「420」/「コマシロ」のイラスト [pixiv]

»sahato

coquettishcuttle:

daradarazu:

ikebukuroconfessions:

“My friend and I now refer to Vorona, Anri, and Saki as the Butter Trio. Because they’re bland. Bland as butter. And they might as well be the same character. Minus tit size and story lines.”

Hi, sorry, going to rant again. Because I happen to love each one of these girls. Individually. And I kind of wonder if you’ve been paying attention.

Firstly, ‘minus story lines’? So… basically, you’re exactly the same as some other person aside from your entire life’s story? Oh, yeah, that’s insignificant.

Now I’m going to go into detail about each of the three, and let’s see if you can tell the difference, okay? Do try to keep up.

Vorona: Russian. Her father was a member of essentially a Mafia group. He didn’t want her involved, and so she spent most of her time as a child reading books. This made her extremely well-educated, but not exactly socially normal. Then she killed a man, and her father was so, so happy—because she was alive and safe. She misinterpreted this and started thinking that he wanted her to kill people. She trained and trained until she was pretty much the best assassin in the world and went about killing her father’s enemies. He was not happy, and she realized that not only had she misinterpreted her father’s feelings, but her own as well. She liked killing people. She wanted to see how far she could go, testing human fragility, testing her own limits. All she wants is to find a worthy opponent and then kill them.

Anri: Her father was an ordinary guy who got into drugs and tore his life apart. He started abusing her and her mother. Her mother finally snapped and—using a cursed, supernatural sword—killed him and herself. Anri happened to pick up the sword, and it pretty nearly drove her insane. She controlled it by closing her heart to love, and decided to live her life as a parasite, giving up any chance of normal human emotions in order to keep Saika from hurting people. All she wants from life is to keep her friends safe.

Saki: We don’t know much about her before she met Kida, but like all of Izaya’s followers, she’s pretty screwed up. Something happened to her to screw with her mind and emotions, and she became so dependent on Izaya that she essentially worshipped him as a god. She would do anything for him. Then she met Kida, this random kid, and fell in love with him. It was twisted, it was messed up, but she was in love. In an act of obedience to Izaya she helped to ruin Kida’s life, but eventually turned around and betrayed Izaya just to help Kida. She came with him when he left Ikebukuro, and then encouraged him to face his fears and his friends. All she used to want out of life was Izaya around, but now all she wants is Kida’s happiness.

…so, how exactly are they the same character?

Ah, are we talking about the no-personalities trio? Ohhhh-kay!

Anri: repressed— implied that she would have been a very cheerful girl under different circumstances, and at times she shows signs of this personality manifesting in actuality (mainly around Mikado and Masaomi— she jokes about being a stalker, genuinely enjoys their company, and so on). This is shattered after the trio drifts apart, leaving a lonely girl who is slowly losing grasp over the screwed-up demon blade inside her. She believes in returning favors, doesn’t care if people bully her but won’t back down if people threaten her life style (Her bluntly telling the bullies that “It wouldn’t benefit me” if she joined them in bullying Harima Mika, and her cold remarks to haruna that basically went something along the lines of “Please examine your own life before you criticize the lives of others”). She is not pure or innocent and at times can state things quite cruelly (“I detest you” to Nasujima; “Why don’t you tell him, then” to Masaomi). But even so, she is polite— even to the people she dislikes. Which becomes unsettling when she’s trying to slash that same person with Saika (Izaya, Vorona). She is viciously loyal to the point where she would put her own comfort aside and use Saika to try and stop Ikebukuro from going out of control. She is mentally sound and composed, always waging an inner war with Saika despite her indulging in its ‘feelings of love’ from a safe distance. She is under the impression that her mother never loved her and her father would have killed her, so she is grateful to Saika. No angst there.

She apologizes a lot and at times assumes that things are her fault— her guilt only starts manifesting after Masaomi and Mikado have their fall out, and as a result, she starts opening up to people more about feelings that were supposed to be ‘long-since dead.’  She also doesn’t understand the difference between friendship-love and love-love. She embraces her status as a monster for her own personal gain, and she has no illusions about this. She is a monster. She loves her friends. A deadly combination.

She’s shy (unless you hit certain ‘berserk switches’), but that’s a given.

She looks up to Celty with admiration and mixed feelings (despite having tried to cut her head off earlier— which again, was done out of personal obligation since Pedoteacher had helped her out a few times with impure motives). She didn’t trust Akabayashi until they actually got to know each other, showcasing how wary she was after the death of her parents. And she was humbled and impressed by Mikado calling her out on her forgiveness-seeking tendencies. Her hesitation in certain relationships (with Akabayashi, and responding to the interests of Mikado and Masaomi) shows that she is someone who finds it difficult to trust beyond her ‘parasitic attachments.’ So it is natural that she is shaken by her tentative trust being strained so heavily as the books continue (….. Mikado. T_T )

I could go on.

Vorona: Values clarity, practicality, formalities— She chides Mikado about not calling the police and behaving irrationally, and she refuses to speak Russian in Japan. She overstates everything despite having perfect diction just to get her point across, but in the end, ends up muddling her words anyway. A child in an adult’s body, not used to constructive outlets for emotional outbursts due to growing up with an emotionally dead (for the most part) father. Doesn’t understand life, death, etc to a capacity that normal, rational humans should. Cocky to the extreme— a flaw that bites her in the ass as Akabayashi soundly thrashes it. She displays a love for challenge, specifically, challenge that can be overcome via lots and lots of death— and expresses disappointment when people fail to meet her standards (Celty, who she thought died instantly). She can be stubborn an obstinate. Again, I’ll emphasize that she’s childish. She couldn’t stand losing so she decided to get close to Shizuo until she could overcome him.

It’s pretty fascinating how such a rational person can be motivated by such irrational desires, but, those are my personal feelings. I liken her to Izaya in that respect (but his is a character rant best saved for another time).

Anyway. She has a sense of humor, though it is subtle and somewhat deadpan (Slon and the Spider comments).

She gets legitimately depressed when she realizes that she’s nowhere near as strong as Shizuo and completely idolizes his strength.

Reiteration: She is impulsive and has something of an ego. She is somewhat impersonal (assassin, duh), but she not completely devoid of remorse or strong feelings (She pretty much freaked when they said they were going to kill Slon and demanded that they kill her too). And going into these points even further:

Her kill record pretty much equates to: Kill robbers, kill rival organization members, kill random people for clients, kill ‘STRONG’ enemies. Nothing that requires her to actually get close to her victims. When she attacked Anri, the way she spoke indicated she had absolutely no idea why someone (read: Izaya) would want to hurt a young girl, but she went through with the job anyway. With Celty, they barely even exchanged words before Vorona ‘Lopped her head off.’ Both situations further showcased her impersonality. She attacked Shizuo as an impulse and failed miserably, attacked Akabayashi and failed miserably. Her actions up until now are severely indicative of someone who is used to always having things ‘go a certain way.’ And I’ll use this as the basis for my argument that she’s never had to get  close to a ‘target’ before. Because she’s used to “Get job —> Kill! —> Job Over” with little else in between.

And so, that leads in to her new relationship with Tom and Shizuo and her new lifestyle in Ikebukuro. A completely new and foreign situation with completely new and foreign experiences. We don’t know how things will change in that respect.

 

Saki: Emotionally dependent. Different from emotionally repressed (Anri) and emotionally inexperienced (Vorona). Saki is still very emotional, but she hides the majority of what she is thinking behind a vacant smile. She is teasing, flirty, and likes to joke— something that drew Masaomi to her.  She is also one of the few girls who actively digs his sense of humor. Saki suffered some ambiguous damage in the past that caused her to latch on to Izaya, who gleefully used this to advantage. Smart enough to realize she was being used, but when faced with the alternative of “Life before Izaya,” she decided she didn’t care. She’s also not the type to care about flaws or how others see her because of them. Her satisfaction with being a puppet shattered when she met Masaomi, but she was only able to defy Izaya when Masaomi’s life was legitimately in danger. She is blunt, but uses very soft and reassuring tones— she doesn’t guilt trip people so much as she  ‘reminds’ them (Masaomi, Masaomi, Masaomi).

She is very ‘pure,’ but this is only because she’s been broken pretty hard. A person who could stay pure after everything that happened would have to be broken in some way, and so, we the viewers might find it unsettling.

She becomes just as much an emotional crutch to Masaomi as he is to her. She encourages him to go to his friends even if it means leaving her behind, and she ensures him that she will always be his lover. She is unfaltering and of complete faith in their love. She is a person who slowly nudges people, and at times, completely pushes them in the direction they should be heading in. She was immensely overjoyed and scared that she finally managed to disobey Izaya— and he himself was surprised over this. It came as a shock that Saki loved Masaomi more than she depended on ‘him.’ (even though his reaction was basically “Oh, WELL OBVIOUSLY I KNEW THAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN HA HA” the look of surprise on his face gave his actual feelings away.)

 

Yeah, man, I hear ya. So bland.

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Annnnd that’s enough ‘batshit fanrant’ for tonight. Not that I don’t have more to say about these lovely ladies. I’m just a bit tired, ha ha.

To wrap things up: I have honestly been restraining myself for a long time (about two years of fandom ‘silliness’ is two years too much). So I sincerely apologize for this word-vomit-salad. =| I was just listing pretty much everything I could remember with an interpretive spin. The grammar and spelling are probably atrocious too. Anyway— It has been awhile since I read the novels, so forgive me if I mucked up on some of the details. And now, since I have made an abysmal first impression, I will be taking my leave.

Good day t’you.

welcometowonderland:

こんな散らかして！ by おしん

「www」/「BOBO」のイラスト [pixiv]

“The day we met… we tried to fight to the death.
I didn’t have a reason why. I just didn’t like him.

But…

Yeah… I failed.”

- Heiwajima Shizuo

vankittycat:

ASJHGKSHGKAHGKSAHGSAKHGKAGSA.jpeg

these two…

Buuu by *tsulala on deviantART