#Character analyses' are usually

[ninachu-nina]

Character analyses' are so fun to read because people have so many different thoughts about a single character and how that character has changed and will change in response to the environment and people around them.

Take Dazai Osamu for instance-there are so many different interpretations of his character and they figure all of that out from minute details in the novel/manga he's in. Like no, I wouldn't have figured out the connection between his ability to control his heartbeat and his humanity but thank you for taking the time out of your day to point that out.

Or someone from a completely different fandom, like say, a similar detective character who also goes around solving cases because they've inherited that trait from a mentor they deeply respect. MaoMao from Apothecary Diaries! There are numerous analysis' about not only her and how her past (being raised in a brothel) deeply affected her emotional regulation, but also posts about other people in the fandom and the symbolism behind every scene and visual metaphor used.

But in both fandoms, their respective members won't always agree with each other.

And it's just such a joy to see what people's thoughts are and their feelings about a character/characters/anything really that they're incredibly passionate about. Even if I don't always agree with them. It's just so nice to see for me. So this is a post for all who write analysis' on character's. You're doing gods work keep it up!!!

[imarson404]

I’ve seen a couple other posts talking about the warehouse scene recently so I’ve just gotta add my own thoughts bc I love how (manga especially) light genuinely looses his mind. I say manga especially bc the whole ending takes place there unlike in the anime, but you get long enough to see light actually suffering so much that his mental state breaks. He begs for takada and misa even though he (should) know he killed them/ removed them from the picture. He screams and wails and struggles to get up and ask ‘what is this?’ to the pain. He knows he cannot win- or at least he should- but he tries anyway as if Ryuk killing everyone there would save him from bleeding out anyway, alone, surrounded by corpses. Instead, he dies trapped alone inside his own broken head and body while people who once loved him watch him beg the empty air that hes scared to die.

[yarameijer]

Raimon GO Trio: Growth

So I was busy answering an ask for AR, and then realized I got super carried away with it and didn���t really answer the ask anymore. Yet I’m also having too much fun with this particular analysis, so I decided to make it a separate post!

The ask was originally about Raimon GO Trio headcanons, and moments in which Original Raimon Trio saw themselves in the GO Trio. Anyway, things happened, and… oops?

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The relationship of the GO trio is one based on growth, I think.

To start, I need to talk about the original trio. Endou, Kidou and Gouenji have always had a friendship based on equality and mutual respect. They were equals from very early on in the anime, if not the start, I think (it’s been a long time since I watched it so I’m a little skewed on the details). Kidou and Gouenji were both established as phenomenal soccer players from the start. Endou was not, but he was the captain and that gave him a certain, status, I suppose might be the word, as well. The three of them have always had this sense of equality to me that the GO trio lacked for a very long time.

As for mutual respect; Kidou started on a different side, but he has very clearly been impressed by Gouenji’s skills since before the first episode even started, specifically challenging Raimon to draw him out and face him in a match, and he was relatively neutral to Endou but eventually started to respect him even while they were rivals. With the exception of the first two, three, episodes, Gouenji has always had a friendly relationship with Endou and (as far as I can remember) never fought his authority as captain, and he’s had a friendly relationship with Kidou basically from the moment he joined the team. Despite some hostility at the start, Kidou and Gouenji have always deferred to Endou’s position as captain. And I think we all know Endou’s opinion. There were some bumps in the road but the three of them have always held mutual respect for one another, and their friendship has always had that respect and equality as its basis.

Shindou, Tsurugi and Tenma are very different.

From day one they were hostile to one another and that lasted for a very long time, and unlike the original trio they didn't even respect each other to balance it out. Shindou and Tsurugi considered each other enemies and just had a general bad opinion of the other; Tsurugi was cruel and sort of crazy, to be honest, and saw both Shindou and Tenma as an enemy, although Shindou was probably the bigger threat in his eyes (now I'm thinking, despite the Gouenji-Tsurugi parallels, it's also possible to compare Tsurugi and Kidou as they were both originally antagonists, but Kidou never seemed as bitter as Tsurugi to me (it's been a long time since I watched the originals, so I could be wrong)). Shindou seemed very self-absorbed in the sense that he took all the weight on his own shoulders, like he thought that he was responsible for everything and needed to solve all problems primarily alone. Tsurugi was a Seed and his enemy and Tenma a troublemaker and distraction.

Tenma here would be the exception, but that didn't matter because originally Tenma held the weakest position. New to a team, good at dribbling but horrible at everything else, younger than Shindou (which, especially with Japan's focus on age differences, really doesn't help the equality thing) and generally discarded by both Tsurugi and Shindou. Sure, he respected Shindou and he didn’t have the same hostility towards Tsurugi as many others, but it didn’t matter because he barely had a voice on the team. Sure, he talked a lot, and I mean a lot, but people didn’t listen.

The three of them were a mess no matter how you look at it. You couldn’t even refer to them as ‘the three of them’ because they had nothing in common, no relationship to speak of.

As we all know that eventually changed, and it kept changing. Tenma got through to Shindou, Shindou started treating Tenma, if not as a friend, at least as an underclassman - as someone he had a responsibility towards to care for. Tsurugi became a tentative ally to Raimon, and they had to put up with him, and eventually he switched sides completely (still kept to himself a lot though). Tenma gained more confidence in his place on the team. They struggled, they fought together, they had to encourage each other and that builds bonds. To be honest, I don't know when these three became friends, I'd have to rewatch the anime for that, but I think it took a while even after they initially set aside their differences. Even during the last match of season 1, Tsurugi still refers to Tenma as ‘’Matsukaze’’ in his head.

(Another fun thing that makes them less compatible compared to the original trio - their positions. Endou, goalkeeper; Kidou, midfielder; Gouenji, forward. Defense, bridge, offense. They’re spread out equally over the field. The GO trio, though, consists of one forward and two midfielders; mismatched.)

Anyway, their relationship is constantly evolving. From enemies, to (tentative) allies, to sort of friends. I mean, there’s an obstacle simply in the fact that Shindou is older and therefore put in the ‘senpai’ role (seriously, don’t underestimate how important age differences are in Japan). Then there’s Tsurugi being a pretty quiet individual. They might be on friendly terms, even call one another friends, but they wouldn’t be good friends.

Tenma’s and Shindou’s relationship in season 1, to me, never really seemed like friendship. Tenma very obviously respects Shindou and depends on him and thinks he’s great, but he also sort of puts Shindou on a pedestal. Shindou seems, eventually, very fond of Tenma, and to be honest I think Shindou is actually the one to call him a friend first; less of an age barrier for him, and Tenma is a bit too shy to declare his captain a friend first (seriously, it’s easy to forget but especially at the start of the anime, Tenma is very shy). But especially as long as the barrier of Tenma putting Shindou on a pedestal exists, they can’t really be friends in the deeper sense of the word.

Tsurugi and Tenma, on the other hand, have learnt to work together and depend on one another by the end of season 1. It’s not very pronounced but it’s obvious (especially when they use Fire Tornado Double Drive) how much Tsurugi really depends on Tenma (and accepts that!), while Tenma is just super friendly and nice towards Tsurugi. At some point these two became friends, but gosh don’t ask me when. (I want to add here: we see clearly in season 1 how much Tsurugi depends on Tenma, and while we don’t see that sentiment returned, I do believe it already exists at that point; at the very least, Tenma’s reaction to Tsurugi’s kidnapping in season 3 speaks volumes.)

I haven’t mentioned the friendship between Shindou and Tsurugi much before, but that’s because they’re really hard to pin down. The one thing that stands out to me is how great of a team they are together, even, or maybe especially, without Tenma. We don’t see the two of them interacting as much as we see either of them interacting with Tenma, but what interactions they do have often occur during matches - I can’t really pinpoint any examples but to me it’s always felt like there was no real need for them to talk so much. Tsurugi goes along with Shindou’s strategies always without ever asking for explanation; he’s got a healthy respect for Shindou’s mind, I think, and seems very good at picking up clues from him. Which, to Shindou, probably makes him the perfect ‘’pawn’’ in his strategies, since Tsurugi is 1) a real ace of the team and 2) really good at responding to him instinctively. They’re very quiet together, and a very good team. They didn’t respect each other at the start, but once they saw eye-to-eye? Hell yeah, and I think that defines them for the entire series. Shindou never treats Tsurugi like an underclassmen, not like he does Tenma. When did these two become friends? I don’t think even they know - actually, I think they might not have been friends if Tenma hadn’t been there to be the bridge between them, but when it actually happened? No clue.

Anyway! Then there’s the next big change: Tenma becomes captain.

It always stood out to me that Tenma didn’t stop calling Shindou ‘captain’ until Chrono Stone. I always wondered why Tenma was still captain in Chrono Stone, since Shindou was out of the hospital at that point and they never discussed the - what initially seemed like a temporary - captain switch in the anime. I mentioned in an earlier post that I headcanon that this switch happened because Shindou insisted on it, because Shindou didn't want to be captain and felt Tenma was better suited to the role. This conversation would've taken place somewhere between season 1 and 2, or potentially somewhere in the first episodes of season 2. That's also why Tenma switches from calling him ‘captain’ to ‘Shindou-senpai’, and that's the start of the newest change in their relationship. It quite literally forces Tenma into being on more equal footing as Shindou, as captain to former captain. Obviously this switch is gradual, as we see him doubting himself quite a lot in Chrono Stone and growing into the position as the season goes on.

Now I have to wonder how Tenma and Tsurugi's dynamic would've changed in response to Tenma becoming captain. I actually imagine that Tsurugi had a very easy time with it; he’d been following Tenma’s lead quite a lot in season 1 already.

Finally, season 3. It starts out pretty great, actually - their teamwork is great. One thing of note is that Tenma, at least, switched to calling Shindou ‘Shindou-san’ somewhere between season 2 and 3, I'm not certain about Tsurugi - he doesn't often call Shindou by name but I think he already called him that? Or switches multiple times? - but it shows that Tenma is much more comfortable with Shindou than before. At least, until the start of their disagreement over the Inazuma Japan team.

Season 3. Damn, what a ride.

I mean, I’m sure everyone remembers Shindou and Tenma in this. Pretty hard to forget, really. Shindou’s angry, frustrated, incredibly emotional and basically seems to revert back to how he was at the start of season 1. He seems to be taking it all out on Tenma and Ibuki; which while not fair is at least understandable. Tenma’s constantly disagreeing with him, someone Shindou believes should have the same opinion as him, whereas Ibuki keeps on challenging him. 

The funny thing is, this doesn’t affect their teamwork at all.

In the first episodes, it’s Tsurugi, Shindou and Tenma basically doing all the work during the matches, and it is their incredible teamwork that gets the team through the first stages of an intergalactic championship, which, damn, is pretty impressive if you ask me. They’re arguing but still in sync, and I love that. The three of them have always been a great combo when playing soccer, whereas outside of that they definitely weren’t - they’re perfectly balanced yet horridly incompatible. The contradiction is incredible with those three.

Something else I noticed is that, even after Tenma’s been captain for quite a while, he still follows Shindou’s orders without question, and Shindou still orders him around without hesitation. And yet Shindou doesn’t overstep; he’s very clearly not trying to be captain anymore, and in the instances Tenma thinks he’s wrong, Tenma is not afraid to disagree.

Tsurugi, during the early episodes of season 3, is really the eye of the storm. While Shindou seems to have a pretty short temper around Tenma, that’s not the case when he’s around Tsurugi, and there’s multiple instances where he asks for Tsurugi’s opinion. At the same time, Tsurugi doesn’t make it any harder for Tenma, either; he really stays out of it. Lmao he basically saw Tenma and Shindou fighting and went ‘’oh hell no I don’t want any part of this’’, so he’s really the neutral ground between them (and then he gets kidnapped pretty quickly, sooo…).

Of course everything gets turned upside down when they find out about the whole alien thing, and though Shindou doesn’t argue with Tenma anymore, he does put a lot on his shoulders.

He’s not wrong, per se, but way to put pressure on the kid! Which, fair, he is the captain, but Shindou, honey, c’mon. You know Tenma. You know how he’s gonna take this.

So yeah, I don’t think that Tenma at any moment in Galaxy beyond the first and last episode is actually happy. Even when he’s cheerful, he’s constantly trying to keep a team that’s falling apart at the seams together - do you see the parallels here with Shindou in season 1? - or gauging their mood, or dealing with internal conflicts, or arguing with Shindou (and to some degree Tsurugi), or dealing with the stress of being the captain that has to save the entirety of humankind. Even when he's laughing, there's no way he's able to let go of that fully, no way he can be carefree. Despite outward appearances, Tenma in season 3 is so fundamentally different from Tenma in season 1. There’s no freedom, no fun, no ‘wind of the revolution’ when that is exactly what his character has been about all along. He's restrained. He's pushed into a mold he doesn't fit into, by everything and everyone around him, and the ones who know him, who could've put a stop to this - they don't see it happening. An extra interesting detail is, Tenma rarely reaches out to his friends when it's about himself or his issues, it's only when they notice that something's wrong and confront him that he actually opens up. And Tenma, in season 3, has become a lot better at keeping up appearances - understandable, since the whole spiel is that he has to be the captain, has to keep everyone's spirits high, and he cannot allow them to see him hesitating and worrying. It's actually probably not a good thing that he learns that lesson, because it means it'll be even easier for him to smile and say he's fine and divert people away from the fact that he's struggling. And then to add to that, Tsurugi and Shindou, people he would usually depend on and let down the mask for, aren't there.

Y'see, in season 1, Tenma is never really alone - despite the rocky start, he’s got Shinsuke and Aoi. In season 2, he’s alone for a while before Fei comes and by the time Fei betrays him, he’s got Raimon with him again. In season 3, Tenma is cut off from Raimon, pushed away by Shindou and Tsurugi, not opening up to Aoi, surrounded by a team that expects things of him as captain that no one has before, and Tenma is alone. And he has to deal with that. Learn from it. Grow with it. Find himself again, and he does. And that is the growth Tenma goes through in season 3.

To be honest, all three of them have their own stories in Galaxy, kinda like in season 1 but whereas in season 1 it converges from separate places to the same path, in season 3 it’s the opposite - they come from the same story and then split up. Tenma with his learning how to stand alone; Shindou with letting go of his steadfast opinion; Tsurugi with, uh, getting kidnapped by aliens?

Not gonna lie, one of those three doesn’t quite feel the same as the others…

Seriously though, Tsurugi’s arc in Galaxy is a little less introspective than the others, I think. Now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it’s about stepping up more? Previously he just went along with Raimon a lot. He’s a relatively quiet character and happy to leave the decisions and speeches to Shindou and Tenma - to be honest, in Chrono Stone when he was acting captain for one of the El Dorado/Raimon teams against the Second Stage Children, I was a bit startled before remembering that canonically, Tsurugi was captain previously. He never seemed to care much for the position. Like I said, he’s always followed along with Tenma, and he’s always been easy with following Shindou’s commands as well. But in season 3 that switches - he’s left alone, but it’s very different from Tenma’s situation. He’s becoming much more proactive in trying to convince Lalaya that her planet sucks, that she doesn’t need no man to be Queen, and most interestingly to me - the whole development with him becoming captain of Faram Dite. He steps up in a way he doesn’t really do in the rest of the anime.

To be honest, Tsurugi’s a hard character to pin down because he’s so quiet and composed most of the time. One thing about him, though, is that he’s got a major guilt complex. Just look at the whole situation with his brother, the fact that he blames himself has driven him for years before the anime even starts. It’s the reason he’s with Fifth Sector. After Tenma and Yuuichi give him that much needed reality check, Tsurugi backs down a lot and stays quiet. I think, and mind you this is all speculation - I think Tsurugi is afraid. Afraid of making choices, afraid of speaking up, of speaking his mind out loud. He follows Tenma, and Raimon’s, lead a lot, and while I think he does agree with them and doesn’t hesitate speak up after they already did so, I also think for a long while he would not be the first one to openly speak his mind. He’s been through a lot. He’s made mistakes, big mistakes (coughcough-joining Fifth Sector-coughcough) that you can’t blame him for considering the situation and the fact he was a literal kid when he joined Fifth Sector, but with what we’ve seen with his guilt complex with Yuuichi, who’s to say Tsurugi doesn’t blame himself? It’s like he needs the confirmation from Raimon that yes, this is the right choice, before he decides to speak up.

And in Galaxy, that changes. He’s left alone, no example to follow, dealing with a girl who’s even more afraid of making mistakes than he is, and for good reason. Lalaya has the lives of an entire planet on her shoulders, and she reaches out to Tsurugi because she has no faith in herself at all. Kind of like Tsurugi has no faith in himself either unless an outside source - Tenma, Yuuichi, Raimon - confirms it. Suddenly this girl is looking towards him for his approval on her decisions, same way he’s always done, and she doesn’t see what he does - that she doesn’t need it, that she can stand on her own. And Tsurugi committing to helping her, making that his priority rather than getting back to the Earth Eleven - and then, of course, switching sides and joining Faram Dite, knowing Earth Eleven won’t understand, Tenma won’t understand, won’t approve, and doing it anyway. For the first time in a long while, Tsurugi makes a choice because he believes it’s right, regardless of what anyone else thinks. That’s his character growth.

This already is eight pages, but now I’m committed, lol. Two down, one more to go!

Shindou Takuto. Honey, what a mess you are.

I could talk for ages about the impact that his rich kid life and likely demanding family would have on him. He’d be one of those ‘’piano lessons, Chinese lessons, fencing lessons’’ kids that get so much pressure put on his shoulders at a young age, to be perfect, to be worthy of the family name. I don’t think his family’s necessary neglectful or bad or anything! He gets to play soccer a lot, and it’s clearly because he likes it. But I do think that Shindou is an incredibly intelligent kid, and he’s always been pushed to perform the absolute best in whatever he does. It’s why he cracks under the pressure in season 1, when everything is falling apart around him, when the one thing he’s got for fun, because he loves it - soccer - becomes just as stressful, or even more so, as everything else in his life.

Season 3’s interesting, because from every damn side, Shindou is told he’s wrong.

A team of amateurs, when from basically his first appearance in season 1 it’s so damn obvious how much the Raimon team means to him. It’s a disgrace, not to him but to his friends, and Tenma - who should by all means agree with him completely - doesn’t seem to care. His plans are denied, his ideas are denied, except during matches. And these amateurs are just trampling over everything he believes in, everything his friends have worked so hard for, everything he holds so dear and hurt for and cried for and they don’t even have the grace to care. No wonder he hates them. No wonder he hates Ibuki, because Ibuki doesn’t understand a single thing about it but still has the gall to pretend he’s worthy of the position of keeper. Ibuki tries but not because he gives a damn about what Shindou believes in, but because of spite (I don’t actually think this about Ibuki lol, but I think Shindou would, I’m writing this from his perspective). The Inazuma Japan team spits on everything Shindou and his friends have fought and cried and bled for and he’s told to suck it up. No wonder he’s angry.

But, of course, things get a little better when they do start trying, for real, and keep trying. And then the whole hahaha-hey-you’re-actually-fighting-aliens thing gets revealed, and, well, new priorities and all that.

But still, Shindou’s stuck in his own head. Still dealing with a team he may or may not even like (don’t recall tbh). And at this point, Tenma’s retreated into his shell again (which, fair enough! Shindou hasn’t exactly been supportive and Tenma’s insecurities are acting up! There’s no way he’ll be the first to reach out again if he’s not sure it’s welcome - but Shindou, at this point, has missed all of Tenma’s angst because he’s keeping it quiet, so Shindou doesn’t know to reach out either! Which is also fair!! But they’re just in a continuous spiral at this point, rip) and Tsurugi is kidnapped by an alien queen like five episodes into the whole space adventure, which I’m gonna say is a fair reason not to have great communication at the moment. Also, honestly, both Tenma and Shindou not realizing something’s wrong with Tsurugi is a bit questionable but they both have so much going on in their own heads, plus the pressure of, y’know, trying not to get the earth destroyed, so I’m gonna give them a pass for this one.

Anyway. Shindou is put in a situation where things are, to him, completely spiraling out of control. He never wanted any of this - in fact, he probably was super excited for the international tournament, to just have fun for once and now the whole Grand Celesta Galaxy mess happens, poor kid. He has an idea of how things should be, within the team, at least, and he has such a hard time letting that go. He’s bad at adjusting. He’s not like Tenma. He doesn’t see the good in people as easily as Tenma does, he doesn’t adapt as easily as Tenma does (the wind is adaptable, haha) to this situation, doesn’t go, ‘’okay, I’ll make the best of this’’. He’s prideful, and used to, while not everything going his way, at least knowing his place, about having a certain image of the world around him, good or bad, and for once it doesn’t match up to his expectations at all, and he can’t change it, can only get through it. I’m very tired right now so I don’t think I can explain it very well, my words aren’t working (I’ll probably make a separate character analysis for Shindou at some point where I touch upon this again), but I think that Shindou is a person who needs some sort of control. His whole theme is music, being a music conductor, the strategist, calling the shots, and in Galaxy that’s taken away and he doesn’t know the stage, or the players and that might be similar in a way to Chrono Stone - but in Chrono Stone he still has the majority of his team, his support system, and in Galaxy he only has Tenma and Tsurugi and I just discussed why that whole thing isn’t working out. All he can do is get through it... alone.

Isn't it funny how that's a reoccurring theme with all of them?

Y’know, now I’m reminded of his Kami no Takuto hissatsu. How he directs the entire team like it’s a play or an orchestra. They do exactly what he wants them to and maybe that’s lulled him into a false sense of security. It might even go beyond that - his family demands perfectionism, tells him that if you just work hard enough, you can get everything, be everything, you want. That life will work how you want it to. But it doesn’t. He can’t strategize the entire world to his liking, and that’s okay.

And the fun part about all this? By the end of Galaxy, these three haven’t reconnected.

Oh, it certainly seems like it, because they concluded their own respective arcs. Tenma learns how to be captain and how to be true to himself. Tsurugi learns how to make his own choices and stop being afraid. Shindou learns to be patient and let go of his preconceived notions. They learn their lessons but they never talk about this. They grow, again, as they always do throughout the entire series, and rarely if ever do they talk about it, but why should they? They were together for the entire journey, right next to one another, so why should they tell each other what happened when they’ve all witnessed it?

Except in Galaxy they don’t. They weren’t on the same path. They’ve missed things, and now they’re, sort of, still assuming that the others will just understand because it always worked that way, right? So they don’t talk. And by the end of the season, they haven’t talked, despite the misunderstandings and the hurts. And oh, that’s an opportunity for angst I’m having so much fun exploring in my stories😈

Okay, I got like, so carried away with this. How did this turn into a character analysis for the Raimon GO Trio?? How did it get so long?? This was never the intention. To quote AR!Tenma…

Oops?

[dorkhellbside]

hey brain ghost dirk. uhh can you just. uhm,

[stromuprisahat]

character: *holds others responsible for their actions according to rules of the world* them:

me: Do you realize a society needs to have rules and means to enforce them, otherwise it will collapse into chaos?! That a well-written realistic world doesn't avoid punishing characters favoured by the narrative? That treating them like any ordinary person of their position is realism, not malice of those, who do it? That morality keeps shifting with time and due to various circumstances? That times of crisis have harsher rules than peaceful utopia? That judging past- albeit fictional- by modern rules doesn't only do disservice to everyone involved, but prevents you from understanding it? That reading should broaden your horizons instead of fitting characters you connect to into you-shaped form?

[buttercupshands]

New MHUI LoV event stuff

first of all - if you follow the news on the new characters even a little - a new UR Shigaraki Tomura came out today (16th of June) he came with a LoV event as they usually do and this one is basically a filler for the time before Star and Stripe arc happened but after Tomura got his mix-match outfit of his own and AFO's choices

and while it is Tomura-centric event it's heavy on stuff with Spinner. He's basically like a second main character of this short thing

The filler answers question on what was LoV doing while Izuku left UA and it uses manga side material as help, because it was stated that Skeptic helped LoV to get new clothes for the Final arc as well as weapons.

A story of event is basically "someone tries to rob us we neew to stop them" while Spinner is questioning if they are really dealing with Tomura anymore, with some interesting localization choises Spinner noticed the Ore vs. Boku thing while Tomura was talking

As it is a turn for a short event we get like 3 parts with Tomura easily defeating the guys who tried to rob that one place

And it's nothing really if you don't count the way Tomura speaks which is really creepy to hear his gaming words while he's also clearly doesn't understand anything anymore what made Tomura Tomura

It's basically what if those chapters before Star and Stripe made Tomura lose it were a story on their own with Tomura still unsure on who he is, but LoV is literally there and they talk about it more than we ever saw them in the manga for... reasons that manga doesn't have filler. At all.

At least not with LoV involved

At the end of it while Spinner is still concerned it all ends with AFOmura or whatever this guy should be called at that point of the story stops questioning it and just agrees with Spinner's question

If you're a manga reader it's worse than just a talk

It also has an interesting point, but sadly as it's a pre-Star and Stripe arc Tomura anything he says doesn't really matter as much

Everything else are basically details, I recommend this event tho, it's not that hard to get all of the story, it's worth having in the MHUI archives

As for other things, more or less harmless - there's an event SR Memory with Toga and Machia and a cards set, the same one Tomura had mostly in the anime

Recruit is standart with a UR Memory for the new character and a SR Memory which is helpful in the event

As for the less neutral stuff I got into the event as soon as I noticed it began and the first thing was to go into the recruit for the new Tomura

got him right away so it was fun and with this my Tomura collection is once again is one off, his first UR is still absent on my account, but 5 characters make a team

Didn't have a motivation to play the event with SR Tomura as my game had an error with dialogue, but I got him at least

Tried playing with him while clearing the event, he has a new battle star animation, battle end animation and of course his own ult animation

He's fun to play with, and that actually got me back into MHA as I was slowly losing my will to still do anything connected to it aside from this game

A small thing that I found interesting was that his recruit voiceline is Tomura's speech from back in 222

Interesting choice as none of old ones had something connected to this chapter

Other than that his Base talks are the same and his reactions in Trust menu are the same too

As usual MHUI LoV events are the best in delivering events with stories that belong in canon and it's easy to imagine them there

[bullseyelover]

i want to talk about this scene briefly, it’s such a short scene only being about two minutes in length but this scene here is what sets dex completely on the path to becoming bullseye. no matter what, dex was going to become bullseye. nothing would’ve changed that. but this scene he completely falls into fisk’s grasp and manipulations, which sets him on a path he cannot turn back from.

the scene after when matt and ray break into his apartment, the first thing dex does is burn his therapy tapes. the therapy tapes are something that were vital to dex the majority of his life, he always kept them at arms reach to keep him in line. they were his emotional coping mechanism. so him burning them here is another crucial moment into his descent into bullseye, a destruction of his past life and coping strategies and another thing that makes the primal scream scene with fisk being something dex gives into so easily because he has nothing else. the one friend he thought he had, ray, had just lied to his face about being there for him and broken into his apartment and stolen his therapy tapes (even though matt stole them, dex didn’t know that.) matt and ray breaking into his apartment shattered the remaining sense of self he had left, in his eyes they completely violated his sense of self. his gun safe was the “real” him he kept from the world, but was something he cherished because they defined him. they had his coping mechanisms within them, the tapes being his emotional support and his weapons being his physical control. so matt and ray just breaking into his space, defiling it by listening to his therapy tapes without him knowing and then stealing them was a breaking point for him.

and fisk picks up these shattered pieces, and quite literally picking dex up from the ground in this scene and pulls him into his arms, are said pieces that will eventually build dex into the bullseye persona that he is in the comics. because that’s all he has left. dex already had these parts of bullseye within him, but he was also capable of genuine kindess and other good traits, and fisk made sure when picking up the pieces of dex to pick up the ones that would benefit only fisk, and leave out the potential goodness dex had within him. everything that fisk leaves him with by the end of the season are his negative traits and negative thoughts, which will make his volatility and instability as bullseye on another level. it’s just masterful writing i could go on and on for hours but i’ll stop myself here lol.

[rotten-vivs]

i already hadn't bought into the "the curtains are just fucking blue" thing about refusing media analysis, but becoming a fan of analyzing an improv minecraft server—where the curtains are 99% of the time just fucking blue, but I MYSELF create reasons for the curtains to be blue—has made me appreciate media analysis more

death of the author. not in the "author is bigoted so we should ignore that to enjoy the media without feeling bad" way, but in the "the author's intention is irrelevant to how unintentional foreshadowing and themes made me feel"

[erytherion]

Reading the webtoon and…

Does this imply that Kim Dokja also tried to write a questionnaire for her to fill in since she wouldn’t speak to him, that either he 1) never gave her in the end (especially if he couldn’t find her after she was released) or 2) gave it to her and she STILL refused to answer?

Because that is so so so so awful. It was already bad but if he tried so many ways to get her to speak and she still gave him no response, regardless of her reasoning… isn’t that still directly choosing to cut herself fully out of his life? Why in the hell did she lie for his sake and allow him to visit her if she wanted to never speak to him again?

I know everyone claims Kim Dokja is just like her in sacrificing himself for loved ones, but at least he tries his best to stay with them and to keep them in his life. He still chooses sacrifice, but it’s not because he intends to never return. He always returns (even if much later than planned).

The only time this differs is with 51%, when he STILL tried his best to stay with them - at least as much as he could.

I sometimes like Lee Sookyung, but I am mostly still SO mad at her for completely ignoring her child since he was 8 years old. Especially when he must have looked like shit any number of times from being mistreated and bullied by family, friends, army, employers.

But maybe that’s just the fragment in me being eternally pissed with her. She DOES love him, but like he says in the webtoon in this chapter - maybe such truths are painful enough to be false anyways, because they’re just SUCH bullshit. That’s not how affection should work, if you actually care about someone and want them to be happy.

[greenlaut]

[assassin's creed] honestly shoutout to asscreed protags altaïr and ezio for having unusual assigned colours white (and red) instead something conventional like red or blue

[thetardisisnotourdivision]

The villain of my first book seems really clever and calculating at first. But I know the rest of the series. And it immediately becomes obvious once you know the plot of like books two and three that this woman has ONE move. And somehow it ALWAYS FUCKING WORKS.

[lamnwar]

seriously speaking, do you guys believe that Kagami has mommy issues?

[jakotsuto]

probably gonna post less these days if at all cause I feel like I’m getting close to my Autism Juice (special interest momentum) running out.

[discjude]

I think I should focus more on the link between Rafal and Japeth in TCY because I was typing out a joke post that went something along the lines of "TCY is so funny because the whole division between the two Pens comes down to "omnipotent omniscient harbinger of fate" vs "some snake guy" under the assumption that the scim that was Lionsmane was just one of Japeth's, but I realised I didn't have a source for that so checked flesh and blood again and what do you know Lionsmane is apparently "made out of my father (Rafal's) spirit.". I was aware of the reference to 'Rafal's spirit' mostly because it's a concept never mentioned by name again in the series but somehow never noticed that Lionsmane WAS just. Rafal. which has horrible consequences for the Japeth Lore

Basically. It seems very important to me that the "Storian VS Lionsmane" duo can be boiled down to "Fate VS Japeth", given that a lot of Japeth's motivation comes from his desire to be able to control fate, stating in Flesh And Blood "soon I'll be fate's master, with the power to take love back (where he's talking about Aric)." . Saying that he IS Lionsmane ties into that nicely, given that he'll write his own fate with the pen that Is Him. This also fits into the "Past is Present" prophecy, given the last line of "Until you change it", being exactly what Japeth aims to do.

However, Japeth does not 'change it', because he's not the one writing his fate, because He's Not Lionsmane. RAFAL is. The fate that Japeth thinks he's creating for himself isn't the one he wants, but is Rafal's fate instead... which is exactly what ends up happening to him, given the second fratricide incident. This also works with Past is Present, because Past IS Present, given it's the same fate. Which also works as a lovely little reminder that Japeth has absolutely no control over his fate in the slightest, reflected by a few other pieces of book 6 information: Rafal's message to him (that happens before book 4) instructs him to remain loyal to his brother, and to always put his brother first. He doesn't win a single one of Arthur's Trials. It is literally stated by Rafal in a flashback that it was LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for japeth to end up being One True King. what I am Trying To Say is that there was absolutely no way in hell Japeth could ever have "changed it", ever. Anyway because of all of this I firmly believe that Soman should've put at least a couple of vague references to the TCY twins in the prequels given that Japeth and Rafal might have the most interesting link between them in my opinion

[swimming-karyss]

One of the easiest way to have fun is to connect your fave character to some theme, and then read some works about a similar theme X)

Extremely easy to be done with Sabo (and by extension Dragon lol) the guy who is associated with both fire and ocean which have plenty of meanings in folklore. Plus there's this fairytale damsel in distress thing.

Oh, so ocean and sea is often viewed as dangerous and chaotic and is associated with gateways, dying and the world of dead?? ya, checks out

Oh, so the antagonist who kidnaps the princess is often a dragon with fire/wind powers or even wind itself?? ya, this exact thing did happen

Let's go boys (brain cells) we're having a feast tonight (free dopamine) !!

[yeehawpurgatory]

Listen, I know this might sound untrue, but Arthur IS mostly a bad dude—or at least not as good a man as some claim. (I love him still but hear me out)

This is not me arguing “he’s bad so you shouldn’t like/glorify him” at all, I promise—I can’t stand that rhetoric. It’s just that I see a lot of “he’s so kind” “so good at heart” “so hard on himself” and I wonder why folks so often adamantly, un-ironically claim him as a misunderstood gentle giant type.

The fact that he’s mostly nice to those he cares about and is willing to help strangers in need (never mind both of those things are optional anyhow, you can just as easily play him as an asshole who doesn’t come to anyone’s aid—) doesn’t undo the harm he’s responsible for throughout the game. Nor does him being told to do so by an authority or being a victim of circumstance undo it.

His good doesn’t make up for his bad, and I don’t think it actually needs to. His bad certainly doesn’t take away from what makes him compelling and likeable to the audience; but within the context of his world, he’s right to be unhappy with who he is. It’s not a matter of low self esteem or self worth issues, his unhappiness with himself comes from self awareness.

(Saying this with a grain of salt because you know, fictional character with no real agency whose actions are as such for plot reasons), he may have had a shit hand dealt to him, but he’s a person who makes bad choices. He’s charming and relatable (and hot lol) but I’m not sure I understand the whole simplifying his character to “good person stuck in bad situation” thing, when it plainly isn’t the case, no matter how much we like him.

I think the “you’re a good man Arthur” line gets thrown around as proof of him being good at heart; but I think it’s more like, he needed to hear it to act as such. He needed to be told how to be good and pushed into reflection and immediate actions. He needed to be told that he’s a good man by others because he needed permission in a sense to be different than he knows himself to be. (Take a shot every-time I say good)

“The Thomas Downes mission was out of character” it really isn’t. He says what kind of man he is multiple times, he hammers the point home that he’s a bad man. And while there is definitely a bit of self loathing in that sentiment, he’s still speaking his truth. He’s just unhappy with it; he IS the type of man to commit an atrocity like beating a dying man for a few bucks. It goes against the beliefs fans have projected onto him, usually coming from their own moral compass instead of what the character shows his own to be, and that’s why it ‘feels so wrong’ to see him doing something actually despicable.

We arrive at this misunderstanding due to fandom projection, as well as this rampant desire to problem solve by ‘fixing’ the canon material to fit a sort of agenda. Ie, ‘I only like the good attributes in this character’ ‘it’s only acceptable to like this bad dude provided he’s always feeling guilt for his actions’ or ‘he’s not really at fault for them.’

But the thing is, even if Arthur is at conflict with his actions, the guilt he may feel isn’t an indication of anything pure within him. He’s in total control and chooses still to go along with everything. I tend to think an action done in guilt is functionally the same as an action done with enjoyment. Arthur feeling bad at the end of the game for his faults and complicity doesn’t mean he is good. Nor does it mean he ‘was a good the whole time’, nor does it excuse what he’s done.

We don’t have to make him a better person than he is in order to like him, is what I’m trying to say I guess. It’s fine to acknowledge all parts of him, to do otherwise does a disservice to his character as it often flattens them beyond recognition. And it’s also fine to hone in on what you appreciate most and write and draw and celebrate that while functionally ignoring the rest if you so choose—but it’s also fine (and usually important) to acknowledge who the character is without the plethora of projections placed upon them.

Arthur ends the game with a loving act, more or less saving John, saving Abigail, Tilly, paving the way for them to become something better than he was. None of these things are meant to be a great action done to save his soul or redeem him in any eyes, especially not his own. He dies on a good note (and yeah I would say low honour/back for the money is still a ‘good’ choice for a low honour story), and shifts his focus to the last good deed he’s done in his final moment as a way to leave off peacefully despite all his wrongdoings. He doesn’t get redemption really, and he doesn't wholly achieve 'goodness', despite all the potential for growth the audience can see in him, that’s the deliberate tragedy of it all.