ioculus | tl;dr.exe

Kaoru Nagumo | Hakuouki |

souredsweet
Oz Vessalius | Pandora Hearts |

harepiece
Ayato Naoi | Angel Beats! |

in b4 Dana

wow u punks keep your fighting to a dull roar!!!

ANYWAY, SHIRASU. Your comment cracked me up because it's basically the same thing Kaoru thinks about Shirasu... He was really a non-entity at first; polite and decent enough to talk to, but not exactly attention-grabbing or someone that Kaoru immediately looked at and thought "ah, useful." He honestly would have been perfectly fine with just maintaining bare minimum acquaintanceship or even dropping contact entirely after their first conversation, especially since he wasn't super invested in Tenka at the time either so he just laughed his dumb ass off at their holly makeouts picture and then it kind of dropped from his mind.

BUT AFTER THE PRANK THING, Shirasu has a lot more of his attention if only because Shirasu now knows a small sliver of his true shitty potential. I MEAN, HE WAS TRYING TO POISON PEOPLE FOR PRANKS... And even though he can wave that off as being part of the card's influence, Shirasu strikes him as a very intelligent and observant person, so he wouldn't at all be surprised if that was taken with a grain of salt. He's going to be watching himself a little more closely around Shirasu in the future because of that, since he doesn't want to do anything else to trip more alarm bells.

THAT SAID, if he were ever to discover just how similar they were personality-wise, I also think they'd probably get along really well?! Obviously there are some HUGE differences in their mentalities and philosophies, but I think their base thought processes are similar enough that they could really function together well as a hellion team. I hope the shop gets approved because Kaoru would totally recruit Shirasu and they'd probably both be right at home like morons...

In regard to The Tenka Situation™ in particular, I think how that turns out would depend on how soon he figures out Shirasu's someone he could consider an ally. Even though his sense of loyalty is skewed, he would definitely prioritize keeping his business/info networking together over making Tenka miserable over some petty grievance or another.

SO, for now Kaoru's wary and will probably try to keep some distance because he sees more risk in interacting with Shirasu than gain (as of right now anyway), but this has the potential to become something beautiful iF THEY ACTUALLY FIGURE OUT THE MUTUAL SHITHEADEDNESS GOING ON HERE... We'll find a way, I believe in us.

DAMMIT

GOD i just wanted to match your icon

Natalia and Oz!! FIRST I'm gonna give you a little background info on the game Oz comes from, just to show why he's so reluctant to tell Natalia about it... BUT BASICALLY, he and about 29 other people were rounded up and stuck in an abandoned amusement park and had little computer chips put into their heads. A handful of people were affected by those chips into thinking that they had to "wake up" everyone else bY MURDERING THEM, and that they weren't actually killing anyone. SO every night the killers would murder one person, and every day everyone would gather together to decide who to lynch. Oz's role was half of the buddy cop duo, so he, his partner Belgium, and a dog detective were the only people in the whole game who could actually help with the lynch, because they were the only people that could pick a name at night and see whether that person was innocent or a killer.

LONG STORY SHORT Oz eventually ended up wanting to work to save the killers instead of lynching them all, so he made a desperate last attempt when he was one of the only role-holders left standing, setting up this gambit by holding the killer names hostage and forcing a neutral vote instead of a lynch in exchange for the killers promising that they wouldn't kill anyone that night. BUT Oz is pretty smart and realistic, so THIS IS WHERE NATALIA COMES IN. He basically comes up to her and says "hey I'm hoping for the best but preparing for the worst", hands her a list of all of his research, and asks her to take care of things if he doesn't make it. AND HE DOESN'T, OF COURSE. He gets murdered super brutally that night and then has to watch Natalia struggle with the fact that she now thinks she has to condemn the last two killers, who are both kids, in Oz's place. Obviously this is incredibly shitty and Oz feels terrible about having to leave that responsibility on her shoulders, and it carries on into Cerealia even though she has no idea what happened there.

That's pretty much why he hasn't said anything to her yet... Because he's of the opinion that if she doesn't know now, she doesn't really need the reminder. LIKE I SAID THOUGH if he ever found out that she really wanted to know, he wouldn't withhold it, because it's her life etc etc. He just would prefer to spare people from that trauma, even if she would only be "hearing" about it second-hand.

ALL OF THAT ASIDE, he really likes her! His opinion is shaded by his memories of murderpark, but he tries not to let that interfere too much with getting to know Natalia here. He's really good at compartmentalization, so he actually doesn't have too much trouble mentally keeping the two separate, especially since he doesn't think much about DreamLand in Cerealia to begin with. He knows that she can be resourceful and that she's willing to do what's necessary. She's been dependable in rough situations before, so he just sort of already has this really high opinion of her even though he's obviously not had the chance to see any of those traits in action here yet.

BUT Cereal's also given him a more lighthearted environment, so he's able to interact with her in an easier way than he did back in DL! LIKE THEIR DUMB TALK ABOUT TEA... The perpetual mystery... So he's able to see her in a new light here, too; more relaxed and at ease and less, you know... operating like her life depends on her actions. Which he really likes! He likes that he's able to get to befriend her on more normal terms here, and even though he's a little sad she doesn't remember, it's not anywhere near enough to stop him from bowling fullspeed ahead on the friendship express all over again. SO YES he's excited to spend more time with her just hanging out as friends in a weird future city place; they can go on dumb noble adventures together and it'll be great... or at least a huge step up from having to apologize to her for getting his dumb ass murdered.

Kaoru and Tenka hAHA... Dana it's so sad how much I could tldr about these morons... ANYWAY hmmm since I've already done a rough overview, I'll just hit up some newer things. LIKE, FOR ONE, the fact that Kaoru is more determined to spend time with Tenka the more disapproval he gets from Sousei?! HE'S LITERALLY FIVE YEARS OLD. I mentioned this in my blurb to Cal but since Sousei and Kaoru are starting to tiptoe around their mutual dislike a little less, Kaoru's becoming more inclined to be contrary and stick to Tenka just because it's pretty dang clear by now that Sousei doesn't want him to. YOU AREN'T HIS MOM SOUSEI YOU CAN'T TELL HIM WHAT TO DO...

So yeah the reasons for Kaoru spending time with Tenka keep stacking up and STILL, none of them actually have anything to do with Tenka himself. Incredible. In cascading order of importance, he sticks with Tenka because a) he is a key piece in his friend network, b) he's starting to pick up on these little Things that he's jealous of which will make it harder for him to leave Tenka alone and c) Sousei doesn't want him to... There is also a tiny little hidden part of himself that he doesn't acknowledge that actually craves the kind of attention Tenka gives?! WHICH IS ANOTHER REASON HE STICKS CLOSE but that's something very subconscious; he doesn't really recognize it within himself at all. And it would be better if he... never does... because we all see how Kaoru gets when he sees a thing he wants?! He throws it on the ground like a barbarian because he doesn't know what to do with nice things LMFAO.

Tenka also presents something of a challenge that he's intrigued by, though! I mentioned it briefly earlier, but he has definitely picked up on the fact that Tenka doesn't really talk about himself all that much and tends to redirect topics or focus outward instead of inward. He also had a conversation with Sousei recently in which he said something like "oh, you and Tenka balance each other out really well" and Sousei got very up in arms about Kaoru not prying into their business - which was reasonable at the time because he's both really wary of Kaoru in general and had just dealt with Taka pulling his Taka move with Shirasu!! BUT TO KAORU, who didn't know about the latter, it seemed so far out of the blue and random that he was just immediately like "ah, something's being hidden here." THANK SOUSEI FOR THAT ONE...

So now he's curious about the things that Tenka keeps hidden!! But he also took Sousei's warning to heart, and he wouldn't want to jeopardize anything by being too pushy. In his experience, people who are reticent when it comes to talking about themselves usually withdraw if prying is done, even if it's gentle. So Kaoru's plan of attack is basically to just work his way into Tenka's life so much that these are the sort of things he'd talk about just because he feels more comfortable. He doesn't know just how clammed up Tenka is BUT IT STILL WOULDN'T DETER HIM because he's got all the time in the world, really... Even though that time will probably be cut into significantly once he starts being a blackmarket info brokering punk?! At which point Tenka probably will be seeing less of him since that sure is something he doesn't want to show at all.

BUT YES I'm really excited to see where this goes, because things could either end relatively benignly with Kaoru just sort of drifting off on his own once he gets bored or feels that Tenka doesn't have anything left to offer, oR they could explode hilariously and terribly and spectacularly because his shittiness gets found out before that point, OR Kaoru could ruin it himself because AS I'VE SAID Tenka has all the makings of someone that he could get insanely jealous over... like, truly. The two emotions that he feels most strongly are anger and envy and he gets green super easily, and he's so fickle that it's seriously like a 50/50 chance. Depending on how close ("close".....) they become and how well Tenka treats him, he might either ditch him like he's the plague or Tenka may wake up and open his window one day and Kaoru's out there with his face pressed against it writing hatemance letters on the fogged up glass. r.i.p tenka either way...

it occurs to me that i can ask for all three

KAORU AND MALIA. OZ AND AMERICA. NAOI AND AMERICA. yeah, hat trick.

Edited 2015-02-11 18:42 (UTC)

AW YEAHHHH OKAY

Naoi and America! This one's really easy and short because America is still a non-entity to Naoi. SOME WEIRD TINHAT... Except the only "weird" thing about him is his claim to being a nation, because Naoi 100% supports all of his crazy tinhat theories?! He too wears a tinhat proudly... He would absolutely be up for hashing out more crazy and weird theories with America in the future, because being a dumb rebel is basically what he does. AND HE WILL EQUALLY GLADLY PROVIDE AMERICA WITH EXPLOSIVES even though the rest of Cereal will probably hate him for that one, wow.

Kaoru and Malia! He doesn't have much of an opinion on Malia so far, honestly. She seems more inept than most but ?! he's dealt with a rainbow array of weird people before, so Malia isn't the weirdest person he's met. She actually reminds him a lot of Oona, which is why he just kind of assumes that she either a) hasn't been socialized normally/properly or b) is just a really straightforward person to the point that it's almost physically painful. OR BOTH. Malia's the kind of person that he stares at in majestic wonder like "how can a person this honest even exist", even if her honesty is also rUDE AS SHIT, but hey man whATEVER.

He also totally knows she isn't human, because only an actual baby would be tricked by Malia's attempt at hiding her fast healing... MALIA PLEASE. But he does find her failed attempts at being deceptive absolutely hilarious, so there's that?! But beyond being vaguely amused, he doesn't really see much value in continuing to associate with her and won't go out of his way to do so, probably. And if she does call about her hand, he'll actually be really surprised since she seems like the kind of person who'd just forget about that within like a day.

Oz and America! OZ LOVES AMERICA?! IT'S SO FUNNY... HE REALLY DOES. He's so vivacious and full of life and energy and just really fun to spend time around, which is why Oz is always agreeing to hang out or do things together etc. ON THE OTHER HAND, Oz isn't blind to the fact that America has a lot of glaring personality flaws and that he can be really offensive and rude, even if he can also tell that it's largely accidental. That's why, when he introduces the idea of meeting America to other people, he never says "YOU'LL LIKE HIM!", he always says "I THINK HE'D LIKE YOU" LMFAO... Because he knows America is an acquired taste.....

He's also way more distraught about the America dying thing than he let on, since he didn't really want to be a burden if America didn't want to talk about it. In his opinion, if the person who dies is like "OH WELL", then it's kind of selfish for him to be like ARE YOU SURE, I'M WORRIED, ARE YOU REALLY SURE YOU'RE OKAY etc. BUT HE IS WORRIED. Who even does that!! Don't die anymore, America, geez!?

Along the same lines of things Oz won't talk about much; he's really curious about what this whole being a nation thing means?? HE ISN'T NEW TO IT THOUGH OKAY LIKe basically his partner in the game he was CRAU'd from was Belgium, and their lives were quite literally tied together. She took care of him really well and they were pretty close by the time they escaped, so because that was his first experience with nations, he's just kind of like "HELL YEA" about nations in general. BUT HE HAS NO IDEA WHAT IT MEANS... STILL. "Physical representation of people" is such a vague concept that it's still confusing to him, and when someone from ph-land is confused, you know shit's gotta be really complex.

SO YES he'll probably continue to pester him and hang out and just generally BE FRIENDS, because that's what he does once he finds someone he likes. He just sticks to them like glue. NO ESCAPE. They really are going to get into some harmful shenans someday because they're both morons, but it'll still be great. I hope they make Cerealian version of vines together.

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bigstick - 2015-02-15 21:38 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

harepiece - 2015-02-15 23:48 (UTC) - Expand

Well you already tl;dr about them but if you got anything else...

I DON'T THINK I REALLY HIT MUCH BEFORE about what Kaoru actually thinks of Oona as a person so let's do that YEAH.

So I mentioned before about how Kaoru is completely baffled by Oona's openness, which is 100% true. He'll basically never understand people who can be that honest, because he only gets to that point himself when he's basically run into a corner and there's no other choice left OR when he hits the Maximum Bullshit Toleration Point when he just says "fuck it" and throws his act away on his own. His opinion on openly honest buttheads in general basically amounts to "you're brave but stupid haha", SO THERE'S THAT...

But outside of that particular trait, Kaoru feels he has a pretty good understanding of who Oona is! Like... she's not a super complex person with a lot of complicated feelings. She's extremely straightforward and honest with everything, which means there's never much guesswork involved in trying to figure out what she's thinking or feeling or where those thoughts/feelings come from. It's a little strange to him since he's entirely used to a lot of consideration and thought being necessary in order to really get people BUT WITH OONA IT'S JUST LIKE "HERE I AM, I AM HERE" and he's like sweats rapidly... but where's the hidden confusing stuff......

He does actually expect that there's still more to her than meets the eye, but he definitely doesn't get the feeling that she's duplicitous like he is and is hiding an entirely different personality underneath her brash openness. So while he's interested in seeing what her deeper underlying thoughts or opinions are - the things that she's not as open about, or doesn't talk about without prompting - he isn't really expecting it to be hugely different from what he can see on the surface.

AS FOR HER OTHER TRAITS, on a whole he actually finds Oona entirely tolerable as a person, which is stupidly rare... She's never once annoyed him and some of her little personality tics are actually kind of endearing. She has a child-like enthusiasm for things that he thinks is simultaneously stupid and kind of cute in a "haha that's stupid" way. HE'S SO INSULTING i'm so sorry oona...

The one thing about her that he doesn't really care for is that she's kind of a touchy-feely person by nature and he is quite literally the exact opposite; he'd be perfectly fine if he never had to bodily contact anyone for the rest of his life AND THEN THERE'S OONA touching his face and sticking flowers in his hair, and he's just like why but he'll tolerate it because he doesn't mind her... ~friendship(??????)~

COME AT ME

ATHENA!! She's basically another person who falls under the general "??? acquaintance" umbrella, because Kaoru doesn't really know a lot about her yet and hasn't deemed her immediately useful enough to really try befriending her.

That said, he does think that she's probably the sort of person who makes friends and networks quickly, which elevates her to a degree in his book of people to keep track of. HE REALLY LIKES NETWORKING for many reasons and so people who are naturally friendly and sunny sort of attract him by default... WHICH IS UNFORTUNATE FOR HER. On the plus side, that's been about the only thing that's really grabbed his attention about her?! She seems friendly and outgoing and the sort of person who would have the backs of anyone she considers a friend, which is always nice to have in tricky situations, but she doesn't seem particularly threatening or like she has any immensely useful skills beyond her own friendliness.

If he ever figured out that she could hear emotion in voices and analyze it, he'd be a LOT more wary around her, that said. LIKE... PROBABLY TO THE POINT OF MILD AVOIDANCE. Kaoru is almost always faking his outward emotions to some extent, and it becomes more obvious the more personal any given topic is. So he can last pretty well in surface conversations, but if she were ever to try getting to know him better he'd probably start setting off alarm bells because he's a lying liar who lies about everything. THIS SOUNDS LIKE AN EXAGGERATION BUT HE ISN'T EVEN TRUTHFUL ABOUT BASIC THINGS LIKE HIS NAME OR SPECIES...

But since that hasn't really come into play yet, he's cool with just hanging out with Athena in his spare time! Building friendships up, making social connections, etc. PPLUS SHE REALLY DOES HAVE GOOD TASTE IN FOOD which is a big compliment from Kaoru because he literally doesn't give a shit what he shovels into his mouth for meals. He's apathetic, but the panini really was good even if he doesn't like black tea much. SO, AN A+ FOR ATHENA. She's also really accommodating?! He appreciates that, too...

so basically keep on keepin on bein ur cool self athena, Kaoru Approves™ (in a very mild way)

and over here too if it pleases you

I feel like all of Oz's tl;cr comments are like "OZ LIKES X AND WANTS TO GET TO KNOW THEM BETTER", but i mean, BASICALLY...... Oz likes Ayumu and wants to get to know him better...

Obviously their friendship (OZ CONSIDERS THEM FRIENDS ALREADY OKAY) started off on a weird foot with the whole bed inspector thing, but Oz takes everything in stride and honestly wasn't put off by that at all?! Which highlights exactly why he needs 100 babysitters... it's for reasons like that... because he just lets weird strangers into his apartment without even asking for their names and then lETS THEM STAY THERE as he goes meandering around the city like a moron.

But Ayumu took everything in stride too, relatively speaking, and so Oz is just kind of like YEAH!!!! about him. He seems neat!! And self-sufficient! And very responsible for his age!! Of course, people with traits like that are sometimes that way because they had to grow up pretty fast, and coupled with Ayumu's roundabout way of trying to find company during the ghost fiasco, Oz figures there's probably more to him than meets the eye. He seemed a little lonely, too! What this means for Ayumu is that Oz is going to come barreling in his direction full-speed ahead on the friendship train... I'm so sorry Ayumu... but he really can't resist being that pesky clingy cheerful friend to people who are dour or somber.

He still considers Ayumu like an acquaintance-level friend though, so he won't do any prying just yet. He'll just annoyingly insert himself into things like an idiot more often, like calling him up at random to see if he wants to hang out or inviting him to DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS or whatever other nerd thing of the week it is that he's doing. MAKE MORE FRIENDS AYUMU!!!

Also they need to get into some cooking adventure shenans at some point and tagteam troll Yata because TRULY, it'd be a missed opportunity otherwise.

if there's anything that hasn't been said yet tbh

I MEAN, SPITTINGCATS.PNG......

It's hilarious because Tenka is literally The Stumbling Block here on both sides. Kaoru wouldn't give two shits about Sousei if it weren't for the fact that Sousei gets his hackles raised whenever their paths cross and sometimes goes out of his way to instigate interaction even when Kaoru's made it pretty clear that he'd rather avoid him altogether, and that only happens because Sousei is (rightfully) worried about Tenka. HONESTLY, without Tenka I think they probably wouldn't interact at all?! AND BE HAPPIER FOR IT...

BUT NO, it's become this hilarious feedback loop of Sousei really wanting Kaoru to step off and leave Tenka alone, and the more Sousei pushes at that, the more Kaoru is like "GUESS WHO'S GONNA SPEND EVEN MORE TIME AROUND TENKA it me". I'd say that on his own Kaoru might have even lost interest in Tenka eventually but I can't say for sure because ??? Kaoru is a maniac. BUT I CAN SAY that there would definitely be less desire to be present just for the sake of being contrary... which definitely does fuel at least some of his decision to stick around.

So basically in the same way that Sousei just dislikes what Kaoru represents, Kaoru dislikes Sousei as a roadblock and a person telling him "no" rather than because of who he is as a person. I think I've said this before but seriously if it weren't for Tenka, he'd probably get along with Sousei just fine because he has the type of personality that's easiest to get along with... BUT INSTEAD, IT'S JUST ANGRY CATS. ANGRY CATS FOR MILES.

Oz... Tell me everything.