So, I need to tell you guys what has been happening today. For context, back in January 16, my friend group jokingly made a promise to one of our friends (let's call them H) that we will get them the Lego Cullen House set. Like the minifigs, the wolf, the car, everything.
Here's the thing though: my friend fucking hates Twilight, like they read the books but they still don't like the series at all. So for the giggles we decided to make a promise that we would send H the Lego set on their birthday. However, the idea didn't come to fruition.
Or so we thought.
The box came in months, several months before their birthday, and everyone was confused and baffled. No one knew who sent the package. No one said anything about sending it out legitimately. There was a conversation about it today but it got shut down due to H not knowing if they have room for it.
However, stick with me, this person didn't just send H a Lego set, no.
They also sent a separate package that had a letter from Edward Cullen wanting to fuck their husband, and a framed PNG of a signed Edward Cullen autograph.
And you may be thinking "Bork, what if they just look at the sender address to find who sent it?" well the thing is that the sender was Edward Cullen. WE DON'T KNOW WHO IT IS. THEY PRE-PLANNED THIS DAYS, WEEKS, OR EVEN MONTHS FOR THIS. AND NO ONE HAS FESSED UP.
I need to emphasize that we had no clue this would happen. This came out of nowhere, at a time where all of us thought it wouldn't actually happen, and then the UPS guy came and like changed the game. We have been accusing each other of who sent this for hours!
The wax seal is real. The legos are real. Someone wrote in cursive to have Edward tell H's husband that he wants him, that is real. The frame is on their wall right now as we speak.
We still don't know who it was.
Transcript of Letter for Anyone Interested:
[H],
How have you been, dear friend? I, myself have been aching to get away from the loomy atmosphere of Forks and pay Italy a visit, which I may do very soon… However, there is a delicate matter that I wanted to discuss with you and I trust that our friendship will bear the weight of what I am about to ask…
As you know, I have always admired your impeccable taste. In music, literature, humor, and well… who you've married.
I have to admit that [H's Husband] is quite… compelling, to say the least. I watch the way he is with you and I hear his thoughts. And all the things he enjoys doing to you has piqued my interest and I can't help but want to experience him the way you do.
Now I would never presume to cross a line, but should you find yourself feeling particularly generous, I wonder if you might consider lending him? Just for a single night…
Casually…
If not, I mean no offense… But just think about it…
Yours always,
Edward
The Maid Café scene might be one of my favorite moments regarding Ayase's characterization, and I'm not being ironic about that. It's one of my favorite ways of showcasing her character due to who she is, and how this scene breaks her more standoffish composure completely.
Here is the thing with Ayase: she is very defensive to protect herself. Feelings of the heart are complicated to her, and throughout the series, we see that she would rather take control of the situation by gaining the initiative. Whether to fully reject Takakura to hide her secret crush, or to close herself off in a rude manner so no one sees how much a specific thing cut deep into her, it's a way for her to feel comfortable without letting others see how she's truly feeling.
She can be confident of her intelligence and style, brash since she knows her worth (compared to someone like Takakura), but any hint of her seen as flawed, embarrassed, or exposed leads to her defending herself. This is something she's used multiple times, such as her getting angry over her bullies making fun of her family, the fear of Takakura being with another girl, and even at the first scene of the story, to defend herself from her ex who tried to pressure her into sex.
This characterization then leads to Dandadan's themes of sexuality. There's a mass emphasis on how people get exploited, especially when it relates to women. The text doesn't hesitate to talk about Turbo Granny's involvement with helping rape victims, the way the Serpos tried to assault her, and how Shiratori tried to frame Ayase as sexually open to anyone, which had the potential to leave her open to bullying and harassment if she hadn't told the truth. Regardless of how people feel about the execution of these themes, they are there, and important to how Ayase navigates her sense of openness relating to her vulnerability.
She sees a lot of men who take advantage of other people, and that hits her personally as someone who is combative despite her wanting for protection and care. Ayase has even said that she wants someone to comfort her after her ex dumped her. No one wants to be misunderstood. And the same goes with her despite how much she wants to be (and already is) a badass.
After all, she has a crush on the actor, Ken Takakura, and how his strong nature appeals to her sense of wanting someone who is kind, gentle, and compassionate despite toughness. It's this yearning for someone who can look out for her, rather than leaving her feeling alone when it comes to the prickly walls she made. It's hard for her to imagine finding another Ken Takakura in the first episode.
Season 2 Episode 7 is another showcase of this, but it opens up Ayase to a whole other world of exposure, being that she's a worker at a maid café.
Maid cafés are entertainment diner spaces. It is a fantasy-themed food experience where the workers are a high demographic of female high schoolers who serve in outfits, however, in real life no one really talks about these spaces openly in Japan. Reason being that maid cafés have a stigma of being assumed as adult entertainment spaces where men can harass women, which goes against how many cafés strictly prohibit and punish sexual behavior in their establishments. There are a lot of family-friendly brands too, which is the norm compared to the more risqué scene.
However, due to the prolific portrayals of maid cafés in anime where there is an appeal to being treated by a young maid and lots of harassment from men during these segments, there have been cases of real life sexual harassment and the worry of being taken advantage of.
Of course, these cafés are like any other cafés, and it's unfortunate that there's a stigma towards it, but it is why Ayase feels humiliated and embarrassed when her friends and crush encounter her. She has to play the role of someone happy to serve and befriend patrons. And she HATES it!
She's known for yelling, arguing, and fighting off people at her school. She has a reputation as a gyaru, where women go against the rules of society, and act independent so they can fight off the usual expectation of Japanese women as obedient, and submissive housewives. The idea of someone seeing her like this is mortifying, and her calling Takakura a "bastard" in her attempt to protect herself is a showcase of how exposed she feels. She can't yell or berate if she wants to keep her job. She hates that she can't do her usual defense strategies.
This leaves her fully exposed, left to pick up her own pride, and the tough persona she holds.
Here is where things get interesting.
Not only do we get a scene of Ayase being placed into a vulnerable position, but afterward, we find Takakura thinking about her safety when her shift ends, due to how dangerous it is to go alone as a woman.
At this point, Ayase still wants to present herself as tough and capable, and keeps to that throughout this exchange. However, the way she looks at Takakura shows that she is worried and hesitant. She wants Takakura to be there for her, and doesn't know how to say it; the idea of asking for help after being embarrassed is too much at this time.
And so, she lets him go, continuing her work.
What surprised me when I first watched the episode montage was how it portrayed the café as a workplace. In fact, the anime spends a lot more time in establishing how Ayase is working as a waitress compared to the manga, and how while the place is role-play-themed, it's still a job.
The maids are people who do this for a wage, so it creates this sense of contrast compared to how maid cafés are usually portrayed in anime, where stuff is bubbly, upbeat, and always full of activity. Ayase does the same thing over and over, greeting guests, taking pictures, waiting with agony over when it will end, and nothing exciting happens during it. We see that at the end of the manga, she enjoys the hard work, but money is money, it's a humanizing take on the trope where it's treated as any other kind of profession—sometimes boring, sometimes endearing, depending on the day.
This scene does, however, emphasize that dreadful wait. The people she serves are embarrassed, flattered, etc., but the anime uses the stigma of maid cafés to create a low-level of unease. After all, Ayase is going to have to go home after this. Takakura did warn her it's not advised to be alone at night. There's a sense of danger that mixes within this monotony, and it's surprisingly effective in describing how women have to expect wariness; she wants to finish work, she's getting exhausted, but that feeling of knowing that she'll have to trek alone is something on our minds as the scene progresses.
The scene afterward spans out to empty streets. Chopin: Nocturne in E Flat fades away so that everything is silent, the slight moving figures of background characters hard to see in the dark.
There's a sense of loneliness and vast space around Ayase. She's all by herself, the non-diegetic music gone to show that she doesn't hear what we hear, except for the isolated space when she left work.
All she knows is that she's alone again. Ready to tough it out for the long way home, and it accentuates this wanting for someone to be in this space. To break it, to prove her hesitancy wrong.
We find that this POV has us facing her back, following her head movements while above her shoulder. The sudden appearance of Takakura leads the audience to have the same level of surprise as Ayase, because the swivel is so sudden that seeing him run towards the camera gets us off-guard.
But that's the thing, right? Ayase was left off-guard too. She didn't expect Takakura to go the extra mile for her, to check on her at such a late time so that she had someone to go with her for her safety. It's a touching action that she never expected, especially when she yearned for him to come back, and here he is, ready to bring her home.
In the manga, the sense of surprise she has is massive, as well. For someone who always fights her own battles, and believes in her boundaries, sense of capabilities, and self-worth, she doesn't want to be that guarded all the time.
She yearns for romance. She wants comfort when she's hurt. She freaks out if someone close to her makes her heart race. She cries when she sees injustice and pain over the spirits they rehabilitate. She is a strong and proud character, but also wishes to be loved and cherished just like any other person.
At this moment, it hits her that she found a friend who would move the world for her. Who won't take advantage of her. Is always respectful, kind, doing more than the bare minimum than what she believed due to her previous guy experiences.
Look at how gentle and vulnerable her expression is. Takakura tries not to touch Ayase unless absolutely necessary, and we have seen him freak the fuck out when she hugs him or gets too close. Even the scene where she brushes his hands in the car, it's an initiative where she has the upper hand, because she is starting the pace, and it's fun to see how he reacts without revealing the game away regarding her expressions.
Here, though, we see Ayase taking the initiative to hold his hand while pulling down her defenses physically. She's blushing, less confident, more quiet rather than assertive.
It's a sign of a bigger sense of trust. Compared to their first days together—where the idea of kissing Takakura made her yell at her friends and pushed him farther away—she takes this step into showing a more exposed part of herself. The aspect of her character where she wishes for someone beside her as she goes home. Someone who is able to look after her, regardless of how embarrassed and humiliated she feels over being vulnerable. Someone who respects and loves her in every way she finds comfortable.
Where Takakura loves her soft, gentle sides, just as much as the confident weirdo parts as well.
So I learned that if you fail the Drama check during the sunken car investigation, Kim will basically find your attempt at whistling endearing and encourage you to keep at it
It's really cute. It goes to show that Harry messing up out of genuine determination makes Kim see him as endearing rather than a full-on disaster sometimes
I know that the fandom jokes a lot about how much Togami and Kirigiri order Naegi around to explain the clues in the trials, but I absolutely love the way they utilized this during the 4th Trial.
Specifically, in how Kirigiri is able to pack so much humiliation towards Togami without even breaking a sweat.
Togami throughout the game, especially in the Fourth Chapter, has been continuously downplaying the capabilities, lives, and agency of his fellow classmates. He is elitist, he was born into a family where if you don't bite and claw to survive, then you won't win, and believes he got to where he is through sheer cunning, willpower, and cold rationality. The idea of cooperating with the other students was beneath him. The idea of seeing people such as Asahina and Naegi as equals disgusted him due to his perceived differences in their class, capabilities, status, and levels of intellect.
In Trial 2, specifically, we see him attempt to one-up the others regarding being able to showcase how powerful and assured he is as an influential player within the Killing Game. He even used Naegi as a pawn to get him on the trail of his fabricated crime scene, just to see how people respond and to make the game less "predictable" while keeping control on the situation. However...
In that same trial, we see that the moment Naegi was able to uncover something Togami himself couldn't catch, his resolve wavers. He is humiliated, angry at the idea of some commoner, who couldn't even read 11037 as an upside down 'LEON' at the first trial, was able to outsmart him and put them on a new, unexpected path of inquiry all together. We can see that this gets to him after the trial is complete, showcasing how even if externally he looks calm and assured, being put off guard cuts him deep within his pride.
Being outsmarted, taken by surprise, or not given power over a situation frustrates him, and the seeds of that get planted during Chapter Four through multiple characters such as Kirigiri, Asahina, and Naegi.
Keep in mind that during this chapter a few key points happen that set the stage for what's to come. I am talking about Kirigiri's critical comments towards him before the Class Trial, and that Asahina was able to slap and threaten him.
These series of events do four things:
One, Asahina's actions hardened his viewpoint on Asahina as emotionally reckless and stupid, someone who he will underestimate in the later parts of the chapter.
Two, this outburst makes him double down on the idea of emotion as inferior and childish.
Three, Kirigiri's warnings make him believe he can elude betrayal, that he only has to worry about the ones who are already suspicious to him.
Four, due to being humiliated still by Asahina's surprise slap on him, he wants to regain his composure and status again amidst the cast as someone unflappable.
To me, the last point is why Togami himself went to great lengths of drinking most of the poison bottle in front of everyone. It's a way to show how untouchable and smart he is as a player, that he can surprise the others once more and remain unscathed at the very end from thinking many steps ahead of them.
However, this is where Kirigiri's words and actions click into place with humiliating the crap out of him.
When Asahina is interrogated to be lying, Togami starts to lose his resolve. He fell for Asahina's downplaying of her own intelligence and how she made obvious tracks because he believed she didn't have the capabilities to make a cleaner crime scene, and never thought deeply on why personally she would commit murder on her best friend.
He has honed in so much on the idea of killed or be killed, that the obvious contradictions went right under his nose. It didn't help that Naegi had to point this out to him afterwards.
Enter Kirigiri.
Now that Togami has lost his footing with Asahina's reveal, she then tells him that there is new evidence, surprising him once again by adding another unpredictable factor to the trial.
Stacking on to that, she rubs in that he was the one who gave it to her, and that he was too busy acting like a smartass with the bottle that he didn't inspect the evidence closer in the first place.
Since Togami does have some respect for Kirigiri in being capable of deduction and yet sees himself still as one of the best within the group, Kirigiri hones in on this. She adds how she's "amazed" that someone like him would overlook this, adding in a feeling of his intellect and capabilities being looked down upon in disappointment by a semi-peer.
Togami notes this indirectly in his dialogue, but during this scene, Kirigiri is intentionally omitting the answer to the clue also.
Compared to how she omits info from Naegi in past trials due to wanting to observe his capabilities, Kirigiri wants Togami to get desperate in this moment. He is already feeling out of the loop with multiple factors outside of his control, and not being able to think of a proper conclusion on his own due to being put off guard.
Contrasted with his past lectures—about how you can't trust people, and that you have to do things on your own—she now has Togami begging other people for an answer on the situation. To the point where his anger and frustration makes his requests sound childish, as if he's the impatient one compared to everyone else in the room.
To add even more insult to injury, Kirigiri then diverts the answer to Naegi. The person who Togami has mocked multiple times for being a commoner, someone who will never be equal to him, and who he sees as dense as a rock despite acknowledging his past deduction skills.
By doing this Kirigiri puts Togami into a corner where if he truly wants the answer to his question then he has to beg someone who is the complete opposite of everything he defines as a successful person, and you can see Togami processing this for a few seconds before relenting angrily.
In previous sessions, Togami was able to have a say in the trials and even be a massive influence in how the line of inquiries followed through; the moment Kirigiri put Naegi on the spot and gave him the reins, the tide has changed and is now in their hands.
Trial 4 has Naegi and Kirigiri carrying the deduction phase in solving Asahina's betrayal and Oogami's suicide, and doing an amazing job tying up a lot of loose ends in rapid succession much to Togami's bewilderment.
He is completely falling behind, and this makes him even more humiliated and angry as he loses his cool during the second half of the trial.
He yells about Kirigiri giving him loaded questions, about how unfair it is that she knows more than him, basically watching this man go into a tantrum right in front of everyone he's previously mocked for being emotional. It is just an avalanche of continuous pathos triggering the same humiliated feelings with each second he reacts to them.
He has to listen in shock as Asahina is found out to have been the one who betrayed them, and that suicide was the only viable way for the crime scene to occur. Asahina and Oogami took him by surprise, and if it weren't for Naegi and Kirigiri to disprove the former's claims, they all would've been executed. Togami fell for all of it, and gets hit once more with the feeling of being wrong, of losing to people he never expected to best him while Kirigiri continues to refute him without hesitation.
He's then placed in a position where Kirigiri and Naegi have beaten down his arguments well enough for him to dejectedly apologize after yelling, which is huge for someone like him.
The best part about this is that the moment he does this, Togami takes a full backseat to the entire debate as Naegi and Kirigiri interrogate Asahina and reveal the truth over Sakura's death.
He interjects a few times, and he only jumps back into the conversation completely at the finale—all to ask Makoto how he was able to beat him.
And in the end, Kirigiri responds (in frustration, which is hilarious) by telling him the exact reasons why he never was able to solve this case. She didn't even have to go on a huge tangent, all she needed to do is hit him right where it hurts: his pride, his black and white viewpoints, his inability to win, and that he is just as vulnerable and volatile as the rest of the people he looks down upon.
These lines themselves wouldn't have gotten to him before. We have seen how resistant Togami was when the group tried to argue with him over his behaviors, but now, each sentence hits him like a stack of bricks due to being dragged through the mud multiple times all to prove Kirigiri's point that she was right, and that he was wrong.
There is so much humiliation just packed into every single back-and-forth of the trial, you can't help but wince (and cheer) at how effective it was in getting Togami to back down completely.
One of the things about Kirigiri and Naegi's dynamic that breaks my heart a bit is how confused Kirigiri gets over Naegi wanting to talk to her and being able to hangout with her.
She's a very lonely person. She has lived her life having guardian figures who left her at a young age or worked her to the bone to become a detective rather than a person. The people she did care about either betrayed her at some point, or used her for their own goals due to how intense her field of work is. So when Naegi hangs out with her or tries to reach out, she finds him an enigma she is trying really hard to understand, because the idea of being unconditionally loved in this way is still a new concept to her.
And she doesn't realize how much she wants this goofball by her side whenever he does ask for her time.
Some of her beginning dialogue before the FTEs start is her trying to give him an out to leave while giving him the option to stay to hang out. It's subtle, since we know Kirigiri can decline this guy at any time and seems to be more focused on the mystery than making friends, but even when she is silent or she talks with him akin to an information exchange, she lets him in through indirect language.
In her second FTE, she even gave Naegi a quiz to see if he is as trusting and loving as he seems, because she's so hyper vigilant over getting close to someone who might have ulterior motives. They're in a Killing Game, it makes sense, but there's this personal wariness of wanting to be close and yet being so hurt from past experiences that she has to test the waters bit by bit.
At some point in her fourth FTE, even when she admits that she isn't the kind to get emotionally involved with people and tried to rudely ask if they can finish the convo, she still makes a transition into talking about her gloves anyway.
She is continually testing how far and loyal Makoto is to being her friend that she indirectly tries to reach out about her own experiences.
She hasn't had someone to confide in about her worries and struggles at all in this school, after all. She doesn't even know how to make small talk or conversation without it being related to stuff such as the investigations or the mystery. Her social skills are very bad, she is serious all the time, and her sense of trust is continuously changing out of fear of getting hurt. Most of her and Naegi's hanging out during FTEs is them walking through the school in silence while she looks around, drinking tea, or doing nothing in particular. She doesn't know what to do with some guy who is okay with being in her presence for the sake of just...being there.
So when Naegi talks to her, it leaves her in this weird liminal space of wanting him close and yet far away. She tells him to go away, and yet comes to him for assistance. She uses him and breaks his trust, and then gets upset when he doesn't trust her back. She says she doesn't want to tell him about herself, and then quizzes him so that he can learn more about her.
She lets him into her space in small different ways, and it adds context as to how much more open Kirigiri is to talking to him in Chapter Six.
She has been wanting to tell someone about what she found for so long, and when Naegi showed how much he trusted her due to the Chapter Five trial, the dam opens. The moment they are away from cameras, she shows how emotional and vulnerable she can get. She had him in the room where her father's bones are, she tried to remain calm while asking Naegi to give her space to mourn her father, she talked to him about how uncertain her feelings are now, and basically everything that has been on her mind.
She's like an abused cat who befriended an emotional support dog, trying to get used to the fact that someone unconditionally cares for her
