Helloooo!!! My name is mrs paradox (jus call me paradox for short idfk)
any pronouns are allowed!! No preference!
I also go by gina, as i am a gina Lestrade synpath :3
*⋆˚｡⋆୨✧୧˚ 𝑴𝒀 𝑰𝑵𝑻𝑬𝑹𝑬𝑺𝑻𝑺!!!!! ˚୨✧୧⋆｡˚⋆*
- moon walker. (Words cannot describe how much i love this man and his music. I think about moon walker, i talk about moon walker, all my thoughts are moon walker.)
- toon turf!!
- bofuri
- Octonauts
- Bistro huddy
- Ace attorney
- Bayonetta
#1 fav artist: MOON WALKER!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE MOON WALKER!!!!
Fun facts.
- i am queer, As well as poly!! (i have 2 wonderful partners ^w^)
- uhhhhhhh i love making everything about my interests
- my favorite character of all time is Gina Lestrade!!
- i love bratfeen a LOT
- my favorite moon walker songs is Angel wings, sleepwalker and the dreams of death, and the tv made me do it!!!
THINGS IM OKAY WITH!!!
Sex jokes
Im actually fine with most things heheaajhaha....
THINGS IM NOT! OKAY WITH!!
Asking for personal info
Using any form of generative AI. I'm a very big anti and I don't like people using it too,,
Ibuki being someone who is unapologetically authentic and true to herself but seldom having the experience of acceptance or appreciation for that staunch self expression by those around her... Imposter being someone who has a nebulous grasp on their identity but an immensely thoughtful perspective on this lack of sense of self, and a strong yearning for authenticity and self expression that wholly belongs to them...
The Imposter has a notable amount of emotional intelligence regarding their ongoing identity crisis, and is incredibly articulate about their struggles despite their poor grasp on who they are; Ibuki, conversely, is more repressed when it comes to delving into the "nitty gritty" of her own feelings when not expressed through the conduit of someone else, such as Hajime during her FTE's, where she constantly reaffixes the focus to his emotions and his struggles.
Manifesting exploration of that in 2x2... In my heart, Ibuki's unwavering and unabashed dedication to self expression would inspire Imposter, and Imposter's articulate sincerity would inspire Ibuki...
Also, this is more of a footnote elaborating on some of my thoughts about Imposter, but even if it's largely played as a gag, their unwavering interest in food is something so vital to them that even when actively impersonating another person they refuse to obfuscate that part of themselves. Same with their care and concern for their peers! Even though they do not Know themself, these are core aspects of their identity that they don't or cannot recognize...
Like, for someone so lost in what it means to be themself, they're quite introspective and unabashed themself, in their own way!
I've shipped this since 2013 and have seen quite a few people baffled by it over the years. Which makes sense: it's possible to miss some of their interactions/Ibuki's comments if you don't make conversation with Ibuki at particular points in the game.
I'm sure someone else has made a compilation like this, but I wanted to make my own now: with DR2x2 announced, I'm really excited by the possibility that something more will happen between 'em in the alternate scenario.
So! To start things off...in the first chapter of SDR2, Ibuki reacts like this pretty much every time "Togami" speaks:
(More below the cut.)
After "Togami" is murdered, Ibuki expresses grief several times, when none of the other characters are doing so. For instance, if you talk to her immediately before the Class Trial:
SOB. (She does this for Koizumi as well, but *just* after her murder, rather than days later)
...or if you talk to her outside the hotel in the Daily Life/(Ab)normal Days segment of Chapter 2, she says this, completely unprompted:
SOB SOB. THREE SOBS. The value that Ibuki places on promise-keeping (in this case, the Impostor's promise to protect his classmates - with his life, as it turned out) is in line with her wish for absolute trust and loyalty, in her FTE and Island Mode endings:
This comment is interesting; obviously the "piggy fingers" thing is referencing Saionji's nickname for "Togami": "Mr. Porkfeet" in the Orenronen & Fedule translation, or "Ham Hands" in the official English release (which is what I'm pulling from in this post). This translation makes Ibuki's sentiment here a bit ambiguous. Why is she disappointed by the Impostor's "piggy fingers"? Does she think his weight disqualifies him as a romantic interest? Or does she think his "piggy fingers" have something to do with him failing to evade the murderer?
Much later, when the dead students reappear as matrix-glitch hallucinations* at the end of Chapter 5, this theme continues:
YMMV on the pig jokes - obviously, this game is not very classy about its fat characters - but I do think this is cute. Note that the actual Japanese word Ibuki uses for "cool" is "kakkoii," which has a connotation of handsome or attractive. It's just lovely to me that each character got only a handful of characterization-establishing lines in this little interlude (Nidai talks to Akane, Peko to Kuzuryuu, etc.), and for Ibuki, the writers chose to highlight her admiration for "Togami" before anything else. That makes it feel important, doesn't it? As another Tumblrer once said: It didn't change anything, it didn't save anyone, there were just too many forces against it. But it still matters that the love was there.
(* When I say "hallucinations," well, it's unclear precisely what they are! The Jabberwock Island we see is, of course, a simulation which is glitching out at this point due to corruption from the Junko virus. But whose perception is the simulation drawing on when it conjures these phantoms? Are these flashes of neural activity in the comatose Ibuki and Impostor? Or are they Hinata's imagination? Are they controlled by Junko?)
So...that's where authorial intent comes into this analysis. Are we supposed to read Ibuki as having a crush on the Impostor? The "barely there" nature of this relationship is what makes me ship it. The Impostor is plucked out of the story before he can develop a deeper connection to anyone, but the writing seems to be underlining the fact that he could've been the "destined one" that Ibuki talks about in her Island Mode ending. It's just so tragic!
I won't delve too deep in this post, but there's a lot of rich thematic stuff in this ship to explore in fanworks (and the pairing has inspired some GREAT fic over the years!). Everything about Ibuki's backstory, behavior and presentation speaks to her refusal to conform to societal expectations, or bend to authority. But she seems to fall in love with this person who presents himself as an authority figure. And then, in Chapter 3, Ibuki's despair sickness manifests as complete obedience to authority - in fact, she starts behaving a lot like the rule-obsessed, gullible Kiyotaka Ishimaru from DR1, with whom she shares a "death slot" (first victim in the Ch. 3 double-murder, sorta overlooked/buried by other narrative events).
(Also, I think it's cute that...Ibuki is very forward and overtly sexual when it comes to complimenting her female classmates. But with "Byakuya-chan," the best she can do is "You're cool!!!!" over and over. That's about where I was at, at Ibuki's age, when I had a crush. Able to articulate the fact that I couldn't stop thinking about this person, but not really anything beyond that.)
As for how the Impostor might feel about Ibuki...well, the former had more pressing worries than romance, in Chapter 1 - but we can draw our own conclusions from each of their FTE/Island Mode endings, which seem to complement one another:
Ibuki tells Hinata exactly what the Impostor needs to hear.
Back to "reasons people ship it" - it's just adorable to imagine! I think it's worth noting that one of Ibuki's sprites seems to match "Togami."
And this might be going into conspiratorial thinking, but the two were also placed next to each other in the opening shot of the classroom (and Ibuki's first line in the game comes immediately after the Impostor's!):
Finally...the licensed tie-in comic and 4koma anthologies for SDR2 pick up on Ibuki's thing for "Togami" and run with it! I compiled more panels in a separate post, but for now I'll leave you with this one, because it gives us the Japanese fandom's name for this pairing: K-ton!/けいとん!, combining keiongaku with ton, pork ("Tongami" or Butagami is the JPN fandom's nickname for the character we call Twogami).
A STRONG contender for the worst day of Kazuichi Soda's life was the day that he:
Watched Gundham successfully flirt with Sonia right in front of him
Learned Sonia wasn't a virgin (thus ruining his "pure" image of her)
Got physically forced kicking and screaming onto a roller coaster and probably threw up a bunch
Got knocked out and brought to the visual nightmare of a Funhouse against his will (that place had to be hell for someone with motion sickness)
Got absolutely rejected by Sonia for Gundham and then was mocked about it by Nagito of all people
Had an angsty friendship spat with soul friend Hajime
Was told he was going to have to kill someone or starve to death
Got rejected by Sonia for Gundham AGAIN
Found out that the ship parts that he had been promised and was excited about never existed in the first place
Heard Gundham call Sonia by a pet name (Dark Lady 🖤💖)
Watched Sonia blatantly flirt with Gundham and praise him to the point where a blush overtook Gundham's entire face
Got gaslit by Nagito into thinking he was the only one who distrusted Hajime (this is not true, if I remember correctly Nagito also implied Hajime wasn't trustworthy, and he absolutely gaslit Kazuichi into thinking he was the only one thinking this, which is extra cruel because it was partly Nagito's words that made him think like that in the first place)
Rantaro's suggestions are always adventure-y. Shuichi points to a shrine on a website and Rantaro is like hm. It's only a seven hour flight 😊 I already booked tickets be ready by five.
Kayaking. No really. Kayaking is fun and it's also a nice bonding activity (and I say that as someone who's terrified of water and can't swim. I've done it before. It's awesome)
Classic coffee shop date. Maybe a cat café. I think it's cute and relaxing especially for someone dodgy like Rantaro to settle down for a while.
I also think they'd go on nature walks. Forests, parks, maybe a botanical garden.
Orca watching. Something more extreme, but I love Rantaro planning to have Shuichi see his favorite animals and maybe see the polar lights while they are at it. He wants to show Shuichi his horizons after all.
