#juno aimoto

juno's so cute i had a lot of fun drawing him specifically 💕

EHEHE thank u. what it all comes down to is what I like to call the autistic fear of never really being known. a big part of juno as a character is the fact that he loves to connect with other people and get to know people on a deeper level, in turn usually making them understand themselves better on a deeper level as well. where the issues start coming in are how little this is really reciprocated. not maliciously, but it ends up becoming kind of a routine that juno falls into that is pretty damaging in the end. Juno is inherently kind of weird and cryptic a lot of the time and very often doesn’t stay in one place for long, but a lot of the times this leads to them not really building strong, long lasting connections with people. They’re not not meaningful necessarily, but they don’t stick, and as a result juno ends up kind of lonely a lot of the time and doesn’t really have anyone who knows her as well as she gets to know other people in her travels. And a lot of people end up not really seeing this since she is still outwardly pretty amicable and positive, so he kind of gets used to existing for other people and not having much priority on himself. A lot of her character arc then becomes about breaking those walls down and learning to live for themself, which kite is very involved in. The initial foundation of their dynamic is on juno doing their usual thing of wanting to know kite better in a cryptic and weird kind of way through battles, but he catches kites interest really early on and ends up making kite want to understand what’s going on with them better. And kite DOES end up becoming more emotionally intelligent as a result of their rivalry, but that has the side effect of him now being able to confront juno on their issues in a way that puts them on blast in a way they’ve never experienced before, which is kind of scary and disorienting for them since it is such a disruption of the routine they’ve become used to. When kite examines her so closely and forces her to examine themself, it kind of makes her realize how little she actually knows herself, which freaks them out. They’ve become so used to existing for other people’s sake that they don’t know how to exist for their own. This also ties back into his relationship with beyblade too, as he tends not to go full out in battles for the sake of dragging them out and learning more about their opponents while not really caring about the actual outcome. Kite is of course a big contributor in changing this too, but so is Sakyo, because when he experiences this with juno in battle, he gets HEATED about it since he is so passionate about beyblade in the way that he is, and that becomes a barrier that exists between him and juno, which then also forces her to confront her relationship with beyblade in the same way that kite makes him confront his relationship with himself. In the end the arc kind of rounds out with juno wanting to be more passionate for herself and deciding to let loose and just have fun in a battle for once and actually give it her all instead of putting any deeper meaning into it and having fun with it and being able to connect with other people better, but I think the limbo state before all that and the way their smilely facade ends up cracking is really interesting. A part of that that I really like is that when kite is able to get under their skin and see beneath the mask, it is really upsetting for both of them. At this point kite is deep in his feelings for juno as well and does this because he cares about them a lot, and when they are so visibly unsettled at having their issues actually acknowledged on a deeper level, it throws him off, and seeing the mask slip and how vulnerable they are beneath it really upsets kite, but because he cares so much, he also knows that he can’t back down. It is the right choice in the end and he knows it, but in the moment feels guilty over them being so shaken up at his prodding