THAT SEXUALITY ESSAY AVIY WANTED ME TO DO
MUKURO KIND OF LIKES BOYS.
ALSO, IS A SADISTIC MASOCHIST.
real essay may or may not be coming.
SEX ha HA this one is easy. MALE. Mukuro's got boybits. Probably
GENDER this one is a bit more wishywashy. It's not that Mukuro is markedly agender, more than one gender, or adverse to be categorized by gender. It isn't an issue for him, but the fact that it's practically a nonentity makes it more complicated.
• Mukuro doesn't have any problem being in a girl's body, or probably, being a girl.
• Mukuro doesn't seem to have a terrible time being an inanimate object or an owl either.
He has a few mixed signals as well. Bitch boots and between him and Chrome it always seems more likely that he would indulge in stereotypical feminine behaviors, moreso than her. There is nothing strictly masculine or feminine about his behavior, in general. He does use 'boku' and very occasionally 'ore' both of which are masculine (traditionally moreso, especially with a rise in young women using boku) and wears pants etc blah blah.
WHAT REALLY I AM TRYING TO SAY HERE IS THAT GENDER IS AMORPHOUS AND NOT PARTICULARLY HIGH ON HIS LIST OF THINGS TO IDENTIFY HIMSELF BY.
IDENTITY -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- . gender
SEXUALITY ETC because knowing me I will wonder from this topic. Sigh okay. Here we go. OH WAIT I CAN DISTRACT MYSELF RIGHT AWAY okay basically one of the things about Mukuro is the difference between physical power-touch and his interactions with people. Mukuro is not really a physical touchy sort of person, on one hand. There isn't any casual touching with him, which part of it is how Reborn as a manga is -> and his place as a character in it and the fact that there is hardly any Kokuyou (is there any?) downtime shown. On the other hand he definitely likes his distance. He's that kind of person. However, when the situation calls for it Lanciaaaaaa he's definitely going to get in your bubble -- also when he uses the fifth realm he's definitely more up in Tsuna's grill.
ALSO THIS SHOULD BE NOTED for as much as Mukuro does things... at a distance (illusions, mind control, he fights with a polearm, the way he carries himself etc) he does take some sort of pride and pleasure from hand to hand. It's been commented on by both Marmon and Glo. He enjoys physical power and using it and some of his manipulations (the Kokuyou School incident, for example) show him making that an integral part of his illusion. But again, almost all of his physical touch is in violent situations.
Mukuro is the kind of person who would like someone to walk into his trap mostly of their own free will. The choices that lead people into their own sort of fucked uppedness. You see how he does it in the Kokuyou novel. For someone who has very exact goals he is incredibly round about (sending messages through ripped out teeth, Chrome, the box-owl-fight with Glo).
KEEPING THESE THINGS IN MIND Mukuro has no canon love interest. Reborn just doesn't roll in the "man I want to date kyaakyaa-chan-sama-sama". It does roll in the "dude's got tension could possibly be buttsexual!" way. What Mukuro DOES have is some great dynamics with people. (IN MY opinion and if you're still reading clearly you care about MY opinions)
• Lancia - the first real dynamic that might be in the early Kokuyou stuff. Even then we just get it in bits and pieces. That Lancia is not Mukuro but acting as Mukuro. That Mukuro made Lancia kill them. That he was a crazy kid. (And then later in the Varia arc there's that bit about Lancia and it's kind of INTERESTING what conclusions you can draw from it)
• This is a really important relationship! Lancia acted as Mukuro's other self (a role that always seems to be filled, Lancia, Chrome, Guido). Lancia has known Mukuro since he was itty bitty. Mukuro not only used Lancia, but twisted him up and thoroughly broke him.
• While there is definitely room here for... a relationship of sorts (see later section!) it isn't a 'love interest' in that sense and it's not ... really romantic. So. Move along ye.
• Chikusa : Ken - they're like one entity. The more important part of this is them to Mukuro, since Mukuro pretty much shows an indifferent asshole I am Using Them face.
• Romance is a 'no'.
• Hibari - fandom loves this one. It's one of those "two people hate each other very much" sort of things, except it's rather hard to read the exact dynamic. But there's something about "I broke every bone in your body" which might speak of a sadistic or pragmatic pleasure but not really so much in the "and then I fucked your boneless sack of meat, it was very enjoyable!"
• I... don't do this pairing.
• Chrome - They bodyshare. Chrome is his other self as well, however he didn't have to viciously mindfuck her to do what he wants. He saved her life and offered her an identity.
• This is also really important! Chrome is his in to the Vongola, the mist guardian, she is one of the reasons he can be an active agent outside of the tube.
• ... yeah um. I don't do the romance here. At all. I don't think it would ever work in any sort of the notion. Their relationship isn't about power and it isn't about attraction. She has something on him, which is weird for him and this relationship was also formed after he'd been Vongolapwnd which means she met him when he was a different person. (The possibility that she could learn this through other means exists, I know).
• Tsuna. Which. Tsuna did Jesus him, but Mukuro hasn't put that together really. He associated it with the Vongola's power (and says so in the drama CD when Chikusa mentions that there is something different about him.
• I could list this as a possibility, which we will go over in the later section, mostly the Luke section!
I am not entirely convinced that someone who hasn't met Mukuro preVongolapwndness could ever actually form a relationship of any significant meaning with him. He is the kind of person who will never discuss how he got to where he was, and without that transition some of his character is missing. The idea that he went from being a horribly traumatized and horrendous child to a fucked up teen to a still fucked up but less drown the world in blood person is... important. It helps to understand where he is coming from and what he is saying.
LANCIA gets his own minisection. Because. Anyway. I play Mukuro as having a really supremely fucked up and twisted relationship with Lancia. It might squick you. ): I'm sorry.
So, Lancia is Mukuro's toy, but more than that he's someone who Mukuro knows exactly who he is. The Lancia he sees now is one he thinks he made, pretty much. This is a Lancia who is someone based on past experiences and traumas. With the right words Mukuro can get Lancia to do what he wants (or so he thinks). Lancia gives Mukuro specific things. When he was younger Lancia was a means to an end, a dependable means to an end.
The thread we had most recently is a pretty good picture of what their relationship is.
Mukuro can force Lancia to do things, and he has. He's taken over his body completely before as well. However, Mukuro really would rather have Lancia eventually bend to him. It's a lot like the carrot and stick principle, only ... not really because Mukuro isn't really holding incentives out. But that's the principle behind Mukuro's actions a lot of the time, hint dropping, maneuvering things around a situation to give him what he wants. It's an illusion of agency.
Nowwww this brings me to one of the major sticking points in this essay sort of. Mukuro will use this illusion of agency to give people power over him. He really really likes the idea that he's given someone else the power they think they can use to abuse/lord over him. And then he can take it away/shatter that illusion whenever he wants. IN SIMPLE TERMS it's giving people the power to abuse him all the while being a horrible sadist who is in control of the entire situation at the same time. We see this especially in the Kokuyou novel where he takes that rather convoluted strategy of letting the guy think that he is the big badass, letting the guy think he's beating up people (Mukuro himself included) and then letting everyone else beat up on him in the end. He likes that kind of stuff a lot.
So, for example, in the more recent thread, the stabbing of Lancia was sort of... a side effect of this. He wanted Lancia to take that role of revenge/anger/abuse or whatever and when Lancia didn't Mukuro got a bit peeved and turned the 'game' around on him. (It should also be noted that he knows that by making Lancia take that sort of role it would hurt Lancia a lot, which pleases him too). But Mukuro didn't just get mad and stab Lancia, rather he played on the deep seated guilt (... which is sort of his fault anyway) and made Lancia come to the conclusion himself and then 'granted' that 'desire', despite how false and constructed it was.
Mukuro loves that stuff. Well, love is a weird term. HE THOROUGHLY ENJOYS THAT STUFF in all of its fucked uppedness.
You say BUT WAIT what about Luke? Because Mukuro's relation with Luke is... not bizarre sado-maso-fucked-uppo! (Well. ...)
LUKE ha ha okay this is special. While Mukuro thoroughly enjoys the fucked uppedness of the above, he does on some level realize that this is not the best thing and/or has felt other things that do make him happy/feel good/whatever. THE POINT IS he's not limited to fucked uppedness as a source of 'good feelings'. On the downside of this canon says Mukuro is extremely retarded. In the drama cd right after the Kokuyou arc Chikusa mentions Mukuro seems different, happier, whatever. Mukuro replies that he sees this as the Vongola's power and now he wants it even more. Now, as an audience we know that his 'dark aura was purified' blah blah, Mukuro's been Jesused. But right there he attributes it to the Vongola power and continues along his stupid path to try and take it by force. Good going, Mukuro.
Mukuro has done some of the same-ish behavior as mentioned earlier. Rather, the reason he prefers people to walk away from him, end the conversation, etc is because of that not-really-carrot-and-stick agency. He hasn't ever acted in violence directly at Luke, however. One of these reasons is purely pragmatic, he hasn't done his research on Luke and his world as far as fighting goes -- but this is a weak and sort of not important reason. One reason is because it seems far more effective to act violence on people Luke knows. A third is that he doesn't particularly want to. If it came down to push and shove Mukuro would, but it won't, especially not here in camp, and there's no reason to mess with it. What he gets from Luke isn't at all close to what he gets from other people he has antagonistic relationships with. (Though, it is worth pointing out that he hasn't fought with Tsuna either directly while here. Again, part of that is pragmatic, but that is the weaker of the reasons as to why he won't)
It could pretty easily be summed up as: Mukuro likes Luke. But it's an odd statement for Mukuro because he is how he is. He doesn't even necessarily accept or acknowledge that he likes Luke (though again, on some level he probably does, but Mukuro has more layers than an inbred onion so...). It's a feeling that greatly unsettles him, especially when he finds it both positive, aggravating, not like the relationships he's built for himself. Logically he has nothing on Luke and Luke has nothing on him, so the idea that this sort of thing can form without Mukuro putting all the pieces together is... odd to him. He doesn't like it, it rubs him the wrong way and goes strongly against his sense of self. Mukuro's world is one he has constructed for himself, the mist makes something out of nothing. He sees the world as flexible, malleable, here, there, has an ambiguity of mind. All relations he has with anyone has been made, created, tweaked, pushed. Even his interactions with Tsuna, where Tsuna has interrupted what Mukuro planned to be their relationship has parts where Mukuro has been able to move the pieces around to some sort of facsimile of what he wanted. Luke is persistent, stupid, Jesus-y and without these movements on Mukuro's part. It's weird. It's kind of nice, except for the whole he really hates it and it isn't in his control. And he didn't create it. The power dynamic in the relationship isn't one he's used to seeing or dealing with. Dissonance.
OLIOLIOLIO okay. So basically Mukuro seeks out specific dynamics that he wishes to create/use and then reacts to them and tries to further them. Luke is an anomaly which completely fucks with that but he finds it... interesting/attractive because he's like that. And really, he might like that better. But who knows, he's too busy being himself which is a stupid occupation, but also something he's terribly good at. Mukuro likes to have the power in the relationship, but he does also have strong masochistic tendencies (there is something here about his 'other selves' and how he constructs them, the way they look, their personalities even extending to Chrome but I'm not going to go into that, you can draw your own conclusions). And it isn't necessarily that he specifically seeks out boys, but what he does seek out are personalities and behaviors that he thinks are more often in men (regardless of if they are/are not) and therefore reacts to males in the way to elicit the response he thinks will occur etc blah blah... which really means he does specifically seek out boys to receive this sort of dynamic OKAY.
Questions, comments, etc are always welcome.
ETA what the hell guys!!!!!11