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Entry tags:
Some kind of character essay
STATE OF HISOKA let me start this off with the contents of his last two days as setup.
36 MORNING - THREE GAME: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE no wait we didn't???
36 AFTERNOON - Teatime and discussions on the nature of reality with Mal
36 EVENING - Party. Get drunk. Confess drunkenly to Tsuzuki.
36 NIGHT - ...drunken sexyfuntimes
37 MORNING - Hangover and be harassed forever by team about having drunken sexyfuntimes
37 NOON - take memory, have it turn out to be sig neg memory of Tsuzuki going insane and empathically dragging me down with him. Scream. Pass out. Wake up. Vomit. Panic. Srs conversations with Knife time.
37 EARLY AFT - Get drunk again.
37 LATE AFT - Rumpelstiltskin game! Walk in on team after having a fight with Asuka. Asuka leaves in panic attack. Talk to people about it. Have cathartic fake fight with Lloyd Irving. Hangover back again.
37 EVENING - Read a pirate novel to Lloyd Irving.
(INCOMPLETE but I'm assuming 37 Night or 38 Morning will be "SRS TALKS WITH TSUZUKI" because "Tsuzuki, we need to talk" is an intelligent choice of first words out of my mouth the very next time I see him. EDIT: Started this thread before I finished the essay but whatever not fixing this)
In conclusion,
BUT OKAY SERIOUSLY THOUGH time for me to ramble endlessly about Hisoka LIKE I DO. Sections below in no particular order, I guess.
Tsuzuki/Hisoka
So yeah, big surprise to say that Hisoka loves Tsuzuki -- whether or not it ever turned romantic and/or sexual that was going to be a fact. BECAUSE HE DOES LOVE TSUZUKI. CANON. END OF STORY :/ Shipper tendencies aside it is just the truth. He has decided to spend eternity at Tsuzuki's side, even if that means dying with him instead of living for his revenge (which Hisoka himself acknowledges is basically the thing which has kept him alive, literally, and is FUEL FOR HIS LIFE FORCE). Tsuzuki is just about the only person in canon he is physically comfortable with and hugs both to give and receive reassurance, etc etc. YES I COULD WRITE A WHOLE ESSAY no I am not going to, it is there and canon. Again, whether it is romantic on one or both sides or not is open to interpretation but not terribly that open as it has Hisoka blushing and yelling when Tsuzuki says "I love you", Tsuzuki joking about carrying Hisoka to bed and Hisoka blushing, etc. They might not be *in* a romance, but when a pseudo-bl series has two characters who love each other and throw in jokes about romantic or sexual scenarios it is kind of the writing on the wall idk. It seems pretty clear that in canon they love each other and are in love but haven't gone anywhere or done anything about it, whether dating or sex. It is like romantic pre-slash. I guess.
Facts being what they are, if it's in a canon setting and universe, although they likely could end up being in an actual romance instead of just being romantic at each other, it is not going to become sexual. It basically can't! Hisoka is not in an emotional or psychological state to handle sex in canon. Will he be eventually? Yeah, probably. But he is absolutely not the type of guy to force himself to do anything when he's not ready for it and he's also very self-aware. And the fact is that in canon, since the time Muraki unlocks Hisoka's sealed memory of being raped, Hisoka has had nightly screaming nightmares. (Yes, Emerald, I am so sorry for what will happen to your sleep habits when Hisoka gets that memory back. HE WILL PROBABLY TALK TO DREAM AFTER THE FIRST FEW OR SOMETHING.). ANYWAY IN CONCLUSION there is a really strong reason why it is not and would not happen in canon for a good long time regardless of how romantic they got.
Obviously in Aather there are no such problems! Except also obviously in Aather the potential of it is hilariously dependant on an order of events that would have to happen like this:
1) Get memories back that let Hisoka know he loves Tsuzuki
2) Have enough interactions with Tsuzuki in Aather and of a kind that he can confirm he still has feelings for Tsuzuki *here*
3) Tsuzuki get back the right memories of Hisoka for HIM to realize he loves Hisoka
4) Something pushes one of them to actually talk about it after both have had these realizations.
5) Something pushes one or both of them to act on it after they talk about it.
6) This all occurs BEFORE Hisoka remembers Muraki trauma
7) ...OR before Tsuzuki remembers that Hisoka has Muraki trauma because I imagine Tsuzuki would also not act on it then
LITERALLY if anything else had occurred it would really have not gone this route. Sure, we ship it, but we actually never talked about the prospect, probably because we were aware the series of events to end up with sexytimes or even an acknowledged romance was kind of hilariously stacked against the possibility. The first time we talked about it was when Hisoka was drunkenly inviting Tsuzuki back to his cabin.
SO HOW DID IT HAPPEN.
Well, obv Hisoka hasn't got Muraki Trauma back yet, for one, and Tsuzuki neither -- Tsuzuki knows Muraki is a little creepy and Hisoka doesn't have any Muraki memories back. So that basically means the ABILITY to do so is there.
Now, Hisoka's memories! Yeah, they fell in the above categories. He remembered Tsuzuki first with an aggravated fondness, then he remembered one of his big "I love Tsuzuki and will always stay with him" memories. At which point he was aware he was in love with Tsuzuki! He did have some of his "We are not having a good time together" memories shortly after, BUT mixed in with those was the memory where he comforted Tsuzuki that "we might be at the bottom, but that just means the worst is behind us and we're only going up from here". So he views ALL those "ugh you're annoying" memories in light of that other memory, that they may have rough times but always intend to stay together and keep moving up. SO BASICALLY he has spent since Feb 5 OOCly (Day 10 ICly) aware that he is in love with Tsuzuki and kind of keeping a lid on it because he's not going to bring that up until TSUZUKI remembers it.
And then Tsuzuki got the SAME MEMORY HISOKA DID, and on TSUZUKI'S side it's where Hisoka was hugging him and reassuring him and saying everything Tsuzuki needed to hear and staying by him in one of Tsuzuki's darker moments etc etc. So TSUZUKI became aware that Hisoka and he are damn well devoted to and love each other, etc.
Along the way they have obviously threaded a lot and yeah the actually caring for each other here element was established too. /handwaves this, it is just kind of there.
SO THAT IS 1-3 and 6-7.
So then there was a Three game and Emerald all decided within around 20 minutes and then had some time to kill. So we sat around doing each other's hair. And since we were joking about it being a girly sleepover I was like lol why not and, since Viridian had Rabbit on Coral, had Hisoka grumblingly and tsunderely prod him for romantic advice. WHAT DO, WHY WAS I PROGRAMMED TO FEEL LOVE etc. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS MY FEELINGS.
And then they didn't die and everyone was high on life. And since it was on his mind, in the endgame, Hisoka prodded Tsuzuki to hear TSUZUKI'S feelings and got a pretty positive "I like you." "So is it some kind of pervy romantic interest." "I-it's not pervy!" Which obviously said a few things about what it was, ie, romantic.
Then he was a dbag and didn't say his OWN feelings. But he knew Tsuzuki would call him on it sooner or later. AND THERE WAS A PARTY and he and Lloyd hung out and Lloyd made fun of him and referred to his thing for Hound when Hisoka commented on his own low alcohol tolerance ("If you pass out I'll carry you back to Emerald and make Hound jealous") -- and Hisoka of course blushed and protested, especially as it was on his mind, which means that Lloyd was like LOL SERIOUSLY? HILARIOUS. Go confess, drink a bit it'll help. So Hisoka drank.
And then he and Tsuzuki flirted and ate food and flirted and Hisoka got them booze because he knew where this was going and Hisoka drank a lot really quickly for fortification, which means that he was feeling quite pleasantly WHAT THE HELL, GO WITH THE FLOW. Which is not his usual state of being. Here comes 4-5, yeah.
So Tsuzuki asks, and Hisoka confesses I WANT TO SPEND FOREVER WITH YOUUU and Tsuzuki obviously finds this pretty cool, so they get their makeout on, and they both find THAT pretty cool, so they get their sexytimes on, so you know. That happened.
They have not talked since but I imagine the overall thoughts around it are, on both sides, "That was pretty good" "Man we were drunk" "That would probably be better if we weren't drunk" "I sure hope it isn't skeevy and awkward that we were both so drunk, we should probably figure that out" "lol we moved fast huh" "I have no regrets actually". (ADDENDUM: showed it to Tsuzuki and she said Tsuzuki's were mostly "THAT WAS FUN, I DO LIKE SEX WITH HISOKA I kinda have a hangover now though.")
And then our HILARIOUS TEAMS and then of course Hisoka takes a memory which, dramatic irony being what it is, is all about the same guy he just got into a relationship with going COMPLETELY insane with despair to the point where Hisoka, having been drowned in his feelings, can't believe will ever recover. This is a scene that, in canon, when he finally wakes up again (three days later) he is not coping for basically the only time in the entire manga (until Tatsumi kicks him into coping again. SEE COPING/SELF-AWARENESS). Fortunately, Knife was there and as well as going up about three social links in one conversation, took Tatsumi's role in kicking him into coping by coming up with a plan of attack: it hasn't happened, talk to Tsuzuki and tell him to not take his memories until Knife has her telepathic skills back so she can punch his mind into working again when he gets the crazymaking memory.
So Hisoka, after spending some time to just try to get himself together, has a plan to talk to Tsuzuki and right now the "new relationship" element of things is so far behind the don'tgocrazydon'tgocrazy element of things that he is totally not going to realize how it sounds when he tells Tsuzuki "We have to talk" the very first conversation they have after having drunken sex where Tsuzuki snuck out early in the morning (and after Tsuzuki is unbalanced from taking a trauma memory of his own).
I could not have planned this if I'd tried. It is freaking amazing.
Hisoka and Muraki
SMALL SECTION THIS TIME YAY Hisoka does not remember Muraki at all, though he knows Muraki is from his world because Muraki told him -- helpfully, in fact, by letting him know some details he'd discovered about Hisoka from one of his memories, namely that he was dead and worked in some afterlife business with Tsuzuki. (How Muraki found this out was by getting a memory of kidnapping and torturing Hisoka but Muraki thoughtfully left that part out of the explanation). He knows Tsuzuki has remembered Muraki being a bit creepy/off but also that Tsuzuki hasn't remembered much else about Muraki and, hey, Hisoka knew that already from the kind of weird reactions Silver sometimes has, and it hasn't bothered him. Some people are creepy sometimes, fact.
So basically, he likes "Silver"! Not intimately but he appreciates the kindness Silver has shown him. Silver provided him information about himself, stayed by him and loaned him his jacket when he died in the first Three game, and has generally been affable, thoughtful, and generous.
THIS IS ALSO A LIMITED WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY and I'm gonna try to remember to poke Muraki to play with me before you know I get back memories filled with hate and loathing and trauma and bad things. Hurr hurr. It will also be interesting if he does/doesn't get his empathy back before those memories -- basically how things will go with Muraki are totally up in the air and every memory is the fuse drawing closer to the powder keg.
Hisoka and Facial Expressions
I TOLD YOU THIS WAS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.
If you have threaded with Hisoka you probably notice he doesn't actually have a vast range of facial expressions! This is, though not dwelled on, canon. It's definitely not an art slip of any kind as it is brought up briefly at least once (Hisoka's exhausted and miserable and one of the Gushoshin asks how he's doing, and completely deadpan he points to himself and is like, "I'm so exhausted I want to puke, can't you tell?" and they're like "N-no." Later Tsuzuki shows up and is like "Oh hey, you okay? You look tired," and the Gushoshin are all, "...those two..."). SO YEAH Hisoka doesn't have a big range of facial expressions and people tend to have to be close to him to interpret the minute differences in canon.
This might seem like a minor thing to notice, but it isn't. Basically: in 12 full volumes of manga he never smiles or laughs.
Hisoka knows! He's not good at it. He can't do it. Positive expression in particular just won't work. It's completely uncomfortable and he'd rather talk deadpan than force it. He CAN express frustration, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, etc, but it basically starts at deadpan and then drops to those whether he's positive or negative about something. (He also rarely cries, though it HAS happened in canon.)
At first in Aather it sort of confused him but he put it down to a personal quirk. Then he got some memories back and, in conversation later with Lloyd he realized that, oh, of course. If he was punished/abused since he was a very young child for showing empathy, then any emotion he showed that his family didn't understand the origins of he would also be punished/abused for. He figures at this point that it's something so deeply ingrained that there isn't really anything he can do about it, and is satisfied with his explanation especially as it covers his particular difficulty expressing any of the positive emotions he feels! He has a full range of emotion, it just kind of... stops before it reaches his face.
He is pretty self-conscious that this might make him look uncaring to others, and he now thinks that both his inability and his self-consciousness about it is apparent since Asuka used it as a source when lashing out at him to try to push him away in the fight. But he's solidly of the "If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen" opinion and doesn't worry about it. THIS IS PART OF THE COPING/SELF-AWARENESS THING I WILL GET TO.
Anyway yeah characters are always welcome to notice that, because although it's not always as clear in icons, he really does have a facial range expression that basically goes from -10 to 1 and tends to over around 0. His voice tends to match it, but can get softer and more warmth than his face tends to get.
Hisoka and Coping/self-awareness
GOD OK I COULD TALK FOREVER ABOUT THIS HOW DO I GET MY THOUGHTS IN ORDER. Basically, Hisoka is a coping machine. He has like an auto-cope function, like his camera coming into focus or something. BEFORE I APPED I RAMBLED AT SERA ABOUT THIS FOREVER YOU WOULD THINK I WOULD HAVE BETTER WORDS FOR IT BY NOW.
Basically, one of Hisoka's major character traits is that he is incredibly stable. Which is, you know, kind of surprising! He has a background of abuse and trauma. He was murdered. He is living for revenge. His is afraid of becoming like his murderer. He has to take people's lives and investigate horrible crimes as part of his afterlife. This is not a collection of events one generally assumes stability or functionality from.
But Hisoka does! He has all the outward signs of someone who shouldn't be able to function healthily, but he's actually pretty healthy. Even the living for revenge thing! At one point in the manga, he explicitly goes, (paraphrased), "Okay, I'm living for revenge, but I'm also planning for the future. Right now, my revenge gives me the drive I need. But it's not going to end at revenge. Frankly, having something to live for isn't a bad thing, and it gives me the time to get closer to the people I love, to open out more, and to develop into someone who will have something else to live for when my revenge is done."
AND THAT IS THE TYPE OF CHARACTER HE IS IN A NUTSHELL which is the whole autocope. He's self-aware! He looks at all of his issues and problems and huge emotional gulfs and damage and analyses it and doesn't run away from it and then draws conclusions from this analysis and, as a result is basically okay with it. Are some things terrible and unforgivable? Yes. Have they changed him? Yes. Can he live with those changes and look at where he went wrong and decide how he wants to behave in the future? Yes.
Say what you want about Yami no Matsuei's writing (and there is a loooot of fair criticism to have here hahaha) but one thing Matsushita is very good at is setting the two protagonists up as foils for each other. Hisoka, who has all the outward traits of the traumatized, IS traumatized, but he's also stable and functional because he examines his trauma, figures out the boundaries and limits of it, and always works immediately on discovering a trauma to try to roll with it. In contrast, Tsuzuki is cheery and friendly and a huge people person, social and kind and infinitely capable of loving humanity despite the terrible things he does, and under that outside he is a hot mess. He is a wreck. Tsuzuki has zero coping skills on a day to day basis. When something terrible happens, he projects his own guilt over it even if it's outside of his control and lets it eat him alive. Both characters react emotionally, but Hisoka then looks at what happens and analyses it and works out intellectually how to approach it, while Tsuzuki breaks down, cries, avoids the subject, and tries to hide his pain until it builds up and overwhelms him (which it does fairly often, and overwhelming him never actually lances it -- he seems a little better after, but then it starts building from there and the next breakdown tends to be worse).
So basically one of the things I love about YnM, drama fest as it often is, is that it's never PURELY DRAMATIC -- the drama is part of the characters and how they react to the terrible events that occur.
So yeah, Hisoka. Does this! Like, in one chapter he shoots a girl. And he shoots her because she asks him to, because she's already been shot and is dying slowly and can't really be saved and wants to be put out of her misery, but he also shoots her because he is horrified that despite Muraki doing HORRIBLE THINGS TO HER she still loves Muraki (and, note, something he addresses in this arc is that it means he can also feel her love! And although he can separate other people's emotions from his, he feels them LIKE his own. So yeah he feels what it's like to love Muraki and IS NOT OKAY WITH THIS). And faced with that he shoots her! And he is not okay with that side of himself either. He sobs on Tsuzuki but even as he's breaking down he does think about it -- about what he did, about why he did it, about his fears about that (becoming like Muraki himself), and he forces himself to address it. And as a result, he's okay. IT'S never okay, and he is always angry about what happened to her and why he did these things, but it's something he acknowledges, knows the shape of, and decides how he wants to approach the future as a result. And if people rub it in his face he'll get angry and hurt, because it's still a terrible thing, but ultimately he is functioning with this without it becoming a poison in him. (While everyone Tsuzuki kills becomes a poison to Tsuzuki, basically).
And again, this is a reasonable element of his characterization that developed just from being an empath. He DOES feel other people's emotions as his own, so he has to have a constant mechanism in him that separates other people's emotions, and to do that, he has to be able to look at and analyse his own responses to things even while they happen. Which doesn't mean he doesn't have responses! Again, Hisoka has a full emotional depth and has very, very strong emotional reactions to things. And it doesn't mean he won't lash out as a result, because he definitely does react. But it means that his ability to understand those reactions is incredibly high and something he is very instinctively skilled at.
So basically Hisoka wobbles but he don't fall down. Reactions happen! And are real! And continue to have emotional impact! And he has SO MANY FEELINGS GOD. But he's able to take the 'danger zone' out of them most of the time (the only real exception is the trauma of Tsuzuki going insane and, like I said, Tatsumi kicks him BACK into coping mode with one conversation).
OH YEAH more on Hisoka and coping/analysis! Because he sorts through this stuff he also like... is often okay talking about stuff which is not normally okay to talk about! This is also the way he isn't a true tsundere. He doesn't tend to do the undetailed "I'm fine!" if someone asks if he's okay when he''s not. Tsuzuki does at one point actually, and Hisoka gets really hurt because it reads to him as a violation of that trust. I know you're not okay! Don't tell me you're okay! Don't you trust me! So if there's someone he trusts he will generally just tell them what is up. Even if it is like "Oh jesus." EXAMPLE, paraphrased from memory:
[Tsuzuki and Hisoka are walking down a hall at the bureau together]
Tsuzuki: "Hey, you okay Hisoka? You're looking kind of pale. Have you been eating and bathing properly?"
Hisoka: "I've been taking care of myself, don't worry. I just have that dream every night."
Tsuzuki: "Dream?"
Hisoka: "About the time Muraki raped me."
The entire tone/body language here is casual. It is not an okay dream! He is exhausted! But the thing that caused it, well, you know, it is a thing and this is how it is relevant, what can you do.
So yeah he uh. Does that too. "Yeah I took a memory and there was screaming and fainting and puking. It wasn't very pretty." That is a thing that happened bro, since you were asking, just thought you should know. ABSURD BLASENESS SOMETIMES.
Hisoka and Empathy (and other skills)
HISOKA IS REALLY TORN ON WANTING HIS EMPATHY BACK.
Because he does! It is a sense that he has had his entire life. It is a thing that, you know, is basically another sense to him. Not having it is like going through without one of his primary senses. In all of his memories he is constantly getting information as part of the empathy, as much as sight and sound. Without it now he does feel like he's navigating blind or deaf sometimes in dealing with other people. IT IS A LOT OF GUESSING.
That said, it is not exactly the most fun sense to have. Like if part of vision was BUT EVERY LIGHT IS BRIGHT AND PAINFUL or if part of sound was EVERY SOUND IS LOUD AND I HAVE TINNITUS. That is empathy.
Also he's like
man
Trauma games will be fun.
So yeah basically, "Know I will get it, sort of need it as a basic sense, so want to get now and learn to deal with but ughhh not really looking forward to a lot of elements of it. Also including the people who will react badly to having their feelings 'spied on'."
I have a full writeup on empathy for when he gets the skill back so not bothering with it here, haha, but it's of course empathy as written by Matsushita which means sometimes it's actually telepathy and sometimes he doesn't notice totally normal things so that is magical too.
Hisoka and bonding with people
Hisoka on the whole wants to get to know people, sure. He's fairly social for a kid who was locked in the basement and had his parents threatening to kill him and was shown his own tombstone and has psychic powers etc etc. It doesn't mean that it is easy for him to relate to others or for them to relate to him, though, for a variety of reasons including the lack of expressiveness, his tendency to be sarcastic and biting to people he likes, his difficulty knowing how to deal with other people's emotional outbursts or help people out, etc. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to! There's a scene in the manga where Tsuzuki's very depressed and Hisoka goes to Tatsumi and is like, "Tatsumi, I have no ability to help cheer people up and I am terrible at emotional support, please spend all day coddling Tsuzuki for me because I really can't." And Tatsumi's like, I think you are better than you think you are but yeah, it is not his strength and he knows it.
(Relatedly this is why he has been awkward about approaching Beauty even though he wants to get to know all the personae and learn what's going on etc. WHAT IF SHE CRIES. SHE SEEMS TO CRY A LOT. WHAT DO I DO. GOD WHAT IF THE FACT I LIKE MALEFICENT MAKES HER CRY. THIS IS INTIMIDATING.)
Anyway, as a result a lot of the people he's got closest to are not unemotional but are kind of laid back and/or handle a lot of things in similar ways to him -- if not intellectualizing, at least taking it as a Thing That Happened, Let's Roll. Other than Tsuzuki (since this is addressing an outside of canon thing), he is probably closest to Lloyd, Mint, KK and, hilariously, Maleficent. These are all people who take bad news with a sort of "Yeah, wow, jeez," roll their way through things, and shrug off his sharp and often brutal sense of humour. Like his fake fight with Lloyd! They were drawing on elements that could actually be insulted as well as totally absurd over the top things -- like, Lloyd talked about Hisoka's obsession with intellectualism while Hisoka called Lloyd an idiot. Neither of them took any of this to heart. With a lot of characters, people could unwittingly hit sore points or low confidence, but both were like "Yeah whatever". Hisoka basically needs this because he does not really turn off the harsh sarcasm easily. It's sort of his headvoice towards himself too. In canon he can often look really mean to Tsuzuki who gets a lot of the worst of it as his closest friend and confidante. So like -- I cannot overemphasize how total this is and how tied up it is with his total ability to cope. At one point, Muraki is sexually harassing Tsuzuki and wins Tsuzuki's body in a card game and Hisoka shows up and jokes with Muraki that he should pay him for Tsuzuki (Muraki agrees and makes Hisoka a monetary offer, btw). Hisoka loathes Muraki! Hisoka is traumatized by his rape! Hisoka doesn't want anything bad to happen to Tsuzuki! BUT HE DOES THIS. (TBF he then challenges Muraki to cards to get Tsuzuki back but only after he makes Tsuzuki whine at him. Nooo wayyy, Hisokaaaa!!!).
But in canon basically everyone who is close to him knows not to take it seriously. Tsuzuki doesn't! THANKFULLY. He seems to take it as just part of Hisoka and while he is even more adorable (according to Tsuzuki) when he's too sleepy or overheated to get riled up, Tsuzuki doesn't really mind. Their routine is usually "Say something bitchy""Whine about it" "Cool let's go do a thing."
That doesn't mean he doesn't want to get close to others and won't try to! He just enters a realm of WHAT DO when dealing with them. Everything is a much bigger minefield. So like, talking to Ginshu after Three's nontrauma game. YOU ARE UPSET AND SAD. I CARE ABOUT YOU. HOW DO I SAY... THINGS WHICH ARE COMFORTING.... WHILE ALSO SAYING THE TRUTH.... :|aaaa
So basically he may like you but be ADRIFT AT SEA ABOUT HOW TO TALK/RELATE.
In Emerald because of this, he gets along easiest with Viridian and Knife, who are both similar, then recognizes Cloud as -- different? Not applicable? and doesn't approach him from that perspective. And then Lion and Ginger are at the bottom because although he CARES ABOUT THEM DEEPLY he is like WHAT DO I SAY WITHOUT SOMEHOW BEING UPSETTING? MAYDAY MAYDAY I'LL JUST BE STIFF AND AWKWARD FOR A BIT. (Mage is not on this list because Hisoka doesn't know him well yet, but he'll probably be closer to Viridian and Knife in ease of dealing with).
Emerald and our Policies
SPEAKING OF EMERALD...
Hisoka likes his team and he's proud of his team. They are on the whole pretty cool. He finds it kind of funny, in a detatched way, that Emerald is either IN PERFECT HARMONY or arguing incessantly. We are a team full of opinions. Loud opinions.
He suspects that he has different opinions from a lot of them on things but so far it hasn't actually been too big a deal. LIKE HE ACTUALLY DOESN'T HATE THREE which I know a bunch of Emerald do. And moving into this let's talk about team suicide and Hisoka's feelings on death.
The two teams who are known to self-sacrifice are of course Emerald and Citrine. And in both cases this isn't because of any actual suicidal bent. As I joked the other day, for Emerald it's like FUCK YOU WE DO WHAT WE WANT, SUCK ON OUR VALUES. While Citrine appear to be BADASS MOTHERFUCKERS WHO DO NOT FEAR DEATH.
Hisoka on death is interesting as a) obviously he is dead and b) he works in a job which is all about the necessity of mortality and he copes with that way better than Tsuzuki does despite (...or because...) of working the job a lot less. To be a shinigami you have to die with regrets and be able to cope with the fact that your main duties are investigating deaths that shouldn't happen and killing people who are supposed to die but for some reason haven't. Basically the job relies on an assumption that the flow of death is vital to maintain and you don't want to fuck it up, and shinigami are the bitch agents who keep the plumbing of life and death running.
That doesn't mean that he likes killing or death! Or anything like that. But as a shinigami he is part of a system that relies on the necessity of death under some circumstances and the necessity to NOT die under other circumstances. Which, okay, in Aather Hisoka doesn't remember a LOT, but he does remember the basic tenets of being a Shinigami and can extrapolate.
So basically he's like, if Three requires this choice, then he's like, I get that. This choice may actually be necessary to her. Sometimes life and death is tied to a great, huge system beyond us and making choices that relate to this can have a huge amount of power. It might be her speciality like it was apparently that of nearly everyone I knew back home or more so. Beyond that, he doesn't think she's a terribly bad person by what he's seen, if a harsh one -- see also appreciating their approach and having enough of a sense of humour to give them ribbons.
THAT SAID, team sacrifice is team sacrifice! He is not going to kill people if it doesn't seem necessary, and while they have the option to sacrifice themselves, SURE. Hisoka is, actually, a self-sacrificial character surprisingly! He is one because he CAN regenerate -- but that's the same in aather. They can die and they can die horribly and it will be REALLY UNPLEASANT but that's all it is; they get better. Hisoka canonically does things like swap places with someone else to get hacked into pieces because he can take it and he knows he can. Does he want it? WELL, NO. Will he do it? Yeah. Despite being a-ok with the job requirements, and despite often despairing of Tsuzuki's promises to protect people no matter what, he does this stuff. And he'll keep on at it in Aather when the opportunity presents because, yeah, those are his values. If the personae change the rules so he can't -- which he's expecting -- he's not going to have a fit over becoming a killer, because at that point they're out of options. But as long as it is an acceptable choice he will grit his teeth and take the pain. And since they're going to do it anyway as a wilful display of their preferences, he'd rather other people pile it on them even if it means more pain. Otherwise it's wasteful killing all around.
That said, he doesn't view it as a kindness to others or something to be praised for. Ultimately he views it as a selfishness, and while he is okay with that, he doesn't really know how to respond to anyone thanking him or apologizing.
Maleficent and Persona Politics
SPEAKING OF NOT PARTICULARLY MINDING THREE, Hisoka loves getting his nose all up in Personae business. Like, in multiple ways! He is interested in what he is doing here. The fact that they are here to save the Personae's world is one that he acknowledges and is basically rolling with, but there are obvious questions as a part of that which he wants answers to. What happened to their world in the first place? Why is it disappearing? Why are the Personae starting from such a low, low point instead of maintaining things when the problem first started? Did it happen suddenly? He wants to know. He wants to be able to learn, find these things out, work with the information he's getting to move forward, and he's not going to find that out by sitting back and just playing games when they happen.
Beyond that, there are obviously politics in play. DESPITE WHAT LLOYD IRVING SAYS (Okay he never said there WEREN'T, he just said he ignored them). There are two personae who have the most power, and they may or may not have this power because they are the only ones who can bring people over. Where by "the most power" I mean are acknowledged as leaders/people to follow by the other personae. It's that may or may not that intrigues Hisoka, combined with the fact that obviously either all personae are 100% behind the idea that bringing people over and playing games will do the job, OR they don't have the power/privilege to speak up. He doesn't know! Only talking to the personae will bring it out.
And then there is the Mal-Beauty thing, which he is very strongly of the opinion WILL affect the teams at some point even if they try to act professional around them. And that is probably fine, but it means Hisoka wants to understand it. He wants to learn more about them, about what happened, and be able to judge his own behaviour accordingly.
THAT SAID. Hisoka thinks of all the personae as people, not forces of power even though they are also actually forces of power. He's got a LOT of Imaginary World arc memories, wherein he is hanging out with strange legendary creatures who are both imaginary and real and who have also been gods in human history; who contain a great amount of power and may serve people or may not based on their inclination towards you. They have a rich society, and he remembers going there and wandering among it and trying not to fuck up but hanging out with them and some want to kill him and some are like HEY HISOKA LET'S BE FRIENDS. Like, he remembers being extremely uncomfortable around Sohryu, while Sohryu's son, Kijin, befriends him and is friendly, nice, and helpful -- while never bowing his head or agreeing to follow him. They are all people, he can interact with them like people, and the fact that they are powerful gods with specific elements and inclinations doesn't change that.
So when he meets personae, he reacts to them as people. Yeah, they know a lot of things he wants to know, and their politics are pretty relevant to his health and standing and ability to recover his own memories etc, but they're individuals. He can't justify treating them as a whole, and so he wants to meet them all and get to know at least a little about them. Obviously, this was part of talking to Mal in the first place, but they have hilariously good personalities to get along and they've ended up playing off each other quite well. He enjoys talking to her, but more to the point, he likes her. Of course, he thinks she's probably capable of terrible things, but that's neither here nor there. He genuinely considers her a friend despite the fact she has authority and power over him, and I totally added a new section to talk about as a result, but he gets the sense that she may feel the same. Their conversations are conversations, and though he sees where she leaves out information in answers he's not going to push because he doesn't view it as an interrogation, even if she has information he wants. They are now sharing books and she made him a mysterious wreath. It's hard to describe but she's fun to talk to. They have very similar interests and they're just as fine talking about those as talking about the nature of reality in games etc etc. Lloyd told him that she was sick last time he talked to her, so Hisoka's going to spend more time seeking her out, although he's a bit awkward between the "I know you're busy and also trying to manage all the teams and so on" thing though. He and Lloyd sort of plotted a "not really secret but neither of them are really talking about to others" plot to keep a friendly eye on her if she needs help, since they don't think anyone else except Onyx have the same view of her as a friend or at least warm acquaintance.
That said, with his brain that doesn't turn off, he's aware of the fact that being friends with Maleficent could result in interfering in politics despite his intent not to pick sides on a professional, following-a-persona level -- because being Mal's friend might equate to being Beauty's enemy. That doesn't mean he's going to stop. But he's aware of it so he will cope with it if it happens, basically.
Hisoka and Authority
LIKE I SAIIIID. Okay so HERE IS SOME CANON ON HISOKA AND AUTHORITY which is all background stuff and never really talked about. Hisoka is an aristocrat! He is from an old noble samurai family and his family is stinking rich and kind of the town governors where they're from. I think. (/BOTHERING TO REREAD THE KUROSAKI FAMILY MEDICAL DRAMA SECTIONS OF THE IMAGINARY WORLD ARC? NOT FOR ME I mean it's not like it's ever relevant to Hisoka himself EXCEPT FOR THINGS LIKE THIS). I am pretty sure town governors is right because Hisoka's uncle is mad at his father for getting to be the family head for that reason or something like that. Actually let me check. OKAY FOUND IT. They are an illustrious family which has lived there since the Kamakura period; their house is a national historic site. The ancestor of the Kurosaki family was a hero who saved their village by killing a god, and they are revered so everyone, mayor police etc bow to the Kurosaki family. They are also revered because the village is casting the dead god's curse on the Kurosaki family in return for it blah blah blah ANYWAY. VERY prestigious family, and Hisoka was the only heir. He was abused, maltreated, and so on -- we know his mother beat him and wanted him killed, he was locked in the basement when he showed any sign of his empathy, etc etc. But he was also raised to be the heir! He has a wide variety of traditional Japanese aristocracy/samurai family skills as a result. He was expected to take the villager's near worship as his due (though we never see a sign that he did -- he thinks at one point about how he made up a friendly world with friends his age to comfort himself back then).
But of course, now that he is dead he is a bureaucrat, basically, and really low down on the food chain. The shinigami job has some respect and is considered a tough job to be able to do but it is also basically the bitch work nobody wants to do. He answers to a chief of his department and there are aristocrats who outrank the shinigami all around. And Hisoka adjusts to this just fine.
Basically, with this upbringing, he has a mindset where he can understand an aristocrat's role and the power they should have but at the same time is not in that position of power himself anymore. What it does mean is a little more of a view of himself as someone who is, if not an equal, able to talk on the same level on subjects... even while he is polite and deferential IN that talk.
LLOYD "READ A BOOK" IRVING
ATTENTION, INTERNET: I MADE LLOYD IRVING READ PART OF A BOOK. NEWS AT ELEVEN. I AM CLEARLY A BAMF.
I thought about putting an actual talk here about Lloyd and how amazing and hilarious it is that they have become so close given that at first it wasn't working between them - friendly and distant -- but no, I will leave it at READING RAINBOW WITH LLOYD IRVING. She tried to edit my essay when it was in the gdoc to disapprove of this message btw.
Pants
By Ginshu's request. Hisoka likes pants, and definitely prefers them to dresses. He has become accustomed to seeing Cloud without them but he looks forward to the day pants happen.
Pants.
ANY QUESTIONS OR TOPICS I SHOULD ALSO SPEAK TO because as you can tell from the above I totally will. Ugh I only reread like half of this for clarity before I got sick of doing so, apologies.
36 MORNING - THREE GAME: WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE no wait we didn't???
36 AFTERNOON - Teatime and discussions on the nature of reality with Mal
36 EVENING - Party. Get drunk. Confess drunkenly to Tsuzuki.
36 NIGHT - ...drunken sexyfuntimes
37 MORNING - Hangover and be harassed forever by team about having drunken sexyfuntimes
37 NOON - take memory, have it turn out to be sig neg memory of Tsuzuki going insane and empathically dragging me down with him. Scream. Pass out. Wake up. Vomit. Panic. Srs conversations with Knife time.
37 EARLY AFT - Get drunk again.
37 LATE AFT - Rumpelstiltskin game! Walk in on team after having a fight with Asuka. Asuka leaves in panic attack. Talk to people about it. Have cathartic fake fight with Lloyd Irving. Hangover back again.
37 EVENING - Read a pirate novel to Lloyd Irving.
(INCOMPLETE but I'm assuming 37 Night or 38 Morning will be "SRS TALKS WITH TSUZUKI" because "Tsuzuki, we need to talk" is an intelligent choice of first words out of my mouth the very next time I see him. EDIT: Started this thread before I finished the essay but whatever not fixing this)
In conclusion,
BUT OKAY SERIOUSLY THOUGH time for me to ramble endlessly about Hisoka LIKE I DO. Sections below in no particular order, I guess.
Tsuzuki/Hisoka
So yeah, big surprise to say that Hisoka loves Tsuzuki -- whether or not it ever turned romantic and/or sexual that was going to be a fact. BECAUSE HE DOES LOVE TSUZUKI. CANON. END OF STORY :/ Shipper tendencies aside it is just the truth. He has decided to spend eternity at Tsuzuki's side, even if that means dying with him instead of living for his revenge (which Hisoka himself acknowledges is basically the thing which has kept him alive, literally, and is FUEL FOR HIS LIFE FORCE). Tsuzuki is just about the only person in canon he is physically comfortable with and hugs both to give and receive reassurance, etc etc. YES I COULD WRITE A WHOLE ESSAY no I am not going to, it is there and canon. Again, whether it is romantic on one or both sides or not is open to interpretation but not terribly that open as it has Hisoka blushing and yelling when Tsuzuki says "I love you", Tsuzuki joking about carrying Hisoka to bed and Hisoka blushing, etc. They might not be *in* a romance, but when a pseudo-bl series has two characters who love each other and throw in jokes about romantic or sexual scenarios it is kind of the writing on the wall idk. It seems pretty clear that in canon they love each other and are in love but haven't gone anywhere or done anything about it, whether dating or sex. It is like romantic pre-slash. I guess.
Facts being what they are, if it's in a canon setting and universe, although they likely could end up being in an actual romance instead of just being romantic at each other, it is not going to become sexual. It basically can't! Hisoka is not in an emotional or psychological state to handle sex in canon. Will he be eventually? Yeah, probably. But he is absolutely not the type of guy to force himself to do anything when he's not ready for it and he's also very self-aware. And the fact is that in canon, since the time Muraki unlocks Hisoka's sealed memory of being raped, Hisoka has had nightly screaming nightmares. (Yes, Emerald, I am so sorry for what will happen to your sleep habits when Hisoka gets that memory back. HE WILL PROBABLY TALK TO DREAM AFTER THE FIRST FEW OR SOMETHING.). ANYWAY IN CONCLUSION there is a really strong reason why it is not and would not happen in canon for a good long time regardless of how romantic they got.
Obviously in Aather there are no such problems! Except also obviously in Aather the potential of it is hilariously dependant on an order of events that would have to happen like this:
1) Get memories back that let Hisoka know he loves Tsuzuki
2) Have enough interactions with Tsuzuki in Aather and of a kind that he can confirm he still has feelings for Tsuzuki *here*
3) Tsuzuki get back the right memories of Hisoka for HIM to realize he loves Hisoka
4) Something pushes one of them to actually talk about it after both have had these realizations.
5) Something pushes one or both of them to act on it after they talk about it.
6) This all occurs BEFORE Hisoka remembers Muraki trauma
7) ...OR before Tsuzuki remembers that Hisoka has Muraki trauma because I imagine Tsuzuki would also not act on it then
LITERALLY if anything else had occurred it would really have not gone this route. Sure, we ship it, but we actually never talked about the prospect, probably because we were aware the series of events to end up with sexytimes or even an acknowledged romance was kind of hilariously stacked against the possibility. The first time we talked about it was when Hisoka was drunkenly inviting Tsuzuki back to his cabin.
SO HOW DID IT HAPPEN.
Well, obv Hisoka hasn't got Muraki Trauma back yet, for one, and Tsuzuki neither -- Tsuzuki knows Muraki is a little creepy and Hisoka doesn't have any Muraki memories back. So that basically means the ABILITY to do so is there.
Now, Hisoka's memories! Yeah, they fell in the above categories. He remembered Tsuzuki first with an aggravated fondness, then he remembered one of his big "I love Tsuzuki and will always stay with him" memories. At which point he was aware he was in love with Tsuzuki! He did have some of his "We are not having a good time together" memories shortly after, BUT mixed in with those was the memory where he comforted Tsuzuki that "we might be at the bottom, but that just means the worst is behind us and we're only going up from here". So he views ALL those "ugh you're annoying" memories in light of that other memory, that they may have rough times but always intend to stay together and keep moving up. SO BASICALLY he has spent since Feb 5 OOCly (Day 10 ICly) aware that he is in love with Tsuzuki and kind of keeping a lid on it because he's not going to bring that up until TSUZUKI remembers it.
And then Tsuzuki got the SAME MEMORY HISOKA DID, and on TSUZUKI'S side it's where Hisoka was hugging him and reassuring him and saying everything Tsuzuki needed to hear and staying by him in one of Tsuzuki's darker moments etc etc. So TSUZUKI became aware that Hisoka and he are damn well devoted to and love each other, etc.
Along the way they have obviously threaded a lot and yeah the actually caring for each other here element was established too. /handwaves this, it is just kind of there.
SO THAT IS 1-3 and 6-7.
So then there was a Three game and Emerald all decided within around 20 minutes and then had some time to kill. So we sat around doing each other's hair. And since we were joking about it being a girly sleepover I was like lol why not and, since Viridian had Rabbit on Coral, had Hisoka grumblingly and tsunderely prod him for romantic advice. WHAT DO, WHY WAS I PROGRAMMED TO FEEL LOVE etc. I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS MY FEELINGS.
And then they didn't die and everyone was high on life. And since it was on his mind, in the endgame, Hisoka prodded Tsuzuki to hear TSUZUKI'S feelings and got a pretty positive "I like you." "So is it some kind of pervy romantic interest." "I-it's not pervy!" Which obviously said a few things about what it was, ie, romantic.
Then he was a dbag and didn't say his OWN feelings. But he knew Tsuzuki would call him on it sooner or later. AND THERE WAS A PARTY and he and Lloyd hung out and Lloyd made fun of him and referred to his thing for Hound when Hisoka commented on his own low alcohol tolerance ("If you pass out I'll carry you back to Emerald and make Hound jealous") -- and Hisoka of course blushed and protested, especially as it was on his mind, which means that Lloyd was like LOL SERIOUSLY? HILARIOUS. Go confess, drink a bit it'll help. So Hisoka drank.
And then he and Tsuzuki flirted and ate food and flirted and Hisoka got them booze because he knew where this was going and Hisoka drank a lot really quickly for fortification, which means that he was feeling quite pleasantly WHAT THE HELL, GO WITH THE FLOW. Which is not his usual state of being. Here comes 4-5, yeah.
So Tsuzuki asks, and Hisoka confesses I WANT TO SPEND FOREVER WITH YOUUU and Tsuzuki obviously finds this pretty cool, so they get their makeout on, and they both find THAT pretty cool, so they get their sexytimes on, so you know. That happened.
They have not talked since but I imagine the overall thoughts around it are, on both sides, "That was pretty good" "Man we were drunk" "That would probably be better if we weren't drunk" "I sure hope it isn't skeevy and awkward that we were both so drunk, we should probably figure that out" "lol we moved fast huh" "I have no regrets actually". (ADDENDUM: showed it to Tsuzuki and she said Tsuzuki's were mostly "THAT WAS FUN, I DO LIKE SEX WITH HISOKA I kinda have a hangover now though.")
And then our HILARIOUS TEAMS and then of course Hisoka takes a memory which, dramatic irony being what it is, is all about the same guy he just got into a relationship with going COMPLETELY insane with despair to the point where Hisoka, having been drowned in his feelings, can't believe will ever recover. This is a scene that, in canon, when he finally wakes up again (three days later) he is not coping for basically the only time in the entire manga (until Tatsumi kicks him into coping again. SEE COPING/SELF-AWARENESS). Fortunately, Knife was there and as well as going up about three social links in one conversation, took Tatsumi's role in kicking him into coping by coming up with a plan of attack: it hasn't happened, talk to Tsuzuki and tell him to not take his memories until Knife has her telepathic skills back so she can punch his mind into working again when he gets the crazymaking memory.
So Hisoka, after spending some time to just try to get himself together, has a plan to talk to Tsuzuki and right now the "new relationship" element of things is so far behind the don'tgocrazydon'tgocrazy element of things that he is totally not going to realize how it sounds when he tells Tsuzuki "We have to talk" the very first conversation they have after having drunken sex where Tsuzuki snuck out early in the morning (and after Tsuzuki is unbalanced from taking a trauma memory of his own).
I could not have planned this if I'd tried. It is freaking amazing.
Hisoka and Muraki
SMALL SECTION THIS TIME YAY Hisoka does not remember Muraki at all, though he knows Muraki is from his world because Muraki told him -- helpfully, in fact, by letting him know some details he'd discovered about Hisoka from one of his memories, namely that he was dead and worked in some afterlife business with Tsuzuki. (How Muraki found this out was by getting a memory of kidnapping and torturing Hisoka but Muraki thoughtfully left that part out of the explanation). He knows Tsuzuki has remembered Muraki being a bit creepy/off but also that Tsuzuki hasn't remembered much else about Muraki and, hey, Hisoka knew that already from the kind of weird reactions Silver sometimes has, and it hasn't bothered him. Some people are creepy sometimes, fact.
So basically, he likes "Silver"! Not intimately but he appreciates the kindness Silver has shown him. Silver provided him information about himself, stayed by him and loaned him his jacket when he died in the first Three game, and has generally been affable, thoughtful, and generous.
THIS IS ALSO A LIMITED WINDOW OF OPPORTUNITY and I'm gonna try to remember to poke Muraki to play with me before you know I get back memories filled with hate and loathing and trauma and bad things. Hurr hurr. It will also be interesting if he does/doesn't get his empathy back before those memories -- basically how things will go with Muraki are totally up in the air and every memory is the fuse drawing closer to the powder keg.
Hisoka and Facial Expressions
I TOLD YOU THIS WAS IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER.
If you have threaded with Hisoka you probably notice he doesn't actually have a vast range of facial expressions! This is, though not dwelled on, canon. It's definitely not an art slip of any kind as it is brought up briefly at least once (Hisoka's exhausted and miserable and one of the Gushoshin asks how he's doing, and completely deadpan he points to himself and is like, "I'm so exhausted I want to puke, can't you tell?" and they're like "N-no." Later Tsuzuki shows up and is like "Oh hey, you okay? You look tired," and the Gushoshin are all, "...those two..."). SO YEAH Hisoka doesn't have a big range of facial expressions and people tend to have to be close to him to interpret the minute differences in canon.
This might seem like a minor thing to notice, but it isn't. Basically: in 12 full volumes of manga he never smiles or laughs.
Hisoka knows! He's not good at it. He can't do it. Positive expression in particular just won't work. It's completely uncomfortable and he'd rather talk deadpan than force it. He CAN express frustration, anxiety, anger, embarrassment, etc, but it basically starts at deadpan and then drops to those whether he's positive or negative about something. (He also rarely cries, though it HAS happened in canon.)
At first in Aather it sort of confused him but he put it down to a personal quirk. Then he got some memories back and, in conversation later with Lloyd he realized that, oh, of course. If he was punished/abused since he was a very young child for showing empathy, then any emotion he showed that his family didn't understand the origins of he would also be punished/abused for. He figures at this point that it's something so deeply ingrained that there isn't really anything he can do about it, and is satisfied with his explanation especially as it covers his particular difficulty expressing any of the positive emotions he feels! He has a full range of emotion, it just kind of... stops before it reaches his face.
He is pretty self-conscious that this might make him look uncaring to others, and he now thinks that both his inability and his self-consciousness about it is apparent since Asuka used it as a source when lashing out at him to try to push him away in the fight. But he's solidly of the "If it's not going to happen, it's not going to happen" opinion and doesn't worry about it. THIS IS PART OF THE COPING/SELF-AWARENESS THING I WILL GET TO.
Anyway yeah characters are always welcome to notice that, because although it's not always as clear in icons, he really does have a facial range expression that basically goes from -10 to 1 and tends to over around 0. His voice tends to match it, but can get softer and more warmth than his face tends to get.
Hisoka and Coping/self-awareness
GOD OK I COULD TALK FOREVER ABOUT THIS HOW DO I GET MY THOUGHTS IN ORDER. Basically, Hisoka is a coping machine. He has like an auto-cope function, like his camera coming into focus or something. BEFORE I APPED I RAMBLED AT SERA ABOUT THIS FOREVER YOU WOULD THINK I WOULD HAVE BETTER WORDS FOR IT BY NOW.
Basically, one of Hisoka's major character traits is that he is incredibly stable. Which is, you know, kind of surprising! He has a background of abuse and trauma. He was murdered. He is living for revenge. His is afraid of becoming like his murderer. He has to take people's lives and investigate horrible crimes as part of his afterlife. This is not a collection of events one generally assumes stability or functionality from.
But Hisoka does! He has all the outward signs of someone who shouldn't be able to function healthily, but he's actually pretty healthy. Even the living for revenge thing! At one point in the manga, he explicitly goes, (paraphrased), "Okay, I'm living for revenge, but I'm also planning for the future. Right now, my revenge gives me the drive I need. But it's not going to end at revenge. Frankly, having something to live for isn't a bad thing, and it gives me the time to get closer to the people I love, to open out more, and to develop into someone who will have something else to live for when my revenge is done."
AND THAT IS THE TYPE OF CHARACTER HE IS IN A NUTSHELL which is the whole autocope. He's self-aware! He looks at all of his issues and problems and huge emotional gulfs and damage and analyses it and doesn't run away from it and then draws conclusions from this analysis and, as a result is basically okay with it. Are some things terrible and unforgivable? Yes. Have they changed him? Yes. Can he live with those changes and look at where he went wrong and decide how he wants to behave in the future? Yes.
Say what you want about Yami no Matsuei's writing (and there is a loooot of fair criticism to have here hahaha) but one thing Matsushita is very good at is setting the two protagonists up as foils for each other. Hisoka, who has all the outward traits of the traumatized, IS traumatized, but he's also stable and functional because he examines his trauma, figures out the boundaries and limits of it, and always works immediately on discovering a trauma to try to roll with it. In contrast, Tsuzuki is cheery and friendly and a huge people person, social and kind and infinitely capable of loving humanity despite the terrible things he does, and under that outside he is a hot mess. He is a wreck. Tsuzuki has zero coping skills on a day to day basis. When something terrible happens, he projects his own guilt over it even if it's outside of his control and lets it eat him alive. Both characters react emotionally, but Hisoka then looks at what happens and analyses it and works out intellectually how to approach it, while Tsuzuki breaks down, cries, avoids the subject, and tries to hide his pain until it builds up and overwhelms him (which it does fairly often, and overwhelming him never actually lances it -- he seems a little better after, but then it starts building from there and the next breakdown tends to be worse).
So basically one of the things I love about YnM, drama fest as it often is, is that it's never PURELY DRAMATIC -- the drama is part of the characters and how they react to the terrible events that occur.
So yeah, Hisoka. Does this! Like, in one chapter he shoots a girl. And he shoots her because she asks him to, because she's already been shot and is dying slowly and can't really be saved and wants to be put out of her misery, but he also shoots her because he is horrified that despite Muraki doing HORRIBLE THINGS TO HER she still loves Muraki (and, note, something he addresses in this arc is that it means he can also feel her love! And although he can separate other people's emotions from his, he feels them LIKE his own. So yeah he feels what it's like to love Muraki and IS NOT OKAY WITH THIS). And faced with that he shoots her! And he is not okay with that side of himself either. He sobs on Tsuzuki but even as he's breaking down he does think about it -- about what he did, about why he did it, about his fears about that (becoming like Muraki himself), and he forces himself to address it. And as a result, he's okay. IT'S never okay, and he is always angry about what happened to her and why he did these things, but it's something he acknowledges, knows the shape of, and decides how he wants to approach the future as a result. And if people rub it in his face he'll get angry and hurt, because it's still a terrible thing, but ultimately he is functioning with this without it becoming a poison in him. (While everyone Tsuzuki kills becomes a poison to Tsuzuki, basically).
And again, this is a reasonable element of his characterization that developed just from being an empath. He DOES feel other people's emotions as his own, so he has to have a constant mechanism in him that separates other people's emotions, and to do that, he has to be able to look at and analyse his own responses to things even while they happen. Which doesn't mean he doesn't have responses! Again, Hisoka has a full emotional depth and has very, very strong emotional reactions to things. And it doesn't mean he won't lash out as a result, because he definitely does react. But it means that his ability to understand those reactions is incredibly high and something he is very instinctively skilled at.
So basically Hisoka wobbles but he don't fall down. Reactions happen! And are real! And continue to have emotional impact! And he has SO MANY FEELINGS GOD. But he's able to take the 'danger zone' out of them most of the time (the only real exception is the trauma of Tsuzuki going insane and, like I said, Tatsumi kicks him BACK into coping mode with one conversation).
OH YEAH more on Hisoka and coping/analysis! Because he sorts through this stuff he also like... is often okay talking about stuff which is not normally okay to talk about! This is also the way he isn't a true tsundere. He doesn't tend to do the undetailed "I'm fine!" if someone asks if he's okay when he''s not. Tsuzuki does at one point actually, and Hisoka gets really hurt because it reads to him as a violation of that trust. I know you're not okay! Don't tell me you're okay! Don't you trust me! So if there's someone he trusts he will generally just tell them what is up. Even if it is like "Oh jesus." EXAMPLE, paraphrased from memory:
[Tsuzuki and Hisoka are walking down a hall at the bureau together]
Tsuzuki: "Hey, you okay Hisoka? You're looking kind of pale. Have you been eating and bathing properly?"
Hisoka: "I've been taking care of myself, don't worry. I just have that dream every night."
Tsuzuki: "Dream?"
Hisoka: "About the time Muraki raped me."
The entire tone/body language here is casual. It is not an okay dream! He is exhausted! But the thing that caused it, well, you know, it is a thing and this is how it is relevant, what can you do.
So yeah he uh. Does that too. "Yeah I took a memory and there was screaming and fainting and puking. It wasn't very pretty." That is a thing that happened bro, since you were asking, just thought you should know. ABSURD BLASENESS SOMETIMES.
Hisoka and Empathy (and other skills)
HISOKA IS REALLY TORN ON WANTING HIS EMPATHY BACK.
Because he does! It is a sense that he has had his entire life. It is a thing that, you know, is basically another sense to him. Not having it is like going through without one of his primary senses. In all of his memories he is constantly getting information as part of the empathy, as much as sight and sound. Without it now he does feel like he's navigating blind or deaf sometimes in dealing with other people. IT IS A LOT OF GUESSING.
That said, it is not exactly the most fun sense to have. Like if part of vision was BUT EVERY LIGHT IS BRIGHT AND PAINFUL or if part of sound was EVERY SOUND IS LOUD AND I HAVE TINNITUS. That is empathy.
Also he's like
man
Trauma games will be fun.
So yeah basically, "Know I will get it, sort of need it as a basic sense, so want to get now and learn to deal with but ughhh not really looking forward to a lot of elements of it. Also including the people who will react badly to having their feelings 'spied on'."
I have a full writeup on empathy for when he gets the skill back so not bothering with it here, haha, but it's of course empathy as written by Matsushita which means sometimes it's actually telepathy and sometimes he doesn't notice totally normal things so that is magical too.
Hisoka and bonding with people
Hisoka on the whole wants to get to know people, sure. He's fairly social for a kid who was locked in the basement and had his parents threatening to kill him and was shown his own tombstone and has psychic powers etc etc. It doesn't mean that it is easy for him to relate to others or for them to relate to him, though, for a variety of reasons including the lack of expressiveness, his tendency to be sarcastic and biting to people he likes, his difficulty knowing how to deal with other people's emotional outbursts or help people out, etc. It doesn't mean he doesn't want to! There's a scene in the manga where Tsuzuki's very depressed and Hisoka goes to Tatsumi and is like, "Tatsumi, I have no ability to help cheer people up and I am terrible at emotional support, please spend all day coddling Tsuzuki for me because I really can't." And Tatsumi's like, I think you are better than you think you are but yeah, it is not his strength and he knows it.
(Relatedly this is why he has been awkward about approaching Beauty even though he wants to get to know all the personae and learn what's going on etc. WHAT IF SHE CRIES. SHE SEEMS TO CRY A LOT. WHAT DO I DO. GOD WHAT IF THE FACT I LIKE MALEFICENT MAKES HER CRY. THIS IS INTIMIDATING.)
Anyway, as a result a lot of the people he's got closest to are not unemotional but are kind of laid back and/or handle a lot of things in similar ways to him -- if not intellectualizing, at least taking it as a Thing That Happened, Let's Roll. Other than Tsuzuki (since this is addressing an outside of canon thing), he is probably closest to Lloyd, Mint, KK and, hilariously, Maleficent. These are all people who take bad news with a sort of "Yeah, wow, jeez," roll their way through things, and shrug off his sharp and often brutal sense of humour. Like his fake fight with Lloyd! They were drawing on elements that could actually be insulted as well as totally absurd over the top things -- like, Lloyd talked about Hisoka's obsession with intellectualism while Hisoka called Lloyd an idiot. Neither of them took any of this to heart. With a lot of characters, people could unwittingly hit sore points or low confidence, but both were like "Yeah whatever". Hisoka basically needs this because he does not really turn off the harsh sarcasm easily. It's sort of his headvoice towards himself too. In canon he can often look really mean to Tsuzuki who gets a lot of the worst of it as his closest friend and confidante. So like -- I cannot overemphasize how total this is and how tied up it is with his total ability to cope. At one point, Muraki is sexually harassing Tsuzuki and wins Tsuzuki's body in a card game and Hisoka shows up and jokes with Muraki that he should pay him for Tsuzuki (Muraki agrees and makes Hisoka a monetary offer, btw). Hisoka loathes Muraki! Hisoka is traumatized by his rape! Hisoka doesn't want anything bad to happen to Tsuzuki! BUT HE DOES THIS. (TBF he then challenges Muraki to cards to get Tsuzuki back but only after he makes Tsuzuki whine at him. Nooo wayyy, Hisokaaaa!!!).
But in canon basically everyone who is close to him knows not to take it seriously. Tsuzuki doesn't! THANKFULLY. He seems to take it as just part of Hisoka and while he is even more adorable (according to Tsuzuki) when he's too sleepy or overheated to get riled up, Tsuzuki doesn't really mind. Their routine is usually "Say something bitchy""Whine about it" "Cool let's go do a thing."
That doesn't mean he doesn't want to get close to others and won't try to! He just enters a realm of WHAT DO when dealing with them. Everything is a much bigger minefield. So like, talking to Ginshu after Three's nontrauma game. YOU ARE UPSET AND SAD. I CARE ABOUT YOU. HOW DO I SAY... THINGS WHICH ARE COMFORTING.... WHILE ALSO SAYING THE TRUTH.... :|aaaa
So basically he may like you but be ADRIFT AT SEA ABOUT HOW TO TALK/RELATE.
In Emerald because of this, he gets along easiest with Viridian and Knife, who are both similar, then recognizes Cloud as -- different? Not applicable? and doesn't approach him from that perspective. And then Lion and Ginger are at the bottom because although he CARES ABOUT THEM DEEPLY he is like WHAT DO I SAY WITHOUT SOMEHOW BEING UPSETTING? MAYDAY MAYDAY I'LL JUST BE STIFF AND AWKWARD FOR A BIT. (Mage is not on this list because Hisoka doesn't know him well yet, but he'll probably be closer to Viridian and Knife in ease of dealing with).
Emerald and our Policies
SPEAKING OF EMERALD...
Hisoka likes his team and he's proud of his team. They are on the whole pretty cool. He finds it kind of funny, in a detatched way, that Emerald is either IN PERFECT HARMONY or arguing incessantly. We are a team full of opinions. Loud opinions.
He suspects that he has different opinions from a lot of them on things but so far it hasn't actually been too big a deal. LIKE HE ACTUALLY DOESN'T HATE THREE which I know a bunch of Emerald do. And moving into this let's talk about team suicide and Hisoka's feelings on death.
The two teams who are known to self-sacrifice are of course Emerald and Citrine. And in both cases this isn't because of any actual suicidal bent. As I joked the other day, for Emerald it's like FUCK YOU WE DO WHAT WE WANT, SUCK ON OUR VALUES. While Citrine appear to be BADASS MOTHERFUCKERS WHO DO NOT FEAR DEATH.
Hisoka on death is interesting as a) obviously he is dead and b) he works in a job which is all about the necessity of mortality and he copes with that way better than Tsuzuki does despite (...or because...) of working the job a lot less. To be a shinigami you have to die with regrets and be able to cope with the fact that your main duties are investigating deaths that shouldn't happen and killing people who are supposed to die but for some reason haven't. Basically the job relies on an assumption that the flow of death is vital to maintain and you don't want to fuck it up, and shinigami are the bitch agents who keep the plumbing of life and death running.
That doesn't mean that he likes killing or death! Or anything like that. But as a shinigami he is part of a system that relies on the necessity of death under some circumstances and the necessity to NOT die under other circumstances. Which, okay, in Aather Hisoka doesn't remember a LOT, but he does remember the basic tenets of being a Shinigami and can extrapolate.
So basically he's like, if Three requires this choice, then he's like, I get that. This choice may actually be necessary to her. Sometimes life and death is tied to a great, huge system beyond us and making choices that relate to this can have a huge amount of power. It might be her speciality like it was apparently that of nearly everyone I knew back home or more so. Beyond that, he doesn't think she's a terribly bad person by what he's seen, if a harsh one -- see also appreciating their approach and having enough of a sense of humour to give them ribbons.
THAT SAID, team sacrifice is team sacrifice! He is not going to kill people if it doesn't seem necessary, and while they have the option to sacrifice themselves, SURE. Hisoka is, actually, a self-sacrificial character surprisingly! He is one because he CAN regenerate -- but that's the same in aather. They can die and they can die horribly and it will be REALLY UNPLEASANT but that's all it is; they get better. Hisoka canonically does things like swap places with someone else to get hacked into pieces because he can take it and he knows he can. Does he want it? WELL, NO. Will he do it? Yeah. Despite being a-ok with the job requirements, and despite often despairing of Tsuzuki's promises to protect people no matter what, he does this stuff. And he'll keep on at it in Aather when the opportunity presents because, yeah, those are his values. If the personae change the rules so he can't -- which he's expecting -- he's not going to have a fit over becoming a killer, because at that point they're out of options. But as long as it is an acceptable choice he will grit his teeth and take the pain. And since they're going to do it anyway as a wilful display of their preferences, he'd rather other people pile it on them even if it means more pain. Otherwise it's wasteful killing all around.
That said, he doesn't view it as a kindness to others or something to be praised for. Ultimately he views it as a selfishness, and while he is okay with that, he doesn't really know how to respond to anyone thanking him or apologizing.
Maleficent and Persona Politics
SPEAKING OF NOT PARTICULARLY MINDING THREE, Hisoka loves getting his nose all up in Personae business. Like, in multiple ways! He is interested in what he is doing here. The fact that they are here to save the Personae's world is one that he acknowledges and is basically rolling with, but there are obvious questions as a part of that which he wants answers to. What happened to their world in the first place? Why is it disappearing? Why are the Personae starting from such a low, low point instead of maintaining things when the problem first started? Did it happen suddenly? He wants to know. He wants to be able to learn, find these things out, work with the information he's getting to move forward, and he's not going to find that out by sitting back and just playing games when they happen.
Beyond that, there are obviously politics in play. DESPITE WHAT LLOYD IRVING SAYS (Okay he never said there WEREN'T, he just said he ignored them). There are two personae who have the most power, and they may or may not have this power because they are the only ones who can bring people over. Where by "the most power" I mean are acknowledged as leaders/people to follow by the other personae. It's that may or may not that intrigues Hisoka, combined with the fact that obviously either all personae are 100% behind the idea that bringing people over and playing games will do the job, OR they don't have the power/privilege to speak up. He doesn't know! Only talking to the personae will bring it out.
And then there is the Mal-Beauty thing, which he is very strongly of the opinion WILL affect the teams at some point even if they try to act professional around them. And that is probably fine, but it means Hisoka wants to understand it. He wants to learn more about them, about what happened, and be able to judge his own behaviour accordingly.
THAT SAID. Hisoka thinks of all the personae as people, not forces of power even though they are also actually forces of power. He's got a LOT of Imaginary World arc memories, wherein he is hanging out with strange legendary creatures who are both imaginary and real and who have also been gods in human history; who contain a great amount of power and may serve people or may not based on their inclination towards you. They have a rich society, and he remembers going there and wandering among it and trying not to fuck up but hanging out with them and some want to kill him and some are like HEY HISOKA LET'S BE FRIENDS. Like, he remembers being extremely uncomfortable around Sohryu, while Sohryu's son, Kijin, befriends him and is friendly, nice, and helpful -- while never bowing his head or agreeing to follow him. They are all people, he can interact with them like people, and the fact that they are powerful gods with specific elements and inclinations doesn't change that.
So when he meets personae, he reacts to them as people. Yeah, they know a lot of things he wants to know, and their politics are pretty relevant to his health and standing and ability to recover his own memories etc, but they're individuals. He can't justify treating them as a whole, and so he wants to meet them all and get to know at least a little about them. Obviously, this was part of talking to Mal in the first place, but they have hilariously good personalities to get along and they've ended up playing off each other quite well. He enjoys talking to her, but more to the point, he likes her. Of course, he thinks she's probably capable of terrible things, but that's neither here nor there. He genuinely considers her a friend despite the fact she has authority and power over him, and I totally added a new section to talk about as a result, but he gets the sense that she may feel the same. Their conversations are conversations, and though he sees where she leaves out information in answers he's not going to push because he doesn't view it as an interrogation, even if she has information he wants. They are now sharing books and she made him a mysterious wreath. It's hard to describe but she's fun to talk to. They have very similar interests and they're just as fine talking about those as talking about the nature of reality in games etc etc. Lloyd told him that she was sick last time he talked to her, so Hisoka's going to spend more time seeking her out, although he's a bit awkward between the "I know you're busy and also trying to manage all the teams and so on" thing though. He and Lloyd sort of plotted a "not really secret but neither of them are really talking about to others" plot to keep a friendly eye on her if she needs help, since they don't think anyone else except Onyx have the same view of her as a friend or at least warm acquaintance.
That said, with his brain that doesn't turn off, he's aware of the fact that being friends with Maleficent could result in interfering in politics despite his intent not to pick sides on a professional, following-a-persona level -- because being Mal's friend might equate to being Beauty's enemy. That doesn't mean he's going to stop. But he's aware of it so he will cope with it if it happens, basically.
Hisoka and Authority
LIKE I SAIIIID. Okay so HERE IS SOME CANON ON HISOKA AND AUTHORITY which is all background stuff and never really talked about. Hisoka is an aristocrat! He is from an old noble samurai family and his family is stinking rich and kind of the town governors where they're from. I think. (/BOTHERING TO REREAD THE KUROSAKI FAMILY MEDICAL DRAMA SECTIONS OF THE IMAGINARY WORLD ARC? NOT FOR ME I mean it's not like it's ever relevant to Hisoka himself EXCEPT FOR THINGS LIKE THIS). I am pretty sure town governors is right because Hisoka's uncle is mad at his father for getting to be the family head for that reason or something like that. Actually let me check. OKAY FOUND IT. They are an illustrious family which has lived there since the Kamakura period; their house is a national historic site. The ancestor of the Kurosaki family was a hero who saved their village by killing a god, and they are revered so everyone, mayor police etc bow to the Kurosaki family. They are also revered because the village is casting the dead god's curse on the Kurosaki family in return for it blah blah blah ANYWAY. VERY prestigious family, and Hisoka was the only heir. He was abused, maltreated, and so on -- we know his mother beat him and wanted him killed, he was locked in the basement when he showed any sign of his empathy, etc etc. But he was also raised to be the heir! He has a wide variety of traditional Japanese aristocracy/samurai family skills as a result. He was expected to take the villager's near worship as his due (though we never see a sign that he did -- he thinks at one point about how he made up a friendly world with friends his age to comfort himself back then).
But of course, now that he is dead he is a bureaucrat, basically, and really low down on the food chain. The shinigami job has some respect and is considered a tough job to be able to do but it is also basically the bitch work nobody wants to do. He answers to a chief of his department and there are aristocrats who outrank the shinigami all around. And Hisoka adjusts to this just fine.
Basically, with this upbringing, he has a mindset where he can understand an aristocrat's role and the power they should have but at the same time is not in that position of power himself anymore. What it does mean is a little more of a view of himself as someone who is, if not an equal, able to talk on the same level on subjects... even while he is polite and deferential IN that talk.
LLOYD "READ A BOOK" IRVING
ATTENTION, INTERNET: I MADE LLOYD IRVING READ PART OF A BOOK. NEWS AT ELEVEN. I AM CLEARLY A BAMF.
I thought about putting an actual talk here about Lloyd and how amazing and hilarious it is that they have become so close given that at first it wasn't working between them - friendly and distant -- but no, I will leave it at READING RAINBOW WITH LLOYD IRVING. She tried to edit my essay when it was in the gdoc to disapprove of this message btw.
Pants
By Ginshu's request. Hisoka likes pants, and definitely prefers them to dresses. He has become accustomed to seeing Cloud without them but he looks forward to the day pants happen.
Pants.
ANY QUESTIONS OR TOPICS I SHOULD ALSO SPEAK TO because as you can tell from the above I totally will. Ugh I only reread like half of this for clarity before I got sick of doing so, apologies.
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oh I know what my quest will be now Viola
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I
I don't have much to say, except your essay powers are amazing and yay always talk about Hisoka!! Super happily surprised it worked out in Aather like it did. ♥
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How does he feel about it as well? Enjoys being around everyone or doesn't like the system?
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He's not a fan of getting kidnapped and having his memories lost, but he has a sense it came out of a place of desperation, though he's not sure if he's right, and so he's cautious about getting too upset about it. He definitely appreciates the...m mm... opportunity? That having a team represents, also.
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ALSO ALSO MURAKI SHOULD TAKE YOU OUT ON A DATE AND TELL YOU ABOUT HIMSELF :D
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Yeah that sounds like a brill idea to me. WE SHOULD DO THAT BEFORE IT ALL GOES TO CANON.
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