yeah got it i mean. i’ll approach the rest of this on an even keel for what it’s worth but i’ll admit it is very very frustrating to discuss vbs with someone who self-admittedly doesn’t like them. and also that i didn’t mention anything that wasn’t in global lol it’s all pretty established stuff. i also understand that vbs requires a level of suspension of disbelief people aren’t often willing to grant it and that’s fine. it’s just not a story for you and that’s totally okay. so if i sound aggressive or frustrated then it’s mostly because i get pretty sad talking about the flaws of my favorite unit with someone who doesn’t like them, and the wider trend of people not really caring about vbs/their characters/their story and not even reading their events but complaining about them anyway. my apologies there.

okay for starters i do think you’re again missing my point maybe. yes it would’ve been interesting theoretically if they’d partnered up because it would’ve gone poorly but they wouldn’t have done that. they would have to discard key, established aspects of their character to make that decision in the first place, regardless of how much it’d make good commentary on their actual relationships, the importance of their partners, etc. like i don’t know how to emphasize enough that given what we know about them, it would be deeply out of character for them to choose to become partners at that point in time. there is no in-character justification for them to do so and i am not willing to compromise on that interpretation just because it’d be “more interesting.” i’m very hardline on this.

if you don’t mind me going line by line here i’ll keep explaining why i don’t see the necessity of it. “having the same dreams and goals isn’t enough” this is a point i established, though? that they already know. if they believed this, the akito/an partnership would’ve happened earlier. but they don’t, so it didn’t. i don’t really think it’s something worth rehashing.

“things may not be terrible but they’re always worse than reality” -> i agree and what i personally enjoy about vbs wl2 is that it is objectively a bad end for them. if they did not reunite on vivid street because of miku’s interference then bad dogs would have permanently separated, and maybe vivids would have gotten back together but ultimately struggled without support and advice that aided their sub arc. that’s really fun to me. to that end: it is already understood that world is worse than their current one. an has nightmares about losing kohane afterward and clings to her in the hotel room. touya similarly is disturbed by the dream and says it reminds him to hold on tight to what he cares about, and cherish the present moment. these are post-event mysekai lines so it’s a little buried. akito’s side story has him think back on how appreciative he is of touya’s constant presence at his side, which reflects on how insistent he was on going at his dream alone in wl2 and reinforces the idea that it was a bad end.

“the point would be all four of them are missing something they can’t quite define” is a sentiment i feel is expressed plenty well in touya’s chapter especially, but kohane and an’s too. i’m leaving akito out because he intentionally obfuscates his emotional state, but he does have this constant feeling of “something is wrong, something’s not right, but i have to keep going anyway.” so actually no yeah they all apply in my view. i also feel like the current wl2 ending was far too convenient (as a flaw of the medium necessitating they had to get back together somehow) and if they just handwaved akian being partners and touya/kohane just Feeling like they had to come back then i’d find that even more distasteful. like i truly don’t mean to be rude i’m just not really convinced what you’re bringing to the table is any sufficiently better than what currently exists.

i do agree the length is sort of an issue and that i didn’t necessarily mind vbs wl1’s length because it manages to get its point across. it’s my issue with wl3 where the first few are messy and not great and wl3.5 is the perfected formula. i don’t really have much to add here ‘cuz it’s like yeah i do wish they were better about some exposition points and also some weird logistical stuff (i do think the way akitouya meet back up is bullshit. i don’t know where they’re getting that flight money from. but also it’s a nightmare world and i don’t really care.) so like. yea…

on the aibou relationships i agree somewhat as well. i think their story up through ORS is perfectly fine; the reason for being together as a group of four is “to surpass RAD WEEKEND” and that objective is met. i didn’t really mention any of my thoughts on the matter because i consider wl2 a separate story on a different world line lol but if we shift tracks to canon then like, yeah, i do wish “the reason for still being together” was more of a question leading up to aim higher and such. this is a common complaint in the jp fandom as well, but not necessarily “the continued existence of partners,” rather “the continued existence of vivid bad squad as a unit,” specifically because they have already completed their initial goal. “taking over the world” is much more vague as a goal, and they’ve been slowly working toward clarifying it. but most vbs fans are waiting for this to blow up in their face somehow. so. i can get behind that much.

the partners as far as i’m concerned are pretty hard locked as a relationship and always will be, lowkey because Yeah that’s just how partners are. because on the same token of that question, what reason do the partners have to separate? they’re more than best friends, the closest people in each other’s lives, soulmates in all but name. (getting insane) the real question i agree is with the unit. and also just adding that vbs aren’t necessarily subverting it, because RADDER was a set of partners + nagi. though interestingly america arc hasn’t really addressed the specific quirk of vbs being partners, perhaps because the concept doesn’t really exist in the same way? but colopale is probably signaling it does matter via embers and illys being two sets of gender-split twins.

in general what i feel like you’re looking for in vbs i found already in the ankoha sub-arc, with akito and touya both giving an advice based on their different approaches to their own relationship, and the struggles they had. akian and antouya’s dynamics here built up both akitouya and ankoha’s relationships, helped reaffirm their bonds to each other, and shows precisely why the two-partner pair setup works for them; because of akitouya’s years of experience, they’re able to help the fledgling ankoha sort out their troubles. and um (glancing at the camera) hopefully it goes the other way around sometime.

anyway. that was a lot of words from someone who loves vbs very much. ultimately i think i am willing to give vbs a lot more grace and will engage with the story it presents in comparison. i’m not really someone who would complain and wish it was written completely differently, but rather works with the new information and tries to interpret it in the existing framework. so i’ve got a lot of rationalizations for things non-vbs fans might not see worth in figuring out. and i’m also severely aiboubrained so i don’t question their bond. the word itself is very, very heavy and not something you use lightly, so if they’ve already established that bond then i’ll simply believe that they’d stay together through anything.

bwehhh. i do appreciate you taking the time to chat with me though. it’s nice giving my brain a workout because i too love to talk long. the wl2 matter may have to be an agree to disagree thing though sorry bjgkdjfkggj

im gonna answer this because im bored as fawk rn. ok there’s a specific af25 that lives in my head and it is actually mostly reliant on af25 touya being as weird as he is because i do think af25 akito is like, similar enough to normal akito? meanwhile touya’s mindset is way different (seems like it anyway). i’ve talked about it a few times but i’m also really fond of just normal akito & af25 touya if you want the extra doomed evil flavor. because that starts to become very “you look like my partner but you’re nothing like him” horror stuff.

“ok you haven’t actually explained anything though” i’m gonna do that. what akito repeatedly says he appreciates the most about touya is that touya’s always there and willing to get back up whenever they get knocked down. that he never ever complained about it, just quietly stood up again and kept going. because that was belief in akito too; belief and trust in his dream & his ability to keep pushing toward it, so that some day they could make it come true. to me it’s the singular thing you can point to as what akito truly loves in touya because of how often he brings it up When talking about how much he appreciates touya (mainsto and wl2 come to mind specifically). akito is not someone who wants to be comforted or pitied or told to take a break if it’s too much for him. he’d actually really really really hate that and it’d probably make him even more reckless, thinking he’s being underestimated. especially from touya it’d be a perceived betrayal of that trust. a lapse in the belief akito thought touya had in him.

af2025 touya is on a team of villains whose entire goal is to stop people from working hard. like straight up their tagline is “we won’t let mankind give their all.” touya specifically is someone who carries this out through words (“i’ll reaffirm anything you say”) which. as you will notice. is antithetical to akito’s entire existence. they take the exact trait that akito adored so much in touya and inverted it completely. so it’s like… to akito, touya as zen koutei becomes someone he just can’t get along with at all, frustrated with these constant attempts to get him to “give up” <— how he’d take it anyway. touya… i think he’s still genuinely impressed by both akito/orange eagle for his relentless work ethic but his role on devoted evil kind of dictates he’s meant to put a stop to that. i imagine his worry about akito pushing himself too hard is in part genuine though. because he likes him and doesn’t want him getting hurt. it just (waving hands around vaguely) you know. akito’s whole thing.

they’re pretty much doomed in the secret identity way if they are friends outside of the herovillain thing. i never got into miraculous so don’t say anything about that. but i imagine there’s a possible confrontation of like. touya are you only doing these things and saying stuff like this because of your villain shit or do you actually feel this way? because if you’re doing this as a villain, i’m going to have to stop you since i’m the hero here. something like that.

if you throw normal akito/fuel akito tbh into the mix instead it gets worse (better) because he knows how “his” touya is supposed to be and zen koutei is nothing like him. you get to play with akito’s deeply moralistic thinking in that this version of touya becomes something unforgivable, in that he wears his partner’s face and speaks in his partner’s voice and says things akito would never ever want to hear out of his mouth. such an abject feeling of wrongness that brushes against how much he cares about touya. struggling with whether or not he should actually hear this guy out vs black/white thinking. i mention fuel because akito’s intro verse for it has him literally saying “do not reaffirm my weak points it’d actually make me worse” which again is exactly what zen koutei does.

i dunnooooo. i think it’s wonderfully doomed because zen koutei’s duty is one that is at complete odds with everything that makes akito himself and so i seriously doubt they’d be able to get along in any capacity. at least on akito’s end toward touya. it’s a really awesome flavor that i wish people did more with… hopefully this helps. smiles.

i like it so far! i felt pretty mixed on it up until compfire but after that rotation it started growing on me, esp the new npcs. there's interesting stuff being set up with rush beats that will probably come up again soon, limits/gao is pushing akty in a very curious direction that i hope colopale commits to re: passion and work ethic.

however yeah i agree sometimes it feels like i'm reading a sequel bc of the sheer impact ors had. RW arc had the benefit of needing to introduce us to the characters with the earlier focuses, but now with these the events do a lot less character work than they used to. which isn't to say it's totally absent but it's just different. i'm sure it'll get really good though once we get to rush beats

as for the translations; certainly for vbs i find the early event stories suffered from how ensekai translated them. they've gotten better as of late but i'm still not really huge on it. of course fan tls can have their issues too, so i wouldn't take them as word of god but most times they do capture the character voice better. so tentatively yes i would recommend it ^_^