hanzawa masato doesn’t like sundays.
the shrine won’t be performing any exorcisms today. to be more specific, the miko that greets him feels his forehead with a warm hand and decides that he’s in good health.
he doesn’t want her to know how little he values her judgment, so he bows to offer a prayer instead.
—
he’d woken up this morning without having had any dreams. he went out of his way, on a morning that was over-bright and unsettlingly still, to make a trip to the shrine. because he hadn’t had any dreams. for all intents and purposes, a full night’s rest.
a monument to the places his mind has been lately, that this was cause for alarm.
barring that, lack of dreams notwithstanding, masato woke up just before the sun rose. the statements made about darkness before dawn are wrong, but his house is old and construction in the neighborhood leaves it eclipsed by increasingly taller buildings that are increasingly growing occupied by increasingly unneighborly neighbors.
the statements made about darkness before dawn are wrong, but when masato wakes up his room is dark and somewhere between too cold and not cold enough.
he doesn’t think it’s particularly scientific—knows this, truthfully—but he’s become familiar with the following pattern:
open your eyes first thing in the morning; you don’t want to be alive. throw the sheets from your legs and feel as the warmth is leached from your body. roll onto one side and feel as your ribs resist the desire to cave in. check the time and feel as the numbers rattle hollowly, meaninglessly, in your brain.
your name is hanzawa masato. you don’t feel tethered to any of the unkind physicality happening to “you”.
you want to die more than anything.
and then he stands, finally, and moves to go about his routine, and if he wasn’t put through an especially brutal wringer overnight, he’ll forget his ideation and go about things the way he always does.
if he was put through that wringer, he can forget. he’ll make himself forget. he’ll learn how to make himself forget.
—
he doesn’t intend to die, is the problem. that simplicity would be a blessing.
the shadows cast before him were inky, stretched long. the trains rattle near-silently on the tracks, low rumbling swallowing the impact of his own footsteps. the footsteps of other people, though sparse, jab like sharpened stones into his ears.
days like these feel fake. days like these make his dreams feel real. days like these make masato feel a little less than alive.
he would feel stupid saying so out loud, but he’s starting to believe that no one’s as haunted by ghosts as ghosts themselves.
he doesn’t know what brought him to this conclusion.
(a lie, mostly. if he had to hazard a guess: an answer lying somewhere between his exhaustion and reluctance to fall asleep, his wishing to die but fear of death, the restless shifting—currently absent—river.)
the thing about all of this is that masato doesn’t actually believe in ghosts.
not real ones, anyway. if anything—anyone—is going to drift aimlessly through the halls, holding a lantern or candlestick or knife, reflection held in its edge tortured and gaunt, it’s going to be him. an offhanded, deeply involved joke at which to have a sadistic laugh.
he has his obligations, though. of course, the knife would be fake—the edge of it dull and without character, not reflecting much of anything, harmless.
he thinks tashiro would think it’s funny. after the shock and fear and flustered anger wore off, at least.
—
real or not, the house he grew up in—the house he lives in now, the house currently, on only this day once a week, occupied by only him—is haunted.
—
he hasn’t forgotten. if it matters. he’s never been very good at lying to himself, and this one was an awfully slow sort of deal. the sort of deal that is just as much a pain to forget as it is to remember.
there was very little tenderness. he couldn’t quite stretch his legs all the way out, couldn’t reach his arms out over his head. his fingers were cold and useless, deadened, slow. the air pushing in and flowing out of his lungs seemed to whistle through the puncture wound in his chest.
he wishes that he could learn; there was no tenderness, in truth. time moved slowly, if at all, abandoning him to sit stiff in the water, soaked to the bone. abandoning him to finish dying in isolation.
he woke up, a few hours ago now, sweaty and splayed out, drowning only in his sheets, and it was an awfully slow sort of deal, but it couldn’t make him forget.
masato’s never been very good at forgetting things, either.
try as he might to toss them out, two facts cling like hooks to his skin:
1. hanzawa masato is a still-living human being, and
2. he doesn’t want to die.
(if he had to hazard a second guess, like he was on some sick introspective game show, masato would say that all anyone ever wants is to live, but living’s hard, and it hurts. it never stops hurting.
he figures—reluctantly, he doesn’t want to spend as much time as he does mired in unwinnable existential debates—that if it’s going to hurt living and hurt dying, he might as well live.)
—
masato doesn’t know where that puncture wound in his chest even came from.
—
I’m at the shrine
Like… for fun?
spiritual enrichment
Of course. Silly question.
Mom says to buy yourself a charm.
which one
…Health?
she said love. I’m buying YOU a love charm
I DON’T NEED IT.
—
poorer, he walks home as evening settles. the clouds that had been crowding the edges of the sky have hung themselves low over the city; no moon.
masato navigates mostly by bleeding sunlight and does not grieve. though his eyes insist otherwise, there is no river.
he carries three charms. good health for his mother, love for his older brother, evil warding for himself. he doesn’t know what compelled him to buy the third.
worn through by the prickly feeling at his skin, he turns his head stiffly to check—there is still no river.
at present, there isn’t anything worth his grief. one pocket lighter, the other heavier, but as insistent as his older brother was that he not buy the damned love charm, it’s not like masato doesn’t know that he’ll just as stubbornly insist on paying him back.
tomorrow, though. they’re not back until tomorrow.
abandonment, maybe. if he was grieving. he both had a dream worse than usual this morning and he didn’t. he was alone in that house and he wasn’t. it’s haunted when he’s there and not when he isn’t, but his mom insists that he house-sit every fucking sunday like the house would be the one pleading “how could you leave me here alone?” and not him.
but it’s not grief, and he’s not pleading. because he won’t let weird dreams count, no one even died.
it’s a pedestrian street, glossy shimmering concrete. everyone but him is walking right where the water would be.
there is no river. his chest aches. he knows better than to entertain the idea.
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No but seriously, I adore the dynamic in wirewolf with NOS-4-A2 and XR so much. Whatever happened during the slayer can’t compare, as much as I love that episode. It established their dynamic, sure, but everything that happens in wirewolf regarding them is so much food for me even though it was short.
NOS-4-A2 ambushes sentry one, dealing with the robot in his usual swift way, following his instincts. It happened so fast, the machine was right behind Ty and suddenly it was gone. There was no time for a reaction.
Then, we have him looking at a large power source, only to get suddenly intrigued by something else. He is watching, the way his body language is here, the way his wings move, the way his face lifts when he realizes the little one is here too. He is just watching, then he calmly analyzes the little robot for a while and only then does he make his move.
But he is not ambushing him like he did with the other robot. In fact, he DOES make his presence known to him. He WANTED for XR to know he is there. His shadow is looming over him.
He could have done it silently and swiftly, just like when he snatched him first during the slayer, but he made sure that XR was aware of his haunting presence.
And even when XR is aware NOS-4-A2 spotted him, the energy vampire doesn’t go for an ambush. He could have easily done so but instead he allowed XR to wheel back until he got cornered.
Does he go for an attack now that XR is helplessly backed against the wall and rambling? No, he is still looming over him and does a lightning show for the dramatics and as he approaches closer, there is a smirk on his face.
This scene on its own shows us, without telling, there is some heavy shit going on between them. Dealt with the other robot quickly, while eating XR‘s fear of him as an appetizer. Has a larger power source, stops everything in his tracks, watches and then just goes after his little tin of snack chips.
It isn’t just with NOS-4-A2, it’s XR too. I said before that people do not realize how brave he actually is when it comes to his worst enemy, but let me go deeper into that just for this episode.
The slayer and dirty work? Both were XR‘s own choices. He CHOSE to go along with Savy and Buzz when they managed to convince him. He CHOSE to remain in that monster‘s lair and look for clues despite the fact that he has seen what the energy vampire did to the other robots. He CHOSE to still go along with Buzz even after seeing the horrors.
It was his own choice to ask Professor Triffid to play a bigger part in this mission and become the lookout, despite the fact that the energy vampire went after him before, waiting right outside of cosmos in the range from that monster when he could have just remained in their old ship where he wouldn’t be anywhere near NOS-4-A2.
In Wirewolf? People FORCED him to go along with that mission. Even before he starts asking why, we see him hiding and worried, nervously fidgeting with his hands.
Mira trying to cheer him up isn’t helping, even before she realizes there were a lot of problems regarding that energy vampire. Look at his whole body language, it speaks for itself.
And he keeps nervously fidgeting with his fingers.
So they are on Canis Lunis. He asks the other robot for good hiding places and he receives an answer.
Does he use that opportunity to hide himself for the rest of the episode? No!
He has every reason to hide himself. He is forced right into the clutches of his worst nightmare. His best friend flat out states he is expendable. Everyone keeps ignoring his fear.
Booster is busy with his obsession for Buzz Lightyear, Mira is more worried about the issues Ty has with Buzz, Buzz is busy with his own ego in that episode.
I'm telling you guys, had my best friend called me expendable, had everyone else ignored my fears and used me as bait against something that’s trying to kill me, I would have ditched them immediately so that they could deal with their shit. XR showed a lot more restraint in that episode than I could ever have. And we do know that they are just cleaning up Star Command‘s mess here, because as we know later, the facility gets shut down over it. Star Command caused all these issues in the first place. He is here because of something that's the fault of his own job.
But what does he do instead of hiding? He DOES help them look for his worst nightmare.
He is here now, forced to endure the situation. Might as well get it over with quickly. He is doing his job while still being afraid, he is doing his job while still trying to be secure in some way.
He is wheeling slowly, nervously fidgeting once again with his hands. He is looking at the ground with so much concern, almost as if he wants to avoid seeing him. He is just hoping here not to come across that energy vampire.
Unfortunately, even though he is the one searching, NOS-4-A2 spots him instead. What a nice parallel to the slayer.
But even after the energy vampire pinned him down and Ty saved him, he STILL doesn’t go towards the hiding places that were suggested to him before and keeps looking for him. He is still going along searching, it was XR who found the clues and even analyzed them.
People don’t give him enough credit when it comes to NOS-4-A2. He might have traumatized him, but he didn’t break him. XR is more spiteful and has more willpower than that. He is afraid, but he still does his job regarding him.
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for the problematic trope: teacher/student Or stalker/obsession?
Oh man I love both of those. Uhm. I'll do Teacher/Student because I think I have more to work for it. Maybe.
Ships that fit said trope
Rei/Hayashida from March Comes in Like a Lion are always the first to come to mind and I am the only one on this boat
All Might/Deku from My Hero Academia are the bog standard of this trope I think
But I actually prefer All Might/Bakugo, it's about the caring for the Teacher
Poly Izuku/Bakugo/All Might is very good chefs kiss
Same shit but evil AFO/Tomura
Nageki/Shuu from Hatoful Boyfriend has become recent brainworms thanks to a certain HB poster on my dash
Does Ash/Kukui count? He was a teacher in the SuMo anime so. I'm gonna count it.
General Opinion
I never got why this is considered problematic? I mean all my examples are so kinda Minor/Adult which stands on it's own but why would a grown person dating their teacher who's also a grown person be considered problematic?
I also have like. Way less ships than I thought that fit the dynamic. I guess I don't consume as much media with Teacher characters as I thought I did. Gimmie recs please.
Any ships that aren’t canon it But I’d read w/ the trope
I don't have any ships I'd like to see in the trope but I have characters I'd love to see in it if I had another half to them, this is mostly just characters who I think should have students they're shippably close too.
Nezu My Hero Academia
Winston Overwatch
Doomfist Overwatch
Cyrus Pokemon
Cheren Pokemon (BW2 specifically)
Sheldon Splatoon
Woodman Hilda
Shirokuma Danganronpa
Monokuma Danganronpa
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