Can I Talk About The Fact Akutagawa Doesn’t Understand Why Atsushi Saved Him, Even Though He Did The

GO KICK THEIR ASSES!!!

kinda thinking about Gin again… Naomi’s a whole lot like Naomi from Naomi, but we dunno much about Gin at all. they even took away her cross in the anime. is she christian at all? why’s she so important when she’s surrounded by others who are genuine authors? i’ve seen people say she’s from o-gin from the eng+jp fandoms alike, and it’s more likely than not that she is, but why? why include her? why not add another author instead? if they just wanted someone meaningful to Akutagawa, Kikuchi Kan woulda worked, right? why Gin?????

Yk, with the eventual sskk reunion, them hugging is 100% a real possiblity

Right after Ranpo and Poe kidnapped Kunikida from the hospital and brought him back, Atsushi literally leaped and hugged Kuni

I think he'd hug Akutagawa when he sees him again (or maybe vice versa if Akutagawa really is that emotional now)

Both sides of sskk can't even deny their feelings now, it's amazing development

If we ever do get blessed with a sskk hug in the future, I will have a heart attack from happiness

SB!Chuuya vs mafia grunts: spot the differences

Choker (for style)

Gloves (we don't have time to unpack all that)

Rolled up sleeves (for size style)

Open collar (delinquent)

No tie (delinquent)

Unworn sunglasses (in pocket)

It has all the elements of a standard mafia grunt uniform. In the novel, he picks up a shirt, all of which are high-end and well-maintained, "at random" just to get it done. This matches his empty apartment in serving the theme of the story, which is "who is Nakahara Chuuya?"

and YET, we can see his personality come through that basic nobody uniform in the way he chooses to style his bland clothes, the accessories he puts on, and the glasses, which are a mean to anonymise the mafia members, that he does not put on, yet carries with him. He will not be absorbed as just one of the many, and despite his uncertainties, he's clearly himself from the very start.

CHARACTER DESIGN!!!!

(note: the light novel description of his clothes and the character design do not completely agree. Asagiri wanted to have Chuuya wear emerald cuff links. Harukawa rolled up his sleeves. Make of that what you will.)

Hrm hrm today I’m having thoughts about Kuina and her overwhelming Lost Boy vibes and how like. You NEVER GET Lost Girls like that. Narratively, she is The Girl Who Didn’t Grow Up. She will always be eleven and perfect, immortalized in memory. In Zoro’s mind, she is forever just a little bit older and a little bit taller than him. Even now when he remembers her, he pictures her face from an upward angle. She will ALWAYS be “older” and yet she will NEVER be more than eleven. I want to know what was happening in Zoro’s head when he turned 12 and realized he was older than she would ever get to be. I just. All the vibes, give them to me. This is one of the things that just gets me every fucking time!!!

(Sabo is also positioned like this, and is a fairly straightforward example up until it gets subverted by him ACTUALLY GROWING UP. Sabo is what happens when the lost boy grows up and it’s fucking FASCINATING.)

I think the key thing is, in order to be a "lost boy" narrative and not just a tragically dead child character, there needs to have been an expectation of greatness. It's not that little girls don't die in fiction, or that they aren't mourned. But this particular type of narrative emphasizes the specific grief of the loss of incredible potential, which isn't a thing dead little girl characters usually get. They're usually narratives about the loss of innocence or the fragility of life and the injustice of mortality, and Kuina has a little of that - how unfair it is for her life to be cut short. But it's also the bit of, if you'll let me get lyrical for a moment, you could have done so much more if you only had time.

as people grow up, one of the things we have to deal with is the loss of the possibilities of what we could have been, because we can only become one of our possible selves. Even if you become great, even if you're happy, even if you made the best possible choice, you still have to make that decision that to become this I must give up on becoming that. Lost Boys don't ever get to become, so they are enshrined with all that potential still in them. All of the people they could have been, all of the paths they might have taken.

(A thing that drives me crazy: balancing the grief of growing up with the grief of not-growing-up. The tragedy of becoming and the tragedy of never getting to become. The dozens of ghosts of possible selves that every adult carries around with them. Not relevant to the current discussion, but still, a thing to think about!)

There's also the fact that she gets set up with a projected character arc - we can see how she might've grown and dealt with her insecurities and overcome the obstacles in her path, but she'll never get to do it. And Zoro can take their shared dream on himself and make that his responsibility, but he can't resolve her emotional baggage for her, because that's not how that works. And we don't know! Maybe she wouldn't ever have managed it! But Kuina-the-confident-adult is just one of the many possible people she'll never get to be.

The beasts got dirt on him (his true kind-hearted nature)

Loki really is the princess of the arc, isn't he?

smth smth bsd’s recurring theme of your past not defining who you are but facing your past being necessary to move on anyway. the symbolism of atsushi’s abuser being the one to push him forward despite atsushi’s dislike for him—you cannot get rid of him. you cannot stop caring. you will cry when your father dies and you will hate him for it. you will never get rid of the ghost that haunts you but sometimes acknowledging it is the first step to healing. can anyone hear me

It's the ginger birthday y'all