#i got so delusional to the point i thought s5 had hideaki and was sad to remember he only exists in my mind

[firesofdainix]

pspsps hello beloved marijuana I thought of something about Hideaki and wanted to share

since his appearance changes according to his mood, do you think as the apathy and indifference starts building up while he was in the cursed realm, his hair and eye color start getting duller and duller (assuming they have color in the cursed realm lmao)

I wanna talk about this in a complicated and long answer, Because I'm in the mood to talk more about Hideaki. Here's a few more facts about his powers and some more insight in his personality under the cut:

Hideaki's entire color palette, before he died, was a warm, soft spring, correlating to his initial personality of being a warm, bright child who clutches on optimism and happiness. That's why he always taps into the sub-element of spring when he uses his powers, because it reflects his attitude and way of life. He was born and raised by optimistic and well off parents who only wanted to see their children grow up happy with careers and a life ahead of them. Thus, why they let Hideaki go with FSM, no matter how sad they are about the ordeal.

Spring mostly taps into the power of Lightning, simply because spring is also the rainy season and just because I want to, lol. It can command the area in Hideaki's proximity to change or evolve in their seasonal patterns, but changing the actuality of the season is taxing for someone as young as Hideaki so he keeps it safe. He can make a flower bloom in the dead of winter, or can make a spring shower out of nowhere in the summer season. Nevertheless, he is in his most powerful during spring season, since he doesn't NEED to control the season nor temperature until he's comfortable enough to start fighting.

The Element of Seasons can also control the quality or traits attributed towards each season: Hideaki is the strongest in spring because his personality makes it compatible for him to control the season. That's why his eye color and hair, most of the time, resembles spring the most, because he's happy and joyful and all things associated with that season. He's vibrant and exudes optimism and that's what makes him so strong in a season where people get pollen allergies (idk I live in a tropical country).

Anyways, talking about moods, Hideaki could also control summer with little to no struggle as well; as a season commonly after spring, summer, in Hideaki's case, is based off raw emotions, outburst, passion and his temper flaming. While spring is his natural personality, happiness incarnate, summer is the emotions that he has to let out every once in a while. Initially, when he was a rookie elemental master not knowing what was happening to him, his confusion, anger, and frustration over not understanding why this phenomenon is tied to him accidentally almost burnt a part of the forest down because the season of summer had been tied to his emotion. It's what led FSM to find him in the first place and comfort him over why this is happening.

So, while his emotional outbursts can be tied to summer still, he has better control over how much he exudes over his element. So when his hair and eyes are in its summer colors (more vibrant and fiery), and the temperature around them is somewhat abnormally warm (especially during winter, autumn, and spring seasons), it means that Hideaki is probably experiencing strong emotions of either passion or anger. Maybe you should start talking to him before he burns down another forest again. Because of his affinity towards summer, he can tap in to the core element of Fire (because summer = hot lmao) helping either increase the temperature or decrease it. In some extreme cases, he can create a fire by making the temperature rise.

Now we go onto the elements Hideaki didn't have primary or stable control over, before he died: autumn and winter. If spring is the embodiment of his personality and how he views things in his life, while summer is his raw feelings and passion, autumn and winter are the opposites of what he and his entire being stood for... For a while, of course.

Autumn is the season represented with abundance, plentiful harvest, but simultaneously represented with death, decay, and decline. You can already see where Hideaki is struggling with this; Hideaki can only replicate or manipulate the one side of autumn that is all about the harvest and abundance of harvest, but not the other side of it. He struggles to understand that sometimes life is meant to be lost. He can tap into the element of earth, yes, but because he can't control the side of autumn very well his access to the element of earth is quite limited and closed off to him. When using autumn's powers, his appearance only appears as a slightly less desaturated version of summer because of his inability to control all of autumn. If he had any true power over the season, his colors would resemble the one in my Hideaki picture.

Some abilities he CAN do while using his autumnal powers: speeding up the process of crops being harvested, ability to detect or sense a change in direction. Autumn is the season of dormancy, which is why Hideaki struggles; he is known to be active and enthusiastic over everything, so finding himself trying to be... Lethargic or inactive is like a mortal sin for Hideaki.

Next up is winter, a season that transmutes coldness and representation of death. Hideaki also doesn't have the personality of winter (nor autumn), and is the complete opposite of his personality. It's literally the representation of inactivity, detachment, stillness, stagnance that Hideaki finds repulsive throughout his life. It's beautiful, yes, but he would rather just be able to move or feel something other than being, well, the same thing as a winter wonderland. Because of this, he STRUGGLES attempting to replicate winter or even manipulate traits that are usually associated through winter, to the point he avoids using it unless the other Elemental Masters force him to for whatever reason. He couldn't properly tap into the Element of Ice; he can make temperature frigid, but beyond that, it's a really big struggle.

(Fun fact! He actually managed to defeat the Oni of Anger with a trivial temperature decrease, to distract him, before Kokoro goes in for the kill. That's how you deal with toxic father in laws everyone!)

Anyways, about Hideaki's colors depending and changing on his mood or what season he's channeling, it's time to go into his abilities post-mortem. He was the first and last Elemental Master of Seasons (he planned for his baby to become the next inheritor, but you know what happened), so most data about his abilities is lost through history. Anyways, because he died in a gruesome, tragic way and is then subjected to the worst condition of afterlife possible, his spring and summer persona and traits start to fade.

Hideaki starts to understand what the season of autumn truly meant during his years in the Cursed Realm, filled with misery and the case of not having to do anything. Not wanting to do anything anymore, knowing that every escape, every attempt is quite futile, he started to lose hope and what made him Hideaki in the first place. While there is no concept of seasons in the Cursed Realm, he can now control all sides of autumn, tapping into the element of earth properly without any struggle. His emotions slowly but surely begin to grow stagnant, less passionate, less feeling over the years. He is only left with the growing sense of bitterness and that building apathy. Simply put, because of the prompt betrayal and murders carried about his legacy.

When autumn transitions into winter, it's not a very special change, because they're all ghosts and the only way to see whether or not they have colors is if the green pigmentation is a little lighter or darker. But Hideaki KNOWS he's been stuck in this wintry cover for over a thousand years. And yes, because spring colors are all about the softness of colors and being full, winter is the opposite of that, the colors getting duller and duller as the years went by. It's a consequence to his power, as the successor of the Great Devourer's seasonal abilities. Seasons are the driving force of his power, yes, but it also gives and takes from his own emotions, which is the biggest link of them all.

Winter is the season of death, stillness, void, and frigid. Hideaki in the next life is dead, a specter, an old incarnation of his old self. He thinks that, in the end of all things, the person he used to be is gone. It died when he died. This new person that ended up in the Cursed Realm, turned into villain, the thing he hates the most. Yet, after so many years, so much suffering, so much overwhelming emotions that couldn't be solved... he stopped. He developed the need to stop feeling. The need to not cast his expression to the stage, to be the husband the Preeminent wanted him to be. The person that is supposed to not care about anything at all. Yet as the apathy built up, so is his emotions resistance. Somewhere inside him, the last trace of spring remains, no matter how much he want to believe that the person he once was was gone.

<small>... he just doesn't want to believe that some part of him still cares about the people around him.</small>

Here's a discord convo about Hideaki's struggle with empathy and emotions, along with a character parallel I actually created with another oc of mine, Alvern, who's the complete opposite of Hideaki.

Here is also doodles of his summer and winter variant when it comes to the comparison of his most vibrant colors to his lowest, duller and blander ones: