#WORDY

[mikkeneko]

In various places -- here, the bird app, even YouTube comments -- I keep running into people with some variation of the same question:

"Does Scum Villain have a teacher/student romance?" And every time I want to answer with: No, But Also Yes, But Also Not Really, It's Complicated (And That's On Purpose.)

Which is an answer that's too long to fit in a tweet or a YT comment, but fortunately tumblr has no (effective) post limit! So here I go.

1 - No

In the very straight forward porn cliche sense of "oh but professor, I really ~need~ to pass this class or my life will be ruined, can't I do ~anything~ to get you to change my grade?" *bats lashes* and "Hoho, my pretty young teen student, I've got your good grade right here in my pants, if you ~apply~ yourself..." then no.

No sex or romance between a teacher and their student in the bounds of a teacher-student relationship happens in this book. No deliberate grooming of an underage student on the part of a teacher occurs in this book. No sex or a romance between an adult character and an underage character occurs in this book, nor is the adult 'waiting' for the minor to reach adulthood to initiate one.

2 - But Also Yes

No sex or romance between a teacher and their student in the bounds of that relationship happens in this book. Two people who were formerly in a teacher and student relationship do enter into a sexual and romantic relationship by the end of the book. Also the nature of the society they're in further means that even though they are no longer in the schooling environment, it is socially assumed that the deference owed by a student to their teacher lasts forever, even after the student leaves that environment, and they continue to regard themselves and refer to themselves in those roles even though the teacher no longer strictly speaking has authority over the student.

Also, the student was really hot for his teacher even when he was still a student. (The teacher was oblivious to this fact.)

3 - But Also Not Really

By the time sex and romance is even on the horizon for these characters, their relationship has so drastically changed from that of a "teacher and student" that it is barely recognizeable as such. The power/authority dynamic between a teacher and their student is subsumed pretty much entirely by the facts that:

A. The 'student' has become a medeival fantasy warlord of such unsurpassable magic and might that literally no other person in this world can stand up against him, 'teacher' included, and the 'teacher' is well aware of that.

B. Also, the 'student' is metaphysically endowed (heh) with the Protagonist Halo, a literally active force within the setting they're part of, which means that not only can he not be defeated, he ontologically cannot be denied anything that he desires; what he wants, he gets, and what he doesn't want, cannot be forced on him.

C. ...But also, the teacher in this setting is a metaphysical outsider to the world order the student is part of, which means that he is aware of all of the above, and can and does manipulate it to suit his own agenda, which may or may not align with giving the student what he wants at any point in time. Assuming that the teacher has the correct understanding of what the student wants. (He doesn't.)

D. ........But also also, for all his power, one harsh word from him can destroy him. For all his knowledge, one tear can devastate him. (Which one? Both.)

4 - It's Complicated (On Purpose)

*throws the chalk against the wall*

Between a teacher and their student, who has the power? Between an emperor and a scholar, who has the power? Between a hero and the villain he is predestined to destroy, who has the power? Between a character and the reader who's read ahead to the end of the story, who has the power? Do we find some of these power imbalances more acceptable than others? And if so, why do we?

Trying to track Who Has The Power or Who Has An Unfair Advantage socially, physically, and metaphysically between this particular pair of characters is damn near impossible and that's on purpose.

The Scum Villain's Self Saving System is a lot of things, but one thing that absolutely defines it is that it is a parody. It's a parody and a deconstruction of a lot of things -- the 'stallion' genre, the 'isekai' genre, the 'pay-per-chapter webnovel' genre, the 'gay drama' genre and, most relevant to this conversation, it is a deconstruction of teacher-student romance.

What kind of a teacher-student romance has a clueless, fish-out-of water NEET in the role of the Wise Old Mentor? What kind of a teacher-student romance has a black-hearted, demonic, domineering feudal warlord in the role of the Blushing Virginal Student? What kind of a teacher-student romance has the two principals so close in age -- by the end of the book, they may be as little as a year apart -- that they're more like peers than teacher and student? What kind of audience are we, going into a story like this one and finding ourselves cheering for the teacher to fall in love and lust with his student, only to be disappointed when that doesn't happen because the teacher fails for three books straight to recognize love and lust when it's literally looking him in the face and crying?

Asking "does Scum Villain have a teacher-student romance?" is sort of like asking "does Galaxy Quest have a lot of high science fiction concepts?" No, but also yes, but also not really. It's complicated, and that's on purpose.

[midnightwinters]

We are the readers, not the writer.

MHA fandom isn't bad because of the shipping the only bad thing about it is when people are trying to push a narrative that isn't real. (sprinkle of spoilers btw)

Uraraka Ochao isn't made to be Midoriya Izuku's romantic partner, but she is indeed his friend. She is a HERO who's wish was to make her parents life easier and happier. YES she had a small crush on Midoriya and got teased for it. But at the start of it all she supported him at the beginning and suggested the name Deku in a positive light as his hero name. She was the first one to act when Deku was berserk asking Shinso for help. She upgraded her costume because of this and wanted to be better as a HERO. Deku looked up to her as a HERO because she was the one who took the initiative to ask the civilians to let him stay as a student and future hero.

She isn't a weak princess that needs to be saved by her prince Izuku. She may be a girl but she isn't a heroine because she is a HERO that wanted to save Toga Himiko, a girl that should've had support since she was little. Ochao even offers up her own blood and calling her cute despite being in a battle of death with Himiko.

Bakugo Katsuki, isn't a bad boy or an evil bully that torments Izuku. At the start ever since he was young his quirk was considered highly due to it's power. He thought he was the king on a throne because of the praises but then comes in Midoriya Izuku a quirkless boy who thought highly of him and wanted to be a hero besides him. But yet despite bullying him he allowed kid Izuku to hang around him watching AM on tv, getting AM cards, hunting for bugs multiple times, and even that moment at the "lake." When Katsuki tells Izuku to jump off a building, he comes to later regret this.

He is the first one told about One for All and hides it from others and even goes out of his way to help Izuku nurture the other quirks within One for All. He took an injury for Deku but he's an evil bully? He thought of Izuku before he died and realized the pain Izuku went through during his journey but he's not good to be by Izuku's side right? He regrets not grabbing Izuku's hand as a kid, but he knows he shouldn't be the one to grab his hand. He bows and apologizes to Izuku in the rain for all the things he did and said when they were kids. Where we come to find out from the parents of Bakugo that he hates the rain. His apology was humbling but Izuku never gives him a response and simple collapses. He kept an All Might card that he got with Izuku till this day by his side. He wants to atone for what he did as kids, and wants to support Izuku. He's cried in front of Izuku 3 times:

losing to Izuku

being the reason for All Might's downfall

finding out Izuku only has the embers and may not be heroes together

Goodie Two shoes Kacchan: He goes to bed real early, he gets good grades, he wears all might merch in secret~

My Hero Academia started with Kacchan and Deku. It ended with Kacchan and Deku. If you can't accept that Kacchan is integral to the story and an important person to the main character Midoriya Izuku than you will never understand this manga.

(btw he accepts himself as Kacchan Bakugo the one nickname that Izuku continues to still call him to this day.)

Midoriya Izuku the infamous boy that started quirkless and ended quirkless. Despite the setback in his life he still continued and pushed towards dreams of being a hero. He wanted to be as cool as his figure All Might and cool like his childhood friend Kacchan. In the beginning he is the first one to react to Kacchan and desperately tries to save him despite being quirkless. All Might who sees the hero in Izuku that day offers him the ability to be a hero, a quirk that would change his life.

Izuku has and will always be reckless with and without a quirk. It's one of the reasons why he can't hate Bakugo and wanted to save Tenko. All Might tells Izuku not to tell anyone about his quirk and who does he tell despite his favorite hero telling him this? his childhood friend Kacchan. Despite his whole class seeing Izuku reckless multiple times who is the one to worry? Ochao? NO it's his childhood friend Kacchan. Who is the person who desperately wants to visit Izuku while injured? Idk Ochao? NO It's Bakugo Katsuki not once but twice.

Izuku is a fanboy of heroes, but he's possibly the biggest fanboys of All Might and Explosive Murder God Dynamite. His room in the dorms and his room at home is filled with All Might. His first costume was inspired by All Might. He is able to copy All Might signature's smile. But when it comes to Kacchan, he reflexively starts to copy him at first it's when he needs courage to deal with villians at USJ but when Kacchan gets hurt by the semi fused All for One/Shigiraki he becomes so angry that he copies him. When sees Kacchan and everyone's lifeless corpse/bodies he's becomes so infuriated blackwhip starts to go out of control. Blackwhip came when Izuku was angry with Monoma when he started to back-talk Kacchan. But blackwhip was a canon izch moment? Not really, it was Ochao being a hero and another piece of evidence that Katsuki is Izuku's "weakness and strength."

I don't hate any MHA ship unless it's just straight up weird but do know that this manga wasn't made explicitly for you. It was made by Horikoshi who intended to make this something that he could enjoy at the time he first started writing it. So please know the difference between canon and your ship.

The only characters in the series that are canonically the worst in the manga and the real world is All For One, Overhaul, and Endeavor.

The one's that redeemed themselves is Bakugo, Nagant, Yuga, Gentle and La Brava (Stain kinda).

The ones that deserved better in their youth are Shigiraki, Twice, Dabi, Himiko, and Spinner.

Goodbye My Hero Academia, you were everything <3

[shiftythrifting]

Recent Admin BT finds. (My partner bought the whale shirt) Animal Re-Style, Boise ID

I didn’t know playtex made products other than tampons

[158590]

[isawhitney]

Nonsenses

Well, word soup! And jingoism,

Teatime, of course - banality?

My please, often syllabus is

Better a teaser than pudding.

Why? Doctor whenever catnip

Combination whatever for?

Enough for evil listenings, for

All and scientific butter. Bliss

Bar none a collocation army

Band my dear, my dear! How

Trumpeting! How elephant and

Mouse! If verbalised juicer

Crisping near and by the book,

Then let me know. All words

And violinists are just for show.

[ryoko1232]

Sander side au

so it's an evil roman au ok.

At the start everyone (including orange) but excluding Virgil already exist, then Janus starts commenting on things roman does, and roman sees his as him defying roman, roman gets mad, goes to talk to him, an argument happens. Roman then says stuff about Janus and Remus to Patton and Logan, this causes an argument between Patton and Janus, and they break things off. They move away, and it stays like that for a while.

Until Virgil popped up, Janus took care of him and tried his best to keep him a secret from the light sides. But roman found out, and if Virgil was a dark side that would make it 4 / 3, and that's not fair. So he kinda seduces Virgil, and it works, the dark sides are mad, but who would believe them?

my brain stopped braining so this is all.

[heartspin2023]

When I gaze to the sky I see stars

You are among them

One, two-

Many more around you.

It gives me yearning,

Chest twisting, vision blurring.

Why must I be so grounded?

To remain where you abandon.

My planet dances another rotation,

Around a star, of its very own,

I wonder if you gaze upon

The distance glimmer,

Remembering me

In my final moments

Not clinging to my planet,

But wishing for the stars that are so far from me,

Laying claim to those I treasured,

dancing among them.

[itsnightsyo]

So, people on the Oceanfalls discord created a minecraft server... and there is a painting mod in it, which everyone went ham with.

Behold the works of art produced here. I love 'em so much??

Bonus: Nino in the XP hills, and a very high quality Fish™

Also, a kaji that I made!

[ragathacult]

welcome

welcome to the ragatha cult! here we worship Ragatha from TADC. Every Monday we offer our best things to Ragatha.

‼️We're taking new members now! Send in an ask or a DM to join!‼️

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Tags:

Best Dolly/Ragatha Supremacy: Ragatha stuff/reblogs

Announcements: self explanatory, announcements about the cult

No Dolly: Non-ragatha posts

Offering Day: every Monday we offer our best belongings to Ragatha be it food or curtains

ragatha milestones: cult milestone for every 10 members/50 posts

Ragatha Romance: ship art/posts with Ragatha

wordy: long posts

Ragatha's Recruitment: join the cult propaganda

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come join, we're looking forward to meeting you

[askstrangeweird]

[mikkeneko]

I'm sure this is nothing that hasn't been said before but I really like the way that all of MXTX's books have throughlines about breaking the cycle of abuse.

It's most obvious in Scum Villain, at least once we find out more about Shen Jiu: Shen Jiu's whole story is about abuse. Qiu Jianluo abused Shen Jiu as a slave until Shen Jiu fought back and killed him, Shen Jiu revisited his abuse on his student Luo Binghe until Luo Binghe came back and killed him, Luo Binghe revisited his abuse on the entire cultivation world. Only Shen Yuan's arrival on the scene breaks the cycle; he stops the cycle of abuse dead in its tracks through his choice to be kind to Luo Binghe even knowing what he knows about the future.

In MDZS, the line of descent is shorter, but we see it twice: Yu Ziyuan to her children and her children to Jin Ling, and the Lan clan to Lan Wangji and Lan Wangji to Lan Sizhui. Yu Ziyuan took out her unhappiness on both her children, but neither of them passed that unhappiness on to Jin Ling. Lan Wangji was raised with incredible strictness, but taught Lan Sizhui -- and all of the juniors -- to be more flexible, curious and compassionate than he was raised to be. (Unknown whether the Lan juniors were ever subject to corporal punishment; we know that Lan Wangji was, but it simply isn't ever said for either of the Lan juniors, and that absence may be an answer in and of itself. Lan Jingyi at least certainly would have complained about it!)

In TGCF, once again the story is about mentor to student instead of parent to child, and it plays out over centuries instead of years, but it's still there. Jun Wu took an interest in Xie Lian specifically because Xie Lian reminded him of his own self, and then he orchestrated torments for Xie Lian specifically to push him into making the same mistakes and choices that Jun Wu made when he was Xie Lian's age. Xie Lian then goes on to take an interest in Lang Qianqiu, specifically because Lang Qianqiu reminded him of his past self. But the cycle stops there. Xie Lian doesn't revisit his traumas onto Lang Qianqiu at all. And when Lang Qianqiu undergoes his own moment of crisis, Xie Lian goes to enormous pain to ensure that he receives catharsis and closure for it, and is able to move on to be a good king and eventually ascend to divinity without redirecting his trauma onto more innocent people.

None of them are unscarred by their own circumstances, but in all cases the characters of these stories looked at the next generation and said, "I'm not doing this to them."

[littlewormtrading]

Be gentle with yourself. Life doesn’t come with a map, and you’re learning as you go. Celebrate your little victories, and forgive yourself for the missteps

[tragicslip]

Erudite women… 🥴🥴🥴

[gwunkkkk]

are you pro-para?

ok i’m assuming you mean the “big 3” because shit like being attracted to objects is basically a different thing entirely like who cares

i’ll start by saying that some people would probably consider me pro-para, because i recognize that these are disorders and i don’t think someone should be shot for having them when it’s not fully in their control. that being said, i have problems with the pro-para community and for that i don’t identify as pro-para.

let me make it clear that if you are anything that’s not strictly anti-contact (none of that “hmm i have a nuanced contact stance” bullshit) honestly i think you’re pretty gross and my whole understanding and open minded thing doesn’t work with that. people who say “um i’m anti-contact i GUESSS but i think contact stances are dumb lol” are also incredibly shady.

my second, and perhaps main issue (beside the stuff that gets into felony territory, that’s also kind of a different thing) is that the space is very anti-recovery. you’d think it’s a place for people with these disorders to help each other out, and it definitely is in some areas, and that’s probably what it’s SUPPOSED to be, but in too many it’s blatantly pretending these disorders aren’t disorders, they aren’t inherently a bad thing, and excusing creepy behavior with the fact that it is a disorder.

i try my best to be cool with everyone who has good intentions, and i also want to be understanding. this is the main reason i have/had a couple of para mutuals. BUT i have had too many who fly just a bit too close to the sun with, for example, things they say about actual child actors, and in one instance i had a 24 year old mutual who mentioned how they would date 17 year olds in highschool as a sort of “loophole”, and it progressed to admitting to and defending the spreading of CSEM. that really left a bad taste in my mouth and i have stayed away from most adult paraphiles after that.

Tldr: hurting animals and children is bad, and if you have the desire to do those things you at the very least should not encourage it by surrounding yourself in a space of people who may or may not slowly but surely get you to justify abuse. if you are a paraphile who understands that it’s not ok to hurt anyone and ultimately hope to get help, i have respect for you and don’t think you should be demonized as much as you are, but i do not necessarily support the pro-para movement in its current state due to bad experiences I’ve had.

[unscramblerer]

Todays Word Of The Day is: Garrulous

Garrulous originates from the Latin garrulus(talkative) and from garrire(to chatter). The word entered English in the 17th century. It describes someone who talks a lot( often about unimportant things).

[augustatheghost]

"Hesitations Outside The Door" by Margaret Atwood