#totverse

– Again, Asahina tells me, like he keeps doing at every practise now, whenever we’re stretching or get a break for a drink, anything he can decide to be done with faster than everyone else, just to pester me for another one-on-one. Couldn’t help but cringe at some point, like, did Aomine ever find me this annoying? But it’s stupid, right, getting pissed over nothing. Why would I be annoyed at being challenged, me of all people should be able to dig up the sympathy at needing to beat someone while they’re still around. And I was the one who refused to leave the team yet, so I might as well be useful, too. Why do I sometimes just need to act as if I don’t wanna do something because someone’s demanding it? Blah.                       Asahina’s been improving at lightning speed, too, and I guess I’ve been too in my head to notice until now. He hasn’t won, but it wasn’t that far once or twice. Mika definitely has noticed, she’s paying all this extra attention to him. Every time, she comes to him with notes.                       – Ever since Coach told you to be more conscious of your left leg being slightly shorter, you started overcompensating when you get tired, she says this time, catching every new pattern before it becomes a big problem, as always. No matter how slight the change in form, she won’t miss it, being able to compare every moment in her head like a paused video. – I can make you a detailed comparison if you want, she says. Kinda strikes me as overly helpful to pull out some Olympic level fine-tuning for what sounds like not that big of a deal, while she has zero notes for me, so it’s obvious whose side she’s on. Guess that’s fair, for now. Asahina seems a bit surprised though, and declines.                       – Does she think I can’t fix that by myself? he mutters when Mika goes.                       – Uh… maybe she’s got a bet on your win with someone.                       Asahina raises his eyebrows like he’s not sure if I’m joking, and I’m not that sure either. Mika never struck me as the overly helpful type before, so she has to be somehow invested, to be picking favourites. Asahina seems to be taking it as a sign of distrust, though, like she doesn’t believe in him, but I’m not sure how much more I can say, being the opponent for now. I try anyway.                       – She’s just pushing you ‘cause you’re making real progress, right?                       He tsks.                       – Stop trying to make me feel better.                       Since when have I ever tried to make him feel better about anything?? Oh well, that’s the extent of my patience. I’m almost relieved when Coach blows the whistle for our attention.                       – Kagami-kun, stop making my players overexert themselves, it’s throwing my whole training menu out of balance! she yells at me.                       – How’s this my fault?? He keeps coming at me! I yell back, gesturing widely at Asahina, since containing myself never makes anything fairer anyway!                       – It takes two to tango. You insisted on being here, so show some responsibility!                       I know it’s useless to argue, even though I wasn’t going that hard, but it’s always the same, isn’t it, Coach is particularly stressed right before school ends, when there’s nothing else to do than try to get a head start for next year.                       It does sting a little to lose the familiarity in all of that. (A little bit more than a little.) And how can I not think about it, when I’m the only person here who’s not supposed to be here anymore? (Plus Mika, but I think Coach is going to do whatever it takes to keep her as long as she goes to uni close enough.) No Aki, no Furi & co…. Obviously no Kuroko.                       I don’t think I’m here because I’m unwilling to let go or something. I just have no reason not to be here, so why wouldn’t I? Maybe it’s just part of my process. Why not appreciate something as long as you can?

I'm going to leave you guessing why it's "obviously" no Kuroko, as well as what Mika's angle here is. Mostly this scene was about showing some of Kagami's maturing and self-awareness as well as some bittersweet normalcy of life going on.

Tomie

Yui

Azumi

Granny

Bailey

Tori

Bitterness: 5/10 but not really? This is very difficult to rate, because generally he's not bitter, he's very upbeat and positive, and doesn't tend to dwell on things. But. Once in a blue moon he can suddenly seem like the most bitter person you ever met. He can really slice someone into pieces with words, you probably never heard such elaborate curses from anyone, if someone who has gotten on Aki's blacklist pisses him off. It just doesn't happen often. So it's not really average, but it's also not more than average or less than average. It's rare but the intensity of his bitterness can be scary.

Happiness: 10/10. It's like all the positive psychology in the world was installed into his brain at birth. Probably has been really lucky with genetics in terms of his brain chemistry being awesome. Also has a very stable home life, so that helps, despite him being socially disadvantaged in some other ways.

Politeness: 6/10. He's casual and friendly. Not someone whose every other word is fuck, but wouldn't hesitate to curse either. Can be really polite if the situation calls for it, but can also be really impolite if he sees fit. He's very flexible in his communication. The scale tips on polite side, because he's generally positive and doesn't aspire to piss people off, because he values group harmony and an easy upbeat rhythm to things.

Chivalry: 7/10. Again, not his most dominant trait, but he does enjoy "saving" people he cares about, or even strangers sometimes, which definitely has an element of stroking his own ego. But again, this lacks depth, it's more of an in-the-moment "why not" thing, not something he actively aspires to do much. There's no strong moral convinctions behind it or anything.

Pride: 8/10. He can admit when he's wrong, but he certainly likes to look his best and preserve an image that is on the strong side, especially mentally. He would definitely have a really hard time letting anyone see him scared and vulnerable, and not just because he doesn't want to invite harassment or something, it's not all out of self-preservation, there's definitely a lot of pride involved in that. He will casually volunteer his weaknesses but only if he can appear strong for admitting them.

Honesty: 5/10. Very average, I'd say. Definitely prefers looking better than he is. Has no reservations about white lies. Wouldn't try to intentionally manipulate anyone by lying, but can slip into it to get out of a situation he doesn't like or something. He'll prioritise things running smoothly over being absolutely truthful.

Bravery: 10/10, or close. Doesn't hesitate to take risks for what he wants. Most of the time isn't afraid of having difficult conversations either. He doesn't see a lot of point in hesitation if something is important. Everyone has bad days of course but this is definitely not something he actively needs to work on.

Recklessness: 3/10. The thing is, he can seem reckless, or people might expect him to be, because he is so in-the-moment and brave. But he actually very much calculates the risks he takes, and has a high self-preservation instinct. He can seem crazy, but only because he trusts his ability to talk himself out of anything for a good reason. He's just verbally, and to an extent, socially, smart beyond normal. A lot of it is bluff. He's only reckless if he loses control of his emotions, which doesn't happen too often, but if it does, it can surprise people in its intensity.

Ambition: 10/10. This is basically his driving force. He's a go-getter, he wants to accomplish things, and while there's a lot of internal drive, it's clear that he does value a lot of things that look good in the eyes of society. Sometimes he should stop to think about which things are actually necessary for his well-being, have emotional depth and meaning. He can definitely slip into materialism and superficial accomplishments if he doesn't check himself.

Loyalty: 5/10. Nothing special here. He doesn't make other people's problems his problem easily, and is not one to cling to anyone who doesn't see the relationship as fully reciprocal. Usually prioritises his own needs in a healthy way.

Love: 5/10. This could mean so many things to be honest? But I'm gonna say his personal relationships are as important to him as to anyone else. He's not one to earn the nickname of lover-boy, or anything like that, and he's not one to preach about love or think about it much, but he doesn't necessarily have any above average reservations about it either. If you ask him if he loves his family and friends, he'll say of course, but he kinda just takes it for granted.

Sense of Family: 7/10. He has good relationships with everyone in his immediate family. Nothing dramatic going on there. Not overly dependent on them either, staying close to family wouldn't be the highest priority in his life, but if someone needed him, he would take that seriously.

Attractiveness: 8/10 maybe? I think he's pretty good looking, athletic, more lean than buff, in a relaxed kind of way, has a sort of upbeat but a bit lazy ease about the way he moves. Looks confident and energetic despite that. His shoulder length light blond hair certainly draws attention in Japan. There's something a bit fairytale humanoid wolf-like about him, like Little Red Riding Hood style. His smile can come off as charming to some.

Agility: 8/10? His superpower is balance. Above average in every other way, too.

Sex Drive: 5/10. Just very average?

Compassion: 8/10. It may not be obvious because she can be prickly and hide behind snarky humour. Under her apparent expressiveness, she is usually withdrawn about deeper emotions because she feels them intensely. A bit hyper-vigilant due to social anxiety, but under the surface she's ready to do pretty much anything for her friends. She just tends to be unsure whether her help, input or feelings in general are wanted, and she's often not one to take the chance of rejection. She's quite reflective about the human condition and expresses that in her art most of all, but it's still a bit more idea driven than compassion driven: she has a tendency to want to be right. But compassion is definitely a big part of it too, and as soon as someone clearly expresses that they need her, pretty much all of her mental and emotional capacity are at that person's disposal for a while.

Bitterness: 9/10. Definitely something she needs to work on. She has a tendency to perceive everything negative that happens to her as an example of some general pessimistic rule that permeates her life. She's inclined to fall into thinking things like "this kind of thing doesn't happen to people who have other qualities, it only happens to people like me", and she may easily resent people she perceives as luckier or more privileged than her. Most of her relationship struggles, especially her feelings of loneliness have something to do with her inclination towards bitterness and simplifying other people into caricatures in her head, led by her own jealousy.

Happiness: 7/10, despite her bitterness. It helps that she still has a slight preference towards extroversion, which helps her not to dwell on her negative feelings unless she is alone for an extended period of time. She also hates inaction and tries her best to take her fate into her own hands despite her pessimistic tendencies. She's a fighter and a creative with a lot of energy, and her life is more positive than negative, at the end of the day. She can get lost in her projects and when she's in tune with the people around her, she doesn't quite remember what she was so concerned about in the first place.

Politeness: 5/10. She tries. But she has trouble hiding her immediate thoughts, especially when she has strong opinions about something. Especially astonishment, amusement, bewilderment and disbelief at someone's stupidity are things that will show right on her face. She will often blurt out something in the heat of the moment, and immediately regret it. She's exactly the type to lie awake, thinking about everything she said during the day, falling into a pit of shame. So, she does aspire to be more polite, it's just hard for her. When she is at ease, she's friendly, sociable and fun to be around, and as soon as she realises that someone doesn't hold emotional power over her, her communication turns a lot more open and supportive.

Chivalry: 4/10. Hard to rate again, because typically she's not pushy with her help or advice, and tends to mind her own business unless asked for help. (It's easier for her to offer her unhelpful opinions that mainly serve her need to be right, lol.) She's definitely not attempting to charm anyone with chivalry. However, she can surprise people in certain situations, because she's quick to act if someone is, for example, injured or about to be in danger. Can definitely handle herself smartly under threat, too. So, it's not quite chivalry, but could potentially come off as such.

Pride: 9/10. Having to admit she's wrong definitely has her gritting her teeth or feeling bummed for longer than average. She can admit she has weaknesses, but would greatly prefer not showing them. Her sadness and pain tend to come out as more of a rant, even with people she trusts. She is too honest not to admit when she's wrong or has messed up, though, which is why she often suffers from a moral hangover. She can't ignore it if she's wrong but she will probably try to frame it like she never had a chance of being right. She also has a lot of positive kind of pride in her accomplishments. It would be hard to convince her that her work doesn't matter, or that she has an inaccurate perception of her skills that she takes pride in. She believes in herself and her judgement, receiving, assessing and applying criticism and input from others in a constructive way is her strength.

Honesty: 4/10, when she's in her pessimistic state and not looking at things fairly, 10/10 as soon as she realises that she is being dishonest. As far as she thinks she's being honest, she doesn't easily lie. She can pretty much be trusted to express what she genuinely thinks is the truth, she just tends to have an unconscious dishonest view of herself and other people sometimes. She would despise herself for lying to a friend's face under any circumstances, but doesn't count lying by omission.

Bravery: 6/10. She has a lot of reservations and hesitates with things she doesn't feel confident in. On the other hand, she never lets herself do nothing, even if what she's doing may not always be the most relevant thing to actually solve her problems. But she also isn't afraid to face herself as soon as she understands there is something she has neglected to face. She has both, a lot of gaps and strengths in this area.

Recklessness: 4/10. Not much of a risk taker in general. Probably because her comfort zone has always been just wide enough that she was never really forced to take that many risks. But to be fair, she might come off as a risk taker sometimes, because she doesn't always perceive a risk where some other people would. In particular, she's not afraid to stand out in a negative way in a crowd. Definitely doesn't give a damn about a stranger's opinion. While she's particularly sensitive when it comes to close relationships, she doesn't fear social repercussions in larger scale nearly as much as most people. If she wanted to organize a protest on school grounds or something, she would.

Ambition: 7/10. It's not what drives her the most, but you couldn't call her unambitious by any stretch of imagination. She has high standards, but also definitely cares more about having a good experience than being the best, and while she has many goals she wouldn't give up on, she would delay them for an opportunity to have more fun, more friends, more time to breathe and divide her attention across multiple interesting projects and possibilities. She can definitely expect too much from herself and overwork herself, though.

Loyalty: 8/10. If you get through her barriers she's probably yours forever to some capacity, but she wouldn't easily slip into co-dependency or anything. More often than not, she would be the one longing for a lost friendship longer than the other person, but she wouldn't necessarily do anything about it. Her loyalty definitely has to be earned the hard way, but it's not very easy to lose. She's not automatically loyal to anyone based on things like authority, or even being close friends with her close friend, it has to be directly personal. If there's anyone she would be loyal to without personal connection, it would be through sympathy that is too difficult to ignore (such as being a lesbian, because she is too and knows the difficulties specifically). In general you would either have to do something really drastic or be a disappointment for a really long time to lose her loyalty.

Love: 9/10. Love has a lot to do with how she connects with the world, even if she's shy to show it unambiguously. At the end of the day her creative work is like love letters to the world. Despite her awkwardness and snarkiness, she's really trying to show people that she cares, and her connection to the world around her at large is as personal and unique to her as her connection to each individual.

Sense of Family: 7/10. She's very much longing for it, but it is in part unfulfilled, because she doesn't have a group where she could completely be herself. She doesn't feel her family understands her, and it takes her a long time to start trusting that she could be a priority to any of her friends. Her longing isn't quite so strong that it would take over her life much, but she is looking for fulfilment in this area.

Attractiveness: 6/10? She's small and pear-shaped, her face has quite cute and roundish features. She has a Chesire Cat smile. She can come off as relatively stylish or a total scattered mess, but her perceived randomness is usually intentional and calculated. She tries to be unattractive to straight guys, but fails enough for some attention to bug her from time to time.

Agility: 6/10, she used to do acrobatics actively and has a decent spacial awareness, but her strength is more on the side of flexibility.

Sex Drive: 10/10. Through the roof. She can easily freeze up in the face of anything new she hasn't actually done before, though.

Compassion: 5/10. Her sympathies are mainly reserved for her inner circle, which she is very protective of. No bleeding heart for the world found here. She's mostly neutral towards people. It's not like she wouldn't help a stranger in need, but she wouldn't go out on a limb. If someone looks like an easy target, she likes to tease, and isn't very worried about hurting people's feelings, unless the person makes some effort to bring it into her attention that they were offended. She's not going to be sorry if she doesn't agree that the reason makes sense, though.

Bitterness: 7/10. It's not her biggest fault but if she has decided that someone is her enemy, she can be bitter about the smallest things about them, and usually she's quite hypocritical about it too. It's not often that she hates someone's guts, but when she does, it's actually unlikely to be for a fair reason. More often than not, any of her bitterness is about some small irritation rather than something substantial.

Happiness: 9/10. She's predominantly a happy-go-lucky type of person, she certainly knows how to enjoy life and make the most of a moment. Except in her depressive moments, during which she tends to withdraw, whine a lot, and make everything million times bigger than it is. Most of the time she's upbeat and content with life, and her happiness isn't fragile, even though it may seem like it in her hyper-emotional moments, which occur because she's not that in touch with her feelings.

Politeness: 5/10. She can do all the polite stuff correctly if she wants to (mostly due to her upbringing) but most of the time it's not worth it for her. She's relaxed and casual, but a bit withdrawn and not the most group or harmony-oriented person. She gets away with a lot because people think she's cool, but she's not interested in deliberately causing conflict either. Apart from her chosen people and her family business, or anything that is fun for her, she usually wants to get through social interactions with minimal effort.

Chivalry: For her inner circle 10/10. For others, maybe 2/10. She sees very little point in putting that much effort into anything but truly reciprocal relationships, but for her friends, family, and significant other, she can act like a loyal knight. Has a bit of a closet golden retriever in her soul.

Pride: 10/10. The fastest way to make enemies with her is to wound her pride. It takes her quite a lot to admit that she's wrong, or to change her opinion about something, or someone. It can be quite annoying how she never seems to see herself as part of the problem in anything.

Honesty: 4/10. She has a tendency to cling to her worldview, mistaking her detachment from her emotions as being rational and objective, and therefore her viewpoint as The Truth. She's uninterested in actually finding out the truth, she'd often rather preserve the ideas that make sense to her. Definitely has a tendency to think her experiences are universal, and whoever doesn't agree, must be dumb (instead of having completely different circumstances). She's not too keen on critical self-reflection, and will often double down on her views when she is starting to sense that she needs to re-inspect them. (She will get there, but it takes more than average.) She's probably quicker than average to tell white lies and bend the rules too. The end tends to justify the means to her.

Bravery: 7/10. She needs to feel like her closest people are behind her and believe in her, but with that, she can be very focused and determined in achieving whatever she needs, and overcoming big obstacles.

Recklessness: 7/10. Same as above.

Ambition: This can fluctuate anywhere between 1/10 and 10/10, because Azumi is pretty rare in how self-motivated she is. She's not interested in achieving anything for approval, and she is fundamentally disinterested in external measures. She only competes against herself (and other people can be there for fun and company). Whether she's the best or the worst at something wouldn't make any difference to her, because the only thing she's motivated by is testing her limits and analysing her own progress.

Loyalty: To her inner circle and her beliefs, 10/10. To larger society and anything she deems arbitrary, 1/10. Her willingness to play by the rules is completely conditional.

Love: 10/10. She's probably one of the only characters who would actually be able to commit murder for love, if the situation was extreme enough. Literally nothing means more to her than who and what she loves, not her well-being and not even her freedom.

Sense of Family: 10/10. If it were up to her, she never would have left her micro utopia of a family, but luckily she has been forced outside and brought some new people in.

Attractiveness: 9/10, I think, but not in the most eye-catching way. She's more flawless than stunning, so she doesn't necessarily turn heads where she walks, she's the type whose attractiveness people only tend to notice after she has otherwise brought herself to their attention, or if she's wearing something particularly stylish. She looks great in pretty much anything, but without a great outfit she looks kind of boring, though flawless, if that makes sense. She makes the most of it though, because any style fits her, she feels just as comfortable in traditional clothes as street fashion.

Agility: 10/10. I wonder what she could do if she cared about winning at all. (Other than arguments.)

Sex Drive: 7/10. Somewhat horny?

Shimizu

Anno

Mika

Kotomi

Toya

Amano

Neea