upboundline

[autisticstarseed]

anyways sorry that i just soapbox abt this every now and then bc of The Trauma Feels TM comin out to the surface but. @ teens, dont ever let adults become obsessed with you, even platonically. if you are 18+, under no circumstances should you let yourself become best friends with a teen. as in, whatever relationships you ever happen to form with a minor, they should be Different from what you view as friendship amongst your adult peers. you cant let yourself form an emotional dependence on them. you cant rely on them to take care of you as your ‘bff’ or think you can do whatever you want without consequence. you cant even rly expect the same care back from them, theyre a kid and you’re an adult. no matter what, balls in your court to regulate your behavior towards a minor, bc they obviously dont deserve mistreatment from you just bc You werent thinking abt it or didnt care. its your job to do that! you choose to take that on when you try to get buddy buddy with em! 

you can have a friendly relationship or w/e, but it literally isnt the same as your regular adult friendships, and Cant be Treated like that. you cant ignore your power imbalance even a little bit, theres Zero margin for error, you will Hurt them if you ever let yourself just Forget they are a child. the gravity of your impact in this situation should be very important to you. you cant treat a young friend like your adult friends, bc they cant Be an adult for you. they DEFINITELY cant do MORE for you than you can do for them, no matter how much you feel you ‘need’ them. you definitely cant ask for emotional labor, you cant deflect any kind of manipulation patterns off of your personal issues. thats shit you shouldnt even do to your fucking adult friends but god, to do it to a kid is just another level of power trip and abuse. theres a Huge responsibility on your part here, and it honestly includes refusing to let it cross a line where you are the one being cared for. sometimes it means to ask for less and put in more, to expect to have to hold some things back and put in some efforts you might not usually think about. if you just cant do that, okay, then distance yourself. if you want equal maturity literally just. seek that out. pick someone of the same age, instead of trying to force kids in ur life to grow up for you. look for people who can meet your needs instead of taking whoever comes along and trying to pry more out of them when they cant meet your standards. thats just basic consideration.

if you are an adult who befriends a minor, you cannot seek an equal relationship, let alone one where they give You more. “but i have dependancy issues, thats an unhealthy relationship, thats not fair, Friendships require equal-” you are not best friends. because it is not equal. this relationship is inherently different from that of your adult friends, your maturity levels ARE different. if you selfishly ignore that to get what you want out of them, you’ll be willfully damaging them. like. dude im tired of feeling this leftover guilt and stress that like, even tho i was killing myself and losing my mind because i couldnt ‘do enough’ for others in relationships like this, i must have been a bad friend who was doing something wrong to make them that mad at me all the time when... i was just 15... like i was fully Just a regular 15 yr old..... thats all it was.... and the only Real relationship problem there was that nobody Cared abt that shit.

[desolationlovers]

oh yall thought i was done x posting? lol. kamui character rant under the cut

the thing about kamui is i dont know that hes a very deep character??atleast not how clamp has written him and esp not in the manga.

he spends a lot of the manga being confused and often manipulated. and hes really just a kid.

his first big character arc is debastardization basically. when hes introduced hes a TOTAL asshole (the anime added scenes to make him more of a dick at the start but also has a bit of an explaination? ill get to it). hes shown as very rude to everyone around him, yelling at people to get out of his way or get lost, including his previous friends. hes also shown to have absolutely no care for his surrondings and regularly fights and uses his powers in places where bystanders could be injured and leaving roads bridges or nearby buildings in ruins. when confronted about the latter by hinotos knight (his name is saiki) he straight up says he doesnt care if anyone gets hurt. which i mean ok nothing wrong with a character being an asshole. the extreme in your face way kotori and fuuma describe kamui as a kid being very shy and Very quiet and gentle makes this characterization confusing but hey people can change i guess. the confusing part is that as kamui slowly beings to let his guard down he says that the big reason he was so standoffish especially wrt kotori and fuuma was because he wanted to keep them at a distance so they wouldnt get involved with all the end of the world stuff. which makes sense obviously! kamui was absolutely aware of how dangerous it might get. his entire plan was to get the shinken (the sacred sword) and bail because he didnt want any part of any of it. what i dont get is why he was totally cool with bystanders being injured or killed. during his fight with saiki they were in a neighborhood! on people roofs and shit!! saiki is the one to lead them to an abandoned construction site so no one gets caught in the crossfire. and kamui almost kills saiki!!! which i will let slide a bit because kamui was being followed and had been attacked by spells literally that morning. but later on he apologizes to saiki but never explained his reasoning why he didnt care about destroying peoples houses??? and its never brought up again?????? also theres a scene added to the anime where he kicks the shit out of kotori and fuumas dad??? because he wouldnt give kamui the sword?? bro thats ur best friends dad you jackass!!!!!

in the anime they added flashbacks for the time after he moved away from tokyo which i think make his whole character make much more sense. when he first moves and goes to a new school he accidentally uses his powers and makes everyone afraid of him. fast forward past elementary school to high? school? its unclear. at school hes a lazy slacker that never goes to class and never talks to anyone, big ol loner. he sees that a local gang has been stealing kids money and beating them up. so he decides to put on a tough guy persona and confront the gang telling them to knock it off and scaring them shitless with some fun ass kicking psychokenesis. now i am SO on board with this addition. kamui being ostrisized for being weird and scary when hes already a super shy kid, so he embraces this scary intimidating image and tries using it for good because hes still ultimately kind hearted. he gets too absorbed in this tough guy persona that he loses touch with the original purpose of it and just uses it as a shield because he himself is afraid and confused. and maybe even hiding behind it because hes so afraid of having this huge destiny that he doesnt know if he can live up to and how can someone who decides the fate of the world be just some quiet oversensitive guy.

except all of that is my own speculation and analysis because they really do not go into ANY detail about this. i wouldnt say its to the point where it feels like they just flipped a switch and hes nice now but it def feels like that. and it annoys me because after he kind of apologizes for being a dick it doesnt really get brought up again?? i think he broods over it once or twice. but i would have really liked to see flashes of it coming back in high stress situations or something? he has a lot of points of grief and depression but its always meloncholic rather than angry and it really makes him feel like two different characters i wish it was way more of a mix.

anger would also be good with the whole overarching theme of trying to break out of the path destined for you. its constantly said that theres only one future by the dreamgazers although hinoto wants to change it. its supposed destined that kamui will lose and earth will be destroyed. anger but more importantly PASSION is whats needed break out of what has been preordained and to carve your own path. passion is also whats needed for the main part of the second half of kamuis character arc, figuring out what it is he REALLY wants. what his true wish is.

i also think anger could have been a good inverse to the deliberate mirroring of kamuis character and subarus character. subaru really represents despair and being completely swallowed by grief. his story is that the man he fell in love with (named seishiro) was just manipulating him for fun and is actually an emotionless assassian. subaru is so destroyed by this realization he goes into a depression and because of this is unable to save his sister being killed by seishiro. his goal is literally to be enough of a nusance to seishiro that hell kill him. literally he wants to be acknowledged as important enough to bother killing. its pointed out often how subaru and kamui are so similar, with how fuuma killed kotori, and how theyre both kindhearted ro a fault. its an intentional reflection. subaru even pulls kamui out of a similar depressive state after kotori dies. he and kamui have a whole heart to heart about how some peoples happiness can look pitiful to others and how hes going to fufill his goals even when other people are worried for him. and most importantly about how not everyone can be happy with an outcome. i think it would have been really good for subaru to represent someone overcome with depression about how awful the world is and paralyzed with that sadness and kamui would be the rightous anger and compassion needed to actually change the world. “lets this radicalize you rather than lead you to despair” you know? it would have been a really good parallel considering part of x’s themes are literally about having compassion for humanity. but that reading possibly shoots itself in the foot because the language used wrt the two possible futures are things to stay as they are or for a “revolution” to occur, meaning killing everyone to let the earth heal. so ideas of change are insinuated to be connected with the seven angels and genocide. which uh. not going to get into that.

i do like when he starts going to the clamp school he goes back to being shy and quiet and kind of gets pushed around by people with more force of personality. very fun uncomfortably relatable. its ok man im extremely passive too.

anyway final thoughts kamui needs more passion. clamp give me the rights. also let subaru and kamui hang out and have a brotherly bond. no creepy shit. just subaru being an akward older brother that knows what kamuis going thru and gives bad advice bc he has god awful coping mechanisms.

side note we arent ever told about his likes/dislikes hobby or anything of that nature. the blankest of slates. so my city now. i think hes into obscure indie music and has thousands of hours in various life sim games like animal crossing and stardew valley.