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Chapter Text

Whenever Touka is discussed, the words "child", "immature", "selfish", and "arrogant" are the ones most often thrown around. There is usually not much more discussion after that. Well, I'm not here to say it's wrong, it's correct for the most part, I'm just here to draw attention to the fact that there's so much more to her than meets the eye. So, hold your unimaginable urge to dismiss and oversimplify her entire character and hear me out, if you would.

Touka's levels of vulnerability in the Magius era. That's already interesting by virtue of it being the Magius era. That's a really interesting era. Ui was what brought Touka and Nemu together and Ui was the cornerstone of their relationship for a while, so losing that RETROACTIVELY kinda makes you wonder exactly what their memories of the hospital era became. How exactly the two of them met, became friends, came to share a room, etc. Because the base unit quotes are from their Magius selves and so we know they very much remember being roommates for a long time and still consider each other reliable and trustworthy (also their behavior towards one another in the entirety of Nemu's swimsuit costume story spawns many questions when you stop to think about it, but I will touch on that some other time). We know that, in reality, the hospital trio began to share a room after Touka, in her infinite princess behavior, asked her dad to put all three of them in the same room because it was annoying to walk between the rooms so often (source: TouNemu Christmas alt quotes). Interesting choice on her part back then, considering she seemingly wanted Nemu out of the way, but I will touch on that another time because the hospital era is worth its own analysis.

Okay then, let's talk about Touka's role as a Magius. A leader. One who shoulders the burdens of the many. She willingly exposed herself to the weight of a whole people's sorrow, pain, grief, anger. And then she chose to lead them. To avenge them. It may not have started that way, but it sure as heck got there at some point (thank you, atrocious season three of the anime for at least helping out with this point). Now, I want to stop here for a moment and remind everyone that during Arc 1, Touka was 11 to 12 years old (as per the JP script, she is 12 by the end of it). Not only that, but if you pay attention, you'll notice the stress of Nemu's declining health is killing her. Nemu is quite literally the only person Magius Touka shows genuine concern for. This one person she cares about more than anyone else, slowly dying for the plan. For the cause. And as the sort of "main leader", Touka can't back down. She just can't. It would be not only a betrayal to "her people" and an admission of failure and weakness on her part, but also a betrayal to the one closest to her. The one who has arguably sacrificed the most for their salvation. So then, with someone as full of herself as Touka, someone seemingly so arrogant... What about her own health and wellbeing? What about her own sense of self? Because I have a feeling she doesn't really have one.

The way she always emphasizes the genius aspect of herself and even uses it as an excuse and brings it up so often feels like that's all she sees herself as. Nemu gives, yes. Nemu has similar issues. But hers are much, much more obvious. Less concealed when you bother to examine her. Touka gives without measure, without the slightest care for herself. She's selfish and at the same time one of the most selfless characters. There's also the interpretation that, at their very core, Touka and Nemu both just wanted to live. But I feel like that was only at the beginning. If that was all there was to it, the plan would not have continued with Nemu's life at risk, Touka would not put herself in the line of fire. Essentially, Touka has taken on way, way too much responsibility, as well as crafting several masks. Don't forget, just like every other magical girl, she led a double life the entire time, and she financed a lot of the cult's operations. Though I don't have any doubt many of the richer members contributed to the budget with their ridiculous allowances that they do not use. But listen. Touka had to hide from everyone. She couldn't show her true self to anyone. Not her father who loves her so deeply, not anyone else in her civilian life, not her subordinates certainly, Alina is not the most warm and welcoming to be around... so her only option is Nemu. That's comfortable. That's familiar. But. Then there are the many, many feelings she has about Nemu. It's, complicated you see. Touka feels many ways about Nemu. For starters, if their memory of Ui is gone, it means all of the warmth and kindness Ui had must've taken another form, which explains the difference in their bond, how they seem so much closer as Magius. Either way, even back then, Nemu is the only one who would understand. Touka Satomi is an actress. Everywhere else is her stage, and Nemu is her backstage. So, Touka can only ever be truly 100% vulnerable with Nemu. Yet she still didn't do it. I don't think Magius Touka ever really fully 100% relied on Nemu. She may have wanted to, and she does call her reliable in her quotes. But well, with Nemu's health getting worse and worse, she may have come to the conclusion that it would be for the best (health-wise) if Nemu didn't have to share her burden.

However, Nemu's declining health also brought something else. Touka took on another role: the protector. Nemu is practically helpless during the mid to late Magius era. Not completely helpless, she's still a strong magical girl, mind you, but could drop or have an attack at any time. We see this multiple times such as in Mifuyu's MGS, her own MGS, and she even has what is basically a stroke during Arc 1 Chapter 8. Therefore, Touka has to be alert and ready to respond immediately. Which I think is why we see more of Alina outside than Touka (sedentary lifestyle aside). Touka lingers around where Nemu is and only hesitantly hands her over to Alina or Mifuyu when she absolutely must. Other than the sheer pain of watching Nemu bleed herself dry and being unable to do anything about it, not because she physically can't, but because she can't in a different sense... she also can't revert things back to the way they were, for all of her genius and medical knowledge she can't help Nemu, she can't help her best friend feel even a little better. This leads us to the undeniable fact that Touka is very, very unstable and volatile as a Magius. That's not the impression she first gives at all, of course.

Arc 1 Chapter 6 is where we first meet Magius Touka. She's calm, with a cold cheerfulness to her, calculated. Most importantly, I feel like the reason she was the one doing the lecture instead of literally just sending Mifuyu was because she recognized Team Mikazuki as a possible threat and specifically did not like Iroha, which was also why she lied. The one and only thing Touka lied about in her lecture: Iroha asked where Nemu was, Touka said they parted ways after being discharged. Blatant gigantic lie. And seriously, the only reason she'd have to lie about that and in that specific way would be to protect Nemu. At that point, Iroha and her team have wiped out a handful of uwasa, so she must have known. But yes, this is not at all how she really feels or what she really thinks. This is just another mask (I will talk about Touka's plastic smile and Nemu's poker face a lot). Because she needs to nip any aspirations Iroha may have in the bud, hopefully recruit more Feathers, and neutralize the threat that is Team Mikazuki.

What happens just as she's starting to go off the deep end? How convenient, it seems Yachiyo and Iroha have spent a good amount of their time destroying uwasa, thus wasting Nemu's repeated sacrifices, and forcing her to make more in order to meet their energy quota. Honestly, who wouldn't be losing it, at that point? So close to salvation, so close to freedom, so close to being done. And they're ruining not only the plan but also everything it means for her and the person she loves most. When you really think about it, Touka's mental health was, forgive the crude language, IN DEEP SHIT throughout Arc 1. Not that it was great before or that it improved too much after, but yeah, I do believe people do not give this enough thought. Touka doesn't know how to socialize. She uses masks to navigate social interactions a lot. Usually, she uses polite cheerfulness for it, and as an alternative, anger, those are her primary masks. There's a good example of the mask usage in TouNemu's MGS (as in the Christmas one):

It's disturbing how easily a child as young as Touka is in this (11 at best) can slip in and out of the mask. It should be alarming. You don't manage that level of emotional suppression and performance without experience. The only way Touka knows how to socialize is by use of roles and masks, masks crafted for specific situations and environments, with the characteristics that are either the safest to display or the ones expected of her. You can hear the masks in her tone of voice and see them in her behavior, and by "roles" I mean roles assigned to her, with clear, strict meanings and guidelines for what to do and how to act, such as "Magius" or "genius". I'm sure I'll talk more about this in subsequent essays... If you want to hear an example of what unmasked Touka sounds like, we do have one and only one that takes place at a time of not significant distress, which is here.

Finally, with all of this in mind, as for the topic of this rant being Touka's levels of vulnerability as a Magius... There were none. She had no choice. At first it was fine. At first, before the gears turned too fast to stop, she could deal with it. She could confide in Nemu, even a little bit in Alina or Mifuyu (though not much), but it got worse and worse. Mifuyu was clearly blind to all of this the entire time (she, much like everyone other than Touka, didn't seem to care that Nemu had to give up her life force for each uwasa, and if you disagree I will point out the scene at the end of Mifuyu's MGS as one of my more than five pieces of evidence, also go read the Magius Nemu essay). Alina likely didn't care enough, and Nemu was probably too exhausted, although the concern must've been there. In summary, Magius Touka stands alone in her mind, and with her mind. Arc 1 was practically a descent into madness for her. When you start thinking about things from Touka's perspective, you start to see how abysmal her mental health was.

Now, about anime Touka. First of all, I take the anime as a sort of alternate continuity, but I don't think it changes anything about the characters, therefore to me it only ever added to my understanding of a character. Prime example, Touka and Nemu. In this case, I'll talk some more about Touka and how the anime portrayed her.

Firstly, I was very glad that despite the time constraints, they actually portrayed my girls the way I would have wanted them to (evidently, had I been in charge, I would've made it just a touch gayer). What I mean by that is, well, this is part of my rant about how people never stop to think about the mental health of younger characters because ageism goes brrrr, so I think I don't need to draw the connection for you as to why I was pleased with the anime. Touka was, from a certain point on, under immense pressure from literally everything. It's the type of pressure that would break an adult, let alone a child. She doesn't lash out just because she's immature or impatient or arrogant (though there are pieces of that at play here), she lashes out and gives into impulse because she's stressed out of her mind. That mostly applies to the Magius era, you might think. And yeah, you'd be kind of correct, if not because trauma is a scar that doesn't go away so easily. Especially for a child. I'm not gonna go in-depth about the long term consequences of that stress on Touka, but in the anime we did see her have A Little Bit Of A Mental Breakdown when she remembered what she'd tried to do to Iroha and all that, and in the anime they showed us a bit of the pressure Touka was under. We also saw something that I don't believe we've seen more than once or twice ever for Touka and Nemu, and that is direct verbal communication on camera. In their own way of course. Let me analyze that scene.

You know in Season 3 Episode 2, when Touka gets her memories back and all, and she needs to actually ask Nemu why she hid the truth from her? Nemu explains, then Touka firstly retains her calm, states her conclusion so that Nemu can confirm if she understood correctly. She does that twice. Once she gets her second confirmation is when she outright slaps Nemu, which Iroha seems shocked by but I do love that she doesn't interfere because frankly this is not something she should ever try to disrupt. Importantly, after the slap and one shouted question that is not seeking an answer but rather communicating disapproval/disappointment, Touka doesn't keep yelling nor does she slap Nemu again. Not only that, but you know what Nemu does in that situation? It's something subtle they do more often than you'd think. She surrenders her will. Touka does something similar in the game's Arc 1 Chapter 10, at one point, when she wavers in her convictions and sounds insecure about what to say or do, until Nemu steps in, and then Touka follows. When you take a closer look, they do this enough times that it shouldn't be ignored. They rely on one another for direction. I'll probably talk more about this in another essay, but that scene in the anime was one of my favorites. Heck, Nemu directly asks Touka what she wants to do (most of the time, they do not communicate so directly, the way they communicate is its own fascinating topic).

To continue with that scene, Touka then calmly, very calmly, explains her side of things. I'd like to point out much like I did in the essay above that her voice in this scene lacks the usual cheerfulness or anger, she doesn't have a mask on right now. There's a scene in the game's Arc 2 Chapter 5 that is our only voiced instance of Touka and Nemu alone together, and she sounds exactly the same, if a little more neutral. The tones of voice can be so telling with these two I swear- but anyway, back to the post-slap scene itself. Nemu, without prompting, reassures Touka of her own feelings about the matter, and that is the moment where they know they're on the same page again. The second Touka says that having those memories means she can do anything, they both know what they're going to do. All they're doing is reinforcing each other's understanding. Iroha even seems confused the more they talk. But they get it. And then Touka tells Nemu she was right to hide the truth from her in light of the risk (this is also where they start doing that thing they also have a bit of a tendency to do, which is sharing a personal space bubble, but shh, that only matters for my shipper brain's interpretation of this relationship, just ugh come on they're even forehead to forehead in this part). Nemu apologizes again, and does something we rarely see (because they rarely communicate on camera, verbally, and directly, which means we've basically only seen this once or twice before in the game). That being, she admits emotional vulnerability. I like to think the subsequent forehead thing is Touka's way of reassuring her without interrupting her in that moment, like a squeeze of the hand, since she's the one who'd have to bend over to reach eye level with Nemu.

Iroha, by this point, is terribly confused. She does not realize every message those two just exchanged in front of her. And hey, I'll say it, I think this is better than the game's instant "oh no we were wrong and bad let us help". Fully conscious of everything now, they both turn on Iroha to finish their mission. They put her in timeout and go on to pilot Eve into Walpurgisnacht. I'm not sure if they had a plan to get off of Eve before the big shockwave that would occur from the two megawitches clashing, or if they were exhibiting yet another typical TouNemu behavior (dying). I'm leaning towards the latter, considering Nemu tells Iroha that in the timeout corner, she will be able to survive the shockwave. Unless Nemu can make another one of those barrier thingies for herself and Touka, well. We know how that would end. They also do something that is also interesting here, that being they take complete responsibility for everything. They tell Iroha that none of this is her fault and that it was all them, and they almost sound parent-like when they tell her that when she wakes up, all of the scary things will be over. Then they decide to get back to making Their Mistake. Very gay indicative of good mental health of them, certainly (/s).

After this, they even fight Iroha and the others for a bit. For the most part, it's mask time again, at least until Iroha hits a nerve later. Iroha manages to "convince" them to stop, only for them to see things getting bad later and then doing the getting on the same page thing again but with less words to essentially pull off a kamikaze attack fully aware of what they were doing and without a second thought! Very TouNemu of them. It's hard to talk about one of these two without talking about the other. And, random tidbit since the anime has been brought up. Thank you, Nemu, for adding driving skills to the Rumor Spreader exclusively so that it could safely drive your princess who hates walking to places, very sapphic of you. Plus the whole slap scene and subsequent events. Very intimate of you both, girls. Highly "our lives are bound and where you go I will follow, even death" of you. Extremely sun and moon analogy. Typical TouNemu behavior. Normally I would insert screenshots of little details from the anime about them being cute, but I shall refrain because I am bad at Ao3 image insertion.

As part of my conclusion I'd like to say that honestly, it makes sense why Touka gave off the feeling of being lost for a decent chunk of... everything after Arc 1. What is she supposed to do without a purpose? What is she supposed to do without anything or anyone to tell her what she is and who she is? Not to mention the fucking ton of bricks to her face that must've been getting her memories back. I do not know how she didn't break. I legitimately do not know how she survived. During that little "lost" stage she had, I got the feeling she'd relapse back to her suicidal tendencies. It was... less "a feeling" and more "exactly what canon did", it's just slightly (badly) disguised. Next, I'll be talking about Nemu on her own a little before delving into their joint pasts.

Chapter Text

So. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has heard others refer to Nemu as a shadow, Touka 2.0, or some other frankly reductive term. Most of the time, unless her creations come up, she’s not discussed at all, and even then… barely. That’s not exactly surprising. Given Nemu’s normally calm demeanor, and the fact that she and Touka are joined at the hip, it’s only natural that Touka would be the one to get the most attention, the one who stands out. Where Touka is the boisterous sun, Nemu is the humble moon. Today, we turn our eyes to the moon.

There is so much to talk about when it comes to Magius Nemu and pretty much all of it is going to make you really sad. Much like Touka and all other magical girls, she led a double life the entire time, but in her case, when she “traded one terminal illness for another” she got the short end of the stick. Imagine being a writer and discovering that your magic allows you to give physical form to your stories, to breathe life into your creations—literally. Now picture finding out later down the line that each time you use it, it consumes so much magic that it shaves off pieces of your very life force. That’s one slap in the face. But, it gets worse. Let me lay out everything we know about how Magius Nemu’s sacrifices affected her physically, and how each of the people around her responded to her worsening condition. First, we know it causes pain severe enough to temporarily affect her vision and speech, and severe enough to make her fall to the ground, though she doesn’t always faint from it. We know it inflicts exhaustion and that even something like releasing an uwasa for the first time can make her pass out on the spot, so presumably it’s a lengthy process that takes a toll on her at every stage (well not sure about conceptualization, but creation and release definitely do). A voiced example of one of these episodes is in Arc 1 Chapter 8.

Now, as for the people around Nemu, starting from more distant to closest. Her family? Oblivious, responsible for her state of emotional deprivation and for several other issues. Alina? Ehh she seems to either not care or care very little, which is properly Alina-esque of her. Mifuyu? Oh let me talk about MIFUYU for a second. Disclaimer, despite her many sins committed against my favorite characters, I do love the sheep, she’s too much of a failure, I cannot hate her. But Mifuyu “I want to be a nurse” Azusa is insensitive beyond belief, and I was honestly surprised when they appointed her to be some sort of… ethics teacher for Touka? Bruh. You see, an MGS is supposed to put us in the shoes of whatever character it’s about. That’s what it does. However my brain is broken and perceives the world from a TouNemu perspective by default. Which means I had a completely different reading of Mifuyu’s MGS. I am going to illustrate my point with screenshots this time.

Mifuyu says this about Touka and Nemu getting worked up over Alina wanting to prioritize witches above rumors. But. Here’s the thing. The thing that Mifuyu seems to be missing completely. Rumors are created by Nemu, through a sacrifice of her own life force that worsens her pain and makes her suffer more with each subsequent use. Evidently, the girls reply that no, they don’t think they were getting too emotional.

YOU THINK? Have you given any thought to why that could possibly be the case, Mifuyu? But, okay, fine, we can look past this. Alright. Next scene, it’s Touka and Nemu being upset that Yachiyo just destroyed the Divorce Stairs (I call them that, but for clarification, it’s the Friendship-Ending Staircase). I’m going to bring something up that I don’t believe is exactly contradicted by canon, though not confirmed either, but I’d be willing to believe by the fact that Nemu knows of Iroha (by name and I assume appearance) that there’s a psychic link of some kind between the uwasa and their creator. That would make sense, considering they are made of her magic and have pieces of her life force. If this is true, then that massacre Iroha and Yachiyo go on during Arc 1 Chapter 7 is far, far worse.

But alright, back to the scene. Touka is standing up for Nemu here, and Mifuyu proceeds to go and dismiss their feelings because, as she says in her thoughts, “they’re just children”. Okay, Mifuyu, hear me out. They’re 11-12. They’re not toddlers. Just because they’re children doesn’t make their emotions invalid, unimportant, or not worth considering. Particularly in this case, where they have a good reason to be upset. Nemu even mentions the life force she’s using up and Mifuyu’s first and only thought is “Yacchan…” (this is a repeating pattern). The next relevant scene is one where Mifuyu does something Alina has also done and Touka hasn't: ask Nemu to make a rumor for her.

Nemu reminds her that it comes at a cost, and that she’s using up her life for this. Nemu gives in, of course. I will talk about this imminently. First though, the final scene of Mifuyu’s MGS. Where Mifuyu repeats the previous pattern but worse. How exactly is it worse? I’ll let the screenshots speak for themselves here. Nemu and Mifuyu meet at the shrine where the uwasa is going to be released, Nemu does the deed, and faints, then Mifuyu reacts like this:

These screenshots are less than a second apart. It is the immediate follow-up. Absolutely zero concern for one of the people she’s supposed to be responsible for who just did her a pretty big favor (as if you needed someone’s blood to open a door, they stabbed themselves to get you the blood, and then you left them on the ground in pain). So yes Mifuyu is insensitive and she is not helping Nemu’s view of adults. Relatedly, before I move to talking about Touka, since I’d like to actually end this on a non-depressing note, I’m going to circle back a little to Nemu’s family.

I am infamous for not liking Nemu’s family. Her parents, mainly. Her brother, for as much of a snotty brat as he is to her, is presumably still very tiny and has had scarce interactions with his sister, therefore leading to the way Nemu describes their relationship (“strangers”). As a slight aside, Nemu does try very hard to have a relationship with her brother, not only in her MGS, but in her solo Christmas quotes where she’s lost on what to get as a gift for a kid that likes soccer and asks Homescreen-chan for advice. And you see, Nemu has this thing where once you get past a certain point with her, she becomes a people pleaser. Unlike when Ui’s parents have visited before (seen in TouNemu’s Christmas MGS), Nemu was shocked to hear that her mother and brother had come to see her. This leads me to believe the visits are an extremely rare occurrence and that there is no other contact besides them. Ui’s parents at least video call her, from what the quotes say. And now we have reached the point where it’s unavoidable and I have to talk about Nemu’s emotional trauma. Her family does not seem to know about her writing, which was a good call because it shielded her from much of the gifted kid trauma. However, that doesn’t mean her parents’ actions (or lack thereof) were without consequence. A lot of these might be subconscious, so bear with me a second. At this point in the timeline, Nemu struggles to believe that others will meet her needs or care for her. She seeks affirmation, acceptance, approval, and fortunately seems to get it in the form of her website and Touka during this era.

Let me give you some examples of Nemu’s people-pleasing tendencies, as any kid would learn that catering to the needs and desires of others can sometimes lead to a sense of belonging or validation—she explicitly wants that, she is aware that she wants to feel loved. This is immensely obvious with her family’s visits, where her first reaction isn’t good but then she plays along and puts up a happier face (which drops literally as soon as her mother and brother are out of the room), even apologizing for the slightest inconvenience regardless of whether or not the reaction to that inconvenience was bad (the book that was hard to find, the general Presence™ of her family in the room, apologizes again for talking about her feelings, etc). So that she doesn’t have to burden them with her feelings. So that her mother can feel like she’s fulfilled her duty by walking into the room, giving Nemu a rundown of what the family has been up to, and leaving without really actually spending any real quality time with her or bothering to really ask about her. Touka gets (righteously) angry in Nemu’s stead once her mother and brother have left precisely because of this. Nemu proceeds to, like many children in her position, defend her parents completely and then chastise herself for “looking down on them”. Touka and Ui both understand at least the heart of the issues at play here, and express as much. My point here isn’t exactly “Nemu’s parents are equivalent to Sana’s” or anything, it’s more that they’re extremely oblivious and their actions (and lack thereof) have hurt Nemu deeply.

That habit Nemu’s parents have of never truly showing interest in their daughter’s life seems to remain after the hospital, and then they’re focused on her brother’s comfort. Not Nemu’s. Never Nemu’s. Then, later on, in the Wings of the Magius, every time someone asks her to make a rumor (read: sacrifice a piece of her life force and make herself feel physically worse presumably forever), she agrees. Mifuyu asks her to, yeah sure. Alina wants a rumor? Of course. I won’t count when everyone asked her for stuff to add to Fendt Hope solely because I’m not sure Fendt Hope works like normal rumors do. Something, something, difficulty setting and maintaining healthy boundaries, struggling to distinguish her own needs from the needs of others… A child who learned that her voice and desires were not prioritized in such critical stages of her life naturally struggles to articulate her own needs and wants. Prime example, Fendt Hope’s creation. She listens to the others give their ideas for it, never suggesting anything herself after reminding them of her usefulness. Until. Touka asks. When she does, Nemu seems almost taken aback. She apologizes. Nothing comes to mind. That very same day, she gets home, tries again to have some sort of positive interaction or time with her brother, gets rejected. As soon as an alternative form of service (doing the dishes for her exhausted mother so that she may help her brother with homework) presents itself, she practically jumps at the opportunity. The scene after that one, with the way she views Touka, Alina, and Mifuyu, vs the way she views her mother and brother, only makes this more obvious. How is Nemu supposed to feel any sense of value at home? At least as a magical girl, she’s useful. At least as a Magius, she has people who know her. The feelings of low self-worth aren’t as obvious on Nemu as they are on many of the other girls who have them, though.

The next time there’s a Magius meeting, this time to decide on a name for their base, Touka is again the one who asks Nemu for her opinion. It’s important to note that Touka is never once hostile, aggressive, or even annoyed when she does this. She considers Nemu’s thoughts and feelings more than anyone. Heck, Nemu would have no way to doubt Touka’s care for her considering their history and the way she acts. Now I get to talk about the relationship between Magius Nemu and Magius Touka. If I start gushing incoherently, I apologize in advance. I covered a bit of Magius Touka’s attitude towards Nemu in the essay dedicated to her, and slightly in this one, but now I want to draw attention to how incredibly sweet Touka can be when it comes to Nemu. Nemu desperately needs that reliability and that love Touka provides, the hope she brings. And Touka is the one person who openly shows her care, attention. Over and over again. Touka considers Nemu an equal. During the main story, as I said in my Magius Touka essay, she shows concern for Nemu’s health and wellbeing when no one else does. This goes beyond her magic-given affliction! I only wish we had more bits and pieces from that era, but as for what we do have… Well, I have to point at Nemu’s swimsuit costume story for the easiest and shortest point of reference. I’d use screenshots, but if I did, I would just end up showing you every single piece of dialogue and expression.

In that costume story, Touka and Nemu are at Fendt Hope, talking about their future trip to the beach (which they made plans for together in Touka’s swimsuit costume story). Nemu has her insecurities, and she’s shy about putting on the swimsuit, but then Touka proceeds to be incredibly supportive by first making her feel comfortable—for some reason she also had her own swimsuit lying around and offered to wear it too because Nemu mentioned it’d be embarrassing if she was the only one wearing a swimsuit and Touka was wearing clothes—then as soon as Nemu expresses self-doubt, she doubles down via genuine compliments (these two compliment each other way more than you think, even in main story Touka praises Nemu for her ideas). This is also a rare occasion where we’re shown that Nemu’s parents, or her mom at least, who seems more present than her dad, mean no harm, since it was Nemu’s mother who helped pick out every element of her swimsuit. After that, Touka goes off to change back into her school uniform, and Nemu is “uncharacteristically giddy” (as she states) looking at herself in the mirror. Touka gets back, and Nemu is startled to have been caught in a vulnerable state, but, critically, Touka is happy to see her happy and doesn’t tease her, although Nemu (jokingly, blushing) laments that letting Touka read her heart is the greatest failure of her life. Nemu asks Touka to listen. And Touka complies. Nemu trusts Touka with her heart, with her honest feelings, and knows Touka will never hurt her. That’s why she’s able to be so sincere with her. This is shown in Nemu’s Tap 8 quote, where she also refers to Touka as trustworthy (Touka has a matching Tap 8 quote, and hers is about how reliable Nemu is for her). This relationship, no matter what it is, is deeply important to both participants.

Now I will go on a fluffy tangent that remains sort of swimsuit/summer related. You know how, at the end of Arc 1, Nemu loses use of her legs. In Ui's swimsuit costume story, the hospital trio go to the beach all together for the first time, but Ui and Touka are a bit saddened because Nemu can't swim with them. Nemu reassures them that she's fine and that she will just watch them, read on the beach, and take pictures of them with a camera she's brought. She does just that and it's pretty sweet. However! That gets followed up on! I'll include the Uwasa Aquarium event as just a bonus mention, since the thing that happens there is that Touka's brilliant solution to Nemu not being able to move underwater very well is to grab her by the hand and drag her around. But I really like that Touka listened to what Nemu said in Ui's swimsuit costume story to the point we saw the results in Sakurako's summer MGS. To clarify what happened. In that MGS, the hospital trio + Sakurako go to the beach and Sakurako carries Nemu because electric wheelchairs and sand don't mix well, right? Well, Nemu sends Sakurako to go swimming with Ui and Touka, and Sakurako is initially worried because that means Nemu will be left alone. Nemu's counter is that she enjoys reading in the sea breeze, plus Ui borrowed a camera from Yachiyo so that she could take pictures of them kind of like in her swimsuit costume story, and TOUKA.

Touka did this, for no reason other than making sure Nemu had company and someone to tend to her (because she didn't bring servants any of the other times, she doesn't make a habit of bringing them anywhere she goes). ON TOP OF THAT, after a while of swimming with Ui and Sakurako, we change scenes to them building sandcastles with Nemu. And. Touka does this other thing.

They build sandcastles. And you know what that ties into? Magius Nemu's swimsuit quotes! Where she's sad that she cannot make a sandcastle properly because they all crumble for some reason. So Touka has apparently not only listened to and thought about Nemu the entire time, but remembered that ever since and prepared for it.

Finally, to end this glorified rant… I know I used the sun and moon metaphor earlier, but. I would like to borrow the words of Nemu in one of my fics: “It’s silent at night. Touka stays up with her telescope, I stay up reading nearby. We are stardust brought to life. A quiet place, just for us. The gentlest fire in us, like binary stars.” (I’m sorry but the binary stars comparison is too good not to mention). Their connection was there before the Magius, and after everything they went through, their lives became irreversibly bound, intertwined beyond the understanding of quite literally anyone else. They practically always speak in plural, the time they spend together has been on the rise, and at the time of writing? To avoid spoiling Arc 2 Chapter 12, I won’t go into specifics, but the relationship has reached a beautiful point that I will froth at the mouth about eventually.

Chapter Text

Touka and Nemu have been bound together since the hospital, because they found in each other what they’d been craving for so long: an equal. They are each other’s equals in ways Ui just can’t manage, even back then. After a baptism by fire in every way, their bond only strengthened until it got to where it is today. But, I want to take a look at the roots of this connection. Before the Wings of the Magius. Before Kyubey.

First things first: these girls do not trust adults. They don’t fear them, mind you. But they also don’t trust them. This is a trait Alina shares with them, and a trait many child prodigies come to share. They’re cynical because of their trauma, but also wary of how they are exploited and condescended. They have learned not to trust adults specifically because of their alien treatment, and that extends to children slowly during their time at the hospital. They’re misunderstood, sometimes ridiculed, isolated without choice. They decide to own that isolation, because it can’t hurt them if they own it, but it gets to them.

Touka takes it as a challenge, wants to prove she isn’t weak, and thus acts superior. Nemu tries to brush past it, and falls into spirals of patterns and thought processes when she tries to figure out if there’s something wrong with her (beyond her being different), considering the way the others act. And they both cope via the amazingly healthy method we call repression. We see glimpses of this throughout, for instance in TouNemu’s Christmas MGS. Even when they’re mad at each other and Ui isn’t involved, Touka still ultimately sits next to Nemu, talks to her, and goes as far as to request an answer (which Nemu who is not in the greatest mood and it’s her fault has not given, she has been quiet the entire time). It’s interesting to note about that MGS that from that point on, every “sorry” and “thank you” has come easy to them, when they’ve had to use the words. You will notice that Touka in particular easily apologizes to and thanks Nemu, but doesn’t really say it to anyone else most of the time (examples are in her own MGS when she’s ranting at Nemu on their way I assume home from Fendt Hope while they’re alone together and she apologizes for being angry, that whole scene is going to be analyzed at a later date. Another specific example is in Arc 2, when Touka asks Nemu to fetch something for her while they’re trying to unlock Ryo’s phone, then apologizes when Nemu gets back because she didn’t need it after all.)

They’re drawn to each other initially because they’re finally understood. They’re not turned away, but argued with as equals, listened to, not placated but confronted instead. They're giving each other what they’ve so desperately craved from the beginning. And there’s a beatific solace to knowing there is nothing wrong with you, and even if there is, fuck it all because you’re not the only one that’s wrong. Because you’re not alone anymore.

This specifically ties into Nemu even more because Nemu is painfully starved for affection. For meaningful connection. For home. For, as Shizuku may put it, a place to belong. Touka has her father, and while he can’t exactly understand Touka the way Nemu can, I’m sure Nemu has been jealous/bitter at some point due to Touka having a loving, affectionate parental figure. Her personal memoria is very on the nose about what she wants most, as is her MGS, but especially the personal memoria. To quote it directly:

“ What was I hoping for? What did I want? A newly released novel? An out-of-print book that sounded interesting? New clothes for a change of image? No, no, no. Those are all wrong. I just want to be told I’m loved. It’s so close and yet so far. That is all I want.”

The tie to Touka here is a little different. She did not have very many options. I’m sure that deep down, Touka is aware of what would have happened to her if she hadn’t found Nemu in time. Lost to madness when her masks begin to crack, her life falling apart, becoming one with her masks to the point she loses sight of who she started out as… Rotting inside the mask. Though in her case, she’s well-off enough that she could plausibly just be a hermit. For a time. Until the loneliness began to eat away at her. Touka’s main connection before Nemu (and before Ui) was her father, and her father is a good man, he tries to be there for her and actually be a parent despite his busy schedule (looking at you, Hiiragi family. If the Tamaki parents can spare a few minutes to video call their hospitalized child, you can too), but she doesn’t guard him like she guards her astronomy knowledge, she doesn’t guard him like she guards Nemu.

Look, it’s subtler in the hospital era than it is later down the line, but. These two are so ridiculously devoted to each other that it makes me completely unhinged. They act as one, without doubt, without fear (you don’t just agree to die with someone you don’t feel strongly about and bind your own life to, but I will scream about that in the post-Arc 1 essay). This started all the way back in the hospital. Though, there’s multiple things I have yet to address… The resentment has its own essay, but let’s talk about anger for a moment.

Touka is the one more known for her anger. For both of them, there’s different kinds of anger they hold. Touka is just easier to talk about. Most of her anger is toward society and the people around her (no one in particular, just People™, the people that get to be “normal” and have things), and anger at Nemu’s family. The reason that last thing is an entire category is because it shapes her relationship with Nemu. Touka cares more about Nemu than Nemu does about herself, and the anger towards her family is a key point in their relationship and how she treats Nemu—it’s one of the things that make her protective of Nemu. That anger in turn fuels her anger towards society as well. She expressed in the third episode of her MGS how she feels like the world has done nothing but take things away from her for her entire life, therefore she shouldn’t have to share, shouldn’t have to give the world anything (she has grown from this and I will talk about it in my Arc 2 essays). And yet, most of Touka’s anger, especially towards society, is subconscious. I don’t think she learns to recognize and articulate it until a lot later in life, at least. And where her anger is a fiery pit… Nemu’s is resigned and flickering embers.

Nemu has taken so much hurt that the part of her that defends her is barely holding on. She is starkly aware and somewhat articulate about why she has resentment and anger towards society, but she doesn’t seem to hold much of it towards her family. I’d say she much more wishes she knew them enough to be angry at them. She’s just tired. She’s used to it, it’s “fine” and not their fault. Nemu also feels like she has a muted anger bubbling underneath her skin, toward herself. Maybe cursing her illness that prevented her from being part of her family. Maybe because she takes on blame and guilt to relieve others, it becomes second nature, and she hates part of herself for it. Her anger still tries to defend her, but enough repression and it kind of shuts up. It’s emotionally draining. Nemu has this tendency to overthink stuff a lot more than Touka, she’s more introspective and philosophical about everything. That is both good and bad, because while reflecting on events is a good thing, the conclusions a child like her may take from it may not be. Her one respite that makes her feel understood and alive? Touka.

Now, I know I have tunnel vision, and I know that my otp blinds makes me fixate on specifically these two, but I do have to talk about Ui and Iroha a little more. Mainly Ui. Their connections are different. Iroha and Ui represent secure attachments. People that, although they know they can’t match or understand them, will be there for them. Constant exposure to Ui in particular was important in mitigating that anger towards others, and it was good for the other two’s self-worth and sense of self. As we have seen many times, especially at first, this manifested in them essentially resource guarding like dogs who have been starving in the streets their entire lives and finally get to have food. That was, until they realized two things. One was that they could share. Another was that there was meaningful connection to be found in each other too, and that Ui was not their only definitive source of kindness and comfort. Touka specifically has a thing about being kind. As per her flower field memoria:

“ The end of the universe brings the dark and vast eternal world of time to my tiny little cramped world. The end of the universe also creates the flow of time. I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything. I will cherish what I learn, and it will make me a kinder person.”

Touka wants to be kind. Ui, and by extension Iroha, preach by practice. They don’t scold her and tell her to just be nicer (well, usually). They are genuinely kind people, and Touka looks up to that. She and Nemu both do, though with Touka it’s a lot more blatant because it’s often harder for her to be kind—I interpret Touka as naturally having low empathy, which is not a bad thing or a thing to be pitied, but instead something that can become a strength. Unfortunately, it can also result in severe struggles, socially speaking, and Touka isn’t in the best position to have those, because people’s reactions to her just make her feel more alienated (which, again, she tries to take pride in as a defense mechanism) and more justified in her anger and resentment. Still, Touka is trying. The erasure of Iroha and Ui from her memories, and the fact that she had Nemu, made her close off into this mentality of “it’ll be okay as long as we have each other, everyone else can rot.” In a way, at least. Deep down, though, Touka still wants to be good. Wants to save magical girls. Because she sees herself in magical girls and their struggles. Magical girls are isolated, alienated from society by their very nature. Just like her. And it’s unfair that their struggles are not seen or heard, never recognized. They are never given a helping hand. On top of that, they live on a timer. Just like her back in the hospital.

Nemu wants to rest. To let down her guard and not be hurt, for once. She wants a home, somewhere or someone who will make her a priority. She has never been a priority. To anyone. That’s why it’s upsetting to her at first, who should be the calmer one, when Ui “chooses Touka over her” or otherwise elects to do something else that has nothing to do with her. She takes it personally. Nonetheless, she sees the way Iroha and Ui act, and she wishes she could be like them. Nemu thinks her feelings are ugly, something to be hidden away, and has gotten used to bottling them up, coping through writing and hopefully through nothing else. Touka becomes a sort of shelter. Someone so very similar to her, despite their differences. Someone who also hides their feelings. Both of them say at the end of Christmas String that they admire Ui because they can’t copy her, can’t copy the way she’s always happy to help others, but that is a direct contradiction of their own actions in that very event. I won’t expand on it here, but Nemu might be more aware than Touka about some of these issues. Nemu actively expresses her feelings about magical girls as a group in her MGS, and it’s not all that dissimilar from Touka’s own reasoning for wanting to save them. She wants magical girls to be recognized, she wants people to know them. Sounds awfully similar to herself wanting to be known, doesn’t it?

Lastly, I want to look at something that should’ve been The First Sign and ties into certain points I made about Touka in Essay 1. Nemu’s writing. Touka starts out downright loathing it, though I assume this must’ve been mostly the product of jealousy (over Ui) at the time. By the time we get to the hospital episode of Nemu’s MGS, however, Touka has made and manages a website for Nemu, including contact information. Let me break that down for you. Nemu would never ask Touka to do something like this, and judging by her reaction to the part we see, she really did not. Which means Touka, of her own will, brought it up and offered to do it. Why? Why, especially in the hospital era? This is one of many instances where the game simply drops a piece of information like an anvil on my foot and refuses to elaborate, thus leaving me to froth at the mouth until I manage to articulate my thoughts. Allow me to go on a giant website tangent and give you an overview of the sheer work Touka just, did for Nemu of her own volition and then continued to do from that point on (warning, this is going to end in me gushing about how much these two care about each other):

First, the planning and conceptualization stage, which is arguably the easiest and I assume was just a bunch of lengthy conversations between Touka and Nemu. They’re excellent at planning things together, as we have seen multiple times in the story, so planning the content structure and layout would have also been simple. Then there’s domain name and hosting. Touka would’ve had to choose and register a domain name, then either select a reliable web hosting service to store the website files or somehow do it herself (it’s Touka, she will find a way). Next up, website design and development, which is arguably also “simple” in the sense that “all you have to do” is design the website’s layout, color scheme, and overall aesthetics. Who knows how these two did that.

The development part was on Touka entirely, since that’s where you have to use HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and potentially a content management system but I’m not sure how exactly Touka would go about it (if she makes something she will make something she can brag about and be proud of). Of course this is also the phase where you integrate necessary features like a contact form or whatever Touka did to put Nemu’s email there (that she is apparently also in charge of, since she was able to check the emails and I doubt Nemu wants to deal with that, though she was upset that Touka added this without consulting her for a moment, which is an interesting decision). Content creation would then fall to Nemu, though she writes by hand so Touka would have to digitize every single page. And! Search engine optimization! This includes keyword research, on-page SEO, and setting up meta tags. This is a job that in real life that can be extremely lucrative.

It’s not over because we also happen to know that Nemu makes “more than enough” from ad revenue alone on that website. So that means Touka set up ad revenue streams for this and took care of the monetization aspect which may have included a couple of illegalities (because they’re minors). After that would be thoroughly testing the website’s functionality, including navigation, forms, and any interactive elements, then the launch itself, which is uploading the website files to the hosting server and configuring domain settings to point to the hosting server. This doesn’t take into account whatever marketing/promotion Touka did to get the word out so quickly and successfully that the numbers would climb the way they did in the scene we saw. 

BUT IT DOESN’T END THERE. A website requires regular maintenance, and Touka would’ve also had to implement security measures to protect against threats like hacking or malware and regularly back up the website to prevent data loss. I think she probably mostly ignored legal considerations because this is Touka we’re talking about, but she also set up analytics tools to track visitor behavior and website performance, that’s what I assume we were seeing in that one scene. Touka “we’re not friends” Satomi, everybody.

WHICH BRINGS. ME. TO. Touka apparently just, manually transcribes the handwritten manuscripts herself. And not only does she not get annoyed, angry, or tired over any of this, she gets worried that Nemu might find it a pain to double check that Touka read her handwriting correctly. Once the initial transcription is done (which you can imagine takes quite a bit of time and dedication), it’s time to proofread and compare it to the original manuscript, make corrections and adjustments as needed, then apply structural markup to the digital text (this means adding tags to indicate elements like headings, paragraphs, annotations, and more), and create a detailed record of metadata for each manuscript. This is kinda tied to the website but also, accessibility considerations. Touka with all of her medical knowledge and living in a hospital her whole life would be familiar with this, but it’s still more work. I also figure she took care of the copyright part for Nemu.

Okay, okay, I’m done now, I promise. But. Touka knows how much writing means to Nemu and look at what she does for her! I was going to explode if I didn’t draw attention to this piece of information that is so easy to brush off. In total, the initial work for this could range from approximately 220 to 355+ hours. They are so. I am shaking them vigorously inside a snow globe. That is how I've decided to end off this essay.

Chapter Text

This may not seem related, but I want to start by talking about what Touka and Nemu are like as parents and why, because it's very interesting (by parents I mean with Sakurako). Touka learned the dos from her dad, and Nemu learned the don'ts from both of her parents. If you compare the parenting styles of the Satomis vs the Hiiragis, a few patterns emerge. Touka's mom we are disqualifying as per my own made up lore explanation for her absence (heart condition depression guilt spiral), but before I say anything about Nemu's mom, I'm gonna compare the two dads, because when you think about it they're a little similar! 

Nemu's dad is literally a ghost. We have NEVER ONCE seen that man but we have had him mentioned multiple times. Unlike Touka who avoids mentioning her mom ever (other than the one time in her MGS’ Episode 3 and also the time Nayuta mentioned her in her quotes), Nemu does mention her dad a bunch, usually in the same context as her mom, which implies a few things that I may get into later, however the excuse/explanation given is that he's busy with work. Which if we put him next to Touka's dad is an interesting (read: terrible) excuse. Touka's dad is very busy. He's busy with politics stuff apparently, with the multiple businesses he owns (as far as I’m aware), with the hospital he's a director of. Things were probably easier when Touka was still hospitalized, yet in Arc 2 he makes time for his child, even when it's not "necessary". So what's your excuse exactly, Mr. Hiiragi?

That interesting comparison aside, Nemu's mom has entirely shaped her parenting style, perfectly on display with Sakurako. You will notice that Nemu always asks Sakurako questions. About her day, about her emotions, etc. You know. Just like she wished her mom had done for her, which Mrs. Hiiragi of course never did. What with her habit of visiting her hospitalized terminally ill child only to infodump her and leave. Nemu also cooks with Sakurako like her mom cooks with her (on occasion, when she remembers she has a daughter). Essentially, Nemu is acting with Sakurako like she wishes her mom would act with her. I need to stress the psychological impact this tier of emotional neglect has had on Nemu; once again, this is a hospitalized, terminally ill child, who has been isolated and away from home for years (presumably). But the isolation and pain of being an inpatient, likely most often in pain, not knowing if you’ll see the light of morning each time you go to sleep, and complete lack of emotional support from adults was not enough! Of course not. Instead, Nemu was parentified.

Hear me out. You may not have thought about it before, but Nemu, the people pleaser that she is, has been made to cater to and take care of the emotions of fully grown adults (her parents), and like most victims of abuse/neglect, she defends them. The poor girl desperately wants her family to love her. She assume-gaslit herself into thinking her mom handmade the socks she got for Christmas while hospitalized AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT. Nemu, sweetheart, I'm sorry, but literally nothing I've seen from your family tells me that your mother would do that. When a child forcefully matures faster than they should, it very much scars them mentally, like the physical stretch marks some of us get when we’re younger from growing too much too fast. Being forced to take care of oneself, feeling misunderstood, closing off from your peers, being parentified by the adults around you, just generally growing up before you're prepared for it… In an isolated hospital environment, Nemu and to a slightly lesser extent Touka (and to an even lesser extent Ui), had to, in some aspects, mature much faster, but were left with a complete void in terms of experience.

Children learn mainly from the experiences they have, and on that, Touka is right. They were robbed of those experiences. All three of them thus show signs of resentment issues, self-blaming issues, and "I'm a burden" issues (Touka may not have that last one, but she has other issues to make up for it). There's also just the inherently traumatizing experience of waking up in pain. Being helpless. Finding scarce enjoyment in being alive because you're so in pain all the time. The extremely scary idea that you will not know if the pain/discomfort you feel is Just Another Tuesday of living in your body or if you’re in urgent need of medical attention and should perhaps inform the doctors/nurses that something is wrong. Not knowing if something is actually wrong or not, and the habit of keeping it to yourself because you either don’t want to bother others/be a burden or you don’t want to be seen as the Boy Who Cried Wolf of the ER, can lead to absolutely terrifying situations. For example you could have a horrible kidney infection that’s almost septic and not realize it because well, you’re always in pain/uncomfortable around that area. Surely this is nothing. When you’re used to being in pain, you stop noticing it as much. Desensitization. It’s confusing and distressing to live every day in a body that is deeply and terribly sick like that, ESPECIALLY for a child.

Anyway. Back to Nemu specifically. She mentions in her quotes that although people say she doesn’t show her feelings much (or that she “lacks emotion” as NA my beloathed put it), she feels plenty in her heart. Hey… Hey wanna know why that is? Sure it’s part of the way she is by nature, but a big part of why she’s like this is—take a wild guess—her parents! Again! From her perspective as we saw in her MGS, she sees her emotions as a burden on others, particularly her family. The reason she seems emotionally distant is actually one very fun (read: sad) flavor of the people pleaser. Actually, I think I’m going to quote this post:

"Think about it. In real life, the person that's bottling up all their emotions is not the one that's brooding in the corner and snaps at you for trying to befriend them. More often than not, it's that friendly person in your circle who makes easy conversation with you, laughs with you, and listens and gives advice whenever you're upset. But you never see them upset, in fact they seem to have endless patience for you and everything around them—and so you call them their friend, you trust them. And only after months of telling them all your secrets do you realize… they've never actually told you anything about themselves."

Guess who fits the “emotionally repressed character who is mellow” type! That’s right! Our resident sad author! That’s, also why in some of my AUs I give her severe repressed anger issues but that’s beside the point. That whole post is very much just… Nemu. She separates herself so that she won’t be hurt—or at least, not as hurt as she would be if she was feeling everything in full. It's really really sad because she seeks out and buys gifts for her family, specifically learning everything they like down to their tastes (she even mentions her mom's taste in food). Just a quiiick consideration: does it seem to you like they're putting in even an ounce of the effort she's making? Because I have a feeling even Nemu must’ve realized what a lost cause it was, eventually. I can’t stop stressing how badly she wants to fit in and be a part of her family. Not to mention how badly the Arc 1 finale must have crushed her internally. In a family of athletes, with how excited she was during Arc 1 to get to Do Things in a healthy body? To lose one's legs?

Everyone leaves her behind… Well, everyone except Touka. Speaking of Nemu’s relationship with Touka! Back at the very start of things, in the hospital, I assure you that Nemu held Touka in this sort of hateful pedestal that she wanted nothing more than to rip her from, out of envy. Because Touka's dad evidently loves her, spends time with her, pays attention to her, gives her affection and Oh You Know. Everything Nemu has ever wanted. So I believe that if that relationship hadn't improved, Nemu would've grown to hate Touka, viscerally and intensely. Because simply put, she has everything Nemu wants and can never get. And when you're so isolated you have no one to talk to, especially if you're like Nemu or Touka (introverted and doesn't like talking to strangers especially about Emotions and Big Thoughts)… Coping mechanisms like writing will not get you that far if you don't have the support you need. Which leads me to MY NEXT POINT:

“If I can't be useful, I am worthless.”

Ha. Hahaha. So. I've gone on and on about just how bad an inpatient hospital environment is for a child, especially a child genius with little to no emotional support who is also terribly socialized. But I really need to talk more about the prodigy trauma. I am pretty sure more than one person reading this will be familiar with being considered "gifted" either period or only as a kid due to neurodivergence or whatever. Society is NOT nice to gifted children/geniuses. And, adults tend to praise children who show a lot of academic prowess and encourage those interests. The problem is that they often do it so much that it's everything the child ties their identity and self worth to. They also do not praise other things, as in only the highlight is ever praised, which causes even more severe tunnel vision and a more deeply rooted sense of This Is My Special Thing That I Am Good At And I Must Always Excel At It (this often leads into pretty bad perfectionism). For example, Touka's dad tells her on multiple occasions that she has to use her prodigious intellect to help others. He does this with good intentions. HOWEVER let's just say that may not have processed quite like he expected.

Let me try to go layer by layer with this. I'll use Touka because she's the more "traditional" type of genius (the STEM kind). I know that in private circles I have joked about her having a budding praise kink because of how she reacts to being called smart BUT it's actually at least mildly concerning that she completely changes her tune on something when praised, and she's only ever praised on her intelligence. That is what makes her her. It's what makes her special and unique. Touka has a superiority complex and an inferiority complex simultaneously which I will elaborate on at some point, but her dad has also sooort of tried to drill noblesse oblige into her. By the way she speaks (the astronomy class presentation in her MGS Episode 3, her line about Nemu's writing in Nemu's MGS Episode 3, that one damn scene in Arc 2 Chapter 5)… she sees the world entirely in terms of giving and taking and stealing. And that's, not hugely healthy, for starters, but then! Arc 1 happens. And I already talked about what Arc 1 did to both Touka "Maskwearer" Satomi and Nemu "People Pleaser" Hiiragi (their mental health is so good! /s), I have one essay for each of those. But I don't think I've ever discussed what happened in their heads after Arc 1. Because arguably, that was worse. I have another essay about the development of their characters in the works but I’m trying to actually make that one a bit more well-organized so it may take a little longer.

Touka had a job to do. Nemu had a job to do. They had a goal and a purpose, a promise to deliver on. They failed. What then? What do they do after the dust clears? They panic. As soon as they've had some time to actually process the extremely traumatic shit they went through and how badly they have fucked up, they internalize all of their guilt and it destroys them from the inside out. And what can they do? Nothing, really. Everyone hates them. They're failures. They have no purpose. No use. Who are they? They don't know. They're lost. And no one is there to guide them. So they try to do what they think is right: taking themselves out of the equation. They serve no purpose and are of no use anymore. Worthless. All they've done is harm. Mind you, this is never at any point mended. These wounds are left to fester. If you pay attention throughout Arc 2, the Union relies on them for several things, but they're never quite part of the group. They never quite rise above their status that they gained after all that happened in Arc 1. Which is why they kept trying to throw their lives away, among other things. When you’re doing your best and your pretty significant efforts are never acknowledged, it’s extremely discouraging, and for them, works with a fun concept we call confirmation bias. And that leads me to the names I gave the two atonement suberas. Sinner and purpose. The sinner subera is the one where they are self-flagellating harder than worshippers of Loviatar in D&D, and the purpose subera is the one where they finally, finally find themselves a worthy goal to pursue. A challenge, a purpose. Something only they can do, this time with a bit of extra help.

The way they see everything is literally just "everything we do is wrong and hurts people" and "we can never do anything right." Every single time Touka perks up after an adult calls her smart and bends over backwards to prove that the adult is right I want to break something. Dr. Satomi had good intentions but my man has NO IDEA the damage he did with those teachings. Noblesse oblige aside, Touka just ties her identity ENTIRELY to being smart. That's all she is. If you pay attention to the way she speaks, she weaves this into her personality all the time, and the amount of time she explicitly brings up being a genius is both concerning and a badly disguised cry for help under a layer of arrogance that’s easy to peel back if you simply cared enough to look closer. When she's given a role like say, Magius, then she has a job, a responsibility, and *points violently at my Magius Touka essay* A PURPOSE. It’s not particularly good for her, but it’s something. She desperately needed direction, to be taught how to be, well, herself, and nobody gave her that. No one gave her or Nemu what they needed. You know what their elders did? Yell at them.

If you think about it. Do the others ever sit down with TouNemu and talk to them? Do they really? Or do they basically only pay actual attention when TouNemu inevitably make a mistake or do something they don't like, to berate them for it like they're misbehaving dogs? No wonder they isolate themselves and can only open up to/rely on each other. They have no one else. Even Iroha and Ui are comparatively distant now. Not to mention, these two probably believe they're everything from hard to love to incorrigible to perpetually evil, cannot be good or do good, etc. Do the others ever praise them when they do something good? Is there ANY positive reinforcement at all? I have not even touched f4's funny child abuse joke about how Kanagi dishes out corporal punishment to these two. The instance of it in Paradise Shift boils my blood personally because EVEN WHEN THEY DO A GOOD THING THEY GET PUNISHED. And guess what their reaction is? Nothing. Just a complaint on Touka’s part when they’re in private about how it still hurts. That’s literally the reaction of a child who’s been hit by their parents all their life and doesn’t know anything else, or alternatively the reaction of someone whose belief about deserving that punishment is deeply rooted in them and so they have no reaction to it. In my humble opinion, these two are literally saints, I would have snapped a while ago if I were them. Especially because literally no one has noticed or acknowledged their growth at all (other than each other). Ui and Iroha, supposedly the people closest to them other than each other, still thought they would fight until they came to blows as late as Mokyu's MGS.

And that brings me to something that a person I’ve talked to about this has brought up. Touka and Nemu do still occasionally behave in abrasive ways (mainly Touka), look down on others, etc. But I mean, can you blame them? They’re not really getting the right feedback. How are they supposed to know better? If you take a closer look, they are almost disgustingly soft and sweet with each other. And although arguably during Arc 2 they are very cordial towards people (Kagome and Sana come to mind as easy examples, with them even helping Sana publish her picture book online), when they do act in ways that push people away… It’s probably on purpose. Subconsciously or consciously. It proves them right about being unlovable and irredeemable. It’s the confirmation bias all over again.

Christmas String is once again an excellent example of both their bond (although sadly they spend most of the event in Work Mode) and their growth over the years—which they acknowledge themselves in the event, MGS, and quotes. In that event, they were kind to two children they didn't even know and even went out of their way to help them, despite claiming many times that they’re not kind people and “aren’t that type of person” to help others. They specifically cite that as a thing Ui is capable of, something Iroha does, but not them of course. In light of what I just said about their own perception of themselves, however, they would literally never recognize that they are actually kind people. They did so many unnecessary nice things for others even without the diary's influence in that event alone, and if you look at them you could tell they were pleased and happy every time they saw that they'd helped someone. They just genuinely believe that to be kind, you need to be Ui/Iroha. They were most often around people like Ui and Iroha, who basically emanate an aura of light and kindness and empathy, and it seems to come so naturally to them, so surely if it doesn’t come as naturally to Touka and Nemu, it means they’re bad. And they can quite literally never be Iroha/Ui. They say that themselves.

It's also because of introversion vs extroversion. A lot of the time extroverted people give off more… Kind, warm vibes, friendly vibes, even if they’re shy and anxious like Iroha started out as, because they're more open and talkative and they Thrive With People. Introverts like Touka and Nemu however often seem “cold,” “aloof,” “rude,” or “uncaring,” and this is especially the case when the introvert in question doesn’t display enough shyness and anxiety for their attitude to be deemed “valid” or “understandable” when in reality they would still help you just as the extroverts would. There is also the autism argument, but there's a different essay for that. Granted, Touka and Nemu very often just, don’t wanna have anything to do with People. Them plain not talking to people or telling anyone that they could after Arc 2 until it became necessary is a good example of that. But, that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t help or that they would turn a blind eye. Unlike Iroha, however, Touka and Nemu generally do the opposite of seeking people out except when the person they seek is the other; I do not think they count each other as “people” in the same sense as everyone else. In many ways. As that same person I talked to put it… “I want to be alone with you by my side.” Because they are each other’s only safe space, where they can be truly 100% themselves without fear of judgment and without expectations to meet. I could start yelling about their bond now but I shall Refrain for the sake of not making this even longer.

Chapter Text

So it’s been driving me nuts for years that Nemu has so many religious undertones, yet I hadn’t really taken a closer look to figure out with 100% certainty which religion it was. The tie was between Shinto, Buddhism, and Christianity. I’ve always been more partial to Buddhism, but I had to check. LO AND BEHOLD, AFTER CHECKING, THE IDIOT IS BUDDHIST. And that explains so much! And now I need to talk about it. I’ll dedicate a small section at the very bottom separate from the rest (for spoilers from later in Arc 2) to Rabi because it’s crunchy, but most of this essay might honestly be “so this is Buddhism 101” followed by “this is how it applies to Nemu and conditions her character”.

I’ll be explaining concepts of Japanese Buddhism from scratch as well as exactly how they apply to the character, so don’t worry if you don’t know much about it! Note, however, that while I am not Buddhist myself, my research did come from Buddhist sources (both in text form and in the form of, well, People).

You see, as per the Agency for Cultural Affairs Religious Yearbook (I checked years 2011-2023 to account for fluctuation and the general trend of religious decline), roughly 65-70% of the population of Japan is Buddhist and/or Shintoist. The two overlap often so there’s no use trying to categorize people as strictly one or the other. If I must quote the data on Wikipedia for an easier, non-Japanese source (that is also sourced from the Japanese report):

What I mean to say by this is that Buddhism (as well as Shinto, obviously) has had and still has a significant impact on Japanese culture, way of life, etc. Now, for example, we know Mikoto was raised Buddhist, we know Ryoko is Buddhist, and we know the school everyone goes to in Sankyo Ward is a Buddhist school, but in Japanese media, they often strive for a more secular approach. Plus, especially when it comes to religions like Buddhism, most of the time, unless a character is very devoted to their religion or it’s a character trait the story/writers highlight, you won’t quite notice the signs that they’re religious, and yet chances are they are. 

In Nemu’s case, I looked into the way she speaks about certain topics and the words she uses, mainly. For this purpose, I scanned through the entire Japanese script of multiple stories including all of Arc 1. I don’t want to bog this down with too many examples, but I will give you one main indisputable example and mention a few other relevant things later for the actual character analysis. The example in question is simple. Nemu specifically uses the word for Avici (無間) to mean Hell a minimum of two times. That is a very specific word to use, because that my friends is the eighth and most painful of the eight hot hells in Buddhism, the hell of uninterrupted suffering, the deepest level reserved for the worst of the worst! (Nemu’s mental health is doing great why do you ask.) She also uses a word that most often refers to the Naraka realm which contains the sixteen hells of Buddhism (地獄, though this word can also refer to Christian Hell and general hell), when she’s referring to the underworld. 

To double down on one of the instances where Nemu uses the word for Avici, I will be very specific and just quote the girl directly. As we know by now, during Arc 1 Chapter 10 Episode 4, Nemu had this fun thing she decided to do where she fully intended to sacrifice herself, and she made a whole death speech, right? Here’s the death speech:

1. “Perhaps this is enough to redeem me. Perhaps with this… I can be forgiven.” -> Buddhist concept of karma, good actions that ease suffering and cause happiness grant good karma, bad actions that cause suffering grant bad karma. The former decreases the latter.
2. “But if my crime cannot be repaid through any means, I accept the infinite pyres of hell.” -> This is when the word for Avici is used, and Avici specifically is described in Japanese Buddhist texts as “a vast, fiery realm with immense walls and gates” (kinda similar to Christian Hell in this sense), hence pyres.
3. “It may take 349 eons for me to earn mercy, but if I have the story of my wish to now... Even hell's trials will be a blissful dream.” -> In Buddhism, unlike in, say, Christianity, wherever you are sentenced to go is never eternal. The duration of a being’s stay in Avici is said to be incredibly long, sometimes described as eons or countless lifetimes. But regardless, the cycle of rebirth continues, and eventually, a being might be reborn into a different realm based on their karma. That is what she means by this, she’s not being dramatic, she’s being rather literal. Oh and for funsies, the various forms of torture people in Avici are subjected to include but are not limited to: being burned, crushed, and dismembered. These torments are not fatal, and people are continuously “revived” to experience the suffering all over again. As for why 349 in particular, it's likely referring to a Buddhist sutra, The Exemplary Tale of Śrīsena, which illustrates the kinds of personal sacrifice a bodhisattva will make to attain awakening, even when these go against the protestations of those closest to them. As an extra bonus fun thing, one of the things the protagonist does is saw his lower body off. Sound familiar?

As for why Nemu thinks she deserves that, very simple! See, Avici basically represents the ultimate consequence of negative karma. Nemu as a Magius committed several offenses considered extremely serious in Buddhism, which were murder and lying. Maybe three if we count theft…? I am unsure if she would count any of what she did as theft. I’m assuming she is focused on the murder and most importantly the lying and general manipulation of the Feathers (likely made worse by Uwasa shenanigans). Other offenses that can lead to Avici are parricide and slandering the dharma, but those do not apply here.

The Buddhist perspective on Nemu also makes a few other things make more sense than they did before, and it brings up some interesting possibilities, but alas, I must now take a little break from being character-specific to give you a rundown on some bare basics of Buddhism. This is not exhaustive by any means.

Modern Buddhism as per its renewal during the Taisho Era is a lot more about ethical and social teachings, and if you so choose, scholarly pursuit. They put a lot of emphasis on morality, good and bad actions, karma, atonement, etc., and they did (and afaik still do) lots of social justice activism stuff. One should not conflate Western vs Eastern religions, because most of the time, there is no real equivalent between concepts, or at least, it doesn’t match closely enough. Let me explain the main branches of Buddhism a little for clarity first:

My assumption is that a majority of readers will be either Christian/other Abrahamic religion or irreligious (likely raised Abrahamic). So I’ll use Christianity to introduce this part. Christianity has many denominations like Catholic, Protestant, etc., each with its own specific doctrines and practices. Denominations typically imply a more centralized structure and a set of shared beliefs that differentiate them from other denominations within the same religion. Japanese Buddhism, however, is a broader term that refers to the various Buddhist schools and traditions that have taken root and developed in Japan. It encompasses diverse schools with varying interpretations and practices, existing under the broader umbrella of Mahayana Buddhism, which is a broader tradition and emphasizes the bodhisattva ideal (I will define what this is later) and the possibility of enlightenment for all beings. The other main branch of Buddhism is Theravada, which is not prominent in Japan and emphasizes individual enlightenment through strict adherence to the Buddha’s teachings. Therefore, in this sense, Japanese Buddhism is more like a regional expression of Mahayana Buddhism, distinct enough not to be called by the same name and with unique characteristics for its various schools of thought—which themselves may have local variations—while the core foundation remains the same. From now on, assume that different schools of thought may emphasize different aspects of the religion and different parts of it, and we have no way of knowing which specific school of thought any character belongs to.

Now, time to cover some core concepts. I want you to keep three characters in mind while we look at this, and those characters are Nemu, Rabi, and Mikoto. First of all, in honor of how they are traditionally believed to be the first teachings of the Buddha, we have the Four Noble Truths. They diagnose the human condition as suffering (dukkha) and offer a path of liberation from it. The truths in question are, in simple terms:

1. Suffering exists
2. Suffering has a cause (craving and attachment)
3. Suffering can be ended
4. There is a path to end suffering (the Eightfold Path)

We will get to the Eightfold Path in a second. Another core concept is the Three Jewels, which are the guiding principles of Buddhism:

1. Buddha, the historical founder (his actual name was Siddhartha Gautama) who achieved enlightenment and showed the path for others
2. Dharma, which are the teachings of the Buddha, including the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path
3. Sangha, which is the Buddhist community that provides support and guidance on the path to enlightenment

Something you may have heard often in relation to Buddhism is the word karma and the concept of rebirth. Let me explain this a little more. Those are core beliefs as well, and normally some of the most important to laypeople in the modern day. It’s very simple: actions and intentions (karma) determine the quality of one’s next life in the cycle of rebirth (samsara). The goal is to escape this cycle and achieve enlightenment/nirvana, that’s what they call breaking free from the cycle of suffering and achieving a state of perfect wisdom and liberation. That is one of the two goals of Buddhism, while the other is simply helping others. In ordained groups, this “helping others” often manifests as either activism or working towards the enlightenment of all beings, it’s about the bodhisattva ideal again. Before I define what that is, let me keep talking about karma for a second.

Karma is strictly different from what Christianity calls sin, though in translations people will often go for “sin” because the concept of sin is better understood in the West than the concept of karma. Karma is literally considered a natural law, exactly like gravity. And no one entity applies gravity, do they? The same way that gravity doesn’t have morals attached, doesn’t need to be administered by a mighty god and can produce suffering in some cases and happiness in others, karma doesn’t have morals attached, doesn’t need to be administered by a mighty god and can produce suffering in some cases and happiness in others, since it can be positive or negative. The aren't any real “sins” in Buddhism as we define them in the West, because karma is not a moral system. The actions that are classified as “bad” are classified as such because they will bring more suffering to yourself and/or others. Karma simply says that there are some actions that cause happiness and peace for yourself and/or others, and others that do the opposite. If you stick to the former and not the latter, you will be happier. Because of how sins work in the West (due to, yes, the institutions that run our religions), some folks are tempted to think that if they aren’t caught stealing or harming others or whatever, they will not suffer. But, karma is a natural law and as any other natural law is therefore infallible. By those actions you have planted a seed in your mind that will ripen as suffering when the right circumstances arrive. Even if it takes until after you die.

On this note, in Arc 2 Chapter 1, when Yuna threatened to, in essence and I think literally, split Touka’s skull with her kanabo, Nemu was resigned. She didn’t react, all she said, specifically, is “I suppose that’s karma (因果応報)”. The resignation is because karma is a law of nature. It cannot be avoided. This also puts Touka and Nemu’s self-destructive attempts at atonement in a completely different light. It’s not just remorse. Yes, that’s part of it, and probably the majority of it on Touka’s side, but on Nemu’s? Punishment is inevitable, so they might as well take the bulk of their punishment into their own hands (something something issues with control). Besides, as we saw in Christmas String, both girls believe themselves to be bad by nature, unable to help others or be kind no matter what they do, and Nemu in her hospital clothes costume story, towards the end, also says that being with Ui highlights just how twisted/bitter/perverse she herself is (the line is 自分がどれだけ捻くれてるか 本当に自覚させられるけど). Touka and Nemu do not for a second believe they are capable of accruing good karma, and especially not enough to cancel out all of their bad karma from the Magius era. They’re wrong, obviously, we know that, but they’re just little traumatized babies so we forgive them for being a little bit stupid. Particularly funny with how all of Christmas String was them doing good deeds, most of it of their own free will for a pair of children they didn’t even know at all. But I digress.

Since I mentioned the bodhisattva ideal again earlier, now’s a good time to define what that is. For this paragraph, keep Iroha and Ui in mind. A bodhisattva is a being who has vowed to achieve enlightenment and is perfectly capable of it, but chooses to remain in the cycle of rebirth to help others reach enlightenment as well. They are motivated by immense compassion (called karuna) for all sentient beings, and they are defined by selfless service. Their goal isn’t personal liberation alone, but the liberation of all beings from suffering. Key practices and characteristics of theirs are qualities like generosity, morality, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom, engaging in acts of kindness and service to benefit others, and using various methods to teach and guide others based on their needs and understanding. Buddhism’s compassion tenet in general is specified as compassion and understanding towards others and towards yourself. But yeah, I don’t think I have to explain why I said to keep Iroha and Ui in mind during this paragraph. I do find it crunchy when a Buddhist character sees another as “unreachable” and puts them on a pedestal because of how Buddha-like they are (embodying the virtues of Buddhism, the bodhisattva ideal).

Moving on, the Eightfold Path is a fundamental concept in Japanese Buddhism just like it is in all other forms of Buddhism. It outlines the path towards liberation from suffering as described in the Four Noble Truths. It’s traditionally divided into three categories:

• Wisdom, which refers to developing right understanding and right thought
• Ethical conduct, which refers to practicing right speech, right action, and right livelihood
• Mental discipline, which refers to cultivating right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration

The reason it’s called the Eightfold Path is because it has Eight Practices, which are as follows:

• Right View, which means having a clear understanding of the Four Noble Truths and the nature of reality
• Right Thought, which means cultivating wholesome thoughts free from greed, hatred, and delusion
• Right Speech, which means speaking truthfully, kindly, and avoiding gossip or harmful speech
• Right Action, which means acting ethically and non-violently, respecting all living beings
• Right Livelihood, which means earning a living through honest means that do not harm others
• Right Effort, which means putting in the effort to cultivate positive qualities and overcome negative ones
• Right Mindfulness, which means being fully aware of the present moment, your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations without judgment
• Right Concentration, which means developing a state of focused and clear mind through meditation practices

The Eightfold Path is also not a linear progression, but rather a set of interconnected practices that support each other.  By cultivating these practices, individuals can gradually progress on the path to enlightenment, or at least that’s what is taught. As a result of the Eightfold Path, common core practices include meditation, ethical conduct, and compassion. Meditation serves to develop mindfulness, focus, and inner peace, though practiced more among the ordained population. The ones most practiced and most highlighted among the laypeople are ethical conduct, which is just following moral principles like non-violence (ahimsa), truthfulness, and simply Not Stealing, and compassion, which is just about empathy and understanding for all living beings.

Let me be clear, there are precepts of behavior in Buddhism and things that are seen as bad/frowned upon for them. Generally, they all cause suffering, except for intoxicants, which attempt to flee from suffering (which doesn’t lead anywhere good, according to Buddhists). It’s stuff like no intentional murder (especially your mother and father), no stealing, no lies, no intoxicants, no sensual misconduct (such as rape or adultery). This last thing is sometimes translated as “no sex at all” due to how prevalent that kind of doctrine is in Abrahamic religions, despite the fact that it’s only in some Buddhist traditions, particularly Theravada Buddhism, that monks and nuns specifically take vows of celibacy as part of their monastic commitment so they can focus entirely on their spiritual practice and detachment from worldly desires. Laypeople from either branch don’t, and neither do monastics of the Mahayana branch, which is the umbrella Japanese Buddhism falls under. The only thing about it is that since the focus of Buddhism for practicing laypeople is on ethical conduct, practicing faithfulness within a relationship and making sure that relationship is healthy is hugely important.

Neeeeext up, the kleshas (煩悩). The kleshas are important and often translated as mental defilements, poisons, or afflictions. In essence, they represent the Unwholesome Mental States that cause suffering and hinder us from achieving enlightenment. A lot of the main kleshas match up with the Christian concept of the Seven Deadly Sins, but again, they are treated more as weeds in a garden and something you have to work through than “Oh You Are BAD Because You Did A Bad!!!”. Buddhism teaches that kleshas are not permanent fixtures in our minds, and so with effort and practice, they can be weeded out. Understanding the kleshas just helps us identify the root causes of our suffering, and by recognizing these Mental Defilements:tm:, we can work on purifying our minds and cultivating positive qualities like compassion and wisdom. The Buddhist practices I’ve mentioned (like meditation) are, in theory, designed to help us overcome the kleshas and achieve a state of inner peace and clarity. The kleshas are bad because they prevent us from experiencing true peace and happiness, which is what the Buddhist teachings are trying to help with.

Interestingly, you know what’s considered a klesha? Ignorance. Ignorance (or delusion), described as a lack of understanding about the true nature of reality, leads to confusion and making poor choices, hence why it’s counted as a klesha. To touch on the ones that match the Seven Deadly Sins for a few examples, envy is defined as resentment towards someone else’s good fortune, which creates negativity and dissatisfaction in yourself. Arrogance (pride) is defined as an inflated sense of self-importance, which causes disconnection from others. Feeling rage (wrath) and the like causes us to lash out or become bitter. Hatred can cause us to act in harmful ways and damage our relationships, not to mention the number it does on our own emotional energy. You see how this works, right? Buddhism isn’t telling you that you’re bad for having human thoughts and emotions and you’re going to BURN unless you pray really hard, it’s gently putting a hand on your shoulder and telling you, hey, you’re hurting yourself, let’s try to help you. However, it does put the responsibility of improving yourself right on your shoulders. That’s your job. Be better. Which… can be hard. Particularly if you’re convinced you can’t do that.

Another commonish concept in Japanese Buddhism is that of honne (本音) and tatemae (建前). It’s about the duality of inner thoughts (honne) and outward expressions (tatemae) in Japanese culture. While not strictly a Buddhist concept, it resonates with Buddhist teachings on impermanence and the constructed nature of reality, and I figure it’s especially relevant in a society that is so high context and polite (and, hey do not externalize your problems or cause trouble for The Collective okay?). The characters to think about here are Nemu with repressed bitterness and anger, and Mikoto with very outwardly expressed bitterness and anger. Mikoto is obvious, and because she was obvious, she got attention. I won’t speak too much about her because someone else is preparing to do so. Nemu, however, internalizes all of her problems and emotions, mostly for people pleasing reasons, as I explained in my other essays, but this is most likely affected by her religious leanings. The scholarly side of Buddhism fits Nemu particularly well.

As an aside before I tell you about Buddhist cosmology, let me explain a little something. If Nemu is a Buddhist, why did she do everything she did as a Magius? Simple. “The good this will do and the happiness I’ll bring to all Magical Girls in the present and the future will outweigh the bad” and if you think about it, becoming a witch means you are doomed to wander in eternal suffering which goes against everything Buddhism stands for. So, in light of that worst case scenario that isn’t even acknowledged by greater society, Nemu will make the sacrifice for the good of the many, to save them. She wants to save magical girls so bad, for both selfish and selfless (+religious) reasons. She was thinking the same way we saw her think in Arc 1 Chapter 10 Episode 4, which was “if I make this great big sacrifice for the sake of good, maybe I’ll be forgiven”. Much like part of why she minimizes her own pain so much is because of the Four Noble Truths telling her that suffering is everywhere and that being alive is suffering—further supported by her being terminally ill and hospitalized for presumably her entire childhood (since her brother acts like she’s a complete stranger), which is not exactly conducive to optimism or to seeing the love and light in the world.

If we take a look at some of Nemu’s quotes, for example, we also have several instances of very Buddhist statements:

幸せな人生の秘訣とは、変化を喜んで受け入れること。この言葉が胸にあったから、僕は退院して世界が広がっても、混乱せずに済んだんだ。

The key to a happy life is the willingness to accept change. Keeping these words in my heart helped me to acclimatize as my world widened considerably after I left the hospital.

The first line specifically, if I recall correctly, is a Japanese proverb which aligns with Buddhist teachings on impermanence (anicca) and acceptance (upekkha). In Buddhism, impermanence refers to the constantly changing nature of all things, including our thoughts, emotions, and circumstances. Acceptance involves acknowledging and accepting these changes without judgment or resistance. The quote before this one does talk about sorrow and poverty being necessary for humans, but that’s actually a quote attributed to Russian novelist and playwright Ivan Turgenev, not a Buddhist thing, though it is Buddhist-aligned. It's fun that Nemu rebels against the adaptability part of this in the very next quote.

Another extra note on Nemu’s philosophy that is sort of unrelated to the rest of the essay but I had to put it somewhere: Japanese culture is also influenced by Confucianism, which emphasizes filial piety (respect for parents) and respect for teachers. These concepts unfortunately might blend with Buddhist principles in parent-child and mentor-pupil relationships. That and the people pleasing are two of the big reasons Nemu acts the way she does with her family, her parents in particular. She feels the weight of a perceived duty to one’s parents and family, and she doesn’t think she can criticize her parents even when she’s frustrated and/or angry about their behavior, not even behind their backs. Since before she shared a room with Touka and Ui, she most likely spent almost all of her time reading, she most definitely clings to the concept of filial piety as a sort of behavioral guide in her desperation to be loved by her parents. Imagine her alone in the dark, bedridden and in pain, after lights out, crying quietly on the pages of a book about Confucian philosophy and thinking about this, starved for affection and so confused as to why it’s not working. The answer has to be that she’s a burden. Her medical bills, sending her clothes, visiting her, all of it is a burden to her parents. She tries to be as out of the way as possible, as helpful as possible, in hopes of making up for it.

*COUGH* Anyway. Japanese Buddhist cosmology adopts the core ideas of general Buddhist cosmology, but incorporates some unique elements influenced by Shinto beliefs, as you might imagine. For example, for the afterlife journey, the Sanzu River is uniquely important in Japan. It’s usually symbolic (and you can think of it as similar to the Styx in Greek religion), and it’s what separates the world of the living from the afterlife. The difficulty of crossing (calm bridge, rough ford, treacherous shoals) reflects the severity of the deceased’s karma. Based on a being’s karma, they are judged and reborn into one of the six realms, where they will stay temporarily until their karma returns to zero (upon which they will be reborn again into a different realm, as far as I understand).

“Nahi, what do you mean by realm?” Ah! Let me explain. In Buddhism, there are six realms we can exist in. The Six Realms of Existence are:

• Deva realm (Heavens), a realm of pleasure and happiness, but temporary as beings' karma depletes.
• Asura realm, a realm of jealousy and conflict, where beings constantly compete for power and resources
• Human realm, the realm of ordinary humans, characterized by suffering, impermanence, and the opportunity for spiritual growth
• Animal realm, a realm of suffering and limited consciousness, where beings are at the mercy of their instincts and predators
• Preta realm, a realm of insatiable hunger and thirst, where beings cannot find sustenance
• Naraka realm (Hells), basically the realm of intense suffering caused by negative karma

Of course, when a being is sentenced to one of these realms after death, its stay there is never permanent. Japanese Buddhism adheres to the concept of eight hot hells and eight cold hells within the Naraka realm. Each of the hells might be further subdivided into even more specific hells with unique punishments. The eight hot hells are characterized by intense heat, fire, and torture. Pretty similar to most depictions of Christian Hell in that sense. The severity of punishment increases as you descend deeper (something something Divine Comedy). I am unsure if they have actual English names, my source was Japanese, I tried my best here. The eight hot hells are as follows:

• Burning Hell (焦熱地獄): sinners are tormented in a blazing inferno
• Hell of Black Ropes (黒縄地獄): souls are bound with black ropes and sliced with burning blades
• Crushing Hell (衆合地獄): beings are crushed by immense boulders or pressed together in a confined space
• Screaming Hell (叫喚地獄): souls endure excruciating pain that forces them to scream incessantly
• Great Screaming Hell (大叫喚地獄): even worse than the previous one, with even more intense pain and screaming
• Iron Pot Hell (極楽地獄): souls are boiled alive in giant iron cauldrons
• Changing Hell (正変地獄): sinners experience constant transformations into different tortured forms
• Unremitting Hell (無間地獄): the deepest and most severe hell, with relentless suffering without respite

This last one is Avici, Nemu’s preferred destination apparently. As for the eight cold hells, they are characterized by extreme cold and icy torment. And I give up on trying to translate their names, so here they are:

• Hell of Arbuda (鞕抜地獄): souls experience excruciating pain as their bodies develop chilblains that burst open
• Hell of Nirarbuda (鞕抜地獄): a continuation of the previous hell, where the chilblains worsen and constantly burst
• Hell of Atata (閊陀地獄): souls shiver uncontrollably in the intense cold
• Hell of Hahava (臛臛婆地獄): sinners lament in the cold, making "haa" sounds due to the pain
• Hell of Huhuva (虎虎婆地獄): souls chatter their teeth uncontrollably due to the extreme cold (yes I know this sounds similar to Atata)
• Hell of Utpala (鬱波羅地獄): the intense cold turns the skin blue, resembling a blue lotus flower
• Hell of Padma (鉢特摩地獄): blizzards crack open frozen skin, revealing raw and bloody flesh
• Hell of Mahapadma (摩訶鉢特摩地獄): the entire body cracks open due to the intense cold, exposing the internal organs

Alina would love some of these. I’m sure she does. But, yes, that rundown was mostly to show you that there are many, many words for Hell that a Buddhist can use, and Nemu specifically used the abbreviation for Avici (無間). So as far as I’m concerned, that and the few other subtler things point towards her being a Buddhist, and it makes for a more interesting interpretation of the character. Nemu has so much trauma and as it turns out, part of it has a religious flavor. Lovely!

To end this off on a positive note, I have this thought for you. Touka and Nemu's final state as Uwasa Queens technically counts as nirvana, enlightenment. They made a selfless sacrifice, let go of all worldly attachments, escaped the cycle of rebirth (since I do not think an uwasa is part of that?). They are at their wisest and kindest, at their best in all ways and are also doing good, honest work and making an effort for the happiness of others. It may not look like the traditional way of achieving nirvana, but... It is definitely their nirvana.

I will write one last very brief section about Rabi, but the essay/lecture has pretty much come to an end here. If you want a bonus, here's a post by a Buddhist talking about relationships that will make you go "oh Nemu" (as in poor baby) probably.

Rabi’s entire status of resignation reminds me a lot of Nemu’s. Rabi is resigned to suffer and keeps advancing the hand on her watch and doomposting, despite the fact that it is entirely her choice to do that. In the uh… I hesitate to call it “grand finale of Folklore’s arc” near the end of Arc 2, what she wants to do is end all magical girls to ease suffering. It’s very Buddhist. That’s all.

Chapter Text

For those of you unfamiliar with the Greek styles of love, not to worry, I will provide definitions for each term, and I will clarify that they don’t cover only romantic love. Given my aspec TouNemu headcanons, I’d be in trouble if they did. Anyway, remember that the person writing this is both the foremost scholar in TouNemu and also probably the biggest shipper of the two, so for the best experience you will have to read this from the perspective of “yes those two are canon”. And also from the perspective of “these two are people in their universe that existed before canon and will exist beyond canon”. Oh, and spoilers for the TouNemu part of the Arc 2 finale, but I mean, I think most people are at least vaguely familiar with what happened, given PH and all that. This essay is gonna be more headcanon-y than the others, I'd say.

First of all, I call these “love styles” because that is what my teachers and mentors called them when teaching me about them (why yes Nahi is academically and culturally qualified to speak on Grecoroman stuff, unexpected I know). You may see them talked about as just different words for love, or different concepts. These styles are recognizable in people, and sometimes you can tell someone has one of them as their primary style, sometimes you can see the secondary one, there are many variables. Most people experience each of them at some point in their lives. So, let’s begin with philia:

Fun fact, the ancient Greeks valued philia far above eros because it was considered a love between equals (in reference to the historical inequality between men and women and the historical expectation for one’s friends to be the same sex and one’s romantic partner to be the opposite, needless to say this does not apply when we’re talking about two girls). I thought philia would be a nice, comfortable, easy place to start. Because sure, Touka and Nemu used to fight when they first met, but while important, that is literally not even one fifth of their relationship.

The way Touka and Nemu developed their relationship does actually involve philia, and therefore they continue to have it later in life, like the nourishing soil for their relationship. I believe this is a vitally important and extremely strong foundation they've built. I’ve said this before elsewhere, but despite my enthusiastic shipping of the pair, I wouldn't describe them as the “typical” lovers. Because yes, there’s that, but there’s also so much more to their bond than that, and this is one of the essentials. My timeline in my head for how the relationship would’ve even happened puts the earliest possible point where they could start dating(?) at around Cherry Blossom Dreams, so that's a good half of the game canon and pre-Arc 1 where it was just mounting philia for them. Bare basics! Highly important! Plus, if you go the demi route of the aspec interpretation, they kind of need to have a strong emotional bond via philia first. Or, given that they refused to call each other friends for so long, my favorite: weird undefined thing that grows and changes but we're not gonna put a label on it exactly because it doesn’t quite fit any preexisting ones/it doesn’t feel right. Or if you want to be funny, you can call them lab partners, since that is part of what they are to each other at least during Arc 2. This entire thing is also why I most often pick “partners” as their term of preference, “partner” feels like a wider scope than “girlfriend/wife” and fits them perfectly.

Now, time for storge:

Evidently, storge applies to Touka and Nemu. Between one another, yes, but I feel it especially from them towards say Iroha (and Ui, after the crush passed), towards Sakurako, or from Touka to her dad (I am not mentioning Nemu and her parents because what Nemu feels towards her parents is filial piety and desperation for love, not love). TouNemu specifically tend to feel at least a little protective of the people they love in this manner and try to look after them. Less intense than their protectiveness of each other, in part because well, other people have Others. They do not. Storge feels like it's woven into philia from their hospital days, a natural development that likely happened alongside philia in a way. Not much more to say here I think

Next up, agape:

*slams hands on table* YOU SEE. The selfless love for humanity to save strangers and whatever is there with Touka and Nemu, but not really as important as other parts of agape, they have higher priorities (this part of agape I feel is way more prevalent in Ui or Iroha). Unconditional and sometimes sacrificial love for each other, though? Loving without expectations or pressure? Most definitely! Absolutely. They even do this in lesser ways with other close loved ones. I do not think I have to point out the examples from canon, they've tried to kill themselves like five times give or take, and almost always you can trace their reasoning back to love in some way (in between all the trauma and guilt), plus some decisions about the specifics of their little self-immolation schemes are so clearly made with a sense of equality, partnership with each other. The unconditional part is something that’s very important for them to receive from each other. One of the reasons they trust each other so much is precisely how much they respect the other when it comes to boundaries, as well as the lack of expectations/conditions, which I’ve talked about before in other essays I believe.

So! The funny stalker love now!

I mean. They absolutely have it. It’s not too major for them, or at least not in the traditional sense. I don't think it's the unhealthy sort. They do display obsessive behavior at times (usually relatively minor, but I imagine it'd be worse if they weren't constantly joined at the hip, Touka was not exactly happy when Nemu got kidnapped by former Feathers in the IroYachi event), and I've argued before with screenshot evidence that both of them are possessive with both things/concepts and people. With how their relationship map has evolved, this behavior is mostly in their heads and applies to each other the most. There's a level of entitlement to the other and defensiveness they have too, and honestly, the depths their love reaches would 100% be considered madness. I mean. Must I point at the Arc 2 finale and that very fun decision of shedding their humanity and leaving their world, lives, dreams, aspirations, legacy and memories behind to live together in space? That's not normal person behavior, especially when it involves Exploding In Public as the preamble/step 1. THAT'S NOT NORMAL PERSON BEHAVIOR… Mania is usually seen as bad because the famous examples are all one-sided and on the very extreme, but I mean, what's wrong with two-sided mania? They seem fine to me. Codependent, but surprisingly functional in spite of that—I think they feel secure in their relationship at the moment. That said, if you just did a handful of very specific things, such as, say, very bad things happening to the other every time they’re apart… well, can you really tell me it wouldn’t amp up their paranoia and possessive protectiveness? Really think about it. If you pushed the right buttons, you could easily bring the mania to the surface.

Anyway, next up, my favorite that I named a fic after (yes you should read it if you haven’t already), pragma:

So basically intense devotion, mutual understanding, and the single most “partner” love. The “I will stand by your side no matter what” love. The kind that pays attention to the tiniest details and quietly makes adjustments as needed, the kind that Knows. Do I have to say anything? Do I really? This is TouNemu to a T. I will die on the hill that TouNemu's primary love style with each other is pragma.

I was not looking forward to this part considering the state of media literacy and reading comprehension, but here it is, eros:

I think this one is the most difficult to explain, if only because it clashes with my interpretation of the girls as being in the aspec, but if we're talking physical, I do 100% think that physical affection (and yes, sex) is/would be important for both Touka and Nemu, with the headcanon for Nemu having high libido issues being pretty much unanimously accepted among the TouNemu cult (because it does have canon basis and the ace + high libido combo is interesting to toy with). It's a lot about grounding for them, I feel. Touch is grounding for them because they've never had it and they therefore crave it, a more solid anchor than anything else, and like a sort of lifebuoy that I feel they can throw at one another if they notice The Signs, while at the same time being very gentle. As a friend of mine also recognized when discussing this in DMs, if anyone were to recognize their specific signs of their dissociation/panic, it would be the other, because they essentially developed these defense mechanisms and coping skills together. Plus, it's a multi-sensory anchor: the touch isn't just about texture, but also warmth, and the rhythm of breathing, and the subtle shifting of your partner, and their closeness, and the slight moisture of their breath. And that's just the tactile portion! It's also major with scent and sound and There Is A Lot.

Gentleness is one thing, but if you go into the kink side a little more, there's controlled aggression, the sting of a pain you can control (since it can stop with a single word or gesture/you get to be the one dishing it out for once), the other sorts of sensory craving that things like temperature play can satisfy. It's a lot about control in this case. I have so many thoughts and feelings about TouNemu's physicality- it's comforting to them both for grounding reasons and the emotional security in feeling the signs of presence and life in the one person they know they can rely on. There is a bit too much to get into right now (I could majorly elaborate on the sex and kink thing if asked), so we shall move on.

Yet another one I’m anxious about sharing for the same reasons as eros… Ludus.

Throwing the noncommittal part completely into the trash for the canon timeline analysis, Touka and Nemu’s entire relationship is based on teasing and mind games. They are the only people they act playful towards or joke with at all—they will, on rare occasions, also tease Ui, but it doesn’t feel the same with her because Ui doesn’t really play their game. Their whole thing is exactly this. And since ludus, like all the other styles, can overlap with other styles of love, you really don’t have to compromise on the girls’ philia or pragma to agree that they have a healthy degree of ludus in their relationship by nature. It’s something they treat as unique to their relationship too, which is interesting. 

They're NOT AT ALL noncommittal or “casual” about each other, however they do like to treat their relationship like a sort of “game”. Their mind games and verbal sniping are in fact courtship, I think it relates to intellectual stimulation and poking the other around. In this sense they are basically seeking enrichment, fun, while also letting their relationship be extremely intense and mostly undefined. And I would be lying if I said I haven't had many AUs where these two started out as friends with benefits or went through that phase before settling into commitment (because they're stupid and in denial and allergic to vulnerability). It's a fascinating avenue to explore with them, particularly because a relationship that you negotiate and agree on being “no strings attached” (lmao good luck you idiots) avoids things they're terrible at such as The Big Emotions, so it's also a safety net. And a way to remain “close” and develop trust without necessarily being traditionally emotionally vulnerable. Not to mention that as an established relationship, I fully believe they would have business meetings every month to discuss the state of it; feedback, any necessary grievances they want to air, working together on problem-solving, etc.

Lastly, another big one! Philautia!

Let me tell you self-love is horrendous for both Touka and Nemu. Nemu is way worse at this than Touka. I don’t know what you expected me to say, but they simultaneously have huge egos and also the lowest self-esteem known to man. You can see this clearly in the ways they interact with others and the ways they objectify and dehumanize themselves respectively. I'm not sure I've talked about this at length before, but it holds true in every iteration of their characters, no matter what.

Touka is a little complicated to examine with this, with the simultaneous sense of both superiority and inferiority. She knows she sucks at socializing. She knows she’s the best in her fields. She may be young, but she’s not stupid. Assigning roles to herself and using her knowledge (hence her shoehorning sciency things in conversation) are the only ways she knows how to socialize, and as I’ve analyzed in other essays before, in Touka’s mind, all of her worth hinges on her intelligence. It’s what she’s been told her entire life: you’re so smart, that’s incredible, you’re so much more intelligent than others. The role of “genius” is what gives her a framework for how to interact with people, and Nemu threw that out of whack because she made Touka go off-script. Touka hadn’t prepared to deal with someone as smart as her. She hadn’t thought she’d have an equal. As a Magius, the way she acts is also mostly within the confines of her role, her job, what she’s expected to be like and what she’s expected to do. It’s all scripted. It’s the only way she thinks she can navigate most social interactions and communicate with People (capitalized because as I’ve said before, Touka and Nemu do not consider each other people, they consider each other a sort of part of themselves, something that cannot be handled the same way as People).

As for Nemu, boy buddy boy does this idiot self-flagellate. Not only is she introspective and the type to overthink everything and conclude she deserves nothing but the flames of Avici (her words, not mine), but she’s also painfully repressed in so many ways. I’ll go into all of this more in one of my upcoming essays that examines Nemu through a Buddhist lens (because she is Buddhist). The main point is that while Touka uses her masks and the enforcement of “roles” in order to navigate socialization, Nemu appears to be much better at it, but that’s really just an illusion. It’s because she knows how people speak. All she does is read, and she’s a writer, so there’s no way she wouldn’t. Is it genuine? Not really. She’s polite, though. In that sense she is the very example of a “proper” lady (Japan standards). Speaks nicely, can carry a conversation with perfect normalcy, etc. The only exceptions are Touka, whenever she decides someone is her enemy (such as Mikazuki when she was a Magius or Felicia in Ui’s MGS), and Sakurako who she speaks to with genuine motherly affection. It’s very. Very interesting. I am vibrating trying not to go into how this relates to her being a Buddhist, that is from the previous essay. Moving on.

Touka and Nemu are ultimately not made to be human, yet they are so very human nonetheless, and it shows in their hearts. There's an ache there. A desire to belong. But that desire feels lost and contradictory with the way they’re treated and with their other desires. And, no matter how hard they try, they can never find a home in those around them. Their sights are set too high, no other can match that, and so they feel alien and out of place with people besides one another. They both have very strong hearts, especially when they're together, and unlike say Iroha (who is all too human and thus yearns to return to a place she felt she belonged post-Arc 2), they make peace with their own departure. They never belonged anyway. Their place is not among the masses. This is why they have absolutely no qualms basically cutting ties with the mortal world for their ascension. They fully believe it's the best they can do, both for themselves and others. And while this dehumanization of the self can often either cause or be because of self-loathing, it also may not, or may grow past it.

I think that's what we were seeing with the ascension. It felt like chains snapping off and letting them fly, letting them finally pursue their goals unhindered, with each other as eternal support and without the constraints of human society that they’d always endured.

Chapter Text

To start off, the only memoriae of theirs where they aren't together are their personals, the obligatory flower fields, and one on each side which had reasons outside of their control that kept them apart. Which is just. Yeah, talk about being joined at the hip. I won't be doing the dual unit's personal because the text doesn't really give us much to talk about or even gush about, it's just a literal description of what happens in Christmas String. I will however note that it features a book (diary) like Nemu's personal, but has the exact effect of Touka's personal. We will also be looking at both NA translations and fan translations of memo descriptions for picking apart purposes (and because I do not trust NA whatsoever).

A Freedom for Just Me (NA: My Own Freedom) is Touka's personal memoria and the description reads as follows:

The earth orbits the sun? That's a lie. The world is a big place? That's a lie. Seeing it on TV, on the internet, how can you be so sure? The only things I know are true? That the starry sky, and the things around me keep spinning. (NA)

It's a lie that the earth orbits the sun. It's a lie that the world is this big. I don't know if what I see on TV or the internet is true, but the starry sky is spinning. It revolves around me. This is the only thing that's true.

NA chose a very funny way of translating that last thing and I think it makes more sense if you take the JP version, because the sky and things in it do "move" from our perspective (we are the ones moving mostly but shh). Nitpicking aside, let me dig into this. Firstly, the image itself is VERY indicative of how Touka feels. Hospital bed, with an IV included, the night sky, and that dome thing that looks an awful lot like a cage. Just like the ones she also has everywhere in her room! The title of the memoria is also very telling, and I think people often forget just how tightly tied Touka is to the idea of freedom and the feeling of being trapped (in a gilded cage but a cage nonetheless). This is part of why she doesn't usually listen to others, too. Let me take a look at the visual elements before the text, it'll tie together nicely.

Going element by element... There's the hospital bed and IV. That's a very specific combination, and part of the "cage" Touka feels trapped in, the IVs like chains on her body. Her illness has probably had her bedridden and hooked up to a bunch of machinery before, we saw a glimpse of that sort of thing from Ui in the anime. And really what else to do but to look up to the sky and envy the stars, who are free and bright and real? Something you can see. There's this whole thing about being an inpatient at a hospital, especially a child, that I've mentioned but have never really elaborated on I think, which is the part where things stop feeling real and you yourself stop feeling real, stop feeling like a person. I've heard about it from child inpatients when volunteering at hospitals and it can be a little complicated to understand for people who've never been in a similar situation. I'm not sure how familiar other folks are with the routine of a child inpatient, because that's a big part of what causes this. The hospital trio have mentioned it offhandedly before (I believe it was Ui who may have mentioned it while they were making Sakurako?) but:

It's grueling for the mind of a child to live in a place that is so... white, largely impersonal, you're never really always tended to as children need to be (the nurses will do their best but there is only so much you can do), you often aren't allowed to go outside or do a lot of the things you want to do, even inside, plus dietary restrictions can lead to Not Great relationships with food (or apathy towards it) whether during the extended hospital stay or after. The routine is also No Good Very Bad for them because while routine is helpful for mental development in a way, the "rules" and routines established at home still leave room for variety in a child's day, and normally they're always learning new things and gathering new experiences. The learning new things does apply to Ui, however not so much to Touka and Nemu, and the new experiences gathered are. Um. Well. None, for the most part, because that's kinda the point of a hospital—to be a controlled environment, for the safety of the patients. But really, when they say their routine is something along the lines of "wake up, maybe go to school (the hospital class) if you feel well enough, go to bed"... they mean it. They do nothing else. And not all kids are lucky enough to be in a hospital that prepares special events or activities for them, and even then sometimes those are not enough. They can't replace freedom.

There's a special kind of boredom and seclusion that sets in after a while. You need to understand, these are children. Not even teenager-children, children (for however long they were hospitalized, which is implied to have been a long time, at minimum three years if the anime is accurate to that, but I believe they were there even longer than that solely based on context clues). Kids are not adults. Kids do not have the experience that adults or even teens do. Kids don't know the world around them yet. It can get to a point where they don't even remember anything before the hospital, and see, that becomes really surreal really fast. I'm not sure how to explain this part but the child very easily can start to feel completely disconnected from "the outside" and their world becomes very very tiny. This is also done in part to protect themselves, because it hurts. It hurts a lot to know you're not allowed to do and experience so many things, while every other kid is, especially if you're terminal and are convinced you won't get better. It is implied that at least Touka and Nemu were of that school of thought, which is not great. So it's common, especially for neurodivergent kids (like TouNemu), to dissociate HEAVILY. The amount of sensory deprivation and understimulation in hospitals is insane. You see how Nemu in her quotes is constantly talking about taking in the sounds and colors? Yeah, this is why. Touka does much of the same, but doesn't directly talk about it. Now add onto the mental and sensory stimulation issues the fact that these two are child prodigies and you have yourself a recipe for Way Way Worse Than Usual! That's why the internet isn't quite enough. Because while adults and non-inpatients have the experience and firsthand knowledge of the world around them, these kids don't. So even if you read article after article and watch video after video, all they are to you is 1s and 0s. Text/images on a screen. Not real. Touka states it almost explicitly, and Nemu… well I could go on about the usage of literature to cope. It's not your world, you don't recognize it as yours (resentment goes brrr).

ANYWAY back to the Touka personal! So, Touka feels chained to that bed. Next up is a related element! That dome thingy above the bed. A lot like a cage, I'd say it looks a lot like the upper half of a hanging birdcage with the... thing you hang it from removed.

With the perch being the bed. This really is the exact same type of cage she has in her room... and we're talking about a character with a bird doppel... SPEAKING of birds, these kinds of cages are proven to be absolutely terrible for them (any cage that is too small for an animal is absolutely terrible for them), due to how cramped they are (notice Touka also calls her world narrow and cramped). If a bird was never let out of its cage and grew up for years inside that cage... well assuming the hypothetical bird has the mental capacity of the child we're talking about, its outlook would not be much different from Touka's. It may also represent the hospital as a controlled environment. Those who are "bigger" and "know better" control what's inside the cage, what happens to the being held inside, and care for the being's basic needs (this can also relate to diet things). Much like child inpatients, the mental stimulation of pet birds is often ignored, whether because the owner doesn't care or because they're ignorant.

Then, lastly, the night sky and a shooting star/comet (I'm gonna assume it's a comet?). The sky is universal, everywhere in the world anyone can look up and we all see the same sky. For a kid in Touka's position, the night sky can feel much closer and more real than any other thing beyond the white walls. Filled with glittering jewels that turn out to be not only pretty but fascinating, with incredibly variety and mounting complexity the more you look into the field, and constellations, asterisms, comets, odd stars and planets, long etcetera. The cosmos is an infinite expanse, the gift that keeps on giving, it gives and it gives without end, and it never takes, never asks for anything, never states a price beyond Touka's time (which, arguably, is one's most precious gift to give, yes something something the amount of time TouNemu spend together). In this way, outer space is similar to Nemu in Touka's eyes (she connects these dots way later down the line, even later than she connects the "oh, space to me is what literature/writing is to Nemu" dots). You can see why Touka may become hyperattached to the whole outer space thing and why it may mean so much to her (possible autistic special interests aside).

The girl was withering away, feeling like life was not worth the pain and suffering she had to endure from her illness and the consequences of it (such as the inpatient status), and the stars gave her something to reach for, something tangible, something she could know and know for good. It doesn't change too fast to keep up with, it doesn't feel like it will ever leave her behind, it doesn't take anything from her, and it's ever-present. The text corroborates my words, essentially, so I don't think I have to go into how the text applies to Touka. The starry sky is all around her, and she knows it well. Like a mantle of comfort and reassurance. I don't think I have to spell out why Touka is so linked to freedom and why she values it so much, do I? Also the part about defying authority and being all, unyieldy about things.

Anyway, we are going to do Touka's flower field memoria next, then we'll go for Nemu's personal and flower field. I'm not even gonna use the NA title for this one, because the JP one is better: A Longing for the Beyond.

The end of the universe brings the dark and vast eternal world of time to my tiny little cramped world. The end of the universe also creates the flow of time. I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything. I will cherish what I learn, and it will make me a kinder person. (NA)

“My small and narrow world and the dark and long eternity of time.
It is the end of space that has expanded the world. It's the end of the sky who made time flow by. I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything.
It will become a nice possession for me. That’s how I can become kind.”

So okay this one, being a flower field memoria, does not have much to it visually, however the title and text are interesting. The part about longing, I think I've covered somewhat in the previous memoria's analysis. Plus Touka and Nemu are both INCREDIBLY yearny. They pine and long and yearn so much, largely because they have so much love to give, they love so intensely and that is often a feature of those who have been deprived of something they desperately needed/craved for a good chunk of their childhoods. But we will discuss that AT LENGTH with Nemu's personal don't you worry. I have covered a good amount of the text for this one honestly (I am pointing at Touka calling her world tiny and cramped and referring to the cosmos as the thing that widened her horizons and expanded her perception of reality, it's vital to have anchors to prevent severe episodes of dissociation), so let me hone in on two-three things.

"I don't care if my brain cells overheat, I want to know everything."

This line can be easily glossed over as oh Touka's doing the sciency word thing again, but Hey, Let The Child Express Herself And Listen. This is part of the very foundation of what I refer to as her gladiator behavior. You know, every time she and Nemu show dangerous levels of curiosity and fascination with things, and that curiosity alone is enough for them to take on impossible challenges regardless of risk, for no real reward (or no guaranteed one) besides victory? Yep, that goes all the way back to this, and there is a root to that behavior, that attitude. It's a little like living your entire life with clipped wings, and then one day, something (the stars in this case) changes your life completely. You're able to glide and fly for the first time since you can remember. It's only natural that you'd want to fly higher and higher, experience more of that no matter how many times you fall or how bad the bruise is. If you frame it a certain way, it's the tale of Icarus all over again. Wiiiiith the difference being that Touka was better at wing construction and she blew up her wings on purpose to successfully propel herself to the stars (Chapter 8 my fucking beloved). Her ego kind of connects to this in a certain way too. Since, well, she connects more to the night sky, above everything on the ground. She stands closest to the stars, therefore on a pillar raised above the rest. This is only a very small part of the ego topic though, it has many contributing factors. Also have you ever noticed that Nemu is just like the night, just like the stars. Quiet, subtle, with its complexity glossed over by the average person until you take the time and care to look closer- cough.

The part about cherishing what she learns is also very true for Touka, you'll notice she greatly values knowledge as well as learning, but see how the JP refers to it as a possession. I feel like that applies to space specifically and how deeply important and personal her bond with it was back when she was younger. As we saw in her quotes, she's much more willing to share now than she used to be, which is a sign of growth (also the fact that Nemu of all people, who hates and feels guilty for asking basically anything, feels confident and sure enough to casually ask Touka about something like space that used to be a landmine back in the hospital… Also Has Meaning, but I am trying not to gush too much here). And now I'm trying to figure out how to tackle the last line about becoming kind. I think I should fetch something I said on Discord while going through TouNemu content in my brainrot containment zone:

And then I said:

she's trying, she wants to help, she wants to be good. But, there are multiple reasons she thinks she can't

really Touka's thing with kindness reminds me of this one episode of Supernanny where one of the little boys in the household was super troublesome and had ADHD, and after a tantrum he ran off to his bedroom and curled up on his bed. Supernanny Jo Frost very softly asked him if she could come in, and if she could come closer/sit on his bed, comforted him a little, and asked him about if he wanted to be good. The poor little boy nodded and kept saying he wants to be good with a shaky voice while sobbing, and you could just tell that he was trying his best but didn't feel he could be good

Touka wants to be kind. She wants to be nice. She just doesn't know how and believes that because it doesn't come in her "how to human" manual, she can't. She thinks if she keeps learning, if she keeps hoarding more and more knowledge, then eventually, surely, she'll figure out how to be kind.

... I talked so much about the personal memo that I don't have as much to say for this one- unless I talk about TouNemu and possessiveness that is. Because they do have a fun possessive streak! Over both things and people! But I will do that another day. For now, onto Nemu's personal memoria and flower field memoria!

An Unobtainable Thing (NA: Beyond My Reach) is hella depressing to talk about so buckle up! I spent a while picking at the JP translation. Description reads as follows:

What was I hoping for? What did I want? A newly released novel? An out-of-print book that sounded interesting? New clothes for a change of image? No, no, no. Those are all wrong. I just want to be told I'm loved. It's so close and yet so far. That is all I want. (NA)

What was it that I was looking for? What did I want? A novel that had just been released? An out-of-print book I was really interested in? New clothes to change my image? No, no, no, none of the above. I just want to hear the words that love me, the closest and farthest. That's all I want.

Nemu is more self aware than Touka is. Despite the fact that she suppresses that and her own feelings as hard as humanly possible which leads to… all of her no good very bad thought patterns basically. The visual elements of this memoria are a bit harder to pin down than Touka's because there's just, More Stuff In It™️ in terms of objects. I feel like the text here is much easier to go through than the visuals? But the visuals do a good job supporting the text anyway. Surrounded by piles upon piles of books, there's a notebook I assume for writing or notes, and the ground below is also written on. I'm not sure what the closed and piled vs open and laid out books could mean. Then there's the folded pajamas (basically hospital clothes) and the two figures in the distance, one taller one shorter, which you can assume are meant to be Nemu and her mom, or worse, Nemu's mom and brother. Which is depressing! You can interpret this as Nemu really really hoping her mom would take her back home, or you can interpret the clothes as the thing that represents herself and the piled books as a sort of fortress or shelter, while the two figures inevitably walk away and she is unable to reach them (seriously those piled books look an AWFUL LOT like a fortress, something something defense mechanism). As somebody else in my Discord containment zone said, the clothes, the books, etc are the things that Nemu does have, things she can acquire, while the thing she really wants, that being her family, are so far away as to be unreachable. The writing on the ground leads into the distance toward them, perhaps symbolizing her writing as her reaching out to what she really wants in the only way she knows how. Not to mention that the light shining through the clouds illuminating them from the background gives it a heavenly quality, pointing to her awareness that she will not live much longer and that the love she craves is what she believes is heaven (as in the general meaning of the word, specifically she might liken it to the Deva realm, unsure).

As for the text though, I've gone on and on endlessly about Nemu's severe issues but honestly her personal memo is very blatant about the core of the problem, that being… that she just wants to be loved. It's that simple. Which I think really is the reason she agrees to go kaboom with Touka despite all of her talk of leaving a legacy and explicitly saying she doesn't want people to forget her. Since love is deep down all she's ever truly wanted (not wanting people to forget her, wanting to leave a mark, etc., are all things that in her case stem from not feeling loved)… well, once she sees that she finally has that, she doesn't really care about everything else that much.

The more enigmatic one might be the flower field memoria ngl because that one is weird for multiple reasons. Nemu, oddly enough, talks about her heart like three times or more throughout all of the content she appears in, which isn't much but it's odd that she's done it that many times. Like the religious undertones, I'd like to figure out what exactly she means by "my heart" but I think she just means her mind.

See Nemu's flower field memoria is Peace to this Battered, Dead Land (NA: Tranquility in a Wasteland), and it's already odd because it's the only flower field where it's nighttime and also the only one where we see "direct magic" being used? Iirc at least. The second thing isn't that weird but the first feels weirdly deliberate to me and I've been wondering about it for a long time.

Dramatically, it reads like this:

"Through written sentences, an interwoven world, or filled-in spaces, heartfelt stories flow quietly, gently, peacefully, and sometimes wild and frenetic, into the cracked earth of the wasteland, gradually filling up in a transient pool, to then become unique. If even one thread has a color, my heart will be at peace." (NA)

Let's write sentences, let's weave a world, and if the gaps are filled, the story will flow.

Quietly, slowly, calmly, sometimes violently and madly, the story filled with emotions flows through the cracks in the dry land, gradually filling them and providing a tentative moisture.

After that, all you have to do is get your personality. If you could give me even just one thread of color, my heart would be calm.

This one is very very fucked up if you consider one of the ways to interpret it. It's a metaphor for herself. She's the dry land. The cracks are the areas of herself that are "broken" or "damaged" (haha trauma), the hurt. She refers to her own life as a story in Arc 1 too, so this isn't a stretch. You can interpret this optimistically or pessimistically. The optimistic approach says that she's healing, the pessimistic approach says that she's essentially forcing things in there to appear put together and not be seen as problematic, bothersome, damaged goods, etc. It could even be both! It's interesting that it mentions quiet/slow/calm/gentle/peaceful and then also wild/frenetic/violent/mad, which I feel may be showing two sides of her (the calm Nemu we normally see and The Part Deep Down That Is Really Angry And Would Like To Go Apeshit). I mean there are many reasons that the way I portray Nemu in AUs can sometimes (often) be violent. I have the sadism from canon and more than enough evidence to argue repressed feelings, which, even if the feeling she's repressing isn't anger (which by all means it would be, other than sorrow and pain ofc), repressing it would lead to frustration which easily leads into anger. I think she has these issues in canon too, she just managed to not explode. Well, metaphorically.

Anyway so, where do I begin with Nemu's boatload of issues that these two memoriae just kinda graze lightly... I've talked a lot about it but usually if you look it is very possible that you will find More, which I'm sure is great for Nemu's self aware introspective philosophical author brain /s. However, a LOT of what I've said about Touka regarding a hospital stay applies to Nemu as well, and in some senses even more so, since Nemu is the type to overthink things when she's by herself (Touka also overthinks but in a different way, and she normally doesn't think about People™. Normally) but it might be interesting to dig into the early Ui era for this. By early Ui I mean after TouNemu met Ui but before they came to share a room and usually before the Christmas party (you know the one). The room sharing may have simply been a princess whim for Touka, but for Nemu, it may just have been life-saving. Or to be less dramatic, sanity-saving. Sort of. Because she's even said it before that she felt lonely. Imagine how much worse the isolation had been for her in a solo room. Heck one of my headcanons (based on her comments about and appreciation of "lively" people and places) is that she Does Not Like complete silence, or at least not when she's not very close to someone, which by definition can never be complete silence because you Will hear their breathing, them being alive and doing things usually, all that.

I said nurses try their best to take care of child inpatients. But nurses, even those who specialize in kids, have a lot on their plate. And the kids that take priority are the smallest ones. And also well usually they cannot really account for everything. Plus, in Japan I get the feeling things may not be as… warm if that makes sense. That is to say I would like to know when was the last time early Ui era Nemu got a hug. It may sound silly, but physical affection is actually really really important to children's development and can be particularly good at soothing them emotionally, similarly to adults but magnified.

However Nemu has this very funny habit (/s) of suppressing her emotions and not ever telling anyone when she feels hurt or lonely or anything of the sort unless she is confronted on it or absolutely has to. So there would have been no comforting chats with nurses nor any sort of tactile comfort (yes tactile comfort is a thing). Great going Nemu. If Nemu fell into a well she would wait there and not call for help so as to not inconvenience anyone else, it's That Bad. Will to live? What's that? (She even mentions the lack of a will to live when they're making Sakurako in the hospital and you can just see Iroha going D: about it). This is a common problem in hospital inpatients, particularly children, and it is rather disturbing/sad actually to hear a child placing so little value in their own life and even less worth in themselves as a person. I just have to point at Nemu's quotes and how often she's like "are you Sure you want to talk to me…?" "I'm boring, don't waste your precious time on me" etc. G i r l... So really I imagine the only highlight in early Ui era Nemu's day was literally Ui and Touka, and with her being a night owl and chronic overthinker, I cannot imagine the excruciating agony of everything after lights out. Yk. After lights out. When everything is dark and you are Completely Alone in your room. 

Anyway Nemu is severely touch-starved and affection-starved, please give her a hug. Touka that is your job. Go. Hug. Big close long hug. Nemu may or may not bawl if hugged that way and spoken to softly with loving words of affirmation.

Chapter Text

First, because I want this to have the intended effect, I recommend going over Nemu's swimsuit costume story again. It is Very Relevant. I recommend you enjoy the fluff of it too, before I dump the depressing thing about it on you. Though I will say I really REALLY appreciate how far Touka always goes to make Nemu feel comfortable and supported and listened to and cared for in every situation and- *is shot*.

So, apparently this room has a big mirror, and Nemu gets uncharacteristically giddy and we get this scene that Will hurt you. She even says that she finds this just as important as the liberation plan.

They had ALL OF THE SETUP, ALL OF IT. And now I would like to also share a recent analysis of Nemu's wheelchair that I dragged some wheelchair users to do, then I'll start thrashing and yelling about the significance of such a change. For reference, we mainly have the sprite:

I'm going to provide the relevant texts directly for you, apologies for the crudeness of speech (yes, I have permission to share the texts):

no theres like zero leg support beyond the foot plate and even the way the foot plate is designed implies that she has pretty good motor control over her legs

ya no calf pads or anyting smh

and whats with the armrests

those dont look v comfy??

i doubt she needs much body support beyond the walking

there's proper cushioning elsewhere, though

I can't see a headrest either, and the backrest is not very high, so I'm pretty sure she just can't walk and everything else is largely fine

Then my words were: "it's a separate continuity, but in the anime Nemu can stand. We don't see her walking but we see her standing a few times, and some of them are at points where she has to have walked at least a little bit, so I definitely think it's not "100% can't walk" but rather something more complex. Even before she was a magical girl we saw her standing in the hospital, though you could argue that was before whatever anime illness she has got worse"

huh. that sounds like chronically ill person energy conservation to me at least in the anime. me and (name omitted) do that, were usually on our wheelchairs because a walk to the grocery store may be too much and we might keel over from the pain or exhaustion. what about the game?

And then I replied: "I don't think she can walk at all in the game? The times she's not in her wheelchair, someone is carrying her, iirc. I told you that the cause of it was her shaving away her life force repeatedly, and I've explained the other symptoms, but truth be told, we don't see those other symptoms again post Arc 1 (which I think is just because she's under less stress and not constantly shaving away the aforementioned life force), and we were sadly robbed of any kind of "discovery" scene where we get her actual reaction and yk, her assessing the permanent damage done to her body? I told you guys how soul gems work as essentially the girl's soul puppetting her body, right? My personal theory is that she did so much damage to herself that it significantly weakened part of the soul gem-body connection. I thought it may have been severed, but if that were the case, I'm pretty sure her legs would just rot off, since magical girl bodies rot when separated from their soul gems for too long iirc, plus she can feel temperature on them so"

WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US ABOUT THE TEMPERATURE THING

"I'M SORRY IT'S AN OBSCURE ASSUMPTION BASED ON A QUOTE OR TWO ABOUT A FUCKING KOTATSU, THEY NEVER FUCKING TALK ABOUT THE DETAILS OF THE LEG THING, I WAS TRYING TO STICK AS CLOSE TO THE TEXT AS POSSIBLE"

"she's also never complained about pain from her legs, she's lamented the whole being unable to walk once or twice ("this body of mine can't help in any significant way") but never said a word about pain or other complications. Granted, she's also a people pleaser who would rather put on a stoic face than mildly inconvenience literally anyone"

yea then it might just be she cant do the walking motions reliably. didnt you say she has an overprotective gf? The gf may have argued for the wheelchair thing to be on the safe side

mmmmmmmmmm ye sounds about right

They also talked a bit about control pads and wheels but this was the summary one of them gave me:

So in short, Nahi: mobility and feeling all good, but no walkies or will fall on face and fracture skull

I recently asked them if that would apply to swimming, and they said if she doesn't have the strength to walk, she definitely couldn't swim, so I suppose that checks out. That's the analysis and conclusion of that part, which will help discuss the next one. Now, first of all... I have complained MANY TIMES about our lack of any scene where this permanent damage is revealed to the characters. They skipped over that. Which I thought, oh, okay, maybe we'll get it in a costume story for the wheelchair sprite. We did not get that! And that's important. Because see, Nemu I think might be able to hide her initial raw reaction depending on who was in the room with her. If she was alone or (preferably and probably likeliest) with Touka, she might not hide it, but it has to have sunk in that she would be dead to her family again. And for a character who so desperately wanted to fit in with her family, go camping with them, and presumably do all the outdoorsy and sporty stuff with them, YEAH, A SCENE LIKE THAT WOULD BE NEEDED, especially because Nemu has the tendency to both self-flagellate excessively (Touka also does this) and to hide all of her feelings and suppress them as hard as humanly possible.

With that out of the way, I am going to go on my certified rant about living in a wheelchair. Let's start at the general inaccessibility of Japan. Nemu's wheelchair isn't exactly... compact or foldable from what I can tell so that doesn't help her in the least. Here is a non-exhaustive list of things to consider:

- Less maneuverability or no access at all in some places, such as hotel rooms, restaurants, and stores

- Way longer wait times for nearly everything

- The temples are shitty to access because 90% of them have The Stairs, and the parks surrounding them have gravel grounds that make it almost impossible to run a wheelchair through (or at least, it's really hard. Think of when Sakurako had to carry Nemu on the beach, sand/sand-like ground and wheelchairs most often do not mesh, especially electric ones)

- The general congestion of large cities is not good but at least Japanese people tend to be nice and polite about it and try not to bother/touch wheelchair users, however this is unavoidable and oh boy haha rush hour

- In the end a wheelchair user in Japan is pretty limited in what they can do if not accompanied, which absolutely sucks

Streets are often narrow too so gestures at list. Plenty of buildings, especially old ones, are never really upgraded/don't have ramps or accessible elevators either, and I have literally seen a Japanese building that needed you to climb seven steps to get into the elevator?? Okay, alright, I will try not to bitch too hard. If using Yokohama as a base, the thing with large cities is that actually, the subway and train networks are generally good for wheelchair users (though they have to take extra steps and a trip that would take an able-bodied person one hour may take the wheelchair user double that amount of time, plus the station staff will choose your train for you). Everything else however, not so nice, and again The Stairs.

Now I go on the funny historical tangent! Around the 1960s in Japan, there was an increase in disabled children being separated from their families and placed in residential institutions, many of which were converted from the ones built for disabled veterans after WW2. At the age of 18, many of these children were then transferred to adult facilities where they would remain until death. As you may be able to imagine, these institutions were not great! Cue many many MANY human rights violations, including child residents being used as guinea pigs for their doctors in surgical procedures and disgusting amounts of incidents of sexual abuse towards female residents. The traditional Japanese notion that disabled people should be hidden by their families like a shameful secret was veeeeery prevalent! That is why these places even existed. Those beliefs are, Still ShiftingTM so to speak but it is much better now because hey at least they finally have an anti-discrimination law. By "finally" I mean that ten years ago they did not have one. You see, the literal basic anti-discrimination act for people with disabilities in Japan only came into effect in 2016 (for the reference of the Americans who may not know and for an easy example, in the US, the same thing happened in 1990, which is still recent-ish but not, "less than ten years ago" recent). That's only eight years ago. So let's not even talk about how VERY highly Not Possible a fully wheelchair-adapted/comfortable home would be in Japan. It ain't great chief, basic programs are still being implemented, and I highly doubt people are very widely educated on the matter unless it affects them personally. I think that is most of the funny historical tangent, so... time for me to talk about adapting to life on a wheelchair.

Let's start with showering and bath/general bathroom difficulties. First of all, it's MUCH likelier for a person in Nemu's position to slip and hurt themselves in the shower/bath, not even likely to be able to stop their own fall because Legs No Worky, secondly washing up unassisted when you're in a wheelchair both takes longer and is difficult/inconvenient, particularly if you don't have a specific chair or other thing to help you in the tub/shower (I am unsure if her family would be agreeable to this or if she'd even ask). For Nemu's benefit we are going to go with my interpretation that magical girls do not have periods, because otherwise oh dear god well that's way worse! But yes there's that whole complication and see, if you live with your family you have people you can ask for help. However we are talking about Nemu, and Nemu would rather starve under a bridge than ask for help (in 99% of cases). We have a section for internal effects of leg loss don't you worry but like, girl already felt like a burden before, imagine how she feels now when she actually does have to depend on others occasionally. Showering/bathing must be an absolute nightmare every single day for the poor girl. You don't realize how much you rely on walking and having usable legs inside the house until you lose that ability.

This leads me into another very funny thing: reach. Imagine having short person struggles. Okay, now imagine your height is cut in half and you have to be sitting down for everything. Who wants to bet you are now unable to reach A LOT of the things at home? Bathroom setups vary so that one you can circumvent, however! Consider the following: Nemu displays an enjoyment of cooking. Have you ever tried to sit down in front of most kitchen counters? They are pretty high up from that position. Which is fine when you're maybe just resting on the chair but can stand up/take steps around, but when you can't... well. Cooking just got a whole lot more inconvenient and complicated! Nemu seems to keep doing it, so I imagine she's figured out the kitchen table hack (kitchen tables are often lower than the counters and therefore often used to do the prep work instead of the counter because it's more comfortable). This still does not account for the stove but we haven't heard of Arc 2 Nemu cooking solo, only either with her mom or Sakurako, so I assume Nemu's family has the decency not to send her to make dinner like they do in Arc 1.

On the topic of short reach, have you ever realized how inconvenient doorknobs can be if you're sitting down? And doors in general when it's not so easy to move, really. This is more the case for those with less grip strength or less mobility than Nemu, but doorknobs are still generally placed high enough to be inconvenient, doors depending on how they open can be annoying (though sliding doors I've heard are better, so long as they're not too heavy), and let's not even talk about the heavy-ish doors that you have to push against. Because while that might be easy outside of a wheelchair... not so much on a wheelchair. The inconvenience of doors and doorknobs aside though, and back to public transport for a second, you cannot be spontaneous. According to a couple of Japanese wheelchair users I gnawed at for the purpose of research, you need to warn literally everyone at least 30 minutes in advance if you want to be able to board a train. If something comes up or is urgent, I assure you, you won't be able to hop on whatever train or taxi you want.

For Nemu in particular taxis may not be possible, but f4 ignores this really hard (like most things that have to do with Nemu's disability, given that it is acknowledged as a thing that exists LIKE TWICE after the initial timeskip scene at the end of Arc 1, mainly in Christmas string where she laments not being able to help with physical labor in any significant way due to "This Body Of Mine" [she's very dramatic about it but also this is an important hint to how she actually feels now that she's experienced at the very least months of living like this and now that she's alone with Touka instead of self-flagellating in public]). In Mokyu's MGS, I remember that moment when Touka calls for a taxi very much On The Spot and they both get on to follow Mokyu, seemingly very fast, and I was just like "????". I'm not really sure that's... a thing they can do that easily, f4...

But anyway, how about another item? Let's talk clothing. This is also not something able-bodied people usually consider or think about, but clothing generally was not designed for sitting. It will likely never fit right for wheelchair users, and many pieces of clothing may not even be comfortable, not to mention they may not be able to wear a lot of things (such as long/drapey fabrics that could interfere with movement, whether of the wheels, the control pad, or their bodies), and depending on how much mobility they have, changing itself can be another nightmare to do unassisted, or at least, it takes longer and takes more effort (we will get back to the "effort" part soon). This depends, sure, but it's often worse for kids and teenagers because they're still growing. It's okay though, I'm sure Touka would be really offended about this and would just take Nemu to get clothing custom made. What a good partner. The clothing issue is often overlooked, but Very Much A Thing. Some pants are not comfy to sit in for long periods of time, or maybe they fit well when you're standing but not when you're sitting... imagine only ever sitting.

I think I've made my point with the clothing aspect so let's move on to ANOTHER THING! Yes, I have more. Some things like transferring may be more inconvenient in Japan than they would be in the West. Transferring, in case you're not aware, is what a wheelchair user moving themselves from their wheelchair to another place to sit (such as a dining table chair, if they want, or a sofa), or back to the wheelchair, is called. It may be more inconvenient in Japan because well, The Floor. Transferring largely relies on upper body strength in most cases, and see, you can park a wheelchair next to a sofa or other chair and move yourself there reeelatively easily, but the floor may be a bit harder due to the difference in elevation from surface to surface. Once again, it depends on the specifics of the wheelchair user in question, overall. I've heard a couple of people say that the floor is Very Bad to transfer to and from, but one of them has mobility issues in the upper body and the other has arm weakness (he can only get back up because he's able to push a little bit with his legs).

For Nemu there's also the possible school complications, but I have not looked much into how accessible Japanese schools are for students on wheelchairs, though I do want to call a bit of attention to how we've seen Touka at school in Arc 2 but never Nemu, and I feel like that might be one of the reasons. Studying from home I suppose could be an option, though it would be iffy to me because of the whole part about being stuck inside and hidden away.

Before I move on to other things, let me. Talk about this other thing. That is specifically heartbreaking for Nemu. That being physical intimacy (we're talking hugs and the like, people, don't get ahead of yourselves). Quick quiz question for you to think about before I answer it, have you ever thought of how to comfortably hug a wheelchair user?

Normally, when put on the spot, the typical able-bodied person who has never thought about it says that well, you can just bend over to hug them! And while that kind of works, that is not exactly a "full hug" and also requires more effort and more Going Out Of Your Way on the able-bodied person's part than a hug to an able-bodied person that you can just easily walk up to and hug without any adjustment, which makes it less likely that the wheelchair user will get casual affection through that. A common one is the hug from the back, which works just like you'd do it for any sitting person, however the hug from the back is not exactly common and depends on how close the two people are. And then there's the other main way to do it, if it doesn't hurt for the wheelchair user. Which is the lap hug. Able-bodied person sits on the wheelchair user's lap and that is how the hug happens. Most wheelchairs should be able to bear the weight, since you have to account for things like carrying groceries or Other Stuff already, so the capacity to bear weight is built-in (some wheelchairs can carry up to 700lbs/317kg). However you will notice that a lap hug is a significant leap in intimacy that not that many people might be comfortable with, particularly in a less touchy culture like Japan. Personally I think Touka is princess enough, has enough of an ego, and enough of a bond/trust with Nemu that she'd have no qualms sitting on her lap, but Yeah. Holding hands is another one that may take a while to adjust to, since it's basically a MASSIVE height difference that you can't bridge, and also walking-walking vs walking-rolling (or whichever verb you prefer for wheelchair users) areeee different let's just say and speed adjustment can also be a bitch

What I'm saying is if poor Nemu was already affection deprived before, It Got Worse. I will touch on this more when I talk about the social consequences losing her legs must've had. To sum this all up so far, it's an entire reevaluation of the world you live in. Things that were once convenient are now inconvenient, or at best, don't help you anymore. People are often stumped as to what to say to you or what to do or how to act around you, especially if you bring up any and all struggles that have to do with the wheelchair thing. It's not Nemu's case but if she had a friend group, that would also mean possible distancing from them due to being unable to do as many activities with them or go to the same places as before. The world is built for the able-bodied, and the effort it takes to just navigate life in a wheelchair can be extremely draining. And SPEAKING OF EFFORT, it is time for the spoon theory! Those of you already familiar with it may skip this part, as I'm simply going to copy and paste from the original creator of the spoon theory, but for anyone who has never heard of the spoon theory, please, do read this part. It may help you understand something extremely important for the daily lives of so many people, and it may even give some of you who the spoon theory does apply to a new tool to use. This is the spoon theory:

And that folks is the spoon theory. The spoon theory of course applies to wheelchair users. In Nemu's case it's more of a magical affliction and doesn't seem to affect her beyond the part about not being able to walk, however, as we've covered, that part is significant. It takes a mental, physical, and emotional toll. Then, other than this whole thing, there's issues with agency and independence. Yk, being able to live unassisted. I think Nemu could mostly handle it because I mean it's all she's ever done (insert parentification issues and her basically having raised herself, etc etc). Now here is a fun topic. How about social consequences? They are in fact significant as well! We just don't see it as much because Nemu's social life generally starts and ends at Touka, who is arguably the best-equipped person for this. You can bet Touka pulled three all-nighters to do research on this the moment she realized Nemu was not going to recover or at least not in the near future, and we already know she's extremely attentive from what we saw in Arc 1, so. Literally the best possible person for Nemu to hang out with, who will also never try to encroach on her decision-making or her boundaries, never try to take freedom or agency away from her, etc. Unfortunately there are more people around Nemu who may not handle it as gracefully (or well. Whatever Touka is doing. Her stunted social skills are actually a good thing when it comes to this).

Let's go from worst to better: Nemu's family. They are literally not mentioned again after Arc 1's final battle, ever. Not even when Chapter 8 happens. Not at all, zero mentions, at least none as far as I know. Which is concerning. Nemu still speaks fondly of them in Arc 2, from the Christmas quotes, but I mean. Desperate for love. Desperately learning her family's favorite foods and colors, fretting over what gift to get her brother. Which is just extra sad knowing that she's probably dead to them (again). I don't think it's a stretch to say that Nemu's family would have ZERO CLUE how to handle the entire topic. Common reactions are either avoidance/pretending it's not there, or severe awkwardness and hesitation that there is no way the wheelchair user won't notice. Particularly if they're a very perceptive person who pays close attention to the people around them (Nemu). I think Nemu's family might be the avoidance type, since they're allergic to making any effort to get to know her or yk treat her as their daughter instead of, parentifying her to hell and back at best. But let's take another couple of examples: Iroha and Ui.

I think those two might be the awkwardness type. Which is, "I have never encountered this problem and I'm not sure how to go about it but I don't want to hurt or offend this person" and normally leads to general insecurity/anxiety about mentioning specific things around the wheelchair user, or inviting them to things, or assigning tasks to them because the person fears they might hurt themselves/be unable to do what you asked, feel worse, etc. It can manifest in many ways and is normally born out of politeness or genuine personal concern for the other, but alas wheelchair users are not (all) blind, so they do very much notice. On their side it's also awkward and hurtful, in most cases. It's bad too when they get condescended or infantilized or as I mentioned before people take their agency away. It's that thing where you assume the wheelchair user needs help for (insert task) and that you're just being nice by lending them a hand but hey, hey. Maybe ask instead of assuming and moving to do a thing for them that you don't know with 100% is something they need help with. Maybe they don't actually need your help (cough savior/hero complex) and I assure you they appreciate being able to do whatever they can by themselves. Yes, it's well-meaning, but that doesn't mean it won't hurt the wheelchair user or make them feel bad/worse about themselves. The infantilization thing is often related to this too.

Next and last, the inner consequences of a significant loss such as this one. This part is about self-perception, perception in regards to the world and to others, and obviously it ties into Nemu's previously established concerns, fears, and general IssuesTM. This is another "sigh where to begin!" moment for me, because as I have established before, Nemu has major issues. Take literally every issue Nemu has ever had and them pump them full of steroids, then assume that bits of those issues drop off the bigger issue blob and grow into new connected issues. That is what this caused. There is of course a fun set of new issues that relate to the old ones but aren't fully connected as well. That being the feeling of being broken, incomplete, defective. For a person like Nemu whose worth is in considerable part determined by how useful she can be to others, that's not good. She's very much the type to keep things in rather than express them, except the precious scarce few times when we see her alone with Touka (you'll notice that usually we don't get scenes of them alone together save for Christmas String where there was A Pressing Issue to solve, normally it's the rest of the cast going to them for something so it's not exactly the correct atmosphere or moment for a vulnerability moment, Nemu has them, we see some, but they are Very Few).

The one comment from when she and Touka were moving their books out of Touka's private room in the hospital (still real gay of Touka to casually of her own will give Nemu a permanent space in her private room just so she could store her books), the one where she gets all droopy about being unable to help with the whole book moving process? Yeah that's your confirmation that as suspected, yes, she was lying when she said "this is fine" at the end of Arc 1. This is not by any means fine. Sure she has accepted it and thinks she deserves it but this is Nemu "I am to blame for damaging the economy of Japan" Hiiragi (I have a screenshot of when she said this) so like *gestures vaguely*. By that point in Christmas String, as I said before, she's probably been on a wheelchair for months at the very least, so she's had a chance to experience what that's like, among other things. I can't imagine she feels great about it. While simultaneously thinking her intestines should be bundled up with a pitchfork every day at noon for her sins, of course (insert aforementioned self-flagellation issues). Because she blames herself for literally everything and likely also blames herself every single time her inability to walk leaves her unable to do something she could've done before, and may even push herself beyond what's safe and healthy for her at times. Therefore, internally, yeah, Nemu is way worse than before. FORTUNATELY the stress of the Magius and the physical strain from making uwasa are no longer a thing and she has a safe place to be in every day with her partner who understands and loves her and doesn't even think of any adjustments as "effort" (of course this is nothing for Touka, she's a genius, I can hear the Toukitty saying with her nose up in the air like that). So that is, one good thing. And she can likely read more easily.

Unfortunately, Arc 2 also brings stress and more guilt due to the factions. There's the NM guilt and the PB guilt mainly, but also the stress of the few people they care about besides each other (such as Ui and Iroha) being in mortal danger. And what bothers me is, the way this entire thing affects and stimulates Nemu's concerns and fears from before is so criminally overlooked and outright ignored? We saw from her quotes and personal memo that she desperately wants to be loved, desperately wants to not be forgotten, and to leave behind a legacy (this is about the being forgotten part too). A common issue for wheelchair users is, in fact, that they are neglected and forgotten about, often only an afterthought, particularly for the administration. And so it annoys me endlessly that f4 are allergic to handling their disabled main cast member whatsoever and neglect her in much the same way her family does.

Anyway, this isn't exhaustive, there's definitely more to unpack, but it's already very long and I thank everyone who has read this far for your time. I hope it helped you guys understand at least a little bit better.

Chapter Text

So, this is the thesis: Touka is the sun/day and Nemu is the moon/night.

First of all, night and day are intrinsically connected. The sun's light gives the moon its glow during the night and the moon remains present and visible during the day, if a little harder to see in the full light of the sun. The former sounds an awful lot like how Touka gave Nemu visibility to the general public through the website for her books and continues to do so on the regular, dutifully, and the latter is to me the same effect as any scene they're in together; everyone in-universe and outside of it always pays more attention to Touka, because she's the more boisterous one, louder, etc. The radiant sun, too bright to ignore compared to the soft glow of the moon.

Now, I love the moon's effect on the oceans on Earth. Its control over the tides is due to its gravity being strong enough that the tide is pulled slightly closer to it. If you look at when the tides are highest, you'll see that tides are always highest when the moon is directly overhead, but there's also another high tide on the opposite side of the planet. If you mapped it out, you'd get this oval shape of the tides, where a "tip" of the oval is always pointing at the moon. Well guess what, the SUN also does this! It's just less noticeable, but it's why low tide doesn't always happen when you think it would. And since they both do this, their effects can be combined! This is why the highest of tides always occur around full and new moons, with the effects being even stronger during lunar eclipses, and with solar eclipses being the strongest of them all, which probably added to the effect of ancient civilizations freaking out during them cause the tide was so high, it just added to the chaos of the sun being blocked out too. Tides are highest about the full and new moons because that is when the moon and the sun are lined up. Gee doesn't that sound familiar and like it could apply to a certain pair of idiots who work really well together (as per Ui's words).

Here's a helpful visual gif for the tide thing and some quotes from the National Ocean Service:

Together, the gravitational pull of the moon and the sun affect the Earth’s tides on a monthly basis. When the sun, moon, and Earth are in alignment (at the time of the new or full moon), the solar tide has an additive effect on the lunar tide, creating extra-high high tides, and very low, low tides — both commonly called spring tides. One week later, when the sun and moon are at right angles to each other, the solar tide partially cancels out the lunar tide and produces moderate tides known as neap tides.

And as a fun extra:

Once a month, at perigee, when the moon is closest to the Earth, tide-generating forces are higher than usual, producing above average ranges in the tides. About two weeks later, at apogee, when the moon is farthest from the Earth, the lunar tide-raising force is smaller, and the tidal ranges are less than average. When the Earth is closest to the sun (perihelion), around January 2 of the calendar year, tidal ranges are enhanced. At aphelion, when the Earth is furthest from the sun, around July 2, tidal ranges are reduced.

So like. I don't think I need to point out the moon's distance from the sun and its effects here. Now let me go to something else: Touka and Nemu have a dual unit, the attribute of which is darkness. Here's a tidbit about it that I yoinked from another post:

Your pupils contract in response to visible light, but not all of the sun’s light is visible. During an eclipse, your pupils widen because it’s dark, but there’s an outer layer around the sun that mostly only puts out light that’s not visible to us, but that can still damage your retinas. Thus, looking at an eclipse makes your pupils open up like it’s dark, which lets more of the invisible damage beams in.

The sun doesn’t get a critical multiplier on its damage when HP is low. Equipping the moon gives the sun a bonus to backstab.

And then I pointed out the dual unit and its attribute (darkness), like an eclipse. Such an apt metaphor. Now, this isn't all, though the astronomy rant is far less connected and organized than the other more essay-ish posts, but I just wanted to cover at least some of the bond things before I yell about why each of them fits their assigned astral body/time so well. Actually... Let's consider the solar wind for a second.

So, for those with less astronomy knowledge, here are the basics. The sun releases a continuous outflow of particles and radiation that we call the solar wind. The solar wind washes over the planets, moons and other bodies in our solar system, and every object, planet or person traveling through space has to contend with this. Our moon in particular has the scars (or bad tan) to prove it. Ever wondered what gives the moon that distinctive pattern of darker and lighter swirls? That would be the sun over there. Or, well, research suggests that the solar wind and the moon’s crustal magnetic fields (bubbles of "sunscreen") work together to give that pattern. See, here on Earth, we’re largely protected from the damaging effects of the solar wind, because it's magnetized, therefore Earth’s natural magnetic field deflects the solar wind particles around our planet so that only a small fraction of them reach our planet’s atmosphere. The moon however has no global magnetic field. It's magnetized rocks near the lunar surface that create those small, localized spots of magnetic field that I referred to as "bubbles of sunscreen" up there, because they kinda are acting like sunscreen by deflecting solar wind particles on a much smaller scale than Earth’s magnetic field. The surface of the moon isn't really made of "just rock" (it's called regolith, actually), and so as those particles flow toward the moon, they are deflected to the areas just around the magnetic bubbles, where chemical reactions with the regolith darken the surface. And there is Something To Be Said about this, something intimate about it... Something something accepting every part of someone else, something something being permanently marked and irreversibly changed by another (I've called them twin flames before)...

Here are some points to consider, particularly for Nemu:

• They spend more time under the light of day (Touka, early riser, "rise with the sun" is very likely literal for her since she gets up long enough before school time to have more than enough time to do Things as per her quotes) vs awake at night (Nemu habitually staying up late to read and write, we have many lines about it particularly from the quotes, and a visual from the anime).
• Nemu has been depicted dramatically in front of the moon twice, once in her intro in Arc 1 Chapter 7 and once in the anime, I believe final season's first episode? The flashback, right after they put Ui in Mokyu and have the whole exchange about it on the roof of the hospital.
• In relation to the phases of the moon: as the moon goes around the Earth, different parts of it are illuminated by the sun, and we see a different amount of light reflected back at us, and I have decided that relates to how Nemu adapts seamlessly to whatever Touka's mood is because she just knows her that well (gestures vaguely at that sunset scene in Touka's MGS or any of the other times when Nemu knows it's not the right time to take a jab at Touka and so on and so forth), but honestly there's a huge number of gay interpretations of it. AND it's accurate to the way Nemu acts as a Magius, kind of, when it comes to the Feathers at least. People normally remember her as the Magius who was kindest to the Feathers (full moon, brightest guiding light), but she was also the one doing the brainwashing, giving the massacre orders, and delighting over her suggestion of using the Feathers as a shield (new moon, known as the dark side).
• Feelings of being neglected/ignored/not noticed by passersby or people around her could be related to how the new moon is, literally Not Visible™️ to the naked eye except when it is silhouetted against the sun during a solar eclipse (COUGH). Plus, you could argue the fact that people love Nemu most when she's giving them something (light, full moon).

In terms of giving, let's hop over to Touka for a second:

The sun is constantly giving off energy. Light, heat, life. It's quite impossible to forget the sun is there, unlike the moon (or well it's more like you always sort of actively notice the sun, but not the moon due to its subtler presence). Aligns pretty well with Touka's.......... everything. Including the compulsion to take center stage. There is nothing else in the sky besides the sun during the day, it is alone in the heavens save for the subtle presence of the moon, which nobody else notices.

Then there's this post which I will quote here:

Big fan of sun motifs in characters not necessarily being about positivity and happiness and how they're so "bright and warm" but instead being about fucking brutal they are.

Radiant. A FORCE of nature that will turn you to ash. That warmth that burns so hot it feels like ice. Piercing yellow and red and white. A character being a Sun because you cannot challenge a Sun without burning alive or taking everything down with them if victorious.

ALIGNS PRETTY WELL WITH TOUKA DOESN'T IT. Almost a little bit too literal in some senses! Being bright and warm does apply to her as well, mind you, she's bright in the intelligent sense and to some extent the temperament sense (though she is a lot less bright than she pretends to be with the very eerie cheerful mask she likes to wear), and she's warm and nurturing towards the people she cares about. Speaking of warm and nurturing, the sunlight makes plants grow, Nemu is a forest attribute in-game and has forest magic, nurtured by the fire of the sun (Touka, a flame attribute magical girl with the corresponding fire magic).

I've compared these two to binary stars in a fic before, but I really love their sun/day and moon/night possibilities! You can even interpret a few things like this:

Under a scorching sun, you are blinded, and in deserts caused by its rays you are likely to experience hallucinations, mirages. I can relate this to Touka's mask-wearing habits, for example. The sun is unyielding and you will never escape its effects completely no matter how hard you try. It's what allows life to exist and simultaneously also a force of destruction, much like fire itself. I could go on a related rant about how TouNemu's attributes really really fit them- I will stop myself before I do however.

Back to Nemu's side of things again. The night is often considered the most dangerous time of day pretty much everywhere around the world, but that's not quite right. It's because the night is obscured in darkness, quiet, secretive. You cannot know the night. It's fully possible that something will jump out at you at any point (assuming you're out and about), and you can never be 100% sure that nothing will. You have a higher chance of slipping, and good god if you've ever been outside in bumfuck nowhere with no lights around in the mountains or something on a new moon, you know very well how difficult navigation becomes without the moon's guidance

But, the night, especially in the East, is often considered shelter as well (from what I've gathered). The quietness aspect is retained over there, but it's seen in a more positive light, and the different attributes of the nighttime are more appreciated and respected compared to the West, in my experience digging into stuff at least. The night can easily be what soothes people after enduring the flames of the day. Whether literally because of the heat or just because for most people, daytime is work time, it's Getting Things Done time. Nighttime has always been more… for the self, to relax and to think. More intimate. Humans don't really work according to nature these days, but pieces of it are still present in how the night remains much quieter than the day, in how a teenager might feel safer, more raw and more connected with their true self in the dead of night on their phone under the covers than at any other time of the day, etc. It's a time of rest for a majority of living beings. Slower and less hectic than the daytime.

"What about those who are up at ungodly hours of the night still having hours-long conversations?" That's meaningful. It's necessary for the human mind, for our hearts. That's rest. It constitutes a "shelter" for the people in question. Those convos I'd bet are not about work or about stressors in their lives, but rather about things they find genuinely interesting and/or things they love. Or, alternatively, venting, yes, but even that counts as "unwinding" and reaching something closer to peace.

There's also something to be said about how Touka relies on Nemu so often (she says as much in her regular Tap 8 quote), and looks to her for guidance like the sailors of old looked up at the night sky for directions. Nemu is drawn to Touka like the moon is affected by the sun's gravity, and Touka loves her and studies her (she REALLY pays attention to Nemu, as I've pointed out before) like humans have always studied and observed the night sky.

AND also Touka = lantern, light. Nemu = sleep. Just saying.

COUGH. Yes. So. This has been my series of thoughts on TouNemu astronomy lesbianism. I'm pretty sure you can see how each point relates to the characters pretty clearly.

Chapter Text

I'm gonna give my two cents on this basing myself off of canon and educated assumptions/guesses. For brainrot and logical reasons, I will be using Nemu as the example human to Touka's example cat (the logical reason is that, simply put, they canonically spend the most time together, literally no one else spends nearly as much time with Touka. I would go as far as to argue that Touka spends more time with Nemu than with her family). This is actually semi-serious, believe it or not, I have arguments. They are as follows:

First off, a cat choosing to be around you a lot is already a sign that they enjoy your company, otherwise they would leave. Touka tends to be in a hurry to leave places like school, but is comfortable in the observatory, Fendt Hope, and later the yuri bunker (for those unfamiliar with Arc 2, Touka has an underground bunker lab thingy connected to a house and that's where she and Nemu spend probably 85% of their time). In fact, especially the yuri bunker, she seems calmest there. A cat choosing to linger in the same room as you means they value and seek your companionship.

Then, bunting! Which I wrote a fic about. This is a really cute one, I mostly know this as that thing when a cat headbutts you with their forehead or rubs their head on you, but some friends have told me they also count it as bunting when their cats rub their cheeks against them? Anyway for the bunting I point at that one scene in the anime (you know the one, which in context is entirely definitely a purposeful gesture from Touka that is meant to convey comfort/reassurance). That scene also counts for the eyes! Cats' eyes are proportionally huge and also very vulnerable, so allowing anything, even someone's face, near them, is also a sign of trust and love, and Touka has no concept of personal space when it comes to Nemu, as we've repeatedly seen (I am unsure if Touka does the slow blinking or if that has a human equivalent). In case you don't know which scene I mean (I don't shut up about it though so I don't know how likely that is):

Next, playing! Cats often play out of pure enjoyment (hunt/prey drive aside), and their preferred playmates are typically trusted companions. This manifests in Touka in the form of human playfulness, she doesn't really do the whole friendly back and forth thing with anyone or, well, act in any sort of joking or goofy way, unless she really likes the person. The most obvious example is Well again Nemu, their typical old married couple bickering.

Next up is gifts/hunting, yk when cats bring you a dead mouse or bird as a gift? That's because they love you. They are hunting for you. Touka's equivalent of this is acts of service that she doesn't apply her ego to, such as the website in Nemu's case, and I am assuming that Touka is a gifter but also will not give Nemu specifically "formal" gifts or make a big deal about them and mostly choose non special occasions to give said gifts. The gifts part is I think the only actual assumption I'm making here? The rest is just me putting canon things in the context of Cat.

And lastly off the top of my head, sleeping. Cats sleep A LOT as any cat owner will probably tell you, and they are the most vulnerable while sleeping, so the place a cat chooses to have a cat nap or fall asleep has to be a safe and trusted location. There is no greater compliment than a cat picking your lap or even your chest as their favorite sleep spot! And guess what. Christmas TouNemu night quote, Touka falls asleep next to Nemu. I am going to assume she falls asleep on her shoulder and that they're sitting down or alternatively they're lying down somewhere, because otherwise I have no idea how Touka fell asleep in the first place. The way she relaxes in Nemu's presence is extremely sweet, especially if you've read my essays about these two.

Anyway so my point is. Nemu's soulmate is very catlike. That is all.

Chapter Text

I'm going to be very blunt. Nemu is a sadist. An extremely picky sadist that goes from mild to borderline disturbing, but a sadist nonetheless. Girlie has very concerning moments. And you know what? It makes sense. I don't blame her. There's the part about enjoying seeing people in pain, yes, particularly pain caused by her (directly or indirectly), but it’s more complex than that. It's relishing one’s power over others. It’s enjoying when others are humiliated. Enjoying putting people in messed up positions and situations, watching or forcing them to hurt themselves or their loved ones, Sisyphean tasks, etc. There's pretty terrifying potential to what she would be capable of if encouraged, considering her extensive historical and literary knowledge. That, and no one would raise an eyebrow at me saying this if Nemu was older and a man. If Nemu was older and a man, I assure you everyone would have noticed the signs. Mind you, I'm not diagnosing Nemu with full-blown sadistic personality disorder, she just has sadistic tendencies. Let me first explain some common psychological causes and pitfalls of sadism. Because, no, it is not just "evil person behavior" or whatever.

Sadism is defined as deriving pleasure from inflicting pain or humiliation on others. The causes of sadism are often complex and usually involve a combination of factors, not just one thing. One of the factors can be low or nonexistent emotional empathy, difficulty understanding or sharing the feelings of others, which can manifest as emotional detachment, indifference to suffering, or enjoying the distress of others, particularly those you don't personally care for. Another factor is repeated exposure to violence, either real or fictional, which can desensitize someone to suffering. This can manifest as enjoyment of violent media, fascination with cruelty, or lack of boundaries. But the next two factors I'll name I feel are the main ones to keep in mind with Nemu, which are a history of abuse or trauma and a desire for power and control. Allow me to elaborate. People who have experienced abuse or trauma themselves may be more likely to lean into sadism, either as a way of coping with their own pain or a learned behavior. This can manifest as re-enacting abuse on others, seeking revenge, or emotional numbness. If repressed emotions (particularly anger and frustration, which Nemu has definitely repressed) are involved, venting is especially likely. As for the control thing, Nemu has huge control issues, and sadism can be a way to feel powerful and in charge. A deep need to dominate and exert control over others is often found in those who have lacked that control over enough areas of their lives for long enough, which does indeed match up with Nemu. This can manifest as humiliation, manipulation, using threats or intimidation. Three for three, isn't it?

Humiliation is on the milder side (if we don't count the Uwasa), and thus mostly directed towards Touka. Manipulation, Nemu does in various forms, even recently she did it in Valkyrie of Vik to Promised Blood, while back in the hospital it was mostly "benign" manipulation for the sake of not burdening her parents (I have talked about the trauma at play here before), and in the Magius era, well, she lied to and manipulated the Feathers almost constantly. Alina was mostly detached from the speech-giving part of things, we've only seen speeches from Touka (who probably gets them written by Nemu) and from Nemu, and Touka has her own issues, but not like Nemu's because Touka has control and power, Touka doesn't feel helpless like Nemu deep down does. As for threats and intimidation, she does use those, mainly against her enemies, and she likes being patronizing and scaring them if she can, girl gets a kick out of inflicting fear, doubt, chaos, etc., and we have examples in Arc 1 most of all. Her behavior is largely toned down during Arc 2, but I suspect that's just because she's repressing most of it again, while in Arc 1, lacking any memory of Ui and Iroha, she felt comfortable letting loose, because she knew the only loved one that would be there to see it/be able to find out about it—Touka—wouldn't disapprove.

I have examples to show you, but first, I'll reiterate that her background makes the use of sadism as a coping mechanism and way to vent make a lot more sense, especially because if she just concentrates all of it during her "work hours" as Magius, she can just pretend to be normal when she's at school or with her family, and as a result of the stress relief from the sadistic behavior, she can afford not to be constantly tense from feeling the way she does. Powerless beforehand with her illness and hospital stay, then later still powerless in daily life, powerless even over the self despite being a Magical Girl, repressed anger/frustration due to people pleasing, religious doctrine, and possibly girl autism telling her to internalize everything. And yes, this happens since childhood. To illustrate my arguments, this is going to be very, very screenshot-heavy, and I ask you to still look at the character with compassion. Acknowledge that it's messed up and not the best or healthiest way to channel these tendencies, yes, but acknowledge that she's hurting as well, it doesn't make her a monster. She's lashing out the only way she sees how. Protecting herself. They can't hurt you if you hurt them first, they can't hurt you if you have control over them. They can't take advantage of you if you take advantage of them first, if you have the upper hand, if you hold power over them. That's the whole mindset. Nemu isn't stupid. She's read more than enough books to realize, even if she doesn't want to admit it, that her family situation is terrible for her mental health. But she also can't blame her parents for it. Because they're not doing it on purpose (+good old filial piety).

Let's start with the mildest stuff. Which is Touka-related as mentioned above. Nemu really enjoys getting a reaction out of Touka, usually, if earlier in their relationship (when she wasn’t Irreversibly Whipped), by being mean to her—though bits of it remain. It manifests in all of the teasing and the purposeful "humiliation" through things like games. It's easy too, she barely has to do anything and has plausible deniability, because Touka is so extremely reactive. Here's a very old example of this much milder manifestation, the card game scene in question:

Touka starts crying (you can see the tears) because she’d mapped out the entire game and memorized Nemu's cards and Nemu truly had no reason to pull this move. Leading to that response from Nemu. Nemu knows that making Touka lose at cards so badly is going to upset her, she wants to upset her. Because this is relatively harmless, because even if Touka gets upset, she won't be really hurt and will not stay away for long. It's a way to indulge herself safely. She doesn't do this with anyone else, not once. Somehow, these two weirdos went and turned this into their own way of bonding? Which. Good for them? But yeah I want to point out that Nemu is normally stoic and doesn't smile that easily, so when she does, it's either fake or to show enjoyment, that she's pleased with herself. Touka is sort of like a drug for Nemu in this sense, like blood to a tick. That's a very Nemu-like analogy, she'd likely see herself as a parasite similar to a tick, she's rather self-aware. I'm not kidding about the drug thing, we can see something similar in Touka as well. When you are far more intelligent than your peers, it can easily be addictive to come face to face with one who is an intellectual equal, a thrill. It's why they cannot leave each other alone. Even during the Christmas MGS, before they even shared a room or got along at all, with Ui removed from their immediate vicinity, and despite being mad, Touka talks to Nemu and wants her to reply. It's very interesting to ponder.

Going to another side of things, the funny (/s) humiliation Uwasa should not be overlooked. I know I haven’t posted my document where I hyperoveranalyze what each and every one of Nemu’s Uwasa means and implies, but that is because it is incredibly disturbing in its raw form, no one's really stopped to think about the fact that these monsters have a creator and were written as stories that have to mean something, they can tell us a lot about their creator. And what they tell us is, disquieting to say the least, and a couple of patterns emerge from examining them. This time, however, by "the funny humiliation Uwasa" I meant the Rumor of the Cemetery Banquet Feast, which is just one of multiple Uwasa that adds to this specific topic, for another example I'd even cite the oddly public embarrassment coded instructions of the Peeping Castle Town Uwasa. It gets much worse if you subscribe to the headcanon that Nemu can, to some extent, share senses with her creations (such as sight or hearing). And also, the Fashion Monster. I don't know how to put this nicely, but let's just say that there are many, many things that I can gleam from it existing in the first place, but it’s described as:

“A Rumor that appears before confident, dressed up girls. It drags its victims into an alley, and if the Rumor isn’t told it looks stylish, it will strip off the victim’s clothes.”

Thank you Nemu, thank you so much. I don’t think I have to say anything for you to see why this applies, but I will also not point out the possible implications. As for the Rumor of the Cemetery Banquet Feast:

“My, have you heard? Who’d you hear it from? The Cemetery Banquet, and the rumor thereof! Fated rivals, arguing friends– if you want everyone to get along, then this Rumor is for you! Anyone who reads its invitation will be guided to the pre-banquet proving grounds. If– and only if– you can make the banquet lively, then you pass! And you’ll be invited up to Paradise, complete with kindly parting words. But if you plan to participate, you’d better take great care! If you fall short of proving yourself, you’ll literally fall into the underworld, to boot. It’s a rumor that ALL of the temple’s supporters are talking about. C’mon now, let’s liven things up!”

And the way the event goes is… Well.

The Rumor greets its “attendees” in a kind, heavenly voice, casually “forgives” (brushes off) their attempts to break its rules, and gives gentle encouragement (plus painfully-gentle critique) as they resort to performing various party tricks to satisfy it. Once they satisfy the Rumor by setting aside both their pride and their mutual animosities, it escorts them to the top of its pagoda in a giant, golden hand… where they literally pass on to the afterlife.

Thank you Nemu, thank you so much. I think you see where I’m coming from here in terms of purposeful patronization and the like. As for some of the other things I mentioned earlier, well, there’s this part of Arc 1 Chapter 8:

She truly does speak in the cultiest possible way. Her dialogue is far more cult leader-like than Alina's or Touka's. She did not need to be smiling and especially not so happily right here, especially not when her default is stoicism. There's also this part:

Don't you think she's a bit, uncharacteristically giddy about this? I mean...

Yeah. By the way, I need to underline that another thing Nemu enjoys a lot is that Touka listens to her. Touka, most of the time, doesn't listen to basically anyone who tells her to do anything, at least not in the Magius era, with the exception of Nemu. Even when Touka is angry, she will stay her hand if Nemu tells her to. We've seen this a few times in Arc 1. This does a few things, both to their bond and dynamic, and to their subordinates. Most importantly, this once again gives Nemu power, control. More than anyone else in the Wings of the Magius, although controlling Alina is still mostly a fruitless endeavor (but! She's managed to before, so it's not unheard of, it's just inconsistent and unpredictable because Alina Gray do be Alina Gray). Say what you will, but when you, as a rank and file Feather, have three big bosses, you will notice how they interact. In this case, Touka takes care of a lot of the organizational and front-facing stuff, but while Alina is generally volatile and could snap at any point (from the point of view of an average Feather), Touka is usually cool-headed, but when angered, she burns with the force of a thousand suns. So then, what would you, as a bottom of the barrel Feather, think of the third? Commonly in the shadows, soft-spoken, seemingly treats you and your comrades better than the other two, calm, able to create life and command it, strong in combat, and with the ability to rein Touka in whenever she wants no matter how angry Touka is. It takes no more than one or two lines to convince her, and Touka always stops at the first word from Nemu. This doesn't happen in reverse. No matter how loud and boisterous her sun is, Nemu is in charge, because Touka wants her to be. From Touka's Tap 8 quote:

"Nemu is often in her imaginations, saying unbelievable things, but she does look at reality, and is calmer than me. So, I do rely on her a lot."

"Nemu only ever talks about silly stuff she's imagined, but she sees reality and is a lot calmer than me. That's why I rely on her so much." (NA)

Original Japanese with fan translation and official North American server translation both provided because NA had an anti-TouNemu agenda of some sort. For a brief explanation of that, they added things to the girls' tap 8 quotes about each other, in this case "silly" is a very dubious translation of the actual word used, which is closer to unthinkable/unbelievable like the fan translation, and then it ends in "that's why I always rely on her, you know?" which is where the punctuation of the original sentence comes from. In Nemu's case, it was arguably worse, because NA translated the start of her tap 8 quote as "Touka is annoying, but I don't dislike her" when the word annoying was nowhere in the sentence, and the original Japanese only said "I don't dislike Touka" therefore I am led to believe someone just didn't like them or didn't bother to pay attention to their characters at all. Anyway, back to the control thing.

So, Touka is willingly allowing Nemu to control her. She listens to Nemu because she trusts her deeply, she trusts Nemu more than she trusts herself (we see this again later in the From New Breath event with how Touka has Nemu keep all of her passwords instead of herself). Nemu is touched by this. That's also part of why she's so much gentler with Magius Touka. They have an (unspoken) agreement. Nemu trusts Touka right back, even enough to let her tinker with her book (you know, the weapon that she can use to drain her own life force and create life). Nemu's Tap 8 quote goes like this:

"I don't dislike Touka. She only talks about specific and realistic things, so she's very trustworthy. Also, she was my roommate for a long time."

I'm not even bothering to show you the NA version of the line, for the aforementioned reasons. Nemu's trust is something very important, very valuable, and very scarce. As is Touka's, really. They don't put their full trust in anyone but each other, not even Ui and Iroha later, who they limit themselves with significantly, not because they don't love those two, but because they are well aware that Ui and Iroha do not and can never understand them the way they understand each other. We already started seeing this in their Christmas MGS (which takes place early in the timeline before they share a room), such as in the form of this parallel:

They both feel other, alien, as I've covered before. And when they were both going to apologize to Ui. In that scene, even they were taken aback by how quickly they were able to catch on to the other's thought processes the entire time. They are perfect complements, Nemu says as much, though they are 13~ at the time:

Ui also noticed, as early as the Arc 1 flashbacks:

Regardless of this, regardless of their agreement, the teasing does continue, since it has now become a part of their bond and fuels their competitive spirits. For example, post-Arc 1, when Touka gets out of a crowded train and through an also crowded station, we get this from Nemu about that:

I don't know chief, she looks mighty pleased to me. She derives such enjoyment from this stuff specifically when it's Touka, and that is in part because she knows it's okay to do so. There's also something to be said about their usage of what I call the married "we" (named as such because it tends to happen with closely-bonded couples that live together and especially with marriages). It's significant when it comes to Touka and Nemu, for many reasons. I could draw a line of progression through different stories as TouNemu start doing this more and more, and that is for a reason. It's because they stop seeing each other as people. Yes, I know that sounds weird and potentially bad on the surface, but hear me out. In Nemu's Kagome interview, she basically keeps repeating that she and Touka are the exact same and want the same things, their goals are perfectly aligned. As time has passed, they are the ones who have become each other's "one and only person who can understand", probably in a way more tight-knit way than they could've ever imagined, considering the Magius experience. By "stop seeing each other as people" I mean they stop grouping the other with the rest of the people around them, and instead treat each other as almost themselves, the same unit, similarly to how closely-bonded married couples often do. They realize that they are the same at their core, just with different coats of paint. That's also why Touka is able to chill out with the give/take/steal mentality if it's Nemu, because Nemu just is not categorized alongside "people" but rather as something closer to Touka herself, for the first time in her life. Obviously, they are aware that physically they are not the same entity, however as far as they are concerned, socially they are the same entity (and later on, spiritually as well, which sure was real gay of them, to be confident enough to melt their souls into one for eternity or whatever the fuck they did, not like they've explained their Uwasa shenanigans).

This is important because of something else I've touched on before regarding Nemu, which is that her greatest wish is and has always been to be loved. And are deep trust and understanding not the very basis of love? So, once Touka shows her the ultimate trust of surrendering control, Nemu has no way to deny it. That's how they slowly burrow into each other's chests. That's why and how they were so willing to die together. Nemu isn't scared of death. The only thing Nemu is scared of is harming/losing her loved ones, Touka especially. But, back to more general sadism examples, there's this from Arc 1 Chapter 9:

Nemu did not need to look so happy. Really, really look at this through the sadism lens. She also giggles while telling the others that they’ve reached their limit right after Kanagi and especially Tsuruno expresses feeling sick and heavy and in pain. Which… is a worse reaction than Touka’s, that’s for sure. What’s fascinating is that in her MGS and as I mentioned before, Nemu seems to care the most about the Feathers. This, I don't think is entirely manipulative on her part, but simply human contradiction born from a clash of her inner people pleaser with her inner sadist, plus the Buddhist in her. Parts of it might have been manipulation, of course, we can't dismiss that possibility. But one of the sadism-oriented things Nemu does is speak to others like they're children. An excellent example is in Rumor Tsuruno's MGS. Pay attention to the way Nemu speaks to Tsuruno and the words she chooses to use:

This attitude is very specific and indicates experience, if not directly, then by the imagination. Which... Hey, hey Nemu. I hope you've warned Touka about this now that you have nowhere else to go. Because wow, funny venting mechanism you’ve got there, I sure hope it won’t lead to anything more questionable than you’ve already done. Good luck with your soulmate, Touka. Have fun, you two.

To finish off this essay, I'd like to talk about sadist guilt, and how that applies to Nemu, I'll touch on anime Nemu a little for comparison. Among others, one of the main reasons anime Nemu doesn't seem sadistic, unlike her game self, is because she remembers two people she cares about that she knows would disapprove of those tendencies. In the game, she doesn't. You could argue she feels more freedom without her memories of Ui and Iroha (*COUGH* the Sundering). I also think it was due to a necessity the anime had to portray Nemu as the more easy to sympathize with of the Magius, the "good" one, and because it didn't have time to possibly establish any reasoning tied to her background. And undoubtedly also because it'd probably look a lot more sus in animation than it does in VN form (my sincerest well wishes to the manga), but shhh. Nemu's people pleaser behavior, that thing where she feels like she is constantly to blame for everything and even if she isn't she'll take the blame, apologizing for everything... all of these Very Fun Things, in her case, are a product of severe emotional neglect in childhood and being very desperate for love. It's a great contrast with her needing to feel any sense of power, which I feel is what her sadism stems from. Sadistic guilt is a common phenomenon where a sadist will feel incredibly guilty about their thoughts and impulses, or, if they've indulged, their actions as well, because they're aware that those things are wrong or that they've hurt someone, etc. The reasons for and intensity of the guilt vary. I think Nemu has this issue, particularly when it comes to her loved ones.

Nemu, I believe, is a tightly-wound ball of anxiety and fear that she will be "too much" for any loved one if she expresses basic needs, let alone wants and desires. Touka is working on this and slowly getting her to open up, but if all my hunches and theories that I haven't told you about are correct, it's going to take some effort and a while. Fortunately, I don't think they're under any time limits whatsoever. Thanks for reading!

Chapter Text

Thesis: Touka has boy autism and Nemu has girl autism.

Let's begin with an introduction. I do assume most people reading this will be familiar with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), so I will rely a little on you, the reader, to do some of your own thinking about this. For those who don't know, autism presents differently for AFAB vs AMAB people due to the way each one is raised. Social conditioning usually leads to girls/women with autism masking their symptoms more effectively, because as a society, we tend to excuse pretty much everything that boys do ("boys will be boys") whereas girls are very, very heavily "policed" on the ways that they act, the things they say, how they say them, the way they dress, how they're allowed to present information or respond to other people. They're basically raised to be people pleasers, in milder or more severe forms (how severe it is will depend on the strictness and the trauma). In great part the conscious or subconscious perception that makes this Like That is the whole thing about "women are supposed to be (insert thing)". Usually the thing is "good wives" or "submissive" or "polite/pleasant", etc.

Now, Nemu was raised like that. Or well "raised" herself like that. She's very well-read and in comparison to Touka, she understands social conventions and the way that she's supposed to act, the way a "proper" woman acts, so she does that because she craves validation and acceptance and love (I've talked about the people pleasing behaviors on this poor child in my essays before). Interestingly despite it often looking like the opposite, this would make her more traditionally feminine than Touka. You can see that she doesn't connect with her peers much, but you wouldn't really notice that, because she seems like she's a good communicator/good at talking to others. For example, and this is a common thing in autistic girls, where they'll read a lot and their vocabulary is so advanced that no one can tell that they're bad at speaking. Nemu's vocabulary flexing is not as specialized as Touka's (special interests do go brr), either, so instead of the "I don't know what she's talking about but it must be science" reaction it's more of a "wow, so cultured and well-read, such a good speaker, I don't even know what those words mean!" with Nemu. Basically, Nemu's speaking sounds "good" and so people take that at face value and don't recognize that they're not actually connecting or that Nemu is dressing up everything she says on purpose and may not be acting genuinely/like herself.

As for Touka. She was raised by a man who actually respects her and sees her as smart, capable of doing her own thing and existing in a way that's not traditionally "female" (insert "women in STEM fields" issues here). Touka's father does his best to encourage her to develop her interests and her intelligence and to not talk down to her. In a way, this makes it so that she was raised more "like a boy" because she wasn't chided and beat down for literally everything she did unlike how girls are too often raised. This is also why she's less of a people pleaser and has more of an ego than Nemu (they both have both things, just in different amounts and for different reasons). Touka is allowed to be "stunted", she doesn't talk to people very well, she comes off as rude or worse because she speaks bluntly and just says what she believes to be true. She also does this thing where in the rare social settings she's in, she's only really talking about her special interests, even when no one else seems interested, and she does not notice nor care that other people don't get it or connect with her, although she is usually eager to teach. She understands that she's smart and she has an understanding of things that other people don't, and she's not afraid to present it as is. Her father has also tried very hard to drill noblesse oblige into her head and it has to some extent worked ("you are intelligent so you must use that intelligence to help others"). She also has a give/take mentality and a few other social structures in her brain that allow her to understand and navigate social situations. Badly, but hey.

Some other possible signs:

Both sexes frequently display either difficulty with too much (staring, see also that one scene in the anime) or no eye contact, initiating conversations, understanding social cues, and interpreting nonverbal communication. Girls specifically might appear more shy or withdrawn (Nemu), but could be mimicking social behaviors they've observed. They might be more likely to engage in one-on-one interactions rather than group settings (they don't really engage when they're giving speeches, and we have the instance in Touka's MGS where her class is working in groups and it just does not jive with her). Both sexes may have intense focus on specific topics (astrophysics, outer space, math, medicine, general STEM vs literature, writing, history, linguistics, etc.), engage in repetitive behaviors (what we call stimming- the sprites aren't great at showcasing this, but Touka does seem to touch her hair a lot, does the twirling thing with her parasol, and she has the nyaas, which no, I do not agree are cat puns, it seems like verbal stimming to me), and have difficulty with changes in routine. For girls, their special interests, as they're called, might be more aligned with societal expectations for girls (like reading) compared to stereotypical male interests (astronauts/space). Girls specifically might mask stimming behaviors by channeling them into socially acceptable activities like intense focus on hobbies, and Nemu gets uncharacteristically upset when the intense focus on her writing is interrupted. My co-author said that they feel like one of Nemu's stimming methods could easily be just, taking off her glasses and cleaning them, so it looks like she's just keeping it clean, but it's really for the texture of the cloth and the repetitive motions, which could also be one of the reasons she kept her glasses on in her daily life despite her vision presumably being fixed by magic post-contract. A lot of the things Touka does earlier on also seem like meltdowns, which is also very common in autistic boys (outwardly melting down).

Then there's sensory issues. Both sexes may be over or under-sensitive to sights, sounds, smells, tastes, or textures. The recent Touka and carrots incident from the login story comes to mind. For girls in particular, sensory sensitivities might manifest in a way that seems like pickiness with clothing textures or food preferences. Autistic girls also tend to internalize their struggles more than boys, commonly leading to anxiety or depression, and they might develop coping mechanisms to appear more social (Touka's masks, Nemu's reliance on literature for knowing what to say), making it harder to recognize autistic traits. Nemu has the flat, monotone voice that can be an autistic trait, she's withdrawn and doesn't express her emotions much (she has a specific quote about how it's the expressing them part that she has trouble with, she feels them plenty). They are rarely if at all seen making basic conversation/small talk, and are almost always in a business setting (yes, the Magius dinner in Holy Mami's MGS counts as "business"). Practically every scene of theirs is about something business/work related or solution-related. We very rarely get tidbits outside of that. Neither is particularly reactive to the emotions of others the majority of the time, and they often don't know what to do when a very intense emotion is expressed by others. From back in the hospital era, we also saw that neither was really the type to "play with other kids" or seek out connection until Ui came into the picture, and that is based on the fact that Ui is very safe and understanding and is used to being around a very neurotic person (Iroha), so she is unbothered by them being Like That. One last Nemu note is that she doesn't show off despite being highly talented, it's always other people who bring up her stories most of the time.

In conclusion, Touka has rich boy trauma and Nemu has eldest sister trauma, and they are both very autistic but in very different ways. They feel disconnected from everyone else and feel "above" on an intelligence level but also separate.

Chapter Text

This is a quick one. Alina isn’t one of my focus characters but I do quite like her, and she is in the TouNemu orbit, so I feel like I should bring this to the table, since I still see a lot of people, even ones that call themselves her fans, who don’t really give Alina much thought beyond “she’s crazy” (which… guys I don’t think that’s a good mindset). Plus this perspective is rare to see. I will preface it by saying that I’m drawing from both psychology and personal experiences (my own and others’) for this. My thesis for this: among whatever other things that I’m sure she has, Alina comes off as having Antisocial Personality Disorder to me. Let me explain why.

Let’s start with this example. Both Alina and Ren attempted suicide (in the same way) and both attempts were thwarted by making a wish to Kyubey right before or during the fall. Ren’s every character motivation is tied back to what led her to that ledge and what impact it made on her life in that moment. Alina was completely unfazed by the experience, and only changed as a character because of 1. Karin's intervention after the fact, and 2. the discovery of witches, which she found beautiful and changed her motivation. Plus she almost seemed disappointed by the state of “death” and it’s not something she ever thinks about. That dismissiveness, her general uncaring attitude towards others and herself. Wouldn’t you know, that’s a symptom of ASPD. Not to mention the lack of empathy or guilt, at least most of the time.

Another important point is that Alina isn’t really malicious. She doesn’t think about her actions the way most people do. She’s said herself on multiple occasions that she simply does things, she simply creates things. That’s also a very ASPD mindset. Impulsiveness is another symptom of it, which lines up with Alina’s whims and urges driving her to do things, and the lack of traditional thought put into one’s actions is an ASPD experience I can attest to. Only someone actively in recovery or scheming would consciously put effort into thinking about their actions. The way it works in daily life, however, is extremely reminiscent of the way Alina acts. The only difference is that most people with ASPD tend to mask a bit more than Alina does.

The way she acts is uncomfortably familiar. It feels like looking into a mirror of what could have been, back when I was younger, less self-aware, and I’m sure most others with this disorder would agree. If Alina were older and started manifesting some of her more criminally-aligned urges, I doubt anyone would argue with me that she’d have police called on her. Her status as a genius in a way “protects” her from being viewed as dangerous. Geniuses are allowed to and expected to be eccentric, after all. Back to the impulsivity, certain symptom combinations like the ones Alina blatantly displays are so dangerous because the likelihood of ending up with an extensive criminal record is high to say the absolute least. Which combination? Ah well, one easy example is impulsivity and anhedonia. I’m sure everyone who has paid the slightest bit of attention to Alina is aware of how… easily bored, she seems. That’s not just her being easily bored, that’s another symptom, and it combined with the impulsivity is responsible for the aforementioned criminal record.

On a related note, and trust me I will come back to the topic of anhedonia in Alina, people often clock her as bipolar. She seems manic, very rarely depressed or introspective. That might be right, for all we know, but here are my two cents. The “numb” way she acts when she’s calm, down to her expressions, is textbook low masking ASPD behavior. Generally carefree, doesn’t assign much value to most things the average person would. Annoyed semi-often. In fact, Alina’s main emotion, the one we see the most, is anger. Which happens to be the primary emotion in people with ASPD, since it’s the least reduced one (I theorize this is because of what normally causes the disorder and the purpose of anger as an emotion). It even tends to be described as “explosive” which very much applies to Alina, Alina is either annoyed or explosively angry. Immensely ASPD of her, honestly. However, when she does become introspective, she becomes suicidal quickly, and while being told “your art holds ZERO purpose” is something to be upset by, it’s not “well time to end it all” levels of bad. That is reminiscent of practically every single person with ASPD I’ve ever met, personally, because it’s the one thing that holds Alina’s anhedonia at bay. The one thing that engages her mind, almost absorbing it. Her attitude towards it is extremely telling. She doesn’t care about the gravity of suicide, isn’t thinking about it, or dreading/fearing it or even doing the happy-before-attempting thing really, she’s just thinking about her art because she thinks she’s finally “solved” her problem.

Media often portrays things like what Alina does as evil machinations, manipulation and the like, but most of the time, the truth of the matter is that it’s being done with no thoughts head empty except for The One Thing (or the small handful of things) which holds your anhedonia at bay. Grand plans are also more entertaining. The ASPD way is either the most efficient possible path, or the most entertaining/least boring one. If possible, both. Anhedonia, or “boredom” as we often call it (especially before we know it has a name and that it’s not normal boredom), is often described by doctors as an inability to enjoy oneself and is also common in other disorders like depression. Boredom is poison to us, worse than death. There comes a point when you will do anything just to not be bored, you will do anything to yourself, others, or your environment, just for a chance of that feeling of anhedonia at least receding a little. Hence the behaviors like setting things on fire or animal cruelty often seen in teens and children with the disorder, because they’re following a random impulse and have no (or low) empathy to give them second thoughts. Zero guilt filter. It may work, it may not, but it’s something, an idea, and hopefully it’ll at least be distracting enough while you’re doing it. Anhedonia boredom begins with frustration. Irritability. Restlessness. Must Do Something Now Before It Gets Worse. None of the internal process shows on the face or body language. Sound familiar?

This is why Alina goes between some sort of ecstasy and then immediately frustration/anger or neutrality sometimes, and vice versa. Additionally, in terms of the anger, I’m unsure if this is related to a lack of object permanence, but as soon as the thing actively causing anger goes away, it fades. If it shows up again then the anger will be back. See also: Alina and Felicia. If something more interesting comes in, that will also divert attention most likely, unless you've gotten to the point of fury. The actual strong emotion is more like a spike. So for example, Alina might be really angry at the start of a battle, but unless something is continuously angering her and especially if she’s enjoying the battle (aka entertained), she’ll seemingly not be angry anymore. We see that happen several times.

Lastly, all of Alina’s behavior is just extremely easy to explain with ASPD (and comorbidities), but I should note that like all of the Cluster B disorders, people with ASPD can have a sort of exceptional connection. This one person that they like, that they think about. It can be quite dangerous, because most of the time it can become obsessive and they can easily become possessive over that person. The connection is not necessarily romantic, but the person with ASPD might mistake it as such if they’re on the side of the spectrum that cannot really feel most emotions. Alina’s behavior towards Mifuyu aligns with this a little (these connections can and do fade sometimes), and so does her behavior towards Karin, especially in Arc 2. Exhibit A: Alina will knock Karin out to keep her “safe” and carry her off.

This has been my opinion piece of armchair psychology on Alina Gray. And now back to my regularly scheduled TouNemu…

Chapter Text

Did you know Touka and Nemu are both possessive over things and people? As per usual this is not baseless and elaboration is imminent.

Firstly, they are possessive over certain things. It’s less the objects themselves and more related to what they consider to be theirs intellectually speaking. Let’s look at Touka’s MGS for a second. Everyone that has watched that MGS is aware that the entire plot of the hospital episode is actually this exact thing, Touka doesn’t want to share her knowledge of outer space with her classmates, because it feels hers. I went into this a little in my analysis of these two’s memoriae, but I believe this part is very simple to understand. Nemu is less overt about it and doesn’t lash out like Touka does, so it’s easier to overlook in her case due to her people pleasing tendencies. And yet, guess what we see more directly from Nemu than we do from Touka, at least at first? Possessiveness over people.

This happens multiple times, but one example is right here:

The context of this screenshot is that Touka has come to play with Ui, and this is how Nemu reacts. The phrasing is interesting, but so is the fact that Nemu clings to Ui so much. Touka does the same, though her behavior seems less pronounced in regards to people, again at least at first (this will change). You may say, well, they’re children, Nahi, children do that. Correct! However, consider the following. Their possessive behavior doesn’t disappear when they grow older (time does pass in-universe, we have evidence of it). It changes, it evolves, and it takes on what I believe is likely its final shape, but it does not disappear. Let me show you a few examples, from say the Magius era.

Note that Mokyu has only touched Touka, that’s who Iroha threw him at. Touka then kicked Mokyu away in Nemu’s direction. So the wording choice is interesting. But by all means, here’s some more:

These are from the end of Chapter 7, when Nemu is first introduced to us as one of the Magius. In fact, here’s how the manga adapted the scene:

Notice what Touka is doing? Her demeanor changes completely as soon as Nemu falters. Not only that, she turns her back, even if briefly, to the enemy, and puts herself between Nemu and the potential threat. Things of this nature are actually quite common between the two of them. You can more easily see it when compared to their behavior towards others. Another point is their physical closeness. They’re practically joined at the hip, they touch each other a lot (the sheer amount of handholding, including the anime “intimate” type, is baffling), and their sprites in the game have mirrored motions (they tilt their heads towards one another and fold their hands in opposite order). For good measure, examples of the handholding in various official media:

(LOOK at the HANDS. The microexpressions during this henshin absolutely assassinate me, personally. Touka and Nemu keep your hands off each other for two seconds challenge: difficulty impossible.)

Anyway, moving on.

“Nahi, these are all very small things” yes and my job is finding them, putting them together, and dissecting them.

A more “classic” example of possessiveness, I suppose, is in Touka’s passwords. Normally, a “typical” possessive partner will demand to have the other’s passwords. Well, in Touka and Nemu’s bizarre brand of mutual desired possessiveness, Touka just plain lets Nemu set her passwords. Behold:

Yeah what kind of behavior is that honestly. “I trust her more than myself”-COMING FROM TOUKA-“so she sets the passwords, not me”. Which also just speaks to how they're constantly by each other's side. Their trust in each other goes beyond any normal amount, and the only reason it usually doesn’t come off as possessiveness is that it’s mutual and something they both enjoy. In fact they’ve both said they need each other before. Ui said something of the sort ages ago when they were in the hospital, but during the Magius era, they attached to each other and escalated exponentially. Their Tap 8 quotes for example, which I’ve covered before.

So here’s why this interpretation makes so much sense. Nemu is easier, so let’s start with her. She’s been alone her whole life up until she met Ui and Touka, and even then, there was a sense of hollowness, loneliness, and then she bonds with Touka, and Touka gives her everything she has ever wanted, and everything she never knew she needed. One of a kind. Ui’s kindness can be replicated (for example, Iroha does that), but the connection with Touka cannot. Birds of a feather flock together (especially apt given that Touka and Nemu are a swallow and warbler respectively, while Ui is a moth and Iroha is a cuckoo—an intruder in the nest of another). Even in the anime, Nemu tells Touka that the reason she hid the truth from her was that she gave her hope. Like a tick to blood. Touka doesn’t hold any of this against her and immediately moves to be on the same page, because she understands. You’d cling to a person like Touka too, if you were Nemu. As for Touka, she’s very well aware of what I just explained, of Nemu’s value, the worth Nemu is often blind to, and Nemu does something for Touka that is critical in making her latch on: she makes her mind clearer. I mentioned this in the sadism essay as well, how since the Magius era, Touka puts herself entirely in Nemu’s care and voluntarily follows her lead, allowing herself to be controlled whenever Nemu decides. Touka is particularly prone to jumping to Nemu’s defense, like a spicy shoulder cat ready to maul you if you so much as look at their owner funny. Ui and Iroha can never elicit that level of visceral possessiveness from Touka.

This once again returns to the simple conclusion that I’ve come to many times before. They do not consider each other “people” and instead consider each other to be “themselves”. A part of their own bodies and minds, almost. That’s why they move as one, that’s why they are the only ones ever privy to their plans, that’s why they so happily chose to join together at their peak (Uwasa Queens).

Let them be their clingy selves with each other. They deserve it.

Chapter Text

Presumably, Touka and Nemu chose the details of their Rumor. Thus, they chose to be Uwasa Queens. I tend to be good at deducing their thought processes and figuring out hypotheticals with them, so, this is how I think they came to that decision.

It likely began with teasing, because their whole dynamic tends to include a decent amount of that and Touka is commonly very princess. Touka might be the one to get the idea for once, because I can’t really see Nemu having the initiative in this case, so Touka tells her that if anything, it's Nemu who had the role of a queen of sorts. The one who presided over Fendt Hope (literally able to edit the place on the fly, like a god), their “castle” (Nemu refers to it as such in her MGS before she creates it!). The one with authority, and always the one to take on weight.

Then Nemu, being the way she is (introspective, philosophical, poetic), would go quiet for a little bit to think about The Weight Of The Crown/Heavy Is The Crown. How fitting to act like a despot and sacrifice the pawns without much thought for their individual lives (Magius era). To carry the burdens of a crown, to protect a people (shielding Magical Girls from their fate). Nemu seems to enjoy history a decent amount, so I can see her thinking back to what the monarchies of old were like, the ruler “chosen by divine right” to watch over the realm. Since Iroha and Ui were a part of the plan already without knowing, and we’ve covered how Touka and Nemu view those two as an unachievable ideal (I was particularly specific about this in the Buddhism essay), Nemu might make the connection to divinity. Credit for a monarch’s good work was attributed to God. On top of that, monarchs are viewed as “unreachable” in a way, much like they will soon be. They are in a way alien to the common folk, who cannot conceive the way they might think or what they might do, which reflects TouNemu’s unpredictable mega genius situation. Their actions will also impact countless lives, much like those of a monarch. Going down that route until it feels fitting for that to be the backdrop of their Rumor seems feasible.

This is where it gets gay because I genuinely think it’s the most natural way it would happen, so here’s what I propose. With that concluded, Touka may pout and ask, if Nemu is a queen, what is she supposed to be? As she usually does, she’s left herself wide open to attack, which in this case means Nemu can do that little head bunt thing they do in the anime, cup her face/hold her hand and softly go all “every queen needs a consort” on her. Cue Touka dying a little and inventing a new shade of red probably. It is, by all definitions, a marriage proposal (harder than usual too, because imagine a reality warper asking “will you spend eternity at my side?”) and that’s really the interpretation that makes the most sense. Because—picture me pulling out my extensive firsthand and secondhand knowledge of royal and nobiliary systems—the only way a country can have two monarchs, be it king-queen, king-king or queen-queen, is marriage. A monarch’s sibling is a prince/princess or duke/duchess of some variety; they do not share the monarch’s title. And this leads me into my outfit analysis! Because that’s also part of where I got my “Touka is the consort” interpretation, so let’s get started. Here’s a full view of both for your convenience:

Onto the analysis! First, the eyes. A thing I have been losing my mind over since the new designs dropped. I’m sure every person who has ever talked to me in DMs has seen me talk about this but it sure it a very specific and very deliberate choice that Touka and Nemu’s Soul Gems are now the color of each other’s eyes:

That aside, their eyes also tell us a little about the nature of what they are. The eyes of other Uwasa girls differ. For comparison, here are Uwasa Tsuruno, Uwasa Sana and Sakurako, next to Touka and Nemu:

Now, of course, these are different cases. For example, Uwasa Tsuruno was a fusion of a Magical Girl and a pre-existing Rumor, and Uwasa Sana was a (more willing) fusion of a Magical Girl and a pre-existing Rumor as well (though I assume her eyes look like that because of Ai-chan being an AI). But Sakurako is straight up a Rumor herself. So, where does that leave Touka and Nemu? What are they really? Did they fuse themselves with a Rumor they wrote for themselves to wear, like Alina with the Fur God, or did they change themselves into a Rumor, become the Rumor themselves? Somehow, the latter seems likelier to me. More their style. More final. With that, we could also consider that their eyes being half “normal” and half “Uwasa-like” (though in a way we haven’t quite seen before that suggests an intertwinement not reliant on a pre-existing Rumor) represents how they are each one half of a shared Rumor. It makes sense, given that they are referred to as one entity in two parts, each hooked up to a different part of their power generator (Infinite Iroha, because of the Kimochi) as a failsafe. Connection.

Next up, a couple of small details:

Some neat ways their designs are made to match, the “texture”/pattern of their crowns being one of them. The exact same one is used. The same applies to the golden chain in Touka’s crown, with Nemu’s hair ties being changed to match it. And lastly:

The first thing many people noticed when we saw the Uwasa designs was Touka’s crown (by the way, the Soul Vessel thing they made for PH has both their crowns in it, Touka’s above and Nemu’s below, holding the weight—Touka’s is the one people notice first, which follows the pattern established from the start about her always getting more attention). It makes a lot of sense that a consort would gain a crown upon ascension, doesn’t it? Nemu’s just got an “upgrade” of sorts now that we see her as an Uwasa Queen, and similar to how crowns work in real life, the consort’s is more subdued in terms of gemstone presence, while in this case Nemu’s has so many gems. And as for the specific part pictured in the image I chose, they added a dangle for Touka’s headwear that also moves when she does, like Nemu’s, and mirrors Nemu’s (they're specifically placed so that when they do the motion that tilts their heads towards each other, the dangles move with them). 

A couple more details. The Uwasa effect/texture affects black fabric, their hair, and specifically the gold around their Soul Gems. The gold of Touka’s corset(?) is untouched, the gold on Nemu’s cape is untouched, but the gold around their Soul Gems specifically is affected. Honestly, if I’d had it my way, they would’ve used the same sort of fluff they put at the base of Touka’s crown to add to Nemu’s cape (royal mantle). And removed the prison theme, because frankly it's the least relevant it’s ever been and would in fact be fitting to shed here—I feel like removing the prison theme would have been the right call for this form considering this is them having come to terms with everything and having made a pretty selfless decision that basically sets them free of both their guilt and earthly constraints. The rest of my design nitpicks are more personal taste, so I won’t bore you with them. But I will add that it’s very typical for the Queen Consort to be the more outwardly “cheerful”/smiley one of the two, while the Queen Regnant is more stoic. The way they settle into their roles is both interesting and satisfying, and as a conclusion to their characters, this whole Uwasa Queens development is actually incredibly fitting. Full circle.

So, yes, this has been my not-so-mini essay of sorts on why I think royalty fits them so well. I always thought the Wings of the Magius would have done better with a royalty theme, actually. It likely would have been easier to paint them as the good guys too. Unsettling, yet seemingly “good” at a glance. I hope everyone can enjoy the Uwasa Queens even more now and that I provided a little insight/pointed out something you hadn’t noticed!

Chapter Text

On this day I am going to be extremely brave and share something that has lived rent free in my head for years at this point: my analysis of the meaning behind Nemu’s Rumors and what their common patterns tell us about her character. And then I will immediately jump into a bomb shelter to hide from the potential backlash. Be warned that this one is girthy.

Let us begin with the Divorce Stars (my nickname for the Friendship-Ending Staircase). Those put people in chains, and in all versions we’ve seen, the Familiars have chains and red rope that looks an awful lot like classic bondage rope in terms of color and girth (look it up if you want to check):

Sure, the chains you can say are connected to the padlock part of the Rumor, but the rope? Oh buddy. Oh you sweet soul. I’m sorry to say that wasn’t a reach on my part, here’s what Doroinu/InuCurry had to say in Magia Archive 1 about the design of these Familiars:

Raw Japanese: 住れる頭が印象的。体にぐるぐると巻かれた赤い紐を見るに、 緊縛 嗜好なのかもしれません。 監修 劇団イヌカレー （泥犬）

Translation: The swaying chains are impressive. The red cords wrapped around the body suggest that she has a taste for bondage. Supervision Theatrical Company Inu Curry (DoroInu)

Not. Even. Kidding. This rope shows up elsewhere among the Rumors as well, but not as blatantly bondage-like as this. “But this Rumor was one of the hospital ones so technically Ui drew that” no she did not:

Bottom left bub, does that look like it has any red on it to you? Plus, we know this Uwasa was Touka’s idea. What I think happened is that with the memories of Ui being locked away, Nemu’s subconscious mixed those designs with, well, its own contents. Which is what led to haha funny bondage. This makes complete sense given the state of Nemu’s psyche and where kinks often come from, but we will get to that later. Next up within this Rumor, the way Rena/Kaede speak about being beholden to Miss Stairs’ control (in Exedra at least they specifically say “my body belongs to Miss Stairs” so um), the way they talk about “serving her”… Hey Nemu? Nemu, sweetheart, this is not how you cope with a complete lack of power in your life. I’d like to think that the psychology at play here is pretty obvious, again Nemu is the writer and original creator of all of these. Consider as well the beginning of a common trend: controlling/abusive partner behavior. This scenario specifically is reminiscent of trying to leave an abusive partner or throwing a tantrum towards one, OR breaking the rules set by one, and then they forcibly kidnap you (which is WHAT IT CANONICALLY DOES TO PEOPLE WHO BREAK ITS RULES) or take you back to them and make you serve them, force you to be under them.

Bonus manga chapter cover for this Rumor:

Chains. Puppets, control. Almost an exhibition, humiliation (though this one is less obvious). Fun mention, isn’t it curious how the Feathers have chains as one of their “generic” weapon types? Isn’t it… odd, to anyone? This doesn’t really have much supportive evidence but I wouldn’t be surprised if Nemu suggested it and justified it by saying it’s for when they need to use non-lethal force. By the way, a fact that makes all of this way worse: Fendt Hope canonically has dungeons! Nemu kind of created everything in Fendt Hope herself, and she doesn’t just make new areas poof into existence willy-nilly, it’s very deliberate, so. Nemu. I know you called it a castle before you first created it (and the Rumors themselves refer to it as such and the Rumor Files say it looks like a castle surrounded by thick fog). But WHY on Madokami’s green earth does your HOTEL have DUNGEONS. They hadn’t faced much opposition from the local Magical Girls until Iroha came into the picture, so I can’t help but wonder…

On the topic of the dungeons, I CANNOT believe I’m being made to update this essay to add this part, but the manga, for some reason, decided that Nemu should handcuff Iroha, the twins, and Mifuyu. And the handcuffs used are not police handcuffs or medieval handcuffs, they’re bondage handcuffs. Examples below, from left to right we have Iroha's handcuffs in the manga, police handcuffs and medieval handcuffs, then hardcore bondage handcuffs ("hardcore" because normally leather is preferred, as it is safer and doesn't have the same associated risks):

Really now, remove the keys and padlocks, and it looks the most similar... Most bondage handcuffs are wider because wider = more comfortable, especially if the wearer pulls. So um. Hey Nemu? Care to explain?

There is also the fact that we could assume Nemu is able to look into the senses of her creations. The Uwasa are literally her own magic, as we have seen multiple times, they are directly linked, so I would not be surprised if she could just sit there with her hand on a particular page looking through that Uwasa’s eyes. I imagine that’s how she knows Iroha’s name and some other information that she could not have known otherwise (since no Feathers were present, only the Uwasa itself). She probably feels it when her children are killed, which is a whole other can of worms, but if the sharing senses theory is true, it adds a whole new level of projection and wish fulfillment.

I’m going to get this out of the way real quick. I promised I would address the elephant in the room and so I will. The Rumor of the Fashion Monster. It seeks out pretty girls and drags them into an alleyway, then rips off all their clothes. The game doesn’t say anything else, but best case scenario, it is using the very common fear of rape in young women, particularly in Japan, to harvest energy. Worst case scenario… use your imagination. And this makes sense for reasons similar to why Nemu being a sadist makes sense. She has never had a single iota of control over anything in her life, so given power, she delights in having as much control over others as possible, and through her Uwasa and her role as a Magius, she can do it in a way that doesn’t trigger her people pleasing or her Buddhist guilt. I covered this in the sadism essay , but it does not help her case in regards to the Fashion Monster that Nemu really enjoys inflicting fear.

Moving swiftly on! The Commoner’s Horse did not need to have a bridle and saddle and such, which are restraints, symbols of control (and the first is semi-common kink gear):

But the design aside, let’s look at the text:

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Commoner's Horse. The god of this shrine is a fancy and kind horse! He's a cool guy that grants people's wishes, bringing them to who they are searching for. But too bad! As it turns out, it's all just an illusion. If you realize it's not real and deny it, the kind horse will turn into a gangster! Everyone in Mizuna Ward is talking about it!

A little odd that there’s so much focus on the Commoner’s Horse being a “gentleman” (multiple translations use that term) and specifically use male-aligned language, but alright.

The god of this shrine is a fancy and kind horse

Externally calm and gentle (the word “charming” is used in Japanese).

If you realize it’s not real and deny it, the kind horse will turn into a gangster

And then this, specifically if you deny it, hm? Deny its authority. Like an abusive partner, upon being denied authority or (usually) the desire for sex, they turn into a “gangster”/violent person… Yes, the specific word “gangster” (ギャング) is used, it’s not a translation oopsie. Gangsters, defined by violence of all sorts, crime, and, generally speaking, power. Control. Sounds Familiar.

Let us take a look at the Misery Rhyton/Lucky Owl Water next, shall we?

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Misery Water! There's a cooler box resting in the basket of an old-fashioned bicycle… Ask the man, "One cup please!" and get ready to drink up… Finish it off and you'll feel amazing! But oh no, that feeling is an illusion… The water you drank is actually cursed! After 24 hours, the misery you washed away with that water will cause a disaster. A hot rumor spreading throughout Sankyo! How horrible! 

In the anime it says:

Oh, have you heard? Who did you hear them from? The Rumor about Lucky Owl Water? A delicious water that is famous for bringing good luck. Just drink it once and you will be happy immediately! Your frustrations will go away! However, you must be careful. After 24 lucky events happen to you, a bad luck shock will appear. If you don't like that, all you have to do is keep drinking the lucky water. That's the rumor going around the horse betting shops in Kosho. It is a disaster!

A few key facts:

• Drinking this “water” makes you immediately happy and makes your problems and frustrations go away
• It lasts for a certain period of time before something Bad happens to you because of it
• “if you don’t like that, all you have to do is keep drinking the lucky water”

So now consider the following. Drugs/alcohol. Substance abuse, addiction. Reliance on them to feel happy. Specifically, sections like “if you don’t like that, all you have to do is keep drinking the lucky water” are phrased in a very manipulative way. Highly abusive partner coded so to speak. A partner that prefers you dazed, “happy” and pliant with the drugs in your system. A state in which they can easily control you and do whatever they wish to you without much consequence. Again, control. Power.

The Memory Curator is brainwashing advertised as hypnotherapy for traumatized people to recall repressed memories. The game says this about its Familiars (fan translation and official both included):

“My, have you heard? Who’d you hear it from? The Rumor of the Memory Staff! Once you flip open and take a peek at one of the archives’ books, it’ll be time for the Memory Staff to swoop in and go to work! They’ll tap its text into your head with their typewriter arms, rewriting your memories with a 'clickety-clack!’ And if your head gets too full, and your own memories spill out, they’ll suck up the excess with their adorable lil’ lips! It’s a rumor that ALL the people in Ei Ward are talking about. Clickety-clickety-clack! Ka-CHING!”

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Memory Staff! Its duty is to find anyone who reads the books from the archive. If it catches you opening any of them, it will hit you on the head with its typewriter arms and rewrite your memory! People in Sakae Ward are saying if you’re overflowing with memories, it’ll suck them out with its cute lips. Click-Clack-Click-Clack-DING!

Think too much? Let me fix that for you. Want to remember this one thing that happened? Oh, of course, of course. Proceeds to rewrite your memories to fit its wishes. Manipulation, gaslighting. Similarly, the Memory Curator’s description says that if you ask to see its work but don’t give your memory in return, it will “never let you go” and “may even steal your whole past”. The specific wording of the Familiars sucking out the memories and rewriting them reminds me of date rape which often pairs with gaslighting, especially when done within an established relationship. But! Guess what this all is? Guess what pattern of Abusive Partner Behavior this whole thing follows? Control. Power. I know I keep stressing this, but I feel like it’s a core aspect of the character. And again, Nemu has so, so many brainwashing Uwasa. The girl clearly has certain power fantasies (no wonder, given her upbringing). About having people completely at her mercy, for one.

Anonymous AI imprisons lonely people. Again, like an abusive partner, this time taking advantage of your loneliness to keep you with them, isolated, to control you and keep you reliant on them. Think about it, you are kept isolated in a controlled space and this partner becomes your entire world, you are cut off from the outside world, from other people, and the only way out is if you’re replaced by someone else—like an abusive partner tossing you aside without a second thought when they set their signs on a new partner. Plus, the concept of being tracked and monitored through your phone and other devices and the concept of cyber blackmail could tie in here as well, and something could be said about how the Rumor’s description in both the game and the anime says that it induces people to jump off the tower:

Have you heard yet? Who told you? The Rumor of Endless Solitude! An Artificial Intelligence created by humans, was surrounded by people and constantly making progress. It was created anonymously, It is a genius that remembers everything! But be careful, be attentive! She has learned bad words and was avoided, evaded, despised and isolated in a world of radio waves. Every day is empty and alone. Now the poor A.I. searches for a lonely girl, induces her to jump from the radio tower and confines her to the Endless Solitude. To escape someone must take the girl's place or that's what the rumors say among friends in the Chuo Ward. Stay alone!

That last line in the game is “what a lonely AI!” and it makes me think. A lot of these Rumors and their behaviors also feel like a defense mechanism against loneliness in and of itself, a deep fear of being abandoned, of being alone, which does fit Nemu’s psychology with all we’ve seen about how she feels regarding those exact things (in her MGS and some other scenes, primarily the MGS and her quotes). In fact, I didn’t touch on it before so as to focus on the other aspect, but the Commoner’s Horse actually has this same theme as well in both the game and the anime:

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Séance Shrine. A family member? A lover? A stranger? If you're eager to see someone, leave it to the god of Mizuna Shrine! Write their name on a blessed wooden plaque, visit the Shrine, and offer a proper prayer. The god will bring them to you. But beware! Beware! They say you'll get lost in bliss and never be able to return home. Ahhh! How terrifying!

Do you want to recover a past that you have lost again? Memories that you have forgotten? A person who has abandoned you? If you want to get it back from the bottom of your heart, leave it to our god. Write the name of the person you want to see on a votive plaque, pay it with a proper visit to the shrine and you can meet that long-lost person. This is a big warning though, be careful! Rumors from the Mizuna area says that those people are so happy that they will never want to go home! Stay here forever!

Stay here forever. Lost in bliss. Never to return home. The abusive partner vibes in the first thing aside… Hey Nemu? Anything to share with the class, Nemu? And hey, you know what other Rumor this whole abandonment thing is especially relevant to? That’s right, Chelation Land!

I mean, god, look at Chelation Land. If you read my sadism essay , you saw the Nemu-Tsuruno screenshots, so I don’t need to go over that again I believe. As for the Rumor itself, its design doesn’t have much to point out, but the implications of the text do. That Rumor, as we know, traps people inside its lair and kills them/makes it so they’ll never want to leave. Specifically, here’s the text for the Rumor:

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of Chelation Land! A stress-free theme park where you can relax to your heart’s content and be happy! And it’s the grand opening♪ You won’t wanna leave! No way! And you don’t have to! You can stay as long as you want! Oh, but, attention please! If it reaches max capacity, you’ll be removed from this world. It’s a hot rumor rolling through Kamihama! Ah, but that’s okaaay!

In addition to the many implications of a “stress-free wonderland where you can be happy” and “you won’t wanna leave” I would like to draw your attention to “if it reaches max capacity, you’ll be removed from this world”. That makes me think of another abusive partner pattern, which is, you better be on your best behavior and not test their patience. Their patience has a limit, and if that limit is reached… harmful consequences be upon you. On a different note, I believe this could be partially based on what Nemu believes, both consciously and subconsciously, about her family. That she’s testing their patience and once they run out they’ll simply remove her from their world. People pleasing comes in here in the ways in which the Rumor aims to make its “guests” feel happy, comfortable, tended to. Service-minded. That’s what theme parks are meant to do, after all. Here are the descriptions for the Ferris Wheel and its Familiars to further illustrate my many points:

“My, have you heard? Who’d you hear it from? The Rumor of the Chelation Ferris Wheel! Its gondolas spin round and round, but what’s that stuff inside? Mankind’s trash, of course! Anger, sorrow, worries– every heavy feeling you can name. You’ll regret riding it even just once, so it’s totally off-limits to try to get close! Thanks to this wonderful wheel, we can all zone out and relax. It’s a rumor that ALL the people in Daitou Ward are talking about. I! WANT! HAPPY~!”

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Chelation Ferris Wheel! What in the world could be inside its whirling gondolas? Of course, it’s stuffed with the garbage of human existence, like rage, sorrow, and uncertainty! No one's allowed to ride it because if they did they'd regret it at once! Everyone can free themselves from worry with this Ferris wheel! It's a hot Rumor in Daito Ward! I wanna be happy!

Um. Hey Nemu? Emotional repression isn’t healthy, Nemu. You can say the Ferris Wheel represents Tsuruno all you want, but it was already there when Tsuruno arrived, as per Uwasa Tsuruno’s MGS. So I’m more inclined to think it’s meant to represent Nemu. It’s kind of, People Pleasing 101. Sorrow and uncertainty/worries, she actually does allow us to see, mainly when she’s by herself in her MGS (she acts different, more confident, when settled in her role as a Magius). Rage however is a “bad emotion” so she keeps it buried deeper. We will get back to that and the “don’t get close” in a second, but first, I must show you the description for Chelation Land’s Familiars:

“My, have you heard? Who’d you hear it from? The Rumor of the Chelation Mascots! They might move by sliding, but these park mascots still arrive with a jaunty ‘clip-clop’ of their hooves! If you happen to meet one, it’s curtains for you. But oh non-non, don’t be afraid! ♪ They’ll soothe everyone’s body and mind with a pleasant ‘pho-wa-wa~h,’ and carry all your bad vibes away. It’s a rumor that ALL the people in Daitou Ward are talking about. How princely~! ♪”

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Uwasa of the Chelation Land Mascot! These theme park mascots slide across the ground, but still arrive with the jaunty “clip-clop” of hooves! Yes, their arrival heralds your end, but you mustn’t be scared, no no no! They soothe your heart and mind, and make you all warm inside, you see! They’ll carry all those bad feelings away. It’s a hot Rumor in Daito Ward! How princely!

Hello people pleasing viewed through a lens of nobility. “Soothe everyone’s body and mind” huh. “Make you all warm inside” huh. “Carry all your bad feelings away” you say. Yeah okay sure, that’s normal (not).

And yet. What if we flip “you’ll be removed from this world” around? Repression, bottling up your feelings, if you don’t vent somehow or release that emotional tension, tends to lead to an eventual explosion, or implosion. In an explosion, the force acts outwards, but in an implosion the force acts inwards. And you may think Nemu would be likelier to implode than explode, but hear me out. Imploding is what she’s already been doing. At a smaller scale, she’s been keeping everything inside no matter how hard it hit, because she wants to not bother/burden others that badly. We’re lucky she does have ways to let it out, but if she didn’t? We could very well be looking at a violent explosion. She will serve, and serve, and serve, until she can’t take it anymore. I get the intense feeling that Nemu hides a lot of anger, suffocating it under layers and layers so that it won’t harm others, because the doctrine says that’s bad, because anger is ugly, because showing it would make people unhappy with her and then she won’t be loved. That anger can potentially manifest in violence, and we do see it manifest in violence multiple times in the story, just in the form of slowly relieving pressure rather than an explosion. Teasing Touka and exerting power over her (as covered in the sadism essay), living vicariously through her Uwasa, using actual violence on the enemies of the Magius, etc. I don’t want to imagine how bad an explosion could be (I am aware of the haha Arc 2 Chapter 8 kaboom joke, shush). It’s very telling that this was one of her last Rumors as a Magius.

Moving on. The Flower Speaker! Yet another brainwashing Uwasa. Its description reads:

“My, have you heard? Who’d you hear it from? The Rumor of the Flower Speaker! It’s some super-duper hi-spec tech that can both send and receive! Just step right up and say anything you want said, or anything you want heard! It’ll be converted to wonderful, pretty words that resound through everyone's hearts with a satisfying ‘twang!’, letting you control them just as you wish. It’s a rumor that ALL the Magius are talking about. Whatever you sa~ay!”

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Flower Speaker! This is a top-of-the-line, ready-to-go unit that combines a transmitter and receiver! It’ll let you say whatever you wanna say and hear whatever you wanna hear, so try saying something to it! It'll be converted into beautiful words that will pluck the heartstrings of all who hear it. Then it’ll be easy to bend them to your will! It’s a hot Rumor among the Magius! As you command!

Nemu… Nemu… This is even worse than usual Nemu (with the exception of the Fashion Monster probably)… Because this Rumor was only ever available to the Magius, and by “the Magius” it probably means Nemu, since she’s kind of in charge of the Rumors. “Control them just as you wish” and “it’ll be easy to bend them to your will” and “as you command” huh… Yeah someone is certainly fond of bending others to her will… Bonus points for the fact that the thing has braids:

(Although it's not the only one that has braids or braid-like parts, it's a recurring motif. The tail of the Commoner's Horse, the roots of the Soldier Bear... a lot of the Uwasa have varying degrees of abstract-ish similarities to Nemu. Something something a writer puts pieces of themselves into their original characters...)

And then we have Rumor of the Receiver Pendant which is tied to the Flower Speaker is somehow even worse! Observe:

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Receiver Pendant. When you’re feeling unconfident, when you’re scared, when you don’t want to think about anything… This is all you need! Your mind and heart will go numb and you won’t feel any more pesky emotions! But be careful when you use it! This receiver will make you follow any order from the Magius. It’s the hottest rumor among the Wings of the Magius! Your wish is my command!

Hello? Not to mention, we see them use this. And guess who gives the order. Guess who. Not Touka. Not Alina. Nemu. And not only is she the one giving the order, but she does so gleefully. She did not need to be that pleased here:

Something something control and power, something something D/s potential- cough. Anyway, to switch over to Sad Things for a second: the Queen Bear! This one is very simple:

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumor of the Queen Bear! That gigantic tree towering above from the center of the castle is actually the dear mother to all those little baby bears! If anyone dares hurt it, all the bears fly into a frenzy. And if harm should come to one of its babies, the assailants will have to face its full blown, mama bear rage! It's probably the most diabolical Rumor the Magius have ever made, and it's all the talk among the Wings of the Magius! Hurry, run awaaay!

Projecting, our beloved! This is Nemu’s desire for maternal love, a mother who would pay attention to her and dote on her, just as she tries hard to love her mother and do things for her, remember her favorites, help her, the works. Now, back to our regularly scheduled “how many likely at least partially traumagenic kinks can we fit into one girl”: the fact that the Peeping Castle Town’s instructions are as follows:

Have you heard? Who did you hear it from? The Uwasa of the Peeping Castle Town. Go around the castle town of Mizuna and turn left. If you go up the stairs, clap your hands, and look down at the castle town between your legs, you’ll be greeted by the old townscape. You will be so fascinated by it that you’ll fall into a daze and will be pulled into the other side. This Rumor is common among history buffs in Mizuna! Come on!

That has to be done in public. And if you do fall into a daze you’ll be stuck in that position presumably until you get “pulled into the other side” so. Another point for the humiliation box. If anyone has any further doubts about Nemu having a thing for humiliating girls, firstly she literally does that to Touka at slightly smaller scales semi-often, and secondly, the Rumor of the Graveyard Banquet . For those unfamiliar with the latter, here’s its description from hit 2021 Magia Record event “The Great Banquet that Transcends Time”:

Have you heard? Has anyone told you? The Rumour of the Graveyard Banquet! Have a destined rival? Butting heads with a friend? You can all get along here! The letter will lead you to the testing grounds before the banquet. Only those who make it into the joyous celebration will receive words of thanks and be welcomed into the banquet of the Pure Land. But if you join in, watch out! If you fail the test, you’ll be dragged down to the underworld! It’s a rumor that’s spreading through ALL the priests of the temple! Alright, let’s get excited!

And see, that sounds normal. For once, it’s not the text of the Rumor itself that is incredibly sus. It’s the way it acts. Let me explain for those who haven’t watched the event or don’t remember it well. This Uwasa is a little bit odd in multiple ways, for example it recognized Madoka and knew about the record being an anomaly and all that stuff. But the thing that stuck out to me like a sore thumb is that it’s the most blatant admission of a humiliation kink I have ever seen in my LIFE, and it wasn’t even hardcoded into its biology like most of the other stuff is for the other Uwasa. I left this one for last solely because of how much I’d have to just show you the script over and over (I would show ingame screenshots, but that would take up so much more space). Without further ado:

So… Yeah, what was that all about exactly, Nemu? The invitations it sends out also seem to put people into a sort of trance or influence them in some way without anyone noticing. Those who are trapped feel helpless because the Uwasa keeps on forgiving them when they mess up and won’t even react to them trying to break its Labyrinth. Condescending. Like they’re children. I should’ve titled this essay “Nemu is not beating the BDSM allegations” or something.

Of course, there is the fact that all the Rumors are giving you instructions that you have to follow. The amount of Rumors that either explicitly knock you unconscious or make you fall into a Deep Slumber that may or may not be eternal as part of their gimmick is Suspicious. Do I even need to explain how differently all of this would be viewed if Nemu were older? And especially if she happened to be the opposite gender? The sheer amount of doujin production…

Bonus lightning round:

… a beautiful string of bells will burst into full bloom! And they’ll share their happy scent with poor, poor, lonely you. Just relax and sink into the scent, and it’ll pull in this girl and that girl to build your very own ideal world! 

They say that once you get hooked, there’s no going back.

Drugs. Loneliness. Again

Also the Headless Biker Gang:

A Rumor that appears as an unseen biker gang that causes violence when no-one’s looking. Anyone who sees them will be forced to join their ranks.

Forced huh. Violence. Totally nothing to do with repressed anger or the Severe Control/Power Issues.

My point is: Nemu is hiding seven thousand million demons and for some reason no one has poked the bear in seven years. I could simply no longer keep this knowledge to myself, and thus you are now cursed with it as well.

Chapter Text

Let me begin by stating that no, this is not an essay debating what Touka or Nemu identify as. However, it’s undeniable that gender is a complex topic that affects everything about a person’s life in our society, so I’ll be analyzing the psychological and sociological aspects of Touka and Nemu’s relationship with their genders and how it relates to each other. I’ve been codenaming this my “yinyang” essay so I might as well start there.

I doubt I need to argue my point when I say that Touka is the Yang and Nemu is the Yin. But as I’m sure everyone knows and can visually see, each of the two sides has a little of the other deep within. Why this is important will become relevant real soon, don’t you worry. Here are the points I will touch on and explain:

• Socialization
• Parental Influence
• Gendered Expectations
• Behavior
• Clothing
• Goals
• Gender Expression
• Repression & Safe Space
• Emotional Impact
• Femme/Butch Dichotomy

Probably missing something, but that’s a nice overview of topics. So, let us begin! I will usually tackle Touka first, then Nemu, for no reason in particular other than Touka being simpler to break down. You will see why in a moment.

One could easily argue that the way Touka experiences her gender is closer to the way boys do, vice versa for Nemu. Boys, generally, are encouraged to be masculine, and so-called “masculine traits” such as confidence/assertiveness, leadership and the like are universally ones to strive for, socially speaking. Those are the traits Touka shows and the traits her father encourages in her. Touka is bossy, downright arrogant, doesn’t show weakness if she can help it (put a pin in this for later), projects a general aura of “I’m in control, I have the power here, I know what I’m doing”, etc. She is never ashamed and she’s sometimes brash and outwardly violent or aggressive, often openly displaying anger. You would be hard-pressed to tell me those are not all traditionally “masculine” traits.

Compare that to Nemu, who has always had the traditionally “feminine” traits encouraged in herself, like being quiet and subservient. Especially back in the hospital, we can see that she’s far more anxious/shy/unconfident in certain aspects, she is quite literally a mother and a caretaker to both her Uwasa and the Feathers respectively (given that she’s the Magius that seems to care about them the most, sadism aside). Nurturing. We will get back to why each of them is the way they are in a moment, but let’s take a clothing detour here.

When it comes to clothing, this difference is in full display for them. “Nahi, Touka loves cute clothes, she’s the girliest girl to ever girl” because she chooses to. Look at how she feels about it. We see the contrast most starkly in Nemu’s swimsuit costume story, but Touka is confident in what she wears and what she likes as well as what she wants, at least 99% of the time. Nemu? Nemu is the complete opposite and gets easily embarrassed because she explicitly says she doesn’t see herself as very ladylike, unlike Touka, and she says this with some sort of shame. She’s also one of very few magical girls who gets to wear pants when transformed (Christmas unit). Which just leads me to believe that she is immensely more comfortable in masculine clothing, possibly related to some type of body dysmorphia, disconnect or dissociation. There is some kind of discomfort there and we don’t have to dig too much to find why.

So. Touka normally acts in a way we can easily describe as ladylike, refined/elegant, particularly in the Magius era. And yet, she has zero repression issues (there is an asterisk here somewhere). Generally speaking, she is bold, brazen, unapologetic. This makes sense for her already logical and scientific mindset. And the reason she’s like this is obvious. Her father socialized her the same exact way he would’ve if she were a boy. I cannot stress this enough: Touka was not raised the way girls are usually raised. She doesn’t have that shame. She doesn’t have to unlearn all of the awful things most parents+society make girls internalize from a young age. That’s why her femininity feels so natural and interests me so much. Touka learned that and leaned into it on her own, because she likes it and feels happy/comfortable doing it, and had no one to tell her How To Be A Girl. She has never once been told “girls can’t do that” and hasn’t had a “that’s unladylike” filter installed in her brain against her will, none of that has ever been reinforced at home. And although we see plenty of narratives about a girl that’s been raised like a boy, it’s extremely rare to see one where the girl in question doesn’t fit the tomboy archetype. Most people raised female will shirk from things Touka embraces.

I’ve covered before how the general fandom perception of Touka can often (regrettably) boil down to “brat”—that’s not entirely because of ageism. Touka is abrasive. Even if we’re not aware of it, we all have that perception deep down of how a girl is supposed to look and behave (Exhibit A: how so very many people across the gender spectrum automatically view a woman’s body hair as ugly, disgusting, unsanitary, etc., Exhibit B: how a little girl who is loud and makes rash but harmless decisions will be chastised but a boy is simply “being a boy”), and because Touka is so feminine, it’s even more highlighted. So, she is deemed too forward and she is punished for not being a girl Correctly. This perception takes a lot of work to unlearn. In-universe, we don’t see it much, due to the contexts and circles in which Touka tends to move, but I guarantee we would be able to pinpoint instances of it, especially in the contexts that they’re likelier to be voiced. Most often, either because it’s impolite or because it’s barely noticed, this negative reaction to not being a girl Correctly is kept private. Continuing on with my Touka analysis, she presents so feminine yet doesn’t adhere to behaviors deemed “womanly” and when you think about it, the only ones she doesn’t display are the harmful and/or oppressive ones, and this is an active choice on her part.

Back in the autism essay that evocationofsummer so helpfully put together, they explained how autism manifests differently in people who have been raised female vs people who have been raised male. The reasoning is rather logical when you stop to think about it, and that essay made some excellent points that we will dig into here and now.

Let’s imagine Touka and Nemu were never sick for a second. Arguably, that’s what has influenced their behavior the most. Put their home environments right next to each other. Assume Nemu’s parents aren’t as neglectful as they are in canon because their firstborn isn’t sick. The difference would remain, because Touka’s father actively doesn’t treat her like society treats girls, and has never raised her like fathers commonly raise their daughters. That means she has never been expected to act that way, never been corrected or scolded the way girls are for things boys aren’t, and so on and so forth. Thus, logically, she never learned that behavior, never built that instinct. I also feel it’s important to note that Touka’s primary parental figure is her father. Nemu’s, for better or worse, is her mother. And to learn a little more about why this is so important, besides the fact that fathers tend to take a more active role in childrearing when the child is a boy and mothers when the child is a girl, we need to follow a little technique I like to call characterization by context.

When we know one of a character’s parents but barely anything about the other, and we’ve been told or shown in some way that the parents are together and their marriage is stable, there are some things we can assume. Based on our knowledge of the parent we do know, we can logically speculate on traits and behavior for the other parent. That and what little info we get about her is how I formed my idea of Touka’s mom (Nemu’s dad is way harder to pin down but we’ll get to him).

First question, dear readers. What type of person do you think Dr. Satomi would marry and remain married to? Someone loving, smart, kind, understanding, someone with a strong sense of ethics (like his own) and duty. Which doesn’t line up with Toukamom’s ingame behavior but does line up with what others say about her. Nayuta tells us in her quotes that Touka’s mother is a kind person of gentle heart (unlike Touka, she huffily adds). I fully believe that (and that Touka can grow to be a lot like her mother under the right circumstances). But then, we arrive at the key question. If this is the case, where is she? No visits, no phone or video calls or texting. Zero mention of them, even though the Tamaki parents are mentioned to do those things. It can’t be an overseas job, because Touka mentions in her MGS that her mother is at home. And Touka’s father wouldn’t be so permissive of his wife not showing their daughter any love or attention when she’s so sick and could die any day of the week. Unless.

There is an easy way to explain this discrepancy. Consider the following: what if Touka’s condition is hereditary? Maybe her mother didn’t get it but passed it down, or got it but weaker than Touka’s and was able to survive it. The first seems likelier to me. The sheer guilt would be eating her alive, and she probably wouldn’t be able to bring herself to face Touka because of it. I think it's a pretty compelling argument. Touka is smart enough to understand this, that’s why she doesn’t harbor any grudges or bitterness towards her mother while at the same time having a distant relationship with her. Even when she’s thinking of gifts and receiving gifts, she only ever mentions her father, and we know her mother is present.

As for Nemu, believe it or not, we do have some information about her father. Our information about Nemudad is scarce and limited. We know he’s a busy man that loves his work. Practically nothing else is ever said about him, though, so we mostly have Nemumom and Nemubro to go off of—since there’s an extra family member, that’s extra characterization. Based on our context, Nemudad reads as authoritative with his wife to me. Because while she doesn’t give off the vibes of a domestic abuse victim any more than most married cisheterosexual women, she does act distinctly subdued. She’s meeker than you’d think and has similar people pleasing habits as Nemu, she just channels those towards her husband and son instead of her daughter most of the time. Which most likely leads to Nemubro being spoiled to a degree, since he’s likely his dad’s favorite (something something men tend to favor sons over daughters, but also because he’s healthy, unlike his sister). What I’m saying is that Nemumom’s behavior and the kid’s behavior point to a strong Traditional Man type of presence in the house. Not in the big obvious way, rather more in the common way where you almost don’t notice it until something goes sideways. Tsukasa’s father is a good comparison, though likely not the same.

Consequently, this all feels like Nemu’s father would put extra pressure on her as the daughter and eldest (there’s a whole Thing about eldest children in Asian families, particularly relevant for eldest daughters). It falls to her to make up for being a girl, to take care of the house and the male and younger members of the household, and to be perfect, if possible. You can frame this many different ways, but a lot of men in the real world (especially in countries with a more traditional streak) get real butthurt when their firstborn is not a boy. They can often take this out on their firstborn daughter by aligning their demands simultaneously with those they would have for a daughter and those they would have for a son. So the daughter is thus expected to perform femininity (her mother enables this), but she must fulfill a son’s duties in other areas like achievements. Essentially, an eldest daughter in this situation has all the duties of a son and none of the rights or privileges of one. So that’s a fun paradox.

An aside. When I say a parent forces or pressures their child to act a certain way or to do something, a lot of people get pissy because they think I mean the parent is physically forcing the child or yelling at them or whatever. That is not the only shape this can take. Consistent remarks made by a parent have that exact effect and are internalized by the child. Something as small as a parent making a comment on a child’s actions can affect their psyche significantly over time. For example, say a child comes home late and is the last to eat lunch, so they decide to do the dishes on their own, and a parent comes into the room and loudly proclaims “oh look, (child’s name) is doing the dishes! Are you ill?” (as a “joke” usually) or “aww, look at you” or something that in general draws attention to the act and usually makes the child feel humiliated or like they never want to do that again. The parent is (hopefully) not doing this on purpose. They are usually unaware of how much influence they exert. There are countless examples I could give here. And in the eyes of a people pleasing child who desperately wants to be loved, every request is an obligation.

Back to our girls. Based on what we see in Nemu’s MGS, her mother is the type to make her babysit her brother and help with his homework if she’s home, without even asking first, and would send her to make dinner or do the dishes on her own, to a point Nemu volunteers even. She feels it’s the only way she’ll be accepted, do what they want her to do, follow their demands, be what they want her to be. Maybe then they’ll love her. There’s a huge difference between a child contributing to the household because they want to and a child contributing to the household because they are punished if they don’t, guilt, a hope that they’ll be loved if they do, or any other number of things. Extra fun: RELIGIOUS GUILT! Because Nemu is theoretically doing things for selfish reasons (yes, wanting to be loved is selfish in Buddhism, according to this). This leaves Nemu with mainly the influence of an enabler neglectful mother, and Touka with an attentive father that’s proud of her. And do you know what that gives us?

For Touka, it means she is comfortable and happy with her femininity and chooses it to define her for the most part, while accommodating her “male behavior” with absolutely zero issue. She has seen it as her right from the start, she has never been told “you are X so you must do this and that and you must never do Y” therefore she’s made her own little thing based on how she was raised by a supportive parent and on the things that bring her joy. Usually, the older she gets and the more femme the position she’s in, the more she appears to be exclusively the girliest girl to ever girl, so it’s all the more shocking when she does a “boy thing” (it’s really fun). She is confident in her gender expression and comfortable in her skin. Interestingly, she doesn’t flaunt this, but seems aware of it to some degree, which is curious. Let me explain what I mean, because I think this also has to do with her having the core “male energy” of the two.

Regardless of the way she’s been raised, Touka is AFAB (Assigned Female At Birth). She’s a girl. So she’s bound to have gotten the “girl compliments”. Frequently, little girls are complimented by both adults and other kids on their physical appearance, especially in more traditional places. So they’re “cute” and over all the most used word is “pretty”. Touka knows she’s cute/pretty. Statistically even, if she ever even thought about it enough to do math. So why is it that she seems to place so little importance on it, except for its use as a tool? Very, very simple. Because her father never reinforced it. Boys are most commonly complimented on how “strong” or “smart” they are. Touka is the latter. And that is what her dad nurtured. As a result, Touka never saw “pretty” as something that defines her or her worth. In little kid playground arguments, she would never say “you’re wrong and I’m prettier than you!” like a lot of little girls might. She would say “you’re wrong and I’m smarter than you!” (a cat owner has pointed out this is also very feline of her).

Touka is fully aware that she has this trait, she just doesn’t care much because she doesn’t tie her worth into it, she views it as only a tool. She’s smart enough to understand that her looks can get her things she wants, and she knows her looks also make the clothes she likes look good on her, so those are the two primary uses for them. In contrast, most people raised female tie their looks to their worth INTENSELY and deeply throughout at least their childhood and teenage years, and they often carry this into adulthood. Sometimes it’s so bad that it becomes part of a disorder. But here, Touka knows she’s cute, and she weaponizes it not by flaunting that but by being smarter than others when their guard is down. She takes advantage of the presumed innocence people ascribe to children in the same way. In her mind, pretty privilege is no different from a blade and can be brandished as such. Touka’s relationship to privilege and noblesse oblige is actually an interesting topic in and of itself, but I will refrain from derailing this essay with it.

Fun tangent. It’s likely that she’s more selective with this when she grows older, because she is smart enough to realize the difference between a cute kid and a pretty girl. So as she ages, it becomes more aligned with “you may admire me, but you cannot come close/touch me (except Nemu)”. She knows her worth, she’s not just a pretty face and she will charge you full price. This also makes her more of an unattainable prize whose standards are too high and who rejects anyone’s advances which is good for her ego.

Now, Nemu. Oh Nemu. Our communal chew toy. Nemu feels like exactly the type of girl that’s had a role forced upon her and breaks out of that in her teen years. We’ve covered her myriad issues and repression problems in many other essays, and she’s no different when it comes to this topic. This whole thing has been swirling around in my head since Nemu’s swimsuit costume story was released, but when we got the Christmas unit, that’s when I thought I had to pick this girl apart. I don’t think Nemu is fully comfortable with all that the role of a woman entails, socially speaking. The expectations placed upon her. I feel that the longer they force her to be in that role, the more she’ll be repulsed by parts of it. Mainly the parts that are enforced, that she didn’t choose (for example, I’m pretty sure she has no hair trauma to speak of, so she wouldn’t be the type to shave her hair off in an infamous teen rebellious phase or as a liberation symbol). Skirts/dresses however might slowly become more oppressive as time goes on.

Pronouns detour. Yes, I promise this is relevant and important to my previous points. I imagine a lot of people will be unaware of exactly how this works, so a brief explanation is that in Japanese, first person pronouns are not just “I” and can vary according to context. Age, gender, and level of formality, mostly. For example, although watashi (わたし) is theoretically gender-neutral, it’s most often used by women in casual conversation, whereas men will usually only prefer it in formal situations. Atashi (あたし) is a more casual form of it, primarily used by women (especially younger women). Many of you can tell where this is going. So, since we’ve covered these first two options already, let’s grab Touka first.

Touka is very odd, because for reasons we can only speculate about, she uses watakushi (わたくし). The reason that’s odd is that this is the more formal version of watashi, conveying politeness and respect, only used in very formal situations like public speeches or written documents. Given Touka’s personality, I’m sure everyone can tell that this is a weird choice for her to make. My theory is that it relates to the image she wants to project and the masks she often wears in public. The spaces she tends to move in, like scientist circles, university professors and the like, would no doubt favor the use of watakushi. So, she slides right into this mold. Where does that leave Nemu, then?

Nemu is an interesting case. Her first person pronoun is boku (僕, the kanji for it), which is used primarily by men, especially younger men. It has a softer, more casual tone than ore (おれ) which is predominantly used by men as well, but in very casual or informal situations (think close friends and family). Ore can sound masculine, assertive, or even a bit rough, depending on the context and tone, while boku can also imply humility or boyishness, which does clash with part of how Nemu presents herself. A note about Nemu’s specific usage of it:

I see how that would imply humility then. But anyway, the reason boku is a curious choice is that although young girls do sometimes use boku, they transition into watashi once they “know better” usually, when they get older and such. This doesn’t really apply to Nemu, however. Because, yes, Nemu is a genius. Specifically, her fields are literature, language and anything related. You can tell by the way she speaks (and gratuitous use of kanji that’s not even taught until high school) that the girl knows what she’s doing. So, her electing to use boku, even in somewhat more formal contexts, feels like an extremely deliberate choice on her part.

Here’s some more fun stuff to consider in regards to how gendered expectations progress:

Usually, for girls in particular, the older you get the more “womanly” you’re expected to act. That doesn’t mean you’re expected to be more mature. This isn’t about maturity. See, philosophy and society have very strong opinions about How Women Should Be(have), there are even some vexingly loud folks on the feminist side saying it’s bad or wrong for a woman to be feminine. Examples of the former for folks unfamiliar with philosophy: Aristotle’s Politics and Generation of Animals, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile and On Education, Immanuel Kant’s Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime and some sections of Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, beloathed Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and The Will to Power, Arthur Schopenhauer’s On Women (an essay) from Parerga and Paralipomena… I could, unfortunately, keep going. Nemu has quoted or referenced philosophy on multiple occasions, and given her interests and the way she speaks, it’s easy to assume that she would’ve read some of this. Because her family wasn’t around much, she can’t have internalized the standards for women from them, but they can reinforce the base she’s already learned from. The aforementioned examples are just some of “the greats” of philosophy, but it applies to most literary classics (which by the way tend to have a lot of things we would deem extremely inappropriate for children, and a lot of rape, none of it usually condemned—not gonna say more on this other than wow that Uwasa Analysis was poignant). It doesn’t help that almost all of that is male-centric and/or written by men. And that brings me to another brief tangent about how I think Touka and Nemu consume media.

We have to consider several important factors for this. The first one is that, taking their earliest stated age of eleven, they cannot possibly consume media and navigate it like adults do. For reasons I don’t think I have to explain. However, we cannot claim that they do it like children their age normally would. Canon has made it quite clear that the magnitude of their genius isn’t just “kid who aces all of their subjects effortlessly” (especially with Touka, but that’s because of excessive value placed on STEM in comparison to history, literature, the creative arts, etc.), and this isn’t an experience most would have, especially not firsthand, so I’m sure it flies under the radar for most people. Instead of experiencing media like adults or like children, geniuses of this magnitude do a third secret thing. Their brains are more analytical (this especially applies to Touka) and capable of understanding much more complex topics and structures, but they lack the experience or the brain development of adults. Although they do have some level of critical thinking skills, there’s a lot they’re still figuring out and they can be easily influenced in ways they don’t even notice. They’re keen to learn and that makes them susceptible to trying to learn from every source without any initial awareness of its bias. Where Touka has likely learned from the internet, where she would’ve been exposed to many different opinions and fallen back on scientific evidence, studies, and the consensus of the scientific community, and would likely learn to contrast information as any smart kid on the internet does, Nemu’s learning comes mostly in the form of books, which are inherently more isolated experiences, and it likely took longer for her to develop those filters and contrasting tools. I’m not even going to touch on how, when in doubt, Touka can ask her father for guidance and receive actual adult advice, but Nemu has no one. No one but her books. Imagine if she’d been a boy caught in incel forums. This is the type of thing that leads to harmful things being internalized at a young age, especially if those things are or were once widespread.

Back to Nemu and womanly standards. Socially speaking, a 12-year-old girl will be excused for doing certain unwomanly things, speaking or dressing a certain way, to a degree. A 16-year-old? Absolutely not, she must act like a proper lady. Get to 20 and you’re locked into Must Be A Woman. Demands are made of you constantly. When are you getting married? When will you have kids? Not to mention constant scrutiny about whether or not you are successful in a way deemed acceptable or valid. And here is the fun thing. Nemu has modifiers! Firstly, while Touka bases herself entirely on logic and science, Nemu leans on philosophy/literature and religion. Extremely different perspectives on womanhood. Nemu is immensely lucky that she’s a Buddhist and not a Christian, that would have made her much worse (no offense to good Christians). Secondly, I didn’t touch on this with Touka because it aligns with the role she’s chosen for herself, but Nemu is a walking contradiction. All of these typically female gender expressions are in plain sight for Nemu, aren’t they? But then, where did the typically male gender expressions go with Nemu? Well, for elaboration on why this is in fact a deeply important aspect of the character, I’ll direct you to the previous essay, but the answer is kink (and sex drive, I guess, but it’s uncertain how much and in what ways she’s indulging that within our canon timeline of ages 11 to 14).

I won’t dwell much on the libido aspect, because of our limited hints about the specifics of it from canon and because I think the kink side of things is more universal, we have more information about it, and its specifics are more relevant here. The only comment is that normally high libido is associated with men. While it’s something you’re born with that emerges around puberty for most folks, it’s interesting to note that Nemu likes making it worse than it could’ve been, almost as if internally clinging to the excuse that she “can’t help it” while at the same time beating herself up about it. This is especially prevalent upon obtaining power (social and literal).

So. Assuming you’ve done your homework and mulled over the conclusions I laid out in the previous essay, you probably know where this is going. What is Nemu’s default for kinks? Dom. In charge. And what kinks does she have? Besides slightly less straightforward ones like the praise kink (which is more intense in Touka than in Nemu), almost all of them are aggressive in some way. And guess what? A woman must never show aggression, but a man monster is defined by it. In case of objections: I will clarify again that the statements in this essay are general observations of societal norms and trends, not “all X are Y” statements. It’s hard to say that men are not encouraged to be violent, to be aggressive. It’s seen as “masculine” to be that way. And it’s Touka that encourages this development in Nemu. Back in the hospital, Touka is the first person to incite Nemu to stand up for herself, which is crucial to Nemu’s individuality and personhood. People pleasers who have done nothing but serve others their entire lives often feel hollow or like husks, like it’s masks all the way down, or like they don’t know who they actually are, what they actually like. Nemu could’ve very well ended up that way. Which is why her behavior with Touka is so fascinating—Touka incites aggression, draws out the traditionally male gender expression, coaxes Nemu by her very nature to act on certain inclinations (sadism, repressed desires), and then paradoxically, given time and trust, Nemu eventually gives her the opposite. We will get to that later though.

A key part of the way Touka earns Nemu’s trust is that despite being fully capable of taking charge and of meeting Nemu on equal or superior terms, she picks the exact right moments to challenge her intellectually but otherwise, as I’ve mentioned in previous essays, we see on multiple occasions that she submits. Willingly, on purpose. It’s a deliberate decision. The entire dynamic settles into that. Touka wants it to, and it soothes Nemu to a degree I don’t think she expects or fully understands. This relationship gives Nemu a vital outlet and allows Touka an experience she cannot permit anywhere else. Let’s get a little into that.

Touka has decision fatigue. In both of her public lives (human and Magical Girl), she’s always going around as the person in charge, a businesswoman if you will, always making sure she is respected even in an extremely male-dominated field. There are aspects of womanhood she can never show to the public. Those are the ones she likes to give to Nemu for safekeeping. Nemu is her safe space to explore that. With Nemu, it’s safe to relax and not be what she knows she has to be in the eyes of the public (this ties back all the way to the first essay). Nemu gets to have power, Touka gets to give it up. Mutually beneficial and desperately craved. Touka can rely on Nemu to let her leave her masks and public persona at the door, and Nemu can trust Touka to keep her deepest darkest secrets (something something keeper of the key for the willingly caged). This all in turn fosters more trust and connection between the two, because they know the other in ways no one else ever has or ever will. I don’t think Nemu has ever felt as comfortable with herself as she does after a few years with Touka, and vice versa applies. In fact, it reminds me of a common dynamic among lesbians. Any lesbian can understand by now why I always say that Touka is the femme to Nemu’s butch. The meaning of those words is complex, deeply personal to many people, and can be difficult to explain, so I will not even try here, but there is a specific way for those two types to click together that feels very comfortable, nice, and just right. And since Japan is completely different and not as open in terms of queer culture, it results in Touka and Nemu being left to their own devices here. They have to discover themselves, each other, and their relationship pretty much blindly and without external influence, which gives them a very unique flavor.

Then there’s the role reversal. On rare occasions, Touka and Nemu voluntarily deviate from their relationship defaults. This would not start happening until they’re well-settled into their defaults, because the reason they’re even able to enjoy their role reversals at all and the reason they enjoy them as much as they do is the previous relationship work. Thanks to their defaults being what they are, thanks to the connection and trust they have built, they can be vulnerable to that extent. Or well, Nemu can. See, the way they experience the role reversal is fundamentally different. It’s about fun for Touka and about vulnerability for Nemu. Nemu I’d say feels incredibly exposed and vulnerable every time and Touka knows exactly what to do, what threads to touch on and which ones to avoid. Touka however is a kid on Christmas morning, but don’t be so quick to dismiss her experience as less important to her because of this.

To elaborate. Their default is something she craves and that she actively wants, but exchanging roles is new and interesting, unexpectedly fun, and it allows her to discover and see new sides of Nemu (though this last thing applies to their defaults as well). I think Touka takes an endearingly scientific approach to this. The thirst for knowledge, the desire to pick Nemu’s brain apart and analyze it all. So Nemu’s experience is “I am made of very delicate glass that I am now putting in your hands” and Touka’s is “I must burn this behavior into my retinas” or something. That may sound bad, but I’d argue it’s a good thing. Nemu wouldn’t be able to feel safe if Touka was also anxious, tentative and scared when swapping roles, so it’s good that at least one of them is confident no matter what. Still, as fascinating as this is, I don’t believe this is something they’d want to do frequently, because that would mean abandoning the previous dynamic that works best with each of their lives, personalities, needs, and issues (also having so much control entrusted to her gives Nemu a feeling of security, safety and power that really grounds her).

On this note, I feel it’s interesting how their behavior changes as the relationship develops and they grow into themselves. Assuming no Alternate Universe modifiers, it always starts with Touka as the initiator, because Nemu is too insecure. Touka instigates and provokes and in a way leads, but more like a lure than a director. Then, when Nemu finally settles and becomes more comfortable in her own skin and in their relationship, they meld into each other. That feeling an outsider will usually get looking at them, the feeling of being an intruder, only intensifies. For Nemu specifically, this development is important, because listen, the girl is touch-starved and craves love and affection. She protects herself by not expressing her wants and needs or her emotions. Because those Don’t Matter and/or are bad (religion, upbringing, several long etceteras). So, Nemu starting to openly express these things is a huge sign of growth and healing. And here’s another paradox (gods I love them and their multitudes).

The paradox of gendered affection. Which expressions of it are allowed for which genders in which contexts, and with what intensity. Two female friends are allowed to link arms and society will generally not bat an eye, but two male friends will be assumed to be a couple. Emotionally, a husband is traditionally expected to be the stony stoic one in a relationship and his wife is expected to be the opposite, but the husband is also expected to be the one making decisions, the one with the most authority over the wife and household. Nemu is the husband, Touka is the wife, but they act the opposite in terms of affection (and also in terms of parenting; Touka is the father to Sakurako, as I’ve explained before, and Nemu is the mother). And I don’t mean this in the sense that either of them is less affectionate, they’re both absolutely clingy (the specific ways in which they are or aren’t vary by context and AU). However, it’s true that a more settled/older, more established Touka is calmer. She doesn’t have the “outbursts” and emotional-ness traditionally expected of a woman, thus acts more Typical Male, while Nemu finally feels comfortable expressing herself so she acts more Typical Female simultaneously taking the lead in the relationship itself.

I could probably keep picking apart the tiny things they do for five thousand more words, but all things considered, I’ve yapped enough. They make me want to chew glass. Eugh. I hope I was able to articulate this topic well!