#I say as if I didn't say that every week

[snarkspawn]

this is the way

[cozylittleartblog]

400% sure he would love steven universe

[doedipus]

Guilty gear fandom misogyny is so incredibly frustrating

Like you can pick any boy out of the roster and the entire fanbase is probably falling over themselves to hype them up; people pop off for their associated players' gameplay, they construct elaborate fan media that brings out the intricacies of the characters and shows off their best points, and won't take no for an answer if someone claims to not find them maddeningly attractive

But then with the girls, at best nobody cares about them besides the dedicated superfans, and at worst literally every other player only speaks the character's name to complain. They'll get nothing but vapid pinup fanart with no regard for character, if they're even on the radar at all. Whenever one of the female characters gets a buff or a player makes a good tournament run, everyone stops what they're doing to complain for a month, until they go back to largely ignoring them again. And then whenever a patch brings a new boy people convince themselves is cool, or gives an existing one significant buffs, half the players on a female character drop her to switch. It's like clockwork.

Also for some reason every male character has people headcanoning them as trans in both directions, regardless of anything about their actual characterization, but none of the not-canonically-transfem girls really get that kind of fan attention, which is disappointing. Except that one artist who thinks elphelt should be transmasc.

I think the only guilty gear girl to escape this is Bridget, by dint of being a little sweetie pie. But she's still like a purely auxiliary character to the canon, so there's not a ton to talk about besides decade old discourse, and she's underdeveloped at a top level, with the only notable reps being players who use her to try and scam opponents out of a few games before switching to their real mains once they drop one themselves. Like despite her popularity among casual fans there's still no daru for Bridget

And honorable mention to season 2 baiken, who attracted a lot of upper level players who were unsatisfied with their mains at the time, who then nearly unanimously dropped her for John or sin in S3 when it became apparent that it wasn't as easy to win with her as they initially thought

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Both my parents actually suffer from HORRID emotional dysregulation and are prone to snapping and going into rages. My sister is the same way tbh. I am now realizing this is why they are constantly baffled by the question of whether or not I am mad at them.

I don't have external meltdowns.

I could. I don't let it happen.

I keep my rage on the inside and stay pretty quiet about it. It's just as strong as theirs [physically shaking nose bleed from high blood pressure kind of bad], but like as a kid I saw how terrifying it was to be around [dad breaking dishes, mom putting our lawn chairs into walls] and I just internalized that I wasn't going to wear that anger on the outside.

So my mother genuinely cannot tell if I am just being quiet or if I am silently hearing the dial-up noises of pure rage. This has lead her to both making strong and confident statements like "You are a pacifist who would never hurt a fly U.U" but also acting like I am secretly dangerous maybe... It's because she has never seen me snap.

She knows what her temper is like [throwing chairs through walls], she knows what my father's temper is like [pick up child and toss out door], and she can tell I am being tested, but she doesn't know what happens when I snap or where that breaking point is.

Her -perhaps unhinged- solution to this, my whole life, has been to do things that should obviously enrage me or shut me down completely, like ignoring important boundaries, repeatedly, punishing me for expressing emotions or needs at all, etc... And then to constantly ask me if I am angry with her when I get too quiet [right after near directly telling me to shut up].

It has occurred to me now, they have never once seen me lose my temper, so they literally just can't tell if I am angry at them. My sister is easy, my mother fights and screams with my sister constantly, my mother understands this. My mother doesn't have any grasp of feelings or boundaries that are not screamed at her [apparently, and I fear my sister is the same way]. Her and my sister are close despite constant fucking fighting because they understand each other.

They are trying to get me to engage the same way and it is not working. I realize now that this has been hard for them.

I was so successfully taught to suppress my emotions, by being punished for any outburst, that rage quiet looks the same as any other kind of quiet from the outside. To them anyway.

I did tell her. For the record. I used my words. I did tell her very calmly that my response to rage, in order to avoid doing the things that terrified me as a child, was to simply leave [the autistic urge to GTFO]. When a situation or person causes too much of the dial-up rage noise, I simply extract myself from that situation, up to and including never speaking to a person again. I explained this calmly. I explained it calmly 100 times and I explained that I explain myself calmly as my rage response 1-5 [also pretty much every other negative emotion tbh], and I told her that what came next was me simply opting out and fucking off. I told her this. I couldn't understand why she never took me seriously, or why she never fucking understood.

I couldn't understand what made her like this.

But it's the same problem I have with everyone else multiplied by a factor of 10.

If I am explaining myself calmly, they can't understand that it's actually serious or that I am actually upset. ESPECIALLY because they read me as "female" and women "aren't that rational" so if I am not screaming and crying about something, which I never do, people assume I can't be upset and it isn't serious.

And then after having my boundaries ignored too many times despite having calmly explained how and why it's a problem [shaking inside or not]... I leave. I leave and everyone gets upset like this is unexpected behaviour, even though I told them 50 times that is how I would respond if they kept doing *the thing.*

And for neurotypical people especially, they are expecting there to be a disconnect between what someone says they need or feel and what their actually boundaries and feelings are, and they expect the latter to be demonstrated with emotions. Telling them bluntly you do not function that way somehow never helps?

My mother isn't just looking for normal yelling or a few tears to know I am serious, whether or not I do those either [I don't], she's looking for an explosion to know there's a problem at all.

Fucked if I know how she proceeds through life this way in general or if this is just her expectation of her own kids???

And I couldn't get why my mother couldn't read my emotions and didn't seem to think I have any. It's because she's testing for the rage limit to see where my 'actual' limit is instead of taking my word for it. Never the fuck mind that she could simply *not* test at my boundaries instead of letting me have them. Separate issue.

I couldn't figure out what made her *like this*

She's expecting me to throw a giant meltdown violent tantrum at people when I have 'actually' had enough. Maybe she got away with those being like 5'4" in another time, but I am the size of the average man, I do not get to have giant screaming rages, whether or not people perceive me consciously as a woman, and least of all because a lot of people -at least unconsciously- read me as 'masculine' or at least always "they guy" of the situation compared to all other women and some men [bigger stronger and more rational, more able to just absorb the damage and let it go so the less rational screaming/crying one doesn't have to be dealt with]. Even if it was in me to be willing to terrify people [usually never], there are such limited instances where it wouldn't just blow back on me. Potentially very dangerously.

I am going to be the quiet calm one. You are going to have to let me use my words, bitch.

So she kept ignoring my boundaries until I had to cut her out of my life, and she probably doesn't understand and probably thinks it feels sudden -after 36 long years of bullshit- abrupt and unfair.

But I told her hundreds of times.

I probably should have just screamed at her.

[momentomori24]

Long-ass fandom rant because I need to scream into the void to find a reason to live let's gooooo

[For context I wrote most of this last friday which I thought was good to mention so the timeline makes a bit more sense. I really held off on this one XD Welp, let's start this trainwreck.]

Ok, I know I have other long posts I should be paying attention to (*cough* Keiji's shady shenanigans rant *cough*) among other probably more important things, but quickly wanna get this off my chest because it's kinda started to bug me and add even more concerns about the yttd fandom than I already have. This is specifically going to be about soushin-- yeah, yeah, I know-- but also bleed into something more... broad. Or broader. Idk, I'm a Tumblr user not a grammar teacher.

While browsing through Twitter I've been noticing a little spike in popularity for yttd with more fans and soushin shippers emerging as well. Which is cool, the game deserves all the praise and popularity it can get. And as someone whose been here for years, I'm glad that the fandom is slowly and steadily grown more accepting of soushin compared to the attitude around it way back when. There's been some genuinely really cool stuff that really does the ship justice from a lot of talented artist and writers that I absolutely love (will link some later), but something I've also been seeing a lot of from fans is what I can only describe as a "sanitisation resurgence" (but not really. kinda). A week or two ago on Twitter I stumbled across some soushin discourse where some people were sharing the sentiment that "if soushin end up being related and/or have a big age gap the ship is ruined". That they can only be two years apart max or else Nankidai has "fumbled them".

And the only response to that I had is "what". Like, how is that a deal breaker to you lot? How did you even get into the ship without accepting that those things could very likely end up being canon? How are you here and not ready to ship them no matter what's revealed about them after everything we've learned about them? Midori and Shin possibly being related was always on the table, and Midori potentially having already been an adult when Shin was in high school was always a very real possibility ever since we learned that he was never actually a student at his school. This is literally what soushin shippers got harassed by antis for years ago. Soushin is "problematic", and that's why people who shipped them where treated so badly in the fandom or just excluded all together. I can't count how many timed I've come across a "soushin shippers dni" or "soushiners are freaks and I hope you all have a bad day" or soushin fanfics/art with "I DON'T ACTUALLY SHIP IT BTW" and "not a ship" and "actual soushin shippers dni" attached to it. I can't recall how many times I had to explain myself with the "I ship but I don't condone it irl" or explain why I shipped them to not be labelled as a freak as if you need an excuse to ship anything fictional to begin with. I still remember soushin artist @uououoon and how they ended up deleting their Twitter account years ago because of the harassment and slanderous comments they were receiving for ships the fandom deemed problematic. When a person was saying their goodbyes to them on reddit and made some goodbye art (which is now deleted), some assholes in the comments were calling them weirdos and pedophiles for how they explored fiction and "glorified abuse" (which are the usual comments to uououoon's art posted on reddit unfortunately). I only caught wind of this one because back when they were still active in the fandom they were my favourite soushin artist and I went through their stuff almost every day and was tipped off when I randomly couldn't find their account anymore. They were such a nice and incredibly talented person too so the fact they essentially got bullied by a flock of stupid western fans seriously irritates me thinking about it again. This is why we cannot have nice things.

Soushin is "problematic". It's toxic and subtly abusive and important to the characters in question, but that didn't stop people from going after people who wanted to explore a dark, canon relationship (romantic, platonic or otherwise). How the actual hell did we go from "soushin has very toxic and problematic elements and you shouldn't be shipping it, you fucking freaks" to "you can ship it but don't make it actually problematic, you fucking freaks" like what is happening right now???? The worst part is that this is coming from other soushin shippers. The fact that there's actually soushiners with "proshippers dni" or "soushin is not for proship" genuinely makes me want to bite someone. Like, you horrible summer child-- not only are you demonstrating that you don't even know what "proship" actually means, but you're also spitting in the face of the people in our community that have CARRIED this ship for us for years. Why throw them under the bus to be one of the “good ones” in the eyes of antis when they hate us all anyway?

This brings us back to the sanitisation point: I feel like soushin is slowly being "sanitised" to fit the sensitive palette of antis by trying to make them as "morally acceptable" as possible. It's a worry I’ve had for a long time that once the fandom grows more accepting of the ship we'll be seeing more people basically scrubbing soushin of everything that made, well, soushin, to justify enjoying it. I've seen a bit of it already with a few people trying to say it's "not abusive" or just erase Shin's very obvious trauma by Midori all together for quite some time. Guess it's starting to happen on a bigger scale sooner rather than later. Maybe. Personally I don't think soushin having a big age gap or being related would ruin the ship. It just adds another layer of fucked up to their already fucked up relationship (I already hc Midori to be significantly older anyway so maybe I'm just biased). It doesn't really matter. I came here for toxic yaoi. I want nuclear waste level toxicity, not nuclear waste level toxicity presented in the most conventional and moral way possible. What would the point even be? It’s like packaging poison in a grape juice box. Like, it might be harmless to look at and more justifiable to think of as delicious, but it’s still poison. You making it look all cute and innocent isn’t going to change that. It's kinda funny and by that I mean not really that people will talk about wanting more "toxic yaoi" but when the yaoi is actually toxic and messy and horrific they will cry about it being "bad" or "ruined". You don't actually want dark dynamics, you want dark dynamics stripped of everything that makes them uncomfortable and dark so it's digestible to your tastes that don't even align with said dynamics in the first place. The worst part of this whole "soushin isn't proship so it's fine" bullshit is that it relies on trying to make the ship more "morally acceptable" or "legal" than other ships. Dawg, we are talking about abuse. You shouldn't be minimising that to say "well it's not [insert other terrible thing] so it's fine!!" That's not the "gotcha" you think it is. It’s one of the reasons why antis being into soushin made me feel weird cuz like you can’t ship it and then turn around to insult someone else, man (I’ve seen so many soushin defenders bash other “proships” to justify theirs like what are you doing--).

Realistically, the simplest and smartest thing to do when I see someone mischaracterise or butcher my faves is to either block or ignore and pretend to not care so I don't act on my sixth sense telling me to off them and myself. Realistically, this shouldn't be a big deal or anything that important, but this attitude is usually weaponized to harm and harass people who don't conform to their purity crisis over fiction. I'm in the unfortunate position of being not only a Your Turn to Die fandom dweller, but a Hazbin Hotel and The Coffin of Andy and Leyley one too. I'm used to being labelled a rapist and incest apologist irl who's delusional and deserves to be harassed and insulted by virtue of the media or ships I like (probably not a good thing). But people who are more active in these fandoms than me have it much worse as they get this shit directly waaaay more often while I mostly get called these things indirectly, which is what motivated me more to make this post.

So a couple days ago someone made some art of Monika from ddlc, Nikole (don't know the game sorry) and Ashley from Tcoaal. A lot of people on Twitter, unsurprisingly, bashed it for including Ashley to the point where some felt the need to clarify that they like her as a character but her actions (for some reason I do not understand like Monika has also done some seriously evil shit why are you not applying that logic to her too?). What struck me the most is that a yttd fan-- a self proclaimed "Midori enthusiast"-- ALSO quoted it to bash having Ashley in it. A freaking Midori fan. I told them to mind their business and start separating fiction and reality and to stop being a hypocrite, and thus ensued the most hilarious and stupidest convo I've had in a while:

You can literally count the seconds it takes for these guys to start throwing predator accusations and slurs at people. So "not exploring fiction correctly" makes me weird, but harming or putting real people on blast for nothing is free game, apparently. They're not the worst, both in this instance and in general, but it just stuck with me. Which is impressive, cuz I normally don't have much emotions to spare aside from general mild irritation for things like this. Maybe it's the Sonic feet.

But it ties into my issue. Midori's an absolute piece of garbage, yet some people will convince themselves that his actions are in some way justifiable to justify their hatred of something else (that is a lot less severe in this case) rather than love and let love. Tcoaal is not an "incest game" and if you describe it like that unironically you are not ready to be on the internet. No, it doesn't condone or glorify incest-- it literally does the opposite. If you need the characters to look into the camera and say "what we're doing is wrong and immoral" before doing something bad, I think you're the problem at that point. For the same reason you liking Midori (probably) doesn't mean you support human experimentation and torture, someone liking Tcoaal doesn't mean they support incest and someone shipping soushin doesn't mean they support abuse. These things are dark and shouldn't be condoned irl, but this is fiction. We can do whatever the hell we want. Being into darker themes and media doesn't have to reflect your real world views, but the inability to grasp that sentiment leads people to make their interests as moral and sanitised as possible and, feeling morally superior, will go after people who don't do that. This person deadass said that "incest is not morally grey and absolutely unjustifiable" (didn't even say that it wasn't btw) as if their blorbo hasn't committed so many atrocities for kicks that I personally find more unjustifiable. That line implies that they think that everything else Ashley has done and everything Midori has done can be justified because it wasn't incest specifically, which I find is a WILD thing to insinuate XD But it really does encapsulate the hoops antis will jump through to defend their likes while attacking yours despite the fact that it's literally the exact same as theirs. Rule of thumb: if someone accuses you of condoning something immoral because you like it in fiction, apply that logic to them, look at what they like and if their wet little meow meow is the Joker, Eren, Killua, Makima, Midori or whatever other morally bankrupt character you can come up with, take that as a confession and run. Cuz half the time these guys are actually nuts. While quote tweeting someone to shit on their art isn't the worst thing, considering how twitter has treated tcoaal artists the fact that they'd potentially open them up to harassment pissed me off, which is probably evident from my tone.

[Hi hi, this is me from the present right now cuz a more recent development came up so I’m using it as an example here too.]

While most of the things listed here have all been happening online, this attitude can come up in the real world as well.

As OP states, a bunch of hellaverse cosplayers were targetted at a french convention by haters of the show trying to ruin their cosplay. This is already completely unacceptable but the thing I can’t for the life of me get over is torching their costume while they’re still wearing it. Literally attempting to set someone on fire. All over a fucking show. It’s baffling how people can justify actions like this because they think your taste in fiction is so disgusting it’s Ok for them to hurt you. Not just online, but outside as well. It’s not the first time a hellaverse cosplayer has been harassed (last time it was a Valentino cosplayer but then again Val fans get shit from all sides all the time), and while I’m pretty sure these will remain as isolated cases it’s still scary to think about. What’s even more scary to think about how people think that their opinion on hazbin hotel has any relevance to the situation. So many of the comments in that post are just “I hate Hazbin Hotel, but—” or “I hate the fandom, but--” or “I hate Vivzie, but—” and I’m literally here ready to start pouncing like SHUT UP. No buts. That is not in any way important here. You not liking the show or the creator should not be important to the situation of cosplayers being actively harmed. You don’t have to signal your allegiances before showing basic human empathy, goddamnit. And what’s even worse is that some people have just turned this into a “b-but the hazbin fandom!!” issue, which is insulting. For example:

The “Hazbin fans do blackface and disrespect black people daily” is a reference to ONE Alastor cosplayer that nobody had defended. Not even fans. At least no one I can find. Yet they are using this one bad apple to generalise the whole fandom as "bad" and down play the amount of bullshit the hatedom does to fans on a regular. It kinda makes me feel sick that someone would look at a situation like this and spin this into a “fandom thing” rather than focusing on the victims. That they don’t deserve to be taken as seriously just because of the fandom their in. Some lunatic in the comments was literally completely minimising this whole thing saying “some red paint (fake blood capsules) isn’t nearly as bad as lynching and what black people have gone through in America” before calling anyone who called out that that’s completely irrelevant racist for liking Hazbin Hotel like are you kidding me. My homies in Christ, someone almost got lit on fire can everyone please stay on the goddamn topic. This is one of the rare moments where I was kinda proud of twitter as the majority of the comments and quotes where calling out their bullshit, but the amount of likes and some of the comments are still disappointing.

So what points am I trying to make here? This was very spontaneous and rushed so apologies if it feels messy cuz it very much is messy. But my main points boil down to this: Purification, sanitation and the “fiction equals reality” and "your fictional tastes reflect on you morality irl" arguments need to die. They just have to. While petting Shin on a daily basis gives me enough serotonin to find the will to live, the only true solace I will find is when people start being normal. People shouldn’t be getting harassed or labelled as freaks for fiction you don’t like both online and real life. People are not less worthy of basic human decency and empathy solely based on their fictional interests. People should be able to explore fiction however the hell they want without worrying about there being made a call out post on them somewhere. I search Tcoaal on twitter and there’ll always be a bunch of posts with over 10k likes calling all fans annoying weirdos or say it’s an “incest game” even tho it literally isn’t. I will try looking for some Valangel art on tumblr and see some loser use the tag to basically shit on everyone who ships it and lying about the treatment these shippers get while defending Charlastor or just shit on the ship in general. I just exist on the twitter side of the HH fandom chilling with other Val fans and literally every single one of them has either received death/rape threats or told to kill themselves, got ratio’d by a bunch of haters, had a call out post saying not to follow dedicated to them, had their art reposted and Val scribbled out, repeatedly accused of ““romantising a rapist””, or all of the fucking above. Valentino’s VA gets asked if he’s actually like the character he plays in real life or a fan being “relieved that he didn’t abuse them like Valentino” when they met (kudos to Joel for being chill about it btw I would be fuming this fandom does not deserve this man). I type in a certain controversial yttd ship to search and most of the latest posts are just people being rude, saying that if Nankidai makes them canon they’ll drop the game, calling the man himself a freak, calling other shippers freaks, shitting on soushin as well and then having soushiners defend their ship while also shitting on said controversial ship. It genuinely feels like fanbases are circuses and we are the clowns 💀

I could list other examples people being weirdos but I can't do that without breaking the momentum of this post even more than I already have. I guess what I wanted to vent about is how these attitudes regarding fiction and the way people police how others engage with it and how people think of you based on what you like can go from just annoying to downright dangerous more often than you’d think. That belief that you are morally superior to someone else based on the fact that you ship or like things the “legal” and “pure” and “healthy” way (which is never actually the case btw) can lead to you being really disrespectful or a complete asshole and not feeling bad about it at all, which does more harm than good. Which is why I thought it was important to bring up more extreme cases to empathise how this obsessive gatekeeping of fiction can and does hurt real people, who should be more important to you than fictional characters.

All of this is very likely going to sound very aggressive in tone and I want to quickly clarify that this is not meant to be an attack towards anyone in particular. I'm just tired and recalling all this stuff is making my mood sink like a stone lmao. Who knows, maybe I'm just overexaggerating and things won't get worse when the game gets more popular. This is just what I've been witnessing both in and out of my side of the moon. The amount of yttd fans I've seen act like this are a lot tho. No fandom is perfect obviously, and this one is the farthest from it, but with new people coming in and this weird attitude and need to sanitise not only towards soushin, but other "problematic" ships and media as well growing more prominent (mostly on Twitter and Tiktok) my biggest worry is that the hostility in this fandom will just... increase? Roulettefeel made pretty good posts about it-- my favourites being this one, also this one and this one's pretty short and sweet, summarising most of my soushin points a lot better and shorter than my trainwreck of a post so I recommend checking them out. If you like soushin, go check them out. If you don't like soushin, go check them out anyway. They make stuff outside of soushin too. They're pretty cool.

[I also want to add that the whole sanitisation thing in the yttd fandom is nothing new. It’s been a thing for longer than I have been here. I’ve just been seeing it again with soushin, which is was what made me want to do this in the first place. There’s another dynamic the fandom obviously does this for, but uttering it would not only get me flamed but straight up burned at the stake of bad takes so I’m saving that for a rainy day.]

Aaaaannd, I'm done, I think. I didn't have a good conclusion for this in mind. Idk, just be nice? You don't have to like "proships" (or what the fandom has defined as proship cuz that's not the actual definition), but that's what the block buttons for. Don't like, don't read, I say. Fandoms are for everyone and as long as what the person is doing is harmless, let them feel safe being themselves without having to worry about someone coming after them. Real life cops already suck. Let's not bring them into our collective escapism. And something you personally don't like ending up canon doesn't mean the game or ship is "ruined". That doesn't just go for soushin. That goes for other things too. To tie up loose ends, soushin having an age gap or being related has always been on the table and fits with other themes in the narrative. That does not count as "bad" if it makes sense. Soushin is not "Ok to ship" because it's "not an illegal ship" (whatever tf that means) and it's not "bad to ship" because it's "romanticising abuse". It's fine to ship because it's fictional. You don't need a moral justification to ship anything. That goes for all ships. That's why NOTPs exist. And "proship" doesn't and has never meant "shipping problematic pairings". It's a stance on shipping. It means being pro people being allowed to ship whatever they want. That includes being cool with problematic pairings, but is not limited to those. It means not being a fandom cop. Please stop saying otherwise, I cannot keep living this way--

Soooouuu, to end off on a more positive note and finally put this whole thing to bed I'll link some of my fav newer soushin accounts for anyone who's interested:

Hyo (orewagahai on ao3 check that out too): They are an amazing, amazing writer. If you're into dark, abusive co-dependent, complicated soushin with beautiful characterisation I would highly recommend. They just posted another soushin drabble on twitter and it's great.

jinn: They've been putting out banger after banger ever since getting into the game. Their art is absolutely stunning and they upload frequently, so go check 'em out if you can! It's actual medicine for the soul, I promise. They also draw for dead plate, so if you're into that go ahead too.

angel: Also cool. They're soushin art is hilarious and cute. As much of a sucker as I am for toxic, abusive sludge, they give thses two idiots a silliness that I enjoy. Also if you like trans!Shin content they're pretty good.

欣武 (my dumbass forgot to add them the first time sorry): They are INCREDIBLE. Extremely incredible artist. Their art is so, so freaking good. Not checking them out is absolutely your loss, ngl.

Be nice to them. If I catch anyone attempting to annoy them I'm coming after you and your entire family. Let's be better and not chase new comers off this time :3 Thanks for listening to my incoherent venting. This is mostly for me to feel a bit better, but anyone is free to read. If anyone's got an opinion or observation, feel free to offer it. I need coffee. Coffee sounds good.

[that-spider-fan-over-there]

BNHA 428: This chapter made me annoyed and yet it was still somewhat better than I expected?

Himichako. I like it, it's a good ship- not one I'm crazy about, but the vision is compelling. I mean, the loved girl on hard times who admires honesty but represses her feelings + hunger motifs, and the formerly wealthy and rejected girl who's honest to herself but masks her sadness from others + drinking motifs? Being so similar at their core from selfishness, bleeding love, admiration and imitation? Yeah, why not, sign me up, it looks fun.

(plus Ochako needed a subplot that would shy away from Izuku because oh boi her writing is messy-)

Then the ending annoucement happened and I immediately went "oh no" when I remembered that tidbit. But. Yesterday, I remembered this page from 424, which in hindsight makes sense:

Shoto moving forward and choosing to not dwell on his past anymore, because he wants to know the man he wants to become alongside his family of choice.

Spinner feeling so much grief for Tomura inside his room, his extra Quirks add up to it. Further gut points as it was all because of AFO, but the wrong person is getting the blame.

Ochako looking lost and dissatisfied, not really saying anything about Himiko's status; then her hidden injury which left a scar that'll never go away, nothing can change that.

And then, well, a sky with a chance to fight for a "bright future". Which is the most ambiguous you can get for anything, really, sequel or not.

(sidenote: is it me or the panel where she's touching her stab wound looks like a tangent line?)

Okay so, I went into the chapter, with Pikahlua's translations. It was A Chapter alright-

If it wasn't the antepenultimate chapter, the "filler" would've been welcomed. But I guess it means we should focus on the smaller details, I guess? Like that 1st year saying Izuku filled him with courage and Izuku immediately thinking of Spinner's pain? Yeah he hates himself and that people call him a hero, when he considers himself a murderer, and will never forgive himself for failing Tenko, therapy for him and everyone in Class 2-A please- yeah it was a fun detail. Also the throb of hiding your pain of "defeating" someone you wanted to save but in the end everything is miserable but everyone else is happy and you don't wanna be a bother. Fun.

Also I wasn't the one to point the out, but looking at the uniform (U.A. uniform blazer for boys + the tie with a dot for girls), the student who's a Izuku fan is probably trans/gnc, which I appreciate a lot :D (Damn Izuku attracts so many queer people I wonder if that's a sign- /hj)

Also, I guess Class A stating "[Bakugou], Midoriya and Todoroki were at the heart of it all" then focusing on Ochako is good foreshadowing on how her own battle wasn't fully recorded? It's like saying in the end her fight didn't matter, but the other ones went "well", so she's trying (and slowly failing) to keep her sadness at bay because, well, everyone's happy, so who cares? Another "throb".

I thought since the Todoroki family issues are out in the open, didn't they record the whole thing? Then I re-read it, they only saw the family stopping Touya from exploding. So they didn't see Shoto trying to talk to Touya, which means none of the LoV were humanized. Fuck's sake.

After that, I get focusing on the first years and civilians wanting to help and all, but it feels like a repeat of everything seconds before Jakku, so I assume it's a way for them to pretend things are normal? But not-quite-quoting Katsuki (<- which I will point out for my sake is very much alive and well and- oh boi LFtR will kill me) and Edgeshot here because it made me smile:

"Will you...go back to the way you were?" "I plan to attain something greater than what I was originally!"

So, yeah I suppose he'll be fine eventually. (Best J. really loving Edgeshot even as a worm, honestly, goals)

Again with Izuku remembering saying "[He'll] bring it all back" and apologizing for "not keeping his promise" and others telling him to not blame himself and they can reconstruct as many times as it takes. Again, gave me a little smile, but not for long-

Finally, Ochako pretending things are fine. Hello there, Sports Festival/Provisional License!Ochako I missed you- /hj (I miss the dorms era in general, actually.)

So... *sigh* Full disclosure: I wasn't looking forward to Himichako as we were getting 5/10 pages for the "conclusions" in the previous two, I thought Ochako would be off about Himiko being depressed about the League. But since she's MIA, red flags are now red herrings, and it's better than the dead outcome. If Ochako got another person dying in her arms that'd just break her character.

A blood transfusion takes hours, she couldn't been doing that for more than 20min, if it was gonna kill anyone it'd be Ochako. Either Himiko ran away or got arrested, and Ochako feels guilty because she doesn't know if she's dead or not. Not great, but until I see a corpse she ain't dead. Besides: Touya, Shoto, Edgeshot, Katsuki, Toshinori, Ochako herself, all physically hurt unlike her, and yet they live.

And then we have Izuku showing up. I'm upset he used OFA embers for this, but eh, it's Izuku, do I expect anything else?

Rolling with the assumption Himiko died (like our POV characters), Izuku would need to face his own failure in Ochako- Failed to save two people like she failed Himiko, but it'd be so. Empty. Ochako was true to herself, while Izuku gave nothing but "I want to save that crying kid" while fighting Tenko. The most they can do is bond with "failing" and "this isn't what we fought for". This is not really a moment where he can be a shoulder to cry on, it'd come across as hypocritical /neg.

The only way it could make sense it without being shallow on Mr. Control = Repress Your Heart's part (as he didn't open up to the two people who died in "his watch") is Ochako telling how Himiko loved yet seeing him repressing this part of his is idiotic? She likes people who are true to themselves, which Izuku hasn't been for ages, leading to him realizing something. I thought it'd be through a DvsK3 but. I'll take it, two chapters left, I just want his thoughts (and for them to talk but that can happen in the last one).

They only recorded Shoto stopping Touya from being a suicidal bomb, Ochako floating a bunch of Twice!Himiko clones and Izuku entering a coccon, popping out armless, getting them back, punching Tenko to death. The "I want to save [them]" wasn't registered, it makes sense they're (well, Izuku and Ochako mostly) weirded out about this, dissatisfied like most readers are (sidenote: why when it comes to the trio either Ochako or Shoto get sidelined? So much could tie their stories together and yet-)

It's still a tough pill. I'm not a villain stan, just wondering if those fights were for nothing- the humanity of Tenko and Himiko? Can't be proved for anyone else, since they weren't recorded.

And I don't know if anyone saw the same thing, but those "city lights" look like the bubbles from Ochako's awakening, maybe we'll get a Blackwhip or Entrance Exam callback? Maybe it's what the tagline meant by "hidden feelings", since she unlocked it to reach Himiko and doesn't think anyone would understand why. I hope it's just a nice visual though.

If Himiko is truly dead though... You know, I headcannoned the characters were telling the story through confessionals/recordings to register it to the world so they'd learn from that, but I guess the interviews Aizawa was talking about seemed more likely, which. Well it's something, but I thought it'd be everyone instead of just Class A. Idk. The idea the LoV didn't change anything, or that they did change things but don't get to see it, is bitter.

So uh. Yeah, those are my thoughts. I'm not sure how to feel about it, on one hand I want Izuku to finally open up but on the other, it feels like it'll be at Himiko and Ochako's expense by involving him in something that's theirs now. And there's a chance we'll get the "nothing is fine" from Ochako- god I'm fearing the discourse next week already :DDDD

... Man, and this is a bad timing to be in the fandom, considering the LFtR episode airs this Saturday (which will be yesterday by the time this post goes up and I'll be crying about that instead-), so uh. Yeah, this fandom will be emotionally devastated for two reasons XD

Okay, so I'll try ending this on a more optimistic note: I think Himiko is alive, and Ochako just doesn't know it, which is why we're getting 0 confirmation and a breakdown. Izuku's confrontation with her can make or break this plot, but as long as 1) we acknowledge the emotional, different stakes between the Himichako fight and Tenko vs. Izuku one and 2) it doesn't end in a confession (and let's be real, it won't), then we're probably good (sadly, if you disregard the LoV status). I still think it's an ass pull for the camera battery to go out though.

But no matter how this goes: C'mon, two chapters left now, this one was wasted on the first years, smh, let this sequel hopium be a reality I wanna know who's the 425 guy, not the poor first year who's gonna replace Shindo Yo in fanfics- /hj

[shalom-iamcominghome]

Since you’re really getting into the world of Jewish music, have you heard of chilik frank ? He’s a chossid who does ashkenaz/Klezmer. My absolute fav song from him is a song called ‘Rabi meir omer’ !

Ughh one thing I love about kletzmer is the emphasis on clarinet so many songs have. It makes me want to pick mine back up and play this by ear...

As well, this is how it feels to play clarinet:

[averlym]

,,, sun-dappled sheets...

[coquelicoq]

i wish i cared about food because as a living organism i do have to deal with food every day...seems like it would be easier to deal with if i actively liked eating it and thinking about it. but instead food is just the most annoying of all the chores that life consists of because it's impossible to ignore for very long. i resent having to think about it multiple times per day. not going anywhere with this just vaguely jealous of people who like food lol.

[lestappenforever]

Just in case nobody's told you yet:

It's okay if you don't enjoy going to the gym. Even if you go regularly, it's okay if you still hate every single second of it.

[pearl-kite]

Want to see some neat things about how irises grow?

Remember when I dug up and divided ALL of my irises at my parents' place a few years back? And how I ended up with 50 rhizomes, and I had bought 9 more just a bit before that?

Well, my mom wants to try to amend the soil because it's not great. Most of the irises have just been surviving, but not well enough to bloom, and everything else planted in the area struggles similarly. In order to amend the soil, though, I needed to dig them all up.

Again.

I dug up 44 rhizomes this time, which is honestly a bit better than I expected. I knew that not all of the ones I put in were going to survive, but I was still surprised by how many I just dug up today.

Anyway, the learning bit!

So irises aren't bulbs, they're rhizomes. Each year they put up leaves at one end, and over time they kind of end up migrating in that direction. If they do really well at gathering and storing energy, instead of just continuing forward, they'll fork, putting up leaves on two sides and a stalk with blooms in the center. The following year, the pattern continues, going forward from each side of that fork. If a rhizome does REALLY well, you'll end up with a bunch of forks spreading out.

The one on the left has survived, but not gone very far, and the white at the end shows that I accidentally broke some of the old rhizome off when I was digging it back up. It also happens to be a dwarf variety, so the rhizome is smaller to begin with; all my other photos are of intermediate and tall bearded irises with much larger rhizomes.

The one on the right has done well enough to grow forward for a few years, with the oldest of the rhizome at the bottom (still healthy and full of stored energy!) and the newest year's growth at the top. Looking at the rhizome itself, I'd guess that one is about 4 years (which makes sense, 'cause I think I did the splitting back in 2020).

The one on the left bloomed this year; you can see the flower stalk dried out in the center, and the new fork in the rhizome to the sides. Next year, they'll continue in those two directions, and it won't go forward from the stalk any longer.

The one on the right bloomed a few years back, and though it kept growing forward from there, it hasn't bloomed since. The other side of the fork also died off, and it's now only growing in one direction again.

Last but most certainly not least we have THIS beast. This one has bloomed the last two or three years in a row. I honestly can't tell if the guy at the bottom right is part of the same rhizome or another one I planted too close that got subsumed by this monster, because it took ten minutes to get most of the clay off and there was still more. I'll need to actually rinse it off with the hose to really see if it's all one plant or two.

But I'm 95% sure that this guy is going to bloom again next year because of those nubs down along the bottom. They were below the soil, and they're too thick to be new roots, so I'm guessing that's what future growth looks like. Honestly, this guy should probably be divided, but I also don't want to ruin the chance of it blooming next year, so I'm going to put him back in the dirt as is and maybe divide next year after blooming season.

Anyway, irises are my favorite, and I think it's intriguing how they work. I'm hoping that we can get the soil a bit more balanced and that they'll do better after replanting them, because even though I just dug up 44, we only had 4 or 5 bloom this year. They aren't thriving in the soil as-is, because for as long as they've been established we should have had more blooming than that. It was still the best year since dividing them, though.

I've brought a bunch of them over to my apartment and I'm going to try them out in containers, mostly the dwarf varieties I had. ONE of the dwarfs bloomed this year and it was gorgeous, but I'm hoping the rest will do better in new soil with some extra attention.

[essrambles]

I deferred to the "expertise" of a vet and now my dog is dead

[mariocki]

Patrick Troughton - billed as Pat - helps the stricken French nobility (and flashes the audience) as Sir Andrew Ffoulkes, a staunch ally of the title character in The Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel (ITP, 1955 - 1956)

[hauntingblue]

Jayce telling vi she won't make it on her own.... okay mr. projector...

[insufferablemod]

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