The great thing about growing up with upper middle class teenage boys is that it really enhances my understanding of Azul Ashengrotto as a character. He displays this very queer kind of masculinity, which is actually very common among boys of his age. Here is a teenager who wears suits and cologne. He works out to be toned and emphasizes the masculine characteristics of his face with makeup. He’s the type of boy who would brag about listening to Frank Sinatra and “oldies”. Everything he does works to capture this idea of some kind of “classic masculinity”, and I think it’s clear that he targets these classic, toxic masculine ideals inwards. He’s a control freak, he values hard work above all else, he hates handouts, he wants to be powerful and doesn’t care about what toes he has to step on one the way up.
I’ve always sustained that masculinity is a central facet of much of Twisted Wonderland’s story, despite how effeminate a lot of the boys are appearance-wise. I’ve had a lot of people (none of whom have played the game) try to tell me that these characters are of the “typical yaoislop variety”, “men written by a woman core”, and while I will admit a lot of their characteristics are watered down to make them more palatable and appealing to women, they are well written male characters. People just aren’t used to seeing boyhood depicted so earnestly. This is a trait I’ve always appreciated about Twisted Wonderland, in each of the boys I can see my former classmates. There was a beloathed classmate of mine who was like this. He was my locker buddy in middle school. It was clear he was being bullied. He wore polo shirts every day, cologne. He showed up to my second period Algebra 2 class with a copy of The Art of the Deal and claimed he was apolitical. “He’s just a good business man”. He knew nothing but he watched enough economics podcasts to think he did. He joined my debate club and parroted everything I said badly because he knew I had cut my cards better than him. He always bragged about his startup. He was attention hungry and eventually stopped caring if that attention was positive or negative. Always submitted to class popularity contests by someone just so he could lose. This is Azul Ashengrotto to me. This is the boyishness of youth he emulates in his desperate attempt to be a man.
