#// i honestly think Luck would find it VERY hard to develop any sort of antagonistic relationship with her

[c4rdsharp]

✿ also for ennis ^_____^

FRIENDSHIP.     childhood friends  /  work buddies or coworkers  /  family friends  /  friends with benefits  /  smoking buddies  /  adventure buddies  /  fake friends  /  recently friends  /  party buddies  /  friendship of need  /  dying friendship  /  circumstantial friendship  /  partners in crime  /  old friendship  /  [ your muse ] is the good influence  /  [ your muse ] is the bad influence  /  [ my muse ] is the good influence  /  [ my muse ] is the bad influence  /  opposites attract  /  ride or die  /  frenemies  /  roommates or flatmates  /  penpals  /  exes to friends  /  enemies to friends  /  other .

ROMANCE.     childhood sweethearts  /  [ your muse is mines ] childhood crush  /  [ my muse is yours ] childhood crush  /  exes  /  exes to lovers  /  forbidden lovers  /  highschool sweethearts  /  secret relationship  /  opposites attract  /  long distance  /  unrequited [ from your muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from my muses side ]  /  unrequited [ from both sides ]  /  skinny love  /  friends to lovers  /  enemies to lovers  /  spurious relationship  /  power couple  /  newly entered  /  soulmates [ metaphorical ]  /  soulmates  [ literal ]  /  awkward  /  turning toxic  /  toxic love  /  cheating [ on your muse ]  /  cheating [ with your muse ]  /  other .

FAMILIAL.     siblings [ half ]  /  siblings [ step ]  /  [ my muse ] is an older sibling figure to your younger sibling figure  /  [ my muse ] is a younger sibling figure to your older sibling figure muse  /  [ my muse ] is a parental figure to yours  /  [ my muse ] is a child figure to your muse  /  guardian figure  /  legal guardian  /  adoptive child  /  foster child  /  [ your muse ] is taken under mines wing  /  [ my muse ] is taken under yours wing  /  other .

ANTAGONISTIC.     dangerous to each other  /  dangerous to others  /  unpredictable  /  rivals  /  petty  /  developing into sexual or romantic tension  /  based off family matters  /  based of off circumstance  /  based of professional matters  /  based off misunderstanding or lies  /  conflict of ideology  /  betrayal  /  hero - villain dynamic  /  enemies  /  fight club  /  friends turned enemies  /  lovers turned enemies  /  exes turned enemies  /  other .

preestablished relations let's go / @prognostik

[sillyguyhotline]

i hate when people compare shin tsukimi to kokichi ouma/nagito komaeda and here’s why

hi first off spoilers for yttd up to chapter 2-2 and for chapter 5 of sdr2 and ndrv3

hi, this is a little disorganized because it was one of my first analysis posts on here lmao. it’s in lapslock and kinda rushed because i wrote this rant to my friends and then decided to post it here!!

ok so!! first of all, sou has very distinct and established reasons for why he acts the way he does: the survival rates. the game shows us that, prior to the death game, sou (shin tsukimi) was very pleasant, even compassionate, and was generally a good dude.

 but the identity he adopted for himself, sou hiyori, the one who trusts nobody and lies to everyone and is a pretty huge dick, is a direct consequence of miley telling him he had no chance at survival. the antagonist characters in danganronpa are just...like that. yeah, they probably have their reasons (we know that nagito lost his parents and has a very weird relationship with luck, and we can infer that kokichi doesnt have parents and probably hasnt for a decent amount of time) but they were turned into their more manipulative selves over time, and that's who they are, whereas "sou hiyori" is more of a mask or an alternate identity than anything

secondly, i know a lot of people lump him in with the dr antags bc they consider him an "antagonist" character, but honestly?? he's really not. (either way, the term antag doesnt really fit kokichi or nagito cuz junko is the antag, they're still technically on our side and id consider them antiheroes). but,,,sou honestly doesnt do the things kokichi and nagito do. those two fuck with you in the trials and then they both have chapter 5, where they stage a murder that is directly intended to confuse either you or the mastermind. 

but sou doesn't do any of that shit! yeah, he declares himself as the keymaster and lies about that kind of stuff, but it's not intended to directly oppose you, he's just trying to survive. it just so happens that sara is the keymaster in the first main game, so sara is the one who has to expose his lies. he's a liar, but especially in the first main game (not as much in the second but i'll get to that later) he's more concerned with his survival than anything. both kokichi and nagito, however, have other goals (expose the traitor from the future foundation and get them out alive/end the killing game) and even when they arent executing those goals they go out of their way to oppose the protag.

thirdly, sou embodies his own, very distinct themes. he's still a foil to sara, as the antags are with the dr protags, but in quite a different way. (oh also ive seen some people point out that sou is also a foil to keiji). kokichi, most distinctly, embodies the theme of truth vs. lies; he's a liar and his entire personality is developed out of him constantly lying to everyone including himself, while shuichi, the protag, struggles throughout the game with the burden of exposing the truth of the murders. 

a lot of people look at sou and immediately think that the main point of his character is his lies (which is fair, as he lies to both sara and himself, similar to kokichi) but it's not- it's his inability to trust anyone. you'd think that him hiding his true personality and fabricating the "sou hiyori" personality would demonstrate that he is, at his core, a liar, but "sou hiyori," especially in comparison to the "shin tsukimi" he once was, is characterized by how little he trusts everyone. this is how he is different from sara, and why he envies her: sara has managed to gain the trust of the entire group, despite being nothing but a high school girl, and is able to utilize this to her advantage (hence why he breaks down in the first main game; he has already separated himself from the group for his own survival, but panics upon seeing everyone choosing to believe sara instead of him). his separation from the rest of the group and the way he loathes sara for the trust she's gained is what's at the core of his character, not his lies. his lies only aid his lack of trust for everyone else. 

also, another thing that separates sou from the other antags is something i outlined earlier: when they die, it is to serve a purpose greater than them. when sou dies, it is to save kanna. he's always been identifiable due to his desire to survive. this is why he becomes sou hiyori, this is why he is unable to trust anyone, this is why we view him as an "antagonist," because we as the player, usually, automatically want as many people as possible to make it out alive. but he forms such a bond with kanna, despite pushing aside everyone else, that he is willing to lose his life, which he's fought so hard to protect, in order to save her. this is also representative of how much more yttd focuses on its characters; nagito and kokichi refuse to die unless it ends the killing game because that is danganronpa's endgame and it's the only reliable point of dr's admittedly shoddy plot. yttd, however, focuses on how the characters grow as people and how relationships between individuals develop, which is why sou's character is so heavily dependent on kanna. he either dies for her or identifies himself as a true threat in order to avenge her, which makes him much more compelling.

sou may be a liar, but he's much more of a human than the danganronpa antags, he presents much less of a threat to the character, and he's able to actually develop bonds with kanna. 

i also find it pretty interesting how both nagito and kokichi's relationships with the protag reflect the main themes of their respective games (hope vs despair, truth vs lies) whereas sou's relationship with sara revolves around trust as opposed to the game's overarching theme of logic vs emotion (which he also helps to embody, but through his actions, not his relationship with sara).

this was very long and probably didnt convey my thoughts as well as it could have but in essence sou and the dr antags are very very different from each other, in both character and their role in the game, and when people compare them it feels like they're looking at a sou that they want to see rather than the sou who actually exists.

as an afterthought i find it sort of ironic that most of the humanization and development of the danganronpa characters occurs in fan circles, whereas sou is already developed and humanized by yttd to the extent that fans instead have to boil him down to danganronpa stereotypes.

if you made it this far, tysm!! this was kinda rushed so if there are any flaws in what i said please lmk and i’d like to hear if anyone else has any other thoughts on this topic!!

[peachymess]

On Eren

If it’s not one thing, it’s another. Snk, you keep me up at night. It’s 7am and I can’t sleep. It just hurts too much. All the fears hitting me at once. I need the next chapter, just to further the in-verse present time. Yet at the same time, I can barely read another word or I might perish.

Listen, Eren might have had a very black-and white sort of tunnel vision all his life. He may always have been rash and headstrong and quick to decide what he deems as right and wrong. And he might come down on what he deems “injustice” very hard. But that’s not all there’s been to him. He’s also always cared about strangers in need, his friends, the freedom we’re all born with and deserve to have. He cries for people’s fates, he smiles at others’ joy.

He felt hate, yes, but he also felt love. I’m just gonna go ahead and pick a side. I refuse to accept that we’re meant to land on the far-evil side of his spectrum. If his plan is exactly what he says it is, I actually accept it as IC, because given Eren’s circumstances, we can understand what lead him to become this consumed with hate and misguided action. However, even so, I don’t think that’s where he’ll be by the end of this story. He’s swinging, and he’s gonna land somewhere closer to the middle. I’m not talking redeemed, I’m just talking understood and hopefully reawakened from his hate-consumed state - unless we’re just gonna have a straight up “this had to be done for best ending” twisteroo.

The thing is. If his plan is what he says it is, it’s nuts. But it’s *so* nuts that it’s... almost cartoony. Because not only do we get the plan like he says, it also means that the bleak as hell narrative Mikasa gave this chapter, is meant to be correct. Paraphrasing to a dangerous degree, we can sum it up like this: “Eren is a monster and I’m starting to realize he didn’t become one; he’s always been one”. This, canonized, would erase the weight of any smile, care and love Eren’s shown to give from earlier years. It would mean that beneath care for his friends and laughter at the dinner table, his thoughts and goals were so ugly and selfish that it even at that point outweighed the “shallow” good he projected into the world. Not only does that set the bar extremely low for what people we are meant to consider “evil”, but it also flips the script of the entire story to be one of hatred and fake beauty from start to finish. If we’re told Eren’s meant to be evil masked as good from the get-go, 1. If we accept it, every happy interaction looks empty and pointless as hell and strips the story of its stakes to some degree, or 2. We realize it honestly doesn’t fit because his “good” feelings being genuine is why entire plot points work and the story developed in the way it did.

What I’m trying to say is this: Mikasa’s temporary conclusion that Eren might have been a monster* all along, isn’t correct (and it’s meant to be seen as a wrong read imo). But if his plan is what he says it is, he IS one, thus her conclusion would be correct. Which it isn’t.

Side note: while I believe Eren’s plan and Mikasa’s conclusion need to coincide (plan true = M conclusion true VS plan fake = M conclusion fake), there is an argument to be had that Mikasa could be wrong about Eren always having been a monster while Eren still truly having become one by this point in time. But I don’t believe so. For instance: if Eren wasn’t a monster before but has become one now, Mikasa’s closing conclusion (him being one NOW) is still correct - but the reasoning/buildup used to arrive at that conclusion, is wrong. It would be like solving a mathematical problem incorrectly but arriving at the right answer by luck. She’s asking herself if, looking back, she can actually see the seeds of his true form, where she previously saw him through rose tainted goggles. But if he truly was a good boy before, it would be unfair (and a waste of time) to put on the table, a plot point that’s synthetically explained/constructed, when there is a true calculation/formula to the conclusion since (if) it’s correct. And the other way around, if her conclusion is right, but the plan is fake, the “monstrosity” she’s caused to reflect on, is fake to begin with, so how can she still be right he’s a monster?

So, back on track, I don’t feel like Eren is meant to end on this 100% villain note. His plan of genocide, his on-the-nose villain final titan face, PLUS Mikasa’s “sike, he’s ALWAYS been a monster”... it’s just too much evil. Especially for a story like SNK. It feels to me, like this is the “the night is darkest before the dawn” part of the story, where we go from “he’s a pure boy”** to “my god... no... he’s actually a demon boy, god help us”. Mikasa’s narrative says this, and Armin is having that exact themed melt-down when his desire to see Eren as good, physically stops being compatible with what he sees around him. They’re both so scared of acknowledging Eren’s flawed, that having to accept it, initially feels like a much bigger deal, a much longer fall from grace. So we swing with them, from one outer point to the other. Panic mode... but it won’t end there. It’s too cartoony, too black/white still. Looking back, the good times they shared, they were real. And the pain he’s later caused, is also real. But he’s not setting out to do damage for the sake of damage. He’s not evil to the core. I refuse to believe that’s what we’re meant to be left with at the end; redeemable or not, his goal isn’t pain. A lie is best wrapped in truths, and Isayama is fueling our own fear of Eren’s monstrous side by making us do callbacks to things in the past that could be seen as seeds of evil. And to a degree he’s right. Eren is violent. To be honest, it never say well with me how he killed those men at age nine. I understood the “the end justifies the means” aspect of it, and I think that’s why I was able to let it slide despite the discomfort. Yet it never quite... fell to rest. A nine year old being able to stab other humans to death with no remorse and such violent words... should a nine year old child be able to do that, even if it’s for the greater good? I’m sure I’m not alone. And Isayama intended it this way, to be able to do this callback. It spreads uncertainty. You start to buy into it... Becayse it’s true to some degree: it’s messed up. Your regular kid couldn’t do something like that... But it’s not proof that Eren is evil through and through. It’s just presented in such a way that it makes for a compelling argument. And in the heat of the moment, it provides the “holy shit fuck” the story needs to make the stakes as severe as possible. Taking a step back, I refuse to believe it’s a true revelation, but an intensional gaslighting of his person, presented so we’ll swallow the bait. Eren having always been a monster incubating, is too cartoony to be the final note.

So the question becomes: is the plan true or false? Depending on the answer, we’ll have three different proceedings. In neither scenario, he’s means to be the evil monster he’s seen as right now, though. If the plan is true, he’s become this way through being misguided and lost in perpetual hate and pain caused by all the knowledge and visions. With this backdrop, EMA/SC will have to either take him out despite realizing/finding out the pain that corrupted him - so not hating him but having to end him all the same. Or, they manage to win through to him by countering the hate with love (he could still die though, we might be past the point of no return, ngl).

On the other hand, if Eren’s been playing the long game and about to throw them for a loop, the cast members will all learn this in time and come to accept the bittersweet outcome that after all will be the best ending they can ask for in a world with so much hate. Eren can still die, I’m not delusional (but here’s hoping he won’t).

*when I use the term “monster” - and “evil”/“villain” - I’m pinning that to a personality that intends harm with the end goal of harm. Just because he’s not a monster (if this turns out to be the case), that doesn’t mean he isn’t still in the wrong, antagonistic, irredeemable for actions done in the name of good, etc. This ramble meta is about Eren being a conscious agent of pain versus a bringer of pain yet an agent of “good” (not considering his performance as an agent of such).

**He was already tainted from the attack in Liberio, so while I say “pure boy”, I mean in terms of us/the characters still seeing him as originally good (possibly - but “I refuse to believe it” - bad).

Edit: while I say at the start that if the plan is true, he’s a monster, and later say it could be true and he’s still not a monster for it, what I mean is this: if the plan is true in the sense that he knows how evil and selective it is, and will fight for it till the end, then yes, he turned out to be the monster that Mikasa correctly realized him to be. If, on the other hand, erens goal isn’t the pain but the greater good, he’s a misguided “good boy” who caused more bad than good out of mistake. If this is the case, I also believe he will realize it before the end, to swing that morality pendulum back towards the middle. Hope that clears it up. It’s about intent.

Thus concludes my late night/early morning rambles. I’ve said it before, I’m fine with anyone calling me a naive idiot for still holding out hope, but I’m just not accepting that Eren going full Satan and us accepting that “surprise, he always was Satan” is what Isayama wants to leave us with.

Isayama say sike right now.