#can't believe I have to preface this post bc i happen to be using a public search tag for organizing my blog...

[seaofolives]

ok but some selfish and abrasive g witch finale thoughts:

all these boohoos going on about how that shit sucked bc they were really expecting a kiss on screen and it didn't happen and how the execs chickened out of a """real gay rep""" just really tells me how much better we acespecs are at finding and telling a love story. like if fucking yuri on ice didn't/couldn't do it (I know this is a time slot thing and pls, we are talking about a production that happened in a country where the fucking nagano ruling is already considered monumental! try to imagine that if u can!!!!), what the fuck makes you think a gundam show will? and like, a kiss? really is the only way you'll believe two queer people are in love? so if you see two people who are out and out and they're just holding hands, you're not gonna believe they're in love??? come the fuck on, stranger

like let's give this the benefit of the doubt: execs wanted an onscreen kiss for the impact and the hashtag but censorship is homophobic and stuff. look, they went around it, didn't they?? eri identified herself as miorine's fucking sister-in-law, they have motherfucking rings, and they're living together???? and in so doing delivered an even more holistic couple??? and you're telling me that's not queer rep, that they're not in love, and that they owe it to you to explain their love story as if they didn't fucking spend 576 minutes telling it and almost literally even died for it??? like maybe at this point, people should just fing reevaluate their shallow grasp on romance and maybe even their inherent acephobia

am I stepping on toes here? yeah I'm fucking stepping on toes here but I wouldn't be me if I wasn't making enemies left and right, right? also you can't blame me for being angry about the way media has turned romance into a narrow checklist. I'm tired of that shit

in other news, after that roller-coaster ride of an anime, I think I'm suddenly prepared for anything the other animes I'm watching/games I'm playing can throw at me. character death? give it to me; my favorite character got a great ending in g witch so I'm happy to take a loss on another front. (and like come on, I was prepared for Jin Sakai to die until I realized that he was the mc of the DLC too which is a big duh on my part but anyway—) gay skater suddenly gets a girlfriend in the next season? give it to me, I don't care anymore. we'll all know it's fake anyway, we just need the money from the hetties

lastly and selfishly, I can finally work on my guel fanmix holy shit and boy am I glad I've been going on the right direction all along 😭😭😭 (guesule fanmix, don't worry, I have a hundred sad songs waiting for you, so you just sit right there and auntie liv will get to you soon 💖)

[willowser]

How would you describe how the Todoroki siblings with each other is like? Well how do you see it based on your view and how you would write it

so to preface all this: these are all just my own opinions and feelings on what i've understood of their relationship with one another !! you may not agree, and that's okay, too !! i could easily have misinterpreted chapters/scenes/information in the manga, and have based my thoughts on inaccuracies, and could be totally wrong about all of this — but you asked, so here's what i think :)

i want to start by saying that i don't really have any particular or special thoughts about how fuyumi + natsuo + shouto view one another. i think there was a debilitating void in fuyumi and natsuo's life after touya for at least a few years, and i think shouto would have been too young to have been as affected by his "death" as they would have, and so i believe that would set them apart in that regard. there is also the fact that enji was hard-wiring shouto to be a hero for a large portion of his life, and i think there would have been some tension between the three of them because of it. shouto never really got to be the "little brother" he should have been, but i like to think that, where we are in the manga right now, they've become a lot more well-adjusted to one another.

now let's talk about touya LOL

i think natsuo and fuyumi both carry a heavy guilt comprised of, "if i had done xyz different, maybe this wouldn't have happened," when it comes to their oldest brother, but i think it weighs on natsuo the most. it was purposely and explicitly shown that touya tried to lean on natsuo, at one point, and was blatantly ignored — which i don't blame natsuo for, bc he was just a child — and i think that shows especially in his animosity towards endeavor. natsuo is so, so, so angry at enji, todoroki-angry, and i think he's just as angry at himself for not being there for touya more.

i like to write their relationship as very — bro-like, if that makes sense LOL yes, i stand by what i said about fuyumi being touya's best friend, but natsuo was his first brother, and there is just something about brothers, you know ?? i think in a circumstance in which they are together — au or canon — touya will always be the "cool" older brother that natsuo admires and wants to be best friends with. i imagine them like little partners-in-crime, little mischievous boys that snooped around in things they weren't supposed to — and i actually could see a universe in which natsuo becomes a villain also, once dabi reveals himself as touya. as in like an atonement way; he wasn't there for him then, but he'll use his anger to be there for him now, sort of idea. not that i think that would ever actually happen !!! but out of the three other todoroki's, natsuo is who i can see doing it.

i would give up my firstborn to know what fuyumi and touya's relationship would look like post-war (assuming...👀). maybe i'm projecting because i had an older brother, but i view their relationship when they were younger in such a soft light. let me tell you something !!!! fuyumi came into the world being loved by him !!!!! and came into the world loving him !!!!! because they were BABIES !!!! and were each other's first BEST FRIEND !!!! i will stand on this hill until i DIE !!!! yes, i think touya pulled her hair and spit in her milk and wiped his boogers on her — but there was a time before his quirk manifested where it was just the two of them in the playpen, know what i mean ??? and i don't think that's something you can just erase !!!!

i think she has a lot of guilt, too, and i think she was affected so, so deeply by his "death". whereas natsuo turned his grief into fury at his father — i think it really means something that fuyumi does not hold the same resentment. i really can't imagine what it would be like for her to lose him, bc i really can picture them being so close, and i imagine it would have been like losing a huge part of herself. everything she did in life — she must have imagined touya beside her: celebrating birthdays and middle school and learning to drive and all the things they could have done together, bc they were so close in age. she was a lot like their mom, i think, when it came to worrying about him, which i think he probably viewed as annoying at the time, but i bet he would have missed it so much when he was on his own. i hc her as a lil know-it-all LOL and i can imagine touya being alone and scared and wishing, for just one minute, that he could listen to her nag at him one last time, just so he would know what to do or how to survive, because i think he probably trusted her wholeheartedly.

oh my god, and shouto. i actually — can't decide what i think touya's views on shouto are. i can believe the concept that he completely hates and resents him, and i can also believe that he was afraid for his littlest brother and felt bad for him, when they were younger. i guess i think it was both. that naivete and sort of innocence we all love about shouto: i think he genuinely wants to know his brother. i think he genuinely wants to have another sibling to interact with, to be able to trust, someone who understands what it was like to grow up in that household. he didn't get that comfort when he was younger and i'm sure he relishes in it now that he gets it — and i can see him wanting to have that bond with touya.

and i think touya honestly views shouto as a stranger, because — it's always been about endeavor, hasn't it ?? yes, touya had strong feelings for shouto and wanted to kill him during the war — but it was all to harm enji in the end. when shouto was born and touya came to learn that this was what his father had always wanted — yeah, i think he was furious and jealous, because his brain had been entirely warped at that point into thinking attention from dad = worthiness. so he hated shouto — because of endeavor. i don't think touya really has had the mindset or stability to think about shouto outside of their father, and so i don't think he has any honest-to-god genuine feeling about him. i think shouto is just an unknown to him.

i love all the au concepts of shouto being the little brother that tries to pal around with him all the time 🥺 it's my favorite, and i wish it was canon so badly LOL i — honestly have a hard time writing shouto and touya in ptmy, because their relationship is so strained and so distanced ??? i think touya wants to hang onto his hatred for shouto because it's all he's ever known for his youngest brother ?? but i could believe that, deep in his heart, he just looks at him and thinks, "poor bastard 😒" bc if anyone can truly, honestly relate to shouto — it's touya. the abuse wasn't on an identical level for either of them, but they were both groomed by the same hand for the same reason.

i can see him getting along the easiest with fuyumi, bc i think their relationship is just like a natural back and forth. it's teasing and a little mean but also can be understood without words: it's big brother and little sister. i think he gets along best with natsuo though, because natsuo wants to be friends so bad LOL and i can see them sitting outside in lawn chairs, drinking beer and talking shit about — anything LOL and natsuo is having a great time. i think he doesn't feel like he can open up to him as much as he can with fuyumi, though, and i honestly don't think natsuo would know what to do if he did, despite how much he wishes touya would open up to him.

and shouto — i just don't know how i picture them. idealistically, sitting together on the curb, maybe, mostly in silence. shouto's fine with it, because he's not uncomfortable in silence — which touya finds SO WEIRD — but then shouto probably monotones a stupid, dumb comment about their dad that only touya would get, and makes him laugh and — everything is okay, for the moment 🥺

i don't think this directly answered your question about how to write them LOL but !! this is the jumbled mess inside my head, and i hope it gave you a little bit of insight !!

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

you tagged that post saying that you could talk about our mutual boy (ral) for hours. what are some headcanons you have? :)

OH BOY i have some

So. I'll start this off with a preface: I know OF events in Ral's life, and I know OF what happened in The Gathering Storm + the other War of the Spark novels. But I haven't ever fully read through them myself directly. So... take all of what I say with a grain of salt. I won't act like what I say is authoritative in any regard - this is me just having fun with the scrunkly sparkmage I know about

(more under the cut)

I am sure I am very unique in this regard (/s) but I can't help but headcanon Ral with like... hella ADHD and/or anxiety?? He's one of those people where he is FANTASTIC at what he does (heehoo izzet science), even if his methods are insane (that's just kind of a given for the Izzet), but he knows absolutely fuck all nothing about anything else. Aside from some street knowledge from when he worked beneath Bolas, he is utterly an idiot in most other facets of life.

I particularly imagine generalized anxiety sprouted up after War of the Spark, given how he adamantly believed he was doing the right thing... only for it to turn out that turning on the beacon was exactly what Bolas wanted him to do after all, and thousands, if not millions, of people died for that decision. Sure, Ral has done terrible things before, but... inadvertently making a choice (and having a hand in the creation of a machine!) that costs SO MANY PEOPLE their lives and nearly burns down the city he loves.... yikes. I struggle to see how that WOULDN'T give ANYONE anxiety

That being said, I imagine his anxiety manifests in like the "can't stop talking when I am nervous" way or the "I talk myself up in an annoying fashion and act like I think I'm better than I am" way, because otherwise, he starts to feel like the Horrors(TM) are becoming a little too real. Every time this guy tries to do something good, it BACKFIRES HORRIBLY, and he always feels like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. Always

I headcanon that he 100% was the one who went "we should go public with our marriage" @ Tomik and Tomik was like "People will flip, we are guildmasters. Of opposing guilds" and Ral was like "so? Do I give a shit?"

I imagine they probably DID try to hide it for a while, but Ral was secretly relieved when it happened and probably accused anyone that acted like it was a bad thing of homophobia, thus shutting them up instantly, even though he knows 100% nobody cares and they're just concerned bc of the flagrant political corruption

All in all I just headcanon him as always WANTING to do the right thing, but just as well, he's still a bit of a chaotic little shit at heart, and oftentimes, his attempts at "doing the right thing" seem to backfire more than when he ISN'T trying - which is how it becomes very easy for him to obsessively become wrapped up in things and do things, sometimes reprehensible things, that he will later regret

Oh and I headcanon him as absolutely being a bit crushed under the heel of Niv Mizzet. At first, he thought being the guildmaster of the Izzet League was going to be AWESOME - and then he very quickly found out that Niv having the powers of Living Guildpact, looming over his shoulder constantly, meant that he was little more than a puppetmaster for Niv for the Izzet, and so even now, he's still under the dragon's thumb. On one hand, he still respects and reveres Niv, but post-WotS, he's lost a lot of love for the dragon, as Niv allowed him to shoulder much of the blame for the beacon even though it was Bolas who implanted the idea in Niv's mind.

Also also also the fact that he needs that gauntlet to effectively make use of his lightning?? Feels a lot like a disability allegory to me and as a disabled guy I latch onto that a Normal(TM) amount. I love love love the gauntlet and seeing him with it and fiddling with it or using it makes me incredibly happy. MAGICAL DISABILITY AIDS!!

(Once again I stress that these are HEADCANONS that are only loosely based on canon....but yeah I have fun thinking about this guy. SCRUNKLY GAY SPARKMAGE MY BELOVED)

[synonymouswithanonymous]

😊 Sidenotes

Random thoughts if anyone reads sorry as always for length. If I use "you" I'm referring to a specific "group" or type of haters.

Sidenote: I've been a fan of Johanne Milland since 2021 (venus). I've seen her posts these last 3 years, and she's never come off as anything other than sweet, kind, goofy, nerdy, funny to me. So I'm not seeing anything that would make me think she's "toxic."

I usually go for neutral opinions of celebs, I'm more into their characters than them as people. like I love, love, love Mr Darcy, but not into Colin Firth or Mathew M. Even though I do follow several celebs. 😊😊 BUT, I've always liked Johanne, she just always seemed sweet and funny to me. I'm glad they (AHA &JM) found each other. I'm glad they're happy. Maybe she's already his "twin flame." 😊😊 as someone mentioned recently.

In order to know someone's personality, you have to actually talk with them over a period of time. In person. NOT from social media. People are so much more complex than what's shown on social media. Think about everything you do and see and think in a week. Think about how you would feel if someone saw your social media and thought to themselves I know all about this whole person, and I'm going to diagnose them as a toxic psycho. Bc they saw their social media over a year. Nahhhhhhh you've got to be kidding with that silly tripe. People are so much more than that. So I'll rely on people that actually do know her....her boyfriend, his fam, co-workers, his/her friends (seems like tight group).

That to me is all I need to solidify my opinion. 😊 I trust that people who actually know her, know her better than the people who want to hate her. The people who are eager to hate on her for everything, Bc she's dating this actor. The people who want to dehumanize her (Really? Bitch, whore, leech, tick, worm, granny, toxic, psycho, manipulator, and a slew of nicknames later). And you want me to believe you're an objective Observer? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 you won't even quote the woman correctly. You call his Mother a "toxic pushy asskisser" bc she publicly likes her son's GF. You call all his friends who like her ass kissing leeches and more awful nicknames. Again you want me to believe you're legit looking at her objectively?

This is exactly what happened to Fanny, and every other woman he's ever been near. I mean people actually said Fanny was a bitch and they hated her. It's still on some of the main blogs, Oct 2021. They were "glad" she was getting hate bc they "hate her." She got so much heat for a cheek kiss at a premiere, AHA took the picture down. Now some want to pretend that never happened bc she's "safe" now and the focus of hate is now on his GF. There was a post/or preface to a post that said "before anyone freaks/flips out that's his sister." I mean people even wrote about how it's sad that he can't even be seen near a woman without the assumptions or that woman getting hate. I agree, that is sad. Don't even get me started on the nasty things they said about MK. Most of that's been deleted but it still happened. So many of his friends and family had to go private just to keep their photos off of fan pages (they supposedly got messages too). Bc some people want to talk about respecting his privacy, while trying to squeeze info out of every crevice they can find. That's not respecting his privacy. Then they say his own GF, doesn't respect his privacy (the lack of sense here is appalling, or is it bold hypocrisy?). I'm sure she knows what her OWN boyfriend is ok with sharing to the public. She knows their personal privacy rules they have, not yours.

Then there are the emotional blackmail and hoax people. From the girl who got him to talk to her bc they were threatening self harm If he didn't talk to her. To the fake secret marriage girl. Then there was the "4 year long artist/hawk" which turned out to be someone talking to themselves and trying to convince others that is was real. You gotta admit, celebs gotta deal with so much BS. I'm not convinced the latter isn't among one of the frequent anons (people have been sending me thoughts on this, could be wrong but it's interesting, I doubt they would just stop their obsession fullstop). Trying to "turn/convince" people against the woman he actually loves bc their fantasy life was bombed by reality. Bombed like Hiroshima. They're very concerned about controlling how other people view her, especially in the future. Personally I think they've already lost that bc so many view her as I do, or are neutral, and her followers are increasing. Good for her! And why does it make them so angry that he thinks she's beautiful? Or that loads of people think she's beautiful? And wonderful?

I think by now he's aware of these consistent behaviour patterns some fans use. He's even blocked some fan pages in the past bc of their overreaching nature. I wonder if that's why they took so long to go public? Bc they knew how some were going to react. no matter what. I wonder if he's used to that or if it's still mind-blowingly bizarre? A possible 7-8, 4-5 officially, months is awhile to not be fully out. But with "insufferable fans" like these I don't blame them. I hope he warned her. I'm sure he does think several fans are "crazy" and jealous. It's not like he'd be wrong to feel that way either.

I'm glad they don't pay attention to it very much.

I also wonder at why people haven't posted this infamous Vikings con logo on a bag picture? Is it bc you wouldn't see it unless you zoomed in? I can't remember seeing a logo, but I wasn't looking for one either. And I certainly wasn't listening to background voices in her videos to try to hear if AHA's voice was there.

Also I don't think that's toe fungus lol. She dances in her musical, she's on her feet a lot. It looks to me that she might have bruised toes/nails. Dancing can wreck your feet. Dancing can break your toes, the bridge, break nails, etc. It gets hot under lights, your feet swell in shoes too. The swelling rubs your toes on the shoes. The toes always get it bad, especially the big toes. 😊😊 personal opinion, been dancing since the age of 4, I sympathize fully with foot pain.

ahhh twas super long, lol. Oh well like I always say I don't expect anyone to read, these are my thoughts on these things. 😊😊😊

[shaanks]

this is just me kind of stewing half-formed thoughts, and like. to preface I realize beauty standards are a) deeply subjective and b) rooted in all sorts of complicated social conditioning and white supremacy and patriarchy, trust and believe.

but i saw this post on my dash that was some graffiti of "fat dudes = hot" under an american apparel ad of a tiny tiny tiny skinny woman in underwear and a sweater just above it. (the graffiti is correct, this isn't about that.)

this isn't about any individual person's body shape, everyone's beautiful, if you have a body you did it congrats you're gorgeous, this is about what the images we are given are trying to inform us is beautiful.

teeny tiny, hairless, hollow cheeks, thigh gap...hungry. like. it's not just a sign of moral superiority (we're told) to be skinny and tiny and starving, it's beautiful to be that way. and if you have to be that way to be beautiful, and only beautiful people meet the minimum requirement to be treated with dignity and humanity, then it's not only morally correct and beautiful, it's the only way to guarantee your safety.

It just seems like, in a world where everything that might make life comfortable and rewarding and good is being scraped away and sacrificed for the race to the Final Possible Profits or whatever, that feeding the idea back through the tube that "beautiful is hungry, so its probably a good thing that food is so expensive bc at least then you can't eat" is malicious and predatory and callous in a way that's just as insidious as the others.

convincing people that it's their own idea, and more than that, their own desire to be hungry, despite our body's natural need and desire to eat, all while food insecurity and poverty and homelessness are skyrocketing feels like. insane to me. but also like a very purposeful move.

just. having images of what's happening to people presented in the form of advertisements for things we're meant to buy and aspire to makes me feel like my brain is pressing against my skull, I guess was mostly the point of this.

[supercantaloupe]

nearly forgot BUT whenever you feel like it i would like to see your thoughts about damon daunno curly & sean grandillo curly 💛

okay prefacing this by saying this is NOT about their voices. we all know no one else in theater right now can sing like damon daunno. this post is about acting. this also has nothing to do with the fact that sean grandillo doesn't actually have curly hair i'm overlooking that for now

there's such a distinct difference between their portrayals of the character. in simple terms it feels like damon daunno's curly is more charming while sean grandillo's curly is more calculating. it's kind of a subtle difference between them in any given moment, but it adds up a lot over the course of the whole show. and ultimately i think it works MUCH better for curly to be charming, not for the sake of enjoying the performance but for the message that the show is trying to tell

more explanation under the cut bc this is long

(i think it's also distinct enough to be heard through audio alone; if you haven't seen or heard both portrayals and want to compare them i think it's worth listening to some audios from broadway and the tour, though of course the comparison is clearest if you've seen both them as i have)

so curly is the main character of oklahoma!; i wouldn't say he's the protagonist (i would reserve that narrative role for laurey), but he is the first guy we meet and identify with as audience members, and the guy we initially come to root for most. in more traditional productions of ok!, he's a straightforward manly hero. the revival clearly casts a shadow of doubt on this, since the use of silence, darkness, and the changed ending reveal a dark side to curly that, while always present in the text, was never fully explored or exposed until now. i can't in good conscience call the curly of 2019's oklahoma! a hero, watching him very plainly intimidate, suicide bait, and ultimately murder another man (and for what? a girl?).

so curly is no longer a hero; he's morally gray. now we have to ask, why do we let this happen? why do we let such a man as curly get away with being such a bully? why do we let him walk free after committing murder?

here's where the difference between the two actors comes into play, imo. i believe damon's curly is far more compelling than sean's because his performance offers a greater contrast between a likeable hero and a detestable villain.

to me, sean's curly lacks a certain sweetness and charm that is necessary to making curly in 2019's oklahoma! work. he's confident and coolheaded, sure, but every move he makes feels calculated. when he sings about the surrey to laurey and tells her he "made it all up, right outta my head," he sounds like he'd planned that from the beginning to tease her. when he asks her to marry him, right after making a big show of spending all his money (and losing his means of making more as a cowboy) for her, he sounds like he's asking as much if not moreso out of self interest than out of genuine affection. the overall effect is a curly who is less heroic and sympathetic throughout, and more questionably moral, perhaps more selfish, certainly less likeable in an unqualified sense.

damon's curly is completely different. he carries himself with confidence and ease, yes, but he feels more spur-of-the-momen and playful. he gets knocked off his high horse more (so to speak); when he lies about the surrey and says he made it up, it sounds more defensive, like he's trying to save face after laurey sees through his posturing. when he asks for her hand, he sounds genuinely hopeless and frightened, not just because he's broke and jobless, but because he can't imagine going on from here without her. he sounds like a man who's desperately in love. and crucially, he's a man the audience can fall in love with, too.

(the romantic chemistry between each actor's curly and their respective laureys is beyond the scope of this post, but if you want my two cents, i think the lighting does a lot more heavy lifting in the tour to sell their mutual attraction than the broadway production did, which was more emphatic rather than persuasive.)

the effect from this is that, as an audience member, i am more primed to sympathize with damon's curly than sean's in any given scenario; sean's curly makes me wary and wonder what he'll do next, damon's curly convinces me to come along with him for whatever ride may entail.

this is not to say it's necessarily bad or worse to have a main character be unlikeable; that works in a story built for it. but the oklahoma! revival is about making you uncomfortable, making you question things, making you wonder who is worthy of trust or blame or guilt. in the end, damon's curly is more shocking, and makes us question more, precisely because he is so charming and loveable from the get go.

consider the smokehouse scene: this is the first moment we see a new side of curly, one that isn't sweet and charming. he's calmly aggressive and intimidating and uncaring. he tells a man how wonderful it would be if he killed himself, and it seems for a moment like jud is convinced. i am willing to argue that curly's bullying of jud here is the catalyst for everything tragic that happens in act ii -- jud bidding so aggressively in the auction, and being so desperate with laurey that he almost assaults her, and finally orchestrating his own death by curly's hand at the wedding -- it's all curly's fault, ultimately. that is so much more difficult to reconcile as an audience member when curly is a lovable, charming young fellow for every other moment he's onstage.

when sean's curly goes up against jud, it feels planned, premeditated, in character. when damon's curly goes up against jud, it comes out of nowhere, it's shocking and unsettling. and we have to face the fact that we've been supporting a man who resorts to violence to get what he wants this whole time. and then we think, how is that different from jud? why did jud deserve to die while curly got the girl? is it because he's handsome and charming and smooth talking?

how many villains have we mistaken as heroes because of their appearance? how many heroes have we condemned as villains for the same reason? can we even call one man a villain and another a hero without ignoring or missing important parts of who they really are?

2019's oklahoma! asks us to consider how tragedies like this happen, and what role we play in them. (this point is made even more strongly in the broadway production, where the in-the-round and onstage seating and communal meal allowed the audience to literally become a part of the in-fiction community as the actors were.) we are responsible for jud's unavenged death and we are responsible for letting a killer walk free because, like the rest of the territory folks, we looked at curly and were charmed by him enough to overlook his aggressive tendencies, and we looked at jud and determined him an outcast unworthy of sympathy.

curly simply must be charming, trustworthy, deceptively sympathetic, and intensely so, for this tension to be most effective. we have to love him from the start, so by the end of act i we're confused, and by the beginning of act ii we forget and love him again, and by the finale we're punched in the gut.

[overdrivels]

The Hanzo-disliking anon here. I would have actually preferred discussing this w/ you privately but I prefer to be on anon for the whole "doesn't like a beloved popular character" thing. The reason I don't like Hanzo is how he seems to have the audacity to act like the offended party with Genji when he's the one who did wrong. It's not even that he doesn't realize he did wrong. He abandoned his clan due to guilt. I can't for the life of me understand what appears to be his victim complex. (1/2)

(2/2) He goes around calling Genji “trash” to his face in the Japanese version of OW for goodness’ sake. That Genji is dead to him and stuff. It could be that he feels Genji betrayed him by refusing to join the Shimada business or that he feels like his redemption quest has been for nothing, but those are terrible reasons and don’t excuse his shitty behavior. I’ve been trying to think of what the writers are trying to go for with him, but I just can’t imagine anything that justifies his attitude

(3/2 I miscalculated 2 asks aren’t enough) I hope I didn’t come off as a jerk. I have no issue with people who like Hanzo and I don’t want to disrespect or undermine them. I’m just irritated at how self-entitled the character seems to be. The reason I actually brought this up with you is bc I was hoping you’d have some insights on this that will help me understand why he’s the way he is.

You’ve been very respectful in the way you express your opinions and well articulated in your reasons, so I’m actually extremely happy that you’ve presented this to me and feel comfortable enough to share. (You have no fucking clue how pleased I am to have a discussion like this, really.)

This is rather long (very long), so I’m placing this under a cut. To everyone else, please be mindful of each other’s opinions, especially when it’s being conveyed so civilly. Understandably, if you are of the opposite opinion, you may feel angered, but I ask that you refrain from attacking anyone and if need be, present your opinion and thoughts in the same manner as this anon.

(I also ask that this doesn’t get reblogged because I don’t think I can handle my inbox getting wrecked by people who weren’t initially a part of the conversation or know the context of the entire discussion leading up to this.)

I’d be happy to discuss it with you on chat or something, but as it is, this’ll have to work. I’m going to preface this by saying that Hanzo doesn’t need to be (shouldn’t need to be?) justified as a character because sometimes, a character does shitty things and that shittiness (shittyness?) needs to be acknowledged and not justified for any reason because there’s no good enough explanation.

(I’m sure we’ve all experienced or done something like that in real life–did something so inexcusable without proper explanation, but there really isn’t one, and we have to accept it as is.)

I think it’s easy to look at the singular action of Hanzo killing Genji in a vacuum. Based on that singular event alone, and seeing how Hanzo acts afterward, it’s very easy to paint him as an asshole whose actions are inexcusable and he doesn’t deserve to claim that he’s the one who is hurt. In which case, absolutely. He should not act like he’s been wronged when he’s the one who started it.

But what if we start further?  

I want to look at the cause and what could’ve led up to it. Not to justify it, but to see where this could’ve come from. It’s my own opinion, but I think that people are very used to writers having their characters as is–no background unless it’s relevant to the plot, no thought of what sort of life they’ve lead up to this point, and is presented as a given. However, I see that the Overwatch team has put some effort into characters (the level of effort can be debatable, but I’m not interested in debating that), so I want to show some level of respect to the writers by trying to dig a little deeper into where, why, how–who is this character?

And I think a lot of it may have come from Hanzo’s circumstance, his relations with his brother, and his past. To understand it, we have to take a deeper look into Japanese culture (or Asian culture, in general). Now, I can’t claim that I have a complete understanding of anything, so a lot of this is just what I know (and perhaps experiences) and some speculation and logical deductions.

In life, Genji was given a freedom that Hanzo, as the eldest and the heir to a criminal syndicate, never truly enjoyed. That isn’t to say, however, that Genji didn’t have his own fair share of troubles. 「一族の恥」(ichizoku no haji)、the clan’s shame/the embarrassment of the clan is what they called him. We can leave the discussion about Genji for another day, but let’s look at how this affects Hanzo.

So from birth and even after his father’s death, he was held to a strict standard. Everyone was watching him. He was chosen by the dragons. He must not make a mistake lest he bring shame to his entire family.

In Japanese culture (and Asian culture), losing face is probably one of the worst things that could happen to you. In Western culture, it’s not that big of a deal if you embarrass yourself a little or you’re not as successful or you don’t have the respect of your subordinates. People will tease you about it, and move on.

In Asian culture, you’re pretty much fucked. No one will let you forget it, it becomes a part of you now. You will lose the respect of everyone around you, and depending on the level of face you lose, every piece of success you’ve built up can be lost in a second. It is an integral part of your identity and society. Losing face could make you a nobody, scorned, and an outcast. It can affect your job, your family, relations with neighbors, cost you that raise or promotion–it’s a big deal that cannot be contained to the words, ‘embarrassment’ or ‘shame’.

(For example: you’re at someone’s house and you’ve finished off your glass of juice, but you’re still thirsty, so you reach for more from the fridge. You’ve now made the host lose face because, by getting your own drink, you’ve shown your host that they suck at what they do and should be more attentive to you, their guest. You’ve made your host lose face. Now your host is embarrassed and that’s going to be a mark on them for a long, long time. If there were other people there, they would notice this, too, and give that person shit. This sounds absolutely silly because it’s a glass of juice, but it’s a big deal.)

Hanzo was losing face. He couldn’t control his brother. That’s a deep scar on his image, on everything he’s built up in his life. For Sojiro, his father, it was less of a deal–he let Genji do it and probably made it openly known that this was acceptable. And no one will go against Sojiro, the master of the clan and who could have them all killed in an instant.

But Hanzo?

He doesn’t have that rapport yet, so he’s subject to the scorn and nasty comments of his elders and the like. (I’m assuming there are elders and those in the clan who are of a high power that Hanzo cannot take action without consulting. It’s kind of like a Japanese company. While a President delivers the decision, the decision isn’t made it without consulting those who are affected and knowledgeable.) He can’t defend himself against them. 

Why? 

Because of the hierarchy. There’s a very specific type of hierarchy in Japan that’s difficult to explain because to understand it, you have to understand the intricacies of the culture and the dynamic of the clan, which we don’t particularly have.

(There’s a very good post about it by someone about Hanzo losing face on tumblr, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment.)

Regardless, that must’ve built up a lot of tension and repressed anger that he wasn’t allowed to express. Expressing your anger is not taken the same way as in the Western world. It’s…well, not to say it’s not acceptable, but it’s not taken the same way as it would be outside of Japan.

So, Hanzo has quite a bit on his plate. Why can’t Genji just do what he’s told? Why does he have to stand out? (As a side note, standing out in Japanese culture or disrupting the status quo is not looked kindly upon.There’s even a saying in Japanese: a nail that stands out gets hammered ( 出る杭は打たれる ).) So Genji’s defiance is another point of contention. Why does he have to keep disobeying his elders? Hanzo is Genji’s older brother. It’s his absolute responsibility to make sure his brother is kept in line. That’s the burden of being the eldest. If Genji isn’t in line, Hanzo has failed in his basic duties in being an older brother. (The implications are much more serious, and I’m not quite sure how to express it.)

He may be acing his studies, and listening to his father, but he can’t seem to exert the right amount of authority over those who should be listening to him. And his father isn’t helping by letting Genji do what he wants. He also has this constant pressure to do better because his best isn’t enough from both his family and the clan. Logically, they wouldn’t follow someone who is weak or doesn’t have his shit in order. But he doesn’t. There’s always something tripping him up, and that’s his brother. Not to blame Genji, because again, he has his own share of troubles, but from Hanzo’s point of view, he was likely the source of a lot of his resentment.

In short, Hanzo is a failure. His accomplishments, his perfectionism, none of it means anything if he’s constantly getting shit thrown back at his face.

I seriously believe that all the lines he says in-game to himself such as, “Never second best,” or “Unworthy,” or “You will never amount to anything!” were all just Hanzo projecting.

In the Japanese version, he refers to Genji as 「くず」 (trash). I don’t know what to make of this. I could take the angle that it’s Hanzo projecting onto Genji still, or I could speculate that he truly believes he’s superior, or take it a little more neutrally, he’s repeating what everyone else calls Genji. But if I had to guess, it’s a mixture of everything. This is something that stumps me a little bit, but the above is the best explanation I have for it.

When Hanzo becomes the master of the clan, he was probably told to put Genji in line. And Genji didn’t want anything to do with the clan. He wanted to live his life, enjoy it. But that sort of enjoyment came with certain responsibilities that he has shirked since the time of their father. But with Hanzo as the new leader of the clan, he had to put Genji in line or…do something about it.

It’s very likely that the rest of the clan saw this as an opportunity to make their name good, to get rid of those who stood out, to right everything. Their new leader is young and inexperienced without his father to protect him. So, Hanzo was presented with those two choices: straighten Genji out or kill him lest you bring more shame to the clan.

Now, Hanzo is given an opportunity to redeem himself and his image and the clan’s image. This goes beyond the redemption quest he set out for after Genji’s death. I think he was on one even before then. He can save face and fix everything if he listens to his elders (his betters in the hierarchy). He can fix everything if he can get rid of the problem–Genji.

He did it. He did not take an insult to his power passively, he rectified it by putting an end to it. He restored confidence in his clan as an assassin, as master of the clan, as his brother.

…but it wasn’t so.

After killing his brother, we all know he left the Shimada clan. We’re not sure if it was immediately after or some time after. The timing may be very significant, but as we do not readily know, we’ll skip over it for now. We can easily call his leaving an act of cowardice, or the result of his guilt, or that he wanted to do something he always wanted to do but never found an opportunity to do so. He wanted to leave. He wanted the freedom that Genji had, but couldn’t have because his immediate family still existed.

By leaving, he thought for himself for once.

Ah, not to mean that he was blindly following anyone’s orders or anything, but for once, he thought of himself. He was selfish. In Japanese culture, the collective comes first. The clan, the whole of Hanamura, the whole of society comes first.

But for once, Hanzo became selfish, and so, left everything behind. Here’s the funny thing though, by killing Genji, he found a way out for his freedom, but by killing Genji, he also managed to never fully express the envy and hate he may have had for his brother.

In many or most cultures, you’re supposed to revere the dead. It’s pretty much the same in Japanese culture.

Now he’s been mourning for ten years, still unable to express that hate that he has supposed buried when he killed his brother. And guess who shows up? Genji. Back to sling shit into his face again. Not only is he a failure as a brother for being unable to keep his brother in line, as the master of the clan by leaving, but also as a killer by having one of his most life-altering kills come back from the grave.

So, under such circumstances, I would absolutely be pissed beyond hell and vent in almost any way I can because pride is a fragile thing. Or at least, it is for Hanzo.

But here’s an interesting thought: I also wonder if he knew, deep down, that it would come to this. He didn’t seem entirely too surprised beyond the first few seconds. As a matter of fact, he seemed to have gone back to something more childish, acting almost immediately like a big brother–scolding his younger brother for something and telling him to get his life together. He slips into the role almost too easily.

We can chalk it up to shock, but couldn’t it be that he also knew he never actually dealt the finishing blow and that’s been nagging at him this whole time? Not that he gave his brother a chance to live, but that he let his brother suffer. If you’re going to kill someone you love, you’d make it quick and painless, right? We can argue that he never loved his brother, but we can also argue that he was warring with himself and couldn’t bring himself to do it.

I must sound like a broken record, but to me, it’s very interesting to speculate and think about. There are so many angles we can take on this and the possibilities are endless. But it could also be that his character could also be very simple broken down as an man who mistakenly thinks he is being wronged all the time.

But yes, your thoughts are valid and meaningful to me in a way that I can’t explain. They also gave me some perspective on why some people might not like him, and I really want to thank you for helping me expand my horizons. In light of that, I hope I’ve been able to articulate why he may be the way he is, whether he is justified in his behavior or not is a completely different story. I’m just interested in why.

(There was a lot more I would’ve love to elaborate on, but I think this would’ve actually turned into a research paper. I hope this has been helpful and sufficient in answering your questions even though it’s a little disorganized in its presentation. Again, it’s perfectly fine to dislike a character–not all characters are made to be liked, and not all people are expected to like all characters.)