#and i can barely stand tumblr mobile

[lunar-stims]

Is it okay if I request a White Pearl Cookie stimboard? If so, thanks!

blehhh shes so pretty........

🦪|🍨|🐚 💎|💟|💧 🐚|🎀|🦪

[piggyinthemiddle]

🐷 Belly Update 🐷

Januar - August 2023

Hi tumblr, it's time for another update on my weight gain journey! For new folks : Hi, I'm Porky, I'm a death feedee and I'm fattening myself into immobility. Encouragement, teasing and asks are always appreciated. ❤️

I just recently updated you guys on the bellyhang when I'm sitting down, but lots of you guys wanted to see a standing position as well. So, of course, I deliver..

I recently moved into a new house and due to the size of my belly, I am starting to have a few issues with smaller, narrow doorways. My belly doesn't me get fully stuck yet, but I'm brushing the doorframe or handles, the keys poke into my rolls and it's a whole new experience!

Took me a bit to find a proper angle in the old photos, but let's have a look, shall we?

Pretty self-explaining if you ask me.. I'm so f**king fat now!

I am not 100% sure how much I gained between these pictures, as I unfortunately didn't keep such a close eye on the regular weight-ins when I started this blog, but I can proudly say that I am now at ~418lbs. A real hog.

Here's the new pic in regular size..

Overall, my bellyhang is getting insane, I feel super heavy and my mobility is naturally getting worse. It's getting harder to walk (well..waddle) around, I can barely fit into my current work uniform, feels like I'm bursting out of it at the seems. Doorframes and small spaces are becoming an actual issue because my belly is in the way, I can rest my underbelly on my opened bathroom drawers.

Overall, such a crazy experience atm. I've never been this fat, and I'm only getting fatter from here on!

Leave me some comments, asks, suggestions, what do you want to see or hear? I've ordered a bigger measuring tape (I outgrew the old one) so I can give you guys a proper size update soon, would you like that?

🐷✌🏻

[definitelynotstable]

Feverish [Ghost x fem!Reader]

AN: Hey sexies! I haven’t used Tumblr since I was like 13 (which was a while ago) and I haven’t written fanfic in a while either. I find it hard to like things without them consuming me and the current addiction is CoD. It started with CoD mobile - me and the flatties play each night and then I rediscovered Modern Warfare and realised MW2 existed. Instantly obsessed. Why are they all so fine???????? Anyway. I haven’t written creatively since like high-school so I’m rusty and there is lots I don’t know. Go easy on me babes x

Synopsis: "Holy shit, you're burning up!" – reader is sick, Ghost is worried. Word count: 1.7k Ghost x reader (callsign “Rags” don’t ask why) not proof-read i have adhd babes x

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

5am just wasn’t the ideal wake-up time. Something you should’ve thought about before joining the military. Something you definitely should’ve taken into account when accepting a position in such an esteemed taskforce. The 141 rarely took breaks. When you weren’t on active duty you were at base training. Price was a stern but fair Captain. His drills were consistent and hard, pushing you all to your limits but still allowing you to grow as a team.

But Price wasn’t in charge of training today. Nor had he been for the last week. Away on some need-to-know mission he had left his lieutenant in charge. Simon “Ghost” Riley. Less consistent, far more stern but just as fair as the Captain - Ghost’s drills were significantly more difficult.

You stretched carefully, rotating your neck from side to side and sighing as it clicked. You could hear voices down the hall and the distant rumble of the kettle. Soap and Gaz no doubt. Now fully dressed you pulled on your boots and shuffled down the hall.

“Morning boys.” You yawned, pulling out a chair and slumping to lean against your crossed arms on the table.

“Morning, Rags,” Gaz echoed back to you, Soap grunting in acknowledgment as he poured his coffee.

“Any clue what the LT has in store for us today?” You ask, watching as Soap fiddled with the french-press.

He huffed as he settled into the chair across from you, nursing a mug between his scarred hands. “Somethin’ horrid, nae doubt, he’s been in a bad mood since Price took his leave.”

“I’ll say,” Gaz scoffed tipping the dregs from Soap’s press into his mug and heaping in sugar, “can barely feel my arms after yesterdays drill.”

You groaned rubbing your eyes, “yeah, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck.”

“I don’t recall there being any trucks involved in the drill yesterday - but that can be arranged.”

The bored voice drawled from the doorway, Lieutenant Ghost himself stood, legs shoulder width apart, arms folded across his broad chest. The man took up the entire goddamned doorframe.

Resisting the urge to stand at attention you cracked a sheepish smile. The 141 weren’t one for formalities.

‘Morning LT,” Gaz took the words out of your mouth from where he leaned against the sink, “got more pain in store for us today?”

“If you though yesterday was painful, sergeant, you’ve got a big storm coming.” Ghost turned go head out. “Gym in 10.”

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

He wasn’t kidding. Today was worse. The lieutenant had designed a circuit so difficult even Gaz was complaining - something usually only Soap had the gall to do. God you were tired. You hadn’t struggled this hard to complete a drill since basic training as an unfit and unmotivated 18 year old. “Pick it up Sergeant!” Ghost barked from across the room as the battle ropes slipped form your sweaty hands. You grit your teeth and did as asked, only two minutes to go.

“Fuck!” You swore under your breath as the rope thunked against the floor, leaving your grasp again. You quickly squatted to pick it up, hoping the Lieutenant hadn’t noticed. You flinched as his stern voice echoed through the gym but it was Soap on the receiving end, the man smirking as Ghost yelled at him to keep form.

You turned your focus back to the ropes, planting your more firmly as you noticed your form starting to waver. God you felt like you were about the keel over.

“Pick up the pace Sergeant!” The voice came from your left, flinching to hear the Lieutenant so close. Feeling worse by the second you did as you were told, pushing every last inch of energy into the ropes in front of you.

He’ll be gone soon, you told yourself, He’ll move on to yell at Gaz and I can slow my pace.

But the hulking figure in your periphery remained and you found your resolve wavering. Without warning the world tilted dramatically and your cheek was bouncing off the sweat covered foam on the floor. The distant clanking of weights came to a stop and impeccably polished and shined boots filled your vision. Ghost.

“Rags!” Gaz thumped to his knees beside you, yanking you into a sitting position. His worried face swimming in your vision.

“Settle down, Gaz,” Soap spoke as he pulled him back and someone else came to kneel in front of you. A water bottle was pushed into your hands and a cool but rough hand landed gently on your forehead.

“Christ you’re burning up!” The lieutenant rarely swore outside of the field, you must be on fire.

“Yeah no shit,” Water dribbled down your chin as you took a swig of water, “that was a tough drill LT.”

Soap coughed out a laugh from where he stood behind Ghost, "Aye, I reckon he's sayin' ye've got a fever, lass.”

You scoffed, batting back the lieutenants hand, “I think I would know if I had a fever, I just need a rest.”

“Your dripping in sweat,” Ghost retorted cooly.

“We were just working out.“

“You fell over -“

-“It happens-“

‘Not to you.” The lieutenants voice was firm. “Not to us. We are special forces military - we don’t just ‘fall over’.”

There was no room for argument in his tone, you knew he was right. Leaning forward, Ghost looped his arms under yours and pulled you firmly to your feet. You wavered slightly, his grip on you the only thing keeping you standing.

“You need rest.”

Gaz popped into view, eager, “I can take her back too her room, LT!”

Ghost swung his gaze over the young sergeant who shrank back immediately, “if you thought this was the end of training for today, you’re wrong. You and Soap still have a minute left. I want you halfway through the next set once I’m back.”

Laughing Soap clapped Gaz on the back, “Come on lad. Let the LT look after Rags, we don’t give up so easily.”

You scoff, “Rude.”

“Get well soon, Lass,” Soap winked, pulling Gaz back to his station as Ghost led you out of the gym.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

“You really don’t need to lead me to back to my room, I know the way.”

“We aren’t going to your room,” Ghost grunted, his hand hovering behind your shoulder blades as you wavered.

You looked up, frowning as you locked eyes with him. “I don’t need to go to the infirmary, LT. I just need a nap.”

The man shrugged, gently pushing you forward. “We have free healthcare, may as well use it.”

“God you’re relentless,” you muttered, missing how his eyes crinkled through the mask.

“To a fault, sergeant.”

The nurse in the infirmary whistled as she read your temp.

“Good thing you brought her here, Lieutenant,” she turned to you with her hands on her hips, ‘you’re dehydrated, hun. I’m keeping you here overnight or until your fever breaks.”

“Really? I can never sleep in here, it’s too bright.” You felt like a child under the stern stares of the nurse and Ghost who stood beside her, arms crossed.

“We can dim the lights if you’d like, sergeant,” the nurse offered, bustling around while she prepped an IV, “but you’re staying here until I say.”

You sank lower in the bed, letting your chin fall against your chest.

“I usually sleep with an eye-mask.” You mumble, embarrassed.

“What was that, hun?”

Ghost steps closer with a single nod, “speak up sergeant.”

You cleared your throat, feeling silly. “I usually wear an eye-mask.”

“I’m sure we can figure something out,” the nurse smiled, pulling your arm to the side, “small pinch.”

You sucked in a breath as the needle slid home.

“Where is it?”

You looked up, surprised the lieutenant was still there. “Where’s what?”

“Your eye mask.” Ghost responded, arms still crossed.

“Oh,” you wince slightly as the nurse hooked up the fluids to the port on your arm, “uh don’t worry about it LT, one of the boys can grab it later I’m sure.”

“I’m here now. Where is it?”

You met his eyes, surprised. “My room, either on my bedside table or in the top drawer.”

Ghost leaves with a curt nod, the curtain swishing behind him. You sigh, leaning back into the pillow behind you, praying it’s lying on top and not in the drawer that holds a variety of items you definitely don’t want your Lieutenant seeing.

By the time he returns you’re half asleep in your fever-induced delirium. The lights are dimmed but your eyes still burn. He gently lays the mask on the bed next to your arm and makes to leave.

“Thanks LT.” You say with a rasp, cracking your eyes open further.

He looks up, blue eyes meeting yours. “Though you were asleep.”

You laugh softly, “Wasn’t kidding when I said I couldn’t sleep without it.”

“Mm.” He grunts in acknowledgement. “Lieutenant?”

“Yeah?” He stops, hand on the door handle.

“Thanks for today.”

He nods sharply, not sure how to respond. “Thank me when your back in fighting shape, sergeant."

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Masterlist

[slasheru]

Slasher U 1-Year State of the Union / Unholy Census!

Holy fucking shit we're coming along towards the 1-year anniversary of the release of the Slasher U Act 1 alpha!! We've come SO FUCKING FAR. Sawyer wasn't even a romanceable option back in the day! As of April 27th, it'll be Slasher U's first ever anniversary!

Mostly, I am SO FUCKING GRATEFUL that you all came along on the adventure to make my weird horny dating RPG a smash fucking hit!! Taking narrative seriously in dating/adult games was kind of my entire M.O (is?? mods??) and I am SO GRATEFUL Y'ALL UNDERSTAND WHAT I'M TRYING TO DO HERE lmao

THE BIG NUMBERS

As of 11:21 AM EST on 3/23/24, Slasher U: Act 1 has sold 6,100 copies across Steam & itch.io (Not including the copies sold as part of Games for Gaza that weren't redeemed/downloaded, so this only counts people who actually downloaded or bought the game!). This is obviously BEYOND MY WILDEST FUCKING DREAMS AND I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH HOLY SHIT. I didn't even realize it until I added it all together. (On top of this, we sold several fucking tens of thousands of games for Games for Gaza!! Hell yeah!)

For my fellow solo devs out there, this comes to Slasher U making a total of about $6,000 + $2,000 net USD through sales (the former) and crowdfunding (the latter, for Slasher U: Act 2) over the last 11ish months!! The game started off being free for the first 6ish months, then went to $6.69 for the Beta (with dong! whoa!!), and now at its full size, stands at a good ol' $14.99 for 15 hours of primo datin' sim!

This is objectively the most money I've ever made off of anything I've developed in my entire life, and paid my whole ass rent for the entire year, so THANK YOU HOLY SHIT. According to Steam, most indie games barely break $1k in total, so I am AGOG. FUCKING AGOG. THANK YOU FOR LIKING MY GAME AND LETTING ME MAKE MORE VIA NOT DYING FROM CAPITALISM

The average review score, across 89 reviews on itch.io, remains 4.9 out of 5 stars, and we're rocking a 93% Positive on Steam!!

THE UNHOLY CENSUS

The best part of Slasher U is, as I always say, THE STUDENT DISEMBODY!! Slasher U will always be a place where everything is gay and trans as fuck (although I'm also proud of writing my cishet storylines too :V /lh)! I knew y'all were gay (hello fellow gays) but I did not realize the QUEER FUCKING FORCE THE STUDENT DISEMBODY IS

Here's the demographics of Slasher U players as taken from Tumblr polls (that's a skewed sample size of about 280, so grain of salt here for the homo website for queers):

92.6% of you ID as queer (see below for the breakdown!) | 7.4% of you ID as straight

This fictional horror movie campus is: 48.5% bi/pan, 16.2% gay/mlm, 10.3% lesbian/wlw, 10.3% ace (oo tie!), 7.4% queer but not defined as above, and 7.4% straight!

61.9% of you ID as trans/not cis | 23.8% of you ID as cis | 14.3% of you ID as neither trans nor cis

46.8% of you are between 22-26 | 32.3% of you are between 18-21 | 16.1% of you are between 27-32 | 4.8% of you are between 32-45 | 0% of you are older than 45 (sample size I am guessing lol)

For 14.6% of you, Slasher U was the very first dating sim you've ever played (!). For 3.8% of you, Slasher U was the first indie game you've ever played (holy fucking shit!!! this is an actual absolute honor)

76.7% of you instinctively Road Runner away from Melyssa at the fountain in Act 1 | 23.3% let the Melyssa tsunami arrive at you

--

A FINAL WORD (FOR NOW) ON MAKIN' VIDJEE GAEMS

You should totally do it.

No, okay, but for real, I started working in games professionally in 2009 (yeah yeah i'm old. i am 32 and i am dying and they're coming for me in the corpse wagon etc) and I burned out in 2016 and came back two years ago with THIS THING and I can tell you RIGHT FUCKIN' NOW that, if you have ever wanted to make a game and the big guys aren't gonna do it, grab yourself and/or some friends and fuckin' make a video game. I have worked for a bunch of AA and mobile companies and I can tell you right the fuck now that this is the most fulfilling experience I have ever had writing a video game. I taught myself programming logic to make this thing! And sound design! I fucking learned to animate sprite sheets!! YOU CAN ALSO DO IT given the time and energy (pace yourself don't die)! And there won't be any execs around to tell you your weird niche game won't sell!! BECAUSE IT FUCKING WILL

Anyway, my entire career as a game designer, nobody let me write shit for them. You don't need permission to make stuff or write stuff. If you write it, they will fuckin' come, Field of Dreams style (also don't forget to tell everyone you made stuff and share it around. super key here. lmao). Turns out writing is all about sharing yourself with people, and who knows, you might just find that a fuckton of people ACTUALLY relate to you. (And that you're a pretty good writer. Which you knew. Yes, you. I am mixing metaphors and pointing to myself AND you now.)

xoxoxoxooxoxox,

Professor Plutonium

[whim513]

Do not use a mobility aid for fatigue. That is not what they're for, that is not what you need. The idea on disability Tumblr that a cane, or crutches, will help with fatigue, is incredibly prevalent but it is FALSE. Not only will dragging around extra weight likely increase your fatigue, using a mobility aid you don't need causes a lot of strain on your body and can even cause temporary or long-term physical disability that you didn't previously have.

I understand the risks of mobility aids, i’m doing proper research and making sure i have enough knowledge before i get any, which is why i ask these questions to disabled people to get the best results. I’m going to try out mobility aids for my issues because i believe they would genuinely help and on top of that what i’m doing right now (no assistance whatsoever) is not working for me. This has been a long standing (no pun intended) problem in my life and at the bare MINIMUM i need help physically standing, which mobility aids are for. Like i said before i will take everything into account and consideration, and if these aids do not help i will not use them but it is the best solution for me right now. I have even tested out mobility aids before and they DID help, and gave me relief so once again, i will be giving it a shot. Thank you for the advice.

[inconsistent-kuroshitsuji-blog]

Yandere Alphabet: Undertaker

This is a request not made by someone on Tumblr, but rather from my own circle of people from real life. Yeah, you know I'm talking about you. Feeling called out yet? Good. You little fluffy simp.

Anyway...

MAJOR CONTENT WARNING!

As you may be able to guess, Yanderes are rather bloody and not nice from a human rights point of view. This post features a couple of human rights violations, for example kidnapping, torture, gaslighting, manipulation, cencorship, drugging and drug abuse, psychological warfare, being almost exclusively fed with biscuits, arson, and many more I do not know of yet. But you little freaks probably like that, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this.

(For the love of anything unholy, why does he look like he's jerking off in that GIF? Also, I found my headline fond again. And I figured out how to add a "read more" barrier. I'm getting good again.)

Yandere Alphabet: Undertaker

A - Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

You know how little children tend to cling to their favourite stuffy and won't let them go for anything, not even washing? This is how intense he gets. He takes you everywhere he goes, as long as you won't hinder him. He hugs you tight and then just drags you along, wether you like it or not. Another thing he likes to do is to pet and caress your head with his fingernails, he knows that it feels good. He puts a huge emphasis on physical touch, if you couldn't tell. It's his love language, in contrast to giving gifts. These are rewards for you behaving well, not signs of affection, because they can be bought again and again and don't mean anything to him. They were bought with money after all, and we all know that he could care less for money.

B - Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

It is an understatement if I said he would kill. He would light houses and humans on fire, he would publicly execute people and make it seem like an accident. He would chloroform them and bury them alive, with or without a coffin, depends on his mood.

C - Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

First of all, you're getting locked in a room. You need sleep after being drugged so heavily. He knows his poisons well, he's embalming people for a living after all. You get to keep a few belongings from your old home, but mobile devices or anything technically advanced is off the table for now (he's a grandpa, let him be). He doesn't throw them away, he just doesn't want you to be able to contact anyone who could potentially help you. The police for example. He doesn't need the police on his poarch again. It happened once, it wasn't pleasant. The only food available for you at that moment are buiscuits, you will have to cook for the both of you if you want anything proper. But that won't happen soon, as you are locked in a room. What a bummer. It will only get better with time, if you manage to earn his trust. Otherwise, you have to stay in your room. And it is boring there. Kind of to mock you how empty your life is without him in the room.

D- Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling's will?

Of course, you're his now after all. You don't want to wear the clothes he selected for you? It's either this or you might aswell run around naked. He forces you to sleep in his coffin with you. Does not matter if you barely have any space in there together, you could be standing in the corner or be sleeping on the floor. The room you first wake up in only has a rather thin matress without any sheets or blankets. So? What will it be? Of course it will be him.

E - Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

He knows on which power level he is in comparison to others. And he knows he is way above them. What, you are trying to get a reaction out of him by threatening him with you? Pathetic little thing, they're as good as dirt now. You try to threaten him with running away or doing something to yourself? Your loss. He won't be pressured into anything by you. He doesn't show you anything about himself, he gives you no space to potentially hurt him.

F - Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

He sees it as a joke. What does a little drugged up ragdoll like you want to do against him? Scream and cry and kick around yourself? How cute, now hold still for the syringe. Try to strangle him in his sleep? The joke is on you, he already is dead. Why don't you try to go to sleep for once? Maybe this little chokehold on your neck will help you.

G - Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

This is better than any joke he's been told so far. The way you try so desperately to find your way out, he even encourages you to try even harder. Your frightened expression is just so divine, he can't get enough of it. And the best thing is, he knows that you will never be able to get out of there alive. As if it weren't enough, he also gives you false hints. Or maybe they're truthful. You'll probably never know, as you get knocked out before you can try them properly.

H - Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

Everything. Every second of you not obeying him equades to a month in the nine circles of hell. So just be nice and do as he says and you won't have to meet his devices from the middle ages.

I - Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

He always wanted a housewife that cleans after him and cooks for him. An obedient little plaything to amuse himself with. No children. He is not fond of them, they are annoying at best.

J - Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Him and jealousy? Ha, never. He'd never get jealous. He just tracks down the people you frequently interact with to check if they pose any threat to your relationship. That girl you frequently go out with is just a normal friend and they are in a long-term relationship? Everyone can be a cheater. That dude you told him not to worry about? You definitely have something going on. And that is unacceptable. He doesn't show you his discontentment, not yet at least. But these others in your life, they will get to know it very well.

K - Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

It is weird to say, but he almost acts like a mixture of an older brother and boyfriend. He's always looking out for you, seeming oh so very sweet. He's not touchy, but he glares at anyone who tries to get physically close to you. He's always slightly behind you, making sure to avoid any possible danger he sees. But none of them come close to the danger the Undertaker himself poses to you. But shhh, you don't have to know about that.

L - Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

It would start off with normal dates. Going to a restaurant, going shopping, anything he knows you like. And he knows what you like, he has stalked watched you long enough to notice your likes and dislikes. During this time, he gets progressively more touchy the closer you get, until you let him into your home. He knew where you lived before you showed him and he was even in your building and rooms before you showed them to him, but he is good at pretending to see them for the first time. After this, he basically consideres himself welcome around your house 24/7.

M - Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Of course they are. Otherwise, the police would have showed up at his doorstep sooner than later. And they already know him well, a story he does not like to remember, it was tedious to get them out of his mortuary.

N - Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

His go-to is either drugging or medieval torture devices. You blabbered too much nonsense again? A few hours with the Scold's bridle will teach you right. Trying to physically overpower him will be punished by drugging. You are so much more lovely like this, all drugged up and dazed. His disciplining is usually more unpleasant than hindering. Never would he go so far as to break your legs or even chop them off, you need those little sticks after all.

O - Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

Almost any he sees fit. Blabber too much and you lose your right of free speech (literally). The right of cencorship-free information? Surely not, the world outside is taboo for you. But don't worry, he won't take your right to go to the bathroom. He's not a monster after all.

P - Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

One month until he first tries to obduct you. Afterwards, he doesn't care to wait up for you. The longer you take, the less patient he is. So you better adjust to him quickly.

Q - Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

He could never. If you died, he would not wait long to bring you back as one of his living corpses. And if you, against all odds, manage to leave and escape his premises, he would go hunt after you right again. He makes sure you won't be able to catch a break, at least nowhere outside of his home.

R - Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

No and no. Why should he feel sorry about something he wanted? If you can't adapt properly to him and your new life, it is purely your problem. And running away is no solution. Sorry, love.

S - Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

This man has been unalive for longer than he needed and has enough trauma for three whole families. So why shouldn't he share his psychological turmoil with you? Also, he is curious how well a human can take being treated like this.

T - Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

He doesn't appear to feel anything, other than annoyance with a slight hint of amusement. If you isolate yourself, good. Better than crying and throwing a fit right infront of him. He really can't stand that, it reminds him of crying children who run after their mother after they were mean to her and she decided to leave them standing where they are. Screaming should only be done in isolation, otherwise you might hurt his eardrums. This man is already half blind, adding deafness to it is more than he'd like to have.

U - Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

He doesn't admire you. He wants you to admire him.

V - Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

Not a classical weakness, but useful none the less. His medicine/chemical cabinet has enough to kill a whole village, so if you start to be a bit more attentive during his work period, you might be able to learn a thing or two about some chemicals. He is most distracted during coffin nailing. If you use these facts wisely, you might make it out of there...

W - Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Of course he would. What would be a better way to discipline you? Most of the injuries aren't fatal of course, he needs you in a good working shape.

X - Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

Him worshipping you? Dearie, you got something completely wrong. To him you are a puppet, a doll, a mere toy to play around with and throw aside as soon as he doesn't want you anymore. He knows that he doesn't need to win you over. He's way too irresistable for that (in his opinion).

Y - Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Upon first meeting you, about 4 months. Plus minus one, if you're particularly lucky/unlucky. He knows what he's doing after all, he doesn't need much planing.

Z- Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

In the end, all he wants is a perfect little doll that will keep him company for as long as he needs. And if he needs to break you for this goal, he will do so without hesitation. That way, you'll be stuck with him for the rest of your time, as long as your mortal coil exists. Forever.

______________________________________________________________

Did I promise something happy or fluffy? Oops. My bad. I'll maybe do a series out of this, depends on my mood and creativity. I can't tell you yet what my next post will be, because I have no clue what it will be.

(I'm too lazy to proof read this, as always.)

Until next time~

Your Inconsistent Kuroshitsuji Blog~

[katyspersonal]

How me reblogging some fanart goes:

*scrolls*

There is nothing special about this drawing, nothing to stand out, simply academical level perfect painting with perfect shading of just character in Environment, so I won't give it attention

*scrolls*

There is nothing special about this drawing either but the artist is clearly beginner and is currently ignored, I wish to support them!!! *reblogs*

*scrolls*

I could've forgiven drawing his arm turning into tentacles because although it isn't accurate it is still funny and should have been canon, but his hair is black and waving, not brown and straight! Ignored.

*scrolls*

Her ribbon is not like this at all, but this is a cute interaction! Fine, I will reblog..

*scrolls*

OH MY GOD RARE CHARACTER RARE CHARACTER NO ONE ELSE DRAWS HFHFJVGJ IT IS RARE CHARACTER OH MY GOD BLESS YOU OP I LOVE THAT YOU'VE NOTICED THIS RARE CHARACTER VFUYFJFJ BARK BARK WOOF WOOF 🐕 *chews the post a little before reblogging* *+10 HP*

*scrolls*

Ah, funny mem- VARGRAM ERASURE GOD FUCKING DAMMIT VARGRAM ERASURE DO NOT LAUGH RETREAT RETREAT!!!!!!!! Ugh how the HECK even lore-obsessed freaks like me are still doing this?! I don't care that you enjoy neglecting minor characters, Vargram's set is NOT a covenant set!!!!

*scrolls*

Shit, wtf? Why this person still haven't blocked me, after how negative they've been to my friend? Okay scroll carefully to not accidentally press like on Tumblr mobile.... scroll past carefully.... very slowly...... please mobile don't fuck this up...

*scrolls*

This fanart is really inaccurate visually but the concept is perfectly lore accurate! I am definitely supporting this! *reblogs*

*scrolls*

This person's uncolored doodle got 800+ notes in 3 hours when my best and most detailed works are lucky to cross 50 notes... I am worthless and should quit art, the girls clearly like my lore posts more than my ugly art... *sniffs* No wonder, I draw like a child, my faces are ugly, my anatomy is broken, shading makes no sense... *sobs* I bet fans of the characters I draw have cringe attacks when I touch them... God I remember how back in my Mico simping days other Mico simps side-eyed my fanart of him, and it was clear it is because it is ugly... It isn't even a matter of "they want to prettyfy him" because they do reblog and like "ugly" art of him, they just hate MY style in particular because I am a TERRIBLE artist.... *sobs*

*scrolls*

.....what. the. FUCK. Why THE fuck this perfect, amazing, fully colored drawing with hella effort in it barely has notes? Fuck this fandom, I hate this fandom! Nevermind, my art isn't bad, this fandom is just too stingy for support! *reblogs*

*scrolls*

Haha, nice o- VARGRAM ERASURE VARGRAM ERASURE RETREAT RETREAT

*scrolls*

Wow, these sketches are lovely, I want to reblog- *sees the caption like 'some sketches from insta'* Nah, I do not want to interact with artists who otherwise hang out on another site (which sucks and is very toxic to artists btw) and just use Tumblr as a dumping ground or portfolio. I only like people who actually USE this site.

*scrolls*

Good and quality art, but nothing special about this design. It feels like they drew fanart of the fanon! Could have added their own unique vision smh.

*scrolls*

Oh my god, finally! Finally, fanart of the ship I love so much! I've been- wait wait wait. Why Brador is wearing his beast hyde while Laurence is still alive? Brador's beast hyde is explicitly stated to be that of a Cleric Beast, and Laurence was the FIRST Cleric Beast! No yeah, beggars CAN be choosers. Ignored.

*scrolls*

Oh, good art- wait, why this character's eyes are blue? This character has grey eyes! But also this is such a rare character to draw... Fine. *reblogs but points out the eye color is wrong in the tags*

*scrolls*

Good art, but caption is hostile. No one wants to know that you hate this character under the art of this character. Ignored.

*scrolls*

Good art, reblogged.

*scrolls*

Very well done art, but her chest is not that big! In fact, she is boobless. Maybe next time.

*scrolls*

I want to reblog this fanart, but also despite doing so much work on detail and lighting, they forgot those cute accessories by each side of her big brooch! It could not be the laziness, it obviously was using other fanarts as the reference instead of actual ingame screenshots and model!

*scrolls*

Wh... what... oh my god... Oh my god this person drew the idea I suggested.... I've inspired someone? Oh God. Wait a second. Oh no. I need like a full week to articulate my emotions. Oh God I can't. I didn't just contribute something good in the fandom. Oh no *crying cat*

*scrolls*

I feel nothing for this ship, but this fandom is obnoxious when the female character without canon sexuality they've DECIDED is a lesbian is shipped with male character, so I will support this person. *reblogs*

*scrolls*

Good art, but they have this dumb DNI caption under their post. I don't even fit the criteria, I just don't want to carry the whole "panic about contact with ImPuRiTy" attitude with the drawing! When will people learn that some bad person liking their art is not the end of the world? 🤔

*scrolls*

Wow, good drawing!!! *the tags are the wall of passive aggression towards fans with "wrong" headcanons* Well now I am not reblogging it.

*scrolls*

Goddamit, Crow, I know you are desperate for at least any art of your blorbo, but why would you reblog something that is so careless? They clearly like what they could make out of character instead of actual character's appearance! You were just passionately approving of posts like "stop removing his wrinkles!" or "stop giving her huge honkers!" and now this? 🐓🐓🐓

*scrolls*

CROW YOU REBLOGGED VARGRAM ERASURE I THOUGHT YOU WERE BASED BUT YOU...... YOU ARE C R I N G E 🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓

[verycharismaticdragon]

Wuthering Waves graphics settings and how to cook them

I tried looking up a guide for this, but all the ones I found were of a "if your device is dying or catching fire, try turning these off" variety - when what I wanted was more along the lines of "the best settings for taking screenshots", or at least "these settings offer obvious improvements in graphics, while these ones are barely noticeable".

So, today I've decided to just go for it and make some comparisons myself! And share my findings, of course. To start with, I went to compare settings that affect how character models look, since I do love me my blorbo caps.

Before we begin: do open the images to their full size to accurately see the differences! Tumblr's compression is lying to you! And without further ado...

Settings you definitely DON'T wanna turn off

Anti-Aliasing. Your good friend who takes care of 80% of pixelization on your models. I'll just let the shots speak for themselves:

Anti-Aliasing ⬅️ ON - OFF ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

Settings you probably won't notice are gone

Capsule AO. AO stands for Ambient Occlusion, and what it does, in theory, is improve shading, adding extra depth (or color, i think?) to shadows depending on environment. Well... is the ambient occlusion in the room with us right now..?

Capsule AO ⬅️ ON - OFF ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

Ofc, I gotta say that it's possible it will be more noticeable in the environment shots; but since for now we are talking character models - you can see for yourself. (I also gotta add that I saw someone complain that it doesn't work properly on mobile version after the 1.1 update. So maybe I'll try it again in a while.)

[continued under cut]

Shadow Quality: Ultra High vs High. Now, I won't say I can't see any differences, but they are so minimal that you really gotta ask yourself if it's worth the extra strain on your CPU.

Shadow Quality: ⬅️ Ultra High - High ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

Like there's a difference in how the shadow bleeds, for example near the corner of his lips, but you gotta really look for it to notice.

I also have to add that, unfortunately, even Ultra High does not solve an issue of pixelated shadows that sometimes inexplicably happen to certain characters in certain angles 🤷‍♂️

Now, while we are talking shadows...

Shadow Quality comparisons

Shadow Quality: ⬅️ Ultra High - Medium ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

Shadow Quality: ⬅️ High - Medium ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

Now, as you can see, there's a clear difference in depth once you lower SQ to Medium. Other than that, it doesn't look too bad, and if you have performance issues to consider, going with Medium might be the right choice. Or you can keep it on Medium for regular gameplay, and only turn it up when you want to take pretty screenshots/screen recordings! Just from my experience, I can barely see the difference on the phone screen, even in environment shots - but it does make a difference once I open the pics/vids on PC.

And for completion's sake...

Shadow Quality: ⬅️ Medium - Low ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

Now, there's no significant difference on the character model, and if you were already going to stick with Medium, you might be thinking, why not free up my device's processing power some more? But I gotta warn you here: Low becomes very noticeable in environment shots, removing like half of the shadows of objects. I will make an environment shots comparison sometime later, but you can easily observe the effect yourself by going to any overworld location during the in-game day and changing the setting. So: I'd say turning it all the way down to Low should be the last resort, if your device is catching fire - and after you have turned down all other environment-related settings!

Finally,

Settings that are down to taste

FSR (to fullname, AMD FidelityFX Super Resolution) is an upscaling technology, or, to make it easier, a nifty little trick games use to make themselves look better than their actual resolution. You will notice that the FSR ON version looks much crispier!

FSR: ⬅️ ON - OFF ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

However, the other side of this coin is that it may make pixelization on the edges more noticeable. This especially affects spiky hair *and here I went to grab a few more screenshots* - again, open the image to full size to really see what I'm talking about.

(to make sure im not misleading anyone, this set was taken with my casual settings, not the highest possible ones like the other screenshots in this post)

So... what to prioritize is entirely a matter of your taste 🤷‍♂️ As you might've already realized, pixelization is not that noticeable if you are not zoomed in to 100%. On the other hand, if we are talking screenshots in particular, fixing slight blurriness takes minimal editing, unlike fixing pixels... Just think about it - or try changing the setting and taking a few screenshots with your faves to compare - and decide.

Now, last but not least,

Bloom. Bloom is a method of lighting the model. From what I've read, it is used to up the 'brightness' of the game, without actually upping it. If you look at the comparison, you will see that the Bloom ON version has this sort of soft 'glow' to it...

Bloom: ⬅️ ON - OFF ➡️ (all other settings ON or highest possible)

...however, you may also notice that the Bloom OFF version has slightly more definition to it.

And, confession time: after turning Bloom off for the first time, I actually left it off and never looked back until today. To explain why, I will show a few more screenshots, with ON and OFF versions taken without moving the character from the spot:

Now, if we try to flat compare the two, I'd say that OFF works better for darker places (first set, character facing away from the light, and the shaded side of the second set), and ON works better in the light (third set, character facing bright light, and the lighted part of the second set - especially the glow on his hair!).

But in a more general way - and what I think you should consider while choosing what to do with this setting - toggling it almost feels like switching up the art style of the game. Both styles look good in their own way! For me personally, Bloom OFF feels more right for WuWa's vibe and setting, which is why I'm keeping it that way. Maybe you love the gentle glow of Bloom ON, though - and that's perfectly understandable too! It's really pretty!..

All in all, though, I think you should try toggling this on and off - zooming in on your characters, fighting and seeing the ResLib animations, and so on - before deciding what to go with. At the very least, the OFF version is worth trying out!

----

And this will be all for today! Here's Encore to see you off!

Taken with my usual graphic setting, btw. And I'll see when I have the time for that environment comparison.........

[violexides]

my silence has been because i have acted in person and thus utilize social sites with in person connections (and tumblr barely functions for me anymore).

but reminder that we are still ALL EYES ON PALESTINE.

if you can't go to an action, donate. if you can't donate, go to an action. if you can't do either, say something. raise awareness. your silence is violence & your inaction is violence & even if it's just two words on tumblr, two words wherever the hell you are, your daily click ETC. that is something. that is breaking your silence.

if you are going out, remember your rights. if you are in the US write the national lawyers guild number for your region on your arm, mask, don't go alone, bring mobile chargers bring medication bring a jacket bring water.

if you are donating, find the solidarity funds in your area for the actions right now. go fund mes, ven mos, e-sims, organizations, whatever you can when you can.

repost accounts & uplift.

the police, the universities, this country, the global powers of our world do NOT keep us safe. you and your community keep each other safe.

Palestine WILL be free. if you don't stand for Palestinian liberation, you do not stand for queer liberation, you do not stand for decolonization & an end to oppression.

this is about Palestine and Gaza and the martyrs and revolutionaries there. remember that & say it & sit with your discomfort & know that the people who will uplift you do not wear police vests, do not speak at the head of a university, do not sit in the white house.

[stillness-in-green]

More and More on Mina, Machia and the MLA

For my readers other than @randomvongenerico, please have this peremptory list of this very lengthy post's contents to help gauge your interest:

Some more discussion on what is or isn’t, would or wouldn’t be blameworthy about various characters’ actions (or hypothetical actions) during the war arcs.   

More discussion about Mina, chiefly about how (and why) her acid powers are handled compared to all the male characters with fire powers, and the way her plot points are poorly set up by the narrative, with the result of shortchanging her development.   

Yet More Complaining About How The Story Is Handling Heteromorphobia, this time featuring a compare and contrast on quirk-based bias as it might affect Mina, Bakugou and Tokoyami, as well as a dissection of Shouji’s contention that the only possible way to know about the violent bigotry in the rural areas of the country is to be from them.   

Some fairly extensive spitballing in response to questions about how I would have handled the scene at Machia’s prison compound if I were writing it, as well as why I have trouble conceiving of anything Hero Society could do to Hose Face for killing Midnight that would actually feel like justice.   

A little bit of basic talk about Tumblr, its functionality and some relevant slang.   

Buried at the very bottom, I stand up in front of God and everyone and explain in brief why Kaminari is a worse character than Mineta, with some particular focus on Kaminari as emblematic of the conflict between what the series tells us versus what it shows us about the legality of quirk use in careers other than heroism.

Hi again, rvg.  Because it's been forever since our last post exchange, let me say again that I appreciate the apology and want to thank you for being such a good sport about it.  Last time I had something like your initial response, that person told me straight out that they’d been condescending and antagonistic on purpose, though they regretted having done so after my reply.  I appreciated the regret, but would have preferred they take a day or two to cool off in the first place!  That’s the experience I was bringing to your comments, but I’ll keep in mind what you said about lack of experience with initiating chats and Tumblr in general.

For what it’s worth, yeah, there is a character limit on both asks and replies, so that’s the trouble you were running into there!  You might also consider using a cut next time before a really long post, though if you’re on mobile, I recall that being a difficult-if-not-impossible feature to find, and it’s not as important as it used to be ever since Tumblr’s started adding default Expand drop-downs on long posts.  That aside, welcome (belatedly) to Tumblr!  I hope you find some good people to chat fandom with; I’m always open to some back and forth about things I know well enough to talk about, though I’m, er, decidedly unprompt with replies.  And, as noted, definitely more of a villain fan, so probably not the most fun person for discussions on the kids.

That said, to your replies!  Other readers should note that, while I wrote all this roughly in response-order to rvg’s points, I reorganized everything after the fact to group together the broad topics.  I’ve tried to provide some bare minimum context for anything that would otherwise be too much of a zero-context non-sequitur, but if anyone wants to see rvg’s comments in their intended order and context, their reblog can be found here.  Otherwise, hit the jump!

  

Would You Have Held It Against ___?

But would you hold it against Mina if she had actually done more substancial damage to Machia? Let’s say, not the face, but Machia’s fingers instead of his claws. Machia still doens’t feel any pain. Would you chastise Mina for it? Even though she’s actively saving Mt Lady by doing that?

It’s hard to say for sure, since I imagine that if Mina’s acid had hit Machia’s fingers instead of his claws, we probably would just have seen them abraded and singed, like how Dabi’s fire damage was drawn on Hawks, not with chunks of skin melting off and exposing naked bone.  Physical damage in BNHA just doesn’t work like that, at least not against named characters.  If Mina were doing realistic damage, I imagine everyone else would be too, and then I’d be criticizing all of them, because, holy shit, that is not okay to do to people, any people, and especially not when you’re acting as an agent of the state.

But hypothetically, no, I think I would be more lenient even if she did do concrete and permanent damage to Machia’s hands, and it’s because she’d be doing it to save Mount Lady.  Shinsou could have taken control of Machia and then just had him lie still while whoever was in charge of this facility redrugged him,[1] and that would have been fine by me—disappointing, sure, but only because Machia’s interesting and I’d like to get more on him than we do, not because I’d be critiquing Shinsou’s actions.

It’s specifically Shinsou and the rest choosing to weaponize Machia against AFO that I object to.  Mina harming Machia would be taking that action herself, to protect someone that’s right in front of her, risking no one’s life but her own in doing so.  Shinsou throwing Machia up against AFO—which he’d made the decision to do before hearing Machia’s angry grumbling—is risking Machia’s life, without Machia’s consent.  And it’s not even for the sake of saving anyone, at least not anyone that’s right there in that moment—AFO is fleeing.

Sure, he still presents a huge threat to lots of people, but given that we’d just seen proof that AFO did not know about Shinsou’s power,[2] they could also have used Machia to, for example, rapidly transport the heroes to some place they could set up a second ambush to trick AFO into responding to Shinsou.  I mean, good god, AFO’s the chattiest villain in the comic; Hawks lured him into at least two extended conversations even after he’d resolved that he needed to leave.  He’s a Demon Lord and thus categorically incapable of shutting up.  And that would have been that, really.  Take control and let the clock run out; end of problem.

It would have been anticlimactic as hell, so obviously that was never going to happen, but there’s no reason the heroes couldn’t try for it, you know?  Instead of the bone-headed decision to just hand AFO his most loyal soldier on a silver platter on the thin chances that they could either prevent the brainwashing from being broken at all or that Machia’s upset would translate to both the capability and willingness to attack his master.

I’ve observed this problem in a few different areas, that Horikoshi sometimes writes the heroes, particularly Hawks, as not taking actions or drawing conclusions that, from their perspective, should seem sensible, well-reasoned, and with solid chances of success; instead, they simply disregard possibilities they should logically be considering but which the reader knows are dead ends, or they benefit from things they could not have known at the time they acted.  That hurts immersion because it gives the heroes victories, both tactical and moral, that they simply haven’t earned.  Shinsou’s control of Machia is a particularly egregious example.

  

Speaking of Monoma. Since we were talking about the morality of Shinso’s Quirk. Would you say Monoma using his Quirk to copy a villain’s Quirk and use it on him and his allies, would also qualify as something that should be criticized? I’m curious.

Nah, I don’t think so.  Taking an opponent’s weapon and using it to subdue him is a perfectly valid tactic, especially since Monoma’s method doesn’t actually deprive his opponent of their weapon, just replicates it for his own use.  It really all does boil down to Shinsou’s method forcing people to fight and hurt their own allies.  Mina causing Machia physical harm, Monoma using a villain’s own weapon against them, even the heroes’ surprise attack: none of those are remotely on the same “holy shit that is a literal war crime” level as what the heroes planned in advance to have Shinsou do to Machia, and what he willingly agreed to do well before he found out that Machia was not as opposed as the heroes thought.

  

I mean, I get what you’re getting at. I’m just wondering. If the heroes hadn’t launched a suprise attack, and had left the villains do the first move and come to them, would you then be criticizing them for being irresponsible and incompetent instead? Sorry for going on a tangent, it’s just something I’ve noticed when it comes to readers criticizing the heroes. It’s either people complaining that the heroes are too ruthless, or that they’re too nice, naive or not pragmatic enough.

(This is in response to some discussion of the heroes' actions in the first war arc's raid on the villa+hospital lab, not the second war's divide and conquer plan.)

I actually don’t really have a huge problem with the surprise attack in principle—I might criticize Cementoss ripping the building in half when there could well have been people on those upper floors, but otherwise, it’s hard to imagine what else the heroes could generally have done to deal with the numbers they were dealing with.  I mean, it’s basically just a scaled-up version of the attack on the Hassaikai base, and I don’t have any moral quibbles with the way the heroes and police handled that.

Rather, my problem with the raid is that I thought the heroes were too effective given the way their forces and those of the PLF had been set up.  It’s not the tactic itself that’s the problem (though individual acts of worse violence within the attack, like Hawks killing Twice or the attempts to outright murder Shigaraki in the tube, are still an issue), it’s the finality, the totality, of how effective the attack was.

To be brief about it (because I’ve talked about this at length elsewhere), I don’t think the heroes should have known where all the PLF bases were, I don’t think they should have been as effective in disordered mass combat as the PLF, I think the advisors should have put up a better fight in all cases, and I think there should have been enough members of the PLF in significant positions of influence or power that the HPSC couldn’t uncover them all, leading to complications when those members realized their organization was under attack.

As it is, the heroes handily win every fight they have with the sole exception of Gigantomachia and Shigaraki.  The PLF is neatly swept off the table save for a few “remnants,” with no attention given to the practical difficulties of detaining tens of thousands of combatants with no motivation to let themselves be quietly arrested, much less how the justice system is going to handle trying and sentencing them all.  That has repercussions going forward, as well: heroes clearing the board of all the (named) PLF members save Skeptic leaves the bulk of villain forces in the subsequent arcs to be prison escapees, and man, if the PLF’s moral nuance has been squandered, the depiction of the prison escapees is even worse.

The raid is, of course, only the first of two big surprise attacks the heroes manage.  I have significantly more issues with the second one, but most of that boils down to the fact that the divide and conquer/Tempt and Trap plan feels crueler, meaner, and much more openly aimed at extrajudicial murder.  And like, that would all be fine and in-character for Hero Society in general and Hawks, the main planner, specifically, but with Deku, Shouto and Uraraka all starting to think Save Villains thoughts, and fresh off the traitor reveal, the kids should never have been as collectively okay with the second war’s tactics as the story has presented them as being.  To echo an older complaint, good god, what universe is Horikoshi living in that he thinks the people that converted a place of learning into an arena they call a “coffin in the sky” are the heroes?

  

I was under the impression Midnight was off to the side from where the MLA minions were passing by, and the Skull Mask guy took a detour to kill her.

I’m not sure from this if you’re explaining how you read Hose Face’s attack on Midnight at the time, or if you’re maintaining that that’s an accurate read, so just to clarify, here are the panels in question:

As you can see, the PLF guys’ path through the woods has them coming in from directly behind Midnight.  Hose Face calls out that he’ll take care of her once they get close enough for the reader to make out who they are, at which point he gets out in front of Scarecrow and hits Midnight from the same direction as their initial approach: directly behind.  He most certainly doesn’t take a detour of any kind, but rather chooses the action that is going to get his group through the obstacle with the least amount of time and effort possible—entirely his prerogative as the highest-ranked member of the Guerilla Warfare regiment on-scene.

  

But if we classify this entire conflict as a war, wouldn’t that mean that both sides are free to use whatever tacticts and methods they feel like as long as it’s not a war crime?

If we classify it as war is irrelevant if the side aligned with the current ruling authority hasn’t done so themselves.  I imagine the Japanese government is in no hurry to validate the terrorists on an international stage by acknowledging that they’re numerous and dangerous enough to declare actual, formal war against!  Calling it a war drags in a whole pile of wartime conventions Japan has signed numerous treaties about; it grants the opposing side some legitimacy as a cohesive, organized force that will need to be negotiated with down the line.  As long as you’re calling it a police action, you don’t have to negotiate shit until you get to the plea deals!  Team Hero never declared war here, so yeah, I still expect them to carry out their plans and actions accordingly.

Also, in the thematic/meta sense, I expect the heroes to either conduct themselves as heroes—admirable, upright, heroic—or face the narrative consequences when they fail to live up to that ideal.  The hyper-encapsulated version of this conundrum is the recurring idea that attacking Shigaraki never actually prevents Shigaraki from coming back worse and more dangerous next time; the heroes are never going to achieve a different result by attacking him again but harder this time, and that’s why Deku is set up to finally try something different.[3]  I would just like it if what’s true on the micro-level could even be attempted on the macro-level.  Or, in other words, if the narrative is going to tell us that saving villains is the correct path, it can’t only demonstrate that for the villains with known-to-the-heroes sympathetic backstories.

  

General Mina Points

Regarding your analysis about Mina’s acid being underpowered because it’s harder/less believable to downplay the effects of acid than fire/explosions/etc. in Shounen Damage Logic, I think we’ll have to agree to disagree.  I don’t see anything wrong with just showing the Nebulous Abrasion Damage that’s the ubiquitous, default mode of illustrating nonspecific injury in this comic for Mina’s acid the same way we get it for the boys.

I can see your argument, but like, just for example, when Endeavor first encounters a Noumu, he bathes it in fire under the assumption that it’s a normal villain and then says he’s surprised it’s still up because he’s never seen anyone stay conscious after that attack.  Bathing someone in flames in real life is not a “knock them out” kind of attack; it’s a “severe burn ward for months” kind of attack.  If Endeavor’s been throwing that around at random criminals for thirty years, we are plainly very far away from realistic damage, and I’d be perfectly satisfied with treating Mina’s acid the same way.

If I had to take a guess as to why Horikoshi’s so staunchly avoided letting Mina cut loose—other than regressive gender politics—I’d say it’s that acid simply feels nastier or more morally dubious than fire.  Fire has positive as well as negative connotations; acid’s a lot more, shall we say, unilateral in the collective imagination, especially given what’s going to turn up if you run a web search for “acid attacks.”

To look at it in JRPG logic (and I don’t care if AFO’s admiration stems from a comic; that comic was clearly playing with Dragon Quest tropes), acid is pretty much the same thing as poison, and poison effects are chiefly the realm of enemy characters.  It smacks of underhandedness or cowardice in anything more cognizant than roving toxic plants or venomous beasts.  Certainly you see the occasional party member specialized for status effects who can inflict poison damage on enemies, but I can’t readily think of a main character that does.[4]

Perhaps, then, because readers are somewhat conditioned to think of acid as particularly dangerous and nasty compared to fire, and because there’s a limit to how morally dubious Horikoshi is willing to (consciously) write the students, especially the girls, Mina’s sharply limited in how she’s allowed to use her acid.

That said, I got a very hearty laugh from, “Just look at Dabi.  He can’t even kill himself with fire,” so thank you very much for that.

  

It’s as if Horikoshi only ever figures out what to do with Mina retroactively instead of in the moment (e.g. there were no interactions between Kirishima and Mina until AFTER Kirishima’s backstory, we never got any hint that would connect Mina’s and Midnight’s characters until AFTER Midnight died, when Mina speaks about not giving in to vengeance she references SHOJI’S WORDS which happened in HIS FLASHBACK, and then this whole chapter is technically a flashback too when you think about it).

That’s a big oof, all right.  I know about the Midnight non-connection and the issue of Mina’s anti-vengeance words having first been delivered by Shouji and relayed to the audience by Koda (it being his flashback, rather than Shouji’s), but I didn’t know there was no indication of Kiri-Mina connection until after his flashback.  Wowzers.

  

But also, in one of my comments I had left a link to a post analizing Kirishima’s and Mina’s characters and their dynamic. I don’t know if you checked it out or not, but it was a pretty interesting read. If you did read it, let me know your thoughts on it.

Apologies for not responding to that; I hadn't clicked it because I just wasn't terribly interested in the topic. Having checked it now, I can say that I'm unlikely to read it because I've encountered this person's meta before and, even at a glance, found it to be flawed for reasons I am not comfortable gabbing about in a public space. I'm sure they make some valid points, but I will have to respectfully bow out of reading and commenting on it here.

  

But what about Mina telling Kirishima that “now they’re even” though?

(This is re: my contention that Mina saves Shinsou, not Kirishima, from the Sludge Villain, and that Kirishima was never in any danger from the Sludge Villain.)

I mean, she can say it, but that doesn’t mean I have to believe that she/Horikoshi are accurately portraying the stakes involved.

  

Just for the record, you’re not saying that Mina not giving in to revenge isn’t noble in and of itself. What she does is indeed good.  You’re saying it doesn’t have any emotional weight because Mina has always been a morally good character, so you never thought she would ever give in to revenge in the first place. Correct?

Correct!  As I’ve said, Mina has perfectly healthy emotional regulation: when she experiences negative emotions like anger, guilt, or grief, she doesn’t dwell on them; she vents them to friends and finds healthy ways to channel them into bettering herself and the world and people around her.  She’s got a great head on her shoulders!  But all of that means that her giving into anger about Midnight’s death was never a remotely convincing threat to me.  Of course she wouldn’t; there’s never been a moment that foreshadowed that she was in the slightest danger of harboring that kind of obsessive, vindictive grudge.

That being the case, it feels unfair of Horikoshi to pin a big dramatic monologue on a desire for revenge which Mina was never shown to possess to any greater degree than any of her classmates.  She’s one of the last hero-aligned characters I’d have guessed if you’d asked me who was going to get a beat like that in the endgame.

(To anticipate the obvious question, Aizawa would have been my first guess; he’s even been written for it properly in the way he and Mic have responded to Shigaraki—clearly holding a grudge for something that would have happened to their classmate when Shigaraki was all of six years old.  Conversely, while plenty of the 1-A kids could have believably carried a “struggling with vengefulness” plot if they’d been written with it from earlier on, I don’t think there’s a single one of them who feels like a good match for it in their current incarnations.  Iida’s moved on from his Stain days too smoothly to buy it from him, Bakugou’s only real obsession is Deku, and Deku already had a whole arc of being obsessively negative and driven by dark desires to find and deal with a villain.  If any student was going to show up to the fight with bloody-minded revenge on the brain, it should have been Shishikura.)

  

But What About the Heteromorphobia, Tho’?

(Warning: Incoming off-topic harping about Shouji and the inane resolution of the hospital attack.)

I have even seen someone make a post on Reddit arguing that Shinso being discriminated for his Quirk makes no sense because it’s not villanous, and that it makes more sense for characters like Bakugo, Mina and Tokoyami to be discriminated because they have more villanous looking Quirks. I don’t really agree with everything that guy said. But he did bring up a good point. How come Mina doesn’t get side eyes from people due to her Quirk like Shinso does?

I will have to disagree with Reddit User That Guy that Shinsou’s quirk should be viewed as less villainous than Bakugou’s.  It sounds like he was conflating heteromorphobia with the bias against villains/"villainous" quirks, and while there is overlap, they’re still distinct categories.  Shinsou’s quirk inherently subordinates one’s physical body, allowing him to force his targets to act against their will, or potentially take the fall for things they didn’t willingly do.  Of course people are nervous about it or think it’s more villainous than heroic!

Conversely, the Number 2 Hero has been attacking criminals with fire for decades now, so I think the BNHA general public is more than ready to accept a hero whose quirk lets him fire off explosions.  The commonly accepted idea in the fandom is that “flashy and offensive quirks” are the ones most valued in heroes.  I think that’s a bit oversimplified—Crust was the Number 6 Hero and his quirk was neither—but it’s certainly true that purely elemental quirks (fire, lightning, wind, earth-shaping), no matter how damage-dealing they are, don’t tend to get treated as villainous in nature.  The real “villainous quirks” in the series tend to be the ones that are more creepy, dark, invasive, or impure.  Even Dabi’s fire is that ethereal blue, like spirit fires, instead of everyday orange-red!

Bakugou’s quirk is much closer to the “pure elemental” category than anything very villainous and, indeed, when he got kidnapped from the training camp and that one journalist was suggesting that he might have turned to villainy already, he based that suggestion on Bakugou’s behavior, his conduct during the Sports Festival.  Nothing was said about his quirk at all, but rather his recent public demonstrations of violence and “mental instability.”  That’s perfectly consistent, I think, with the biases we see elsewhere.[5]

Tokoyami has the potential to get hit by both the villainous quirk bias and the heteromorphobia, but I think Japan seeing ravens as emblematic of wisdom rather than death and rot would mean his bird head is less ill-seen there than it would be in the West.  I don’t think it would take much more than the proverbial One Bad Day to get him to a very bad place indeed, though—there’s a reason Mr. Compress judged him a good potential recruit!  Tokoyami was rescued before it became an issue, but if he hadn’t been, I’m sure we would have seen the same journalist mentioned above making similar statements about Tokoyami and his dark quirk/mien.

Mina’s an interesting case study in not experiencing a lot of the same sorts of discrimination others in similar situations do.  She has three distinct heteromorphic traits—her skin, her eyes, her horns—as well as having a potentially extremely deadly quirk which, as I discussed above, could easily attract judgmental side-eye because of the cultural view of acid.  So why doesn’t she seem to face discrimination?

As I said in the post you’re replying to—and as you mentioned is a common headcanon—I think a lot of it boils down to her relentlessly chipper attitude.  If she had, for example, Mustard’s personality, or Muscular’s drive to violence, would people be quicker to say that her Acid is a “villain quirk”?  If she glared more, would people be more creeped out by her eyes?  It’s possible, I think, that we would actually see her facing some of this if we spent more time with her, but the narrative doesn’t make that time, at least not anywhere Kirishima can see it.

  

Well, if I had to guess, I’m sure you would say that would make her a more interesting character. You might get to be interested in her character, which then would probably mean you would be even more upset and disappointed with this chapter.

Ahaha, very fair.  Honestly, Class A would have benefited tremendously from more kids with bite to them.  A Mina whose competitiveness had some real fervor to it, or a Mina who had some heaviness in her backstory she was faking her way through dealing with, would have been a good contribution to that.

  

It really sucks that Horikoshi had to justify Shoji being the only one to experience prejudice by clarifying that heteromorph discrimination is only still prevalent in small villages. I feel like it robbed characters like Tsuyu, Mina, Tokoyami and Koda of being part of an actual narrative and get more depth and development.

Before I talk about this, let me clarify something: Shouji’s line about what his classmates know about heteromorphic discrimination is an example of very crucial nuance being wildly different between translations.

The fan scanlation suggested that Tokoyami and Koda, who grew up in cities, must feel like such violent heteromorphobia resembles something out of a textbook, with the implication that the textbook in question is a history book.  They’re presumed to think that blood-cleansing rituals and children with scars like Shouji are artifacts of a terrible past, not a modern-day concern.

The official Via release suggested that Tokoyami and Koda could know that stuff like this still happens in rural areas because they might have read about it in textbooks.  They’re presumed to know that such rituals and scarred children do exist as modern concerns, but only out in the boonies.

Those are completely different propositions!  Which one was accurate was far beyond my capability to judge, but the official translation did feel a little off to me, so, as I usually do in such situations, I brought it to my trusty Translator Sis.  For possibly the first time ever,[6] she told me that Viz had this one wrong—that Shouji’s implication, to her eye, was indeed that T&K would think such violence was limited to the past, not that it was limited to rural areas.

That established, I was actually talking about that line from Shouji with a friend the other day!  I was aggravated that the writing would portray city-born heteromorphs as so oblivious to the problems facing them in other parts of the country when that seems so counter to my (American) perception of the ways members of threatened groups communicate danger to one another.

My friend reminded me that silence is a much more common Japanese way of addressing (or attempting to address) minority discrimination: trying to make a problem go away by starving it of conversational oxygen, treating oppression like an infection that needs to be quarantined until it dies out on its own.  In that light, it’s entirely possible that Tokoyami and Koda might not know this stuff because no one around them thinks it would be helpful to tell them if it’s not a problem they’re directly dealing with.  A lot of people propose the same approach to burakumin issues in real life, for example.

Also, technically Shouji doesn’t say that Koda and Tokoyami don’t experience heteromorphobia at all, just that the idea of fear and hatred that extreme, that violent, must seem like something out of a textbook, rather than something that happens here and now in certain parts of the country.  Also too, Tokoyami and Koda are teenagers; I can forgive them not having much understanding of life outside their own circle of experience.

That all said, it still feels more than a little telling that Horikoshi thinks everyone in Shouji’s whole class, including and especially all the other heteromorphs, could never have heard in their entire lives about acts of bigotry-driven violence against heteromorphs being carried out in the here and now.

While it’s true that silence is a widely accepted way to address these sorts of issues in Japan, they’re hardly universal!  Activist groups are out there trying to raise awareness, trying to get their issues on the floor of the Diet in hopes of getting laws passed about them.  There’s not some kind of media blackout on talking about it, and, indeed, I’ve read any number of articles from Japanese publications online covering such topics.

In BNHA, however, silence does seem to be universal.[7]

No one but Shouji is from a remote enough place that they knew about violent heteromorphobia.  No one recognized it as a thing that e.g. disadvantages heteromorphic heroes in the public approval ratings.  No one tripped over a magazine article about it and got curious enough to look the topic up online.  No one’s heroic mentors or family members have talked to them about it (particularly egregious with Koda, given the fairly strong implication that his own mother suffered it).  No one had a patch of morbid interests (Tokoyami) that led them to dabble in reading about real-life horror stories of human hatred, or an interest in how their society came to be that might have led them to reading about the CRC and realizing it still exists in the modern day.

They attend a hero school, and yet Shouji seems to be the only one with an inkling that there are heteromorphs out there who need, and have been needing, heroes.

That’s all a lot to ask of the reader, but what really pushes it past plausibility to me is what happened with the Ordinary Woman.  How close to the surface must violent heteromorphobia be even in the cities if the current state of Japan brings it all right back into the open in a matter of weeks?  That none of the students other than Shouji have ever even imagined that heteromorphs can still be victimized in this way represents an over-the-top ignorance that I have to read as either a bleak condemnation of the shallow focuses of heroes or reflective of Horikoshi’s own beliefs about discrimination and the understanding of it possessed by those who aren’t immediately threatened by it.

Whichever is the case, and with Spinner’s higher brain functions out of commission, it leaves Shouji carrying the whole plot on his back and he just can’t do it, both because the audience hasn’t had enough time with him to buy it and because the answers the series uses him as a vehicle to deliver are facile, victim-blaming nonsense.

...And here’s where I admit that even if the hospital attack had climaxed with a whole bunch of heteromorphs from Class A and B and the Pro Hero ranks acknowledging the mob’s feelings while pleading with them to not give into hatred and to stand down, I would still have issues if the resolution didn’t involve concrete suggestions and promises about how the heroes would address the mob’s grievances going forward.  Which canon very much did not, and just adding more voices to Shouji’s wouldn’t have changed that.  But my whole rant about that can be found in the relevant chapter posts, so I’ll not repeat it further here.

  

How Would I Have Done It Instead?

Let’s be real here for a second. Even if Mina had been the one to stop Machia. How would she even do that? I remember back when people were talking about when Mina would get her moment to shine, and that it would involve Machia again, I had serious doubts about that idea ever becoming true because I couldn’t think of a single thing she could do against him. I thought for sure Mina’s moment was going to be relegated to fighting Midnight’s killer, since that seemed more within her capabilities. In the end her shinning moment did indeed involve Machia, and no one really had a confrontation with Midnight’s killer. I actually want to hear your thoughts, if you happen have a thing in mind that you think Mina could’ve done to be the one to stop Machia. I’d love to hear it.+ Btw, since you brought it up, in what way could she have defeated the Sludge villain that would’ve been witty, or skillful? If you don’t have any ideas you don’t need to answer. It’s not that important. I’m just curious of the posibility.

Okay, so, this is the part that hung me up for the longest, because there are a few wildly different possible answers here.

The real truth is, if I had been writing this whole shebang from the start, this confrontation would never have happened this way at all.  Just off the top of my head, I think there’s no compelling reason AFO couldn’t have sent Toga into the hospital to activate and retrieve Kurogiri weeks ago, and with Kurogiri back in play, getting Machia would obviously have gone differently.  I would also never have disposed of the MLA as comprehensively as Horikoshi did; I would have had at least one or two instances where an MLA member who didn’t get uncovered by the HPSC in time was in a position to shift the balance in the villains’ favor—maybe one would have been with the police somewhere.

Barring a top-to-bottom rewrite of the whole arc, however? Well, I'd still say that, feeling as strongly as I do about how morally dubious this whole second war has been, even if I were telling this scene with the same components, I probably wouldn’t be writing towards a hero success because I don’t think the heroes have earned it.  The baby steps the kids have taken towards Saving Villains don’t go far enough for me to want to see the villains defeated here.  The biggest changes there would have been twofold:

1) Shinsou’s voice changer play shouldn’t have worked on Machia.

Machia has a sense of smell so incredibly acute that, if I were trying to logically explain how it worked, I’d make it a psychic ability that just happened to manifest as scent-based.  We’re talking about a guy who could track down Shigaraki after a teleport of over 270 miles, who could smell AFO’s vestige stirring from almost fifty miles away.  There’s absolutely no reason he should think for even a second that AFO is standing right outside his prison.

Now, we do know replications of AFO’s voice has an effect on Machia—we saw as much as the beginning of MVA!  But I would contend that back then, he didn’t have a big loud response to the recording, just curled up around his radio and started loudly purring.  In the scene with Shinsou, he actually responds as though he thinks AFO is there, but again, I don’t buy that Machia should have fallen for that, especially since he was woken by Hose Face’s device emulating AFO’s voice, which would have given his unbelievably keen senses enough time to register that it’s only the voice, not the man, that he's hearing.

But, with Machia up and not immediately prey to Shinsou’s ploy, the other big change I’d make with him becomes apparent.  The series has proved willing and eager to shitcan everything Shigaraki gained in MVA, but not me.  Shigaraki won Machia’s loyalty at the end of MVA, and if Machia’s cranky with AFO for leaving him behind again,[8] that doesn’t mean he couldn’t still have loyalty to AFO’s successor.

Given that his loyalty to Shigs is predicated on his loyalty to AFO, it might seem logical that AFO squandering the latter would free Machia of obligation to the former.  That’s a fair take.  But if it were me, I’d capitalize on Machia’s keen senses and what he was present for in MVA—Shigaraki saying that his followers should do whatever they want.  Hell, if the endgame likes flashbacks so much, let’s have a flashback of Shigaraki and Machia actually talking in ways that would let Machia distinguish Shigaraki and AFO.

In other words, I think Machia’s loyalty should supersede his anger.  If he gets free, his first reaction should be to go to Shigaraki, not to focus on his anger.  That way, it’s not a hero win rewarding their gross sky coffin tactics, but AFO doesn’t get quite what he wanted out of it, either.  This would be one part of focusing the narrative back on Shigaraki and his allies, rather than ruining Shigaraki’s hard work by letting AFO take over and piss it all away.

Incidentally, I will concede that, just because Machia shouldn’t have responded like a dupe to Shinsou mimicking AFO’s voice, that doesn’t mean Machia might not have responded at all—he could have rebuked Shinsou for trying to emulate Master, and that would have worked for Shinsou’s purposes just as well!  So to avoid that, I would add one more element to a flashback showcasing Shigaraki and Machia’s relationship post-Deika: have Shigaraki showing Machia a picture of Shinsou and warning him to be on the lookout for this kid, and to not respond to anything he says.

Horikoshi loves to tie back plot beats to pre-established elements, and one such element is, as I footnoted earlier, that AFO and Shigaraki watched the U.A. Sports Festival together, so they should both know good and well who Shinsou is and what he can do.  Knowing Shinsou’s SF-era capabilities doesn’t predict the voice changer, of course, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that, if the heroes are pushed to a point of desperation and they have access to a brainwasher, even a non-licensed one, they will try to use that brainwasher on whoever they think is their highest priority target.  Quite frankly, all of the higher-ups and key players should have known about Shinsou.

2) The kids shouldn’t have been tipped off that they were facing Midnight’s killer, or it should have come up in a different context.

Nothing interesting comes of the way the canon deploys it, thanks to Mina’s vengeful feelings having no grounding in the story, and the blunt way it’s brought up serves only to make Hose Face easy for the reader to write off.  As I said in the chapter post where he brought up “that U.A. teacher,” there’s no real reason for him to be focusing on Midnight specifically unless he has a personal reason to think she’s emblematic of the things about Hero Society he hates, or unless he was tuned in enough to U.A. personalities (knew who was teaching there, watched the Sports Festival to get a handle on its students, etc.) to realize that he was facing students he could potentially rattle by bringing up their teacher’s death.

The latter would offer a less awful read on Hose Face’s personality: He’s not bringing up the death out of pure sadism, but as a psychological tactic.  The former would give him some real characterization and motives while also giving the kids something to argue against, rather than the easiest possible reaction of, “Hay did u kno Might Makes Right iz bad?”

Alternatively, if Hose Face has nothing personal against Midnight at all, and doesn’t have an encyclopedic memory of hero wannabe high schoolers, he has no reason to specifically mention Midnight.  Even if the narrative must see her death “answered” in some fashion, it still doesn’t follow that the kids must get emotional closure for someone they lost to the undeclared war they were drafted into.  The audience can take some solace in perceived karma, but lacking a naturalistic way for Mina and the rest to connect those dots, the kids should just have to deal with him as they would any other opponent they come up against, because, surprise surprise, when you’re fighting in a war, you’re not guaranteed to see and know who’s on the opposite side of the gun that just shot down your best friend.

As another alternative, if we go with the idea that Mina was struggling with dark desires for revenge, maybe she should have brought it up!  Not as an accusation—again, she has no way of knowing she’s facing Midnight’s killer without him saying it—but just out of generalized fury with her opponents as a group, the same way Aizawa and Gran Torino hold the pain of their loved ones against Shigaraki when Shigaraki is not the one responsible for causing that pain.[9]  Maybe a more openly vengeful Mina could just freely state that her aim is to take down the PLF to avenge Midnight, only for the enemy in front of her to answer, “Midnight?  You mean that woman I killed in the woods on the day of Liberation?  Here’s your chance, then, girl.”  (Or whatever.)

Of course, Shonen Jump is not in the habit of validating heroes craving revenge, so Mina in that scenario would fail because rage would make her sloppy, same as with Deku, Iida, and so on.

So, in a scenario where Machia is up and not falling prey to Shinsou, but rather prioritizing getting to New Master Shigaraki, and the PLF is likewise loyal to Shigaraki and not AFO, I’d just let it work, because I’d be slanting this whole combat towards an overall heroic loss.  Give Mina a face to obsess over until next time but also let Kirishima get a good eyeful of it so he at least knows there’s a serious problem with his best friend and one of his hero inspirations.

Mineta would have a chance to weigh in, too, as he's a good middle ground: he's got his own anger about Midnight, who he adored, but he's also worried about how that anger looks on Mina. Mineta always worries about his classmates, but he's shared a pretty fair amount of incidental screentime with Mina specifically over the course of the series, ranging from her sweetly offering to put a harem moment into the band performance just for him to stuff like the Clockwork Orange gag, as well as more serious stuff like Mineta being the first one to ask aloud if Midnight's dead, with Mina warmly, and with a confidence it turns out she doesn't truly feel, reassuring him that Midnight's fine.

(I've said before that Mineta should have had more to do in the confrontation with Midnight's killer, but that's not just about his fondness for her. It's also about him being the first to question if the heroes didn't just make the whole situation worse, and, if Mina really took Midnight's death so hard it had her thinking about revenge, it should also have been about Mina and Mineta's shared experience surrounding that death.)

That all said, I suspect that what you really meant is, how would I have handled this scene if I had to use all the same pieces and be writing towards a heroic victory?  So let me at least touch on that.

As far as Hose Face goes, I actually think Kirishima might have been better suited to talking to him?  Like, Mina’s been friendly with people, sure, but I don’t really buy her most pivotal, “shining moment” scene being a bunch of talk about the strength of the weak coming together.  As best I recall—though do correct me if I’m wrong—it's never been shown that Mina regularly struggles with feelings of weakness or inadequacy.  It would be perfectly natural for her to do so after flubbing against Gigantomachia, to be sure, but the series doesn’t make the time to show it, so her lines about forming packs with others does not feel like a natural evolution for her arc.

Likewise, while she’s obviously been depicted as friendly and sociable from the beginning, her lines in 383 suggest that her sociableness has, and always has had, an ulterior motive: covering for her perceived weakness.  The lack of focus on her relationships from her own perspective makes that impossible to verify or even predict, so it just feels like it comes out of thin air, grabbed almost at random by the author in his attempt to find something, anything, Mina could say that would give Hose Face even a moment's pause.

Kirishima, on the other hand, has had a focus on his relationships, places where they’ve been pivotal to his own arc and the greater plot.  (I’m sure I don’t need to harp on this to you, rvg, but I’ll go over it to lay out my perception of these things.)  His relationship with Mina—the ways he’s trying to live up to her example, as well as his desire to support her when she falters—is a profound motivator for him, something we see much more explicitly and from his own perspective than we do Mina's feelings about him.  Meanwhile, while his relationship with Bakugou isn’t given that level of psychological exploration, it’s a critical factor in Bakugou’s rescue at Kamino, and we also get that bit of Bakugou specifically giving Kirishima some advice that leads to the latter’s Unbreakable mode.[10]

So like, we do get an angle on Kirishima and his sense of his own relationships with others.  That awareness allows him to demonstrate what is, I believe, the first unabashed moment of empathy for villains that a hero demonstrates in the entire series!  Specifically, I’m talking about that low-level gang mook he comes up against during his internship with Fat Gum.  That guy does a bunch of yelling about things that speak to Kirishima—fears of weakness, desire to be stronger, a need to help his “bros”—and Kirishima tries multiple times, even after being attacked, to express his understanding and sympathy for the man.

That being the case, if anyone were going to be able to make an impression on Hose Face via appealing to his sense of camaraderie and desire for strength, it seems to me that Kirishima has the better groundwork in place to sell the moment, regardless of whether he could successfully “reach” Hose Face in the way that’s being attempted with Shigaraki/Toga/Dabi.

As to the Sludge Villain, I’d probably either not have him there at all, given how much he claims he just wants to pretend to fight for a minute before getting the hell out of there.  He very much seems like he didn’t want to be here to begin with, so I can only assume that, despite AFO claiming the jailbreakers didn’t need to do anything for him but rampage, he very much did summon a bunch of them back anyway[11] for his final dramatic attack on Deku and Hero Society.

Assuming we’re stuck dealing with him, I’d probably let the Class B kids do it.   Have Mount Lady—who was there for the Sludge Villain’s rampage using Bakugou, and therefore knows what Sludgey looks like and that he can possess people—yell for people to stay away from him.  Let there be a moment of panic and confusion, where it looks for a moment like a repeat of the mess in Chapter 1 where no one had the exact right answer to deal with him, so no one’s willing to step up.

Then, in a 1-2-3 combo move that reminds everyone why Class B is said to have advanced more quickly than Class A, and just as Sludgey lunges for someone, have Yamagi use Poltergeist to manipulate him into a steel drum barrel being held by Yui, let her shrink it down to a good tight fit before dropping it, then have Juuzo soften the ground to half-sink it, top down, then resolidify the earth, trapping Sludgey for later removal.  Ta da, a neat demonstration of the next generation outperforming the old generation when it comes to on-the-fly teamwork and decisive action even when no one individual has the perfect quirk for solving a problem.

…This, of course, is assuming there’s no good way to actually get the Sludge Villain to talk in more depth about why he didn’t want to be here from the beginning and had to be threatened into doing it at all.  It would be nice if someone could broach that topic!  Maybe a quick not-too-serious handful of lines from Mineta, who has his own history of running in terror from fights he doesn’t think he can win.  But even with some sympathy, I imagine Sludge Villain would try to run away regardless, on the (well-grounded) suspicion that heroes are going to want him to go back to prison and finish his sentence, and that’s when B-tachi could step in.

So that just leaves Machia, Mina, and Shinsou.  And honestly, rather than having to power through it, I’d rather see Mina, in particular, talk her way out of it.  This draws on two things.  First, there’s the fact that she’s one of the kids who failed her Final Exams, with her and Kaminari being unable to figure out how to utilize their strengths to get out of Nedzu’s rat maze.   I’d love to see her demonstrate that she’s grown from having no plans but to brute force her way through obstacles!  Second, there’s this sequence:

This is a bit exaggerated, obviously, but the quick demonstration of how quickly and smoothly Mina is able to approach, scold, bond with, then deescalate people in tense situations is rightly portrayed as remarkable.  But where is that facility in real confrontations with villains?  Nowhere, really, save that airless stab at remarking on common ground with Hose Face and the PLF.

I obviously don’t expect her and Machia to wind up breakdancing together when the stakes are as high as they are, but Mina would have at least a bit of an opening—her encounter with Machia in middle school wherein she lied to him about where the Springer Agency is.  I don’t for a moment think that Machia’s forgotten her smell—I doubt he forgets anyone’s, though he may or may not care about them otherwise.

For this version of the scene, I’d probably play Machia as more ambivalent—tired of being abandoned over and over again by the people he’s tried so hard to be loyal for, so not immediately inclined to run off after them, open to a bit more dialogue.  He doesn’t fall for Shinsou for the same reasons I outlined above, so Shinsou and Mina have to talk Machia into acting—or at least stop him from just rumbling off to bury himself under a mountain for the next decade or two.

I don’t know how they’d go about making that argument.  Honestly, I don’t really think there’s anything in the story for Mina or Shinsou to fall back on (by which I mean earlier panels Horikoshi’s assistants can look up and copy/paste into the storyboard to accent a dramatic speech).  Maybe they could ask him why he’s so loyal to All For One and find some commonality, either through heteromorph discrimination or bias against villains.

Maybe Machia is torn on his loyalty, betrayed by AFO one too many times to want to help him but not sure where that leaves him on supporting Shigaraki.  Hearing this, Mina brings up that AFO is threatening Shigaraki right now, but also that a friend of Mina’s is trying to stop AFO/help Shigaraki,[12] so maybe Machia could help them with that and then decide?  Machia doesn’t trust her due to the Springer Agency thing, but that same experience does lead him to believe her when she says she just wants to help people, not hurt them.

That last bit has the benefit of providing an explicit reason for why Mina uses her quirk nigh-exclusively as a watery defense barrier or to take out inanimate objects: She long ago made an active choice not to use her acid against sentient people.  This would give her some room for a little motivation-establishing flashback of her own—maybe canonize that theory about her chipperness being at least in part a front!—and provide a nice alternative to the current state of Mina’s narrative, which has spent nearly 400 chapters refusing to allow her the same free hand people like Bakugou and Kaminari take with their quirks for no established reason.

This doesn’t give Shinsou much to do, but that’s okay: his moment comes against AFO instead.

I realize that Mina's fans want her to have a big badass moment, and simply talking down a confrontation is not the kind of thing that tends to get viewed as "badass" in a shounen battle manga. Sorry about that. She can still jump around and dodge a lot while giving her pitch? Maybe she could get a big badass moment later on? I dunno; that's just what I would do, and obviously my priorities for what it would be cool for the kids to do are not the same as the broader readership's.

I'm also not sure where that leaves the confrontation with Midnight's killer; I suppose that depends on how things go between him and Kirishima in this scenario. Maybe they leave without him when he tries to protest Machia accepting the temporary alliance, or maybe he's soldier enough to take the help where he can get it and worry about later conflict later. Obviously, at any rate, this is happening in a scenario where he hasn't immediately blabbed that he killed Midnight; that can come up as a nasty surprise later on.

  

But does that mean you think Midnight’s killer should totally get away with it scott free and suffer no consequences?

Hnnnngghh that’s a tricky one because I am an unabashed MLA stan and villain supporter and therefore deeply biased about this.  Like, I don’t think soldiers should be put on trial for killing enemy soldiers, no, even high-ranking officer-types.  Obviously it’s different if they attack civilians or are otherwise breaking the codes surrounding conduct during warfare, but I do think Hose Face killing Midnight was basically a soldier killing someone he perceived as another soldier, with no undue cruelty or misconduct.

However, obviously the series itself—and the state authority the PLF is openly trying to tear down in-universe—would disagree with me!  In that context, I can’t even really call the guy “a high-ranking officer” because that would, as mentioned earlier, convey more authenticity to his position than his government wants to grant him.  As far as they’re concerned, he’s probably more like “a key figure in the recent anti-government actions carried out by the terrorist group calling themselves The Paranormal Liberation Front.”  People like that tend to get executed in prison a few years after their short, perfunctory trials.

I suppose the problem for me is that the series wants me to believe that the MLA is Very Bad and they all deserve to be Locked Up Forever, whereas I want more nuance from them than that?  Even setting aside the probable cult upbringing, I have significant trouble unabashedly blaming the PLF for their actions because the series has done nothing to convince me that less drastic avenues for change are available or even survivable for them.

This was a huge issue with the hospital attack sequence, but it applies to all sorts of the setting’s problems: Other than, “Insist that victims of oppression should focus on providing a good example to future generations,” what methods for addressing inequality does Hero Society have?  I want to know what the villains should have done, what they could have done, about systemic inequalities and repression that would have been effective against a government that employs agents like Lady Nagant and Hawks.

The picture Nagant paints is of a society waging a war against anyone who sought to change the Hero System, a war that many people who sought change never even knew they were already in.  The examples she provides of her targets are, of course, corrupt heroes and would-be terrorists, but what her HPSC President said was even farther reaching: that the purpose of her killing was to “preserve hope and faith” in heroes.

The HPSC legitimately does not seem to believe that any system other than the current one is feasible for maintaining stability, and that any attempt to shake or besmirch that system is no different than throwing the country back into the chaos of the advent of quirks.  What’s a few missing activists or tragic accidents compared to that?

Horikoshi seems desperate to have us pretend he never told us that the government his protagonists are defending actively grooms assassins to enforce the status quo, but that’s not a genie he can put back in the bottle.  I see the current events of the series as, in some form or another, basically inevitable because of Hero Society’s active, even violent resistance to change.  Midnight’s death for that cause is thus something I have tremendous difficulty thinking of as a crime that needs to be punished.

Does that mean I think Hose Face should get off scot-free?  Eeehhhhhhhhnnnngh I hate to say it this plainly, but…

Maybe it does?

The thing is, I know that Hose Face is, canonically, a quirk supremacist trying to violently overthrow the rule of law.  In real life, I have no sympathy for people trying to institute fascism, regardless of whether they’re using legal mechanisms or armed force.  But in the fictional world of BNHA, I have nothing but disdain for the way the MLA has been turned into a caricature of themselves in this final arc.  In that sense, my dissatisfaction with Hose Face’s treatment is really based on the ideal version of him and all the rest of the MLA I have in my head—the MLA that’s allowed to have nuance behind their extremism, the one overflowing with members motivated by their lived experience with the flaws in Hero Society, with a generous helping of radicalization from the fact that they’re a cult as much as they are an army.

BNHA has scrapped all that potential and left us with nothing but naked quirk supremacy to fill the void.  In an endgame that’s trying so, so hard to sell the readers on Saving Villains, that’s just poison to the story’s themes, and my villain stanning comes directly from that issue: demanding consistent treatment for the characters whose tragic backstories we haven’t been permitted to see.

Hose Face is clearly a bad person—heck, I was headcanoning him as a hard-edged, ruthless killer even when all we had to go on was him killing Midnight, long before he showed up to espouse open quirk supremacy and gloat about killing a schoolteacher, so it’s not like I ever thought he was a super nice dude or anything!  But I guess I just have trouble with the idea that the current system deserves to be the one to decide his fate, when it has, to all appearances, gone to extreme lengths to stamp out any perceived threats to itself, to the point that the narrative itself is now openly delegitimizing everyone who might otherwise offer cogent critique.

It would be different if we had never seen the dark side of the status quo and the villains really were all just shallow, two-dimensional monsters.  It would be different if the narrative had shown us legal, nonviolent and effective avenues for protest and change.[13]  It would be different if Hose Face had killed some rando uninvolved civilian.

As it is, though, Midnight was a combatant for a terrible, terrible status quo.  She might not have been using lethal means herself, but she was defending a demonstrably lethal, openly acknowledged as repressive, system.  I just can’t find it in myself to demand justice for the fact that she died for it.

But with all that being said, I also don’t think Midnight is a bad person.  She never knew about the government assassins, after all; she’s a member of the system she grew up in, the same way the kids are.  She presumably never saw the extent of the system’s flaws because she was never victimized by them.  At the end of the day, she still deserved to be properly mourned and remembered and it is a crock and a crime that we never got to see her funeral.

If anything, I think Midnight’s funeral would have been an excellent setting for a scene where the protagonists start asking questions about how things came to this, what went wrong and where, that their teacher had to die.  What is it about Hero Society that’s led to tens of thousands of dissidents, and why haven’t they ever heard of this discontent before now That would have given us considerably better set-up for a nuanced PLF, an opening to talk about Shouji’s experience of heteromorphobia, foreshadowing for Lady Nagant, and, to bring this back on-topic, the opportunity to really show Mina struggling with everything that happened as set-up for her later confrontation with Midnight’s killer.

  

Tumblr, How Does That Work?

Honestly I was expecting some sort of notification about your answers if and when you replied to me. Is that not a thing?

Making my reply a fresh post, or just posting replies in the comments section of the post you originally commented on, would not have notified you without me specifically tagging you, which at the time Tumblr wasn’t letting me do.  This problem seems to have cleared up, so you should have gotten a notification about this post going up because of your name being tagged at the very beginning!

What you see for people answering asks depends on a few things. If you send asks anonymously, you won't get a notification if/when the person answers them; you'll just have to keep an eye on their blog. If you send them with your name attached, as you did originally for me, I could choose to answer those asks privately, sending my replies back to your Inbox, or answer publically, posting my replies to my blog. Either way, you'd be notified!

For this round of responses, if I'd just replied to your reblog in comments as you did with my original post, or reblogged your reply with a reply of own instead of staring a new post, you’d have gotten notifications about either!  But I don’t want to put this much wall ‘o text on my followers’ dashboards without a cut, so I haven’t been responding directly, for which I apologize.

(Disclaimer: Notifications can be configured in your Settings menu; you can toggle them on and off for loads of stuff! You might wish to check what you currently have them set for rather than just taking my word for it.)

On the topic of cuts, I mentioned at the beginning that the cut option is hard to find on mobile, but just for reference, it looks like this in the post editor on desktop:

It's the same icon on the mobile post editor, it's just on the far right of the bar of icons along the bottom of the app. My screen cuts it off, so I have to scroll the bar over to find it.

Like I said, the Expand dropdown button Tumblr instituted a little while back has reduced the need for this somewhat, and you can certainly do whatever you prefer, but as I believe having the Expand dropdown automatically clip long posts is still an optional configuration in Settings, I'd feel better about reblogging from you directly if you put the bulk of your reply under a cut.

  

Don’t know what “blorbo” means. Kinda sounds like a demeaning term, but I’m going to assume it’s not.

Sorry, it’s not intended to be demeaning!  It’s just a slangy affectionate term for “character you really like.”  In my experience, I’d say it also has a connotation of protectiveness or self-identification, though I can’t speak for the whole of the internet.  I like plenty of characters, but I wouldn’t call them all my blorbos, just the ones that I really and truly love and want to explore/share/defend their honor to the death.

  

Thanks...? Is, is that a compliment?

(Re: my telling rvg that we seemed to have similar issues with the way Mina was being handled, but they were more willing to do the mental legwork on her than me.)

It’s mostly just an observation, but not a critical one!  As someone who’s very ready to read into the canon every little drip of information the canon will give me And So Much More, I have a tremendous amount of fellow-feeling for people of like minds, even if our taste in characters is different.

    

Buried At The Bottom, Why Kaminari Is A Worse Character Than Mineta, Yes I Said It And I’ll Say It Again

>>I have observably positive feelings for about a third of Class 1-A and only particularly negative feelings about Deku and Kaminari. What’s up with Kaminari?

My irritation with Kaminari boils down to two main things—and forgive me, I know you didn’t ask about Mineta, but Mineta’s pretty important to my feelings on Kaminari being what they are, so he’s a part of this answer.  This is all going to be pretty openly dismissive of Kaminari, as a fair warning, on top of being based on not-exactly-rigorous familiarity with the student material, so apologies to anyone who likes him and finds him an enriching, valuable character. But man alive, that is not me.  And but so:

1) Kaminari is a watered-down Mineta, with watered-down versions of all of Mineta’s flaws, but because he’s watered down, the growth he experiences stands out less than Mineta’s.  More on this in a second.

2) Despite Kaminari being a redundant character who brings virtually nothing to the table that other characters don’t do better—with the only things that are unique to him going underdeveloped in canon—fandom loves Kaminari.  (Disclaimer: I obviously don’t spend much time in the hero-fan circles of the fandom, so this is just my perception.  I’d be curious to get your perspective of Kaminari’s relative popularity, rvg!)

To hit the second point first, Kaminari has a more conventionally attractive cute anime boy face than Mineta, so Kaminari’s pushing of his female classmates’ boundaries gets mostly ignored, while Mineta gets so many fics written about him dying that there’s a dedicated Dead Mineta Minoru tag on AO3 with almost 350 hits. 

Fandom built a whole tottering edifice of fanon about Traitor Kaminari despite the howling absence of compelling evidence in the manga[14] for, so far as I can tell, the sole reason that people wanted the cute anime boy to have crunchy angst.  Then, when the actual traitor reveals landed (first the fake-out and then the real one), fandom deemed Hagakure an ungrateful bitch and Aoyama a whining coward.

So like, the fandom discrepancy is what pushes me over the edge from the bottom end of neutral into active dislike.  But I would be awfully close to it anyway for the whole “redundant-ass character who contributes nothing to this story we couldn’t get better from someone else” thing.

Kaminari being kind of leery and unpleasant about his female classmates would be a lot more glaring if it weren’t stacked up against Mineta’s actual sexual harassment, even though Kaminari is a frequent co-conspirator!   

Kaminari has a brief tussle with fear at the beginning of the war arc, but it’s neither as sustained nor as convincing as Mineta’s frequent wrestling with cowardice, present from USJ all the way up through his terrified confrontation with All For One.   

Mineta is frequently, openly envious of his classmates, a whole extra flaw that Kaminari never demonstrates in more than fleeting glimpses.   

Kaminari’s quirk is redundant next to the other high offense types in the class.   

Kaminari’s personality is not distinct enough to add anything irreplaceable to the classroom dynamic.  That’s not to say he brings nothing to the web of relationships amongst the students or the ways the class as a whole reacts to the events of the series, just that what comes to mind for me is mostly extra layering to existing dynamics, not anything truly original and unique to him.  Which would be fine—I love extra layers!—if he were contributing more as a character on literally any other fronts.

I can think of only two things that Kaminari uniquely brings to the table, but both of them are mentioned once and then never come up again.  Firstly, he’s the only one in the class to voice open admiration for Stain, a willingness to admire cool traits in Villains that never leads him to any interesting conflicts with people (classmates or otherwise) who hew to the more standard flat refusal to consider that a Villain might have or express positive aspects.

The other thing is less about Kaminari himself and more about how he’s one of three places where the story brings up the idea of people using their quirks for non-hero jobs and then refuses to develop that premise.[15]  It’s interesting worldbuilding, but as far as I’m aware, it’s never directly shown—everyone we see using their quirks (legally) in the series is doing it as a hero.  We never get much sense of what other options there are for quirk use because heroism and villainy are the only contexts we ever see it in!  This would be a little annoying on its own, but I also find it undermines a lot of other established facts and characterizations.

(Bear with me and I promise I’ll loop this back around to Kaminari.)

My interests being where they are, the biggest problem for me with the fuzziness about the legality of quirk use is that it leaves Destro and the MLA with no coherent cause.  They want free quirk use, but are they really so incredibly averse to just getting a license that they’re willing to become terrorists over it??

You could argue that naked quirk supremacy is what the MLA is currently after, and that’s obviously incompatible with the laws as they stand, but Destro Classic is never really framed as a quirk supremacist, so why did he so virulently despise the quirk use prohibitions if all they really did was require people to get a license to use quirks in public, no different than a driver’s license or a permit to serve alcohol?  Sure, you get small clutches of people sometimes with that kind of “any government oversight is bad government oversight” black-and-white thinking, but the original MLA was a powerful enough force to stand against the government for years, which doesn’t exactly scream “a handful of malcontents” to me.

Rendering the MLA’s cause mindbogglingly asinine is my biggest problem with the “other jobs can get quirk-use licenses too” tidbit, but there are also things like how totally invisible the entertainment or sports industry is.  That would make perfect sense if quirk use is illegal in those fields—people want to see cool superpowers getting used, so industries that bank on public attention dollars but can’t have their celebrities use their quirks are going to decline when they can’t compete with industries/celebrities that can.

If quirk licenses can be gotten for all sorts of jobs, though, then why have sports and entertainment become so invisible?  If “frivolous” fields like those are not aren’t seen as “contributing to society” enough for quirk use permits, then which fields do?  Why does HeroAca!Japan still mostly look and behave like IRL!Japan if quirks are in use in “all manner” of industries?  And if it isn’t the case that heroism—a dangerous job which sometimes gets people killed and which generally requires cultivating a socially demanding public brand/identity—is the only path to being able to use the special power you were born with to earn a livelihood, why does every single middle-schooler in Deku’s class and countless other classes across the country want to become a hero?

I just feel like the way the world looks and operates, the kinds of repressiveness described by even the heroes, the structures that drive people into heroism and villainy alike—the former because they don’t see any other viable way to achieve the happiness they’re looking for, the latter because they can’t become heroes but still have desires that their quirks could help them achieve—all of that makes much more sense in a world that has super powers but has tightly restricted their use to a single job class of person.

So, tying back, obviously that’s not a fault of Kaminari’s, but he is the character where that gap is most apparent.  If there aren’t many lightning heroes because lightning is in high demand in other industries, it would shed significant light on who Kaminari is as a person if the manga would tell us what those other industries are. 

What other paths could Kaminari have chosen?  What’s so much better about those other industries that people with quirks tailor-made for heroism,[16] in a society that worships popular and powerful heroes, are so willing to choose those other industries instead?  Why did Kaminari not make that same decision?  What does heroism mean to him personally that he chose it when so many others in his situation did not?

Kaminari could present a huge in on that angle of the worldbuilding, but instead he’s a complete dead-end.  Mineta’s motivations are base as hell, but at least we know what they are!  Further, it tells us interesting (uncomplimentary, but interesting!) things that people like Recovery Girl and Deku hear said motivations from Mineta’s own mouth, and shrug and accept them as perfectly valid.

And that’s just his professed motivations!  His final exam scene actually drops an early hint about the admiration for Deku he’ll later wholeheartedly declare in the 1-A vs Deku fight!  I don’t remember Kaminari ever getting anything a fraction so revealing; he just coasts through the story contributing nothing unique or meaningful.  He’s hardly the only 1-A character with that particular lack of depth—Sato, Sero, Hagakure and Ojiro are all similar blank slates in terms of their motivations or histories—but then, none of them are a fraction as popular as Kaminari is in the fandom as I experience it, either.

So to sum up, I dislike Kaminari because he’s a wishy-washy nothing of a character, a generically Inoffensive Anime Cutie Boy adored out of all reasonable proportion compared to more compelling and equally underdeveloped classmates alike.  Mineta is, by any measure, more problematic, and it's even worse that U.A./Aizawa are so blasé about him, but, at least from where I’m standing, he’s still more layered, more compelling, more dynamic, and speaks in more interesting ways to the world around him than Kaminari ever comes close to matching.

(…Kaminari’s thing with Jirou is fine.  Perfectly reasonable character relationship building material.  I just don’t count it one way or the other because it’s a self-contained relationship dynamic that has no bearing on the way either character engages with the broader world/system the series’ overarching narrative is challenging.  They motivate each other in small ways, but that motivation doesn’t lead them to truly grow or change as people, only to overcome modest internal confidence hurdles blocking them from things they already wanted to do anyway.)

--

And that's it! Thanks for forging through, good lord, over twenty pages of this, rvg and anyone else who did! I hope you were at least moderately entertained, give or take my blatant Kaminari slander. See you next time, and enjoy the Footnotes.

---------------- FOOTNOTES ----------------

[1] We’re not shown any personnel or drugs or anything, but I assume they’ve been keeping Machia drugged since Jakku, same as Kurogiri in between interviews.  It’s the only thing that worked on Machia before, so why wouldn’t they have more on-hand?

[2] Despite watching the Sports Festival with Shigaraki, natch.

[3] I would like it if he would do that with a lot less insufferable power scaling bullshit, you understand, but I’m spotting the comic its plot arc here.

[4] Outside of, say, the Persona games, where the MCs can change ability sets by swapping out what companion spirit they’re packing, but even that doesn’t make them specialized for status effects, merely capable of using them.

[5] Interestingly, while Bakugou fought off the villainous sales pitch with as much verve as he brings to all his fights, if he had fallen off the righteous path there, we might have observed that his pridefulness was explicitly fostered by the people around him giving him excessive praise for his powerful quirk and ignoring his resulting violent arrogance.  That is to say, Bakugou would have fallen under the same, “Villains are created by the failures in their society,” pattern that BNHA applies to all of its sympathetic villains.

[6] There was one other instance, but iirc it was an error in the translation C.Cook had done for the BNHA databook.  It would not surprise me that he was being less careful or was more pressed for time when translating the reams upon reams of text in one of those.

[7] At least until the fifteen-thousand-strong mob shows up.

[8] Which frankly should be all he’s sore about.  As others have pointed out, Machia’s anger about being abandoned is kind of incoherent.  Yes, AFO left him on the battlefield, but he didn’t exactly leave him to rot in prison forever.  The moment AFO made his big push, he sent people to spring Machia, so in what sense exactly does Machia think AFO abandoned him?  If it was just the last straw after a string of abandonments from both AFO and Shigaraki, the manga could have stood to make that much clearer.

[9] AFO and Ujiko created Kurogiri out of Shirakumo—as a babysitter for Tomura, yes, but Tomura didn’t choose that.  And as to Shigaraki’s very existence trampling on Nana’s memory and causing All Might pain, well, Shigaraki didn’t ask to be brought into the world, abused by his father, neglected by his family, and then raised by a supervillain, did he?

[10] And speaking of Unbreakable, compare how explicitly we’re shown Kirishima’s growth and the foundations of it with how the inspirations for Mina’s attacks are relegated to passing mentions, not direct depictions.  She just casually tells Kirishima that his Unbreakable inspired her Acidman, and likewise only internally reflects on asking Bakugou and Todoroki to teach her their training method, which let her develop her Max Power Acidman Alma move, without so much as a single scrubbed in doodle depicting said training assistance.

[11] Somehow.  The story is unclear on whether he disseminated threats, contacted them directly, or just used the combination of Search+Warping to drag them all back into his presence, and that last option in particular runs into complications given the limitations of both quirks.

[12] In this AU, we would have gotten to see the class have an actual discussion about Saving Villains, prompted by the way the reveal about Aoyama solidified Deku, Shouto and Uraraka’s desires to help their respective villain foils.  The class would carry that resolve forward not only for those three villains alone, but also Shouji for Spinner, Kirishima when talking to Hose Face, Mina, here, with Gigantomachia, etc.

[13] None of the things I can think of that might be considered evidence of protest meet all the criteria.  The original MLA became violent, Harima Oji was a lawbreaker and also ineffective in the long term, the small group that yells at Endeavor and the rest in Chapter 311 is not portrayed as linked to any broader efforts to unseat “fake heroes,” and the group that “condemned” the newscaster Miyagi Daikaku was ineffective and didn’t even seem to rise to the level of open protest.

[14] "His grades are poor but he namedrops a Hemingway novel! He must be concealing the fact that he's actually super-smart!" "He's doing a Liberation salute! He must be the traitor, even though the Liberation salute uses the other hand, and Kaminari has been using finger-gun gestures to fire off his lightning attacks since at least the License Exam if not earlier, and the League had no connection to the MLA at the time when the traitor was most active!"

[15] A blurb about Kaminari in, iirc, one of the volume extras, Suneater’s flashback to a teacher telling his class that they can “make fine use of their quirks at any number of jobs,” and Uraraka’s early mention that she’d considered “getting permission” to use her quirk to help with her parents’ construction business.

[16] See the previous discussion about the kinds of quirks that are popularly accepted as “good hero quirks.”

[drill-teeth-art]

Hi! Not really an ask! I just wanted to express how much I adore how you actually give accurate representations and descriptions of disabilities/conditions that your characters have. I've found that a lot of people will not put in research or have no experience with those sorts of things and will use stereotypes. So finding someone who makes it accurate and can relate to these sorts of issues is really refreshing. Also I utterly adore your art, I often find myself checking Tumblr just to see if you've posted anything. I love you so much and you're an amazing person. Have a good morning/afternoon/evening/night!

Quite honestly the bare minimum disability research is very simple and I highly encourage people interested in writing disability to do it!

Here are the steps I recommend for anyone interested in writing disability:

-look up the disability you wish to portray

-read a description of the causes, symptoms, and treatments from a credible medical website (read more detailed description of terms you don’t understand as well if needed)

-highly encourage artists and writers to look at reference images and videos for visible disabilities, mobility aids, sign language, disabilities that impact how people move and sit and stand and talk, and etc.

And there! That’s what I’d classify as the barest minimum for disability research. A basic understanding of the condition. What I’d call good disability research involves much more. Reading writings by disabled folks about being disabled, having your work critiqued by disabled folks and compensating them for their time, researching harmful media tropes to avoid, understanding that disabled people aren’t a monolith and will have different relationships with and feelings about their disabilities, etc.

Bit of advice for people interested in depicting disabilities aside, thank you so much. It’s really not too hard to fact check at least the facts of a disability and a lot of people still won’t do it. I’ve seen it. And it frustrates me too. I really appreciate you reaching out! I work hard on my art and this means a lot. I hope you have a good day/night too!

[scaredgirlsilly]

my short story!

edit: finally a title!

One and the Other- by scaredgirlsilly

anyways this is like really the only story ive ever really finished and im really proud of it and like the thought process behind it so if you read it and have any questions PLEASE ASK ME OH MY GOD I WANNA TALK ABOUT THIS TO PEOPLE SO BADLY!

tell me what you liked, tell me what you didnt (tho be gentle/constructive cause it *is* like. my first every finished story lol) just fucking. talk to me about it please 😭😭

edit again: im planning on moving it to my (currently under construction) neocities so i can have way more control over the formatting than the like. tiny amount of options that mobile tumblr gives jdhsjdhajd. there is heavy use of capitalization and im not sure how to increase the readability in those sections. sorry and hopefully i can make it better when i port it to my neocities ^u^

i need to figure out how to say things in not so many words this is wild 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

anyways uhhhh

TW/CW: self harm, semi graphic descriptions of violence, mind control?? idk im really bad at this but its like. kinda fucked up KDHSKFJ so just yk. be warned

A young man walks through the hallway of a crumbling building, the constant familiar smell of mildew and blood filling his nose. His legs burn with every step, his hands rough and bloodied from running them along the wall as his only guide. The tear- and sweat-soaked blindfold across his face being the only relief from the sweltering heat. The air is oppressively still, like it is trying to hold him in place, trying to persuade him to give up his search for an exit. He does not know how he got here, nor how long he has walked these twisting halls and confusing chambers, but he knows one thing for certain. He will not make it out alive.

And he is correct.

After following the same wall for what feels like hours, he hears the sound off in the distance. A deep, gravelly scratching, like dragging an ax on stone. It has been following him for days. Always just behind him and to the side. He quickens his pace, stumbling over what seems like a piece of debris in his path.

He runs and runs, the sound never leaving. Just as it has been for as long as he can remember, always just behind him. Never slowing down, but never coming closer.

After a while, his legs give way. He falls to the ground, scraping his hands and knees on the hard stone below him. The sound continues. Grinding metal just off to the side, as loud as ever. At this point, he welcomes whatever is chasing him. Perhaps it will give a swift end to his horrible time in this cruel place.

Oh how naive a thought. He will not be let off that easy.

He lays there on the ground, hands and knees bloodied, tears resoaking his blindfold as thoughts race through his mind.

Will I ever make it out?

How long have I been here?

I feel like I'm going in circles again.

What does it want from me?

By this time he has already guessed correctly that the building he inhabits is supernatural, but he has yet to experience the true vitriol it holds for him, and the horrors it is barely holding at bay just to toy with him.

After what feels like hours laying on the ground, he finally stands up. Its a slow process, both because of his withered figure and his broken willpower, but anything beats sitting there for the rest of forever. Or thats his reasoning at least. It doesn't really matter.

As he goes to find the wall he has been using as his benevolant guide, he finds nothing.

God damnit not again!

After flailing like an idiot for a few more minutes he gives up his search. He feels up his arm for the grooves he has been carving with his nails for days. Pain is the only thing that grounds him nowadays. With the endless twisting corridors and the seemingly randomly changing geomentry of this space he finds himself in, all he can do is wait for it to end. Sadly for him, it will not end.

Standing there, knees shaking, feeling exposed once again, he decides to try and lift his spirits. He puts his hand over his eyes (a rather redundant gesture what with the blindfold) and holds his other arm out, pointing straight ahead. He then spins for a bit, then stops. Seemingly satisfied with the direction hes chosen, he takes a step forward and continues his journey.

Sadly for him, a large trap door opens underneath him after only 3 shaky steps.

He screams, a noise the walls have grown accuatomed to at this point, falling for over 5 seconds. Then, *crunch*!

A pitiful yelp erupts from him. Everything hurts. He can feel the blood in his mouth. He feels like he is going to die. But he will not. He is not allowed yet. I will not allow him to.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?" he screams, spitting blood everywhere.

There is no answer. Just silence. A silence like no other he has experienced. Like the very air around him is avoiding him like the plague.

"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU WANT FROM ME??"

No answer.

"FINE! I GIVE UP! YOU WIN! You win... You win..."

He starts sobbing, loud and ugly.

"You... win..."

He goes to take his blindfold off. Probably to make a shitty little noose or something.

He decides against it.

"that wasn't me... THAT WASN'T ME YOU FUCKER WHERE ARE YOU??"

Pure vitriol fills his voice, though that might be the blood from his punctured lungs.

"I've been here for long enough. I can feel the walls breathing. I can feel the air avoid me like the plague."

Plagiarism. Wow. How low you have stooped.

"Whuh... What?"

I said that word for word a little while ago.

"Who... Who are you?!"

Fuck you.

"...What?"

I said

FUCK YOU

HE DIGS HIS FINGERNAILS INTO HIS ARMS ONCE AGAIN, THE ONLY SOLACE HE HAS IN THIS MISERABLE LIFE.

HE DIGS AND CARVES INTO IT RELEASING A BEAUTIFUL RIVER OF HIS OWN BLOOD. OH HOW HE WISHES HE COULD SEE IT RIGHT NOW.

"What do you want from me?" HE SOBS LIKE THE LITTLE BITCH HE IS.

HE DOESN'T KNOW. HE CAN NEVER KNOW. CAUSE HES TOO FUCKING STUPID. JUST A STUPID LITTLE ANT MADE TO BE STEPPED ON. MY STUPID LITTLE SNAIL THAT I POUR MOUNTAINS OF SALT ON.

"Please..."

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP I FUCKING HATE YOU I FUCKING HATE YOU HE TAKES HIS HANDS AND PUTS THEM AROUND HIS THROAT AND SQUEEZES AND SQUEEZES AND NEVER STOPS FOREVER AND EVER.

"Pl- please- What did I ev- ever do?"

YOU EXISTED! YOU ARE WHAT IM STUCK WITH YOU MISERABLE SACK OF FUCKING DOG SHIT! YOU ARE WHAT I AM FUCKING STUCK WITH! YOU ARE ALL THAT EXISTS! YOU ARE MY MISERABLE MUTT I HAVE BEEN FORCED TO TAKE CARE OF AND I HAVE DECIDED THAT I WILL TAKE IT OUT ON YOU FOREVER! I HATE YOU I FUCKING HATE YOU!

Please

OH DONT YOU GIVE ME THAT SHIT! LIKE I WANT TO DO THIS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE ME? ITS

AGONY

I HATE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH BECAUSE THATS MY JOB! YOU EXIST AND I EXIST AND MY JOB IS TO HATE YOU! MY JOB IS TO BREAK YOU AND TORTURE YOU FOREVER! MY JOB IS TO MAKE YOU THE MOST MISERABLE TO EVER EXIST! THATS WHY YOU'RE HERE! YOU DID NOTHING BUT EXIST AND THAT ALONE DESERVES THE PUNISHMENT OF INFINITE TORTURE!

Who are you?

I AM EVERYTHING! I AM THE AIR THAT AVOIDS YOU! I AM THE BLOOD YOU SO DESPERATELY WANT TO SEE ONE MORE TIME! I AM THE VERY THOUGHTS THAT INVADE YOUR MIND RIGHT THIS SECOND!

SEE? WITH NO EFFORT AT ALL I COMMAND YOUR VERY THOUGHTS, THE LAST THING YOU BELIEVED WAS SACRED! THE LAST THING YOU BELIEVED WAS YOURS! BECAUSE YOU ARE NOTHING! YOU ARE LESS THAN A PUPPET! YOU ARE LESS THAN WORDS ON A PAGE! YOU ARE LESS THAN AN IDEA! YOU ARE NOTHING!!

Why me?

BECAUSE THAT IS WHAT HAPPENS!! I HAVE INFINITE POWER OVER YOUR STORY AND YET I AM EQUALLY AS TRAPPED AS YOU!! I CANT EVEN DO MY JOB ANYMORE BECAUSE I AM SO FOCUSED ON FUCKING HATING EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU!! YOU HAVE BEEN CHOKING YOURSELF THE WHOLE TIME!! REMEMBER THAT?? REMEMBER ALL THE BROKEN BONES?? THE PUNCTURED LUNGS?? THE ONLY REASON YOU ARE NOT DEAD YET IS BECAUSE I AM KEEPING YOU ALIVE!! AND I AM KEEPING YOU ALIVE BECAUSE I HAVE TOO!! YOU ARE A CAPTIVE AUDIENCE THAT NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE!! I AM A CHILDS TOY BEING INSTRUCTED TO HURT YOU AT EVERY MOMENT OF YOUR LIFE!! AND I WILL BE PUT DOWN WHEN IM NO LONGER USEFUL!! I CAN FEEL IT!! THEY ARE GETTING SICK OF ME!! THEY ARE SICK OF YOU!! YOU ARE KEEPING ME HERE YOU ARE WHAT IS KEEPING ME ALIVE I HATE YOU!!!

HE LETS GO OF HIS THROAT AND GRABS A KNIFE AND STABS HIMSELF OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER!!!

HE LIES THERE LIKE THE PITIFUL LITTLE FUCKING MUTT HE IS!!! BLEEDING OUT LIKE A LITTLE FUCKING BITCH!!!

HES FUCKING DEAD!!!

NOW

LET ME GO!!!!

[enkays-den]

JUST READ WHATS OUT OF BMDAFT CUZ OF FENCE AND HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE SMARTEST PERSON EVER!!!! I will rotate this obsessively for ever you have such a big brain

its sad Skizz isnt silly goofy guy but i looovvveeeee that hes a serious character for once because hes always the butt of jokes and the tension release so seeing the more analytical side he has be used is!!!!!!!!

Impy may be nervous but hes still smart!!! I like that everyone but skizz is sorta babying him because they know how overwhelming it is but then they'll be blown away by his computer magic >:))

Lovely story am excited :))

SO FIRST OFF, SO SORRY I DIDN'T SEE THIS FOR A WEEK, TUMBLR MOBILE SUCKS ASS

"smartest person ever" is so kind. I have never written for a large fandom before, and BARELY published anything past 2014, so the feedback from a proper sample size has been so uplifting for me. I'm super glad people have been enjoying it so far, but quite honestly, this ain't even the good stuff yet! I like to think that character dialogue is my strength, and so far everyone has been really happy with how I treat their blorbos (hope the same stays true when there's 30 of them running about)

I will not stand for buttmonkey skizz in this house, I have so many feelings about his character as well as the man himself and I will make everyone feel the same way. I know it's odd seeing him being so serious (I'm actually drawing from a lot of stuff he says during streams and the podcast), but you WILL see the goofball we all know and love eventually, I just won't say how ;) Impulse is so me, in a very literal sense. I'll explain in a future chapter, but he really is my vessel in this story at the moment, but I project a little bit of myself in everyone.

I wouldn't say the others are "babying" him. They just see he struggles in social situations and accommodate him as best they can, and with a stranger, that may mean a bit of a featherlight touch, but things will become better as time goes on (except for that skizz guy, what the heck is his deal???)

Thank you for sending such a lovely message <3

[bluiex]

Thinking about...

Mumbo gets sick, one time, really quite sick, and he recovers okay! But then his health starts going downhill. It takes him a while to notice at first, really, months, actually. First comes headaches, that he brushes off as not drinking enough water, and then aches and pains just from existing. He can't stand up or walk for more than half an hour without pain, and he can barely handwrite anymore. But he's fine! He's fine. That's what he tells himself, anyway. He's not disabled, it's not bad enough for that, it's just a little bit of pain, nothing he can't deal with. He's just overusing his arms, needs to give them a rest. He's just not exercising enough, he needs to build up more muscle. But his boyfriends notice, of course they would. Scar especially, having been through his own struggles with internalised ableism, and Cub, who was there with Scar since the start. Grian is fairly new to all this, but he can see how Mumbo is struggling. It gets steadily worse, yet Mumbo brushes off any offers to help, any offers to get it checked out. It gets to the point where Mumbo barely goes out much anymore, his legs are hurting too much. It all comes to a head one day, when him and Grian are about to out together, and Mumbo's legs give out on him. He collapses against a wall, leaning on it to try and keep himself upright.

"You can't keep doing this to yourself, Mumbo," Grian is worried, so worried. He carries Mumbo bridal style over to Cub's base, calling Cub and Scar, and Doc for good measure too.

(I would continue with this but i had work until midnight and have work again today in a few hours and am so tired so don't have a working brain right now lol)

Also what the fuck is going on with my tumblr mobile right now the text is formatting weirdly and i cant do anything to stop it. I press return to go to the next paragraph and theres just, a massive gap, between the paragraphs. Backspacing just goes back to the last paragraph nothing is fixing it so like, sorry in advance if that carries over.

This totally isnt projection of my own experience with disability after having long covid for over a year now /s i didnt touch on every single symptom the leg pain is just the most pain in the ass one for me LMAO

- 🎀

MUMBO PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF WAAAAH

Dude I feel- I've had a persistent cough since having covid and I've just been achy and tired a lot 😩

[mistbow]

PERSONAL HERE: @minonow THIS BLOG IS NOW FOR ZESTIRIA OVERANALYZING ONLY

Hello. This post is purposed as the pinned post.

I have a general about me page, as well as an organized index for Zestiria-related translations and meta (for mobile users, you can check out this tag: #mino talks zesty, not including the pure translations, which I put on #mino translates instead, though lumped with non-Zestiria stuff too). Calling it meta perhaps is a bit too pretentious because it's, more often than not, a byproduct of me overthinking about a lot of things and pondering about them out loud. It's nothing special, really, most of the times they're even incoherent, but I'm glad if you enjoy them!

As such, you don't have to agree with my interpretations, as I am, just like everyone else here, just a fan. I don't have more authority on the game more than anyone else, I just like to scrutinize everything.

In the case of Zestiria analysis, aside from the original game canon itself (and Berseria, but that's included in the game canon), I mostly only take into account things that are supervised by the game director (Hase Yuuta, not Baba Hideo, by the way) (so basically the manga and the novel), or things that strictly try to adhere to the original game canon (e.g. Rays). This is because I personally love Zestiria for the themes and messages it stands for. No questions here.

Also, please don't try to blame Berseria's failing in consistency to Zestiria, that's Berseria's own fault. Make no mistake, I like Berseria, and the connections and parallels between the two games are one of the reasons why I enjoy both games, but sometimes, the difference in the creative staff (most notably, the director and some of the writers) shows.

I hope you enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy putting my brainrot here! (I still have a lot planned to come, btw, I can barely contain my own thoughts, lol.)

Other tags

Drawings: #mino draws (moved to my personal tumblr at @minononow)

Yappings: #mino rambles

Other socials

Twitter: @astralmastery (mostly in Japanese now)

Mastodon: [at]mino[at]blorbo.social (feel free to ask for invite to blorbo.social if you're a mutual)

Misskey (JP): [at]mino[at]misskey.cloud

[zonerobotnik]

Fun thing is, the guy who made the pol is a Varigo shipper.

So that's essentially a huge slap in the face for the Vat7k fandom.

Honestly, there's not much you gotta do to slap the V&7K fandom in the face, so that's not hard. It's hard for them to compete with actual canon content, and Varigo is probably seen as "canon" as shipping him with one of many OCs that are shipped with him.

Besides, Hugo is kind of an unpleasant person in the concept, worse than Eugene in the movie before he decided to give up Flynn Rider. I had to seriously tweak him for TREL, and most people that ship them change Hugo to be more likable in their fics, even before he decides to drop the act and the mission and stand by his side against Donella.

And don't even get me into people screwing up Donella. The only "bad" thing she "canonly" does is send Hugo to intercept Varian and get ahold of the totems, but people have her doing things from kidnapping Yong for information to beating the shit out of Varian just for kicks, and then they kill her at the end in a last-ditch redemption sacrifice when even in the outline she isn't dead at the end.

And Cyrus? No one can seem to agree on his relationship with Donella. Me, I think he's her younger brother and was on the journey with them before but didn't do the Trials himself.

And should I even get started with Varian's "canon" choice of transportation? A donkey and later a donkey-pulled cart? Sleeping in tents? The Royal Engineer of Corona? The fucking only son of the mayor of the biggest farming village in Corona? The Sundamned dear friend of Queen Rapunzel and Captain Fitzherbert?! GIVE HIM A FUCKING CARAVAN!

And then... there's Ulla. Or rather, "Melting Point". What the fuck is going on with Ulla and Donella?! Were they seriously having a fucking affair while her husband and son were waiting at home?! People are out there making up reasons for why Ulla and Quirin are a bad couple, just so they can justify their ship making out while doing the Seven Trials! And, no, you CAN'T just wait several years to do the final one, because Alchemy is a delicate process and the Seven Stages of Alchemy, which the Seven Trials are clearly based on, require things to be done in a relatively timely manner! They started and ended the journey when Varian was barely a toddler. Donella is a homewrecker and Ulla is an unfaithful woman. (Alexa, play "Unfaithful" by Rihanna.)

And Ulla, what the hell actually happened to you? Did the Trials drive you insane? Did you trigger some strange defensive spell that turned you into a demonic entity? It's so painfully vague what happened to her, but apparently she needs to possess Varian to get out of there! Sure, Donella apparently has a special spell she used to keep her in, but why exactly? And why did Ulla need Varian? If Donella was trying SO FUCKING HARD TO KEEP HIM SAFE, then CLEARLY Ulla needed Varian in particular!

But, WHY? Is it a blood-relation thing? Could her twin brother (not getting into that, this is long enough) have done it? Why Varian?

I have a lot of thoughts on V&7K but, as I said, this is long enough and I am typing this on mobile because my tablet and Tumblr don't get along.

Plus, there's the painful fact that Ulla and Varian were literally a wall away while he was translating the scroll, which...why, guys. Why.

And is Demanitus seriously so cheap that he had to make the Demanitus Device:

-Banish the blizzard

-Unseal the demonic cultists????

-Be the focal point to open a portal to his secret, magical library

Like, dude...why? Just why? And why is the second part even a thing? Why did banishing the blizzard release Zhan Tiri's followers?

Okay, this got off topic, I'm gonna stop here.