RAKTA IS A DREAM BOAT AND A MAN OF MORALS AND DELIGHTFULLY TERRIFYING AND NII SATORU YOU ARE INVITED TO THE NEXT FAMILY DINNER, TAKE A SEAT AND GRAB A PLATE, I'LL SERVE YOU MYSELF
I think it’s normal for people to be mad at each other sometimes even if they’re close friends or family or intimate with each other. Like I think that’s a normal and healthy part of relationships that can happen sometimes
I went to Mad At You island because my feelings are my problem. I needed to stomp down the beach until I could sit and watch the sunrise. I built a sandcastle and did some thinking. Then I boarded the good ship You Matter To Me and sailed it all the way to meet you on the Let’s Talk Shore of I Love You Island.
i'm really liking all the little moments we're getting of non-1st year characters talking about how suo means something to them too. we all know how much he means to the main gang + class 1-1 by extension, but with the rest of the cast, we majorly see them in relation to sakura and have a good grasp of the dynamic they share with him. which makes sense cos he's the main character.
so seeing hiiragi and now tsubaki name the space that suo occupies in their life—it's another reminder that these characters have an internal mindscape beyond what canon can show us. and also that, for a guy who presumably always meant to leave, suo sure couldn't help taking root in people's hearts. it's almost like human beings are meant for connection and actively seek to love and find meaning in each other, you idiot 🤣🫵
anyway, there's really something to be said about how the furin seniors—but especially ume's batch—take community so sincerely to heart. they feel locked into this whole found family business at a whole nother level and it warms my heart to imagine sakura and co catching up to them over time.
anyway, since suo's arc seems to be building up as a story about fixing a broken system from within + probably deals with more intense shit than we (or furin) are used to, suo probably cut ties abruptly and violently cos he saw sparing the guys from getting involved as the kinder thing to do.
which means, sakura's pov of suo's arc can just be:
if loving me means letting go / and wishing me the best / well, then i guess / i wish, i wish, i wish you loved me less
this is all to say that i finally listened to the new olivia rodrigo album and boy did it do a number on me
The water is cold enough to make them gasp as they splash in up their thighs, skin pebbling as they slow to a wade. Haruka hangs back as the waves roll in, pausing to watch as Akihiko surges forward until the water reaches his shoulders.
"Haruka! It's nice! C'mon in!"
Haruka crosses his arms over himself, shivering. He's made it out to waist level and has stopped completely, rocking back as he's buffetted by another wave, sea foam scattering against his chest, "It's frickin' cold, don't know what you're on about."
Akihiko shuts his eyes and ducks his head just in time for another surge to sweep over them. He wishes he'd thought to bring some swimming goggles. He pulls his legs up and lets the waves push him back in toward Haruka.
Okay fine, the breeze is cold once he's out of the water again, but still! Akihiko very bravely doesn't shiver as he tugs on Haruka's wrist again to try and coax him out further.
"It's nice once you get in the water!" he cajoles, "Don't you want to get better at swimming?"
Apprehension tightens Haruka's shoulders. They probably should have tried for another day when the sun was brighter, when the ocean wasn't so rough. Sure Haruka can keep himself afloat just fine now, but a little encouragement never hurt. Akihiko anchors himself between Haruka's legs, allowing the water to fold their bodies close, to share the warmth. Their chests are almost touching as Akihiko takes both of Haruka's hands in his, curling their fingers around each other and running the pad of his thumb over scarred and misshapen knuckles. Akihiko has kept meticulous record of every fight they've been in over the years, but even without his notes he can still count each and every one in the pits and pockmarks that litter Haruka's hands. He's one of the bravest people Akihiko has ever known and he sometimes looks at the ocean like it might swallow him whole. He still comes out here with Akihiko anyway.
"I'd like you to come swimming with me. Please? We don't have to stay long!"
Haruka's face reddens and he looks away, somewhere out toward the horizon over Akihiko's shoulder, "Yeah okay, I guess since you went to all this trouble to bring us out here…No laughing though!"
Akihiko would never dream of it; he takes great pride in getting to be the one to teach Haruka how to swim. He bobs up on his toes to bump their noses together. Haruka leans into the gesture, his eyes going half lidded.
Akihiko tugs on their joined hands once more, stepping backward and gently coaxing Haruka to follow him, "C'mon! It really is nice once you get under the water."
Haruka watches the movements of their bodies under the waves as they ease into deeper water, his eyes flickering up to meet Akihiko's every few seconds. Akihiko is floating by the time the water has reached Haruka's chest and he lets go of Haruka's hands to tread and keep himself upright. The wind is a bit stronger this far out and the waves more intense, and if either one of them uses it as an excuse to reach out and cling to the other, well. That's between them, the ocean, and the open sky.
"You're doing great!" Akihiko says and the smile that follows instantly brightens Haruka's face. Akihiko should really look into getting a proper camera to take photos when they go out together.
The smile is gone a second later, and Haruka's arms shoot out to latch onto Akihiko's shoulders just in time for a huge wave to engulf them, sending them both tumbling with the current. Akihiko laughs and laughs when the ocean spits them back out again, winding his own arms around Haruka's shoulders while he splutters on seawater. They're both floating now though their positions are reversed; Akihiko is half on his back and treading lazily while Haruka is above him. Once before his frantic thrashing would have churned the water into froth around them, now only his widened eyes betray his nerves as they allow the waves to help push them back toward the shore.
"See? That wasn't so bad!"
"Speak for yourself!" Haruka sticks his tongue out as he coughs up the rest of the water.
He doesn't even seem to notice that he's swimming all on his own; Akihiko is the one holding onto him now.
That deserves a reward, surely.
They've floated close enough to shallows that their feet find purchase on the sandy ocean floor again and Akihiko tightens his hold on Haruka's shoulders, "Um…one more thing before we head in?"
Haruka hums in easy agreement, and Akihiko takes that as his cue to press their lips together.
thank you for the tag @nobinary and @sakae-chan, funnily enough, you are both part of my 10 people so 🙈
Last song: i don't want no champagne by CHIMMI (취미)
Currently watching: haven't watched Shit in a while 😭 i have been very into stationery/study-related videos on youtube these days though. also dinosaurs!!
Currently reading: ohhh a Bunch cos i have adhd. nonfiction—daily rituals by mason currey, and the anthropocene reviewed by john green. and for fiction, maybe tomorrow i'll know by alex ritany. i Had picked up the inheritance trilogy by n. k. jemisin but i don't think i'm in the right headspace for fantasy right now.
Current obsession: wind breaker + nijisanji (jp) vtubers. i also recently started working on my handwriting cos i've been wanting to polish it up a bit. also getting back into math!!
Currently working on: suosaku fic where kid!suo shows up in sakura's dream, origfic (but this is more in the development stages), and now suni exchange fic!!! will be brainstorming for that over the weekend
Last google search: "remove password pdf" i should probably just type in ilovepdf's url directly into the address bar but i'm lazy
Favorite flower: daisies and cherry blossoms (*ᴗ͈ˬᴗ͈)ꕤ*.ﾟ
no-pressure tags: @jacaranda-ash @occasionalficwriter @yamalvr @ari-tan @ruinsofphaidie i'm really introverted and don't go out of my bubble a lot so that's everyone that comes to mind right now, sorry 😭
i don’t think the red chanpuru is Evil, but i do think they’re corrupt somewhere at some structural level. the first impression we got of them was a bloody logo and everything about them so far has been shrouded in secrecy and kinda ominous, so i don’t think it’s completely unfair for the fandom to villainize them - that misdirection might actually be what niisato is going for. like they are purposely being framed in this way. though i completely understand the caution bc of the racist undertones.
i also think people perhaps just need justification for suo’s behavior and the only way they can reconcile that is if he’s trapped there by external forces and not, as you said, because he feels indebted to them for providing for him (which i think is far more interesting). all of this to say i agree with your takes lol, but a majority of fandom (especially twt) reads things at face value without analyzing the larger context and all fandoms are doomed to this.
thank you for responding to my post!!
i completely get the second bit you mentioned about wanting justification for suo's behaviour + i'm also making space for the possibility that the themes windbreaker deals with can and does lead to a lot of personal engagement and projection on the series and its characters—none of which is inherently problematic to me, it's just alarming to see the treatment RC gets from the fandom sometimes. and for all the compassion and grace i'm willing to hold towards the fandom as a whole because of how personal wbk can be and feel, i don't think i can forgive or dismiss this treatment precisely Because of the xenophobic undertones.
i agree that RC probably does have structural issues somewhere! they Were set up to be quite menacing and intimidating with endo's introduction, which is why the initial suspicion and even dislike towards RC didn't mean anything to me. it's just that, as the series has continued, the glimpses we've gotten into them do seem to rule out the Evil™ conjectures we had at the beginning and yet, i still see people hold on to them.
i also agree that nii-sensei seems to be mindfully keeping an air of intimidation and secrecy around RC but i don't think that justifies the villainisation of them to such extent. a part of me can't help but wonder if bkk-gai consisting of a different demographic would have made fandom engage with them differently. morally grey characters and organisations are met with enthusiasm all the time but the reaction always seems to be so much harsher when its some minority identity involved in the greyness.
this is far from my first fandom though and i know that, like you said, all fandoms are doomed to this. which tbh is precisely why i feel the need to say something about it rather than just letting it be. if people must be (willfully or otherwise) insensitive in their reading of a media, let there at least be other people who point at it and name that it is happening. not because it will Change fanon overnight but only because it'd be too painful and maddening not to. at least, that's the way i see it.
i can already guess where discourse might go this week so let me just pre-emptively say: i am not going to be approaching the red chanpuru in bad faith Or thinking any less favorably of them until we get actual scenes of them doing actively fucked up shit 😭
an organisation that seems to be in charge of the protection and wellbeing of a multicultural town, consisting almost entirely of 1st and 2nd generation immigrants, being cagey and protective abt one of its core members and keeping outsiders away from its residential area is not even unreasonable.
and if red chanpuru is fucked up for having a 15 year old as one of its chief officers, the Entire Town of Makochi had to be singlehandedly rehabilitated by a 15 year old Umemiya so let's not lose sight of that 😭
i have no doubt i'll still want suo to leave RC. i have no doubt he'll probably be better off without all this resting on his shoulders! but by god, i simply will not have this group be villainised so vehemently when we haven't even seen them do anything so far. other than be wary of outsiders, mediate arguments, and be nice to the fucking kids in town.
i'm sure there are structural problems to address with the RC but that doesn't automatically translate to them being violently abusive and criminal. nor do they have to be for Suo to want/have a different life for himself, one that actually belongs to him.
is the idea of feeling eternally indebted and therefore chained to an organisation that gave you shelter, food, and protection, not compelling enough? for any form of self-oriented thought or action to feel like a betrayal to the people that provided for you all your life—is that not stifling enough?
now, is there a Possibility that the RC is actually a horrible, morally bankrupt organisation that Does abuse its members? of course there is. but my goodness, ever since they've been introduced, i feel like people have almost been thirsting for reasons to think the worst of them and i just don't get it.
i don't know if it's like remnants of fan theories where we were all expecting the absolute Worst™ but we're not in fanon territory anymore. RC has its secrets but if there's been any foreshadowing in the past so many chapters that they're actually this big bad evil that beats children into submission or whatever the fuck—cos that's genuinely how people talk about them sometimes—then i simply fail to see it. and i'm a bit sick of it all tbh!!
i think anzai is supposed to be a student proxy. sakura has his friend group with suo, nirei, tsugeura and kiryu. he has his rivalry with sugishita. anzai and his friend group of named-characters-i-don't-know-the-name-of is supposed to represent the rest of the class. if sakura's friends with anzai, that's also how he is with the rest of the students
i know its hard to believe sakura is friends with someone we never saw before that doesn't even have a name. but that's whats happening. he's equally as close to guy-we-never-saw-before as he is to anzai. which means suo is also equally as close to them as he is to anzai. which isn't that close, but I'll say they're friends.
this actually makes so much sense to me! even in a series as rooted in community as wbk, it's hard to truly have every background character feel three-dimensional, or even familiar. i definitely think niisato has done more than most mangakas in terms of giving screentime to npc characters—
like who are these guys? how come they get such a big panel to themselves? it doesn't matter, they just are! the people in this series exist outside of what we read!
—but even that has its limits. anzai as a kind of proxy for the main cast's relationship with the students of class 1-1 makes sense. if he and his group are friendly enough with suo to try and prank him in that one chapter, surely the rest of the class isn't all that different either.
i do think it might feel a bit random to us as readers cos it's like, who are these people and how come they're so comfortable talking about suo like this, but it's not Unreasonable. i imagine the average classmate dynamic in furin has more depth and heart to it than we're used to expecting, simply by nature of furin's values + the kind of shit they all get up to.
i’m hoping that we get a pov shift back to suo before the class shows up there. it just feels strange to me if we were to follow the class/sakura’s perspective to bkg when we know very, very little about what’s actually going on there. like the red chanpuru as a larger organization, or any of suo’s feelings about. anything. what the trigger was for him to suddenly leave furin, what led him to come say goodbye to nirei after three days of silence, why he went to furin in the first place, the list goes on really.
i’m also not fully convinced that he’s not in some kind of danger there. we haven’t seen the full picture of what all being an officer entails, i think.
i completely agree! an exploration of bkk-gai (and suo's arc in general) wouldn't be complete without us actually getting a few good chapters in his pov, complete with proper insight into his past as well as his present thoughts and pieces.
as for suo being in danger due to his position as an officer, i don't exactly disagree per se. i just don't imagine it to be any more dangerous than, say, being a student of furin has proven to be so far. i hesitate to see bkk-gai as some big bad organisation for multiple reasons i'm too tired to go into here but in short, to Me, bkk-gai feels more representative of a sentiment towards family that (and i'm aware of just how much of a generalisation this is but humor me, it's a japanese series + i'm desi myself) might be more common in asian cultures—one that's an entangled mess of duty and honor but also genuine community and gratitude.
that's just me though! so many questions that are still unanswered and i can't wait to see how it all unfolds. or what suo pov will even look like, for that matter! i do believe nii sensei is going to give it to us, i just can't imagine for the life of me what it will be like.
i see people have varied reactions to what sugishita had to say + all of class 1-1 going to bkk-gai but personally (and i'm fully open to the possibility of being proven wrong) i don't really see the latest update as suo being villainised at all
in a situation where the entire class felt stuck and frozen because of sakura's state of mind, and sakura himself felt stuck and frozen because of how entangled his thoughts and feelings for suo have become, sugishita comes forth with a simple truth: one of furin's own got their ass beat.
has it ever mattered who threw the first punch? it's always been an eye for an eye, the moment you put hands on a comrade. if sakura has trouble finding confidence in going to confront suo as his friend, he can be assured in his right to go as one of furin's class captains.
as for the class!
the JP raw is literally: "We all get one punch each on Suo!" like it's a distribution line of punch opportunities or something lol
and that, to me, reads more like teaching your friend a lesson than beating up a Big Bad Evil. if you're wondering why they'd talk abt punching Suo at all, well, it's a series about delinquents! these guys are gonna be punching each other a hundred different ways
things can be simple, even if they're complicated. there's no reason to be stuck here, in Makochi, away from Suo. there's also nothing to be obtained from being stuck here any longer.
whatever needs to be done and said, can be done directly with or in front of the guy himself. in bkk-gai!!!
andulkaphoto
dailybridgerton
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
snowghoul
pixelskylines
kianamaiart
