Pearlgisa

🌹

excerpt from A Little Mist Goes a Long Way "Well, if that's your last word, I don't think you need my assistance. I'll be on my way," Karma said, a bite of impatience. He awaited a reply as the boy dithered, transforming snow to slush as he shuffled his feet.

OKAY !! that was a brainfart but i headcanon that karma has his moments when he overreacts and the first person he calls is rio nakamura. he spends an afternoon venting to her and the conversation always ends with whether he should ask nagisa for math advice, even though he's literally the topper in math in their class and actually helps nagisa out the most (which is canon) in math. and rio just stays silent because she knows that he just wants his comforter lmao

Send me some prompts or whatever. HELP ME TF OUT OF THIS CREATIVITY BLOCK

My lord and saviour maits 🛐🛐

my sunshine and rainfarts nini <33

Retranslation and Analysis of That Fight Scene

So firstly, I just want to say the subs are not bad and convey the general meaning very well, in a way that sounds natural in English. That being said, there's always some things that get lost in literal translation, and I really want to demonstrate how much depth the Japanese in this scene actually has for Karma and Nagisa's characters.

Basically the TLDR point here is that this fight is very much not about Korosensei. This is completely platonic, I promise I resisted making any shippy points.

Karma: Hey, Nagisa kun, aren't you getting extremely carried away?

Nagisa: Eh? (definitely surprised and bewildered)

Karma: The number one strongest assassin in Class E is Nagisa kun, isn't it? (uses yo here, which suggests confidence in the statement). Are you (very directly yourself, your own thoughts) wanting to quit assassination? Let's think about the talentless others who are desperately trying their hardest to kill him. When you put it like that, it's like a woman who 'has it' telling the ugly ones that they should honestly quit being so desperate to get a boyfriend, that kind of feeling?"

So some interesting analysis here is that Karma says "zuibun", or extremely, when the original translation is "a tad". The translation feels more natural in English, however it kind of makes me feel that Karma's trying to make more of a point. Nagisa has the right to be making suggestions and stepping up, but he's gone so far this time it's crossed a line.

I think 才能がないなり (talentless, saino ga nai nari) is also very interesting. Talent is the best translation, but if you look at the kanji very literally, there's "genius" and "ability". This specific word choice more implies that the other assassins are good, but Nagisa's just another level. Japanese grammar is confusing at best, but essentially 'nari' means become. So you take this as kind of like 'students who couldn't develop genius ability'.

The repetition of 'desperate' is also pretty interesting, linking the examples together better. It emphasises the point that they're kind of at a loss with. He also doesn't directly say attractive woman, he says "motteiru onna", which essentially means the same, but is literally "a woman who has (no object given but essentially 'it'). This more directly reflects to what he's saying about Nagisa, he HAS talent, this unspecified natural quality that makes him better than everyone else without trying.

There's also a lot more rhetorical questions in the Japanese, which got combined into single sentences in the English. The "let's think" thing is very literally what he says, like he's wanting Nagisa to actually consider his thoughts for himself.

Nagisa's original argument and intention may have been about Korosensei. Karma may be genuinely opposed to saving Korosensei. But that isn't the point of Karma's argument at all, he's making this about Nagisa because he's reached a limit with the both of them.

In order to spare you, more under the cut.

Nagisa: T-the aim wasn't... Above all, for assassination, your understanding is always better than mine

Karma: Saying that directly (take with slight pinch of salt - he could have also said "fixing your statement") is irritating. In reality, isn't it that you yourself are the most powerful, and you can't comprehend the feelings of weak humans?

Nagisa: That's wrong (also using affirmative yo here)! That's not what I said! These are my true feelings! Do you hate Korosensei? We went to see a movie together with him, didn't we have a variety of great times?!"

Karma: That's why, that octopus did his best to come and make a fun classroom every time, and didn't give up like Nagisa. Without bloodlust, this classroom wouldn't have been built. Can't you understand the effort?! It's not just your body, are you still a fresh elementary school student?

One thing to note here is that Nagisa isn't actually finishing his sentences. You can absolutely tell what he means because Japanese makes sense like that, but he's still dropping words. Or when he does say a full sentence, they're very short statements. He is desperate here, trying to prove a point he can't actually voice into words correctly.

The context here is that this is before we know their full backstory. Nagisa admired Karma, and he can't quite say it right yet. He thinks they're on different stages still, and Karma is frustrated because Nagisa doesn't see the point.

Karma, after all, does have this inhuman image of Nagisa in his head from years ago. The image of Nagisa looking like some kind of snake demon as he kills Karma in his sleep. He genuinely still, here, believes that Nagisa is purposely hiding this. That's why he keeps putting words into Nagisa's mouth. He's also cutting him off at points, not listening at all to what he's truly saying.

At the same time, Karma starts talking down to him. Instead of saying 'no' (how you'd end a sentence to a friend), he starts using 'kai', which is condescending and how you'd speak to a child. There's an argument here to be made for Karma doing this as a kind of defence mechanism too, but that's very complicated. At this point he really is just trying to get to him.

They are not arguing about killing Korosensei, not at all.

Karma: Huh?

Nagisa: *does the creepy eye thing*

Karma: Eh? What are those eyes? You with the social standing of a tiny female animal, are you defying a human?

Nagisa: I was just...

Karma: If you have a complaint, how about saying it after you win a fight for once? It's aimed at me, so come on. C'mon. C'mon. C'mon!

This is actually one of the most significant changes to the original.

This is the thing, Karma was never calling Nagisa a tiny mouse of whatever, he was just comparing him to one. Because he knows very clearly that Nagisa isn't like that. He sees that look in his eyes and it prompts him, in his frustration, to finally try and bring it out of Nagisa. He's trying to prove a point.

But then Nagisa stops himself. He lets go of his bloodlust for a moment, defaulting to Nagisa as we know and love him, literally turning his head away from Karma.

But Karma's too far gone at this point, he's dragged stuff up his past feelings about Nagisa, the ones he's been hiding for a year to be tentative friends with him, and now he can't let them go. He needs to see Nagisa's darker side plainly, no matter what that means.

It's also important that he says "it's aimed at me". I think this is a little deeper than literal. I think what he's implying here is this entire thing is somehow aimed at him, like Nagisa's trying to strip everything away just for his own perspective.

Obviously at this point Nagisa snaps and chokes him.

Nagisa internal thoughts: Even I...

Nagisa: I'm not going with half my feelings!

Karma: This guy...

This is also pretty significant. I'm surprised they cut the "even I" part because that says a lot about Nagisa's current feelings. He still doubts himself. He's aware that he's a pacifist, that he's got a lesser social standing, but Karma's put him into a position where he has to stand up for himself. And this is important to him.

Karma smiles when he says "this guy", getting ready to punch him. He feels like he's succeeded, in a way. Though at first he looked genuinely surprised Nagisa actually did it. There's a certain kind of satisfaction that finally he managed to bring Nagisa's 'true' self out.

Obviously at this point they get separated.

So what does all of this actually tell us? Well, pretty clearly here, this is just Karma's issues coming to light. But also a very helpful and useful moment for Nagisa's development as a character. Whether we agree with Karma using him as a punching bag or not, it genuinely does force Nagisa to get some self agency for once.

Karma and Nagisa will never be characters who sit around and talk honestly about their feelings. But even if they're using a whole situation to mask the fact that they very much are discussing their relationship here, it is still a significant moment where pretty much all the barriers they've been putting up against each other drop. They're just still not entirely on the same page through this scene.

Nagisa thinks Karma is just looking down on him and trying to pick a fight. He's baffled and confused as to why Karma feels so strongly against him.

Karma, on the other hand, thinks Nagisa is better than them all and is frustrated when he 'purposely' acts like he isn't. Karma still feels lied to from when they were kids. And he wants to expose it all, to get Nagisa to understand the position his skill puts him in. I honestly don't think Karma ever thought Nagisa was less than him at all, he just knew it would be an easy way to get a reaction. See how he flips tactic from "you're the best here" to "you're a tiny animal" when Nagisa just went into denial the first time?

I'm not going to go into the whole of their actual full fight, but there's some interesting points that reflect back on all of this.

Korosensei saying "your own answer is right in front of you", basically demonstrating that this entire thing really is just Karma and Nagisa

The entire point of the fight was to get one hit in with a knife, but Karma decides to just continuously beat Nagisa instead. Which yeah, is pretty ineffective. Pretty much proves again that it wasn't about just taking a victory.

Karma took Nagisa's hits on purpose, maybe it can be argued that this is trying to make things last longer, to get Nagisa to actually work for it.

Nagisa demands that he listens to what he has to say. And that's right, because Karma was cutting him off originally.

Karma is a super strategist right? And he was genuinely shocked that Nagisa didn't use his bloodlust to take him down. This is Karma. Sure, he's allowed to make mistakes. But this is odd for him. He was so caught up in his own perspective of Nagisa just having that skill that unfairly made him better. But Nagisa literally throws that skill out and beats Karma on his own level, pretty much disproving him. Maybe Nagisa has this special ability, but he's also worked just as hard as everyone else. He's trained to know what assassination means.

Beating Karma like this, on a 'human' level, was pretty much it. Karma stopped fighting back when he realised that, because he was disproven, and pretty much every wall he put up against Nagisa got literally choked out of him. Karma is already known as kind of an ass and a dirty fighter, you really think he'd worry about the others not accepting it if he stabbed Nagisa fair and square? If he cared that much about killing Korosensei, he would have just done it.

Their fight was never about Korosensei.

fic idea#3

3-E participating in a gender-bent version of the hunchback of notre dame.

THAT WAS ASS CLASS BUT ANYWAYS DID IT HELP OR ANYTHING

Send me some prompts or whatever. HELP ME TF OUT OF THIS CREATIVITY BLOCK