My friends would not want me to sing to them." (The internet respectfully disagrees.) Meanwhile, Jongseob turns to making music and writing lyrics in his downtime. It's a great way to relieve stress, he says. These days, Intak turns to animated films to ease his mind. He's a fan of Studio Ghibli films, and he really likes the Japanese manga characters Doraemon and Shin Chan.

"I watch a lot of coming-of-age stories about these innocent kids who are in the process of becoming adults," he explains. "I get inspired by watching them. I don't want to lose that innocence, so watching those animations make me feel youthful." It's hard to imagine Intak without his boyish sensibility. It's seeped into every social media post and YouTube vlog (or, #PLOG). Yet, as an artist, as a teenager, it's an unusual phenomenon to be perceived by thousands of fans before having the clarity to perceive yourself. It's something no amount of Miyazaki or training prepares you for.

Initially, Theo had a hard time opening up on camera. The mere thought of it made him nervous, but the more he did it, the easier it was for him to parse his own feelings. "I'm not very good at expressing emotions like thank you and I love you," he says. "But it's a lot easier to express those feelings now because I feel them so sincerely. I can say thank you for loving me [to fans] because I truly mean it."

"There are people from all around the world who leave me messages, and that makes me so happy," Intak says. "It drives me to do more and to give more to them."

And there will be more to give. Disharmony: Stand Out was just the beginning, and Keeho already has some very big goals for 2021. At the top of the list? "Rookie of the Year, come on!" he says spiritedly of the K-pop industry's coveted award. "It's definitely possible. I'm manifesting it right now." He also wants to make more music, maybe release more covers. "We want to come back a lot," he smiles. "I'm thinking [of] at least three releases next year."

Then there are more personal goals, like Jiung's solo travels. "I want to take better care of my mental health," he adds, noting that it starts with a more positive mindset. "I want to be a better person overall." Intak wants to, for the first time in his young life, maintain a consistent routine for a healthier lifestyle. That includes getting enough sleep when there aren't any schedules. ("He could sleep, but he chooses not to," Keeho jokes.) After monitoring his fancams, Theo has decided that he wants to build more muscle. And Soul hopes to go home to Japan to see his dog, a Frenchie named Mochi.

As for Keeho, in true Libra fashion, he wants to maintain a sense of balance: "I want to stay true to myself," he says. "I don't want to be like, oh, the fame is getting to me. I don't want to change. I want to stay grounded and stay thankful and be grateful, always. I also want to make some more money." He laughs, then adds, "I can't lie!"

No, he can't. Honesty is the key to harmony, after all.

#p1harmony #ot6 #t:news #era:disharmony : stand out #210123

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skullsandwineglasses · 3 years

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Arsenal Military Academy (First Impressions - Eps 1-13)

I’m about a quarter of the way through, but I’m really enjoying it so far. The premise is simple: a 19-year old young woman disguises herself as her deceased brother and enrolls in the military academy. Like most dramas that take place during the pre-modern republican era, the main conflict and antagonist is usually about the threat of Japanese occupation.

But this drama is more light-hearted than serious. The Japanese plot line looms in the background, but the main focus (so far) is about the FL’s training at the academy and the missions that the students go on and their interactions with each other. There are some really good comedic moments, and the drama has good pacing.

The Female Lead - Xie Xiang (played by Bai Lu)

I’m going to be making comparisons to The Legends because the reason why I started this drama was to see Bai Lu and Xu Kai again. I know these two dramas are completely difference so it’s not fair to compare them, but I’m going to be talking about these differences.

Xie Xiang is a watchable FL, but I think she’s missing that spark that would make her a memorable FL. She’s not as physically capable as her male counterparts, but she has the perseverance, wits, and martial arts skills that many of her peers lack. It’s a really standard character profile for a cross-dressing FL in a military academy, and tbh, it’s kind of boring. I’m not sure what would help elevate her character more, but it just feels like something’s missing.

In comparison, the second FL has that spark. She’s more layered. She comes from a middle-class, well-to-do family, but chooses to be an entertainer. She’s arrogant, demanding, high maintenance, but she’s also protective of her friends and doesn’t hesitate to stand up to things she thinks is wrong. She’s a haughty firecracker, but what makes her admirable is how she isn’t afraid to be herself. I think it’s an interesting balance for a character to be obnoxiously full of themselves, but to also care about others. She’s probably the first SFL that I actually enjoy watching (even if she might be a potential love rival to the FL).

The Male Lead - Gu Yanzhen (played by Xu Kai)

Speaking of someone who is obnoxiously full of themselves but still has the capacity to care for others, the ML is exactly this. In this drama, Xu Kai plays a character who is nearly the opposite of the character he played in The Legends. Here, Gu Yanzhen is a cheeky, mischievous, spoiled rich kid who loves flirting with women and causing trouble. He’s like an overgrown child (like when he’s jealous and purposely gets himself sick so that Xie Xiang would take care of him), but when he wants to do, he’s also able to show high levels of competence, maturity, and bravery.

Xu Kai really stands out in this drama. He’s quite charming and adorable because he’s allowed to be more expressive. He mopes, teases, complains, smirks, worries, and yearns. Despite playing a noble, self-sacrificing, and devoted ML in The Legends, Xu Kai didn’t completely win me over then. Mostly because his character was a bit flat and so overdone in the xianxia genre. But seeing a different side of his acting in AMA has made him grow on me.

It’s almost as if Xu Kai and Bai Lu switched personalities in this drama where he’s more outgoing, while she’s more reserved. He’s now the loud and impulsive one, while she’s the more conscientious one who wants to do something meaningful.

The Chemistry

So far it’s been very one-sided. Gu Yanzhen figures out that she’s a girl early on and falls for her, while she still finds him intolerably annoying and is instead crushing on the second male lead. Because she doesn’t want to have anything to do with him, the chemistry is kind of lacking. If I hadn’t watched The Legends beforehand, I’m not sure if I would be onboard with this ship.

The story is currently purposely set up so that we see that the ML and SFL are more compatible, and the FL and SFL are more compatible. Gu Yanzhen and the SFL are practically the same person, and they have a lot of playful bantering, so it’s kind of hard not to ship them. But I’m curious to see when the switch happens. We see that Xie Xiang is starting to slightly warm up to Gu Yanzhen, but Gu Yanzhen needs to mature a bit more before she changes her opinion of him.

I’m also living for these stories where he figures out her true identity before everyone else and tries to help her protect her secret, but she’s completely clueless to it. The same things happened in The Legends, and the dynamic repeats itself here.

The second ML is portrayed as being a perfect character. Mature, clever, kind, caring, righteous. It’s hard not to like him. I’m wondering if he already knows that Xie Xiang is a girl because of his glances, or if that’s because the director was purposely trying to make it ambiguous. At least at this point, he seems to be the best match for the FL, even though he currently likes his former classmate, who is actually working for the Japanese.

The Plot

I like how there are a lot of intersecting characters, which helps expands the fictional world. The peripheral characters all somehow relate back to the main leads, so you can’t really skip their scenes because their stories connect somehow.

The colour-grading, costuming, sets, and OST also help immerse you into the era.

Despite being have a simple and stereotypical premise, it’s not easy to predict the endgame of the drama. You know that at some point, Xie Xiang’s identity will be revealed, but then what? After that point, the plot is going to take a turn because it’ll need a new conflict, which will be probably related to the Japanese, but you’re not sure what yet. The drama feels refreshing so far, but I also haven’t watched too many republican era dramas, so it’s not hard to impress me.

Other anachronistic observations

In episode 1, when Xie Xiang uses the women’s restroom while dressed as a man and runs into the second FL (Qu Manting), Manting accuses her of trying to take pictures of her and demands that Xie Xiang take out her camera and delete/destroy the photos. It’s a minor point, but cameras in those days were huge and thus hard to hide, so it should have been obvious that Xie Xiang didn’t have a camera on her.

In a later episode, Xie Xiang struggles to complete the obstacle course because she’s unwell, and while it’s not explicitly stated, I think we’re supposed to assume that it’s because of period cramps, and I applaud the drama for implying this (but it would have been even better if they made the implication more explicit). But ever since the drama started, I wondered about this. Even if someone didn’t have period cramps, how would you hide menstruation while living in the same room with someone? TMI, but when I was living with 4 other girls during uni, the garbage can in our bathroom would be filled with sanitary products during the same week every month. Women back then didn’t have the same sanitary products as we do now, but they still had to scrub and change cloths, like my mom did when she was younger. So realistically, Xie Xiang would have had to spend long periods of time (no pun intended) in the washroom to scrub her cloths. And after she did so, where did she dry them?

Anyway, those are minor points. Overall, this drama is a fun watch, and I’m thankful that Xu Kai and Bai Lu got to collaborate again before the fandoms made things awkward as they do with any rumoured CP (*cough cough* Deng Lun and Yang Zi, and Cheng Yi and Yuan Bingyan). It’s as though the more chemistry two people have together in a drama, the less likely they’ll collaborate again because the fandoms will start to hate each other due to some misunderstanding and/or company management. The irony. So I guess the goal is to have low, platonic chemistry so that you don’t become enemies so as to leave the door open for future collaboration opportunities. Sorry, so that was bitter and a bit off tangent. I just have a lot of thoughts about the toxicity of fandom culture.

#arsenal military academy #烈火军校 #xu kai #bai lu #cdrama #白鹿 #许凯 #cdrama review #cdrama impressions #the legends

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biblio-bitch · 4 years

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Detroit Evolution Commentary Pt. 3 [FINAL]

It’s been a while, sorry. Life sucks ass sometimes and I had to do some transferring to my new laptop. I’ll write down some more fun facts as an apology. Disclaimer: This is all stuff I noticed, inferred, or interpreted. I didn’t write the film, anything I’ve interpreted is just that, an interpretation based on things I noticed using my experiences and knowledge.

Fun fact #1: I have attempted to write in a proper novel style at least five times. After watching DE and watching @octopunkmedia ‘s script breakdowns and such, I've started writing scripts instead. I’m much farther along in those than I ever have been in books. 10/10 amazing for my visual based concepts.

Fun fact #2: My mental health was rapidly declining and I was losing interest in quite literally everything at the time the film was released. Watching the film and fixating on it for a month straight not only inspired me but helped me regain control of my life. Watching streams by the cast and Michelle while I worked for school made my productivity skyrocket.

Fun fact #3: I recently developed a tic that I now can’t get rid of. It was out of control for about twenty minutes right before I began writing this post. However, when I began re-watching the film (partially because it’s a comfort for me and I’m quite honestly terrified of what’s happening in the US right now) it stopped. So that’s fun.

As usual, spoilers and swearing under the cut! Quick note: If there should be a trigger warning on this or anything else I post, please let me know! I’m horrible at remembering to tag triggers. I’ll also be doing some quick posts on Umbrella Academy and my severe obsession with Jason Todd soon. Have fun!

As usual, here’s a list of people I know the users of in case you’d like to check any of them out. I’m likely missing people so feel free to let me know who I’m missing so I can add them!

Maximilian Kroger - Nines (@ maximiliankroger)

Christopher (Chris) Trindade - Gavin (@ trindabago)

Michael Smallwood - Chris Miller (@ michaelsmallwoodforever)

Carla Kim - Tina Chen (@ carlahkim)

Jillian Geurts - Ada (@ jilbobaggins_nyc)

Michelle Iannantuono - (@ octopunkmedia)

JJ Goller - Lazzo (@ quasar.cos)

Brett Mullen - Cinematographer (@ brettmullendirector)

Austin Butts - Sound Design (@ austinbytts)

Tiare Solis - Valerie (@ tiareleiana)

So I decided to put all of the rest into this post. It’s a long one. Not even that sorry about it bc I love this film with my entire heart. Warning for me getting sidetracked. I use a lot of Supernatural references but it’s because I’m visiting my dad and he’s binge watching the show. I like Dean and only Dean, don’t bully me for it.

The Wrist Grip™️ in the bedroom before Nines moves back

Shoutout to Maximilian Kroger’s muscles u go dude

Lighting Symbolism™️, big theme through the movie, honestly I think it’s beautiful and they did a wonderful job with it.

The little nod from Gavin as he starts talking about his nightmare

You can see Gavin gearing up to move, like not in a normal way, in a “oh god I don’t know if I have the energy to do this” way and that’s Relatable™️

The little smile from Nines as they sit together

The SHARK PLUSHIE I LOVE HIM (THE SHARK HAS AN INSTAGRAM @ sharktreuse)

Nines being domestic, making coffee and breakfast, being Soft.

Shirt change??? Either I’m blind or he’s wearing a different shirt in the morning (He is. He’s wearing a t shirt at night and a buttoned collar shirt in the morning. Perhaps he changed? He’s wearing normal pants so he probably changed but he’s not wearing that same shirt in the next scene)

Ada eye rolling at them being passive aggressive dumbasses. Same. Apparently Jillian kept fucking with them which is,, so valid.

The lighting in this scene (the office pt. 2) makes Maximilian look Android-white and outlined in the CyberLife blue-ish color. Very symbolic, I have no idea if it was intentional.

Another shoutout, this time to Maximilian’s eyebrows, the expressiveness is *chef’s kiss*.

“You can thank me later, Casanova.” Nines: *confused Android noises*

Honorable mention to Michael’s Foo Fighters t shirt in the bar, it’s vintage.

Nines is in fact wearing a different shirt now. Not the same shirt from the morning bedroom scene. I also think he’s wearing a different jacket. Less of a peacoat and more of a leather jacket. Nice.

Shoutout to Tina’s (not irl) wife, Valerie! And her weird crush on Hank! I honestly can’t wait to see her in Seven Deadly Synths!!

Ada DODGING the questions that Nines is asking because she is SHADY.

Also, he looks to Gavin when he talks about wanting to be more human. Recurring theme of him perceiving himself as lacking because of his ace-ness/android-ness, like he can’t give Gavin what he wants. Honestly I know that the android thing is a thinly veiled metaphor for race in canon but I kinda like thinking of it as a metaphor for being LGBT+ and in Nines’ case, specifically ace. Might not make sense but it does in my brain??

Gavin Senses Are Tingling and Nines is GONE. Leaving the bar for ur not-bf to try to talk things out like adults??? King shit.

Also electric lighter, fun, I genuinely didn’t know those existed

SHIRT WITH UNBUTTONED COLLAR

“You don’t want to help me, you want to fix me.” What a loaded line. Because in a way, it’s almost true? Like, Nines has this entire simulation of Gavin in his ideal world, and obviously that version of Gavin has probably been idealized at least a bit. Nature of humanity, and Nines might not be human but he’s got the Brain Things. And at that moment, it’s nearly true that Nines wants Gavin to be like that ideal Gavin. Obviously Nines wants Gavin as Gavin, but there’s the edge of that simulation there, still.

But Nines does want to help Gavin, and that’s where he’s wrong. Nines wants Gavin to get better, wants to help stop the nightmares, etc. But by pointing that out, I think it’s partially why Nines can accept letting go of Simulation!Gavin when Ada attacks him. Because he knows that the simulation of Gavin will never be the real Gavin, and this line sort of helps him understand that he can’t really keep Sim!Gavin anyways.

Again idk if that’s legit but that’s definitely something I felt from that while watching.

Nines is constantly very controlled, but when he walks away from Gavin you can see him straining to keep that composure and not let his anger show.

Ada looking So Done With This Shit when Nines comes back from talking with Gavin outside of the bar

“I’m sure this will be like...every other time.” Oh honey. Oh my sweet child. I am so very sorry. It most definitely will not be.

Ada’s exasperated Eyebrow Raise before taking a drink. If that ain’t the mood sis.

I love Ada’s bat wings on her outfits.

Gavin being a stalker and putting his hood up.

“I’m...certain that most of the credit can go to you.” IMMEDIATE ANGER. Must Defend Boyfriend.

I SO WANTED HIM TO SAY “WISDOM” WHILE TALKING ABOUT GAVIN’S SKILLS BECAUSE IT WOULD MIRROR HIM TELLING GAVIN THAT HE ISN’T WISE BEFORE THEY LEFT FOR THE STAKEOUT. He didn’t, but instinct is a better word for Gavin anyways.

Nines has Suspicion™️...press X for doubt...

*Only vaguely related rant warning*

I do feel that we as a fandom tend to make Connor almost childishly innocent despite him being likely one of the least kind and least innocent characters. The characterization of Nines in this--and pardon me for the off topic rant--where he’s a fully grown man and acts like it is so much more realistic. Nines is a cop, as is Connor.

Even post deviancy, they were designed and equipped to handle murder. Nines, in a lot of fandom content, tends to come off as an exasperated older brother or a gritty and mean detective, or even worse, essentially a sociopath who feels nothing in contrast to Connor’s childish and extreme innocence. I dislike both. Seeing Nines be a normal fucking person is so relieving, I’m serious. There’s still those elements of ‘oh he’s only been properly alive for like a year, right? He probably doesn’t get Chris’ Casanova reference.’ but it’s not to such an extreme that it overtakes all of his personality traits.

Like, yeah, ok, I get why a lot of fandom content does that. In order to balance what we see Connor do (and in order to further push the Hank as a father line) we over-emphasize the not getting references and such. Honestly I see the same in content for Castiel from Supernatural. Nines, when he’s added, often HAS to be a lot darker in order to make that seem not as jarring and unrealistic.

Doesn’t mean I enjoy it. If you do? That’s great, good for you, but I don’t like seeing those characters be portrayed as such one dimensional extremes. People aren’t like that. On the off chance that someone is such an extreme, there’s still other aspects of their personality.

DE has done an amazing job at not flattening their personalities. Nines and Gavin are three-dimensional and incredibly interesting characters I find myself invested in every time I watch it.

*Onto the commentary again.*

Gavin is still being a stalker

“Particular fascination with the RK line” AHAHA funny. She’s also an RK, and she likely knows more than Nines because her programming is based on information gathering. Her fascination begins and ends with what their programming can do for her.

The little computer details in Ada’s eyes as she copies Nines’ OS, and again in Nines’ eyes when he’s in the alley alone. I believe Michelle did all of that and I am just amazed every time I watch.

The warped voice effect.

Gavin shifting to hold Nines as soon as he passes out

The ethereal colored lighting is very good for the mood, space hospital vibes

Shoutout to the latex suit they put Maximilian in! That’s not CG! He’s wearing a full body white latex suit. I’m so sorry.

Gavin looks so tired talking to Dr. Maria. His posture is defensive, pulled into himself. Shoulders hunched, arms pulled in. Eye bags, messy hair. Boy looked messed up. Somebody hug him.

Nines’ hair being disheveled and messy in the corrupted Zen Garden, rivaling his assertion that in his ideal world (Aka the normal Zen Garden) his appearance is polished, signifying the loss of control and the loss of the Zen Garden being a safe, ideal space for him. Same concept with Sim!Gavin being corrupted.

Nines: *wakes up in his mindspace*

Also Nines, immediately: GAVIN!!1!!1

Nines believes in CONSENT!! You do not go into someone’s program without asking, ADA.

Ada’s “poor widdle baby” face as Nines is freaking out because she trapped him. Mood.

Tina wearing a low turtleneck and a flannel is Peak Gay, especially next to Gavin “I wear the same leather jacket+hoodie combo every single day and probably the same jeans for a month” Reed, aka the most disastrous and chaotic bisexual I have ever seen. Again, a mood, I honestly felt that one.

The face when Nines realizes that Ada isn’t deviant yet.

Gavin is blaming himself somebody stop this idiot.

“Not without Nines.” What a softie.

“The last thing I said to him was ‘I don’t need you’.” BITCH WHAT THE FUCK MY HEART.

Gavin calling Tina “T” in that soft voice is so sweet omg

Ugh the bisexual LIGHTING is KILLING ME, ESPECIALLY as Gavin sits at Nines’ bedside

Tina encouraging Gavin. WLW/MLM solidarity.

Fun fact: Chris Trindade told Maximilian not to react at all to the big speech but Maximilian literally started crying during it and there’s footage somewhere of the Dramatic Single Tear rolling down his face while he’s still ‘in stasis’.

Yes, I double checked the streams to make sure I got this right, I love the concept though.

Look I cannot get into the speech because I will write 1.5k words on it, but I will say this: It made me cry. The acting, the writing, it’s iconic. The amount of love and devotion they got without even saying the words “I love you” was amazing. Chris is so very talented.

THERES A TAKE WHERE GAVIN FALLS ASLEEP NEXT TO NINES’ HOSPITAL BED AKSDGAKL IM SCREAMING

Tina is the best wingman ngl

The glitches in Zen Gavin are amazing. The sequence when he’s deleting the Zen Garden is also amazing. I use amazing a lot but it’s deserved.

Nines deleting the Zen Garden and Sim!Gavin is very symbolic of letting go of all of the fake stuff, letting go of the fear he was holding that kept him from confessing to Gavin and I love that

Nines sitting silently straight up.

Gavin is highly intelligent and I’m so glad Octopunk embraces that.

*another vaguely related rant warning*

Ok let me tell y’all a thing because this RUINS MY LIFE. People tend to take characters like Percy Jackson or Dean Winchester, whose intelligence isn’t outwardly obvious from the get-go, and remove it entirely. Percy is reduced to an idiot who can’t tie his own shoes and Dean is often shown basically unable to research without Sam. Both of those are bullshit.

Percy has ADHD and Dyslexia, so when often we categorize smart as only book-smart, Percy’s intelligence as a battle strategist and his actual knowledge gets erased. Dean is usually the more physical and shoot-first-never-ask-questions type, and his intelligence is severely downplayed. He made an EMP detector from scratch. Made a shotgun, remembers how to kill things, is a very good hunter, especially on his own. But that’s thrown away because he’s not book-smart.

I despise when people take characters who are talented and smart in ways that aren’t just reciting the periodic table and reduce them to muscles and angst or drooling children.

Octopunk having a scene where Gavin is working through a case, already having done the things that Chris, someone who was only recently promoted, suggests, is just affirming Gavin’s intelligence in a way I wish I could be not surprised by. Gavin is smart, and luckily I haven’t seen much downplaying that fact. He’s a detective for a reason. Unfortunately I think it might be because the fandom tends to turn Connor and Nines into actual children, but a win is a win.

Now I’m not saying I don’t love a good himbo character but I literally had to stop interacting with Percy Jackson content because people wrote him as incapable.

*Moving on*

“I think I can help with that.” Bitch why are you so dramatic I love him so much.

Nines’ t-shirt says “Detroit City Marathon”

“You...undead asshole.” What an iconic line. I need a t-shirt.

“I...hate you.” “You love me.” Harkens back to the beginning where the roles are reversed. Yes I used that unironically. Words are fun.

Gavin looking scared right before The Kiss™️

THE PULSE POINT!! THE SCENE WAS SUPER EMOTIONAL SO MICHELLE WANTED THEM TO DO YOGA ZEN SHIT TO PREPARE AND THEN THEY JUST DID THE THING BUT THEY PUT IN THE PULSE POINT

ANYWAYS THAT’S WHAT GAVIN IS FEELING FOR ON NINES’ WRIST RIGHT BEFORE THE KISS.

I thought that was cute when I learned it in one of the streams.

Nines’ LED spinning blue when they finally kiss asgladkaf

“What dipshit programmed you to do that?” “I’m the most advanced android ever made, detective-“ “oh you are such a fuckin’ prick!” “Takes one to know one.” I canNOT with them, I laughed my ASS off

The little broken laugh Nines does

Nines rubbing his hands over Gavin’s while they talk about Gavin’s jacket

Shoutout to Chris’ surprised pikachu face. (Tina is also there) That was a joke take, it’s in the gag reel, too. The face wasn’t supposed to make it into the film but Michelle added it. (In the gag reel, Carla yells “Let’s go to Denny’s!” At the end.)

And Ada’s leather pants. Honestly?? She’s so pretty. I love her. They’re all really attractive it’s actually terrifying.

Nines and Tina being a part of the Gay Turtleneck Gang

Nines’ untucked turtleneck

Tina being a Smart Girl. (Nines calling her “Officer” and her replying with “I’ll make detective someday.”

Chris being Exhausted during the whole meeting. Me too dude.

Chris and Tina doing literally nothing while Gavin and Nines have a whole heart to heart

The WHITE COAT. Tina in her blues. Chris’ Foo Fighters shirt. They’re such icons but they absolutely look like a group of gay ppl who did NOT decide on a theme.

The fight sequence is impressive, considering that they’re literally not stunt actors. I’m not a fight choreographer or stunt person so That’s really all I have to say on that.

Chris patting Gavin’s gun after he explains what he’s doing. \

As a Jason Todd lover the crowbar is unfortunate (had to, sorry)

Nines’ smirk and the TURTLENECK as he spins away from Ada with the crowbar. Iconic. The Big Dick Energy. Especially for someone who doesn’t have a dick.

Chris being a Dad when Gavin runs off to go stop the body calibration

Ada just YEETS Gavin. Iconic.

Ada: *doing the villain “you won’t shoot me, you’re too moral” thing*

Chris: Shut the fuck up *shoots her*

Deviancy sequence, iconic

“You’re awake now” bitch get your own tag line, Markus became Robot Jesus for this shit

He’s HOLDING HER HAND while DEFENDING HER!! PLATONIC HAND HOLDING

Gavin trusting Nines’ decision immediately. Amazing. THAT’S LOVE BITCH.

The SMILES after Ada leaves!! They know they made the right choice!

Ugh the COLOR SYMBOLISM!! This is one thing that Michelle has touched on herself! Gavin isn’t wearing white in this scene because he’s not ‘fixed’, he never will be! He has trauma and he’s just barely beginning to heal from it with Nines’ help. He’s wearing grey, lighter than his usual, but still grey because they aren’t pure or innocent and they’re not perfect!! And that’s the fucking point!! It’s also a contrast against Sim!Gavin wearing white! Sim!Gavin was an idealized version of Gavin in Nines’ idealized world!! Real Gavin isn’t that!! So he’s wearing grey!!

Gavin immediately understanding that Nines is Ace and that it’s ok!! Beautiful!

“You’ve been a whole person since the day you woke up” YES!! YOU DO NOT NEED SEX TO BE WHOLE!! FUCK YEAH!!! (this is ace excitement. In the months since writing this I realized I’m aro-ace and trans so fuck yeah for ace rep.)

Gavin being a dick and making Nines tell him about the skin thing

THE KISS!! They slowly move more into the light!! Because they’re getting better TOGETHER!!

Ok before I sign off, it’s only 3 am so I think I’m awake enough to talk about this, I like that they bring up that Gavin has like, actual issues that he needs to get through. Let’s be 100% honest here, I see Gavin as having ADHD, depression, and probably a form or symptoms of PTSD. He’s kinda fucked up and I’m gonna be real here he needs some therapy. He’s got trauma and needs to work through it.

I like that at the end they explicitly have Nines understand and accept that that’s what needs to happen. As someone who has actually had relationships ruined because of trauma (on both sides) that we were unprepared to work through together, if I had seen something like that? Game changer. As it was, most relationships I had seen were idealized and seemed to “fix” those issues by way of just being in a relationship. Thanks major media.

Now that the Detroit Evolution post series is over, I’m gonna be a bit sentimental and say that this film quite literally changed my life. Seriously. Michelle is such a big inspiration for me and I can only hope to be the same for someone else.

If you ever have a chance to check out any of the amazing people who worked on this film, please do. To put into context how big this was: I changed my ideal college major from Forensics to Film.

That’s it that’s all, ending this post at 3:24 am before I literally start crying over it. Thanks for suffering through my long-winded explanations, I hope you enjoyed. Have a wonderful day.

#theo watches Detroit Evolution #octopunk media #reed900 #gavin reed #rk900 #look I tagged Michelle because I have shit impulse control and I wanted y'all to have like #a direct link to her page #i might cry if she sees this and comments on it #seriously I might #happy tears though #it's 3 am and my tic is back #I have no impulse control rn #and I would fight god #also if y'all wanna request something head to the askbox or the dms #I'll look into it

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linaa-vera · 4 years

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Digimon Fanfic Recommendations PART 1

So, during this quarantine I was dragged by the Digimon fandom again and I’ve been completely immersed in it. And at this point I’m past halfway the total pages of fanfic both in Fanfiction and in AO3.

So I present you the fics I think you need to read because they are worth it, ALMOST ALL OF THEM ARE COMPLETED SO YES.

PS: I tolerate all ships.

PS2: I’ll put in the name if it’s incompleted o completed. If it has 5 years without an update I’ll put dead.

PS3: THIS FIRST PART ARE FANFIC ONLY ON FANFICTION.NET

MANZANAR by GeminiStar01 (Short-story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/2781728/1/Manzanar

Summary: “Kouji and Kouichi find themselves in a JapaneseAmerican interment camp in World War 2 California. They're certain that the Digimon have something to do with thier coming here, but to what end?”

Thoughts: It has good writing, very realistic. It’s really concerning when they realize where they are and I really like how both are portrayed in the fic, both are in character which is amazing. Also good history lessons.

TIGER LILIES by AncientLou (Short-Story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8042317/1/Tiger-Lilies

Summary: “A human lifepsan is an adventure, but much like the adventures in the digital world, they end. What becomes of a digimon left behind?”

Thoughts: VERY EMOTIONAL. I was about to cry every chapter. Very good writing. Puts in perspective that the digidestined are only humans, unlike the Digimons. The story follows what happens to almost every partnered digimon when their human dies. Broke my heart but it was worth it, it shows them in character really well.

YOU MISS HIM by bobtheacorn (One-Shot. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12370178/1/you-miss-him

Summary: “Overhead, Kari yawns; a sound muffled under her hand, barely even a sigh. / Kamiya Sibling stuff.”

Thoughts: I really love sibling relationships portrayed in fanfics. It’s very sweet and this one isn’t the exception. The author showed what it’s like living on the Kamiya residence and their relationship as siblings very well.

CONTACT by bobtheacorn (One-Shot. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11700482/1/contact

Summary: “Davis doesn't start the fight, but he does finish it. / rushprompt”

Thoughts: When I first read it I found it that could very much happen, Daisuke is someone who would not back down when someone threatens his friends. Everyone is in character, and I LOVE THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KEN AND DAISUKE IN THIS ONE. It can be taken as romantic or simply friends, the way you like it the most.

BROKEN WINGS by Kaeera (Short-story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/722250/1/Broken-Wings

Summary: “Everybody thought that Daisuke was carefree, not? Everybody believed that he was happy...but what, when the truth is different and he has to deal with a trauma he is not ready to deal with?”

Thoughts: ANGST TO THE BONE PEOPLE. I SUFFERED. But otherwise enjoyed. I think there’s a lot that can be learned in this fic, very well written and down to earth. People can do horrible things every day, and many unknown people suffer the consequences in more ways than we can imagine, like our two protagonists.

ALL SEEMS BEAUTIFUL by Fizzing Wizard (Long story. UNCOMPLETE. Dormant since 2017, also on AO3 but with less chapters)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4446177/1/All-Seems-Beautiful

Summary: “After a bizarre incident at the camp, Taichi learns he's vanishing from his own world and becoming part of the Digital World. Meanwhile the Chosen take hits from every corner: the Spore Children, plus an enemy or several on the digital plane. And they can't keep their personal lives from tangling. ACT 2: The Chosen were dealt the worst blow possible, and it's tearing them apart.”

Thoughts: I was looking for a Taichi/Tai’s fanfic for so long. AND I FOUND IT. This story has everything, betrayals, love, FRIENDSHIP, and death. Everyone is in character which is wonderful, Taichi’s way of dealing with everything is very “goggle head like”. The descriptions are very accurate, and feel very natural.

FRIENDS TO THE END by Schnickledooger (one-shot. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5915938/1/Friends-To-The-End

Summary “Matt and Tai. Together in trouble again. Lucky they're friends, right?”

Thoughts: Really good portrayal of their friendship. Warms up my heart every time I read it.

HERE WITH ME by Mika-chan (One-shot. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/569622/1/Here-With-Me

Summary: “Taichi needs an appendectomy; he isn't thrilled. Taichi & Yamato friendship story.”

Thoughts: To quote a review “straightforward, simple, and sweet.” VERY WHOLESOME.

TOMORROW by Mika-chan (Short-story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12130819/1/Tomorrow

Summary: “It's times like these when his father won't stop lecturing him about school and when Yamato won't stop being so self-absorbed, that Tai wishes life could be simple again—could really be just about fighting evil Digimon and saving the world.”

Thoughts: I really like this story because it shows how school can sometime be very stressful. And more importantly it depicts Tai very well, because it shows that he’s alone, or he thinks he’s being abandoned by everyone.

THE LOST TAMER by Miss Anonymous hp (Long Story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10205417/1/The-Lost-Tamer

Summary: “Even before Takato was electrocuted, he was having a crummy day. It all started when he woke up with no memory, in a strange place, and surrounded by a group of kids known as the digidestined looking for somebody named TK. Now he, Guilmon, and five worried kids must set out to find out what exactly is going on… and why.”

Thoughts: I really like this portrayal of Takato. He’s very mature and his comments are very realistic. GUILMON IS THE SWEETEST. Even when you have all this characters in scene you don’t lose the essence. Very recommended. Has a sequel but it hasn’t been updated.

THE TEACHER OF ALL THINGS by Sadhelm2 (Long Story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9801628/1/The-Teacher-of-All-Things

Summary: “That time in summer camp wasn't the first time Tai went to the Digital World. How different would things be if a more experienced and jaded Tai was sucked into the Digital World? V-Tamers/adventure01”

Thoughts: Tai’s very mature for his age in this fic and I love it. He knows stuff, and he’s not what I expected in this fic. But that’s what I love it, if you guys read it you have A LOT of suprises coming. 10/10

HAS A SEQUEL TO KEEP ON RISING UNCOMPLETED. Set in 02. Dormant, last update on 2018.

WHAT WAS FORGOTTEN by Prince of Flames (Short Story. COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8197908/1/What-Was-Forgotten

Summary: “During his battle with Cherubimon, Takuya falls unconscious. While he is asleep, he dreams of a past forgotten, and friends that he once knew.”

Thoughts: It’s a 02x04 crossover. Very short and has fluff. Love it. Although it’s not showed you can’t tell the friendship the two other protagonists had with Takuya is real.

CROSSING WORLDS: THE SEALED DIGIVICE by Sigthbent (Long Story. COMPLETE) (Has prequel, completed. And has a Sequel, uncompleted).

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5493589/1/Crossing-Worlds-The-Sealed-Digivice

Summary: “On a mission that has led Takuya out of his own dimension, he has ended up lost in another. Not only does the fate of multiple worlds rest on him succeeding, he'll also meet someone who will become forever intertwined with his destiny”

Thoughts: Another 02x04 crossover with GREAT worldbuilding. Everything is explained and you can understand the concepts easily. Takuya had a serious demeanor here, because of his new role as a “superior digidestined”(?) But has his charismatic smiles all over, very good characterizations of everyone. Cliffhangers, angst, fluff, EVERYTHING. AND THE POWER OF---

THE TAMER – A DIGIMON ADVENTURE by leonardo1123581321 (Long Story. COMPLETE) (Has a sequel, COMPLETE. HAS A THIRD PART ALSO WHICH IS ONGOING AND A LOT OF SHORT STORIES???)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11575755/1/The-Tamer-A-Digimon-Adventure

Summary: “Six young kids go to camp for the summer, wind up living in a Digital Land. With devices that let them digivolve their partners to make them stronger, our six heroes set off on an adventure to find a way back to their world. But stories tell of another boy trapped in this world for a long time and they fear the same fate. Mysteries abound in this new world. Will they get home?”

Thoughts: This is a masterpiece. If you like Doctor Who then you’re gonna love this. It’s the perfect match. The Tamer owns the situations every time he appears. I just can’t explain it further YOU HAVE TO READ THIS. IT’S AMAZING.

Sequel: THE TAMER V1-2: ANOTHER DIGIMON ADVENTURE. (COMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12428191/1/The-Tamer-v1-2-Another-Digimon-Adventure

FORGOTTEN LEGENDS by Sightbent (Long story. UNCOMPLETED. DEAD since 2015 :c )

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6472937/1/Forgotten-Legends

Summary: “With the reemergence of a long lost continent in the Digital World the Digidestined have set out to discover its connection to recent troubling events happening in the real and digital world, but in doing so they will stumble across long forgotten legends and a chaos that has waited a long time to engulf both worlds. 02x04”

Thoughts: Ashh this fic. I really like it, I like the story, the world building. Everyone is in character, there’s so many mysteries. I’m really sad because the last chapter’s ending wasn’t what I expected and I need to know what’s happening. A good ride tho.

DIGIMON: CHAOTIC EVOLUTIONS REDONE by Katreal (Long Story. UNCOMPLETED. DEAD since 2015)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9679932/1/Digimon-Chaotic-Evolutions-Redone

Summary: “Posing as a Digidestined pair, and barred from spirit evolution save in the most dire of circumstances, Kouji and Kouichi struggle to aid the Chosen Children in discovering the secret of evolution, all while trying to unravel the truth of the connection between their Spirits, and themselves.”

Thoughts: I got a bit confused with the names of the digimons so I had to write them down to know which one was which, but I think that’s because I found it when my English wasn’t that good? So, meh. I really like this story, everyone is on character, very nice rhythm, good descriptions and conflicts. I love Koji and I love Kouichi and their relationship throughout the story.

ADVENTURE 02 X FRONTIER by Freefan1412 (Long story. UNCOMPLETE. On hiatus)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7484328/4/Adventure-02-x-Frontier Summary “Four years after BelialVamdemon's defeat the peace in the Digiworld breaks apart. A mysterious army of evil Digimon is wreaking havoc and destroying everything the children have struggled to build. And the key to evil's victory, lies with 6 'visitors'. 02 x 04 crossover. Rated for violence. Hiatus.”

Thoughts: One of the first “mature” fanfic I’ve found and what I loved about this is the fact that the warriors are more attuned with their spirits, they are vessels for them to manifest and it’s amazing. And it clearly shows that their world (frontier) was harsher and brutal than the adventure gang.

DIGIMON: FLAME WITHIN MIRACLES by Loki921 (Short story. UNCOMPLETE)

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11854296/1/Digimon-Flame-Within-Miracles

Summary: “Davis holds a secret about himself that the other the Digidestineds, except for Ken, don't know. What does this secret have to do with the mysterious digimon that has been spotted recently and Kari seems to know? When evil once again rises, the Digidestined better be prepared for all they know to be turned upside down and a fight for their lives. Season 2 and 4 Crossover.”

Thoughts: I re-read this recently and I still love it. It’s an easy read. The battles are amazing and well written in my opinion. Everyone feels real and the interactions also feel amazing.

At this point I think I made you a favor. Your welcome. If you pick any of the fics then I love you and go give your kudo to the fic because they deserve more recognition.

#Digimon #digimonfanfics #fanfiction #digimon fanfiction #digimon fanfic #recomendation #fanfic recs #digimon fanfic recs #digimon fanfic recommendations #digimon adventure #digimon adventure 02 #digimon tamers #digimon frontier #Digimon adventure 2020 #digifans

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lovestrucked-again · 4 years

Text

Profiles and How They Treat You - Mafia NCT

Masterlist / Part 2 : I’m planning to do only NCT2018 group as I’m not too familiar with WayV yet unfortunately. Please leave any feedback :) Not too sure how this concept will be liked yet.

Taeil (Underboss) He manages any suspicious activities that may draw attention to the boys and the missions they’ve been completing. Considering most of their plans involve some sort of attention attracting tasks, Taeil is the one who covers all their traces (mainly because he’s the only one who can be trusted to do a good job at it). He manages to maintain good relationships with public officials such as lawyers, police officers, anyone who may be an advantage in the long run.

- Solemn, Quiet, low-key affection type - In charge of making things comes out as accident and looking like everyday problems

Johnny (International and Domestic Affairs) He’s normally one of the easiest to find within the household with his constant conversations going on. His voice can be heard almost 24/7 and usually it’s to some politician or important person. He normally sits on a comfy chair outside on the balcony from his room, trying to maintain a tranquil peace of mind while conversing with ignorant people. His involvement with international partners allows members such as Lucas and Doyoung to retrieve things they need from abroad. Additionally, keeping an association with such companies and people provides more power to NCT as a whole. - The biggest switch from stern to soft; he’ll seem extremely serious talking about work but then have the biggest reversal into throwing aegyo at everyone - Constantly making fun of Y/N (in a loving way)

Taeyong (Leader) Most of the time he’s at the office or in the headquarters (basement) sorting through missions and prioritising what needs to be done. Outside of the house Taeyong is cold-blooded, brutal, stone-faced, threatening and every other scary word you can think of. If there are deals or arrangements that need to be done with international partners, Taeyong will consult with Johnny and Ten, gathering their opinions on the matter. Majority of the time, the customers are usual business partners but the probability of betrayal when making deals is high. He doesn’t participate in field missions unless the scale of the task is considered significant. He’ll keep an eye over the boys from headquarters with the tech boys.

Due to NCT being such a notorious gang, his completely against the idea of you leaving the house alone, afraid that there’s someone who will take advantage of you or use you against him.

- Very protective of the ones he loves - Soft with the dreamies and Y/N - Code of warning, never approach this man when he’s angry. - During his relaxing mind he prefers to be in the kitchen alone or with others. He likes to experiment with cooking and a lot of the kids enjoy whatever he cooks. - Always checking the younger boys’ rooms before he goes to bed to make sure their asleep.

Yuta (Interrogation) His specialty is differing between lies and truth. He as the talent to notice little details about expressions and movements. Unlike many of the guys, Yuta is able to hide his impatience if he feels it’s necessary. He portrays himself as multiple different roles such as a sympathetic man, or play the good cop, bad cop, depending on who the person is. If nothing nice works (majority of the time), he’ll resort to using methods of discomfort including drugs and in worse case scenarios, torture.

Yuta is always your go to for advice. The way he talks about life and the things his witnessed makes his words so much more convincing and elegant. Maybe it’s because of what he does but he doesn't hesitate with advice. He’ll tell you straight what he believes and won’t go around in circles to avoid anything. He really treasures spending time one on one with everyone and so your relationship with him is one of the strongest. He’ll take you out all the time for dinner and you’ll ask him for help while you eat. - Really good at keeping straight faces - When his not inside the interrogation room, his pretty much always chatty and smiling

Kun (Medic) Due to the overloading amount of injuries and health issues the boy’s face, Kun was forced to find an assistant to help him when missions were hectic. So when Kun’s not busy looking after anyone, his either studying about health and healing processes, looking for vulnerable spots for attacking or teaching Renjun things like basic first aid as well as surgery assisting.

When it comes to the younger individuals, Kun tends to baby them out of habit. He worries a lot for the safety of the boys whenever they go on missions and his usually watching on the screens or preparing the medical equipment in advance of their return. You normally stay by his side when everyone’s gone as he portrays himself as to be the least affected. His been with Taeyong for a long time now so he is accustomed to the situation, but his fear of the boys returning with injuries beyond his capability haunts him constantly. - ��Y/N can you come help me with stocktake for emergency kits.” He’ll usually call you over before the missions to help him and keep your mind busy.

Doyoung (Intel specialist) Doyoung’s job is the foundation of the missions. His job includes tracing gangs, people or items to their exact coordinates. He can gather blueprints of all buildings possible, even for abroad. During missions he’ll be set up with Jisung connected to the earpieces with all the members on the field. Doyoung will usually guide the members while Jisung hacks into control of security systems and gains access to cameras. - Constantly nagging at you and complaining how you’re not going to survive all alone in this world. - Tell’s you off for not eating your meals at the right times, not studying, not exercising or not participating in training. - Constantly sending you nutritional plans from those healthy articles for girls - He feels he has the biggest understanding in realising that girls and guys can’t be treated the same in terms of food and emotions etc.

Ten (International and Domestic Affairs) Ten and Johnny work closely together handling all the international or domestic affairs and trades. While Johnny takes most of the calls at home, Ten prefers to meet them in person and because of that, he’s barely home. He’ll go sign contracts with people and assure them of the alliance benefits that they would gain while also confirming any suspicious doubts.

Ten is one of the more affectionate older boys and after not seeing you for a long time, he’ll always try and jump scare you when his home. He loves to grab your phone when your using it and runs off to hide it making you groan in frustration. Originally he used to do it to the younger boys but they started retaliating with their own pranks and so you became the new target.

Jaehyun (Leader 2) Even though Taeyong is the leader of the group, Jaehyun’s position is almost of similar ranking. His importance is just as crucial to the group. Depending on the type of mission or severity of threat, Jaehyun will lead the boys (usually being the middle tier of difficulty). If the mission is assumed to be higher in risk, Taeyong will be on field as well. Most of the boys will report back to Jaehyun just because Taeyong always seems to have too much on his plate.

While Doyoung nags you about daily life habits, Jaehyun is more concerned about your safety and protection. He is constantly trying to get you to learn basic defence skills with weapons after your lessons with Winwin. But you refuse to touch any gun or dangerous item.

- Because you’re so desperate to help, he’ll usually leave you small tasks like researching (anything that doesnt involve violence) - He’ll joke around occasionally and leave a note on your door telling you to water the garden (even though you dont actually have one).

Winwin (Fighter - Hand to Hand combat major) He learnt how to fight from a young age earning black belts in taekwondo, judo, karate, any sort of martial arts possible. As well as that, he’s ability to predict the moves of his opponent make him extremely fast with recognising weaknesses and strengths. He teaches all the members and makes them spar occasionally just to make sure everyone’s skills are up to his liking. If someone seems to be lacking in an area, Winwin will force them for daily practices for at least 2 weeks before he decides whether they can stop or not. He’s pretty hard core when it comes to practice and takes the situation very realistically (that’s why we have a medic on hand).

After a month of staying with the boys and warming up to them, Taeyong suggested you did some training with Winwin as a precaution for self-defence. On the first day winwin said he’d take it easy and training was going to be light. However, you went back to your room that day after a 30minute visit with Kun and a ban from going back to training for a week. ⁃ “Keep your hands in front of your face Y/N” he’d say after knocking you on the side. He’d help you up but continue the training with no leniency.

Jungwoo (Social, Undercover specialist) He works closely with Lucas managing the social compartments and maintaining clients. He’ll keep an eye on potential nuisances from other gangs who visit the clubs. As well as that he uses these social environments to gather data on other gangs as well as keeping an eye on them. However, his main job includes working as an assassin. Those business partners who end up betraying Taeyong or the team? Jungwoo hunts them down. He’ll leave the house for a couple of days unexpectedly and you’ll always get a text from him before he disappears, “I’m staying at a friend’s place for a couple of days, stay safe xx.” Initially you had no idea what the actual meaning behind it was but after a couple of times you realised. After all, this wasn't just a normal family.

Lucas (Weapons and Social) Lucas is normally better with women when it comes to making deals or finding out information flaunting his looks. However, with guys, he takes a much more different approach, somewhat similar to Taeyong. You’d never be able to guess his age, he’d give of vibes of a leader himself. He’ll go out to the clubs or bars most of the nights, occasionally taking a night off at home. During the daytime his mostly sleeping, training or looking into new weaponry. He is always aware of what equipment they need or what types of bullets are necessary for the mission. As well as that, he’s most skilled with all types of weapons from guns to bows to grenades. - Tries to headlock you as a forceful method of making you “practice” hand to hand combat. - Will text you on a daily basis for no reason at all and pretty much treat you as a personal diary. - Sends memes to you and the dreamies whenever he finds something funny but most of the time, it’s not actually funny…

Mark (All-rounder) Mark is an all-rounder with skills. If he wasn't so young, Taeyong may have given him a higher position. However, Taeyong doesn't really treat Mark like his age and gives him a lot more work than the others in terms of planning and research. Mark is usually up at night very late and sleeps very little but despite that, he doesn't complain. He gets involved a lot in discussions and debates with the older guys, contributing his thoughts. He takes lead on the field if it’s not a highly risky mission.

He knows how hard it was for you to adapt to the house and the situation and because of that, he’s constantly checking in on you. Knocking on your door before bed to see if you’re okay. Mark will tell you the most when it comes to missions that they have. Most of the others will hide a lot of the truth so you don't worry but Mark finds that just causes you more concern. He keeps a few sections left out but majority of the information he’ll tell you. - Your relationship with Mark is one of the closest as his only older than you by a little and his room is just next to yours. - At the beginning when you first came, he’d keep his door left ajar just so you could see that you weren’t alone in the house. - Occasionally when you wake up at like 3am for water, you’d see the light underneath his door was still on. So you’d bring back some tea for him on your way back, telling him to sleep already.

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