OnK Chapter 151
Me two weeks ago:
Me reading this chapter:
The fact that Aka did parallel Chapter 30 makes me feel like we're definitely going to see some Tokyo Blade & Private parallels as the anime covers those arcs. For the better or for the worse.
But we'll get there in due time. For now, time to laugh at the writing again 😂
I have to hand it to Aka. I mentioned that last chapter highlighted like half the reasons why I find romantic Aqua/Kana so poorly written, and this chapter right here did a fine job at highlighting the rest 😂
I want to be an actress!
Well... Aqua wants me to be an idol and it may not be so bad actually, I want to be Aqua's Oshi no Ko!
Aqua is ignoring me! Being an idol sucks, I quit! I'm going to be a great actress!
I may have a chance with Aqua actually. I just want to be his Oshi no Ko!
It's wild to me that Aka had Kana say that her current dream is just to be Aqua's Oshi no Ko. Absolutely wild. This girl was so desperate to become a well-known actress that she was willing to be casting-couched for it, yet suddenly now it's actually it's fine that I peaked when I was five tee hee!
She's obviously lying to herself and settling for the level she is in now because she thinks that reaching that level of notoriety is out of her reach, but...
Not gonna lie, as someone who has seen Akane be called everything from obsessed to emotionally dependant to simp, it is hilarious to witness Kana's writing right now.
But I guess it couldn't have been any other way, because what Kana asks out of Aqua this chapter is a reflection of what she has wanted all along:
I mentioned it before that Kana started fixating on Aqua as being that person for her, and this chapter shows that's still the case. There's nothing inherently wrong with that IMO, in fact it could be empowering to know that as long as this one person is in your corner, you can take on the world.
The problem is that so far, Aka hasn't quite written it that way. The secret behind Kana's acting is that she wants people to look at her, she wants people to acknowledge her, to love her. But when that desire is centered on Aqua and Aqua alone, she gets so hung-up on him that it's debilitating. She literally became a shell of herself during that year Aqua was no longer a part of her life.
Last time I felt Kana was acting pathetic, Aka confirmed that she was indeed meant to be perceived that way, and Kana gave herself a reality-check:
I thought Kana's moment of self-awareness was going to lead her to be emotionally independent from Aqua, but it seems that the fact that Aqua wound up saving her either way undid that progress. Now that she has hope that he may date her if she makes a move, she's taking it so far that she's ranking her romance with him over her lifelong dreams.
All this to say that since Aka once deliberately wrote Kana being overly dependant on Aqua to show that it's not how she is meant to be, I can't help but hope we may see something similar later.
Granted, Kana being written like a shounen love-interest whose entire purpose is just to get with the MC has always been a risk, so I guess this is par for that course lol
As for Aqua, I mentioned before that I believe Kana is everything he liked about both, Ai and Sarina and thus, the perfect Oshi... and this chapter has Kana declaring out-loud that she wants to be his one true Oshi No Ko.
Moreover, this is happening right after Ruby told Aqua this:
And while Sarina is undoubtedly Goro's Oshi, Kana wants to be Aqua's. The issue with that however... is that Kana wants to be the only person Aqua looks at, his Number One.
Meanwhile, Aqua kind of has his hand full in that regard already, so it's no wonder that through his shock, he isn't able to "catch" the ball symbolizing that particular part of Kana's dream 😂
There's his eyes, too. Last chapter I said that Aka seems to want us to compare the Aqua-Ruby chapters we got in this volume with Kana's, and the way Kana's confession was structured seems to confirm this is the case. So following that comparison, it stands out to me that Ruby's words brought out Aqua's white star and Kana's didn't. Especially because just a few chapters ago we saw Kana bring out Aqua's white star just by being Kana:
In this chapter Kana praises him, validates him, confirms that she is into him (which he has likely known since, coincidentally, at least Chapter 30), yet Aqua’s star remains black all throughout.
Why is that? Is it just his self-hatred and his guilt-complex keeping him from accepting that he’s the object of Kana’s straight gaze?
Or could Aka be hinting at something else?
Aqua has a lot of issues. Some have been with him since he was Goro, and others he has developed during his current life. We saw that Ruby's words pacified the "Goro" within him, but Aqua dismissed Ruby's affection as being aimed at him because he once was Goro. It's not something he feels he has earned in his current life. Kana is the other side of that complex equation. Everything she knows about him are things he has been willing to show her, but what about everything else? What about his trauma and his dark impulses? What about his past? Aqua likely thinks her view of him is skewed, and he is not wrong in that regard. But I'll stop there before I bring Akane into the mess lmao
All in all, for the time being, I feel like what we saw this chapter tracks with my thoughts here:
Aqua, Kana, Ai and Aka's concept of Oshi
Kana is the Ultimate Oshi (parallels to Sarina and Ai) + 1
Even more parallels and a theory about their purpose
Considering how lousy Aka's writing has been lately, I feel like this is still the most interesting route he could take. After all, if we abide by the values he preached in Kaguya, then Oshi is meant to be a platonic concept. So following Aka's logic, for Aqua and Kana to end up together, Aqua would need to tell her that he doesn't want her to be his Oshi, but his lover.
Of course, it's entirely possible that Aka is going to walk back on all of that. Oshi no Ko is supposed to be its own manga, after all. Maybe it's his attempt at writing tropes in the most straight-forward way possible and Aka's new idea of a big love declaration is Aqua finally waving the white lightstick at Kana's graduation concert.
If the curtains truly are just blue, I hope the writing will remain as hilarious as it has been these past few chapters 😂
In the meantime, the other thing that stood out to me this chapter was Aqua himself. We all know that being a surgeon was Goro's dream, so it makes sense for Goro to chase that dream in this new life as Aqua. I was even happy for him when he first brought it up because this life is his chance to do everything he wanted but couldn't in his first life!
But last chapter we had a big showing of "Goro" telling "Aqua" that he is free to live his own life now. In other words, instead of trying to do what Goro would have done if he had a second chance, he can focus on doing the things that he wants to do as the individual he has become during his life as Aqua Hoshino.
So, I feel like this begs the question: is being a surgeon truly Aqua Hoshino's dream? Like not even something he wants to do alongside other things, but his outright dream?
I can't help but wonder. Particularly because, in my opinion, the TB arc did a good job at foreshadowing that Aqua Hoshino is made to be an actor.
In this chapter Kana seems to be fooling herself into giving up on her childhood dream because she thinks it's out of her reach. It would fit, then, for the Aqua in this chapter to be fooling himself as well.
If we entertain the thought of wanting to be a surgeon being a vestige of his old life rather than something Aqua truly dreams of in his current life, then his reaction in these pages becomes more interesting:
Kana assumes Aqua is just embarrassed, but these panels to me read like something more than that - for more reasons than one.
Just like Goro guided him to Kana last chapter possibly based on his own wants, in this chapter Kana unknowingly guides him to Goro's.
She is completely right. Every word she says rings true.
But I'd argue that everything she said was already accomplished by Goro in his previous life. He did save lives (although not as many as he would've wanted, and not the ones that counted the most for him), he was a light to Sarina, etc. etc. He was a good doctor.
Everything Kana says about Aqua was already true of Goro. On the other hand, Kana's description of Aqua paints nothing but virtues, and we know for a fact Aqua isn't only just light. More than that, we know for a fact that Aqua doesn't see himself that way.
Much like how in Chapter 149 we got Kana giving a very positive but very one-sided description of Akane that leaves out her negative traits, Kana more or less does the same thing with Aqua here.
In Chapter 149, Akane first got flustered (her idol Kana-chan was praising her, after all) and then sobered up; possibly because for her it's the opposite (she isn't a goody-two-shoes nor normal nor decent, and men would prefer women who are - like Kana).
I feel like in this Chapter, we may or may not have seen a repeat of this with Aqua. It's his Oshi no Kana praising him, but does he really believe the things she's saying of him? Or are they just a reminder of what he is not (according to himself)?
I can't help but wonder, because last time we saw Aqua blushing to the point that he had to hide his face, Mengo and Aka made sure we could see his blush.
The way he is drawn here is very obviously meant to be paralleled to this chapter, he shields his face in the same way and all. So why not simply show his blush, just like they did in Chapter 29?
Granted, this is just me naturally going for the most interesting possibility lol It is entirely possible and even likely that this is all as simple as it seems. But to be fair, in Chapter 30 he throws the ball at Kana in the same way and it wasn't because Kana was right. At the contrary: it was because he was having a moment and Kana drew the most basic conclusion out of it, one that embarrassed him lmao
Geez it's kind of sad how this manga lends itself to two completely different readings and the most basic one is the one with the highest chances of being true 😂
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RWBY Evermorrow Ep.7 Director's Commentary (or something)
The newscast segment was a late addition, we decided it was best to move a scene to a later episode for a better sense of narrative. I even already animated that whole scene so we don't need to worry about it!
We were gonna use Lisa Lavender here, but decided it was better to use Cyril due to availability of existing cast members as the scene was kind of last minute. We see it as Cyril being the guy in the studio, and Lisa being the reporter in the field.
Khaki's prison number is funny if you can decipher it.
Originally this episode was a big ol scene of RWBYCRDL recounting the mission to Oz and Glynda, then the punishments being dished out, but I was having such a dull time writing it that we decided it was best to cut the recap of the immediate previous episode and hope the teams' reactions did the work. I think it was for the best, a glorified recap episode seems like it would've been a waste of production; if it wasn't fun to write it wouldn't have been fun to watch.
It was a good time to bring in Glynda as she's always been Beacon's voice of reason around Oz's more whimsical tendencies. She's to-the-point and will make no excuses, which sells the teams being reprimanded more. Plus the added questioning of what exactly Ozpin is saying to Cardin offscreen is an interesting question in the viewer's mind.
(Also our Ozpin VA was kinda unavailable but for a very good reason lol)
Let's talk Dove. You've probably noticed he's very much the reasonable one on EM CRDL at this point, which is very intentional as going in I wanted to make them more interesting than Cardin and the Cardins. CRWBY once said Dove was the most skilled of CRDL, which is an interesting angle, and Doves are a symbol of peace which inspired me to make him the """nicer""" one, albeit a bit embittered by his lot in life. This episode has a montage of the moments in ep5-6 that really lay it all out that he's a little better than the others on his team, which is why Ruby vouched for him.
There was going to be a decent focus on family in this episode, but eventually we whittled it down to just Russel's and Dove's. Being like "oh and here's a character's parent being funny and mad" worked twice, but three to eight times might have gotten old lmao
Why did I pick Bertilak for Russel's guardian? Green. Mohawk. Moody. Not a big Faunus fan.
Okay so that's only part of it. Russel has been consistently portrayed as a bit of a doormat in EM, following Cardin's orders or deferring to the next biggest fish if he's not around. His actions around Bertilak imply that the latter is the source of all that behaviour.
Dove offers Ruby an "Olive Branch". I don't know if I can get more unsubtle than this.
Don't ship them they literally feel nothing about each other. That's canon.
Why did I pick Shopkeep for Dove's grandpa? Closed eyes, and Shopkeep is everywhere. That's literally the joke.
Pyke Rite from The Grimm Campaign.
There were a few characters I really wanted to get involved sooner. Can you believe it took us till Ep7 for Ren or Nora to say anything? It felt good to have all of JNPR and OP(A)L fully animated in the same scene, and was fun to set up dynamics like Oscar being a fanboy, Alyx being a little shit and the two teams generally getting along.
In comparison to 6 this episode was a lot calmer and a lot more talk-y, but hopefully we managed to make it fun. The animators and VAs did amazing as always (the former has basically eclipsed my efforts at this point), and I'm looking forward to ep8 very much! Bigger and better!
If you have extra questions about this ep you can shoot me an ask, I'm always down to self-indulge lmao
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if ur requests are open, could we have like 141 falling asleep on the reader??? like different scenarios for each of them like price falls asleep accidentally and so does ghost while gaz and soap are like cuddling or laying on the reader :) i love ur writing so much <333
the 141 falls asleep on you
wc: 2.1k
hello!!! been struggling to love my writing for like the last month so i really hope you enjoy, and i'm sorry in advance lol its mostly fluffy but i just couldn't help myself with a lil bit of angst :)
price
✹ when you hear the front door open in the middle of the night – or, technically, early morning – the first thought your sleep-addled mind comes up with is that you're being robbed.
✹ with your heart in your throat, you sit up in bed and stare wide-eyed at the bedroom door, but your fear is short lived when a dull thud meets your ears, followed by a familiar curse that has you breathing a sigh of relief.
✹ your husband, coming home at last from a night of drinking with the other members of the taskforce, presumably stubbing his toe on the sofa that hasn't moved an inch since you put it there all those years ago.
✹ with a deep yawn, you get back under the covers and let your eyes fall shut again, the knowledge that it was john downstairs and not a burglar putting your racing heart to rest.
✹ you don't react when he clumsily slips through the door, fighting the laugh that threatens to give you away when you hear him swear under his breath after bumping into yet another piece of furniture.
✹ the cold air sends goosebumps rippling across your skin when he lifts the covers to clamber in beside you, but the chill is quickly chased away by his hands bringing you into his chest and his enveloping warmth.
✹ "and what time do you call this?" you tease in a whisper, opening your eyes to see his guilty ones looking back at you. the slight flush in his cheeks and his half-lidded gaze gives him a boyish charm that you can't even pretend to be mad at.
✹ "sorry darlin', didn't mean to wake you..." he murmurs in return, a sheepish smile pulling at one side of his lips.
✹ "well, i'm glad you had a good time," you punctuate your reply by placing a light kiss on the bridge of his nose, which prompts his smile to grow wider as he hugs your body to his own.
✹ "i'm havin' a better time now, love." he ghosts his lips over yours as he whispers, earning another tiny chuckle from you, his fingers tracing patterns into the skin of your back under your shirt.
✹ you can smell the whisky on his breath as he leans even further into you, and taste it when he closes the distance to devour your lips in a passionate, if slightly messy, kiss.
✹ he sighs into your mouth, his lips falling from yours when he rolls you onto your back to lay his head on your chest, and like a switch, he's dead asleep.
✹ "john?" you whisper, in a sort of disbelief that he was actually asleep just like that, but he doesn't even flinch when you gently poke his cheek. "oh my god…"
✹ once the morning rolls around, you both share a laugh about his drunken state from the night before, and he makes you promise not to tell the boys he passed out in the middle of kissing you.
✹ you just laugh and file it away for future blackmail.
gaz
✹ the two of you were watching a movie late one night, the first time you've had time to yourselves in months thanks to the never-ending workload you both seem to be under.
✹ the dim mood lighting of your flat combined with the comforting feeling of finally being alone with kyle is nearly enough to send you to sleep already, but your want to spent time with him keeps you awake.
✹ kyle watches you stifle a yawn as he presses play on the movie, and tugs you to lean against him with an arm around your shoulders and a teasing grin. "promise you won't fall asleep this time?"
✹ you look up to him from where your head rests against his collar and huff, a smile of your own playing on your lips as you nudge him lightly with your elbow. "maybe i should be the one asking that."
✹ the bags under his eyes leave no question about how tired he really is, but he was the one that insisted the two of you spend time together tonight, despite the exhaustion you knew he was hiding.
✹ "and leave you all by yourself?" he chuckles, "never, love."
✹ a comfortable quiet settles over you while you watch the movie together; kyle's choice, something action-y you've never seen before, but you know he's seen it a million times. he occasionally adds commentary to make you laugh which he, naturally, manages to do every time.
✹ as the movie plays, you gradually migrate to laying on the sofa on your back with kyle between your legs and his head on your sternum. you absentmindedly run your nails over his scalp, gently massaging his head while he hugs your waist.
✹ it's about two-thirds of the way through the movie that you realise kyle hasn't said anything in a while. you pause your ministrations, smoothing over his curls as you turn your gaze from the screen to where he lays on top of you.
✹ a soft smile lights up your face when your eyes land on his blissfully relaxed features, sound asleep and breathing in time with the steady rise and fall of your chest.
✹ you continue to watch the movie in silence, occasionally petting kyle's hair when he grumbles in his sleep. he deserves the rest, you muse, and something about how peaceful he looks means you can't even entertain the idea of disturbing him. and you would definitely tease him that he fell asleep like he said he wouldn't.
✹ even once the movie has finished, and your back has started to ache from the position against the armrest, you still don't dare wake him. tomorrow was an off day for both of you, so there was no need to go anywhere – as if you would ever want to, intertwined with your boyfriend and surrounded by his warmth.
✹ you close your eyes, give him one last squeeze, and whisper into the silence, "sweet dreams, kyle."
soap
✹ it wasn't supposed to happen like this.
✹ everything was supposed to go smoothly, you'd get what you came for, and you'd be home in time for dinner.
✹ but it hadn't happened like that of course it didn't. you were on your way out, with johnny by your side, when a sudden noise from behind you caught your attention.
✹ you spin around to see a dishevelled soldier aiming their gun at you, but you noticed just a second too late. you can do little more than watch as they pull the trigger, a sick sense of horror travelling up your spine as time seems to slow down.
✹ there's a split second where you brace to feel the bullet lodge somewhere in your body, but that impact never comes.
✹ with a speed you didn't know he possessed, johnny tackles you to the ground and out of the path of the bullet, landing on top of you and pushing the air from your lungs.
✹ you lay winded underneath him, the sound of him returning fire vaguely reaching your ears but it takes a second for your mind to catch up.
✹ it’s quiet by the time you come back to your senses, johnny already pulling you to stand with a strained grunt.
✹ "johnny?" you frown, taking note of how he favours one side when he urges you to start walking again, "you okay?"
✹ "fine, darlin’, let’s just–" he winces, stumbling ever so slightly and trying to play it off by pushing you in front of him, "let’s just get home, aye?"
✹ your frown deepens. you turn around and stop him with your hands on his shoulders, and it's then that you notice how laboured his breathing has become.
✹ "you're not fine, soap!" your heart sinks as you watch the patches of blood on his leg grow steadily darker, "why didn't you tell me you were hit?"
✹ he doesn't flinch at the anger in your voice, or when you haul his arm over your shoulder and resume dragging him the rest of the way to the helo. he mumbles incoherent that sounds like an apology, but your only focus is getting him to safety and stopping the bleeding.
✹ the others are already waiting for you as the exfil site comes into view, and the moment they spot you shouldering johnny's weight they spring into action to help you.
✹ johnny is dragged up the ramp and made to lay on the floor as gaz and ghost make short work of packing the bullet wound in his thigh with gauze.
✹ you lift his shoulders and head to rest in your lap, grimacing at the pained groans he lets out when ghost puts his weight on the wound.
✹ "why didn't you tell me?" you utter, tilting his head back with your hands on his cheeks and meeting his distant gaze with your brows knitted together in concern.
✹ he musters a weak smile and lets his eyes flutter shut, the muscles in his face visibly relax. "i’m fine… ‘slong as yer okay, bonnie…"
ghost
✹ sometimes you wondered if ghost ever slept.
✹ he would always volunteer himself for the first watch, and he was up before you without fail every morning. on base he always seemed to be in the gym before everyone, and in his office after everyone else has left. he was frustratingly elusive.
✹ it worried you, that perhaps he had trouble sleeping. it made sense, however saddening, that someone like him wouldn't sleep well, but it was even worse that he brushed off your concern for him with practised ease.
✹ he made sure to take care of others, but wouldn't let you try and do the same for him. perhaps he thought you were joking, or that you were only being courteous, but your mind always goes back to one thing; the theory that, for some people, it's only possible for them to fall asleep when they feel safe.
✹ you wanted to be that for him, like he was for you.
✹ you do your best to forget about your rejected concerns for him, and the thought all but slips your mind until a mission two months later.
✹ it was long, drawn-out, and gruelling, and all you wanted to do was get home and have a shower hot enough to melt your skin. it had been almost a week since you've had a moment to catch your breath, and you were more than thankful to be on the way home.
✹ even if that meant being squashed into the back of an suv with soap passed out on your left and ghost on your right. gaz called shotgun and wouldn't give it up for anything, so here you were, shoulder to shoulder with the lieutenant you may or may not harbour feelings for.
✹ the five of you have been on the road for a couple of hours now. the conversation has died down by now and and the quiet hum of the radio was the only sound, besides soap's intermittent snores.
✹ you're on the verge of passing out yourself when a weight drops onto your shoulder, and you have to fight yourself not to jump with the start it gives you.
✹ your tired eyes look to the source and to your utter surprise, they find the dark fabric of ghost's balaclava resting against you, and when you tilt your head you can see the blond of his eyelashes against his cheeks.
✹ the sight brings a smile to your face. as subtle as possible, you shift as much as the limited space of the backseat will allow so his neck isn't bent at such an awkward angle.
✹ he fell asleep on you. perhaps it was just because of the exhaustion this mission left him with, but you like to think back on your theory from weeks ago as you admire the restful expression he wears.
✹ your stop fighting your own exhaustion and let your eyes fall shut, and with your last thread of consciousness you file this memory away for later, and hope that it really does mean that he feels safe with you.
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