dating consultations. [nagi seishiro x f!reader]
notes: it's like 'wow feelings eh' read in elmo voice. then add my nagi phase and my recent obsession with childhood friend!nagi, it turns out like this. warnings: mentions (in a very unserious way) and (manga esque) depiction of break up at the end (not between you and nagi), mentions of bunch of break ups on your part, pinning, childhood friends + gaming buddies (?), obliviousness, post canon au, minor cursing. wo/ta/koi influenced this in some ways.
“Nagi Seishiro, listen to me,” you began.
“Don’t wanna,” Nagi replied, without lifting his head from his phone.
“So, I think my boyfriend broke up with me after finding out I spent money on gacha game,” you continued on, ignoring Nagi’s refusal. “I mean, sure, that's not a good financial decision. But hey, my husband gotta go home somehow and it's like an extra money that I already planned to spend anyway. Don't you get it?”
“No, I don't.”
“Exactly—but you see, I also think that he was honest, and what bothered him the most is because he found out that you and I play better in another game that he also played…” you trailed off at a sudden, more unpleasant that appeared in your mind. “…Seishiro, if I suddenly kick you out of the leaderboard’s number one spot, you will still be my friend right?”
“Nope,” Nagi replied without missing a beat. Like a rite of passage, you knew what came afterward would make you angry. “Your aim at FPS sucks way too much for that to happen.”
Immediately, you heaved out a short huff. You then threw your body over Nagi’s quickly, cuddling the soft blanket draped over him and enjoying the soft detergent scent left on it. Whining and protesting, you “Cheer me up, you brat! I raised you on my back since kindergarten and this is how you repay me?! We grew up in the same litter—spare some sympathy for me!”
(Seishiro found his whole body stiffening when you buried your face on his shoulder and pressed your chest towards his arm. Through the blanket, he could faintly feel your warmth and body. Five years ago, this would have been something he would brush off without batting an eye. Having crushes on oblivious childhood friends who only saw you as childhood buddies is hard—Seishiro noted dully.)
“Eh, why?” Nagi questioned back, blankly, focus still drilled on the PVP shooting game he was on. “This is your…how many breaks up it had been already?”
“…I know your social IQ is low, but can you stop rubbing salt over my wounds?”
“Anyway, don’t you think you break up way too often already to feel hurt?”
“…”
“…”
“…”
“…ah,” Nagi mindlessly cut the silence between the two of you. “That headshot was dirty.”
“…you are really bad at this whole cheering up thing,” you chided, sounding all too fond for it to have any effect at all. “And stop making me sound like some Whatpad bad boy.”
(From the corner of his sight, Seishiro saw a small smile etched itself on your lips. It was still too bittersweet for his liking, but at least after this—like always, as Seishiro had come to remember after all this time, without willing to—you would cheer up and stop talking about your nth ex. You wouldn’t sulk anymore and go on with whatever else except some guy who happened to be your ex.)
“Didn’t you say you want to be one, back in middle school?” Nagi questioned. “Also hurry up and log in, I need to grind for new artifacts.”
“That was middle school!” you screeched, feeling your whole head heating up due to some embarrassing flashbacks. “And you are still playing another game—I will log in later—”
“I’m done,” Nagi said, perfectly timed with the winning screen his phone displayed. “Log in. Hurry. Hurry.”
You glared dirtily at Nagi and his timing—or luck, whichever it was this time. “I hate you. Also, use Al-Haizen and Seno, I want the full ikemen academy team today.”
“Their synergy is shit.”
“And they are handsome. Your point?”
“I don’t wanna.”
“I will curse you with all defense and flat sub stat if you dare.”
“…that’s awful,” Nagi said, finally. His defeat was imminent from the start.
You sent him a wolfish smile, “And I’m still your only gaming buddy. Shush and just log in, big koala.”
“The one who is stuck on my back is you,” Nagi commented, while still following your words and changing his team before requesting to go to your map.
You laughed as you pressed your phone. With a certain brand of closeness laced in your voice, you protested, “Why are you this nosy with me? Last time I checked you are pretty obedient to Mikage, Isagi, and your captain.”
(Seishiro tried to process your words for a moment. To him, the answer has always been obvious in the way that both you and him even bothered to stick close to each other even as the two of you approached the age of twenty together. In how the one you told everything to is still him despite everyone in your life. In how if you ask, he will walk through the city just to pick you up after a terrible date and walk side by side to your home.)
Nagi stayed silent for a moment. From his side profile—adorable, handsome, yet still as baby-faced and familiar as ever—you could see how he was thinking. Then, he offered you an answer in a half-baked, dry tone, “…because it’s you?”
Once again, you laughed. Trying to swallow whatever odd beat his answer managed to draw from your heart deep and away from your face. “Gosh—watch your wording, Sei—oh, you are in already. Let’s go artifact farming! If it’s shitty let it just be Seishiro’s and not mine!”
As you hurriedly pressed your screen, you tried to not realize Nagi’s stare from your side.
You were not ready yet to admit whatever you felt for him was real. This was only a side effect of consecutive terrible break ups.
That was it and nothing else.
(”I don’t think I am the one you are in love with,” your boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—told you gently. This was yet another same reason, just told to you in a gentler, more understanding way.
You could only watch him silently. You were confused, yet a part of you somehow managed to understand what he meant. However, you still couldn’t put what it was into words despite all that.
“..well, I don’t think you do it by purpose,” the man in front of you said with a nervous laugh. “…nonetheless, I’m rooting for the two of you. Don’t make him wait for too long, okay?”
Hearing that, even if you still couldn’t grasp much yet, you forced yourself to respond through your tears. “…I’m sorry...?”
“Don’t be. It should be me, really.” Ever the nice guy, your ex-boyfriend still smiled. “This is more of me saving myself from hurting in the future… just, think of it as me being bitter for being worse than you and that childhood friend of yours in that shooting game, okay?”
You laughed bitterly at that. Your crying hadn’t ceased yet, yet you managed out another reply, “Seriously? You are a shitty nice guy.”
Still smiling, your ex—a good friend, a gentle person, a diligent worker—gave you a chuckle that sounded guilty. “…sorry. I really hope we can still remain friends after this.”
“Of course. No way I’m letting go of a star student as a group project member just because of a breakup,” you joked, even if you were unsure of the future. Then, remembering how he is, you added, “And get your ugly mug off my sight now. We are breaking up—stop smiling, you bastard.”
“…well, then… should I… accompany you home…?”
“You are my ex now—no way, nice guy,” you shut him off quickly. Then, after a pause, it felt like an answer as you continued.
“…I will just call Nagi. Go away.”)
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seeing kenji muto, the director of trigun stampede, reading an article about the portrayal of women in media made me want to take a little bit of a closer look at the women in trigun and as i was rambling about this earlier to my partner, they told me to write it down LMAO
as most of us know, in a lot of fiction, women are mostly characterised through common tropes, leading to a lack of complexity and a one-dimensional portrayal: as the doting wife, the femme fatale, the mistress, or the virgin. Their role only amounts to an Other, an extension of the male hero. they’re either the whore or the madonna.
for female characters in anime that usually means they’re either the sexy femme fatale, big badonkers and all to be gazed at, the mother, the helpless damsel in distress, or the child (yet, still sexualised despite the fact that it is a literal child); they’re portrayed through the way they are being perceived by men and mostly sexualised beyond belief.
tristamp doesn’t do any of that.
in fact, the female characters in stampede achieve something that you don’t often see in anime: they are people. and stampede makes that clear in its very first episode by decidedly not going the route that you would usually take with the female characters they introduce:
of course, the biggest example here would be meryl, who i’d argue is the biggest driver of the plot, despite the fact that the plot of stampede is technically determined by vash - vash is an entirely passive character, he doesn’t make things happen, things happen to him and they mostly happen to him because of meryl. she’s the one who unties him, she drags them to the city, she makes them stay with him after ep3, she drives over wolfwood (rip my man), she stops for them to find rollo, she makes them follow the steamer.. you get it. she does all of this, despite being introduced as the newbie, the innocent person who would usually be the damsel in distress, who is helpless and shy and easily manipulated and who will probs be sexualised in her role as the “virgin” (sexually naive young girl who just doesn’t get all this adult sexuality yet hehe)
but she’s not – she wears a non-sexualised outfit, she only gets called out for being a newbie, or for being small height-wise by wolfwood, but not for being a “girl”, she determines the action despite the fact that she does have a mentor figure and is therefore still in a position of a student – she still isnt an extension of roberto, vash, or anyone
in fact, the other characters – Rosa, Elendira, Luida, Rem – all take up roles that would in other media be portrayed in very specific ways: Rosa could just be a pregnant mother, who is also a divorcee, Elendira could be an innocent child beholden to her caretaker, Luida could be the loving motherlike figure and rem the Madonna figure, symbolising all the virtues a woman should aspire to have. – Rosa is a leader, her pregnancy is mentioned one single time and never made a bigger part of her character, Elendira is young but powerful, making choices by herself that are not inherently based on any kind of innocence, Luida doesn’t coddle Vash or prioritise him over her own work and mission (which also serves to inspire another woman, meryl!!), and rem is also just a non-perfect person, with secrets and questionable morality
none of these women are judged on the basis of their gender, none of them experience gender-based violence, none of them are made into a joke, none of them are sexualised (or desexualised – if you compare them to the male characters, who also do not ever make jokes about sexual promiscuity or similar stuff), they have different body types (rem has a very pronounced chest, and yet stampede doesn’t ever focus on it or give her cleavage) – note also that when presented with the perfect opportunity to call a female character a “bitch”, they chose to go with a “witch” instead, in both original japanese and english dub
their femininity is not used as a weapon against them, nor are stereotypical hypermasculine elements used to define characters’ positive traits (vash not being our traditionally hypermasculine hero for example) - the only time we see a semblance of gender-based violence is, you guessed it, at the very end, when knives forcefully takes control and bodily autonomy away from vash and inseminates the plants against their will (also interesting to note that knives, as the character that does exhibit that kind of violence, is the only character to be shown incredibly buff and all muscle)
the women in tristamp are written for women, with the goal to be women that we can recognise, that represent the women that we are and know
anyways, i love all women in tristamp and have not once felt uncomfortable or said “oh look, a panty shot” and honestly i just find that pretty neat
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