#i guess the ‘and then peko wakes up’ post is gonna have to be another one

[alstroemerian-dragon]

thinking about the several month period where the survivors (plus the two who are already awake) work to 1) wake up mahiru 2) support her through healing and then 3) wake up peko

and how utterly Miserable that period of time has to be for fuyuhiko

(more under the cut because its another long one babey)

like. okay. heres a couple of disclaimers: this is a repeat, but i have not watched the anime. so if the character dynamics from it are your canon, just know i may not follow that. second, i… dont really think about mahiru that much. shes not really that much of a character to me, given what were given in canon, and the Casual Man Hating Mom Friend Lesbian (and i know she canonically has a crush on hajime so shes definitely bi or pan dont yell at me) trope just does nothing for me im sorry HOWEVER. in contrast to fuyuhiko, and in terms of what, in my brain, she does during the tragedy (which will probably WILDLY contradict literally everyone else’s opinions), there IS something in… her* arc post sim (that * will come back) that DOES interest me. bear with me

fuyuhikos ingrained belief system revolves almost entirely around the phrase ‘There is always a bigger fish.’ there is always going to be someone stronger, bigger, and more dangerous than you, so you have to work to be the strongest, biggest, and most dangerous you can in order to stay alive. along with that, he’s had very strangled views of what it means to be a Man shoved down his throat by most likely his father, so to him, being a man means being Big and Strong and Dangerous. but at the same time… he knows thats all bullshit. hes had other influences in his life, peko, his sister and, in my mind, his mother and other strong women high up in his clan, that have shown him the falsehoods of a lot of those claims. at the same time, he also knows, in the back of his head, that he physically can not meet those expectations for being a man. but… he is one. i think hes Solid in that. so it ends up all conglomerating and fighting in his head in a very confusing mess, which honestly has to be exhausting.

mahiru, by contrast, seems to have this very odd two-part system of beliefs, where being a man means being Confident and Strong and Protective, but at the same time, men are fundamentally Lazy and Stupid and Uncaring. women need to be protected by men, but also men are unnecessary. its… yeah its honestly familiar lmao. and some of this is the writers’ beliefs seeping in and some of it is bad writing but at the end of the day its what weve got.

so, to me, it really feels like the two of them would have absolutely hated each others guts during school. fuyuhiko is neither Big and Strong and Caring, nor is he Lazy and Stupid and Uncaring. he cares a lot, but not openly, or in a way that mahiru would easily recognize. hes an enigma in her eyes. and to fuyuhiko, mahiru is stuck in a frame of mind hes been fighting since he was a child, and as much as he’d try to be sympathetic, his anger has a tendency to get the better of him.

so… sato’s death would only have made this situation worse.

i dont think any of them knew he was responsible for her death. i dont think fuyuhiko told ANYONE aside from peko, especially since this would have been in their second year, after junko had begun sinking her talons into the entire class. how could he trust any of them? and he has to have known about her connection to mahiru, its the only way he could have found out she was involved in natsumi’s death. he kept it from her in particular, knowing she wouldn’t understand, knowing she would blame him, knowing it would just make things worse.

she probably doesnt realize the full extent of everything until… until after she wakes up.

im not gonna go too much into them as despairs, but lets just say that fuyuhiko… is responsible for a lot of bad things, even ones that happened to his fellow limbs. mahiru also did a lot of shit, but hiko i think is one of the only ones who hurt his so-called allies. and her cheery, fake, influencer-like attitude absolutely grated on him like crazy, resulting in a lot of screaming matches and even physical altercations.

so, when mahiru wakes up, her opinion of fuyuhiko is the lowest it could possibly be. hes an enigma, a stick in the gears, a man who hasnt yet shown his true colors and yet is also a violent, cruel dictator, fulfilling every expectation she has for the kind of man she expects the Ultimate Yakuza to be.

except he isnt. because by the time she wakes up, its been over a year and a half since the program shut down, and fuyuhiko is a very, very different person. and he doesnt have a low opinion of her at all. hes incredibly sympathetic to her situation, understands how much pain shes probably in, understands theres definitely a lot more under her surface beliefs that he doesnt see or know yet. thinks it was incredibly brave of her to stand up to him despite knowing he could be violent and dangerous.

and as the days go by, she sees that. sees him interacting with the others, sees him laugh at one of hajimes stupid jokes, sees him smile and roll his eyes at kazuichi’s physical affection, sees him lean on his cane when his leg flares up, sees him rubbing at the scars around his eye when they ache. sees how much respect he treats her with, how much space he gives her while not avoiding confrontations, because hes done running. hes been running for far too long, and hes done with it.

i think it takes a long time. weeks, maybe. months, possibly. but i think it starts to weigh on her mind, that she cant keep treating him like a criminal. like a weapon. cant keep ignoring his humanity in favor of the label of Violent Man that sits in her brain. and, additionally, interacting with the others, with hajime, with sonia, with kazuichi and sagishi. she starts to realize how utterly stupid the rigid gender structures that exist in her heard really are.

basically what im saying is i think mahiru is a he/him butch bi woman because i love to hit characters with the Cool Ass Gender ray. this is where that * comes back by the way thats why thats there because mahirus not a girl but also he is a girl but also hes not. hope this helps <3 also he and fuyuhiko are Worsties. they should eventually get to a point where they can both make jokes about the fact that fuyuhiko tried to kill him and can also have serious conversations about the sato and natsumi shit without devolving into unproductive arguing.

AND THEN PEKO WAKES UP FUCK THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT—

[toxicpineapple]

my (personal favourite) writings from 2019

I don’t have anything for January because I guess I didn’t write/didn’t post anything then? At any rate, here are my favourite writings from every month of 2019.

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February:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17764769/chapters/41916899 : “To Give Life Meaning”, a 5+1 things Hinanami fic I wrote over the course of several days, mostly at night. The honourific situation with this one is messy and there are the beginnings of a lot of good lines? Like I know what I was trying to say. But it’s not the kind of thing that I would be happy posting nowadays. (Ignore the fact that it says it was completed in September of this year; I went through nine months later and separated the different sections into chapters so that it would be easier to read. I wrote and published all of it back in February.) This was the second Danganronpa fic I ever wrote.

Content warnings: Contains talk of suicide, and mentions of being suicidal. Generally in the past tense. Nobody is proactive in this fic.

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March:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232343 : “Hold his hand”, the very first Amasai one-shot I ever wrote. I got the idea for this one late at night thinking about how Shuichi would react if his mom died. I was actually going to write this with Ryoma comforting him, or Kiyo maybe, but I ended up doing Rantaro because I watched all of his FTEs with Shuichi and was like… I do like this green man. Anyway, I’m glad I did, because if I hadn’t I don’t know if the Amasai series would… even exist. That’s really weird to think about.

Content warnings: Minor character death on the part of Shuichi’s mother. The focus of the piece isn’t her dying (as it is in fact from Rantaro’s perspective) so much as it is the conflicting emotions that it stirs up for Shuichi, but it’s still, y’know, someone’s mother dying. Anyway, read with caution.

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April:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468478 : “Does it matter?”, a late-night fic where Aoi is conflicted about her sexuality and calls Makoto to talk about it. I wrote a lot of one-shots in April (I actually surprised myself going through them haha) but this one is my favourite because it touches on things that I don’t see addressed a lot. Makoto and Aoi are good friends. 10/10.

Content warnings: Internalised homophobia. It hasn’t triggered anybody that I know of because it’s mostly just Makoto giving advice and Aoi coming to the conclusion that she really likes Sakura in a not-so-platonic way, but y’know.

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May:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18776947 : “Shuichi thinks too much”, another installment in the Amasai drabbles series, and… wow. I literally only posted Amasai in the month of May. This one is my favourite (of the ones I posted in May, obviously) because it’s the one where Shuichi realises that Rantaro is claustrophobic and then they have a messy first kiss in the wake of Rantaro’s panic attack. I like fics where Character A kisses Character B and B has to be like… slow down partner… ur panicking. I also just like milking Rantaro angst so it’s a win-win. I go back and read this one periodically :)

Content warnings: Panic attacks, claustrophobia. Shuichi is exhausted in this fic haha but at least he has his shit together enough to know exactly what he’s feeling through the whole thing.

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June:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19210423 : “Quiet Moments”, an introspective drabble/character study in which Peko thinks about how much she loves Ibuki. Damn, I love Pekobuki. I haven’t written nearly enough for them. I wrote a lot of things in June (including an Undertale one-shot which was a strong contender for this spot just because this list is dominated by Danganronpa stuff) but this one is my favourite because it was just me… rambling about how much I love Ibuki… and projecting onto Peko. Which I do every time I write this pairing, but I didn’t make this list to call myself out, so yeah I’m just going to move on.

Content warnings: Peko briefly mentions that Fuyuhiko had to get an appendectomy within the piece, but it’s nothing intense.

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July:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/19974424 : “Take his soul with a kiss”, a Grim Reaper AU in which Maki is Death and Kaito is a guy with the audacity to tell her to wait a week before grabbing her soul. I’ve finally hit the part of this summer where I was eating one meal a day and spending the rest of my time on my laptop writing fic. 14k words a day, babey! I wrote all my favourite pieces in July (Shuichi’s love hotel, the one where Rantaro pierces Shuichi’s ears, the domestic Hinanami, the one where Shuichi has a breakdown and everyone comforts him, that one where Shuichi is mean to Kokichi and then apologises) but this one definitely deserves to be here because it’s my favourite. I like Momoharu/Kaimaki/Harukaito (idk what y’all call it man) so, uh. Yeah.

Content warnings: Death is talked about a lot but I don’t want to spoil anything about the ending by saying shit so I’ll just??? It’s a Grim Reaper AU, procede with caution. Oh, and Kaito has a lung disease.

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August:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20442290/chapters/48499868 : “Causation and Correlation”, another 5+1 things fic (I have a good chunk of them) where Kyoko can hear death and so she goes around saving people. Also, in the end of the fic, someone saves her. It’s a cute fic and I love writing Kyoko so obviously this one is my favourite. (The one where Kokichi has parents and the Kaemugi fic I wrote that month are ones I really like too… this isn’t easy for me gamers ;w;) This is one of those fics where I was feeling extremely confident about my writing abilities the whole time I wrote it, and I’m still really proud of it.

Content warnings: Again, uh, death? Attempted murder, near-drowning, sickness, head injuries, and also attempted suicide. (Nobody dies in this fic, though.) Kyoko has her work cut out for her in this one.

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September:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20577251 : “Cigarette smoke”, a vaguely nonsensical Saimota piece I wrote where Kaito breaks down and Shuichi comforts him. I’ve only written Saimota twice and both times it’s been Kaito angst because you guys, you just, you don’t address his sadness at all unless it’s in Oumota (and we all know how I feel about Oumota). I should start referring to September as “the month of angst fics I wrote in the middle of the night” because that’s exactly what all of it was. This one wasn’t a vent fic, but there were a lot of them. September is also the month I started doing Amami week, so there’s a lot of that, too.

Content warnings: Kaito really… berates himself in this one. His internal dialogue is hard for me to read in this one because he’s super hard on himself. He also has a meltdown and starts hyperventilating at one point (and the way I write breakdowns is always super descriptive) so please make sure you’re happy and healthy before reading.

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October:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21195527 : “In the forever sense of the term”, what is probably my favourite Amasai fic at this moment, where Shuichi and Rantaro are forced to address Shuichi’s abandonment issues, and also there’s crying. A lot of it. From Shuichi mainly but a little bit from Rantaro too. I was surprised at how many fics I wrote in October because I was mostly focusing on Inktober I should think? I wrote a lot of original works in Inktober (though I ended up falling off the wagon at the end due to burnout) and it was a really fun experience! I think it strengthened my skills as a writer. Anyway this one is cathartic as hell.

Content warnings: The self loathing is strong with this one. It’s one of many mental breakdown fics that I’ve written this year. And there’s obviously the abandonment issues thing. Yikes.

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November:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21399748 : “One hundred and twenty six tiles on the ceiling”, where Himiko ends up bailing on plans she made with everyone to hang out and instead stays at home, stewing in self deprecation, until Ryoma shows up, and then everyone else comes to take care of her. Another one of those ones where everyone is there for someone after a breakdown. I like this one because Himiko is my baby and most of the angst the fandom puts out for her is centered around Tenko and Angie, which sucks because I headcanon her as having depression. Like, depression that is entirely unrelated to the people she knows kind of depression. I didn’t write a lot in November because I had a relapse, but I like this one anyway.

Content warnings: Depressive episode, disassociating, suicidal ideation, all the ugly things that come with depression. This isn’t a pretty fic. I don’t write depression as something that’s pretty or poetic because it’s not. It fucking sucks and that’s just how things are going to be.

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December:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21976864/chapters/52442179 : “An Ode to Yellow Carnations”, a 5+1 things fic where Tsumugi is a florist and Kaede takes different people to her shop until eventually she goes by herself. Is anyone surprised to see this one here? I wrote it for Tumblr’s Danganronpa Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2019 and went waaaay overboard with it. Which is probably why I like it so much. It took me ten days to actually complete, and I’ll frame it like I was diligently writing the whole time, but anyone who knows me knows that I never do things in that way. In truth I switched ideas for the fic four different times and then wrote half of it all in one night when I was hit with a surge of inspiration. I was really nervous that the person I wrote it for would hate it since it’s so long, lol. (Hi Alerane, I love you.) Anyway, I’m gonna think of December of this year as the month where I spent a really long time on a bunch of fics and then posted them all at once.

Content warnings: Very minor character death, mentions of alcohol use (nothing egregious, just recreational use on an outing with friends and all the characters are of age), also Kaede doesn’t go outside in this fic.

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I’m going to try and get out one more fic before the year ends. To be honest I wasn’t expecting to have updated Search by now so I’ve been kind of sitting around wondering what I should write. Maybe I should just start on the Aki chapter, but I’m kind of putting that off because writing those chapters takes a lot of energy and Aki’s is probably going to double Tsubaki’s in length. (Which is great, since Tsubaki’s was already a monster of a chapter on its own.) I’ve had a really great year for writing, y’all. I’ve made lots of friends and learned a whole lot about myself, and my writing style, and the characters I’m trying to portray.

I didn’t include any long-term multi-chapters in this list, like The Best Lies or my Fanganronpa (rip… I swear I’ll pick it back up again soon, I love those characters) but if you want to track my progress as a writer without reading eleven different fics, I’d really recommend reading one of those, because you can see it happening as the chapters go on. There’s so much that I’d probably write differently from where I am now as a writer, because that’s just how things work. Life is like that. You do things a certain way in the moment, and then later, you wish you could’ve done them differently. It’s impossible to live your life without regrets, or things that you’d like to do over again.

But for what it’s worth, I’m really happy that I don’t have to. Thank you guys so much for sticking with me this year. It hasn’t been the best, but it’s been all that it’s been capable of being.

Here’s to a new decade.