Click Here To Kill Your Past Self

I fully support Pluto as an aro symbol (x) but as a space scientist I cannot support any arguments that claim it's because Pluto should be a planet. The true reason Pluto is an aro symbol is precisely because people tie the amount of love and care this wonderful celestial body receives to which label it has. Just because a relationship with someone is not labeled as romantic should not mean that this relationship has to be treated as less worthy of time and care and effort. Just because Pluto is not labeled as a planet does not mean it is less worthy of our time and care and effort.

Here is another reason Pluto is aro: Pluto has a heart shaped region called the Tombaugh region:

[ID: an image of Pluto and it's heart shaped Tombaugh region, with the moon Charon in the background. End ID]

Now, Pluto and it's moon Charon are tidally locked, meaning they always face each other with the same hemisphere. Pluto's heart is always facing away from Charon. Some articles have phrased this as being tragically romantic, but I disagree! Here are two celestial objects orbiting each other for billions of years, and they are doing this while Pluto keeps it's heart hidden. Because in this case, love is not part of the equation that makes up their bond, romance does not play a part in their gravitational pull towards each other. That's aro as fuck, in my humble opinion.

While the source material clearly intends Xue Yang to be read as an orphan (perhaps orphaned so young he has no memory of his parents), I think it’s underexplored in fandom that he never ACTUALLY SAYS that his parents DIED, but rather that he was a child without parents. 

“He had neither dad nor mom nor money” (via the official english translation)

I think there’s something in here worth exploring about the possibility that Xue Yang was abandoned by his parents. 

Perhaps he remembers one or both of them and/or the event, perhaps he does not but just has a sense of it having happened, perhaps he has no memories of it at all but it still psychologically impacted his development. 

Just about every character in the story can be better understood by looking at how they were raised, and Xue Yang is CERTAINLY not an exception. 

There are myriad ways to interpret his childhood (though none of them stable, safe, or cared for), but I have been thinking a LOT lately about how being abandoned by his parents could have shaped him into who he later became.

His behavior in the Villainous Friends extra (wherein he, seemingly arbitrarily, breaks things and antagonizes people and then specifically challenges Jin Guangyao about paying for damages) COULD be interpreted as acting out in a way that’s common for children and teens with a history of abandonment who are testing the waters of just how much their new guardian/s will tolerate. This sort of behavior can be a self fulfilling prophesy as well as an attempt to prove to themselves that their expectations of rejection or punishment are correct.

If Xue Yang has only ever known the world to be a painful place where people reject and abandon him, then that’s how he expects the world to continue behaving. If suddenly someone defies this expectation, it is simultaneously a fascinating and wondrous thing, and also a threat to his worldview. After all, if THIS person can be kind and care for him, then why didn’t anyone else?

If JGY, who at this point is essentially just his handler, can be unconditionally patient with him… then why couldn’t others have been patient with him over much less? And why couldn’t his own parents, who had considerably higher responsibility to him, be as patient as JGY?

It’s much easier to push and push and push until you break the patience and prove your cynicism correct, than it is to grapple with those painful questions. And after all, Jin Guangyao had an exterior force (Jin Guangshan) requiring him to show patience. And once that force was removed, so was Xue Yang. This, perhaps, felt as much like validation as it did betrayal.

There might be a parallel to be made here, too, about how JGY was and felt betrayed/abandoned by his father. This in common might be something that they bonded over.

And of course, as always, there’s Yi City.

Xue Yang expects Xiao Xingchen to abandon him, and his elaborate “revenge” was at least in part in preparation for that anticipated betrayal. He “knows” he will be betrayed and, perhaps unlike what happened with Jin Guangyao, he intends to be ready for it this time. Ready to punish Xiao Xingchen the MOMENT it happens, or ready to convince him not to betray him after all (what is “We’re not so different, I’m not uniquely evil, you’re ending our life together because you think you’re better than me but look! Look! You and I are the same now” if not a deeply misguided and utterly desperate plea?).

At some point he starts hoping it just won’t happen, and stops needing the “revenge” plot. When it starts unraveling before him, he tries for understanding first. What is “Hear my story, THEN decide–” if not begging to be understood?

Of course it doesn’t work.

Xiao Xingchen doesn’t even kill Xue Yang, either; he goes Away. Goes where Xue Yang can’t. If Xue Yang is read as having this particular trigger, Xiao Xingchen’s suicide may feel like abandonment all over again.

Perhaps Xiao Xingchen NOT killing Xue Yang becomes a parallel to Xue Yang’s parents abandoning him to suffer alone instead of keeping him or killing him. Or else maybe Xue Yang’s mother DID try to kill him (drown him or left him out in the cold) and he just managed to survive, in which case Xiao Xingchen NOT trying to kill Xue Yang puts him a cut above even Xue Yang’s own mother/parents.

Final thought:

While I find Xue Yang’s lack of familial connection to the rest of the cast compelling, I also find “what if” scenarios fascinating to explore, and “Xue Yang was abandoned by parents who might still be around during the story” does create some fascinating opportunities for fic.

Such as:

What if Xue Yang was yet another illegitimate son of Jin Guangshan? What if he knew but Jin Guangyao didn’t? What if Jin Guangyao knew but Xue Yang didn’t? What if Jin Guangshan himself knew? That would really put the insistent protections into a very weird light (is there a heart in there? Or did he think he could string Xue Yang along like he did Jin Guangyao? Or was Xue Yang blackmailing him?)

OR

What if Xue Yang was the illegitimate son of Chang Cian? It certainly puts a spin on that entire scenario. Little Xue Yang has another reason to want to please this man, and a further reason to feel betrayed by the abuse. Chang Cian not even recognizing him. Xue Yang taking revenge on the entire family because they ALL wronged him in a way he can’t articulate. Because they got to live the life he could have if he’d been wanted.

Certainly none of this is canon, but it’s not TERRIBLY far beyond the bounds of canon either, and makes for some juicy food for fic.

化けの花 🎀

I continue to be consumed by them 😎

Their shared struggle with a lack of/weirdness towards their own humanity and lack of care for their lives and need to sacrifice themselves 👍how tsumugi treats him normally despite thinking he's extraordinary and having admiration towards him and a severe lack of empathy and then helps lead this campaign of dehumanization against him for the greater good and rei takes it due to his martyr complex. He emphathized with eichi so much he let it happen. and he has the audacity to critique tsumugi for some things that he had thought about in regards to himself. How were they so close but out of reach from each other but still genuinely truly friends? At what point did reis amusement and weird interest towards him grow into genuine true care despite it still being there because to be fair tsumugi is a weird little freak, but also, rei taught him so much and treated him like a human being when he saw himself as lower than that? He was there on the day he saw proof of his newly found humanity, of his rebirth thanks to natsume and the war, congratulating him for it. Even after all this time he finds himself slipping into his old tone with him, the tone of a self he has long killed off. And now theyre friends again even though the scars remain, even though it's tsumugi's torturous punishment, rei takes care of him. says they could take over the world together. Still wants him to be just a little kinder to himself, just as he'd wished for before. Not to mention the thing rei had implied about his own family when eichi asked if he was bullied, too, while being painfully aware of tsumugi's family and how awful it was...? 2nd year tsumugi saying he grew attached to him after only talking a few times because his concern made him genuinely, truly happy and rei saying he couldnt leave him alone and that he shouldnt act so distant. That theyre friends if he wants him to be. Teaching him what, in his perspective, friendship is, because tsumugis view of it is so skewed he doesnt even know when he has permission to consider someone his friend, and he has so many connections yet hes so alone. this isn't even all but I shant I cant and I shant.

i don’t know if anyone else has this uploaded so here you go. enstars anime, ep 11 (?) rei and tsumugi’s interaction. “You can do it if you try.”

(yes i have the fountain one too)

This whole convo makes me wanna fight people who think the IT genuinely hate each other

If you wanna have fun and do something crazyyyyy

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine, German CD