He Is Part Of Your Soul, As The Poets Say

shorter wong, self proclaimed photobombing legend

Ash & Eiji 🍌🐟

Late but here it's 😁

Eiji the professional photographer. Let's talk about it!

Though this might be obvious, Eiji's "journaling" is basically through photos. He seems to be the type to take in the moments, than write them down. Along the way, I think he's finding a bit of his place and new found interest in photography. I wonder about what kept Eiji going in that path even after Ash? We see him locking out Ash's photos away for a long time in Garden of Light. If he ever wrote down things still, that would be an interesting idea to take, considering they were always on the go. Probably written stuff during nights, as he looks at the photos he recently have taken.

There's probably him realizing that being an athlete may not be what he wanted in the long run, there's the injury I don't think he has gotten over with because he did took that hard and there wasn't much time to even heal from it from all the events that went down with Ash. Okay maybe he's gotten to terms with it somehow behind the scenes, since being in the USA gave his world a huge unexpected shift.

Going back, it feels like Eiji continued photography as a way to cope, to heal, but definitely with the passion along with it because even he can't even look at Ash's image for a long time. Yet the very image of him transpired a lot of things in him. But of course, I do think Eiji found his footing and desire through this art himself, his eyes always had a thing for things unseen, his eyes are dark of color yet the depth does exist in them. They always have.

🎶I still remember the third of December, me in your sweater

You said it looked better on me than it did you

Only if you knew how much I liked you

Heather - Conan Gray🎶

Happy Valentine's day 💘

i will never forgive how the anime did my boy

That summer.

-- Cape Cod, 1985

Something that I love and appreciate about Ash Lynx that I don't see many people talking about is his lack of desire for personal revenge. It's such a small and obvious detail, that I don't think we stop to think about it enough, but Ash is not consumed by revenge. Even after everything that happened to him, we never see him express a desire to kill or torture Dino, or anyone else who hurt him, we just wants to be free. Even with researching banana fish he's just trying to figure out what's wrong with his brother so that he can cure him, his motive is never revenge. Wanting to destroy and make Dino suffer would be a completely understandable reaction, yet all he wants to do is prevent other children from experiencing the same things he did.

The only times we see Ash express a desire for revenge, is when people he loves are hurt. This is seen several times with Eiji, such as when he's shot and he chases the men and shoots them with rage in his eyes, or when Shorter dies and he kills Dawson as he begs for mercy. This is why at the start I emphasised *personal revenge*. But I just think that his overall lack of thirst for revenge and just deep desire to be free is an extremely important facet of his character, that really just highlights who he is on the inside beyond all the violence and suffering, and is also very telling of his strength.

This is also one of the reasons why I dislike the "yut lung is just ash without eiji" rhetoric, because I feel like it does such a disservice to both their characters. Yes, they've lived through similar trauma and are in several ways parallels to each other, but they're different people with or without someone to support them. First of all, before Eiji, Ash did have someone, Shorter, and he had other people he cared about such as Skipper and his gang. Obviously none where as influencial or life changing as Eiji was, but painting him as being completely alone before meeting Eiji simply isn't true. Secondly, Ash and Yut lung are very separate people with separate personalities and with indivual nuances to their stories despite their similarites. One of these is the desire for revenge. As I established Ash isn't consumed by personal revenge, but Yut Lung very much is, his entire first arc is his search for revenge agaisnt his own brothers, whom he wants to kill.

Yut Lung isn't Ash without Eiji, he's just Yut Lung. He's a different person with different responses and reactions to the world around him, and of course, having someone to love and care for him would be monumental, but he'd still be a completely different character to Ash, and in my personal opinion, would have a harder time accepting that love than him (as we see briefly with his connection with Sing).

Of course there's also differences in their stories that I think are worth noting. I won't do it on this post because frankly I've been procrastinating making lunch and I need to do that rn. But reducing Yut Lungs's character to an "ash without eiji" is truly tragic in my opinion, and not only a disservice to him as a character but also to his story. Yut lung isn't just there to be a parallel to Ash, and I feel like we sometimes forget that. Anyway I'll get more into the nuances of Yut lung's character, and the nuances of his and Ash's stories and they way they both parallel and differ from each other if y'all want. If not I'll probably forget, and it'll just live in my mind, keeping me awake at 4 am.