#ane stuff

[leonawriter]

I finished up to the end of chapter 92 and I just? I am really so concerned for Yukio and I want to know what happens next.

[leonawriter]

I just saw an art of Victor and Yuri and mis-saw Yuri’s ears as pointed and my head instantly went off on a tangent of-

Yuri as having enough demon blood - probably a grandparent or something, and I’m leaning toward Yuki-Onna - to end up with the pointy ears and tail, which most normal folks don’t see or notice/pay attention to because of the Weirdness Filter, and then Victor comes along, who’s been able to see demons ever since he played with an ice spirit when he was little. And he thinks that Yuri looks amazing when he just dances with his tail out, because it adds so many more movements to the dance, and counterbalances him so well-!

Yuri’s never had anyone talk that highly of his non-human side before, and honestly it generally just makes him go red. 

[leonawriter]

Blue Exorcist Strings of Fate AU where there are multiple strings (non-physical, most of the time, unless you’re actively interacting with them), different colours for whichever kind of relationship it is. And if one person has feelings coloured a certain way, it doesn’t always have to match up with the other person’s feelings; the string might start out with red romance feelings on one end, and be golden friendship feelings on the other. (Which is fine as long as it doesn’t rot the bond.)

When Rin awakens as a demon by pulling out the sword, all of his strings are burnt various shades of blue. They can still be told apart, but it’s like seeing things in greyscale, but blue. Most of the others just think it’s translating certain kinds of ‘blue’ feelings, until they see him draw the sword in the forest, and oh look, the strings attached to him went whoosh with blue fire for a moment again.

(They’d been able to ignore/not notice that before. This, though? This is pretty noticeable. Unmistakably so.)

Yukio first notices that he’s changing and awakening when he notices the strings attached to his fingers start to gain blue strands. And slowly the blue starts creeping in... by millimetres. Which is hardly useful. No wonder he’s getting aggravated and frustrated. This isn’t useful.

[leonawriter]

...I remember saying something like this back when this was all a new development, but now I really want to see a plot arc where Shima is forced to do something similar to what he did back in the Impure King arc - that is, he could run away, but he chooses to stay and defend his friends and family over whatever the Illuminati are doing this time - because it’d have so many more connotations, so much more meaning.

The entire gang now knows that Shima is a spy. They know. Shima himself had been saying he hadn’t expected to be able to return to True Cross after being found out. 

Therefore, he’d probably gone through all his relationships up until then fully under the impression that this was all shallow on both sides, that they’d just abandon him when they found out, so he might as well not put that much back in either, right? He’s good at that. And besides, everyone back in Kyoto had their own place. Bon was the head monk’s kid, and everyone was supposed to follow him, if nothing else, so how was he to expect the bonds are anything more than ‘this is expected of you’?

But then he starts realising that he can’t just leave them behind when their lives are in danger. 

Then he finds out that when it comes down to the line, they will put themselves out there for him, even when they don’t fully believe in him.

And now? 

Now, he has to fully re-evalutate his relationships with his fellow exwires. 

I can fully see him being more serious about what he says, less flippant, more honest reactions - possibly even confusion - when people include him on purpose and not just because he’s in the room, so they might as well.

He probably expected to be rejected, so how could he plan for honest friendship?

Thinking about it, it’s actually a pretty neat narrative mirroring of Rin’s own storyline, where he’s hiding his true self from his friends, thinking that they’d abandon him, and yeah - for a while, they do. For various reasons. But then they come around to see him as a person rather than what he is, and the name-calling is now playful teasing rather than spiteful - which is very reminiscent of the way everyone treats Shima like trash right after he comes back, but once they have to decide their loyalty to him, and they decide ‘actually, we’re sticking with him whether we like him or not’ after a while... the bite and spite seem to have started to dissipate, even if they’re not fully gone. Not to mention the similarity of their both being able to use a certain kind of demonic fire.

It’s not a perfect mirroring, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

[leonawriter]

I just started reading out the 'differences between the Blue Exorcist 2011 anime and manga' to my mum (she also likes the series) only to realise that the two series we're watching have Same Name Dads. Father Fujumoto Shiro, meet Space Dad Takeshi Shirogane. It was awkward reading out 'Shiro dies' and trying not to laugh because of how many theories there were that the Space Shiro would die, but he isn't dead yet. Also, Father Shiro is also a Paladin. And Rin would SO be a Red. He would. 'I wanna PUNCH OUT SATAN' anyone?

[leonawriter]

I just misread a thing as "we need to start normalising exorcizing and eating well" as in, uh.

Make sure you keep snacks on you while performing exorcisms! Learn to cook as well as chant!

Be Rin Okumura!

[leonawriter]

Henry... sounds like Rin. 

Bryce Papenbrook plays them both, I knew that, but I can literally hear Rin in this.

“You don’t think I’m scary, do you?”

[leonawriter]

I’m just a bit traumatised by what I’ve just caught up on. Things are NOT going well.

(I kinda miss my AnE crew being around - I think some of them still are, or I’d have forgotten about the updates, but... some, I know, are almost completely doing other things.)