#crouch thought

Do you know, something I've noticed about Zanka's fighting style in both the anime and the manga is that he fights very defensively. He lets the other party attack first, holds his ground, and executes strong guards while he waits for them to slip up and make a mistake he can capitalize on. Or (in the case of the mud puppet fight, which he made look easy) until he spots a critical weakness and gathers the information he needs to execute a decisive blow.

So, Modern AU Janka, right? The boys, together, out on the town. In some hypothetical situation where they've moved in together, they're no doubt menacing the local grocery store with loud and inane arguments that span the entire length of their shopping trips (all to get in the mood for later). Jabber loves riling Zanka up, and Zanka loves getting riled up--it's a match made in heaven.

And when they're in the bedroom together, Zanka particularly likes smacking Jabber in the face. Palm or backhand, it's just so satisfying. Shuts him up, turns him on, makes his eyes get all teary, plus it's a really nice noise... the list continues. This is great for Jabber, who encourages this behavior every chance he gets, up to and including figuring out the exact ways to mouth off that will make Zanka slap him. He just loves how disorienting it is, and all the delicious connotations of being punished, and it hurts so much, and Zanka looks so hot doing it, too. What a treat!

Now let me invite you to pull back for a second.

You are a cashier at this grocery store. Every week, you see this couple come in. It's two guys, a Black guy and an Asian guy, you think he might be Japanese because he buys a lot of furikake but who knows- anyway, that's the last thing you're worried about. Because every time this couple comes in, the Black guy has a bunch of bruises on his face.

They're, like, really bad bruises, too. Like one time a splotch over his left cheekbone was just actually coal-black. Often times it's both cheeks that have marks, but one will always be worse than the other, like he was hit multiple times. He's usually nursing a split lip. Sometimes you can literally see the shadows of the fingers that hit him on his face, and they look like a perfect match for the Asian guy's hand.

And every time you see them, they're arguing.

Other details:

You think the Asian guy's name might start with, like, an S or a Z or something, but you're almost certain what the Black guy calls him is not his actual name.

The Asian guy sometimes calls the Black guy "baby." This is why you think they're a couple. Frequently he also uses pejoratives such as "dumbass", "ya idiot", "moron", etc.

The Asian guy is always a lot more mad than the Black guy, who always seems quite cheerful. He never seems afraid, and in fact appears to be completely unconcerned about his situation.

When addressing you directly, no matter if he was mildly annoyed or about to spit fire, the second the Asian guy meets your eyes, he instantly becomes calm and polite. Meanwhile the Black guy is always jovial and friendly, but he rarely looks directly at you. His eyes seem to pass over you like you're a cardboard cutout or something. Often he doesn't hear you when you speak.

Loosely set maybe sometime in the 19-20th C. on Earth. After the Hyo incident, instead of throwing himself into a well, Zanka instead decides to commit a slow and sun-baked suicide by setting himself adrift on the Pacific Ocean with no food or water. Just himself, a tiny little boat with no oars, and his stick.

Zanka, on the other hand, is the most cisgender male you could ever hope to meet. He would just love to pile heaps and oodles of other standards and expectations over himself related to his masculinity. I think he's certainly secure in it, so if you called Zanka a girl he'd just get pissed off that you were trying to disrespect him. But I do think he attends very dutifully to his place of being a man.

That being said, I think he would definitely drink if he had nothing else to do. In a situation where he had reason to fear consequences and not enough socially-acceptable interests to occupy him, I think he would very quickly develop a horrible dependency. A depressed, under-stimulated Jabber trying to fit in with the “normal people” crowd would not be very picky, and alcohol is relatively cheap and easy to get.

I think he has a pretty good constitution, meaning it takes a lot to get him chemically addicted to anything, and I think it was @ghost-kings-court-jester who once said that Jabber doesn’t really care about substances so much as he chases experiences—but in the absence of experiences, he’d have to make do. He’d have a really easy time hiding it—I bet he’s the type who can function super well no matter what he has in his system. I also think Jabber wouldn’t really care about withdrawal symptoms; he’s probably used to feeling kind of bad all the time, and I doubt the cravings would feel too different from his default emotional state, anyway.

My Internet presence is very Janka-focused, so I don't think I've mentioned this, but I actually think AmoRudo is my second favorite ship in Gachiakuta!

The way I appreciate it is very different, for a few reasons: I tend to feel a lot more protective of female characters (especially kids), Amo & Rudo are unmistakably just kids to me (whereas I consider Jabber and Zanka to be young adults right at the cusp of peak young adult idiocy), and I actually think they're probably going to get together in the text (which means I'm less interested in making up my own stories about them). This shakes out to mean: I'm extremely picky about portrayals of Amo, I do not want to see any kind of sexual content about AmoRudo whatsoever (unless it's to discuss Amo's history in a way that contributes to her character development), and I'll probably never write anything for this ship.

That being said, I think they're wonderful. Thematically speaking, they're meant to be. One of Rudo's biggest character struggles, discussed over and over again in the text, is that he has trouble relating to other people. We saw this with his introduction to Zanka, we see this with his later conflict with Follo (manga), it's the whole point of his scene with Remlin... Gachiakuta is, in part, about relationships and connecting with others, and its main character accordingly must learn how.

Meanwhile, Amo has literally the same problem. Her greatest obsession in life is to be loved. However, similarly to Rudo (who seems to have led a socially-deprived life as an outcast), she has so little life experience that she is unable to form relationships organically, and must instead resort to her piece of the Watchman series. But in accepting Tomme's care and Rudo's outstretched hand, she demonstrates hope for herself that she can learn, and a vital willingness to try. Later on in the manga, she has a great moment about continuing to grow and develop as a person.