#i know what it's like to have unpopular favorites (kaito hiiro people don't like ikki. i love ikki.)

[shoceted]

Hello, this is like... months late but you were one of the only English KeiwaxAce writers I actually liked and seeing that you've dropped the series is devastating (but understandable, they've been ruining Keiwa since Bullfighting Game and I'm devastated, on the edge of my seat and have a lot words/feelings about it too). Could I ask what was your turning point for the series? Or, I guess, what was the straw that broke your back.

If you don't feel like it, that's fine too. Thank you for sharing your Geats fics at the start of the series.

(Anonymous cuz i'm shy af but mostly because haven't used tumblr in years how does this website even work anymore help-)

firstly, this is an incredibly kind thing to say about my writing, and i appreciate it a lot! i kind of miss being that inspired — like including the ex-aid crossover i wrote, seven things??? that's impressive, actually, go me. the first 16 episodes of geats provided a lot for me to be inspired by, i guess. (i think my heart's always going to do something when i think about the phrase "the tycoon i know", tbh.)

the last straw... well, for one thing, the lack of keiwa focus after episode 19 did bug me, because he was my favorite character and i liked seeing him. people say "oh he got focus during the first dgp" but i don't think that's really the case; i went more into this on my personal twitter account, but him being the audience surrogate for the first arc doesn't mean he's the focus of those episodes. like 1-2 are establishing ace, 3-4 are establishing neon, 5-6 are establishing buffa, and then it's only 7-8 that keiwa gets focus... and he's eliminated. at the beginning of the next dgp, he's not even a contestant, he's just a device used to show the fact that being eliminated without dying gets rid of why you wished for what you wished for. it's not until episode 12 that he's even back.

now, i thought the direction they were going with him — he still wants world peace, but in a more realistic way, wanting to bring all the dead contestants back — was really good, too. and i liked him and neon both developing into characters who could trick ace by the time episode 16 comes around! (i actually still have a kace wip that i might finish someday for the sake of finishing it that takes place between episodes 16 and 17, sorta; like, i have 5k of it written and all it needs is the smut that sure is a part of it, so i might go back to it eventually? who knows.)

and thennnnn the dezastar arc starts, as does the decline in keiwa's writing.

i don't mind characters being comic relief now and then, but having a previously-serious character relegated to just comic relief doesn't sit well with me. 19 was a great episode for keiwa, and that conversation with ace he had over dinner made me lose my shit, and i foolishly thought that maybe they'd take him seriously from there on out.

but, no, they sidelined him. for 12 weeks. waiting for my favorite character to have proper focus episode for 3 straight months really bugged me, tbh, though i didn't say anything for fear of stirring the pot. and we finally get to episode 31 and he gets kicked into a pit. this made me really upset.

the fan reaction to this also didn't do me any favors; i was pissed at buffa (the character, not the actor — i do not care about mokudai kazuto in any direction, though i was accused of hating on him, which was fun) for the whole pit-kicking thing and made this clear, which i realize in retrospect was a mistake, because all of a sudden being a fan of keiwa was not the move. (and fwiw, i don't want to hate buffa; i just get a way with characters who hurt characters i love. i'm the same way about him that i am about kylo ren and sangwoo from squid game, and i do not like this trait about myself.) it reminded me of a bunch of shitty experiences i had in a toxic fandom in 2020 and 2021 that sunk me into a deep depression that it took a long time (and the existence of kamen rider revice, which a lot of geats fans abhor and make clear that they abhor, which also didn't help) for me to get out of. that's when i stopped watching geats live, at least. (i also want to state that this had nothing to do with any ship i like, not even kace. apparently people have this idea that kace enjoyers are really angry folks and it's just like... no? this isn't a popular pairing. nobody is going to get mad at you if you don't like it.)

neon's writing during this time also made me angry; i do not like any of the sponsors at all, and neon's character development coming from a man — and a man who is a toxic fan of hers, at that — didn't sit well with me. on the topic of sponsors, jean felt like forced ace shipping bait, and i didn't like his character much, either. (which also makes me feel bad, since i know the actor's such a huge fan.) it was actually him coming back, as well as punkjack's return (by all means i should adore punkjack, because am i ever a sucker for a flop musician, but nothing about his character has ever worked for me — especially since he unnecessarily flirts with tsumuri and clearly makes her uncomfortable in a setting where she can't complain about this, which, ew), that made me drop geats entirely.

the direction the writing is going right now is also not good. the misogyny of fridging sara and damsel-ing tsumuri, the way they've completely fucked up keiwa's character, it's so frustrating — i honestly want to move zero one up on my toku list for this year so that i can see if ex-aid, which famously gave me a disease, was some kind of fluke. hell, in ex-aid, we have a character who acts illogically because of his grief, and those episodes are perfect to me. doing this with keiwa 40something episodes in doesn't hit the same.

buffa's storyline was supposed to be something similar, i know, but that never worked for me either. much like punkjack, it should have. but his non-reaction to the toru jamato's death when toru's death and his anger over it is supposed to be his entire character motivation... didn't make me feel like hiiro did. his rivalry with ace is also no kaito/kouta. it feels like geats is trying to do a lot of things that worked in gaim without understanding why those things worked in gaim. (and i do hate to be an annoying gaim stan, but... come on, geats.)

maybe i'm missing something because i'm not watching every week, or maybe i just have bad taste, but all of these things piling up makes me want to have nothing to do with geats at all anymore. i've actually considered orphaning all my geats fic in frustration, but i've decided against it because that would mean interacting with my geats fics again. it wouldn't provide catharsis. i'm just done.

so tl;dr: around the dezastar arc i became frustrated with keiwa getting sidelined, the fan reaction to episode 31 as well as its contents brought up bad memories and made me stop watching live, and the return of two characters i just don't see the appeal of made me drop the series entirely.