#shihafic

[shihalyfie]

Re: Ryo, i like the idea of some original Akiyama Ryo existing at some point and something happening to him get fragmented into pieces, sais pieces going to different universes and timelines, resulting in the phenomenon where there's not just original one anymore but fragments of him.

I love space-time stuff (i mean, i have a whole story about Advverse and its different timelines + other worlds lol) so this is catching my attention 👀👌

I think that's one way to handle it! The last post probably made me come off as harsher on the games than I really intended to be (it's mostly that I know too well Bandai hasn't really had a good track record of being prudent about issues like these), but from a fanfic writer's perspective, sometimes the fun itself comes from taking difficult-to-figure out parts of canon and using it as a challenge of sorts.

If you do want to take Ryou being the same character in 02 and Tamers at "absolute" face value (that is to say, about as closely as the way the games obviously want you to take it, in its most literal form), the challenge becomes a question of how an amnesiac Ryou ends up adapting himself to the Tamers universe. Then you have concepts like the one you mentioned where the universe explosion at the end of D-1 Tamers scattered "fragments" of Ryou across the multiverse that integrated themselves into them, like Tamers' or V-Tamer's timelines. Or you can just take the games' plotlines as a "suggestion" and do whatever you want with the rest of it. Even if you're taking the games at the most face value as possible, you're probably still making concessions here and there to make it integrate with anime timeline, so the question is really just going to be about how much.

Personally, I haven't really settled on a definitive personal headcanon on what's going on with Ryou because I have multiple ideas and haven't been able to make a decision about which one(s) I want to commit to or develop further in my head, but the part I do end up no-compromise is that I'm really not a huge fan of any aspects of the games that derail anime characters' characterization (Ken and Wormmon in Tag Tamers and D-1 Tamers, the Adventure kids' characterization in D-1 Tamers, et cetera), so those are the aspects I tend to ignore or do away with the most. Likewise, a lot of the fanon that Ryou left the Adventure universe for the Tamers one because he was jaded and bitter has to do with interpretations of the fallout from the D-1 tournament, and since that's the part that I have the most discomfort with I tend to not really favor that line of thought (I don't begrudge anyone else who likes that, angst is very juicy after all, I'm just not personally comfortable with it).

The other big question is the fact Ryou is part of 02's media mix, and 02 canonically aired in the Tamers universe (that 02 is involved is confirmed by staff notes and later Digimon crossover works) but nobody in the Tamers world seems to know or care about the fact a popular fictional character is real, but the easiest way around this is that the "Adventure and 02" and Digimon franchise in the Tamers universe already has obvious differences from the real one, so the WonderSwan games and 02 tie-ins presumably didn't happen in the Tamers world's version of the franchise. That said, Millenniummon being a time-and-space distorting entity makes it very easy to come up with other reality-bending shenanigans or explanations, so you really have a lot of options.

[shihalyfie]

Maki, Daigo and their friends were chosen by Homeostasis before 1995 right? Since they are much more older than the Adventure/02 Chosen Children.

As per Adventure (episode 45) lore, such a thing shouldn't actually be possible because Homeostasis and the Agents didn't get the idea to pick Chosen Children before then. It's unfortunately far from the only major lore/timeline contradiction tri. has going on, but basically, as far as what official lore gives you, if you want to make Himekawa and Nishijima work with Adventure's timeline, something's gotta be changed.

How to deal with it will depend on your own headcanon, of course. I'm a fanfic writer and I'm a hardliner on prioritizing 02 (and by extension original Adventure) canon as much as possible and moving other things around it, so my solutions I've come up in my head have been the following:

adjusting Himekawa and Nishijima's ages to be only somewhat older than Taichi (this is the one I used for one fanfic, although it required major finagling to make something resembling tri.'s plotline still work)

moving Himekawa and Nishijima's ages while they were active as "Chosen Children" significantly upwards (requires somewhat less finagling than the first one, but still would need quite a bit)

change the identity of the entity who "chose" them to not be Homeostasis but someone else (may not be that difficult given Homeostasis as portrayed in tri. doesn't resemble the original Adventure one that much) so that Adventure episode 45 can still stand (note that this throws off the doubling-every-year official lore point, but this was never directly stated in-series so I'd count that as still being Adventure compliant).

Of course, this is because I'm personally very hardliner on the original series lore when it comes to my own fic and analysis. If you want to go with a method that goes more on the tri.-favoring end, it's possible to maintain their ages and positions as Chosen Children in the eighties or such; this would basically require messing with the backstory presented in Adventure episode 45 and such.

[shihalyfie]

I really enjoyed reading all your meta discussion about the 02 cast especially the focus on Daisuke since I always thought he was a deeper character and the dub really seemed to put him in a bad light. Reading your blog reminds me why 02 is my favorite digimon season and I’m very thankful to you and your group for that!

I was actually wondering if you have any plans to write a Daisuke/Hikari fanfic? And if you would what it might be about? I’m really curious about how you would write them as characters in a romantic situation :)

Thank you so much! I'm completely at peace with 02 being a polarizing series, but I just can't stand for it continuing to get pinned in fandom history as the "objectively" worse sequel to Adventure with shallow characters and writing when that just could not be further from the truth, and I focus on Daisuke a lot because of how important he is to 02 -- I mean, he's the lead protagonist, but he really is the center of the story's main messages (and also the one I inevitably focus the most when discussing dub changes, partially because of that importance and partially because the changes are so blatantly drastic that anytime I see people pull out the "didn't change much" claim, Daisuke alone makes me think "okay, you're just lying to me at this point"). As you say, he's absolutely much deeper as a character than he's given credit for, and I think he's even more of an important character to many of us as we go further into adulthood and understand how important his specific brand of grounded forward-thinkingness is to getting through life. So I'm really happy if people can appreciate him and 02 more!

In regards to shipping fics, I'm afraid my inability to come up with ideas I find to be particularly compelling is exactly why I haven't written anything for Daisuke/Hikari yet...despite liking to analyze things, I'm really very limited in terms of actually writing things myself, and outside of certain narrowly specific things I often find a lot of my attempts to feel very unsatisfactory or half-formed, so it always goes back to the drawing board and that's why I've only ever written for two ships despite liking many more. I think my general favored theme with Daisuke and Hikari is that he tries so hard to please or impress her when in actuality he'd make her perfectly happy just by acting natural and being his usual considerate self, but I've yet to come up with things that would carry an entertaining story.

[shihalyfie]

Hey its me Ann :) Thank you so much for answering me. I quite like your take. I like your take is realistic and aligned with the writer's themes. Do You write fanfiction by any chance? If yes, please do share I would love to read. Thank you 😊

Thank you so much again! You're really kind!

I do write fanfic -- I don't tend to advertise it here much since I see my work on this blog as mainly trying to be helpful resources for others, whereas my fic is sheer self-indulgence and me going ridiculously off the rails. I thought it'd be bad if people thought my analysis work was me trying to validate my fanfic or something, since no, I'm just playing around back here ^^ Fair warning, I mostly write Ken/Miyako and Takeru/Daisuke because those are the two ships with the specific type of dynamic I find myself most comfortable writing, so expect a lot of that.

[shihalyfie]

If there’s ever a character in a series I like who made mistakes and hurt people but were clearly capable of making up for them but then died before being given that second chance, that character will instantly be my favorite character and I will make AUs where they live. So it’s not really a surprise that I latched onto Osamu. However, I’m kind of struggling with:

It feels like cheating somehow, to imagine a universe where a dead character is alive, despite the entire situation being fictional to begin with. As a result, I end up putting Osamu through a lot more suffering than is probably necessary in order to “make up for” it.

Because of various headcanons I won’t get into (since your area of expertise is analyzing actual canon) Osamu being alive means Ken can’t become the Kaiser. Usually I have someone else become the Kaiser, but it always just feels like a rehash of Zero Two with roles shuffled around.

So my questions are how to reign in this temptation to torment Osamu pointlessly out of some weird sense of guilt, and what kinds of themes or ideas from Zero Two could I maybe take in a different direction so this AU feels less pointless?

Also, what kind of character arc do you think makes the most sense for Osamu if he’s made a protagonist, or a deuteragonist with Ken? (Becoming kinder is obvious but also fairly broad.) And what about Ken, if he didn’t have this backstory of his brother dying and feeling irrationally responsible for it?

(Disclaimer before we continue: I'm tagging this with #shihafic because it's my catch-all tag for "I make things up wholesale for fun instead of making any real attempt at sticking to the spirit of canon," and I by no means am attempting to claim your fic ideas or write it myself.)

I think Osamu has perplexed a lot of people for quite a while and, indeed, the AU of him living has crossed quite a few people's minds, but as you said, the plot of 02 itself so heavily relies on what happened between the two in the exact way it did to the point where making even a small adjustment causes everything to fall apart like a series of dominoes.

I think the best way to go here (if both brothers are meant to be left alive) is to explore the fact that the gap was widening between them even before a single thing happened -- my meta on Osamu dealt with the idea that Osamu was fostering his own jealousy of Ken for having something closer to a "happy normal life" of having fun that he himself was being deprived of through all of the expectations being put on him. Moreover, it's also implied that he knew he was losing his grip on his ability to be kind and didn't like this about himself (whether he knew this consciously might be up for debate, but in any case, he wasn't happy this way). So while of course an AU where he was alive still gives him a better opportunity to make reparations between himself and Ken, you still have a lot of questions remaining about what Osamu thinks about the person he's turning into, how the gulf between him and his own younger brother is widening, and whether he enjoys doing all of this. (For instance, knowing that Osamu's probably not very happy about his own emotional descent, you can potentially imagine himself having regrets about his behavior towards Ken -- canon even somewhat supports this, with Ken saying that Osamu being in a "bad mood and cold to him" was his seemingly normal behavior, yet he still wanted to make sure he was warm at night under the blankets.)

The bubble metaphor in 02 episode 23 has Osamu imply that Ken is more fundamentally inclined to be kind than he is, but the question is, was this something that just came up "naturally" because of how each brother is, or did this happen because they were raised with a gap between them and Ken was allowed to have more freedom while Osamu's sense of empathy was dulled? I feel like either interpretation is valid here, and so a potential character arc for him could deal with that question of recognizing this in himself. Regarding friends or deuteragonists, unfortunately, since the Ichijouji brothers' backstory relies so heavily on them being isolated, the only canon-compliant recourse is probably Akiyama Ryou, and since we know so little about him (especially due to Tag Tamers not smoothly fitting in 02's timeline without modification) that's where things had to be made up, but I think it's reasonable to assume Ken must have enjoyed his presence as a friend, and I imagine he must have been at least somewhat acquainted with Osamu as well. The way things went, it's unlikely he was emotionally involved with them enough to help solve their problems, but nevertheless, in canon he disappeared right when Ken needed support most, and in an AU where this doesn't happen, well...?

My personal impression of the Dark Seed (no basis in canon) is that it actually does very little with the person in question other than dulling their ability to feel empathy or self-restraint (so for instance, that whole part about being good at academics or sports actually still uses the person's natural abilities, but it'll push them to spend all of their time and energy focusing on those things and to the level of self-harm and exhaustion). So I think the point here is that either of the Ichijouji brothers had the potential to lose grip on themselves like this with the right combination of pressure and such -- of course, going all the way to being the Kaiser and trying a massive takeover would still require that "push", but even if left by itself, that gap would keep widening and Ken would be very confused as to why his brother is like this, as long as they're not communicating properly. Osamu's death made Ken take the responsibility for assuming Osamu’s role in the family and forcing himself into the role of the "perfect person" he thought Osamu was (especially since he thought of himself as personally responsible for it by latently wishing for him to be out of the picture), but even had Osamu not died, Ken's feelings of paradoxical resentment versus seeing Osamu as a "perfect person" and "strong" role model would probably be there, as he's unaware that Osamu's behavior isn't from being "strong" but by slowly having his emotions eaten away.

[shihalyfie]

Absolutely adore your character analysis posts and I just read your Daisuke/Takeru fic and I wondered if you have any fic recommendations focused on them?

Hello! Thank you for the kind words! I’m really glad to hear that my Daisuke/Takeru fic is well-received, I’m rather inexperienced as an actual writer of the ship and I feel I still have room to do better with it, but I definitely want to do more in the future ^^

In regards to fanfic recommendations...well, this is where I’m going to sound like a massive hypocrite, but as far as Daisuke/Takeru goes, I’m actually much more familiar with Japanese comics for the ship than I am English-language fanfic. In writing this, I’m really afraid that this is going to come off as something like “I think Japanese work is better” because it’s really not meant that way (in general, I dislike the idea of putting people on a pedestal just because they’re Japanese), and it’s more just due to a combination of factors that ties into the differences between the respective fan cultures, my own narrow and picky personal preferences, and how the ship (which doesn’t exactly have a huge number following in any country) gets involved with those.

English-language fanfiction is generally centered around long-form prose fiction posted for free on the Internet, whereas Japanese fanfiction usually centers around comics, often from people who are accustomed to selling actual books to people who are willing to pay money for it, and that has a huge impact on creating some rather significant differences when it comes to a ship like this:

Prose fanfiction with no length limit means that English-language fanfiction has a strong tendency towards “pure AUs” (of the “coffee shop” sort, where the entire circumstances behind the meeting and relationship are different), whereas books that have a very limited length are more likely to take the canon universe-based speculative fiction (mostly based on the canon events and timeline, with maybe at most a few “what-if?” changes) route, and while I of course have nothing against a good AU nor the lovely people who put tons of thought into it, my favored genre is more the latter (and it’s why both Daisuke/Takeru fics I’ve written are in that category).

I actually don’t check ship tags as often as you’d think! Although the ships I’ve written for (i.e. feel comfortable writing) are very few, I like a lot of ships, and I spend more time browsing generic tags and seeing what people put in there that might interest me. Daisuke/Takeru isn’t really all that popular in the mainstream in any country, but it does seem to have a dedicated niche following among 02 doujin artists who put out books, and my suspicion is that it’s because of the above limitations -- it’s a ship you don’t necessarily have to set up a full backstory for but still have enough “drama” to fill a book that people will pay money to read about. So as far as “running into it by accident” goes, it happens a lot more often with those kinds of artists...(despite that, I actually can’t afford to import that many books, so I’m still heavily reliant on said artists kindly and generously choosing to post their work online).

A large amount of English-language fanfiction is based off the American English dub, and while I have nothing against it personally, the dub for 02 in particular had a lot of differences in characterization -- especially with Daisuke -- to the point I almost consider it its own version of canon, and my own personal preference is strongly with the Japanese version. (It’s not even that easy to use the use of Japanese vs. dub names as a caliber, because you get a lot of people who use Japanese names but are clearly writing for the dub, and the result is that a reader like me who sticks mostly to the Japanese version will often get massive whiplash.) Daisuke is a character I especially am picky about the portrayal of, since he’s actually a very difficult character to grasp and too easy to pigeonhole, and it takes quite a bit of balance between the fact he’s such a supportive and positive person while also being very rough around the edges and easy to irritate, and my desire to see a diligent effort made in pulling off this balance is a huge reason I end up very picky about reading 02 fanfic. (And yet people claim he’s a flat or underdeveloped character...)

At the risk of touching upon an awkward topic, a lot of English-language fanfic that has Takeru involved in it tends to make a prominent effort to include a certain topic that is a massive landmine (as it’s called) for me, and I feel absolutely awful about it because I’m sure the author tried really hard to make it work, but touching on the topic in any significant way gives me negative whiplash to the point I end up unable to enjoy it as a reader. This doesn’t happen as much with comics (in any language) due to the more limited scope, but especially not with doujin-based comics, since we’re talking stuff you have to actually sell for money, and said topic is especially a landmine among doujin artists (the Pixiv wiki article has some, uh, less than kind things to say about it) and even more so among 02 fans, so said fanwork tends to either avoid the topic entirely, or not touch on it significantly to the point it makes it uncomfortable for me to read.

I really feel awful and like a massive hypocrite for saying this, because by all means I should be supporting fellow fanfic writers as someone who writes fanfic myself, but this is where I admit I’m the self-indulgent/selfish kind who kind of just throws things out there as I like!

If you are interested in some of the kinds of comics I mentioned, I can definitely recommend some, but I’d like to do it privately (i.e. please send me another ask so I can send it there) after I’ve confirmed if you’re okay with a rec even if it’s in Japanese, and what you might be comfortable/not comfortable with reading (Pixiv, unfortunately, is no AO3 and is absolutely awful about things having content warnings or proper content description tagging). There are definitely ones I really love, even putting aside the text itself, because the facial expressions and story presented perfectly capture the paradox of distance and closeness between the two, the drama of trying to close that gap, and the contrast between the ostensibly open but emotionally closed in Takeru, and the ostensibly rough around the edges but actually emotionally sensitive Daisuke. But recommendations of this sort are the kind I’d definitely like to do once I know the person’s preferences!

(I’m so sorry for making this drag on for so long; the fact I run an overly detailed meta blog probably might have clued you in on this, but I like talking too much...)

[shihalyfie]

@ree-fireparrot reblogged your post: "If there's ever a character in a series I like who..."​

[post]

Using this roundabout format of response because that was going to get really long (and now I’m wishing I’d used a read-more from the get-go, oops)! I don’t want to intrude on your fanfic writing process too much (I think these are all incredible and fascinating and well-thought out ideas, incidentally), but since you did leave off on two big questions you’re concerned about, I figured I should probably throw in suggestions to maybe help those out a bit:

Regarding the Ichijouji parents, it didn’t actually take all that much in canon for them to realize they messed up, and a lot of this was lack of communication (as usual) -- in 02 episode 23, Ken’s mom points out that for all it seemed, Osamu seemed to like studying (and they probably assumed that the boys liked all of the attention they were getting, too). So in essence, the brothers weren’t really properly communicating that something was wrong; in fact, they probably were trying not to communicate that, since they wanted to please their parents and make them proud -- among the various pressures put on kids that 02 addresses, “being well-behaved” is cited as one of them, so the part of this kind of tragedy is that the situation is set up so that the parents aren’t likely to figure out unless they look deeper between the lines. Of course, Ken suddenly “running away from home” and leaving behind a cryptic email (one that a lot of people have pointed out can be easily interpreted as a suicide note with a sufficient lack of context) was the wake-up call for them in canon, but it’s possible it didn’t need to be something that drastic, because before then everything had seemed to be “fine”, with the worst happening being that Ken suddenly started shutting himself in his room increasingly more often. (In fact, I’d say that a lot of the dominoes that made up the Ichijouji family’s crisis were set to fall anyway -- it’s just that the whole Chosen Child and Digital World thing didn’t make them fall as much as a massive torpedo blew through it.)

Archnemon says to Ken in 02 episode 26, and Oikawa says to Ken in 02 episode 48, that they used him as their pawn because he was in the right place at the right time, and there’s nothing special about the fact it was him -- “human weaknesses are easy to manipulate.” There wasn’t any real meaningful correlation between his position in particular and which person they wanted to use as a pawn (in fact, in the latter case, Oikawa doesn’t actually mention the Dark Seed as part of his reason, he just says “because you were a Chosen Child, that’s all”). So any Chosen Child (of which there are a lot of in 2002) who could be sufficiently manipulated could have become Oikawa’s pawn, and since Oikawa’s goal was specifically to get the Dark Towers up and running for the sake of distorting the Digital World, you don’t necessarily need to have a Kaiser, just someone who can play into their hands and do everything they need them to do. It’s just that in canon, the way things played out was the way it optimally panned out for them; Ken was the son of his coworker and had all of the signs painted all over him at Osamu’s funeral, so he was basically all he needed at once.

[shihalyfie]

Days of Youth

Archive of Our Own | FanFiction.net

In which I write a fic about what happens when Takeru and Daisuke end up in the same high school, and Takeru...tries his best.