#it did NOT feel like that long though

[shadowtraveled]

"mithrun is the only real monsterfucker in dungeon meshi" is objectively the funniest bit you can get out of his everything, but in all seriousness i think his attraction to his love interest is deliberately overstated—and that makes sense, because romantic jealousy is a classic and digestible motive, which is explicitly what kabru was aiming for in condensing mithrun's backstory, and also because until chapter 94, mithrun wasn't willing to admit to the true nature of his desires.

but because romantic envy is both classic and digestible, it probably isn’t a unique enough or complicated enough desire to tempt a demon’s appetite. mithrun’s wish, as far as we can figure from kabru’s reduced retelling, was to have a life in which he had never become one of the canaries, and that carries like 3857 implications and desires within it. that’s delicious. his love interest acts as sort of a red herring to his motivation for making it, though. (side note: i'm saying "love interest" here because, keeping in mind that i barely speak japanese on a good day anymore, "想い人" is something i'd usually take as just kind of an old-fashioned and romantic way to refer to a lover, but in context i wonder if both the connotation of yearning and the vagueness are intentional, and i think this phrasing gets those aspects of it more effectively. anyway.)

mithrun considered his love interest to be untrustworthy. there was a minute where i thought that comment might be about a similar-looking elf (yugin, one of his squad members), but comparing the two…

the "sketchy" arrow is definitely referring to the elf we know as his love interest—the bangs go toward her right, she only has the one forehead ornament, and, most notably, her ears aren't notched.

every time she’s given a full-body depiction in his dungeon, she’s drawn as a chimera, with the body of a snake from the waist down. (side note: the “what if a dungeon has chimeras before reaching level 4?”/“then the dungeon lord is unstable” exchange just being mithrun grilling his past self alive is so funny. he’s so. but anyway) there are a couple things about this.

first, the snake part of the chimera appears to be modeled after some species of coral snake mimic

which, in the biology-for-fun manga, i… doubt is a coincidence, especially with the added context of the “untrustworthy” comment. the dungeon’s conjured illusion of mithrun’s love interest was a harmless copycat of a venomous original. for whatever reason, he felt this person was a threat and made up a "safe" version of her to be in a relationship with, and while it’s definitely possible to be attracted to or even love someone you find to be toxic and/or intimidating, when you take that into consideration alongside the configuration of her body, you get some interesting implications.

which brings us to our second point: if we assume that mithrun was not in fact fucking a snake, then sexual attraction, at least, was so far removed from his idea of a relationship with this person that he did not even bother to keep her dungeon copy human enough to maintain the illusion of the option of a sexual relationship. this is somewhat echoed in the depictions of their interactions, which also imply a frankly unexpected romantic distance. she kisses his cheek and he doesn't seem to react; she's at the edge of a narrow bed with only one set of pillows, on top of his blankets while he's underneath them.

the kiss is particularly interesting because it seems to contrast the text. kabru's narration tells us this was everything mithrun could have asked for, but mithrun is there looking unreadable to pensive, likely because this is right before the panel that makes it clear things in the dungeon are beginning to go wrong.

walking through this backwards for a minute, we have the physical barrier of his bedding and the spatial separation inherent in a bed made for one person, the emotional barrier of his mounting anxiety getting in the way of his ability to enjoy the affection he sought, and... the snake, which historically carries the connotation of temptation, yes, but also mistrust, barring physical intimacy. okay. ok. if a dungeon reflects the mentality of its lord, all of this might suggest that mithrun was not able to have any real desire for a relationship with this person. his unwillingness to be vulnerable or let another person in was insurmountable. but in that case, why was she such a focal point that she remained to the end, after his dungeon had stopped creating iterations of his friends to come and visit him? why would he get so upset over her meeting with his brother that he became lord of a dungeon about it?

well. mithrun's brother was also interested in her, probably genuinely. and mithrun had to win.

you have an older brother who your parents completely ignore, probably in part because he is chronically ill/disabled and almost definitely in part because he received a ton of recessive traits that resulted in rumors that he was an illegitimate child. you are aware, most likely because those same parents fucking told you, that you actually are an illegitimate child. but they keep you around because you had the good fortune of looking just like your mother. what can that possibly teach you but that you, like your brother, are disposable?

it's utterly unsurprising that mithrun, under these circumstances, developed a pathological need to be better than everyone around him. people don't keep you otherwise. i'd argue this is also why he says he looked down on everyone he knew while milsiril claims his dungeon reeked of feelings of inferiority—he sought out people's worst traits and prioritized them in his mind to protect his already extremely fragile sense of self-worth, and all the while he tried to be as likable and high-performing as he possibly could be. his parents disposed of him anyway, but even then he tried to keep up the performance. he was kind to everyone. he never once lost to a dungeon.

when he saw his "love interest" meeting up with his brother, what he saw was himself being replaced by a person his parents had always treated as worthless, and if that was what they thought of the child they'd kept, what value could anyone possibly see in the bastard they'd given away to die? mithrun and kabru tell the story like he wanted to win this unnamed elf's heart, but it was never about being with her. it was about cementing his worth, proving that he didn't deserve to be thrown away.

and so it's particularly cruel that his demon discarded him, too. but maybe it's also particularly gentle that, in the end, there was someone who refused to even consider giving up on him.

kui laid it out in three panels better than i could hope to.

yeah. it's love. you wanted to be loved, even when the only way you were able to understand it was through the desire to be wanted, and you wanted that so badly that the idea of being consumed felt like the promise of finally mattering to someone.

#dungeon meshi spoilers #mithrun #dungeon meshi #this has been rotating for a while but i wanted to check my evidence before getting into it thanks user angelspenance for posting that meme #half of this is just the text and the other half i'm sure has been said before but it's making my brain [radio static] so here this is #someone did for sure mention this but i do find it very cute that in his fucked up conjured world meant to portray his ideal reality #his teammates came to visit him. like part of the fantasy was then explicitly that they cared about him and were his friends. even though #he says he tried to see the worst in them. #hm it does feel important to note that i do also believe 100% in mithrun suicidality--his desire to be eaten does seem to focus a lot on #wanting it to be Over. wanting not to be left incomplete and empty anymore. #but that loops back around a bit to the hole in your heart that appears when you feel unloved. it's many things and the same thing at once #snakes #long post #severe problems #meshy

[egophiliac]

another one that I'm not super happy with, but continuing to mess with it isn't going to help! so here he is! 🦇 there was a lot I was trying to get across in this one, so uhhhhh hopefully it reads.

we're almost out of unique magics now...just Ace (and maybe Grim?) left!

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #twisted wonderland episode 7 spoilers #twisted wonderland book 7 spoilers #unique magic posters #drawing lilia slightly more on-model than i usually do feels so wrong #i just want to draw the tallest spikes #lilia: (writing down his height) 5'6“...5'2” in a hat #(actually i'm pretty sure he would just write 'fun-size' but i digress) #anyway lilia. hey lilia. your magic is not cradle-specific so WHY is it called that #did it come in like 'so in like 500-ish years we're going to have a significant moment with a cradle. just trust me bro.' #'in the meantime enjoy having the weirdest magic name ever' #probably came in useful for raising kids though #don't put that in your mouth don't you know where it's BEEN #because i do #(long stare off into middle distance) i know where it's been

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Let the revenge games begin.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

#poorly drawn mdzs #mdzs #jin guangyao #nie huaisang #He's gonna call his 5 horse friends up. They have to go on a 14 year long journey to finish the job but by god they will do it. #The sheer chaos in the Audio Drama is really fantastic. Reminds me of those traincar murder mysteries. #The lights go off and there's a scream and then BOOM dead body. Who did that!!! #Okay it was qi deviation and he did it to stop himself from killing his brother. He did it to himself. #JGY sadly has the worst alibi ever though. Both the strongest motivation and also uhhh presence at the scene. #Not to nitpick but as someone who loves murder mysteries - I do feel like even *one* other suspect would have made it stronger. #I get that he tried to make it look like an inevitable Qi Deviation and that it *is* something within the family legacy. #And a big part of NHS figuring it all out comes down to his own perceptiveness and intelligence. #If you weren't close enough to JGY and NMJ of course it looks like an accident. #Sadly 'guy who plays the 'poor little meow meow card'' is also weak to 'guy who plays the 'poor little meow meow card''. #NHS was the better subtle manipulator at the end. That's probably the strongest mystery part of MDZS. And why he's in my top 5. #My man pulled the 'kill him just as he falls from the top of his game and loses everything' gambit and I love him for it.

[amphibianaday]

day 1421

#uh just a heads up if you expand the tags to see all there's. a lot. very long #amphibian #frog #poison dart frog #based on my most popular frog to date (day 651) #inspired by everyone pointing out what they think it looks like #here's a fun secret fact the original guy is actually a phantasmal poison dart frog (Epipedobates tricolor) #(according to the original artists title of the drawing) #not Anthony's poison arrow frog (Epipedobates anthonyi) #i feel too awkward to really point it out though because they look the exact same. i cannot tell if there is a difference #im half convinced the same frog was just discovered and named twice #its very curious btw if you go on the (english) wikipedia page for either species it doesn't mention the other #while hereptiles.info (no idea if this is a trustworthy site) lists both names as common names for the same frog (incorrectly??) #while inaturalist lists them as two different frogs. curiously with tricolor having wayyyyy fewer photos #ok anyway that's my rant i went on a whole journey trying to figure out if these are the same frog or not and i have no answer #i did some more 'research' and i am more confused. some sources seem to imply they are now considered the same species ( e. tricolor) #i think my conclusion is i am willing to agree the drawing looks more like e. anthonyi. it seems like tricolor is generally less vibrant re #and the white is darker and more green? #i feel like thumblr should stop me from typing more in the tags at this point this is a whole essay #at this point i am failry convinced this is specifically the Santa Isabel frog. isthat the real subspecies or morph or whatever #or just the name pet sites are using to sell it?? #i even found some sources (frog selling websites) refering to it as “Epipedobates Anthonyi 'Santa Isabel' Phantasmal Poison Dart Frog” lol #Anyways if you read this far hi. species are confusing. i am not a frog scientist #the first few tags are like an hour old now i just kept trying to figure it out and adding more tags

[tubbytarchia]

gg buddy am I right (ethubs doodle that I don't know what to do with)

#ethubs #Ive wanted to draw ethubs angst for so many days but art block is still hitting hard and this thing has been sitting around for awhile #hey ethubers how did you. survive #last life ethubs upsets me so much make it end #The way after Bdubs dies Etho is trying to justify to himself not having given him a life to begin with rather than #telling him to prove himself #its like he expects the others who are with him to comment on it but they dont. Etho's all "I couldn't have just given it to him you know.. #without them asking about it or anything. And Etho just keeps going. god damn it Etho I feel so bad for them #dont even get me started on what Bdubs said to G about Etho grrrr GRRRR I saw that for the first time not long ago GRRRRRR #I still wanna draw proper ethubs though. someday #also the damage to Bdubs' face is supposed to be from the rocket Lizzie shot #does it make sense? No probably not but its an excuse to make him look more dead #tubby art

[ninjigma]

It has been… so long since I did anything traditionally literal years but starting with a random post order 66 Quinlan felt like the right way to begin doing it again

Really need to practice traditionally more because force, the issues I see XD we will persist though

#quick sketch #it really has been too long you can tell XD #still fun though #and hopefully will help me feel less stuck #am I also debating a year of drawing Quinlan like I did Obi-Wan? #maybeeeeee #star wars #my art #fanart #quinlan vos #traditional art #sketchy

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage - Depths of Darkness

#kingdom hearts 0.2 birth by sleep a fragmentary passage #kh0.2 #depths of darkness #realm of darkness #my gif #they did a good job making the realm of darkness look distinct from the realm of light #because this place really does feel like nowhere we've ever been before #the rocky pathways with no sign of organic life make me feel like i'm on the moon or an alien planet #it's interesting how fallen worlds feel like they're all stitched together between areas like this #aqua can simply walk from place to place without needing a ship or keyblade glider to fly her to a new world #though who's to say how long it takes her to do all of that #as if the realm of darkness is one big ever growing expanse of land without any known boundaries between worlds #we know that all worlds used to be connected in the realm of light long ago and i'm guessing that's the case in the realm of darkness #it's never been split or fractured by keyblade wielders so it still follows its own rules and laws of nature #that'd be pretty interesting #we see this area start as a rocky wasteland that transitions into flat sandy terrain from the destiny islands #but you have to walk through a huge blinding light to get there first which is really unusual #it makes me think of how terra and aqua were guided to destiny islands by a bright light #and how destiny islands appears as a ball of light on the world select menu in bbs #but why portray it that way? we've been shown before what the world of destiny islands looks like from afar with the CoM world cards #and it's not like they even needed to include it on the world select screen in bbs because it's not a world you can even visit on your own #i don't know what it's all supposed to mean yet but #i believe the islands are more significant than we know at this time and this game continues to raise a lot of questions #it's certainly called 'destiny' islands for a reason

[cupophrogs]

What would poppet be like if they were a playtime co toy?

The Silly!! Poppet would probably be something of a security protocol! Leading children to and from the orphanage, making sure no one sees something they shouldn’t, and generally keeping the other toys in check. Brainwashed to hell, this one!

I imagine they were made when Poppet’s Traveling Circus was first airing, and Playtime Co. partnered with Charles’ studio to make plushies of some of the characters! Some of the orphans probably saw one, or caught an episode on the tv, and they loved it enough for the company to add our favorite jester to the Bigger Bodies Initiative. Poppet knows every knook and cranny of the factory, and could often be found skipping through the halls, chatting away with higher up employees or other toys.

Close ups!

#bro has probably killed so many people #doomed even more #then really did care about the kids though #simply saw the whole ‘turning into toys’ thing as a new beginning of sorts #they have no memories of their human life #like at all #they are simply a silly guy #a funny fella #a jokeable joe #phrart #art #poppy playtime #poppy playtime oc #poppet spring #GRAAAAHH IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I’VE DRAWN THEM #A it feels so nice to see my silly sue again #I love #I adore #jester #jester oc #bigger body poppet #ask phrog #ask the three d’s #(technically? I’m not sure) #and yes you DO have to crank the box to wake them up #that was a big control thing for the company; you can;t crank it from the inside #april fool's! #the real ppt Poppet will be out tomorrow :)

[lucky-draws]

I'M YOUR SHADOW!

#mgs #metal gear solid #liquid snake #mgs1 #he's underrated to be honest. literally did nothing wrong and yes he's blonde but thats not his fault. they gave him the inferior #genes after all. #and he's literally a man with long hair so what else do you want #ik its april fools and in the past ive done some silliness like posting ocelhuey or whatever the hell but im not feeling it this year.. #liquid is a fool though so it's stillappropriate #i can't believe im back to mgs posting every other day. nature is healing etc

[icantmoveitmoveitanymore]

Trans femme(??) terukane..?????

Teru gives non binary vibes though like i can see it can you see it

#tell me if i get the pronouns wrong anywhere #i feel like no matter what gender teru is he/she? wld still have the entire sch in a chokehold #oh wow pansexual nene is a thought #tbhk #tbhk fanart #terukane #honestly aoi is so done with their shit in every universe #did i yassify them too much i tried to keep their hair textures but #everytime i try drawing teru with long hair it ends up looking like tiara grown up #im still so confused one akanes hair colour though like is it reddish brown?? is it brown??? pick one #im going to bed

[ilovecoelacanths]

This is a story about a book that changed my life.

It's also about how amazing libraries and authors and people who care about sharing cool things with curious kids are. Also, fish (especially fish). It's kind of different than what I usually post but it's been bouncing around in my head basically since I started this blog so here you go, I hope you like it. This is the reason I love coelacanths so much, and why I think everyone should know about how amazing they are.

When I was little, I loved going to the library. My little brother and I would pick out way too many books and the librarians always had to come over to override the 30 book limit at the checkout stand (they pretty much knew us on sight and were ready to override it as soon as we started heading over to check out). After we finished getting our library books, our mom also let us look through the free pile that was in the foyer on the way out. It was mostly old library books that the librarians just needed to clean out, but there were a lot of books that people brought when they cleaned out their personal collections too (especially teachers, and there were a bunch of books with old school library stamps inside). The free pile didn't usually have a lot of things that interested me, but one day when I was poking through it I found a book called Fossil Fish Found Alive: Discovering the Coelacanth, by Sally M. Walker.

I loved it. I had never even heard of coelacanths before, but this book fascinated me. It told the story of an incredible animal, long thought to be extinct, that had somehow survived for millions of years! It was nothing like any fish I had ever learned about before. I already had a casual interest in marine biology that I can thank PBS Kids and Wild Kratts for (particularly their episode on sperm whales and giant squid, I loved that episode), but this book took it to a new level. I wanted to be a marine biologist so I could learn more about coelacanths.

Like a lot of things when you're 7, that was a phase. Unlike a lot of phases, this one I came back to. After taking a break from my dreams of being a marine biologist to experience the hell that is middle school, one day I pulled a book off my shelf. I hadn't read it in a while. When I picked it up again, I remembered how incredible this animal was, and how much it had inspired me when I was younger, and those thoughts of becoming a marine biologist started to return. I'm in college now studying marine science, and I brought the book with me to school, where it sits next to two other science books that have inspired me (My Friends the Wild Chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson).

Earlier this year, I was thinking about how much this one book had changed my life and I wondered if I could find Ms. Walker and thank her. I knew she had many other science books for younger audiences, and even another book about coelacanths, so I was sure she had a website of some kind, and I was right. So I found her contact page and wrote her an email explaining the impact her book had had on my life, and thanking her for it. And to my surprise, she responded! She was very kind and we sent a few emails back and forth. She gave me some excellent advice and even told me about some of the people she contacted while researching her book, including Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer herself, the person who rediscovered the coelacanth when it was thought to be extinct! I'll never forget how she took the time to respond to me and how encouraging she was.

But Ms. Walker isn't the only one I have to thank for pointing me toward the path I'm on right now. If I hadn't already loved reading, if I hadn't seen any show or video to make me interested in marine biology, if the library didn't have a pile of books for anyone to take home, if I had lost that book during one of our many moves as a kid, I don't know what I'd be doing right now. There were a lot of things that happened to make it so that I found this book, but I'm glad for every single one of them. They led to me learning about an incredible animal and changed the course of my life. And now, I love coelacanths.

#long post #bee talks #my post #coelacanth #i love coelacanths #omg guys its the long awaited ilovecoelacanths backstory post #it came out kinda sappy lmao but whatever im gonna post it even though its so cheesy #ugh i hate being genuine and showing emotion on the internet it makes me feel so cringe. but whatever. cringe is dead so #also wow look at that i actually CAN use real grammar when i want to #not a single smiley face emoticon in this whole post. why did i do that. i like my little guys #here. here's one. :]

[coffeebanana]

i love how optimistic i am when outlining long fics it's like "oh wow if i just plan this all out and then Follow. The. Plan!! it will totally be SO EASY. i mean i can have it all done so quickly!"

...ignoring the fact that this has never once happened 😂

#kayla rambles #writing thingsss #the closest thing is the time i did ladynoir july because like...i did write 60k in around 50 days #but i was a lot less picky about my writing then ajsfbkdsjf #like i COULD NOT write that fic now. and also i would write it so differently now 😭 but not the point #and i still updated the outline many times while writing that #also is 60k even a long fic? to me that's just medium. though i know that depends on who you ask #and i suppose by my standards i've never actually finished a 'long fic' (yet...but i have 4 in progress oops) #RIP to the shera fic that i only have one chapter of left to write asjfbdksjd maybe one day #on the plus side i feel like i'm getting better at outlining!!! #and i'm having fun which is the important thing!! #plus who knows maybe the break from actual writing will help #(if i manage not to cave akjfdskjd it's only been 4 days and idk if i'm strong enough to resist much longer)

[softerhaze]

*giggles and tee hees*

#:)c #i left myself like notes + a list of things i was doing in my save when i started to feel like i wasn't going to play for a while #so even though i've wanted to play on and off for the past week i've just been #staring down the barrel of that list lol and deciding to read instead #BUT i did what i needed to do in my save and played for like 2 in game days :) pls clap #i have a long weekend and only made plans for saturday so!! hopefully i'll get to play a lil more

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy Halloween and Wei Wuxian day!

#better drawn mdzs #mdzs #wei wuxian #lan wangji #digital art #I'm trying to practice digital art more - initially wasn't going to draw anything for today....I simply couldn't rest until I *did*. #I'm starting to get the hang of it ! #I find traditional *much* easier especially with colouring. It still feels very...off to me. #The noise filter helps retain some of the texture I find digital lacks! More experimentation needed though. #Original draft for their costumes was 'Groom of Hanguang-jun' and 'Bride of The Yiling Lazou'. #Y'know; like those 'bride of Frankenstein' and 'Frankenstein's monster' sort of couple costumes. #Their costumes now are 'Well educated lady with land someone wants (and it's the 1600s)' and 'Werebunny'. #Every costume wwx ever puts on has a full backstory and lore to it. Even if its just a hat and fake mustache. #Okay I'm on break NOW. I will return when my long comic is done.

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

i know i've posted abt this before also but i did not have screenshots to demonstrate just HOW gently passive aggressive ingo is to volo when they talk. i have no idea if they intended it this way but he sounds so "sadly my strict standard of conduct will not let me tell you to fuck off for asking weirdly personal questions just so you can share your theories but with the subtext toolkit available to me i am VERY much shooing you out of the way so i can get back to what i was actually trying to do."

#the nemesis speaks #pla analysis #idk if it really comes across without the context of volo's whole ramble #but he really did just sort of rock up to you while you were TRYING to get through this quarry #just to be like ''hi ingo. hey tell me about your memory loss. great now listen to what I think about the whole thing'' #though the exchange does also make me feel like they have had prior conversations to this effect #ingo feigns not recognizing him at first but the way he says ''continue to prioritize'' specifically makes me feel like #this is not the first time they've tread this particular ground #volo also greets ingo pretty familiarly at the start of it imo #these tags are getting long but one other thing that sort of strikes me atm and i'm curious to see if it continues #is like. this is the rudest (by his standards) ingo gets with mmmost everyone in pla #-except melli. who he is actually fairly direct with. and melli in turn doesn't rise to it really at all #for a guy who bitches at literally everyone just saying ''well guess we don't always see eye to eye!'' is like. WILDLY notable #and then ingo asks you to say hi to him later #they're friends i think. thanks for ur time

[transmascutena]

thinking about how akio sees his younger self in utena and wondering if there's any fondness there. doesn't change the horror of what he does to her obviously but i do wonder

#akio and utena #m #long ramble in the tags sorry: #the thing about akio is that he's so evil bit he's also so human #he has feelings. i just don't know what they are (if anything) toward his victims #he loves anthy at the very least i'm sure of that. even if he hates her too. just like she loves and hates him. the lines are blurry. #and i just. i have to wonder whether any of that extends to utena at all. we know anthy at times feels similarly about utena and dios #(and akio by extension.) the simultanious love and resentment. so it's not too unlikely i think. #like. even though he never had anything but bad intentions in getting close to her #i'm not sure it's possible to do everything he did and feel nothing #not that he has any meaningful amount of guilt or remorse for it. i don't think that. #and i obviously don't think he “loved” her in any of the ways she might have thought he did #but did he not care at all? did he not feel any kind of fondness or sympathy or just. idk. pity? for her? #whatever the case it wasn't enough to reconsider having her killed so you know. how much does that actually matter anyway #idk. i think about it a lot. how abusers are rarely entirely indifferent toward their victims #the role he's playing in her life is so fucked up but it IS a role he's playing and i wonder how much he you know... internalizes it? #how much does he believe the illusion of family that he invites her into? because akio DOES often buy into his own illusions. #(similarly i think it's possible that akio is fond of touga too. their mentor-protégé relationship is horrible and abusive #but that doesn't make it less real. you know? maybe real is the wrong word.) #when he talks in episode 25 about wanting utena and anthy closer that's obviously so he can continue to groom her #but is there something genuine there too? i don't know. #again. it obviously does not make anything he does better or even different. but it is interesting to think about to me. #on the other side of that coin does seeing his own past youth and naivete and desire to do good that he (maybe) once had #reflected back at him through her mean anything? #is there resentment there? that she is what he couldn't be? or more likely he just thinks that idealism is stupid. #either way it's something he wants to take from her. anyway ramble over. #i talk a lot about utena's feelings toward akio (familial vs romantic love and the way the two are intertwined in fucked up ways) #but not much the other way around. probably because utena is actually a sympathetic character whose feelings the show very clearly #wants you to analyze and think about. #which is... less true for akio i think. though he's still a complex character with complex motives. he's just harder to get a grasp on.