#roxadox

I have a kneejerk reaction to them because in the ye olde APH fandom they were pretty popular with the North and South Italy characters and several Italian fans kept speaking up about how uncomfortable it made them (because as much as, as non-Italians, we have kind of a disconnect from the mafia and there’s sort of a glamorization of it, for them the Italian mafia was something hugely damaging to their country and a frightening part of their past that they didn’t want the characters associated with? According to them). So they were kind of like, hey can y’all stop? But people just... didn’t. 

And in the comics themselves, the only mention of the Italian mafia was the character of South Italy saying that he despised it, so what we had in canon was the character expressing legitimate loathing toward it. 

Later on Himaruya (the artist) posted a picture of the Italy brothers looking ‘badass’ with guns, and the fandom was like ‘omg mafia!!’ then the next day he updated his blog and was like ‘oh actually these are water guns, they’re having a water gun fight’, which frankly was like, iconic. Mafia dreams, destroyed. 

But my reasons for being uncomfortable with them in YOI are partly discomfort with dark stuff partly some other stuff. I’m so uncomfortable seeing these characters as any kind of ‘bad guy’ because this show is so pure and good and sunshine, rainbows, and happiness. 

Everyone in this show is good people, even the ones that kind of come across a little jerky at first. The closest thing this show has to be a bad guy is ‘Yuuri’s anxiety’. 

And also it bugs me that the one AU that Yuuri is CONSISTENTLY this like badass in charge is... a mafia AU (the popular storyline is that it’s the Russian mafia and that everyone thinks it’s Victor, but he’s just the muscle and the actual heir behind the scenes is Yuuri). Like okay sure. Can’t my boy be the most awesome, powerful one w/o being a bad guy. IDK. :\