4. Gokudera hates showing vulnerability for any reason. He grew up under constant reinforcement of the idea that if you open yourself up to someone for any reason you're going to get hurt, and even now, with as far as he's come since then, he still struggles with this. His default level of openness is still "Fuck off I'm fine leave me alone," and even though there are certain people he's gradually becoming more comfortable with, he still never drops his guard completely. He has sort of varying levels; with Tsuna, he has a habit of deflecting any personal inquiries with smiles and some form of "it's fine, don't worry about me, more importantly..."; with Yamamoto, he deflects in mostly the same way except that he also adds an insult or two for good measure, and so forth. Even with the people he trusts, he never openly admits his fears or worries unless they don't directly involve himself, or unless the circumstances are extraordinary.
Fortunately, if the other characters want to know what he's thinking, they can fall back on the very reliable alternative of simply guessing since it's usually written all over his face anyway. XD So if I'm writing interaction between him and another character (especially if it involves angst), I always keep this in mind and remember that even if things are really bad he's still never going to go blurting out love confessions or (GOD FORBID!!) asking for help or confessing dark secrets from his past unless some sort of apocalypse has happened (...or unless the Tenth is asking really, really insistently XD).
5. This last one is very specific and is something that I've noticed I take a different approach to than a lot of other writers (including some of my favorites), but when it comes to serious mafia brutality and violence (torture, killing, etc.), I don't think he's as hardcore as he makes himself out to be. I know he's definitely had a hard life and if the Reborn mafia were anything even remotely like the mafia in real life, it would be a different story, but since it generally isn't, I tend to take the view that Gokudera, for all his thug history and street smarts and angsty backstory and trigger-happy nature, is actually a lot fluffier than he lets on. He's certainly capable of getting murderous on someone, and I don't think the grim, battle-hardened, kills-this-guy-without-a-second-thought TYL!Gokuderas that are so common in fandom are OOC at all; it's just not how I personally view the character, because it's hard for me to reconcile that view of him with the almost ridiculously sunshiney and optimistic mafia of the KHR verse. For me, if I'm going to read or write about him like that, I always have to mentally check it off as an AU first. To this day, I'm not 100% sure why, especially since I have no similar qualms with certain other characters (but then again those characters were canonically referred to as natural-born assassins), but there it is. ;;
And that icon is one of my favorites. Thank you so much for the kind words, even though I don't think I'm anywhere even approaching the level of Reborn coolness (I mean, just look at that pose, gosh Reborn COULD YOU BE ANY MORE AWESOME?), heh.
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Fortunately, if the other characters want to know what he's thinking, they can fall back on the very reliable alternative of simply guessing since it's usually written all over his face anyway. XD So if I'm writing interaction between him and another character (especially if it involves angst), I always keep this in mind and remember that even if things are really bad he's still never going to go blurting out love confessions or (GOD FORBID!!) asking for help or confessing dark secrets from his past unless some sort of apocalypse has happened (...or unless the Tenth is asking really, really insistently XD).
5. This last one is very specific and is something that I've noticed I take a different approach to than a lot of other writers (including some of my favorites), but when it comes to serious mafia brutality and violence (torture, killing, etc.), I don't think he's as hardcore as he makes himself out to be. I know he's definitely had a hard life and if the Reborn mafia were anything even remotely like the mafia in real life, it would be a different story, but since it generally isn't, I tend to take the view that Gokudera, for all his thug history and street smarts and angsty backstory and trigger-happy nature, is actually a lot fluffier than he lets on. He's certainly capable of getting murderous on someone, and I don't think the grim, battle-hardened, kills-this-guy-without-a-second-thought TYL!Gokuderas that are so common in fandom are OOC at all; it's just not how I personally view the character, because it's hard for me to reconcile that view of him with the almost ridiculously sunshiney and optimistic mafia of the KHR verse. For me, if I'm going to read or write about him like that, I always have to mentally check it off as an AU first. To this day, I'm not 100% sure why, especially since I have no similar qualms with certain other characters (but then again those characters were canonically referred to as natural-born assassins), but there it is. ;;
And that icon is one of my favorites. Thank you so much for the kind words, even though I don't think I'm anywhere even approaching the level of Reborn coolness (I mean, just look at that pose, gosh Reborn COULD YOU BE ANY MORE AWESOME?), heh.