I imagine binah has been called a star by others in the past but always as "a star of the city" or something worse due to who she was. but the way you call her a star is different
the others call her a star in the way that the sun burns and blinds anyone who looks at it. they see her as dangerous, as a threat, one of the everlasting sources of violence and fear in the City- a Star, whose power shine brilliantly, horribly bright, as all Arbiters do. it's a title of strength and terror and torn flesh, perfect for one as sadistic and ruthless as she
you call her a star in comparison to how constellations twinkle in the night sky, during the few times the air is clear enough to see them. she's seen the way you stare out the window, pointing out each tiny jewel on a tapestry of midnight blue and black, fascination and wonder in your eyes. a star is a thing of beauty and grace to you, mysterious and distant but always irrevocably there, even if it's hidden by clouds. they make you feel happy, as Binah makes you feel happy, so in your eyes it makes sense for them to be one and the same
you call Binah a star, and it evokes something gentle about her, strong and warm and loving, and the Librarian of Philosophy feels her heart melt
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I see people bringing up Nishiki slapping Reina so fucking often and I'm so fucking tired of it.
Let's get this out of the way first: was it good of Nishiki to hit Reina? Should he have done it? OF FUCKING COURSE NOT. While violence is the answer to a not negligible amount of problems, here, it WASN'T.
HOWEVER.
People tend to act as though Reina was a poor uwu victim who didn't do anything wrong. So lemme explain the situation here:
1) Nishiki just saw someone he cares about A LOT get sexually assaulted or even raped.
2) Nishiki just brutally killed his boss because of an emotional / trauma reaction to witnessing said assault and was very shaken up by it, having collapsed to his knees when Kiryu arrives.
3) His brother just took the fall for it and will have to go to prison for a very long time.
4) Sawamura disappears from the hospital, leaving Nishiki with most of his support network gone in the blink of a fucking eye.
5) He goes to update Reina on the situation and she starts screaming at him, accusing him of being weak and useless, of failing her by not being able to protect Sawamura and Kiryu.
Great fucking reaction on her part, isn't it? He's just lost two of his siblings at once and she is telling him that it's his fault. Yes, Reina probably didn't mean it like that, but she still says it. And when Nishiki interrogates her on it, she doesn't retract it.
It's not helping that Nishiki's mental stability is already shot to shit because of various pressures, such as an important surgery for Yuko coming up, Kazama's clear favouritism, Kashiwagi's distance.
I reiterate: NISHIKI GETTING VIOLENT WAS BAD. HE SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT.
And he apparently does slap her quite hard. But he also immediately regrets it, looking at his hand with shock. As someone who not only has a lot more physical strength than Reina and is in organised crime and is thus the stronger party in the power imbalance, it was his responsibility to try and counteract the power imbalance by restraining himself. And he failed at that.
My point is that Reina said what I consider to be unforgivable things, even if she didn't mean them. And she knows this because when Nishiki confronts her, she is scared. She knows she fucked up. Yet she doesn't try to retract her accusations or to reformulate what she feels.
They're both horrible in this interaction and this is why I don't like them as a pairing. Reina clearly is way over her head in the Yakuza world. Which is perfectly fine, not everyone can deal with it, in fact I'd wager that most people can't, yet she both involves herself in it and is involved in it by others. And then she deals with being exposed to the dark sides of the yakuza world by toxically unleashing it, here on Nishiki.
Another thing I don't like is the "he hit a woman because she hurt his feelings he isn't an uwu baby". Oh, so it would have been fine if Reina had been a man? No it wouldn't have. Why bring gender into this? Either say that no one deserves to be hurt or say that everyone deserves to get slapped every once in a while.
Let all genders be slapped and let all genders slap. All or nothing, cmon.
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