this analysis won't go very far nor in the real depths of the character, but i just wanted to talk about something i realised way too late about akihiko's behaviour.
actually, it never occurred to me that he was a jerk (talking about his old him) before he assaulted haruki. akihiko has always been flirty with haruki and it never seemed to be a problem to me. he was kind of having fun but he looks to be the flirty type with anyone in general and it didn't cause any harm to haruki. i was completely fine with it - also because he looked hot, to be honest. in fact, i was thinking all that when i was sure akihiko had no clue of haruki's feelings.
now, i rewind the assault scene (terrible) and realise that he knew all along... whenever akihiko used his charms with haruki, like giving him nicknames or touching his hair out of the blue, even pushing him to gamble on the boys with him, he knew it would always work because he was aware of haruki's feelings.
what does it change, you're gonna ask me?
well, 2 major things :
- the moment he tells haruki he knows about his feelings is an even bigger plot twist for us than it looks like. haruki let akihiko sleep at his place several times, he let him touch his hair and flirt with him because he thought he was acting like this innocently. though akihiko was already taking advantage of him because he had no intention of giving anything in return.
- it's more or less relevant, but akihiko's assault on haruki was not a sudden turning point (on a second thought), but rather the icing on the cake of all his previous behaviours. as i just said, he was drinking at night knowing he could sleep at haruki's in any case, he was messing with him knowing that he wouldn't hate him anyway. he was mad when he assaulted him, but he was still being himself : just a little more pushy than usual. that means that him being pushy doesn't come out of nowhere, he's always been the "bad guy" type at the beginning (and actually, even haruki was aware of that, this is why he's not really surprised by him having this type of behaviour afterwards, he didn't have high expectations of him).
all this may have looked obvious to many people but damn i'm so slow in the process sometimes so i wanted to share my revelation haha. and more importantly when i started watching given i was a huge fan of akihiko so it just disappointed me so much when i read the assault scene, yet now i realised there was unfortunately nothing to expect from him, and all what he did finally makes sense.
of course, it's still the key scene of their story because it's the moment akihiko realises how much of a jerk he's been with haruki all this time. and it's by this time that haruki loses hope in him because until then, he still thought that being nice to akihiko would influence his feelings.
no need to say that akihiko's redemption arc was beautifully written and that it felt as natural as refreshing. he put a lot of effort into changing for haruki, but also to become the better version of himself.
i also love the fact that they both fall in love with each other a second time, in better conditions. haruki first fell for a bad boy he thought he never had a chance with, then he fell again for a man doing his best to become someone respectable. on the other hand, akihiko first fell for a cute and funny man without looking further into him, then he fell again for the one who could always reach out to him and help him staying on the right path.
p.s. : i did not mention ugetsu here, because he's not the point of my analysis, but there's no need to precise that he played a crucial role in akihiko's damage and cold reactions towards anything involving love. maybe we'll talk about him another time cos he's my baby🎀
a bottom-tier autistic experience is being told throughout your entire childhood that you are just an overthinker when it comes to social situations and later finding out that your friends did, in fact, hate being around you and tried to communicate that through weird little hints
People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.
I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.
I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.
There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me
Ao3 does not need a 1-5 star rating system, you just want to bring down authors writing for FREE
Ao3 does not need automatic censorship, it is an archive, therefore anything can be posted
Writing or reading about something illegal does not mean the author nor the reader condones it, if that were true, you could never read a story involving anything negative
Purity culture is ruining fan culture and you all are fucking annoying
Maomao is living the dream of being the smartest person in the room, being in a political situation in wich you dont have enough power to have responsabilities but also you are powerful enough so people let you do wethever you want, girl with big tiddies love her, a pathetic man that looks like a girl is in love with her, she wears cute outfits time to time, she helps other women, she even has a cat now.
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