#<- in that it mentions discourse exists not that this post is about discourse

[theminecraftbee]

man not to bring up discourse but every time I remember the “dave” long con techno pulled I remember when people were really mad he was on origins and got #kickdave trending specifically because everyone thought he preferred to go by technoblade and didn’t want people to call him dave, right, so they were doing that to be mean, and we were all upset and discoursing about it. and every time I remember that I feel like wheezing because that wasn’t his fucking name. that was a prank. a ruse. do you think he saw the trend and laughed at all of the rubes calling him that. even better: do you think he saw that, blissfully went “I wonder who that’s for”, and moved on, because that WASN’T HIS NAME.

beautiful. no one’s ever pulled a long con so funny. technoblade, beloved.

[towards-toramunda]

I just saw this post: https://www.tumblr.com/multifandom-damnation/734280499157221376/laudna-who-died-in-such-a-terrible-violent-way and as an Ashton and Laudna fan I'd love to hear your thoughts because I feel feral tbh

Heyo I just read through the post, and I honestly don’t know how I feel. Like I agree, but I don’t? Cause this time Ashton woke up surrounded by people who are pissed and angry and distrustful towards him, but they stayed and thats gotta count for something.

Last time Ashton was abandoned out of self preservation from the other nobodies. He didn’t do anything morally wrong, just got caught in a trap that left them on the ground bleeding out as a liability, but this time they fucked over their friends and they know it. They hurt the bell’s hells and they KNOW it, and yet the hells stayed.

But its also more complicated than that because right after coming back Fearne tried to bash his head in and break their hammer, FCG told them they didn’t think he cared about anyone but themselves, Chet told him to leave, Laudna ran away because the eldritch horrors in her mind were making her want to kill him, and Orym didn’t say a word (I know its bc Liam was out but… for character reasons Orym has been silent to Ashton).

But Imogen, angry as she was, just wanted to understand why he did it. Stayed with them even as Laudna ran off clearly not okay. She cared. FCG, even as upset as he was, stayed, explained how he felt and why he felt that way, and asked for better. Chet was harsh as hell, but when Ashton stayed and committed even in a small way to be better he was the first to back them up. Fearne talked to them, and came back, and is still very very angry, but there’s a possibility for growth. And Laudna, after running away from them for fear of betrayal and becoming murderous, made them a doll. She made them something they’ve never had before. She wouldn’t do that if she didn’t care for him (I think thats why they cried. Because he did this shitty thing, but she made him a gift and that showed she cared). She called him a child and said she likes children. (And Orym still hasn’t talked but… we’ll hopefully get to that next episode).

So… yes? It’s bad that Ashton didn’t wake up after dying a second time surrounded by loving friends who went to the ends of exandria for them like Laudna, and maybe they’ll hold some kinda resentment about that, but (unlike Laudna’s second coming) he’s surrounded by friends who he severely fucked over but they stayed.

They told him he could stay.

That they wanted to make things better.

They paused their very important mission to scout on the moon and prevent the end of the world to go on a feywild vacation because they wanted the group to be okay. Even after Ashton fucked up so fucking much.

And isn’t that in itself just fucking beautiful?

Isn’t that proof of some kinda love? Of family even?

I’m not saying Ashton isn’t in a bad place right now they obviously are, but their friends have just proved that they’re not leaving him if they can help it.

[catgirlcrisis]

okay first of all "why do fic authors take the heat?" is such a stupid fucking thing to say. if you even remotely cared about being versed in actual literary discussion (not just your own online echo chambers) you would know that the inclusion and writing of sensitive, darker themes, topics, and subjects is something which remains polarizing, active, and controversial. from the child orgy in stephen king's IT, to the complex narrative of vladimir nabokov's lolita and its public reception, people are constantly challenging what it means to write darker themes, and what it means to write them in a healthy, respectful manner, whether works that fetishize such material are considered literary merit, discussions over censorship versus safety, such and so forth. like, Real People who write Real Books also get in discourse. audiences and writers alike have been around this block several times and this continues to be relevant discussion in every facet of the literary world. the only place in which fic authors are the only people who take all the heat is a world in which you don't read actual works and instead consume the equivalent of junk food work.

and nothing wrong with reading OR writing fanfiction, but y'know, when that's all you read? you need to diversify your palate. otherwise you get weird takes that signal to other people you either 1. only care about online discourse to the extreme, and/or 2. you dont go outside.

in regards to written child pornography:

it's worth recognizing a few things to add nuance to this discussion. under federal US law (which is important because that is where AO3 is based), the parameters for child pornography only include visual content; furthermore, the exclusion of written media is reinforced by Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (2002), which concluded:

"If speech is neither obscene nor child pornography, it is protected from attempts to categorically suppress child pornography even if it is related to it. Statutes that are overly broad in defining what speech is suppressed are unconstitutional."

however, it is also worth considering that under other country's legal statues, written material does constitute child pornography. for example, canada's federal parameters describe child porn like so:

163.1 (1) In this section, child pornography means

(a) a photographic, film, video or other visual representation, whether or not it was made by electronic or mechanical means,

(i) that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or

(ii) the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years;

(b) any written material, visual representation or audio recording that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act;

(c) any written material whose dominant characteristic is the description, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act; or

(d) any audio recording that has as its dominant characteristic the description, presentation or representation, for a sexual purpose, of sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years that would be an offence under this Act.

when most people talk about there being child pornography on AO3, they don't necessarily refer to fictional children (which is definitely weird, yes, and potentially dangerous material, but certainly not illegal under federal US statutes) but rather through the channel of real person fiction, which is something that has become quite popular in the "mainstream" view because of things like minecraft SMPs and what not (note: im not saying RPF was not popular before - but fanfiction is, and always will be, niche, and RPF is itself a niche within a niche). now, is this illegal? probably not under US federal statute. and is it child pornography? the real answer is rather complicated, but US federal law's definition of this is only relevant when discussing the potential of prosecution and legal standing of AO3 as an archive.

(sidebar, but there are several anecdotal cases of people having "revenge" fictions of them being written and uploaded to AO3, and no help from admin/staff. am i saying these are true? no, i'm saying they're anecdotes. but when they all start to pile up, it gets a little suspicious, doesn't it? the lack of AO3's response to its racist users, the lack of monitoring spam at all, the extremely slow response to finally adding a functional block/mute system, the strain of burdening unpaid volunteers - despite the thousands of dollars it gets in donations every year - to manage the site...)

don't put stupid fucking shit on my dash again, @jo962. i got this from you. next time, let's step aside and consider real nuanced views like proper adults, instead of shambling around like braindead zombies. this makes ipad kids look well-adjusted.

cutting child porn from ao3 is not going to be a ‘slippery slope’ to full blown ‘censorship’, you guys are just pedophiles

[aroace-ventplace]

…can’t believe i need to say this in 2024, but if you see a tumblr blog that’s an obvious sockpuppet, just block them. don’t give them any attention.

for those who weren’t aware, a sockpuppet is an account that someone uses to pretend to be someone they aren't, usually for the sake of accomplishing a particular goal. "asexual" sockpuppets were used extensively in tumblr's ace discourse years (which reached their peak in 2016-2019). aphobes and exclusionists made blogs where they roleplayed as exaggerated aspec caricatures, trying to paint asexuals as childish, ignorant, bigoted, etc - in a word, "cringey." crazey-acey-in-spacey was an especially notorious example of a sockpuppet that a lot of people took at face value, since their deliberately outrageous behavior (falsely) confirmed a lot of the biases tumblr users already had about aspecs. it's NEVER worth engaging with any of these accounts - don't feed the trolls, as they used to say.

ways to spot an "asexual" sockpuppet:

makes a lot of statements that are intentionally tone-deaf and offensive. especially look out for sudden mentions of race/analogies to racism ("ace genocide," "ace reparations") - a common tactic in the acecourse days was to paint asexuality as a "white" orientation, and to suggest asexuals were racist.

references other infamous sockpuppets like crazy-acey and the "warm milk aceggot" post.

makes claims about famous people being aspec, especially people who are known for bigoted beliefs. it was very common for aphobes to make asexual moodboards of people like thatcher or trump; they did this to paint aspecs as out of touch with reality and the wider queer community, and to strengthen the association between asexuality and bigotry.

use of the words "acey" or "asexy." some people do use these words in a positive sense now, but anti-aspec shit-stirrers used them a lot back in the day to imply asexuals were stupid and childish. (and if we're being honest? autistic, too. the aphobic parts of tumblr had a VERY strong undercurrent of ableism.)

this one's a bit less common, but watch out for references to christianity. one widespread aphobic talking point is calling asexuals "puritans" and suggesting that they're aligned more with conservative christianity than the rest of the queer community. aspec christians certainly exist, but given the history of this site, it's just better to double-check aspec accounts that bring up christianity out of the blue when they're engaging with other blogs.

it can be hard to tell the difference between a sockpuppet and a genuine aspec account if you don't have the exact same amount of 2016 tumblr brainrot as me, so feel free to message me and ask about anything you're not sure about - my dms are always open 👍

[leidensygdom]

The ways in which being asexual feels isolating

I've been pondering whether to post this or not, but I figured out I wanted to explain a bit of this experience.

So, I could go on a very long tangent on how being asexual is usually a lonely experience, and how much I've been otherized here and there- Specially in real life. How the same people that claimed to be queer (or allies) had been much weirder about my asexuality than they were about me being bi/pan or whatever.

But I think I wanna talk about how something like that bleeds in every aspect of socializing, even down to something like fandom. I stay away from fandom usually- I like to look at cool fanart and that's about it. I hate discourse, I hate drama, I hate reading people getting worked up because they're treating fanon as canon. But there's one thing I've noticed, over and over, that just sends me off my rails.

And it's how fandom tends to treat asexuality (or aromanticism). So, you get a character in some piece of media that explicitly, unequivocally, states they're either ace, aro, or both. "I do not have interest in a partner", "I don't desire to have sex nor do I enjoy the topic", whatever. And as an ace person, I do appreciate being able to see myself in media- There isn't many chases where something is established that bluntly.

Now, you decide you want to check some fanart for that. Fandoms have this tendency to make absolutely everything about shipping, even when the media they're basing it in does not revolve about that (and it's annoying, because a lot of times people aren't interested in the actual themes- It's all reduced to shipping). Suddenly, you notice people treating the aforementioned character as anything but aro or ace. It's all about shipping. "This person interacted with this other person in a way two friends would, but we gotta make this their entire personality now". Some people may instead go for "well, maybe the character is not having sex, but they're probably an absolute freak about it, studies it extensively, has encyclopedic knowledge about it-"

Now, there's of course sex-favourable aces, and that's completely valid, but it's already straying from what, canonically, the character had mentioned. Asexual or aromantic characters aren't really allowed to exist as themselves. People often see them as a blank slate to fill, to change, to fix. I could talk forever about how people react to real life aces like that. I've had people asking me incredibly invasive questions because they saw my lack of sexual attraction as something broken, something they could fix.

And I hate that! I think I'm allowed to say that I hate that! It's hard and unusual for media to cement an aro/ace character, because they're defined by the lack of interest for something, which is often hard to show. But when it does- No one seems to care. It's all shipping, it's all "well, he's gay in denial", "well, she's probably super repressed". If you took a canonically gay character and made them straight on a fanfic, you'd get angry people. Which is bound to happen when you erase representation that people identify with. But aro/ace characters are NOT even seen as queer, they're not even seen as "representation" by most people. You can erase that bit of it, put some god awful shipping on top, and people will applaud you. And it sucks!

I wish people would see being aro or ace as an identity worth respecting, not an identity that needs overwriting. It feels a bit too close to how people often treat aro/aces irl, and it sucks. It reeks of this sort of exclusionism, where "aro/aces are technically queer but it's queer lite at best, it's less interesting than being gay, and we kinda don't want them near us anyhow". Again, I've had far worse experiences about being ace than I have about not being straight.

Sorry if the post got long, but I hope this experience may at least resonate with other people who have been struggling with this, too. It has always felt just kind of lonely to be ace, and see how little people do even consider it an identity, even when it comes down to something like fandom.

[prototypesteve]

Valid. With or without validation. (A before there was an A.)

Asexuals, aromantics, and everyone else on the aspec are valid, and were valid even before we had a name for what we were.

In May of 1971, I was born different. There wasn’t a name for it. (The committee who wrote the Asexual Manifesto wouldn’t even form for another year and four months.) I was valid, but there wasn’t even a way to say what about me was valid.

In June of 1989, I graduated from High School. I was barely 18. I was still different. But in all those years, I’d never encountered the words aromantic or asexual. (Instead, I heard words like frigid, weird, secret f-g, psycho, virgin, and sheltered). In Career And Life Management class, where sex education was a brief module, they didn’t even mention X on the Kinsey Scale. We were told it was 1 to 6. Period. (I didn’t check, because I was X on the Kinsey Scale, which meant I didn’t care about things like the Kinsey Scale.) They managed to find a way to invalidate me without even naming the things they were invalidating!

By April of 1993, I graduated from college, still different. Now I was hearing kinder guess-names for what I was: Busy, focused, fussy, pure, a late-bloomer, and undecided. But I still hadn’t heard words like aromantic or asexual. I was at an art school. I heard all the other words. I saw people living all the other words. I saw bi couples, I had gay and lesbian friends and instructors, I had a pansexual classmate, and knew someone who was almost certainly pre-transition trans. I was aromantic and asexual but I had no way of finding those words, or being rescued from my confusion by those words. By this point, I didn’t even need validation, anymore. I just wanted understanding.

But I got sent out into the world, to go start my career, and figure out apartments, cars, taxes, utilities, setting up a business, and a million other adult things that took “housed-or-homeless” priority over “figuring out what was ‘wrong’ with me”. So, even though there were murmurs on the right talk shows, or screeds in the right ink-and-paper offline zines about asexuality and aromanticism, they weren’t in mainstream or sidestream discourse. I had to settle for “different, busy, and single-minded about his career”.

It would take until late 2022—over 29 years after I left college and 51 years after I was born—before I started noticing social media posts about “aroace” characters who didn’t feel love.

Now I had a name for my difference.

I knew exactly what I was, because everything I read about asexuality and aromanticism perfectly matched and explained the experiences I’d had, and the feelings I’d felt, since I first noticed I was different at age 12!

I’d been valid all that time. I saw the other posts saying we didn’t belong in this or that community, and the names should be broken up into more categories, and we were taking up space at pride festivals, and this was a made up thing that didn’t exist prior to… oh, fuck it, it didn’t matter. I was aromantic and asexual on the day I was born in 1971; before those two words were available to ordinary people. I was real, I was who I was, and I was valid, and even though I wasn’t allowed to know what I was for another five decades full of trauma and loss and hurt, I always was who I was, and so I always was valid, regardless of whether or not anyone else agreed.

And so are you.

[nights-at-crystarium]

Exarch's more ✨grey✨ than many people care to remember. Just to be perfectly clear, this's a character writing compliment coming from me. Holding him by the scruff and shaking a few times. Do you wanna go talk to Emet about this.

Re: shb trolley problem I find it kinda funny and hypocritical that so little care/sympathy is being shown towards the 8th Calamity Timeline and how underexplored that problem's in canon, it's ""okay"" to erase that timeline, along with Exarch himself (as per the 5.0 knowledge), just because a portion of that doomed Source's population (the Ironworks and others who worked on the plan) said it's okay, we hate it here anyway. Surely the rest of the star unanimously agreed with that.

[herejusttosufferalong]

I know the papwalk has been discussed to death, but at the time that it happened, I was only following the epiphany blog. I didn’t know others existed, I was new to tumblr, and it was the only place outside IG I knew to go for BTON/Polin/LN discourse. I was highly influenced by the PR Anons there who believed L and his team arranged the initial paps with the intention of creating buzz around L alone, outside of N, in order to capitalize on his popularity post WT. They made multiple excellent, thorough, experience-backed arguments that had nothing to do with any opinion they had of L. There was never a lot of consensus about whether A was meant to be a part of it or she just went rogue once they were followed to the hotel, mostly because the People exclusive continued to call her a rumored gf and could never confirm any statement or response from L or his team.

All this to say that because of those anons, I have a hard time believing the paps were a surprise to either L or A that night (I absolutely refuse to believe the silky yellow and blue clothes were a coincidence) and therefore I do believe L&N are on the outs because when I put myself in N’s shoes, papgate seems unforgivable - cold, selfish, and ungrateful. I think she left the after party early because she knew what was going to happen that night and she wanted no part of it. She knew they were going to be there and she would not risk being papped and pulled further into this narrative that already existed about L choosing A over her. I think her comments to the interviewer on the red carpet that night about staying true and not compromising yourself were for L, who she believed was making terrible decisions for the sake of an image he was trying to cultivate post glow-up. And there had to be some surface level embarrassment with everything happening almost directly after Galway. He’s filmed with her mother and her family and then immediately we get these 🦀 pics and the appearance of serious rejection and betrayal, not to mention stealing the finale of their tour. And yes, the SATC TT was pointed as fuck and I think his team asked her team to talk to her about it.

So yea. I think they are on the outs too and I think they have been all summer.

I don’t agree with everything here but I will say this much…

Galway is the hardest piece of the puzzle to wrap my head around.

What went down there and the time between the London premiere???

[cedarnommer]

I'm apparently a broken clock since today I saw a bunch of posts on like genital discourse and I'm writing about people's junk again. Beyond the obvious of assigning social ideas to body parts, it's also worth mentioning that if you're on HRT, your genitals will not function expectedly like your AGAB. Trans mascs will experience clitoral growth. Trans femmes will experience a decrease in penis size. In either case the sensitivity and function down there also changes.

And while I'm not intersex, I do want to comment that genital discourse is especially insensitive and complex for intersex folks which may have genitals which also don't fit the sex binary. And some intersex folks may have also had invasive surgeries done on them against their knowledge or consent.

Having a penis or a vagina doesn't ascribe character traits to a person. And even "biological function" isn't rigid. There's so much variation for everyone, cis or trans, perisex or intersex. And it feels like universalist discourse only exists to put down deviants.

[olderthannetfic]

Being a trans man and not being an anti is also isolating, which is part of why I think trans guys gravitate towards either being an anti or reposting anti posts. If you're not an anti, you get booted from discord servers, blocked on social media at best or sent misgendering rape threats, death threats and suicide bait by other trans men at worst, and now that I'm in college I've found IRL that not being an anti makes a lot of people in queer spaces available to the average college student incredibly uncomfortable. So you have to either be entirely alone - which is very difficult when you're young, queer, and just coming into your own identity - or you have to be around it a lot without saying a word. Agreeing with it at first wouldn't even be necessary. You just have to not say anything against it, and then you'll be able to be around other people.

It doesn't help that most trans men who get sucked into anti circles are teens at the time. There's 501 proposed anti-LGBT laws right now, not counting everything that has passed, the majority of it anti-trans. If you're a teenage boy seeing all this transphobia on the rise, you're going to feel powerless. Bullying people like antis do makes you feel power over at least a few people. Being told you can consume your way into being a good person via media intake makes you feel like you have power and control over at least that.

I was sucked in incrementally because I wasn't exposed to the more violent antis who fantasized about murder and hurting people for writing fiction, I met my only friend - who was an anti - after my dad had beaten me for coming out as trans, and I was sixteen. I got out when I was eighteen because once I went to live with my mom, a psychologist, she gently corrected me when I would say things that aren't based in fact. She pointed out how upset these people were making me. She taught me how to fact-check claims and look into the veracity of claims.

And when I tried to convey to my friends that no, what they were saying wasn't supported, they turned on me. Including the only person who had been there for me when I was hatecrimed, who had reached out to me specifically because she met me what day. I lost every friend I had in roughly 30 hours.

If I hadn't had a really great mom, a very intelligent rabbi who's well-versed in psychology and is a former lawyer who saw the "fiction made me do it" excuse used to defend heinous crimes and doesn't buy it, and an older half-sister who lived through people calling her a psycho lesbian because she's a lesbian who played D&D, listened to metal and dressed Goth in small-town Montana in the 80's/90's, I would have probably killed myself. Having those three people who accepted me and did not accept this extremist rhetoric kept me sane and repaired my self-esteem enough to keep me going.

But a lot of people don't have three adults who are intelligent, supportive, and know better than to fall for this faux-psychology. A lot of people don't even have one. Often, they have unsupportive people who also believe firmly in the faux-psychology of "if you watch a thing you'll do that thing IRL". So there's not only no one hauling them out of this, it's getting reinforced.

Being a non-anti who is a trans man gets me a lot of shit from a lot of people online and offline. (As other anons have mentioned during the ace discourse, online talking points come up on college campuses and in real life, because the internet is not an alternate dimension, it is something being used by the people around you who exist in the same physical space as you.)

A reality that I don't think people want to discuss is that trans men, just like all other people of all other genders, suffer a lot of psychological distress if they're put in a position where they have no support. I sure as fuck wasn't happy being in a position where I went from having tons of online friends, discord servers I could hang out in and fandoms I associated with good vibes to none of that, plus harassment, plus massive misgendering.

It's a lot less awful of an existence to be a trans man and an anti when you're young and need community and support than it is to not be an anti and be isolated. And humans gravitate towards the least awful option 99% of the time.

--

Yuuup.

Having some kind of real support network, usually offline but at the very least not randos you met a day ago on discord, is vital and is the difference between not only whether you rot in a pit of antidom forever but in stemming the massive flood of trans teen suicides. The overall queer rates aren't great, but the specifically trans rates... they're bad. They're so, so bad.

[nicksbestie]

hi! i’m not sure if you’re requests are open, but if they are could you write one where chris’s gf is a little and she’s scared to tell him? thank you so much 💜💜💜

We Should Talk - C. Sturniolo

Summary : Chris discovers something that you weren't ready to tell him yet, and a tough conversation ensues.

Warnings : 1634

Word Count : Crying, mentions of anxiety

Pairing : Chris Sturniolo/Reader (romantic)

A/N : This is an age regression fic, which is purely safe for work and innocent. Any hate/disrespect towards me, my work, or readers, will not be tolerated.

Chris had a lot of social media. Of course he did, his entire job was on the Internet.

He had to have a social media presence to continue to keep that career afloat, but there were some apps that he just didn’t see a purpose in keeping. Every now and again he would redownload some of them just to see what all was going on in their fanbase on those specific apps, but he never really stuck around for long. One of those apps was Twitter, and it was arguably one of the most toxic platforms he had ever seen. Their fanbase wasn’t terribly chaotic, but the app just had so much discourse going on in it at any given point in time that Chris had never felt like it was worth it.

 However, he was intrigued, so he had decided to download it and make a burner account so he could be private about his existence on the app, not wanting his notifications to be filled and his direct messages to be completely clogged. That did wonders for his ego every now and again, but he also never checked them and eventually it got overwhelming. But as he finished setting up the app, he saw something unrelated to his fanbase that he wasn’t expecting, at all.

When you finish setting up your account, the app asks you if you would like to sync your contacts. Chris had no issues doing this, as it would make it easier to view some of his friend’s profiles without having to search for them. To put it shortly, he wouldn’t have to go stalking. But one of the accounts that popped up after his contacts finished syncing caught his attention. It was an account covered in pastels, and the biography under it was very… interesting. 

“nxsl agere <3 big age __, little age __. obsessed with my daddy who doesn’t know he’s my daddy… yet? nsfw dni!!!”

The thing that really threw him for a loop was that when he looked to see which contact was linked to this account, he read the words “in your contacts as : my girl .” He was confused when he saw this, and curious as well, having not known about this account. He thought he had known about all of your social media, as he followed you on everything except Twitter, but he had still seen your personal Twitter account, but he had no idea you had another one. He wasn’t angry or anything, not being a controlling boyfriend, just more intrigued than anything else. He had never seen an account like this, so he began to scroll through it. 

He simply became more and more confused as he looked through the account. He saw a ton of posts about childlike things, coloring, shows, even pacifiers and bottles, and he found so many tweets in what seemed like baby talk, nearly all of them referencing your “daddy”. He really just didn’t understand what that meant until he scrolled through some replies on a post about an ask game, where your mutuals could ask you any questions, and one of them had asked you if you were single. You had of course replied with no, and the same person had asked if Chris was your carer. He didn’t really understand what that meant, but as he saw your reply, it seemed to fall into place.

“i think of him that way, but he doesn’t know. i hope he’ll be my daddy eventually!”

Daddy? The thought of it threw him for a loop. Chris was completely uncomfortable with any sort of daddy or parental kink, but there was something about this that really made him think it had nothing to do with sex. He hadn’t seen anything inappropriate at all, and he had been scrolling for a while now. So he wasn’t grossed out, because even in the biography of the account it says that it wasn’t sexual at all, but he didn’t know what to make of it. Finally, he turned to Google for help.

With the help of an Internet browser, he was able to decipher that the word “agere” was an abbreviation, for a thing called age regression. He continued to go down the rabbit hole of research and articles, and the more he read about it, the more the account made sense. He wasn’t confused or weirded out, if anything he felt sad that you hadn’t been able to come to him about this. He didn’t know how long you had been hiding this from him, and his heart hurt at the fact that you felt like he couldn’t know about it. He only felt worse for you when he saw some sad tweets, deciphering through the baby talk, seeing you upset that you were alone. 

When he found out that it was normally caused by a lot of trauma or mental health issues, he realized that it really did fit his girlfriend. You had been through a lot in a short amount of time, and he couldn’t blame you for feeling so desperate to find something that helps you. He was happy for you, more than anything, because clearly this was helping you for the majority of the time. You of course had your sad moments, but he felt like there were a lot of good moments to outweigh them. From your account presence, you seemed like you were genuinely a lot happier, filled with pure and childish joy. The more he understood, the more he wanted to be there for you, to fill that role that you clearly also wanted him to do.

 So, then came the problem of how is he going to bring this up to you? He didn’t know how he was going to move forward with this information without scaring you off or causing you to panic. You weren’t home right now, you had gone off to hang out with a friend after work, and he was expecting you back quite soon, so that only gave him a little bit of time for him to figure out how he was going to approach the situation. By the time he heard your car pull into the driveway, he was thinking that the best idea was probably to just sit down and talk to you about it, so that was exactly what he was planning on doing. 

He greeted you the same way he normally did, hugging you and telling you he missed you, and he waited until after you’d eaten and were curled up in bed together, enjoying the time you got to spend relaxing with each other to bring it up.

“Babe?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Can we talk about something? It’s not bad at all, though.” 

You were definitely on edge a little bit, despite his reassurances. 

“Sure, what’s up?” 

Chris didn’t move any part of him from the way he was, not wanting you to sense a change in body language and freak out.

“So I downloaded Twitter today and decided to set up an account, and you know how it asks you if you want to sync your contacts?” 

“Yeah.. what about it?” 

You were thinking that your personal account had been linked to your number, not your secret one, so you were on edge, but hadn’t figured out why he was bringing this up yet.

“Yeah. So, an account linked to your number came up, one that I didn’t know existed.” 

Your cheeks immediately flushed red and you broke eye contact, knowing exactly what he meant now. You could feel the tears coating your waterline, anxiety building in your chest, feeling like a bomb ready to explode. You waited for the ball to drop, for something terrible to come out of Chris’ mouth, but he simply just held you closer.

“I think we should talk about it, okay?” 

Nothing but a short “I’m sorry” slipped through your lips, and Chris looked confused at your response.

“For what, baby? You did nothing wrong, I’m not angry at you.”

The realization that he had probably, if not definitely, seen everything, caused a couple of the tears to fall from your eyes, as you desperately tried to stop them from becoming full on waterworks. Chris let out a soft hum, pulling you impossibly closer, wiping tears off of your face.

“It’s okay. I promise, it’s okay. You don’t have to talk much, I can. I did research on my own, I think I understand what’s going on, I just want you to tell me what you want from me, okay? I want to be here for you, I want to help wherever I can.”

The lack of judgment, the pure acceptance, the increasing love, made you unable to hold in any emotion any longer. You cried, and Chris simply held you, letting you cry all of your feelings out.

“You’re safe with me, okay? I’m not going to judge you. I know you’ve been alone in this for a while, and that can change if you want it to. Do you want that?” 

He didn’t get a verbal reply, but he could feel the nod against his chest. 

“Okay. Do you want me to be your daddy?” 

Another nod, and you pulled your face away from his shirt, feeling bad when you saw the giant wet patch, and he immediately reassured you.

“Don’t worry, babe, it’s just a shirt. I can change. It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”

“Thank you.” 

His smile was bright, as to soothe your fear, but his eyes showed sympathy.

“You don’t need to thank me. I’m more than happy to be here for you. I love you, and you’re going to be okay.” 

As you whispered your own confession of love back to him, you knew it was true. 

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Final Chapter: A Look at the Ending of MHA

With the manga of My Hero Academia finally coming to a close, I thought I'd give my opinions about how the series ended. I will be covering everything from Chapter 424 to Chapter 430. This is going to mix my thoughts on the ending, a proposed rewrite, and a lot of responses to people's criticism towards it. Because I'm going to be real with you all: the past two months have been the most frustrating and exhausting experience I've had with this fan base. 

I have been writing this since the finale ended. In that time, I've been listening and taking in all the discourse of fans in order to make a more informed opinion. It's been miserable trying to read through all the thoughts people had about the finale. The sheer amount of opinions that were based off misinformation or misreadings of the series has been staggering. So, if I sound more exhausted or if the writing comes across as more scattershot then when I normally do something like that, that's the reason. And, as always, if you have anything you want to discuss, whether it be about the post or the ending, feel free to ask about it.

Review

Miscellaneous Notes:

So there are some bits of the story I wanted to talk about, but didn't feel the need to include full on diatribes about.

-Oh hey, Koichi from Vigilantes is here, that's so- and he's gone.

-Even when Izuku is his peer, Aizawa still finds time to be a jerk to his students.

-Mirio is the number one hero. Makes sense, but it does feel out of nowhere with how little Mirio has been relevant up until now.

-How on Earth is Miriko still working, let alone as a hero? She's down three limbs and in arguably worse shape then Enji.

-Man, they are really taking Kai to task these past few arcs, aren't they? I mean, I get why, but jeez. It's honestly sad to see what's been done with his character.

-I like how All Might's light returned to his eyes. It's a good way to show him getting his spirit back after all this time and reigniting hope in himself..

-So if Eri's horn is back, does that mean her power is back? Kind of wish we had something saying about why she isn't healing people. I get if it's her choice or the recipients choice not to do so, but there needs to be something for that.

Hospital Visit

This works as little cool down from the big battle, especially since we really needed to see some of the immediate consequences on the main characters. I actually like a lot of the stuff with Bakugou. After all this, he finally understands Izuku, shown by them getting similar injuries, and lets himself be emotionally vulnerable about wanting the two to be rivals. And we finally got some thoughts on part of Izuku here, like his regret about seemingly failing to save Tomura and how he doesn't feel hurt about losing out on "One For All". How he's glad that he even got this chance in the first place. I do feel the need to mention All Might saying that Izuku saved the "soul" of Tomura. I think a lot of people missed or ignored that line. It's important to Tomura's death, but I'll get more into that later.

Speaking of consequences, I don't mind Izuku losing out on "One For All". In the grander scheme of things, "One For All" doesn't need to be a thing anymore. With "All For One" gone, it no longer has a purpose to exist. And as we've all seen with All Might, someone holding that much power over he world is a problem, regardless of whether it's used for good or evil. Having it gone helps even the playing field and will push for the idea that people should rely on themselves and each other instead of focusing all on a single symbol. What's more, I think Izuku having to sacrifice it and lose it gives the ending a lot more weight. Because Izuku sacrificed the thing that made him a hero in order to stop Shigaraki. To me, that's one of the most defining aspects of a hero: the willingness to sacrifice something important to themselves to help others.

UA Stuff

All of the things happening at UA are fine.  I do like that Aoyama chose to leave 1-A of his own volition instead of being forced out. Plus, now Shinso is in the Hero Course. Good for him. I've never been all that invested in Shino's story, but this is a good way to get him into Class 1-A without making an exception or replacing any of the core cast members. I liked Mirio's graduation speech. I think it works with his arc of trying to inspire other people and trying to honor Sir Nighteye's memory. And they got to have their own little party. That's nice.

Honestly, I find myself having very little to say about all of this, at least the parts within the school itself. I'm all for a calm after the storm to talk about what happened and to build up characters. I'm honestly glad we're back at the school to help ground things after that massive battle. But I think there may have been too much time spent on this. It just feels a little longer than what's needed. Like the bits with the cotton girl feel like they weren't needed for the story and could have been better used setting up or wrapping up something else.

Todoroki Family Prison Visit

The Todoroki family drama has always been one of the stronger plotlines, especially in the latter half of the series. And I believe that it ended on a pretty strong note. It's to the point where I struggle to really say much about the resolution of it.  I do like how Shoto asks for something as basic as his favorite food. I also like how Dabi let go of his hatred towards Shoto, who was as much of a victim as he was in all of this, but still held on to it for Endeavor. Because in spite of what a lot of fans seem to think, the manga does take Enji to task and isn't saying he should be forgiven.

Dabi being in this condition is pretty awful, but I concede that it was necessary for him to have a resolution with the other Todorokis. I'll get to my thoughts on the condition of the villains later in the post. So for now I'll just say the metal coffin looks equal parts cool and horrific. I think it's too long at least in the wrong places. I understand that this is an important part of the story. But when it takes up so much of the chapter it's in, I feel like at least something should have been given to the other family members. They aren't the main players of the subplot, but they still could have used some resolution.

Afterburn

Now, there are those who say Enji got off too easy. Uh, no, he didn't. The man lost everything he strived for in the number one position, something that turned out to be totally hollow, and is left severely injured after the battle, due in large part to Dabi. Now the only thing that would bring his life purpose, his family, is all torn apart by his own actions. Now he's resigned himself to seeing his dying son, who hates him with every burnt fiber of his being, every day until Dabi dies. Enji's punishment is to live on, knowing what he did and failing to ever put his family back together. That's not a happy ending, that's a sentencing.

Which is something I do find frustrating about the end of their arc. While we get solid conclusions with Natsuo and Dabi, how Shoto, Fuyumi, and especially Rei feel about all this and their relationship with Enji is ambiguous at best. At least with Shoto and Fuymui, we had some idea of where they stood with their father before now, but Rei is still not clear. I'm not sure about the implications with Rei and whether she's still with Enji. I choose to think that she isn't just trying to help him out in the few panels we see them together, but it's not exactly clear. Which certainly does leave the door open for some... less than favorable interpretations.

Commissioner Hawks

I'm not sure how to feel about Keigo's conclusion. On the one hand, I don't mind where he ended up as the head of the Hero Commission. It's still a way for him to help heroes to make their lives easier without getting involved as a hero. And if there is anyone that can clean up the Hero Commission, it's the guy that's worked under them his entire life. On the other hand though, it does kind of feel like he did got off scott free for a lot of the stuff he did while under the Hero Commission, namely killing Twice. It never feels like Hawks personally was taken to task for his part in all of this. So now we have a murderer as the head of the Hero Commission. 

It doesn't matter if he was under orders to do it or not, nor if there were extreme circumstances that pushed him to such actions. The pragmatic side of me does see the reasoning of that, but the story enforces that what Hawks did is a bad thing and does so constantly. Nothing about the manga takes Hawks to task for what he did or makes it feel like he's been punished for that. He may have lost his Quirk, but we don't really know how he feels about that. Which is weird considering how much of his life came from having that Quirk. Unless his comment about not being ashamed of his "filthy wings" as long as he got to help Tokoyami? Maybe it will make more sense on another read.

Spinner and Izuku

I feel like this scene is pretty underrated. Heck, it may even cemented Spinner as one of my favorite villains. To me, it really goes to show the tragedy at the core of Spinner's character. That, for all of his desire to change things or help out his friends, he was too weak to see any change made for himself. So he attached himself to idols like Stain or Tomura. He was always manipulated or pulled by something else. Whether it be the radicalization of Stain or the machinations of All For One, his hopes were used against him, his mindless actions given meaning by peons. All it did was lose him everything. He was, ultimately, a kid who was in over his head and was turned into a monster because of it. The monster everyone saw him as.

And while I've heard some people complain about Tomura only having a message for Spinner, I think that's more about the relationship Tomura had with the rest of the League. They were aligned together for a mutual goal and had some care for one another, but I don't think they ever understood or were close to one another. Spinner is the only one Tomura had any kind of real closeness. That's the whole point of the gamer line, as silly as it was. So, while to the rest of the League, he was Shigaraki, the force of destruction and change, to Spinner, he was Tomura, a friend who he wanted to fight for. My only issue, again, is some unfortunate openness with the ending. Spinner writing a book to spite the heroes is fine, but it leaves this unfortunate implication that this book will be used to radicalize more people. I don't think that is the intention, but again, it's not very clear.

Everyone Do Your Share

I was originally frustrated by how much of the final chapters spent on the cleaning up of things, especially since there were so few chapters left. However, looking back, I do feel it's pretty important to reinforce the idea of everyone trying to help in their own way, no matter how big or small it may be. And in doing so, show the changes on every level possible. It's there to show how things are changing by how people act and see heroes. We've got the civilians doing their part to help the heroes, and we've got the next generation changing their perspective on heroism. All thanks to Class 1-A and their efforts. It's just a nice and efficient way to show things changing from a broader perspective.

Which leads me to the stitch mouth kid. I saw people begging that this kid would be the new Tomura and show that society is still bad and broken. As if something like that wouldn't undermine the entire point of the ending. The whole point is that anyone can be a hero in any way, as long as you are willing to reach out and help others. And people who see a problem can and should do something to help people. They should help when they have the chance before it is too late. So having the old woman reach out to help another lost child is a nice way to tie up that point. And the whole point of all this is that the heroes, especially Izuku, don't need to do everything themselves. 

The More Things Change

Many people were upset of the idea of aspects like hero rankings and the Hero Commission not being abolished by the time the series ended. I disagree. I never thought that the rankings themselves were bad or wrong, nor did I think the story ever shows that the rankings are bad. That only seemed to be an issue with Enji and that had a lot of personal issues behind it. Every other hero seemed to be perfectly content to do hero work regardless of the rankings. Now, the Hero Commission, I can understand more. It's shown to be morally gray with its power. However, I don't think the existence of this kind of system is inherently wrong. Having oversight to heroes isn't a bad idea. It's just that the usage of it use to a lot of problems. And most of those people that propagated it are dead and gone.

Further still, there are people that say nothing has changed in the setting. That, since these systems are still in place, it's always going to be like this. Again, I disagree. Because of the massive devastation wrought by Tomura, it gave Japan a fresh start with the current generation. This gives the country the chance to overhaul those systems, even if they are still around. At the end of the day, systems are made up of and by people. The story makes it clear many times how important it is to win the crowd over. And if you win the hearts and minds of the people, it could go on to propagate massive change to the system. If enough people want to change and push for it, things will change. Saying that "things didn't change because systems can't be changed" is such a horrifically pessimistic take on the ending.

The Death of Villains

I've mentioned it before, and I'll say it again: I don't mind Toga dying. By extension, I don't mind the villains dying either. While it may seem tragic and pointless for her to die, I do think that is kind of that point. And no, I don't think this means that she "couldn't be saved". I think it's more of a tragedy. She was the one that people could have been saved before, but it was far too late to help her given how far she had gone. And her dying isn't a failing of that. Because Toga's ultimate goal was to live and die on her own terms. Specifically, being able to express herself and her "love". And to a lesser degree, to have someone try to understand her. I think her dying to save Uraraka is a good end to her character. By extension, that's how I feel about a lot of the villains' deaths in this. They got what they wanted, tragically died in order to see it through to the end. At least there's some peace for them, in that respect.

There's also a matter of "saving". I think a lot of fans took this too literally. To me, "saving" was more about reaching out and trying to understand villains rather than simply fighting them. "Saving" was never going to be the same as "redeeming". Because let's be real, there is no redeeming these people. Not because they can't be redeemed, it's because they don't want to be redeemed, and I think it'd betray their characters to do so. They are unapologetically bad and have hurt a lot of people. Every member of the League is complicit in the deaths of thousands and throwing an entire country into chaos. They aren't wrong for fighting the system, they're wrong for killing countless people to do so. And I have to ask what the other options are? You either have them be forgiven and turn good, which would be insane given the crimes they committed and their characters, or have them locked up forever, which is a fate worse than death. At least in death they can have some form of peace by escaping the consequences of their actions and all the suffering they went through.

Izuku x Uraraka:

Yeah, I'm kind of confused about why it turned out like this. I'm ignoring all the shipping concerns that come from it. I'm more focused on the story and characters. The whole idea of Uraraka and Toga's shared story was about understanding your feelings, both towards yourself and other people. Especially how bad it is to repress and hide your feelings. The whole catalyst of Toga's story was her being forced to repress herself. So having this whole subplot end like this is really odd if Uraraka doesn't express her feelings. That's not mentioning all the hints, setups, and teasing that pushed these two as a potential couple that fell through by not having any conclusion. I honestly wonder why Hori, or his editors, decided to back down like this. 

Which, hey, now may not be the best time for a confession, but it's still jarring not to see anything come of it after all this time. Especially since so much of the chapter is about the two talking about their feelings. So why is it written like this? Now, I want to dismiss the popular concept that Hori changed this because of death threats between the two. While it's not something I'd put past obsessive fans, there hasn't been anything to substantiate the claim. So, barring rogue translators, my only guess is that Hori or an editor didn't want to do the reveal now and wanted to focus more on the important parts of the two's connection about inspiring one another. I can understand that, but it feels like a part of their dynamic is missing without any real acknowledgment of the two's feelings.

Izuku and Uraraka:

And I say all that to preface that I do like a lot of this scene and I do think it's important to each of the characters. Because Ochako is being open with her feelings here. It's just not the feelings that were being set up all the way in the first chapter. It's the two trying to connect and come to terms with their own failings with their villains. Only to have Izuku reach out his hand, reaffirming that sometimes all people need is a small act of kindness. Though it's hard to always do that, he's willing to do it because he's just that good of a guy. And having Izuku say that Uraraka is his hero is more heartfelt and important to these characters and the story at large then any confession could have been. 

And then we have the rest of Class 1-A coming to help as well. It works as a good parallel to Uraraka saving Izuku back during the Dark Hero Arc. It fits with the idea of heroes saving and helping one another. My only major issue is that I kind of wish we had gotten a little more with Izuku talking about his own feelings regarding Tomura, but we already got that back in Chapter 424. All and All: am I still disappointed that Izuku and Uraraka didn't have any romantic resolution? Kind of. It's less that I wanted them to get together and more I wanted some kind of resolution for it. But I still think what we got is good and that people are focusing way too much on what isn't there than what is there. Which I feel like is a problem with a lot of the ending, but we'll get to that.

Class 1-A Futures:

I do wish we got to see more of the future of Class 1-A, even if they were brief snippets. There are glimpses of Shoto and Bakugou. Bakguou's is alright, and I do like the final bit about no one connecting Shoto and Endeavor. I think that's a good ending for him. The most we get with any kind of detail are Shoji's and Urarak's groups. And I guess Shoji had a good future? Look, the Heteromorph plotline is arguably one of the worst parts of the whole manga. It may even be worse than the Stars and Stripes arc. So I can't exactly muster a lot of enthusiasm seeing it resolved by Shoji in the end. I suppose him thanking the people at the riot was nice? That whole part of the story honestly deserves its own post talking about it.

On the flip side, I'm fine with Uraraka's ending. Because I think people tend to conflate a lot of what makes up "Quirk Counseling", mostly thanks to people like Curious and Toga. One is part of a cult that wants to destroy society and the other most grievously targeted by it. From what we've actually seen of it, such as Tamaki's flashback, it just seems to be a lot of training and understanding your Quirk. Toga was just an unfortunate case where the system as it was couldn't help her and could only try and fit her into a niche. So I don't think expanding it is that big of a problem. Plus, expanding could include more extensive counseling that is more tailored to each child. I do think it's kind of odd that Iida and Momo seem to be stapled on to this ending, though. I'm not sure how this works as an end for either of them. I guess their roles as leaders of the class?

Great Teacher Izuku

Look, I don't mind Izuku having this job. Do I think there could have been other choices for this? Yes, but this is by no means bad. Being a teacher is a lot more respectable in Eastern cultures. Especially since he's teaching at the best hero school in the country, if not the world, it is certainly a high-profile job. And he is still being a hero in his own way and helping out the next generation as a teacher. More importantly, I still think that Izuku achieved his dream of being the greatest hero. The man brought down the greatest villain in human history and was one of the two people responsible for causing a massive shift in the way the world of heroes works. He is truly the world's greatest hero. There is no debating that. This is like some kid wanting to go to space to be the greatest astronaut. They not only go to space, they're the first person on Mars. They also stop the martins from invading Earth, killing the king of the martins, and save humanity. Now injured, they instead teach other cadets how to be astronauts. Would they not have success in their goal of being the greatest astronaut? I don't think anyone could match up with that.

However, my issue is with everything surrounding it. There isn't any set up for him becoming a teacher. It gives us the sense that this was the back-up option for when his real dreams feel through. Especially since Izuku gave everything he could to try and be a hero, and it doesn't happen until the very end of this manga. Which doesn't seem like the intention, since Izuku seems happy enough, but I heard a lot of people saying that. It's lacking in that catharsis and satisfaction that you'd expect from an ending. But you can have an ending that's not exactly happy and still be cathartic, and I think that still applies here. And another problem I have is that he's teaching at UA. Yes, he's helping out the next generation of heroes, but he's not helping out the people that need it most. The kind of people who don't make it into UA. The kind of people like Tomura, Spinner, and Twice. Those are the kind of people that should be getting help like this. Why not put him in a position with a much greater ability to help people? Finally, wasn't the whole point of All Might's arc? That there are other ways to be heroes and life outside of hero work? Why not have that aspect of the story be resolve with him instead of Izuku? He was already going down that route to begin with. Why repeat the same idea?

Walk and Talk

Again, I'm going to have to counter a major talking point I've seen in the fanbase. No, Izuku is not unhappy in his job. He seems to enjoy it and is in fact very good at it, as seen when talking to his students and the plate kid, Dai. He's only unhappy in one panel, in which he's being talked down to by Aizawa. No, Izuku is not forgotten by the world. He's mentioned in the same breath as some of the greatest heroes in the series, has his own statue with the rest of Class 1-A, and is so famous that people know his real name and is of such mythical status that people question if he is real. No, Izuku's friends did not abandon him. The most that Izuku says about that is that it's difficult for all twenty members to get together. He's still probably seeing them in smaller numbers. And I can tell you as someone who has had trouble even getting a quarter of that number of people into a single time slot, it's going to be difficult to get twenty people with separate schedules and lives together.

As for everything with Dai, it's fine. His perspective is pretty important as we get to see the changing worldview. With the demystification of heroes and the elevation of other roles in helping others, young people are now all getting into different fields. The talk around the statue is pretty good as well. Having Izuku effectively talk to a younger version of himself is a good way to close out his arc and all the insecurities he's had over the manga. However, part of me feels like this kind of talk should be done with the stitch-mouth kid. We do actually see him as a part of UA students with Kota. I think having Izuku end up talking to him about his Quirk could have been a good way to end his arc by having him be able to help someone similar. Not to say that the Dai stuff was bad or pointless. It just feels odd to include the guy that's supposed to be the metaphorical spirit of Tomura, put him in Izuku's class, and have them not interact.

The Suit

Again, this is another point where I don't have a major issue with it. At least, I don't have an issue getting the suit itself. I have some issues with the semantics. Did it take too long to build? I wouldn't say that. It was revealed in a piece by Horikoshi that it took all of All Might's vast resources to build, and it lacked a lot of the proper safety features. Having it take some time before it's battle ready for Izuku makes sense. However, that isn't in the manga, at least as far as I can tell. Maybe this makes more sense in the volumes, where stuff like this is included all the time. For real though, these people built this in secret for eight years, and they are just now letting him find out. Was there really no explanation you could have added to make that make more sense?

It creates this odd juxtaposition of endings as well. It gives the feeling of the story wanting to have its cake and eat it as well. Someone wanted Izuku come to terms with being Quirkless and to have a life outside of hero work. The other person wanted Izuku to still fight and be a hero. I also wonder why not just have be both at the same time instead of doing this twist. Make it clear that heroes have a lot more time, both thanks to Hawks and the contributions of the many heroes in the world all working together. Izuku doesn't need to be a full-time hero to save people and chooses to be a teacher to help people in a way that only he can do. That way, he can still be a hero that isn't necessarily the profession while being a professional hero without a Quirk.

Final Thoughts

Now, what are my final options for all of this? I think that ending was pretty solid, leaning good. I do agree that it's better than what is on offer than a lot of shōnen series and a good enough ending for the story. I'm not saying it's amazing or perfect. Though I do find myself more satisfied than frustrated. I get a lot of what the story is going for, and it makes sense. It just needed some refinement to really work. As for what everyone else has said about it, I honestly think that a lot of people are overreacting. I wouldn't go as far as to say people are "lacking media literacy" or that they are "reading in bad faith" like others have on either side of the debate. I just think this as a case where the context and delivery of it resulted in a lot of confusion. And more often than not, people will tend to go with the worst version of the implications. This is not helped by the leaks and bad translations which fans ran away with, as well the built-up hype and headcanons, which poisoned the well for a lot of people.

However, I cannot deny that there is part of the fanbase that is simply not getting the manga. I don't want to use the word "tourist", because that's a No True Scotsman fallacy, but it's starting to feel applicable here. The people who simply aren't reading the manga, whether it be through engaging with it solely through other people talking about it, or trying to look at it anything beyond the most kneejerk and surface level reactions. Because a lot of people tend to conflate what My Hero Academia is about or what its story is conveying. And unfortunately, those are the people with massive followings. Anyone with a differing opinion is drowned out in the sea of angry comments. And I think we really need to get away from that. What I'm saying is that you read the story as it is. Focus on what is happening and what it is trying to say. Don't force a meaning or headcanon on something that wasn't there and don't rely on word of mouth for what the manga is about. Just focus on what the story is trying to say.

My only hope is that this will pass, and calmer heads will win out. That once it's stepped outside the zeitgeist, people will be able to analyze it as a whole. If not, then I'm terrified to think that this will become My Hero Academia's legacy: a bunch of stupid jokes made by people who can't bother to read the official version of the story or try to understand a culture outside their own even when it plays a vital role within the story. If not, then I can hope that maybe something else will come to replace it. Because I'm not sure if this is truly the end. I've heard rumors that there's going to be something akin to Naruto: The Last or the Naruto Wedding Special coming out after the anime ends. If not that, who knows who other kinds of side material will come out to follow up on the world or characters. Which would make sense. The ending doesn't feel like an ending as much as it does "And the adventure continues." Which could be why I'm not as affected by this ending as other people.

There's certainly the cultural side and how that surrounds the manga. I'll always stand by the fact that this manga is a Japanese story by a Japanese author for a Japanese audience. And there's a lot of cultural context that goes into the series. I keep thinking about how a lot of Japanese fans seemed to like the ending and how much I wished I had the context to understand it. Another part of it is how much I'm thinking about Hori. Because for all the popularity of it, being a mangaka is one of the most stressful jobs in Japan. One where the artist has much less say over how their story goes. I'm so curious about what went on behind the scenes to make My Hero Academia turn out the way it is. Was all this Hori fumbling his own story, whether that be through incompetence or failing health, or were there outside forces pressing on him to do things a certain way? It's like how people became more forgiving of Kubo or Toriyama once they found out how hamstrung they were by their higher ups. I suppose only time will tell.

Rewrite

Now, time for the Rewrite portion. As a reminder, I do try to keep to what the manga does as close as possible. For example, I personally would just let Izuku keep some version of "One For All" if the ultimate conclusion was him still being a hero. However, it's obvious that Hori didn't want to go that route with it, so I'll be sticking to him getting with the suit.

Starting things off, we'll be in the hospital with Izuku and All Might recovering. We're told about "One For All" leaving him, and we'll get some reaction from Izuku about it. He will be sad but resolved. He may not have "One For All", but he's still alive. He's got the skill and will to help people without it. And he still wants to do that, even in his own way, because he still has value without "One For All". This could help soften the blow of Izuku losing out on "One For All". That and it's at least something to try to tie up Izuku's self worth issues. This will also be something confirmed by Inko, putting a nice little bow on all this with her being more properly encouraging of Izuku as opposed to how things were in Chapter 1.

Then we're going to reveal how many people want to talk to Izuku. Reporters are going to be hounding Izuku for his story, considering how he was key in stopping Tomura. Which he obviously can't do right now due to his condition. After some time, he will eventually recover enough to give a press conference. This will also be where we get the varying opinions on Tomura, having a panel overwhelming Izuku with questions and thoughts. Izuku is now going to use his newly found position to try and change things for the better. He's going to emphasize the importance of the role of the other heroes and not have it all focus on him. He's going to use it as a platform to talk about who Tomura was and why he did what he did.

It's going to be something emotional and vulnerable, something propping up Izuku as a person rather than the hero Deku, working to prevent another situation like All Might where everyone keeps putting them on pedestals. This way, we have both the validation of Izuku saving everyone and wanting to bring about change on the societal level. It shows him being a hero in the traditional way with the defeat of All For One, now he's being a hero in the non-traditional way. This will be cutting into some of the time we have at UA, but to me, I don't think a lot of what's in that part is ultimately necessary to what the story is trying to say.

For the sake of this, Hawks will still be working as the head of the Hero Commission. He'll talk about how he feels free now that his Quirk is gone and everything that came with it, more so than ever before. However, he still wants to make life easier for heroes so that they can feel this kind of freedom. He initially didn't want the position, but felt the need to take it on after everything that's happened and make things right, implying the guilt he feels over his actions. Plus, it has some nice irony of Hawks still being trapped within the Hero Commissions. So him taking the role is more of his own penance and a punishment.

So while Izuku is fighting on the public front, changing the hearts of the masses to enact change, Hawks will be fighting on the political and systematic front, using the devastation of the country as a fresh start. He'll encourage groups of heroes to work together rather than focusing on the individual. He'll push for a greater level of training or vetting when it comes to people who can get a license for hero work. Most importantly, a greater level of accountability and transparency in both heroes and the Hero Commission as a whole.

Lady Nagant will remain in jail, but it's more for reasons of atonement rather than wanting to wait and see how things play out. Hawks will try to offer her some deal or reduction as a way to make things right, but she feels like it's the right thing to do rather than trying to pretend it never happened. This will also be the part where we explore some of the points with Hawks we talked about earlier. Lady Nagant can even question if the Hero Commission is needed, but Hawks can talk about all the reforms he wants to do with it.

For Chapter 426, we're shortening the Todoroki family time, and it will only take up half of the chapter. I will have some confirmation on whether or not Rei was able to move on from what Enji did and do more to cement how Enji is alone now. He may be resolved to change and make things right, but he is not getting his family back. That ship has sailed. Instead, we'll be sticking to everything involving Hawks and Toshinori in the latter half of this, with him talking to Lady Nagant and him discussing his plans for changing the ranking systems in general. I think it'd flow a lot better, works with tying up another character so closely tied to the Todorokis, and gives us more time for other stuff.

However, we're keeping 427 mostly intact. I think Spinner's material is good, and everything that got brought up needed to be mentioned one way or another. The most I'd do is cut down on the ending gag, since it frustrates me so much, and some of the interviews since we may not need them as much with how I'll be changing things in those sections. I am removing the Kai part of the chapter as well. I like Kai, but this honestly feels pointless in the grand scheme of things.

The biggest change will be that I'll include a bit where, instead of Izuku saying to make it a comic book, he'll remind Spinner to think about what would happen if someone like Spinner read it. About how important a book like that could be and how it should be written, but also how it could hurt someone who reads it. Spinner will remain silent in response, thinking back on how he saw Stain and how he was puppeteered around by the likes of One For All and the PLF during the Final War.

I think you could do a nice parallel between Izuku and Spinner here. They were two young men who were ultimately racialized and hurt by their idols and their lack of self-worth. Again, it's showing Izuku thinking about himself more with what has happened to him and tying that to Spinner's own situation. Plus, it prevents something like Spinner's book from having the unfortunate implication of turning out to something like the MLA book.

We're cutting Chapters 428 and 429 in half and stitching them together. Specifically, all the stuff with the new Class 1-A and the Old Class 1-A will be removed. I just feel like we don't need to focus on this as much as other parts of the world or story. Preferably, I would want them to get together. With the Bakugou and Shoto being seen bit, we're throwing in Izuku as well. There needs to be some confirmation that people did in fact see him as a hero as well and confirm that the three are in fact the new Big Three of UA. I'm not asking this to be the norm of it like they do in Naruto. I just feel like there should be some external validation.

The fight between Toga and Uraraka will be around and released to the public. Her death will be seen as something tragic to the world and help spark the change we see later on with people empathizing with villains like her. This could also lead to Izuku seeing it and being the impetus for Izuku and Ochako talking about their feelings. Yes, this chapter will include a confession for Ochako to Izuku. It won't be during a breakdown, but it needs to be put in somewhere and might as well be here. I'll even settle for an implication. Up to you on whether or not you think this should solidify them as a couple, but I feel like you have to include that in order to complete all of the set-up in the series and especially with Toga.

The new Chapter 429 will instead be a two-year time jump into the future before everyone is graduating. We can still start it off with some of the "where are they now" bits, but not have it take up too much time. With the final embers of "One For All" starting to fade out, Izuku knows this is the end of him as a proper hero, but it doesn't matter to him. He got to be the greatest hero in history who literally saved the world. He doesn't define himself by having a Quirk or not and knows that he can still help people without a costume on. Izuku plans on either going into counseling, charity work, or even trying to get a job at the Hero Commission. Up to you on this one. He still wants to help and stop the various hurting people of the world from ever becoming like anyone from the League ever again. Make it clear this is something Izuku wants.

This is when Toshinori gives him his graduation gift: the suit. Between Toshinori's remaining resources, gifts and gratitude from the various people across the world, and contributions from members of 1-A, they were able to build him the suit. Toshinori kept it from Izuku because it wasn't ready until a few days ago, needing to be properly prepared and built as opposed to the rush job that was the dangerous prototype he used. Izuku, of course, has notes and ideas for improvements on the suit. Toshinori reaffirms that Izuku earned this, and he will still be a worthy hero and successor, Quirkless or otherwise. The chapter ends with Class 1-A and 1-B graduating. I know that two years seems short, but I think that the timespan is enough of a time gap to get the suit together, at least with how I am setting it up, and to have the embers of "One For All" fade. 

The alternative route is that, knowing that the embers are running out, Izuku still wants to be a hero. So he's spent the last two years trying to prepare himself for that, putting as much time into training and learning how to use equipment made for him. He doesn't care if he isn't going to be the top hero. He's going to do what he's already been doing: helping people, because that's all he really wanted out of life. That this whole experience changed how he saw himself and hero work. You could even say that it's the prototype for him, eventually becoming the suit. Maybe even combine them both, with the former being a backup plan after hero work. And while I have never been the biggest fan of the whole "Quirkless Hero" concept with how little it's supported in the world, I think we can let it slide because it's the finale. But I wanted to mention it because I thought it'd be an interesting path for the story to take.

Then the real chapter 430 will cut to the future, roughly five to six years. I could take or leave Izuku being a teacher, but for the sake of this, let's say that he is one. Heroes have more time off, so he decides to help educate people. We'll get a similar series of panels that will focus more on the world with how it is now, mainly in relation to Class 1-A. This will show a lot more of how the 1-A kids have grown and the affects they have on the world, like Uraraka actually interacting and helping a kid like Toga come to terms with their power to show how Quirk Counseling has become a tool to help people. I think we really need more scenes like that to really show that things have grown and changed with the world. Izuku's suit will have changed as well, commenting on how much he's been involved with the modeling and planning throughout his most current iteration.

Toshinori will be living his life and still teaching at UA. He talks about how all the kids want to be like Izuku, especially with Kota, and that they never stop talking about him. He jokes to himself about how he feels like he's been forgotten. Cut back to Izuku's old school with the kid in the back. Events will happen similarly to what they did in Chapter 430, with Izuku meeting a kid similar to himself at All Might's statue. There will be the usual stuff he said, trying to encourage the kid, making comparisons to himself, maybe even showing the photos All Might took of him when he was training. He gets a call about an incident and needs to leave. He tells the kid to never forget about the hero he can be and to never stop striving to be that hero. The final words of the series are the ever-iconic "Plus Ultra".  This is beyond cheesy, but if we're going to end the series, we might as well end it with some cheese.

[bogkeep]

Would you recommend the SSSS comic? I know little of it beside the very beautiful artstyle and premise

to answer the question of if i would recommend SSSS as a comic: yes, yes i would.

a description for those who don't know: Stand Still Stay Silent is a post-apocalyptic horror + adventure webcomic set in the nordics (norway, sweden, denmark, finland, iceland) that have been isolated from the rest of the world and gone back to their old gods. the the world outside of safe zones is full of trolls and beasts - humans and mammals that got infected by a horrible virus and turned into monsters. the story follows a ragtag crew that ventures into the old world (derelict denmark) on an expedition to collect books.

the comic updated every workday until it concluded in 2022, and consists of two Adventures. the creator had plans for many adventures with these characters in this world, but ended it after two when she wanted to take a new direction with her life.

what i love about it:

- the art is GORGEOUS. it's been a huge source of inspiration for me. open any page and it's a masterpiece, and you will ask yourself "how the FUCK did she update this FIVE DAYS A WEEK"

- the characters are wonderful and endearing. i just, i love them so much. i am so thankful lalli hotakainen exists he is one of my #1 blorbos forever

- the world is so cool. the blend of chunky sci-fi and norse mythology fantasy magic slaps. it goes so hard. i fell so hard for this comic when i got to the big ferry ship with a viking style dragon head prow added to it. it's everything

- it really really gets nordic cultures. it's difficult to explain all the dynamics and nuances but it just gets it. it brings me as a scandinavian a lot of joy to read a story that speaks to my heart this way. the attitudes, the language barriers, the cultural differences... it was so refreshing to me in a media landscape dominated by american stories. when the pandemic hit, i decided to reread the comic because i found such an odd comfort in seeing how it depicted the scandinavian countries reacting to, well, a pandemic.

- there's kittycats

what i don't like about it:

- the most glaring and obvious flaw is that everyone in the comic is white. there's not a single character of color anywhere, not even i background shots or the prologue. there's no mention of the saami people (the indigenous people of northern europe), either. i believe this was done in ignorance more than malicious intent, but the implications are Extremely Bad and it's been bothering me (AND MANY OTHERS) since day 1. that is the number one caveat i will give to anyone wanting to check this comic out. i've been in the discourse trenches and i am not going to excuse this. it's just bad!

- you can tell in the middle of adventure 2 that the creator has kind of lost interest in the work, around the time when she found jesus i guess. like, very few people can keep up work on the same creative project for years and years and years and i think it's fine that she wanted to drop it, but it's a bit sad to see the comic dragged to its end like a limp corpse, and feeling like the creator no longer really cares about the characters.

- minna sundberg has said and done some questionable things, presumably gotten somewhat radicalised over time, and has also converted to hardcore christianity which is what her new works are about. there's nothing about this in SSSS - there is a moment of christianity represented in the story in a sort of mythological sense, just like the other religions, but this was written before minna's conversion. her new works... are a Choice. i have much to say about them, and i have, and im not gonna rehash it now.

SO YEAH hopefully this will help you take an Informed Choice! i got into this comic in 2015 and was deep in the fandom and it's for better or for worse part of my soul foundation now.

i also recommend A Redtail's Dream, minna's "practice comic" before SSSS, based on finnish mythology and the kalevala.

[damnfandomproblems]

Fandom Problem #6241:

People saying there are things that should be forbidden from being posted online when it comes to fandom, fiction and fictional characters... How do you suggest regulating it?

Do you think there should be a global effort to analyze every single thing that people from all over the world have posted and intend to post about every fandom and piece of media in every platform and accept or delete/deny them?

Who would decide the rules? What would influence those rules, since the internet isn't local? Politics? Culture? Morals? Laws? Which country's culture, morals or laws? Which side of the political spectrum?

Would this censorship work with already classical or mainstream media, like, let's say... GoT? No one would be able to mention GoT's existence online?

Would it really have a HUGE positive impact in the world to justify all the money and work it would take?

I know this kind of people are only entitled and think they should be able to forbid a random adult from writing a random sex scene with random fictional characters that will never reach 10% of the audience the original media have as if it'll heal the whole world but still, I have SO MANY questions when I see this kind of discourse.

[lindwurmkai]

hey, have you heard that pillowfort has ✨ drafts ✨ now? (as in, the ability to save your posts as drafts.) they're still working on the queue feature (update: it's done!), but drafts are a big step forward!

in case you missed it so far, pillowfort is like a cross between tumblr and dreamwidth/livejournal, with a simplified dashboard reminiscent of old school tumblr and some classic livejournal features such as communities, threaded comments, and the ability to make individual posts followers-only or mutuals-only.

what are communities? basically, central hubs for posts about any subject you want that, unlike hashtags, can be moderated. they may have rules, such as "[subject matter] must be tagged" for example. you can post directly to a community or reblog existing posts to it!

since the site is currently experiencing some financial trouble, i thought i'd help out by spreading the word once again.

edit: the fundraiser was a success! crisis averted! i knew we could do it :D

why you should give pillowfort a chance:

no ads

no venture capitalist funding

no spying on the users

completely free to use except for optional premium features

nsfw is allowed except for sexual depictions of minors. if you're unsure what exactly that means, their tos may help

communities and the privacy controls mentioned above are excellent features

great community, low drama compared to other websites (so far)

the site's features themselves encourage genuine connection and good-faith conversation over endless "discourse"

every blog can automatically be filtered by original posts only or reblogs only

reasons not to join:

if you enjoy algorithmic social media. there is no algorithm at all

if you want to post or look at machine-generated art. they're still finalising the wording and personally i hope some exception will be made for models trained on ethically sourced images, but basically an anti-AI rule is in the works (update: finished!)

if you cannot live without reblog additions (reblogging with comment). all discussions on a pillowfort post take place in the comments section, and only your own followers see your tags. this has its pros and cons for sure! a similar feature to scratch that itch may be implemented in the future, but it will never be exactly like on tumblr.

if you need everything to be an app. the website works fine in a mobile browser and a progressive web app will hopefully be released soon (basically it's like an app in your browser and on mobile these can be added to the homescreen like real apps i think? they have push notifications!), but there's not going to be a native app available through official app stores due to the restrictions of those stores.

other factors to consider:

yes, the userbase is still small. depending on your interests, activity may be very slow. but we can change that! and on the plus side, reblogging your post to a community is a good way to easily get more eyes on it; way more effective than simply adding tags imo

the site culture is a bit different than on tumblr. many people read everything that's been posted since the last time they were online and don't follow more users/communities than they can keep up with. it's still somewhat lacking in shitposts and heavy on "essays" but don't be afraid to post whatever 😅

there are no blog themes like we have them on tumblr as yet, but you can customise your blog's colours and use html/insert links and images in your blog description

likes literally do nothing except to let OP know you enjoyed their post. you can't look at a list of all your likes. beware!

the staff is small and development is slow. some highly anticipated planned features other than the aforementioned queue include: - multi-account management - dashboard filters/reading lists - post bookmarking (since likes don't work that way) but we don't know how soon any of those will be implemented.

there is a user-developed browser extension (well, a userscript) called tassel available that adds additional features much like tumblr's beloved xkit :)

✨ okay, so how do i sign up? ✨

if you're interested but confused by the sign-up process or still under the impression that you need to pay to sign up (false), i'll put some clarifications and invite codes under the read more below. plus a note on donating, premium features, the paypal issue etc.

in a nutshell:

it's free

signing up without an invite code is possible, but you may have to wait a short while - supposedly less than an hour atm. just submit your email to the waitlist

if you don't feel like waiting, you can either use an invite code from an existing user or pay $5 to sign up instantly

every user gets plenty of invite codes and we're all willing to hand them out at the drop of a hat. they're really not hard to come by

some invites to get you started (just click the link):

invite 1 ▪ invite 2 ▪ invite 3 ▪ invite 4 ▪ invite 5

invite 6 ▪ invite 7 ▪ invite 8 ▪ invite 9 ▪ invite 10

invite 11 ▪ invite 12 ▪ invite 13 ▪ invite 14 ▪ invite 15

invite 16 ▪ invite 17 ▪ invite 18 ▪ invite 19 ▪ invite 20

i'll try to periodically check if any have been used and cross those out.

...paypal issue?

ok so paypal doesn't like working with sites that allow nsfw. as a result, you need a credit card in order to donate to pillowfort, buy one of those insta-registration keys, or subscribe to premium features*. i personally happen to have a credit card and would be willing to help out anyone who trusts me enough to send the money to me via paypal, but i realise chances are only my friends will do this.

some users are currently organising various activities for the purpose of letting people who only have paypal contribute to the site's survival. it's not super relevant for new users and won't get you access to premium features, but i thought i'd mention it anyway in case someone loves the concept of the site so much they want to support it immediately. a fundraising community has been created to collect posts of that nature!

*premium features are strictly limited to two categories of things:

fun little extras that no one truly needs

higher image upload limits, because obviously big images take up bandwidth and are therefore a reason for increased costs

you will never need to pay for vital accessibility features or anything of the sort. :)

[velvetvexations]

Have you seen the interaction between gwemmieee and faggy—butch circling your feed yet? What a mess

@gwemmieee I'm gonna tag you here because your pinned asks that people talk to you when they have issues with what you say. It seems like you might be tired of discussing the subject, though, and I encourage you to ignore this if you would you would rather. It's essentially my take on the first few things you said and why I feel like they weren't great and people were right to be bothered by it, but you don't seem like a terrible person and it's more important that you take care of yourself than throw yourself into endless argument.

@faggy--butch I'll also tag you if this feels relevant to you, lmk if you'd rather I take it out

-----

I generally keep discourse off my feed because if I follow someone who talks about the intercommunity stuff I can handle they inevitably talk about the stuff that's triggering for me. There are several people I'd love to be mutual with otherwise.

I'd heard about it but did not realize it was quite that...extensive. Mm. I'm not sure if my perspective as another transfem would help or not since she seems in a rough place over it. I'll say there her things in her original reply that faggy--butch didn't even mention that I didn't like, like claiming trans men have problems getting access to certain spaces but trans women can't exist anywhere. That's pretty dire and if not for the insistence that she believes in the validity of transandrophobia would probably be enough to get me to be mean to her, but it seems like she was genuinely trying to be negotiable, and that's an important distinction when a lot of people really are treating transmasc issues as so much lesser in comparison to transfems.

The problem is that "transandrophobes bad" is not really a negotiable position. In what way are "baby transfems" being "vilified"? It's not a matter of not being up to date. Some of the things not only transfems but also self-identified TMEs - note that the OP did not say transfems - are really vile and cruel. To jump onto a post saying that to protest that one shouldn't be too mean to them back feels...weird.

Like;

However, if a trans masc wants to hold any baby trans fem to an unreasonably high standard of always knowing what is and isn't OK to say, and what feelings are not OK to voice, instead of engaging in good faith and trying to hear them, validate them, educate them, and NOT control them, that's kinda fucked up.

That's just not happening. That's not what's going on. To say transandrophobes simply "don't know what is and isn't okay to say, and what feelings are not OK to voice" really truly is treating them like literal babies. It may not be what she meant to say but it's so hard to understand a meaning to those initial posts that aren't saying one should never get mad at a trans woman for anything they say or do because being treated like a bad person is traumatic.

She seems to have gone on to have a better conversation about it with others where she understood more of what was being said and was able to clarify her thoughts more, but that still ends with blaming others for coming in too hot and I don't think that tracks at all. Even if she didn't mean to say something, she still said what she said and it's not really fair to turn that around as everyone just misunderstanding her and it not being her fault for that.