#and well bc of the recent chapter- and hori writing things that for some reason link to things I’ve said in the past /lh

[wanderingchocolateeclair]

A couple of my main older edgejeanist headcanons that I am bringing back bc they’re becoming relevant again-

So. My favourite thing to do with my ships is choose something like a type of weather that links to them and all their moments and story n such. For these two it’s the rain.

Tsunagu always disliked the rain, bc it was always gloomy and made him feel cold and uncomfortable and sad and lonely.

Shinya taught him to love the rain. (My fic “When It Rains…” is the whole story behind this and my whole headcanon for them and yes. Here’s the link if you wanna go check it out)

They have many of their moments in the rain, bc it reminds them of each other and just reminds them of them. I include this in every one of my aus too bc rain <333

In return, Tsunagu teaches shinya to love the stars. Shinya disliked looking up at the stars bc it reminded him of how lonely he felt and everyone that he had lost in his lifetime. And Tsu taught him how truly beautiful they are.

And. After this. They learnt to love each other.

They have matching lockets. Shinya’s is gold and Tsu’s is silver.

(Bc if you think about it, Shinya is silver and Tsu is gold in terms of their colour schemes….their hair…..and also they are red and blue, respectively ^^^) (what’s even better is that typically, silver goes nice with blue, and gold goes nice with red……so they match together pretty perfectly)

These lockets contain their most heartfelt moments and each have a letter written from the other that reminds them everything they love about each other. So that if anything happens, or at any point if they feel separated, they can simply read the letter and hold the locket and they’ll feel close again. (I also include these in most of my art at any given chance if you look close enough 👀)

They each have a scar on their face, over one of their eyes, that was caused by the other in some sort of quirk accident. Shinya’s is over his right eye, caused by Tsu’s quirk going out of control and him saving him but getting hurt in the meantime (like what happened to Tsu’s dad in my backstory) and the same from Shinya to Tsu, but his is over his left eye. (Each the side that they cover with their hair)

They both are terrible at looking after themselves but are so caring towards one another that it sort of cancels itself out and they look after each other and themselves in return together.

They leave each other notes all the time. Sometimes these are important things to remember, sometimes they are silly little things, and sometimes just a simple ‘I love you <3’

They have matching tattoos. (Which I have drawn out btw……if anyone would like to see them 👀)

Tsunagu sews little cute flowers or tiny badges or just fun little things for Shinya when he’s bored, and Shinya makes origami figures for Tsu when he’s bored.

They have this thing where they make paper cranes together, using a piece of paper they wrote a message on, and give each other the one they made. If Shinya makes a paper crane, he always makes two because they must come in pairs from this.

If one gets lost or damaged, he will make a new pair to replace them bc one cannot just go on without the other. They go together. (This links/will link into this fic)

Shinya finds Tsunagu’s weird clothes puns funny and laughs at them, which is the main reason that Tsunagu makes them constantly.

That’s it for now bc I’m tired, but I have more. There’s always more. This should be known by now /lh

@suoperbvorb @genderfluidagendergremlin (if anyone else wants to be tagged in my lil posts like these or my fics pls let me know - my posts often get hidden)

[dabistits]

while reading your posts, i always feel that you’re really well rounded and good at character analysis and just articulating your feelings and opinions towards stories in general. it’s something that i’m trying to get better at, and something that i admire you for, so i was wondering if you had any pointers or tips regarding developing analysis skills? thank you!

first of all, thank you so much!!😭😭 i’m so glad you enjoy my stuff and it gives me a lot of joy to know that this, like, inspires people or w/e fkdkgkf

i’m putting everything below a cut bcs it’s long as fuck and kind of disorganized. i wrote some parts half-asleep, so they might be rambly or stating the obvious or whatever, but you know, pick and choose what’s helpful to you! this probably isn’t exhaustive (and i kinda focused in on the ‘character analysis’ part, bcs otherwise there’s… so much), and if anything’s unclear or if you want more elaboration on sth just let me know!

the basics:

write!! it doesn’t matter what you write, it can meta, fanfic, rp, whatever, but as long as you write about this character you’ll be forced to articulate your thoughts; by extension that means you’ll have to gather evidence and make a convincing case for your portrayal. even if you’re writing fic or rp i think you should have a strong reference of where your characterization is coming from - i used to rp at places that required applications, so that would force me to think about my character’s personality and put it into words. i think most people are helped by the actual process of writing itself also, so don’t let lack of confidence stop you if you’re someone who tends to do that: you might wind up happier with your ideas after having written something than before (and you can aaalways edit).

read!! read other people’s analyses, not necessarily just about the character you have in mind, but about other characters, other stories, other genres, etc. what kinds of things do they point out to support their argument? what patterns are they picking up on? do you agree/disagree? what’s a new thought they’ve introduced to you? what are things they do that you particularly like? can you replicate that idea/technique in your own reading? there are so many times when i’ve read another person’s analysis and made a note to be more aware of [a certain thing] in the future, so that’s what helps me change and build and incorporate new stuff into the way i think about stories.

try to keep an ongoing chronicle of your thoughts. this could 100% be a personal thing, but i actually started to think and absorb a lot more (especially about small things) after i started this blog. being here meant that not only was i keeping up with chapter releases bcs of other fans, but i was also regularly writing about my impressions. reading and discussing chapter by chapter forced me to read & process everything in smaller increments, which let me take in more details, and gave more time for my thoughts and feelings to develop. in contrast, when i binge-read, i actually miss a lot of details and a lot of finer points of the storyline because i’m just trying to get from one plot point to the next.

stick close to canon. this is definitely subjective, but since this is also partially about how i approach character interpretation, i’ll toss this in. i personally don’t stray too far from what’s shown to me in-text, and i revisit canon a lot to establish a “baseline” characterization rather than building off of my own headcanons. this has pros and cons: for example, i feel like i don’t overstate things compared to their canon importance, and i feel like i don’t get too carried away with embellishing character traits; however, it also holds me back from theorizing unless there’s a ton of evidence in front of me, and i can be overcautious when it comes to approaching narrative hints. sometimes i do talk about my headcanons, but even then i usually point out whether or not it’s substantiated, because i do think the line between headcanon and canon gets muddled a lot in fandom discussion.

think about a character’s role in the story. so, we know stories have plots, a start and an end, and messages and themes. all characters function within that framework, they advance us from point a to point b, the carry the moral of the story. i think these are aspects that are important to include in your character analysis; while sure, there’s already plenty to analyse about the LOV as self-contained characters, but they also seem more important, more interesting, and more complex when you take them into the context of the larger story (how and why their relationships are built, what they mean as a part of man vs society conflict, etc.). not only does it inform you about the character (what the author is trying to say through them, what direction the author might push them in), it can also tell you a lot about the overall structure and themes of the story itself.

authors include everything for a reason. when you’re creating something from scratch, you have to actively decide what you include. the way someone’s room looks doesn’t necessarily mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but the author decided to design their room that way based off something—most likely a character’s interests, tastes, and preferences. while mina’s dorm room looking a certain way might not mean she has an old-fashioned personality, it can maybe tell you that she has a more retro taste and aesthetic. this can apply to “big” things too, like one of tomura’s severed hands still surviving the chaos. hori chose to have it survive rather than be decayed like everything else, so of course the question is why?

… but they are imperfect. creators also do make choices out of plot convenience, because of their own biases, or sometimes they just forget (as hori has done before, such as twice duplicating himiko in the overhaul arc and then saying he doesn’t know her measurements for the mla arc). so it can sometimes also be assumed that a detail was included/excluded because of something on the creator’s end, rather than because of it necessarily being symbolic or important to the characters (e.g. a character not being able to make it to a fight might be because their skills are too useful and could resolve the plot too easily, not because them getting sidetracked is important in itself; a female character losing a fight she should have won could be an issue of the creator’s misogyny). so these are aspects you can keep in mind as well when you’re evaluating characterization!

tendencies i see people fall into:

don’t take everything characters say at face value. characters can and do lie. they can be sarcastic. they can be manipulative. they can be deluding themselves. they can even be mistaken! there’s a reason why they’re expressing themselves that way, and sometimes you can gain more by actually investigating that contradiction rather than just assuming they mean what they say.

allow characters to change! they will change in canon, so don’t be too beholden to their early characterization if you’re trying to analyze or write them from a later point in the timeline. again, this seems intuitive, but i see a lot of people who still appear to draw on tomura’s early character portrayal by making him irritable towards the LOV, but he’s much more recently allowed himself to be physically pushed around by some of them without really reacting in any way.

embrace subtlety. a lot of people in their fanfic just see one aspect of a character and blow it up to make it their only characterization. like, tomura is irritable, himiko is obsessed with blood, any villain can be written as a sadistic killer hellbent on annihilation, etc. while having a couple personality traits come through strongly can help the character have a unique personality and voice, too much will make them appear one-note. it’s just as important to recognize moments when characters are being calm and focused and articulate, as much as their most dramatic moments. for example, a lot of writers don’t seem to notice that tomura doesn’t snap at his allies, tends to answer their questions evenly, and never lashes out at them; that’s because these moments are very understated in the manga. hori doesn’t point a huge arrow at them, and he shouldn’t have to! it’s one of those very subtle ways to show a character’s growth. so, pay attention to those moments, and pay attention to what’s not being done as much as what is.