#Haters (my parents) be like:

[cenvast]

"Toshiro Is Sexist," "Toshiro Owns Slaves": What's Really Going on With This Guy?

I've seen a lot of debate on whether or not Toshiro is problematic because he's a slave owner or because he's sexist in the context of his crush on Falin. While I do want to examine his relationship to Falin, I'd like to take a few steps back and unpack his upbringing first. We'll dive into the gender and class dynamics he was raised with and how it impacts his behavior in the main storyline.

Like all people, Toshiro is shaped by the environment he grew up in. Toshitsugu, Toshiro's father and the head of the Nakamoto clan, is the most impactful model of authority and manhood in his life. Toshiro does recognize some of his father's flaws and tries to avoid replicating them. But whether or not he emulates or subverts his father's behavior, Toshitsugu is often the starting point for Toshiro's treatment of others, particularly marginalized people.

The Nakamoto clan exists under a patriarchal hierarchy with Toshitsugu at the top. As noted by @fumifooms in their Nakamoto household post, his wife has more authority than Maizuru. She's able to ban Maizuru from parts of their residence, but despite disliking his infidelity, she can't divorce him or stop him from cheating on her. Their marriage is not an equal partnership.

On an interpersonal level, Toshitsugu and Maizuru also have a fraught relationship. While she does seem to care for him, she's often frustrated by his thoughtless behavior.

For example, he drunkenly buys Izutsumi for her — without considering how she'll have to raise this child — and invades her room in the middle of the night. When he cryptically says, "It's all my fault," she replies, "I can think of a lot of things that are your fault." She calls him an "idiot" and "believes that [Toshiro] will grow up to be a better clan leader than his father," implying that she takes issue with Toshitsugu's leadership.

Because Maizuru and Toshitsugu are described as being "in an intimate relationship" and "seem[ing] to be lovers," Maizuru appears to be a consensual participant. Still, this doesn't negate the large power imbalance between them as a male noble clan leader and his female retainer. This imbalance introduces an insidious undertone to Maizuru's frustration with Toshitsugu. Like Toshiro's mother, Maizuru doesn't have the agency to do as she pleases in their relationship; he has the ultimate authority. For instance, she doesn't seem to want to raise Izutsumi, but she has to anyway.

While Maizuru's role as Toshitsugu's mistress is significant, she's also the Nakamoto clan's teacher and Toshiro's primary maternal figure. She cares deeply for Toshiro: tailing him, feeding him, and taking responsibility even for his actions as an adult. While it might seem sweet that she cares for him like a son at first, Maizuru was notably fifteen years old at the time of his birth. In the extra comic below, he's six years old and has already been in her care for some time. Even if we're being generous and assuming that she didn't start raising him until he was six, she was still only twenty-one at the time she was parenting her boss/lover's child with another woman.

Maizuru's roles as mistress and maternal figure, in addition to her role as retainer, demonstrate the intersection between gendered and class oppression in the Nakamoto household. Despite her original role being a retainer trained in espionage, Toshitsugu presses her into performing gendered labor for him and eventually, Toshiro. She's expected to be Toshitsugu's lover, perform emotional labor for him as his confidant, care for his child, and carry out domestic tasks like cooking. She says, "Even during missions, I was often dragged into the kitchen." If she was a male servant, I doubt she would have been expected to perform these additional tasks. She can't avoid these tasks either, stating that her "own feelings don't factor into it."

Toshitsugu disregards his wife's and Maizuru's desires and emotions to serve his own interests. Because he has societal power over them as a nobleman and in Maizuru's case, her master, neither woman can escape their position in the household hierarchy.

As a result, Toshiro grew up within a structure where men and male nobility, in particular, wield the most societal power. The hierarchical nature of his household and society discourages everyone, including him as a clan leader's eldest son, from questioning and disrupting the existing hierarchy.

The other Nakamoto household members also internalize its sexist, classist power dynamics.

For example, Hien expects that she and Toshiro will replicate the uneven dynamics of the previous generation, regardless of her personal feelings. She sees her and Toshiro's relationship as paralleling Maizuru and Toshitsugu's relationship; she is the closest woman to Toshiro and his retainer, so she's shocked when Toshiro doesn't attempt to begin an intimate relationship with her. Notably, she doesn't have actual feelings for him. Her expectations are centered around the household's precedent of placing emotional, sexual, domestic, and child-rearing labor onto the female servants without any regard for their personal desires.

Hien also probably knows that her position in the household will improve if she is Toshiro's lover because she's seen it improve Maizuru's position. However, the fact that being the future clan leader's lover is the closest proximity she, as a female servant, has to power further reveals the gendered, class-based oppression she and the other women live under.

It's important to note that the Nakamoto clan bought Benichidori, Izutsumi, and Inutade as slaves, so they have less power and agency than Maizuru and Hien. The clan further dehumanizes Izutsumi and Inutade as demi-humans; their enslavement contains an additional layer of racialization.

Toshiro isn't oblivious to the gendered, class, and racial power dynamics of his household. He tries to distance himself from participating in its exploitative power structure. He walls himself off from Hien, who he's known since childhood, to avoid replicating his father's behavior and making his servant into his lover. He disapproves of his father's enslavement of Izutsumi and Inutade, and he lets Izutsumi go when she runs away in the Dungeon.

But does any of this absolve him of his complicity in his household's sexist, classist power dynamics and racialized slavery?

The short answer is absolutely not.

Despite his distaste for his father's exploitation of his servants and slaves, Toshiro still uses them. He refers to his party as "his retainers," and he has them fight and perform domestic tasks for him. You could argue that Toshiro doesn't like to and thus, doesn't regularly use his servants and slaves. In the context of him asking his retainers to help him rescue Falin, Maizuru says, "The only time he ever made any sort of personal request was for this task." But it shouldn't matter whether exploitation is a regular occurrence or not for it to be considered harmful. Toshiro asking Maizuru to cook him a meal still constitutes asking his female servant to perform gendered labor for him. He's also very accustomed to her grooming and dressing him.

Maizuru sees feeding, washing, and even advising Toshiro romantically as fulfilling Toshitsugu's orders to care for his son. They aren't fulfilling a "personal request." But just because her labor has been deemed expected and thereby devalued doesn't mean that it isn't labor or that she isn't performing it.

Maizuru's dynamic with Toshiro is also complicated by her role as his maternal figure. She loves him and wants to take care of him, and she doesn't have a choice in the matter. During Toshiro's childhood, the onus was on Toshitsugu to cease exploiting his lover and release her from servitude, but Toshiro is now an adult man. Seeing as how Maizuru defers to his wishes and calls him "Young Master," they still have a power imbalance that he's passively maintaining. Ideally, he would not ask anything of her until he has the authority to release her from servitude.

Throughout the story, Toshiro acts as if he has no agency and quietly disapproving of his father's actions absolves him of his participation in maintaining oppressive dynamics. While his father still ranks higher than him, he's essentially his father's heir. He has much more power than Maizuru, the highest-ranked servant. At the very least, he could leave his slave-owning household.

Unfortunately, his refusal to confront injustice is consistent with his character's major flaw: he does not express his opinions, desires, or needs. While this character trait obviously hurts his friendships, it also furthers his complicity in the injustices his household runs on.

Toshiro's relationship with eating food — the prevailing metaphor of the series — also parallels his relationship with confronting injustice. Maizuru mentions that he was a sickly child, so the act of eating may have been physically uncomfortable for him. As an adult, his refusal to eat crops up during his rescue attempt of Falin. Denying himself food might have been punishment for not accomplishing important tasks like rescuing Falin and/or a way to maintain control over something in his life when he felt like he'd lost control over the rest of it, again in the context of losing Falin. (Note: I suggest reading this post on Toshiro's disordered eating by @malaierba.)

But he cannot and does not avoid consuming food forever.

Similarly, Toshiro keeps his distance from his retainers and tries not to use them until the Falin situation occurs. His efforts to avoid exploiting his retainers amount to inaction — things he doesn't ask of them or do to them. But his inaction does nothing to dismantle the existing hierarchy that places his retainers under his authority, denies them agency, and often marginalizes them as not only servants or slaves but as women, and he ends up using them as servants and slaves anyways.

Returning to the narrative's themes of consumption, Toshiro cannot avoid eating just as he cannot avoid perpetuating the exploitative system of his household. The Nakamoto clan consumes the labor and personhood of those lower in the hierarchy. The retainers' labor as spies and domestic servants is the foundation of the clan's existence. Thus, the clan consumes their labor to sustain itself.

Within this hierarchy, the retainers' personhood is also consumed and erased. As Izutsumi describes, they are given different names and stripped of their agency to reject orders or leave. Maizuru and Hien also say their feelings are irrelevant in the context of Toshitsugu's and Toshiro's wants and needs. Both women are expected to comply with whatever is most beneficial and comfortable for the noblemen. Clearly, despite Toshiro's detachment from his household's functions, these social structures remain in place and harm the women under him.

Although we know the Nakamoto clan has male retainers, the choice to highlight the female retainers seems intentional. We're asked to interrogate how not only being a servant or a slave in a noble household impacts a person's life and agency, but how being a woman intersects with being a member of some of the lowest social classes.

Toshiro only distances himself from his father's behaviors of infidelity and exploitation so long as it doesn't take Toshiro out of his comfort zone. He doesn't free his slaves. He's far too comfortable with his female retainers performing domestic labor for him, and he barely acknowledges their efforts; they're shocked when he thanks them for helping him save Falin. He hasn't unpacked his sexist (or classist or racist) biases because he perpetuates his household's oppressive hierarchy throughout the narrative. Considering all of this, he inevitably brings this baggage to his interactions with Falin.

Falin is presumably one of the first women he's had extended contact with that isn't his relative or his family's servant. Because of his trauma surrounding his father and Maizuru sleeping together, he understandably falls for a woman as disconnected as possible from his father and his clan. He seems to genuinely like Falin, respects her boundaries, and graciously accepts her rejection. His behavior towards her is overall kind and unproblematic.

But if Falin had gone with him, she would've likely been devalued and sidelined like the other women of the Nakamoto household. No matter how much he loves Falin, simply loving her cannot replace the difficult work of unlearning his sexism. Love, of course, can and should be accompanied by that work, but by the close of the narrative, we gain little indication that Toshiro acknowledges or seeks to end his part in exploiting and devaluing women and other marginalized people.

A spark of hope does exist. Toshiro expressing his feelings to Laios and Falin suggests that his time away from home has encouraged him to speak up more. Breaking his habit of avoidance may be the first step towards acknowledging his complicity in systems of injustice and moving towards dismantling them.

Special thanks to my very smart friend @atialeague for bringing up Toshitsugu's relationship with Maizuru and the replication of dynamics of consumption and class! <3

[aroaceleovaldez]

my hot pjo take is that Jason isn't a second Percy, Jason is a second Annabeth. Jason is just if Annabeth was a guy and also a Big 3 kid.

[aprito]

what a coincidence anon, me too!!

[sunnibits]

“the kids chose protective mom izzy in the divorce” is literally my new favorite joke to come out of s2 so far I’m utterly obsessed

[thelaurenshippen]

the onion bought infowars. I repeat, the onion bought infowars

[1000sunnygo]

IMO a lesser mentioned reason behind Luffy's overwhelming success as a protagonist is Oda's extreme overprotectiveness. Like he'd rather jump off a cliff than let Luffy be controversial.

Marineford is an easy example. An arc heavily featuring Luffy's low point, but Oda didn't make him responsible for Ace's death. In 1000+ chapters of screentime, I can't think of an instance where Luffy did something irredeemable in fandom eyes. Only controversial scene that comes to mind is picking a fight against Zoro in Whiskey peak? Maybe Oda had the luxury to let his guard down back then bc online discussions weren't a thing PFFT

It's not like Luffy doesn't make mistakes, but Oda makes sure Luffy is immediately called out by someone in the story so he stays grounded and can apologize if he has to.

And that's not all, Oda is vocally supportive of Luffy in the polls, he can't not include Luffy in magazine covers even when the editors press him to, he made the timskip 2years bc he wanted Luffy to stay a child during story's runtime, he doesn't let a single character outshine Luffy in an arc, he cushioned Luffy's past with TWO brothers and kept one alive after taking away one of them.. he's spoiling Luffy rotten and I love to see it bc that's the right kind of spoiling, that's what keeps Luffy the happy boy he needs to be, shonen authors should take some notes methinks

[ask-the-colony-tree-siblings]

Hey, Hunter!

Aside from the chronic back pain, what other long lasting symptoms did you have from the Rot, if any?

((Okay! So my attempt to answer this somehow developed into a rant about Hunter’s characterization so… here you go lol.))

So I have to answer this on Hunter’s behalf, because part of his character is that he doesn’t like to admit any sort of weakness. Apart from chronic pain, I essentially just gave him the symptoms of low iron. He gets light headed and dizzy, and he is often tired or low energy. 

Hunter has this mindset that being weak, or showing weakness makes you useless. (I wonder what could have possibly made him develop that way of thinking. Surely nothing to do with the way he was raised and treated growing up.) Keep in mind, Hunter’s very logical logic only applies to him. He wouldn’t judge Survivor for not being strong, Hunter just has unhealthy expectations of himself that definitely aren’t realistic anymore with his post-rot symptoms, and were never actually that realistic to begin with.

He has a habit of ignoring his own symptoms, and pretending to be perfectly fine when he isn’t. He’d never admit it if his chronic pain is making it difficult for him to function properly. 

(His physical health is one thing, but don’t even get me started on how Hunter views his mental health lmao.)

Uhhh anyways bonus light headed/dizzy Hunter:

[burning-sol]

I think if I had been a fan of Steven Universe over the course of the series and up to the end of Future, I can see a possibility where I would have had MAD beef with the fandom. By now it seems like opinion has swung around to be more nuanced, so that's relieving, but I can only imagine how much Pink Diamond/Rose Quartz slander would have sent me.

The thing that would have pissed me off the most is that obviously Pink Diamond and Steven likely had similar outbursts of their powers due to trauma, so it would be weird to extend understanding towards Steven but be highly critical of Pink - especially since Steven had far more support in his life than Pink ever did. Pink was abused emotionally, she was punished with solitary confinement, I wouldn't be surprised if she had been abused physically and had the gems around her threatened if she misbehaved.. She was bestowed power by circumstance, she didn't CHOOSE her life anymore than Steven did: it's only by chance that they're victims of trauma who just so happen to have such potentially destructive powers.

There's also something to be put into perspective that like... Pink was the first one to break the cycle of abuse, you know? Pink didn't have a maternal figure there to tell her to be herself or to show unconditional love or to be there to comfort her as she went through hardships, she was alone. First there was Pink, the Crystal Gems came after and they had her, and then STEVEN came after and he had the Crystal Gems.. Who was there for Pink? Expecting her to have been without flaw is an unrealistic expectation considering she didn't have ANY healthy frame of reference.. Pink was one of a kind.

And like, I could continue to rant about a bunch of other things but it really DOES just boil down to the fact that Pink was a victim and it's unfair to withhold understanding from her expecting that JUST because she's a Diamond then she SHOULD know better. Like, that's just not how things WORK.. And you know, if you had asked me as a child (or even still now tbh) to turn against my abusive parents and to go against everything I knew about the world to start a revolution and then fight a war and by the end become someone who was loving and kind to the point nobody could have imagined a version of you that was so flawed?? There are very few people that could have done that. Pink was really brave and she was strong and she tried her BEST goddammit.

Not to say that she should completely lack accountability because.. Obviously not. BUT, again, expecting her to have been pristine and lacking ugliness as a victim of trauma is such an unrealistic expectation.

Also, side note, strange for people to think she intended Steven to go through absolutely everything he did when the entire point is she had Steven because she wanted a baby? Sometimes people have children even when it's against their better judgement and they know giving birth could potentially kill them: people will want children just because.. Like of course it wasn't logical, people don't have babies for logical reasons literally the majority of the time, that's the POINT and that's what Steven has to comes to grips with. "Why did Rose want a baby?" The same reason most parents want a baby even though it may have horrible consequences for the child... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ They just wanted to.

Anyways, sorry, that's my tangent.

[pinkfey]

this is already annoying me uh oh

[riordanverse-madness]

That last flashback with Sally and Poseidon got me so pissed off. Like, sir, Sally doesn't need a pep-talk or a "one day" speech she needs you to be present you deadbeat sack of shi-

[raventrigonsdaughter]

begging they make maximus and dane a thing and give lucy a girlfriend who is also a new protagonist and NOT WHITE (because the show is lacking on both departments) next season and i can't take anymore straight bullshit into this fandom, i miss when fallout was GAY or really just not as painfully straight as it became in this hellsite after the show

[padfootastic]

v random rant ab next gen fics under the cut bc i wanted to get this out but also it’s just. very ridiculous and don’t want to subject unsuspecting people to it lol

i’m reading next gen fic and realising what it is that bothers me so much ab most of it. and just, many fics in general.

it’s the sheer thoughtlessness in the characterisation. i’m reading this potter kids at hogwarts thing and james is a horrific bully who turns on al as soon as he goes into slytherin. the rest of the weasley family is no better. rose is like hermione in first year but infinitely worse, with fanon!ron’s hatred of anything green and silver. all the kids are just. weird.

and it doesn’t make any sense???? like, on one hand you write harry and ginny as good, loving parents. if you take into account all the other adults, as well as the effects of the war and the collective history and experiences they all have, it stands to obvious reason that the kids would be raised differently. would have certain quirks. but won’t necessarily be the same archetypes ykno?

like, idk. it just falls into lazy characterisation for me, and that’s not a bad thing. it’s just so. annoying. bc these are literal blank slates and u can make things SO fun but just. don’t.

a lot of marauder era characterisation goes this way too. but i think i get so annoyed by the next gen stuff is bc i genuinely love all those little shits sm for characters who are essentially nonexistent. it is once again the same issue of me having extremely niche headcanons and getting pissy when everyone else doesn’t think so lol

[clementine-kesh]

i’m so glad that having a parent in showbiz has made me immune to parasocial relationships with actors. if anything it’s given me a slight disdain for actors as a group

[self-spaghettification]

the parallels between ruthari and rayllum are killing me 😭

wdym you had to accept that hes leaving you for duty in order to love him fully🤨

+ the growth from this😭

[mamawasatesttube]

you guys i have so many thoughts about tdr. i have so much to say. like i don't want to be super mean but dude that comic fucking sucks and i can't lie i think it made me kind of homophobic actually

[donationwayne]

Feelin Good (Could be Better) Chapter Four

Hello, just realized I never posted this over here. I posted chapter four of ten of my first ever chapter fic!! (completely written just posting as my irls beta it)

You can read the first, second, and third, and fourth chapter of my fic over on AO3 right here

This chapter, Buck has dinner with Chimney, Maddie, and his parents. (He gets a little drunk)

Summary

The Buckley parents come to town, turning Buck's already shaky mental status from precarious to worse. Despite avoiding a dreaded dinner at all costs, Buck consents to join Maddie, Chimney, and his parents for dinner. Buck is super fine thanks for asking, he'll just bake about it. And think about kissing Eddie, obviously. Secrets are revealed, leaving the 118 reeling.

snippet

“It's just that you were quiet on shift the rest of the day after Maddie stopped by, and you haven’t shown your face in the work group chat since. I’ve known you long enough to know when you’re spinning out a bit.” Buck laughs a little numbly. He occasionally forgot how perceptive Chimney could be. He was good at burying it under his goofball exterior. “What I’m trying to say is that if you need me to cover for you tonight, I can.” “I’ll be fine, Chim. It's just been… a really long time since I’ve seen my parents.” “You’ve never talked about them much,” Chimney considers. “When was the last time you saw them?” “When I dropped out of college, so maybe… when I was 19? We’ve had no contact since.” “Does Maddie know?” Chimney asks in concern. “Of course not. You know how she is… I just don’t want to worry her. She’s got enough to worry about. I don't want to be a burden. I’ll be fine tonight, Chim. Cross my heart.” Buck lies. “I can admit I’m being a little stubborn. I just need to get through dinner. It’ll be fine. Besides, it’ll be better for you if there’s a buffer.” Chimney procures a small bottle of rum from his jacket, offering it to Buck. “I figured this might work as a little liquid courage.” He grins when he spots the look of disbelief. “Listen, if I understand anything, it's complicated family dynamics.”