Tumgik
#i found my people? it seems
mewtwo24 · 9 months
Text
Sasaki and Hirano, Compare/Contrast Brainrot
Okay like I saw a post about Sasaki and Hirano’s friendship and I just. Started thinking about it and now I can’t stop. Especially after reading Hirano to Kagiura. 
I feel like they’re messed up (repressed is probably what I actually mean) in the same way but in opposite directions and that’s why they like…get along, but in the strangest manifestation of that phrasing? They care about each other almost from a periphery, from the vantage point of someone who understands, but, since they’re also still figuring it out, they don’t know quite how to interact with or guide the other?
And it’s killing me because--idk if it was just me--I kept going feral over every single time I was reading the manga and Hirano would go “oh yeah I do [insert fuckign batshit intimacy] with my roommate, this is a normal senpai/kouhai thing to do” and Sasaki literally always reacts with:
“.” (Huh. I don’t think that’s normal but who am I to judge these things. Let’s ask the local social barometer.)
“Hey Hanzawa, this [reiterates what Hirano said word-for-word] isn’t normal is it?” (Translation: “this would be inappropriate to do with Mya-chan even though I’m clawing at the walls just thinking about it”)
And Hanzawa, bless his heart, who is only a fraction more normal about social interaction than everyone else is just like:
“.” [W H A T]
“Sasaki, what. Of course you shouldn’t be doing that. W H Y ARE YOU ASKING ME THIS”
AND THIS HAPPENS MANY TIMES IN THE SPAN OF TWENTY CHAPTERS. I CANNOT EXPRESS ENOUGH THE HILARITY BUT ALSO CONCERN IT INSPIRES TO WATCH.
More detailed analysis under the cut, I just can’t stop laughing at the way the manga compares them:
Sasaki fascinates me because, as I take stock again, it feels like he’s got this dread when it comes to change (e.g. Ogasawara and his gf dating--thus changing his relationship with both of them, asking Miyano out--risking losing him, confessing that he’s dating a boy to his sister--risking her enduring and fervent disapproval). So much of his younger teenage angst was related to being reluctant to start or do things, and while it’s easy to assume laziness, I don’t think that’s the case? He says in the manga: “There’s nothing I can do, so how am I supposed to know what I want to do then…?” I get a sense that this trapped feeling contributes to his dissatisfaction and stasis more than a refusal to do anything at all. I don’t think he lacks capacity; he’s proven to be exceptionally clever and even studious when he feels motivated. 
Considering the lack of interest his parents had in his life (let alone his hobbies/skills) and his sister’s overbearing scrutiny, I feel like it makes sense he’s struggled so much with his self-actualization. I feel like he perceives it as being caught between hot and cold extremes constantly; like no matter what he does, he’ll either receive indifference or loud chastising. So why bother at all? It would explain why he likes Miyano’s temperament so much, considering the latter quite literally is defined by his normalcy and even keel. When Sasaki wants to move forward in their relationship, Miyano seriously considers both their feelings, and thoroughly weighs the realities of what it would mean to be together before replying. While Sasaki wants to be closer to him, I think so much of his willingness to wait was the fact that Miyano wasn’t evading him. Miyano was being honest and thorough about meeting him halfway, without insulting his feelings or flat out ignoring him.
(Side note: I fully agree that Sasaki’s sister is a positive influence in his life, in that she actually gave a damn when he was downspiraling and miserable, and pointed out that all kids need limits and guidance. But she is loud and forceful about her acknowledgement, and I feel like this is very grating to Sasaki. For better or worse, it’s clear he has a hard time with such a direct and intense approach about what he should think and feel, and about what he needs. Sasaki shows indications of a kind of mindset where he thinks he needs to shoulder all the tough and heavy things alone, so it makes sense to me that he would be uncomfortable with his sister proclaiming how he is lost or bereft of attention/discipline.)
I think there’s also the fact that Miyano witnessed Sasaki at his most vulnerable--and instead of lashing out--offered him help and sympathy, real warmth and patience. Sasaki has always meant a lot to me as a character, maybe because he resonates in such a poignant way. He’s somebody who has lived under such emotional extremes, and as a result deeply values a sense of normalcy. Where one could argue Miyano is unassuming and ordinary, I think that’s part of why Sasaki likes being with him.  With Miyano, he doesn't have to guess at the distance between them; Miyano is earnest and careful about those differences, and is very direct about addressing them with reciprocity.
Now then, Hirano. I know very little about Hirano’s home life other than his being an only child. But to be honest, that does tell us a bit--paired with his subtle social anxieties. I will never forget Sasaki saying to Miyano ‘that’s because Hirano plays favorites with his kouhais’ about the gap between his behavior towards his younger classmates versus everyone else. While Sasaki’s petulance is uproarious, there is something to that. (I also love how this exposes Sasaki, lowkey, because he’s basically saying that he’d only do that with his favorite people, aka Miyano. But otherwise he could never be bothered to care about a rando, and that’s hilarious.)
I think Hirano--because he doesn’t really have a sense of how he’s supposed to relate to other people--tends to follow the same strict guidelines you might see in a rule book (DISCIPLINE COMMITTEE COUGH COUGH). Supposing he was taught--or simply feels responsibility towards younger kids as a result of reflective parental neglect--it would explain why he feels this rigid need to treat kouhais like little siblings. At first glance, and honestly when you consider his general aloofness, it doesn’t make much sense that he has a mothering sensibility otherwise. 
Now then, because I realized this while writing and I have to inflict this on everyone else in rapid succession, this would explain his initial staunch discomfort with Kagiura’s affection. In the context of Hirano’s lifestyle/mindset:
Hirano → relationships with people? Don’t understand that, refer to following flowchart:
→ younger = responsibility, must protecc
→ same age = keep them in line
→ older = respect (but only if I feel like it HAIR DYE NOISES INTENSIFY)
Mind you, I don’t think this is limited to his platonic/friendship relations. I think this permeates into so many other aspects of his life, since sociality is inevitably a focal point for all human life. If he feels an uncharacteristic leniency and profound affection for Kagiura, then it must be because he's a kouhai he wants to protect, nothing more. He has no other reason or definition by which to ascribe to those feelings. Hirano doubly insisting he can’t be attracted to men is because he’s been so inundated in the widespread social signals, the social rule that has been long standing--and remains a pretty powerful message even now--that it’s unlikely (and that’s a gentle term) he’s attracted to another man. 
After all, He is So Good At Being A Normal Young Man. He’s in the discipline committee. He gets excellent grades. He’s a kind and helpful senpai. He keeps his classmates in line. Of Course He Likes Women, What Do You Mean Gay.
He’s basically that meme like: “'Men can be attracted to other men' actually statistical error. Average men only feel attraction for women. Sasamiya is an outlier and should not be counted."
Both Hirano and Sasaki hate change/unpredictability, but I really love how complex their differences are in regards to how they experience that and feel that. Sasaki hates change, but he’s not necessarily emotionally repressed? He’s able to express what he feels for Miyano because he feels it so strongly, and it comes naturally when he does. In fact, it’s so natural that he becomes impulsive--and that’s why he gets so anxious about moving too far or too fast by accident. He has the overthink override, where if the attraction is too strong he simply Can’t Shut Up About How Much He Loves Miyano or stop hugging/kissing him.
Hirano hates change in the sense that he’s so ensconced in this idea that This Is Normal Human Behavior, that he completely loses sight of how he actually feels about anything--because he rejects/suppresses anything he can’t coherently define in a scripted, linear way. And being asked to tread that unstable, unsteady ground is tantamount to throwing a cat in water with no warning. This is why it’s so sad but also HYSTERICALLY FUNNY to see him like “wym I have feelings for Kagiura. It's perfectly normal to start yelling with all the wounded rage of a scorned housewife over my kouhai not letting me wake him up for morning practice. That is what it means to be a senpai.” Because he has no blueprint for how he’s supposed to express a love that goes deeper than friendship (with a man no less), he defaults to these overly simplistic structures that can’t support the complexity/maturity of such adult human feeling and exchanges. They worked for him just fine before, so why won’t they work for him now?
Relegating Kagiura to the role of kouhai makes it easier for Hirano to conceptualize why he cares so much for him, but it also limits the scope of his view. He’s using it as an umbrella term in a sense: of course he doesn’t find every little thing about Kagiura infuriating/boring/troublesome. Being the older person means being responsible and chill about everything. But that’s the thing. He’s not indulging Kagiura the same way he indulges Miyano, despite him qualifying them the same way. With Miyano it’s super clear Hirano really does just see him as a baby duckling, someone to treat gently and usher around. His behavior around Kagiura is so astronomically different in comparison, it’s nearly comical to try to compare them:
It’s Kagiura’s birthday. Hirano, who probably hardly remembers people’s birthdays, deadass went around asking every person he was close to (like, 5 ppl) for advice. He agonized over it for days on end. He gets Kagiura tickets to a basketball game and an alarm clock, and spends the entire day with him. He asks Hanzawa if he can use party poppers to celebrate Kagiura on the day of, and to get around the rules when he’s told no he has everyone go hog wild with them at the Christmas party in a loophole maneuver to celebrate. Reminder to myself and everyone reading, this is BEFORE he even hears a word about Kagiura’s feelings.
THIS IS BEFORE EITHER OF THEM ARE IN ANY KIND OF INTIMATE RELATIONSHIP. HIRANO, WHO IS MR. “i only study or drag people to baby jail, what do you want,” SPENT ENTIRE DAYS PAINSTAKINGLY PLANNING ALL OF THIS. FOR KAGIURA’S BDAY. AFTER ONE OFFHAND COMMENT FROM KAGIURA OF LIKE mannnn having an xmas bday sucks ass, they just try to lump it tg with holiday presents booooo :///
That Hirano conceptualizes Kagiura as a kouhai has been established. But another angle that’s equally crucial is this equation:
Hirano → adore person? Devote Every Minute To Being Nice^TM
→ hate person? angry cat hissing sounds/smack with paper roll
→ mild dislike? Lowkey grousing/sarcasm/dismissal
→ neutral? (this is most people btw) refer to earlier chart for appropriate social etiquette
This is pretty much where Hirano gives himself away. Because even in his most inflexible rules for himself, we’ve never seen him convey so much feeling for anyone around him so helplessly. It can be argued that he might have in the past, but honestly, I doubt it. The feeling is so confusing and new to him that it leads me to believe so much of his difficulty accepting what he feels is related to its unfamiliarity. He can’t trust it as real precisely because he can’t control or neatly define it. (This made doubly disconcerting by the fact that he doesn’t have a typical social structure to work from either. If his parents, for instance, are anything like Hanzawa’s, it’s possible his conception of love between a couple is about devotion to remain together to fulfill a sense of status/purpose to create a new life. He would have zero concept of love that comes from the very depths of a person’s emotional being, a call and response that is as instinctive as it is fulfilling.)
Sasaki feels an intense desire to be close to Miyano, and thus acts accordingly because he trusts his feelings. On the other hand, he has trouble measuring the distance between himself and others. (e.g. he thinks he will lose his friends if they date, his sister acts like a parent but is also a kid and that makes it hard for him to know how to interact, he struggles to convey himself properly to Miyano when he brings up escalating to dating). Hirano, on the other hand, doesn’t realize the intensity of his affection and heartfelt proximity to Kagiura because he’s so busy tying himself up in knots over what he’s supposed to feel and think that he doesn’t trust his feelings. Rather, he is only given away by how obscenely his actions expose him. Comparatively, he has less trouble measuring the distance between himself and others when it comes to anyone but Kagiura.
(Perhaps obviously, Kagiura has Sasaki’s whole ‘if I don’t hug/kiss/bark at him I’ll die’ emotional expression and Miyano has the cautious measuring of distance between people and difficulty accepting gay like Hirano.)
God they’re both so quintessentially queer it hurts me. One can’t shut up about his love, and the other literally cannot open his mouth and express his feelings or he’ll die. 
NARRATIVE FOILS EVERYONE
(Also unsure if it’s me but wow. They are so. Autism. And that also kills me akhfjldghjgdsfhkdfjhg)
266 notes · View notes
jojo-schmo · 3 months
Text
Tumblr media
I wish I could tell the original artist that this drawing permanently changed the entire direction of my life in 2009. I want to shake their hand, look them in the eye, and admit I would not be who I am today if this drawing didn’t exist.
EDIT: Original artist is @ivynajspyder !!!!
#‘but jojo’ you ask. ‘that seems a little ridiculous’#‘don’t you think that’s a little much?’#no. NO. IT IS THE TRUTH.#little baby middle schooler jojo had just gotten squeak squad. the first kirby game she ever owned.#and she loved it even tho there’s a lot she didn’t understand#like who dedede was supposed to be or why copy abilities existed#I asked for the game because my roommate at swim camp had it and she told me the plot of the game when I looked over her shoulder to watch#(the plot she told me was completely made up btw she said kirby had to save the dimension from dark overlord and did not mention the squeak#and said stuff about meta knight being a bad guy idk I realize now she was just weaving a tale of her own haha)#SO I WAS NOT AWARE OF THE LORE. I had only played the one game and it’s the one people don’t like the plot of#but meta knight completely intrigued me#what was this blue sword wielding little kirby dude doing here??#so I’d replay his boss fight over and over again just to get that glimpse at his face#and I’d sit and wonder what it all meant. who was this mysterious swordsman??#and the boss fight was hard!!! it cost me to beat it at the time but I’d still do it to see his face#AND THEN AFTER LIKE A YEAR OF THIS it occurred to me that there was a kirby wiki online#so I found all the pictures of his face and my little fangirl-raised-by-deviantart mind ATE THIS UP.#and then I look up that one fateful google search……… the one that changed me#meta.#knight.#maskless.#and this drawing was towards the top of the results#I went feral about a fandom related topic for the very very first time#I lost my MIND. HOW can a character be so cute AND COOL??! I was a changed child.#I consumed the hoshi no kaabii anime like it was the only piece of media on earth#I drew comics about him. I made my first kirby oc ever to go on a grand adventure on him.#I filled my notebooks with kirby art to the point my mom was like ‘jossie. you REALLY need to branch out. these are just orbs.’#and now I am the kirby artist I am today. so yes. YES. this drawing did change my life.#thanks for reading. and thanks to the original artist. I tried to find them to link but nothing. so if you know pls tell me#THE END!!! and remember! your art makes a difference in people’s lives even if they don’t say it to your face!!!!
279 notes · View notes
kaeyachi · 2 months
Text
Kaeya had always been an efficient and hard-working individual (he had to be to support Diluc in the background as his brother rose thru the ranks after all).
He has so much free time because he completes all his work way ahead of schedule. And if he still has enough time, he adds more to the workload in secret.
And once all of that was done and over with, he makes time for everyone. He has to. He feels as if every moment has to be given to someone else.
No one knows how he does it. No one has to know.
Every mission has a dozen strategies in line, and every battle plan is made with efficiency in mind. His perfect record will not be tarnished. He can't risk it (even if it baffles others that he would willingly activate a ruin guard just to prevent a failed mission. Jean disagrees with his methods, but Kaeya can say that the results say otherwise)
He needs to be quick.
Efficient.
Perfect.
And so he comes and goes like the wind.
Kaeya values time because he knew every second counted. He can't just stand there as if he were frozen. Time could run out in an instant.
Kaeya had only been late once his entire life.
He'd rather he never be late ever again.
It took one day of being of being imperfect for everything to fall apart. On that tragic day...had he gotten there on time... then maybe...
.
.
.
" Come on, let's get moving, traveler. We're not frozen in place after all. " Kaeya teasingly says. He stiffles a giggle at the traveler's exhasperated sigh.
"Yeah yeah, we've heard enough of you calling us a slacker. Can't you be a bit more patient?" Paimon whines at him.
Kaeya snorts, but acquiesces, hiding the shaking of his hands at the thought of being idle.
He imagines hearing a clock ticking.
Kaeya knows that that is his own problem. He tries his hardest to relax as he waits for the traveler to finish whatever they're making on the alchemy table because, seriously, it is supposed to be a relaxing day. There's nothing major going on, and his schedule is once again empty as intended. What's the hurry?
Kaeya taps his foot on the ground as he waits. He wishes he could take his own damn advice when he tells others to relax.
#kaeyachi randoms#kaeya#kaeya alberich#this is actually shorter than it originally was can yall believe?#kaeya with anxiety truther there i said it#kaeya cant stand being IDLE#get it? get it?#you see that is a play of words in reference to when he is stood idle on our screens. he is one of the more verbally impatient characters#and we also see it reflected on his actions both in fighting and at work. he has a speed boost bonus and if he isnt teleporting he is#actually moving so fast that he seems like it. this is what i also concluded that results him in large amounts of free time that only amber#seemed to be hardpressed about. the people of mondstadt find him reliable and approachable despite the lax attitude and frequent nights at#angels share. we also had lore tidbits before of kaeya straight up saying he finished all his work and jean saying that he also did the#backlogged ones. It is actually insane that we hear him relaxing frequently and i bet its not because of the lack of horses COZ LOOK AT HOW#BUSY THE OTHER CAPTAINS ARE. Also id like to think that he is a toned down noelle and that is why jean told him to watch over her training#give us noelle and kaeya interactions pls i kinda need it tbh#to all those that reached this far into the notes i actually have more to say so get ready#if it wasnt clear the only day he was late was when crepus died. everything fell apart for him that day so i can see some obsessive need to#just keep running around and doing things as efficient as possible. I also think that he found the knights slow and inefficient in several#occasions and he is willing to put them in the line of fire just to get their hearts pumping with adrenaline (and fear lol). idk kaeya is#just so anxiety-coded. impatience-core. Mr. dont waste my time type of guy. and also wow look i found a way to make his idles become angst#silly me ehe#oh youre still here? how about i tell you that kaeya-efficiency-alberich probably knows where everyone is at any time of the day?#can we honestly please give him more free time i need more of him tbh#fun reminder that bro is working around 3-4 jobs casually lmao#i also just realized that the notes is a whole nother post on its own#AND THE ACTUAL FUNNY PART IS I CAN STILL ELABORATE MORE ON THIS LMAO#wait let me add this one tiny idea too but he thinks time is so valuable. bro lost 2 dads and lost time with his bro + he significantly#lessened his time at dawn winery for quite some time. i can see why he is extroverted now.
156 notes · View notes
sacchiri · 28 days
Text
Tumblr media
Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.
Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen
A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death
#hellsing#alucard#kouta hirano#translation was found in a comment by u/lazyfoxheart on r/Kurrent#fun fact this is the highest quality version of this image that exists online#i know because i've been looking forever for a version that's clear enough to actually read what hirano wrote under '1443'#but there weren't any so i had to take matters into my own hands#the real image on the back of the guidebook is only 2 inches tall so i had to take this with my smartphone and will my hands not to shake#anyway i'm pretty sure it's supposed to say Eğrigöz (the location vlad was imprisoned) so yeah. thank you hirano very cool#if i might rant for a sec it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure that out because i didn't have the guidebook at first#and in the images i could find online that part was just a blur that looked suspiciously like a person's signature and i was like. who tf#i was thinking matthias corvinus since he issued some political propaganda against vlad iirc but it didn't match his signature on wikipedia#then i thought it might be vlad II dracul's since he probably had to sign an agreement to send his sons over as hostages at some point#but that didnt seem right either so i kept skimming vlad's wiki page#and then i was like goddammit...hirano.....you just misspelled Eğrigöz didn't you.. ....#i maybe should've made a separate post dedicated to this instead of writing a novel in the tags but eh#the hellsing brainrot runs deep#also- i put it in the source link at the bottom of the post but the german inscription is copied off a real woodcut of vlad from 1491#except instead of depicting him as an adult hirano drew him as a child which gives the inscription a very different feel imo#the one final thing that interests me about this is the fact that hirano published this calendar in 2002#which is REALLY early in the series. like this was before volume 5 came out??#i have no idea why he decided to do a massive spoiler drop in a random piece of japan-only merch#sandwiched between a drawing of alucard as john travolta from saturday night fever and integra as a fish no less#it makes me really curious to know what the fan response to this was back then. like did people even know who this was#maybe im just an idiot and everyone back then was like 'ah yes its alucard as a 12 year old. how very informative'
85 notes · View notes
dreadark · 10 months
Text
Introducing: The Arknights Archive
https://arknights-archive.tumblr.com/
Arknights has a lot of promotional artwork between its various official accounts, which isn’t collected anywhere to my knowledge...
so I decided to just do it myself and put all of it on one blog, tagged by character for sorting
Feel free to share it around, you don’t need a tumblr account to look through it or anything
and let me know if you find it useful so I can feel like my hours of stitching together merch posts and extracting random website elements meant something
alright that’s about it   enjoy !
Tumblr media
349 notes · View notes
detectivehole · 1 month
Text
"you're only interested in Thing because of Media" is a reasonable assumption but usually you've got it backwards. most people get into Media because it contains Things and Themes they already enjoy or have reason to believe they might enjoy. and even if it is correct, exploration of Media and the World is how people discover things they enjoy, so it's strange to see it as some sort of inauthentic, shameful behavior. the context through which you discover something is important to consider when contemplating why something might resonate with you, and what you should do about it, but it has no power of wholesale invalidation. that'd be genuinely absurd and completely illogical
78 notes · View notes
originalcontent · 5 months
Text
Tumblr media
I can't find art of my ship anywhere so I GUESS that means I have to make it myself, here are some doodles.
130 notes · View notes
Text
AWH... I'm skipping through Roier's QSMP Day 1 VOD because I'm looking for a specific thing, and I just noticed that when Jaiden stands in front of the group to do her introduction and her mic isn't working, Mariana laughs (not in a mean way, I laughed too) and Roier immediately smacks him and tells him off for laughing.
[Timestamp ~36m 50s, volume warning for Quackity's awful mic]
It's such a little thing, but I think it's really sweet in retrospect, especially considering how Roier and Jaiden have become such good friends in recent weeks :')
#i talk#qsmp talk#legitimately though I frickin adore Roier and Jaiden's friendship IT'S SO SWEET THEY'RE SUCH GOOD FRIENDS...#Jaiden was so nervous the first few days of QSMP and she talked about how she was too anxious to talk to people she didn't know#So this Egg event really helped her (and a lot of other people too)#It gave everyone a chance to make friends / bonds with people they might not have interacted with as much otherwise#it's just really sweet#I've got a special place in my heart for Jaiden I like her a lot#I used to watch her animations a bunch because my little cousin loves her#then I just kinda stopped because I don't watch Youtube creators much and my memory is awful#But QSMP made me start watching her again#and I found out all the stuff she's had to go through and I watched her videos where she talks about more serious stuff / her personal life#and like not to sound parasocial or whatever but my ''protective parental instinct'' went nuts after hearing all that#she's been through the wringer but it seems like she's doing a lot better#she's really funny and cool#but social anxiety is still a nightmare#I'm really glad she got Roier as her Egg partner -- he's so friendly and nice I think it really helped her relax a lot#and she's actually learning more Spanish despite saying she had 0 Spanish knowledge whatsoever when joining the server!!!#Idk man I'm just really proud of everything everyone's been doing on the server#and I'm really proud of Quackity for bringing people together like this. It's amazing#I love him so much and I'm so grateful this server exists.#First and Best Multilingual server baby!!!#Anyways I forgot how bad Quackity's mic sucked from literally everyone else's perspectives on Day 1 LMFAO#Roier specifically says ''Don't laugh!'' and ''Give [her] a pass!'' (for the mute issue)#alright I added a clip I can't not put a clip for this
238 notes · View notes
what would megumi’s life have been if he was actually raised by the zenin from day one? like either gojo lost the custody battle or they were able to scoop him up before gojo ever reached them. i doubt they would want to keep tsumiki with them so she’s not there for little baby megs.
i think it would be really cool to see a zenin raised megumi interacting with his fellow classmates when he attends the school, not to mention the contrast between him and gojo. like on paper they both should have gotten the same treatment-being pampered and spoiled rotten but we also know that the zenin think that hurting little kids makes them stronger so it would be super interesting to see megumi realise that the stuff that happened to him wasn’t normal and for gojo to have a guilt trip bc he wasn’t able to help megumi when he needed someone to help him the most.
So I have a fanfic that I’ve half written (no idea if I’ll ever finish it—I’d love to, it’s just hard to find the time) about EXACTLY THAT that I talked about in this post for an ask game.
That being said, that entire thing happens from Tsumiki’s perspective, and I agree with you—I don’t think the Zenin would have ever actually taken her too. They don’t want her. She’s not Zenin. She’s not a sorcerer. They only bought Megumi. For the most part, Megumi is absent from that post, and you asked about Megumi. So this is what I think would happen on Megumi's side of that post I linked.
It comes down to two things:
1. He is never, ever happy with the Zenin.
2. He never lets go of his sister.
Megumi’s old enough to remember Tsumiki when the Zenin take him away. He's old enough to love her. And I think that Megumi loves very quietly, but he also loves very violently. He wouldn't let his sister hold his hand on the walk to school, but he would sacrifice himself for her future.
I think the Zenin took him from his sister, and I think he kicked and screamed and wasn't strong enough. I think they thought he would forget her eventually.
And then I think he bit most of the Zenin Clan.
At the end of the day, what Megumi wanted was the one thing the Zenin were not willing to give him. They were never like the Gojo clan, they were never going to pamper him, but there are a great many things in this world that they would give the Ten Shadows finally returned to them. But they would not give him a non-sorcerer, non-Zenin sister who would only be a weakness to him. They refused to let him have any contact with his sister, and that was the source of a lot of what soured.
Any Megumi that was taken in by the Zenin would have been taken in to Naobito's household directly. He would be announced as the one who finally inherited their most cherished technique, and he would be declared heir, and the Zenin would call him beloved for it.
They would keep him in a room that was large and empty and almost always dark, and he wouldn't be allowed to decide when he slept or woke, and the door would always be locked from the outside. They would give him a wardrobe of expensive clothes that he hated, and he would never get to pick which of them he wore.
Megumi would hate them. He would hate all of them.
He's just not the type to be comfortable with or enjoy the adoration of others--especially when it's not backed up by genuine love. Megumi is someone who very much values sincerity and depth to emotion--it's one of the reasons why he seems to respect Yuuji so much. Yuuji is a good person who follows through with what he says. He's not just going to talk about wanting to save people--he's there making the sacrifices as he does it.
The Zenin do not actually love him. And he knows it. He's experienced love before, and this isn't it.
They love the idea of him. The fantasy of him that lives in their heads. He has no interest in being their little god prince to contend with the Gojo's own. He knows who he is, and it's not this. He wants to go home. He wants to find his sister again. He doesn't want to do this anymore.
And I think that's a feeling Megumi never escape: he just didn't want to do this anymore.
Megumi would feel like a bug pinned beneath glass in the Zenin compound. He would constantly have people managing him--when he ate, what he ate, what he wore, when he slept, when he woke, when he trained, what he did. Having to become a jujutsu sorcerer signified an inherent loss of control, but it's nothing compared to the sheer objectification that he goes through when the Zenin have exclusive control over him.
He has no power of what clothes he wears. How his hair is styled. His schedule, his diet, the people he speaks too--he's suffocating and the Zenin are just increasing pressure on him.
I don't think Gojo ever thought that would be Megumi's life.
We’re gonna just have this imagining exist in the same world as the Tsumiki centric fic described in the linked post, and in that, the reason why Gojo never took him in was because he didn’t know Megumi had a sister. He showed up, saw the divine dogs, realized Megumi had the Ten Shadows, and decided he couldn’t do this. He was a mess. He was grieving Suguru and Haibara. Megumi looked just like the man who killed Riko, and apparently inherited the fucking Ten Shadows of all the goddamn things. The Zenin would lose their shit, and Gojo didn’t have the energy to fight and told himself he didn’t need to, because if Megumi was the Ten Shadows he’d be cared for like a prince with the Zenin. He turned around and left and spent the rest of his life with Megumi in the back of his mind, always nagging him with whether he made the right decision. It wasn’t until Maki got there and made a few worrisome references to Megumi's standard of living that he started to really worry that he had made the wrong one, and it wasn't until he found out about Tsumiki that he knew it was the wrong decision.
It's like this: The Zenin hurt Megumi in every world.
It would be bad no matter what, but it really gets bad because Megumi refuses to stop trying to get back to Tsumiki. She's his sister. They didn't have anyone or anything in this world, but they had each other, and he couldn't let these people just take her away. He’s feral about it. He refuses to fit the mold they keep trying to cram him in. He’s trying to scale the walls to escape. He’s increasingly desperate and angry and the Zenin are getting more and more frustrated the longer he fights them. He’s the heir to the clan, and he can’t stop trying to leave it to get back to some random girl who isn’t his real sister and isn’t someone they’ll ever allow him to have.
It gets bad.
They put him under increasingly strict levels of control. He’s constantly being trained, which means he's constantly being hurt. He’s not allowed to speak to anyone without the clan head’s approval. He is under absolutely constant guard after he manages to get over the wall and halfway to his old neighborhood before they catch him again. Tsumiki’s name is not allowed to be said aloud, or his old name. He forgets his name used to be Fushiguro, but he doesn’t forget Tsumiki. He doesn’t let himself.
I think it escalates until it hits a breaking point. Megumi becomes increasingly self-destructive and non-responsive to everything they try. They push him to extremes that start risking permanent damage.
I think Megumi would try to hurt himself, eventually.
He wouldn't be in his right mind. He's in the most shit situation possible. He's undergoing pretty severe abuse. He'd be at the end of his rope from the lack of control over his own life, and he'd be spiteful as hell towards the Zenin. And the only thing he has to hurt them with is himself.
As a character, Megumi has always considered his own sacrifice as an acceptable means to the end of getting back at someone. Mahoraga, intrinsically, requires him killing himself as a way of killing someone else. He'd hurt himself if it was the only way he had of hurting them.
Naobito would cover it up. He'd never, ever want the rest of the clan to find out that it happened. It was already bad enough that Megumi openly hated them--he couldn't have the Zenin seeing any vulnerability in what was meant to be their most powerful member. He'd put Megumi in total lockdown until he could make it all go away.
Then they'd make a deal.
A binding vow. Megumi could never purposefully hurt himself again. He could never again try to leverage his own safety against the clan.
And in exchange, Tsumiki would be taken care of.
The last time Megumi saw his sister, she was on a sinking ship. They were running out of food, money, options--he doesn't know if she even has food anymore. He doesn't know if she lost the apartment or if there's still running water.
They're not letting him see her. But they are letting him take care of her. He can sacrifice another piece of control over himself, and she'll never have to worry about money again. They'll pay for her housing, her food, her education, for her every desire for as long as she lives. The trust the Zenin set up for her will be a generous one, and it will be managed meticulously by a trustee who can make sure she'll be provided for until she's old and grey. And Naobito will vow to never hurt her or send someone else to hurt her. She'll be safe. She'll be taken care of.
Megumi makes the deal.
In the end, the deal's what sort of breaks him.
Because he doesn't promise to stop looking for her, but the Zenin manage to make it a part of the terms anyway. When they approach Tsumiki's mother with the offer to be her family's beneficiary, they include a requirement that Tsumiki be moved to another city entirely with no forwarding address given. She needs to be somewhere that Megumi can never find her again.
The Zenin keep the old apartment. They pay the rent every month. And the next time Megumi manages to make it off compound, they let him make it all the way there before dragging him home. They let him see the empty apartment with all its empty rooms.
Naobito wants him to know that Tsumiki's gone. He wants him to know that he'll never find her again.
He tries to run a few more times after that, but he never makes it very far. He doesn't have anywhere to go.
In the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki, just once. She's on a class trip. He's on one of his very few and far between allowed excursions off the compound grounds, and he sees her in the crowd and recognizes her, and he ducks away from his escort before anyone can stop him.
She remembers him. He didn't think she would do that.
She tries to save him. He didn't think she would do that either.
She still loves him. And he was always too afraid to hope she would do that.
It goes the same way it did the first time. There's a car, and the Zenin shove him in it. She's on the outside, and he's trapped within, and he wishes she didn't scream so loudly when it happens. The sound never seems to leave his dreams.
His sister still loves him. Naoya hits him in the back of the head. He wakes up, and it was like she was never there at all.
But they hit him harder, after. Like they're trying to beat the memory of her out of him. He has even less freedom, when he already had next to none at all.
But he still has a sister. He has a place to go that isn't here. He just has to figure out where that is.
He wouldn't really have anyone in the Zenin clan. Most people are just... weird about him. Naoya's violently abusive. Naobito's weird and violently abusive. Everyone wants him to be someone he's not.
Maki would be his favorite.
He doesn't care about whether she's got cursed energy--his sister didn't have any. And she's obviously strong. She doesn't treat him like a divine blessing or try to force him to act a certain way. I think they would have genuinely liked each other, but kept each other at a distance. They're both trapped in an abusive situation and keep themselves safe by keeping everyone else at arm's length.
He would have been happy to see her get out, though. He would have told her that she could have his spot as heir or head or whatever when she came back if she wanted it. She would have told him that if he ever got out... well, fuck it. They could be something then. Family. Whatever the fuck they weren't allowed to be here.
She would have told him she's sorry, and she would have meant it. The only one she she regretted more than Megumi was Maki. He would have told her not to be, that if she dared to be sorry for getting out that he would never forgive her, and he would have meant that too.
I think his relationship with his own techinque would be very different in a world where the Zenin raised him. In canon, his issue is that he doesn't view himself as someone who could be powerful or win in the long run, but in this world, all he ever hears is how powerful he is. Pride of the fucking Zenin. The most powerful of them in centuries. Meant to rival Gojo fucking Satoru himself.
I think his real issue would be controlling it.
His technique would be a source of negative associations for him. It's the reason why the Zenin took him away. Most of his interactions with it have involved getting beaten and hurt by either his family or a high-level curse they shoved him in front of. I think he'd have a lot more firepower under his belt than at the start of canon, but he'd have less of a fine tuned control over it.
He lost control over his own life because of his shadows. It think that would manifest in struggling to control his own shikigami at times. he's not as in-sync with them as he is in canon.
Eventually, he'd go to Jujutsu High. He would be the only one in the first year class at the beginning, just like in canon. And he'd finally meet Gojo Satoru, the man he's supposed to topple.
He looks at Megumi really goddamn weird.
He's... enthusiastic. About. Teaching. He guesses. And constantly asking prying questions about the Zenin, but not in the sort of way he'd expect from a rival. In the sort of way he'd expect from someone concerned about him. Which is stupid. And annoying. And weird. He keeps a distance from everyone. They've all heard about the Zenin clan heir, and he has no interest in having to fit or break whatever mold they've already cast him in. He's better off on his own.
Maki's there. She's cordial where other people can see it, and in private, she takes care of him in a way that's terrifyingly close to familial. He's not sure if he likes it. He's not Mai, and she's not Tsumiki, and they both want someone they can't have.
She isn't sorry she left. She is sorry she left him. He can hate her for it all he goddamn pleases.
Of course, if this is in the same world as the linked post, Megumi finds Tsumiki again. He finds her in Sendai.
He gets to keep her, this time.
Gojo Satoru, of all the goddamn people, intervenes and becomes his sister's benefactor. It's super fucking weird. He won't stop looking at Megumi strangely. He won't stop insisting that he didn't know he had a sister, like that matters.
That would sort of be the first time in a long time that life actually gets better for Megumi.
I think he would ask to go by Fushiguro again, once he asks Tsumiki what his name used to be. He'd ask her if she minded it, him taking the name again, and he'd ask the rest of the school to call him Fushiguro instead of Zenin.
Predictably enough, Naobito loses his shit when he finds out, but it's not nearly as big of a pain in the ass as he thinks it is? Because Gojo intervenes.
Gojo keeps intervening.
It drives Megumi nuts, because if anyone was supposed to hate him, it was this guy. If anyone was supposed to be against him, it was this guy. This is the guy he was supposed to rival. This is the guy who killed his shitheel bio dad.
Gojo's just... good to him. He keeps him safe. He keeps him safe from his own goddamn family, and that's--no one's ever done that. No one's ever protected him from the Zenin.
The Zenin try to remove him from the Tokyo campus and move him to Kyoto the second they find out Tsumiki's there, and Gojo just... says no. It causes an uproar, and he doesn't fucking budge. It's treading dangerously close to him kidnapping the Zenin clan heir, his refusal to let them remove him from the Tokyo campus, and he doesn't care about whatever problems it causes him.
Megumi's his student. He doesn't want to leave. So Gojo won't let them take him.
He personally goes to Kyoto and collects him, the one time the Zenin force him into a car and move him when Gojo's off on a mission. He tells the higher ups to get fucked. He changes Megumi's student I.D. to read Fushiguro, and he causes problems for Yaga and the assistants until they start calling him Fushiguro as well.
Megumi's different with the other students once his sister is there.
He's more connected with them. He becomes best friends with Kugisaki and Itadori. He gets closer with the second years. He's visibly happier, and it sort of casts in sharp contrast how unhappy he was before this.
And Gojo? Gojo's so goddamn sorry. He didn't know megumi had a sister.
The thing is that now that both Tsumiki and Megumi are on campus, it sort of haunts Gojo with what could have been. They're both fantastic kids--funny, smart, resourceful. And it's painful watching them try to rebuild what was taken from them. And it could have just. never happened. Because he could have saved them both. He could have been their family.
It's sort of painfully obvious the Zenin abused Megumi, and it fucking haunts him. He doesn't even have to read into Megumi's behavior--he sees it happen, right in front of him, with how they try to control him and push him around. He wants to kill them for it. He wants to hate himself for it. He could have saved Megumi and he just. He didn't.
He wishes he did.
#jjk#fushiguro megumi#fushiguro tsumiki#gojo satoru#zenin clan#zenin maki#also featuring in this au: itadori absolutely torn because his best friend's long lost brother is extremely pretty and he HAS to be in#violation of some kind of bro code. the boy is in crisis. there he is. enrolled in fucking wizard school. his best friend tsumiki finally#found her long lost brother. said long lost brother proceeds to give him his gay awakening. he's fucking sweating. kugisaki stop laughing#gojos latent desire for fatherhood has been violently awakened in this and no one is safe. he's everyone's dad now. no one wants this.#yuuta in africa: sensei it's three am why are you calling is everyone oka--what do you mean what color do I want you to paint my room. what#room. what are you talking about.#yuuta keeps getting the weirdest goddamn updates from japan and he thinks he's having a stroke. what do you mean zenin-kun is fushiguro-kun#and he has a fucking long lost sister and gojos possibly going to gently kidnap him. is it kidnapping if he wants it too but the people who#has custody of him doesn't. what do you mean he needs to come back and help maki kill her entire family. maki explain your words explain#yes word of god megumi is also yuutas boy in this one i decide this for no other reasons than i want this#it's not the same way as in sea glass gardens. Maki just said some worrying things when yuuta first met him and he decided to keep an eye#out for him. he didn't seem all that happy. and he seemed alone. yuuta didn't want him to be.#megumi's sort of blindsided because he went from being raised in a clan where he was barely a person to having a bunch of medically insane#people decide that his wellbeing was their personal crusade. like. no one ever cared about /him/ before this. they just wanted their idea#but not who he really was. he felt like he was screaming and no one could hear it. then suddenly these people he barely knows are like#okay so we're going to punch your shitty bio uncle and also set his car on fire. yes we will call you by the name that makes you most#comfortable. yes we will help you get a new wardrobe full of clothes you're actually comfortable in.#he hadn't heard his own name in years. he's just been the ten shadows. never fushiguro. only rarely megumi.#everyone calls him fushgiuro at the school. his sister calls him megumi. he sort of wants to cry about it but he doesn't.#his shitty uncle shows up and makes a big stink about him being called zenin and inumaki and panda keyed his car. is this what love is.#is it a keyed car.#Low key he does NOT know what's going to happen the first time the school goes on break because gojo keeps making comments about how#megumi's not going back to the zenin compound and he says it like a joke but. he may not be joking. is he not joking. is. is megumi being#kidnapped. again. this is getting statistically improbable. did gojo just. decide. to keep him. when did that happen.
80 notes · View notes
regret-evatorful · 2 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
prototypes rad coolness
44 notes · View notes
uncanny-tranny · 10 months
Text
Life got more interesting when I learned that everything is an argument, everything is political, and everything is deeper than it seems. Everything is the product of something, and it's up to us to figure out what that "something" is. We are interesting as fuck! We are deeper than you think!
It might seem really tedious, but recognizing this has made me so much less incurious. I now want to learn about us as people. Everything is deeper than it seems.
150 notes · View notes
starflungwaddledee · 5 months
Note
Congratulations on surviving good luck for your next year
Tumblr media
53 notes · View notes
Text
.
38 notes · View notes
fagbearentertainment · 2 months
Text
Love stumbling upon animations made to mimic 2000s-2010s art styles and trends and stuff. It’s very fun and I love seeing these things be remembered and embraced instead of pushed away and cringed at
33 notes · View notes
prince-liest · 7 months
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
shrimp often arch their backs and use their hind legs to clean their swimmerets, which they normally use to swim! pregnant shrimp like the larger female in the back also carry their eggs in their abdomen and use their swimmerets to fan water through the eggs, thus oxygenating them. these two will not stop breeding, even though amano shrimp are not actually able to successfully reproduce in fresh water. I suppose it means they're happy and healthy in their environment!
55 notes · View notes
tonberrykins · 8 months
Text
Hey, I get I've been raving about Astarion a lot but, like, are there ACTUALLY people out here who hate Gale and are calling him an incel? Is this a thing? Thank God I apparently curate well bc holy fucking shit I would be having heart palpitations DAILY out of SHEER ANGER.
So, like, we're always going to make fun of our faves and whatnot bc lbr "bro, you were banging Mystra and fucked up that bad?" THOUGH TO BE FAIR, if you're a wizard it isn't that hard to bang Mystra. It's kind of her thing. P sure her banging Elminster as many times as she has is the main reason he's still kicking and out being the Faerûnian Gandalf that he is in-game. Mystra's bodycount aside (especially since that has ZERO bearing on ANYTHING least of all her portfolio and purpose), like, Gale is a very intelligent man. He is also what we would consider as an objectively good person. Save the kids, help the tieflings, be kind and compassionate to those the average "good" aligned folks would consider "worthy" and yeah. He is literally the Alistair Theirin of BG3 if you Fusion Danced him together with Awakening Anders.
That being said, he is also very deeply flawed in that he KNOWS he is brilliant and in that brilliance, knowing his own talent, he thinks he knows better than even his own goddess BUT-! But, but, but, he is mortal, is young enough and in an age to not be able to wrack up the accomplishments of, say, Elminster whom he clearly knows on a fairly personal level so, like anyone who knows they are capable of doing great things, he feels INFERIOR bc he hasn't, in his mind, PROVEN that he is as great as he knows he is. And that's the hubris of mortality.
Objectively, LOGICALLY, he knows that he's more than proven himself capable. Mystra wouldn't have started a relationship with him otherwise, and she never asked him to prove himself. It was his own desperation to prove that he was worthy of her and thinking he knew EVERYTHING that lead to his terrible situation. Is he very clinical and logical about it? Yes. Is he squirrelly about it in the beginning? Very much, yes. Hell, I would be. No one wants to be friends with a literal ticking time bomb and the man is VERY lonely. Hell, that's the name of the game baybee! Baldur's Gate 3: These Bitches Need a Hug; YES EVEN LAE'ZEL, I WILL FIGHT Y'ALL!
Back to Gale, your friendship with him is something he very much treasures and when he starts all his finger wiggling and magic talk he's like any nerd sharing the thing he is most passionate about. He is also the first to admit he fucked up. HOWEVER, that does not (imo) warrant him needing to sacrifice himself all for Mystra's forgiveness, and even Elminster isn't on board with that. And, like, when he talks about Mystra it's never in an accusatory manner towards her. He clearly still loves her, likely always will, but that never negates his love for the PC who chooses to romance him. He is also very much prone to falling into the same pitfall of hubris that got him before and very clearly needs guidance that, yes, Mystra clearly did neglect in giving him. But he never outright blames her, at least he's not in my playthroughs thus far even after having spoken with her in the temple. He's just a sad, lonely nerd and that does not automatically make him an incel; y'all just don't know how to read, listen, or understand nuance. Apparently.
tl;dr
Gale deserves as much love as Astarion but bc he isn't evil "babygirl" material that's "fixable" he's just called an incel when he can be a very genuine friend, but what are those nowadays I guess?
56 notes · View notes