#And I'm exploring some consequences of that

[theloganator101]

The Great BNHA Review: The Finale

So in the end... where does this leave us?

A society that really hasn't changed that much, Izuku was alone once again because his hero friends are too busy, and it ends with Izuku being handed a suit to fight alongside them... Reinforcing the fact that Izuku couldn't be a hero on his own without someone handing him something to make him a hero.

What a lackluster and rather bleak ending when you think about it. Because they still have the ranking system so it's once again enticing heroes to compete in a popularity contest to be known, which is why Bakugou is doing poorly and Aizawa admitting that he didn't do shit to curve this behavior.

(Points at Aizawa) Teacher of the Year everyone 🙄

So with the story now completed, what I hope to eventually happen in a few years is for people to truly see the series for what it is. A poorly written story where the main character never grows, the worst anime character hogging all the attention away from things that should be important, and contains harmful messages for preteens-teens if we were to take this at face value.

So let me ask this: Was this story worth telling?

I'm only asking because since it's known that Hori just got tired and wanted to be done and over BNHA as soon as he could. Which I know WOULDN'T have happened if he just pulled a Yana Toboso and just put the manga on hold to truly figure out what he wants to do instead of working on it continuously with only a handful of one week breaks.

His story couldn't explore the themes it established, and what it DID covered, was handled poorly.

And if you want a piece of media that explores what BNHA tried to do, here're some of my recommendations .

The main character being the odd one out? The Owl House.

Family Issues? Gravity Falls.

Discussions on justice and the grey area of good and evil? Death Note.

Hell, Glitch Productions does a better job at developing the romances of their characters than this anime series did in it's entirety!

And trauma being handled in a tasteful manner?

But back to the topic!

The thing is why couldn't we explore these themes and topics that was promised to us? Was anyone REALLY asking for Endeavor to make amends with his family? Did anyone RELLY think that Endeavor's redemption was worth screwing over the Todoroki family members?

This series just wants to have it's cake and eat it too! We want to have cool fight scenes and root for the heroes to win, but we would also want to explore the world they live in and how it functions. And since considering the badly handled topics of the story and the characters themselves are as interesting as caricatures of the tropes they embody to where there's no depth or complexity.

Then you just have a story that GOES NOWHERE!

How much of Hero Society has really changed at the end? It only beckons for the same events that happened throughout the series to happen again! And the people who were horrible, I.E Bakugou and Endeavor, get they want without consequences! None of the major characters go through significant development so it makes it hard to see that they've grown at the end!

So overall, BNHA is an Anime Series that crashed and burned. Something that I hope more people will start to recognize and call it out for both the mistakes of the series and Kohei Horikoshi.

And with that, my career of criticizing BNHA has come to an end. Thank you all for liking my rants and posts, and I truly do hope you'll keep following me for whatever's in store.

So now that's done, I can finally move on to something actually good...

[lord-squiggletits]

Thinking about IDW Optimus again and the fandom's aversion to even acknowledging he exists bc he's a cop or whatever and like. Most of the time people literally just replace him in fic with some white bread knockoff archivist/librarian, not even bothering to keep in IDW OP's personality (which just bolsters my theory that the problem isn't him being a cop the problem is that he's too multifaceted but I digress).

And it's annoying because you could totally write IDW Optimus as not a cop while still keeping his canon personality. You just have to realize that the reason IDW OP became a cop in the first place is because his formative experiences when he was young shaped him to basically have two priorities: 1. To help people and 2. To do it by being on the ground actively doing something about the bad things happening to people.

IDW OP would not be a fucking librarian or archivist because even though those are noble pursuits that can help people and change the world, and Optimus is educated/smart enough for the profession, he wouldn't be satisfied just teaching people or spreading information about activism or social-historical studies or whatever. He's a mech of action: he needs to be doing things right now, in front of him, to people he sees/interacts with in his own eyes, improving society with concrete actions rather than indirect action or abstract inspiration.

So basically the alternate job ideas I can think of for IDW Optimus are something like being a firefighter (or any first responder really) or even whatever the equivalent would be to international charity organizations, those ones that send volunteers across the world to do stuff like build housing/infrastructure or distribute food or whatnot. I mean I can't imagine that the equivalents to these things would be exactly the same in IDW Cybertron, so you'd have to get a little creative with it, but these are just some ideas of jobs that would fit IDW Optimus' personality while still filling the niche of "not a cop" for people who are just that opposed to it.

Though I think the revulsion against coptimus is annoying in general tbh because IDW is already a continuity that rejects the idea of easily defined good/evil people or groups. It feels like people really want Optimus to be a good person in a very sanitized and academically approved way, so he has to be nice and squeaky clean but also like, a perfect leftist who knows theory and holds the most progressive opinions on every single issue....

There is no room for the idea that good people join bad institutions, there's no room for the idea that the reason people think cops are good guys who help people is bc of the government propaganda everything is saturated with. Hell there's even later issues of the Optimus Prime series by John Barber where Optimus like, MULTIPLE FUCKING TIMES, is shown in flashbacks grappling with the fact that he as a cop/Zeta's regime that he works for might not actually be improving society like they say they are, and dealing with the fact that he feels more like a lesser evil compared to the Decepticons (perhaps not "lesser" at all).

It's like there's this idea in fandom of like, fictional media and opinions on media having to strictly adhere to progressive ideals at all times. So people just go "cops bad, this character is a cop, therefore they suck" without being willing to engage with the idea of like. IDW OP is born wanting to fight injustice and protect people -> a good way to protect people is to fight the people who are hurting them and committing crimes -> surely following the law is a reliable moral code to guide him in this -> becomes a cop because he's been indoctrinated into a society (much like our own) where he was told that the state/the law exist to protect the people and being a cop means you get to fight bad guys that hurt people. There's really so many interesting concepts there that could be (and CANONICALLY IS) explored about how good, well-intentioned people can be led to harmful actions simply because they have been fed the idea that the things they're doing are good/helpful/noble. Which is especially important for a character like Optimus, I think, who has a cultural icon status as The Irrefutable and Perfect Good, so it's really important actually to use IDW Optimus as an example of how even the most noble people you know have held problematic beliefs or done bad things at some point in their life. You know, because no one is born perfect and ideologically pure, and in fact society is constructed in exactly a manner to make people drink the kool-aid and believe that the systems designed to hurt them/others are just a normal, if flawed, society.

I mean the writing in IDW literally has Optimus deal directly and indirectly with the harm he's done as a cop and how people don't/didn't trust him because of that. I don't know what the fuck else this fandom wants if the source material literally saying "OP realizes that cops suck and he hurt people and earned their disdain by doing the things he did" doesn't stop them from going EW cop bastard sucks and is the worst Optimus. Like the narrative barely stops short of outright saying ACAB and Optimus himself would agree with this sentiment.

At that point, the collective fandom beef with IDW OP isn't because he's a cop and the narrative didn't do enough to condemn that. The problem is literally just that people don't read and don't care

TLDR: Consider the fact that good people can do bad things sometimes especially when living from birth in a corrupt society that thoroughly disguises its vices/oppressive structures as completely normal parts of existence

[frenchy-and-the-sea]

There is a very exquisite agony in playing a game you love so so so so so much, and realizing that one of the other players is trying to play a totally different game than you.

[sharkneto]

Why don’t you want five in school?

Oh, I've ranted about it before in the tags of THIS POST but in general it makes me wildly uncomfortable. As an adult, the thought of hypothetically being forced back to high school is the fucking pits, you could not pay me enough to do it - and I even had a good time in high school! Five is almost 60 years old and they're going to force him to go to classes and hang out with teens? That feels bad from every angle! It forces Five to act in a way he'd only do under great duress and fucks his agency and autonomy as an adult so badly. There are better, more interesting ways to play with the consequences of his physical vs actual age than sending him to goddamn high school. There's other, less dominating options for the "he looks like a kid and never actually graduated" problem.

You do you if that's your jam, don't let a random dude on the internet yuck your yum, but Five in high school is a squick for me.

[iamdeltas]

Like I've said a million times before, I love Steven Universe and think its resolution of the Diamonds fits well with its overall themes and its only big issue is that it was rushed (due to circumstances outside the crew's control). But I wonder why I'm cool with Steven talking the Diamonds into reforming while rolling my eyes at The Falcon and the Winter Soldier having Sam do essentially the same thing to the GRC and the senators.

[bionicbore]

Y’know I kinda wanna elaborate on the HC I mentioned, where I said that if Donald hadn’t found out what Douglas was doing and intervened, Douglas would’ve eventually cracked and fessed up

Mostly I wanna elaborate that he wouldn’t have fessed up because of ethical guilt (though I do think he may have something somewhere inside him that would give a damn about ethics. He did seem pretty excited to do good things after all) but more because he’s got the emotional strength of a wet tissue and would feel personal guilt after getting so attached

I’m gonna put most of it under a cut ‘cause it turned into a full on Douglas study I guess

Like... obviously I’m prefacing this with it being my own interpretation of the guy, but Douglas was a pretty emotional dude in the show. His entire redemption was rooted in his emotional attachment to his family. His morals never 100% improved, and the growth we did see was almost entirely motivated by “My family won’t like me if I’m a bad guy :(”

And while he’s not a particularly GOOD dad, he is a dad. Literally every kid Douglas gets more than 2 minutes of screen time with, he goes into some kind of Dad Mode

So, the way I see it, I don’t think Douglas would’ve lasted if he got to keep the Rats for longer than he did. It’s never actually said how old the kids were when Donald found out, but they couldn’t have been older than like... 3? Tops? Possibly even younger, technically. If Douglas actually got to watch those kids grow up in whatever messed up environment he had them in to keep them hidden (Which, I’ll be honest- based on comparing the brothers’ lab quality, was probably a worse environment than Donald’s lab) I don’t think he would’ve been able to commit. Not with the original trio, anyway

ALSO. I wanna bring up Donald, ‘cause he’s also a factor in of himself

Yeah, the brothers fight a lot, and did fight a lot. But I think it’s worth remembering that despite that, these two founded a company together. They invented things together. They work together seamlessly when they get in the zone. Douglas, despite all the animosity, was ecstatic at the prospect of getting to work alongside his brother again, and was genuinely sad when Donald didn’t feel the same, but chose not to fight Donald’s decision

Douglas cares what Donald thinks of him, and I bet he cared a lot more before Donald discovered what was happening and made his own judgement call. The two of them had to have been incredibly close, and that probably would’ve weighed on Douglas, too

But Donald found out on his own, and he didn’t waste time. He saw the children, he saw the conditions, the plans, the schematics. There was absolutely no way to rationalize what was happening here, Donald had to get these kids out and away. His little brother was using their assets to make deals with terrorists regarding the creation of bioweapons in the form of children

And Douglas was left ghosted by the most consistent presence in his life for the past 20+ years, locked out of the company he helped build from nothing, and separated from these kids who have also been a consistent presence in his life for entirely different reasons

And Douglas is notorious for deflecting and pushing back when someone else decides that he’s in the wrong. All that potential turmoil means the time between Donald finding out and Douglas “dying” was probably like. Intense. To put it mildly

All this to say: Douglas is still a DICK lmao and the point of this post is NOT to be like “Douglas deserved better” or even “Donald is to blame.” It’s more about how Douglas is a notably emotion-driven character and how it affects his dynamics and actions, both positive and negative

It’s also my favorite kind of angst- where technically, things could have turned out okay, or at least better than they did, if everyone involved hadn’t been such a mess

[randomszzz]

I really wish neo had a dedicated endgame area.  It’s such an effective part of raising the drama of a game’s finale, but neo just had the same streets but DARKER, turn up your screen brightness and squint. 

Mixed feelings on the overworld song choices too, maybe I can give twister a pass but that was someday’s worse incarnation.  I adore calling but we’ve been listening to it for the last several days.  Leaning so much on old songs hurts it from establishing its own identity, couldn’t they throw in divide or compose something new? 

Best I can say is that neo’s approach saved square some bucks.  Given neo’s under performance, I can only hope choosing not to develop dead god’s pad / shinjuku / room of reckoning / wherever for the finale resulted in enough of a modest profit for square to not abandon twewy, but I’m not holding my breath.

(also, OH WHERE IS SHIBA WE HAVE TO FIND SHIBA.  facepalm)  Alright, maybe there’s a way to spin it as fitting that (2/3) final confrontations are in the scramble, and there’s a value in the familiarity.  But I still miss the excitement of exploring a Dramatic End Game Area.

[autumnrory]

cannot relate to people liking things in fic that they wouldn't actually like in canon like most of what i like in fic is to FIX things from canon or sometimes to explore different things between AUs and canon divergence but like. no i don't want to see my favorite character die. no i don't want to see a healthy relationship turned into abuse. do you i guess but like sure i love angst in fic but i want it to work out in the end and i do want the angst to be like. believable and make sense instead of nonsense that doesn't fit with the characters/dynamics

[neverendingford]

.

[sakuravalelp]

A dream land - DP X DC Prompt

Okay, so I was thinking about that episode "Perchance to dream" where Bruce is trapped in a dream world and this, even thought really different, came to my mind.

Danny is king or prince of the infinite realms. He's been working on personalizing/decorating his castle in the infinite realms. When he feels someone walking just outside the castles walls. The thing is, that someone isn't a denizen, they aren't in a corporeal body, but he can feel that they are very much alive and feel distinctly human. He approaches the person to ask why and how they are in the infinite realms, but they fade away before he gets the opportunity.

Clockwork, who was with him at the moment, tells him that the visitor from the living, was just the soul projection of someone that was sleeping, and then refuses to elaborate further. Since it's something that was to do with sleeping, Danny decides to go and ask Nocturn, it seemed like a reasonable assumption that he was the one at fault for the soul projection.

Contrary to what he thought, Nocturn informed Danny that Sleeping soul projection was a natural phenomenon that he didn't control. The land of dreams, ("My domain" - Nocturn reminds him), was in the infinite realm after all, and those who have been close to death sometimes slipped they're whole soul instead of just their mind, and ended up all over the infinite realms.

It isn't too different from a lucid dream for them, the body gets all the benefit of the sleep, the mind feels rested if they had a good time in the realms. Except, if they hurt their soul too bad during their little trip, it would have real consequences. Loosing memories, abilities regression, migraine, pain that reflects the soul damage, all either temporary until the soul healed, or permanent and deteriorating, and in some occasions finishing in the persons death. In the latter, the soul is usually too damaged and cease it's existence, or have enough ectoplasm and emotion to form into ghosts with crack cores whose existence is instantly in danger.

Danny clearly didn't like the image that was painted to him, so he asked Nocturn if there was really nothing that he could do. It took a lot of talking and convincing, but eventually Nocturn admitted he could be able to direct the soul projecting to appear on a certain place, but he refused to babysit anyone. Which was enough for Danny, all he needed to do was make another expansion in his castle.

He decided to make a garden to receive their soul projecting guests. The garden was enormous, with all kinds of spaced within it. Playgrounds, picnic spaces, soft benches, tables with ghost and space teamed board games, fountains, and of course, the beautiful flowers that surrounded and decorated the place. Once he got ghosts with gardening, protection and caring obsessions on the place to look out for the souls, he was ready to receive them. It took him by surprise the amount of people that came, the garden was never crowded, but was never empty either, and souls of all ages and places were visiting at all times.

He kept expanding the garden as he heard of new things their guests wished for. He enjoyed spending time in the middle of the garden where souls passed by but rarely appeared, it was calm, but not completly quite with the background noice of the soul enjoying their dreams, and he could do the more mundane king/prince work. Until, he starts getting a regular visitor on his little space of the garden.

Choose the DC character you prefer, my idea is for people who hasn't died in the past but has been in the doors of death (so died and came back would be disqualified but you do as you prefer), but I'm going with Tim.

The soul of a boy around his age appears just in front of him, as usual when he greets new arriving soul, he welcomes him with a gentle smile and tells him he is free to explore the garden. A ghost taker is assign to him. The soul, as usual, seems confused and like he wished to asks questions, but seems content to ask them to his tour guide, and Danny continues with his own duties.

But then, the same soul continues to appear in the same place every two or three days, they exchange greetings and every time talk for a bit longer before the boy leaves to explore once more. It's rear to have multiple visits from one soul, even more so for said soul to appear in the same place every time. By the four time, Danny decides to take a break on his royal duties and accompany his new friend.

~ They get close, and have cute scenes, Tim asks a lot of questions and Danny answers and not-answers a lot of questions ~

One day, Tim shows up as usual, but he is in full Red Robin costume, and well, Danny wasn't expecting an identity reveal.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

On the Bats side:

There's an attack of some villain that's able to put Red Robin (or character of your choice) on a sleeping beauty type of sleep while carrying a serious injury, were he stays sleep until teammates or backup gets him out of it. The event affects his soul, making him disconnect partially from the land of dreams and making his soul sleep project almost every time he sleeps.

Tim starts sleeping more often. It's worrying at first, Bruce being paranoid does every test in the book, despite Tim saying he's just finding sleep easier now. But, he was just affected by sleeping magic and suddenly his sleeping easier? Seems like a side effect, and that makes it worrying.

Tim's health in general improve, just like he's concentration and productivity. Who would have thought that working rested actually was more productive than working on less than three hours of sleep and missing obvious details and clues due to how tired you are.

With everything not only being okay, but better than before, paranoia about Tim's new sleeping schedule soon dies, and instead is replaced with teasing about how he used to refuse to rest kicking and screaming, and now he may sleep more than any of them.

On Tim's side, he's loving being able to soul project so often. He knew from the start he was in a different dimension, and he just wanted to know the hows, whys, and everything else. So far, he seems to do it at least once every three days, and he's even gone two times in a row a couple of times.

The garden had a lot of things to do, but Tim doesn't care about that, he's more interested in all the information he's getting. The first 3 times he was given different ghost nanny's, who were more focus on entertaining him and didn't really answer direct question. But then king/prince Phantom decided to accompany him personally, and everything went smoother. He was going back to get to know more about this new world, and maybe to know more about the cute prince/king too. He might also have gotten some better looking pajamas.

Now, he has a mission that takes more than a couple days with some people in his team that hasn't yet sen his face. He didn't realize how difficult it would be to do all nighters after getting used to a sleep schedule. He would usually try to go as long as possible without sleeping, but he decides that he should take advantage of the safety of where they're staying and sleep a bit too. He ended up soul projecting in full Red Robin costume. He tried to play it cool, maybe Phantom wouldn't know it was him.

"Red Robin, even if you didn't appear on the same spot as always, I can feel your soul. I know who you are."

[dailyadventureprompts]

So, from a worldbuilding perspective, wizards have schools, right? It's an easy 1:1 to go from the idea of people who gets their magic from study to the cultural touchstone of academia, and that helps us figure out what institutions and cultural norms are like in our setting.

Correspondingly, clerics have temples, place where their connection to the divine was fostered among a community of fatihful who share their devotion if not their magical gifts. If you were in a d&d world and needed someone with cleric skills, you'd head toward a temple.

But what do Sorcerers have? They're usually presented as one off oddballs or magical oddities but if power exists it's a logical consequence of worldbuilding that there's going to be institutions dedicated to preserving and refining that power.

I'm going to argue that Sorcerers have dynasties, an extended family who share the collective potential for inheriting the magical gift of their powerful ancestor(s). Dynasties would likely be closely tied to the reigning power structure, extended privileges and patronage the same way that noble families are in exchange for their marital support. If you were a ruler in a d&d world, having Battlecasters on hand to shore up your powerbase is just as important as having cavalry and footmen, so you want to make sure the people who are capable of passing down their magical gift are having kids so that their heirs can support your heirs.

This puts a sorcerous dynasty in an interesting position depending on how people in your world think that magic is inherited. Is the gift recessive? Do you breed for it or follow your heart? Are you having too few children or too many? How does that factor into material inheritance? What do you do with all the children who don't show signs of being able to do magic? What if the gift skips a generation or two one of THEIR children show signs of sorcery? Can you let them marry into other families knowing you might be giving away some of your power? Could you use that as a political bargaining chip? How do you handle bastards? What's your stance on monogomy? How do you handle fertility issues? Is the magic waning over time or is it just diluted or are none of your heirs just not living up to your potential? Is there some unadvised ritual or alchemy or dark pact you can make to restore greatness to your line or awaken dormant potential? Does intermarriage with other magical practitioners of different disciplines strengthen or weaken the chance of inheritance? Is there a way to bend politics in your favour to ensure you get this infusion of new blood? Is that baseborn adventurer with the sorcerous gifts a threat to your power or a potential spouse for your firstborn?

All these are brilliant adventureseeds that I don't think I've seen explored all that often. There's only a specific type of player and a specific type of adventure that are concerned with court politics/brigerton style affairs of the nobility, but making those nobles into spell-slinging-sorcerers make them FAR more relevant characters for the background of an adventure.

[justsalpals]

Now I don't think that I'm the one to write about this, but all the fics I've seen of Hobie meeting Miles' parents always feel so... light. It's either "Hobie calls Jefferson a pig to his face and Miles gets grounded" or "Hobie is surprisingly respectful and polite and Miles' parents love him"

Even when the former is done, none of the underlying issue is really addressed. It feels just like silly banter and classic "oooh, the parents don't like the new boyfriend" stuff. Guess what? There are reasons people don't like cops.

I can't stop thinking about Hobie who is polite to Miles' parents, but in an obviously stilted and forced way. Hobie who usually slinks all around a room, but lingers extra close to Miles when his dad is around. Who keeps an arm around him in a way that usually reads as affectionate, but between all the side glances he tosses Jeff it's hard not to see as protective. Who makes a point for Miles to know he's always welcome back in Hobie's dimension. Who doesn't say anything too confrontational, not while the cop in question is in a direct position of authority over someone he loves, but has one hand tensed and ready to shoot webs at a moments notice. Because Hobie is unapologetically loud about his beliefs, but knows how to stand back and be more subtle support when the consequences would spread to others (like when he was prodding Miles about the spider society)

And Jefferson wants to be pissed, he does, but more than that he wishes he didn't look at this young man and get it. That he doesn't look at the anger and protectiveness and see the fear underneath. But they'll never actually get along, because Jeff wants to help things from the inside and Hobie believes there are no good cogs in a broken system.

I've just been feeling a kind of way, seeing some cop shit happening at pride. This situation is too racially charged for me to properly in depth explore it myself, but it's something on my mind each time I read Hobie meeting the parents.

[petew21-blog]

I'm the dad now

"Come on Dad, this is gonna hurt both of us. Just stop fighting and let go. You're not gonna win."

The hairy man was alone in the bathroom fighting with himself, screaming in pain, grabbing his neck and trying to comfort himself. He spoke to himself, which may sound schizophrenic, but this wasn't the case. He was being possessed for the first time by his teenage son, Joe, who had big troubles at school for skiping classes. Joe wasn't usually the type to skip school, but there was this bully he wanted to get back at. He found way to possess someone, but it took a lot of practice to do. You couldn't just possess someone asleep, but them being awake was the thing that made it so hard. They fought and the more they fought the harder it became to stay in the body. But after many many hours of possessing multiple students of his for just a few seconds, he finally felt like he could be ready to possess his bully now. If it weren't for the letter from school that came in mail this morning. Joe opened it and saw that they asked his father to come by for a meeting with the principal. "Oh, no. My dad can't see this. I have to do something." An evil and slightly reckless idea followed.

And as you guessed correctly, Joe's idea was to just possess his father and go to the meeting himself. Did he think about the consequences? No. But that didn't matter now, because his father still faught for his body pretty hard. The only lucky thing for Joe was that his father won't remember the process of possession.

"I win dad. I am stronger. You have to sleep now and let it go!"

Few minutes of fight followed and then quiet.

Joe laughed with tears in his eyes. Sweat all ower his body from the fight. "You could have atleast made my possession a bit easier than this, dad."

Now was the perfect time to hurry up, dress dad's body and meet the principal. But Joe's teenage mind went to a different place. His dad can be late. It's about Joe's life. Not him. He only has to show up

Joe P.O.V.

"Damnnnnn dad! You have really been hitting the gym recently, haven't you? Maaan look at me" I didn't expect this to be so hot. I was a bit grossed out possessing my own dad, but now I might actually enjoy this.

"I never noticed, how really handsome you are, daddy." Hairy pecs, beautiful biceps. You're a real man, I'd like to be some day. Well... not someday. Now."

"It's actually not your biceps now, dad. It's all mine. Just look at it. So amazing. The boys at school would be so jealous. No they WILL be jealous. Just wait till I show them who I am now."

"Oh dad. Why the hell have you been hiding all this from me. I would have never thought about possessing that fucker Bill. Why should I even bother now about some dumb school shit. I can be an adult man for fuck's sake. I am the man now. I am my DAD."

"These muscles are so firm and tight. I wonder how many times a week you have been going. Might get used to it now." Wait, am I really thinking what I am thinking? Do I want to stay like this. No, this must be the after efect of possession, not just a desire to be the hairy dad of mine.

"Haha, I'm so heavy now that I'd most certainly beat all the boys in the football club. Well maybe not the quarterback, but everyone else I might. Maybe I should get Trevor to possess him. We could enjoy being two studs together. I would be a bit older, but I'm sure he won't mind. Especially not while we are exploring our new bodies."

"Which brings me to this awful towel." I dropped it on the floor where it belongs

"Wohohooo, much better. Damn dad, the razor stays clean all the time for a reason right? I won't change that don't worry. I'm pretty sure Trevor likes his men hairy. Not like he would know what a man's touch is like or even sex. But tonight he will. I will let him scratch my beard, kiss my biceps, massage my back."

"Oh boy, I have to go take care of this beast now. Don't want to cum in the principals office. Haha, I love being my dad."

[darkcircles4lyfe]

it's a story about hands (reprise)

Yeah, okay, today's the day.

I gave my blog that title for a reason, you know, and it has loomed over me for years because the hand motif is absolutely everywhere and you could go on about it forever.

Maybe that's something I'll never actually attempt to do, but this chapter, we reached a breaking point.

Before I continue, I need to give a big, big disclaimer: I do not have a physical disability, so I'm not able to speak about that from the standpoint of representation as a first-hand perspective. I have at least listened to enough disabled people to know that fictional characters who become amputees only to miraculously gain their limbs back is, um, a trope. Disabled people in general being "healed" is a conception we would really prefer to avoid here. Not to call people out, but I don't think we're giving enough space to acknowledge that.

I don’t feel comfortable making the judgement call about what should happen. I’m leaving that open. I also don't want to downplay people's emotional reactions. Honestly, I don't know if I can accurately define the line between acknowledging real pain vs. ableist pity. But I’d like to talk about the possibilities of what could happen. Other characters have definitely gotten permanent disabilities as a result of their hero work, or even just the side effects of their quirk. But, for better or worse, I don't think this case is really about representation. Not that Horikoshi won't do that justice. He might. What I'm saying is that's not his purpose for having Izuku lose his arms. It's meant to be symbolic, so we can explore what it means. The other thing I’m keeping in mind here is that Horikoshi is notorious for playing with our expectations, like, alllllll the time. I mean, just take a few chapters ago for a classic example. Eri appeared at the end, and we all assumed she was about to take some sort of action to save someone with her quirk. Then, immediately following, we were given an explanation for why that wouldn’t be happening. And now it’s clear he wanted to do that “fake out” not just as a silly cliffhanger prank, but specifically so we would know not to suspect that Eri could be the miraculous solution to Izuku’s loss of his arms. Rest assured, there is no easy way out of this.

The expectation at play in this particular instance is an old one. It’s very understated, but its subtext has burned so brightly, you’d be a fool not to notice it. It sits with anticipation like one half of a call and response. Man, I was so certain. Lots of people still are. I was really looking forward to printing the panel where it happened onto a t shirt and wearing it proudly. All the hand motifs in this story radiate thematically from a single moment, the one that started it all for Izuku.

It raises all kinds of questions about the act of saving, who needs saving, why, what does it mean, what are the dynamics of power, politics, honesty, exploitation, compassion, pity, disdain, sacrifice. Katsuki has dealt with many of these since he first rejected Izuku’s hand. While Izuku was the one who was convinced Katsuki would keep on rejecting him…

…Katsuki was the one who kept that moment in his mind all these years and eventually came to regret it.

Katsuki is the one yearning for that hand-hold, the one who has imbued it with so much more weight than it ever originally had. Izuku, in contrast, does not allow himself to dwell on what he wants. To illustrate this difference, we need to look at another piece of foreshadowing:

Ugh, do y'all remember when lots of folks were complaining about how there never seemed to be actual consequences for Izuku's destructive treatment of his own body? I don't blame them, I was concerned and confused about it too. There were several "fixes" along the way. Recovery Girl healed him, but left a physical reminder. Then he started training to fight with his legs… sometimes. Then he got support items. All of these were unsatisfying non-conclusions because they didn't present Izuku with a lasting enough impression to change in a meaningful way. They didn't address his core, his origin.

Of course, that all changed this chapter. Now it looks like our frustration was inflicted intentionally. With the current context in mind, all of these moments look more sinister, like this day was always gonna come because they kept putting bandaids on a deep emotional and psychological wound. The problem is pretty much spelled out for us here:

As Katsuki put it, he just doesn’t take himself into account, ya know? He doesn’t care what happens to him. And he lies about it, to keep others from worrying, to keep them safe. To keep them from returning the favor and putting themselves in harm’s way for his sake. His motivations are noble,

…but what about the little boy inside Izuku? Who saves him?

This is all about Izuku giving himself up to the point that he literally has no more to give. The thing is, I bet he saw this coming. He knew his limits and decided to keep going anyway, because his personal safety and wellbeing are not important. Now that way of thinking has come back to bite him because the fight isn’t over yet, and he’s already made his sacrifice. So now we know who will be more distraught over this. Not Izuku—Katsuki.

It’s not about Izuku becoming disabled, it’s about how Katsuki wanted to use the intertwining of their fingers to communicate that he would never let go. Never stop valuing him most. Never let himself make the mistake of rejecting him again. Never let Izuku be so reckless with his life. To say: “we are in this together.”…if only Katsuki believed he deserved to be able to say such things. To reach out his hand would have been the ultimate way to simply imply them and let Izuku be the one to decide. Then, to feel their hands clasped together would be more than either of them dared hope for, but so beautiful, so right. A moment they’ve waited their whole lives for.

Yeah. That’s what we were expecting. We’ve been so comfortable. Horikoshi gave us all the signs. He tempted and teased us over and over. BUT. You know he does this thing were he gives us a desirable, completely plausible and simple thing to look forward to, and then he snatches it away. And THEN he replaces it with something much better, something we were not expecting at all because it seemed too good to be true. That’s exactly what happened when Himiko snatched Izuku away, and we were robbed of the chance to see him and Katsuki fight together. In hindsight, though, I’m glad things went a different way because now there’s so much more depth and angst on display. Likewise, in the present moment, we may consider how, as one door closes, another opens.

As wonderfully meaningful as the hand-hold would have been, perhaps it is still too simple a resolution for Izuku, for his and Katsuki’s relationship. Tbh, it could have been done like 100 chapter ago. At this point, there’s so much more potential. There are a couple of ways it could go. If Izuku stays armless, Katsuki will be forced to use other methods to get his point across. He’ll have to do something else, or say what he means, or both. Yes, I’m talking about what you think I’m talking about. If I say it, I just might jinx it (lol), but I mean it. I’m being serious. Either way, if Izuku did get his arms back in the end, I’m sure that it wouldn’t be an easy fix. It would be hard-won against Izuku’s self-destructive mindset, and/or by Katsuki’s conviction. Again, I say this knowing it is not meant so much as a representation of disability, but as a representation of Izuku’s greatest character flaw taken to the extreme. I know this might sound harsh, like, hasn’t he been through enough? I get that, but… I’ve said it before and I say it again: Izuku is stubborn as hell.

I wish I had a resounding final note to end this on, but I kinda don’t. I’m not sure what’s best. Now we just have to wait and see what Horikoshi has in mind.

[thetxtdevil]

I constantly think about the members always saying how scary kai is when he is angry. So imagine reader being sooo clingy with one of the members , without any bad intentions, but Kai cant just help it: the anger and jealousy running through his veins. Poor reader, she will face the consequences on the bedroom later at night! >_<

--nsfw--

A room full of laughter, the boys and you were hanging out in the dorms. You were always finding yourself getting into banters with Beomgyu, it was a nice break for Yeonjun. As you were teasing Gyu more and more you playfully fight the poor boy. Beomgyu laughs playing along until Taehyun hits his leg for his attention. Gyu looks over with confusion seeing Tae pointing at the very angry man sitting across the room.

Kai had his death stare, burning holes into Beomgyu. He slowly calms you down finalizing the fight between you two. Eventually things grow silent, the boys were extra careful around you for the rest of the day. You didn’t understand why because what the men saw was hidden from you. You turn to give Kai attention, his clenched jaw and hooded eyes turn into a softer appearance for you.

Later that night you two were headed to bed. Still oblivious to Kai's anger you were surprised when he pushes you into the bed. You giggle at his manhandling, trying to crawl back to him pulling at his shirt only for him to do it again.

Your smile fades when you glance at Kai’s stern face, “I don’t like you touching Beomgyu like that”

“Like what?”

“Don’t be dumb y/n.”

You look away from the man trying to think of what you might’ve done wrong. The a strong grip on your jaw makes you look back at him. This was different, your sweet angel of a boyfriend was being harsh. Kai's anger was making you blush, crossing your legs rubbing the wetness that grew, this does not go unnoticed by the man.

"Oh so you like when I'm mad, you like to tease me don't you?"

Your hands lift to the man's belly going underneath fabric of his shirt to touch his soft abs. Although Kai secretly loves the feeling he wanted to stay mad. With his big hands, his grasp on your wrists are quick. Pulling your arms above your head, your once again laying down but there was no escaping this time. Kai looks around for some type of restraint then spotting an innocent penguin plushie with a pink ribbon tied on it. Kai smirks reaching over to unravel the ribbon, "What are you doing?" you ask squirming.

"Well, since you seem to be too touchy I'm going to restrain you"

The pink ribbon was uncomfortably tied, making you squirm even more underneath Kai's harsh kisses. You loved exploring his body with your hands seeing the man blush but it seems that the tables have turned. You've never seen your soft boyfriend loom over you so menacingly, the way it made you feel small and like you're drowning in the sheets of the bed. You watch him crawl down your body, dark eyes paired with a smirk as he flips your skirt up licking a strip on your soaked panties.

This is going to be a long night...

A nuisance,

TxT's Devil

taglist: @inkigayocamman, @naoristerling, @incogrio

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Is shattering permanent in the comic (especially with the force fusions and cluster) or can it be fixed down the line like future did? Asking for your opinion on this too bc I found out about it in Future and it makes me feel weird (bc now it feels like any SU stuff and shattering has no consequence or tension, so haven’t been able to read or write stories). Maybe I’m seeing this wrong? Would love your thoughts

Hmm...

So to answer your first question: The comic for WDAU works on the same rules as canon does. I have no intention to over-write anything canon clearly stated to be true.

The ability to put back together shattered gems is definitely a part of that.

So yes, theoretically, even in WDAU, gems being shattered is not 'the end' because they can be eventually re-instated through the work of the diamonds, IF they someday decide to Change Their Minds like they did in the original series.

That being said...

I want to talk a little bit about something you said, because it tickles my brain in an interesting way:

"now it feels like any SU stuff and shattering has no consequence or tension"

And the best way to talk about stuff, I've found, is to ask questions about our underlying assumptions. So my questions for you (all) today are:

For us humans, death certainly IS a constant that remains ever-permanent, and thus it's easy to compare it to shattering and draw that parallel... but is that a fair comparison?

In fiction, death is often circumvented and there still remains reasonable tension in things like magic-heavy worlds, vampire novels, sci-fi where almost any sickness is eradicated, etc. Is this not quite similar to what shattering is for gems?

Is the perceived permanency of shattering the only reason it feels like a heavy consequence?

Are there OTHER consequences of being shattered that make it just as interesting, if not more than, to be explored as a plot device?

Must there be an ever-looming threat of something horrible and permanent happening to make a story good?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to these questions, necessarily. I'm not posing these in order to lead you to a singular, 'absolutely correct' conclusion or way of writing.

For some stories, death DOES need to be permanent in order not to make light of what the characters go through! In some forms of writing, there IS no other way around that consequence.

But I daresay SU is not one of those stories.

Let me put it this way - 100 years ago, medicine had only BEGUN to develop into the thing we know it as today. Sure, there were therapies and treatments for diseases, broken limbs, poisonings, etc. Some of them were quite good, even! But overall, the death tolls back then from basic illness were MUCH higher than they were today.

Pnumonia, Malaria, Syphillis, Smallpox, Bubonic Plague, AIDS.

These were things that people died from, with near CERTAINTY, for the LONGEST time. They were considered the road to a permanent black screen.

And today? Even though they are still, without proper intervention, JUST as deadly, we now have new tools and vaccines to combat them. Hell, if you get vaccinated fast enough you can get bit by a rabid dog and live to tell the tale, unscathed! Rabies used to be a one-stop-shop to the afterlife.

Despite this, we still view these diseases with appropriate fear. They are still dangerous - in the right conditions.

In the right conditions, the consequences for a LOT of things can be permanent. If permanency is what you're looking for.

So alright, the Diamonds can heal shattered gems now. Booooring. How easy it is to fix any shattered gem! What a simple solution to anything tragic.

But................... will they ALWAYS do so?

In fact...will the Diamonds ALWAYS be around?

Will the gems who got shattered always be picked up, piece by piece, and be brought back to them, perfectly preserved? Or will they lose pieces of themselves along the way - literally?

And what NEW consequences can we think of, when we stop thinking of the permanency of death, and start thinking of the Impermanence of those tools that keep us here longer and longer?

Just food for thought. 👀