#Not really soushin

[kazuy666]

She Sou on my Shin til I uhhh til ugmmhhh uuhgg Uuueeu uueeh,m. Uhh. w hat

[kkoct-ik]

i really really like them

[kadedori]

🥴 😐

[comakke]

ummm you know i think im done working on this

[momentomori24]

Finally finished my untitled Soushin poem I was working on in Doki Doki Literature Club Ceative Writing Club! I'm not good with trigger warnings, but this one is kinda heavy. Topics include implied/referenced abuse, unhealthy dynamics, codependancy, self blame-- typical Soushin but take caution anyway.

Anyway, hope you enjoy. This is for you, fellow Soushin lads.*Ahem*:

The rain beats against the window glass, haphazardly and random

To him it's nothing but mindless staccato, indistinct and humdrum

It's background noise; static fills his waning mind but he listens anyway

The clatter and chatter from the people outdoors has long faded away

It's silent now, save for the cacophony of sounds he takes in without a word

The melonchony orchestra playing the dismal soundtrack of his lonely world

Maybe ''lonely'' is a bit misleading

Does ''grieve'' really describe the emptiness he's feeling?

Those malachite eyes, a smile so sickeningly kind

digs itself out from the deepest pit of his mind

A constant, terrifying presence, day by day

A shadow glued to his side that never goes away

His face pales, his stomach churns-- he shouldn't miss him at all

Shouldn't think of the person he hung up his pictures on their wall

Should never revisit the laughter, the carnage, the violence

The way he let it all go on in ignorance and silence

It's over now, yet he goes through his days lost and dazed

Without purpose, without plans, without the answers he craved

His garden of hopes and dreams lays withered in the aftermath of that fateful fall

And as he ponders and wonders when life will once more flourish here he questions why anything ever withered at all

Sometimes, he recalls those eyes

soaking up his fear as he trembled and cried

Those loathsome hands, pulling, carressing, always on him, never gone

and that satisfied grin at the lack of resistance, the evidence he's won

Sometimes, he still misses him

That love and care, that person, that man

that weird, charasmatic stranger he grew to love when their friendship first began

That cursed scarf around his neck feels akin to a stranglehold

But he can only continue latching on to it, not bold enough to let go

It's a sickness, a plague, but it's his own

Too ravenous, destructive of an illness for one person alone

But it's just him now, alone in the dark

As he lifts his arm, gaze trailing fading marks

The permanet reminders of what he let happen without a fight

stare back him in indifference, the cold truth at its most unbearable at this hour of night

A laugh bubbles from his throat, and another, raspy and crass

As sharp and uninviting as shattered glass

What even was so funny? How utterly hopeless, utterly pointless the situation was?

But there was nothing left, and he laughed

And laughed

And laughed

As Sou is naturally my favourite character he has to suffer just as naturally (affectionate). I didn't plan to write something this grim, but I'm surprisingly alright with how this turned out. This is my first time writing a poem, so please be nice to me. And if you didn't like, then still be be nice. Thanks 👍

[midorihiyori]

i also like soushin but youre not a proshipper right. just checking

NO!!!! I AM NOT A PROSHIPPER!!! ❌️❌️❌️❌️❌️

[alllovegoddess]

Hiiii do u know any good Hiyori and shin fics? Or any good authors who write about them?

yeah here check my fics out

[midoribai]

dunno how but my train of thought led me to wonder if you're fireproof,,, like...inside or out...

- 🎐 (im sorry i keep asking strange things,, feel free to like,, not answer if it ever makes you uncomfy,,)

"..."

"Well.. as concerned as I am on why you'd ask that, I'll answer your question anyway. I'm not fireproof. I'd probably start melting or something, ahaha."

[pixelrots]

hiiii do u know any good sou and Hiyori fics? Any good authors too, like traptrix?

OH BOY DO I!!! i thought you would never ask 😁!! im going to rant a bit now i hope you don't mind. i consider myself a soushin ao3 connoisseur if you will, there's a lot but i find the gold underneath the. non con i guess. i dedicate my ao3 account to recing and bookmarking (primarily soushin) fanfiction so if you wanna look through my public soushin bookmarks you can see them here. but ill talk about some great authors now

YES traptrixnepenthes is one of my very favorite authors for the pair they are very awesome outstanding characterization i loove rereading their soushin fics. i think all of their soushin fics are top tier read all of them they are the cream of the crop i am telling you. ok anyway

Novaz writes some very nice fics, this one being my favorites of theirs. their Cinderella Kiss fic was the introduction of soushin for me so that's epic but i was actually still playing the game when i read it, i wasn't even on chapter 3 so i was real confused but still very cool

Vixpine is another really great author i used to be a big fan and now we are mutuals :D isn't that so cool i think that's cool!! vixpine is so awesome, this is my favorite fic by them but big angst warning like its crazy. fun fact this is actually the author that really got me into soushin so thank you vix o7

Mido_X is a real one, he writes a lot of soushin based on psych headcanons and give lots of ASPD midori fics which i always love its very real to me, i really love how they portray their relationship. also one of my mutuals!! and they participated in my soushin week!!!!! so he is very very awesome and cool. here is my favorite fic of his, 2/3 chapters are finished but i think its fun speculating what could happen next!

masadora only has 2 soushin fics but they are super good alright trust this one is my favorite of the two, its a nice long 26k word work and a little horror and unreliable narrator is so fun

OK my soushin fanfiction rant is over thank you for giving me an excuse to yap. soushin forever. peace out

[pieravane]

I understand why that other person would be concerned but you can enjoy the lore and story of a toxic ship without supporting the actual toxic stuff…

It would be different if it was being romanticized but enjoying learning and thinking about how it impacts a character and the story is inchresting and okay..

exactly

i honestly dont like that i have to justify myself but

for me my enjoyment of soushin is deeply personal because i've been in a really similar situation as shin but i shouldnt be having to justify that to people.

its okay to like dark stories. im not saying that manipulation is good and we should have more of it in this world by exploring a relationship dynamic. set yourself free.

i like other shin ships too. i just think its very probable that soushin actually had a romantic undertone beneath it all (wether it was healthy or not).

the way i approach "ships" is a little unconventional so i understand it sounds like i support toxic relationships when i say "i ship soushin". when i say i ship something, i dont really mean that they should be together. I usually mean that it makes sense that they would be together and/or their relationship in a romantic context is interesting to me. this is just how i view shipping as a whole, regardless of if its about soushin or not.

not to mention how soushin is far more complicated than a black and white "abuse x victim" dynamic but i'm not gonna get into that for now.

I'll keep this explanation behind my liking for soushin as my new pinned post to hopefully avoid further confusion.

[chihirolovebot]

for the character asks 1,8, and 37 for shin tsukimi … I’d love to hear your thoughts on that little asshole LMAO

THAT FREAK !!!

1 — canon i absolutely reject

honestly ?? yttd is so well written that i don't know there's anything i dislike abt how shin is written. i love that he's short and loserish and pathetic, but equally capable of remorse and genius and self-loathing. i guess i reject the screaming death flags he's throwing up with his 0% chance of winning.....

8 — unpopular opinion about them

he's so unlike ouma it's unreal and seeing them get compared beyond surface-level similarities makes me skin itch. i elaborate on it here . if im going a bit more controversial i think his relationship w midori is SO interesting and i really like fic that explores that, and i dont think everyone who does that should be lumped in as a soushin shipper . i dont want them to kiss and get married i want to dissect them on ym science table .

37 — what they really think of themselves

INTERESTING. i think it's pretty clear shin has some low self-esteem and this is what fuels him throughout the killing game. HOWEVER what i really like abt him is that he believes he has a right to live, something that is actually fairly rare in genres like a death game. loads of main characters will end up making a sacrifice for someone else, i.e. mishima and kanna, but what drives shin to create the false identity and try to get rid of sara is that he WANTS to live, even if it's at the expense of everyone else. so his self-esteem is low, but out of something—spite, or maybe pure human preservation—it doesn't manifest in a way that makes him feel worthless or subservient to others, which we see in characters like komaeda. it's a very interesting brand of self-hatred. he goes through the game like he has something to prove.

[soushinnier]

just saw that mean comment and wanted to say you are not a stain on anything!!! I bet you're really cool!! soushin for the win!!! let the boys be gay and merry!!! they should kiss a lot actually!!!

oh, thank you very much anon! I really needed to hear this type of message, I receive really nasty messages every day that talk about deaths and things like that...thanks again to anon! AND SOUSHIN CANON!!

[ffatmaaaa]

i really REALLY hate how soushin shippers picture midori and sou like idc about the ship at all ship whatever you like but atleast dont turn them into a whole new characters..i could write abt this more but im so tired rn

[momentomori24]

Long-ass fandom rant because I need to scream into the void to find a reason to live let's gooooo

[For context I wrote most of this last friday which I thought was good to mention so the timeline makes a bit more sense. I really held off on this one XD Welp, let's start this trainwreck.]

Ok, I know I have other long posts I should be paying attention to (*cough* Keiji's shady shenanigans rant *cough*) among other probably more important things, but quickly wanna get this off my chest because it's kinda started to bug me and add even more concerns about the yttd fandom than I already have. This is specifically going to be about soushin-- yeah, yeah, I know-- but also bleed into something more... broad. Or broader. Idk, I'm a Tumblr user not a grammar teacher.

While browsing through Twitter I've been noticing a little spike in popularity for yttd with more fans and soushin shippers emerging as well. Which is cool, the game deserves all the praise and popularity it can get. And as someone whose been here for years, I'm glad that the fandom is slowly and steadily grown more accepting of soushin compared to the attitude around it way back when. There's been some genuinely really cool stuff that really does the ship justice from a lot of talented artist and writers that I absolutely love (will link some later), but something I've also been seeing a lot of from fans is what I can only describe as a "sanitisation resurgence" (but not really. kinda). A week or two ago on Twitter I stumbled across some soushin discourse where some people were sharing the sentiment that "if soushin end up being related and/or have a big age gap the ship is ruined". That they can only be two years apart max or else Nankidai has "fumbled them".

And the only response to that I had is "what". Like, how is that a deal breaker to you lot? How did you even get into the ship without accepting that those things could very likely end up being canon? How are you here and not ready to ship them no matter what's revealed about them after everything we've learned about them? Midori and Shin possibly being related was always on the table, and Midori potentially having already been an adult when Shin was in high school was always a very real possibility ever since we learned that he was never actually a student at his school. This is literally what soushin shippers got harassed by antis for years ago. Soushin is "problematic", and that's why people who shipped them where treated so badly in the fandom or just excluded all together. I can't count how many timed I've come across a "soushin shippers dni" or "soushiners are freaks and I hope you all have a bad day" or soushin fanfics/art with "I DON'T ACTUALLY SHIP IT BTW" and "not a ship" and "actual soushin shippers dni" attached to it. I can't recall how many times I had to explain myself with the "I ship but I don't condone it irl" or explain why I shipped them to not be labelled as a freak as if you need an excuse to ship anything fictional to begin with. I still remember soushin artist @uououoon and how they ended up deleting their Twitter account years ago because of the harassment and slanderous comments they were receiving for ships the fandom deemed problematic. When a person was saying their goodbyes to them on reddit and made some goodbye art (which is now deleted), some assholes in the comments were calling them weirdos and pedophiles for how they explored fiction and "glorified abuse" (which are the usual comments to uououoon's art posted on reddit unfortunately). I only caught wind of this one because back when they were still active in the fandom they were my favourite soushin artist and I went through their stuff almost every day and was tipped off when I randomly couldn't find their account anymore. They were such a nice and incredibly talented person too so the fact they essentially got bullied by a flock of stupid western fans seriously irritates me thinking about it again. This is why we cannot have nice things.

Soushin is "problematic". It's toxic and subtly abusive and important to the characters in question, but that didn't stop people from going after people who wanted to explore a dark, canon relationship (romantic, platonic or otherwise). How the actual hell did we go from "soushin has very toxic and problematic elements and you shouldn't be shipping it, you fucking freaks" to "you can ship it but don't make it actually problematic, you fucking freaks" like what is happening right now???? The worst part is that this is coming from other soushin shippers. The fact that there's actually soushiners with "proshippers dni" or "soushin is not for proship" genuinely makes me want to bite someone. Like, you horrible summer child-- not only are you demonstrating that you don't even know what "proship" actually means, but you're also spitting in the face of the people in our community that have CARRIED this ship for us for years. Why throw them under the bus to be one of the “good ones” in the eyes of antis when they hate us all anyway?

This brings us back to the sanitisation point: I feel like soushin is slowly being "sanitised" to fit the sensitive palette of antis by trying to make them as "morally acceptable" as possible. It's a worry I’ve had for a long time that once the fandom grows more accepting of the ship we'll be seeing more people basically scrubbing soushin of everything that made, well, soushin, to justify enjoying it. I've seen a bit of it already with a few people trying to say it's "not abusive" or just erase Shin's very obvious trauma by Midori all together for quite some time. Guess it's starting to happen on a bigger scale sooner rather than later. Maybe. Personally I don't think soushin having a big age gap or being related would ruin the ship. It just adds another layer of fucked up to their already fucked up relationship (I already hc Midori to be significantly older anyway so maybe I'm just biased). It doesn't really matter. I came here for toxic yaoi. I want nuclear waste level toxicity, not nuclear waste level toxicity presented in the most conventional and moral way possible. What would the point even be? It’s like packaging poison in a grape juice box. Like, it might be harmless to look at and more justifiable to think of as delicious, but it’s still poison. You making it look all cute and innocent isn’t going to change that. It's kinda funny and by that I mean not really that people will talk about wanting more "toxic yaoi" but when the yaoi is actually toxic and messy and horrific they will cry about it being "bad" or "ruined". You don't actually want dark dynamics, you want dark dynamics stripped of everything that makes them uncomfortable and dark so it's digestible to your tastes that don't even align with said dynamics in the first place. The worst part of this whole "soushin isn't proship so it's fine" bullshit is that it relies on trying to make the ship more "morally acceptable" or "legal" than other ships. Dawg, we are talking about abuse. You shouldn't be minimising that to say "well it's not [insert other terrible thing] so it's fine!!" That's not the "gotcha" you think it is. It’s one of the reasons why antis being into soushin made me feel weird cuz like you can’t ship it and then turn around to insult someone else, man (I’ve seen so many soushin defenders bash other “proships” to justify theirs like what are you doing--).

Realistically, the simplest and smartest thing to do when I see someone mischaracterise or butcher my faves is to either block or ignore and pretend to not care so I don't act on my sixth sense telling me to off them and myself. Realistically, this shouldn't be a big deal or anything that important, but this attitude is usually weaponized to harm and harass people who don't conform to their purity crisis over fiction. I'm in the unfortunate position of being not only a Your Turn to Die fandom dweller, but a Hazbin Hotel and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley one too. I'm used to being labelled a rapist and incest apologist irl who's delusional and deserves to be harassed and insulted by virtue of the media or ships I like (probably not a good thing). But people who are more active in these fandoms than me have it much worse as they get this shit directly waaaay more often while I mostly get called these things indirectly, which is what motivated me more to make this post.

So a couple days ago someone made some art of Monika from ddlc, Nikole (don't know the game sorry) and Ashley from Tcoaal. A lot of people on Twitter, unsurprisingly, bashed it for including Ashley to the point where some felt the need to clarify that they like her as a character but her actions (for some reason I do not understand like Monika has also done some seriously evil shit why are you not applying that logic to her too?). What struck me the most is that a yttd fan-- a self proclaimed "Midori enthusiast"-- ALSO quoted it to bash having Ashley in it. A freaking Midori fan. I told them to mind their business and start separating fiction and reality and to stop being a hypocrite, and thus ensued the most hilarious and stupidest convo I've had in a while:

You can literally count the seconds it takes for these guys to start throwing predator accusations and slurs at people. So "not exploring fiction correctly" makes me weird, but harming or putting real people on blast for nothing is free game, apparently. They're not the worst, both in this instance and in general, but it just stuck with me. Which is impressive, cuz I normally don't have much emotions to spare aside from general mild irritation for things like this. Maybe it's the Sonic feet.

But it ties into my issue. Midori's an absolute piece of garbage, yet some people will convince themselves that his actions are in some way justifiable to justify their hatred of something else (that is a lot less severe in this case) rather than love and let love. Tcoaal is not an "incest game" and if you describe it like that unironically you are not ready to be on the internet. No, it doesn't condone or glorify incest-- it literally does the opposite. If you need the characters to look into the camera and say "what we're doing is wrong and immoral" before doing something bad, I think you're the problem at that point. For the same reason you liking Midori (probably) doesn't mean you support human experimentation and torture, someone liking Tcoaal doesn't mean they support incest and someone shipping soushin doesn't mean they support abuse. These things are dark and shouldn't be condoned irl, but this is fiction. We can do whatever the hell we want. Being into darker themes and media doesn't have to reflect your real world views, but the inability to grasp that sentiment leads people to make their interests as moral and sanitised as possible and, feeling morally superior, will go after people who don't do that. This person deadass said that "incest is not morally grey and absolutely unjustifiable" (didn't even say that it wasn't btw) as if their blorbo hasn't committed so many atrocities for kicks that I personally find more unjustifiable. That line implies that they think that everything else Ashley has done and everything Midori has done can be justified because it wasn't incest specifically, which I find is a WILD thing to insinuate XD But it really does encapsulate the hoops antis will jump through to defend their likes while attacking yours despite the fact that it's literally the exact same as theirs. Rule of thumb: if someone accuses you of condoning something immoral because you like it in fiction, apply that logic to them, look at what they like and if their wet little meow meow is the Joker, Eren, Killua, Makima, Midori or whatever other morally bankrupt character you can come up with, take that as a confession and run. Cuz half the time these guys are actually nuts. While quote tweeting someone to shit on their art isn't the worst thing, considering how twitter has treated tcoaal artists the fact that they'd potentially open them up to harassment pissed me off, which is probably evident from my tone.

[Hi hi, this is me from the present right now cuz a more recent development came up so I’m using it as an example here too.]

While most of the things listed here have all been happening online, this attitude can come up in the real world as well.

As OP states, a bunch of hellaverse cosplayers were targetted at a french convention by haters of the show trying to ruin their cosplay. This is already completely unacceptable but the thing I can’t for the life of me get over is torching their costume while they’re still wearing it. Literally attempting to set someone on fire. All over a fucking show. It’s baffling how people can justify actions like this because they think your taste in fiction is so disgusting it’s Ok for them to hurt you. Not just online, but outside as well. It’s not the first time a hellaverse cosplayer has been harassed (last time it was a Valentino cosplayer but then again Val fans get shit from all sides all the time), and while I’m pretty sure these will remain as isolated cases it’s still scary to think about. What’s even more scary to think about how people think that their opinion on hazbin hotel has any relevance to the situation. So many of the comments in that post are just “I hate Hazbin Hotel, but—” or “I hate the fandom, but--” or “I hate Vivzie, but—” and I’m literally here ready to start pouncing like SHUT UP. No buts. That is not in any way important here. You not liking the show or the creator should not be important to the situation of cosplayers being actively harmed. You don’t have to signal your allegiances before showing basic human empathy, goddamnit. And what’s even worse is that some people have just turned this into a “b-but the hazbin fandom!!” issue, which is insulting. For example:

The “Hazbin fans do blackface and disrespect black people daily” is a reference to ONE Alastor cosplayer that nobody had defended. Not even fans. At least no one I can find. Yet they are using this one bad apple to generalise the whole fandom as "bad" and down play the amount of bullshit the hatedom does to fans on a regular. It kinda makes me feel sick that someone would look at a situation like this and spin this into a “fandom thing” rather than focusing on the victims. That they don’t deserve to be taken as seriously just because of the fandom their in. Some lunatic in the comments was literally completely minimising this whole thing saying “some red paint (fake blood capsules) isn’t nearly as bad as lynching and what black people have gone through in America” before calling anyone who called out that that’s completely irrelevant racist for liking Hazbin Hotel like are you kidding me. My homies in Christ, someone almost got lit on fire can everyone please stay on the goddamn topic. This is one of the rare moments where I was kinda proud of twitter as the majority of the comments and quotes where calling out their bullshit, but the amount of likes and some of the comments are still disappointing.

So what points am I trying to make here? This was very spontaneous and rushed so apologies if it feels messy cuz it very much is messy. But my main points boil down to this: Purification, sanitation and the “fiction equals reality” and "your fictional tastes reflect on you morality irl" arguments need to die. They just have to. While petting Shin on a daily basis gives me enough serotonin to find the will to live, the only true solace I will find is when people start being normal. People shouldn’t be getting harassed or labelled as freaks for fiction you don’t like both online and real life. People are not less worthy of basic human decency and empathy solely based on their fictional interests. People should be able to explore fiction however the hell they want without worrying about there being made a call out post on them somewhere. I search Tcoaal on twitter and there’ll always be a bunch of posts with over 10k likes calling all fans annoying weirdos or say it’s an “incest game” even tho it literally isn’t. I will try looking for some Valangel art on tumblr and see some loser use the tag to basically shit on everyone who ships it and lying about the treatment these shippers get while defending Charlastor or just shit on the ship in general. I just exist on the twitter side of the HH fandom chilling with other Val fans and literally every single one of them has either received death/rape threats or told to kill themselves, got ratio’d by a bunch of haters, had a call out post saying not to follow dedicated to them, had their art reposted and Val scribbled out, repeatedly accused of ““romantising a rapist””, or all of the fucking above. Valentino’s VA gets asked if he’s actually like the character he plays in real life or a fan being “relieved that he didn’t abuse them like Valentino” when they met (kudos to Joel for being chill about it btw I would be fuming this fandom does not deserve this man). I type in a certain controversial yttd ship to search and most of the latest posts are just people being rude, saying that if Nankidai makes them canon they’ll drop the game, calling the man himself a freak, calling other shippers freaks, shitting on soushin as well and then having soushiners defend their ship while also shitting on said controversial ship. It genuinely feels like fanbases are circuses and we are the clowns 💀

I could list other examples people being weirdos but I can't do that without breaking the momentum of this post even more than I already have. I guess what I wanted to vent about is how these attitudes regarding fiction and the way people police how others engage with it and how people think of you based on what you like can go from just annoying to downright dangerous more often than you’d think. That belief that you are morally superior to someone else based on the fact that you ship or like things the “legal” and “pure” and “healthy” way (which is never actually the case btw) can lead to you being really disrespectful or a complete asshole and not feeling bad about it at all, which does more harm than good. Which is why I thought it was important to bring up more extreme cases to empathise how this obsessive gatekeeping of fiction can and does hurt real people, who should be more important to you than fictional characters.

All of this is very likely going to sound very aggressive in tone and I want to quickly clarify that this is not meant to be an attack towards anyone in particular. I'm just tired and recalling all this stuff is making my mood sink like a stone lmao. Who knows, maybe I'm just overexaggerating and things won't get worse when the game gets more popular. This is just what I've been witnessing both in and out of my side of the moon. The amount of yttd fans I've seen act like this are a lot tho. No fandom is perfect obviously, and this one is the farthest from it, but with new people coming in and this weird attitude and need to sanitise not only towards soushin, but other "problematic" ships and media as well growing more prominent (mostly on Twitter and Tiktok) my biggest worry is that the hostility in this fandom will just... increase? Roulettefeel made pretty good posts about it-- my favourites being this one, also this one and this one's pretty short and sweet, summarising most of my soushin points a lot better and shorter than my trainwreck of a post so I recommend checking them out. If you like soushin, go check them out. If you don't like soushin, go check them out anyway. They make stuff outside of soushin too. They're pretty cool.

[I also want to add that the whole sanitisation thing in the yttd fandom is nothing new. It’s been a thing for longer than I have been here. I’ve just been seeing it again with soushin, which is was what made me want to do this in the first place. There’s another dynamic the fandom obviously does this for, but uttering it would not only get me flamed but straight up burned at the stake of bad takes so I’m saving that for a rainy day.]

Aaaaannd, I'm done, I think. I didn't have a good conclusion for this in mind. Idk, just be nice? You don't have to like "proships" (or what the fandom has defined as proship cuz that's not the actual definition), but that's what the block buttons for. Don't like, don't read, I say. Fandoms are for everyone and as long as what the person is doing is harmless, let them feel safe being themselves without having to worry about someone coming after them. Real life cops already suck. Let's not bring them into our collective escapism. And something you personally don't like ending up canon doesn't mean the game or ship is "ruined". That doesn't just go for soushin. That goes for other things too. To tie up loose ends, soushin having an age gap or being related has always been on the table and fits with other themes in the narrative. That does not count as "bad" if it makes sense. Soushin is not "Ok to ship" because it's "not an illegal ship" (whatever tf that means) and it's not "bad to ship" because it's "romanticising abuse". It's fine to ship because it's fictional. You don't need a moral justification to ship anything. That goes for all ships. That's why NOTPs exist. And "proship" doesn't and has never meant "shipping problematic pairings". It's a stance on shipping. It means being pro people being allowed to ship whatever they want. That includes being cool with problematic pairings, but is not limited to those. It means not being a fandom cop. Please stop saying otherwise, I cannot keep living this way--

Soooouuu, to end off on a more positive note and finally put this whole thing to bed I'll link some of my fav newer soushin accounts for anyone who's interested:

Hyo (orewagahai on ao3 check that out too): They are an amazing, amazing writer. If you're into dark, abusive co-dependent, complicated soushin with beautiful characterisation I would highly recommend. They just posted another soushin drabble on twitter and it's great.

jinn: They've been putting out banger after banger ever since getting into the game. Their art is absolutely stunning and they upload frequently, so go check 'em out if you can! It's actual medicine for the soul, I promise. They also draw for dead plate, so if you're into that go ahead too.

angel: Also cool. They're soushin art is hilarious and cute. As much of a sucker as I am for toxic, abusive sludge, they give thses two idiots a silliness that I enjoy. Also if you like trans!Shin content they're pretty good.

欣武 (my dumbass forgot to add them the first time sorry): They are INCREDIBLE. Extremely incredible artist. Their art is so, so freaking good. Not checking them out is absolutely your loss, ngl.

Be nice to them. If I catch anyone attempting to annoy them I'm coming after you and your entire family. Let's be better and not chase new comers off this time :3 Thanks for listening to my incoherent venting. This is mostly for me to feel a bit better, but anyone is free to read. If anyone's got an opinion or observation, feel free to offer it. I need coffee. Coffee sounds good.

[midorihiyori]

u said ur not a proshipper and stuff but isnt soushin a proship tho.... abuser x victim>???? and shin saw midori like the older brother he didnt have../??? /gen

Originally I wasn't going to respond to this, I thought it was funny so I giggled at it with my friends and I thought that would be it. But I realized this is a wonderful opportunity to write a really long post disproving these theories that this fandom insists are canon. I’ll start by debunking some common arguments. I put a lot of effort into this and am actually using proper grammar IM SERIOUS GUYS!!! This is really long by the way

“Shin saw Midori like an older brother”

I’ll get this argument out of the way first because it’s weak, it’s a common trope in media where relationships are described as familial to show the closeness of the relationship. Even so, Shin probably said that because he looks up to Midori and respects him. If you just want to see them as having a brotherly relationship, that’s fine, but this argument doesn’t stand for calling Soushin proship.

“Midori groomed Shin”

I honestly have no idea where this theory even came from. Some people say that Midori preyed on Shin and that he was much older, while it’s more likely they are both in the same age range. Shin is canonically 21-22 years old while Midori’s age isn’t stated, but since they were in highschool together it can be assumed he wasn’t all that much older than him. Not saying you can’t headcanon that they aren’t, but you shouldn’t push your headcanons as canon to insist Soushin is proship. Midori changed to Shin’s school so that he could get his signature but he also became his friend in order to make the Shin AI. He could have easily just been a highschooler himself. Midori is an Asu-Naro agent and from what we know about them they have used underaged people for labor (eg. Kai, Sei, Hinako). If the common theory that the silhouette in Kai’s mini episode being Midori’s mom is true, it’s probable that he grew up similarly to Kai and Sei, being made to do Asu-Naro’s bidding as children. It’s not like you need the credentials of an adult to give out contracts. You could also make the argument that Midori must be older because he worked as a nurse and school counselor while trying to get participant signatures, but one could argue Asu-Naro has the connections to get him in such a position without schooling or even have higher levels of schooling to get the education in a shorter timespan. But I’m getting off topic. Many people who say Midori groomed Shin say that he groomed him into believing he had to leave himself behind and that is why he took on Midori’s persona in the death game when it’s clearly not the case in canon. It was Midori who wanted Shin to be the best version of himself.

“And you… should become the person you want to be, so you can meet them proudly.”

This dialogue is part of Shin’s lost memory, where they are talking about Shin’s wish to meet his lost sibling. It’s one of the only shown scenes of Shin and Midori pre-canon, and he’s clearly being supportive and wanting Shin to be happy with himself.

Here ‘???’ is the shadow version of himself, he is having an inner conflict of interest. Commonly referred to as Shadsou, is the actual reason Shin took on Midori’s persona. What Shadsou is exactly is ambiguous but generally it’s the personification of Shin’s devil's advocate. People often assume that Shadsou is another consequence of Midori’s impact on Shin, as if he isn’t his own character who can make his own decisions. This fandom often waters down his character and infantilizes him like this.

“Midori is Shin’s abuser”

Again, another headcanon people insist is canon. The reality is that Midori and Shin’s relationship is ambiguous and it hasn’t been explored much in canon. Soushin can be explored in many different ways because of how vague their relationship is. Saying that Midori abused Shin is an unsubstantiated claim so it’s just a headcanon, not saying you can’t have that but again, you can’t be claiming it’s fact.

This is the one cg we have of Midori and Shin pregame btw:

This is the cg where Midori is encouraging Shin to be someone he’s proud of. Not very abusive guys.

“But it’s implied to be abusive”

This is usually the evidence they use for the implication:

“He’s… a scary friend of mine…” 

Midori’s mannerisms are scary. It isn’t just Shin who thinks that he is, he’s one of the main antagonists of the game. Shin finding Midori to be scary doesn’t mean he abused him.

“Though I learned a lot of things at his house…”

It’s insane to me that people use this as evidence but, this is clearly about Midori teaching him how to code. People claim that it has deeper meaning but really it comes down to how you want to interpret it.

There are multiple points where Midori is shown to feel affection in strange ways. It’s possible he didn’t understand ordinary forms of affection, similarly to Kai who was deprived of affection growing up as an agent. Midori’s odd mannerisms towards Shin could just be how he shows his love. awww. isnt that so sad

Many people call Midori Shin’s abuser and claim Soushin is proship without proper canonical proof. A lot of people who kin Shin project onto their relationship and insist that it’s abusive because their bias rooted from their own trauma and experiences clouds their perception of Shin. This happens along with people infantilizing Shin and excusing all of his actions by blaming the supposed ‘grooming’ or ‘abuse’ he experienced from Midori. This is just a common problem with mischaracterization of Shin and Midori by the fandom. It’s gotten to the point where people like this dear anon believe these things to be true!

Then there's the people who ARE proshippers and insist that Soushin is abusive or pedophilic because they want it to be and are looking at them with that lens of thinking. These people greatly help spread the idea that Soushin is a proship, making it much harder to discern canon from fanon when much of the Soushin content is by these people, specifically outspoken adult western fans that praise proship and advocate out for Soushin being problematic, that's what the general fandom now sees it as even though it’s just not canonically happening.

At the time of posting this, Shin’s minisode has yet to come out. I’m sure that once it does it will give a much clearer view of their relationship, maybe I’ll have more to say then! For now, that is all I’ve got for you tumblr.

[vaunteir]

hi i think it's about time i finally made an

call me will ! (i also go by forte, but vaun's alright too). i am a digital artist, and here, i post silly art of silly stuff i enjoy lots.

a little bit more about me:

- i am a transgender aroace gay man (who uses he/him prns).

- i'm filipino 🇵🇭 though english is my main language n my tagalog vocabulary is a bit limited ,,

- i've been an artist for 10 years, & a digital artist for 8.

- i really love will wood. the album "in case i make it" holds a very special place in my heart + i am totally up there on top 10 cicada days fans (source: you'll just have to trust me on that). i also enjoy other music such as vane lily, jack stauber, metric, frank sinatra, strawberry switchblade, tv girl, etc.

- i use the word 'silly' more times than i make properly-rendered art.

interests:

my main interests at the very moment are twisted wonderland and slay the princess. i may also talk about witch's heart, the hatchetfield universe and studio investigrave games here from time to time.

i'm in a lot of other fandoms that i'm not as active in but there are just way too many to mention 💧

this art blog is twst-centric, meaning yes, i draw a lot of twst here. so if you followed bc i drew something for a different fandom, i apologize if i post very little of it.

tags directory:

#vaunteir's art thangz : art posts, drawn by me

#vaunteir's non-art thangz : memes, non-art shitposts, whatever posts i made where i don't draw (which are mostly shitposts)

#vaunteir's headcanon posting : self-explanatory, will occasionally be paired with one of the first two tags above.

#vaunteir's asks : ask box responses

#vaunteir - off the record : doesn't fit with the other categories

do not follow if you :

fit the basic dni, enjoy ships involving incest or p*dophilia, are under 14, are pro-isr**l, think ai art is real art

additionally, please refrain from bringing up any of the following around me as these topics make me very uncomfortable:

alfred's playhouse, your boyfriend (game), the coffin of andy and leyley, soushin (shin tsukimi x midori/sou hiyori) or any midori (yttd) ship

additional:

- i reblog more than i post lol (sorry).

- i don't mind spam likes, but reblogs are also very appreciated.

- usage of my artworks for headers, pfps, etc. or reposting them elsewhere are fine as long as i'm credited properly (aka no "ctto" or "credits to the real artist").

- feel free to send art ideas/requests through my ask box! (no nsfw requests though, thank you vm). my commissions are closed atm but they should be back up in the near future.

-

and that's a wrap 🫀