#asobitsu

shiro is a terrible friend 8/

wOAH SLOW DOWN SATAN?????????

keyli why do u always kill me w/ these painful asks JFLKADSF ( jk i appreciate it bc i love crying about shiro 24/7 BUT STILL )

but.  ok so.  breathes into hands..  first, let’s look at how shiro reacted when the gold king died – the gold king, the lieutenant, shiro’s very first and oldest friend.  i’d like to point out that shiro has… never really been a character who shows a lot of emotion.  not to say that he’s emotionless or extremely dull – no, shiro is far from stoic, and he doesn’t typically come across as someone with the same cold professionalism you see in a lot of characters who “don’t show emotion,” either.  shiro’s ‘lack of emotion’ thing that i’m talking about is more… this sort of constant calm, this air of carelessness that shiro keeps about himself.  and when i say ‘calm’… i don’t mean that shiro is cool and always in control of situations, because he’s not that kind of calm.  i mean – he doesn’t let things affect him in the way that they should.  i.e., in episode 1, when homra chased him through the city, shiro was obviously in a state of panic —- but his reaction as soon as he was whisked away from the threat of immediate danger wasn’t worried, concerned, or even confused.  he simply… planned to walk away.  causally, as though that hadn’t just happened.  he completely disregarded the fact that there was a gang out to kill him.

most people would be freaked out, at least a little —- but shiro shrugged it off and planned to leave it behind him as though it was nothing.  shiro doesn’t dwell on things.  he simply doesn’t get caught up in swells of emotion – at least, on the outside – and thus, throughout most of the series, despite the stressful situations shiro is put in, he remains largely unaffected.  he’s calm – again, not in the cool, sophisticated way, but as in… that he just takes everything in stride.  just because shiro doesn’t appear to be affected doesn’t mean that he isn’t, of course.  shiro just does an excellent job at seeming relatively at ease.  even with people out to kill him, arrest him, and the looming possibility that he might be a murderer that exists for much of season 1… shiro only cracks once – the very end of episode 6 – and even that is incredibly brief.  he goes back to being carefree the moment scepter 4 bust in and attempt to place him under arrest.

i don’t think that shiro’s ‘lack of emotion’ thing is something he does intentionally; it’s just… the way he is.  i don’t doubt that this awkward way shiro socializes with people stems from the fact that weismann, as a kid, didn’t have any friends, and spent most of his time studying.  it’s a canon thing that shiro didn’t really know “humanity” for a long time, because he’d just… only read about people ??  what he knew of people consisted of what he’d learned through books, not through actual human interaction.  it’s why his friendship with the gold king was awkward at first.  it’s why shiro, though he likes people, comes across as quirky.  and yeah, sure, he’s friendly and nice, he makes a good first impression… he “gets along with everyone,” or whatever… but none of the people he interacts with actually grow close to him ( aside from kuroh, neko, and the gold king, of course ).  it’s because it’s hard to, really – shiro doesn’t connect with people, and no matter how nice and sweet he may be, friendship and the formation of bonds – KIZUNA, which is the main thing that k focuses on, actually, ha – require some deeper sort of connection.  not just “oh, he’s nice.”  he can be nice, but never really open up, and then what ?  it’s like you barely know them beyond “nice.”  people don’t become friends just because someone is “nice” on the surface layer.  not counting his sister, shiro has literally had a total of three friends – genuine, actual friends, not counting acquaintances and others who he’s just friendly with – in canon.

…i feel like i’m getting off from the point i was originally trying to make, uH —-  but, like, basically… when the gold king died, shiro just… didn’t really show a lot of emotion.  of course, you could say he’d been prepared for it for almost a year by then, but still.  his first friend ?  dying of old age ?  while shiro, if anything, appears younger ?  we, the audience, couldn’t see his face, but… i really liked that whole sequence because shiro didn’t even really have to say much, but it was still so painful.  every time the gold king said something, shiro just made a noise of agreement.  and on the last one, shiro’s small response was delayed.  he waits long enough for the monitors on the gold king to go off – and then shiro gets up, walks out of the room, and outside.  the audience never catches a glimpse of his face until he’s, uh… doing the titanic pose thing on the railing.  but that whole scene – it’s not emotional in the sobbing, tear-shedding, shaking with grief way – it’s sad because shiro swallows his grief, walks away from it, and doesn’t look back.  it’s sad because you know shiro is in pain, but the only expression of it that you get is from what you hear – the soft, almost hesitant responses he gives the gold king during his last moments.  it’s sad, in a different way, because shiro doesn’t dwell on it.  it’s almost like… the lack of shown emotion is what makes it so.

you asked me once before how shiro would behave when kuroh and neko’s inevitable deaths were impossible to ignore, and i told you “he wouldn’t focus on it” and that “he’d be sad, of course, but wouldn’t let it burst through in raw emotion.”  so, when kuroh and neko die… shiro moves on.  he gets up, and continues living.  heck, you even sent me an ask for that one prompt… shiro after neko’s death ?

shiro’s lack of expressed emotion doesn’t mean he’s not sad.  he is, surely.  but… shiro, just like when the gold king died —- gets up, walks away, and tries not to look back.

shiro has also sworn to “take responsibility” and all that – so i don’t think there’s any worry of him secluding himself in the skies again.  because doing that was an intentional isolation.  what shiro wanted – and this was character development, too – was to find happiness, to grasp that feeling of joy, despite immortality.  and, as shown when he was amnesiac and spending his days with kuroh and neko… he wants that.  and immortality won’t stop him from living – really living – anymore.

he would be saddened, but he wouldn’t let himself stay bound by “chains of time,” as his second character song puts it.