#coffee rambles

Now, though, I can only sigh and roll my eyes whenever I see her in a panel with him because I just know that if she's there, it means we're going to be stuck with the most boring of Rei's masks. It means we're going to have to suffer through pages of local friendly neighborhood barista Amuro Tooru because Gosho won't ever let her see the real Rei because, let's be honest, she would NOT like the person he actually is. That's the thing about this ship: you can't make it believable that they would ever work without stripping him of everything that makes him such a compelling character. And it's not like the ship has even made any real progress. It's been...what, seven years now? And we still haven't moved past the recycled "we're not dating" joke.

I also just can't make myself believe that Rei would ever be interested in someone like Azusa. For starters, there's the fact that she's been racist to him in the past when a huge part of his backstory is the fact that the other kids his age were racist/xenophobic toward him. Yes, it probably came from a place of genuine ignorance on her part rather than malice, but I can't give her too much grace because 1) she's a grown woman who should theoretically know better than to make assumptions based on appearance, and 2) even if she didn't mean any harm by it, she could have used it as a learning opportunity. Instead, she chose to deflect responsibility and made it out as if Rei was being unfair for calling her out ("I'm not a detective").

But even if we were to brush all of that aside, what connection even is there between them? There isn't. Because - to circle back to my original point - Rei has only ever shown her the version of himself that he wants her to see, and it's nothing like his real personality. Sure, he could tell her, but that leads to my other point, which is that I just can't believe he would ever care enough about her to share such a massive secret, especially considering the consequences it would have if things were to go sideways. She just isn't developed or interesting enough of a character for me to believe that he would hold her in high enough regard to trust her with that type of information.

And while this is admittedly a little petty on my end, there's also the fact that Azusa always makes such a big deal about how people keep assuming that she and Amuro/Rei are together, and yet she continues to act in ways that she KNOWS will fuel the rumors even further. She's gone out alone with him in public multiple times at this point. I'm just saying, if it actually bothers her as much as she says, she could try a little harder to avoid going out with him one-on-one. Because at this point, her little "I'm soooo sick of everyone always thinking that Amuro-san and I are dating, Amuro-san would never be into someone like me anyway," act just comes across as posturing.

Of course, ultimately this all stems from Gosho's unwillingness to treat his women characters as anything more than accessories for their men, but that's a discussion for another time.

Anyway, I've ranted enough about them for now, so I'll move on to the other letters XD.

O: Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of?

I fear my answers for AkAm would all be very generic, so I'm going to tweak this question a little and say that "Good Luck, Babe!" by Chappell Roan lowkey gives me Masumi x Ran vibes. If you want a more tragic/angsty take on the ship, "The Subway" also works well. Basically, I'm imagining a scenario where Masumi and Ran try a relationship, but while they both genuinely love each other, things still end up falling apart for one reason or another. As for whose perspective the song is from...honestly, you could really make it work for either of them, so I'll leave that up to the imagination.

F: What's the longest you've ever been in a fandom?

I'm going to be honest, I'm actually not sure because my grasp on the concept of time has disappeared ever since the pandemic. If I had to guess, I would say...probably around 3-4 years? The thing is, I wasn't actually able to participate in online fandom spaces until I was 15/16 because my mom put very, VERY heavy restrictions on my screen time. And since I've always preferred to keep to myself, I didn't have enough friends in real life to nerd out with about my fandom interests either.

E: Have you ever added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, and if so what?

Nothing. I do not add anything "hilarious" to the fandom. I add bucketloads of angst and tragedy, and then I laugh at everyone's pain. There is nothing you can do about it. You will all suffer and you WILL like it :)

Currently cackling evilly,